CXL Growth Marketing Review 3

My third-week review of the growth marketing mini degree by CXL. In the last two weeks, I have completed the first module which, was more kind of foundation part. I have started module 2 this week which contains 4 topics & from those, I have completed 1st topic and currently learning the 2nd one. these topics are-

1. Research Testing by Peep Laja
2. Conversion Optimisation by Peep Laja

While thinking about optimization few questions come to our mind. How to speed up the growth with conversion optimization? If someone is doing optimization How, do they know that they are doing the Right Optimization? So, there are three objectives when it comes to optimization-

1. Test or make more effective changes.
2. Reduce the duration and cost of the optimization.
3. Improve the speed of the experiment.

Test more changes on the website, it is significant to test the right thing to save time & money because testing on the wrong stuff can cost huge money and time. Try to improve the speed of the optimization while planning the test for months instead speed up the process. But the Problem still comes how would I go about it? Many websites claim that they have 100+ optimization tactics but are these all tactics relevant to your business. The major problem comes, how should I prioritize? are they helpful to me? To solve, these there are few best practices that one should follow.

The most important one is never copying your competitors because we also don’t know what they are doing right or wrong. So, to test efficiently, there should be a proper systematic approach. To do that, consider these questions-

1. What are the Problems?
2. Where are the Problems?
3. Why is this or that a problem?
4. Turning Known issues into test hypotheses.
5. Prioritize tests and instant fixes.

Conduct research and gather all problems that you can. After that, build the hypothesis on them, create a solution, test that solution. Then analyzes the results and finally follows up more experiments.

How should we know When the test is complete? To answer that — there should be enough sample size, test for multiple business cycles (1-week) as much as you can & statistical significance should be reached (in terms of traffic). There are 12 testing mistakes that people should avoid all time. These are-

1. Precious time wasted on stupid tests.
2. You think you know what will work.
3. You copy other people’s tests.
4. Your sample size is too small.
5. You run tests on pages with very little traffic.
6. Your tests do not run long enough.
7. You do not test the entire week at a time.
8. Test data not sent to third-party analytics.
9. You give up after your first test for a hypothesis fails.
10. You are not aware of validity threats.
11. You are ignoring small gains.
12. You are not running tests at all times.

The three testing metrics we should focus on are the numbers of variants tested, their win rate & average uplift per successful experiment.

Now comes conversion Research, which consists of three parts:-

• Experience-based assessment
• Quality Search
• Quantitative Research

You need to have data to analyze if it is not there yet till then, focus more on customer development. Talking to people or customers is the most valuable thing in a business. Taking feedback can help very much to find out whether the company vision is compatible with reality.

How do we know what data is relevant?

• Never fix anything, without analyzing any data. But so much volume can data can create analysis paralysis. We need the right kind of data to solve the particular problem.

There is the ResearchXL model that has helped thousands of optimizers grow their businesses. The model consists of a six-step framework.

Step 1.- Heuristic Analysis — To understand the User’s experience on the website, Identify areas of interest. It is an experience-based assessment based on some sets-

• Clarity
• Friction
• Anxiety
• Distraction

Walkthrough the website page by page like a regular user, to assess it on these sets.

Step 2.- Technical analysis- To make sure that everything is running smoothly from a technical Standpoint. Some of these tests are-

• Cross Browser Testing
• Cross-Device Testing
• Speed Analysis

Step 3.- Digital Analytics- To find out where is the problem? Consider few points while analyzing this data.

• Identify Drop-off Points/Friction Point — Figure out flow stack & types of users dropping out etc.
• Correlate behavior with outcomes- Who buy more kinds of stuff, what filter do they use or what page do they read, etc.
• Fix measurement & verify data — Try to measure everything that users do on the website.

Step 4.- Qualitative Research- To understand user’s experience more personally & pinpoint areas of friction. It consists of surveys & testing.

There are two kinds of surveys -

• On-Site Polls- This for the people who are on the website, they might buy or might not (mostly). Put a poll on the page where you see a higher drop-off asking them what holding them back to buy any particular stuff?
• Survey email- These are the people who just bought from you these are the actual target audience. Mail them asking questions about their shopping experience.

Step 5. — User Testing- Recruit People who represent the exact target audience and test their user experience on the website by giving them any specific task. It is very much the same as we did in user-centric marketing (week1).

Step 6.- Mouse Tracking Analysis- To get Valuable insights from viewing & observing information processing patterns. Some of these behaviors are-

• Clicking
• Tapping Behaviour
• Tapping on Mobile Phone
• Scrolling behavior
• Hover patterns
• Session replays

These were all the information and data needed for testing. But now the question comes, what to do after research?

Write down all the observations & findings. List all the problems and rank them according to their issue(1- minor usability issue to 5- Severe issue). Now, categorize these issues into instrumental, test & hypothesis. Finally, start testing according to the rank you assigned to the issue.

That was my 3rd-week review as there are still a lot of topics that I need to learn in conversion optimization to complete it and would love to continue it in the upcoming week. Thank you!