What are the top 5 CRO metrics to track?

Without business context, this question is nonsense. No businesses are the same, no industries are the same. Figure out your company's conversion funnel and sort out between which stages requires work. Ignore any of this top 5 nonsense, and do the leg work of understanding your business.

In the world of digital marketing and e-commerce, optimizing your conversion rates is the key to unlocking growth and maximizing ROI. But, to steer your ship in the right direction, you need the right compass. Here are the top 5 CRO metrics every marketer and business owner should keep a close eye on: 1️⃣ Conversion Rate (CR): This is the OG of CRO metrics. It tells you the percentage of visitors who take the desired action on your website, whether it's making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form. It's the ultimate litmus test for your website's effectiveness. 2️⃣ Bounce Rate 3️⃣ Average Session Duration 4️⃣ Click-Through Rate (CTR) 5️⃣ Cart Abandonment Rate

The most important metric for Performance Marketing. Conversion Rate is the direct measure of CRO effectiveness. A slight improvement in CR has a significant impact on the revenue and profitability of a business. It should be taken as a continuous process where A/B testing and experimentations are always on to keep improving it further.

Once upon a time Peep Laja said, "If you want your conversation rates to go up, drop your price to zero." So much context needed.

(!) Focus on your website's user experience. A seamless and user-friendly design can significantly boost your conversion rate. Test your website's load times, navigation, and mobile responsiveness to ensure a smooth experience for visitors.

Bounce rate is typically calculated by dividing the number of single-page visits by the total number of entrances to the website and multiplying by 100. For instance, if 300 visitors landed on a page and 100 of them immediately left without taking any action, the bounce rate would be 33.33%. A high bounce rate can indicate various issues with your website, such as unengaging content, slow loading times, poor design, or irrelevant traffic sources. It may suggest that visitors didn't find what they were looking for or encountered a negative user experience.

Bounce Rate is not the right KPI for Conversion Rate Optimization any more. It has more flaws than benefits. It was standardized by Google Analytics and has been retired by Google only in Analytics Version 4. If you ask why? My answer is that Bounce Rate does not always give you a definitive indicator of website performance or user engagement. A page where a user spends 3 minutes reading all contents and looking at different elements without clicking anywhere or opening any other page is said to be 100% bounce. Will it be right to conclude that the user in question did not engage and that such traffic was worthless?

Worst metric ever. Should be destroyed with napalm forever. Because it's so sticky to amateurs. Why? Because it's different in different cases so much. Amateurs do not like investing a time into customer, but rather into this shiny metric

To reduce bounce rate, focus on crafting compelling meta descriptions and headlines. Aligning your search results and page titles with users' expectations can encourage them to engage with your content, reducing the chances of bouncing

To lower it, focus on creating compelling and relevant content, ensuring fast loading times, and optimizing your website's navigation. A/B testing can help fine-tune these elements to engage and retain visitors effectively.

A useless metric that nobody should ever measure or pay attention to. This shouldn't make the top 100 metrics list. It's impossible to say whether it's good when the time on page goes up or down. Goes down -- they found what they were looking for OR it sucks. Goes up -- is it because it's interesting or confusing? Impossible to tell.

Sometimes, a high average time on page with low pages/session and nil conversions might indicate that the content of the page is not matching the user intent well, or the content lacks readability. That is why it is important to also measure the scroll depth and analyse the user behaviour on that particular page, with the help of heat maps, etc. This helps find out the exact point from where users are struggling to move past or leaving frequently from

Again, Average Time on Page as a metric does not tell you the right story. Poor page load time, bad navigation and/or overall under-optimized User Experience may make this metric look unnecessarily good.

It's not just about duration; it's about the quality of interaction. Consider crafting content that not only informs but also emotionally resonates with your audience, making them more likely to take desired actions.

Continuing with the house guest metaphor - Imagine a guest, standing there, intrigued by a painting in your home. That's "Average Time on Page." More than numbers, it's a subtle "thank you" from your visitor. If they stay for 5 minutes, it's not just them reading, it's them connecting. Elevate this by crafting stories within content, answering queries, and sparking curiosity. Encourage them to linger by crafting content that resonates and ultimately converts.

Unless you're a content publisher and rely on ad impressions, it's a useless metric that should get no attention. It does not correlate with people signing up / purchasing / etc. There's no causal relationship to money. Optimizers don't need more metrics, they need less and better metrics to pay attention to. This one only interests people who know little to nothing about conversion optimization. Anyone seasoned in this business knows better.

On top of the issues noted with this metric, the example is wrong. That calculation is pages per visitor. It will only match up with pages per session if 100% of your visitors are limited to a single session.

The article offers a valuable introduction to Pages per Session and its significance in gauging website engagement. However, it's essential to go beyond merely increasing this metric. Marketers should prioritize the quality of additional page views, ensuring they align with user intent and conversion goals. Analyzing Pages per Session alongside bounce rates and conversion rates provides a more holistic view of user engagement, ultimately aiming for a meaningful user experience that drives conversions and fulfills the website's objectives.

A visitor walking room-to-room in a museum, captivated. That's "Pages per Session." Your website's each page is a piece of artwork in that museum. A 3-page session? It's a 3-room exploration. Drive their journey. With every clear call-to-action, every relevant link, you're gently suggesting, "There's more to see." Guide, entice, give them reasons to keep exploring.

To enhance it, focus on creating a logical and user-friendly website structure with intuitive navigation menus. Incorporate related post suggestions and prominently feature calls to action on each page to entice users to explore further. Remember, the easier it is for visitors to find valuable content, the more likely they are to stay and convert.

To address high exit rates, focus on enhancing the value proposition and call to action on the problematic pages. Consider conducting A/B tests to refine elements like design, content, and offers. Furthermore, analyze user behavior through heatmaps and user session recordings to gain insights into why visitors are leaving, then make data-driven improvements.

Exit rates help you find the leaky parts of your funnel. Go through Analytics and note the exit rates for each step: - Homepage/landing page - Category page - Product page - Cart - Checkout Now that you know the exit rates for each, add heatmaps and surveys to those pages to understand WHY people are leaving. Ask this exact question (on exit): "Before you go, could you tell us why you decided to leave today?" This will help you understand WHY people are leaving—and what you can do to help.

When tracking exit rates, consider creating a funnel analysis. This means mapping out the user journey step by step. Identify the key pages where users are exiting most frequently and investigate what might be causing them to leave. Is it a confusing call-to-action, a slow-loading page, or perhaps a lack of information? By pinpointing these issues, you can make targeted improvements to reduce exit rates and boost conversions.

Picture a guest leaving mid-conversation. Not ideal, right? "Exit Rate" spotlights this. If 20 out of 100 say goodbye on a certain page, that page's story isn't resonating. It's feedback, not failure. Rethink design, polish the tale, make the conversation compelling. Less exits, more engaged conversations

Exit Rate: 1. Definition: The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing a specific page. 2. Importance: Identifying pages with high exit rates is crucial for pinpointing where visitors are dropping off in their journey. This helps you optimize those pages to keep users engaged and moving toward conversion.

This is one of the worst articles about metrics that matter. Whoever wrote this has no clue and has never done any CRO. Ask anyone who's been in experimentation for 10+ years and see if they mention any of these metrics (beyond the conversion rate) in their top 5 list. It just doesn't happen.

Revenue per Visitor (RPV) also plays a very important role in defining the CRO strategy. RPV is one of the most important KPIs for CRO. RPV helps to understand the average value generated by each visitor to your website. Increasing RPV is often a key goal of CRO. For an e-commerce website, RPV helps to assess the financial impact of CRO efforts and the effectiveness of your website or online platform in generating revenue. Increasing RPV means each visitor is more valuable to your business.

This article isn't really helpful. Juliana outlined some reasons why, and I'll provide a different POV - you need to focus on the user problems (i.e. do research) BEFORE you pick a metric to measure the impact of solving for that problem. Instead of saying 'let's fix exit rates' - first conduct research to identify what users are even doing on the site. It's possible exit rates are a problem - but what if it's arbitrarily inflated because you have a lot of blog articles? Blindly trying to improve isolated metrics without a proper understanding of user behavior on your site isn't worth your time

Articles such as this highlight the reason it’s so difficult to create content for CRO. It makes for great click bait, but not helpful to people genuinely wanting to learn. The truth is OECs are the only critical metrics in general for CRO, and none of these make the list. However, and it’s a big however, any metric can be important depending on its research and testing context. Session duration is useless most of the time, but if you’re assessing a new site search with the aim of reducing session duration it can be very important. These types of articles undermine the whole premise of CRO.

- Measure the percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form. It's a fundamental CRO metric indicating the effectiveness of your website in converting visitors into customers or leads. - Evaluate the ratio of users who click on a specific element (e.g., a call-to-action button) to the total number of users who see that element. High CTRs indicate effective design and content strategies. - If you're running an e-commerce site, this metric is crucial. It tracks the percentage of users who add items to their shopping cart but leave without completing the purchase. Reducing cart abandonment can significantly impact your conversion rate and revenue.