What are the best ways to measure CRO metrics and KPIs for call-to-action (CTA) buttons?

CRO is all about conversion, but it does not necessarily translate into revenue - unless the conversion you're tracking is the actual purchase on a product/payment page. Keep in mind that this is a stage in the funnel. You can increase conversions, but that might not matter if you're not converting your target audience, so don't lose sight of the big picture.

Never lose sight of Revenue Uplift - your main KPI. You might think more button clicks is better for your business. But what if those aren’t from customers you actually want to serve? You’ll just get excited too early only to wake up to a bitter taste of wasted marketing and sales resources. The damage could be lasting as if button click = ad campaign conversion, you might just throw all the spend and accumulated learning away if your CTA doesn’t work for the right audience.

Heatmaps are great tools because they can show you where users get stuck or where they drop off. Those are the areas you want to concentrate on. Consider experimentation platforms for running a/b tests that can easily track traffic and measure statistically significant results. Make sure you look for tools that can adequately track multivariate tests; otherwise, run controlled experiments with limited variables.

Additionally, considering metrics like bounce rate and cart abandonment rate can offer deeper insights into CRO for CTAs. A high bounce rate indicates that users are leaving immediately after arriving on a landing page from the CTA. This could indicate that either the CTA was misleading or failed to deliver what was promised in terms of value proposition. Similarly, tracking cart abandonment rates can reveal if customers are dropping off during purchasing processes initiated by specific CTAs. Monitoring these metrics allows marketers to identify areas where improvements are needed in order to

Remember to consider the results that are statistically significant. Otherwise, you will face the biased results which are not proved by data, so you cannot really trust them. Before implementing the test you need to calculate the sample size which is based on the baseline CR of a page and a minimum desired detectable effect, and the confidence level (I recommend to go with 95%). There is a plenty of online calculators which can help with this. Optimizely is a good one. It’s also important to double-check your results (conversions/visitors of a specific page or even of a section of the page) in A/B test calculators (to make sure they are statistically significant) before completing the test and implementing the changes on the web page.

It can be easy to overlook the user's technology. If and when you find negative trends for otherwise successful tactics, drill down into as much data as you can till you find the root, especially if it's costing you. A small uptick in percentage points can lead to huge revenue uplift when there's volume. It could be the user's device, browser, or other settings (like dark mode) that can impact design and functionality and conversion as a result.

Time for the CTA rollercoaster! After analysing data, implement changes to your CTA buttons like a wizard casting spells. Measure results—think of it as a cake-tasting experiment. Now, the fun begins! Test and optimise like finding the perfect shoe fit, but for CTAs. Refine until your CTA makes your audience do a happy jig. It's not just data; it's a journey of discovery. Let the CTA adventure begin! ????

"If it's not broken, don't fix it." This is not so with marketing. There's always room for improvement if you have the resources. Learning is an endless quest and while you may not want to strive for perfection, you should always strive for growth.

The most important thing to remember when testing CTA buttons to improve conversion rate is to keep all other variables constant. When conducting a test, especially a test as important as updating the CTA, if other things like the messaging in the ad, quality of website traffic, page speed, layout of other sections of the website, and the messaging on the landing page changes; it's highly likely you won't get accurate results from the CRO test. If you base your decisions on these results, you will end up hurting your KPIs more than helping them. So, don't change anything in the ad or on the landing page while testing the CTA button to get statistically significant results and achieve your KPIs.