My CXL Institute Conversion Optimization Mini Degree Review

Learn to build and run world-class optimization programs. As a marketer, this statement made by the CXL institute, piqued my interest during my research into their Conversion Optimization mini degree.

I have certainly run optimization tests in the past, but I could in no way justify them as being among the highest caliber in the world. In fact, the more I read about the program, the more I realized that I was still very far from that kind of output.

In this article, and the sequential ones to follow, I will be documenting my entire experience of becoming a CXL Institute Certified Optimizer through their CRO mini degree. My intention is to provide an honest, unbiased review of the course content, overall structure of the program, and the validity of learning how to run a world-class optimization program.

Why I chose CRO

I have been in marketing for over 10 years, and early in my career I tried to become an expert in every field of marketing. As you can image, this transformed me into a marketing generalist and spread my focus much too thin. I often struggled to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of marketing techniques and tactics and my campaigns often came out half-cooked and inconsistent.

I realized that if I wanted to get much better results for my clients, and charge premium fees in the process, I needed to become an expert in a specialized field.

Over that last 5 years, I started to focus on social media, and I started getting really great results for my clients and I even founded a SMM agency. However, I found that every campaign that I ran still depended on one major factor for success – conversions. Yes, I was getting plenty of conversions, but I knew that even small uplifts in conversion rate could have major impacts on campaign results.   

Conversion optimization has been on my radar for quite some time, but over the last few months, I have started to really dive into it and try to understand the key aspects of executing a successful CRO strategy.

The reason I started to really like the subject at first, is that it combines qualitative and quantitative analysis in the form of marketing analytics, UX, human psychology, and much more. I found this mix to be intriguing and yearned to dive deeper. 

During my deep dive, I started to learn some interesting facts. First, it is a very complex field that incorporates a lot of my existing knowledge base but would also require me to expand my skillset much further. Second, it is a field that eCommerce businesses can easily see the value of, but it often has too many barriers to entry for someone on their team to “take it on” successfully. Third, it is a field that is in high demand as brands will always have potential customers visiting a web property that are being presented a conversion.

These three aspects have formed of sort of “holy trifecta” for me as it allows me to establish myself as an expert, to charge premium rates, and demand for services are rapidly growing.

Why I chose the CXL Institute.

This decision wasn’t one that I took lightly. Taking on a program like this would require a significant investment of time, focus, and determination, not to mention the associated costs.

I evaluated my options and found I had three viable solutions and explored them in this order. First, was to utilize the vast amount of free content on YouTube. Second was to take cheaper, less in-depth courses on Udemy and kind of “bunch them together”. Third, was to invest into CXL.

I watched several videos on CRO, but found these to be very generic, surface level topics that could hardly be classified as world-class. I then took some Udemy courses on the topic but found these often contrasted each other’s teachings and they still didn’t give me a clear path to my goal. Finally, I started to take a hard look at CXL and what they offered. Once I reread the course syllabus, and watched a few free webinars, I realized that the training is top-notch, and it would be my best option.

My expectation for the CRO mini degree.

Going into this program, I have very high expectations. Upon completion, I expect that I will have gained in-depth knowledge about CRO and will have greatly increased my skill set. I also expect that I am going to learn a systematic, repeatable process for CRO that I can implement and deliver consistent positive results for my clients. I also expect that my certification will allow me to expand my agencies services offering to include CRO.

How I plan to take on this program.

My initial strategy is to spend around 1 hour a night studying on the weekdays to ensure that I consistently make progress and keep the knowledge top of mind. I also plan to spend at least 4-5 hours on Saturdays to do a deep dive into the subjects and have a chance to review and consolidate my notes. Each Sunday, I will write these articles to help reinforce my learnings for the week. This strategy will likely evolve over the course of my program, but it’s a good schedule to start with.

My first impressions of the CXL conversion optimization mini degree.

Upon logging in, I first saw that the total time approximation was 82h 09min spread across 35 courses. At first, it was a bit intimidating, but at the same time exciting to know that I will be gaining so much valuable knowledge. The program is laid out very well and is broken down into 6 major areas:

• Foundations – learn the basics of CRO
• Conversion research – learn how to find the right issues to focus on
• Testing – learn how to run optimization tests
• Optimization strategies - learn different optimization approaches
• Conversion optimization program management – learn how to manage a CRO program

CXL certification exam – become a CXL Institute Certified Optimizer

I have already started taking some course and found the content to be top-notch in both terms of quality information and high production value. The instructors are friendly, knowledgeable, and I feel that I can really trust in what they are saying. Overall, I am very excited to take this program.

In conclusion, my experience with the CXL conversion optimization mini degree has been a very positive so far. I am excited to begin this journey, but also a bit nervous given the amount of time and effort required to get certified. I have very high expectation for this program, and these will hopefully be met as I progress.

In my next article, I will be detailing my experiences in the CRO foundations section of the program and reviewing my experiences with the instructors, the content, and the end goal of learning to build and run world-class optimization programs.