Why Audits are Important

This was originally sent to Conversion Sciences by Email.

Online businesses hire us to increase their revenue and profit by increasing conversions, conversion rate and AOV.

We won't do website audits for just any business.

That's right. We're super picky about who we work with. We want these audits to be successful. We have a reputation to keep.

When we audit a website, our research uncovers insights that unlock massive amounts of upside (think 25% to 100%+ growth in a matter of months).

But here's the thing, it only works if the client (you) sees the audit for what it is — a jumpstart of the optimization process.

The deliverable for an audit is a force ranked list of fixes for your website that will definitely increase conversions, and high impact hypotheses that will likely increase your conversions.

In other words, it is a list of changes that a brilliant optimizer suggests based on a boatload of quantitative and qualitative research (with all the “homework” shown for you to learn from).

An audit builds the foundation and lets businesses, especially smaller ones, establish a growth-oriented measurement and research framework. It uncovers many hidden conversion killers and conversion boosters, laying out exactly what to do next.

An audit tells you what you need to change on your website, in your emails, and in your ads to increase conversions. But it doesn't do those things for you.

Someone must execute, and someone has to measure. Then analyze, adjust, and do it again. Over and over. Then all the good graphs start spiking up and to the right. It's a beautiful thing to see and the reason we love what we do so much.

What are the common themes we see in successful audits?

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Conversion killers are scary, but they aren't werewolves, and they can't be killed with silver bullets.

There are recommendations in every audit we do that can lead to crazy growth. Guaranteed. There are also recommendations that won't.

Know how to separate the two? By experimenting. That can be A/B testing, or, in the case of most audit clients, it is experimentation via a pre/post framework.

Without a commitment to execute the project will be a waste of everyone's time and energy.

BUY IN FROM TOP

For businesses that aren't already doing CRO, an audit is often their first step into the world of optimization. To get the most success from an audit, organizations must commit to changing the way they think about their site, their visitors, and their decision-making process.

ADEQUATE RESOURCES

Companies that see the highest ROI from audits are those that plan to have the resources to execute in advance. Either they have design, data and development resources in house that will be dedicated to implementing the growth strategy, or they have arranged for third party resources in advance (often, that's us).

WHO'S DOING YOUR AUDIT?

It's tempting for agencies to load up a new employee with a bunch of audits. After all, audits are often chosen by businesses where long-term CRO engagements might not make sense.

We think this is backwards. If the results of the audit matter (and we passionately believe they do) why would we have anyone but our best people do them?

All of our audits are conducted by a Conversion Scientist with at least 8 years of optimization experience.

Do you run an online business that would benefit from a 25% increase in conversions before the end of the summer ? Schedule a call and let's make it happen.

Brian Massey, Sr. Conversion Scientist?