Why Traffic Growth Fails Without CRO

Introduction

Many businesses that have experienced tremendous amounts of “growth” will find themselves in a situation of disillusionment. The perception is that if one increases their traffic through any channel or avenue, there will be a corresponding increase in conversions, and thus, an increase in revenue.

However, just like any other perception, this perception may not be entirely right. Reality: a business can double or triple its ad spend for many different reasons; it can grow its search engine optimization (SEO) and invest even more in content; and it can use influencers to promote its product or service. Yet, when these businesses look at their bottom line and see very little change, they are often left scratching their heads.

They see in their analytics data that they received large numbers of sessions, clicks, and impressions on their website, but no additional sales or customers.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is where these companies go wrong. Traffic growth without conversion rate optimization does not compound; it simply leaks into nothingness.

In this article, I will explain the many reasons traffic growth without CRO does not generate profits, how CRO works to generate ROI, and why there is a difference between companies that grow significantly in revenue and companies that merely report growth on charts and graphs.

Conversion Rate Optimization is all about answering the following question:

What causes people who have shown intent not converting?

• Traffic only shows us who visited, not why those individuals did not subscribe.
• The focus of CRO:
• Reducing friction
• Communicate value clearly
• Building trust
• Create a good experience that corresponds to the intent
• As a result, traffic itself is inefficient without CRO.

The Concept of the Leaking Funnel:

Think of a funnel with a hole in its bottom.

Even though pouring more water in the funnel will not fill the bucket any faster than it will leak out, pouring water into the funnel creates more waste.

Likewise, when you scale traffic without CRO, you will be creating leaks (wasted opportunity) in the funnel.

We would generally expect the following leak points of traffic to occur:

• Confused Messaging
• Slow Load Times
• Unclear Pricing
• Long Form Fields
• A Poor Mobile Experience
• Low Trust

When traffic increases, the cost of inefficiency increases as well.

Why Traffic First Strategies Do Not Work

1. Increasing Costs to Acquire Traffic

Traffic becomes increasingly more expensive as competition continues to grow. For example:

• Pay-Per-Click Advertising Costs Increase Per Click
• Cost Import Market Increases
• The Quality of Incremental Traffic Continues to Decrease
• In terms of SEO, Ranking Competition Continues to Increase
• Incremental Traffic is Lower Intent

As one continues to employ a Traffic-First Strategy without CRO, the cost of each incrementally acquired visitor will be greater, while the conversion rate will be lower.

2. Traffic does not help to solve people’s confusion regarding your messaging.

If customers are confused as to What you have to offer, Who it is intended for, and Why It Is Better, by sending more traffic into that funnel you add confusion to the funnel and ultimately will not create sales.

The CRO process forces an organization to confront this issue and ensure that they have a clear message, or risk losing potential customers.

3. High volume of traffic can hide the UX or Product Friction problems that an organization has with their products or service.

Increased volume of traffic can hide the productive flow of a product, create cognitive overload to the user, and negatively impact the onboarding or checkout experience.

CRO will create awareness of the above structural problems and issues through analyzing behavioral data, as opposed to volume.

Conversion Rate Optimization will be a multiplication factor in growth, Traffic will only be an average of growth.

Examples in a Simulated Manner:

Suppose we have a website that gets 100,000 visitors.

Let’s assume that 1% of these visitors convert to buyers or signups.

That is 1,000 conversions.

Now suppose we are able to improve the website’s conversion rate to 2% without changing the amount of traffic we are receiving.

That means we will have 2,000 conversions.

In other words, by using conversion rate optimization (CRO), we were able to double our revenue without needing to increase the amount of traffic we received.

That’s why CRO has one of the highest ROIs in terms of growth.

Traffic vs. CRO: One Is for Growth; The Other Is for Fixing the Funnel

Traffic Growth is Answered by:

• How many total visitors did we have?
• Where did the visitors come from?
• What was the cost of acquiring the visitors?

CRO Answers:

• Why did the visitors leave without converting at that time?
• At what point in the conversion process did the visitor leave the website?
• What specifically kept the visitor from converting?

Traffic fills the top of the funnel, whereas CRO works to fix the problems found in the funnel.

Why Many Teams Choose to Invest in Traffic Before Investing in CRO

It may not seem logical, but most teams still prioritize traffic growth over CRO growth. Why is that?

Traffic is:

• Easy to track
• Provides quick wins
• Presents beautifully in reports

CRO is:

• More challenging to evaluate/track
• Typically takes longer to provide results
• Challenges the assumptions made internally
• CRO is much more complicated; however, CRO provides far greater value.

CRO and Ecommerce: Traffic Will Not Help Ecommerce as it Will Lead to Increased Bounce Rate and Abandoned Carts

In an ecommerce environment, receiving traffic without CRO will create:

• High Bounce Rates
• Cart Abandoned
• Few Checkouts Completed

This is why search phrases like:

• conversion rate optimization for ecommerce
• conversion rate optimization ecommerce
• exist; because ecommerce teams realize receiving traffic alone won’t be sufficient.

Friction Points Unique to Ecommerce

• Slow Product Pages
• Unclear Shipping and Returns
• Poor Mobile Checkout
• Inadequate Trust Signals

When you drive more traffic to a broken checkout process, all it does is create additional lost revenue.

CRO and SaaS: Traffic is Useless Without Activation

With SaaS traffic growth, we may be inflating the following:

• Signups
• Trial Users
• Top of Funnel Metrics

However, the revenue is determined by:

• Activation
• Engagement
• Retention

Therefore, SaaS teams search for:
CRO Agencies that Specialize in SaaS
Agencies that Specialize in CRO for SaaS Companies

Without proper CRO management, SaaS traffic creates churn rather than revenue growth.

A/B testing is no longer an effective tool for Many teams often start running random tests when they notice poor performance in terms of conversion rates. This leads to mistakes:

Testing the color of buttons on your website.

Testing headlines without context and understanding the reason behind them, such as demographics.

Testing without understanding users’ intent or why a user visits your site.

The key point is that A/B Testing should not be an end in and of itself, but rather a tool for validating other marketing efforts, such as AdWords.

A/B Testing platforms like VWO and Optimizely provide valuable data to help you validate your marketing strategies. However, it is important to use this data in combination with insights from past testing efforts.

Because A/B testing does not require a CRO strategy, it simply creates “noise” around your marketing efforts.

Without insight and a CRO strategy, the tools are not effective in solving conversion problems.

In addition, because conversion optimization tools (search queries) will help an organization identify conversion problems, they cannot solve conversion problems on their own.

They will, however, provide data regarding how:

Users click on your site, how far users scroll before leaving your site, and where users are dropping off from your site.

CRO requires you to interpret, prioritize, and execute. Therefore, a conversion optimization tool is not meant to replace a CRO strategy; rather, it supports a CRO strategy.

Marketing provides traffic to your business; revenue provides profit to your business. The connection between the two is CRO.

• It forces the two to work together in order to ensure:
• Marketing is aware of quality of traffic they provide to you.
• User experience is clear and easy to understand.
• A product can deliver value.
• Systems and processes will provide an efficient flow of transactions for users to experience.

CRO Agencies: Why Teams Seek Them

When internal teams struggle to improve conversions, they typically search for:

• CRO agency
• CRO companies
• CRO consultant
• Typically occurs when:
• Traffic stops growing
• Paid acquisition becomes unprofitable
• Leadership asks why revenue is not scaling

CRO partners focus on systemic conversion problems, rather than cosmetic ones.

Traffic + CRO = Sustainable Growth

The most successful growth teams follow this progression:

• Establish Conversion Performance Baseline
• Fix Obvious Friction
• Establish a CRO Framework
• Scale Traffic Into Tuning Process
• Traffic Without CRO Equals Wasteful Spending.
• CRO Without Traffic Equals Constrained Growth.

When PATH and CRO work together, they Compound Together.

Signs of Failing Traffic Growth:

• Flat revenue with higher traffic
• CAC is increasing faster than LTV
• High bounce rates
• Low engagement after sign-up
• Sales Is Blaming Marketing and Vice A Versa
• These are CONVERSION Problems – Not Traffic Problems.

The Cultural Change with CRO

• When CRO is Done Properly:
• Decisions Are Based on Evidence and Data
• Opinions Are Not Powerful
• User Experience Will Trend Toward Systematic Improvement
• Revenue Conversations Will Be More Understandable
• CRO Is Also a Decision Discipline, Not Just a Growth Tactic.

Final Thought – Traffic Is a Cost, CRO Is an Asset.

Traffic Is Rented
Conversions Are Owned

Every visitor that does not convert Represents:

• Wasted Expenditure
• Lost Opportunity
• Incomplete Learnings
• CRO Provides a Return on Investment on Your Traffic Investment.
• Without CRO, Traffic Growth Does Not Scale Your Business – It Scales Your Inefficiencies.

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