CXL - The end is not near

TODAY'S HOST

Merritt Aho, CEO at CXL

This talk about "CRO is dead" is ridiculous. It's a well-established function at this point.

This won't sit well with some, but I think CROs sometimes create this drama because they see that:

1. Experimentation has applications far beyond the little box that many companies put CRO in.
2. It requires DNA changes in an org, particularly from leaders, to reach full potential.
3. They envision themselves as being at the forefront of change, and therefore they'll evolve out of CRO.
4. If that change takes place, there'll be no need for CRO, because everyone will be experimenting.

Not gonna happen. Yes to #1 and #2. No to #3 and #4.

Some CROs don't know how to experiment in other functions and parts of the org. And they don't need to know.

Experimentation looks way different when you remove the tech stack and unit economics that make it easy on websites and apps.

Yeah, maybe they've been involved in some other types of experiments. But how many? 1 or 2? What's their ratio of website experiments to other channels? Probably 10:1 or more. Always gonna be that way: on the periphery, outside their experience.

Many of the same principles apply when you talk experimentation in other channels and job functions, but CROs just aren't as useful when it comes to experimenting outside their bread 'n butter arena.

There are SEOs, SEMs, email marketers, field marketers, marketing operations people, and other roles who are running experiments already. Their playbooks look different from CROs'. So do their toolsets. Let's ask them how to do it well. No one is going to be an expert at experimenting across all these areas.

It's true that marketing leaders need to endorse experimentation more broadly, and that it needs to be part of team DNA.

They need to demand it across all functions. But it's not gonna look like one team is doing it all. The methods and measurement standards will be diverse.

We need CROs to do experimentation on websites and apps. It requires very specialized skills to do well, and it has demonstrable impact.

But let's not all get too big for our britches with visions of grandeur. CRO is CRO. Marketing experimentation writ large encompasses a set of heterogenous activities that is far outside the CRO skillset. I don't see that changing.

Connect with Merritt on LinkedIn.

YOUR WEEKLY DOSE OF MARKETING UPDATES

Table of contents:

1. Why you need an analytics audit

2. Optimize UX in ecommerce

3. Which marketer would you like to learn from?

4. Get featured in Growth Notes
5. Building the greatest swipe file

6. Takeaways from the Experimentation Maturity Report

1. Why you need an analytics audit: how to make sure your data is accurate

Data is big business. 90% of corporate strategies involve investing in data to reach new audiences and personalize experiences.

But what if the data you’re relying on isn’t accurate? Most analytics setups are flawed. And broken configurations and skewed results often lead to misguided decision-making.

Since bad data is worse than no data, this means most popular analytics tools (including Google Analytics) are leading most businesses astray. This guide will help you find what’s broken in your analytics setup and fix it.

After troubleshooting issues and ensuring your data is trustworthy, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions that boost your sales, reduce acquisition costs, and bring in better leads.

Read the entire article.

2. Optimize UX in ecommerce

When chasing sustainable and consistent ecommerce growth, we often look to many places: content, SEO, paid acquisition, and other growth channels.

But rarely do we turn the focus to our own site and ask, “How can we improve our ecommerce user experience to drive growth?”.

Implementing a customer experience that shows the best-in-class techniques is critical to making people remember you and increasing repeat purchase rate, retention rate, and overall customer lifetime value.

That’s what this playbook is about looking inward instead of outward. Investing in user experience instead of further ad spend, promotion, or distribution.

Get step-by-step instructions on how to optimize UX in ecommerce.

3. Which marketer would you like to learn from?

If you were to pick a baller marketer to teach you, who would it be?

Tell us what you'd like to learn from them.

4. Get featured in Growth Notes

Your last real competitive advantage is constant innovation through experimentation at speed.

Submit your experimentation case studies and we will share them with our audience...

• Newsletter (+120,000 readers)
• Social media (+20,000 followers)

Case studies like the one you're about to submit help us educate more marketers on how to achieve speed through experimentation and win.

We will feature the best case studies across all of our channels and pay credits to you.

Submit your case study here.

5. Building the greatest swipe file

The ad of the week comes from Revenue Hero this time. 

What's great about it:

• The hook highlights the value prop with a concise sentence: when you start using RevenueHero, you get more out of form fills.

• The product's main benefit is also presented clearly: inbound prospects turn into booked meetings thanks to this instant scheduling tool.

• Creative shows RevenueHero's most popular feature (meeting distribution) and presents the actual UI you'll see when automating form fills and meetings.

Be more like Revenue Hero.

Join us in building the greatest swipe file there is. We will feature the best ads across our different channels with credits to you:

• Newsletter (+120,000 readers)
• Social media (+20,000 followers)

You can submit ads you've created but also the ones others did. We'll pay credits to you anyway for contributing to the marketing community.

Submit your ads here.

6. Takeaways from Speero's Experimentation Maturity Benchmark Report

Speero has just released its Experimentation Maturity Benchmark Report for 2023.

Here are four key takeaways you can use to mature your experimentation efforts:

• 40% of brands don't have a person responsible for experimentation. But to mature, you need dedicated resources. An interim solution is to combine external help and internal resources with traction inside the org.
• 58% of brands don't have a knowledge base. However, creating and record-keeping tests and insights are easy and low-cost initiatives even early mature brands can do.
• 62% of brands don't have metrics to measure their experimentation program. Speero's Blueprints like 'Program Metrics', 'A/B Testing Workflow Map', and 'Test Phase Gate Framework' can help here quickly and easily.
• Most early-stage programs lack a prioritization framework. Using a framework such as PXL can help here.

Read the full report.

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