conversion rate optimization

Definition

The systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take desired actions, through testing, analysis, and psychological manipulation. Often abbreviated as CRO by people who test button colors with religious fervor.

Example Usage

Our CRO efforts increased checkout completion by 15%, mostly by removing the mandatory account creation that everyone hated anyway.

Origin

Digital marketing terminology from the early 2000s as web analytics matured

Fun Fact

A/B testing the color of a button can seem trivial, but when you have millions of visitors, changing a button from green to red has literally generated millions in additional revenue for some companies.

Source: Digital marketing and user experience optimization

Related Terms

Beginner

target

In business and marketing, the specific audience segment you're trying to reach, sell to, or manipulate into thinking they need your product. It's the demographic, psychographic, or behavioral group that your entire campaign is aimed at—ideally based on data, but often based on whoever the VP thinks buys stuff. Missing your target means wasted ad spend; hitting it means annoying the right people with your ads.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Advanced

marketing attribution

The practice of determining which touchpoints deserve credit for a conversion, attempting to solve marketing's eternal question: 'Which half of my advertising is working?' Spoiler: there are no perfect answers.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

ecommerce

The art of selling stuff online instead of in physical stores, revolutionizing retail by eliminating the need to wear pants while shopping. It encompasses everything from Amazon's global empire to your neighbor's Etsy shop selling handmade soap. Born in the '90s, it's now the default way humans acquire everything from groceries to furniture, much to the despair of malls everywhere.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Advanced

Pivot to Video

The industry-wide hallucination of 2017 where every publisher fired their writers to make videos nobody asked for. It was based on Facebook video metrics that turned out to be inflated by up to 900%, making it the Fyre Festival of content strategy.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

lifetime value

The predicted total revenue a customer will generate over their entire relationship with your business, used to justify spending obscene amounts on acquisition. Abbreviated as LTV or CLV, because marketers love acronyms almost as much as optimistic financial projections.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

emotional triggers

Psychological hot buttons marketers press to provoke specific emotional responses that drive action—fear, joy, anger, or FOMO. The puppet strings of persuasion, ethically questionable but demonstrably effective.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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