Conversion Rate Optimization: turn visitors into customers

Research and audit: understand before you test

The biggest mistake in CRO is jumping straight to A/B tests. Without research, you're testing opinions. My first step is always to understand why visitors aren't converting.

What I look at:

• Quantitative analysis. GA4 data, conversion funnels, exit rates by page, behavior by device. Where are visitors dropping off? Is it systemic or page-specific?
• Qualitative analysis. Heatmaps (Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar) and session recordings to see what visitors actually do. Surprises are common: buttons nobody sees, forms that silently fail, elements that pull attention away from the main CTA.
• User research. On-site surveys (post-purchase micro-surveys, exit-intent surveys), customer interviews where possible. Visitors use their language, not yours. Understanding their hesitations is half the work.
• UX and technical audit. Load speed, mobile UX, accessibility, JavaScript errors that break flows without anyone noticing.

Client example: on a Montreal e-commerce site, a heatmap analysis revealed that 73% of mobile visitors never saw the product reviews, buried too far down the page. Moving reviews above the add-to-cart button produced a measurable lift in mobile conversion rate. No need for a 6-month test to figure out what was happening.

Prioritized hypotheses and A/B testing

Once we've spotted the frictions, we form hypotheses. Not random ideas. Structured ones: "Because our data shows X, if we change Y, then the conversion rate should go up because Z."

How I work:

• ICE or PIE prioritization. Potential impact, confidence in the hypothesis, ease of implementation. We test what has the best effort-to-return ratio first. No button color tests while there are major bugs in checkout.
• Statistical rigor. Sample size calculated before launching a test. Target 95% statistical significance. No tests called after 48 hours because "it looks like it's winning." That's how you end up with false positives that cost you money long-term.
• Test what matters. The big levers first: checkout, product pages, value propositions, lead forms. Not micro-optimizations until the rest is clean.
• Every test documented. Hypothesis, variants, results, learnings. Even losing tests are valuable: they tell you what doesn't work with your customers. That knowledge base compounds over time.

Optimization levers I work on

CRO wins come from several places. Here's where I step in most often:

• Product pages (e-commerce). Information hierarchy, photo quality, customer reviews, availability, purchase options. The product page is your best salesperson. If it's doing a bad job, the rest of the site rarely compensates.
• Cart and checkout. Reducing friction, clear fee breakdown, payment options, security signals, abandon recovery. Checkout is often where 60 to 70% of cart starters drop off.
• Forms (lead generation). Every field you remove increases completion rate. Every required field that isn't essential costs leads. I review the relevance of each question.
• Trust signals and social proof. Customer reviews, certifications, guarantees, case studies. Placed at the right moments in the journey, not just in the footer.
• Performance and mobile UX. A slow or poorly-adapted mobile site loses up to 50% of potential conversions. Google's Core Web Vitals aren't just an SEO factor, they're a conversion factor.
• Abandon recovery. Folded into Google Ads remarketing and email sequences. A visitor who made it to cart is worth far more than a cold visitor.

Continuous loop with analytics

CRO isn't a one-shot project. It's a continuous process that depends on clean analytics. Without reliable data, you can't measure test results. Without tests, data just describes the past instead of informing the future.

My recommendation for most clients: start with an analytics audit (to make sure the numbers you're leaning on are actually correct), then move into CRO research and testing. The two services are built to work in tandem.