As a Conversion Optimization Agency owner, I’ve been watching the CRO space very closely ever since around 2006. One way I keep my pulse on the industry is to attend conferences and over the last several years, I’ve been attending the Conversion XL Live Conference, I’ve actually been to all of them since they started.
Looking back on all the CXL events, I’ve seen it grow from a 200 or so group of attendees with just 2 vendors to out growing the initial conference space with over 400 people attending and about 6 vendors in total this year. Not huge compared to some other conferences but for such a small targeted space this growth is massive.
Over the years I’ve seen two distinct trends…
1.) A change in the mix of attendees.
At the very first CXL Live, it was just us CRO geeks, lots of in-house and solo practitioners. Over the years I’ve seen an increase in the number of agencies attending, this year the split between agency and non-agency was 50/50.
2.) A shift in the conversation.
At first the direction of conversation was centered more around the actual name of what we do, conversion rate optimization, towards discussions centered around User Experience (UX) and Frameworks for doing CRO.
Where Is CRO Going And What’s Next?
Based on the 2017 CXL Live event and the foresight into all the CXL conferences and other conversion conferences I’ve attended, I’m seeing yet another shift in the maturity of the CRO industry with 4 distinct trends emerging.
Summed up in one sentence, it would be…
Rounded expansion of the whole enchilada.
I wrote about this on the Olark blog but I’ll expand on it here.
Let me explain…
Trend #1 – Balance
Conversion Rate Optimization is moving toward a more balanced approach, not just quantitative data but also qualitative data, getting the voice of customer and tapping into the emotions of your prospects and visitors as been one trend that I’ve seen increase in awareness since the first Conversion XL Live event. This is what I’m calling a roundedness in the skill-sets used to do CRO.
In the past copywriting had always taken a back seat for many CRO practitioners focusing more on usability. This makes sense is you look at the industry as a growth curve, starting with the low hanging fruit tests first. Which only works in certain markets.
Direct response marketers have always know the impact of copy and long form copy and I’m happy to see other CRO practitioners finally catching on in a space Creative Thirst has been building on for the last 4 years.
Trend #2 – Expansion
As an industry, CRO is expanding and moving toward growing testing programs vs. one-off testing or small one – three person testing teams.
This speaks to the growth of the industry as a whole and is evidence to support my hypothesis that CRO is becoming divided between big agencies and in-house CRO. I think we’re only going to see more in-house teams pop up out of no where as the industry matures, which will cut out the middle, smaller agencies and freelancers, just like wee saw happen in the SEO industry.
Trend #3 – The Whole Enchilada
The idea of being the “Architect” vs. on page tweaks. Page tweaks, or one element testing was the focus of the past several years. At most we saw radical redesigns of treatments, but that’s still focusing on one page vs. the entire experience of the visitor.
This trend to architect the entire visitor flow and experience across a funnel aligns with my thinking before I saw this trend emerge. This is the “whole enchilada” approach of looking across the entire customer journey and actively crafting the entire flow of revenue. This is the next logical progression from the two year old debate of the naming of our industry. Conversion rate optimization vs. Revenue optimization, which is a silly meaningless debate, but these are the silly things we do at the start of a new category.
Trend #4 – The Future of Conversion Rate Optimization
I would be remiss without mentioning, the trend of Personalization. It’s been a buzz word in the CRO industry for a long time, it was brought up in a few talks at the conference, and it feels like we’re getting closer, but we’re not quite there yet.
This reminds me of Virtual Reality. It’s interesting but not quite ready for prime time. The CRO industry is just starting to grow up, most of us are not quite ready to run that fast yet but it’s certainly fun to think about the impact on everything that touches personalization from simple customized copy on web pages and emails all the way to the Internet of things and wearable devices.
We’ve certainly come a long way and I’m looking forward to where we’re all going. See you next year at CXL 2018.
