The Hippo and the Tech – Two pain points of CRO
I’m not alone I think, by getting the comments about “why not” to work with CRO. There is no time, it takes too long, it will break stuff on the site etc etc.
Did you ever stop to think as of why these comments are actually occurring?
We all have very good answers to all of these questions, there are really no blockers to the methodology itself. But what does CRO actually do to the organization?
It’s pretty simple. It actually constraints and changes the way the entire hierarchy works. We know that the worst hypothesis ever comes from simply ideas, or HIPPO decisions. These experiments are almost never winners, and they don’t give us much value. Aside from that we might learn from the experiments of course. And perhaps that is how we should use experimentation to answer these questions.
“We know two things:
1. That the HIPPO-ideas are the most under performing of all.
2. That ideas from experimentation analysis are the most high performing of all.”
And these 2 do marry, don’t they. So instead of trying to convince all these people and their pain points – perhaps we should instead just work with their ideas. And even though they won’t give us a direct result – the result and benefits would be that we will be able to run a better experiment based on the hypothesis from the first one. But also, and most important that we are able to run our experiments with a direct interest from another party in the organization. This person will be influenced and interested in both the test and the result.
Of course, there are valid reasons to why it is actually harder for some organizations to work with and experiment program. Like a logged in view for a bank for example. But let’s be honest – most reasons are really workable.
“You’re smart enough NOT to use the WYSIWYG”
In my opinion – the best way of getting through is to just create many many tests. And this is where I find most CRO-programs or specialists have it’s own blockers – the coding. You have to wait for a developer to help you with code – since you are smart enough not to just drag and drop in the WYSIWYG
I would advise you to solve this problem yourself. You are smart, and pretty technical as you probably know a lot more tech-stuff then the average person. And by talking some simple JavaScript-courses you will be able to create easy tests yourself – and on the plus side – create a better relationship with your developers. And if you don’t have the time? What are you actually doing with your time? Since you’re waiting for the developers to code the experiment for you.
Focus on creating easy tests. Start with changing copy or removing stuff. And as you learn it – try to compare your code with the WYSIWYG code – you will learn a lot from it. Ask your developers to simply look at the code before you launch. And take their feedback as gold – they will appreciate that you change to their needs and you will learn a lot!
I guess to wrap things up and reflect. The biggest pain points of CRO is actually relationships and complexity. As the product teams are already doing much of the parts in the CRO cycle – should they do it again? And perhaps see what they are doing is not working? Having to iterate and re-do it? We have to understand, not everyone is like us CRO people and think even a loser in a fun and interesting thing. Other roles will have huge pressure on bringing out changes – no matter how it’s performing. If this is the case – your true struggle will be with top management. But let’s save that conversation for later.
I believe in you!!
CRO HUGS 🚀
