Why conversion rate optimization (CRO) belongs across the customer journey

Teams often explain weak sales in different ways because each one sees only a single part of the customer experience. Following the route from the first click to checkout shows where the sale is really being lost.

The pattern is familiar. Revenue drops and the questions start. Is the offer good enough? Are the ads reaching the right people? Is the website hard to use? Can customers find what they came for? Is the budget going to the wrong place?

Each team reads the evidence its own way. Media sees clicks and interaction and decides the campaign is working. The web team sees visitors leaving and finds a usability problem. Product sees a gap in how people use the service. CRM sees a chance to improve the experience for returning customers.

They could all be right, because each is looking at a different stage of the same journey.

Nilanshu Pandey, CRO Director at M+C Saatchi Performance, says businesses should look at what happens between a customer’s first interest and the final purchase. A campaign can reach the right audience and a product can suit their needs, yet an unclear landing page, a confusing menu, or a frustrating checkout can still lose the sale.

This moves the discussion away from deciding which team is at fault. The more useful question is simpler: where does the customer stop, and what prevents them from going on?

This article is adapted from Nilanshu Pandey’s “CRO may be the missing link on your customer journey, and the key to smarter marketing”, first published in The Drum.

Why new and returning customers need different journeys?

A first-time visitor and a repeat customer may land on the same website, but they rarely arrive wanting the same thing.

A new visitor is still making up their mind. They may need to understand the offer, compare options, check delivery details, or decide whether they trust the business enough to order. The page has to answer those questions without overloading them.

A returning customer already knows something about the brand. They may have preferences, past purchases, or a half-finished task. Asking them to start over turns familiarity into irritation. They may want a quick way back to a product, an order, or the next sensible step.

The difference is easy to miss when both groups go through the same page. New customers hesitate when explanations are thin. Returning customers lose patience when they must read through things they already know.

Nilanshu puts it simply: one customer needs reassurance and the other needs direction. Both should be able to shop without extra effort. CRO helps businesses allow for this by studying customer behaviour, recognising which stage the visitor is at, and deciding what would help them move on.

CRO belongs within performance marketing

Imagine a brand buys an international audience and sends those visitors to landing pages that are not in their language. Nilanshu uses this example to make a plain point: if landing pages are not translated automatically into the local language, every cent of that media spend is wasted.

Performance marketing is good at optimising what is easiest to measure, such as conversion rate, CPA and other end metrics. A great deal happens between the click and the conversion, and the translation problem is one example of what can go wrong there.

CRO works best as a performance discipline. Like the rest of performance marketing, it should be led by evidence. Done well, it brings in revenue in two ways: customers are happier, and less of the media budget goes to waste. Treating CRO as a UX service misses that.

Reviewing media, creative and CRO separately is risky, because the customer goes through all three as one journey. In his words, “CRO should act as connective tissue”.

What it looks like in practice

A property ad can convince someone to visit a website, but the page still has to help them decide whether to book a viewing. Little information about the location or the amenities leaves prospective buyers with questions. They need enough detail to picture living there and an obvious way to arrange a visit. CRO looks at where that information is missing and how the page leads visitors to an enquiry.

The retail example in Nilanshu’s article shows how menus can interrupt a purchase. A back-to-school campaign sent interested shoppers to a site selling children’s clothing, shoes and accessories. Many left without buying. Parents struggled to find suitable products because the landing page gave little help for browsing by age, gender or size.

Reviewing several customer journeys revealed the cause: the campaign advertised back-to-school products, but the page made shoppers work to find the items they needed.

The team added links visible without scrolling, with entry points for toddler boys and girls aged 0 to 4 and youth boys and girls aged 8 to 16. Parents could go straight to the right range. Finding products got easier, and conversion went up.

The campaign had already brought potential buyers to the site. Changing the page helped those visitors find what they had come to buy.

Stop paying to refill a leaky bucket

Paid campaigns can bring interested customers to a website and still lose the sale when the landing page does not match what they expected. Spending more on acquisition leaves that problem in place. Nilanshu calls this the “leaky bucket” problem: businesses keep paying for traffic while customers leave before buying.

CRO gives businesses a way to examine those lost opportunities. Helping visitors find what they want and finish a purchase can produce more revenue from traffic the business has already paid for. Shopping gets easier for customers, and more of the acquisition spend ends in sales.

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