Conversion Rate Optimization: 80+ CRO Tips On How To Turn Clicks Into Revenue

Your goal with Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is to increase the amount of potential and returning customers making a purchase when they land on your store. But how exactly do you make that happen for your brand? Especially through email and your landing page?

The only way to know what works for your brand and your brand’s specific audience is testing and experimentation. And there are different strategies you can use on different parts of the funnel to see what works.

Sit down with your team and talk through it: “Which experiments do we think are going to have the most impact on our store and in our emails?”

The team at FlowCandy created a free spreadsheet for your team to use with over 80+ CRO experiment ideas. These experiments cover any type of test, from general strategies and CTAs to AOV and cart optimization.

To see what’s working and which tests your audience is responding to, you want to keep reiterating and optimizing.

CRO measures whether someone takes action when they land on your store or landing page.

A click happens when the funnel and page remove doubt. It clearly shows why the potential or returning customer should care, what will happen when they click, and eliminates any extra decisions. If someone has to click just to figure out more information on the checkout page, you’ve already lost the customer before they make the purchase.

• Is your headline clear and engaging? And easy to read?

• Does your design draw the reader down the page and enhance the copy?

• Are your CTAs easy to understand and make sense with the page and your brand as a whole?

Answering these questions will determine if your store is doing the job you need it to. Your landing page has to answer the “why now” and the “what’s in it for me” at every word and with every strategic decision.

How fast your page loads plays a much bigger role in the buying decision than ever before. Potential customers have their interest piqued and want to make their purchase fast.

Your headline should tell them precisely what the product or service is. The customer should also be told "why now?" The design helps push the decision further so the reader sticks around and can see the benefit of making their purchase.

Everything works together to create an experience for the customer to ultimately make their final decision.

Test One Thing at a Time

To test, you want to isolate one variable at a time. The hypothesis your team comes up with should answer one specific question.

The data you gather from this test will be used for further emails, pop-ups, landing page tests, and branding.

A test like "make the product page better" might not be specific enough to get results. You could test adding zoom functionality to product images or reworking the image to be a GIF or motion graphic as the first product image.

Then you track it:

• What you're testing (which page or email)

• What you think will happen (if/then statement)

• When you're running it (start and end dates)

• How you're splitting traffic (50/50 control vs. variant)

• Baseline metric (10% add-to-cart rate)

• Result (11% add-to-cart rate)

Every test needs two metrics: the one you're trying to move and something downstream. Click rate and conversion rate. Add-to-cart rate and purchase rate. Something that proves the clicks mattered.

We use the experiment plan spreadsheet to develop our strategy and then learn from the results after implementing.

Every test starts with a hypothesis. Not "let's try this," but "if we do X, then Y metric should improve because Z reason."

Example from a recent client test:

Hypothesis: If we remove the secondary "Shop All" CTA and keep only "Shop New Arrivals," then click-through rate will stay the same or slightly decrease, but add-to-cart rate will increase because we're removing decision paralysis.

Result: CTR dropped from 4.1% to 3.8%. Add-to-cart rate increased from 6.2% to 9.1%. Revenue per email increased 31%.

That's a win, even though clicks went down.

We track every test in the experiment plan: the asset we're testing, the dates, the traffic split, the before/after metrics, and the post-mortem. Because if you're not documenting what you learn, you can’t apply the data to future sends. You also can’t pinpoint exactly what your audience is responding to.

Sit down with your team and pick 5-10 experiments from the CRO experiments sheet, then rank them by potential impact. Run them one at a time with clean variable isolation.

Use the free CRO spreadsheet with over 80+ ideas to test and learn from.

80+ Experiments You Can Run Starting Today

The experiment plan is only useful if you know what to test. That's why we built a library of 80+ proven CRO experiments across every part of your funnel.

These are tests we've run with clients or seen work across ecommerce stores generating seven and eight figures annually.

The experiments are organized by funnel stage:

General CRO: Countdown timers, faster shipping messaging, H1 optimization, page load speed improvements, search bar functionality

Product Images & Visuals: Image zoom capabilities, GIFs as hero images, product demo videos, lifestyle photography, variant-specific images

Call to Actions: Payment method displays, stock urgency messaging, price anchoring, BNPL positioning, and free shipping callouts.

Social Proof: Review placement, UGC sliders, influencer endorsements, before/after imagery, celebrity testimonials

AOV & LTV: Bundle offers, subscribe & save plans, upsell popups, default SKU selection, cross-sell product displays

Cart Optimization: Progress bars for free shipping thresholds, cart urgency timers, trust anchors, SKU image matching, dynamic discount displays

Checkout: Gift wrapping options, one-page checkout tests, address autocomplete, Shop Pay integration, guarantee messaging placement

Category Pages: Best seller positioning, filter functionality, hover effects, countdown timers, exit-intent popups

Not every experiment will work for your brand. Some will lift revenue by 30%. Others will do nothing or not show a benefit. But every single time, you’re learning something for your store.

Does Flow Candy help with CRO testing or just email design?

We do both. A lot of agencies will design your emails and pages, but won't help you figure out what's actually working. We build the testing framework, help you prioritize experiments, and track the results so you know what to scale and what to kill. The goal is a system you can keep running with trackable data.

How long does it take to see results from CRO testing?

Most tests run 7 to 14 days to hit statistical significance. But the real value compounds over time. After three months of systematic testing, you'll have a documented library of what works for your audience.

How long should I run a click rate test?

Run tests until you hit statistical significance or at least 1,000 recipients per variant. For most brands, that's 7-14 days. But don't end a test early just because one version is "winning" after day two.

Should I test multiple changes at once to move faster?

No. If you change the headline, CTA copy, and layout all at once, you'll never know which change drove the result. Test one variable at a time so you actually learn something.

What metrics should I track alongside conversion rate?

At minimum: revenue per email, add-to-cart rate, and click through rate. If clicks go up but any of these go down, your test made things worse, not better.

Most email teams know they should be testing. But they're either testing the wrong things or can't make sense of the results.

At FlowCandy, we help ecommerce brands build disciplined CRO systems that improve both engagement and revenue. We'll show you which experiments to run first, how to track what matters, and how to scale what's working without burning out your list.

Book a free strategy call with our team to see how we can help you run tests that give you usable data.