Conversion rate optimization: what you are actually paying for

Someone pitches you “conversion rate optimization” and promises to double your sales. Sounds great. But here is the reality: only 1 in 8 A/B tests produces a statistically significant winner. Even well-run CRO programs report win rates somewhere between 10% and 40%, depending on methodology and volume.

That does not mean CRO is a bad investment. It means you need to understand what you are actually buying.

What CRO includes (and what it doesn’t)

A legitimate CRO engagement has four phases: audit, hypothesis, testing, and iteration.

It starts with research — analyzing your analytics, heatmaps, user behavior, and funnel drop-offs to find where visitors stall or leave. From there, a testing roadmap gets built around prioritized hypotheses. Then A/B tests run against real traffic. Winning changes get implemented, and the cycle repeats.

What CRO is not: a one-time audit with a list of suggestions. Many providers sell that and call it optimization. Real CRO is an ongoing cycle of testing and learning. A single audit is step one of a multi-month process, not the whole thing.

Most businesses convert at 2.5-3%. Whether that is good or bad depends entirely on your industry, traffic quality, and what counts as a conversion. Be suspicious of anyone citing benchmarks without asking about your context first.

How long it takes

Individual test results take 2-6 weeks. Meaningful, sustained improvement takes 3-6 months. CRO benefits compound over time — each validated win stacks on the last — which is why longer engagements deliver disproportionately better results than short sprints.

If someone promises transformation in 30 days, they are selling fiction. The discipline works, but it works on evidence timelines, not marketing ones.

Red flags that should stop you

Guaranteed percentage lifts. No one can guarantee a specific conversion increase. If they could predict outcomes with certainty, they would not need to run tests. This is the single biggest warning sign in CRO sales pitches.

No audit or discovery phase. A provider who jumps straight to “we’ll start testing next week” without researching your data is guessing, not optimizing.

One-size-fits-all templates. “We test your headline, then your CTA, then your form” is a checklist, not a strategy. Legitimate CRO starts with research specific to your site and audience.

A portfolio of only wins. When most tests do not produce winners, a case study page showing nothing but success stories is curated marketing. Ask about their overall win rate and what they learned from tests that did not work.

Questions to ask before signing

• “What does your research phase look like before you start testing?” Good answer: detailed audit process. Bad answer: “We already know what works.”
• “What is your typical win rate across all tests?” Honest answer: 10-40%. Red flag: “We win most of our tests.”
• “How do you define and report on a ‘successful’ test?” Look for statistical rigor — confidence levels, sample sizes, test duration.
• “What traffic volume do I need for testing to be viable?” A provider who does not ask about your traffic before pitching is not doing their job.
• “What happens when a test loses?” Good providers frame non-winners as learning investments and explain what the data revealed.

Before you commit

CRO is a testing discipline, not a magic fix. The right provider will be honest about timelines, transparent about win rates, and more interested in your data than in closing the deal.

Before investing in testing, make sure the fundamentals are solid: site speed directly impacts your conversion rates, and reliable analytics are a prerequisite — CRO without good data is guesswork. If you are evaluating other services, our SEO buying guide covers similar ground for search.

Talk to us about conversion optimization — we will help you set realistic expectations and scope what actually makes sense for your site.