What is CRO? The Ultimate Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization for SaaS Brands

If you have a SaaS business and you’re not engaging with any conversion rate optimization (CRO) activities yet, you’re missing out on a lot. Like… A LOT lot. 

To change this, we’re bringing our ultimate guide to conversion rate optimization for SaaS brands like yours to you.

What is it, what are the examples, what can it give you and how to tackle this matter properly?

The answer to this and many other questions, together with myths, facts and useful tips are all in this article.

Let’s jump right in.

What is CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) for your SaaS brand is the process of improving the performance of your website or landing page by increasing the percentage of visitors who take a desired action.

A desired action could be subscribing to your plan, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter. 

This is typically achieved through a combination of A/B testing, usability testing, and data analysis. 

The goal of CRO is to turn more website visitors into customers by making it easier for them to find what they are looking for and complete the desired action.

SaaS conversion metrics examples

“Okay, but what exactly can I optimize?” you may ask. Well, there are many options, but probably some of the most popular ones include:

👉 website visitor to free trial sign up

Conversion action: your website visitor registers for a free trial of your software

Calculate it: ( website visitors who register for a free trial /  all website visitors ) * 100%

👉 free trial to tool activation

Conversion action: your free trial subscriber starts using your tool after registration 

Calculate it: ( all subscribers who start using your tool after registration / all free trial subscribers ) * 100%

👉 free trial to paid subscription

Conversion action: your free trial subscriber upgrades to a paid plan

Calculate it: (all paid subscribers who were on a trial / all free trial subscribers) * 100%

👉 freemium to paid subscription 

Conversion action: your freemium subscriber upgrades to a paid solution 

Calculate it: (all paid subscribers who were on a freemium plan / all freemium subscribers) * 100%

These are just 4 out of many conversion examples for SaaS brands like yours. The list goes on and on, with more examples such as: download of a free ebook, subscription to paid newsletter, booking a call with a sales representative and more.

CRO benefits for SaaS brands

Optimizing your conversion rate (in other words, all your CRO efforts), can bring your SaaS business attractive benefits. 

Whenever you attempt to increase the % of the actions mentioned above, you may achieve goals like:

😀 Decreased customer acquisition costs

Making it easier for website visitors to become your customers (a conversion event) will contribute to decreasing acquisition costs. 

Let’s imagine that you’ve launched a Google Ads marketing campaign focused on boosting new customer acquisition efforts. 

Somebody sees it and clicks on it. 

Sadly though, the signup button is placed in the wrong place on your website. The person can’t find it and simply leaves your website.

You’ve just lost a lead AND also paid for their click on your ad. Results? No customer and wasted budget.

CRO activities, e.g. fixing the button so that it’s easily spotted, will prevent this from happening. As a result, your cost of acquiring new customers decreases. Win-win. 

❌ Myth: any CRO effort will decrease your customer acquisition cost

✔️Fact: well thought-out and selected CRO actions focused on new customer acquisition can decrease your customer acquisition rate

😀 Increased website traffic

If your website is properly optimized for conversions, you will automatically attract more visitors. 

A good website stays in the memory of your visitors. It has the power to make them want to visit it again, explore it deeper and even share in their networks. 

To make this happen though, you need to be constantly improving your conversation rate optimization, whatever the conversion is.

❌ Myth: Conversion optimization efforts don’t impact your website traffic

✔️Fact: Properly optimized website for conversions will generate more traffic for your website for various reasons

😀 Better understanding of customers

Moving forward, optimizing your conversion rate will allow you to better understand  your customers. 

This is because to actually start any type of optimization, there’s a list of various data points and metrics you should get familiar with. 

These valuable pieces of information can reveal plenty of insights on your customers: what they’re interested in, where and how they’re clicking, where they’re coming from, why they leave and so on. 

Better understanding of customers = personalization = higher chance for conversions 

❌ Myth: Conversion optimization efforts don’t bring you closer your customers’ minds

✔️Fact: Understanding the behavior of your customers will allow you to make better informed conversion rate optimization decisions, resulting in more conversions

😀 More subscription sign ups 

Last but not least, what every software house wants - subscription sign ups.

How do they relate to conversion optimization efforts? 

Well, if your conversion is indeed getting more paid subscribers, then working on increasing the rate of this action will… give you more subscriptions. Easy peasy.

❌ Myth: Your CRO efforts won’t bring you more subscribers

✔️Fact: Steps taken to improve your new subscription rate (CRO activity), will result in more subscriptions to your SaaS solution (provided that they’re effective)

How to CRO? Optimizing conversions of your SaaS business

So now that you know some of the benefits coming from CRO, let’s go over our best practices that will bring you closer to achieving them all. 

Below you will find recommendations and tips on boosting your Conversion Rate Optimisation efforts. 

Apply them today or keep your conversion rate at the current (or lower) level forever.

➡️ Develop a CRO roadmap

Everything starts with a plan. For CRO, your plan is your roadmap. 

Such a roadmap outlines the specific steps and strategies that will be taken to achieve every conversion goal. It also serves as a guide for the entire CRO process. 

Some of the best practices for developing a CRO roadmap include: 

• conducting thorough research on the target audience and their behavior, 
• setting clear goals and objectives, 
• regularly testing and experimenting with different strategies, and 
• continuously analyzing and evaluating the results to make data-driven decisions.

➡️ Have the right tools 

To have an idea of what exactly needs optimizing, you have to find this data out first. Otherwise, you may end up “fixing” things that don’t need fixing, and leaving those that scream “optimize me, please!”. 

If you want your CRO efforts to really be top notch, you need the right tools for it. 

Website analytics, visitor behavior tracking and session recordings solutions are just the perfect for this purpose. We highly recommend you have at least one in your toolstack if you really want to nail your CRO strategy.

Read also: Tools for improving conversion in SaaS

➡️ Utilize effective techniques 

Researching what’s good and what needs immediate changes is just half of the job done. 

The other half of the cake is changing and optimizing for the better. 

Now, there are numerous ways to improve your website and its elements, depending on what the issue is. 

Some of the best practices we recommend following in regards to your website design are:

• create a sense of urgency (e.g., using time-limited offers) to accelerate sales (conversions),
• make all buttons that call to action (CTAs) stand out by using a strong color,
• always place CTAs above the fold of your website,
• include * customer experience testimonials on your website to build trust
• limit sign up form fields on the website to absolute minimum.

By following these rules you get a chance to completely revolutionize (optimize) your conversion rate.

➡️ Pay attention to micro conversions

The devil’s in the detail, always.

When it comes to conversion rate optimization, that “detail” is… micro conversions. 

Micro conversions are small actions on your website that ultimately contribute to achieving your macro (key) conversions. 

Examples include viewing a product video, reading the pricing info on the website or adding comments under your blog posts. 

If you’re failing to reach your main conversions, it might be worth looking into every smaller conversion that has an impact on them. You won’t be able to fix big conversions if you don’t fix the small ones first. 

It’s all like a stack of dominoes - a failure on the way will stop you from progressing further.

➡️ Document and analyze your efforts

Going forward with our recommendations, let’s talk about your efforts and the need to: first, document them and second, analyze them.

This practice involves keeping detailed records of all CRO activities, including;

• the strategies used, 
• the results achieved, and 
• any insights gained. 

Once you start documenting these efforts, you can more easily identify patterns and trends in the data. This will help inform future decisions and strategies.

Additionally, analyzing the data collected through the documentation process is crucial to understanding what is working and what is not. 

For example, by analyzing the results of A/B testing, a SaaS business can determine which website design or copy generates the highest conversion rates. 

Read also: Why your conversion rate is low

➡️Optimize and… optimize again

Taking notes and analyzing your progress won’t bring you any results if you don’t act up on it. 

It’s key that you take the right optimization steps for best results. Without it, it’ll be difficult to improve.

Now, this may sound like mumbo jumbo, but you have to optimize your conversion rate optimization efforts.

By doing this at every stage of the process, your SaaS business can ensure that the process is as efficient and effective as possible.

Read also: CRO tips for more leads

CRO for SaaS: best practices summary

Tip💡: Create a Gantt chart with your CRO goals and a timeline for achieving them to hold yourself accountable and on track of everything

Tip💡: Use web analytics and session recording tools like LiveSession to know what works and what doesn’t for your SaaS website

Tip💡: Be creative with your conversion rate optimization efforts and use tested, proven techniques for better results

Tip💡: Use web analytics and session recording tools like LiveSession to track micro conversions on your website and see how they affect key conversions 

Tip💡: Keep track of your efforts and analyze them every step of the way to stay informed about your decisions

Tip💡: To optimize your SaaS business’s conversion rates, be sure to optimize every step of the CRO process

How LiveSession helps with Conversion Rate Optimisation 

We’ve mentioned that having the right tools and constantly optimizing your CRO are crucial to success. 

Luckily for you, you don’t have to spend hours on researching the ways to do it. 

We will gladly help you with our LiveSession solution.

LiveSession is a web analytics software that allows you to track and analyze user behavior on your website in real-time. 

It provides a variety of features, such as heat map, session replays, and form analytics. All this gives you a detailed understanding of how visitors interact with your website (and why they may not convert).

With this information, you can identify issues such as user drop-offs, confusion, or technical problems. Note that these can be prevent visitors from converting into customers. 

This way, you get to see how users interact with the website and find out the specific areas requiring improvement.

Top LiveSession features to boost your CRO efforts

We offer a comprehensive solution that takes website and user behavior analytics to a completely different, new level.

Our features include:

👉 user journey - observe and assess website visits to improve the journey of users

👉 rage clicks & error clicks - detect errors and pain points on your website automatically

👉 engagement score - quickly identify the most engaging sessions and watch them

👉 inspect mode - view how each element of your website is used

As an additional tool to your existing tool stack, we will provide you with a great deal of value. Become a member today - we offer a free trial and even a forever-free plan. 

Feel free to contact us if you need help with your SaaS CRO efforts!

Check how:

• we helped Talentlyft with achieving a 25.2% increase in trial to paid customer conversions
• Rocketlink increased the number of paid subscriptions by 40% with us
• we supported Databox with achieving a 223% increase in conversions to paid accounts

Wrap up

And voila! 

We hope you enjoyed our ultimate guide on conversion rate optimization for SaaS brands like yours.  By the end of this article, you should know things like:

• what CRO is,
• SaaS conversion metrics examples,
• how SaaS CRO may benefit you,
• what SaaS CRO best practices are,
• how LiveSession can help you with CRO for your SaaS brand.

Remember that the best practices are those tailored to your business. You have the power to nail any CRO effort by analyzing your SaaS website needs and acting according to them.

Once again, we invite you to use LiveSession.  We will gladly help you with this and many more challenges your SaaS website may face.

Thanks for stopping by, check our blog out for more content and good luck!

Conversion Rate Optimization FAQ

Now, for dessert, we’ve prepared a list of frequently asked questions about CRO. Learn more with us now.👇

What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?

CRO is the process of increasing the number of conversions that your SaaS brand has, for example the number of paid subscribers or downloads of a free ebook.

Why is CRO important for SaaS brands?

CRO is important for SaaS brands because it helps to increase the number of paying customers, which ultimately leads to increased revenue for the business.

What are some common CRO strategies for SaaS brands?

Some common CRO strategies for SaaS brands include A/B testing, improving website design and user experience, creating compelling copy and calls to action, and using targeted marketing campaigns.

How can SaaS brands measure the success of their CRO efforts?

SaaS brands can measure the success of their CRO efforts by tracking key metrics such as conversion rate, bounce rate, and average time on site.

How often should SaaS brands conduct CRO?

SaaS brands should conduct CRO on a continuous basis. As the market and target audience are always changing, it is important to regularly evaluate and optimize the website and marketing efforts to ensure they are effectively converting visitors into customers.

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