How To Measure 9 CRO Metrics To Benefit Your Online Business (2024)

You post a series of colorful carousel ads on Instagram, each slide featuring different influencers styling your new shoe line. The feedback is positive — likes and comments are pouring in — so you’re sure it’ll result in plenty of new sales. But when you check your stats, you notice abandoned shopping cart after abandoned shopping cart. What gives?

Conversion rate optimization metrics can provide an answer. By measuring the effectiveness of your conversion strategy, these data points give insight into user behavior to help you convert more leads into customers. 

What is conversion rate optimization?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of refining your website, marketing campaigns, or other public-facing material to increase the chance users will take desired actions (conversions). Depending on your priorities, conversions might include making purchases, signing up for a newsletter, or leaving a comment or review. 

You can pursue one or more types of conversions with a single campaign. For example, with a new ad, your goal might be to gain followers on Facebook and get a certain number of sales.

What are CRO metrics?

CRO metrics are measurements that allow you to monitor user engagement and conversions, giving you a comprehensive view of how well your strategy is working and where you can improve. Using this data-driven approach lets you make informed decisions. 

For example, if your ecommerce site has a high bounce rate (the number of users who leave your site without taking any action), then you might have a technical issue (like slow load times) or a layout that lacks appeal. This data can give you an idea of what actions you might take to encourage visitors to interact with your website.

Relevant CRO metrics can thus serve as key performance indicators that help you reach your business goals.

Benefits of tracking CRO metrics

Optimizing your website to boost conversions requires continuous adjustments, but the effort can bring several benefits:

Identify leaks in the funnel

CRO metrics help you get a clear picture of problems impacting your funnel conversion rate or the percentage of potential customers who complete a desired action (like registering and setting up a customer profile). Leaks can happen anywhere on the sales funnel, such as during the awareness (top), interest (middle), or action (bottom) stages, and CRO metrics can help you identify where potential customers are dropping off.

These insights are especially helpful because users often won’t share their frustrations with you. Metrics, like time spent on page, can reveal those hidden pain points. For example, if users spend little time on a product page, it can signal that something technical isn’t working properly (like a broken link) or that the layout or copy could use refinement.

Create more resonant content

You may have a hunch that website visitors prefer direct calls to action (CTAs) or blog post titles with questions, but the best way to know is through measuring CRO metrics, which give you objective insights you can use to improve your marketing strategy.

For example, say you have a daily puzzle app and you want to strike the right tone. You A/B test two CTAs on your landing page: “Boost your memory with a daily puzzle” and “Can you outscore your friend? Challenge them today!” From your test, you learn that tapping into a user’s competitive spirit drives more conversions than touting the benefits, giving you more information on how to approach your content. 

Measure return on investment

As you pump time and resources into different strategies, you want to ensure they are worth pursuing. By tracking CRO metrics, you can better understand whether you’re getting a return on investment (ROI) from your marketing efforts.

For example, if you spend $3,000 in digital ads but only make $1,000 in sales that are attributable to those ads, then you might want to look for ways to tweak your campaign to drive better results.

Stay ahead of the game

User behavior and trends are always evolving. Regularly analyzing the most important CRO metrics helps you identify these changes instead of letting them sneak up on you. 

Let’s say you see that mobile users are starting to become your primary traffic source. Now you can prepare by ensuring the mobile version of your website loads quickly and can handle an increase in visitors.

9 key CRO metrics to track

1. Conversion rate
2. Ecommerce conversion rate
3. Micro-conversion rate
4. Customer acquisition cost
5. Bounce rate
6. Average time on site
7. Pages per session
8. Click-through rate
9. Exit rate

There are nine key CRO metrics you can track to get a comprehensive understanding of your website’s performance and where opportunities lie to increase conversion and customer satisfaction. 

Here are the most important conversion metrics to consider tracking:

1. Conversion rate

Conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your website, such as subscribing to a newsletter, making a purchase, or signing up for a free trial. A higher conversion rate indicates your website is guiding users toward a specific activity.

The conversion rate formula is:

Conversion rate = Total conversions / Total visits to your website

The average conversion rate for ecommerce sites is between 2.5% and 3%.

2. Ecommerce conversion rate

The ecommerce conversion rate metric shows the rate of visitors who make a purchase. This might also be called “sales conversion rate.” It uses a similar but more specific formula as conversion rate.

To calculate, use the following formula:

Ecommerce conversion rate = Orders / Total visits to your website 

Let’s say you send out a newsletter announcing a sale, and you receive 300 visits to your website. Of those users, 20 make a purchase. Your ecommerce conversion rate is 0.067 or 6.7%.

3. Micro-conversion rate

As the name suggests, micro-conversions are smaller actions (like visiting a product page or adding an item to a cart) that move users closer to the ultimate goal of purchase. Analyzing these mini-actions can help you determine if there’s a leak in your funnel.

For example, if 60% of visitors exit your website after they add an item to their cart, it could mean that your checkout page is too complicated, confusing, or not working.

Calculate your micro-conversion rate with this formula:

Micro-conversion rate = Micro-conversions / Total visits to your website

4. Customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the average cost associated with acquiring a new customer. The basic CAC formula focuses solely on calculating marketing efforts like more sales outreach and running paid ads.

Since you can use CAC to analyze individual channels or overall campaigns, you can determine what methods are most effective and profitable, letting you identify bottlenecks in your sales funnel. It also helps set a realistic budget to execute cost-effective marketing strategies.

To calculate basic CAC, use the following formula:

CAC = Total marketing spend / New customers

If you want to get more specific, you can use true CAC, which also includes the cost of goods sold (COGS), or the direct cost of producing the products your business sells. The formula is:

True CAC = (Total marketing spend + COGS) / New customers

5. Bounce rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page, indicating your content isn’t meeting user needs. Technical errors, content that’s not optimized, or a confusing layout can lead to high bounce rates. 

Honing in on what pages or elements of your website you can improve can help you keep visitors around long enough to take an action.

Calculate bounce rate with this formula:

Bounce rate = Single-page sessions / Total sessions

A good bounce rate varies by industry and business type. However, content sites (like news sites and blogs) typically have a bounce rate between 30% and 60%; meanwhile, business-to-business (B2B) sites hover at around 25% to 55% and ecommerce sites range from 20% to 40%. 

6. Average time on site

Average time on site measures how long a visitor typically spends browsing your website in a single visit. A low average time can signal issues like long load times, poor content, or confusing navigation. 

Use the following formula to learn how long visitors stay on your site:

Average time on site = Total time on site / Total sessions

Across industries, visitors spend an average of 54 seconds on a website. However, B2B sites lead the pack with 1.37 minutes.

7. Pages per session

This important metric is a reflection of how deeply visitors explore your website. A higher number of pages per session translates to increased user engagement. If visitors find your content valuable, they want to keep delving into different pages. The more pages they view, the higher their chance of converting. 

Use the following formula to calculate pages per session: 

Pages per session = Total pageviews / Total sessions

Gathering information on nearly 3,000 websites, Contentsquare found that across all industries, the average pages per session was 4.9 on desktop and 4.4 on mobile. 

8. Click-through rate

Click-through rate (CTR) is a critical metric that shows the percentage of users who click on a specific link compared to the total number of people who see it. This is especially useful for tracking the success of marketing campaigns. For example, if you send out an email newsletter encouraging customers to sign up for a webinar, you can determine if your email is landing with your audience. 

Calculate CTR with this formula: 

Click-through rate = (Number of clicks / Number of Impressions) 

A good click-through rate depends on the industry and channel. According to WordStream, the average CTR for personal services websites (like a cleaning service) is 6.12%, while beauty and personal care sites is 5.44%.

9. Exit rate

Exit rate tracks the percentage of visitors who leave your website from a specific page. If a user starts at your home page and visits several pages before exiting on the sales page, this metric would apply to that last page.

The exit rate can help you identify patterns. If enough people are exiting your website from the same page, that means there is room for improvement on that page to keep users engaged and on the path to conversion. 

Here’s how to calculate exit rate:

Exit rate = Number of exits from the page / Total number of visits to the page

Exit rates vary, with content websites typically having higher rates of around 70% to 80%. But for a checkout page for an ecommerce website, aim for 20% to 40%.