Once an app is completed, it is best practice to conduct a proper CRO audit before putting your foot on the gas in advertising. A CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) audit is used to determine what problem/problems lie within your app that would cause low conversion rates. Most app advertising companies know to conduct a CRO audit prior to an app’s launch, being that an app’s UX (User Experience) is priority number one when trying to rank well on mobile app marketplaces. Â
Your mobile app is making impressions on app stores and on other media platforms, but it’s not delivering in downloads and retention. So what’s holding your app conversions down? Sometimes it can just be something minor that turns a user away from your app. Whether it be a troublesome sign-up process or faulty in app functionality. That’s what the CRO audit is for, to catch these problems and improve upon them.Â
Establish Goals Before The CRO Audit
When beginning a CRO audit of your app, set clear objectives before stepping into it. The goal is to analyze data pulled from your apps marketing, development, and usage. Then pick the data apart to find pain points within your app’s UI (User Interface). Have your advertising goals align with your development goals. Don’t push a feature on advertising if it is not fully optimized in the app yet.Â
Reinforce your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicator). This where you will see where your app strives and where it doesn’t. Focus on effective pages/features and try to minimize stress points within your app. Use this data to get a better understanding of your user and find your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). Useful data would be pages users frequently land on, how long they are on that page, and what pages they leave and why . For example, heat maps are a great way in finding the exact point users gravitate towards and what points are glanced over on websites.Â
How a CRO Audit Can Drive App DownloadsÂ
After determining your ICP, you can now use this to hone in on your target demographic, then further optimize your app to best fit your user’s needs. Gather market research, analyze it, and use it to determine what areas within your app’s UX that need further optimization. Baseline metrics are a great way to track data and in app events over time to help make these decisions.   Â
Mark Off Your CRO Audit ChecklistÂ
Now that you have found your pain points within your app, you can start addressing them properly and run more tests. No need to do a total overhaul, but be sure to have a plan and check down the list in importance. Let the data do the talking. A slow and steady increase in conversions over time is a good sign and can lead to a large loyal user base. Split tests can be used as a low risk strategy to find out what works and what doesn’t, given the app’s platform. Testing something on only Apple, Google, or Facebook on their own is a good way to experiment changes on a small scale and build off success. Feedback and reviews from users are always helpful too! Target your app’s problematic areas accordingly then continue to optimize them as much as possible.Â