How to Run a CRO Audit: A Step-by-Step Process

What a CRO Audit Covers

A CRO audit is a structured review of your website's conversion performance — quantifying where and why users are not converting, and identifying the highest-priority opportunities to fix. The output is a prioritised list of conversion issues with supporting evidence, a hypothesis backlog, and a recommended testing roadmap.

Our CRO service follows this exact process for every new client engagement.

Step 1: Analytics Deep-Dive

Start with quantitative data from GA4:

• Overall conversion rate trend (last 90 days, YoY)
• Conversion rate by channel, device, and landing page
• Funnel completion rates at each step
• Pages with highest exit rates within conversion flows
• User segments with unusually low conversion rates (these are opportunities)

Step 2: Heatmap Review

Collect heatmap data (click, scroll, move) for your 5-10 highest-traffic or highest-impact pages. Review with specific questions: Is the CTA getting clicks? Where are users scrolling to? What elements are getting unexpected attention? Segment by device and traffic source where data volume allows.

Step 3: Session Recording Review

Watch 30-50 filtered session recordings on the highest-drop-off pages. Filter to sessions that entered the conversion flow but didn't complete it. Document recurring patterns — the same friction appearing across 10+ sessions is a finding; a one-off session is noise.

Step 4: Technical Audit

Check Core Web Vitals scores, mobile usability (Google Search Console), broken links in conversion flows, form validation errors, and cross-browser rendering issues. Technical problems are fixed, not tested — they don't require A/B tests to confirm.

Step 5: Synthesis and Prioritisation

Combine findings from all sources into a master list. For each finding, write a hypothesis and score it on Impact, Confidence, and Ease. The top-scored hypotheses become the A/B test backlog, ordered by expected ROI.

Deliver the findings as a presentation with visual evidence (screenshots, heatmap images, session recording clips) that makes the case for each opportunity compelling to stakeholders. Contact us to commission a CRO audit for your website.