I Wish I Could Rename My Industry

Marketers, product teams, growth teams…

These newsletters are for you. You’re my people.

Website owners. Mobile app owners. SaaS product owners. Anyone that is responsible for a digital funnel in a business organization.

These newsletters are for you. You’re my people.

Technically, my field of work is “Conversion Rate Optimization” aka “CRO.” I’m so sick of that name though. It’s an awful name. It immediately turns a lot of people off either because the acronym also stands for Chief Revenue Officer, there are misconceptions that it’s a very limited scope of work that is often perceived as a “someday” side project, or a whole multitude of other reasons.

Here’s what my expertise boils down to as I think it’s important for anyone reading this to understand the writer of it and what she (me) is qualified to talk about here…as is true for any information source.

For new and returning readers alike, hi there. I’m Haley Carpenter. 👋 

Like I just said, I’m technically a specialist in Conversion Rate Optimization. What that really means is that I help companies make more money online. You know the website you just visited? The mobile app you just used? The online tool you used yesterday, like Canva? All of those have tons of users like you, right? And sometimes those experiences are really easy and pleasant? And sometimes they totally suck? People like me are responsible for improving them so that more of them are the former—easy and pleasant.

When things are easier and more pleasant to use, companies will ultimately sell more and get more returning people from that. To make things easier and more pleasant, lots of companies will just make guesses to figure out what is best. Not great as you might assume.

So instead, people like me come in and apply a proven system that utilizes data and tests to figure out what is best. No, it’s not some “system” that someone made up to sell like a pyramid scheme. It’s a system that stemmed from the scientific and academic communities, which has been applied to the world of business.

Soooo….with that said….here’s more about me in an effort to demonstrate why I have any cred to write a newsletter like this… 👇

I’m based in Austin, Texas, USA. I’ve been in the digital industry for nearly a decade now. I have a Bachelor of Science in business administration with professional experience from some of the top names and companies in the CRO industry. I primarily have an agency background but have also worked at a relevant SaaS company as well. I’ve worked at the small business, mid-market, and enterprise levels. I’ve had clients across all of those levels as well. I’ve worked domestically and internationally. I always hate to name drop clients, but I’ll do it in an effort to demonstrate competence. I’ve worked with companies like Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Native, FedEx, Miro, Toast, Vitamix, Olaplex, Parkmobile, Procore, Saatva, Icelandair, Myriad Genetics, and more. Now (and for the past few years) I own and operate Chirpy, a boutique CRO services agency for mid-market and enterprise businesses primarily in the United States, Canada, and Europe. I have a husband and two German Shepherds.

This newsletter gets published every week—by me and me only. I have recurring segments that I rotate in and out. I hope you enjoy this week’s compilation.

There’s a new section this week called Brain Spaghetti at the end…it includes a coffee recommendation. ☕️

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), But Correct ✅

CRO is done poorly so often. There’s tons of misinformation. Untrained people. Poorly trained or undertrained people. Confusion. So on and so forth. Here’s a source of truth for you to help you learn how to do CRO in all the right ways.

Here's an example of why AI is not a replacement for humans.

Let's say your development team is backlogged for months but you'd like to run tests...on your website, mobile app, or SaaS product, etc.

What can you do besides wait around or abandon testing completely? A lot of teams don't know what to do, OR they get duped into buying tools that won't solve their problems.

I asked ChatGPT.

Here was the answer: "What to do if your dev team is backlogged for months: If you’re waiting on engineering to run experiments, you’ll never move fast enough. This is where low-code and no-code testing tools come in. They let you test front-end changes without touching your main codebase. But even more important—prioritize tests that don’t need full builds. Copy changes. Layout tweaks. Friction removal."

Wrong. Why?

Low-code and no-code tools still almost always require a developer to some extent. Teams get duped by tool sales teams all the time. If they don't, that's an indicator that your tests are consistently too small (e.g., copy changes, small layout tweaks because big ones will likely break something without a dev). You're so far below the maximum impact potential. You're losing out on the big gains. This is why lots of teams don't always see the value in Conversion Rate Optimization and testing. I always say to these teams, it's never the system that fails you, it's the humans (or AI) running it. Sure, you can do your best with low-code/no-code tools but that's not going to get all of the results you want.

Now pretend you asked a senior, experienced human. She'd know to push back on that AI response. She'd either continue prompting it for valid ideas or she wouldn't even use AI (more likely) because she knows the proper options and is able to correctly consider the factors at play.

Some proper options (the right answers will depend on the team):

(1) Inventory what you can control today

Start by mapping the elements of your site that you can change without engineering.

(2) Test upstream, not just UI

Run tests in ads, emails, and outbound.

(3) Run users tests that you can turn into quantitative data

Use tools like Lyssna to run surveys and preference tests. This creates fast insight to inform dev-priority experiments later.

(4) Build a prioritized testing roadmap

Use a prioritization framework. A huge component considered should be effort weighed against impact potential. When dev opens up, you’re not wasting more time on deciding what’s worth building.

(5) Use your CMS for light MVPs

Consider duplicating a landing page (for example) and directing a portion of traffic to it manually. It’s not the cleanest data, but it gives you directional signal.

(6) Work to change company culture over time to increase buy-in

You'll get more into the roadmap and you might even get into the dev backlog sooner than expected.

A Tactic You Should Test 🧪

This is where I share smart, creative ideas that are worth trying. Not theoretical fluff. Just real-world tactics that have the potential to lift conversions, retention, loyalty, or engagement. Try them, test them, tweak them.

SaaS Websites: Primary Call-to-Action Button Copy for Sales-Led Growth

The hope is to create an additional entry point for visitors who aren’t yet ready to engage with sales but would benefit from a real conversation with someone who understands their domain. Ideally, some may later convert to a demo, but conversion isn’t the primary goal."

My response:

"Most users typically assume that getting a demo IS talking to experts. They’ll also likely assume that the expert CTAs listed are sales-related even if that’s not the intent. Sometimes the 'Talk to an Expert' copy is even used for demos. You could make it clear that it’s not sales-y on the page you send them to, but even then, it’ll still likely add some friction throughout. This would be an excellent A/B test though if you have a testing program because it’s just guessing at the end of the day without data behind it."

The major difference, if any, will most likely be who clicks it. "Talk to an Expert" can be less committal and broader language than "Get a Demo."

If you're wanting to offer a secondary CTA, I'd recommend trying something focused more on product education and product discovery first like "Learn More" or "See How It Works."

Chirpy Intel 👀

For those of you interested in entrepreneurship and my journey with Chirpy, this section is for you. I’ll share company happenings, struggles, topics I’m noodling on, etc. Even if you don’t run a company, this definitely still applies to other roles like marketers, sales, customer service, HR, and more. A founder truly does it all.

What is the best newsletter cadence?

I’ve been doing weekly newsletters. However, there are several newsletters that I get 2-3x a week. There are several that I get daily. I’m trying to figure out what works best while offering an acceptable subscriber experience. What is “leakproof?” (See what I did there? 🙃)

Last week, I tried two editions. Performance didn’t stray from the average. Perhaps I’ll try that again this week. I may do a few weeks of it so that I can aggregate the data for a loose A/B test like a true optimization dork.

My list of pros for a higher frequency:

• You have a better chance at staying in someone’s “awareness set” and being top-of-mind.

My list of cons for a lower frequency:

• People may get annoyed at how many emails you send and your engagement rates might be lower.

• It’s a lot more time and effort to create them. You also may not truly have that much valuable content ready to go all the time.

What has worked best for you? Any data to support your choice? I’d love to know.

Open Industry Jobs

• Udemy: B2B Lifecycle Marketing Manager (Link)

• Klaviyo: Lead Product Manager, Sales & Marketing Tools (Link)

• Formlabs: Product Marketing Manager (Link)

• Demandbase: Senior Field Marketing Manager (Link)

• Thomson Reuters: Senior Product Marketing Manager (Link)

• Stripe: Product Marketing Manager, Market Intelligence (Link)

• HID: Ecommerce Marketing Manager (Link)

• Zilliz: Marketing Manager, Growth and Demand Generation (Link)

• Plaid: Product Marketing Manager (Link)

• HubSpot: Marketing Manager, Partner GTM & Enablement (Link)

• Super Green: Product Marketing Manager (Link)

• Swooped: Product Marketing Manager (Link)

Brain Spaghetti 🍝

🤨 Why can’t I create custom emojis for my MacBook like I can in Slack? I mean, seriously, isn’t that something we should be able to do by now? Just an idea. If you know how to do it, please tell me. The internet has yet to give me the answer or a workaround.

☕️ Looking to mix up your coffee routine? I’m a HUGE fan of Stok coffee. It’s cold. Perfectly balanced and smooth every time. They have unsweet and not-too-sweet (i.e., the perfect level of sweet) options. It’s reasonably priced. I’d always picked it up for camping trips but now I’m a daily drinker. I’ve scrapped my daily hot coffee routine, at least for the boiling hot Austin, TX summer. I bought four bottles just last week alone. No joke. (The Thai Kitchen coconut milk was from my hot coffee drinking habit but that has clearly been kicked to the side.)

Most brands treat CRO as a “someday” project. It’s really an “always, anytime” project. I ended my newsletter with this last week, and I’m doing it again this week for emphasis.

I think people often interpret the term “optimization” as something to be done toward the end of a linear, sequential line of work. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Optimization isn’t only to build upon something in a finished state. It is meant to make improvements and maximize outcomes at every step.

Stay Chirpy,

Haley 🤘

P.S. If you want to respond back to me about any of my callouts this week, like newsletter frequency or the inability to create custom emojis on my MacBook, email me at [email protected].

If you want to talk about how we could optimize your online funnels by eliminating guesswork, we can do that, too.