I’ve been thinking about what makes a world class conversion optimization organization for the past couple of days and have come up with what I think are the top 6 criteria.
I wasn’t shooting for 6 but it seems to cover all bases. I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts.

1. Optimization is embedded in planning, process and corporate culture at all levels.
2. Optimization efforts are prioritized based on maximum increase of revenue/goals.
3. Optimization is executed for the entire end-to-end user experience across all lines of business.
4. Optimization is based on analytical data, previous learnings and best practices.
5. User experience is targeted to individual visitor or group.
6. Optimization process itself is efficient (optimized).

In a bit more detail:

1 – Optimization is embedded in planning, process and corporate culture at all levels.
This means two things:
– There is full buy in from the executive team and every employee is on-board and understands that optimization is a commitment, not an add-on.
– All relevant internal processes take into account the opportunity to optimize. Testing is part of the standard process and budget.

2. Optimization efforts are prioritized based on maximum increase of revenue/goals.
What to test (both in terms of where on the site and which page elements) is based on where it makes the most business sense (based on numbers and research), NOT internal politics or personal opinion.

3. Optimization is executed for the entire end-to-end user experience across all site sections.
End-to-end means looking at both off-site (paid search, display, email, etc) and on-site opportunities as well as the making sure the “funnel” starts before they land on your site (ie. how does the messaging in your paid ad match the experience on the landing page).
Across all site sections applies to sites which have multiple competing goals or categories. For example product sales vs. consulting services. The goal is to maximize overall company revenue even if a large lift in one area causes a small decline in another. This also means cross section targeting.

4. Optimization is based on analytical data, non analytical user data (think personas), previous learnings and best practices.
This includes:
– Figuring out where and what to test (what the numbers are telling us)
– Visual site/page review (what is the user experience?)
– What do we know about our visitors (who are they? what makes them tick? what are they truly looking for?)
– What did we learn from previous tests? (Layout X performed better than layout Y on the shirts page).
– Are we just guessing to create challenger experiences or applying best practices (while still keeping an open mind).

5. User experience is targeted to individual visitor or group.
Serving up the same experience to all visitors will only get you so far (even if it’s optimized). I call this “lowest common denominator” optimization. Are you taking advantage of CRM type data (what did they buy in the page) and anonymous data (traffic source, search terms, geo-targeting, visit number, etc).

6. The optimization process itself is efficient (optimized).
It takes a while for the optimization process to go smoothly for all tests. Like anything new it takes a while for all of the parts to be in sync.

I can’t help but thinking a 7th bullet point would make a nicer headline (7 always sounds sexier than 6).
Any thoughts on what to add?

Thanks in advance,
Ophir