Data-Driven CRO and CVO: Insights from Ruben de Boer

Data-driven CRO and Customer Value Optimization (CVO) are not opponents. CRO turns visitors into customers through research, hypotheses and A/B tests. CVO makes those customers worth more across the whole lifecycle. The brands that grow use both, and they use them as one team.

We did not start there, though. During one of our CVO Live episodes, we sat down with Ruben de Boer to discuss one of the most heated "battles" in the Digital Marketing Arena: acquisition vs. retention.

In one corner, weighing 100 pounds of tests and statistics, you have the CRO champions. Focused on research, hypothesizing and A/B tests, these people think a highly converting website is the key to business growth.

In the opposite corner, weighing 100 pounds of surveys and JTBDs, you have the CVO heroes. Focused on the customer, data collection and objective decisions, CVO people are convinced that a customer-centric approach is the winning bet.

Who will win? As CVO evangelists, you would expect us to back the CVO champion, right? Well, not quite. We believe in balance. We believe in the right balance.

To find it, we invited Ruben de Boer (LinkedIn) to a CVO Live episode to share the CRO professional's view on Customer Value Optimization. At the time of recording, Ruben was a Conversion Optimization Consultant and bestselling instructor, as well as Lead Conversion Manager at Online Dialogue. We wanted to see how a CRO strategy fits into the CVO methodology for an eCommerce business.

What followed was an eye-opening conversation between Ruben and Valentin Radu about the relationship between the CRO process and the CVO methodology, overcoming organizational inertia, and the unlikely benefits of a customer-centric approach. You can watch the full episode on YouTube. Let's ride!

How do CRO and CVO fit together?

First things first. It should not be a matter of one versus the other. Both concepts are essential in your optimization strategy, and both revolve around making an online business more effective at meeting customers' needs and expectations.

An effective CRO program increases your conversions and turns site visitors into customers. However, the job is not done as soon as you meet your conversion goals.

It is similar to losing weight. Even if you take your efforts to new heights while shedding the weight, if you return to your former lifestyle afterwards, you will soon be back at square one. Losing the weight is only the beginning. Then comes maintenance: healthy food choices and continuous training.

In eCommerce, increased conversions are only the first step of business growth. What happens after, with retention, matters as much as what happens on social media and on your website. From this perspective, CRO is part of the bigger CVO picture.

CRO and CVO have distinct objectives, but they are interconnected. Combined, they let a business improve conversions while maximizing the value derived from each customer. If you want the full framework, read our guide to the Customer Value Optimization methodology.

Why optimize the entire lifecycle instead of only the website?

Until a few years ago, the status quo was that marketing managers were really spending managers. They measured conversions on the website, then used conversion rate optimization tools to turn more visitors into customers.

The more money invested in bringing the target audience to the website, the more customers joined the brand. Most of the budget went into buying traffic, analyzing visitor behavior and changing the website to make it more persuasive. It was a numbers game. The more people on the website, the merrier.

Not anymore. The spike in customer acquisition costs, emerging privacy anxieties and the vanishing of third-party data forced online brands to explore fresh avenues for growth. For some brands, this became a matter of survival, as they faced the reality that their existing strategies were no longer sustainable.

In this context, open-minded brands shifted their focus from optimizing the website for conversion rate to a more holistic approach: Customer Value Optimization.

You can see the change in the eCommerce briefs that consultants and experts receive. A few years ago, the main concern was optimizing conversion rates through A/B testing on landing pages and checkout. Now businesses want guidance on optimizing the entire customer experience. They ask about personalization, optimization tools, AI integration and experimentation across the whole sales funnel.

According to Ruben, this shift towards a more comprehensive perspective shows the industry's progress. It signals a transition from short-term CRO to an ongoing commitment to experimentation throughout the customer journey. For Ruben, it also underlines the importance of delivering value at every touchpoint and building a lasting customer relationship.

What happens when CRO and CVO work as one team?

What will the future look like when we stop seeing CRO versus CVO and see them as two parts of the same story? Ruben already sees this shift in the digital landscape, and calls it a "game-changer."

And we agree. When teams work together instead of in isolated silos, they unlock a treasure trove of insights. Those insights show brands what truly works at each stage of the customer journey, combining CRO and CVO tactics to fine-tune the whole optimization process.

However, Ruben warns that there is a secret sauce to this collaboration: documentation. Diligently recording all your learnings builds a robust database that reveals the desires and objectives of your customers. It then becomes clear how to optimize every single step in the lifecycle.

The asterisk is that this type of collaboration works only when brands encourage teamwork, knowledge sharing and process alignment inside the organization. That culture is not built in one day. For some brands, it may even look like an expense they cannot afford. Inside such a culture, though, you are set up for remarkable results. Ruben goes deeper into building it in his own article on how to create an experimentation culture.

Why is experimentation a form of customer research?

Ruben also shared an interesting idea: experimentation is essentially a form of research. In customer-oriented CRO, experimentation becomes the most important form of research, because it uncovers what works and what does not.

That is why the work starts with a dialogue across multiple teams and an extensive study of data and behavior. Picture this: a squad of analysts and data scientists, a crew of UX designers and researchers, and several psychologists. Together, they dig into their research sources to understand what happens on the website, how the product performs, what goes on before people even land on the site, and, most importantly, what customers need.

Ruben gave the example of one of his top clients, who significantly upgraded their commercial based on lessons learned from user research and A/B testing in the funnel. That is the power of collaboration: teams strengthening one another through shared knowledge.

From a rigid CRO mindset to an experimentation mindset

Traditionally, CRO focuses on boosting conversion rates on a website. It optimizes the website experience so visitors are more likely to take the desired actions and become customers.

Experimentation goes beyond CRO and covers a broader spectrum. When you move past (sometimes) limited CRO tactics and work from an experimentation mindset, you optimize many aspects of how the brand presents itself: the product itself, referrals, and even the advertising that brings people to your website.

For Ruben, this expansion is fantastic. It means CRO specialists are no longer confined to their silos. They branch out, collaborate with other teams, and take on a new challenge: motivating colleagues to adopt a mindset built on:

• Experimentation
• Data-driven decision-making
• Prioritizing customers' needs

This opens up real opportunities for growth and innovation. In practice, it means your testing tool has to reach beyond the website's checkout: Omniconvert Explore combines A/B testing, personalization and on-site surveys, so research and experiments live in the same place.

How do you build the case for customer-centricity?

All is good in this collaborative environment. Yet not every business understands the need to shift. And it is not because of rigidity or stubbornness. The bottom line matters to every brand, and sometimes there is not enough bandwidth to overhaul the whole organization while still earning monthly revenue.

Think about personal goals like losing weight or saving money. Achieving them demands a change in behavior, and many people find that hard. Approach this transformation as a fun educational challenge and stay mindful to avoid frustration. It will not happen overnight, so it will require your time and patience.

You may be tempted to convince your colleagues with facts and figures alone. That approach comes off as pushy. It ignores your colleagues' interests, KPIs and ways of working.

Instead, try to be seen as a likable authority. The Gandalf and Dumbledore of the eCommerce space: humble, passionate and respectful. Take an interest in your colleagues' work and align experimentation with their goals rather than imposing your own objectives.

At the same time, as Ruben puts it so well, it is not about being against others. Moving the focus from the product to the customer means multiple teams joining the same mission and working toward a common goal. With humility, respect and genuine interest in your colleagues' point of view, you can build an environment where experimentation, customer-centricity and data-driven practices become the norm.

How do you overcome organizational inertia?

Even if your teammates and stakeholders are open-minded and willing to become more customer-centric, there is still a hurdle to pass. It is common in large organizations: leadership may be supportive, but middle management and execution teams face inertia. A.k.a. "We've always done it this way."

Picture this scenario. You have an enthusiastic internal champion for experimentation, but other departments are not as keen. They need influence and collaboration before they dive into experimentation and customer-centricity. So, how do you tackle it? Ruben's approach, step by step:

1. Keep it small and simple

   Do not overwhelm people with complex statistics and graphs. Start with a single idea that the other department cares about.
2. Implement it together

   Discuss the idea with the team and run it with them, not for them. It is all about collaborating with and motivating different departments.
3. Give the champion a structured process

   As in UX research or CRO, hold a regular stand-up to discuss ongoing experiments, research and responsibilities.
4. Reserve time to plan the persuasion

   Use the last 10 minutes of those stand-ups to brainstorm how to motivate specific departments or teams, and share what each person has learned.
5. Optimize the approach itself

   Treat winning people over like any other experiment: keep what works, drop what does not, and repeat.

It is an ongoing journey of education, brainstorming and optimization that leads to growth and innovation. For the wider causes of resistance to change, see our article on organizational inertia.

What is the future of CRO, according to Ruben de Boer?

At the end of the podcast, we switched from the present to the future. What happens next?

Ruben predicts that the days of CRO specialists working in isolation are numbered. The CRO silo is on its way out, and these specialists are taking their experimentation mindset and customer-centric approach into product and marketing teams. The goal is to optimize the entire customer journey, with a focus on experimentation, personalization and the growing role of AI.

• Marketing teams are working across the whole customer journey, looking for opportunities for experimentation, personalization and AI. It is an ambitious goal that requires preparation and a close eye on a changing landscape.
• Product teams are adopting a continuous discovery track: they conduct user research and continuously validate ideas and assumptions. Experimentation plays a vital role here and in product delivery, where engineering pipelines become hubs for experimentation.

In Ruben's experience, these trends were gaining momentum in mature markets such as the United States, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

AI's dual impact on experimentation

Ruben sees AI affecting experimentation in two ways:

1. Personalization at scale. AI will power personalized messaging, landing pages, ads and other touchpoints, for a highly tailored customer experience.
2. More efficient work. AI can automate tasks like analyzing reviews and surveys and building code. At the time of the interview this was not fully realized yet, but he expected AI's role in making the work more efficient to keep growing.

Together, collaboration, personalization and AI-driven efficiency mark a significant shift in how we approach experimentation and optimization. They unlock new levels of success and, at the same time, deliver exceptional experiences for your customers. For a closer look at the tools, read our guide to AI A/B testing.

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