Welcome to Conversion Party. This week, we’ve got…

• 🕳️ CRO Deep Dive: New features, smarter insights, and a better way to optimize this year.

• 🗺️ Goings On: Not nothin’

• 🤟Community love spotlight -  Oliver Kenyon | CRO & Landing Pages
  

🕳️ CRO Deep Dive
Your 2026 CRO Reset: What to Fix First

Discover the strategies and tactics you need to optimize for more revenue in ecommerce. In this section we explore data-driven approaches, real world examples, and proven best practices to help you drive more sales and revenue.

👋 Welcome to 2026

Hope you had a great holiday break, we took a short pause too.

Now we’re back, and 2026 is shaping up to be our biggest year yet.

Before we dive into this week’s CRO Deep Dive, here’s a quick look at what’s coming to Heatmap this year 👇

🚀 What’s Coming to Heatmap in 2026

We’re focused on helping you move faster from insight → action, with less noise and more clarity.

Here’s a teaser of what’s rolling out:

• Weekly Email Summaries
  Get AI-generated insights and key performance highlights delivered straight to your inbox each week, showing you exactly where to focus and what to fix.

• Custom Tags
  Capture user behavior by creating events on your site in a simpler, more flexible way, so you can track what actually matters without complex setup.

• Journey Analysis
  Visualize how users move through your site across pages, steps, and funnels, and clearly see where they drop off, hesitate, or convert.

• Popup Surveys
  Ask your customers questions during their shopping experience and collect qualitative insights directly from them, tied to real user behavior.

More details coming soon, now let’s kick off the year with this week’s CRO Deep Dive.

A new year is the best time to reset how you approach CRO.

Not with more tests.
Not with more dashboards.
But with better priorities.

Here’s a 5-step CRO reset to start 2026 strong, no matter your traffic size.

1️⃣ Stop Optimizing Everything. Start With Revenue Pages

Why: Not all pages matter equally.

Most revenue is driven by a small number of pages — usually product pages, pricing pages, and checkout.

🛠️ Do this now:
Identify:

• Top pages by revenue

• Top pages by traffic

• Pages with high exit rates

These pages deserve 90% of your CRO attention. Everything else is secondary.

2️⃣ Re-Establish Message Clarity (Before You Touch Design)

Why: Confusion kills conversions faster than bad UX.

If visitors can’t immediately answer:

• What is this?

• Is it for me?

• Why should I care?

They leave.

🛠️ Do this now:
Audit your key pages for:

• Clear headlines (who + benefit)

• Obvious value props near CTAs

• Benefits before features

• Simple, skimmable structure

Clarity beats cleverness, every time.

3️⃣ Audit the “Almost Conversions”

Why: Your biggest wins come from people who almost converted.

🛠️ Do this now:
Look at sessions where users:

• Viewed high-intent pages

• Scrolled deeply

• Clicked CTAs

• Didn’t convert

Watch for:

• Hesitation

• Confusion

• Backtracking

• Rage clicks

• Form abandonment

This is where your highest-ROI fixes live.

4️⃣ Fix Friction Before Running New Tests

Why: Testing on top of friction just gives you bad data faster.

🛠️ Do this now:
Clean up:

• Checkout steps

• Form length

• Page speed

• Mobile tap targets

• Error states

• Unclear pricing or fees

A frictionless baseline makes every future test more valuable.

5️⃣ Build a Simple CRO Operating Rhythm

Why: CRO works best when it’s continuous, not reactive.

🛠️ Do this now:
Adopt a weekly loop:

• Review behavior + revenue data

• Identify 1–2 priority issues

• Fix or test

• Measure impact

Consistency beats complexity.

This is how CRO compounds over the year.

Bottom Line

2026 isn’t about doing more CRO.

It’s about doing the right CRO, consistently.

Start with clarity.
Fix friction.
Focus on revenue pages.
Let behavior guide your decisions.

Do that, and everything else gets easier.

Want to Start 2026 With Clear Priorities?

Run your homepage through the AI CRO Site Scanner and instantly see:

✔️ Where users get confused
✔️ Which elements drive revenue
✔️ What to fix first
✔️ A prioritized CRO roadmap for 2026

Need Help Turning Insights Into Action?

Book a free call with our CRO team.

We’ll review your site, identify your biggest revenue levers, and help you build a clear optimization plan for 2026.

Bonus: 150-Point CRO Checklist

Already scanned your site? Now it’s time to execute.

Our 150-Point Ecommerce CRO Checklist helps you fix the exact issues your report flags.

👉 GET THE FREE CRO CHECKLIST HERE

Ready to uncover the hidden friction points on your site?

Get the behavioral data you need to make smarter, data-backed decisions.

Want to learn more about other success stories? 
📖 Read more about them here →

🗺️ GOINGS ON
Not Nothin’

Stay in the loop with our latest partner activations, from webinars and in-person meetups to fresh content collaborations. We’ll highlight upcoming events, share key takeaways from recent gatherings, and give you an inside look at what’s brewing in our network.

How to Increase Store Conversions & Profit in 2026

Join us Thursday, Jan 15 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET for a FREE live session with Blue Stout.

AI is changing how people shop, and brands that win in 2026 will rebuild their store experience around new buyer behavior.

You’ll learn:

• The 3 biggest shifts shaping conversions in 2026

• Hidden revenue wins on your PDPs

• The top optimization to implement in Q1

• Live store teardowns + Q&A

Can't make it? Register and we’ll send the replay.

 🤟 COMMUNITY LOVE

Our featured tweet of the week, where we share bite-sized insights or a quick tip that’s making waves in the world of e-commerce. Consider it your fast track to staying updated on what’s trending.