#91: Your First 30 Days of CRO in the New Year

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

• 🕳️ CRO Deep Dive: New Heatmap Feature + a simple, high-impact CRO plan to build momentum in January.

• 🗺️ Goings On: Not nothin’

• 🤟Community love spotlight - Jordan Hill Shopify Plus CRO, Design & Dev
  

🚨 NEW FEATURE

Your Weekly Performance Alert Has Arrived

This isn’t just another report.

It’s your AI-powered performance alert, delivered straight to your inbox, so you always know what’s happening on your site.

Every week, Heatmap analyzes your recent performance data and highlights what actually matters:

✔️ Revenue swings — flagged
✔️ Conversion rate drops — spotted
✔️ High-performing pages — highlighted
✔️ Key trends from the last 7 days — summarized

Each email includes a 7-day performance comparison across your most important metrics:

• Engaged Sessions

• Website Revenue

• Conversion Rate (CVR)

• Revenue per Session

• Average Order Value (AOV)

• Page Views

Plus a high-level AI insight that tells you what’s changed and where to focus next.

The real insights, and where to dig deeper, live inside your Heatmap dashboard.

→ Open your alert
→ Follow the insight
→ Take action

👉 See What’s Driving Your Numbers → (Log in to your Heatmap dashboard)

🚨 New: Critical Drop Alerts

In addition to Weekly Performance Summaries, you can now turn on Critical Drop Alerts, proactive emails that notify you when selected key metrics suddenly drop.

Think of it as your early-warning system.

You’ll get alerted when metrics like:

• Conversion rate

• Revenue

• AOV

• Revenue per session

• Engaged sessions

• Page views

take a sharp decline, so you can investigate issues before they cost you real money.

Alerts can be:

• Sent to your inbox

• Connected to Slack

• Turned on or off anytime

👉 Set Up Your Alerts → (Log in to your Heatmap dashboard)

🕳️ CRO Deep Dive
Your First 30 Days of CRO — What to Do (and What to Ignore)

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.

January is where most CRO programs quietly fail.

Not because teams don’t care, but because they try to do too much, too fast, without a system.

If you want CRO to actually compound in 2026, here’s a clear 30-day plan to build momentum without burning out or chasing vanity metrics.

Week 1️⃣: Identify the Pages That Actually Matter

Why: CRO doesn’t start with ideas. It starts with prioritization.

Most sites generate the majority of revenue from a small set of pages.

🛠️ Do this first:
Identify:

• Top pages by revenue

• Top pages by traffic

• Pages with high exits or drop-offs

These are your CRO focus pages for the month.
Everything else goes on the backlog.

Week 2️⃣: Fix Clarity Before You Touch Design

Why: Confusion is the biggest conversion killer, and the easiest to fix.

Before redesigning anything, make sure visitors can instantly understand:

• What you sell

• Who it’s for

• Why it’s better

🛠️ Do this next:
Audit your key pages for:

• Clear, benefit-driven headlines

• Value props near CTAs

• Skimmable structure (not walls of text)

• Obvious next steps

If clarity is broken, no test will save it.

Week 3️⃣: Study “Almost Buyers”

Why: Your highest-ROI insights come from users who nearly converted.

🛠️ Do this next:
Review sessions where users:

• Viewed product or pricing pages

• Scrolled deeply

• Clicked CTAs

• Didn’t convert

Look for:

• Hesitation points

• Confusing sections

• Backtracking

• Repeated clicks

• Drop-offs near trust or pricing elements

This shows you exactly where friction lives.

Week 4️⃣: Remove Friction Before Running Tests

Why: Testing on top of friction just gives you misleading results.

🛠️ Do this before testing anything:
Clean up:

• Checkout steps

• Form length

• Mobile UX

• Page speed

• Error states

• Hidden fees or unclear pricing

A clean baseline makes every future test more valuable.

Day 30: Lock in a Weekly CRO Rhythm

Why: CRO only works when it’s continuous.

🛠️ Set this cadence:
Every week:

1. Review behavior + revenue data

2. Identify 1–2 priority issues

3. Fix or test

4. Measure impact

No massive roadmaps.
No endless test queues.
Just consistent progress.

Bottom Line

Your first 30 days of CRO should not be about doing more.

They should be about:

• Focusing on revenue pages

• Fixing clarity and friction

• Learning from real user behavior

• Building a simple, repeatable process

Do that the rest of January into February, and CRO becomes easier all year.

Want a Faster Way to Find Your First CRO 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 clear CRO starting point for 2026

Need Help Setting Your 2026 CRO Plan?

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 the year.

Bonus: 150-Point CRO Checklist

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

This checklist helps you fix the exact issues your report flags, step by step.

👉 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.