How Blend Made a CRO Positioning Mistake by Jumping to Conclusions

In 2022, we messed up.

We got a bit too clever for our own good.

And it set us back.

Conversion Rate Optimisation was just starting to gain traction as a tactic.

But we kept noticing the same thing over and over again...

People did not really understand what CRO actually was.

Call after call, we heard the same assumptions.

All we did was increase conversion rates with tiny tweaks.

Button colours.

Small changes.

A/B tests for the sake of it.

That sort of thing.

And because we heard it so often, we jumped to a conclusion.

The problem must be the name.

So clever old us thought...

Right, that is it.

We are no longer a CRO agency.

We are now a Customer Value Optimisation (CVO) Agency.

No more having to explain that there are more growth levers to pull than just Conversion Rate.

No more having to explain that CRO is not just a button colour test.

No more carrying the baggage that came with the name.

We thought we had nailed the problem.

The observation was correct

The insight was incorrect.

We thought we had a positioning problem because of the name of our solution.

What we actually had was an awareness problem around the problems our solution solves.

And that is a very different thing.

Brands already knew they had problems.

• High customer acquisition costs.

• Low average order value.

• Poor customer retention.

• Weak conversion rates.

They were feeling those problems every single day.

What they did not know was that CRO could help solve them.

That was the real issue.

We assumed the market was already solution-aware and just misunderstood our label.

In reality, most brands just did not know CRO was one of the answers.

So we changed the wrapper...

When we should have spent more time educating the market.

Showing how CRO is not just about conversion rate.

Showing how it can increase average order value.

Improve retention.

Lower acquisition costs.

Improve revenue per visitor.

Improve the value of the traffic you already have.

And that is the danger of moving too fast from observation to action.

You see a pattern.

You assume you know what it means.

You make a change.

And only later do you realise you solved the wrong problem.

In case you missed it yesterday, here’s a copy of the Insights Documentation Template to help you slow down and fully understand your observations.

👉 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GHeaqgfjnEbHHCs-fTQvirk7dhWb8nFPjmD_pIpTHIU/copy?

Chat soon,

Peter