Conversion Rate Optimisation: The Checklist We Run Before Any Ad Spend Increases

Increasing advertising spend into a website with unresolved conversion problems simply multiplies the leak rather than the result, which is why this checklist is worth running before any significant increase in ad budget, not after.

Check the actual path, not the average

Overall conversion rate hides enormous variation between traffic sources, devices and landing pages. Segment conversion rate by these before assuming the site as a whole is the problem; frequently, one specific landing page or one device type is dragging the average down while the rest of the site performs perfectly well.

Check load time on the actual page people land on

A homepage that loads quickly tells you nothing about the specific landing page an ad campaign sends traffic to, which is often a heavier page loaded with tracking scripts and third-party widgets. Test the exact landing page, on a real mobile connection, since a meaningful share of paid traffic on most campaigns arrives on mobile.

Check that the next step is obvious, not just present

A call to action that technically exists on the page but competes visually with five other things asking for attention performs far worse than one that is unmistakably the next step. This is usually a design problem disguised as a marketing problem, and it is one of the highest-return fixes available, because it costs nothing to fix once identified.

Treat conversion rate optimisation as ongoing, not a one-off project

Conversion rate optimisation is not a project with an end date; it is a habit of testing one change at a time and keeping what works. Businesses that run conversion rate optimisation as a continuous process consistently get more out of the same advertising budget than businesses that treat it as a single audit and move on. Our ecommerce and website team runs this exact conversion rate optimisation audit before recommending any increase in ad spend for a client.