https://preview.redd.it/z7xbdxeniu0d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d3a4b6ffa80a972f422be4809ce3e721f5b9e7c6
Cover Art First Chapter Playlist Character sheets
The Story:
Keeping her store on Earth was supposed to keep her out of trouble, but when a human walks through her wards like they weren't there, Aloe finds herself with a mystery on her hands. Unfortunately for the human, her people love mysteries - and if she doesn't intervene, no one will. With old enemies sniffing around after her new charge, the clock is ticking to find their answers.
Hey, Miss Kanna.
Aloe showed me how to do this letterbox thing a little bit ago. Hopefully this gets to you. Otherwise, I mean, I guess you’ll never read this?
Rowen grimaced down at the page. Get to the point. Stop faffing about.
Anyway. We’ve been traveling, so I didn’t get a chance to write earlier. Thanks for all your help with the magic kit stuff, again. We still haven’t found an actual answer. We found out I can open the Heartgates, though. That seems pretty big. Just going to assume you know about all that stuff. Aloe doesn’t think it’ll be enough, but
He hesitated, pen hovering over the page. Was he just being naive? He didn’t doubt that Aloe was right, it just…seemed cruel. Surely the whole world couldn’t operate like that.
but I don’t know. It feels like it’d be pretty hard to wave something like that off? Are the Children of Ora or whatever really that single-minded about themselves?
We’re in Emerald Hills now, with that Lord Dilmat guy Aloe knows. If I can be honest a sec? I really don’t know how much I buy that he’ll help me. The lord guy seemed pretty disinterested once Aloe said he couldn’t keep me. Is staying here really a good idea? I do trust Aloe, but I don’t know. I don’t have that much time left. This feels like a gamble.
Not much time at all, now that they’d blown a few days traveling and getting set up. His all-too-short deadline was staring him down every time he closed his eyes. Could he really risk hanging around with some dude who visibly didn’t give even a single shit?
But what else could he do?
I guess it’s whatever, he wrote, shaking his head. I’m going to try and work the shop a little more. People here seem to speak English, but it’s not their go-to. It’s getting a little weird. They keep giving me looks. I need to find some sort of language textbook for Ereliit, but I’m a little worried. If there’s never been a human with magic before, you guys have probably never tried to teach a human before either. Right? So do I even have a chance in hell of learning? Would there even be anything in English?
He took a long, shaky breath. Just a worry. Do you have any ideas? I just don’t know what’s out there. But I’d like to try learning.
There. He’d talked about where they were, and he’d talked about Eswit, and he’d talked about his language battles. That just left…
His lips tightened. That just left the bit he really, really didn’t want to get into. But there was no getting around it.
I’m worried about Aloe. When we were heading into the Deeproads she started having this weird…attack. Glowy eyes, spouting nonsense, wouldn’t respond. She told me it’s because of her magic poisoning her, and she said it was a one-off thing from some kind of magic shock from coming back down here, but then it happened again last night.
She’s fine. I don’t mean to scare you or anything. She’s got that nightsbane stuff, and now that I know this is going to keep happening I can try and watch for it more. Or something like that. But she’s always a bit weird after she takes those potions. I just don’t really know what to do with all this. I just want someone else to know. Getting a little nervous.
Rowen took a shaky breath, closing his eyes for a moment. He hated tattling on her. If he was sick, the last thing he’d want was his friends spreading it around. But…someone needed to know. Someone that wasn’t him. What if last night happened again? What if she fell into another trance like at the aviary and he couldn’t wake her up?
No. Kanna needed to know.
The floor creaked overhead. “Rowen?” Aloe called. “Are you up?”
“I’m down here,” Rowen called back. Well. She was up early. The sky outside was still dark. He’d figured he had at least another half hour before she wandered out.
Quickly, he turned back to the paper laid out on the counter.
I’ve got to go. Aloe’s up and around, and I’ve got to get back to Emerald Hills for more testing. Lucky me. Fingers crossed they actually tell me something useful this time. It wouldn’t be down to luck. This time he’d make them listen. Thanks for listening, Kanna. Hopefully you actually get this.
He stood as the hallway above started to creak, hastily folding the letter up. She’d pointed everything out to him and run through a quick explanation. He just had to take this stamp, marked with a hastily-applied KANNA label, smack it onto the paper, and then put it in that wooden box. Close the lid, and-
Rowen jerked back as a flash of light erupted from beneath the so-recently-closed lid. Slowly he lifted the edge back up.
The box was empty.
“W-Well, that was easy,” Rowen said, grinning. Either the letter was on its way to Kanna, or he’d found a new handy-dandy trash can. All he could do was trust it was the former.
As he put the stamp back into the rack, though, his hand lingered on the wood.
He’d carried Aloe back to her room last night, was all. She’d been utterly passed out, and he wasn’t so frigid as to leave her out in the cold by herself. He’d felt weird about barging into her room unasked, yeah, but…well, he just hadn’t been able to come up with an alternative. She certainly wasn’t about to wake up.
Her bed had been rock-hard. He could remember it clearly, like someone had taken wooden planks and covered them in a few layers of comforter. He’d almost felt bad putting her down on it and walking away. Even the thought of it gave him a sore back.
As he’d turned, he’d caught a glimpse of a writing desk in her otherwise-barren room. There’d been a violin on it. And…a stamp, just like this. There hadn’t been a handy English label, so…he didn’t have a clue who it’d send a letter to. But there alongside it had been a pile of crumpled-up letters.
Someone Aloe wanted to write to, then—but couldn’t? But who? It would’ve been absurdly rude to pry further, so he’d just…walked away.
And now he found himself oddly curious.
The stairs creaked. Rowen glanced up, then gave a quick wave when he saw Aloe descending. “Morning. You’re up early.”
“Couldn’t sleep for shit,” Aloe mumbled. “Are you off?”
“Yeah.” Rowen grimaced. “Eswit wants me back bright and early. I’ve got to keep him happy for now.”
“Good kid.” Aloe gave him a quick smile, patting his shoulder as she passed. “Just stick with it. We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
He was sure she wanted them to figure this out. She might even believe that they’d do it. But belief in a thing didn’t make it reality. He needed to keep pushing. This was no time to sit back and take things easy. He smiled back, nodding, and stood. “I’m off, then.”
“Be safe,” Aloe murmured as he strode by.
He just kept walking, head held as high as he could, until he was out of the Dragon and alone again.
—--------------------
Aloe turned on her heel, giving the floor a long look. The sun was up and Rowen was off. The scholars would be able to help him. The question was, how fast? Would they be able to make a breakthrough soon?
She tried to keep her mind from scrolling through the calendar left to them. It wasn’t enough for them to solve Rowen’s mystery by the deadline—if they didn’t get back to Windscour in time to declare their progress to Envoy Jaian, she’d run a real risk of getting herself in trouble with the crown. She could defend herself, but…she didn’t want to give them any excuse to declare the deal null and void.
Which meant she really, really needed Eswit to get to work, fast.
Sighing, she straightened. A trilling whistle slipped from her lips. All around the Dragon, candles ignited, turning the morning glow into a comfortable brightness. The shutters on the front windows flew open, and through them, she saw the sign out front drop into place.
Well, they were open for business. Overhead, the sunbirds raised their heads, starting to trill amongst themselves.
“Don’t make yourselves trouble,” she said, giving the big guy at the group’s center a warning look and a pointed finger.
He only chirped at her, hopping to the side. She heard one of the eaves windows creak open, followed by the flapping of wings. Several of the others followed suit, vanishing into the outside world.
“Fine,” Aloe muttered, shaking her head. “Come back in time for dinner or you’re not getting any.” It didn’t worry her too much. Most of the dens had access to an exit if they wanted it, and all of them knew the signal for when she was packing up. There shouldn’t be too much danger toward them in a deeproads town like this.
She was just reaching her chair behind the counter when the door swung open again. “Forget something?” she said, turning back.
Her eyes widened at the sight of a woman striding through, short and sturdy with thick, curly red hair and a wide-brimmed hat whose colors had been bleached with too many hours in the sunlight. Pouches ringed the belt on her waist, hanging down almost to her knees.
“Pardon me,” the new woman said, her voice gruff. “Had a lad all but pounding down my door ‘bout some new shop in town.” She leaned her head back, fixing a look on Aloe from beneath the brim of her hat, and grinned. “Thinkin’ it’s ‘round the time I should see the place for myself.”
Just as she’d thought, then—this was Lanioch’s apothecary. Exactly the sort who might be interested in the goods she sold. Aloe smiled right back, bowing with careful, deliberate respect.
“Madam Healer, I believe I have exactly what you need,” she said. “Whatever that is.”
“We’ll see about that,” the apothecary said, turning toward the Dragon’s shelves with a brisk step.
Aloe’s grin only widened. She wasn’t put off by the woman’s air and attitude, no. She’d expected this. The bargaining was the best part—and out of everyone in the town, this was likely to be her primary customer.
The game had just begun.
—--------------------
It was early enough in the morning for there to still be dew on the grass when he crossed over into Emerald Hills, but the lab was already bustling. The secretary Aloe had talked to before perked up at the sight of him, beckoning him over. She didn’t try to speak to him, though. Maybe she was too busy. Maybe he was just the human and didn’t rate a little morning chitchat. Hell, maybe she didn’t even speak English.
He let her usher him into the same lab room he’d been in before. It was just like he remembered it—but this time, there’d been a huge magic circle like something out of Fullmetal Alchemist scrawled all over the floor. There were tiny detailed elements throughout it that looked like someone had painted in with a tiny, hair-thin brush. “Paint, hopefully,” he whispered, giving the thing a contemplative tap with his foot as the secretary walked across the room atop it. If he messed up all their hard work they just might kill him after all.
The circle didn’t budge. With one last shrug, Rowen steeled himself and followed after.
Note-Taker and Box-Holder were there, he saw with a grimace. Both lit up at the sight of him—but as they hurried toward him, he saw Note-Taker pull something from his pocket. A vial, filled with clear liquid.
“No,” Rowen said, taking a step back as the pair charged him. The rest of the researchers scattered around the lab looked up at the firmness in his voice, but he refused to let himself back down. “I’m not going to drug myself. It’s not necessary.”
“You must hold still,” Note-Taker said. “It will…” He scowled, chewing on his lips. “Difficult,” he said at last—and held the vial out again. “Take.”
“I’ll hold still,” Rowen said, shoving his hands resolutely in the pockets of his jeans. God, he felt out of place here dressed like a normal person when they were all wearing their fantasy getups. “I’m not taking it.”
Note-Taker grimaced. He glanced to Box-holder, who shrugged.
Rowen stiffened as the two started talking in Ereliit. “And you can’t keep everything secret from me this time,” he said. “You have to tell me what you’re figuring out about me. That was the deal.”
The two erelin men looked back to him, and now the disdain in Note-Taker’s expression was clear. “No time,” he said. “We will handle. Sit.”
“Yes, there damn well is time,” Rowen snapped. “Look, you’ve got two choices here. You can either tell me what you’re learning or I’m not going to cooperate. Okay?”
He watched Note-Taker’s nostrils flare. The man was positively glaring down the length of his nose at Rowen now. “You are not-”
“We had a deal,” Rowen said. “With your boss. D’you think that Lord Eswit guy is going to like it if you drive me and Aloe away?” He jerked his chin higher, matching the asshole glare for glare. “All I’m asking is for you to talk to me.”
Box-Holder muttered something under his breath, still in that stupid language of theirs. But before Rowen could launch into them again, Note-Taker let out a groan. “Agreed,” he said, sounding like he didn’t agree at all.
He’d at least said the word, though. And he did still need their help to get some answers. So Rowen just nodded, letting the two men guide him to the center of the magic circle, and steeled himself for what came next.
—--------------
By the end of it, Rowen understood why Note-Taker had wanted to drug him.
He didn’t have a clue what they were doing. He’d tried to watch and pay attention, but there was only so much he could do. He was plunked down cross-legged at the very center of the whole arrangement, with Eswit’s mages around the outer ring with their wands and staves. Every time they raised their implements, the circle under his ass started to glow with a frankly-worrying intensity.
And then the deluge would begin. Fireballs. Lightning bolts. Whirlwinds that whipped around him and blew his hair all astray. Bits of free energy, and shrieking rips of pure noise, and gouts of water that drenched his sweatshirt. He tried to stay still through all of it, gripping the insides of his sweatshirt pocket and closing his eyes against the worst of the onslaught. He’d promised Note-Taker he could manage.
But Christ it was hard. Sweat drenched his undershirt, and however strong his resolve had been at the start, he was mortified to find he was starting to shake a little.
All of the fear vanished when, with one last crackle of energy, the latest barrage faded—and the mages all turned away from him. “Is that it?” Rowen whispered.
Note-Taker was in the back of the room, scrawling away madly on a clipboard. The other mages were starting to encircle him, Rowen saw. And they looked excited. Bingo.
Legs still quivering beneath him, Rowen stood, banging his fists into his thighs until the tingling went away. “What is it? What did you find?”
The scholar closest to him glanced over, but turned back to the others just as quickly. None of the rest even bothered to look.
Note-Taker was beaming, though, and Box-Holder’s eyes damn near sparkled. Rowen’s anger deepened. They’d found something.
“Hey,” he snapped, striding closer. “What’d you-”
Note-Taker raised a hand, gesturing dismissively in his direction. A pair of the scholars turned, moving to block his way, but Rowen had expected that. Darting to the side, he ducked between a pair of Orran women—and snatched the clipboard out of Note-Taker’s hands.
You’d think the guy had never been bullied in school. He was slow to react, hands closing around open air for a second before he lunged. “Fucking-”
“Oh, so you do know some actual words,” Rowen said. He kept backstepping, circling the room until the exit was square behind him. “Look. You told me you’d talk. That’s all I want here.”
Note-Taker’s face contorted with anger. “Give it-”
“No,” Rowen said, holding the clipboard up and away from the Orran’s reach. “Just tell me what you guys found out, and I’ll give it back.”
“You’ll-”
“Otherwise,” Rowen said, taking another step backward, “I’m going to take this back to Aloe to see what it says. And I won’t be coming back tomorrow.”
He waited, counting the seconds. The scholars had all frozen somewhere in the middle of his escapade, glancing at each other with worried eyes.
This was all a risk. He knew that. He needed these guys as much as they needed him—but maybe a little reminder that he could just pick up and go if they refused to play ball would do the trick. So he waited, eyes glued to Note-Taker’s face and nerves twitching for the slightest sign of counterattack.
Finally, the man scowled, letting out an irritated grunt. “Testing passive resonance,” he said gruffly.
“And?” Rowen said. “What’d you find?”
“Response value of five,” Note-Taker said. He spat the words out, then thrust his hand toward Rowen. “Give.”
“What’s that mean?” Rowen said. “Passive resonance. What is that? And what’s it mean that-”
“Did not promise tutoring,” the man hissed. He jabbed his hand forward again. “Give.”
“Okay,” Rowen said. “Fine.” He’d gotten the important bits. Passive resonance, and it spat back a five. Passive resonance, five. Passive resonance, five. As long as he could get that back to Aloe, she’d be able to translate.
He slapped the clipboard down into Note-Taker’s outstretched hand. “Here. That’s all I wanted. Are we done for the day?”
The pair of head researchers glared at him, lips tight, but turned almost immediately back to their own work. One by one heads around the room swiveled away from him.
Guess that was his answer. Rowen shook his head, grumbling a little to himself, but made for the door.
Time to figure out what all the fuss was about.

Appreciation post:
This is my first experience with using a Hobonichi Weeks, and I love it! I am trying to get in the habit of using a paper planner and recording my day-to-day plans, accomplishments, to-dos, etc., and I needed as barebones a planner as possible, while still being nice to hold & use, with grid paper & good quality paper at that. Also, one where the dates are already included, because at this stage in the game, if I had to also add in the dates & days, I’d stop before I got started. And I love the extra pages at the back!! So good for book TBR lists, some commonplacing, etc.
I’m so glad I chose the Weeks, and that it is exactly the planner I need right now (I'm already setting aside funds to buy the Weeks Mega for 2025).
As for this cover — the pen loop almost caused me to send it back — until I realized that I could “pin” the pen to it using the pen clip! Such a revelation, I tell you 😂 Anyway, the pockets are just right and the zip means nothing will get lost or fall out, so I am delighted ☺️
(Stickers are from Sarica Studio)

NPC Academy has now been on Royal Road for a full month, so I thought I'd share my experience and what I've learned so far.
WHAT I DID:
I launched with a backlog of 20 chapters, posting 9 intermittently on day 1 to reach 20k words. Then I posted one new chapter per weekday for the first 3 weeks. This obliterated my backlog, but I wanted to make sure I had enough content that people would actually consider it worth their time to click on the story.
Since then, I've been posting 2 chapters per week. I was afraid I'd lose followers when I transitioned from 5 down to 2 a week, but luckily most everyone has stuck around.
I did 7 review swaps in the first few weeks, but was informed that review swaps supposedly don't go into the Rising Stars algorithm. One thing I did enjoy doing as part of review swaps was also exchanging chapter-by-chapter comment swaps. Sometimes comment sections on RR can be pretty barren so it was fun to actually see what people are thinking as they read. Highly recommended! I also discovered some really interesting stories, which is a nice bonus.
I switched to shout out swaps a few weeks ago and I think that's what actually started to boost my follower count. I've had 10-12 people shout out my story in their pre/post author comment sections (including a story with >5k followers). I ran an ad in parallel, so it's difficult to know exactly where followers are coming from. But I definitely got a good number of story page views from the shout outs from looking at the advanced analytics (usually 5-40 unique user clicks per shout, but almost 200 from that high follower story).
I did a few self-promo posts on litrpg and progressionfantasy as well, which can often be met with some negativity and downvotes. I saw a few clicks from those as well, so I still think they were worth doing, especially because early on even one more set of eyes on the story makes a difference--if only to your self-esteem. I imagine reddit promos might be more impactful once more chapters, followers, and community are built up though.
RESULTS AFTER ONE MONTH:
NPC Academy hit the main Rising Stars list exactly one month (yesterday morning) after posting the first chapter! Here are the current stats:
https://preview.redd.it/crrtptjo4u0d1.png?width=906&format=png&auto=webp&s=7abe323b25358ec7bea3d030edfa10972ac6e47a
It's definitely not as impressive as many of the launches I've seen, and it's been a slow grind of followers that started steadily climbing thanks to shout outs and ads. But it's been enough to make an appearance on Rising Stars, so I'm proud of that.
https://preview.redd.it/kvni76b75u0d1.png?width=2072&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c6cd1055a74b96608dbe8150e7802c248ed4ee6
I also got pretty good reader retention (>90% per chapter) outside of the first few chapters, and especially after Chapter 8, which tells me that people who are enjoying the story are sticking with it. :)
WHAT I LEARNED:
I tried to follow the guide posted by HiImThinkTwice as best I could, but definitely missed some beats and could've done better.
I launched with a self-made cover. I'm very amateur in terms of digital art and design. I made the mistake of thinking a unique, somewhat cutesy cover would work. Spoiler: it doesn't. I wholeheartedly believe my original cover hurt my ability to get people to click on the story. I had a low-cost cover commissioned and updated it at the beginning of May (also when my follower count started rising). Your best bet with a cover is to fit within the common reader expectations, while having some element that stands out--look at the Rising Stars list and see what kinds of covers people are clicking on.
I also revised my blurb several times throughout this process. I thought the draw to my novel would be the idea of NPCs going to school to learn how to battle Heroes, but I think the real interest is the MCs journey. It's also important to have some sort of epic-sounding, standout line(s) in the blurb, which I didn't have originally. These are what get people excited to actually click on Chapter 1. I think I've finally settled on something that works well and I'm happy with.
Shoutout swaps are a lot more valuable than review swaps in terms of story clicks and potential new followers.
No idea if my ad led to followers, but it definitely generated a significant number of clicks. I expect a lot of the non-follower readers who have stuck with the story came from ads.
I started posting about halfway through the Writathon as a non-participant. Would not recommend. No idea if it hurt my story, but presumably more stories are being posted at a higher rate than normal, so your story won't stick in the latest updates list as long. It may not have hurt, but it certainly didn't help because I didn't get to be on the Writathon list. If I could do it again, I'd have waited to build up more backlog and launched in May instead.
TAKEAWAYS:
Don't underestimate the importance of the cover and blurb.
Do shoutouts. In general people are very friendly and happy to swap--especially if you can get on some discord servers.
Keep writing and don't give up, even if the follower count isn't rocketing up! Give it time and help readers find your story.
Good luck to all you writers out there!

When it comes to CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization, it would be natural to assume that conversion is all that matters. At least, we can argue that conversion rate is at the heart of most experiments. However, the ultimate goal is to raise revenue, so why does the CRO world put so much emphasis on conversion rates?
In this article, we’ll shed some light on the reason why conversion rate is important and why it’s not just conversions that should be considered.

Why is conversion rate so important?

Let’s start off with the three technical reasons why CRO places such importance on conversion rates:

1. Conversion is a generic term. It covers the fact that an e-commerce visitor becomes a customer by buying something, or simply the fact that this visitor went farther than just the homepage, or clicks on a product page, or adds this product to the cart. In that sense, it’s the Swiss Army Knife of CRO.
2. Conversion statistics are far easier than other KPI statistics, and they’re the simplest from a maths point of view. In terms of measurement, it’s pretty straightforward: success or failure. This means off-the-shelf code or simple spreadsheet formulas can compute statistics indices for decision, like the chance to win or confidence intervals about the expected gain. This is not that easy for other metrics as we will see later with Average Order Value (AOV).
3. Conversion analysis is also the simplest when it comes to decision-making. There’s (almost) no scenario where raising the number of conversions is a bad thing. Therefore, deciding whether or not to put a variation in production is an easy task when you know that the conversion rate will rise. The same can’t be said about the “multiple conversions” metric where, unlike the conversion rate metric that counts one conversion per visitor even if this visitor made 2 purchases, every conversion counts and so is often more complex to analyze. For example, the number of product pages seen by an e-commerce visitor is harder to interpret. A variation increasing this number could have several meanings: the catalog can be seen as more engaging or it could mean that visitors are struggling to find what they’re looking for.

Due to the aforementioned reasons, the conversion rate is the starting point of all CRO journeys. However, conversion rate on its own is not enough. It’s also important to pay attention to other factors other than conversions to optimize revenue.

Beyond conversion rate

Before we delve into a more complex analysis, we’ll take a look at some simpler metrics. This includes ones that are not directly linked to transactions such as “add to cart” or “viewed at least one product page”.
If it’s statistically assured to win, then it’s a good choice to put the variation into production, with one exception. If the variation is very costly, then you will need to dig deeper to ensure that the gains will cover the costs. This can occur, for example, if the variation holds a product recommender system that comes with its cost.
The bounce rate is also simple and straightforward in that the aim is to keep the figure down unlike the conversion rate. In this case, the only thing to be aware of is that you want to lower the bounce rate unlike the conversion rate. But the main idea is the same: if you change your homepage image and you see the bounce rate statistically drop, then it’s a good idea to put it in production.
We will now move onto a more complex metric, the transaction rate, which is directly linked to the revenue.
Let’s start with a scenario where the transaction rate goes up. You assume that you will get more transactions with the same traffic, so the only way it could be a bad thing is that you earn less in the end. This means your average cart value (AOV) has plummeted. The basic revenue formula shows it explicitly:
Total revenue = traffic \ transaction rate * AOV*
Since we consider traffic as an external factor, then the only way to have a higher total revenue is to have an increase in both transaction rate and AOV or have at least one of them increase while the other remains stable. This means we also need to check the AOV evolution, which is much more complicated.
On the surface, it looks simple: take the sum of all transactions and divide that by the number of transactions and you have the AOV. While the formula seems basic, the data isn’t. In this case, it’s not just either success or failure; it’s different values that can widely vary.
Below is a histogram of transaction values from a retail ecommerce website. The horizontal axis represents values (in €), the vertical axis is the proportion of transactions with this value. Here we can see that most values are spread between 0 and €200, with a peak at ~€50.
When it comes to CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization, it would be natural to assume that conversion is all that matters. At least, we can argue that conversion rate is at the heart of most experiments. However, the ultimate goal is to raise revenue, so why does the CRO world put so much emphasis on conversion rates?
In this article, we’ll shed some light on the reason why conversion rate is important and why it’s not just conversions that should be considered.

Why is conversion rate so important?

Let’s start off with the three technical reasons why CRO places such importance on conversion rates:

1. Conversion is a generic term. It covers the fact that an e-commerce visitor becomes a customer by buying something, or simply the fact that this visitor went farther than just the homepage, or clicks on a product page, or adds this product to the cart. In that sense, it’s the Swiss Army Knife of CRO.
2. Conversion statistics are far easier than other KPI statistics, and they’re the simplest from a maths point of view. In terms of measurement, it’s pretty straightforward: success or failure. This means off-the-shelf code or simple spreadsheet formulas can compute statistics indices for decision, like the chance to win or confidence intervals about the expected gain. This is not that easy for other metrics as we will see later with Average Order Value (AOV).
3. Conversion analysis is also the simplest when it comes to decision-making. There’s (almost) no scenario where raising the number of conversions is a bad thing. Therefore, deciding whether or not to put a variation in production is an easy task when you know that the conversion rate will rise. The same can’t be said about the “multiple conversions” metric where, unlike the conversion rate metric that counts one conversion per visitor even if this visitor made 2 purchases, every conversion counts and so is often more complex to analyze. For example, the number of product pages seen by an e-commerce visitor is harder to interpret. A variation increasing this number could have several meanings: the catalog can be seen as more engaging or it could mean that visitors are struggling to find what they’re looking for.

Due to the aforementioned reasons, the conversion rate is the starting point of all CRO journeys. However, conversion rate on its own is not enough. It’s also important to pay attention to other factors other than conversions to optimize revenue.

Beyond conversion rate

Before we delve into a more complex analysis, we’ll take a look at some simpler metrics. This includes ones that are not directly linked to transactions such as “add to cart” or “viewed at least one product page”.
If it’s statistically assured to win, then it’s a good choice to put the variation into production, with one exception. If the variation is very costly, then you will need to dig deeper to ensure that the gains will cover the costs. This can occur, for example, if the variation holds a product recommender system that comes with its cost.
The bounce rate is also simple and straightforward in that the aim is to keep the figure down unlike the conversion rate. In this case, the only thing to be aware of is that you want to lower the bounce rate unlike the conversion rate. But the main idea is the same: if you change your homepage image and you see the bounce rate statistically drop, then it’s a good idea to put it in production.
We will now move onto a more complex metric, the transaction rate, which is directly linked to the revenue.
Let’s start with a scenario where the transaction rate goes up. You assume that you will get more transactions with the same traffic, so the only way it could be a bad thing is that you earn less in the end. This means your average cart value (AOV) has plummeted. The basic revenue formula shows it explicitly:
Total revenue = traffic \ transaction rate * AOV*
Since we consider traffic as an external factor, then the only way to have a higher total revenue is to have an increase in both transaction rate and AOV or have at least one of them increase while the other remains stable. This means we also need to check the AOV evolution, which is much more complicated.
On the surface, it looks simple: take the sum of all transactions and divide that by the number of transactions and you have the AOV. While the formula seems basic, the data isn’t. In this case, it’s not just either success or failure; it’s different values that can widely vary.
Below is a histogram of transaction values from a retail ecommerce website. The horizontal axis represents values (in €), the vertical axis is the proportion of transactions with this value. Here we can see that most values are spread between 0 and €200, with a peak at ~€50.
https://preview.redd.it/toe6tcg08u0d1.png?width=384&format=png&auto=webp&s=58a20aa968f43d8a485f9f4bd9b494f6bf538517
The right part of this curve shows a “long/fat tail”. Now let’s try to see how the difference within this kind of data is hard to spot. See the same graph below but with higher values, from €400 to €1000. You will also notice another histogram (in orange) of the same values but offset by €10.
https://preview.redd.it/cqgmh1628u0d1.png?width=387&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ca2cfc150dd989a868adcbc04ed435c6b330828
We see that the €10 offset which corresponds to a 10-unit shift to the right is hard to distinguish. And since it corresponds to the highest values this part has a huge influence when averaging samples. Due to the shape of this transaction value distribution, any measure of the average value is somewhat blurred, which makes it very difficult to have clear statistical indices. For this reason, changes in AOV need to be very drastic or measured over a huge dataset to be statistically asserted, making it difficult to use in CRO.
Another important feature is hidden even further on the right of the horizontal axis. Here’s another zoom on the same graph, with the horizontal axis ranging from €1000 to €4500. This time only one curve is shown.
https://preview.redd.it/egu5mtr38u0d1.png?width=404&format=png&auto=webp&s=f539ff85b05d5f93e07ac74b8577907747618b97
From the previous graph, we could have easily assumed that €1000 was the end, but it’s not. Even with a most common transaction value at €50, there are still some transactions above €1000, and even some over €3000. We call these extreme values.
As a result, whether these high values exist or not makes a big difference. Since these values exist but with some scarcity, they will not be evenly spread across a variation, which can artificially create difference when computing AOV. By artificially, we mean the difference comes from a small number of visitors and so doesn’t really count as “statistically significant”. Also, keep in mind that customer behavior will not be the same when buying for €50 as when making a purchase of more than €3000.
There’s not much to do about this except know it exists. One good thing though is to separate B2B and B2C visitors if you can, since B2C transaction values are statistically bigger and less frequent. Setting them apart will limit these problems.

What does this mean for AOV?

There are three important things to keep in mind when it comes to AOV:

1. Don’t trust the basic AOV calculation; the difference you are seeing probably does not exist, and is quite often not even in the same observed direction! It’s only displayed to give an order of magnitude to interpret changes in conversion rates but shouldn’t be used to state a difference between variations’ AOV. That’s why we use a specific test, the Mann-Whitney U test, that’s adapted for this kind of data.
2. You should only believe the statistical index on AOV, which is only valid to assess the direction of the difference between AOV, not its size. For example, you notice a +€5 AOV difference and the statistical index is 95%; this only means that you can be 95% sure that you will have an AOV gain, but not that it will be €5.
3. Since transaction data is far more wild than conversion data, it will need stronger differences or bigger datasets to reach statistical significance. But since there are always fewer transactions than visitors, reaching significance on the conversion rate doesn’t imply being significant on AOV.

This means that a decision on a variation that has a conversion rate gain can still be complex because we rarely have a clear answer about the variation effect on the AOV.
This is yet another reason to have a clear experimentation protocol including an explicit hypothesis.
For example, if the test is about showing an alternate product page layout based on the hypothesis that visitors have trouble reading the product page, then the AOV should not be impacted. Afterwards, if the conversion rate rises, we can validate the winner if the AOV has no strong statistical downward trend. However, if the changes are in the product recommender system, which might have an impact on the AOV, then one should be more strict on measuring a statistical innocuity on the AOV before calling a winner. For example, the recommender might bias visitors toward cheaper products, boosting sales numbers but not the overall revenue.

The real driving force behind CRO

We’ve seen that the conversion rate is at the base of CRO practice because of its simplicity and versatility compared to all other KPIs. Nonetheless, this simplicity must not be taken for granted. It sometimes hides more complexity that needs to be understood in order to make profitable business decisions, which is why it’s a good idea to have expert resources during your CRO journey.
That’s why at AB Tasty, our philosophy is not only about providing top-notch software but also Customer Success accompaniment.