By Steve Oriola, CEO of Unbounce Go-to-Market Solutions
Marketers say conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a top priority, but their actions tell a different story. Research from Unbounce and Ascend2 shows that while 56% of SMB marketers say CRO is their top testing priority, 32% still aren’t testing their landing pages.
Meanwhile, 52% of B2B PPC ads drive to homepages instead of landing pages. It’s been clear for years that this isn’t a best practice for paid media, yet many teams continue to resist the change. If teams aren’t using landing pages, they’re not testing them—and that’s a huge missed opportunity. Testing closer to the point of conversion delivers the biggest performance gains.
Even though marketers may not be using or testing landing pages, they’re still blocked in other areas of their testing strategy. Over half of SMB marketers say a lack of resources (time, budget, or tools) prevents them from testing as often as they’d like, and nearly half cite not having enough traffic to achieve significant results.
It all comes down to a gap between what marketers know they should do and the resources or knowledge they have to do it. So let’s talk about how to get the most out of the resources you put into CRO testing.
Test landing pages to make your time and budget go further
If your team is investing in paid media, landing page A/B testing is one of the smartest ways to stretch your budget. Whether your goal is free trials or content downloads, you should be testing what drives actual form fills—not just which ad variant gets the most clicks.
Think of it as adding more levers you can pull when campaigns underperform. Instead of launching entirely new campaigns every time you worry about hitting MQL goals, you can use focused landing page tests to lift conversions with the campaigns you’re already running.
Run focused tests
For some marketers, “testing” simply means trying new things. That’s a good starting point because it builds the foundation for a culture of experimentation. The real impact, however, comes when testing is done consistently and with one isolated variable, like a headline or CTA.
Take this example: testing two landing page variants where the copy, CTA, and visuals all change at once. Even if one version wins, the insight ends there. You can’t pinpoint why it performed better, and that makes the result difficult to apply beyond that single campaign.
Focused testing, on the other hand, proves exactly what works. Isolating variables makes it far easier to justify the time and resources you invest, because the learnings are concrete and repeatable. When you discover which CTA or headline performs best, you can apply that insight across ad creatives, future landing pages, your website, and more—multiplying the value of every test.
Start with the insights you can apply everywhere
Running focused tests is the start. Finding the insights that will have the biggest impact on multiple areas of marketing is the best way to prove your impact.
Landing pages offer endless testing opportunities, but more options don’t always mean better results. Strategic choices are what multiply ROI.
If your business relies on product-led growth, for example, test the CTA for free trial signups. These campaigns typically run year-round and have multiple variations. For teams working with limited resources, this kind of high-leverage test delivers the most bang for your buck.
Yet many marketers overlook this. Research shows most SMBs focus on testing email marketing (57%). There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s worth weighing the difference in impact. Email tests can reveal which subject line drives higher opens or whether a button beats an in-text CTA—but those insights are tied to engagement, not conversion. Landing page tests, on the other hand, focus on elements closest to the point of conversion, making them more broadly valuable across channels.
Rethink how you define conversions
Conversions don’t have to be defined as form fills. If you’re one of the 49% of marketers worried about low traffic, the real issue is conversion volume. With too few conversions, you can’t declare a winning variant.
The solution is to track microconversions, which are leading indicators like clicks to a CTA that occur at a higher volume and still reveal meaningful patterns.
Create a culture of experimentation
Building a culture of experimentation starts with removing the barriers that keep teams from testing—limited time, complexity, or simply not knowing where to begin. Time can be a blocker when you’re using the wrong tools or building an overly complicated testing strategy, but it can also come from spinning cycles on a single test idea because your leader thinks it’s too risky or struggling to test simply because it’s not built into your existing campaign workflow.
Make experimentation easy and consistent by dedicating budget, integrating it into campaign planning, and treating it as a proactive part of the workflow. For example, when launching new content, test ad variants around key themes. You may discover one drives higher engagement while another delivers stronger conversions, giving you insights to refine distribution.
But creating a culture isn’t enough—you also need to reinforce it. That means celebrating the act of testing itself, not just the outcomes. There’s no such thing as a failed test; even inconclusive results point you toward what’s worth testing next. Tools are also crucial for reinforcing a culture of experimentation.
Choose tools that don’t create bottlenecks
To build this culture, you need tools that keep testing simple and sustainable. Look for a platform that lets you build, test, and analyze in one place, is affordable, and doesn’t require developer support for every experiment. If testing feels complicated or disruptive, teams won’t prioritize it.
With Unbounce, the wins can show up fast. If you’re still sending paid traffic to your homepage, simply moving to an optimized landing page can deliver a near-instant lift. Once you begin testing, the gains compound quickly. At under $1,500 per year, the investment often pays for itself after sending traffic to landing pages or after a single successful test.
Take Going, an online travel company. By testing a simple three-word CTA change on an Unbounce landing page, they saw triple-digit conversion growth and it completely changed how they spend on paid media.
Question the narrative on A/B testing and CRO
A/B testing and CRO have a reputation problem. Some still see them as overcomplicated processes requiring long strategy documents and heavy development support. Others use them mainly to settle creative debates.
But when you consistently execute simple, focused tests, A/B testing becomes an efficient way to make your time and budget go further.
