Conversion Optimization

Conversion Optimization

Turn one leaking conversion flow — a landing page, a signup, a checkout, an in-app onboarding — into a measured, tested funnel. This is an interactive, resumable journey of seven phases: the agent asks before every decision and records the outcome in your project's docs/ folder, so you can stop after any phase and pick up later. It works on websites and inside products alike; the unit of work is the flow and its ONE action, not the whole site.

Core Principle

Find the leak with numbers, learn the reason from customers, fix message → offer → proof → friction in that order, and prove every fix with a pre-committed test. The order is causal: a number tells you where, only research tells you why, motivation must be raised before friction-cutting pays, and an untested fix is a guess that compounds. This skill sequences the phases, asks the decision questions, and records every choice in docs/. The constituent skills carry the method — invoke them rather than improvising their frameworks.

Journey Map

Operating Rules

1. Resume first. Before anything else, read docs/CONVERSION-OPTIMIZATION-PLAN.md and every artifact in the Journey Map. If the tracker exists, summarize the journey state in 3-5 lines and ask which phase to enter. Done when the user has confirmed an entry point. A journey with a tracker is resumed, never restarted.
2. Intake on first run only. No tracker: run the Intake below, then create docs/CONVERSION-OPTIMIZATION-PLAN.md with every phase statused pending | in-progress | awaiting-evidence | done | deferred: reason | skipped: reason. Done when the tracker exists and the user has confirmed the phase plan.
3. Phase entry. Announce: what the phase does, the decision it forces, the artifact it produces, rough effort. Offer proceed / skip / defer — phases marked GATE may be deferred, never skipped. Mark the phase in-progress on proceed. Done when the user chose.
4. Skill invocation and fallback. Load the phase's skill and use it: each phase's Invoke line names the skill by slug — use that skill to run the phase. If it is not available, offer: npx skills add wondelai/skills/<slug> --global. If the user declines, run the phase from its Brief — the minimum viable method. State which mode you are in.
5. In-phase decisions. Ask every question under "Decide with the user" — with concrete options and your recommendation. Record the choice in the tracker's Key Decisions. A decision made silently is a defect.
6. Phase exit. Present the draft artifact content for sign-off before writing. On approval: write or extend the docs/ files, update the tracker (status, Key Decisions, Next Actions). Done when the files are written and the phase row shows done.
7. Artifact discipline. Read before writing; create a file only if missing, otherwise extend — add or update your sections, preserve everyone else's. Files are UPPERCASE in docs/. Every recommendation lands as a checkbox or a table row with owner and priority. See references/artifact-templates.md when creating a docs/ file for the first time — create it from the full skeleton (all section headings), then fill the sections your phase names.
8. Measure, research, then change — and every change is a test. No fix ships without a Phase 1 leak and a Phase 2 researched reason behind it, and every shipped change lands in docs/EXPERIMENTS.md with a pre-committed primary metric and a guardrail. A fix with no research behind it goes back to Phase 2; a bold change with no test attached stays in the backlog until it has one.

Intake

Ask these before creating the tracker:

1. Which flow are we optimizing, and what is the ONE action at its end? (Scopes every phase — a flow with three competing CTAs has no goal.)
2. Where do the numbers say people drop — analytics, funnel steps, cohort data? Paste what you have. (Feeds the Phase 1 leak diagnosis; no instrumentation means Phase 1 starts by adding it.)
3. Roughly how much traffic or volume enters the flow per week? (Gates Phase 7 — decides whether A/B tests can reach significance or the journey leans on qualitative evidence and before/after windows.)
4. What voice-of-customer sources exist or can be gotten — exit surveys, session recordings, support tickets, sales calls, reviews — and can you paste or export the raw text of the best one? (Phase 2 objections must quote the customer's own words, so the phase needs the content, not just the source name.)
5. What is the current offer at the conversion point — price, guarantee, bonuses — and can it change? (Gates Phase 4; a contractually fixed offer narrows it to presentation.)
6. Do docs/POSITIONING.md or docs/OFFER.md already exist from another journey? (Phases 3-4 build on them rather than restarting.)
7. How much of the journey do you want now? (Phases 1-2 are the mandatory diagnosis; 3-6 are the fix passes aimed by it; 7 turns fixes into proof.)

Skip heuristics: skip Phase 3 when messaging was already validated (e.g. an improve-website journey completed its message phases); skip Phase 4 when the offer is fixed by contract — record skipped: reason. Phase 7 may be deferred: reason at very low traffic in favor of before/after evidence with an explicit revert trigger, never silently skipped. Never skip Phases 1-2 — an unfound leak and an unresearched reason turn every later phase into guessing.

Then create docs/CONVERSION-OPTIMIZATION-PLAN.md from the template and confirm the plan. Done when the tracker exists with every phase statused and the user has confirmed the plan.

Phases

Phases run in the listed order — each assumes the previous phase's artifact exists. Any phase can be entered, skipped, or deferred per the Operating Rules, but Phases 1-2 gate them all: nothing downstream fixes a problem that isn't a measured leak with a researched reason. When running any phase from its Brief (constituent skill not installed), read references/methods.md first — it carries each phase's full method, checklists, formulas, and benchmarks; the Brief is only the summary.

Phase 1 — Find the leak (lean-analytics) — GATE

Purpose: Locate where the flow actually loses people and pick the one metric this journey moves — before any opinion about why.

Brief (fallback): A good metric is a comparative ratio that changes what you do next; totals and cumulative charts are vanity. Express each step of the flow as a conversion rate, compare against your own history and published benchmarks (e-commerce converts ~1-3% of visitors; landing pages on paid traffic low single digits), and find the biggest absolute drop on the highest-value path. Pick the One Metric That Matters for this journey, pair it with a counter-metric so it can't be gamed (signup rate × 30-day retention), and draw a line in the sand: target, date, pre-committed miss response. Cohort and segment (channel, device, plan) — one collapsing segment hides inside a flat average.

Invoke: Use the lean-analytics skill with the flow steps and analytics from intake. Ask for a step-by-step funnel table with baselines and benchmarks, the OMTM plus counter-metric for this journey, and the biggest leak ranked by absolute lost value.

Decide with the user: (1) Confirm the OMTM and its counter-metric. (2) Which leak to attack first — biggest absolute loss on the money path, not the easiest percentage. (3) If instrumentation is missing, which minimal events to add first — the phase stays awaiting-evidence until the numbers exist.

Artifact: Extend docs/METRICS.md ## Funnel (stage | conversion | benchmark | bottleneck?), ## Stage & One Metric That Matters, and ## Baselines & Targets. Update the tracker.

Done when: the funnel is measured at the coarsest granularity that still localizes the leak to a single step, the OMTM and counter-metric are recorded with a line in the sand, and the leak is named — only then are Phases 2-7 unlocked. Finer sub-steps awaiting instrumentation stay awaiting-evidence in Next Actions and do not block the journey, provided the named leak does not depend on them.

Phase 2 — Research why they leave (cro-methodology) — GATE

Purpose: Replace guesses about the leak with evidence from real visitors. Phases 3-6 may only fix problems traceable to a finding here.

Brief (fallback): Don't guess — discover. Mine primary sources (a one-question exit survey: "What's preventing you from [action] today?"; post-conversion: "What almost stopped you?"; chat logs, tickets, sales calls) and secondary sources (reviews, competitors) for the customer's own words. Sort objections into the Big 5 — Trust, Price, Fit, Timing, Effort — and build the O/CO table: every objection gets an evidence-backed counter placed at the exact step the doubt arises, never in an FAQ. Diagnose each step with the LIFT lenses (value proposition ± clarity, relevance, urgency, minus anxiety and distraction — Goward) and the MECLABS heuristic (conversion rises with motivation and value clarity, falls with friction and anxiety). Rank fix hypotheses by ICE and apply the 10x screen: if a change couldn't plausibly double the step, don't queue it.

Invoke: Use the cro-methodology skill with the Phase 1 leak, the flow, and the voice-of-customer sources from intake. Ask for the researched objection list in customer words, the O/CO table with placements, missing persuasion assets, and an ICE-ranked hypothesis backlog.

Decide with the user: (1) Which researched objection is the primary leak driver. (2) Low traffic: accept qualitative plus heuristic evidence — explicitly. (3) Which implicit objections need CO-Only counters (countered without being stated).

Artifact: Create docs/FUNNEL.md with ## Flow Map & ONE Action, ## Leak Diagnosis, and ## Objections & Counters (O/CO); extend docs/EXPERIMENTS.md ## Experiment Backlog (ICE-ranked). METRICS.md ## Funnel stays canonical for the conversion numbers — Leak Diagnosis cites them and adds the researched reason and severity. Update the tracker.

Done when: the flow map names the ONE action per step, every researched objection has an evidence-backed counter and a placement, and the backlog is ICE-ranked.

Phase 3 — Fix the message at the leak (storybrand-messaging)

Purpose: Make the leaking step say what the visitor gets, in their words, in five seconds — clarity converts before persuasion can.

Brief (fallback): The customer is the hero; you are the guide. Run SB7 on the leaking step: a Character who wants one thing, their Problem at three levels (external, internal — the frustration the copy must name, philosophical), you as the Guide (empathy + authority), a 3-step Plan that makes acting feel safe, one Direct plus one Transitional CTA, and named failure/success stakes. Rewrite the step's headline in customer language pulled straight from Phase 2 — customer words outperform copywriter words. Then make it stick (Made to Stick): concrete beats abstract ("save 16 hours a month," not "boost productivity"), and pick the single Commander's Intent message the visitor must still remember tomorrow.

Invoke: Use the storybrand-messaging skill with the step's current copy, the Phase 2 objection evidence, and POSITIONING.md if it exists. Ask for above-the-fold rewrites that name the internal problem, a one-liner, and one Direct plus one Transitional CTA.

Decide with the user: Which rewrite passes the 5-second test (a stranger can say what's offered and why it matters); which internal problem the copy names; whether the step keeps a transitional CTA or goes single-CTA.

Artifact: Extend docs/POSITIONING.md ## Brand Script (StoryBrand), ## One-Liner, and ## Key Messages (surface | message | status); record the rewrite in the Proposed message/CTA column of docs/FUNNEL.md ## Flow Map & ONE Action, leaving Current message/CTA intact as the before-state Phase 7 measures against; append copy tests to docs/EXPERIMENTS.md ## Experiment Backlog. Update the tracker.

Done when: the leaking step has a rewritten message that names the internal problem, one primary CTA, and a logged test hypothesis.

Phase 4 — Make the offer worth acting on (hundred-million-offers)

Purpose: Strengthen what is actually exchanged at the conversion point — the best flow cannot sell a weak offer, and the offer is the biggest single lever.

Brief (fallback): Value = (Dream Outcome × Perceived Likelihood) ÷ (Time Delay × Effort & Sacrifice). Raise the numerator with outcome language and proof; crush the denominator with speed ("first result in 5 minutes") and done-for-you framing. Reverse the risk with a guarantee aimed at the top Phase 2 objection — it raises perceived likelihood and lowers anxiety at once. Stack named, honestly-valued bonuses that each kill one objection; present price after value, anchored against the stack. Scarcity and urgency only when real — fake deadlines convert once and churn forever.

Invoke: Use the hundred-million-offers skill with the current offer from intake and the Phase 2 Price/Timing/Effort objections. Ask for a Value Equation score per lever, a guarantee design matched to the top objection, and a trim-and-stack pass on the offer components.

Decide with the user: Which guarantee the business can actually honor; which bonuses are real and sustainable; whether price presentation changes (anchoring, payment plans) — pricing itself may be out of scope; record that.

Artifact: Extend docs/OFFER.md ## Offer Stack (element | description | honest value | objection it kills), ## Price Metric when the flow raises what the price is charged per, plus ## Willingness-to-Pay Evidence if new evidence surfaced; append offer tests to docs/EXPERIMENTS.md ## Experiment Backlog. Update the tracker.

Done when: each Value Equation lever has a concrete change or a reason it stays, the guarantee targets the top researched objection, and every offer change carries a test hypothesis.