CR Dropped: Seasonality, Burned-Out Landings, or Tech Issues?

[timoshes]

Some colleagues recently ran into a situation where the CR on their landing pages started to drop noticeably. They tested new approaches and new landers — there were some improvements, but nothing significant.


At one point, while submitting a test lead, they noticed it took 15–20 seconds from filling out the form until the “thank you” page loaded. Sometimes the delay was as long as 20–120 seconds! Obviously, most users wouldn’t wait that long — they would simply close the tab, and the lead would be lost.


The root cause turned out to be that the order form was tied to multiple external scripts, which occasionally slowed down the submission process. Once they fixed this, CR bounced back to normal .


This reminded them of another story: an affiliate was running gambling offers, saw downloads and installs, but very few deposits. A single test deposit worked fine, but when he tried several in a row, only 1 out of 4 was actually counted .


The lesson is clear: running test leads and deposits is a must. And it’s best to test both from desktop and mobile. Most importantly, don’t stop at just one test — repeat it several times. Sometimes a single test won’t reveal the real issue.

 

[ahua091888]

Great reminder—multiple test leads are a must. Slow scripts or missed events can kill CR without you noticing

 

[timoshes]

Great reminder—multiple test leads are a must. Slow scripts or missed events can kill CR without you noticing

yes, sometimes People forget this and lose a lot of traffic.

 

[Graybeard]

The root cause turned out to be that the order form was tied to multiple external scripts, which occasionally slowed down the submission process. Once they fixed this, CR bounced back to normal .

Best practice: always run scripts on your own server. An XHR that fires after the page loads is usually reliable. But if the script sits at the very end and fails, it often means the user closed the landing page early—or a bot never triggered the JavaScript. The exception is Selenium or Google Headless, which will load JavaScript. There’s a lot more of that now, and not much you can do about it.

This reminded them of another story: an affiliate was running gambling offers, saw downloads and installs, but very few deposits. A single test deposit worked fine, but when he tried several in a row, only 1 out of 4 was actually counted .

A 75% shave? ffs. That’s beyond outrageous—it’s straight-up theft. No affiliate program should be able to get away with that kind of manipulation.

 

[T J Tutor]

The lesson is clear: running test leads and deposits is a must. And it’s best to test both from desktop and mobile. Most importantly, don’t stop at just one test — repeat it several times. Sometimes a single test won’t reveal the real issue.

^^^ THIS ^^^ THIS ^^^ THIS ^^^

I'm amazed everyday at the number of noobs that find ways to push back on this and telling the more experienced they'll maybe get to this later on down the road.

This is a crucial and necessary segment of developing profitable and eventually kick ass campaigns. We all depend on this immensely!