how to run a 7-day cro sprint

Speed sharpens judgment. A seven day CRO sprint gives your team a tight loop of discovery, testing, and rollouts. The goal is not a big strategy document. The goal is a small set of changes that clearly move one number in the right direction.

This is our stupid simple CRO sprint. Seven days. One metric. Practical work you can run on a live Shopify store.

sprint purpose & one-metric rule

A CRO sprint is not about fixing everything. It is about fixing one thing that matters.

Start by choosing a single outcome for the week:

Add to cart rate
Checkout start rate
Completed orders

This is your one metric rule. Every decision during the sprint has to serve that metric. If an idea does not help that metric, it goes into a later backlog. That is how the sprint stays stupid simple instead of turning into a full rebuild.

day 0: scope, KPI & pages

Day 0 is planning. No one touches the theme yet.

Make three decisions and write them down in one short page:

Pick your KPI.

Decide which metric you are trying to move right now. Early brands often focus on add to cart or checkout start. More mature stores usually aim at completed orders.

Choose the pages in scope.

For a Shopify CRO sprint this usually means:

Homepage
1 or 2 key collection pages
3 to 5 top product pages
Cart
Checkout

Do not include every edge case in the store. You want focus, not coverage.

Confirm baselines and guardrails.

Capture current numbers for your KPI, ideally split by device. Decide what counts as a red flag. For example, you might agree that any change that clearly hurts mobile conversion gets rolled back.

The outcome of Day 0 is a simple scope: one KPI, a list of pages, and a clear starting point.

days 1-2: diagnosis: analytics, heatmaps, sessions

Days 1 and 2 are for watching, not guessing.

You are trying to answer one simple question: "Where are people trying to buy and failing?"

Look at three sources of truth:

Analytics.

Check funnel drop off from product pages to cart and from cart to checkout.

Split by device. Many leaks hide in mobile.

Look at bounce rate, time on page, and scroll depth on key templates.

Heatmaps or click maps.

Run these on your highest traffic product pages and the cart.

Look for important elements that barely get any attention.

Look for click hotspots on things that do not help, like decorative images or low value links.

Session replays.

Watch real sessions where shoppers added to cart but did not complete.

Note where they hesitate, scroll up and down, or abandon.

Write what you see in plain language. For example:

"Mobile visitors scroll past the CTA before they actually see the button."
"People click the coupon field in the cart, leave to find a code, and do not come back."
"Shipping cost only appears late and that is where they drop off."

By the end of Day 2 you should have a stupid simple list of friction points that comes from real behavior, not opinions.

days 3-5: hypothesis, prioritize, implement tests

Days 3 to 5 are where you turn insight into tests.

Write clear, short hypotheses.

Use a simple pattern:

"If we change X on page Y for users Z, then metric M will improve because of reason R."

Example:

"If we move the free shipping message above the main CTA on product pages, more people will add to cart because total cost feels clearer earlier."

Score ideas by impact and ease.

Give each idea a quick rating for expected impact and level of effort. Focus on high impact, low effort changes. Put heavy, risky work aside for future sprints.

Choose how to test.

If you have traffic and tools, run A/B tests, server side or client side.

If you are smaller, run clean before and after tests over a fixed window and track carefully.

The method matters less than the discipline of measurement.

Implement the first batch.

Build and launch your first set of changes by the end of Day 5. Keep a simple change log that tracks:

What you changed
Where it lives
When it went live

By the close of Day 5 you should have live tests that directly attack the main friction points you listed earlier in the week.

day 6: measure & decide (directionality rules)

Day 6 is about reading the early signals in a calm way.

Look at your KPI after the changes versus your baseline or control. Pay special attention to device splits and to any sharp drops in important supporting metrics, like cart starts or checkout completion on mobile.

Before you open the numbers, set directionality rules so you avoid arguing feelings:

If the variant shows a clear lift on the KPI and does not harm any core metric, mark it as a win.
If results are flat or too noisy to call, treat it as neutral and keep the idea in your notes.
If the variant clearly hurts the KPI or breaks mobile in any way, roll it back.

You are not trying to sound like a statistician. You are trying to make honest, consistent calls on what is helping and what is not.

day 7: rollout & measurement plan

Day 7 is for promoting winners and protecting future you.

Promote winners.

Roll winning variants into your main Shopify theme or production templates. Keep code simple and remove any leftover test logic you no longer need.

Document what shipped.

Update your sprint log with:

Screenshots or links
A short description of the change
The observed effect on your KPI

For example:

"On mobile PDPs, moving the free shipping message above the CTA and simplifying the button copy produced a 5 percent lift in add to cart rate over 5 days."

Set a follow up window.

Plan to check the KPI again after 2 to 4 weeks. Some lifts grow as more people experience the change. Some fade as campaigns or traffic mix shift. You want to see the longer story.

At the end of Day 7 your sprint has done its job. Winners are live. Losers are rolled back. Learnings are written down.

roll-forward: cadence for repeating sprints

A single 7 day sprint is useful. A steady rhythm of sprints is powerful.

Most teams do well with one CRO sprint every 1 to 3 months. Between sprints you:

Let results settle in
Focus on campaigns, creative, and product work
Collect new questions from support, reviews, and founder gut

Each new sprint gets easier. You have a change log, a habit of watching real behavior, and a growing list of "this actually worked for us" patterns. That is your own stupid simple playbook, not a generic best practices list.

run a sprint with us

If you want a team to plan, run, and read a 7 day CRO sprint for your Shopify store, we can do that inside our Growth Store bundle.

→ Run a sprint with us

FAQ

What is a CRO sprint?

A CRO sprint is a focused experiment cycle. You test a small number of clear hypotheses over a short period and look for measurable wins. The scope stays small on purpose so you can move quickly and learn.

Do I need A/B testing software?

Not always. You can run server side or client side A/B tests when you have the tools and enough traffic. If you do not, a structured before and after test over a fixed time window can still give you useful direction. The key is consistent tracking and honest interpretation.

Can a 7 day sprint work on a low traffic store?

Yes. The work of diagnosis and implementation still fits inside seven days. You may just need a longer measurement window after the sprint to gather enough data to feel confident in the results.

What if a test makes things worse?

That is still valuable information. The sprint structure keeps changes small and contained, so you can roll back quickly. You then add that idea to your "do not repeat" list and move on with better judgment.

How often should I run CRO sprints?

Many teams run a sprint every 1 to 3 months. Often they pair it with a Shopify tune-up or a CRO audit so they are testing on top of a clean, fast, and stable base.