Cro Review

---
name: cro-review
description: Audit the action path — CTA presence, position, and size, competing actions, form friction, and ad-to-page continuity. TRIGGER when checking whether a piece drives one clear action, or when the Conversion Reviewer loads it for the check-calls-to-action-and-friction stage. DO NOT TRIGGER for whether the buyer believes the copy (buyer-review), the section order (check-structure), or whether the rendered design hides the copy (review-design).
---

# Check calls to action and friction

One Process: walk the piece as the reader's path to one action and find everything that blocks or splits it. This pass owns the action path — presence, position, prominence, competition, friction, continuity. It does not judge whether the copy is believable (buyer-review) or whether the built design hides the button (review-design owns rendered visibility).

## 1. The primary action

### Drive one action, present, positioned, and prominent
Fail a piece with no clear primary CTA, a CTA buried below where the reader has already decided, or an ask too small to find. One job, one specific ask.
Example: "Start your first project" over "Learn more" or "Get started today!".

### Match the CTA's hardness to Reader.md's awareness stage
Reader.md names the awareness stage, and the stage sets how hard the ask can be: a soft next step (a next read, not a buy) for an unaware or problem-aware reader, a hard buy-now only for a most-aware one. Fail a hard CTA on a cold-stage piece and a soft CTA where the reader is ready to act. The response matrix ties stage to CTA → [../copywriting/references/awareness-and-sophistication.md](../copywriting/references/awareness-and-sophistication.md).

### Check the CRO notes were honored
Read each section's layout block in the deliverable's Wireframe.md and fail where its CRO notes were not honored — a CTA below the stated size or prominence, a CTA placed above the fold where the block said not to, an above-fold rule ignored. The copy specifies the action path; this pass confirms it carried through.

## 2. Competing actions

### Remove every action that splits the one job
Fail a second competing CTA, a link that leaks the reader off the path, or two asks of equal weight. Secondary actions must clearly yield to the primary one.

## 3. Friction

### Cut every step between the reader and the yes
Fail unnecessary form fields, a demanded commitment the stage does not warrant, or an objection left standing next to the CTA with no risk reversal. Name each point of friction on the path.

## 4. Ad-to-page continuity

IF the piece receives traffic from an ad or a prior step:
### Match the promise the reader arrived on
Fail a page whose headline, offer, or framing does not continue the ad or email that sent the reader. The scent must carry from click to action. This continuity check runs at the final pass, reading the sending piece's promise against the page it lands on.

Verification: the primary action named with its position and prominence; every competing action, friction point, and continuity break listed against the path to the one job.