Series 6 Episode 10 - Are you wasting your marketing budget on poor conversion tactics?

Speaker A: You're listening to the Big Lift, the podcast of WebTrends Optimize, the CRO solution that enables marketers and developers to maximize the ROI on their digital properties. WebTrends Optimize is a powerful feature rich and easy to use solution, all delivered within a fixed price contract with no additional cost for increased functionality ever. During these podcasts, we meet some of the key influencers within the marketing and conversion world to understand their roles and examine their challenges.

Speaker B: Conversion optimization experimentation, or whatever we want to call it, is well established, yet it still seems like we're spending more on PPC and paid media. And increasing the volume is the only way of increasing results. So today I'm talking with Miles Humphrey, head of Conversion rate optimization at FreightCheck. He believes that we need to think a little differently about the volume equals results approach and that companies should exploit their owned assets more before embarrassing on increasing expenditure. Afternoon, Miles. Welcome to the Big Lift.

Speaker C: Hi, John. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: You've recently returned from working, what, it's about 10 years in Australia. Has that experience uncovered any differences in conversion culture?

Speaker C: Um, yeah, so I've just returned back now. You're right. Um, you know what? Um, I think the whole world around is having the same revelation at the same time, so it's hard to say that it's any different. In Australia, I think having come back, uh, everyone seems to be along the same ideas and the same thought process. Really exciting times.

Speaker B: And in the same timeline, would you say? Because normally. Well, my experience in the past five years is Australia's been a little bit behind. Um, America's a little ahead of us, but we all do seem to be leveling out, doing the same things at the same time now.

Speaker C: Yes. I have to say, you know, coming back, I can't say there's anything that's different. But, um, certainly when I first went originally, it was, uh, yeah, it was certainly. You could definitely tell the difference, you could definitely change, feel the change of pace. Coming back this way has been fitting straight back in again, though. It's been great.

Speaker B: Oh, good. Welcome back. Anyway, thank you.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: So, firstly, um, as we kick things off, just for clarity, can you highlight what is commonly known as owned assets?

Speaker C: Yeah, of course. Um, so owned assets are ultimately, um, whatever we operate and own as a business. Um, so simple examples are your website and your apps. Um, but I think also more importantly, you know, we need to be looking more in terms of your own data and those kind of elements as well. So all of those bits together are what you Personally own as a business, what you can control and manage within your own um, responsibility.

Speaker B: So this may seem an obvious question to you, but how can CRO better use um, show better use in say, user research or maybe data analytics?

Speaker C: Right. Well, um, it's so as in terms of what we can find out or how we're going to execute on it.

Speaker B: Well I think when somebody looks at their owned assets they kind of think, oh, data analytics is something I have got in my like m in my portfolio. But we need to be able to understand how you can bring that in not just from the data analytics point of view, but also the user research element to be able to make CRO work better.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean all of these things are tools, right? I mean they all have to go together and come with your qualitative conversation about where they're coming, where the volumes where they are. But the thought process still needs to be quantitative. Right? Where are the actual impacts that occur to that? I've always found qualitative gives us fantastic um, areas for um, homing in our perspective of where we're going to start our search and how we're going to find these excellent new opportunities. But it's the qualitative that generally gives us the actual question, the actual answer of what we're going to do. And that's the really exciting bit.

Speaker B: Now we talked in our pre discussion around here about how to improve your conversion flow. Not your conversion rate, but your conversion flow. Could you just elucidate as to what you mean by conversion flow?

Speaker C: That's right. Um, so uh, ultimately the pathway through a website and through to your conversion is the focus point of where we all get hung up and excited about. But you know that, that, that conversion doesn't begin on a website. That conversion begins well before that website at the acquisition phase when we're out there in the world trying to communicate to customers and have our conversation even before they start engaging with the brand. That acquisition story right at the very start, how do we seamlessly connect to that portion of the story to give them the experience that they ultimately want and really help that customer to find out all the information and ultimately get us through to a consultative, well rounded, um, conversion that everybod feels happy about. Not just us because we've achieved it, but the customer because they feel like they have been consulted and brought on a journey and found the true conversion point that they were looking for.

Speaker B: So we talked about this conversion flow. So how can you improve that without what I would describe as, rather than doing, I Suppose revolution, what about evolution? How do we evolve what we've got into what we need?

Speaker C: That's a very good question. So I think the first point to look at is technology. I think there's a big thought out there that we need to be really investing in very expensive platforms to allow us to execute on these type of um, um activities and thought processes. But in reality you don't. You've got your GA set up already, you've got all your general analytics already set up. Then all you need is a functional tool like wto, um to execute on those for you. Um, we have so many case studies of executing and growing out those stories for customers. It's fantastic. Think the interesting bit is that um, it's probably a depth of thought really that we find seems to be the true limiter. Like you know, we're working with a lot of companies who, their perspective is so focused in on driving traffic and really utilizing the maximum amount that you can out of any of the channels that we possibly got. That actually thinking about how we can alter out that experience on site when they arrive is kind of forgotten. Um, and, and it's, and it's interesting because you know you're kind of expecting one website to um, adhere to all of these different journeys and to be ultimately the performer and guide and journey that they require. But we've been clever enough to be focused on our marketing strategies for years and years. Whether it was right back to you know, putting an ad at the end of home and away to make sure you got that particular customer right through to modern day. We've got really sophisticated uh, segmentation strategies around our paid media strategies. So if we're going to be good enough and clever enough to do it there, I don't think it's a huge leap for us to be able to utilize the tools that we've already got to help us execute on those elements on site.

Speaker B: I mean some of the tools that we talk about in um, I suppose conversion rate optimization is things like being able to be much more personable in our approach. And that term personalization has gone in and gone out of fashion I suppose and probably back into fashion again. But there's lots more to that, isn't there, than just thinking about how can we personalize things. We're now starting to think about sentimentality, um, what kind of search terms are being used, long tails, all those different sorts of things. It seems like it's a forever moving landscape. How do we, and where do we start?

Speaker C: So we start. So firstly personalization is a scary term because it can mean so many different things to so many people. I myself prefer advanced segmentation. Right. We're talking about finding segments that work for us and growing them. Right. So simple starting point. If you have a website, um, so if you, let's say for example, you're an estate agent and you're dealing with renters and you're dealing with purchases like people who want to buy a house, those are two very distinctly different journeys. And although there are different areas of the website, where do they share their community and well, they both engage with a homepage first and they come through like that particular journey. So what you have to do is think big before we start thinking small and we evolve, uh, personalization, personalization story, or we're going to call it an advanced segmentation story. From biggest through to smallest, we get start very large with two or three very simple defined groups. And then if they're really successful, we do the testing and we see proper interaction. Then we start getting more refined as we go through. And the key then comes down to triggers. Right, so what are the triggers? And just like you say, we can use paid media for that, we can use social media for that, we can use all of the elements. And where do we focus first? Well, I mean, you just got to be logical, don't you? You've got to focus at your highest performing, highest spending areas.

Speaker B: But if you do start on that, that road, do you think that could be an easy evolution? Because one of the things I think we're all guilty of is chasing the money, you know, being able to say, okay, where's the return on my investment? So doing this, is it going to show a return on investment in the medium term? Or is it something that you kind of talk to the powers that be to say, actually this may take a little bit longer than just being able to throw more PPC at it.

Speaker C: So it's a very good question, right? Growth will always show us more, but the results are instantaneous. I mean, you're talking about defined audiences that you've already got and you're just making their experience better. We're talking about turning around an experience through web trends optimize, let's say, for example, um, and we could be seeing results of that in weeks and with teams allocated into helping that. You don't need a dev team to build it, you don't need a design team to build it. Agencies like Aware, Fresh Egg are equipped to do all that background research, to do all the building and to do all the presentation. So the execution can then just be strapped onto the back of an existing campaign really quickly, really effectively and the results are there for everyone to see.

Speaker B: I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but that may be a detraction from what they're doing on the day to day. I'm just trying to think of what langu could be used by the person who thinks actually that's a really good idea. How do they take that to their boss and say actually, you know, I would like to have a go at doing this.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean you're talking about improvements on conversion rates. We're not talking about throwing numbers into websites, we're about building that personalization, that experience for customers that are going to resonate with them, uh, more closely. I always really like the sort of analogy of a shop front. You know, if we're going to send customers through the shop front and send them around our store, how do we know that it's the right shop front for them? If we, you know, if you come into my shop you get to go to the ladies department or the men's department if it's closed, for example. How do we send our websites to the same experience? And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to look at, ah, an ever evolving digital experience of much more sophisticated customers but make their journey even simpler and try and reflect some of that that we've lost out from the high street.

Speaker B: I'm going to bring in the high street because it's a really good example. I think that you've got the Waitrose of this world and you've got the Aldi and the Lidls of this world or the lower cost um, environment. Now you go to Waitrose because you actually enjoy the experience. You don't go there because you think you're saving money. Yet in if you look at Lidl and Aldi, they're actually looking at being able to provide a high quality, low price alternative. But they're not the two kind of brands. So there's this, what I would describe as this brand optimization that I think needs to be looked at as well because it's being able to actually sell, I suppose the retail experience, the physical store experience online as well, which lots of people buy into. Because when you walk into Waitrose, it's a beautiful store, it smells good, all the floors are tidy, everything there, the staff are really polite and welcome you into the store and things like that. How can we get that back onto the um, website?

Speaker C: Yeah, you're absolutely Right. Um, conversion path is one thing and getting customers there to convert, but their brand and experience is the other one. Conversion helps someone get through your journey and convert at the end of it. The brand experience is what makes them come back. Um, and the fascinating thing is that all these elements, it's about a balance. Right. Not every customer wants the complete luxury experience, not everyone wants the kind of in between. What is the role of um, tantalizing and exciting customers still. Um, and exactly that. It's all down to testing. It's all down to testing on scale against those personalizations. It's about not thinking that you automatically know the customer. It's about building out a testing framework that lets you to test against those elements to make you understand, to help you understand what's really going to help you, your customers, um, convert but also return at the end of the day.

Speaker B: So if I just um, flip back to your um, estate agent, um, I think it's a really good experience to be able to show that a visitor hits your homepage and he knows whether he's a renter or he's interested in renting or interested in purchasing a house. And there's clear markers at the top which basically said rent or buy or there's a pop up banner that comes up. How do you think you can make that easier for say a retail outlet? I don't know, like um, let's say Marks and Spencer's where there's, there's a whole myriad of different things without actually starting to put what I would describe potentially as a banner in front of them, asking them questions.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, um, just interactions with the site is key. So it's two actually. I'll tell you what, there's two different elements. One is your first. So if you've logged in before, what have we learned? How do we know? What have you engaged with before? What sort of market, what sort of bucket sizes have you got? What do you normally enjoy? What are the products that sort of help you or which ones do you normally purchase? Um, and from all that we can start to build assumptions and build predictions on what is actually going to inspire and delight customers. It's also really interesting when we start talking about relevant offers and those sorts of elements as well. So what is it that's going to inspire a customer on the way? Well giving everyone the same offer, the same description isn't going to work. However, if you do really guided stories, that'll work, um, that'll work much better. Failing having that information, then we start to look at the Source. So the first bit we look at is how they got to your site. So what was the, what was the interaction? What was the search term? Was it social that brought them there? Was it actually paid search? And from there we can start to talk about, right, are they searching and scrolling and looking around or do we have to push information to them to inspire them to get them over to the mark and push them through the journey? Um, and so we can only do that by testing and by listening to what the interactions are through our website and making a profile out for those customers as they come through. The key is to be useful and not creepy. So we have to figure out the line in between.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was thinking the creepy versus helpful kind of scenario that you mentioned the other day because it can, because some people will see it as very beneficial, other people see it as very creepy. Oh, how do you know that about me? Big Brother's kind of watching me. Um, is it going to work for us? One of the things that happened in recent years, history, you know, in the last six months is Marks and Spencer's had gone through an awful time at the moment because they basically lost a lot of their online sales and some of the physical store sales as well. How can we, how do you think someone like Marks and Spencers can come back from that to be able to help their customers feel as though that they're safe online? Because if I was to say atypical Marks and Spencer customer is probably a middle class, um, person who is of a certain age because they've been in my suspense for years and years and years and now they've got this potential threat that things went wrong when they were online. They might still want to go back in store, but I'm sure Marks wants them to buy online as well. Any tips and tricks?

Speaker C: Well, that's the tough one, isn't it? Well, that is just, I think it's about honesty, um, and clear communication. I think there's an uh, element in there which is hold your hands up and be clear about it. Um, but I also think the big thing about this is the benefits of what we're asking, right? If we're asking for engagement, we're asking for data or asking for information, um, we need to be super clear on how we're going to use that data and that information and uh, really win back that trust again. So Marks and Spencer have got a, um, huge, um, job on their hands to try and retrospect to pull that traffic back and to really convince them that they can then convert Safely in that environment. But you know, um, the brand will help them do that because that's what the story is all about. But I think just honesty and engagement and probably a little bit of inspiration and pushing as well. So I think it'll probably come down to offering special deals or additional interaction or benefits to joining their online experience again. Um, you know, uh, I suppose the big question for me is, is a brand that's been burnt a better brand because they've been burnt and they need to now recover and they put their processes in order? Or is it a brand that's never been touched before? And I don't know the answer. I suppose everyone's different.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a difficult one, um, as you say, because one of the challenges is that they're heightened to the fact that there could be some nasty things going on on the web. So communicating with them more could be in their mind suspicious because we haven't heard from this before. Is it a scammer for instance, that's going on there. So this brand building I think has to be done not just um, online, but also has to be done in store for those people that coming into store to be able to say, hey, we're back up and running now or we're sorry about this, uh, watch out for this, we're going to give you a special code or something like that. It doesn't seen that that's been done particularly well, certainly from the experience of my, my good wife.

Speaker C: No, no, no, I completely, I completely understand that and I think that's right. I think a process for that needs to come and I'm sure there's something in line. I mean I, to be honest, going back, I mean I, I really like that survivorship, uh, bias story, you know, like, okay, they got hit. That's really unfortunate. We can see that, we can see the outcome of that. I'm more concerned about other companies that haven't been hit yet and what is hidden around the corner of what's coming next.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of panic going around. A lot of the uh, online retailers, especially those that are exclusively online as well.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, we hear from customers that we work with very closely, ah, specifically E commerce. Um, but I mean we're very closely with banks as well and all those kind of clients who are extremely focused in on their security levels. Um, there's so much stuff going on to protect, um, but it does sometimes take a big shake for us all to understand why.

Speaker B: Yeah, the ability to recover Well I think is one that lots of people see as being a big benefit. If you can get through it, come out the other end and offer the same, if not better service than they had before, I think um, they'll give them a chance to make that happen. We talked at the very, very earliest of this conversation about spending more to get more. Do you think there is an opportunity to be able to spend more on experimentation rather than spending more on additional um, paid media?

Speaker C: So I don't think it's an opportunity, I think it's a requirement. Um, I think when you look at like the evolution of websites over the years, um, I think I still remember when I first started out doing uh, testing and I first started out doing SEO. Originally a website was just as a function. You had to have a website because it was just a portal or something you put on the back of a business card and every so often you could do it. And as we've looked at the evolution of, of that, it's now front and center of stage. It's almost becoming that the nucleus of a business. The place where you know, people start their research, start their understanding for a business. So um, where we've talked about driving acquisition in the past and actually uh, putting more and more increased numbers behind that a, that's becoming more and more expensive. We're seeing the introduction of Google driving uh, content answers through AI which ah, is dealing away traditional organic traffic through websites. And on top of that we haven't seen a reduction in PPC spends. In fact they've gone up exponentially as a result and in line with that as well. So you can't be driving more, paying more for an expensive piece of traffic and they're not making the most out of it. When you then get it into your website it just doesn't, it just isn't going to compute. I think the barriers to that at the moment, um, where there are barriers, I think the cleverer companies are all getting on board with that very quickly. And I think the companies um, with aspirations to be bigger are now starting to talk about it and think about it as far as engagement, um, the conversations we're now having across the whole board of our clients. The barrier has always been I think, time to put into it and the breadth of headspace to do it as well. And that's why agencies like us are here to help. And I think the only way to really fund it or to think about it is to start looking at media spends and to be allocating some of that budget into making Your campaigns more engaging and more performance led. Um, when they come through to your own assets, the benefits are exactly as we sort of pointed out earlier, that conversion rate is better. So great, you get to sell more things. That's, that's really lovely and pleasant and that's what we all ultimately get up for in the day and we go to work for, we all try and achieve. But more importantly that, that brand experience that we meant that you touched on before, like selling is great, but selling to repeat customers and lifetime value is a much bigger uh, benefit long term and, and it's much more pleasant for a customer.

Speaker B: Do you think that's seen inside the organization as the second customer is always more, the second visit is always more um, profitable than the first?

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: That's a very good straight answer.

Speaker C: Well, look, I think rarely, I think that's broad, right? I mean, it's broad but I mean we see clients who do go down the route and I think, you know, long term, so customers who are talking sort of insurance and those kind of things. Obviously the repeat visit is very obvious. There's, but I mean a lot of the E Comm, a lot of the stories, it's about last click, last click, last spend. Um, we struggle with getting. And traditionally I understand that when we start to talk about analytics and how fast it is, how efficient it is, but now that analytics has got better and our ability to track has got a lot better and how we use first party data has got a lot better, it's all of a sudden very, very possible and should be the focus.

Speaker B: Okay, so taking a step backwards from the conversation that we started, if somebody's thinking about, yes, we need to be able to have a different conversion strategy or conversion flow, what are the kind of questions that person should ask within the organization to determine whether their existing strategy is the right one, even if they have one or it's not delivering.

Speaker C: Yeah. Okay, so firstly, are our spends increasing and um, are our paid spends increasing year on year? Really simple, straightforward question. Um, but I think it's relevant to everyone. Second thing, have we actually built a relationship between our website and our marketing, like off site, on site at all? I suppose on top of that I'd then be looking at the teams who are responsible for it. So build the need first. So, so, um, how big are our opportunities and are we spending more for traffic than we have previously? How can we start to make better use of that traffic and how it interacts? Second thing I'd be asking is how are customers interacting with our brand? Are they coming in? Are they bouncing? Are they coming in and out quite fast? Third thing is, are we treating customers differently? Are we expecting our PPC traffic to engage with our website in the same way as uh, our ah, SEO traffic and the same as our paid media traffic and particularly our social traffic? How are we dealing with each of those different channels differently? Um, I'd then be moving on to look at the structure and how we can actually inform it. The big barrier that we see is a disconnect between marketing teams and dev teams. Um, and it's a huge challenge and completely understand. But ultimately as we're talking now, as websites are becoming more intelligent and moving into this world where customers are expecting more and they're expecting more interaction, it's not just a dev's responsibility to keep a website operating as it should be, it's a marketing team's responsibility as well to make sure that it's all, you know, the traffic has been dealt with in the correct way because ultimately that's how people are ah, appreciating your brand and caring about your approach and that lifestyle value of the customer then starts to come out.

Speaker B: I think that one of the things that we often forget is that everybody's ambition is to have the best website, the best converting um, website as well. And they're all there busily doing their jobs because there's lots of pressure on people. Marketers are being pressured with regard to return on investment. Web developers are changes. How can we get a change done in a fasting? There's uh, lots and lots of different calls upon those to make different changes at a certain time. I think there's potentially in AI some help along the way to be able to make that happen and that uh, potentially could actually give that gap because you said it needs more time and I think when everybody's focused on the job that they're doing at a very fast pace today, having time to be able to do it will able them to look and reflect of what they've got and how they've got to move with the times to get more loyalty, more a better conversion rate or a better conversion flow, let's call it a better conversion flow. Uh, and I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of AI because I think that's a whole different conversation. But I think it's the time element. I feel that's a really, really strong bit that holds lots of people back because they just don't have the time to do the things that they're going to do. It's like driving a car. If you know where you've got to go and somebody's giving you instructions, you head that way. You're not going to take a deviation off somewhere else unless you've got the time.

Speaker C: You're right, John. But like, you know, what's the, what's the solution to that? Right? The solution is get help. Find someone who knows, find, uh, find inspiration, come and talk to us, come and talk to you guys and, and helps around the corner, like the pathways there. And you know, we've done, we've got similar signposts for clients before. You know, I struggle with some things and I need to have the help of my team to be able to really produce it. And I love working with them. And that's the point of why we're here, to work together.

Speaker B: Well, that's a very fitting close to this, uh, podcast, Miles. That's really good. I think it's got to be work in progress. And as we said earlier, it's an evolution rather than a revolution. But I think somewhere someone has to start that evolution going down a slightly different path rather than just doing more of the same and hoping the results are going to get better.

Speaker C: I completely agree. And the other thing to add there as well is to not be scared of it because it is accessible. You don't need big complicated platforms with deep implementation issues to be able to execute just that. That, uh, personalization story is just right there around the corner and it's accessible to everyone.

Speaker B: Miles, thank you very much for your time today. It's been interesting. I'm sure it's been stimulating to a lot of people to start conversations inside their organizations just to be able to think differently than the way they've been thinking. And who knows, it might bring along some additional business for both of us.

Speaker C: That'd be great. Thank you very much, John. It's been really loving talking to you. Thank you for taking the time.

Speaker B: All right, thanks, Miles.

Speaker C: No problem. Take care. Uh, bye Bye, John.

Speaker B: Sam? Mhm.