Claus Lauter [00:00:00]:
This is episode 287 of the Ecommerce Coffee Break Podcast. Today Brian Massey, founder of Conversionsciences.com joins me on the show and we talk about how to make changes and tweaks to your online store and understand the impact on sales. So let's dive right into it.
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This is the ecommerce Coffee Break.
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A.
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Top rated Shopify growth podcast dedicated to Shopify merchants and business owners looking to grow their online stores. Learn how to survive in the fast changing e commerce world with your host Klaus Lauter, and get marketing advice you can't find on Google. Welcome.
Claus Lauter [00:00:41]:
Welcome to the show. Hello, welcome to another episode of the Ecommerce Coffee Break Podcast. Today we want to talk about a topic that a lot of people might find boring, but actually it's not and is really important for anyone out there who's running a business. We're going to talk about conversion rate optimization and we want to talk about swings and little tweaks that get the balance right in your ecommerce business. So with me on the show, I have Brian Massey. He's the founder of Conversion Sciences and author of the book "Your Customer Creation Equity". His rare combination of interests and experience developed over 30 years as a computer programmer, entrepreneur, corporate marketer, international speaker and writer will help us here in this conversation. And Ryan has worked with hundreds of companies to improve their online business.
Claus Lauter [00:01:21]:
He's a sought after speaker presenting at IBM, inbound leads, conversion marketing world and many other events. He has written four online publications including Clickset, Search Engine lead and Marketing land. Brian is the editor of the Conversion Scientist's blog and also a fellow podcaster at the Intended Consequences podcast. So let's welcome him to the show. We have a lot to cover. Hi Brian, how are you today?
Brian Massey [00:01:42]:
I am doing great Brian, tell me.
Claus Lauter [00:01:44]:
A little bit what got you started in the world of e commerce?
Brian Massey [00:01:47]:
Well, so I was trained as a computer programmer. I got involved in sales early after graduating from college. I was selling semiconductors so highly technical product rose to my highest level of incompetence in that role and found myself back in the programming world for a startup that ended and the director of engineering and I started our own company in the 90s doing software. The.com bus took out our customers so we stopped running that company and I worked as a marketing person for several tech startups in the early two thousand s. And when I realized that I wanted to go back and do something on my own, I couldn't think of what else to do as a computer programmer sales marketing entrepreneur other than being a conversion scientist. So Ezenberg brothers introduced the concept to me in 2006, and I hung a shingle and put on a lab coat and said, all right, conversion sciences is what we're going to be doing. And we've been doing that ever since.
Claus Lauter [00:02:50]:
Now it's really a science. There's a lot of things involved, technology, psychology, speed of your website and so on and so forth. Now, what are the key factors that actually are the most important ones when we're talking about conversion rate optimization and optimizing a business, a website, when we're.
Brian Massey [00:03:09]:
Looking at assembling ideas for what might improve a website, they fall into really five major buckets. So number one, the messaging value proposition needs to be very clear. And I think a lot of ecommerce companies miss this. They rightfully so, lead with products, but don't give the visitor an understanding of what their particular value proposition. Are they the cheapest? Do they have the biggest inventory? Do they have high quality? Or do they have unique products that can't be gotten anywhere? And so messaging and value proposition is really important. And in the ecommerce world, that flows obviously to the product pages and the product descriptions. The second bucket that we look at is credibility and authority. So what are you doing to indicate that you are qualified to sell these particular products? And this include anything from apparel to industrial equipment, all of which is obviously sold online these days.
Brian Massey [00:04:03]:
The next bucket is the layout of the page. So the job of the designer, especially in an ecommerce world, is to get the visitors eyes to the important parts of a page. It could be a product page, it can be a landing page, it could be the home page, so that they get what your value proposition is, why you're unique, why I should keep looking, and then where I should go to begin to find the sorts of things I'm looking for. The other two are social proof. So in the ecommerce world, testimonials, ratings and reviews, very important, especially in the consumer space. And then security. So can I trust you to take my credit card and keep it safe? And even the biggest retailers have proven that that's difficult to do. So those are the primary buckets that we want to make sure that we have ideas in or that we're looking at the data in in order to figure out how we make a website better.
Claus Lauter [00:04:58]:
Let me play a little bit of devil's advocate. I'm a corporate marketeer. I have my storefront on Shopify. I just bought either a very shiny, fancy new $400 template, a theme, or I just spent a couple of thousand with a web agency building me a nice storefront. So I assume everything is right when it comes to conversion rate optimization. Or is it not?
Brian Massey [00:05:19]:
So it's a great starting point. Ecommerce companies have to walk this line between familiarity and novelty. So if you come up with an ecommerce metaphor that's completely different from our typical add to cart or add to bag and then checkout process, then you begin to require your customers to learn a new interface to do what they've been doing. However, if you are stuck and looks so much like everybody else, and Shopify is a great example, it's both training online shoppers what that cart looks like, because so many people are on Shopify, but it makes it difficult for you to differentiate. If they are shopping around, they forget where was that other place that I went to and saw that thing? So it's really important to add some hooks to that. And as you might suspect, the Shopify cart is well tested and well tried, but they miss a lot of really important things. So you have interesting products or differentiated products in your marketplace, and the person goes through the checkout process, you tend to drop all of that brand stuff. You might put a logo on the checkout process when you're asking for named contact information, shipping address, credit card, and then the final process.
Brian Massey [00:06:39]:
We have found that it is really important to keep those brand signals in the checkout process. So taking some of the white space that inevitably exists in one of the columns, typically, for instance, Shopify, there's this blank space below the list of products in case the products get long. But reinforcing what your warranty is, what your guarantee is, what your return policy is, and the things that remind them why they bought that particular product. So one of the first things we do in optimizing a card is saying, how can we bring that brand personality into the checkout process? Because as soon as someone decides to buy your product, the first thing they do is look for a way to delay that decision. So we want to reinforce that from the scientific side.
Claus Lauter [00:07:25]:
What's your approach? Where do you start working? We were talking about the card, the checkout process. Are you starting from what is closest to the first visit, or are you starting from the end? What's the closest to the money? What's your approach there?
Brian Massey [00:07:39]:
Yeah, so the data really tells us where we're going to start, and we can begin working with what we call the flow, which is all the pages that funnel people into that add to cart and checkout action. So if the data is showing that the add to cart rate is very low, then we might start there and looking at the landing pages. And for people that are doing online advertising, the product pages are very often the landing pages. Google shopping, for instance, will drive people there. However, if we find out that there is a high cart abandonment rate, so people have added things to the cart and maybe even started checkout process but haven't finished that. That's telling us that, number one, there's probably a question that we haven't answered on the product pages that needs to be answered. A lot of people will start the checkout process to get an idea of, okay, what is tax going to be, what shipping options do you have so we can move those things earlier in the process. And ironically, we might see a lower add to cart rate, but ultimately a higher sideweight conversion rate because people are getting the questions, they're answered and that gives them momentum to get through the add to cart and checkout process.
Brian Massey [00:08:50]:
So it really depends on the data, as any good scientist should say, let's.
Claus Lauter [00:08:55]:
Touch on the data. What kind of data do I need to have to really get started? Or put it the other way, when clients are coming to you, probably things are not working well, so they approach you, what kind of data are you looking in? And if not, how do you start the process to collect data?
Brian Massey [00:09:14]:
Yeah, so the scientific method requires us to do some research on the front end to develop our ideas and to research ideas to see which ones are most important. So we set up what we call the digital laboratory. At the foundation of that is typically analytics. The most popular analytics right now is Google Analytics. There's been quite a bit of a shake up in the analytics world since Google Analytics ended their last version of analytics. We also like to see how people are interacting with pages. So we'll use what we call heat map software, and this tells us how far, for instance, people are scrolling on in general, how far people are scrolling on product pages. So we can see how much of the content they're seeing.
Brian Massey [00:09:57]:
There might be some important things that are at the bottom of the page that aren't getting reached, and so we might come up with a hypothesis of reorganizing the content to bring that to the top tells us where people are clicking and it also tracks their mouse move. So it's somewhat of a metaphor for where they're looking. And so we can see what parts of the page are getting attention and which aren't more extreme version of this is online eye tracking, where we actually can track the eyes of people that are tracking, that are viewing the page, typically from panels. Beyond that, we want to make sure that the analytics doesn't have blind spots. We really do want to know. It's very common, for instance, on a product page to have tabs that have the description, the product specifications, videos. Perhaps. We want to know if people are clicking on those to see if they're interested, if large groups of them are interested in some of those other tabs.
Brian Massey [00:10:51]:
So we want to make sure that those sorts of events are instrumented. And then, of course, an a b testing tool which allows us to collect the best data that we can. We end up with a lot of ideas. We do research to figure out which ones just need to be fixed, which ones aren't an issue, and those that remain are candidates for taking to an A B test where we change something. We show half the visitors one, the other half the visitors the other, and we see which generates the most sales and the most revenue.
Claus Lauter [00:11:22]:
Hey Klaus, here, just a quick one. If you like the content of this episode, subscribe to the weekly newsletter at newsletter ecommercecoffeebreak.com. I score and create 50 news sources so you don't have to, saving your hours of research. Grow your revenue with ecommerce news, marketing strategies, tools, podcast interviews and more, all in a quick three minute read. So head over to newsletter ecommercecoffeebreak.com to subscribe as said, 100% free. Also, you will find the link in the show notes.
Brian Massey [00:11:47]:
And now back to the show.
Claus Lauter [00:11:50]:
Can you give me some example? You don't need to call the name the brand, but just an example from projects they have been through and what kind of results came out of it.
Brian Massey [00:11:59]:
We've worked with b to b ecommerce as well as b to c ecommerce. And it is everything from filters for your air conditioning and people who build guitars and sell guitars. They're looking for parts and kits. I mentioned both of these because they have a very strong repeat purchase portion of it. You need a new filter every month or every three months, depending on how diligent you are in taking care of your HVAC. Being in Texas, we want to make sure the AC is running so we want to replace those every month. But that retention, and I think it really speaks again to that novelty versus familiarity. There are subscription models for both of these business.
Brian Massey [00:12:43]:
One is free. Just give us your name and email address and we'll send you the filters as you need them. And the other is a yearly fee that requires you to sign up and you get discounts, you get special offers and free shipping and things like that. So understanding when the best time is to introduce these loyalty programs is really very important. Beyond that, we've worked with apparel companies and you had mentioned tweaks at the outset. And I think the idea set is really a combination of tweaks. Sometimes just reiterating like your fit guarantee on the product page, next to the price or next to the add to cart button can have a significant lift. If you're going to get 11% lift in your conversions, that's pretty good money for a relatively small text change.
Brian Massey [00:13:37]:
Some of our ecommerce clients favor phone calls, especially in more the industrial world where some high priced items really need to be done with a phone call and an invoice. And so that creates some interesting alternatives for how we present those sorts of options and optimize for them. We really have to understand the value of those two things because increasing phone calls might increase online transactions. And for cheap products, we want to keep it online. And for the more expensive ones, we want a phone call.
Claus Lauter [00:14:06]:
You mentioned in the beginning that the process of a lot of websites sort of standardized and one site looks like the other, and now with phone calls, for instance, you need to think a little bit out of the box. Are there any kind of crazy ideas that you can bring in to increase conversion rates?
Brian Massey [00:14:24]:
There are some, and I think a good one that illustrates that is this is more for some of the higher end, some of the more considered purchase products is requiring an email address to see pricing. This can be done in a lead generation environment like a BB SaaS or something like that. And it illustrates some of the trade offs that you get. So people who are somewhat interested and want to just know if they even have the budget for the product you're selling, will want to see those things. That doesn't make them a particularly good lead. So you end up with a great deal of low quality leads and so you have to really up your game. And I think this is a really important addition to the best practices is the ecommerce companies that we've worked with that are doing well have their email game down. They understand how frequently they should be selling, and most of the businesses we see are afraid to send frequently, for instance, daily.
Brian Massey [00:15:20]:
We generally find, as much as we'd love to think that education is a great way to do things. Promotional emails seem to generate the most revenue. But for many businesses, the combination of a couple of informational emails, especially after they've just purchased, helping them use the product successfully combined with promotional emails works. So I think your question was specifically around phone calls and on the mobile side of things, the click to call, since we have a phone app installed on most of our phones, are able to click and call. An important part of the digital lab is having a phone tracking so that we can not only see who's calling, how long those calls are, what part of the site they were on, but we can do a b testing where version of the control gets a certain phone number, the variation gets a different phone number, and we can see which of those variations is generating the most phone calls specifically. There's some technology involved in making all of that work, but it's an absolute must. If phone calls are important, I think.
Claus Lauter [00:16:26]:
That'S a great idea. I've never heard that doing a b testing with different phone numbers or basically depending where it goes, and that shows that conversion rate optimization is not only on site, it is the whole funnel that goes far further than just changing the color of a button as a smaller medium enterprise. And we have a lot of solopreneurs and smaller businesses as listeners on the show. Are there any tips or any ideas that you can give that they basically can start trying to put into their store today?
Brian Massey [00:16:54]:
Those businesses that have a culture of experimentation are going to begin to demand the right tools that you want for everyone. It's going to be a little bit different, but I think that's the first thing is adding a b testing to your software, to your digital lab. Most businesses have analytics, although there are a number of blind spots there, and also using user panels to narrow your ideas. Because the problem is that especially for smaller ecommerce sites, you don't have the transactions necessary to do a lot of a b testing. So user testing services and usability testing services bring panels of people who will look at your creative and answer questions about it. This really allows you to narrow down your decisions and see where you're confusing people with your layouts and with the information that you're giving and where your designs are actually improving things. So getting really curious about the data that you can reach, because it's not expensive, it doesn't take a lot of expertise really to understand. And having one or more people dedicated to spending a portion of their time continually looking at the data and figuring out what's working and what's not working, I think is the most important thing.
Brian Massey [00:18:16]:
And as they begin to ask questions, they can look at our blog and see how we answer some of those questions. The other thing that I think is important and again, going back to this novelty versus familiarity is we tend to play it safe. We tend to get careful and just do what everybody else is doing. I think if you can use experimentation to get a little crazier with your ideas, maybe take some chances. From a product standpoint, I've noticed that certain brands out there, I recently came across a brand called Bird dogs, and they sell pants with a unique inner liner, so you don't have to wear underwear. That's their thing. They do a very good job of making that front and center, but they also have these very whimsical names for their products. Each color gets a different whimsical name, and their advertising is risky.
Brian Massey [00:19:06]:
And they wouldn't be able to do these sorts of things without looking at the data and understanding what's going on. I've seen businesses like this mature and find different markets for what they're doing, especially when the pandemic hit, they get a little bit more familiar, but they've already built this audience of very loyal folks that come back and spread the word.
Claus Lauter [00:19:27]:
Tell me about conversion sciences. Who's your perfect customer? What kind of companies do you work with?
Brian Massey [00:19:32]:
Our perfect customer is a mid market company. So we don't do a lot of work with enterprises. We're competitive. We like to win. That implies a certain velocity of getting through these ideas. And we love mid market companies, anywhere from 2 million in revenue up to 250,000,000 in revenue. Because we're generally dealing with folks that are close to the top. They're incentivized to get things done.
Brian Massey [00:19:59]:
Culture change comes more easily. They aren't the silos that you get with enterprise. More than half of our book is ecommerce. We also do business to consumer lead generation b. Two B SaaS and B to C SaaS. Less of the b to b considered purchase companies. So in the world of conversion optimization, we're kind of in the middle of the market, both in terms of who we deal with and also our pricing.
Claus Lauter [00:20:27]:
Let's talk about the onboarding process. What do I need to do on kind of homework before I approach you? What are the steps with the onboarding, and how long does this whole process work? Or take?
Brian Massey [00:20:39]:
The first question is, what flavor of CRO are you going to be using? So is it going to be full on full team A B testing, where we come in and we do everything from design, development, ideation, basically doing everything. You're still paying attention to your business and doing the things you do in a day out, day in, day out. And we're answering questions about your business and helping you understand your customers. For smaller businesses, we may focus more on redesigns, rebranding and using user testing, usability testing and the analytics that we have to understand what changes aren't making things work. You can make a change on your website and this is something you can do in analytics. Change something on your website. You don't have enough traffic to do a formal a b test, which isolates the time variation. But you can do a before and after analysis that looks very much like an A B test analysis and get a good idea of what changes to your site are improving things and which ones aren't.
Brian Massey [00:21:38]:
And that's just understanding the statistics a little bit. You don't have to be a PhD or anything like that, but that allows you to start using experimental tools in the current process where you're trying things. And most ecommerce companies are doing that. They're trying things. Should we be launching this new product? How should we be launching it? Let's try some things. But going ahead and doing the analysis to make sure that that change was what your visitors really wanted.
Claus Lauter [00:22:07]:
Yeah, I think that's a usual marketer problem, that you are willing to do changes, but when it comes to going into the KPIs and the numbers to reporting the stats, that's a bit of an afterthought because that's not really what you want to do in life.
Brian Massey [00:22:20]:
Yeah. And it can be very humbling. Oh, I know that this is going to work because this is just objectively better. And then you launch it and do the analysis or do an A B test. And our most beloved and most intelligent and beautiful redesigns have proven to, oh, this is not improving things. So the key is always be able to go back.
Claus Lauter [00:22:41]:
Cool. Brian, before we come to the end of the coffee break today, is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet?
Brian Massey [00:22:48]:
You can't run an e commerce company without data. And I'm talking about understanding your visitors more at a level than those sorts of things you're getting from your shopify dashboard. So I think that just as if you were running a brick and mortar store, you would want to walk around and see how the customers are doing and listen to how your employees are talking to them. That begins to inform changes that you're seeing in revenue, revenue per visitor, average order values, things like that. That you're really trying to track which of our high profit items are selling things like that. Analytics, the heat map reports, they really allow you to kind of walk around your digital store and begin to understand what the visitors need and where you're putting unnecessary barriers in the way. So I think this set of skills is absolutely necessary for anyone who wants to really grow their ecommerce business.
Claus Lauter [00:23:44]:
No, I would totally agree. Most companies do just not have the skills in house, and then it's good to approach an expert on that one. Where can people find out more about conversion sciences?
Brian Massey [00:23:54]:
Our website is conversionsciences.com. We have an active blog sharing all of the things that we're learning. We've always used teaching as our primary marketing strategy, doing things like we're doing here today and letting people listen into our water cooler conversation. So you'll see what we're learning there and begin to understand what some of the moving pieces of putting together an experimental, data driven culture looks like.
Claus Lauter [00:24:23]:
I would recommend to our listeners to sign up for your newsletter. I'm a long term subscriber of your newsletter and that's the one that I always read when it comes to conversion or rate optimization. Brian, thanks so much for your time today. I will put the links in the show notes, then you will be just one click away and a lot of people reach out to you. Thanks so much.
Brian Massey [00:24:39]:
Thank you.
Claus Lauter [00:24:41]:
Hey Klaus here. Thanks for joining me on another episode of the e commerce Coffee Break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you. First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It will make it also easier for others to discover the podcast, simply like comment and subscribe in the app you're using to listen to the podcast, and even better if you could leave a rating. Thanks again and I'll catch you in the next episode. Have a good one.