Hello and welcome to another episode, the winning Shopify
podcast and me, your host, Nick Truman.
And I'm so delighted to be in a physical studio.
We love doing stuff face to face.
I'm joined today by an absolute legend of CRO, Shopify
e-commerce and a whole lot of other things that will come onto
in a minute. His name's Adam and he is CEO
and Co founder of Blend commerce, the Shopify and CRO
agency, but not much of A CRO. But we'll come onto the Adam.
Welcome to the show. Thanks, Adam.
Thank you. Very well.
Thank you. Yeah, good to be here.
Good. Good.
It was great to have you and we nearly missed each other because
we were at the wrong cafe. But we got here in the end.
We're going to live straight in. How can a Shopify brand through
CRO increase their revenue per session by 65% in just six
months? Yeah.
I mean, look, it's one of those things ultimately when you look
at the stats of working with CRO that you want to be focusing on
obviously revenue. And I think that's probably one
of the biggest challenges with CRO is that there's a
misconception. It's just about conversion.
And I think, you know, the, the thing with that particular
client was that there were kind of three things that break it
down is that first of all, we need to understand what the
problem was. And the way that we look at that
is something that we call the buy trifecta.
So any business regardless against who you are, it's OK.
Well, when customers come in to your physical site or your
store, do they buy now, do they buy more and do they buy again?
So ultimately you're looking those core metrics to say which
one of those, the biggest problem identifying that.
And then secondly, it is what we often talk about is so going
from politics to process. And we'll get onto this later
on. But ultimately when it comes to
growing that level, you have to move beyond discussions and gut
feel and politics in an organization to be able to get
an actual process in. And we use something PECTI to
call PECTI to basically do that, which is kind of a structure
prioritisation system. And the third part ultimately is
about being dynamic and not static.
And I think look, Nick, you know, you and I are both in the
agency world. We are very good at producing
spreadsheets and producing lists of things that just we kind of
work through over a longer period.
But ultimately to get those kind of numbers, that has to be a
dynamic, not a static process and basically making changes
when you need to and not just plowing on with the same thing
even though the environment or the architecture that business
in is going to change. I.
Think one of the biggest challenges and we were we'd get
on NATO off air, didn't worry about this very polite about
some of the clients we've worked with over the years and some of
the some of the pushback we've had to what you'd classify CRO
or that revenue uplift aim from you've got all this traffic
coming in. How do we get more revenue per
session per user? I love the way you break into
those three areas as well. I think it's really, really key.
We'll come on to the lifetime value one in a minute as well,
because that's I find that always the biggest missed one.
Everyone's looking at on site conversion rates.
So we'll come back to that. But I think one of the things
that I found the biggest pushback and this has been
pretty the hardest challenge is why it's so memorable.
And I said this to you before we hit record is so many founders.
It's like a baby to them, this business.
So when you come along and say, I want to dye the baby's hair
blonde, I don't, I don't want to be brunette anymore because if
you dye blonde, the baby will do all the things you want a baby
to do better, which I guess is as we're both dads, the nappies
will be cleaner and they'll eat more food and they'll throw less
of it across the across you and your kitchen and all these
things. With an e-commerce business,
sometimes you get that uplift. But they say, oh, I just don't
like it. So we're not going to roll it
out or there's pushback to rolling it out.
And I mentioned one thing to you and you kind of went, oh, God,
yeah. We've had a few of those talk,
talk me through some of those political bits.
If founders are listening to this and going, that's me.
I struggle with that because I built this business and someone
else is telling me do this because it's better and I see
the stats, but I'm, I'm almost blinded.
Yeah. How do you how do you overcome
some of those things? Yeah, sure.
I mean, look, I think that the common problem is, you know, if
you think about a typical business, there will be always
be either ACMO, head of Marx, head of brand or founder who
looks at the site in terms of what does it look like
aesthetically, is it beautiful? And I think, you know, when you
start a business that's really, really important.
But ultimately then when you grow bigger, there will be
people have technical skills or nouns that will know things that
can be done and there will be analytical people who will look
at the stats. And really the political element
comes in as this interplay between those three things.
And a lot of the time, you know, I've actually had lots of
conversations with heads of e-commerce who I've said, look,
we effectively come in as United Nations in your organization to,
to try and sell a print. Because a lot of the time, you
know, what happens is that the CMO with the the brand founder
will say, look, we want to look this way.
The web dev team will go like, we can do this, but we don't
think it's right. The CRO part of the analysis
part and whether that's an agency or internally is the
person says, look, guys, in terms of what you want and what
you want, the data shows that your visitors and your customers
need this thing. So actually we might take
elements of what the marketing aspect want, the dev team want
and bring those together. Certain things will fall away,
but ultimately I think this is the problem with E com is that
we a lot of the time will be focused on what other people are
doing. And it is what do your customers
and what do your visitors tell you that they need and they
expect to help you effectively to get that revenue going up.
The UN is such a good example of that.
I I've sat in rooms before between like FDMD and like CMO
and I'm sitting there going like, sorry, can you explain
that? Because I don't think these guys
are hearing you and like, and I'm suddenly sitting there going
like, if I told my wife I'd in counselling days, she'd be like,
you are the least qualified person to be counselling people
on anything. But I, I mean, I, I'm sure you,
you've, you can sympathize this. I've made the mistake of coming
in like a bull in a China shop. Some of them going guys
literally just just turn that new theme on.
We, we know it's 5080% better or whatever, or, you know, 65% out
there for revenue per user. That's massive for any business.
Yeah. I mean, for you guys listening,
if that doesn't make sense or you've not seen that kind of
metric before, that means for every person that comes into the
site, you're getting 65% more revenue per personal on average.
So if one in 10 buys that one person now has spent enough that
all ten of those on average spending 65% more.
It's incredible statistic. And I've even had arguments over
that where clients have said the conversion rate is better.
I'm like, yeah, but they're buying like a $5 product now
instead of $100 product. Your average order value is
falling away. Or they're buying like, I mean,
here's a good example because this, this is a real one with
the lamp shade of this lamp over here that might cost what, 2030
lbs for an OK one here in the UK.
But they're not buying the lamp. And they've done some CRO work
and the conversion rates increase because they're driving
more people to the lampshades because they're easier purchase.
But they've got no margin on those at all.
They're like an add on product or they're like a lead in
product to buy the lamp and you get problems like that.
Yeah. What are three of the biggest
CRO fails like that that you see brands making that are quite
common? Yeah, I mean, I think look the
the first one is, is is diving in on the aesthetics and trying
to get a site to look a particular.
And now a few years back, everyone that came to blend said
can you burn a site looks like gym shark and a bird of it.
Yeah, yeah. And I think look, the the
problem with that isn't look, no, Mac, that the chief brand
officer talks to us a lot. He always talks about the fact
that don't copy what they did copy their mindset.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that is it's the
process that goes through about saying what customer base do you
have and what do they need. So I think that's the first
thing is, is all about the aesthetics.
Yeah, all. Sorry, just to add as well, if
if you want to hear more about that.
So we've had Richards, you must say Richards.
He was at your meet up actually, yeah, I'll mention his meet up
in a minute. He's a legend.
He's a local folk legend here in the UK, but as an as an Adam is,
but I saw Richard there recently.
So he's he was the CMO at gym chart and he's been on the show
3 Times Now. So we've had him.
Might be he he describes that as well through that growth of
going like it wasn't the fact we made it look this way.
It was the mindsets here. Sorry to.
Interrupt. But yeah, no, absolutely.
But I think this is this is the biggest 1 and it ties back to
that point about the kind of politics of CRO and how you get
things changed. So that's definitely one.
I think the other side of it as well is kind of, again, not
really kind of having a metric or a goal or a target that
you're trying to get to. Because I generally start all
the calls with a with a brand new brand that I'm talking and
say, look, what actually is the goal over the next 12 months?
And what I hate is when someone goes, we want to grow, OK, what
does that mean? Yeah.
Does that mean 25% revenue? How radical do the changes?
Absolutely, Yeah, yeah. And you know you, I think
ultimately you will with CRO you can take different levels of
risk depending on obviously what the long term goal is, but
ultimately not having that clear and saying we want to see some
growth. But the issue there is what do
we believe is growth as an agency, as a or as a CRO
specialist and internally what does everyone see as that
growth? So I think that's another big
issue that you have. And I think the other side of it
too is that when it comes to thinking about the side, the
problem is, is that a lot of the time the core actual
functionality of what you can do on there is often missed.
And it is more about kind of saying ultimately when you are
trying to get people to buy more, buy again and effectively
by now you need to think about the easiest possible way to get
them through that site as possible.
And it sounds simple and in reality it's not.
But ultimately those are the things that people divert away
from and land themselves in a whole heap of true, like you
mentioned that you know, is obsessing over a 3% conversion
rate. Conversion rate optimization is
the worst term ever for CRO because it is completely not
reflective of what you need to do.
Ultimately, like you said that it's about revenue and all the
different factors that come in to bring that revenue up to get
you the return that you want. I was thinking recently a client
asked me like what would perfect data look like?
And I just basically sat back and looked out the window for a
couple of minutes and just had this dream world, perfect data.
I think to come back to your point, I think perfect data
would be every time someone sees an advert, we've got name, phone
number, address, e-mail, we've got all of that information and
you can see how many times they've engaged.
Because imagine if you could have conversion rate per user.
GA4 only knows the user from the user session, not the user.
So they visit your site five times on two or three different
devices. You're not going to get that
down as one. It'll probably show as multiple
users in GA 4. And that's limitation you and I
understand and not, not everybody kind of gauges that.
But yeah, you'd have that user data and you'd have conversion
rate per user because let's face it, if I'm buying a bed or a
sofa that is not like a, oh, that's nice, three grand card
details go. It's like, no, no, I'm thinking
about this $3000 sofa. Like I'm really considering this
purchase. So actually, if you're trying to
optimize people to buy on first visit, what's your returns rate
going to look like? These guys are like totally
irrational with their money. They're just, and it's a big
item. It's going to go in a room.
It's arrived now. I didn't really think it
through. Of course it's going to be the
wrong one. Well, we've got 1000 sofas and
you just randomly chose that one in 2 minutes because your
metrics are wrong. And I totally agree on the
conversion rate. Are there any little things you
go back to the basics? Are there any little things that
and, and we've seen ourselves, Are there any little things that
you find brands, they just tend to miss on that normally the
product page, right? They just miss basic information
because they're distracted. Yeah.
I mean, I think one of the biggest ones that we often see
is the the the reference to payment types and not letting
people know very early on how they can pay.
So look, buy now, pay later has become massive.
You know, obviously Apple Pay is really important and ultimately
a lot of the time you'll still see now that when you actually
go through a site, you may not still see what those paying
options are. Now, if you're listening to in
the US, you will know, look, PayPal is still a massive trust
indicator to whether people will buy or not.
People are making decisions before they get to the point
where they're going to pay or not.
So if you don't give them that information, that is really key.
And I think ultimately it's it's about saying you need to
minimize the surprises that people have from the PDP through
to the actual checkout page, the less surprise you have in terms
of payment, shipping, delivery times, all of that.
Calculated at checkout? Absolutely.
Yeah, that's an unknown. And you see it time and time
again, the drop off, you know ultimately your add to cart rate
to basic conversion should be about a 50% drop off.
As soon as that is bigger than that, it typically is around one
of those issues that there is a shock or a surprise that people
weren't expecting when they've been on your PDP.
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not marketers. I, I found so many things like
that on client sites, like again, big item and you're like,
where are the dimensions? They're like, oh, they're right
there. And it's like, no, they're not.
You have to Scroll down, find like a load of tabs, click on
the specifications 1. I mean, we, we did a test for
the client. We're nowhere near as
sophisticated as you guys, but we just had a theory that we
looked on clarity to check our theory theory on their Microsoft
clarity. And everyone was like the, the
people that did buy were clicking on these tabs.
So we were like, well, let's kill the tabs and just have the
information down the page. So as you're scrolling on mobile
and the mobile one that showed was a minimized version of the
text. So it was like 3 or 4 words per
bullet. And on desktop it was like
longer or you could put sub bullets or even little
paragraphs but with bits of bold text to highlights that one.
We did that and we saw an uplift because it was again, large item
you're thinking of purchasing or it was like a really expensive
shoe or something. I want to know all the details
when you say it's size A this is a £500 shoe or pair of shoes.
You need to buy one, but it depends who you are.
But this is a £500 shoe. So actually I need to know the
exact what size 8 means to you. It's actually having a like
visible on the page, like a guide on how to measure your
foot. And also like they did, they did
them in wide, regular or thin feet.
It's super useful. And then like if you had an
abnormality, you could add that as a thing saying like because
they were custom made, so they would make the shoe slightly
more custom to you. You could even draw it around
your foot on a piece of paper and send it in.
It'll make you a shoe. But I think that you know the,
the point you make there as well is all of these answers are
actually hidden in your data. Now we've got a a potato crisp
or or chip company worth in the US and what we saw with them is
that their PDP was not converting.
And what we looked at is actually the on site search
data. Now what you saw from the on
site search data is that people were putting in the name of the
product and then writing ingredients.
And what that indicated to us is that actually finding in that
block of text the ingredients information was very difficult.
So we actually implemented here sort of accordion menus to
effectively section other information.
As a result of doing that, conversion went up 35%.
So it's the information that you need is there from how your
customers use it. You just need to be able to get
into that to then understand what it exactly is that you need
to do on the site. I love that.
You've just reminded me of something.
We do a lot with e-commerce brands when they've got probably
ski range of 500 plus. Once you reach 2 or 3000, it's
like a, why are we not doing this?
What we do from an SEO point of view is your normal NAV or the
burger menu, we call it with three lines burger menu, it pops
out mobile. The NAV should be like, just
what is the product, right? It's like you go into men's and
women's and into clothing, etcetera.
So clothing's a great example of this.
But then we have a whole other set of collections and you can
shop other ways. So we have a collection of this
by size. So you're like, right, I'm, I'm
delighted to have an extra small nail here in the UK, which is
like XXXS in the US, which I'm delighted to go shopping.
Next week. In, in Kansas.
And in fact, when this goes out, I'll probably be home,
unfortunately. But yeah, it's stuff like that
where you're like, you can shop by that or like if you're a
health fanatic, as soon as it's a health product, what they
normally do is go like, well, we're a health shop.
So you know, so like you can go in here.
And by the way, this is vegan. But actually, if there's a
whole, if your whole collection structure, you go in and
everything's already filtered by vegan, that's cool.
But then I've been on a massive health kick.
So the calories and stuff, the protein and stuff and the sugar
and stuff. I've been looking at these.
You're exactly right. I bought I love chocolate
raisins, but I found out I'm milk intolerant now, but so I
now to get dark chocolate ones which actually tastes better.
So I bought some on Amazon. But on Amazon, if you've ever
tried to look at the that health information to find out the
calories, the sugar, it's a nightmare.
Yeah. So I then started searching
vegan chocolate raisins and they were hardly any coming up on
Amazon. I was like, I just, I want them
tomorrow, right? Like that's why I'm on Amazon.
But I think you're absolutely right.
Just getting those basic things sort of set up and visible on
the page. I think half of it is having the
information, isn't it? And half is making it clearly
visible. Yeah.
How important do you find the UX design of the page is?
Or is it actually the UX is secondary to just have the
information? No, it's very important.
And I think the way I would sort of think about it is, is that
think about two words, sign posting and hand holding.
Because ultimately what your site, what your UX need to do do
is to eloquently signpost people to the right products.
And like you gave that example there, you were going to have
some customers who are very well informed and others who are
completely not informed at all. So having things like, for
example, an excellent filtering system is very, very important
because for those people that are more informed, like you're
in that situation, you're going to use that and get to the
product. Yeah, yeah.
Equally, I think you know, when it comes to the actual design of
a page, the other important thing is to use things like heat
maps because ultimately again, that will show you where the
interest is and you can, if you've got a decent over
traffic, you can very quickly see what it is that is actually
turn the needle for you. So again moving past that gut
feel, we think we should do XYZ or you know our competitors this
look at what your customers are showing you on site and then
make it changes on new exit on based on that.
Awesome. Yeah, I absolutely love that.
And I think I mean, one of the tests I was telling you about
earlier that we just simplified the page, we took all the
nonsense out where they tried to over justify and explain it.
The the product wasn't expensive enough.
It was too, it was too low priced to be quick and easy to
buy. If it was more luxury, then
yeah, more more information that tends we we found that tends to
be the trend, but there's always bucks to that.
In your opinion, what brands are crushing it on CRI?
Who's like absolutely winning at this?
I mean, look, I would love to say every single blank client of
course, but yeah, I can't but one.
Once over a year. Is that I think the the one
brand that I and again, look, we we don't work with them, but I
can see what they're doing is a brand called Stubborn Co.
So yeah. So they're kind of a.
Ground in their bags and. Yeah, me too.
And that's why I've sort of trapped them a little bit.
But what sibling Co do is they have backpacks for anyone who is
from commuting to their office every day through to people that
are maybe climbing Mount Caranjaro.
Now every single person will have a different needle
specification. What you see on their site is 2
main things. One is that they have invested
very heavily in their own site search, so that first of all
tailors to those different types of customers coming in.
And the second thing is I think they have about maybe 11 or 12
filters and they go up and down on their search and it ranges
from things like, you know, expedition type Letrage kit that
you're taking. So all of these things, they're
constantly changed because you see it quite regularly when
you're on the site. So I think for me, that's a real
indication that they're saying, right, we need to make sure that
when again, our demographic is changing, that actually we give
them different things. And I think if you think about a
lot of the brands that you were talking about a phone case brand
here in the UK earlier on. And I think that with them,
their demographic has changed from being a typical sort of you
know 25 to 30 year old customer to now maybe a 40 to 45 year old
customer. So the need of what they are
doing on the site now is very different to as it was before.
And that's the thing for me about kind of being dynamic and
not static is that the same thing is not continued to work
again, which is why you kind of need to look at CRO as kind of
an ongoing thing then just OK, well look, we're going to
optimize the site, leave it and then come back to again as with
the other. 4 pillars, you know, sort of CROSEOPPC and emo
marketing for me, those are the four key ingredients you need to
work together consistently to keep that revenue obviously
going up and and maintain the level that you had.
Yeah, yeah, I did. First thing I did my stubbling
coat bag, when it said it was waterproof, I filled it with
newspaper and got the jet hose out the jet wash and it took a
while to dry. The outside opened it totally
dry. Incredible.
I think that the amazing with stubbling coat from a marketing
perspective is there are so many now I've got one, There are so
many other bags that that look pretty similar that I see on the
tube and everywhere else when I'm running around London or
anywhere I go in the world, people have similar bags to that
roll top. They're made of the same like
it, it looks like the side of a truck, right?
You know that you know the kind of whatever it's called, the
stuff they put it looks like that.
And everyone's got these kind of like quite industrial bags, but
they work like someone in a suit, it works.
Someone wearing like a scruffy hoodie covered in paint, it
works. Someone climbing Kilimanjaro, it
works, but Stubble and Co is the only brand I could probably
mention. And I think you're absolutely
right in the way that they've, they've completely just nailed
that space. Let's talk about LTV.
Yes, I was not expecting you talking on CRO today to wear
LTV, but as soon as you did, I was like, that makes so much
sense. Where do you guys get involved
in the LTV bit and where can brands improve LTV from acro
perspective? No, it's a good.
So we have a lot of brands that have subscriptions.
So obviously conversion really is a pretty poor metric in terms
looking at the overall health of the business because when it
comes to subscription, you need to be looking a lot more widely
than you would alternatively, because ultimately your revenue
is dependent upon your churn is dependent upon additional
purchase with those with those subscriptions that you have.
And I think ultimately for us, that's kind of why we boil it
down to a North Star metric of, of revenue possession, because
ultimately what that does that can figure in all of the
different metrics that are there that we, yes, we need to focus
on from that bio trifecta. But the revenue possession and
ultimately LTV gives us a view of the actual health of that
business both in the short and the long run.
Now LTV can be calculated in terms of actual LTV and
obviously future LTV. And I think, you know,
importantly, it's kind of a good idea to have an eye on both
because you need that future to effectively understand what
you're going to need to do. But again, knowing the true
value of a customer from day dot is important, especially
obviously you know in the world that you're involved with our
column. The paid side, SEO side is that
when we are paying to bring traffic in, what is the value of
it? The conversion rate is a lie.
Yeah, yeah, AOV at that time. Refective is a lie.
It's a here and now metric. LTV is OK.
What is the value of that customer, and ultimately, what
is the value of the business? I think from a paid perspective,
when we're driving traffic in, it costs so much per click from
any, any channel now, not just Google.
But Meta costs a fortune. TikTok is getting expensive
already. People have given up on
Pinterest for lots of reasons, which kind of creates
opportunity on Pinterest, but people have a lot people have
given up on it. And because you're paying so
much to acquire the customer if your LTV, then it's like 1.3
orders per customer. The business is in such risk and
the credit card being expired one day and Google turning off
while the CEO is like at the base of Kilimanjaro with a
Stublin Co bag. But I think the the biggest
challenge we find is convincing CFOs or FDS, the head of finance
in a business, convincing them that look, your team needs to be
50% tasks that are new customers like we are not 90 or 25% and
50% tasked on LTV. You very kindly invited me to a
dinner that almost killed me because it was quite spicy.
It was an African spice house. I don't think you weren't there
that night, but one of the guys there I said, like, what's the
biggest challenge you're seeing with brands and another agency?
And he said none of them, none of them use LTV as a metric.
And I did an episode on it like the next week, one of my Tuesday
talks, I was like, it's so true. I don't hear brands go our Lt.
VS like 3.4 orders or however you want to measure it.
It could be like $500 per customer per year.
There's different ways to measure, but they didn't have it
as a target. Now bringing kind of
optimization and AB testing and other stuff into that and saying
what what we do? What should we do differently?
What could we do differently? Why are the if it's 1.2 orders
per customer, why are on average 20% of our customers buying a
second time? What what's triggering that
purchase? Like you mentioned e-mail, Is it
e-mail? Should it be WhatsApp?
Should it be SMS? Is it just the products?
Awesome. Is it that something arrives in
the products like you get a stubbling Co bag.
Imagine if you opened it and there's a packet of stubling Co
themed suites that were like, you know, the glucose most
things you take. Yeah, give give the people some
of that and be like, take this to the bottom of the mountain.
You'll get to the mountain a lot faster.
And it's from our sister company that we own.
That's a sport and sports science, SIS, sport and science
type thing. There's some really good add-ons
like that, aren't there? Like.
Absolutely. I think where you guys come in,
it goes so much further than just like we, we, we redesigned
the PDP three times and that's the winner.
Yeah. But I think the LTV base is so
overlooked, isn't it by brands? No, it is and I think you look
you get a lot of these kind of brand partnerships for now.
I think part of that ultimately it is a very clever LTV play
because I think the the brands that very really do well is that
their product forms part of the process.
And there's actually a couple of juice companies use quite well.
Is that if you, for example, go on like a juice diet or if you
if just a kind of more general type, you know, juice drink, you
buy a couple of them now will kind of say, look, you know,
before you get your box, you need to number one, do a cleanse
#2 and then basically a process. The last part of the price is
that juice. So it feels like actually a
bigger process that you're working through with that
product than just actually the standard product itself.
So having that sort of mindset of saying, look, with my
product, what is the wider thing that what effective is jobs to
be done with this product? Use your marketing that comes
beyond what you're doing to fit into that to then obviously make
it more of a regular rhythm, something that's part of the
bigger process that then kind of drives it more from a longer
term of of being able to maintain that.
Yeah. And one of our mutual friends I
had on the show recently, Amy from Hollywood Browser and she,
she was telling us that actually they're looking at those
associated products right now. But also she said the number one
reason people don't like the product.
So they do get a return. And she said it's single digit
percentage returns now, which is, which is incredible as a, as
a stat that she's got. One of the reasons that that's
happened is when the between them ordering the product and
the product arriving. She described what I, I've been,
I've been thinking about this since I've recorded with her,
which was actually this morning from where recording maybe a few
weeks before this. I've been thinking about it
since recording this morning. And like there, there's a
beautiful window there where actually everybody's fighting to
do next day delivery. Like gym shark is a good
example. They have a loading bar up to
free delivery, then they have another loading bar up to next
day. It's gamified.
It's really simple. It's example plays a lot because
it's so easy to understand, but actually that then means that
the slower the delivery is, the more time you've got to educate
the customer on here's how to get the most out of the product
that's on its way. And surely that then starts
there because you're going to her product is a sharp blade.
It's totally safe. I've literally got one in my bag
totally safe. It's a sharp blade.
So you're going to need another one at some point because also
it it will get wet because it's in the bathroom and you use it
on your face. And so you're going to need a
replacement at some point. You're much more likely to go
back to her if you're educated again, this blade's going to
last you a month or six months. I don't know if she does that,
but all those things like just there's a beautiful little
window there to educate people and then once normally it's once
it's arrived, you kind of 30 days later the brand goes, Oh
yeah, remember that product you bought like do it enough one and
you're like, Nah, not really. I didn't I didn't really enjoy
it. I didn't get best use, but they
would if you spent that that time educating and
communicating. Absolutely.
Do you guys get involved in that process through e-mail and
things and testing different emails, different campaigns to?
Customers, I mean, we, we don't do e-mail door anymore, but
that's one of the things there with us.
And it's, you know, I, I often talk about this kind of
scenario, those four different areas of econ And, and I always
tell you a story about like if you had a new puppy and you
said, look, in terms of the first two weeks, all I'm going
to do is give it water. I'm not going to feed it.
I'm not going to walk it, I'm not going to stroke it.
And that dog is not going to be looking that great.
Have an angry dog. Oh, you're an angry dog.
And it's kind of the same with the business in the sense that
you got to think of all those things.
But the point you make in there about kind of like that, that
that period in between, again thinking about it as a process
of education is really important.
Now we have a lot of vitamin supplement brands that we're
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Brands that don't say that on the site and equally don't
communicate that through their marketing always will have a
high churn rate. Now there's a brand in the UK
called El Sera who I know. So on a personal level, they do
a great job and what they do is actually give to their customers
a journal and the journal is 3 months.
And what that does is it allows them to record and also get tips
within that period on top of the information that comes through
my e-mail. So that then is it's kind of
giving you that runway that you need as a brand to say you need
to be waiting. This is normal thing to expect.
And then at that point then you then tend to see either, yes, of
course it's not going to work for everyone, but you've been,
you've been very honest about from the start, but the people
that doesn't work for does work for, you've coached them through
the process. And we are awful in e-commerce,
something saying like you say, here's a product, give us a
review. Yeah, well, what am I reviewing?
And then buy. Yeah, exactly.
I think, I think that whole process is so important.
And one of the things I think brands completely miss out with
the conversation. And we, we've, I mean, Saguna is
one of our sponsors, an e-mail platform for for Shopify.
And I don't mind plugging them because most of our clients use
them now and they are awesome. Like they actually physically
help you. It's not just tech like you
actually get someone that that supports you through e-mail, but
one of the things they talk about a lot is how most emails
that go out are either this like glossy newsletter going like
hey, look what we were doing in the store the other day like
that. We've done this in the warehouse
and it's like, OK, like as a customer, like what?
There's nothing in there for me. Or it's like here are some
offers and actually you need to find this balance between
bringing them on that community LED journey whilst also pushing
products in there. If it's on, I think supplements
and health related stuff is great because it is on a
subscription basis. The other thing I, I just
thought of when you were saying about that it could take three
months to see a result or see if it is going to work or if it's
not For me. Saying that upfront also has
another CRO related opportunity of average order value saying
why don't you just buy three months now?
Or actually why don't you purchase three months, But we'll
send them out at each month if there's a shelf life or there's
loads of opportunities now to talk about 3 months is the goal.
So like if you're just going to buy one month today, there's
kind of no point. But we know you're serious
because you are looking at I mean, you chat from Jude, which
I thought was amazing brand one of your panels recently.
And I love what he was saying about about the fact that number
one reason people are unhappy because he was head of retention
at this. That's right.
Number one, people number one reason they're unhappy is they
tried it, it didn't work. And they're like, of course not,
it's only been two weeks. Like, you know, it takes a time
for your body to adjust to this new supplement you're taking.
But all of this relies quite heavily on UX, whether it's on
the e-mail, it's on the site, what brands in your experience,
your opinion, crushing it with UX, which have a really good
user experience to the site through e-mail, right through
the? Yeah.
I mean, look, I think the there's there's two that sick
and two are very, very different.
Now I'm going to say Amazon, OK, But and the reason I want to say
Amazon is because what Amazon have the ability to do is that
they know very clearly what the intent is when people come to
the site, what the buying drivers are for that person and
giving them all that information in the right place.
Now, Amazon is not a particularly beautiful site
going back to my point at the start of aesthetics, but that's
a marketplace. I'll describe it.
It's not Brandy. Absolutely.
And you know, I think for me that's why it works so well
because they are signposting, directing people to the thing
that they need at that point in time.
That's definitely one. The other one that I think does
it very, very well is Doctor Squatch.
So kind of the soap company in that what they do is that they
very carefully make sure that their marketing message is very
much aligned with obviously what's happening on site.
And that kind of fun but useful experience that you've got on
the site is completely matched within their e-mail marketing.
So they do that process, like I mentioned before, of talk about
being a process, telling you when to expect it, how to use it
for the first time, how much to use, where to use it, all these
things. But they do it in this kind of
almost sort of like sort of slapstick comedy way that really
buys into that customer which generally is that kind of male
30 to 45 year old guy who basically is a bit embarrassed
about Dominic self room right now.
Absolutely yeah the man energy. But for me they do it very well
and obviously I know if you dot squatching ex employees and CRO
is really, really important to them and understanding the data
behind it. What may look like a very fun
brand on the outside, there is actually a lot of thinking that
goes into that business and how they operate.
That's one thing I love about meeting so many businesses,
whether it's through podcasts, shows we go to with some of your
events. It's amazing just to see how
they will prioritise like different things and the ones
that are scaling, the ones that have worked out the thing to
prioritise and the other ones that have either not worked it
out yet or they're just not going to work it out eventually.
And I think like Jude for example, is like it's a
supplement, you take it a lot, it deals with the medical issue.
So actually it needs to be that retention, you know, that
retained journey. It has to be subscription
focused, hence why they've got someone who's got the word
retention in his job title. I would love to see a sofa
company or a mattress company or something is like a, you buy it
every 5 to 10 years sort of thing.
Get a retention person involved in that.
I mean I even bought a new set of scales recently as part of my
new year health kit, which for the first time in 35 years is
actually worked. Hurrah, thank you very much.
But the, the thing I've bought now is a Withings scale.
So you stand on it barefoot and it scans your body and tells you
like your body fat and your muscle.
And it's very depressing still, but we're making progress.
But they also sell like they sell AI think they sell a ring.
They sell a watch that would replace my Apple Watch and
they're slowly up selling that to me.
But through the fact that I'm using the Withings app that
sends me a notification and it said, would you like me to turn
on daily notifications to remind you?
Because it's we're all like clockwork, right?
We're body clocks. We get up at the same time you
have your shower and then when it weigh yourself in the morning
first thing, and I often do that.
So it now reminds me if it gets to like 8 in the morning, I
haven't done it, annoyingly I've already left the house at that
point, but it will remind me to do that.
So we're having this relationship and then it says
congratulations, this week you've achieved this.
And on the scales itself, it tells me the weather, the air
quality and after it's finished weighing me and it's quite nice
going, the sun is going to come out today.
Like whilst looking at the scales, I feel like I'm building
a relationship with this scales. Absolutely.
So at some point they will grind me down.
When I next need the next Apple Watch, Apple, I say need.
I'll consider that for sure. But I've met lots of, I haven't
met them, but I've met lots of amazing brands.
Like June, I met Amy at one of your events who's been on the
show as well. Tell us more about, I mean,
literally, I should have said this at the start.
I'm literally sitting in front of a folk legend.
Like when Adam reached out and was like, what do you come in
the podcast? We get involved in Econ Collab
Club. Tell us more about Econ Collab
Club. And if you because you're
involved in a few other things, that's why I've heard clubhouse
and other keywords sort of popping up.
Yeah, Xiaomi, look, we about four years ago, we decided that
we didn't like e-commerce events because they were created one we
create 1. And it was like, you know, we,
we were bored of hotel bars, we were bored of chicken and white
wine sauce dinners. And we sell the walls.
We'll do is we'll, we'll horror at a movie theater 8:00 in the
morning and we'll invite all the people in e-commerce that we
know. And it's kind of grown over 4
years to be now. So 180 people every month.
We have brands coming to kind of share war stories, the winds,
the highs, the lows and obviously what it's like, but
just kind of give practical advice and show things that
they've done and they've experienced.
And it's, yeah, we, we also, we do it in London once a month.
We've done in New York and Toronto, Berlin, all over the
place. And yeah, it's, it's a really
fun outlet for me, obviously being quite a data heavy world
of CRO, it's a nice outlet. But again, it's been fantastic
to be part of a really big community of people across the
world now. So.
Yeah. I think when I first entered the
marketing world, I was so shocked by how boring everyone
was. And I was, I was literally
walking around going like you're a web developer and it's like
the classic like long hair coders.
Like, I mean, I've been in the industry nearly 20 years now,
but I was just, it was a lot of that.
And I was like, but what you're creating, I mean, like I
literally was meeting people from like TK Maxx, A Yankee
Candle, the Tate Modern Museum in London and meeting their web
guys. And I'm like, you are so like
just introverted and quiet and so, but what you're creating is
so loud and like so fun and like, there's such a disconnect
here. I mean, hence hence why I got
into podcasting anyway. I mean, we, we bought the
podcast. Caroline used to run it for me,
a good friend of mine. But I was like, Caroline is
like, she, you know, she's Australian, She's larger than
life. And I was like, this is great.
But I love what you guys do. And it's, I mean, it's in
Leicester Square as well. You've just nailed every point.
You rock up in Leicester Square at like 5:00 to 8:00 in the
morning. And there's the Econ Co Lab club
on the main ODS. I mean, it literally is like Tom
Cruise red carpet zone, isn't it?
When there's a big movie premiere, that's.
Where it happens exactly the same place it's.
Absolutely awesome. So but I mean, thank you so much
for joining us today, Adam. Pleasure, Nick, How can we reach
out to you if they want your help, if they want to talk to
you guys are fully global, aren't you?
Like how can people get in touch?
Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to find me on
LinkedIn, it's Adam, PSPA, RCA, go ahead and go along to
blencommerce.com. And if you are thinking about
sort of that buy now, buy more, buy again, there's a really
great tool called the Blend benchmarking tool.
And I think that we're going to share that in the links.
Yeah, we'll put that in the link.
So blencommerce.com/winning with Shopify there, you'll be able to
find out where you are in terms of that buy trifecta and maybe
get a few insights about what you can do on the site to get
LTV up and revenue possession up.
Absolutely. And if you want to catch me, is
it September and November isn't it?
It'll be on one of Adam's panels if you do come to any of his
things, by the way, like there's no swear filter.
It doesn't seem to work live. And it's but it's, again, it's
disruptive. It's hilarious like that.
The PC meetups of like, here's a senior CMO talking about the how
we achieve the 1% conversion rate.
These guys are like, F that. And it's it's with a, with a
inflatable hammer going around. If people try and sell, it's
absolutely brilliant. I feel like I've been very well
behaved today. Oh, you've been.
Amazing. I think I've sworn more than you
before we hit the record button, but thank you so much for
joining us and everyone listening at home.
If you haven't already, hit subscribe button.
Join our newsletter as well. We're going to, we'll be
launching Growth Vault in September, which is super
exciting. So you can also go on the Growth
Vault page on wwspodcast.com or if you go to
winningwithshopify.com, it does forward.
But Shopify wouldn't let us have the word Shopify in our domain.
And I keep plugging that hoping they listen to this one day and
change the rules for us. And we're launching Growth Fight
in September as well. And yeah, if you want to get in
touch hello at Winning with shopify.com.
Thanks for joining us. Hope you can join us again soon.
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