How to Master Conversion Rate Optimization with CRO Expert Marty Greif

We're very excited to have Marty at part of the show today . Welcome , Marty .

Generating my division was generating about $120 million a year and it was a blast . But , interestingly enough , I had this desire to start my own business .

So around that same time , when I was doing these technical things and wound up as a product manager , I started my first company , and that first company was called Tanstoffel , which is an acronym for there are no such thing as a free lunch , and I created this up in Massachusetts .

I created a 7R series where I taught people who were unemployed how to get a job and how to market themselves , and it made money . And I shut it down because it was the most depressing thing I've ever done in my life Helping these poor people who were almost without hope to find a job right and the stories that they would tell . It broke my heart .

And so , even though it was profitable and even though the state of Massachusetts paid us to teach people . I just couldn't do it . So you got to love what you're doing .

So I immediately started a second company , Biteware , and that was Bite not as B-I-T but B-Y-T-E , and it was t-shirts for nerds , and this is pre-Internet , and so this was , and we had slogans on it like Bite me and Megabyte me and you know , and we were good at trade shows and these things would fly off the shelves .

I mean to fly off the shelves , you know . If the internet had been around at that point , oh my God , this thing would have killed . But to go to physical trade shows after and pack up stuff , so that business broke even , you know .

But I learned a lot from it , you know , and where I really learned about conversion rate optimization was when I founded a company called Privacy Partners and we sold proxy servers online for people and our clients fell into a couple categories . They were people who were really concerned about their privacy .

They were people who were posting different we'll call them reviews for their own business right , using different IP addresses . Oh , my favorite client were the tinfoil hat people who really believed that aliens were listening to their thought and the government was spying on them .

I love those people and so we did that and that business took off right and soft to the races , and then I joined Sightuners and wound up buying it . I just fell in love with it . I'd already learned about conversion rate optimization . I bought a second agency and it's been 12 years now and I'm having a blast . So long story , that's all right .

The percentage of people that buy , as opposed to the people that visit , is your conversion rate . So if 100 people visit and one person buys , your conversion rate is 1% . If two people buy out of 100 , it's 2% . And what we do as a company is we are think of us as the online persuasion people .

We will get a higher percentage of people to actually take the desired action . And in any e-commerce company that's buy In an affiliate marketing play , where people are sending off affiliate traffic , it's making sure that upstream messaging aligns with wherever they land , so more people buy . If it's Legion , it's getting more people to fill out the form .

So you'll notice there's a common thread here . We're the more people . That's what we do . We get more people to take the desired action .

Is there ? We have some DTC websites . When we're looking at those , how do we measure whether those are successful ?

Are people coming and are they engaged on the website ? And , interestingly , if all of those things matter and if you're running an e-commerce business where you have repeat customers , then lifetime value is absolutely critical .

So if I go back to one of the companies that I had where we sold subscriptions online , the subscriptions were , you know , $9.95 a month , but people would stay with us for years and years and years . So I would spend 30 or $40 .

Crazy as it sounds to get a free trial of my software , because we knew that half the people that were free trial would become a client and then half of those would only last a month , but the rest of us would stay until they rolled and died . Okay , I'm exaggerating , but the lifetime value was huge .

And if you understand lifetime value , at least in our world , that was an important metric that will inform the marketing decisions you make and your cost-practization . But if you don't have repeat visitors . Then you want to look at referrals . You want to look at your conversion rate what percentage of people buy ? You want to look at average order value .

If you could do upsells and these were all persuasion things that you could look at and tweak . Now what most people don't really appreciate is conversion rate optimization . Getting more people to take action is the gift that keeps on giving , because if you change your website or you change your Walmart listing , you change your Amazon listing .

Once you change it and it's working and you're driving traffic to it , a higher percentage is buying from you , so your cost per acquisition will be down . It'll stay down and that's the benefit of having persuasive listings , persuasive websites . And one last benefit , if I may , guys if you really have your visitors engage , you'll get Google Love .

Now , what is Google Love ? Google Love is the organic listings . Google wants people to be engaged on your site . So if you get people to come to your site , stay on the site , go from page to page and buy something , google goes , yep , that's a good one , all right , and you'll get more Google Love and better rankings . Same thing for your ads .

Google say oh , look at this . They advertise for this . The quality score is good . People are engaged . Check to more Google , love lower cost per acquisition . I get my jollies out of this . I know it may sound a little weird . I love this stuff .

For example , let me give you a no-brainer that everybody listening can immediately do on their website which will increase their conversion On a desktop site . Phone number is the biggest trust symbol on the face of the planet and it needs to be in the top right-hand corner .

And , yes , it'll increase calls , but I promise you it increases sales more than it increases calls , and you don't even have to answer the phone . You can have a go to some wonderful voicemail system , as long as you provide love in that voicemail system . Don't make it be like oh my God , I called the cable company and I wanna hang myself .

Don't do that , right . But having a phone number shows you a real company and so I will trust you .

On mobile , it's the click-to-call icon and the color of that phone number or the click-to-call icon needs to be the same color as your main call to actions , because it is a call to action and it is a trust symbol and I promise you , if everyone just makes that one simple change , they will make more money .

In testing , it will keep showing the different variations , the control versus the variation , until it gets to a point where it says , oh , the variation or the control , whichever one is winning , and it will win 95% of the time , 98% of the time that , 95 or 98 is the statistical significance .

You can run a test where it's 90% , but what that says is nine times out of 10 , that might win 10% of the times , it may not , right , and so the higher the statistical significance , the more likely you have a real answer as to , yes , my control or my variation really did win . Now how do you get there ? You have to measure the number of conversions .

It's not about number of visitors , although that is a contributing factor . It is the number of conversions , and on e-commerce site typically , conversions are the sale .

Tests should run in an increment of seven days , and the reason it runs in seven days is because that eliminates time of day , night versus day variations and day of week to people actively on the weekend and they do during the week . So increments of seven days .

If you only had a minimum of 10 conversion per day per device type , because you also have to test desktop versus mobile so if you had 10 conversions a day , a test would run probably about a month 28 days , because it's in seven days . At some point the test loses its validity because too many things happen .

So , for example , when we were running tests and Russia invaded the Ukraine or the Hamas , israel , palestine , you know crazy . This is going on . Right now the world changed . Your test is invalid because people start to fear the concern . Economy , inflation , any kind of major thing that happens invalidates a test and you have to write it over again .

If your test is running one , two , three months , there's too many things going on in the world that are gonna negatively impact your tests and you're not gonna get a valid answer , and so you have to take all of that into consideration .

of software . So there are testing tools , and there's testing tools like OmniConvert or Optimizer which is extremely expensive , by the way or Visual Website Optimizer or Convert . There's dozens and dozens of these . They are paid and it costs money to do these .

There's also , however , landing page builders all right , like lead pages , all right , and so on , where you can create a page and do the testing within that page . And then there's also another type of tool that we love . I mean love , love , love this next type of tool , which is the heat mapping tools .

Heat mapping tools show you recordings and or maps of where people are clicking , including and I love this anger clicks . You've ever been on a website where you're like , don't like , click him . It captures that . So if you've got people acting like that on your website , you need to change your website .

That is not what we're going for , okay , so there's all sorts of wonderful tools out there that will help you know what reality is and to be able to test .

Now , if you get a , so you get a new client that comes in and they've never split tested before . They have a high amount of traffic coming in , you know . So they have 5000 visitors a day coming in . They're getting conversions . They're just , it's really low . Maybe they're conversion rates , 0.5 or something . Now , what are the you had mentioned ?

But testing you never more . Some , maybe seven days , maybe 28 , never more than that . Now would you set up a series of split tests and just improve one by one , because you can't split test too many things at one time because the data is all over .

And so what are the top two or three things that you that you test to make the biggest gains on a website for conversions , for e-commerce ?

Having said that , you can also test it . We won clients because we tell people do this , just do this . Then they go test it , they come back . We had one client was doing over 100 million a year .

I told him to do one thing and he came back to me and he said I know , when we talk , I wasn't impressed with what you said , but we tested it anyway and it increased our revenue by an incremental million dollars a year . Would you consider working with us ? And so so what his thing was I'll never forget this is rotating banners .

All right , you've seen these rotating banners on a homepage . Lower conversion rate 8 to 12% . And the reason ? Oh yeah , no , we've tested this , we have tested this a million times . Right , the reason that low lowers conversion rates is because we are literally animals .

50,000 years ago , our ancestors were living in caves around a fire eating our hunk of meat right Movement was a danger signal , like a bear is coming to eat me or an enemy tribe is coming to sneak up on me , or it was danger .

So every time there's movement on an ad , all right , and I'll exaggerate we basically go bust hat and it's basically causing cognitive friction because it is distracting us from whatever was written .

If you get rid of the rotating banners and instead put a banner that is designed for the visitor , that has your unique value proposition or unique solid proposition as described as to what's in it for them , you'll increase your conversion rates . 8 to 12% , absolutely no worries , nice .

The other thing that you can do that we tell people to do is on a website , underneath your logo , if you can describe what you do in three to six to 10 words that have meaning to the visitor , that way it'll appear on every single page on the website , because people read left to right , top to bottom , and so if I land on the aboutus page or whatever

page I land on , I'll at least know what it is you do as a company and I won't be confused . And that's really good for your SEO traffic . And again , we've tested this over and over and over again .

So , by the way , your listeners are certainly welcome to test these things , but I can also tell you these are some of the just do-it stuff right , and it works again , unless they've got the weirdest visitors on the face of the planet .

And then the second one was six to ten words describing what the business or product or service that you're offering , right below the logo on every single page at those two are just must-do's .

If I buy this , I'm going to look years younger , right , or whatever the thing is . It's all . It's benefit oriented . Now it's okay to put also , you know , end there's a sale , but it really has to be the benefit oriented . The structure for any iConverting page on a website is what is that page or website about ? Followed by the called action .

What you want her to do , and near the call to action , is always trust , and trust could be logos , you know . It could be a trust statement like join over 10 000 happy clients worldwide or serving the saint you guys aren't saying Lewis serving the saint Lewis metropolitan area for over a decade . Those are trust statements , anything like that .

Right near the call to action , I go oh , they're talking to me . Oh , look at this , that's exact . That's the problem . Brand is all . Oh , I can trust them . They're not two guys in a cave in Afghanistan . This is good . I should buy from them , right ? That's what it does . You're laughing at me , but I'm dead serious , guys no , I I'm agreeing with you .

But when you see something like what you suggested , hey , how is this product going to enhance my life or my loved ones life around me ? I want to get that , you know so yeah , those are good .

But if I were to describe my hand , ken , I would have said fingernails , knuckles , you know , and hair , which one of us was right . It's about perspective . Your website visitors see this . Your spouse sees this . Before you can do any kind of marketing , you have to have good communication . You have to understand what they're seeing first .

First you understand them and then you can describe you . I'm telling you , this absolutely makes a difference . When I discovered this , this changed my life with people I worked with . It changed my life with my friends . I've mentored people on this and it is the basis of what I consider relationship marketing on a website and it's all about them .

And so the other way I say this is most websites do what I call the opera school of marketing , which is me , me , me , me . It's all about me . Don't care about you , don't do that , okay . Make it all about the visitors . If you understand what they're seeing and truly understand them , you can explain what they should also know .

There may be some challenges there and understanding their customer , what's important to that customer and and what that customer wants to see .

And so do you have any any advice for those newer companies that are still trying to get a feel for what their customers wants and needs are and that way they can best address those when they're trying to put the best foot forward on a website ?

It's all about the visitor , and there are tools that allow you to ask questions of your visitor . And so when people come there , ask questions now , what does a typical entrepreneur do ? They have an idea and it's going to revolutionize the world , right . So then they tell their spouse or their brother or their sister , their mom or dad and they go .

That's a really good idea , but those people love you and it's not really the right people to ask . Find people who don't like doing ask those questions . Find people who don't know you and ask those questions . So I will go . You know this is about firing the man .

All right , if you are working in an organization , I guarantee you and forgive me , I will use this word but the asshole sitting next to you , okay , you despise , but have to see every day of your life , of working life .

Take that person the like to say , hey , john , jane , whatever the person's name is , you know , I've got so website and I saw something that did this , this and this . What do you think about it ? What would be important ?

And you know , janes and Johns and no disrespect to anyone named Jan or John but there is a lot of people in these corporations that you probably don't like don't have one lunch , the next day take somebody else , and the next day take somebody else , and by the time you've got people , you'll you'll start to see a trend and then you start your business and then

on the website , you ask the questions and if you really want to know what's going to work or not work , and you will just spend a little money doing it write , you know , create some ads and send them to a page that asks them questions , spend a little money , send them to the page , ask them this and they will give you answers and you can tell them product

is coming , service is coming , whatever is coming . Sign up for this in the meantime so that we best enhance this service , product , whatever it is for you . Can you tell us what things

are most important to you in this ? Now , if you ask questions and you say here are five choices , you've limited them Open-ended questions where you say just tell me you're going to let it get a lot of garbage . There will be pearls of wisdom in there that will make whatever you're selling worthwhile to the masses .

I'm sorry , I am long-winded on every single thing I say .

Or if you have any e-commerce store , considering put your products up on Walmart or Amazon , but don't add your advertising in your Amazon store at the same time . Right , don't do that . Or look at what your traffic is and ask yourself should a higher percentage of people be buying our product ? And in that's conversion rate optimization ?

And I would tell you , if you optimize your site prior to running ads , what will happen is those ads will become much more productive for you . Other channels my profit on this site is X-Widers and I'm unwilling to spend 25% of my profit . Create an affiliate program and let people send you traffic . Maybe that's the right answer . Look at your product .

I'm giving you lots of stuff here . If , please everyone listening please don't do them all at the same time . Okay , I've got a product Product is really good , you know for just a few dollars more . This would really enhance it , and so that would be an upsell .

You know , or you didn't buy my product and you left my product , so we can do something called abandon my recovery , where it goes back automatic If they filled out like their email address up on it and it'll send an email saying we noticed you didn't complete your purchase , and there's ways to do that .

Last one well , probably not the last one , but for today , last one on this , you're laughing at me , guys . So the last one would be what if what you offered wasn't what they were looking for ? But there are others that do things that are similar but not quite the same .

And what if you had an exit about to say , if you were looking for this , this and this , instead , consider this product , that product and this product . These are some sites that we found that are really good and as long as they have affiliate revenue , you're making money . If they don't want your product , at least they'll buy somebody else and you get paid .

Right , we're making money . I can't help what we do .

What are three questions that everyone asks when they land on ?

So if the upstream messaging promises you know , you know a demo of whatever your product is , or a video , then the next page says should be about a video . Whatever you promise , you have to deliver . I'll give an example of something that is not good , so I'll give you the reverse .

You do an ad that says get reviews about the best selling cut cars , cutlery , anything right and they land on the page and it says subscribe to get your reviews . Well , you lied to me . The ad didn't say subscribe , the ad said get reviews . Reviews are promised . Reviews are out there being delivered . You lied to me .

Now , if it said the ad said subscribe and get reviews , fine . Or if the ad said get reviews and I landed on it and says here's three reviews For more reviews , subscribe , at least you've given me some reviews . So , and if you're reviewing , let's say , 15 different products , do reviews of the three that most people aren't interested in .

So they'll buy the reviews for the ones they are interested in . My point is whatever you promise , okay , and ask them that , so that's . Am I in the right place ? And it's actually quite literal .

This is why we always put that those three to six to 10 words underneath the logo , because you never know what page you're going to land on and you want them to know what you do . So that will answer the question Am I in the right place ? How do I feel about it ? Well , we talked about the phone number .

It's about trust , and we talked about , underneath the button of shop , buy , join over 10,000 . That's a trust statement . Phone numbers , trust Logos can be trust . And what am I supposed to do here ? Have your calls to action Obvious ? Shop now . But don't just say shop now If you've got , let's say , 50 products , shop over 50 products .

Because whatever I , it's the shop . But shop over 50 . And curious , I'll go look . Maybe there's different categories . Maybe I'm selling kitchenware and I've got pots and pans , knives and dishes . Am I in the right place ? I've got three themes . Look at , I was searching for pots and pans . I'm in the right place . Or I was searching for this .

I'm in the right place . How do I feel about it ? Shop over . You know I've got trust on here . What am I supposed to do here ? Well , it feels to click on one of these and look , they got lots of products for me . Make me feel good . Think of it this way and again I'm going to say this .

I preface this no disrespect to anybody out there , but the shopping experience when you buy a Ford is a lot different than the shopping experience when you buy a Lexus or a Mercedes . Now , one could argue they're obnoxious in different ways , but that's okay . In the Ford dealership they don't pay attention to you . You're a number and they're going to push you .

Whatever they've got , you know , the lower cost cars , they push you . They don't even listen . I remember taking my daughter to buy a car and they kept talking to me . I said no , the cars for my daughter , and they kept talking to me the cars for my daughter . Freaking talk to my daughter , you idiot .

You know , on the Mercedes they kind of whine you and dine you a little bit . That's a little over the top and they may be a little snobby and all the rest of it , but at least they're listening to you , right , and so make your visitors feel like you're listening to them . Don't be snobby , but make them feel loved .

Do not know the meaning of a short answer , I swear .

The people we like working with are the principals and the elders of companies , because they actually care about what we do , as opposed to when you're in some billion-dollar company . A lot of times you're dealing with somebody they just want to make their resume better . They go home at the end of the day . It's successful , it's not successful .

It really has no impact on their life , or almost no impact , right . But when we work with the principals of a company , it matters to these people . All right , and that's where we get our jollies is working with people where we can make a difference in their lives and , interesting enough , that can be someone doing less than a million dollars a year .

But we work with principals in companies where it's on a million dollars a year and they're still involved . That doesn't mean we're not working with their teams also , but we really like to be involved with the principal .

, and so working with professionals who really care about their audience is worth its weight and gold . So , guys , thank you for making this a wonderful experience . Thanks for the kind words Marty .

It's got to be about 20 , 30 years old now , but she's Beverly the Angelus , phd . And when I read this book and no one , no one like off the podcast with what I'm about to say you got to listen to both sides . Okay , when I read the first 70 pages in the book , I went , oh my God , women can't possibly be this dysfunctional .

So I asked the women I was working with you do this and this and this ? They went , yeah . And then I read further and I went oh my God , men , are we really this dysfunctional ? And the answer is oh my God , we are . We're all dysfunctional . But when you understand how we communicate , oh my God .

It changed my life and I will tell you , it absolutely made me a better spouse , a better boss , a better friend . It was an amazing book and so , between the two , I strongly recommend it .

I was like again , nothing happened . That was terrible . Reading has become a big thing for me , and spending time with my daughters I have two daughters and they're like my best friends , including my wife , obviously and we do things together .

We live in Florida , so we had annual passes to Disney for forever and Universal and Bush Gardens , and so we would do things , and so family time really .

And years later , after I left there , he invited me to come work for another company and I went to work with him and it was horrible . And the reason it was horrible is because one of the team members on the executive team was not in sync , and when one person is not in sync , it ruins the entire thing . So we were so lucky to have people in sync .

So , as an entrepreneur and I now have a team of people I go out of my way to make sure that we are all in sync . We listen to each other , we respect each other . We don't have to agree all the time , but we have to respect each other . And so being in sync , I think , is the key to growing a business .

I think it's the key to having great relationships . And so back to your point . What I miss is being in these dysfunctional

organizations . I don't miss it . I mean , they were just awful and I only had one good experience in the all the years I was an entrepreneur . Last , one .

Our commission was about $1,000 when we sold something and way back when , and we were taught to pick up the phone and make 200 phone calls on a Monday to make appointments . And whenever somebody hung up , per status whatever , we were told to put our shoulders back , look up and smile and put the phone down and say thank you for $5 .

Because each one got us closer to the one who's going to get us $1,000 . So thank you for $5 . I mean , and we get , we're all right . Thank you for $5 . Okay , you have to be willing to fail over and over and over again . That's the true sign of success .

70% of what we do with people is all contained within this book , so hopefully that's helpful .