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- [00:02]
Ralph Burns
Do you feel like you could have done so much better in 2024? Do you feel like you left so much money on the table? Or maybe your internal team or your agency just wasn't getting it done for you? You were maybe the one that was coming up with all the ideas and then they were doing the implementation. That is not how it's supposed to work. If you're the boss, your internal team or your agency is supposed to direct you and tell you what to do to scale and grow your brand, let me tell you, you are not alone. This is the number one complaint we hear from potential prospect clients who want to work with us potentially. They say their agency or their internal teams have run out of steam and they're the ones who are giving them all the ideas. Well, that's the reason why we put together a very special offer for you for 11 lucky businesses. And quite honestly, ever since we announced this promotion just or four days ago, we've already filled up five of them. We have six of these left. And the reason we're only giving away 11 with 6 left is because my internal team, I have to give them some time off in December and we want to get this done for you before the end of the year. So much so, in fact, my sales team has actually opened up more time to book these calls with you, the business owner, with you, the director of marketing, you, the person that's frustrated with the results that you got in 2024 and you feel like you can do better in the coming year. Well, we are offering 11. Well, now six, because we've already given away five of them. Free business audits for six lucky businesses. And this is not an audit that's done by AI. It is done by actual humans, where they go in and they actually look at your entire business, not just your ad accounts. They look at your tracking, they look at your after the click, they analyze your emails, they analyze all of your ad accounts, everything that you're doing within your business. And we figure out where the holes are. And usually there are plenty of holes and areas of improvement. Yeah, you need an unbiased, unprejudiced viewpoint on how you're going to hit your goals in 2025. And that's what this business audit is for. So if you are interested in being one of the lucky six remaining, there was 11. Now there's six remaining businesses who qualify for this business audit. Head on over to tier11.com2025, fill out the application and we'd love to see how we can help you scale and grow. And oh by the way, you will also get first mover access to the Tier 11 data suite, which we haven't even launched to the world yet and we'll be doing so in January. So you'll get early access to that. One of the greatest things about the Tier 11 data suite is you know, all those unattributeds, all those unknowns, all those directs inside your Google Analytics, or if you're using Triple Whale or if you're using Hiros, well, this lifts the veil on all of those. Up to 99% of your unattributed and your unknowns in your direct are now going to be known in the knowns that are going into individual channels. Your Google, your meta, your organic, your email. Those are more accurate. That's how great datasuite is. It lifts the veil finally, for data tracking unlike anything we've ever seen because it uses three Martech tools pieced together with an integration that we wrote here at tier 11. And you will get early bird access to that as well. When you fill out the application over at tier11.com forward/2025. Make 2025 the best year yet. Start by planning it right now. Book a call with our team today, fill out the application and let us help you scale smarter, not harder, in the coming year. Hey folks, Ralph here with something that could seriously upgrade your Top of Funnel ad game. If you've been a PT listener for any period of time, you know that we talk about Top of Funnel all the time and how challenging it is for you to get quality Top of Funnel clients or leads or customers and then convert them typically at bottom of Funnel. Well, TV advertising is one of those areas that we haven't discussed here on PT all that much. But our friends over at Ad Critter have figured this stuff out. They do connected TV ads so you can be everywhere without spend spending millions on super bowl ads. But they pair it with display retargeting so you're hitting the audiences with a complete approach. You reach them, then you remind them and then you collect the revenue. It's a strategy designed to deliver and let me tell you, it really works. We're testing this at tier 11 and so far the results have been very impressive. Now with AdCritter, creating custom audiences are so easy. You don't need to reformat files, you don't need to mess around with complex spreadsheets. You just upload any file in any format and you're ready to go. And the match rate is awesome. They make it easy to connect with the right people, the actual people that have interacted with your ads in the past and then allow them to naturally flow through your funnel so you can convert them at bottom of funnel. Now, the folks at Adcrator, we twisted their arm to get us a great deal for you, the PT listener. They are offering a special deal for y'all, and that is you can get a $500 campaign credit, meaning $500 in free money to test out the plaque platform or dollar for dollar matching on any TV campaign up to five grand. Imagine the impact of that match. Spend five grand, they'll add another five grand in display. That's a huge opportunity here. Now it's only offered to you, the PT listener. Head over to AdCritter.com PT and check it out.
- [05:48]
Rafael Polandagel
You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.
- [05:56]
Ralph Burns
Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph burns, founder and CEO of Tier 11, alongside my.
- [06:02]
Lauren E. Petrulo
Awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrulo, founder of Mongoose Media.
- [06:06]
Ralph Burns
And we're going to be talking misconceptions of this word, this word that everyone, I think, misuses. But we're going to leave it in the title of today's show, obviously, because everyone knows if you've been listening to the show, what conversion rate optimization actually is. It's CRO. But it's so much more than that, Lauren, don't you find? So many people are just like, oh, all I need is a better conversion rate on my site and then if I double my conversion rate, my business doubles. Is it really that simple, Lauren, or am I just on drugs?
- [06:43]
Lauren E. Petrulo
I'm always going to say it depends the safest words any marketer can ever say. But there are some delulu moments when an individual believes that one single item can make the world of difference at times. It can happen, it depends, of course, but there are a lot more things that are being said that don't make sense than are being implemented.
- [07:05]
Ralph Burns
Yeah, well, at the end of the day, our job is to help businesses make more money, spread their product, goods and services to the right types of people, and hopefully have a positive effect on the world and in so doing, profitability from it. So conversion rate optimization, I think, has been like the term itself has been misused through time. So we're here today to smash, just break apart, explode, blow up those misperceptions, because we've got the founder and CEO of Split Base, Rafael Polandagel, here as a guest on today's show of Perpetual Traffic to dispel all those myths. The myth busting CRO guy. Welcome to Perpetual Traffic.
- [07:54]
Rafael Polandagel
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
- [07:58]
Ralph Burns
Well, I think we're going to take a lot of CRO people off today, which is fine. Why not? I mean, it's not fun to be in the middle of the road. You've been doing this for quite some time. Actually, I didn't really even ask you this. How long have you been doing CRO? Like, when did you start? How did you start it? How did you get into it all that?
- [08:18]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah, good question. Personally, I think I've been doing it for probably 12 or 13 years at this point. I don't know how I feel like I've been saying that for a long time. So maybe it's been more at this point the same age. I think that's exactly.
- [08:31]
Ralph Burns
Yeah.
- [08:32]
Rafael Polandagel
I never get older.
- [08:33]
Lauren E. Petrulo
On his website. He's. I've been. I had my first company when I was 11 years old. So if you're not watching this on YouTube, that math is math incorrectly. Because I can't stand generation gap happening right now.
- [08:44]
Ralph Burns
I know exactly.
- [08:47]
Rafael Polandagel
Split Bay has been around maybe for about a decade or so now. And it's funny because when I got started into CRO, like I actually had, there was time where I almost started to CRO agency and I didn't. And then I went into completely different field and I came back. But I remember being a kid and I'm not kidding for, just for fun, during, like summer days, sometimes I would sit down at my computer and I would write fictional marketing plans and fictional ad campaigns for brands I would invent or whatever. And I took so much pleasure from that. And not a lot of people knew about that. I think it was something that I kept a bit like, secret. But I just.
- [09:23]
Lauren E. Petrulo
Raphael, you had friends or this was how you.
- [09:27]
Rafael Polandagel
I did, yeah. I did have a lot of friends.
- [09:29]
Ralph Burns
Very friendly guy. I just seem like 10 years old, like, writing fictional marketing plans, like up in his room all by himself.
- [09:36]
Rafael Polandagel
But, you know, I liked. I've always been quite creative. I always loved marketing. I'd love to geek out on that. There was a website. I don't know if it still exists. It was like as of the world that when I'd be bored, I'd just go look at ad campaigns there. Is it still around? I think that still exists.
- [09:50]
Ralph Burns
I haven't seen it immediately. Lauren will Google it as we're talking, but. All right, so what age was that again?
- [09:58]
Rafael Polandagel
You said, I mean that specifically. I'm not sure but it could be anywhere between 11 to 15, 16. I was also trying to figure out at one point how to launch an online magic store, like an E commerce store. But there was no E commerce solution. That was really.
- [10:17]
Lauren E. Petrulo
And you still promise you had friends growing up?
- [10:19]
Rafael Polandagel
I still promise.
- [10:22]
Ralph Burns
I'm kidding. Of course.
- [10:23]
Lauren E. Petrulo
Of course. If people are good at magic, that's.
- [10:24]
Rafael Polandagel
Just a bad stereotype. No, no, they don't need to get mad. Ultimately, look like, I just, I loved E commerce. I didn't know. I mean, it wasn't even really a thing back then. But I wanted to do something online. That was my thing. Like, I was frustrated that I was a kid and I couldn't just go and start a business. That really drove me nuts, really. And at one point, I'm not kidding, I think I was probably like 15 or so, I was like my, my dad's car and I started crying and I was like, dad, I just want to like start a hotel chain or run a business or do something, but I have to go to school.
- [11:00]
Ralph Burns
Oh my God, it's so hysterical. Oh my God. That's. I mean, that's not normal. Which is fine because I think the most brilliant minds are actually not normal. That's abnormal in a good way. Get me right? Don't get me wrong, because that drive obviously led you to create split base and doing all the things you're doing right now. So that evolution, like you finally, I take it you're like, you finished school or maybe you didn't, maybe you dropped out and you started doing.
- [11:30]
Lauren E. Petrulo
Yes, done. Canadian rules. You're allowed. Let's pursue this.
- [11:36]
Rafael Polandagel
I mean, I finished my 12th grade at that point. For the last two years of my high school, I was known as the guy that would sometimes fly to New York to have business meetings. And I am like from a small town in Canada. And I had a mentor at the time, incredible person, Dan Martel, which maybe some people have heard of. And he was almost my neighbor. So he really pushed me to do hard things like booking a restaurant and saying, tomorrow you're going to New York and you're going to sell out that thing. And I'm like, I don't know anyone there. I haven't been there in 10 years. What am I going to do? Anyways, that's a store for another day. But you know, that's. That was kind of. I wasn't a big fan of high school at that point. I much preferred to take business meetings in New York than anything else, but.
- [12:21]
Ralph Burns
But you did, you did actually do all that. So you carried through. Like, you did actually book hotels and then totally. You had seminars or was that. I assume that's what it was.
- [12:31]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah, that event actually sold out, so that was a nice win. But, yeah, I finished high school and I made the decision not to go to university. I was registered into an entrepreneurship program. I was like, why am I going to learn through books how to be an entrepreneur when I can just when I've already been doing it and when I can do more of it instead of just being in a classroom? And I launched many failed businesses. Right. But in the meantime, I was also, like, building websites in my spare time. And I was like, at that point, I was already knee deep into like, conversion optimization because of previous failed startups that I was doing around the marketing space. And it really got me into that rabbit hole. And yeah, that was like the one thing in digital marketing that I liked the most. It was just, how can I make things better? But also how can I use my creativity to improve websites and make marketing better? And. And I preferred that over, like, even just starting things from scratch. And I think it was just very natural then to build split base and say, hey, we're a conversion optimization agency where we make existing websites and existing brands better. And many years later, well, here I am.
- [13:44]
Ralph Burns
So, I mean, it's an interesting journey. How did you get your first client? Did you just. It sounds like you had a few failed businesses, as I did as well. I mean, the point is, I sort of stumbled into this. But you were very focused on it. You were actually building sites and then maybe running traffic to them and figuring out, all right, well, this thing that I can do after the click actually really makes as much of a difference in the overall success of the business as does, like, how much traffic is actually coming to my site. Is that sort of was the evolution of it? Yeah. Okay.
- [14:16]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah. I mean, it was hard. I only had one job. I left that job with 5,000 bucks in my bank account. And I said, you know what, I can make this marketing thing work. I had a lot of confidence, which is great because it definitely, looking back, wasn't a lot of money. And I had a limited timeline for my parents were not going to pay for my lifestyle or anything. My rent, fortunately, was about 400 bucks a month back then. So I had a bit of a Runway. 10 months, but it was 12 months. Exactly. Right. But it was hard.
- [14:49]
Lauren E. Petrulo
No food. No food, no shoes, no gaming.
- [14:51]
Ralph Burns
You can't eat anything. Right.
- [14:53]
Rafael Polandagel
You got to add that on top. And I also I like nice things, so that was difficult. But I really had to figure things out. I was like, this is. I just felt like my life was on the line in that sense where I had to prove myself that I was able to build a business. That was one thing. After so many failed attempts at different businesses. And I had some successes as well. But you know, I was like this type of like in marketing, in this space. I need to make this work. So it was back in the days of like, where blogging was really big, right? Like guest blogging. So I would write ridiculous blog posts that were like 70 pages long. I would guest blog all the time. Even though I didn't really like it. It just felt like a way to put some of my ideas and my research. And at the same time, it's funny because you learn at the same time as you're doing that. And I would record some videos and I tried so many things for almost nothing to happen for a very long time. And then kind of out of nowhere, eventually, I don't even know how we got that first client. I don't even remember who was the first or which was the second. But you know, it took a while. And even when we got those first clients, it's like without a portfolio portfolio, it's really, really, really hard to build an agency that's based on knowledge and what you're able to achieve. So. But you know, hey, I did everything I could. And looking back, I mean, it would have been really easy to quit, but I think I'm just really, really glad that I didn't. Because if we look at where the company is today, like we've run optimization programs for some of the best known D2C brands around, right? Like Dr. Squatch and once Upon a Farm and so many cool companies that we got to work with over the years and still work with today as well. Right? And that would never have happened if I. If in that first year and a half. I mean, gotta say, even the first three years were incredibly hard just to get more than three clients. It felt like it took forever to have more than three clients at a time. But you continue and then you succeed.
- [16:57]
Ralph Burns
How many times did you want to quit, do you think, in your head?
- [17:00]
Rafael Polandagel
No more times than I can count. But you know what I realized? The only job I ever had, okay, I had it for nine months. And it scared me more than running my own business and the uncertainties that comes with it, because I felt if I, if I have a job, I am not in control of what happens. To me in the sense that I can work my ass off, I can work less. And it's really a gamble on whether I, like, did I really even want to climb inside a company. Like, I wanted to, like, work on my ideas. I wanted to have the possibility to make more money if I really put my time and my efforts into it. And it's not something that you can always. I mean, not saying it doesn't happen with a job, but I look at our top employees and they've, they've grown through the company, like, really quickly and they've earned it.
- [17:56]
Ralph Burns
Sure.
- [17:56]
Rafael Polandagel
But I'm an entrepreneur at heart, right? And for me, it's. I have an idea, I want to make it happen. And when I don't have full control over my own destiny, it stresses me out. So for me, the uncertainty of running a business and my confidence in figuring things out was greater than what I would get through a job. So it kept me going.
- [18:20]
Ralph Burns
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're talking to. We're three entrepreneurs here. Like, we. I think it's counterintuitive to think that there's actually more security in starting your own business. The hardest part is getting it off the ground and getting a product and or service that people actually want and will pay you money for and then actually starting to pay your expenses. And then the next step is like, all right, now sounds like a lot.
- [18:45]
Lauren E. Petrulo
Of more hard parts. You're like, and then there's a new hard part and then there's a new part.
- [18:49]
Ralph Burns
But starting a job, it's like, you know, you have to train you. All these, these other things, like the cost of the risk of the business running aground is less stressful than me not being in control of my own destiny.
- [19:09]
Rafael Polandagel
100%.
- [19:10]
Ralph Burns
100%. And I never realized that. I just couldn't figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. But, you know, I was fired three times, so I mean, I had to choose something. I couldn't really have a boss. But no. Fascinating. So child prodigy. You really were a child prodigy, really, to start off. And then you turn this thing into a super successful business with some of the biggest brands, like really cool DTC brands, which we want to get into here within the context of. I think when we started today's show, we talked more about, like CRO, the word itself, and yes, that is the industry phrase, but it's so, so much more than that. Maybe let's discuss that because I hate it when people say CRO. And even when we were talking, I was like, do you mind if I say CRO? Because it's almost like it's not really about that. So maybe just explain that in general and sort of clear up some misconceptions about the word itself.
- [20:08]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah, I think there's been ups and downs with the use of that word. Because when we look at when CRO started happening, which is I believe the Eisenberg's brother, around the 2000s or so that started, that came up with that term. And it was a very different thing back then. And even when I started doing CRO, it wasn't very popular amongst e commerce brands. Only the big, big brands or the enterprises of this world really focused or invested in CRO and it was hard to convince them to do so. We went through a period, I think, where, okay, more and more brands started to learn about conversion optimization and then they started to realize that hey, it's not just about the conversion rate, it's about really, it's really about having a process that helps us understand which decisions to make in a data driven way through experimentation and through data and through data and insights. And then we hit then a point where all of a sudden Shopify really, really, really boomed. And then all of a sudden Twitter and all the social media, we got into this content age, which before it was about blog post, right? Like it was about like you talked about CRO, you'd write like a really, really deep and detailed blog post. And we got to that point where I felt like, okay, the industry needs a lot of education, but the information that was available, I mean, I won't say it was always like long blog posts because there was a lot of more like Neil Patel type mishmash of content that was a bit random and not necessarily factual. But now we're in the TikTok age, right, where information is dumbed down even more. Everything is short. YouTube shorts, LinkedIn shorts, Twitter. So forget about those like super long blog posts. Now CRO has been simplified to get people to. So it's, it's more easily understandable for the masses, which is great. I love that the adoption and brands know that they need to do CRO. That's fantastic. Right on the. I guess the cons that this brings is that a lot of the advice still remains very dumbed down or a lot of what's being shared out there becomes just for attention grabbing. So the term CRO, which on what, which at one point became like this big debate of like conversion rate optimization, that's not what we do because it's so much More than the conversion rate, we're looking to optimize for the lifetime value. We're also looking at aov, right? We're also looking at any other metric. Is conversion rate really the one metric that trumps everything above all? Right. And the answer is no. But then now, how do you explain that in 15 seconds short without losing people's attention? When what gets engagement in shorts and everything now is like, here's 10 test ideas you can steal and copy right away. Right, Sorry. I kind of went on and on. But philosophically speaking, I think this is what's been happening to the term CRO and the industry.
- [23:11]
Ralph Burns
Yeah, it's interesting. I was trying to think of the book that I first read, and I think it was by Tim Ash, and it was Landing Page Optimization. It was back in 2010, 2011, thereabouts. And I read it because I was like, that's really cool, because I was starting to get into this and I forget at that point in time where I actually was in my career. But anyway, I think this is right around the time I got fired for the last time and started this whole thing.
- [23:44]
Lauren E. Petrulo
The.
- [23:44]
Ralph Burns
The point was, is that I read that book and I was like, landing Page Optimization, this is pretty amazing. And then I met him at a conference. I was like, this is so cool. And then I started to do it, like, for about. I was an affiliate and I realized, holy crap, it's not. I read that book and I studied it and I made notes and everything else. And it wasn't on like a Kindle back then. It was actual physical book. I had to go to Barnes and Nobles to go buy and. And it was then where I started to optimize my scammy affiliate pages. I was like, holy crap. I had that realization. And then when we started our agency, we just did everything. It was like people paid us, like, I don't know what it was two grand a month. I did everything from the AD all the way to the Landing Page Optimization, like CRO. And then all of a sudden, somehow it changed from LPO to CRO somewhere in the middle there. And I'm kind of lost when it actually did change. But now everyone is like, conversion rate optimization. That's the thing. I need to increase my conversion rate when at the end of the day, it's more monetization for the business. It's aov, it's ltv. It's all the things that we're going to talk about here on today's episode. So I think it happened maybe in the mid 2010s, like, all of a sudden, people started switching over towards CRO as opposed to other forms of optimization.
- [25:04]
Rafael Polandagel
And I think here's the deal. At the end of the day, right, I don't like that term, but I still use it. And I'm partially guilty, I guess, in some sort of way for the fact that we're still using it in the industry. And I know it's like purists really want to stop using that term. The issue obviously is if you stop using that term and you call it something else, well, people understand what it is, right? At this point, I care more about people caring about CRO and understanding what it is. And then once we have their attention, we then the proper education can follow. I think I prefer that than really gatekeeping and really being very. For. I don't know, I'm looking for my words here, but instead of just overcomplicating things and then saying, oh, no, this is not called CR for that reason, and so. And so on. Right. I know there's been a lot of attempts from agencies to kind of rebrand it as well, which. But at the end of the day, people just still see it as okay. Well, they see through that, right? It's okay. Well, yeah, but that's just. You're doing CRO. We've even tried at one point. I don't even remember what we called it. But at the end of the day, it's like, how do you explain that you're just making the job harder for yourself when it comes to explaining and selling that. So it's an interesting dilemma, but will debating on, should we call it CRO or CEO or whatever, make the world a better. Well, I don't want to say make the world a better place, but is that. Is that on its own going to grow companies? No. So at the end of the day, care more about what happens on the websites and the process and everything than what we call it?
- [26:39]
Ralph Burns
Yeah. Well, let's get into it. Like what? What? So when you're looking at a client, a client comes to you and they say, hey, I need to increase my conversion rate, or the thing that they want isn't necessarily the thing that they need. Right.
- [26:53]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah.
- [26:54]
Ralph Burns
So how do you view it? What's the what. How do you view that whole idea of how can I make your business more efficient, making more money, making more profit, all that within the context of this predefined acronym that the marketing world has created that's called CRO.
- [27:14]
Rafael Polandagel
So, well, conversion rate is not terrible. We still want to increase conversion rates. But the thing is, it's not the only thing that you should optimize. And conversion optimization is not just about increasing that metric. If we talk about increasing metrics while reducing your acquisition cost, increasing conversion rate, increasing aov, increasing lifetime value, all those things are equally important if you want to dive a little deeper depending on your circumstances. And then there's a million ways to look at this, right? But let's say you realize that your business would succeed a lot more if you increase your ratio of subscribers versus versus people who buy from you one time, right? Well, the goal of your conversion optimization methodology, which is why it makes no sense, the goal of that conversion rate optimization process is not to increase the conversion rate. It might be to just, okay, how do we get more people to subscribe vs buy one time? Conversion optimization can be about making optimizing the website so returning customers come back more often, Right? It could also be to increase the frequency of people buying from you. It can be so many, so many and so many things. And conversion rate is one thing, but I think we also need to look at what is a conversion rate and which conversion rate are we looking at? Because when people think of a conversion rate, they look at their Shopify dashboards or just their GA dashboards, and they see one metric that's always there and it's conversion rate. And they see it almost on a day to day basis. The reality is that that metric on that dashboard is the biggest. Not misconception, but it's just, it's the biggest lie you could have. It's the worst metric you could have to run your business. Because depending on how Facebook's own algorithm is behaving that day, your conversion rate will be impacted. The creatives we are launching, the audiences that are being targeted, the email campaigns, whether you launch it one day or you don't have an email campaign the other day, the time of the year, right? All of that will impact your conversion rate and in a way that your website might not even make a difference in the sense that you could have the same website, not touch it, the same products, and your conversion rate would fluctuate month after month, day after day, year after year. Right? But because of factors that are completely unrelated to your website. So if you focus on, hey, I want to double my conversion rate or increase it by 20%, it may not even be doable. Like it might not be doable. You could, yes, potentially have more people convert, increase the conversion rate of a specific channel on a specific page, increase ads to Cart. Right. But maybe your global site conversion rate is going to keep going down if you're increasing your ad spend just because you're increasing the amount of people you're advertising to and you're not targeting bottom of funnel people anymore and you're targeting colder audiences and just by nature, well, there are people that are less likely to convert and therefore your site wide conversion rate is going to go down a little bit. So, yeah, the site wide conversion rate hides many averages. It hides a desktop versus mobile, which are entirely different conversion rates. It hides it from a channel perspective. It hides it from an audience or segment basis. Right. So it's all something that we have to consider.
- [30:44]
Ralph Burns
So if somebody comes to you, I love the idea of. And this happens to us quite a bit. I need Facebook ads from you guys. I need Google Ads. It's like, okay, that's great that we get them in the door kind of that way. But it's like, what. It's the difference between what they want and actually what they need. So they come to you and they say, all right, well, my website conversion rate is 1% and that stinks. Rafael. Or maybe it's 0.5% because that's my Google Analytics say, like, fix it. Give me maybe an example of. I got a couple of different ways, or maybe a couple of different examples that you've done this through different businesses that they use that North Star, that metric that's staring them in the face every time they go into GA or into Shopify when it's actually the wrong metric and you found something that's completely different and then changed. Not necessarily the course of history here, but it may be increased in a noticeable way or a very impactful way, their business as a whole.
- [31:45]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah. Well, I'll give you an example of a recent test we conducted. Right. Obviously we're hired to increase conversions. Now we have this client that sells supplements and then they send everybody to this landing page and it's got three different plans. You can buy one time or you can subscribe. Right now we're thinking, okay, well, if we have three different plans and each have different options, are we. Is that something that could lead to analysis paralysis? Right. Do we have. Would it be better to reduce the options? And then is there a plan that we should technically push people towards? Right. In order to. Yeah. Increase conversion but also increase just the value of those customers?
- [32:22]
Ralph Burns
Okay, you say plan. Are those products? Are those. Like, what specifically is it? Without getting too specific.
- [32:29]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah. So it's each, I guess there's three Packages. Right. So one time order, then a smaller quantity than a bigger quantity, and each can be one time or subscribe. The subscription plans are all different as well. Right. So then we're trying to understand, okay, well, if we just are hired to increase conversion rate, if we just, if we were to stick to that term. Right. We just remove a plan or change the plans and look for the highest conversion rate on that landing page based on that. But that would be a big mistake because here's what happened ultimately. Well, when we look at those plans, well, you have people that subscribe and you have people that, you know, buy the one time products, they'll have different values. Well, each subscription plan have different churn rates and each of those plans have different lifetime values. If we don't take that under consideration and we just start optimizing for the upfront conversion rate on the landing page, what could happen is that we remove the packages or the plans that had the lowest conversion rate, we keep the one that has upfront the highest conversion rate. But what if that plan ultimately has the highest churn rate or over the course of six months is the one that leads to the lowest lifetime value? That is entirely possible. It happens every single day. And yet if we just focused on conversion rate, we miss that entire part of the story. So it would look like a win because up front it looks like on the day of the first purchase we have, we make more money. But then you would actually lose out quite a bit over the next couple months. Right. So that's a great example, I think, where it's just like. And then there are so many businesses that offer subscriptions. So it's like if you, if you do test for that, Right. Are you taking under consideration the other metrics and especially lifetime value?
- [34:35]
Ralph Burns
Right. So in that case, how do you not get fired by the client? Seriously? That's the operative question. Because they're like, well, I hired him to increase my conversion rate, but I don't really know what he's doing. Like, how do you relay that? And I always sort of come back to that operative question. I was like, as agency owners, like you always want to have lifetime value for your clients, them stay on for a long period of time because you can continue to optimize and help scale and grow their business. But in that case, you were hired for what one thing that they thought, when in fact it probably wasn't the thing that they really needed. So what was the process there and the communication with the client to get them to understand that it's Bigger than just a conversion rate thing.
- [35:19]
Rafael Polandagel
I think you're both going to relate to this, but ultimately, right. I think with any type of agency business, it's about how do you communicate your results. You could be doing great work, but if you don't communicate your results or your process or what you're doing, clearly, you know, you run the risk of getting fired even though you've done a tremendous job. So obviously, I think a big part of the last decade has been figuring out what's the cadence and how do we communicate in a way that we don't lose the client. Because if we get too technical and too into stats and numbers, then clients get confused and some people want that and that's great. And in that case, we're going to provide that. But there's a lot of people that just want to know the basics. So understanding how to communicate on a client per client basis is super important and probably one of the number one things that we try to improve on all the time. The second thing is I'm actually pretty upfront with them on onboarding and in the sales call where I say, hey, I know you care about your conversion rate, but we're there to make you more money. And what that means is maybe we need to optimize another metric or maybe when we optimize your conversion rate, we can't look at your site wide conversion rate. We have to look at it from a channel basis. There are so many different situations that could happen. Right. But what we've really tried to do is how do we educate the client so they know how we think around optimization. And I think the. That's something that, by the way, that's one of the reasons why a lot of people work with us. It's because of how we think of conversion optimization. Right. They, they hear me talk about it on social media, on YouTube, on my podcast, and, and they're attracted to the way we think around that. So they work with us and they understand that it's not a quick win. Like, I don't really share, here's 50 A B test ideas you can do tomorrow. That's not the type of audience I attract, and that's not the audience I want to attract either. Right. I talk about methodologies, I talk about process, I talk about those things. And maybe it's less sexy industry wise, but often the brands that come our way already have an understanding of CRO. They're in it for the long run. It's not something they expect to do only just for a couple months. And they understand that site wide conversion rates can be, you know, not a lie, but it just can hide a lot of truth. And a lot of things can be a bit misleading. I think it just comes up. At the end of the day, it's all about expectations and we've really tried and it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Look, no matter the experience of the client in this base and so on, it still happens that all of a sudden their site wide conversion has decreased by a couple percentage points and they're super stressed out. They're wondering what's happening. Well, we're there to reassure them and help understand what happened. Very often then we do a channel and device breakdown. We just realize, hey, well, you've spent a lot less money on Facebook in the past couple days and that's caused a drop. Right. 99% of the time. That's what happens.
- [38:29]
Ralph Burns
But yeah, you get blamed.
- [38:32]
Rafael Polandagel
Oh yeah, we get blamed for everything. Everything, all the time.
- [38:37]
Lauren E. Petrulo
And then you get blamed. We noticed.
- [38:41]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah, a client makes a change on the website and then it breaks an AB test and then they're like, hey, you guys did not QA the test properly. Well, then we'll get blamed for that. And I think it's just part of the job. But it's also part of the job for us to be able not to just accept the blame, but to investigate. Right. Obviously. Look, if it's our fault, I want to understand how to make sure it doesn't happen again. So I will investigate. But if it's not our fault, I think we still also for the clients trust in us, but also in just optimization long term. And for that to work out well, we have to tell them, hey, mess. Our client like totally understand you thought we didn't do this, right? But look, ultimately if you make a change to this product page template, it will affect the class that's being used in that test and it will break the test. And based on when that happens, we may or may not see it. All of us. There's. So your websites are technology, it's code. Anything can happen. So I think it's just the way I look about optimization. This is what I tell clients. I say we work with brands for a very long time. I bank on relationships and I've always banked on relationships. To grow this business. I don't want to be this transactional agency that operates in the sidelines because I don't think optimization can work that way. It's so complex. Even if your goal is to do it internally. Eventually and not work with an agency which is great. Like you need, you're going to have the same conversations, you're going to blame that team for something that happens or there's always going to be that friction point. So unless the brand really learns how to do it properly and that's when why we're there and that's why we exist. My mission is not just to increase their numbers, but it's hopefully to get them to think around optimization their websites the right way so they can one day maybe fly on their own or at least integrate a bit more of just the optimization or CRO way of thinking in their day to day. I mean I think it's a big, I'm saying that it just sounds like a big mission. But when you, when you're, when you collaborate closely for a client over many years and you're not afraid to share kind of the mistakes, the learnings and so on, that I guess that learning develops itself, that process develops itself inside of many companies and it makes for a better relationship. But also those are usually the brands that are most successful at growing as well. I look at those brands where it's happening and they are some of the most DTC brands I've seen to date.
- [41:11]
Ralph Burns
Yeah, they're taking the longer term view. They realize this isn't an overnight thing. It's double my conversion rate, double my business kind of thing. Let me ask you this in closing here. When did CRO become so seoified, especially on LinkedIn and you've got some strong opinions on this. Shares, likes, comments don't necessarily equate to what's in line with your mission. And we just see this all the time. So like when did it happen? What's your take on it? Like why does so many CRO agencies like feel like they need to do this? Because it's just vanity metrics that they're at when all is said and done.
- [41:51]
Rafael Polandagel
I mean I think it's just a reflection of society in general. TikTok taking over, making everybody impatient. People can't watch, can't stand to watch long videos anymore. People don't want to read long blog posts anymore. And I think what happened is we had this E commerce boom right like around the time of COVID or like a little bit after, I think 2021 if I'm not mistaken, were probably some of the peak E commerce years and everything boomed and so many brands that probably never would have worked in a normal economy were also working and booming and it made no sense. But that also led to this Shopify boom. And so many people just starting Shopify stores and then everybody just jumping on the opportunity to like, hey, how do I consult or do marketing for those stores? And then there's also been. And you probably remember the year better than I do, but you know, like the iOS changes that happened, I think it was around the same period or towards the end of those years.
- [42:53]
Ralph Burns
21.
- [42:54]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah, 21. Right. So it was perfectly aligned and that was kind of the beginning of the end of that boom. Because all of a sudden brands started to realize, I can't just spend my time optimizing my Facebook ads, only do that and be successful. Brands started to realize I can only control Facebook or the other ad platforms up to a certain extent, but my website I can and I can do a lot there. And that's the second half of the equation. So I think really starting at that point in time, we really started seeing more brands care about conversion optimization, wanting to take more control on increasing their conversions and their website. And all of a sudden that became more important than ever. And gradually. Well, then just five years earlier, conversion optimization was mostly a thing that was taught through like super long skyscraper style blog posts that we called at the time. Right now it was like, okay, well what's the method of consuming information? Well, it's usually short, short videos, short posts, quick things, and people just want the quick, the quick wins. And before that there were fewer people doing CRO and it was more like enterprise people and people that had. That were very deep into it. So the knowledge was maybe a bit more sparse, but it was maybe a little deeper. Now that same level of knowledge exists, but it, but it often gets lost within the sea of engagement management, which is now so many people has got businesses where they want to profit from CRO people, consultants, every single agency from dev agencies to ad agencies to new CRO agencies to kids coming out of high school. I mean, I was one, I was that guy once. Right, so you were that guy. I'm not complaining.
- [44:41]
Ralph Burns
You're junior high school. But that's all right.
- [44:44]
Rafael Polandagel
Exactly. So I can't complain about that. But it just, what it means is all of a sudden so many people are trying to profit off CRO. What's going to happen is, well, how do you do that in today's day and age? Well, it's all about engagement and there's going to be a lot of things shared. What I guess I'm seeing though is obviously when you have a lot of people that's been in CRO, maybe For a couple months or a year or only two years is. Well, generally you can be very loud. But it doesn't mean that that content is necessarily valuable or it's going to help. Right. It doesn't take any level of expertise in CRO to build a massive swipe file with a hundred test ideas that you could apply to your E commerce store tomorrow. Which won't do anything, by the way. Back then it was. I don't want to mention Neil Patel again, but it was like Neil Patel had those lists on blog posts.
- [45:41]
Ralph Burns
Insult him all the time on this podcast, by the way. He's been on this podcast. So there you go.
- [45:46]
Rafael Polandagel
And look, I know him and I really respect back what he's built. But it's just the first example. Like, he's been really, really good back in the days at like building those ridiculously long blog posts and he didn't.
- [45:59]
Ralph Burns
Write any of them. But that's okay.
- [46:01]
Rafael Polandagel
Exactly. But, you know, that's what we had back then. Today it's LinkedIn swipe files. It's the same content, just repurposed. And it doesn't take any CRO expertise to build a swipe file of. I just broke down this athletic greens funnel. I just broke down Dr. Squatch funnel. You don't need to be an CRO expert to take a screenshot of every step of a funnel. You don't need to be a CRO expert just to come up with a bunch of random test ideas that it's.
- [46:29]
Lauren E. Petrulo
CRO standing for Conversion rate Opinion.
- [46:32]
Rafael Polandagel
Oh, I love that. I might steal that.
- [46:39]
Ralph Burns
And how about all those guys breaking down the Dr. Squatch funnel? Like, you actually worked on the Dr. Squatch funnel.
- [46:46]
Rafael Polandagel
Yeah, we were Dr. Squatch for five years, right? And when we started working with them, they were a small $10 million brand and now they're advertising in the super bowl and everything. And it's interesting because when you see that, and Dr. Squatch is not the only example. We work with a lot of big brands where like, you see Those people in LinkedIn breaking down their funnel or telling everything that they should do differently. And well, the reality is sometimes those ideas were in the pipeline and they failed, or sometimes they totally didn't. Those recommendations made no sense for X and Y reason. So that's the thing, right? If you just look at a website and you try to say they should do this and you try to prescribe without actually having access to the analytics, to the qualitative data, to the customer databases, to the segments and everything, like, it just becomes A guess of who's more creative with coming up with random ideas and applying them on any website and it gets views and there is some value in heuristics when there's an actual process and methodology for it. But yeah, I think it's just to prove that like I saw those funnel breakdowns and very often like the recommendations did not make sense or didn't apply for X and Y. Reason I'm not allowed to say anything or say the why and I never even comment on those posts. But I just know that having seen the back end, I know they would totally flop sometimes and that happens with a lot of clients.
- [48:10]
Ralph Burns
Please don't tell me they said make the buy button orange.
- [48:15]
Rafael Polandagel
It's possible. And the reason I'm saying this is at the end of the day, this is just a proof that you can have a lot of what seems like a great idea. You have a lot of content that's being shared that looks like a very well thought expert's opinion. But in the world of CRO, no one's got a crystal ball. And unless you test it, unless there's actual data backing things up, it's really, really hard to know or to predict that a recommendation is going to make an impact. We run hundreds if not thousands of AB test year and I, every day I'm proven wrong. Like something I think is going to make a huge difference ends up making no difference or it ends up losing. Right. And I've been in this for over a decade and yet. Right. And I think that's, that's the thing. It's. There's a lot of things we can share on social for engagement, but is it truly going to help those brands or are we just doing it for engagement? And it's something that I'm always torn because yeah, I also want more engagement. I want to grow my own agency. I'm not hiding and I'm not trying to be such a purist that I'm above all these people and everything like, but I'm often thinking, okay, how do I create content that yes, creates engagement, but that's also not. Here's a SWAT file of 100 different things that I know people shouldn't copy for in the first place.
- [49:29]
Ralph Burns
Right, Right. Because it's all individualistic. And also one thing affects the next thing, which affects the next thing, which affects the next thing, which is your landing page optimization, your conversion rate, your bundle size, your choices, your aov, your L tv, your profit margin on individual products. There's so many factors. It's not just one thing. It's not like hey do this and all of a sudden double your business. But we see all those posts and those are the ones that get a lot of engagement. So question I think everything that you see because sometimes it's taken in theory and out of context without really understanding. Which I think has been great here because you've certainly seen a lot in your. You've been in this business a long time and you're not an old guy. So I mean that's impressive unto itself. Just imagine Lauren, you like breaking down websites in your room at age 11. I can't see that you were like out the dance floor going to parties and doing all that. And Raphael still had a full life.
- [50:32]
Rafael Polandagel
I still did all of that.
- [50:34]
Ralph Burns
But yes, for me I was up in my room playing guitar and I wasn't very popular. So anyway, I was that guy. But anyway way where can people get in touch with you? Where's the best place for people to connect with you?
- [50:46]
Rafael Polandagel
Raphael yeah, so you can go to splitbase.com PT and you can get a free proposal there if you need help with conversion optimization or landing pages or conversion optimized site redesigns for larger e commerce brands. So splitbase.com and yeah/pt best place to just learn about everything. But if you want to connect with me personally, I mean hey, LinkedIn is probably where I put post the most and I try to record videos pretty often sharing not test to implement tomorrow or right away but methodologies and strategies rather. So you can learn there. Yeah and I'm always trying to get better as well so I'd love for people to watch the content and let me know what they want more of or what they've learned through it. And same on Twitter R PaulAndEgel It's a little harder to find as my last name is very French and well French Canadian and complicated. But I'm sure it's all going to be in the show notes so I won't bother spelling it out.
- [51:45]
Ralph Burns
Well, we'll leave all those links in the show notes and yes for those non French speakers we'll make sure that we do have that proper spelling pronunciation. It's been great having you on the show here today. Thanks so much for coming on. I've been a big fan of you for I wouldn't say years but I would say about a year and really tremendous what you've been able to do in building up the business and making a real positive impact. So super appreciate that. Make sure that you do go over to splitpace.com PT get that special offer just for PT listeners like you. And yeah, all the links and all the resources and everything that we mentioned on today's show, including the proper spelling of Raphael's first and last name, is over@perpetualtraffic.com so make sure that you do leave a rating and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And on behalf behalf of my awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrulo, ciao until next show. See ya. You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.