Welcome to the eCommerce podcast.

My name is Matt Edmundson and it is great to be with you on this beautiful day talking about all things eCommerce and to help me do that.

Adam Pearce is back on the show.

Adam, I was looking just at my notes then.

September 2022 was when our last episode.

Can you believe that?

mean, I've put on weight, I've lost weight.

I've had children since then.

I mean, it's all changed.

And e-commerce has maybe had a few changes as well.

Well, possibly.

Yes, it has.

um I had a few.

For those of you that can't, you know, who's listening to the show that either doesn't know you because they've not listened to your podcast, which they should obviously listen

to, or because they don't remember back to 2022.

Just give us a quick snippet about your good self.

Absolutely.

So I am one of the co-founders at Blend Commerce, is the Shopify CRO agency.

So ultimately we spend our day looking at e-commerce sites and saying, how do we get people to either buy now, buy more or buy again?

And on side of that as well, I also run an e-commerce event called eCom Collab Club, which some of you may have seen and heard me talking about, which runs once a month in London.

Fantastic.

Is there a website they can go to to find out more about that?

The website is terrible, which is a great thing for an agency guy to be saying about one of the things that he owns, know, cobblest shoes.

If you have a look on LinkedIn, you can find eCom Collab Club on there and all the details are about right around there.

yeah, website is coming, shall we say.

It's on route.

It's like the builder's house.

There's never the house you should look at.

of.

It's totally just don't ever look at our own websites.

That's all I'm They're always the worst because they're always the last ones to get done, aren't they?

You're too busy working on everybody else's stuff to get your own stuff done.

It's quite funny.

I was talking to someone earlier on having a coaching call and the team can hear me when I'm doing these calls because we're in an open plan office.

And you can see more squiggling notes as you're talking because like we've not done that yet.

We've not done that yet.

Right.

We should probably do that.

It's quite funny.

Isn't it?

When you when you do these kinds of and CRO for those that might not know just explain what that means.

Yeah, sure.

So conversion rate optimization is effectively the process of saying, looking at what visitors do and don't do on your site, and then trying to improve the overall revenue of a

business by trying to influence your conversion rate, your average order value, and your repeat purchase rate to get that amount of money that is coming onto your site increasing.

So

It just effectively is taking a bit of a step further and saying, look, I think we should change our website to make it look nicer, to look better.

I think we should change our website because we can see that 75 % of anyone that comes onto the site doesn't click here, they click there and they typically leave the site.

So it's using a blend of psychology with data and then also technical prowess or technical knowledge to be able to then make those changes on the site to get people to buy.

Fantastic.

I love this buy now, buy more, buy again.

It's quite catchy and I think it works because I was always told even before e-commerce, I remember sitting in a business seminar with a guy called Jay Abraham.

This is old school.

Some people will remember his name from the 80s and 90s and he said there's only three ways to grow a company.

You increase the number of customers, you increase average order value and you increase average order count.

And so when I read buy now, buy more, buy again, I'm reading

more customers, average order value increase and average order count increase.

But you've been much more succinct and I like that.

Yeah, I mean, think, you know, anyone listening to this and, you know, us included as well, we have it with our own businesses, don't we?

You know, ultimately, if you're working with clients, ultimately, the first time a client comes, potential clients come to the site, you want them to book a call or buy one of your

services.

You know, again, if you were existing clients, you know, doing more stuff with you, or if you've done a project with them, back again.

It's exactly the same for e-commerce brands, but different e-commerce brands will be able to pull

one or more of those levers at different times.

And I think this is the real crux of getting started CRO to work out is it by now, is it by more, or is it by again, that really is the lever that you can pull to try and increase

the revenue.

Fantastic.

Well, you've obviously, you know, got some experience here, Adam, in this whole topic and if one or two clients as well.

If you had a magic wand, right, and you could wave said magic wand and solved the most common problem that your clients experience that you see on the websites, what would that

be?

This still today tends to be around the mobile experience.

Now, anyone who has sat in a meeting about a website, I guarantee that nine times out of 10, when that website is shown to you, whether that is a PDF with the website itself, it

will be in desktop view.

Most e-commerce brands are somewhere between 60 to 90 % of their traffic and typically revenue as well from mobile.

So a lot of the time that the crux of the matter is usually around mobile experience.

And that is because apps, designs, hardly ever automatically translate to a good mobile experience.

And ultimately the way you've got to think about this is that the real estate that you've got to play with is a lot less than what you obviously have on desktop.

secondly, the way that people make decisions on mobile is very different to desktop.

Now, one of the things, and again, look, let's look at a specific example for this here.

If you go to most e-commerce websites and you look for search, you will probably have to either do a bit of digging around for it, or you will see a little magnifying glass icon

in the top right-hand corner.

Now, if you think about that in terms of A, having to search for a search feature, that's a pain.

And secondly, if it's a little magnifying glass feature,

If you've got fat thumbs like me and poor eyesight, not a great combination.

So we have over the past couple of years, for many sites, done a test where we expose search on mobile.

So what does it mean?

It means that we have a bar on mobile that basically is visible all the time.

It says, needs to be looking for, or they're very evident, you can search in that bar to then find the product you're looking for.

When we do that test and we do it implementation, conversion rate can go up from anywhere between 30 to 50%.

just by doing that feature.

And because again, so much traffic is going through mobile, that is always one that works very well.

So mobile generally, but that particular item of exposing search on mobile always, always works.

That's really interesting.

Because you're right, you don't see it that much, do you, on mobile?

You've all got to find that little magnifying glass.

I'm curious, have you found that true regardless, like if you've, say, got a site selling, I know, 10, 20 products versus a site selling 500 products, is that still true?

Yeah, it's a good point actually.

So we actually have a crisp or potato chip company in the US that we work with.

They only actually have eight SKUs.

Now, what we were finding then is that when people are mobile, they were actually navigating a bit.

And what we found is that when they were using search on mobile, they were doing two things.

One is they were putting the product into the search feature and they were then adding the word ingredients to it.

So there were two things that we noticed here.

One is the information that ingredients wasn't being displayed in a way that was actually working for that customer.

And we realized that because we could see that it was in a large block of text.

So first of all, we changed the format so it became an accordion menu so you could clearly see where the ingredients were.

The second thing was, is that when we actually exposed that on mobile, what also then happened is that people were then searching for bundles, subscriptions.

So all of the things that basically, but they were looking for off the back of it, that was then dictating what we could then do on site as tests.

And I think, know, it's, although obviously we'll have a, you know, a small amount of SKUs equally again, inherently we are lazy as hell.

Now, if you think about, you know, Amazon at the moment, everyone would have noticed Rufus is now around.

So Rufus is an AI chat that allows you to then search.

key information about the product.

That has gone through the roof in its usage because people are like, you know what, I need to find the information that I care about now.

So if I am buying my daughter's new Ironman's, I'm gonna ask it, will this fit my four year old daughter?

I'm not gonna scroll through information because I'm lazy as hell because I've got used to this mode where actually I expect every website to be catered to completely for me.

I think the same logic applies is that it doesn't really matter how big your SKU count is.

Allowing people to be lazy will help you buy more buy again.

Yeah.

Allow people to be lazy.

That's a really great idea.

It's a really interesting way of putting it.

You said, if I can just back up a little sec, you said that people make decisions differently on mobile than they do on desktop.

What do you mean though?

So with mobile experience, what tends to be the case is that the lot of the traffic that goes to mobile will always be going to the product page.

again, generally with traffic these days anyway, not many people tend to navigate away from the product page.

You might get a bit of click around on collection pages, but in terms of the rest of the site, fairly relevant.

From the point of view on mobile, when you are shopping,

Ultimately, in that particular moment you've got, generally speaking, you're reliant on someone doing two and a half to three thumb scrolls as an absolute maximum.

After that point, ultimately that person is either buying or frankly they're dying in the sense of that they are moving away from the site.

So what this means is that in terms of the mode of shopping, the patients that people have on mobile will be a lot less and the time that they have to shop.

is generally a lot less.

And therefore the ability them to make snap decisions is also going to be a lot more pertinent than it would be maybe on desktop.

Equally as well, know, lot of people that are tracking their sessions across multiple devices will always see this again.

Now is that typically you're going to get between two to three devices involved in every single transaction.

There are not many transactions now for most e-commerce brands.

where actually is a pure, you know, look, I'm going onto Google, I'm searching for a product, I'm buying the product.

just, it isn't a feature of the way that people shop these days.

And especially now, obviously the chat GPT is in the mix.

I that items obviously are available.

You will see people bouncing around to those different sources before they actually then.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting as I read that um despite previous protestations, ChatGPT are now going to do paid ads.

Yeah.

I, I don't know what's interesting is that Claude obviously come out and they absolutely are not.

So I think that's where these LLMs are going to start sort of differentiating from one another.

I have a lot of problems with ads on LLMs.

And for me, think, yeah, look, it is definitely going to change.

It's going to change, I think, the world that I'm in, which is CRO, because what the front end of a site will need to do will even need to be even more concise.

And I think equally as well, the recommendations that are being made, the way in which they're being made,

I think will also have an impact because ultimately if you know, if we are being shown any results that we've been told are sponsored, I don't know necessarily whether that is going

to work for them or not.

And secondly, if we get up in a position whereby actually the research results of not being told that they're influenced by ChatGPT and that their models that they have is

also I think from a trust point of view, very problematic.

I Sam Altman has come out and said, look,

It is going to be very clear when you got sponsored ads, sponsored results.

But yeah, it's all about trust, isn't it?

And we do put a lot of trust into these guys and me included.

You know, I share a hell of a lot of personal stuff with ChatGPT.

You know, probably share far too much stuff about the business as well into it that I shouldn't do.

And I think, a lot of people are guilty of that.

So yeah, it's interesting on the moral compass that.

Watch this space, as they say.

Let me go back to mobile if I can before we get totally sidetracked, because I really want to go down the AI, but let's stick with mobile a little bit.

Is it still the case, Adam, that conversion rates are higher on desktop than mobile, or has that now changed as well?

Um, would say actually from a majority of the time now is that the conversion rates are kind of on par in terms of desktop and mobile.

Um, particularly when it comes to beauty, vitamin to supplements, subscriptions like dog food.

I think they're, they're pretty much there or thereabouts.

I think when it is, you know, maybe a little bit more considered purchases, the conversion rate on mobile tends to be a lot less.

purely just because of the fact that, you if you are generally spending sort of, you know, above $150, 150 pounds, that's when you start to see that kind of gap come out between the

two.

Yeah, it's interesting isn't it sort of leveled out and how do you what do you think about eh this idea then of mobile apps so years ago when mobile apps became a thing everybody in

ecommerce was like I need a mobile app then all the developers went actually no you just need a web app you just need your website to work on mobile because mobile apps have

notoriously expensive and difficult to maintain

Technology has once again uh changed and uh getting these kind of things seems to be a lot easier now.

What are your thoughts about mobile apps?

Should I be thinking about that as an e-commerce brand?

think you should be, but I think there are specific contexts and I think equally about how you use it.

So ultimately, I think when it comes to mobile app, the benefit that you've got there generally is around the push notifications that you can use off the back of that.

having that ability to not pay Zuckerberg or anyone else money to advertise someone on their mobile phone.

The difficult thing though, I think in a way the Lollobrand slip up with this is that when they go and do that,

there isn't actually any benefit to the customer or the visitor, but downloading the app versus using mobile.

There might be a 10 % discount, you know, maybe off the first purchase, but ultimately that's not going to lead to any longevity.

I think if you were using a mobile app, there's two things I would say that you need to do is number one is tie that into your loyalty program if you have one, so that the more that

you then use the app,

the more loyalty points that you get or the more benefits that you have.

And I think, you know, if you're really smart, if you can have the, at the mobile app to basically administer some form of membership.

So a lot of brands now are doing memberships where you're buying it, you're paying a monthly amount today and get certain benefits.

Now that can be free shipping.

It can be content.

can be access to events.

It can be exclusive product drops.

If you're doing that through the mobile.

from an app where there is a real use case for me saying, yes, I am going to go and bother doing that, that's worthwhile.

But if you are purely using the mobile app to say it effectively is the same as using the mobile version of the site, completely that's a waste of time.

And I think the other thing that's alongside that is that again, with everything in e-commerce, and I feel very passionately about this, is don't have it as a silo.

So if you are going to use a mobile app,

It should be connected to your email marketing provider.

It should be connected to WhatsApp.

It should allow you to effectively, you know, use all of the features and all of the functionality that you would expect to see on mobile in an app because otherwise again,

what is the point?

Who do you think is doing it well then in that space?

In terms of brands who are using apps, well, yeah.

I think when it comes to the apps, typically, so Beauty Pie I think are doing this pretty well.

Because what they allow you to do is that you can actually manage your subscription through the app, which is number one, so it's very important.

Secondly, they do the exclusive drops through their app, which again is pretty useful to have.

So I think they're a pretty decent one to have a look at from perspective of using it.

I think the thing with apps as well as it's also about not making it too complicated or too convoluted.

would say, you know, six, seven years ago, people, you know, were spending, you know, sort of 40, 50 grand on developing a customer app.

And they're really now, you know, there is, there is no logic in my mind for why you would go and do that.

Yeah.

got some great providers out there like Shopney, for example, who, you know, effectively you can build your own app with, lots of integrations, you know, with, with the tech that

people use on Shopify sites, you know, and relatively inexpensive per month to be able to do that.

So it's about also making sure that using tech that is A, fit for purpose, but B also means that you are not then syncing loads more.

you know, OPEX into a company or CAPEX into a company that you don't need to be.

Yeah.

Well, it's interesting.

And again, listening to you talk, because I'm in my head, I'm thinking, how would I design an app for say, one of my own e-com businesses versus what we do on the website?

And I get, I can add some features, but the actual principles are the same, aren't they?

It's not like I can just go mobile app and go, well, actually now I can have way more scrolling because they're on an app.

Do you know what mean?

It's just the design principles, I guess, are still the same.

So if I'm

If I'm listening to this and you want to wave your magic wand and solve everybody's mobile commerce problems, what are some of the key principles I guess I need to think about when

it comes to the UI or the user interface or when I'm trying to look for things like to optimize?

What are some of the common mistakes we're making?

I loved your little search bar tip, but what are some of the common mistakes we're making and how do we fix it?

Cool, so let's talk about a couple of different ones that tend to happen quite a lot.

Now, the biggest one for me, typically, is when you are talking about information on product pages.

So whether that is the product description, whether that is the ingredients, whether that is the materials that it's made from, a lot of the time, because obviously desktop allows

for it, these blocks tend to be in blocks of content.

So I eat paragraphs or, you know, multiple blocks.

visually looks appealing.

And secondly, you don't necessarily need to have too much scroll from a PDP point of view.

Those hardly ever will come across well on a desktop perspective.

either going to changing that to being in accordions that allow people to drop down, changing some of the text to be iconography is also another good tip to reduce the scroll

that you've got.

Or the other one is maybe going down the tabular route.

which can also work as well so that basically people can then self-select that information that is there now.

Some people listening to this will say, look, in e-commerce, the whole thing is about reducing friction.

So why would you add in more clicks with a tab or with a call-in menu?

With friction, ultimately, we rethink about what that means.

Friction is about stopping something.

It's stopping someone from doing something.

With tabs,

And also with according to menus of display information, you're not actually stopping someone.

You are enabling someone to more quickly find information they want.

Because if you have a long scroll of two or three pages of scroll to get down to a product description, A, they might be able to find information.

Secondly, that is a hell of a long way to be able to get to the buying album.

So I don't subscribe to that view that, you know, if you are changing the format of information so that it effectively not is hidden, but you have to click to get to it.

because you are signposting that person to it.

So that's the first one.

The second one as well is also about having a sticky add-to-cart button or having a call to action button that is visible at all times, whichever way you want to talk or look at

this.

Again, a lot of the time what will happen is that you will see on mobile that there will be a buy now button that is at top of the page or the bottom of the page.

And ultimately again, as a...

as someone who's scrolling through that lots of information that you've got, they are then having to then cycle back to try and get to that buy now button.

It seems that we're talking about seconds here, but again, like I said earlier, people are lazy.

We need to give them the ability to then transact in the quickest way possible.

So those are two things that are, I would say, very much key.

The third one I would say is, is that people talk about, you know, your USP, your key value proposition, whatever you want to call it.

And there's a really good example here of a brand that we work with.

They're actually a car parts manufacturer.

Now they came to us with a beautiful site.

It was great.

And they had this about this page, which said all the fantastic things about the company.

Now on the product page, none of that was there.

were no, there was none of like, you know, made in the USA iconography, all that kind of stuff.

So we bought that stuff onto it.

That made a really good difference.

then the other thing was below the call to action.

There was like, you know, um, a generic piece of copy.

Um, you know, which was like, you know, buy now from your favorite, you know, uh, automotive, provider or something, something NAF like that.

we're like, well, we're not really using that for the best ability.

So we did the server with their top LTV customers.

So look, ultimately guys, what's the thing that keeps you coming back?

And they thought of two things.

One was the fact that have a 90 day warranty, a 90 day returns policy.

And the other was they have a one year warranty.

So what we did is we stuck those two below the call to action button off the back of that.

What we saw is 15, I think it was a 15 % increase in conversion rate and a 34 % increase in average order value isolated just to that particular test.

So it's those small things that you can do very easily.

You if you, if you know this information already, or even if you don't, even if you go, look, know what, we're going to just try putting this thing on.

Calling out those things ultimately invoke that trust in that very quick shopping experience on mobile.

These are some of the things that can lead you to be in a much better position.

That's really powerful.

There's so much there, Adam.

So I've made lots of notes and I'm to go through them one by one.

So going back to the tabs on the mobile device, do you, if you have a tab which people click or an accordion which people click, do you track how many people click those

accordions or tabs?

So we can see in terms of the activity, what they do, the main way that we would track it, we can obviously use GA4 for that to be able to see, because we can put events on each of

those things.

But equally, a lot of the time we will use a heat mapping tool.

So typically Microsoft Clarity, which is free of charge to use, that's going to show you the areas of your site where people are clicking and aren't clicking.

And secondly, it's going to track people through the site when they do go to each of those items.

So using something on that to understand that is pretty important as well.

What are some of the things that have come out of that exercise that surprised you?

That you've seen on customer websites, I'm curious.

I think one of the things that still surprises me is that on average, how little of a mobile PDP that people get down before they purchase.

Now, on average, we see between 23 to 30 % of that page is viewed.

And at that point, they will then buy or leave.

So, you know, if you put that into context, you know, we're talking less than a third of the page has been viewed.

before someone's made the decision.

you know, that's, people will agonize about all these wonderful sections about, you know, style it with, you know, people also bought.

Do you need that stuff?

But a lot of the time, they've kind of made their mind up already.

So, you know, even if you are going to very blasé, you're going to say, look, I'll look at my website and I'm going to say the top 30 %

of my mobile pages, every single page, that's where the love is going to go.

That's where the focus is going to be.

That is what you should be doing in my opinion, because we see it time and time.

So I guess the question then that comes into my head, Adam, off the back of that, because I find this fascinating.

So let's say my page is 100 lines long, just because 100 is easy for math.

so people see 30 lines, and then that's it.

They've either made their decision to buy or they're out.

So I've got 70 lines.

Do I put that 70 lines or all that content behind, say, an accordion so everything then fits into?

the 30 lines and if I do that is it a case of well they're only viewed the top 30 % so now they're only viewing the first 10 lines if that makes sense or are they still viewing all

of it because I've made it smaller.

Yeah.

So in that scenario then, when you're, what you're using then as a signpost, that then is going to mean that people will then know what their next natural step is.

Now, if you think about that kind of example again, you with, you've got a hundred lines and you, so you may be focused on that first 30.

If in that, if that was, you know, effectively a block of text, there isn't really anything within that space that allows people to take a next step, i.e.

it might just be that you've got a call to action button.

That's the only route they can go.

But if we have done that so that now that primary to stay at the top of the page, A, we are now allowing people to look through multiple videos of that product.

B, we are giving people three different tabs to click on.

We've already maybe given four or five more options than they had, which was click up to buy now or move out.

So it's, it's kind of in a way of sort of, if you think about kind of climbing a mountain, we would stop at different.

points, it's kind of what we're doing on the mobile PDP.

You like you get to base camp and then you make that decision to go further.

Ultimately, if you don't have those things that you've talked about there on site, your base is saying that you're going to climb Everest from the bottom right to the top in one

go.

And it just, it ain't going to happen.

It's really interesting.

So the sticky call to action button, which you mentioned as your second thing, does that go the top of the screen or the bottom of the screen or does it not matter?

I'm going to sit on the fence and be Switzerland about this, but ultimately it depends.

We do this a lot where we'll run a test for a couple of weeks to work this out.

It's exactly the same with, know, when the beautiful cookie banners came in that we all love and adore.

Yes.

So that was the same thing there.

So we, with all of our clients, we tested it.

did pop-up, we did top bar, bottom bar.

I think with that one, actually a lot of the time the bottom bar was the one that allowed people to continue shopping most of them, but there is a case similar.

But again, with that, we just even need to test it and that's a fairly simple test for us to do.

of the things that's intrigued me about Apple's new iOS.

Are you an Apple man or an Android man?

Apple.

So you will have experienced this Adam because I'm on their new iOS update and my default is to go to the top where things used to be and they've shifted everything down to the

bottom which intuitively I suppose makes more sense.

I get slightly you know because I expect it all to be at the top where it's been for years.

But that intrigues me that Apple have done quite a big shift in this update.

So the search bars, the buttons, everything are now at the bottom of the screen versus at the top.

I don't know if you've noticed that.

Yeah, I mean, it's, we, we have noticed it in terms of obviously it happening, but what we haven't seen is any direct correlation with the iPhone traffic that we've seen on client

sites and the behaviors.

I think, you know, the, thing that will be interesting, I think with that one is that to try, and what I would love to see is, is there any change in the data as that roller has

happened in the U S?

into Europe and then beyond, obviously there's been staggered rollouts of this for different user groups.

But it's not something that I can say at the moment has made an impact, it wouldn't surprise me if there is a, you know, maybe not so much uh a falling conversion rates or

average or the value, but I would maybe imagine dwell time might be longer and

potentially maybe page exit might be higher as well in some instances while people are getting used to it.

yeah, I would, I think it's a really interesting point because again, you know, with all the will in the world, you can do what you like to that product page.

But if the device, you know, or the browser that you're using says otherwise, you will get a different experience, which, I mean, the days when, you know, people were

We still obviously had Explorer around and Edge and all that kind of stuff.

And yeah, it makes me look absolutely stunning when it came to Chrome.

And then you put it onto Edge and be like, what the hell is this?

So it's the same scenario, I guess.

Yeah, no, I think you're right.

I think it's interesting that they did that just from a UI point of view.

And I wonder whether we'll see that follow now through onto websites as well would be interesting.

When you were talking about the car parts company, you said you surveyed 20LTV customers.

How important is it to do that?

I think when you get to a point whereby you have said, look, from a, and I hate using the word best practice, but it is what it is.

There are certain things that just work for most people.

Once you've moved past that and you've then done a considerable period of time where you've done testing with the data that you have, i.e.

data, it's then that you need to move on to qualitative because in an ideal scenario, you would kind of go and ask those customers first, but.

In terms of doing that, the cost of doing it, A is more expensive because it's more man hours.

Yes, of course you can send surveys on email, but look, we all know surveys do purely complete them.

We get about 12, 15 % completion, which is not great.

And equally as well, think, look, from a CRO point of view, a lot of the time it's a fairly new concept in most businesses.

saying, look, we're to go and speak to you on customers.

They go, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not.

someone to go and do that, we can do that.

So there's that bit of that fight.

But once you've gone past that con save stage, going out to them is really important.

But before you get to that kind of, big jobs to be done survey or, you know, big customer surveys at an absolute minimum basic level, NPS, net promoter scores, put that at the end.

And all that is doing is basically a very short survey.

Once that person's put their credit card details and purchase, says effectively,

How was it shopping with us today?

Can you answer a couple of questions for us?

That you will find, you will get so many golden nuggets from doing that.

And still the amount of times that people are not doing it absolutely throws me crazy because the two things with NPS scores is that number one is that A, you can use it for

the intention which was, what do people actually think about the site when it's being proved?

But secondly,

You can also then make sure that if someone has had a great experience, that you tie that in with your review process.

So that if someone has a great experience, will send them directly at that moment, an opportunity to review your store.

So you can do a lot with that, both from a marketing and a learning point of view.

But again, getting those things that aren't easy to measure, like they are with clicks and views, there's so much that you can find out from that.

It's just about making sure that you can have some time to be able to get into that information and use it.

Wonderful.

That's very helpful.

You said that there are things that work for most people.

What are those?

Hmm.

So I think, look, the, um, the exposed search on mobile is 100 % one that I think that people should, should be doing.

The other one as well is, um, if you, if anyone uses Instagram, obviously you'll see at the top of Instagram, you have your stories in these little kind of like circles.

Um, we call that kind of a story type sub collections.

Now that's something that's worked very well recently on mobile in the sense that when you get to a mobile site.

rather than just having your typical menu at the top or your hamburger menu on the right hand side, if you have four or five of your top collections at the top represented in a

circle with a visual of that area, that is a great signposting tool to get people through.

And again, that works time and time again, because if your search is non-existent or not great on a site, how else are they going to find it?

Well, they're going to click on the hamburger menu.

they're going to see a first list of categories that probably don't mean too much subsection of those categories.

Again, there's still at this point, no imagery straight into that.

You know, if I go onto a clothing site and ultimately look, I'm a bit of a gene fan.

I'm going straight to the jeans.

I've you've passed all that stuff in the menu that you would have had there.

That is, is working time and time again.

Um,

And is that, I'm intrigued by this idea, you know, of the Instagram story circles.

I'm sure there's a much better name for it.

Is that horizontal scrolling or are you just literally fixed with on the phone?

It's like, we're gonna do four or five categories.

That's it.

It fits on the screen.

Anything beyond that, you're gonna have to search for.

Yeah.

So four or five categories, absolute max.

And then with that, then I mean, what's been interesting with this one as well is we've actually got a coffee brand in the US and we actually tested the same thing on desktop.

So, and it actually works exactly the same on desktop as well, because again, it kind of gave it some visual.

Now look, sometimes, you know, there's a way you can do this is visualizing the mega menu.

So that obviously if you've got the menu at the top and you drop it down,

you might see four or five block images of that particular collection to represent it.

That's another way.

But another one on a similar vein to that is if you go to a mobile site, a lot of the time what you will see is that you will see basically breadcrumbs or kind of little dots below

the main image.

So if let's say, for example, it might be a sports nutrition brand, they might have a picture of their creatine — just a bag of creatine there.

Underneath the Z dot, it's based what it's saying is you've got to scroll across and then look at the different images or videos that are there.

Replacing those with image or video thumbnails allows someone on mobile to be able to view multiple images or videos of that all in one view.

if you imagine, if you look to the picture of just a bag of creatine, which isn't very exciting anyway, but then the other version is a bag of creatine below, you can see that

it's in the shaker.

You can see someone running with it.

You can see there's a couple of videos there.

Straight away, you've got a visual, okay, look, there are more things that this product does than just that.

Okay, to the brain, okay, it's all working.

So that's another thing, again, which is a very simple switch in terms of being able to do it from a technical point of view.

But it just then means that again, you are showing more information.

Again, people are lazy.

They don't want to have to swipe through.

They want to see it all quickly, verify it, bang it off a go buy.

interesting is are you showing the main product image still but you're showing the other images underneath rather than just uh apple dots as I like to call them.

Wow okay but there's a lot to go don't let me interrupt are there more more things that are common for most people?

let me think.

I, I think one of the other things that, um, you know, still works very, very well, um, across all sites is when you're using onsite quizzes and a few people listen is rolling

their eyes, maybe, but ultimately, like when I say quiz, what I'm talking about is a structured way to allow people to find the product they're looking for.

Now, if you've got a good search feature, I think this becomes less important.

Mm.

But particularly, you know, if you are talking about a site whereby you have a certain proportion of cohorts come to the site who are not either that sure about whether they

need your product or not.

Or secondly, are worried or concerned about what that product is going to do for them or how much to take.

That's important.

So supplements, vitamins, food, beauty.

anything that's ingestible, all of those lend themselves having quizzes because ultimately what people will say is how much do I need when we need to take it?

What's the benefit that's going to be for me?

So asking things, you know, for example, like moisturizers, like your skin type, your skin tone, um, you know, what kind of diet you have, all of these things make people more

informed.

The real beauty for me though, inherently as a marketer is the data that you get from that, because all the data that is then stored off the back of that.

can then be used in email marketing.

So Matt, if you go to a food site and I go to a food site and let's say, know, it's a matcha brand, for example, which is very popular now for me, not so much.

But let's say, for example, I'm telling you, look, actually I currently drink eight cups of coffee day and you're telling it that you drink two cups.

I love the raspberry flavor.

You love lemon.

Ultimately, what can happen is that the welcome flow that you get and I get can be slightly different.

It's dynamically created, but the content in yours

is about lemon and the fact that look, you it might be great to replace your morning copper with a matcha brand.

And for me, it's like, did you know how bad drinking eight cups of coffee a day is?

Actually, what you do is try replacing it with three cups of matcha.

that's, you know, that sort of thing again, it just keeps working, working.

Yeah, it just gives you that data, doesn't it?

It only does.

My last question before we move on to the next segment of the show.

The call to action um is a sticky button.

um I see a lot of mobiles where you go onto the site and you have to scroll to get to the Add to Cart button.

Is that a big no-no?

Yes, needs to be visible at times.

Very good.

That was a quick answer.

We like that.

it's...

It is what it is.

The data doesn't lie.

it is what it is.

Don't don't argue with the system, dude.

And Adam, listen, I'm aware of time.

So we need to move on to the next segment.

This is where Adam I ask you for a question for me.

I don't answer it on the show answer on social media.

So if you want to find out what my answer to Adam's question is going to be, come find me on LinkedIn.

But Adam, what is your question for me?

I want to ask you, is WhatsApp really going to be the next big thing in e-commerce?

Oh, great.

I would love to talk to you more about this, but maybe that's another show.

Because I feel like there's a big mountain behind that.

Okay, if you want to know what I'm going to think about that, come find me on LinkedIn, Matt Edmundson, and you'll find the answer to that question at some point in the future,

no doubt.

But Adam, listen, love the show, man.

Love the conversation.

If people want to find out more about you, about Blend Commerce, about the events, all that sort of good stuff, where do they go to?

No, thank you for having me.

And look, if anyone wants to find out more, if you go to LinkedIn, Adam Pearce, P-E-A-R-C-E, you'll see my beautiful face on there talking about Blend Commerce and eCom

Collab Club.

And if you search for eCom Collab Club on Google, you will get through to a few different pages which will tell you all about what that is all about.

Fantastic.

So go and say hello to Adam.

And of course, all of those links will be in the show notes.

So if you're on a podcast app, just scroll down.

If you're on YouTube, just click the description.

And if you signed up to our newsletter, they'll be in your inbox because we will make sure they always go in the newsletters when we send them out.

So yeah, if you've not subscribed to the newsletter, go check it out because I think you will enjoy it.

But yeah, Adam, thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

Genuinely love the conversation.

Before we go.

We like to do this thing right at the end for those that have stayed right till the end.

I don't know if this is our equivalent of sticky scroll.

Maybe it is.

I don't know.

We call it saving the best till last.

So Adam, you've given us a whole bunch of stuff here to think about.

I would love for you for the next two minutes just to riff on how we track data well.

Like should we all be signed up to Google Analytics?

or whatever we're on now or is there a piece of software or how you track data?

What is your top tip, your top advice on that?

The mic is yours my friend, over to you.

Thank you.

So the main thing is, first of all, is you need to decide in what is your ultimate goal or North Star Magic, whatever you want to call it.

So whether that is to get to two million pounds a year, whether that is to be a 30 % profit margin, whether it is to reach five million dollars per quarter, whatever that

might be, first of all, start there and work backwards.

Once you've then got that, what you then need to do is make sure that you've got tools that allow you to most

be trapped.

Now, a lot of the time, what that will tend to be irrespective of what that goal is, is probably going to be GA4.

If you're using Shopify, Shopify Analytics, and equally in terms of being able to work out, well, what was happening and how did this happen?

A heat mapping tool like Microsoft Clarity, like Hotjar, like Lucky Orange, any of those three really will give you what you need.

And there are lots of other of those tools out there because if you ultimately know

For example, let's say that we want to get to one million pounds of revenue in six months time.

GA4 and Shopify analytics is going to be able to tell you how far away from that you are.

And equally, it's going to be able to tell you the behaviors that people are doing and aren't doing to allow you to get to that.

I.e.

what are the behaviors that people are doing which means that they are spending less, i.e.

the lower average order value.

And secondly, from a conversion rate point of view, when are they converting and who is

The heat mapping tool is going to show you an overall picture of where those people are doing things that are going against that by now, by more, by later part.

No, sorry, by again, part.

Um, and equally will allow you to understand what is impact is that having in terms of our average order value conversion rate, repeat purchase rate.

So I think the critical thing for me is decide what that number is.

And I can't literally say enough because.

So many people work with people like me or other agencies and say, we want to grow the business.

That isn't enough.

What is the number that you need to want to get to and everyone should be on the same page.

Once you've got that, the metrics that will then follow after it is much more simple.

Brilliant.

Love that.

Adam, let's not leave it as long next time for you back on the show.

This is what my brain's telling me.

Great to be on that and thank you so much for having me.

Appreciate it.

That's been great.

Thank you, ah Adam.

Thank you so much for joining us, ladies and gentlemen.

I hope you've enjoyed the show.

If you have, make sure you like and subscribe and do all of that good stuff.

Do go connect with Adam, like I say, the links will be in the show notes.

But make sure you stay connected with us because we've got yet more great conversations coming up and I don't want you to miss any of them.

Of course I don't.

Why would I?

But thank you so much for joining us.

That's it from Adam.

That's it from myself.

Have a phenomenal week wherever you are in the world.

I'll see you next time.

Bye for