The Dropship Unlocked Podcast
Unlock e-commerce success with the Dropship Unlocked podcast. Join UK e-commerce experts, Lewis Smith and James Eardley, as they guide aspiring entrepreneurs to financial and time freedom.
Dive into high-ticket dropshipping, Shopify, Google Ads, and more. Discover stories, strategies, and tips to fast-track your e-commerce journey. Whether you're a newbie or seasoned seller, we're here to elevate your business.
Embrace the laptop lifestyle, the e-commerce evolution, and Shopify's power with us. Ready to become a successful entrepreneur?
Tune in!
The Dropship Unlocked Podcast
Boost Your Shopify Conversion Rate with Will Laurenson (Dropship Unlocked Podcast Ep 55)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
👉 Ready to start your own online store? Start here: https://dropshipunlocked.com/start?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ep55-boost-your-shopify-conversion-rate-with-will-laurenson
Download Will's Free Conversion Checklist ➡️ DOWNLOAD HERE
🗣 In this episode, Lewis and James welcome Will Laurenson from Customers Who Click. Will is the founder of Customers Who Click, a performance-based CRO agency for ecommerce brands.
Their unique UAM Method has driven over $20m in incremental revenue for their clients in the last 12 months. Learn how to improve your Shopify conversion rate with his expert insights.
👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here ➡️ https://youtu.be/9zhoL03AE44
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Topics Discussed:
★ Will's journey into CRO and focus on e-commerce brands.
★ Foundational CRO strategies for immediate impact.
★ Unique challenges in converting high-ticket items.
★ Importance of user experience and leveraging customer feedback for CRO.
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Links and Resources Mentioned:
Boost your email marketing with Klaviyo: https://dropshipunlocked.com/klaviyo
Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify
Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle
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Key Takeaways:
★ CRO is crucial for e-commerce success, especially with high-ticket items.
★ Effective CRO strategies can lead to significant revenue increases.
★ User experience plays a vital role in boosting conversion rates.
★ Leveraging customer feedback and analytics is essential for CRO success.
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FOLLOW:
Today, we are delighted to be joined by a very special guest. Well laurenson has driven over $20 million in incremental revenue for their clients in just the last 12 months.
Unknown:Make sure people can find them buy what they want, make sure you answer all their questions and make sure that you're, you're convincing them, it's the right product for them. But when it comes to high value, I
James Eardley:love doing these types of episodes, I learned so much I learned so much from today's episode, in such a short space of time,
Unknown:the expectation was, and I see this a lot in E commerce as well. He was kind of we have made money through our website. Therefore the website works and it's not a problem.
Lewis Smith:Something that a lot of ecommerce business owners aren't doing. So I'd certainly be reviewing our setup after this conversation. So
Unknown:it's so shocking how many people are asking about that stuff that should be obvious on the website. And the brands are convinced is obvious on the website. But isn't.
Lewis Smith:If you could give us one piece of actionable advice for our listeners looking to improve the conversion rates of their e commerce dropshipping stores, what would it be,
Unknown:I would say.
Lewis Smith:Welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked and with me is our Client Success Coach James Adly. Now when we're not recording the podcast episodes, we're running our own e commerce businesses and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket drop shipping businesses, keen to build your own six or even seven figure business. My book, the home turf advantage is your blueprint for launching a profitable online store. Grab your copy at HTA books.com To date, and let's get you started. Now sit back, relax. And let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. So today, we are delighted to be joined by a very special guest will laurenson who is the founder of customers who clicked a performance based conversion rate optimisation agency for E commerce brands. Now their unique UAM method, which we'll be diving into a little bit more detail on today has driven over$20 million in incremental revenue for their clients in just the last 12 months. So it's gonna be a great conversation today was also the host of the customers who click podcast. So check that one out there weekly interviews with some of the best and brightest minds in E commerce. So firstly, well, great to have you on the podcast. Welcome.
Unknown:Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Lewis Smith:Amazing. So just to kick things off, could you share with us a little bit about your journey into the world of conversion rate optimization or CRO and how you came to focus on E commerce brands, specifically through your agency customers? Who click? Yes,
Unknown:sure. So I kind of got lucky with my first job, I ended up in a kind of incubator style entrepreneurial business. And after about 18 months, I was tasked with launching a new mobile app for the business that would take advantage of all the different businesses that we had all the different content and stuff and put some something together that would basically increase the value of the company so we could sell it. But I mean, this is, you know, 18 months into my career. So I've obviously done something well. And it's just that, that those first moments of just the freedom to just do what I wanted and come up with ideas and, and do some research and stuff and see what's out there was was just great. And then the reason I got into CRO really was I worked at two different startups a couple of years after that. And I had the exact same problem, like almost identical situation at both of these slightly different products. But both occasions, we were handed reasonably large budgets and told go acquire customers grow the business, you know, marketing's job is grow the business. And the dev team is clear, the dev team had their roadmap there like 12 month roadmap might have even been longer of the new features. They wanted to launch referral programs and in app, all the all these things. And you know, we weren't getting the results we needed with acquisition. We were pretty comfortable with the ad side. You know, we were reasonably confident that our messaging was good, our creative was good. You know, we were getting good click through rates and all that. And we were getting some customers through but so much was dropping off. They they weren't turning into trial users. So both of these were like membership apps. So they either weren't turning into trial customers, or they weren't then turning into paying customers or they would then drop off within a few months. So there was clearly something wrong, you know, premise of the app was great. You know, the first one was essentially a Spotify for magazines. Why it's you got a common how many? It was those might have been 1500 magazines across the world. also offer a monthly subscription. Right? So that's a great proposition for people who read magazines. And even for people who don't who think, well, for 999 a month, I'll just, I'll give it a go if I read three magazines and probably covering it. So with all that in mind, we were kind of like, well, why? Why are we struggling with growth? Why aren't we getting people through wires, I CPA way too high. And so I started to speak to customers. And, you know, find out what was going on. I think, probably the most important thing in all this was that the fact that both these businesses were digital products, and digital led, which meant that I could see the data, right, I could see. So for the first one that magazine up, I could see the usage data, right. So we could look at how many magazines people are reading, how far through the magazines, they get, how many devices they activate on how many profiles, they activate that sort of stuff. So that that already gave us quite a bit of insight into what was going on, you know, we can see that people who converted from trial to paying, read a certain number of magazines normally added another profile to their account. So we started to talk about that a little bit, then it also came just came down to speaking to people and finding out what they actually wanted from the app. And what was important to them. And then yeah, basically, the same thing happened at this neck company, it was his own money, go grow the company, the BDC side, but with no support. And it was you know, the expectation was, and I see this a lot in E commerce as well. He was kind of, we have made money through our website, therefore the website works and it's not a problem. Therefore, the sort of problem must be on the traffic and acquisition side. And it's not, it's not the case. So from there, I moved to I was head of conversion at a quite a bit gambling company here in the UK for about 18 months, and then started customers who click in November 19. Amazing,
Lewis Smith:or journey and it sounds like you've got lots of experience in different types of digital businesses there. And obviously, I mean, talking about some of your experiences, I think with our new majority of listeners to this will probably be entrepreneurs who have their own early stage ecommerce business. So they might not have the luxury of that huge pot of money coming in from you know, as a marketing budget or a dev team at their disposal. So for those of our listeners who might be kind of fairly new to the terms, could you maybe explain like top line, what conversion rate optimisation is and why it's so crucial for an individual e commerce business founders, especially those focusing on higher ticket higher priced items as they're selling? Good?
Unknown:Yeah, sure. So the first thing I just want to say is just just on your first point, I think early stage companies being handed loads of monies, is loads of money is basically a recipe for disaster. Why? Because it's just, you know, spend, spend, spend, grow the company, obviously, the people spending that money are not the ones who have the the actual interest in, in growing the company, they're just doing a job wise, they're gonna do their job. You know, I know, it's dependent on circumstances and stuff, but it just felt like, you know, money will solve the problem. Right? We've built the product. Yeah, yeah, exactly. benefit to your question. So Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO conversion rate optimization. I'm not gonna get into the whole CRO, is it the right acronym thing too much. But what we do is not only conversion rate optimization, it's not just the conversion rate we're focused on. In fact, when we're running tests on website, it's not really a metric we pay too much attention to, we look at revenue per visitor, because that's the value that you're getting for that test. But I can go into that a bit more later. CRO really is about revenue optimization for a business, right? We're trying to find ways to grow the business, whether it's on the website, you know, feeding into ADS, feeding into emails, product, the packaging, all that, what are what are all the touch points that our customer has with a brand that we can provide feedback into through research through testing, to help the business grow. And ultimately, we are looking for, you know, that long term growth, we want higher array of ease, we want LTV, lifetime value. It's the long term, because ultimately, you know, I could stick free shipping on your website, I could give all your new customers 50% discount, commercial rates gonna go through the roof, it'd be fantastic, but you're not gonna make any money. And what we tend to see is when you over incentivize, because you're de risking the purchase so much, your conversion may actually kind of spikes at certain point. But what you end up getting is either people send the products back, because they never actually wanted them in the first place. Or slightly better scenario. They just don't come back again. Right. I know because I've done it. I remember I got this chew above, it was like Do you not you know Baraka right? The the little orange capsules, vitamin capsule things that in the sea capsules. I saw it, I saw an offer for this green version, right, like a daily green staying and I was like oh, gone, then I might as well try it, the Saints have a look. And it was just so incentivized, right? I think I paid two pound 50 for a month's supply. Basically, I think I think they, they did it as free plus shipping. And I do remember some massive issues with their website as well. But were calm the detail that it bought this thing. And I remember, it's sat on my shelf for probably about six months, before I finally opened it up and realized it was disgusting. And so that obviously doesn't help. But yeah, the fact that it's sat there for six months, and that's six months of me not not returning as a customer. You know, hadn't subscribed, I hadn't come back. And it was just because I, you know, out of impulse, I just went he had gone to super literally two pounds 50. I'll try it. So yeah, when you over incentivize, and over discount, you get the wrong type of customer through best case scenario, they do actually want your products, they just taking advantage of a discount, the lifetime value is going to be rubbish, they're probably not going to come back. If they do, they will remember the fact that they got 50% off, they're not going to pay 100%. Right. I'm sure you guys are aware of some big supplement brands in the UK, who are quite well known for just doing massive, massive discounts all the time, you would never pay full price for their products. Right? And it's just it's just so damaging. So that's why it Yeah, to finish my little rant. CRO Yeah, commercial optimization, but it's not about conversion rates as well. It's about long term growth, right. It's a growth discipline for a business. And I think most quite importantly as well. It's not a marketing channel, right? It doesn't sit alongside PPC and social and an email and stuff, it is separate. Right? This is something that works with those teams and supports them, in addition to what they're doing, like SEO doesn't really generate revenue. Right? If I if I run a test on your website, but you haven't got any traffic, it doesn't do anything by it. So it's only making the most of what you're actually getting through in the first place.
James Eardley:Yeah, that's fascinating to reframe it as you can't really optimize for conversion rate, if you don't look at it as a holistic picture for how it is gonna actually improve your business. So really interesting that you framed it like that. Let's go into some tips then for E commerce business owners. Are there some crucial strategies that you think would help a business overall things that they could do to their website to enhance their conversion rates, but also the overall business health?
Unknown:Yeah, absolutely. So for the for the website. So we have our UAM methodology, which was mentioned at the start, which is basically usability, anxiety, and motivation. So three kinds of behaviors on website usability, how does the website work? Right? How easily can I find them by what I'm looking for? We're not really looking for bugs, or anything like this, you know, we obviously do that analysis and check for things. But we're not looking for problems on a website in that sense, but we're looking for, you know, is your navigation, clear? And obvious? You know, can I find the search bar easily? Can I work out how to add the right quantity of my products to the cart? You know, when it's all in the cart? Can I easily remove certain quantities or certain products? And then can I easily get through to check out all that sort of stuff. Like just if I know what I want to buy, let's say click through a PPC ad, right? So I know I have a pretty good idea of what I want to buy. Can I click through the ad, find one and but purchase it within a minute or two? You know, there's no golden rule on that timing. But if someone can't do it that quickly, when they know what they want, there's probably a problem that the anxiety side is questions and concerns people have. So about your products and your business. So what's all the information someone would need to know about your product in order to make a purchase? And 99% of the time, there's key information missing on product pages, or it's hidden. So when I say missing, sorry, I mean from a customer's point of view, they don't see it. So an example I normally use is food. Right? So let's say I'm buying like a ready meal or something or even you know, something like Gousto you know, a meal kit. I want to know what the dish is, what the ingredients are, what allergens are in there, probably nutritional content and the and the instructions for it. Maybe maybe what kit is required in order to make sure that I've got what I need to make it Some of those pieces you can probably get away with, right? So if you didn't put nutritional content on there, you'd probably take a hit to conversion, but it's not going to be as bad. If you didn't put allergens on there, that could really kill it. Right? Or at least, at least for a certain group of people, right? If someone has a nut allergy, and there's no message at all, about whether it does or doesn't contain nuts, they can't buy it. Alright. Other kind of softer examples are, that people don't think of a lot is we worked with a lighting brand. And a lot of the feedback was, how do I change the light bulb? Right, these are LED lights. They're quite, you know, kind of designer style. So they are a bit more complex. It's not as simple as changing the bulb. But it's the fact that people are asking this question about something that might not happen or shouldn't happen for about five years, three to five years, not bulbs, not LED bulbs, and not supposed to go very quickly. So this is stuff they were thinking of before they purchased. Right? Other stuff could be installation, I saw a really good example once of a it was a bookshelf, I think was a bookshelf might have been a mirror. And it specifically said you didn't need to screw holes into the wall, or is it it was no need for municipalities. It uses an adhesive to stick to the wall, which I thought I thought was great, I thought was really interesting piece piece of information. I think they could have gone further and just said, you know, specifically, no need to drill holes in the walls, could have added may be perfect for people renting something like that. Maybe that's on the advertising side. But the point is a lot people don't want to drill holes into their walls, either because they can't overstate not allowed to. Right. So putting that messed up, that bit of information in there has probably made a load of people purchase that, who were thinking, Well, you know, if I don't screw it in, if I don't nail it to the wall, or screw it to the wall, is it going to be unstable, is
Lewis Smith:interesting, because it really will all that's doing a guess is converting what is seen as just a feature by the seller of the product into the benefit that the consumer actually gets. It's like, you know, they don't necessarily care whether it's screw or adhesive, but what they care about is whether they have to ruin the wall, if they're renting, like you say and the hassle of then having to fill it later. So fascinating change in wording, because they might mention like comes with a TCF, but that technical language isn't going to jump out to someone who's renting to they actually, I'll go for that one over the one that has a screw because of that reason says yeah, it's really good point. Yeah, well,
Unknown:if it's left that vague, you might think it's adhesive to actually put the thing together, and not how it fits to the wall. So the other part of anxiety is the business as well. You know, if I've, if I've never heard of your business, and I'm gonna question, you know, if you're legit, right? Do I, you know, do I trust buying from you. So there's a few things you can do with that around, obviously, social proof. If you've got evidence of good contact details, and your website, a physical address, those just little things that you know, don't have to stand out on the webpage that people do a quick check for them. That's really important. A lot of what a lot of people do also is they go to your normal Instagram profile. So they will check to see if you've got a story, whether you've got recent posts, whether you get engagement and whether engagement is good or bad. So, you know, even if you're like, Oh, we're not focused on Instagram, we don't really care, it's worth doing a little bit on it. You know, I remember, I spoke someone on my podcast, God years ago now, like three years ago, and one thing he said was, you don't need to try and drive legs to your page, or your your profile on Instagram. Because when you run ads, you'll just get it. Some people will just start to like your page and and follow you. So just just by running ads, you should be able to build up a bit of a following there. So just stop posting content, makes it look more legit. And then we've got a motivation factor, which is probably the most important, which is why should I actually buy the product? What's it going to do for me. So normally, we're looking for either a pain points that a product solves, or a desired outcome that the product helps you achieve. Right. So and a lot, there's a lot of products where you can go both ways with that, you know, you can test both options. Some industries, one works better than the other. You know, sometimes you don't want to point out negatives, that you just want to say, look how much better you can be. But the important thing really is, while they all are pretty important. They do kind of stack. So if if I find the product I'm looking for, and the purchase journey is really easy, and I could buy it easily. And it answers all my questions, but I don't feel like it's going to change my life. There's a good chance that I'm not going to commit to the purchase. Right? Because vast majority of businesses out there and products out there are not solving an immediate problem. Really. My people just think about it and they go oh yeah, you know what I maybe I should buy this thing. Maybe Maybe this would be helpful. I'll get that done. But if you can't convince someone that it's going to be life changing for them, right Want them on the page thinking, we're reading through all the details, looking at your pictures, you know, maybe watching a video and going, I have to have this, can I get it tomorrow? Right? That's, that's the mentality we want people in, as if you if you don't get that it could they could tick all the boxes off their off their checklist for what the product does. But they just, you know, they might think, Ah, okay, look at the price. Alright, maybe I'll just quickly check a couple of other websites to see what other options are out there. We don't want that. Right, we want people thinking, there's no need to go out somewhere else, or I can't be bothered to go somewhere else, because I think I found what I need. And so that's, that's the method we use for on site. And a lot of about can apply elsewhere. You know, the motivation factors are really good in advertising and an email as well. You can get the anxiety stuff into email as well, you know, talk about social proof, product features and stuff. But the key thing really, that every business can go do is customer research. Right? Go speak to customers, and find out what they care about. Right? Why does Why did your actual customers purchase? Right? What was the what was the pain point they were trying to solve? What was the desired outcome they're trying to achieve? And did they get that, and for the people who didn't purchase, because you normally, you know, you normally build up an email list of people who subscribe to your, you know, your 10% 15% off, but but don't purchase? So again, send an email out to them, you know, what was the number one reason you didn't purchase from us? And then we normally do a few other questions. We might ask about alternatives that people have tried, and competitors they've bought from us, sometimes we'll ask about, you know, what did you think about their products? What do you think about them as a service and their business, and we can take all that information and, and feed it into, you know, an optimization strategy. And other bits you can do out there, you know, if you if you are pretty new, pretty small, if you don't have that email list, look at reviews, reviews, and your I'll start with customer service, actually, review your customer service tickets, find out what people are asking you more questions are being asked. Like, it's so shocking how many people are asking about that stuff that should be obvious on the website. And the brands are convinced is obvious on the website. But it's stuff like shipping policy, right? How much is shipping that it cost me? And what do I need to spend to get free shipping, and returns policies. And so many brands now have that like that accordion, that information accordion, which I hate, it's terrible. You're asking people to click to find information, right, we don't want to do that we want to scroll, it will always be there. So normally product details, product specifications, shipping returns policy, something like that. So the information is there, but people don't see it. Right. So that's where we start to stick it, you know, above the fold, need a call to action, SaaS customer service, but again, you know, if you're not getting much a doctor a small business reviews, right, so you can look at your own reviews, find out what people are saying about you, or look your competitors. But you'll all have massive competitors who probably have hundreds, if not 1000s of reviews, find a scraping tool, go and scrape the reviews on the big review platforms for your competitors, chuck them into a either a Word document or a an Excel document, upload and shut GPT and ask chapter TPT to give you a summary of them, you know, give it a prompt, you know, explain the context behind what you're doing. And just get chucked up to it. And it'll save you so many hours. It's fantastic. And you get so much insight. And what you're looking for is what were people trying to achieve? What were they were they disappointed in? What could have been better about the product? What would they like about the products they bought? And all these sorts of things where now you'll get insight that helps you run better ads and do ad and and optimize your website. You know, one that I see a lot is if you search for vacuum cleaners on or Hoover's on Amazon. So many of them say that they're really good for cats, dogs or pets. Why? Because that's 100% information that's come through customer feedback or reviews. One of the only factors that actually makes a difference to some people. But if you don't have a pet, you don't care about that. You just need a vacuum, right? You just need Scott just got to do the job. Right. So it's only pet owners that have to do it. But also, I think there's probably that factor of you know, even if you're not a pet owner if you're aware that they're dropping out a pair and then they're dirty. If this vacuum is good for that it's gonna give you the impression that's a really really good cleaner. Is even for a no On pet owner, you're probably going to be like, Well, I don't want to buy something average, I want to buy something powerful to make sure it cleans my house. So why not go overboard and buy something that's designed for, for pets and stuff? That's probably where I go with that see the UAM foot for the website and use customer research to figure out what's actually what's what's actually missing. Yeah,
Lewis Smith:that's fascinating. I think the there are a few nuggets of gold there that I think anyone listening to this who has their own store can immediately action. So first thing I was looking at was the trust signals off platform. So off off site trust signals, which, you know, when you think of CRO when it comes to e commerce, I think people's mind immediately jumps to like, Oh, what do you need to have above the fold? Which color do you need to add to cart button to be like what, you know, what do you have any header? Whereas actually, what you're saying is, we're dealing with humans here, they're not just like, robotic sight analyzers. They're, they're looking around, they're looking on Instagram, they're looking for other trust signals. So that that the accordion thing is a great tip like that. People would assume from a web development standpoint and a web design standpoint that oh, it's much better. You can compact so much more information into these three little plus symbols. But like you say, it then hides it. And what good is it if it's hidden, and people can't see it? And so I love that the review analysis on chat GBT as well, that's that's a real ninja tip. I think that's one that we're, you
Unknown:could use charged up for a lot of analysis now. So when we do customer interviews, surveys and stuff, we normally just chuck it all into chat, GBT, we've got our set prompts for it now that we've worked on for quite a while to get right. So we're now pretty comfortable that it actually can give good insight and summaries for that. We do check it every now and again. So you know, normally, the way we do it is we'll ask for common pain points that have popped up. And please provide a quote from the interview for it. And we checked the quote, basically. And then sometimes chatty, PT will make up a quote or misquote it. It just Yeah, it's annoying, but it does it. And you have to be aware. But yeah, just just double check it.
Lewis Smith:Yeah, that's great. I mean, we're going to dive into a lot more detail. I know during our training session that we've got reserved exclusively for our inner circle members. But in terms of converting high ticket items, when it comes to an e commerce Store. So when we say high ticket, we're usually talking about products upwards of 300 pounds all the way up to products that are, you know, 1000 2000 3000 members in our program every day making sales of multiple 1000 pounds for single items. So obviously, those are a different set of challenges versus you know, with a higher volume, things like supplements and much lower ticket stuff. So from your experience, are there any common hurdles that ecommerce stores facing this area in terms of like additional trust signals or trust barriers that they need to overcome before someone will partner with that level of money for a product?
Unknown:Look, really, it still comes down to those, those factors of you know, make sure people can find them buy what they want, make sure you answer all their questions and make sure that you're, you're convincing them it's the right product for them. But when it comes to high value, and actually, I mean, it does apply to the rest of ecommerce as well. But specifically like more sofa for high ticket. You can't expect your Facebook ads to convert directly all the time. It just it doesn't work right if someone's never heard of your business, if they've never even considered buying your product when they see your advert they might click it and they're showing some interest yeah, there's there's a little bit of intent there doesn't mean they're gonna purchase. Right? So one thing I think is really important when you're on these high value is yes get given as much information as you can find do comparisons if it makes sense. So, if you can, if you can put a compelling comparison together of you and your competitors and you can pick now you are lesser known competitor and you know the kind of brand leader in the category. Assuming you can compete against obviously, put a comparison together. Just I guess one, one big tip for this is Don't, don't give yourself full marks and everything. But it can't look like you are literally the best product. Even if you genuinely are even if you could beat all these other products on 10 points on a comparison table. It doesn't look it doesn't look real, right people don't believe that. So make sure you just mark yourself down on something that people would happily not care about so much. But yeah, I think the important thing is nurturing, like lead capture. Nurturing people put them into retargeting flows. You're trying to bring them back and recognizing the different intent levels of different stages. So you know, if someone's been on the list for a while if they've been opening emails, maybe they've downloaded some content you've produced They're going to be higher intent. So you can retarget them with more direct sales ads to try and get back, someone who's come to you for the first time, you know, might probably won't leave their email address, so retarget them, and maybe retarget them with some information. Or, you know, show them a video about why your product is so great. And then, you know, you'll bring them back, try and capture that email address. You know, there's a lot of zero party data is probably one of the hottest topics right now. Which is basically, if I am going to give you my email address in exchange for a discount, but really, you can't do anything with that, except email me. Right? You can't go into personalization property later. But you can't do anything except me your gyms except send your generic emails if all you have is my email address. So give me an example of a high ticket category. The one
Lewis Smith:we often go to his barbecues, like big outdoor grills. So if someone's spending 1000 pound on a premium luxury outdoor barbecue set, okay.
Unknown:Cool. Interesting, right? So zero party data for that might be, you could just do when you're looking to buy, you probably wouldn't need to do that one, the barbecues, because you roughly know when, when barbecue season is, especially here in the UK, you've got about three weeks, you could probably go a little bit a little bit and budget. So you understand how much they're willing to spend. It's a bit bit of a, it's a bit of a tough one to ask, because some people might not want to give you that. So think about so maybe what you could ask is experience. Right? How experienced are you with barbecues? You know, what was your experience level? You could ask, what is your preference? Do you prefer charcoal or gas? Or like a hybrid or whatever? You could ask if they want a kettle or ceramic? Or a no, what's the long flatland called the one that's not a kettle or, or a ceramic, you know, the the one that's like a rectangular grill sort of thing, the multiple standard thing, you know, try and figure out what they're actually looking for what they're interested in, what sort of level they're at, with things. You could also ask, you know, how many people do they tend to cook for? Or what, what sort of occasions? Is it for? Is it for family barbecues? Is it for hosting, you know, that sort of thing? Because then you can use this data, you can put them into email flows, which target those relevant points. Right. So I've said, I'm an expert barbecue, and I want a ceramic. Yeah, so actually, you wouldn't have to, you wouldn't need to go ask him price. Because if someone says they want ceramic, you know, they're at the higher end of the budget anyway. So you know that and you know that I like cooking for a load of people, then you can tailor your email content around that. And you can say, here are our three best ceramic barbecues. And here's some content around how you can cook for a lot of people on these barbecues. Now what what sort of what sort of items you should do different cooking types and things. So provide value,
Lewis Smith:just to clarify on that one. Well, so when you say about segmenting customers into those different demographics or audiences within the parent niche of, say, barbecues in this example, are you suggesting that you collect that preference in like a checkbox on the actual email, opt in pop up? Kind of like a Daniel Priestley style score app? Like quiz survey thing, where you gamify the process a little bit and say, like, do your which barbecue is right for you? Kind of thing?
Unknown:Yeah, so you could either use, I think, Clay vo doesn't limit the number of steps you can have, I think I think they changed that. It used to be you could add one more step, I think. So you can either do it through clay, VO. And you have, you know, would you like 10% off your first purchase? Drop your email in? Right. So you capture the email, while most important thing, you still want to capture the email. Second page, you know, you might start with Oh, answer a few questions so that we can help give you recommend you the right products or right content, whatever. And that would say, you know, question one, whichever, whichever Question one is, and then you do question 234 Test test how many you can go with just the key thing is, make sure you can do something with the data. Right? It's not because you find it interesting, right? That's no one cares about that. It's, can you trigger an email? Can you segment the email and based content on what they've told you? Right. So if you asked, What's your preference for meat, or whatever, what's your preference to cook on the barbecue? Is it meat, veg fish, or whatever? I mean, you can tell it you can provide them some content on that, but it's not going to change which barbecues they can buy. So it's not actually that useful information.
Lewis Smith:Yeah, makes sense. Only actionable. I like the idea though. Like you're saying not introduce any friction before you ask for the email, get that bit done like you normally would. And afterwards, I presume if you have like a force that quiz or survey, you'll start to see a tail off in that data anyway towards like, question four, like people will be answering the first couple, and then you might not get that much, you know, too far in. So
Unknown:if you get the questions, right, and you've and you've positioned it correctly, you should get quite a quite a good completion rate on it. That's fascinating people at least at least answer one more question. And that's, that's all you need, really. So, you know, try and get a good, a good question up front, which could be what what style of barbecue Are you looking for? Now, that could be the first one, you get all that data and you segment people into flows, right. And then you can start to provide relevant content. In those emails, you know that you can present ceramic barbecues, and people have said, I want a ceramic barbecue and then send to those pages by and then you can go in further, you could build landing pages, and specific things you can say, here are our three bests around the barbecues, one's 500, quid one 750, ones 1000, and showed the differences between them, whatever, actually, you'd use better pricing psychology than that, and there's a whole different conversation. That was That was stupid, but But you get you get the point. Yeah, having having a landing page
Lewis Smith:as well being gives you the option to pixel them and then retarget them with specific messaging related to the category that they fell into. So it's a great move. And I think, yeah, it's something that a lot of ecommerce business owners are doing. So I'd certainly be reviewing our setup after this conversation. So thank you well, for some fascinating tips there. So as we wrap up this initial conversation, if you could give us one piece of actionable advice for our listeners looking to improve the conversion rates of their ecommerce drop shipping stores, what would it be,
Unknown:I would say, open up Google Analytics GA for you, you can do this in Shopify as well, for this purpose, it could still work, you want to look at the E commerce purchase funnel or purchase journey, where you will see a graph in GA for and it will show you total sessions, sessions that viewed a product sessions that added to cart, begin checkout and complete checkout. And we look for where those metrics are not grayed out. So you want to look at the top metric along the metric along the top, because that's the like flow through metric. Right? So we want to look at how many out of all the sessions that land on your website, how many of them viewer product, right? If you're getting lower than probably 60%? You've got a problem. Right? Because if if 50% of your of your traffic is not even viewing the product, what you're doing. Right? Obviously, there's no answer to this context, right? If you drive a hell of a load of blog traffic, organic blog traffic to your website, you know, a lot of that probably won't run over your product. So you got bear that stuff in mind. But yeah, you probably want 60% view rate minimum, otherwise big red flag, probably higher than that actually probably more like 70 Add to Cart rates. This one varies a lot depending on category and values and stuff. But for generally commerce will look for about 13 14%. So people who view a product, how many of them add to cart 13 14%, below 10%, red flag, you know, started looking into this, again, does depend a bit on your products and stuff, if you know we worked with a brand who was selling sofas for $10,000, I got to cut rate is not going to be that high. And there's nothing we can do about that. Then you want your start checkout rate, which probably be 50 60%. And your complete checkout rate from that which should be 50 to 60%. Like minimum, you know, but those still aren't, I would say those are still not great figures. Now those minimums I gave so like 6060 1060 60 You know, you can make improvements on those. But anything lower than that, I'd say, okay, you've got you've got a problem here, you need to look into how to fix this. And then the best way to do that is use your behavioral analytics. So hot jar, we recommend clarity now, because it's it's free, and it tracks all your data. And it's really good. When you've identified one of those stages, so let's say product views, it's actually it's, it's it's one of the most common ones, we see a problem with product views. Go to your collection pages for heat maps, and look at where people are clicking, buy and try and figure out what's why on people. Where are they clicking, where they're not clicking, if no one's clicking on your filters, for example, when you've got loads of products, that's probably a good reason why they're not then clicking through to a product because they're not even filtering down your listings. And you can also use session recordings. So within the tools you can segment the data you can filter the data so you can say, you know for product views, you could say all sessions that do not add to cart You could, you could probably leave it at that. No you so you can actually say doesn't you can say doesn't view a product page. So it'd be something like does not visit a page, which contains forward slash product, something like that, depending on the URL structure. And then you can look at what they're doing. Watch the watch session recordings are 1.5 times speed, see what they do. Ideally, you're looking, you could probably also filter and say, people do visit a collection page. Most likely, whatever you're putting on your brand, your website, and just watch those session recordings and see what they do. And see, like, do they play around with the filters? Do they scroll up and down and then and then drop, you might see that they're clicking in certain places, and nothing's happening, that sort of thing. So there's nothing I can just say, like this will be the problem, it's, you know, you've got to figure out where the problem is on the in the funnel, go and look at what people are doing at that stage in the funnel. And then ideally, if you've got the time and the resource and the data, ask people about their experience, achieved, if you're really small, you know, really don't have that audience list already. Do some user testing. So you can either use a tool like user brain uses testing. Or you could literally take your laptop down to a coffee shop, buy 10 people their coffees, put the laptop down in front of them and say, Could you do me a favor? I would like give me some feedback on the website, can you please go to my website and buy X, whatever product and just watch them as they as they do it take notes, you could potentially record your screen, if you wanted to, as well. And just ask them what they're thinking along the way as well. So if you see people doing things you don't understand, ask them why they're doing that. Because that's, that's the bit you need to know. It doesn't matter that they're not doing it. It's why they're not doing it that that actually helps you fix it. Yeah,
Lewis Smith:can be incredibly frustrating as a business owner to watch someone navigating your own website, and then they get distracted by something and you think that that's not what you're supposed to do. That's not the ideal route. But I guess that's the skill of this, isn't it? I think one of the one of the things that stands out to me as a as an E commerce business owner, you're, you're wearing so many hats, you know, there's always fires to fight, there are always things that you've got to manage in your business that take priority. And the the tips you've given today are incredible. But I think it highlights the value of having an expert really dive into this for you, who knows what they're doing. He's got years of experience doing this. So I know you guys have an unbeatable CRO guarantee. Could you talk to me a little bit about that one and how that works? Yes,
Unknown:so the, so we're a performance based CRO agency. So we get paid on the uplifts that we generate for our clients based on testing. So we have a guarantee, which is will generate an extra 100,000 in revenue through those tests, within 90 days of testing. So we normally spend about 30 days doing research and prepping those first tests. And then it's three months of testing. I would add that it applies to brands doing about 350 400,000 in revenue upwards. Below that. There's not normally enough traffic and data to do that testing globally. So we have we have some other services, you know, we have an audit, we have consulting, we can work with brands of any size. Be the guarantee. People love it, obviously. Because it's guarantee and it works. It works really well we've we've not had to pay payout so far, which is good, but it's strong guarantee. But yeah, I would say it does apply to brands do a minimum amount. Because just I guess for context, if you're doing 100k in revenue, we'd have to double your revenue in three months, which doesn't happen through through a B testing on a website. But you do need more traffic, you need better ARV, there's a lot to do to get you to double your revenue,
Lewis Smith:just to clarify whether you're saying three to 400,000 in revenue monthly or annually, monthly, monthly, okay, so if you're at three to 400,000 pounds per month, and you think you add upwards Yeah, and you're ready to add an extra 100,000 pounds in additional revenue to your business then it feels like a no brainer to sign up for but as you say you guys have have things for E commerce brand owners below that that as well. So the best way for listeners of the dropship unlocked podcast to reach you guys, we've set up an easy link for you guys. So if they head over to dropship unlocked.com forward slash customers who click and we'll put the link to that below in the show notes. Then they can book in a time with you well and and chat further.
Unknown:Yep, yes, we'll take you through to the websites. There's some information there about what we do our process, and there's a booking link to book in a call with us. Amazing, well, that'd be super valuable. And so I would just add, you know, the other best place to find me is LinkedIn. So I post daily content on there about CRO and ecommerce generally. So, yeah, if you're just looking for a few tips and things like So that's a good place to go. Well,
Lewis Smith:you've certainly shared more than enough tips today will to give a lot of value to anyone listening to this podcast who has their own brand. And if they want to take it a step further and work with you, then the link to do so is dropship unlocked.com. Forward slash customers who play. Well, thank you very much for joining us on the dropship unlocked podcast today.
Unknown:No problem. Thanks for having me.
Lewis Smith:That was an incredible interview with well there really enjoyed that one. And it is clear to see just how transformative good conversion rate optimization practices like the ones shared by will in today's interview can be for any e commerce business owner, no matter where you are on your journey. Will's approach was fascinating both hearing how he optimizes for conversions. It was really insightful. But it was also jam packed with highly actionable tips and tricks that we can each take away and implement into our own businesses.
James Eardley:Yes, his understanding of the customer's journey and his unique U A M approach is something that I'm going to take away and is gold dust for any e commerce entrepreneur. So thank you well, again, I love doing these types of episodes, I learned so much I learned so much from today's episode, in such a short space of time. And some of the tactics you mentioned on the call, I know are going to have a huge exponential growth opportunity for everyone listening to today's episode. So it's all about taking action. So thinking about what he's taught us today, how can we put those into action that will be the key,
Lewis Smith:exactly as those small adjustments that you can make those incremental tweaks that you can make in how you approach your site's user experience, or your conversion funnel or whatever it is that you do just to make those tiny tweaks that lead to significant overall improvements in both your conversions, but ultimately, your profitability. Now today's episode was jam packed with value. So it's definitely one that you're probably going to want to go back to and re listen to multiple times and probably take notes as well, I know is a bit different to some by usual episodes. But remember, it's about making this as easy as possible for your customers to say yes, that's the whole point of this boiled down into one simple principle is just trying to remove the friction and make it more likely that more of your customers will say yes, enjoying
James Eardley:the podcast, we'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review. And we might just feature it on an upcoming episode. Also, for detailed show notes and resources, head to dropship unlock.com. Forward slash podcast. If you found value from any episode
Lewis Smith:of this podcast, please take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your podcast app of choice. It helps us more than you could imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments on the show. Thanks for being part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering a new episode every week.
James Eardley:Now let's answer a question that we've had in from a listener of the podcast. So remember, if you want your questions answered, very simple. All you need to do is comment on the YouTube video version of an episode of the podcast. And we'll read it out and answer it in an upcoming episode. And that's exactly what Mr. Vince debt 798 has done. So he's asked, hi, guys, I love the content. When contacting UK suppliers. Are you only working with companies who already offer drop shipping services? Hi, Mr. Venstre, 798. Great question.
Lewis Smith:So yes, we are, but possibly not in the way that I think you might be asking when I kind of read between the lines on that question. So yeah, our primary focus is partnering with suppliers who do offer drop shipping as part of their service. But if a supplier is calling themselves a drop shipping supplier, the chances are they might not be quite aligned with the type of business model that you want to run because they'll just be sending out products left, right and center to anyone that signs up to their platform. And if the barrier to entry is that low to work with them, chances are there's probably a reason for it. And they're desperate for the sales because they're not very popular products or popular brands or there's hardly any profit in it for you as a retailer. So yes, we do work with suppliers who do offer drop shipping as one of their fulfillment methods. But it doesn't mean that they're always solely dropshipping businesses. In fact, they're hardly ever solely drop shipping suppliers, they will offer the service because it aligns perfectly with our business model, especially in those initial stages of setting up your e commerce Store. But you want them to handle all of the aspects of delivery, you want them to handle the fulfillment that managing you know, all of the aspects of actually holding and getting the products, the logistical challenges to customers. But we specifically approach suppliers who we know are already drop shipping, at least with some retailers. Okay, so you will be a retailer going into the market, if you can ensure that the suppliers you're going to contact are already drop shipping for at least some other retailers out there. It just ensures ensures a much smoother integration into your business operations. Because it means that the setups faster you don't need to teach them what drop shipping is you don't need to explain the process to them. They're used to it, they're happy with it and it just makes the whole thing so much more efficient. So it's just a much simpler way if you choose to only contact suppliers who are already for Millia with the Drop Shipping model, although they may not call themselves drop shipping suppliers, that's not what we're looking for, then you're going to find it a much, much easier path to getting up and running. So for full details on that, check out episode 22 of the podcast, if you want to learn the exact process that we use to sign UK drop shipping suppliers. Yeah,
James Eardley:thank you, Lewis, great answer and great question. And also, let's highlight a recent review that we've had in for the podcast. And this review came in through Apple podcasts. So thank you very much to and 4831. And she left a review that said, so motivating and inspiring to anyone wanting to start dropshipping and 4831. You legend thank you so much for what a wonderful review that is and we're really glad to hear that you've
Lewis Smith:been enjoying the podcast. Do you want a chance to join our elite masterclass program and our community completely for free? To be in with a chance to win free access to our program. Simply leave us a review for the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. check out episode 52 of the podcast as well for full details on how to enter that competition. Thanks
James Eardley:for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you're walking away with insights and inspiration.
Lewis Smith:to kickstart your ecommerce journey. Grab a copy of my book The home of turf advantage at HT A book.com is a distilled guide based on real experience to help you build your E commerce venture.
James Eardley:Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more strategies and success stories. If you like what you heard a five star review would mean the world to us and you might just get a shout out on an upcoming episode. And finally, thank you for deciding to spend your time with us today.
Lewis Smith:We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship
James Eardley:unwrapped podcast.