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Carl Weische: The CRO Playbook Behind AG1, Huel & Vessi (Fix AOV First)

Published on: 24th April, 2026

If your ROAS or MER tanks the moment you push more spend through, this episode is for you.

Carl Weische is the founder of Accelerated Agency and runs CRO for brands like AG1, Huel, Vessi, The Oodie, and 200+ more 8, 9, and 10 figure DTC companies. He joins Andrej on Ecom Growth Insider to break down the exact system he uses to turn CRO into a profit lever from the ad click all the way to the thank-you page.

If your return on ad spend is dropping every time you try to scale, Carl's decision tree is simple:

Fix AOV first.

Fix conversion rate second.

Add presell pages only when you hit a true glass ceiling.

In this episode:

- The 3-tier bundle SOP Carl uses to lift AOV 15 to 25%

- Why revenue per user is the only CRO metric that matters, and the AOV vs conversion rate trap most founders fall into

- When presell and advertorial pages actually pay off (and when they waste ad budget)

- The first things Carl audits on any store before he touches a test

- The four real reasons customers abandon checkout

- How to raise perceived value without killing margin through discounts

- Why AI is about to widen the gap between elite and average marketers

- Realistic testing cadence at scale: 5 to 30+ tests per month

- Carl's sample size rule: 20,000 users and 1,000 orders per variation before you call a winner

- The revenue threshold where it makes sense to move CRO in-house (around $50M to $100M a year)

- Rapid fire: Carl's most underrated CRO lever, most overrated tactic, and the one mistake he sees smart founders make

Chapters:

00:00 Why your ROAS dies when you scale

00:43 The real job of CRO in 2026

05:04 Carl's decision tree when ROAS or MER drops

06:08 Fix AOV first: the 3-tier bundle SOP

07:45 Fix conversion rate: images and copy that resonate

08:33 Layering in presell and advertorial pages

11:00 When presell pages actually make sense

15:51 Revenue per user: the real CRO north star

20:19 The first things Carl audits on any store

23:00 Why customers abandon the checkout

26:07 How to raise perceived value without discounts

29:00 Why AI is splitting great marketers from average ones

35:00 When a brand is actually ready for serious CRO

37:09 Testing cadence at scale: 5 to 30+ tests per month

38:12 The sample size rule: 20k users + 1k orders per variant

43:11 When to build a CRO team in-house

46:15 Rapid fire: underrated, overrated, biggest mistake

48:11 Where to find Carl

Connect with Carl:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@carlweische

Accelerated Agency: https://acceleratedagency.com

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/carl-weische-2488a5198

Ecom Growth Insider is the podcast for e-commerce founders who want to scale profitably. Subscribe for weekly episodes on paid media, CRO, offer strategy, and operating systems that actually move the needle.

More episodes and newsletter: https://ecomgrowthinsider.com

Work with HoloGrowth: https://hologrowth.com

Transcript
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If your return adspend or

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mer drops the moment you

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try to scale spend this

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episode is going to be

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a game changer for you.

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Today's guest is Carl Weische,

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founder of Accelerated Agency.

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One of the top CRO agencies

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in the d2c space.

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Trusted by brands like AG1,

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Im8huel, the Oodie

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Vessi and over 200 more.

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He works with companies where

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the stakes are real high ad

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spend, high expectations.

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And now let's see

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whether this works.

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Carl breaks down the actual

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levers that unlock,

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profitable scale.

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How to fix AOV

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and conversion rate without

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killing each other.

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What exactly to look out

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for when high intent

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customers drop off in cart or

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in the checkout process.

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And when it's time to introduce

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presale pages to make

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colder traffic convert.

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Let's get into it.

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Karl, most founders think

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CRO is just making some

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tweaks and making some

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small optimizations

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to improve the performance.

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You position it more as

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scalability

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and really like profits.

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What would you say is

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the real job of CRO in 2026?

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Good.

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Question.

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I like this as an opening

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question for the podcast.

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First of all, I really want

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to thank you for inviting me

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to the podcast and enabling

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this conversation.

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So, really excited to speak

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to you today and also kind of

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get your thoughts on things.

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For me, CRO, I mean I've been

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in the, the CRO field

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for like six or seven years.

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I started in 2019, now going

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into 2026, so almost

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seven years on the dot.

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And for me it has always

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been something really

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fundamental of understanding

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the way that people work.

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Right?

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So understanding consumer

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psychology, specifically

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understanding how

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to sell to people.

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And for me, CR was just

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one way of doing that.

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And I think a lot of people

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think about CR is like as

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you said, some minor tweaks,

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changing the color of a

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button, changing a little

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bit of text here and there

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on the page.

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Whatever, whatever.

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But for me, the way that I

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view it is one of the, or

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the biggest lever at least,

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on everything funnel.

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So from the first

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touch point after they click

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on the ad until the thank you

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page, which is a lot of ground

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to be covered, right?

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Especially nowadays where we

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have a lot of funnels that

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start on a preset page, then

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go to some form of product

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page, then go into a

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checkout, then have some post

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purchase upsets and then the

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thank you page.

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So that gives us a lot

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of different pages where

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we have just a lot

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of room to optimize for.

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And then I don't view

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it like isolated.

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For me it's like one part of

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the equation where the paid

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acquisition team has to do

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a good job to drive high

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quality traffic at the

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lowest cost possible to the

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page.

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So then the online store or

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CRO team has a good job at

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converting most of their

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people at the highest AOV

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possible, meaning driving

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up revenue and profit per

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user.

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And then the retention team has

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to do a good job at making

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sure they have a high customer

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lifetime gross profit.

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So for me it's just one part

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of the equation,

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but it is a super important

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part of the equation.

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I think more and more people

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start to realize like how

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big of an impact it is if

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you have a higher conversion

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rate, higher auv, because

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then you can spend more and

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everything becomes more

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profitable.

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But, but again, I'm not sitting

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Here saying that it's the one

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magic pill of a business

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to make it more profitable.

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It's just one part

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of the equation that you have

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to dial in as a business

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owner, similar to how you have

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to dial in paid

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acquisition and retention.

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And what made you decide

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to focus on that part

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of the engine, bro?

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For me it was something

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that happened naturally.

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So I used to run my own

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Amazon FBA business

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and Shopify stores back

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in 2017, 18 and 19.

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And then I met Lars who is now

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my co founder of the company

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company and he back

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then was a freelancer

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for conversion optimization.

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And then I hired him to work

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together on my page and my

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Amazon FBA business.

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And I was just really

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fascinated by it because I was

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always fascinated by

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psychology but more on a

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personal level where I just

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read all of the different

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psychology books on the

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market.

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I went through seminars

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from Tony Robbins, I did all

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of this stuff trying

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to understand how people work.

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And then LAST basically

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showed me how to use all

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of this passion

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in a professional context.

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Specifically zero.

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Right.

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So for me it was just

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the perfect intersection of my

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personal passion

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and then my marketing passion

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coming together

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in one field being CRO.

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So that's how I got

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introduced to the field.

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And then when I started working

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with last, I just saw so much

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potential and not only CRO

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on being a huge lever for

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brands, but also the market.

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Because back then in 2019,

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2020 when we started

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it was a complete blue ocean.

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There was a handful of service

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providers internationally.

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I mean even today obviously

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a lot of people started

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becoming like zero

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freelancers or whatever over

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the years but even today

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it's still a blue ocean.

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So I'm really happy to have

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made that decision to go all

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in into this specific field.

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Yeah, yeah, definitely.

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And I mean you work with a lot

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of different brands and also

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like huge, huge brands, eight

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figures and, and beyond.

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When when a brand comes to you

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and they basically tell you

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like our return ad spend or

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our embryo just drops when we

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skill spend and we can't grow

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aggressively, what does your

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immediate like decision tree

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look like or how do you

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decide what the issue for

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them is really?

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Good question.

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So on the one hand side,

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the, the only thing that's

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a bit outside of my,

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I would say like scope

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of expertise are the specific

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media buying KPIs.

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Right.

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So I would always double

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check that with somebody of

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who is a media buying

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expert in terms of are

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their current creatives and

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media buying strategies any

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good or do they need to fix

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that first.

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But let's just for this

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example, put it as a given

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that the creatives are

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great and the media

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buying KPIs look good.

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But then it's a funnel

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issue, right?

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And then the two things that we

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typically focus on to improve

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ROAS and MER is number one,

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higher conversion rate,

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number two, higher aov, right?

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And then number three is a bit

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of a, that say, add on,

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which is introducing preset

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pages so we can run more top

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of funnel, creators, right?

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But first of all, let's focus

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on conversion rate

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and AUV or AOV first because

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that's the easiest.

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With aov, the first

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thing that we do is we

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check the offer, right?

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So typically most brands,

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what they do, they have a hero

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product and then they.

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Whatever.

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Let's just say they

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have a supplement.

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They say one supplement,

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Hero product, $50.

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And then they typically

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run like a discount

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or say 20, 30% off.

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And then that's their

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offer, right?

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And they run all of the ads

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to the product page.

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Now the first thing that we

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would do is we would take that

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offer, rebate it, to bump

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up the A V by 20 to 40%,

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typically repackage the offer.

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So let's just stick with this

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example of a supplement.

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We would typically go from a

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single hero product to some

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form of bundle where

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potentially we would have two

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or three supplements, even

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adding like a digital product

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or component to the offer,

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make it a nice big bundle,

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have different tiers.

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So we typically like

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to work with three tiers

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where the first one is just

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the product itself.

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The second one is then a bit

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bigger bundle that's typically

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20 to 30% more expensive.

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And then the third tier

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is typically 50

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to 80% more expensive.

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So that you have three tiers,

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on the product page as like

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different bundle options.

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And we literally follow

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always this, SOP and it just

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works across the board

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because then a lot of people

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go for the middle tier, some

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people go for the low tier,

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and some people go for the

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high tier.

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So typically just by doing

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that and moving from selling

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one singular product to

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giving them different tiers

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and different bundling

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options with free gifts,

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you're able to increase the

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AUV by 10% minimum.

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In most cases we see 15 to 25%

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higher AUV just by doing that.

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Secondly is then the conversion

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rate that we need

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to improve, right?

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So for conversion rate, the

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biggest thing we see are,

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product images and copy,

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because that's typically where

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you either resonate with the

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traffic or you don't Resonate

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with the traffic.

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Right.

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So what I always like to say is

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do your research, understand

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your target audience and then

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based on this understanding,

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make product images and copy

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that really resonate with the

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target audience with their

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pain points, motives, beliefs,

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desires.

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So basically with the

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situation that they're in

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right now, the situation

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they want to be and how your

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product helps them go from

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where they are to where they

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want to be, if you're able

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to translate that into

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creative assets, for example

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product images, GIFs and

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videos on the product page

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and copy, you're going to

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have a better conversion

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rate.

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Right.

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So those two are the biggest

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leverages typically.

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And then the third lever,

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which is more of like an add

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on strategy that we do with

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a lot of brands where let's

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say they had, they hit a

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glass ceiling and scale with

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bottom of fallen ads to

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product page.

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We then like to integrate a

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preset page, which is

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typically an advertorial

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holistic format so that they

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can run more cold traffic, top

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of funnel traffic, less aware

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traffic to a preset page, warm

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them up, and then send them to

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the product page.

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So that's typically an add

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on which then also enables

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them to spend more on ads

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profitably just because

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they are now able to

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convert people they haven't

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been before.

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Because if you run

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unaware traffic to pdp,

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just not going to work.

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Right.

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So I would say first of all

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fix aov, fix conversion

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rate and secondly

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build more funnels.

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I mean even now, I mean

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you're the expert for that.

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But with the, and Andromeda

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update on Facebook,

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everything going into like

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the creative doing

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the targeting and then it's

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the same with the funnels.

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Right.

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So for some of our biggest

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brands that spend

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multiple millions per month,

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we literally have over

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100 different funnels live

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to match the ads.

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Influencer A Funnel A,

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Influencer B funnel B offer 1

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funnel 1 offer 2 funnel 2.

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Right.

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And then we just have hundreds

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of different ad creatives

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and then almost for

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every single ad creative

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a distinct funnel with one

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hundred percent congruency.

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Yeah, that's crazy.

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Like so many funnels is crazy.

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But I mean it makes sense.

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Like at a certain scale you

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need to segment the audiences

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and who you're speaking with

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and have the congruency

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between the ad, who you're

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targeting, the ad, the funnel,

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the offer that has all to to

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work together.

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And I think it's really

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interesting that you said the

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offer is the first thing

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because even from a paid ads

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side of things, that's also

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the first thing that we look

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at or that we basically try to

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get the brand to optimize or

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help them optimize it.

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Because nowadays you can have

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the best ads in the world.

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You can do everything

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on the creative,

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on the setup side of things.

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But if the offer is not

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great, it will not work.

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I'm sure you remember like four

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or five years ago, you could

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have the most basic commodity

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offer and if you had some

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decent ads, a decent website,

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you'd be able to scale and get

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sales.

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But nowadays with all

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the competition,

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it's way more difficult.

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Yeah.

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You mentioned also

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the pre sale pages.

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How do you usually decide

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whether it makes sense

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to test the pre sale page or

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at which stage do you decide

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to test the pre sale page?

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Because we have some brands

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that like from the beginning

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are basically using listicles

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advertorials and that is like

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their main funnel and their

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main selling strategy.

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And then other brands

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that manage to scale

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to eight figures without using

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any presale pages

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or any advertorials.

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How do you decide that it

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makes sense to try it out?

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Good question.

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I mean, it's really a different

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brand per brand, so it's

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really difficult to give like

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one answer that everyone

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listening can follow.

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Typically we like to start

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implementing preset pages

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as soon as we see

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a certain stagnation or them

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hitting a glass ceiling

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with their ads, right?

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Meaning that especially if

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brands have like a small

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product catalog, meaning

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they are reliant on like 1,

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2, 3 products that they

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sell, then that's typically

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when we really quickly

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start implementing

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different preset pages.

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Right?

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Because the way that I think

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about it, similar to what you

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said earlier, it's like

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nowadays it's almost always

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some form of equation of the

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person who runs the most

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volume wins.

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Meaning the most volume in

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terms of creative output,

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the most volume in terms of

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funnel or split test, the

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most volume in terms of

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different alphas and

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different products.

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Right?

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So the fewer products you have

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in the catalog, the even more

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you have to focus on creative

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output and funnel output.

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Right?

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But the bigger the catalog

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in theory, you could just

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continue running

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ads to product page.

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Right?

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So it's really difficult

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again to just give like

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one answer to this.

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But we see this a lot with

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brands where they just have

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1, 2, 3 hero products

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that we just go super hardcore

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on funnels, right?

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Because then we need to find

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a lot of different ways to,

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to sell them to a lot

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of different target audiences,

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with different creative types,

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different funnel types.

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But if we have let's say

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supplement brand with 100

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products, then it's way more

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of every single product has

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a certain scale and we just

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need to optimize that in

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terms of the creators and

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then in terms of the

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specific product page for

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example, that makes sense.

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And is there like a specific

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metric that you look at to

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decide whether the offer works

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and it just needs to be like

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for example, repackaged

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properly, or repackaged like

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in a different funnel or

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whether like the offer is

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still not the right one and

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the offer needs tweaking.

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So first I would, before

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I would start building any

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funnel, the first principle

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is are you able

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to scale this profitably?

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Just adds to product page

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to at least 100k

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in monthly revenue, right?

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And with profitably, I

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mean minimum 10% EBITDA.

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So if that's not a given, if

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you're whatever doing the

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bottom of funnel to PDP break

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even, then you shouldn't even

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worry about funnels because

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then you have a fundamental

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thing in your business that's

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not working.

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Right?

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So that's what I was

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would always do first.

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Meaning that if you're not able

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to scale your offer with just

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as your PDP to at least 100k

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monthly revenue profitably,

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then you seem to have some

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form of fundamental issue in

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the creative strategy or in

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the offer.

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Which means you need

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to fix your offer first.

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If you're already doing

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a couple hundred

Speaker:

thousand per month with

Speaker:

that setup of ads to pdp,

Speaker:

it's all super profitable,

Speaker:

then please

Speaker:

start integrating funnels

Speaker:

to scale further.

Speaker:

Right?

Speaker:

So with everything in

Speaker:

marketing, whether that's

Speaker:

paid acquisition,

Speaker:

conversion or retention,

Speaker:

people always jump into

Speaker:

like nitty gritty stuff and

Speaker:

they try to analyze, okay,

Speaker:

I need to have 2.2 Ross.

Speaker:

I need to have this

Speaker:

marketing efficiency ratio,

Speaker:

this conversion rate.

Speaker:

And I'm always like,

Speaker:

bro, like get yourself out

Speaker:

of the business

Speaker:

and start thinking about

Speaker:

first principles.

Speaker:

Right?

Speaker:

First principle thinking.

Speaker:

If you're not able to scale

Speaker:

in the simplest way

Speaker:

possible, meaning adds to PDP

Speaker:

with your offer, then probably

Speaker:

your offer sucks.

Speaker:

Like I don't even need to know

Speaker:

the certain like the specific

Speaker:

KPIs of your business.

Speaker:

I just know that if

Speaker:

that's not the case,

Speaker:

then your offer sucks.

Speaker:

And that's what I would always

Speaker:

do as like the founder or

Speaker:

entrepreneur of a business.

Speaker:

Try to look at everything

Speaker:

on the first principle basis

Speaker:

without even like directly

Speaker:

going into like specific KPIs

Speaker:

or metrics to make decisions.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker:

And yeah, if If a brand is not

Speaker:

even able to make the, to

Speaker:

convert the traffic that they

Speaker:

send to the product page at a

Speaker:

low scale or at least at a

Speaker:

decent scale, then yeah, as

Speaker:

you mentioned, either the

Speaker:

offer is wrong, the product is

Speaker:

just bad, and it's not even

Speaker:

worth spending the time and

Speaker:

effort into trying to scale

Speaker:

something that doesn't work.

Speaker:

What is a misconception

Speaker:

that you see founders have

Speaker:

about AOV in comparison to

Speaker:

the conversion rate?

Speaker:

Because oftentimes, obviously

Speaker:

when you try to increase aov,

Speaker:

the conversion rate drops.

Speaker:

If you decrease the aov,

Speaker:

the conversion

Speaker:

rate can increase.

Speaker:

Like how do you, how

Speaker:

do you balance that?

Speaker:

A good question.

Speaker:

I mean, for us, the North Star

Speaker:

metric is always revenue per

Speaker:

user or profit per user,

Speaker:

meaning just the combination

Speaker:

of conversion rate and aov.

Speaker:

So the way that I think

Speaker:

about it is more of like a,

Speaker:

sweet spot of how high can

Speaker:

we push conversion rate

Speaker:

in AOV to have the overall

Speaker:

highest revenue per user?

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

Because let's say 6% conversion

Speaker:

rate, $50 AOV is like a,

Speaker:

$3 revenue per user

Speaker:

and then whatever, like a 10%

Speaker:

conversion rate and $1,

Speaker:

sorry, ten, dollars.

Speaker:

AOV is one, dollar

Speaker:

revenue per user.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So you just need to figure out

Speaker:

like, what's, what are the

Speaker:

sweet spots without looking

Speaker:

at again, the, the metrics

Speaker:

isolated, but rather the, the

Speaker:

overall health of the funnel,

Speaker:

which for me is the revenue

Speaker:

per user.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And then if possible, probably

Speaker:

even go, go deeper into,

Speaker:

into profit per per user if

Speaker:

you're able to pull that data.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

For sure.

Speaker:

I mean, for us,

Speaker:

that's like one of the most

Speaker:

fundamental things.

Speaker:

So, I don't know if you

Speaker:

noticed, but we have our own,

Speaker:

data intelligence

Speaker:

and CRO software, which is

Speaker:

close, better now.

Speaker:

So we're just releasing it

Speaker:

to market later this year.

Speaker:

But, for us, one of the main

Speaker:

things was integrating the

Speaker:

Shopify contribution margins

Speaker:

and cogs that you have, like

Speaker:

in the Shopify backends

Speaker:

together with all of the

Speaker:

split testing data to then

Speaker:

analyze all of the funnel

Speaker:

performance and the split

Speaker:

test not only on the revenue

Speaker:

per user, but also the profit

Speaker:

and profit per user.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So for any entrepreneur

Speaker:

running a business, I would

Speaker:

always, whether use a certain

Speaker:

software or not, figure out a

Speaker:

way on how to combine all of

Speaker:

the different data sources to

Speaker:

look at everything on a

Speaker:

profit level.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So, so you created a tool

Speaker:

specifically to be able

Speaker:

to pull out all of that

Speaker:

data because there is no,

Speaker:

there was no native way

Speaker:

to do that before.

Speaker:

Yeah, I mean, we've used

Speaker:

our own software for

Speaker:

almost four years now.

Speaker:

A bit over four years.

Speaker:

So we started developing

Speaker:

that in 2022.

Speaker:

It was something where I

Speaker:

was like, I have a service

Speaker:

based business, I use a lot

Speaker:

of external softwares.

Speaker:

But then all of these

Speaker:

external software providers

Speaker:

have some issue.

Speaker:

They don't have a certain

Speaker:

feature, whatever.

Speaker:

So at some point we

Speaker:

just decided to build

Speaker:

our own software.

Speaker:

So literally just

Speaker:

for the use case of making our

Speaker:

agency better and reducing

Speaker:

headache for our team,

Speaker:

yada, yada, yada.

Speaker:

And there was like one huge

Speaker:

thing to figure out, like how

Speaker:

to combine all of the funnel

Speaker:

data with then also all of

Speaker:

the contribution margin data

Speaker:

to understand all of the, not

Speaker:

only the analytics, but then

Speaker:

also specifically the funnels

Speaker:

we run or the splitters we

Speaker:

run on the profit per user

Speaker:

basis.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah, I think for,

Speaker:

for a lot of brands, like

Speaker:

having that data is

Speaker:

a huge, huge unlock

Speaker:

or even something that we.

Speaker:

And then there's like

Speaker:

thousands of use cases

Speaker:

that you can build.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

As I said to you earlier, like

Speaker:

I'm, I'm so deep with my team

Speaker:

and like all of the different

Speaker:

AI use cases and whatever.

Speaker:

So for example, one thing

Speaker:

that we build is like, I

Speaker:

don't know if you know,

Speaker:

Microsoft Clarity or

Speaker:

whatever, but those tools

Speaker:

where you can just get the

Speaker:

heat maps, the click maps,

Speaker:

the session recordings.

Speaker:

So what we figured out is how

Speaker:

to connect that data then

Speaker:

to the profit per user data.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So you not only see like where

Speaker:

people click in terms of

Speaker:

general clicks, but you can,

Speaker:

you can essentially match

Speaker:

that with people who made a

Speaker:

purchase and then also look

Speaker:

at what was the profit for

Speaker:

that purchase.

Speaker:

So you don't have like

Speaker:

a general overview

Speaker:

of data which is already

Speaker:

great, like heat maps

Speaker:

and click maps are great.

Speaker:

But you take it one step

Speaker:

further of identifying what

Speaker:

are specifically the clicks

Speaker:

that made me the most profit,

Speaker:

what are specifically the

Speaker:

customer journeys that made me

Speaker:

the most profit and what are

Speaker:

also on the other end,

Speaker:

specifically the customer

Speaker:

journeys where I lost the

Speaker:

most.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

Or the products that are

Speaker:

where I lost the most.

Speaker:

And yeah, so I'm just super

Speaker:

excited with all of the

Speaker:

possibilities now where you

Speaker:

can just take a lot of

Speaker:

different data sources, merge

Speaker:

them, consolidate them and

Speaker:

that gives you like 10 times

Speaker:

better insights than what we

Speaker:

used like five years ago.

Speaker:

In terms of the KPIs to then

Speaker:

come up with better

Speaker:

funnels or better splitters.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So exciting.

Speaker:

With everything that

Speaker:

is possible right now.

Speaker:

I'm curious, when you audit

Speaker:

the store for the first time,

Speaker:

what are the things that

Speaker:

you usually look at first.

Speaker:

Good question.

Speaker:

I mean for me, what I always

Speaker:

like to do is I like to put

Speaker:

myself into the shoes of a

Speaker:

regular consumer and then I

Speaker:

will literally just go on the

Speaker:

Facebook ads, look at the ad

Speaker:

creative, click on it and then

Speaker:

just, just go through the

Speaker:

whole customer journey, it's

Speaker:

like a regular user.

Speaker:

And then identify where are

Speaker:

where steps, in the journey,

Speaker:

where are areas where I'm

Speaker:

confused or missing something.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

Let's say just for example, I

Speaker:

click on the ad creative and

Speaker:

in the ad creative they talk

Speaker:

about a certain pain point

Speaker:

and then they push me to an

Speaker:

advertorial and then it's a

Speaker:

completely different angle.

Speaker:

Then I would just write

Speaker:

down, okay, missing congruency

Speaker:

from ad to advertory.

Speaker:

Then I would start reading

Speaker:

the advertorial and then

Speaker:

potentially see this doesn't

Speaker:

resonate with me at all.

Speaker:

So they need to do better

Speaker:

customer research to identify

Speaker:

pain points or whatever.

Speaker:

So I literally just like to go

Speaker:

through the whole customer

Speaker:

journey end to end by the

Speaker:

product, take all of the

Speaker:

offsets to understand where

Speaker:

areas where I stopped or what

Speaker:

was confusing for me or

Speaker:

something didn't make sense

Speaker:

and just like write all of

Speaker:

that down literally.

Speaker:

And what are the most common

Speaker:

leak points that you see?

Speaker:

Specifically in let's say,

Speaker:

let's say eight figure brands,

Speaker:

congruency is a huge one

Speaker:

from the ad to the page.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So typically they have like

Speaker:

a certain angle customer

Speaker:

Persona or offer in the ad

Speaker:

and then they have a

Speaker:

completely different thing

Speaker:

on the page they push the

Speaker:

traffic to.

Speaker:

So that's number one.

Speaker:

Number two, there's oftentimes

Speaker:

something that's confusing,

Speaker:

whether that's the flow

Speaker:

of the customer journey,

Speaker:

certain buttons, whatever.

Speaker:

So there's always a certain

Speaker:

part in the customer journey

Speaker:

where consumers are confused,

Speaker:

where they don't understand,

Speaker:

like what's the next step,

Speaker:

where do they have to click?

Speaker:

How can they check

Speaker:

out now, whatever.

Speaker:

So that's number two and number

Speaker:

three, then just more like

Speaker:

generally your X ui, things of

Speaker:

like, is it easy to understand

Speaker:

the product benefits?

Speaker:

Is it easy to understand

Speaker:

the value proposition?

Speaker:

Is it easy to understand

Speaker:

what this product does?

Speaker:

Is it easy to understand

Speaker:

the offer or the bundle?

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So I would say those are

Speaker:

typically the main aspects

Speaker:

where brands, fuck it up.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And I assume you nowadays

Speaker:

focus primarily

Speaker:

on the mobile version.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

Do you even still look

Speaker:

at the desktop version

Speaker:

of the websites?

Speaker:

We do have some brands that

Speaker:

say to all the demographics

Speaker:

where we have a huge part

Speaker:

on desktop, but for the

Speaker:

Longest time we've just

Speaker:

focused on the, the mobile

Speaker:

views.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

And let's say you see like you

Speaker:

go through an analysis and you

Speaker:

see that a website has a huge

Speaker:

drop off rate at the checkout.

Speaker:

What are the top five

Speaker:

reasons that that usually

Speaker:

usually happens?

Speaker:

Typically they lack

Speaker:

some form of trust.

Speaker:

So they don't trust you enough.

Speaker:

They don't have enough urgency.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

To continue.

Speaker:

There's some form of objection

Speaker:

that you didn't handle.

Speaker:

There's some form of question

Speaker:

around shipping policy,

Speaker:

return policy, specific costs,

Speaker:

let's see, cannot come

Speaker:

up with a fifth one.

Speaker:

But those are like four big

Speaker:

things specifically

Speaker:

in the checkout stage,

Speaker:

where they will then abandon

Speaker:

the customer journey.

Speaker:

And do you think those things

Speaker:

should be addressed in the

Speaker:

cart and in the checkout

Speaker:

process or is that

Speaker:

oftentimes also an issue

Speaker:

that was just like from way

Speaker:

before, from the ad, the

Speaker:

landing page, way before

Speaker:

everything starts with the

Speaker:

ad, especially trust and

Speaker:

urgency starts in the ad and

Speaker:

then everything more

Speaker:

specifically like objection

Speaker:

handling is happening on the

Speaker:

sales page.

Speaker:

And then everything around

Speaker:

frequently asked

Speaker:

questions or anxieties.

Speaker:

Then cart and checkout process

Speaker:

like communicating the

Speaker:

delivery times, communicating

Speaker:

the shipping policy,

Speaker:

communicating the returns

Speaker:

policy and everything like you

Speaker:

need to do that in the cart

Speaker:

and then also the checkout.

Speaker:

I think it really

Speaker:

depends obviously

Speaker:

on the brand and what they

Speaker:

are already doing.

Speaker:

But if you would have to give

Speaker:

like an E Commerce found,

Speaker:

there's some quick wins and

Speaker:

some quick things that

Speaker:

everyone needs to implement

Speaker:

in their funnel and

Speaker:

specifically also in the cart

Speaker:

and checkout process.

Speaker:

What would you recommend?

Speaker:

I would say the number one

Speaker:

biggest leverage is the offer.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So jump back to the beginning

Speaker:

of the podcast where

Speaker:

we talked about offering

Speaker:

the different tiers.

Speaker:

So number one fix the offer

Speaker:

on the product page

Speaker:

with the different tiers.

Speaker:

Number two, especially in the

Speaker:

carton at checkout, make sure

Speaker:

that you incentivize if they

Speaker:

went for lower tier like tier

Speaker:

one, to then take the upsell

Speaker:

into tier two or tier three

Speaker:

and the card you can do that

Speaker:

with progress bars where you

Speaker:

say hey, one click to get a

Speaker:

different tier to then get

Speaker:

free shipping or free gift

Speaker:

and then you can do the same

Speaker:

in a checkout.

Speaker:

And then the second big thing

Speaker:

in carton checkout

Speaker:

would then be the urgency.

Speaker:

Everything like countdown

Speaker:

timers, card protection

Speaker:

and everything like that just

Speaker:

to kind of really

Speaker:

push them through to purchase.

Speaker:

So I would say that's by far

Speaker:

number one to fix the offer.

Speaker:

If we go a Little bit deeper

Speaker:

into the offer because

Speaker:

I think that is, as I

Speaker:

mentioned, the most important

Speaker:

thing that a lot of founders

Speaker:

still get wrong.

Speaker:

Even though there are a bunch

Speaker:

of great books, a bunch of

Speaker:

resources on how to come up

Speaker:

with a great offer, they still

Speaker:

think that it doesn't apply to

Speaker:

E commerce or doesn't apply to

Speaker:

the same degree as for like

Speaker:

every single, every other

Speaker:

business that exists in the,

Speaker:

in the world.

Speaker:

From, from all the experience

Speaker:

that you have, like what are

Speaker:

the best ways to increase

Speaker:

the perceived value, of the,

Speaker:

of the offer and ideally

Speaker:

without killing the margins

Speaker:

of the business with just

Speaker:

like having very aggressive

Speaker:

discounts.

Speaker:

Great.

Speaker:

Question.

Speaker:

I would say 80%

Speaker:

of the offer is research.

Speaker:

I would say 80% of any

Speaker:

function in the E commerce

Speaker:

business is research.

Speaker:

So meaning customer

Speaker:

understanding, because

Speaker:

perceived value is just

Speaker:

something that you derive

Speaker:

from a great customer

Speaker:

understanding and being able

Speaker:

to identify like the specific

Speaker:

pain points that you need to

Speaker:

solve with the offer and then

Speaker:

also the specific desired

Speaker:

situation that your target

Speaker:

audience wants to achieve

Speaker:

with the offer.

Speaker:

So it's literally just 80%

Speaker:

understanding the target

Speaker:

audience and then the other

Speaker:

20% is figuring out what are

Speaker:

the products you need to give

Speaker:

to them, what is the unique,

Speaker:

mechanism that you say to them

Speaker:

and what are the price points

Speaker:

that you can request based on

Speaker:

the perceived value.

Speaker:

So I would say it's just a

Speaker:

function of spending a lot

Speaker:

of time with the target

Speaker:

audience and then

Speaker:

translating that into, I

Speaker:

always like to say current

Speaker:

situation, desired situation

Speaker:

offers a vehicle to get from

Speaker:

them, from where they are to

Speaker:

where they want to be.

Speaker:

So you need to do the research

Speaker:

to figure that out.

Speaker:

And then the offer packaging is

Speaker:

just combining all of that.

Speaker:

Right?

Speaker:

Combining the offer with all

Speaker:

of the pain points that it

Speaker:

solves of the current

Speaker:

situation, and all of the bad

Speaker:

emotions that they have.

Speaker:

And then also combining the

Speaker:

offer like ingredients or

Speaker:

features with all of the

Speaker:

dreams and desires they have

Speaker:

of their desired situation

Speaker:

and then making it like a

Speaker:

super logical way of how the

Speaker:

offer, or more specifically

Speaker:

the unique mechanism, is

Speaker:

something completely new, as

Speaker:

the word says, new unique

Speaker:

mechanism, which is now able

Speaker:

to help them and also do a

Speaker:

great job at explaining why

Speaker:

this is different to anything

Speaker:

that they've seen before.

Speaker:

And then the offer is directly

Speaker:

going to have a high

Speaker:

perceived value because it's

Speaker:

all in one solution to a huge

Speaker:

problem that they are facing

Speaker:

and then they are able or

Speaker:

willing to spend a lot of

Speaker:

money for it.

Speaker:

Yeah, I definitely agree that

Speaker:

the research is super

Speaker:

important and whether it's

Speaker:

for the ads that we come up

Speaker:

with for the offer for,

Speaker:

for the customer acquisition.

Speaker:

Like in every single aspect

Speaker:

of the business you need to

Speaker:

dial in your research and it

Speaker:

becomes easier and easier.

Speaker:

Nowadays, with AI you can

Speaker:

analyze a shitload of data

Speaker:

very, very fast and what

Speaker:

used to take us like

Speaker:

days and weeks we can now do

Speaker:

in minutes or hours.

Speaker:

And yeah, but I still think

Speaker:

that a lot of founders think

Speaker:

that they don't have to do any

Speaker:

research at all anymore

Speaker:

because like either they were

Speaker:

not doing it before and

Speaker:

they're still not doing it or

Speaker:

they were investing a little

Speaker:

bit of time before and now

Speaker:

they invest even less time

Speaker:

because they think with AI

Speaker:

they can just ask ChatGPT,

Speaker:

like what are the three pain

Speaker:

points?

Speaker:

And that's it.

Speaker:

And that's, I'm so glad that,

Speaker:

that we have AI because for

Speaker:

me the way that I view AI is

Speaker:

just going to be an even

Speaker:

bigger split between the

Speaker:

best marketers and like the

Speaker:

average marketer because all

Speaker:

of the average marketers are

Speaker:

going to do that with ChatG

Speaker:

and I'm just going to do

Speaker:

even worse creators funnel

Speaker:

and everything and the best

Speaker:

marketers are going to

Speaker:

become even better.

Speaker:

So for me AI, is almost like

Speaker:

it's going to differentiate

Speaker:

between somebody great

Speaker:

and somebody average even more

Speaker:

and make it more clear.

Speaker:

And I think the people who are

Speaker:

great are already in the top

Speaker:

1% are just going to have an

Speaker:

exponential advantage over

Speaker:

the average marketers or the

Speaker:

people who are now starting

Speaker:

to learn marketing with AI

Speaker:

because I feel like a lot of

Speaker:

people, they just externalize

Speaker:

all of the ownership and all

Speaker:

of the creativity and

Speaker:

strategy to AI which is the

Speaker:

worst you can do.

Speaker:

And yeah, I think a lot of

Speaker:

people are going to be really

Speaker:

surprised when they

Speaker:

figure that out in the next

Speaker:

coming months and years.

Speaker:

Yeah, 100% agree.

Speaker:

I mean can you give us a quick

Speaker:

like a brief overview

Speaker:

of how your research

Speaker:

process looks like?

Speaker:

Sure.

Speaker:

I mean for us we do have

Speaker:

full time data specialists

Speaker:

who just do research.

Speaker:

So in the current team we

Speaker:

have like five or six

Speaker:

full time data analysts

Speaker:

that just do research.

Speaker:

So they just work with

Speaker:

a multitude of quantitative

Speaker:

and qualitative data

Speaker:

analysis methods.

Speaker:

Client specific and then market

Speaker:

specific client specific.

Speaker:

What we look at is typically

Speaker:

everything, shopify data,

Speaker:

then all of those heat that I

Speaker:

was talking about earlier,

Speaker:

all of the customer reviews,

Speaker:

all of the like we generally

Speaker:

call it message mining

Speaker:

meaning anywhere where

Speaker:

customers have spoken to you,

Speaker:

whether that's in the

Speaker:

reviews, they Give and emails

Speaker:

they send to your customer

Speaker:

support team in comments on

Speaker:

the social media, in dms.

Speaker:

So that's all like

Speaker:

client specific

Speaker:

surveys, yada yada yada.

Speaker:

And then market specific is

Speaker:

everything like competitor

Speaker:

analysis through Amazon

Speaker:

reviews, through their

Speaker:

website scraping everything.

Speaker:

We find niche specific areas

Speaker:

where their target audience is

Speaker:

spending time like Reddit,

Speaker:

Quora, certain online forums.

Speaker:

Yeah and then we, we just

Speaker:

have a lot of those data

Speaker:

sources, client specific,

Speaker:

market specific and then

Speaker:

that's like all of the

Speaker:

databases on what we then

Speaker:

use to come up with like the

Speaker:

specific customer Persona or

Speaker:

specific copies, split tests

Speaker:

and all of that stuff.

Speaker:

Yeah, I really love analyzing

Speaker:

or using like what

Speaker:

the customers say about

Speaker:

the product in the,

Speaker:

in the messaging and in the in

Speaker:

the ads and the funnels.

Speaker:

So basically looking at,

Speaker:

and I think, to be honest, I

Speaker:

think I've heard that from

Speaker:

you or from one of your

Speaker:

LinkedIn posts a while ago.

Speaker:

But basically take all

Speaker:

of the reviews that they

Speaker:

have ever like that

Speaker:

the, that the website has,

Speaker:

that the brand has.

Speaker:

Taking all of the post

Speaker:

purchase answers, like every

Speaker:

single touch point or every

Speaker:

single communication with the

Speaker:

customer and then analyzing

Speaker:

that through AI to find out

Speaker:

what are the terms, what are

Speaker:

the sentences, the phrases

Speaker:

that your customers are using

Speaker:

to describe the product and

Speaker:

what kind of problems are

Speaker:

they talking about and

Speaker:

basically really digging deep

Speaker:

into that data, because you

Speaker:

get a lot of insights from

Speaker:

that.

Speaker:

And obviously ideally if

Speaker:

you use the exact messaging,

Speaker:

the exact language that

Speaker:

your customers use to describe

Speaker:

the product, the conversion

Speaker:

rate will increase.

Speaker:

Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker:

We had this one experience

Speaker:

like four years ago and I

Speaker:

think that's the LinkedIn post

Speaker:

you were referring to.

Speaker:

We had a client and the fashion

Speaker:

niche where they were

Speaker:

selling these pillow slides,

Speaker:

which is like a super

Speaker:

crazy product since then.

Speaker:

And we just went through

Speaker:

the testimonials meaning like

Speaker:

all of the client reviews.

Speaker:

And then it was super

Speaker:

interesting because

Speaker:

the biggest thing that all

Speaker:

of the clients would say, it's

Speaker:

like walking on a cloud.

Speaker:

And we were like, we

Speaker:

never heard that before.

Speaker:

It's nowhere on the website.

Speaker:

Why don't we run a split test

Speaker:

and put it as like

Speaker:

a copy on the website.

Speaker:

And then we just said

Speaker:

this product fits like walking

Speaker:

on a cloud basically.

Speaker:

And then just that copy, adding

Speaker:

that to the website increased

Speaker:

the conversion above a 10%.

Speaker:

And that just opened my eyes

Speaker:

on like it's so easy to

Speaker:

literally just go ask your

Speaker:

customers or just go through

Speaker:

all of the reviews and then

Speaker:

understand what is the

Speaker:

language that they're using,

Speaker:

what are the specific words

Speaker:

they're using, what are the

Speaker:

metaphors, analogies, like

Speaker:

how do they speak and how do

Speaker:

they speak about the product?

Speaker:

Because as a founder, you're

Speaker:

so blindsided by, you

Speaker:

have a deep understanding of

Speaker:

the specific product, all of

Speaker:

the features and benefits that

Speaker:

you oftentimes oversee this.

Speaker:

And then that has literally

Speaker:

become the main value

Speaker:

proposition, the biggest

Speaker:

anger in their creative

Speaker:

strategy and everything.

Speaker:

And it was overlooked before

Speaker:

because nobody cared about

Speaker:

what the customer said, right?

Speaker:

And that just really opened

Speaker:

my eyes in terms of what's

Speaker:

possible or like why it's so

Speaker:

important to look at what the,

Speaker:

customer is saying.

Speaker:

Definitely.

Speaker:

For a lot of brands, I think

Speaker:

CRO is still something that I

Speaker:

think there are two different

Speaker:

kind of brands, some that are

Speaker:

way too early in their

Speaker:

journey and they think that

Speaker:

they need to spend a lot of

Speaker:

time and effort into tweaking

Speaker:

every single thing of the

Speaker:

website and making those

Speaker:

small improvements, small

Speaker:

optimizations to get better

Speaker:

results and even though they

Speaker:

don't have enough traffic to

Speaker:

make any meaningful tests,

Speaker:

get any good data.

Speaker:

And then on the other side,

Speaker:

there are those kind of

Speaker:

brands that are already

Speaker:

generating a lot of revenue

Speaker:

and they think that they

Speaker:

don't need CRO testing

Speaker:

because they're already

Speaker:

getting results, getting

Speaker:

sales, and they just want to

Speaker:

keep focusing on their paid

Speaker:

ads, keep ramping up the ad

Speaker:

budget, and doing all of

Speaker:

that.

Speaker:

What would you say, like, what

Speaker:

is the perfect position, where

Speaker:

a brand should be to where it

Speaker:

makes sense to focus on CRO.

Speaker:

I mean, for me, CRO are

Speaker:

different things, right?

Speaker:

Like this, like we have two

Speaker:

fundamentally different ways

Speaker:

of working with seven

Speaker:

figure brands than we have

Speaker:

with like eight, nine,

Speaker:

ten figure brands, right?

Speaker:

So when we work with seven

Speaker:

figure brands, meaning

Speaker:

anybody that's doing from

Speaker:

50,000 to a million a

Speaker:

month, we work with them on

Speaker:

their general funnel, setup

Speaker:

their offers, copy product

Speaker:

images, like all of the big

Speaker:

things, right?

Speaker:

Like fundamentally

Speaker:

what makes the business work.

Speaker:

When you work with 8, 9, 10

Speaker:

figure brands, 90% of the

Speaker:

work is split testing,

Speaker:

meaning they come to us

Speaker:

and they say, hey, Kyle,

Speaker:

we have this one

Speaker:

advertorial funnel.

Speaker:

We spend a million

Speaker:

a month on it.

Speaker:

Do anything you can

Speaker:

to get the last percentage

Speaker:

points out of performance

Speaker:

out of this funnel.

Speaker:

Like that's the only use

Speaker:

case why they hire us.

Speaker:

They did everything they

Speaker:

can do internally.

Speaker:

Now they want us to

Speaker:

just increase the conversion

Speaker:

by like the last 5%

Speaker:

and the AOV by the last 5%

Speaker:

because that's huge.

Speaker:

For them at that scale.

Speaker:

So then for those brands, like

Speaker:

the, the biggest thing that

Speaker:

we do is we just set up like

Speaker:

a high velocity split testing

Speaker:

program where every single

Speaker:

month you run a lot of split

Speaker:

tests on all of the important

Speaker:

pages.

Speaker:

So yeah, seven figure brands,

Speaker:

they typically struggle with

Speaker:

the fundamentals of finding a,

Speaker:

functioning offer, functioning

Speaker:

funnel and all of that.

Speaker:

And then whereas 8, 9, 10

Speaker:

figure brands, they struggle

Speaker:

with just completely

Speaker:

different things.

Speaker:

They have a lot of funnels that

Speaker:

perform amazing and now they

Speaker:

need to iterate it, fine tune

Speaker:

it without like fucking it up

Speaker:

or without breaking anything.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So I would say everybody needs

Speaker:

to do some form of CRO.

Speaker:

It's just like what is

Speaker:

the specific form of CRO that

Speaker:

makes sense for the growth

Speaker:

stage of the business?

Speaker:

And for those eight, nine

Speaker:

and ten figure brands, like

Speaker:

what would you say, what is

Speaker:

a realistic testing, testing

Speaker:

cadence for those brands?

Speaker:

I think you mentioned monthly?

Speaker:

Is that how often

Speaker:

you usually do.

Speaker:

It really depends.

Speaker:

I mean for the smallest amount

Speaker:

would be 5 tests per month.

Speaker:

Right?

Speaker:

Like 5 splitters per

Speaker:

month that we run.

Speaker:

For other brands we,

Speaker:

we test 20, 30 funnels plus

Speaker:

then 10, 20 split tests.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So it's like really, really

Speaker:

based on how much volume they

Speaker:

are pushing, meaning how much

Speaker:

ad spend and then how much

Speaker:

data we have, meaning how

Speaker:

quickly can we iterate and

Speaker:

test new stuff.

Speaker:

So it's just really, really

Speaker:

depending on the volume.

Speaker:

That's like the number

Speaker:

one denominator of how

Speaker:

many tests we run or how

Speaker:

many funnels we test.

Speaker:

It's like how much ad spend

Speaker:

and how much data do we have

Speaker:

from the brand.

Speaker:

And then obviously a brand

Speaker:

that's doing a million a

Speaker:

month is going to be

Speaker:

completely different to a

Speaker:

brand that does 10 million

Speaker:

per month or a brand that

Speaker:

is doing 50, 100 million

Speaker:

per month.

Speaker:

Do you usually decide it

Speaker:

based on the traffic that

Speaker:

they're getting or

Speaker:

the number of conversions?

Speaker:

Because obviously there

Speaker:

are some brands that do a lot

Speaker:

of revenue at

Speaker:

lower sessions, lower traffic.

Speaker:

And there are some with very

Speaker:

low AOVs, very high AOVs.

Speaker:

Like how do you make sure

Speaker:

that the tests are

Speaker:

really valuable and you don't

Speaker:

get false positives?

Speaker:

It's always a mixture

Speaker:

of sessions, and conversions.

Speaker:

Is there like a minimum

Speaker:

amount of sessions that

Speaker:

you need for a test or

Speaker:

is that tough to say?

Speaker:

There are rule of thumbs,

Speaker:

that you can follow typically.

Speaker:

What I like to say is,

Speaker:

absolute minimum.

Speaker:

You should have 20,000

Speaker:

users, not sessions users per

Speaker:

variation, plus a thousand

Speaker:

orders so 1000 conversions.

Speaker:

So overall for an AB

Speaker:

test you should have

Speaker:

a minimum of 40,000 users

Speaker:

and 2,000 conversions

Speaker:

for like one single.

Speaker:

A B test.

Speaker:

That's like a general rule

Speaker:

of thumb, right?

Speaker:

Sometimes in one A B test

Speaker:

we have a million users

Speaker:

and 30,000 conversions.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

Just because the effect is

Speaker:

so minimum or whatever.

Speaker:

So that's really that if

Speaker:

you're below that volume, then

Speaker:

we rather run a B test

Speaker:

with ad campaigns, right?

Speaker:

Meaning you take a certain

Speaker:

budget, like 2, 5,

Speaker:

10 GS and then you rather

Speaker:

set it up as like

Speaker:

a quote unquote Facebook.

Speaker:

A B test rather than

Speaker:

like an on page.

Speaker:

A B test where if you want

Speaker:

to validate a new funnel, then

Speaker:

that's how I would test it.

Speaker:

Yeah, that makes sense for you.

Speaker:

And for all of those tests,

Speaker:

what is the true North Star

Speaker:

that you're shooting for?

Speaker:

Is it always the revenue

Speaker:

per session?

Speaker:

Completely different, bro.

Speaker:

I mean, typically it's

Speaker:

something like revenue per

Speaker:

user, profit per user.

Speaker:

So that's typically

Speaker:

the North Star.

Speaker:

But then also we have big

Speaker:

fashion brands that do

Speaker:

hundreds of millions per

Speaker:

year and then their biggest

Speaker:

thing is something like

Speaker:

customer lifetime gross

Speaker:

profit or return rate.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So it's really depending

Speaker:

on the niche.

Speaker:

Or we have big software

Speaker:

companies where it's like sign

Speaker:

up rates, or time spent

Speaker:

on page for brand awareness.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So it's really, really

Speaker:

depending on the niche.

Speaker:

But typically the North Star

Speaker:

is something around revenue

Speaker:

per user or profit per user

Speaker:

just for that specific niche

Speaker:

where they are going, where

Speaker:

their main focus is on, let's

Speaker:

say the retention of the

Speaker:

backend.

Speaker:

Then it's rather like customer

Speaker:

lifetime gross profit

Speaker:

or something like that.

Speaker:

Or then how many months did

Speaker:

they stay on the subscription,

Speaker:

how low is the return rate,

Speaker:

things like that.

Speaker:

So it's really based on niche

Speaker:

and then business model.

Speaker:

I would say.

Speaker:

Have you, have you ever had it

Speaker:

happen that for example the

Speaker:

conversion rate went up, the

Speaker:

revenue per user went up, but

Speaker:

then the retention of those

Speaker:

customers went down and with

Speaker:

that like the lifetime gross

Speaker:

profit of those customers

Speaker:

declined?

Speaker:

Sure.

Speaker:

A lot.

Speaker:

I mean there's there are so

Speaker:

many things that you can do

Speaker:

on the front end that are

Speaker:

then going to have a negative

Speaker:

impact on the back end.

Speaker:

Let's just say

Speaker:

supplement product.

Speaker:

We do like a shady subscription

Speaker:

in terms of the XCI

Speaker:

of the buy box and the card

Speaker:

and the checkout process.

Speaker:

And then whatever,

Speaker:

the conversion rate is higher

Speaker:

and we have a higher

Speaker:

subscription take rate because

Speaker:

we do it A bit shady.

Speaker:

But then a lot of people

Speaker:

don't understand that they opt

Speaker:

into a subscription,

Speaker:

then we have a lot more chance

Speaker:

and a lot less customer

Speaker:

lifetime gross profit.

Speaker:

So that would be just a super

Speaker:

easy to understand example of

Speaker:

how quickly something that

Speaker:

you do in the front end has a

Speaker:

negative impact on the return

Speaker:

rate, custom lifetime gross

Speaker:

profit or something like

Speaker:

that.

Speaker:

So when you do the split

Speaker:

tests or like work work with

Speaker:

a brand, do you also look

Speaker:

at the, the lifetime value?

Speaker:

Because obviously like the,

Speaker:

the revenue per session

Speaker:

or the profit per session

Speaker:

with one test could look

Speaker:

significantly higher.

Speaker:

And then the founder is

Speaker:

like, yeah, let's put

Speaker:

everything on that one.

Speaker:

But then after a few months

Speaker:

they start to realize

Speaker:

the revenue is going down or

Speaker:

the retention is not there.

Speaker:

Always.

Speaker:

Yes, I mean especially

Speaker:

for those niches where it

Speaker:

makes a lot of sense,

Speaker:

we always monitor the data.

Speaker:

Why the A B test is live

Speaker:

and then after we've

Speaker:

implemented it, not only

Speaker:

for the then new page

Speaker:

performance but then also

Speaker:

for all of the cohorts of

Speaker:

the A B test.

Speaker:

Yeah, so I would say there's

Speaker:

like three areas like the

Speaker:

data of the A B test, we're

Speaker:

running it, the data on that

Speaker:

specific page and product

Speaker:

after you've implemented it

Speaker:

and then also the cohorts

Speaker:

from the people of the A B

Speaker:

test to understand

Speaker:

subscription take rate,

Speaker:

customer lifetime profit, how

Speaker:

many months they've been on

Speaker:

the subscription, all of that

Speaker:

stuff.

Speaker:

Yeah, to understand

Speaker:

the overall business impact.

Speaker:

What do you think of brands

Speaker:

that want to do CRO in house?

Speaker:

I think it makes a lot of sense

Speaker:

at a certain growth stage.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker:

So we've had a lot of

Speaker:

businesses where we've worked

Speaker:

together with them

Speaker:

for two or three years.

Speaker:

Started with them when they

Speaker:

were 5 million per year

Speaker:

business and then they grew

Speaker:

to like 100 million per year

Speaker:

business started when there

Speaker:

was just a founder and five

Speaker:

people and then they became

Speaker:

100 people team.

Speaker:

So at a certain growth stage

Speaker:

of the organization,

Speaker:

the business, it makes

Speaker:

even more sense to have an in

Speaker:

house team than like

Speaker:

a external service provider.

Speaker:

And then yeah, we

Speaker:

literally just bid them

Speaker:

the in house team.

Speaker:

We give them our software to

Speaker:

run the B test and then

Speaker:

sometimes we give them a bit

Speaker:

of like consulting on how to

Speaker:

hire the team, train the team,

Speaker:

manage the team or then some

Speaker:

check in calls on like how to

Speaker:

use the software and make sure

Speaker:

that they are doing everything

Speaker:

perfect and us.

Speaker:

But yeah, at a certain stage of

Speaker:

the business and organization,

Speaker:

the value equation

Speaker:

is better on in house.

Speaker:

CRO team than on like

Speaker:

an external service provider.

Speaker:

What would you say?

Speaker:

What is like the minimum

Speaker:

effective CRO team or org

Speaker:

chart that a brand needs?

Speaker:

So we like our state of the art

Speaker:

version of a CRO team is

Speaker:

five people, where you

Speaker:

have like one specialist

Speaker:

for each part of the process.

Speaker:

So that's in my perspective

Speaker:

at least how

Speaker:

a branch should build it.

Speaker:

Where you have one data

Speaker:

specialist, who understands

Speaker:

data, one conversion

Speaker:

specialist to understand

Speaker:

CRO program, split testing

Speaker:

and all of that.

Speaker:

One UX UI designer who can

Speaker:

build the variations and the

Speaker:

split tests or pages, one

Speaker:

developer to program the A B

Speaker:

test and one quality assurance

Speaker:

person to make sure that

Speaker:

everything is running without

Speaker:

bugs on the website.

Speaker:

And that's typically like

Speaker:

those five people are the

Speaker:

team and then you need some

Speaker:

form of whatever head of paid

Speaker:

acquisition, CMO growth

Speaker:

manager to manage the team

Speaker:

and the program.

Speaker:

So that's typically

Speaker:

the team that.

Speaker:

Yeah, I mean that's

Speaker:

our in house team.

Speaker:

And then that's also always

Speaker:

the team that we built for

Speaker:

the brands when they requested

Speaker:

to have it in house.

Speaker:

And at what stage would you

Speaker:

say does that make sense?

Speaker:

Is it like in the, in the mid

Speaker:

eight figures, nine figures?

Speaker:

Yeah, typically

Speaker:

mid high eight figures.

Speaker:

So most of the brands

Speaker:

started doing that at

Speaker:

around 50 to 100 million

Speaker:

per year when they moved

Speaker:

from like us as an external

Speaker:

service provider to like an

Speaker:

in house team.

Speaker:

Some did it at 50, some

Speaker:

at 70, some at 100.

Speaker:

Really just based

Speaker:

on their overall

Speaker:

organizational structure.

Speaker:

Yeah, I mean just like a

Speaker:

question of this team, based

Speaker:

on the location you hired,

Speaker:

costs anywhere from 20 to

Speaker:

50,000 per month based on

Speaker:

like from what country you

Speaker:

hired that talent.

Speaker:

So overall needs to make a lot

Speaker:

of sense for like the, the

Speaker:

brand where they have like a

Speaker:

significant higher impact of

Speaker:

that team running it in house

Speaker:

than like a service provider

Speaker:

who costs like 10, 15,000 per

Speaker:

month.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker:

Now to, to end this, I

Speaker:

have a few rapid fire

Speaker:

questions prepared.

Speaker:

So just, just answer

Speaker:

them as, as quickly

Speaker:

and like what comes.

Speaker:

Yeah, what comes to mind?

Speaker:

Sure.

Speaker:

What is the most underrated

Speaker:

CRO lever in 2026

Speaker:

offer split testing?

Speaker:

What is the most

Speaker:

overrated CRO tactic?

Speaker:

Payment providers under

Speaker:

the call to action button.

Speaker:

Really?

Speaker:

Does it not make a difference?

Speaker:

Sometimes, but it's yeah

Speaker:

as you said, overrated.

Speaker:

What's one change you'd make

Speaker:

for a brand that is stuck

Speaker:

at 200k per month and is

Speaker:

trying to get to 1 million

Speaker:

per month offer or preset

Speaker:

page one change for a brand

Speaker:

at 1 million per month

Speaker:

trying to keep scaling

Speaker:

profitably.

Speaker:

CRO program and the biggest.

Speaker:

I can't believe people

Speaker:

still do this.

Speaker:

CRO mistake.

Speaker:

Ask chatgpt for ideas.

Speaker:

What about Shopify's new

Speaker:

copilot thing?

Speaker:

I would say the Shopify one is

Speaker:

a bit better just because it's

Speaker:

based on your specific data.

Speaker:

But then the way that I think

Speaker:

about if a corporate like

Speaker:

company pushes a feature

Speaker:

that has to apply to a huge

Speaker:

total addressable market and

Speaker:

be super generic, meaning

Speaker:

you as like a direct to

Speaker:

consumer brand that's doing

Speaker:

seven to nine figures are

Speaker:

not going to have a lot of

Speaker:

value from a feature that

Speaker:

has to apply to you.

Speaker:

Yeah, a huge ton.

Speaker:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker:

Carl, it was awesome.

Speaker:

Thank you very much

Speaker:

for hopping on.

Speaker:

Where can people

Speaker:

learn more about you?

Speaker:

I would say the best Source

Speaker:

is my YouTube channel.

Speaker:

I mean you've seen some videos

Speaker:

yourself so that's why I just

Speaker:

jump super deep into

Speaker:

everything funnels offer,

Speaker:

copywriting, CRO and also

Speaker:

share a lot of case studies

Speaker:

really openly.

Speaker:

Awesome.

Speaker:

That sounds great.

Speaker:

Thank you for sure.

Speaker:

Thanks so much.

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About the Podcast

Ecom Growth Insider
Real behind-the-scenes strategies from the trenches of scaling DTC brands. With founders, marketers, and growth experts.
If you're a DTC brand founder, CMO, growth marketer, or operator trying to scale your e-commerce business profitably, this podcast is for you.

Hosted by Andrej Tumachowitsch — founder of the growth agency HoloGrowth — this show goes deep on what actually works to grow online brands in today’s ultra-competitive landscape.

We go way beyond generic advice.

Every episode gives you practical, battle-tested insights directly from 7-, 8-, and 9-figure brand founders, top-tier marketers, and agency operators actively working in the trenches.

You’ll learn:
- What separates breakout ecom brands from the ones that plateau
- Paid media strategies that scale on Meta, Google & beyond
- How to use UGC, email, landing pages, and CRO to increase LTV & AOV
- Creative testing frameworks & campaign breakdowns that actually perform
- Smart ways to grow without sacrificing profit margins
- Founder mindsets, systems, and hiring practices that lead to longevity
- And the biggest mistakes brands are making right now (and how to avoid them)

Expect a mix of founder interviews, expert roundtables, solo lessons, and deep dives into what’s working right now in paid acquisition, conversion, and retention.

No fluff. No recycled advice. Just proven strategies to grow your ecommerce brand.

If you're tired of surface-level podcasts and want unfiltered access to the tactics and lessons real brands are using to scale — hit subscribe and join us inside the Ecom Growth Insider.

About your host

Profile picture for Andrej Tumachowitsch

Andrej Tumachowitsch

I'm the founder of HoloGrowth, a performance-driven growth agency helping e-commerce brands scale profitably to 7- and 8-figures through paid ads.

With years of experience in the trenches of DTC growth, I have worked with over 30 brands worldwide – building, optimizing, and scaling their marketing systems.

As the host of the Ecom Growth Insider podcast, I dive deep with top founders, marketers, and growth experts to unpack what’s really working behind the scenes in the DTC space.

My mission? To bring raw, actionable insights that help brand owners scale smarter.