Editor’s Note: This transcript was created using AI transcription and formatting tools. While we’ve reviewed it for accuracy, some errors may remain. If anything seems unclear, we recommend referring back to the episode above.
Episode Trailer
Because I can relate to that review from a woman that saying you know what I needed this so desperately for my kids Christmas play that they were doing at school and I needed a set of wings or a Halo or whatever it was I was so pleased that this company delivered on time it literally saved my bacon I can really relate to that it’s like oh my God I feel your pain do you know what I mean I’ve been there there was you know a block might go yes she got out on time lasing pleas to me you know my focus primarily when I started out was usability and that kind of stemmed from watching my first user session recording that was been done on a website that I was merily building and designing and thinking it was awesome and then watching this session back and literally banging my head on the desk is like why why don’t they understand what I’ve designed or built or how are they stupid or is it me that’s the problem and as time went on I realized it was me that was the problem.
If you got yourself into a position where you’re standing on stage because somebody’s ask you to present or whatever then just take it by the horns and go for it I mean what’s the worst thing that can happen you can get a slow clap at the end people aren’t that rude you know what I mean they’ll always go yeah that was that was great you know I tried to post on LinkedIn you know once a day something useful it was exhausting I was just like I can’t I haven’t got enough time to do family stuff and work stuff and promote myself on socials I just don’t have the time for it just sitting watch some us the session recordings for three hours of a day right when you when you’re thinking oh I’ve run out of test ideas go and look at some reviews go and look at that survey that’s got 10,000 responses in it that you’ve not bothered looking at for decades you know just go and look it because the ideas will be there.
I think women also have a responsibility to stand up more and speak up more and say you know what that’s not good enough it’s not good enough for me and as part of Gen X I think I am that’s not something that we do so it’s been quite interesting for me to see younger Generations come in and actually go nah we ain’t having that it’s not good enough and I think yeah go girls just do it.
About VWO
Welcome to another episode of the women in CRO series by VWO podcast this series is an ode to the contribution of women in the CRO industry before we speak to our special guest for this episode here’s a quick summary of who we are and what we do VWO is a leading experience optimization platform that helps fast growing brands optimize their digital experiences using our latest product VWO insights you can understand user journeys and identify conversion roadblocks on your website and mobile apps so without any further delay let’s jump right into the conversation.
Guest Introduction
Hello to all our lovely listeners and the viewers for our podcast on today’s episode of women in CRO we have a very special guest Abi Hough a season professional in the conversion rate optimization space she is currently the director at UU3 limited with a rich background in implementing and strategizing conversion rate optimization processes Abi brings a wealth of knowledge in areas such as variate and AB testing user research website heuristic analysis and understanding consumer behavior and psychology her proficiency extends to UI/UX methodology encompassing uh prototyping design and testing as well as ensuring cross device and browser functionality with a Keen Eye for quality assurance and a commitment to accessibility Abi is poised to offer valuable insights into the intricate world of optimizing digital experiences.
Interview Content
Personal Introduction & Core Philosophy
Shilpa: Hi Abi welcome to women in CRO podcast how are you doing?
Abi: I’m doing very well good blimy that was an introduction and a half wasn’t it sounds like an awful lot when you uh listen to it you know spoken back to you but yeah that was a really good summary thanks for that.
Shilpa: Thank you um firstly I wanted to thank you for accepting the invite and uh you know taking out your valuable time to speak to us um I would I’m I’m really excited about talking to you uh getting to know you and about your journey you know there’s so much to learn from so really looking forward to this conversation and one of my best uh like something that I love most about these podcast and these conversations is how much you get to learn about different people their perspective about life right um I want to understand from you right um are there any specific philosophies um that you’d like to share with us that have shaped up your life?
Abi: A long life I’m really old now so there’s a lot of experience to go from I think um I think my approach to this kind of work has always been slightly different to most CRO so you know my focus primarily when I started out was usability and that kind of stemmed from watching my first user session recording that was being done on a website that I was merily building and designing and thinking it was awesome and then watching this session back and literally banging my head on the desk is like why why don’t they understand what I’ve designed or built how are they stupid or is it me that’s the problem and as time went on I realized it was me that was the problem.
So um it kind of stemmed from there and then also getting into the accessibility space as well so understanding why people with certain disabilities um have problems using websites and how we can overcome that and this is kind of all snowball to my approach to where we are today so my approach is very much a lot less I hate to say it but you know the cheesy aspects of CRO that you see like you know putting timers up to hurry people through checkouts and all of this kind of tricks which I despise immensely and more around what the customer or what the user actually needs for the website to use it or to be encouraged to buy from it so very different approach I think.
And it’s an area that a lot of CRO kind of skip well not skip but they give it a casual glance yes we must do that use the research side of it or is the website accessible got no idea um so kind of looking at those areas and actually for me creating a niche uh around that has proven to be far more more successful in terms of you know I don’t want to do vanity metrics or anything like that but winning AB tests and how much revenue additionally that can bring in so I kind of like where I’m sitting I like being a bit of an outsider in this big universe of optimization and you know perhaps what a lot of people see on LinkedIn of what they think is the right way to go towards optimization actually I don’t agree with that and I’m quite happy to stand on my soak box and push that point forward really.
Maybe I shouldn’t maybe it’s my USP maybe I should just keep my mouth shut I don’t know that’s kind of how I got started in it really so going from a developer fresh out of University thinking they knew everything really knew nothing at all um and then sort of diverging into this usability and accessibility side and more of the user research side of it which then kind of you know led to heading up um the optimization optimization efforts for various agencies and then Consulting for loads of different clients.
It’s uh it’s quite interesting because I’m just preparing a talk for conversion boost in yeah not very long at all so I really need to get it finished and um part of that talk is kind of like what we’re talking about now sort of like where I came from for people to understand that you’re not just dealing with numbers at the end of the day we’re humans and my big fear is that we’re moving too far away from that um which won’t be terribly successful for people who are trying to optimize in this this age that we now live in I think so yeah that’s kind of my background.
Industry Evolution & Changes
Shilpa: Great great um there are few things that you spoke about that I’d like to come back to um later in the conversation as well um I I also while you were talking about your journey right uh um I wanted to understand I mean you’ve seen so many different phases of this industry as well right um right from when you started um are there anything in specific that you’d like to talk about um the changes that have happened um in the Years um in the last few years um that have been very significant or maybe something that you predicted um could happen and also did and maybe you thought um that it would happen and it did not?
Abi: Yeah and I guess the first thing that pops into my mind is going back to 2000 yeah 2000 when I was fresh out of University front end developers were a bit of a you know a unicorn not many people were doing that back in 2000 the internet was just a baby still right and websites look terrible so front end developers you know you could go out and get a job and ask whatever you wanted for a salary because the demand was there more and more people learned the front end skills right so the market was saturated and then tools came in like Wix or WordPress or whatever you know one you can think of meant anybody could build a website.
And I think optimization is kind of following that same path and the difficulty is that whilst you know you can have these tools to make life easy for yourself you still have to have a skill set there so this is probably a question you be going to ask me again a bit later on in this as what I see for the future but just because we have the tools it doesn’t mean we’re qualified to use them so my big fear is that you know what was once uh a specialized area that you were looking at all of a sudden everybody’s going to do it and I fear that the quality will diminish um just because that’s the nature of the game right once everybody’s involved with it.
And I’m not saying that everybody shouldn’t be involved with it I just think there needs to be some clarity and education for those people who are not that familiar with it perhaps somebody’s been said in a company oh well we need to do optimization and they’re sat there thinking I don’t know what what does this even mean so I think that also feeds back to the experimentation culture thing which I know is being driven a lot now so I think there is a fear that a lot of people will be doing it very badly and the risk of that is is they’re going to make poorly informed decisions about you know how a website runs and what needs to be done etc etc.
So I would really hope that the education piece can come in and a bigger understanding all around about what it is you’re actually doing and the potential good impact of that and the potential whoopsy moments that nobody ever wants but everybody will have at some point in their career I’ve I’ve had a few myself so you know I think that would be my big big fear that we head down that route.
And then the other fear that I would have is the overreliance on AI for especially the area that I look at so the human side of it if you want um I don’t think we’re there with AI yet to anywhere near emulate a human perspective on it it’s it’s great if you have a massive data set that you need izing but at the end of the day you still need to get in there down and dirty with for example reviews or survey responses stuff like that so I really hope that we don’t lose the humanity of what we’re trying to do which I think is quite possible if we’re not careful.
AI and Human-Centered Optimization
Shilpa: Okay that’s that’s a pretty interesting insight because um I know that I’ve been talking like of course through the medium of this podcast I’ve been talking to so many other guests as well right and when we talk about AI in general um a lot of the people and in fact um I to have the same opinion that I don’t think AI is ever going to replace the human aspect of things because of course um at the end of the day AI is what something that we humans created right um and when we talk about user testing AB testing um these are for people like for the customers right and these customers are again humans um AI as much as we uh teach like um you know make it learn things it would not I don’t think it would reach a stage wherein the human aspect of things um would just would move away in any industry for that matter I feel it’s going to be um a good addition to our own skill set but it may just not replace um us at all.
Abi: That’s no no it absolutely won’t and you know when AI sort of kicked off well let’s let’s give it the some credit maybe a year ago when chat GPT came out and all of that yeah I was I jumped on that bandwagon it’s like oh yeah an easy way to do you know analyze 3,000 survey responses I’m all over it like a rash but being the person that I am I used it and and at the same time I analyze the results by myself by hand looking through each one categorizing it all of the hard work that nobody really likes to do.
And the differences in what I found compared to what the AI had decided were the main themes and everything were you know black and white differences it’s it was astounding and I was like okay so we’re not there with that yet despite my very best efforts to do decent fronts and all of that but you know AI is an ai ai doesn’t have a bad mood or can’t understand a bad mood or a day where you’re just feeling off or you’re super frustrated it doesn’t have empathy like a human does so and we are a long way away from that and I hope you stay a long long way away from that because you know nobody wants to go down the Terminator territory do they you know.
It’s um I I treat it with a a good degree of caution when it comes to that side of optimization you know numbers are not my thing and there may be many data people out there who are saying oh my God it’s amazing to do all this sort of data stuff and yeah you go you go have at it you know that’s fine but for where I work sort of area it’s it’s not for me yet and I’m not terribly worried about losing work because of AI at the moment I’ll put it that way so I might be eating my words in six month’s time I don’t know but for now I’ll just be happy doing my own analysis thanks very much.
Conference Speaking & Public Presentations
Shilpa: Fine um and abi um you have been a part of so many conferences right you’re an international speaker you attend so many events um like is there something in specific that you look forward to when you’re attending these events and is there a process that you follow for your preparation?
Abi: Yes so if you look at my speaking list I don’t do it very often and the reason for that is I absolutely despise standing up on a stage and talking it is so far out of my comfort zone I really just it takes a lot for me to say yes to do a presentation um I get really nervous about doing it and it’s just my idea of a nightmare so I don’t want to put anybody off that’s going to conversion boost but I’m just going to say if I’m a bit nervous that’s why because public speaking has never been my forte.
So first of all it has to be a conference that I really want to attend for a start so there has to be a good lineup there has to be you know the opportunity of good networking yeah know I’m thinking about me primarily it’s like yeah well what’s in it for me um and the second thing about it is sometimes you just have to step off out of your circle right you have to put you have to learn new skills and face up to your fears and one of the things that I have learned with aging is that actually now I don’t care so much about what people think and that sounds really quite harsh.
So you know I’m and I will talk about a topic that I think is useful for people so you know every presentation that I’ve ever done has come from a personal experience or or something that’s really aggravating me right now within the world of optimization so for example this conversion boost one is all about um customer lifetime value but it’s not really about customer lifetime value it’s actually about what we’ve just talked about is like why we’re losing our humanity with the work that we do.
And if you have a topic that you’re you know very passionate about which I am on this particular subject then it’s much easier to talk about it even if you scared to go and do it you know it’s um that’s one of the things to think about and the other trick if you want that I have learned um is to is to basically tell a story you have to tell a story because a story is so much easier to remember than standing on a stage and rattling through you know a load of stuff that you might have done that possibly made a difference I don’t know you know is it’s far easier for me.
And again you know if you tell a story that’s personal to yourself people are more likely to remember it I think um every talk that I have ever remembered you know and the ones that I still remember now they either have a really good dose of humor because that’s another thing to remember I think you have to be at least you know take the mick out of yourself because nobody’s perfect I think it gives people more more of a reason to relate to you they can sit back and think oh well if they made that mistake then you know that’s fine we’re all doing okay you know.
Um so those those are the two things and I I think my advice to anybody that is thinking about presenting and you know feels like me very much like oh no I just can’t do what will people think of me is just give it a go and not worry about what people think if you’ve got yourself into a position where you’re standing on stage because somebody’s ask you to present or whatever then just take it by the horns and go for it I mean what’s the worst thing that can happen you can get a slow clap at the end people aren’t that rude you know what I mean they’ll always go yeah yeah that was that was great you know.
And I wouldn’t place too much Merit on you know because they they’ll do keynote scoring and stuff like that and I never look at them I never look at them I don’t want to know really because I would depress myself if I got a load of really bad scores I wouldn’t do it again and that’s not growth as far as I’m concerned.
So anybody out there thinking about it pop tips find something you’re really passionate about talking turn it into a personal story so you can remember what you’re saying when you’re up there on the stage for a start and you’re guaranteed that people will relate to it so yeah and find something a bit different don’t do what everybody else is talking about yeah that would be my top tip nobody wants to listen to somebody standing on a stage who’s just saying oh well I run this test and I made this much revenue and aren’t I amazing nobody nobody cares yeah because everybody knows you’re just cherry picking the best thing so put some rawness into it man everybody wants to hear a failure story you know it’s the it’s the way of the world sadly but that’s that’s my top tips for people just go for it and if people don’t like it they don’t like it at the end of the day you got an experience from going up there you learned something yeah there you are.
In fact you can see my process on my window if this was being recorded on video I have Post-it notes and I literally just splatter that until I get some kind of storyline that comes out of it hopefully within the time that I’ve been given to speak and if you overrun you overrun nobody gets coffee it’s fine just chill out about it really that’s that’s what I would say.
Authenticity & Personal Branding
Shilpa: Yeah great advice I feel um a lot of people who are hesitant um that’s a great advice for them specifically when we and I feel not just for speaking right um the advice that you mentioned um you don’t care about what people think I feel like we really need to St like take a chill pill here and not take us so seriously because um a lot of the people are not they’re not just thinking about us at all they’re think they’re concerned about themselves so you just do what you feel is right and yeah maybe it works out and if it doesn’t it’s a good yeah and exactly so that’s a great way to you do you I love that phrase just you do you and if people don’t like it then that’s their beef you know it it doesn’t really impact you.
Abi: And you know you talk about the longevity of my career and networking and stuff like that I have always presented myself as me right I I’ve never tried to put on a facade about who I am or you know how wonderful I am or anything like this and I really think think people genuinely appreciate a bit of authenticity these days because there isn’t enough of it everybody can see through the facad so you just have to look at LinkedIn for 10 minutes and you’re sort of exhausted from it do you know what I mean.
But um yeah just I think absolutely top life tip just be more authentic and the people that resonate with you that’s your crowd you know what I mean it’s who are you trying to impress why are we all so desperate to get the Limelight and impress people with x y and Zed and it’s a lot of pressure on you as a person for a start I mean I went through a stage where I was posting on I tried to post on LinkedIn you know once a day something useful it was exhausting I was just like I can’t I haven’t got enough time to do family stuff and work stuff and promote myself on socials I just don’t have the time for it.
So that’s why my LinkedIn feed is quite quiet because you know I’m kind of out there doing the work I’m not talking about it I’m doing the doing not posting about my wonderfulness.
Development Background & CRO Connection
Shilpa: So um you mentioned about um your initial career path right which was the developer side of things now um do you see uh I mean of course there’s def there there’s an aspect of it that really helps you in CRO as well but um like would you like to highlight talk about um how that’s really helped you and the other side of it is that um while you were a developer you’re also a consumer right um so mixing them together and how other people can benefit um maybe some advice around that?
Abi: Oh yeah so developing I’m very glad I stopped doing it maybe that’s why I’m doing more optimization these days because development for me even when I was at University we were learning to code in Java yes I like proper coding not front end coding you want um I realized I didn’t really have the head for coding it wasn’t my thing um especially backend stuff the front end it was brilliant because I could change something in the code and immediately see an effect it’s like that works really well for me it’s it’s good.
But having some knowledge of how backend code works and front end code works and databases and all of that stuff it played really well to me because not only had I lived it when I was in the position then when I was having to propose tests and QA tests and you know do all the quality assurance thing it was quite easy to go back to said developers and say well that’s not right is it you know um I think you’re telling me Porky pies in terms of how long this is going to take to build and all of that kind of thing so it was good to have some ammunition to push back when I needed to.
Equally when working with clients and you know a client would come up with a um an interesting idea for I’ll put it that way it was quite useful to be able to go back and say well actually technically I don’t think we’re you know the return on investment for doing that is is not worthwhile perhaps we need rethink it so to have that kind of background knowledge in terms of prioritizing work or saying if something was possible or you know figure it out if somebody was uh just couldn’t be bothered to code something it was quite helpful I suppose.
Yeah I wouldn’t say I use my coding so much these days yes I could probably put together an AB test if I wanted to but that moves coding standards and languages move so fast you know it was bad enough back when I was 20 I would shudder to think what it’s like now from a personal point of view I just don’t think I can be bothered but yes very useful if you’re working with optimization to at least have some basic well probably a little bit more than basic knowledge around the coding just so you can navigate the strategy and planning and general office culture walls that go on when you running an optimization program.
So definitely useful for that and also if you’re in a position where you’re having to QA the test because everybody’s had to QA QA a test at some point if you can you know very specifically tell the developer well actually I think that bit’s not quite right you know it saves time so very useful but yeah.
User Testing Misconceptions & Client Education
Shilpa: And talking about your cents right um people bringing in new ideas um I would love it if you could just talk more about um the the misconceptions um that we have around user testing and a testing and how do you like do you still encounter people um your clients coming up to you and saying maybe maybe user testing isn’t that important or um something else that you’d like to share with us?
Abi: Um yes so that’s that’s always going to be a battle right as far as I’m concerned user testing will always be put on a back burner because it’s seen as a waste of time right there are bigger shinier brighter things that a lot of clients will want to pursue because they’ve seen it here there everywhere all their competitors are doing it all rubbish ideas to run a test.
So the way that I try to mitigate it is that every test has to have a reason to be run and those reasons you know they’re quite varied and they all might be quite valid but each of them has to have data points that triangulate towards why the test or the reason why that test needs to be run and in in my case you know because I’ve got the user focus a lot of my ideas come from the user research side of it and whether that’s you know on-site surveys trolling through reviews or yeah anything that you might find from the user side of it heat maps session recordings anything like that if there are data points and sufficient of them to pinpoint a problem.
I’m probably a little backwards when it comes to that because I will find that and then I will look at analytics to kind of like go definitely definitely there’s a problem but there are some tests that I have run which have been solely based off the user research and there has been no GA data to back it up and surprisingly they’ve done remarkably well.
So I’m fairly confident in my skill set to be able to run a program like that but you know if I’ve got clients on board who are not that experienced within it I try to get them to understand that there has to be a reason and that reason has to be backed up by multiple data points if you like so we’ve seen it here there everywhere as far as we can just to trying to get them to understand running an AB test just because it’s really quite an expensive exercise so probably best not to do that.
And you will always get clients where you have to have a bit of give and take so maybe you will throw them an idea that they’ve come up with and you know sometimes it will work and you’re like oh well that’s that’s a great step for me because I didn’t think of it from the client’s point of view which is great so I’ve learned something we’ve all learned something everybody’s happy.
But sometimes the tests are they fail and you can sit back and you can say to yourself I know this is going to fail this is a terrible idea but that’s the learning point for the client because you know invariably they won’t have done the research like we would have have or they’ve come of it come at it from a different kind of point of view or somebody’s just going oh let’s try that shall we that would be fun and so that’s the learning point for them because sadly you know they’ve wasted one of their AB test allowances if it’s being run like that and we’ve learned nothing.
So it’s kind of like this feedback loop and it really is about getting to know the people that you’re dealing with and understanding what buttons to push to get what you want um where you realize the hazards zone is as in nope we’re not going there gonna happen and really kind of from a business point of view and again from their personal point of view what what are their priorities what are their biggest fears at night you know what are their ultimate goals and if we don’t understand any of that so we don’t understand the business and we don’t understand the people we’re dealing with it’s all going to be a wasted effort anyway.
So it’s it’s kind of just having building that atmosphere up of understanding each other again it goes back to the human side of it right so without building those relationships we’re all going to be scuffed and to be able to have a healthy debate about something so you know again being authentic I I don’t have a different face from this podcast to dealing with a client you know I always make it one of when I on board a client is one of the things I that I say I said you know this is me this is what you’re going to get if you’re not going to be happy with this then maybe the relationship needs to be discussed a bit further but you know I’m not going to give you platitudes if that’s what you’re asking for because I’m just not that sort of person sadly.
So I think going into any relationship from that open point of view just literally serving it up on a plate is like this is what you’re getting it’s worked quite well for me and people seem to appreciate that I think so a no BS approach to optimization.
Session Recording Analysis & Test Insights
Shilpa: Yeah I mean it’s important to be very transparent and upfront with uh people um irrespective of who they are right I think it just helps both the parties as well um you spoke about your different kinds of tests um test that me that you may have brought to the client or the client may have brought to you um can you like can you talk about any of the specific um test that you ran maybe recently or maybe you o um you oversaw any project wherein you had a um learning and discovered a completely new insight?
Abi: I think I I can only say sometimes if you don’t spot the obvious you’re missing a gold mine is the easiest way that I can put it and it does it really just sit and watch some user session recordings for three hours of a day right when you when you’re thinking oh I’ve run out of test ideas go and look at some session recordings right go and look at some reviews go and look at that survey that’s got 10,000 responses in it that you’ve not bothered looking at for decades you know it’s just go and look it because the ideas will be there.
And you know a lot of the tests that I’ve run it’s been that you know you’re watching something and you go oh that’s a bit odd why are they doing that and then when you start digging into it you realize that little bit odd for that one user is a little bit odd for hundreds of users you know and all of a sudden from this one little piece you suddenly got a trail of information that’s going oh well actually that’s a problem and then that’s a problem and then this is a problem and overall it’s a massive problem because everybody’s dropping out of my funnel and not buying anything you know.
It’s don’t look over the little things anything that makes you go what it’s probably the very seedling of a great test idea that’s going to bring you in money so I guess what I’m saying is it doesn’t really need to be massively complicated right you don’t need to overthink a lot of the stuff you know and just just take the time out to find the ideas from the information that you already have and do that while we have the opportunity to have that information because you know data privacy and all of this sort of thing all of a sudden all the toys that everybody’s used to they’re going to go poof right.
And the only way we’re going to be able to find the information that we want is you know asking people to provide it to us and one way to do that perhaps would be you know getting users to create accounts and having those return customers where you have that information already about them so that’s another thing why customer attention I think will be be playing a very large part in uh where we’re going with optimization soon especially with cost of acquisition and all of this kind of stuff it’s it’s utter Madness when you look into the numbers about how much we spend to get a client yet the ones that we’ve got sat there that we do nothing with is utter lunacy I don’t understand why people aren’t doing more about it.
But you know hey it’s not my money you you just frit it away as you like but yeah so that’s what I would say don’t don’t miss the what moments or the that’s interesting moments because sometimes they can reveal a lot more than you think so just go down the rabbit holes yeah there you go.
Session Recording Analysis Tips
Shilpa: And you spoke about session the ging I is a great Point again um is there something specific uh that like can you share a tip with the listeners um when they’re looking at session recordings because I feel like um a lot of the times people are hesitant in going ahead and um diving further into session recordings because there could be like the session recordings are endless in nature right um somebody may have to spend a lot of their time and maybe um a company who is who does not have enough resources who’s still trying to do their best in CRO or at least um putting their hands into it um how can they get started with session recordings I feel like that analysis um is something a lot of people don’t really understand?
Abi: So if it was me for example with a a smallish client because I do work with small and medium clients probably more than larger ones these days which is perfect for me because got less red tape um if it was me starting out then I would be starting session recordings for the customer’s entire Journey for a start right and I would be gathering a good amount of those to get an overview of what is going on um this is all you know I would do this after I have done my own initial audit on the website.
So this is another thing that people whoohoo these days is getting somebody to run an audit on the website but the fact of the matter is a lot of my client come on board because I’ve done an audit on their website and it’s having a fresh set of eyes on that website to say well I can see why you might have a problem so if you can get that audit done on the website to start and it goes from the beginning so even from the search right any kind of advertising you’re doing all the way through to actually making that purchase and you list everything that you find that could a be a might be a problem or B is like oh that was a really big problem you need to sort it out for whatever reason it might be usability or just stupidity one of those things or many other things.
And then once that audit is done and you’ve got the results in from it that’s how you then sort of look at the session recording side of it because then it’s not just one person’s opinion so the one person that ran that audit you’ve then got the data points to say oh actually yeah we had like 50 users had the same problem so it’s obviously a problem it’s not just somebody going well I know what I’m doing and I’m telling you that’s a problem is it’s a problem for the users.
So you can then start homing down on the really problematic areas so you might have this overall recording of the entire journey and then you can sort of like specify to where you think you know that particular area is a problem and you are then able to back up what you’re saying which gives you the basis to say well we need to change x y and Zed and you might not AB test it right you might just make an improvement that you can monitor over time not everything needs to be an AB test that’s another thing a lot of people forget it doesn’t need to be um especially for really really stupid stuff where you’re just like wow I don’t know why we did it like that in the first place but you’re right it probably needs to change you know.
If there is obviously a major stumbling point on a user Journey then just just fix it to what you think is the next best thing to make that immediate Improvement and then worry about AB testing to refine it that’s maybe another controversial view I don’t know this way I do it so very different view for sure.
Networking & Relationship Building
Shilpa: You were talking about um your LinkedIn posts right and um the fact that you don’t invest a lot of the time just constantly writing a lot of posts however we have seen that um you know when it comes to supporting your peers um you’re definitely there to um support their work be it um Lucia’s Community about women’s experimentation or anybody else for that matter right um how important do you think networking is and for the newcomers is there an advice that you’d like to share?
Abi: Yeah speak to people in real life you can yes um I know that’s increasingly difficult in this very remote world that we’re living in now but yeah even a video call like uh like we’re doing now but nobody’s going to see our faces is a great way to connect with people right um there’s only so much that you can interpret from the written word and it’s it’s not the same as being in front of a person and been able to watch their expressions and seeing how how they’re responding or if you’ve got anything you can both connect on and stuff like that.
So most of my networking from what I’ve done is being through meeting people face to face or acquaintances that I’ve met from working with another client or within an agency and just having conversations with people it sounds really old hat right like going back to the good old sales day when you were a sales rep and you were going around the country and meeting people and having business lunches and staying in awful hotels and stuff like that but to a degree I think that’s perhaps where we’re missing out a little bit right.
So that’s why conferences where there are big chunks of networking time are really quite important I think but the secret to that is is you just have to walk up to people and go hi they might look at you and go right weirdo I don’t know who you are but we’ll give it a go and see what happens you know um but again it’s it’s being that person that there there’s no you know smoke and mirror is there you are just that person and you will find your own tribe like I said you’ll find people that think the same way as you or think what you know you’re quite interesting and you might be quite useful and that’s fine that’s that’s great I don’t mind that at all.
Um I think it’s to have more confidence in yourself to build those relationships as well ER we are in a world currently where it’s you have to kind of almost sense to yourself 247 right because somebody’s going to be offended somewhere oh and it’s um it’s really hard to navigate that and you know I’ve got a 13y old boy I wouldn’t want to be him growing up now it is such a mindfield and I’m sure he must absolutely cringe whenever I say anything in front of his friends it’s just like oh God shut up.
Um but I think you just have to go and speak to people and you know some of the work that I have has come through Linkedin but again it’s being that sort of Genuine Voice and whats and all approach to it is you just being able to relate to people being able to show people that you’re struggling and perhaps they’ve got the same struggle as you and you know perhaps we could work together to try and figure out how to fix it you know or that kind of thing.
And conversations are great because you know what you can pick up from a conversation is way more in depth than what you can do on a a message or a WhatsApp or you know DM on LinkedIn whatever it might be so you know I would say I’m sh my age now it’s like just pick up the phone and talk to people but you know click on Zoom or whatever it is you might be using if you can’t make it to a physical event and just have a chat with people because people will remember you more if they’ve had a face-to-face conversation than if you sent them a message three months ago and you never heard anything back you know.
So yeah just just try it it’s it’s very difficult postco I think for a lot of people to try and get back into that way of thinking but only four years ago it was kind of the norm yes definitely and then suddenly it all changed and uh yeah just just I meet people yeah that’s what I would say and just build on those relationships as soon as you you know you’ve got a little bit of fire go in don’t let it go out just keep in touch regular touch points just even if it’s simple message like oi how you doing definitely so just treat it like that I think so and don’t stress about it too much.
Gender Inclusivity & Women’s Empowerment
Shilpa: Great advice Abi how in your experience can can can businesses Foster inclusivity for women in in in the CRO industry or in any industry for that matter?
Abi: I think that’s actually a two-point thing right I think think yes there definitely needs to be more accommodations for Women Within the industry right um when I was young and just driven by my career it was all hunky dory right I had no concerns whatsoever just carried on a trooper do silly hours it was all fine um but then as a woman your my career certainly my journey it changed so I got pregnant I had a little boy all of a sudden School stuff gets in the way and you know and you’re married and you got all these other sorts of things going on.
And my solution around that was that well fine if I can’t find a permanent role that fits within what I need to do on a daily basis of which the list was massive I will consult therefore I am dictating my own terms and conditions as to when I work and what I do and you know that was kind of a drastic move back then I think things have moved on a little bit for women in terms of accommodating how they need to be able to work you know the school run bloody hell I hate the school run it’s you know every day 8 o00 out the door back at home at 8:30 back out the door at 3 o’cl back home at 3:30 you know it’s it’s one of these things that I can’t get out of it is part of my day is part of my job as a mom.
So you know I wouldn’t even consider working for a company that can’t accommodate my requirements is my role that is not requiring yeah I don’t get paid for being a mom but I have to do it um so I think you know it is getting better but then as I go on through my life and sorry if this is TMI for any fellas that are listening you know the menopause kicks in and then all of a sudden it’s like I can’t remember what I was doing three minutes ago and why am I feeling like I’m about to spontaneously comest and what on Earth is going on with my life I hate myself it’s all awful so all of a sudden you have this other curve as a woman to deal with around that.
And I know in the UK they they’ve recently introduced some guidelines about how to help women go through the menopause of the workplace which is great and it’s utterly useless you know it’s just like oh provide fans F’s not going to help me is it no I’m literally dying here stop it so there is a massively long way to go but despite you know the company’s responsibility around it um I think women also have a responsibility to stand up more and speak up more and say you know what that’s not good enough it’s not good enough for me.
And as part of Gen X I think I am that’s not something that we do so it’s been quite interesting for me to see younger Generations come in and actually go nah we ain’t having that it’s not good enough and I think yeah go girls just do it because at my age it’s just like oh well yeah okay yes we’ll just carry on regardless even though we’re falling a part of the scams it’s uh so I’m really glad to see that you know women are taking that megaphone and going it’s it’s not right you know.
And why should we for example be paid less than our peers for doing the same job yeah it’s utterly ridiculous and I really hope that there is a shift in WS because women can offer such a different perspective because our life is from such a different perspective in so many different ways than it is from a man right and it’s probably why I enjoy the user side of it more than the data and numbers because I can relate to that review from a woman that say do you know what I needed this so desperately for my kids’s fifth Christmas play that they were doing in school and I needed a set of wings or a Halo or whatever it was I was absolutely desperate I was so pleased that this company delivered on time it literally saved my bacon.
I can really relate to that it’s like oh my God I feel your pain do you know what I mean I’ve been there so you know and all of immediately that turns into messaging for the website right it’s like you can if your segments are nearly all females and why not play off that whereas you know a bloke might go yes they should go out on time and la in means nothing to me.
So I think women have so much to offer and yes we might have different skill sets but that doesn’t mean they’re any the less valuable you know it’s um it’s all about that sort of like omnipresent understanding of who you’re dealing with right and men can’t do it on their own and women can’t do it on their own it has to be this joined up thinking which is something that we’ve also talked about in optimization for many many many years and I’m still not sure we’re entirely there yet if I’m being honest but more of that you know it’s just having equal respect for different viewpoints on stuff different perspectives on it and trying to understand each other much better.
So I think you know as long as women feel that no I’m not going to say feel I think as long as women understand that their Viewpoint is as important and they have every right to stand up and say what they think and not be intimidated by the situations that that they are in because a lot of what I hear back is that women are like oh we don’t don’t feel like we should say that or you know maybe it’s not our position to comment on that it absolutely is right and don’t worry about you know being tarred with that oh that gobby woman or she doesn’t know what she’s saying you say it you say it loud and just don’t care.
Just be the woman that you know gets through all of life and all of its difficulties that it presents to women as a population just be the one that stands up and says no I’ve got a voice and I’m going to be heard and it’s just as valid as all of you and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that and yeah I don’t care.
Shilpa: Yes definitely I really hope it goes I just want to emphasize this a lot because a lot of younger women you know I feel that they don’t they haven’t the confidence to have that approach to it and I think my my view to them would be is you don’t know until you try right so just spread your wings a bit and find your voice and be the person that knows the answer right it’s it’s super beneficial and if if you’re an environment where that’s not going down well it’s the wrong environment for you so find the place where you feel valued right nobody needs to suffer in silence is what I’m saying.
Abi: Yeah I think a lot of people really needed to hear this um I hope so I really hope so.
CRO Industry Future Predictions
Shilpa: Yeah then we talk about the CRO industry right do you have certain predictions for the next few years um and of course there’s AI we’ve spoken about it we’ve spoken about it um anything else that you probably think is going to be the next big thing in CRO?
Abi: Yeah I think customer retention will actually be the next big thing I think holding on to what you’ve got is fast going to be the thing that people suddenly realize is where they need to be putting their focus on um creating something more than an e-commerce experience would be lovely you know if we can get back to a point where you know think about yeah I go back to my childhood you went to a shop and everybody knew your name and they kind of knew what you were going to get and it but it wasn’t in a Cheesy way and on e-commerce at the moment sort of like it feels a bit cheesy there’s no it’s not really a personal touch maybe I’m biased because I understand what’s going on you know maybe the normal population think oh isn’t that nice they’ve remembered that I needed x y and Zed how wonderful I’ll just click on that.
Um I would love if we could in some way kind of emulate emulate the days of where you went into a shop and everybody knows your name or whatever that song is I don’t know what it is but um it would be nice if it was like that and you know giving customers a reason to come back Beyond convenience would be nice creating customers who are doing the advertising for you so your brand Advocates yeah how do we reward them for doing all that good work that we’re now not spending on Google how can we do that but again not in the ways that I have seen you know up until this point where it’s like oh well yes become a brand Advocate and we’ll give you 10% off because that’s not what it’s all about about you know.
You don’t want them to become really bad salespeople for you you want them to genuinely believe in what you are selling and how you’re delivering it and how it’s helped them and for them to go out and spread the good word right it’s it’s that’s what I would absolutely love for optimization to be focusing on as we head into the next couple of years.
Um what I don’t want it to be is strictly controlled about the computer says no or yes um I think it’s too black and white and I think the lines can be getting too blurry too quickly I don’t think we quite know what we’re dealing with if we relate it back to Ai and completely letting the computer decide all of it maybe I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist I don’t know maybe it’s just moving too fast for me but I don’t think that would be a good way to go not in terms of where you really want the value for money yes it has its place but it that place isn’t all over the website and controlling everything.
So that would be my hopes and aspirations for the future of cro again you know more people coming into the industry with a slightly different viewpoint on it would be amazing so more of what I concentrate on rather than the other side of it or numerical stuff um that’s what I would kind of hope and just for everybody to realize we just with all humans yes it would be nice it would be nice but I don’t think we’ll have a lot of choice with you know Gathering data and learning stuff about users is going to become more and more difficult um I think over the next couple of years.
So we’ve really got to shift our Focus to how we learn about them with them willingly allowing us to learn about them and I don’t not talking about stupid cookie banners that rent you from using a website unless you say yes to everything and signing your soul away to the devil um I’m not talking about that approach to it a genuine exchange of information um between uh e-commerce sites and their customers I think would be lovely.
Advice for CRO Newcomers
Shilpa: Yeah interesting um we were talking about newcomers in the industry right at the beginning of our conversation and um I mean I would love to hear more about um that thought because I feel I felt that was a very interesting point um any advice is for the newcomers and when you said that maybe um you know in the recent times everyone’s getting into um the CRO World um ma like would love to understand when we talk about a small smaller businesses right everybody may not have um CRO Specialists on board right and I of course know that there are agencies but um a lot of the companies they do depend on um different departments to at least get started with uh their CRO Journey it could be just the digital marketing team as well um who definit like a lot of companies do that right digital marketers do step into AB testing um any advices for them or any advice for anybody who’s um actually a newcomer um a fresher in the industry and um you know something that you’d like to share with them?
Abi: So if you’re in situation one where you’re working with a good company and somebody’s decided you’re the CRO person um learn as much as you can about all the various aspects of CRO so you have a really good grounding of what is going on and what you’re actually doing yeah um because you don’t want to be get getting caught out on a livee right so you need to absolutely understand the process from where you are and if you’re in that small company start with what you know in terms of your customers and build it out from there if you don’t want to get into the AB testing side of stuff you just want to make the improvements and start with your users.
And if anything get a CRO who knows you know is experienced in it just get the budget to get that first initial audit done right because then you’ve got a blueprint to work from by yourself right if you don’t know what you’re doing you’re going to learn a huge amount from that audit because a good auditor will tell you why it’s a problem how they came to that conclusion and what the fix should be right so you’re already learning from that person so the return on investment from you is going to be huge okay because you probably got a years worth of stuff to look at work for you.
Um if you’re in the industry where you’ve decided CRO is absolutely your thing it’s what you’re going to concentrate on you love it um again having a granding in everything is great but not one person can do all very well is my view I very quickly learned that like I said previously numbers are not my thing right I look at a spreadsheet and I literally want to die yeah it’s not it’s not my thing at all right analysis of results is not really my thing I can tell if something’s all right or if it’s great or if it’s not great but freely admitting what my weaknesses were was absolutely eye opening for me.
So instead of trying to invest my time in learning something I was just genetically not ever going to understand and letting it go and realizing there are people that can do that job better than I can in a shorter amount of time let them crack on right I know what I’m really good at and what I’m really interested in and that that is what keeps me in the industry I think if you try to stretch yourself in too many different directions you’re going to do everything but not to the best of your ability.
So finding the thing that floats your boat and specializing in it yeah is the way to go um that would absolutely be my advice and if you can find a facet of optimization that’s been neglected but is genuinely quite useful usability and accessibility I’ll just say it um do it right if if it interests you and you think you can make a genuine difference with it then do it.
Um I don’t I feel sorry for anybody who’s in the position where they have got to do it all um I don’t think think it actually makes great for an optimization program because it’s a singular point of view there’s one person who is having to decide everything and you become biased right you’re going to it’s just gonna happen so unless you have a team of people that can support you and you can all work together it’s going to be a real struggle I know I’ve been that person it is hard work hard work yeah.
So by all means use that as a Proving Ground if that’s what you have to do but quickly move to a situation where you’ve got other people around you that can you know help you help you with stuff that you want to get better at that you’re interested in but equally allow you the time to really focus on what you think you’d like to do long term um those are the bits of advice I would give to people yeah don’t be stuck doing something you hate nobody can do it because you won’t do your best work you won’t do your best work and then it’s all for nothing isn’t it.
So I would say yeah and I was just speaking to Lucia a few days ago and I think her advice was again the same um you know collaboration is definitely something that’s that’s important and that needs to be uh laid more focus upon um great Insight um.
TED Talk Topic
Shilpa: Abi U I know that you mentioned U when we talk about speaking or public speaking right that’s not really your phot or you may not like it as much but if you were given an opportunity for a tech talk what would your message be like the um the code Rel ter conversion optimization or life in general I think life in general we’ve spoken enough about conversion yeah um if I was to do a TED Talk oh that’s was interesting yeah how to survive home educating your child in a pandemic that would be one um if if I was to do another one it would be about how to be yourself in this world in 2024 how to be yourself and how to be comfortable with who you are and why trying to live up to expectations as a Fool’s errand really that’s that’s what I would say and not a lot of people would probably listen to it I’m sure but I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized how very important those things are um as we as we age and it’s a lesson that I I wish 20y old me had had because 20y old me was you know very different to 46 year old me um she’s been on a journey it’s fair to say so I wish I’d have had somebody sit me down 20 years ago and go do you know what ABS it’s all going to be fine just do you it’s um yeah I think that’s that’s what I would do a a talk about how what 20y old Abi needs to know right now.
Rapid Fire Round
Quick Questions & Answers
Shilpa: Um Abi I think I’ve had an interesting conversation a very fantastic conversation so much to learn from uh so many different point of views definitely that you brought to to the table um let’s switch GE a little we have a small little um rapid fire round for you would love it spontaneous there with your answers um I’ll just buckle up here um first question three apps that you can’t live without?
Abi: WhatsApp BBC News and seduko ah interesting.
Shilpa: If a movie was made about your life what would the title be?
Abi: How not to do it okay.
Shilpa: Um one thing that you’d like to change about the CRO industry?
Abi: Data okay.
Shilpa: Um what’s the most random fact you know by heart?
Abi: Find oh you put me on the spot now um random fact I know by heart I don’t know any random facts that’s not really difficult.
Shilpa: That’s that’s not a problem one of the answers that I got to this question question was 42 is the answer for everything and I was like what?
Abi: Oh hitch guy to the Galaxy yeah okay.
Shilpa: Um your guilty pleasure when it comes to TV show or movie?
Abi: Every post direct right.
Shilpa: Um if you had a podcast who’s the first person that you would like to invite on the show?
Abi: Elon Musk probably I reckon that could be quite fiery definitely for the first for the first uh episode it’s gonna be a banger for sure um I would tell him all the things that are wrong with his Teslas is what I do in terms of usability there you go.
Shilpa: Great three books that you would uh recommend to our listeners?
Abi: Three books um you know what I don’t do a lot of reading of books I have a couple of authors and I don’t know their names I just know so the who wrote slow horses really good um the another author called Peter V Brett um he does kind of like I don’t know how to describe it it’s really cool makes me reading and also uh the guy that wrote Game of Thrones I can’t remember his name I should know his name off H they are the only three book series that I have avidly read like till my Kindle battery was bled dry literally okay.
Shilpa: It’s nice to see that there is a guest who’s not so much into reading because I meet so many guests who are so much into reading and I’m like okay I really need to start doing it.
Abi: Oh to have the time the only time I have to read is literally when I’m in bed right and I usually wake up with a Kindle on my face because I fallen asleep after the first two pages I don’t it sounds very uneducated to say I don’t do a lot of reading but I I just don’t I read when I need to to in terms of work obviously if there’s something I need to figure out but yeah no I can’t imagine anything worse than reading some hardcore you know educational book of an evening no I’d much rather get lost in a fantasy world thank you very much.
Shilpa: Nice um what is that one superpower that you would like to have?
Abi: Teleportation yeah with the school runs I felt that was going to be your answer um I reckon whoever figures that out is going to rule the world I wish I wish somebody would it make my life so much easier.
Shilpa: One thing that you’re tired of explaining to your clients?
Abi: Use a research um.
Shilpa: One goal or dream that you would like to achieve in the next three years?
Abi: Oh in the next three years um I think really just be happy there you go that’s a really simple one isn’t it to be happy and to get work life balance right those would be the things that I would aspire to yeah it’s really simple.
Closing Remarks
Shilpa: Great um all right that’s a wrap for the rapid fire section um I be any paring thoughts any message that you would like to share with the listeners or with us?
Abi: Um I think please just go away from this having the confidence to be who you are um it you know outside of optimization you know you might not even be involved in optimization just go out there and do your best because that’s the best that you can do and don’t worry about what people think so much um don’t be so restricted with what you think is the right way or the politically correct way or how you should be surounding I mean I’m not talking about being offensive or anything like that you there are limits.
Um um just strive for that authenticity and whatever it is that you’re doing you know and that comes across that’s easily achieved if you’re passionate about what you doing um so absolutely find a thing that you love and your authenticity will come through from that and by being authentic you will build the relationships that you need to build in order to be successful and you never know when a relationship will be beneficial right I’ve I have made relationships that are years old heard nothing from people for years but that initial relationship it it kicks in when when it’s required.
So whatever work that you were doing keep doing it and building the relationships because you don’t know when they’re going to be helpful and likewise try not to burn Bridges you never know when you need to cross another bridge and a lot of the clients that I have had had have been previous clients who have left and then you know do it on good terms right unless somebody’s really screwed you over right try to do it on good terms because you never know when you’re GNA walk across that bridge or the person is going to walk towards you over that bridge again so just bear that in mind when you’re dealing with people but if you know if youve really resonated relationships like boomerangs right they they come back so work really hard hard on trying to do that but not to the detriment of your own heal.
So that would be my top advice but give yourself some time and some breathing room right we’re in such a fast-paced world sometimes we forget to sit back and just think for a minute about what we’re doing and where we’re going and how we’re going to achieve it um people need to spend more time in the woods I love going over to our local Woods um because it’s my thinking place right I and your thinking place might be different it might be you know in the gym on a row ERG or a bike ERG or you know timing off the mountain whatever it might be find find your thinking space and just take the time to sit back and just evaluate what you’re doing.
We spend so much time evaluating performances on websites and how this is doing and how that is doing a lot of the time we don’t sit back to do that personally and sometimes it can be quite scary because you’ll you’ll have a revelation you’re like oh wow I’m totally going in the wrong direction I need to sort that out but that’s good it’s growth um so just take the time to do that from your own personal point of view I think I’ve realized that over the years that you really do need to do the self- care piece more often.
So learn that lesson early don’t make my mistake and uh make sure you do that on a regular basis because if you’re not optimizing yourself what are you doing yeah.
Shilpa: Um Abi thank you so much for tuning in today um taking out your valuable time to connect with us um we at least for me it was a lovely lovely discussion so much to learn from you um so many good points and so many uh different points different perspectives right something that I love the most about conversations So yeah thank you so much for in I hope you have a great week ahead and a very very good 2024.
Abi: Uh yeah thank you very much and thank you for inviting me to come along on the podcast and express my very different opinions it’s great thank you Abi.
