Conversion Optimization Practices with Talia Wolf

What does a conversion optimization professional need to know?  Talia Wolf, Founder and Chief Optimizer at GetUplift discusses thank you pages, AB testing, persona mapping, and how to understand what makes our customers take the next step in the buying journey. 

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Michael Stebbins:

All right. Welcome back to the OMCP Podcast and with us today is Talia Wolf, founder and chief optimizer at GetUplift, author, speaker, and thought leader in conversion optimization. Talia, welcome to the OMCP Best Practices Podcast.

Talia Wolf:

Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

Michael Stebbins:

Now, Talia, We know your agency is GetUplift. We know you speak on and teach conversion optimization in some of the most prestigious stages in the world. We know you’re a skydiver with over 1000 jumps, for those of you who haven’t read your blog, followed you on Twitter, or heard you speak, tell our audience something we don’t know about you, and what it is you’ve been working on lately.

Talia Wolf:

Oh, my God, there’s nothing no one knows about me. I’m like an open book. What don’t people know about me? I love Harry Potter, but I think people know that. And other than that, I have two kids under three, which I was just confessing to that I’m basically sleep deprived. And what am I working on right now? I’m actually working on some super cool client work and opening enrollment for my new course, The Income Engine.

Michael Stebbins:

Yes. And we’re going to include a link for that here in the podcast and make sure listeners have a chance to get training from you. Talia, I mean, obviously it’s impressive that you’ve jumped out of perfectly good planes for awhile. 

A few other questions for you just to find out more about you, dogs or cats?

Talia Wolf:

Dogs, a hundred percent.

Michael Stebbins:

SEO or paid?

Talia Wolf:

Hmm, SEO.

Michael Stebbins:

Bitcoin or Ethereum?

Talia Wolf:

I actually have a terrible story about that, about Bitcoin. So about, I think it was six years ago. My husband said that, “we should buy one of the mining machines and we should do it. And it was like nothing. And we should spend like $5,000 and buy this whole thing.” And I said, “Are you crazy? $5000, we’re not doing that.” So, here we are.

Michael Stebbins:

And now Elon is an endorser, we’re seeing it go through the ceiling, but who knows people listening to this podcast a year from now may be laughing and saying, “You did the right thing.” So who knows, right? 

All right. So, Talia you’ve helped some of the world’s largest businesses improve their landing pages, their funnels, their e-commerce. You’re considered an authority on conversion optimization, we certainly follow you. It makes sense that in this conversation, we’re going to cover how marketers can understand the essentials in developing that skill in conversion and apply it to a project.

So, our first question for you, let’s say that you are hiring a conversion optimization specialist for your agency GetUplift, or for a project. What are some interview questions that you would use to determine their skills in conversion?

What do you ask before hiring a conversion specialist? 

Talia Wolf:

That’s a great question. I think that the first question I would ask is, “What is your process? What process do you go through in order to come up with hypotheses for testing?” And I’ll explain, because many times I get clients, or potential clients, reaching out to me saying, “I got a proposal from someone and they’re promising a 20% uplift.” Or, “They’re promising an X amount of uplift.” And the first thing that I say is “Never, ever trust an agency or a company that says that they’re going to deliver a certain amount of uplift.” What you want to see is the process. What you want to know is how they do the work itself and that it actually has depth to it.

Michael Stebbins:

Understood. So, “What’s your process?” And you want them to describe this to you. That’s quite telling in their skillset and their history. What would be another question you’d ask a candidate to assess their skill?

What do you know about human behavior and human decision-making?

Talia Wolf:

How much do they know about human behavior and human decision-making? Because that is key to understanding how people buy. I know that most people think that when it comes to conversion optimization, you’re supposed to be focused on changing a call to action button or a headline on a page, but what conversion optimization is really about is understanding how people make decisions, whether if it’s to buy something, or if it’s to sign up for a free trial, or book a demo, you have to understand what is the decision-making process people go through in order to create an experience and an entire customer journey that helps that person make a decision. So, while it is important for your CRO agency, or your consultant, or freelancer to understand stuff like Google Analytics or Mixpanel, or Heatmaps. It’s so much more important for them to understand people, emotion, psychology, and decision-making.

Michael Stebbins:

And what are some ways that we, as conversion practitioners can get to know our customers and understand some of their motivations for taking the next step in the process?

How do we understand what makes our customer take the next step in the buying process?  

Talia Wolf:

Well, one of my favorite parts of doing this is basically doing customer surveys, but there are many different ways because it really does depend on where you are as a company. Customer surveys, visitor surveys, review mining, social listening, interviews, so many different ways that you can speak to people, listen to what people are saying and reflect that back to them within your journeys.

Michael Stebbins:

And one example that shows up in the exam for conversion optimization is to understand how to use quantitative or survey data versus some of the anecdotal or interview data that we can get actually talking to customers. If I’m in a conversation with a customer, maybe one thing I’m looking for is the way that they described the problem they’re trying to solve–the words that they use. And then put that back into the advertising or into the words on the landing pages. 

Are there some other things that we can pick up when we’re really in a deep conversation with a customer?

Talia Wolf:

Yeah, a hundred percent. So, that is definitely one of the most important things, but other things you can definitely uncover when you’re doing interviews or surveys are hesitations, roadblocks, things that are stopping people from converting, things that may be stopping people and sending them to your competitor. So, understanding the pains, the hesitations, those concerns and roadblocks is actually a great way for you to know what you need to address on your landing pages or on your website to convince people to convert.

Michael Stebbins:

You’re a big fan of “thank you” pages. You talk about it often or it seems like somebody brings it up.  And specifically you put them out there as a method to enhance trust. What are some practices that we should all be using when it comes to thank you pages?

What’s the deal with “Thank-You” pages? 

Talia Wolf:

You know, the go-to [problem] with thank you pages is that they [often] don’t exist. So, I love that you have categorized me as an advocate for them, because I really am. Most landing pages or websites you get people to convert and it kind of simply ends with this note saying, “Go check your email.” But thank you pages can be leveraged, as you mentioned, to build a relationship with people or to even increase your conversions. So, one way of leveraging thank-you pages is actually placing a survey on the thank you page.

You see, the thank you page is actually really, really helpful because of a psychological trigger called, “foot in the door technique.” So essentially, once someone has already taken an action with you, they’re far more prone to actually take another action with you. So, to go back to your question about, “Hey, how can I learn more about my customers?” You can do that on your thank you page. You can ask them questions on the thank you page. You could ask them to share something. You could ask them to review the process they just went through. You can ask them to tell you more about themselves, what they’re looking for and what their goals are. You could do all of that on a thank-you page.

Michael Stebbins:

And this has got to enhance the trust and the relationship through interacti