Incorporating AI to Improve Your Customer Experience with Csaba Zajdo

Andy Splichal:

Welcome to the Make each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal, and we are happy to welcome this week's guest to discuss today's topic, which is incorporating AI to improve your customer experience. Today's guest is the founder of Optimonk, where they have gone from zero to 40,000 users in just a few years and have over 505 star ratings on Shopify. Their mission is to provide DTC brands easy access to website personalization. A big welcome to Csaba Zajdo. Hi Csaba.

Csaba Zajdo:

Hi Andy. Happy to be here.

Andy Splichal:

We're happy to have you. This is a fascinating topic. So a few months back, I had Eric Melchore, your marketing officer from Optimonk on the show to discuss your service. And I know that you've been up to some big changes, which is why I'm really glad you're able to join us today. Now, before we get into those changes, can you describe Optimonk for our listeners that may not know it or those that might not have listened to the episode that I did with Eric?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Optimonk is basically an all in one conversion optimization platform. And our goal, our vision basically, is to empower the average marketer with Amazon like superpowers to make each click count. Basically, yeah. And yes, as Eric mentioned, we've been working on in the past year or so on some huge changes. We see the word of conversion optimization changing, and it's not only just changing, but actually it's getting revolutionized by AI. And well, what I'm trying to share with you are just scratching the surface of all the potential which was made available in the past two years with.

Andy Splichal:

All the advances in AI now in full transparency. I've been using Optimonk with a few of my private clients ever since February when Eric was on the podcast. And I've seen some of those changes where you've incorporated AI over the last few weeks, but probably not all of them. So can you tell me how have you used AI and incorporated into your Optimonk system?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yes, absolutely. So AI can help in so many ways. For D, two C brands in particular, there are three main use cases which I would love to share with you. The first is what we call smart Product page optimization. Product pages for many deep sea brands are kind of like a static, more functional pages which allows the user to buy the product. And they often have a description of a long description below default. But usually the average conversion rate of a product page is it could be improved. And with smart product page optimizer, you can basically turn your classic functional product pages into true sales pages.

Csaba Zajdo:

True high converting sales pages. How does it work? Basically, you can insert AI generated elements, headlines, sub headlines, benefit lists, short descriptions into wherever you want into the product page. And the AI will do it automatically for not just one product page, but even if you have hundreds or thousands of product pages, it will do it automatically for you. So all you have to decide basically how you want to upgrade your product page. And then AI will generate all these great benefit driven extra content for your product page. You can insert them and then you can even a B test, the end result. So for half of the users you can show the original content, for half of the users you can show all these upgraded content and then you can compare which audience actually spend more money on your website.

Andy Splichal:

Interesting. Now, is AI, is it customer specific? I mean, is it doing it for each individual customer that's searching based on what they or is it AI is doing a page and showing that page based? I guess. How does that work?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, that's a good question. So this smart product page optimizer, which I just mentioned, is not personalized, meaning that it's a B test. So it's running an A B test and it's trying to find the right messages, but it's not personalizing for each individual visitor. But we have another AI driven features which is smart personalizer and what the name implies. It's actually AI driven personalization. I would say it's the real magic, making real time personalization of your landing pages available for basically everyone. If you have hundreds or thousands of keywords that you are advertising for and sending traffic to a landing page or to some product pages or some category pages, then it allows you to personalize the content, the headlines, the sub headlines and any text elements on this landing page and tailor these elements to 100% match the keyword which the user actually searched for.

Andy Splichal:

That's what I was wondering right there. Could they put the keyword, then it came in and put that in there?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yes. All you have to do is to set up your Google Ads campaign so the URL contains the exact keyword which was searched by the user. You don't have to do it for every campaign in Google Ads. You can just set up all these tracking templates and you can do it at an account level. So maybe in a UTM keyword parameter you have to just put in the exact keyword and that's all the information Optimum needs. And based on this keyword information, it will automatically personalize that landing page to hundreds or even thousands of different versions and different keywords. Personalization was always available, right? I mean, it's not something new, but in the past you had to do it manually. You had to set up a different landing page, a different copy for each different keyword versions, which might be possible if you only have a few keywords.

Csaba Zajdo:

But for dozens or hundreds or thousands of keywords, that's just basically impossible. Now with AI, all this work is basically gone. It's delegated to AI and now all you have to do is really just decide what you want to personalize. You can check it if you are satisfied with the quality of the headlines and text AI generates, and usually they generate, by the way, far better headlines than I can do, and then just sit back and watch the results grow. So that's easy.

Andy Splichal:

What have you been able to do? Case studies on typically what the bump in conversion is using this?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yes.

Andy Splichal:

So.

Csaba Zajdo:

We'Ve been running it for more than a dozen different deep sea brands in the past month, and we can see an average uplift in conversion between five to 20% and an even larger improvement in actual sales between around seven to 44%. Meaning that all these extra relevancy, all these better copy, all these more motivational, benefit driven copy seems to not only improve the conversion rates, but they also seem to improve the average order value. Simply, the users seem to be just spending more and buying more products and getting more enthusiastic about the product of that brand just by reading and getting more relevant, more personalized, more interesting content.

Andy Splichal:

So using AI for the content, you said that was one piece out of three. Is that what you said?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yes. So, Smart Product Page Optimizer, which is very much product page optimization focus, that's one. This is smart, personalizer. This is the second one we usually recommend it to use for landing pages for homepage, for all website pages, where you have a big amount of Google search traffic. And the third one, which is kind of like a jolly joker, is what we call Smart A B testing, which, as the name implies, is AI driven A B testing. What does it do? Basically, it helps you automate 99% of the A B testing process, which is usually quite a time intensive process with a lot of place for errors. And you have to regularly check in, check the results, decide what to do, bring some new versions, stop the old variant, start the new variant, all this stuff. Now, AI will first come up with alternatives for any headline, for any text, and give you ideas.

Csaba Zajdo:

You can tweak these ideas, but you can change them, and you can even add your own. You don't have to use the Aigitted versions, but you can if you wish. And then all you have to do is just launch this A B testing and then AI will do all the rest of the jobs. It will start all the tests, it will start with the first variant. If you give them like ten different variants to test, it will just start with the first one, compare it to the control version. If the control is the winner, then it will just simply discard this new variant. But if the new variant is a winner, then it will become the new control, the baseline, the standard will raise, and that will be the new baseline that the next variants will have to beat. And even if nine out of ten variants are losing losers, they only mean a temporary loss and they get all discarded and only the winners are kept.

Csaba Zajdo:

So in the long run, the baseline, the standard, just keeps improving and improving. And I won't bore you with the technical details, but we just simply use the latest AI, sorry, A B testing mathematics and algorithms behind it. So the A B testing part is no magic. It works just like any other A B testing tool. But the magic is really that it automates 99% of this process and the average marketer, which has usually no time and willingness to go in and do and manage all this A B testing on his own every day. What is like job of a CRO expert, right? It can be fully delegated to the AI.

Andy Splichal:

Now, I mean, this is great because I'm sure you're aware, but Google is sunsetting the Google Optimizer. Is there anything that your system using AI cannot do that Google Optimizer was doing?

Csaba Zajdo:

So yes, Google Optimize is what we call a manual A B testing tool. What do I mean by manual? So it allows you to manually set up A B tests and run two different versions of a landing page, for example. And yes, you can do the same in Optimonk. We have a slightly different user interface, but in general, it's pretty similar. So if you can use Google Optimize, you can also use Optimus. I think there's no big magic there. And basically it's a major market. That's how every A B testing tool generally works.

Csaba Zajdo:

But again, these are manual. So you have to do all this stuff, which I just mentioned manually, right? And optimal. Again, instead of this one, you just click on the elements, the headline, just pick whatever landing page you want to optimize. Just click it, just choose which ten versions you consider test worth it, and then just let it run. You don't even have to come back. AI will start, stop, evaluate everything, automatically sends you a report. It will keep optimizing your landing pages.

Andy Splichal:

Now, do you need to set up each, like, I guess I'm thinking a product page where you're selling, let's say, 500 products. Do you need to set it up on each individual product page or is it automatically testing every product page?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, that's the beauty of it. So with a smart product page optimizer, it's fully automatic for each product page. So even we have a customer which has more than 12,000 product pages. 12,000. Just imagine how much copywriting that could mean for them to create a new headline, sub, headlines, description and benefit list for each 12,000 products. And AI does it fully, automatically, and it also A B tests all these versions. So whenever any of these variants, any of these headlines seems to be statistically significantly a loser, which of course requires a certain amount of data and traffic to that product page, then it will just create a new version. Yes.

Csaba Zajdo:

Again, the only decision is what and how to insert into the product pages in structure. You can preview it with a couple of products, decide that all right, this prompt and this lookalike, this look of this new product page looks good. And then you just start a campaign and the a B test and it runs fully automatically. Again, you can go and check in and check any moment how the test is going and how much money each of your audience actually spent. But yeah, that's it. And you can go and check it every day or you can just leave it running for a couple of weeks. It's 100% automatic.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, that's amazing. I got to say, when I said that I've seen some of how you're using AI, what I've seen is I'm creating for my private clients, creating surveys, or directing different pieces of the website. And when you put in creative, I see the chat GPT style, look for suggestions. Otherwise but man, that's just scratching the surface.

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

Is all the things that you just told us, the website optimization, is all that available right now? Or is that coming soon? Where is that?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yes, so now it's in private data mode. So what do we mean by that?

Andy Splichal:

So I didn't miss it. Okay, I don't feel bad. I thought I had overlooked it completely. Okay.

Csaba Zajdo:

No, the public launch, yeah, the public launch of all these new features are coming in October. Right now we are really finalizing the UI and the fancy features of these new features. But the main essence of all these features, the algorithm, the AI, the machine in the background is already running and is generating awesome results. So, yeah, we are just preparing for the big launch and well, coming out within Q four and I truly believe that it will change the way as most D two C brands actually improve conversions. And yeah, we'll see if others share my enthusiasm regarding this topic.

Andy Splichal:

So we were chatting a bit before this episode and you were telling me that you were working on plans for all of next year already. So what else do you have coming?

Csaba Zajdo:

So, yes, as I said, what I was talking about is just really just scratching the surface. What AI can do, these are all just text driven or text related changes of the website. Right? But AI can now do also change, understand and optimize images, product images, banners, it can even create product videos. And what we just discussed that for example, creating fully automatically personalized product videos for each visitor and each product, that's something that's technically almost available right now. I mean, it's not available, it's slow and it's complicated. But yes, the technology out there is already available. So we are going to research all these new features, experiment them, test them with our clients, and whenever something we feel is working, we just add it to the bundle. And we are truly trying to make a category here with all this AI driven conversion optimization.

Andy Splichal:

What is for a user, what is the learning curve like? And do you offer management of these services for clients? Or are you planning to or is it all clients do it all themselves and they learn the system and then implement it on their own website.

Csaba Zajdo:

Absolutely. So the good news is that it doesn't require you to be a CRO expert, and it's not necessary to have a background with Google Optimize and to have experience with running hundreds of AV tests. So that's a good thing. On the other hand, it requires it has some learning curve to use it, ideally. So right now we provide what we call a VIP onboarding, basically, for each and every new client that starts using this product. We set up basically the first campaigns together. We explain them how it works. We show them what are the main rule of thumbs that we are using.

Csaba Zajdo:

For example, just an idea how you should format the new headlines that you insert to product pages and how should they be related to the product team. We've already have some experience of optimizing the ideal version. So we just share all these best practices with our customers and then they can continue. Take it from here on the Optima administration panel, we are there to help and answer any questions. But they don't require a constant supervision because, as I said, they are 100% automatic. So basically all you need to do is to just check them regularly. If you create a new landing page for a new campaign, for example, then you can just go in and click, click set up Smart A B testing, for example, and then it will run. Once you've done it once or twice, then it will become quite easy.

Csaba Zajdo:

And yeah, it doesn't require just having a CRF approach to manage all this.

Andy Splichal:

One thing I'm thinking as you're talking is that I can see, I mean, this would be fantastic for conversion, but have you guys thought of testing how this would do for SEO? I mean, could you use AI to see what would rank do the same kind of testing with what would rank better organically with Google?

Csaba Zajdo:

Okay, so there's two answers here. So, first of all, all these changes, what we do are done by JavaScript and they do not affect SEO in.

Andy Splichal:

Any way right now. It doesn't affect how it's appearing right now. Not at all.

Csaba Zajdo:

Right, okay.

Csaba Zajdo:

So Google will just see the original version of the website, regardless of how we replace stuff on the pages. So it's 100% SEO. State on the other hand, what you are saying. Yes, that SEO. There's a lot of opportunities. I'm not sure how much content you create. I mean, we have an SEO team and well, they've already had maybe an increase of efficiency, maybe like doubled their efficiency just using all the AI driven features. To be honest, we are hesitant.

Csaba Zajdo:

We are hesitant to fully embrace the potential of AI in SEO because there's all this warning from SEO experts that it might hurt your rankings if you just use too much JGPT generated text. And I don't really feel how that's possible. And how would anyone I don't either, really.

Andy Splichal:

I mean, I guess what I was kind of thinking, you could almost use Chat GPT to go out and see what sites are ranking well for what keywords, right? And then generate that type of content on your website and almost do it almost do it dynamically and test it just like an A B testing with conversion.

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, keyword research. That's one particular area, I think which we've fully revolutionized by AI and actually we are using some AI powered SEO tools that do that. But yes, but I must admit I'm not a big expert of that field. And even within the mean we have dedicated SEO people that are much better in this one than I am.

Andy Splichal:

Now, another question I have so online retailers, I mean, they're always worried about how to compete with Amazon and Amazon's ability to personalize based on what you purchase and all the stuff you purchased. How do you feel that Optimonk is going to help DTC brands with adding that kind of personalization to their website? Is it going to be as good as Amazon? It will be better than Amazon. Where do you.

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, AI can do a lot of things, but what AI cannot do basically is that it cannot replace a huge amount of data and history, purchase history and reviews that Amazon has. So Amazon, I think, has very wide mode, which is really hard to beat. But given that, I think from a user perspective, it's really about the user experience, how relevant the website, the content you are reading, and how much it helps you understand what the product is about, how good it is, how much it resonates with you based on your interest. And AI can help a lot improving the relevancy. It can help a lot finding the best content. It can help you find all the not so interesting, not so well converting copies and elements on your website. So, while it cannot really create you thousands of awesome reviews, for example, which will show a similar amount of quality and quantity as Amazon, it can still upgrade your product pages and your home page and your landing pages. And even your category pages in a way that will just simply provide a better experience for customers and they will convert more and hopefully they will also spend more and even come back more often.

Andy Splichal:

So what services are you currently providing on Optimum? So listeners know and what services are going to be released in the October update?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, in terms of service, I assume you mean the product. The product, the free features. So right now Optimonk, as I call, is a manual CRO tool, right? So you can create all these A B test, personalization manual, personalization and manual A B test and you can run pop ups and basically you can tweak your website however you want manually. And with October we are coming out with all these mention AI driven features which will allow marketers to fully automate 99% of many of these manual tasks. And they can still run all their pop ups and all the manual campaigns if they wish, of course, but it will empower them to have some much bigger impact on their conversion rates without having to spend hundreds of hours of work and optimization and a B testing. So yeah, I think the tactics will be quite similar. But the impact that Optimum will be able to do with the D two C website will significantly increase.

Andy Splichal:

The fee structure. Right now it's based on page views. Is it going to change or how is it going to change with the new update?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, so we have quite, I would say small business compatible pricing starting. We have a free package for sport and then the first paying package is only $39 per month and it goes up to a few hundred dollars. With all this AI and all this JGP and all this open AI, we unfortunately we will not be allowed, we won't be able to include all these AI driven features into the basic package. And we are still working on, to be honest, on the final pricing and there will be some extra pricing to the original pricing. How big is that? Well, it will turn out, you can see it in October. But the target market, the small businesses hasn't changed and it's definitely not going to be in the thousands of dollars of category.

Andy Splichal:

So who is the ideal user for your products now? And I guess in October you said it hasn't changed. So it's the same. So who is that ideal person? If they are listening, they should absolutely check out Optimum.

Csaba Zajdo:

Right now our ideal customers who can use all the features has 100% feature coverage are the Shopify and Shopify Plus customers usually between one to $10 million annual recurring revenue or actually the recording is not important but about this range. And of course we also cover most other ecommerce markets like WooCommerce, Magento, but they only have like 95, 98% feature coverage. And what we also see that with all this smart personalization it will allow not just D two C brands but also like B two C and B two B and service type of companies to use all these features. Actually anyone who is spending a considerable amount of money on Google Ads will be able to benefit from it. We already see that just even on a simple landing page, employing this smart personalization improves the number of conversions by around 40% and the average time on the website can sometimes even double meaning that these users not only just spend more but spend more time on your website. And we assume that this all has to do with something with the increased relevancy and whenever they find the initial experience relevant and interesting then they will just stay more on the site and keep reading more of your stuff and probably that's what also explains the increased part value, which I mentioned.

Andy Splichal:

Now you mentioned Shopify and Shopify Plus, but I've added your code to WordPress with WooCommerce back end. I added it to a client who uses an old Yahoo store. I think it's Turbify. Now you said 95%. Is the new AI stuff going to be exclusive to Shopify stores or will you be able to use it in other platforms, other e commerce platforms?

Csaba Zajdo:

The smart A B testing and the smart personalization will work on any technology. They only require just the JavaScript code in the website and they will work just perfectly. The smart product page Optimizer, which will generate all these beautiful benefit driven headlines for each product pages. Unfortunately, it will be only available to Shopify in the beginning. It requires a deeper integration with the system, having merchandising information and access to a lot of data, basically based on which we can integrate. But we are very much working on in Q Four on making it available to other platforms. So hopefully by maybe the first quarter of 2024, we'll be able to release it for at least WooCommerce and Magento, but probably also other big ecommerce stores as well.

Andy Splichal:

Now, how can an interested listener and if you have a DTC store, I'm not sure why you wouldn't be interested, but how can they learn more about working with you guys?

Csaba Zajdo:

Yeah, so the easiest way is just to check out OptiMonk.com, and if you want to learn more about all these new AI driven features, just check out OptiMonk Coma. It's that simple. And there now you can just simply sign up for the waitlist. And whenever the new feature releases, which will be in October, then you can be among the first ones to be able to try it out.

Andy Splichal:

Now currently, I know you have a trial, I think it's what, under 15,000 page views a month?

Csaba Zajdo:

That's actually a free package or the free package that's a lifetime free package. So up until 15,000 pages per month you can use Optimum 100% free? Yes.

Andy Splichal:

Is that going to exist with the AI or is that going away?

Csaba Zajdo:

It unfortunately no. I think that will only apply to the regular manual CRO stuff. But I'll be honest, if someone has only a couple of thousands of page use a month, then for example, having A B testing, it just doesn't make much difference in that case. Why? Because A B testing requires a huge amount of data. You have to run multiple versions for hundreds or thousands of visitors to have a statistically significant result. And if you have only a few thousand pages per month, then even the simplest A B test may take months to conclude to have a significant result. Technically it works, of course, but probably it will just take too long to actually make any significant changes or improvements. So I would say that if your website.

Csaba Zajdo:

Has at least maybe 30,000 pages per month or maybe 50,000 pages per month, which is like usually maybe like at least 500 visitors per day as a rule of thumb. Then I think it's time to start a B testing and to start try out all these features below that I guess maybe it's better investment of your time to focus on to just improving the traffic and bringing more visitors to your website.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Csaba Zajdo:

Actually no. Besides I'm having and hosting a free webinar kind of once a month sharing all these latest new CRO best practices. So if someone is interested in learning all these latest stuff then just check out optimonk.com and you will find more information there and yeah, we are happy.

Andy Splichal:

To have well this has been great. Well, thank you again for joining us today.

Csaba Zajdo:

Absolutely, it was my pleasure. Thank you very much. My wife just called me and the headset just was overruled by her urging call.

Andy Splichal:

All right, well no worries. I didn't even hear it. For listeners, remember? If you like this episode, please go to Apple podcasts. Leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information on OptiMonk or connected with Saba, you will find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our Podcast Resource center available at podcast.makeeachclickcount.com. We've compiled all of our different past guests by show topic and included each of their contact information in case you would like more information on any of the services I have discussed during previous episodes. Well, that's it for today.

Andy Splichal:

Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing. I'll talk to you in the next episode.