E-commerce Optimization Pillars with Digital Expat Carlos Trujillo

[00:00:00] Sani: Welcome to no hack show, a weekly podcast in which smart people talk to you about better online experiences. My next guest is a senior experimentation strategist at Spiro, has his own e commerce optimization course at CXL. And more importantly, he was recommended as a guest by the wonderful Tracy Laranjo, episode 113, the link will be in the description.

Carlos Trujillo, welcome to the show and what a pleasure to have you on.

[00:00:24] Carlos: Thank you, Sany. The pleasure is mine. Thank you for having me. And yeah, excited to dive into some stories and

[00:00:31] Sani: And congratulations on that course, which we will talk about today, obviously, e commerce optimization pillars, CXL. Tell me about your optimization origin story. That that's the, my favorite topic on this podcast. I, I ask every guest, how did they get started? How did that thing click in their minds? And they decided I want to do optimization.

[00:00:51] Carlos: Well, uh, for that, I need to go back to 2007. That's when I started building my first website. Uh, I've never called myself a developer. Because I was basically connecting platforms with each other, sort of say. Uh, but I was able to put some websites live back then. Uh, started a few blogs, made some money using Google.

Um, I think it's AdSense. Yeah, when you made money through, uh, advertising. So that's when my journey really started. Uh, after a couple of years, like three or four years, I like stop doing that and then focus on other, uh, professional areas, particularly in audio and music production. Uh, but eventually at some point I was looking for something different.

I left my job at the point, went abroad, uh, to France more specifically to And that's exactly when I realized. I needed to do something. It wasn't really called that way back then, but what I was looking to do was to have a remote job, you know? So then I remember I knew how to build websites, how to like put together online stores and this kind of thing.

So I restarted this, uh, like let's, let's say professional activity. We're talking, uh, year 2015, uh, more or less. Then this is what I did for a living for like from, from, from them and words. And obviously once you start like doing this professionally, uh, you start wondering like, what can we do to be more specialized?

I started an agency. I was running an agency at the point we were doing, uh, all kinds of websites, but, uh, at some point we focus on building e commerce stores, Shopify stores, more specifically. Just as a way to like niche down, be more experts in one specific area. This is something I firmly, firmly believe in, like the importance of specializing in certain areas.

So this is, uh, what me, my wife and, and, and, uh, A bigger team we're doing in 2019, 2020, but of course I've always have this curiosity about like upskilling, doing more, being better. And that's when I discovered Peplaya in Twitter. I started following him for those who don't know, he's CXL's founder. And I knew, I knew I wanted to join cxl.

com as a student, you know, uh, it was just a bit pricey for me at that point. Uh, I have never said expensive because I think like based on what it has given me, it's just a very game. Uh, but it was a price for me just to spend. I think the subscription was 2, 000 at that point, like the annual subscription.

So I was always like on the fence, but I never like really, uh, committed to joining as a student until a pandemic hit in 2020. So the world went crazy and all like companies started trying different things to help to survive and CXL announced a big discount. So instead of 2, 000, the subscription was for a short time period, 499.

And I say, this is, this is my time. So I joined CXL Institute as a student, just because I wanted to learn more about this thing called conversion rate optimization, uh, learn how be, how to make these websites I was building better to provide like better, uh, experiences for users and better results for my clients.

And even though I had some like top level understanding of what CRO was, and I think this is the situation for many people that believe they know what CRO is about. Uh, it just like, once I started studying there and going over the courses, it just blew my mind. Like, I was just barely touching the surface of what CRO really is.

And It just changed everything for me. I just got crazy with this content that I completed all the available courses in a one and sorry, 11 month period. And that actually, uh, I know it is, it's actually not as hard as it sounds. My framework was pretty simple. One hour a day, Monday to Friday. Uh, so if you break it down into chunks, it's.

It sounds way more realistic than when I say like hundreds of hours, I guess. So for me, it was like a pretty consistent routine. Like normally before starting my daily work, I would just, uh, spend one hour on cxl. com and I got to this point where I had all the mini degrees they had available and that made this team, uh, know who I was.

So basically I wasn't just a random person anymore, but they're there. Uh, they realized there was, uh, Carlos in Columbia, uh, going over all these courses and it facilitated that I, uh, started DMing with some people. And eventually that's what got me hired by Spiro where I still work after three years.

[00:06:39] Sani: That's such a, I mean, I've heard this story from you in the past and it is the most beautiful how I got a job story that I've heard ever or in a long time, at the very least, like doing a speed run of CXL, like, like Super Mario speed run, but just running through courses, not running, learning, actually learning, let me correct myself and then getting a job.

They notice you. I mean, it tells you a lot about the company as well, that they do something like that, that they pay attention. But also what you did is just, it's beautiful. And like, which brings me to the digital expat thing and working remotely. And like, it shows you that like everything in the world is reachable. Like most things are at least like having a job like this 15, 20 years ago, impossible. Now, like you can live wherever and you can still get a job with CXL, with Spiro, with any agency out there. If you're good enough, if you commit enough time, right?

[00:07:38] Carlos: Yeah. And back then, uh, like Spiro was still called CXL agency. So these differentiation wasn't that clear. It was more of like a unified team in many ways. So yeah, it definitely helped as well because like, uh, I was just known across CXL, I guess. It's funny because we still share like anecdotes and stories back then when they were debating about hiring me.

And I was like the guy who completed all the courses, you know, that made me, you know, Uh, known for a reason, you know, I don't necessarily think this is a framework that everybody just should repeat like exactly like that. Um, but it worked in my case, uh, for, for several reasons. And yeah, I'm glad it did because it's been a really, really, uh, fun journey so far.

One,

[00:08:30] Sani: Absolutely, and repeating it exactly, like, step by step, I don't think it will work for other people. I mean, people have different things that they need to do, but it just shows that, like, What seems impossible. And in 2019, it probably seemed impossible that you will be working for CXL at one point is actually doable.

It's one hour a day. People just, it's one hour a day. Make sure you know what you want to do. You know how to do it. You break it down into steps. Things happen like that. That's the beautiful part. So this allows you to. Yeah.

[00:09:02] Carlos: fun fact about it is that Pep tweeted that. At some point, like he actually say, I think I have some screenshots of that tweet. Like if you spend an hour a day on CXL instead of like Netflix, you will run circles around people in a year. So maybe for him, it was just another tweet, but for me, it really changed my, my life in some ways.

[00:09:27] Sani: I mean, professionally in every single way, I assume like it, it didn't seem possible at

[00:09:32] Carlos: I felt like I'll,

[00:09:33] Sani: started as a,

[00:09:36] Carlos: I,

[00:09:36] Sani: go ahead, go ahead. Sorry.

[00:09:37] Carlos: I just get excited that, um, I love football, soccer, and I always say, like, I felt like I was running this little, like, football school in my neighborhood, and then I received a call from Real Madrid. You know, that's, that's, that's how I felt. Like, I was having a great time.

Yeah, basically.

[00:09:58] Sani: the blog. So cool.

[00:10:02] Carlos: I was, I was having fun running my agency. We were, we were doing well, bad, like I didn't think for like a second when I, I got an offer to join Spiro, you know?

[00:10:16] Sani: And how has it been? It's been three years now with them

[00:10:20] Carlos: Yep. Three years by the

[00:10:21] Sani: how, how is that?

[00:10:23] Carlos: Actually, let's

[00:10:24] Sani: How has that been?

[00:10:25] Carlos: let's not share the actual dates, but, And you know, you don't know this, but today by the day we're recording this, this is my third anniversary at Spiro.

[00:10:36] Sani: Oh, congratulations. That that's, that's pretty cool. That,

[00:10:39] Carlos: I just realized it.

[00:10:41] Sani: that is, that is awesome. How has that been? Like, I mean, obviously three years, a lot of things happen at work. Your position changes, like your experience has changed. So how has your evolution as an employee at Spiro been over the three years?

[00:10:56] Carlos: Well, I love working at Spiro mainly because I mean, even though we've been, we're been, we have 12 years now, It still feels, it still has like this startup vibe. You're allowed to propose things to break things. We are not just following a playbook, which definitely resonated with me and still do like, I, I wouldn't really fit in a place where everything's just established and you're not allowed to do stuff.

So this is, this is what I like the most about this, this company. Like I spend a lot of time on. Um, client work, I would say 70 percent of the time, but at least, but, uh, also a good, um, like amount of time working on all kinds of internal projects. Last year I built, uh, this, uh, A B testing comparison tool. I have been working on building, uh, blueprints for experimentation, uh, the C Excel course I just recorded.

It's really a separate project. But obviously I get all the support from spirit in terms of like resources, design and consultancy and feedback. So yeah, it has a really good balance. I appreciate in terms of like knowing what you're expected to do, but also like having these like ability to just propose and suggest new things and change things and experiment every day.

Basically

[00:12:28] Sani: It sounds like a very nice job. I'll say that. And you seem

[00:12:30] Carlos: it is.

[00:12:31] Sani: that is, that is awesome. So the course you just mentioned, of course, and just, just repeat, you did the CXL speed run with the courses they hired you, and now you're recording a course for CXL, like that, that that's like a, almost like a telenovela scenario.

I'm not, I'm not going to get into what you did as an audio post production, which is check Carlos's LinkedIn. It's amazing. I get some of those recommendations on Netflix, like the, the. I get that recommended all the time. And then I see this guy did some audio effects, right? Something like that. Sound

[00:13:06] Carlos: Yeah, so audio

[00:13:07] Sani: is such a cool thing.

So tell me about the course. Tell me about how, how that, how it originated, where did the idea come from?

[00:13:17] Carlos: Yeah. So basically, um, in a nutshell, four years after I joined CXL as a student, uh, I was invited to record a course, uh, for CXL, um, a bit of context. Like, even though we are sister companies together with a winter, We are like fully independent. Like, for example, if I get involved in some CXL project, that's just a side project, it gets paid like independently.

It's a different story. So I was discussing this idea with some of the, uh, CXL team members in terms of like recording a short course and short by design a course on some nuances of doing CRO for e commerce. Um, The thing is, and I was able to have this conversation with several in house CRO practitioners working on e commerce is that there are several things nobody really teach you and you have to find out once you start on the road.

Uh, things like instrumentation, uh, measuring non binary metrics and a lot of nuances that, uh, are not usually covered out there. So the CRO for e commerce growth course. tries to, uh, like top level surface level, like making you aware of all these nuances so that first you aim to optimize beyond conversions because optimizing for more conversions is not always the answer or what your business might need.

And also to understand some technical nuances you might need in place if you want to tackle and influence those. Uh, e commerce optimization pillars we go over in the course.

[00:15:08] Sani: So what's the official name? Is it still e commerce optimization pillars? That is the official name of the course, right?

[00:15:13] Carlos: No, that's, that's a framework. The course is CRO for it. Yeah. The course is CRO for e commerce growth.

[00:15:22] Sani: Okay. Okay. Love the name. Uh, and, and there's a matching frame that there's a framework that goes separately, but also with the course that can, I think they referenced each other, I would assume,

[00:15:33] Carlos: Exactly. Yeah. There, I mean, I think in, in, at Spiro, generally speaking, we are fans of frameworks, blueprints, and try to put together models, for thinking.

Side note on this is that most of these models are normally born because we need to explain a concept to a client. So once we have put these visuals once, it's just easier for us to make it public and just to allow everybody out there to get familiar with them. So yeah, this course goes over some blueprints from Spiro.

But particularly it centers around a concept called e commerce optimization pillars, which is four ways how you can drive business growth with the same traffic volume through on site optimization.

[00:16:26] Sani: So this is not about acquisition at all. Let's just say that this is about optimizing what you have.

[00:16:34] Carlos: I mean, it is to some extent in terms of, from the very beginning, I let the students know that when you don't, when you do website optimization strategically and seriously, You definitely need to bring these learnings to your acquisition initiatives as well as, uh, as use it and leverage it for your retention initiatives.

So it's something that's taken into consideration the whole time. And, um, uh, I explicitly, uh, shared this concept and set of ideas, but when it comes to testing, uh, in this course in particular, we focus on website testing, like testing on the product on the e commerce platform, if you will.

[00:17:19] Sani: Right. And let's talk about those pillars real quick. Um, you're allowed to reveal what, what they are, I assume. Right.

[00:17:26] Carlos: Yeah, totally. So there are four pillars in total and basically the concept is that you can optimize beyond just increasing conversion rates and basically that influencing each one of these pillars will help driving business growth even if all the rest remain the same. So there are four pillars. The first one is conversion, turning more visitors into customers.

Obviously it's the first one is the enabler and it's what we all know. Let's say of what, what we are all familiar with. The second one is expand, getting customers to increase their, or their value, increasing AOB, increasing revenue per user, getting, uh, purchasers or customers to basically, yeah, like spend more.

The third pillar is frequency. Uh, encourage customers to buy repeatedly. Uh, sometimes in any commerce context, and especially when it comes to CRO, this is taken like just a different initiative from other teams, from like the retention teams, and they're like silos and all that. My thesis here is that the retention initiatives start at the acquisition and at the website, you know, not only because.

Subscription models are every day more common in e commerce as well as membership models. But also because the way you feel, and I always share the analogy of walking into a physical store, like the way you felt while shopping, while checking out, while walking out with the product, will influence the likelihood of you coming back as a customer.

So we go over some ideas in each one of the pillars, but in this case of the third pillar about how to encourage customers to buy repeatedly. And the fourth pillar, usually overlooked, is merchandising optimization. Nudging visitors towards buying key products, increasing profitability, uh, through making people, uh, exposed to certain products or SKUs that can be more profitable, uh, for your business.

That's in a nutshell what we go over in the course. Of course, all the details are there.

[00:19:40] Sani: of course, and, uh, people just need to go to CXL and they'll find the course there and the link will be in the description of this episode, obviously. So my experience is that when people e commerce, I'm talking about e commerce, when they think about CRO, uh, it's conversion. I mean, it's in the name. So it's kind of not even fair that to expect that people will think about the other three pillars, spend frequency merchandising.

But in your experience, is it, is it a bigger leap to go from doing nothing to doing just conversion optimization, or is it from doing conversion, like onsite pushing people to checkout to the other three pillars? Like what is more difficult for a brand or a client to do?

[00:20:28] Carlos: I think it's definitely way more difficult to go from like nothing to doing conversion rate optimization because it's a state of mind in a way. You know, you now understand this concept of like the importance of testing, not relying only on gut feelings or best practices for optimization. Um, And also, like if you want to do CRO properly, you might have invested in a testing tool, put some instrumentation in place.

So it's way easier to just tackle these other three pillars after you're doing CRO than just when you're doing nothing. I would definitely lean on that perspective.

[00:21:10] Sani: That's a, that's a really good answer. So who is this course for exactly? What's your ideal student for this course?

[00:21:19] Carlos: Basically, this is for people working in e commerce, trying to get the best out of, uh, their acquisition investments. Companies are spending a good amount of money into driving paid visitors to their website. Uh, but also to people already doing CRO, but realizing that increasing conversions is not always the answer.

This is particularly, uh, relevant in e commerce because nowadays it's very, very common for companies to lose money on the first purchase. So having this more holistic view about getting people to, uh, spend more, to come back repeatedly as customers or plainly to push more profitable products, uh, will definitely affect the bottom line and make an impact on your unit economics.

[00:22:10] Sani: I couldn't agree more. And, uh, I mean, one of my passions and I, I do some work as an e commerce zero consultant is the life cycle marketing and really working with that customer, uh, customer base. not just to get them to that first purchase, but like you said, what you do on an acquisition, what you do at first, like even the unboxing experience, like something like that is going to affect the repeat purchase rates.

So if you, if you have the coolest product, if you have a cool discount on the first purchase or whatever it is, and then it's in a, like a brown box, a horrible brown box, they get, that's not a memorable experience. You can. Invest very little money and make it a memorable experience that people want to Go through again and again and again and buy from you even if you have a note like Like a personalized note in the box, as I think it was Valentin who said it, like the only campaign that has a hundred percent open rate is the unboxing campaign that can use that to your advantage,

[00:23:08] Carlos: Totally. Couldn't agree more.

[00:23:10] Sani: And I love, I love how this discourse, the framework covers everything that an e commerce business needs to think about to maximize their revenue and profits over time, especially the merchandising part, which is something If you work with Google analytics, for example, if that's where you get your data from, you don't know, like you have no idea which products are profitable, what you need to steer the customers to.

So, yeah, uh, I mean, this is,

[00:23:37] Carlos: uh,

[00:23:38] Sani: yep.

[00:23:39] Carlos: why we deep down, uh, in, I mean, deep down, I mean, considering it's a short course, but try to cover some fundamentals about instrumentation. Because, uh, Every pillar, like as soon as, as you keep progressing through the pillars, the instrumentation becomes way more complicated. Measuring conversions sometimes just mean, uh, thank you, page script, but measuring profitability is way, way more challenging.

So it's something you also be, uh, should be prepared for and this course will give you a good, uh, like framework and, and, and it will be a good starting point just to start thinking about this concept. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.

[00:24:18] Sani: I couldn't agree more. And with that, I just want to congratulate you again on the anniversary. On publishing your first CXL course. First of many maybe we'll see. And thank you for being a guest on this podcast. It was a pleasure to talk to you and to everyone listening. I'm sure you learned go to CXL, get the course, and she will learn even more uh, please consider rating, reviewing sharing this episode.

Now we'll talk to you next week.