Latest / eCommerce Podcast / How to Simplify eCommerce Data Without Drowning in Numbers | Jeff Sauer

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How to Simplify eCommerce Data Without Drowning in Numbers | Jeff Sauer · eCommerce Podcast

• 0:00
  Matt Edmundson: So welcome to the eCommerce podcast with
• 0:03
  me, your host, Matt Edmundson.
• 0:05
  This is a show helping you deliver e-commerce.
• 0:10
  Wow.
• 0:10
  That's what we want to do.
• 0:11
  That's why we are here.
• 0:12
  I am here to learn about e-commerce.
• 0:15
  As much as you are, and we're gonna be talking to
• 0:18
  the wonderful Jeff Sauer today, uh, about how we,
• 0:21
  how we do all kinds of weird and wonderful things to help
• 0:23
  grow our e-com business.
• 0:26
  But before we get into that, lemme give a shout out to you.
• 0:29
  If this is your first time with us, lemme, there we go.
• 0:31
  Sorry.
• 0:31
  It's just in my seat.
• 0:33
  Uh, shout out if this is your first time with us.
• 0:35
  It's great that you are here.
• 0:36
  Hope you like the show.
• 0:37
  Hope you get a lot out of it.
• 0:38
  Uh, and if you are like me, you run your own e-com businesses.
• 0:42
  I would genuinely love to hear from you.
• 0:44
  Come check me out on social media.
• 0:46
  You can find me on LinkedIn to search for Matt Edmondson.
• 0:49
  Uh, and I will be there.
• 0:50
  The link will be in the show notes, uh, which is
• 0:52
  usually on your podcast app.
• 0:53
  But come find me, come say hello, tell me your story.
• 0:56
  We are doing this thing, uh, where we are actively now
• 1:00
  seeking more founders to come on the show and tell their stories.
• 1:03
  We've got quite a few lined up, which I'm very excited about.
• 1:06
  Um, but if you are a founder, if you run your own e-com.
• 1:10
  Business.
• 1:11
  You know, you've got your own store, whether you are running
• 1:13
  it as a part-time side hustle, whether this is your full-time
• 1:16
  gig, whether you've turned over a hundred grand, whether
• 1:19
  you've turned over 10 million, I would love to talk to you.
• 1:22
  Would love to find out your story, and if you're up for it,
• 1:26
  come share it on the podcast.
• 1:28
  I promise.
• 1:29
  I'll be kind.
• 1:30
  I'm always kind as you know, if you're a regular to the show.
• 1:33
  Um, but it would be genuinely great to hear from you.
• 1:35
  So do get in touch.
• 1:36
  Come find me on LinkedIn or you can reach out to me through the
• 1:38
  website eCommerce podcast.net.
• 1:40
  There's a little thing on there.
• 1:41
  Just fill that in, uh, and get in touch.
• 1:44
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 1:45
  So that's the plug over with.
• 1:48
  Let's talk about today's guest, uh, and jump into it, shall we?
• 1:52
  Jeff Sauer is the Data Whisperer, which I just,
• 1:58
  Jeff, I dunno if that's your general title, but
• 2:00
  actually I really like it.
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  The Data Whisperer of Digital Marketing and Founder of
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  Measure Holding Group, where he has transformed thousands.
• 2:10
  Of marketers into analytics ninjas through his
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  training and consulting.
• 2:16
  So we're in the dojo today, ladies and gentlemen, when
• 2:18
  he's not jet setting around the world as a digital nomad.
• 2:21
  You can find this top 25 PPC expert spreading the gospel
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  of data-driven marketing at major industry conferences,
• 2:31
  uh, helping businesses turn numbers into gold.
• 2:35
  That was a good intro that Jeff.
• 2:37
  I like that.
• 2:37
  How you doing?
• 2:38
  Jeff Saucer: I love it.
• 2:39
  I've never been called a data whisperer.
• 2:41
  I, I'm not sure how my ninja skills are right now, but
• 2:44
  overall, I wanna get you all excited about, about this idea
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  of measuring your measuring 'cause that is something I'm
• 2:53
  very passionate about and that is pretty much, I've dedicated
• 2:56
  my career to it because it was finally seeing the light.
• 2:59
  When everything seemed dark at one point in my career,
• 3:02
  uh, numbers got me out of it.
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  And that might sound like the craziest thing you've
• 3:05
  ever heard, but hopefully by the end of this episode,
• 3:08
  we all feel the same way.
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  We feel empowered to look at this stuff and turn it
• 3:11
  into a positive versus just something that doesn't make
• 3:14
  sense or intimidates you.
• 3:15
  Matt Edmundson: I. Fantastic.
• 3:16
  I'm looking forward to the conversation because I think
• 3:18
  data's always interesting and analytics is always
• 3:20
  interesting, and I think for a lot of people, analytics is
• 3:24
  a little bit kind of black, artsy, um, and, and quite scary.
• 3:29
  So it'll be good to get into that, um, and start to
• 3:32
  understand it a little bit more.
• 3:34
  I think I, I, I remember hearing a quote, Jeff, and I don't
• 3:37
  know, I genuinely don't know if this is an attributable quote.
• 3:41
  Um.
• 3:43
  I should probably Google it and find out.
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  Uh, I'm sure someone will let me know, but, um, but there's a, a
• 3:48
  quote that I've heard that goes, that says something like this.
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  I think it was Einstein that said it.
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  If I was given a problem, I would spend 95% of my
• 3:56
  time defining the problem and 5% on the solution.
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  Now the percentage may have changed.
• 4:00
  It'll be different.
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  There is this, this idea, I think of.
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  When you are faced with a problem devoting a large amount
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  of time to clearly understanding the problem and defining it
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  gives you the majority of the solution that you need.
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  And this is where, for me, data and analytics can actually be
• 4:20
  your friend, especially in the world of e-commerce, because we
• 4:23
  measure absolutely everything.
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  Um, well, it seems we measure absolutely everything.
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  Uh.
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  So, yeah, I'm, I'm kind of curious with the whole thing.
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  You said you've got a passion for it, you've
• 4:36
  gotta look for it.
• 4:37
  Was that just from birth?
• 4:39
  Was this as a result of some cosmic coincidence, or was
• 4:43
  it because actually something happened and you needed to start
• 4:45
  getting your head around data?
• 4:46
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, so I'll, I'll, I love the quote I, I,
• 4:49
  you made me, you're reminded me of one, if you have an hour
• 4:51
  to chop down a tree, spend 45 minutes sharpening your ax.
• 4:54
  Yeah,
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  Matt Edmundson: yeah.
• 4:55
  Jeff Saucer: Similar, right?
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  And that is, I
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  Matt Edmundson: think that was from the seven
• 4:57
  habits, wasn't it?
• 4:58
  The seven habits.
• 4:58
  Yeah.
• 4:59
  But yeah, so
• 5:00
  Jeff Saucer: I mean, the, the concept is true though, right?
• 5:02
  Like the more strategy you have, the more you think about
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  these things, the less mm-hmm.
• 5:06
  Of a technical problem, it becomes, yeah.
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  Now the funny thing is, how I got into this thing was purely
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  based on technical merit.
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  Uh, so I graduated with a computer science degree.
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  I thought I was just gonna be a computer
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  programmer my whole life.
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  Um, got into some debt and I had to make money and so I
• 5:22
  started becoming like a low end frontend website developer.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And just making websites for people 'cause I
• 5:27
  could do that and I.
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  Was decent at it, but not great.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And, but it was paying the bills.
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  And then finally I made a website for somebody who
• 5:33
  said, Hey Jeff, thanks for the website, but I don't
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  really think it's, I'm not gonna pay you because I'm not
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  making any money off of it.
• 5:40
  Oh, wow.
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  Help me make money off this thing so I can pay
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  you for the website.
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  Yeah.
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  And I was like, well, how do you do that?
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  So I looked into things like paid it, paid ads.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  SEO.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Um.
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  Finally arrived at this thing called stats, which
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  eventually became analytics.
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  And ultimately that was the only thing I could use
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  that would help me figure out how to make this guy
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  money in order to get paid.
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  And so that this was, yeah, that was sort of the, the
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  whole background was it, is that I couldn't, nothing
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  else was accountable.
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  The only thing that was accountable was
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  looking at the numbers.
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  I. Seeing what the numbers said and then using the
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  numbers to leverage it so you could get more of the
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  result you were looking for.
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  Yeah.
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  Basically saying, this is positive, this is, this
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  is not working so well.
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  Let's put all of our effort into this.
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  Which, um, even though the Pareto principle has been around
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  forever, the idea of 80 20, um, that was my first introduction
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  to 80 20 being a real thing.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And being something that was.
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  Shifting that, that actually could make money, right?
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  Like you can read about something in math and that
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  sounds cool, but when you're actually talking about somebody
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  making money off their website because you 80 20 something,
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  because you had the numbers to point it out, that was magical.
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  And so it was the first time that I really felt accepted
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  and that I belonged in that world because, um, I took
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  this, this technical thing and turned it into something
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  that made somebody money.
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  And it turns out that I'm a lot better at making people money
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  than I am at being technical.
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  So, um, and so that's where I ended up finding a career.
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  A career.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Let's just call that a career.
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  And then there's been a lot of phases in the career.
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  I'll, I'll love to get into those, but, um, that's sort
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  of the genesis story of how I became a numbers guy.
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  Um, even though, and, and I had the, you know, I, I had the
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  education to become a numbers guy, but it was really in
• 7:16
  the field that got me there.
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  Matt Edmundson: So I, I'm curious, what, what, once you
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  sort of started to get your head around the analytics for
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  this guy that wasn't making any money, what did you
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  learn and what did you do?
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  How did you turn his side around?
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  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, I mean sometimes it's, it's like
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  the most obvious solution is the answer, and that
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  is ride the hot hand.
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  Figure out what's working and then double down
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  on it, do more of that.
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  And this is any e-commerce store owner that's out there, anybody
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  who's, who's got some kind of momentum, um, the data will tell
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  you how you've succeeded in the past, and then you can do some
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  kind of extrapolation to say, okay, I can go do more of this.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  The reality is that 80 20 is just like a never ending thing.
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  It's everywhere around you at all times.
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  And that is that most of the things you do aren't gonna work.
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  You gotta grow a thick skin in order to understand that.
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  And then the few things that do work.
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  They work extremely well.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And they, they end up being your payback on payback
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  on everything you do.
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  So it could be a couple skews that perform well for you.
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  Yeah.
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  It could be any one of those things.
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  That's usually how it is now.
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  We all want things to be different.
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  We all want it to be more sustainable.
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  We want to have a portfolio play.
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  We wanna hedge our bets.
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  And there's, there's merit in doing that.
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  But the reality is that it's still gonna be, uh, a handful
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  of things that, that work really well and analytics just
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  helps you get there faster.
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  Um, and now we're getting better to the point where
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  it can actually predict what's gonna happen.
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  It can predict behaviors.
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  There's all kinds of things that are happening where if
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  you feed the data into these.
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  Um, machine learning algorithms into this,
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  into the big data Yeah.
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  Pipeline, into meta's algorithms, into, you know,
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  into their, their systems, into Google systems.
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  It's ultimately, they're, they're gonna use all the
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  power to find 80 twenties that you never even dreamed of.
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  Yeah.
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  That, to find the things that are working and that's, that's
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  ultimately how the entire ecosystem works of advertising
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  and, and analytics now, is that you are constantly feeding
• 9:05
  your results and then they're constantly trying to get you
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  more of the same results.
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  Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's a fair point.
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  It, and, and it's, I I think it's gonna be that
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  way for a little while.
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  I mean, I know we're living in a new world order now,
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  um, but I think some of these principles sort of
• 9:19
  stay the same, don't they?
• 9:21
  I'm curious, uh, Jeff, I mean, you, you sound like
• 9:23
  quite a knowledgeable chap in this whole area.
• 9:25
  Let's, let's deal maybe with the big elephant in the room, right?
• 9:29
  In the sense that when it comes to analytics, whether it be.
• 9:34
  Um, Google Analytics you're looking at, whether it's a
• 9:37
  dashboard from the platform.
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  I'm a big fan of a platform that's done by sweet analytics
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  guy called Oliver Sparks been on the show, um, British guy
• 9:47
  who's created that problem.
• 9:48
  Uh, problem created that platform problem and platform.
• 9:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:51
  Um, so we, we've used that in the past.
• 9:54
  Um, and still use that today.
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  I guess my, my observation is now because it is so
• 10:01
  easy to measure everything.
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  We do measure everything.
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  How do we avoid the overwhelm of data?
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  Because it, it, I sometimes I just look at things and go,
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  I just dunno where to start.
• 10:18
  Yeah.
• 10:19
  Jeff Saucer: Well, there's a, there's a lot of different ways
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  and so I, I'd, I'd love to, to help everybody figure that out.
• 10:24
  First thing is, and this is just back to the origin
• 10:26
  story and the evolution.
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  When I first started teaching this stuff almost 20 years ago.
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  I was teaching technical things, I was telling somebody where
• 10:33
  to, where to click a button, how do you, how to put JavaScript
• 10:36
  on your site, how to, how to get code access to your
• 10:39
  site and put stuff on there.
• 10:40
  And that was pretty much every conversation we had.
• 10:43
  Um, thankfully that's not really necessary anymore.
• 10:46
  There's lots of ways to get the code on your site and to track
• 10:48
  things and, and it's easier to collect data than ever before.
• 10:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:52
  Now that's, that's positive from a not as intimidating.
• 10:55
  Yeah.
• 10:55
  But then it just creates another level of intimidation.
• 10:58
  Yeah.
• 10:58
  And that is now data overload.
• 11:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:00
  Data deluge, just so much of it.
• 11:02
  Big data, right?
• 11:03
  Yeah.
• 11:03
  Yeah.
• 11:03
  Um, just so much to choose from that you don't even
• 11:06
  know what matters anymore.
• 11:07
  These dashboards have all these indicators.
• 11:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:10
  Almost like an airplane.
• 11:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:11
  Plane cockpit as opposed to like the dashboard of a car.
• 11:13
  Yeah, right.
• 11:14
  A car dashboard.
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  It's pretty obvious.
• 11:16
  You need to put gas in the car, you're going, your engine's too
• 11:18
  hot and you're going too fast.
• 11:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:20
  Um, an airplane one has, you know, it's, it's
• 11:22
  much more than that.
• 11:23
  And so that's, that's what ends up happening right now.
• 11:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:27
  Um.
• 11:27
  The thing is most people aren't driving airplanes.
• 11:29
  They're not flying airplanes.
• 11:30
  And, and you know, if you get into e-commerce, uh, you know,
• 11:33
  just as a, as a business, you don't, you didn't get into
• 11:37
  this thing to fly airplanes.
• 11:38
  You got into this thing to, to drive a car, right.
• 11:40
  To drive from one point to the other.
• 11:42
  And so one thing is.
• 11:44
  Instead of having the airplane dashboard and having everything
• 11:46
  possible, all these instruments that you don't need realize
• 11:49
  that you're, that you're in a car and, and, and simplify it.
• 11:52
  And so, again, I, I hate to say 80 20 all the time,
• 11:55
  but it ends up usually being about the ratio.
• 11:57
  Yeah.
• 11:57
  Um, I always tell people that in Google Analytics, I.
• 12:00
  You think you need a hundred percent of the data, you'll
• 12:03
  only ever look at 2010 to 20% of the data you collect.
• 12:07
  And, and I'd rather have you spend time configuring
• 12:09
  that 10 to 20% mm-hmm.
• 12:11
  To give you exactly what you need as opposed to spending
• 12:14
  that time trying to understand all 100% of what you have.
• 12:19
  Yeah.
• 12:19
  And so the way that we help people with that is we, we
• 12:21
  actually developed our own framework called the Measurement
• 12:24
  Marketing Framework at Measure U. And that basically tells you.
• 12:28
  Ask the right questions about what you want this data to do.
• 12:31
  What are, what is what, what do I need this thing to tell me?
• 12:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:34
  Is it that you're tracking like a product detail page
• 12:36
  and you wanna see where people drop off and whether
• 12:38
  they're looking at it or not?
• 12:39
  Is it that you wanna track your cart and if they're dropping off
• 12:42
  in the cart, is it like how you, you have to basically figure
• 12:45
  out what behavior you're trying to track, get to that level.
• 12:48
  Like what am I trying to solve?
• 12:50
  Now the good news is that you need analytics in order to
• 12:54
  know that you have a problem.
• 12:55
  Like if you look at your, your card abandonment rate is 98%
• 12:59
  and you're expecting it to be 60% that all the, the data is
• 13:03
  telling you where to focus.
• 13:05
  Yeah.
• 13:05
  So it's already telling you where to go.
• 13:07
  Then within that area, there's, if, once you identify
• 13:10
  the problem, it's actually pretty easy to solve it.
• 13:12
  Hmm.
• 13:12
  It is.
• 13:13
  When you're trying to solve everything, uh, all at once,
• 13:15
  that, that becomes a problem.
• 13:16
  So is your problem, your homepage?
• 13:19
  Is your problem, your traffic source is your problem.
• 13:23
  The product detail page is your problem, your
• 13:25
  cart, is it checkout?
• 13:26
  Is it all these different things?
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  Ultimately using data will help you to decide where things are.
• 13:31
  It could be everything.
• 13:32
  Mm mm Chances are it's not everything.
• 13:34
  It's usually one thing that's a lowest hanging fruit and, and
• 13:37
  usually, you know, the analytics tool helps you identify the low
• 13:40
  hanging fruit for your business.
• 13:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:41
  Then you just keep on picking it.
• 13:43
  I've never actually had to get a ladder out, you know
• 13:46
  what, you know what I mean?
• 13:47
  Never have to get a ladder out at all.
• 13:48
  Yeah.
• 13:48
  If you just keep on picking that fruit.
• 13:50
  'cause the next thing's gonna keep on coming down.
• 13:51
  Yeah.
• 13:51
  The next can get ripe at the same time.
• 13:53
  And so that's where I look at it not being intimidating.
• 13:55
  Look at it as being empowering for your business.
• 13:58
  Matt Edmundson: I, I love the car and plane analogy.
• 14:00
  Thank you for that.
• 14:01
  That really helps me.
• 14:02
  Um, having driven cars and flown planes, I can attest to
• 14:06
  both and I'm like, yeah, that ma, that makes a lot of sense.
• 14:08
  I'm ki I, I like this idea of letting the data I. Rather than
• 14:15
  trying to understand everything, understand the key problems
• 14:17
  that it's telling you, and then use the data to help you
• 14:19
  solve that particular problem.
• 14:22
  Um, in your example, the abandoned cart, you know, if,
• 14:24
  if, if that's going wrong, um, you can then use the
• 14:28
  data to sort of highlight that from your experience.
• 14:32
  Um, Jeff, I dare say haven't done this with a fair few
• 14:36
  people, uh, around the world.
• 14:37
  In the world of e-commerce.
• 14:39
  What are some of the common.
• 14:41
  Issues that you are seeing in the data, sort of some of the
• 14:44
  common problems that keep coming up over and over again that we
• 14:46
  could maybe think about starting with those in our own analytics.
• 14:50
  Yeah.
• 14:51
  Jeff Saucer: Um, so we, we, our framework, the way that
• 14:54
  we would answer that, 'cause there's, there's, there's big
• 14:56
  problems and there's, like, we, we, we focus on five problems.
• 14:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:59
  So we, we call it the i on the journey.
• 15:01
  It's like different, I like the letter I, so it's like, um.
• 15:05
  You know, did it, and it's, and it, you just basically look at
• 15:08
  a pa and we're talking about an individual page, but this,
• 15:10
  this could be your whole site, but it starts with a page.
• 15:12
  Like, did they get past the, the fold?
• 15:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:15
  Did they, did they scroll?
• 15:16
  Did they get 50%?
• 15:17
  Did they see your call to action button?
• 15:19
  And then did they take the action you wanted them to do?
• 15:21
  Right.
• 15:21
  So we, we basically focus on the different areas.
• 15:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:24
  And then we see what percentage of people should
• 15:25
  have been doing that.
• 15:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:26
  What percentage of people should get past the full,
• 15:28
  what percentage of people should be doing that?
• 15:29
  And it gives you a nice, clean dashboard that tells
• 15:33
  you whether or not you're in an acceptable range.
• 15:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:35
  And then it, it automatically tells you, I. Whether that's
• 15:38
  work, you know, whether you're in the right spot or not.
• 15:40
  Does that make sense?
• 15:41
  Yeah, it does.
• 15:41
  So basically we tell you where the drop off is.
• 15:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:43
  It does take some configuration.
• 15:45
  It's, it's minimal.
• 15:46
  Um, but that will tell you, okay, here's
• 15:48
  what your problem is.
• 15:49
  As opposed to, um, most people don't really know what problem
• 15:52
  they're trying to solve because they don't either, don't do
• 15:54
  any configuration at all.
• 15:56
  And they don't really understand like, Hey,
• 15:58
  my bounce rate's high.
• 15:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:59
  That means that I need to fix my bounce rate.
• 16:01
  Or I have a lot of returning visitors.
• 16:03
  How do I get more new visitors instead of returning?
• 16:05
  Yeah.
• 16:05
  It's like, that's, that, that's not really a thing.
• 16:08
  That's just like a default.
• 16:09
  So moving beyond defaults, but not going too complicated
• 16:12
  where you're like, say, where you're just, you know, trying
• 16:14
  to, to create this thing that doesn't, isn't necessary.
• 16:18
  The ultimate id, the ultimate concept here is that.
• 16:21
  These are real people mm-hmm.
• 16:22
  Who are trying to buy your products.
• 16:24
  They have real problems and usually if you just
• 16:26
  understand where they're coming from and, and their,
• 16:28
  what they went through.
• 16:30
  You can start to say, oh yeah, this is why a real
• 16:32
  person didn't complete this.
• 16:33
  Because I, I failed them on my headline.
• 16:35
  I didn't have enough, uh, images.
• 16:37
  The images weren't very good.
• 16:38
  I had the highest price on the internet.
• 16:40
  I was not competitive.
• 16:41
  Those types of things I, I offer, I put a coupon code
• 16:44
  in the checkout when, when I actually don't want to offer
• 16:46
  a coupon code, and that's where they dropped off.
• 16:48
  So ultimately you're, you're using the data to, to tell you.
• 16:51
  What you need to pinpoint.
• 16:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:53
  And then pinpointing it, it goes back to the human element is
• 16:56
  like, why did this human, why do these humans not do that at
• 16:59
  the rate that I wanted them to?
• 17:02
  Matt Edmundson: Which is, uh, uh, I mean, that is just an
• 17:06
  interesting question, isn't it?
• 17:07
  Why, why do people not behave like they should?
• 17:09
  Dang it, uh, if I could solve that problem with
• 17:12
  analytics or whatever, I'd, I'd be a very wealthy man.
• 17:15
  Um.
• 17:18
  So the, uh, let's maybe think about some more basic questions.
• 17:21
  Uh, basics probably the wrong word, but, um, Google
• 17:24
  Analytics, yes or no,
• 17:27
  Jeff Saucer: Google Analytics.
• 17:27
  Four is.
• 17:29
  A good tool.
• 17:30
  It's not as beautiful as the original universal
• 17:32
  Analytics that we all loved.
• 17:34
  Um, but I, I don't know how you could get by without having
• 17:36
  that installed on your site.
• 17:38
  'cause it does add really, you know, high
• 17:39
  quality data to the mix.
• 17:41
  And also the integration with Google is, is
• 17:43
  as tight as it gets.
• 17:45
  Integrating with Search console, integrating with your Google
• 17:47
  Ads campaigns, integrating with different Google products.
• 17:50
  There's nothing that has that tight of an integration
• 17:52
  that can give you that data.
• 17:53
  Yeah, that can use it to train their advertising algorithms.
• 17:57
  That can let you do remarketing, that can
• 17:58
  do all the segmentation.
• 18:00
  Um, so.
• 18:02
  It.
• 18:02
  If you don't do it, you're missing out a lot.
• 18:04
  Especially if you are using Google Ads as a
• 18:06
  primary traffic driver or Google a organic search.
• 18:09
  Yeah.
• 18:09
  Which I mean, you're
• 18:10
  Matt Edmundson: going to be, aren't you?
• 18:11
  Yeah.
• 18:11
  I mean, at least for the next few years until, um,
• 18:14
  you know, they're no longer needed because I don't know,
• 18:17
  AI glasses do it all for you or something, you know?
• 18:20
  But, um, it, it, it sort of, it is one of those things
• 18:25
  I, I can get, I, I get why people are a little bit.
• 18:29
  Twitchy about putting Google Analytics on their website.
• 18:33
  Um, you know, especially with the Big Brother, you know,
• 18:35
  Google's watching everything.
• 18:37
  Uh, my general response to this is they're watching
• 18:39
  everything anyway.
• 18:40
  You know, it's, don't really think it's gonna make a
• 18:43
  massive difference, but you're right, the integrations
• 18:45
  seem to be getting better and better with Google.
• 18:48
  Yeah.
• 18:49
  Uh, in, in, in so many ways across their platforms.
• 18:52
  Jeff Saucer: And if you read the terms in service of
• 18:54
  service for, uh, for Google Analytics, they do not share
• 18:58
  data with their other products.
• 18:59
  It's the one thing where they, where they won't, Chrome does,
• 19:01
  like, there's other ones that, that don't tell you they don't
• 19:03
  share data, but Google Analytics does not share the data.
• 19:06
  Mm. They can't even access it unless you check a
• 19:08
  box that says that they specialist can look at it.
• 19:10
  So it's not, not shared data.
• 19:12
  You do own that data and that the reason why is it's the
• 19:14
  reason why they still are.
• 19:16
  Able to run in European Union because of that.
• 19:19
  So like, they basically had to take data privacy really
• 19:21
  seriously on that product.
• 19:23
  Yeah.
• 19:23
  And then you, you actually own the data Google does
• 19:25
  and they just store it for
• 19:26
  Matt Edmundson: you.
• 19:26
  Yeah.
• 19:27
  Fantastic.
• 19:28
  So are there any other, are there any competitors to
• 19:31
  Google Analytics that we should be thinking about?
• 19:34
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, I mean, I, I know that a lot of
• 19:35
  big e-commerce stores are using Adobe Analytics.
• 19:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:38
  Um, and, and if you configure it, I mean.
• 19:41
  Just so you know, Google Analytics four, the new version
• 19:43
  does require some configuration.
• 19:45
  If you don't configure it at all, it, it's, it's worthless.
• 19:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:50
  There's no point in using it.
• 19:51
  If you don't do some configuration, you can set up,
• 19:53
  like things like custom events.
• 19:55
  You can, you can set up e-commerce tracking necessary.
• 19:58
  Yeah.
• 19:58
  You can set up your key events, what we used to call
• 20:00
  conversions, but that would be the same with Adobe.
• 20:02
  Yeah.
• 20:03
  Like if you're gonna put Adobe in place and you don't configure
• 20:05
  it to, to help your store make sense, it's you're gonna.
• 20:09
  It's just telling you clickstream data, which
• 20:10
  clickstream data is not, not really that important.
• 20:13
  'cause it doesn't tie to a result.
• 20:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:15
  It doesn't tie to the language you speak.
• 20:16
  So that's one.
• 20:18
  Um, amplitude is getting a lot of, um.
• 20:20
  People who left GA 360, specifically the, the paid
• 20:24
  version of Google Analytics have moved over to Amplitude.
• 20:26
  They're just like drinking from a fire hose now because
• 20:29
  a lot of e advanced e-commerce stores did want to have, uh,
• 20:33
  they, they're not gonna just ride with Google 'cause the
• 20:35
  initial release just didn't have everything they needed.
• 20:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:38
  So those are the two that are taking a lot of market
• 20:39
  share away from, from Google.
• 20:41
  Well,
• 20:41
  Matt Edmundson: you've kind of alluded to my next
• 20:43
  question in many ways.
• 20:44
  What is it that they offer then that Google's not offering?
• 20:48
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, I. One can a, a clear product roadmap.
• 20:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:51
  And a clear customer segment.
• 20:53
  They're going after.
• 20:55
  I've been teaching Google Analytics in a classroom
• 20:56
  since 2010, and even back then I said Google Analytics.
• 21:00
  It's the same Google Analytics, whether you're doing it for
• 21:02
  your 10 person cat video blog, or you're doing it for
• 21:05
  the biggest e-commerce site in the web, in the internet.
• 21:07
  Right.
• 21:08
  It's the same Google Analytics when you install it, like
• 21:10
  it's the exact same product.
• 21:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:12
  And then it's all about your configuration.
• 21:14
  Now, if you did something that was more aligned with.
• 21:16
  An e-commerce specific tool.
• 21:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:19
  You already have a market that, that understands your language.
• 21:21
  Right.
• 21:22
  So that, that's, that's the main advantage to it, is that
• 21:24
  these are these specialty tools.
• 21:26
  They are geared towards your outcome.
• 21:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:30
  Versus every outcome for everybody on the internet.
• 21:31
  And so Google will never be able to compete in that same
• 21:34
  way as a specialty tool can.
• 21:36
  Um, yeah.
• 21:37
  But also.
• 21:37
  That integration and that tightness with, with other
• 21:40
  Google products, it's like, maybe make it one B then
• 21:43
  maybe it's not your mm-hmm.
• 21:44
  One A system, but it could be your one B 'cause how
• 21:46
  are you gonna find that?
• 21:47
  Otherwise, that's really cool.
• 21:50
  Matt Edmundson: Uh, and, and did you mentioned, um, you've
• 21:53
  seen larger companies use these.
• 21:56
  Is there a certain if, well, for example, if I'm, if I've
• 22:01
  recently started my econ business and I'm turning over,
• 22:04
  I don't know, 50, a hundred grand in the year, not, not
• 22:06
  massive amounts of money.
• 22:07
  Do I look at Adobe?
• 22:08
  Do I look at Amplitude?
• 22:09
  Or is there like a, is there a cost That's a big
• 22:13
  barrier to entry here that I need to be aware of.
• 22:15
  Jeff Saucer: I love it.
• 22:16
  This is, this is right in my, this is my jam right
• 22:18
  here, just talking about this type of geeky stuff.
• 22:20
  So generally speaking, um, you know, companies like
• 22:24
  an e-commerce company.
• 22:26
  They probably spend to marketing advertising
• 22:28
  maybe 20% of their budget.
• 22:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:30
  I, I don't really know you, you know that better than me,
• 22:32
  but let's just say they spend 20%, most companies spend
• 22:35
  between one and 2% on their analytics tools and the team.
• 22:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:39
  And so if you're a hundred million dollars store,
• 22:41
  you'd be putting a million to 2 million into that.
• 22:43
  You would definitely have the capacity to pay a
• 22:45
  hundred thousand dollars for Google Analytics for 360,
• 22:49
  that version, or the Adobe Analytics, and you'd have
• 22:51
  money left over to train your team and to get things going.
• 22:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:54
  If you're a million dollar store.
• 22:57
  You're talking about maybe $10,000 for that.
• 22:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:00
  That's where you hire a consultant to tag your
• 23:02
  site, to do it one time and to build you a dashboard.
• 23:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:05
  That's pretty much all you can afford at that rate.
• 23:07
  And so it really comes down to where you're at.
• 23:09
  Um, Avinash Kashic, who's a guy that I, I.
• 23:12
  Followed as I was learning.
• 23:14
  Um, Occam's razors, his blog, he called it the 10 90 Rule.
• 23:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:18
  10% goes to the people or to the tools, 90% to the brains.
• 23:22
  And so at a hundred thousand dollars for your analytics tool,
• 23:25
  that would mean that you need to add that million dollar budget.
• 23:27
  That means that you're in the a hundred million range.
• 23:29
  So most of these tools that the paid ones are priced towards 50
• 23:33
  plus million dollar entities.
• 23:35
  Yeah.
• 23:35
  And so that, and ultimately you can sort of self
• 23:37
  sortt based on that.
• 23:38
  Um, and, and I've, I've actually worked with companies that do.
• 23:42
  A hundred million plus in revenue and they still
• 23:44
  don't wanna pay Google for their paid tool.
• 23:47
  They get by on the free one.
• 23:48
  Um, um, and then that's just, that's just where they,
• 23:50
  they maybe they think that money should go elsewhere.
• 23:52
  Maybe they look at it as an expense where they could put
• 23:54
  that money into media, which is working for them, or they don't
• 23:56
  wanna pay for a configuration.
• 23:58
  But that's, you can self sort based on just the tool price and
• 24:01
  then that one to 2% of revenue being your entire function for
• 24:05
  Matt Edmundson: analytics.
• 24:06
  And so if I am, if I'm starting out then, uh, or I'm, you know,
• 24:10
  got a smaller site, uh, that's turning over, I don't know,
• 24:13
  half a million bucks, um, at, at this point to configure
• 24:20
  analytics well, and to give me the data that I need.
• 24:24
  I, I guess I can either learn it myself, you know,
• 24:27
  cue YouTube or cue the courses that you guys do.
• 24:31
  Um.
• 24:32
  Or I can go find a consultant maybe to help me set this up.
• 24:37
  Right.
• 24:37
  Um, have I understood that correctly?
• 24:39
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, those are pretty much your options.
• 24:41
  Do it yourself.
• 24:41
  I. With a combination of self-education and you doing
• 24:44
  the work or get a consultant that's probably in the Upwork
• 24:48
  category for somebody who's doing half a million a year.
• 24:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:50
  You're probably not even, you're probably going to
• 24:52
  Upwork and finding somebody to really do it as a one-off,
• 24:56
  doing it as the install, the technical piece of it.
• 24:58
  You're not even really able to afford an analyst at that point.
• 25:01
  You're sort of your own analyst, but you're, you're
• 25:03
  just getting somebody to get you the, you know, to cut down
• 25:05
  on the learning curve on time.
• 25:07
  Yeah.
• 25:07
  Um, when you're a million plus, I think you might start
• 25:09
  looking at, at a, a true analyst or somebody who's
• 25:13
  giving you recommendations.
• 25:14
  That person usually pays for themselves because they're,
• 25:16
  they're telling you the pockets where you have revenue
• 25:19
  missed opportunities and stuff like that, where your ad
• 25:22
  spend can be more effective.
• 25:23
  I. Um, and then, you know, like that we, we do exist
• 25:26
  for a reason and we do have customers for a reason.
• 25:28
  And that's because there's stores, I mean, there's
• 25:30
  a lot of people who wanna self-educate, right?
• 25:32
  And the, and what they, what the value we have at Measure
• 25:34
  U is we have the courses, we have unlimited support.
• 25:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:38
  We have mentors, people, we have dozens of mentors who have gone
• 25:42
  through our materials, who have been doing this for five, 10
• 25:45
  years and they're ready to help.
• 25:47
  And so you sort of pay for that community that, that
• 25:49
  will support you doing these things on your own.
• 25:52
  Um.
• 25:53
  And so that's, that's really where we fit
• 25:54
  into the puzzle as well.
• 25:56
  Matt Edmundson: And is there, um, is AI getting better at
• 25:59
  helping you here analyze this stuff on a regular basis?
• 26:04
  Or is AI not quite there yet?
• 26:07
  Jeff Saucer: It's so funny, like, really like when do
• 26:09
  you release this episode is sort of the answer, right?
• 26:11
  Because it's like, as of, as of the time we're recording
• 26:13
  this, I would say that AI is.
• 26:17
  The integration's not quite there, but I mean, Google
• 26:20
  Gemini is my favorite AI engine.
• 26:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:22
  I think it's, I think it's the dark horse and I think
• 26:24
  it's gonna win, um, to a certain extent because of
• 26:27
  its integration with Google Suite and stuff like that.
• 26:29
  Yeah.
• 26:29
  Once that gets plugged into the Google Analytics, and they
• 26:31
  can do that, that level of, of ANA analysis, it's like
• 26:35
  game over for, for some of the old way of doing things.
• 26:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:38
  Um, it's only, it's inevitable like it will happen.
• 26:40
  I don't know when, um, it could be that it's already
• 26:43
  out there, you know?
• 26:44
  Um, but the reality is that.
• 26:46
  AI as long as it has access to the data set.
• 26:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:49
  And as long as it understands the data, it will be really
• 26:51
  good at finding trends and patterns out of it and
• 26:54
  giving recommendations.
• 26:55
  And so that's that, you know, with it, I think a year from
• 26:57
  now that that'll be pretty much guaranteed to happen.
• 27:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:02
  I'm actually quite surprised that it hasn't happened already.
• 27:04
  Um, I think a lot of it has to do with just the.
• 27:07
  I don't, I don't wanna get into a technical explanation, but it
• 27:09
  has to do with excess, excess of the a of the APIs that mm-hmm.
• 27:13
  Pull the data in.
• 27:14
  And then just, just integration among teams and
• 27:16
  then just the extensibility of, of these models.
• 27:19
  Um, but I, I think that Google having what I think
• 27:22
  is gonna be the winning.
• 27:23
  Large language model mm-hmm.
• 27:25
  In Gemini, and then the best integration, you already see
• 27:27
  it integrating into G Suite.
• 27:29
  It's gonna happen, um, relatively soon.
• 27:31
  I can only imagine into Google Analytics and into the
• 27:33
  entire advertising product.
• 27:35
  And they're doing it already.
• 27:36
  It's just that, it's not like you can't, you can't, like,
• 27:38
  it's not your assistant.
• 27:40
  It's more of like, it's, it's their assistant.
• 27:42
  Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
• 27:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 27:43
  No, I mean, I mean, I, I logged into my, I don't
• 27:46
  normally log into Gmail.
• 27:47
  I have a Google Mail account, but I normally have a, a, um,
• 27:50
  just have it on the computer.
• 27:52
  Um, and then when I logged into it for whatever reason
• 27:54
  the other day, uh, and I saw Gemini was there, I was
• 27:58
  quite excited because I know you can switch it off, but
• 28:00
  I, I was very much like.
• 28:02
  Gemini, this is the email that I'm looking for.
• 28:04
  Yeah.
• 28:04
  Can you please find it?
• 28:05
  And yeah, Gemini goes away and goes, of course I can.
• 28:07
  Here it is.
• 28:08
  And you're like, holy cow.
• 28:10
  Um, this is quite an extraordinary new feature
• 28:13
  that, um, you now see on the G Suite with the docs
• 28:16
  and the spreadsheets and all that sort of stuff.
• 28:18
  And so I. Um, I, I'd like you, I think it's a bit of a dark
• 28:22
  horse, but the fact it is so well integrated in Google Yeah.
• 28:26
  Uh, is the most extraordinary thing.
• 28:28
  And so yeah.
• 28:28
  Whe when it comes out, who knows whether you'll be able to do
• 28:30
  this, uh, on your analytics.
• 28:33
  Um, I. But I am, I, I mean, I know that I can, I, I've
• 28:37
  done it before with large data sets as I've just given
• 28:39
  it to chat, GPT and gone.
• 28:40
  Tell me what you think.
• 28:42
  Um, I, I tend to be a little bit more creative, I suppose,
• 28:44
  in my prompt engineering.
• 28:46
  Uh, but in essence that's what you're asking for, isn't it?
• 28:48
  And it, and it can help you, um, analyze data.
• 28:52
  I guess the thing that I'm thinking of here, Jeff, is as
• 28:57
  a very good friend of mine.
• 28:58
  Um, Chris Ivers, who's a beautiful lady.
• 29:01
  Uh, I've just, actually, I need to, I need to get, lemme just
• 29:04
  make a note, contact Chris.
• 29:05
  I've not spoke to her for a while.
• 29:07
  Um, anyway, she has this great phrase that you, you don't
• 29:10
  know what you don't know.
• 29:11
  Jeff Saucer: Mm-hmm.
• 29:12
  Matt Edmundson: And I think sometimes with data and with
• 29:15
  ai, it can be a little bit like that if you kind of have
• 29:18
  a clue or an inkling, it can help you figure stuff out.
• 29:21
  But if you don't know, um.
• 29:25
  What you don't know.
• 29:26
  It's hard to look at the, it is hard to get that information
• 29:29
  out, if that makes sense.
• 29:30
  Yeah.
• 29:30
  I think you've gotta have a sort of, an interesting starting
• 29:32
  point along the right track.
• 29:35
  Um, and I guess it'll be, that'll be the interesting
• 29:39
  thing when you, when AI in effect becomes.
• 29:43
  Your permanent data analyst, you know?
• 29:46
  Um, and that can tell you what you don't know.
• 29:48
  Yeah.
• 29:48
  I've I've not seen that yet.
• 29:50
  Jeff Saucer: It's getting there for actually, so just to comment
• 29:52
  on that, we've, we've been in, in Gemini, we've been basically
• 29:56
  not taking the first response.
• 29:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:58
  Like we, we, like, they'll give us response.
• 30:00
  I'm like, that's a seven outta 10, but did you consider this?
• 30:02
  And then can you make this a nine outta 10?
• 30:04
  And then they'll redo it and it'll be better.
• 30:06
  And I'm like, okay, that's a nine outta 10.
• 30:08
  We, we still have the missing this thing.
• 30:10
  Can you make it a 10 outta 10 and they'll fix it?
• 30:11
  And so you can train this thing to just keep on getting better.
• 30:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:15
  And just keep on challenging it and it will self-heal
• 30:17
  and self-improve.
• 30:19
  And so, I mean that, that, that's, you could
• 30:21
  do that with analysis too.
• 30:22
  The question is, how big of a pain in the butt is
• 30:25
  it to get the data out?
• 30:26
  That's really the problem, is like, you have to get
• 30:27
  to download it into a flat file and then do this.
• 30:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:30
  And then get another file.
• 30:31
  That, that's the challenge I think right now is just that
• 30:34
  it's, it's actually getting it.
• 30:36
  The then what you need to feed it in there.
• 30:38
  Um, but that again, that that'll be solved relatively quickly.
• 30:42
  Yeah.
• 30:42
  And so then never say, yeah, like, we don't
• 30:44
  know what we don't know.
• 30:45
  And then also, like, I would never answer a question
• 30:47
  about whether AI can do something with the word never.
• 30:50
  It's just when it's, it's when, yeah.
• 30:52
  Yeah.
• 30:52
  Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
• 30:53
  But especially at the moment, you know, the,
• 30:55
  the, the race is piddling ahead very quick, isn't it?
• 30:59
  Um, now this is all very fascinating and I'm, I'm kind
• 31:02
  of curious, you know, we've.
• 31:04
  With your course.
• 31:06
  So let's say I, I do a half a million a year, I think.
• 31:09
  Well, I'm, I'm gonna go do Jeff's course.
• 31:10
  I'm gonna figure the whole analytics thing out.
• 31:13
  Um, I dunno if you've got any ironic, uh, data around
• 31:17
  this, but I tend to find, and this may be a personal thing,
• 31:21
  Jeff, uh, where I might go and do that, or I might ask
• 31:26
  one of the team members to do something like that course,
• 31:29
  and they go through it, they get it, they understand it.
• 31:32
  So we start off strong, right?
• 31:34
  As in, oh, we found this, this, and this.
• 31:36
  Let's go fix that.
• 31:38
  But six months later, everybody's forgotten about
• 31:40
  everything because there's just the normal run of
• 31:42
  day-to-day life, um, going on.
• 31:45
  So how important is it for me as an e-commerce entrepreneur to
• 31:50
  think about having someone maybe dedicated just to data analysis?
• 31:56
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, I mean everything you gotta look
• 31:57
  at it is like, can you get an ROI from that?
• 32:00
  So say that you have half a million dollar
• 32:02
  store, you have limited resources, you get mm-hmm.
• 32:06
  Two or three, pick yours.
• 32:07
  Right.
• 32:07
  Would that be one of the two or three?
• 32:11
  Yeah.
• 32:11
  Would it be one of the two or three people that you end
• 32:13
  up choosing to, to put there?
• 32:16
  Uh, probably not because I'd rather have somebody
• 32:19
  running the ads.
• 32:20
  Yeah.
• 32:21
  I'd probably have somebody managing inventory.
• 32:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:24
  Um, sourcing product.
• 32:25
  There's, there's way more things to do.
• 32:27
  Right.
• 32:27
  And that might be you wearing all those hats, right?
• 32:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:29
  You might get that point.
• 32:32
  Usually it's when you get to that.
• 32:33
  Ten-ish people.
• 32:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:35
  Like when you have two people in marketing, the third one
• 32:37
  should be an analyst, I think.
• 32:39
  Yeah.
• 32:39
  Um, or you, there's more, there's more value in analyzing
• 32:42
  inventory, analyzing product choices and stuff like that.
• 32:45
  But at some point.
• 32:47
  Literally it'll pay for itself 10 times over by
• 32:50
  not wasting money on ads.
• 32:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 32:53
  By not wasting money on traffic, however you generate
• 32:57
  it, that just isn't efficient.
• 32:59
  That goes away.
• 33:00
  Having an eye on the site and that customer experience
• 33:03
  and tying it all together, eventually you lose money by
• 33:06
  not doing it versus gaining.
• 33:07
  So, um, a lot of like.
• 33:09
  I've been in this industry for long enough that it's
• 33:11
  treated as an expense center for most companies.
• 33:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:14
  But those who treat it as a profit center and can see
• 33:16
  the light are the ones who are at the cutting edge.
• 33:19
  Yep.
• 33:20
  They're the ones who are compounding the value of doing
• 33:23
  this, and they're the ones who are growing versus the people
• 33:26
  who are like, I don't see the value in investing in that.
• 33:28
  Or it, you know, it's not worth it.
• 33:29
  They end up just staying in the same spot because they
• 33:32
  don't have the data in order to tell them how to improve.
• 33:34
  They can't see the patterns because they're
• 33:36
  not addressing it.
• 33:37
  So it's not an expense center, it's a profit center
• 33:39
  when yielded properly.
• 33:41
  But at some, I mean, if you're too young, too early in this
• 33:43
  thing, it's just an expense.
• 33:45
  Yeah.
• 33:45
  But if you invested in, in our courses, learned our framework,
• 33:48
  implemented it, and then had somebody who, and you loved
• 33:51
  it and you made it part of what you're doing, that'll
• 33:54
  be a reason why you double your revenue year over year.
• 33:58
  Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
• 33:58
  Yeah, no, fair comment.
• 34:00
  Fair comment.
• 34:01
  I, I, I do find, um.
• 34:04
  With a lot of these things, the, the more I try and do,
• 34:06
  the less I seem to get done.
• 34:08
  Um, and so I'm, I'm very aware that, that finding
• 34:11
  people to help me is, is a, is a beautiful thing.
• 34:15
  Whether that's agencies, whether that's consultants, whether
• 34:18
  that's people on network or Fiverr, whether that's part-time
• 34:22
  staff, whatever it is, I, um, if it, I've found that the
• 34:26
  more it's reliant on me that.
• 34:28
  The less likely it is to happen Yeah.
• 34:30
  In the long run, you know?
• 34:31
  Jeff Saucer: And that's, that's challenging for the, especially
• 34:33
  for the owner of the business.
• 34:34
  Like you DIYed yourself into the business.
• 34:37
  Like you had to figure out all these things out.
• 34:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:39
  At some point you can't learn anymore.
• 34:41
  Um, so we do offer do it yourself.
• 34:43
  Like just buy a course, learn it, go implement it.
• 34:46
  Then we have done with you, that's the majority of our
• 34:48
  customers where they're in a community, they're asking
• 34:50
  questions and that's, that's more geared towards the
• 34:52
  freelancer slash agencies that you work with and the employees.
• 34:56
  Not to the business owner.
• 34:58
  And then we also do done for you services, which is where the,
• 35:00
  the owner wants the result and they're like, I just wanna pay
• 35:03
  for the result from experts.
• 35:04
  That's, that's our done for, for you service.
• 35:07
  Where, where you can get to that point.
• 35:08
  At no point.
• 35:09
  Really is, would I recommend that the business owner
• 35:12
  themselves get heavily into the technical pieces of analytics
• 35:16
  because, um, they have other things to solve usually, and if
• 35:20
  you can allocate money towards it, that that's something
• 35:22
  where, where there, there's people who will excel at that.
• 35:24
  Very rarely does somebody start a e-commerce store
• 35:27
  and then want to become the master at analytics.
• 35:30
  Matt Edmundson: Uh, y Well, yeah, I, to be fair,
• 35:34
  I've met a few of them.
• 35:35
  Um, but yeah, on the whole, I I would, I would tend to agree.
• 35:38
  I'm, it's, it's an interesting one, isn't it?
• 35:40
  The, the who does it in the organization.
• 35:43
  Um, and I think actually quite rightly, given it the
• 35:46
  do and the importance, um.
• 35:49
  That, that, that, that you have especially 'cause
• 35:52
  like you said, there's so many options you can learn.
• 35:54
  Yeah.
• 35:54
  You can do the done with you and you can do the done for you.
• 35:56
  Yeah, exactly.
• 35:57
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah.
• 35:57
  I mean, you can be a leader.
• 35:58
  You can say that data's important.
• 35:59
  You can say these things are there, but you're not
• 36:01
  gonna be going and figuring out how to configure it and
• 36:03
  like researching how to get JavaScript on your site or what
• 36:06
  tag management solution to use.
• 36:08
  Ultimately, you're gonna just champion that this
• 36:09
  is important to us, that we want this versus not.
• 36:12
  We wanna see answers, we wanna see it clearly, and
• 36:15
  this is important to us.
• 36:16
  Go figure it out.
• 36:17
  Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:18
  No fair play.
• 36:19
  Fair play.
• 36:20
  How important is it?
• 36:23
  And, and I've heard, and I appreciate just hearing
• 36:25
  the question in my head.
• 36:26
  It sounds a little bit silly, but I have heard both sides of
• 36:29
  the, the, the argument here.
• 36:31
  I'm curious to see where you sit.
• 36:33
  How important is air AB testing?
• 36:36
  Jeff Saucer: So we, that's funny 'cause we.
• 36:39
  Are now pioneering what we teach as the anti AB testing.
• 36:44
  And, and I'll be qualified for a second, but, um, no,
• 36:47
  let's just leave it there.
• 36:48
  Yeah.
• 36:50
  No, sorry, go.
• 36:50
  Yeah, no, no.
• 36:51
  Actually you can just leave it there.
• 36:52
  But, um, AB testing is a, is this whole I idea that.
• 36:57
  It comes down to just one subject line
• 36:59
  versus the other one.
• 37:00
  Image versus the other button.
• 37:01
  Color yellow versus orange.
• 37:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:03
  And ultimately that is, that only works if you
• 37:06
  have so much traffic and so many people coming in that
• 37:09
  you can see statistical significance in doing that.
• 37:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:13
  Versus I mentioned the eyes and the journey, the different,
• 37:15
  the five different points where you can lose somebody.
• 37:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:17
  On a page.
• 37:19
  If you just look at that and you say, okay, normally we lose.
• 37:22
  30% of people after the headline are above the fold and
• 37:26
  you're at, you're losing 60%.
• 37:29
  What will happen is that'll tell you, this is
• 37:31
  where you need to focus.
• 37:32
  If you can't fix this thing, nothing else matters.
• 37:34
  This is the biggest leak in the funnel.
• 37:36
  Then all you need to do is go fix that thing.
• 37:38
  Now, one way you can fix that is through an AB test.
• 37:41
  Yeah.
• 37:41
  Another way to do it is if it's at 60% and you know it's
• 37:43
  failing, is to do a complete.
• 37:45
  Overhaul.
• 37:45
  You don't need to test the old crappy one that's not working.
• 37:48
  Yeah.
• 37:48
  You, you know exactly where your problem is.
• 37:50
  Hmm.
• 37:50
  So would you ab, if you have like a funnel, like in real
• 37:52
  life, if you have a funnel and oil's just spitting all
• 37:54
  over the place, you know, would you ab test whether you
• 37:57
  should plug that hole or not?
• 37:58
  Or would you just plug the hole?
• 38:00
  I think AB testing is something that buys people time.
• 38:03
  Yeah.
• 38:03
  And it makes them feel smart.
• 38:04
  But ultimately the reality is it only is reserved
• 38:06
  for traffic, high traffic sites that get that.
• 38:09
  You know, if you're Best Buy or Google, you can AB test and you
• 38:12
  can actually have significant weight in a couple days.
• 38:15
  If you're a small store, you should just plug that hole
• 38:17
  and figure out how to, and figure out the fastest way to
• 38:20
  plug that hole so you can keep on going live another day.
• 38:24
  Matt Edmundson: That's a really interesting, uh, observation.
• 38:26
  Um, I, I, I, with AB testing, I, I think I get the point
• 38:33
  that actually you have to have data to make data, to have a
• 38:36
  data significance, don't you?
• 38:37
  To, to actually find stuff of meaning.
• 38:42
  Um, so if you've only got four people coming to your
• 38:44
  website, I dunno, it's, well, how are you gonna measure it?
• 38:48
  Right?
• 38:49
  Um, so no, I, I totally get that and I, I. I've not heard
• 38:54
  the argument before that AB testing buys you, buys you time,
• 38:57
  which I actually really like.
• 38:59
  It's almost like a procrastinator's dream
• 39:01
  because I don't have to make a decision right now.
• 39:03
  I can put it off and test it against this
• 39:05
  other thing over here.
• 39:06
  I'm smart.
• 39:07
  Put on my lab coat.
• 39:08
  I'm smart.
• 39:08
  Yeah.
• 39:09
  Yeah.
• 39:09
  Smart procrastination.
• 39:10
  I, I, I, I've not heard that argument before, so I'm, I'm
• 39:13
  gonna remember that one Jeff.
• 39:15
  Um.
• 39:17
  Right.
• 39:17
  This is a stage of the, the show where I, uh, ask
• 39:20
  you for a question for me, Jeff, while I remember.
• 39:23
  Yeah.
• 39:24
  Jeff Saucer: So this is one, you might have heard this before,
• 39:27
  um, but is there an op, is there a trend that you, that you
• 39:32
  didn't act on that you regret?
• 39:34
  In the world of eCommerce, is there something
• 39:35
  that you was like, man,
• 39:36
  Matt Edmundson: I
• 39:36
  Jeff Saucer: wish I would've done that.
• 39:37
  Matt Edmundson: Oh yes.
• 39:38
  How long we got anyway?
• 39:40
  Uh, I'm not gonna answer that now.
• 39:41
  I'm gonna get into that on my social media.
• 39:44
  Come follow me on LinkedIn at Edmonton.
• 39:47
  Uh, and I will be answering that question there along
• 39:50
  with all the other questions I get asked on this show.
• 39:52
  But that was a really good question.
• 39:53
  Um, uh, self-reflection.
• 39:56
  Now we could even talk about regret, uh,
• 39:58
  and is it worthwhile?
• 39:59
  But I'm not a psychologist, so probably should avoid that.
• 40:02
  Um, um, but no, I love that question.
• 40:05
  Jeff.
• 40:05
  If people wanna find out more about the stuff that you are
• 40:09
  doing, um, you know, maybe about the course, maybe about
• 40:13
  the done with you service or the done for you service,
• 40:16
  where's the best place to go?
• 40:18
  Jeff Saucer: Yeah, so I'd love you to go to measureu.com,
• 40:21
  the word measure, and then 'u' a the end .com.
• 40:23
  You can see it in my shirt as well.
• 40:24
  If you're watching this on video.
• 40:26
  And we have a free community, and that free community
• 40:29
  is, it's packed with resources we have mm-hmm.
• 40:31
  Uh, tools that you can use for the e-commerce calculators.
• 40:34
  How much money should I spend with my ads?
• 40:36
  How much should I spend with our, how, how do I
• 40:38
  set up Google Analytics?
• 40:39
  How do I tag my site and stuff like that.
• 40:41
  Lots of free resources.
• 40:43
  Plus workshops, tons of workshops you can use in order
• 40:46
  to do, um, there, there are 10, 10 to 20 minute videos that
• 40:49
  tell you to do a single task.
• 40:50
  How do you do this thing?
• 40:51
  And that's our free community.
• 40:53
  We have a little, we have a, a student lounge in there too.
• 40:55
  Thousands of people are in there asking questions
• 40:57
  about the different platforms around analytics.
• 41:00
  So our free community has more value than
• 41:02
  most paid communities.
• 41:03
  I can promise you that.
• 41:04
  And um, and then if you like that.
• 41:06
  You'll get on our mailing list and then we'll talk to you
• 41:07
  about what other offers we have.
• 41:09
  You can buy individual courses.
• 41:10
  You can get all of our courses for one lifetime fee, which
• 41:14
  a lot of people don't do, but you, you know, we have, um,
• 41:17
  dozens and dozens of courses that you can get for one charge.
• 41:21
  We also have coaching.
• 41:22
  We.
• 41:22
  Um, through our accelerator program where we'll, we'll
• 41:24
  actually, um, multiple times a week, about 200 times a year,
• 41:27
  you can jump on with a live call with one of our mentor
• 41:30
  experts and instructors to get your question answered.
• 41:33
  And then, um, we do the done for you service as well.
• 41:35
  That's not for everybody, not for most, but if you really
• 41:38
  just want this thing done from the people who invented the
• 41:40
  frameworks and who know how to do this thing, that's where
• 41:42
  we can help you out as well.
• 41:43
  And so that's a little bit of your background of, of
• 41:45
  how you can take advantage of what we do at Measure U.
• 41:49
  Matt Edmundson: Fantastic.
• 41:49
  And that's measureu.com.
• 41:52
  Uh, U as in, I assume it stands for university?
• 41:55
  Yes.
• 41:55
  Uh, or unguarded, maybe.
• 41:57
  Uh, unappreciated.
• 41:59
  I don't know.
• 41:59
  I'm just wax lyrical about, but it is a, it,
• 42:02
  it, it reminds me of, um.
• 42:05
  I dunno why Jeff?
• 42:06
  It reminds me of the movie my kids watched when they were
• 42:10
  younger, the Monsters Inc. Okay.
• 42:11
  Didn't they have Monster U um, as a sort of, this is the
• 42:16
  University of Monsters and I thought, okay, it's brilliant.
• 42:18
  Uh, so Measure U we would of course link to
• 42:21
  that in the show notes.
• 42:23
  Um, are you on LinkedIn?
• 42:24
  Do you do that whole thing or is it just on the website?
• 42:27
  Jeff Saucer: Yep.
• 42:27
  LinkedIn, uh, linkedin.com/jeffsauer
• 42:30
  in/jeffsauer.
• 42:31
  You can check me out on there.
• 42:32
  Um, we're trying to get more active and, and putting
• 42:35
  stuff outta the community onto our social channels.
• 42:37
  By the time you watch this, hopefully we'll have some
• 42:39
  cool videos and clips on there, but we are producing
• 42:41
  content all the time.
• 42:42
  We, we love this stuff.
• 42:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 42:44
  We've been doing it for, for a long time.
• 42:46
  Um, and yeah, we always are just talking about the new
• 42:49
  trends and what's happening, um, with, with your tools and,
• 42:52
  and how to get the most of it.
• 42:53
  And then how to think about measurement in general.
• 42:55
  Mm.
• 42:56
  Matt Edmundson: Fantastic.
• 42:56
  Well, we'll link to that as well in the show notes,
• 42:59
  which you can get along, uh, with the transcript and the
• 43:02
  show notes for free on the website ecommercepodcast.net.
• 43:05
  Of course, if you are on an app listening to this, as I know
• 43:07
  99.95% of you are looking at the data that we have, Jeff,
• 43:12
  everyone's listening to this show on a phone either with
• 43:15
  Apple Podcast or Spotify.
• 43:16
  It seems to be the way it works.
• 43:18
  Um, and so the links will be of course, in the show notes
• 43:21
  on the app as well, which you can get us by scrolling down,
• 43:24
  which is a beautiful thing.
• 43:26
  Uh, Jeff, listen, uh, great to meet you, man.
• 43:29
  Really excited about what you guys are doing.
• 43:30
  I. Thanks for coming on the show and clearing up a
• 43:33
  few things, a few questions that I had in my head.
• 43:36
  Um, but uh, genuinely lovely to meet you.
• 43:38
  Thanks so much.
• 43:39
  Yeah, Matt, this is great.
• 43:40
  Thanks so much for having me.
• 43:41
  No worries.
• 43:42
  Listen, we have to do that huge round of applause thing.
• 43:43
  Yes.
• 43:44
  There we go.
• 43:46
  Yeah.
• 43:46
  There we go.
• 43:46
  Uh, not too much, but that, that was enough.
• 43:50
  Brilliant.
• 43:51
  That's fantastic.
• 43:52
  Well, huge thanks again to Jeff for joining me today.
• 43:56
  Now, be follow, uh, short for be follow.
• 43:58
  No, no.
• 43:59
  Just be sure to follow, uh, the e-commerce podcast
• 44:01
  where you get your, wherever you get your podcast from
• 44:03
  because we've got some more great conversations lined up.
• 44:06
  And of course, I don't want you to miss any of them.
• 44:08
  And in case no one has told you yet.
• 44:10
  Day, let me be the first.
• 44:11
  You are awesome.
• 44:12
  Yes, you are created.
• 44:14
  Awesome.
• 44:14
  It's just a burden you have to bear.
• 44:17
  Jeff's gotta bear it.
• 44:18
  I've gotta bear it.
• 44:19
  You've gotta bear it as well.
• 44:21
  Now the E-Commerce podcast is produced by Podjunction
• 44:24
  you can find our entire archive of episodes on
• 44:27
  your favorite podcast app.
• 44:28
  The theme song was written by Josh Edmundson, and as
• 44:31
  I mentioned the show notes, the access to the newsletter
• 44:35
  and all that sort of stuff is available on our website.
• 44:38
  eCommerce podcast.net.
• 44:40
  But that is it from me.
• 44:41
  That is it from Jeff.
• 44:43
  Thank you so much for joining us.
• 44:45
  Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.
• 44:47
  I will see you next time.
• 44:49
  Bye for now.