From Bankruptcy to E-Commerce Expert: Krisztian Király on Why Most Online Stores Lose Customers

Christian: nobody wants to read the general message anymore. Attention is the new currency. How can you do it? Personalization and segmentation.

Carmen: Hey everyone, this is Carmen Devat and I will be hosting today's episode of Behind the Founders. Joining me here today is Christian Kiray. Christian, welcome. Can you introduce yourself?

Christian: First of all, thank you very much for the invitation, Carmen. I'm happy to be here with you today. So, actually, just very shortly to my background, I'm working in digital marketing for more than 10 years now. I had always my focus on e-commerce and CRO, conversion rate optimization. Actually, I had my own digital marketing agency here in Hungary for more than five years. And yeah, at the moment I'm the international partnership manager at Optimal.

Carmen: Okay, Christian, thank you so much for the lovely introduction as well. You mentioned just now that you had your own digital marketing agency in Hungary. Could you tell the listeners out there a little bit more about this digital marketing agency? When it started, what it's about, what's the focus on?

Christian: Okay, I have started it approximately I think nine years ago or something like this. It was the beginning. The name was Conversions Master of the brand because, as I told you before, my focus was always on CRO. But from the beginning, it was a kind of full stack digital marketing agency because regarding digital marketing, I believe in a holistic approach. I need I know exactly there are some agencies who are focusing only on PPC campaigns, only on SEO, only on email marketing and so on, which could be quite efficient, definitely. But to my opinion, as the customer journeys are more complex than ever before, it could be much more, much more beneficial if you take a look on the digital marketing strategy as a complex strategy. And if you try to improve all of the areas with each other in a kind of synergy, and in that case, you can achieve much better results, you can achieve much better impacts regarding your efforts. So therefore, it was from the beginning a kind of digital marketing agency and still I believe on holistic approach and if

Carmen: Well

Christian: it's possible on full stack that you use all of the tools of online

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: marketing.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Great. And tell me a little bit more before you founded your first digital marketing agency, what actually inspired you to go into the path of entrepreneurship?

Christian: it's actually a very long story. So I have started my career in an absolutely different area and tourism. Because I

Carmen: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Christian: was working on ocean cruise liners for more than 12 years. Firstly on different ocean liners, later on on different river cruise ships on the Danube and on other rivers of Europe. I was a cruise director, as I have told you before.

Carmen: Yes.

Christian: And actually my personal story is a yeah, bankruptcy because what happened to me that I have started my own e commerce store. It's a very long story, it was maybe fifteen years ago or something like this. But I made a big failure. I have started it without any knowledge of digital marketing or just very basic

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: knowledge. And of course, it has led with a l to a lot of lot of failures. Actually, I think I have made all of the failures which were possible. And therefore, unfortunately, my first business experience regarding this e-commerce stores went to bankruptcy. But I have gained a very important experience to my life that first of all I have to learn something if I would like to deal with this part of business. So I have started. Learning, digital marketing. First of all, here in Hungary, I have read a lot of books. I have made all of the possible courses. Then later on, I have improved my English in order to be able to learn on the international market. And there, of course, new opportunities, new doors have opened for me. And then I have started learning by digital marketer. At that time, they were the biggest institute for that. Behind me on the wall, you can see maybe a part of them. I have made All of their courses. So totally I have I think accomplished 25 different areas of digital marketing, 25 different certificates. Yeah, and then it was and still one of my missions that I try to help e commerce leaders to avoid the same failure what I have done, of course, with the help of education.

Carmen: Definitely for sure. I think it's definitely interesting that what I often hear when I have had conversations with different founders in this podcast is that the beginnings are obviously very challenging. There is a lot of setbacks or challenges that you have to face, and through that, you're able to take some learnings out of it to be able to pass that on to your future clients or also to basically start and build your new business and everything like that. So you mentioned that one of the biggest learnings you have was that you really needed to upskill your knowledge in the field of digital marketing. Were there any other takeaways or I would say lessons that you have obtained through going through this unfortunate bankruptcy in your first business?

Christian: Yeah, maybe what I would mention also, it's for me a kind of golden rule or basic rule in business. That the most dangerous number, what could be in a business, is the n is the one. If you have one colleague,

Carmen: Okay, interesting. Yeah.

Christian: if you have one vendor, if you have only one traffic source, actually, because it's very dangerous, because it means you are relying on that.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: Person or on that factor or on that platform or on that traffic source. So therefore,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: you have to think always on different pillars, build your business on different pillars. You have to think a kind of diversified portfolio, how we call it in an investment area, and you have to actually implement it in every area areas of your business. in order to be y that you don't have to rely on one factor in your business. That was also a very important lesson for me.

Carmen: Yeah, absolutely for sure. It's about not putting all the eggs in one basket as well and

Christian: It's correct.

Carmen: always ensuring that it's diversified as well. So

Christian: Exactly.

Carmen: what I love to understand is how did you get into digital marketing? I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile right now. you have a background also in a little bit from the sales and marketing aspect. you were a customer success manager, just right after you were working in in the cruise industry. So what got you into into the digital marketing?

Christian: I would say that as I have mentioned before, it was my first experience was a kind of sad experience of regarding e-commerce and digital marketing. But on the other part, I have discovered the endless opportunities regarding this world of business. That it's already that time, let's say ten years ago when I have started with it, was it changing very fast? And nowadays we don't have to mention it. How how how fast is it changing? But it also means to me that it's always a possibility to improve further. There is never a ceiling, there is never a limit where you can say, now I know everything. No, I have done everything. It's definitely not the case. And as I would say about myself, that I'm a lifelong learning person,

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christian: I really enjoy. this whole process. I really enjoyed to be always an and an and ability to improve myself and this and this and this is a never-ending story. And that's the reason that I'm so passionated about digital marketing still after 10 years.

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine that, there's always constant evolution, involvement, and everything like that. okay. So what I'd love to know is so currently right now, how is Conversio Mester doing right now and how has it evolved in the past I would say seven years that you started?

Christian: Okay, so actually about six years ago, I have joined to the team in Optimong, and our first common project was actually a very exciting thing. We have made together the first business reality show in Hungary called E-commerce revolution.

Carmen: okay.

Christian: And it was quite successful and

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: also very exciting because in this business reality show from the e-commerce store owners who have actually applied to be participants in this e-commerce business show. We have chosen four. And we have guided them regarding digital marketing for one month or almost two months, one and a half months, everything in front of the cameras. So we have shown really everything, not just the positive impacts and achievements, but also, of course,

Carmen: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Christian: the failures, because we can learn from failures as well.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: But where I'm very proud of it, that by all of the four e-commerce stores, we have achieved two digits results, which means which means that the smallest uplift was 11% uplift in revenue. The biggest one was 67% uplift in revenue after one and a half month. So actually, also this

Carmen: Mm hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. That's really fast. Yeah.

Christian: show, this e-commerce revolution has proved. My theory, theory about it is that digital marketing is a great tool and you have

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: so much possibilities if you have knowledge, of course, and

Carmen: Course.

Christian: if you know how to use it. The limit is the sky.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, definitely for sure. Definitely for sure. So just wanted to understand, just so for the listeners who are tuning in, what is the connection between Optimonk and Conversio Mester? Is Optimonk like another like a subsidiary brand or like another partnership? Or how what's the connection there?

Christian: That's me, the connection actually. And the connection is just to giving you a little bit of context about Optimonk as well, Optimonk as a company was established

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: 12 years ago. And they have

Carmen: okay.

Christian: started, to be honest, just as a simple pop up tool from Hungary. But

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Christian: with the time, we have discovered that it's definitely not enough to stay in this overcrowded space of e commerce. So we

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: have always added and developed new features. for example, also other types of on-site messages, not just pop-ups.

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: and then very complex targeting possibilities, like even hyper-personalized

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: on-site messages. And nowadays

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: I would say that Optimong is a quite comprehensive AI-powered CRO tool for conversion rate optimization. And that's

Carmen: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Christian: also a connection where I would say that I was already Known as a CRO expert. And Optimonk

Carmen: Mm.

Christian: is a great tool for CRO. And now it's also quite international because we have now colleagues from all over the world. And at the moment,

Carmen: no, yes.

Christian: approximately 30,000 websites and e-commerce stores are already using Optimonk worldwide. So also international, not just in Hungary. Absolutely.

Carmen: wow. Okay. It is very international, huh?

Christian: We have a lot of clients in US, in South America, in Europe, in Asia, so everywhere in the world.

Carmen: Okay, very nice.

Christian: and actually that's the connection between the company and myself.

Carmen: okay, makes sense. So tell tell me a little bit more about the different types of clients you work with. What would you say are the most like common industries or backgrounds that they come from?

Christian: Okay, so I would say that definitely most of our clients are e-commerce stores. Because I think there is the place where we can deliver the biggest

Carmen: Mm.

Christian: results, the biggest value for our clients. Because, of course, especially in an e-commerce store, are the most opportunities to improve regarding conversion rate. because actually What you can definitely do, you can accelerate the sign-up rate for your email marketing. With our newest tool, Conversion Lift, you can actually optimize your product pages with the help of AI. And we knew and we know exactly that product pages are the new landing pages. Most of

Carmen: Hm.

Christian: the e-commerce stores are running now PMAX campaigns, which means that most of the visitors are landing directly on the product page. They don't even see usually the main page or the category pages. You can reduce the cart abandonment rate. And of course, as I have mentioned before, you have also other different types of on-site messaging, even hyper-personalized on-site messaging, like for example, personalize your landing pages based on traffic source, based on search intent, or even based on visitor's behavior.

Carmen: Okay. Yeah, that's also a lot of like marketing sales psychology involved in that too.

Christian: Absolutely, absolutely. I have read a case study about it actually recently,

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: that nowadays sixty seven percent of the online visitors expect a personalized experience. So you have to adjust it accordingly.

Carmen: Mm. Yeah, that makes sense as well. That'll make them want to gravitate towards it as well.

Christian: Absolutely, because let's be honest, nobody wants to read the general message anymore. You don't have any

Carmen: Hmm, that's true.

Christian: chance, actually. Attention is the new currency. So if you would like to get

Carmen: Absolutely.

Christian: attention from your potential clients, you have to

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: talk to them. How can you do it? Personalization and segmentation. I think these are definitely the future of e commerce. Or even generally

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Definitely for sure.

Christian: in in the world of digital marketing.

Carmen: Yeah. And I'd love to understand, do you think a lot of people who are working in those e-commerce space, they tend to avoid spending time personalizing the different messages or the different ads? Is it because it's really time consuming or what are your thoughts around that?

Christian: So first of all, I think that before AI, let's take it like this, before

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian: AI, it was definitely quite comprehensive, time-consuming

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: and energy-consuming efforts to build up workflows which are really personalized and really segmented. But

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: of course, with AI, it has dramatically changed. And If you are able now to use this technology and use this innovation, you can do it definitely much easier. Just one example, we have also launched our newest agentic pop-up builder. It's

Carmen: A beam.

Christian: quite new, it's just maybe three weeks ago. Which means that you can just talk in plain English to our AI agents what you would like to set up, what you would like to build, and it builds the campaign for you.

Carmen: Uh-huh.

Christian: It even uses the same style, colors, and font style, what you have already on your website or in your e-commerce store. Or you can even do the targeting with the help of AI agents. So I would say that nowadays, to say that I don't have time for that, it actually doesn't work anymore because you have to behave accordingly, as I have mentioned before, because otherwise you won't get enough attention from your visitors, from your potential clients. So you have to change your mind because the competition is also bigger, of course, than ever before.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. I was actually gonna follow up with a similar question as well, but what I'd love to know is is there from the experience that you've had working with so many different e-commerce brands, is there would you say from the experience you had, consumer behavior that most of the business owners tend to overlook? And what would that be?

Christian: Yeah, so I definitely think that a lot of e-commerce store owners still think in I call it one phase purchase, which means that they expect that the visitors are coming, adding the product into the cart, go to checkout and ready. That sounds ideal, but unfortunately it's definitely not the case anymore. It's so noisy out there. The people's

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: minds are so overwhelmed with information,

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: impressions, and everything that such

Carmen: Absolutely.

Christian: a simple customer journey doesn't exist anymore. Just consider it. The average e-commerce conversion rate is between two and three percent globally.

Carmen: Okay. Wow.

Christian: So even if you have a very, very professional e-commerce store, let's say you have. Four or five percent e-commerce conversion rate, which means you are already at the top. It still means

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Higher than average. Mm-hmm.

Christian: that from so you're above above average, but it still

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: means that from 100 visitors, 95 will leave without purchasing. That's a fact. But

Carmen: Leave okay. Mm-hmm.

Christian: go further, go deeper. The average cart abandonment rate is between 40 and 70%.

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: So, even if you have visitors who have added something into the card, it doesn't mean that they also will finish the purchase. They are not

Carmen: In the cards, yeah. They're going to purchase it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian: buyers yet. So you have to figure out what to do with the visitors who have not purchased, for example, thinking on retention marketing, email marketing, SMS marketing, and so on, lead

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: nurturing to get them back as returning visitors, and maybe the second or the third time. Get them to purchase. Or, for example, you have to figure out what to do with the cart abandoners. They are hot leads, but to get

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: them to go to the end of the purchase. So you have to think on a lot of, lot of different ways and on very complex customer journeys. Because there is also a basic rule in digital marketing: the more complex your product is, and the more expensive your product is. The longer will be your customer journey, and the more

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: touch points will be needed from you for your clients. Approximately

Carmen: Mm.

Christian: between five and eight touch points. What is needed now? That's the average. It could be more, it could be less. It's depending on your market, on your products, on your competition, and so on. But you have to think on complex customer journeys and you have to figure out. How to establish at least five touch points with your potential clients. And to

Carmen: Hmm. Okay.

Christian: answer your questions, this is a factor what I have seen very often that they just overlook it. They think, okay, I run some meta-eds and I hope they come to the e-commerce store and that's ready. Yeah, and it's all it's done. No, no.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. The job is done. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian: Unfortunately, it doesn't work anymore. Maybe it has worked

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: five years ago, but definitely not now.

Carmen: Yeah, definitely for sure. You were you mentioned about the different touch points of the customer journey. What would you say are the most important touch points that the business owners must address in the customer journey?

Christian: So first of all, actually you have to know very exactly your ICP, your ideal customer profile, in

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christian: order to identify these touch points. Because I would say also a a general failure that I see very often, I ask an e commerce or owner, actually, who do you buy who do you sell to? Well, actually have such great products to everybody. Bad use, if you sell to everybody, you sell you sell to nobody. So you have

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: to know your customer avatar as precisely as possible,

Carmen: Like a targeted audience. Mm-hmm.

Christian: demographically, psychographically, you that you can describe him, his challenges, his preferences, and so on. Because if you know your ICP, or you can even have different ICPs as well, then it's

Carmen: Mm-hmm. That's true.

Christian: much easier to identify the touch points where you can reach out to them. Maybe it's quite different on Meta Ads, on Google Ads, or on other traffic sources. Then on the website or on your e commerce store, you have definitely find a way to capture them as leads, at least their email address and first name, ideally also their phone number to do SMS marketing or WhatsApp marketing or whatever tool you use. And then try to map the customer journey for them. Because here again, another failure, what I see very often. They get the leads with email address and first name. And what do they do? They send every second day the same general newsletter to everybody with the same message.

Carmen: Mm. People would just ignore that. Yeah.

Christian: Here is a coupon code. Let's come to me to buy something.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: Wrong. Definitely

Carmen: Very general.

Christian: wrong. I love this quote from Jeffrey Gittomay, the big master of sales. He said once that people hate to be sold, but they love to buy. And that's exactly how you have to think about it. So if

Carmen: Mm-hmm. That's interesting. Mm-hmm.

Christian: you always try just to sell something to your subscribers, of course they're gonna up unsubscribe or just put you in the spam folder. Yeah, sure.

Carmen: Yeah, definitely the spam folder. Yeah, I can relate as well. I get those emails too.

Christian: Just think about it. I have read it also a couple of weeks ago. Nowadays, average people get between one hundred and one hundred and twenty emails per day. Nobody

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: wants to read a 121st newsletter. Nobody needs it, nobody has time for that. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: here again, you have to fight for the attention of your potential clients. So instead of just continuously trying to sell them something. Deliver value for them. I love using this word, edutainment. Education and entertainment. So educate them, give them valuable

Carmen: okay. Okay.

Christian: sources, information, which has also the advantage that you're gonna position yourself as an expert in their eyes. Because

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: you are not just selling them something, you know also the niche. And just think

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: about it. Which one do you prefer? If you are selling just from salespeople or from experts?

Carmen: Mm-hmm. That's true. It also builds a lot of trust as well because it establishes rapport

Christian: Absolutely.

Carmen: and they would be with of course, usually what happens is that it is something that is definitely more long-term and establishes a longer term relationship because at the end of the day, these people they are going to remember, okay, this is the expert. I can go to them anytime if I need a solution or if I need help, rather than just starting off with, okay. Here's a product or here's a service that I can offer you. Because it does lead to a counterproductive effect if you continuously push them for different offers, different deals, different subscriptions. Because I can just relate that as well myself as like a customer. If I get different emails or subscriptions from different, whether it's e-commerce platform or whether it's something that an something that I subscribe, I just immediately I just flag it as spam or I ignore because there's just a lot of noise, like you mentioned. It must be really hard to be able to stand out, from all the different competition as well.

Christian: Yeah, and absolutely, which you have also to consider as a business owner or e-commerce store owner, that people are in different phases of their customer journey, as I have mentioned before, on different awareness stages. They are maybe just not ready to buy yet. They are, yeah,

Carmen: Yeah. But timing as well. Mm-hmm.

Christian: maybe they are just gathering information. If you help them in in this phase, giving them informations, giving them valuable. resources, then maybe

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: later on, if they will be on their own customer journey

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: in the phase that, okay, now I'm ready to purchase, you will be the first one who comes down to the mind. well, yeah,

Carmen: That they go to. Yeah.

Christian: really this expert helped me already several times, giving

Carmen: That's true.

Christian: me nice recommendations and tips. I would like to buy from him or from her. And that's exactly

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: the way how people think.

Carmen: Yeah, that's for sure. It's really about planting the seed as well. And then of course, now that I think about it, I I see a lot of business owners, what they often do is they have a lot of different accounts or social media pages where they share information, whether it's offering master course or whether it's just sharing. the knowledge that they know, which really also builds a connection and a trust as well. And that way they're able to trust that person enough to go to them for expert or for insights or for service or for help at the timing. And I like what you mentioned as well about the it really depends on which stage of the customer journey they're at as well, because it could be that they don't need it right now because of maybe they don't have enough budgeting or they don't have enough resources to be able to afford the services as well. which is something that I of also often encounter as well from our side when we are doing the recruiting business as well.

Christian: And you have also mentioned, Carmen, the word trust. And it's so important nowadays. Another quote from Jeffrey Gittomet here again.

Carmen: Absolutely. Yeah.

Christian: The number one reason why people don't buy from you is that they don't trust you.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian: And especially nowadays, and especially in the online era, it's so important

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: and actually also heavy to build trust that your reputation,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: that your brand is strong enough. That people can trust you and only when they trust you, only then they will be ready to buy from you.

Carmen: Yeah, definitely for sure. definitely very interesting points, I think, that a lot of business owners out there need to consider as well. I really want to come back to the conversion rates that you were talking about earlier as well. You know, the numbers, the percentages, they are quite significantly on the lower side on average. You mentioned it was three to four percent. What I'd love to know is from those three to four percent conversion rates, what were the From the analysis that you've done, what would you say are the top factors that would influence them to, let's say, purchase something in the cart or check out the website? What would you say are the factors that influence those decisions?

Christian: Mm-hmm. it's actually a very good question because I would say that they are not. There are some parts which are technical, but I think there are much more, which are more marketing psychology. So from the technical parts, what I would definitely mention are three factors. First of all, very simple thing: page load time. There is definitely a proved correlation between pages. Page load time and conversion rate. The slower the page, the lower the conversion rate. People

Carmen: Mm.

Christian: don't have time browsing on your site. Absolutely. Very, very significant. Okay.

Carmen: Yeah, the attention span is of course quite short. Yeah. Yeah.

Christian: Secondly, here again, you have to think, you have to try at least to think with the mind of your customers and make them every process on your site in your e commerce store very easy. What I see very often, distraction. You

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: try to give them a lot of information, a lot of possibilities, but it's definitely or in very often not increasing the conversion rates. The opposite happens. I'm pretty sure you have heard about the paradox of choice.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christian: It happens, a lot of distraction, and it can then kill conversions, actually. And the third part, which I would also mention regarding the purchase flow. So until the point when the product is added to the cart, everything is very great, very simple. But as I have mentioned before, there is a high cart abandonment rate. Why? Because a lot of e commerce store owners maybe just don't think about it and make also the last part of the customer journey very simple. For example, only at the beginning you get an additional information, how much exactly costs the delivery? Or for example, how does it look like with the refund policy? Or how does it look like with additional costs? And so on. There are a lot of possibilities. But if the whole checkout process is not very easy, and if you not

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: provide all the needed information to your clients, you're gonna lose a big part of it.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay.

Christian: These are the technical parts. And regarding marketing psychology, actually, there are a lot of different factors. So alone about this topic, I could talk another 20 minutes. I don't want to expand our conversation today. But here again, just the basic rule, the golden rule. Facts tell, stories sell.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Christian: If you sh show some features and specifications on the product page, it's very nice. Definitely there are some visitors who are interested in the spec sheets and data and so on, quite good. But don't forget about the other parts of your visitors, and I think this is the bigger part, and they have only one question: What is in it for me? They're not interested, how big is it?

Carmen: Yeah. It's a powerful question.

Christian: About the specifications, the technical numbers. No. They want to know only one thing. What is the problem in the life? What you can solve with your service or with your product. What

Carmen: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Christian: is the question? What you can answer with your product or with your service. They would like to know the benefits. The benefits and the end destination where you can bring them with your product or with your service. That's all. But you have to showcase it very significant on your product page that they can recognize it. Otherwise they're gonna leave it.

Carmen: Yeah. I really like the what you mentioned about it really just boils down to that simple question, okay, what is the problem? what is the need, and what can you do to answer that problem as well? And I think oftentimes that is a very powerful, powerful narrative or mind shift that can be shifted for a lot of the business owners who are looking to gain more trust, you know, when it comes to client relationships as well. And I think that that really changes a lot of things when it comes to how you establish whether it's the technical aspects or the different features of the pages or the product that you're offering to. what I'd love to do is I want to change the topic a little bit. we of course touched a little bit upon it as well, especially when you think about how I can imagine that e-commerce and everything like that has really evolved so much in the past 10 years. And now with AI being involved, what I'd love to know, especially within your experience, how do you think AI has changed the way regular e-commerce store when it comes to communicating, talking to customers? I know we talked a little bit about the personalized messages, personalized offers, but is there anything else that you felt AI has changed or in terms of e-commerce and the interaction with the clo customers?

Christian: Okay. Before I answer your question, just a short comment. Maybe later can you cut it off? Your picture is frozen for three minutes

Carmen: Yeah, of course. okay.

Christian: now by me. I hope it's only by me.

Carmen: Okay, it's okay on my side actually, so I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no problem at all.

Christian: It's okay on your side. Okay, then it's only by me. Okay, no problem. So actually, I think that AI has opened, of course, new opportunities and new doors in every area of our life, on in the business life, and especially in digital marketing. We can now make all the workflows much more efficient. And for example, especially regarding CRO. The cycles, the testing cycles are now much shorter and much shorter and much faster than ever before. Because digital marketing and especially CRO conversion rate optimization is working only with big amount of data. We say always that if you have a low traffic, actually you don't have a CRO problem, you have a traffic problem. Because you have to have enough data, enough numbers. To be able to analyze it and draw conclusions from it. And that's exactly where AI comes into play, because AI is now able to analyze a big amount of data, see the patterns, and draw very great conclusions about from this A-B testing, from this data analysis, what you can then afterwards implement it. In order to improve your KPIs. It's a kind of PDCA cycle. It's coming from Edward Deming. And the phases are plan, do, check, act. This is one

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: cycle. And with the help of AI, now this cycle is much faster and much easier to implement than ever before.

Carmen: Okay, great. that's definitely worth taking notes as well in terms of like how AI can definitely save a lot more time, but also like be able to generate a lot of different features, personalize and reach, of course, the right clients in the audience as well. So, Christian, I want to talk a little bit more about the operational aspects, right, for both Optimonk and Conversio. So Tell the listeners out there a little bit about the the team setup. how many people are there in in the team? where are they based? Who does what? Just to understand how it all functions operationally.

Christian: Mm-hmm. So Optimon has a quite big team now, approximately 50 people.

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: Most of us are working remotely. And that's the reason that, as I have mentioned before, we are now quite international, which means that the headquarter still in East Hungary in Debrecen. But for example, me personally, I'm working from a small Hungarian town, as I have mentioned before, from Wenice. But we have also

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah.

Christian: international colleagues working from UK. From Kazakhstan and from other different countries as well. And the structure is, I would say, the classical structure of a company. We have, of course, financial team, marketing team, sales team, and of course a big deaf team. So there is, I think, nothing special regarding this. And actually, regarding convergence master, it's quite interesting because. What I see, and I think it's it's definitely not just by us in Hungary, but I see this tendency actually, this trend everywhere international, that of course, with the help of AI, the workflows of the marketing agencies are more efficient than ever before. Which

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Christian: means that let's be very honest and transparent. I'm not sure that junior marketers are needed anymore because

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: all these workflows with Which were done before by junior marketers, you can do it now with your agents. So I think nowadays

Carmen: Yeah. They're all automated.

Christian: it's much more important to have experience because this could be definitely your advantage in comparison to to average marketers who have maybe no experience just using some AI tools randomly.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Also coming, yeah, also with upskilling themselves of how they utilize different AI tools. It is definitely a skill that's overlooked. It's not just simply just typing anything you want on Chat GBT, but it's also about being skillful enough to develop the correct prompts to be able to get exactly and extract the ideas or strategies that you want as well. So you mentioned that at Optimunk it's quite remote, it's very international. So How do you go about recruiting and hiring those people? Do you rely on different staffing agencies or do you have your own internal HR recruitment team to help you support this process?

Christian: We have our own antennal HR team.

Carmen: Okay. Okay. And in terms of what you look out for, what would you say right now takes up most of your time? If you could delegate a task to somebody, what would it be?

Christian: For myself personally, you mean.

Carmen: yeah, for yourself or also for your team, whatever you think fits right now, the biggest pain points.

Christian: Hmm. it's actually also a very good question. I would say that maybe the Reach out and negotiations process with international clients and agencies.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: This is quite time consuming.

Carmen: Okay. So could you elaborate a little bit more on this, what you mean by that, so the listeners would understand a little bit more?

Christian: actually there is of course a huge market out there with a lot of potential traffic and leads and one part is to reach out to them and the other

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Christian: part is to filter and qualify the incoming leads. It it

Carmen: Okay.

Christian: takes of course time.

Carmen: Okay, makes sense. So it's doing the outreach, identifying the correct prospects and then hopefully converting them into leads. Yeah, that is definitely one of the most, I would say most common challenges as well, when especially when you think about the sales funnel as well. It's also about not just acquiring the leads, but also like getting the right leads as well into the funnel as well. Now that makes sense. This is something that we ourselves at Cherry Assistant, we also, we also have to deal with something similar as well. So it's definitely something that I can really relate as well. Okay. so what I'd love to know is what is the next problem that you are trying to solve at Optimonk and Conversio? What are the next steps or next goals if you can share?

Christian: Okay, sure. Before I answer it, sorry, but I'm in five minutes I have to leave. Excuse me. Okay, okay. Okay,

Carmen: No problem at all. I also have to leave in five minutes as well. So we're gonna wrap up really soon.

Christian: perfect. Thank you very much. So I would say that for us at optimum is definitely the next most important step is scaling to grow more and expand more on the international market, and of course launching our two new newest. Tools under the umbrella of Optimong. One is Conversion Lift, which I have mentioned before, which is it's an AI-powered product page optimization tool, especially for e-commerce stores. And the other one is called OptiCube. It's also quite new. We have just launched it on the market. It's actually also an AI-powered tool, which actually Is able to generate your meta catalog ads from your product feed in a couple of minutes. So also a quite innovative and exciting tool, which can

Carmen: Yeah.

Christian: actually dramatically increase your ROS. So if you are running meta ads, this is exactly what can help you to be more efficient regarding this.

Carmen: Yeah, that makes a really huge difference as well. And I'm really excited to see how that would evolve as well at Optimonk as well. Well, just as a final question that I like to ask every single one of my guests coming on to Behind the Founders, of course, we did discuss a little bit about some of the takeaways you've had, the challenges you had to face along the way. Very interesting journey, very interesting stuff. if you could share one message or advice for aspiring business founders. Or even even for those working in the e-commerce space, what would the advice be?

Christian: we have talked a lot about customer journey and trust building, and I have mentioned it several tri times. Try to think with the mind of your potential customers. And regarding this, I have read it in a book, and I love it actually, and that's the reason but I would why I would like to citate it now as well. Nobody will take care how much you know until they know how much you take care.

Carmen: Mm. Very philosophical. I love it.

Christian: Yeah. And it's true actually. It's true actually, but because what I see nowadays that especially because of everything is automated now, everything is AI driven, and so on, the human connections are maybe more important than ever before.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Absolutely for sure. And that is something that AI won't be able to replace.

Christian: Definitely not.

Carmen: I love the the quotes and the references you've quoted in the books. We definitely need to include some of those references or the books that you've read so that way when the listeners are tuning into the episode, they're also able to access it well and encourage them to upskill and read and also dive into that a little bit more too. Well, Christian, it is very

Christian: Happy to do that.

Carmen: lovely. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast of Behind the Founders. I definitely enjoyed this conversation a lot. and for the listeners out there, I'm sure that they'll benefit from tuning into this episode. So again, this is Carmen and Christian from Behind the Founders. Be sure to stay tuned for the next episode. Thanks again.

Christian: Thank you very much.