We are in an era of heightened awareness around social and environmental responsibility, says Bud Johnston, this month's guest on #thebiglift podcast. Bud is the Founder and Strategic Consultant of Boxless, an organisation dedicated to helping businesses make positive changes and achieve success around their social and environmental responsibilities. 

Bud explores why organisations are changing their habits, how the impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic has influenced this, and how the pillars of ESG and DEI can provide a clear framework for businesses to follow. By businesses demonstrating their social and environmental efforts, you are not only having a positive contribution to society, you are also continuing to attract the current workforce.

On this month's podcast, we are joined by Simon Gardiner, Head of Digital at the Goodwood Group. Simon takes us on an interesting journey around the migration of their website and the different tools and methods they are utilising to make this as seamless as possible. Website migration is a challenge for any business, but particularly when you have a multifaceted website like The Goodwood Group do. Simon describes how his team, even though quite small, have a combination of skills that help combat any complications that come with a big project like website migration and ensure they are successful in all projects they do.

This week we are joined by Richard Chapman, Head of Experimentation at 26 Agency. In this episode, we explore how to build and maintain a CRO culture for quicker growth to ensure you nurture your more engaged customers. But building this culture can be difficult, particularly if your organisation is new to CRO and experimentation. As someone who had worked in CRO for a long time, Richard outlines his best practice tips for a quick and smooth process when introducing it into your digital strategy.

On this month's podcast, we are joined by Steven Shyne, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of CXperts. CXperts are a digital consultancy that work with a number of different organisations to help them empathise and connect with their users. On this episode, he explores how to plan beyond the quick wins to develop sustainable ongoing test concepts. Steven argues that whilst quick wins are useful, they have a limited life span, so you need multiple inputs to keep your customers interested and engaged, This requires regular communication with them to determine what they do and don't want to see. Implementing this ensures you are getting the most out of your digital assets.

On this month's podcast, we are joined by Gavin Willis, Founder and CEO of specialist SEO and Search marketing agency, Search7. Named as such due to their expertise in Search Marketing, and 7 as they give 7% of their profits to charity. They have an admirable approach to their way of working, encompassing their belief that 'we can all play a part in making people's lives better', as well as continuing to give their employees the tools to thrive and providing results for their clients. Gavin explores how you can balance a successful business whilst still giving to communities and charities, and inspiring other businesses to do the same.

On this month's #thebiglift we are joined by Gerry McNicol, Founder and CEO at Distil. Ai, who are experts at using data to improve commerce performance. Gerry explores how you can avoid 'analysis paralysis' so that your data is actually telling you useful things, and to avoid being overwhelmed with too much information. He also delves into the importance of nailing down your definitions in relation to your data, so everyone is clear and concise on what you want to achieve. This is key when there is such a vast amount of data to choose from, and to ensure you get the best results

On this month's podcast we are joined by CEO of AWA Digital, Johann Van Tonder. Johann is passionate about determining what people want to get done and how he can help them. He delves into his belief that an important part of the experimentation and growth mindset is not only learning from your own mistakes, but also the mistakes other people have made. He argues there is no excuse to make ill-informed decisions and sometimes there are more important things at hand than just increasing ROI. In fact, Johann divulges that he often advises teams to try and prove themselves wrong once they think they have 'won', to avoid confirmation bias.

Sussex Cricket Foundation is an important charity in the sporting community due to the work they do to bring joy and fulfillment to children who are often marginalised. We are incredibly proud that we are able to support them in a lot of the fantastic work they do.
On this month's #thebiglift podcast, we are joined by Gary Wallis-Tayler, Aroop Tanna and Tom Belcher from Sussex Cricket Foundation. They discuss the amazing opportunities they bring to children in the local area and how dedicated each and every one of their team is to making a difference in the community. They also delve into the different ways they do this and the variety of initiatives they put on to provide the most amount of support.

This month on #thebiglift podcast we have Edmund Beggs from Conversion.com! At Conversion.com, they have developed The Levers Framework which is a comprehensive map of the user experience features that influence conversion. Essentially, the framework helps you to understand and catalog different features of a user experience. There are different stages to this theory, and Edmund delves into why conversion.com began to develop it, and importantly, how it can help to drive huge value for your experimentation programs. This tool can be used by companies at all levels and in all industries, so the possibilities to be successful are endless!

This month's #thebiglift podcast guest is Oliver Walker, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Hookflash Analytics, who are a dedicated digital analytics consultancy. Oliver's educational background in consumer psychology means he has an in-depth understanding of how to get into the minds of customers to deliver the products they want. He explores the importance of building strong relationships with your customers so they keep returning, which is also rewarded by search engines. But, the key to all of this is the quality of your data. You can then utilise different area's of a digital marketing strategy, such as SEO and experimentation, to create a strong and effective brand which also ensures the most impactful experience for your customer.

Simon Eaton, Managing Director at Fifty, is this month's #theBigLift podcast guest. Fifty’s advanced technology makes sense of complex audience datasets and groups them into tribes as a way to provide detailed audience insights. Simon describes their technology as setting them apart from other agencies; getting meaningful results from understanding audiences is ‘the value that we’re trying to bring to the market.’ He also explores their commitment to more sustainable solutions to benefit the environment and what effect this has on winning clients.

This month on #thebiglift podcast we are joined by Sarah Cridland, Lead Optimisation Strategist for REO and Webtrends Optimize Product Director, Sandeep Shah. They discuss how getting to know each individual customer and why they are shopping on your site is paramount for effective personalisation. Moreover, it’s ‘tapping into the experience the user wants to have’, and identifying what is driving them to buy the product. They discuss the importance of putting yourself into the shoes of your website users to identify what they are actually in need of, and then addressing those problems fundamentally.

This month's podcast guest is Dinah Alam, Head of UX and CRO at Rocketmill. Dinah has a wealth of experience delivering growth to online channels and is passionate about the customer experience. In this episode, she delves into the importance of being bold and making deeper changes into your UX Design, but this can only be done with innovation and creativity to really impact user behaviour. She describes 'the critical overlap where you learn from experimentation to progress the UX and you need to use innovative ideas to progress your experimentation'. Dinah also delves into the psychological thought-process of reviews, and how investing in good user experience makes you more reputable and is an important long-term investment.

This month's podcast guest is Justin Hobbs, Vice President of Partnership and Demand at Webtrends Optimize. He discusses his role and why he is passionate about partnerships, and how they help businesses to grow. He says, 'They lend themselves brilliantly to the partner model, there is so much value added to take to a client.' As well as expanding your offerings, partnerships can also take you into different markets, territories and geographical regions, introduce you to new clients, provide marketing opportunities, and more! So the benefits for both sides are endless. But, as Justin points out, this is particularly key at a time when so many businesses and agencies are looking for a new experimentation partner to replace Google Optimize.

This week's podcast guest is Shiva Manjunath, Experimentation Manager at Solo Brands. Shiva is passionate about CRO, and is one of the most enthusiastic CRO experts we've had. He says part of his love for it is down to the mystery of experimentation; when you test with live people, you never quite know what the result will be. Shiva also describes the appeal of CRO to most people in the industry, saying 'I think all of us are generally just curious people who all want to continue to learn. I just find it incredibly fascinating.' The idea of testing to learn and not just testing to win is also explored, focusing on the importance of the process to ultimately get the most effective results

Eden Bidani, Head of Strategy and Copy at CAPE Agency, is this week’s #thebiglift podcast guest. Eden talks about her background in sociology and anthropology, and how this first piqued her interest in building a connection through marketing and sales. She says, ‘I think what a lot of people in the industry will emphasise is that marketers need to understand psychology; how we respond to different triggers and how you can position products to appeal to people more.’ Therefore, you need to understand how consumers feel and what they need, to then market to them effectively. Eden also discusses how ChatGPT can be a useful tool for marketing teams or content writers, particularly to generate some idea’s or use it to brainstorm, but you still must know how use it to get the most out of it.

This week’s podcast guest is Matt Turner, CEO at The Creative Group. Over the last 16 years, Matt has developed an organisation of 6 companies, all based around different aspects of marketing which compliment each other.
Matt discusses his view that motivation is a team thing, and each member has a different part to play, so they all need to be treated differently and with their own motivations in mind. He says, ‘Some people are motivated by money, some by freedom, some by recognition… and it’s really important to remember everyone needs to know their own end goal and what that direction looks like. But also, everyone needs to be rowing at the same speed, even if that means some people row slower.’

Matt Smith has been CEO of Webtrends Optimize for 4 and a half years now, and a lot of this time has been dictated by Covid and an economic crisis. But, he argues that the future of CRO is bright, as more and more businesses move online. The key is driving users to your site and getting them to convert. He says, ‘‘A lot of people don't realise that just having a website from Shopify or somewhere similar isn't the best for actually converting. You need to look at data, understand user data and then optimise that experience.''

Is customer experience still a priority in the current economic climate? This is the topic we cover today on #theBigLift podcast. We interview Tim Williams, Planning Director at London based agency Four Forty, which focuses on customer-focused behavioural change. Tim explains that an important part of his job is to help brands improve customer experience both in digital and in real world.
"The customers are messy and not linear" says Tim, "and we should not forget that we do not only operate in the online world, but dip in and out of it many times a day".

"Accepting being open to the outcome of the experiment is the essence of experimentation",  says Nils Koppelman, the founder of Berlin-based 3tech GmbH in our latest #theBigLift podcast.Nils, who made the journey from designing e-commerce websites for friends and family to setting up his own CRO agency, shares with us his thoughts on experimentation, the state of CRO in Germany and why the adoption of experimentation is somewhat slow in his home country in comparison with other markets.

When it comes to understanding the pain points of the customer journey, Contentsquare offers businesses easy to understand, and actionable, data at a very granular level.

My guest on #theBigLift podcast today, James Fearne, Lead Customer Success Manager at Contentsquare, talks about how analytics and data can support conversion optimisation in setting up the priorities for a CRO program, and formulating strong hypotheses. Moreover, granular data can help CRO practitioners to understand the drivers behind the test results and sometimes get an even bigger uplift.

Having taught UX at Arts University Bournemouth George Beverley  at Insightful UX offers a unique perspective on  UX, copy-writing, web-development and data analysis."The most important element of a great website is the ability to welcome and engage a user within the first few seconds. We have to respect the time of our visitors and give them what they want really quickly", says George.

“The transition to GA4 is like moving from driving a car to flying a helicopter", says Jill Quick, a hugely experienced analytics consultant who runs The Colouring in Department. #theBigLift podcast invites Jill today to have an in-depth conversation on how the move to GA4 can redefine the way businesses collect and use data. While the transition period may be demanding, those who get to grips with GA4 quickly will benefit from an opportunity to get new insights with actionable data. Using more sophisticated segment and audience building tools in GA4 will also help businesses to define strategies and measures that can give companies a new angle for growth.