Introduction

[0:00:15] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: So welcome to Pathmon Presents where we talk with growth and marketing leaders about what's actually working right now. I'm Adrian, your host, and today I'm joined by Andy McKenna. Founder of Acquitain. Hi, Andy, how's it going? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Hi, Adrian. Very well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. Really looking forward to this conversation. Right, absolutely. So, in your own words, what does Acquitain do, and how do you explain CRO and experimentation? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Okay, so… Basically, I help marketers and business owners grow their businesses. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: without relying on guesswork and random tactics, and that's by adopting a structured, evidence-led framework. So, as you just mentioned, my background is in CRO and experimentation, or it has been for the last…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: probably 15 years. Before that, I kind of ran the gamut of various different digital marketing disciplines. But, you know, I've spent a lot of my career helping organizations understand what's really stopping customers from converting.

EDGE: the Evidence Driven Growth Engine

[0:01:27] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Also, you know, deciding what to improve, and then using experimentation to validate whether those changes actually work. So… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: More recently, I've been formalizing all of that into a framework that I've called Edge. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And EDGE stands for Evidence Driven Growth Engine. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Okay. The four stages of EDGE are evidence, focus, validation, and learning. And the principle is really pretty simple, you know, you gather evidence. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you focus on the right opportunities, you then validate your ideas, and then you make sure what you learn feeds back into that kind of next decision, into that decision loop. So…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I guess, you know, it's… Not really any different to any other. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: CRO or experimentation methodology, but I guess, you know, the one thing that I have… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Really sort of noticed on an ongoing basis throughout my career is how little. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: focus there is, or there has been, on evidence. You know, so much of it is on gut feel, it's on hunches, it's on the loudest voice in the room, you know? Yep. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So many times, you know, we've just had to give in to that loudest voice in the room and push things over, and I think that's really what kind of endeared me to, you know, CRO experimentation.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: right back, you know, back in the day, was… was exactly that. It was something that was… it was measurable. We could actually, you know, measure through evidence whether the decisions that were being made were the right decisions, or not. And then, you know, learning from those. So, obviously, learning is such a…

Who Acquitain works with

[0:03:15] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Huge part of all of this. Yeah. So, Andy, I think it's important, you know, for our audience, just to understand what kind of customers you serve, right? So, what kind of companies are you supporting with your services? Just for them to understand. If your service is focused on them, or rather, you know, something different. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah, sure. So I've worked with organizations ranging from Andy McKenna | Acquitain: large financial services brands, you know, through to small e-commerce businesses. Right. But, you know, what I've found is that the underlying problem is kind of surprisingly consistent, and that is all of these companies have huge amounts of data, customer feedback.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: ideas. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: But, you know, very often they're just not particularly systematic about turning all of that into the decisions about what they should actually do next. So, I guess in a way, you know, in terms of the verticals, yes, I sort of have focused a bit more on financial services. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And then, you know, after that, probably e-commerce, but… Yep. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you know, really, I think the… as I say, the sort of underlying themes are very, very similar, and I don't think with experimentation, or certainly. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: From my perspective, in my experience.

has. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: It hasn't really kind of mattered, I suppose. Okay. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: the, what the industry vertical is, because the approaches have been, you know, very, very similar. Right, so you're saying here that It doesn't matter either if you have, an e-commerce or a lead generation business, like, you need to have a structure or an architecture that is going to support you making the right decision for CRO, and that's what you, in a way, comprise in a…

Start with business objectives, not tests

[0:05:10] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: in a methodology called Edge, right, which you apply to your customers, and the people that you support to deploy. I wonder if you might, you know, give some concrete examples that could be relevant or useful for our audience in terms of how to approach a new brand, in terms of CRO, what are the different things that you do, high level, just to make sure that you're right… I mean, you're taking the right decisions at the beginning. So when it comes to, you know, deploying, experimenting, tracking everything. It's been done right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what I would say is that the first

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: The first thing that I tend to do in my initial conversation with a new prospect, or, you know, a new client, is… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Understand… sit down with them and understand what their… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: primary business objectives are. What is it that their business is trying to achieve? It sounds… it sounds so obvious, but oh my god, you know, the number of times that, you know, I've sat in meetings, where this just hasn't been addressed, and it's always been a case of. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: What can we test? And I think. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: A lot of the time, it is, you know, really sort of pivoting that around and saying, no, no, no, we don't start with what it is we can test, because

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I certainly… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Certainly feel, and I think it's changing a bit now, but, you know, I think there is still an element of this where. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: CRO and certainly the A-B testing element, that sort of seemed to be the silver bullet. It's the panacea. It's, you know, you can kind of crank the handle, and it's going to print you money. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And… Pretty sophisticated brands, you know. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: have these conversations still, and I know this because relatively recently, I've kind of heard them and been party to them.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And, you know, that is not what it's about. It's all about, you know, as we talked about at the beginning, and I don't want to labor the point, but, you know, it is all about learning for decisions, you know, making better decisions through learning. So you need that structure up front. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And understanding those business objectives is, you know, 100% the starting point. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Because once you know what you are focusing on, you can kind of do away with all that wastage in terms of time, money, and effort, where you're not looking at the right things, and you're not testing the right things.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So yeah, that is kind of the number one, and… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I think another point that I would make here, and I think it is relevant to this question, is that one of the reasons that I kind of devised Edge is because Andy McKenna | Acquitain: there is so much unnecessary complexity, I think, in CRO and experimentation, and in digital marketing in general. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I don't know whether it's because I… I tend to like simplicity, or whether it kind of says something about the way my brain works, I don't know, but, simple for me is good, and breaking things down into the kind of most

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: most simple components, I think, you know, definitely helps me to do a better job, and it's helped my clients to reach their objectives and reach their goals. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: as quickly as possible as well. So, you know, I think just trying to… trying to tear down the complexity and just have a really simple process.

Gathering evidence across the customer journey

[0:08:52] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: Andy McKenna | Acquitain: really simple methodology is kind of where I want to get to. So, you know, after the business objectives, then the next point is that it's this kind of big evidence word, and really sitting down again with the team and saying, look, you know, what Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Research, what evidence do you have currently that you can share with me? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: That kind of shows where your… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Potential customers where your prospects are struggling. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: across your web journeys, and it doesn't even need to be across your web journeys, you know, it can… and I think this is the sort of beauty of where we're getting to with AI now, you know, it doesn't just need to be the web journey, it's the whole customer journey. It can be…

Okay. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, it can be through delivery and fulfillment, it can be through, kind of, call centers, it can be, you know, it is… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: email, you know, it's looking at that… all of those different touchpoints and interactions, and kind of saying, okay, how can we just improve these? How can we cut out the unnecessary, kind of. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: clutter, as you might say, in that in that journey, just to make it a bit more seamless, and you know, at the end of the day, to try and try and improve that improve that experience for. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: For the user. So, you know, whether that's looking at.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Whether it's looking at session recordings, or whether it's looking at, you know, your kind of hot jar heat maps, or, you know, what I… I always tend to kind of look at it a bit like a detective, you know, the sort of, how would Sherlock Holmes do it? He would try and piece together as many kind of different bits of evidence as he can. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: No matter what the tool might be that's giving it to you. So, you know, it might be Google Analytics, it might be Hotjar, you know, it might be session recordings, it could be, you know, surveys, it could be, you know, whatever it is.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And then just pull all of that together into a kind of meaningful, meaningful sort of research pot, if you like. And then… Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: from there, you can… you… again, you know, it has to be a collaborative piece, because I've sort of… and I think I've probably been guilty of this in the past as well, and I've seen a lot of agencies sort of, you know, not… they sort of take it away and do it themselves. The way I always try and think of it is, look. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: the client is the expert in the product or the service, or, you know, the area. I'm the expert in the…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: In the sort of marketing side of things, so… But… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Together, you know, we are going to be more powerful. So, you know, it is… it's very much a case of. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Working with the client team to, you know, to… with recommendations, so I will go to them with recommendations, and then we will, between us, agree a set of problem statements, as I… as I call them. Yep. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So it's kind of looking at all right, well, where are we seeing these customers or prospects struggling?

Hypotheses and validation beyond A/B tests

[0:11:57] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: you. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Across the journey. And then, from there, it's a case of, you know, devising… so we're moving now from the, kind of, evidence phase into the focus phase. And… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: here is where, you know, by focus, I'm kind of talking about, again, focusing on those business objectives, so let's do a kind of a check-in at this point. Are we still focusing from all these recommendations that we've got? How many of these? What proportion of these? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Can we tie back to those primary business objectives? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: If they don't tie back to those primary business objectives, that's part of them. You know, we don't necessarily throw them away, but we'll part them for now, and we'll tap them forward into the focus.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you know, focus phase, and from here we will build hypotheses. So, you know, obviously CRO experimentation, hypothesis generation is a big part of it. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And, you know, I try not to over-engineer these, you know, I have a… the if-then-because format. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And, you know, because it's the kind of the big piece, the important one, because… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, that is kind of giving you that rationale behind. anything. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: These things are happening, but also almost like a projection, a prediction of what you think is going to happen after it.

Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And then, you know, from there, moving into the validation phase. So, again, I mentioned earlier on, A-B testing tends to be seen as the panacea, and yes, if you can A-B test and you've got the traffic, then fantastic, you know, it's a really good way to go, but it's not the be-all and end-all. And there are other… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: experimentation or validation methods around, and kind of the research methods that I talked about as part of the evidence piece, they are also validation, methods as well. You know, usability testing, for example, can be really powerful.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: combined with AB testing, you know, can be super powerful. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Right. So, you know, it's… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: it's not really, sort of, being wedded to a tool as such. It's… it's sort of understanding that the need to validate Andy McKenna | Acquitain: can be a bit more flexible than just saying, you know, we're going to run an AB test and it needs to hit 95% stat sig and, you know, all this kind of stuff. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So, you know, once… once you have validated these hypotheses. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And you're satisfied that, you know, they have been validated, or equally they haven't been validated, then… you have your learning. You know, these are the pieces that you can take forward, and…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, obviously it's a loop, it's not a kind of end-to-end process, so it's taking those learnings and then moving them back into that kind of evidence. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Like, so it becomes a continuous process.

When to start experimenting

[0:15:05] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: Yeah, okay. So, I've got a question related to the commercial approach, or, you know, the right timing for… not for you, but rather for your customers. Yeah. Because we are talking about, you know, validation and experimentation. At the end of the day, if you don't have enough traffic, there's going to be… You know, little to be done in a way that you don't have anything to validate because the traffic is not enough, or maybe the position of a company is not… Consolidated enough to, you know, to run the test that we are all talking about. So. I'm wondering, what is your opinion on the right timing for a company to start running CRO services, or CRO experimentation?

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Well, I mean, personally, I think you can do it from the start, and you only need to look at, kind of, Eric Riesling's startup, you know, the way that… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Startups. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you know, the recommendation is run A-B tests, you know, and clearly, yes, you need to have Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you need to have the traffic to be able to do that, and, you know, whether that is through, paid social ads, or, you know, paid media, and doing it that way, it can… these days, it can be very, very expensive to, to do that. But, yeah, I don't think necessarily

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, and… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I guess the reason I say this is because it isn't all about A-B testing. If it was… if your question was about A-B testing, then yes, you need the traffic, you need, you know, the… the 5,000 visits a week, or, you know, whatever, to kind of be able to sustain that sort of A-B testing program. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Right. But I think… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, as long as you've got a… you've got a product, and, you know, because… I guess… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, for product management, experimentation is such a kind of huge, huge thing.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And product launches as well, that, you know, I think you can build it in even before you've launched the product, and it's important to. I think, you know, it… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: it's critical, really, that CRO and experimentation aren't kind of seen as this… this bolt-on, or even this sort of channel. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: It's it needs to be incorporated into just the way of working, you know, that that sort of experimentation mindset, or you know, it's a horrible phrase, but culture of experimentation that you hear kind of. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Quite a lot. There is, there is something in it, obviously, and, and… that does… really…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I think you're gonna thrive if you… if you do take in that sort of… or you… sorry, start again. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I think you… you will thrive if you embrace that mindset, you know, that mindset of… of just trying things out, but in a structured way. I think, you know, trying things out. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: By its sort of nature and by definition, makes it sound like it's all sporadic, it's all sort of happening all over the place, hence why it needs this structured framework around it. And. sugar. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: It doesn't. It can't be a straight jacket. It needs to. You know, let it, let it breathe, if you like,

Yeah. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: But without it, you know, things very, very quickly go haywire.

Paid media and landing page message match

[0:18:29] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: Yeah, I'm wondering now about the situation in the digital marketing stack. Like, many people are always talking about acquisition, right? Their only focus is SEO, or AI search, or even paid media, right? They are, like, investing or spending thousands of dollars, euros, pounds, whatever it is. Every single month in acquiring more traffic, but they don't really care about what is happening after that with that traffic, right? The conversion part. So, I'm wondering about how you educate your customers or your prospects, the people that you talk to, and how do you convey the value of conversion for all the activities that they are doing in their digital marketing stack, right? So, how do you do it, and…

What barriers have you seen, and yeah, how have you, overcome them, right? Or… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I'm smiling because… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: probably one of the sort of biggest areas that I've been working in recently has been supporting paid media. So, supporting paid search campaigns, and I've seen it with my own eyes, Adrian, you know, just, as you say, more and more money just getting thrown Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Into… into these campaigns, and… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, when things start going wrong, it's not a case of, okay, well, you know, let's diagnose the problem here, or maybe…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Maybe the message that people are seeing when they hit the landing page is completely different to what's in the ads. Oh, yeah. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: What's in the ad and what you know the keyword and. Sure. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Not even kind of entertaining that idea, just throwing more money at it, and obviously losing more, and just trying to tweak more within the Google Ads interface itself. Yeah. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And clearly, you know, the problem is that landing experience, and even kind of what happens after that landing page. So, again, it's… it's looking at it holistically, and…

Susan? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And this is, you know, as I say, one of the sort of big, big areas that I have been working in quite recently. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: is exactly this. You know, it's looking at… Okay, well… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: What are the… what are the issues, if I put myself into the shoes of… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: A prospect who has come from an ad, they land on this page. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: How does it look to me? Well… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: apart from the fact that you've got a brand name in the top corner that's the same, everything looks different, you know. And so, obviously, I'm gonna… I'm gonna abandon the page, because

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: There are so many things going through my mind, it's the whole kind of Steve Krug, don't make me think. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And, you know, all you kind of need to do in those instances is… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: sometimes just a few very small tweaks. It's making sure that that message matches there, it's making sure that, you know, the value proposition is… and to your point about how do you talk to the clients about this, I mean, it's their value proposition. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And they're not talking about it, and we're having to ask them what your value proposition is, and once we know that, we then have to say to them, why aren't you saying that in your headline, or on your page, or whatever?

percent. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And and you you've got all this social proof. Why aren't you putting it there on the page? And sometimes you've got all of these various different. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: sort of elements, but they just don't hang together, and it needs to tell that story, and it's all about… you hear so often about storytelling, but even on a landing page, it's that… that brand narrative really kind of needs to… to come through, or even a product narrative. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And… It's amazing how often, you know, once you have that conversation. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: That light bulb kind of goes off in their heads, and it's like, yeah, okay, they… it changes the way that they think about it. And you only need to have a couple of

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: couple of wins, you know, where you kind of see the conversions or the click-throughs or whatever, you know, the metrics going in the right direction, that suddenly, you know, they get it. So. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah, I think… and no one wants to be, like. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Spending money like it's going out of, out of fashion on, on paid media campaigns, so, yeah. I… I mean, this is a spoiler alert, right? But, we went to the Mexico last week in Cologne. And… We… spoke with no fewer than 10 people talking about specifically what you said. They had a large, very large… I'm talking about millions, spent on advertisement. Yeah. And they weren't able to convert as much as they could, right? So, they were struggling with it.

And this is a feature that we have in Pathmonk, you know, anyways. And what we do is to connect the UTMs that you run in the ads, right? with that personalized experience that you are going to see on a website. So, if you have a pain that you're representing and conveying on your ad, and the people are clicking on that. It's not you're going to see just a logo when you get to the landing page, but rather a continuation of the story that you started on the ad, so that you have a cohesive story, you have a full arc, the people are going to embrace that thing and understand what you're selling to them, right?

So, I guess that we are all in the same boat. We are doing, you know, things with different tools and different kind of a… let's say. possibilities or features, but at the end, it's that methodology and a structure that makes a thing work, right? So… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: 100%, yeah, and… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you know, the methodology that I've talked about, the EDGE methodology, you know, that holds whether it's Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Complete, sweet, you know, website suite. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: The complete customer journey, or whether it's just a landing page, you know, or a, you know, a paid search campaign with the landing page, you know, it…

Bye. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: it… Yeah, I guess that is my point, you know, it just holds.

AI tools and the prioritization problem

[0:24:53] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: Yeah, yeah. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah. Absolutely. So, Andy, I wanted to ask you in terms of, like, I guess you're using a lot of tools and different resources, you know, to run your experimentation and such. I wanted to ask you, given your experience on the field, if you've seen a particular one that is, you know, taking the lead, or that is something special, given the Genentech revolution and such, is making your work much better these days. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah, I mean, I guess… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: what I am excited about is using, agents, you know, building my own agents and, you know, getting them to help me. I…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I I haven't got far as far down that track as I wanted to at the moment. I'm I would probably say I'm using Chat GPT and Claude items. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, to… the most. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: But the caveat, I think, there is that I'm not using them in a way that a lot of companies are using them, you know, in a CRO context, to generate ideas. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Now. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: idea generation is something that, you know, you can come up with thousands instantaneously, you know, so… Right. Idea generation isn't the problem, you know, the problem is…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: valid… well, it's prioritizing them, and making sure that you are actually testing ideas that you know are going to make the biggest difference. So, it almost, sort of. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Makes the… the picture cloudier now, because there is… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So much more, you know, ideation possibility. Going on. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So, yeah, I mean, I… I guess… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, there are there are hundreds of tools kind of being spawned every day. Oh, yeah. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So many of them, you know, do. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: do similar things, and, you know, I think that, you know, from a…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: from a CRO perspective, you know, each… each point of the… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Of the methodology, I suppose, there is a tool that can help. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Speed things up, you know, so in terms of… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: In terms of evidence building, you know, clearly. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Toward. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Gemini, ChatGPT, can, you know, it can spin up ideas, and probably pretty relevant ideas. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, just, just… Absolutely. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So. the. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And then, you know, moving down to the other end, to the validation side of things, then, you know, we're seeing now that testing tools.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Are becoming much more. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Reliant is the wrong word, but they are… they're becoming, much more… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: dependent, I suppose, on AI, or they're leveraged, let's say they're leveraging AI. Right. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: much more to be able to to kind of get that that testing velocity. So You know. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Anything that is going to… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: to improve that velocity, whether that's testing velocity or learning velocity, is a good thing. And, you know, I've been having conversations with the likes of Chameleon, and Convert.com, and Webtrends Optimizing, you know, those kinds of guys, and kind of… Looking at…

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: where they are leveraging AI to really try to improve the journey and to personalize experiences, because I don't think personalization has ever really, sort of, been done particularly well, but I think now we're at a point where it really can, because I think the AI. It might. Yeah. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: It might, yeah. We'll see. We'll see how it pans out, but, I think… that. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, there's probably… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: A better chance now than there ever has been that it'll, you know, it'll be done in a, in a way that is. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Efficient and effective, and doesn't feel like, kind of, you're being stalked.

Agentic traffic and the future of websites

[0:29:15] ADRIAN GARCIA RAMOS: and Yeah, 100%. I was wondering on, on… You know, wanted to ask you about the market trends that you see, but there is one that. it makes me curious about, right? And it's all this Agentic, traffic that we are seeing more and more in the websites. It seems that… you know, the Agentic traffic has demonstrated to have a higher conversion intent. I don't know if you have any data, but, yeah, I wanted to ask, for your opinion on that, like, any market trend that you see on… on the field, and then specifically for, you know, like, Agentic Browsing, if there's something that you have changed in your workday, or in the request from your customers, or your provision of services for tackling that thing.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah, I mean, I guess… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Yeah, I… I've kind of been… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: exploring… you know, I've been exploring how AI can support, as I say, heuristic analysis, but also kind of looking at how it can… how it can help. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: In search… Yep. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: for me. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: And… I think, you know, your point about… about that Agentic traffic, kind of. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you know, giving that expo… I personally haven't seen a sort of difference in… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: conversion rate from that Agentic traffic.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: But, you know, clearly… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: It, you know, times have changed, and it's something that needs to be taken into account, because Andy McKenna | Acquitain: I, I think… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: In a lot of cases, there just isn't even that sort of realization that it's, it's happening. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: People understand what Agentic means, but they don't understand, sort of, what the knock-on impact Andy McKenna | Acquitain: of that, of that is. So, you know, I think… . Andy McKenna | Acquitain: One of the things that I've been Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Sort of trying to get my head around recently is how.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: how… let's say, let's call it website optimization rather than kind of CRO and experimentation, how that works around Andy McKenna | Acquitain: you know, AEO, GEO… Aio, you know, how… Because, clearly. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: These journeys are changing, you know, and the way that we the way that we interact with brands is changing, and you know, a lot of people are saying that websites might even become defunct in you know the forever. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: 5, 10 years' time, or maybe even sooner than that. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: So, you know, what impact is that actually going to have on the journey? And as such.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: How can we flex? Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Our methodologies, you know, to enable that. So, I think… Andy McKenna | Acquitain: You know, an approach and a methodology has to be as flexible as possible to allow for this rapidly, rapidly changing world, and rapidly changing, kind of, customer experience that we are… that we're all seeing. Right. Okay, so, Andy, thanks so much for coming on. I wanted to ask you to detail how our audience could reach you out, and also if you want to tell about Acquitain and how to get in contact, that would be amazing. Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Absolutely, yeah. So, probably the best way to contact me is through LinkedIn. So.

Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Andy McKenna on LinkedIn. I'm sure you'll hopefully be able to find me. Might need to put in CRO or experimentation, but Andy McKenna | Acquitain: Or, my website, which is, Acquitain.com.