Interview with Arnout Hellemans about CRO

Arnout Hellemans
Arnout Hellemans

Arnout Hellemans is the first speaker in the interview series leading upto Conversion Elite 2017. Arnout is a well respected Dutch digital marketer who loves the topic of A/B Testing.

Q) Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

A) I’m Arnout Hellemans, a 41 year old married family man with 3 kids, living in Amsterdam, enjoying Digital Marketing, Optimising website and being a foodie.

Q) Can you tell us a bit about your agency?

A) I would not call it an agency, more a one-man-show. Loving the freedom and working for awesome clients on optimising their site(s) such as 2Care4Kids or Ouder Match.

Q) What is your preferred methodology for testing CRO?

A) To be honest, with most clients I focus on fixing things (like measurement, speed and UX); so I focus on this, when we are at say 80% optimum we start testing. But most take quite a while to get there.

Q) How do you define a mobile customer?

A) A mobile customer is someone using a mobile device imho. So either using an app or the mobile version of the website to interact.

Q) Is there a difference between mobile (web) and mobile (app) customers?

A) Yes, especially on the onboarding but also on the usage, the app gives you so much more possibilities compared to the mobile site.

Q) For those thinking about creating multi-lingual content, Google translate is fine isn’t it?

A) You might think so but I would really discourage anyone to think this way, Google translate is getting better but definitely far from optimal, especially in some of my main languages like Dutch. Google translate can be a base, but get a proper translator or native speaker to check everything.

Q) For brands thinking of entering the dutch market, it’s fine to use German content isn’t it?

A) No, that is not fine, for one it’s a completely different market and German is a very different language. And vice versa wouldn’t work either.

Dutch vs German Comparison

Q) How important is creativity when it comes to CRO?

A) In my opinion being able to understand the motives of your visitors (if one would call this creativity), then this is very important, really understand visitor playbacks. There are no stupid visitors (actually there are but UX should try to minimize this group)

Q) How important is simple A/B testing when it comes to conversion optimisation?

A) I’m definitely not an expert on this but what would you call a simple a/b test, in my opinion the goal of what you are testing and on the right segment is the most important.

Q) Are there any other CRO speakers do you enjoy hearing speak?

Craig Sullivan; always awesome, great guy and loads of new insights. Peep Laja; great insights and new tips. Els Aerts because she’s a great person with loads of experience. Chris Out and Rutger de Groot because they are fellow Dutchmen who know their stuff.

Q) Where can people find you online if they want to engage, follow or connect?

A) First at the Conversion World Slack channel, on twitter.com/hellemans and on linkedin or my contact details.