Thys du Plooy

I have worked in various parts of the online world over the past 15 years. From building my first html website purely in Notepad (I didn't know any better) through to being the analytics specialist for the top online bank in South Africa.

Through all my adventures online there has been a couple of threads that have stood out:

• Don't do anything if you can't measure it
• Traffic is useless without proper conversion at every step (A/B testing, conversion optimization)
• The data doesn't lie... it gives you the answers if you know where to look
• Keep the foot on the pedal to get it right

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time doing search engine optimization since the turn of the century, but I was "reborn" once I got stuck into analytics. The bank hired me as an SEO specialist, but this quickly evolved into a 95% analytics / 5% SEO split. There was just much more value I could add with my understanding of analytical data.

The bank had load of data, but sadly a lot of it was disjointed. Data was also not looked at properly in context and this didn't help decision making. Identifying the different funnels both from a sales point of view as well as a online banking transaction usage angle help to change things. It ended up in the bank increasing online sales and online banking transactions and reducing costs in brick and mortar branches.

I have a great understanding of conversion optimization, work daily on marketing automation for an international automotive brand and their 67 branches in South Africa. My constant guide is however the numbers and it is where I get many of my triggers from that I act on... The rest comes from experience and an understanding of how the online world operates in all its different and diverse aspects.