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How this AI landing page optimization SaaS reached $2k/mo

Hello! What's your background, and what are you working on?

Hi! I'm Franco Gobbo, one of the three co-founders of ABtesting.ai, a tool that uses Artificial Intelligence to bring Landing Page Conversion Rate Optimization to the mainstream digital marketing scene.

I'm a marketer with a bachelor's degree in communications and plenty of knowledge in digital marketing particularly. My position in the company is COO.

Then we have Rodrigo Stecanella, the CEO. He is a software engineer with more than ten years of experience in machine learning.

Last but not least, Ismael Martinez (CDO), a graphic designer with 10+ years in front-end development.

ABtesting.ai is a tool that helps you easily create, combine and test different variations of your landing page, to find the best fit for your audience, increasing conversions, and reducing costs.

Thanks to different applications of Artificial Intelligence alongside the entire setup process, we have been able to achieve a setup that can take less than 10 minutes to complete for the standard user.

ABtesting.ai automatically fetches all the main elements on your site, so you don't waste time defining what to test. It gives you GPT-3 text suggestions to speed up the copy-writing, creates all the variations based on your input so you don't have to waste time on designing and programming, and smartly allocates traffic to achieve the best results possible (MAB).

The real potential of the tool relies on the fact that, once your first experiment ends, the tool will work in an autonomous way, creating new experiments by itself, based on your inputs and the knowledge retrieved from the previous results, thanks to an Evolutionary Algorithm.

This way, you get constant optimization, with as little work as possible.

What motivated you to get started?

There are too many websites for so little Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).

A study driven by Datanyze shows how only 0,3% of all existing companies do Conversion Rate Optimization.

Verified Market Research says that one of the main factors of this reality relies on the fact that businesses find it too difficult or time-consuming.

What went into building the initial product?

It all started in June/July of 2019.

Rodrigo always had this idea of creating a tool that you just pressed a button and it'd start automagically optimizing for conversions, trying different texts, colors, order of elements, etc. Me, as a marketer, thought: "that would be neat."

A tool that took all the heavy-duty that CRO implies.

So, the vision was there, and I'd say we spent around two months between research and ideation, and then from that point until March 2020, Rodrigo and Ismael took care of the development of the MVP.

Our tech stack is Python-Flask / Postgres / React.

How have you attracted users and grown ABtesting AI?

To attract users, first, you have to have a good product that truly solves an existing need of your target audience.

We understood that there were plenty of high-quality A/B testing tools that solved the CRO need but, at the same time, only 0,3% of companies were doing Conversion Rate Optimization. Why was this happening?

Well, our hypothesis (which we validate more and more each day that goes by), is that there's a hidden need behind the obvious "Optimize Conversions" need: the need for time and resources to properly conduct these experiments.

Our tool solves just that, and that's why we are able to attract customers in the first place.

Now, in terms of specific actions, there are two that have brought most of the traffic: Launching an LTD and launching on Product Hunt.

The first one, we did on Dealify. It was super helpful in terms of getting the first big batch of users to stress-test the tool, and some funding to keep the wheel going.

We got around 400 users, which translated to $20k in just a few weeks.

The second one, we didn't have the "product of the day" type of launch. It was decent though.

What we took from the launch was an increment in brand awareness, SEO score, and a steady traffic source that has brought to us our biggest client yet.

In terms of traffic amount, in the month we launched, we got 437 direct visits from PH. Last month, PH gave us 18 more visitors. From the launch (Feb. 2021) until today (09/27/21), we are looking at 836 direct visits.

Another awesome traffic stream that has won a place in our hearts is Indie Hackers. The community has helped us immensely. Mostly in the first stages of the tool.

Indie Hackers was a great platform that gave us early traffic and early adopters. Our approach there was mainly commenting in groups like Landing Page Feedback, helping people improve their CRO, and creating posts like this one or this one..

Both of them knocked it out of the park with 20 votes and 140 comments, and 60 votes and 194 comments respectively.

In terms of traffic, from the launch of the MVP in March 2020 until today (09/27/21), IH has brought us a total of 1294 visits.

This proves that to have success in a community, you have to give first and more than what you ask for.

Then SEO has been helpful too! We have this blog post ranking #2 for the search term "ab testing on squarespace" which has brought us decent traffic. We have a few other blog posts among the top 10 on their respective keywords which are nice.

To improve our SEO we are using FATJOE. It made everything way easier. What we use the most there is Outreach Boost, to give a new blog post the first push.

What's your business model, and how have you grown your revenue?

We run a B2B monthly subscription-based business model, and the reality is that we haven't yet found a stable strategy to grow our revenue.

We are constantly trying all the different Ads platforms (Google, FB, TW, LI, Influencers…) and the organic growth streams (SEO, content marketing...) with no luck getting stable results.

This is the holy grail of digital marketing, because if you know that "amount of money" = "amount of customers", it's just a matter of putting in more money and optimizing the process to improve ROI.

What are your goals for the future?

Artificial Intelligence is predicted to transform the capabilities of every industry and is said to be one of science's most ambitious feats.

We aim to be the representatives of the CRO of the future. To be the leaders of the innovation in the category.

If you had to start over, what would you do differently?

I'd pay way more attention to branding.

To position and communicate yourself correctly is as important (if not more) as having a great product.

So, getting the brand strategy and structure from the get-go is crucial.

There's a lot cooking for ABtesting.ai right now, so, expect some great changes ;)

Have you found anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Something that will give you always an advantage when building something is open-mindedness.

The entrepreneur life is a challenging, constantly-changing paradigm. So, you need to be able to be malleable to change. Admit errors, learn from others that know better, and repeat what seems to work.

Where can we go to learn more?

Feel free to visit our website: ABtesting.ai.

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  1. 3

    I would be interested to know more about your experience using FATJOE for SEO. On average, by roughly how many spots in the SERPs would you say the Outreach Boost service increases the ranking of a typical blog post?

    As regards marketing, there may be some opportunities to apply your AI AB tool to your own home page. In terms of capturing leads, the "Sign Up Free" button at the bottom of the page could stand to be more legible and compelling (What does it mean to "sign up"? Why should I?). You might also try offering some kind of lead magnet in exchange for the visitor's email address.

    Best wishes for success with this.

    1. 2

      Thanks for the feedback!

      About FATJOE, SEO is very difficult to measure, because there are many factors that determine your ranking, but we are seeing a slow but steady climb up in ranking with every new blog we post and boost. It also makes you rank better in keywords not directly related to the blog post, and that's nice.

      We did rune a few tests in our site and found out that the best performing CTA was "Start A/B Testing Free", and the best copy "The easiest, fastest and most efficient way to A/B test. Insert your URL below and start testing now."

      We should do new experiments though. Try new approaches!

      1. 1

        Good to know, appreciate the reply

  2. 2

    Thank you Franco! Are you currently running any ads? I could easily see how you could use before/after photos for FB ads here.

    1. 1

      We are not running a campaign using that message right now, but it was something we thought about doing!

  3. 2

    Cool interview! Did you guys did an AppSumo (or used any LTD FB groups) as well?

    1. 1

      Thanks! AppSumo wanted to see more traction to launch an LTD, and no, no FB LTD groups!

      1. 1

        Interesting stuff!

        Any idea how Dealify compares to Appsumo in terms of reach/audience size?

        1. 1

          Dealify is really small, but Tom, his owner is a very good marketer and is able to drive a lot of traffic to your launch with little money.

          AppSumo is just the most humongous LTD platform in the world with both organic and paid reach.

  4. 1

    Appreciate it Darko. Good story! - Venkat

  5. 1

    I experienced this pain point, hence this was one of the first use cases for GPT-3 that popped into my mind. Looks like you executed on it nicely - will look into the tool when I got my landing page up! Awesome stuff.

    1. 1

      Thanks!
      If you happen to need a demo or something just let me know at [email protected] :)

  6. 1

    This really looks like an amazing tool, well done.

    This proves that to have success in a community, you have to give first and more than what you ask for.

    I resonate with this, it seems to be true for all aspects of life 🙏

    Keep up the great work

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