12 + 1 Reasons Why We Still Loved the Forgettable Year of 2020

2020

In January 2020, everyone set huge goals for the year. We all jumped into the new year thinking it would be special, but unfortunately, the coronavirus changed our plans.

There was the pandemic, curfew restrictions and school and restaurant closures. Masks became mandatory, and the list goes on. The handshakes, hugs, kisses that seemed so natural before were all forgotten. Many people aren’t even able to visit their loved ones.

Regarding the labor market, the situation doesn’t seem to be any better. Plenty of people have lost their jobs because of COVID-19 from restaurant jobs to desk ones. Many companies are struggling to survive and pay their employees from their last savings. 

We at OptiMonk consider ourselves very lucky. Since we operate in the online world and our main target group is the e-merchants, we had no reason to shut down.

We’re seeing a huge change in shopping habits. More people are buying online. Several statistics show that in the first half of 2020, online stores faced an unprecedented increase in traffic. In 2020, the traffic on the first half of the year also surpassed the traffic of the winter holidays. These are amazing numbers!

Our main goal was to help webshops experience these changes and provide the best possible experience for their visitors.

Although the work did not stop in 2020 for us, we still had to adapt. But we brought out the best in everything and turned these changes to our advantage.

This year our team expanded at an unprecedented rate. And thanks to that growth, we accomplished huge things.

 So, let’s see our favorite moments of 2020!

1. Exhibition and presentation at the Ecommerce Expo

In January, over 2,000 e-merchants gathered at the Lurdy House at Hungary’s largest e-commerce conference. And of course, we didn’t miss it either! Not only did we exhibit at the Ecommerce Expo, but our CMO Judit Pál gave a presentation on cart abandonment.

We love attending conferences because at these events we can meet people in person. We stumble upon many of our clients at these events. For example, in the image below, we recorded when we ran into the Praktiker team.

ecommerce expo

2. We celebrated OptiMonk’s 6th birthday in February

It’s unbelievable that the OptiMonk journey started more than six years ago, with the first couple of users. And today it is used by over 65,000 websites worldwide.

We’ve had lots of memorable moments together over the years, and we hope to collect more memories together for a very long time!

team birthday

3. We opened our new office in Budapest

In February, we hired our first colleague from Budapest: Dóra Bali strengthens our team as a UX Researcher. At the same time, OptiMonk’s Budapest office was opened. We had only one colleague there in February, but you don’t have to worry about Dóri, she is not lonely anymore, as we are constantly expanding the staff in the Budapest office.

The following colleagues have joined the team: Áron Erdős (Sales Executive), Andrea Sipos (Product Manager), Réka Árvai (Customer Service Specialist), Gábor Horváth (Developer), Hajnalka Mester (Customer Service Specialist), Krisztina Szilágyi (Customer Support Team Lead) and András Hajgató (Designer).

new team

4. We implemented home office full-time

With the coronavirus outbreak, the OptiMonk team also implemented a full-time home office in March. And since the summer, everyone is free to decide whether they want to work from home or in the office. Since then, we’ve held every meeting online, and while we’re sorry we don’t meet as much in person as we used to, our enthusiasm hasn’t dropped a bit!

home office

5. Our team expanded with international colleagues

We hired our first international colleague in May: Nissar Ahamed joined the marketing team as a Content Writer. Since then, we have expanded our team with 2 more foreign colleagues: David Harrington strengthens OptiMonk as a Content Editor and Dimitri Grigoriev as a Sales Executive.

international team

6. Joint webinar with Reflexshop

In May, we had a conversation with Attila Ádám, the CEO of Reflexshop, as part of a 60-minute webinar. Reflexshop is one of the most popular board games ecommerce store in Hungary, and it was one of OptiMonk’s first customers. The company’s results are getting better every year with OptiMonk.

During the webinar, Attila shared his experiences and tips with us and presented his favorite OptiMonk campaigns.

A lot of you were interested in the webinar and we received a lot of feedback on how useful it was. For example, one of our clients attached the image below that his dog enjoyed the show just as much as he did. 🙂

webinar

7. Ecommerce Revolution shook our world

We dropped a bombshell in June when we announced that the first online business reality show, Ecommerce Revolution, will be on air. The application process started on June 29th, and it was a great pleasure for us that over 300 Hungarian e-merchants showed us their trust and placed the optimization of their web store in our hands.

After the application phase, we started processing the submitted questionnaires and held Zoom interviews with the owners of the web stores.

And after the selection, the filming phase started! We’ve been filming the Ecommerce Revolution all summer and we have been working on improving the websites, hoping that you’ll be just as excited about the show as we were about making it happen.

8. We took time for team building

In 2020, we had very few personal meetings and unfortunately, we had to give up the regular team buildings we’ve held previously. So, we couldn’t wait to travel to Győrtelek for three days in September.

Of course, we took care of each other and we took every precaution during our trip! 🙂

teambuilding

9. We won Bronze Stevie® awards in the Company of the Year category

We are delighted to say that we have won bronze medals at the Stevie® Awards in the category “Company of the Year”. The Stevie® Awards have been held for 17 years now and over 3,800 companies have been nominated at the awards ceremony in some category.

We work hard every day to provide the best possible service to our customers, and such awards prove that we are on the right track!

stewie award

10. Ecommerce Revolution and Customer Value Optimization

On October 5, the first online business reality show was launched in Hungary. In the series, the hosts of the show helped the online stores that were feeling stuck getting back on track. The ruthless experts took over the management of four websites during the show, and we were able to follow them for six weeks, as they confronted the problems regarding these businesses.

ecommerce revolution

During the show, we were introduced to a modern, customer-centric approach called Customer Value Optimization. We could also see the great results the stores were able to achieve by letting go of aggressive and annoying sales methods.

For example, the BioZoo web store, which sells organic and natural products for dogs and cats, increased its revenue by nearly 2 million HUF in 26 days, while providing a better journey for its visitors.

Customer Value Optimization is not a trend, not a piece of software that you set up to your site in one night. It’s a long-term approach that says goodbye to traditional conversion optimization strategies in order to create real value.

In 2020, the main goal of OptiMonk was to provide e-merchants with all the tools they need for Customer Value Optimization, so we also launched a lot of new features:

  • The “Embedded Content” is a new type of campaign that you can place directly on your website.
  • We renewed the targeting based on the website’s pages so you can even set your message to appear on all product pages.
  • With the help of our product recommendation algorithms, you can show personalized offers to your visitors dynamically.
  • With our revamped Teaser page, you can reach your visitors more effectively.

And these are only a few of the many new features. (If you would like to try them, sign in to your OptiMonk account.)

11. Meetings in English

As our international team grew, we decided in October that it was time to hold our monthly corporate meeting in English. Although we were a little excited, the meeting went great. And it turns out that word-wits work just as fine in English 😉

meeting

12. International partner webinars

This year we not only surprise our Hungarian customers with useful webinars, but teamed up with ReferralCandy and Recart at the end of the year to help our international clients increase their revenue during the holiday season and prepare better for 2021.

webinar

+1 Weddings and Babies

We are thrilled to share some personal news with you, too. In 2020, our team expanded with a newborn “OptiMonk baby.” And there was no shortage of weddings either, as four of our colleagues got married this year. Congratulations to the newlyweds!

wedding

We hope that you will also be with us next year, and that everything will finally get back to normal in 2021!

Happy new year!

The OptiMonk Team

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