The digital marketing landscape has transformed dramatically, with brands pivoting from traditional tactics to sophisticated digital strategies across platforms like email, social media, search, and retail media. But how can brands—especially smaller ones—effectively navigate this complex ecosystem without massive budgets or specialized teams?
Shaun Brown, founder and CEO of BirdDog, joins us to reveal the strategies that are democratizing digital marketing success. With over 20 years of experience working with global CPGs and deep expertise in performance media, Shaun identified a critical gap in the market: while big agencies excel at brand-building and performance shops master channel optimization, few understand how to leverage the game-changing 1P data now available through retail media networks.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Shaun's focus on making sophisticated marketing capabilities accessible to brands of any size. While enterprise clients command attention, thousands of small and mid-market brands struggle to compete effectively in digital spaces. BirdDog's mission—to help these brands access and utilize the same data, technology, and AI tools as their larger competitors—represents a significant democratization of digital marketing power.
Shaun challenges conventional wisdom throughout our discussion, arguing that traditional metrics like ROAS and TACOS should take a backseat to incrementality and new-to-brand acquisition. His advice on product detail page optimization before media spend, his insights on the consolidation of retail media networks, and his refreshingly straightforward "boring wins" philosophy provide actionable guidance for marketers at every level.
Whether you're managing digital marketing for a Fortune 500 company or a small challenger brand, this episode delivers a master class in how to find and convert the audiences that matter most in today's digital marketplace. Listen now to discover why, as Shaun puts it, "every dog has its day—and so should every brand."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, hello everyone.
Welcome to the Digital FrontDoor.
I'm Scott Benedict.
You know the tactics thatsuccessful consumer brands use
to drive sales at retail,whether on store shelves or
through online sales, haveevolved in pretty profound and
significant ways in the last fewyears.
(00:27):
Significant focus has shiftedfrom traditional media tactics,
such as print media or coupons,or broadcast radio or television
, to predominantly adigitally-based approach across
platforms such as email, socialmedia, search, digital display
(00:48):
and retail media.
In a more broad context, now,some of the challenges that
those brands face is not onlythe mastery of new forms of
marketing activity, but whetherthey need to create centers of
excellence within theirorganization or leverage the
expertise of outside agencies todeliver the business results
(01:12):
that they and their retailpartners expect.
Now, one of the firms that isleading the effort to help
consumer brands marketthemselves more effectively is
called BirdDog, a commerce mediaagency that helps brands win
retail marketplaces from Amazonto Lanner, based in Atlanta, and
(01:33):
BirdDog's founder and CEO, seanBrown, is visiting Northwest
Arkansas this week and he joinsus in the studio.
And Sean, welcome to NorthwestArkansas and to the program.
I'm so excited to have you.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I was expecting a big clotaudience here.
Well, our studio audiencewasn't available today, but,
thank you, we're thrilled, we'revery excited to have you here.
(01:55):
We're thrilled to be in town,that we can make this happen as
we meet with clients in Walmartand everybody else Awesome.
Well, I think the first thingthat occurred to me when I was
reading a little bit aboutBirdDog is the inspiration for
the founding of the company, andusually when someone founds a
(02:15):
company like this, there's anunmet need that you or your team
wanted to address in the marketand that kind of led you to
start the company.
Is that what caused you tostart BirdDog?
Absolutely?
Well, it's really twofold therewere pain points and unmet
needs, right.
So I think let's back up alittle in time to understand the
market and then we'll talkabout how we need to fill some
(02:36):
gaps there.
When we look at so my backgroundin history, I did 20 plus years
in the big whole co-agenciesworking with global CPGs, and
then I went to work in privateequity with the performance
media independent agency thereand there's a two different
worlds, right.
Those big giant agencies arereally good about talking about
audiences and brands and dataand they cause I've been doing
(02:58):
it for decades, cause we'redoing brand media, and that's
where this world is now abouttrying to understand audiences.
Meanwhile, these performanceagencies, who grew up from
amazon and from like 10 yearsago, who know those channels
really, really well, have done agreat job there.
But this new world, withaudiences coming forward with 1p
data, with what, uh, theretailers are giving us now, is
(03:21):
new territory for them, whichthey don't understand.
They, they understand how tooptimize a channel.
They're evolving, the wholecodes are evolving, they're
making acquisitions, but, likein the middle, is this pain
point where the new world is,and so that led us to say we
think we believe there is a needfor an audience first approach
to retail media, and what drivesthat is the fact that we have
access to 1P data.
(03:42):
Now, what also is a big drivingfactor of that is now to do all
that, to work with thoseplatforms, you have to have
technology, you got to have data, you got to have AI, and for a
lot of companies that'sincredibly overwhelming.
And up until five years ago,even four years ago, if you
wanted to do that, you had to gobuild your own tech, you had to
(04:03):
have developers and engineersand code, and so then you have
to ask yourself am I a tech anddata company or am I a CPG?
Am I an agency?
What are we?
Because that diverse focus.
But now there's enough greattech that's off the shelf, so
there's great SaaS that we canbe able to offer clients, and so
that we felt like we need to beable.
(04:23):
But the problem is a lot ofthese brands out there didn't
know where to turn, didn't knowwho, what, what tech should I
use?
How do I get there?
Even if I get it, how do Imanage it?
And so we wanted to say we'regoing to democratize the data,
tech and AI to make itaccessible to brands of any size
.
Okay, and?
(04:45):
And?
Then the third piece that fallsinto this about why is that gap
in the marketplace?
Most of that tech and most ofthe companies, most of the focus
is on these giant enterpriseclients.
So here in Benville and Rogers,like I'm driving by, I see
every big logo on buildings here.
You can imagine, yes, butreality is there are thousands
upon thousands of SMBs andmid-markets who don't have
access to that tech, don't havethe hands on keys, they don't
(05:06):
have the budget to do that.
We wanted to help, we wanted tofocus on those brands.
Before we launched, we vettedall this idea with Amazon first,
because they're a big, bigplayer in this and they agreed
with us.
I actually had lunch today withWilliam White, cmo of Walmart,
and because we're old friendsfrom our days at Coke, and he
validated the same thing.
(05:27):
They have a long tail,particularly in the marketplace
of SMBs who just don't haveaccess.
So that's what we're trying tosolve and that's why we call it
BirdDog.
So we've got those audiences,we find and fetch the audiences
that matter most and then, forwe believe, every dog has its
day and so should every brand,and that's how we give them data
, tech and AI to compete with abrand of any size.
So neat, you know it'sinteresting.
(05:54):
I was going to ask you about thegenesis of the name and you
kind of addressed it there, butit is so interesting to see that
, as retailing has evolved andas marketplaces have come online
, that small businesses arecertainly marketplaces of one of
their key paths.
And it just occurred to me asyou were talking that no one is
(06:14):
necessarily focused on them theway that you all are, and it
feels like that's kind offilling an opportunity that was
out there to help people notnamed coca-cola or partridge
gamble.
They have a lot of choices.
They can make investments,things, but sb's don't really
have those choices.
They don't.
They don't know where to turn.
(06:35):
It's, it's overwhelming.
So I'm guessing you may havebeen in this business as long as
I've been that we've writtenthis evolution of change, which
has been amazing.
Yeah, right, we've gone fromtrade and channel to customer,
to shopper, to omni, to where weare today.
But that's if you really itrequires, if you want to be in
this business today.
(06:55):
Like it is daunting.
You have to know so much, yeah,and you have to be evolved with
time and a lot of what's beingasked of marketers, particularly
who work on these customerteams.
Hey, I need you to shift fromfocusing how to win in store and
how to win shelf and how to getdisplays and how to get
merchandising too.
I need you to be a data andtech guy.
(07:16):
A lot of people will learn newtricks.
You're asking a lot, especiallywhen it's incredibly
complicated to operate, and youhave to be able, in many
instances, understand how tocode or to do sequel queries and
we'll talk about that with withwhat, where 1p data is, but
it's it's a pretty big tasktoday, it seems like it, and you
(07:37):
kind of touched on this, but Iwant to dive maybe a little bit
deeper.
At a high level, it feels likesome of the biggest challenges
that brands, regardless of size,are facing is either at a
corporate level, looking acrossthe market, or with teams that
they've assembled to work withspecific retailers like Amazon
and Walmart.
It feels like there's probablya number of challenges.
(07:59):
What's the biggest challenge,in your mind, that these
companies are facing that youwant to really help them deal
with?
Well, my answer two weeks ago,before tariffs, would have been
very different, indeed, but itstill comes back to the same
thing.
It's money budget.
Where do you want to focus?
Where does your next bestdollar go to get the result
(08:21):
you're looking for?
Right, right, and so what a lotof these companies now are
there.
So I'll tell you a story of whenwe years, 10 years ago, I was
working with Cobra Coal as aclient and my client at the time
was trying to figure out how dowe connect all this data we've
got, and they were calling itthe connected network experience
.
So it couldn't work, becausethere's just too many different
(08:43):
platforms and there's too muchdata, too much, and there wasn't
the systems that exist today.
So if you tried that efforttoday, it would have been very
easy, or easier.
At that time it didn't, and sonow that's someone who has
billions of dollars to spend.
So now let's focus on somebodywho's mid-market or down, who
doesn't have that to spend.
How do you figure out where tofocus?
(09:05):
How do you determine what dataand tech where do I want to
invest in?
Do I want to insource it,outsource it?
Do I want to contract it?
Do I just want to buy it getsinto?
Also, where is your focus as acompany of who you are and what
I always tell companies?
Let's not get distracted withsomething you don't do.
Right, and that's where there'sa lot of experts out here who
(09:27):
can help, guide, help get youthere, because the name of this
game is now we're in an armsrace, it's a speed game.
Who can get to the finish linefastest?
Right, and that's our role isto help you get to there and
compete with the fastest way wecan.
And so then, when we talk abouttech and tools to understand,
it's, there's 1P data.
Do you want to own it?
Do you have it?
(09:48):
Many don't.
And if you are?
Where are you housing it?
How are you integrating thatwith clean rooms of retailers?
How are you creating algorithmsaround media mix modeling or
multi-touch attribution tounderstand what works, what
doesn't, where should you spendand how we do predictive
analytics and MMM is a big, bigthing.
We focus on that.
(10:09):
We think we want to bring thatto the world of SMBs, who don't
understand that it's not justabout spending media.
It's about where should youspend on-site or off-site?
Should you spend by whichretailer?
What's the cost of a SharePointwith the dollars you spend?
So each question just keepsdigging in.
(10:30):
It's like peeling an onion.
There's a thousand more andit's incredibly overwhelming
when you ask a customer teamwho's based here in the
Bentonville area to say I got ateam who've been category
managers or some analyticslooking at shelf data and now to
say not easy to analyze this.
It's a completely differentmindset.
Yeah, and it's hard, I wouldimagine.
(10:51):
You know one thing I hadn'tplanned to ask you, but it
occurred to me as you weretalking.
When you look at retailersoutside of Walmart and Sam's
Club, do most of them have this1P data where both in-store
purchase behavior and onlinepurchase behavior are connected
in a way that a marketer canthen use it to design campaigns,
(11:13):
or are other retailers stillsegmenting that data and have
not yet brought together?
In your view, everybody'slagging and very far behind.
That's fine, I thought, and Iwanted to hear your thoughts.
So, yeah, so the leader rightnow is Amazon, because they've
just been doing this longer andthey're ahead of the curve.
So they're Amazon marketingcloud.
(11:35):
Now what those typically aresignals about purchase behavior,
right, so we can understandwho's bought a category, who's
bought it, who's who's a lapseduser and we can start to do
retargeting there.
Centella, formerly Glimonate,with Walmart, is fast on their
heels and look, I think theyhave brought in a lot of folks
(11:56):
from Amazon who are kind ofcoming in to say here's what we
did wrong there, we're going tobuild it right here, and so
they've gone a lot faster, yeah,and they're making a
slightly've gone a lot faster,yeah, and they're making a
slightly better product as theygo.
You've got 8451 and Dunhumbiehelping with some of the other
retailers, I know, but it is notconnected in the way to media
(12:18):
that you want it to be, likethese others are, yeah, and I'll
tell you, the merchant in mehates that because of the fact
that it feels like afoundational piece to setting up
all the other value unlock isthat you have a single view of
the customer, regardless of howthey interact with you.
And that kind of leads me tothe question I was going to ask
and ask, which is one of theinteresting elements about
(12:42):
modern digital marketing is theability to target perhaps more
effectively than marketers haveever been able to do in the past
and really identify audiencesegments that are more likely to
buy a given product at aspecific retailer on a given day
.
How do you, as a marketer, kindof help your client brands
(13:05):
identify those segments and thentry to take advantage of that
market to them most effectively?
Yeah, so a handful of things totalk about here.
So things have changed.
In the last couple of yearsthere was a lot of push in the
market to get to probabilisticdata because cookies were going
away Right Meanwhile.
While that's going on, all ofus who've been doing shopper
(13:25):
marketing or CPG for decadeshave been chasing the holy grail
of how do I get the transactiondata?
And you used to have to buy it.
You could get Nielsen andthat's sample size.
It's not full on data.
Now we have a place where weactually have it and we can
connect it.
And so that is the holy grailhas finally been put in front of
us to go make this happen,right.
But now you have to understandhow do I use it, how do I
(13:51):
integrate with that right, andso that gets into, like we were
talking about the AMC andScintilla.
But to do that it's not just adashboard you turn on, you have
to put in queries, you have towrite SQL code.
So if you don't have that onyour team today, you don't have
to.
There are partners we use andyou could go directly to that
will help do that, and they havepre-built things to allow you
(14:12):
to do that.
On Amazon today it doesn'texist yet for Walmart, so it's
fast coming, but it's comingsoon.
But I'd also argue or suggestthat that data is a piece of the
puzzle Now, if you're on theWalmart team, then that piece of
the puzzle right now If you're,if you're on the Walmart team,
that then that's all the puzzleyou care about, right?
The reality is, when you look ata brand, when they say each
(14:34):
retailer say, well, I have youraudiences.
Well, no, you have my audiencesthat are within your store,
which is a pot piece of the pot.
In that pot we need to look atthe total pie, and so each
retailer and some of thoseoverlap and some of those don't.
So those are some uniqueaudiences.
So we have to bring all thosetogether into a unified view and
pull those to understand allthose audiences.
Now, that's from the retailer.
(14:55):
You should also own your ownaudience data.
You should have your own 1Pdata, whether it's from CRM or
however you're capturing that.
Plus, there are all these thirdparty platforms where we get
data from DSP, and what'simportant there, on all of these
, is to understand of thoseaudiences, I don't care about
(15:16):
size, I care about value,meaning which ones have lifetime
value to me, who are the rightaudiences to go after?
Who has a propensity topurchase?
Who is showing me intensesignals via signals offsite that
I can leverage to target onsite, right, right.
And so it's again.
It's getting more complicated.
You're having to pull.
It's not as simple as like.
(15:37):
Well, I now have the data withWalmart and I'm going to do that
as a start.
If you're just starting,absolutely do that Right.
If you're more advanced, youknow advanced and you're saying
because what happens is I'mlooking for an audience and you
are capped.
You can only do so much withthat.
How do I find more audiences?
And we look at each channel asan audience Search on Walmart as
(15:59):
a channel, dsp as a channelEach of those represent an
audience.
Then we look offsite andthere's different platforms
there and each of thoserepresent a revenue and a volume
number that we can go tap intoto drive traffic to get
conversion.
I was smiling as you're talkingabout that because of that, at
different stops throughout mycareer, particularly in the
(16:21):
early days of e-commerce, daysof e-commerce the drive was
always, it felt like, for thevolume of visitors, the volume
of audience, instead of thequality or the relevancy of
office.
And the number of arguments onthat that I have with various
stakeholders when I was in ane-commerce role or when I was in
(16:42):
a merchandising role wasinteresting.
And as you're talking, I'mthinking well, we have come a
long way in that and kind ofunderstanding that sheer size of
an audience doesn't help youunless it is the right audience
with a higher propensity, and ifyou've garnered all the benefit
out of the signals that acustomer is telling you about
(17:04):
what their interest or theirintent is right.
So think of it this way thegame has changed.
So back in the day, like whenwe talk about distribution and
getting into a number of storesand your ACB yes, right, and
you're filling the pipeline,yeah, and so while you're
filling that pipeline, numbersare great, right, there's volume
to be had Right.
But now it's the same thing ine-commerce and there's a lot
(17:28):
more players.
Now You're now competing with alot more people buying media.
So now it's not as easy of justsaying I turn on media and it's
there.
Now you're competing.
There's a lot more people doingsponsored products and
sponsored brands, so it's not aseasy as just you need to be
there.
That is still, by the way, like75% of all media spend is still
on sponsored products andbrands.
Right, demand capture let's getthe people who are coming to
(17:53):
the category to buy.
But there's a ceiling and whatwe typically see a lot of brands
get frustrated with agencies.
What happens is they come inthe first four to six months the
things are good.
They look at the ROAS ROAS isbetter.
But then you cap out Becausenow, if I do a really good job,
(18:15):
we've optimized what we can doon the platform with the
audiences are coming there.
And then what do you do?
Right, then you're like youplateau and you're like your
costs go down, your salesplateau and you get frustrated
why aren't I growing?
Because I've maximized thataudience.
So now we've got to look atwhere are all these other
audiences that we can begin to.
But we would say, start with thebasics right there.
(18:37):
So I want to ask you veryquickly do you, if you're a
marketer, kind of prepare theclient for that ahead of time to
say this is what is going tohappen, so don't be shocked when
it does.
Or do you invariably have tolet them kind of see events
unfold for themselves to see howthey're getting that ROAS and
(18:59):
getting that return on theirmarketing spend?
Yeah, we always talk to clientsabout a roadmap, right?
So we think in stages and gatesOkay, let's get this part right
.
Once we have this and we startto see the numbers perform the
way they should, then let's openup the next gate, right?
And what are the next tool tofind the next audience?
And we don't just fully turn iton, because every brand and
every category behavesdifferently, right.
(19:21):
And so let's say we let's turnon affiliates and influencers to
drive traffic.
Well, one category like beautyis gonna behave very differently
than toys, right, and so it'snot all equal.
So we really highly adviseunless we know, the cat beauty
will do well with affiliateRight.
But let's pilot, let's test andlearn.
(19:43):
Let's put some dollars in andsee what happens with low risk.
If it works, double down,double down, double down until
we can't double down anymore.
Gotcha, that seems like sological and right directed, but
I'm confident that you have tohave that discussion with
clients all the time.
Yeah, all the time.
Everybody wants the sexy newthing they want to go to.
(20:06):
Oh, I saw these new liveshopping.
Let's do that Well.
You haven't even mastered overhere.
Let's make sure we do that wellbefore we start playing with
all these other toys.
That makes sense.
Yeah, I want to talk a littlebit about the digital shelves
and product detail pagesspecifically because, again from
my background as an onlinemerchant as well as a merchant
(20:29):
in a more traditional sense, itfeels like one of the more
foundational elements of successfor a brand and for a retailer
is the place where a purchasedecision ultimately gets made
and a buy button resides on thatproduct detail page.
And buy button resides on thatproduct detail page.
What kind of optimization doyou and your team recommend to
(20:52):
your brand clients in terms ofthe investment in that ultimate
destination, the product detailpage?
So I held out.
I knew this question was coming, so I held off on the last one
because we talked about thatroadmap.
This is number one period.
So, first off, before we talkabout the details, what's
important about it is there's asymbiotic relationship between
(21:14):
your PDP or brand store andArmenia.
Let's make sure that you areperforming well with your PDP.
Before we ever spend a dollaron media, we want to make sure
you can have a high convertingpage, otherwise we're wasting
money.
Well, I'm so excited to hearyou say that, because so many
people think the other way.
They drive a bunch of audienceto the page and if the page
(21:36):
doesn't convert, then they blamethe media for not performing.
And then you've created yourown problem.
Right Look.
And on top of that, whywouldn't you want to make sure
you can get the most freeconversions through organic
growth and showing at the top ofthe page?
Because you have your pagebuilt right, yes, with the right
content, and then when peopleland there, you have the right
(21:57):
content to convert, in which?
So when we talk about it again,start with the basics.
Yes, the headlines, yourbullets and your A-plus content
and your visuals Right Top, sothink top third of the page.
We got to get that right, andvideo is more and more becoming
more important.
About getting that right.
Now a lot of brands say, well,especially small brands, I don't
(22:18):
have the budget to do it.
Well, amazingly, now there's somuch AI that you can get stuff
done for free, and Walmart's notthere yet Amazon does a lot of
it for free, but there's also alot of providers out there that
you can get something created.
It's not going to be the thingyou're going to be framing and
getting an award for, but you'vegot to be better than some of
(22:40):
the basics on there andunderstand what shoppers are
looking for and the kind ofcontent to help them convert.
Then we start moving down thepage and we're looking at your
A-plus content right, and so nowthis is the romance copy a lot
more detail, a lot more of thespecs, a lot more video we can
(23:01):
load up here, and we want tomake sure we are, because this
is also a place where, when westart driving traffic from
outside, this is where we'relanding Is everything there to
convert where you need to.
Oh, and something else I leftout in a huge way reviews.
I was going to ask you aboutthat because I'm passionate
about user-generated contentbroadly and rating and center
reviews specifically.
So tell me where your thoughtsare there.
Well, first off, there areplatforms for both Walmart and
(23:23):
Amazon where you can work withthem to help get verified
reviews.
You have to get verifiedreviews, yes, particularly
Amazon.
Yeah, with Walmart, you can usesome outside parties to
generate and go.
You're going to have theminfluencers or users go,
purchase your product and thenwrite a real review and you're
paying for that.
But it impacts the algorithm.
If the reviews aren't there,right, so everything is.
(23:45):
Reviews aren't there Right, soeverything is factored in there.
And if your reviews aren't toscale it's volume as well as
quality, yes, four, four starsis not going to do you great as
much as 500, four stars Right,right, so let's make sure we get
the reviews there to help drivethe because, also, we know 80%
(24:06):
of shoppers will change theirpurchase decision based on a bad
review right, if the reviewsaren't right.
So you should also be takingthat into context of, like, what
are our shoppers telling usright, should I be changing
something about my product?
Or is there a dissonancebetween the visuals and the copy
than what the product actuallyis?
And that's where most badreviews come from that
(24:28):
dissonance that, oh, this isn'twhat I thought I was getting, or
the size or the shape orwhatever the issue is.
So you need to be activelylistening to those reviews.
I'm so excited to hear you saythat, because I've advocated for
that at various stopsthroughout my own career and it
resulted in far more argumentsthan I ever thought I would.
(24:49):
So I love it when someone yourbackground kind of confirms the
theory of that.
Yeah, I think, like in thetraditional retail store, all
right, so digital store is nodifferent than the physical
store.
Create awareness.
We're getting on the perimeterof the store as you're coming in
.
I got my end caps where I'mtrying to create some sponsored
brand or video to get you in,and in the shelf itself where
I'm closing the deal, right, andso I knew what do I have there?
(25:13):
So, like you, like all theyears, I've worked on tons of
CPGs globally and it's always acall to action, and so is your
call to action right on your PEP.
I love it.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I love it.
It's just as important aspackaging is in physical retail,
and we could have a whole otherepisode.
Yeah, there's a whole episodejust on this.
(25:33):
Yeah, exactly, let me kind ofshift the conversation to
analytics and reporting, and itfeels like that's some of the
elements of retail that aretaking greater importance in any
role, particularly for brandmarketers, and the amount of
data available to leaders indifferent parts of a retail
organization is greater thanever.
(25:56):
My question for you, given yourbackground in this, is what kind
of analysis do you use, themost critical for success for a
brand, not only for themselvesin their own context, but in
their partnership with their,with their retail partners?
Where should their greatestfocus be?
All right, this is where I wantto lose your listeners.
Well, they've been warned.
(26:17):
They've been warned.
I don't care about Roaz tacos,acos, share voice.
They're KPIs, they're greatindicators.
They were created at one timeand because at the time, we were
working in a channel Right, andit was an easy way to be able
to communicate to seniorleadership in a company.
(26:38):
So here's a number I put inthese dollars and here's my
return on ad spend.
Here's my total advertisingcost.
Here's what I'm getting.
So it was an easy metric tounderstand, right?
Did anybody get bonused on ROAS?
Does their stock price haveanything to do with that?
Absolutely not.
Doesn't appear in any annualreports.
Yeah, what we care about?
Top line revenue, profitableshare growth, just like any
(27:01):
other.
We're looking when we're instore or anywhere else other.
We're looking when we're instore anywhere else.
That's what matters.
All the other metrics areabsolutely important to
understanding.
Am I tracking in the rightdirection to achieve those goals
of growth and share growth?
And then other, the new metrics, the new hot word that is.
So last year the word was ai,this year the word is
(27:23):
incrementality, and so that is.
Everybody's getting their owndefinition.
I'll give you mine in a sec.
But the two things we reallylike to look at beyond the share
growth and the sales, areincrementality and new to brand.
You know, are we so from adefinition standpoint,
incrementality, the way wedefine it and look at it is are
(27:44):
we getting a transaction or salethat I didn't get yesterday
because I ran the media?
Right now?
That could come from morefrequency of use, it could be
from a larger basket, it couldbe a new brand.
There's lots of ways that thatcan be defined, and so that also
gets into like when I'm doingmedia, how do I target those
individual groups and how do Idrive that?
(28:04):
They're not all equal and wecan do all at the same time.
New brand is all about are webringing new shoppers in?
Am I stealing from mycompetitor?
Am I bringing somebody into thecategory altogether, like these
new for you, these better foryou drinks right now that are
out there?
That is a whole new categorythat is stealing and bringing
all sorts of new shoppers in.
From an incrementalitystandpoint, it's not just
(28:26):
defining who these audiences,how am I bringing them in and
what's more, transaction.
It's also about how do Ioptimize my media in real time
to get incrementality.
So with our platform, weleverage data in the algorithm
that helps us optimize dailyagainst that.
So we do it in two ways.
One is through an overlay onour tech to help us understand
(28:49):
incrementality, but we also doit in the planning stage.
I can't emphasize this enoughfor everybody is that media mix
modeling is what I believe iswhere they need to be focused.
Media mix modeling takes in allyour sales data and your media
data to understand where shouldmy next best dollar go by
retailer and by on-site oroff-site?
(29:10):
Yes, so because again now,typically so.
I'm sure I can hear fingernailson boards of people listening
right now, but when you hear MMM, most people think of these
huge projects.
I go back in time, like whenthey finish the project and do
(29:32):
the research.
They hand over a phone book toyou like here's all digital.
It's algorithm-based.
As fast as we get data backfrom retailers and data back
from the media, we can optimizeit again and again as frequent
as we want.
We can do it weekly.
That allows us to do a couplethings.
One, optimize spends.
Should I be moving dollars fromretailer X to retailer Y?
(29:53):
Should I be spending moreon-site or should I be taking
stuff off-site, because our jobis not to spend $100,000 on
Walmart.
So client comes in and says Igot 100 grand to win on Walmart.
They said win, not spend, andso now Walmart wants.
They want 25% more money rightnow, and so they want 100% of
(30:13):
your dollars there.
But the media mix modeling willshow you.
Is there a more effective wayto get that spend, to get the
share you're looking for?
Should I be using meta or techtime?
What impact will it have?
So all of this allows us to dopredictive analytics, to
understand.
So everybody can go to theirleadership and say, look, here's
different models and we can runthose MMM models against share
(30:36):
new to brand profitability andwe can run those concurrently
and say, okay, here's thedifferent scenarios.
If we want to spend more money,what happens.
If I spend less, what happens?
And so now we can makedecisions very wisely before we
start spending money.
And so then we're going to actin confidence about moving
forward.
So that's why we think it'sreally, really important for the
(30:57):
MMM.
And then, as we're doing thatbecause we can do that with
frequency it's another tool forincrementality to understand
which one drove it.
So it feels like thetraditional way that marketers
measure success, which iscertain KPIs.
You're a little outdated inincrementality and where I spend
(31:19):
a dollar most effectivelyshould perhaps, maybe where that
focus should evolve to insteadof just some of the more
traditional marketing.
Yeah, I think those are KPIs,right.
So, thank you.
What I get, bonus, I'm here todrive the business and the
metrics now are about'm here todrive the business and the
(31:39):
metrics now are about.
Well, driving the business isincrementality.
Like I started my business.
I started the industry 25 yearsago, working for Miller Brewing
Company, and everything wasabout how do I get one more beer
in somebody's hand, one at atime.
So it's the same thing.
It doesn't matter what we'reselling, how we do it is
different, but what we'reultimately trying to do is Back
then I put it in your handphysically.
Well, along those lines, retailmedia networks have been one of
(32:06):
the fastest-growing aspects ofretailing in recent years, for
the retailer as well as for thebrand marketer, and a
significant amount of brandmarketing dollars now flow into
these networks.
You kind of touched on this alittle bit, but I want to take
it maybe a little deeper.
How do you advise your clientsto spend most effectively, both
(32:27):
across retail partners andwithin a specific retailer?
Because it feels like that's alittle bit more complex.
Now to your point earlier thanit's been in the past.
Well, let me simplify thingspretty fast.
First off, top five retailersWalmart, amazon, instacart,
target and Kroger represent morethan 90% of all retail media
(32:50):
spend.
So that also Is that a good orbad thing?
By the way, it makes things alittle bit easier.
I don't think it that a good orbad thing, by the way.
Uh, it makes things a littlebit easier.
I don't think it's a good thing.
But first off, it's alreadycomplicated.
Yeah, so now there's there's250 other retail media.
That's why I asked the questionyeah, so now?
But they're all fighting over10 percent right, and so I don't
(33:10):
believe.
I don't think it's sustainable.
You know there are partners outthere, companies like cody and
a couple others, who are tryingto unify a platform for them.
Because it costs so much tomaintain the technology to do
that.
They are completely upside down.
So they're going to have to getinto a situation where they're
(33:34):
in a group where it's easier toaccess and if they can do that,
then it makes sense for brandsbecause it's easier to get to
them.
If I have to work within 30different platforms, it's just
not feasible.
There's not enough hands-onkeys, enough focus.
A couple of very large CPGsI've talked with and basically
told me I think I'm going tofocus on top six and just forget
(33:55):
everybody else.
It's just too hard, I don'thave the resources to do it.
And as much as an agency saidwell, we can do that for you.
Still, that's costly, it addscost to it and there's just the
capability.
So that's the other issue.
Amazon and Walmart and Instacartare light years ahead of the
other 200, right?
And so now, even though there'sretailer Y, small mid-market
(34:20):
guy, has a platform, he doesn'thave enough capabilities.
He only can do some basicthings on search.
They're not connected to someof the offsite platforms, they
don't have DSP built in, so orthey're not connected with a
trade desk or with Tik TOK.
To understand, do I haveattribution coming back, do I
know where these sales arecoming from?
So then they become lessattractive because they and so.
(34:44):
But to become more attractiveyou got to spend more on the
tech to get it in there, and sothey're in a very tricky place
to become more valuable.
And so I'm very interested.
I think there's going to be someconsolidation over the next
couple of years, and themerchant in me thinks about the
fact that, while I can see theargument that they're making on
(35:04):
focusing on those top networks,in particular product categories
, in particular consumersegments, in particular
geographies, there are regionalor specifically new players that
in that market or in thatbusiness or serving that
particular customer, they aretop at what they do, even though
(35:24):
they don't have the footprintof an Amazon, and so it feels
like to have, and I get whythey're saying what they're
saying, if they're advertisers,but there's a whole lot of
customers that they're not goingto reach with a strategy like
that.
Right, and those are.
Again, those are audiences,yeah, I think in terms of.
So, again, it gets to who'smaking the decision.
(35:46):
Is it the customer team?
They only care about theirretailer.
Yes, right, the brand or theCMO cares about all of us.
So that's where theconversation has to be held at
that level.
Yeah, and so the but theproblem is, then, this we're
really bad in this industry.
It's gotten better with themedia side of it, but, like,
(36:09):
we're really bad at like, oh,you're on the brand team, you
don't understand retail, sothere's no credibility.
Right, you don't understandretail, so there's no
credibility, right, you don't.
And they don't.
It's not a ding, it's just.
You know they have a differentexpertise than what people here
do.
But now, but to get the spinyou need you have to make the
argument and do the compellingargument with them.
So again, I go back to M&M.
What's the cost of a SharePoint?
(36:31):
So, maybe because right nowit's more competitive on Walmart
and Amazon.
Right, it costs more.
The media's going up in priceand maybe there's other
retailers.
Here's a less expensive way tofind some audiences.
So can I?
This kind of goes.
It makes me think of electionmaps.
(36:54):
What's my path to win?
How do I and it's not just Igot to win Texas and California,
it's.
It's more complex.
It's more complex.
There's a lot of other smallplaces, of ways to get there and
if you can find that path foryou, or find that sweet spot or
find the retailer we have aclient who just launched a
beverage brand and they're veryfocused on not these smaller
retailers, you know, uh, it's sofresh, fresh time in like specs
(37:15):
and techs, like, and they'rehaving a lot of success being
very focused.
The other players aren't there,right, so it gives them an
upside to to compete.
It makes sense.
One of the things you talkedabout earlier and her touched on
(37:36):
of optimize their spend andenhancing the performance of
their spend over the course oftime.
Yeah, so AI.
So the buzzword last year isstill a buzzword and still
people throw it around and haveno idea what they're talking
about.
Yes, I saw Part of why I askedthe question.
So what's look, our take, theway we look at AI, because we do
(38:04):
talk a lot about AI.
We have a platform called Daisywith AI right in the middle.
But it's not about some brandnew code and how we're
reimagining the world right.
It's how AI, the best use of ittoday is how do I make sense of
a volume of data?
How can I look at all thisvolume that before took an
(38:26):
analyst weeks manually doing insome spreadsheet to now it can
crank it out in seconds orminutes to be able to say here
are some great insights orindicators of what's going on.
So I'd rather have my staff,your staff, be focused on
strategic thinking than runningreports.
(38:47):
So if AI can help us streamlineand automate reports and so, as
we put, have our humans stillmaking the hard job,
decision-making based on thoseinsights?
Like it's about speed, how canI get to volume of speed to do
things Right?
And then now there's also nowwhat I love, where AI is content
(39:07):
.
So go back to PDP.
Like I need to write a PDP page.
I can direct it with contentand it will crank it out for us.
And again, it's not going to be100%.
Ai's job is to get you on thepath.
Yeah, right, it's going to lookat a lot of content out there.
It's only good as where youpoint it to or what content you
(39:27):
give it, right.
But if you do that, then you'regoing to cut your time down by
80, 90% and you can spend thefine tuning time to get it
exactly the way you want it tobe, versus starting from zero.
The same thing with creativevideo.
We just came back from e-tail.
We just saw a company makeunbelievable strides in video
(39:49):
for streaming TV, and so so manybrands.
It's the other thing we try totell our clients In today's
world.
And so many brands.
It's the other thing we try totell our clients In today's
world, especially with the datalike Scintilla and AMC.
Streaming TV is accessible toany brand.
Now Anybody can be on TV.
But it's about do you have thecontent?
And so now there is a platformwe just witnessed that built an
(40:11):
entire spot for apparel withunique users, unique clothes,
and then, as the certain offersgo away, or talent goes away, or
things go out of stock, theproducts change automatically
and you cannot tell.
It's AI.
Now, again, it's not a SuperBowl commercial, but it's doing
(40:32):
the job you need it to do tocreate that awareness, to get
the traction you want, right?
So I think, like it's speed,it's optimization, it's creative
, okay.
So that brings me to the lastquestion.
Hopefully, this kind of tiesthe bow on some of the things
we've been talking about.
I imagine that you see a numberof brands doing things well and
(40:54):
others that are doing thingspoorly in how they manage their
digital spend these days.
Are there any kind of recurringthemes or advice that you, uh,
as a marketer, would, would givethat kind of helps them address
some of the common missedopportunities or or mistakes
(41:14):
that you see kind of on anongoing basis?
So this isn't the sexiestanswer, but boring wins.
What I mean by that is thebasics win.
Get your PNAP right.
Take care of the demand gen ofthe audiences who are coming on
the site.
Let's do the sponsored productand sponsored brand.
(41:34):
Let's capture those who arehere first.
Let's do the basics brilliantly.
Second thing is let's try, solike again, go back to the data.
What does the audiences tell me?
Where should I be going?
What tools should I be doing?
It's not an all in.
How do we try?
And the third thing is how dowe fail fast?
Right?
That's the name of this game.
(41:54):
So this, there's a lot.
You would know this, likeespecially early days of
e-commerce and media, there wasa lot of set and forget it, yes,
and those days feel likethey're gone.
Yeah, they're totally gone.
Yes, it did work then becausethere wasn't competition in,
like you didn't have as much andthere's only place and it was
working.
Right now, you have to learnvery quickly is it working or
(42:16):
not?
Can I pull the dollars?
Do I reallocate somewhere else?
What are the data telling mewhere I should go?
So you know, it's those threethings.
Do the basics brilliantly, soboring wins, fail fast and try a
lot.
That makes perfect sense, and Ithink that's that's great
advice, and I, that's the thing.
Part of why I was excited tohave you join us is it feels
(42:37):
like so many marketers and somany brands, particularly
smaller ones, that you reallyfocus on helping.
They need that guidance.
They need that advice.
They need to hear the toughlove conversations about this
shiny object that you're beingsold by others is not the
solution.
Here's how to advance yourbrand and drive sales the most
effective ways.
(42:58):
Right?
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely so.
Thank you so much, uh, forjoining us.
It just it feels like digitalmarketing broadly and the
technology that underpins it isadvancing at an unbelievable
pace and that yesterday's bestpractice would seem to be
becoming obsolete at ablistering pace.
Brands, alongside their retailpartners, have to continually,
(43:23):
it feels like, revisit theirapproach, where they spend, how
they deploy their assets mosteffectively to drive the
business.
And this has been a greatconversation.
Thanks, I appreciate the chanceto be here.
Enjoyed the business.
And this has been a greatconversation.
Thanks, I appreciate the chanceto be here.
Enjoy the conversation.
All right.
So it's exciting to learn frommarket leaders like Sean and
from his team at BirdDog on themost effective ways to drive
(43:47):
results through digitalmarketing, and conversations
like this tell us that it's nota one size fits all.
It is very much a dynamicchallenge, a dynamic marketplace
out there.
You really very much a dynamicchallenge, a dynamic marketplace
out there.
You really got to stay on topof its house.
Glad we had this conversationtoday.
And so, for the Digital FrontDoor, I'm Scott Benedict.
Thanks for joining us.
Well, hello everyone.
Welcome to the Digital FrontDoor.
I'm Scott Benedict.
You know the tactics thatsuccessful consumer brands use
to drive sales at retail,whether on store shelves or
through online sales, haveevolved in pretty profound and
significant ways in the last fewyears.
(00:27):
Significant focus has shiftedfrom traditional media tactics,
such as print media or coupons,or broadcast radio or television
, to predominantly adigitally-based approach across
platforms such as email, socialmedia, search, digital display
(00:48):
and retail media.
In a more broad context, now,some of the challenges that
those brands face is not onlythe mastery of new forms of
marketing activity, but whetherthey need to create centers of
excellence within theirorganization or leverage the
expertise of outside agencies todeliver the business results
(01:12):
that they and their retailpartners expect.
Now, one of the firms that isleading the effort to help
consumer brands marketthemselves more effectively is
called BirdDog, a commerce mediaagency that helps brands win
retail marketplaces from Amazonto Lanner, based in Atlanta, and
(01:33):
BirdDog's founder and CEO, seanBrown, is visiting Northwest
Arkansas this week and he joinsus in the studio.
And Sean, welcome to NorthwestArkansas and to the program.
I'm so excited to have you.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I was expecting a big clotaudience here.
Well, our studio audiencewasn't available today, but,
thank you, we're thrilled, we'revery excited to have you here.
(01:55):
We're thrilled to be in town,that we can make this happen as
we meet with clients in Walmartand everybody else Awesome.
Well, I think the first thingthat occurred to me when I was
reading a little bit aboutBirdDog is the inspiration for
the founding of the company, andusually when someone founds a
(02:15):
company like this, there's anunmet need that you or your team
wanted to address in the marketand that kind of led you to
start the company.
Is that what caused you tostart BirdDog?
Absolutely?
Well, it's really twofold therewere pain points and unmet
needs, right.
So I think let's back up alittle in time to understand the
market and then we'll talkabout how we need to fill some
(02:36):
gaps there.
When we look at so my backgroundin history, I did 20 plus years
in the big whole co-agenciesworking with global CPGs, and
then I went to work in privateequity with the performance
media independent agency thereand there's a two different
worlds, right.
Those big giant agencies arereally good about talking about
audiences and brands and dataand they cause I've been doing
(02:58):
it for decades, cause we'redoing brand media, and that's
where this world is now abouttrying to understand audiences.
Meanwhile, these performanceagencies, who grew up from
amazon and from like 10 yearsago, who know those channels
really, really well, have done agreat job there.
But this new world, withaudiences coming forward with 1p
data, with what, uh, theretailers are giving us now, is
(03:21):
new territory for them, whichthey don't understand.
They, they understand how tooptimize a channel.
They're evolving, the wholecodes are evolving, they're
making acquisitions, but, likein the middle, is this pain
point where the new world is,and so that led us to say we
think we believe there is a needfor an audience first approach
to retail media, and what drivesthat is the fact that we have
access to 1P data.
(03:42):
Now, what also is a big drivingfactor of that is now to do all
that, to work with thoseplatforms, you have to have
technology, you got to have data, you got to have AI, and for a
lot of companies that'sincredibly overwhelming.
And up until five years ago,even four years ago, if you
wanted to do that, you had to gobuild your own tech, you had to
(04:03):
have developers and engineersand code, and so then you have
to ask yourself am I a tech anddata company or am I a CPG?
Am I an agency?
What are we?
Because that diverse focus.
But now there's enough greattech that's off the shelf, so
there's great SaaS that we canbe able to offer clients, and so
that we felt like we need to beable.
(04:23):
But the problem is a lot ofthese brands out there didn't
know where to turn, didn't knowwho, what, what tech should I
use?
How do I get there?
Even if I get it, how do Imanage it?
And so we wanted to say we'regoing to democratize the data,
tech and AI to make itaccessible to brands of any size
.
Okay, and?
(04:45):
And?
Then the third piece that fallsinto this about why is that gap
in the marketplace?
Most of that tech and most ofthe companies, most of the focus
is on these giant enterpriseclients.
So here in Benville and Rogers,like I'm driving by, I see
every big logo on buildings here.
You can imagine, yes, butreality is there are thousands
upon thousands of SMBs andmid-markets who don't have
access to that tech, don't havethe hands on keys, they don't
(05:06):
have the budget to do that.
We wanted to help, we wanted tofocus on those brands.
Before we launched, we vettedall this idea with Amazon first,
because they're a big, bigplayer in this and they agreed
with us.
I actually had lunch today withWilliam White, cmo of Walmart,
and because we're old friendsfrom our days at Coke, and he
validated the same thing.
(05:27):
They have a long tail,particularly in the marketplace
of SMBs who just don't haveaccess.
So that's what we're trying tosolve and that's why we call it
BirdDog.
So we've got those audiences,we find and fetch the audiences
that matter most and then, forwe believe, every dog has its
day and so should every brand,and that's how we give them data
, tech and AI to compete with abrand of any size.
So neat, you know it'sinteresting.
(05:54):
I was going to ask you about thegenesis of the name and you
kind of addressed it there, butit is so interesting to see that
, as retailing has evolved andas marketplaces have come online
, that small businesses arecertainly marketplaces of one of
their key paths.
And it just occurred to me asyou were talking that no one is
(06:14):
necessarily focused on them theway that you all are, and it
feels like that's kind offilling an opportunity that was
out there to help people notnamed coca-cola or partridge
gamble.
They have a lot of choices.
They can make investments,things, but sb's don't really
have those choices.
They don't.
They don't know where to turn.
(06:35):
It's, it's overwhelming.
So I'm guessing you may havebeen in this business as long as
I've been that we've writtenthis evolution of change, which
has been amazing.
Yeah, right, we've gone fromtrade and channel to customer,
to shopper, to omni, to where weare today.
But that's if you really itrequires, if you want to be in
this business today.
(06:55):
Like it is daunting.
You have to know so much, yeah,and you have to be evolved with
time and a lot of what's beingasked of marketers, particularly
who work on these customerteams.
Hey, I need you to shift fromfocusing how to win in store and
how to win shelf and how to getdisplays and how to get
merchandising too.
I need you to be a data andtech guy.
(07:16):
A lot of people will learn newtricks.
You're asking a lot, especiallywhen it's incredibly
complicated to operate, and youhave to be able, in many
instances, understand how tocode or to do sequel queries and
we'll talk about that with withwhat, where 1p data is, but
it's it's a pretty big tasktoday, it seems like it, and you
(07:37):
kind of touched on this, but Iwant to dive maybe a little bit
deeper.
At a high level, it feels likesome of the biggest challenges
that brands, regardless of size,are facing is either at a
corporate level, looking acrossthe market, or with teams that
they've assembled to work withspecific retailers like Amazon
and Walmart.
It feels like there's probablya number of challenges.
(07:59):
What's the biggest challenge,in your mind, that these
companies are facing that youwant to really help them deal
with?
Well, my answer two weeks ago,before tariffs, would have been
very different, indeed, but itstill comes back to the same
thing.
It's money budget.
Where do you want to focus?
Where does your next bestdollar go to get the result
(08:21):
you're looking for?
Right, right, and so what a lotof these companies now are
there.
So I'll tell you a story of whenwe years, 10 years ago, I was
working with Cobra Coal as aclient and my client at the time
was trying to figure out how dowe connect all this data we've
got, and they were calling itthe connected network experience
.
So it couldn't work, becausethere's just too many different
(08:43):
platforms and there's too muchdata, too much, and there wasn't
the systems that exist today.
So if you tried that efforttoday, it would have been very
easy, or easier.
At that time it didn't, and sonow that's someone who has
billions of dollars to spend.
So now let's focus on somebodywho's mid-market or down, who
doesn't have that to spend.
How do you figure out where tofocus?
(09:05):
How do you determine what dataand tech where do I want to
invest in?
Do I want to insource it,outsource it?
Do I want to contract it?
Do I just want to buy it getsinto?
Also, where is your focus as acompany of who you are and what
I always tell companies?
Let's not get distracted withsomething you don't do.
Right, and that's where there'sa lot of experts out here who
(09:27):
can help, guide, help get youthere, because the name of this
game is now we're in an armsrace, it's a speed game.
Who can get to the finish linefastest?
Right, and that's our role isto help you get to there and
compete with the fastest way wecan.
And so then, when we talk abouttech and tools to understand,
it's, there's 1P data.
Do you want to own it?
Do you have it?
(09:48):
Many don't.
And if you are?
Where are you housing it?
How are you integrating thatwith clean rooms of retailers?
How are you creating algorithmsaround media mix modeling or
multi-touch attribution tounderstand what works, what
doesn't, where should you spendand how we do predictive
analytics and MMM is a big, bigthing.
We focus on that.
(10:09):
We think we want to bring thatto the world of SMBs, who don't
understand that it's not justabout spending media.
It's about where should youspend on-site or off-site?
Should you spend by whichretailer?
What's the cost of a SharePointwith the dollars you spend?
So each question just keepsdigging in.
(10:30):
It's like peeling an onion.
There's a thousand more andit's incredibly overwhelming
when you ask a customer teamwho's based here in the
Bentonville area to say I got ateam who've been category
managers or some analyticslooking at shelf data and now to
say not easy to analyze this.
It's a completely differentmindset.
Yeah, and it's hard, I wouldimagine.
(10:51):
You know one thing I hadn'tplanned to ask you, but it
occurred to me as you weretalking.
When you look at retailersoutside of Walmart and Sam's
Club, do most of them have this1P data where both in-store
purchase behavior and onlinepurchase behavior are connected
in a way that a marketer canthen use it to design campaigns,
(11:13):
or are other retailers stillsegmenting that data and have
not yet brought together?
In your view, everybody'slagging and very far behind.
That's fine, I thought, and Iwanted to hear your thoughts.
So, yeah, so the leader rightnow is Amazon, because they've
just been doing this longer andthey're ahead of the curve.
So they're Amazon marketingcloud.
(11:35):
Now what those typically aresignals about purchase behavior,
right, so we can understandwho's bought a category, who's
bought it, who's who's a lapseduser and we can start to do
retargeting there.
Centella, formerly Glimonate,with Walmart, is fast on their
heels and look, I think theyhave brought in a lot of folks
(11:56):
from Amazon who are kind ofcoming in to say here's what we
did wrong there, we're going tobuild it right here, and so
they've gone a lot faster, yeah,and they're making a
slightly've gone a lot faster,yeah, and they're making a
slightly better product as theygo.
You've got 8451 and Dunhumbiehelping with some of the other
retailers, I know, but it is notconnected in the way to media
(12:18):
that you want it to be, likethese others are, yeah, and I'll
tell you, the merchant in mehates that because of the fact
that it feels like afoundational piece to setting up
all the other value unlock isthat you have a single view of
the customer, regardless of howthey interact with you.
And that kind of leads me tothe question I was going to ask
and ask, which is one of theinteresting elements about
(12:42):
modern digital marketing is theability to target perhaps more
effectively than marketers haveever been able to do in the past
and really identify audiencesegments that are more likely to
buy a given product at aspecific retailer on a given day
.
How do you, as a marketer, kindof help your client brands
(13:05):
identify those segments and thentry to take advantage of that
market to them most effectively?
Yeah, so a handful of things totalk about here.
So things have changed.
In the last couple of yearsthere was a lot of push in the
market to get to probabilisticdata because cookies were going
away Right Meanwhile.
While that's going on, all ofus who've been doing shopper
(13:25):
marketing or CPG for decadeshave been chasing the holy grail
of how do I get the transactiondata?
And you used to have to buy it.
You could get Nielsen andthat's sample size.
It's not full on data.
Now we have a place where weactually have it and we can
connect it.
And so that is the holy grailhas finally been put in front of
us to go make this happen,right.
But now you have to understandhow do I use it, how do I
(13:51):
integrate with that right, andso that gets into, like we were
talking about the AMC andScintilla.
But to do that it's not just adashboard you turn on, you have
to put in queries, you have towrite SQL code.
So if you don't have that onyour team today, you don't have
to.
There are partners we use andyou could go directly to that
will help do that, and they havepre-built things to allow you
(14:12):
to do that.
On Amazon today it doesn'texist yet for Walmart, so it's
fast coming, but it's comingsoon.
But I'd also argue or suggestthat that data is a piece of the
puzzle Now, if you're on theWalmart team, then that piece of
the puzzle right now If you're,if you're on the Walmart team,
that then that's all the puzzleyou care about, right?
The reality is, when you look ata brand, when they say each
(14:34):
retailer say, well, I have youraudiences.
Well, no, you have my audiencesthat are within your store,
which is a pot piece of the pot.
In that pot we need to look atthe total pie, and so each
retailer and some of thoseoverlap and some of those don't.
So those are some uniqueaudiences.
So we have to bring all thosetogether into a unified view and
pull those to understand allthose audiences.
Now, that's from the retailer.
(14:55):
You should also own your ownaudience data.
You should have your own 1Pdata, whether it's from CRM or
however you're capturing that.
Plus, there are all these thirdparty platforms where we get
data from DSP, and what'simportant there, on all of these
, is to understand of thoseaudiences, I don't care about
(15:16):
size, I care about value,meaning which ones have lifetime
value to me, who are the rightaudiences to go after?
Who has a propensity topurchase?
Who is showing me intensesignals via signals offsite that
I can leverage to target onsite, right, right.
And so it's again.
It's getting more complicated.
You're having to pull.
It's not as simple as like.
(15:37):
Well, I now have the data withWalmart and I'm going to do that
as a start.
If you're just starting,absolutely do that Right.
If you're more advanced, youknow advanced and you're saying
because what happens is I'mlooking for an audience and you
are capped.
You can only do so much withthat.
How do I find more audiences?
And we look at each channel asan audience Search on Walmart as
(15:59):
a channel, dsp as a channelEach of those represent an
audience.
Then we look offsite andthere's different platforms
there and each of thoserepresent a revenue and a volume
number that we can go tap intoto drive traffic to get
conversion.
I was smiling as you're talkingabout that because of that, at
different stops throughout mycareer, particularly in the
(16:21):
early days of e-commerce, daysof e-commerce the drive was
always, it felt like, for thevolume of visitors, the volume
of audience, instead of thequality or the relevancy of
office.
And the number of arguments onthat that I have with various
stakeholders when I was in ane-commerce role or when I was in
(16:42):
a merchandising role wasinteresting.
And as you're talking, I'mthinking well, we have come a
long way in that and kind ofunderstanding that sheer size of
an audience doesn't help youunless it is the right audience
with a higher propensity, and ifyou've garnered all the benefit
out of the signals that acustomer is telling you about
(17:04):
what their interest or theirintent is right.
So think of it this way thegame has changed.
So back in the day, like whenwe talk about distribution and
getting into a number of storesand your ACB yes, right, and
you're filling the pipeline,yeah, and so while you're
filling that pipeline, numbersare great, right, there's volume
to be had Right.
But now it's the same thing ine-commerce and there's a lot
(17:28):
more players.
Now You're now competing with alot more people buying media.
So now it's not as easy of justsaying I turn on media and it's
there.
Now you're competing.
There's a lot more people doingsponsored products and
sponsored brands, so it's not aseasy as just you need to be
there.
That is still, by the way, like75% of all media spend is still
on sponsored products andbrands.
Right, demand capture let's getthe people who are coming to
(17:53):
the category to buy.
But there's a ceiling and whatwe typically see a lot of brands
get frustrated with agencies.
What happens is they come inthe first four to six months the
things are good.
They look at the ROAS ROAS isbetter.
But then you cap out Becausenow, if I do a really good job,
(18:15):
we've optimized what we can doon the platform with the
audiences are coming there.
And then what do you do?
Right, then you're like youplateau and you're like your
costs go down, your salesplateau and you get frustrated
why aren't I growing?
Because I've maximized thataudience.
So now we've got to look atwhere are all these other
audiences that we can begin to.
But we would say, start with thebasics right there.
(18:37):
So I want to ask you veryquickly do you, if you're a
marketer, kind of prepare theclient for that ahead of time to
say this is what is going tohappen, so don't be shocked when
it does.
Or do you invariably have tolet them kind of see events
unfold for themselves to see howthey're getting that ROAS and
(18:59):
getting that return on theirmarketing spend?
Yeah, we always talk to clientsabout a roadmap, right?
So we think in stages and gatesOkay, let's get this part right
.
Once we have this and we startto see the numbers perform the
way they should, then let's openup the next gate, right?
And what are the next tool tofind the next audience?
And we don't just fully turn iton, because every brand and
every category behavesdifferently, right.
(19:21):
And so let's say we let's turnon affiliates and influencers to
drive traffic.
Well, one category like beautyis gonna behave very differently
than toys, right, and so it'snot all equal.
So we really highly adviseunless we know, the cat beauty
will do well with affiliateRight.
But let's pilot, let's test andlearn.
(19:43):
Let's put some dollars in andsee what happens with low risk.
If it works, double down,double down, double down until
we can't double down anymore.
Gotcha, that seems like sological and right directed, but
I'm confident that you have tohave that discussion with
clients all the time.
Yeah, all the time.
Everybody wants the sexy newthing they want to go to.
(20:06):
Oh, I saw these new liveshopping.
Let's do that Well.
You haven't even mastered overhere.
Let's make sure we do that wellbefore we start playing with
all these other toys.
That makes sense.
Yeah, I want to talk a littlebit about the digital shelves
and product detail pagesspecifically because, again from
my background as an onlinemerchant as well as a merchant
(20:29):
in a more traditional sense, itfeels like one of the more
foundational elements of successfor a brand and for a retailer
is the place where a purchasedecision ultimately gets made
and a buy button resides on thatproduct detail page.
And buy button resides on thatproduct detail page.
What kind of optimization doyou and your team recommend to
(20:52):
your brand clients in terms ofthe investment in that ultimate
destination, the product detailpage?
So I held out.
I knew this question was coming, so I held off on the last one
because we talked about thatroadmap.
This is number one period.
So, first off, before we talkabout the details, what's
important about it is there's asymbiotic relationship between
(21:14):
your PDP or brand store andArmenia.
Let's make sure that you areperforming well with your PDP.
Before we ever spend a dollaron media, we want to make sure
you can have a high convertingpage, otherwise we're wasting
money.
Well, I'm so excited to hearyou say that, because so many
people think the other way.
They drive a bunch of audienceto the page and if the page
(21:36):
doesn't convert, then they blamethe media for not performing.
And then you've created yourown problem.
Right Look.
And on top of that, whywouldn't you want to make sure
you can get the most freeconversions through organic
growth and showing at the top ofthe page?
Because you have your pagebuilt right, yes, with the right
content, and then when peopleland there, you have the right
(21:57):
content to convert, in which?
So when we talk about it again,start with the basics.
Yes, the headlines, yourbullets and your A-plus content
and your visuals Right Top, sothink top third of the page.
We got to get that right, andvideo is more and more becoming
more important.
About getting that right.
Now a lot of brands say, well,especially small brands, I don't
(22:18):
have the budget to do it.
Well, amazingly, now there's somuch AI that you can get stuff
done for free, and Walmart's notthere yet Amazon does a lot of
it for free, but there's also alot of providers out there that
you can get something created.
It's not going to be the thingyou're going to be framing and
getting an award for, but you'vegot to be better than some of
(22:40):
the basics on there andunderstand what shoppers are
looking for and the kind ofcontent to help them convert.
Then we start moving down thepage and we're looking at your
A-plus content right, and so nowthis is the romance copy a lot
more detail, a lot more of thespecs, a lot more video we can
(23:01):
load up here, and we want tomake sure we are, because this
is also a place where, when westart driving traffic from
outside, this is where we'relanding Is everything there to
convert where you need to.
Oh, and something else I leftout in a huge way reviews.
I was going to ask you aboutthat because I'm passionate
about user-generated contentbroadly and rating and center
reviews specifically.
So tell me where your thoughtsare there.
Well, first off, there areplatforms for both Walmart and
(23:23):
Amazon where you can work withthem to help get verified
reviews.
You have to get verifiedreviews, yes, particularly
Amazon.
Yeah, with Walmart, you can usesome outside parties to
generate and go.
You're going to have theminfluencers or users go,
purchase your product and thenwrite a real review and you're
paying for that.
But it impacts the algorithm.
If the reviews aren't there,right, so everything is.
(23:45):
Reviews aren't there Right, soeverything is factored in there.
And if your reviews aren't toscale it's volume as well as
quality, yes, four, four starsis not going to do you great as
much as 500, four stars Right,right, so let's make sure we get
the reviews there to help drivethe because, also, we know 80%
(24:06):
of shoppers will change theirpurchase decision based on a bad
review right, if the reviewsaren't right.
So you should also be takingthat into context of, like, what
are our shoppers telling usright, should I be changing
something about my product?
Or is there a dissonancebetween the visuals and the copy
than what the product actuallyis?
And that's where most badreviews come from that
(24:28):
dissonance that, oh, this isn'twhat I thought I was getting, or
the size or the shape orwhatever the issue is.
So you need to be activelylistening to those reviews.
I'm so excited to hear you saythat, because I've advocated for
that at various stopsthroughout my own career and it
resulted in far more argumentsthan I ever thought I would.
(24:49):
So I love it when someone yourbackground kind of confirms the
theory of that.
Yeah, I think, like in thetraditional retail store, all
right, so digital store is nodifferent than the physical
store.
Create awareness.
We're getting on the perimeterof the store as you're coming in
.
I got my end caps where I'mtrying to create some sponsored
brand or video to get you in,and in the shelf itself where
I'm closing the deal, right, andso I knew what do I have there?
(25:13):
So, like you, like all theyears, I've worked on tons of
CPGs globally and it's always acall to action, and so is your
call to action right on your PEP.
I love it.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah, I love it.
It's just as important aspackaging is in physical retail,
and we could have a whole otherepisode.
Yeah, there's a whole episodejust on this.
(25:33):
Yeah, exactly, let me kind ofshift the conversation to
analytics and reporting, and itfeels like that's some of the
elements of retail that aretaking greater importance in any
role, particularly for brandmarketers, and the amount of
data available to leaders indifferent parts of a retail
organization is greater thanever.
(25:56):
My question for you, given yourbackground in this, is what kind
of analysis do you use, themost critical for success for a
brand, not only for themselvesin their own context, but in
their partnership with their,with their retail partners?
Where should their greatestfocus be?
All right, this is where I wantto lose your listeners.
Well, they've been warned.
(26:17):
They've been warned.
I don't care about Roaz tacos,acos, share voice.
They're KPIs, they're greatindicators.
They were created at one timeand because at the time, we were
working in a channel Right, andit was an easy way to be able
to communicate to seniorleadership in a company.
(26:38):
So here's a number I put inthese dollars and here's my
return on ad spend.
Here's my total advertisingcost.
Here's what I'm getting.
So it was an easy metric tounderstand, right?
Did anybody get bonused on ROAS?
Does their stock price haveanything to do with that?
Absolutely not.
Doesn't appear in any annualreports.
Yeah, what we care about?
Top line revenue, profitableshare growth, just like any
(27:01):
other.
We're looking when we're instore or anywhere else other.
We're looking when we're instore anywhere else.
That's what matters.
All the other metrics areabsolutely important to
understanding.
Am I tracking in the rightdirection to achieve those goals
of growth and share growth?
And then other, the new metrics, the new hot word that is.
So last year the word was ai,this year the word is
(27:23):
incrementality, and so that is.
Everybody's getting their owndefinition.
I'll give you mine in a sec.
But the two things we reallylike to look at beyond the share
growth and the sales, areincrementality and new to brand.
You know, are we so from adefinition standpoint,
incrementality, the way wedefine it and look at it is are
(27:44):
we getting a transaction or salethat I didn't get yesterday
because I ran the media?
Right now?
That could come from morefrequency of use, it could be
from a larger basket, it couldbe a new brand.
There's lots of ways that thatcan be defined, and so that also
gets into like when I'm doingmedia, how do I target those
individual groups and how do Idrive that?
(28:04):
They're not all equal and wecan do all at the same time.
New brand is all about are webringing new shoppers in?
Am I stealing from mycompetitor?
Am I bringing somebody into thecategory altogether, like these
new for you, these better foryou drinks right now that are
out there?
That is a whole new categorythat is stealing and bringing
all sorts of new shoppers in.
From an incrementalitystandpoint, it's not just
(28:26):
defining who these audiences,how am I bringing them in and
what's more, transaction.
It's also about how do Ioptimize my media in real time
to get incrementality.
So with our platform, weleverage data in the algorithm
that helps us optimize dailyagainst that.
So we do it in two ways.
One is through an overlay onour tech to help us understand
(28:49):
incrementality, but we also doit in the planning stage.
I can't emphasize this enoughfor everybody is that media mix
modeling is what I believe iswhere they need to be focused.
Media mix modeling takes in allyour sales data and your media
data to understand where shouldmy next best dollar go by
retailer and by on-site oroff-site?
(29:10):
Yes, so because again now,typically so.
I'm sure I can hear fingernailson boards of people listening
right now, but when you hear MMM, most people think of these
huge projects.
I go back in time, like whenthey finish the project and do
(29:32):
the research.
They hand over a phone book toyou like here's all digital.
It's algorithm-based.
As fast as we get data backfrom retailers and data back
from the media, we can optimizeit again and again as frequent
as we want.
We can do it weekly.
That allows us to do a couplethings.
One, optimize spends.
Should I be moving dollars fromretailer X to retailer Y?
(29:53):
Should I be spending moreon-site or should I be taking
stuff off-site, because our jobis not to spend $100,000 on
Walmart.
So client comes in and says Igot 100 grand to win on Walmart.
They said win, not spend, andso now Walmart wants.
They want 25% more money rightnow, and so they want 100% of
(30:13):
your dollars there.
But the media mix modeling willshow you.
Is there a more effective wayto get that spend, to get the
share you're looking for?
Should I be using meta or techtime?
What impact will it have?
So all of this allows us to dopredictive analytics, to
understand.
So everybody can go to theirleadership and say, look, here's
different models and we can runthose MMM models against share
(30:36):
new to brand profitability andwe can run those concurrently
and say, okay, here's thedifferent scenarios.
If we want to spend more money,what happens.
If I spend less, what happens?
And so now we can makedecisions very wisely before we
start spending money.
And so then we're going to actin confidence about moving
forward.
So that's why we think it'sreally, really important for the
(30:57):
MMM.
And then, as we're doing thatbecause we can do that with
frequency it's another tool forincrementality to understand
which one drove it.
So it feels like thetraditional way that marketers
measure success, which iscertain KPIs.
You're a little outdated inincrementality and where I spend
(31:19):
a dollar most effectivelyshould perhaps, maybe where that
focus should evolve to insteadof just some of the more
traditional marketing.
Yeah, I think those are KPIs,right.
So, thank you.
What I get, bonus, I'm here todrive the business and the
metrics now are about'm here todrive the business and the
(31:39):
metrics now are about.
Well, driving the business isincrementality.
Like I started my business.
I started the industry 25 yearsago, working for Miller Brewing
Company, and everything wasabout how do I get one more beer
in somebody's hand, one at atime.
So it's the same thing.
It doesn't matter what we'reselling, how we do it is
different, but what we'reultimately trying to do is Back
then I put it in your handphysically.
Well, along those lines, retailmedia networks have been one of
(32:06):
the fastest-growing aspects ofretailing in recent years, for
the retailer as well as for thebrand marketer, and a
significant amount of brandmarketing dollars now flow into
these networks.
You kind of touched on this alittle bit, but I want to take
it maybe a little deeper.
How do you advise your clientsto spend most effectively, both
(32:27):
across retail partners andwithin a specific retailer?
Because it feels like that's alittle bit more complex.
Now to your point earlier thanit's been in the past.
Well, let me simplify thingspretty fast.
First off, top five retailersWalmart, amazon, instacart,
target and Kroger represent morethan 90% of all retail media
(32:50):
spend.
So that also Is that a good orbad thing?
By the way, it makes things alittle bit easier.
I don't think it that a good orbad thing, by the way.
Uh, it makes things a littlebit easier.
I don't think it's a good thing.
But first off, it's alreadycomplicated.
Yeah, so now there's there's250 other retail media.
That's why I asked the questionyeah, so now?
But they're all fighting over10 percent right, and so I don't
(33:10):
believe.
I don't think it's sustainable.
You know there are partners outthere, companies like cody and
a couple others, who are tryingto unify a platform for them.
Because it costs so much tomaintain the technology to do
that.
They are completely upside down.
So they're going to have to getinto a situation where they're
(33:34):
in a group where it's easier toaccess and if they can do that,
then it makes sense for brandsbecause it's easier to get to
them.
If I have to work within 30different platforms, it's just
not feasible.
There's not enough hands-onkeys, enough focus.
A couple of very large CPGsI've talked with and basically
told me I think I'm going tofocus on top six and just forget
(33:55):
everybody else.
It's just too hard, I don'thave the resources to do it.
And as much as an agency saidwell, we can do that for you.
Still, that's costly, it addscost to it and there's just the
capability.
So that's the other issue.
Amazon and Walmart and Instacartare light years ahead of the
other 200, right?
And so now, even though there'sretailer Y, small mid-market
(34:20):
guy, has a platform, he doesn'thave enough capabilities.
He only can do some basicthings on search.
They're not connected to someof the offsite platforms, they
don't have DSP built in, so orthey're not connected with a
trade desk or with Tik TOK.
To understand, do I haveattribution coming back, do I
know where these sales arecoming from?
So then they become lessattractive because they and so.
(34:44):
But to become more attractiveyou got to spend more on the
tech to get it in there, and sothey're in a very tricky place
to become more valuable.
And so I'm very interested.
I think there's going to be someconsolidation over the next
couple of years, and themerchant in me thinks about the
fact that, while I can see theargument that they're making on
(35:04):
focusing on those top networks,in particular product categories
, in particular consumersegments, in particular
geographies, there are regionalor specifically new players that
in that market or in thatbusiness or serving that
particular customer, they aretop at what they do, even though
(35:24):
they don't have the footprintof an Amazon, and so it feels
like to have, and I get whythey're saying what they're
saying, if they're advertisers,but there's a whole lot of
customers that they're not goingto reach with a strategy like
that.
Right, and those are.
Again, those are audiences,yeah, I think in terms of.
So, again, it gets to who'smaking the decision.
(35:46):
Is it the customer team?
They only care about theirretailer.
Yes, right, the brand or theCMO cares about all of us.
So that's where theconversation has to be held at
that level.
Yeah, and so the but theproblem is, then, this we're
really bad in this industry.
It's gotten better with themedia side of it, but, like,
(36:09):
we're really bad at like, oh,you're on the brand team, you
don't understand retail, sothere's no credibility.
Right, you don't understandretail, so there's no
credibility, right, you don't.
And they don't.
It's not a ding, it's just.
You know they have a differentexpertise than what people here
do.
But now, but to get the spinyou need you have to make the
argument and do the compellingargument with them.
So again, I go back to M&M.
What's the cost of a SharePoint?
(36:31):
So, maybe because right nowit's more competitive on Walmart
and Amazon.
Right, it costs more.
The media's going up in priceand maybe there's other
retailers.
Here's a less expensive way tofind some audiences.
So can I?
This kind of goes.
It makes me think of electionmaps.
(36:54):
What's my path to win?
How do I and it's not just Igot to win Texas and California,
it's.
It's more complex.
It's more complex.
There's a lot of other smallplaces, of ways to get there and
if you can find that path foryou, or find that sweet spot or
find the retailer we have aclient who just launched a
beverage brand and they're veryfocused on not these smaller
retailers, you know, uh, it's sofresh, fresh time in like specs
(37:15):
and techs, like, and they'rehaving a lot of success being
very focused.
The other players aren't there,right, so it gives them an
upside to to compete.
It makes sense.
One of the things you talkedabout earlier and her touched on
(37:36):
of optimize their spend andenhancing the performance of
their spend over the course oftime.
Yeah, so AI.
So the buzzword last year isstill a buzzword and still
people throw it around and haveno idea what they're talking
about.
Yes, I saw Part of why I askedthe question.
So what's look, our take, theway we look at AI, because we do
(38:04):
talk a lot about AI.
We have a platform called Daisywith AI right in the middle.
But it's not about some brandnew code and how we're
reimagining the world right.
It's how AI, the best use of ittoday is how do I make sense of
a volume of data?
How can I look at all thisvolume that before took an
(38:26):
analyst weeks manually doing insome spreadsheet to now it can
crank it out in seconds orminutes to be able to say here
are some great insights orindicators of what's going on.
So I'd rather have my staff,your staff, be focused on
strategic thinking than runningreports.
(38:47):
So if AI can help us streamlineand automate reports and so, as
we put, have our humans stillmaking the hard job,
decision-making based on thoseinsights?
Like it's about speed, how canI get to volume of speed to do
things Right?
And then now there's also nowwhat I love, where AI is content
(39:07):
.
So go back to PDP.
Like I need to write a PDP page.
I can direct it with contentand it will crank it out for us.
And again, it's not going to be100%.
Ai's job is to get you on thepath.
Yeah, right, it's going to lookat a lot of content out there.
It's only good as where youpoint it to or what content you
(39:27):
give it, right.
But if you do that, then you'regoing to cut your time down by
80, 90% and you can spend thefine tuning time to get it
exactly the way you want it tobe, versus starting from zero.
The same thing with creativevideo.
We just came back from e-tail.
We just saw a company makeunbelievable strides in video
(39:49):
for streaming TV, and so so manybrands.
It's the other thing we try totell our clients In today's
world.
And so many brands.
It's the other thing we try totell our clients In today's
world, especially with the datalike Scintilla and AMC.
Streaming TV is accessible toany brand.
Now Anybody can be on TV.
But it's about do you have thecontent?
And so now there is a platformwe just witnessed that built an
(40:11):
entire spot for apparel withunique users, unique clothes,
and then, as the certain offersgo away, or talent goes away, or
things go out of stock, theproducts change automatically
and you cannot tell.
It's AI.
Now, again, it's not a SuperBowl commercial, but it's doing
(40:32):
the job you need it to do tocreate that awareness, to get
the traction you want, right?
So I think, like it's speed,it's optimization, it's creative
, okay.
So that brings me to the lastquestion.
Hopefully, this kind of tiesthe bow on some of the things
we've been talking about.
I imagine that you see a numberof brands doing things well and
(40:54):
others that are doing thingspoorly in how they manage their
digital spend these days.
Are there any kind of recurringthemes or advice that you, uh,
as a marketer, would, would givethat kind of helps them address
some of the common missedopportunities or or mistakes
(41:14):
that you see kind of on anongoing basis?
So this isn't the sexiestanswer, but boring wins.
What I mean by that is thebasics win.
Get your PNAP right.
Take care of the demand gen ofthe audiences who are coming on
the site.
Let's do the sponsored productand sponsored brand.
(41:34):
Let's capture those who arehere first.
Let's do the basics brilliantly.
Second thing is let's try, solike again, go back to the data.
What does the audiences tell me?
Where should I be going?
What tools should I be doing?
It's not an all in.
How do we try?
And the third thing is how dowe fail fast?
Right?
That's the name of this game.
(41:54):
So this, there's a lot.
You would know this, likeespecially early days of
e-commerce and media, there wasa lot of set and forget it, yes,
and those days feel likethey're gone.
Yeah, they're totally gone.
Yes, it did work then becausethere wasn't competition in,
like you didn't have as much andthere's only place and it was
working.
Right now, you have to learnvery quickly is it working or
(42:16):
not?
Can I pull the dollars?
Do I reallocate somewhere else?
What are the data telling mewhere I should go?
So you know, it's those threethings.
Do the basics brilliantly, soboring wins, fail fast and try a
lot.
That makes perfect sense, and Ithink that's that's great
advice, and I, that's the thing.
Part of why I was excited tohave you join us is it feels
(42:37):
like so many marketers and somany brands, particularly
smaller ones, that you reallyfocus on helping.
They need that guidance.
They need that advice.
They need to hear the toughlove conversations about this
shiny object that you're beingsold by others is not the
solution.
Here's how to advance yourbrand and drive sales the most
effective ways.
(42:58):
Right?
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely so.
Thank you so much, uh, forjoining us.
It just it feels like digitalmarketing broadly and the
technology that underpins it isadvancing at an unbelievable
pace and that yesterday's bestpractice would seem to be
becoming obsolete at ablistering pace.
Brands, alongside their retailpartners, have to continually,
(43:23):
it feels like, revisit theirapproach, where they spend, how
they deploy their assets mosteffectively to drive the
business.
And this has been a greatconversation.
Thanks, I appreciate the chanceto be here.
Enjoyed the business.
And this has been a greatconversation.
Thanks, I appreciate the chanceto be here.
Enjoy the conversation.
All right.
So it's exciting to learn frommarket leaders like Sean and
from his team at BirdDog on themost effective ways to drive
(43:47):
results through digitalmarketing, and conversations
like this tell us that it's nota one size fits all.
It is very much a dynamicchallenge, a dynamic marketplace
out there.
You really very much a dynamicchallenge, a dynamic marketplace
out there.
You really got to stay on topof its house.
Glad we had this conversationtoday.
And so, for the Digital FrontDoor, I'm Scott Benedict.
Thanks for joining us.
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