November 3, 2023 • 26 mins
In episode thirty-five, Accountfully's CEO and Partner, Brad Ebenhoeh, talks with Tom Burgess of Snipp Interactive. Tom shares key insight from decades of experience developing both brands and products to become successful enterprises through smart marketing strategies and laser-focused customer acquisition and retention. Learn how his unique model uses data from banks and ad activity to focus on providing clear ROI to all sizes of brands. If you are wondering how to up your sales game and see definitive ROAS, this is a must-listen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:01):
Welcome to The Month End CPG community chat,
The Month End will provideemerging CPG brands real life
knowledge into the accounting,finance and operational world.
Our guests will be keystakeholders from those same
brands as well as other keycontributors to the industry.
Alright, welcome to episode 35.
The Month End podcast today wehave Tom Burgess from snip
interactive. How're you doingtoday, Tom?
Tom Burgess (00:23):
Hey, Brad, I'm doing very well. Thanks for
having me.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:26):
Good excited to chat a little more on the kind
of marketing advertising spendtoday as it relates to emerging
CPG brands, who is our targetaudience. So before we get
started, let's get a backgroundof yourself as well as Snipp
Interactive and what you do forthem and what you do for your
customers.
Tom Burgess (00:42):
Yeah, so I'm excited about being here,
because I'm also a foundingentrepreneur, for companies
myself over the last 25 yearsand all those companies have
been focused on advertising anddata and loyalty. And I've even
secured some patents along theway, but basically, on the
innovative products that we'vedeveloped to support CPGs, and
(01:05):
retailers in the digitalmarketing and like consumer
acquisition efforts. I'mpresident of Snipp PMN. So this
is a division of Snippinteractive, where Snipp
payments Media Network, and I'malso an active board member and
advisor to early stagecompanies. I focus primarily in
my background on productdevelopment, guerilla marketing,
(01:26):
culture, management, corporatedevelopment all that stuff that
you do as an entrepreneur,right, that's, that's what I've
done. Snipp PMN man, if you wantme to keep going, I can. Yep,
kick off. Yeah. So Snipp PMN isa performance based advertising
marketplace. And it reaches morethan 70 million shoppers,
meaning that if you're a brandtrying to drive sales, then we
(01:50):
have eyeballs. And we are ableto target those eyeballs based
on shopping history, andgeography and by retailer. So we
have about 30 retailers where wework directly with their data.
And we are able to reach thoseconsumers in a way that we see
(02:10):
them making purchases. So if aoffer or an ad is in play is
placed in front of thoseconsumers, then we know when
they bought the product, and theunique piece of Snipp PMN is,
and this goes along withpayments media network is that
we do this through banks. So wereach consumers. And this is
unique. And this is new. Throughtwo of the top five banks
(02:34):
currently, so Bank of Americaand PNC Bank, and hundreds of
small banks. And we'll belaunching in 24, 2024 with other
top five banks. So and what do Imean by that we reach consumers
when they're in their bankingapplication, we all do it,
right. We're all banking appusers. And in the banks place
(02:54):
these CPG levels or SKU leveloffers in front of their
consumers, in their app usersand their card holders, so that
the consumer will use their cardright? So Bank of America
putting an offer up for aproduct to be purchased via that
card at say Albertsons or Krogeror Stop and Shop, depending on
(03:15):
geographically where you are. Soanyway, that's, that's Snipp
PMN. And, and, and we work withall different types of brands on
making sure that we're reachingthe audience they want to reach.
So I'll pull up there is thatgood?
Brad Ebenhoeh (03:28):
That's a that's a great, great start and a great
background to kind of start theconversation. So from an aspect
of a CPG brand, like I guesslet's kind of go through the
different phases right of anemerging brand versus a midsize
to like an enterprise levelbrand. You guys have different
offerings or solutions for thosedifferent company and entity
(03:51):
sizes?
Tom Burgess (03:52):
Yeah, so you know, when I look at any brand, when
our team works with the brands,we assess what their goals are,
what their budget is, who theywant to reach geography, etc,
etc. Right? You have shoppermarketing dollars, you have
national marketing dollars. Somesmaller brands just simply say
(04:12):
"I need to drive more sales".
Medium sized brands will have amarketing team internally, and
those enterprise brands willhave maybe multiple agencies
involved. So everybody'sslightly different. And we try
to package it up, like you said,you know, to fit the need. The
biggest need is making sure thatthey're getting the best bang
(04:33):
for the buck, especially withthe economy the way it is. So
when a brand is saying, "Man, Igotta spend marketing dollars,
but I need that ROI. I need tobe able to track is it working
for me". So that was over the 30years in my career. I've always
been involved in thisadvertising, as I mentioned a
moment ago, but the hardestthing to do is know if your
(04:55):
advertising is working. So inour Snipp PMN model, we are
tapping into the purchase data.
So we know when a consumer makesa purchase. So for the smaller
brands, we put together packagesthat allow them to pay us only
when somebody makes thepurchase. So we know that the
(05:15):
consumer in our network saw thead. And we know when that
consumer went to that particularstore, if they want to target a
particular store, and we knowhow much they paid. So you get
all kinds of data, you know,taking Snipp PMN out of it for a
minute, and just thinking abouta startup or a early stage
business that's trying to usetheir money, the most efficient
(05:37):
way possible. If you can usethat money and a model that
guarantees you an ROI, thenyou're in the best possible
spend model, right? So you know,I mean, you guys advise your
clients, on how to spend yourmoney, where what money you're
spending is getting the bestreturn on that spend. That's
(05:58):
what we focus on, we focus ongiving back that data. And
there's a whole bunch of otherdata that we get back.
Brad Ebenhoeh (06:03):
Gotcha, gotcha.
But all makes sense. And, youknow, if we look at a lot of our
kind of folks in the CPG networkthat we collaborate or work
with, or our clients thatthey're selling, you know, via
omni channel, let's say, in theretail stores, on their website
typically via Shopify andAmazon, Faire, Mabel, all these
different resellers that exist,right? And in the past, let's
(06:26):
say, three, four years ago, whenI think funding and cash was
more prevalent in terms of asmall business raising money. A
lot of times you'd see growthcompanies just grow top line
very quickly. But then you lookat basically their, their Google
ad spend their you know, thatFacebook ad spend, and it's just
dollars and dollars and dollars.
(06:48):
And there's really no directcorrelation in terms of, you
know, like, did that dollarsactually go to a sale, right,
um, clearly, you can do acalculation and metric costs to
acquire a customer and thosetypes of things that you can do
with that. But really havingthat spent happening when a
purchase happens, to me is morekey and and much more efficient
(07:10):
and leveraging that cash model,especially, you know, in today's
day and age, like you said, withthe academy where it's at. So
from a from an aspect of a,again, a small brand, leveraging
somebody like a technology and aproduct like yourself, how does
that fit in with the traditionalkind of, I guess, digital ad ad
tech models and workflows thathave existed?
Tom Burgess (07:31):
Yeah, so I'll take off my, my Snipp hat for a
minute, right? I'm talking toanother fellow entrepreneur
that's launching something or isin the midst of branding
something, and and I'm a bigbeliever, this is my view, you
need to spend marketing dollarsto position your brand, right,
you need those digital media,traditional Facebook, Google
(07:53):
type of spend to just put yourbrand in front of the right
eyeballs. So you get thatcorporate positioning, and you
get that product positioning,key key key, right, you also
then need to add in that modelthat drives the consumer to make
those purchases, right, that'sso I think it's a blend
personally. And when I'm talkingto people, I don't just sit in
(08:16):
there. And of course, it wouldhelp me greatly if I just said,
Brad Ebenhoeh (08:19):
What are some of your favorite kind of KPIs? You
Oh, spend all your money onperformance. And come on over,
we got 70 million people. And bythe way, you can go to Ibotta.
And you can go to Fetch those.
They have, you know, audiencesthat are similar to ours, except
you want to spread your spend,right? So you spend on your
positioning. And yeah, that ROIis tough, man, it's, it's not
that kind of ROI that's directlytracked to your sales, it's
(08:43):
tracked to the growth, like yousaid, drive in that top line,
right. And if you're gettingyour brand out there, just
getting picked up and people arestarting to get familiar with
it, then they'll recognize it onshelf or online, when they see
it pass by them, that's key, gotto do it. Then you spend in the
performance channels to actuallydrive sales. And now you can
(09:07):
look at all of that together.
When you're looking at your BIor your your dashboard. If you
will have metrics you'relearning, okay, my media mix, my
spend of my marketing dollars isdriving X overall, you got to
mix them all together. And andwhen you're going after, say
that particular retailer, maybeit's Albertsons or Kroger, as we
(09:30):
were saying earlier, you know,it might be whatever retailer
that you want to push yourproduct through. You need to
look at what kind of marketingthey're doing too, and you have
retail media networks now. Andso there's all this stuff that
you can do, but it needs to be amix. That's that's what I say
all the time and, and it'sproven out time and time again,
(09:53):
when you do a mix, you feelbetter. You see your numbers you
can optimize maybe yourmarketing is, you're coming into
the end of a quarter, maybe youhave an investor a board meeting
coming up, right? And, and youneed to drive up your numbers a
bit. So go spend a little moremoney on the performance side,
drive some sales up, becausethat'll help your branding side,
(10:16):
maybe it drops down a littlebit, and you put a little more
dollars towards your spent your,your performance side so you can
drive more sales. You know,these are things that you got to
do to mix it in.
look at, you know, to track theperformance of you know, what
(10:37):
we're just talking about there?
Tom Burgess (10:39):
Yeah, so it's different for every brand, of
course, depending on theaudience that you want to reach,
but KPIs the key one thateverybody wants to know is ROAS
or return on ad spend. Allright, that's kind of the mother
of all e-metrics. And you needthe data in order to get that.
(11:00):
So you need to know how muchyou're spending, of course, you
need to know the audience you'rereaching, how big is it, you
need to then know, are theyinteracting, and that's kind of
the first level. And then if youcan get your true ROAS or return
on adspend, you know, how manysales or what volume of sales
did we drive? So you take yourdollars that you spent, you
(11:22):
compare it to the dollars thatyou made through the tail or
through sales? And then you comeup with your return on ad spend
metric? There are other keyperformance indicators that
people want to have. Where itsays, "okay, if I'm selling in
this geographic region, is itgoing well at but I've got to
break into this geographicregion. And how is that going
(11:44):
well", or "how am I doing withthis retailer, because a brand
will want to go–and this is oneof these key metrics that
becomes important as a brand istrying to secure a better
relationship with a particularretailer. You want to drive
sales through that retailer, soyou get more prominent placement
in their stores or on theirwebsite. So those are metrics
(12:06):
that you want to maybeinfluence, right? So you say,
"Okay, I'm going to part I'mgoing to particularly target the
Albertsons, and I'm just pickinga retailer here in the
Albertsons audience, and I wantto drive some sales there, so
that Albertsons look favorablyon me, so that I, as the brand
can go get better placement andhave better negotiating
(12:27):
capability with that with thatretailer". So these are all the
things I mean, and then youknow, KPIs go, you know, they
start off with what are your topKPIs? And then they can, you
know, there's a long list ofother things that you want to
track course. But typically,they're driven by what your
overall goals are, right? Ifyour goals are to drive sales,
(12:48):
you're going to you're going tobe driving a more heavy on the
metrics of how many people am Ireaching? How many sales have I
actually transacted? What's myconversion rate, those types of
things?
Brad Ebenhoeh (13:04):
Gotcha. That all make sense. What, uh, you know,
since you're on the kind of thefrontlines of this data, like,
what is what do you stand forabout trend trends in the CPG
space? from a consumerstandpoint?
Tom Burgess (13:16):
Yeah, great question. Perfect question. So,
you know, we saw that,obviously, everybody knows that
COVID changed the behavior ofpeople that the key metric that
happened there was loyalty kindof went out the window, right?
People weren't so loyal to theirspecific brands, because they
(13:37):
were just looking to getproduct, right? So consumers,
like you and I, we all are, wemight have drifted off of a
brand that we would normallyhave bought. And we started to
try other things, because maybethat store was an easier store
to go to. And they didn't havethe brand that I was used to
buying. So there's this currenttrend of brands trying to
(14:00):
reinvent the loyalty metrictrying to get back to maybe win
lapsed buyers, or acquire newbuyers that they wouldn't have
been able to acquire this easilybefore because they were so
loyal to a competitive brand. Sothese are metrics, or they
should say these are trends thatwe see right now, where we have
(14:23):
retailers and brands partneringtogether to promote offers to do
more of a an acquisition styleadvertising as opposed to what
they used to do, which was let'ssell more to the existing
customers. Right? So there's abig big trend and recovering or
(14:45):
taking advantage of that. Thatcomplete almost wiped out
loyalty program. So I thinkthat's the key thing. It's this
is an opportunity, right? It'schaos, and chaos is opportunity.
And so and by the way, there'salso So a lot of new metrics
that are available because ofthe data that's out there,
(15:08):
retailers didn't typically offertheir data out, it was a golden
goose, it was the treasuretrove, they held on to it very
tightly. But the trend of retailmedia networks that's growing
incredibly fast, has allowedCPGs, or just any consumer brand
(15:30):
fast moving consumer brands toaccess or allows them access to
new data data they hadn't hadbefore. And it can be used for
targeting it can be used,because there's data is used.
And I'm sorry, if I'm on a ranthere, but this is kind of a
unique position, if you'rethinking of what's available to
me as a CPG. Data really fallsinto three categories: (1) free
(15:53):
marketing, so I can build anaudience based on the kind of
audience I want to reach. Andguess what the brands and and
the retailers are workingtogether now to build audiences,
then you use data during acampaign. So (2) in-flight
management, or in-flightoptimization, that's what it
(16:13):
would be called right? So nowyou're getting data in there,
and you're starting to seewhat's working and you optimize
your campaign, maybe you changethe copy in an ad or you move
your ad to a different audiencethat's operating or performing
better than the audiences thatyou picked when you were setting
it up pre-campaigns. So that's,that's mid-campaign. And the
third area is (3) post-campaignanalysis. And you're now taking
(16:38):
all the data of all the stuffthat happened, and you're
looking at it so you canunderstand what you might do
next, you're also building outyour ROI, you're building out
your ROAS and you're figuringout what we "did we spend
well,?" "Did we do a good jobhere?" And that is like a
flywheel. And that just keepsgoing. And the brands that are
doing it well, are spending timeon those different data points
(17:02):
and recognizing how each one'sdifferent. You can you can't do
just one you got to you got toreally focus on it.
Brad Ebenhoeh (17:09):
It's fascinating.
Are we seeing more customers orconsumers like going back to
physical retail stores? SinceCOVID? Because clearly, like I
know, you said that habits havechanged and you know, my my
household my wife and I'm and wehardly ever go out, you know,
physically anymore just becauseof the just the convenience of
everything right. But I'm I'mwondering just as a as a
(17:32):
general, like whole aspect ofsociety. Is there any data that
you've seen, or trends thatyou've seen just on how
consumers shop these days?
Tom Burgess (17:40):
Yeah so, I, you're right, we all do that. I mean,
I'm, I walked downstairs theother day, and, you know,
sitting out in front porch was aWalmart bag. I don't even see
the person drop it off, right?
You know, my wife was like, andI come in with the bag. And I
say to my wife, you know, didyou do this? What's this? Is
this right? And it's funny. Andshe's like, I just wanted to
test the Walmart deliveryprogram, right. And it worked
(18:03):
well. But there's, there's aninteresting thing that the
trends show and I don't havespecific but I do have data I
could bring I'm sorry, I don'thave it right here. Maybe we can
post it later. But it is, youknow, there was a complete spike
of ordering and delivery. Andthat whole category exploded. We
all know it right? That's comeway way off. Partly due to the
(18:26):
fact that people like to shop,they like to get out of the
house, we like to walk the hallsor the aisles of a store and see
the products and pick what theywant. People really enjoy
grocery shopping. I mean, it'san interesting trend when you
look at different categories ofretail. And what's happened
grocery is obviously doing veryvery well right now. Part of
(18:50):
it's due to the fact that peopleare back on the street and
getting out and doing things butthere's a there's a trend in
grocery also towards selfcheckout self management as a
consumer and and so it's makingshopping in store easier that
retailers are honestly I'mstruggling a little bit with it
(19:12):
because there's a little bit offraud that's associated with
this change and everybody'strying to figure it out. But but
it's a lot easier now to walkinto a store, walk through the
aisles, pick up what you wantwalk basically right out. You
self checkout and you walk outthe door. So all of these things
combined, where the retailersare reacting as well to "come on
(19:33):
back to the store will make iteasy for you". So this is a
trend that is interesting towatch. I will add one more thing
and say that the trend of lowercost retail chains and the
growth we see larger called themstalwarts of the retail industry
having struggles we all knowRite Aid right now going through
(19:58):
a struggle we I see somethinglike Dollar General growing like
crazy, right. So you see thistrend too. And and I think
there's still data to be foundon why that is. It's it's not
that those retailers areappealing to an existing market
that they've always appealed to,it's obviously spend shift or
(20:18):
share of wallet shift, whereconsumers are saying, "I can get
the same products, because ofwhat happened in COVID, I get
the same products I was gettingat the fancy store, I can get it
at the other store". So there'sthat type of change that's
happening as well.
Brad Ebenhoeh (20:34):
It's interesting in terms of your prior kind of
statement a couple of minutesago, related to kind of like
people just wanting to selfcheckout, and just kind of walk
the halls in the aisles of thegrocery store, but not be bugged
and just handle everythingthemselves, basically kind of
like they are literally checkingout on your computer. So it's
very fascinating how that'sworking.
Tom Burgess (20:57):
That's a really cool point you make right it,
the easier the checkout, the themore comfortable the consumer is
and where they're shopping,right?
Brad Ebenhoeh (21:05):
Correct. Correct.
Because when they're on theircomputer, it's an easy checkout
aspect or their phone. Right. Solike, they want to have that
mirror the same experience asthat when they go to, you know,
physically to to the retailstore. So this is all great
information, we're gonna bewrapping up the podcast here, we
typically end with one, youknow, CPG industry do and one
CPG industry don't, you know,for the listeners out there, but
(21:25):
I don't want to target kind ofthe CPG space here, like just
because of your background. Andas an entrepreneur and multiple
companies that just, you know,considering, let's say, a brand
new zero to $10 million startupcompany, right? What is just
kind of one general do orrecommendation that you'd say to
a founder out there?
Tom Burgess (21:47):
Yeah. So this is a good one, because I, I have the
benefit of having a CMO as awife who works with these sized
companies, right. So her and Iobviously talk about everything
that goes on in our lives. And,you know, the biggest and
probably most impactful thingsthat a smaller, a smaller
(22:08):
company, an emerging company cando today is leverage the data
that's available. This washarder 10 years ago, right. But
today, the data that's availableis amazing. And people tend to
be "Oh, I don't understand it. Idon't know it, I don't I don't
you know, it can't get into thatI can't learn because I'm so
darn busy, right?" It's worthit. If I had anything to say to
(22:31):
any company at that stage, I'dsay spend the time, whether you
do it, you have staff that doesit, you work with an agency or a
fractional service provider,which is outstanding, which is
the trend. And if you're notworking with fractional service
providers, you're crazy, becauseyou get all the benefits with
(22:52):
the lower cost, but you need toaccess that data. It will tell
you, it's like a coach, right.
And that in itself, it's a it'stelling you what you're doing
well, and what's not working foryou. So I think, take the time
to look at the data that'savailable and set off campaigns
and/or marketing or otherstrategies doesn't have to be
(23:14):
all in sales and marketing,right? It can be coming out of
your own efficiencies, it can beyour operational data, and, and
believe that data like look atit collect it, spend the time
upfront, to make sure thatwhatever you're doing is being
analyzed by the performance andthe data, the data that you can
get in through the transactionalprocess. Right. So once your now
(23:38):
and that then lead you to makingthe right decisions going
forward.
Brad Ebenhoeh (23:46):
But on the flip side, what is one don't?
Tom Burgess (23:53):
Yeah, there's so many things on the don't too,
right. So this is a tough one, Iwould say primarily if I had to
speak towards the marketing,because that's been our theme on
the discussion. I would saydon't spend money on a whim,
don't spend money on things thatcome up, and they look like the
(24:19):
next shiny cool thing to do.
Stand by your budget. Take yourbudget, analyze it, if you do it
annually first and then youcheck in quarterly as you're as
you're moving along and adjust,but stick to a plan. There's
this thing of entrepreneurs it'sour addiction, right? We want we
want to get it done, man and I'mon I'm addicted. Yeah, you know,
(24:43):
right. Yeah. And that that shinynew thing comes along and you're
like, that's it man. That'sgonna change. And you gotta you
gotta just pull yourself. We'llreel yourself back in, look at
it. Analyze the opportunity. Doyou maybe put it in in two
quarters, if you can work thenext year? It but stick to your
guns, it's that's probably thehardest thing to do is to stick
(25:08):
to a budget stick to a plan.
Brad Ebenhoeh (25:14):
I would agree with you as an entrepreneur and
from a from an accountingstandpoint, where we're
Accountfully is I've learned aton, just on the marketing side
and the brand equity and kind ofthe consistency of content and
moving forward. And you see, itdoesn't just happen overnight,
or within a week where youthat's where you want it to be
(25:34):
now it's like, hey, overtime,it'll get there and stick to a
plan and implement that plan andassess it over a specific time
period. Really helps. So I'velearned a lot just from that
perspective, and as well as thischat with you, Tom. Well, I
really appreciate the time, Tom,it was awesome. I hope that
listeners get a lot ofinformation. As we wrap up here.
(25:56):
Where can people find you andSnipp and just kind of give them
some other information on whereto go.
Tom Burgess (26:02):
Yeah, Brad has been awesome and a great conversation
so I'm easy to find attom.burgess@snipp.com So that's
my email Tom.Burgess@snipp.comand Snipp.com is is our website,
obviously. So those are theplaces you can find me obviously
LinkedIn too, feel free to chaseme down there. But yeah, I'm an
(26:22):
addicted entrepreneur addictedto all of this stuff. So I'm an
easy guy to find.
Brad Ebenhoeh (26:28):
Awesome. Well, Episode 35 In The Month End
podcast, Tom Burgess from SnippInteractive. Thanks again, Tom.
Tom Burgess (26:35):
Thanks, Brad. It's great talking to you. Great to
have with you.
Welcome to The Month End CPG community chat,
The Month End will provideemerging CPG brands real life
knowledge into the accounting,finance and operational world.
Our guests will be keystakeholders from those same
brands as well as other keycontributors to the industry.
Alright, welcome to episode 35.
The Month End podcast today wehave Tom Burgess from snip
interactive. How're you doingtoday, Tom?
Tom Burgess (00:23):
Hey, Brad, I'm doing very well. Thanks for
having me.
Brad Ebenhoeh (00:26):
Good excited to chat a little more on the kind
of marketing advertising spendtoday as it relates to emerging
CPG brands, who is our targetaudience. So before we get
started, let's get a backgroundof yourself as well as Snipp
Interactive and what you do forthem and what you do for your
customers.
Tom Burgess (00:42):
Yeah, so I'm excited about being here,
because I'm also a foundingentrepreneur, for companies
myself over the last 25 yearsand all those companies have
been focused on advertising anddata and loyalty. And I've even
secured some patents along theway, but basically, on the
innovative products that we'vedeveloped to support CPGs, and
(01:05):
retailers in the digitalmarketing and like consumer
acquisition efforts. I'mpresident of Snipp PMN. So this
is a division of Snippinteractive, where Snipp
payments Media Network, and I'malso an active board member and
advisor to early stagecompanies. I focus primarily in
my background on productdevelopment, guerilla marketing,
(01:26):
culture, management, corporatedevelopment all that stuff that
you do as an entrepreneur,right, that's, that's what I've
done. Snipp PMN man, if you wantme to keep going, I can. Yep,
kick off. Yeah. So Snipp PMN isa performance based advertising
marketplace. And it reaches morethan 70 million shoppers,
meaning that if you're a brandtrying to drive sales, then we
(01:50):
have eyeballs. And we are ableto target those eyeballs based
on shopping history, andgeography and by retailer. So we
have about 30 retailers where wework directly with their data.
And we are able to reach thoseconsumers in a way that we see
(02:10):
them making purchases. So if aoffer or an ad is in play is
placed in front of thoseconsumers, then we know when
they bought the product, and theunique piece of Snipp PMN is,
and this goes along withpayments media network is that
we do this through banks. So wereach consumers. And this is
unique. And this is new. Throughtwo of the top five banks
(02:34):
currently, so Bank of Americaand PNC Bank, and hundreds of
small banks. And we'll belaunching in 24, 2024 with other
top five banks. So and what do Imean by that we reach consumers
when they're in their bankingapplication, we all do it,
right. We're all banking appusers. And in the banks place
(02:54):
these CPG levels or SKU leveloffers in front of their
consumers, in their app usersand their card holders, so that
the consumer will use their cardright? So Bank of America
putting an offer up for aproduct to be purchased via that
card at say Albertsons or Krogeror Stop and Shop, depending on
(03:15):
geographically where you are. Soanyway, that's, that's Snipp
PMN. And, and, and we work withall different types of brands on
making sure that we're reachingthe audience they want to reach.
So I'll pull up there is thatgood?
Brad Ebenhoeh (03:28):
That's a that's a great, great start and a great
background to kind of start theconversation. So from an aspect
of a CPG brand, like I guesslet's kind of go through the
different phases right of anemerging brand versus a midsize
to like an enterprise levelbrand. You guys have different
offerings or solutions for thosedifferent company and entity
(03:51):
sizes?
Tom Burgess (03:52):
Yeah, so you know, when I look at any brand, when
our team works with the brands,we assess what their goals are,
what their budget is, who theywant to reach geography, etc,
etc. Right? You have shoppermarketing dollars, you have
national marketing dollars. Somesmaller brands just simply say
(04:12):
"I need to drive more sales".
Medium sized brands will have amarketing team internally, and
those enterprise brands willhave maybe multiple agencies
involved. So everybody'sslightly different. And we try
to package it up, like you said,you know, to fit the need. The
biggest need is making sure thatthey're getting the best bang
(04:33):
for the buck, especially withthe economy the way it is. So
when a brand is saying, "Man, Igotta spend marketing dollars,
but I need that ROI. I need tobe able to track is it working
for me". So that was over the 30years in my career. I've always
been involved in thisadvertising, as I mentioned a
moment ago, but the hardestthing to do is know if your
(04:55):
advertising is working. So inour Snipp PMN model, we are
tapping into the purchase data.
So we know when a consumer makesa purchase. So for the smaller
brands, we put together packagesthat allow them to pay us only
when somebody makes thepurchase. So we know that the
(05:15):
consumer in our network saw thead. And we know when that
consumer went to that particularstore, if they want to target a
particular store, and we knowhow much they paid. So you get
all kinds of data, you know,taking Snipp PMN out of it for a
minute, and just thinking abouta startup or a early stage
business that's trying to usetheir money, the most efficient
(05:37):
way possible. If you can usethat money and a model that
guarantees you an ROI, thenyou're in the best possible
spend model, right? So you know,I mean, you guys advise your
clients, on how to spend yourmoney, where what money you're
spending is getting the bestreturn on that spend. That's
(05:58):
what we focus on, we focus ongiving back that data. And
there's a whole bunch of otherdata that we get back.
Brad Ebenhoeh (06:03):
Gotcha, gotcha.
But all makes sense. And, youknow, if we look at a lot of our
kind of folks in the CPG networkthat we collaborate or work
with, or our clients thatthey're selling, you know, via
omni channel, let's say, in theretail stores, on their website
typically via Shopify andAmazon, Faire, Mabel, all these
different resellers that exist,right? And in the past, let's
(06:26):
say, three, four years ago, whenI think funding and cash was
more prevalent in terms of asmall business raising money. A
lot of times you'd see growthcompanies just grow top line
very quickly. But then you lookat basically their, their Google
ad spend their you know, thatFacebook ad spend, and it's just
dollars and dollars and dollars.
(06:48):
And there's really no directcorrelation in terms of, you
know, like, did that dollarsactually go to a sale, right,
um, clearly, you can do acalculation and metric costs to
acquire a customer and thosetypes of things that you can do
with that. But really havingthat spent happening when a
purchase happens, to me is morekey and and much more efficient
(07:10):
and leveraging that cash model,especially, you know, in today's
day and age, like you said, withthe academy where it's at. So
from a from an aspect of a,again, a small brand, leveraging
somebody like a technology and aproduct like yourself, how does
that fit in with the traditionalkind of, I guess, digital ad ad
tech models and workflows thathave existed?
Tom Burgess (07:31):
Yeah, so I'll take off my, my Snipp hat for a
minute, right? I'm talking toanother fellow entrepreneur
that's launching something or isin the midst of branding
something, and and I'm a bigbeliever, this is my view, you
need to spend marketing dollarsto position your brand, right,
you need those digital media,traditional Facebook, Google
(07:53):
type of spend to just put yourbrand in front of the right
eyeballs. So you get thatcorporate positioning, and you
get that product positioning,key key key, right, you also
then need to add in that modelthat drives the consumer to make
those purchases, right, that'sso I think it's a blend
personally. And when I'm talkingto people, I don't just sit in
(08:16):
there. And of course, it wouldhelp me greatly if I just said,
Brad Ebenhoeh (08:19):
What are some of your favorite kind of KPIs? You
Oh, spend all your money onperformance. And come on over,
we got 70 million people. And bythe way, you can go to Ibotta.
And you can go to Fetch those.
They have, you know, audiencesthat are similar to ours, except
you want to spread your spend,right? So you spend on your
positioning. And yeah, that ROIis tough, man, it's, it's not
that kind of ROI that's directlytracked to your sales, it's
(08:43):
tracked to the growth, like yousaid, drive in that top line,
right. And if you're gettingyour brand out there, just
getting picked up and people arestarting to get familiar with
it, then they'll recognize it onshelf or online, when they see
it pass by them, that's key, gotto do it. Then you spend in the
performance channels to actuallydrive sales. And now you can
(09:07):
look at all of that together.
When you're looking at your BIor your your dashboard. If you
will have metrics you'relearning, okay, my media mix, my
spend of my marketing dollars isdriving X overall, you got to
mix them all together. And andwhen you're going after, say
that particular retailer, maybeit's Albertsons or Kroger, as we
(09:30):
were saying earlier, you know,it might be whatever retailer
that you want to push yourproduct through. You need to
look at what kind of marketingthey're doing too, and you have
retail media networks now. Andso there's all this stuff that
you can do, but it needs to be amix. That's that's what I say
all the time and, and it'sproven out time and time again,
(09:53):
when you do a mix, you feelbetter. You see your numbers you
can optimize maybe yourmarketing is, you're coming into
the end of a quarter, maybe youhave an investor a board meeting
coming up, right? And, and youneed to drive up your numbers a
bit. So go spend a little moremoney on the performance side,
drive some sales up, becausethat'll help your branding side,
(10:16):
maybe it drops down a littlebit, and you put a little more
dollars towards your spent your,your performance side so you can
drive more sales. You know,these are things that you got to
do to mix it in.
look at, you know, to track theperformance of you know, what
(10:37):
we're just talking about there?
Tom Burgess (10:39):
Yeah, so it's different for every brand, of
course, depending on theaudience that you want to reach,
but KPIs the key one thateverybody wants to know is ROAS
or return on ad spend. Allright, that's kind of the mother
of all e-metrics. And you needthe data in order to get that.
(11:00):
So you need to know how muchyou're spending, of course, you
need to know the audience you'rereaching, how big is it, you
need to then know, are theyinteracting, and that's kind of
the first level. And then if youcan get your true ROAS or return
on adspend, you know, how manysales or what volume of sales
did we drive? So you take yourdollars that you spent, you
(11:22):
compare it to the dollars thatyou made through the tail or
through sales? And then you comeup with your return on ad spend
metric? There are other keyperformance indicators that
people want to have. Where itsays, "okay, if I'm selling in
this geographic region, is itgoing well at but I've got to
break into this geographicregion. And how is that going
(11:44):
well", or "how am I doing withthis retailer, because a brand
will want to go–and this is oneof these key metrics that
becomes important as a brand istrying to secure a better
relationship with a particularretailer. You want to drive
sales through that retailer, soyou get more prominent placement
in their stores or on theirwebsite. So those are metrics
(12:06):
that you want to maybeinfluence, right? So you say,
"Okay, I'm going to part I'mgoing to particularly target the
Albertsons, and I'm just pickinga retailer here in the
Albertsons audience, and I wantto drive some sales there, so
that Albertsons look favorablyon me, so that I, as the brand
can go get better placement andhave better negotiating
(12:27):
capability with that with thatretailer". So these are all the
things I mean, and then youknow, KPIs go, you know, they
start off with what are your topKPIs? And then they can, you
know, there's a long list ofother things that you want to
track course. But typically,they're driven by what your
overall goals are, right? Ifyour goals are to drive sales,
(12:48):
you're going to you're going tobe driving a more heavy on the
metrics of how many people am Ireaching? How many sales have I
actually transacted? What's myconversion rate, those types of
things?
Brad Ebenhoeh (13:04):
Gotcha. That all make sense. What, uh, you know,
since you're on the kind of thefrontlines of this data, like,
what is what do you stand forabout trend trends in the CPG
space? from a consumerstandpoint?
Tom Burgess (13:16):
Yeah, great question. Perfect question. So,
you know, we saw that,obviously, everybody knows that
COVID changed the behavior ofpeople that the key metric that
happened there was loyalty kindof went out the window, right?
People weren't so loyal to theirspecific brands, because they
(13:37):
were just looking to getproduct, right? So consumers,
like you and I, we all are, wemight have drifted off of a
brand that we would normallyhave bought. And we started to
try other things, because maybethat store was an easier store
to go to. And they didn't havethe brand that I was used to
buying. So there's this currenttrend of brands trying to
(14:00):
reinvent the loyalty metrictrying to get back to maybe win
lapsed buyers, or acquire newbuyers that they wouldn't have
been able to acquire this easilybefore because they were so
loyal to a competitive brand. Sothese are metrics, or they
should say these are trends thatwe see right now, where we have
(14:23):
retailers and brands partneringtogether to promote offers to do
more of a an acquisition styleadvertising as opposed to what
they used to do, which was let'ssell more to the existing
customers. Right? So there's abig big trend and recovering or
(14:45):
taking advantage of that. Thatcomplete almost wiped out
loyalty program. So I thinkthat's the key thing. It's this
is an opportunity, right? It'schaos, and chaos is opportunity.
And so and by the way, there'salso So a lot of new metrics
that are available because ofthe data that's out there,
(15:08):
retailers didn't typically offertheir data out, it was a golden
goose, it was the treasuretrove, they held on to it very
tightly. But the trend of retailmedia networks that's growing
incredibly fast, has allowedCPGs, or just any consumer brand
(15:30):
fast moving consumer brands toaccess or allows them access to
new data data they hadn't hadbefore. And it can be used for
targeting it can be used,because there's data is used.
And I'm sorry, if I'm on a ranthere, but this is kind of a
unique position, if you'rethinking of what's available to
me as a CPG. Data really fallsinto three categories: (1) free
(15:53):
marketing, so I can build anaudience based on the kind of
audience I want to reach. Andguess what the brands and and
the retailers are workingtogether now to build audiences,
then you use data during acampaign. So (2) in-flight
management, or in-flightoptimization, that's what it
(16:13):
would be called right? So nowyou're getting data in there,
and you're starting to seewhat's working and you optimize
your campaign, maybe you changethe copy in an ad or you move
your ad to a different audiencethat's operating or performing
better than the audiences thatyou picked when you were setting
it up pre-campaigns. So that's,that's mid-campaign. And the
third area is (3) post-campaignanalysis. And you're now taking
(16:38):
all the data of all the stuffthat happened, and you're
looking at it so you canunderstand what you might do
next, you're also building outyour ROI, you're building out
your ROAS and you're figuringout what we "did we spend
well,?" "Did we do a good jobhere?" And that is like a
flywheel. And that just keepsgoing. And the brands that are
doing it well, are spending timeon those different data points
(17:02):
and recognizing how each one'sdifferent. You can you can't do
just one you got to you got toreally focus on it.
Brad Ebenhoeh (17:09):
It's fascinating.
Are we seeing more customers orconsumers like going back to
physical retail stores? SinceCOVID? Because clearly, like I
know, you said that habits havechanged and you know, my my
household my wife and I'm and wehardly ever go out, you know,
physically anymore just becauseof the just the convenience of
everything right. But I'm I'mwondering just as a as a
(17:32):
general, like whole aspect ofsociety. Is there any data that
you've seen, or trends thatyou've seen just on how
consumers shop these days?
Tom Burgess (17:40):
Yeah so, I, you're right, we all do that. I mean,
I'm, I walked downstairs theother day, and, you know,
sitting out in front porch was aWalmart bag. I don't even see
the person drop it off, right?
You know, my wife was like, andI come in with the bag. And I
say to my wife, you know, didyou do this? What's this? Is
this right? And it's funny. Andshe's like, I just wanted to
test the Walmart deliveryprogram, right. And it worked
(18:03):
well. But there's, there's aninteresting thing that the
trends show and I don't havespecific but I do have data I
could bring I'm sorry, I don'thave it right here. Maybe we can
post it later. But it is, youknow, there was a complete spike
of ordering and delivery. Andthat whole category exploded. We
all know it right? That's comeway way off. Partly due to the
(18:26):
fact that people like to shop,they like to get out of the
house, we like to walk the hallsor the aisles of a store and see
the products and pick what theywant. People really enjoy
grocery shopping. I mean, it'san interesting trend when you
look at different categories ofretail. And what's happened
grocery is obviously doing veryvery well right now. Part of
(18:50):
it's due to the fact that peopleare back on the street and
getting out and doing things butthere's a there's a trend in
grocery also towards selfcheckout self management as a
consumer and and so it's makingshopping in store easier that
retailers are honestly I'mstruggling a little bit with it
(19:12):
because there's a little bit offraud that's associated with
this change and everybody'strying to figure it out. But but
it's a lot easier now to walkinto a store, walk through the
aisles, pick up what you wantwalk basically right out. You
self checkout and you walk outthe door. So all of these things
combined, where the retailersare reacting as well to "come on
(19:33):
back to the store will make iteasy for you". So this is a
trend that is interesting towatch. I will add one more thing
and say that the trend of lowercost retail chains and the
growth we see larger called themstalwarts of the retail industry
having struggles we all knowRite Aid right now going through
(19:58):
a struggle we I see somethinglike Dollar General growing like
crazy, right. So you see thistrend too. And and I think
there's still data to be foundon why that is. It's it's not
that those retailers areappealing to an existing market
that they've always appealed to,it's obviously spend shift or
(20:18):
share of wallet shift, whereconsumers are saying, "I can get
the same products, because ofwhat happened in COVID, I get
the same products I was gettingat the fancy store, I can get it
at the other store". So there'sthat type of change that's
happening as well.
Brad Ebenhoeh (20:34):
It's interesting in terms of your prior kind of
statement a couple of minutesago, related to kind of like
people just wanting to selfcheckout, and just kind of walk
the halls in the aisles of thegrocery store, but not be bugged
and just handle everythingthemselves, basically kind of
like they are literally checkingout on your computer. So it's
very fascinating how that'sworking.
Tom Burgess (20:57):
That's a really cool point you make right it,
the easier the checkout, the themore comfortable the consumer is
and where they're shopping,right?
Brad Ebenhoeh (21:05):
Correct. Correct.
Because when they're on theircomputer, it's an easy checkout
aspect or their phone. Right. Solike, they want to have that
mirror the same experience asthat when they go to, you know,
physically to to the retailstore. So this is all great
information, we're gonna bewrapping up the podcast here, we
typically end with one, youknow, CPG industry do and one
CPG industry don't, you know,for the listeners out there, but
(21:25):
I don't want to target kind ofthe CPG space here, like just
because of your background. Andas an entrepreneur and multiple
companies that just, you know,considering, let's say, a brand
new zero to $10 million startupcompany, right? What is just
kind of one general do orrecommendation that you'd say to
a founder out there?
Tom Burgess (21:47):
Yeah. So this is a good one, because I, I have the
benefit of having a CMO as awife who works with these sized
companies, right. So her and Iobviously talk about everything
that goes on in our lives. And,you know, the biggest and
probably most impactful thingsthat a smaller, a smaller
(22:08):
company, an emerging company cando today is leverage the data
that's available. This washarder 10 years ago, right. But
today, the data that's availableis amazing. And people tend to
be "Oh, I don't understand it. Idon't know it, I don't I don't
you know, it can't get into thatI can't learn because I'm so
darn busy, right?" It's worthit. If I had anything to say to
(22:31):
any company at that stage, I'dsay spend the time, whether you
do it, you have staff that doesit, you work with an agency or a
fractional service provider,which is outstanding, which is
the trend. And if you're notworking with fractional service
providers, you're crazy, becauseyou get all the benefits with
(22:52):
the lower cost, but you need toaccess that data. It will tell
you, it's like a coach, right.
And that in itself, it's a it'stelling you what you're doing
well, and what's not working foryou. So I think, take the time
to look at the data that'savailable and set off campaigns
and/or marketing or otherstrategies doesn't have to be
(23:14):
all in sales and marketing,right? It can be coming out of
your own efficiencies, it can beyour operational data, and, and
believe that data like look atit collect it, spend the time
upfront, to make sure thatwhatever you're doing is being
analyzed by the performance andthe data, the data that you can
get in through the transactionalprocess. Right. So once your now
(23:38):
and that then lead you to makingthe right decisions going
forward.
Brad Ebenhoeh (23:46):
But on the flip side, what is one don't?
Tom Burgess (23:53):
Yeah, there's so many things on the don't too,
right. So this is a tough one, Iwould say primarily if I had to
speak towards the marketing,because that's been our theme on
the discussion. I would saydon't spend money on a whim,
don't spend money on things thatcome up, and they look like the
(24:19):
next shiny cool thing to do.
Stand by your budget. Take yourbudget, analyze it, if you do it
annually first and then youcheck in quarterly as you're as
you're moving along and adjust,but stick to a plan. There's
this thing of entrepreneurs it'sour addiction, right? We want we
want to get it done, man and I'mon I'm addicted. Yeah, you know,
(24:43):
right. Yeah. And that that shinynew thing comes along and you're
like, that's it man. That'sgonna change. And you gotta you
gotta just pull yourself. We'llreel yourself back in, look at
it. Analyze the opportunity. Doyou maybe put it in in two
quarters, if you can work thenext year? It but stick to your
guns, it's that's probably thehardest thing to do is to stick
(25:08):
to a budget stick to a plan.
Brad Ebenhoeh (25:14):
I would agree with you as an entrepreneur and
from a from an accountingstandpoint, where we're
Accountfully is I've learned aton, just on the marketing side
and the brand equity and kind ofthe consistency of content and
moving forward. And you see, itdoesn't just happen overnight,
or within a week where youthat's where you want it to be
(25:34):
now it's like, hey, overtime,it'll get there and stick to a
plan and implement that plan andassess it over a specific time
period. Really helps. So I'velearned a lot just from that
perspective, and as well as thischat with you, Tom. Well, I
really appreciate the time, Tom,it was awesome. I hope that
listeners get a lot ofinformation. As we wrap up here.
(25:56):
Where can people find you andSnipp and just kind of give them
some other information on whereto go.
Tom Burgess (26:02):
Yeah, Brad has been awesome and a great conversation
so I'm easy to find attom.burgess@snipp.com So that's
my email Tom.Burgess@snipp.comand Snipp.com is is our website,
obviously. So those are theplaces you can find me obviously
LinkedIn too, feel free to chaseme down there. But yeah, I'm an
(26:22):
addicted entrepreneur addictedto all of this stuff. So I'm an
easy guy to find.
Brad Ebenhoeh (26:28):
Awesome. Well, Episode 35 In The Month End
podcast, Tom Burgess from SnippInteractive. Thanks again, Tom.
Tom Burgess (26:35):
Thanks, Brad. It's great talking to you. Great to
have with you.
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