S2 E10: David Mannheim - Using Personalisation to Increase Sales Online

Speaker A: What do you want to do with your life? And you say, I want to own an agency, A, uh, digital agency that helps clients and people. My response was, why the hell would you want to do that? People are hard. It's not scalable in any sense of the word. And owning an agency sounds like my idea of hell.

Speaker B: It, uh, must have been hard as well when you grew and you suddenly had lots of people to deal with, because that's the hardest bit, right?

Speaker A: And it was almost like this existential crisis semi catalyst epiphany that came to me of, wow, Disney is all about greed.

Speaker B: You're listening to the Confessions of an Agency Owner podcast. I'm Chris Ailey, your host, and today my guest is my good friend David Manheim. Exited agency founder, published author, and now founder of SAS company Made With Intent. After scaling and selling his agency User Conversion to Brain Labs, David took some time out, went to Disney World a few times, grew a beard, and then wrote a book all about personalization in E commerce, which is due to be released this summer. And alongside that, he's also launching a platform called Made with Intent that uses customer intent, similar to XG in football, to unlock personalization and understand how close a customer is to conversion. It's a great listen, and if you're interested in personalization, why people get into agencies, why people leave agencies, it's well worth a listen. Enjoy. Let's cut this down then. So what I'm thinking is your story, CRO, Agency user Conversion.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Sold it to Brain Labs for millions of pounds. Was it tens of millions of pounds? Went to Disney World 100 times, grew a beard, wrote a book, and now you're launching a new platform called Made with Intent. Is that your life so far?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, you've exaggerated a few areas, but yeah. Uh, I'd say.

Speaker B: So maybe we won't call it a beard, then.

Speaker A: It's definitely a beard. Like a big, Jewish, lovely woven beard that had croissants sticking in and out of it all the time. I didn't know you had to wash the beard.

Speaker B: Yeah, you did have food in it last time we spoke, actually. Let's start at the beginning, then. So why did you. How and why did you set up your agency?

Speaker A: Well, it was always an accident, really. Chris, being honest with you, um, I don't know whether it's your typical. I was a freelancer, uh, and I got too many clients and maybe a little bit too greedy. So then I. When we got more clients, I hired a person in the end of year one, we had four and the end of year two we had 12 and blah, blah, blah. It just grew out of control. I always.

Speaker B: When was this then? Um, what year was this?

Speaker A: 2015.

Speaker B: Oh, okay, so this wasn't, it was still quite recent.

Speaker A: Yeah, it wasn't donkeys ago, I guess. But yeah, for me it was always an accident. So I specifically remember a conversation with my friend Lee Turver, who now owns an agency. And it was before the premiere of the Avengers, uh, at Liverpool one. And we were in Pizza Hut together and, um, we were both working at an agency at the time. And I asked him, I was like, lee, what do you want to do with your life? And he said, I want to own an agency, A, uh, digital agency that helps clients and people. And he's doing that now and he's doing really well. My response was, why the hell would you want to do that? People are hard. It's not scalable in any sense of the word. And owning an agency sounds like my idea of hell. Three years later I owned an agency and I still, you know what? I kept that consistent message, at least throughout the six years of which I found and ran and owned it, which was I never wanted this thing. I saw it as a burden. Um, and even to the point where we were talking with, uh, the wonderful Dan Gilbert, uh, over at Brain Labs, uh, he always said, why do you want to sell? I always reclaim that story, which is, I never wanted the thing in the first place. It was a pure accident, uh, a lucky one.

Speaker B: I guess it must have been hard as well when you grew and you suddenly had lots of people to deal with because that's the hardest bit, right? Dealing with people. It is.

Speaker A: It was a little bit like you're a barrister at Starbucks and you're really good at making coffee and then suddenly someone says, oh, you're going to be a manager now because you're really good at making coffee. It's a completely different skill set. Never been a manager before, never dealt with people. I'm just really good at making coffee. And that's exactly how I translate it. You know, that's how I, how I feel about it is that, ah, I was just really good at CRO, I felt, uh, and I was quite creative in my approach. You know, I had this blend of analytical one side and creative of the other. I felt like I could do this thing really well and I had a good approach to it. A product based approach, which, I don't know, was productive thing back then. Who knows, um, where you get multidisciplinary skill sets together to build an Avengers. Ironic, isn't it? Ah, like team together, uh, to create solutions for clients. Uh, I thought it worked really well, but goodness me, didn't half take its toll. Uh, it's not what I expected, it's not what I wanted, so. Yeah, but you learn over the years, don't you? You know, I had help from others.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, you get older and wiser. So what at uh, what point was like the, the Great Escape then? What time did you sort of think, well, actually I'm just gonna target this to sell rather than running.

Speaker A: Was it even about targeting it to sell? More than anything. So I remember, uh, it was like Covid always plays the biggest part in everything, doesn't it? But in 2021, I remember saying to my, my MD and a few of the senior leadership team at the time, I need this break. I need a break. I just need a break. I need a break. Um, and ah, it was 2020 actually, and um, I geared up for a three month sabbatical to go touring around Italy with my wife. And then three, uh, year old, I think Max was three year old. So pre school, basically I was like, this is my only time to go and do this tour because Max doesn't have a school. So we geared up for that. And my day of departure was meant to be May 4, 2020.

Speaker B: May the fourth be with you. It's all very ironic, it's all Disney

Speaker A: orientated, but if you Remember, was it 2020? I forget the dates now, my memory's awful. But Northern Italy was the first that was here badly. Yeah, with the pandemic and so that three month tour got cancelled and I don't know whether this would be true to this day, but we sold later in the same month. Um, well, we had conversations later in the same year of selling and I don't know whether if I wouldn't have taken the sabbatical, whether I would have eventually sold or not, but you know, the world works in mysterious ways. Didn't have the sabbatical, ended up needing a final break, uh, more than anything. So yeah, that was probably the catalyst.

Speaker B: So did you have to stay on or anything after that sale or.

Speaker A: I stayed on for a little bit, yeah. Huh. Two days a week for 12 months just to oversee the transition. But being honest, by then the agency wasn't me, you know, it was, it was the senior leadership team. It was a great team of individuals who really ran the business and I was nothing more than a figurehead at that point. In time, anyway. So. So yeah, the transition was pretty, pretty seamless, I would say.

Speaker B: So then you went into semi retirement?

Speaker A: I won't call it that.

Speaker B: What did you do then? What got you up in the morning once you, once you'd sold out?

Speaker A: Well, we had a, we had a new kid. He had a new one, Zachary. And he was born. I think it's the same week that we ended up signing the papers or something like that. So obviously just dedicated a lot of time to him because, I mean, I'm going to be honest, you know, with Max, my first poem. Felt like I was present, but I wasn't present. Felt like. I get that he was, uh, I don't know, some. There was definitely some form of neglect in my mind anyways. And I recognize that I've had therapy for a good four or five years and I absolutely advocate it, but if you get a second chance, you take the second chance. So. Went a lot, you know, did a lot with Zachary, our newborn. We couldn't go anywhere. We were totally locked down. So, you know, when the papers were signed, it's like you, you normally go on holiday or celebrate something nice or you go to a restaurant. Didn't do any first world problems, but didn't do any of that. So we just stayed at home and

Speaker B: had shipping packages delivered every day.

Speaker A: Did you find Amazon? Amazon every single day? Yeah. Um, yeah, I, it was, it was a tough one. I don't know, I, I think I was very mellow. I read a lot of books. Uh, I, I uh, just spoke to a lot of people, uh, just to stay a little bit sane. I didn't really do anything. Being honest. Nothing of. No, obviously I, I still had the, the uh, responsibility of working a couple of days a week and I was looking for something interesting. Being honest, Chris, I wanted to work for Disney so badly. Uh, I spoke to a few people there. I applied. I think there's about 12 applications I made in the end. Uh, to go and work for Disney.

Speaker B: To wear a suit at the park or to do something more.

Speaker A: No, no, it's just like, I don't know, to, to carry on with whatever, anything, Anything. Relationship marketing, digital marketing. Um, but it's almost like I had the best CV in the world of creating this business and getting it acquired and working, working with people and blah, blah, blah, blah. But also the worst CV in the world that I've never worked in a retailer, just for retailers, you know, I've never been in the mixers. So, uh, so I never even got a single interview. Uh, I think it was a path for me which was a shame. Uh, bizarre. Bizarre.

Speaker B: And then is that when you then started to write the book then?

Speaker A: So I went to Disney later that year, uh, when, when it reopened, I think it was October, November. Um, and because it was post covert. Have you been to Disney World before? You haven't you?

Speaker B: I've been, I've been to Disney World. Yeah. Twice. Once as a child and once as an adult. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and I don't know how you felt but because I go every year I see the little changes. Like I can see, I don't know, I notice when a sign is different or if a door's painted a different color, you just, you just become a creature habit. I'm so uncultured. And um, because I go every year see all these changes and that ah, year the changes were so significant because it hadn't been in 18 months, 24 months. It was over a period where they closed the parts because of the pandemic. And my goodness, the amount of fiscal changes that they made was so overt and obvious that I felt like a number, not a guest. And it was almost like this existential crisis semi catalyst epiphany that came to me of wow, Disney is all about greed, isn't it? You know an example was um, the change where you used to have what we call fast passes where you get three rides to ride uh, at the front of the queue. Basically you get to skip the queue. That was completely complimentary and had been for 20 years. They scrapped all that and now that's a paid for experience. But only for, only for the majority of the rides. There's two rides per park where you have to ride per person per ride. So in that time period what you found is that on average you were paying 40% more Ah, per day at ah, a park. Those were the fiscal results from, from

Speaker B: Disney to get how many free rides? Because my experience, we had a slightly different experience when we went with my, my son basically um, you know, is disabled and we had the amazing charity called Starlight paid for us foundation, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So they, they gave him a wish and we, and we, we put Disney World as you do. Uh, and they, they paid for us all to go over to Disney World and we stayed in this amazing place called Give Kids the World. Um, which was a, like a village set up by, it's actually a Jewish ex Jewish prisoner of war in the world war who built. It's a lovely story actually. He ran uh, a hotel and he got asked by someone could they facilitate, um, this girl who had leukemia to stay at the hotel while she went to Disney World. And they really struggled to make it happen in time. And this girl unfortunately died. And he was like, I'm never going to let this happen again. And he set up this place and you can only go there once, called Give Kids the World Village. And we got to stay there. So we lived a real fairy tale. But back to the queues, we got what was called an Aladdin's Pass.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker B: So basically we, it's top secret. Ah. So we didn't have to queue for anything. We literally went to the front of the queue. But even with that, there's no way we could have done all that in a day. Like, I can't believe that people queue. How long they queue for? They probably get to go on like two rides. Right.

Speaker A: So that's why I'll do it all in a day. So that's why people pay for that, for that premium.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker A: So, uh, I think it's 50% of all guests use a Fast Pass experience, which is now a paid for experience. So their profits have actually gone up, uh, exponentially because of this. Anyway, getting to this point, it was almost like an epiphany of wow. It's all about greedy. If you remember, at that point in time, Man United, my other love, was going through this crisis of the Super

Speaker B: League happening and uh, losing 6, 61 to spurs as well.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, well, we don't need to six or seven. Who knows? Who knows? Well, Google probably remembers. Um, so these two things, like my identity, uh, you don't need to Google it. I can see you, tiger.

Speaker B: So it was 6:1. Yeah, just checking. That was your knockdown though. Oh.

Speaker A: These two, two things that I really identify with Disney and Man United, um, destroying the experience, both the fan and the guest experience with money, with commercial creed felt wrong to me. So I. From that.

Speaker B: I'm sure you'd bought a hot dog at Disney World before this though, right?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, like, because, I mean, I remember the water's $4.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Hot dog's about 12. 12 bucks.

Speaker A: It is. Uh, but I think the difference was this was so overt. Whereas those were incremental changes. This was so obvious. They removed all sorts of perks and made them paid for experiences like car parking at Disney World. You know, at Disney World hotels that used to be free. Now it's $25 a night. The bus that went from the airport to, uh, to the parks used to be free. Now that's, that's not even there for, you know, they've cut costs, yada, yada yada. I've written a whole post on this that I could talk about for hours if I'm honest with you, but I won't. I think the point being that I came back from that holiday a little bit miffed and thinking, I wonder if other people have this experience not with Disney, but this, this paradox with brands where they, they love them so much but they feel as though they uh, they don't have a relationship with them anymore. And the first person I spoke to with Peply, uh, who run CXL, uh, and I know one became 10, 10 became 20, 20 became 15, then 50 came 153. I think it was in the end I ended up thinking, okay, other people have this problem of what I term like relationship marketing. Feeling as a consumer that there's, there's, there's like there's no I in consumer. There's a me. I think, um, I, it's almost like the person in the need to be personable with a brand. Uh, and so I explored this topic, which is all about personalization, and wrote about it and hence wrote a book about it. Again, semi accidentally, but maybe some of the best success comes from accidents, who knows?

Speaker B: And you grow a beard.

Speaker A: I grew a beard to keep me motivated. Yeah, an anti motivator because we.

Speaker B: How long did that take to write that book?

Speaker A: Uh, six months. No, that's a lie. The research process was about four or five months. The writing was about four, five months. The editing was about four or five months. Yeah, probably anywhere between 12 and 18 months. It depends what you call writing.

Speaker B: And that's out for publish now, isn't it? And didn't I see though that you did all that and you gave it a title and then someone told you as a book with that title already

Speaker A: existed the end of July. But yeah, you're right. So I called it the Person in Personalization, which I thought was nice. And then my editor came around like nope, rubbish scholar, something else. So we called it the Personalization Paradox. Went with that, literally sent it off with a book cover and everything. Had a conversation with someone at an event, he's like, m pretty sure that book already exists. I've read it and I googled it and it's true, it exists. So we reverted the title back to the Person in Personalization, which I feel is more, more apt. Uh, uh, anyway, so yeah, who knows?

Speaker B: And when does that come out?

Speaker A: July, end of what should be the end of July keeps getting put back. I'm not in control of it. Six between six weeks from now. Well, it's mid June now, so should be end of July.

Speaker B: And why does it get put back?

Speaker A: Just deadlines and people going on holiday and stuff like that. There's this proofreaders and editors and designers. There's all sorts of people involved. So, yeah, it's been. It's a trying process. Much harder than I thought it would be. Much harder.

Speaker B: Yeah, I can imagine. So then, so then you were like, well, what's next? And how did the, um, how did the new platform then? So just tell us a bit about that. How did that come about?

Speaker A: So the new platform. So. So I own a new business now, business number two called Made of Intent. And it is a product business, not an agency. Because I've learned my. Learned my ways with that is a product that allows retailers to understand the intent of their audience. And I found that if we're talking about putting the person back into personalization, the only way to do that is to understand the context of the individual that you're thinking about. It doesn't have to be done at an individual level. It just means listening more. And I was greatly influenced by, um, the world of football. Right. I know you love your football.

Speaker B: Well, we had a conversation, didn't we, about this xg. This was a few months ago. Well, quite a while ago, I think, wasn't it?

Speaker A: It was, yeah. So the concept of XG's expected goals, for those who listening to this and you don't know, football's briefly explained it to you, Football has had a, had a problem in the mid-2000s that a goal, which is the objective of a football match is a very rare event. Three or less in a Premier League, right? Or six or more, if you talk about United, Spurs. Um, and to combat that, what they, what they tried to do is they tried to create a predictive metric called expected goals, which is they looked at all the attributes that form a goal. The angle of the shot, the distance of the shot, the possession of play before the shot, uh, to understand whether a goal would occur. So it focuses on the quality of the chance, not necessarily the quantity, retrospective figure of our goal. And this is now the most popularized term in global football. We use it every day. Um, and they also have not just xg, but xa for expected, 6sp for expected possession, a whole host of expected predictive metrics that understand whether a goal or a outcome will occur. I think the same problem exists within E Commerce that we have this global retrospective binary figure of conversion rate which uh, is on average 2% is highly aggregated. And I feel if we were to apply the same methodologies as expected from expected goals to E Commerce, we could be in a very nice competitive position. We can start to actually understand metrics that are aligned to the consumer, not necessarily to the business. So instead of expected goals, it's expected conversion. Instead of expected assist, it's expected uh, add to bag. Instead of expected possession, it's expected engagement. This is basically the concepts of Moneyball if you've ever seen it. You know, Brad Pitt, the Billy Bean story, Oakland Days, yada yada yada. The uh, whole, you know, don't focus on the home run, focus on getting on base. It's the same concept. I think bringing it over to the world of E commerce is, I know really resonates with me in my experience anyways.

Speaker B: So is it a bit like um, an expected conversion? Could be that they've shown all the, all the signs of making a purchase and they get to the checkout page for example and the delivery price could be David de Gea in goal saving it which should be an expected goal, but exactly, yeah.

Speaker A: It's all about the concept of intent. What level of intent do you have to purchase? So think about, think about it like this Chris. Think about remarketing. Why do we remarket to people who show no signs of intent whatsoever. Surely that's a waste of an impression or a click. Why don't we only remarket to those who show a level of intent that is not so high that they're going to convert anyways but that is almost winnable let's say, you know, why do we focus on showing social proof messages buy now only 10 left in stock. You know, 50 people have looked at this. To those people who have just landed on their site who have no intent whatsoever of ah, purchasing at that moment in time, yet you're using what I'm going to call manipulative measures to try and encourage them to purchase there and then in that session it feels like.

Speaker B: But we're not getting manipulated by the platforms there. So Google Ads, you know, we go and retargeting. I'm not sure maybe we can, but can we decipher that they've visited X, Y and Z pages and therefore we're going to retarget to them? Or is it not just a case

Speaker A: of they've bounced on the website pages don't determine intent. Think about all that have viewed or

Speaker B: followed A certain journey, basically, yeah.

Speaker A: I mean that's what you're trying to achieve. I think that the problem that we exhibit today with retailers is that there's a misconstrued understanding of what intent is. There's two forms, there's direction of intent. So I'm in the car, I'm in the industry to buy a Maserati or a Ford. And then there's the strength of intent, which is I'm in the how much do I want to buy the Maserati or the Ford? And we focus on the strength of intent, not the direction. The direction is a world of recommendations and uh, helping you find the right product, which is only say one third of the entire battle of a purchasing decision. It's not necessarily about what product to purchase, it's about understanding how that product will solve your needs as an individual. I think the strength of intent helps you understand that as a metric. And I think that's all about putting the person back into personalization anyways, which is, does the person really want this item and if so, how can you help be more appropriate to them at the stage of their consideration journey? It's not all about buy now, buy now, buy now. It's about educating them and nurturing them. It's not all about session based conversion, for goodness sake. See, I get quite passionate about this.

Speaker B: No, that's good.

Speaker A: Um, so yeah, I found like there's an existential crisis of we focus so much on this aggregated figure of conversion rate that is binary. It's rare in the similar way that football did in the 2000s. And I think we could translate it into being more customer centric, being honest with you. I think expected conversion trademark does that.

Speaker B: So how does it work then?

Speaker A: Uh, how does intent work?

Speaker B: How does your platform work? So, uh, what sort of metrics does it look at? What sort of data does it look at?

Speaker A: The two biggest metrics, the two biggest attributes that we look at are time and specificity. The quicker you do something, the more specific you are in your actions and behaviors indicate a high level of intent of doing that thing. If you want a pint of milk at the supermarket, you go straight to the milk aisle and you'll get there quicker than if you know you didn't want a pint of milk, for example. So we find that in our models, time and specificity are uh, two big factors in understanding the intent of the audience. We're all talking about real time and context here. Okay. It's something that goodness Google have used for 7 years TikTok use it primarily within their algorithm or by dance primarily within their algorithm. Uh, Pinterest, Spotify, uh, Microsoft and Bing. They all use intent in their models because it understands the context in the individual and it's a real time measure of what is happening there and then which is a more accurate predictor uh, of something that's retrospective and binary. So for me Chris, it's all about listening more. So we take about 120 or so micro behaviors, I call them micro, I mean like the time it takes for you to reach the search bar, not just did the user use the search bar, the time it takes for users to read reviews and how many they read. Not just user read reviews. So these microbehaviours are pooled together modeled in a regression um, analysis form to understand whether uh, the user will or will not achieve a behavior, an action and gives it a propensity score. And it's not just purchase, it's will they return, will they add to back, are they likely to abandon, etc. We can measure and we predict all these types of behaviors based on what they've previously done and how important those attributes are in that ranking factor within those models.

Speaker B: Is this a piece of software then that sort of sits on the site and watches each user?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a tagging script basically server side tagging script that um, again takes all these attributes, models them together, outputs it in the platform and you can see it's a visual dashboard that shows you where your intent lies, um, based on traffic, source or device or whatever segment is that you want to create and then you can action that which I think is the most notable thing. If you identify someone of low intent landing on uh, these types of product pages that focus on beauty, equipment or whatever, you can create what we call nudges to be more appropriate to their needs. It's not about saying that there's only 10 left in stock that's not appropriate to them at that point in time. It's not about giving them a discount, that's not appropriate. It's about saying that things, hey we're this brand. Let us tell you about our story. It's about saying did you know that this product in particular is one of our best sellers? Not just a random product. Did you know that we have over 10,000 products for you to look it's more appropriate messaging to that segment And I feel that is the, I don't know the more ethical alignment route that is really inherent within me that I've seen there's a quote in my book from an FBI director called Robin Drake. And he said the difference between persuasion and manipulation is intent. And I think that happens in all walks of life. And that's what I'm trying to address within E Commerce.

Speaker B: So if we, if we took me on the Nike website, for example, then, like, how much could you personalize that experience? So, for example, me on Nike, I'm a bit of a sucker for Nike, so I will, you know, you can sell to me quite easily. Even if I've got a low intent. If I see something, I'll buy it. But at the same time, I'm not interested in, I don't know, certain types of sport clothing or whatever. I'm going to go on there for golf, for gym wear, for, for sort of lifestyle stuff, trainers, maybe. Can you manipulate that experience for me by visitor, uh, on that website to just show me more of the stuff that I'm likely to buy? And, and, um. No, I shouldn't have.

Speaker A: You're thinking about, you're thinking about whether you are more like you, whether you have a greater affinity with sportswear and golf rather than the strength of how much you're going to buy there. And then in that session or in a future session. We don't handle affinity affinities like recommendations and what have you. So let's assume that's all done for you.

Speaker B: So let's say I see a pair of trainers, then.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, or I'm scrolling through the trainers. So again, Nike trainers is, you know, there's hundreds of pairs, isn't there? What are the, what are the things you're looking at there? Because I'm going to click on a few products. Is it how long I'm spending on that product? What are the signs?

Speaker A: What are your engagement level? I mean, we, I can't tell you what that is. The models will ultimately say, what are the predicted behaviors that indicate Chris is going to add this product to his basket, for example? But it would be things like engagement. It would be things like, have you seen this before? Are you a loyal customer of Nike or not? Uh, it would be things like, how many times have you visited that product before? Which indicate a signal of intent. It'd be like, have you clicked and checked the size guide, for example? I don't know. To demonstrate that you have a high level of intent or engagement with this item.

Speaker B: Could it categorize based on what I've bought before? So can it understand what trainers, the style of trainers that I'm likely to buy right now?

Speaker A: No, but I mean the future of the product, it goes away of feeding other data sources into it or vice versa as well. Using that as a data source for

Speaker B: everything things because it's screaming AI as well. Like where does AI fall into this?

Speaker A: Because that's it's less AI and more, more machine learning than anything else.

Speaker B: Um, will AI come into it?

Speaker A: It can do absolutely. I mean think of um, generating product descriptions that are appropriate to your needs at that point in time. Hey Chris, we notice you, you viewed this 50 times already just going can I swear whatever it might be so you can use some level of AI to be more generative uh, to create things that will I don't know uh, be more persuasive to you at that point in time. I think the point to me is, is appropriate messaging at ah, appropriate times. People often use the term personalization as right place, right message, right time. I think the word appropriate is missing from all those things. So really that's what I'm trying to, trying to bring to this world. It's also just for reference a method of prioritization um, that I think most people tend to overlook. The whole concept of Moneyball was finding value where it was once overlooked. We could talk about Brentford or Brighton or AZ Alkamar or uh.

Speaker B: Well I saw a great post from you on, on that AZ Alkmaar. Yeah I mean I think was it Arsene Wenger brought sort of data, was it him or was it Sam, Aladdin someone?

Speaker A: It was, yeah it was Wenger. Uh, I mean theoretically it was actually unfortunately Liverpool that brought it over to the uk uh because Klopp uh worked with the guy who worked ah at Boston Red Sox who originally worked at Oakland Days and the Boston Red Sox group owned Liverpool Fengway Sports Corrective and they're the ones that you know they bought mane because for 40 million because they found value where it was overlooked, they bought Salah who you know, who was a Chelsea reject to find a value where it was overlooked. Blah blah blah blah. Um and that's the whole concept of what it is that we're trying to do here uh, is help you find value where it was once overlooked. It gives you a competitive edge because there are certain people that will buy, certain people that might not buy and it helps you prioritize the winnables, the people that can be persuaded or leave. If the people are going to buy anyways, just leave them a hell alone. Don't you know, protect your margin, don't give them a 10% off discount, do your thing, let them do Their thing focus on the segments that are truly customer centric, not the ones that are really arbitrary of. It's a repeat purchaser who lands on a PDP and visits this category. It feels very business centric to talk like that. Ah, that's why we speak about things in PDP and PLP and basket and checkout for goodness sake. We talk about page experience, not user experience. All I'm trying to do is bring back to the forefront the notion of, you know, who there is behind the screen.

Speaker B: That's all. Uh, so how does it um, you know, do you need an email address? Does it need an IP address? How, how does it uh, work?

Speaker A: No, it's all anonymous in terms of its, its ID facilitation. Um, and it just strings those IDs together. It uses, doesn't uh, use cookies, we use local storage instead. It's server side tagging. And uh, like I said, you know, the intention is to utilize other data sources. Um, imagine feeding this into your CRM for example, to understand these customers haven't purchased yet, but have a high intent to do so. Right. What are you going to do that information? I don't know. That's not for me to tell you. But I'm giving you the information, giving you the, the opportunity to do something with that.

Speaker B: And then can that move outside the website so you know, can it form lists to you know, up the bids or put custom labels on shopping?

Speaker A: I think that's where the value lies personally. Um, which is the ability to take the notion of intent, whether it's abandoned, add to bag, uh, viewing a product or purchasing and taking that information and applying it to other data sources. Think of experimentation. If I can experiment with a certain audience who have a different level of intent, then fabulous. Uh, so yeah, I think that's where the majority of the value lies.

Speaker B: And then how does Google sort of compare to this then? Because obviously on their Google Ads, for example, you could, we've seen examples in the past where people paying hundreds of pounds for a click because they're convinced that this guy or guy or lady or whatever is going to buy based on this click. It's worth spending all this money on this one click for your ad because their data's showing that this person's likely to convert.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean they use intent and affinity, the same uh, concept. And you can use custom intent and custom affinity. You can feed that into the platform if you so wish. I, I'm just slightly concerned that Google has a motive behind that which is to get higher prices Possible.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we've seen, um, I've got a good friend, Russell McCarthy, show some data about Facebook Pixels, for example, how manipulative those are, how untrue they are. Uh, because again, Facebook has a motive to do a certain thing, which is to get a click. Not necessarily one that's, that's realized, but just some level of attention more than anything else.

Speaker B: So, I mean, that's a huge, I mean, yeah, huge challenges attribution, isn't it, in terms of. Because if you look at Facebook numbers, you know, if you walked past you 10 meters away, they'll claim that you viewed their ad and take 100 of the purchase. And I think that's, that's one of the biggest problems. Surely they have the capability to be more accurate in their, their tracking. But surely they get by money, aren't they?

Speaker A: Because do they want to be?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I would argue they probably don't because if you did look at the actual data, they'd probably find that they're not accountable for as many sales as they claim.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: And that messes up their entire advertising model, doesn't it?

Speaker A: Maybe. I mean, we've all seen the social dilemma. We all know that Facebook's model is all based on attention and monetizing attention. So it totally makes sense you could put two and two together, put it that way. I'm not blaming or accusing anyone, uh, but Dolph Zuckerberg might have an ulterior motive. Um, so, yeah, I guess, like, the thing that I'd bring attention to is that we're focusing on the quality of traffic, not necessarily the quantity. We're giving you the ability to understand the composition of your traffic and how, what the quality levels are within that. Like, are you sending good quality traffic to your site that, uh, uh, purports in like a low abandonment and a higher conversion, uh, and a higher engagement level than, than anything else. I think if you focus more on quality than quantity, you'll get to a place where you are much more efficient in your spend. And that's what intent does. So, yeah, I feel like I'm plugging it. I'm not supposed to be. You know, there's no intent.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: It's really interesting about agencies.

Speaker B: It's new to the market and, um, you know, it's not been done, is it? And I think one of the things I wanted to ask as well is how did you go about building this? Because obviously you've got that idea, but you're not a developer, are you?

Speaker A: No, no. I mean, so we originally outsourced it just to prove the hypothesis. Like, can you measure intent repeatedly? Uh, I think the original hypothesis is can you measure intent, uh, on an E commerce website? And we've outsourced that, uh, to a contractor and we satisfied that hypothesis. Yes, you can. Then the second hypothesis is can you do that repeatably? So can you measure, uh, one level of websites intent against another completely m different website? And the answer was yes, you can. Uh, we found that the behaviors were extremely similar, even though the product was very different. I mean, come on, every, every client or retailer I've ever worked with has said we're very unique in everything that we do. But really the structure of the website, the behaviors that people exhibit are exactly the same. It's just some are more considered than others. And I think that's one of the big difference. So we satisfied those two hypotheses and like, okay, so I chucked a bunch of money at it, uh, said, can we do this thing? Can we hire some people to help us build it? We got a few clients along the way. Uh, and the answer was yes, we can. Uh, so it just comes from my experimentational approach of can we prove this hypothesis, yes or no? Can we validate it, yes or no? Do people want it? Certainly seen that way. Um, whether people are ready for it, I think, is a different question. Um, and we'll soon figure that out. I think people definitely resonate with the concept, though. I don't know if you feel that, Chris.

Speaker B: Oh, definitely. I think it's same with B2B in a way, isn't it? It's all a bit clunky. So you think about if we're outreaching to potential client or whatever, or trying to nurture a relationship. And again, you've got that CRM and you've got things like LinkedIn ads, which is, you know, they've got quite basic. Everything's quite basic in terms of, you know, this person visited your website or this person visited your profile or whatever, isn't it? Uh, yeah. Can you add a layer on top of that? That's, that's a little bit more sophisticated because, yeah, it's, it's a sign and it's a signal, but. And you know, as advertisers, you're happy to pay that bit extra for that because it feels like it's got more chance of conversion. But there's, it's pretty basic really, of what's out there.

Speaker A: I mean, that's the thing. B2B have been doing this for years using intent Data to understand whether someone's going to purchase or not. And therefore it allows you to prioritize your resources towards that person. Why is it not moved over to B2C? The big tech have been using it for years. Like I mentioned, Google first introduced uh, the notion of intent way back in 2015 under rank brain. Right. And instead of typing in two words like know Ace Ventura, they didn't say, they didn't just see two words and 13 characters. Whatever it is they saw, they tried to understand the context behind. Well, was it Ace Ventura 1 or Ace Ventura 2? Are you after the trivia behind it or the actors behind it? Are you, do you want to watch it or do you know, do you want to just get more information on it? And they tried to get that context, which is why now you see prioritized images and videos and what have you. Um, that allows, allow Google to understand why you're doing what you're doing, not just what you're doing what you're doing. So bringing it into the e commerce sphere feels kind of natural. I always remember a conversation with Land Rover way back in the day when they said um, their conversion rate as you can imagine was like zero point something percent. And the reason why is. Do you know what their main audience was in their demographics in GA? It was 14 year old boys who were pissing about with a car configurator basically who had zero intent to purchase. But they wanted to map out what their dream car was.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, they were remarketing and they were focusing on that type of audience. What happens if they could understand the level of intent that that audience had? Exclude them and only focus on the people that actually had a level of intent in order to do something in action. That's all we're trying to do. That, that exemplary in my mind.

Speaker B: So is this, is this out now? Can people use it? Can people.

Speaker A: It's not about. You got about four weeks.

Speaker B: Oh, wow. So you've got a lot going on this summer then, haven't you?

Speaker A: There is, yeah. No holidays for me.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, new book at the end of July and then we, I mean we already have our V1. Um, we already have some clients and exhibiting some really good results I must say. Um, and we feel as though this will be ready publicly around mid July.

Speaker B: So.

Speaker A: Yeah, watch this space. I guess M. It's exciting. As a football fan, you must, you must resonate with, you know, the type of things that I'm telling you.

Speaker B: Well, there's lots of this conversation.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean particularly the, um, you know, as a Spurs fan, falling out of love with the actual experience and, uh, yeah, just getting sold to really is one of the biggest.

Speaker A: Must frustrate you, buddy. That's what I m Mean, I've been there, as you know.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Still am now.

Speaker B: Very dying. Paying the same price for it. Yeah. Ah, hopefully it'll get more exciting this season, though.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, if the team shows some intent.

Speaker A: I think there's a difference between intent

Speaker B: and ambition, but, yeah, there's intent as well. They kick off and they. They don't bother doing anything. It's, uh, or pass backwards.

Speaker A: It's fascinating how often we use the term intent as well, uh, but we never capitalize. Um, I find it really interesting, but look, I'm a sucker. I'm totally biased. This is. This is my life. I really believe in it. I think, uh. Have you ever heard of the Ikigai model?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: The Ikigai model is like a Japanese philosophy and model of four Venn diagrams. See, if I get these right, it's, uh, what you love, what you're good at, what you could sell and what other people would want to buy. I think this is your volition. These two Venn diagrams, evolution, these two Venn diagrams. Diagrams of your profession. And then there's your passion and your mission. That's it. If you merge those things together, you get a centric point right in the middle, which is all about what it is that you should do, because it's what you love, what you're good, uh, at, what you can sell and what others would buy. For me, this is it. And having owned an agency completely accidentally and never going through that process, that reflective process of what it is that I want to do in my life, and it never really feeling mission orientated or value orientated. For me, Chris, being completely honest with you, I feel so much purpose in what it is that I'm doing. Uh, I am really, really happy. Um, yeah. And I never was previously.

Speaker B: That's good. Enjoyment is part of it, right? You've got to enjoy what you're doing.

Speaker A: Well, absolutely. I think. I think some people lose that, um, because they can get so. So they can lose perspective and they could get myopically focused on. On this one thing we spoke about, you know, like, me being so focused on my business and losing my relationship with Max for a couple of years. Something I'll never get back M. And you can look at it in retrospect, but I've almost got, like, a second chance here.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: Both with another child. Not Like I've got a bad relationship with Max, unfortunately he sports Liverpool though, so I think he's a goner as well as I'm concerned.

Speaker B: I mean that's that two years of neglect right there, isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah, I should have taken into more games, damn it. Um, but yeah, for me it's a really interesting journey.

Speaker B: So is, um, is this it now? Is this what you're going to focus on for the next few years? What's the plans with it?

Speaker A: I think so, Chris. Yeah, I think there's just so much purpose in it for me. I, I uh, love doing it. I love spreading this message of be more human about, about how we're approaching E commerce. I think it's an absolute challenge as well because look, we only focus on one thing and that's the moolah, isn't it? But I think there's another approach. There's a more, there's a better approach focusing on retention and loyalty rather than immediate session based, uh, money in the back pocket. Uh, and it matters to me, you know, because of my love with Disney and my identity reunited and maybe I'm just getting old and I need some salt for the chip on my shoulder, who knows? But for me it just, it, it really resonates and I feel so strong about it. Um, if I can make a difference. Amazing. I want to move people. If I, we, we do have a mission at work and the mission is to move people in the boardroom away from thinking about pure quantity and more towards quality. That's really important.

Speaker B: Yes, very good. And hopefully you'll get it on Disney's website.

Speaker A: That's the dream. I always wanted Disney as a client. I remember, I remember once, uh, a user conversion, having the opportunity to pitch to Disney. Okay. Someone said you could pitch to. This is like great. And I remember going to the office, it's in Hammersmith, walking, uh, in, just being in awe, seeing like a, you know, full on stormtrooper, just greet me stuff like this. And they have different um, boardrooms that are themed. A Winnie the Pooh room and a Moana room and all this. I was like, great, so what room am I in? And they say, are you just in this shitty little closet cupboard over here? And I spoke to some exec who didn't know what they were doing, you know, not like a senior decision maker, uh, in an UN themed room. Felt totally underwhelmed by the whole experience. So don't work for your heroes. You know they always say that, right?

Speaker B: Well, yeah. Do you say don't meet your heroes, don't they?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a shame. Who knows? We'll see what happens.

Speaker B: See what happens. That's brilliant. Well, thank you very much for coming on, mate. It's been a, uh, pleasure talking to you, as always.

Speaker A: Yeah, you too, buddy.

Speaker B: Nice one. Cheers. You've been listening to Confessions of an Agency Owner with me, Chris Ailey. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, subscribe to my newsletter, and find out more about my agency@, uh, honchosearch.com and don't forget to hit the subscribe button until next time.