Episode 99: Ryan Riggin (E-commerce Strategies)

Speaker A: Welcome to Digital Marketing Intelligence for E Commerce Ask the Experts. Our weekly podcast and video show offers e commerce platform, store owners, store developers, app providers, investors and marketing agencies. Insights from discussions with marketing and e commerce experts. Grow faster with tips, tricks and proven strategies. And learn what's new in e commerce digital marketing for 2022 and beyond. Hello everybody and welcome to Digital Marketing Intelligence for E Commerce Ask the Experts. Marissa I'm Marissa Morgan, your show host and business development manager at Engage. On um, behalf of myself and the entire team at Engage, I'm excited to welcome you to today's episode. Today we're talking about how to maximize your e commerce revenue through omnichannel marketing. And our guest is the head of growth for a very successful agency. I also like to call him, um, the OG of the ad tech world. And he's also a serial e commerce entrepreneur. I'll be introducing you to our guest in just a moment, but before I do that, just a few words about Engage. If you've not yet checked out our app, Engage SMS for Shopify, you need to check it out because right now SMS messaging and SMS marketing is the key to driving sales, connecting with your consumers and being able to easily segment different marketing campaigns that you have going on and really connect with consumers where they are. We all know that's on the their cell phone and mobile devices. You can check out our app@www.ngagge m.com. that's engage.com where you can sign up for a free 45 day free test drive and get 5000 free SMS messages to use to start messaging your customers right away. You've got nothing to lose but a whole lot of business to gain with SMS messaging and sms marketing in 2023 and beyond. So check out Engage for all your SMS messaging needs. Okay, without further ado, it is time. Why do people say that? Without further ado, I guess, I guess it was started back in like the Shakespeare days. I don't even know but I'm so guilty of saying it. So we're just gonna keep it working, right? Without further ado, uh, joining us today from Kansas City, Missouri is our guest, Ryan Riggin. Ryan, as I mentioned, is a veteran of the ad tech industry. He's one of those original ad tech ogs and he received a BS in journalism and a concentration in advertising from the University of Kansas where he grew up and then went on to get an MBA from Baker University. He started in 2014 a company called Measure Media, which was a marketing analytics company that was soon after acquired and now he is the proud head of growth and business development for a company called Inuvo. He's also an investor in OmniBrands, E Commerce 3 3PL and Brand Studio. Fun fact about Ryan, you often see him with a baseball in his hand. He says he thinks best when he's got a baseball in his hand. And I think his sons think the same, or I should say his kids. I don't know if they're both boys, but he's got a 15 year old and a 16 year old and is a proud baseball dad to two young baseball player players, you know, so I, I kind of assumed they were both boys. Ryan, did I make the right assumption or do you have a girl who loves baseball too?

Speaker B: No, you did. They, they, uh, they're both boys. They're 15, 16 high, uh, school boys here in Kansas City. And they, they play a lot of baseball and it's fun to watch, so.

Speaker A: Well, I have a, I have a soft spot in my heart for baseball. As I mentioned to you before we started the show, I used to do some work for the Devil Rays, uh, in St. Petersburg back in my college days. Now I'm in Minneapolis where Rocco Baldelli is actually the coach of the Minnesota Twins. So it's kind of funny what a small world it is, right? Talk about a full circle. Yeah, but let's, uh, find out.

Speaker B: My kids play base. Go ahead.

Speaker A: No, no, go ahead.

Speaker B: I was gonna say my kids playing baseball. I was like, I've been around a lot of baseball the last 10 years and you know, one of the things that I've noticed, uh, is that there's a lot of similarities between baseball and just business and entrepreneurship in general. Like, particularly like the ability to learn to fail, play the long game. Like, you know, if you bat.300 in baseball, you're going to the hall of Fame, you know. And so, you know, that life lesson for my kids has been really fun to watch. They're both learning to like, deal with failure and how to, how to get through the tough times and um, in baseball and it's, it's neat to watch.

Speaker A: I love that analogy, and I couldn't agree more. And what I was just going to say is it's funny the way the world works. You know, it's, it's interesting how people's life trajectories take them different places and on different, uh, different roads to success. But you started a company way back in 2014, which was shortly after acquired, and I'd love to hear more about where you started in that ad tech, marketing and analytics world and what journey you've had to take you to your current position at Anuvo as the head of growth and business development. Tell me a little bit about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. It's been, it's been a really fun ride. I mean I, I going way back to like, to school. I went to school for journalism. So like I was a newspaper guy, right? So my first job out of college was at the Chicago Sun Times and I got, you know, got into the newspaper world. And this was like in 2000 and the web started to become a thing. Um, and I worked for a handful of ad agencies in my 20s. Kind of got a feel for, you know, the agency world and, and was um, really fortunate to work for a really cool company, um, founded by a young tech entrepreneur. Um, the company at the time was called Virtamundo, uh, and then it was rebranded as Ad Knowledge. But it was a, you know, as an email marketing, uh, company and you know, got really deep into email and you know, customer acquisition through email and that sort of thing. And then actually, you know, I, uh, don't know, three or four years later I ended up working for a company that was in the search technology space. Um, and it was acquired by Anuvo, actually. Um, and so I actually worked For Anuvo from 2007 or 2006 or 2010 I think it was. Uh, and then I left there. Um, and, and I, I always kind of thought maybe I would come back at some point, but the timing was never, was never right. But I kept in touch with the management team. Um, there's a lot of really good people there. The technology that they have built, uh, is, is, uh, you know, we'll get into this later. But it's really, really interesting, um, and solves a massive, massive industry problem right now. So the timing was good. But I left Anubo in 2010 and my career, you know, took a really kind of weird left turn. You mentioned John Gal refining on my, on my profile there. I. When I left Anubo, I. It's a long story, but I had these two buddies that started a cash for gold website, sellyourgold.com that was my first real entry into like e commerce. And you know, the business model is simple. You know, if somebody goes to the website, they say they want to sell some gold and we value it and buy it. But the whole business model was based on, you know, search engine marketing. We bought keywords like sell gold, sell it online, how to sell my gold. Um, and then we scaled that. We went from 0 to 5 million in revenue in a, in a four year time frame. Um, and, but it was, the business model was fairly straightforward, but what we had to do is we had to, you know, we, we expanded it out by site. So we had a site for gold, a site for watches, a site for diamonds, a site for platinum, and I'm missing one, but anyone. Each, each one of them was a super tight niche, but it was kind of the same model across them all. Um, got really good at running paid search, Facebook ads, email, figuring out how to get a landing page to convert all of those things. And then in 2014 that business was acquired and the guy that bought it asked me to continue to run the ad accounts. So I continued to run Google, Facebook, email, the website, the CRM, all that kind of stuff. Um, so it was funny, I started one, I started an agency, uh, called Measure Media, uh, and my one client was my company. And so I really had no intention of starting an agency. It just kind of happened by accident. Um, you know, when we were running the gold business for five years in a row, we spent a million dollars of our own money, um, you know, on ads. And it doesn't sound like a lot, but, you know, when it's your money, a million bucks is a million bucks. And we were spending, you know, there were three of us that owned it. We had ah, an angel investor. We ended up with 20 employees by the time it was all said and done. But you know, on the daily, we were spending five, four, five grand a day on Google and Facebook. And it got, you know, it gets intense real quick when your card is in Google and you're spending that kind of money.

Speaker A: Um, that's a lot of airline points.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, our airline points were, were sick. It was really fun. Um, but anyway, the business, you know, when we got done with it, I decided to start this agency called Measure Media. And we were all about, you know, analytics and conversion optimization was kind of our niche. Um, and, and again, like I never had any real intention to grow it. But what started to happen was other clients and friends, you know, started asking, hey, can you help us with this problem or that problem? And I got it to about four or five clients and I realized that we need to start building a team. And so we sort of built out all of the processes for how, you know, how to run an agency like project managers, account managers, business dev, client services, the whole thing. Um, and that business, I sold that business into in right as the pandemic kind of started to heat up and uh, um, a lot of our clients were E commerce brands. So we would work with a lot of Shopify stores, uh, WooCommerce stores, um, you know, brands that were trying to kind of figure out Google Merchant center and you know, how that talks to Google Analytics and you know, Amazon, you know, and really kind of, you know, getting really good at the optimizing kind of an E commerce marketing stack. Right? Shopify, you know, connected to Amazon, connected to Walmart. Seller central, um, you know, all the different distribution channels, um, you know, just kind of got good at E commerce. Um, and uh, as I was running the agency, you know, one of the things that always. I don't, I don't know if I really want to say it bothered me, but what bothered me was not having skin in the game with my own brands. Right. We were serving clients, which I love doing. But you know, there's something to be said for having your own brands as, as one is just a, you know, an ability to kind of have a sandbox. So, you know, when clients would ask us questions, we would have real answers like, yeah, we have tried that on our brand and it worked or didn't work. Um, and so, you know, the credibility, um, and the ability to kind of maybe be a little bit vulnerable and test new things out with clients. Um, you know, if you have your own brand and are willing to test it on your own brand, then the clients seem to sort of respect ah, you a little bit more, I think. Um, so anyway, that's kind of kind of how Measure Media went down. And then, you know, this opportunity came up with the Nuvo and, and it's, um, you know, our CEO Rich Howe, who is a really, you know, interesting dude, has built some, some, some really big businesses. Um, you know, he commented that, you know, when you want to build a big business, you need like a catalyst, you need an industry catalyst, like some big thing that is changing. Um, and for E commerce and just generally like online advertising as a whole, this whole issue with cookies and privacy and iOS is literally like a big rug pull. You know, like what worked a year ago does not work now. And it's all because, you know, the cookies basically dying, you know, um, and so this technology that Anuvo has, uh, and the processes and the services that we have built around it, um, solve that problem, uh, in a really unique way. So, um, I don't know if that answers your question or not, but my background.

Speaker A: No, that does. And you know, just hearing how much experience you have in this industry in these different, you know, um, areas really of the industry. And what you're doing now with Anuvo is exactly why you're the perfect person to have on our podcast because I know that everything that you're doing for your company, you know, coupled with your experience with Measure Media, um, and the analytics work you did there is um, is exactly really where the world is going now with Omnichannel marketing. And as you mentioned, all these changes that we've all as consumers experience being able to opt in now whether you give your, your information to a company, like we love that as consumers and companies at the same time are going, oh no, all these, all these, all this like third party data that I'm used to getting and used to making decisions on now is being like you said, taken away. This is exactly why you're a perfect guest for our show because that's what we're all about. We're talking about E commerce. We're talking about those of you out there who are maybe a small to mid sized business. You've got A million to 2 to 3 million dollars happening with your Shopify store or your WooCommerce store or another platform. Um, let's talk about how we're going to use um, omnichannel marketing to maximize our revenue. And you have been so kind as to share with me a few specific bullet points that you're going to share with the audience. And you're going to start first by talking about Omnichannel e commerce stacks. Then we're going to talk about optimizing for top of funnel matrix and their directional impact on bottom of funnel stats. We'll Talk about that iOS 14 impact on media buying and customer acquisition that you started touching upon. And, and then we'll end our talk today with the importance of brand content in the top of funnel media. So starting off, Ryan, with this idea of omnichannel e commerce stacks, for someone who's listening, maybe they have a small Shopify store, maybe they're just getting going with hiring some technical staff or employees and they're looking to build their business and they don't exactly know what an E commerce stack is. How can you, how can you start there in describing what an E Commerce stack is and the importance of an Omnichannel E commerce stack?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So I think of an E Commerce stack is just the tools that you run, you know, that you use to run your E commerce brand. Right. So an E Commerce stack would consist of, you know, Shopify in our case, um, you know, Woocommerce, you know, was a real popular one. BigCommerce. There's all these, you know, E commerce platforms. Um, I kind of see that as a centerpiece of an E commerce stack. And, and then you know, distribution channels like uh, Amazon or Walmart or Etsy or Poshmark or things like that, those would be distribution channels and uh, you know, in Shopify, uh, you know, Shopify kind of exists as the middle, right? And then you can push to these other places. Um, you know, there's definitely nuances to how people do it. People use different tools. Um, you know, from shipping and inventory management situation. There's always differences in, you know, whether you got one warehouse or two warehouses or you're using someone else to do your shipping. Um, there's a whole industry of tools around you know, building uh, that kind of stack to get it right. Um, I will say the one thing that I didn't realize about E commerce getting into it is that it's like you know, 80% inventory management, 20% ads. I mean.

Speaker A: Wait, say that again. That's.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh.

Speaker A: Yeah, say that again.

Speaker B: E commerce. I'm an ad guy. Like, but ecommerce is all about managing inventory. Like that's, that's it. Like, it is about, it is about managing inventory and cash flow and uh, you know, E commerce. The good, the really good E commerce operators. There's, there's a couple people that I could think would be really good interviews for you, but they're like the art of operating E commerce, uh, infrastructure, inventory, supply chain, multiple systems, Amazon, Shopify, Etsy. Like it's, it's no joke. Um, I'm an ad guy and I think, I, like, I, I think all that stuff is super important and, but it's not my bag. Um, and I know some people that are really, really into it. Um, but the point is that like, you know, back to the sort of the thought process of Omni Channel, like, um, you know, a lot of people think about an E commerce brand as like, I'm gonna set up a Shopify store and that's my brand. But you know, Omnichannel, when I think about Omnichannel, I think about all the different channels you're selling on. You know, Shopify, uh, uh, Amazon, you know, whatever. Um, and then all the different content or ad channels that you're trying to build a brand or acquire customers on, right? Facebook, Insta Reels, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. Um, and while it wasn't E commerce per se, sell your gold. Um, it what I learned looking back on that business, I think the biggest, the biggest difference between then and where I am now is that we really looked at that business like in a single channel like lens, right? So we would, we would hone in on Google like this is our acquisition lead gen metrics on Google and we optimize those. Right. Um, and then we looked at Facebook completely differently. Um, and even getting into the, you know, the brands that I'm, I'm part of now, uh, you know, at the beginning that's how we looked at it, right? Like what's our conversion rate from Google, what's our conversion rate from Facebook and search, what's our conversion rate from email, what's our conversion rate on it? And then we looked at Amazon. It's completely different now what's going on. At least I think this, you know, this is my opinion. But now I think that all, you know, most e commerce brands are omnichannel brands. Uh, they're just not thinking about them that way, you know, and, and it's particularly from a media buying standpoint. Like if you started an E commerce brand today from scratch and you tried to like just focus on Google, you would have a really hard time, you know. But if you focus on Google and Google and even Google within Google you have Google, you know, YouTube and then you have uh, Google Shopping and then you have Google search. So that's almost like three different channels. And then you have social, you know, Facebook, Insta reels, tick tock. And then you got the, the marketplaces, right? Walmart, Amazon. Uh, so you really have to like zoom out and it's really challenging. Especially um, especially if you're working with an agency that is it, that is, that is super dialed into one channel. You know, it's really hard to find a partner or an agency or even a cmo, um, that, that is incentivized on growing a single channel. Um, but, but doesn't have the full picture of all of them, you know.

Speaker A: So one thing I do understand about obviously marketing is this idea of a funnel. Um, but when you talk about optimizing for the top of funnel metrics, what exactly do you mean by that? Because that's not something I've heard of before.

Speaker B: But yeah, that's a great question. Um, I actually have a sort uh, of like 80% of the way written piece about this topic. But like I think the funnel is now a circle. It's sort of a feeling you were

Speaker A: going to say that.

Speaker B: Yes, my own little thing. I do think, you know, the funnel is still right top down, broad to the, to the, you know, conversion at the bottom. Um, but when I, when I say optimizing for top of funnel metrics, like when I think most people, when they think about top of funnel they're thinking about brand awareness, reach engagement, video views. You know those are things that if, if you look at those metrics in a silo for YouTube, connected TV, uh, Facebook Reels, Insta and try to try to find conversions out of like directly from those metrics, you're going to have a real hard time. Um, versus if you look at it from you know those top of funnel metrics drive your bottom of funnel stats. I'll give you a real time example. Like we, we can, we can see um, and I don't want this to turn into a sales pitch but, but Anuvo's technology um, has really really uh, solved this problem. Um, what we can see like in our, so I'm an investor in this brand called Urban Cycling, right? Urban Cycling is a cycling apparel brand. Um, we sell you know, cycling jerseys and kits and that sort of thing and we do it on ah, Shopify, Amazon, Walmart. We can see with a, with, with a high degree of confidence that when we're running top of funnel media, connected TV, social media, video views on YouTube that our Google search campaigns uh, have better conversion rates, perform better.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And what's going on is you know, people see stuff on their phone, they scroll through their phone, they look, they view, they swipe, they whatever and then you know, later that day they go out and they pull up Safari and they do a search for you know, urban cycling shorts or urban cycling mountain bike shorts or whatever it might be. And like I used to joke like we spent eight years in the conversion optimization business, right? That's what Measure Media did. We were all about like, you know, you know if you got us, if you got eight steps in your form, like make it three and you'll increase your conversion rate or like you know, all these little weird little tactics to increase, add to carts and increase conversion rates and it's all relevant and that's, there's like a real big place for that. But the single biggest needle mover in terms of like how to increase a conversion rate is to build your brand. Like, you know, you're like if you look at your, your Google stats and you see your branded search and non branded search, your branded search is going to convert at 20%. So the way to get more branded search is to run top of funnel Media metrics. Right. To run media campaigns on connected tv. Right. Run, run top of funnel video campaigns on reels and insta, um, online video, that sort of thing. But you know, the real like elephant in the room now is this whole iOS thing. How do you track that across all these channels that make sense of all of it?

Speaker A: Well, what you just shared makes so much sense because obviously if you're taking the energy and the assets and the um, finances. Right. To work on building the brand, it's urban cycle. Right. Um, you are going to get so many more conversions out of searching for urban cycle. People who search for urban cycle versus people who just do broad cycling shorts, cycling apparel. Like, you know what I mean? It just makes total sense. Um, and I will say it from a consumer standpoint, I like to think that I'm not that influenced by influencers. I'm one of those people. Even though I do some of that work myself, I like to be like, nah, they're not going to influence me, you know, but I will not. I mean at the end of the day we spend a lot of time on our mobile devices and just when we think that we're not being influenced, something pops up, up and you're like, oh yeah, I do need a dress for a Christmas party. And then, you know, I don't always click exactly like you said, I don't always click the links of what I see. But if it's a brand that strikes my eye or something that I'm aligned with, even if it's something charity related or there's a gift that needs to be purchased, you best be believing I'm gonna remember that or screenshot it or even X out of the social media program now and go direct to Safari or whatever, Chrome to search for it. And I am more likely to make that sale than if I'm just randomly putting into a search engine holiday, uh, party dresses.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, for that specific company. So this all makes total sense, especially with the way that social media has now taken such a big. Do you feel. I was gonna say a big pie share of advertising. Do you feel like that's true? Do you feel like social media does have a big, big, um, a big share of, of what's.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker A: These changes.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100. I mean social influencers, I mean everything that's going on with Tick Tock right now, like you can build a really nice brand on, you know, with short form vertical content. Um, there's a lot of brands that have been built with, you know, with Influencer partnerships. Like I love that strategy. Um, the difference between that stuff though and, and you know like it used to be all about clicks, you know, and it's just not anymore. Like, like they're like rarely do I look at, at clicks from social media. Um, most of the social media campaigns that I've seen work are, are more, you know, view driven. Right? So you try to, try to build the brand through views, uh, and then generate those, those bottom funnel searches. Not you know, it kind of depends on the type of brand. Like you know, if it's a, if it's an E commerce retail brand or like, you know, Shopify brand like ours are, you know, we still want clicks to our site but like if it's a CPG brand, like, like this brand right here, right? Pellegrino, like they're, they're, their marketing strategy on, I don't know this but their marketing strategy on, on, you know, connected TV and video probably has nothing to do with clicks. Like they could probably care less about clicks. A 0% click through rate. They don't care. What they're trying to do is get people to walk into, you know, the neighborhood marketplace and pull this off instead of one of the other 2,000, you know, seltzer brands. What's interesting about feels like back in the day.

Speaker A: Sorry, hold on. I was just gonna say they're more focused on continuing to build brand recognition versus clickers. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And what's interesting is it kind of feels like we've kind of come full circle. Like back in the day, you know, between you know, whenever 1950 ish and 2000, it was all, you know, marketing was about building brand and awareness and storytelling and all that kind of stuff. You know, it's the sort of creative agency heyday, right? And then uh, in 2001 Google comes out and all the marketers, myself included, got lazy. Right? It's like, you mean I can track someone from the time that they view my ad, click on it, go to my site, don't convert, click the abandoned cart, email, like you can see that funnel and it's linear. I mean that's easy. But like that world is gone now and now I think we're back to a place where like you like the lazy marketers that were able to optimize that kind of funnel are going to get weeded out. And the only way to make it work now in my opinion is you zoom out. Uh, you got to have a really good understanding of your data and how it, how it flows across channels, right? Um, and then you got to use AI to do your media buying, right? Because it's, it's literally the data moves so fast that it's, if you're spending, if you're spending a million dollars a month on media across, you know, linear TV, connected TV, online video, social display, etc. And you're trying to spend a million dollars efficiently trying to do that by hand is, is not scalable, um, but, but what is, is to use AI and that's where Anuvo comes in. So Anuvo has this AI platform, um, that does a number of different things, but long story short, it, you know, it does media mix modeling so it can tell you on a million dollar ad spend, you know, what the best media mix is, uh, and how to allocate your ad budgets across these channels. And it does it using your data, um, you know, your conversion data, your uh, uh, you know, revenue, uh, data, your, you know, all of your data. Um, and it's cookieless. So you know, that's the other big difference. So this technology does not use cookies. Uh, you know, we're not impacted and our clients aren't impacted by this, uh, this, um, you know, this cookie problem because our technology does not, we don't even use cookies. Our system doesn't know what a cookie is. Um, we have, you know, we only have 30 minutes. I don't want to go into the details but you know, in the, in the years that I was gone, um, you know, the Anuvo management team built out this technology platform that, that, that does all this. It's AI powered media buying. Um, and I would say if you're trying to figure out how to scale a brand, particularly with an E commerce brand, like there's a lot of E commerce brands right now that, you know, mine included that really struggle with trying to figure out how to, how to grow now because you can't. Like the whole Facebook media buying algorithm is just messed up. Like it just doesn't work anymore unless you can zoom out and see the full picture. Uh, and that, that's what we've built. And so we're working with brands, some big, big brands, um, you know, to uh, to scale media, uh, and, and this iOS 14 issue, uh, you know, as a sales pitch, like if you're struggling with how to grow right now and the iOS 14 issue is at least, is it all on your radar, uh, you know, give us a call because we have, we have the, the cheat code as I like to say.

Speaker A: I like that this is so fascinating because you're exactly right. Uh, the strategy now needs to totally shift and if people haven't already, they're already experiencing uh, you know, decreases in sales, decreases in engagement because of these new privacy laws. And you're right, AI uh is a big, a big way to get around that and a smart way to do it and an efficient way. If you can use your, they call it first party data. Right? If you can use the data that you already have. Can um, I ask you just since Engage has an SMS messaging app, what are your thoughts on some of the other tools that are out there that are, you know, more of an omnichannel approach like SMS messaging, being able to connect with customers on their mobile devices? How, how incredible is that? And invaluable is that, right?

Speaker B: I love it. I, I am going to sign up for Engage and test it out. Um, I am a big believer in uh, and SMS as a, as an acquisition retention strategy, particularly for E commerce, particularly with Gen Z, like with, you know, with the, with younger consumers like this just sort of table stakes, like they, that's how they communicate. And it's funny, I was talking to somebody the other day about SMS and the thinking was well that's annoying. You know, like I don't want to get texts. Well that's like what people said about email in 2020, you know, email is still like thriving. Like great, biggest channel for us is email. Um, I think that, I think that you're gonna be hard pressed to find an E commerce brand that can grow without a really solid uh, SMS strategy. Um, so yeah, for sure we're, I'm all in on that. The one thing about first party data that you mentioned is like first party data is a real struggle because it can only get you so far. Right? Like if you're doing, you know, uh, trying to think of some numbers. But if you're. The bottom line is there just isn't enough first party data to, to get a brand past a certain point. So that's where you know, our tech comes in. And, and um, you know essentially the hardest part right now about scaling a brand is that it's almost impossible to find new audiences because the cookies are gone. You know, these ad platforms don't know how to go do lookalikes and all that stuff that you, that you used to be able to do. Um, so now what you got to do is use technology that can find patterns. Which is the simplest way to explain what Anulos Tech does is we put one line of Code on a landing page. Um, and then it develops what we call concepts. So it can find concepts, um, based on what it can see from your site from the open web. So every day we index the entire web. Um, we have a web crawler that's been around for 20 some years. Uh, it's really fascinating the sort of development pipeline behind this whole thing. But long story short, we have a web crawler, uh, 20 years worth of web history. We index the entire web every day and we also see data from the bid stream from our ad server. So we see all this data from all these other places and our system can make what it calls concepts. I'll give you like a real life example. We work with a client that uh, I'm going to give it away, but we work with a client that, that uh, that, that, that has some sleep buds earphones, right. And we found out that the types of people that buy these earbuds, uh, are they in day over index by a factor of like a thousand. Um, to have old dogs, um, and not just old dogs, but old dogs that are short snouted. Let's take a wild guess for what, what, what the connection is there. People that, people that, that have old dogs that, that have short snouts, those dogs snore like crazy. And so these sleep canceling, noise canceling, headphones, fix it. But our technology uncovered that little hook and the brand had no idea it wasn't an audience they were targeting. They couldn't have targeted them anyway if they wanted to. And our tech stepped in, fixed it, it. And uh, you know, that's just one little example. But what we do is we put this code on your landing page and we find these associations and then we go run media campaigns for each little one.

Speaker A: Brilliant. Brilliant. There's.

Speaker B: Well, I didn't build it.

Speaker A: My head just exploded a little bit over here. No, that makes total sense. That's, that's amazing. And I'm sure the conversion rate on those specific uh, little tidbits is huge.

Speaker B: Yeah, because it is.

Speaker A: What's, what's commonality, Common factor.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and something you said is interesting too. Um, the engagement on these platforms is super important. Right. So views, watch time. Um, it's not just about generating a conversion. If you can make a piece of content or a piece of creative that speaks to someone's pain point. Like in that case the creative execution, uh, had a pug in it. Right. And, and so, so, so, so you're, you're, you're, you're taught you're creating an Ad that, like, that. That connects with someone on a level that is a hundred times higher than. Than what. What it used to be before, you know?

Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. It's. It's yt. It goes way back to when advertising and television first started, when they started creating, like, jingles, right? You, like, jingle stuck in your head, even if it was campy or silly or like the Mentos commercial. Like, you know, there's just certain little things, certain pieces of advertising that tends to stick more, get stuck in your head more, resonate more, um, or connect with a certain demographic more. And once companies realize this, the power of that. Yeah, um, that's something that's never stopped. It's just we use it in different places now. We use it in different ways. But connecting and the power of connection is the biggest tool I think any company has. And it's. I think what you're. You're helping us understand today is when you take that. The power of connection and the tool of connection and you use it in the proper omnichannel approach, right? With the right team, like Anuvo. Right. With the right tools, like maybe an Engage sms, you know, messaging app. Like, when you do all of that, right. Um, and you enlist help from people who do it well, you're gonna succeed as long as you take the time to build your brand, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, since consumer. It's consumer safe too. I mean, you know, the last 20 years, we. We have. You know, we've. We. You know, the web is. Is. Is, um, you know, people are. People are getting monetized. You know that old saying, if you're not the product, then you are. If you're not paying for the product, then you are the product. You know, we, you know, we. We are. We got it. We got to get out of that. Like, we got to give people their data back. We got. Consumers are demanding it. Like this whole thing about iOS and Apple killing the cookie, like, they're. That's happening, but the consumers are doing it already. Like, the consumers have already drawn a line in the sand and said, I am not okay with this. You know, we. We want our data back. And that's kind of the whole. This whole idea of web3 and tokens and, you know, I think the. The overarching theme there is like, that's. That's consumers saying, we want to own our data. Um, and there's some interesting companies out there building a new web. Like there's a browser called Brave Browser. I don't know if you're familiar with it. But Brave, I mean they had this cookie list, you know, uh, uh, you know, Web3 Browser and their whole mission is to give customers their data back, you know.

Speaker A: Got it. Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so, yeah, it's an exciting time.

Speaker A: Yeah, I just saw a commercial the other day. Uh, it wasn't brave. It was I think a similar, similar concept where um, you know, it allowed people to browse in private and keep all of their information private and feel confident about just being on the web anywhere they want to be. I think that's important. That's important.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and I think your guys's product, you know, the idea of like one to one connections with, with brands is what customers really sort of expect nowadays. I mean they want, they want direct communication with the brand. No middle them in, you know, and um, I think Engaged is in a pretty good spot to, to build on that.

Speaker A: And I think you mentioned earlier, I think this is a good, um, kind of final thought to end on. You mentioned the importance or the mention I should say of people saying why text is annoying or I don't want to be texts. The important thing to remember, just like you know, social media campaigns or you know, any sort of marketing that you're putting out there, there are rules that need to be followed.

Speaker B: Followed.

Speaker A: Right. Um, people do need to opt in to receive text messages and at any time they can opt out. And I do believe there are rules, um, on um, what they call quiet time, um, different countries, different places, whatever. So just remember if, if a company is using a tool in their omnichannel stack and it's for SMS messaging, they're probably doing it right. Um, at least I hope they are. And being respectful, just like you should be with your email campaigns as well.

Speaker B: For sure.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: Yep, for sure.

Speaker A: Awesome. Um, awesome. Well, listen, I wish we could talk all day. I feel like we're just scratching the surface, but this is a, a great, uh, a great way to introduce you to our audience and introduce what Anuvo uh, does. I'd like to share with our audience how they can connect with you after listening to today's podcast, if that's okay with you.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: You guys can connect with Ryan and an easy way to do that is on LinkedIn. You can look him up. It's cool, really. Ryan. R Y A N riggin R I G G I n please if you message Ryan, do leave him a note or if you connect with him, also leave him a note. Let him know that you heard him on the Engage podcast and then also check out the Anovo Website. Um, for those of you listening to this podcast, I know that we mentioned a little bit about what Ryan does at Anuvo. He is the head of growth and business development now, but he used to be back at Anuvo as the, uh, senior vice president. Is that it? Of marketing. Is that right?

Speaker B: Yes. I was in marketing back in the

Speaker A: day where he led corporate marketing and product strategy. So at the end of the day, his, uh, blood runs pretty, pretty deep with Anuvo, and I know that he'd be happy to help you, um, connect with the right people, uh, if you're looking for Anuvo's help when it comes to putting this omnichannel process into a factual for your e commerce brand. Ryan, I'd like. I said I'd love to keep talking, but is there anything you'd like to share to wrap up today's, uh, episode with me?

Speaker B: Uh, no. Listen, I just, um, appreciate it. For one, I've done a few of these and this was super buttoned up. And, uh, you should be commended for that. It's really, really well done, well organized. Uh, so I appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker A: My pleasure. Well, thank you for coming on board to be our guest expert.

Speaker B: Today.

Speaker A: You guys connect with Ryan Riggin from Anuvo. You can do that through LinkedIn. And also@anuvo.com today, we learned a little bit more on how to maximize your growth with omnichannel marketing. And if you're looking for a tool, of course you can use Engage SMS for Shopify. That's our app. But you can also reach out to Anuvo, which has some incredible technology to help you on that omnichannel marketing path, as we learned today with Ryan. So, Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. And again, we appreciate you being our guest expert.

Speaker B: All right, thank you. I appreciate your time.

Speaker A: Have a good one. What an awesome guest. Another home run. Hey, no pun intended. Ryan with Ryan Reagan. He's a big baseball fan. He thinks best when he's got a baseball in his hand. And as you can tell from our very informative and insightful podcast today, he knows a lot not only about the E commerce and ad tech industry industry, but also about omnichannel marketing. And he can certainly help your e commerce business and your brand grow and maximize your revenue when you connect with him and Inuvo. Thank you guys so much for joining us for today's 99th episode of the Engage Digital Marketing podcast. I'm your host, Marissa Morgan. And of course, if this podcast was insightful or helpful to you today. Make sure you share the link to this podcast with your colleagues as well. On behalf of myself and the entire team at Engage, I want to thank you for joining me. And of course, we'll see you next time. Have a great day, everybody.