Doing More with Less Tech with Mike Matker from SiteVibes - EP019

Speaker A: Foreign. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another edition of E Commerce Masters. I'm your host, Ethan Kiffin, CEO and founder of Groove Commerce. And I'm very, very excited to be here today, uh, with another fantastic guest. But before we get into that, remember, we're a video first podcast. So if you're listening over Apple Podcast or Spotify, head on over to our YouTube channel and give us a, like, give us a subscribe and leave us a comment. We love it. So there will be some visual parts to the show today. So our guest today is fantastic. A relatively newcomer, uh, in terms of E commerce apps to the marketplace. They launched in around 2023. Uh, we're going to talk to Mike Matker, co founder of site Vibes, uh, an E commerce retention and engagement platform, and a Chicagoland native. Mike, welcome to the show today.

Speaker B: Hey, Ethan, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, like, when we, when I mentioned Chicagoland, I mentioned the Bears, the Bulls, you know, is that, is that how we. We're going to get into things? Or.

Speaker B: We could. Yeah, we could probably spend the whole time talking about sports, but as I tell everyone, Chicago right now is in the, uh, the doldrums for sports teams. So we seem to have all of our success, you know, five, 10 years ago, and now all of them stink. So, uh, but I still.

Speaker A: But you are in the Pope business. You're in the Pope.

Speaker B: We are in the Pope business. And he is a White Sox fan, which I happen to be. So contrary to probably a lot of Chicagoans who are Northside Cubs fans. I am, uh, I am on team Pope and the White Sox.

Speaker A: That's fantastic. And we've talked about this before in another conversation. Um, but, um, my buddy Gavin Sheets was a, was a White Sox player who's having a fantastic season since he's moved over to the Padres this year. So go, Gavin, and keep, uh, hitting those home runs, buddy. Um, we, we love you here in Baltimore.

Speaker B: We probably miss him in Chicago.

Speaker A: We need some Chicago sports to come back. We need, we need, we need something there.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah, it's a big. It's a big sports city. It's, um, you know, there's always a little bit of a different buzz when Chicago is in the playoffs or in the finals, especially in the city. But, uh, it's a big market, so I know it gets a lot of. A lot of viewership, too, and Chicago

Speaker A: is just a fun place to be, especially as we're heading into. Heading into summer. So, um, welcome to the show today. Super excited to have you on. I've been following your product for some time. We've, we've, you know, been having a ton of different conversations over the last 18 months or so. And so I was really excited to, to have you talk to our guests, little, learn a little bit more. But before we get into that, how did you get in? Uh, you know, your LinkedIn, your resume is quite interesting. How did you get into commerce and get to founding site vibes?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so I came into this industry all the way back in 2012, which for some, maybe not long ago, but for me feels like, uh, forever ago. I was fortunate enough that my dad had owned a business that did a lot of, uh, service work around a site search product and also selling a site search product. So I was able to start at the ground level in business development and work my way up from there. So I spent a lot of time selling search, selling services around search, which transitioned into other tools, um, over time. Search personalization, kind of that whole experience, and then a little bit of time doing actual builds, doing some agency work. But, uh, yeah, um, it's been a fun and a crazy journey. But that was, doing the agency side was essentially the evolution into what became sitevibes just a couple years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. So, um, tell us, what is sitevibes?

Speaker B: Yeah, so sitevibes is an E commerce retention and engagement platform. Um, and really what we saw was this fragmented technology ecosystem and just a lot of apps that, uh, people had to pick from to do certain things that in theory should have all really worked well together, complemented themselves. And that's what we built. So, you know, we saw how fragmented it was. We saw the level of effort that had to go into creating some integrations for certain products to work together. Um, we saw how difficult it was when someone was getting a full suite tool that was still fragmented. And it presented and felt like there was this opportunity and this need in the market where brands wanted to do more with less tech in their stack. Um, but more importantly, they wanted that tech to actually work out of the box, um, and not still have to be put together. Um, so that's what we built. So today, um, when you, you know, E commerce retention and engagement is probably fairly broad, but we partner with brands that are looking to, uh, revamp or change email marketing automation if they want to add ratings and reviews and Q and A, uh, across their product pages if they want to create a loyalty and a referral program, uh, as well as other Social components. All of that can actually occur now through the sitevibes platform. It's a single integrated app, uh, single dashboard to manage all of those different experiences to essentially drive engagement on the website and more importantly, customer retention.

Speaker A: Very cool, very cool. We had our E Commerce Master Summit, uh, a few weeks ago here in Baltimore and one of the key topics that we talked about, um, was consolidation. Uh, right. How do you, everybody wants to do more with less. Right? There's, you know, uh, people are paying significant amounts of money for all these different app subscriptions, many of which they're barely touching any kind of like real master level functionality within it. They're just kind of doing the base, the basic run of the mill tasks with it. And so, you know, it's, it's been a real conversation with all of our clients as well as, you know, as we've seen some ups and downs with the economy and with tariffs and things affecting, affecting, you know, having major effects on bottom line. So, um, you know, let's, let's get into that a little bit. So how does your app kind of, you know, take the place of, of multiple apps?

Speaker B: Yeah, so, uh, that's a great question. And the framework of it is really the, the underlying data that we're able to unify in the back end of our system. So and it's interesting because I just had this conversation yesterday with a customer who was, you know, they didn't realize how much they can do with a lot of this data that was available. But previously, because they had a lot of this data, you know, dispersed across three or four different applications, um, they just simply weren't really able to do much with it. So they weren't even thinking, uh, from that context or from that perspective. So for us a big thing that we see is the unification of customer data and um, all the different information and insights that we have on an individual profile and then how you could use that effectively, not only in your marketing outreach, but how you could use it effectively to drive things like loyalty promotions and uh, other capabilities. Uh, is where we're seeing a lot of, you know, growth. Not, you know, not only that, but also there's a lot of times cost savings that come with that. You know, if you're reducing, um, you know, your tech from three or four different solutions into one, you know, a lot, a lot of times there's going to be some savings. But I'd say a big part of it is just that peer unification. And then when people could start to unpack and say, whoa, I could do this, this and this. I didn't even think I could do this, this and this. And a lot of times it's because there just wasn't that connectivity between the systems and the data itself being shared.

Speaker A: Well, I know you've also like, I'm taken aback by. I know you have a visual of kind of, of, of what the landscape has, has looked like. We can go ahead and share that as, as, as well and, and, and talk through that a little bit. Um, but kind of walk us through this, uh, you know, of, of, of what we're looking at here.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, uh, like I said, I got my start in 2012, so I feel like I've lived and breathed this visual for quite some time. But if we go back, um, you know, 10, 12, 13 years ago, if you were a brand looking to launch E Comm, um, and you needed different solutions, you didn't really have a ton to pick from, um, you'd go and you, you know, maybe pick the best E commerce platform, you'd have a small handful to choose from, different solutions for reviews and loyalty. Um, but you weren't inundated with product, uh, like you are today. So even if we fast forward to just what, I guess, quote unquote, today's landscape looks like, and now this is even a couple of years old, those categories have significantly grown, um, across each individual vertical. So being a retailer in today's landscape, thinking about, we know we need this technology, but how do we, a, pick technology that's going to work for us? Um, but B, how do we find technology that could actually work well together and we don't have to try and stitch it together, we don't have to try and integrate it because in theory they should complement each um, you know, complement uh, the other solutions. And it's hard to find that, it's hard to find the right balance, it's hard to find the right mix of applications. And that was what we saw um, when we were working on some projects is just how difficult it was to marry a lot of these things and how fragmented it was and that essentially became. And was that evolution to, you know, what site Vibes is today?

Speaker A: That's super cool. So you're basically, essentially merging the functionality of multiple apps down into one and um, creating synergies with data as well as um, uh, you know, economies of scale, as they, as they like to say.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly that. It's um, you know, there's a lot of, you know, super large organizations that have done really well with, with acquiring and telling A great story. And um, when you start to get into the weeds, it's still very separate applications and the data is all over the place and it's still just, uh, you know, just kind of a mess behind the scenes. Um, so having this, you know, kind of built from the ground up with that in mind of saying yes, you know, showing product reviews is showing product reviews. We've got fun things that we're doing with AI that is, you know, going from everything from summarizing that content to providing some pretty detailed insights in the back end on those individual products that I know our merchants really appreciate. Um, so it's not just saying we could show product reviews. It's, it's doing it, but it's also making sure that it connects really well with something like a loyalty program. If you want to give consumers points for leaving review, you should just be able to toggle on a switch and say, hey, we want it to work that way. We don't have to connect APIs, we don't have to, uh, you know, create these other complex integrations to these other systems. It should just be a toggle. It just simply works, um, and kind of go from there. So it was building it from the ground up, not going and you know, acquiring these different solutions, um, and then making sure that the data in the back end all spoke to each other, um, so you can drive these powerful experiences.

Speaker A: Cool. How, um, so what does your ideal brander or merchant, uh, look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. So right now we um, have been really successful in that mid market to large mid market, probably flirting with enterprise, traditional, um, B2C retailer. However, we're starting to see somewhat of a shift into more uh, traditional B2B merchants. So we're starting to see a lot of B2B merchants who are catching up with B2C and wanting to add more functionality and similar kind of tech stack approaches that B2C has seen a lot of success with. Um, so in its current state, if we were doing, I guess a formal audit, it's a lot of mid market to mid enterprise, um, traditional B2C retail customers that utilize sitevibes. But we are seeing a significant shift right now into some B2B merchants taking advantage of a lot of this type of functionality.

Speaker A: Well, I think your app kind of lends itself to that opportunity just based upon the fact of, of you know, you're not a single feature app. Like when someone subscribes to your product, they get a lot, you know, a lot for that. And so I think that um, you know B2B manufacturers and distributors are a little kind of like they're not as digitally adept often. You know, they're nervous um, about implementing ratings and reviews. But we're, we're really starting to make a heavy push in those areas to push um, to push folks to be more transparent and open and to try um, to get more user generated content within their sites. Um, you know I just think that people are looking for that social proof and information um, that um, you know and as they're like trying to discover you know, additional products um, from, from their current um, uh, you know, from their current vendors. Um, what about platforms? What uh, what platforms do you, do you currently integrate with?

Speaker B: So we are agnostic. So we integrate with every major platform from M BigCommerce to Shopify to Salesforce to we've got customers who have still developed and maintained their own custom code and run a custom built shopping cart. So we are an API first uh, technology um, which gives us the flexibility to of course be agnostic to these different platforms but also be agnostic to a lot of other systems that are you know, typically required to run something like a loyalty program. So we're actually able to uh, get integrated to point of sale systems or be integrated to ERP systems. Other sources of truth are pull data from other sources where consumers may be earning points or where they need to have some um, data fed a different profile or maybe um, the core customer record. Ah, so being API first allows us to not only maintain those integrations across those different ecom platforms but also go into a lot of these other systems that some of these businesses truly rely on to be successful.

Speaker A: Where do you generally start? Um, merchants when they, when they're interested, like in the platform. Like where do you, like you've, you. There's a lot of, a lot of ways to kind of peel the onion, you know, so to speak. So how do you get people on and activated and like out of the gate with it?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's ah, it's a fun question. Um, I, I could, I can give you two scenarios because when we're, you know, when we're in a traditional direct to consumer B2B or B2C retail opportunity, there's a good chance that they're already using something that would be more of an incumbent technology and they're either looking to either add something or they want to just reduce the number of apps that they simply work with and bring more under one single tool with some cost savings. Uh, so in those types of scenarios it's just understanding what they have, what their use cases are, what their goals are, um, and then taking the conversations and tailoring what they might actually need site vibes for from there on. B2B though, it's very different because B2B is way more educational. I think you said it best too, Ethan. Right. You know, there is this shift where, you know, you have to show ratings and reviews and have this level of trust. And I think for us a lot of those types of conversations is educational. It's, you know, why should you be thinking this way? Well, most of the people that are probably shopping within your site today are already accustomed to shopping online, shopping at Amazon's of the world, and they're going to look for that confidence in other consumers and what they're saying about those products. Uh, so when we're in a B2B type of opportunity or having those types of conversations, it's as much as helping them understand what the value of a product like sitepads can do, but also educating them on the value of what these different components actually mean, um, for their end users and their end buyers, not just being able to check a box and say that they have it.

Speaker A: As you've been going through this process and evolving the product, um, you know, you're still, I would say, in the relatively early stages of this, like just a few years out of the gate. How has your thought process evolved? What have you learned from this that you didn't expect, um, to see or hear, um, you know, as you've been going through the product evolution?

Speaker B: That's an awesome question. Um, honestly just the positive feedback that we get from the merchants that use our product, um, where they feel like they finally got something that does what it says it's going to do. Obviously that was always the goal when building it. Um, and I think that's everyone's goal when they build anything is they want to deliver best in class product. Uh, but hearing merchants actually give that feedback and just say how much it streamlined their team's efforts and you know, day to day workflows because they don't have to go from system to system, they can do all of that in one centralized tool I think has been one of the most rewarding things. Part of this journey is just, you know, that we've actually achieved, um, you know, what we, we sought out to do and that is, you know, kind of reduce that, uh, that complexity that goes in having multiple technologies. Um, so I don't, I don't think we were prepared for that level of feedback as quick as it has come, but it has come really fast and I think that's just fueling a lot of the conversations that we're getting into now.

Speaker A: Cool, cool. What's been your favorite feature function that you've, you've created so far within the app?

Speaker B: So I say um, just our profile and just what we show about an individual customer because it really gives our merchants the ability to do so much with that data. Not just email, but you know, even thinking outside the box with things like loyalty programs, I mean it feels like forever, you know, loyalty programs have been so much, hey, you're going to get these points for the dollars that you spend and if you spend a certain amount of money or earn a certain amount of points, you're going to become a VIP member. Um, but being able to say, hey, we know this, this and this about a particular user, we can do a super hyper targeted loyalty promotion to all of the users that we have these attributes about from a back end perspective. So um, I love the profiles that we build on individual merchants because it gives our customers that use site vibes the ability to do so many cool things outside of just traditional email marketing to really drive that engagement and um, continue to hone in on the retention strategies that they have Outside of what has felt like a lot of the normal, um, what people have been doing forever type of scenarios.

Speaker A: Are you um, able to kind of mine through RFM data or anything like that to be able to create um, just more in depth segments?

Speaker B: I mean so the way that our solution works is we have a core set of um, you know, profile data that we will build on an individual user. That'll be everything from the purchases that they're making, the products that they're viewing. If they're in the loyalty program, what tier are they in? But we also have this ability where we could be taking webhook events or other events where we could add custom attributes to individual profiles. And essentially anything that we have in a uh, user profile can be used for segmentation purposes. So you can be passing all sorts of unique um, components into a uh, user's profile and then create a segment based off that.

Speaker A: Oh cool. Very cool. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Like how about somebody that's like super advanced, like expert level, how are they like leveraging, leveraging the app when they, when they sign up?

Speaker B: I think it's just, just doing, doing more with what they have. Um, that's there. So I mean I'll just give you maybe a real World example where you know, we are creating these predictions um, on when someone or when we think someone is going to place another order. I know a lot of products do that today, but being able to create these really hyper targeted, you know, loyalty campaigns around some of that data, um, are things that they could simply enable and things that we try to automate for them and say hey, you know, you guys could set this up in kind of like an automated flow to say we thought this buyer, right Ethan was you know, projected or we anticipated him making a purchase a week ago and he still hasn't made a purchase. Instead of us just giving him a 10% off coupon, maybe we could utilize something like a double points loyalty weekend and that will incentivize that. So a lot of our larger, more advanced retailers that are using the product are really taking advantage of just how they could actually take this. You know, it's essentially segmentation data, um, but use it for things outside of traditional marketing and emails and you know, SMS messages and things of that nature.

Speaker A: Super cool, super cool. How about, um, what are you, what are you guys doing event wise this year? Like what, um, have you, have you been out um, on the street kind of showing off the app at events? Like what have you, what have you, what have you been feeling from kind of the ecosystem?

Speaker B: Yeah, we have uh, we were at Shop Talk, ah not long ago. Before that we were at E Tail. Um, we're still a small company so we, we take events as they come and we have to look at them. And um, you know, I think we're shifting that focus though a little bit more to more, you know, what we would consider maybe more boutique events. Um, some of the big events, there's just so many retailers, there's so many other vendors that are there and it almost feels like it's hard. Uh, and this is just feedback that we've gotten from prospects that we've had at events or even deals that have come from events where they just felt overwhelmed. Right. So it seems to be the general consensus is these big events are great. Um, but it is a lot, it's very overwhelming for a lot of them where when we go to more boutique type of shows or do more um, you know, events like webinars or things like this, it can, feels more personal. You can have a better connection with someone, truly understand what it is that they're looking for. It doesn't feel like it's flyby because they have to hit all these other places. So traditionally, uh, we've done some of the bigger events. But I think we're going to be shifting a lot of that focus, especially in the new year to more boutique events that are going to be a little bit more targeted audiences.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's been interesting for us as well. And we've, you know, we went to Shop Talk, we were at Etail. We've kind of do the road show, you know, every spring in this. We just had our own event, um, you know, ah, a few weeks ago with almost 50 attendees that came and stayed overnight and um, had a, had a, had a, had a good time with that. And so it's just been interesting to see kind of the evolution of this and um, uh, you know, some of the events in other industries, some. Sometimes I get to go to events in other industries like to assist the client or just even like do my own research. And it's like they're, they're having a lot more fun at those events. We used to have a lot of fun ten years ago at the, at the E. Comm events and it's like they've, they've just kind of shifted, uh, shifted um, a bit. So um, I'm always curious to see how people are, um, you know, what people are seeing from that.

Speaker B: Uh, we just went um, we went to an event last week that was in Dallas. It was two days. It had 75 retailers. I think there was maybe 20 vendors. We were invited to just come and check it out. But the experience at that event, um, I have to imagine mirrors what the event was that you put on. It was just such a fun time. You were able to talk with people and network with people and people they wanted to talk with you because again, going to a shop talk, it's like everyone wants to talk with everyone but you can only have so many conversations in a day and so start to, you know, again get burnt out. Um, and it was a really, it was, it, I think it opened up our eyes to, you know, this other side of the events where you know, it's not about quantity, it's about quality.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would, I would agree with that. You know, and for the, for our listeners that aren't aware, like we, we here at Groovar office shares an elevator shaft with a Marriott Delta Hotel. It's a, you know, 165 room boutique hotel here in Baltimore. It's got a great little ballroom, we have a cool bar and things at our office. And so people literally came to this um, this, this facility here called Cross Keys. And we've got fantastic restaurants on site. We've got, you know, catering, we've got, you know, and people sat and drank at our office bar for free instead of, you know, the hotel bar until 2 o' clock in the morning for a couple of nights in a row. Which at my age is, you know, um, you know, I'm getting up there in advanced age at 50. But um, you know, it was, it was definitely a fun time to get to spend a lot of time with people and, and kind of shoot the, so to speak and you know, learn more about what they're doing. And ours is a mix of both clients and, and other invited guests to come and, as well as, as well as partners. So. But yeah, I'm a big fan of the smaller events and you know, being able to like go someplace and spend, you know, two days with, with folks and you know, really get to know them. And um, you know, so that's, that's a big part of our overall strategy is how do we, you know, how do we facilitate, um, facilitate that. So, um, and we've got stuff that we're working on. We'd like, I'd really like to have two events a year, one kind of more marketing focus like the one we just have, and one more B2B focused for manufacturers and distributors that may have, you know, different levels of digital maturity or want to learn more, you know, about how to, how to move their businesses forward.

Speaker B: So that, that B2B1 I think would be, uh, would be a home run because again, it feels like we do a lot of educating. I could only imagine, you know, the education that goes into it from your perspective to a B2B merchant, you know, because it, they are, they. A lot of times they, they launched a website, it feels like 10 years ago to say they have E Commerce, but they're not even close to scratching the surface with E commerce and what they can actually do to make that a true sales channel.

Speaker A: Yeah, and B2B online is awesome. It's an amazing event. Uh, but the, the, I would say the, the, the manufacturers and distributors there kind of are on the larger, more enterprise side often. And I think the ability for a 200, 300, $400 million manufacturer like to kind of go learn and you know, and have a more casual environment, I don't think that that exists, uh, you know, as much, um, out there in the market. So just some stuff that we're working on. We always have things cooking over here at Groove. Uh, we always have things cooking over here at Groove. If anybody listening is interested in attending that hit me on LinkedIn and I'll keep you, keep you in the loop on that. But yeah, I think that there's a real opportunity, you know, I think the ability to look at your app, um, and look at the data across multiple kind of um, swim lanes there like creates a real opportunity for folks. And I think that um, you know, I've been a bit surprised at times. It's kind of the single feature apps and the lack of features and the expense of, of you know, of, of what they cost um, to, to have plugged into, into their site. Um, and so I think, I think you're, you know, I'm excited to see your growth trajectory and all the things you continue to do, um, you know, on the platform. Um, so what's kind of next? What's kind of next for Site Vibes? Where are you going to be in the rest of 2025? Where are you going product wise into 2026? What, you know, what are you open to sharing with us?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we have uh, so we have some really exciting announcements that are coming for uh, 2025, actually one, you know, in the next 30ish days, which I'll uh, I'll tease here. But we have a formal B2B edition of site Vibes that is going to be getting released. So as I said earlier, we're getting into more and more B2B opportunities and we obviously have a very strong direct to consumer product. Um, but we've added quite a bit of tooling that is going to continue to support the traditional B2B type of brand. Um, so we're really excited for that to come out. We've been working really hard on um, having some of those features added to the platform. So we're going to be making some announcements over the next few weeks here, um, on that and just continuing to evolve. I, um, mean we try to push the needle as much as we can with AI. We are of course going to continue to do more with AI. I think every technology company is and if they're not, um, you know they should be, uh, so just more dashboard and back end capabilities where we're going to be trying to help customers streamline even more and more of our processes that you know, could probably be offloaded to um, some assistance that could be helping with it. Uh, so just continuing to do more there. But yeah, um, the launch of this B2B component, uh, just more with AI kind of, you know, where we see that next evolution or that next piece of the Site Vibes product.

Speaker A: Cool, very cool. So I always like to ask our guests if they have one tip that they could give a brand or manufacturer on how to grow their business in 2025, what would it be? And so, you know, do you. Do you have a tip or thought that you could share with our listeners?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, I mean, if you aren't thinking about retention. And again, there's a lot of, you know, maybe thoughts that go behind a loyalty program or even, um, you know, people think, hey, we already have very loyal customers. You'd be surprised at how many of them can be more loyal, um, than they may already be if you had something like a true loyalty program. So sometimes it's just getting out there and doing it, um, and just getting started with something.

Speaker A: Awesome, awesome, Mike. I really appreciate you spending some time with us here, like, educating our listeners. If people want to find you online, where. Where can they find you?

Speaker B: Yeah. So, uh, sitevibes.com. that is our. Our website. Uh, I am on LinkedIn as well. I am as active as I can be there, which is just Mike Matker at LinkedIn. Uh, so feel free to follow me. Shoot me a connection request. Um, drop me a DM if you want to chat, but, you know, our website slide up in those DMs.

Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome, Mike. Well, I really appreciate you joining us today, and I look forward to see you at the next event. Hopefully. Hopefully soon.

Speaker B: It'll be soon. I look forward to it as well, and I appreciate you guys having me on. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker A: Thanks, Mike.

Speaker B: Thanks, Ethan. Sa.