Episode 1: Using Actionable Insights to Enhance Personalization

Thanks for joining us today for our session around using actionable insights to enhance personalization. I'm Nick Odom, a senior solutions consultant here at Amarsus. I'm joined with Ryan Jackson, one of our customer success managers. Ryan, thanks for, thanks for joining us today. No. It's my pleasure. It's great to be on the call with you. I'm excited to kinda, talk about this topic. It's a really exciting topic and big with my clients today, so I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. I mean, there you know, as we start talking about what we can do to to really beef up a customer experience leading into some of these big sales days. Right? It's not just holiday. It it happens throughout the year. It's different for all the brands. There's there's a lot of different places of of, you know, focus that we get throughout the year. And we see it, you know, all all year round. Right? But as we as we start leading into Holly, obviously, it's a it's a big thing that a lot of brands are encountering. You know, what are some of the top things that you're that you're seeing your your brands and your clients, you know, focusing on and fortifying as they go into some of these big sales days? I mean, honestly, right now, it's about preparing early. It's about being ready and being able to anticipate, things that can happen on those big days. I think we we always talk about being agile. We always talk about being, nimble in the moment. But right now with a lot of my clients is is it's looking at data from past events and then using that to help formulate a plan, for what's coming up next. Because that's really our best gauge is is the previous events history and what, you know, historical data. Yeah. And and you're just you you're gonna need to anticipate that traffic. Right? Like, there's gonna be an increase in traffic coming, you know, into that day. You've got a lot of pre materials that are going out to promote it and and build awareness around the event. And and just preparing for what that would look like is really what is gonna make the difference between a successful day and a very stressful day. You know, a couple of things that I've I've looked at a lot in the past is just around, like, the leads. Right? Like, you're gonna get a lot of new people on the site. You know, what types of things are you seeing clients do, to try to maximize that and collect, collect some of these new subscribers on these days? Honestly, a lot of that's gonna be updating at the existing assets. And so we've always gotta be monitoring what we have out there to make sure that it's effective, that it's bringing us in and doing it in a way that is driving our business. Right? And so it's always reassessing, reevaluating what's currently in place, and then finding those gaps and then filling those gaps with strategies that are actually going to help continue to drive your business forward. And so we look at fortifying the website with subscription points, I think, is one way that we do this. You know, some clients go through. They make sure their preference centers are updated. There's a lot of different levers we can pull. But one of the first things is, of course, is gaining that new lead and how are we gonna acquire them. And so having multiple touch points at areas that our customers are at on our site are vital. Yeah. That makes total sense. Like, there's we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Right? Like, we've already got a digital marketing plan in play for the most part in most most scenarios. And that probably rings true for some of the the automations and the assets and and triggers and things that you have coming, you know, after someone's already in the database, after we're starting to nurture someone. You know? Is that sort of another lever that we're kinda looking at with clients? It's just like, hey. How do we beef up, like, an abandonment program or some of our lead life cycle or or or, you know, win back programs? Just things that we already have out in the market that we can take advantage of and just, beef up a little bit more for the for the upcoming traffic that we see. Yeah. That's actually a perfect point. And so, you know, when we're talking about things like category and product abandonment programs, we wanna make sure we're taking a look at these to make sure that, you know, things like, for instance, timing are taken into account. And so are are we wanting to wait on big sales events days? Are we wanting to wait three or four hours to reengage? Or are we wanting to shorten that time window so we can react you know, because some big sales days are customers and are making decisions in the moment. And so we've gotta be able to anticipate that decision making cycle and how that shifts from, you know, time of year to time of year, or event to event. Some events that I see a lot of clients are if we're having a drop, that might change how we react unless we're having one of our big sales promotions that might span a large holiday weekend at some point throughout the year. And so timing is extremely important. But then, you know, we go beyond that, and we're looking at high traffic days and what that customer experience looks like. We wanna make sure that we're doing something that personalizes it and gives them that one to one. And so that's why that timing and trigger a scenario can be so important. No. That makes total sense. And and the I'm glad you mentioned the timing of these programs. Right? Because I think we focus so much on the content, which makes sense. Right? Like, I I think that's another aspect of this whole thing is, like, making sure the content's dynamic, making sure that we're reacting to things and and sending relevant messages. But at the same time, the timing is critical, especially on these bigger holiday weekends where there's other brands doing the same thing. Right? Like, we don't know how it's the luxury of, just running our own Prime Day, for instance. Although we see that more and more and more. I've got a number of clients that kinda have their own day that's real special for them. But at the same time, like, when we're competing for that space, when we're competing inside the inbox, making sure that things are super relevant, you know, super catchy, you know, stands out in a crowd. But then to your point, the timing, like, if I'm shopping at two, three, four different places at one time, and and, you know, we all we all do it. We all get a little distracted and start looking at other stuff. Like, you know, it might not make sense to send an abandonment program, you know, four or five, six hours down the road or maybe even got a day wait. You know, even even for some of these products that typically always have a longer bicycle that we wanna take more of that time on these days, it might make sense to shrink them. That that's a great call out. Any anything else just around, like, what we can do to to to maximize our existing infrastructure to to really support these types of days? Honestly, one of the the bigger things that I wanna make sure we talk about is planning your batch schedule. Right? And so when we're doing batch sends and we're planning the schedule, you know, should we be talking about staggered sending or maybe how we're prioritizing, you know, the different buyer personas? Are we gonna react the same way to an active buyer that we do a lead? And so we've gotta have those conversations amongst the team. We've gotta think about how we wanna approach those. And a lot of that's done with, you know, bringing in rich dynamic content to help the marketer to get the most out of their audience while ensuring the website and warehouse can handle the volume being sent out to the site. And so there's now we're starting to get into, you know, other teams being involved, and that brings a level of coordination, you know, that every marketing team, you know, if they do not have today, they've really gotta work hard to get that in their own organization. And the most successful ones do that. That makes total sense. And that's that's one that that we really start to push on. You know, even, you know, months leading up to it, it's like, what's the plan? Right? And that's one thing that, I see all the veterans do. You know, they're like, hey. Can the website actually handle this? And we've seen this, you know, over and over. Even if you take a nod out of the Super Bowl commercial for for I think it was Coinbase where they threw that QR code up in the Super Bowl, and they they were it it was right? It was we all thought it was creative. We all thought it was kinda fun. They crashed their site. Like, they they didn't anticipate the number of people that were gonna scan that and go out to their website. And and so we see that on these big sales days consistently is, like, every time you press go on one of those batch sends, like, you're it's a science. And that's that's the one thing that I've always been amazed at on those days is how much of a science it really is that you're gonna go and send this many outbound messages. Those those vanity metrics that we that we look at, those ring true. In that day, you're gonna get, you know, that average click rate, and and you're gonna be sending traffic to that site. And so to your point, like, that cross functional communication is so key. And if you don't know where you're gonna need to communicate to or who you're gonna need to communicate to or what teams are gonna be handling things on that day, it it's, you know, it's it's it's gonna be really disabling, and you're gonna be kinda scrambling to figure out who can help you, you know, alleviate any sort of these problems or get the visibility into it to say, hey. Is it okay if I send another message to this site? Because that can go south rather quickly. Right? From our end, like, on the Amarsis end, like, what type of, support channels and different different things are we do we put in play for our clients when they need it for this? You know, what what are what are some of those, level of access that that we offer when when a client is, you know, about to go through one of these days? I mean, a lot of that starts right here with the client success side. And so being there day to day, we're helping them before events, during events, and after events, coordinate whatever level of support they need in the moment. Sometimes it's relatively minor and, you know, we can get them through many hurdles on our own. But then we also have our support team, which is really during big events, our our support team follows the big events just like our clients do. And so they're always there and available. And being able to quickly coordinate and enact, you know, and pull those resources in can mean the difference between, you know, something that takes us five or ten minutes to correct or something that pulls us out for an hour or two or more. And it just comes down to one, again, back to planning, knowing who those resources are prior. And then knowing, you know, especially on the Marsys side and on the client side, for me and client success, it's being able to rally a lot of Marsys resources from various aspects of the business to help that client with whatever issues going on. It's paramount, especially during these big revenue days. That makes sense. I mean, going back to your your statement on the batch sending, like, you were talking about, like, persona or prioritization and these sorts of things. Like, I've always almost looked at this almost like as a ramp. You know? Like, even if you're going through, like, a deliverability, like, onboarding ramp, like, you're you're really gonna try to focus on, you know, sending to the best audience upfront and and sending to you know, and just kinda trickling into and and throttling into your your full send instead of just going kinda all all out at once. I mean, what are those kind of discussions looking like, you know, this year? You know, there's there's obviously a lot of different, aspects of just the, the the world in general and how things have changed. Like, what what are some of those, conversations looking like with clients to make sure that we are prioritizing the personas that we're sending out to? Honestly, the best way we're doing that right now and what clients really are paying attention to on my end is how they've engaged in the past. And so we're looking at actual behavioral engagements. And so when we're looking at the personas, for instance, you know, having the right data can tell us if this is somebody that I need to email right away or if I wanna like, you as you mentioned, if we wanna put them into a later batch in a smaller trickle, does everybody need that first large big send? Are they always going to engage? And so we're looking at it from a strategic standpoint in in a in a way that if group a being our highly engaged, is reacting very, very well, maybe we change that cadence up to better suit them. But if we have this other group, our leads, who maybe aren't going active inactively buying, what can we do? How can we change that differently? Are we working in things like send time optimization? Are we working in different strategies, for instance, as incentivizing? We're looking at each category, and we're treating them as a specialized group, and it goes back to one on one is we treat them as a one to one person whenever we're engaging them. We can't broad stroke it. That makes sense. Because, like, what I've seen pretty much every year since I've been in the space is is Google loves to shift up the the algorithm leading into some of these bigger days. Right? And so you're kinda at the mercy of, the ISP to to say, are we gonna accept this mail or not? You know? And and having, you know, the most engaged groups upfront, having some of these, you know, prioritizations kind of laid out and structured and and having a plan for the volume that you're expecting to send through and and making sure that the volume we send through early engages. Right? Like, that's really the scorecard. You know, as much as they shift things around on us, that's always kind of the scorecard of, like, is this sender gonna make it into our inbox or not? And so I think it's great that you guys are already having some of those conversations and and really prepping and and and at times educating, you know, clients on on what's happened in the past. Because I you know, as as we go through, you know, this great recession, I mean, there's a lot of turnover in some of these brands, and there's a lot of things that we need to to be, some of that historical knowledge and some of the the guidance on that. And so, to to your point, I mean, it it starts with the CSM team. Right? Like, how are we making sure that our clients and the brands that we support are are set up for success as they go into these days? Because it can be one of the most exciting days of the year, and it can also be one of the most frustrating days of the year. And it really depends on how well your plan is executed. Absolutely agree. And you mentioned just, like, kind of being agile and, like, these cross functional things. And, like, you know, what what can you talk to around just, like, maybe making a game day decision that that's just you know, the things are either going really well and we wanna maximize it or maybe things have have gone a little astray and we need to course correct. You know? What are some of those things that you know, some advice that you would give to people when they're when they're, you know, faced with making a kind of a quick decision like that on in in the midst of this day? Honestly, you know, when things happen, that's the most crucial point is we gotta stop and we gotta take a step back. And I think a lot of times, we we react quickly. And so I think that, one, having a plan prevents reactions. And so it's we talk about things like being proactive versus reactive, and there's a place and a time to be both. And I think that a lot of teams, who are good at understanding that and they they are proactive when it's appropriate and then they're appropriately reactive, that can mean the difference between, like I said earlier, you know, how long we're down and and how that outcome ends up, you know, playing out. And so but if we're looking at things, you know, especially if we're talking the day of. Right? And so we're we're looking at day of, you know, we're looking at campaign performance, and we're monitoring that, all the way throughout the day. Whereas, you know, campaign performance on a regular, maybe they check daily. But on large sales events, we're looking hour by hour by hour, and we're watching that performance and looking for deviations. We're looking for anomalies, and we're trying to react and course correct where needed. And a lot of that ties into, of course, what we had planned ahead. And so but campaign monitoring is only one of those. Right? And so, you know, we also look at website performance, and we go right back and we just, you know, talked about cross functional teams. And so being able to have an actual, you know, plan in place and knowing who on those teams is your support that day will help save hours and hours if any but any of us have ever tried to find support on something unexpected, it takes forever. And so being able to have that plan in place to reference is irreplaceable. And then, honestly, you know, looking back and another big one on the day of is something my clients love to look out for is consider increasing the update schedule for things as as we look over, like, product data imports. Right? And so the Marsys and, you know, any, you know, provider, we need to have access to the best data. And so if we're looking at inventory that just arrived in a retail location or on a website that's part of a large event, knowing that that data is in stock and knowing that that data is in quantity, will change how we are able to react throughout our email strategy. And so there's a lot that plans into that and a lot that sometimes is overlooked. So Yeah. I I love that that call because, like, you know, obviously, we can have a a really good, you know, live line to the the web team to make sure that it can support the traffic that we're gonna send to it. We can monitor things on our our end to make sure that it's being delivered and and having success that we would expect. But then to your point, like, what are the what are the pipes coming into the system, and how up to date are they? Because, like, we're we're sending out communications all day that include product recommendations. Right? Like, even if it's not just the the actual promo of something, but it's, like, just the dynamic content that we just have kinda living evergreen inside the campaigns. If we're not getting a a semi real time feed of that that product data, you know, on these days and and inventory's kinda running through. Like, you know, we might be we might be recommending products that actually aren't available, and that could lead to a pretty frustrating customer experience. And I think that kinda dovetails really nice into just, like, what happens after these days. Right? Like, you've got this influx of of of traffic and purchases and, like, engagement. It doesn't just stop, like, right, because, you know, it's midnight and it's the next day. Right? Like, there's there's a wave of of activity that occurs the week or even weeks following this from, you know, all these purchases that were just made. Like, we might we might have to, you know, handle an influx of returns. We've got people that are getting, shipping notifications and order statuses and and preparing for their order. We got people that were thinking about buying that didn't. Like, what types of things go into the prep of that aspect of of a large sale day, you know, even outside of just the promotions and the outbound that you're doing the day of? I mean, this is probably one of the the best parts of the entire process for me personally is taking past experiences and learning from them and improving. And so when we're looking post events and we're trying to figure out what to do at that point, those days, like you mentioned, they're oftentimes just as critical, if not more, because that's gonna develop our strategy that we're gonna carry forward. And so we think about things like dedicate, you know, dedicated lead nurturing programs to stay in touch with those new leads that did not convert during the event. And so even if that even if we gained a lead and they didn't make a purchase, that lead still has a lot of value. And we put a lot of work into actually earning that lead, and so what we do from here can help us maximize our revenue potential. And so we thought maybe follow-up with incentives. We look at content specifics to the products or categories that they were actually shopping. And so having access to that data and then being able to take that data and turn that around into more, interest based recommendations and actually, you know, delivering them recommendations based off of what they care about. That's the benefit of utilizing the data that we learned from events. Right? And so just because they didn't make a purchase, doesn't mean that they're not of value. And we've gotta always remember to take that step back and look at it. Following on that, honestly, did you wanna add into that one? No. I was gonna say you you brought up a good point of, like, we know what they were shopping for. Right? Like, they they likely came to the site and spent a season you know, a decent amount of time, like, looking at different categories and products and these sorts of things. And to your point, like, just because the the big event day is over doesn't mean we can't be strategic about, you know, how we, you know, maybe extend that event to key audiences without extending it to everyone because we've got that information. We know that behavioral, you know, those behavioral details, and and we can be a little bit more specific about what we're recommending to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, can't forget about our first time and repeat buyers. Right? And so treat your buyers as well, you know, in in their own special way. And so post purchase programs, great assets to have. That's almost an essential these days to improve the shopping experience because it's about a good shopping experience at this point. So we've earned their business, and we've gotta keep it. We've gotta retain it, and we gotta remember that loyalty loop that we continually talk about. And so this is a great place to be able to maximize that. And so things to consider maybe are you know, afterwards is are we educating them on the products they purchased? I have clients who, you know, have grooming in the health and industry, and so they have these wonderful, you know, tools that they that they offer their customers. But then after that, are we talking about replenishment initiatives? Are we talking about how to use it better? What to do for support? And so there's so many ways to do that. You brought up returns. I think that's another great call out, customer service guidance. Personalized website content is another great way we can work in a post purchase is, you know, looking at that returning visitor, what that experience is like on the site. And then lastly, looking at driving additional purchases through the incentives and targeting that to the personas who will react best to it. So Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, even with, like, the return stuff or or the transparency of the the post buying side like, not even just the strict post purchase, but, like, you know, what does your your order confirmation you know, does it contain all the details that they need? Like, your order status updates. We've seen a ton of, like, buy online, pick up in store the last couple years. Like, you know, how transparent is the messaging that happens after that sale's made? And if there's an issue, how transparent are we about that? Right? Like, we wanna we wanna make sure that they know, like, if there's a delay, maybe why there was a delay, when when we expect it to to occur. Like, I think most customers are a little bit more lenient on that because we understand that there's just a state of the world right now of of, know, supply and demand and and just trying to get things, to customers. But the brands that are really succeeding through that have, like, all of these kinda triggers in into their marketing to keep you super informed when you do make a purchase. And then if they have to return something, it happens. Right? We're buying more things online than we've ever bought. Like, we used to we used to buy it primarily in a store. We could feel it. We could touch it. We could try it on. We could do these things. Like, that we've gotta, you know, we've gotta embrace the return. Right? And the the brands that you know, you know, shoe companies, great example of, like you know, I've noticed last couple years, people just put a return label in the shoe box. Right? Like, they make that as easy as possible. Or to your point, the website personalization, is this someone that's just come back to the site and they just bought three days ago? They're likely checking their order status. Right? Or, you know, we they just got a shipment delivered. Right? Like, we know that they just got a shipment delivered. They come back to the site. They might be trying to we we we might be able to cross sell them into something else. They might be looking for something. You know, they just got the product. They're, like, really happy with it. It feels good. It it seems of quality. They wanna not feel comfortable making another purchase. Everything went smooth. But they also might be trying to return it or figure out customer support or, like you know, there's there's ways we can build in, you know, some some dynamic content and personalized experiences that, one, take the stress off of the customer support line. Right? Like, they're they're a group that's gonna be, you know, way underwater as all of this is happening. So, like, the digital marketing team, that's that's a cross functional piece that we maybe don't always think about. Right? Like, the customer support person might reach out every once in a while and be like, hey. Can you look up such and such and see if they got this communication? But on these days and the days leading after these days, like, that group is gonna be really, really strapped for resources and trying to make sure that they're they're taking care of customers. And so the more questions we can answer through our digital assets, the the less questions they have to answer, and they can focus on the use case and the customers that actually really need, you know, that personal touch and those, you know, live live chats and communications. Agreed. No. That is, you know, this is spot on. And thinking about that and as we start looking at the whole process from beginning to end, you know, all of these tie in together. And and, you know, here's the thing. It's not something you can set and forget. And I think that, you know, a lot of times, we do think that it's okay to to maybe not pay attention to this today. But I think having a good process from beginning to end, planning the day of and then post and being able to really assess and evaluate where you won and then maybe where we need to shift strategy, all of that kinda ties in together to kind of a holistic approach to how we're engaging our customers. And I think our customers see that. And like you mentioned, you know, that experience that they have post, whether or not it's on our site with our customer service team or the experience they have with the recommendations that they receive in any type of, for instance, post purchase. All of that ties in together whether or not they're gonna come back next season, next sale, and that visibility we're gonna have in that inbox. Yeah. And this builds that trust. Right? Like, at the end of the day, you might be judged by the quality of your products, but you're also gonna be judged by the quality of your customer support and the ease of the purchasing cycle. And so, like, the the easier we can make those things more transparent, the more trust we're building with our customers, and they're gonna feel comfortable coming back and purchasing, from us. You know, especially those direct consumer sites. Right? Like, there's probably other places that they could be buying these products. And the easier we can make it buying, you know, directly from the brand, the easier we can make that that shopping experience, the the more likely we're gonna get for those return buyers. But, yeah, I I think that that's you you hit the nail on the head. Like, sometimes that follow-up is, like, just as critical or more critical than the lead up and the promotions and the prep the day of. Anything else you wanna call out just as we kinda close-up here, just around these big sales events and things that, you know, maybe aren't so apparent that people should, should consider and and look at as they're as they're preparing for their day? You know, I think, you know, probably, you know, in closing and really kind of wrapping it up, I I think that something that sticks out to to me is is inaction is probably the one thing we want to avoid. Right? And every every business is different. Every client is different. But the one thing that's consistent from industry to industry and, you know, client to client in my experience is is that, planning will save the day. Being agile in the moment will help, you know, it'll help prevent fires. It'll help you overcome obstacles quicker. And then assessing and being able to take the lessons learned and apply them are how it's a continuous cycle of, you know, we're continually learning. We're continually adapting. Because one thing we've learned in the past few years is is that it's not the same today as it was two years ago. And it wasn't the same two years ago as it was two years before that. And we're constantly evolving with our business, and we do that by having great data. We do that by, you know, taking action. But we also do that by taking a moment to stop, reflect, and not only work in our business, but to sometimes work on our business. And that's something, you know, I share with my clients regularly as we spend all this time working in our business. It's great to stop and take a moment and work on it, for a change, and I think it's overlooked, more often than not. So Yeah. Yeah. I don't have to totally reinvent the wheel, but taking a a nice introspective look and and looking at it holistically can really be eye opening at times. You know, I definitely think that's an exercise we should go through. And and going into these these sort of sales events is a great time to do it. Right? Because there there's all eyes on it already. There's a lot of places that we're kinda, you know, looking into and and potentially optimizing. So I I love that. You know, just for for everyone, really, is just, you know, look at the business as a whole, understand what's working, getting feedback from customers, and understand what things we're doing really well, what things we're maybe not doing as well, and really building to that. To your point, tomorrow's a new day. Like, there's a there it's always gonna be different than what it was yesterday. But, anyways, it's been a real pleasure to to kinda talk shop with you, Ryan. Hopefully, we've got some more in the future that we can do like this, but really appreciate the insight, that you're able to to bring, you know, based on the work that you've had with with our Marcy Splines. Absolutely. No. It was my pleasure, and thanks for inviting me. It's great. It's a great topic. Something that's very relevant in my day to day. And so it was my pleasure to kinda come and sit down with you. I'd love to do it again.