The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
To create an ecosystem that connects leaders of all kinds – industry, community, student, educational, civic, investment and entrepreneurial – to help overcome Omnichannel Retail barriers through exclusive, insight-rich content.
The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Ep. 98 - Every Brand Deserves Its Day: How Data and AI Are Democratizing Digital Marketing
The digital marketing landscape has transformed dramatically, with brands pivoting from traditional tactics to sophisticated digital strategies across platforms like email, social media, search, and retail media. But how can brands—especially smaller ones—effectively navigate this complex ecosystem without massive budgets or specialized teams?
Shaun Brown, founder and CEO of BirdDog, joins us to reveal the strategies that are democratizing digital marketing success. With over 20 years of experience working with global CPGs and deep expertise in performance media, Shaun identified a critical gap in the market: while big agencies excel at brand-building and performance shops master channel optimization, few understand how to leverage the game-changing 1P data now available through retail media networks.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Shaun's focus on making sophisticated marketing capabilities accessible to brands of any size. While enterprise clients command attention, thousands of small and mid-market brands struggle to compete effectively in digital spaces. BirdDog's mission—to help these brands access and utilize the same data, technology, and AI tools as their larger competitors—represents a significant democratization of digital marketing power.
Shaun challenges conventional wisdom throughout our discussion, arguing that traditional metrics like ROAS and TACOS should take a backseat to incrementality and new-to-brand acquisition. His advice on product detail page optimization before media spend, his insights on the consolidation of retail media networks, and his refreshingly straightforward "boring wins" philosophy provide actionable guidance for marketers at every level.
Whether you're managing digital marketing for a Fortune 500 company or a small challenger brand, this episode delivers a master class in how to find and convert the audiences that matter most in today's digital marketplace. Listen now to discover why, as Shaun puts it, "every dog has its day—and so should every brand."
Well, hello everyone. Welcome to the Digital Front Door. I'm Scott Benedict. You know the tactics that successful consumer brands use to drive sales at retail, whether on store shelves or through online sales, have evolved in pretty profound and significant ways in the last few years. Significant focus has shifted from traditional media tactics, such as print media or coupons, or broadcast radio or television, to predominantly a digitally-based approach across platforms such as email, social media, search, digital display and retail media. In a more broad context, now, some of the challenges that those brands face is not only the mastery of new forms of marketing activity, but whether they need to create centers of excellence within their organization or leverage the expertise of outside agencies to deliver the business results that they and their retail partners expect. Now, one of the firms that is leading the effort to help consumer brands market themselves more effectively is called BirdDog, a commerce media agency that helps brands win retail marketplaces from Amazon to Lanner, based in Atlanta, and BirdDog's founder and CEO, sean Brown, is visiting Northwest Arkansas this week and he joins us in the studio. And Sean, welcome to Northwest Arkansas and to the program. I'm so excited to have you. Thank you, I appreciate it. I was expecting a big clot audience here. Well, our studio audience wasn't available today, but, thank you, we're thrilled, we're very excited to have you here. We're thrilled to be in town, that we can make this happen as we meet with clients in Walmart and everybody else Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the first thing that occurred to me when I was reading a little bit about BirdDog is the inspiration for the founding of the company, and usually when someone founds a company like this, there's an unmet need that you or your team wanted to address in the market and that kind of led you to start the company. Is that what caused you to start BirdDog? Absolutely? Well, it's really twofold there were pain points and unmet needs, right. So I think let's back up a little in time to understand the market and then we'll talk about how we need to fill some gaps there.
Speaker 1:When we look at so my background in history, I did 20 plus years in the big whole co-agencies working with global CPGs, and then I went to work in private equity with the performance media independent agency there and there's a two different worlds, right. Those big giant agencies are really good about talking about audiences and brands and data and they cause I've been doing it for decades, cause we're doing brand media, and that's where this world is now about trying to understand audiences. Meanwhile, these performance agencies, who grew up from amazon and from like 10 years ago, who know those channels really, really well, have done a great job there. But this new world, with audiences coming forward with 1p data, with what, uh, the retailers are giving us now, is new territory for them, which they don't understand. They, they understand how to optimize a channel. They're evolving, the whole codes are evolving, they're making acquisitions, but, like in the middle, is this pain point where the new world is, and so that led us to say we think we believe there is a need for an audience first approach to retail media, and what drives that is the fact that we have access to 1P data.
Speaker 1:Now, what also is a big driving factor of that is now to do all that, to work with those platforms, you have to have technology, you got to have data, you got to have AI, and for a lot of companies that's incredibly overwhelming. And up until five years ago, even four years ago, if you wanted to do that, you had to go build your own tech, you had to have developers and engineers and code, and so then you have to ask yourself am I a tech and data company or am I a CPG? Am I an agency? What are we? Because that diverse focus. But now there's enough great tech that's off the shelf, so there's great SaaS that we can be able to offer clients, and so that we felt like we need to be able. But the problem is a lot of these brands out there didn't know where to turn, didn't know who, what, what tech should I use? How do I get there? Even if I get it, how do I manage it? And so we wanted to say we're going to democratize the data, tech and AI to make it accessible to brands of any size. Okay, and? And?
Speaker 1:Then the third piece that falls into this about why is that gap in the marketplace? Most of that tech and most of the companies, most of the focus is on these giant enterprise clients. So here in Benville and Rogers, like I'm driving by, I see every big logo on buildings here. You can imagine, yes, but reality is there are thousands upon thousands of SMBs and mid-markets who don't have access to that tech, don't have the hands on keys, they don't have the budget to do that. We wanted to help, we wanted to focus on those brands. Before we launched, we vetted all this idea with Amazon first, because they're a big, big player in this and they agreed with us. I actually had lunch today with William White, cmo of Walmart, and because we're old friends from our days at Coke, and he validated the same thing. They have a long tail, particularly in the marketplace of SMBs who just don't have access. So that's what we're trying to solve and that's why we call it BirdDog. So we've got those audiences, we find and fetch the audiences that matter most and then, for we believe, every dog has its day and so should every brand, and that's how we give them data, tech and AI to compete with a brand of any size. So neat, you know it's interesting.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you about the genesis of the name and you kind of addressed it there, but it is so interesting to see that, as retailing has evolved and as marketplaces have come online, that small businesses are certainly marketplaces of one of their key paths. And it just occurred to me as you were talking that no one is necessarily focused on them the way that you all are, and it feels like that's kind of filling an opportunity that was out there to help people not named coca-cola or partridge gamble. They have a lot of choices. They can make investments, things, but sb's don't really have those choices. They don't. They don't know where to turn. It's, it's overwhelming.
Speaker 1:So I'm guessing you may have been in this business as long as I've been that we've written this evolution of change, which has been amazing. Yeah, right, we've gone from trade and channel to customer, to shopper, to omni, to where we are today. But that's if you really it requires, if you want to be in this business today. Like it is daunting. You have to know so much, yeah, and you have to be evolved with time and a lot of what's being asked of marketers, particularly who work on these customer teams. Hey, I need you to shift from focusing how to win in store and how to win shelf and how to get displays and how to get merchandising too. I need you to be a data and tech guy. A lot of people will learn new tricks. You're asking a lot, especially when it's incredibly complicated to operate, and you have to be able, in many instances, understand how to code or to do sequel queries and we'll talk about that with with what, where 1p data is, but it's it's a pretty big task today, it seems like it, and you kind of touched on this, but I want to dive maybe a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1:At a high level, it feels like some of the biggest challenges that brands, regardless of size, are facing is either at a corporate level, looking across the market, or with teams that they've assembled to work with specific retailers like Amazon and Walmart. It feels like there's probably a number of challenges. What's the biggest challenge, in your mind, that these companies are facing that you want to really help them deal with? Well, my answer two weeks ago, before tariffs, would have been very different, indeed, but it still comes back to the same thing. It's money budget. Where do you want to focus? Where does your next best dollar go to get the result you're looking for? Right, right, and so what a lot of these companies now are there.
Speaker 1:So I'll tell you a story of when we years, 10 years ago, I was working with Cobra Coal as a client and my client at the time was trying to figure out how do we connect all this data we've got, and they were calling it the connected network experience. So it couldn't work, because there's just too many different platforms and there's too much data, too much, and there wasn't the systems that exist today. So if you tried that effort today, it would have been very easy, or easier. At that time it didn't, and so now that's someone who has billions of dollars to spend. So now let's focus on somebody who's mid-market or down, who doesn't have that to spend.
Speaker 1:How do you figure out where to focus? How do you determine what data and tech where do I want to invest in? Do I want to insource it, outsource it? Do I want to contract it? Do I just want to buy it gets into? Also, where is your focus as a company of who you are and what I always tell companies? Let's not get distracted with something you don't do. Right, and that's where there's a lot of experts out here who can help, guide, help get you there, because the name of this game is now we're in an arms race, it's a speed game. Who can get to the finish line fastest? Right, and that's our role is to help you get to there and compete with the fastest way we can.
Speaker 1:And so then, when we talk about tech and tools to understand, it's, there's 1P data. Do you want to own it? Do you have it? Many don't. And if you are? Where are you housing it? How are you integrating that with clean rooms of retailers? How are you creating algorithms around media mix modeling or multi-touch attribution to understand what works, what doesn't, where should you spend and how we do predictive analytics and MMM is a big, big thing.
Speaker 1:We focus on that. We think we want to bring that to the world of SMBs, who don't understand that it's not just about spending media. It's about where should you spend on-site or off-site? Should you spend by which retailer? What's the cost of a SharePoint with the dollars you spend? So each question just keeps digging in. It's like peeling an onion. There's a thousand more and it's incredibly overwhelming when you ask a customer team who's based here in the Bentonville area to say I got a team who've been category managers or some analytics looking at shelf data and now to say not easy to analyze this. It's a completely different mindset. Yeah, and it's hard, I would imagine.
Speaker 1:You know one thing I hadn't planned to ask you, but it occurred to me as you were talking. When you look at retailers outside of Walmart and Sam's Club, do most of them have this 1P data where both in-store purchase behavior and online purchase behavior are connected in a way that a marketer can then use it to design campaigns, or are other retailers still segmenting that data and have not yet brought together? In your view, everybody's lagging and very far behind. That's fine, I thought, and I wanted to hear your thoughts. So, yeah, so the leader right now is Amazon, because they've just been doing this longer and they're ahead of the curve. So they're Amazon marketing cloud.
Speaker 1:Now what those typically are signals about purchase behavior, right, so we can understand who's bought a category, who's bought it, who's who's a lapsed user and we can start to do retargeting there. Centella, formerly Glimonate, with Walmart, is fast on their heels and look, I think they have brought in a lot of folks from Amazon who are kind of coming in to say here's what we did wrong there, we're going to build it right here, and so they've gone a lot faster, yeah, and they're making a slightly've gone a lot faster, yeah, and they're making a slightly better product as they go. You've got 8451 and Dunhumbie helping with some of the other retailers, I know, but it is not connected in the way to media that you want it to be, like these others are, yeah, and I'll tell you, the merchant in me hates that because of the fact that it feels like a foundational piece to setting up all the other value unlock is that you have a single view of the customer, regardless of how they interact with you. And that kind of leads me to the question I was going to ask and ask, which is one of the interesting elements about modern digital marketing is the ability to target perhaps more effectively than marketers have ever been able to do in the past and really identify audience segments that are more likely to buy a given product at a specific retailer on a given day. How do you, as a marketer, kind of help your client brands identify those segments and then try to take advantage of that market to them most effectively? Yeah, so a handful of things to talk about here.
Speaker 1:So things have changed. In the last couple of years there was a lot of push in the market to get to probabilistic data because cookies were going away Right Meanwhile. While that's going on, all of us who've been doing shopper marketing or CPG for decades have been chasing the holy grail of how do I get the transaction data? And you used to have to buy it. You could get Nielsen and that's sample size. It's not full on data. Now we have a place where we actually have it and we can connect it. And so that is the holy grail has finally been put in front of us to go make this happen, right. But now you have to understand how do I use it, how do I integrate with that right, and so that gets into, like we were talking about the AMC and Scintilla. But to do that it's not just a dashboard you turn on, you have to put in queries, you have to write SQL code. So if you don't have that on your team today, you don't have to. There are partners we use and you could go directly to that will help do that, and they have pre-built things to allow you to do that. On Amazon today it doesn't exist yet for Walmart, so it's fast coming, but it's coming soon. But I'd also argue or suggest that that data is a piece of the puzzle Now, if you're on the Walmart team, then that piece of the puzzle right now If you're, if you're on the Walmart team, that then that's all the puzzle you care about, right?
Speaker 1:The reality is, when you look at a brand, when they say each retailer say, well, I have your audiences. Well, no, you have my audiences that are within your store, which is a pot piece of the pot. In that pot we need to look at the total pie, and so each retailer and some of those overlap and some of those don't. So those are some unique audiences. So we have to bring all those together into a unified view and pull those to understand all those audiences. Now, that's from the retailer. You should also own your own audience data. You should have your own 1P data, whether it's from CRM or however you're capturing that.
Speaker 1:Plus, there are all these third party platforms where we get data from DSP, and what's important there, on all of these, is to understand of those audiences, I don't care about size, I care about value, meaning which ones have lifetime value to me, who are the right audiences to go after? Who has a propensity to purchase? Who is showing me intense signals via signals offsite that I can leverage to target onsite, right, right. And so it's again. It's getting more complicated. You're having to pull. It's not as simple as like. Well, I now have the data with Walmart and I'm going to do that as a start. If you're just starting, absolutely do that Right. If you're more advanced, you know advanced and you're saying because what happens is I'm looking for an audience and you are capped. You can only do so much with that. How do I find more audiences? And we look at each channel as an audience Search on Walmart as a channel, dsp as a channel Each of those represent an audience. Then we look offsite and there's different platforms there and each of those represent a revenue and a volume number that we can go tap into to drive traffic to get conversion.
Speaker 1:I was smiling as you're talking about that because of that, at different stops throughout my career, particularly in the early days of e-commerce, days of e-commerce the drive was always, it felt like, for the volume of visitors, the volume of audience, instead of the quality or the relevancy of office. And the number of arguments on that that I have with various stakeholders when I was in an e-commerce role or when I was in a merchandising role was interesting. And as you're talking, I'm thinking well, we have come a long way in that and kind of understanding that sheer size of an audience doesn't help you unless it is the right audience with a higher propensity, and if you've garnered all the benefit out of the signals that a customer is telling you about what their interest or their intent is right. So think of it this way the game has changed. So back in the day, like when we talk about distribution and getting into a number of stores and your ACB yes, right, and you're filling the pipeline, yeah, and so while you're filling that pipeline, numbers are great, right, there's volume to be had Right. But now it's the same thing in e-commerce and there's a lot more players. Now You're now competing with a lot more people buying media. So now it's not as easy of just saying I turn on media and it's there. Now you're competing. There's a lot more people doing sponsored products and sponsored brands, so it's not as easy as just you need to be there. That is still, by the way, like 75% of all media spend is still on sponsored products and brands. Right, demand capture let's get the people who are coming to the category to buy.
Speaker 1:But there's a ceiling and what we typically see a lot of brands get frustrated with agencies. What happens is they come in the first four to six months the things are good. They look at the ROAS ROAS is better. But then you cap out Because now, if I do a really good job, we've optimized what we can do on the platform with the audiences are coming there. And then what do you do? Right, then you're like you plateau and you're like your costs go down, your sales plateau and you get frustrated why aren't I growing? Because I've maximized that audience. So now we've got to look at where are all these other audiences that we can begin to.
Speaker 1:But we would say, start with the basics right there. So I want to ask you very quickly do you, if you're a marketer, kind of prepare the client for that ahead of time to say this is what is going to happen, so don't be shocked when it does. Or do you invariably have to let them kind of see events unfold for themselves to see how they're getting that ROAS and getting that return on their marketing spend? Yeah, we always talk to clients about a roadmap, right? So we think in stages and gates Okay, let's get this part right.
Speaker 1:Once we have this and we start to see the numbers perform the way they should, then let's open up the next gate, right? And what are the next tool to find the next audience? And we don't just fully turn it on, because every brand and every category behaves differently, right. And so let's say we let's turn on affiliates and influencers to drive traffic. Well, one category like beauty is gonna behave very differently than toys, right, and so it's not all equal. So we really highly advise unless we know, the cat beauty will do well with affiliate Right. But let's pilot, let's test and learn. Let's put some dollars in and see what happens with low risk. If it works, double down, double down, double down until we can't double down anymore. Gotcha, that seems like so logical and right directed, but I'm confident that you have to have that discussion with clients all the time. Yeah, all the time. Everybody wants the sexy new thing they want to go to. Oh, I saw these new live shopping. Let's do that Well. You haven't even mastered over here. Let's make sure we do that well before we start playing with all these other toys. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the digital shelves and product detail pages specifically because, again from my background as an online merchant as well as a merchant in a more traditional sense, it feels like one of the more foundational elements of success for a brand and for a retailer is the place where a purchase decision ultimately gets made and a buy button resides on that product detail page. And buy button resides on that product detail page. What kind of optimization do you and your team recommend to your brand clients in terms of the investment in that ultimate destination, the product detail page? So I held out. I knew this question was coming, so I held off on the last one because we talked about that roadmap. This is number one period.
Speaker 1:So, first off, before we talk about the details, what's important about it is there's a symbiotic relationship between your PDP or brand store and Armenia. Let's make sure that you are performing well with your PDP. Before we ever spend a dollar on media, we want to make sure you can have a high converting page, otherwise we're wasting money. Well, I'm so excited to hear you say that, because so many people think the other way. They drive a bunch of audience to the page and if the page doesn't convert, then they blame the media for not performing. And then you've created your own problem. Right Look. And on top of that, why wouldn't you want to make sure you can get the most free conversions through organic growth and showing at the top of the page? Because you have your page built right, yes, with the right content, and then when people land there, you have the right content to convert, in which?
Speaker 1:So when we talk about it again, start with the basics. Yes, the headlines, your bullets and your A-plus content and your visuals Right Top, so think top third of the page. We got to get that right, and video is more and more becoming more important. About getting that right. Now a lot of brands say, well, especially small brands, I don't have the budget to do it. Well, amazingly, now there's so much AI that you can get stuff done for free, and Walmart's not there yet Amazon does a lot of it for free, but there's also a lot of providers out there that you can get something created. It's not going to be the thing you're going to be framing and getting an award for, but you've got to be better than some of the basics on there and understand what shoppers are looking for and the kind of content to help them convert. Then we start moving down the page and we're looking at your A-plus content right, and so now this is the romance copy a lot more detail, a lot more of the specs, a lot more video we can load up here, and we want to make sure we are, because this is also a place where, when we start driving traffic from outside, this is where we're landing Is everything there to convert where you need to.
Speaker 1:Oh, and something else I left out in a huge way reviews. I was going to ask you about that because I'm passionate about user-generated content broadly and rating and center reviews specifically. So tell me where your thoughts are there. Well, first off, there are platforms for both Walmart and Amazon where you can work with them to help get verified reviews. You have to get verified reviews, yes, particularly Amazon. Yeah, with Walmart, you can use some outside parties to generate and go. You're going to have them influencers or users go, purchase your product and then write a real review and you're paying for that. But it impacts the algorithm.
Speaker 1:If the reviews aren't there, right, so everything is. Reviews aren't there Right, so everything is factored in there. And if your reviews aren't to scale it's volume as well as quality, yes, four, four stars is not going to do you great as much as 500, four stars Right, right, so let's make sure we get the reviews there to help drive the because, also, we know 80% of shoppers will change their purchase decision based on a bad review right, if the reviews aren't right. So you should also be taking that into context of, like, what are our shoppers telling us right, should I be changing something about my product? Or is there a dissonance between the visuals and the copy than what the product actually is? And that's where most bad reviews come from that dissonance that, oh, this isn't what I thought I was getting, or the size or the shape or whatever the issue is. So you need to be actively listening to those reviews.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to hear you say that, because I've advocated for that at various stops throughout my own career and it resulted in far more arguments than I ever thought I would. So I love it when someone your background kind of confirms the theory of that. Yeah, I think, like in the traditional retail store, all right, so digital store is no different than the physical store. Create awareness. We're getting on the perimeter of the store as you're coming in. I got my end caps where I'm trying to create some sponsored brand or video to get you in, and in the shelf itself where I'm closing the deal, right, and so I knew what do I have there? So, like you, like all the years, I've worked on tons of CPGs globally and it's always a call to action, and so is your call to action right on your PEP. I love it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I love it. It's just as important as packaging is in physical retail, and we could have a whole other episode. Yeah, there's a whole episode just on this. Yeah, exactly, let me kind of shift the conversation to analytics and reporting, and it feels like that's some of the elements of retail that are taking greater importance in any role, particularly for brand marketers, and the amount of data available to leaders in different parts of a retail organization is greater than ever.
Speaker 1:My question for you, given your background in this, is what kind of analysis do you use, the most critical for success for a brand, not only for themselves in their own context, but in their partnership with their, with their retail partners? Where should their greatest focus be? All right, this is where I want to lose your listeners. Well, they've been warned. They've been warned. I don't care about Roaz tacos, acos, share voice. They're KPIs, they're great indicators.
Speaker 1:They were created at one time and because at the time, we were working in a channel Right, and it was an easy way to be able to communicate to senior leadership in a company. So here's a number I put in these dollars and here's my return on ad spend. Here's my total advertising cost. Here's what I'm getting. So it was an easy metric to understand, right? Did anybody get bonused on ROAS? Does their stock price have anything to do with that? Absolutely not. Doesn't appear in any annual reports.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what we care about? Top line revenue, profitable share growth, just like any other. We're looking when we're in store or anywhere else other. We're looking when we're in store anywhere else. That's what matters. All the other metrics are absolutely important to understanding. Am I tracking in the right direction to achieve those goals of growth and share growth? And then other, the new metrics, the new hot word that is. So last year the word was ai, this year the word is incrementality, and so that is. Everybody's getting their own definition. I'll give you mine in a sec.
Speaker 1:But the two things we really like to look at beyond the share growth and the sales, are incrementality and new to brand. You know, are we so from a definition standpoint, incrementality, the way we define it and look at it is are we getting a transaction or sale that I didn't get yesterday because I ran the media? Right now? That could come from more frequency of use, it could be from a larger basket, it could be a new brand. There's lots of ways that that can be defined, and so that also gets into like when I'm doing media, how do I target those individual groups and how do I drive that? They're not all equal and we can do all at the same time. New brand is all about are we bringing new shoppers in? Am I stealing from my competitor? Am I bringing somebody into the category altogether, like these new for you, these better for you drinks right now that are out there? That is a whole new category that is stealing and bringing all sorts of new shoppers in.
Speaker 1:From an incrementality standpoint, it's not just defining who these audiences, how am I bringing them in and what's more, transaction. It's also about how do I optimize my media in real time to get incrementality. So with our platform, we leverage data in the algorithm that helps us optimize daily against that. So we do it in two ways. One is through an overlay on our tech to help us understand incrementality, but we also do it in the planning stage. I can't emphasize this enough for everybody is that media mix modeling is what I believe is where they need to be focused.
Speaker 1:Media mix modeling takes in all your sales data and your media data to understand where should my next best dollar go by retailer and by on-site or off-site? Yes, so because again now, typically so. I'm sure I can hear fingernails on boards of people listening right now, but when you hear MMM, most people think of these huge projects. I go back in time, like when they finish the project and do the research. They hand over a phone book to you like here's all digital. It's algorithm-based. As fast as we get data back from retailers and data back from the media, we can optimize it again and again as frequent as we want. We can do it weekly.
Speaker 1:That allows us to do a couple things. One, optimize spends. Should I be moving dollars from retailer X to retailer Y? Should I be spending more on-site or should I be taking stuff off-site, because our job is not to spend $100,000 on Walmart. So client comes in and says I got 100 grand to win on Walmart. They said win, not spend, and so now Walmart wants. They want 25% more money right now, and so they want 100% of your dollars there.
Speaker 1:But the media mix modeling will show you. Is there a more effective way to get that spend, to get the share you're looking for? Should I be using meta or tech time? What impact will it have? So all of this allows us to do predictive analytics, to understand. So everybody can go to their leadership and say, look, here's different models and we can run those MMM models against share new to brand profitability and we can run those concurrently and say, okay, here's the different scenarios. If we want to spend more money, what happens. If I spend less, what happens? And so now we can make decisions very wisely before we start spending money. And so then we're going to act in confidence about moving forward. So that's why we think it's really, really important for the MMM.
Speaker 1:And then, as we're doing that because we can do that with frequency it's another tool for incrementality to understand which one drove it. So it feels like the traditional way that marketers measure success, which is certain KPIs. You're a little outdated in incrementality and where I spend a dollar most effectively should perhaps, maybe where that focus should evolve to instead of just some of the more traditional marketing. Yeah, I think those are KPIs, right. So, thank you. What I get, bonus, I'm here to drive the business and the metrics now are about'm here to drive the business and the metrics now are about. Well, driving the business is incrementality. Like I started my business. I started the industry 25 years ago, working for Miller Brewing Company, and everything was about how do I get one more beer in somebody's hand, one at a time. So it's the same thing. It doesn't matter what we're selling, how we do it is different, but what we're ultimately trying to do is Back then I put it in your hand physically. Well, along those lines, retail media networks have been one of the fastest-growing aspects of retailing in recent years, for the retailer as well as for the brand marketer, and a significant amount of brand marketing dollars now flow into these networks.
Speaker 1:You kind of touched on this a little bit, but I want to take it maybe a little deeper. How do you advise your clients to spend most effectively, both across retail partners and within a specific retailer? Because it feels like that's a little bit more complex. Now to your point earlier than it's been in the past. Well, let me simplify things pretty fast.
Speaker 1:First off, top five retailers Walmart, amazon, instacart, target and Kroger represent more than 90% of all retail media spend. So that also Is that a good or bad thing? By the way, it makes things a little bit easier. I don't think it that a good or bad thing, by the way. Uh, it makes things a little bit easier. I don't think it's a good thing. But first off, it's already complicated. Yeah, so now there's there's 250 other retail media. That's why I asked the question yeah, so now? But they're all fighting over 10 percent right, and so I don't believe.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's sustainable. You know there are partners out there, companies like cody and a couple others, who are trying to unify a platform for them. Because it costs so much to maintain the technology to do that. They are completely upside down. So they're going to have to get into a situation where they're in a group where it's easier to access and if they can do that, then it makes sense for brands because it's easier to get to them.
Speaker 1:If I have to work within 30 different platforms, it's just not feasible. There's not enough hands-on keys, enough focus. A couple of very large CPGs I've talked with and basically told me I think I'm going to focus on top six and just forget everybody else. It's just too hard, I don't have the resources to do it. And as much as an agency said well, we can do that for you. Still, that's costly, it adds cost to it and there's just the capability. So that's the other issue.
Speaker 1:Amazon and Walmart and Instacart are light years ahead of the other 200, right? And so now, even though there's retailer Y, small mid-market guy, has a platform, he doesn't have enough capabilities. He only can do some basic things on search. They're not connected to some of the offsite platforms, they don't have DSP built in, so or they're not connected with a trade desk or with Tik TOK. To understand, do I have attribution coming back, do I know where these sales are coming from? So then they become less attractive because they and so. But to become more attractive you got to spend more on the tech to get it in there, and so they're in a very tricky place to become more valuable. And so I'm very interested.
Speaker 1:I think there's going to be some consolidation over the next couple of years, and the merchant in me thinks about the fact that, while I can see the argument that they're making on focusing on those top networks, in particular product categories, in particular consumer segments, in particular geographies, there are regional or specifically new players that in that market or in that business or serving that particular customer, they are top at what they do, even though they don't have the footprint of an Amazon, and so it feels like to have, and I get why they're saying what they're saying, if they're advertisers, but there's a whole lot of customers that they're not going to reach with a strategy like that. Right, and those are. Again, those are audiences, yeah, I think in terms of. So, again, it gets to who's making the decision. Is it the customer team? They only care about their retailer. Yes, right, the brand or the CMO cares about all of us. So that's where the conversation has to be held at that level. Yeah, and so the but the problem is, then, this we're really bad in this industry. It's gotten better with the media side of it, but, like, we're really bad at like, oh, you're on the brand team, you don't understand retail, so there's no credibility. Right, you don't understand retail, so there's no credibility, right, you don't. And they don't. It's not a ding, it's just. You know they have a different expertise than what people here do. But now, but to get the spin you need you have to make the argument and do the compelling argument with them.
Speaker 1:So again, I go back to M&M. What's the cost of a SharePoint? So, maybe because right now it's more competitive on Walmart and Amazon. Right, it costs more. The media's going up in price and maybe there's other retailers. Here's a less expensive way to find some audiences. So can I? This kind of goes. It makes me think of election maps. What's my path to win? How do I and it's not just I got to win Texas and California, it's. It's more complex. It's more complex. There's a lot of other small places, of ways to get there and if you can find that path for you, or find that sweet spot or find the retailer we have a client who just launched a beverage brand and they're very focused on not these smaller retailers, you know, uh, it's so fresh, fresh time in like specs and techs, like, and they're having a lot of success being very focused. The other players aren't there, right, so it gives them an upside to to compete. It makes sense.
Speaker 1:One of the things you talked about earlier and her touched on of optimize their spend and enhancing the performance of their spend over the course of time. Yeah, so AI. So the buzzword last year is still a buzzword and still people throw it around and have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, I saw Part of why I asked the question. So what's look, our take, the way we look at AI, because we do talk a lot about AI. We have a platform called Daisy with AI right in the middle.
Speaker 1:But it's not about some brand new code and how we're reimagining the world right. It's how AI, the best use of it today is how do I make sense of a volume of data? How can I look at all this volume that before took an analyst weeks manually doing in some spreadsheet to now it can crank it out in seconds or minutes to be able to say here are some great insights or indicators of what's going on. So I'd rather have my staff, your staff, be focused on strategic thinking than running reports. So if AI can help us streamline and automate reports and so, as we put, have our humans still making the hard job, decision-making based on those insights? Like it's about speed, how can I get to volume of speed to do things Right? And then now there's also now what I love, where AI is content.
Speaker 1:So go back to PDP. Like I need to write a PDP page. I can direct it with content and it will crank it out for us. And again, it's not going to be 100%. Ai's job is to get you on the path. Yeah, right, it's going to look at a lot of content out there. It's only good as where you point it to or what content you give it, right. But if you do that, then you're going to cut your time down by 80, 90% and you can spend the fine tuning time to get it exactly the way you want it to be, versus starting from zero.
Speaker 1:The same thing with creative video. We just came back from e-tail. We just saw a company make unbelievable strides in video for streaming TV, and so so many brands. It's the other thing we try to tell our clients In today's world. And so many brands. It's the other thing we try to tell our clients In today's world, especially with the data like Scintilla and AMC. Streaming TV is accessible to any brand. Now Anybody can be on TV. But it's about do you have the content? And so now there is a platform we just witnessed that built an entire spot for apparel with unique users, unique clothes, and then, as the certain offers go away, or talent goes away, or things go out of stock, the products change automatically and you cannot tell. It's AI. Now, again, it's not a Super Bowl commercial, but it's doing the job you need it to do to create that awareness, to get the traction you want, right? So I think, like it's speed, it's optimization, it's creative, okay. So that brings me to the last question. Hopefully, this kind of ties the bow on some of the things we've been talking about.
Speaker 1:I imagine that you see a number of brands doing things well and others that are doing things poorly in how they manage their digital spend these days. Are there any kind of recurring themes or advice that you, uh, as a marketer, would, would give that kind of helps them address some of the common missed opportunities or or mistakes that you see kind of on an ongoing basis? So this isn't the sexiest answer, but boring wins. What I mean by that is the basics win. Get your PNAP right. Take care of the demand gen of the audiences who are coming on the site. Let's do the sponsored product and sponsored brand. Let's capture those who are here first. Let's do the basics brilliantly.
Speaker 1:Second thing is let's try, so like again, go back to the data. What does the audiences tell me? Where should I be going? What tools should I be doing? It's not an all in. How do we try? And the third thing is how do we fail fast? Right? That's the name of this game. So this, there's a lot. You would know this, like especially early days of e-commerce and media, there was a lot of set and forget it, yes, and those days feel like they're gone. Yeah, they're totally gone. Yes, it did work then because there wasn't competition in, like you didn't have as much and there's only place and it was working. Right now, you have to learn very quickly is it working or not? Can I pull the dollars? Do I reallocate somewhere else? What are the data telling me where I should go? So you know, it's those three things. Do the basics brilliantly, so boring wins, fail fast and try a lot. That makes perfect sense, and I think that's that's great advice, and I, that's the thing.
Speaker 1:Part of why I was excited to have you join us is it feels like so many marketers and so many brands, particularly smaller ones, that you really focus on helping. They need that guidance. They need that advice. They need to hear the tough love conversations about this shiny object that you're being sold by others is not the solution. Here's how to advance your brand and drive sales the most effective ways. Right? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely so. Thank you so much, uh, for joining us.
Speaker 1:It just it feels like digital marketing broadly and the technology that underpins it is advancing at an unbelievable pace and that yesterday's best practice would seem to be becoming obsolete at a blistering pace. Brands, alongside their retail partners, have to continually, it feels like, revisit their approach, where they spend, how they deploy their assets most effectively to drive the business. And this has been a great conversation. Thanks, I appreciate the chance to be here. Enjoyed the business. And this has been a great conversation. Thanks, I appreciate the chance to be here. Enjoy the conversation. All right. So it's exciting to learn from market leaders like Sean and from his team at BirdDog on the most effective ways to drive results through digital marketing, and conversations like this tell us that it's not a one size fits all. It is very much a dynamic challenge, a dynamic marketplace out there. You really very much a dynamic challenge, a dynamic marketplace out there. You really got to stay on top of its house. Glad we had this conversation today. And so, for the Digital Front Door, I'm Scott Benedict. Thanks for joining us.