E339 - Rapidly grow abandonment revenues and first-party, owned databases with fantastic engagement metrics | with Adam Robinson

The One Big Tip Podcast with Jeff Mendelson

Adam is known for his fearless approach to business and his ability to innovate in the field of marketing. As the CEO of Retention.com, he has become a master at developing high-ROI marketing strategies. He has gained a reputation for his iconoclastic style and groundbreaking identity resolution technology, which he uses to solve the biggest challenge facing marketers and e-commerce brands today: how to grow, engage and reactivate their first-party databases.

Despite the risks involved in his approach, Adam's entrepreneurial spirit drives him to constantly shake things up and find new solutions to complex problems. He is a firm believer that a successful marketing campaign must focus on three key elements: bolstering brand loyalty, driving sales, and delighting customers. According to him, a campaign that achieves all three of these goals can have a significant impact on the long-term success of a business.

To bolster brand loyalty, Adam believes that companies must focus on building meaningful relationships with their customers. This involves understanding their needs and desires and providing them with a consistent and positive experience across all touchpoints. To drive sales, Adam emphasizes the importance of understanding the customer journey and providing them with targeted and relevant messaging at each process stage. By identifying customers' pain points and needs, companies can create campaigns that resonate and ultimately drive conversions. Finally, delighting customers is key to building long-term loyalty and advocacy. This involves going above and beyond to exceed customer expectations, whether it's through exceptional customer service, personalized experiences, or surprise and delightful moments

Overall, Adam's philosophy on marketing campaigns is centered around creating a holistic approach. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Adam started his career trading credit default swaps at Lehman Brothers for 10 years, an experience that is depicted in the movie "The Big Short". He later founded an email marketing company called Robley, which he sold privately in 2021, similar to MailChimp in functionality.

In the world of marketing, it's important to reach customers through various platforms and engage them with compelling content. However, according to Adam, email marketing is still the most valuable asset a business can have. Retention marketing, which focuses on engaging and retaining existing customers, is a specific niche that Adam is passionate about. By using email as a key tool for engagement, businesses can create personalized experiences for their customers and ultimately drive loyalty and sales. Adam's expertise in this area has made him a sought-after advisor for businesses looking to improve their retention marketing strategies.

Retention marketing can be defined in various ways, but retention.com focuses on customer recap and addressing leakage from anonymous site visitors who do not fill out forms and bounce. The company's approach involves leveraging owned audiences, such as email and SMS, as opposed to borrowed audiences. Their proprietary technology can capture over 40% of all US traffic and resolve it to a deliverable email address, resulting in higher conversion rates and stronger customer engagement. Adam's expertise in this area has helped businesses achieve much greater success.

One key data point for bringing together customer information is cookie pools, which allow publisher networks to track individuals across websites and send targeted ads to them. Retention.com is part of these networks, using identifiers to triangulate anonymous individuals with real-world people. This process helps to build a more complete picture of customers and allows for more personalized marketing campaigns. Adam's expertise in utilizing data and identity resolution technology has made him a valuable resource for businesses looking to improve their marketing strategies.

E-commerce marketers without sophisticated technology can still improve their email capture rates, Adam explains. One simple tactic is to use an exit intent popup, which appears after a certain amount of time or when a user is attempting to leave the site. This can encourage visitors to provide their email addresses and help businesses build their databases. Running a lean operation in e-commerce makes it challenging to run numerous A/B tests on every aspect of the business. Adam suggests starting with a popup form to capture emails and then optimizing through A/B testing. This approach can help small businesses improve their marketing strategies and engage with customers more effectively.

In this episode:

[02:55] Adam Robinson describes retention.com as an incredible product.

• The best thing about email marketing is that emails are the only platform where you truly own everything.
• As long as you’re creating compelling content, an email will be your most valuable asset.

[05:00] Retention marketing involves customer recap and capturing email and SMS audiences.

• The technology can capture 40% of all US traffic and resolve it to a deliverable email address.
• Other types of data points could help in bringing all of this information.

[08:00] Some people may be uncomfortable with the idea of their information being triangulated.

• Online activities leave a trail of information for others, regardless of privacy concerns.
• Technology companies like Google and Facebook use this information to provide personalized and useful services.

[11:00] Younger generations are growing up in a world where invasive technology is the norm.

• Personal devices are incredibly useful in daily life, which is why people keep using them.
• Companies are using gathered information to improve their databases for better retention marketing.

[14:00] Multiple checks are in place to ensure that the brand is only getting US clients.

• The company's IPs are ring-fenced to only pick up US traffic and scrub non-US email addresses.
• Dr. Squash made 1.2 million in October of emails, resulting in a significant increase in traffic and purchases.

[17:00] Significantly increasing the email capture rate from 3% to 30%, for lean operations.

• Providing incentives beyond a 15% coupon can increase the email capture rate.
• Adding an exit-intent popup form will improve the email capture rate in e-commerce.