Happy New Year! As I prepare for the year ahead, I like to pause and reflect on the previous year, find the lessons to take forward, put some of the hard times away, and make sure to celebrate the wins, even the small ones. This year was hard for many of us in the eCommerce industry, maybe harder than it should have been. In many ways, 2023 was a good test to make sure we had our compass pointed in the right direction. For many, this was a really hard personal and business journey. As we look to find our equilibrium in a post-pandemic world, the economy and unrest around the globe continue to throw us curve balls.
This year felt like a gut check for me personally. I moved to a new industry, bringing my CX background to a new team with a new focus on launching a SaaS product in a tricky space. This was a welcomed challenge, I was excited to guide our business forward with a great team that really cares about our customers and their colleagues. As with many big ambitions, things didn't go as planned.
A challenging year for eCommerce; brighter days ahead?
When reflecting on the state of eCommerce in '23, I came away with one primary theme: change. Rapid, dramatic change. To name a few:
- Early stages of applying AI to eCommerce
- Shift of channel performance
- Massive changes in the cost of capital to support investments across the business
- Changing consumer expectations
- Appropriate mistrust in agencies as a value-added partner
- Brands expecting more value and ROI
- The easy money times brought on by the pandemic are behind us
Like so many other performance marketing agencies, Finch experienced customer churn at its highest rate in our 16-year history. Some of the main causes of this churn include bankruptcies, consolidations, changes in marketing strategies, moving support in-house, and reducing marketing budgets. These causes all led to a challenging 2023.
Our business model and focus had to change quickly. No longer could we be a one-trick pony that offered only paid media services to our business partners. One bright spot in 2023 is that our global Finch team rose to the challenge of defining our path forward.
When asked, "How does Finch need to evolve to support our customers' success best?" the team came together to offer a bold new vision for Finch built around the needs of our customers. We have opened new opportunities and partnered with some amazing companies, and for the first time in many years, we have a clear and united vision.
Looking back at 2023, I wanted to call out some of the good that I am seeing in my team, the industry, and the changes I hope to see impact the eCommerce space and how we transition from a tough few years and get back to some essential business, customer, and employee experiences that genuinely matter.
Volumes of data and the importance of clear business metrics
Data, data, everywhere, but still a lack of clarity. I spent 10 years in the Business Intelligence (BI) space before moving over to Finch. Ten years ago, as BI was starting to explode, there was this concept that if a little data was good, then a lot of data must be even better. All the BI companies and early AI offerings treated users of the software as power users and data analysts. This was the norm for many years until data experts realized that only 1% of users from business units actually had the needs or skill level of a data analyst.
Most people, us “normal” business types, need data to be presented in a highly summarized way that helps us understand what is happening, ask questions, collaborate, and work towards actionable insights as a business team. This shift changed BI forever. As it turns out, business users wanted to start with highly summarized information aligned with their business KPIs that focused on actionable insights and allowed them to dig deeper if they wanted to.
I bring this up because I am seeing a similar evolution taking place in the eCommerce and general marketing space. Due in no small part to the availability and cost of capital, marketing teams are being held accountable in many new ways.
I have read a few posts on getting rid of ‘vanity metrics’ within marketing teams, holding marketing accountable to business outcomes and making sure that all teams are focused on clear business metrics that align with the objectives and health of the company.
As painful as it may be, this shift in mindset helps all business teams think about how they are linked to the health of the business and customer lifetime value (LTV). As we enter 2024, Finch is committed to supporting our customers with reporting and analytics built with an understanding of their business needs in mind. We have some exciting plans for our product roadmap that focus on data clarity, shared action, collaboration, and ways to tell a better value-driven data story.
AI is an obvious game changer in 2024
The impact of generative AI is almost overwhelming. The promise of AI has largely been a letdown for the last 10-plus years until this year. With the launch of ChatGPT and other generative AI applications it seems that AI is finally ready for prime time. It is not perfect; I believe 2024 will see a lot of legislation and controls put in place, but man oh man, has this last year been one to remember! Using ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) has impacted almost every industry incredibly quickly, none more than in the marketing space.
Source: CB Insights
We are, like many, still trying to figure out how to connect the use cases for where and when to use AI to improve the customer, business, process, and profit journey within our own team and company. Almost weekly, one of our Finch team members shares an idea on ways to improve time to value for either our own business or that of our customer’s. The creativity and ideas for differentiation and efficiency resulting from these discoveries have been notable. For me, it is exciting to witness and be a part of it in 2024. Realizing the full impact of AI will be a long journey but one that should help us all kick-start projects, ideas, and create value in the new year.
Know your numbers!
2023 felt like a wake-up call or a much-needed reset around realistic expectations of achievable business growth. In discussions with our customers and prospects this year, when asked "What are your goals for the year" many would detail a 10x return or 40% growth rate. These are all fine goals if the supporting elements are in place. Before committing to a strategy or partnering with an agency, it's important to have a realistic view of what's possible.
Essentially – know your numbers. Before committing to a strategy or partnering with an agency, it's important to have a realistic view of what's possible. A great agency partner should help you create a realistic and well thought out growth plan by considering past performance, opportunities for a shift in strategy and alternative approaches to ad spend.
Source: Hubspot
In addition, friction is a topic discussed extensively as it pertains to understanding the customer buying journey, employee experience, revenue operations, and overall brand experience paths. Loyalty is a very important strategy that needs to be rolled into your acquisition and retention goals. In 2023 this has become a big focus for the team at Finch.
We have a lot to improve for our business and around the ways we help our customers review their customer and profit journey paths. The team at Finch is working to ensure that all growth strategies are rooted in balancing what we refer to as the bowtie funnel. Acquisition + retention + costs are key parts of our strategy development.
DSPs: The Trade Desk coming of age
Finch was an early adopter and partner of The Trade Desk (TTD). In the first few years, it was hard to clearly show the value of the TTD platform due to unknown levels of conversion double counting with other platforms and the attribution difficulties between various platforms, and defining which touchpoint influenced a new sale or repurchase
My observation is that in 2023, this all changed. I have seen more adoption of Demand Side Platforms (DSP) like TTD in the last 6 months. Validation in the marketing space, customers asking for prospecting and retargeting options, and ways to reach new audiences using Connected TV (CTV) and Digital Out of Home (DOOH), for example. Reporting has also improved so that showing value and reducing the mistrust of double counting has also led to more adoption and validation that the future is strong for DSPs.
As of January 2024, Google will begin deploying changes to third-party cookies, which will impact how many eCommerce marketing teams prospect, retarget, and engage with users; it will be important to have a healthy omnichannel approach that balances creative and new ways to acquire business while also creating a positive customer experience that leads to brand loyalty. At Finch we are deploying and exploring UID 2.0 and LiveRamp solutions to ensure our team and customers are ready for this change.
Takeaways: growth, success, and people helping people
2023 was a year of love, hate, growth, and change for me and the team at Finch. We learned a lot about our business, who we are, who we want to be, who we are not, and how we can and should challenge ourselves to be better. Our most significant objective for 2024 is to ensure that our customers understand what growth can look like, provide tools to track growth, know what to do next, not be afraid to try new things, understand what achievable success looks like, and, as always, creating experiences that make us proud to come into work each day.
I am excited to turn the page on 2023 and get 2024 off to a good start. I have learned a lot in my new role as CEO over the last 6 months. Top of the list is that no matter what we do, sell, or the success we have, the core of what matters is the success of our people. People are what makes us successful at Finch. Our team, the customers we help, the brands we work to grow, and the tools, systems, and processes we support to better understand our business and our customers' business start with our people.
I say this a lot: we are in the people helping people business. Our product is our services and our team, so making sure that we keep the focus on customer, employee, brand, and product experience is the core of what I am excited to keep building in 2024.
Thanks for tagging along on my journey and thoughts. Best to you in 2024.
