E-Commerce Speaks - Episode 5: The Importance of Collaboration - with Josh Little

The Importance of Collaboration - Short Summary

In this episode of E-Commerce Speaks, we talk with Josh Little, Head of Social for Incubeta. We get into a discussion of the benefits of collaboration, whether it be multiple teams working on one campaign, or several departments putting together an overall strategy. 

We also discuss:

• Proving value with Advantage+ Shopping and Performance Max 
• Using data to create more complex campaigns
• Advice for e-commerce retailers today

…and more!

Transcript of the episode

SAM
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of E-Commerce Speaks - with ROI Hunter. I'm here today with Josh Little, the Head of Social at Incubeta. Josh, thank you so much for joining us today.

JOSH
No worries, thanks Sam, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it. 

SAM
I wanted to start by just getting sort of an introduction about you and your company. So can you tell me: what does Incubeta do?

JOSH
Yeah, sure thing. So we would call ourselves a growth partner, which effectively... we do a bit of everything around marketing. Traditionally came from a more digital marketing agency background. So focusing in search, social display, and throughout the years expanded into different countries, expanding into different areas.

Now doing lots of e-comm stuff, CRO, and kind of the newest venture we're moving into is a lot of work on data and data solutions with our data engineering team. So we kind of really look to bring together data, technology, media and creative, all to basically create bespoke marketing partners, marketing strategies for our clients, and to help them grow as much as we can.

SAM
And who are some of those clients? Anyone... anyone I know?

JOSH
Yeah, I mean there's big UK names. So we work with Marks & Spencer's, who are
one of the biggest companies in the UK.

SAM
I do know them.

JOSH
Good news. Yes, so we work with them, we work with people like Superdrug, Wizz Air, Fatface. Lots of kind of e-com clients, lots of fashion clients. And then creatively, we do work with lots of different people who've done work with like Netflix, and Google and stuff like that so, lots of stuff going on across those different offices.

SAM
So could you walk me through then, like a typical day in the office? You get in, let's say yesterday, what's something you would discuss in your Monday morning meeting?

JOSH
Yeah. Sure, so, we... I on a Monday morning, I meet up with all our other heads of channels, so I head up the social team. But we do, like, Head of Search, Head of Display, Head of Analytics. We all get together and talk about what's going on in the industry, any big topics that we need to work on.

So, I mean a big topic for yesterday was all the privacy changes that are coming up with Google and Google Chrome cookies, and everything like that. So lots of chat around that, work around our clients: are there any things that are going on with them that we could all work together on and then just teams and how that's going.

So very much focusing on the cross-team as much as possible. We like to think... well we are, connected specialists, so as much as possible, I want my team to be working with all our other teams. And so that means really there to kind of bring those together, and then just chatting to my team. What problems we’re seeing, any client performances, areas of support, those sorts of things.

SAM
Yeah, you know, it's interesting you bring that up working with the other team because we found with the retailers we talk with as well, the more departments are able to communicate and collaborate with each other, you really come up with…

JOSH
Yeah.

SAM
cross-everything strategies, the better they tend to be doing.

JOSH
Yeah, definitely. I think that's really what we're aiming for and that's been our big push across the last couple of years, is to be that partner because as- within the social team that I started about five, six years ago. We used to do lots of things individually.

We would have a social funnel that we'd look at, we would have a search team. We found that whilst you can do each individual thing amazingly, that the synergies you really lack there. 

And so we had a bit of a restructure and all to do with bringing everyone together because as you say, we're in silos. We all kind of lack a little bit of data. And so if we can bring that together, that's just going to help us. And we've seen great results of doing that.

SAM
Definitely. Yeah. The more everyone's working from the same page the better you’re going to be able to do. I know you mentioned just now like the Google cookie situation, which I know we're waiting on for 2024 now. 

What are some of the other challenges that your clients tend to face? Is there some common ones that a lot of different retailers out there might be going through?

JOSH
Yeah, I mean, I think... a big challenge for a lot of our clients is that segmented approach that you might get, across working with lots of different teams, with agencies you often have… we have some of our bigger clients who have a different brand team as opposed to an e-com team. And just the challenges that face.

And so a lot of what we try and do is to work with lots of different departments. We have a client who we've recently run a center, like a training session, with their finance team to help them understand what's going on so that that will hopefully help with decisions down the line, fingers crossed.

But yeah, so I think kinda that segmentation is a big challenge that we try and help our clients with, But me specifically on paid social, measurement and kind of proving the values always again as well. What I spend about 70% of my job doing is working with clients. And working with senior stakeholders to help prove that value. 

And obviously with, as we start going towards cookies going, we’ve got a lot of that going into the other channels as well, displaying Google. So for me, a lot of measurement chat, that's what I find quite interesting and what clients tend to want to be chatting to me about.

SAM
Okay. Yeah. So I mean, measuring attribution, making sure something's working is always going to be a big issue, a big challenge. Are there some challenges for Incubeta itself? Because I know we talked about your clients’ challenges; what sort of stuff are you guys working through?

JOSH
Yeah, I mean, I guess somewhat candidly, like the market as a whole is obviously in a challenging position right now. Lots of clients are trying to push as much on profitability, they might look to reduce costs. They might- and that's in some ways
might be against some of the strategies that we've been working with them on
for a little bit. 

And so how do we make sure we're being responsive to our clients but also helping them out in the long term? So that's a fine thing to balance. But depending on, obviously as you are in the market, you need to do what you need to do. So there's no challenges there. So that's a big one for us. And I think the general kind of consolidation piece of as you... even like running media. 

So I know like with ASC, PMax, all those things. It's harder for an agency, a traditional agency, to try and prove their value to the client. And so we're working quite a lot on how do we make ourselves stand out as the industry becomes more standardized and how can we really add value to our clients and be that growth partner that we strive to be.

SAM
Yeah, definitely. Now, have you noticed a big change in how you're working with social media, with the introduction of Performance Max and Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns in the last few years?

JOSH
Yeah, I think it's been something that's been gradually happening for a while. We like we came from a old performance search agency and so, when we did our social offering, we- a lot of how we used to structure campaigns and run campaigns was built from maybe an old school search background, and we saw really good success with that, And we were able to go really granular campaigns, get really audience focused, and see some really great results.

But gradually that way of working has become weaker and weaker and it's just not really been what grows clients anymore. And so that shift towards taking away from the more audience granular-focused and towards the more consolidated focus, the more creative piece has been something that has been gradually happening and then obviously ASC brings that- takes that to another level putting everything into one campaign and letting it go as an agency is quite scary because then you're like, “what are we gonna do?” 

But I think through lots of testing and lots of strategic thinking about things, I think there's definitely a strong place for it. But, I would say, it's part of a bigger strategy, what you're doing in social, or whatever you're doing in search with PMax, right? There's lots of things that are going on, and that's a key piece, but it's only a piece that you need to fit around if you want to see true growth.

SAM
Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's actually that's a lot of what my company, ROI Hunter, tries to do, is working with Performance Max and ASC to kind of restore that, I wouldn't necessarily- I mean yeah, granularity. The level of visibility and control that you would have with the benefits of having something that really takes a lot of the work out of it for you. And finds the best placements.

JOSH
Because I think like the challenge I have with ASC sometimes is that- well and I guess PMax, is not always... the biggest ROAS or the biggest Return on Ad Spend isn't always the best thing for the client. So a good use case. 

We’d use it alongside ROI Hunter, without wanting to be to marketing-ey, is to, yeah, just make sure that we're separating out being used because we run with M&S and they’re very known for womenswear. So the most promising thing for us to do would be to put all the money into that, whereas that's not the best thing for the client.

And so how do we work alongside ASC feed data for you to be able to be able to pull those levers as much as possible. And I think that's where it's really important because you want to look not just at short term but also long term growth.

SAM
Yeah. And that's something where as long as you can have the control over it, you can put your own priorities and strategy into it while still taking advantage of the coolness that it offers. To use a technical term.

Now just for you personally, since you've you've been Head of Social, you have a lot of experience there, is there a particular social campaign that stood out that you're particularly proud of over your time there?

JOSH
Yeah, sure. So I don’t think I’m allowed to name the actual client, because they’re quite restrictive of the things they do. But, so there's a client that we work with
who... we do a lot of their international expansion. They’re a UK business, and what we… they had an approach of how they wanted to do this.

And what we did was ingested all their data and looked at some external data within the market, within the countries themselves, and built a algorithm which looked to rank each country based on complexity and profitability. And that effectively gave us two scores that we could plot against an axis, and we use that to kind of do a BCG type, these like, really start to rank each country down.

And then based on how that ranking looked, we would create a specific marketing plan behind it. So one that's quite low complexity and quite high profitability, you’d probably want to get the full funnel because it's a really big opportunity for us, ones who are highly complex, highly complexibility, low profitability, just having a bit of like retargeting on there probably. Fair enough. So it's not going to be a great growth effort. 

And for me I really enjoyed that project because it was really working alongside the client. They had an idea of what they thought were the best countries they should go for. Actually from this analysis there was definitely countries over- were over-indexing and some of they are under-indexing in.

And we've been able to work alongside them to shift who their focus is and see some great results on the back of it. So yeah, I think that goes beyond a little bit of just running activities for them and a bit more into the data side, which I find interesting.

SAM
It brings an additional layer of complexity to it.

JOSH
Yeah exactly.

SAM
Now, again for you personally, when you're looking for ways to keep up with the e-commerce industry, how do you like to do it? Because like for me personally, like I look around, I read LinkedIn and look at articles, maybe listen to podcasts, but I'm always curious how other people get their news and their updates.

JOSH
Yes, I mean, the big one, a big one for me is LinkedIn. I follow quite a lot of people who- and people who I’ve previously worked with who post lots of interesting stuff, and there's lots of great stuff you can get on there. So I'd say that's a big part of what I do. 

SAM
Yeah.

JOSH
And then this might be a little bit sad, but my Apple news I don’t really use for like news, so I've like tailored that to be like a digital marketing thing. So every kind of week I'll just go on to that and the algorithm is designed to basically just push the social and so… Yeah. I can go through that and try and find bits and pieces through that, which I find is quite useful. And you can... so, that's probably how I do it mostly.

SAM
And is that something... would you use similar things like LinkedIn if like say you're researching a new topic, there's a, there's a new form of strategy out there, a new, a new way to use ASC. Would you go find articles or e-books or would you be looking more into like webinars, videos or just posts on LinkedIn?

JOSH
I'd probably find it from LinkedIn and just like to see what people are doing. But I try and go to as many webinars as I can. Like I'm normally in like one a week  just to keep on top of what's going on. I mean, they’re really good and easy things to share on afterwards, so I'd always probably explore through like, LinkedIn, and there's normally someone on YouTube who's maybe got something they’re talking about in that way; and maybe that’s a podcast, maybe that’s doing their own thing.

And then yeah, try and get to the part that’s fun, find webinars that are the most relevant and get us as many of those as they can do.

SAM
Definitely. Yeah. That's actually something that's been that's been coming up a lot with the people that I've been talking to is that a lot of people are getting their information from groups on social media, from listening in on webinars, podcasts, things like that, which is interesting. 

I remember when I was first starting, it was a lot more, a lot more.The written word, and now it's a lot more the spoken and the video word.

JOSH
Yeah, yeah, easy to have on in the background whilst I’m doing something else
but I should read a bit more.

SAM
You can do them both. 

JOSH
Yeah.

SAM
Now we touched on this a little bit in the beginning, but one of the things that we've been talking a lot with our clients about is a renewed focus on profitability in e-commerce, just with the state of the economy, with interest rates the way they are, it's no longer this, this sort of growth economy that we've had for the last 15 years.

I’d just love to know your thoughts on that and what you've been seeing with your clients?

JOSH
Yeah, I mean, in general, as all of our colleagues have had somewhat of a shift towards focusing more on profitability, there's been a bit of a sliding scale because we've got some start-ups, all the way to some of the biggest brands in the country.

So it's either been we need to completely shift our focus and move purely on profitability and anything that we're doing that doesn't necessarily sit in that space, but now we just need to kind of move away from it.

I think, for example, TikTok, for example, which is a really interesting platform and there's lots of cool stuff going on there. I really want to push as much as we can on there, but it's ultimately not a short-term profitable channel, generally, for what we see compared to other providers.

And so there might be ones who turn off channels and move everything towards that side. Whilst that might be a little bit harsh, as a Head of Social, that’s not what I want to do, but you've got to read the room and just say, yeah, right now it's best for business, it’s best for… you want to make sure you're providing faith in that channel.

On the other side, there's always been some movements of profitability, so whether that's just, “we need to really make sure our performance side is doing as much as it can do and how can we push more out this?”

But there's also that element of, without wanting to be sounding too cliche, it is a bit of an opportunity because people are pushing out of the more upper-funnel spaces. There is a reduction in cost, they’re a little bit cheaper. So. 

But clients who are more established and have that budget behind them, then it's the how do we absolutely time what we're doing down here but, but try and make the most of the opportunities for those companies who aren’t able to grasp at the minute, given everything that's going on.

SAM
Right right. Well Josh, the last thing that I wanted to discuss with you is just if there's any general advice that you as Head of Social, as someone who's looked into this for a long time, might have for retailers out there.

JOSH
Yeah. I think the big thing that I've learned across the last couple of years and the big focus for me is always, has been, you're only going to get as much out of your activity and your marketing as the data- the quality of data- that you put into it.

And I think there's always been a bit of a there's always been a bit of a focus on
“how do we just do our marketing well,” and the marketing, the media mix has been
the biggest thing in the middle, but the outside elements, which in the past had been just feeding in and being like quite important, like data, analytics, all of those things, they've always been important, but the centerpiece has always been that media and how do I efficiently run my campaigns as much as possible, or what's the right mix for me to have.

What we.... But that's so much less important now. And it’s all about the data coming in because it's so fueled by the algorithms, So making sure that you… anything that you think could be useful, whether you're maybe using when you’re off-line, or you're using in your audience personas, you're not necessarily thinking about “how am I plugging that into my digital,” for example, that all should be stuff that's pulling through, looking at those trends, looking at kind of beefing up the data, like how were you pulling in your search impressions, and your search data into your social campaigns?

How are you pushing your social messaging that’s doing well into your SEO, for example, all of that data that you're kind of sitting on separately as much as you put it together, that's where we're seeing the success, not only from a measurability point of view, by like being able to get into things like MMA and areas like that. But just from a quality of the activity that you're doing, it's so important now to have like a full data audit of what you're doing and really see what's going into that.

SAM
Yeah, so we've come full circle then. We're bringing like we're bringing all the departments together in collaboration, and all the data together.

JOSH
Exactly. Exactly. I'm all about, not just talking about social, I love to work with the other teams.

SAM
Yeah.

JOSH
That's often where people will go wrong, so bringing everything together… is definitely going to work for it. 

SAM
Just as like before, the more you can get it all on the same page, get everything in line and working together, the better you can do.

JOSH
Yeah, for sure.

SAM
All right. Well, hey, Josh, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure talking with you and I hope to talk with you again soon.

JOSH
Thanks Sam. Thanks for having me.