Jim Moore has been a marketing entrepreneur for over two decades. But 2016 marked his first venture into Shopify and Facebook ads. Quickly falling in love with the world of e-commerce, Jim became the Chief Marketing Officer of Celtic Knot Jewelry the following year. Ever the serial entrepreneur, Jim is now also the CEO of OptimizeX Inc.
OptimizeX Inc is a Private Equity group that develops Ad Tech SaaS for real-time reporting, attribution, analytics, automation, and AI, to drive customer acquisition and optimize customer lifetime value (LTV).
Let’s see what Jim’s eclectic experiences can teach us about attribution and ensuring the best possible customer experience.
Tune in to hear Daniel and Jim discuss:
✔️ E-Commerce & Creating a Positive Customer Experience
✔️ Facebook, iOS, and OptimizeX
✔️ Why is Attribution so Important?
E-Commerce and Creating a Positive Customer Experience
Before getting into Shopify and Facebook ads, Jim ran a 24 hour a day call center of almost 300 employees from 2009 to 2013. What’s his approach to customer support at his e-commerce store, Celtic Knot Jewelry, and within OptimizeX Inc?
“We look at customer support not as an expense, but as a profit center. It’s not so much support as it is creating a positive experience.”
Celtic Knot Jewelry goes the extra mile not only to ensure excellent brand-customer communication, but high-quality products, custom packaging, and gift-giving. Including a small gift bag with every order demonstrates care and attention to detail that shows a dedication to creating a positive customer experience.
A positive customer experience, Jim continues, goes further than the product you’re selling, the offers you’re promoting, and the creatives you use. All these things are critical, but it’s also about the way you manage a customer experience. Not just replying to social media comments straight away, but also privately messaging them thanking them for their comment, notifying them of your public reply to their comment, and providing further contact details.
“We treat every comment like a potential lead, we treat every engagement like a potential lead. This is how we cultivate the relationship with our audience.”
If a site visitor abandons their cart, they’ll get a phone call from Celtic Knot Jewelry after 15 minutes. The caller will address whatever reason the visitor has for cart abandonment. If, for example, the price seemed too high, they’ll offer a discount. If shipping is too expensive, they’ll offer free shipping.
Similarly, Celtic Knot Jewelry will also call a customer who has made a purchase. They’ll thank them for the order, verify their address, and confirm their order contents.
If anyone leaves a positive review, Celtic Knot Jewelry will reach out to the customer thanking them for the review, then offer a discount that they or their friends can use. To further extend their reach, the reviewer can actually earn 10% of whatever purchase their friends make.
All in all, 40% of Celtic Knot jewelry comes from their call center, 20% comes from email marketing, and 20% comes from SMS marketing.
Facebook, iOS, and OptimizeX Inc
When Jim and his team began building Optimize X Inc, it actually wasn’t supposed to be an attribution platform. It was originally conceived as a reporting and analytics platform.
Then Apple introduced their privacy updates in iOS 14.5, rendering the data inaccurate. This not only affected OptimizeX Inc, but it also affected Jim’s Shopify store. It was time for a new plan. Well, two new plans.
The first plan was to create a customer call center. Following up with customers via phone calls. These work to resolve issues such as abandoned carts and develop a relationship with the customer.
“Let’s go all-in on customer experience because if I can’t generate predictable results through Facebook, I’ve got to be able to recoup that elsewhere.”
The second plan concerned tracking. Once Apple began restricting third-party data, Jim recognized that it was time for first-party tracking.
Third-party tracking, Jim explains, means that you’re relying on a third party to track data for you. You use your script on their domain and you just get access to reporting and their dashboard. First-party tracking means that you track data on your own domain. Apple does not interfere with first-party data tracking. If they did, Shopify simply wouldn’t work.
Jim and his team, therefore, launched a server on their domain, creating a subdomain that tracks site visitor activity: how long they stay for, how far they scroll, what they click on, or if they watch a video. That data is then sent back to Facebook.
In developing this system, the OptimizeX Inc team realized that in order for all their tools to work, end to end analytics, automation, and AI, they needed to focus on attribution.
“It’s kind of like building a house. Getting the structure up takes no time at all. But it’s once you get the structure, the thing that takes time is finishing the house, getting all the fine details where you want it to make it your home.”
Optimize X Inc will be looking to keep the beta open through the end of March 2022 and make its official launch in April.
Why is Attribution So Important? (29:31)
Put simply, attribution identifies the touchpoints towards conversion. What series of actions does a customer take before converting. How important is each step?
As Daniel points out, attribution is a surprisingly underrated topic in e-commerce.
Cold audiences need data. The more customer data you can track, the more accurately Facebook can predict who you show your ads to. When you put your first-party data back into Facebook, your retargeting improves.
Jim advises anyone who is struggling with performance or attribution is to not think of Facebook as the be-all and end-all. It is not the only way to manage customer acquisition.
Focus on building a community. Engage with your audience. Understand their needs, wants, frustrations, and struggles. Produce products that speak to them a create the best customer experience you can.
“It’s great to get your data back to Facebook so that your ads perform predictably. But if things don’t work, there's always a solution. You just have to dig down and find it.”
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