Kevin Hillstrom: MineThatData

Playing Merchandising Detective

In the 2016-2018 timeframe, I was asked to evaluate a business that was simply bumbling along. I was told to figure out how a company with a reasonable annual repurchase rate (35%ish) could struggle to grow, even though customer acquisition efforts were being managed properly.

This is when you have to become a Merchandising Detective.

Very few clients manage merchandise consistently over time.

It's easy to see when the CFO demands higher gross margins. I'll see an immediate price per item purchased increase that is immediately paired with a customer response decrease and/or conversion rate decrease.

It's easy to see when a merchant quits or is fired. The new merchant comes in, has disdain for what the predecessor did while disrespecting what previously worked (see Lands' End 2014-2015ish for examples), leading to a new vision that is "trend right". Sales plummet and it takes 2-5 years to dig out of the mess. Nobody wants to hear that message, but that's frequently the message you deliver when playing merchandising detective.

It's easy to see when the paper / printing folks interact with unsuspecting catalog merchants. Costs increase by 20% or 25%, the unsuspecting catalog merchant cuts pages, the pages that are cut are not supported via digital marketing, and sales decrease ... then the paper / printing folks belittle the merchants for "being stupid". It's a common story post-COVID.

If you are planning on selling your business (catalog brands) or rebuilding your business (many ecommerce brands are in the rebuilding stage right now), you'll need a stable merchandising base. Take two years and build your merchandising foundation. This isn't the time to hire a "maverick" who takes risks. You need the smartest people possible to put together a multi-year plan to put your business on stable ground.

Playing Detective

This is way back in 2016. The Private Equity firm wanted to buy a catalog brand. Their initial review of the data showed that the brand "bumbled" along for several years ... and then eighteen months ago the business surged. "Tell us the scheme this brand employed" was the mission.

What "scheme" did the brand employ? What is your guess?

Did you make a guess?

It took me all of four minutes running this business through 8,500 lines of code to reveal the reason. They juiced up their customer acquisition efforts for about a year, then let all those new customers pay off handsomely via well-analyzed customer lifetime value metrics while throttling back customer acquisition, thereby making the p&l look utterly robust.

This is the kind of stunt you can pull off when you mismanage your business for a considerable period of time and then the owner wants to buy a yacht at the same time that a smart marketer/analyst figures out the secret to success. When executed properly, Private Equity pays a higher multiple for the business.

Of course, it begs the question ... why wasn't the brand smart enough to do this in the decade prior? If it was smart enough, the business would have sold for 2x - 3x what it sold for.

The best time to properly manage the inflow/outflow of customers was ten years ago.

The second-best time to properly manage the inflow/outflow of customers is tomorrow morning.

A Healthy Business Metric

If I asked you the following question, would you be able to answer it?

For every twelve-month buyer you earned through the end of 2025, how many marketing dollars will you spend speaking to the customer in 2026?

I'm willing to bet the following:

Fewer than 1 in 2 readers could come up with a credible estimate. And a credible estimate is a good thing ... it will immediately tell you if you have a marketing problem.
Fewer than 1 in 40 readers have actually measured the metric (email me kevinh@minethatdata.com) if you have actually measured the metric ... we'll determine if my estimate is correct.

Why is this metric important?

The metric is a measure of business health.

The best businesses generate "some" volume from marketing, especially via their customer acquisition efforts. These businesses frequently have a 10% ad-to-sales ratio. The brand might spend $5.00 per year marketing to the twelve-month buyer ... with most marketing dollars spent acquiring customers AND the merchandise is so compelling that the customer willingly purchases on her own with minimal prompting (AND the prompting is email / organic social which costs next to nothing).

Many profitable ecommerce businesses generate considerable volume from marketing. These businesses frequently have a 20% ad-to-sales ratio. The brand might spend $12.00 per year marketing to twelve-month buyers. They spend a lot of search and paid social, and unfortunately those dollars reach indecisive twelve-month buyers considering shopping from the competition ... the marketing dollars are a tax the brand pays because their merchandise isn't compelling enough. Vendors and Agencies will tell you that the marketing expenditures lead to increased profit. They tell you this for a good reason ... "they" increase their own profit. The higher level of ad-spend most likely leads to more profit dollars for you, sure, but it is at a sub-optimal rate, a tax you pay for not having compelling merchandise.

Then we have those catalog marketers with ad-to-sales ratios between 25% and 30%. They're disconnected from modern ecommerce. The acquire half or more of their customers via traditional lists and co-ops. They send 20 catalogs a year to their twelve-month buyer file. Their email marketing metrics look awful (and worse, an agency convinced the brand to attribute email orders to catalogs). They cut-and-paste catalog creative on Instagram then say that Instagram "doesn't work". Paid Social is considered a "waste". Paid Search orders are attributed to Catalogs. These brands spend $20 per year marketing to their twelve-month buyer file, making it very difficult to achieve a robust business that yields a 10% pre-tax EBITDA.

If you are trying to sell this business ... good luck. Few people want to purchase advertising-dependent businesses. Even fewer want to buy advertising-dependent businesses catering to 72 year old customers via paper.

Are you spending $5.00 per year per twelve month buyer?

Are you spending $12.00 per year per twelve month buyer?

Are you spending $20.00 per year per twelve month buyer?

When A Business Has Long-Term Potential

There are things that are somewhat easy to fix.

When I see a business that needs 300,000 new/reactivated customers and is only acquiring 200,000, I usually see a marketing problem that can be fixed. The client may not see the problem that way, but it's a tactical issue that can be resolved.

Businesses that have long-term potential have a signature other businesses don't have. Long-term potential businesses acquire customers that generate plentiful downstream profit. I can also tell if the business has smart marketing/analytics employees ... if the business acquires customers who generate plentiful downstream profit, smart employees compensate by acquiring customers at a loss (or as a proxy their customer acquisition efforts have an unnaturally low ROAS).

Business Without Long-Term Potential.

Customer Acquisition ROAS = 4.00.
Profit on Acquisition Transaction = $2.00 per customer.
Year 1 Downstream Profit per Customer = $4.00.
Year 2 Downstream Profit per Customer = $2.00.
Year 3 Downstream Profit per Customer = $1.00.

Business Without Long-Term Potential, Managed for Short-Term Profit by Smart Marketers/Analytics Professionals.

Customer Acquisition ROAS = 8.00.
Profit on Acquisition Transaction = $12.00 per customer.
Year 1 Downstream Profit per Customer = $4.00.
Year 2 Downstream Profit per Customer = $2.00.
Year 3 Downstream Profit per Customer = $1.00.

Business With Long-Term Potential, Well Managed by Marketing/Analytics.

Customer Acquisition ROAS = 2.00.
Profit on Acquisition Transaction = ($10.00) per customer.
Year 1 Downstream Profit per Customer = $15.00.
Year 2 Downstream Profit per Customer = $11.00.
Year 3 Downstream Profit per Customer = $8.00.

The first business is one you don't want to acquire. Management doesn't know what they are doing. Marketing/Analytics don't understand the importance of profit.

The second business is worth considering only because smart people work there. It's the same business! However, the marketing/analytics folks generate enough profit acquiring a customer ... they understand that the customer doesn't have long-term potential ... so they optimize the business to make it profitable today. The buyer is purchasing "smart people" in this instance.

The third business is one that Private Equity or smart professionals want to purchase. ROAS isn't low because it's low ... it's low because marketing/analytics over-invest in new customers, losing money on the acquisition transaction to net out handsomely over three years. The owner of the first business would gladly lose $10.00 to profit $34.00 over three years ... but she can't do that because she sells merchandise that customers don't want often enough to generate future profit.

All of these dynamics are determined by "what" the brand sells. If you sell something that can be purchased year-round and the customer wants to buy it 2-3 times per year, you have the third business. If you sell something the customer only needs once every-three-years, you are managing the first business or the second business.

The first/second business cannot be fixed by the marketing/analytics folks ... it can only be optimized. The first/second business has a merchandising problem - the business is selling merchandise that customers don't want often enough to generate sufficient profit.

If you are wondering ... yes ... consultants see the first/second business every single day. Try telling the Chief Merchandising Officer that he isn't selling merchandise that customers want often enough to generate sufficient profit.

Alarms Go Off In My Head

Here's a must read if you think AI isn't a bubble that is going to explode and wreak havoc (click here).

This is the quote that caused alarm bells to go off in my head: "This kind of mythology only grows in an environment deliberately deprived of good information."

There it is!

Ecommerce is misled by the mythology of conversion reporting, failing to understand customer relationships because Shopify shows conversion on an item among loyal buyers is 9.4%.

Catalog marketing is misled by the mythology of the matchback report (and for some bizarre reason an obsession among paper / printing folks on neuroscience).

Email marketers are misled by the mythology of open rates (a tactical metric but not a revenue-generating metric).

Social media marketers are misled by the mythology of engagement (a tactical metric but not a revenue-generating metric).

Search marketers are misled by the tyranny of ROAS (a revenue limiting metric).

Every one of us (myself included) deliberately deprive ourselves of good information in an effort to believe in the shared mythology that motivates us in our daily work but causes us to fail, to perform in a sub-optimal manner. We believe in a false marketing idol of some sort.