For years, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) was the go-to metric for performance marketers. It was simple, clear, and instantly gratifying — the higher, the better. But as Mark Deruyter points out in our latest episode of The MarTech Matrix, that once-reliable metric has quietly become one of the most misleading KPIs in modern marketing.

We cover:

The Problem with ROAS
The Better Stack: MER, CAC, and LTV
Measuring What Matters
How AI Is Changing the Game
Speed, Fit, and Impact: A New Way to Buy Tech

Blog Post

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Takeaways

Chapters

Takeaways

ROAS is overrated. It relies on platform data and third-party cookies, which makes it unreliable in today’s privacy-first world. It measures spend efficiency, not profitability, and can create a false sense of success.
Shift to MER, CAC, and LTV.
- MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio) = total revenue ÷ total ad spend.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and LTV (Lifetime Value) show true profit impact.
- Smart brands track these metrics by category or audience, not just overall.
Trust first-party data. Platform dashboards are directional only. Real insight comes from CRM and transaction data that connect spend directly to sales and retention.
Retention is AI’s next frontier. AI can now identify inactive customers, predict churn, and trigger personalized outreach automatically. Retention automation is becoming the biggest growth lever for established brands.
The modern marketer’s must-have skills:
- Data fluency — understand what numbers mean and how to act on them.
- AI literacy — use automation to move faster and smarter.
- Brand authenticity — merge storytelling with performance.
Buy technology based on speed, fit, and impact. If a tool can’t be implemented and delivering results within 30 days, it’s probably not the right one. Focus on solutions that make your team faster and smarter, not bloated with features.
Collaboration beats silos. The best marketing teams align brand, creative, and performance to connect storytelling with measurable growth.
Bottom line: Move beyond vanity metrics. Build a profit stack grounded in first-party data, AI, and metrics that matter — MER, CAC, and LTV. The future belongs to marketers who measure what actually drives profit, not just performance.

Chapters

01:27 How the marketer’s job changed (real-time, cross-team)

06:30 Brand’s rising importance & authenticity

09:02 Gut vs data (keep the art, validate the inputs)

12:36 Tools that accelerate marketplace performance (Stackline, Helium 10)

14:21 First-party truth over platform dashboards

15:32 Overrated metrics: ROAS → shift to MER, CAC, LTV

17:46 How to think about LTV at earlier-stage brands

21:32 Buying tech: 30-day implementation mindset; time-to-value

24:31 What vendors miss (research, economics, CFO proof)

30:42 AI’s impact: compress data → creative → execution

32:07 Acquisition vs retention (why retention wins next)

35:10 Future skills: data fluency, AI literacy, brand authenticity

38:23 Underrated channels: Affiliate & SEO (and AEO)

40:53 BFCM tip: have backup copy/creative variants ready

Blog Post

💥 Kill the ROAS Crutch: Build a Profit Stack

Why it’s time for marketers to move beyond performance vanity metrics — and focus on what actually drives profit.

“ROAS is heavily reliant on platform data and third-party cookies. It misses incrementality, retention, and true customer value.”

— Mark Deruyter, Marketing Consultant, Advisor to Blurbs and eTail West

🚫 The Problem with ROAS

ROAS only tells part of the story — and in today’s fragmented, privacy-first environment, it’s often the wrong part. Platforms over-attribute conversions. Cookies disappear. Measurement windows shrink. And suddenly, that impressive 8x ROAS means… nothing.

The problem isn’t that ROAS is bad — it’s that it’s incomplete. It’s a metric that flatters the platform, not necessarily your bottom line.

💡 The Better Stack: MER, CAC, and LTV

Deruyter argues for a new framework that focuses on profitability, not performance theater:

MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio): Total revenue ÷ total ad spend. It’s clean, cross-channel, and can be applied at the company, category, or program level.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): The true cost of earning a new customer — not just clicks, but everything it takes to get them through the funnel.
LTV (Lifetime Value): The long-term revenue a customer generates over time, factoring in repeat purchases and loyalty.

When you combine these, you get a full picture of not just what’s working — but what’s worth it.

“MER, CAC, and LTV tell a much clearer story about profitability and long-term customer value. If you have more than 50 products, track it by audience or category — not just overall.”

— Mark Deruyter

⚙️ Measuring What Matters

Moving from ROAS to profit-based metrics requires two key shifts:

First-party data as your truth. Stop relying solely on platform dashboards. Pull from CRM, commerce, and retention systems where the data is repeatable, contextual, and directly tied to revenue.
Collaboration between brand and performance teams. Deruyter points out that the most successful brands are the ones where creative, brand, and performance teams share data and collaborate in real time. That’s how you align storytelling with measurable growth.

🧭 How AI Is Changing the Game

ROAS may be dying, but measurement is far from broken.

AI is reshaping how marketers see and act on data — from predicting high-value customers to identifying which creative assets actually drive profit.

“The next big opportunity for AI isn’t acquisition. It’s retention.”

— Mark Deruyter

AI can now flag lapsed customers, recommend the perfect timing for outreach, and predict lifetime value with more precision than any manual model ever could. The future of marketing efficiency will hinge on how quickly teams integrate AI-driven insights into daily decision-making.

⚡ Speed, Fit, and Impact: A New Way to Buy Tech

Mark also shares how his tech evaluation criteria have evolved after decades of working with brands like Columbia Sportswear, Under Armour, and Power Digital.

Forget long feature checklists — today, it’s about:

Speed — Can we implement and see value in 30 days?
Fit — Does it integrate cleanly into our stack?
Impact — Will it make our team smarter and faster?

It’s a mindset shift from chasing capabilities to demanding outcomes.

🧩 The Takeaway

The best marketers aren’t chasing perfect attribution anymore. They’re building profit stacks — systems that connect spend to sales to retention.

So the next time someone brags about their ROAS, ask a better question:

“What’s your MER?”

Because that’s where truth — and profit — actually live.

🎧 Listen to the full episode: Kill the ROAS Crutch: Build a Profit Stack

featuring Mark Deruyter, Marketing Consultant, Advisor to Blurbs and eTail West

📍 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or trustblurbs.com

Full Transcript

Sean Simon (00:01.39)
Welcome to the Martech Matrix of Blurbs Production, where we cut through the noise in marketing technology and talk with the people shaping what’s next. Blurbs is a discovery platform built by marketers for marketers, a place to find the right tech faster with real answers, real comparisons, and no sales fluff. Learn more at TrustBlurbs.com. My guest today is Mark DeRoyder, a seasoned digital marketing leader who’s helped shape growth strategies at brands like Columbia Sportswear, Guitar Center,

and own mushroom. He spent his career at the intersection of performance marketing and MarTech, seeing firsthand how the way we buy, measure, and optimize has evolved from gut feel and relationships to data dashboards and decision overload. Mark’s also an advisor for blurbs, and he put it best when he said, relationships were crucial for identifying technology and partners. Now with smaller teams, numerous choices, and limited time,

blurbs is essential for efficiently finding suitable solutions. It has become a key part of my process in selecting the right partner. Today, we’re talking about how smart marketers are picking their stack in 2025 and what it really means to move from gut feel to data truth. Mark, welcome into the matrix.

Mark Deruyter (01:20.745)
Thank you so much, really, Sean. Thank you so much for letting me be here and excited to have a conversation.

Sean Simon (01:27.238)
Yeah, it’s great to have you here and get your perspective on what we’re doing. So you’ve led performance marketing for brands like Columbia and Guitar Center and Ohm, like we said in the intro. But how have you seen the marketers job change over, the last decade?

Mark Deruyter (01:44.351)
Yeah, I mean, you know, especially for somebody like me that has been privileged to be doing this for a couple of decades, it constantly changes, right? But it’s a great question because I think in the last five years, it really changed dramatically. And the biggest thing is, of course, time. You know, I think a couple of years ago, five years ago, we can look at things from a weekly, you know, sometimes even a monthly basis and have the time to optimize, have the time to really, you know, adjust. And some of that

time was also just relying on the data, you know, and the data wasn’t fast enough for a performance marketer to really act on. Today, you know, real time decision making is real, you know, that’s there, you know, so I think timing is a big part of, you know, what has changed and the fact that every day, you know, even on the weekends, performance marketers are looking at data, looking at, you know, what is working, what’s not working. I’d also say that the

Excuse me, the performance marketing role has really adjusted into an ecosystem, and it’s paramount for companies, big or small. I don’t care if the team is three or four people or 50 people. Performance marketers, they work across Amazon, affiliates, Google, and so on. And so they’re really touching the whole ecosystem of the consumer experience.

And that collaboration with that real time knowledge and information has to be exchanged, you know, especially with a brand team or some other teams like operations, you know, and that, that collaboration, we always talk about it. You hear everyone say it’s so paramount. Um, but I think it’s, you know, today it’s, it’s, it’s critical, you know, for, for performance marketers, you know, the days of, know, just kind of being in a silo, working on Google and, know, figuring out things alone, um, are long over. Um, so, you know, just I’d say.

you know, faster data is much more prevalent today and much easier to get than ever before, you know? And then just that collaboration factor, working with brand teams. I’ll just add one other piece. Ironically, I was trained and kind of always had a brand background. And then for the last 15 plus years, I’ve really spent time in the data and the performance marketing realm. But I’ve been able to bring that emergence of that skill that was a little bit on the sidelines of branding.

Mark Deruyter (04:09.307)
really to the forefront now and working with great brand departments or brand teams to really connect those dots. Because again, it’s crucial to tell that story in a seamless way.

Sean Simon (04:19.97)
Yeah, as you say all that, it makes me think of a sports team, right? Especially a football team, right? Given that we’re in football season and how important it is that everyone play their role. Everyone’s got to know their part. And if someone’s trying to do somebody else’s job or they’re not doing their own job, it throws everything off, right? If you’re in the offensive line and one guy isn’t doing his job and blocking, then the running game can’t get going or the quarterback’s going to get sacked. And I think it sounds like it’s the same here. the different people that are

If you’re working for a big enough organization and you’re fortunate enough to have somebody working in different channels, you got to communicate. You can’t just make changes in one channel and not another if they’re kind of working together. And if you’re a small organization, you’re doing everything, man, you’re right. That’s a lot of time. You’re probably dreaming about stuff and working on the weekends. And I think that’s one thing I think salespeople on the vendor side need to remember.

And I think most of them do, it’s why they’re so diligent in their follow ups, is you guys have a lot to do, especially this time of year, right? So cut you some slack. Yeah.

Mark Deruyter (05:26.987)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just to add one little tip in an example, a recent company, you know, was a little bit more traditional, right? Traditional setup in the org. and in the digital performance marketing side, we were constantly asking and working closely with the brand team, but even things like a brie brand, you know, I would encourage organizations to get performance marketers involved sooner than later. Um, versus just, you know, all of a sudden getting this information about our new brand book, right?

without having all that amazing information that they had at their disposal of data and whatnot that could influence some of that brand work, right? And like what audiences work well on performance marketing. So, you know, it was surprising and frankly, you know, this day and age that that brand rebrand project was not involving digital performance marketers. So it’s still happening, unfortunately, in this world. But back to your point, you know, the progress of the companies that are the most successful.

are really working as a fluid team as most successful football teams do.

Sean Simon (06:30.926)
You brought up brand several times. Would you say that brand is more important today or less important? Because there’s so many more brands on the market in every category, right? There’s the more well-known brands, there’s the startup brands. Do you think branding is more important or less important than, 20 years ago?

Mark Deruyter (06:33.248)
Hmm.

Mark Deruyter (06:55.723)
I think it’s more important than ever before. I think it just influences things like authenticity. think 10 years ago, performance marketers got away with saying free shipping or the value props that are obvious and easy to say. And I say that now because everyone knows about free shipping. It’s like staples or things like available now. So those things are just table stakes. So I’m actually excited to see how important

brand marketing, that content, that authenticity is now back at the forefront. And that’s going to break you out of the noise because there’s so much noise out there. So yeah, I mean, like I mentioned, even though I’ve really spent a lot of my career, the data and the performance marketing side, more recently, I’ve been able to leverage that brand skill set and or working with brand marketers that are even smarter than I am, which there’s a lot of them, but really just leverage them. frankly, that also in some ways, not just forces, but I believe

It builds that collaboration that’s really necessary because 10 years ago maybe you’d have little moments of like, this is great to collaborate on like a go-to-market plan. But today there’s so much daily collaboration that you can source from each other. It just naturally builds it.

Sean Simon (08:12.556)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I originally asked that question as I’ve been doing a lot of research in one particular vertical, have to be cosmetics in that industry for a client. And I am amazed at how many companies are in that space. Like I’ve never researched it to this degree before. And there are hundreds of cosmetic companies. And so if you were a bigger brand, like does Estee Lauder still stand out as amongst the leaders or is it some other brand that I may never heard of, but you know, their customers obviously have.

It just goes to show that if you want to stand out in a larger pack, you’ve got to have that brand. Let me ask you this. Thinking back to the title of this episode, how much of your decision making used to rely on gut feel versus data 20 years ago versus today?

Mark Deruyter (09:02.933)
Yeah, I’d say a lot of gut was involved in the early stages of my career in decision making. And it kind of goes back to my point earlier about real time data availability, data lag. And today, thankfully, you can get data real easily, in big or small. It used to be also that large, medium to large companies were only having the ability to gather that data quickly. Thankfully, in today’s world, obviously the cloud, even AI.

The data is at your fingertips, even if you’re a five person total team out of a company, right? You can still have almost the same type of data. So that really substitutes that gut to a point. You know, all that said though, there is still some gut or art, right? There’s still some art, you know, and that’s where you have to have the skillset to know like what the data is telling you. One, is it true? Right? Because I’ve seen some data where it’s like, wait, that might be the wrong input. Something’s going on here. That doesn’t, that doesn’t.

the gut feel test, right? So you have to have that ability of understanding like, wait, is that really the right data or is that wrong? And then secondly, I go back to there’s still creative things that we need to be testing and thinking about from an art standpoint. So even though the data is much more available and much faster, the gut or the art is still a big part of our industry.

Sean Simon (10:24.578)
Yeah, that’s something that you have to experience. You can’t just learn it in a book. You’ve got to actually work in the business for a while and experience it and be able to make that gut feel. And I’ve seen that with younger buyers who are just relying on the data because they haven’t had the experience. And they’re missing things because they don’t have that gut. Can you recall a time where your gut told you one thing, but your experience told you something else or the data told you something else?

Mark Deruyter (10:53.257)
Yeah, at a recent company, somewhat recent company, a parent company called Implus is a parent company that has multiple brands. And really what’s more important here is they have a large prominence on Amazon. You know, they have over 2000 ASINs across many different brands. And what the data was telling me is like over saturation, right? Way spending too much money on, you know, certain ASINs and certain product, sponsor brands, ads and so on. But the gut told me.

Well, it’s not a money issue. It’s more about where the visibility should be, right? What ASINs should we be targeting? know, so really the gut informed me like, don’t minimize the budget because, you know, it’s not a ROAS, it’s not a, you know, it’s not an efficiency or even like a profitability issue right now. It’s more about, we need to go lean in further into the 20 % of those ASINs that are really driving the success of the business and back off on the…

80 % of the ASINs that are not being productive, even though, you know, the category managers and the product program managers and so on might not enjoy that, you know, and appreciate it, but that was the right thing to do. You know, so while the data again showed it was over saturized and less efficient when you re kind of redistributed it and really went deep. Um, we saw a lot more growth on those 20 % and I was able to actually double the business within about a year, um, across the Amazon platform.

portfolio of those 2000 nations.

Sean Simon (12:23.48)
Yeah, that makes total sense, but what about tools? Are there tools available today that maybe you didn’t have access to 10 or 20 years ago, but that truly help improve performance of your campaigns?

Mark Deruyter (12:36.811)
I mean, you know, the AI driven tools or even the stack lines out there are incredible. You know, just the knowledge now of, you know, what’s the competition doing, you know, is highly incredible. And that also helped kind of influence like, hey, this ASIN is seeing really poor efficiency, you know, or we’re not seeing the type of just the sales that we need.

and when you look at tools like stack line or, I can’t think of the other, competitive assessment, like helium 10 is another one, of course, and so on. it gives you an idea of like, wait, I’m trying to compete with a heavily competitive ASIN or a heavily competitive category. And instead of keep just banging my head against it, because there’s some bigger brands out there. That’s going to always out, outlast me or outbid me. I need to pivot and look for those other areas, other ASINs that I have in my portfolio that I can then.

be more competitive just from the environment that I’m in and lean in there and what those other ones like find different ways to continue to get some exposure that ASIN. again, it just really shows like, can’t, it shows where your inefficiencies are in it explains the why with those type of tools.

Sean Simon (13:55.567)
Yeah, that makes total sense. And you don’t have to remember all the vendors. That’s what Blurbs is for. They can just go there with one and find out all the competition. So I know that, especially with bigger brands, you have a lot of dashboards. Every vendor’s got their own dashboard. And oftentimes, the data says something different. So how do you figure out what the real story is when you have all these different dashboards saying something different?

Mark Deruyter (13:59.83)
There you go. Perfect.

Mark Deruyter (14:21.727)
Well, I mean, first and foremost, got to trust the data that’s first party, repeatable and contextual. That is obviously the data that has been proven to be more qualified. Platform dashboards are directional, but they’re not as definitive. I frankly validate data from a CRM, from a consumer down to the purchase. And that’s because obviously the platform might not know it to the degree that we do.

on the back end side, and that’s gonna really show you the right type of data to hold across all performance marketing channels. know, things like LTV or CAC or category and audience share. Those are the types of metrics that I’m leaning on more and more than ever before versus again, you know, things that used to be, you know, third party type data that used to be somewhat accurate, obviously due to privacy and whatnot, that’s no longer the case.

Sean Simon (15:16.61)
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it’s like how much money is in the bank and where did it come from? Right? That’s the holy grail. So what do you think that, you know, given that there are so many metrics, what do you think the most overrated metrics are today that people may be leaning too heavily on?

Mark Deruyter (15:32.118)
You know, I hate to say it because I’ve seen a lot of companies move on from it, but at the same time, there’s still companies that are hugely relying on ROAS, you know, and even like profitable ROAS. Again, that’s a data point that is heavily reliant on the platform. It’s also heavily reliant on third party cookies for the most part, or third party measurements. So it just misses the incrementality and the retention value of the consumer versus, you know,

Mer is a good data point, of course, across multiple programs. CAC, LTV, as I mentioned, those are all much more precise when it comes to your profitability as a company. And if you have a catalog that’s even larger than 50 products, I’d usually kind of use 50 products, I’d look at each of those, LTV, CAC, on an audience or category level. So it bridges it down just a little bit more.

But yeah, ROAS in this day and age is, in my opinion, a metric that’s gone the wayside. And I can talk also about impressions and so on and uniques. Those are other data points where, but I think most companies have gotten away from those. But ROAS, I still see coming across some previous roles more recently even, where people just haven’t gotten off that yet.

Sean Simon (16:51.904)
Sorry, I missed the first one you said, Mer.

Mark Deruyter (16:54.257)
Mer, yeah, marketing efficiency ratio. So it’s the total sales divided by total ad spend. Now you can do that at the very highest level of a P &L, which some companies will do. But you can look at Mer from a category down to even a program and whatnot. But at least that’s given you like, you know, that it goes back to the consumer side. Like, you know, the consumer bought $100 worth of items, you know, and you spent $50.

see you in Merse 2.

Sean Simon (17:25.176)
Got it. How do you measure, I’m just curious, like I’ve always wondered about LTV, right? Especially at a, you know, one of your previous companies, OM, right? It’s a smaller DTC startup, so to speak. How do you think about LTV at a company like that where, you know, I may have only purchased one or two times because you haven’t been around long enough, right?

Mark Deruyter (17:46.218)
Yeah, mean, well, coincidentally, in almost case, they’re a company that’s been around for about eight years. But just using that same scenario, because I’ve worked with a of companies that have only been around for a couple of years, you start and you stick with it. Right. So what I mean by that is you start with, know, maybe I’m looking at LTV from an 18 a month duration, you know, and stick with that for a full year, you know, before you really revamp it. And that’s another thing I see a lot of companies.

And sometimes this is due to real leadership. Like they come in with a different LTP methodology and all of sudden everything changes. And, you know, your performance marketing team or the SMEs are like, wait, I have this metric. It was based on an 18 month run rate at a frequency of three in XYZ. And all of sudden this new chief marketing officer wants to come in and tell me that it’s not 18 months, it’s 36 months, or it’s, you know, 60 months. And that necessarily isn’t, obviously that’s their…

They can do that, but I would suggest like, don’t ignore the current data of what you’ve been looking at from an LTV. And if it’s been 18 months and it hasn’t been a full year of looking at that data, give it a year. And that’s going to give you some baseline and a benchmark of how to think about LTV moving forward. And I guess I like to things simple and I have some other comments about that later, it’s LTV a lot of times.

retailers confuse the heck out of it. They’re looking at it from, know, is this, you know, is this person back from, you know, you know, are they from a list of D actives and whatnot, just, you know, keep it really simple and to say, Hey, who’s been to the website or to the business or in our database over that certain duration I mentioned, whether it’s 18 months or whatnot, you know, what’s their, what’s their frequency of purchasing? Um, and then it started to trap you waiting from there, but your basic LTV metrics or

or data points from there should at least give you an idea of like, our common lifetime value of this consumer is $200. So that’s going to influence on how much do we think about bringing those type of consumers in with the acquisition side.

Sean Simon (19:52.963)
Yeah, because I think there’s, I imagine there’s variables, right? Like if you, if I buy something from you and you continue to market to me and you’re top of mind and I need something, I think of you and I buy it, obviously LTV goes up. But if you don’t talk to me and I just forget about you or somebody else takes more of my mind share, then I go and spend my money over there and try their product out. And I guess it’s just a lot of different variables, but you have to find your north star, right?

Mark Deruyter (20:20.607)
Yeah, and to stay with that North Star for a while, you know, and as much as I said earlier about how fast data and it’s real time information, LTV is one of those metrics where I’d stand by and say, let’s give it some time to develop, right? And to really gather the data around that timeline, you know, and then we can understand like, well, maybe that wasn’t enough time or maybe that was too long of a duration for lifetime value. And of course, every category and every product is going to be different. You know, I mean,

I was working at Mplus and one of their products is sports equipment. And that’s one of the value propositions is that equipment doesn’t break down. Albeit it’s like four or $500. So 18 months is like, goodness, you don’t expect somebody to replace that equipment within 18 months. You’re looking at five years. So that was a whole different scenario, but just stick with it. Stick with that timeline and then develop metrics around it and see how it evolves.

Sean Simon (21:13.582)
That makes sense. So you obviously worked at some big companies and some earlier stage or smaller companies. How is your process for buying technology, for evaluating technology changed or evolved over the last 20 years or throughout your career?

Mark Deruyter (21:32.842)
Yeah, great question. You know, I’d say I’ve shifted from really just evaluating features to evaluating the speed, the fit and the impact. And that’s just really key. You know, I go back to in this day and age, you have to move quickly. know, business has to move quickly. You have to make decisions quickly. So I’m looking for tools that make my team smarter, faster. And frankly, I kind of think about things in 30 days, right? Can we implement, develop and put this tool together? You know,

and onboard within 30 days. And if so, it might be something that’s viable, you know, and goes back to you, is this going to benefit my team? And then after that, look at, you know, in the next 30 days after, how much of that tool is being utilized? So I really, you know, look at it from that way, from a speed standpoint, as probably even more important than a feature set, because sometimes a feature set of vendors that come in and say, hey, we do all this stuff, right? Okay, we can get there, but let’s just get this going first, you know, it’s.

It’s like, let’s get on the road and start driving and get up to speed of 55 miles per hour and execute on it versus telling me all these different features where I might not even need that in the first year.

Sean Simon (22:42.318)
Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that’s a good advice for salespeople too, is don’t come in and try and sell you everything. Sell you you can implement the fastest and learn from the fastest and build trust and develop that relationship. Would you say that that’s the time to implement is the key variable in terms of what factor matters most? Or are there other factors that really are important to you when you’re evaluating the tech?

Mark Deruyter (23:08.459)
I think it’s the time, as we talked about, so you’re spot on there. It’s also how quickly the team can utilize, right? So, well, you know, the technology might say, hey, we can get you uploaded, get you connected, you know, it’s an API connection, we can get this all set up within two weeks. Well, how soon then can my team actually utilize it? Because some tools and stuff, they’ll take, you know, another 30 days after that, for various reasons to collect the data. And well, maybe logically that makes sense.

Let’s just walk through that because I have to explain, hey, this tool is going to get implemented from technology standpoint. Let’s just use that same timeline in two weeks. But the actual hands-on keyboard utilization of that might be 30 days later. So it comes down to that type of real detail of timing and ease of implementation is another one. And yes, Shopify in this world we know has made things much easier if you’re a part of the Shopify ecosystem. But even Shopify would say, and I’ve dealt with.

You know, not everything is as easy as it seems, you know. So ease of implementation is a big one. And the quality of that implementation. And then finally, the cost of ownership, which I think has always been a mainstay, but I will look at that like, you know, everyone does because, you know, another big component of technology decisions or my, financial group.

Sean Simon (24:31.308)
Yeah, yeah, So when you look at vendors, you’re in need of a solution. Obviously, you go to blurbs now, but what are the biggest challenges you face? If you were to go from vendor website to vendor website, or even take meetings with vendors, what are the challenges that you found in that process? I guess maybe I asked the question little differently too. What do you think vendors miss? What do think vendors aren’t thinking about when they come in?

or to sell you their solution or their marketing team misses on their website.

Mark Deruyter (25:06.537)
Yeah, we could spend another hour on this. mean, it’s hard first and foremost. I think, you know, in this day and age, because there’s so much noise out there, I give a lot of credit to those salespeople on the technology side, because it is hard to get attention of a brand leader like myself or somebody on the brand side that is at the tip of the spear of making the decision. So first off, I empathize. But what I don’t…

Sean Simon (25:08.078)
you

Mark Deruyter (25:35.688)
allow for if you will, or even, you know, excuse is, you know, the technology salesperson or whomever coming in with, you know, frankly, no information about my company, right? You know, in today’s world, you can easily gather a lot of information about any company out there, you know, and to come in and a lot of times they call it a discovery meeting, which is great. You know, don’t get me wrong. I want to tell my side of story, but to come in without any idea about what

You know, and I’m not talking about like, it’s, you utilizing like, mushroom, like, you’re selling supplements. Well, duh, you can figure that out, right? Like my 12 year old can tell you me that, but, give me some really good data points about what you think of my problems, right? Or what do you think are some opportunities that are specific to my business? You know, because I go back to, it’s almost like the interview, right? Today’s candidates, if you walk into an interview without a, you know, a

Sean Simon (26:14.894)
Mushrooms.

Mark Deruyter (26:32.297)
you know, a directional plan of how you’re going to improve that business. you’re not going to get very far, you know, and that’s the same can be said about these technology salespeople where, you know, spend the time, you know, and you’re going to get a lot further with them, you know, with somebody like me. and then I think it’s also just goes back to my point about cost of ownership. but really about like, you know, most of us have to, well, again, the decision is ultimately mine. I have to really partner and convince my financial

colleagues and a lot of times those roll up to the CFO, you know, and just really prove it out, you know, because that’s my internal stakeholder, right? And that’s sometimes where it does take time. And I think sometimes technology or vendor sales don’t understand, like, it’s not like I can jump on my CFO’s calendar tomorrow, you know, and just convince him, right? That takes a little time. So give me the information I’m seeking and then give me some time.

You know, I’m not trying to push you off, you know, because a lot of times it’s like they follow up within days saying, Hey, have you got a yes, no, or are you really the right person to get the decision from? It’s like, yes and yes, but, or yes, but give me some more time because I got to get on this calendar. I got to go through the numbers, you know, and, those things are, you know, areas that. That if you can get that partner that can really help you on and to develop that really proof case of ownership there where it’s going to benefit the company or benefit the team. It’s going to.

make things a lot smoother from, you know, concept lead or, you lead concept to execution.

Sean Simon (28:06.478)
Yeah, 100%. Having led sales teams, if my sales guys, and how hard it is to get the meeting, and if they got a meeting and they weren’t prepared, I mean, there’s just no excuse. You worked so hard to get that meeting, breaking through all that noise, and then you’re not prepared. I actually, I used to advise for retail brand, and I did one of those shop talk one-on-one meetings, which I’m sure the vendor, I can’t remember what vendor it was, but I’m sure they paid $1,000 for it, give or take.

And the sales guy sits down and he starts asking me questions. Like it’s a discovery meeting. And I’m thinking, you have 15 minutes. You want me to tell you about me? Like, why aren’t you telling me about you? Get me excited. Get me interested about your product. So I think salespeople just need to, I think this goes back to one of the reasons we created Blurbs, which is like, there’s just not enough high quality salespeople out there to meet the demand of 20,000 Martech companies. Right? This is, this is the difference between now and 20 years ago.

Mark Deruyter (29:02.879)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I get it. It’s like, you know, from the sales side, it’s like, if I spend all my time researching and then I get shut down because that lead is like, no, we already have, we just bought a new system. Well, which should have turned up in your research, but whatever the case, I get it. That’s a lot of extra time. so Blurrge can really help bridge that gap of like, you know, quality lead, quality conversation, but you’re spot on too with that. You know, I walked into a lot of these conferences and so on where they have these like, you know, speed dating sessions, you know,

Sean Simon (29:15.505)
Right.

Mark Deruyter (29:33.02)
And so yeah, you know who you’re going to be set up with, know, mushroom. Hey, I got Mark to writer. He’s probably dealing with some acquisition problems. I’m going to come into them with two, like even one solution. And it might not even be the right solution, but at least it’s showing me like, okay, this person and their technology or their, their value proposition is trying to solve something that could be a problem for me. And that goes a lot further than just telling me about all the features, right? cause

A lot of those features might not have anything to do with what I’m trying to accomplish.

Sean Simon (30:04.664)
Yeah, I found that too when I was selling tech. You if you get in front of a client that you get excited about your technology, they start to like think of all these ways they can use it, even though it’s not the way you’re pitching it. and then you get excited because they’re excited and it’s a good relationship develops, right? Let’s shift a little bit to the future, right? Obviously, AIs everywhere is pervasive and some people think it’s the all end to be on. Some people think it’s just part of, you know, our technological growth.

How do you see AI and the automation it brings impacting performance and retention strategies in marketing?

Mark Deruyter (30:42.793)
Yeah, I mean, you know, it really was that inflection point in the last few years where it brought that real time information right to anyone’s hands, right? You know, so it collapses that gap between data creative and execution. And that’s what I love about, you know, AI tools like, you know, of course, chat, GPT and, and, and others out there. But, you know, just, but at the same time, you know, you need to really have somebody that comes in and helps pilot.

that AI integration into the ecosystem of the company, which is something, because otherwise people are using various tools and then everyone’s like, well, what are you using? What am I using? Right? So there’s a factor there, but I do see AI just really allowing for that real-time decision-making and empowering somebody even on the creative side of understanding, okay, that message, that value prop did this.

for Google, you know, and it may have worked great or it may not have worked, but it’s telling me why and I need to figure out, okay, what’s the next creative sample that I’m gonna put out there.

Sean Simon (31:54.905)
So given where the market’s going in general with different media channels and thinking about the funnel and AI, do you think the next big opportunity is improving acquisition or maximizing retention?

Mark Deruyter (32:07.627)
I really believe it’s retention, you know, and I have two reasons for that. One, you know, yes, we’re always growing as a population, we’re growing, but you know, the internet has gotten the digital space, the commerce space has gotten much more mature than ever before, right? So, you know, and as I previous and I still am, of course, you know, grew up in the acquisition space, I’m not suggesting that acquisition doesn’t play a part.

Absolutely does, especially for a newer, upcoming brand. the retention side is so critical. And you mentioned it even earlier about losing your customers’ focus or attention, right? So AI can play a big role in that, knowing when to hit them up with an email or a proactive message or something that might be, hey, you’ve run out of the filters for that water filter or whatnot.

you know, in a much more AI driven automation. So I would say, you know, in this day and age, retention is going to benefit more than ever from AI. And just the conversation of those customers that you have in your database than ever before. You know, I’ve even created some data structures where AI is telling me this group mark has not been not just purchasing, but has not been messaged, you know, in the last 45 days. And it used to be back

where you would look up Clavio and say, hey, where’s my inactive subscription base? Right? You know, and you’d have to do the work yourself, you know, or have your email manager do it for you. and with AI now it’s telling you proactively, you know, and you can create, you know, scripts and, and, and communication back to you about, you know, on a weekly or monthly basis that you’re, you’re now being proactively informed instead of thinking about it as an afterthought. So yes, retention is where I think a lot of this automation, a lot of this

AI driven tech is really going to help.

Sean Simon (34:07.18)
Yeah, think there’s some brands that do really good job of it today and some brands that just don’t. Like I go to a website that I purchased from multiple times, they’re trying to sell me the same product instead of trying to sell me something else. like, know who I am, I’m logged in. And I really appreciate it when I get an email from a, or an alert from a brand that I subscribe to. Hey, your next order is coming up. Do you want to make any modifications or?

add this. I find that really useful because I’m not thinking about that. It’s not on my calendar that my subscription due date is coming up. And I think that helps build a relationship like they get me and it creates loyalty. So you’ve been around to see some of this evolution occur within our industry. But when you think about sort of the skill set of a performance marketer in the future, five years, 10 years, 20 years, maybe 20 years is too far to think out. But

What do you think, what’s the skill set or maybe one skill that you think they need to have to stay relevant in the job market?

Mark Deruyter (35:10.079)
Well, I think it’s, you know, I think encapsulates some of the stuff that we’ve been talking about, but to, you know, really be succinct, it’s three, right? Fluency of data, you know, every marketer out there in today’s world needs to have data understanding, you know, and it doesn’t mean that you have to be some data dog, as they say, and just know every little aspect of, you know, SQL or, you know, whatnot, but you have to understand and know data fluency and fluently, right? AI literacy is really important too.

And then finally, the value of content in brand, in that authenticity. So I think as I look forward and something that I’ve even been trying to build up on my skill set around AI, you know, because the days of again, collecting your own data and kind of doing your own analysis for one, waste time and two, I wouldn’t be able to do it as quickly as AI or over. So I need to be much more fluent in AI. But I also go back to that, you know,

irony about my own personal past, but also how I’d really implore organizations to understand how important it is to really bring that branding element into the messaging so that your authenticity and your seamlessness is there.

Sean Simon (36:23.118)
Yeah, the authenticity piece is hard. It’s hard, especially if you read a lot of AI. And I think the AI piece is obvious, but I think it’s also underrated. And I think about, I have teenagers in school and the schools are so anti-AI because kids will abuse it, right? But I tell my son, don’t use it for your schoolwork, but I know he’s still using it for other things. I try and teach him.

how to use it. I don’t want them to become dumb. I rely on AI. I don’t have to think for myself. And so whenever I come up with a good use case for my businesses, when it comes in the door, I’m like, come here, let me show you what I did. Let me show you all the thought. I still have to be knowledgeable in what I’m doing. And this just maybe makes it better. It does it faster. But it doesn’t have the… I got to know what I’m talking about. Otherwise, it could be getting it all wrong. I use it for…

for a contract the other day. Like if I don’t know what I’m talking about, that could really backfire. yeah.

Mark Deruyter (37:21.289)
Yeah, it’s that fluency, that AI literacy that I was talking about. So that’s great that you’re doing it. And just one as a quick micro example, you know, it’s soccer season slash in the MLS, the playoffs are coming up and my son looked at, know, hey, when does the San Diego FC, because we’re in San Diego, when is their playoff game? And it came back AI driven incorrectly. And he’s like, wait, that’s wrong. And I’m like, yeah, that’s because it hasn’t been actually formalized yet. You know, the playoffs up until actually last night.

they hadn’t been set with all the teams. So AI didn’t know that. It just was guessing based on the dates of the teams. So that was also teaching them, like you said, hey, AI isn’t always correct, but you have to know why it’s not correct and help then change the inputs so that AI becomes correct again the next time you use it.

Sean Simon (38:09.969)
100%. All right, Mark, this has been great. Let’s move into the rapid fire section. We’ll go really quick. Try and make your answers succinct. So right now, what do you think the most underrated marketing channel is?

Mark Deruyter (38:13.141)
What do you?

Mark Deruyter (38:23.147)
Okay, so sync, two of them. Affiliate, just because again, people continue to see it as a discount channel when absolutely is not in today’s age. It is a part of the ecosystem of a journey for a consumer. And then secondly is SEO. It continues to be the afterthought. But ironically, AI and SEO are so critical. So I’m glad to see actually how important AI is with that, or SEO is with AI.

because it’s going to kind of bring it back to the forefront. So those two right now are highly underrated and organizations better figure it out soon or they’re going to get caught, you know, in.

Sean Simon (39:00.268)
Yeah, yeah, AEO, answer engine optimization. It’s a different beast. You can’t just do your SEO and hope that it works for AEO. What vendor has most impressed you recently and why?

Mark Deruyter (39:03.497)
Yeah. There we go.

Mark Deruyter (39:15.583)
Yeah, more recently, Detail page has been really impressive. It’s been founded by Spencer Miller, Miller Berg and Justin Manor, two gurus of the marketplaces. They’ve spent their time at Amazon and Walmart and they’ve really taken this approach of, you know, utilizing AI for content to really optimize your ASINs or in this case, if it’s Walmart, your landing page or your product page. And without pitching it, it just, it’s really impressive because it takes the, it takes the

the time element of updating copy out of the equation. And you can update copy really fast and test things quickly on those ASINs or on those product pages for your marketplaces. So I’ve been pretty impressed with the detail page.

Sean Simon (39:57.175)
Nice. And I know that brand or that technology. They are listed on blurbs. I’ve read their page several times. Okay. What’s the one thing you wish every vendor knew before reaching out to you?

Mark Deruyter (40:11.787)
Um, just, I think it goes back to our great discussion, you know, about doing a research, but if you had to research one thing, no, my economics, right? You know, Oh, mushroom, you know, the supplement mushroom space is $2 billion in 2024. You know, Oh, mushroom is X amount at all of those dollars, you know, just know the economics of who and who you’re talking to and what, what the company and what the value is. Um, is it’s going to go a long ways with those contacts that you’re talking to.

Sean Simon (40:42.028)
Yeah, and that should be easy for them to find out too. Okay, holidays coming up. Any quick tips for brands or agencies or retailers as they think about Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Mark Deruyter (40:53.117)
Absolutely. Well, at this point, frankly, you know, past October 1st, I was not October 1st was like the deadline. So my advice right now is that anyone listen to this before Black Friday, Cyber Monday is get your variants of copy set up. Right. And what I mean by that is of course, you know, your main variant, the main approach to your copy has probably already been approved, you know, whether that’s email or ad copy and whatnot, but get your, your B and C plan copy and imagery and all that done.

Sean Simon (40:56.13)
wait.

Mark Deruyter (41:22.409)
Right, get those things backed up because too many times, even in this day and age, companies will struggle and all of start calling their copywriters and their creative people like, hey, we’re three days into our event and we’re not seeing the type of performance that we need, we got to change it. And you should already have that created. So please, at this point, focus on those variants and have a couple of VC type plans set up.

Sean Simon (41:46.094)
Yeah, preparation, right? up, back, have your backup plans ready.

Mark Deruyter (41:48.393)
Yeah, preparation, but back up planning preparation, right? So because preparation at this point should have been done for the main campaign, but make sure you have your backup plan set up.

Sean Simon (41:57.55)
Yeah, I can’t think of a better place to leave this, Mark. Thank you for joining us inside The Matrix. This was a masterclass in modern marketing leadership and what it looks like. For those listening, if you’re a vendor trying to reach marketers like Mark or a brand trying to find your next great partner, start where the smartest marketers start, trustblurbs.com. I’m John Simon, and this has been The Market Matrix. See you next week.

Cool.