E205: Jacques van der Wilt

Richard [00:00:04]:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One. It's been a while, but you'd be glad to know we're back with episode 205. In this episode, I speak with Jacques van der Wilt, the original CEO and founder of DataFeedWatch, which is now part of Cart.com. We're Jacques on the podcast way back on episode a 50, but we had to get him back on to talk about AI and data feeds. When I think of feeds, I think of two people. Jacques is one of them, and the other one, you'll have to listen to this ever so to find out who that is. We talk how AI differs from traditional methods of data feed optimization and what are its key advantages for online businesses, How can marketers use AI to simplify their feed management tasks, and can AI help with disapprovals? We talk AI hallucinations and how can small to midsize retailers leverage AI powered data feed management to compete with larger ecommerce players and, of course, so much more in this episode.

Richard [00:01:01]:
If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. Hi, Jack, and welcome back to the Ecom at One podcast. How are you doing?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:01:20]:
I'm great, Richard. Good to see you. Thanks for having me again.

Richard [00:01:24]:
I know.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:01:25]:
Econ one podcast.

Richard [00:01:27]:
Yeah. I think last episode was a 50 you were on. Obviously, that's almost, I think getting on for eighteen months ago. A lot a lot has happened. But why have you decided to come back on of all the podcasts that are out there?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:01:38]:
Well, I got two excellent reasons to come back, Richard. One is because because I love the ecom podcast. Right? You know, what's better than to appear there? You have to appear twice. So that obviously is a primary reason. Although, I have a very good secondary reason as well. We've got great news at DataFeedWatch. Oh. And the news is we launched AI driven feeds.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:02:02]:
And this is a first step of something huge that is really literally going to change the landscape optimization and all. So, yeah, it's a big step, and, I'd love to share that with your viewers and listening listeners.

Richard [00:02:21]:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I think, it's a very, very, very hot topic feeds, but then feeds with AI, very exciting. I think, yeah, something I know that, our feed team are very excited about. And, you know, I've been working with some of your team already, you know, over the last few months on some of the AI stuff. So how does AI differ from traditional methods of data feed optimization? You know, what are sort of key advantages for for the businesses that are listening?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:02:47]:
Yeah. Well, first of all, we have we have embedded AI in the existing day feed word functionality. Right? So there's not like there's daily feed word and, hey, there's like AI on the side. We need to do stuff anyway and then no. No. No. So you can still go into day feed words. You can optimize your feet.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:03:05]:
And then for for for a lot of fields, you have the choice whether to do the manual rules based optimization, right, like, to combine the brand and the title and the color and the size into a single title for Google or Facebook, or to say, why don't I let AI optimize it? Right? So we have automated, manual labor tasks that that you would usually have when optimizing a a feed. And, by letting AI do it, it's not just gonna save you time. But there's there's a lot of knowledge that you need to have, experience to do proper optimization of some of those attributes. And and and you you may not have it, and AI does. Right? So it's fully embedded. It's fully automated. It means that you don't need to, like, write, modify your own prompts to get, like, the right outcome. There's no separate settings for AI.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:04:07]:
Basically, you say, okay. Optimize with AI, save, and and and we're done. Right? And best of all, we've embedded it, in today, if you'd watch, but also at the same price. Right? So you're not gonna pay extra, make use of this functionality while you you keep full control. Right? So, so AI can optimize your titles. Right? So, title optimization differs per Yeah. For type. There's best practice for every one of the, let's say, the 200 subcategories in Google text.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:04:45]:
Yeah. Right? The combination of of our, like, fifteen year experience in AI has led to, you know, a a superb AI optimization of titles and descriptions. You don't have all the course or sizes, in in those fields, but you need them. AI will go fetch them from other fields and and fill them out. You know? Do you really like categorizing your product? It's no. You don't. Right? Let AI do it for you. Right? So, basically, what you get by, by using the existing AI functionality, the embedded AI functionality in the AirFit watch is that you're going to get a better, higher quality feed in way less time.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:05:34]:
Yeah. Nice. And they'll teach these jobs and what have you. That is promise of

Richard [00:05:40]:
Very exciting, isn't it? You know, when you think about some of the sizes of catalogs, obviously, you deal with we deal with, you know, and obviously, a lot of manual, you know, manual work required to match things up and and and create, you know, thorough thorough fees to be able to basically, simplifying things, isn't it? You know, we're simplifying those feed management tasks. You know, you talked about color, size. You know, I guess it also helps with things like disapprovals as well, reducing things like that.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:06:07]:
Absolutely. Disapprovals is like the number one nuisance. You know? Even even before, you think about, oh, damn. I should have, like, better titles. You know? You're already, like, multiple effect that Yeah. Disapproves because you're selling apparel and you're missing cost. Bang. Disprove.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:06:24]:
Right? So, basically, with AI, you you can take defeat quality to the next level. I mean, the feed is still the foundation. Nothing changes. You know, every campaign that you create in Google Ads Yeah. Facebook, any other channel is, you know, is built on a high quality feed. The higher quality, the better your ROI. So, so AI will help you to get better quality in less time. Now if you have the perfect feed already, AI is not going to help you.

Richard [00:06:57]:
Mhmm.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:06:58]:
For the other 99%

Speaker C [00:07:04]:
I see what you did there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:07:07]:
So, look, y'all, retailers are busy these. Now they have their fingers in, like, everything. And and, you know, my favorite saying, maybe, you know, sounds strange for a fee guy, is no one gets up in the morning to optimize their fee.

Richard [00:07:26]:
What even you?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:07:28]:
Adjutani. You know, people get up.

Richard [00:07:30]:
Well, maybe maybe me is the only guy.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:07:32]:
You know? People get up, retailer get up in the morning, and you can say, I'm going to sell more today than I did you know, the same day last week. Right?

Richard [00:07:42]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:07:42]:
I'm going to go into my Google Ads account. I'm going to optimize it. I'm gonna make more money. Right? And if if it's not the retailer, it's his agency. And then this feed stuff, you know, everyone has said it's foundation. It has to be good. It's not like one time event. You know? It should be updated every day, every week with new products, with new strategies, with Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:08:00]:
Customer and young, all that. But, you know, it's it's something I'm going to have to do in order to take the next step. So, as a retailer, you wanna make sure that all the data, all the valuable data that you have in your store is being reflected in your goo your Google feed. And, yeah, I'll say Google feed, but, you know, then I mean feed The likes.

Richard [00:08:24]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:08:24]:
Add another channel. Right? So we have auto mapping. Right? AI understands what is in your store, what's what's the data that we've taken out of your store, and it will map it automatically to the appropriate fields that is required by Google or any other channels. Now I was mentioning already. It will extract colors and sizes from, for example, your description. If you don't have them in the right attribute field anyway. You know? Categorize it. It will rewrite your descriptions, in in in better English.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:09:00]:
Yeah. It sounds funny for me. I'm the guy with

Richard [00:09:02]:
I I don't know what you mean. Well, a lot

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:09:05]:
of the listeners are native, but then still, you know, we see a lot of descriptions that are written in in readable proper English, but it's not great. Often, it's like too long. It's winding. So AI will say, okay. You know, you got, like, this this much the text. We'll make this much. It's to the point. It's clear.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:09:28]:
It's well written and all of that. Even though description isn't that powerful in terms of your ROI, you know, like, for example, Taimo. People love it. People love the fact that the descriptions are now, like, better written, more concise, and what have you. So retailers don't have time to worry about all of that. You know? Did I map all my feeds? Do I have all my colors? You know? Yeah. It's not yet the feed out and and what have you. And on top of that, the retailers are now the average retailer is not really specialized in data feed optimization.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:10:03]:
He doesn't know what the best practices are for title, for custom label, for whatever you, you know. Whereas we all understand that the title format for a dress is different than the title format for a fridge or for a book. Right? Yeah. Certainly, you mentioned we have we have trained our AI to deal with, like, 200 different product types and and and work with best practices, for that.

Richard [00:10:27]:
How does it handle, let's say obviously, we're talking about feeds. Feed is the the umbrella, but feeds for all the different channels. We talk about Google Shopping, Facebook, Amazon. You know, how does the AI sort of optimize those maybe differently where it's needed?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:10:43]:
That's a very good question. So first of all, tiny disclaimer. We've launched it. We're very happy with it. But we're zooming in right now on Google and Facebook feeds in English. Right? So we're in process of adding more channels and, and more languages, but that's that's what we have today. We'll have more, tomorrow. And, obviously, when, let's say, when talking to our AI, when explaining how, you know, how life works in feed land to AI, we've also explained that, that something simple, like, the Google title can be a max of a 50 characters.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:11:22]:
Right? For Facebook, it's something else. Yeah. If you advertise on Facebook, then, your, your your title and the information that you show should be more generic. Right? That's John. People are seeing an ad that they didn't ask for on the site while they're browsing the timeline on Facebook. So you do something it doesn't have to be the exact right size and the exact same color and and whatever you wear on Google, you should. Right? So all of that experience, like, you know, the feed requirements from various channels, the experience that we as experts have in how to compile the right title, the right description, and what have you, has all been fit, you know, trained to our AI model, and that's how we deal with that too much for that. You're not gonna get a Google title on your Facebook.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:12:09]:
You will not get the wrong number of characters in your description, for the wrong channel. Right? So this it's it's all taken care

Richard [00:12:17]:
of. Yeah. Very interesting. We've, we've we've recently been using, you know, the AI function, and we've got a a newer client that's got probably close to about 200,000 SKUs. I think it's somewhere there. I think it's 60,000, but in three different, locations sort of thing. And I know the guys have been, raving about the AI capabilities of your tool. So brilliant.

Richard [00:12:40]:
But so when we think about quality with DataFeedWatch, you know, obviously, there's a lot of options out there feed feed wise. You know, how is the quality with DataFeedWatch, sort of the output of the AI? You know, we talk we were talking before we came on. You know, there's a lot. There are issues with AI depending on, you know, use the word AI, but depending on which LLMs you use, obviously, back in the day, definitely, they're getting better and better. But all sorts of quirky, shall we say, issues with outputs. You know, how does how does DataFeedWatch stand up?

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Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:13:51]:
Well, yeah, I was expecting the question, and I realized that if I say that our quality is great, that, you know, wouldn't come across as a very object, objective remark. So I'll try to answer your question in more, more objective terms. Everyone who signs up to Davey Quickwatch today, will be offered AI instantly. Right? People people add their shop connect their shop to Davey Quickwatch, and then most of the time, the first channel that they create is Google, and AI is already there. Right? So if you look at the adoption of of, one or more AI attributes, AI generated fields, attributes that they use. The adoption rate is, like, 85%. So, yeah, that's, like, way higher than I was hoping for to begin. Right? But people really, like it.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:14:43]:
Some will, you know, on different levels. Right? Some people will, like, really appreciate the output like you were describing. Yeah. And there's people that are, you know, maybe SMBs, they they need to feed, they sign up, and then title optimize with AI. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:15:00]:
Okay. Fine. Right? And they click save. Right? So they enter data reports, they connect the store, they say, I wanna advertise Google, and then AI will create a complete feed completely out of map with AI. The obvious fields like title description, color size, being optimized, all they need to do is click save, and they're done. This part of the same adoption rate, and this part of, let's say, our promise that we'll make it high quality, very low effort. Just click save, and and you're done. Anyway, so adoption rate is a number, and that's effective, and the adoption rate is very high.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:15:37]:
People didn't like it, they would switch it off. Adoption rate would be, like, 45, 80 five. In general, we, can obviously, for example, extract colors and sizes from from other fields and then check if they're right. And, you know, if done if you've done it correctly. So the quality there is in the is in the nineties percent. Right?

Richard [00:16:00]:
Mhmm.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:16:00]:
Which is, like, really high. You know? And trust me, we'll never get it to a hundred. Right? Because there's Yeah. Like, fancy caller names.

Speaker C [00:16:08]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:16:08]:
Or, like, obscure And

Richard [00:16:10]:
anti AI brigade. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:16:13]:
So so, you know, if it's in the nineties percent, it's, like, super high. And I guarantee you, it is if you think, well, who's 90%, that's not really high enough. You know? In your source feed, it's going to be much lower. And you're not gonna manually change it, not even with a good rule in daily feed watch. Right? Unless you have the time to sort through 10,000 products and check out the size. So it's nineties 90 plus percent is, like, really good. Which quality well, description already mentioned. People really like it.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:16:45]:
Yeah. Description is is is is harder to say, well, the the the the quality is good or it's not. Right? It's, but in general, it it it's being improved. It's being more concise, AI as keywords to your description and your titles is better written. Title is well, you know, it's my personal favorite because it has such a big impact on your campaign ROI. What I can say is, the titles are usually better than the original. They're more enriched. So it really has benefits to let AI do the job.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:17:26]:
And maybe more importantly, very, very rarely do we see hallucinations. Yeah. Right? Yeah. When when managing the quality of our titles, we started way back when with making better titles. But, you know, for the past, I don't know, three to six months, our focus has been not on how do we make title better because it's already pretty good. How do we make sure that the title isn't stupid? Is it something that's Yeah. Right? We don't want crazy surprises. And there there are there are very few hallucinations that we see.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:18:00]:
So if you combine all that, I'd say, I'm very happy with the quality that we have today. Yeah. And at the same time, we're gonna continue to work on quality, you know, not for the next month, but, like, forever. You know? There's always many tweaks. There's always bigger, you know, higher quality. And and with it, you know, if it's, like, 95%, then we still have, like, 5% to go. Right?

Richard [00:18:22]:
I think that's the beauty, though, isn't it? The the speed, I think, you know, when we think about AI as a whole, you know, the things that we were doing, you know, with AI probably eighteen months ago, probably when we really started to think, you know, we have to do and explore, you know, and the quality of outputs, just say on content, for example. It was okay. You know? And then six months later, it's flipping pretty good. You know? Six months later, oh my gosh. This is incredible. Now we can mix this with this and layer this in and extract this data and, you know, and now it's, like, unrecognizable from even eight, six, eight months ago, the outputs that we can get for different, you know, more so on content. So in terms of, you know, your outputs now, obviously, it's already very good, you know, and, you know, our proofs in the in the in the pudding. You know, my my guys are raving on, you know, obviously, we work with you guys for, I think, seven plus years now.

Richard [00:19:14]:
Yep. So obviously, very exciting to see where it you know, there's little 2% because I think, you know, you obviously talked about titles a lot. And quite often, they're just left, aren't they? They're just left to, you know, they're not reoptimized. But when AI is doing that heavy lifting for you, when you've got those thousands, tens and tens of thousands of products, absolute advantage. Absolute advantage. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:19:36]:
Yeah. No. Absolutely. And, we'll see we'll see a lot of progress, you know, in general in AI for the for the next years to come. Yeah. Yeah. And that is what makes this so exciting.

Richard [00:19:48]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:19:49]:
And move forward at this incredible speed.

Richard [00:19:52]:
I think it's it's an interesting, you know, slight slight off topic, but, you know, we, you know, as a business, obviously, agency working with hundreds of ecom brands, you know, running their ads as as one one side of the business. But we've built within our business recently, last few months, you know, like an AI council was the six of us in this group. And we met yesterday, actually, you know, and all all six of the people represent different areas of the business, sales, marketing, tech, SEO, content, you know, and myself. And looking at some of the things we're working on is just, like, so exciting. It is so exciting and so exciting for our clients and our, you know, our merchants, our clients. What we're about what we're doing for them now, the ideas that we've got, you know, and and this is just brilliant. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, you know, to in such a such a short space of time.

Richard [00:20:41]:
So I think the people that are listening that are with us now, you know, what are you what have you embraced in your ecomm store? You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of things, you know, where we're talking about the way that you are doing your you know, obviously, we're talking about feeds and marketing here, but, you know, what are you doing in your sort of AI stack in in the wider context? You know, it's very exciting times.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:21:04]:
Yeah. And and and still, Richard, as as, let's say, the entire industry is warming up to AI and is letting go of be here. There is still a lot of fear, and, yeah, there are still reasons why people are not using it. And, yeah, that may be just as interesting to address as reasons why people should do is, right? So funny enough, what, the the there's a few reasons. The the one the number one item is I can do it better myself. I'm not gonna let AI do it. I can do it better myself. Right? Or I have reviewed your AI to idols, and I found something that's not consistent.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:21:47]:
Right? I found, like, two products that are that are identical, but they're different course. Right? And then the core was not in the same place. Yeah. Sure. That happens. That doesn't make it a bad title. You know? The thing is, to everyone that that says I can do it better, I will say, yes. You can.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:22:12]:
No doubt about it. You are smart. You are eloquent. You know your shit. I'm, as much as I'm excited about AI, I believe in humans. Right? I believe that we are more in we can do everything. So it's right. It's right.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:22:27]:
Yes. You can. However, if you are an agency guy, working on the feed for a customer with 10,000 products. Yeah. Do you have the time to create rules to extract all the course that could possibly be in your feed and make that list? Do you have the time to browse every one of those 10,000 descriptions for useful information that's hidden in there? Not just color and size, but, yeah, material, certain characteristics, you know, use case, whatever, keywords. Do you? Yeah. Yeah. No.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:23:08]:
You don't. You don't. No. Right? And then if you, if you let AI do it, and you would actually have the time to browse to 10,000 products. You know? Yeah. Or only if you take the time to to look at three samples of 50 products, then, yes, you would find a few where you would have done it better. But then it the the the entire feat generated by is going to be so much better than if you yet spent the time yourself. Right? It's like it's like self driving car.

Richard [00:23:42]:
Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's maybe it's a bad analogy,

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:23:45]:
but people fear self driving cars because, you know, they drive themselves if something happens. You know? So people people could die. Then again, if we would only have self driving cars.

Richard [00:23:57]:
Yeah. Well, less people die probably.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:23:58]:
Yeah. Exactly. People will still be playing, but overall, it would probably die down. Number of casualties would be cut in half, you know, if not by seventy five percent. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, look, if you're if you're working on, like, 1,000 products for, like, a go global brand, don't use AI. Right? Mhmm.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:24:18]:
You you're being paid big bucks to, to manage the campaign feed is worthwhile to to keep that total control, make sure that a % is right. But, you know, you let AI drive it, then 90% is, like, really, really good, you know, and much better than you had in the first place. There's, like, 5%, six, seven % where you would have done a better job that doesn't make it bad. And then maybe, like, a few percent, we're like, well, you know Mhmm. This this this is sort of up. I I don't really like it. So overall, yeah, that's, like, up from having a feed that was only, like, 50% correct, 25%, so so, and 25% with we are

Richard [00:24:59]:
I think that that's totally as you say, it's sort of across AI when you think about, you know, rewriting product descriptions for your for your store, and you've got 20,000 product descriptions. You know, if that's done correct, not yeah. That's done very well with AI or not done at all, which are you gonna choose? You know, or you're just gonna do it manually. You might do the first fifty products and then get busy. Do the first thousand products, get busy, and not do not do them all. So yeah. No. Totally totally with you.

Richard [00:25:26]:
So, obviously, new tools coming out all the time. Obviously, we're a we're a hard and fast data feed watch fan fan agency. But, obviously, there are there are other, companies out there doing different things and other agencies doing different things. But are you seeing many other agencies and feed tools using the the AI and sort of, in feed optimization?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:25:50]:
Not a lot. Mhmm. Some. No. We, as a company, we made it our mission to be the first data feed optimization, service that would have AI driven capabilities, and we came to market first. So I'm very proud of that. And, you know, beginning to see some you know, first of all okay. So in the GMC was there already.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:26:17]:
Yeah. So okay. Fine. So Google was, you know, slightly, fascinating. What a miracle. But, you know, is not, is is is is complicated. It still requires a lot of manual labor. You need proof and rate every item.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:26:36]:
So Figen probably also works, just that you as a customer are being a guinea pig for Google. You're basically being like a mechanical Turk, doing learning for Google. Right? Yeah. Whereas, yeah, we are the the, probably, the only feed provider at the moment where AI is embedded. You can say, I want AI. You switch it on, and it's Mhmm. Or I want some of it, but not all of it. You can play around, but at least there's no extra work.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:27:13]:
It's completely automated, and, I think that's where we are really in the lead. I'm beginning to see some other tools, with some with some AI solutions. But, so far, we are, we are ahead of the game.

Richard [00:27:27]:
Yeah. That's, as I expect. As I expect. That's why we're still for seven years. I said it five times now. Seven times. I keep saying to Andy, he's my colleague. He's been he's worked with me for twenty five years.

Richard [00:27:40]:
He is your biggest fan, I'll tell you. He's like, there if he watched, there if he watched, there if he watched it. Yeah. I think he you'd like when you said nobody gets up in the morning and thinks I'm gonna optimize my feed, that guy does get up in the morning and says, can you opt I'm gonna optimize my feed.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:27:54]:
Yeah. No. That that's great, and that's very good for your customers because he's laying the foundation for the campaigns that he's actually for your customers.

Richard [00:28:01]:
We had a client we had a client work with us about three years ago, and, we did about a six month project with them on the feed. And then it went back to their US team. And, and then recently, we got that client back to take over everything, and their, commercial director came into the office, probably just before Christmas a couple of months ago and said, Andy, I'm so glad you're back on our feeds. He was like jumping for joy because Andy's back on his feeds. He's like, Andy's the feed guy.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:28:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Richard [00:28:30]:
Absolutely obsessed with your tech. Yeah. So Yeah. You have a

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:28:35]:
lot of customers like you that have been with us for, like, many years. Yeah. They've been with that we've cooperated with and, yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Richard [00:28:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess, sort sort of crystal ball time, you know, obviously, we talked, you know, talking very much about AI, but emerging trends that you're seeing with AI that are light to shape the future of feed management for retailers more and more. Obviously, we've talked about a lot of things there, but things that you're on maybe on the cusp of or things that you see where AI and feeds are going.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:29:07]:
Well, y'all, funny enough, I have the crystal ball right next to me here on my desk.

Richard [00:29:11]:
The Harley

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:29:12]:
before, just before the interview started. I think that we're going to you know, first, we're going to see, the we're all gonna go much deeper on the kind of functionality that we have today. It will get better and better and better. And, yeah, one trend we'll see is that we'll continue to provide more, even more control for the customers. So as I said, yeah, we just create, for example, your title, and it's there. Yeah. Still, we're going to step up again on providing more tools to you to, to make modifications or even optimizations or changes to that without it being something very cumbersome. Right? We wanna stay, you know, steer clear of cumbersome and tedious.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:30:02]:
Yeah. I think that the, the the in, let's say, in our data feed field, images is like the next. Yeah. So, obviously, you know, we're seeing a lot of, AI examples in imaging in in general, from from from complete videos of Trump talking to Putin, and looks and sounds real. Right? Yeah. So the technology is there, but we're gonna see that in, in in data optimization as well. Because after all, your product ad consists for, like, 75 to 80% of the space of an image. The image has to be, like, really good.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:30:44]:
It has to be compelling. It has to

Richard [00:30:47]:
That's gonna be a big one, isn't it, for disapprove disapprovals. That's gonna be a big one for helping with the disapprovals, isn't it?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:30:53]:
Exactly. Yeah. Because you accidentally put, like, text over every one of your images and now they're all being disapproved. Wouldn't it be great? Yeah. That would be he's, hey, AI. Take all the text that I accidentally put over here. Take it out. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:31:07]:
Bing. It's done.

Richard [00:31:08]:
Those, yeah, those merchants that spent months watermarking all their images, and now they're like, ah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:31:14]:
Exactly. Exactly. So so there's a month of work that, that you should be able to get rid of with with a single click. So there's there's a whole world behind the images that, we're gonna see, increase in importance. You know, even even this year, everything will happen fast. And then I think the, the other AI driven trend that I see for our industry is the, a deeper connection between, defeat and defeat quality and analytics in general. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:31:45]:
Right? We can, we're we're feeding and training our AI with best practices and a lot of other data. But if you have really a large data set with analytics, it's also going to be an important driver. Right? So what what if AI just finds out that if you put the words red in a title, it actually converts 10% better. Right? So, I think this where AI on a on a much broader scale, will will impact daily feed optimization as well.

Richard [00:32:23]:
So What what about, something springs to mind when you say that, like cost of goods data, you know, and profitability? Because ultimately, you know, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Usually, you know, is is running a profitable business. But, obviously, more and more successful merchants, I think, have got cost of goods in their, you know, in their in their CRM in the back end, you know, but then using that cost of goods data costs, you know, with AI to adjust things based on profitability. Is that something that you're exploring?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:32:54]:
Abs absolutely. That is also, part of it. Of course, using cost of goods sold is something that every retailer can already put to work. It's just that, most retailers don't have that data Yeah. In their in their shop or in their ERP or whatever it is that they use. So, I mean, that's the that's the condition to move forward. But, I think that, and there's there's almost, like, beyond the definition. But attribution and and and, subsequently, media mix modeling, you know, where you have budget, that is really the next front frontier.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:33:39]:
And I'm I'm I'm amazed still that, we're all just looking at Google Analytics and saying, okay. Google Analytics says this and that. Right? Or we look at Google Ads and Facebook Merchant, and and there's no attribution. Right? So so you know when you and you sold a hundred items, and and then you take the data from Google or Facebook or something else and say, you sold 300 items. Right? If you had I mean Yeah. Basic problems like that still exist. There's a there's a increasingly cookie less society, that makes it even harder. So AI is going to play a role there in providing way better data so you can take, like, way better decisions.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:34:26]:
Again, AI will never provide you with a % correct data, but AI will be able to take that to a 95% correctness. Whereas today, without you knowing it, you know, you're lucky to have, like, 60% correctness and 40% guesswork.

Richard [00:34:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very exciting. Very exciting.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:34:47]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Totally.

Richard [00:34:49]:
So I think we've covered a lot of ground, you know, the the you know, when we think about 18 ago when we spoke, you know, whenever you used the word AI back then, you know, once. And obviously, now the the capabilities that you've, you know, mastered already. But I think, you know, when we think about our audience that are listening, you know, they're they're small, medium sized, you know, sort of sub that's quite a broad spectrum, but sub sort of 30 mil turnover is our sort of market, you know, one, five, 10, 20, 30, these milestones that we, you know, we're sort of put pushing our clients past and through these plateaus. You know, the these these clients that you know, they're not these big, large, massive, you know, hundred million pound a year dollar, depending on where you're listening, dollars, euros, whatever. You know, how can these medium size players really harness and benefit from the AI side of feeds over some of their sort of bigger players?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:35:45]:
Yeah. Well, as as long as, you know, when the Internet started in general, now we started to use the word democratize. And and and using AI and feeds is another type of democratization. Meaning that, you know, the very I just gave this example earlier. Right? They are a very large brand. They may not even have, like, 50,000 products. They may have, like, a couple of thousands. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:36:10]:
But they're they have a global turnover that goes in the millions, if not billions. Yeah. And they have, you know, with the advertising budget like that, they have dozens and dozens of people to optimize their campaigns

Richard [00:36:23]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:36:24]:
And their feeds. And they will they did actually take the time to optimize every field in the output feed. And, so for example, you know, maybe maybe Nike is doing it manually and you got the perfect fit, and then you are a a medium sized retailer that is selling Nike shoes. How could you ever compete? Right? Well, now you can because all the time that Nike spent in trying to optimize something manually, you can now do with a single click. And and that puts you, you know, on par with the large players. So this is definitely leveling the playing fields for, SMB, retailers. That's more.

Richard [00:37:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. It's very exciting. Very exciting. So AI well, feeds and agencies. Obviously, we're an agency. You know, we work we work with you guys.

Richard [00:37:17]:
We and, you know, where do you think, agencies will be when it comes to feeds and, AI, you know, in the future? Will it be obsolete? Will they not be needed if the AI is that good? What what do you say to that? I shouldn't probably be answer asking you that question.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:37:31]:
Let's do it. I got bad news. Agencies, you're you're all going to die.

Richard [00:37:36]:
Yeah. Delete this episode.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:37:39]:
Forget it. You know? Obviously, that is not the case. And, well, you've been you've been, saying very nice things about, AI at David Watch. You know, and so do many other agencies. And a matter of fact, we get PPC survey last year among, like, I think over a thousand, PPC advertisers, large ones in in the in The Americas and in in Europe. And, one of the questions was, what is on your wish list for date feed optimization? Right? Well, guess what the first item was. It was AI. Agencies want AI because agencies often, more than the actual customer understand that the feed is the foundation.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:38:26]:
And even if they don't get paid for optimizing the feed, they're gonna have to do it because the agency understands that if I want to impress my customer with, an increased ROAS, I'm you know, I'll never achieve that if I don't get the basics right. So even unpaid agencies will work on that and spend a lot of time when acquiring new customer to get it right. And, you know, I go back, you know, other than Andy myself, no one gets up in the morning to optimize. So agencies, you know, before we launched it, I spoke to to to numerous agencies and they said, look. If, you know, we need to pay you extra for it. That's fine. That's fine. Because we're gonna save so much money and time if if you're able to come up with a good AI automation.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:39:12]:
So, no, agencies love our AI. Yeah. And, and and and now they can spend their valuable time on, more strategic items. You know? Mhmm. Strategy for defeat, strategy for the campaigns, and and and what have you. So, and and let's not forget, you know, the one thing that AI is unlikely to do anytime soon is to really understand the business and the problems of your customers. Totally. Right? Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:39:45]:
That's still a conversation between human from the agency and human from the customer. Yeah. So, basically, AI driven feed feeds, will will increase the quality while saving a lot of time so that the the the expensive time of read of of agencies can be spent on a much higher level.

Richard [00:40:08]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:40:09]:
Oh, yeah. And everyone wins in that situation.

Richard [00:40:12]:
We're we're okay. We're okay for a bit longer.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:40:15]:
Effluence.

Richard [00:40:17]:
Yeah. No. I mean, absolutely. Obviously, as I wouldn't have had you on, would I? I'm not that stupid. Well, Jack, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. I think, you know, a lot to think about there. You know, I think, listeners that have, stayed with us for the whole forty minutes, you know, obviously reach out to to our team, to Jack's team, you know, and we can we can we can explore some of this for you. But before we finish, I always like to end, as you might remember, on a book recommendation.

Richard [00:40:44]:
You should have a new book to recommend to our listeners, Jack.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:40:47]:
Yeah. Well, the book that I'm gonna recommend is not is not that new, but I it's not that long ago that I read it. And it's you know, topic wise, it's perfect timing, is the Walter Isaacson bio of Elon Musk. Oh, okay.

Speaker C [00:41:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:41:04]:
I've I've, you know, entered down, Obviously, the bio, and talking about, Musk is, like, way more controversial, today, which makes it Yeah. Nicer. You know, for for some stuff, you know, you get the boring, like, don't try this at home. So I say, yo, don't, you know, read the bio. I think it's fascinating.

Speaker C [00:41:24]:
Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:41:25]:
Don't try to be like him. Bible. Probably the only but then still, it is fascinating what the doing that this guy has made. And and as as crazy as some of his behavior, currently is, there there are learnings from this book. Now the I what I like most is that, he's saying that the the factory is actually the product. Right? So it's not that hard to come up with a product that is instinct, like maybe, you know, a car that runs on electricity, you know, and put some batteries in. But to create a factory that can mass produce it, that is really right? And then the fact that, yeah, we always were fascinated by Steve Jobs. We did, like, Apple, and he did, Pixar, and this is something else.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:42:19]:
And Musk has, like, you know, other than now that he's running the entire US government by himself, he has, like, seven or eight companies that he founded, that he still owns, that are worth billions of dollars each. So Mhmm. It's, you know, whether you like it or not, it is fascinating, and there's always to be, to be learned. So I really like it. I enjoyed the book very much.

Richard [00:42:45]:
Brilliant. Well, thank you for that. We'll link that up, and I'll get that ordered. So, Jack, thank you so much for joining us for the second time. For those that wanna reach out to you, and to DataFeedWatch, what's the best way to do that?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:42:56]:
DataFeedWatch.com, and it will tell you everything that we have to offer, contact details, and whatever you. So, and remember, we do free trials, so you can try it out for free. We do onboarding. We do demos. Yeah. So anything you'd like to know, but we're afraid to ask, go to our site. Choose an email or make an appointment, and we'll Yeah. We'll help you to progress.

Richard [00:43:20]:
Brilliant. Or reach out to Andy at econ one, who is your biggest fan.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:43:24]:
Yeah. If you want the conversation and a human to overlook it that really knows the ropes.

Richard [00:43:30]:
Both worlds. Yeah.

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:43:31]:
Yeah. Go to Andy. Absolutely.

Richard [00:43:33]:
Well, thanks, Jack. We'll see you again in eighteen months. Hopefully, it is you and not an AI version of you by then, but we'll see where we are in eighteen months and, see what, new things you guys are working on. Alright?

Jacques Van Der Wilt [00:43:45]:
Well, thank you very much for having me, and I already look forward to, my third appearance on the upgrade.

Speaker C [00:43:52]:
Yeah. I'll see you at a year and a half. Goodbye. Alrighty. Cheers.

Richard [00:44:00]:
If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you on the next one.