E81: Megna Murali

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eComOne. Welcome to our 81st episode. In this episode, I speak with Megna Murali, data scientist and founder of Convert Dial. Megna is a whiz when it comes to all things strategic, customer and retail analytics, designing analytical solutions, and leading technical and project teams. Now she heads up Convert Dial to make it very easy to attract, convert, and retain customers.

Richard Hill:
In this episode we talk cookies and the changing landscape of cookie lists eCommerce, preparing for the disappearance of cookies and how to prepare, tips for retailers to get their customers to share their data with them, and how to use the data you have more effectively. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure you subscribe so you're always the first to know when an episode is released. Now, let's head over to this fantastic episode.

Richard Hill:
This episode is brought to you by eComOne eCommerce Marketing Agency. eComOne works purely with eCommerce stores, scaling their Google shopping, SEO, Google search, and Facebook ads, through a proven performance driven approach. Go to ecomone.com/resources, for a host of amazing resources to grow your paid and organic channels. How are you doing, Megna?

Megna Murali:
I'm good, thanks. How are you?

Richard Hill:
I'm really well, I'm really well. Busy, busy morning, but really looking forward to this one. It's going to be a very different episode today. Some of the topic that we don't talk about too much, but I'm really looking forward to getting into this one. So, I think, for the listeners, it'd be good for you to give us a bit of an insight, an intro into yourself and how you got into the world of eCommerce.

Megna Murali:
Yeah, sure. So, I'm a data scientist by profession, and I have been one for over 10 years. And I also had a brief stint, had an eCommerce business of my own a few years ago. And in my day-job I used to build these tools using machine learning and AI that helped Enterprise clients to study and predict customer behavior. And that was really critical to help be successful, to differentiate, but just not available or accessible to your everyday commerce business, especially a small one like mine was at the time. Everything was so expensive. So, that's really how I got into the world of building Convert Dial and working in marketing tech for eCommerce.

Richard Hill:
Oh, I see. So, it's a story we hear quite a lot whereas eCom store owners running their business, and then there's not quite a product out there, or it isn't a fit, unless you've got a spare five grand a month or whatever it may be. So, obviously building something through necessity for your own business, and then obviously that then, potentially, has become then the main business. We see that quite a lot in the agency world. Obviously we work with a lot of agencies as well-

Megna Murali:
Yeah.

Richard Hill:
... Here on the other podcast, and it's great to have that little idea, initially, away from ... Almost like a side project, in fact, and then the side project then starts to scale. And as we know, subscription businesses and SAS businesses can be quite, what's the word, a bit of an addiction, really, once those monthly fees start coming in. And actually, once we got that first 50, 100, 1,000 members, then it starts to get very exciting. So, tell us about Convert Dial then. How does Convert Dial predict consumer behavior? How does it work?

Megna Murali:
Oh, well, when I was having my own eCommerce business, I got so frustrated that I just built something quite simple and clunky, but it worked for me and it worked for what I was doing. And it led me thinking, "I'm sure I can build something that's more automated, it's simple, it's affordable, and really tailored towards eCommerce businesses trying to grow and scale, to get predictive insights, but at an accessible cost."

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Megna Murali:
So, that's where Convert Dial came from. And the way Convert Dial works is, it plugs into your store's sales and marketing data, and effectively it's reverse engineering what the recipe is, what are the behaviors and actions that lead to a conversion. We then use this insight to then predict which of your customers we think are going to convert next-

Richard Hill:
Yeah?

Megna Murali:
... And conversely, which customers we think are at risk of actually getting lost. And we do all this in real time, it's all automated. So, the way the brands will use Convert Dial is, you can use it to take action really quickly. Contract, convert, and retain your best and most high-value customers. And everything's automated end-to-end. So, you don't need any coding, there's no technical knowledge required, very much plug-and-play.

Richard Hill:
Wow. It sounds so simple.

Megna Murali:
It's taken some time to get to this point. It's been a 12 month journey, at least, for us.

Richard Hill:
So, obviously predicting what your better clients and different visitors are going to do. Obviously, that's fantastic, and that really rings a bell when you're looking at paid ads. Obviously, we manage a lot of Facebook ads and things like that, Google shopping, search ads, and so forth. I think for the purpose of the listeners more so, I think that when we talk about third party cookies and first party cookies, maybe explain that a bit, how that's changed over the last year. And I would imagine that's caused quite some challenges for yourself as well?

Megna Murali:
It's definitely been challenging, I think, for the whole world of digital marketing and eCommerce, especially. We've been very reliant on advertising and the amazing reach it's given us, but the core difference, I think I'll start from there, but the core difference is that, first party cookie is something that is installed by you on your website, and you can collect data and you can personalize the user experience on your site, but it is limited to your site, and it is your own data as well. Whereas the third party cookie is one that another service would install on your site, and that helps to track the ongoing behavior of your site visitors; where were they before they came to a site, after, what are their other interests?

Megna Murali:
The most common ones are Google and Facebook, and you can use them to do retargeting and advertising and similar. So, that's the main difference between first and third party cookies. I would definitely say that the average consumer is a lot more aware of cookies and what the implications are, what it does to them. There's a lot more take-up of browsers that don't allow tracking or apps that don't allow tracking, because people have become a lot more privacy aware, which means, as brands, we also have to be the same.

Richard Hill:
The one I have, the different platforms decided to remove cookies then and changed things.

Megna Murali:
It's a really interesting question, and I think it took everyone by surprise when the first couple of announcements came through from the likes of Google and Apple. And I know Google has publicly said that their goal is to make the Web more privacy friendly. So, rather than tracking and targeting individuals, what they're going to do is they going to start grouping people based on their browsing interests. So, cookies have always been very individual, but Google wants to move away from that and make the Web a more private browsing experience for the purpose of users like you and me who are doing general searching and exploring on the internet, whereas Apple has actually taken a different approach, but, equally it still has an impact.

Megna Murali:
And with the updates that Apple has made to its iOS platform, users have to explicitly choose whether they're okay to be tracked or not by every different app on their device. And this is broader than Google, and different, because essentially you can stop every app on your phone or your Apple device from tracking your behavior, regardless of whether you're a browser or in an app or anything else, really.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. It's all change, isn't it. It's in a blink of an eye, really, less than a year or so. But sitting here, I'm thinking, "Oh, Stitch doesn't seem five minutes ago when this wasn't even a thing, and then here we are." A lot of change, obviously. When you're managing ads, it has quite an impact, quite a lot of change and quite a lot of scurrying around by different retailers. But as a retailer, if you're listening to this episode, how's that changed for them? What's the death of third-party cookies meant for the retailers, and what things should they be doing to combat that?

Megna Murali:
I think the main impact is that ability to target specific customers.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Megna Murali:
So, as an example, if you've done a search for, I don't know, pink cat jumpers, in your browser, and then you're wandering across the internet, you're on Facebook or Instagram or different apps, and you just see ads for pink cat jumpers everywhere. That's basically going to be a thing of the past in many ways because we no longer are able to have that tie-up between the exact person that's doing the certain activity on one side or the other, and being able to reach them. So, that's been the main impact.

Megna Murali:
And we're definitely hearing evidence from all our clients, and I'm sure you're seeing it as well on your end that Facebook ads has started to become less effective or costs have increased. And that's effectively because it's harder to target customers based on their browsing behaviors and interests. And if even Facebook and Google either cannot or are disabling the ability to do that, then essentially what we get is gaps in our knowledge about what are people browsing for. And the picture is incomplete.

Megna Murali:
So, your ads could be reaching customers, but they may not be the customers that you wanted them to reach because people are being grouped together rather than being individualized. So, we do a lot of work at Convert Dial clients who are looking for alternatives to cookie-based advertising. Maybe they've over-invested in it over time and it's starting to become a bit less effective.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think there's quite a lot of things there. Let me just unpack that for a minute. So, retailer that's listening in, thinking, "Great. Okay. My ability to re-target people is just diminishing, diminishing, diminishing, in terms of remarketing, particularly, in targeting very specific people that are interested in, whether it's a pink jumper or whatever it may be." There used to be a time where you would go and look at a pair of whatever it may be, a shirt, a jacket, a pair of shoes, and then that pair of shoes would follow you, and literally everywhere.

Megna Murali:
Yes.

Richard Hill:
And I think there was various sayings in there. So, "Re-market until they buy or die," was a phrase that was thrown around quite a lot, and you could see these flipping ads everywhere. And obviously that's not a great strategy, not something I condone completely, but obviously you want to get that frequency in there and things like that. So, you're a retailer listening in now, you think, "Well, okay, fair enough, they're taking this away from us and they're reducing the ability to target." Obviously there are other ways to do things.

Richard Hill:
What can companies do? If you're heavily relying on Facebook ads and you're used to doing your various targeting strategies that maybe are not as successful now and aren't working like they used to do, using Facebook as an example, are there specific things that you will recommend within Facebook ads that can really help that extra, or we could maybe talk about that 80/20, what are the 20% of things that maybe get missed when people do their Facebook ads targeting?

Megna Murali:
Yeah. So, we talked about cookies before, on first and third party cookies, and essentially, when you are doing ads on Facebook or Google, you're basically renting or paying for their data. So, you're paying for their data, which for you is a third party data, for them it's first party. And I think that for me, I really believe that the key to untangling ourselves into the little web of cookies and tracking that we've got ourselves into is to really start focusing on first party data. And that's data that you, as a brand, you collect, you own, you ask your customers for data, it's with you, and you can use it effectively for your business, so you don't have to pay anybody for it.

Megna Murali:
Of course, this is not a policy that you can follow in isolation. So, advertising is always going to have a role, marketing will always have a role, and many new things will come and go, but data that you own is very powerful. So, if you think of the data that you generate when you sell a product online, it's very simple, you get all this first party data that's traditionally quite transactional in nature. Here we're talking names, addresses, emails, what people buy.

Megna Murali:
Now, what brands need to think is to go beyond that and start thinking about preferences and likes and dislikes and interests, and similar about your customers at an individual level, and start leveraging technology, the technology like machine-learning and AI that really helps leverage the data and unlock insights that can help you then, effectively, on Facebook, target better or reach the right people at the right time. And that's something that we know we try to emphasize a lot around behaviors and preferences across customers, what are the things that your customers are telling you that they like, that they want, that they need from you and that you can get to them, basically, before your competitors can.

Richard Hill:
Okay. That's great. So, I'm a retailer listening in, I sell pink jumpers, or whatever. I'm a jumper retailer, I'm built out on Shopify or Magento, or a couple of well-known platforms. What specifically then ... Obviously I've got visitors on the store looking at my jumpers and my largest selection in Europe of pink jumpers. Obviously, getting customers to really agree for you to use their data, give me some insight into, I'm on the store, what are the things that retailers can do on the site to make sure ... It's, enabling stuff and agreeing to stuff is quite intrusive, isn't it, and can be quite tricky.

Megna Murali:
It can be.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, as a retailer, if they're going to go through their store after this episode and check that everything is set up to really enable and agree to get as much data from those browsers, potential customers, step me through that checklist, if you will.

Megna Murali:
I think it comes down to two things, particularly. One of them is trust, and the other one is value. So, if someone hits your website, you're never going to ask them a thousand questions and find out everything about them. So, it is a trust that you build over time. They need to have faith that you're going to look after the data, it's not going to be misused, that they're having a valuable and enjoyable experience with your brand and on your website, not just now when they visit the website, but on an ongoing basis.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Megna Murali:
So, that's going to be really critical. And personalization is not just about advertising. It's also about a relationship with your customer. So, building out that relationship of trust and giving value back to your customers in exchange for data is really something that we've seen work very well. People are very privacy aware. They're very aware of the information that they're sharing, how it might be used. So, being really transparent about it, and making it fun and making it easy always helps. Loyalty programs are great. They're a great asset to build trust, to build engagement, to exchange value for information, and reward your customers in return.

Megna Murali:
There are many ways you can do it. There are things like quizzes or games on your website. What works for each store is going to vary, and it's best to experiment and find out what it is, but just make sure it's easy for your customers to share their data with you, and make sure there's value in it for them, and be transparent and trustworthy.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. That's fantastic. I think quizzes is quite an interesting one actually. Yeah. I see that more and more probably in this last maybe year or so, probably a bit more than the last couple of years, probably more on our end as agency owners and whatnot, but probably the last six months, this sort of quiz at the front-end ... Ooh. That's not ... We're okay. Yeah. Quizzes, where, obviously, you're asked a series of questions, and then you end up at a specific answer, which will then deliver personalization based on obviously the two, three, four, five questions that you answered. Anything else you can tell us about quizzes in terms of better effectiveness and the benefits for eCom stores?

Megna Murali:
Yeah. I think the best thing is to make sure they're really quick and easy to do. No one wants to spend ages doing them. That transaction between the value exchange has to be really clear and very simple, and the reward has to be high value as well. So, the long quizzes that take 10, 15 minutes to do, run on Buzzfeed or something like that, they're a different game where you're on your website, you want people to interact really quickly. I've also seen things like a little Wheel of Fortune type spinning the wheel thing on your website to get a bit of a discount.

Megna Murali:
There's also a store here that does a Halloween thing every year where you have to look for little hidden things around their website, every year on Halloween, and then you unlock quizzes. So, it helps keep people on the store, but the gamification of it is always a bit of fun. It's always nice to see something different.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah. Gamification. I think I've been seeing quite a lot on beauty brands and beauty. I think it's called "beauty boxes", really, where, for example, as a man, if I want to sign up and subscribe to a beauty, more of a men's grooming product, obviously I don't have a beard, so there's no point in them sending me beard wax or beard oil or whatever it may be. Obviously I've probably got, I don't know, a certain type of skin, I've got no beard, I've got fairly short hair. So, I've seen ones where they're selling a grooming kit or a grooming box, every other month on subscriptions, obviously fantastic subscription. Our favorite word on the podcast is "subscription".

Megna Murali:
Definitely.

Richard Hill:
So, obviously, I clicked through. Have I got a beard? No. Have I got a mustache. No. Have I got a fairly smooth skin. I guess so. Short hair? Yeah, yeah. So, obviously, when I now get that box on a bi-monthly basis, I'm not getting all the products, I'm not getting all the marketing for people or chaps with beards and very different skin and hair to me. So, that's probably at its most basic form, but I just thought that's quite a simple thing to implement, three or four step quizz, in effect. But ultimately then I start seeing products that are very specific to myself, very specific to my type of ... It's, "Well, actually, yeah." Then, I thought ... Well, I actually did sign up for that particular one, but my two teenage sons keep pinching all the stuff that come in the box.

Megna Murali:
That clearly worked, and that's a really great example of very high value exchange-

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Megna Murali:
... Because your investment is going to be better for you if you answer three or four questions.

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Megna Murali:
So, it's very low involvement on your part, but the reward you as a customer get is really high value. So, that's a really great way of doing it. Subscription boxes are good at that in general.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, I think it seems to be a real raft of subscription beauty products, subscription businesses come out of lockdown. It seems to be huge, for obvious reasons. So, I was speaking to a chat, probably about six weeks ago, not actually on the podcast, but just an inquiry came through one of our agencies. And he said he set up a business, probably about eight months ago, and he had 3000 people signed up, 30 pounds every other month. It's, actually, that's pretty good going for an about an eight month old business. I was, "Flipping heck! That's a pretty good go." It was a really interesting business. I'm just going to plug this back in here.

Megna Murali:
COVID has done a lot to disrupt industries, but it's also opened opportunities in the eCommerce space with everyone being stuck at home, and there's so many things you can get delivered. At the moment we're, in Australia at least, we're having issues with postage. So, on the plus side, there's lots of great eCommerce stores that have popped up selling the most incredible things from dessert boxes to subscription boxes to everything, but we're having some postage issues at the moment.

Richard Hill:
That was my next question. Obviously you've been working with a lot of different brands, so obviously seen a lot of changes, transitions and pivots, if you like, over about these last 18 months, but maybe give us some examples of companies that use data and use of personalization, and give us some actual, real ideas for our listeners, what maybe they could be thinking about what's worked well and is working well.

Megna Murali:
Yeah. I think that one of the biggest wins I've had is we've got a business that we work with that does baby products. And they have quite a good range, and they're quite a niche high-end baby products range. It's not for everybody, because you have to have a baby or buying gift for a baby or something of that sort. But they really saw a boom through COVID with a lot more people staying at home, people weren't moving, people were redoing their houses to make space for studies and keep their kids entertained. And when they first started using Convert Dial, they had some quite standard things going on.

Megna Murali:
They were doing some retargeting, they were doing some email marketing and things like that, but they really felt that there was something still to be unlocked. It was getting quite competitive as well. Lots of new businesses popping out, lots of cheaper products to compete with. And what they wanted to really see what they can do with our data. They had a very rich mailing list, a lot of data and a lot of history from a few years of operations. And what they were able to do was really to start segmenting and identifying who are the high value groups. Maybe they've not engaged with us for some time, but maybe they're still high value option and they're still engaging on emails, they're still engaging across other platforms. It's been about, since they shop, what can we do to bring people back in.

Megna Murali:
We also helped them to understand what sort of data is potentially missing. So, what do our customers want? Why don't we go and ask them? What are their challenges at the moment? They're struggling with kids at home. They have kids of different ages. They want them entertained. They want something new and different. So, going through that phase of going back and asking questions and communicating and doing surveys and quizzes on the website to collect data, and we started building out a really big picture, what is it that people want? Content. Not just products, but also content. What would they need help with? What are the seven different ways you can use this particular product to keep your child entertained, things like that.

Megna Murali:
So, that worked really well for them, and they've seen things boom quite a lot through COVID. A lot of loyalty, a lot of gifting coming through, so people doing recommendations, referrals, which is the best thing you want, really, in eCommerce, is that referral going and getting people to recommend you to their friends and family. And they're not the only ones. Data is everywhere. Everyone has it. It can get very overwhelming. Every business big and small has a lot of data. But the difference is that the biggest companies, the Enterprise clients, have been investing and building out tools for themselves, customizing their own way of using it.

Megna Murali:
But for businesses that are still growing and scaling, it's a bit different. They're still in that early stage. But the plus side is that technology is getting much more accessible and cheaper. So, there are lots of tools out there that can help. It just comes down to finding the right thing for your store.

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant. And I know we have a lot of listeners that are in that fashion industry, in all different areas of fashion. Is there anything specific, insights-wise, you would give to fashion retailers that are listening in?

Megna Murali:
That's a good question, because I was just talking to someone, who does fashion brands, yesterday. And I think with fashion, what we're finding is that the biggest thing that stops people from buying or have that hesitation is that they don't have the information. The information they're looking for is shipping and sizing and material.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Megna Murali:
So, having that information on your website and really clear and easy to find, helps drive a lot in fashion. And fashion is all about trends as well, so you have to be on top of trends. It's not just in terms of making sure you have product coming in at the right time with the right trends, but also communicating and sharing. There's a lot of movement around things like inclusivity and body positivity and showing how clothes look on different types of bodies, different heights, different sizes and shapes, helps a lot. That's what people look for.

Megna Murali:
It's definitely a case now that that people vote with their wallets for brands that they believe in, and brands that share the same values. So, having that strong value, I think, stands out a lot in fashion and food, the two parts of eCommerce or just business in general, where values really come out. So, fashion is the top one. There's a lot of competition. It's difficult to stand out, for sure. So, having that niche, whether it's your products are locally made or whether they're sustainable or something that stands out among the crowd and making it easy, really, for people to just find and make a decision.

Richard Hill:
I think there's a whole tick list there you went through, I think. I would say, guys listing now, I would just rewind every word. Step back-

Megna Murali:
Slow it down a bit.

Richard Hill:
... The last 90 seconds, step through what Megna just went through, because I think there's some great things there. I think that that body type is quite often missed, isn't it, I think, as a dataset and as a variable, obviously. I'm a big guy. I'm 6'7". I am of a certain physical size. I'm a big guy, but when I go online to look for whatever it may be, I know it's not easy. And I'm sure I probably represent probably half of the nation that have, not a lot six 6'7", but they have their own variation. I don't fit in a double XL box or a size 46 chest or whatever it is. It's all ... Then, we're all very similar, aren't we, in that way. So, I think, body type and that different variations there can be missed, or it can be buried on the website quite often when you're looking at something, you find that perfect outfit, whatever it may be. Then, "Size! Ah! Better order two just to be safe," and then quite often-

Megna Murali:
Then, you have to do the return.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Megna Murali:
I think things like tracking trends, even something as simple as Google trends, but there are other things out there that can do a bit more trend tracking for you to really start understanding what are people looking for. Are they looking for shirts for tall men, or anything else? Then, you start understanding that there's more of a need to work with everybody out there who's buying fashion, because everybody does in the end.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, that's brilliant. That was brilliant. So, crystal ball time then. We're sat here in ... I won't do too many years, because eCommerce, they're a bit like dog years, aren't they? A lot happens, especially the last 18 months or so.

Megna Murali:
Yes.

Richard Hill:
So, what does the future of data look like in marketing, probably in 18 months time? What are the things that we should be looking out for now that are coming down, coming through the industry that the listeners can get ahead of in the next few months?

Megna Murali:
Well, definitely the changes to third party tracking is going to continue to keep impacting us. So, Google's changes to tracking haven't kicked in yet. They're due to come in in next year or the year after. Apple's changes are already here, but Apple is also making changes to the way emails are tracked with anyone that uses the Apple mail. But those are the things that are going to come up. I think what we're going to see is it's going to start becoming even more challenging to start to reach people. Facebook, then Instagram and the likes are changing algorithms to try and help get around this in many ways, but it's going to be quite a period of flux.

Megna Murali:
And I think that digital marketing on the whole is evolving to have a deeper focus. It's not just on tracking and targeting, but really getting into that understanding of behaviors and motivators and building genuine relationships, high-value relationships with customers that are value-based. So, I think that's going to be a trend that's going to pick up a lot. I also think we're going to see a huge explosion in things like loyalty programs, and really clever and innovative email marketing, because that's becoming very powerful alongside paid advertising, that gathering that first party data and using it, but using it in a way that's not intrusive, but is a way that's adding value to both the brand and the customer. So, that's where I think that our trends are going in the next 18 months to two years. But like you said, it's like dog years, many things can change.

Richard Hill:
Well, we'll have to have a checking in with you again. We'll get you back on in 18 months, and we'll unpack what's been going on.

Megna Murali:
Yeah. We'll check if my predictions were right.

Richard Hill:
Absolutely. Right. Well, thank you so much. I always like to end every episode on a book recommendation. What book would you recommend to our listeners?

Megna Murali:
Oh. I definitely recommend Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Richard Hill:
Okay.

Megna Murali:
So, I really liked that book because it actually tackles quite a complex topic, which can be quite boring, which is outliers and data, but it does it in a really fun and entertaining way. And anything that makes data fun and interesting, always has vote.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, fantastic. It's not actually one my iPhone. So, that'll go on the list, that will go on the bookshelf. Well, thank you so much, Megna, for being on eComOne. For the guys that are listening that want to find out more about yourself and more about Convert Dial, what's the best way to do that?

Megna Murali:
You can head on over to our website. It's www.Convert Dial.com, or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter, and I'm always available for a chat.

Richard Hill:
Well, thanks very much once again. Thanks for being on eComOne, and I look forward to catching up with you 18 months and see how your predictions pan out.

Megna Murali:
Thanks a lot for having me. I look forward to it too.

Richard Hill:
No problem at all. Thanks very much. Bye.

Richard Hill:
Thank you for listening to the eComOne eCommerce Podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit "subscribe", and don't forget to sign up to our eCommerce newsletter, and leave us a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the eCommerce Marketing Agency.