Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the Ecommerce Marketing Podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Liam Patterson, who started his first business aged just 14 and ran a number of successful ecommerce ventures before co-founding Bidnamic, a marketing technology platform that helps retailers unlock the full potential of Google Shopping. Welcome to the podcast Liam.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Arlen:
Yes, thank you for joining me. Yeah, I’m really excited to talk to you because we’re going to be talking about really, you know, the main, uh, I guess you can say channel marketing channel, if you will, that, um, you know, um, that you kind of deal with, which is Google shopping, uh, and I was mentioning that, uh, you know, really hadn’t talked about that particular platform or marketing channel, if you will, uh, before. So I think it’s going to be super exciting to kind of get into it and, and see how businesses these days, e-commerce businesses specifically. can benefit from it and just kind of how it works. But before we do get into all of that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and specifically how you got in what you’re doing today.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, exactly. So it’s kind of, I suppose, an interesting story. So I’ve always been an entrepreneur, as you mentioned there, from a young age, and particularly building and scaling e-commerce businesses. And we’re actually scaling an e-commerce marketplace in the space of print on demand. So we’re working with thousands of artists, illustrators, graphic designers who are uploading their imagery, their artworks, and they’re merchandising it over popular products like phone cases, t-shirts, mugs. And we were facilitating the go-to-market for them. So we were getting them exposure. We were connecting them through channels like Google shopping, like Amazon, like eBay and other paid search channels as well, Facebook ads, Instagram ads to, to get that, get them exposure for that, their products. And also then we had a really smart setup, which was all around print on demand distribution. So this is going back a few years now. So we were really the first to have localized print on demand. where we built a network of printers who could print and ship the next day. So as an illustrator, an artist, you didn’t have to invest in stock in products. You could instead upload your image, get a super realistic image of that product on a phone case, on a mug, on a t-shirt of all the folds. And we do all the marketing and

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
we scaled that business up. We took investments from pretty big names like Marin Mayer, the co-founder of booking.com Chris forest, who’s on the board of Net-a-Porter, big e-commerce platforms, and it was actually them who kind of realized how what we built in terms of dominating Google shopping. So that was really where unhealthily a lot of our traffic and sales was coming from. It was very repeatable. We’d get more artwork, get them onto products, merchandise, connect them with, with fans, with customers looking for the type of designs that they were selling and do this at scale across the world in different countries. And it was really this expertise that we built up with Google shopping and our own technology that they actually turned to us and said, Hey, could you run this for some of our portfolio companies, some of our investments. And that was the first kind of pool, really. It was pulled by technology we built, kind of introduced for our investors to their network. And we were pretty anti-doing it. We were like, we know e-commerce, we know all the hacks, it works for us, but we don’t think it will scale. We don’t think it will work for others. And then the first couple of clients we worked with, and it was like hockey stick, you know, massive growth in revenue, great growth in profitability, and expansion on the channel. And then we realized, okay, we’re really onto something. And that was about… four or five years ago now, and

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
we’ve scaled from there, being a small team and very technically focused to being now over a hundred with offices in Austin, Texas, as well as Leeds England, hence my accent.

Arlen:
Gotcha, gotcha. Well, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And that is an incredible story of kind of how you took something that, like you said, going from the print on demand, print on demand, which is really huge now. You know, it’s a service that I’ve used. I’ve used various on-demand printing companies before in the past, and I know it’s really big stuff. And so you guys were kind of early in that particular technology, which is a great thing. I’m also really just curious, as I was mentioning in your intro, how you started your first business when you were 14. People might be asking, what exactly was that? 

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, exactly.

Arlen:
What business were you doing at that?

Liam Patterson:
It was actually e-commerce back then.

Arlen:
OK.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah. So I grew up in a small town called Buxton. So you can imagine a very rural town, lots of pubs,

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
lots of old people there as well. And

Arlen:
OK.

Liam Patterson:
these pubs and bars, you know, the old people like to drink a lot in England. So they were getting sent all this merchandise. So it was sent, you know, a t-shirt with Brewmania. So it would be like Budweiser t-shirts, Barcov signs. And me and a friend just knew this stuff’s really cool. This stuff’s really collectible. This stuff’s really popular. But these old pubs, they just had no idea. So they collected years and years and years of this stuff because they were ordering so much, storing it just in the cellars, in the beer cellars. And there was no demand. There was no drinkers who’d go in there wanting the hats and that kind of vibe. We just tapped into it and we saw, wow, there’s a huge demand of free products that we can start selling. And just then it was even before Amazon, before eBay. And over here, there was a marketplace called QXL.

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
And we were really some of the first sellers on QXL and we even started our own, our own e-commerce store as well. And, and just, you know, just founds and solds and hustles and yeah. And that was really very, very much in there the very early days of, of e-commerce. So yeah, there was, there wasn’t many customers out there. Not many people shopping online at the time, but

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
yeah, we were, we were some of the first sellers and I guess that then set the trajectory for, for the learning and just getting into, you know, web development, e-commerce, paper click marketing. and other channels as well. So yeah, exciting journey.

Arlen:
Yeah, definitely. That is really exciting to have such an entrepreneurial spirit at such a young age. And then, you know, really to be able to have that foresight where you identify the problem, like you said, with those pubs and the merchandise and said, wait a minute, you know, we’ve got this, there’s this platform, e-commerce where, you know, you can, these can be sold online and then being able to kind of take that from vision to your reality and make it happen. So

Liam Patterson:
Yeah,

Arlen:
very impressive.

Liam Patterson:
exactly. I’ve certainly gone on to achieve some bigger things than that, but I think

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
it’s hard to trump the leaving the paper round. So delivering papers,

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
you know, being able to make enough money that I could earn a few days, what I would have earned doing a whole weeks of paper round was a great feeling.

Arlen:
Wow.

Liam Patterson:
Leaving that job and going, you know, yeah, going independent, I guess,

Arlen:
Yeah,

Liam Patterson:
was a great feeling.

Arlen:
I’m sure it was. And

Liam Patterson:
Yeah.

Arlen:
I know your parents were probably happy as well. 

Liam Patterson:
Exactly.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure. Well, that’s awesome. And thank you for sharing that as well. As I mentioned in the top of the episode today, we’re going to be talking all about Google Shopping. And so I want to start off with just with people that aren’t really familiar with it, because there’s all of these channels out here these days, all of these ways to market online. There may be people that aren’t familiar with Google Shopping. So if you can kind of break it down and let us know what exactly is it and how does it work.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, absolutely. So it’s the mainstay for e-commerce retailers to get in front of customers. So it’s pretty much the number one channel. There’s that and paid socials such as Facebook and Instagram. And unlike Facebook or Instagram, which people might be more familiar with, those channels are, they’re creating demand. You can show a product to somebody whilst they’re scrolling on their Instagram feed and they discover that product. But often a lot of the time it’s not going to be the right fit for them. They might just be, they might scroll right past it. Whereas the great thing with Google is it’s a step further. So people are actively going, typing in, searching for products that you sell. And at that point, a carousel will appear at the top of the main Google search results, and it typically shows about five products. You could, it’s visual in nature. So you can see that little product thumbnail. You can see the retailer’s name. You can see the price. You can see a short description of the item and it’s free to show up. So it’s free to, to get the impression to be visible

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
on the carousel. But as soon as you click on it, it costs the advertiser, the retailer money, and that can be a few cents or it can be even hundreds of dollars for a single click. 

Arlen:
Mm.

Liam Patterson:
And that’s where our technology comes in to work out, to compute all the analytics that goes into, should it be one cent or a hundred dollars for that click?

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
And that’s really where the expertise comes. And unlike Amazon, it’s not based on price. Amazon,

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
So on you can win the buy box or the buy button by being the cheapest seller. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
On Google, it’s not about price. It’s about how much you’re willing to pay Google. Um, so it’s a, what they call an auction where you’re outbidding the retailers. And the, the first left-hand side, if you’re looking at the screen, the most left-hand side, um, of those five items of this, of the carousel is, is what we call the top impression. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
So that’s the, the one that gets most of the clicks, um, we would left, left to right, and we see that position first. A lot of consumers and shoppers believe that that’s the cheapest, the most reliable. They feel Google’s done that work for them. Actually, if not, it’s just the most expensive. Um, so you’re to win that spot. You’ve got to outbid the other advertisers to the right hand side by more than one cent. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
So it’s a tricky channel in that, in that respect. But if you get to the front of that carousel or even visible on that carousel, you’re, you’re right at the top of Google. People have got to scroll past you to pass that, that ads carousel. So the vast majority of clicks and massive amounts of traffic goes through Google shopping. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
So it’s a huge, huge channel. It’s the number one channel. within Google Search, within Google’s advertising network for e-commerce products.

Arlen:
Okay, gotcha. So I can clearly see why, because when you’re searching for any product name, you’re going to see that, like you said, you’re going to see that carousel really before anything. And so, I mean, it’s really clear how, how popular that is and how powerful it is rather, rather actually. Now, my question though, with Google shopping, of course, it kind of act, it kind of works like they’re pay per click. You’re paying not for the impression, but if there’s a click through. Now, how does it actually work as far as when somebody clicks through, if they, let’s say, okay, they identify a product, they go ahead and click on it. Is it all managed through Google’s, uh, checkout process? And then is there some type of API that kind of goes to the merchants fulfillment system?

Liam Patterson:
So actually the traffic actually goes directly to the merchants e-commerce store. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
And all the traffic has to go to the product details page. So

Arlen:
I see.

Liam Patterson:
So that’s the product page, which has the exact, an individual size, color of a single item. Um,

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
so that’s actually in a way presents a challenge in itself. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
So unlike search ads or text ads, the written adverts, you can direct them to any part of your website. So you can have brand terms, go to your homepage. You can have someone’s typed in men’s running shoes or men’s running sneakers. You can direct that to a collection or a category page where you can show them all of the men’s running sneakers. Uh, but the problem with these, this ads is that as soon as one clicks, they’re going through to a single product and that’s,

Arlen:
I see.

Liam Patterson:
you know, a single color, a single size on your own website. 

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
But that’s a big challenge because we’ve seen about 80, 80% of search terms are generic, they’re not specific of a size, a color, a brand, a model, they’re instead things like men’s sneakers, or, you know, even if they’re branded, maybe like. Nike sneakers, still very generic. 

Arlen:
Nice.

Liam Patterson:
What type do they want? So sure. It’s great. They’ve seen the price. They’ve seen an image, they’ve clicked on it. It’s very high intent, but it’s really challenging. So what we’ve done is we’ve built a part, which is around the bidding. So how much should we pay for that click? Um, so we’re not paying too much and, you know, getting to the front of the carousel, getting loads of clicks, but,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
but making a big loss, 

Arlen:
Mm.

Liam Patterson:
we’re also not right at the back of the carousel net, not showing up, not getting the impression, not getting the sales. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
Um, so we get the visibility, right. But we’ve also just released a landing page product. So that is a dedicated landing page built for Google shopping, which, uh, which loads instantly. So it loads in under a second because there’s a lot of great websites, but they’re very slow and that means that a lot of customers can make that click, wait for the page to load, wait for the page to load. And the stat is that if it’s, uh, five seconds to load or more, about 90% is an increase in bounce rate. So it’s a huge impact if that page is slow. So it’s great that the traffic’s going through to your website. What’s not so great is you can’t direct it to different parts of the website.

Arlen:
I see.

Liam Patterson:
It’s going through to that product details page. And if that product details page is slow, you’re going to lose a lot of traffic right back to Google.

Arlen:
Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you for that breakdown. Yeah, so I see how when you’re using Google Shopping, it kind of makes the merchant be a little bit more, or actually a lot more specific and granular on their search terms. Because like you said, you’re sending people directly to that particular product detail page. It has to be that specific item, that color, that size down to that level. So it really seems like people that… are clicking through here, they already had that mindset of exactly what they wanted. So let’s say I’m looking to buy size 11, you know, Nike cross training running shoes, something like that,

Liam Patterson:
Yep,

Arlen:
just as an example.

Liam Patterson:
Yep, exactly, yeah.

Arlen:
I have that thought, I’m gonna put that in there, or I’m gonna, you know, so let’s say do a general search on a term like that. If I see that in the carousel there, obviously I’m like, okay, that’s the one for me, or that’s close to the one that I’m looking for. and I’m gonna go there.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, exactly. But when maybe when it, when that loads, you realize actually the, the ticker on that one is a bit bigger than I thought, you know,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
uh, or actually that it’s not quite the one that I wanted. I wanted the vintage, but actually this is the retro style, maybe, or, you know, 

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
there’s all these little nuances and

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
that could, or the laces are just not the right limited edition, for example. So all these little things that on a little thumbnail, it can look just right. 

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
But when you’ve clicked, when you see it, you actually think, oh, it’s not quite right. And

Arlen:
All right.

Liam Patterson:
one of the big things we spotted a real opportunity is that. What happens is that a lot of times people will go back, you know, in that experience, you’d press the back button, you’d go back to Google, you’d be on the carousel, most likely you’ll scroll along and select another item, maybe from the same retailer.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
If it is, they’re still paying again. That could be cents or it could be hundreds of dollars for that click.

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
And so, or they might lose you to a competitor. 

Arlen:
Hmm.

Liam Patterson:
You could go to a different e-commerce store and make the purchase on another store. So what we’ve, what we’ve learned is that actually there’s, we use what we call a similarity index, we’re able to see of the item they clicked on. Do you have anything else which is really, really similar? Just like you would if you were in a physical store, 

Arlen:
Mm.

Liam Patterson:
you’d go to the wall, the boot wall in the store, and you’d see that item, but they would have merchandised it, so that’s on the wall, and next to it is all the other most similar items, same color, same gender, same brands, all on that wall. And that’s what we’ve done, is on the Discovery landing pages, which we built just for the journey of Google shopping,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
where we direct the traffic to, so headless landing page is built for Shopify. we actually bring above the fold. So on the mobile device, you see a carousel, which is the other most similar items. And

Arlen:
team.

Liam Patterson:
what might, it might sound like a small thing. This is massive. It makes such a big impact because where you click through, don’t see the item you want, click back, now you immediately see, you know, five or six or more scrollable

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
alternatives, which might just make you click in and keep, keep shopping on the website that’s already paid for your click.

Arlen:
Yeah. I can see how that’s very powerful because like you said, if you go there, you’re not seeing what you wanted specifically. Yeah. Your first hunch is just going to go hit, click back, see what other products there are on that carousel. But if you already have that, they’re listed at that same, you know, e-commerce retailers site, those other similar products, then, you know, it’s just a lot easier. It’s, it’s right there, you know, in your view there for you to just kind of click through and then start, um, you know, cruising other products. And that kind of keeps you. on that site. So nine times out of 10, if they have something close, you’re going to do some further examination and you probably will end up buying from that retailer. So yeah.

Liam Patterson:
Exactly. And it sounds obvious, but actually when we look at the traditional pathway of how we would imagine someone would shop on e-commerce store, we would imagine they’ve been to the homepage, they’ve got an understanding of the brand, maybe some of their USPs around shipping or free shipping policies or returns, maybe about the product categories they’ve got, which are maybe unique, some new items, some new styles. You then go into a collection or a category page, you shop the trainers, pick the item you want by looking at the product details page. And when you get to that from the normal journey, they don’t want to show you more sneakers that are very, very similar because

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
they assume that’s the one you want. So instead

Arlen:
Right.

Liam Patterson:
they would recommend, Hey, here’s some, some socks that would go, go with that. 

Arlen:
Hmm.

Liam Patterson:
Here’s something to complete the outfit. You know, if that’s running, running shoes, what about some, some running shorts? What about running t-shirt or running cap? Makes complete sense to try and upsell to expand your, 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
your cart value or even just to make you check out. But actually when we imagine that from a Google shopping journey, when 80% they’ve typed in a generic search term, some of which is non-specific. They’ve typed, they’ve clicked on an item, which looks similar to what they want, but it’s often unfortunately not the exact item they want just because the image is small, so reading all the titles when they click through, um, you know, they, they want to see alternatives immediately and not, you know, a pair of socks when they’ve typed in men’s Nike running shoes, you know? So really it’s about, um, a different journey for traffic, which is coming from Google shopping rather than the journey you would want to present if somebody had been through your website.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
So that’s really what we’re enabling with these dedicated landing pages for Google Shopping,

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
as well as bringing that speed as well. So they are built for speed and optimized for conversion.

Arlen:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I can see how powerful all of this is. Now, you kind of nailed it. You already kind of touched on it, adding these other components to this product detail landing page, because it kind of makes the e-commerce retailers think a little bit differently about each of these product detail pages, aside from adding other elements to it, like similar items and some of those things that you had mentioned. What would you say are some other tips on how to really create a truly compelling product listing page, you know, for Google shopping.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, so I’d say speed is number one. And that’s something we can’t see. So it’s very often overlooked. But if you’ve got your product details page there, you can go for free to Google’s Page Speed Insights, and you can put in your URL there, and it’ll come back with a score out of 100 for both the mobile and for the desktop. So you can see it separately. So you can really get a feel of how slow you are or how fast you are. And the discovery pages we’ve built are 100 out of 100 for both mobile and desktop. They load in under a second. So they’re really, really fast. And that’s something that’s not visually, you can’t visually see that when you inspect the code, you can really see that through the PageSpeed Insights. The second one is as you say, having the recommendation and where that’s positioned. So for Google shopping, having above the fold. I think I lost you there for a minute.

Arlen:
Yeah, we can you can kind of pick up trying to where you left off

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, no, no problem.

Arlen:
Yeah, it’s a weird glitch

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, that’s good.

Arlen:
with this Riverside.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, that’s absolutely fine. Absolutely fine. Yeah. So having that recommendation just above the fold is also really important. So that when someone’s comes through, a lot of people won’t scroll down. So we’ve got to think about that real estate we have either on a tablet, a desktop or a mobile. And so we really engage and use that and use that space. So I think that’s really important. And, and then there’s other areas like exit intent. So when someone goes to leave the website, they have a pressing back or they’re moving their mouse quickly to the back arrow. You can have pop-ups which are triggered on exit. So then it could be a USP could say, you know, hey, what about this other item that’s very similar? It could be an offer, you know, free shipping over $60 or 5% off, whatever that message is, but it’s triggered on exit, not just to all the users. So you’re not just giving away that money. And then other recommendation, like complete the look visually similar. are also really important. And then finally, a powerful site search as well. So something where you can search, you can quickly and easily find products as well. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
So those are, I’d say, the key ingredients to a really high performing product details page.

Arlen:
Okay, that sounds great. Now, aside from all of those tips of what you should do, you know, it’s always good to learn from, you know, the mistakes of other companies. And I, I know you being in this space, you deal with a lot of companies that are doing, you know, utilizing Google shopping that may either be your clients or clients that you’re just familiar with or companies you’re familiar with. And I’m sure you see kind of a lot of wrong things. So what did you see? What are some common mistakes that you see businesses make? when they start using Google shopping and how can these things be avoided.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, absolutely. So I suppose one of the mistakes we do see is, is advertisers and retailers who don’t really know their cost prices. So our technology bids an individual product SKU level, and that enables us to bring in things such as the cost price. So we can understand the profit of an item. So you might have two items that are both $100, but one might have been $200 before it’s been put on sale. There’s very little profit left in it, maybe only 10%. Whereas the other one is new season stock. And it could be at 70% margin, for example. So whilst they transact through both $100 orders, one is making only $10 and one’s making 70. So we really need to bring in that understanding. So sometimes retailers can, and advertisers can get a bit confused. They can group a lot of, you know, put an average, well, on average it’s 20%, 30% that we make. Whereas actually you need to be really specific. You need to understand the item prices and the margins. because if a product is 70%, you can afford to pay more for that click to Google. And by paying more, it’s gonna move your advert along the carousel towards the front. And the top position, that front position on the carousel gets around 60 to 65% of all the clicks. 

Arlen:
Hmm.

Liam Patterson:
So it’s really important to try and get your ad to the front, but you can only do that if it’s gonna be profitable.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
So you need to bring in the profit margins. It’s also getting really competitive on Google. So the second component can be around understanding your customers. lifetime value. So are you selling a product like a sofa, or, you know, someone’s going to buy it or big, you know, big armchair, someone’s going to buy this, they’re not going to buy one anytime soon. It’s going to be years between purchases. Or are you selling a replenishable product like a protein bar, which someone’s going to consume, they’re going to reorder, they’re going to be doing it frequently. And that one order is going to generate a lot of revenue over the customer’s lifetime. So it’s being able to understand the lifetime value of different products. replenishable products, non replenishable products, and factor that into how much you should pay to get a customer who’s going to have a probability to buy that product again.

Arlen:
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
So there are some of the areas around the metrics. And the other part is understanding what we call purchase intent. So not all search terms or clicks have the same revenue per click or profit per click. So maybe someone who’s just typed in sneakers, very unlikely to go or red dress. very unlikely to go and click from there and make a purchase. It’ll happen, but it’s pretty low probability and the revenue from that click is going to be much lower and so is the profit. Instead,

Arlen:
Hmm.

Liam Patterson:
if someone’s typed in Nike, Ultra Boost, size 10, men’s running shoes, this is so, so detailed. They have done the research, maybe they’ve copy pasted it from another website, put it into Google to see if they can get it cheaper or quicker or on discount, and they’re coming through and they’re so likely to buy. So understanding the search terms, the search queries, and that the customer’s probability to make that purchase is really, really important as well.

Arlen:
Thank you.

Liam Patterson:
So you can avoid paying too much for awareness generic clicks, and you can really hone in and dominate that carousel and that top position, that top impression on the shopping carousel when it’s really high revenue per click, when it’s high profit per click, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
when you’re likely to be getting customers. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
So there’s some of the really key things to understand your economics.

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
and then to apply them at a very granular level on a product and search term level.

Arlen:
Yeah, I totally understand that. And I can see how a lot of businesses can make the mistake of, these days business owners, especially e-commerce business owners, have their hands full. They’re doing a million things. They’re trying to juggle a million responsibilities, or whoever is managing their digital marketing. So the initial tendency could be to just get out on these platforms and, you know, the set it and forget it type of mentality where you get out there, maybe you upload your product feed, you set a blanket click amount across all of them. And you’re just like, okay, let’s see, is this going to work? But from what you’re saying is that you can’t do that. You really have to understand the breakdown, the metrics, the profit margin of each individual product. Because if you make those small adjustments, because you know, let’s say the profit is a little bit more on a certain product, you can bid a little bit higher and that’s going to push you up further in the rankings and the carousel and you get you some better results. So I see you, you really do have to be on top of it down to the product level and you have to understand your, your profit margins and those metrics to really be successful with this.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, that’s absolutely it. And also it’s a risk. If you don’t, you could be paying too much.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
It might be that you’re not getting the revenue, you’re not getting sales, but equally, if you just increase your bids, get that visibility, get the sales, you’re busy working, and this is a real risk for e-commerce businesses because

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
it’s not always as obvious as it sounds. Oh, well, of course, you’ve got to be pretty silly to be paying too much for the orders, but maybe

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
it all looks great until you get the returns, until you start processing people sending back for… different exchanging, different sizes, returning, getting refunds, and then it starts to unravel. And sometimes

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
that can be weeks later. And if you’ve got really pushed up that volume, then that can be pretty scary times, particularly

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
if you’ve invested your budget, hoping on a frequency and recency of customers coming back to buy and buy again,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Liam Patterson:
that may not happen as well. And that’s

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
often the sad thing we hear about some of the really, you know, what were very successful e-commerce businesses got a lot of funding and then it started to unravel. because they didn’t

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
really zone in on this granularity and that they

Arlen:
Yeah.

Liam Patterson:
need to understand the real success or failure of the campaigns.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure, for sure. I know that happens a lot. Well, Liam, as we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to see if you could share and identify some success stories, you know, with businesses where businesses have significantly improved their ROI with the help of Google shopping. You know, maybe these are clients of yours or just any companies that you’re familiar with in general that have had success.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re really proud. There’s over 50 case studies on our website. They referenced the brands, they referenced the results, the time periods that was achieved in, on what products and services they’ve used, and even the individuals, their paper click, or the head of e-commerce, their names, and their quotes as well. So we’re really, really transparent. And that’s really important because I could really offer some stories that I absolutely will do, but maybe they’re not in the listeners’ industries. We’ve got people in fashion, we’ve got in second accessories, we’ve got health and beauty, we’ve got food and drink. So, so definitely check, check out the case studies there because there’s so much rich experiences of entrepreneurs. But I think that’s the most exciting part about this is whilst we are a technology business, we’re able to, to utilize very large amounts of data for AI and machine learning. What really excites me is, is meeting the entrepreneurs and hearing their stories. So some of the ones I’ve been fortunate enough to see myself have been lounge underwear. So a very large retailer here in the active wear. Um, so leggings, other, um, uh, lingerie as well. They’ve had a huge, huge success. Um, so that’s been really exciting seeing their journey scaling and growing, um, month, month after month, year after year, and really becoming one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK. Um,

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
also, uh, Chili’s bottles. So they’ve, they’ve scaled up and even went on to, uh, to sponsor Glastonbury, but amazing. amazing success stories. And there’s just, just so many that it’s, uh, you know, it’s that some of the other ones can be just, just small retailers who started off just a couple of founders, they’ve, they’ve had their passion there and we’ve just been able to support them and really see them grow and, you know, become multimillion dollar businesses. Um, so yeah, it’s a whole, whole raft of different success stories across all the different industries, but they’re all connected by the thread, which is the passion of those founders to find great products, to focus on that area. And I think that’s what can get lost of digital marketing. We obviously all love it. The little dials, the little 1% gains we can get by turning so many different levers to unlock massive growth potential. But actually for the e-commerce entrepreneurs, it’s their passion, their ability to find great products, to build great brands, which is truly inspiring to see.

Arlen:
Okay, great, great. Well, yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing those. And I’ll definitely encourage the listeners and viewers to check out your website and those 50 or so odd case studies that probably cover, I’m sure, a whole gamut of different industries and, you know, in different industry niches as well. So thanks a lot. Well, it’s been awesome talking to you, Liam. I’ve definitely learned a lot about Google shopping. You know, I’m familiar with it, but… didn’t know a lot about the granularity and the details of it. You know, like you said, it’s something that probably anybody that searches for products on Google has probably had some type of encounter with it. May not know what it actually was, but I can see how powerful it is now. And I definitely encourage, you know, all businesses to, uh, you know, consider it if they’ve got an online store, um, consider it, um, and also consider. You know, we’re taking a look at what you guys have to offer so that you can possibly optimize their presence on Google shopping, which I know is a key thing. So yeah, this has definitely been a great conversation. But you know, lastly, before we do let you go, I always like to switch gears just so our audience can get to know you a little bit better. So if you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think we’d be interested to know.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, absolutely. So, a fun fact, I guess, is that, yeah, I’m getting into squash. So after this, this interview, I’m going to head off and, and join on the squash courts, which is maybe a bit of an English sport, but it’s a, yeah, it’s a fun, a fun, fun game. So I think you guys have the pickle ball over there, right? Which is,

Arlen:
Yes.

Liam Patterson:
which is pretty big. But

Arlen:
Yeah,

Liam Patterson:
yeah, we’ve

Arlen:
I actually just started playing pickleball myself. Yeah, how does it compare? I’ve heard of squash when I’m trying to visualize it.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah.

Arlen:
What’s the difference between squash and

Liam Patterson:
So it’s a bit different.

Arlen:
pickleball?

Liam Patterson:
So it’s, um, yeah. So both, both racket sports, um,

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
but squash is actually played where there’s three walls that are enclosed.

Arlen:
Okay.

Liam Patterson:
Uh, and you’re, your opponent are standing next to each other, uh,

Arlen:
again.

Liam Patterson:
and you just volley off the walls and keep the rallies going and going. So it’s a pretty intense sport. There’ll be a lot of sweat. The courts will get pretty hot. It won’t be a pretty sight after that, but, uh, yeah,

Arlen:
All right

Liam Patterson:
It’s good fun

Arlen:
Okay. Gotcha,

Liam Patterson:
and a good way to stay healthy.

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, it reminds me here in the U.S. we have a racket ball. I guess that’s similar to it. It’s like a rubber ball, then you’re in an enclosed court. I guess it’s about three walls, including the back

Liam Patterson:
Yeah.

Arlen:
wall, there’s the back wall as well. So yeah, it sounds really similar to racket ball. But yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it’s always good, like you said, to… Especially if you’re in the online space and you’re on the computer all day, you’ve gotta have some type of outlet that’s totally different

Liam Patterson:
Yeah.

Arlen:
to kind of keep you active and keep you going.

Liam Patterson:
Absolutely, absolutely.

Arlen:
Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that, Liam. Appreciate that. But lastly, before we do let you go, if you don’t mind sharing the best way for our listeners and viewers to get in touch with you, if they’d like to pick your brain anymore about Google shopping.

Liam Patterson:
Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of Google shopping, you could head over to bidnamic, B-I-D-N-A-M-I-C dot com. That’s where the 50 plus case studies are there. There’s loads of ways to enrich content, to read about, to learn, to understand videos on there as well. And you can also book a call in there with myself or one of the team. Or equally, if you’d like to interact, reach out directly to myself, I’m on LinkedIn, which is Liam Patterson at BidNamic.

Arlen:
Okay, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. We’ll definitely have the link directly to your website in our show notes. I’m definitely encourage people to check out your website as well as if they want to get in touch with you directly, they can look you up on LinkedIn. And I’m sure you’d be glad to conversate with them and, you know, help them on their on their e-commerce journeys. Well,

Liam Patterson:
Absolutely, yeah, for sure.

Arlen:
like I said, it’s been an awesome conversation. Liam, I really appreciate you coming on and thank you for joining us today on the e-commerce marketing podcast.

Liam Patterson:
Thanks for having me.

Podcast Guest Info

Liam Patterson
Co-Founder of Bidnamic