Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast. Everyone, my name is Arlen and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Blake Van Leer, who is an executive and entrepreneur with extensive experience in growth strategies, revenue lift, team building, strategic acquisitions, business development, sales processes, customer retention, brand development, ROI, ecommerce and AI tool management.  He is currently the EVP & GM of Proto AI’s eCommerce division, a first of its kind AI product, which helps online retailers increase revenue and conversions through auto optimizing product recommendations while personalizing the customer journey. Additionally, he serves as Special Advisor to Kathy Ireland®, where he has helped Kathy Ireland Worldwide’s B2C retail brand scale from $2B to $3.1B in sales by providing strategic planning on high level topics, partnerships, acquisitions and technology endeavors. Blake oversaw Kathy’s entire online ecommerce ecosystem. Here he led both kiWW and partner’s ecommerce teams. Some of these partnerships included Macys, Zulilly, BHFO, and Neiman Marcus. Blake also advises several other companies in the nonprofit sector, e.g. ChickTech and Best Buddies. Welcome to the podcast, Blake.

Blake Van Leer:
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Arlen. And

Arlen:
Thank you.

Blake Van Leer:
Thank you so much for that intro.

Arlen:
Oh yeah, no problem. And we appreciate having you on. I’m super excited to talk to you. And from reading your intro, you definitely, I guess over the years, you’ve kind of had your hands involved in a lot of things, a lot of aspects of this kind of whole tech world, which is great. I think that just gives your, the experience that you’ve had is definitely, I know given the business that you’re in right now. You know, leg up on things when you have that amount of experience for sure. But, you know, today I’m really excited to talk to you because we’re going to be talking about really kind of an area that’s, you know, your bread and butter, which is the next generation of AI in e-commerce. You know, how does this whole boom of AI benefit e-commerce businesses? What are some things that they can do? How can they benefit from these? And I know we’re going to be diving deep into that and you’re going to shed some light. that can definitely help guide e-commerce businesses. But before we do get into all of that, if you don’t mind telling me a little bit, telling us a little bit more about your background and specifically how you got into what you’re doing today.

Blake Van Leer:
Sure, yeah, yeah. As you said earlier, I’ve always been involved with some sort of tech, right before this call. I know we were talking earlier in college. I was studying business analytics, but to help pay for tuition and get some walking around money, I was doing a lot of affiliate marketing. So setting up quick sites and this kind of dates me But you know I was doing sites to where it would be a thousand words and white text on a white background Rank that quickly to number one on Google

Arlen:
Right.

Blake Van Leer:
And make some quick affiliate at cash if you will

Arlen:
Yep, those were the good old days.

Blake Van Leer:
Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, if only well it seems like we might be there again briefly with chat GPT

Arlen:
True. Right.

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, yeah But, you know, so I started companies, failed companies, and, you know, just kind of had a bit of an entrepreneurial journey or intropreneur, if you will, working for some big companies launching verticals. And just if it’s, you know, if it is a big company or a small company, I’ve always kind of been drawn to something that’s new and exciting from a technical aspect. And, you know, kind of try to help out where I can, yeah, in constant testing. And I had a company and this well-to-do lady named Cathy Ireland, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
who’s a great mentor of mine,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
had some equity stake in. It was a prop tech company.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
And so I kind of just got lucky eventually, like right place, right time, where she would pull me into some of her partnership meetings,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
which would be. Her partners are anywhere from Macy’s, Amfam, so a bit of InsureTech, and a lot of big retail brands. And so we look at it from a tech stack perspective. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
So it was on that side of the fence.

Arlen:
Okay.

Blake Van Leer:
And then I met this very talented team of data scientists and founders that have worked with like the Pentagon, Microsoft. you know, senior positions at those companies and those entities. And they’re like, Hey Blake, what are you doing? It’s post the pandemic. And

Arlen:
Mm.

Blake Van Leer:
I’m like, I don’t know. It’s the pandemic. They’re like, well, you know, we got some breakthrough science. Uh, you know, let’s, uh, help us launch this company. So I lead up the, uh, commerce division, obviously coming from commerce and, you know, I was excited to help them. And, and so here we are.

Arlen:
Okay. Great. Great. Yeah. That’s, that’s some awesome stuff, man. It’s a good opportunity. And, um, yeah, you know, a lot of things took off during the pandemic. Yeah. Of course, a lot of things, a lot of businesses failed, unfortunately, a lot of things shut down, but yeah, I mean, a lot of things I, I have definitely heard other stories like you said, where, you know, people kind of got ideas, you know, when you’re not out and about, you’re not traveling, you can kind of retool things, so to speak, and, you know, get some ideas together, launch things. a good time for people to kind of take a time out and kind of look at their direction and maybe look at some different opportunities that they may not have been able to explore before because they were so busy, you know, just maintaining what they had. So it’s good to see that you’re able to get onto that opportunity. And Kathy Ireland, if I’m not mistaken, was she the supermodel, if I’m not mistaken?

Blake Van Leer:
Right, exactly. She was the most featured Sports Illustrated model. And then after that was the first to kind of say, she was the first to say, look, hey, if you’re going to put my name on a pair of socks or some kind of apparel brand, 
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
Arlen: you know, I want 5%. 

Arlen:
Gotcha.

Blake Van Leer:
So she was like the first

Arlen:
wow. Okay, that’s that’s some good good stuff. Yeah, I didn’t know she was right. The one that really kind of trailblazed for other, you know, celebrities and other supermodels, you know, under or behind her to come up and be able to do that, where you know, they weren’t just, you know, out there plugging products and you know, not really earning too much from that, but they’re able to get a percentage of it. So yeah, that’s some really good stuff. And I’m always glad to hear people leading the way, you know, like that. Well, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, of course today we’re gonna be talking about artificial intelligence and how it relates to e-commerce. And where I wanna start the discussion today is really, if you can just explain how you think at this point, artificial intelligence is currently reshaping the e-commerce industry from kind of what you’ve seen. So, I’m gonna start with a question that I’ve been getting a lot of questions about. And I think that’s a really good question.

Blake Van Leer:
Absolutely. Yeah, I’ll try to do a quick summary. I think that could take up a lot of time, obviously, is such a

Arlen:
Right.

Blake Van Leer:
there’s a lot, you know, anything from supply chain, omnichannel, you know, from a visual content generation optimization. I think what you’re seeing a lot now where the you know, we’re kind of getting into the second ending, if you will, is a lot of people being trained to manage AI within their tech stack. And

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
so, you know, it’s not necessarily replacing like all jobs. It’s not end all, be all. We’re not there yet. But if they have like new positions where people are, you know, you’re starting to see those new titles kind of similar to when social media went through a boom. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
you’re seeing a lot of positions where, instead of social media manager, 

Arlen:
Wow.

Blake Van Leer:
it’s AI engineer prompt person

Arlen:
OK.

Blake Van Leer:
where they’re just managing prompts. Another field is optimization. And so you’re seeing a lot of those kind of come to play and

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
where AI I think is helping them a lot is, especially optimization like. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
you know, just having it there as your data analyst, if you will. So they’re helping you with your A-B test, your, you know, how do I get conversion lists? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
How do people, you know, if they like this, will they like this? And how do I pair all those things together? And, you know, you look at user flow or I quickly need some content, you know, so I need, you know, that tool within my tech stack.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, really, really good stuff. Yeah. And I like that, that new job title, if you will, AI prompt manager. And I think you’re right. I mean, that that really is a new position. I mean, because a lot of, of what people have been doing previously can be done by this AI. But you know, the AI is not going to just run itself, you got to prompt it, you got to prompt it effectively. And that’s kind of what I’ve seen weird. On our end here at OSI affiliate software, we’ve been using chat GPT with a lot of the things we’re doing as far as helping us with our messaging and just with a lot of variety of ways to help our process flow. And of course research is another big thing as well. So yeah, it’s a. Yeah, it’s opened up a lot. You know, it’s not all doom and gloom. You know, a lot of times people are with, they’re painting this whole light on it as being, you know, AI is going to take over the world and it’s going to replace everyone. No one’s going to be able to work. Yeah. It’s not quite like that. These things don’t run themselves. I mean, they have to be coded. They have to be prompted. You know, there’s a whole team behind open AI that has got it to this point. And, um, you know, in order to get it to that next level, there’s got to be, you know, another. group of people or more people that have to be involved to really get this thing to higher levels and where it can be. 

Blake Van Leer:
Exactly.

Arlen:
So yeah, it’s definitely opened up a lot of opportunities, I think. And yeah, so as far as AI is concerned, and as far as like e-commerce is concerned, I think the main question is, with a lot of e-commerce businesses is okay, bottom line is, how can this help me with my sales? How can this help improve getting people to my site, getting people to convert? That’s the ultimate bottom line question that most e-commerce businesses have. And so in what ways do you think AI can contribute to just optimizing the customer’s journey in online retail.

Blake Van Leer:
Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of, there’s a lot of tools out there. There’s content generators. At our company, we’re focused on you’re there on the site. So it’s not how to get you there, but you are there and you’re optimizing or personalizing that journey. right now for, especially with the SMB and like the mid-tier market,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
most AI companies that are focused on that part of it, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
they’re requiring to have a certain threshold of data or sales volume. And so we’ve made this solution just for them in particular

Arlen:
Okay.

Blake Van Leer:
where you don’t have to require a lot of data.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
to start to get lift and for the AI to actually work.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
Example we use a lot, if you go shop on like most sites and you look up say like a toilet seat,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
you generally get followed around the web or throughout the customer journey with more toilet seats.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Blake Van Leer:
And,

Arlen:
exactly.

Blake Van Leer:
otherwise you have a tool where Typically, you’re manually inserting other recommendations. And so where an AI should help and where ours helps is it’s doing that for you in real time within seconds. And so it’s pivoting like, OK, we know this person wanted that toilet seat, they found it. But what are the other things that they might want? If you look at personalization, you might see a lot of. complete the look or similar to or more people about this. That’s very either based on trends.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
So it might be like a pseudo or slightly smart recommendation tool they pulled off the shelf with their platform.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
But it’s not giving them real time feedback. It’s not monitoring their behavior and then offering new products to. you know, get that conversion left for, for their journey. And the quicker they find that, you know, that’s really what they’re after too. That’s another big purpose of AI is for people to find what they’re looking for quicker.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
And so that’s where I see that being a, you know, big play with optimization. Yeah.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, all of those things, you know, I think combine when it comes down to it with e-commerce businesses, especially these days, because there’s so much more competition. You know, part of it was spawned by the pandemic where… companies or players that weren’t in the e-commerce space jumped in it. People that were already in the e-commerce space, um, really looked at their whole situation and said, okay, wait a minute, you know, this is going to be the only way we’re going to sell things. We got to get our act together. And so, yeah, it became so much more important people getting to their site, finding what they need in a short amount of time, standing out apart from your competitors. And then you know, just making that, you know, smooth journey to your customer funnel. And yeah, I think AI has really done a, has really provided these businesses a lot of tools to be able to do that more effectively.

Blake Van Leer:
Exactly. And, you know, I’ll just add to that, you know, look at any company that’s had that classic growth where,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
you know, hey, they got to their first million in rev. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
You know, maybe they’re doing five, 10. You work with brands all the time in that category. And they’re wearing so many hats. You know, in the pandemic, it was kind of like a crash course, like learning how to pivot at a small brick and mortar.

Arlen:
Right.

Blake Van Leer:
And now I got to go online. Even some of the big boxes were like doing the same journey. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
Like how do I quickly compete online?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah,

Arlen:
for sure.

Blake Van Leer:
yeah, exactly.

Arlen:
Yeah. And even some of the big box, big stores, the big box retailers, they, many of them, um, you know, still didn’t make it. You know, I was just reading about, uh, bed bath and beyond, which is, you know, they filed for bankruptcy. They’re shutting down all their locations, which kind of surprised me. Um, But I mean, not really, because I was made with the store. I was familiar with their whole online shop. And I kind of saw some of the holes early on. There was a lot of things I think they, it seemed like they were a little slow to make that transition from retail to online. And before they didn’t really kind of have everything together and a solid e-commerce presence prior to that. prior to the pandemic. And so after that, I mean, they just couldn’t recover. I think that’s really what it came down to for sure.

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, I think that’s the good story, slow to pivot.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, with AI and customer journey, we kind of talked a lot about that and how that can improve that a lot of it comes down to, you know, when you’re getting customers and trying to get customers to your site, it’s going to come down to personalization. How can you personalize your messaging? So how do you think AI powered personalization can just help improve the customer’s experience and just overall and boost the conversions, you know, for an e-commerce business?

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, I think personalization is great when they can, again, find what they’re looking for quicker or you can have it kind of fill that manual process where you still want a human to monitor it, obviously. And I feel like a lot of humans would want to just in case and it makes sense. you know, with the customer’s journey, if you look at like any site and they have, you know, those tabs you see like recommended to or here’s the look,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
you know, I think eventually that’s where you want the AI to be there and

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
to monitor those recommendations and personalization suggestions by the AI. I think where you… you don’t want it to go is too personal because it’s a bit like creepy AI.

Arlen:
right.

Blake Van Leer:
And I feel like, at least for now, 

Arlen:
Yeah,

Blake Van Leer:
a lot of people don’t want that.

Arlen:
yeah, exactly. Yeah, it can go too far. I mean, it’s already whole personalization. It’s already creepy. I mean, use the example of, you know, at a basic level, you doing a search for toilet seats, going to a few sites, and then… you know, the reach through retargeting, you start seeing ads for toilet seats everywhere you go. You know, you’re going to CNN, you’re going to, um, you know, you’re going to other, um, sites, best buy things like that. You’re starting to see these ads for toilet seats. You’re like, all right, wait a minute. And then you flip over to your social media, Instagram. You starting to see that in your feed. And so it’s like, all right, I don’t remember searching an Instagram for this. Why is this showing up? So yeah, it’s, it’s already Little creepy, but yeah, 

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah.

Arlen:
it’s kind of a fine line with what you’re, you know, how far you’re going to go with that personalization.

Blake Van Leer:
Right, right. I don’t want to see an ad that’s like, Blake, I, yeah, I know you have a doctor’s appointment and what do you think about this? You’re

Arlen:
Right

Blake Van Leer:
right, yeah, exactly.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that could be a little scary. Now, speaking of kind of concerns that the public has with AI, these days, many customers, they also have concerns about privacy with the use of AI. You mentioned health care and stuff like that. How do you think these concerns can actually be mitigated as we’re moving forward and these things are collecting more data, how can they be mitigated in the context of just an online retail business?

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, it was interesting when I met the founders of this company and my first reaction was like, you’re huge on the SaaS, e-com space, it’s great market, big data, how much can you capture?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
And they’re like, Blake, those days are numbered, this is years ago.

Arlen:
Right,

Blake Van Leer:
And here we are. don’t want to share their data. And I think the best thing they can do, I’m speaking from like a merchant’s perspective is just be transparent.

Arlen:
Sure.

Blake Van Leer:
I think a lot of people after the recent updates last year, they’re trying to work with vendors or methods to be like almost like deploying like trickery.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
I don’t think that really the helps. I think it just be transparent like, hey, we would like to. personalize this for you. This helps us do that. You don’t have to, but if you check this box, that kind of helps us do what we do better since you really like our brand.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
I think things like that go a long way with the consumer. And with our product, we don’t ever need the personal data. And so our merchants don’t have to share any of their clients’ data with us for. our AI to work, which is great. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Blake Van Leer:
We made that within mind is we’re not asking people to opt in or anything like that. It’s just based on behavior.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that’s really good to know. Because that’s always a concern. I mean, it’s been a concern prior to AI privacy and the use of data. And so yeah, it’s good to know that at least you guys have kind of a handle on that. I wanted to see, because I’m always amazed. Every day I’m on getting these recommendations for different YouTube videos about interesting ways people are using AI, chat GPT, or whatever. to not only for productivity but for marketing. So I wanted to see, could you share some examples of some innovative uses of AI in e-commerce specifically that you’ve been impressed with recently?

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, yeah, for your audience, obviously, you know, I’m biased towards ours, but, and, you know, we’re seeing 30% lift with our case studies.

Arlen:
Wow.

Blake Van Leer:
But yeah, I think chat GBT, obviously, you know, I think we’re, we’re in the Wild West, if you will, we’re still figuring that out. It’s very similar to any other technology breakthrough. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
Like you had search and social, and now you have like true AI breakthrough.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
It’s important to break through what is pseudo AI. Like are they a true AI company? Is

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
it just like a plugin? But yeah, I think generating content. Uh, you know, there’s, there’s some obvious, uh, great ones,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
uh, where if you’ve learned how to manage it properly, 

Arlen:
Right.

Blake Van Leer:
uh, you know, for instance, like I’ll have, you know, 50 some prompts with chat, GBT and each one’s learning and I’m talking with it, trying to, you know, tell it about like the goals, um,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
uh, but once you get there, yeah, I think content generation and, and even prompt. quick inspiration for video content as well.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
That’s an interesting breakthrough, just seeing

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
so much with the whole video space.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, definitely for sure. Yeah, it’s, the video space is interesting also because there’s already a ton of content out there video wise, and that’s why I think it becomes challenging for any content creator in general, whether you’re e-commerce business or not, to try to put out something that’s unique and original or a different spin on something. And then that’s where… these AI tools like chat GPT comes into play. Cause you know, you can specifically prompt it that, you know, you’re trying to make a video similar to this, but you know, you don’t want to make it be exactly on that specific topic. You want to have your own spin. And then it’ll be able to give you just kind of countless iterations of something like that, which is, you know, kind of a unique spin on something that may already be out there.

Blake Van Leer:
Right, right, if you don’t know how to manage it, there’s a frequent statement we always kick around, like chat GPT without managing, just like in an AI tool

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
or new solution, knowing like where to put it on the site. Like if you put ours just on like one page,

Arlen:
Mm.

Blake Van Leer:
just one single page, maybe you get a small percentage left by putting that throughout like. journey, 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
you’ll see more similar to chat gbt if if you kind of just like give me this copy i opened a store

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
uh you know um uh chat gbt writes a lot of content uh but not a lot of content that we want to read uh all

Arlen:
Yeah, right. Exactly.

Blake Van Leer:
right yeah yeah so you do have to work a little

Arlen:
You do, you do. It takes a lot of iterations, a lot of prompts, you have to narrow things down. And it’s a combination of not only the prompt or the chat GPT’s feedback or whatever it’s giving you, you’re gonna have to put in your own ideas, tailor it, tweak it, because not everything is gonna be correct or perfect. So yeah, it’s still, so I can do everything. That’s for sure. You can’t just sit back and just say, do this, come up with content. And then yeah, it’s not. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy, at least currently at this point. Well, Blake, as we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to see what you thought or how you think AI, how do you see AI rather shaping the future of e-commerce and particularly just in the next five to 10 year space.

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, I think you’ll see more brands, obviously more content. Um, you’re going to see a lot of people that, again, just look at, um, the audience, you’ll see some big enterprise, like do some exciting things. But then from, I’m most interested in like the, the SMB, the mid tier market and seeing people be able to. quickly pivot with brands, like they have a really cool idea.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Blake Van Leer:
And I think that’s where AI comes in is like, hey, you don’t have to take out a quick S&B loan or friends and family money, or kind of like really scratch your head to launch something. And even a lot of folks that were always on the fence about launching something, but it’s so daunting to them. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
They can now use AI and quickly create a logo, create a brand

Arlen:
Yeah. Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
and really test it. So I think you might even see like an increase just within that whole, kind of mid tier entrepreneur category.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I mean, the, the time to market, um, period is definitely, um, lesson with this type of stuff. Like you said, from the logo creation to just initial ideas of initial content. And even product specific details about a particular product that you’re looking to put out there or service. I mean, all of that can be generated via AI. And so yeah, that definitely lessens the time for businesses to, to launch stuff and to get stuff out there. So, um, Yeah, really, really powerful stuff. Yeah, I’m just, I’m kind of excited just to see where everything is gonna go. You know, where are we gonna be five years, 10 years? I mean, are these things gonna be? I mean, it’s really hard to say at what level it’s going to be there. But yeah, I know we’re going to be in it for some interesting days. And for e-commerce specifically, I think if it’s utilized correctly, yeah, it can only be a benefit for businesses to grow. And again, it’s just like anything. It’s either they get on board now and adopt it, or they’re just going to be behind in the future. You know, I think for a while businesses, when the Internet started to take off and online selling took off. You know, as we’ve seen, a lot of businesses, you know, were slow, slow to adopt these changes. And, you know, we kind of see where they are today. Like I said earlier with Bed Bath and Beyond, they were a little bit slow to figure things out with their whole online space. And I think they kind of paid the ultimate price for that, unfortunately. But yeah, we’re gonna, that’s kind of where we’re at. And just hopefully businesses kind of take heed and kind of jump on board, you know, sooner than later.

Blake Van Leer:
Exactly, exactly.

Arlen:
Yeah, well Blake, it’s been awesome talking to you. You know, AI is a huge topic, a great area. I’ve been truly amazed by it. I’m still amazed to this day about how it can possibly do these things at such quick speed. And as we see, it’s definitely a great benefit to our business. So I know, you know, into any e-commerce business. And so I know this conversation is hopefully going to add value to all of the e-commerce businesses and the digital marketers that are listening. So. But lastly, before we do let you go, I would like to switch gears 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.

Blake Van Leer:
Oh, yeah, that’s interesting. I guess maybe a couple would be, I’m an avid gamer,

Arlen:
Okay.

Blake Van Leer:
love gaming, created video games just as a kid, 

Arlen:
OK.

Blake Van Leer:
so always done that. And then I’m a huge Georgia Tech fan.

Arlen:
Okay.

Blake Van Leer:
So academically, it’s always a good year, but football, we’re still holding out. So please have some empathy for me.

Arlen:
Okay. Gotcha, gotcha.

Blake Van Leer:
Hahaha

Arlen:
No problem. Yeah, that’s how it is. You know, a lot of times these teams, you know, it takes a while till you get the right mix of players and coaches and, you know, there’s a lot in the whole recipe to winning that I can, 

Blake Van Leer:
Right.

Arlen:
I think that makes the team get to that top level. But yeah, you know.

Blake Van Leer:
it’s an engineering school too, so I mean maybe we’re just overthinking it. We just need to like, yeah.

Arlen:
Yeah, you never know. Yeah, I was, my background is computer engineering, so I definitely know as an engineer, we can tend to overthink things and

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah.

Arlen:
maybe

Blake Van Leer:
Right,

Arlen:
that’s

Blake Van Leer:
right.

Arlen:
Yep,

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah.

Arlen:
you never know. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Yeah, gaming is also a huge space as well. And I, you know, it’s really amazing how AI is also gonna be used to help. you know, on the online gaming space and the creation of games and all of this media. So that’s just a whole nother area, but that’s a another discussion for another time. 

Blake Van Leer:
Hey,

Arlen:
But I know you’re kind of

Blake Van Leer:
principles

Arlen:
looking at that.

Blake Van Leer:
are the same there. If anyone’s wondering, I know Meta came and went, and now we’re

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
like, what is that? 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Blake Van Leer:
But even with NFTs, if you played any games where you purchase things or Roblox, that’s a great example to conceptualize it.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, true, true for sure. Well, awesome Blake. Thank you for sharing that. Lastly, before we do let you go, if you don’t mind letting our listeners know the best way for them to get in contact with you, if they want to pick your brain anymore, uh, regarding AI and how, uh, it can be used to benefit their e-commerce businesses.

Blake Van Leer:
Yeah, absolutely. Please engage with me on social media. That’s probably the easiest way. On Twitter or LinkedIn, send me a request, happy to chat, collaborate, share notes, anything I can do to help. And we’re always actively involved with ATTC outside of Georgia Tech down in Atlanta. Anybody can come. You know, we have events down there all the time as well.

Arlen:
Okay, that’s awesome. Great. Well, yeah, definitely encourage people to check you out and look you up on social media. Definitely have the links to your website in the show notes as well, Proto AI. And it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Blake. We really appreciate you coming on to the e-commerce marketing podcast.

Blake Van Leer:
Thank you so much, Arlen. Thank you, everyone.

Arlen:
Thank you.

Podcast Guest Info

Blake Van Leer
EVP & GM of Proto AI’s eCommerce division