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E93: Chris Mills

Increase Your Conversion Rates with Better Customer Data Capture

Chris Mills

Podcast Overview

Do you ever get fed up when you go to checkout on an online store and find out you have to manually type in your entire address? 

We know in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t take a huge amount of time, but it turns out this is a huge turn off for customers, with many of them abandoning their carts when the process just isn’t quick enough.

That’s why we’ve got Chris on from Fetchify to talk all about address lookup and data validation, and how you can implement clever solutions to help get those sales over the line. 

eCom@One Presents:

Chris Mills

Chris is the Partnerships Manager at Fetchify, a data validation solution that ensures store owners are getting accurate address, phone number, postcode, email, and bank account data from their customers. Fetchify is trusted by major brands including RBS, Moonpig, Ford and many more. 

In this episode, Chris discusses conversion rates and why that’s the core drive behind Fetchify. He talks all about the benefits of capturing and validating personal information such as emails, and the most effective ways to collect this data from your store. Chris also shares the biggest challenges that eCommerce stores face when collecting data, and gives his opinions on which brands do data collection best. 

If you think your store could be hindering your sales by making it difficult for customers to share their data with you, then listen in as Chris shares how you can remove these barriers to make your customer experience as slick as possible.   

Topics Covered:

02:45 – Fetchify’s Mission

05:34 – The benefits of validating email

11:14 – The best ways to capture customer data on your store

13:42 – Collecting data via popups

17:17 – SMS marketing

20:08 – How bank validation can benefit your store

24:21 – The biggest challenges with data collection

30:47 – The brands doing data collection best

32:43 – How to get ahead of the competition in the next 18 months

34:40 – Book recommendation 

 

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, host of eCom@One. Welcome to our 93rd episode. In this episode, I speak with Chris Mills. Chris is the partnership manager at Fetchify. I can remember when I thought I was pretty smart in one of my first stores at a postcode lookup software on the checkout. I remember well the increased conversions from something so simple to set up. Well, that was around 2008. While Chris and team focus is really making sure the quality of auto lookup data for addresses, phone numbers, postcodes, emails, even bank accounts are validated for store owners. We talk about the benefits of capturing and validating emails, some of the best methods for capturing data for your stores, we blast through some of the challenges that stores face when collecting data and talk about the stores that do it best.

Richard Hill:
If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button on wherever you are listening to this podcast, so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. 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 you doing, Chris?

Chris Mills:
I'm very good. Thanks, Richard. How are you?

Richard Hill:
I am very well. Well, me and Chris met not too long ago, a few weeks ago or a few months ago, I think when this one airs, at the IRX, which is in the UK at the NEC. Probably the first outing for many in the UK last year for expos and expos has always been a huge part of our sort of growth in our businesses and it's fantastic I think to get out there, get out to events and meet people. Me and Chris met there. We were actually neighbours, weren't we, at expo for two lovely days? And we have a couple of things in common, don't we? That we're very [crosstalk 00:01:53]-

Chris Mills:
We do. When I was a kid, Richard, I used to think that I was cool, but I suddenly realized after talking to you that my coolness has now disappeared.

Richard Hill:
So we are both, I think it's fair to say, we're both into our lawns, aren't we, at home?

Chris Mills:
We are. I love the lawnmower.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chris Mills:
I do. I mean, I got rid of... Are we going to talk about lawnmowers straight out?

Richard Hill:
Yeah, that's good. Let's go.

Chris Mills:
I got rid of a Qualcast cylinder lawnmower a short while ago. That was my baby actually. I loved that lawnmower, but it was causing problems in my relationship so it had to go.

Richard Hill:
It was a choice, was it, one or the other type thing?

Chris Mills:
It really did get down to that?

Richard Hill:
You're at a whole 'nother level to me on the lawns. Anyway, we'll maybe come back to lawns, maybe we won't. So tell us about Fetchify and Fetchify's mission. Tell us what does Fetchify do?

Chris Mills:
So Fetchify is all about data quality and ease of use. We validate and verify personal identity information, name, address, postal information, bank information, email address, et cetera. And we have a solution, a postcode lookup tool that is ubiquitous in the marketplace. Everybody uses it. It kind of sets the standards, if you like, in terms of best practices for what people should be using in their eCommerce checkouts. The easier you make it as an eCommerce merchant to be able to convert your customers, it's not rocket science, the more conversions that you'll make. And by reducing that friction and minimizing the decision making process you will find that your conversions will go through the roof. So, I mean, Fetchify is increasing conversion rates that we see with people using our technology and not using our technology is something upwards of about 40%.

Richard Hill:
Wow. That's huge, isn't it?

Chris Mills:
So it's incredible, but most people know about it. I mean, you go into any eCommerce store and you go to use like a postcode lookup tool or an auto address complete solution. I mean, they should be standardized I think in most eCommerce stores, especially within your [inaudible 00:04:19] they are within the brands. Most people would know about the auto address complete and validation solutions. In terms of our mission, I think accurate customer data and easy to use for all, I think would be probably where the business is aligned to. My boss would like to say that probably we increase conversions and we reduce abandoned baskets and we make eCommerce managers superheroes, but I don't think you could become a Thor of eCommerce, I don't think that's possible.

Richard Hill:
Thor of eCommerce. I like that. Thor of eCommerce.

Chris Mills:
There you go [crosstalk 00:04:58]-

Richard Hill:
I mean, I remember when I had stores, I think, I sold mine back in, oh gosh, probably about 10-ish years ago. And sort of having that postcode ability to type in your postcode back then, I thought I was like the man. This was like new technology back then, about 10 years ago, you type in your postcode and bosh, you'd see your street and then you click on your house number and then it just populated everything. Obviously that's 12 years ago, obviously a lot's changed really since then. You talked about not just obviously address, you're talking about banking, you're talking about email, but I think email specifically, what's the big benefits of validating email, would you say?

Chris Mills:
You're not going to drag me down some Jeremy Paxman kind of GDPR road here, are you?

Richard Hill:
Oh, no. I don't think... That's like the Voldemort, we don't go GDPR on this.

Chris Mills:
Okay, good man. Richard, I do like you. Benefits of using email validation. So there's a quantifiable and an unquantifiable kind of measurement that you can look at here. My background is working with a business called Return Path. So in 2010, I was a group of four people, five people, that bought Return Path to the UK from the US. Return Path is an email deliverability specialist. I mean, they were focused purely on making sure that emails were delivered to the inbox rather than being spammed or blocked at the gateway. And the biggest deciding factor of why emails are blocked, is due to the IP reputation and sending IP reputation. And the IP reputation primarily is affected by the way in which the data is cleansed in the way in which you collect your data. The knock on effect of sending too many badly spelled email addresses is it causes the IP address to fail and your marketing or your transactional emails won't go through to the inbox.

Chris Mills:
So there is this necessity to ensure that your consumers read and receive your emails as they should do and collecting accurate customer information, I'm going to say accurate a lot probably on this, is paramount. Then of course you have the unquantifiable side of this, which is if I've gone through an eCommerce checkout and I can't log back into my accounts, or my experience as a consumer is I don't get a transactional email to tell me that I've just purchased, or I don't receive information from you, or I can't get through actually back onto the system again, and my customer experience then deteriorates, my brand association to Billy Goat scarifiers, for example, which you probably want, is going to deteriorate and therefore it's very difficult to kind of win that consumer back. I'm definitely, maybe it's just me, but I'm of the mindset where I want to be marketed to. I want people to send me voucher codes after I've just bought, I want to you to entice me in, create different centres and do all sorts of lovely things to personalize my experience. And you can't do that if you don't have accurate information.

Richard Hill:
So validating emails and making sure it's accurate, obviously it works for both sides, obviously listening to this episode as an eCom store owner, obviously you're getting better data in, so you are getting in theory more open rates, your emails are getting opened, you're protecting your IP, your email inbox... What's the word? Sort of quality. So you are less likely to be getting blocked by different things that are out there stopping emails getting through. Your emails are getting through more, therefore the theory is that you're getting more opens. Obviously there's a whole other host of reasons why you would get opens as well, but primarily your emails are getting through because it's a better quality email coming in. So therefore, less emails are bouncing, et cetera.

Richard Hill:
And then obviously as a consumer, your consumers are opening more and your likely to be getting, obviously when you're looking at say, your sales from email marketing, they're likely to be your percentages of open sales, et cetera, should be higher than just taking any email address in. So super, super important, isn't it? And I think a lot of people that I see, they don't really... They validate, they've maybe got the postcode side of things in place, but a lot of the other things which talking about particularly emails, I don't think are very often in place with a lot of systems.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I mean, it's certainly an eCommerce checkout. I think that the three main areas or the three points that should be looked at are definitely bank, email, potentially even phone as well. Being able to validate the phone. Let's just say that your customer journey is to send an SMS at the point of when something's being delivered. Give the customer something, a slightly more of a warm feeling that they've got [crosstalk 00:10:11] arriving when they were promised it would have arrived or if it was being left around the back of the gate or wherever it is.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, I've just had a... Where's it gone? It's on my desk somewhere. I think I've moved it actually, but I've just bought one of these, it's called an Aurora ring. And it's to test and check your heart rate, your sleep patterns and things like that. And I've had a horrendous time getting it here, but the only sort of good side of the delivery process has been the text messages from DHL, for example. And it's been held up because of customs and sort of duty and things like that, rather than sort of anything else. It's one of those things. If it wasn't for the text messages that were telling me that, I'd have been like, well, where the hell is this flipping ring? I'd have a really bad experience.

Richard Hill:
Its not been the best, but I understand it's not Aurora's fault, it's not the manufacturer, it's not the person that I bought it from fault, it's just, it's come from the US, it's hit customs and it's been held up and I had to pay 65 quid more, frustratingly. But so, okay. So eCom stores listening in, what are some of the best ways to capture data as an eCom store? And now we're talking about checkout, obviously so we're at the checkout, maybe talk about that a bit more, but also some other ways to capture data on the stores that you think are... There's a lot of different ways. Obviously there's popups, there's this, that, and the other, isn't there? But what would you say are some of the best ways to capture data on store?

Chris Mills:
So if you were to think about the basic identity data, looking at name, email address, and postal address for your consumer should only ever be done at checkout and it should be a simple form that's with relevant requests for data only. Don't ask for more than you need, because it becomes suspicious. Then you can start to look at, I guess the next thing is engagement data. And as marketers, we want to find out how good or how bad, where are the personas, the demographics. And you can spend a huge amount of money on sophisticated solutions that are going to tell you a huge amount information about data that potentially you may not need. I don't think the question should ever be, what are the best ways to go and get something? I think the question should probably be turned around on its head somewhat. I think it should be, what do I actually need?

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Chris Mills:
And what do I need? Do I need clicks, open and abandoned carts? Probably, yes, that would be great for an email campaign. Okay. What else am I trying to measure? And start from that point, rather than starting from a point of do you know what? I've been given this huge budget and now I can go and buy all these wonderful SaaS products that are out there. Take it back to exactly what it's going... Unless you're a data scientist, you're never going to be able to use all of the data that we can collect as eCommerce experts or marketeers. And less sometimes is more, Richard, isn't it?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So obviously check out in the priority then. Obviously you would never ask for sort of... Do you think there's a time and place then to sort of part checkout for now, is there a time and place and what are your thoughts on like popups and trying to get people's email, potential customers emails, obviously sign them up to newsletters, then not obviously nurture them and then sell them possibly something further down the line or capturing emails pre-purchase? You're not a big fan by the looks of that.

Chris Mills:
Honestly, honestly, I'm always thinking that I hate popups. I hate them. So Fetchify is part of a group of companies called Clear Course and one of our sister companies is the eCommerce brand EKM. Now after speaking to the guys at EKM, who have got like the largest eCommerce platform in the UK, they tell me based on their data that the intent to exit popup is it works.

Richard Hill:
So you're about to leave.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. So I'm okay. I'm okay with that.

Richard Hill:
Deep breath, yeah. Keep breathing.

Chris Mills:
But [crosstalk 00:14:55]-

Richard Hill:
So you're on Qualcast and the next thing you know, or Alec Mowers, and you're about to leave and then they show you this new potential £2000 electric mower.

Chris Mills:
Do you know what? If your website, if your revenue that you generate from your website... Oh, you've got me on here. I'm going to go off on a rant. If your website's revenue stream, primary revenue stream is from advertising, I'm expecting a popup. If your primary revenue stream is from selling products, then the last thing that I expect is to find popup after popup, and all of these popups come over the navigation bar, or they're on the area where I want to purchase, or the calls to action, and you have to delve your way back through to see the content. It becomes the normal in the US, I think, to have websites that are like that. And if you are trying to collect data in the UK, my own personal opinion is just be professional about it. Popups don't look professional. Wreck-It Ralph breaks the internet. Isn't there a moment where he kind of runs around and there's a lot popups everywhere?

Richard Hill:
Yes. So popups, I think is what you're saying is obviously if they're just very intrusive, very aggressive, very sort of ruining the experience, then that's quite, it's very annoying, isn't it? But if they may be done more subtly and they're relevant, if you are about to buy something and there's a popup to maybe give you 5%, is that at the end of the world? Obviously you're maybe going to buy, but obviously we know that obviously the majority of people probably aren't going to buy in that moment that are on a product page. The stats will tell you that obviously you're not going to get 100% conversion on a product page, but if you're looking at a product, there's obviously an element of intent there, or product to category, subcategory, you've spent X amount of time on a page that is a product page, but you may be heading towards the big cross. Oh, no, if we're going to give you 5%, if that's going give you a little incentive, I think there's some mileage there. Obviously [crosstalk 00:17:03]-

Chris Mills:
Exactly. I mean, those exit intent or intent to leave kind of popups, absolutely. Having looked at the data and do you know what? I agree with you.

Richard Hill:
So obviously you mentioned quite a few bits of data at the beginning. An SMS, do you think that's one that people maybe do miss? Obviously it's not new by any means, but it's definitely newer in terms of SMS messaging. Would you say if you had to pick one bit of data that people should be getting and maybe aren't, would that be it, SMS, text messaging and mobile numbers?

Chris Mills:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, we want to create this... I don't know whether this is something that sits in your opinion, but we want to create almost like a single customer view of exactly how somebody communicates with your brand. And I love all that stuff. And I think that the more touch points and the more channels that you've got, the easier it becomes as a marketeer to be able to reach out to the consumer on the channel in which they want to be spoken in a relevant and timely manner.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. I think we're going to see more and more SMS businesses appear. Obviously that's something you guys do, but I think you just don't see much of it. Some of the bigger brands are using it, but I think more the independents, which I think are a lot more of our listeners, SMS is less used, less and less used. I think that's something that is definitely worth looking at. Maybe we need to do a whole episode on that really.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I mean, it's a beautiful thought, isn't it? To make sure that every time you sell a product that before it arrives the consumer receives a text message to say that their product's on the way. That's almost like a basic or a minimal thing that maybe a consumer expects from brands.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. I think we've got some clarity on what we should and shouldn't be doing from your perspective. But the how? So okay, I'm on your store or on a store, a customers on your store, a store, but obviously the simple answer from would probably be to install Fetchify, but the best ways to capture that data? So you purely saying just having a really tight checkout process and everything in there?

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I mean, personal identity information, absolutely, that would be the way forward. In terms of, if you want to start to create personas or demographics within your dataset for individuals then, maybe we'll talk about this a bit later on, I don't know, but the idea of creating preference centres that's not something that exists purely for the world of social media. The idea of brands being able to talk to the consumers about the consumer interests is paramount.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. We've got our store, now within store, maybe Fetchify? That's probably, would you say you are one of the biggest out there in the sort of internationally or more UK based?

Chris Mills:
There's probably two or three in the market here in the UK? I don't see... Maybe another one or two in the US. But our plans for world domination probably stop in Europe for the time being. The business is and has been growing. I mean, it started in 2008, a chap called Adam Stylo started the business and it got to a stage, he kind of... I don't know what's the right word. He created the marketplace or he was one of the principal drivers behind it. He then sold the business to Clear Course and with the backend of clear course, now we are looking at different ways in which we can grow. But not just in the world of eCommerce also, but in the world of maybe in finance or going into CRM and different kind of avenues as well. So it's really exciting. It's a great company to work for.

Richard Hill:
And I noticed that something that sort of peeked my interest with you guys is the UK bank validation.

Chris Mills:
Yeah.

Richard Hill:
How does that really play into... As an eCom store, how does that really benefit you? I'm off to buy my new obviously scarifier or my hole puncher.

Chris Mills:
Another one.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So bank validation, how does that sort of help eCom stores?

Chris Mills:
Oh, well, I mean, being able to collect that data correctly. I mean, we're collecting data and Fetchify's solution is almost like we're a middle man in this. We are being able to provide accurate customer information back to the merchants that enable the merchants to be able to process that information or that data correctly. The bank data that we have or the bank validation solution that we have has been around for about a year or so now and is used in conjunction with other solutions such as clear accept or clear debit, where you are having a product that's looking on the payment processes side of things as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think a lot of probably eCom stores probably don't use that facility really. At the end of the day, a lot of people, obviously you're putting a credit card in or you're using Amazon Pay, Google Pay, whatever it may be. I think there's probably, maybe B2B commerce has probably got quite a lot more use for that. Would you say? Something like that and opening trade accounts and things like that.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I would've said so. I mean, in terms of the consumer or people selling B2C. Typically, an email platform has these elements built into it, they have the correct payment methods, they have the right way in which a merchant can be able to process funds. Checking to see whether you've got accurate information, that's always a good step forward. Being able to get accurate data into your data set by validating that data is great. The banks obviously are using the data as well, are using the solutions as well. So we're seeing a lot of banks nowadays... I don't know who you bank with. I bank with Santander and every time I do something, they're always checking and validating that the person that I'm sending money to is the correct individual. And fortunately those types of processes have now come into place because before it was kind of like it was everywhere really. I don't think it was a very accurate and process driven playing field that we were on.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, okay, we've got hundreds of stores listening to this, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges that are out there for eCommerce stores and data, data as a whole? So obviously we're saying that we want to collect, you are saying predominantly we're going to collect data at the checkout process and maybe some sneaky bits and bobs amongst it all or some smart news letter popups and discounts possibly here and there, but what are some of the challenges doing that? Obviously different systems, different challenges, different platforms maybe, different things, but any challenges you would sort of want to discuss?

Chris Mills:
Well, I mean, is there any data that companies don't collect, I think, is possibly the direction in where we should go as eCommerce marketers. We ran a survey recently at Fetchify and we have something like 10,000 customers, of those 10,000 customers we had a fairly large control group in which to kind of like take the data from, but 50% of those customers, they didn't have any abandoned cart data.

Richard Hill:
Wow.

Chris Mills:
And these are big brands. These are large organizations and they weren't checking that data. They weren't looking to see whether that data was correct. And it's almost like you have to take things back to square one again and start to look at the basics of what we need as marketers or eCommerce individuals to be able to understand what's going to make a success out of the store. I love personal profiles. If it was down to me, do I go to Sainsbury's? I buy my food at Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's know exactly what I've been buying every week, but they don't know about my deep love of cheesecake, for example. They have all of the information necessary, but they don't ever ask me.

Chris Mills:
So creating personal profiles is a really interesting thing for me, the ability to be able to sense, to ask your consumers and be interested in your consumers, it should be quite easy for us. And brands need to kind of have the ability to learn to listen to what their advocates want and why they love their brands. So I would certainly look towards personal profiles as one of the things that is going to help brands start to know more about their consumers and why consumers buy from them. And then you can start to think about the exciting things of creating single customer views and how does Chris Mills engage with Sainsbury's, for example, and what type of product does he buy and what is his interests in?

Richard Hill:
It's an interesting topic, isn't it? I keep thinking of... I think that's brilliant, that personal view, that personal profile and then you're walking around a store, Sainsbury's for example, and you've got that personal view of what you've done on their website, but you're walking through the store and Sainsbury's know that Chris Mills is walking past the cheesecake counter and his love of cheesecake, and as you walk past there's something that's, Hey, Chris.

Chris Mills:
Do you remember the day where you used to get the Bluetooth messaging?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think stuff like this does exist to a degree. I've had a couple of people on where this sort of true omnichannel experience where you're walking through a store and based on your location in the store with your mobile phone, and there's other technology around scanning your face and your profile and they'll know it's you as you walk in the store, you walk through a store. I actually did a presentation to a large organization about a month ago, it was about 4,000 people were there, I think, and they've got a lot of stores. Actually a lot more people were there. They've got 300 and... Sorry. 220 stores. And we were talking about they've got travel agents, for example. So you've been on the website, you've looked at the holidays in Thailand and then you've gone into the store, and as you walk into the store, one of the walls or some of the walls is a mirror. And as you walk and look at the mirror, it shows you on the beach in Thailand because it knows that.

Chris Mills:
Oh.

Richard Hill:
And this is like a concept thing, but there sort of mirror technology showing you doing the things or advertising you the things that you've looked at, or that you have a connotation with, or because of your single view profile they know that you're interested in X, Y, Z. All that is sort of there, it's just, it's coming. It reminds me of the film Running Man from back in like 25 years ago, Schwarzenegger. I think it was Running Man. He's running through the airport and as he's running through or walking through the airport and the adverts are changing and offering things that are very much based on his personalization of what he's been looking at. Obviously he's into his gym and his fitness, so he was seeing, I think, protein or something at the time. I think that.

Chris Mills:
This is exciting, isn't it? I mean, as marketers and as people that work within selling products while on the internet, I think that we should be using these tools that are at our disposable. We're always kind of looking one step further. And maybe then to bring it back to your questions about what are the challenges? Maybe the biggest challenge that I see if people just aren't collecting data on an abandoned cart, maybe the biggest challenges that we have is actually getting more accurate information and getting it better. It's almost of like listening to your old football manager or somebody that was kind of there to inspire you, and he would always be talking about just do the basics best.

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Chris Mills:
And I think sometimes when we are in a world of we have so many tools at our disposal, we kind of forget the very easiest things just to make sure that we get the best data that's coming into our business and get it accurate.

Richard Hill:
Love it. So who's doing that well? If you were to pick on a... If you could mention companies or a company, who would you say is got a really strong they're using that data, all the different things we've talked about there maybe around remarketing and retargeting, and don't know if anybody's got mirrors in their store and things like that, but who is brands that stand out for you that do it well, the experiences that you've had, or maybe customers of yours that are doing it really, really well?

Chris Mills:
So actually, well, so if you were to say collecting data, who does it best? Well, Nielsen does it best. Their products are the best. So regardless of how they use the data, you can't argue with Facebook, can you? I mean, Facebook know that I live Madrid, I support Barcelona, that I'm fat, I've had a diet, I love cheesecake, I bought lawnmowers, my Mrs is called Jenny. They know everything about her, about us. I've seen Facebook do some in incredible... The Facebook data actually, the way in which you can use lookalike campaigns in Facebook is for me really exciting. Do you know? That type of information enables as a B2B kind of like selling business this is really exciting for us. But I mean, Facebook. I mean, would you really want to say that Facebook is the best organization?

Richard Hill:
I mean, so are you seeing adverts for cheesecake, that's what I want to know?

Chris Mills:
Yes. Everywhere.

Richard Hill:
Wow.

Chris Mills:
Yes.

Richard Hill:
That's pretty good.

Chris Mills:
I mean, this is it. This is the top for me, Richard.

Richard Hill:
So, okay, crystal ball time then. We are sat here in 18 months time, what do you think is going to be the hot topic? What do our listeners need to maybe get in front of before it's happening or focus on? For 18 months from now, everyone's going to be talking about X or the benefit of using X, Y, Z, over this next 18 months that's going to give our listeners a jump or an advance on a specific thing, what would that be?

Chris Mills:
I would probably say geo coding.

Richard Hill:
Okay.

Chris Mills:
And the reason I say geo coding is because you can do all sorts of really cool things with geo coding. I mean, you can start to create cohorts and lookalikes within your data sets from geo coding. There's no point in selling somebody a lawnmower if they live in a flat.

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Chris Mills:
So there is huge potential out of geo coding. But without wanting to sound dull and talking about actual data, I think that we'll start to see a change in the way in which people kind of collect data and the methods in which people were collecting data at the moment. So we've gone through. The Internet's a bit like the Wild West, isn't it? Really, it's a fairly lawless kind of place where you can do pretty much whatever you want. And I think that it will change. I think that the way in which we collect data and the transparency in which we collect data and the way in which we use it, whether it's for our businesses going from B2B or B2C or even the way that governments collect data, those things have to change and I think they have to change quite soon.

Richard Hill:
Love it. Love it. So we really do like to end every episode on a book recommendation, Chris. If you were to recommend one book to our listeners, what would that be?

Chris Mills:
I don't even have to book with me. At the moment I'm reading a Jack Ryan book by Lee Charles, but that is just rubbish.

Richard Hill:
Not that one then.

Chris Mills:
No. How about, have you read Shuggie Bain?

Richard Hill:
No. No.

Chris Mills:
Okay. It's a bit dark.

Richard Hill:
Oh yeah.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. By Douglas Stuart.

Richard Hill:
So Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. That's an incredible read. It's not exactly the most festive of pieces of literature.

Richard Hill:
Okay.

Chris Mills:
But Michael Phelps, No Limits, in terms of an autobiography is outstanding and using that as kind of like a sales motivation tool. It is amazing to see what he's gone through as an individual to be the best in the world at what he does. Kind of puts me to shame really.

Richard Hill:
Well, thank you. Well, thank you for coming on this show. It's been an absolute blast.

Chris Mills:
Thank you for having me.

Richard Hill:
It's flown by. So for the guys that are listening, what's the best way to reach out to you, to reach out to Fetchify, what's the best way to do that?

Chris Mills:
Email. Chris.Mills@fetchify.com. LinkedIn. So any of the normal social channels.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I look forward to speaking to you again.

Chris Mills:
It's an absolute pleasure. Thanks Richard.

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

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, host of eCom@One. Welcome to our 93rd episode. In this episode, I speak with Chris Mills. Chris is the partnership manager at Fetchify. I can remember when I thought I was pretty smart in one of my first stores at a postcode lookup software on the checkout. I remember well the increased conversions from something so simple to set up. Well, that was around 2008. While Chris and team focus is really making sure the quality of auto lookup data for addresses, phone numbers, postcodes, emails, even bank accounts are validated for store owners. We talk about the benefits of capturing and validating emails, some of the best methods for capturing data for your stores, we blast through some of the challenges that stores face when collecting data and talk about the stores that do it best.

Richard Hill:
If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button on wherever you are listening to this podcast, so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. 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 you doing, Chris?

Chris Mills:
I'm very good. Thanks, Richard. How are you?

Richard Hill:
I am very well. Well, me and Chris met not too long ago, a few weeks ago or a few months ago, I think when this one airs, at the IRX, which is in the UK at the NEC. Probably the first outing for many in the UK last year for expos and expos has always been a huge part of our sort of growth in our businesses and it's fantastic I think to get out there, get out to events and meet people. Me and Chris met there. We were actually neighbours, weren't we, at expo for two lovely days? And we have a couple of things in common, don't we? That we're very [crosstalk 00:01:53]-

Chris Mills:
We do. When I was a kid, Richard, I used to think that I was cool, but I suddenly realized after talking to you that my coolness has now disappeared.

Richard Hill:
So we are both, I think it's fair to say, we're both into our lawns, aren't we, at home?

Chris Mills:
We are. I love the lawnmower.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Chris Mills:
I do. I mean, I got rid of... Are we going to talk about lawnmowers straight out?

Richard Hill:
Yeah, that's good. Let's go.

Chris Mills:
I got rid of a Qualcast cylinder lawnmower a short while ago. That was my baby actually. I loved that lawnmower, but it was causing problems in my relationship so it had to go.

Richard Hill:
It was a choice, was it, one or the other type thing?

Chris Mills:
It really did get down to that?

Richard Hill:
You're at a whole 'nother level to me on the lawns. Anyway, we'll maybe come back to lawns, maybe we won't. So tell us about Fetchify and Fetchify's mission. Tell us what does Fetchify do?

Chris Mills:
So Fetchify is all about data quality and ease of use. We validate and verify personal identity information, name, address, postal information, bank information, email address, et cetera. And we have a solution, a postcode lookup tool that is ubiquitous in the marketplace. Everybody uses it. It kind of sets the standards, if you like, in terms of best practices for what people should be using in their eCommerce checkouts. The easier you make it as an eCommerce merchant to be able to convert your customers, it's not rocket science, the more conversions that you'll make. And by reducing that friction and minimizing the decision making process you will find that your conversions will go through the roof. So, I mean, Fetchify is increasing conversion rates that we see with people using our technology and not using our technology is something upwards of about 40%.

Richard Hill:
Wow. That's huge, isn't it?

Chris Mills:
So it's incredible, but most people know about it. I mean, you go into any eCommerce store and you go to use like a postcode lookup tool or an auto address complete solution. I mean, they should be standardized I think in most eCommerce stores, especially within your [inaudible 00:04:19] they are within the brands. Most people would know about the auto address complete and validation solutions. In terms of our mission, I think accurate customer data and easy to use for all, I think would be probably where the business is aligned to. My boss would like to say that probably we increase conversions and we reduce abandoned baskets and we make eCommerce managers superheroes, but I don't think you could become a Thor of eCommerce, I don't think that's possible.

Richard Hill:
Thor of eCommerce. I like that. Thor of eCommerce.

Chris Mills:
There you go [crosstalk 00:04:58]-

Richard Hill:
I mean, I remember when I had stores, I think, I sold mine back in, oh gosh, probably about 10-ish years ago. And sort of having that postcode ability to type in your postcode back then, I thought I was like the man. This was like new technology back then, about 10 years ago, you type in your postcode and bosh, you'd see your street and then you click on your house number and then it just populated everything. Obviously that's 12 years ago, obviously a lot's changed really since then. You talked about not just obviously address, you're talking about banking, you're talking about email, but I think email specifically, what's the big benefits of validating email, would you say?

Chris Mills:
You're not going to drag me down some Jeremy Paxman kind of GDPR road here, are you?

Richard Hill:
Oh, no. I don't think... That's like the Voldemort, we don't go GDPR on this.

Chris Mills:
Okay, good man. Richard, I do like you. Benefits of using email validation. So there's a quantifiable and an unquantifiable kind of measurement that you can look at here. My background is working with a business called Return Path. So in 2010, I was a group of four people, five people, that bought Return Path to the UK from the US. Return Path is an email deliverability specialist. I mean, they were focused purely on making sure that emails were delivered to the inbox rather than being spammed or blocked at the gateway. And the biggest deciding factor of why emails are blocked, is due to the IP reputation and sending IP reputation. And the IP reputation primarily is affected by the way in which the data is cleansed in the way in which you collect your data. The knock on effect of sending too many badly spelled email addresses is it causes the IP address to fail and your marketing or your transactional emails won't go through to the inbox.

Chris Mills:
So there is this necessity to ensure that your consumers read and receive your emails as they should do and collecting accurate customer information, I'm going to say accurate a lot probably on this, is paramount. Then of course you have the unquantifiable side of this, which is if I've gone through an eCommerce checkout and I can't log back into my accounts, or my experience as a consumer is I don't get a transactional email to tell me that I've just purchased, or I don't receive information from you, or I can't get through actually back onto the system again, and my customer experience then deteriorates, my brand association to Billy Goat scarifiers, for example, which you probably want, is going to deteriorate and therefore it's very difficult to kind of win that consumer back. I'm definitely, maybe it's just me, but I'm of the mindset where I want to be marketed to. I want people to send me voucher codes after I've just bought, I want to you to entice me in, create different centres and do all sorts of lovely things to personalize my experience. And you can't do that if you don't have accurate information.

Richard Hill:
So validating emails and making sure it's accurate, obviously it works for both sides, obviously listening to this episode as an eCom store owner, obviously you're getting better data in, so you are getting in theory more open rates, your emails are getting opened, you're protecting your IP, your email inbox... What's the word? Sort of quality. So you are less likely to be getting blocked by different things that are out there stopping emails getting through. Your emails are getting through more, therefore the theory is that you're getting more opens. Obviously there's a whole other host of reasons why you would get opens as well, but primarily your emails are getting through because it's a better quality email coming in. So therefore, less emails are bouncing, et cetera.

Richard Hill:
And then obviously as a consumer, your consumers are opening more and your likely to be getting, obviously when you're looking at say, your sales from email marketing, they're likely to be your percentages of open sales, et cetera, should be higher than just taking any email address in. So super, super important, isn't it? And I think a lot of people that I see, they don't really... They validate, they've maybe got the postcode side of things in place, but a lot of the other things which talking about particularly emails, I don't think are very often in place with a lot of systems.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I mean, it's certainly an eCommerce checkout. I think that the three main areas or the three points that should be looked at are definitely bank, email, potentially even phone as well. Being able to validate the phone. Let's just say that your customer journey is to send an SMS at the point of when something's being delivered. Give the customer something, a slightly more of a warm feeling that they've got [crosstalk 00:10:11] arriving when they were promised it would have arrived or if it was being left around the back of the gate or wherever it is.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. No, I've just had a... Where's it gone? It's on my desk somewhere. I think I've moved it actually, but I've just bought one of these, it's called an Aurora ring. And it's to test and check your heart rate, your sleep patterns and things like that. And I've had a horrendous time getting it here, but the only sort of good side of the delivery process has been the text messages from DHL, for example. And it's been held up because of customs and sort of duty and things like that, rather than sort of anything else. It's one of those things. If it wasn't for the text messages that were telling me that, I'd have been like, well, where the hell is this flipping ring? I'd have a really bad experience.

Richard Hill:
Its not been the best, but I understand it's not Aurora's fault, it's not the manufacturer, it's not the person that I bought it from fault, it's just, it's come from the US, it's hit customs and it's been held up and I had to pay 65 quid more, frustratingly. But so, okay. So eCom stores listening in, what are some of the best ways to capture data as an eCom store? And now we're talking about checkout, obviously so we're at the checkout, maybe talk about that a bit more, but also some other ways to capture data on the stores that you think are... There's a lot of different ways. Obviously there's popups, there's this, that, and the other, isn't there? But what would you say are some of the best ways to capture data on store?

Chris Mills:
So if you were to think about the basic identity data, looking at name, email address, and postal address for your consumer should only ever be done at checkout and it should be a simple form that's with relevant requests for data only. Don't ask for more than you need, because it becomes suspicious. Then you can start to look at, I guess the next thing is engagement data. And as marketers, we want to find out how good or how bad, where are the personas, the demographics. And you can spend a huge amount of money on sophisticated solutions that are going to tell you a huge amount information about data that potentially you may not need. I don't think the question should ever be, what are the best ways to go and get something? I think the question should probably be turned around on its head somewhat. I think it should be, what do I actually need?

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Chris Mills:
And what do I need? Do I need clicks, open and abandoned carts? Probably, yes, that would be great for an email campaign. Okay. What else am I trying to measure? And start from that point, rather than starting from a point of do you know what? I've been given this huge budget and now I can go and buy all these wonderful SaaS products that are out there. Take it back to exactly what it's going... Unless you're a data scientist, you're never going to be able to use all of the data that we can collect as eCommerce experts or marketeers. And less sometimes is more, Richard, isn't it?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So obviously check out in the priority then. Obviously you would never ask for sort of... Do you think there's a time and place then to sort of part checkout for now, is there a time and place and what are your thoughts on like popups and trying to get people's email, potential customers emails, obviously sign them up to newsletters, then not obviously nurture them and then sell them possibly something further down the line or capturing emails pre-purchase? You're not a big fan by the looks of that.

Chris Mills:
Honestly, honestly, I'm always thinking that I hate popups. I hate them. So Fetchify is part of a group of companies called Clear Course and one of our sister companies is the eCommerce brand EKM. Now after speaking to the guys at EKM, who have got like the largest eCommerce platform in the UK, they tell me based on their data that the intent to exit popup is it works.

Richard Hill:
So you're about to leave.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. So I'm okay. I'm okay with that.

Richard Hill:
Deep breath, yeah. Keep breathing.

Chris Mills:
But [crosstalk 00:14:55]-

Richard Hill:
So you're on Qualcast and the next thing you know, or Alec Mowers, and you're about to leave and then they show you this new potential £2000 electric mower.

Chris Mills:
Do you know what? If your website, if your revenue that you generate from your website... Oh, you've got me on here. I'm going to go off on a rant. If your website's revenue stream, primary revenue stream is from advertising, I'm expecting a popup. If your primary revenue stream is from selling products, then the last thing that I expect is to find popup after popup, and all of these popups come over the navigation bar, or they're on the area where I want to purchase, or the calls to action, and you have to delve your way back through to see the content. It becomes the normal in the US, I think, to have websites that are like that. And if you are trying to collect data in the UK, my own personal opinion is just be professional about it. Popups don't look professional. Wreck-It Ralph breaks the internet. Isn't there a moment where he kind of runs around and there's a lot popups everywhere?

Richard Hill:
Yes. So popups, I think is what you're saying is obviously if they're just very intrusive, very aggressive, very sort of ruining the experience, then that's quite, it's very annoying, isn't it? But if they may be done more subtly and they're relevant, if you are about to buy something and there's a popup to maybe give you 5%, is that at the end of the world? Obviously you're maybe going to buy, but obviously we know that obviously the majority of people probably aren't going to buy in that moment that are on a product page. The stats will tell you that obviously you're not going to get 100% conversion on a product page, but if you're looking at a product, there's obviously an element of intent there, or product to category, subcategory, you've spent X amount of time on a page that is a product page, but you may be heading towards the big cross. Oh, no, if we're going to give you 5%, if that's going give you a little incentive, I think there's some mileage there. Obviously [crosstalk 00:17:03]-

Chris Mills:
Exactly. I mean, those exit intent or intent to leave kind of popups, absolutely. Having looked at the data and do you know what? I agree with you.

Richard Hill:
So obviously you mentioned quite a few bits of data at the beginning. An SMS, do you think that's one that people maybe do miss? Obviously it's not new by any means, but it's definitely newer in terms of SMS messaging. Would you say if you had to pick one bit of data that people should be getting and maybe aren't, would that be it, SMS, text messaging and mobile numbers?

Chris Mills:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, we want to create this... I don't know whether this is something that sits in your opinion, but we want to create almost like a single customer view of exactly how somebody communicates with your brand. And I love all that stuff. And I think that the more touch points and the more channels that you've got, the easier it becomes as a marketeer to be able to reach out to the consumer on the channel in which they want to be spoken in a relevant and timely manner.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. I think we're going to see more and more SMS businesses appear. Obviously that's something you guys do, but I think you just don't see much of it. Some of the bigger brands are using it, but I think more the independents, which I think are a lot more of our listeners, SMS is less used, less and less used. I think that's something that is definitely worth looking at. Maybe we need to do a whole episode on that really.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I mean, it's a beautiful thought, isn't it? To make sure that every time you sell a product that before it arrives the consumer receives a text message to say that their product's on the way. That's almost like a basic or a minimal thing that maybe a consumer expects from brands.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. I think we've got some clarity on what we should and shouldn't be doing from your perspective. But the how? So okay, I'm on your store or on a store, a customers on your store, a store, but obviously the simple answer from would probably be to install Fetchify, but the best ways to capture that data? So you purely saying just having a really tight checkout process and everything in there?

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I mean, personal identity information, absolutely, that would be the way forward. In terms of, if you want to start to create personas or demographics within your dataset for individuals then, maybe we'll talk about this a bit later on, I don't know, but the idea of creating preference centres that's not something that exists purely for the world of social media. The idea of brands being able to talk to the consumers about the consumer interests is paramount.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. We've got our store, now within store, maybe Fetchify? That's probably, would you say you are one of the biggest out there in the sort of internationally or more UK based?

Chris Mills:
There's probably two or three in the market here in the UK? I don't see... Maybe another one or two in the US. But our plans for world domination probably stop in Europe for the time being. The business is and has been growing. I mean, it started in 2008, a chap called Adam Stylo started the business and it got to a stage, he kind of... I don't know what's the right word. He created the marketplace or he was one of the principal drivers behind it. He then sold the business to Clear Course and with the backend of clear course, now we are looking at different ways in which we can grow. But not just in the world of eCommerce also, but in the world of maybe in finance or going into CRM and different kind of avenues as well. So it's really exciting. It's a great company to work for.

Richard Hill:
And I noticed that something that sort of peeked my interest with you guys is the UK bank validation.

Chris Mills:
Yeah.

Richard Hill:
How does that really play into... As an eCom store, how does that really benefit you? I'm off to buy my new obviously scarifier or my hole puncher.

Chris Mills:
Another one.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So bank validation, how does that sort of help eCom stores?

Chris Mills:
Oh, well, I mean, being able to collect that data correctly. I mean, we're collecting data and Fetchify's solution is almost like we're a middle man in this. We are being able to provide accurate customer information back to the merchants that enable the merchants to be able to process that information or that data correctly. The bank data that we have or the bank validation solution that we have has been around for about a year or so now and is used in conjunction with other solutions such as clear accept or clear debit, where you are having a product that's looking on the payment processes side of things as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think a lot of probably eCom stores probably don't use that facility really. At the end of the day, a lot of people, obviously you're putting a credit card in or you're using Amazon Pay, Google Pay, whatever it may be. I think there's probably, maybe B2B commerce has probably got quite a lot more use for that. Would you say? Something like that and opening trade accounts and things like that.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. I would've said so. I mean, in terms of the consumer or people selling B2C. Typically, an email platform has these elements built into it, they have the correct payment methods, they have the right way in which a merchant can be able to process funds. Checking to see whether you've got accurate information, that's always a good step forward. Being able to get accurate data into your data set by validating that data is great. The banks obviously are using the data as well, are using the solutions as well. So we're seeing a lot of banks nowadays... I don't know who you bank with. I bank with Santander and every time I do something, they're always checking and validating that the person that I'm sending money to is the correct individual. And fortunately those types of processes have now come into place because before it was kind of like it was everywhere really. I don't think it was a very accurate and process driven playing field that we were on.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, okay, we've got hundreds of stores listening to this, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges that are out there for eCommerce stores and data, data as a whole? So obviously we're saying that we want to collect, you are saying predominantly we're going to collect data at the checkout process and maybe some sneaky bits and bobs amongst it all or some smart news letter popups and discounts possibly here and there, but what are some of the challenges doing that? Obviously different systems, different challenges, different platforms maybe, different things, but any challenges you would sort of want to discuss?

Chris Mills:
Well, I mean, is there any data that companies don't collect, I think, is possibly the direction in where we should go as eCommerce marketers. We ran a survey recently at Fetchify and we have something like 10,000 customers, of those 10,000 customers we had a fairly large control group in which to kind of like take the data from, but 50% of those customers, they didn't have any abandoned cart data.

Richard Hill:
Wow.

Chris Mills:
And these are big brands. These are large organizations and they weren't checking that data. They weren't looking to see whether that data was correct. And it's almost like you have to take things back to square one again and start to look at the basics of what we need as marketers or eCommerce individuals to be able to understand what's going to make a success out of the store. I love personal profiles. If it was down to me, do I go to Sainsbury's? I buy my food at Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's know exactly what I've been buying every week, but they don't know about my deep love of cheesecake, for example. They have all of the information necessary, but they don't ever ask me.

Chris Mills:
So creating personal profiles is a really interesting thing for me, the ability to be able to sense, to ask your consumers and be interested in your consumers, it should be quite easy for us. And brands need to kind of have the ability to learn to listen to what their advocates want and why they love their brands. So I would certainly look towards personal profiles as one of the things that is going to help brands start to know more about their consumers and why consumers buy from them. And then you can start to think about the exciting things of creating single customer views and how does Chris Mills engage with Sainsbury's, for example, and what type of product does he buy and what is his interests in?

Richard Hill:
It's an interesting topic, isn't it? I keep thinking of... I think that's brilliant, that personal view, that personal profile and then you're walking around a store, Sainsbury's for example, and you've got that personal view of what you've done on their website, but you're walking through the store and Sainsbury's know that Chris Mills is walking past the cheesecake counter and his love of cheesecake, and as you walk past there's something that's, Hey, Chris.

Chris Mills:
Do you remember the day where you used to get the Bluetooth messaging?

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think stuff like this does exist to a degree. I've had a couple of people on where this sort of true omnichannel experience where you're walking through a store and based on your location in the store with your mobile phone, and there's other technology around scanning your face and your profile and they'll know it's you as you walk in the store, you walk through a store. I actually did a presentation to a large organization about a month ago, it was about 4,000 people were there, I think, and they've got a lot of stores. Actually a lot more people were there. They've got 300 and... Sorry. 220 stores. And we were talking about they've got travel agents, for example. So you've been on the website, you've looked at the holidays in Thailand and then you've gone into the store, and as you walk into the store, one of the walls or some of the walls is a mirror. And as you walk and look at the mirror, it shows you on the beach in Thailand because it knows that.

Chris Mills:
Oh.

Richard Hill:
And this is like a concept thing, but there sort of mirror technology showing you doing the things or advertising you the things that you've looked at, or that you have a connotation with, or because of your single view profile they know that you're interested in X, Y, Z. All that is sort of there, it's just, it's coming. It reminds me of the film Running Man from back in like 25 years ago, Schwarzenegger. I think it was Running Man. He's running through the airport and as he's running through or walking through the airport and the adverts are changing and offering things that are very much based on his personalization of what he's been looking at. Obviously he's into his gym and his fitness, so he was seeing, I think, protein or something at the time. I think that.

Chris Mills:
This is exciting, isn't it? I mean, as marketers and as people that work within selling products while on the internet, I think that we should be using these tools that are at our disposable. We're always kind of looking one step further. And maybe then to bring it back to your questions about what are the challenges? Maybe the biggest challenge that I see if people just aren't collecting data on an abandoned cart, maybe the biggest challenges that we have is actually getting more accurate information and getting it better. It's almost of like listening to your old football manager or somebody that was kind of there to inspire you, and he would always be talking about just do the basics best.

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Chris Mills:
And I think sometimes when we are in a world of we have so many tools at our disposal, we kind of forget the very easiest things just to make sure that we get the best data that's coming into our business and get it accurate.

Richard Hill:
Love it. So who's doing that well? If you were to pick on a... If you could mention companies or a company, who would you say is got a really strong they're using that data, all the different things we've talked about there maybe around remarketing and retargeting, and don't know if anybody's got mirrors in their store and things like that, but who is brands that stand out for you that do it well, the experiences that you've had, or maybe customers of yours that are doing it really, really well?

Chris Mills:
So actually, well, so if you were to say collecting data, who does it best? Well, Nielsen does it best. Their products are the best. So regardless of how they use the data, you can't argue with Facebook, can you? I mean, Facebook know that I live Madrid, I support Barcelona, that I'm fat, I've had a diet, I love cheesecake, I bought lawnmowers, my Mrs is called Jenny. They know everything about her, about us. I've seen Facebook do some in incredible... The Facebook data actually, the way in which you can use lookalike campaigns in Facebook is for me really exciting. Do you know? That type of information enables as a B2B kind of like selling business this is really exciting for us. But I mean, Facebook. I mean, would you really want to say that Facebook is the best organization?

Richard Hill:
I mean, so are you seeing adverts for cheesecake, that's what I want to know?

Chris Mills:
Yes. Everywhere.

Richard Hill:
Wow.

Chris Mills:
Yes.

Richard Hill:
That's pretty good.

Chris Mills:
I mean, this is it. This is the top for me, Richard.

Richard Hill:
So, okay, crystal ball time then. We are sat here in 18 months time, what do you think is going to be the hot topic? What do our listeners need to maybe get in front of before it's happening or focus on? For 18 months from now, everyone's going to be talking about X or the benefit of using X, Y, Z, over this next 18 months that's going to give our listeners a jump or an advance on a specific thing, what would that be?

Chris Mills:
I would probably say geo coding.

Richard Hill:
Okay.

Chris Mills:
And the reason I say geo coding is because you can do all sorts of really cool things with geo coding. I mean, you can start to create cohorts and lookalikes within your data sets from geo coding. There's no point in selling somebody a lawnmower if they live in a flat.

Richard Hill:
Yes.

Chris Mills:
So there is huge potential out of geo coding. But without wanting to sound dull and talking about actual data, I think that we'll start to see a change in the way in which people kind of collect data and the methods in which people were collecting data at the moment. So we've gone through. The Internet's a bit like the Wild West, isn't it? Really, it's a fairly lawless kind of place where you can do pretty much whatever you want. And I think that it will change. I think that the way in which we collect data and the transparency in which we collect data and the way in which we use it, whether it's for our businesses going from B2B or B2C or even the way that governments collect data, those things have to change and I think they have to change quite soon.

Richard Hill:
Love it. Love it. So we really do like to end every episode on a book recommendation, Chris. If you were to recommend one book to our listeners, what would that be?

Chris Mills:
I don't even have to book with me. At the moment I'm reading a Jack Ryan book by Lee Charles, but that is just rubbish.

Richard Hill:
Not that one then.

Chris Mills:
No. How about, have you read Shuggie Bain?

Richard Hill:
No. No.

Chris Mills:
Okay. It's a bit dark.

Richard Hill:
Oh yeah.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. By Douglas Stuart.

Richard Hill:
So Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain.

Chris Mills:
Yeah. That's an incredible read. It's not exactly the most festive of pieces of literature.

Richard Hill:
Okay.

Chris Mills:
But Michael Phelps, No Limits, in terms of an autobiography is outstanding and using that as kind of like a sales motivation tool. It is amazing to see what he's gone through as an individual to be the best in the world at what he does. Kind of puts me to shame really.

Richard Hill:
Well, thank you. Well, thank you for coming on this show. It's been an absolute blast.

Chris Mills:
Thank you for having me.

Richard Hill:
It's flown by. So for the guys that are listening, what's the best way to reach out to you, to reach out to Fetchify, what's the best way to do that?

Chris Mills:
Email. Chris.Mills@fetchify.com. LinkedIn. So any of the normal social channels.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I look forward to speaking to you again.

Chris Mills:
It's an absolute pleasure. Thanks Richard.

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

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