Digital Marketing. Get It All Done, All In One Place — Joe Fox | Essential Tools Every Ecommerce Store Needs, How To Simplify And Unify Marketing Tools, How Tech Audits Reveal Hidden Savings, Why Retention Outperforms Costly Acquisition (#372)

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In this episode of the Ecommerce Coffee Break Podcast, we explore how to streamline digital marketing through a centralized management platform. 

Joe Fox, Senior Vice-President of Partnerships at Growave.io, shares insights on managing marketing tools efficiently and reducing tech stack complexity. With extensive experience in partnerships and agency ownership, Joe discusses how merchants can consolidate their marketing efforts while improving customer experience through unified commerce solutions. 

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why fragmented marketing tools create costly tech stack chaos. 
• How mixed messaging drives customers away from your store. 
• What essential tools every e-commerce tech stack needs. 
• How unified commerce bridges online and in-store shopping. 
• Why customer retention beats expensive acquisition costs. 
• What makes social proof at checkout boost conversions. 
• How tech stack analysis reveals hidden cost savings. 
• Why partnerships matter for merchant growth. 
• What makes the perfect migration timeline work. 
• How to consolidate marketing tools effectively. 

Links & Resources 

Website: https://www.growave.io/
Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/growave
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growave-io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefox88/ 

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/4arb94fp 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey there, welcome to the eCommerce Coffee Break Podcast. I'm your host Claus Lauter, bringing you actionable tips and strategies to [00:00:10] help you grow your online store and sell smarter. In today's episode we discuss how to manage your digital marketing from one centralized management platform. Joining me on the show today is Joe Fox is [00:00:20] the Senior Vice-President of Partnerships for Growave.io so let's dive right into it. Hello and welcome to another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. [00:00:30] Today we want to discuss how to manage your digital marketing from one centralized management platform and how we can get your marketing done in one place. Joining me for that on the show today is Joe [00:00:40] Fox.

He's the senior vice president of partnerships at growwave. io, an all in one marketing platform dedicated to Shopify. Before working with GrowWave, Joe has built incredible value connections [00:00:50] with some of the biggest names and partnerships, and we want to dive into that as well. So let's welcome him to the show.

Hi Joe, how are you today? I'm fantastic. Thank you so much for having me, Claus. Joe, [00:01:00] in today's e commerce world, merchants are juggling countless marketing tools, analytics platforms, automation systems, and often they feel overwhelmed. I would love to hear your [00:01:10] perspective on that. What do you see as the biggest pain when it comes to this?

Absolutely. So I think there's a couple of things to unpack here, Claus. So one thing [00:01:20] that we typically see when merchants come to Grow Wave is that they're, as you said, managing a really complicated tech stack. So for, um, I guess, [00:01:30] kind of smaller business, What that means is a lot of overhead costs because you're paying for multiple tools, often tools, um, that aren't talking to each other.

So your data is [00:01:40] getting muddled and you're not able to actually, you know, gain the most value out of your tech stack for larger businesses. Typically, what we find is that A very similar thing. [00:01:50] Obviously, the cost of tools go up as a business scales. So you're ending up with this really, um, I guess, kind of mammoth tech stack.

None of it's talking to each [00:02:00] other, and it ends up being very, very expensive. And I think what can happen there is that's kind of what the merchant sees on the back end or the agency who's managing that [00:02:10] for the front end for the customer. It means that they're often getting mixed messaging coming through their automation, um, Um, they're not actually keyed in properly to a [00:02:20] specific segment.

So the messaging may not be as relevant to them. Um, but overall it builds a disconnect not only for the e commerce manager or the merchant, but [00:02:30] also for the customer, which means less conversions, less sales, et cetera. I can totally rely to that. Um, first of all, this hidden costs that can come to a surprise at the end of the [00:02:40] month.

Um, of course, that's something you're not really checking in the first moment. You're excited about a new app and then you just install it and then the surprise will come has happened to me. So I'm a [00:02:50] victim of that. And then obviously with mixed messaging, and I want to dive a little bit into that, um, because I think it's interesting to know that obviously you're communicating, these tools are [00:03:00] communicating with your customer and.

Talk me through what kind of risks are involved and how to optimize that. Yeah, definitely. So I think there's a [00:03:10] couple of things that can happen in those scenarios. And once again, it really depends on what the actual tech stack is. But some key examples and some key horror stories I've kind of heard is like [00:03:20] when, you know, it can be really simple things like sending over the wrong loyalty points or the wrong account status or even the wrong name [00:03:30] or sending, uh, for example, uh, I know, I know of a well known, uh, clothing brand, um, before they introduced Klaviyo, for example, into their tech stack, [00:03:40] um, they were actually, their segmentation was so poor that there were people who didn't have kids or weren't intending to have kids and were purely shopping for [00:03:50] themselves that were receiving only kids clothing, uh, emails and automations, right?

So. Nothing is going to get someone to unsubscribe quicker, um, than, than [00:04:00] if they're not segmented properly. That's just one example. Think other examples, um, you know, it can be where you have a double up of tools. So you might be running two reviews [00:04:10] platforms, for example, and then you've got, you know, same thing.

Once again, you're getting pushed. a SMS to review on, on sort of one provider and an email on the other. And [00:04:20] it's like, it becomes this sort of paralysis of decision for the customer and they end up leaving no review. So I think it's really about consolidating that tech stack [00:04:30] actually going through, I think merchants.

Do not do this enough. I know some really good agencies, um, that we work with, for example, like Avex, Roswell, um, [00:04:40] and Zen, um, Irish Titan, a couple of these really big agencies, um, LIM, they actually go through and really like the first thing they do [00:04:50] before they take on board a project is actually do a tech stack analysis.

So really seeing what is there. What is the crux of all of your, you know, [00:05:00] how are you managing your data? Where does your analytics go? Is everything connected properly? And nine times out of 10, these agencies are finding that there's either too [00:05:10] much tech stack, so it's bulky, clunky, slows the website down and makes the the experience bad for the customer and the e commerce manager, um, but they're also [00:05:20] find out that they're overspending, you know, sometimes often thousands.

I've heard some horror stories of tens of thousands. So you've really, I think it's really important for merchants of [00:05:30] any size. To really, you know, as we said earlier, not get in that set and forget mindset and install something and just leave it running in the background, [00:05:40] um, regardless of the cost, whether it's, you know, 30 or 3, 000, you've really got to, I think, manage that tech stack correctly.

Let's talk [00:05:50] about the tech stack. Let's talk about the main features that you need in your store as a merchant. Obviously, most merchants, specifically when you start, you have a bit of a shiny object syndrome, go into the app [00:06:00] store, everything makes sense to a certain degree, and you just add to it. But I think there's only so many different features you really need in a store.

And then you get started and you're safe. So [00:06:10] talk me through what, what kind of features are we looking at? Yeah, definitely. So, so look, I can kind of, I guess, go here into what, and just by way of [00:06:20] background, like I used to own a really successful agency in Australia, scaled it up, sold it. Um, that was before a lot of sort of the amazing tools that exist today.

But I think [00:06:30] that there's a couple of key sort of tools that I would suggest. So, I would absolutely suggest something like a Klaviyo for your, um, obviously Shopify or [00:06:40] Shopify plus, um, but then sort of like connecting in with a Klaviyo, um, then connecting in with a Gorgeous, um, then connecting in with, you know, for example, [00:06:50] something like us that, that handles your loyalty, your reviews, your wishlist and referral and those sorts of things.

So I think. That would be my suggestion [00:07:00] there. Obviously, that's kind of bias, but there are other providers that offer that. I think when you think of a tech stack, you need to think of how are you going to communicate with your customers [00:07:10] in a really positive way. And Gorgeous and Klaviyo, um, both In different aspects, then you want to, you know, obviously promote social proof and, and [00:07:20] how good the experience is with shopping with your store.

So you need something in there for reviews. You want to retain those loyal customers because it's, we all know that the [00:07:30] cost. The acquisition of a customer is getting so high as the market gets more competitive. So you want to have them enrolled and involved in some sort of a loyalty program. And then [00:07:40] there's a lot of subsequent tools that I would recommend.

So something to manage your subscriptions. Um, I think rebuy is an amazing company. I highly recommend [00:07:50] them, uh, to all of my friends who are either improving their e com experience or just getting started on it. But I think you've really got to think of. The [00:08:00] customer in this scenario, right? So it's like the, the better customer experience and customer journey you provide, um, throughout the lifetime of that customer, the more [00:08:10] sales you're going to have.

So you need to think of everything from a customer centric perspective. Um, and I think that's something that obviously the gorgeous is and the clavios and the [00:08:20] rebars of the world do incredibly well. Let's talk about Grow Wave. Obviously, you have rewards, loyalty, referrals, all part of your solution. Talk me [00:08:30] through it.

What can I expect? What kind of features can I find in your app? Yeah, definitely. So I think adding to what we were talking about around that customer experience and journey, [00:08:40] we have a really good solid integration with Klaviyo. So about 000 merchants globally utilize that integration. So, [00:08:50] You can utilize that to be able to segment better, collect reviews, obviously, which is really important for social proof, display them on the PDP.

I [00:09:00] can't stress that enough. If you're a merchant who has a website and you're not displaying reviews on a PDP, you need to be doing that and then kind of. Further back to my point around loyalty and [00:09:10] retaining those sort of customers. What we offer for merchants is we have a really, really in depth loyalty program.

So, um, customers can earn points for certain [00:09:20] activities, whether it be following on social media, giving referrals to friends, we can reward them with loyalty points for their birthday, reward them, um, [00:09:30] with, with purchases. Uh, for every purchase they make, they can redeem points. We have some really cool kind of companies that are using, um, that in a really unique way as well.

[00:09:40] So we worked with some big skincare merchants and like Dermalogica then, for example, Um, I believe it's Sulawesi. They actually give away [00:09:50] samples. You can redeem loyalty points for samples. So there's really cool ways that customers are doing that. But as I mentioned earlier, like the CPA is [00:10:00] just getting bigger and bigger.

We know that no matter how much you're optimizing it, no matter how amazing. The agency you're working with, your CPA will just continue to climb. It's [00:10:10] just the nature of the business because so many more people are doing e commerce. Um, so you've really got to think of how you're going to, you know, retain those customers.

And [00:10:20] essentially what GrowWave does is we help bring in customers. We help retain customers and we help nurture customers. Walk me through the typical day of [00:10:30] a merchant and let me know who that is within an organization when they're working with Grow Wave. Definitely. So, like, we have a very, very thorough sort of, I would say, white [00:10:40] glove onboarding experience for, for new merchants that come on board with Grow Wave.

So, typically, you know, let's say it's their first day with Grow Wave. Uh, we would have already [00:10:50] prepared if there is, you know, uh, enterprise level merchant, we would have prepared a strategy for them. We would have already helped migrate all of their reviews, their [00:11:00] wish list, their loyalty data. If they're working with a competitor already, um, we make sure that we've got clear goals in place attached to that strategy.

So, you know, how much do [00:11:10] you want to grow your loyalty program? How much, how many reviews would you like to see on certain products or categories? Um, so we really go through that process. [00:11:20] And then some of the other things that I think, Claus, that we, that we work on, particularly with our enterprise merchants, our Shopify plus merchants, which I think is very cool.

And it's a, it's a [00:11:30] kind of new, newly released feature. Um, is we also, sorry, two things here. We, we help them with their omni channel experience. So you have a really robust integration with Shopify [00:11:40] pause. You hear a lot of people. Like Harley and everything, CEO of Shopify talking about this unified commerce experience, and that's something [00:11:50] we've really strived to do.

So we've really focused on building an incredibly robust Shopify, um, positive integration that allows customers to seamlessly [00:12:00] shop in store or online with brands and really be able to sort of, you know, manage that, uh, Experience. So they still receive loyalty points in [00:12:10] store, um, same as when they would do online purchases.

So really marrying up that unified commerce experience. We all know after COVID people like to get [00:12:20] outdoors and they don't want to shop online as much as they were. People still are, don't get me wrong, like the FCM was record breaking for our customers and for all of the e [00:12:30] com industry. However, we're finding that people really want to be able to, um, Have a seamless experience, whether they're shopping online or in store and the concept of [00:12:40] Omnichannel or what people are referring to now, Unified Commerce has been around for a long time, so we've really tried to focus on on making that a key key feature set for us.

[00:12:50] And I think the other thing that I find incredibly interesting and clever, the Grow Wave and the product team have developed is actually really [00:13:00] focusing on Shopify checkout extensions. So being able to, and this is for Shopify plus customers, they can actually display reviews at [00:13:10] checkout on product. So it really helps with conversion, right?

And we all see. The difference. And I think for anyone watching, if you have a look at a [00:13:20] standard Shopify store, there is no flexibility with the, with the checkout. You just see pretty much gray. It's, it's, it's kind of like the, the [00:13:30] Shopify gray on the checkout, whereas when you're on plus your, you have a lot more flexibility with the checkout and what you can do in different payment methods and things.

But like [00:13:40] being able to display social proof. On a product you're about to purchase, you can only imagine the increase in conversion. So that's a really, [00:13:50] really cool function. And also being able to display potential loyalty and rewards points if they were to be a part of the program or if they already are signed [00:14:00] in, it shows them.

What their balance will be before and after making that purchase for that product. So there's a lot of cool things that we're working on, but [00:14:10] those are probably my two, I guess, favorite feature updates that we've made of of late because all of my Shopify plus. You know, platinum partner [00:14:20] agencies just love those features.

So, um, yeah. And for me personally, I like the unified commerce. I've always been someone since I was [00:14:30] very young who enjoyed going to malls and shopping centers and all of those sorts of things. So being able to translate that online and in store experience in a seamless way [00:14:40] is just magic. It's always smiling when you were mentioning that you have reviews, customers, testimonials on the checkout page.

Something I did three, four years ago [00:14:50] before Shopify took it away. I had this, so it was possible to hack the Shopify checkout. Yes. It was so great. But then they figured out there was a hack and it took it [00:15:00] away and now it's back with the extensions. And I think it's a really, really good tip to increase conversions because once you have people all the way.

To the checkout page, you wanna [00:15:10] make sure that you throw everything you have on them to make them Absolutely. To finalize, um, the purchase. When it comes to the omnichannel experience, [00:15:20] how does it look like when you're on a point of sales with referrals, with um, points? Yeah, so essentially the customer either enters their email or [00:15:30] their phone number at checkout and this is another thing we really needed to make sure this was quick because we didn't want them to have to pull up a pause terminal and sort of like [00:15:40] spend their time logging into their account or anything like that.

That's, that's not seamless. So we took it one step further by being able to allow them to really quickly log in. [00:15:50] Through their email or, um, phone number, they're prompted to do that, they sign in, and then as soon as they purchase, it just calculates the points across. So [00:16:00] very, very seamless. Um, I believe they can leave reviews.

Uh, don't quote me on this, but I'm 90 percent sure the customer can then also leave a [00:16:10] review about the in store experience at the end of paying for and everything through pods. So we've got, um, I guess I can't mention it just now, but, uh, we do have a [00:16:20] couple of very large enterprise merchants who are going to be using that in 2025.

So very excited for the case studies that will come out of that, because I [00:16:30] think once again, I think my, my biggest. Thoughts around and, and what I'm hearing from all of these premier agencies and the sort of like [00:16:40] other fellow sass vendors and, and even the platforms like Shopify is how important this unified experience is.

So we really wanted to take that a step further [00:16:50] than what our competitors are doing. I want to touch a little bit on partnerships. Obviously the Vice President of Partnerships at Grow Wave. How does it work with agencies, um, with [00:17:00] bigger companies? How do you work with them? Yeah, definitely. So with the partnerships sort of thing, and I've been in this, you know, obviously, as I said, I've owned an agency and [00:17:10] my agency, I was selling and indirectly doing partnerships and that sort of thing.

And I've been in this partnership space for probably, I don't think probably the last five or so [00:17:20] years. And for me, it's, it's fantastic because I really like building relationships with people and, and building long term relationships with people. When I was, you know, [00:17:30] selling within my agency, I really enjoyed it.

Um, and I would still have a relationship with a lot of the people I sold to. But with partnerships, you're kind of building [00:17:40] these relationships for years and years and years. And I still work with some partners that I, that I worked with, you know, five years ago when I first started in this space, um, [00:17:50] I think agencies.

And I know this from having one. We, like an agency owner or an agency partner manager or anything is so [00:18:00] time poor and they need to make sure that they're receiving value for everything that they do. And agencies honestly are, in my opinion, do not get enough credit. They're there. [00:18:10] So creative, they're bringing in the best talent, they're working so hard to create these amazing experiences, um, and customer journeys for, uh, [00:18:20] merchants and for customers, and they're very time poor, they're, they're working a lot, they're the nicest people in the world, so my sort of [00:18:30] goal and my philosophy is to always be giving as much as we get, so.

When I say giving, you know, is there merchants out [00:18:40] of our 14, 000, you know, customer base that are, that fit into these agency partners, ICP now, whilst we might look and say, oh, there's a lot of [00:18:50] Shopify plus agencies, there's a lot of, you know, agency that on the surface might appear similar. I know from getting to know these agencies that they have their own kind [00:19:00] of unique selling points.

They have their own unique value propositions to merchants. So really being able to filter out and say, look, this merchant is having this [00:19:10] particular issue, whether it be implementing a loyalty program properly, or it might be they need help with Klaviyo flows, or they want to, you know, work, they want to move from [00:19:20] Shopify to Shopify plus.

So all of these sort of things are things that agencies will be able to do and some better than others. So you're not sort of [00:19:30] crossing over when you're making referrals and introductions. So getting to really know your, your partner. And I feel that this give to get policy is really good [00:19:40] because we're able to sort of introduce.

Uh, partners to merchants. We get a good use case together. They're happy because they've won new business [00:19:50] and it's less time they've had to do selling it because we've helped sell in for them. We get to work on a customer together once their team is happy with utilizing the tool [00:20:00] and seeing how like inexpensive we are in comparison to our competitors.

We end up getting a pretty large influx of introductions that come through from those [00:20:10] agency partners. So really actually taking a step back and looking what partnerships is and it's creating relationships, building brand awareness in [00:20:20] each other's ecosystem, solidifying together to provide really, really good solutions for merchants.

That's all the sort of key focus, [00:20:30] um, in my opinion. And I think, unfortunately, Claus, that the partnership space. Is often looked at as just a revenue channel and it's [00:20:40] like they think of partnerships people as just sales people. And unfortunately, that's that's just not the case. And if if a partnerships person has that focus [00:20:50] or has that attitude, they won't be able to build a very good relationship with an agency because the agency simply doesn't have time.

To manage that and there's no, there's no [00:21:00] mutual benefit for them. Yeah, I like the approach and I think it creates a win, win, win situation for the merchant, for you guys and for the agencies because you [00:21:10] just need to go on to online forums on LinkedIn or Facebook, wherever, and you see how many people are raising the questions is like, do you know a good agency and it's so difficult to find an agency that [00:21:20] fits your business, your.

Business model what you sell has the understanding and then having someone in the middle like you Knowing the market knowing the features and then [00:21:30] recommending the right agency for you I think that's a huge plus for every merchant out there. Thank you. No, I appreciate that and um As you said, like, [00:21:40] I like the win, win, win.

That's kind of cool. You could do it as the www dot. But, um, that sounds like a future brand name, perhaps. But I agree. I think it's just so [00:21:50] important. And I also think agencies need to leverage their partners more. I say this to all of all of our agencies that we work with, you know, not just [00:22:00] in the US, but in Europe and, you know, Asia Pacific is like, Leverage us.

If you're talking to a merchant that's that's there, like reach out to your partner [00:22:10] managers and say, Hey, you're working with this merchant. I really want to be working with them. Help me out here. And these are the reasons why. So I agree. You've [00:22:20] it's so important and you need to. I implore merchants to really value their agencies more not to treat them as a commodity because they [00:22:30] really are a partner for your growth and the value that they can add is Astronomical, but you need to have the right agency, you know, come back to grow, to grow, to grow with who's [00:22:40] your perfect customer, our perfect customer for us is buried because we have, you know, different product offerings.

But I think if we were to say a couple of key criteria, [00:22:50] they're doing at least kind of. Five mil in GMV all the way up to, you know, a hundred million in GMV. They are familiar with [00:23:00] other products or competitors of ours. That's an ideal customer because when they see that we have an offering that's only ever going to cost them a thousand dollars a month, no [00:23:10] matter how large they are.

Which is, you know, I think, I think it's about 90 percent less than, than sort of some of our competitors at that price point. So [00:23:20] not only are we offering a very comparable quality product, offering the white glove kind of service and onboarding and, and ongoing customer service and success. [00:23:30] I would say our ideal customer at the moment is someone who's working with our competitor, who feels they're not getting the right amount of customer service.

They feel that they're stagnating [00:23:40] within their loyalty or reviews sort of, um, plan or, or strategy and they want to save money. I think that's the biggest things and [00:23:50] utilize some of these features like I'm talking about around unified commerce, um, and everything. You already touched on the auto onboarding process, um, tell me how long does it [00:24:00] take because, um, bigger merchants, they might have a bit of the concern moving from A to B might take too long, might be too complicated.

How long does it take and what steps are involved? [00:24:10] Absolutely. Look, we really like to move as fast as the customer wants to move. So we, we. If a new customer comes on board, obviously of a certain size, I'm kind of referring [00:24:20] to where we are doing that strategy process and everything, we want to be having those conversations when they're thinking about making the switch so that we can, you know, essentially go through, [00:24:30] we can do a data mapping project to make sure that we can tell how long it's gonna, you know, or make it as seamless as possible for them to be able to migrate their data [00:24:40] across.

We want to provide them with a really decent strategy and a, you know, for walk, run kind of a, uh, situation. So it really is dependent [00:24:50] on the merchant. If, if they want to get things up and running, we've seen some enterprise merchants, you know, uh, on board with us from start to finish within a week. [00:25:00] Um, then we have some smaller businesses that can get stood up in an hour.

So it really is. It's dependent on how much data they're migrating, the size of [00:25:10] their existing loyalty program and how quickly they want to move. Before we come to the end of the coffee break today, is there anything you want to share with our listeners that we [00:25:20] haven't touched on? Yeah, definitely. So look, we're very big fans of yours, Claus, and we love this podcast.

So I'm happy to extend a, um, [00:25:30] two month free trial to, to all of your listeners and to all of the viewers. Um, and we're also happy to offer 20 percent off, uh, to any new customers as [00:25:40] well, who, who'd like to try out Grow Wave. So two months and 20 percent off. Um, come try us out. We guarantee you that you'll have a good time and, uh, that will help you [00:25:50] and will help consolidate your tech stack.

Yeah. Thanks so much for that offer. Um, we will put a link in the show notes mentioning this, and I think it's very important that I see this coming, and that's [00:26:00] my prediction for the next, let's say, 12 months, that more and more shops, stores, merchants out there will consolidate their tech stack and, um, Trying [00:26:10] to do everything from one platform as you offer.

Where can people go and find out more about Grow Wave? Yeah, certainly. So, um, www. growwave. [00:26:20] io. Um, and also feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. If you'd like to chat further, if you're an agency partner or a merchant, um, and you just want to have a conversation or you'd like to know [00:26:30] more, um, you can just find me as, um, Joe Fox, um, on LinkedIn.

Um, and I'm based in Austin. Despite the Australian accent. [00:26:40] Uh, so yeah. Excellent. As I said, links will be in the show notes. You're just one click away. Joe, thanks so much for your time today. I think it's a very enlightening, um, trends that we see [00:26:50] coming there. And I hope a lot of people will reach out to you.

Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Klaas.