Episode Summary
In this episode of the Seven Figures and Beyond ecommerce podcast, Greg Shuey sits down with Saunder Schroeder, an experienced marketer with a deep background in DTC growth, to discuss practical strategies for increasing average order value (AOV) without hurting conversion rates. They dive into what makes a high-performing bundle, how to use Shopify data to identify purchase patterns, why contribution margin concerns are valid but solvable, and the evolving role of personalization in ecommerce. The conversation also touches on how brands can avoid common AOV pitfalls, why hero products matter, and how future-forward thinking around AI and authentic brand building will separate winners from noise.
Key Takeaways
- Bundles are King: High-converting bundles often include a hero product and are built using real customer buying patterns, not assumptions. Virtual bundles enable faster testing without inventory disruptions.
- Perrsonalization Isn’t There Yet, But It’s Coming: We’re still in the segmentation era, but true 1:1 personalization powered by AI and owned data (like via Shopify’s Shop app) is where ecommerce is headed.
- Don’t Sacrifice Margin with Deep Discounts: Discounting can kill long-term brand equity and profitability. Smart offers like “gift with purchase” can deliver value without eroding margin.
- Testing is Essential: Brands should constantly test timing and placement of upsells and cross-sells across the funnel, from product page to post-purchase, to learn what works best for their customer base.
- Stand for Something: With AI-generated content saturating the space, the brands that win will lead with creative differentiation, unique storytelling, and a clearly defined hero product.
Questions To Ask Yourself
- Am I using my Shopify or order data to guide what products I bundle, or am I just guessing?
- Have I tested different bundle combinations and offers to see what actually lifts AOV without hurting conversion?
- Is my hero product clearly positioned and supported with the right cross-sells or gift-with-purchase options?
- Do I have a personalization strategy beyond basic segmentation, or am I still sending one-size-fits-all messages?
- Is my brand telling a compelling story that differentiates me in a saturated market, especially in a world of AI-generated sameness?
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
Saudner Schroder LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saunderschroed/
Fermat: https://www.fermatcommerce.com
Episode Transcript
Greg Shuey (00:01.208)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Seven Figures and Beyond eCommerce Marketing Podcast. I am your host, Greg Schuey. I created this podcast to help D2C business owners and marketers who are stuck and are trying to find a way to grow their businesses. Today, my guest is Sonder Schroeder. Sonder has been in the game for a long time. He’s worked for companies like Disruptive Advertising, is a pretty big…
Saunder Schroeder (00:01.653)
So.
Greg Shuey (00:27.97)
marketing agency working mostly with e-commerce businesses, as well as with companies like triple well. If you’re in the e-commerce space, you’ve probably heard of triple well. So, he’s got some really good experience right now. He oversees a new revenue channel that, is it, and he’s working on building the agency accelerator and self-serve program for Fermat. It’s how he’s Fermat, right? Fermat. I keep wanting to call it Fermat. Fermat.
Saunder Schroeder (00:51.881)
Come on, yeah? You got it.
Saunder Schroeder (00:56.597)
Thank
Greg Shuey (00:57.518)
If you’re not familiar with Fermat, they help brands like yours create curated dynamic shopping experiences that lead to improved customer experience, engagement and conversion. So if you haven’t heard of them or even if you have and want to check them out, they are at FermatCommerce.com and then I will make sure to include that link in the show notes.
Today, we are going to talk about how to maximize your average order value without hurting your conversion rates. I know a lot of brands are concerned about that, being able to push average order value up, is that going to end up tanking my conversion rate and so forth. So it’s gonna be a really fun discussion. Sondra, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today.
Saunder Schroeder (01:21.891)
Thanks.
Saunder Schroeder (01:46.237)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Greg. Excited to jump into AOV and talk all things D to C.
Greg Shuey (01:52.078)
Attaboy. All right. So before we dive in, can you, I mean, I’ve already given a little bit of history, but can you give us some background on you, talk about your personal story and how you’ve gotten to where you are today?
Saunder Schroeder (02:06.163)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, I would say I grew up in a very much like entrepreneur family. So my dad started a lot of businesses and that got me, you know, emerged pretty quickly. So yeah, in order to spend time with my dad, I found myself at our pizza restaurant at, you know, eight years old and on and bussing dishes and, you know, doing all of that and eventually kind of doing everything. And unfortunately he got
caught up in the 2001 collapse. And so, from that point on when I was 15, I started mowing lawns and essentially had to pay for everything. So that spirit kind of stuck with me for a while. In college, I started at an e-commerce company. So that was what, 15 years ago now. I can’t hold you now, pretty crazy. And so that was great.
Greg Shuey (02:55.939)
Wow.
Saunder Schroeder (03:01.523)
really unlocked a lot of like influencer marketing then fashion bloggers, stuff like that, getting on fab.com. and then, yeah, from there, I just always felt attracted to like early stage companies. And so I went to another local agency to us in Utah called 97th floor and helped grow that, in the early days. and then another, another DTC company I was the CMO at, called group deals, and helped grow that. then.
Yeah, like you mentioned earlier, eventually went to disruptive, but I’ve just always found myself attracted to kind of that zero to one. yeah, that’s kind of what I’m doing at Vermont with new revenue streams is getting those off the ground. kind of from that zero to one, one to two stage.
Greg Shuey (03:37.634)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Shuey (03:47.23)
Awesome. That’s amazing. Love that you came up in an entrepreneurial family and that you kind of caught that bug. I think of my daughter as you were kind of walking through that story. She works with me here. She does a lot of content production for us. She’s in high school, but she wants to be in the medical field. But I can see her asking questions and really trying to learn things to see how can this apply to me as I go into the medical field. She wants to be a surgeon.
Right. So how do I use the Internet to be able to help build a book of business at some point in time? And that’s a year that, you know, that’s that’s a long ways away. She’s 17. But, you know, it’ll the whole world to be run by A.I. by then. So, you know, who knows? Who knows? But I love that. So that’s awesome. Well, you ready to jump in?
Saunder Schroeder (04:20.021)
Thank you.
Saunder Schroeder (04:29.609)
Hopefully not.
Saunder Schroeder (04:36.5)
Yeah.
Yeah, let’s jump on in.
Greg Shuey (04:40.866)
All right, well, let’s just start like at the very beginning. Super simple. So when I talk to a lot of brands who want to work with us, typically they are overly obsessed with one, new customer acquisition, and then two, how do they improve those acquisition costs? There aren’t a ton of discussions happening around how do I grow my average order value? How do I grow my customer lifetime value? It’s just, I need new customers. I need them as cheap as I can.
Saunder Schroeder (04:45.011)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (05:10.612)
So trying to make that more of like a household topic, right? Like something that they should be obsessing about from day one. Like from your point of view, why should they care about AOV as much or maybe even more than they should be caring about customer acquisition costs?
Saunder Schroeder (05:28.979)
Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great question. I mean, I think if we just look even at the acquisition landscape, it has changed like so drastically, you know, like think, think five, six, seven years ago when we were doing Facebook ads, you had a lot more control into audiences, right? Into your targeting. and creative kind of actually took a backseat, which was interesting. Then I felt like landing pages and that post-click experience was a little bit more prominent, just because you did have so many targeting options.
Greg Shuey (05:45.197)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (05:59.19)
So now, with some of those targeting options being removed and back to your AI comment, we’re kind of just like trusting the algorithm. We kind of need to figure out how to optimize that post-book experience because acquisition costs actually aren’t like going down, right? If anything, they continue to increase. And so you almost need to find a way to increase that AOV. Now, one way, the AOV conversation is typically tied into…
offers and kind of like aligning that creative messaging. And so, yeah, I think as you look at it through that lens, you can actually decrease your NCPA or your customer acquisition costs when you do find the right offers or the right bundles and those things. So interesting enough, it’s like almost as you start to increase your AOB, your NCPA costs actually do come down. So that’s how I tend to think.
Greg Shuey (06:29.976)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (06:55.56)
Interesting. So your ideal customer aligned with the right offer aligned with the right bundle. You can not only get more money out of them, but bringing down your costs. mean, that makes perfect sense. Cool. So what are you guys work with a lot of brands? So what are some of the most effective ways that you’ve seen brands increase their average order value without hurting their conversion rates? Like that’s a really big concern.
from brand owners when I talk to them.
Saunder Schroeder (07:27.443)
Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I would even add, you know, brand owners are also worried about impacting like contribution margin as well. Right. And so it’s like, yeah, how, do you do that? so yeah, some of the best ways that we see brands do this is definitely going to be through, bundles. now historically how you do bundles in Shopify is you have to almost, you know, create a new product in Shopify, take out inventory, apply it there.
Greg Shuey (07:34.05)
Sure. Yep.
Greg Shuey (07:55.949)
Nice.
Saunder Schroeder (07:56.148)
With Vermont, we actually create virtual bundles. So it’s a a quick little hack to just quickly test and see what works. And then you can figure out more of a long-term strategy. And so bundles are great. So like one, one thing that I love to do, if you actually go into Shopify, go to your analytics and reports, there is a items bought together report. And so I recommend everyone just starts there and export that. And then you can see like, what are your top products that are bought together?
Greg Shuey (08:02.946)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (08:20.76)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (08:25.775)
and so, and the cool thing as well that, you know, I’ve looked at hundreds of millions of e-commerce data just based on, you know, triple L disruptive for my, when, when you do see an increase to AOV, there’s a very, very strong parallel to increasing LTV. And so, so I think that’s where, yeah, you might sacrifice a little contribution margin on the front end. but the LTV of, know, whether that’s them getting
Greg Shuey (08:26.478)
Thank you.
Greg Shuey (08:36.109)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (08:51.746)
Mm-hmm.
Saunder Schroeder (08:55.689)
more experience with different products, know, kind of, guess, having that variety that LTV tends to make up for it. Now, business owners obviously hate when we as marketers focus on LTV, so I won’t go too much on that, yeah, bundles seem to be that. And then, you know, obviously there are also offers that you can do. So like, I think with offers, it’s important to align business objectives as well. So, you know, maybe a…
Greg Shuey (09:07.362)
Hahaha
Saunder Schroeder (09:25.097)
You’re a brand, you’ve been sitting on this inventory for a while, maybe the shelf life’s coming up, you need to liquidate it. That is a great way to do like a gift with purchase type offer. And so, you kind of align, yeah, you might be sacrificing contribution margin again, but you’re maximizing cash flow and not having to burn or get rid of that product in the future.
Greg Shuey (09:34.69)
Hmm. Yeah.
Greg Shuey (09:47.532)
Yeah, interesting. When I think of bundles, I think of, you know, I mean, the most recent one is like their nomadic t shirts. If you see ads for nomadic, right? It’s like, buy a white one and a black one and get the blue one for free by buy two and get one for free, right? But from what based on a couple of your comments, it sounds like bundling is so much more than that than buying a three pack of t shirts, right? And so like, is that what you think of?
Saunder Schroeder (10:03.711)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (10:13.183)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (10:16.718)
When you talk about bundling, it’s like people buy a shirt and a pair of joggers together 90 % of the time, and that’s how we’re gonna build a bundle.
Saunder Schroeder (10:26.045)
Yeah, think, yeah, definitely. I would say yes to both, right? Like I think, I think there are going to be obvious ones where, hey, someone who buys a, you know, they like a white shirt, a black shirt, they’ll want a blue shirt as well. You know, like, great. That’s a great bundle. you’ll have some kind of discount with that or something in that bundle, you know? So yeah, I think that’s great. But yeah, I, I’m thinking more, yeah, let’s, let’s go, maybe a level deeper there and just see, yeah. Is there the shirt and the jogger, right? Or is it.
Greg Shuey (10:54.637)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (10:55.133)
It could even be something like simple, like, you know, a shirt and maybe some sunscreen, you know, obviously every client’s different, but, know, just being like what that looks like. And so, you know, in that example where the price difference going to be massive, that could be like a good like gift with purchase, you know, or something like that versus like actually bundling it together. but yeah, I I would say, yeah, download that report and it will, it tends to open a lot of people’s eyes. I just think as business owners, as marketers, we tend to make
Greg Shuey (11:02.2)
Sure, yeah.
Greg Shuey (11:11.532)
Yeah. Yep.
Greg Shuey (11:21.464)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (11:24.945)
assumptions when we’ve been in the business for a while about what customers are buying. And so think it just kind of, it’s kind of like a pattern breakup when you can actually look at the data.
Greg Shuey (11:28.11)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (11:35.64)
Cool. Okay. So next, now that we’ve kind of got this idea of bundles out of the way, can you break down for us what makes a high converting bundle? You’ve, like I mentioned before, you’ve worked with a ton of brands. Like what do the best have in common when they’re building out their bundles?
Saunder Schroeder (11:52.244)
Yeah, I would say the one thing that always seems to be true is that it does contain a hero product or, you know, like a triplier product. it’s always a product that, you know, most customers are going to buy from you. So you’ll definitely include that. And then, you know, outside of that, I mean, there are so many different variables. wish there was like a one size fits all approach to
to bundles, but I think that’s just where you gotta really dive into that data and see. Yeah, I’m trying to think of, know, like, let me give like one example that was interesting. So a brand I worked with early on at Vermont, they’re kind of like the stance for dress socks. So what we did for them is we actually took all of their blue socks and put them in a blue bundle.
And then we took all of their gray socks and put them in a gray bundle and did the same with green and purple. Um, we were able to just doing that, just creating those bundles. We were able to double their conversion rate, double their AOV and we cut the CPA in half. And so like that, that wasn’t, yeah, just that. Yeah. Just doing that. So, and, and that, you know, the data actually might tell you that might not tell you that. Right.
Greg Shuey (12:55.971)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (13:09.336)
just with a simple bundle. Wow. Yeah.
Greg Shuey (13:20.216)
Sure, yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (13:21.461)
It’s just more like, Hey, our customers who buy blue socks probably will buy more blue socks in the future. So what if we gave them more upfront, you know? And so instead of them buying one or two pairs at, you know, $60, what if we gave them five pairs at 120, you know? And so, yeah, so that, was kind of like that, thinking, you know, with that one. um, so yeah, I think there’s also like, you know, I talked a lot about the data, but I think there’s kind of like some of that obvious.
Greg Shuey (13:30.339)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (13:39.192)
Right. Yep.
Saunder Schroeder (13:50.506)
you know, let’s just see what happens if we bundle the same colors together, you know, same with like a swimsuit, like a lot of brands don’t bundle the tops and the bottoms together. And so that’s like a very obvious unlock of like, okay, what if you just created a bundle where the user can choose their, you know, their top size and then their bottom size type of thing.
Greg Shuey (13:54.051)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (13:59.79)
interesting.
Greg Shuey (14:08.14)
Yeah, yep. Interesting. Okay, so on the flip side, like where are the biggest mistakes that you see that brands make when they’re trying to grow their average order value or building bundles? These have to be more glaringly obvious, right?
Saunder Schroeder (14:24.233)
I mean, I wish they were like, yes, I wish they were. would say, yeah, the ones that come top of mind are brands will naturally want to push like their highest priced product, you like increase AOV. And so, and that isn’t always like, you know, the best way to do it. Now, obviously as marketers, yeah, let’s test, analyze and optimize from there.
But yeah, so highest product. then I would just say like discounts. so, know, discounts are obviously like a double-edged sword where if you get a bunch of discount customers, then they’re only going, you know, repeat buy from you during discount season.
Greg Shuey (15:02.51)
Yep
Greg Shuey (15:06.304)
only when there’s a promo and they’re going to eat up all your margin. Yep.
Saunder Schroeder (15:10.121)
Yeah, exactly. so yeah, that once again, it’s kind of that that double edged sword. Now, everyone likes a good deal. So I’m not saying don’t include some kind of discount, but you know, going back to like that sock bundle, we priced it like high enough, right? We didn’t just do like two pairs and then discounted at 30%. You know, we, we did five pairs and then discounted it at discounted it at, let me, let me try to think. I think it was like 15%, you know, so it wasn’t like a crazy
Greg Shuey (15:24.951)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (15:38.73)
discount that we were giving there. And so, yeah, I just say be a little cautious of like the discounts highest price. then, you know, I’d say the other thing is brands will also just throw like everything at their customers. And so it just creates like a lot of decision fatigue, like on a landing page, you know, and you see this isn’t, you know, to talk bad on any other e-commerce SaaS platforms, but you just see like, you know, all of these post-sell
Greg Shuey (15:40.813)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (15:57.688)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (16:08.437)
you know, apps that are, you know, upselling after the purchase and more and more and more, you know, just those like, we kind of get in that more and more and more cycle. Whereas we’ve all heard like less is more in most cases. So yeah, those would be like the three big things.
Greg Shuey (16:14.275)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (16:26.062)
Let me ask you this because you mentioned it just a few minutes ago. You said that a good hero, not a hero product, a good bundle includes your hero product. So do you ever find that it makes sense to not push your hero product in a bundle or is that one of those things that could potentially hurt?
Saunder Schroeder (16:46.865)
I, definitely think it depends on the brand, right? Like if a lot of your brand equity is in that hero product and you want to, you want to keep that price premium, then that that’s probably where I wouldn’t push like a bundle with my hero product. and then, yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, I would just also test it and just see what happens.
Greg Shuey (17:07.874)
just spin up a bunch of tests and see what sticks, right?
Saunder Schroeder (17:10.961)
Exactly. And that’s, that’s maybe where like a gift with purchase doesn’t actually take away from like your hero product as well. So if you did do a hero product and wanted to maybe, you know, dip your toe in the water, you know, that’s where like a gift with purchase type offer could be good because you’re not actually discounting it, but you might throw in, you know, maybe an accessory that goes with that hero product or something like that. but yeah, I mean, it totally can go, like all things in marketing can go both ways.
Greg Shuey (17:17.112)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (17:38.958)
Yep. Awesome. Okay. So how important is timing and placement when it comes to introducing the upsells, cross-sells, and should brands push these early, mid or late funnel?
Saunder Schroeder (17:41.941)
Thank
Saunder Schroeder (17:53.814)
Ooh, that is such a good question. And it’s a hard one. As you will tell, I do not have strong opinions on a lot of things when it comes to marketing. I do appreciate sometimes some of those strong opinions and people dying on store on social media. I would say, mean, end of the day to me, it’s important to have a system and like a methodology. And so I think it is good to test.
Greg Shuey (17:59.04)
Hahaha
Greg Shuey (18:19.598)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (18:23.157)
Now, I think if you’re like an emerging and, you know, trying to find like that product market fit, think testing bundles and being a little bit more aggressive on the front end is probably important for people to try to make your product. So I have a CPG brand selling like a functional energy drink. We came out with like a pre-workout powder that you add to it. And so for us, we decided to like bundle those very aggressively for new customers.
Greg Shuey (18:50.787)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (18:53.085)
And so that made a lot of sense for us and where I was willing to be more aggressive because we are a newer brand. But once again, it goes back to like my discount customers. know, like we are being very aggressive. And some of that is we believe in our product and we are a consumable. So the LTV does make sense for us to do that. So yeah, think, hmm, you know, where like a beauty brand can seem to get
away with like upsells at every stage of the phone. So whether that’s we’re first coming to the page, if that’s, you know, being more aggressive at the add to cart level of like, Hey, customers also bought XYZ product with this. makes sense because, you know, if you’re, you know, women are typically replacing what they’re already using. And so if you can match something close to what matches that behavior, it works well. And then even, you know, post sell.
Greg Shuey (19:24.664)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (19:48.894)
Right? Like same kind of like philosophy. And so beauty can seem to get away with it everywhere. I feel like apparel probably has a harder time just overall. Yeah, I don’t know. What are your thoughts?
Greg Shuey (19:51.938)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (20:00.685)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (20:04.128)
I don’t know, you know, when I think of apparel, I think, I mean, my first one goes to like built basics, right? I don’t know if you buy from built, but when you put things in the shopping cart, they’re like, 40 more dollars until your free pair of boxer shorts or your free wet bag, right? And like, I don’t necessarily consider that like an offer, even though it kind of is an offer, but it’s a way to be able to grow average order value and get people kind of over that bump. And so I see that that kind of mindset.
Saunder Schroeder (20:10.665)
Yeah. Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (20:19.078)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (20:33.912)
And I’m sure it works because I do it, right? I, you know, just what’s one more shirt. And then, you know, truly I don’t see a lot of cross-sell upsells post-purchase. I really don’t anymore, right? It’s like, it’s not as common. Like you just hit the thank you page and then you typically get a post-purchase survey from the no commerce guys. And maybe, you know, you see some related products from Disco.
Saunder Schroeder (20:37.183)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (20:50.672)
as common.
Greg Shuey (21:02.798)
You’re seeing those more and more often, but I don’t know. usually, you know, bundles up front, maybe something to try to get to free shipping or other some kind of a gift, right? And I see them enough that I’ve got to believe that those are working.
Saunder Schroeder (21:18.581)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think they, definitely are funny. You bring up that bill. It reminded me back of back in the day of bodybuilding.com. It was like they had their whole like gift library when you would just saw as a, as a poor college student, you know, it was like, Oh yeah, I need to get that free shaker. like, can I go find like a $2 sample or something, you know, to get over, get over it. But yeah, I, I, yeah, I agree with that. You’re not seeing as much post cell. And I think that’s where.
Greg Shuey (21:40.365)
Yep.
Saunder Schroeder (21:46.997)
Well, and I think email marketing is also a lot more sophisticated now. And I think brands realize they can almost have that post-sell after the fact.
Greg Shuey (21:58.03)
They’ll get them through an email or a text message at some point, right? And I don’t, I don’t even, we don’t even recommend this very much anymore with, like your meta ads, but like, you know, you should be going after post-sell all through email. Very rarely should you be putting advertising budget into trying to recapture old customers unless for some reason your email isn’t getting the job done. so lean heavily into the email and the SMS side of things for that post-sell for sure.
Saunder Schroeder (22:01.801)
Yeah, exactly.
Saunder Schroeder (22:24.725)
Yeah, 100 % agree. Yep, you’ve owned those customers. No use paying Zach anymore.
Greg Shuey (22:31.502)
And when you do your ROAS looks amazing and then your expectations are shot, right? I mean, my gosh, getting off topic. mean, that’s one of the, that’s one of the funniest things is when it, when a prospect comes and they’re like, you know what my, my ROAS is a 12th. It’s like, actually you’re more like a one and a half when we pull out, you know, your, your, your repeat purchasers. So it’s a good time.
Saunder Schroeder (22:34.441)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (22:55.783)
Yeah, yeah, it is, it is.
Greg Shuey (22:59.84)
Okay, let’s talk personalization because I feel like personalization is probably a big key to this. So how does personalization either through AI or segment based funnels like really impact the success rate of upsells and higher order purchases?
Saunder Schroeder (23:06.398)
Yep.
Saunder Schroeder (23:17.555)
Yeah, great question. I’m going to ask you a question off of that. So I think everyone has a little bit different definition of personalization. you give me like, yeah, what maybe a use case or like how you think about personalization?
Greg Shuey (23:20.986)
boy. Okay.
Greg Shuey (23:35.022)
for me, it is my answer skewed because I’ve been really leaning into a lot of AI right now, like building out tools to even further personalize. If you ask most people, think it’s, you know, I get an email with some products that people like me purchased before that I might be interested in. Right. I think personalization today and into the future is very much one to one.
Saunder Schroeder (23:58.012)
Yeah
Greg Shuey (24:04.0)
and these people legit know me and they know what I’m going to buy next versus people like you bought this, right? If I’ve bought eight shirts from built in the last year, there’s a, there’s a pretty good chance that I’m going to buy the new color that comes out, right? Versus, you know, you may want to polo or you may want our joggers because other people buy these things. Sure. That’s kind of personalized, but I feel like it’s truly going to be the one-to-one type marketing that
Saunder Schroeder (24:18.367)
you
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (24:32.951)
that people crave, right?
Saunder Schroeder (24:34.709)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s super helpful. Yeah. think, yeah, I think the future is very exciting. and also I remember, you know, when I was at group deals, we had a list of, think we had like 5 million customers on that. And so we were, you know, and we would send out two sends a day of like our marketplace deals. So yeah, was, it was wild. So, so the first email was like what we predicted to be top sellers. The afternoon one was,
Greg Shuey (24:55.501)
Whoa.
Saunder Schroeder (25:03.933)
what actually ended up being top sellers and like hadn’t sold out yet. But I remember then we were meeting, you know, with SendGrid and a few other startups of like personalization and like trying to create that one-to-one. And that was, you know, that was 10 years ago. And I feel like we still haven’t like fully unlocked that. Now, I think, I think how you probably do that is, you know, I think it’s going to be someone like a Shopify and Amazon, right? I think Amazon actually you see it quite a bit more.
Greg Shuey (25:06.54)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (25:17.336)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (25:23.192)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (25:33.91)
Um, because of their data. so I think a Shopify or, know, whoever has the most data is going to unlock that. I’m probably the best. think that’s why Shopify is pushing shop app so much. Um, but you know, tying it back to that, that landing page experience, you know, think AI will fill into that, but it’s going to create, you’re going to need to connect to like a Shopify API to really maximize it. Um, so kind of how we think about personalization now is more.
Greg Shuey (25:34.04)
for sure.
Greg Shuey (25:45.996)
Right?
Greg Shuey (25:59.512)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (26:03.635)
I would say more like brand demographic pages or like customer segment pages where we have, you know, we talked to a brand this week, they sell, it’s like athletic tape, but it has like cooling to it. All of their customers though have been like, like teenage gymnasts. And so like their entire website, yeah, it’s all like gymnasts. And so it’s like,
Greg Shuey (26:08.76)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (26:19.406)
Hmm.
Greg Shuey (26:26.594)
Really?
Saunder Schroeder (26:31.815)
So when like a football player, D1 player goes there, all they’re seeing are like, you know, 15 year old gymnast. So they’re not like going to like resonate with that. And so, so we more see it as right now it’s like, Hey, let’s create like, you know, the football player page. know, obviously all that content will be like football and then let’s create, you know, a pickleball page. And maybe that’s, you know, people, people my age and older, you know, that are on that page, you know? And so I think that’s more how.
Greg Shuey (26:38.71)
Yeah
Greg Shuey (26:55.0)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (27:01.855)
personalization right now is still kind of in that like segmentation era. I think that next leap though will probably happen in the next few years. Yeah, I think it just depends on who gives like the keys to the kingdom because it’s, well, it’s similar with all the data.
Greg Shuey (27:05.678)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (27:11.64)
I think so.
Greg Shuey (27:15.822)
Yeah. And like that example you gave that that gets even harder, right? Because you can’t market and sell to a 15 year old gymnast, right? You’re marketing to the parent. And so how on earth do you profile the parent to say this is what’s next for the, maybe the parent has a football player, right? You just don’t know. And so it’s going to be fascinating to watch this all unfold.
Saunder Schroeder (27:28.64)
yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (27:37.151)
Yeah. Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (27:43.061)
It really is. It really is. The future is wild. Yeah. And who knows where like chat GPT. Yeah.
Greg Shuey (27:52.056)
We’re not even gonna go there. that’s funny. Okay, well, let’s talk about the futures. We kind of wrap this up. So, and I know we don’t have crystal balls, but as you think out one year, two years, like how do you see average order value optimization evolving? Do you think tactics are gonna need to change as customer expectations shift? Like what are you thinking and what are you saying?
Saunder Schroeder (27:53.749)
Thank
Saunder Schroeder (28:17.747)
Yeah, I mean, definitely what we’re seeing is a lot of what we’ve talked about so far is definitely going to be those bundles, know, offers, you know, the buy more, save more, like those types of things, I think, you know, play well during what does Amazon call their summer holiday prime day.
Greg Shuey (28:40.44)
Prime Day, I was gonna say Amazon Deals Day, but no, that’s not it.
Saunder Schroeder (28:43.253)
Yeah, so you know, it’s like, you know, you’ll probably still have like the Prime Day, the Black Friday, like those things, but it’s like, what what is like more sustainable? And so, yeah, I think as far as like the immediate future, like right now that we can see, it really is around like what what is going to get customers to almost like a de risk. And I think, you know, not to get like too much into the macro, but I think, you know, dollars.
Greg Shuey (29:06.594)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (29:13.333)
are a little harder to come by now as well. So I think like customers, yeah, they need to feel like they’re getting some kind of like value. So, you know, to me it’s like, you’ve got to provide value and then I think your brand also has to like mean something is, you know, something that I’m believing more and more in because you just see, I don’t know, the barrier to entry to start a brand now is like very low. so, yeah.
Greg Shuey (29:15.63)
100%.
Greg Shuey (29:36.406)
It’s so low.
Saunder Schroeder (29:38.454)
And which is, which is awesome, but yeah, it’s, it’s hard to like stand out from like all the, you know, all the noise. so I think there’s a lot of components that kind of go back, you know, kind of like to the overview, like methodologies a little bit. Like I think advertising needs to get, I don’t want to say advertising’s become cheap, but I feel like it’s, it’s just so much. It’s just so much of like the same thing and like.
Greg Shuey (29:51.374)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Shuey (29:59.069)
Hahaha!
Saunder Schroeder (30:05.813)
let’s test like a thousand creatives this month, you know? And it’s like, if you just like tested like 10 things that like represent your brand and your product and like were more meaningful, you know, and you stood for something. So I’ll get off, get off my pedestal, but it’s like, you know, I think, I think that’s like some of what this AI revolution will bring is more back to that, brand. Cause I think purchasing is going to change.
Greg Shuey (30:08.814)
right.
Greg Shuey (30:20.514)
Bye.
Greg Shuey (30:29.228)
I think so too. Yeah. I put a post up a couple of weeks ago on LinkedIn that like, I’m genuinely scared that brands are just going to go all in on AI and they’re going to use AI for everything. They’re creative, they’re copy. And when everyone’s using the same tool and, and similar inputs, we’re going to get a lot of boring crap out of it. I think the brands that are going to crush it are the ones who sure use some AI to help with ideation, but are also bringing like
Saunder Schroeder (30:50.666)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (30:57.962)
human stories, different elements, brand stories, what you stand for as a company and weave that in and through to where it truly is unique and it stands out. I think that’s going to be like crystal clear. I also think, I’ve thought this for a long time. I feel like brands right now need to really focus in on kind of that hero and they need to build everything around the hero product and get hyper focused on that.
because like you said, it’s super easy. Like I could go make a shirt like built. So many people have done it. I mean, the nomadic guys did it. It’s what I’m wearing right now. Like you can buy any kind of variation of it. And, you know, you’ve, you’ve got to have that ideal customer. You’ve got to have that hero product. You’ve got to have your story. You’ve got to have your creative and everything dialed in. And I think those that do that are going to be the ones that win over the next couple of years.
Saunder Schroeder (31:53.779)
Yeah. I mean, that’s honestly like, that’s honestly the bet I’m making with my brand is exactly that. Like, because I have, mean, I’ve, I’ve consulted with the largest like DTC brands, you know, over the last decade. And it’s like, I, yeah, I don’t know. don’t, I don’t want to like come off as like, I’m not like superior to that. just see that a lot of them are all doing like the same things. and they’re, they are avoiding like that.
Greg Shuey (32:20.834)
Yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (32:24.253)
hero and like those things. and so yeah, I think, I think betting on like original artwork and like, you know, like, don’t know, just like having, what is it gumption? Is that, is that the word having gumption, you know, and like what, what you’re doing, that uniqueness, I just, and like authenticity, I feel like I’m going to hate that word.
Greg Shuey (32:36.472)
Yeah, yeah.
Saunder Schroeder (32:46.793)
Well, it gets getting overused, but so yeah, I’m right there with you. That’s what I’m trying to say.
Greg Shuey (32:48.238)
But it’s true, yeah.
Greg Shuey (32:53.858)
There you go, man. I love it. Cool. Well, Sondra, thanks so much, man. I appreciate your time. I know our listeners will appreciate your time and super grateful that you were able to come on and share some great stories and insights with us.
Saunder Schroeder (33:07.805)
Yeah, thanks for having me. It was great. Great talking some, marketing DTC and all the good stuff.
Greg Shuey (33:14.24)
Awesome. And to our listeners, we’re going to roll a couple more episodes next week as well. So make sure that you tune in. And thank you so much for joining.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
