Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that. And we have somebody here that I, I genuinely like this person. They are, she is not only a big deal in the marketing world, but she's cool. She's normal, she's awesome. She's my friend. I'm all in. Amanda Cole is here now. You know who Amanda Cole is because she is the chief.

Jay Schwedelson: Marketing officer at Bloomreach. She has a big job. She's leading the company's global marketing strategy. She was named one of the 30 agentic marketers to watch. I barely even know what agentic means. That's a big deal. Now, Bloomreach, you know what that is because it's valued over $2 billion. It is like the leading e-commerce.

Jay Schwedelson: Personalization platform. And here's the weirdest, wildest stat about Bloomreach. Yeah, they got like 1400 of the biggest brands. Every brand, e-commerce brand, every brand, you know, uses them, but they power the equivalent of 25% of all e-commerce experiences in the United States and in the uk. What does that even mean?

Jay Schwedelson: This is wild. It's all Amanda's fault. Mel. Amanda, welcome back to the show.

Amanda Cole: Thanks for having me. I'm calling you every morning to start my day. That was.

Jay Schwedelson: I could have gone on forever. 'cause you are a big deal and one of the reasons I like you a lot is because you don't just say what everybody else is saying. You say these things and I'm like, oh my God, she just said that. I need to know more about that. So I wanna rip through, especially from your purview, you have this, like you see it all happening at scale with what's really happening in marketing.

Jay Schwedelson: I wanna ask you some hot take things that you've said and then I need to tell you. Tell me, what do they mean? Are you ready for this?

Amanda Cole: Let's do it. Let's go.

Jay Schwedelson: You said, and this is the weirdest thing ever, 'cause at the end of the day, you guys are selling a MarTech product thing. You literally said, don't invest in MarTech, divest from MarTech.

Jay Schwedelson: What is wrong with you?

Amanda Cole: Yeah, it's true. I mean, we're all living this reality, right? We're software and systems and all those things are being rewritten in front of our eyes. I mean, just like from our, I obviously I work for, for A B2B. SaaS company, we sell to B2C marketers. Our, our job is to sell technology, MarTech specifically.

Amanda Cole: Um, and, and you see the market just making a big shift because we are all becoming aware of the fact that much of our technology is surface level UI to help us communicate very, uh, minimally complex ideas to a computer system. And that you don't need workflows for that anymore. You don't need a UI for that anymore.

Amanda Cole: You just need to know language and be able to communicate in a conversational way to a computer to get it to do stuff for you. So all of these lightweight tools that don't have big structural, uh, data sets that actually help you move forward with your job and the complexity of what, of what your role is, you don't need 'em anymore.

Amanda Cole: So I'm, I'm going through this with my team. What are these lightweight tools that gave us a wrapper that we no longer need because now we can just conversationally interact with our computer systems?

Jay Schwedelson: Wow. So, okay, let me unpack what you're saying there. So you're saying that the big mothership tools like a Bloomreach, not that it's commercial for Bloomreach, but there's a lot of these big, kind of like SaaS platforms that are kind of running our business. Those are kind of like, all right, table stakes, we gotta have those.

Jay Schwedelson: But a lot of these one-off things that are maybe more task oriented, you know, uh, tools you're saying. We really don't need to have this smorgasbord of all these tools. I saw somewhere in the average enterprise marketing stack, you shared this stat somewhere has 91 tools, but they barely use any of the capabilities.

Jay Schwedelson: Is that, is that what we're talking about?

Amanda Cole: It is absolutely what we're talking about, and these are the, these are the lightweight tools. These are tools that, you know, you're usually signing up with your credit card. They're 10 to 15 K, they're, they're things that made a portion of your job much easier at some per some point in time. If you think about like social media, how do I manage and stay on top of social mentions?

Amanda Cole: That might be something that you pay 10 KA year for, or maybe an analytics tool that's. Something on top of Google Analytics or pulls together lots of different data systems and gives you visibility into how effective those are. But really it's a, a lightweight wrapper over a data set that already exists that you just are trying to understand because you're not a, a data analytics person now.

Amanda Cole: You don't need that data analytics person to ingest and understand lots of data. You don't need a lightweight wrapper to help you layer over filters and visualize a report. You can do all of those things. My, my favorite is Claude Cowork. I was very upset this weekend and this past week when it was down.

Amanda Cole: Um, but, but those kinds of tools, I would absolutely be saving budget and divesting from those and creating your personal workspace in these new agent places.

Jay Schwedelson: Listen, everybody out there wants a promotion. You do one of two things. You do exactly what Amanda just said. You get rid of these things, use you. You could do it yourself. You do it within your company. Or if you have a big platform, go and ask for a demo of the platform again for what you already have access to that you're already paying for.

Jay Schwedelson: 'cause every big platform, like a Bloomreach has new stuff going on that you're not aware that you're probably paying for and not. Using, but you should, I wanna go to the next one. Okay. This one, I, I can't even believe that came outta your mouth. Don't, don't build a loyalty program. Build a disloyalty program.

Jay Schwedelson: What is going on here?

Amanda Cole: Yeah, I mean, what we see oftentimes with loyalty programs is they're discount buyers. And so there are people who are looking for sales or they're, they're, they wanna be notified. They, I, I do this, I go to my local yo froyo and I get stamped so I can get my free froyo. So what is really the intent behind loyalty if it's to build.

Amanda Cole: Brand loyalty and build brand advocates that actually help you drive more revenue. That is a great loyalty program. But if it's just to drive sales, don't, don't go down that road. And we have a, we have a big program around loyalty and what it means to actually build an effective loyalty program with our partner Antavo that launched in the last couple weeks.

Amanda Cole: So there are some good guides in there around what you should do. But another thing that we see, and this is tied to loyalty or disloyalty, is you should be excluding a lot of these sales shoppers or a lot of these high returners, especially in e-commerce from ad spend. We save customers millions of dollars by excluding, by pushing negative audiences into their ad networks.

Amanda Cole: And I, I mean, I genuinely mean millions of dollars a month that we say. Our customers because we're able to identify these disloyal customers who actually are only one hit wonders or looking for sales and your business, you'll see your conversion rates improve. You'll see your spend in ad channels decrease, and your customers who really, truly are loyal will surface and you can reward them in different ways.

Jay Schwedelson: So, wow, that's super interesting. So I never really thought about the nuance of loyalty, not just being all your. Customers, you're talking about loyalty are actually the people that really care about your brand, not just the people that want the, the super discounted stuff. Um, and and are you seeing a lot of people take advantage of what you just said?

Jay Schwedelson: I've never thought about not including them in my retargeting, remarketing, whatever, target 'em on social, kind of that discount buyer. Do people do that? Am I missing the boat? Is this a, is this a thing I should be doing?

Amanda Cole: Yeah, I mean, some of our most successful customers, definitely, as you said, you want a promotion, you save the company money and you provide better results. This is one of the fastest ways to do it, and it is one of our most popular use cases with our. With our e-commerce brands, and the, the guy who actually invented NPS Fred Reichheld, who is a principal at Bain, uh, changed his view of NPS, uh, and is actually now promoting this concept of earned growth, where it's, how much revenue do you get from people who refer you into their networks?

Amanda Cole: So word of mouth. Great referral source. Really difficult for marketing to track, but now there's a ton of opportunities for us to actually track who are the brand loyalists who are helping us grow as a business. And those are the ones that you can invest in heavily.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay. That's my new favorite line. I probably am late to the game brand loyalists instead of just loyalty customers. Let's go. I'm sure that's a thing, and I didn't know it, but I like it. Brand loyalists. Okay. I feel like I invented it, but I didn't. Okay. Lemme get onto the next one here. 'cause this is gonna be a crusher.

Jay Schwedelson: 'cause a lot of people that listen to this thing are marketers. Some of them want jobs. Some of them hate their jobs. Some of them want new jobs. And here's what you said. It's not my fault, it's Amanda's fault. She said, don't hire more marketers. Train your AI agents, then hire fewer, weirder people. I'm, I got the weird part down.

Amanda Cole: you got the weird part. Now down, you're gonna, you're, you're hired. Um, yeah, I think that the, and, and this is not necessarily just related to marketing. I think there are a lot of jobs where we've said like, this is too difficult. The automation or the systemization of this would be too complex or potentially too, too expensive.

Amanda Cole: We're gonna throw humans at this. And so they give them titles of marketing or in our world, um. We're very creative in the tech space with, with these jobs. You see it somewhat in customer service as well, particularly in e-comm, who are the people who are gonna answer the phone and actually provide support calls.

Amanda Cole: It's not often built around being a great experience. It's where can we replicate this at the lowest cost possible? And so those are the jobs that I think really. Are challenged right now because a lot of automation is gonna be able to be applied there and I strongly recommend marketing teams are often very small.

Amanda Cole: So you don't see 20 people in marketing doing the same thing. You usually have one person doing the job, but then there are gonna be functions or capabilities where in which there's a a lot of repetition. And rather than immediately thinking of, I need more people, I need to hire someone. Think how could AI do this first?

Amanda Cole: And really try to automate functions of the job because we all know we never are running out of things to do. We all have a lot to do. Uh, and so it, if you can create time and scale for yourself rather than, rather than saying either I can't do it because I don't have the right people, or asking for budget to hire people.

Amanda Cole: Instead, really think about how can AI do this? Then when you do hire, when you do decide, I actually need more hands, hire weird people. Hire people that think differently, that don't live in a box that, that the first answer is, I can't do that, or that's not how we do it. Hire people that really think very differently from the way the world runs today.

Jay Schwedelson: So like, do you, like, you're, you're gonna interview somebody and somebody comes in, in a tank top and flip flops and they're, you know, I don't know, carrying a bag of popcorn. You're like, oh, extreme weirdo. You are hired. Or, I mean, is that not what we're talking about? Are we talking about more of like the way that they, they, they think in some way.

Amanda Cole: It is definitely the way they think, although I, I, I love a, a unique personal style as well. Uh, but, but I, I mean, the first time I met you, I can, I will not forget your cheese hat that you had on. So like, you kind have a personal style, but yes, it's, it's much more about thinking how you approach the world that, that you're not going to, you don't have a framework that you live by.

Amanda Cole: You're essentially very open. To things being done in a unique and different way.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright, I wanna go totally off script. We didn't talk about this, but I'm just curious about something whenever I follow you on LinkedIn, and by the way, I'm not just saying this, I'm, we're gonna put in the, in the show notes, she's the best follow on LinkedIn and I'll tell you why. Amanda Cole is the best follow LinkedIn.

Jay Schwedelson: You post stuff. I haven't heard it anywhere before. Okay. You're saying there's this new thing about Bob that's out there. I'm like, I didn't know about that. How come I didn't know about that? So I wanna know how does Amanda Cole, the human being, you have a lot going on. How are you keeping up with all this new stuff that's going out there?

Jay Schwedelson: Do you just stay up all night reading the most boring stuff? What are you doing? I need to follow your playbook to stay on top of things.

Amanda Cole: I don't, I don't have any hobbies, so that's definitely an issue. My work life balance is not, is not great. I am, I am kind of super obsessed with the space. Um, and so there's a, there, there are just a, a ton of resources that I follow. I, I do still think that Instagram and TikTok are great sources of like, inspiration.

Amanda Cole: You hear Allie Miller for example, is someone. Then I follow religiously on Instagram. She's a huge AI influencer, so she'll talk about something conceptually and then I'll dive down the rabbit hole of, of researching it. Another person in marketing, Emily Kramer, she has MKT1 as a, as a newsletter that she has.

Amanda Cole: She does an awesome job really talking about things like using Claude. Claude Code or Claude Cowork, which I, I think I already said, I'm a fan girl of, um, and then actually giving you tips and tricks on how to, how to leverage it in your, in your real life. And then I work for an AI company, so I'm really surrounded by it from, you know, everybody that, that we interact with.

Amanda Cole: And one of the products we sell is AI driven marketing and personalization. And so I really need to be up to speed in the customers that I interact with and what they're going through and their evolutions. Our, our big part of our conversation, so I, I guess I'm just steeped in it from all angles.

Jay Schwedelson: Yeah. Well I'm also glad you said about work-life balance and I don't encourage, you know, I have no work-life balance either. Uh, but, but I do listen, everyone should have a work-life balance. I don't think a work-life balance, in my humble opinion is you shut it off at 5:00 PM on Friday and you don't think about work until 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM on Monday morning.

Jay Schwedelson: I think work-life balance, like this bigger picture thing, and I think it is healthy for people to hear. That, you know, work life balance is not this structured thing. 'cause I know you're a big family person as well, so like, do you, I mean, not to get into the weeds on personal stuff, whatever, but do you have to be like, you know, do you shut it off?

Jay Schwedelson: Do you put your phone away at dinner? Like, 'cause I think it's important for people to understand, how do you kind of manage to do it all?

Amanda Cole: Yeah, my husband is actually a therapist, and so we spend a lot of time talking about this.

Jay Schwedelson: that, that's.

Amanda Cole: Um, but it's really like, you know, like, I mean, this isn't just my job. I'm very, very interested in it, and I think I, I want to be an active participant in shaping what our future looks like when AI is part of it. I mean, we. We, we've seen this transformation happen with mobile devices, with the internet, with wifi.

Amanda Cole: Like we've seen these big technology transformations happen, and, and, and life has molded around what's available to us from a technology perspective. And I, I want to be part of how we think about that and what it actually looks like to integrate it into, into our lives. And I, I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to do that.

Amanda Cole: Um, that said, I just, I think it's, it's really individual for everyone there. My, I have a, a, my middle son. He is graduating with a biology and chemistry degree and he is absolutely obsessed with bugs. He wants to research them, he wants to collect them, he wants to understand them. That's all he wants to do ever, and that's his passion.

Amanda Cole: It also happens, apparently there happens to be a career in that. So

Jay Schwedelson: Who knew?

Amanda Cole: good, for him. My, my oldest is an artist. My youngest is a math nerd, so I think there that, and I do hate. Find your passion and you'll make, you'll find money. 'cause I don't think that's correlated, but I do think that, that I am, uh, benefiting from the fact that I'm just very interested in this topic.

Amanda Cole: And so it is a bit all consuming, but it doesn't feel overwhelming and I think that's an individual choice for everybody.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay, I now, now everyone's gonna like turn you off their radio. 'cause I'm just so curious when your son was younger and you're in your house and there's like a cockroach somewhere in the corner of your house, not that your house is infested, but there was a bug somewhere. You're all like, Ooh, disgusting.

Jay Schwedelson: Was he like, oh my god, I want to go and grab it. Did you see at an early Oh

Amanda Cole: my gosh. The animals that he had, the lizards, the spiders, the fish, like absolutely.

Jay Schwedelson: Wow. Amazing. He'll, he'll have to listen to this and be like, what did you guys wind up talking about? That's in Incre. Yeah. That's amazing. Alright, listen everybody, uh, we're gonna put Amanda's, uh, LinkedIn. Everyone should follow her. She is an incredible follow. But also Bloomreach has something that is just available now.

Jay Schwedelson: bloomreach.com/cloudy. Okay, this is this two minute. Thing where you go there, it was a personalized forecast, had to upgrade from your legacy ESP to a modern email sending platform That does it all. I am telling you, this is worth two minutes of your time. It is bloomreach.com/cloudy. Bloomreach is awesome.

Jay Schwedelson: Amanda, you are awesome. Thanks for being here.