David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I am David McBee. Our guest today is Armando Yanez, President of Primary Lens. Armando’s professional journey spans over a decade during which he has excelled in data analysis and marketing roles. His current initiative, Primary Lens, specializes in a data first approach to omnichannel marketing. This data-driven marketing model eliminates the need for canned audiences across multiple platforms. Armando and his team leverage data-driven insights to make informed decisions, personalized messaging, optimize campaigns, and deliver exceptional customer experiences across multiple channels, delivering the micro moments needed to drive conversions. Armando, thank you for joining me.

Armando Yanez: Thank you for having me, David.

David McBee: All this talk about data, I just know this is going to be a good one. You’re obviously a data guy, so I’ll just jump right into my first question. Why is data so important and how do you use it to help your clients?

Armando Yanez: No, it’s actually a great question. Part of the reason that we work with a data-first approach is really just because there are two primary components to any successful campaign. And a lot of what we always focus on as marketers and as advertisers is we focus on the messaging, we focus on the creative, which is incredibly important. But the best messaging and proper creative, if it’s not being delivered to the correct audience, will literally fall flat. It simply won’t generate the convergence that the advertisers are looking for and need. And so, we’ve really started with a data-first approach just because in an omnichannel world, a lot of times if you’re not beginning with your own data set, you can end up with siloed data from each one of these different providers, and you’re relying on where the overlap might be between your DSP, and between YouTube, or between Google, or any of the other channels that you’re using. When you start with your own data set, you’ve got the ability to truly influence that frequency number that we all are targeting when we’re running a campaign to make sure that we can create those conversions for the client.

David McBee: Do you have an example of a client that you’ve worked with that used data in this way, in that omnichannel campaign?

Armando Yanez: Absolutely, and I can give you two very, very quickly. The first one is actually a personal injury attorney group that we work with that obviously wanted digital out-of-home. And digital out-of-home for PI attorneys is primarily looking for prime real estate on the most dangerous intersections and portions of roads inside of their area. But when you’re dealing with digital out-of-home, you’re probably going to be one out of six flips on that digital screen, which means that the other five times, you don’t have that person’s attention. Using our smart boundary technology, we’re actually able to gather the devices that are going by that screen so that regardless of whether your flip was the one that was up while that person was driving by, we can now re-target them online as a result of their offline targeting, based on where they were and how they were spending your time. To the clients that have already seen your message, it looks like a million dollar campaign because you’re literally reaching them a second time, you’re increasing your frequency. And for the folks that didn’t see your original messaging, those folks are now being exposed to your messaging because they were part of your original target audience. I guess the second one would be a brick and mortar store that we work with that has four physical locations as well as an e-commerce store. And for them, they’re very similar to a bass pro shop type store, where they’re an outdoors and apparel and they’ve got some items not fall into a prohibited category. But we were actually able to find people that are visiting their competitors inside of the local market that they may not have had a large enough voice for. And because we started with those folks, we weren’t looking for people that were just generic outdoor enthusiasts, interested in camping or hiking, et cetera, across multiple platforms. Rather, we started with that data set that we know lives within a certain radius of their store and we’re able to take that same set of data the whole way across. The end result for that client was literally a five to one return on ad spend in a given month. And a lot of the stuff that they actually sell internally within those stores are memberships. When you sell an annual membership, even inside of analytics, when it does the e-commerce conversion, it does it for that first transaction. But when you dig a little bit deeper and you actually analyze the transactions that were completed, you’re able to see that it’s a much higher ROAS with those types of products. If you’ve got a client that has a lifetime value for a customer, it’s that much more important to make sure that you are able to influence those conversions.

David McBee: just for clarity. On the first one, you’re basically using geofencing technology around the outdoor billboards, right?

Armando Yanez: Yeah, it’s similar to geofencing. It’s actually geo framing. We process a little over 3 billion records of raw movement data daily. And we do that based on the locations that we are monitoring for our clients. And sometimes just to monitor a competitor, sometimes just to monitor an affinity location. We started working with digital out-of-home, we actually built the boundaries around the billboards in the direction that the actual traffic was flowing, so that we could actually identify the folks that would be exposed to that board while driving down that street. And rather than focusing on just the flip when their ad was on, we know that everybody going down that road is our target. We take the entirety of that list and then we port it back over to social platforms, we put it back over to DSP platforms, and we’re able to go through and reinforce that messaging across social and display.

David McBee: I love that. That’s brilliant. And on the second one, the competitors, I love how you talked about lifetime value for the ROAS calculation. I think a lot of advertisers and media companies focus so solely on that first purchase that they don’t really consider. And you get somebody into your store, you reel them in, you get to keep them for a long time, hopefully.

Armando Yanez: And there’s certain categories that’s much more relevant for than others, to be perfectly honest. This particular client, because they are an outdoor fashion boutique that also happens to have firearms and ammunition and ranges and safety classes and things of that nature, that’s a very personal connection. It’s a little bit different from other verticals where it may be a restaurant. We work with a lot of QSRs. And for QSRs, we use that geo framing technology as well, because their primary model for site selections is to find anybody that lives within five miles of the location. But most of the times, some of these locations are in commercial type areas. If you limit yourself to people that live within five miles, you’re missing the commuters that are coming into the office. You’re missing the people that may be coming over to a softball field and you sell ice cream, or to a football field, which gives you that Saturday crowd. And the opportunity there is really just to make sure that you’re not just talking to the people that are immediately around your business based on the site selection for something like a QSR, but that you’re also getting the people that are in that area that could be coming in for lunch, because everybody that’s ever worked in an office knows that at some point, you guys have four or five restaurants that are in the rotation and that’s where you go. Building up that habit by introducing the customer to the brand, giving them a positive customer experience and making them a repeat customer is really the only way to succeed today, because the reality is that any vertical that you’re in, the only thing that you cannot do is outsell attrition.

David McBee: I love how much focus you’re giving to this idea of conversions. What are some of your best practices related to digital conversion metrics?

Armando Yanez: The one piece that I think all of us struggle with is that everyone’s attribution model’s a little bit different. And right now, most of the standard for any sort of an online conversion tends to be sitting inside of analytics for any of the e-commerce customers. But if you go back over to social, social has a very different set of metrics that they go through and they use. And so, one of the things that we always educate our clients with is that every conversion model, every attribution model is going to look a little bit different. But the reality is that it’s going to be reflected in your store sales. Because if it’s not reflected in your store sales, there’s no report on the planet that we could ever produce that is somehow going to convince you that what we’re doing is moving the needle. And so, when we set up and engage with a client, we also go through and monitor their location so that we can show them foot traffic patterns over time and show them how their foot traffic compares to other competitors inside of the local market because there’s certain indicators that will impact the performance of sales that are outside of our control, whether it’s weather, whether it’s a special event that’s going on, et cetera. Really being able to give that customer a holistic view that provides them with the conversion and the attribution metrics that come back out of meta, the attribution metrics that come directly back out of analytics, and then being able to take a look at what their overall foot traffic in their stores looks like is really critical to give them a complete picture of what it is that’s going on inside of their business as well as inside of their local market.

David McBee: Well, you seem to have a theme. Using data to create these wonderful campaigns using data to measure the impact of the campaigns. It sounds like you’re doing a lot of great work. I have one more question for you before I let you go. Do you have a mentor or a favorite podcast or a book that you feel has influenced your success?

Armando Yanez: One name pops into my head almost immediately. It’s a gentleman named Thomas Manning. And I spent a lot of time with data, specifically with products that would promote. I was in a single channel in terms of promoting across a single location or a single channel, and I was part of the blend. And I met Thomas Manning when I worked at the very first advertising agency that I worked at, and he took me under his wing and introduced me to omnichannel, introduced me to finding the proper blend of media for clients in different vertical spaces. And he’s an absolute master of the CNA, which I’ve adopted moving forward since my time to work with him. I think Thomas and I stopped working together inside of the same building at this point probably close to five years ago. But the reality is that we still keep in touch and he’s actually one of our clients today.

David McBee: That’s great. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that shout-out. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on the show with us today, Armando.

Armando Yanez: Thank you for having me, David. You have a wonderful day.

David McBee: And thank you guys for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I’m David McBee. Be awesome, and we’ll see you next time.