Lightly edited for readability. Speaker 1: Welcome to The Business Marketing. I'm the host of the show today, John Horsley. I have the pleasure of being joined by Matt Conlin, who is Chief Customer Officer and founder at Fluent. Welcome to the show, Matt.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you for having me, John. Great to be here.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Um, so Matt, I think we're gonna cover a, a number of areas of territory as it were today. Um, I would love to talk about, you know, the journey that you've been on, um, the differences I guess in terms of, uh, outcome-based marketing, partner monetization where, where you were before, and commerce media and what that is and, and what that looks like. Um, I'm also interested in other aspects of your journey such as, you know, the entrepreneur's story as it were, um, and what it's taken, I guess, to build Fluent from the early performance days through acquisition, um, public company life, uh, and now a, a newer push into, into commerce media. Is that that good with you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 2: All of my favorite topics.
Speaker 1: Excellent. So, you know, let's, let's just kind of start from, you know, the earlier days or the, the earlier Matt as it were. What got you interested in the world of marketing, media, advertising?
Speaker 2: Oh, boy.
Speaker 1: Uh, what was it that captured your attention and kind of drew you in?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, great question. So, um, you know, it's just, you know, the timing's wonderful for, for us to chat because, you know, the 9/11 was, uh, took place recently, and, um, my story in New York and the founding story of Fluent really started two weeks before 9/11 when I started at university in New York City right before 9/11. And, and, uh, and I end up graduating in '05 at the early days of digital and performance marketing, and I got my, my first job ever right out of college in digital marketing at a early performance marketing company. And so I've had the, the privilege and the benefit of being in this category for 20-plus years. I've grown up in it. I love it, and it's, it's a, it drives-- It's a great source of passion and excitement for me, but the actual origin story goes back even earlier. Growing up, uh, my father w- was also an entrepreneur, and, uh, growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he ran a marketing and design firm, and we did a lot of work for General Motors. And so if you were-- in the '90s, if you were ever at a, at a Chevrolet dealership and you wanted to add the, you know, the roof rack and the fender flares and the accessories, uh, RJ Conlin Inc. created the, the catalog work for that. And I was on early photo shoots as a kid shining up the cars, getting it ready for the photographer and, you know, this early days of marketing I guess was, uh, core to me, part of my DNA. And so it was fitting that after college, after interviewing at, uh, architectural firms, publishing firms, traditional ad agencies, it was a digital marketing firm that gave my first shot in, in 2005, right? So I was, I was kind of-- I was born and, and, and, uh, and was grown up in the, in the advertising ecosystem, and I think getting into digital was just the natural evolution of that.
Speaker 1: Wow. So you must have seen a tremendous amount of change, uh, along that, that journey. I mean, that's, uh... Wow, that's, uh, 21 years now.
Speaker 2: I was going to print shops back in the day. We were going to, to-- You know, we, we were doing massive amount of catalog print work, direct mail, and everything in between, and a lot of those mediums are just not what they once were thanks to the rise of digital and, more importantly, performance and, and outcomes-based economy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I mean you, you've t- obviously talked there to a certain extent about the early days of performance marketing. Um, what's changed along the way a- and, um, what's-- Yeah. And what, what's kind of carried along as well in terms of commerce media and, and what does that look like now?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let, let me start with this. So for a little bit of, uh, an overview, so Fluent at its core, um, is in the business of, uh, driving outcomes. And, you know, today if you look at our, our business, we are a commerce media solution provider. We provide technology that helps our partners across retail, grocery, uh, travel, drugstore to enrich their shopping experience by introducing, um, offers to their shoppers that are gonna be value add, they're gonna drive engagement and ultimately drive monetization. So we're really leaning into the third wave of digital media, which started with search in the 2000s. 2010 was the advent and the rise of social, and the 2020s have been-- have seen widespread adoption of commerce media, and so we're very much leaning into that. But, you know, there's some common threads that have kind of stayed true to, you know, the Fluent story since our founding over sixteen years ago in 2010 and even before that when I first got into the industry. But I think what we saw very early on was, uh, brands were so excited to test a new medium that they weren't overly focused on the outcomes nor the quality. They would say, tell their boss, "I bought a lot of impressions." There wasn't the question of did those impressions lead to a click or a conversion or a sale. Early days it was such an early medium that it was just, "I bought leads online, and I think they drove, you know, a, a sale," right? I remember my-- one of my first big customers in the space was University of Phoenix, and they're, you know, the predominant online education provider in the US, and they were buying so much digital media but weren't always tracking against was, was it driving enrollments. And I think what we saw from those early days was a lot of excitement and fervor around the rise of, you know, paying for an outcome. But what we've seen has changed over the, the past 20 years is a, a intent focus on is the performance media that I'm buying, is that, is that click or that lead or that form fill, that trial, what have you, is it leading to down-funnel behaviors, leading to healthier lifetime value? And so what we're finding the biggest shift I've seen is an intense focus around quality over quantity and ensuring that every dollar you spend has, um, a true return on ad spend. And I think there's been a diversion where there was some bleeding of kind of the brand dollars and performance dollars, and now there's-- I think what we've found is there is such an intense focus on making sure all your performance dollars are driving true return, um, that it's, it's forced a lot of companies in this space to rewire their technology stack to ensure that you're optimizing not on that upper funnel activation and that initial action, but are the customers you're driving for a new, uh, for a client, are they leading to better lifetime value, better-- more revenues, better margin, and is it supporting of, um, an advertiser continuing to invest 'cause they're seeing great results?
Speaker 1: Mm. Do you find that clients are maturing a little bit more now in terms of the questions that they're asking you, the outcomes that they're looking for, uh, and how they wish to measure activities?
Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. I would say that, um, you know, I'll give you, I'll give you an example. You know, so Fluent, um, part of our work is, is we do a, a tremendous amount of work within the mobile app, uh, e-economy, and we do a lot of work within mobile gaming as a good example as well. And within that universe, there is a intense focus on, um, on analytically driven marketing. There is not a dollar that's deployed that doesn't have s- um, a very clear sense of purpose and a very s-clear set of expectations. And the, the-- why I love that category in particular is if a marketer is spending a dollar, they wanna see that by day seven, they've made back 10% of their spend. By day 14, they wanna see it's at 15%. By day 30, they wanna be at 25% return on ad spend. By day 180... And so they're meticulously measuring the lifetime value, the progression retention of a user, and what's really powerful is they can share those insights back. So a, a platform like Fluence is able to optimize around not just the users that are maybe installing, but those that are installing this game, playing it, and, and loving it, and continuing to invest into it and spend their time on that. And so there's certain, um, categories like that that are, um, that are, uh, wonderful to partner with because they provide so much rin-rich insight that we can use to optimize to deliver better performance for our advertisers, and that ultimately translates to better performance for our commerce partners, um, because ultimately, the more that-- the better performance our advertisers see, the more they can bid, the more budget-budgets they can deploy, and that benefits our commerce media ecosystem as well.
Speaker 1: Mm. Tell me about the ecosystem. What does that look like? I, I-- one, I l- I love ecosystems and I'm fascinated by them, but what does that look like in practice?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. So, um, where to begin? So what's been really exciting over the past, uh, you know, decade plus is I think a lot of the advertisers, and I'll go on a quick tangent here and I'll bring it back, but the-- You know, everyone's kind of aware, within the $300 billion, um, digital ad ecosystem, uh, the majority of those ad dollars were going to two main players: Google and Meta. And then Amazon came in as the third, and all of a sudden the biop-- you know, the biopoly became the, the, the, the, uh, triopoly and, um, and so you had three main companies that were gobbling up the majority of the ad dollars. And I think that gave rise to, um, this pressure from a lot of the large retail, travel, financial service companies saying, "Well, we have a lot of users on our website and on our apps. Why are all the ad dollars going to Meta and Google and Amazon?" And these folks started asking that question, and there was this kind of, this, uh, uprising of opportunists that said, "Well, since I have all these users, why don't I think about monetizing my site in a different way and becoming my own ad platform?" And so what we found, and this goes back to my earlier point, the 2000s was the advent of search, and we saw that take over. 2010s was the growth of social, and the 2020s have been marked by, uh, all-- there's now 250 retail and commerce media networks that exist, right? The largest, of course, are Amazon and Walmart, and you've got Target in the mix and, you know, the hundreds and hundreds of others that are, uh, participating. And if we think about what's transpired, the, the extreme benefit is they have closed loop measurement, first-party data. They can control, uh, for measurement. They can control for the user experience. They know a tremendous amount who their shoppers are and can-- and they can use that to benefit advertisers. So if I'm Procter & Gamble and I'm thinking about where can I deploy, um, my most performant ad dollars, I'm gonna go to one of my biggest retailers and say, "Hey, can we, can we measure that if I roll out a new product on Walmart, uh, Walmart Connect specifically, that, that I'm gonna see more sales, uh, both digital transactions and in-store?" And, and we can measure that very tightly. It's not squishy. There's very clear measurement, and I think that's been what support is. It's a highly performant channel, and now the big question is, is it truly incremental? And so there's a lot of investment going into that. But I think what's, what's happened and why commerce media has risen from zero to tracking towards $100 billion of annual spend is because you've got- You know, think about the time that consumers and shoppers spend on all these, all these different websites where they're transacting, whether it be booking a trip, um, you know, checking their financial service products, making-- you know, shopping for groceries, apparel, et cetera. There's a lot of time spent there, and now the ad dollars are catching up to where consumers are actually spending their time.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: And because this channel is performant, they're leveraging rich insights and first-party data, they can prove that this is a channel that delivers great results.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, uh, they're obviously so close to the point of consideration anyway. I mean, you, you're right there at the point of purchase.
Speaker 2: Exactly right.
Speaker 1: Um, I'm just thinking about, uh, retailers. So, you know, a, a retailer comes to you and says, "Hey, you know, we wanna set up a..." In, in England we'd probably call it retail media, commerce media, yeah, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 1: Um, what are the kind of-- what are the steps and what are the growing pains? There must be challenges that they face along the way. What, what do those challenges look like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. Well, I think the first, and we hear this all the time from our, uh, retail media partners, was getting buy-in from leadership. That's the first step is education, evangelization, and getting the support to make the investments necessary to build out a retail media business. Because at f- at first blush, you'd say, "Well, our core business is selling products off of our shelves. Why would we become an advertising business?" Right? So it's a, it's a philosophical departure from the core, and I think there's always some, um, consternation when it comes to getting a building too, too far from your, your core business. So I think that's the first piece is, like, once you get everyone comfortable, then you can make the investments. And then what we've found is once a, let's just take a, a retailer has decided they are gonna make the investments, the first piece is where do you start? And naturally, you know, we've s- product searches on website, uh, you know, the on-site inventory is the first place. How do you maximize every keyword search on my website and every, um, display unit to, to drive, um, more products into the customer's basket? But there's only so much of that on-site inventory available. So phase one, get the, get the adoption and the buy-in from leadership. Phase two, stand up a retail media, uh, product using, you know, either your in-house tech that you build out, which by the way is expensive, costly, and takes time, or do it through partnership, right? And I think, you know, we s- there's varying degrees of investment that we see companies make. But then phase two is you stood that up, maximize all your on-site inventory. Phase two is we've maxed that out. Leadership team loves the margin profile and the growth they're seeing. It, it's, you know, uh, great margins. How do we keep growing this? We have pressure. We have to report to the street. We have to keep growing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the ne- and the next evolution was, well, let's now make all of our audiences addressable for off-site targeting. So now we can work directly with these advertisers. "Hey, you can reach our core customer either on-site or take my audiences and apply them to whatever addressable channel you're using today," whether it's CTV, this, you know, the, the Googles, the Metas, the duopoly folks, the triopoly. Um, and so that was kinda phase, you know, three we'll call it. And now that a lot of the more established and mature folks have maximized on-site, they've maximized off-site, then it's like where do we go from here? And what we're finding, and this is where, uh, Fluent has, has been able to drive, uh, and provide incredible value for our partners is they start to wonder, "Well, let's start exploring non-endemic or strategic verticals that are gonna be value add to my shoppers, but I don't necessarily sell them, uh, off my shelves." And that's where we're finding there's a lot of excitement around, um, introducing these non-endemic verticals. And so, um, so that's kinda this, this next phase was how do we incorporate, you know, offers and relevant experiences? So one of our, um, specialties and, and a, a, a piece of inventory that we love to help, uh, integrate with first is directly after the transaction. So after you complete a transaction on, uh, you know, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, for instance, you book your upcoming hotel, uh, trip. Directly after that, um, if we feature a- an offer from Enterprise, you know, Wyndham obviously doesn't sell rental cars, but what's more value add if you know you're gonna be landing soon, you need a rental car, introducing that Enterprise. Or you're gonna be in a hotel room in Florida, it might be rainy, let's, let's, "Here's a free trial to Disney+." So not necessarily a endemic product, but extremely value add to that, uh, customer journey.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: And if we can integrate that and plug it in a seamless way, it's value add to the whole experience. The commerce partner benefits, the advertiser has new inventory, new users they can reach, and the customer benefits as well, which is the most important. And then we're finding then the big push, um, the next phase of this is also how do we, um, how do we better engage and monetize the IRL experiences in real life? Uh, especially in the States. I think actually the UK is further ahead on in-store than the US is just culturally. It's, it's a bigger part of the retail media mix. But in the US we're a little behind, and but the transaction volume is, uh, exorbitant. There's 80% to 85% of all transactions still take place in store. And so there's a big push now, and we're investing a lot of time and energy to help our partners solve for that, that, um, real life transaction moment. How do you enrich that experience? How do you make it value add so as you're at the kiosk, you're checking out, serving those relevant offers and ads that might be beneficial to that customer experience and enriching? So that's-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... that's where the-- we, we see the, the space is going, uh, uh, in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a conversation with someone last night, oh, as you do, around about that, that 80% stat that-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... you just threw out. Uh, but I've always viewed stores, uh, certainly if it's a higher value purchase, as a showroom rather than the shop where you're gonna go buy. Um, and in terms of my own personal shopping habits, let's, let's say I'm buying something that's maybe a, a couple of grand or more, for instance, or perhaps 1,000 pounds up, um, I wanna go see the product, uh, I wanna go look at it, um, I want reassurance. Uh, and then I'm likely, frankly, to search out the, the best price and, uh, and purchase online.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I just see that as a sort of a behavior pattern. So I w- I was surprised that it was so high within the UK market. How does that differ versus-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... the US? Is there a different approach in terms of consumers in the States?
Speaker 2: Um, I think that the, the... Well, my understanding, and I'm not as deep in the, the UK market, but my understanding is the, um, the retailers are much more open to, and I think the c- customer base is much more open to in-store activations and monetization. So there's a-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... there's a, there's a much bigger presence, um, and they're much further along from an infrastructure perspective than the US is. I think we've been a little more reticent to, to move into, like, full in-store, like, uh, or maximizing monetization, um, in the in-store moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm also seeing retail environments changing fairly rapidly. So for instance, I went into Boss on, uh, Regent Street a couple weeks back, did my shopping. Um, they then suggested, "Hey, you might like to go downstairs and, and use the bar. Have a free beer on us." Uh, you know, "Perhaps your wife would like to then go around and, you know, and, and do a bit of-"
Speaker 2: Yes
Speaker 1: ... "shopping and, and so on." Um, but I, I like the fact that they're very much moving to more of an experiential space, uh-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... rather than just pure retail. Um-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... and I think that plays well for what you're talking to as well in terms of, um, more digital sort of point of sale activity.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Cool. Um, I'm also thinking, you know, there's, there's obviously a bit of a shift on the, the retailer side. You've talked about the journey that they may go on, but skills. So, you know, that, that must be a challenge as well, learning new skills, finding the right people and so on. Do you help, um, your clients on that journey? Uh, and what does that look like?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's a, a interesting, um, theme that I hear oftentimes is that the, you know, you've got trained, uh, merchandise leads, right? So they've built their career in merchandising that are oftentimes very heavily involved in digital advertising practice at these RMNs. And if you think about that skill difference of a trained ad tech professional who understands building the, the required technology, the product, the capabilities, it's very different from somebody who's built their career in merchandising. And so it's kind of a great example of, you know, how a lot of the, the large, um, retail media players are now starting to invest into a new set of talent, right? People that have experience in the digital marketing and ad tech ecosystem, because it doesn't always... Well, it never, it rarely translates that a merchandiser is gonna pick up the digital marketing practice and it's intuitive, right?
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And so that's, that's one big area. But where we come in oftentimes is, you know, we-- I like to, I like to think about, um, one of our capabilities and one of our, our strong suits is we, we deliver a revenue as a service. So instead of a SaaS, when you plug in our technology, it comes with demand. Now, RaaS doesn't quite have the same ring as SaaS, so I don't, I don't know if I like that acronym. But, you know, what we, we can do is, you know, if our partners have aspirations to build out their own, uh, non-endemic, um, uh, ad business, great. We'll help you get there. It's gonna take time to h-hire the right talent, build out the right products, um, make sure you have the right capabilities, the right insights, the right analytics. But in the meantime, why don't you plug in my technology? I've got an entire platform, hundreds of advertisers bidding into my ecosystem, that if you plug in my JavaScript or my SDK directly within your, uh, experience, whether post-transaction, within loyalty, or even in store, we can help you enrich that experience right now. And so we can-- we kinda serve as a bit of a bridge. Uh, and oftentimes what we find is our partners might say, "This is working great. We're, we're not gonna make those investments 'cause you guys can handle it for us," or, "Let, let us-- You know, you can leverage our technology and you can sell some of this yourself." So it's kind of case by case, but we find that, you know, some partners need more hand-holding. Um, some are further along in their journey. They need less, and they just need, um, consult-consultancy, uh, support. And, and we'll kind of work to be a great partner, um, depending on where they are at in their journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Cool. And yeah, I'm, I'm thinking about, and I touched, touched on it to a certain extent, but the idea of customer journey, what my habit was for, you know, a more expensive purchase.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: Um, now, you know, the journey's fundamentally changing again with the LLMs. What does that look like in terms of commerce media and, and how it's shaping commerce media?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's... You know, I, I heard some great, um, uh, points about this at, uh, the Ad Club of, uh, New York, uh, Commerce media event yesterday. And the use of AI to help inform, uh, product discovery and decisioning has been growing at a rapid pace. I think we're all, you know, using it more and more. But oftentimes, I think we're still at a stage where you might ask, um, you might leverage AI to get advice on what product to buy, but there's still oftentimes a human element involved in actually executing that buy. Now-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... here's an example. If you buy the same exact groceries every single week, there's no reason for you to, you know, do it yourself. There-- That's a perfectly, uh, acceptable use of AI. Just y- you know what I like to order. I need X amount of toilet paper and fruit and vegetables, and just re-
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure
Speaker 2: ... repeat that order. I can have an agent support that. But there's a lot of folks out there that, that still want to, um, do that shopping themselves. They wanna try on their, their own f- you know. Call me old-fashioned, but I still wanna try on my jeans and try on the sneakers I'm buying before I make that purchase. And I think-- So we're a little ways out before we've gone fully autonomous with, and, and ful- fully agentic with our shopping behavior. But there's certainly, um, categories that are ripe for, uh, disruption. You know-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... I think travel's another great example. There are some folks that are, you know, I think there's, uh, been a big push to, you know, if you look at the LLMs, three main kind of categories that we see they're being leveraged for. One is travel. Complex decision with a lot of consideration, so there's a lot of great, um, uh, use cases for travel. The second is financial services, right? Complex and, and, uh, detailed. And the third is healthcare and health and wellness. And, and I think those three are good examples of where you might use them for research. The more advanced users will then use it to then make decisions and execute decisions. But I think there oftentimes the, the research is where people start and stop. And so that's starting to change. Um, but, um, no doubt the customer journey is evolving. Our responsibility is to meet the customer where they are and try as much as possible to deliver great value.
Speaker 1: Sure. I mean, one of, one of the things that I noticed when I was renovating my home, um, and using the LLMs to help me find the products, et cetera, I need, whether it's, you know, floor tiles or something else, um, was that the smaller, more niche retailers were the ones that were coming up, um, purely because they were authorities, I guess, on the world of tiles, and they'd written a million and one articles around that. Whereas a traditional retailer, perhaps a, a large retailer with hundreds of thousands of products, is taking a, a, a product feed, right, at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, so are they looking at, um, perhaps addressing content and also becoming, you know, not only, um, a re- retail media or a commerce media business, but also a publisher to a certain extent?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Is that something you're finding amongst your, your customer base at all?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, to some degree. I think everybody is recognizing there's value in becoming a publisher, and so it's starting to proliferate as a concept where if it's, you know. There, there's, there's clearly an opportunity to, um, to think about every single user engagement as an opportunity to enrich that moment, ultimately monetize that moment. And, you know, you start to look at, you know, I'll go back to one example I love to cite. But if you look at, uh, Walmart's recent, uh, financial reports, you know, their core business, their brick-and-mortar business will do over $700 billion of revenue, but it operates at about four and a half percent, uh, margin. Now they've got their retail media business, Walmart Connect, that drives, uh, just over $6 billion of revenue, but operates at, uh, over 60% margins. And that, that business, this retail media business that's less than 10% of the total company revenues, drives over a third of net income. Over a third of net income is starting to come from their ads business. And so when we think about that, a lot of other, um, businesses out there are pointing to that saying, "We should think about becoming a publisher, becoming an ad business because there's-"
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: "... significant margin opportunity to capture, and that can help us reinvest into, to growth opportunities, continue to g- provide value to our customers and our shoppers and our shareholders."
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, we've not t-touched on this, so let's just change the topic. Um, the founder's journey, as it were, what did that look like?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: You know, what were the early days of Fluent?
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Or perhaps, perhaps you morphed along the way and you weren't Fluent before, and you've become, you've become Fluent on that journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a great question. Um, so I shared this at the top, but, uh, I started my career in digital advertising. I was very fortunate. Um, I got into the industry at a wonderful time, and within my first couple years, um, I was given an opportunity to lead a team in New York. Uh, there was a UK-based, um, digital marketing firm that was launching a US office. They needed, they needed support building out a US presence, and I was fortunate enough to have, um, put myself in a position to be somebody that was called upon and recruited in. And, you know, it's kinda that typical story of hard work, getting in early, staying late, kind of proving that you can put in the work, and you can out-compete and out-hustle your competition. And that meant a lot in my early days and put me on the right path to, to get the opportunities that would ultimately lead to the founding story of Fluent. And so after a few years in the industry, um, my, my now business partner and I, we kind of treated work every day as an opportunity to learn and grow. And we'd go to the office every day, talk to as many people as we possibly could, learn, come back home at night. We were roommates at the time, which was, uh, which was great because we could come back and say, "What'd you learn today? How can we apply this to a business plan?" And eventually we were ready to start Fluent, and we had this thesis. We said, um... And by, by the way, we had helped grow that UK-based company, the US business, from zero to $30 million within our first three years. And so we had a playbook, um, and a bit of a blueprint, if you will, for how to get a company from zero to scale. And so when it came time to leave and start Fluent, we had some basic, uh, principles that were core to our founding story. One was, let's st- focus on the product. If we focus on building good product, um, that can embe- that can help to enrich and monetize publisher environments, the advertisers will come. So if we focus first on good product that enriches customers, consumers, and publishers, you know, kind of a Field of Dreams story, "Build it, and they will come," and that's very much how our story played out. So we focused first on product, um, and working to deliver better outcomes for both advertisers and publishers, and that ended up paying off. That approach allowed us to go from zero to $40 million of revenue in our very first year.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And from that point on, we, we knew we had something special, and we then continued to invest into our technology, into our product. Um, and you know, what's, what's boded well for us is we focused on, we were talking about outcomes, uh, before that was, um, an in vogue term. And so for the past 16 years, we have been hyper-focused on delivering premium outcomes for advertisers and, uh, superior outcomes for our publishing partners. Um, and that's been our focus. And, um, we went from zero to 40 that first year. We continued to grow over the subsequent years, ultimately resulted it in an acquisition. So we got acquired in 2015, um, and then through, uh, a long story that we don't quite have time for today, we got back control-
Speaker 2: ... of the company in 2018. And, uh, but now we're a standalone public company, and so we've had, um, an incredible opportunity to build a publicly traded company. And building out all the infrastructure, the teams, hiring, you know, high-performant teams, um, that can work in this environment, has been an incredible challenge and a great joy and, and now we're making considerable investments into, you know, the third great wave of digital advertising. And, um, the proof is in the pudding. We're, we're-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... back into growth mode. We're really excited by, uh, all the great progress we've made and the great, um, you know, uh, performance we deliver to our partners-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... both our commerce partners as well as our advertisers.
Speaker 1: Mm. I was gonna ask with, uh, uh, along that journey, so, you know, you, you haven't talked about the rollercoaster, as it were, at the start or, or anything along those lines. But-
Speaker 1: ... um-
Speaker 2: Uh, maybe what I would say-
Speaker 1: ... were there, were there growing-
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sorry. Could-
Speaker 1: ... growing pains is what I'm gonna ask about and, you know-
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead
Speaker 1: ... uh, what, what, what growing pains did you experience?
Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. Um, well, I can tell you we've made, uh, at least five major pivots throughout the, the, um, course of this company, and we've got this mantra that if, if you're not growing and innovating, you're gonna be lapped by your competition. And so we've had to make considerable changes and significant investments throughout this journey. We've c- we've faced, um, a considerable amou- amount of challenges in a fast-moving digital environment, and we kind of had a, a core mantra that we, um, that was something we would, um, as, as really a, a theme within this organization. But what one does in the face of adversity ultimately determines their destiny. True in business, true in life. And this whole concept was, you know, anticipate the obstacles and plan accordingly. And so we've always been kind of, uh, had some, uh, nervous energy around, you know, what can we build that will put us ahead of the, the curve? 'Cause the market is changing so rapidly that we always need to be ready for what's next, and so we have gone through, uh, a lot of ups and downs and, you know, if you look at our, our story the last couple years, we made a strategic decision to take $100 million of top line revenue off the board in order to reinvest into what we viewed as the future of this business, which is commerce media. So we took less valuable dollars off the board so we could rebuild our technology stack, uh, and, and build into what we felt and what we feel very confident is a, uh, more valuable line of business. And so, you know, we, we've, we've been through a lot over the last 16 years, as you can imagine. Um, it's never a straight line and it's a very windy road to, to growth and, and success.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you my, my, my first big challenge was when you're a startup and you're fast-growing, all you know is upside and growth. And so when you're hit with your first set of challenges, it can destroy the team culture, the momentum, and it's, it's how you work through those challenges because when you're first faced with adversity, it can really rock your ego, and you've... And I think it's, it's a real challenge to work through that. But once you get through, you kind of reaffirm to yourself, "Wait, I do know what I'm doing. This is just life. This is business. There's gonna be challenges." And it's how one responds to those challenges that, that really, you know, make, is the difference maker.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And yeah, actually you just used a great word, culture. So, you know, in those early days, you, you've obviously built a culture within the business. You were fast-growing and so on. Um, how did that transform and, and what did you preserve and, and yeah, and how, how do you look at culture now within your company?
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I think culture is one of those things that needs to continue to evolve. And you think about the players that are A players when you're going from, you know, uh, zero to one, those same A players might be Cs when it comes from taking a company from one to two-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... and three to four. And I think, you know, y- so understanding that the-- while you wanna preserve the core elements of your, of our culture, which are focused on innovation, a constant focus on learning and developing new skills, um, you know, focus on driving results and outcomes for our partners, um, the skillsets required to, to continue to s- uh, grow this business continue to evolve. And I think, you know, and, and let's, let's not forget, Fluent was no different than many other companies, but the, the COVID, um, experience we all went through put everyone's culture through the blender, and it went from, you know, thriving in-office environment to let's go remote and hybrid, and how do you respond to that? How do you keep the, uh, the fabric of your culture together when you go from being shoulder to shoulder to being on Zoom calls?
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: And I'm really proud to, you know, point to the fact that we've continued to, um, win awards every year through Crain's business and Ad Age for one of the best places to work, uh, in New York and, and nationally here in the US. Um, and I think it speaks to the fact that we've, we've done a lot of great work to preserve the culture. And so it's about making intentional investments into your team, helping suppro- support their growth and development, uh, being intentional at bringing the teams together and, you know, for better or for worse, providing radical transparency into-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... things that are working, and oftentimes the uncomfortable stuff that's not working, and where, where we might be losing and how we might be-- how can we respond to that better, learn from that and, you know, develop solutions that can drive growth into the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What do you look for in individuals who, you know, are, yeah, you know, who are applying, potentially, you know, looking to join your business? Or perhaps, actually, let's reframe it, individuals that are-- who are perhaps early on in their career.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, curiosity, grit, tenacity are the three biggest. I find that, you know, there's-- you have to have the ability to work through the problems, because it's not always going to be an academic exercise. There's oftentimes a requirement to find five different ways to solve a problem before you can get to an end goal, and so I find that what we oftentimes-- what we're looking for in new hires is that special something. It's not always a simple aca- academic exercise, what college you went to. Uh, it's, you know, how do you suss out that entrepreneurial spirit in any individual, knowing that they're willing to put in that extra work, uh, go above and beyond to problem solve and deliver results for the company and for our partners.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: And so I think there's, um, those are some of the key, uh, tenants we'll look for in, in any new hire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that, that's great. Um, in terms of leadership, what, what leadership lessons have you learned a- along the journey?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, you know, one of our advisors early on, you know, had shared with us this, that notion of the, um, you know, that, the adversity mantra I shared, and I think that's one of the, the main ones that always sticks with me. You know, what one does in the face of adversity ultimate determines your destiny. I think that is something that is, um, really core to, to, to who I am as an entrepreneur, and something that I've, uh, you know, I've really tried to embody. Um, because it's, it's easy to get down on yourself when things aren't going your way, but I think it's how you respond to that challenge that has really stuck with me throughout my career.
Speaker 1: That's great. I'm gonna take that one with me for sure, 100%. Um, in terms of yourself, what, what do you do in terms of self-improvement? Are there particular resources, go-to places? Um-
Speaker 2: Yes
Speaker 1: ... are there places where you go and you feel more inspired? You know, I'm curious.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Great, great question. Um, so, you know, one of the things that I, uh, I-- Well, two things. One, I absolutely love reading all the biographies and autobiographies about other entrepreneurs. I think that's such a great source of, uh, great resource for insights on, you know, from the Elon Musk to the Phil Knights to the Sam Waltons, um, and everyone in between. Um, reading their stories is a, a great source of inspiration for me. Um, and then I think, you know, finding, uh, time and space to, um, to reset. You know, as an example, just last night we brought in a world-renowned, um, uh, breath specialist to the Fluent offices, and he does something called transformational breathwork. Uh, and by the way, earlier in the day, he was at the UN doing a session that was sent out to 60,000 UN members. Crazy. We had him at our office. But it's this, um, you know, this session, we have a bunch of colleagues laying down on yoga mats and, and working through this transformational breathwork, and it was an opportunity to reset, refocus. And you know, I won't go too deep on this, but it's, um, if you get a chance as a follow-up, look into what's called LSD breathwork, because this was a, a, a type of breathing that was pioneered, uh, back in the day where how do you, uh, recreate the, uh, neural pathways that are opened up, uh, uh, through natural breathing that, uh, are opened up when you take a psilocybin, for instance. And so it was just a wonderful bonding experience that was, you know, y- a sense of great clarity that I-- that was wonderful to kind of share with the whole staff. So one example-
Speaker 1: Wow
Speaker 2: ... of one of the things I do to, um, kind of stay grounded and present.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I, I love-
Speaker 2: One of the more extreme ones, I'd say.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I, I love that. I'm gonna read into it, for sure.
Speaker 2: Please do.
Speaker 1: Um, outside of that, uh, I'm just gonna ask you a few sort of k- kind of closing questions, but, uh, is there a brand at this point in time that you particularly admire in terms of their approach to business or how they market themselves?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm incredibly impressed with, uh, Walmart. You know, I, I just had an opportunity to go visit Bentonville and, uh, visit the Walmart Museum, and I've been reading the, the Sam Walton book and kinda seeing what they, what they built, and their focus on taking care of their, uh, their associates, their employees, and that commitment to then taking care of their customers, and commitment to everyday low prices. I think that is, um, kind of a great model, uh, uh, that I really look to. Uh, incredibly inspirational, um, story and, and one that I've been ... I've really admired because they continue to evolve. They're a leader both in retail and now in, in retail media, and it's been wonderful to see that, that story continue to evolve and, and, uh, since they opened the first Walmart store, uh, back in the, the, uh, you know, over 50-plus years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Um, and then lastly, and I ... Y- you've talked to it to a certain extent already, but, uh, advice that you might provide to a, a younger person who's perhaps at the start of their career or perhaps actually just, you know, uh, graduated and, and looking at our industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, when you're young, you have the benefit of time and energy on your side, so use those things. Put yourself out there, go to the networking events, be more present, ask questions, be curious, and focus on learning. It's ... There is, um ... You know, serendipity happens in this industry, and sometimes just making sure you put yourself out there, um, and, you know, over-communicating is the key to success I find in most fields. But it's all about networking, building. You know, what, what does Jay-Z say? Uh, your network is your net worth. Um, I think that's a-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... a, a really interesting concept that I think more and more kids coming out, uh, need to focus on. It's like y- you gotta get yourself immersed in the category that you wanna, you wanna g- you wanna get into.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I totally agree. Wise words. Look, Matt, you've been a fantastic guest on the show today. Thank you ever so much for joining me and, and for your time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. John, pleasure. Thank you so much for having me today. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You're welcome.