MyBuys Messenger - Fall 2008
Talking Strategy with Paul Rosenblum
There’s an impressive amount of sophisticated technology behind the MyBuys service, but company leaders like Paul Rosenblum always emphasize that it’s not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end—and that end is higher revenues for clients. “We keep adding features that drive revenue, but clients are mostly unaware of them, which is the way it should be,” he says. “Our goal is to deliver the best possible results for clients while requiring the absolute minimum of time and effort on their part.”
Building on E-commerce Experience
Paul is the vice president of Products and Strategy at MyBuys and a self-described “serial start-up guy” in the customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce space. He was an early team member at Siebel Systems and was responsible for the sales force automation software that led to Siebel’s successful CRM products. At Blue Martini, where he was responsible for product direction, he helped build one of most advanced e-commerce platforms during Web 1.0. “We’re building on that knowledge here at MyBuys,” he says, “by incorporating the powerful, precise targeting ability from that platform—the ability to put just the right product before the customer at the right moment—but making it a service that does all the work for our clients.”
Paul credits MyBuys clients as the principal source of ideas on how to expand and refine the service. “I’m not as creative as our clients are,” he says. “We listen to what clients tell us they’d like the service to do. We develop and test the new capability; if it helps drive revenue, we optimize it and incorporate it. But if testing shows it doesn’t help, we leave it out.” He says he’s always eager to hear ideas on how to improve the service and encourages clients to call or email him at prosenblum@mybuys.com.
Why MyBuys’ Strategy is Unique
According to Paul, MyBuys’ strategy differs from competitors’ strategies in four important ways:
- Truly multichannel touchpoint solution. Where other companies deliver only website recommendations, MyBuys also offers a turnkey, end-to-end solution for email alerts that includes managing lists, figuring out who needs to be targeted, developing content and messages, and ensuring the emails are delivered.
- Deep understanding of individual customers. MyBuys treats shoppers as individuals, not as anonymous web browsers, and builds deep profiles to learn what customers want to buy, then presents the most relevant recommendations. Competitors, who look only at web analytic data, don’t know how to do this.
- Multi-algorithmic approach and layer of testing and optimization. MyBuys uses an optimized, patented portfolio of algorithms to determine which products to present, and tests and optimizes recommendations constantly. Competitors use only one algorithm, which is like betting all your money on one stock. The MyBuys approach delivers more relevant recommendations, higher conversion rates, higher AOV and higher revenue.
- Deep understanding of the merchant. MyBuys looks at each client’s complete product catalog; infers relationships among brands and product categories; understands what’s changing, in stock, on sale, or promoted; compares that with the consumer profile; and delivers recommendations that drive revenue.
Ready for the Holidays
Speaking to clients about preparations for the upcoming holiday season, Paul says, “We’ve invested heavily in enhancing scalability and reliability, and taken specific steps to increase capacity to deal with the spike in demand at the holidays, including increasing the size and number of servers, and rolling out a content delivery network that enables speedier performance. Everyone here at MyBuys is excited about and prepared for the holidays and looking forward to driving a huge amount of revenue for our clients.”