MarTech360 Interview With Alexa Kilroy, Head of Brand at Triple Whale

“Triple Whale is a B2B SaaS company that empowers ecommerce marketers and business owners to drive predictable, profitable growth through AI-powered data aggregation, analysis, and automation.”

Alexa, can you tell us about your professional background and your current role at Triple Whale. 

Of course! I’m Alexa, Head of Brand at Triple Whale. Weirdly enough, I started my career as a High School English teacher. I graduated from Boston College with a dual degree in Secondary Education & English, with a business minor. I thought I was going to teach forever, but after moving to a new city with a rapidly rising cost of living (Austin, TX) right out of college, I found it pretty unsustainable. After teaching, I worked for a bit in ed-tech, and then dabbled into the world of ecommerce. I fell in love with the industry quickly, and spent a lot of time educating myself with the resources and experiences necessary to become a successful growth marketer. Marketing on the DTC brand side was so rewarding; I had the opportunity to manage seven figure ad budgets for multiple DTC brands, spent hours studying consumer behavior and digital marketing data, developed creative strategy from the ground up, wrote LOTS of copy, shot product creative, and built performance marketing teams for brands. Basically – if it’s in eComm and it’s related to marketing, I’ve probably done it.
In 2022, I was recruited by Triple Whale’s former CMO, Rabah Rahil, to join as Head of Brand. At Triple Whale, I work cross-functionally across the business on a variety of awesome projects:  exploring market data, crafting killer events, developing content strategy, writing case studies & guides, and ensuring the entire Triple Whale experience is nothing less than totally awesome.

What is Triple Whale, and what does its smart Shopify data platform do? 

Triple Whale is a B2B SaaS company that empowers ecommerce marketers and business owners to drive predictable, profitable growth through AI-powered data aggregation, analysis, and automation. Bringing the metrics that matter most into one easy-to-use dashboard, Triple Whale unlocks the real-time insights necessary to scale. Our most popular product is the Triple Pixel, an attribution solution that unlocks detailed performance metrics to accurately reflect & predict the health of your business.

Also Read: MarTech360 Interview With Briana Frank Vice President of Product & Design, IBM Cloud

How can DTC brands retain their customers amidst increasing competition for consumer  attention? What tactics brands can employ to keep their customers engaged and loyal? 

As the cost of acquiring new customers continues to rise, retention has really become the name of the DTC game in 2023. I have a variety of tactics I recommend, and of course, the efficacy of each particular tactic typically depends on your brand and your customer profile. 

That being said, the one absolutely critical area of optimization for retention is customer experience. I’m not just referring to your customer service experience post-purchase, but really the entire customer journey from first touchpoint to ongoing relationship. I recommend auditing your entire customer journey (first touch to post-purchase touch) at least once per quarter to ensure quality and consistency. Providing clarity in messaging, solidifying your brand, and looking for areas of customer confusion or dissatisfaction is crucial. Once you’ve done that, I recommend auditing your post-purchase, ongoing customer communication experience. The more human your interactions are, the better. Begging for product reviews without providing value for customers is a no-no and can definitely impact repeat purchase rates. On the support side, if you haven’t instituted some sort of NPS score for your support team, or you aren’t evaluating support tickets, that’s a miss, too. Happy customers are returning customers. And don’t forget the customers that aren’t reaching out for support! Make sure you’ve got them included in intentional prior customers segments and continue to provide value with ongoing marketing. Superior customer support & purchasing experience is really the first key for unlocking killer retention. 

Next, I recommend doing a cohort audit on a monthly or quarterly basis. Review your new customers that you acquire in the time segment you’ve selected, and see how they’re engaging with your brand after their first purchase. Are they revisiting the website? Are they opening your emails? Have they signed up for SMS? Reviewing this data can help illuminate how your various marketing campaigns are impacting newly acquired customers. With this data, you can watch your customers’ journey through time, and determine the most effective ways for acquiring the “right” type of customers – the ones that stick around for that high CLTV. 

Additionally, segmenting your customers meaningfully for ongoing marketing is key. I recommend building segments based on your product offerings and creating email/SMS campaigns with personalized product recommendations, product how-to’s, newly launched products the customer may like, etc,  going forward. Providing easy shopping experiences for returning customers is also essential. Instituting a customer login portal or implementing ShopPay for quick checkout can do wonders. Final thought here – when it comes to ongoing communications, don’t overdo it on sales/offers. If every few days you’re launching some sort of offer, then your offers will diminish in perceived value. 

Finally, remember that your already-acquired customers are your VIP’s. The churn-and-burn acquisition model just isn’t sustainable anymore. Consider opportunities to surprise and delight your customers, as well as ways to make them feel like a part of your brand. This includes experiences such as quality loyalty programs, free gifts with purchase, exclusive early access to new releases, or even the opportunity to participate in things like future product selection and packaging design.

How do you ensure the security of customer data and maintain privacy compliance? 

Triple Whale has developed a security model that covers all aspects of our systems, including encryption of data in transit and at rest, access restrictions, and firewalls. All Triple Whale data collected on behalf of customers is located in Google’s USA based data centers where there are both DRP and BCP plans. Triple Whale is GDPR compliant, and has also appointed a leading privacy consultancy team to serve as Data Protection Officer, responsible for monitoring and advising on Triple Whale’s ongoing privacy compliance and security measures. 

How can AI help DTC brands personalize their products and services and the key considerations DTC brands should keep in mind when using AI in their operations? 

AI is a very powerful tool, and it’s getting stronger every day thanks to millions of talented engineers and data scientists around the world. In its current state, I recommend that marketers or brands use AI for inspiration and idea generation, as I haven’t found it to be a complete replacement for more detailed creative tasks like ad copy, content writing, or graphic design.
AI is, however, exceptional at synthesizing data. AI can review vast amounts of data and provide real-time insights within minutes, enabling brand owners and operators to get to decision-making with speed. These insights can then be used to create personalized product recommendations, offers, and suggestions for marketing campaign optimizations based on customer and browser behavior. AI can also provide predictive analytics for customer behavior, such as suggesting what products customers might purchase together, or when customers might be most likely to make a purchase. It’s also a wonderful resource for pricing optimization, web optimization, and  lightning-fast customer concern resolution.
All that being said, machine learning is just that – machine learning. It requires a significant amount of data to make highly informed decisions, and depending on the quality of the AI tool you’re leveraging, it may provide imperfect results. I recommend brands always thoughtfully review AI suggestions or creations before making any major decisions that could broadly impact sales or brand equity. 

How do you determine the target audience for the brand, and what strategies do you use to engage with them? 

I identify as a “student of my customer” in every sense of the phrase. I regularly conduct customer interviews with everyone from the happiest to grumpiest of customers, so I can understand their jobs-to-be-done, challenges, and wins. I also regularly review product usage data, keep a pulse on the industry/what people are saying about Triple Whale on the internet via a social listening tool, and I review direct customer-to-brand communications like support tickets.
For me, engaging with your target audience is all about figuring out exactly what they need, and the bigger “why” behind why they need it. Then I use that information to inform things like content strategy, broader marketing campaigns, event planning, customer communications, and even the creation of things like resources and case studies. This is a pretty broad question, and I could speak volumes on this topic – but my TLDR is that every marketer should be regularly interacting with customers and reviewing customer communications to inform their marketing efforts as a whole. 

How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the branding industry,  and incorporate them into Triple Whale’s strategy? 

I am a podcast fanatic, so I’m always listening to podcasts whenever I’m not actively working. I listen to them in the shower, in the car, at the gym, etc. I have a massive list of them saved in my Spotify, and I get alerts on new releases, too. I find that I get my best branding ideas not from branding-specific podcasts, but broader ecommerce, startup, or marketing podcasts. Some of my favorite pods right now include: Up Next in Commerce, Ecommerce Gold, Ecommerce Fuel, Acquired, Chew on This, Future Commerce Podcast, My First Million, and Limited Supply. I also listen to every episode of both of our Triple Whale podcasts –  AdSpend and You’re Not Your ROAS. Obviously I’m a bit biased, but they’re pretty awesome. When I’m listening to podcasts and come across ideas for Triple Whale, I typically record myself a voice memo on my phone with my idea, and then I circle back when I’m at my desk. I have a massive Notion doc of ideas that I lovingly call my “brain dumpster”. I dig into that when I’m feeling creative-block. 

What is the biggest problem you or your team is solving this year? 

Product-wise, Triple Whale continues to release new features designed to make the lives of ecommerce marketers and business owners easier, so they can focus their energy on the tasks most critical for profitable growth. For example, our newly released intelligence module, Lighthouse, leverages AI to detect anomalies, surface insights, and provide tactical recommendations on optimizations to enhance profitability.
On the marketing side, we’re working to increase both the production volume and quality of our thought-leadership driven content, provide our customers with enhanced product education for new releases, and continuing to invest in our incredible community!

Is there anything that you’re currently reading, or any favorite book  that you’d recommend? 

I always recommend that every marketer read Cashvertising by Drew Whitman if they haven’t yet. It was one of the first books I read when I was getting started in advertising, and it really unlocked some core customer psychology principles that I reflect upon each day. Other than that, I recently read Branding Between the Ears by Sandeep Dayal, and Sway by Del Villar. Loved both of them!

Thanks, Alexa!