Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

[00:01:34]
Arlen:
My name is Arlen Robinson and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Mati Ram, who is the founder and c e o of Adscale. Welcome to the podcast, Mati. 

[00:01:45]
Mati:
Good morning Arlen. Thank you very much for hosting me. 

[00:01:47]
Arlen:
Yes, no problem. Yeah, really excited to to talk to you today because I think we really got a hot topic today.

[00:01:53]
You know, we’re gonna be talking a little bit about, you know, how to elevate your e-commerce. Advertising using ai. And so, as we all know, AI is really a huge growing area these days. And you’re gonna really kind of dive deep and let us know, you know, how e-commerce businesses can take advantage of all of this AI technology to create effective ads for the platform.

[00:02:16]
But you know, before we do get into all of that, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and you know, how you got into what you’re doing today. 

[00:02:23]
Mati:
I’m a  software I’m a  entre entrepreneur. And I have a lot of passion for, uh, modeling complicated the challenges and bringing them into, into something we can manage, something, uh, we can control and optimize.

[00:02:36]
I started my career and my first business in 2004 when I founded a company called Dynas sec. We built a solution for risk management and at that time we were growing trying to grow the company and we didn’t have much money. We couldn’t afford hiring, you know, an expensive sales force and train them advertising or digital advertising it these days was still early Google ads, mainly search, so we decided to, to give it the shot and see if it if can help us.

[00:03:08]
And as the time went by, we gained more experience. We built all kind of mathematical modules in Excel to improve the, to improve the, the performance. And we did quite well in Jan. In 2011, it was, the company was acquired by a company called Checkpoint. It’s one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world.

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So we joined Checkpoint. I spent almost four. I loved it. I learned a lot of things. I made amazing people, but I decided to throw myself back to the, to the cold of being an entrepreneur. Right. And, and to, to live the comfort zone. So I decided to use my knowledge in, in the advertising industry. Okay. And then the question was where, I mean, advertising is big.

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I mean, you, you can go many directions in advertising and eventually after some studies we made. We decided to go to the e-commerce market. Okay, 

[00:04:00]
Arlen:
great. Great. That’s awesome, man. Yeah, I definitely understand where you’re coming from and I know a lot of our listeners and viewers can as well that are entrepreneurs.

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You know, when you, when you get into something, even if you leave it, if you’re a true entrepreneur, you, you’ll always. Gonna have that entrepreneurial itch, , I guess so to speak, that’s gonna be calling you back to, to do something else. And, you know, I don’t think it ever really leads you, you know, you’re gonna always look, look to, to get out there into the marketplace and, you know, sell a product or service and, you know, see what you can do.

[00:04:28]
So yeah, I definitely, it’s always, uh, yeah, it definitely, it’s always the, that’s, that is for sure. Well, you know, at, at the top of the episode, as of course I mentioned, we are gonna be talking about, you know, using AI to, to really elevate your advertising and prove it. You know, improve your ROI is really the bottom line.

[00:04:47]
And AI is really a huge area these days right now. And so I, I guess the first question really is just why, why right now, why is AI a game changer? Why would you say it’s a game changer when it comes to e-commerce advertising? Well, 

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Mati:
you know, Arlen advertising is an unfair competition on, on the customer’s attention.

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And, and I say unfair because you know, the large brands with the, with the deep pockets, they can afford themselves higher, expensive people to make their ads look better and, and to make their copy be better and creative and, and, and, and, and they catch most of the attention. I think that one of the nice things with the AI technology is that it closes the gaps very quickly.

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For a very low cost. Actually today with ai, you can do a much better job than a giant company is doing with many, many advisors and people. So I think that the AI is a wonderful opportunity when it comes to ads to medium, even small side of advertisers that can use. That can leverage the power of the AI for things that in their past they basically couldn’t afford.

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Okay. Yeah. 

[00:05:59]
Arlen:
Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. I never really heard anyone speak to it like that, but you’re, you, I think you’re absolutely right of how it’s really leveling that playing field because you know, as you, you and I know, and everybody knows that all of these huge major e-commerce. They’ve got millions and billions of dollars to devote towards advertising, to, you know, whole agencies that really work solely for them and that are, you know, they’re doing all types of testing, AB testing.

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They’re, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re just throwing, you know, money at these. Campaigns. And so they’re really always gonna really kind of stand out at the top because, you know, obviously they’re doing the best and whatever. What’s working is based on kind of proven things that they’ve tried and it’s, you know, there’s so much money behind their efforts.

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And so it’s like as a smaller guy in the, in the holy eCommerce. Base, you can kind of look at this and be like, yeah, like you said it, it’s almost really an unfair advantage there. You know, there’s certain things you can do and I always tell e-commerce businesses that you know, you can definitely look at the big guys, the big players in your space and learn things from them.

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See what they’re doing. Try to model it for your own purposes, but that can only take you so far. You know, you can, because what they’re doing is really kind of unique to their situation, to their audience, to their demographics. So, you know, you can gleam a few things, you can see what they’re doing with certain campaigns and a adjust it for your needs.

[00:07:22]
But, you know, it can only take so far. So, yeah, AI is really, I think you said you, you hit it, you nailed it there in the head that it’s, it’s really kinda leveling the playing field because of all of. I guess you could say these AI technology, the database of knowledge that you’re able to pull from and, and, and get from a certain amount of time, it’s really, it’s really incredible.

[00:07:42]
So, you know, I wanted to see really, what do you think are some, you know, for an average e-commerce business, what do you think are some of the practical ways? That an e-commerce business can, can take advantage of AI to, to just improve their marketing and their advertising. So 

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Mati:
actually there are at least four, five areas where, where you can use ai.

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I think that the first one is, is, is, is, is in the basis of ads creation. Creating ads today is an art. I mean, you can throw money on, you know, uh, defining interest, age, and gender, but that’s not gonna bring you the. I guess so you, you need, you need to think beyond that and, and when it comes to that creation, you really want to focus on what moves the needle on the things that really work.

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And the nice thing about AI is that it helps you. It helps you to analyze the data and you can define what the people you’re targeting, what are the messages that you’re gonna send, which audience say you want to target from the Pixel, who are the products that you want to offer them on which channel?

[00:08:39]
All the issue of Eds creation that in the past was done manually Today. You can do it automatically, and by the way, also save a lot of time because you can, you know, you can grab pictures from the website and pricing and everything automatically. So the creation part is, is, is, is the first one. The second one is obviously the optimization.

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When it comes to optimization, we need to remember that like Facebook and Google are still the two main players, and I guess there will be still. As the main major place in the next future. Now they, they have like a world garden between them. Facebook sees only Facebook. Google sees only Facebook, but who sees the customer and how can you switch budgets from Google to Facebook based on success if they don’t talk to each other?

[00:09:21]
So all the issue of optimization, that, that is very complicated and we spent six years on on investigating that. So, so we, we, we know what we’re talking about is, is something that I think only. That can do you need in order to optimize your performance, you need to do, you need to be on top of the campaigns 24 hours a day?

[00:09:42]
Yeah. That’s not something a human being can do. Yeah. I think that segmentation is, is something that not too many people talk about, but the ability of the AI to identify correlations. And segment people with similar behavior. Behavior, similar buying patterns is something that can definitely help. Cause then you can, you know, use these segments in order to make more accurate, more hyper targeted, more personalized advertising.

[00:10:10]
At Copy Chad Gpt is with us. So we are living in a new generation, right? And using PT for that. And we, we, by the way, we licensed the chat g p t into our software, so Right. All of our customers can get it as part of the offering. And it just, we just, you know, we look at the statistics and, and you see that in the past people used to spend 20, 25, 30 minutes writing ads mm-hmm.

[00:10:33]
and it goes down to three, four minutes today. And even the three, four minutes, it’s just because there are so many options. So they, they render again and say, oh, gimme some more ideas, gimme some more ideas. So, right. It could be even, even faster. And add. At creative, you know, you can create today videos, you can create today’s pictures and, and I think that these five areas, something that every e-commerce brand can use in order to make advertising better.

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Arlen:
Yeah, yeah. Great. For sure. Yeah, so you, you definitely are, are right on it. Now you mentioned, you know, kind of four, three or four areas where AI can help. Of course, it’s with the ad creation, optimization, segmentation, and even, you know, creating mores with video graphics and all of that. It, it can all assist, which is, which is incredible.

[00:11:17]
The first thing that I wanna mention though, I think, which is huge for e-commerce business is, is that, is that first point is the, is the ad creation because you know, I think it’s a major, that’s a major pain point for businesses and digital marketers. It is coming up with that ad copy and knowing what to come up with.

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Like you said, with ai you can create some add copy within, you know, two to three. And even less than that, you know, if you just pick one of those initial options, it could be, you know, less time. Whereas before that you, you know, like you said, it could be 30 minutes just for, you know, a couple sentences and trying to come up with that Right.

[00:11:51]
Copy. And so that’s, that’s huge. And so, you know, just for me, in being in the e-commerce space and talking to other e-commerce, Businesses. That’s where I see a lot of businesses struggle. It’s just that copy, knowing what to come up with and getting it out there. And then you, of course, after beyond that, once you’ve got that, then optimizing it.

[00:12:09]
Cuz you know, a lot of times what’ll happen is these e-commerce businesses will come up with an ad, spend a lot of time on it. It goes out there, it doesn’t perform well, and then they’re kind of stuck. They’re like, all right, what do I do now? How do I optimize this? What are changes that I need to. And then, you know, if you’re not really a, an experienced s e o person or a digital marketer, you don’t have an agency that you’re dealing with, you’re not gonna really know where to go.

[00:12:33]
So it often stops there. So you’ll have a lot of these businesses trying ads, creating their own copy. It’s failing, and then they don’t know what to do. And so then what often will happen is, They’ll start over again. They’ll create a whole nother ad copy set of campaign, and then they run into the same issue.

[00:12:50]
And then, so they’re gonna try this over and over again, which, you know, naturally you’re gonna need to do. Of course, trial and error is, is the case, but a lot of times they’re just kind of spinning their wheels and what they’re doing is not effective. And that’s where the power of AI comes into play because that optimization is, like you said, is, is really key and it’s gonna be able to study the results and allow you to, to pivot a report, you know, accordingly.

[00:13:11]
Mati: By the way, I learned, you know, The ability to, to optimize is, is within the in day, there are so many in day opportunities that you can exploit or you can, you know, piggyback on mm-hmm. and, and there are hours of days that you need to play offensive because there’s an opportunity, right? And some hours that you need to play defensive in order to keep the customer acquisition cost.

[00:13:32]
And, and it’s not the same hours and the auction is changing and there are so many change. Then the day that you basically need a software to do that. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:13:41]
Arlen:
It, we, it’s definitely come to that with all of these changes in order to keep up with this. It’s just, even if you have a, a, a, a team, a, a marketing team of like a hundred people, you can’t keep up with it.

[00:13:52]
So it’s, we, we’ve reached that point where it, it, it’s you, you have to use technology to, in order to, to be effective with everything, for for sure. Now, of course, you know, We’ve really just up to this point, we’ve spoken really so highly of AI and the positives of AI and you know, how powerful it is and where it’s just everything is going.

[00:14:13]
But in your opinion, in your, you know, stance here, do you think there are any negative consequences to using AI to assist with e-commerce advertising? And if so, what, what would they be? I 

[00:14:24]
Mati:
think that the negative and maybe the said thing about the ai, the AI revolution is, is that some people will, will lose their.

[00:14:32]
Right. True. Think that if you look all over the history, specifically after the industrial revolution, but, but not only technology caused some people to thrive and some others to wait and, and you can’t stop it. And by the way, it’s the same for businesses. You know, you’re like all over the history businesses that adapted new technologies survived.

[00:14:51]
And others that rejected them didn’t survive. So I, I think that the setting is that we, the human we generate, we create amazing technologies that requires us to adapt, to adapt ourselves to the technology , this is quite funny, but that, that’s what happens. You must be adaptive and, and I, I think that that’s part of the setting.

[00:15:15]
With every evolution. Some people lose their jobs and, and nobody’s happy with that. 

[00:15:20]
Arlen:
Yeah, yeah. I, you’re right. I think that is kind of one of the number one consequences to all of this, cuz like we said, where normally it would take someone, you know, like you said, 30 minutes to create some ad copy. It takes AI a minute to create some ad copy.

[00:15:35]
And so just from looking at that right there, you see that time spent, hours spent, money that you’re paying is, is kind of, it’s not the same. And so, People are gonna lose their jobs. You may not need a, you know, a team to, you know, to do some of your, your digital marketing. And a lot of people, a lot of companies are gonna look internally into their processes and say, okay, you know, we can cut money, we can cut funds here and there because of this technology that is really just kind of o, you know, improve the process and less amount of time to get things done.

[00:16:06]
So yeah, that’s, that’s a sad thing about it. But I, I think at the same time, Like you said, you have to be able to adapt to these changes, and though even though people are gonna lose jobs, I think digital marketer’s role is gonna shift a little bit where they’re gonna need to be able to embrace this AI technology and kind of incorporate that into their whole, I guess you could say, kind of tool set.

[00:16:28]
Because they’re gonna be more, I guess you could say, more managing and facilitating, coming up with options for c. And then selecting kind of the best ones that’s gonna be more of their job rather than doing a lot of the just kind of grunt work with coming up with ad copy, optimizing things and analyzing data and shifting.

[00:16:50]
So, yeah, it’s just, it’s just gonna change a little bit. But you, like you said, with these changes have always occurred over time. Like you said, even with the industrial revolution, when you know machines and automation. C came into play, it was the same type of thing. People lost jobs, but then their roles have shifted to more, you know, utilizing this machinery and technology.

[00:17:10]
Mati:
Definitely. If you can fight them, join 

[00:17:12]
Arlen:
them . Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You can’t beat ’em. Join them for sure. So, you know, with all of this, Send this whole AI technology to improve advertising and marketing. What would you say are some tools or resources that you could recommend that a brand can you use to take full advantage of all of this and improve their advertising?

[00:17:30]
Mati:
I think that e-commerce, there’s a huge opportunity that you can’t find an other vertical markets and, and it comes from the fact that in e-commerce, you can actually very easily close the loop between the very, very first click to the very last purchas. And calculate the customer lifetime value. Alright.

[00:17:48]
With that said, I think that the combination of, on one hand, first party data mm-hmm. , and on the other hand, AI is very powerful. Now we need to remember that the advertising market is in the beginning stages of a dramatic change. Yeah. Like following the, you know, the privacy protection regulations. The cookie is dying now.

[00:18:09]
We, we are all using the cookie. The cookie ever. The internet was invented to track user behavior, but this technology is dying. You cannot rely on that, on that anymore. Google and Facebook are becoming more and more black boxes. Mm-hmm. . And the only answer, eh, for you to distinguish yourself from the competition and to, to do things smarter than others is to use, is to use your own first party data.

[00:18:32]
The data that Google and Facebook don’t have. Your customer data, your products data, your orders data to analyze it and to use AI in. Find you what’s best for you, and then you can hand over those insights to Google and Facebook to make advertising more accurate. You actually use your own first party data.

[00:18:51]
Mm-hmm. to use, to use to make Google and Facebook more accurate with acquisition. And I think it’s a great opportunity for, for e-commerce. You can’t find it in, in other markets, only because in many other markets it’s very hard to close the loop. So you don’t really know, you don’t have all the hopes in the middle.

[00:19:09]
And the data is fragmented, but with e-commerce, the data is there. So if you can leverage your own data, you make your ads more ad more accurate, you make your results better, and AI helps you to do that. Yeah, 

[00:19:21]
Arlen:
yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah, it’s, yeah, it, it, it’s quite amazing this. This whole shift here, and like you said, coming away from the cookies and, you know, they’ve gotta pre predicted this for years.

[00:19:33]
We’re, we’re, they’re always talking about kind of a cookie, cookie list world and how these cookie tracking is not reliable. We have all of these different devices that are changing, the browsers that are no longer accepting it. So when it comes down to it, you’re, you’re totally right. It, it’s really up to the brands to get their own first party data, analyze it, make decisions just on.

[00:19:56]
Just whether they’re customers, their own customer behavior, their customer’s buying patterns, their customer’s behavior on their site, and then just making decisions on that rather than, you know, looking at these cookies that are, like you said, it’s just really, they’re really dying. Like you said, it’s, it’s all really gonna go away.

[00:20:12]
So, yeah, it’s just, uh, you know, it’s another part of the whole shift. That’s, that, that’s happening here for, you know, for sure. Well, Maddie, you know, as we get ready to, to wrap things up, I wanted to see if you can provide us with an example of, you know, an e-commerce brand that you feel has done a great job utilizing AI for advertising and, you know, what specifically did they do that you can highlight for us?

[00:20:33]
Mati:
So we talked about, you know, using AI to. Segment audience and just have a customer who was running a successful Shopify, Shopify store for all kind of design, indoor, uh, hardware, store name called Meraki. Mm-hmm. . Now he had good results, uh, with, with good acquisition costs, but smart guy, and he was looking beyond that and he said, listen, I, I, I need to improve the entire customer lifetime value, and I want to improve my acquisition, but I don’t count it in, in, in the first eternal on expert.

[00:21:05]
That’s important. But what’s more important is what will be the entire gap between my customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value. So how can I improve the acquisition and in the same time, the lifetime value? So the answer for that was first of all, to distinguish between, you know, new traffic of people that never visited your website, you marketing.

[00:21:26]
People who visited but never made any purchase, any retention. Your existing customers that you want to buy, you want them to buy again and again. And we used AI to create micro segments. So for instance, the AI created a segment called Likely to Repurchase. Which contains the people that have the most, like most highest likelihood to convert this month.

[00:21:49]
Okay. And that’s based on their past buying patterns on the products that they buy or the repurchase frequency, some, some other parameters that the AI identity. Fighters interesting. Mm-hmm. . And then you can, you can actually spend some more money on, you know, targeting these people. But then you also know what to offer them because you offer them the products that they’re buying.

[00:22:10]
So that was one, one, like, I think very, very interesting sample because it’s almost impossible to, you know, do they didn’t. Certification of the people who are more likely to do to, to buy without ai. But there are some other things that were more simple like, like, you know, ation of a micro segment of big ticket spenders.

[00:22:30]
Mm-hmm. , if you know, your big ticket spenders, which are usually, usually big ticket spenders, are people that they’re average all the value is in, in two standard deviations higher than the average. Yeah. Which means that there are at least three or four standard deviations more than all the. If they’re not in the average, so you use that.

[00:22:48]
We use that in order to target them separately and o obviously we offer them big, big ticket products, which is a product segment. And by creating something like I think something like 20 micro segments, not more than that, we manage to jump the acquisition cost to judge the acquisition, the number of customers to reduce the acquisition.

[00:23:09]
And to increase the customer lifetime value, which we measured in 20, 24 months. So yes, I think that using, I, I think that using segments today in advertising is, is a must. I mean, it’s really hard to create good results if you’re not. Segmenting your audience correctly. Yeah. Cause everybody, as I said before, everybody can look alike, you know, interest and age and age and gender and location.

[00:23:33]
But yeah. But if you can use your own first party data and create your, like your top customers and look like them and say to Facebook, in this case, Facebook bring me more of my top customers. , you make them more accurate, then you make your advertising more accurate. And if you know, based on your data what to offer them mm-hmm.

[00:23:51]
and when to offer them based on their purchase frequency based, based on the rep repurchase frequency of, of the products that they’re buying, you actually can target the right customer with the right offering at the right time on the right channel. And, and that’s the name of the game. Just be more accurate.

[00:24:07]
Yeah, 

[00:24:07]
Arlen:
yeah, yeah. Really for sure. It seems like that, that’s a great testimonial and thanks for sharing that, that that use case and that that particular client that you worked with. Yeah. It, it sounds like what you mentioned as far as like analyzing those data points, the, you know, most likely to per to repurchase, the big ticket item, customers.

[00:24:27]
You know, all of this stuff was going on prior to ai, but it was just, our marketers, I think, were just using spreadsheets and analyzing a ton of data using formulas and spreadsheets and, and, you know, exporting store data or maybe using some other third party systems to analyze it. But yeah, all of that was really , you know, time consuming.

[00:24:47]
And so we, we can quickly and. See how AI can come in there and make, you know, decisions on the spot that would’ve ra you know, previously taken, you know, maybe even days or hours, hours to, to come up with that, the results of that, which is really like, like we said at the beginning, just to kind of a game changer here in this, in this space.

[00:25:06]
So, definitely good to know, and thanks for sharing that, that, you know, that example. That’s, that’s awesome. Well, well, Maddie, Has been awesome talking to you. I’ve definitely learned a lot. I know our listeners and viewers have as well as we all know, this is really a hot topic and it’s, you know, and, and it’s unbelievable to know that we’re really just at the infancy of ai.

[00:25:26]
So it’s gonna be amazing to really see where this all goes. So, you know, the next five, 10 years, what are we gonna be able to do? What are companies like you gonna be able to do? AI technology. So it’s, it’s just gonna be amazing. Thank you so much.

[00:25:39]
Mati:
Thank you. Yes, no problem. Look forward to this period, because AI is fascinating.

[00:25:44]
Yeah, it, 

[00:25:44]
Arlen:
it sure is. And you know, lastly, I always like to close things out with, so we can switch gears here so our audience can get to know you just a little bit better. If you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think we’d, we’d be interested 

[00:25:56]
Mati:
to know. You ask him about my guilty pleasure.

[00:25:59]
I’m, I’m a. Okay. I really like soccer. Okay. I used to play soccer when I was a child. Okay. Basically all my childhood, and today I’m a soccer fan. I, I attend my, my favorite team, my games every weekend. Okay. So my business is in data and e-commerce, and my heart is with soccer. 

[00:26:16]
Arlen:
Okay. That’s awesome. That’s good to know.

[00:26:18]
Yeah. I know a lot of people that are really into soccer as well. I’m not a soccer guy. I’m here in the us. Um, I guess you could say my top sport would probably be basketball. That’s kind of my top sport. But, uh, yeah, soccer is huge. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve watched a few matches and it’s the passion that you see the fans of, of, of these soccer teams, that half of these teams, it’s incredible.

[00:26:37]
I don’t think it any other Sport. You have such passionate fans, which is one thing that always stands out to me. They’re, they, they, they’re so heavily invested in their team that, you know, it, it seems like they almost do anything to, to support them and to cheer them on 

[00:26:52]
Mati:
in, in basketball, you come to the, uh, stadium to hang out in football, you come to win.

[00:26:56]
In soccer, we call it football, but yeah, soccer, you come to win. So it’s a different mindset. Yeah, exactly. It’s like 

[00:27:02]
Arlen:
the fans there, it seems like they’re almost a part of the team. It’s like they might as well all. Field their play, . Yeah. It’s quite a thing. Well, thank you for sharing that. I, I appreciate that.

[00:27:13]
And you know, lastly, before we do let you go, if you don’t mind letting our, our listeners and viewers know, what would be the best way for them to reach you if they’d like to pick your brain anymore about AI and advertising?

[00:27:22]
Mati:
Definitely. So what, just send me an email. It’s Mati, m a t i. At scale.com Great.

[00:27:30]
Uh, so you can reach me directly by email or if you wish, you can just send me a message on LinkedIn. Both of them. I’m available. Happy to answer any questions. Happy to help other entrepreneurs. Happy to help per merchants. Very happy to help anybody. That I can basically help to. 

[00:27:45]
Arlen:
Okay, great. Thank you.

[00:27:46]
Thank you for sharing that. Definitely recommend people to reach out to you. Check out your guys site and your [email protected] and, uh, you know, email you if they wanna pick your brain anymore about AI technology. Well, it’s been awesome talking to you, Mati, and I’d like to thank you for coming on, and we really appreciate you joining us today on the e-Commerce Marketing 

[00:28:04]
Mati:
Podcast. Thank you very much, Arlen. I’ve been a fan of your podcast. Now. I’m a guest. It’s a pleasure. Allright.

[00:28:10]
Arlen: 
Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for listening to the e-Commerce Marketing Podcast.

Podcast Guest Info

Mati Ram
Founder and CEO of AdScale