Caitlin: Let’s do it. Okay. Thank you all for joining us today. We’re here to talk about trends and how it relates to advertising. We have some great marketing experts joining us. Eric is joining us from Spark Foundry, and Mary is joining us from Hard Rock International, both experts in their fields to speak with us today about our advertising strategies and using trends data. I’m also, Caitlin. I’ve been here at Yelp for about 10 years now, so I’ll be moderating today, so that you can all hear from these fine folks.
Let’s go ahead and kick this off. We’re going to do panel style with some questions with our lovely experts. We have a few questions prepared, a few different data trends that we’ll share with you along the way that Yelp has prepared, and we’ll open it up for Q and A at the end. So if you have any questions, please keep them handy or go ahead and drop them into the Q and A box. And after we get through a few of our plan programming questions, we’ll open it up to the group.
But before we dive into the hard stuff, Eric and Mary, could you each just tell us a little bit about yourselves? How did you end up in marketing? What are you doing today in your day to day role and what do you do outside of work? How do you stay sane today in these times? Mary, would you like to start us off?
Mary: Absolutely. Hello everyone. I’m Mary Courie. I’m the director of sales and marketing here at Hard Rock International for the cafe division. I’ve been with the company for 19 years. I actually started my career as a server in our Detroit location and have worked my way up through the company. This company believes in internal promotions, so I’ve done everything from bartending, serving, line cook to general manager, operations manager and sales and marketing manager in smaller markets in our local markets to a regional position overseeing the west coast and the southwest region. And then now I have been in South Florida where we are based for two years overseeing the company owned cafe and the franchise and supporting the franchise cafes as well. So let’s see, in my free time. Well, I’m a big fan of dogs. I have a Boston terrier. He is five years old. We like to take a lot of trips, a lot of day trips and explore the different beaches out here in South Florida.
Caitlin: That sounds lovely. I know we were just talking about weather and so this is going to be a tough transition over to you, Eric.
Mary: Sorry Eric.
Caitlin: In the office, the weather.
Eric: No.
Caitlin: Tell us a little bit about yourself, Eric.
Eric: Yeah, appreciate the sympathies, Caitlin. So I am the SVP at Spark Foundry, and I oversee performance media, so paid search and paid social for the east region. And then I’m also the COE for the larger Spark Foundry portfolio for paid search. And I have been with Publicis Media for coming on 12 years. My background is largely on the paid search side. I came in as an assistant planner back in the day and similarly to Mary kind of worked my way up within the company. Also, that Spark similarly to Hard Rock is big advocates of internally growth. And so it’s definitely been a wild ride and something that I’ve definitely appreciated on my side working within Publicis. And in terms of free time and how I spend my days, I have two girls at home. My older daughter is five and a half, my younger one is two and a half. So they definitely occupy, I would say, pretty much the good percentage of my free time when I’m not at the office.
Caitlin: That sounds great. Well, thank you both for kicking this off, telling us a little bit about yourself. I love that you both come from a background of internal growth. I think that sets us up well as we go into these questions, because you’ve gotten a chance to see marketing from all the levels, from down as you’re getting started to where you are today. So we’re excited to hear more from you. Jumping into our first trends topic here, love to hear a little bit more from you on how you’re using trends data today to inform your advertising strategies. Mary, I’ll kick it back over to you so you can kick us off.
Mary: So we really are trying to focus now in on specific target audiences with all of our global activations. So really it’s about analyzing the trends and taking the products that we have within the cafe division. So whether it’s a retail product, a drink, a new burger, or if we’re rolling out a special menu, LTO menu, seeing how some of those trends are, whether it be like a dancing video that you might see on TikTok and what we can do to integrate it within our products. So we also have a social media director here too who’s very vital in all of that as well. So it’s very much a team effort. It’s not just one person that’s trying to get these on its own. It’s a team effort that we work hand in hand with and we rely on each other to focus on different … to see what different demographics and what would work and what would not work so much within these. And it’s also knowing what trends would support your brand and not hurt the brand as well.
Caitlin: Do the dancing videos help the brand? Have you seen?
Mary: Oh yes, they have. Yes, it has.
Caitlin: Those are [inaudible 00:05:54]. We want to see you as the star of the next dancing video.
Mary: Why not? Why not?
Caitlin: Thank you. And Eric, tell us a little bit about how you’re using trends data to inform ad strategies.
Eric: Yeah, no, for sure. So from my side, I think that the trends data that we have is really connected at the hip from our go to market strategy for everything that we do within performance. I think whether people are staying in or going out, what time they’re looking for services, things of that nature are ultimately informing a lot of the optimizations that we do and the levers that we pull. But I really think that it kind of touches upon almost every aspect that we have. Everything from audiences as Mary mentioned, and making sure that we’re targeting the appropriate people, to what does our testing roadmap look like. And ultimately a lot of times the trends that we’re seeing help inform that testing strategy and where we should be placing our bets, where we should be looking to spend that next dollar.
And then the other thing that I would say is from a messaging and measurement standpoint as well. So from a messaging perspective, we want to make sure that we are going to market with whatever copy would resonate best with the ultimate consumer. And then measurement as well. I think when you’re talking about offline versus online, that’s going to be a big piece of it too, of where is that trending that we’re seeing and depending on the client and vertical that we’re working with. Ultimately our recommendations will differ. But I think at the end of the day the trends data is going to play a role regardless.
Caitlin: Excellent. I love to hear you both talking about audience and areas and the messaging sort of segues me perfectly to something I wanted to share with the group quickly. Some of the data that we’ve seen Yelp be able to provide to help folks inform their ad strategies, very much what you’re touching on. So we have a lot of first party data within our review content and our search query content all across the country where we can see within categories then within regions what people are talking about. I think it’s no surprise inflation is a big one lately, but what’s really cool is we were able to break this down and provide this to our partners so that they can make more strategic decisions around what messaging to employ, where certain categories are a little bit more sensitive to inflation in certain areas versus others not as much.
So I’m digging what you’re saying and I’m glad that we’re aligned on a very similar concept. And I think that sets us up pretty well to dive in to some of the specifics. I’d love to hear from you both a little bit more on what you’ve noticed in trend lately. Inflation, I know I just mentioned. Would love to hear what you are seeing in your fields with that and what other trends, maybe some fun dancing videos. Would love to hear more about those. Let’s switch it up. Eric, can you start us off on this one and tell us a little bit more about the trends you’ve seen lately?
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to kick start with inflation. So Caitlin, I think that teed up perfectly. It’s the elephant in the room. I think ultimately it’s impacting consumers purchase patterns across I would imagine every vertical. And so something that we’ve seen is ultimately that price point and promotion is going to play a bigger role, where ad copy realistically needs to be focusing around price points with a very price conscious consumer. I think you’re ultimately not doing yourself any favors, but by not having that front and center, because that’s what ultimately people are looking for. So I think that’s the biggest one.
Second one, from the shopping and retail perspective, I think that with, as we’re in the middle of Q4 now, timelines have continued to move up. I feel like it used to be back in the day that it was all about Black Friday and then it ended up becoming Black Friday week. And at this point, most people are starting to have those Black Friday sales in October. And so I think that’s something that we’ve continued to see on our side is ultimately ensuring that we are allocating our budgets and messaging appropriately and that we are taking advantage of people getting ready for the holidays sooner than they ever have in years past.
And then finally, I think it’s the balance between online and offline. I think that obviously with the pandemic, online had this huge boom and we really saw everybody shifts completely or largely to the digital space. And I think at this point that shift has continued ultimately and we’re seeing a lot of people have returned to that in-store experience, and I think ultimately that’s something that we’re going to need as advertisers to make sure we are adjusting for as well as they’re expecting to have those experiences and interactions across both.
Caitlin: Yes. I know I’ve started to get back into the stores. I enjoy it. There’s just something about being able to touch the dress before you buy the dress. Mary, tell us a little bit about on the cafe and hospitality side, what sort of trends are you noticing the most lately?
Mary: Yeah, I mean, definitely is very similar to what Eric had mentioned, especially when it comes to the price point and how you’re relaying that message to consumers. I think it’s very important, because it’s not only about price point, what we’re noticing too is that when guests are going out, it’s not just that price point, it needs to be within what they want, but it’s also about that guest experience. There is a much more higher expectation in the hospitality world right now, especially if you’re going out and you’re going to pay certain prices that you need to have that experience, the ultimate experience that will bring them in for the next celebratory visit, that will bring them in for another event or have them come to your venue, your hotel or your resort. They want to feel that experience and it starts within that first visit when they come to you. So that definitely is playing a big, big part right now too for us.
Caitlin: I’ve seen that within my own family, I have to admit. I feel like everybody’s gotten a little bit … As you said, they have higher expectations.
Mary: Yeah, I’ve seen definitely. And some of the restaurants haven’t made it too with getting everything back up to what it was pre COVID too. So it is definitely something that you have to make sure you’re providing great expectations and experiences.
Caitlin: That must be hard too as there’s sort of shortages and in the staff that I’ve seen. That’s a hard line to balance. Yeah.
Mary: Yes, definitely.
Caitlin: Kudos to anybody in the hospitality industry making that balance right now. We’ve also seen a couple of trends emerging from preferences more recently that I thought I’d just share with the group. Inflation is definitely a big one. I think we’re all aligned on that. But Yelp has also noticed a huge increase in wanting vegetarian/vegan options. We’ve also seen increases in things like gluten-free and dairy-free options. And so these are not new concepts, but the growing popularity of them seem to be something that is worth keeping an eye on.
And I think it was, Eric, you may have mentioned too the differences between coming back to in person versus digital. We’ve noticed something really interesting about this as well. While people are getting out there and they are returning to in person, we’ve also noticed that that work from home movement has really shifted people away from those downtown areas. And while business growth is up in general, as we can see on Yelp, we’ve seen those non downtown areas grow at a faster rate. So have either of you noticed that as a trend in your area as a business?
Eric: So that’s not something that I’ve noticed necessarily. I also, to be fair, haven’t dug into it explicitly, so I wouldn’t say that I’ve seen the opposite, but I haven’t dug into it on my side yet.
Caitlin: Well, we’re excited that folks are getting back out there. Businesses are growing all across the country. So as business grows, changes need to happen. So trends data is obviously really important to our advertising strategies, but how does it also impact your business? I think, Mary, you started to really touch on this, and I’d love if you could expand a little bit. Guest experiences have to be better. What else are you seeing in terms of changes to your business that you’ve had to make as a result of these trends that you’ve been seeing?
Mary: So I think one of the things too is people are looking for … if they’re not coming into the restaurant but they are looking for something to eat, they want it delivered. So we are a part of delivery platforms, and one of the things too that you might see on delivery platforms is that it’s not the same price point as it would be if you went into the actual restaurant, where we make sure that our pricing isn’t … we don’t inflate the prices, we take the cost of what the percentages are and we keep everything the same price point. That is a big deal for us just because some people would like catering. So you might not have the businesses downtown, there might be a shorter amount of staff, but we actually now are catering. So we added that to our business line is going out and catering to local businesses.
One of the things too I do want to mention is we work with Yelp too on the CTV, which is the connected TV, and that’s made a huge difference as far as a brand awareness. So getting the brand back out there is a huge thing for us. We have a partnership with Lionel Messi, and one of the things we wanted to do is just bring that out there. He has a burger with us, and it’s a very reasonable price that we wanted to make sure we got out there. But doing TV commercials is … People aren’t watching cable anymore. The trend is now on streaming apps. So the more that we can put out there and actually have a actual ROI on, such as like the CTV or the sponsored ads, that’s where we’re leaning towards now as far as advertising strategy.
Caitlin: Yeah, CTV, I cut my cable cord a little while ago, so I definitely get that.
Mary: Yeah, it’s Hulu, Prime. Yeah, all of those now.
Caitlin: I do have about 20 different apps instead of one cable company, but yeah.
Mary: Same
Caitlin: Over to you Eric, tell us a little bit about what you’ve seen in terms of changes to business as a result of trends.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, again, it depends on the vertical and the advertiser, but as I was mentioning before in terms of the Black Friday timeline changing a bit. So that’s something that I think we’ve seen our shift mirror what we’re seeing in the market there. So from a budgeting perspective, I think that in years past, we had budgets allocated to account for this two week, let’s call it window that generally encompass Black Friday and Cyber Monday and all the major shopping moments in November. And that’s really required some recalibration on our side and shifting up budgets where it makes sense.
But then the other piece of it is also I think that there used to be this major pressure of ensuring that you had this sizable budget allocated to those few days or weeks of the year. And now that I feel like it’s decentralized a bit in terms of when people are ultimately in market for products, it enables us to spread things out where it makes sense. So for a lot of advertisers that means moving up dollars to spend more in October, but for some, it also means that there is still that opportunity after Black Friday and Cyber Monday if it makes sense, take advantage of potentially lower competition as we start to go into December as well.
And the other piece is from a measurement standpoint. I think that we have had some pretty wholesale shifts in terms of how we ultimately are gauging success where I think that in years past it might have been either focusing strictly online or focusing strictly in store depending on what that business model might look like. And I think for across most advertisers at this point, we have some kind of a blended model in place where we’re accounting for both of them. And again, how we ultimately go about doing that and the percentage breakdowns and all the nuances is going to completely depend on who it is that we’re talking about. But that is something that I think has shifted pretty drastically for a lot of accounts is just how we ultimately gauge success and how we measure that performance.
Caitlin: Eric, you must be predicting my future, because I think you just set me up for the perfect plug. For anybody on the call that’s interested in learning more about attribution, we have an upcoming webinar on December 7th to talk all about measurements, how to simplify it but also stay up to date with it. So thanks for the perfect segue. That was not even planned, everybody. I couldn’t agree more. I’m seeing all of these changes and Mary, you hit on something with the delivery. Something that Yelp had noticed is … again, this goes back to inflation. People are searching for budget friendly dining and grocery options. And it’s funny because my husband actually texted me the other day. I’m always giving him a hard time. I’m like, “Stop. Don’t spend all of our money on eating out. We’ve got to have a grocery budget.”
And he saw this chart and it was on the New York Times that showed how the price of eating out is actually less than the increase of price of groceries. He’s like, “This is how I’m justifying getting delivery today.” But it was delivery, right? It was like, “I’m working, we got to do delivery.” But those budget friendly options are out there and we’re seeing on our side a lot of clients that are starting to offer things like catering. I love that. I’m hearing more and more of that. Build your own kits at home type of meals, the family bundle meals that you can get on the delivery apps. We’re seeing a lot of that as a result of some of those data that we’re getting out there as well.
So speaking of some of these different trends, would love to hear more about where you’re getting your trends data. Where are you going to lean in to what consumers want? Are you pulling this from third party sources? Are there first party research studies that you’re issuing? How do you go about making sure you’re getting reliable trends data? And I’ll kick that over … Eric, why don’t you start us off on that one?
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. So in a lot of different places is kind of the short answer, but I think first and foremost, first party data and this isn’t going to be anything revolutionary, but with the deprecation of cookies and measurement becoming that much harder for brands, first party data is ultimately going to be your best friend. And so in whatever way you can, whether that’s through studies, whether that’s through just knowing how to manipulate your audiences, that’s going to be beneficial for really all advertisers, I would say, is making sure that you have a robust first party measurement solution in place and that you’re tracking towards that.
I know that Google has continued to push back the timeline from a Chrome perspective in terms of when that’s deprecating, and I feel like it has given the ability to kick the can down the road for some advertisers. My recommendation would be to really approach that now as if it was deprecating next month because it is coming. And I think it’s ultimately something that’s going to be really important.
Beyond first party, I think that there’s a number of different third party sources where it’s going to make sense. I think strategic partners like Yelp are going to be a huge piece of that as well. And my space is performance, so working with other partners like a Google or a Meta or the people who play in that space, is also, again, taking all of that data and making sure that you are cutting it in appropriate ways to give you the information you need to make those business decisions.
And then beyond that, I think that there are some market research tools, something like an e-marketer as an example, that honestly could also be really helpful just in terms of from a high level, it’s not going to give you the granularity that certainly your first party data will or even partners like a Yelp or a Google or Meta. But I think that there is value there in terms of seeing those macro trends and how things are shifting in the marketplace. So I would say a combination of those three is how we generally go about it from our side.
Caitlin: Very robust. Love that. Mary, tell us a little bit about where you’re getting some trends data.
Mary: Yeah, I mean, I think Eric touched on the majority of it. I think one of the other things that we started to do this year was really dive into our local markets with local researchers. So really tapping into not just the consumer but also our employees within that market. Having a third person asking these questions to our employees. So it’s not coming from our corporate or support center, it’s actually coming from a third party to get real conversations going. And we’ve benefited from that a lot just by getting different views from all demographics and from all sorts of people that come in, whether it be from the house or heart of the house. That’s been a very valuable tool for us as well.
Caitlin: That is really cool. Having worked in the hospitality industry in the past, I can absolutely see myself giving very different answers. Boss is asking versus third party, that’s very fun.
Mary: Yeah, exactly.
Caitlin: That’s fantastic. Very similarly, we try to take a bit of a mixed approach here at Yelp. We have a ton of first party data that we are anxious to share with our partners and our clients, but we also try to make sure that we’re using relevant external third party information where appropriate. So just as a quick example, working with some of our financial clients and partners, we took a look at credit card usage and how that relates to our search volume, where the opportunities lie across the states. So I love to hear it. I think this mixed approach between first party and third party makes a lot of sense, and I love getting out of your own space to leverage the insights your own team has.
I have a few predictions that we actually just released from our data science team for 2023 predictions, but before we touch on any of that, I want to take a break and I want to open it up for some Q and A from the group. And I know both Eric and Mary have given us so much great information, but want to make sure that we take a pause to see if anybody has some questions outside of all of the great details they’ve already shared us shared with us. So if you do, go ahead and plop your question into the Q and A box, and we will pull those up and get those answered. And while you’re typing those in, I’ll just run through a couple of these fun predictions that we’ve released.
So Yelp uses our search queries and our review data and our data science team works hard on our annual predictions every year. And so we’ll make sure that you get the QR code to download this at the end of the presentation so you can get the full reports. But we have some really cool fun predictions going into 2023 from the data we’re seeing.
So in the beauty industry, a little nostalgia coming back in 2023. The glazed donut is a little bit of that pearl nail trend from back in the day as well as the butterfly haircut from the Farrah Fawcett days. So you can expect to see more and more of those in 2023. And in the active life area, I don’t think pickleball is very surprising. Everybody knows I think at this point pickleball is the fastest growing sport, but we’re going to keep seeing it growing, especially now when you’ve got like Stephen Colbert and Ryan Reynolds and Tom Brady going into all these leagues. We’re going to keep seeing that go up and up. But also board games and Bingo seem to be a really big trend that are coming in 2023.
And on the home services side, we talked a little bit about inflation and budgets, and so we’re seeing an increase in some things that are a little bit more budget friendly. Accent walls, tiling so that people can still improve their homes and bring a little pop, but in a way that’s not going to completely break the bank.
So I’m going to stop here before we go into any other fun 2023 predictions so we can get a question from the group. We have a question from Ashton. Thank you. With inflation, any tips for marketing for a thriving market that is slowing down? How do you shift from being at capacity to looking for new customers again? Mary, I imagine you probably went through a lot of those fluctuations in the hospitality industry of being really busy and then … so lumber industry more specifically, Ashton just added. But Mary, Eric, either one of you can jump in here, I’ll let you both decide.
Mary: So I think one of the things that we had to shift towards when we were evaluating some of our products is we really were reaching out to a certain demographic. So I’m going to use our commercial for Messi that we did on CTV as an example. We were actually able to target to certain people. So if it was families, let’s say it was foodies. I think targeting in on specific people and demographics with the help of using Yelp and using some other agencies too, you can really hone in on who you’re trying to reach and you’ll get a new set of audiences, and then maybe it’s even some newer audiences that you’re looking for too that could also help as well.
Caitlin: Love the audience targeting. Definitely I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. Yeah, Eric, other thoughts?
Mary: Even with the sponsored ads too. Yeah, sorry. Even the sponsored ads too, targeting them and with the click, once you click and it converts, that’s when you actually pay for it. I think that’s a huge … especially if you’re on a budget, that definitely is something to look at as well.
Eric: Yeah, I think from my side, first off, agree with everything that Mary mentioned, but I think from a media perspective and not sure how relevant it might be within the lumber industry, but I think a lot of times when you are shifting from a retention to acquisition or shifting from just gathering all the interest to trying to grow the size of that pool, where you’re spending your media budget will be a big factor there. So I think that oftentimes those lower funnel plays like a paid search or affiliate, depending on your industry are really great when you have all of that intent and the interest is there and all you have to do is harvest it. When you have a situation where you’re looking to kind of grow the size of that pie, I think that there are other channels that might make more sense to spread the word and grow that awareness a bit more. So I think from a media mixed perspective as well there, there’s probably just a bit of a shift that would probably make sense.
Caitlin: Great advice. Thanks both of you. Also, just actually shifting from down funnel to maybe a little bit more up funnel, we have another question. For Mary, you mentioned working with Yelp for CTV to drive brand awareness. Can you talk a little bit about how you feel Yelp is specifically adding value on with CTV? Maybe that’s on a retargeting on a local level or a national level. Where do you see the most value in that?
Mary: I’m sorry, Caitlin. My phone technology, it broke up halfway through. Could you say that question again?
Caitlin: Of course, of course. Could you just share with us a little bit more about the value you’re seeing out of Yelp CTV product to drive brand awareness and whether you’re doing retargeting on a local level or national level?
Mary: So with this commercial, we’re actually … so we’re pinpointing the areas that we want people to see it, the distance from the cafe and as far as … and then we go into neighborhoods too. So we’re actually able to pinpoint where we want people to be at when they’re seeing it and then it’s going through as well. And we’re targeting them with a sponsored ad as well with that. So if they’re searching for a burger, it’s pulling up, they can see it. Then when they go to watch their, let’s say it’s Modern Family on Hulu, then that commercial, the Messi commercial will pop up for them and just reinforce our message. And then of course we’re able to actually track who is coming into the location with the targeting. So we’re actually able to show an ROI for it, but it’s also just … it’s for brand, for us, we’re also doing this in Europe as well. So it’s helpful for us on a global basis too to get the brand messaging back out there. I don’t know if that answered it.
Caitlin: I think so, but folks, feel free to chime in with followups if we’re not nail it. I think that was fantastic though. Please, just a reminder, if anybody has additional questions that they want to jump in with, please feel free. Otherwise, I will just pop up my screen quickly again, we can share a couple more trends and then we’ll also leave you with a couple of resources and QR codes for some of this information and ways to get in contact with everybody here. So I will just pop this up.
All right. And just like we were talking with accent walls and tiling, we’re going to see another big trend in 2023 around lime washing. Another smaller than a full kitchen renovation opportunity that folks can do to add a little bit of texture and dimension while staying on budget. So we’re seeing that increase and expected to continue.
And similarly to the nostalgic point we made in beauty, we’re seeing out with the old and in with the new being a 2023 trend. So sticking with the budget trend again, instead of doing a full kitchen remodel, finding unique pieces in decor and also eco-friendly is going to be a big focus. Upcycling and recycling as well.
Beverages are a big one as well. Lots of non-alcoholic beverages are going to be trending into 2023. Not only what you see here, where we’re seeing a continued increase in things like dirty soda and slushy drinks, but also mocktails. So non-alcoholic cocktails are going to be a big thing going into 2023 as well.
And lastly, one of my favorites here to share, I didn’t want to pronounce this wrong, so I apologize if I do, but the Supreme, the cream filled croissant. I mean, I looked at this and went, “oh, I need one.” We’re going to see that sort of be the new pastry of the year in 2023. Well, Eric and Mary, any last thoughts that you’d like to share with the group? Final words of wisdom, parting advice as we are all handling these inflation trends, looking at recessions in the future, seeing consumer preferences change? Any last words, parting advice?
Mary: I think for me it is definitely about the guest experience as well, or your consumers’ experience as prices are raising. Yes, that does affect people, but when people are coming to buy or to get a product from you, I think that customer service and being the first to get … because you’re not the only one they’re looking into, but being the first to get back to them, being the first to make it easier on them will just continue to help your business.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t know that I have any parting advice that I haven’t already shared necessarily, but I think staying nimble and flexible as much as possible and really letting the data do the talking. I think that there is a tendency for advertisers of all kind to have these ideas or preconceived notions about their business of this is the person that is our target customer, or this is the way that our market tends to react. And sometimes they’re 100% on the ball and sometimes they’re not. And so I think that making sure that you are leveraging data, whether whatever that might look like for your business to really help craft your strategy is going to benefit you. Because I think these things are changing all the time and the trends data is changing all the time. So just being as flexible and nimble as possible and trying to, as best as you can, check any preconceived notions at the door, I think will ultimately benefit your business in the long run.
Caitlin: I love that advice. I think that’s such great advice across the board, whether it’s advertising or business growth or parenting. We did have one extra question come in if either of you want to jump in on this and then we’ll wrap with hopefully some QR codes, and if not, we’ll make sure you get those in a follow-up email. But we had a last minute question on how you’re leveraging first party data from your strategic partners. You mentioned leveraging Yelp and Meta and Google. Is there a difference in how you’re leveraging the data across these different strategic partners?
Eric: I could hop in on this one. A lot of it could be challenging from a Google or a Meta because the walled gardens don’t necessarily play particularly well with others. And so I think a lot of times the information that we have within Google will help inform how we’re looking to activate in Google and same thing with Meta. I think something like Yelp trends or something that could be a little bit more high level will then help identify, are there new audiences that makes sense to target across all of them, or are there different keyword opportunities that we would want to get into, if we’re seeing that there’s certain trends that are ultimately popping. And so I think that trying to utilize first party insights across a Google and a Meta could be a little bit tricky outside of possibly just seeing some of the trends that appear, whether it’s things like demographics or day party or things of that nature that might be a little bit more … will lend itself a little bit better to sharing some of those analyses. But I think generally speaking, it could be tricky with some of those walled garden partners.
