Podcast: Leveraging Data Privacy Laws to Increase Profitability: Ian Madigan with Dataships

Episode Summary

This episode of the Free to Grow CFO podcast features host Jon Blair engaging in an insightful conversation with Ian Madigan, Head of Partnerships at Dataships. The discussion highlights the crucial aspect of improving profitability for DTC brands by leveraging data privacy laws to optimize post-purchase email opt-in rates. Ian shares his journey from being a professional rugby player to joining Dataships and sheds light on how the company helps brands navigate the complexities of data privacy laws to increase their marketable audience through compliant email and SMS marketing practices. The conversation also delves into the importance of compliance and how Dataships helps brands navigate the complex landscape of data privacy, thus aiding in scaling with a profit-first mindset.

Meet Ian Madigan

Ian Madigan, Head of Partnerships at Dataships. Ian was previously a professional rugby player, playing 31 times for Ireland. He was an early investor in Dataships and moved into a full-time role in 2023. Having owned and run an eCommerce store, his passion now lies in ensuring that data privacy laws do not hold businesses back, the Dataships mantra of 'Growth Through Compliance' fits in well with his goals.

Episode Transcript

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:32 Understanding the Role of Dataships

01:49 The Importance of Maximizing Post-Purchase Email Opt-In Rates

02:15 Ian Madigan's Journey and Background

03:28 The Evolution and Impact of Data Privacy Laws

05:27 The Power of Leveraging Data Privacy Laws for Marketing

06:07 The Knowledge Gap in Brands and the Power of Data Privacy Laws

07:33 The Misconception about Data Collection on Shopify

08:37 The Impact of Data Privacy Laws on Marketing Consent Rate

09:07 The Role of DataShips in Maximizing Marketing Consent Rate

13:44 The Value of DataShips for Different Brands

32:09 The Double Impact of DataShips on Profitability

40:06 Final Thoughts

[00:00:00] Jon Blair: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Free to Grow CFO podcast, where we talk all things, scaling a DTC brand with a profit first mindset. I'm your host, Jon Blair, founder of Free to Grow CFO for all of those, for all of those, for those of you that don't know Free to Grow as a boutique outsourced accounting and fractional CFO firm.

And what we do is we help scaling profit first DTC brands grow alongside healthy profit cashflow and confident decision making. Today on the show, I'm super excited to be chatting with Ian Madigan, head of partnerships at Dataships. Ian, welcome. 

[00:00:33] Ian Madigan: Jon, great to see you again. Uh, thanks a million for having me on.

Uh, delighted to be on the podcast. 

[00:00:39] Jon Blair: Absolutely. You know, today I'm really excited to talk about today's topic because when I met you in Ireland at that e comm event several weeks ago and learned about what you guys are doing over there at your company, Dataships. A light bulb went off that I think the problem you guys solve is something that a lot of DTC brands in, uh, the States are not zeroing in on.

And so it's, in my opinion, the reason why I wanted to have you come on the show was I think it's kind of a, it's a, it's a goldmine that some of these brands are sitting on. It's going to be more valuable to some brands than others, depending on the product that they sell. You know, uh, do they have subscriptions or not, but like.

Again, this was a problem that I was aware of, but didn't realize the opportunity. Um, for how, um, for how your product could actually, uh, increase profitability of a scaling brand. And so I'm super excited to chat today for everyone, um, in the audience to understand what the heck are we talking about today?

We're talking about increasing profitability by maximizing post purchase email opt in rates. And, um, I think you're going to find today's discussion super, super helpful and hopefully actionable. For you to actually implement some of the things that we talk about today into your DTC brands, marketing mix so that you can improve your profitability as you continue to scale.

So before we dive into the. Um, you know, opt in rate topic in a little more detail, Ian, I'd love for you to just share with the audience a little bit about your background and how you ended up at DataShips. 

[00:02:19] Ian Madigan: Yeah. So before I, uh, took my, took the role of, of head of partnerships in DataShips last May, um, I was previously a professional rugby player.

Uh, so I played for. The top teams in, in, in Europe, in, uh, in Ireland, in, in Ster and Ulster. And then I also played in the top league in, in France, uh, with a team called Bordeaux Bag and in England with, uh, Bristol Bears. So I'd, uh, played over 300, pre 300 professional games, 31 times for Ireland. Um. But during that time, Michael, who's the CEO of Dataships alongside our co CEO, Ryan, he approached me back in 2013 with an idea for fantasy rugby, similar to some of the fantasy products that there are in the States.

We tried to replicate that in Europe with rugby, with a more kind of detailed stats based game. And we had good success with it. We built the game out. Um, at its height, you know, with 200,000 people playing it in, in Europe, which, um, for less populous countries, uh, isn't bad going. Yeah. Um, and then we, we, we subsequently sold it, sold a game, and it was really then in, in, in 2017 and 2018, that we pivoted into the data privacy space.

So in Europe, um. The GDPR was, was coming in, um, and we looked at building a one stop shop solution for SMEs, um, to ensure that they were going to be fully compliant with the GDPR. So at the time it was all, you know, privacy policies, cookies, tools, the big change we thought would happen with the GDPR in Europe was around, um, data access requests.

So customers making a request for their data. The merchant having to send it out in machine readable format, um, and we, we built a solution for that, but as, as, as it transpired, not many customers actually make these data access requests. And that wasn't really the change that the GDPR had, um, what we found that the GDPR, what a change was how data is collected.

And that's where we pivoted, uh, two years ago into really more growth space. And, and as you touched on at the start of the podcast profitability, so, you know, our slogan is growth through compliance. So, um, you know, as we all know that the cost of acquisition is going up with the, with meta ads being more expensive, Google ads being more expensive.

Um, you know, cokie tracking being nothing as effective, especially in Europe, and we can see that coming into the, into the States and Canada now, too. So, what we want to ensure is that, um, our, our, our clients can, uh, email and SMS market to as many of their customers as possible, and that's what we call the marketing consent rate.

So, the marketing consent rate is the percentage of your customers or the people. Um, traveling through your website that you're able to email an SMS market to. Um, and in effect, what we're doing is we're presenting the most optimal data privacy laws, um, to the benefit of our clients to ensure as many of their customers are opting in for marketing.

[00:05:35] Jon Blair: Awesome. I love that. So there's a ton to dive in there. I think you gave a really solid overview of like. What the problem is out in the marketplace from a data compliance standpoint or data privacy standpoint and how that provides a roadblock potentially to maximizing, I'm going to say it in simple terms, effectively, how many people you can email, right?

Or send SMS, uh, marketing text messages to and. Yeah, before we can touch on pretty much every aspect of that overview that you just gave us, but I want to dive in first to chatting a little bit about what you have seen as you guys have been growing data ships, um, what you have seen as the, um, kind of biggest knowledge gap out there.

Within the brands that you guys talk to and to be more specific when, when, when I sat down with you and really understood, um, what data ships does a light bulb went out off. Like I said earlier that like, man, I don't think a lot of my clients are even thinking about what data privacy laws are doing. To actually, um, keep them from growing their email lists and SMS lists to as large as possible.

And so I think that a lot of brands are thinking, they're thinking about buying paid ads. They're thinking about just emailing their existing email list, but they're not sitting there thinking about how do we get more people to subscribe through something as seemingly simple as. You know, uh, leveraging the data privacy laws, but the issue is there's a lot to know there, right?

And it's different from country to country. And so when you talk to brands that could potentially use data shift, what do you see is the biggest gap in knowledge of, of what these brand founders and operators just don't understand about, about the data privacy laws? 

[00:07:26] Ian Madigan: Yeah, great question. And the biggest knowledge gap for me is the misconception, um, around data privacy and how data is collected on Shopify itself.

So everyone thinks that for, you know, a big platform like Shopify, that they'll present all the different options that data privacy laws around the world will allow. Um, and it was really only when we were asked, you know, probably for, I'd say the 50th, 50th or 60th. Uh, time by our, our current, uh, clients, you know, how can we gather more data on our customers compliantly that we dove deeper into the different platforms and Shopify specifically, and we wanted to see, you know, from our own knowledge of the data privacy laws.

Is Shopify presenting the most optimal options? And what we found is that Shopify gives you two options. You can either have a pre ticked box, which is, is fully compliant in, in, in the States and Canada, or you can have an unticked box, which is fully compliant in across Europe. Um, now the two differences with those two options is an unticked box where the customer would have to take the box to opt in for marketing converts at between 20 and 25 percent and that's compliant across the world.

Um, and then the pre ticked option, which is compliant in the States and Canada converts at between 40 and 50%. The odd time is high as a 60%, but you're still missing out on. On, you know, potentially another 40 percent in the States and Canada with a pre tick box. So, what we, what we do is we present the most optimal data privacy law.

Um, and where, where we see the knowledge gap is that in the States and Canada, for example, you can rely on implied consent, especially in Canada, where. And once the customer is purchasing a product, they're effectively opting in for email marketing in the States. The legal requirement is no consent required, which is effectively the same as Canada in the sense that once a customer purchases.

You're able to email market to them so we can get an uplift in the States and Canada from 650 or 60 percent all the way up to generally 98 99%. Um, and then in Europe, you know, you've got countries like, um, the United Kingdom, France. Ireland, Netherlands, um, where you can rely on soft opt in or legitimate interest, where the difference there would be, as opposed to a customer having to tick the box to opt in, they would have to tick the box to opt out.

Um, and that's where across our portfolio of, of, of, um, 450 clients, we, we increase the marketing consent rate. Up to 88% on average, but for our American and Canadian customers, it would be above 95%. 

[00:10:25] Jon Blair: Wow. So this is fascinating. So let, let's break this down a little bit, uh, a little bit here and kind of summarize it for our listeners.

So we're talking about an, uh, post-purchase, um, or, or as part of the, the, the checkout process. an unticked box, right? Um, uh, in terms of like opting in to email marketing, that's converting at 20 to 40%. You said? 

[00:10:51] Ian Madigan: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't take box in Europe. We'll convert a generally between 20 and 30%. 20 and 

[00:10:56] Jon Blair: 30%.

Okay. And then at pre ticked box, Did you say 40 to 60%? 

[00:11:02] Ian Madigan: Yeah. 

[00:11:02] Jon Blair: Yeah. 60 to 60%. Yeah, exactly. But then, but then, um, leveraging implied consent, which means in the U S and Canada, it is compliant that if the, uh, customer executed a purchase, they're implying their consent to opt into email marketing that's upwards of 90 percent conversion in terms of, of, is it, am I correct there?

[00:11:27] Ian Madigan: Exactly that. It'd be even upwards of, of 97, 98 percent where, where you wouldn't have that, that total 100%, 100 percent would be if an American or Canadian customer, which was purchasing from Europe, but it was being shipped to the States, it would default to the safest data privacy law. So that customer might be asked to opt in or double opt in if they happen to be in Germany at the time.

And, but it will be close to a hundred percent, exactly that. 

[00:11:52] Jon Blair: Okay. Okay. So we're talking Shopify only offers the unticked box or the pre ticked box. So let's say you go with your Shopify site, you know, to the, you know, maybe a little bit more, um, aggressive pre ticked, pre ticked box, right? Forty to sixty percent.

opt in rate versus 97, 98 with using data ships. We're basically talking close to double the opt in rate, right? Um, so if you think about, um, if you think about increasing the profitability of your marketing efforts, you know, like Ian mentioned earlier. In the post iOS 14 world and you know, seeing CPMs get more and more expensive on Facebook and you know, Google advertising costs are going up more and more brands that I'm working with as a fractional CFO, they're turning to their retention, right?

And they're saying like, look, we still need to use, we still need to use pay per click advertising or top of funnel. Advertising channels like Facebook to drive awareness and acquire new customers. But we're going to really make our profit or at least the bulk of our profit. We're going to make on repeat purchases and we're leveraging our email lists and our SMS, um, lists in order to do that.

So thinking within that kind of like view of the world that we live in, in, in trying to, to scale a profit first DTC brand, if you're converting on your Shopify site, Double or close to double. The number of people that are opting in post purchase to email marketing. That is, that can be for the right brand, that can be massive for driving your, um, driving your marketing efficiency and ultimately your contribution margin through the roof.

So walk me through a little bit of what are the types of brands or maybe the types of products or, um, I don't know if it's subscription versus non subscription, like what are some of the core key characteristics that you see? In a brand that really, really benefits financially from using a product like Dataships.

[00:14:01] Ian Madigan: Yeah, like, so for us, it is wide ranging, um, you know, the, the cosmetic space in particular would be one that would work well, you know, repeat purchase products, um, not necessarily high AOV, but we would have some, some clients that are high AOV. Um, and then, you know, a wide, wide range of products. But you know, across our, our portfolio we would see the most in, in supplements, cosmetics, footwear, um, clothing, um, pet supplements is a, is a really popular one.

And when you were talking about subscription there, where, where we would be popular would be in trying to, uh, in, in ensuring that for one off purchasers. That they can be marketed to, and then with the goal of turning them into subscribers, as opposed to, you know, maybe one in five or two and five of those one off purchasers, um, being marketable and maybe only 50 percent of them turning into subscribers, we'd be increasing that to four or five out of five and ensuring them that they're, they're moving on to subscription.

Um, but yeah, for, for really high average order value products, um. It's not as good a fit because generally that the repeat purchases aren't going to be there, um, or it could take, you know, maybe 3 to 6 months or 12 months for those repeat purchases to happen. Um, but, yeah, in those other sectors, it's, it's really powerful and, you know, ultimately, Jon, if you've 1000 customers coming through your checkout, and, you know, even with a pre tick box, if you can market to 500 of those.

And you're converting what we generally see with email marketing. It's kind of between 5 and 15 percent will be kind of the market average we'd see. But if you can, if you can maintain that 5 or 15 percent would increase the number of people you're marketing to, to close to a thousand. Then you're looking at a significant return.

[00:15:52] Jon Blair: Yeah. So I think there's a couple of interesting points that we can dive into on that. One is, and you know, we talked about this when, when I met you in person in Ireland, walk me through what you tend, what you were seeing with these brands. They, they get on, they start using data ships. Um, let's say they've doubled their email opt in rate, um, from 45 to 90%.

Right. They were using the pre tick box before. What do you guys tend to see in terms of two, two key components? Cause I'm sure every brand founder operator listening to this podcast is going to have these questions. Okay. Well, what, what is that, what are you seeing is happening to the conversion rate on email, right?

Cause the, the, a big risk is conversion rate dropping so much that it offsets the additional subscribers and two, what do you see in terms of unsubscribes over time, or is that 90 percent that's retained post purchase? Or opted in for post purchase, are they sticking? What are you guys seeing with the clients that you're serving?

[00:16:55] Ian Madigan: Yeah, I think, you know, brands are very wary of the unsubscribes. And I think when you, you know, you, you promote through a competition or a giveaway, you're going to get people who will sign up for the competition giveaway. But then once the competition passes and they don't win, they will then unsubscribe.

And they're not necessarily valuable, um, data to have. But what's different with, with our list is because they're actual paying customers, they've gone through the checkout, they're more vested in the brand itself. Um, that when they do get marketed to it generally sticks and they're happy to see marketing content to, uh, from the brand.

Obviously it's, it's over to the, the, the brand itself to ensure that, you know, they're segmenting while the timing of their offers is good. Um, if you're sending out, you know, poor quality emails. Not necessarily good offers are relevant to the person. You will still see a drop off, but what we see is the actual unsubscribed percentage will stay the same as it was pre data ships.

Um, but because you're having more of your customers actually subscribing to emails. The actual number will go up, but the percentage will stay the same. So if it's 5 percent of 500, you're looking at, you know, 25, um, unsubscribes 5 percent of a thousand, you're looking at 50 unsubscribes, but, um, yeah, we'd keep a very close eye on that.

Um, and ultimately what we've seen is that, that, um, customers are still happy to receive marketing information from, from the brands that they've actually purchased from. 

[00:18:29] Jon Blair: Yeah, that that's huge. And I, I think you, you're bringing up a couple, like just. Regardless of whether or not you're using a tool like data ships, there are just some core tenants of good email marketing, right?

That like you're going to want to adhere to, like you said, segmenting so that you have some sort of personalization in the email journey. Right? Um, which is hopefully driving relevant information going to each of each of your email segments, the right offers at the right time. If you're just, if you've got poor email, um, marketing strategy or, um, you know, tactics, that's going to drive unsubscribes, whether you use data ships or not.

Right? And so, um, I do really love how this is tied into. Post purchase because like you're talking about they've already voted with their dollars that customer right for a product From this brand and so this is not about some sort of a gimmicky way To drive email subscribes like you brought up the giveaway or you know something something of free value This is about deepening a relationship with a customer that has already transacted with the brand, right?

And so it's like, uh, it's in my opinion from an email marketing standpoint. It's like a high leverage moment, right? Or, or like you can either kind of lose that customer, um, in terms of like lose their attention, right? And the ability to talk directly to them post purchase. Or you can capture that customer by getting them to, to opt in.

You already have a relationship with them. And so you actually have something already preexisting to leverage. You're not trying to leverage something from zero to something. Right. And so, um, I love that. I want to talk a little bit more. About data ships itself, just so that, um, the, the audience can kind of wrap their mind around like, okay, I think we've been pretty clear about Shopify currently offers these, these two options for, um, you know, marketing opt in post purchase it's pre tick box on tick box, right?

One's got a 20 to 30 percent conversion rate, the other 40 to 60, um, data ships has proven to. You'd be able to increase it to, you know, 90, as high as 97, 98%, but like from a practical standpoint, what, how, how exactly does this look to the brand when they want to go get data ships turned on, how easy or how, how hard is it to do?

[00:21:02] Ian Madigan: Yeah, great question. So I think first off, what we've, what we've kind of explained is, is for brands that are only selling into one region where data ship still works, you know, particularly well, if you're. Selling solely into the UK or Ireland or, or, or America or Canada, but also for brands that are selling internationally.

So they could could be selling into multiple different regions and each of those regions can have different data privacy laws. So, for example, Germany is particularly strict. So. Because our, our, our widget is, is geo located from the IP address, uh, backed up by the shipping address and billing address. Um, and off the back of that, then we're then presenting the most optimal data privacy laws.

So for example, in Germany, it's really strict. You have to do use double opt in. So the customer, if they're purchasing from Berlin and Germany would have to tick the box to opt in, and then they would have to double opt in via the first email that they'd be sent. Uh, in Klaviyo, so we would have a separate list in Klaviyo for, for, for, um, for any German customers.

Um, they're purchasing from the UK or Ireland or France, then they're being presented with a box where they would have to tick the box to opt out. Um, if they're purchasing from Canada or, or the States, then they're being presented with the marketing preferences. And a link to the privacy policy, which is still really important for, for, for the, uh, data privacy regulations, but they will be going straight into a marketable list within within Klaviyo.

Um, so, yeah, the actual, uh, dev side of what we do, we're in the Shopify app store, the installation. Um, only takes three minutes. Um, it's as simple as giving some access in, in Klaviyo and copying some script into the, um, the checkout page on, on Shopify where we're obviously altering what we're doing around the, the subscribe box.

Um, and then for SMS, it's, it's slightly different because the laws vary from, from state to state. In, in the States itself. Um, so yeah, the implementation on the SMS is maybe about 10 or 15 minutes, but the, um, the initial implementation of email is, is only three minutes to get up and running. 

[00:23:14] Jon Blair: You know, what's interesting about this.

And I think we chatted about this a little bit when I was, um, Hanging out with you guys in Ireland. Um, you know, in, in one respect, what you guys are doing is not all that different, um, conceptually from the way that we view in the e commerce world, uh, these sit outsource sales tax, um, offerings. And here's why, because so like back in the day, in the heyday of, of like early days of e com, when I ran, um, accounting and finance departments.

You know, we have these sales tax liabilities all over the country and it's just this huge pain in the ass. So as you, as you scale, you get, you hit nexus and more and more states in the U S and you've got to go set up a corporate tax account and a sales tax account and, and you, and every, every government agency has a different website or some of them, you still have to mail in the application.

It's crazy. Right. And, and there's 52 states in the U S and so like. Part of you, you know, you're, you're pulling your hair out trying to manage this admin nightmare and this compliance nightmare and like, eventually you're like, man, is there some way to just like apply for all 52 states and just like get set up so that this can be done?

But then what's the problem? Once you get set up, you have to file the returns all the time, but then even worse, you have to keep up with all the different sales tax law changes in all of those 52 states, which is basically impossible to do if you're a, you know, small to mid size, scrappy, profit first, scaling DTC brand.

I look at data ships and like, yes, the tool that you guys have built from a software standpoint is Is slick in terms of how, like you can just get it set up in the Shopify app store super easily. Right. And it will automatically detect based on the IP address where the purchaser is located. And it will default to what you guys have deemed to be the, um, the email opt in rate that's compliant, but would most maximize, um, you know, consent.

But then here's the, the flip side of that coin. The laws are changing. Right. The law and as a brand, so like the point that I'm making is like, as a brand, you could go set this up on your store if you wanted to, to start in the US, but then are you going to have a team that's going to go keep up with how these laws and compliance requirements are changing?

Absolutely not. You're super crazy busy trying to scale a brand and then in comes data shifts. And we talked about this a little bit, um, you know, before the show, like you guys have this team who's keeping up to date on the data privacy laws and the different countries that you, that the tool works within.

Um, and that's where I liken it back to those sales tax agencies. We now, instead of managing sales tax ourselves, we're using XAMPP or numeral or Abilara, and you're just plugging into them usually oftentimes through some sort of a software plugin. Sometimes it is a Shopify app and they're handling all the sales tax backend for you, right?

Um, talk me through a little bit what you guys do at data ships. To unbeknownst to your clients, they don't have to deal with it. They don't just get this nifty little app that's maximizing opt ins, but you've got this team that's keeping up on the compliance requirements and if needed, tweaking your app to make sure that it, it stays compliant.

Walk me through what you guys are doing in the background there. Cause that's a huge, huge lift that you're taking off of these brands. 

[00:26:47] Ian Madigan: Yeah. So like, first off, like on that point, like my, my passion doesn't necessarily lie in data privacy, you know, but where my passion lies is very much in ensuring that it doesn't hold businesses back and that's where like our slogan of growth through compliance, ensuring that the, you know, if, if there's a more optimal data privacy law that can be relied on.

Let's make sure that, that, you know, e commerce merchants are, are, are using it because they've, they've, they've so many different things to, to, to worry about. We don't want compliance to be holding them back and we've had so many merchants over the years come to us and they're just so afraid of these data privacy laws that they'll default.

To the strictest, but they might only convert a 10 or 15 percent or even on the high side, you know, maybe 50%, but they're still leaving 40, 50 percent on the table. And, you know, in my view, that's unfair because the e commerce merchants are doing an incredible job and getting, you know, potential customers to their website.

Then their website themselves itself is doing a brilliant job in converting these potential customers into paying customers. We want to ensure that those paying customers that as many of those are being marketed to, because there's been so much money spent and driving them to your website in converting them on the website.

It's, it's only fair that you can market to as many of those as legally possible. Um, so yeah, from, from a compliance standpoint, we have our own in house compliance team and we've, we've built out a rules engine for, um, 88 countries. So we have, um, the rules built. If we have a client come on and we don't have the rules built for that country, we will ensure that, um, we'll be up to date on the, on the data privacy laws.

It usually takes about two weeks for a new country to be added. And then we're staying on top of all the new data privacy laws that are that are coming out. So, for example, in the States at the moment, from state to state, we're seeing different regulations around SMS. So we're ensuring that we're, we're staying on top of those, ensuring compliance, whether it's.

Texting at a certain time in the day may be allowed in one state, but could be prohibited in another. We didn't share that. That isn't happening. And then similar with with the data privacy laws within Europe and the states, we're seeing that changing, you know, month to month and we're ensuring that. That, um, that our solution is, is keeping our merchants, um, up to date and ensuring that, that they're being compliant.

[00:29:19] Jon Blair: Yeah. So, you know, what's interesting about that, the fact that you guys have a compliance team that's staying on top of changes, right. To, um, whether you're talking about state level changes in the U S or you're talking about, you know, national, um, changes in the U S or, or, or in other countries. When we tie this back to how a tool like Dataships can help optimize your profitability as you're scaling, there's the obvious subject that we've been talking about, which is, hey, you're doubling your marketing opt in rates post purchase.

You know, and you keep your conversion rates and unsubscribe rates about the same, but you've got double the subscribers. Obviously, that can, that can really make a dent in marketing efficiency and profitability for your brand. But, additionally, you don't have to pay the overhead of the internal compliance team that you would need to do this on your own, right?

Dataships has that handled, right? They've got the compliance experts internally, so you're improving your marketing efficiency through that. The, the, uh, marketing opt in rate. Maximization, but you're also just removing, you're outsourcing the compliance efforts. To a company who is an expert at it, right.

And like, that's one theme that I see super common, uh, that really elite scaling seven, eight, and even nine figure DTC brands do really, really well is they figure out what their brand and their team is really good at, what their core competency is. And they just stay laser focused on that. And what I tend to see is that the brands, you know, elite brands, core competencies, product development, right.

Um, marketing. Customer experience or customer service. Maybe they're very operationally excellent, but, but you don't find a DTC brand who's crushing it because their compliance. Experts, right? Whether you're talking about tax compliance or data privacy compliance or other compliance, that stuff's usually outsourced as it should be because they're absolutely super important things that you have to adhere to as you're scaling, but they are not the core things.

That really set your brand apart in the marketplace, right? Like market, marketing and product development and customer experience. And so the point that I'm making here is that when it comes to scaling a profit first D2C brand, knowing what overhead activities and costs you should outsource. To experts in the field.

In this case, we're talking about data privacy, which is super important for a DTC brand. Absolutely. Make sure that your brand is good at that if you want to optimize profitability over time. So it's kind of like a, I wasn't even really thinking about this as we're preparing for the show, but you guys kind of have a double whammy in terms of how you can improve profitability, marketing efficiency should go up.

But then at the same time, you're removing this overhead burden of, of staying compliant. And I think that that's, that's really, really cool. Um, so I want to actually, um, I want to actually, before, before we move on to a slightly different topic, is there anything that we haven't covered in terms of like GDPR compliance in the U.

S. that you just think might be a knowledge gap for the listeners of, of this podcast? Anything else that you just, you know, I think that a DTC brand founder operator in the U S should know that they probably don't know about data privacy laws in the U S. 

[00:32:53] Ian Madigan: Yeah, I think that the biggest one is that, you know, that a lot of the merchants in the States and Canada, they don't realize how preferential the laws are there.

If they're selling on a platform like Shopify, it doesn't allow them to utilize those different laws. Um, and that's where that's ultimately where, where we come in. Um, and yeah, one, one, one area that I didn't touch on is, is that the actual emails that we unlock, we, we actually track those emails and we see who, who has repurchased, um, and to the value of those repurchases.

So that's. That's a key way for us to ensure that we're showing the value of, of, of our, our application. Whereas if, if, if, if the, those emails weren't deemed valuable and weren't making the repurchases, then our, you know, our solution, you know, falls on its face. So, um, and, and, and tied in with that as well, Jon, is we ensure that we, we do, um, a, a two week free trial, um, to, to.

Show a dashboard within that dashboard, we'll be able to do a 12 month look back and show what our merch, what the merchants previous or pre data ships marketing consent rate was and then what we've grown it to in that 2 week period. And then we can also show the emails that we've unlocked and the value of those, um, repeat purchases and then depending on what, what sector they're in.

We can dive into them and show, and show, for example, if they're in cosmetics, we can show them cosmetic examples of the results that you can expect after a month, after three months, after six months. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's a kind of risk free way of, of, of trialing the app and ensuring that they see the value in it.

[00:34:35] Jon Blair: I love that the risk free trial is super important. And you showed me the dashboard when we sat down together in Ireland and, um, it's super helpful for understanding what the impact. Of turning the app on is and, um, that way, you know, when I think about, you know, some of the brands that we work with potentially considering using data ships, like, um, it's really easy for me to bring it up to them because it's not a huge lift first off to get it implemented and it's not a huge risk.

To test it out and, and get some analytics from, from your dashboard on, on really what is the app doing to improve the opt in rate and then ultimately the, the value of those additional opt ins, um, over time. So before we close up here. I like to end every episode getting a little bit personal with the guests that are on, on, and, and, you know, you mentioned earlier that you're a rugby player, which, um, I was actually on the plane coming home from Ireland and a guy sitting next to me on his way to Dallas, I'm in Austin, Texas, he had an Irish accent, and we were on the connecting flight from Dallas to Austin, and I said, Hey, man, are you, are you traveling to Austin from Ireland?

He goes, And he's like, I'm, I'm, I'm traveling to Austin for my first time for, uh, uh, uh, a show like with, uh, for work, uh, a trade show. It's like, that's funny. I'm coming back from Ireland, kind of from a trade show, my first time to Ireland. And so anyways, we started talking. And he was asking what some of the brands were, or some of the companies were that I met with.

And I was telling him, I said, Oh, and I met with this one guy. He was a rugby player, Ian Madigan. He's like, Oh, I know Ian Madigan. Um, and so anyway, so we actually talked about you on the flight home, but all that being said, you know, post, you know, your, your pro rugby career. Um, what does your personal life look like these days?

[00:36:31] Ian Madigan: Yeah, so I've, I've been finished really playing since, since May and, uh, full-time with, with data shift. So that, that, that certainly keeps me busy. And then I do, um, national television for the, the rugby when there's, um, either Irish matches on or the, the club games, um, which is the U or C or the, the European championship.

Um, and then I'm actually a promoter as well for, uh, American college football. So, oh, really? 

[00:36:59] Jon Blair: I love it. 

[00:37:00] Ian Madigan: Yeah. So I was over in, in, in Florida state, uh, back in October for, for, uh, again, there against the Gators and then I was back down in Dublin this weekend with the Georgia tech, uh, teams. So Georgia tech are hosting Florida state in Dublin in August.

And, uh, I'm happy. Promote that game to ensure that, um, I think there's 30, 000 Americans coming over and it's my job to ensure that there's plenty of Irish people there watching as well. Um, so yeah, there's, there's a good, good American connection there. Um, and yeah, then we've, uh, have two, two Labradors, Black Lab, Benji and, uh, Fox Red Labrador, Freddy.

So they're one and three and they keep me busy. So in my spare time, love going on hikes with them. Um, We've just bought a hay, so I can't afford to do anything else other than just walking up the mountain. 

[00:37:54] Jon Blair: I love it. I love it. That's cool. I didn't realize your connection to American football. I'm a huge, um, American football fan, college specifically, my huge USC Trojan fam, uh, family.

And so we're huge. I've been going to USC Trojan games my whole life. Um, what's something that you're, uh, reading or listening to that's really impacted you, um, recently? 

[00:38:18] Ian Madigan: Um, I, being honest with you, I don't, don't read a whole lot and I, I used to listen to more podcasts than, um, than I have done recently.

Part of it is just being busier and when I find now and I'm in the car, I like to just chill out and listen to some music. Um, but I got to see Bob Marley's movie there, um, last week, One Love. Um, you know, obviously it was very sad that he passed away at like 35, 36, I'm 34 now. And I think the movie itself just gave me a really good appreciation for life and, you know, how lucky I am to be fit and healthy and, you know, appreciate the smaller things in life.

And, uh, yeah, I've been listening to his album Exodus flat out since and certainly helped him chill me out and, and enjoy the moment more. 

[00:39:06] Jon Blair: I love that. I love that. Um, yeah, I mean, look at, at Free to Grow CFO, I say this a lot in our content, but you know, business is much bigger than, um, than just making money for our business, actually our, our purpose.

The reason we exist is to build a profitable business that cares for people. And the reason that's our purpose is because. To me, business, yeah, yeah. We need to be profitable. Profitable is in there in service of caring for people, making a difference, right? Like a business should make a difference in the world one way or another.

Um, and so that I, I love the. It all comes back to this heart that like, Hey, we've got one life to live. It's short and we're here to enjoy it and make an impact. And so I really, really love that. Um, so before we close here, where can people find some more info on you and data ships? 

[00:39:59] Ian Madigan: Uh, so I'm on, uh, Ian, IAN at Dataships, D A T A S H I P S dot IO, or our website, Dataships.

io will have, um, plenty of information from, you know, implementation, the app store itself, pricing, um, and, you know, more information really around what we do. Um, and yeah, if you want to, if you want to reach out and have a chat, I'd love to show you the product in more detail. And, um, if not, Jon, obviously has my, uh, my details too.

And it's been an absolute pleasure coming on, Jon. I've really enjoyed meeting you in person in, in Ireland and, um, big fan of what you're doing and Free to Grow. And you've already made some, some brilliant introductions, um, to me, which is much appreciated. 

[00:40:45] Jon Blair: Of course. No, it's, uh, It's an honor to have you on as well.

I mean, we're here talking because what you guys are doing is very interesting. And I think it's kind of a little known fact that really can move the needle for, for a brand that's trying to scale and, and also shepherd, shepherd their profitability. So I really appreciate you coming on. This is super helpful.

Chalk full of nuggets that, um, the brand founders we're talking to can use to improve their profitability. So, you know, for, um, all that being said, You know, that's the Free to Grow CFO podcast for today, where we talk about all things, scaling a DTC brand with a profit first mindset. And don't forget, you know, if you need help, uh, with scaling your brand while also maintaining healthy profitability, cashflow, and confident decision making.

Reach, reach out to me regarding Free to Grow CFO. We're a boutique accounting. Um, sorry. We're a boutique outsource accounting and fractional CFO firm. And we work specifically with scaling DTC brands day in and day out. It's all we do. That's all for today, everyone. Let me stop here.