Samir Balwani 0:03
Hi. I'm Samir Balwani, host of Chief Advertiser and founder of QRY. join me as I talk to industry leaders about their strategies, challenges and successes in managing their advertising and marketing. On our episode today, I have Morgan Decker, Director of Marketing at Andie Swim. I'm a huge fan of the brand. I'm a huge fan of Morgan's. Thank you so much for coming here and being on the podcast with us.
Morgan Decker 0:30
Thanks for having me. Samir, excited to be here. Yeah. So let's
Samir Balwani 0:34
start with the easy stuff. Tell me about you, your role, how you got to where you are, all the fun stuff,
Morgan Decker 0:40
absolutely. So I've been working in marketing for the last 11 years of my career, primarily within the direct to consumer space. Over the last eight years, I've had a huge focus within subscription and then Andie is my first role in traditional fashion e Comm, which has been a ton of fun. So I started my career as often agencies. I've worked at very large enterprise businesses such as National Geographic, with Disney, from Hello Fresh, I was the first hire to start up pre series A I've worked at a lot of businesses, from being employee number one to one of hundreds within marketing, and I've found that my sweet spot is within brands where you have enough to work with, but you also have enough flexibility in a small team that can really be dynamic and react in real time. So at Andie, I am the director of marketing. As you said, I am in I'm the head of all paid performance, so I manage everything for acquisition, retention, life cycle, and then I collaborate really closely with our Head of Brand and creative and our social media and influencer manager to really help bring the ecosystem fully together. That's
Samir Balwani 1:53
awesome. I know I love that. I love your expertise across the gamut, being an early employee and then, like, part of a big agency or a big brand is so wildly different. People don't realize how, like, the challenges are so different and unique. And I love that you have that experience across kind of the gamut. So for people that don't know what Andie swimwear is, you know, all six of them. Can you tell us what is Andie and kind of what makes it special?
Morgan Decker 2:23
Yeah, sure, so Andie swim, we're a direct to consumer women's swimwear brand. Essentially, our entire goal is timeless swimwear, modern styles made for the modern woman. We have customizable coverage, from torso lengths to booty coverage. Essentially, we really want to make our customer feel confident and look good while they're wearing our swim so, yeah,
Samir Balwani 2:47
I love that booty coverage made its way onto this podcast, because I think that that's awesome. I mean, so Morgan, you said it really well. You started on the subscription side. You've worked with all kinds of you know, large brands. Fashion is unique. It is a different beast. What was different when you jumped into fashion swimwear? What surprised you the most about it?
Morgan Decker 3:14
Honestly, a lot has really surprised me. Um, I've worked in subscription for a long time before coming to Andie, and it's a really different business model. You have a lot of different components with your operational team, with your creative and design team, like it really depends on the strength of the collection, the fit of Quincy, or the fit of the clothing that you have really impacts the type of creative that you bring in. We have a guest star for anyone watching videos front and
Samir Balwani 3:50
center didn't want to be left out.
Morgan Decker 3:52
No, never. She regularly makes appearances on all of my Zoom calls so it in swimwear specifically, it's really interesting because it's not a category that you're buying every single day, like we're not a gap, we're not a Lululemon. Realistically, most women only probably have anywhere between five to maybe 15 swimsuits in their wardrobe. It's very rare that all those are going to be the same brand. So it's a really interesting it's a really interesting business, and it's very different than subscription. We have really strong repeat purchase rates, but purchase latency is where we really have to lean in, because realistically, you have to look at how many swimsuits you buy in a year. Yeah? So
Samir Balwani 4:37
a lot of fun. Yeah. It's really interesting too, because I'm sure there's, like, certain triggers that lead to somebody purchasing I would imagine, like travel is probably one of them, like getting ready for a trip or an event or something like that. Are there other triggers that lead you to get into like that you are focused on for being in that consideration set and wanting to be front and center before you know that? Happens? Yeah.
Morgan Decker 5:01
So our our entire cornerstone of our brand is essentially around vacation. So we want to be your one stop shop before you go on vacation. If you're looking for a cover up, if you're looking for a swimsuit, if you're looking for accessories, we're hoping that you go to Andie swim com before you go to shop anywhere else to prepare for that and that's kind of what we utilize currently, for the way that we message, for the way that we target and the way that we present ourselves. Obviously, you have people that swim recreationally, for fitness and things like that, but that's not necessarily one of our largest value props that we really lean into. We really, just really hone in on travel.
Samir Balwani 5:42
That's really interesting. Yeah. I mean, it is fascinating to hear about how you're kind of going from a subscription business into fashion swimwear. And so my background, for anyone that's listening, I've been in fashion marketing for 18 years at this point now. And so it is a unique market in that the collection matters so much because it is almost as if you're launching a new product consistently, and you have to reacquire a lot of people. And so for fashion swimwear brands, especially where repeat purchases latency is long, right? It's not a basics business where you're selling a bunch of T shirts and like people are going to come back over and over again. New customer acquisition is is like the thing that you need to have dialed in, right? Like you need to recognize that as people are graduating into new age groups, into new household income groups, new new buying patterns that you are, you are front and center at that point. How do you prioritize that? Morgan, how do you guys look at new customer acquisition, and say, This is how we're going to focus on it. This is where we're going to spend our time. This is what we're going to do absolutely
Morgan Decker 6:46
so there are a few different things that we've been testing to try to reach our app like our ideal target consumer, before they become our target audience. Because our our swimsuits are relatively expensive, we have a pretty high AOV for our product, our standard AOV across the board is over $150 so we target someone that is looking for a a nicer swimsuit, a sustainable swimsuit that will stay with them for a long time. We're definitely in the slow fashion business. If you're looking to buy a swimsuit, swimsuit from either like she in or cup she that's not our consumer. So a few things that we've been trying to do to get ahead of consumers before they become our target audience is we've been working with student beans. If you're familiar with them, they're in a partner that primarily focuses on students and graduate students, and they do all the validation of.edu emails to ensure that they're actually active students to give them discounts at a very specialized rate so they can get access to our products before they can necessarily think to afford or go to them. And outside of that, we're always testing and learning in different platforms. We're currently testing a launch with App Levin. If you've heard of them, they do advertising in the mobile app space, which will be really interesting. And then outside of that, we're really active on meta and Tiktok. We primarily lean into broad audiences, as a lot of brands do these days, but we do a lot in terms of creative testing, as well as testing across different age groups. For the UGC that we utilize within paid to try to reach new audiences and kind of break our algorithm whenever we get the opportunity.
Samir Balwani 8:24
Yeah, that's really interesting, especially because I always think about this, and you guys are probably feeling the pressures of this too. Of like, the buying habits of the next generation is so different than the previous generation before that, and recognizing for fashion swimwear, you have to get them early Right? Like, even though it may be a product for someone that's a little bit older, if you don't get front and center early on, they're never even going to care about you, and when they are at the point at which they can purchase you,
Morgan Decker 8:52
truly, people are a lot more loyal. Gen Z is definitely super deep in loyalty with their brands, and they really care about whether you're a strong brand, with sustainability and with the way that you operate. So we really try to just lean into that whenever we're speaking to younger audiences.
Samir Balwani 9:07
Yeah, that's perfect. That makes a lot of sense. How do you actually measure new customer acquisition, though? Because I know that with a long latency, it even makes it even more difficult to actually understand. You know, for example, I give you a very pointing question, how do you determine if someone is a new customer, lapse customer or repeat customer, when someone may only purchase from you once a year? Yeah,
Morgan Decker 9:29
that's the fun question I'm still trying to figure out. So we have a few ways we measure success, obviously, with our purchase latency. Sometimes we're relatively small, nimble team, so we lean into simplicity, so we can move a lot quicker. Like if I had a data team of even one or two people behind me, we would probably be a lot more strategic in terms of that definition, the way that we currently operate. We look at everything from a blended ROAs perspective, a blended em er perspective, a. Blended CAC perspective, we're obviously looking at the ratios between our new and returning customers across any sort of activations we have across the board, whether that be a specific promotional period or a specific launch. Sometimes we even go to drill down with specific styles for the product team to say, this product with new returning customers. So we're constantly looking at what that mix looks like. But when it comes to automating and looking at our marketing funnel, we primarily just lean into broad audiences overall, because we have enough newness. We have about 12 different collection launches a year where we really want to make sure that we expand that reach. Because from a post purchase survey perspective, even though we have quite an engaged email and SMS audience, a lot of people are reminded about Andie and our new launches through social, through search, so we don't want to exclude them from that. So we kind of measure it in a variety of different ways. It's an art and a science. So yeah, no,
Samir Balwani 10:56
that makes perfect sense. It's really interesting, because I think that there's this level of simplicity that makes things a lot easier to you know, it's always this context around, if I'm going to spend X percent of my budget to figure out what percentage I'm wasting, was it more or less than what I spent on figuring it out? And so sometimes, I think sometimes, just like the comfort of knowing is generally not worth it, to be very honest. So, and you know, for time wise, you and I are taping this in the middle of all the tariff craziness, which I hope by by the time that this gets published, that, you know, we're kind of over that. But that is the question that we keep getting asked, is, hey, this measurement tool, is it worth the dollar? Or would you rather have it as working dollars? And the answer is, I'd almost if the if our client on the other end is comfortable with trusting us that our their media is working, I would rather have it as working dollars, like the optimizations we generally make off of our measurement tools are, you know, small until the budgets are huge, and so I think that there is this level of simplicity that can make things a lot easier, for sure, absolutely. Yeah, you said it really well. You have a small team and limited resources. You have a lot going on. You are on a bunch of channels. You've got retention going on. You're interacting with and engaging with your product teams. You're doing data yourself. How do you prioritize? How do you prioritize where you spend your time, where you put your resourcing?
Morgan Decker 12:30
So I'm really lucky, because even though I am an internal like, performance team of one, I do have a much broader team. Like, I'm one of 17 people that works at Andie like we have people that are deep in product, that can help answer questions, and there's expertise in their right I have two agencies I work with, one for search and social, and another with CRM. You get really, really good at just trusting the people in your corner, delegating, and then when it comes to my plate, if it's not going to move the needle, it's not worth my time. So if there's something that's not instantly going to have an impact on what we're working on that day, it's not it just has to be set to the side. I have just in terms of growth coming here, to just move really quickly and learn how to break things. There's no room for perfectionism or hesitation. You just have to pick a path and go
Samir Balwani 13:21
that's really interesting. I love that because I think it's just good, is good enough sometimes, right? And it's just like kind of getting it done. I do. I am curious and fascinated to learn a little bit more about how you share your marketing data and the things that you're seeing with your product team, because I actually do think that that is like a unique perspective that not a lot of fashion marketers do, then they should be doing more of because the truth of the matter is, it's like you could have the perfect creative and the perfect ad campaign and the perfect email, and if the product is not interesting, no one's gonna buy it. And so how do you get that information back to your product team? How do you kind of help them figure out the next season and and you know, so on and so forth,
Morgan Decker 14:10
absolutely. So that has been a very interesting I didn't realize, like that was rare when I first started here, because this is my first job in fashion. So it kind of shows you the power of a fresh perspective. Depending on how you're trained as a marketer, just because you have someone that's in depth in one vertical doesn't mean they can't bring value from another. So because we are such a very tight knit team, all of us have constant communication. We're always in Slack. We have team wide meetings minimum once a week, and we're always just sharing what's performing best, because there's a lot of times when we'll have a collection launch, and every single Tuesday we'll meet and the product team will say, hey, this isn't performing well, or this is gangbusters, and I we just keep a live feedback loop. And I'll say, hey, we had an email highlighting this. Brand new novelty fabric that's really just outperforming every promo email we've sent over the last quarter that's super rare. Or we have this one leopard print that's really doing so well on social that we can't pause out this ad, even though we've sold out a specific style. So or we sometimes have certain collections where it's like, hey, this product isn't selling, and I'll say it's not resonating. We had to pause it out because we need to be really lean with our budget. So we can try to lean in CRM and try to do creative iterations, and then we work really closely together with the E comm team. How is it purchased? We'll work with the brand and the influencer team. Is there anyone we can gift this to to get some fresh content, just because we are super nimble and we're really collaborative, there's always someone that is an expert in something where we can just put our heads together. So I think that's kind of the beauty of the stage and the size that we're at right now, is it really fosters an environment for collaboration where everyone can kind of pitch in.
Samir Balwani 15:58
Yeah, that's really interesting. And kind of, I think the hardest part that it seems like you have solved is getting people to realize that sometimes it's not marketing's fault. And so I think that that is probably some of that sometimes the biggest uphill battle, because everyone assumes that you build it and they will come and that's just not the realities of the situation. So So I mean, from my perspective, it sounds like you've, you've created a really great system and and eco, a great ecosystem within, you know, Andie swim for from a marketing perspective, I'd love to just better understand if you were looking at a new marketing leader or somebody that maybe has been in their role, they're just coming into fashion. What advice would you give them, especially if they've got limited resources, how, where do they get started? What do they do? Just like, what would you tell them?
Morgan Decker 16:49
I would say, go in with an open mind and ask a lot of questions. I had a lot of assumptions that were totally wrong when I first entered this new vertical. And also, just because something's built some way doesn't mean it's right. And just not be afraid to speak up and provide your perspective. At the end of the day, marketing is a resource to the rest of the team. Like at the end of the day, like if you're not giving those feedback loops, if you're not speaking up, if you're not sharing your findings, it's not going to help anyone. So speak up, ask questions. Be curious. Like you're working with a very smart team, like they wouldn't have gotten as far as they have if you didn't have a smart team. Sometimes, when you come in as a marketer with a fresh perspective, and you're like, why is it this way? It's for a reason, but that doesn't mean it can't change. So just be open minded and be curious.
Samir Balwani 17:39
I love that. Yeah, I think one of the things is just this assumption that the way it's done is being done for a reason and because it is the best way to do it. I think one of the biggest questions I tell so, you know, whenever we hire someone new, a query, the thing that I tell them, because I meet everyone that gets hired, and my first meeting with them is you have a unique perspective in that you get a chance to look at all the things that we do and tell us what we're doing wrong. And so I want you to have that view and ask like, is this? Does this need to happen? Because the other question is, just where, where did we set a process to solve a problem that's no longer a problem, but that process is still continuing right? And so then you end up with all this wasted overhead and wasted time. The best is, the best example is, well, we fill out that Excel spreadsheet every morning, and you're like, does anyone look at that Excel spreadsheet? Like, is anyone paying attention to it? But, but, you know, it just gets caught in the process and so, like, those are the kinds of things that I'm like, let's, let's make sure that we know why we're doing it and what we're doing it for, yeah, I love that. So thank you for that. You know, we've talked about a lot of limited resources. You talked about App loving, which is, you know, hot right now. What other emerging trends, technologies are you really excited about? Where are you like, kind of looking ahead,
Morgan Decker 18:56
absolutely. So we have a relatively lean budget. So we operate as a very we get really creative with the way that we do testing and the way that we're optimizing our channels. We have a relatively simple funnel because of our smaller budget. So we can get we get really creative with just like free trials, negotiations for case studies and that type of thing. App loving is they were providing a $10,000 credit a few months ago. So we're finally able to pull the trigger on that now to be able to test going to our peak season, which we're super excited about. We have a few other partners that have been really generous with their time and energy to be able to collaborate with us and validate early stage products. So we've been working with companies that are smaller than us or at a similar size, and they really need logos to help them grow as well. So there's a new server side tracking solution called Restore AI that we've also been testing that's. Provided a really great incremental copy lift to our CRM program recently, which has been super cool. There's a landing page vendor called niche who has also been able to collaborate with us for some trials that we've gotten live over the last two weeks that we're super excited about. And then we also have our MTA partners, fosfa, and they've been really instrumental in terms of validating and testing a lot of these new channels to see what can we continue with, and what's driving an incremental impact for us, rather than what's just something else getting caught in the mix. So a lot of new things, a lot of exciting things, just fostering relationships and making sure everyone wins.
Samir Balwani 20:46
Yeah, I love that perspective. The idea of everyone winning is absolutely key. It's the only way you kind of get to where you need to get to and put good stuff out there to get great stuff back. So Morgan, I could talk to you forever. I love chatting with you. I learn so much every time we chat so but thank you so much for joining us today. If someone wants to find you online, where can people learn more about you?
Morgan Decker 21:08
You can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Morgan Decker at Andie Swim.
Samir Balwani 21:14
amazing. Thank you so much. Awesome.
Morgan Decker 21:17
Thanks. Samir.
Outro 21:21
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