Derek Booth is the Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships for Justuno, a premium on-site conversion automation platform.
Serving as a pseudo virtual sales assistant for a website, Justuno helps eCom brands convert site visitors into actual leads and sales while also converting existing leads from SMS campaigns, email campaigns, and other investment channels used to drive visitors to a website.
We sat down with Derek to jam on all things eCom partnerships, including:
- Why partnerships are essential in today’s eCom landscape
- How brands can profit from using ShoppingGives and Justuno in tandem
- What actually makes a successful partnership, for both partners and consumers
The Core Drivers of an Effective Partnership
Derek points to three major benefits that Justuno has derived from B2B partnerships, specifically the platform’s link to ShoppingGives.
1. A Source of Value
First and foremost, Derek considers B2B partnerships a vehicle for driving pure metric growth and value for merchants.
2. Enriching Internal Teams
Second, partnerships have presented the opportunity to educate Justuno employees on the larger eCom space, specifically new, influential pockets within social impact.
This in turn has enabled career development and advancement opportunities, as well as created more valuable operators in client work, meaning stronger client acquisition and retention.
3. Corporate Social Impact
Derek recognizes that many of today’s consumers, especially those from younger generations, seek out brands that are notable for sustainability or social responsibility efforts.
That’s where ShoppingGives comes in. Throughout Justuno’s ongoing two-year partnership with ShoppingGives, the company can rest assured that they’re playing a part in giving back.
“ShoppingGives is an extremely communicative and knowledgeable team to work with. Their work will be a priority for all brands in the next decade and onward.”
Why Product Synergy Matters
As for what actually constitutes a strong partnership, Derek highlights a handful of criteria:
- Is this partner easy to work with?
- Do we share alignment on corporate missions and objectives?
- Can this partner help Justuno meet our goals as we grow and develop?
- Do these products have synergy that can provide value to our client base?
Product Synergies
While Justuno’s core product has clear synergies with email and SMS solutions, ShoppingGives remains a newer and more outside-of-the-box tool in the eCom enablement space, leading Derek to view the impact platform as part of a far larger growth plan to come.
Complementary Missions
Meanwhile, Justuno’s positioning as a solution for supercharging marketing efforts gives clients the ability to more intelligently leverage their tools and initiatives.
This aligns well with ShoppingGives’ mission of speaking to the growing importance of social impact in recent years.
As the Gen Z user base grows in spending power and vows to vote with their wallets, merchants will need to consider how to best reach this new generation of online purchasers.
“Consumers no longer purchase from a brand just because they like what they’re selling. Instead, they buy from brands that can represent who they are.”
Events, Conferences, and Co-Marketing Campaigns
The average eCom partnership is much more than overlapping clients or overlapping tech.
Rather, good partnerships must be rooted in genuine two-way relationships, aimed at building better products and improving both companies’ services to attain growth goals.
In this vein, Justuno and ShoppingGives have executed multiple successful co-marketing efforts, from e-books to webinars to co-hosted industry conference events.
Derek emphasizes the seamlessness of running these campaigns alongside the ShoppingGives marketing teams, especially the team’s open communication and friendliness.
That openness has also bled into their strategic standpoints, he explains, as ShoppingGives regularly considers how to not only grow their own company but also drive value to Justuno.
“You can have the perfect solution and name recognition. But the trust in a partnership is essential to truly unlock opportunities and use cases.”
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Social Impact: Your Brand’s New X-Factor
In terms of the donation product itself, Derek calls ShoppingGives the added incentive that may be the necessary last step to push more of your shoppers through the end of the buyer funnel.
When it comes down to deciding between Company X and Company Y — both of whom might make, for instance, affordable t-shirts — the deciding factor could be that one option happens to be more sustainable or comes with proof of donation to a cause in need.
Having just one overlay or popup message with a call to action from ShoppingGives on your checkout page could be the push that cements your brand as one worth supporting in your buyer’s mind.
Even more, Derek highlights that ShoppingGives enables Justuno to deliver use cases in creative ways that may strengthen a brand’s marketing presence.
As a result, this partnership and integration positions Justuno as a strategic consultant that can provide impact-driven solutions to help a brand stand out and convert within the flooded market.
“ShoppingGives has essentially been the perfect B2B partner to integrate with. They’re present with the times and know where our buyers are going.”
Maximizing Conversions: The Justuno Way
Derek explains that the Justuno solution only works if a brand has all other facets of its marketing efforts dialed in.
A brand can't expect to adopt Justuno and see success while, for example, not having a solid email marketing presence or a retargeting strategy for ads.
Justuno will therefore advise clients on what their brand can do outside of pure conversion efforts, including looking at:
- Expanding their overall reach
- Leveraging Justuno’s technology and relationship partners
- Improving all teams, from customer service to operational efficiency
By extension, those companies which tend to make the most out of a combined Justuno and ShoppingGives partnership are DTC eCom enterprises.
“At Justuno, we’re empowered to make these recommendations because our solution is just icing on the cake of everything it takes to run a DTC business.”
Three Benefits of Using ShoppingGives & Justuno
By leveraging ShoppingGives and Justuno in tandem, brands can expect to see broad improvements across metrics including:
- Heightened order values
- Greater overall conversion health
- Heightened client acquisition and retention
- Reduced browse and cart abandonment rates
Derek also takes us through specific features and respective results below.
Gamification
Gamification improves lead capture through SMS and email channels.
- Gamified experiences typically lead to greater engagement rates.
- Lead capture rates increase, on average, from 5% to 7%.
- Meanwhile, SMS and email lists grow by as much as 15%.
Segmentation
User segmentation and targeting also drive key areas of improvement, including:
- Improved CACs on ad channels
- Greater overall conversion rates
- Greater email lead capture and SMS capture
- Reduced browse and cart abandonment rates
Personalization
The ability to then personalize shopper experiences based on past purchasing behavior allows for better product recommendations and a more tailored overall experience, meaning:
- Direct impact on conversions
- Subsequently increased order values
“Brands can be smarter about leveraging solutions to maximize users’ intent to purchase. And it can be easily automated, making life simpler for the merchant.”