HomeDigital IconsInterview with Rob Van Nuenen from Channable

Interview with Rob Van Nuenen from Channable

Team eCommerce Next interviewed Rob Van Nuenen from Channable to get more insights on 2021- Year in Review. Following is our interview with him:

What was your view going into 2021 knowing what 2020 had gone through?

Going into this year, we really did not know what to expect. A big driver for us in the past has been events, in-person communications and networking to increase brand awareness in our emerging markets. As we pivoted to an online “everything” model, we did not know how fast certain industries would adapt.

Any assumptions we had about the industries we serve being unresponsive were unfounded. After the first few months, everyone adapted quite well to working from home. What did surprise us was 2020 to 2021. We expected the explosive growth of our market to level out a bit (more over the year), but this growth seems to be here for the long run. The transition to get online and the growth in e-commerce and Channable has not stopped. Now looking back on two years of change, we know the shift to e-commerce is here to stay. This will only grow as people and businesses get more comfortable online.

As the e-commerce landscape started to get a bit more crowded, we noticed that the reason new clients came to us was to help them stand out from the competition. I mean this in a few different ways. First, e-commerce advertising does not just mean a web shop and Google Shopping anymore. It means a more focused multi-channel strategy that requires an overarching view with insights to successfully sell your product(s). Second, with the rise of social channels and marketplaces, digital data distribution became a lot more complicated. Meaning, that the original online shop data sources needed to be organized, optimized and fine-tuned for each channel to create the desired ad results for our clients. These challenges led to many of our customers requiring deeper data insights into their ads to have a better Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) or Profit on Ad Spend (POAS) marketing strategy.

Channable had a significant surge in growth in 2021 in terms of people and customers. What do you attribute your success?

Well, Covid-19 over the past year did have some interesting effects on our business. It made people more aware of the importance of online selling, pushing businesses to allocate a much higher contribution of online ad spend vs. offline – resulting in more revenue being driven by online sources. Because Channable is scalable by default, we mostly saw a group of new customers that would not have normally advertised so heavily in e-commerce or would have needed product syndication tools (like ours) to manage their channels.

The push in 2020 was to get online meaning building an online presence via platforms like Shopify and Squarespace, but the next question on every retailer’s mind was where to advertise. This is when Channable provides the next step in the e-commerce business strategy – multichannel product advertising and distribution. Our unique offerings of feed management and PPC automation were very attractive to many retailers and marketers ready to take their online strategies further.

As e-commerce grows significantly each year, what new developments are you looking at in 2022 and why?

Well, we do have some exciting news! With the success of the past few years and our own internal preparations, we are now looking to further develop the North American market. This has already started with the opening of our US office in New York City. We see this market significantly growing moving forward. With our North American expansion, we are also focusing our development on the needs of that specific market, with more announcements further into 2022.

What are some of the benefits of product data feeds that digital marketers today need to capitalize on more in your view?

Well as I mentioned earlier, many of our clients are utilizing more and more data insights to drive their ROAS marketing strategy and increase ROI. The ROAS metric is calculated to enable companies to assess the value of their ads as well as compare them with each other. Creating hyper-relevant ads can often seem like an impossible task – especially when you have multiple accounts with large product catalogs. But many people do not realize they are sitting on a goldmine of data if they can organize and decipher it properly. With a product feed management solution, this information can be used to drive advertising decisions and even generate the ads themselves based on the original product information in little time.

What are some of the common mistakes you see marketers make when working with large e-commerce clients?

All I can say is work smarter not harder. At a certain point, you cannot scale and handle more clients or ads if you are doing the work manually. Look and see what solutions you can utilize to help support your workflow and advertising strategy.

About Rob Van Nuenen

Rob Van Nuenen, Channable’s co-founder and CEO, is a progressive leader focused on leveraging emerging technologies. His deep knowledge of technology delivers top e-commerce results for global digital marketing agencies, brands, and online retailers.

Rob’s experience and reputation are built on a successful track record of over 15 years in the SaaS, IT, and retail industries. Now, leading Channable, widely recognized as one of the fastest-growing e-commerce technology companies, Rob and his team power sales and optimize e-commerce performance with actionable insights for SMBs and leading retailers around the world including: The Disney Store, Philips, and Samsung among others.

Rob holds a BSc from the University of Utrecht.

About Channable

Channable provides an intelligent, scalable and simple-to-use solution for data feed management and PPC automation enabling online retailers, brands and agencies to sell, market and advertise their products globally. Spanning hundreds of directories, search engines, eCommerce sites and social networks, Channable powers sales and optimizes e-commerce performance with actionable insights to ensure peak performance. With over 6,000 clients worldwide using its product data feeds connections, price comparisons, order synchronization and affiliate platforms, Channable connects online retailers and marketers with global marketplaces, including Amazon, Google Shopping, Facebook and Microsoft Advertising.

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