Episode #65 – The Performance Marketing Spotlight with Dario Markovic

Marshall Nyman [00:00:02]:
Hello and welcome to the performance marketing spotlight. I’m your host, Marshall nyman, founder and CEO of Naimo Company. Each episode I bring you someone with deep experience in the performance marketing space where they share their career journey and insights about the industry. Today I have Dario Markovich. Welcome to the podcast, Dario.

Dario Markovic [00:00:23]:
Hi, Marshall. Thank you, thank you for having me. Excited to be here, excited to have you on.

Marshall Nyman [00:00:29]:
Let’s get right to it. How’d you get into the world of marketing?

Dario Markovic [00:00:34]:
Well, it’s a little bit of a weird story. So while I was studying back, I grew up in Switzerland, Europe and teacher was like, hey, yeah, I was good at marketing and then actually at finance I wasn’t as good. But then this teacher who’s really good is kind of teach me, but kind of, you know, counting finance. And he was really surprised for me being, you know, so good at catching things up and landing kind of the forefront of the students in finance, even though I didn’t like it. And he said like he should have a great career in finance, India, in Switzerland, finance. And I kind of kind of went into the finance world and, and yeah, I was kind of, yeah, I wasn’t happy there after time, even though my passion was marketing and slowly I kind of went out of that corporate world, started my own business. And the thing that I like to do, I was just mostly doing between other co founders was marketing and sales. And that’s what I kind of passion leads to really.

Dario Markovic [00:01:45]:
You know, when you, when you start to enjoy things, you start to learn, you start to dig, you start to apply. And that’s when I only went straight into digital marketing as about 2012, late of 2011. And yeah, that’s, that’s how I got got into it. Should have, should have been before. But yeah, there’s, there’s, I guess ways.

Marshall Nyman [00:02:13]:
Seems like most of my guests have just kind of stumbled into it. Not too many people are studying marketing and jumping into a marketing career.

Dario Markovic [00:02:23]:
Well, that’s true, that’s true. I’m definitely grateful to, I did take this, you know, road into finance. It’s definitely helpful.

Marshall Nyman [00:02:34]:
So you have that finance background, you have the marketing background and now you’re leading. Eric Javits as CEO. Would love for you to tell us how did you end up there?

Dario Markovic [00:02:46]:
Also a very interesting story. So I was still working or being in like my corporate career. I was traveling in South Africa, one of my favorite countries, in Cape Town, one of my favorite cities. I’m a white current wife, she’s from Chile, South America. So she’s Yeah, I met her and she wasn’t so keen. Living in Europe, I was like, okay, I just go to South America. Would be great to have a change, you know, learn a new language and new culture. So I moved to South America and then we yeah, created a lot of businesses together and then I’m one of the clients and we had an agency at the event, PR and marketing agency.

Dario Markovic [00:03:41]:
So Eric’s life partner is a celebrity in Chile so he hired us to do events and PR for him. So that’s why we kind of came into contact. It was years before I joined and we stayed in touch and in 2020 when Covid hit the brand, even though being then was it 35 years in business and wasn’t having any online presence and they were asking for my help or was the COVID with the Nordstrom and all the big wholesalers canceling the orders. Most of them had consignment. They’re like, okay, you know, we need help or we’re out of business. And yeah, we, we kind of, I kind of turned things fast around and then you know, that, that led me to kind of join as a CEO and then, you know, have partnership as well in the business.

Marshall Nyman [00:04:38]:
For anybody who isn’t familiar, tell us what is Eric Javits? What do you sell?

Dario Markovic [00:04:44]:
Yes. So Eric Chavez is outside known in the hot space. So we do mostly straw hats where we known for visors, straw visors, floppies, pockets. So we have really the who’s and who’s wearing the hat. The latest is who loves the hats. For years now it’s Melania Trump, the current first Lady. She’s worn it obviously inauguration where we, we made a lot of publicity and recently with the Queen visiting as well. And, and then throughout we had really going back Hillary Clinton back to, you know, the Queen of England to JLo.

Dario Markovic [00:05:36]:
I mean any, any Lady Gaga really everyone wore the hats and we have some of it on our website. But I think there’s thousands of celebrities also quietly wear the hats and just they love it. And it’s funny, we just started using a tool called outer signal where we could see, you know, who the. Who the folks are. That user has a. You’ll be surprised who bought it. So yeah, but that’s what we’re known for and we sell backs and shoes as well.

Marshall Nyman [00:06:11]:
I wouldn’t be surprised. Everybody needs a good hat. It’s always sunny somewhere.

Dario Markovic [00:06:15]:
So. That’s true, that’s true. It’s a bit of a premium price point I would say.

Marshall Nyman [00:06:22]:
But I think it’s interesting what you say is some of those people are influencers. Before influencers were really a thing.

Dario Markovic [00:06:29]:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I am. So we’re very. Yeah, there’s a lot of. So if I dig to boxes and boxes of magazines, it’s incredible who just, you know, in the 80s and 90s was using the hats. It’s just iconic. So yeah, we’re very grateful and honored to be part of the brand.

Marshall Nyman [00:06:54]:
So what does your digital marketing strategy look like now?

Dario Markovic [00:06:59]:
Well, I said we’re, we’re. It’s. I’ll start from the most obvious one, I guess. I don’t know if it’s obvious. I’d say for a fashion brand it might be sort of. So we’re meta LED brand. There’s no way around it and that where most of the budget goes to. It’s just, it’s just something very, very funny because we just, we have our biggest sale in May that was just.

Dario Markovic [00:07:29]:
And just ending. It’s a birthday sale for Eric. And every year you know, you want to test other channels or you want to push on Google and Meta because Google say we have a certain budget, we spend let’s say most of that budget between Meta and Google still meta being taking the bigger chunk but we always kill them both. And this year I was like we’re not scaling on meta on Google at all. So basically we just stayed same at Google as any other month and it was the best month and we, we think we, we closed at 20% higher than last month last year, same month which was the best month and everything on Meta. So it’s obviously maybe Google doesn’t like to hear that but it’s just, you know, we spent I think 100k this month and last month we did 200k during May again we, we still did, we still did significantly more than last year. So obviously 5x or 6x is meta but that tells you it’s still meta. That I would say drives the top of funnel through for sure.

Marshall Nyman [00:08:53]:
Well if you’re getting 5 or 6x return on meta I’m sure you’re going to continue investing. That’s a pretty strong roi. Definitely stronger than definitely hearing from some brands. Is there anything new that you’re testing outside of meta that you’re seeing good results with?

Dario Markovic [00:09:12]:
Not as aggressively. We’re testing all the time. We are getting better into TikTok always. We, we have tested this talk. It just didn’t work for us. Again, going back to other signal and going through the 160,000 pro buyers that we had in the last six years since we started with online. Even the brand again, it exists for 41 years. The average age is 58.

Dario Markovic [00:09:39]:
So I’m not sure if TikTok would be still a good channel. But we like to test like we had to test. We like to, you know, the idea is to catch new audiences. Pinterest and Bing have been always kind of just, you know, put it on retargeting only we have tested cold audiences there. We’ve burned a lot of money. Just doesn’t work for us again for. I’m saying for us because it might work for other brands, but it hasn’t worked for us then we’re testing Applovin now. I can’t tell you much because we’re just starting won’t give any kind of pain there.

Dario Markovic [00:10:27]:
And the same goes for modern tv. Now that we have the capabilities on doing AI commercials, it’s just more efficient to test that then instead of like, you know, trying to produce that commercial which might be, you know, thousand dollars and then you. You end up, you know, testing it might not work. So that’s kind of bringing customers into. Into the website. Obviously we’re affiliate as well. The affiliate world and then you’re. And it is very big for us.

Dario Markovic [00:11:04]:
So we just. We were in rock with him for many years and now I know their impact has kind of. There’s this merger. So we work with a lot of publishers on racket and obviously from top to bottom of funnel, some are fishing, some are, you know, they’re just attributing too much to their clicks and then. Yeah, link B. There’s, there’s other, other channels that were surreal. Like we’re doing a lot of things. Yeah.

Dario Markovic [00:11:41]:
But still, yeah, if you go back, meta is the lead. Without meta we have. It wouldn’t be significant at all.

Marshall Nyman [00:11:48]:
Yeah, it’s how most people get off the ground. I think the nice thing about CTV right now is as you mentioned, the biggest challenge for a lot of our brands in the past was just getting good video for these episodes. And so like now it’s quick to get this built out with AI so there’s like a much lower barrier of entry to some of these platforms. So I think CTV is like a really interesting channel right now. I know a lot of brands are looking to test that. Are you doing anything on the influencer marketing side or how does that look?

Dario Markovic [00:12:21]:
Yeah, actually we do. So we, we were using LTK now for many years, linked to Rakuten and we’re scaling, I would say three Years ago we did not have many influencers per month on a monthly basis and we were scaling kind of every year more and more. Now we use a mix between ltkin Shop my and we did about 40 to 50 influencers between campaigns gifting on a monthly basis. Which is, which is a good start I would say a good volume to start with. And we’re seeing great results now again it goes back to attribution. Shop My likes to I guess a little bit maybe over attribute sometimes but generally we do see a spike up. I don’t want to. And you want to be out there.

Dario Markovic [00:13:20]:
So we’re, we’re. Those two are kind of the leading platforms and we use some of the platforms such as Creator Co and we’ve used different in the last few years. But I would say those two are kind of the leaders right now for us.

Marshall Nyman [00:13:35]:
How is AI impacting what you’re doing on the marketing side?

Dario Markovic [00:13:40]:
It’s huge. It’s huge. Not just marketing but everything. But specifically in marketing it’s, it’s just starting off with creative. You just much, you can just pump out creatives much faster which you can test, which you can again go into new channels which you weren’t able to do before. So creative for us as being a fashion brand, being a visual storyteller, it’s super important. So I think it’s key. AI has but then it goes not just creative, it goes to copy, it goes to creating strategies, strategies in general, how we want to approach things, analytics on the marketing side as well using AI.

Dario Markovic [00:14:36]:
So it’s a real game changer especially for smaller brands such as ours that you know, I said all the brands that are 20 plus that I still consider are small. Even the smaller, I mean the smaller you are more useful the more you can get a user. Because we had budget obviously for photo shoots, but shoots if you can create the same quality for a fraction of the budget then it’s a no brainer.

Marshall Nyman [00:15:09]:
Yeah. If the ads are almost like dynamic and based on the user. So like for me maybe they know I like green and so when they’re going to show me a ad the person is wearing green clothing or maybe there’s like a certain lifestyle that they know that person’s gonna be more in line with. Let’s show them that lifestyle image where somebody else would show them a different. So I think like the future can get pretty wild on how granular even each ad can be for each individual and so maybe like hyper targeted ads, even though we’ve kind of gone away with it with some of the stuff with cookies. Like maybe we’ll get back to that. It’s like people actually want you to know like what their browsing history is because it’s beneficial to serve someone a more targeted ad. I’m actually for cookies.

Marshall Nyman [00:15:55]:
I think it’s, it’s good to give that information. I want a targeted ad, I don’t want an ad for somebody else. So like it’s okay to know a little bit of my browsing history.

Dario Markovic [00:16:02]:
You know, I mean who wants a, who wants a. I mean do you, are you into detergents? Like do you want to wake up and look at you know, an untargeted ad that is just taking your time and screen time, screen space. And if you’re in market for something, I mean I’m all, all what you’re saying. If you’re in market for something, I want to get bombarded with offers, I want to get with options to you know, maybe there’s just. I was looking at one or two companies and then I was approached from you know, hey, there’s a 50% off, it’s the same product. Or you want to test us. Just an example obviously. But who, who doesn’t want that? I mean this, the whole privacy thing is to be honest, I get it from perspective but, but I want to, I want to get targeted yads that, that I like or in market or interest.

Dario Markovic [00:17:00]:
I don’t just get ads then. And at the end who, who, who is the benefiter? Those that have.

Marshall Nyman [00:17:06]:
I, I personally don’t get it because I think like they’re trying to protect like privacy but it’s like browsing history isn’t like that private. Like there’s a lot more things that are more important to protect. And like the people that put like GDPR in place or any of this stuff are like you know, old school politicians. Like when you hear like people talking about meta or any of these tech companies on the hill, like you know there’s just like such a big disconnect. So like for then, for, hey, you know, like we gotta hide this, this browsing data. Like you know, it sounds like good to them but they don’t really know what, what decisions they’re making. So I think hopefully that’ll start to open back up and they won’t be as kind of regulated it is right now because the end of the day like you know, it’s just browsing data, it’s just your history on the web and most people are downloading a million apps on their phone and not so worried about the information that they’re sharing with all these things. So, like, it sounds good in theory, but I think people aren’t that protected at the end of the day.

Dario Markovic [00:18:06]:
Exactly. And it’s like, it’s like, hey, you, you’re sheep, you’re. You need protection. I mean, you, you can take your own decision and kind of. I get it. I’m, I’m all for it. I mean, I’m from Europe and Europe is notorious and like, I don’t know, heck, what they’re doing, it’s kind of, they like this history and I want to get into, back, back into this stone age. I, I know what’s the goal? But I agree with you.

Dario Markovic [00:18:33]:
And then, and especially, I guess we’re, we’re marketers, so, you know, we, we live and breathe that. But, but yeah, medicine makes sense.

Marshall Nyman [00:18:44]:
What’s keeping you up at night? What’s exciting you?

Dario Markovic [00:18:50]:
So I’d say AI. Currently. Or. Currently in the last few months, just being so exciting that. And yeah, I’ve lost a lot of sleep, a lot of nights, but just, it couldn’t get away from Claude. And you know, you wake, you look at, you know, it’s five in the morning and you’re still testing and doing things. So I haven’t felt for a very long time how I feel with AI. It’s very, very exciting.

Dario Markovic [00:19:23]:
But then generally there’s this, you know, very anxious person, you know, diagnosed with, you know, hd. So it’s like always, you know, you’re always kind of looking for, to, to get ahead, to not lose things. So you’re, you’re trying to hustle. Sometimes it’s just too, too much and you lose focus, unfortunately. But, but at the same time, you’re, you’re always looking for, you know, ways. I think that has led us to, in a way to grow to 4x the revenue of the company in the past six years. But at the same time, but I think that this is, this is the AI. It’s, it’s what currently doesn’t let me sleep.

Marshall Nyman [00:20:16]:
It’s the same problem I have. I think my ADD mind, I finally find focus towards the end of the day when it’s quiet at night. And that’s when my brain really just gets into a race. And last night it was 12:30 and I literally had to peel myself away from my office. And so, yeah, sometimes you just get to a place when you’re just like, wow, I think I have a big idea, I’m working on something and I’m just not going to bed anytime soon, so hopefully run to some other big ideas. Well, I really appreciate you joining the podcast this week. Some really great insights into your background and what you’ve been doing at Eric Javits. What’s the best way for listeners to connect with you?

Dario Markovic [00:20:59]:
LinkedIn. They can connect me through LinkedIn. I think it’s the best way. Obviously I use Instagram as well, but I think just connect and I’m very active on LinkedIn and I do answer a lot of messages, sometimes delayed, but I do answer and that’s the best way to connect with me.

Marshall Nyman [00:21:19]:
Awesome. Well, it’s the best way to connect with me as well. I love LinkedIn. Great place to connect with people. Again, thank you to Dario for joining this episode and to our producer Leon Sockin. If you’ve enjoyed this content, please give us a like and follow. Thank you for listening in. I’m Marshall Nyman, host of the Performance Marketing Spotlight and founder and CEO of Nymon Company, signing off.

Marshall Nyman [00:21:46]:
Thank you and have a great one.