How to Evaluate AI for Marketing ROI Without Chasing Hype

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Noir Podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season where we are getting unstuck. We're moving forward, getting the forward momentum that everybody wants to have at the beginning of the year. We are the Developer Noir Podcast. We are also known as Building Better Developers. I am Rob Brodhead, known only as Rob Brodhead as far as I know, and I am one of the founders of Developer Noir, also the founder of RB Consulting, where we help you leverage technology, AI, and build yourself a roadmap for success for your business. We help you make sure that you're doing the processes and the procedures and the design first instead of just jumping into some tools. Good thing and bad thing. The good thing is that I've had a really good start of the year. It's one of these times where it's like sometimes the start of the year just you make a bunch of commitments and the next thing you know, January 2nd occurs and it's like it's a train wreck. This year's actually done pretty good. I've had a pretty good settle into the year. Things are moving smoothly. Bad thing is I'm sitting here doing the podcast by myself again. It is, yes, Michael and I have all kinds of back and forth, but it is nice having that second person there to sort of help you out when you stumble and fall. And yes, I am poking him because he's going to be listening to this and he's going to say, oh, darn. So he knows he's missed. It's not because I'm picking on him as much. We're going to continue this time our discussion with Mickey Wong and really had a great time. It's one of these that you talk to you look at the you get somebody on as a guest and you see what they do and where they're coming from and you don't get the whole story. So we have these conversations and this is where we do. And it's really somebody is very much a, you know, as they would say, one of me hint day, one of these people that have gone through the same kinds of things I've done, the same trials and some of the same procedure trials and tribulations, even although in a very different line of work and things like that, but has a track record that is very familiar to me. So it's been a fun conversation and I look forward to the next part of this. So pencils up, take some notes because we do have some some really interesting things if you are going to get into that, like start your own business mode and what that looks like. She shares some really good insights and some of her stories as well. So here we go back with part two with Mickey. So your services more graphic design and things of that nature or do you have a lot more technical sort of back end? Early development. So, yeah, we're very different from traditional full service marketing agencies. We don't do any creative work. We only focus on technology. So with the implementation, migration, development and whatnot. So we only focus on the back end portion and we partner with a lot of other design agencies or even the internal design team or UX team to work together. And also we work with their internal tech development team too. But a lot of times we are the development team for some companies where we are a subset of their development team. So we only focus on technology portion. Excellent. So you so is that how you because you said you sort of drifted into media before before you started the companies you got out there and we're looking at the problems to solve. So how do you from a technology point of view is how do you see that as a look like some of the changing problems that you see? And actually, I guess now I guess we'll have to go there a little bit is like how has it changed over the 10 years that you've been doing this? How have you seen a change in that that digital marketing landscape? I think it's changing a lot because they've all with lately. I mean, I almost don't want to even bring up but then I have to bring up is like AIs kind of into the picture. So with that, a lot of people try to adapt it. But I feel like at this point, they it's still a hype for them because they want it, but they don't know what to do with it, like especially in the because we do we work with marketing department a lot for these companies because we're doing more like a CMS and they're publishing. So it's usually marketing related departments that we work with. So they do a lot of campaigns or like user engagements and like how to get more ROI or like whatever those kind of things on their websites. But now that there's AI in the picture, they feel like they're obligated to use it, but they don't know what to do with it. I was just recently reading about like I don't know if the actual percentage is correct, but like they are some are pretty much waiting to see what to do. Or some are just kind of they're ready to do it, but they don't know what to do it. Like there's like personalization and all these things like they hear all this word, so they feel like they are obligated to adopt it. But is it really helping? Is it really doing like is it really increasing ROI or is your customers or audience for your website really getting frustrated with it? It's like they don't know that yet because like they're not that much data into it and also they don't necessarily know how to use it properly. So there's a little bit of a weird gap where like I feel like it's a weird phase right now that like they feel like they need to use it, but they're not. But there has been a lot of little things like that. So like if there's any changes in like Google, changes on like different way they do their ads or something. There's always that along the way, but this one is a little I get like it's more current. It felt like it's longer. Yeah. And I think I guess maybe it's just because we're in the middle of it, but very much that it seems like everybody's in this like I hear all these great things and this is what it should do for me, but I don't know how to get there. I don't know what that is. And I don't know anybody that can you know that's doing that necessarily. So there's just yeah, it's a lot of yeah, very much the hype thing. It's like it's coming. It's going to be great. You should be doing it right now. And it was like, OK, well, what does that mean? How would I do that? What does that that look like? How is it going to help me? It's like they don't necessarily know exactly that. And also, like there's a lot of investment going on to this. So people think like, oh, this might be the good thing. But is it good for you? But they can't really tell because they don't know what they're looking for. Yeah, that's probably the worst possible situation being is when people are ready to put a lot of money into something, but they really don't know what it's like. You got a lot of money, but you don't know where you're going to spend it. So now it's like that's not a good comment recipe for the best decisions to be made. It's just like, yeah, you don't want to hold it in your pocket too long. It's like, no, maybe you should. And actually think about what you're doing before you go. Just spend a lot on AI and say, OK, well, we've put a lot of investment, a lot of AI. Well, OK, well, what were you expecting to get out of it? You know, it's like it gets back to the the nuts, the brass bolt, brass tacks of it of like, OK, you invested this. Well, what was your return on investment? And how are you going to measure that? Yeah. And then also, I think I heard this like recently on my yesterday's meeting or something. Some people like they don't feel like they want to implement it because by the time they roll it up, it's going to be outdated. But that's kind of like because like it gets outdated faster these days. So like there's some some like, but that's also catch 22. Like, but you still need to do something. But that's like, yeah, that was like interesting dilemma that I was hearing yesterday on that meeting. And I wonder because I heard some of this years ago and I'm wondering if you guys ran into it as well, because you're in the the WordPress space and that is that you run into people and it's like, well, they they go and get a theme and then it would be, you know, last year's theme. And now it's just like, you know, any design kind of thing, you sort of have these like seasons and these like the hot thing for the year, the new hot technology. You're seeing a lot of that. Did you see a lot of that where people were sort of like hesitating little or almost worse? This is you get to the end of a project and people are like, oh, there's this new thing out and there's this great new, you know, there's a new WordPress release and it does A, B and C. And so now we have to upgrade everything to take advantage of the latest. Or were you able to sort of lock it in and say, OK, this is what we're doing for the project and then come back at a version two of it. It's actually easier to lock in because WordPress is one thing they're good at is that they're very good at backwards compatibility. So you don't have to like even if you upgrade to the next version, it doesn't break the things that you already built. So it's like slightly different from different technology, because whereas like if there's a new version come out, you have to do the full migration. There are other CMS that has to be done that way. But WordPress wasn't isn't the case. So it's a little easier to go to the next version and adapt the new thing that they're rolling out without breaking what you already built. So it's been a little more smoother transition. So it's easier to do version two or whatever. And also like technology, too, it's like it's a slightly different type of technology. So you can still adapt it. It's like it's how much you want to spend time on it is usually the question. Time and money is usually the question, but everything can be done. It's just like it's always like the thing that we always talk about. It's how important is it for you to adopt this? Like, do you know how beneficial it would be for you in order to adopt it? Because it's it's at the end of the day, it's just a matter of time and money, how much you're willing to spend for that feature that you want to adopt in. So it was a little more smoother transition into adopting the latest and greatest or for that end. Yeah, that's always that that's a common question and the kind of thing was like, well, can you do this? Like, yes, we can. But do you really want us to? Because this is how long it's going to take or the risk or the cost involved. And sometimes the thing is like, we really got to have that. And then when you put a price tag and a time frame to it, they go, we really don't need that. You know, like it changes, could change the answer very, very quickly. But it actually gives you like a good perspective that you really need it. Then you'll know. That's true. If they if you keep adding to the price and the cost and they're just like, yes, we need it, we need it. You're like, OK, definitely they need it. You know, you can tell them when this is critical to their their business moving forward. You also mentioned like Google and some of those kinds of things. So do you just our currency? Are you guys are you guys sort of abstracted from the latest update and like the, you know, how Google is changing their their SEO rulings and things like that? Or is that definitely one of the things that is that you're constantly working with that to figure out, like making sure that you are aligning with the latest SEO search engine changes across Google and all the other people that matter? Yeah, we have to be aligned with that because that's where as us as like that consulting or giving them directions of what needs to be done for the people who might not be technical or not aware of this. We need to let them know that these are these are the things that you need to be aware of. Like if there's any new rules that you need to be abide by, like we need to let them know. Because like if you have an audience in California, there are certain things that you have to do on your website. You have to put different Fookie consent or whatever GDPR and all those rules. We have to let them know that you have to have it. So that's yes. So we need to be always be aware of what's changing on that on that end. Well, what do you do to keep your yourselves and your staff current on that, on the latest things and the latest rules that you have to work with, particularly and I guess it's sort of an addition to that question. Do you have international clients or do you have Californians is always its own little beast? But do you have, you know, other like EU and their regulations and other things that you have to keep up with? Not necessarily from the companies that are only there. It's more like global companies or they have offices in different countries. So that's when we have to let them know about like all these other rules. And it's more it's due diligence for us. So we kind of for owners we do. But like, yeah, it's actually a good call that we probably need to have some mechanism for our to be aware of it because they when they delve into different projects, they naturally know because they have to do that. But yeah, that's a good call. Like one thing I should probably might have we might have overlooked place to be always aware of it, because I know like most of the the people that we work with, they're naturally curious or they do. They're pretty up to date with current affairs and what needs to be done for their job. So like it was I guess it was more of a we've been lucky with a bad end. Well, I mean, it's a it's a perfectly I think it's a perfectly logical answer to say, well, we just do our due diligence for any given project. And so we're going to go. Like you said, I think you some of it you get because you've just done this project before. So, for example, if you've you know, you built a website that had to follow all of the California rules last week, then all right, you're you're up to speed with it. Now, if you jump suddenly jump to, you know, India and you've got to deal with their stuff, then you're like, OK, I'm going to learn. But now the next place I do, you know, the next site I do that's going to be in India, then we already know that. So, you know, sometimes that's you can't keep ahead enough because you don't know what's ahead of you. So it's easier to just sort of like take it as you go and just make sure that you you slow and steady as you go into it and are able to do that research. Yeah. And also, like since with all the experience that when you have to someone comes and then we have to open like a website in this region that we'll do a couple of things like as a checklist, because like, you know, just make sure that is there anything that we need to do? Is there anything on the compliance side or anything that we should be aware of? Those kind of things we do as a checklist. So even if you didn't know and we weren't we weren't aware that with that research, we probably have to figure out what needs to be done before they actually put their site out on that region. And since you're doing that, you live in this space, it's sort of a very consistent space as far as what you're delivering for customers. Do you have like a testing suites and validation automation that you use so that when you you spin up a you spin up a site and a solution for somebody and here here's what we've got. Do you have something you can do to sort of to test that and to say, yes, we've we're going through and basically we can check off all those things on our checklist that we do have, you know, we're responsive and we have, you know, alternate methods of navigation and all the different things that are out there that are, I guess, the the list of things that a good website does. Yeah, we have our own checklist. It's like it's not fully automated because like with every time you go to a different client, it's very custom to them. But there's like a general thing that we have as a checklist, even like on board or before before we even engage with the clients that we have all this list of questions that we need to be aware to start discovery and all that stuff. So we do have our internal checklist to go through it. And then during also usually there's like the initial checklist. But with once you get the actual engagement, there's like a whole discovery phase to figure out what needs to be done. And then also like during like the whatever the development cycle and then the QA cycle and all that stuff and UAT cycle. And after that actual launch, there's a launch checklist that we need to have for like basic things for the web publishing and also like depending on which CMS or which technology we're pushing it out, like what needs to be done on the hosting side? What needs to be done on the actual data side and all that stuff? And like if you have more things like third party integration, what needs to be done there on the CDN side and all these things that we have a checklist for and then depending on the client, there should be their custom list that they need to have before we actually put everything up. And after they launch, then we also have like a post launch items that we want to go through. And like, you know, so we do have like a phase and stages of cycle that we have to go through with a different list of things that we need to check off on. Since we have, like, as I said before, we have a lot of developers in our in our audience. And that's one of the things that I think a lot of people, a lot of developers struggle with is when they shift from being a developer that's that's part of a company organization and now they're they're shifting into more like whether they're consulting or they've got some sort of service or an agency that they work with is actually the the discovery phase is is getting that because a lot of times it's sort of given to you. It's been spoon fed you instead of having to go through that. So from that and and especially interested because if you've got you had an experienced co-founder, how is the how is that discovery phase evolved? How have you evolved that over the years as you've as you've worked with your clients? And I'm assuming you have I'm assuming it wasn't perfect from the start, but maybe I'm over over assuming. Yeah, I mean, I did have so before we started the company, we were I was pretty much doing the similar thing. So I had my clients like I was had my client base and I was taking over probably like 90 to 95 percent of WordPress clients are going through me anyway. So with that, I was learning through it initially from like, you know, my boss and whoever was more senior, like I'll be in the meeting together to learn about it. But as you put a lot of projects together, because I already have a lot of like a bigger sites, like I think Times or all these other companies with like a different structure and different team had I implemented different websites there. So from through that experience, there are common things that I need to know before starting a project. So those are the lists that we're gathering through that. And while it's smoothly transitioned into when we started it, because we were pretty much doing the similar thing. It's just with a different company name. So another one that is just because I've talked to a few founders lately and that as you've grown, is there what is the thing that was the hardest for you to to give up as you've grown as the company has grown? Like something that maybe you guys did early on that you've had to sort of like, you know, set aside because it was or either delegate or train somebody to do so that you can you can scale the company. I think it was also always that because I remember even when I was going to the management role and I was fast that was encouraging the people who are bringing up to into the management role. I always have to tell them like, you know, you have to delegate because I know you as a developer, I think it's naturally that you want to develop, but you have to let go of certain things that you're doing, especially you can't you'll kill yourself. You're going to do all these tickets to you and also try to manage people because like it's like there's no there's no way you can do it. I mean, if you want if you want your sanity to and then you really love this development more just assign one or two tickets and fade out. But don't put the same amount of tickets to your bucket when you have to manage the people as well. So that I always tell people that but I was not really good at it either. Especially like with the company and then also I think when you start a company because I'm technical there are a lot of times that I can just do it. But it's also twofolds too because I need to make sure that the person who's taking over has to learn. So like I need to be a little more patient about that. So like letting go of those was it's always a little bit of challenging. Like even if like this role switch a little bit I can still technically do the role sometimes faster. But it's the things that I remind other people I have to remind myself is like be patient. Let them do it because they need to learn so that they can you can move on to the next role. Yeah, I think that's the kind of constant thing that I still remind myself like let go. Move on to the next role and trust. I agree. Yeah, I think that's one of those hard ones where you know it. But doing it is different than knowing it. It's easy to tell somebody else is like, yeah, go do this. And then doing it yourself is the more challenging piece. Now, have you been able to stay technical or have you been able to I mean, you can still do it. You said that you've been able to stay technical on a regular basis. Have you really grown to the point where you've had to leave that behind? Yeah, I still stay technical for some clients. So like depending on different clients. So but that's also one of those things that we like the co-founder and I talked about because he's more he wants to do more hands on to. I think I felt like I let go a little better than he did. But I had to kind of constantly remind you. I was like, I think I mean, we've been very lean because we're both technicals and we can do a lot while if you have to have a turnover like that. But I think that was another reason that we were growing a little slower than than we initially thought. Because you have that option to lean on yourself. So like if we weren't technical, we'd probably try to hire and scale that way. Whereas we instead of hiring, we sometimes do it ourselves and we stay lean. But that means that we didn't hire people to scale to the next level enough. So I think it's always like a little bit of catching up on that because I mean, it worked out in some years and worked out and not not in some years because when we're so focused on on client hands on work. Other things, internal stuff falls behind. And I think this is probably like everyone's dilemma, especially with like the small companies, because when you have client work comes first and then like other internal thing that you need to do for the next quarter or whatnot. And that gets affected. So it's always like a little bit and catching up and learning to balance it was actually one of the one of the biggest learning thing that that we have to go through. Like, how did you super busy, you still have to put some time for your internal things for the next quarter planning or like whatever the next thing internally to make sure that future is not affected. So it was like a constant reminder. And that was like a harder thing to get adjusted because you have to be very forced to not not focus too much on one thing only. So is that how you sort of solve that problem? I promise you just you start putting it on the calendar and essentially said, OK, we've got a schedule. So it's got to get done. Yeah, yeah. It's like you kind of have to force it. For force it like we've got to get done. It doesn't matter. Yeah, sometimes that is the best way to get it. It's just like to say, OK, so it's going to plan for it. And, you know, it's got to get done and you get to the end of the week and go, oh, that's on my to do list. So we got to get it. Got to get it knocked out instead of kicking it forward to the next week or or further down the road. Yeah, we forced it on the calendar. It's like it's set. So we have to spend this time on the desk. So the calendar, it is you can't touch the calendar. Yeah, totally. Now, thank you so much for hanging out with us and sharing this. And for people that are out there and wanting to learn more about you guys, yourself and you guys, is what are some of the best ways for them to reach out for you and reach out and contact you? Probably LinkedIn, because we're my co-founder and are both very active on LinkedIn. The only actually only channel that we're active on, I suck at social channels. I wasn't really too good at it. So LinkedIn, it's like it's very similar. I'll send you the link, but it's very easy because my name is unique enough. It's my full name, Mickey Wong. And our website, Endeavor.io. Then you can find us from there. Contact us, we'll get to it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. Love having you here and sharing. And it's so it's fun to have somebody that's had an entrepreneurial journey that either some of our, you know, I think some of our people are either in the midst of or maybe considering or looking forward to and to hear some of the real world stories is always, you know, as a bonus. And it helps those who are struggling through it to know that, yep, that's I'm not the only person struggling through it. And for those looking ahead, it's like, oh, OK, I got to make sure I, you know, for example, maybe I should find myself a good mastermind group or, you know, somebody, some meetup group or something that is going to be able to give me that that community and that support. Yeah, yeah. That's actually a really good way to get to know and then like and see and learn from others. Well, I will thank you for your time and everybody else. Thank you for hanging out with us. And we will be back next time, probably with yet another interview, depending on how we slice these up. And Michael will be back as well, most likely. So you won't have to listen to just me. But as always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. They help businesses take control of their software by focusing on what matters most, quality, reliability and support you can count on. Find out more at EnvisionQA.com. Thanks for tuning in to the Develop the Newer Podcast, where we're all about building better developers and better careers. I'd love to hear your thoughts or feedback. So drop a note to info at DeveloptheNewer.com. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen. And remember, a little bit of effort every day adds up to a great success. Keep learning, keep growing, and we'll see you in the next episode.