Learn more about McGaw.io at: https://www.mcgaw.io
Learn more about UTM.io at: https://www.utm.io
Find Dan McGaw on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcgaw/
JC: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Future of Biz Tech. I’m your host, JC Granger. And I have another fantastic guest on the show today. And if you end up loving this episode, please show your love and appreciation by following this podcast wherever you’re listening, be sure to give it a five star review, preferably with a cool comment, because that is how other techies like you and me find cool podcasts like this. So today, I have the founder and CEO of McGaw.io, and UTM.io, which we will talk about, Dan McGaw, thank you so much for being on the show. Dan, tell the audience a little bit about yourself. And what is it that you guys do?
Dan: Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me. And thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Dan McGaw, the co founder of McGaw.io and UTM.io. You know I’m a marketing technology and marketing analytics executive, I’ve been at this for over 20 years. So I got my start back in 1998, sending mass emails since before there was mass email. So I’ve just been around for a long time doing this type of stuff. Before starting these companies. I was the head of marketing at kissmetrics, one of the pioneers in marketing analytics. So I’ve just been around the block. I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff based here in Orlando, Florida, where it’s a super, super hot day today. But you know, I wouldn’t live anywhere else, so..
JC: That’s awesome. You know, it’s funny, you bring up email, which we’re gonna come back to here and a couple questions. But the first thing I want to ask is, you know, let’s talk specifically about UTM.io. What is UTM.io you know, who do they serve? Like, who is your perfect client? And what problems are you solving with that software?
Dan: Yeah, so UTM.io is a campaign link management products. So basically, whenever you’re making campaign links, whether they’re going to be an email, they’re going to be in social media, you’re going to put them on a billboard, right? Any of those campaign links, you basically build inside of our tool, and then you’re able to use them wherever you want. You know, we typically I mean, we work with all sorts of companies. So our freemium version, which is unlimited free, is super awesome. So we have 1000s, and 1000s, of users to use that. So from small agencies to freelancers, even big companies that still stay on the free one. But we primarily sell to large companies. So where I spend most My time is working with big multinational billion dollar corporation marketing campaigns that they need to be ultimately able to track. And the real purpose of UTM data was making it so that anybody on your team, whether it’s a small team, or a large team has the ability to build UTM tagged links, so that way, you can effectively track your marketing efforts. Because if you’ve ever made campaign links, and you’ve used UTM codes that go on the end of the URL, even capitalization will throw things off typos, will throw things off. So making sure your entire marketing team is using the same taxonomy, the same UTM conventions is going to be the big difference between knowing whether a campaign was successful, or knowing a campaign failed.
JC: Okay, so this is where I nerd out because I’ve own my marketing agency for about 10 years now, I’ve been doing digital since 2000. So you got me beat by a little bit. And I also started off bulk email, because I mean, you know, what else was there? Right? There was no social media, there was no real SEO right? You know, you didn’t have paid ads, you know, back then you had nothing except for what? Angel fire websites, rocket mail..
Dan: Geocities
JC: …geocities. Oh, man, are we’re ageing ourselves right now. And you know, in your email, right. And so I’m a big fan of email, a lot of people said it was going to die and go away, it never did, it just got smaller. And when it comes to B2B, there’s no scenario where being able to send a message with you know, an attachment or whatnot is going to is going to go away. At some point, even if you start in social media, or paid ads, eventually, when that relationship happened, you got to send them something, right? So that platform, I think, will always be there. So I think it’s really cool your email, guys. So then let me ask you this, because it’s something that we’ve been coming across here recently, right? Because, you know, we specialize in cold outbound campaigns, right? So what this whole change now with Facebook and Apple going at each other, of course, and fighting, you know, and we’re all hoping that they kiss and makeup soon, but until they do, what is your take? How does does UTM to help with the new disabling, you know, features for tracking when it comes to Apple and Facebook and Google sometimes doing and third party cookies, like, you know, how are you guys getting around that? How are you benefiting agencies like myself, I guess, you know, because I want to check this out, too. How is that working out?
Dan: You know, at the end of the day, the great thing is, is that UTM ‘s are not going to get stopped, right? So they’re not a part of Apple’s intelligence tracking. So UTM is are always going to work, the query parameters that you use are still going to work. So the tracking is ultimately even more important now having UTM because that’s the gonna be the only way that you can really make sure things that tied together. So UTM is just becoming even more and more popular because of this, you know, the next issue that people are going to have to face and you know, we have some time because third party cookies aren’t going away entirely. Yes, I know, iOS is trying to block them. And yes, I understand that Google has said they’re going to get rid of cookies, and I think it’s 2023 now, we have to understand that third party cookies, no, that’s not first party cookies. So at the end of the day, you just have to be able to step up your game a little bit and understand how to build a first party cookie for your website. How do you make it so that your first party cookie can relay that information to your analytics products or anything else. So that way you can effectively track you know, the internet’s already in the process of moving forward with this. So like, it’s not like the world is over. Yes, Facebook and Apple are in a pissing match to see who has more world domination, Google as well as in this pissing match. Because at the end of the day, the thing that I think that what I get frustrated about is, at the end of the day, this is simply a power play for Apple, not to secure a privacy, but to make it so that they’re the ones with all the data you have to realize is that whoever has the most data is the most valuable. So the only way that Apple is going to be able to slow Facebook down is to chop off the knees by getting rid of their data. So that’s where this really comes into play. You know, Apple could care less about your privacy, to be quite frank, while they tell you that they care about your privacy, you have to also realize they track every single thing that happens on your phone, and they save it, they just don’t sell it to somebody else, but they definitely use it for their own purposes. So when it comes down to UTM is and being able to track UTMs are one of the things that Apple has said we’re not going to block these like these are really, really important things that everybody uses. So while you’re losing a lot of the intelligent tracking that Facebook’s gonna offer, through their cookies and their Java scripts, you can still get the same analytical data by using UTM codes and doing your own reporting. I just a little bit harder now.
JC: Okay, so now I don’t pretend to assume that every single listener in our audience knows everything techie. Right, we knew we know this stuff. So two things. One is, can you tell people what UTM stands for? Right?
Dan: Yeah.
JC: And then secondly, the second part of the question is, can UTM codes be used? If you create them from your end? In everything and all your links, whether it be in your in your Facebook, like if you’re doing ads can use UTM codes, outbound and everyone your avenues? So what is a UTM, specifically as it’s defined, and then cannot be used in all the platforms at your marketing?
Dan: Yeah, really, really good question. So UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. So before Google Analytics was bought by Google, it was called Urchin and it was a really, really popular web analytics product. And it was really the first web analytics product out there, and Google bought it and then made it free. So UTM comes from Urchin and UTMs are now patented and owned by Google, because they of course, bought the company. But they are definitely one of the most proliferous tracking methods on the internet. So anytime that you make a link, and it is not on your website, and you’re driving traffic to your website, that could be emails, it could be billboards, it could be social media, Facebook, ads, whatever. If you’re driving any type of traffic to your website, you should attach a UTM campaign a campaign parameters to it so that way, you know where the traffic came from, you know, what campaign was a part of, and you can really make sure that your analytics stays organized. So but the great thing about UTM is, is they work with almost every single platform on the internet, every single analytics provider accepts UTM, every marketing automation tool, except UTM. They are the standard of tracking for links on the internet. And it’s been like that for almost 20 years. So you can really have a lot of faith and knowing that it’s going to work. So much so that UTM are so kind of prolific is the fact that even Apple accepts them. So when you’re looking in your app store metrics, they’ll tell you the UTM codes that actually drove a download, right? So UTM is are everywhere. Honestly, we use them on tons and tons of links, and they work with every platform. And that’s one of the reasons why when we looked at the problem, we were like, Listen, we need to get into this space, because they’re used everywhere. nobody’s doing it really, really well. There’s only three or four companies in the entire industry that focus on UTM management. So it was definitely a no brainer. And you know, it’s a hard problem to solve. And you know, we’ve done a pretty good job at it.
JC: So what debt, taxes and UTM codes, right, top three things in the world right now?
Dan: Yeah, right? Yeah.
JC: So on UTM code. So let’s, let’s also define one more thing here. So this is another thing that people have, that I find struggle understanding the difference off, and rather than me just talk about it, let’s have you do it from your end here. Define the difference between a first party cookie and a third party cookie? And is there a such thing as a second party cookie?
Dan: Well, it’s a good question. You know, I’ve never actually thought about if there’s a second party cookie, but I don’t think there is but first party cookie is a cookie, which is created by your website. So a cookie whenever it’s loaded on your website usually has a domain and a subdomain linked with it. So third party cookie is a cookie, which loads on your website, which actually sends its data to another website, so known as cross device tracking kind of situation and stuff like that. So Google Analytics would be a very stereotypical third party cookie, which is installed on your website, you install Google Analytics and put their JavaScript on your website, when it loads, it’s going to load its own cookie, that third party cookie is basically sending his data to a third party, which would be Google Analytics. The difference is when the first party cookie is that it’s from your own company, it’s your own domain. So if your domain is, let’s just say as an example, Apple.com right, your cookie would be from apple.com or maybe go.apple.com. And that’s what a first party cookie is. Which means that the site I’m visiting, the cookie is there so it’s not somebody else’s. Yeah, and this is really, really important because companies like Facebook, Google, and many, many, many other companies install JavaScript in your website, then install cookies. And sometimes those cookies aren’t necessarily using the best possible way. If you do some research, I used to be the head of marketing at a company called Kissmetrics. There was a massive lawsuit against kissmetrics, when they first started the cookie about some things that they did wrong with the cookies. So there is definitely some interesting stuff. So cookies can not only be extremely, extremely helpful, but you’re always gonna have a bad actor that does something stupid. And cookies sometimes can also get you in trouble.
JC: Yeah, so is it safe to say that for people listening, that as long as they’re the ones initiating the tracking, and using it for themselves for their own data, then these things that are happening with Facebook, and Apple shouldn’t really affect them too much. Is that accurate? Somewhat accurate?
Dan: It’s pretty accurate. I mean, it just gets a lot more complex, right. So like, you definitely need to build a cookie, right, you’re definitely going to need to develop or you’re going to need know how to how to use local storage. There’s definitely like a technical feat that you have to overcome. And you know, companies like Google are really trying to figure out how do they make it so that this stuff works, because the big difference that happens now is like and to help bring people up to speed, you basically have the client side of a website, and then you have the server side of a website. And the client side is what we all see, right? When you look at a website, that’s the client side, the server side is this the part that none of us see. That’s in Houston, right? Like that’s where somebody’s server is, the client side and the server side are communicating with each other as you’re doing things. And the big difference that’s about to happen is that now what we have to do is we have to take that information on the client side from our first party cookie, and then we can send it to whoever we want on the server side, right? So we can still enable Facebook conversions, Google AdWords conversion, all of that stuff is still possible via server side integration. The problem is, is you have to know how to create a client side integration on a first party basis. And then how do you make that client side integration then communicate with a server side integration, that’s where the technical stuff comes in. That being said, plenty of companies are going to solve this problem, when it really happens. The difference is, is it just hasn’t fully happened yet, like so we have time to worry about it. Google’s already working on solutions, Facebook’s working on solutions. And you know, if you sign up for UTM.io, we don’t have a lot of these intelligence tracking things built right now. But these are huge things that we are actually building behind the scenes to make it so that you don’t have to worry about this stuff in the future, because our first party cookies that will help you basically create, will track all of that for you.
JC: That’s fantastic. So now come back to email stuff. So you’re an email guy, I’m an email guy. We both know that the ever changing rules of email inbox deliverability. The nightmares the flashback to both have right now. I’m sure I’m having flashbacks. I’m going through an email nightmare right now. So I totally understand the trauma set in, talk to us about how because I know that you know, like Google and different email service providers, and even internet service providers, whatnot. deliverability is highly dependent on many factors, but one of them being tracking links, some email servers, and service providers do not like that in there. So where does UTM codes fit into a good cold outbound email marketing campaign? For example, if you need to know, you know, if people are clicking on something, or opening or whatnot, you know, the difference between like a pixel, for example, and a UTM code? How do people know the difference between the pixel, which tracks certain things, and a UTM code will track certain things? And how do each of them affect deliverability? Because a lot of people in the B2B space, make their marketing, you know, money off of email very heavily, because it’s more relationship based. So can you help the audience understand the difference in those two technologies? And which one is safer? Or are they you know, our UTM is getting knocked down a little bit like, where are we at?
Dan: Yeah, good question. You know, UTM links are not looked at as bad, right? So you can use a UTM link in an email and you’ll be totally fine. Where the problem really persists is when you come down to tracking links, like Bitly or anything that’s been shortened. And the big concern with that is, there’s these people on the internet called Fishers and fishers ultimately are sending you fake emails that look like they’re from Amazon. And when you click on that, it takes you to a page that looks like Amazon, and then you put in your password and your email, and they fish like that to ultimately steal your information. And people do this with credit cards, you do this Amazon, they do this bank accounts and anything like that. But a common strategy for fishers is that they have to hide the end URL where they have that landing page. And the only way to do that is by basically shortening it using another service and then shortening using another service. So whenever an ESP or excuse me whenever an ISP would be your internet service provider, whoever has your email, sees a shortened link in an email like a Bitly or any other domain UTM.io, we have our own link shorteners. And we deal with these hackers on a daily basis. When they see those shortened links that have a redirect to it and maybe have more than one redirect on it. They start to then get worried it triggers the spam warning because that’s a common thing that you see fishers do. With that being said though, you can use UTM in an email and you’re not going to have problems. Now depending upon the email delivery of your ESP Depending upon their IP, and depending upon how much spam they’ve seen in the past, their domains, if it’s going to be a click on their link drive to their website and then redirect to another website, you know, your ISP is going to then test and say, Hey, listen, there’s this link that’s in here is coming from a domain that has a bad score in regards to spam. So you know, we’re just going to flag that as spam. But if you’re working with a reputable ESP that has a good domain, right, like a Marketo, or a MailChimp or anything like that more the big companies, they’re not going to get flagged for spam on a redirection link, because they have they’re known to have a better IP address, it’s going to have better warning. So a UTM and itself doesn’t matter, that will be totally fine. That’s not going to trigger any spam warnings, it’s really going to come down to Did you shorten the link? Okay, great. That’s nerve racking. Never shorten a link in an email, it will be clear with that, don’t use Bitly. Don’t ever shorten the link going into an email, highlight and then make a hyperlink, right. So and then also never link a naked domain to something different. So like, if you’re linking to somebody google.com and an email, do not hyperlink that in the HTML and make a Google.com, and then with your UTM parameters, because that that, again, is seen like you’re trying to trick them. So that’s going to be one of your biggest areas in regards to like when you have these tracking and deceptive things like that. But just to go back to the pixel verse, The UTM, at the end of the day, that pixel on the email is an image, right. So as an example, as a CEO, I don’t load images in any of my emails. And the reason why is because it takes my computer longer to load an image in an email, and I have to process two to 400 emails a day, there’s literally two of us who manage my inbox, and we still can’t keep up. So we don’t load any images. So that pixel in there is what ultimately tells us that the email has opened, because the AI or the ESP or whoever sent the email, just so we know. ESP stands for email service provider, whoever sends the email that pixel if it loads up, tells their server “Oh, this person opened that email”, you know, those pixels aren’t bad, they’re extremely common. I mean, emails are sent with images all the time. So I’m not too worried about IPS. Those are used for open tracking, though in your emails. And then of course, click tracking. Once again, they click on it, they sent to a redirection, and then they go to whatever your website is. That click tracking, of course, is how they tell that somebody clicked on it. But the click tracking is where people get a little befuddled on, like what is good and what is bad. But really, what you just want to do is limit the number of redirections that somebody is going to have. So never shorten the link in an email. Because that’s two redirects, they’re going to click on the bitly link, that’s going to send them to another redirect, which is from the ESP, and then they’re finally going to go to their destination. That is a huge red flag to ISP, Internet service providers, or inboxes. That’s a huge red flag to them, that you’re trying to hack them or steal them. And I’m not gonna, I deal with this at least five to 10 times a week, Amazon sends us automated alerts when people are getting fished. So we deal with these fissures all day long. And it’s a bad problem. And it’s really, really frustrating. But hey, listen, when you’re in Indonesia, and you have no money, and you can hack, do it steal some—
JC: Well, you know, I can’t judge. You know, I was a kid in my dad’s basement, hacking AOL when I was 12 kind of thing. Right? But in my defense, it wasn’t that hard.
Dan: Yeah, I wasn’t gonna admit to it either. But I totally hacked some stuff when I was a kid on AOL as well, you know, I did some stupid stuff. You know, I was a young teenager so I made some mistakes.
JC: What about a.. Okay, so don’t shorten URLs. But what about. what if we were to do a redirect one time, a regular link? And it redirects to, again, a normal web page that has UTM? Because I guess my question is, if someone uses your UTM, it adds more on to the end of the link, right? Now, obviously, if you hyperlink the text, it’s not a big deal, right. But some people have only plain text emails that come through. So they see the URL, and then they see the UTM after and a lot of people, you know, this, this is a weird thing. People will delete that, just to so that they’re only clicking on that. And there’s something weird about the psychology of that, but it affects tracking. So here’s my question. Let’s say I have a good reputable domain. That’s not my domain, right? Let’s say I’m doing a cold outbound campaign. And I want them to add up on my website, but I’m using an alternate domain to send out and for that link. Now, if they click on that link, it just forwards to my actual domain. How safe is that? From a deliverability standpoint?
Dan: Yeah, I mean, usually, you’re pretty good, good in regards to that, right? Like, it’s very rare that you’re gonna run into issues because at that point, they’re judging the IP addresses that they received the email from, and they’re judging the IP addresses, which they’re sending people to inside the email. If both of those are pretty clean, usually, you’re going to be pretty good at that point that they’re then going to start looking at what is the content of that email? And do we have a lot of spam complaints about it, but usually the situation that you’re talking about, you’re totally fine. And you know, people don’t like being tracked. So they’re gonna delete UTMs. And there’s Chrome extensions, which are dedicated solely to the fact that when I load a link, it deletes the UTM is off the end of it. Yeah, people are always gonna get frustrated. But what you have to remember is that a UTM is a query parameter. So a query parameter is the way that you run Amazon. If you ever go to amazon.com, and you look for a product, and you look at the URL, you will see a question mark. And then many things after that question mark, including a bunch of code, that’s a query parameter, they’re not going to go away. That’s how the internet works. So a UTM is just another query parameter. So they’re really not all that bad. The problem that obviously you’re seeing with like Facebook, and stuff like that is Facebook ads query parameters for cross-device tracking. And that’s what Apple is trying to get away from is that intelligence tracking.
JC: But if you forward to a UTM code link, it’ll still activate it right? You don’t have to click on one, you can just as long as you end up at that URL, any way that has UTM..
Dan: Yes as long as as long as your website loads in the UTM, or on the link, when it loads, analytics is automatically going to track it and store it.
JC: That’s awesome. Yeah. And that was kind of a loaded question. I already knew that answer. Because we’re getting you know, like 50, 60%, inbox, you know, our open rate, I should say, yes, wait on cold for cold campaigns. And we’re doing that. But you know, a lot of people listening don’t know that. And I think a lot of people are very concerned about this app on Facebook stuff and trying to figure out how we’re going to track how we’re going to track. Even my own email marketing director came in, she was like, oh, what are we gonna do? And I was like, it’s okay. All we got to do just let’s for the domain, and let’s just add you to at the end of that, it’ll reverse track itself, because we’re keeping the data, we’re not giving it to anyone else. You know, it’s our own internal marketing practices. Now, another last marketing question for you, as an email marketer, and obviously, someone who’s been probably expanding your horizons, I imagine by now, since you’ve been in the game for so long, how important is it to the success of any given marketing campaign to have tracking that UTM provide? Overall? I mean, like, Can someone just throw money at it and still be successful? Or, you know, and not track anything? And just saying, let’s just hit all these angles and send it to the website? And what is the difference between doing that, versus that same amount of money? Or even half of that? If you have UTM, as part of that equation?
Dan: Yeah, you know, there’s the old adage, you know, I know 50% of my marketing is working, I just don’t know what 50% it is. UTM is gives you the ability to have a better understanding of what marketing is actually working in what is not. You know, I’ve been very fortunate in my career to work with some amazing companies. And I’m not going to drop any names here. But, you know, I’ve worked with billion dollar corporations that have no tracking, I’ve worked with 10 million ARR, SAS companies, when I get them, like, you guys have no product analytics, how do you even know like this is working, they’re like, we just we don’t really know, the numbers just keep going up. So, you know, I always say people can throw money at a problem. And it works, right? And some people are just building the right thing at the right time, they don’t have tracking. So you know, naturally, it definitely works. And a lot of big companies we work with that are growing super fast, their tracking is not great. But they’re focused on like little micro sections where they can really like iron it out. But if you have good tracking, ultimately, you’re going to have better success, because you’re going to be able to know what’s working and what’s not, you know, at our consulting practice, McGaw.io, you know, we do a lot of work with companies trying to get them to clean up their data and organize the data and UTM ‘s are always the biggest thing that we have to talk about. Because marketing attribution is one of the most important parts of marketing, if you don’t have UTM, you don’t have marketing attribution. So it’s pretty damn necessary, in my opinion.
JC: Well, that’s a boil down, that tells me UTM equals more ROI, right
Dan: Absolutely. Yeah.
JC: You know where your money’s going. Because, you know, people forget, you know, a penny saved is a penny earned. You know, if you stop spending that 50%, your marketing that wasn’t working, and you double down on the 50%. That was you’ve literally just doubled your ROI like that. Right. And all you had to do was track it. Right. So I think people really under value, the, you know, where UTM codes and other types of tracking, you know, that they’re still working come from? So let’s talk about the future, right, the future of business, that’s the podcast. Okay. So first, let’s talk about your company. I want to hear about the future of UTM.io. Do you have any, you already lightly touched on? You said you have some cool stuff coming? tell the audience about what’s coming down the pipeline that you can give us kind of an inside scoop on right now? What are some new features or things you guys are going after? If they were to sign up with you guys?
Dan: Yeah, you know, I think over the past couple of years, we really have focused on making it so that a team of people can effectively build links in our platform and be able to clean up their analytics, the big the big thing that we’re working on right now, we’re actually in the process of redeveloping the platform on the client side, we’re switching from Angular, and we’re moving over to react, which is just a different coding language. And we’re doing that so we can make it a little bit easier in the product to basically build a WYSIWYG builder. So what you see is what you get. So we’re making it a little bit easier for people to be able to customize the way that they build their links and the way that form of the link builder is built out. So that’s something that’s coming that’s happening, like in the next couple of weeks. So that’s going to be launching in the platform. But the next major movement for us is we’re doing a ton of little improvements. So we work with a lot of customers, and they give us like little ideas that we implement. The next major thing that we’re doing is we’re now integrating with over 150 different other platforms. So the big problem that you have when you build these links is like you build the links on our platform, but then you have to go look at Google Analytics or Hotjar or something else to go see these metrics about the analytics and all A lot of customers have said, “Oh, we want you to have analytics” and we’re like, “we’re not really in the analytic space, we’re more in kind of like the creation or data governance space”. But we’re building an integration right now with a company called Five Tran. Five Tran is a big ETL company. So they allow you to move data around. And what we’re doing is making it so that from inside of our platform, you can basically import in your Google Analytics data, you can import in your Marketo data, your Salesforce data, your part our data, whatever it may be, and then add that to your link table. Because if anybody in this is listening is using UTM, chances are you have a UTM tracking spreadsheet. That’s the historical way that people make their UTM zones in a spreadsheet.
JC: I cringe when I hear spreadsheet, just use at all.
Dan: Yeah, so and we’re the spreadsheet killer. But the thing is, is in our product, we still have a spreadsheet. And the common thing that we want to be able to our customers want to be able to do is they want to be able to see the campaign that they’re running. And then they want to be able to see the conversions, the revenue and all that stuff. The problem is, is that these conversions many times happen in Salesforce are these conversions happen, and they’re able to be seen in Active Campaign. So what we’re now enabling people to do is basically say, Okay, great, well, you have data in all these different places, why don’t you just import it into our platform. We’ll automatically tie it together with your campaigns, the links, you have the term the content, whatever it may be, and you can actually see the full performance of everything you have in your campaigns in our products. So that’s the big next evolution is that you will be able to pull in all of that data into our product. And that’s going to be coming out in the beginning of 2022. So, it’s going to be a huge initiative for us, but it’s going to be a lot of fun, and our customers that are helping us design it and build it are super excited.
JC: That’s awesome. All right now let’s talk about the industry as a whole. Where do you see? I mean, obviously, you know, with this whole Facebook and Apple stuff, do you see any future conflicts with other companies? Do you see things getting better? You know, where do you see this tracking ability? Where do you see the balance between privacy and marketing tracking? Which makes the world go round? Like nobody will. You don’t need to see diaper ads? If you’re a single guy, right and you don’t have a kid, right? And you don’t want to see Ferrari ads if you can only afford a Honda, right? So there are advantages to having these tracking so that we get served.. listen, Instagram has got me dialed in man, I have to like not be on there because I will buy every damn thing I see. Because they get me they totally get me. So that is the benefit. Right? I’m believing showed ads. But where do you see that balance of tracking for those, you know, laser targeting purposes to show you stuff you really care about and may want to buy? versus privacy? Where do you see this in like three to five years any conflicts or solutions coming down the pipeline? From your point of view?
Dan: Yeah, you know, over the next few years, I mean, it’s gonna be really interesting, because privacy is becoming more and more of a concern. And you know, I don’t really necessarily care as much about my privacy, I’m pretty open with all this stuff. So like, track me all you want, because the only reason why we’re tracking you to make the experience better, right? So I think privacy is still going to become much more of a concern, especially as the baby boomers start to retire and start to realize that they’re being tracked. But you know, honestly, like the the next generation Gen Z and all that stuff, like they don’t care that much about it, right? Like they’re kind of like not on it. But at the same time they do, right? I mean, Snapchat serves a purpose, right? It is privacy enabled. So you know, there’s going to be a hard toss up, that’s going to happen over the next few years on like which way that it goes. And I don’t exactly know. But what I can definitely tell you is that I’m going to continue to get paid money. And I’m going to continue to get paid more money to make sure that I can track you whether you want me to or not. At the end of the day, these are billion dollar corporations that are going to make sure that we know what’s going on because we have to help our customers. So there’s always going to be a new way that we find a way to track you. And you know, artificial intelligence is now helping us get better at tracking you and also predicting what you’re going to do with limited information. So, you know, I just don’t think tracking is going to go away. Yes, I think there’s gonna be more rules, you’ll be more regulations, and there’s going to be different things that we have to jump through. But at the end of the day, you know, GDPR definitely had an impact on businesses, but we’re still doing the same shit. It’s not really changed everybody, we just have to tell you, we just have to tell you that we’re tracking you. And if you don’t want us to track you, I’m sorry, your internet experience goes down. Like that’s the trade off that I think is just as hard is that if you ignore cookies, your experience gets worse. It doesn’t get better. So people have to understand that trade off. I think
JC: What’s happening with the newer generations, I think that they are concerned about their the privacy of their content, and their own information. But they don’t really care about their behavior. Right. And I think there’s a balance in there where everyone can win, right? Obviously, we want to make sure we protect people’s phones so that someone can’t hack their pictures that are private and take that that’s content, right? You know, Snapchat exists because you want to send something one time and you don’t want it out there. So you’re protecting content. We obviously want credit card companies to protect our damn credit card numbers. Now, granted, it’s insured but it’s still a hassle, right? We want our passwords protected. So I think we want our data and our information I should say, and our content protected. But I think that where the marketers can win without having to go into that realm, is I think we need to do a better job at telling that showing the difference between tracking behaviors, and likes and dislikes, so that we can serve you content and things that you want to see, versus tracking your information and your content that you own, that we don’t need or want. And I think that’s maybe some of the biggest issues with when people get the privacy conversation. They’re not splitting those two out. And it’s a really big difference between the two. Mm hmm.
Dan: That’s a really, really good point. You know, I didn’t really think about it that way. But you’re 100% correct. That is definitely a big delta and the way that people think about the tracking, and you know, going back to something you said, which I think is kind of interesting, you’re talking about credit cards, like we want to be able to secure that and all that stuff. At the end of the day, the people who are really selling your data, it’s the banks. And it’s not Facebook, like Experian is literally selling your data all the time. And they get that from the banks, the banks sell it to them. So like, if you really want to talk about selling data, look at the privacy sheet that you get from the bank, and they have to mail it to you like annually, you’d be quite surprised what they what they’re allowed to do with your data. I mean, it just doesn’t matter.
JC: That’s why I was telling a couple marketing friends who work core freaking out about the Facebook Apple thing I was like, I was like, Listen, even if they go toe to toe, trust me, that’s not really worth the data. Like if you want data to be able to serve ads to the proper, like, just go to that credit card companies go to the you know, these third parties that they’re still databases out there, this is just me nothing more small businesses that are going to be affected. I don’t think the bigger businesses or the tech companies are gonna be as affected because they understand this more. But I think unfortunately, small businesses, mom and pops and people were just getting into paid ads who are just doing the simple version of it. I think that’s unfortunately, it’s gonna affect them more than anyone and they need that, that revenue more than anyone you know. So that’s my opinion.
Dan: I agree with you.
JC: So last question for you. And let’s see, I’ve got a few I could choose from here. I’m trying to think of a good one, because we already talked a lot about how we grew up. So I got I got that one down. I already know that one. Let’s do this. Two part question, actually. One is, what is a must read book that you would tell the audience like you’ve got to read this book. And it could be in your industry, it could be just in business general, it’s up to you. And the second part is, you know, what is the best advice you’ve ever been given when it comes to business?
Dan: Yeah, so it’s a great, great, great question. So the one book I would always try to get people to read there’s a book called “Principles” by Ray Dalio, you know, it’s a little hard to read, because it talks about his biography in the beginning, but then it talks about his business practices. If you don’t know who Ray Dalio is, he is the most successful hedge fund manager in the world. You know, they’re fund manages $165 billion in funds, when you’re talking about most hedge funds, or a couple billion, maybe 10 billion, he’s 10 times the size of most people, right? largest hedge fund period, and they don’t even take clients. His book is really, really good. It really gets you to understand that, hey, listen, running a business is not just performance, it’s also culture, it’s also values. It’s about building out the rules of the business and understanding the psychology of people. So I think the book principles is really good, I believe a lot and a lot of Ray’s principles in the book. So I think that’s a really, really good read for anybody who’s in business. And then on the flip side of that, you know, the best advice that I think I was given was honestly from a book called “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”, which is by Ben Horowitz, one of the guys from a 16 Andreessen Horowitz, the big venture capitals. In the book they talk about, you know, at the end of the day, being an entrepreneur sucks, right. But the entrepreneurs that they invest in in Andreessen Horowitz, one of the things they say is like, hey, how did you get here? Like, what made you successful? What made you finally get in front of us? And they said, the entrepreneurs that tell us that they had some great strategy, and they did all these things, you know, those are the ones that they don’t typically invest in. The entrepreneur and the founder that comes in and says, No, I just didn’t quit, like, I just had to keep trying, I just need to keep moving forward, and I’m not gonna quit. Those are the entrepreneurs that you want to invest in. So the big takeaway that I took out of that book is, you know, being an entrepreneur sucks, and I just have to get over it. And you know, death is always one day away. But at the end of the day, we can’t quit. It’s the quitters that are the entrepreneurs. They’re not the entrepreneurs. Yeah. And don’t get me wrong, businesses fail. I mean, I failed multiple times in the past, and I have walked away from ventures. But I didn’t quit on the idea. I didn’t quit on the project. I just had a lesson I learned I failed. So that was the one big lesson I learned in life is don’t quit. And that’s the reason why I mean, I still own two companies today. I’m still the CEO of two companies today, because I’m not going to quit on my dreams. I’m going to keep moving forward.
JC: Well, I love that. And I’ve always said it’s a trail of tears to the golden kingdom. There is no good story to a self made man or woman. You know what I mean?
Dan: I’ve got a river of tears behind me.
JC: So how can people find your website? How can people get a hold of you directly? If they you know, kind of meet that demographic of enterprise level? And they really, you know, reaching out for partnerships, would it be a client? Oh, how can people contact you guys?
Dan: Yeah, for sure. And you know, I would love for everybody to get a chance to get a free copy of my book “Build Cool Shit”. So you know, the best way to be able to do that.
JC: Show us how you got video to show us. I like the cover.
Dan: Yeah of course so Build Cool Shit. So it’s a blueprint to creating your modern tech stack. I wrote the book last year, it’s really, really helpful. So if you if you pull out your cell phone, right, what I’m going to have you do go to your text messages, you’re going to text this number, the word MARTECH. And you’ll be able to get a free copy, our bot will take care of all the address and help you out. So the phone numbers 415-915-9011. So that’s 415-915-9011, just text the word MARTECH. So M-A-R-T-E-C-H, and you’ll be able to basically work with that bot, you’ll get your name, your number, all that stuff to make sure that we can ship you a free copy of the book. But if you’re interested in being able to learn more about the stuff that we have going on, you know, anybody can use UTM videos, you don’t need to be an enterprise company, we have single freelancers using the product all day long, you can definitely check it out at UTM.io. If you’re interested in learning more about marketing, analytics and marketing stacks, in general, you can go to McGaw.io. So M-C-G-A-W just my last name.io. We have a ton of resources, which is really going to help you understand how can you build marketing analytics and how can you take advantage of that. And if you ever have a question for me, the best place to reach out to me is on LinkedIn. I’m Dan McGaw, I’m on LinkedIn, super easy to find. I’m the cute guy that’s always hiring. So definitely go check us out. And I’m always happy to answer questions. So just send me an InMail. If you spam me, I will of course reject it, but naturally send me a good question, don’t be an idiot. And I’ll always accept your InMail.
JC: I want to see your headers say the cute guy who’s always hiring that. I want to see that change. Dan, thank you so much for being on the show. And for the listeners out there. If you are a B2B tech company, and you are looking to track your email marketing a lot better or any other type of marketing really, because UTM codes are cross platform usable. Go check out UTM.io. And if you’re not sure how to do your cold outbound marketing or you need good LinkedIn lead generation, contact my agency, you can find us at InfinityMGroup.com that’s infinity with wide letter M as in marketing group.com or you can give us a call. We’re based in Denver 303-834-7344. Dan, thanks again so much, sir. I look forward to checking out your site and I will talk to you soon.
Dan: Thanks so much.