The founding father of Nift, which not too long ago partnered with Planet Health, discusses how AI drives innovation, enhances buyer experiences and transforms how manufacturers join with their audiences
Synthetic intelligence, particularly generative AI, is reshaping how corporations have interaction with clients and ship worth. The expertise is making buyer acquisition simpler whereas serving to to extend buyer lifetime worth.
Right here, Elery Pfeffer, founder and CEO of Nift, a platform designed to assist clients uncover new manufacturers by way of personalised gifting, shares his ideas on the evolving function of AI.
Athletech Information: How is AI affecting the client buying expertise and commerce media networks as we speak?
Elery Pfeffer: AI may be very shortly reshaping how shoppers make choices, do analysis and have interaction with manufacturers. And the extra interruptions they face alongside their digital buying journeys, the extra they’re inclined to make use of AI — as a result of it offers them the solutions and content material they’re searching for, quicker, and with out the intrusive, irrelevant messages they’ve realized to disregard.
These client behavioral adjustments are pushing commerce media networks to lift the bar when it comes to relevancy, and lots of manufacturers are actually altering how they consider their content material. They’re tapping information intelligence to establish their clients’ true pursuits and intent, to allow them to ship contextually related content material that enriches the client expertise as an alternative of interrupting it.
This is without doubt one of the areas the place AI is proving to be actually transformative, because it’s making personalization scalable and enabling corporations to ship individualized experiences to hundreds of thousands of individuals concurrently. That’s by no means been attainable earlier than, and it’s reshaping how shoppers anticipate to work together with manufacturers. Additionally, as client adoption of AI continues to rise, AI and machine studying fashions will proceed to enhance primarily based on these interactions, and the client expertise will proceed to get higher.
ATN: What does commerce media success appear to be as we speak, and the way has AI modified that definition?
EP: A 12 months in the past, retail media networks have been dominating headlines within the commerce press as increasingly more corporations throughout the large field, division retailer and grocery sectors seemed to leverage the buyer expertise to unlock new revenues. In the present day, the buyer surroundings is way extra advanced and the trail to commerce media success is cloudier. Enterprise leaders nonetheless aren’t positive when or how tariff negotiations will conclude or how new tariffs will have an effect on their provide chains and their client companies. On the identical time, shoppers preserve elevating their expectations about what an incredible buyer expertise entails.
The mixture of those components is main corporations to understand they must combine their commerce media networks and their conventional commerce companies to drive income progress and obtain their overarching enterprise objectives. In the present day, each firm’s success hinges on increased client engagement and satisfaction, and if a client platform’s commerce media effort undermines that, it offers clients a cause to disregard the corporate’s messages, at finest, and to keep away from the platform altogether, at worst.
ATN: For these new to Nift, are you able to clarify the way it works, and what makes it beneficial for each your platform companions and the manufacturers in your community?
EP: Customers are aggravated by the fixed barrage of random advertisements that interrupt their digital expertise, and corporations with commerce platforms are searching for methods to faucet new income streams whereas making their buyer experiences extra optimistic and fascinating. On the identical time, DTC manufacturers, retailers, and repair and subscription suppliers are coping with rising advertising and marketing and buyer acquisition prices and competing fiercely for shoppers’ consideration in a saturated promoting surroundings.
Nift addresses all three teams’ ache factors by giving its commerce companions a novel option to say “thanks” to clients at any of almost 20 touchpoints within the buying journey with an unique reward that lets recipients uncover and check out services and products from main e-commerce manufacturers they’ve by no means tried earlier than.
Nifts are basically high-value thank-you items designed to shock and delight clients. They offer our platform companions like Afterpay, iHeartRadio, Klarna, Meetup, Tinder and Tripadvisor a novel option to improve model sentiment and loyalty with out interrupting the client journey. Every companion decides when and the way they’ll supply Nifts, and our AI-powered platform ensures every Nift is tailor-made to the recipient and contextually related.
Clients who obtain a Nift simply reply a few questions on their life-style and preferences, after which our platform matches them with two personalised reward choices. Our rising ecosystem contains 1000’s of manufacturers, together with DTC leaders like Chewy, Fabletics, Harry’s, HelloFresh and Scentbird. These manufacturers, in flip, profit from our low-risk, performance-based mannequin that usually delivers considerably higher ROI than conventional promoting, with conversion charges as much as 10 p.c, versus 1 to three p.c with conventional digital advertisements.
Our proprietary information present that 72 p.c of shoppers just like the companion that gave them the Nift extra for having given them a present, and that 88 p.c charge their reward positively. As well as, 70 p.c of shoppers who redeem a Nift say they plan to make use of the model once more.
ATN: Nift has all the time targeted on serving to individuals uncover new manufacturers. How has the corporate developed over time?
EP: Once we launched Nift a decade in the past, we have been targeted on fixing an issue that Fortune 500 CMOs perpetually wrestle with: methods to attain shoppers who would probably love your product however who aren’t at present looking for it. We initially targeted on native companies, including solely brick-and-mortar shops, eating places and bars to our model community.
We shortly realized, although, that clients have wants which are extra particular and that their vary of wants isn’t restricted to simply bodily companies of their space. To offer an incredible, well-rounded buyer expertise, we wanted to have the ability to meet clients all over the place they’re — which implies not simply in bodily shops, however on-line, in-app, on e-mail, textual content and social — and assist them uncover new manufacturers which are related to them primarily based on their pursuits and buy historical past.
ATN: You’ve constructed a proprietary matching engine to pair clients with provides they’ll love. What information powers that engine, and what units it aside?
EP: Clients obtain Nifts solely from corporations they already know and belief. Our platform and patented matching engine use proprietary AI to make sure we now have clear, enriched information that permits us to constantly supply their clients reward choices to attempt manufacturers which are related to them primarily based on their pursuits, purchases and historical past with the companion’s platform.
When shoppers obtain a Nift, they supply a number of particulars and are then matched with two custom-chosen reward choices. They decide one to activate, and the manufacturers in our community have entry to that beneficial first-party information. We additionally conduct exams to optimize the reward construction primarily based on every model’s KPIs, contemplating unit economics, perceived worth and different components.
ATN: What are the largest challenges manufacturers face in buying new clients, and the way does Nift deal with these ache factors higher than different platforms?
EP: Customers habitually ignore undesirable advertisements, which makes it much more difficult for manufacturers to seize their consideration. The promoting surroundings is saturated, and advertising and marketing and buyer acquisition prices preserve rising. Nift addresses these ache factors by giving shoppers a brand new, optimistic option to uncover and check out services and products from these manufacturers which are competing so fiercely to have interaction and purchase new clients.
Our platform pairs shoppers with provides from manufacturers that they’re extremely prone to wish to have interaction with, and the related first-party information we share with the manufacturers permits them to retarget clients who choose their reward, however don’t redeem it instantly. We additionally supply low-lift onboarding and upkeep for manufacturers and assist them optimize the reward construction.
ATN: You latterly partnered with Planet Health. As a result of most member interactions are in particular person, how does this showcase Nift’s potential to create significant digital touchpoints and prolong engagement?
EP: Health corporations, together with client funds, retail and streaming media corporations, are all looking for customer-centric methods to spice up model sentiment and loyalty whereas driving incremental income. By means of our partnership, Planet Fitness is ready to not solely shock and delight its clients in a novel, memorable method, but in addition prolong its model relationships nicely past any single health club location and past any specific second in time.
Additionally, our companions management precisely when and the way they provide Nifts. So, Planet Health would possibly thank a member with a Nift by way of e-mail on a sure day to acknowledge their go to to the health club that morning. One other day, the corporate would possibly ship a Nift immediately by way of the Planet Health app to thank a buyer for downloading the app. The corporate may additionally supply a Nift as a birthday reward or on a buyer’s membership anniversary, extending the model relationship all year long and past a bodily location into the channels that the client prefers.
ATN: What’s subsequent for Nift? Because the panorama continues to shift, the place do you see the largest alternatives for progress and affect?
EP: We’ve all the time operated with the information that all of it begins with the buyer. So, each choice we make — from how we spend money on information science to how we deploy assets to how we use AI to which manufacturers we welcome onto the platform — is designed to in the end make the buyer expertise higher. And since assembly shoppers the place they’re has grow to be much more vital, we’ll proceed to evolve to be current throughout every channel clients are selecting, whether or not that’s an e-commerce website, a cell app, a bodily retailer, or textual content, e-mail or social media.
When it comes to progress, we see three main components intersecting proper now that create vital alternatives for us: AI’s affect on client habits; elevated financial and enterprise pressures, together with tariffs and provide chain challenges; and corporations seeking to leverage the buyer expertise to create a brand new, passive income stream by way of commerce media networks. Every of those presents new prospects for us, however the confluence of the three components is a very highly effective accelerant for our enterprise.
