Jimmy Kim explains why expensive AI recommendation engines sold to DTC brands often don't work better than cheap alternatives. Most fail because they optimize for clicks and sales without understanding the brand's actual merchandising strategy. Brands pay premium prices for no measurable performance lift.
There's often a disconnect between algorithm logic and the merchandising strategy, right? Something that we talk about a lot, you and I, is that you've gotta be in the business as retention marketer. You can't just be thinking about what sells and what gets clicks, but you really also need to know what merchandising looks like. I think a lot of the AI products out there miss that mark right now. And then of course, those sometimes the complex ones versus the basic ones, I haven't really truly seen a lift in the market enough to say, oh, they're doing better. In fact, most of the time we see the basic ones, they do just fine in the market.
Yeah, not calling out anyone in particular, but I've seen a lot of brands pay really premium prices for some of this quote unquote advanced recommendation engines, really to only find out that they perform worse or just as well as kind of these basic logic that you don't really have to pay much for at all. Subscribe to the pod.
