From E-commerce Hustle to Digital Marketing Success: Navigating the Shifts in SEO and AI

Hey, hi, everyone. Welcome to your show, E-Coffee with Experts. This is your host, Ranmay, here. And today we have Marcus, who is the Managing Director at Brew Interactive with us, a leading B2B digital marketing agency based out of Singapore. Marcus, how is it going today?

I’m very well. Thank you for having me, Ranmay.

Great. Marcus, before we move any forward, let’s get to know the human behind the mic. Why don’t you talk us through your journey thus far and how did you land up in the digital marketing SEOO, PPC space? And also a bit about Brew Interactive. What do you guys do? What do you guys specialize in? Your core competencies and we take it off from there.

Sure. I guess my journey all first started because in Singapore, every able-bodied male would have to serve your military service for at least for two years. It all started around that same time. It’s like jail time. When you are stuck in that time period, you can’t really do anything more than that because Because, again, you are in a camp or you’re thinking. You get very philosophical with life that way. When you get very philosophical, a lot of the people that were My army mates were what you would call white horses in the army. White horse is a term used for people whose fathers are very wealthy and very well networked. I happen to find myself in a vocation where it’s a lot of white horses, but I come from a very middle-class family background. I think that was the insecurity I found in myself because right after army or during army, a lot of times we will always talk about what we plan on doing after army. Most of my colleagues were planning to do… We’re already going to League anyway. Someone was going to read law in Colombia, another one was going to Brown to study something.

I don’t remember what it was, but everybody felt like they were on to doing something really impactful with their life. Because, again, I don’t have a wealthy father, so I looked at all of them and I felt I needed to do something to measure up with my peers. I had nothing, so I thought, Okay, you know what? My best solution to that was really just to try to start a business. I started it maybe a few months before I finished my military service. It was an e-commerce store. This was in ’07, and I didn’t know what products to sell. I just knew I wanted to start a business. I thought, Okay, e-commerce because it’s online. I picked iPhone products like iPhone cases, MacBook chargers, those kinds of accessories. I just wanted to sell accessories on my e-commerce store. I, again, knew Nothing about marketing. All I knew back then was really, okay, I was living with my parents at that time, so I thought, you know what, maybe I just print flyers from my printer at home and I will go down to one of the consumer electronic shows or malls and just distribute my flyers there.

I think we all know where this story will go when you start distributing flyers. Then a friend told me, Hey, why don’t you go ahead and you learn about SEO? I was like, What is SEO? Ceo? It’s a Korean last name to me. It’s like, What is SEO? Then when you are young, you have time, you have energy. I just took it upon myself to just go learn everything online and then just apply it on the business. Then soon we were We were ranking quite well for some search terms like iPhone covers, iPhone chargers, those search terms. My lucky break was when Facebook ads was introduced sometime in late ’07, early ’08, around then. I dabbled with Facebook ads. Last time, Facebook ads weren’t that regulated as it is today. I could run ads with pictures of a rectangle and the iPhone is jumping out. I can do all sorts of creative ads like that. It worked. I got half a cent CPC is like half a cent. Click-through rates could be like 3% or 5% click-through rates on Facebook ads. If you think about the economics, the margin of error was quite low. It was high click-through rate, low cost to run ads at that time.

That was where we started really making in some good money. Eventually, Maybe not long after starting to play around with Facebook ads, we were doing well. We were maybe doing between 6,000 to 700,000 in revenue for an e-com business. A lot of the payments back then were cash on delivery because credit card transactions online weren’t really so much of a thing at that point in time. But the problem with an e-commerce business, I realized, was that you have to… To get an e-commerce game right and to scale e-commerce business is not only about marketing. Actually, majority of that is your supply chain and your logistics. You need to get that right. That’s why Amazon is such a A successful organization today because they’ve nailed their game right. As I was looking to raise money building the e-com business, I received some reasonably attractive buy-out offers. I took the best offer on the table, sold it, and then realized I enjoyed doing marketing a lot for other companies companies. I was then invited to serve as a consultant for an agency. Then eventually, two other partners made me a partner on their company as well. Then along the way, we bought out one partner.

2015, we also got the chance of selling it, so we sold it. We sold it at a two-year lockdown period, realized I made a mistake selling it. So in 2017, I decided, Okay, I was just going to buy the company back again completely myself. Today, I run Brew Interactive as a digital agency offering from SEO to digital ads to account-based marketing to Martech content-related stuff. So yes, that is in a nutshell, we’ve done.

Lovely. Lovely. Quite a story. Quite a story. Like you mentioned, you took advantage of Facebook ads right away when they were launched. Right now, we have so much of regulations around not only Facebook ads, like you were talking about it in the green room, even with SEO and all the regulations and Google updates being there. And you have been in the industry for quite some time now. So what are the major shifts or any significant updates which you felt has had a very huge impact on the industry at large during your tenure in the digital marketing I think the biggest thing is right now, you’ve got governments looking at all these platforms.

In the past, if you look at US and even China, they don’t put much regulations to tech companies as they do today. Because the whole idea behind it was let them innovate, let them grow, and then regulate later on. That’s the shift that I noticed from 15 years ago. It was like, Okay, everybody just do whatever you want. It’s cowboy town. You can run the platforms, whatever and however you like. In the past, you also didn’t get a lot of politicians, and there weren’t a lot of fake news or fabricated news distributed on these platforms. Not all that much as not as prevalent as it is today. Back then, we could be cowboy. We could just say anything, run anything. It’s the old days of affiliate marketing, but we were doing it for our clients and even businesses that we were running. But today, if you do any of that, it’s not the same anymore. To answer your question, what’s one big shift is that I think right from the onset, these platforms have already regulated themselves or they have Big Brother, i. E, the government, watching over how they regulate themselves, the content that’s being distributed over there.

Because these tech platforms are so accessible by miners that you’ve got fabricated news, you’ve got scams happening. They are so prevalent in these platforms that the government has to step in. The biggest shift that we have really taken is essentially making sure that we… It goes back to basics. You have to do the right things. Seo, you can’t keyword spam anymore. You can’t do blackhead SEO anymore. Maybe you can, but you got to still limit it to… You just don’t want to get caught with it. I think the same thing happens on all the digital platforms problems right now. You just cannot afford to be caught or just don’t do it at all. Just do the right thing. Content, for example, it’s so easy to create within a snap of finger, 50 articles from any generative AI tool But again, just making sure you do the right thing. Don’t use ChatGPT to make your content and publish thinking you’re going to get good results from it. You want, spoiler alert. But if you actually You don’t bother making good content, you tell good stories, you make good arguments that maybe people have not really heard so much before, then that’s where you get a bit more traction there.

To summarize, again, I won’t get too technical or tactical here in terms of the specific changes that Google or Meta has done, but what I like to think about is just focus on doing the right thing. Just think about creating good content, being a good… Serve your customers well. It’s something that’s very simple to say, but extremely difficult to do. But that would be how I would summarize. It’s the big shift here. You can’t do shady stuff anymore.

Yeah, absolutely. And talking about content, how do you see artificial intelligence impacting content curation at large? And what do you feel are the potential benefits and What are the challenges with AI and then the creation of content there?

The biggest thing is using AI because people think that AI can just replace a writer completely.

Yeah, which is not the case.

Some of my staff writers just send, admittedly, they have ever sent to their clients an article that’s completely written by ChatGPT and pop it over to the client. I think that is probably one of the silliest things you can do for your career, unless you’re trying to bring your career down, then so be it. But I would probably say that… I mean, the benefits of using generative AI is obvious. I don’t have to get to that. But the trick really is, how do you use AI and still be unique at the same time? I’ll give you an example. I try to post once in a while on my LinkedIn profile. This morning, I wrote up a post on LinkedIn about my opinions of people job hopping. My opinion is that there is a relational compounded interest that you can get by working with somebody for an extended period of time. Again, this is something that I don’t think generative AI or ChatGPT can come up with that topic and can produce that opinion for me. It is an opinion that I formed by myself. I realized that by myself. That storytelling angle, that creative aspect, is something that that Genevius AI will have some challenges replacing human beings.

But when it comes to writing that LinkedIn post, based on my opinion, the benefit is obvious over there in terms of time saving here. I would say most people listening to this will probably think Genevius AI can take over your jobs. Or it’s also saying that people who know how to use Genève AI will take over your That is, of course, largely true. But what I feel in today’s economy is that you just need to know how to incorporate that and know when to use it, know the limits of it, and know the capabilities of it. It is always a moving needle in terms of where its capabilities are. If you stay up to date and you are constantly experimenting with with it or you’re constantly talking to people who are experimenting with it, I think one will go very far in their career.

Absolutely. And you’re not talking about experimentations, right? I mean, you You have invested in multiple startups with a significant number of successful exists. What key characteristics do you look in a business before you decide whether to invest or not?

Well, biggest thing would be the business model in the market, followed by the valuation. Then the thing that people tend to place an emphasis on, but I cannot really get it right for me is the people. Because we both say they bet on people on startups, which I don’t disagree with, but I have a hard time trying. I like everybody. I have that problem where when I meet a person, I like that person a lot, maybe because I want to be liked also. That maybe has shaped my perspective. But I would say it’s a day-to-day voice down to, for Me personally, it’s the industry that they’re operating in, whether I understand the industry well enough, the model that they’re operating in, and the evaluation of the company.

Absolutely. There is a big gap in terms of how you analyze the valuation of startups in the sense that every founder or any startup founder, they would have a different perspective in the sense that how they want to evaluate their business. When you do your due diligence, there is a gap there in most of the cases. How do you address that? Have you experienced that ever?

I have invested in some startups, but I, again, am no expert at it. I have to comment about it intelligently. If we’re talking about startups, I think most Most startups’ valuation at the end of the day are very arbitrary. They just decide whatever figure it is. As a prospective investor or partner in the business, you just have to decide for yourself whether it fits your own philosophy of what you’re doing. Some people, they just put money in because they just like the guy or the girl that’s running it. But there are others that maybe are a bit more methodical, and I try to adopt that approach for my personal portfolio.

Absolutely. Marcus, you, through your agency, would have dealt with quite a few number of of clients. And how about Brilliant Successes? I’m sure. But what is your favorite client story?

Brilliant Failures, too, no less.

That is a part of the journey, right? Part and parcel of the game. But your favorite client story which is close to your heart?

I would say it’s probably our first client. The brand name is called Cowhead. It’s an FMCG brand. They do dairy, milk products, cheese, cheese-related products also. Why is that my favorite client story is that… Look, I enter into this business not for Essentially, I entered into this line of work because I was looking to make money. That was my sole focus in the first place. Along the way, we meet prospective clients, and Cowhead was one of them. Then, again, I was a very transactional person. I was in there to make money. It It’s like if you have a problem that I cannot solve and monetise it, then I am not as interested as talking to you back then in my younger days. But I think working with them, and they are still a client of ours because I like to keep my clients long, I think they’ve opened my eyes in terms of, Hey, it’s beyond just making money together. It’s also about relationships. Very lucky to have met them. They’re very simple people. Those people who have been our client contacts are still working there despite, I think, 10, 15 years already for some of them.

They’ve attended my wedding, they attended my baby shower. I was lucky enough to attend their weddings. Lovely. I think one thing I’ve learned through them is I I think life is a lot more than just about making money.

Or doing business, yeah.

Yeah, you want to enjoy the company of the people that you work with. You want to learn from them. Hopefully, share in part something that you learn with them also. I think just working with the good folks at Cowhead has given me Give me a new perspective over the years. We’re still in touch, chatting every once in a while, randomly calling each other up. It’s nice, and I think we’re lucky enough to not only have them as clients first and then friends later, but now I think we see each other as good working buddies and beyond work.

Great. That is great. I mean, through your business or professional network or arrangements, if you make good friends, then I mean, nothing like it, right?

Yeah. It’s one thing that I really enjoy the agency line of work. Yeah. Despite some people really hate this line of work, which I can also understand why one would hate this line of work. I think it’s very normal. But I think there’s some very good upside. You get to meet some very nice people along the way. I personally enjoy making other people happy or you’re They bring good work to them. So that’s why it’s a big reason why I love this industry a lot.

Lovely, lovely. Great. Good, Marcus. And finally, before we wrap this up, a quick rapid fire, if you’re game for it.

Go for it.

All right. Your last Google search?

New restaurants near me.

Okay. Your last vacation Where did you find your first paycheck?

Last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Probably one of my favorite cities in the world.

What did you do with your first paycheck? First paycheck of your life.

First page, what? Sorry.

First paycheck of your life.

Oh, first paycheck. Saved it and gave some to my-Entrepreneur. Yeah, saved it, gave some to my parents because it’s a very Asian thing to do. Right. Chinese, maybe. I don’t know, and invested. I think bought maybe one share of some random ETF company because… Yeah, very random.

So entrepreneurial. Yeah.

Maybe looking back, you may look at it this way, but I think I was young, ambitious. Absolutely. So wanting to make something out of my life. I think I felt money was the only route to it.

Yeah. That is what I said, so entrepreneurial because saving and thinking about the next steps, right, is what makes a founder a good one. I mean, at least I look at it from that perspective, not being just happy with what you have today, but also planning in terms of finances, operationally, what will be tomorrow, what is the next month, next quarter, next year looks like. Planning out of time. So that is investing in.

But I think I’m starting to have a different perspective now. I recently read this book by Bill Perkins. It’s called Die with Zero. It has given me a lot of new perspective that Yes, making money is important, it’s good. At the same time, I think one should also learn to enjoy the ride.

If you think- Live in the present effect.

Correct. If you delayed gratification, of Because it makes anybody successful. There’s enough research about it. But I think society today has maybe taken that concept of delayed gratification a bit too far. It’s forever delayed gratification.

Yeah, right.

When you’re in Singapore, let’s have a good time together.

Yeah, absolutely. You have to balance it out a bit. So yeah, I totally get it. All right, the final one will not go really any further. Your celebrity crush.

I don’t have one. I’m going to sound super lame, but I really I don’t have one. I’m sorry.

No problem. I’m not going to push this one with you. No worries. All right, then. Thank you, Marcus, for taking our time to do this with us. Really appreciate it. And looking forward to your talk at Evol. Really excited for it. And for our audiences, if they want to reach out to you, how do they do that?

You can reach out to me on my email. So that’s marcus ho That’s my last name. Not a derogatory term that you would describe women. marcus.ho@brewinteractive.com. Thank you for having me once again.

Lovely. Cheers, Marcus. Thank you so much.

Thank you.