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This is FERMAT Fridays, your backstage pass to what’s going on at FERMAT.
Join us every Friday as we chat about what we're cooking up, the strategy behind it all, and of course our general musings.
Expect juicy insights on new features, our latest experiment results, and whatever else is making waves in our world. Whether you're an existing customer or just a little FERMAT curious, this podcast will keep you up to date and entertained.
Alex McEachern (00:01.461)
Welcome back to Fermat Friday. I've got a guest today from the account management side of things. This is our first guest from this team, but I'm sure it's not going to be our last because they are a wealth of information on different topics. Today I got Sarah, who also just got a promotion. So she is a senior growth manager now. Congrats, Sarah.
Sara Herman (00:22.478)
Thank you for the shameless plug. Hi, nice to meet you guys. I'm Sarah and I'm on our account management team.
Alex McEachern (00:31.061)
So Sarah, I was, I wanted to talk about a few things today, but I think like overall what I'm hoping to get out of talking to you today is this might be because I've said it in the past and I was like, well, branding doesn't really matter in terms of performance. And I think that has kind of bit me a bit when people are talking back and they're like, yeah, cool. Like you guys create these very performative experiences, but they don't look good. And like,
Sara Herman (00:57.71)
Yeah.
Alex McEachern (00:57.877)
that hurts my soul a bit because like there are so many brands out there doing amazing things and they look beautiful. They're stunning. So I don't think that's actually a thing, but just wanted to get your take on me saying that is that true? And like, what have you kind of seen so far with this? Because we did just have one of our biggest updates to your, our ability to brand these experiences in the history of Fermat just a few weeks ago.
Sara Herman (01:15.022)
Yeah.
Sara Herman (01:25.55)
Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm actually shocked at how long it took us to finally prioritize getting that custom branding feature released because we had been asked about it by multiple brands probably for the past six or so months. And we were always hesitant to commit to it because we really just didn't know what the impact on performance would be. And we felt that...
Like we had generated so much learnings from all the experiments that we were running cross brand. So the default settings that we had in Fermat were all based off like data driven results and ensuring that we were delivering the best possible conversion rates across all of our brands. And we heard from other partners that obviously brand perception and brand identity is really important. And so we ended up getting to a place where.
Like one of our long standing partners came to us and they were like, our creative team is not happy with you guys. Like we need to quickly iterate and get our pages to look more on brands so that consumers have like a coherent experience when they're engaging in their brand. And given that, you know, they were a really valuable partner to us, we ended up just building it custom for them.
before we had even released this feature. And I think the really cool thing about that was that we actually got to learn what happened to conversion rate when we released custom branding. And yeah, exactly to your point, like nothing changed. Performance stayed the exact same. And I think that like, that was probably the best outcome that we would have hoped for because like anything neutral, given that their conversion rates were already very strong for their category was a win. So.
Yeah, it's definitely a misleading thing that performance helps conversion rate because it actually has zero impact.
Alex McEachern (03:27.445)
I think one thing I've been thinking about a lot with this, though, is like when you think about our defaults that we had, like we had mobile optimized fonts, like we were using certain fonts like call attention, using certain fonts to have things like kind of fade into the background. And I think that's one of like the things I'm most impressed about how we brought this to market is we kind of actually allowed the brands to customize this inside of that framework. So like some of these like safeties are kind of built into that. Like, hey, don't draw too much attention here because that will
Sara Herman (03:40.206)
Mm -hmm.
Sara Herman (03:50.67)
Right.
Alex McEachern (03:56.341)
that will hurt conversions. So we have like different surface areas that you can play around with so that something pops and something kind of fades into the background. So it's very interesting that we got to kind of like take all the learning we had from kind of this like out of the box default experience. And if you choose to use that with Vermont, like it's, it's not like it looks bad. It is like very performative, but now we just have the ability to take this one step further by basically applying the same learnings and allowing you to put your own brand kit to it.
Sara Herman (04:19.182)
Right.
Sara Herman (04:24.398)
Totally. Yeah, I think a lot of what we learned was around, you know, choosing where to add very high contrast, whether that was like call to action buttons or specific badges that we would place on products to get consumers to really engage with them. And all of those settings we've still maintained. It's just now you can actually like have your own brand identity come through those call outs and, you know.
buttons and backgrounds and things like that. But yeah, I think the reason why it took us a long time to kind of productize this in a way that could be scaled out to multiple clients is because we didn't want to just do it in a very bespoke custom way where we weren't sure what the impact would be. We wanted to do it in a way that really resonated with how we've been going to market with really high converting experiences and not really, you know,
reinvent the wheel on that front.
Alex McEachern (05:24.181)
Yeah. So what we've seen so like when we say, Hey, branding doesn't have an impact on performance. Like that's actually a good thing because like now you can brand this and it still doesn't have an impact on performance in terms of like, this isn't a negative. You are able to build these experiences and have that same high performing experience that you come to expect with Vermont. Now, before we jump into the next section here, I do want to give listeners, we're going to be showing some visuals here. So if you're listening to this on the podcast players, I will link these.
Sara Herman (05:36.398)
Right?
Sara Herman (05:42.638)
Absolutely.
Alex McEachern (05:51.541)
experiences in the show notes so that you can click into these and follow along. We'll do our best to kind of explain what we're showing here, but just to make it clear, this is also going to be on YouTube. So if you want to see the visual versions of this, head over to for mock commerce on YouTube to check it out. All right. So jumping into those, Sarah, where I want to start was I think one of the best I've seen in terms of like not.
The best is so subjective, but all this is subjective. We're talking brand. Dose has really leaned into the branding side of this, and I think they have just created this seamless integration of what Fermat looks like when you check out their site. And I was hoping that we could just kind of like jam on dose for a second. I know you set this up for them. So maybe walk me through like one. Bringing this to life for them.
Sara Herman (06:23.326)
I'm sorry.
Sara Herman (06:38.606)
Great.
Sara Herman (06:43.63)
Yeah, let's do it.
Alex McEachern (06:50.965)
what did they think to how easy was it? And then maybe we'll like click around and play in here and like highlight some of the things you're most proud of.
Sara Herman (06:58.67)
Yeah, for sure. So mainly what we did was really try to just mimic the experience that DOS has on their website. I think DOS really leans into these like neutral, like olive green tones. And so if you notice on this advertorial format, you know, we have like this top section, that's what we call a hero header that maps to this like light green surface and
This definitely did take a couple of iterations. I think DOS has a wide range of like greens that they use. Some are this like darker green, others are a little bit more muted. But we wanted to make sure that like whatever components mapped to certain branding colors on the actual format of the page allowed the consumer to like still have that same like level of accessibility when they're shopping. So.
we played around with like two different options for this advertorial, which is one of their, you know, most scaled pages. Tried doing like a darker color in the background and then ultimately went with this lighter green because the call to action being really prominent is the number one most important thing, especially when you're above the fold. So yeah, I think the beauty about the format branding feature was that we could actually like,
preview what these shops would look like with a couple different opportunities to do color schemas and then give that to the brand and say, do you like this? Does this feel on brand to you? Would you change anything? Here's what I would recommend based off what I'm seeing. And then it's a really collaborative process from there. And whatever we decided to roll out ended up being applied across the board.
Alex McEachern (08:50.805)
One thing I love to, so with Vermont, like we're not just letting you build landing pages. We kind of let you build an experiment through the entire funnel. So like if I click into one of the product pages inside of here, like you're getting that same brand experience here. And I think this is what Sarah and I were talking about at the beginning is like, okay, we got the ad to bag prominent here, but like, Hey, we're using some of these like colors to draw attention to where we want attention to be drawn. So like, Hey, with dose, like, Hey, we have subscription highlighted here.
Okay, I can switch into one time purchase, but we're using color to draw attention here or hey, if I want to switch to a six pack, like I can easily do that. So basically using these different surface areas to make sure that the things that are going to lead to high converting experiences are the things that are getting attention. And that's like, I think dose has just done a great job of applying this throughout the entirety of the shopping experience.
Sara Herman (09:37.966)
Absolutely.
Sara Herman (09:44.302)
Yeah, I love, I mean, this expanded subscription selector is, it has honestly been a game changer for so many health and wellness brands that we work with just to kind of outline what the advantages are to subscribing. And, you know, this is the user experience that we designed because we, we knew that it was going to be effective at boosting that first order subscription rate and just seeing it now, like in doses text and you know, the yellow.
badges that are being called out. It just looks really good. And I also love like the size variant selectors too, being able to see the discount that you're getting if you decide to like bundle up, if you're buying dose for, you know, a partner or someone in your family as well. It's just a lot more attention grabbing.
Alex McEachern (10:34.965)
I love it. And like even inside of the, like basically the carousel, like all of these visuals are using the same color palette. Like it's very cohesive now. Now for those watching, you might be looking at this and saying, okay, that's a bit too crazy for me. Like we have a lot of colors being worked with here. And like, if you were to check out dose daily and like, go and look at their site, this is actually pretty well one -to -one with what you're going to get on the site. Once you're dropped into a Fermat experience.
So I wanted to kind of show a few other ones. So, this is one of my favorites that I've seen kind of apply the branding. so we're now looking at farmhouse fresh. And the reason I love this setup is they have used their brand colors to basically make like quick pops and like, Hey, this is definitely on brand, but I'm very much using inside of here, a very kind of like I've been calling it clean.
Sara Herman (11:09.358)
Mm -hmm.
Alex McEachern (11:33.525)
experience, like I'm only really using brand colors for the purpose of drawing attention to something and kind of letting everything kind of like fade. So in this video example here, like, hey, we have the the muted green, we have like the more vibrant green, like you were talking about, Sarah to draw to specific things. But I think like, one of the reasons I love this kind of like clean layout is farmhouse has beautiful
product photography with kind of like that pastel color palette. And I think that the pastels also pop. So in terms of like a merchandising play here, like again, the way you have your catalog set up kind of plays into like how easy is this for you to do. But I think that this like clean experience is just like stunning.
Sara Herman (12:20.494)
Totally. Yeah, I think the really cool thing also on this point that you can do is we have noticed in general that these product images that are very high contrast have really fun colors in the background. They tend to drive a much higher product engagement rate, which is just the amount of people that are actually clicking into the PDP. And I think the really cool thing about Fermat is that...
We don't necessarily have to replicate exactly what's set in your Shopify settings. You can upload custom images that are completely unique to Vermont. You can design really amazing infographics and put them in our product carousels. And I think we've really been encouraging a lot of brands to do that because we know that people are more drawn to images on the PDP. And so having something that is really stand out really...
Alex McEachern (12:52.373)
Yes.
Sara Herman (13:16.302)
high standout and educational with the infographics and things like that, it tends to drive a much stronger like add to cart rate. So cool thing that you can do. Quick tip.
Alex McEachern (13:28.437)
That's a really good call out. With Vermont, we're obviously, we're pulling images in from Shopify that you can use, but you are not bound to using those. You can use custom imagery to represent that product. And again, clicking into any of these, we get into what Sarah was talking about, the PDP. And I wanna show a few more examples where we're gonna focus a little bit more on the PDP rather than the Lander. But again, like.
Hey, these might not be the images that I want to show on my Shopify site because that might be for a particular audience. Maybe those, maybe the people who are shopping my site are mostly returning customers and I don't need to have as much kind of like infographic style. but Hey, if they're coming in through an ad, maybe I want all the icons. Maybe I want to have images that are comparing one thing to another, which might not be necessary or maybe even relevant on the main Shopify site.
All right, I'm gonna switch to I know this is a new brand for you. I think Sarah, I get I get these ads everywhere. I get them all over Instagram. Clearly Instagram thinks I need sharper knives. But wanted to talk through this one because like they really like as a brand, they really lean into orange as like that pop. And I think like it has really jumped off the page.
Sara Herman (14:32.974)
It is, yeah.
Sara Herman (14:50.158)
Orange. Yeah.
Alex McEachern (14:54.229)
in terms of what they've been able to create with Vermont. Again, because like that orange is a part of the packaging, it's just like seamlessly integrated into the product shots and the entire experience here. Would love to know what like your thoughts were setting this up, what their thoughts were kind of like bringing this experience to life.
Sara Herman (15:15.982)
Yeah, totally. I think at first we were kind of toying around with how much we should lean into the orange. But I think at the end of the day, we kind of decided to go for it. And it ended up taking off. I mean, for a high AOV product like Tumblr, having a really strong in -session conversion rate, which is essentially like...
how many people are converting within the session of the ad click is it's harder to do for higher IOV products. But I think with Tumblr, like the combination of the very standout oriented orange, and then also just like the continuity of really how this entire page is laid out. Even the font, I think is a really interesting play for them and something really different. And I love that it cut.
Alex McEachern (16:05.813)
Yeah.
Sara Herman (16:09.934)
kind of ties both into like all of the main headers as well as the product names. I think like it was kind of the perfect combination. And especially with Tumblr, where doing it on this video experience is really helpful because it is a product that people do need to see live. Like not everyone is kind of aware how this this like knife sharpener device really works. And so what they are really able to do is like.
tie in the video, which paired really nicely with the branding, and get that really cohesive experience. So it's been working really well for them.
Alex McEachern (16:49.717)
as someone who has seen these ads 50 times, I'm still blown away on like how this actually sharpens the knife, but it clearly, clearly works. I do wanna click into the PDPs here because like you said, like when I click in here, again, this is just a testament to them with the visuals that they put together. Again, like probably to target me who's trying to understand how this works is so many great.
info graphics style shots. Yeah. Graphics that they're pulling in here so that someone who's clicking through this ad experience and is trying to understand definitely can get all the information from these PDPs. And like a lot of times when you build a PDP on the Shopify site, it's not necessarily like, I mean, you can take a couple of different approaches to a PDP, but like educating takes a lot of time. And I think they've just done it very gracefully through their PDPs.
Sara Herman (17:17.742)
Graphics, yeah.
Sara Herman (17:43.982)
Yeah. And I think that like a lot of the times on, you know, brand PDPs, you really like I've seen the brands lean a lot heavier into like more beautiful product shots. Maybe like a few lifestyle shots, but for the most part, like they really want to make sure that the product is like at the forefront versus on a platform like Amazon, you know, everything is more infographic driven. I think because
You know, there's so many options on Amazon that you want to make sure that you're able to communicate like why you differentiate. But I really do think that when people are, you know, scrolling on Instagram or Facebook and they click on an ad, having that same level of, you know, information, feature call outs, benefits, key points, like that is going to help conversion. And I think that that's the reason why we've kind of translated those learnings into Fermat is because it really helps like capture that.
while their intent is extremely high.
Alex McEachern (18:47.893)
Yeah, the context of the click is really important. And like, I mean, that's one of the main like theses here is that depending on where I'm coming in, I'm going to need a different experience to push me to the point of actually converting and making a purchase. So like, as a good example is like, if I'm seeing UGC style ads, and then I'm dropped onto kind of like a regular product page, and that product page is just like lifestyle shots, the UGC, like the get get ready with me type video.
is more like educational in nature. So then if I land on a page where it's just like lifestyle shots, like I actually clicked into this ad because I wanted to see the look. I wanted to explore the look and like having more educational informational pieces to that than just kind of like, look how good you can look. Cause that's not necessarily the context in which I was dropped in here.
Sara Herman (19:38.862)
100%. Yeah, that's why I feel like the ad to like shopping experience continuity is so important because it ultimately should be, the lander should be an extension of why somebody clicked on the ad. And if you're really able to tie those two experiences together, you're going to drive the strongest performance.
Alex McEachern (20:00.021)
All right, I have one more example that I want to run through. And one of the reason, yeah, I love this whole experience. And one of the reasons I love this is actually from the product detail cards that we've actually added, like embedded into this experience. So some bad, do you want to maybe give some background on them and like.
Sara Herman (20:05.006)
Tadis!
Sara Herman (20:12.494)
Me too.
Sara Herman (20:20.91)
Mm.
Yep.
Sara Herman (20:29.198)
Yeah.
Alex McEachern (20:29.461)
We're going to hit on why this experience is so important to them, but maybe some background context. And for those who might be listening and not seeing what are we looking at?
Sara Herman (20:38.702)
Yeah, for sure. So, Caddis is an eyewear brand. They sell prescription glasses, readers, they sell sunglasses. And I think, I mean, hopefully we'll have Erin on the pod to share more about this directly. But one of their challenges was essentially trying to really streamline that customer purchase funnel and...
on their main site, they have a bunch of different like customizations that you can make to the lens tint, to the lens power, the frame, et cetera. And one of the really cool things that we've been able to do with them is essentially streamline what we're showing the consumer. And by that, I mean, these are not like all of the product or these are not all of the frame colors that are associated with Miklos. It's actually like a subsect that are very popular frames.
And so we've been able to actually create like completely custom PDP experiences that don't even exist on their site, just based off like formatting that we've done, combining certain SKUs, hiding certain variants. Like it is extremely custom, but it works because now only the only thing that you have to do when you land on this page is like choose your frame and choose your lens power and then you can check out. So really cool use case with Caddis. I'm sure we'll get into.
a lot of that later, but that's kind of what we did here.
Alex McEachern (22:08.213)
So yeah, I think like when we think we go back to the beginning, like one of the myths that we wanted to bust was that for mod experiences can't be beautiful. They can't be on brand. And the first few examples we showed was like really highlighting like the brand look inside of the experience. But I think one of the things that can make something beautiful is simplicity and organization. And I think that they have done like a fantastic job here. Like you said, they have like,
Sara Herman (22:31.118)
Yeah.
Alex McEachern (22:35.573)
I don't know, hundreds, thousands of combinations of things that you can put together, right? And by being able to bring these together where it's like, OK, here's different frame options. Here's different lens magnification. And like I can click into these and actually like see what this is and add it straight to my bag from the lander here. Like I haven't even clicked into a specific PDP in this situation. I am on the advertorial and able to just be like, yep.
Sara Herman (22:37.678)
thousands of skews, yeah.
Alex McEachern (23:01.013)
I like that. I like it in this frame color and I need this type, this magnification level. well, apparently not this one cause it's sold out, but so the one, the one I need, but being able to do that, like there is something to be said about like simplicity being able to, like, if it wasn't built like this, it, it could quite literally be mayhem trying to make this happen. Simplicity and organization to me is beautiful.
Sara Herman (23:04.43)
Yeah.
Sara Herman (23:08.334)
Too bad it sold out.
Sara Herman (23:25.422)
Yeah, right.
And I think like the beauty of something like this is like, obviously these shop old product cards are great. there's certain times where like the product does require a little bit more education. And that's why we have things like accordion drop downs where you can actually, you know, re format the elements on the actual PDP into the lander itself so that you still maintain that really quick add to cart experience, but you get a little bit of context. You get a little bit of education at the same time.
I think with reading glasses, it's like, you know, usually people are aware of their lens power. You know, my mom has like seven different pairs of reading glasses and it's just because I feel like they're, it's like a way to express yourself. And so like, Katas, for example, has such sick styles that, you know, having this immediate shop ability without necessarily too much on the page was like a really perfect.
area for them to pursue.
Alex McEachern (24:32.565)
it. And you're so right. So when we're talking about the modules here, like when you're in the ability to build something beautiful, pretty, yes, but the ability to do it in like an easy way, like we have modules that we can drag and drop into here, and allow you to kind of like not start from scratch and like build some of these things up. Dozens of them that exist on the landing page, dozen of them that exists on the PDP page to kind of like bring people closer to these experiences that they want to create instead of starting from scratch.
I just wanted to elaborate on what a module is inside of Format for those that aren't familiar.
Sara Herman (25:07.918)
Yeah, sorry, like, I feel like my entire vocab at this point is all firm hot stuff. I forget that people don't know.
Alex McEachern (25:15.381)
Alright before we jump here, Sarah
When we're so obviously like you have been working with a bunch of different brands on bringing this all to life. Now, what are kind of some of the commonalities you're seeing? Like what are some of the most popular things people are doing? And is there anything that people are trying to do when we talked at the beginning about like, Hey, this doesn't have an impact on performance. Is there anything where people are trying to do something like that might that might actually have an impact on performance might make it look good, but might come with a hit.
Sara Herman (25:50.574)
Yeah, totally. I think, you know, the beauty about Vermont's simplicity is that it really takes a few small steps to put a lander together, but at the same time, there are definitely best practices for how certain things should be oriented on page so that you still maintain a really high level of performance. Sorry, there's like fully a Congo band happening outside my window, if you can hear that. Love living in New York.
Alex McEachern (26:15.893)
Ha!
Sara Herman (26:20.75)
but yeah, so I think that like the reason why Fermat is so collaborative with the brands when they're going through not only this like branding implementation process, but also just putting planners together in general is like, we have seen what works and we've seen what converts across similar brands in your category. So it's always going to be like a very hands -on experience because even though something could, you know, look,
really good, it may not be the best at capturing that consumer. And I think that the primary goal of putting something that's designed in Firmat to life is being able to maximize the amount of people that are converting within that session, because that's ultimately going to have the strongest impact on your ad platform performance and metrics. So we will always be consultative in that manner and kind of help.
guide you into certain decisions that may not be the first thing that you think of, just given brand identity, brand voice, et cetera. But we know that it's going to work because we've seen it work in the past. And we want you to have the best possible experience when working with us too.
Alex McEachern (27:35.893)
Love it. So I hope over the course of this, again, maybe I walked myself into the Fermat experience can't be beautiful because it's so performative. I've probably said this in the past, but hoping that Sarah and I have kind of busted that myth that these can't look great. Myth debunked. That's the word I'm looking for. Sarah, before we let you go, anywhere people can kind of follow along with you, I know that you're having...
Sara Herman (27:50.926)
event.
Alex McEachern (28:04.469)
a crazy growth in Twitter followers right now. I think we're up from like 17 till maybe like 30 or 30 or so. But where can if people want to kind of interact with you, is there anywhere they can do that?
Sara Herman (28:09.326)
from 14. Yeah.
Sara Herman (28:16.91)
Yeah, I am. I'm working on stepping up my Twitter game. So I think my handle is like at Sarah Herm. Not even sure what the handle is, but I'll drop it to Alex after this so he can distribute it. But yeah, find me on Twitter. Find me on LinkedIn. Also, if you just want to send me an email and like understand kind of how life is at Fermat and how we're working with brands, I'm always more than happy to chat with you personally and give you some context. My email is just Sarah at FermatCommerce .com. So.
Yeah, feel free to reach out whenever.
Alex McEachern (28:49.813)
we'll get her handle into the show notes. Let's get Sarah over 50 followers on the Bird app. Sarah, this was amazing. Thank you so much. You clearly put like a ton of care and like detail into all of these brands you're working with and like appreciate you.
Sara Herman (28:51.982)
Yeah.
Sara Herman (28:56.142)
Let's do it.
Sara Herman (29:00.462)
Thank you.
Sara Herman (29:07.022)
Of course. Thank you, Alex. This is awesome.