How Brands Boost ROI with Smart Data

Ecommerce marketers know the challenge of delivering relevant promotions to prospects without violating privacy rules and norms. Yet many providers now offer solutions that do both — personalize offers and respect privacy — for much greater performance.

Two of those providers are my guests in this week’s episode. Sean Larkin is CEO of Fueled, a customer data platform for merchants. Francesco Gatti is CEO of Opensend, a repository of consumer demographic and behavior data.

The entire audio of our conversation is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.

Eric Bandholz: Give us an overview of what you do.

Sean Larkin: I’m CEO and founder of Fueled, a customer data platform for ecommerce. We help brands strengthen the data signals sent to advertising and marketing platforms such as Meta to improve tracking and performance. Our team collaborates with companies such as Built Basics, Dr. Squatch, and Oats Overnight, ensuring accurate pixel data and confidence in their marketing metrics.

Francesco Gatti: I’m CEO and co-founder of Opensend. We help brands identify site visitors who haven’t provided contact information. This includes new users who show sufficient engagement for retargeting and returning shoppers browsing on different devices or browsers. Our technology links these sessions, enabling brands and platforms such as Klaviyo and Shopify to distinguish between returning visitors and new ones.

We also offer a persona tool that segments customers by detailed demographics and behavior, enabling personalized marketing. We integrate directly with Klaviyo and other email platforms. By enhancing Klaviyo accounts, we help merchants reach unidentifiable visitors and maximize ad spend. Our re-identification capabilities are critical, as consumers often use multiple devices and frequently replace them, which can disrupt tracking. We work with roughly 1,000 brands, including Oats Overnight, Regent, and Alexander Wang.

Bandholz: How can your tools track a consumer across devices?

Gatti: We see two main use cases. First is cross-device and cross-browser identification. Imagine Joe bought from you last year on his old iPhone. This year, he returns using a new iPhone or his work computer. Typically, you wouldn’t know it’s the same person. Our technology matches signals such as user-agent data against our consumer graph, which holds multiple devices per person, allowing you to recognize Joe regardless of the device or browser.

The second use case involves capturing emails from high-intent visitors. Suppose Joe clicks an Instagram ad, views several product pages for over two minutes, even adds items to his cart, but leaves without buying or subscribing.

Through data partnerships with publishers such as Sports Illustrated and Quizlet, where users provide their email addresses in exchange for free content or promotions, we can match Joe’s anonymous activity to his known email. We then send that email, plus his on-site behavior, to Klaviyo and similar platforms. This triggers an abandonment flow, allowing us to retarget him with personalized messages and increase the chance of conversion.

Bandholz: What are other ways brands use the data?

Gatti: Brands mainly set up automated flows and let them run. Like Fueled, we send data to email platforms and customer data systems, allowing them to trigger personalized actions automatically. The data enables Klaviyo to distinguish between new and returning visitors to show pop-ups only to first-timers.

Larkin: We integrate hashed emails into Meta. Match scores rise 30–50%, and return on ad spend improves because we can prove an ad drove a sale and retarget that shopper.

Gatti: Our identity graph stores multiple data points, including email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, IP addresses, and devices. Sharing that with Fueled feeds richer details into Meta’s conversion API, dramatically increasing match rates and targeting accuracy.

Larkin: Privacy rules now limit simple pixel tracking. Since iOS 17, identifiers are stripped, making it harder for ecommerce brands to track visitors and run effective ads. Fueled collects first-party data, and Opensend’s third-party graph restores lost signals. With conversion API integrations, brands send detailed data directly to platforms such as Meta for stronger targeting and email automation.

Larkin: It depends on scale. If you’re spending under $20,000 a month on ads, the free Shopify integrations with Meta or Google usually suffice. Fueled is twice the cost of our competitors because we offer hands-on audits, proactive monitoring, and direct Slack support. Our typical clients do $8 million or more in annual revenue, often over $20 million. Some entrepreneurs bring us in from day one for the data advantage. Still, most brands should wait until ad spend grows and minor optimizations have a significant financial impact.

Gatti: For Opensend it’s about traffic, not revenue. We recommend at least 30,000 monthly unique visitors so our filtering can produce quality new emails. Services that identify returning visitors across devices work best for sites with 100,000 monthly visitors, where a 10x ROI is common. Our plans start at $250 per month.

Visitors who never share an email address convert less often, but our filtering narrows the gap. At apparel brand True Classic, for example, we captured 390,000 emails over three years, saw 65% open rates, and delivered a 5x return on investment within three months. As these contacts move through remarketing with holiday offers and seasonal promotions, ROI continues to compound.

Bandholz: When should a company remove an unresponsive subscriber?

Gatti: It varies by brand, average order value, and overall marketing strategy. We work with both high-end luxury companies and billion-dollar tire sellers with very different approaches. In general, if you’ve sent 10 to 15 emails with zero engagement, it’s time to drop those contacts. Continuing to send won’t help.

Larkin: I’d add that many brands, including big ones, don’t plan their retargeting or abandonment flows, especially heading into Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The pressure to discount everything can lead to leaving money on the table. Opensend reveals customer intent, allowing you to adjust offers. Someone who reaches the checkout may not require the same discount as someone who has only added a product to their cart.

We partner with agencies such as Brand.co and New Standard Co that help us build smart strategies. My biggest recommendation for the holidays is to review your flows, decide when a large discount is necessary, and avoid giving away the farm. If you blanket customers with huge discounts, many will disappear once the sale ends.

Bandholz: Where can people follow you, find you, use your services?

Gatti: Our site is Opensend.com. I’m on LinkedIn.

Larkin: We’re Fueled.io. I’m also on LinkedIn.