‘Were did you get that?’ How an entrepreneur is taking word of mouth online
How many times have you found yourself distracted by a paid advertisement pop-up while endlessly scrolling through your favourite social media platform?
This type of algorithm is an average experience for the majority of social media users today, and one that often dominates a large portion of any brand’s marketing budget.
Tiktok, for example, is anticipating one of its biggest years for retail yet, with a projected 58 per cent year-on-year increase in ad spend revenue from retail and e-commerce clients.
Entrepreneur Ella d’Amato, however, believes that the real sales momentum will be found within the power of word-of-mouth marketing, albeit in the hands of a new type of social media revolution.
And, with the social commerce market expected to hit a valuation of $1.2tn (£0.95tn) by 2024, d’Amato might have just found herself in a unique position to prove this belief true.
D’Amato, former interim chief executive of Notonthehightstreet (NOTHS), founded her new social shopping platform ‘I love it’ in 2023 with a mission to change the way consumers choose to shop and interact online.
“I love it was born from a desire for me to make shopping way more inspirational and fun, but also more purpose-led,” d’Amato, who has spent the last 15 years working in social commerce, says.
“For so many brands, they’re pumping so much money into advertising, and yet, 92 per cent of people much prefer to buy off a friend’s recommendation or a family’s recommendation. Word of mouth is just way more powerful.”
Reddit meets Tiktok
The best way to describe the foundations of I love it, d’Amato says, is to imagine an online marketplace that uniquely blends together Reddit-styled recommendations with a new type of “purpose-led” Tiktok.
The platform is essentially an online marketplace. It hosts a number of brands and users who share videos, photos and comments about their favourite purchases, with the intention of building an online shopping community.
I love it receives 20 per cent of each sale made on the platform. It then splits the commission with the user who recommended the item to the person who bought it.
“It is just normal human behavior [and] we do it all the time, but we have now created a platform where you can save the things that you love and then when you share them with your friends or your family or your followers, the brand gives you 10 per cent of that sale as a thank you,” d’Amato says.
“So rather than the brand pumping that money into Meta or Google, they get to reward the person that’s doing the recommendation.”
In total, the platform now represents over 250 brands and expects to have 350,000 products circulating it in a few weeks’ time.
The concept follows the success of other similar – yet different – initiatives, first with the long-established success of Pinterest and now with traditional platforms like Instagram and Tiktok taking a slice of the social commerce market.
D’Amato, however, believes I love it has a competitive advantage due to its inception being during a time when social shopping platforms and AI algorithms already exist.
That is, if she and her 12-person team can effectively and uniquely blend the concept and technology into a new type of safe, trusted shopping experience.
“Our absolute goal with our AI is to be able to serve you the things that are going to help you live your passions more, and so you don’t return the products – that’s what we’re trying to create here,” d’Amato says.
She adds: “It’s a destination, a shopping place that really puts you at the centre, rather than a commercial model where we get paid because there’s loads of ads and you’re clicking on ads.
“With the rise of AI, actually, a lot of the current platforms, you’re not going to know what’s real or not a lot of the time. And actually, we want to create a very safe, trusted place where it’s going to help you do more of what you love.”
Time to innovate
With online spending reaching ever-higher levels, and brand loyalty going down thanks to the increasing ease of switching between products on the internet, it’s become harder for brands to stand out.
As d’Amato reflects on her time as a leader within both OmnicomMedia Group and NOTHS, she says that technological innovation is the key to survival in today’s market.
If long-standing high street brands want to keep up, she says, they will need to find new and exciting ways of bringing an experience to the consumers who crave it, and firms should start hunting for the right people that can drive that innovation now.
“I still love the high street… I take my nine year old daughter to New Look and she wants to buy certain things,” she says, adding it is about “experience and a connection”.
CV
Name: Ella d’Amato
Company: I love it
Founded: April 2023
Staff: 12 full-time employees
Title: CEO and Co-Founder
Age: 42
Born: Weymouth
Lives: Botany Bay, Broadstairs
Studied: The school of life
Talents: Building strong, resilient, passionate teams. Eating chocolate. Funding fun amongst the madness
Motto: Anything Ted Lasso but always ‘believe’
Most known for: Leading through kindness, creativity, passion and purpose
First ambition: To get out and start earning money as soon as I could so I didn’t have to ask my parents for anything
Best piece of advice: Be kind – always – you never know what someone is dealing with behind closed doors