Hello, dear listeners. Very warm welcome to the Partner Marketing Podcast. My guest today is Annika Kreisel. Annika works at Bonprix, an international fashion brand operating out of Hamburg. As team lead display retargeting and affiliate marketing, Annika has tons of experience about running user acquisition activities, and there especially in partner marketing. Hello, Annika. Welcome to the Partner Marketing Podcast. Thank you so much for being my guest today. Thank you, Matthias, for the warm welcome, and thanks for having me today. So my name is Annika, and as you already said, I'm working at Bonprix, and I'm leading the team for display retargeting and affiliate marketing for roughly two and a half years now, and I've experienced in online marketing for about 10 years.

So in my role at Bonprix, I'm mainly focusing on developing and implementing strategies to look out for new customers, to steer campaigns efficiently, and of course to work with my impressive team together and focusing on new campaigns and new ideas we always have. Great. Lovely. I'm really looking forward to our conversation and learning a little bit about how you're doing, what you're doing. Can we maybe start by talking about Bonprix itself, about what are you doing? What is this brand about? What is important for it? What does it stand for? Thank you so much. I love the idea. So Bonprix is a fashion brand, as you said, and we are based in Hamburg. And what most people don't know, we are very international.

So we have online shops in more than 25 countries at the moment, and we are focusing on women's fashion, but we are also selling kids' fashion, men's fashion, and home and garden. So we are quite broad. We are in the web shop, and we are an online pure player for a couple of years now. So we had stores, but we are now focusing on the online segment. So performance marketing and all the online advertising campaigns are a very important part for our web shop. And yes, I take that. It's really interesting. So you closed all these shops, all these retail shops a few years ago. So you're one of the few players. Are there any other players that made this transition from being a retail company with physical stores and now being an online pure player?

How was that? Difficult for most of us, I would say. I think it was; I've been working for Bonprix for about eight years now. I think the change already started before my time at Bonprix. And we had a few stores left. We had an outlet store here in Hamburg. And we also had a very innovative store in the Hamburg Möncherbergstraße. I don't know if you heard about it. Yes, I know. So that was a very nice idea. Very innovative design where you lock into the shop with your app and you don't have to talk to anyone at the store. So you are able to, you were able to put your items into the dressing rooms automatically. So very, very nice concept. But I think it was too early for the market.

And that's why we had to close it a couple of years ago. Years ago as well. And now focusing on online only. With that, I think, like as far as I know, like being quite familiar with this brand, there was a major transition done as well when it comes to what target groups you're addressing, right? So this, the whole brand Bonprix, how it positions itself into the market, what target groups you're addressing. That has changed as well, right? Yes. So we made a change. And are still transitioning into a fashion brand a couple of some time ago. So Bonprix was mainly focusing on very affordable, some kind, some people would say cheap fashion. But what we tried to do is to be a lot more fashionable to also focus on a younger target group.

And I think that's what you can see if you visit our web shop. So the whole shop is a lot more innovative. Personally, I like it a lot more since then. It's been a few years. And we also, the products are more younger, more fresher, more colorful. And this is what we're still doing. And still transitioning and trying to figure out what do the users want, what do the shoppers want. Very good. That's a big transition, right? Of the whole company going from retail to online pure play, changing as well target group positioning of the company. How do you feel today? Do you think that was a success? Is that a successful shift? Is that finalized now? Are you still in some kind of transition phase? Or would you say, yes, now we're there?

I think we're still transitioning because the market is changing a lot. So we see new competitors like the Asian brands are coming into the European markets, especially in the German market. And we see e-commerce is struggling for most of the web shops. And to see what can we do? How can we be? Always to set innovative fashion, but also to be on top of mind for the people to have a high brand awareness. And that also differs between the countries. So in Germany it's our base home market or strongest market as well. And the other countries have different experiences. So, for example, France or Spain are quite difficult because you also have a very hard competitors. And so it differs from country to country. And also from the brand awareness we have in the countries.

At least I think like from our experience as a network, we work with many fashion brands. Obviously, we saw a lot of new ones popping up in the last five, six years or at least accelerating. On the other hand, you could say a few of them are already gone again as well. So you would say that this difficult market environment still continues? Or you see that rather as something that with this focus with new brands. So you see a lot of energy and you see a lot of excitement in this industry. That is rather something that helps, maybe? I think it helps in case of innovation and how you want to be as a brand and how to develop faster. So we see we have to change faster.

We have to change to the users' interests faster than before. And I think this is still going on. So it won't change in the next years and will still be in a very rapid development. Maybe we can speak a little bit about customer acquisition. Because, as you say, right, you're working in a very competitive environment. At the same time, you had this transition phase. So I like from my point of view thinking, I think you really need to excel in customer acquisition, so acquiring new customers. Online and then obviously being very close to your existing ones. Can you share a bit with us on how you do that? I think that would be very interesting for us to learn. Sure. So we have a big, a large online marketing team based in Hamburg.

So we decided to focus mainly on in-house teams. And we have a team about 70 people at the moment. For example, my team, but also paid search, paid social and also an email and pushback team. So we have a huge marketing team. And of course, infrastructure, so controlling web tech technology. And we see that we are able to still see a very efficient and very profitable campaigns at the moment. But we always have to see what channel do we use, what marketing makes sense to the country we're working in. And we also have to see what are the developments, for example. So what channel is growing in which country? What should we focus on? What are developments from, I don't know, data privacy? Or what is Google planning? What is Meta doing?

So it's a very, I think, interesting development in the market. And we always have to look, how do we reach the customer? What's interesting for them? So, for example, is TikTok already a channel where we also get not only views or visits on clicks, but also sales? So is it already a channel that we're able to generate? And how do we generate sales for the webshop and to also always grow and to decide which marketing makes it the best for us at the moment? So you mentioned email marketing, paid search, partner marketing. I assume you have display activities, influencer marketing as well. Is that kind of like the pie, if you want to say so, the mix of channels you're working with? Most of it, yeah. How do they compare in size?

Usually in the past, you always said like 50% is search and the other channels are sharing the rest. How is that at Bonprix? Would you say that's similar? Quite similar. I cannot share the exact numbers today. But what I can say is that Meta and Google are quite important partners for us. But also partners like Criteo or like you, like Tradedoubler and all the publishers behind that. And what we see, it's still changing. So it's not a fix. It makes what we can see. And so this morning I talked to my controlling colleague and we were watching into the different segments. So it's different for home and living than it is, for example, for women's fashion. So that's also always we have to take into consideration and see.

How do you manage that? Because I assume you have different teams, right? So, like around when was that? That was 2007 or so. Trade Doubler acquired a search call. That was something that, yeah, that's a long time ago. That is something actually that failed dramatically, right? So back in the days, we were thinking that while we are in partner marketing, clients spend half their budgets on search. So that would be kind of like complimentary. And then we acquired this company and we tried to integrate. And then we really learned that search, like per se, from an outsider's perspective, you could say, well, this is perfect. This is performance marketing. This is kind of similar, completely different animal, right? So we don't have that anymore for a long time.

And we won't touch it again, I think. But it's very different channels, right? So even if some of them have similarities in like, for example, maybe the tracking or the follow up or something like that, just like the way you talk and like, for example, KPIs you might have is completely different. So how do you manage that? All these different disciplines? How do you manage to have that syncing together? So we are working quite closely between the departments. And for example, we have an OKR framework we're doing between the teams. So they are working on lots of topics together. For example, when it comes to webshop changes or tracking changes or data privacy like Cochila. So we had a big project group during the last year focusing on what can everybody do to fix this?

Or to see what innovation is going next? And we still have a very good controlling team managing all the numbers and all the budgets for everyone. So it's quite helpful to know there's someone watching, although the teams are watching the numbers by themselves. And so we have quite close collaboration and a lot of meetings as well. So, it's different teams for the different channels? Yes. You follow that up separately, as you said. How does that compare when you look at the user acquisition funnel? Because some of these channels obviously will have an influence on each other, right? So, obviously, if you run a campaign, maybe an influencer marketing on Meta or as you said, TikTok on TikTok itself, you can't really measure any conversions anyway. So, they will have influence on other channels.

How do you differentiate then? How do you see how certain activities or measurements impact each other? I think it's still difficult. So most of our campaigns are focused on the lower funnel. So, based on performance marketing, because it drives sales, to be honest. And we're still trying to figure out what mid and upper funnel performance or campaigns are best. We're still doing different campaigns in different countries. And we have, for example, always-on badges that are working where we take into consideration all campaigns that have been running into one market. And also to make really large actual analysis in the data analytics team and see how they are working together, what are the effects on each other? And we have, for example, a marketing mix modeling, which was developed in-house as well.

We have a dynamic attribution. That takes into consideration each touch point between the performance marketing channels and also the mid-funnel campaigns as well. So it's a big structure what we have to take into consideration. But I think it's still growing. So you never see what's bust or you can never say it's finished. For example, I would love to have an impression-based dynamic attribution. That's something we're still working on. So we are mainly focused on clicks and sales. But what about impressions? How can we take this into consideration? It's a huge load of data, right? Yeah. Like video. And it's difficult. It's really difficult for the market to find a solution for this. So you consolidate all the data into one platform? Mostly. So we're working with an in-house team.

We have a data science team as well. Not in the performance marketing department, but we're working with them a lot. So to see what data is coming into, we have a funnel API. So all the data is coming into the teams. And we have large dashboards where the controlling and the teams as well are focusing on. Are you using, I hope I can ask that, are you using the same technology as the Otto Group is using for user journey? Are you using the same reporting and funnel visualization? Because I know that they're using their own tool. They have developed something themselves. And as you're part of Otto Group, I wonder if you use the same tool. I don't think so. So we have different approaches as well.

So we are talking to each other a lot and sharing ideas and learnings. But we have our own tools. We have our own attribution models behind that. And we also have our own tracking and reporting tools as well. Maybe one other question that is linked to this user acquisition topic, because it's a topic that comes up all the time. You obviously, because you said before that many of these activities are lower funnel and where the sales has happened. Then I assume you have the challenge to differentiate between new customers and existing returning customers. Obviously, you want to have new customers. Sure. And then there is the debate about the existing customers. Would they return anyway? Or have they returned because of some activities that you have been driving?

How do you deal with that? Because we get that very often from clients as well, that this is one of the major challenges that you obviously want to have new customers. You want to have the existing ones buying as well, but you obviously don't want to pay for a sale that you potentially would have got anyway. How do you deal with that? That's a good question. So since retargeting is also part of my team, I am very much focusing on that topic and question as well. And we've been discussing this internally a lot. So do we have to do retargeting? When do we have to retarget users, for example? Would they come as well? So even if we don't show them an ad, how often do we have to show them an ad?

So what we did in the past, we tried to exclude certain customer groups and also say after the last visit, we don't show them, for example, retargeting ads for three days. However, we saw even if we do this, we try to spend not as much budget. So to see if we can invest the budget, we're not spending on retargeting ads, for example, for the three days into other channels. And this was not working out, to be honest. So we saw that the amount of demand we were losing was not growing or developing into the other channels, for example, the non-paid or post-show email. So on the one hand, it's quite difficult to analyze and to see if you don't spend budget on the user, is he coming or is she coming otherwise as well?

But in the end, we decided to delete all of them and all the exclusions we had in the past. And we are now, I don't think we are focusing on exclusions anymore at all. We are now focusing on the best customer groups, for example, to see what are our best customers, where can we reach them, or to work with lookalikes, for example. So to use AI groups to see what customers behave quite similar to our best customers and where can we reach them. And this is a new strategy instead of excluding customers and don't show them ads. Because even if we have existing customers, we still need to show them ads to get them into the web shop as well. I understand.

Now, when you think about measuring, when you consolidate all this data and then I assume you speak regularly about the results, comparing the results, setting strategies, how do you measure? Do you have certain KPIs to measure success? And do you do that across all the channels or is it different channel by channel? It's always depending on the funnel. So in the lower funnel, we are mainly focusing on a cost-demand ratio. So what costs are we spending and what demand are we getting in the end? And we are also focusing on new customer rates a lot. So for example, if you see a campaign or channel where the new customer rates are higher than in the others, we are also able or we are also willing to invest a lot higher cost-demand ratio.

So this is different from channel to channel as well and also from market to market because we always see what's the state of the market. For example, Germany, where we have the biggest brand awareness. This is a country where we are able to steer extremely efficiently. However, for example, in the Nordic countries, we are trying a different approach. For example, in France or in Spain. And so the KPIs are different between the channels and between the countries as well. Okay, I see. This kind of like measurement and the interaction between the different channels, all this tracking, would you say this is one of the biggest challenges that you have? Sure. I think for all e-commerce brands, it's one of the biggest challenges at the moment. It's kind of like a science by itself, right?

It is. Because we see with less concerns, with more data regulations, it's getting more and more difficult to be able to target users, to get data from the users and to be able to use it for marketing in a legal way, of course. So we always have to stick to the data regulations that are not optional at the moment, of course. And we also see how can we, for example, use data science tools to, for instance, from our partners also, to fill the gap from the content. For example, in some countries, we are missing a lot of consents. For example, France is a country where it's quite difficult and different to Germany. And to see how can we extend the missing data together with the workshop partners or the marketing partners we have.

All these regulations you just managed, like that is GDPR, obviously, the consent management, the whole cookie management as well. Of course. Would you say that had an impact on your business, on your results? Yes, definitely. Do you think it has lowered your business? Maybe. We are trying to find out, but it's not easy to say. But it will be even harder, especially with the cookie-less future or cookie-lesser future, whatever you are talking about, what Google Chrome is planning at the moment. And it's getting more and more difficult for us because there have been, I think there have been some regulations recently to not only set an opt-in button, but also to implement an opt-out very, very permanently on your webshop. So I don't know if users even watch this.

I don't think users even look into the data privacy regulations and read this. I don't know if they even understand this. This is a very common problem and I think it makes it harder for the whole e-commerce division. Because it's so much harder and so much hassle. It's obviously a lot of work. Obviously, you could claim it's often with the best intentions. So far on Trade Doubler side, so on network side, I think we have always found ways to cover for it or found other ways in order to do so, where we overall come to the conclusion that it does not really have an effect on the business performance itself. Although again, it's super difficult to measure, right? Yeah. It's hard to quantify.

But I think it's quite interesting if you state that like this from a brand's perspective, that it's limiting your business opportunity, right? That's very interesting, actually. Very worrying, actually. All right. Now, maybe going a little bit from Bonprix, how you do customer acquisition a bit more detailed into partner marketing. This is the Partner Marketing podcast and you manage partner marketing at Bonprix. How would you say how partner marketing differentiates from all the other channels you're working with? I'm still quite new to the partner marketing as well. So I had a lot of experience at Pitesite and re-targeting before, and I started to work with my team for partner marketing one year ago. So my first impression was it's different, and also the variety of partners and publishers makes it interesting and difficult at the same time, I would say.

So the variety of deals, of partnerships, for example, you have content partners, you have CSS partners, you have such a lot of different segments, sub-networks. And I think it makes it a lot; I think it makes it a lot very interesting compared to, I don't know, I like Pitesite a lot because this was my home base when I first started in performance marketing. But I think partner marketing is also changing industry always. That makes it quite interesting for me. Well, I work here for 17 years now and when you compare back to when I started here, it is actually completely different. Everybody is like, because the business model is obviously the same. The principles is the same, right? The partner management, the tracking, payments, etc. And all these things are the same.

Nevertheless, when you then like, kind of like look behind the screen, everything is kind of different. It's a completely different traffic mix than it was years ago. It's different ways of how to deal with partners, believe it or not. But when I started, the networks were blind. So you didn't know what kind of partners you were working with. Some of them still I learned. When you, you're referring to subnetworks, yeah. I assume. Yeah. So on the one hand, that obviously brings complexity. Yeah. On the other hand, it over time obviously drives a lot of new trends, innovation. You learn a lot, as you say. It's very interesting. Would you say this is one of the strengths of partner marketing? Of course.

We are able to test and learn new partners in a very, I would say, easy environment with our networks. And then even if we are able to see there's potential to grow, we are able to, to grow the partners or publishers within the network or to find other solutions. So it's a, it's quite of an incubator for us. And I think that's a great idea to see it. What kind of partners you're working with? You're working with all kinds of partners or are you rather selective when it comes to the verticals that you focus on? We are, in some cases, selective. So we are working with cashback, influencers as well. Content partners have been quite good for us in the past. But also for price comparison sites, we had a lot of browser implementations during the last year, working on.

What we're not focusing anymore is voucher segments because, so two reasons about this. So we had some bad experience with voucher segments because they were using not, confer, they were using codes that have not been confirmed, not anymore running, so difficult with that as well. And we see a lot of changes in the visibility because of the Google algorithm. So we also see the, the priority of the voucher segments is decreasing at the moment. Yeah, yeah, sure. And then there is AI coming now. Yes. That will have a big impact. Maybe we can speak about that later. That might help. That might have a big impact as well. I know now, because we're working together for a long time, right, and I hope I can say like that, sharing these insights maybe, that you experimented a lot, focusing on certain publisher verticals a little bit more, pausing some others, trying different things.

What have been the learnings from that? Did you see big impacts on the results then? Yeah, I know what you are referring to. So, what we tried during the last one and a half years to decrease fraud and also to increase the sale quality. So, the quality of the traffic we are buying. What we saw is a lot of decreasing traffic from partner marketing during the last year. That's also why we're trying to see, okay, how can we re-engage with some partners who have been deactivating during the last year? And does it make sense? So e-commerce is struggling as well for all of us, even for us. And so we're still finding out how can we grow, how can we still grow?

And for example, for the German market, it's difficult to grow anymore because it's a very rich market. And as we saw, also a lot of competitors. Also in the partner marketing, we have a lot of competitors. That's what we see. So I think it's a big challenge at the moment where we are facing different deals. So the CPAs are rising. Also, the direct deals with publishers are a lot more expensive than two years ago. I talked to my team about this earlier. So even if I'm not that experienced on that part, my team also said it's a lot difficult than it was two or three or four years ago. And that's where I also see, do we have to re-engage with partners? Do we have to change our strategy again?

And that's where we are testing and learning again at the moment. I had an interesting discussion-that's why I'm thinking about that. That was with somebody from an agency. And it was about vouchers as well. And as you just tapped into, the quality of the sales, maybe working with selective partners only. I think they're very good, very good quality partners. Out there as well. But then the arguments from this other person was, okay, yes, of course, I could stop that for my client, for example, from this agency perspective. But then on the other hand, there is obviously demand from the consumers, right? Because consumers are looking for vouchers. And if you don't fulfill this need, then somebody else will do that, right? And you're working in a very competitive market.

That's a challenging environment, right? It is. And on the other hand, vouchers also have an effect on the profit margin as well. Because if you always are spending 20% vouchers online and they are spreading a lot, for example, this is difficult for the webshop as well. So it's always an internal discussion about vouchers, about exclusive codes. We are always trying to get exclusive codes for some partners where it's needed and where it's a good idea, we think. But it's always difficult to see, is it a good investment for the company as well? So this kind of like partner management strategies for different verticals is one of the main topics, as I understand. What are the main verticals that you're working with now at the moment? What are you focusing on?

I think most of them that I already mentioned. And I think we have some very strong partnerships with different publishers at the moment. But we are also trying to see where, what I said, where can we grow? And for example, is influencer marketing via affiliate networks an opportunity to grow as well? Is it something where we, for example, push our very developing and young products at the moment to see if we can reach younger target groups? And this is a very nice topic, I think, as well, and very promising as well. Is there, when you compare partner marketing to other channels, what kind of share would you say does it have of your total customer acquisition efforts? If you can say that. I cannot say the exact number, so sorry.

No, you don't need to. Roughly, is it a fifth? Is it a fourth? Yeah, between that. Maybe half? No, unfortunately, it's not a half. And it's also different between the verticals. So if I say we are focusing on women's fashion, it's a lot higher than it is, for example, for home and garden. That's what I already mentioned. So it's also different between the different product segments. Between a fourth and a fifth, that is somewhere between 20 and 25%. Usually you would say the average is somewhere. Make it a bit lower, to be honest. But I won't say the exact number. Yeah, of course. In line with the market, I would say usually, yeah, we say it's somewhere between 17 and 25 when we speak with different brands. Okay, that is good.

Is that rather growing, would you say, or is that getting lower the share in the total customer acquisition? I would love to see it growing, to be honest, because it's a very efficient traffic source for us. But since we also made the strategic decision during the last years to focus on certain segments and certain partners, we have not been seeing increasing numbers. That's why we see what we can do for the future and also for the next year, for the following year. When you compare the costs per acquisition, we always come to a conclusion that partner marketing is the most efficient channel, so the most cost-effective, maybe I should just say cheap, cheapest channel, so for sales, especially because, like from own experience with other stuff, for example, I know for myself, that's my own experience, that when you try to scale, for example, Google campaigns, it becomes very quickly very expensive, while in partner marketing, you have so many different partners, you, like, we have tens of thousands, right?

In theory, that could work for you at similar conditions. Would you confirm that? Would you see that as well, that partner marketing is one of the most effective channels you're working with? In general, I would agree. But if you dive in a bit deeper and see what segments are we working with, for example, price comparison sites are not the cheapest one, but it's a very, I think, a good segment to get new partnerships and to get new users into your shop. So it's always depending on what's your goal and what partners are you working with? But, for example, most of the partners we're working with in partner marketing are very efficient compared to Google or Meta, yeah. Now, we touched before on AI. I would want to use the opportunity to ask you, what is U of U?

Because, like, we had a preparation talk yesterday. We spoke a little bit about AI as well, right? And more generally. And now you have a few on all your acquisition channels while working in partner marketing yourself. What would you say would be the impact of AI going forward? Oh, that's a very good question. I would love to see you during the next year and the next month to see a bit more AI cases to see what partners and to have a bit more prediction about how partners will work in the future and to see if we adapt a new partner, what prediction can we have about traffic quality and user quality. And I would love to have that for the partner marketing as well.

So a lot more prediction, a lot more view into the future would be awesome. And also to have a bit more automated steering. So to see what partners, what publishers should we also increase in a commission? When should we decrease? Also depending on the numbers we are seeing, depending on promotions we are running on the webshop and to have this a bit more combined all the data and to make it a bit more useful as well. It starts with the data itself and how you store data. And we use some tools now to be more efficient in client services. That's really good, right? Yeah, that's very good. That's very, very helpful. So they are summarizing meetings. They are creating draft emails. They're optimizing, automating certain workflows. That's very good.

We're working now on connecting it to our own data. So the affiliate data, right? And then we see that we find something useful there that goes into the direction that you said. That is all going though, and that's the discussion we're having here too, that's all going towards efficiencies. And that's relatively, when you think about it and get your head around, relatively easy, right? You get that. But now when it comes to revenue generating, I think it becomes much, much more complex, right? That's why we're sitting here and thinking because you can, again, quite easily imagine the threats. For example, that a search will become much, much more advanced if somebody is just looking for, show me the nicest, cheapest dress or something like that, right? With a good voucher.

Then you can imagine this is cutting a lot of middle parties out. Then I'm convinced there will be something to replace that, right? And I'm thinking about what that could be. About the growth and how we can, oh. Have you had any discussions like that, thinking about that? Internally? Yes, mostly focusing on where should we overall spend our budget? So not only focusing on partner marketing, but also in the overall marketing mix. Where should we spend the budget to reach the best customers to get the most demand for the company as well? And we're still, this is not easy. And we're currently, you know, also talking to the other group partners and companies. What are they doing to mix their marketing mix and to spend the budget?

And also talking about, talking to the big, big advertising partners like Google and Meta. How can we better invest our budgets? Because for example, Google is very advanced when it comes to AI and the predictions. And for example, Google is, I think, a very, very good partner. But also, we have to take into consideration not only the Google world, but also the whole marketing mix. And I think we have not found yet the perfect tool to work with it and to see how we can grow overall. Well, you're very advanced, right? So always when you speak with, with you, but with other companies in the Otto Group, you're always very advanced when it comes to adapting to new technologies and new stuff. Kind of, yeah. Kind of.

It's great that you always learn a lot when talking to you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good. Back to partner marketing. What would be, like, looking forward or, or, or reflecting on where we stand today, what would be your wishes on the partner marketing industry or the networks you're working with, the partners you're working with? What would you wish to develop in the future? To especially more usage of, more use and more innovation. So, more use of AI. Also, if we can have a wish for the cooperation with Trade Doubler as well, we would love to see a bit more technical innovation as well. So, if you say you're implementing new AI tools, we would love to, to test it, if there's anything that could be tested. Okay, good.

Good to know, yeah. Always, always good. And, we always love to get into contact with new partners that have an interest and international focus for us and to see how we can grow and to see also how they can reach new customers but not always the same ones as well. So, not the existing but the new ones and combine this with AI as well. Very good. That's, that's the stuff we're working on, I think, as an industry in total. That's obviously the biggest challenges. Yeah. Very good. Thank you so much, Annika, for sharing these insights. At the end, now, I have three final questions that I ask all my guests if that is okay for you. Okay. A little bit more on the personal side. Sure.

Would you mind sharing with us about the best book you've ever read? I'm interested. I'm using this for my own inspiration to know what to read, get very, very good tips. Only if you share what was the best book you've read. I'm always, I got this question asked before and I'm always not prepared. Sorry, you get me on the wrong foot. Okay. So, I cannot decide on the one best book I've read. Okay. But I'm able to share what are my current favorite reads I have. So, in my backpack over there, for example, my six minutes diary. So, I love to self-reflect in the evening to see. So, it's not a book I read, but it's a book I write, and it's changed as well. So, you write kind of like a summary of the day? Of course. Every day? Every day. For how long are you doing that now? Couple of months. It's not every day to be honest. Some days are busy and some days are not as busy and that allows me, but especially on the days where it's very busy, you should self-reflect and you should take a moment to calm down and see how was the day. But, I always have, for example, I don't know, in my backpack as well as 'Leading Change', which is a very famous leadership book I love to read at the moment. And also right on my bedside table, there's, for example, 'Game of Thrones', a bit more fantasy stuff. I watched the series.

Yeah, I love it. How is the book compared to the series? Have you watched it? Deeper and a bit very good, and I love it. Have you watched the series first or read the book first? The series first. And then you read the book? Yeah. But it's still exciting? Yeah, of course. I see. Good. There we go. There, I have something now because I love the series. But then I'm afraid reading the book afterwards, right? Sometimes you think that you might be disappointed. It's different. Okay, good. Cool. Thank you so much. Next question I have: A tool or an app that you think that you can't live without? So, that's my Google Calendar and Google Notes as well. So, I have to structure my week, my day; without my calendar and my notes, I'm completely lost during the day.

And I also have to write down everything. So, my Google Notes is a summary of sticky notes over the years, and I need it. There are photos in it, small notes, big notes, whatever – structures for private life. That's very important to me. Very nice. Very organized. Perfect. Good. And then, now I'm interested because the last one is if you were not working at Bonprix as a team lead in digital marketing, what would you be doing? Complete fantasy. Like, no constraints. Complete fantasy. Exactly. Yeah. What would you do if you have no limitations? I would probably travel. So, spend a lot more time with my family and travel a lot. So, I love to spend time in Asia, for example. Been there a few times. Made some friends over there. Also, love to spend time with friends together on vacation. So, last year we've been to Spain and this is what I could do full-time together with friends and people I like. Good. Thank you so much, Annika, for sharing all these insights for a lovely talk. I really enjoyed and I learned a lot. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It was a very nice talk today, Matthias.