What's next with Tony Zara, founder of Waterbucket App? Read our full interview below to learn how Tony helps merchants drive 40% more conversions from their product ads by displaying the BNPL price in the images.
What is Waterbucket?
Waterbucket helps retailers advertise Buy Now Pay Later prices across large catalogs or categories of products. Advertising the lowest price drives more interest at every stage of the funnel often resulting in 40% more conversions at a lower cost.
Are you funded?
No, we're bootstrapped
Who do you serve?
Retailers that have more than 50 products in their catalog and use a BNPL service like Affirm, Klarna, Sezzle, Bread Financial.
What's standout about Waterbucket?
There are other Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) enrichment services, but none with Waterbucket's patented capabilities to blend in additional data sources like BNPL, loyalty points, or promos.
What's next at Waterbucket?
We're working on AI powered comparison marketplaces like Tirerobot.com where users can use natural language search instead of filters and facets to compare products, price, and financing. We think that the future of ecommerce will be micro-marketplaces with AI enhanced search.
AI has the potential to contextualize search to the use case. In that moment it will be possible to serve information that is highly relevant and targeted to that user. We're working to explore this potential.
What's next in your niche?
AI background removal and background replacement is the next immediate trend for attention in DPA ads. Meta, Google, and Amazon all have toolsets and pilot programs. It seems to be a mixed bag for most users and brands. Unexpected things are happening, like setting the background of a winter wool beanie at the beach. It's an attempt to add lifestyle to lifeless products and will take some time to develop.
AI altered images may prove to have some value but we think the job of a brand manager will be to guide these images rather than just turning it over to Meta through a setting in Ads Manager.
What's one thing the public doesn't know about your professional background or founder story that has led you to this point in your career?
I've been on both sides of the DTC camera. I presented on QVC Mexico twice in the 90s. Once for the Body Toner, a cheesy piece of workout equipment, and once for the Diaper Genie. I did well and sold out both times. I was on my way to becoming an intolerable infomercial personality when a devaluation of the peso hit and suspended QVC operations in Mexico. Since that time I developed more technical skills.
What's one thing you wish people paid more attention to in the world?
to each other. Technology has made it easier to isolate into a bubble.
Who should I interview next?
My man, Eric Whitney. Eric is absolutely hilarious. He started a TikTok called “old coder dude” which has become a bit of a movement.
His startup is Kandoop which is a cross between a social media feed and project management tool like Trello.