Speaker 1: 0:00

At Gab, part of our core is that social media is hurting our kids. Yeah. It is crushing our kids. More kids are depressed, more kids are anxious, more kids are bullied, and social media is a big part of that. For us, it's part of our brand promise. It's core to who we are. We will take a stand against what social media is doing to kids and it might alienate some people people, but they're not our target audience yo, what's going on everybody?

Speaker 3: 0:27

welcome to the unstoppable marketer podcast. With me, as always, is my co-host, mark marcus goldheart. It's not really marcus no it is just mark. Yeah, just mark I feel like I've asked you that I feel like we've known each other for eight years and I should just yeah that answer down.

Speaker 4: 0:42

I think marcus would be more of like Roman heritage, but oh really. Yeah, like Marcus Aurelius.

Speaker 3: 0:49

Well, how are you?

Speaker 4: 0:51

Good yeah, great. Well, however you want to say it.

Speaker 3: 0:56

Well, I'm excited about today.

Speaker 4: 0:57

Yeah, me too, we haven't had a guest for a while.

Speaker 3: 0:59

We've got a guest on today. It's been a minute actually, since we've had a guest guest on today.

Speaker 4: 1:05

It's been a minute, actually, since we've had a guest. It has, and I'm excited for this one because it's going to be a little, it's d to c it's going to be very relatable, but there's also just kind of a unique twist to it so let's introduce our guests.

Speaker 3: 1:14

Uh, I want to introduce russ hanning. He's the vp of growth marketing over at gab wireless. Um russ, how are you?

Speaker 1: 1:21

I'm so good.

Speaker 3: 1:21

Thanks for having me here, you guys, so good to have you Well, russ.

Speaker 3: 1:25

So we had Nate Randall on the podcast, who is the CEO current CEO of Gab Wireless, for those who are listening, and it was one of my favorite podcast episodes.

Speaker 3: 1:37

It really was, and part of it was selfish, more for me so when I say it was one of my favorite podcast episodes. It was one of my favorite podcast episodes. It was one of my favorite podcast episodes from, like what I learned about needing to be a better parent for my kids. So, and it was kind of that episode actually got a crazy amount of downloads and listens for what it was, because we did not dive a crazy amount into marketing Like we, we picked a piece pieces of it out, but like it was a. A crazy amount into marketing like we, we picked a piece pieces of it out, but like it was a, it was a master class in the dangers of parenting, uh, of what kids are going through. So for those of you who don't know, and and correct me if my one sentence is wrong about gab wireless, you'll nail it but, if I remember right, gab wireless is uh, um, child safe tech.

Speaker 3: 2:23

That's right, essentially right. Um, they create phones, watches, for you to be able to communicate, uh, for kids to be able to communicate without all the potentially scary things that a iPhone or other device can bring into a kid's life. That's right.

Speaker 3: 2:40

For those of you don't't know, probably one of my top five favorite companies in the entire world right now. I am such a massive fan. I have three kids All three of my kids have the watch and we are so wildly dedicated to make sure our kids can communicate, not be left out, but also be protected from the scary things that 12-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 18-year-olds can find on devices in their pocket. 100% Sorry, that was a long spiel, but welcome. I'm stoked to have you because, nate, this is how Russ came on. I hadn't really known who you were. I mean, I obviously knew that I had seen your name, I knew that you had worked for Gab and and you happened to like comment on one of my LinkedIn posts and I just thought, hey, you should come on our podcast and you're like sure I'll do it. I'm like I was kind of I'll do those things just to like I have nothing to lose you know, and you responded very, very positive.

Speaker 3: 3:41

So, and so now we're here.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Trevor and Mark super happy to be here and hopefully I add some value that people are listening will go. Oh, that's helpful. I'm definitely not the smartest guy, that's for sure, but you'll make up for all of the all of the non smart. No, when I, when I met. So I actually met Nate Randall. We met actually on a trip. It was a sponsor trip that I went with my friend to watch the jazz play in Mexico City.

Speaker 3: 4:11

Oh cool and we met there and then Was he working for the jazz at the time?

Speaker 1: 4:16

Yeah or Vivint. Okay, sorry, nate. I don't remember. But then, when they had a position open, he met me on the phone. We talked for an hour and I got done and I I wasn't looking to leave ancestry and I called my wife and I was like honey, I think we have to take this one seriously. And I said I think I'll be a better dad if I work at Gab and I've definitely taken the path less traveled in my career.

Speaker 1: 4:47

I've really much more successful friends that you guys should have on this podcast. But there's something about what we're doing at Gab that I have been a better dad, yeah, and it matters a ton. So, yeah, super proud of what we're doing at cabin?

Speaker 3: 5:05

Yeah, so cool. Well, why don't you give us a quick spiel? Tell us a little about your time at ancestry, what ancestry is, and let's just you know. Take a quick minute so so the listeners can understand who you are, why they should actually be tuning in, Cause this podcast we're going to get like get meaty in this episode just to let everybody know like there will be actionable insights you will be able to gain. It's not just going to be storytelling, it's going to be. It's going to be some really good stuff. So, give us a little bit of spiel so people can understand.

Speaker 1: 5:30

yeah so I fell into marketing. Um, and I'm grateful I did. I got my first job at ancestry was a sophomore in college, nice, michael shared. Shout out to Michael in Dallas and what were you studying in college, marketing? I hadn't even taken a marketing class and Michael, who was the VP at Ancestry, took a chance on a young kid. So I did several things at Ancestry. I actually worked at Ancestry twice and I'll talk about that really quickly, but I worked at two different Ancestries. So Ancestry, when I was first there, they were so much smaller, so much smaller, a couple hundred million maybe in revenue.

Speaker 1: 6:20

And now yeah, and then I left. I went to work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is a lot of cool experience there, and then came back to Ancestry and when I came back you know billion dollar company had DNA was just right at the very beginning when I came back.

Speaker 4: 6:41

Tell listeners what Ancestry is. Now was Ancestry founded in Utah? It was Because their headquarters were in San Fran, right? No, it's so, or did they just have an office there?

Speaker 1: 6:48

Yeah, just an office there, um, founded here. Um. Paul Allen, um uh, came up with the idea and uh and said we could be better at putting some of this stuff online. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:11

So Ancestry was started in 1983 as a publishing business but then turned into more of an online genealogy family history in 90, you know, late 90s I did not realize it was that old.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy, but so early part of my career I got to do a lot of different things. Figure out, you know, do I like this, do I like this, do I like that? But I got to see how. Ancestry grew from, you know, a smaller, more local niche company to punching way above their weight. People think Ancestry is way bigger than it is, especially outside of you know, we're in Utah. Outside of Utah Ancestry I I mean their unaided awareness is 80s and it is uh, it is amazing why?

Speaker 4: 7:50

how, how strong they are?

Speaker 1: 7:52

um, so yeah, so to see that and I got to, I got to see up close, especially younger, my career being like oh yeah, okay, I see how tv played a role here yeah oh, I see how you know. You know, tv commercials played a role here. Oh, I see how you know, you know, TV commercials played a role here. Oh, I see how digital over here played a role.

Speaker 4: 8:10

So what years were you there? The first round?

Speaker 1: 8:12

2005 to 2012.

Speaker 4: 8:15

Okay, so you experienced the emergence of Facebook.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Yes, yeah, like right around that, like Google Ads was a thing, right, but like the emergence of actual social advertising 100% and as I got to see that and then come back in 2017 when DNA was just like it was just at the beginning, yeah, I remember, you know, my first holiday. I don't remember all the numbers. My ancestry friends are going gonna comment and be like you have those numbers off, but uh, maybe two million kits on a in in a two-month period jeez I mean just so it's basically you guys in like what 23 and me yeah, yeah and, and had a lot of major, you know credible lessons having.

Speaker 1: 9:03

You know watching those two brands go at each other and how, how one came out on top and the other is struggling quite a bit um and how they did that yeah, yeah. So 23andme is struggling well, they were in the news recently.

Speaker 3: 9:19

They uh um they got caught up with some some naughty no-nos.

Speaker 4: 9:24

Some naughty no-nos.

Speaker 1: 9:26

I don't know all the details some privacy breaches. I'm pretty removed, potentially.

Speaker 4: 9:32

I'm pretty removed are they cloning people?

Speaker 3: 9:35

maybe, maybe I might be one of them. I used it and I'm so nervous now, oh you did yeah. Ken's and I did where's the real Trevor?

Speaker 1: 9:43

hi bring him back? Who?

Speaker 4: 9:46

knows, could be a clone, who knows? They just swapped him out last week okay, so you ancestry and then.

Speaker 3: 9:52

And then, what year did you move over to gab?

Speaker 1: 9:54

um, it was two years ago, so 2022 amazing yeah, awesome. And then been doing that ever since and, and you know, being a gab, we've grown 60 in arr.

Speaker 2: 10:07

Wow, in two years good job and well no the team is.

Speaker 1: 10:12

I'm a big fan and and and I have had amazing mentors help me understand this but it's, it's about hiring. Oh, knowing your weaknesses and hiring to those weaknesses.

Speaker 4: 10:23

And I know where I'm not very good yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:25

And my team at Gab is incredibly talented yeah, so that's why it has very little to do with me.

Speaker 4: 10:33

That's me too. I know where I'm not good. It's just like everything, so it's really easy.

Speaker 1: 10:37

And me too.

Speaker 4: 10:37

Man, yeah Just fill in the gaps.

Speaker 3: 10:40

We all just are so self deprecating right now. Oh yeah, it's just. We all just are so self-deprecating right now.

Speaker 4: 10:44

No, it's you, but hold on. I want to back up for a second because there's two interesting things here. I think the vertical that you've operated in is interesting because you have an ancestry, and then you have gab, which are both about connecting families, but in different ways, right, but in different ways, right. So ancestry connecting families with maybe more of a storied tradition, also the DNA markers so that people would understand maybe what they're at risk for, et cetera, their genomes and then you have gab, which is kind of more that immediate intrafamily connection. That's right. So that's pretty interesting that you've been in this family business twice Now.

Speaker 4: 11:28

The next thing I want to dive into before we get into Gab specifically, is 2007 to 2012 was a pretty big paradigm shifting moment for advertisers and marketers because of the emergence of social media. But you were not there when Instagram became a thing and became a boom. So when you went back in 2017, that's kind of peak Instagram boom period and that's when the algorithms and attribution people are getting obsessed with that. So I just want to ask you a question In 2007 to 2012, you were playing with a lot of traditional advertising Very much With very weak attribution. Yes, unless you're using like a marketing mix model, right Mm-hmm and using more of like a.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Back then Ancestry wasn't doing that.

Speaker 4: 12:17

Yeah, okay, so they're not doing that. So you're not using any advanced techniques. You were just using it trying to see where the correlations were right. That's right. So how did that help you? In today's world, where people got so obsessed with attribution and understanding where every single dollar is spent, how has that helped you provide growth to a company? Or trying to understand where every single dollar is spent?

Speaker 4: 12:38

Or trying to understand like how do you go about attribution and where do you say it does not matter? To put at this point Like, yes, it matters, but there's a line that you cross that's just sunk cost that you never recover. So how have you found that line?

Speaker 1: 12:57

Such a good question, mark. So I think that I think that, first of all, I want to say attribution is really important. I think that there's never been a better time to be a marketer ever. We can understand, and at Gab, when I first came to Gab, we were relying on third-party platform data to make decisions. On third party platform data to make decisions, yep, and I worked with somebody at Ancestry Actually, it was a smaller agency Bonsai started that friend of mine and he was at Google forever and he started this agency. There's a better way to measure. There's a better way to measure, so I immediately brought him on as an agency to help us out and they have transformed us at gab. Like we are, we have better data than I've ever had, ever in the history of me being a marketer.

Speaker 4: 13:54

I, I, we do a can you explain exactly what they do with their, with their model, or is it proprietary?

Speaker 1: 14:00

no, no, no. One thing I love about bonsonsai is geez. I'm doing an ad, matt, I'm here, man.

Speaker 3: 14:06

There you go.

Speaker 1: 14:08

But they were first party cookie all the way. We don't even rely on third party. Yep.

Speaker 1: 14:18

And we first started with it. We didn't even have a data warehouse, so it's getting all of our data in one spot and they helped us do that. And then we took that data and we started just to look at a multi-touch attribution. Look at what we were doing as we started to grow over the year. Plus, we started to get more and more into brand, where you're not going to see the attribution necessarily. So now we do a six-month look back every other month in MMM. So in the past I would do an MMM and I'm going to get to your question mark, but I would do an MMM and it would take three or four months just to even get all the data in there and yada, yada, and then you're looking six months back and it wasn't worth it.

Speaker 1: 15:03

It was it was like thanks, that was thanks. It's now may yeah you're telling me what I did december to july last year cool yeah thanks.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Now we're getting like live, like how we're doing what's incremental, what's not incremental. But what ancestry in the early days taught me? Where we didn't have a lot of that measurement is you can't. There's a lot of ways that we market um, that you have to use your creativity and you have to realize that it's not all going to be 100% measurable. Yeah, so you have to say you have to know your audience enough to say where are they, where are they really listening? Your audience enough to say where are they, where are they really listening? We started testing out podcasts and the numbers aren't blowing me out of the water, but it's such a unique way to talk about Gab. You know we work with these hosts. Give them our, give them our product, let them use it for a little bit, and then you know, we ask, and then we ask for a 30 to 60 second spot. Well, they're talking for three minutes.

Speaker 1: 16:10

They're like oh my gosh, this is so cool because I can do this with my kid and I say and I've talked to my team over and over like you can't buy that and you're not going to be able to measure it, and it's not going to be like tomorrow we're going to get a sale from that, measure it. And it's not going to be like tomorrow we're going to get a sale from that. It's going to be that mom listening to this other mom going. I'm going to keep that in mind. Like that's, I don't even know that existed. Which is our biggest problem at gab is people don't know that there is safe tech yeah so that was a long answer, mark.

Speaker 4: 16:39

I don't know if that was that got to where you were saying it's attribution is really important Finding the line where because because I think what we're getting at is ancestry and gab, I think have bigger marketing budgets. There's a lot of money raised in these kinds of tech companies, but a lot of our listeners are more of the e-comm side of things. Yep, and in e-comm there's been such a push for attribution and all these things. But what we have found is a lot of times, those attribution models. I don't want to say a lie, but they give you a vanity metric that doesn't actually give you the incremental growth over time. Yes, Because you're not filling the top bucket.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Yes, Sales overnight brand over time my mentor top bucket.

Speaker 4: 17:27

Yes, sales overnight. Brand over time yeah, my mentor. So how do you build the brand over time and measure that, that build, which takes time to do, but it is possible. And it and MMMs these days, I mean, we're not going to get too technical today, but there you can hijack MMMs with AI modeling now, so you don't actually have to wait, it's, it's it's not the time lag.

Speaker 3: 17:43

Yeah, it's not the time lag that people's not the time lag that people think it do you want to explain what an m&m is, mms? Just like an m&m, but with another m on it give the 20 second explanation, because we're we're using that term, yeah, yeah um, uh, yeah, so it's called a mixed marketing model or marketing mixed model, I don't know.

Speaker 4: 17:59

People say both Yep, and essentially all it is. Tldr is you are running a correlation analysis of the impact of each channel on your business and on each other so you're able to determine hey, is my TV advertising giving me an incremental lift past whatever mean or whatever? However, you're measuring it in my direct traffic, yep, and is that providing sales or is it also providing a lift in my social media organic reach? Is it so that way you can say, hey, for every dollar spent on meta, spent on meta, for example, I know that it has a lift of 1.5 on average in my direct traffic, but it also lifts my organic search by 1.2. So then you come up with this dollar figure of like your return on that dollar spent for awareness versus like return on actual sales over time.

Speaker 4: 19:02

But there's there's things in MMMs called weights. So when you're doing statistical analysis, you have to weight things, because there's just certain factors that a model doesn't know unless you tell it. So for, for, an example of what a weight would be is ancestrycom, if they're running this MMM, or if Gab's running an MMM. They have to understand what your like by consideration window is. They have to understand what your buy consideration window is because that helps you understand what the look back window is. There's no point in looking back 12 months if people's buy window is nine weeks. But most people right, and the problem with attribution and that's why people are moving into this MMM world is your cookie window that you can pass back to Facebook or in these digital advertising channels is only 28 days. Yeah, yep, now you do have first party cookies that say they'll keep it for 90, but the passback window is only 28. That's right, so you can only optimize for 28 days yeah at that, at a maximum.

Speaker 4: 19:59

and facebook, technically you can only maximize for seven. Yeah, right, the seven day click, one day view, that's right, or seven-day click?

Speaker 3: 20:06

So yeah, that's more technical than I expected you to. Yeah, there's a little way out, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4: 20:10

I should have cut it off. No, that's good. That's basically TLDR, yeah, and there's different techniques. There's Bayesian techniques and there's whatever.

Speaker 1: 20:19

But, I think. What I'd like to underline, what you said, though, is it's easier now than it's ever been, and even if you're a smaller company a much smaller company there's ways for you, Um, and there there are partners that you can. You can go and search out. That isn't going to break your bank, you know, depending on where you're at Um, but it's that idea of and, honestly, if you're small enough, you probably just need to go.

Speaker 3: 20:44

Hey, we did this initiative on the 10th did we see any lift from it within 14 days. That's why I'm like it's.

Speaker 4: 20:51

It's even easier like you don't have to get into that much detail we kind of had this.

Speaker 3: 20:55

We've talked about this a lot. It's like it's so crazy how far we've come with how much technology is out there that actually, sometimes, depending on how big you are I think, the smaller you are, the more confusing it makes you. I think, as you get bigger and you can afford to hire these people who can create these models that really, really work. I think a lot of these brands, I would probably say and you guys might disagree with me, like anybody probably under the $25 million mark and and under, like you, you can get away with having less oh, much less and you could maybe even make an argument around 50 million and under right, and it just depends on how complicated the business is.

Speaker 3: 21:34

but but yeah, we're almost over complicating so much stuff that it's it's like, hey, we have all this stuff to do it, but it's like what is it telling me? Versus on the 10 the 10th, I increased my meta budget 55%. How much traffic did I see grow? How much revenue did I see grow? How many more products did we sell? Did we at all? And you can kind of just start to just measure from there, like, okay, we saw a lift that was sustainable. Our acquisition costs only increased 10%. Therefore, this was a good move.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Well, one of the things that anyone can do, whether you're a $25,050,000 or $100,000, it doesn't matter whatever, and we actually rely on MMTs, which is match market tests, where you take a market, that you take two markets that are very, very similar and you-.

Speaker 4: 22:23

Now, when you say market, are you saying geographic region of a market or a?

Speaker 1: 22:26

demographic Like a geographic region that are very similar.

Speaker 4: 22:30

So like Nashville and and like Orlando, orlando.

Speaker 1: 22:33

Okay, whatever you take those and you say I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this type of marketing here and I'm going to hold everything else constant. You don't need someone to an agency or whoever to tell you how to do that. Yeah. And we've done that. That's to me.

Speaker 4: 22:48

Another name for that's called a holdout test, holdout Sure.

Speaker 1: 22:50

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 22:51

And for people just. Yes On the digital side, because he's talking geographic regions, which would be the MMT. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:06

So we rely on those MMTs or holdouts to really give us, because MMM will give you a directional. You know your, your, your multi-touch attribution will give you directional, but you know a match market test will go. Oh my gosh, when we did that in Orlando that made a difference. Look what traffic was in Orlando versus Nashville and those were acting the exact same the previous 90 days. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 23:25

And I just can I add something to what you're saying is what he's referring to right now for the listeners is directional, would be like channels, right? So multi-attribution models help you understand the channels he's saying. With the holdout test, this is basically a creative test to understand what substance of advertising and messaging is working in those markets, right?

Speaker 1: 23:46

Yeah, yes, and so we just did a test with Meta, um, and we said, hey, we're weak in this part of the country, um, and, and that that part of the country is so similar to this part of the country, we're, we're going, the country we're we're going to, we're going to pump up our spend, um, and it wasn't crazy, but pump up our spend in meta, in this part of the country, for six weeks to see how, if, if, we can get these, these, these markets to act, similar. Yeah, and we saw some incredible results. We go whoa, okay, so meta clearly is going to help us in this region. Let's continue to do that. What if we layer on something on top of that? What if we layer on another channel? But you can also do creative. Like you said, it could be a creative test 100%.

Speaker 4: 24:36

But here's my question Are you separating, because a lot of people say broad on meta right yeah a lot of people say broad on meta, right, yeah, so get in, get into that a little bit if you think it's well, if it's worth it for smaller brands to try geographic regions, because meta will bias itself to whatever your customer base currently is. So if your customer base is 80% California, meta will spend 80% in California, always, unless you nudge it right yes, typically or unless your messaging changes so much that it's not resonating in California. Yep, so what he's saying is he's run into problems where, like, okay, like the messaging has changed, but we're still targeting California. So, like, how do we actually grow this geographic region or this demographic of people? Right, yeah, so, so, yeah, so you go into this region, you do the holdout test, the MMT verse, whatever you find success with meta. So you're doing a geographic based target. Yes, you're, you're, you're going, you're raising budgets, and then you say, okay, now let's layer on a new channel.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Yes, now did the message change in that holdout test. No cause. They got to keep those consistent Otherwise. Otherwise it turns into a creative test and you're adding your variables. So you try to keep what you want.

Speaker 4: 25:55

So all you were doing was saying we just need to get the spend up in this area.

Speaker 1: 25:58

More impressions. What do more impressions mean? Because again, that's where it's really hard. You got it, you got to use your gut a little bit. Yeah, you got to say I don't know if I'm able to totally measure all this, but will these impressions make a difference? Sure, um, so I have. I have a close friend uh worked, uh and meta forever, and he'll, he'll argue, meta has been doing this forever. Trust them, just trust their algorithm to go do their job. Yep, and I do think that there is truth to that.

Speaker 4: 26:31

Which 90% of the time, works every time.

Speaker 1: 26:35

But in the scenario you just said, mark right, it was gosh well. We've been growing in California. Can we grow outside of california? Because, meta just keeps saying california is great, yeah, yeah so which you'll.

Speaker 4: 26:49

What happens just for our listeners to get into the meat and potatoes here is you'll start seeing certain top line metrics or your uh lead indicators. Your kpis, like frequency, will start going up in that region because the algorithm gets stuck in the mud a little. Yeah, and that's how you can measure. Hey, for example, an easy one is go look at your audience segments and go look how much your frequency has risen over the last three months with your existing customers. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 27:19

Like you'll notice all of a sudden, oh, if you're not excluding those existing customers, like you're retargeting them 20 times a week. Like you'll notice all of a sudden, oh, if you're not excluding those existing customers, like you're retargeting them 20 times a week, like you're not getting incremental growth out of that, that is wasted spend, and I'll fight anyone on it because we've already run these tests. Yes, so what he's saying is like okay, we know that we grew in California, but now our frequencies are going up. They're looking at these top line KPIs, their CPMs might be rising Fre up. They're looking at these top line KPIs, their CPMs might be rising, frequencies are going up, so their cost per 1000 reach has really gone up.

Speaker 4: 27:49

So like, and that's the other thing, right, because people look at CPMs, like you said, impressions, which is a good indicator, but sometimes you have a really low CPM because the Facebook algorithm is giving you an advantage to retarget people that aren't really going to buy. So it's the cost per reach goes up, but a lot of people don't look at cost per 1,000 reached. So are those the measures that you're looking at? And then you're saying, okay, something's wrong here. We need to now look at expanding and pushing the algorithm in a way we want it to.

Speaker 1: 28:19

Yeah, I won't even because you just nailed it. That's so many things. That's you just kind of described a little bit of our journey. Well, a lot of our journey at gab. I'll add one more little nuance. Um, we were two years ago when I joined. We were so heavily reliant on meta.

Speaker 1: 28:37

We weren't even doing much in search um and there was a lot of search demand to go grab and we saw CPMs rising in meta. So we went and we just looked at every state. You know big DMAs in the US and we just categorized them into you know negative ROAS hey, we're not getting return in this region right now. And then positive ROAS doing really, really well, and then ROAS that's breakeven Okay, there might be something here and we just turned down spend where we were not doing well and said we're just going to take that spend.

Speaker 1: 29:18

I didn't go ask for more money, we just said same amount of money, we're just going to take that spend and we're going to pump up these two areas that are really, really like this one shows promise where we're, at least you know, even on ROAS, and this one shows, you know, some positive growth and that has changed our marketing, maybe more than anything we've done, because now we're taking that approach throughout the United States, cause, again, our biggest problem at gab is awareness. Do you know that there is a safe tech alternative when you are, when your kid is saying I want a phone, I want a phone, and they're nine or 10. Um, how do we, how do you get the mom to say not just to go into Verizon and Adeline? So so we've seen dmas, you know chicago, uh, you know dallas, la, um, atlanta just start to take off and now we were just looking at data two days ago the rust belt is starting to really take off.

Speaker 1: 30:18

Now we still have some regions that are not that great. Yeah, so we're, we're letting those lie while we grow these other regions, because there's plenty of TAM total addressable market to go out and get. But yeah, I would layer that onto what you said, mark, and that's kind of been our journey with layering on a lot of brand media. We've done it. We're doing a lot more TV, because I learned that from Ancestry. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:48

What made the biggest difference for Ancestry back in the day, when measurement wasn't all up in your face, was they built a brand. It's why they punch above their weight. Right. They built a brand and and I know that Gab needs to build their brand, yeah, and so we've done. We've done linear tv, um, with our, with an agency, um we've we've done streaming youtube quite a bit, um, and podcasting and and can I ask you about what your percentage of spend is in traditional media versus digital or new age?

Speaker 4: 31:32

And when you say new age, we've defined new age as podcasts, right? Digital marketing, youtube and I know digital marketing kind of covers a lot of that. But new age is essentially all the new mediums that people are watching and on where traditional I even include. I include Netflix and traditional so like linear.

Speaker 1: 31:53

Okay.

Speaker 4: 31:54

I would say that's traditional advertising because it's still TV based, it's interrupting a show or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1: 32:01

It fluctuates, um, and one of the things that we're trying to get better at is having a constant brand. Drum you again it's, it's, it's sales overnight brand over time. Yeah, so how do you have a consistent beat that isn't fluctuating with? Oh my gosh, I have more morning money this month because it's a bigger month with back to school, because that's a big time for us. We have more money to go spend, so let's go spend. No, let's in those other months we've got to stay consistent with our brand spend.

Speaker 1: 32:34

It's traditional, versus, versus. You know new age. As you put it, it's probably 30 traditional. Put it, it's probably 30 traditional, uh, maybe 35. Can I ask you a politics question now?

Speaker 4: 32:50

okay, wow we're taking yes, let's go, please. We discuss politics because we're not discussing politics but the marketing strategies of each presidential campaign. Where the the harris camp has been very traditional, the Trump camp has been very new age, which is interesting because Obama was more new age.

Speaker 1: 33:09

He was very like grassroots, grassroots, grassroots and very digital.

Speaker 4: 33:14

I can't remember. I mean because that was 2008 when he was first elected. So was that Twitter? Was Twitter around in 2008? I literally don't know. I think so, was it yeah? Yep in 2008? I literally don't know. I think so, was it yeah? So the question I have is like, if you were going to critique these campaigns, what would you say? Would you say you should be leaning into new age or you should be leaning into traditional?

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Speaker 1: 34:55

The answer is is you? It depends on where you're at as a brand. Yeah. But the more you ignore, the more you ignore. Big mass media say tv is dead. It's not. It has made a huge difference. Our traffic is up double year on year. Do you know why? It's tv. Tv has made all of the difference. And you would go. Come on, people are cutting cords, right come on nobody, nobody, no, no.

Speaker 1: 35:22

And TV has gotten better and easier to buy. You can buy TV in no matter what size of company you are. You had to. It was so hard to buy TV before. It's so easy to buy TV now. And I'm not saying, go out and blow your budget on TV, but you've got to start using those big, big swings. I'll tell you one example. So when we were first starting on tv, our agency came to us and said hey, uh, it was game five of the world series, game six.

Speaker 1: 35:56

I don't, I'm not a baseball guy I love baseball, but I remember it was the last game and they said, hey, we got a fire sale. Is this last year? Last year? Is this? Who was in arizona and was it the phillies?

Speaker 3: 36:07

wait, when are the?

Speaker 4: 36:08

padres.

Speaker 3: 36:09

I don't have the padres ever gone, or were they just before? They might have got eliminated just before I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 36:16

Arizona yes yes, yes, it was. So our agency came to us and said we got one spot in game, five or six, whatever. It was November 1. It was right to kick off holiday for us. Do you want it? And I said how much. They said they gave me the amount. It was $32,000 for a spot and I was like let's do it, let's do it.

Speaker 4: 36:42

But I'm imagining you, you, you just are. You already mentioned this. You said Dallas was one of your growing areas, and so yeah, was it. The Rangers?

Speaker 1: 36:50

Yes, yeah, so you had, you had.

Speaker 4: 36:51

Texas and Arizona.

Speaker 1: 36:52

Phoenix is growing, yes, and I said and I said, okay, yes, we looked at the teams and we said let's go for it, let's see what happens right, yeah, no, mmm here, no, like, let's just.

Speaker 1: 37:07

And our site went down. We took down Gab. Now, bummer that we took down Gab, but we had so much traffic within five minutes after that spot aired and everybody had their phone blowing up. Oh my gosh, I just saw you in the World Series. What there's up. Oh my gosh, I just saw you in the World Series, what there's something. Yes, traffic Measurable, great. But there's something intangible about when somebody sees your product and I don't want to be this whole thing about TV I don't want to over index here. No, no, no.

Speaker 1: 37:38

But you see a product on TV, you go, oh, they're for real. Oh yeah, okay, they're for real. This isn't like something you scroll past on on meta. Sure, yeah, I've seen them on meta, but I just that's a, that's a solid, that's a solid story they're telling.

Speaker 3: 37:52

It's almost like. It's almost like we talk about social proof as someone else having to give the brand that right. A testimony is social proof, a rating is social proof, ugc is social proof. You know, influencers even can be social proof, yeah. But there's something about, yeah, seeing tv and being like they must be something something legit, right, it's almost like the paid. So it's almost like paid social proof. You can just like manufacture.

Speaker 4: 38:25

Like an influencer.

Speaker 3: 38:29

Yeah but it's almost kind of like what followers were back in 2018, right, I jump on. You have 100,000 followers like whoa, a million followers. These guys must be legit. I'm buying from them.

Speaker 1: 38:40

Yes, you know, yeah, sorry, keep going. No, no, hopefully that's helpful yeah, brand legitimacy yeah, now you can over index, and, and, and I think that so that's my question do you think these camps?

Speaker 4: 38:54

if you were going to be an outside consultant, would you say, hey, harris, you need to, you're lean to, you're overexed into this mainstream, traditional channel. Or what would you say to Trump's team?

Speaker 1: 39:08

Would you say you guys are way over-indexed into social Well, again, I think there are probably some smart people on both sides doing some good things, but I think that to me— being generous there.

Speaker 1: 39:22

I think that I know I'm hedging here, but I would say I feel very comfortable in a 70 30 mix where 70 percent is in what you call New Age, this very digital world, and 30 percent is pretty mass and but you got to make sure that you're creative, is telling a positive brand story across those, because they do connect in people's minds. It's not linear in a story, a through line, but it's they're going to associate you so with those spots. So to me it's would lean more on the the new age side, for sure, um, but to forget about traditional um, I think is a miss yeah, because I don't think either of them.

Speaker 4: 40:15

I mean, the harris campaign just came out and did a podcast with caller daddy and Is that more new age yet? So that's her first, I think like new age appearance. Yeah. But yeah, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. We said, yeah, it's interesting because Trump's team is dominating search traffic. That's not. He also, I believe, was dominating search traffic during the Biden the Biden campaign in 2020. I don't remember.

Speaker 4: 40:43

But nonetheless, like the interest is up, like you get a lot of surge, and then we're like, well, it also could be demographic, right, because they also know who their core demographics are.

Speaker 2: 40:51

Yeah, and so maybe Kamala has to relate to the older demographics.

Speaker 4: 40:55

So she's leaning traditional, and maybe Trump's trying to get a younger demographic, so he's leaning new age. Yeah, totally. So that could also be part of this mix that we're not necessarily seeing.

Speaker 3: 41:07

Sure.

Speaker 4: 41:07

Yeah, Because there's core strategies with politics which are a little different than businesses.

Speaker 1: 41:13

Like they kind of forget about their core. It is and it's a short come out, it's a short term outcome.

Speaker 3: 41:18

It's November, November, November, November.

Speaker 4: 41:19

Right.

Speaker 1: 41:20

Versus building a brand over time.

Speaker 4: 41:21

But it is interesting just to think from a brand perspective, like, oh, you got to know who your core audience is. Right, they're both trying not to alienate their core audience, their core customer, and they're both trying to get people to come in. Yeah, and that's similar to what you did, right? Like I have a geographic region. I already know who my core is. Hey, I need this geographic region to go up. Like, how do I relate to that one geographic region? Maybe it's just simply getting more spend there, yeah, or maybe you need to change a message for that region.

Speaker 3: 41:48

How are you? One question I'm curious about is because I love this discussion around brand right, because so many people are so interested in when I spend a dollar, how do I make that dollar back plus X amount more? And oftentimes when you introduce a branding strategy, you have to start to.

Speaker 3: 42:04

You have to start to be more patient with when that dollar is going to come back into your pocket, and it could be three months and it could be two years, depending on, or never or never, yeah, very much so. So what are you doing to make sure that you're so? Let's just take one of these. You've you've given us a lot of really good examples, which is like okay, cool, we noticed that, uh, the Dallas market is doing really really well, so we want to up our spend over there. When you up your meta spend over there, is that when you go to your traditional team, do you also start to say, okay, we saw the positive lift over there, now let's start getting more brand over there? How are you making the decision where to put the brand?

Speaker 1: 42:39

Yeah, so in where we can control it, you know, like for YouTube or streaming it's, it's. It's easier to say let's, let's give a little more juice in Dallas, Yep, Um, in linear it's more national, Sure, Um.

Speaker 1: 42:58

I mentioned that we were starting to see some really good movement in the Rust Belt and that's because I think, where I don't think the, the TV that we've been targeting, I think a lot of people in the rust belt, and that's because I think, where I don't think the, the tv that we've been targeting, I think a lot of people in the rust belt, it like hits them, like it's it's it's the tv that I think that they resonate with most, and we've been running tv for a year, so, uh, I think that that's having an impact. Um, but you asked, like how your dollar in, how much you can dollar a dollar out, two dollars in, like you got to measure this the way we measure it right now, because we really do got to be cost conscious. We don't have the budget of Ancestry. Sure, sure, it's about traffic. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:39

So we measure our brand span against traffic Cool, against traffic Cool and people searching for gab on Google, which are, which are, are easy ways for us to say, as spend is going up in brand, what, what is traffic doing to our site? Yes. And what is searches? What are searches? You know what's the trend with people searching for gab. Yeah, that's tangible. You can hold it and it and then you know retargeting those folks you, you can start to see are, are they are, you know, as we retarget them on meta.

Speaker 1: 44:12

How are they working out? Is it successful, is it not so? That's, that's a way to maybe tiptoe into brand yep, um, that's more tangible because where where marketers getting themselves into trouble is the CFO or the CEO isn't necessarily a marketer, and so they'll say whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing with our money? And you have to be able to justify it. So, even going back to what we were talking about at the beginning, mark, it was, hey, at the beginning of my career, my career didn't have a lot of measurement. Now I do it. I've got to be able to talk to finance with a finance lens. I got to be able to speak their language. Yeah, otherwise it's always going to be an argument yeah, you can't have that money sure you're not doing anything.

Speaker 1: 45:01

Why you just cut that over there? Well, no, because that's doing good. How? How is it doing good? You have to be, have to be able to give a story. So right now, at Gab, that's one of the primary ways is we are saying let's look at traffic, let's look at search, let's use an MMM to help us directionally understand what's happening.

Speaker 4: 45:22

I don't know if Trevor got your answer and, depending on how advanced your MMM is, a bigger company will be able to determine that top line traffic coming in. So if you have new users, there's predictive models where you can say, hey, based off of bounce rates and average time on site, like you can justify the spend because in the past, like we can't say we got the money back now. But if you're talking to finance, you can say, hey, we dedicated 15% of budget to this, this is the traffic, this is how interested they are. We can say that we should see this kind of projection out from like three months from now. If we don't, then we know it was a failure. Yep, so you don't have to hide the fact that it might be a failure, but you have to tell the story of well, this is the logic behind it. We're not just throwing money and we actually just had that conversation with a client of ours.

Speaker 3: 46:13

Yeah, I was going to bring up this example.

Speaker 4: 46:14

It's like hey, this isn't a home run yet. We just started this test a week ago, but you're still projected to do better profits than you did in the last five months, so it's not a huge win. It's not a huge loss. We're going to have to go a week and kind of measure this out.

Speaker 3: 46:34

Well, the other thing to talk about storytelling is like there's been clients and people we've worked with too who have had really, really strong abilities to retain customers right. They have products that just promote buying over and over and over and over again and, and you know, when you build something, you know a lifetime value analysis. Over 12 months or two years or whatever it might be, you can see that this brand is wildly profitable just within 12 months. And so there's been times where we've conned to people to say, hey, obviously it's, it's our goal to. It should be your goal to acquire customers at a net positive if you can. But we know that if you stop spending money on acquisition and trying to build your brand, that will acquire customers. What is going to eventually happen is you are going to you're going to start losing more customers mirrors than you're bringing in, and you have to be able to fill that bucket because everyone it doesn't matter how great you are at it- and this conversation always happens September, October.

Speaker 4: 47:30

Yeah, for sure, For sure, Because I don't know about Gab, but in the e-commerce world your best returning cohorts are August, September, October. Like you, those cohorts come back and pay you back twofold in November. But people want to cut spend because their acquisition costs start going up as you're nearing November and you're like I mean, yeah, you can cut spend, but then you're just going to miss out on this new cohort that comes back at 20%, 40%, 50%.

Speaker 3: 48:00

You guys do good during breakfast school, but don't you guys crush during Black Friday 100%.

Speaker 4: 48:05

So you guys are probably seeing the same thing, right, we?

Speaker 3: 48:07

went to buy this Black Friday and the site was down. Yeah, I think, if I recall.

Speaker 1: 48:11

I know I'm so sorry. Everybody watching I'm so sorry we're getting better, we are, we are. That is the that's for those listening.

Speaker 3: 48:18

It's a crazy deal.

Speaker 1: 48:32

Yeah, the things that I learned at ancestry. You know ancestries. You know, when I was there early on, they went public, then they went private, then they got bought again and they got bought again and so they're meticulous. Their finance team over there is tops, yeah, um, they're meticulous on where dollars are spent. Um, that's why I think you know, especially in this area, there's so many former ancestry people are all over because we cut our teeth. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 48:48

You know, learning that way. You know, Karen Peterson at Chatbooks is one of my good friends. Like we all cut our teeth that way, yeah. So to get to your question, I know that this can maybe make people feel a little heartburn, but we categorize our media in two different places. One is is this dollar meant to acquire a customer or is this dollar meant to introduce someone to our brand? Two different jobs to be done, Cool. And we measure our CAC, our cost to acquire that customer, based on our dollar that's going out to acquire the customer.

Speaker 1: 49:22

That's going out to acquire the customer and our brand, spend people introducing our brand to people. Better, keep that dollar figure low so you can performance media yourself into the ground, where you are just search, search, search. I'm just capturing all the demand for everybody who's searching for me. It's good, but your costs you just said it the costs are going to start going up and then eventually you're going to be like it's too expensive to acquire a customer. That's why you have to start layering on some of these brand market.

Speaker 1: 49:57

You know brand channels and measure it in an appropriate way, totally and the biggest overall measurement. You can go to your CEO or your CFO and say look at our performance media, where it's a dollar to acquire a customer For us, it's gone down. Competition has gone up for Gab there's more, there's, you know, custom media has gone up, but our costs in performance media is down year on year. Why? Because we're spending more in brand and so our overall total media cac is actually going up. But our performance media cac is going down because we're bringing more and more people into the funnel and the dollars that are introducing people to gab more and more new eyeballs.

Speaker 1: 50:40

Yes, yes, and so you that's when you're starting out you just want to go capture demand. That's totally, that totally makes out. You just want to go capture demand. That's totally, that totally makes sense. But you're going to start to see costs rise and when you start doing that, you have to start thinking how am I going to build my brand story? What channels can I start to use to build a brand story and start to layer it on, because that's going to help you bring those costs somewhat in line to where the market is Totally.

Speaker 4: 51:07

That's good, yeah, you bring those costs somewhat in line to where the market is. Totally. That's good, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 3: 51:12

What advice do you have? Because what's been cool is I think you've done a pretty good job at this, but I think we can get a little more specific. Gab, I know your budget's not as big as Ancestry but it's bigger than a lot of people that are probably listening to this podcast right now. Okay, and I'd probably say even more, the majority of people listening to this podcast. What?

Speaker 3: 51:32

are your recommendations for the brand who's in that like under $5 million range to start working on building that brand story? Working on building that brand story like what? What are you? What are? Those what are those quick wins? Or or safer yeah, you know tests that these people can be running and doing? Yeah any, any thoughts.

Speaker 4: 51:54

I think this is interesting too, because you you've worked for companies that have sensitive topics, right with gab. When you're talking about child safe tech, you also have to talk about pornography predators. There's a very dark side to that message. With Ancestry, when you guys got into the bio field, there's a lot of flack that you can get for that. There's a lot of opposition that people would probably come out and attack you guys for. So I think this this is an interesting question for you not to hijack, but you've had to deal with sensitive subjects.

Speaker 4: 52:31

So how do you build a brand and tell a story that you can build upon for if you're just starting out?

Speaker 1: 52:39

yeah. So two questions the one, the 5 million, or 5 million or less, I would say that go into channels that are that are measurable. I've talked a lot about TV. If you're 5 million dollars, I don't necessarily think that TV is the next place, somewhere like layering on a top of funnel. You know, more traffic campaign on meta would be a good place to start and just and just see what happens. Right, go into YouTube and target the same type of people that are coming to your site on YouTube to see what happens. Don't throw don't throw thousands of dollars, throw hundreds of dollars and see what happens. Cool, I could go into much more depth, but I think that's a good place to start and then see what happens with traffic. I'd say what happens.

Speaker 3: 53:32

Watch traffic.

Speaker 1: 53:33

Watch traffic, watch your search. Are people searching for your terms? More Yep, and then again, I'd be very measured to say I'm going to do this in Atlanta. Yeah. So that you aren't going national and you can say what's happening in Atlanta, sure. And you can be even more precise, and you can feel more comfortable, but be brave, yeah, be brave, don't, don't be scared. Be brave, go do it.

Speaker 4: 53:57

As far as sensitive topics Um were you saying brave for Atlanta, cause the Atlanta braves?

Speaker 1: 54:02

Yeah, exactly Pun intended. That's exactly what I was saying. One thing I want to add to that one thing.

Speaker 3: 54:09

We've had this guy. We keep quoting this, but do you know who Alex MacArthur is?

Speaker 1: 54:14

Yeah, he doesn't know me, but I know him.

Speaker 3: 54:17

He came on the podcast and he his belief system is very similar to your belief system, right? The things that you've described and what he says is his famous quote that we've quoted probably 15 times since he's been on is sales, follow, search, right, and that's why Russ is saying look at search, look at traffic, because that is going to be the next best indicator that somebody's going to buy. That's why in media buying, people are gonna look at the link click-through rate and not just the click-through rate, because link click-through rate is going to be one step closer to understanding if that person's interested in purchasing versus just clicking.

Speaker 1: 54:56

That's right.

Speaker 3: 54:57

So sorry.

Speaker 1: 54:57

Go ahead, you can answer his question now but I want to kind of like circle that yeah, yeah, connect those pieces Well. Yeah, connect those pieces Well. And, like I said, like again the shout out to you know Mike Linton, who CMO at Farmers, ebay, best Buy, and he was my manager at Ancestry and I still talk to him today and he has a cool podcast too Again, I've quoted him several times which is it's sales overnight, brand over time, sales overnight brand over time. Don't sacrifice so sensitive topics.

Speaker 4: 55:34

Because a lot of brands, when they're starting out, they're afraid they might not have a sensitive topic about their brand. But they're afraid of rubbing shoulders with the wrong audience or saying something that might be inflammatory about a competitor.

Speaker 3: 55:52

Drawing a line in the sand.

Speaker 4: 55:54

So they almost just kind of sit there in this kind of tepid marketing approach. That's not very intriguing.

Speaker 1: 56:02

So I'm talking to myself Basically because, like you said, be brave.

Speaker 4: 56:05

I think you have to be brave when you're starting out, so how would you?

Speaker 1: 56:08

I'm talking to myself just as much as I'm talking to anybody listening. Yeah, sometimes we think more people look at our marketing than are looking at our marketing totally. So we're afraid to like make a mistake.

Speaker 1: 56:20

Um, you can make a mistake. There's two kinds of mistakes. There's's a mistake like oh my gosh, I talked to my competitor this way, or I or I, you know whatever it was. I don't know if I should have done that. Yeah, versus. Oh my gosh, I hit a huge hot button in in politics or whatever that that could, you know, hurt me. If you're a smaller brand, both of those are the. The risk is pretty small if you're a bigger brand. That second one is really, really important to ask yourself what's core to our brand, what's our brand promise, and is this a story that delivers on a brand promise? So at ancestry, we had records that talked about you know you, you know women's, you know ability to vote. That's a that could be considered a hot button topic or a lot of, a lot of content around slavery. Yep.

Speaker 1: 57:14

We were really, really thoughtful because we knew what our brand stood for around talking about those things, not shying away, talking about those things in the right way. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 57:23

Um, and we made some mistakes. I one in particular we probably don't have time to talk about, but we ran a commercial in Canada, thought we'd run it in the US and it backfired. After that we learned from it and we said we've got to get a group of people who are from all around the world here to just again. This is more for a bigger brand but let's have them look at our content. Who are from?

Speaker 1: 57:46

all around the world here to just again. This is more for a bigger brand, but let's have them look at our content. We're getting to that place where we got to be really thoughtful with what we're talking about. At Gab, part of our core is that social media is hurting our kids. It is crushing our kids, and so you'll see in our TV advertising. Which a lot of people don't want to hear, they don't and they actually advocate for the opposite. I know. No, they need, they need the connection. Yes, yes.

Speaker 3: 58:12

And if they're? Left out, if they're not a part of it. They'll feel left out and they'll be bullied.

Speaker 1: 58:15

And so we've said no. A part of our brand promise is that this is the data. The data says that more kids are depressed, more kids are anxious, more kids are bullied, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and social media is a big part of that. So we have been, we've taken a stand, we said so. We have a. We have a campaign right now on TV called One Childhood. A kid gets one childhood. So so we have kids talking about what social media is doing for them. We have, we talk about it in a funny way, like kids saying I'm ready for this thing, I'm ready to drive Mom, like no, no no, not yet, not yet not yet.

Speaker 1: 58:54

I'm ready for this app? No, not yet. Like you're doing, great, but not yet. So we'll talk about it in light ways and some heavy ways, Because if you don't, for us it's part of our brand promise, it's core to who we are. We will take a stand against what social media is doing to kids and that might alienate some people, but they're not our target audience.

Speaker 4: 59:16

That's a good answer. Makes sense If it's for your target audience then you can't shy away from it. Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably the message, right it's like if it's gonna, if it's gonna be for your tam yep then go for it. Yeah, and also gab is talking about competitor, because a lot of this really has to do with like oh, I don't want to call out a competitor. Well, gab is fighting the biggest company in the world. Right, they're fighting the Microsofts and the Apples.

Speaker 4: 59:49

And the Instagrams and you guys have to call them out directly and you can't shy away from it. But that's done nothing but help you by calling it out. Like you're not saying that everything about Apple is horrible.

Speaker 1: 1:00:01

No, not at all, and not everything about social media is horrible. There's a time and place you have to.

Speaker 4: 1:00:04

Yeah, social media is horrible, but you have to. Yeah, like you said, you have to define. I liked what you said define like what your core principles and promises are to your audience.

Speaker 1: 1:00:13

Yeah, and again I learned that through good ways and the hard ways at ancestry, we're still at the beginning of a gab where there we still have so much more to go. Um, and I'm learning so much. Um, I know we're wrapping up, but one thought I would leave with too, and I maybe said it to begin with when you're building a team and you're just starting out, you've got got got to hire the right people, who are proactive, who care about building relationships, who are sincere. I care, honestly, less about what you know about marketing and who you are than who you are.

Speaker 1: 1:00:52

And because I and the internet and everybody else can teach you how to do search marketing. Totally yeah, but I can't teach you how to build a relationship with product. Yeah. I can't teach you how to build a relationship and understand how to talk to finance. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:01:06

I can't teach you how to build a relationship and understand how to talk to finance. I can't teach you to not the way to get ahead isn't to take all the credit, but to give the credit to somebody else. So at Gab we have an amazing team that does that and I think the success that we're seeing at Gab 60% growth in ARR in the last two years is because of that team. That would run through a wall for each other.

Speaker 3: 1:01:28

For sure. There's something about a mission as strong as Gab's that you're going to get talent that an Apple might not get because their mission is so different. Not that Apple doesn't have probably a good mission, but your mission is there's so much good to it right mission is there's so much good to it right? And so you, you mix like you know, like having the right, the right team with the right message and and there's a lot of really good that can, that can come from that. So I I think that's a really cool way to end the podcast and I appreciate that. Um, well, russ, thank you so much. Dude, this has been thank you. It's been awesome, like super, super tangible. Uh, where can I know you say you don't get that much right? You, I can't remember you were saying that. Were you saying that while we were recording or no?

Speaker 1: 1:02:11

you're not, I don't, I'm not on. I need to be better. I have been. I've honestly been taught by some of the best of the best.

Speaker 3: 1:02:20

This is your coming out party here. All right, this is your coming out and I just gotta I, I just got it.

Speaker 1: 1:02:24

I'm I'm more comfortable sitting with my team and grinding and and helping save kids yeah but I but I. I want to help others who are coming up yeah and I and I want to be better that way. So thanks for the opportunity absolutely, thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:02:40

well, you can find, gab is gab wirelesscom, it's gabcom.

Speaker 1: 1:02:43

We've dropped wireless. We're simplifying our brand, so it's gabcom. We've dropped wireless. We've simplified our brand.

Speaker 4: 1:02:47

So it's gabcom, beautiful, so much better and you can find Russ Haneg on LinkedIn right, I'm not.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

yeah, I'm not super, you've got some good posts.

Speaker 3: 1:02:54

I've seen it, you know. Thanks. I'm going to send you a bunch of content Okay, and you're going to have a bright red face as you click, click post.

Speaker 2: 1:03:07

I will I will have a bright red face. This has been awesome. Thank you so much, man.

Speaker 3: 1:03:10

So much. Well, and thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.