Trevor Crump: 0:00

So they're claiming that TikTok is going to be banned from the United States on the 19th. If this passes, I think you're going to have a lot of brands who are going to be in a sour spot, at least for the next three to six months, until they can kind of figure out how to.

Mark Goldhardt: 0:15

They're going to have to figure out how to run ads. I mean, that's literally what that means, like they're going to have to figure out how to run ads on Meta.

Trevor Crump: 0:26

Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, is Mark Goldhart. Mark, how are you doing today? How are you feeling?

Mark Goldhardt: 0:34

I'm recovering, that's for sure. Strange bugs and viruses are going around right now.

Trevor Crump: 0:40

Yeah, tis the season. Tis the season for sick bugs this one's been weird.

Mark Goldhardt: 0:48

It feels like I've had every symptom in the book, so I guess probably probably covid, right, like I don't know it works at this point like who? Yeah, it's kind of like at this point.

Trevor Crump: 1:02

You say you have the weird taste, right?

Mark Goldhardt: 1:05

yeah, I had a very strange taste for the last three days in my mouth and today's not as bad, but sunday was bad. Like it was weird, yeah and it wasn't anything.

Trevor Crump: 1:19

It's been a weird time, so I mean it. I'm trying to remember the last time we we launched an episode, but it's been a while. So for those of you who are listening, one we apologize to. Let me give you a little explanation. Explanation here is is we the holidays hit Well, one? We like to record our podcasts.

Trevor Crump: 1:41

We went on the stage where we'd have four or five episodes like prerecorded, but we like marketing is so the digital space changes so much. I mean the, for example, the sheer fact that people are saying TikTok is about to go away in the United States, you know, like that changes the whole dynamic. And so what would happen is like we'd record an episode and then release it six weeks later and we're like, oh, that was kind of like there's bits and pieces of that that just don't make sense to launch right then and there you know, and so we started Mark and I have kind of purposefully started to record podcasts on the weekly. That way, you know, we're only five to seven days behind, versus six weeks when when it releases. And the the beauty of that is, I feel like our episodes are more relevant and up to date when people are listening kind of in real time the, the downfalls, what, what we've experienced, right.

Trevor Crump: 2:36

So we had, you know, um, we had Christmas break, we had, uh, we had new years, and then you got sick and then I went out of town and then you got sick again and and so, um, it didn't really dawn on me until today, which sounds really really stupid is like we this is this is how we used to record podcasts, so we're from. If you're listening, we're at home right now because Marcus isn't feeling well and he didn't want to come in and get everyone sick and so we're not in our studio. So if you're watching, obviously you'd be able to tell that. But I just like woke up this morning after I got a text from Mark last night, or you know, we were talking saying, hey, I'm sick, we're not going to come in, and I was like, oh, we should record this on Riverside, like we used to. Why haven't we been doing that over the holidays? Like, why have we just all of the sudden I don't know, I don't know about you has Riverside popped in your mind, like us being able to do it like this?

Mark Goldhardt: 3:43

Not for a long time. I mean, we've been doing it in the studio for so long.

Trevor Crump: 3:47

I was like, oh yeah, yeah we've been spoiled we could just do this in our office at home yeah, so moving forward, holidays, sicknesses, whatever we shouldn't have gaps the way we have the gap. So, uh, apologies, but we're here now we are here now you sound fine. You don't sound sick, even though you might be feeling it yeah, yeah, like I said it has.

Mark Goldhardt: 4:14

It hasn't had anything to do with my sinuses at all. Like I haven't had a runny nose, I haven't really coughed. It's body aches fever yeah for me. So I mean, yeah, I don't know if I ever got covid, so maybe this is my first round, I don't know yeah maybe I have the bird flu.

Trevor Crump: 4:33

They say that's supposed to go around yeah, that's right, that's the new one well, hopefully you get feeling better global pandemics every couple years now well, let's talk shop. So I mentioned this before big news, like a huge thing, probably. As you're listening to this, uh, if you're listening to this, this recording, that means there's probably been some sort of decision made around what's happening with tiktok. So they're they're claiming that tiktok is going to be banned from the united states on the 19th.

Mark Goldhardt: 5:07

Uh, so day before trump inauguration yeah, that seems it seems pretty uh it seems interesting, because you would think they just leave it up to the next administration, but I guess this is congress, so I mean trump's gonna have to either. Is this a bill they're passing like they can't really?

Trevor Crump: 5:30

uh, I don't know exactly what it is like.

Mark Goldhardt: 5:33

Can this be overturned?

Trevor Crump: 5:37

yeah, I think I read that trump has 60 days after to potentially appeal it, but veto it I don't, yeah, but I don't, I don't know, like I don't want to say that and have people like actually, when you read the fight, you know I could be wrong, but that was just like an article that I read, um, because the big news, the big news is like so this isn't, this isn't new news, right, they've been trying to ban tiktok for the last what seems like two years, um, and in fact, what was interesting is I felt like trump was also against tiktok a couple years ago, um, until I think he saw the value in how it helped him perform in the election and so I think I think now he's like you know, he seems to be more pro tiktok, you know from the speech side of things, there's this, there's the international security side of things, but anyways, this isn't any new news.

Trevor Crump: 6:34

Um, new news, new news. It's. It's old news, but it's new in the sense that, hey, this is for the most part, it it's happening, unless ByteDance sells.

Mark Goldhardt: 6:47

And apparently they're open to the idea of Elon buying it right.

Trevor Crump: 6:51

Elon Musk. Yeah, that's, I think, as of yesterday or today, which is the 14th.

Mark Goldhardt: 6:56

Which I mean those are some rumors floating around, I don't know. Maybe it's I don't know, like tiktok is fun for all the gen zers out there, but I mean it is a spy machine, so I don't know why they would sell it to somebody who already owns, like the other most looked at communication platform through x or twitter I don't know, that seems, that seems crazy, but maybe the big.

Trevor Crump: 7:35

The big question is like what is the revenue generated from americans to bite dance? Verse right because they're. They haven't put a sell date on tiktok or a sell price. But what I've read value there but like advertisers are pulling out like people haven't.

Mark Goldhardt: 7:55

It has not lived up to the promise of of what meta has given advertisers traditionally, and that's I mean. Let's just all call a spade a spade. That is how people make money, or that's how platforms make money. Is selling ads, yeah so, or your data, so you're.

Mark Goldhardt: 8:12

They're either selling your data, your ads are both most likely both and so, yeah, the big question is like well, can you, can you really scale it and make money off of it? Because X is having that problem now too. I mean Twitter. I don't think Twitter ever had a profitable year.

Trevor Crump: 8:33

Yeah, I don't know, I haven't looked into it enough.

Mark Goldhardt: 8:35

And so X is trying to figure out the advertising game. I know that, and so we'll see. I mean, that's a good's a good good. Just subject in general for us to talk about is we have channels and these platforms and who controls them and and how to use them in your advertising quiver.

Trevor Crump: 8:58

Yeah, I mean there's there's a couple of different directions we can go down right. One like curious your thoughts around people who've built their entire business on tiktok, um, and what does that do? And what are the warnings for other people, uh, who've done similar things like that. Uh, where, where they're? Where they're because we're you and me, are, let's call it one one channel, one channel pony, like a one trick, one trick pony. We, we, we tell people all the time like if you're under $20 million, you really don't need to be in more than a couple of different spaces.

Mark Goldhardt: 9:34

Right Cause there's so much opportunity. Yeah, like we all, we well, we operate in them, but we, we. I think we see them. For what? They are which is. It just depends on your type of business. Yeah, like you said, there's businesses that have great little things going on tiktok right, like oh, that's cool. Like you have this little doodad, that's 20 bucks yeah you know those kind of are the ones that be stuff, yeah, yeah.

Mark Goldhardt: 10:03

Yeah, and the tick tock shops and the way I look at it is, it's very similar to what the drop the drop shipping trend was back in 2010s Right, like that's the way to make money. And it was like it's not that. It's not that these people are lying, it's just it's not as easy as it looks. It's just. It's not as easy as it looks. Yeah, and a lot of time. It depends on the demographic that's hanging out in that platform and it's also the product right.

Trevor Crump: 10:33

Right, there's very uh tiktok shoppable products, but but also like I'm not even talking about the people who are crushing it through the tiktok shops, because there's just a lot of people.

Mark Goldhardt: 10:43

Yeah, just like organic reach, right I'm talking yeah, more of the organic.

Trevor Crump: 10:45

There are a lot of people, yeah, just like organic reach, right, I'm talking, yeah, more of the organic. There are a lot of people who've built like like. For example, I can think there's this one guy who I follow. His name's Ryan. I think I don't know if this is his actual name, but his, his, his TikTok name is Ryan Dubs. I've, I've, I've sent him his stuff before his, his uh, company's called Dew of the Gods and he was like employee number two or three at Kylie Cosmetics and so I think he had like a.

Trevor Crump: 11:20

I can't remember if he had some equity and got a cash out or if he comes from money. I don't think he comes from money, but he kind of is this guy like, this guy like who lives this, I mean very lavish life like drives a Rolls Royce, you know, he's got the black American express card, he's always decked out in Louis Vuitton. I mean he is spending so much money and he brags all the time about how they haven't spent a dime on advertising and how they've built it all through pretty much tick tock, what seems to be tick tock Like. That seems like he. That's his biggest channel.

Trevor Crump: 11:49

Uh, people also follow him for like interior design stuff, cause he's building this like lavish, lavish, lavish, awesome home right now and a very modern, sleek home, and so I look at brands like that, right, like I think he's doing around 10 million or just in organic sales, you know, and he's always right, I'm not running any ads, I'm not running any ads, I'm not running any ads and and I don't know if he's still not running ads I haven't checked in a minute but brands like that, what do brands like that do?

Mark Goldhardt: 12:23

you, uh, is the question what do they do, or what are they doing to to be able to have success on tiktok? Or is the question no? No, it's it's I mean what do they do if it gets banned to?

Trevor Crump: 12:32

yeah, what are the? What are the brands like that do like if you're, if, if a brand like that is listing right now, you know where you've built your, your brand on tiktok, what do you do? Figure out how to run ads. Because it's not apples to apples Instagram. It really isn't.

Mark Goldhardt: 12:47

No, no, it's not, it's again. A lot of people have had problems with incrementality, so being able to actually grow your business with ads on TikTok because of the buyer intent on TikTok has just tended to be very different than the buyer intent on an Instagram. Sure.

Mark Goldhardt: 13:13

And I don't know if we want to go into that at all of why perhaps there's a difference, but there is. There's just a very obvious, clear difference. But they're going to have to figure out how to run ads. I mean, that's literally what that means. Like they're gonna have to figure out how to run ads on meta like they're not. They're not just gonna jump into meta and crush it like they might. I hope they do. I'm not. You know, I'm not wishing for anybody's uh downfall right or challenges, but that's probably what they're gonna have to do to jumpstart their business. If they have no following like because the buyer intent again, even on instagram reels as a placement, that's, it has lower buyer intent yeah but it has better reach, so it's yeah it's a great costs.

Mark Goldhardt: 13:59

Yeah well, cheaper on the click side, cheaper reach not Not even necessarily cheaper clicks, but definitely cheaper reach. Sure, but the buyer intent tends to be lower on reels, so you don't really see the immediate ROI. Yeah. And the same thing with reach. I mean we know a brand that gets consistently get millions of views on their reels yeah but their follower count has not grown much at all.

Mark Goldhardt: 14:32

Totally because the intent is different, like people aren't following the way they used to. They're not. They're not even interacting in a platform the way they used to. So, yes, tiktok is and reels. Like that's the biggest commonality between the two major platforms of TikTok and Instagram, because TikTok is basically just TikTok, right, and then Instagram is feed stories, reels, whatever you want to call it, the Explorer, now whatever they're calling that.

Trevor Crump: 15:03

Right.

Mark Goldhardt: 15:04

Which is basically just Reels.

Trevor Crump: 15:06

Yeah, and there's something about the feed in stories that has a higher buyer intent and we don't have to necessarily get into the psychological side of that, but that, just that, just is how it, how it is right now. So if you're so used to creating the tiktok style videos, one followers on tiktok don't translate to followers on Instagram and my profile is like a very like. So you know TikTok posts on TikTok. I'm posting on Instagram. I'm growing daily on TikTok. I'm losing daily on Instagram right now. So if I'm getting 200 new followers with the same content.

Mark Goldhardt: 15:43

just to clarify that, yeah.

Trevor Crump: 15:44

Yeah, and which, and everyone's going to come across. Well, that's that's why, you know, tiktok content is not the same as as instagram content and it's like there's a point to that. You know to some degree, for sure, but like there's a point.

Mark Goldhardt: 15:59

Imagine reels is the same, like I mean they're literally the same, but like, for some reason, very different traction on tiktok versus reels yeah, yeah, 100. So at least for what you're doing.

Trevor Crump: 16:13

Yeah, it's just not apples to apples. So, um, you know, very curious, maybe you know, I think what creators or what brands can and should be doing right now is they should try to be advising their audience to, um, start following them on Instagram the pro. The only problem with that is generally when you create Tik TOK content, uh, it's like 95% of the time it's going to do followers like new people. So if you were to create content that's like hey, go follow me. One, it's not going to get a ton of reach into, it's not going to get a ton of reach. And, two, it's not going to get a ton of reach from your current following. So, yeah, there's just some problems that I think. If this passes, I think you're going to have a lot of brands who are going to be in a sour spot, at least for the next three to six months, until they can kind of figure out how to either run ads correctly, um, or find a way to to appease the organic algorithm on on Instagram.

Mark Goldhardt: 17:15

Yeah, and I think we got to go back in time a little bit to remind people of it.

Mark Goldhardt: 17:23

With Instagram in the past it was great organically at reaching new people, and then also ads were great at basically just retargeting those people yeah so you had this top funnel approach and and just going into the new year, this is something that I would highly recommend every brand to start thinking about, because this is this is kind of the important part that you're probably missing in your advertising right now, because most advertisers on meta have moved to just kind of a prospecting focus and some people use manual bids, some people use auto, some, you know, I don't want to really get into like cost cap first, sure, maximize conversion value optimization goals, but but no, we know what you're talking about.

Mark Goldhardt: 18:12

Yeah.

Trevor Crump: 18:12

And trust you.

Mark Goldhardt: 18:14

Just don't. Yeah, I don't even want to get into that, so but heed this warning.

Trevor Crump: 18:20

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Trevor Crump: 18:40

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Mark Goldhardt: 19:38

They're not. Nobody really has top funnel strategy. Some of the big brands do like they're doing top funnel goals because they understand once you get to a certain point, um, you're not going to convert somebody over seven days. You know like you have to have. Your name has to be recycled out there time and time again to get people to buy. So taking a step back, I understand people listening to this aren't from nike right or adidas, or life water or whatever you know, whatever is out there.

Mark Goldhardt: 20:16

But those, those companies understand that they just want to be top of mind all of the time, and so they're not expecting you to go buy a nike product because you see lebron james wearing a nike nba jersey right, but they are expecting you to go buy a lebron james jersey, right?

Mark Goldhardt: 20:37

yeah, or a lakers jersey, or a utah jazz jersey which is nike, which then you associate nike with high class, right or high performance. And then then you want Nike because you see your favorite people wearing Nike, but they're not expecting. Okay, we're going to sponsor the NBA. Therefore, people are going to buy their personal shoes as Nike, yeah or hey. We're going to run these big commercials Like they're not expecting people to go buy Nike's, like right then and there. Yeah.

Mark Goldhardt: 21:05

It's just top of mind, so they're reaching. They're reaching people all the time. They're reaching the same people all the time, but they're constantly reaching people totally and yeah, meta does not do that anymore, I just want to make that statement it is not well the way people have their ads set up. Last year you can do that it can do that it's just not doing it.

Mark Goldhardt: 21:31

How people been primarily running their ads, especially from a yes, um, and organically, right, like you know that, like organically it's not, it's not doing that anymore, right? So what? What should people do? Basically is the question like, what should people do? Yeah, to actually reach new eyes. So when we're, when we've consulted with people in the last six months, like we have seen a significant drop in organic reach we talked about this last time what like 60? I mean the average, we're not kidding.

Mark Goldhardt: 22:09

Like the average is 50 to 60 percent of organic reach lost yep since again, it really started in june, july yeah so number one, if, if you haven't yet and you're listening to this go freaking, look at your organic reach to see how bad it has suffered. Yeah. Because if it hasn't, then you're doing something different, but most likely it has. Yeah. And then let's go see your ad account year over year. See what kind of reach you have.

Trevor Crump: 22:45

Yep, and do it like Mark said look at it year over year. Look at what you were spending you know for the last 12 months compared to the previous 12 months, and look what your reach was Same thing.

Trevor Crump: 22:58

And just see where your efficiencies are at Cause, most likely you're spending 20 to 50% more and you're probably only getting 5% more reach. Well, okay. So the question is this just goes back to like okay, whether TikTok is banned or not, right, the big thing that brands need to focus on, big takeaway is brands need. Brands need to understand, like better understand, what the journey is. Okay, right, I'm not even gonna call it a funnel or whatever it is yeah, whatever I call it yeah, I like to.

Trevor Crump: 23:39

Some people are calling it a marketing flywheel now and yeah, yeah, I I like to use the word journey because I just think funnel is so like Russell Brunson-y funnel hacks. You're thinking landing pages with crappy design. So I like the journey because it just has to start somewhere.

Mark Goldhardt: 24:01

We're all about the journey, you know yeah, yeah, so, um.

Trevor Crump: 24:07

So, whether it's organic tiktok content or it's it's organic instagram content, you've got to figure one of those out, right. You need a platform that can get your, your name and likeness in front of people. Um, at an, at an inexpensive cost, all right, um, and that is what which is obviously easier said than done.

Trevor Crump: 24:33

Of course it is Right, and it's so much easier to do that easier I'm not going to say cost, costly but it's so much easier to do in paid ads, right? You spend X amount of dollars and you get you reach X amount of people. Now you have the right, have the right strategists and the right strategies and the right content in order to do that efficiently, of course, right. So that is one way, and the other way is your organic content, right? I think there's so many people right now who are in this phase of I create. You know I'm I create. In fact, I'm creating a Tik TOK video. It'll get six days worth of views, it sounds like, but you know, I'm creating a TikTok video today. That's talking.

Mark Goldhardt: 25:11

It's not. It's not getting shut. I don't think well either personally actually time out. Let's check the polymarket odds, check the polymarket odds right now.

Trevor Crump: 25:23

I looked it up the United States is the second most is the country that's using it from a time perspective. Second most largest company using it, indonesia is the first but 100 and like 40 million it's come down it hits 70 odds of getting banned.

Mark Goldhardt: 25:47

It's come down to. It's come down to 63 okay I don't know, that's not. That's not great though yeah, it was. I mean, it was only it was only 20% odds a month ago.

Trevor Crump: 26:03

Now that's getting closer and closer, which would make sense, right? Yeah, it might be gone it definitely might be gone.

Mark Goldhardt: 26:13

Sorry, everybody.

Trevor Crump: 26:15

Yeah, so nonetheless, you've got to reach more people. At the end of the day, that's what it is, whether it's paid and organic. It should be both, or get some guerrilla marketing out there.

Mark Goldhardt: 26:30

Go, do something crazy and then turn it into content.

Trevor Crump: 26:34

Yeah, I think those are some of the new ways that people are starting to go a little bit more viral, um, and it's just, it's just kind of new and fun. I'm trying to think of a good example off the top of my head, but I know there's been a lot of like really cool things that people have done. Um, you know things like going around the city that they're at and creating a scavenger hunt where you know $50,000 worth of product that you're just placing everywhere, or something you know some sort of big astronomical number.

Mark Goldhardt: 27:09

You got brands who are having fun with something.

Trevor Crump: 27:12

Yeah, I mean we've talked about this before like Ridge Wallets, like they did the the big giveaway gold cyber truck, gold plated cyber truck giveaway, you know, or it was like a hundred grand, I can't remember what it was yeah, giveaways, work, cash or yeah, I mean, and they can't just be giveaways like hey, let's team up with five different brands giving away a 200 gift card, I mean you gotta go, you gotta go massive with it, you know and then the question always ends up being like some of these are cheap.

Mark Goldhardt: 27:45

Not, I don't want to say cheap, but they seem gimmicky yeah but we're kind of at the point where people just need to kind of get over that yeah I agree, the big, the big thing is just when it comes to reaching people.

Trevor Crump: 27:56

You just got to kind of get over that. Yeah, I agree, the big, the big thing is just when it comes to reaching people. You just got to do different things. Can't just keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Right, and I think that's what a lot of us did in 2024, right? Oh my gosh, like, why is my reach out? Why are we? Why are we not growing? Why are we not growing? And you just keep kind of doing the same. It's the same content, it's the same media buying strategies. It's the same.

Mark Goldhardt: 28:18

Yeah, let's just spend more without evaluating the strategy yeah, let's just make more content without?

Mark Goldhardt: 28:25

well, actually, this, this is a. Can we dive down a weird road? Not a weird road, please. Maybe it's a little bit more nerdy, please do. Okay, this is a. This is a huge gripe that I have with marketing in general, especially in the e-commerce world, where the motto that marketers always use is like oh yeah, like I ab test, we ab test. All the time we run experiments, like always be testing, which is cool, it's cool and all, but not great actually, and the reason why it's not great is because it there's a.

Mark Goldhardt: 29:14

There's a guy who runs a day trading course called uncommon education. His name is Jeremy Lieber, I believe, and one of the things he tries teaching people with day trading is like, if you don't, if you don't have a strategy, then like you don't, you get lost, right, like if you don't have a plan, you get lost. Well, what happens with marketers and A-B testing is everybody says, oh yeah, I'm big in A-B testing. Oh yeah, I A-B test. Oh yeah, I run tests, but they don't ever really know what they're actually analyzing. Sure, okay, and that's called hypothesis testing.

Mark Goldhardt: 29:53

So, like they don't know how to formulate a real test and analyze the results and understand Because, for example, like there's tons of false negatives and false positives in marketing, when you're running these A-B tests, like it just is, like it's not, it's a little bit more of an art than a science. Because you're running, you have to take into consideration like hey, we ran a landing page test and it won. It's like OK, cool Like I. And it won. It's like okay, cool like I.

Mark Goldhardt: 30:19

I hope it won, but were you running it during high buying intent season? Were you running it like, right, like there there are different variables and like, not that those always matter. But a lot of times people just don't know how to categorize those variables and say, hey, this is what we're testing, ceteris paribus, holding everything else constant, and then if it wins we're going to let it run with a lag test. Right, you don't just have a winner, you have to continue a test to see how it performs over time, because sometimes you think an ad wins or that whatever you're testing wins and it does in the short term, but maybe it's not winning with an incremental lag.

Trevor Crump: 30:59

Right.

Mark Goldhardt: 31:00

So we're getting better purchases, but you might not be getting better reach and you might not be getting more purchases over seven to 28 days.

Trevor Crump: 31:08

Right.

Mark Goldhardt: 31:09

So if you don't know how to run a proper hypothesis test, I just want to put that out there. This applies to your content strategies too. Like you, like a lot of people think they're running content but they're not actually saying okay, this is what we're like, this is the hook we're testing yeah this is the body. We're testing this it. What is the hook? What is the emotion? Like, what like? How are we categorizing this in a way that says we know why it failed and we know why it succeeded?

Mark Goldhardt: 31:42

right because right now it seems like everybody's like I have no idea and, yes, there's still tests that you're gonna run where you'd have no idea yeah but mr beast has said very clearly in his youtube strategy he has turned it into a science, like. Like he has tested everything out, like he knows the thumbnails that work, the intros that work. Like it's not, he's not just out there guessing, just trying to be funny every time, like that was years of him studying it and turning it into a science, but more of an art right.

Mark Goldhardt: 32:15

Like he has perfected art through for through principles that he's mastered yeah, yeah, I think I read that he was that he spends like 10 grand per thumbnail yeah, just on the thumbnail yeah, just to make sure he's dialing it in, you know, because every view counts and so I think the the reason why I want to bring that up and why it just sparks a little emotion in me is like there's so much wasted and sunk cost in the way people go about testing, because everyone's testing in a way where they're spinning their wheels in the mud. Yeah.

Mark Goldhardt: 32:52

And they're working really, really hard. And sometimes you strike lightning in a bottle and like that works for a brand and that's great for those brands, but most people that's not how it works.

Trevor Crump: 33:04

Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, and so, yeah, yeah, I totally agree A lot of wasted spend. I bet that most people who could go back on every video that they've tested all the different pieces of content on the different variations and you ask them what they've learned, they probably don't have any anything really documented right. It was probably just like, oh, this would be a fun hook, this would be a fun hook, this would be a fun hook, this is, this is the one that won, so we ran with it. Okay, one that won, so we ran with it. Okay, well, what do you?

Mark Goldhardt: 33:41

learn from that, and how do you put that into?

Trevor Crump: 33:43

the next iterations of testing, yeah, yeah versus retesting that over and over again in the next six months and a lot of people just don't know how to do it.

Mark Goldhardt: 33:51

It's not lack of effort or trying, it's just simply I mean, at a minimum you should have a spreadsheet and every time you run a test, just say hey, what are? Like, how do we bucket a few variables? So if you're running a test, I know what the hook is. Let's just say videos, cause that's easy, right, like here's the hook, here's the body, like here's the emotion and here's like maybe the, the title, right, and then you have ad copy. So there's a lot of variables going on. But like, how do you start saying, hey, I know this works for my brand? Yeah, because because that's the other tricky part is just reaching people. Yes, but you can reach a lot of people with your reels that have just don't match your brand at all yeah and we've seen that happen right yeah, I mean here here's a really good, interesting example of this.

Trevor Crump: 34:44

Uh, let's just take a client. So we have a client who sells kids swimwear, right, and um, we've been working with these guys for for years now right, maybe three, probably, maybe two and a half and they have scaled significantly and they crush it in swimwear and they started last year creating neon swim colors.

Trevor Crump: 35:11

Right, they've created swim, just, you know, for the last few years, really cool stuff, but they started to create neon and they wanted to start testing the idea of being able to spot your kids better in the water, like at first it was like, hey, let's get yeah, let's get, let's get neon clothing like it's just cool, that's like that's kind of in, right, but rather than it being it being cool, like that's how they've been They've really grown off of just like, hey, cool kid clothing, like they've grown off of that, but instead of cool, like last year, we went down this road of just extreme, like this route of extreme. Safety testing and that was the hypothesis is like can safety testing be better than cool, fashionable swimwear for kids? And sure enough it 100% was. I bet 90% of our content, 95% of the content that they are creating and that we are creating, is going to talk. Safety is a tragic experience. It, you know. Every mom has experienced some sort of like take my breath away moment with their kid in a pool or at a beach, whether it's oh my gosh, I lost them, or where are they, did they put their life jacket on, whatever? And so it's helped us evolve.

Trevor Crump: 36:53

You know, and this is year two of us doing it Uh, and it's going to sell even better because of what we've learned. And you know, and this is year two of us doing it Uh, and it's going to sell even better because of what we've learned. And you know the hypothesis, hypotheses that we've taken, the results that we've got, and now it's been able to give them such a streamlined focus on exactly what type of content they should create, so that we can create the right messaging around the ads, um, which is going to save them tons of money. So, rather than us doing a whole ton of testing on what's going to work, we already know what works, so sure we're still going to do testing around it. I'm not saying you know, once we found something, we're done. But the amount of money, I mean, what would you say? 80% of budgets are wasted on tests.

Mark Goldhardt: 37:33

A lot. I mean at least, at least 20, but you know, you know that's a. That's a great example, because a lot of times what happens is people just keep testing when, like, okay, you have, you have a category test, for example. So the category test here was hey, do we need a different approach of how we communicate to moms, like what's the emotional appeal?

Mark Goldhardt: 38:03

yeah is it cool kids or is it safety? Well, luckily those styles are coming back, so it's kind of both. Yeah right, visually it's cool. Visually it's cool and it it helps you see your kids, it helps yeah like I remember I went to, went to. Disneyland as a kid and my mom made me wear like a specific colored shirt. Yeah. My brothers and I all had to wear like a green shirt. Yeah. So they could spot us, and that might have been because they lost me at SeaWorld. But Sure I don't know.

Mark Goldhardt: 38:35

That's what they made me do at Disneyland. So yeah, there's the category test. Okay, well, you found out what category works better for this specific season.

Mark Goldhardt: 38:46

it doesn't necessarily work right like selling neon to see your kids in the winter and in the winter but yeah a lot of people then keep trying to test like category tests at that point, like, okay, we found a winner, but you found a winner, so now you don't have to keep going down that test this season. It's what are the hooks right like? What are, like the very specific tag lines, and blah, blah, blah, blah. Is it customer testimonials? Is it like what? What is the actual format that works now?

Speaker 3: 39:18

And you don't have to keep testing things over and over again for no reason yeah. Yeah, agreed.

Mark Goldhardt: 39:24

Well, that's where I think a lot of wasted testing happens is like OK, like you already know what, what's winning or what's losing, and but then you just keep Testing that concept like a million times. That's usually because people aren't tracking it right, they're not using hypothesis testing where they can say, okay, here's my winner, and I'm just like I'm moving my winning concept over, and then, like I'm not going to continually like rehash that concept like a million times, like I know it wins. Yeah.

Mark Goldhardt: 39:57

So like there's a few tweaking on ad copy and like you know stuff like that, but you don't have to retest something like a million times after it wins. Like then you can go down and like hey, let's just double down on what actually works.

Trevor Crump: 40:10

Totally. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, look a lot, a lot, lot, a lot for brands to be thinking about going into. I mean, we're already in 2025. Um, a lot of brands right now I know are planning, uh, what their 2025, especially the first half of the year, is going to look like most. Hopefully, a lot of brands have already done it, um, but what's happening with Tik TOK could impact you, uh, but I think, even bigger than what's happening with Tik TOK I know that's how we started the conversation is just overall, how you're reaching more people, like that's that's kind of the name of the game. This testing discussion that we've had is going to help you reach more people and more of the right people as well.

Mark Goldhardt: 40:56

Uh, and the right and the right ad strategy.

Trevor Crump: 40:59

Yeah, exactly. So that's a huge that's that's what I think a big focus of what your 2025 planning it should be we always talk about, like you know, there there's four ways to win an e-com is distribution, it's conversion rates, it's AOV and it's getting your customers to return. And I think 2025, a very, very big discussion is going to be the distribution piece.

Mark Goldhardt: 41:22

Yeah, I think, I think you're right, because of what we just talked about. Yeah, exactly. Right Like people don't know. I don't think enough people have dug into their reach to understand how little they're reaching.

Trevor Crump: 41:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and listen, I know this is a plug and I kind of already plugged it. If you guys are wanting some help with that, we can do that. On it, we can reach out. I mean, we've done this dozens of times and we've discovered some really unique stuff. That mark, I mean. Yes, I know you feel like you're giving out some of that um, but there's so much more to it than what we've given Um and you need, you need experts, um. So so feel free to reach out to us, dm me, go to bestie mediaco, whatever. Uh, we'd love to to chat and discuss more. That's not what the purpose of the conversation has been. Or you can hack it yourself and there's a good chance that you might get 20% better than what you were last year, uh, or maybe even 80% better.

Mark Goldhardt: 42:30

That's right, so cool, but we do love helping people.

Trevor Crump: 42:37

I think so. Yeah, we think 2025 is going to be an awesome year. A lot of people are scared. We're we're actually really excited for what's happening in 2025 and what opportunities are going to be there.

Mark Goldhardt: 42:50

Yeah, and a big thing too to mention about 2025 is like when I'm looking at the numbers right now, we just uh, I got off the phone today with with a client and they're good friends of ours, they've been clients for a while, but, um, for a while I mean like five years, and so they were. They were getting a little worried about how they were getting a little worried about how 2025 started, but that was like two weeks ago or a week ago and I told them.

Mark Goldhardt: 43:26

I said look guys, Christmas and New Year's landed in the middle of the week, so you're looking at year over year data right now, when really I expect things, things to start picking up.

Mark Goldhardt: 43:39

and we talked on wednesday of last week yeah I said I expect things to start picking up tomorrow. I literally said the next day, and sure enough, their new customer sales went up 70 percent from Thursday through Sunday, and on pace today, or Monday too. So I guess because it's Tuesday and on pace today, on a Tuesday, but it's CPMs have dropped like things have gotten better, but there's still again. There's still a lot of reach to be had. Yeah, so don't. If you haven't seen your january live up to expectations for the first week and a half, just remember christmas and new year's yeah, and it goes back to this variable, right.

Trevor Crump: 44:30

Right, there's, there's a false negative that could have been taking place this, these last like 10 days. Yeah, based on your testing, maybe not last 10 days, but maybe the like previous seven days, right?

Mark Goldhardt: 44:43

oh, easily, yeah, I mean, a lot of people would have said like, okay, let's, let's pull the cord. But I showed them the year-over-year data of just like new customer roi, right, so like acquisition roi, and then all we did was say, okay, cool, look, everything is back to normal. Their ROI went up literally 85%. Yeah.

Mark Goldhardt: 45:12

Their new customer ROI over the last four days, and that's what we're talking about. Like, you have to have just certain variables and that helps you have hindsight. It also helps you have foresight, so that way you can say when is the time to panic and when is not the time to panic. So so quarter four of 2024 is an outlier. Like, that is a weird quarter. There's a, there's an election, which will probably end up being the norm in four years from now, but the that election was very different the most spent on digital advertising. I think a lot of people were consumed with the politics there was. Just, you know, attention was elsewhere. It was a weird. It was a weird October, november.

Trevor Crump: 45:57

Plus, it's just been like you know it. It's. It's been like q4 was the like you know. It seemed like every month the economy was getting worse too yeah, right, yeah, like coupled on bad inflation for three years.

Mark Goldhardt: 46:14

So yeah, it was. It was an outlier, but things are looking pretty normal. So, like if you, if you're feeling down about 2024, I would be feeling optimistic about 2025, plus, I think a lot of people are going to bail out on advertising strategies because the economy has been hard.

Mark Goldhardt: 46:32

I think you're going to have a lot of people go out of business, which I'm I'm not happy about, but I do think you're going to see some people stop having a business. You're going to have a lot of people go out of business, which I'm I'm not happy about, but I do think you're going to see some people stop having a business. You're going to see a lot of other people like try to reduce their ad spend and I think there's a huge opportunity to to zig, while others are zagging yeah, I agree, love it, dude.

Trevor Crump: 46:53

Great, this is good. Good to get back in the swing of things. We'll. We'll be back now that we've remembered that if we're sick or if we're out of town or whatever, it's very easy to just set up and may not have our cool studio from the folks over at film lab. But here we are, you know hey, we'll be there next week though we got our. We got our mics over here. This is my tiktok mic that I record my tiktoks on.

Trevor Crump: 47:22

Yeah dude I hope it sounded okay. You know, guys, it sounds. I hope it was all right. So you're good, cool. Well, thank you everybody for joining in. Uh, we apologize, we will be back next tuesday. I pinky promise that's what my daughter always says nowadays, like she makes this pinky promise to everything. So I pinky promise we will be back next tuesday. I pinky promise, that's what my daughter always says nowadays, like she makes this pinky promise to everything. So I pinky promise we will be back. Um, she says you know she goes pinky promise, if you break it, you hate jesus whoa that's what she says now.

Trevor Crump: 47:50

So I you know, I know she's a little extreme, it's a little intense man.

Mark Goldhardt: 47:54

That's how she intense man.

Trevor Crump: 47:57

That's how she rolls.

Mark Goldhardt: 47:58

You tell Rome skis to cool it. That's a little.

Trevor Crump: 48:00

I know I said easy pal. Things change and then, when we break, she goes how can I ever trust you again? How can I ever trust you again? So we'll be back next Tuesday, pinky promise.

Mark Goldhardt: 48:11

She's a high accountability person.

Trevor Crump: 48:16

Very true, all right, everybody. Okay, 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 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.