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The Unstoppable Marketer®
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt bring you quick marketing and entrepreneurial tips, tricks, and trends for DTC business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. These are lessons they've learned through the years of being right in the thick of scaling dozens of businesses. Whether you have an established business looking to grow, just starting your business journey, or trying to become a digital marketer, this marketing podcast will not let you down.
The Unstoppable Marketer®
EP. 127 Beyond the Dashboard: Metrics That Actually Drive Business Growth w/ Cody Wittick @ Kynship
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhart welcome Cody Wittick, co-founder and co-CEO of Kynship, to discuss the evolving landscape of e-commerce marketing. They dive into the pitfalls of over reliance on ROAS metrics, the importance of cohort data, and why single-channel agencies need to pivot or perish. The trio shares insights on the future of agencies, the impact of AI on marketing, and why "ugly ads" might be the key to driving business forward. Cody challenges conventional wisdom on attribution tools and offers a fresh perspective on setting realistic business goals.
Follow Cody Wittick and Kynship on social media for more insights into e-commerce growth strategies and marketing trends.
Cody Wittick Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codywittick?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Kynship Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kynshipco?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
People get lost in the metrics and the numbers all the time, but single channel agencies need to either grow, expand and pivot or you will be dead. Because if you don't understand the full picture like the days of I can look and make your Facebook dashboard look as sexy as possible are just gone. Like you just need to be able to understand how that's affecting the whole ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, is my co-host, business partner, Mark Goldhart. How are you, mark? Great Welcome. Thank you, sir. Finally cut my hair, so you brought your dog to the office. I thought you were going to bring him to the podcast.
Speaker 3:I should have, but we have a guest today.
Speaker 2:We do have a guest and we have a bunch of nice cameras.
Speaker 3:I'm a dog person, but I'm not like. A dog is a person. Person.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:That's a rude statement to some people. Some people can be mad about that.
Speaker 3:I am my dog's master. I'm not his parent, mark's getting political again. Speaking of hey, it's okay, if you view your dog, you can do you. That's just me Trying to back out of it. We have a guest. My dog is, for sure my pet.
Speaker 2:We have a guest today, and this guest is, so we have officially Two time. Yeah, a two time guest. We've only done this one other time.
Speaker 1:Who is that so?
Speaker 3:you were our second two-time guest.
Speaker 2:It was London Lazerson. You commented on one of his.
Speaker 1:Oh, the other day. You just told my line about seeding that's fine. Was that your?
Speaker 3:line Sour Boss, final, final.
Speaker 1:Sour Final Boss Sour.
Speaker 3:Sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm dyslexic, london Lazerson, you didn't steal anything.
Speaker 1:It's not trademarked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cody thinks that he invented products eating. Anyways, we got Cody Winnick here. He is the he productized it. The co-founder, co-ceo of Kinship, which is our biggest competitor, why we have him on the podcast to promote his business. We don't know. Just kidding, welcome dude, how are you? I hope that's never the case, you know that's good man, that's the beauty about agency work is what's funny in the brand, in the brand side of things, brands cannot be friends with each other, even even though they should, when they're competing, when they're quote unquote competition, right, like, especially in utah, bro, like utah, we did a whole episode on this like is the most petty.
Speaker 2:When it comes to like, oh, you're selling a bag, then you are my mortal enemy, right, whereas, like in the agency world, and maybe it's because, like you can only manage so many clients, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:When there's. When there's 30,.
Speaker 2:You know, when there's I don't know how many e-commerce companies out there, hundreds of thousands, hundreds you know like scaling, yeah, you know you can only manage so many of them, but but when you're talking about Fifty thousand to one hundred thousand eligible e-commerce agencies versus e-commerce companies versus, like I'm selling bags to what possibly could be a hundred million people, yeah, like it, I I still think you're like the ratios are the same ish no, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It's far more of a zero sum game on the agency side. That's why it's funny. Yeah, it is like it's more of a zero sum game on the agency side than it is on the brand side, but the brand side. For some reason, people have a really hard time working with brands In the same category.
Speaker 2:In the same category. Whereas agency. I don't think I've ever once deemed you as competition Just internally. Yeah, just internally, I deem you as Twitter competition Cody's Twitter famous.
Speaker 1:No, what is Twitter famous Actually? I don't deem you as Twitter competition Cody's Twitter famous. No, what is Twitter famous Actually? I?
Speaker 2:don't deem that because I don't know how to do it.
Speaker 3:No, I mean just the other day someone's like, oh, we recommended Kinship to a company and we're like, yeah, they'll probably kill it for you guys. Yeah, very true, we gave them a thumbs up, it goes around, comes around.
Speaker 1:We gave them a thumbs up on on it.
Speaker 2:It was a, it's a, it was your, it was your worst client that was uh that you hated working with and you're like, yeah, go work with them. Please go to kilt, you're right, they'll do. They have this cost cap thing that you're gonna love that's true, yeah no, but yeah. Um, we had cody on like probably a couple years ago. Yeah, yeah, now seems like uh, and all we talked about was influencers at the time. It was a good, it was actually a great podcast.
Speaker 3:That was a great podcast.
Speaker 2:It was a really good podcast and still would be great, I think, today, like it wasn't like we were talking like hey, go find an influencer, pay him 20 grand to post.
Speaker 1:Like we were talking about that.
Speaker 2:We were talking about seating. I think that's when you invented product. He was talking about podcast. No one has heard of that term before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got to find that comment that he like I just saw this like pop up that on my Instagram that said I've heard this before or something like that, something sarcastic, and I just it's my love language.
Speaker 2:I think I just know I said I invented this or something like that back to him.
Speaker 3:But, so anyways.
Speaker 2:Welcome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:He flew in from California just to be here with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you, that's why I got you a 32 ounce ice coffee.
Speaker 2:Mark doesn't drink coffee. We asked Cody, what do you want to drink? And he's like I'll have a coffee. And then he brought a big gulp.
Speaker 3:Hey, he said surprise me. That is true, he did and you did surprise him. You just look like a coffee drinker. Mission accomplished Pretty much. Hey, he said surprise me.
Speaker 1:That is true, he did, and you did surprise him and I did surprise you, I think you just looked like a coffee drinker mission accomplished.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, I do yeah yeah, you do kind of have that look about you even the hat today. Yeah, like a little more munchie.
Speaker 3:Well, when I go to lunch with my buddies, you know, I'm the one who probably looks like, you know, maybe puffin on the reefer and mmm partying mmm. But I'm the one who probably looks like you know, maybe puffing on the reefer and partying, but I'm like You're a straight list guy.
Speaker 2:Going home to three kids and Getting in bed at 9 o'clock, going to bed at like 9.30.
Speaker 1:I'm not very different from you, so you know Coffee's not a gateway drug. Just so you know.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, it isn't but. But don't drink big gulps is not a gateway drug, just so you know. No, no, no, it isn't but. But don't drink big gulps of it, but I don't look like a Don't drink big.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't drink 64 ounces of coffee.
Speaker 3:I look maybe like more on the hipster drink coffee in the morning, yeah. Go enjoy a bowl at the beach at night, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sound bath in the midday. Sound bath, yeah, sound bath circles.
Speaker 3:I'm a sound therapy guy. Nice Put on that white noise when I'm trying to focus. 80 hertz is what they say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Welcome, cody, welcome, thank you. All right, let's just do this. We don't need to hear a ton about you and your background, because we don't care. Because it's already happened and nobody cares.
Speaker 1:Put it in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Give us a little bit of background so somebody cares about the, because this is what we want to do on the podcast today. You have three people who have two very unique experiences. Number one all three of us have been on the brand side of eight figure businesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, working to grow and scale, scaling them from seven to eight. All three of us have that experience. We've all been brand owners. And number three, we all own e-commerce company or, sorry, a marketing agency that works with brands from every different kind of walk and industry. So we are seeing the pitfalls, we're seeing the basics done well, we're seeing how there are certain things that are becoming irrelevant that once were rare, very relevant, and I, I think we kind of just all sat down like two seconds before the podcast and Cody said what are we talking about? And we said let's just like.
Speaker 3:Whatever we want to, let's just jam about John Stockton. Carmelo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we said the pick and roll.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know the pick and rolls of marketing. What are the pick and rolls? So anyway, okay, so I've already kind of given the background, tell, tell us a little bit about Kinship really quickly.
Speaker 1:E-commerce growth agency.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:Done, that's it. E-commerce growth agency. I mean, I can tell you our taglines. I'd love that your taglines. Yeah, give us a tagline we sell a system, not a set of services.
Speaker 3:System, not services.
Speaker 1:System over services, love it. What I mean by that is we design something that's backed into your top line and bottom line goals, so we don't like piecemeal out our services. So it's not like common. I just want to do influencer seating, which is kind of like what we talked about, so it's kind of part of the core. Obviously, there's a little bit of wiggle and waggle in there, but yeah, so we have a set of systems.
Speaker 2:It includes financial forecasting, creative media buying, um, and yeah, we've expanded a ton since we I was last doing this virtually not in person one of the things we love most about kinship is like like they share very similar models that we share around, like Marrying finance to marketing. Yeah we're very, very similar in in how we, how we look at things which is really nice. So but yeah, all right, well, let's jump into it. Hot takes what do you want? Like, what's the first, what's hot? Take number one I don't know.
Speaker 3:You have good hot takes, do I?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You just think a little more outside the box.
Speaker 3:They're kind of like always in the moment, though, so I'm like trying to think, but I think we could just start off with what we're seeing, yeah, lately, and what seems to be maybe a mental leap for a lot of people that they haven't had to take, is what's the, what is the most important metric right? A lot of companies are caught up with ROAS, and we think ROAS is fundamentally flawed. Depending on your goal as a company, it can be crucial if you are trying to maintain quote efficiency, if you're trying to cash flow, it depends, but overall, roas is just one measure on your dashboard.
Speaker 2:Can I add another metric to that as well, which is CPA? Yeah, CPA, yeah, CPA ROAS Two sides of the same coin yeah, so do you want to give a rationale around it, or do you want to hear?
Speaker 3:you're just setting the scene I'm just setting the scene, I just think. I just think too many brands are too focused on a row as metric, do you guys see that? Uh, yeah, when they're trying to grow, when they say what their goal is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say that it seems to be like this marketing term of having a high ROAS is like this marketing promise land that you're trying to get to.
Speaker 2:Badge of honor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would just say actually you want as low as, and I would say AMER, so acquisition, mer, so NC ROAS is another term that we use.
Speaker 2:But new customer amr.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just focus on new customer revenue over ad spend, um and. But having as low as amr as possible is actually the hack, because I can just like, if we think about ad auction dynamics, if you're competing and trying to go after a four and I'm just going after a one, the one's gonna win yeah, it's like all day long.
Speaker 1:So like we have a client right now. Their target is a .18 AMER, so like by the time their competitors come into the auction, it's like there's nothing left for them to do, and can I ask you a question? Real quick?
Speaker 2:How come they can do that?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there's a lot of things. Sure, they're an incredible repeat business. They have a very low OPEX.
Speaker 3:Are they subscription?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously there's like different business models, but there's also other ways that you can affect AMR, like being on Amazon, for example, like channel expansion, where meta is incredibly incremental to these other channels and you can actually just track what's happening across the entire business.
Speaker 3:That's how we. My other hot take is never separate Amazon from website. Yeah, I think they're both.
Speaker 2:I mean separate it, but you they're both your store. Yeah, yeah, track, yeah, I think they're both. I mean separate it, but they're both your story tracks separately. You look at them the same like they are.
Speaker 3:It it is. There's nothing more frustrating as a marketer when an executive says, well, our amazon on store is doing this and it's like, okay, let me look at your bid report and it's just brand yeah but our efficiency over here on dot com it's like where do you think?
Speaker 2:people are fine like you're, not like an household item they're searching for on amazon like, where do you think they're coming from? Yeah, especially if they're under like a hundred million dollars. Right, yeah, totally yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1:Oh, no like our amazon's doing this.
Speaker 3:It's like no, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah yeah it's like we saw you launch amazon, your store goes down 30 and that 30 magically appears over an amazon. Like what do you think happened?
Speaker 1:they're just like nope, didn't happen so back to your point on rose is meaningless. I mean, yeah, it's not meaningful, just not the main, it's not the metric of like, I guess maybe five, ten years ago, where it's like we're gonna have seven rows and it's like, well, one spend more money, uh, two, yeah, it's just not the, the secret sauce anymore I would say as low as target as possible.
Speaker 2:You're just getting way more customers um and outbidding your your competitors yeah, I, to add to what you're saying, I think one thing that we do, we we've, we have a metric that we use a lot too. So we will use the mer right and the new customer efficiency, but we'll pair that up with what we call a return on contribution margin dollar, right, where you're looking, so it helps you look at the bottom line, where it's bringing in all the returning stuff as well. So that's where what what you guys have probably done too is the reason why you've deemed that a 0.18 is okay is because your return on contribution margin dollar, which is just really your profits on variable profits right, like, as long as that is above a one, something you're successful, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and so.
Speaker 1:I'm not suggesting a first order profitable brand is needs to target a 0.18 like. Obviously people get lost in the metrics and the numbers all the time, but um but the point is you understand the?
Speaker 1:benchmarks right like yeah, this is why I think, actually, single channel agencies need to either grow, expand, expand and pivot or you will be dead. Um, because if you don't understand the full picture, like the days of, I can look and make your Facebook dashboard look as sexy as possible, um, or just gone, like. You just need to be able to understand how that's affecting the whole ecosystem.
Speaker 1:And that's where I think agencies like ours are incredibly valuable, because we're in the trenches with, with the clients yeah, for sure um, because to your point it's like, okay, I could track even first order contribution margin, but if, if these cohorts aren't behaving how we thought they were, or it's trending downwards like our amir target needs to change.
Speaker 3:I think cohorts is actually one of the most underrated reports that no one ever looks at.
Speaker 2:You are a cohort guy, you love talking cohorts.
Speaker 3:I think cohort data is one of the most important dashboards that a brand should be looking at. That they never do, yeah, especially as you're growing right Because what we've seen is sometimes a brand will make a huge mistake where they're going to see again they. They're focusing on CPA or new customer. When I say CPA I mean, like acquisition period, like so just new customers and they're saying, oh, it's going up.
Speaker 3:And it's like, okay, well, let's look at your geo report, let's look at, like, what's happening for why it's going up. Yeah, it's going up for now, yeah, but what happens over the long term? And like you'll see that as you enter in because a lot of people get stuck geographically because it's the pixel data and like sometimes it's like a little sticky and then sometimes they'll start expanding outside of it. So now your first touch point is ads and your last touch point is ads. So your customer acquisition costs are going to go way up. But sometimes you'll see those lifetime cohorts and it's like, oh, your retention rate from zero to one is 50 higher for these people coming through now and you want to just like pause.
Speaker 3:Like you just, oh, no, I'm scared yeah it's like I think you should always and it sounds like you guys do it's like if you have your ear to the ground with cohorts? Yeah, it makes you, you can. You can really almost predict the future just by like zero to one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for those cohorts and it's not just cohorts in it's also for products like type of products you're talking about cohorts, you know, in geographic regions, but like you can also talk about cohorts in months, purchased, yeah right, you get a, get a ton of people so seasonal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get a ton of people who like, hey, like we got Black Friday coming up, let's dip spend in October, because October generally efficiency really, really sucks. And then if you look at October cohorts and you realize, like actually the people who buy in October all come back. But most people dip spend in October when they actually could maybe be cranking well, they should be cranking it because like should be not all.
Speaker 3:If you can get people to come back for your sale, like, the best way to do that is they actually especially, especially if you're a product that sells on black friday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some brands that don't like problem solution stuff that don't really like that's right it doesn't mean a whole ton to them that doesn't necessarily need to increase. But yeah, I like cohort data too. You love it though.
Speaker 3:I love cohort data so important.
Speaker 2:What's another overrated metric that you're hearing clients talk a ton about? Or are those the main ones? Generally ROAS cost per acquisitions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the in-and-out account CPA that people still get way too over-invested in.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that is Historical?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just like habit I would say they can't get their eyes off the ad account. It's just really misleading. So that's where, like incrementality, like sometimes it has to go so far to where we fund incrementality for them to kind of just show.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like and we do our own like linear regression analysis and stuff like that to show them but yeah, in-out-of-account CPA, I would say, is right up there. It's like, well, it's this. And they just can't Like we just try to get our clients as quickly as possible to stop looking at dashboard at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like look at your forecast In-platform to stop looking at dashboard at all yeah, like look at your forecast like in platform dashboard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, I like that well, in fact we have an account that when we went through the data for incrementality the two biggest spenders, spenders and Quote best CPAs in platform we pause them and their sales the next day went up 500%. Well, I'm not saying that's going to maintain, but Because the incrementality on those two is horrible, right, it was just like yeah, oh yeah, that's not.
Speaker 3:that's not bringing you guys new customers. Yeah right, yeah Well, here's another question seven-day click. One day view Seven-day click so they click on only click. I'm a big one day view guy. I think I just optimized off one day views, just one day view only just one day view only.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one day view only, I love that love that man.
Speaker 2:All of our, all of our metrics will go up, baby.
Speaker 1:That's why people like us yeah, one day view only definitely an old hack of agency world to make our numbers look a lot better, right?
Speaker 2:that's like the uh, your your row. As for branded terms in google or that like that. Like, oh yeah, we have a we're 30, we have a 30 roi or roi or whatever I know there's arguments for it.
Speaker 1:Uh, and I've even talked to like high up people marketing on facebook and they make pretty like convincing arguments and honestly for keeping one day view with yeah to keeping one day view.
Speaker 1:Our whole thought process is like we just want to train the pixel on people that click and buy, um, ultimately. And then also we just want to like when there's a ton of view through attribution, it's usually because they have a ton of organic demand or there's a lot of cross attribution happening and we just want that out. Um, we want it as close to Shopify as possible. So it just leads like when we audit ad accounts, it just leads to a lot of confusion for people. So we're just like we're trying to get it out seven day click, one day click if it's like a impulse buy.
Speaker 3:But do you like looking at 28 day click attribution in in platform yeah, I actually love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, we do that. I mean, we do that, I know you can't optimize off it, but multiplier yeah you can look at it for sure. I mean, that's what your ads are driving, right? Yeah, it's like in a seven day click campaign. If there's like a 20 lift over the next 21, we should account for that right ultimately, like that's what we want to tire amr target, too, as close to as possible ultimately. It's never perfect, especially if they're on Amazon or other marketplaces, right? No, amazon separate though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, settle down settle down meta ads, do not it?
Speaker 3:keep them going, keep them firing, firing. I agree I prefer 7-Day Click, but our approach is it tends to be I don't want to say nuanced, it's just our approach is sometimes we leave the one-day view in and we'll A-B test and then we're tracking this with. Also, we'll just use a third party like GA4 or just Shopify for conversion rates, just to judge by CPC to conversion rate and like true cost per acquisition. Sometimes we just see that the one day view learns faster. So, like if you're starting low, but like the higher you get with spend, I think seven day click becomes more crucial. Yeah, that's what I found. So I don't think it's a one. So I think we're on the same page. Seven day click is superior.
Speaker 3:But if you are doing seven day click, one day view, you have to always have your attribution window column open to try to figure out what the one day view is actually doing Because, like, if it's too high and it's taking too much credit, then like you, just you got to get rid of it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's like so low that I guess it wouldn't be that much of a problem. But like also like high subscription brands, like I've seen this be a problem, where they're like their view through is like two and so it's like doubling their row as right. It's like these are just going in front of people that are gonna buy anyways. So like, let's not, let's just get this out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. What about I got another one that's moving off topic. Yeah, what about we're just hearing this one a lot right now? I'm trying to think the best way to word this. Ads, ad, creative, impacting how people view someone's brand. Meaning brands, ads must all be on brand on brand and beautiful yeah, define on brand. I can't well, the question is for you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would say if well, because we run cost controls. If it's spending, we're going to say that it's on brand. That's kind of like. Why, though? The most basic explain that uh, cost controls it's, it's the bid is the governor of your spend, not the budget? So if it's entering into the auction and it's spending, that means it's over a seven-day click Cost controls. I mean this gets into the difference of different types of cost controls?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's working. I mean, even if you're running highest volume, meta will tell you spend is the leading indicator of future performance. Leading indicator of future performance? Yeah, um. So if it's spending, that means it's confident with trillions of data and probabilistic forecasting, that it's confident that they can convert customers at your target cpa or bid, um, and so that's our thought process is like let meta determine if it's on brand now, like we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, right, if it's like this piece of creative is no longer in stock, it's a sale driven content or God forbid, it's like something like brand negative in the standpoint where it's like they're dogging on you as a brand or like. But that's most of the time what people are not talking about. They're talking about you know.
Speaker 1:I think, this is my subjective opinion is like this is on brand or off brand?
Speaker 2:How do you get over that? How do you help clients get over that?
Speaker 1:Uh, proof of I mean honestly, one proof of concept with, like these are ads that probably 90% of people would never launch that you know achieved greater performance than than what you're performing, or, uh, hoping for. So do you want prettier? Do you want performance? Most people say performance. Um, they do say they say performance, but then in practice they want, like the pretty ads, to perform well.
Speaker 1:Um, again, that's just the beauty of running cost controls is like we can just let it. If it's spending, it's going to acquire customers. But outside of just like biz strategy and all that stuff, yeah, I think that is a hurdle that people need to get over and like loosen their reins a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The reality is is like especially in an ai world like and this is probably another tangent that we can go on is the ugly ads are going to be the thing that are going to continue to drive your business forward? Yeah, because it's going to be harder and harder to tell what is actually fake versus real, and so actually what is going to be real is something that's not polished, not cookie cutter, not like professionally produced um what we mean by ugly ads, just to let you guys know like there are some that legitimately look yeah, terrible yeah, but there's also like more.
Speaker 1:So what ugly ads mean, at least to us, is that it just looks native to the platform, like it looks like it looks like you're just consuming right it looks like it's like what your friends post, exactly like you're just consuming it. Looks like your friends put us on their stories.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like where native ad that's like an old school term like native advertising. It would be like a newspaper article or something and it would be like something that looked like a headline in a newspaper, so it looked like you read it as if it was part of the article and then you're like, oh wait, a second. Delta Airlines is offering 50% off of flights to Cancun. This has nothing to do with my motocross magazine or whatever you know. So yeah.
Speaker 1:I get that there are certain categories that have to be a little bit more sensitive to it. Right, Like you obviously don't want creative that's going to lead the end customer to a wrong conclusion about your brand. But again, we would say, let's be a little bit more looser than what you may think, Cause you're the one living in the silo of your own brand every single day your customers are, especially if you're, you know, have proper exclusions in place. Most of these people are discovering you for the first time.
Speaker 1:So it's like if they don't open your box the right way, or if they, you know, like some ad, okay, yeah, yeah we call it marketing to marketers yeah, exactly that's the terminology, it's like yeah most brand owners and brand owners, sometimes marketers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just by heart, right, if you, if you're launching a brand, you have to be like, you have to find ways to get to attention, which is marketing, and so like that kind of has to be your number one responsibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily creating the product and the brand. It's like I have to get attention on this, so like well, the, the human tendency is to impress your peer group.
Speaker 3:Sure, and that's what really. That's what we're talking about. Is brand owners all fall into a trap at some point, where they start trying to impress brand owners, yeah, instead of trying to impress their customers from a selling standpoint I get it.
Speaker 1:It's their baby. They started the brand, so that's like I put my kid in ugly clothes on purpose, like it's just and like a very terrible.
Speaker 3:I mean I kind of do we're all parents and, like we all, know what it's like to have a kid and you know, sometimes parents will try to have their kid do something that might make the parent look better, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best thing for the kid most times let's not turn this into a therapy session most times, kids are an extension.
Speaker 2:We can talk about it after this.
Speaker 3:I'm a great friend therapist, if you guys need to unload just go for it. I'll listen, you know what. Let's take a time out. But seriously, right? Yeah, parents will all try to like you know, consciously or subconsciously, like sometimes, like what you think is right for your kid is really just you trying to make yourself look better. Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Also, clarification too most of the time 99 of the time we're talking about this, these piece of ads it's not what they're producing internally, because they already have a lot of control over that yeah so it's like ugc, it's like influencer content, it's what their customers are tagging them in and they have social listening. So it's like all the stuff that they don't have like in this studio and cookie cutter control over that they're so concerned about Totally.
Speaker 3:And I would say the with with this thread of on brand, off brand, is we get over it? Usually not always, cause everyone says they want performance and then, of course, eventually they don't want performance, they want it to look a certain way. Oh, but with with a brand. Like everybody has different sides of their personality. You know, like no one's just like one thing, but, like we all like, if you have a friend, your friend is different in different situations.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And it's okay, it's not bad. It's not bad that he's funny when you go out and he's like a little bit more quiet when you're just like sitting on a couch, right yeah, so like the point of an ad is to introduce you to a brand, to make you step into the store, you know, as like we talked about last podcast.
Speaker 3:The next step is to get you like. That's why seven day click is great, right? If you're focusing on the click, it's hey, we're just focusing on people who are actually wanting to go in the store with the intention of possibly buying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, we don't want to focus on people who just saw it and said that looks nice yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. And so if your ad is driving people into the store, and then what you said is also key it's does the ad build or does it break trust? So what's the expectation?
Speaker 1:like people aren't necessarily expecting everything to look exactly the same, there's also a lot of assumptions that brand owner make, which is like you're going to remember the ad that you clicked on well, I was just about to bring this up we, so we I don't know if we ever told you this, but so, cody, he met us through us actually pitching.
Speaker 2:We were pitching him, bestie, ai like hey, use our post-purchase survey platform.
Speaker 2:And when we first started we might even pitch this to you we thought we had the most brilliant idea and which, by the way, no commerce ended up taking from us, which was like let's do create. We called it creative recall where, like you would take the top you might have in an ad account, you might have a hundred ads running, yeah, but at the end of the day, of those hundred ads, half of them are just like the same thing, but with slight tweaks. And then, of those, 80% of them are going to the budget. Is going to what?
Speaker 1:Five or six of them, you know.
Speaker 2:And so what would happen is we had the algorithm that would put those ads in. So when somebody selected, when we asked the question how did you first hear about us, right? And somebody said Facebook. And then we had a followup question that said, was it an ad, was it an influencer? And they select an ad, we would say we'd put creative recall in. That would say was it one of these ads? And we were like dang dude, we are going to bring so much value to creative agencies.
Speaker 2:And you know it's going to put, you know, the big raindrops of the world like in a spot to be like people need to work more with us. You know, and we would have like a we'd have all the videos but then we'd also have a just, a blanket, just statement. So you'd have like the thumbnails of the videos and then you'd have just a blanket statement that said I can't remember and it was like 90% of anyone for any brand who used it selected 90%. And immediately we were like, oh, I guess it's a fun sell, like it helps us sell the platform a little bit. Hey, if you want to do this. But it never did anything for it you know, we're just.
Speaker 3:We're just exactly what you just said it's just a lot of assumptions yeah, um well, just think about how many freaking videos and posts someone sees in a day oh my yeah, hundreds, hundreds, like I mean the average person's online, like eight hours a day. Yeah, right Now there's arguments like does it matter if they saw three and they don't remember? And then they saw one they do remember, but ultimately, yeah, like no one really remembers, like they could interact with your brand four times and they might not remember the quest is just getting the attention.
Speaker 2:That's really it, and you nailed it right.
Speaker 3:If it's spending right, if it's attention attention and inaction yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2:That's how I would define it for sure fair enough for sure attention drives action, hopefully right action repetition drives truth yeah, nice, truth drives sales give yourselves more opportunities, not less yeah, more at bats wins yeah yeah, I like it. More shots on goal did you?
Speaker 3:we talked about this in another one. Did you see that barry bonds interview where he, like mathematically, breaks down his approach to batting? I think it's great for marketers because he he essentially says, look like you have. I can't remember how big the actual box is, but it's like, is it 18? Inches yeah, the strike zone, what is it? 18 inches by I don't know.
Speaker 2:Two feet or something, baseball's boring in little league. It's really big. That's what I'm basically saying.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm doing right now look, as a batter, I know that they have to go into this area and if all I'm focusing on is winning against one guy, like I can't control everyone on the field, like I can't fight 10 people at once, but I can say, hey, this guy has to go here. So, no matter what the odds are in my favor over time, because he has to eventually arrive where I am. Yeah, and as marketers, I think that's brilliant, because you can't focus on everyone in the market. You have to focus on what your core persona is, or your demographic. Yeah, and, like you said, it's at-bats Eventually. It doesn't matter if they saw the first ad and don't remember. It's eventually, mathematically they're going to arrive where you're hitting and the auction is set up to do that for you. So, like the more at best you're getting, and if you're utilizing the auction because a lot of people just don't understand the auction at all, no, or just the, the implicit supply demand curve of attention which goes to what we were talking about.
Speaker 1:Point number one right, yeah, like low amur target, yep and eventually you're gonna get there.
Speaker 3:And if you can get there and you can get there for a quote worst cost than your competitors, like you're gonna hit a lot more home runs you win yeah period, or if everyone's focusing on like I gotta get a triple double on every time on the bat, like you're probably striking out all the time.
Speaker 1:Those are two different sports analogies, but I like what is it called a three, the cycle.
Speaker 3:What is it a triple?
Speaker 2:a triple like you get to the third base. Yeah, that'd be triple runs batted in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're right, rbi.
Speaker 1:RBI.
Speaker 2:Double play, Double play yeah yeah, yeah. Double play.
Speaker 1:Triple double. And then you get that rebound A no-hitter, a no-hitter.
Speaker 2:A no-hitter gets you a triple-double. A triple-double which will help you win the Stanley Cup.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was still thinking about John Stockton, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Legend the pitch what's the next?
Speaker 2:what's the next hot take, I've got another um attribution tools you love them zero zero value at best they lead to slight confusion and zero value. I don't know about zero I'm just saying like it's low on the totem pole well, yeah, I guess what you have to do is like do you think there's any?
Speaker 3:added benefit if you are spending, I mean, if you're let's just say you're like a high eight figure, nine figure, brand Sure. And you're spending across TV and other things. Do you think there's value there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just think most people probably listening to this and also you're just like you're in the upper echelons, like if you're Ridge or you know PexCloud guys, like yeah, you got to be doing a lot of different things and you're also spending on a lot of like doing a Yankees partnership or anybody listening to this. Do not do that. Like, or don't go pay Gordon Ramsey and like all these different things. Like there's just a lot of uh, I know people are inspired by the nine ops podcast, but like, right, a lot of their advice and they say that on the podcast.
Speaker 1:They're very clear about that, yeah but, um, I would just say like I would throw mm and mta tools like into that. Like if you're a five million dollar brand, I don't think you should be paying for triple.
Speaker 2:Well, like it's just it's leading to confusion, um well, mainly also like there's an argument to make that, like, if you're under 20 million, is there any reason for you to be on more than one or two channels. Yeah, Take the words out of my mouth Right Like so so, so like could I be spending five grand a month on this tool? To? To give me the answer.
Speaker 1:Well, when I increased when.
Speaker 2:I increased meta 20%. Did I see a rise or not in new customer acquisition?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. Mark's trying to put a little devil's advocate in there.
Speaker 3:No, I agree with everything that's been said actually. We like some of the attribution tool, people as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to. They're sponsoring this podcast.
Speaker 3:No, we're not, Just blame me. We have no sponsors.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's right Bestie.
Speaker 2:Incorrect BFF, right now BFF creative. Oh, go check it out.
Speaker 3:BFF creative Right now.
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Speaker 1:That's the ad read right there. We are sponsoring.
Speaker 2:We can say whatever we want.
Speaker 3:But the other thing is the consideration cycle. Right, Like I get it, the consideration cycle is sort of flawed. Yeah, Because the consideration isn't necessarily the first time someone hears about you, it's when they see, and then they're actually okay. I'm considering buying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think attribution becomes more flawed the the why, the the smaller that that actual consideration cycle is, which for most brands is not very long. Right, like, if you get someone to consider you to buy, you're talking like seven to 28 days.
Speaker 1:That's where, like, you're not talking a year, like no one's like more sense researching you for when you're paying for a 1500 quick wear set, like obviously you're not even making that purchase within 28 day, click yeah, most of the time probably not right, it's probably like maybe a year yeah, yeah we have.
Speaker 2:We have a client that sells like motorcycles yeah, you know, five thousand dollar products like e-motorcycles, you know, and their consideration window is six to twelve months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in those spaces it starts to I would still bet that meta is the most incremental.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah now they're not making hundreds of millions, I would still bet that meta is the most incremental. Yeah, now they're not making hundreds of millions, so we would never introduce that.
Speaker 1:I think I have two problems. One is In their situation.
Speaker 3:It's actually YouTube, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you start making decisions off of what TripleL is selling you. I think that's where I start to have a little bit of a pause. We just do this weird thing with attribution tools, where it's like we, for some reason, I think that they aren't experiencing signal loss, and it's like the reality is like they all have some sort of signal loss.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And um so to overvalue that over like, the only attribution that never lies is your bank account. That's where it's like just back into Shopify, keep it simple. Um, this, it's like just back into Shopify.
Speaker 3:Keep it simple. Um, this is actually what's coming in, cash in the door. Yeah, what's so funny? What he means by signal loss just to define that is thank you when you're. When we're talking about, like pixels and did the digital world, that's a signal right, like, hey, I have a signal of somebody because the pickles, the pixels, tracking this person. But a pixel tracking has gotten worse. Yep and b. There's tons of signals that happen outside of the pixel.
Speaker 3:So what you can capture in a pixel is already limited to some degree yeah and then you know, post ios, post ios exactly and then after that, there's tons of signals happening that you just have zero knowledge about or control over aka somebody seeing your product and saying, hey, where did you get that?
Speaker 2:yeah, perfect example, right, I mean?
Speaker 3:and there's tons of stuff online that you can't control like they're. The pixel isn't tracking every little step of somebody online.
Speaker 2:It just isn't one of one of my favorite podcast episodes we've ever done is still, to this date, the very first podcast episode we did. It's titled the marketing apocalypse, and we deem it as mine.
Speaker 3:Yes besides yours, besides yours yeah, uh, my favorite podcast episode of 2021 yeah, yours was kind of when everyone was freaking out about, like when iOS hit, oh yeah. Yeah, and it was essentially like the— Overnight the ROAS went down.
Speaker 2:The episode is all about how advanced we have come with technology, yet how broken everything is right, where, like. At the end of the day, it's like tools, even like, like. We have one of these tools, by the way. We sell bestie AI Like that's a tool that can potentially complicate your business, and sometimes we overthink the idea of what we tell people all the time.
Speaker 3:Like you should not be using. You should not be using surveys for attribution. Like you should be using surveys to understand your customer Totally. Yeah, like attribution is like be using surveys to understand your customer totally yeah like attribution is like I mean, that's fine, you can like again it's. It's fine to have a baseline, like it's fine to say hey oh, where'd you first hear about us word of mouth? Yeah right and if you see a huge gap, like it's just delting decision making off of it yeah, but you can't just be like everything.
Speaker 3:This is the true metric all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, the whole podcast is literally about just like hey, if you just eliminated every tool you used besides the basics, I need Shopify, I need meta, I need Klaviyo, I need an SMS tool. Anything else? Google Analytics what about?
Speaker 3:Google sheets there's, I mean there's. There's an argument that L of R Sure like some kind of's.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a, there's an argument that Alavar Sure Like some kind of pixel.
Speaker 3:I mean yeah, but but you know you get the point the point that I'm trying to make is like I think it depends on the complexity of the funnel.
Speaker 2:If you're a, brand under $20 million and you were just had those like four or five tools, would you simplify your whole business? And the answer is yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, Stop listening to podcasts? Yeah, besides this one.
Speaker 2:Well, go listen to Marketing Apocalypse, and then you can stop listening.
Speaker 3:You never have to listen to us again.
Speaker 2:Us again. I mean in fact, if you're still listening to us for that long, thank you, but I can barely listen to myself for that long. Yeah, yeah, I like that attribution. I think that's a good take. I like that attribution. I think that's a good take.
Speaker 3:Should we go one more? What's?
Speaker 2:one more good one you got one.
Speaker 3:No, I want to go back to what Cody said, though. A lot about business is being able to make sound decisions, right? So when we're talking about how do you make a sound decision, sometimes it's gut instincts too. Not everything is data, but when you're doing digital marketing, the reason why it's important to eliminate more things to look at is because, again, you're adding additional signals that will only create noise in the way you're trying to make a decision.
Speaker 3:So, ultimately, the most important thing, like you said, is the bottom line, which is how much money are you making or losing? What's the profit? Like that's all that really matters at the end of the day, it's not what your ROAS is or what your conversion rate is, although all those things can matter, but it's again like I always think about. Like a car dashboard, right. Like if you're racing a a car, like you're really paying attention. Like your rpms, right, your gear and your speedometer. Like you're not looking at the radio while you're racing. And like messing around, like you're, you're very focused on a very few things. Focus is underrated and that's all that really matters, like in business. So, like I love what cody said, because, as business owners and even us as marketers. Right, like a lot of times there's there's so much that glitters, but it's not all gold, and so like you have to focus on the gold which is your bottom line, and that's all that matters. When you move something, does it move your bottom line or does it not?
Speaker 2:what a line. It's a good line glitters and golds well, I know it's a song.
Speaker 1:What song is that I?
Speaker 2:thought it was just a phrase. It is.
Speaker 1:I know it's a song. What song is that? I thought it was just a phrase.
Speaker 2:It is a phrase, but you just put it together.
Speaker 3:Well, it's from Led Zeppelin, yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that Led Zeppelin?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just can't remember if it's Stairway to Heaven. I think it's Stairway to Heaven. Maybe I can hear it in a song.
Speaker 2:I can hear it in a song Zeppelin. Yeah, it is. You're going to feel so stupid At least the one I'm thinking. Who feels stupid? It's Smash Mouth. It's the song on Shrek.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that one says it too yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the one I'm thinking of. At least it could be Led Zeppelin.
Speaker 1:Funny story about Smash.
Speaker 2:Mouth we like. 10 years ago we were out to dinner at this like outdoor mall area here in Utah and I heard All Star being played but you could tell it wasn't through like the speaker system.
Speaker 1:They were just live at a small concert.
Speaker 2:Yes, they were just live. It was Smash Mouth just there and we were like what in heaven's name, like nobody, like this is what they resorted to, and it was. We ended up staying for the whole concert. It was awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, it is Stairway to Heaven, but they imply it it's not said exactly like that. All that glitters is gold. There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would add into what you're saying, Mark, about making sure that those are connected to the goals that you guys have. Are we lovingly up to the top line and bottom line goals that you guys have over the next 12 months? Because otherwise, what are we doing here? So many brands that just don't have?
Speaker 1:that clear how should a business set goals, though I would say number one based on historicals, based on the current trajectory of the brand. How do we show improvement here? I want to do 10, x. Yeah, that that's where we come in and reset expectations, uh, like in the forecast, very conservative Like. But I would just say, yeah, most people forecast top down like black magic like. Oh, I want to hit like kind of like what?
Speaker 2:you said this is what I want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is like I want to do 100 million. Let's just put in a spreadsheet that sounds good.
Speaker 1:They're just conjuring up expectations yeah, I mean, like all the forecasting to show you where you're off, not where you're right, um, and so I think that's where you want to reconcile it each month and see, like, are you on track with what you guys are doing? But to exactly exactly your point, like, is this doing what I'm looking to achieve? Ultimately, because some brands like they want to ski 15 hours a week and collect a cash cow, and some brands are looking to get acquired within a year. Right, it's like very different, very different goals, very different goals, which leads to very different targets, totally, yeah, and very different spend levels. And so, just kind of like you got to know where you're going on a road trip, unless you're just driving yeah yeah, I think the baseline of expectations is like you're looking for some kind of growth year over year.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, but, like you said, we have this conversation with brands sometimes and it's like, hey, I, I'm stressed, I don't know if I want to do this. It's like then, don't like, you don't like, why, like? Why are you trying to grow? Yeah, you don't have to, yeah like let's just be efficient, like you can just be super efficient. If you're happy with this profit number every month that's going into your pocket and you want to go ski 15 days a week, like you said, or 15 days a month no for sure.
Speaker 1:I have brands in my mind right now that were former clients or current clients that are just like do this, like the? I think a lot of brands fell into the trap of 2020, 2021, 2022, even, and then started seeing decline and then it was like the comparisons of year over year that like got them into a really bad spot. Sure, because it was like oh, I'm seeing this year over year crazy growth and it's like that wasn't real. One and two, it's just like you're setting the wrong expectations.
Speaker 3:Why wasn't it real, though? Covid, I know, but what about? Covid made that inflated.
Speaker 1:Everybody being online.
Speaker 2:Well, you upended an entire shopping like shopping behavior yeah, right like right one. When you go from being online let's call it pre-covid five hours a day to covid being 10 hours a day. Yeah, like well, it's kind of it's. Let's use peloton, for example.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's like does everybody start working out from home? Is that the norm? No, no. So you see, like stock and then like come back down to reality, right, like yeah, just, it wasn't going to be like the long-term thing well, not only that, but then can I another thing to add to that that a lot of people forget.
Speaker 2:That happened was, uh, production got stopped. Yeah, though, pos were paid. Yeah right, nobody was refunding. So what ended up happening was stuff that should have been there in over black friday of covid year didn't show up, so but then it all showed up.
Speaker 3:Everything got pushed inventory wise to 2021, right and then what did they have to do?
Speaker 2:tons of brands had to discount all of this product that was so delayed, that was not ready, like it wasn't. Uh like, when you're ordering for, for example, people buy different apparel in October than they do in February, even though the month temperatures could be similar, right, but people are buying swim in February and they're buying sweaters in October, and when you have a crap load of hoodies and jeans or whatever, you that's so hard, that's so freaking hard to sell that kind of stuff in February, march, april. So what did all these brands have? They discounted it, and so they have these successful revenue months. Yeah, I would have never done a million dollars in February. That's a dead month for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, but I did a million, so like that added also to it. Right? It's like not only you had a bunch of people online, but you also has had these like Deluges of you, just a deluge. I don't know those word near those above my pay grade a deluge of Product coming in that you had to get rid of Utah work quickly. Also, people got free money, that's true.
Speaker 3:A deluge of product coming in that you had to get rid of Utah work quickly. The good Utah work Um. Also, people got free money. That's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very true.
Speaker 3:That's true, I mean every, everyone got free money. So, and a lot of people weren't let go, like they thought, yeah, so yeah, I just, I just wanted to raise this bubble.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I just wanted to Curse this bubble, yeah, but yeah, I'm glad we brought that up, because expectations, like we always talk about expectations of what people used to have from Facebook, of, like, 2016. And it's like, yeah, your organic's just not there anymore. Man, sorry, it's just not. You can't Like when your organic went from 80% of your referral traffic and your referral traffic made up 70 of your total site traffic to now it's 15 10.
Speaker 1:Well then, that also changes ad expectations pretty dramatically for your growth well, yeah, and then, covid, and then your cac buying behavior has drastically changed over two years yeah, I hate that statement of like I wish I spent more money back then.
Speaker 2:I'm like you're gonna say that about this year so true, same thing people will say about housing, right, oh, I should have bought that. Like, yeah, well, my dad, who could have bought a? House for 50 grand. I'm sure like he like 50 grand was a lot harder to do back then, you know, but you think about it now and you're like oh my gosh, I'd buy nine.
Speaker 1:You know there's all kinds of hot takes, tiktok.
Speaker 3:No, duh, there's all kinds of hot takes TikTok, no duh.
Speaker 1:Does TikTok advertising work? Maybe Sometimes Are you unconvinced. We just like if.
Speaker 3:I have one case of when it works. No, just like not one brand, but one, Just not the best type of scenario.
Speaker 2:Type of scenario oh, okay. When it's creator-led and the creator has a big influence on TikTok or when it's organic-led, meaning they have a really awesome presence already there.
Speaker 3:And there's a price point too to this, for sure.
Speaker 2:Under 50 bucks yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:AOV like for sure under under 50 bucks. Yeah, yeah, aov is that what you mean. Definitely not bullish on tiktok, but I'm bullish on organic content over there because if you can get it there then generally you can see it when.
Speaker 2:But? But we had a client who she was massive audience on tiktok, like massive audience, and then half of the audience on on Instagram, huge fitness influencer, scaled incredibly big and they thought the entire time that, you know, in the early stages they thought 90% of their budget was going to be over on TikTok and it ended up being like 80, 20, like that 20% did well, but like it was still meta.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Still meta. Is Google Still king On YouTube? I mean Not always, but will be for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's hard to.
Speaker 1:I don't see a future there. What about Google? What about it Like? Do I like the channel?
Speaker 3:Just what's your take on it? Is it growth? Does it?
Speaker 1:can you is it?
Speaker 3:incremental.
Speaker 1:Command capture Incremental? No, I don't think so. Oh, we've. We've never seen it be incremental Like in terms of comparison.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean like most of the time when we're running Google too, and especially when we audit it, it's just like a lot of not hard exclusions in place. Even on their brand. They're hitting a very low row as um yeah. So, to be honest, we don't have a horse in the race, we just view, like definitely bullish on meta, but it's just because what we see um, I think there's only one scenario where google is incremental, but again, like you, it is demand capture.
Speaker 3:So, like you're always going to be confined to what the traffic is, on Google.
Speaker 1:For what?
Speaker 3:it is. It's always just problem solution. It tends to be something like that's more niche yeah. That's like it's solving a specific problem that you're not going to be able to like. It's hard it's just harder to convey that to a broad audience because, like, your total obtainable audience is actually quite small, right in the scheme of things, but they're all searching for like a solution yeah, totally right.
Speaker 2:So like, for example, is like arthritis.
Speaker 3:Bedwetting right like. It's going to be hard to advertise bedwetting to a broad audience. Yeah, but there's people searching for that all the time and like, so you can be incremental to a point, so like, but it's, yeah, you're not going to be able to generate demand. Yeah, yeah, youtube, though like you can on YouTube, but like YouTube is very dependent on your creative Applovin.
Speaker 2:Big Applovin guy. Oh yeah, Applovin Stop. Huge Applovin guy over here. We need to stop.
Speaker 1:Applovin. I'm not taking that one seriously.
Speaker 3:I hear it's the best channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your peers say it's the best channel ever.
Speaker 3:I bought all their stock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, am I good.
Speaker 3:I don't know that should be the intro to the episode Applovin I'm working from my house.
Speaker 1:Is it good?
Speaker 2:They paid us to say that.
Speaker 1:What do you think the future of agencies is?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. I think my hot take is Agencies will always exist Because people always want someone to blame. It's actually one of the best points I think you've ever brought up about this whole world Because people always want someone to blame.
Speaker 2:It's actually one of the best points I think you've ever brought up about this whole world, because obviously they're going to change big time.
Speaker 3:Now how an agency operates is going to change dramatically, right, but ultimately, my big belief is, if you're a brand owner, ai, sure, even as good as it's going to get and look, I'm talking like within the next five years Maybe I'm wrong, could be sooner, but yeah. But Google has existed for 20 years and you could Google almost anything, but it's just like one extra thing to deal with, sure. So I think agencies will always exist. Now, how they exist and how they operate within an agency.
Speaker 3:And how many of them exist and how many of them exist, like that's that'll change for sure, kind of what I was just saying earlier so I think the future of agencies is very much more aligned with hey, like it's an integrated partner into your business, right? They're bringing more forecasting. They're using ai to create better automations within their system for creative. You know, obviously ai will play a huge part in all of this, like the new google. Was it the vision, api or vision?
Speaker 2:ai but their, their video generation yeah, is it called vision or flow?
Speaker 3:I can't remember. Yeah, I know you're talking, but it's. They don't sponsor the pod. It's crazy, like I mean yeah, now does that mean content creation is gonna cease to exist? No, because again you need real stuff. But as an agency it's like dude, I can for sure I'm one year away from being able to do stuff on my computer that looks 99 of the way there that I that. That just speeds the iteration up so you're not always waiting in bottleneck. So, like the free flow of creative, the free flow of ideas will be very beneficial.
Speaker 2:I think the agencies will be able to uh, come to a brand, for example, with a lot more value in one place versus a lot more value in having to go to five places. You know, for example, every brand needs product photography for their website and I'm not saying that product photography is gone, but uh, but, but I could. I could easily say, hey, we now offer that we can do all of that for you through 4-0 um, and, and, just like that we have it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right um right, like the other day.
Speaker 2:The other day, I just created a model named ashley in 4.0 who is on, who can be on every single one of our. We have a jewelry brand and I've uploaded all of our pieces of jewelry. Yeah, and I think I've got 80 of our product shots on a brand new model that looks perfect.
Speaker 1:That looks organic too yeah, I think what you're saying was like when the execution gets commoditized, the strategy becomes the thing yep, and that's what agencies? Uh, if you're an agency listening to this, that's what you need to pivot towards hard, otherwise you're going to be gone and kind of like similar to if you only run facebook ads or if you only run email and you're an email agency, you need to pivot hard like it's or it just needs to be like, your strategic value needs to be 10x, because I just got pitched a tool the other day that does like.
Speaker 1:It made me think like well, we can just add email to our agency because we could just white label your tool. He was like 100. So I'm like, okay, in that world, single channel agencies die. And also your strategy better be on point and you better be entrenched to like the actual business economics where does sas? Go same thing.
Speaker 3:I think it's actually synonymous I, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I I don't. I mean, obviously this is total speculation and and and. Just caveat, we're not rooting for anyone to lose their jobs here.
Speaker 2:We're not like rooting for people, because we are in the line of fire of that too.
Speaker 3:But I do think I just don't see how software doesn't go to zero, yeah, and so what I do think, though, that agencies can provide, is you can be a strategic partner on how to implement AI, using AI to create those one off tools that help your, your client, right, so you can have a technology partner within the agency that is basically the the orchestrator of these AI models, or agents, to do these things right.
Speaker 1:It's similar to the conversation with the attribution. It's like if I just give you a bunch of tools but you don't know how to use them, so all it is is kind of overwhelming.
Speaker 2:It's very synonymous with that conversation. But, dude, I'm telling you the point of somebody always is going to want to point a finger at something, because if you let ai do everything and you don't win, which will happen?
Speaker 3:and that's not a jab at brands like that's just well it's also how life works agencies are cheaper yeah like it's.
Speaker 1:It's just cheaper, it's faster um. You're getting a breadth of knowledge it's less risk. Yeah, all the reasons.
Speaker 2:Agencies, they're pros you have 20, you you've got, you've got a group that has insights into 20 different brands right, you know depending on you know how big they are and that just changes things.
Speaker 1:Very good looking, men. I also great company.
Speaker 2:I think great company you know we're fun people, so we are fun people. I think I've enjoyed this little episode.
Speaker 1:Carmelone if you're out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'm excited, trevor drags me on the calls when clients want to talk about like UFOs and conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2:I'm excited that you're an Apple oven guy. I love that about you. Hey Apple oven guy, 80% of your budget is an Apple oven, right? I have a sticker on my truck Apple oven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you heard of it.
Speaker 2:Apple oven for life.
Speaker 1:You see apple oven, tell him.
Speaker 2:I said hi. All right brother, how many candy crush.
Speaker 3:Grandmas are there to advertise to my brother-in-law's, my mom's one.
Speaker 2:My brother-in-law. He's not grandma but he he's got to be on level like a thousand in candy crush. He's been playing New York Times games. Since I've been in the family, 15 years Just crushing.
Speaker 3:I do want to hear from Apple Oven. Though, Apple Oven, if you're listening, we're just joking around. No, we're not. But I have not seen you work for any of our brands. I'm not saying you don't work. I just would love to see. Talk about a one-hit wonder. Yeah, I would just love to see what the actual it was like. What we were talking about when TikTok shots just went hot, yeah, Everyone was talking about how great it was on Twitter, right.
Speaker 1:Like TikTok shots. They had a longer run than Nap Lovin' though I will give them credit. They had like a six-month heyday.
Speaker 3:That's true. Because of subsidies but that did help and he would ask me about it all the time and I'm like I don't know. Man, keep the main thing, the main thing, and the main thing is meta. I have a guy on that Crushed Paul.
Speaker 1:he has a weird last name but he runs an eyelash makeup brush and six months but we had him on our podcast. The thing that actually helped him scale on TikTok shops was he had been seeding heard that term somewhere TikTok creators for years on, years on I think it comes from uh london lazarson. Yes, yes yes, yep, no, uh, yeah, so like there's so many things that why he crushed, it's like his product was already in the wild. He's already had relationship with the creators.
Speaker 1:It's like if you're just starting three months in to all these subsidies, it's just you didn't see the crazy.
Speaker 2:TikTok shop still works and we probably need to start ending the podcast. But TikTok shops, this is a long one, let's go three hours. They were they. It still works for less expensive.
Speaker 3:They were going to go politics after this Problem solution.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, problem solution Well low. Aov like there was some.
Speaker 3:AOV, like there was some. There was some like gimmicky stuff to it too, like if you had a fun product right, like a fidget spinner type product that those tended to do pretty decent.
Speaker 2:But if it was some gadget. Eight years ago like gadgets came out with yeah, like a laser, like not literally fidget spinners but you know.
Speaker 3:I'm talking about like the gadgets, like things that are like oh, one off, that's cool, I'll get it for now, but no, it was never going to be the main thing. A golf ball that explodes when you hit it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, for six weeks.
Speaker 3:But going back to what Cody said, it's just focus. Guys, there's a million channels out there and cool. Do you want to go after all of them or do you just want to focus on the one that's been proven?
Speaker 2:to be the best, everything that glitters is gold. Tldr, that's true. Focus. Hashtag smash mouth Chase the bottom line App loving In and out TLDR yeah.
Speaker 1:Chase the bottom line if that's your goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the asterisk I would put on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like it All right. Kinship with a K. No, it's kinship with a Y. That's what I meant to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, I was like it's always with a K, but Kinship with a Y.
Speaker 2:That's what I meant to say. Thank you, dot com.
Speaker 1:Dot co. You guys spell Dot co, kinship dot co.
Speaker 2:We're dot co too.
Speaker 3:Dot cos.
Speaker 1:They spelled kinship like Utah moms Kindly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hate that that was compared to. I'm in your house, so I got to just welcome Welcome.
Speaker 1:All right brother it's good having you on.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. All right, everybody. We'll see you guys later. 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.