Pixel Health Reality Check

Trevor 0:00

The pixel health is something that's easily forgotten. You can't just do more frequency. You have to do more frequency of things that are gonna actually work.

Welcome And Friendly Banter

Mark 0:08

Reconsider the way you are approaching retention. I mean, we've talked about this a few times in the past, but throw away the old rules. Like the old rules don't apply anymore. Yeah. Look at your customers. Another another way to think about it is as you analyze who your customers are, you're gonna find that a lot of people just don't ever buy from you ever again.

Trevor 0:26

Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, is my co-host, Mark Goldhart. Mark, how are you?

Mark 0:37

Great. How are you? Good. I'm just too busy dad maxing, so well, you look good. You look good doing it. Can't be caught up in Gen Z.

Trevor 0:46

Mark has a haircut. I don't know if this is I don't know if you had a haircut since the last oh he did. That's old news.

Mark 0:53

Old news.

Trevor 0:54

Well, sorry, y'all.

Mark 0:55

Old news.

Trevor 0:56

Yeah. Still looks great.

Mark 0:58

Thanks.

Trevor 0:59

In fact, it looks a lot I actually think it looks a little bit better now because it's it's gotten a little bit longer, so now you can like you can swave it.

Mark 1:06

Just have a little bro flow.

Trevor 1:07

You can suave it.

Meta Attribution Change And Fix

Mark 1:08

A little more bro flow to it. Yeah. Um I'll tell my barber.

Trevor 1:12

Okay, let's talk quick client win, and then state of e-com is going to what's take us into our discussion. It's gonna be kind of a short discussion, but it's a good one. So quick e-com or quick client lesson. Client win. What do you got for us?

Mark 1:31

Add the the wins. With everything that's changing, maybe you don't know, but if your numbers are looking a little strange, it's because on March 18th, Meta started started switching the way they count a seven-day click attribution window from any click on an ad to only outbound clicks, essentially. So that's gonna screw up the way it's giving you attribution. And it also might be affecting your account. So just make sure you're going in there and checking it out. I would recommend if you are seeing a dip in performance. And when I say dip in performance, not just what Meta is saying, but are you seeing an overall AROI or AMER, whatever you're using to measure your acquisition?

Trevor 2:17

Yep.

Mark 2:18

Performance. If you're seeing that dip, consider switching to a seven-day click, one-day engage through.

Trevor 2:27

Great.

Mark 2:29

Because the the engage through will include any click on the ad and the engage views. So not to get like all in the details here, but sometimes it's worth doing the one-day click depending on your your type of product. But anyways, love it. And then if you're doing that, just do some pixel health checkups.

Trevor 2:52

Yeah. We've done some discovery on some clients lately that you would have thought had that.

Mark 3:00

Yeah, it's just it's easy. It's the pixel health is something that's easily forgotten. It's in the back end. So unless you have someone who who is routinely going in and making sure it's set up correctly, uh sometimes you might have it firing twice on your website without the right dedupe procedures. Going back to Meta. So someone might have tried to do like a tag manager setup and then forgot to remove it off of your liquid if you're in Shopify, or you know, someone might have it firing over in a triple L and also firing over in a North Beam or then firing over in the native integration. So just check it out. Make sure it's make sure it's good because your pixel health is like if everything looks fine, but like performance doesn't, and it's pretty drastic, usually you'll see a pretty sudden drop. And that's kind of what we noticed with a few clients uh in the last couple weeks, and and we've seen this in the past too. If you see something crash all of a sudden, it's like, okay, all the top line metrics, all the lead metrics look okay, our setup looks good. Sometimes you'll go into that events manager and see that oh, our browser events aren't firing anymore, or our server events dropped dramatically, or something, or it's sending in double the amount, so like our retargeting pool is twice what it should be. Yeah. Oh I like it. So that's just like the house cleaning agenda. It's a good house cleaning agenda. Seven day click, one day engage view.

Trevor 4:39

A little boring, but it's good.

Mark 4:42

Yeah. And just while you're at it, if you're checking your optimization windows, then just check your pixel health. Make sure it's good.

Trevor 4:50

I like it. Um, like I said, the topic today, so like uh it this is kind of like the state of e-commerce as well, like another kind of like housekeeping thing that is is happening. Um on the 31st, Gmail, you actually sent me a tweet. Um and Gmail tweets out um inbox zero is a thing of the past. Introducing AI inbox, cut through your email clutter with smart prioritization and daily personalized briefing rolling out today in beta for Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US. And essentially what this means is it's taking your inbox and based off of the things that you want the most, how you personalize it, it will just pop up. So no longer are you having to filter through all your emails to find the goods, and you have to filter through promotions and spam and the things that that that end up in your inbox. Um, it'll say, Hey, you got a doctor's appointment uh on Wednesday, and you have uh package shipping tomorrow. Um, and the PTA uh just said that there is a you know fundraiser for your kids' school next week. And it just puts that all in there. So what does that do for brands who rely heavily on email marketing?

Mark 6:29

Well, what's happening to the email inbox is what has already begun in your text inbox. Right? So a lot of people have this turned on, I do. But like with my text messages, I don't I don't see anything that I'm not subscribed to, or like if it's from an unknown number.

Trevor 6:49

Yeah.

Mark 6:50

It all gets hidden away. Yeah. And I do not check them very often.

Trevor 6:54

Really?

Mark 6:55

Personally. I think that will soon become the norm, especially with like spam, and I think AI will make it even easier to spam. So uh brands are gonna be in a tough spot. Like, what is retention marketing? Yeah. And we have an expert retention marketer that we'll invite on the podcast here soon. Yeah. We think she's the best.

Trevor 7:19

Yeah.

Mark 7:20

Out there.

Trevor 7:20

Maybe we should have.

Mark 7:22

We probably should have.

Trevor 7:23

Whoops. And Jordan.

Retention Rules Get Rewritten

Mark 7:25

And Jordan. But well, we did think of her, but yeah. The yeah, so I think reconsider the way you are approaching retention. I mean, we've talked about this a few times in the past, but throw away the old rules. Like the old rules don't apply anymore. Yeah. You know, the the cadence of the old rules. I mean, look at your customers. Another, another way to think about it is as you analyze who your customers are, you're gonna find that a lot of people just don't ever buy from you ever again.

Trevor 7:55

Yeah.

Mark 7:56

And you're wasting a lot of money retargeting and even emailing those people, and you can kind of find why they're not gonna ever buy again. Yeah. Sometimes it's not as obvious with a certain brand, but sometimes it's very, very obvious why someone turns into a high LTV and why someone doesn't. So you're gonna have to reconsider what your protocol is. And like we honestly we don't have an answer right now, but it's something to be aware of. A lot of retention efforts, it's gotten a little more difficult.

Trevor 8:21

Yeah, even before this. Even before this, you know, very much on a decline. And that's a big portion of that is because of what like Gmail has already done, which is they do a really, really good job at filtering promotional stuff.

Mark 8:36

So the promotional folder.

Trevor 8:37

Yeah. So if you're as if your brand, if you're brand, if you have a brand domain, a lot of times it's going over into promotions, and very few people are looking at their promotions. I think I actually saw a stat that was like 52 or 53 percent of I don't know how legit that is. We'll have to fact check that. But it's like 52 or 53% of all brand emails go into a the promotional folder.

Mark 8:59

Which again, this this is like it would imply that you really need to be on top of because in the past, a lot of people would say, hey, once someone signs up, you don't want to overdo it, you don't want to text them too much, you don't want to email them too much. But the second somebody signs up for those flows, they're gonna see your email. Yeah. And they're actually usually going to engage with it. So if it's for a discount or whatever it might be, they're gonna be engaging with it. And that's the time where you have to strike. So you're gonna have to strike a little faster while the iron is hot and not do these and and to be honest, I always thought some of these flow concepts that bled over from the SaaS world were a little too complicated for e-commerce to begin with.

Trevor 9:47

Yeah.

Mark 9:48

Some of the logic behind oh, you know, like you gotta like cool them off and then warm them up. Yeah. And you know, we're not dealing with$30,000 contracts. It's sure. Yeah, like six to you're trying to get someone to buy 18-month buy windows. Yeah, you're trying to get someone to buy a shirt or something. So don't over throw away like what you think it was five years ago, because I think the rules don't apply. And then also consider we've talked about it. What else is part of email outreach now or retention outreach? I don't think it's only email. It could be email plus postpilot. It could be, you know.

Trevor 10:26

Postpilot is like uh uh um direct mail, yeah. Direct mail or campaign stuff, which for the last 20 years we've all thought is obsolete, but oftentimes the things that become obsolete become a potential bright spot, a win.

Mark 10:48

Yeah, I think we just go back like this idea that like what we're basically talking about is like how do you just increase the frequency through which someone sees you in the time period? Totally. Because that's really what email is. That's like that's all you're trying to do. Like it's not I think a lot of people get you XYZ on my A-B test. Like, I'm gonna get this huge lift. And you can, we're not saying not to do those things, but oftentimes it's like just try more. Just try to see what happens if you hit somebody ten times in a week instead of three. Because they're getting they're they're they're getting inundated all day on TikTok, on Instagram, on in their emails, on their SMS. Like if you're not standing out somehow and if they're not seeing your name over and over again.

Trevor 11:34

There's a lot of competition, so they're not gonna buy from you again.

Mark 11:36

And it's a lot easier to retarget through an email than it is through ads.

Trevor 11:40

So Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right?

Mark 11:45

Yeah.

Trevor 11:46

I mean, email's a lot easier because it's like once you have an email, all you have to do is send it out and it gets to their inbox. Now, does that mean they see it? No. Right? People think the same thing about paid. Oh, paid ads is the easiest thing to do because all I have to do is spend a dollar and I reach I see if I spend ten dollars, I reach a thousand people or something like that. Ads is always the easiest button to press. However, obviously it's not the most efficient button to press. No, not always. I think what's gonna happen, right, is so email doesn't go away. I mean, and obviously we don't know the answer to this, but like it just is changing. And just like AI doing anything else right now, everyone's kind of doom and gloom with it. It's like, oh, the media buyer's gone. No, the media buyer's not gone, just the crappy media buyers are gone. And the people who are good at their job are gonna be elevated and know how to use AI to make it so that instead of them managing five accounts at once, they can manage 20. Right. You know, or instead of, you know, you having to high, you know, hire three mediocre media buyers to manage TikTok, Google, and Meta, maybe it's just one person who's doing that because of what AI is doing. Anyways, the good people are going to shine. And so things that I could that I was thinking about with this is like, okay, cool, the sales emails are going to go away. Um, meaning like, here's my product. Here's I don't necessarily mean like hey, we just launched this new product, buy from us, kind of stuff. Those are gonna be hidden significantly more. So I think uh bright spot and an opportunity for brands is to potentially take a play out of the B2B playbook, which is B2B marketing is value, like it's pure value because they realize uh how long it takes. And so, like you said, most people who buy from you are never gonna come back and buy again. But the people who are very interested in you are going to be people who might be interested in value-based content around the niche that you or problem you are solving.

Mark 14:01

Yeah, like they might be interested in travel if you sell travel related. They might be real interested in if you're a travel company, like if you're a men's lifestyle clothing brand, like what are they interested in fashion tips.

Trevor 14:14

Men's fashion tips or or if you're a men's hair product company, are they interested in how to like different ways to style your hair or whatever? And then that same thing can go like I think it is just putting a bigger emphasis and an importance in being able to for brands to be able to figure out their organic social world too. Cause like you said at the beginning of the podcast, it's like email is just all about how often you can be seen. Right? Somebody purchases from you and email was that like quick place to just get in somebody's inbox right on their phone, but now that it's not happening.

Mark 14:48

At the end of the day, that's I mean, marketing one-on-one is just how do you be seen more? How are you seen at the at a cost that's worth it?

Trevor 14:55

Yeah, and and if you want to retain And inspire action. If you want to retain more customers and email's struggling, and you don't want to continue to pay for new cut like this the customers you've already paid for, what is the next best thing you can do? It's social media. Like it's it's turning from the in your you know, product in your face kind of social media and starting to figure out what.

Mark 15:21

Yeah, just giving giving people a reason to come back and see you.

Sponsor BFF Creative

Trevor 15:24

And value can mean a lot of things, right? Value can mean like what we talked about. Oh, travel guide, value. Value can mean entertainment. It can be funny. Like I value this because it's very funny. Value can mean inspirational. Value and entertainment doesn't also have to be funny either. Entertainment can be just that entertaining. You know? This podcast is brought to you by BFF Creative. BFF Creative is a software that meets services. Any marketing collateral you need, whether that's ads, emails, print designs, or social media, all you have to do is submit a request, and one of BFF Creative's qualified designers will create a design for you and it'll be completed in two to three days. BFF Creative allows you to submit as many requests and as many revisions as you can with just one monthly fee. And the best part is that it's month to month. No contracts, no hidden fees, no nothing. And if you use promo code unstoppable30, you'll get 30% off for your first month on i. Just go to bffcreative.co, pick your plan, and sign up today.

Mark 16:35

I mean, again, going back to the comfort type examples, like why at the end of the day, why did comfort win? Just the masses. Well, yeah, they're just frequency and and reach.

Trevor 16:48

Yeah, every every like they didn't have maybe their best organic from their channel strategy, but they just like hacked everyone else's.

Mark 16:56

And they they crushed it. And so they they didn't know. Maddox is comfort, so do you right there? I would love to go. I mean, I I'd I'm I'm assuming like if you're a smaller brand, like go see how many times these other brands text within a week. Go see what their frequencies are. And and you'll find that it's often a lot more than you think it is.

Trevor 17:15

Yeah.

Mark 17:16

Like you think it's gonna be, oh, they're gonna, I'm gonna sign up and I'll get three emails, and then you'll sign up for a brand that it is growing quickly and it's often again ten times in a week. Yeah. Yeah, maybe three the first day. Especially the first couple days. Because they know, like, hey, if somebody's already interested, like the best time for them to buy is as soon as possible. Yeah. The longer the longer you wait, likely it is that somebody's gonna buy. And that's and that goes again on a repeat purchase. The longer somebody waits to buy again. To buy the second time. The the less likely they are to ever buy again.

Trevor 17:51

Yeah, the window is what, 60 days, right? Like if you can't get them to buy in 60 days, the likelihood of them buying again is quite low. Very low.

Mark 18:02

Now, of course, there's you know, there's caveat, you know, that's the rule, but there are exceptions to the rule with really high AOV type product.

Trevor 18:09

If you're selling e-bikes, someone's probably not coming back to$4,500 versus if you're selling protein powder. Yeah. Two different stories.

Mark 18:20

But we we often do come back within a smaller time frame, even if they're coming back to buy an accessory for something like an e-bike or something like, you know, whatever in the$500,$300 to$500 range. If they come back and buy a small thing, they're likely gonna be a loyal customer.

Trevor 18:36

Yeah, they're likely coming back for a third purchase.

Mark 18:39

Even though their big purchase might not come for another year or two.

Trevor 18:42

Very true.

unknown 18:43

Yeah.

Trevor 18:43

So I mean, it goes, it just goes back to like how do you get in front of people more frequently and not the shots that aren't gonna hit, right? So if if your emails are not going in people's inbox because you're constantly talking about buy this product, buy that product, then you you can't just you can't just do more frequency. You have to do more frequency of things that are gonna actually work. But a more uh what you're saying is like at a higher frequency, you get to figure out what works.

Mark 19:12

Yeah.

Trevor 19:12

Right. That's actually like we had this. Do you remember when we had Ben Zaver on our podcast? He's the founder of Seek Protein.

Mark 19:19

Oh, yeah.

Trevor 19:20

He, I mean, this was probably like three or four years ago, but like one quote that always sticks to my mind is like he he was all about quantity until you figure out the format that works. Now he was talking about content, but you can put that as you can put that for email, you can put that for your ads, you can put that for your text messages, you can put that for your organic content, like masses until a format hits, and then once a format hits, double down on that format.

Mark 19:49

Yeah.

Trevor 19:50

So if if you've been putting images in all of your emails and the tet the subject line says shop and sale and promotion and release, you know, those keywords that that Gmail is like promotion folder, get rid of this. And you realize that, oh, if I just hand write a founder message saying thanks for being a customer from comfort, you know, this is what we're up to. Go check it out, and that goes into an inbox, then that's your format.

Mark 20:26

As long as we're seeing it.

Trevor 20:27

Every email starts going in the in that direction, right?

Mark 20:30

So sweet. Yeah. So well we'll have some uh we'll have some cool interviews here soon.

Trevor 20:36

Yeah, it'll be very interesting what happens over the next six months with this. Because it right now it's in beta. That email, that tweet that we talked about. It's it's only for people who are paying for AI subscribe subscription stuff. I can't remember what it was called. So we're not gonna quite see it yet, but eventually they'll release it. So now's the time to start figuring it out. Play a little offense before you get in the defensive position.

Mark 21:06

Release the Kraken.

Trevor 21:09

All right, guys, thank you so much. We will see you guys next week. Thank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. If there's a brand campaign strategy or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at TrevorCrump on Instagram or TikTok or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and for sure go leave us a review to let us know that we're doing a good job. We will see you guys next time.