SPECIAL: Preparing for Q4 and Black Friday

[00:00:00] It is Friday, November 15th. I'm Tod Maffin. Today, while I'm still out of the country,

[00:00:06] I wanted to bring you an episode from another outstanding podcast in our space. It's called

[00:00:11] The Founders Forum. It's hosted by Edward Hermawan, owner of Snappic and Tristam Dyer,

[00:00:17] the CEO of Webtopia. Together, they meet with senior marketers and DTC media buyers to talk

[00:00:24] about what's been working in the last month or two in the e-commerce and digital ad space. In this

[00:00:29] episode, Andrew Foxwell, who runs the Foxwell Founders community, sits down with Edwin and Trist to talk

[00:00:35] through their thoughts about Q4, Black Friday coming up along with a few trends that they are seeing

[00:00:40] in the media buying community. I have been a member of the Foxwell Founders Group since its inception.

[00:00:45] It's full of really solid practitioners. You can learn more about it at our affiliate link. That's

[00:00:51] todayindigital.com slash founders. I will be back with you Monday for a Marketing Science Deep Dive

[00:00:56] episode on the role of Schadenfreude in marketing. Until then, enjoy this special episode.

[00:01:04] Andrew Foxwell, Founders Group

[00:01:05] Welcome to the Founders Forum podcast brought to you by the Foxwell Founders, where we interview some

[00:01:09] of the hottest minds in DTC right now and deep dive on their area of expertise. Everyone that we

[00:01:15] interview here is a cherished member of our Foxwell Founders community of over 550 advertisers worldwide

[00:01:20] and are at the cutting edge of what is working right now. I hope you enjoy this. And if you have

[00:01:24] any questions, feel free to let me know. Andrew at Foxwell Digital. And now let's get stuck into

[00:01:29] this week's episode. Here are Edwin and Trist, our hosts.

[00:01:35] Edwin and Trist

[00:01:35] Hi guys, welcome back to the Foxwell Founders Forum. I'm Trist, this is Edwin and we're here with

[00:01:39] Andrew, the host, the owner of Foxwell Founders Group. We're here today in Amsterdam, the day after

[00:01:45] the Foxwell Founders meetup. What a day and a night. My voice is not going too hot right now,

[00:01:51] but listen, we're going to roll. We're going to talk a lot today. I've got a couple of hot takes,

[00:01:56] a couple of pieces of advice for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and just generally chill out and find

[00:02:00] out what Andrew's got on his mind. So strap in, let's go.

[00:02:04] What's going to happen in Q4?

[00:02:07] Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of different things that can happen.

[00:02:11] I think it's definitely going to continue the record of being the biggest that we've ever had

[00:02:16] in terms of e-commerce online. I don't think there's going to be any change there.

[00:02:19] I've sent that same email every year. This year's going to be the biggest,

[00:02:23] the biggest, the best, simply the biggest.

[00:02:25] It's amazing.

[00:02:26] I mean, I think if you think about it from a meta-advertiser perspective,

[00:02:29] the thing what's going to happen in Q4 is going to be the continuation of not having separate assets.

[00:02:35] Number one, you're going to basically be utilizing, I think mostly,

[00:02:40] your existing assets that are your best performing creative throughout the year.

[00:02:43] Yeah.

[00:02:44] Yeah.

[00:02:44] And making changes through on the site.

[00:02:46] Yes.

[00:02:47] Yeah.

[00:02:47] Which is going to be huge.

[00:02:48] We saw a lot last year that we kind of, after the end of October,

[00:02:51] we didn't really produce many more new creatives.

[00:02:53] Yeah.

[00:02:53] We just don't need them.

[00:02:55] You've got the stuff that's working, you've got the data behind it, social proof.

[00:02:58] Why would you, you can put in some Black Friday stuff,

[00:03:00] but it's never, it's never going to be performing as well as anything,

[00:03:03] you know, that you have already been using.

[00:03:05] Yeah.

[00:03:05] And I think you'll continue to see the, the difference of,

[00:03:09] you know, it used to be that so many of the sales,

[00:03:11] like the majority of the sales came on, on the Thursday, the Friday,

[00:03:15] Saturday, Sunday with a little bit of a lull.

[00:03:17] Yeah.

[00:03:17] And then there'd be the Monday would hit again.

[00:03:19] I think you'll still see spikes.

[00:03:20] Yeah.

[00:03:21] You'll still see that, but I do think that the overall event is going to be spread out.

[00:03:24] Yeah.

[00:03:24] So if you have, if you are going to say, yeah, I'm going to launch this in like

[00:03:29] earlier or the month of November or what, like, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[00:03:33] You're going to, like consumers are ready to buy.

[00:03:35] And the consideration process is such that, you know, they're going to be okay with thinking

[00:03:42] about it and coming back.

[00:03:43] And maybe they will buy to see if the deal gets better on Black Friday,

[00:03:46] Saturday or Monday timeframe.

[00:03:47] Exactly.

[00:03:48] Yeah.

[00:03:48] But if the deal is like, this is the deal and you say that and you honor that and you don't

[00:03:53] change it because I think that can really tick people off.

[00:03:55] Then I think probably that's a good method.

[00:03:58] And that's something we'll continue to see.

[00:03:59] One thing that we've seen in the trends of this year is we've been seeing people waiting

[00:04:04] and waiting and waiting until the sales.

[00:04:06] So we're actually seeing a bigger anticipation for these.

[00:04:08] Yeah.

[00:04:08] Oh, definitely.

[00:04:09] It's been, it's been more consolidated though this year.

[00:04:12] Yeah.

[00:04:12] Previous years gone by back in COVID years, it was kind of like a gray week rather than a

[00:04:16] Black Friday.

[00:04:17] Right.

[00:04:18] Now this year, you know, Labor Day, or it's very 4th of July, anything like that.

[00:04:23] They've all been very heavy hitting days.

[00:04:25] Yeah.

[00:04:25] And then the last days of those sales have just been 3x.

[00:04:28] Yeah.

[00:04:29] I jumped.

[00:04:30] I think that's big.

[00:04:31] I think if you think about it through the lens of, uh, of cost controls, you know, I think

[00:04:35] you're going to have it.

[00:04:37] Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:04:38] It's controls.

[00:04:39] Let's not talk about cost controls.

[00:04:41] Oh my.

[00:04:41] I think you're going to have a certain selection of people that are going to keep

[00:04:43] the cost control similar or a little bit higher.

[00:04:46] Yeah.

[00:04:46] And then that'll, they'll just ride it out and raise budgets.

[00:04:49] Like if it does, if the inventory is there and they're going to hit it, then it's okay.

[00:04:53] I think that majority of folks will have some campaigns or a large percentage of

[00:04:57] campaigns, probably more like existing customer style campaigns that are going to be utilizing

[00:05:02] like a one day click.

[00:05:03] Um, and I think that's good.

[00:05:06] We, you know, we used to mess with bidding all the time, right?

[00:05:09] We used to do bid overrides and everything.

[00:05:11] I think many years ago, we would do like a $10 click bid to make sure we won.

[00:05:15] I learned it from you.

[00:05:16] Yeah.

[00:05:16] Yeah.

[00:05:16] Yeah.

[00:05:17] And it was great.

[00:05:18] Right.

[00:05:18] And we did that.

[00:05:19] And then I think we kind of went off of that because we, it just wasn't working anymore.

[00:05:24] You didn't need it.

[00:05:25] And you didn't need it.

[00:05:26] The system was a lot smarter.

[00:05:28] So I think, you know, in terms of how you're planning it for Q4, like how you're thinking

[00:05:33] about it, making sure that you are covering your bases when it comes to bid cost, like

[00:05:39] kind of cost controls, I think is smart.

[00:05:41] I don't think you want to have it all on cost controls.

[00:05:43] I don't think you want to have it all on auto.

[00:05:45] I don't think you want to have it all on one day click.

[00:05:47] Like, I think it's going to be, um, it's going to be a mixture of those things, um,

[00:05:51] would be my guess.

[00:05:52] I don't know.

[00:05:52] What do you guys think?

[00:05:53] I mean, the, the, one of the biggest things we're seeing this year is actually, uh, our

[00:05:57] ASC campaigns are really taking off, but one of the kind of the, when you're

[00:06:00] talking about cost controls and kind of the different types of campaigns, we're finding

[00:06:03] ASC working super, super well, uh, just for scaling.

[00:06:07] Like, so yeah, we've done a lot of testing in ABO, getting our creatives built out like

[00:06:11] that and just moving that winning creative into the ASCs.

[00:06:15] Yeah.

[00:06:15] I mean, my big thing with ASC and my big thing with generally like the AI that meta continues

[00:06:19] to put forward is I like, I mean, I think it's great.

[00:06:23] I think that when an ASC works, it works really well, but the issue is it's just not consistent.

[00:06:29] Yeah.

[00:06:29] And I think what, when you add the advantage plus brand umbrella and blanket across like

[00:06:33] a whole bunch of things, it's horrible.

[00:06:36] It's, it's so challenging.

[00:06:37] It's like, it's, it's not reliable.

[00:06:39] Yeah.

[00:06:39] And it also, there's, there's a certain percentage of it.

[00:06:42] Let's say 20% that just like gives you headaches and makes your job as an advertiser way harder.

[00:06:46] Yeah.

[00:06:47] And even if you're in house, that makes your job at to tell the bosses sending you a

[00:06:50] screenshot on Christmas or, you know, on Thanksgiving, Hey, why does this ad look like this?

[00:06:54] Yeah.

[00:06:55] You know, like that's insane.

[00:06:56] And so I think meta's right.

[00:06:58] Like meta's job is always to make, make your job easier.

[00:07:01] That should be the, that's really the premise that they've been pushing.

[00:07:04] But I think it's just like, it's just like anything else.

[00:07:06] I think that there are accounts when you can go all in and spend, if you're spending a million

[00:07:12] dollars a month and go all in on cost controls with ASC and that can work.

[00:07:15] Yeah.

[00:07:16] But for the large majority of people that sit in the 20, 20,000 us a month to a hundred

[00:07:22] thousand us a month and spend, there's more nuance to how you have to build an account.

[00:07:26] And it can't be just all in one.

[00:07:28] Yeah.

[00:07:28] In my opinion.

[00:07:29] Yeah.

[00:07:29] I did.

[00:07:30] Cause, because I honestly, I just don't trust it.

[00:07:32] And it had meta hasn't, it's just like a relationship.

[00:07:36] You don't trust, you know, where you're like, you're like, you've told me before that

[00:07:40] you were going to be here at eight, but you've been late like before.

[00:07:43] Okay.

[00:07:44] You know what I mean?

[00:07:44] Okay.

[00:07:44] It's like, you, you told me you were going to go to the store before you came, but then

[00:07:47] you didn't hurt me.

[00:07:49] Yeah.

[00:07:49] Like, why did you hurt me?

[00:07:50] And so like that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:07:52] There's just like, I think that's the kind of thing is like, you know, Zuckerberg's going

[00:07:56] out.

[00:07:56] What did he say in last earnings call?

[00:07:57] He's like, we would love it.

[00:07:59] He's like, it'll be a situation where you'd be able to put in the creative assets and press

[00:08:02] play.

[00:08:03] And honestly, I would, I would love that to be the case.

[00:08:06] It doesn't work.

[00:08:06] I would love that to be a marketer's case that we would be able to say this.

[00:08:10] We can trust this process and it can move us into being general

[00:08:13] marketers continuing to work on the total funnel, you know, client financials and really helping

[00:08:20] in being a CMO or like that kind of relationship.

[00:08:23] But we still have to maintain that advertiser side because I just don't think it's trustworthy.

[00:08:28] It's a test we're starting to do now is we're breaking out and this is old school.

[00:08:32] We're breaking out different placements.

[00:08:33] So we now, instead of having...

[00:08:35] You're breaking out different placements.

[00:08:36] Yes.

[00:08:36] What are we in 2021?

[00:08:43] Reels only.

[00:08:44] Reels only.

[00:08:44] Reels only.

[00:08:45] Because look, our Facebook rep said to us, hey, you know, auto placement, baby.

[00:08:48] And we're like, nope.

[00:08:50] Yeah.

[00:08:50] We're seeing terrible results here.

[00:08:52] I'm surprised you even picked up the call from your Facebook rep.

[00:08:55] We're forced to, but what we're doing now is we're putting on a Reels only and we're going

[00:09:03] testing Reels only.

[00:09:04] What we're finding is it works really, really well in that size when you're spending kind

[00:09:08] of 20 grand.

[00:09:09] But if you're going upwards from that, if you're starting to spend even more, it doesn't have

[00:09:13] enough people to serve it to.

[00:09:14] So it then starts to scrape the barrel and the performance really starts to dip.

[00:09:18] But if you're spending that lower bit and you're looking for a bit more incrementality,

[00:09:22] then you're sorted.

[00:09:23] That's going to work really well.

[00:09:24] It's really interesting.

[00:09:24] You know, I think Reels is an example.

[00:09:26] Look, I was talking about this to a bank that I consult with,

[00:09:30] about Meta's company, about the stock.

[00:09:33] And they were asking about Reels, you know, where it was, where it is.

[00:09:36] You know, it's like three or four years ago, it was just garbage.

[00:09:38] I mean, it just wasn't anything, even two years ago.

[00:09:41] And it was like showing pictures of like women in bikinis on Lamborghinis, right?

[00:09:45] And you're like, okay, this isn't like my con, this isn't, this isn't like my type of content,

[00:09:50] but it would show me.

[00:09:51] You either.

[00:09:52] Yeah.

[00:09:52] It would like show me all this stuff that just wasn't relevant to me.

[00:09:55] I remember once I went on Reels and showed me like videos of a monster truck rally.

[00:09:58] I was like, do you know me?

[00:09:59] Yeah.

[00:09:59] Like this isn't me.

[00:10:01] But anyway, and so, and like now it's like pretty true.

[00:10:04] Yeah.

[00:10:04] It's like.

[00:10:05] Women in bikinis.

[00:10:07] Monster trucks.

[00:10:08] Yeah.

[00:10:08] It's a lot like.

[00:10:08] You guys are finding out a lot.

[00:10:10] And it's a lot like, uh, it just wasn't the right thing.

[00:10:13] And now it seems to be really relevant.

[00:10:14] And so now it's interesting in terms of like continuing to be bullish on Meta in terms

[00:10:18] of the profitability, you know, look at threads.

[00:10:22] Now we're all, it's something we joke about.

[00:10:23] We just do the same thing with Reels.

[00:10:25] And I think that threads is going to be a more, an opportunity for us to continue to do

[00:10:29] that.

[00:10:29] And I do think that creating creative, which is, I mean, this isn't my idea.

[00:10:34] This is something that I learned from Dave Herman talking about it, like just doing Reels

[00:10:38] centered creative and having that be what you're making in a four by five.

[00:10:43] And then having that be the way that you're putting all the creative out there.

[00:10:46] Yeah.

[00:10:46] I think we've done things similarly to that, but that's one of those things that you're

[00:10:49] like, that's kind of what we've been doing.

[00:10:51] So the validity and saying that makes me feel good of like trust.

[00:10:54] And I think that's been really useful.

[00:10:55] So I would do that more in Q4, honestly, too.

[00:10:58] Absolutely.

[00:10:58] So, so give me, give us actionable, like, like quick tips, like, let's do a top five.

[00:11:06] Let's do a top five.

[00:11:07] Let's say we're spending 20 to 100 K.

[00:11:10] And then let's say, let's say we were big spenders, like in Q4, Tom, in Q4.

[00:11:14] Like, what are you going to do?

[00:11:15] Oh, yeah.

[00:11:16] Yeah.

[00:11:17] Yeah.

[00:11:17] Cool tips.

[00:11:17] Yeah.

[00:11:17] I mean, I think one, like you definitely never want to forget about the people that

[00:11:21] have purchased from me before and your, you know, list and utilizing that.

[00:11:24] I think that's, I think that's big. I think that there's been a movement and a lot of us

[00:11:28] away from utilizing retargeting in any sort of sense necessarily.

[00:11:32] True.

[00:11:32] And just like, there's either you don't do it as much and you know, Meta's naturally doing

[00:11:36] it or, um, you know, you generally not advertising those people as just, just not part of the campaign.

[00:11:43] Like you're doing no retargeting.

[00:11:45] Is the marketing mind just starting to say, well, I can get that an SMS and email.

[00:11:47] Yeah.

[00:11:48] Yeah.

[00:11:49] Or like Meta's doing enough of it and I don't need to do it separately.

[00:11:51] Yeah.

[00:11:51] I think that this is, I think this is something

[00:11:54] that like, you know, engaged, at least engage audiences, email list, right?

[00:11:58] Like, I think that that is useful in Q4.

[00:12:01] Okay.

[00:12:01] I mean, for a lot of reasons, but I think it's useful because you just want to get in

[00:12:05] front of those people.

[00:12:06] I'm not saying that necessarily it might be the most, it might be that they're going to

[00:12:09] see it convert on Facebook, but being visible to them in another place other than just the

[00:12:13] inbox is going to be useful.

[00:12:15] Sure.

[00:12:15] Um, and you've been, you know, working to build out those people for a long time.

[00:12:20] Like, even if you're talking about like a 95% view on some sort of a video.

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:24] That's, I think worthwhile to get in front of.

[00:12:26] How much are you spending?

[00:12:27] Like how much, how much of your budget are you spending on that?

[00:12:30] Oh, I'd say that's probably like in the 20% range.

[00:12:33] Okay.

[00:12:33] Like 10 to 20% range.

[00:12:35] I would say.

[00:12:37] That's big like his sombrero on his mic.

[00:12:41] It's an ice cream cone.

[00:12:42] 20% is a chocolate ice cream cone.

[00:12:45] But I mean, how do you justify that when they say that when like, how do you kind of get the

[00:12:49] checks and balances when it comes to the email marketing and the SMS?

[00:12:52] And they're like, well, we're going to buy it that way.

[00:12:54] Yeah.

[00:12:55] I mean, I think it's, I, again, I, this is like anything else with meta or like our world

[00:13:00] in general is like, it depends.

[00:13:01] Yeah.

[00:13:02] And I think it's those words.

[00:13:04] Yeah.

[00:13:04] It's like, it's like if it's, if it's something that it has, if you know that, if you know

[00:13:09] that you've been running videos all year long and you have these videos that have like that

[00:13:14] are good storytelling or they're an us versus them or their founder story and you can do

[00:13:18] a 95% view off of them.

[00:13:20] Yeah.

[00:13:20] You know, that makes a lot of sense or even a total through play.

[00:13:24] That makes a lot of sense to hit those people.

[00:13:25] And depending on the audience size, like if you haven't really talked to them and it hasn't

[00:13:29] been part of the strategy before this, then I think spending, yeah, I mean, maybe not

[00:13:33] 20, but maybe 10 to 20.

[00:13:34] I mean, like, I think I could be go as high as this because you really just haven't touched

[00:13:37] them before.

[00:13:39] So I think that's, that's why I say that number, why it could be as high.

[00:13:43] I tend to think that we all think prospecting is a little bit easier than it actually is

[00:13:48] in especially the Black Friday, Cyber Monday timeframe.

[00:13:51] So you, to sort of hedge your bets as an advertiser overall, I think it's smart to have at least

[00:13:56] some of that that's considered to talk to those previous people.

[00:14:00] So you're not having all of your chips on the, we're going to prospect during the most

[00:14:04] competitive time of the year and it's going to do great.

[00:14:07] Yeah.

[00:14:08] And you have to remember it's election year, so CPMs are going to be naturally high anyway

[00:14:11] because it's election year.

[00:14:13] Yeah.

[00:14:13] So right up into the, no, it's a week before you have to stop.

[00:14:16] Is it a week before they have to stop advertising?

[00:14:18] Yeah.

[00:14:18] So up until just the end of October, CPMs are going to be super high compared to what

[00:14:22] we would normally see October being super low CPMs.

[00:14:25] So you're going to see that and you're going to have to work it out.

[00:14:28] One thing that you mentioned there, it kind of brings back to a testing thing that we've

[00:14:31] seen as well.

[00:14:33] People previously, when they're excluding from their top of funnel campaigns, they exclude existing

[00:14:38] customers and sometimes even engagers.

[00:14:40] Yeah.

[00:14:40] But now we just turn that part off the engagers and just target, just exclude purchasers.

[00:14:47] Really you're not showing to people who've just bought.

[00:14:49] Let me just ask a question.

[00:14:50] Did you say that they have to stop advertising?

[00:14:52] Because I don't think they have to stop advertising in America before the election.

[00:14:55] Is that a thing that became true?

[00:14:57] Well, I cut it.

[00:14:58] They have to have their ads like four weeks before.

[00:15:02] They can't launch new ads.

[00:15:04] Okay.

[00:15:05] Four weeks before the election.

[00:15:06] Oh.

[00:15:07] Boom.

[00:15:07] The political ads.

[00:15:09] Yeah.

[00:15:09] Oh, wow.

[00:15:10] Yeah.

[00:15:10] Okay.

[00:15:10] I don't know why I didn't know this.

[00:15:12] They can't run them on the fifth.

[00:15:14] You can't run them on election day?

[00:15:16] What?

[00:15:16] That's un-American.

[00:15:18] I'd have to double-

[00:15:18] Yeah.

[00:15:19] It seems very un-American.

[00:15:21] Any ads that you're going to run for election have to be launched four weeks before.

[00:15:28] They will not allow any ads to be launched in that four-week window.

[00:15:32] Oh, wow.

[00:15:32] Interesting.

[00:15:33] Okay.

[00:15:33] Interesting.

[00:15:34] Yeah.

[00:15:34] I guess I never knew that.

[00:15:36] Even though I used to be in the political world, I never knew that.

[00:15:38] Interesting.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:39] But anyway-

[00:15:39] Not on Twitter, though.

[00:15:40] No.

[00:15:42] Are you going to be launching ads on the fourth?

[00:15:44] On X.

[00:15:45] Yeah, on X.

[00:15:46] Yeah, I would say-

[00:15:47] I mean, so I would say that's one.

[00:15:48] It's like, don't forget about those folks.

[00:15:49] Yeah.

[00:15:50] I would say another one is generally having a mix of campaign and audience type, I think

[00:15:54] is going to be useful.

[00:15:55] Okay.

[00:15:55] What's the mix?

[00:15:56] And I mean, I'm not-

[00:15:58] If I was doing it, I would obviously want to make sure that there's some kind of an ASC

[00:16:03] involved in what we're doing.

[00:16:05] And that's predominantly like what I would-

[00:16:07] If the ASC has worked previously in that account, that's what I would just keep on rolling

[00:16:12] and I really wouldn't change much.

[00:16:14] Okay.

[00:16:14] Like if I have top performing things, I would just keep that going.

[00:16:17] Okay.

[00:16:17] Yeah.

[00:16:17] In the ASC and I honestly wouldn't touch it.

[00:16:20] Okay.

[00:16:20] Like really.

[00:16:21] Yeah.

[00:16:21] That would be one.

[00:16:23] And I was going to ask, is there plenty of people out there that will get the question

[00:16:26] was like, well, it's kind of off season or anything else.

[00:16:30] Like, well, it's working.

[00:16:31] It's still working in late October.

[00:16:33] Don't turn it off.

[00:16:34] Yeah.

[00:16:35] I wouldn't.

[00:16:36] Yeah.

[00:16:36] I think that's part of it.

[00:16:38] I would, in terms of like this setup itself, I would think that you generally moving away

[00:16:44] from broad during this period of time, I think is a good thing.

[00:16:47] And the reason I would say that is because so many, there's the competition is so high

[00:16:52] that when you're really what you're looking for in adding other audiences or any other

[00:16:57] spend to your campaign, you, you, if broad has previously worked in your account, I think

[00:17:02] there's a validity to running it.

[00:17:04] Yeah.

[00:17:04] But if, but if it hasn't, if it's been like we've launched it and it kind of went like

[00:17:08] up and down.

[00:17:09] Yeah.

[00:17:09] I think really what you're looking for across the campaign mix is you're trying to find

[00:17:12] something that's going to be incremental to add to the campaign.

[00:17:15] And that would be things like an interest stack or high relevance lookalikes because it's,

[00:17:20] they're going to be sort of short run bursts.

[00:17:23] I'm not saying these are going to be things that you're going to depend on longterm, but

[00:17:27] they're going to be things that in a two week period around Black Friday, Cyber Monday,

[00:17:30] that's going to be like, yeah, they're, they're going to be little 10 increment, 10% incremental

[00:17:34] wins.

[00:17:35] Right.

[00:17:35] Yeah.

[00:17:35] That's really what I think with top performers that you want, would want to be looking for.

[00:17:40] I would think you're probably mostly operating in an ABO format too.

[00:17:43] I don't think you're necessarily operating in CBO format.

[00:17:46] Yeah.

[00:17:46] I think that, you know, yesterday we're here, the founders, you know, day after the founders

[00:17:50] learning sessions yesterday at the meetup and Freddie from Germany mentioned Frederick

[00:17:56] wrote that they're utilizing CBO a lot.

[00:17:59] Yeah.

[00:17:59] I think that a lot of the advice.

[00:18:01] It's like to inhale at that time.

[00:18:02] Yeah.

[00:18:02] I mean, and I think you always have to put that in context and context, this is German

[00:18:08] advertiser that they're advertising for in Germany.

[00:18:11] And I think that when you look at countries, if you're looking at, you know, advertising

[00:18:15] only in a certain area and it's tight geographic area specifically, like only the UK or whatever,

[00:18:20] I think there's validity in doing a CBO likely, like, cause it's going to, it'll operate differently

[00:18:25] than it would in the United States.

[00:18:27] A lot of the advice that I have is because of the accounts we run and because of always

[00:18:31] being a US centric advertiser.

[00:18:33] Yeah.

[00:18:33] But I think there's nuance to that.

[00:18:34] So I think if you're in a smaller country where you're targeting a smaller set of geographic

[00:18:39] places, maybe not the US, certainly a CBO could be part of that, but most likely in what

[00:18:44] we're going to be doing is like, it's going to be more of an ABO format.

[00:18:46] I'd say that's big.

[00:18:47] I think you're going to be wanting to not necessarily create brand new stuff like you talked about.

[00:18:51] You're going to keep running the best creative that you've had.

[00:18:54] Maybe you're going to have a couple new things that are four to five real style that are going

[00:18:58] to be to those previous customers or those people on the engaged lists or on your email

[00:19:04] list or whatever that you've gone through.

[00:19:05] One thing I'll just say about the email list is that Klaviyo integration freaking breaks

[00:19:09] all the time.

[00:19:10] Yeah.

[00:19:10] So just make sure before you do this, you check that the Klaviyo integration is actually

[00:19:15] working.

[00:19:15] Yeah.

[00:19:16] I need to keep checking it.

[00:19:17] Check it again.

[00:19:17] Because it's like, that shit busts all the time.

[00:19:20] And then, so that's another one I would think that you're trying to, you would want to go

[00:19:25] for.

[00:19:26] And I think, yeah, if you've been running cost controls before, you'd keep that.

[00:19:30] But I think that's kind of the setup that I would be looking at.

[00:19:32] I think that you're making generally less changes than you would.

[00:19:36] I think really what you, from an overall standpoint that you want to be looking at is

[00:19:40] how quickly can we bring these people to a purchase and what are the things we can do on

[00:19:44] the site and really auditing the customer journey before you go forward on it.

[00:19:49] These are things like the cart drawer, right?

[00:19:51] Or like, how does that look on mobile?

[00:19:54] How quickly are you going to, are they going to see an incentive?

[00:19:57] You know, because so many times, you know, you walk through your client site and you've

[00:20:01] seen it and it makes sense to you or they've seen it, but having reviews or having other

[00:20:04] people look at it, it's just so critical to actually making that time successful.

[00:20:09] Would you even advise to go as far as put a hot jar or something like that on it to

[00:20:12] have a look?

[00:20:13] I mean, I hit people do it.

[00:20:14] I mean, I think you certainly could during the period of time that you're testing, right?

[00:20:17] I mean, especially, you know, you get it out in October, you could get some learnings

[00:20:21] on it.

[00:20:21] I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[00:20:23] Even if it's only low to five people and you're asking them to go through of all different

[00:20:27] of your, your main customer base that are friends of yours or something else, what's

[00:20:31] confusing about this or whatever.

[00:20:32] I think that's, that's work that we didn't necessarily used to talk about because we were

[00:20:36] in the spoiled days of like, let's launch an ad and then we'll run it to a PDP and

[00:20:40] it's going to be great.

[00:20:41] Yeah.

[00:20:42] And I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore.

[00:20:44] I just want to give you a correction.

[00:20:47] Okay.

[00:20:47] So on the political ads, it's one week before.

[00:20:50] Okay.

[00:20:51] As can launch.

[00:20:52] Okay.

[00:20:52] One week before.

[00:20:53] Okay.

[00:20:54] Day of it's historically the deep in the chat, political ads do not run because campaigns

[00:21:00] choose not to, but they can.

[00:21:03] Yeah.

[00:21:04] Yeah.

[00:21:04] Yeah.

[00:21:04] I knew it was, I knew it was a thing they don't generally, I think they almost, almost

[00:21:08] like a parlay when they say like, we're not doing that.

[00:21:11] So, so they just, for the U S they made the restriction of, uh, one week before no one

[00:21:17] can add it to much.

[00:21:18] Yeah.

[00:21:20] Interesting.

[00:21:21] Interesting.

[00:21:22] There you go.

[00:21:23] Okay.

[00:21:24] Um, so we've got two so far.

[00:21:25] We need a third and a fourth and a fifth advice.

[00:21:27] Oh, third and fourth advice.

[00:21:30] I mean, I think, you know, um, generally let's just get into, uh, the, the third one, uh, that's

[00:21:36] not necessarily like setup related, but I think it's in terms of like your setup related,

[00:21:41] which is how are you going to bring my mind and my body, your mind and your body, like

[00:21:48] get your mind right.

[00:21:49] You know, like how are you meditating?

[00:21:50] Yeah.

[00:21:51] I mean, well, like, I do think that during that, during this period of time when things

[00:21:55] are really intense, one of the things that you have is some cost bias, right?

[00:21:59] You're going to, you keep working on the same thing and you think that it makes it

[00:22:03] more productive.

[00:22:04] Um, and really what I think you want to be aware of that, that continuing to work on a

[00:22:10] client problem, if it's an issue or there's some sort of thing, um, it actually stepping

[00:22:15] away for an hour will give you clarity.

[00:22:18] I think it's really easy to like give you, cause it'd be glued during that period of

[00:22:21] time because everybody else is talking about how they're glued to it and showing Shopify

[00:22:25] screenshots and shit like that.

[00:22:26] But my point is, is like, I do think that it's necessary today because there inevitably

[00:22:32] will be things that go wrong to have a plan for like, what am I going to do to keep myself

[00:22:37] sane during this period of time?

[00:22:38] Take a fucking walk.

[00:22:39] Yeah.

[00:22:40] Right.

[00:22:40] Like, I think that's, that is really important.

[00:22:45] And I think that a lot of it in the last couple of years, I think has been focusing on the planning

[00:22:51] beforehand so that during the actual event of BC, BFCM, it's like you're, you're, you're,

[00:22:57] you're in a more relaxed state.

[00:22:59] Yeah.

[00:22:59] So I think that is something you want to just have like, like a key for self player care

[00:23:04] plan.

[00:23:05] I think that's important.

[00:23:06] Yeah.

[00:23:06] That's absolutely key.

[00:23:07] And I would say as well, just on that is like, even if you, you're like, oh, I'm fine.

[00:23:12] I can get through it.

[00:23:12] You'll tell yourself you're fine.

[00:23:13] Put it in, schedule into your diary to go for a walk, look at yourself in advance.

[00:23:18] Cause it's so easy to give yourself that bias or like, I feel fine.

[00:23:21] But then you're in the middle of something.

[00:23:22] It's like, okay.

[00:23:23] Yeah.

[00:23:23] And I mean the landing page thing, that can't be the fourth one.

[00:23:25] No.

[00:23:26] Oh yeah.

[00:23:26] It can't be.

[00:23:27] So that's one of them.

[00:23:28] Yeah.

[00:23:28] But I mean the, the, the offer one that Jenny Lynn was talking about, this is pretty big.

[00:23:32] So like, yeah, yeah.

[00:23:33] Let's talk about it.

[00:23:34] Yeah.

[00:23:34] So, I mean, it was, it was, it was pretty big.

[00:23:36] And is this number four and number five?

[00:23:38] This is number five.

[00:23:39] This is number five.

[00:23:39] Yeah.

[00:23:40] Over the day yesterday was obviously the, the one from, from Jenny Lynn where she said,

[00:23:43] we can't scale products.

[00:23:44] We can scale offers.

[00:23:45] And that's obviously really hit home for me.

[00:23:47] Cause there's so many people trying to get out there being like, got a product here and getting

[00:23:51] the landing page to perfection within an inch of his life, but actually not, no one's buying

[00:23:56] it because there's no reason to buy.

[00:23:58] There's no one, there's no, it doesn't have to be an offer like a two for one or something

[00:24:01] like that.

[00:24:01] It just has to be a reason for somebody to actually buy without Facebook ads.

[00:24:05] So, so many people look at Facebook ads and go, oh, that's the magic bullet.

[00:24:08] But realistically, if people aren't buying anyway, you're wasting your money.

[00:24:13] You're just going to send it to more people.

[00:24:15] Yeah.

[00:24:15] Yeah.

[00:24:15] Yeah.

[00:24:15] That's so true.

[00:24:16] You know, I think I really appreciate you bringing that up because it's one of the journeys

[00:24:21] that I have had to be on, I think over the last few years as a Facebook marketer.

[00:24:26] I mean, generally a meta marketer, I've been doing this for how, you know, since they've

[00:24:30] been invented, I, I got spoiled focusing like a lot of us did only on meta ads.

[00:24:35] And I think so much of it, obviously the offer is massive part of it.

[00:24:38] You know, CRO landing pages is a whole other part of it.

[00:24:41] And so looking at the offer, it's like, it is, it's, it's almost should be number one.

[00:24:46] You know what I mean?

[00:24:47] But I mentioned it last because in my head, I'm always like thinking about the tactical

[00:24:51] side of it.

[00:24:51] Yeah.

[00:24:52] But I think that the offer itself is, is massive.

[00:24:54] It's huge.

[00:24:55] I mean, what's, what are you going to put out there?

[00:24:57] It's meaningful.

[00:24:58] You know, I mean, in our Q4 course that we sold before, we, we don't have it anymore,

[00:25:03] but we talked about in there doing like a meaningful offer.

[00:25:06] People are always like, do you think 10% is meaningful?

[00:25:08] I'm like, no, no.

[00:25:09] And also like, and also like, if you never do, if you never do a sale, maybe 10% is interesting,

[00:25:16] but still like, even from the favorite brand, if you offer me 10%, I'd be like, it's kind

[00:25:20] of rizzle dizzle.

[00:25:20] Yeah.

[00:25:21] No, it's not.

[00:25:21] 10% of your email.

[00:25:23] Like you get 10% off for adding your email address.

[00:25:25] So it's just like, you know, kind of thinking about that, like, what does that really mean?

[00:25:28] You know, the companies that really, I think have been successful that I've seen and have

[00:25:36] been really inspired by are those that put an element of surprise into it too.

[00:25:40] You know, mystery boxes that are coming with stuff, showing what could be in it, making that

[00:25:45] process fun.

[00:25:46] And I think is, is a huge part of it too, in terms of this specific like timeframe, right?

[00:25:52] Of like, what else are they getting that's fun and interesting?

[00:25:56] And maybe, yeah, two for one.

[00:25:57] I don't know if that's useful, but it's like incentivizing them to buy in volume is another

[00:26:02] piece that I think can be really powerful.

[00:26:04] But I think the offer, I think, you know, it's a good shout to bring that up.

[00:26:07] I think the biggest thing that people miss though, is they kind of go, oh, what percent

[00:26:11] do I need to give off?

[00:26:12] And they talk to their CFO.

[00:26:13] Well, 30.

[00:26:15] I get it, right?

[00:26:16] They talk to a CFO.

[00:26:17] CFO is like, ah, that's all of our margin.

[00:26:19] I hate the CFO.

[00:26:19] Yeah.

[00:26:20] Don't we all?

[00:26:21] Throw them out the window.

[00:26:22] Until the IRS comes down.

[00:26:25] But no, what we find is the best performing in terms of sales and anything like that in

[00:26:32] an offer is value added.

[00:26:33] So if you're adding more value, whatever it is, keep the same price, but add more value.

[00:26:37] Yes, your margin is going to go down the same.

[00:26:39] Yeah.

[00:26:39] They are going to get more.

[00:26:40] So they're used to spending that amount.

[00:26:42] Yeah.

[00:26:43] Because you have to remember, you're acquiring a lot of customers.

[00:26:45] There are new customers coming in now.

[00:26:46] You don't want them to be the poor customers that are kind of like, you're going to be relying

[00:26:50] on them to rebuy in February, March, April.

[00:26:53] Oh, wait.

[00:26:53] Okay, guys.

[00:26:54] Let's be real.

[00:26:56] Have you ever had an offer that worked better than a 30% or greater offer?

[00:27:01] All the time.

[00:27:02] No.

[00:27:02] All the time.

[00:27:03] No, bro.

[00:27:04] You're on camera.

[00:27:05] Don't lie.

[00:27:06] I'll say it right to you.

[00:27:07] No, we have.

[00:27:08] And I'll tell you why it works.

[00:27:10] It works.

[00:27:10] What is it?

[00:27:11] First tell me what it was.

[00:27:11] It would have been value.

[00:27:13] I don't have a number, but it would be a value add.

[00:27:15] And so instead, so say if somebody's paying 70 bucks for something, say a pair of leggings,

[00:27:20] buying a pair of leggings.

[00:27:21] Okay.

[00:27:22] And it was 70 bucks for the leggings.

[00:27:23] What we did was we threw the top in and the jumper in to make it a full outfit in at the

[00:27:28] same go.

[00:27:29] Right?

[00:27:30] Oh.

[00:27:31] It would make it that value add.

[00:27:33] And the idea here is that obviously that's an insane value.

[00:27:36] If you're buying a pair of leggings and you're getting the top as well.

[00:27:38] Okay.

[00:27:39] But the thing is, the people, first of all, they have more stuff to wear from your product.

[00:27:43] Second of all, they're looking at it going, oh, this isn't a discount brand.

[00:27:47] I'm actually getting more from it.

[00:27:49] So it feels good.

[00:27:50] I'm coming back.

[00:27:51] I'm going to buy more.

[00:27:52] Third of all, then they're going to see that they're going to not be used to spending less.

[00:27:56] So if I go and say, I bought from your brand, I paid 30 bucks, not 70 bucks.

[00:28:00] And then so I'm the right type of customer to be able to spend that amount anyway.

[00:28:03] So you've got three good reasons there why 30%.

[00:28:06] If you knock off 30%, it's like devaluing your brand by 30%.

[00:28:10] Wait, and you launched with this?

[00:28:11] No, we didn't launch with it.

[00:28:13] No, this product's been out for months and then we added some stuff in, but it worked.

[00:28:19] It's very busy airspace around here.

[00:28:21] I will say that.

[00:28:21] No, we didn't launch with it.

[00:28:23] But what we did do was we had that maybe from August, September time.

[00:28:27] And that was when it was going to become on sale anyway.

[00:28:29] So that was something that kind of coming into sales season, it was kind of autumn, winter.

[00:28:34] It had been launched late in the summer, autumn, winter stuff, end of autumn, winter.

[00:28:39] And we wanted to kind of put it on sale.

[00:28:41] I had a client once that we actually wanted to fail and they did an 80% off sale.

[00:28:44] Holy shit.

[00:28:46] Just kidding.

[00:28:47] I'm just kidding.

[00:28:50] They were shitty people and we wanted them to fail.

[00:28:53] Oh, okay.

[00:28:53] They sucked.

[00:28:54] Yeah, they sucked.

[00:28:55] Wouldn't that be terrible?

[00:28:56] There's the biggest one that I've said.

[00:28:57] By the way, it's not real.

[00:28:58] No.

[00:28:59] Damn, I'm joking.

[00:29:00] Put the handle on that one.

[00:29:01] Cut that.

[00:29:02] But no, what's really, we had a guy before do a lifetime offer of hoodies.

[00:29:07] What?

[00:29:08] For five grand.

[00:29:09] You could be paid five grand.

[00:29:11] I think it was 12 years of hoodies.

[00:29:13] Okay.

[00:29:13] And you could buy for five grand.

[00:29:14] I think they sold three of them.

[00:29:15] They sold three of them?

[00:29:16] Three of them, yeah.

[00:29:17] So three people paid five grand for 12 years worth of hoodies.

[00:29:20] Are they still in business?

[00:29:22] I don't know.

[00:29:23] I haven't talked to them since.

[00:29:24] Okay.

[00:29:24] But what I'll say is that's just a point to say that you can put that massive offer in

[00:29:29] there, kind of anchoring it up like super high.

[00:29:32] So it's something to have a look at as well.

[00:29:33] But 30%, you've seen everything going across your whole portfolio.

[00:29:39] We've tried so many things and it's always been 30%.

[00:29:43] Like plant a tree, no borrow.

[00:29:45] Like go kick rocks.

[00:29:47] Like 25%.

[00:29:48] No.

[00:29:50] But this is like, I will caveat it.

[00:29:54] These are for brands that they're spending, we're spending like 20 to 100K.

[00:29:59] Right?

[00:30:00] So it's not like super large brands.

[00:30:02] It's not performance products.

[00:30:03] It's fashion and apparel.

[00:30:04] Right?

[00:30:05] I statistically see a difference in performance.

[00:30:11] The watershed is 30%.

[00:30:14] You do 25%, kick rocks.

[00:30:17] 20%, kick rocks.

[00:30:18] 30%, whoa.

[00:30:20] Step change?

[00:30:22] Like statistically significant, like on my mother.

[00:30:25] Wow.

[00:30:26] I always think dollar amounts are even more powerful than percentage.

[00:30:30] I dug in and I found out that this dude had not released product for six months.

[00:30:36] I'll do it.

[00:30:37] And like, and his top sellers are already sold out and he came for me.

[00:30:41] Oh.

[00:30:42] He came for me.

[00:30:42] And he's like, he's like, why wasn't my Black Friday lit?

[00:30:44] And I was like, because you're not lit.

[00:30:46] Yeah.

[00:30:48] It's like, you've been not only lit, it's been lights out.

[00:30:50] Yeah.

[00:30:51] You haven't been doing anything.

[00:30:52] Yeah.

[00:30:53] But I was like, thank you, Jesus.

[00:30:54] I found out why.

[00:30:55] Or else I would have like, that's the rock that like I die on.

[00:30:59] Yeah.

[00:30:59] For Black Friday.

[00:31:00] Andrew, what is your hot take?

[00:31:02] Okay.

[00:31:04] Honestly, my hot take is that people's ego gets in the way in our industry way too often.

[00:31:14] For sure.

[00:31:14] That's not a hot take.

[00:31:16] That's not a hot take.

[00:31:17] Take, yeah.

[00:31:18] Cut that out.

[00:31:19] Well, hang on, hang on.

[00:31:19] Maybe let's dig into it a bit.

[00:31:21] Is there something you're specifically talking about?

[00:31:23] Is there Twitter beefs that you're hearing?

[00:31:25] I can't get words here.

[00:31:26] Give us some fight.

[00:31:27] I mean, I just, I think there's, there's people are too much in a rush to be a person of authority

[00:31:33] because their ego wants them to be like, you're smart, you're smart, you're smart.

[00:31:37] And so they go out and they try to say things really declaratively and really definitively

[00:31:42] to make other people feel small.

[00:31:44] Oh, yeah.

[00:31:45] And I think that that is, or confuse them.

[00:31:48] Um, so there's a whole bunch of like complicating words and obfuscation.

[00:31:53] Um, I think there's a certain, I'm not saying this is bad, but I think there's a certain

[00:31:59] level of person that will turn the video on themselves to record their own thoughts

[00:32:03] for the audience to hear because they think that they're of a stature that people like

[00:32:08] really want to hear from them.

[00:32:10] And here we are sitting on a podcast and me saying this, but I think, uh, I think that

[00:32:17] a huge role, um, in actually misguiding and misinforming a lot of people, um, to not make

[00:32:24] their own decisions.

[00:32:25] Yeah.

[00:32:25] And, you know, I often think, um, I had a friend that was not, it's not in our industry.

[00:32:31] And one time I was telling him about, you know, some of the Twitter beefs that were going

[00:32:34] on or something.

[00:32:36] And he's like, all you need to do is just keep laying bricks.

[00:32:39] Yeah.

[00:32:40] It's all you need to do, you know?

[00:32:41] So my, my hot take is that I think that that really leads people astray.

[00:32:45] And I think that that also distracts a lot of people.

[00:32:48] Um, and ultimately it can be helpful to be on X, uh, in our industry, but then I don't

[00:32:53] think you necessarily have to be.

[00:32:54] And ultimately I think it might be better if you aren't most of the time for your mental

[00:32:58] health.

[00:32:59] Yeah.

[00:32:59] And I, and for your business wealth.

[00:33:01] Yeah.

[00:33:01] When has it ever been, bro, I've opened up X one time and I, yeah, we talked about this.

[00:33:08] I opened it up.

[00:33:09] I had to open it up for a while.

[00:33:10] And I looked at Tris and I was like, bro, I feel bad about myself.

[00:33:15] I got to shut this thing, close it, get rid of it.

[00:33:18] Yeah.

[00:33:18] Yeah.

[00:33:18] My other hot take is I think that, uh, now that I'm thinking, now that I'm rolling on

[00:33:22] hot takes, my, my, another one is that a lot of the advice that you hear is incredibly,

[00:33:28] is like all needs of way more context.

[00:33:33] Oh yeah.

[00:33:33] Oh, for sure.

[00:33:34] Like you need, you need to, to actually be like, okay, what country are you advertising

[00:33:39] in?

[00:33:40] Because you hear stuff from people.

[00:33:42] This is what's working.

[00:33:43] This is what's working.

[00:33:43] And it's like, that's, what's working for this brand that's spending this amount in this

[00:33:48] geography.

[00:33:49] Yeah.

[00:33:49] And it does not apply to me in this particular thing.

[00:33:52] So I think that, I think that as an industry, like my hot take is like add context as much

[00:33:58] as you can, but it's going to be helpful.

[00:34:00] Can we, can we say it for real?

[00:34:02] Twitter beefs or Twitter, not Twitter beefs, but this, this context, what it is, people that

[00:34:08] are spending a million bucks a month.

[00:34:10] Yeah.

[00:34:11] They can't give advice.

[00:34:12] They should not give advice.

[00:34:14] They should only give advice to people that are spending a million dollars a month.

[00:34:17] Yeah.

[00:34:18] Yeah.

[00:34:18] Right.

[00:34:18] Yeah.

[00:34:18] So different.

[00:34:19] I can't have my dude that's not spending a million dollars a month come at me with

[00:34:24] some LinkedIn article or like some tweet that from a dude that I know is he's spending a

[00:34:30] million dollars a month.

[00:34:31] It's like, why aren't you doing this in my account?

[00:34:32] Why don't you give me a million dollars?

[00:34:34] Yeah.

[00:34:34] And I'll do it in your account.

[00:34:35] No problem at all.

[00:34:36] I think that's, I mean, that's huge.

[00:34:37] And like, you know, it's, it's, it's that.

[00:34:40] And it's also a misunderstanding of, of actually the smaller accounts.

[00:34:45] They're just so much more nuanced to it.

[00:34:47] And I just think it does a huge disservice, honestly, to our industry that that's it.

[00:34:51] So I think the more, the best thing we can do is to continue to try to be like kind to

[00:34:55] one another, not like watch your ego and to try to add context.

[00:35:00] And I think if we do that, it's big.

[00:35:01] The fourth thing I'll say on like this threat, like this idea is I think as much as you can

[00:35:07] and as much as people, anybody that's watching this can, the smart people that, you know,

[00:35:11] smart young people that, you know, or people that are looking to move careers in your

[00:35:15] life, get them involved in our industry.

[00:35:18] We need more people in our industry that are good people.

[00:35:22] You know, look at the advent of creative strategy as a job.

[00:35:26] I mean, there's a lot of people that are coming in from different parts.

[00:35:29] And I think that's been good overall for us.

[00:35:31] And so the more that you can, especially if they're people of color and women, I think

[00:35:36] that's really good because that helps us to actually market better generally as an

[00:35:41] industry and not be just a bunch of white dudes giving ideas to each other.

[00:35:45] And so I think that in order to like be marketers for the world and be marketers for marketplaces

[00:35:51] all around, the more that we think holistically and the more that we bring in people that don't

[00:35:55] look like us, the better off our businesses will be.

[00:35:58] Because the reality is, is like we have to be good at marketing to people that look different

[00:36:05] than us long term.

[00:36:06] And that's going to make us more money.

[00:36:07] And that's going to make our customers more money.

[00:36:09] And he's thinking about that and thinking about the inherent bias that you have.

[00:36:12] So I think that's a big one that I've been certainly ruminating on recently.

[00:36:15] That's another hot take.

[00:36:16] I think the diversity in our industry has gotten better, but it needs to get a 10x.

[00:36:21] Yeah.

[00:36:21] And I'm saying, I think it's on people like us and people in our founders group or people

[00:36:24] that are watching this, you know, it's on us to be the people that are trying to make

[00:36:29] that change, to be like, because we've been in it a long time.

[00:36:32] Right.

[00:36:32] And I think it's on us to be like, let's try to figure that out.

[00:36:34] Let's try to bring more folks in.

[00:36:36] Because I think that's, yeah, I just think it's good overall.

[00:36:39] Like it's, we need more good, smart people because ultimately the people, some of the

[00:36:43] people we met at the founders meet up yesterday, right.

[00:36:46] They're like 10 years younger than us.

[00:36:48] Right.

[00:36:49] They're younger.

[00:36:50] Believe it.

[00:36:51] Yeah.

[00:36:51] They're young and they're bringing fresh new ideas.

[00:36:54] Because that's great.

[00:36:56] And we want that innovation and we want those new ideas.

[00:36:59] That's what's going to really move us forward.

[00:37:01] That's what's going to help us be at, like continue to be ahead.

[00:37:04] Because I think, you know, you get in your job, you do the same thing for a long time.

[00:37:08] There's the blinders you have on to some degree, which is good, but you also need to continue

[00:37:12] learning from those people.

[00:37:13] I mean, I'm biased, but obviously the founders membership is a great place to do that.

[00:37:17] What I've definitely found though yesterday is that curiosity, just that consistently

[00:37:22] innovation, the new ways of doing that.

[00:37:23] Absolutely.

[00:37:24] I'm running this way to do creative testing.

[00:37:26] I'm doing this way, iterating on different creative.

[00:37:29] There's no, back to something you were saying earlier on about this ego thing.

[00:37:33] The best people in business I've ever seen can hold two things to be true.

[00:37:36] Yeah.

[00:37:36] What they believe and what someone else believes.

[00:37:38] They don't have to tear down the other person's idea.

[00:37:40] Yeah.

[00:37:41] And that's where you see a lot of ego-led leaders and ego-led people tearing each other down.

[00:37:45] It's like, you don't, it's not a zero-sum game.

[00:37:47] Well, I mean, yeah.

[00:37:48] I mean, I've really been inspired spending time with you recently over the last like week

[00:37:51] here together of like your curiosity is a huge part of it.

[00:37:55] And Edwin, you've always had that.

[00:37:56] I mean, I've always, I've learned that from you guys.

[00:37:58] I think that when, I think that.

[00:38:00] You guys have been meeting ex parte?

[00:38:01] Yeah.

[00:38:02] We've been meeting behind your back.

[00:38:03] Yeah.

[00:38:03] We're looking to take over.

[00:38:05] But yeah, I think, I think, I think that's true.

[00:38:07] I think that the curiosity piece is really, really big and we'll continue the innovation.

[00:38:11] So yeah, bring new people in.

[00:38:13] I think that's a good thing for all of us.

[00:38:14] Yeah.

[00:38:14] We actually work with like, and this is not a plug on our side.

[00:38:17] It's literally something that we've made a conscious effort to do is work with more

[00:38:21] female founders, female founders and female-led companies.

[00:38:24] Yeah.

[00:38:25] And to the point now where 60% of our clients are 50%, 60% of our clients are female-led founders.

[00:38:32] Nice.

[00:38:32] That's amazing.

[00:38:32] Which is really cool.

[00:38:33] That's good.

[00:38:33] I mean, I just think it's good for the industry overall.

[00:38:35] I mean, male egos, I love being around guys.

[00:38:38] I love being, you know, guy friends are great, but there's like a male ego thing that does come

[00:38:42] into play, especially when it comes to business long-term that I think is detrimental.

[00:38:47] And a lot of it largely, actually, those of us that run marketing agencies, we're actually

[00:38:52] trying to market to women a lot of the time.

[00:38:54] Yeah.

[00:38:55] Like, and so it's like, we, we need to have more perspective in what we're trying to do.

[00:39:00] Yeah.

[00:39:01] And I think the more, I mean, not just the way that we're like mirroring what's on TikTok

[00:39:05] to explain things, but also like just thinking about things from a female-led perspective is

[00:39:10] going to be useful.

[00:39:11] And so that just means we need more women in the industry, which, and so go talk to your

[00:39:16] friends, get them in, tell them about creative strategy jobs.

[00:39:18] Tell them about Dardeni's course, tell them about our course.

[00:39:21] Tell them, I mean, I don't care.

[00:39:22] Watch Raul Lissar's YouTube videos.

[00:39:24] You know what I'm saying?

[00:39:25] Upskill yourself.

[00:39:26] This is a, this is an industry that you can, you can go from zero to hero pretty quick.

[00:39:30] And I think that the more people know that, the better off that can be because those of

[00:39:36] us that are, have been in a while, I think that we need, we need that to keep us going,

[00:39:41] to keep us learning and to keep making our, sure our industry is around for a really

[00:39:44] long time.

[00:39:45] Absolutely.

[00:39:46] Who's your favorite founder member?

[00:39:50] He has to say you now.

[00:39:52] He was like happy with me.

[00:39:54] Yeah.

[00:39:54] Camera's rolling.

[00:39:55] I mean, honestly, you know, the biggest thing for me that's funny is, you know, I, the people

[00:40:00] in the founders group, I've become, I've just become friends with you guys.

[00:40:04] Yeah.

[00:40:05] You know, like it's, it's, it's true, it's true friendship and, and it, and so valuable

[00:40:10] because you, it's so rare that you have a friend that knows the deep of like the deep

[00:40:15] side of what you actually do professionally and the nuance and the things that you carry

[00:40:19] and the things that you like hold in your bones.

[00:40:20] Yeah.

[00:40:21] Do you know what I mean?

[00:40:22] Yeah.

[00:40:22] And so to me, the fact that we can go around the world and be in Amsterdam here and have

[00:40:26] 50 people get together or however many were there, 50 or 60 people and chatting and being

[00:40:30] with them.

[00:40:31] And at the end of it, we're all like giving each other hugs goodbye.

[00:40:34] You know, that's, that to me is, is like so insanely beautiful and makes my heart sing.

[00:40:42] Like, it's just, it's great.

[00:40:44] So, I mean, who, I mean, the people I look at that are like friends, the people that I

[00:40:49] look at, but are like true friends, you know, coming off of it.

[00:40:52] Like, you know, I think about somebody, honestly, I mean, like you guys, like Phil, you guys are

[00:40:56] in this, like Phil Keel is a person, right?

[00:40:58] Like I learned from Phil all the time and it's just because he's thinking differently.

[00:41:03] He's got different ideas.

[00:41:04] I love from, I love, I love working with him.

[00:41:05] You know, I look at somebody like Akvila, who is an incredible leader who has made a choice

[00:41:10] to be her own boss and has made a choice to run things a certain way and knows what she

[00:41:15] wants to do and knows what she doesn't want to do.

[00:41:17] And I'm, yeah, like that's the kind of stuff I'm like, man, that's really, I mean, Jenny

[00:41:21] Lynn's an example, you know, you watch her talk about your offer and you're like, and she just

[00:41:25] makes you question, like, you're like, what am I doing with my life?

[00:41:28] You're like, that is a shitty offer we have, you know?

[00:41:30] And so that's the kind of thing that I mean, it's like the constant bringing in of new ideas

[00:41:36] from people, because I think there's also that idea of it.

[00:41:39] If you're going to join a community that's around collective learning, you're a person

[00:41:43] that's intellectually curious by nature.

[00:41:45] That's you're not coming in and saying, I've only had one time a guy came in and he goes,

[00:41:49] I've been in the founders membership a month.

[00:41:50] I know all this, so I'm going to leave.

[00:41:52] And I was like, awesome.

[00:41:54] I will speak to you never.

[00:41:57] Actually, I was me.

[00:41:58] So I was like, actually, I was like, good luck.

[00:42:00] Like, I wish you luck, you know?

[00:42:01] Best of luck.

[00:42:02] Like, yeah, like it's, I'm not trying to get any bad blood in the world.

[00:42:05] But mostly the people that are in there, the regular people, it's like that curiosity

[00:42:09] that drives us forward.

[00:42:10] And that's really what's inspiring to me is that the people that I look to that I'm like,

[00:42:14] yo, they're so good.

[00:42:15] And I'm so glad that I'm learning from them.

[00:42:17] They're asking questions.

[00:42:19] Have you seen this?

[00:42:19] Have you seen that?

[00:42:20] And that makes me feel more like, OK, cool.

[00:42:23] They're asking it too, because I think we all deal with imposter syndrome all the time.

[00:42:28] And it's like, it's natural in doing this work.

[00:42:30] And so I think that if it's a place that can help you feel more validated, help you

[00:42:33] feel like you're, you know, learning and that you're able to ask in a vulnerable way,

[00:42:40] that's really beautiful.

[00:42:41] Yeah.

[00:42:42] That imposter syndrome is massive.

[00:42:43] I mean, we've, a couple of people I was talking to yesterday, even we're talking and

[00:42:47] they were saying like, I just, I'm seeing all these amazing talks, amazing words being

[00:42:52] said and strategies given.

[00:42:54] And I have nothing.

[00:42:55] I'm just talking.

[00:42:55] I'm just talking about something.

[00:42:57] And it's, it's, yeah, it's amazing.

[00:42:59] The humility that we're seeing in there is fantastic.

[00:43:02] Can we talk about cost caps?

[00:43:04] What the fuck?

[00:43:06] I, I, I, no, no, but there's this whole movement at the moment to be like, let's do cost caps.

[00:43:13] Let's do cost caps.

[00:43:14] You turn off your notifications.

[00:43:16] Turn off your Twitter notifications.

[00:43:18] Is that block button, not block button, that mute button for certain words.

[00:43:21] If someone mentions cost caps in there.

[00:43:22] Don't you have like AI on everything?

[00:43:24] Block it.

[00:43:24] Yeah.

[00:43:25] Yeah.

[00:43:25] Why, Andrew, why, why are people doing this?

[00:43:28] Why are people going for cost caps?

[00:43:29] I mean, I think there's always a validity to, to, to keeping, you know, costs reined in

[00:43:35] and having cost controls on.

[00:43:36] I think, I think that they, there's more predictability to them than there was before.

[00:43:42] I think that it's still not something that I think you want to do a hundred percent of

[00:43:48] the time.

[00:43:48] Personally.

[00:43:49] For sure.

[00:43:49] I think that you, we did see a new member that joined and he's transitioned a hundred

[00:43:54] percent to cost caps with target ROAS.

[00:43:58] Does he wake up at 5am and take ice pass every day?

[00:44:02] And he, and, but I learned recently that I think he's spending like north of 500k a month.

[00:44:06] Woo!

[00:44:07] So there, you know, these are the things that you have to kind of understand about that there's

[00:44:11] a volume to it as well.

[00:44:13] Right?

[00:44:13] Like if you're going to be doing these, if you're going to be doing cost caps, you're going to

[00:44:16] be doing really kind of like limiters on the account.

[00:44:19] If, if you're at a certain level, it's okay if it goes from 10k down to, you know, or from,

[00:44:24] you know, 100k down to 10k to 60k, you know, you kind of have to accept that inherent volatility

[00:44:31] almost to it.

[00:44:32] And it's a different way of, of going about things.

[00:44:35] And it also obviously works when you have like creative winners.

[00:44:38] So it's sort of like you have to be at a certain stage to be thinking about this longer term.

[00:44:43] Yeah.

[00:44:44] I'm not, so the thing that I think we get into is there's very little that differentiates

[00:44:52] us as advertisers.

[00:44:54] Sometimes I think that, you know, you look at them and say, oh, they, you know, these

[00:44:57] agencies look largely the same.

[00:44:59] And I think that cost caps is an example of something that people utilize as like a sales

[00:45:05] tactic.

[00:45:06] And I, I'm not saying this is everyone, but I do think this is like a decently common

[00:45:12] thing that people will say like, oh, well, you know, we have this secret sauce that you

[00:45:16] don't know about.

[00:45:17] Yeah.

[00:45:18] Okay.

[00:45:18] And I think other, I think the people that are real cost cap maxis would say like, no,

[00:45:23] like we just know they work.

[00:45:24] And I think that if they haven't worked for you, you're doing it wrong.

[00:45:27] Okay.

[00:45:28] And so.

[00:45:30] It's like that ego thing though, right?

[00:45:32] Cause.

[00:45:32] Yeah, it comes.

[00:45:32] And so to me, it's always.

[00:45:34] Mute.

[00:45:34] Twitter.

[00:45:35] Mute.

[00:45:36] To me, it's always like, uh, it's a thing of, I'm not saying it's an invalid idea.

[00:45:41] I'm not saying I probably wouldn't switch everything entirely onto it.

[00:45:45] The reason that Zach is doing is because they're not in a scaling portion of their business

[00:45:50] because they're holding inventory.

[00:45:52] Can just, I think you just name dropped it.

[00:45:56] And so.

[00:45:56] Oh no.

[00:45:57] Yeah.

[00:45:57] Yeah.

[00:45:57] Yeah.

[00:45:58] He says on Twitter.

[00:45:59] Yeah.

[00:45:59] He said.

[00:46:00] Oh, so Zach, Zach is Zach said Zach suck.

[00:46:02] Who's actually like literally one of my best friends.

[00:46:04] Actually, he went on and said, I'm going to try these because it's something I've seen.

[00:46:09] And we are, we are holding inventory for Q4.

[00:46:12] And so we don't want to do like a ton, but we want to see if it can control costs to keep

[00:46:15] margin up in what it's going to do.

[00:46:18] I think it's a great time to give it a shot.

[00:46:19] Right.

[00:46:20] I think anybody giving things a try is never a bad idea.

[00:46:24] I think the cost cap thing is really interesting because it's sort of like this white hot topic,

[00:46:27] this discussion, and it seems to bring up a lot of like passionate feelings.

[00:46:32] There you go.

[00:46:33] But what's the context?

[00:46:34] Like, so look, you talk about context, right?

[00:46:37] Right.

[00:46:37] And so you're spending 20K and under.

[00:46:41] Cost cap?

[00:46:42] No, I wouldn't say so.

[00:46:43] No, because you're really looking at a volume play.

[00:46:45] Okay.

[00:46:45] What's the volume though?

[00:46:47] Like generally when you're seeing it.

[00:46:49] I mean, to me, like if you're going to be spending any, if you're spending 50K, north

[00:46:53] of 50K a month, like I think looking at a campaign, maybe one that's cost capped,

[00:46:57] I think it's like a legitimate idea.

[00:46:58] Yeah.

[00:46:59] I think there's definitely validity in that.

[00:47:00] Maybe you're going to cost cap the whole campaign or everything, you know, over time,

[00:47:04] you're going to transition into that.

[00:47:06] Really what you have to get used to is you have to get used to, like I said, a day where

[00:47:09] it doesn't spend anything and then a day where it spends the entire budget.

[00:47:13] You also have to be really weary because there are, I mean, at least from what I, like a couple

[00:47:20] times when we've seen personally, I've seen it personally on our accounts.

[00:47:23] And then from like the community, a dozen, jakers dozen other times where people have

[00:47:29] been days in the last, let's just even say like four months where cost caps, just Facebook

[00:47:33] just forgot about them for the day.

[00:47:35] Yeah.

[00:47:36] So, so then there's like, so then the, you know, so then you have it because a lot of

[00:47:39] it is that you're spending it, you're spending, you're having the campaign budgets at this

[00:47:43] really high budgets because if it's really good, you want it to be that.

[00:47:46] Right.

[00:47:46] And so then they'll just spend through a whole budget of 10 K by 9 AM or something, and then

[00:47:51] you're totally screwed.

[00:47:52] So I think you, this is one of those things of like we talked about before with Zuck, like

[00:47:57] you want it to work that way, but it just doesn't a hundred percent yet.

[00:48:01] Yeah.

[00:48:01] Right.

[00:48:01] And so that's another piece about it.

[00:48:04] So I guess my feeling is that generally they're on the table because there's a lot of people

[00:48:08] that are utilizing this as a sales technique to make, to make it seem like there's something

[00:48:14] that they have that you don't.

[00:48:15] I think that there's also people that are pushing it, that have seen it work over time

[00:48:20] and really believe in the meta system and believe that it is the most profitable thing

[00:48:24] to do and have seen it repeatable in accounts.

[00:48:26] And they're talking about it because they're evangelizing it because they think it's really

[00:48:29] a great way to control costs and make businesses more profitable.

[00:48:34] And I think there's validity in that.

[00:48:35] And I also think that it, there's people that have tried it and it hasn't worked and

[00:48:40] they've tried it again and again and it hasn't worked and they've tried to raise

[00:48:43] it up by 10% or by 15% a day or every 72 hours or whatever.

[00:48:47] And it hasn't worked.

[00:48:48] And so it's like, there's all of these things are true.

[00:48:51] So my point is, is that if you are having a situation where you're not, you're not scaling

[00:48:57] profitably and you're spending 50 K a month or more, is it a valid, is it a valid idea

[00:49:03] to try them?

[00:49:04] Sure.

[00:49:05] Yeah.

[00:49:05] Why not?

[00:49:06] Absolutely.

[00:49:07] Would I try a cost control for the first time during Q4?

[00:49:09] I probably would not because I would rather get the lot of volume through this.

[00:49:13] Please don't.

[00:49:14] Please don't.

[00:49:14] But like, you know, is it, if, if you want to have, if you want to control costs during

[00:49:21] Q4 and make margins better and make sure that your CPA doesn't go above a certain amount,

[00:49:26] that's a, that's a valid argument.

[00:49:28] And that could be something that you'd want to try, but you are again, largely going to be

[00:49:32] sacrificing volume from, you know, for the most part.

[00:49:36] So it depends on you having creative winners.

[00:49:38] It depends on you having a lot of factors that go into it.

[00:49:41] Yeah.

[00:49:41] It was not just like an easy fix.

[00:49:42] Yeah.

[00:49:43] So I think there's, it's like yes and no.

[00:49:45] I think it does a good talk about it in the, in the founders group.

[00:49:50] I think what he talks about is again, that making sure you have constant winners.

[00:49:54] And if you don't have constant winners, it's kind of like you gotta, you gotta have the right

[00:49:58] tools to be able to do that particular job.

[00:50:00] You can't just compare lowest costs to cost gaps.

[00:50:03] You have to have the consistent winners.

[00:50:06] You have to have the consistent testing and everything else like that, that will allow you

[00:50:09] to kind of see, it'll allow you to do it.

[00:50:12] You can't just go, oh, I'm going to turn this on.

[00:50:14] It's going to work.

[00:50:15] You can't expect that.

[00:50:16] You have, you have to have testing, have done your tests in lowest cost.

[00:50:19] You have to have done your tests in ABO.

[00:50:21] Yeah.

[00:50:21] Making sure that they work there and then bring that stuff in.

[00:50:24] That's really your kind of, is where you gotta go with it.

[00:50:26] I mean, it's just a funny, honestly, like it's, I'm just going to go, going to go off

[00:50:30] on this really briefly, but like, it's just a continuation of, in my opinion, this kind

[00:50:34] of stuff, these little things that are just driven largely by people talking about complicated

[00:50:40] shit or talking about things that are actually simple and making them seem complicated to

[00:50:44] confuse people, to make them become dependent upon you and your content to explain it to them.

[00:50:49] And that is just a really, that is, it's so frustrating to me because it's like, I think

[00:50:57] if you're going to be speaking about stuff, like make it easy to read, make it public or

[00:51:01] not just public, but like, it doesn't have to be so complicated.

[00:51:05] It doesn't have to be that way.

[00:51:06] You know, but like, then again, like also I'm, we have a membership and I'm like, you

[00:51:10] know, if you want the real insights, come inside the Foxville founders.

[00:51:13] It's like, I guess I'm doing it too.

[00:51:14] I mean, it's like in reality, but like, I, I'm trying, I try to not be like holding,

[00:51:20] like, this is a secret sauce.

[00:51:22] Like it's the membership's a secret sauce for you.

[00:51:24] Well, the, you know, the membership really gives you like a diverse set of perspectives

[00:51:27] you're going to learn from and say, like really a safe place that you can come in and ask

[00:51:31] questions, not be flame for asking that question on X.

[00:51:34] And that's a lot of people have said that the reason that they joined.

[00:51:37] Yeah.

[00:51:37] And so I think there's a difference there.

[00:51:40] And I think in order to continue to actually evolve and like bring more people in, like,

[00:51:44] I talked about earlier and involve the industry properly, which is, I think some of the duty

[00:51:48] that we have doing this kind of like making people feel dumb type thing is just not a useful

[00:51:54] thing for us to be doing.

[00:51:55] And I don't think that it's, I don't think it's, it's good.

[00:51:58] And I don't think that it really helps us overall because it really keeps people out.

[00:52:02] It's like the other day I tried to go rent the bike from Rafa cycling club and they didn't

[00:52:08] include the pedals or a helmet on a bike rental because they're, because they're like, well,

[00:52:14] if you, or shoes, they're like, if you're a hardcore cyclist, you're going to bring your

[00:52:17] own pedals.

[00:52:18] And it's like, this is dumb.

[00:52:20] This is stupid.

[00:52:20] Like make it accessible.

[00:52:22] You know what I mean?

[00:52:23] Like, you know, which is why a lot of times, like we take the best stuff from the founders

[00:52:26] membership and turn them into blogs because we wanted that to be out there.

[00:52:29] So, I mean, obviously I'm struggling with that too.

[00:52:31] We were a little bit in that case, but I don't, I really try not to be like overly declarative

[00:52:36] about things.

[00:52:36] So I think it's a big part of it.

[00:52:38] So anyway, it's been more transparent than I thought it would be.

[00:52:41] All right, guys, that is a wrap.

[00:52:43] We talked with the guy, with the man himself, Mr. Andrew Foxall, the man with the biggest

[00:52:48] mic.

[00:52:49] We talked about Q4.

[00:52:52] We had a couple of hot takes, a couple of intro looking inside what to do to keep yourself

[00:52:58] sane for Q4.

[00:53:00] I'm Edwin.

[00:53:00] I'm Tris.

[00:53:01] And I'm a big cheese.

[00:53:05] Thanks, guys.

[00:53:06] So there you go.

[00:53:09] A sample episode of the fantastic Founders Forum podcast.

[00:53:12] If you like the kind of depth of information that you get in there, and honestly, I don't

[00:53:16] think you can get that kind of information really on any other podcast, including ours.

[00:53:23] Just look for Founders Forum podcast.

[00:53:26] And if you're interested in Andrew's Foxwell Founders community, go to today.

[00:53:31] Today in digital.com slash founders.

[00:53:33] That's our affiliate link.

[00:53:34] We have been in there since the inception of the group.

[00:53:37] All right.

[00:53:38] That'll do it for the week.

[00:53:39] I'll be back on Monday with a special deep dive science episode about how schadenfreude can

[00:53:45] be used in your marketing.

[00:53:47] Today in digital marketing is produced by Engage Q Digital on the traditional territories of

[00:53:52] this new name of First Nation on Vancouver Island.

[00:53:55] Our associate producer is the intrepid Steph Gunn.

[00:53:58] Our production coordinator is Sarah Guild.

[00:54:00] Our director of Crazy is Mark Blevis.

[00:54:02] I'm Todd Maffin.

[00:54:04] Have a restful weekend and I will see you on Monday.