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It’s not because my ad sucks,

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it’s because it’s speaking
to saying the wrong thing

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to this person. At this time,

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I’m not speaking to this vast majority
of people in the way that they want to be

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spoken to.

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Hey, this episode is brought
to you by OMG Commerce.

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That’s the agency that I get
the privilege of running.

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Do you ever feel like it’s Groundhog Day
when it comes to your marketing where

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every day’s the same, you’re still
relying on the same channels,

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got the same ads you’re leaning
into? Maybe it’s time to diversify,

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maybe it’s time to unlock new
growth. That’s what we specialize in.

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My guess is if you’re like most brands,

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you’re probably leaning heavily into
meta ads and long live meta. We love it,

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but you’re probably missing YouTube ads.

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And my guess is maybe Google
is under leveraged as well.

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We’ve helped multiple brands
go from zero to 5, 10, 15,

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even $25,000 a day.

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We helped kani a hair regrowth
product go from zero to $1 million in

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YouTube ad spend in 90 days
while hitting their CAC

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target.

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And we’d love to see if we could do
the same for you. So we’d love to chat,

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talk about what it takes to scale on
YouTube and how ready you are right now.

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So let’s chat and go to omg commerce.com.

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Click the Let’s Talk button and we’d love
to help you dominate with YouTube ads.

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Well, hello and welcome to another edition
of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

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I’m your host, Brett
Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce,

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and today we’ve got a return guest.

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This guy is lighting up
LinkedIn on the daily.

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You can hear him on all your favorite
podcasts if you’re into marketing at all

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and you’ve ever tried to determine how
much should I be putting into performance

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versus brand and is any of this
real and how do I measure it,

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then this guy is a beacon
of light in our industry

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and so excited to have him back on
the podcast. But I’ve got the one,

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the only Preston Rutherford co-founder of

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Looking Good Today.
Preston, how’s it going man?

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And thanks for coming back on the pod.

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Yeah, I mean, we were talking
about this a second ago,

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but I think my first go with you is
my first ever podcast appearance.

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So thank you for just getting me going.

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But now I’m excited to be here. This
would be a lot fun, that glowing intro.

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Playing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you
bet. Playing a very small part in

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your podcast career there. But
yeah, I think it was the first,

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I was watching LinkedIn, I was like,
Hey, wait a minute, this guy’s good.

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And it looks like maybe he’s just
kind starting to post on LinkedIn.

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So I jumped on it like, Hey,
come on the pod. And you did.

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I love it.

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And the rest is history, man.

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But I love what you and
team built with Chub.

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I love how it’s continued to succeed and
I want to talk about that a little bit

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in a minute because it’s such
an important note to make.

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And then I think really the time is right.

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You’ve been talking about this for years.

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The time is right to be thinking
about brand building and performance

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marketing, sustainable, profitable growth.

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It’s just all kind of lining up.
We had the COVID era rock and roll,

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crazy Hair on Fire growth where just
grow growth, spend, spend, spend.

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We’ll figure out profits later to,
oh shoot, we got to make money.

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We’re not making any money
now. Let’s measure everything.

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And so I think we’re coming to
this place where it’s like, okay,

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let’s look at this holistically.
And just so you know,

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I’ve always felt like marketing
has to drive some kind of actions.

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It’s got to drive some.

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If we’re advertising and people
do nothing with that advertising,

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what are we doing? In fact,
you’ll appreciate this.

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My first little consultancy
right out of college,

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I was working with local businesses,

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my tagline was marketing that builds
your brand and your bottom line.

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Love that.

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I was trying to help the local car
dealership and local retail stores.

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It was super fun, but.

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Love.

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That.

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I love how you guys have done this
and that led to a nine figure exit

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with Chub and just your perspective
here is really, really valuable.

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So maybe talk a little bit about the
journey for those that dunno with

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Chubby, how you got to your
current philosophy on marketing,

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and then we’ll talk about Chubby’s success
right now because it’s kind of crazy

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how well it’s doing right now, but
tell us a little bit of the story.

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Sure, sure, sure. Yeah,
absolutely. So I’m a tiny,

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tiny part of the success.
So one of four co-founders

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and we started the business back in 2011.

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We were four or five years out of college,

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just didn’t want to work for other
people more than anything and just we’re

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looking for something to
start and stumbled upon

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the shorter, short, the whole
vibe of let’s just be different.

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It was different from what was in Vogue
at the time from a men’s app peril

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perspective where it was very stuffy
and Abercrombie and Fitch shirts off

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guys standing in front of the store,
spring you with cologne playing horrible.

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I dunno, German house music or whatever.

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And.

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You had to look a certain way, we’re too
cool for you, you can’t hang with us.

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And there’s, thats the opposite
of what we think should exist.

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So that was like a foundational premise.
And then the shorts were just super,

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super long and we all kind grew up
either playing soccer or rugby or we were

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from the south and all of those things.

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You’re used to sort of
shorts actual short.

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And then there was a sort of
aspirational look back to our dads

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on their spring breaks in college when
they were growing up and how awesome they

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look the mustaches and the
shorter and that whole thing.

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So all that kind of came together
and we’re just like, well shoot,

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let’s just try to, we don’t
want to work for other people.

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It’d be fun to work together. Let’s just
try to start something. So I was back.

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In 21. You guys helped.

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Were you writing that trend or do you
feel like you kind of propelled that

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trend? Because there was a time,

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I’m a kid of the nineties and so we were
with my basketball team in high school.

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We were coming off of all the old uniforms
from the seventies days were super

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short.

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Super short.

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Shockingly, almost
obscenely short. Exactly.

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And then it was the Fab five for
missions. Everybody’s going baggy shorts.

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That was the rage. Totally. Now
definitely short, excuse me, the trend.

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Did you guys launch that trend back to
short or did you just ride the wave that

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was already there? What’s
your perspective on that?

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I mean, dude, this is 2011,
so I’m obviously very biased,

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but when we came out with shorter shorts,

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it was absurdly different. Yeah.

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I think guys really propelled
that. I think you did. I think.

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So. Yes, I definitely think so.

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And it’s one of those things that
takes 15 years to really kind of get

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going. It just takes a long time.
But no, we were starkly different,

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and I think that was one of the main
reasons why we were able to stand out

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because there was that latent
demand of people who were,

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it was like sometimes there were
shorter folks who had to cut the

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shorts that they had.

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They had to go to Savers or Goodwill
and they had to find older shorts.

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Or there were folks who generally,

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maybe they had bigger quads or something
like that and they wanted to show ’em

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off.

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Or you had folks who played
sports and just kind of wanted a

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better short that just kind of
fit with what they were used to.

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There were all these sorts of things
where there was latent demand,

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and so there was this niche of
people who were down with it,

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but broadly it was very
frowned upon and viewed as

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stupid and less masculine,
all of this kind of stuff.

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So we just tried to turn the tables
and did all of these things where from

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a brand and positioning perspective
made it seem completely,

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our goal at least was to
make it completely inarguable
that shorts were meant to

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be short, and that if you were
scared to show off your actual legs,

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maybe that was representative of a lack
of confidence or that you’re hiding

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something or that what’s in
those pockets of those shorts. So

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yeah, no, it was very rare at the time.

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It certainly wasn’t a trend
that existed in a big way.

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Totally makes sense. So yeah, I’m going
to credit you guys with that for sure.

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So you say you don’t want to work with
people, you want to work for yourselves,

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you want something that’s not the stuffy
kind of will tell you how to be cool

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type of thing like Abercrombie
and Fitch and stuff like that.

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So you launched the brand
then pick us up from there.

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Sure, yeah.

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So I mean at the beginning it was like
we had no money and the first person that

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we went to work with to actually make
some shorts for us just took our money.

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So it wasn’t a blazing
start I guess I would say.

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But we kind of funded the
early days with pre-sales.

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We were just trying to get emails,

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sign people up or we were doing
straight up in-person sales.

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We’d do events at bars or we
would sell shorts at the park

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very hand-to-hand combat sort of thing
that I think I highly recommend for

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anyone who’s just starting a
brand sell stuff in person,

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but then started to get some early success

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and I think started to grow a little
bit, which was the early goal.

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And it was the time of Facebook ads
were just becoming a thing and you could

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spend a dollar get 10 out or
whatever the exorbitant number was at

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the time, same.

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Numbers.

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And you just start to feel
this godlike power that,

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I mean, you can’t necessarily cure cancer,

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but you can sell shorts on the internet
and put a dollar in and get 10 out

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pretty.

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Print profit profits at will. Yeah,

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it was kind of like the very early
days of Google where you were literally

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getting five and Tencent clicks.

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It’s like you could literally print money
and then those were such unique times

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that great take advantage of that.
It was never going to last forever.

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00:10:11,070 –> 00:10:11,910
So that’s kind of.

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00:10:11,910 –> 00:10:13,830
Well didn’t, that’s the thing,
we didn’t know that, right?

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00:10:13,830 –> 00:10:17,940
I mean it’s hard to know that because
you’re like, why would this stop?

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00:10:19,320 –> 00:10:21,240
No, I don’t understand the macro dynamics.

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So we basically got obsessed with
that kind of thing, just like, oh,

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following the trend of what works,
what drives that 10 x ROAS or whatever.

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And so I think we were growing and
I think because we were just so new,

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we were doing the brand building thing,

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we just knew that was the way to
differentiate and we couldn’t spend 30% of

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revenue on marketing,

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so we had to do crazy stuff that was free.

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So that did the brand building
stuff in the early days.

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But then as we started to get more of a
flow and we needed more consistency and

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predictability,

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that’s when we just rotated into
just the pure demand capture.

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There was this latent demand
for fun apparel short kind of

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thing,

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and we were just capturing that so we
didn’t feel the pain because we didn’t

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need to create new demand for our brand,

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00:11:14,520 –> 00:11:18,900
for our product until we needed to.
And then that was less fun and that was

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about halfway in. And so we hit a little
bit of a midlife crisis if you’ll,

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but then that’s kind of where we had to
rebuild the business from the ground up

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again, all the credit to the team, all
the credit to the other founders here.

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I’m just a tiny, tiny part. I just
talk about it on the internet,

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but I was generally the one
who was representative of
all of bad decision making

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and it was the other founders who
were more representative of like, no,

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let’s build this thing for the
long term. Let’s find balance.

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And so then we had to learn what
demand creation, demand capture,

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what that balance looks like, how to
measure it, how to think about it,

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how to allocate that capital. But
ultimately it resulted a great,

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you mentioned all I can share
is a nine figure acquisition,

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00:12:02,020 –> 00:12:05,950
but now we’re going on eight years
of top and bottom line growth.

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00:12:05,950 –> 00:12:07,120
I’m not in the business anymore,

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00:12:07,120 –> 00:12:10,540
but Rainer one of the four co-founders
and exceptional team, great guy,

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00:12:10,600 –> 00:12:12,460
great team on an absolutely
crushing it. It’s.

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00:12:12,460 –> 00:12:13,600
Awesome. Yeah,

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00:12:14,530 –> 00:12:19,480
it really speaks to what you guys
built in the early days and to

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00:12:19,480 –> 00:12:23,290
see that sustained growth means
that you got a lot of it right?

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You got product right, you got team,

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00:12:25,000 –> 00:12:28,450
you got the approach to brand
building and performance marketing.

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You got that mix. And so I want
to dive in here a little bit.

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00:12:32,410 –> 00:12:34,540
One of the things you talk about a lot
online and that you and I have talked

216
00:12:34,540 –> 00:12:39,310
about one-to-one is had this
idea of the performance trap and

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00:12:39,310 –> 00:12:40,840
brand erosion,

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00:12:41,170 –> 00:12:44,440
which I know is kind of the trap you
guys fell into when you thought the 10 to

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00:12:44,440 –> 00:12:47,680
one row as was going to go on
forever and ever, and then it did,

220
00:12:47,680 –> 00:12:50,800
and then you’re like, oh shoot, what
do we do now? How to rebuild things,

221
00:12:50,800 –> 00:12:51,820
but talk about that a little bit.

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00:12:51,820 –> 00:12:55,300
What is that performance
trap and brand erosion?

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00:12:55,750 –> 00:12:57,190
How does a brand know they’re in it?

224
00:12:57,670 –> 00:12:59,050
And then we’ll talk about
how do you get out of it?

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00:12:59,500 –> 00:13:01,810
Sure. Yeah. I mean I
think it’s that feeling,

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00:13:02,380 –> 00:13:05,950
you feel it in your gut
where you’re just like, Hmm,

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00:13:07,060 –> 00:13:08,140
this can’t be right.

228
00:13:08,530 –> 00:13:13,120
This doesn’t feel like this
is what leads to a long-term

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00:13:13,870 –> 00:13:15,370
generational sort of thing.

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00:13:16,510 –> 00:13:19,300
You kind of look back at
your actions and you’re like,

231
00:13:19,390 –> 00:13:24,340
am I truly generating building
desirability for my brand

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00:13:24,730 –> 00:13:27,580
kind of thing or am I just making all
of these withdrawals without making any

233
00:13:27,580 –> 00:13:30,910
deposits? If you want to use a
bank account metaphor analogy,

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00:13:31,570 –> 00:13:33,400
but then it shows up in the data too.

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00:13:33,700 –> 00:13:37,150
I mean people will cite
a variety of stats.

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00:13:38,110 –> 00:13:41,080
My C is going, my customer
acquisition cost is going up,

237
00:13:41,080 –> 00:13:44,350
or my CPMs are going up,
or my reach is going down,

238
00:13:44,920 –> 00:13:49,750
cost per a thousand accounts reached
going down or contribution margins

239
00:13:49,750 –> 00:13:52,690
going down. I ran a sale this year,

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00:13:52,690 –> 00:13:56,950
I ran the same sale last year and the
lift from the sale this year was like

241
00:13:58,540 –> 00:14:01,960
50% of what I got last year. So next
year I’m going to have to double the

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00:14:01,960 –> 00:14:05,290
discount. Or the only way
I can scale spend on X, Y,

243
00:14:05,290 –> 00:14:09,970
Z channel is if there’s a really strong
offer now and I can’t just talk about my

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00:14:10,030 –> 00:14:12,280
product, I’ve got to throw an offer on it.

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All of these sorts of things where you
just look at the business and you’re

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00:14:17,320 –> 00:14:18,153
like, man,

247
00:14:19,240 –> 00:14:23,380
do I feel like I’m in a more defensible
position or do I feel more reliant on

248
00:14:23,380 –> 00:14:24,370
the ad platforms?

249
00:14:25,030 –> 00:14:29,740
Am I getting as much of my revenue from
people searching for my brand name and

250
00:14:29,740 –> 00:14:34,120
coming to my site and buying as I am
from a click on a buy button on an ad?

251
00:14:35,140 –> 00:14:39,580
You start to realize that probably
the answer is no to that, right?

252
00:14:40,030 –> 00:14:41,290
That part of, let’s call it,

253
00:14:41,560 –> 00:14:44,290
I don’t want to call it organic
demand or unpaid demand,

254
00:14:44,290 –> 00:14:49,270
but just the purchase behaviors
that were driving the mix of that

255
00:14:49,270 –> 00:14:53,870
over time can start to
get a little bit more over

256
00:14:53,870 –> 00:14:58,700
indexed onto the Let’s fight for clicks
and get the click kind of thing. You

257
00:14:58,910 –> 00:15:00,140
get into a place where
you’re like, well, shoot,

258
00:15:01,340 –> 00:15:04,100
my ROAS is like whatever the number is,

259
00:15:06,110 –> 00:15:10,610
and I’ve been able to grow
it, but has my business grown.

260
00:15:11,060 –> 00:15:15,470
You start to see those disconnect between
these metrics that we use to evaluate

261
00:15:15,920 –> 00:15:19,130
how we spend our money
and the actual business.

262
00:15:19,640 –> 00:15:23,240
And you start to get into these perverse
incentive situations where you’re like,

263
00:15:23,240 –> 00:15:24,073
okay,

264
00:15:24,170 –> 00:15:28,640
I’ve got to be at a marketing efficiency
ratio of a five or something like that.

265
00:15:28,640 –> 00:15:31,580
Great. And then I need to maximize
realize within that context. Great,

266
00:15:33,470 –> 00:15:38,420
and I need to get a blended five
on that. So you’re like, okay,

267
00:15:38,480 –> 00:15:43,370
well I could just remove
some audience exclusions and

268
00:15:43,370 –> 00:15:45,590
that will help me get a
little bit of a higher,

269
00:15:45,590 –> 00:15:48,320
realize I could retarget
a little bit more.

270
00:15:48,620 –> 00:15:50,150
I could spend a little bit
more on brand key with,

271
00:15:50,570 –> 00:15:53,030
you can do all these things
where you’re just like, well no,

272
00:15:53,030 –> 00:15:55,430
we need to capture that demand. We need
to make sure we’re defending our brand.

273
00:15:55,730 –> 00:15:59,300
We need to make sure we’re
doing X, y, z, blah, blah, blah.

274
00:15:59,720 –> 00:16:01,550
The meta algorithm will
handle it or whatever.

275
00:16:02,450 –> 00:16:05,390
And we can get into these slippery
slopes where it’s like, huh,

276
00:16:06,080 –> 00:16:09,290
but maybe I’m just claiming credit for
a lot of transactions that would’ve

277
00:16:09,290 –> 00:16:13,070
already happened. So anyways, there’s
this whole cycle where it’s like, okay,

278
00:16:13,490 –> 00:16:15,710
well we’re spending more to get less.

279
00:16:15,860 –> 00:16:18,620
I’m discounting more now.

280
00:16:18,620 –> 00:16:23,000
I’m more and more competing on
the level of features and price

281
00:16:23,390 –> 00:16:26,270
rather than just who I I’m as a brand.

282
00:16:27,110 –> 00:16:32,000
It ultimately manifests generally in
contribution dollars going down or

283
00:16:32,000 –> 00:16:36,050
contribution margin going down just like
the cash flowing through the business.

284
00:16:36,320 –> 00:16:37,550
Even if revenue’s going up,

285
00:16:38,240 –> 00:16:41,930
the cash actually dropping
to cover your fixed costs,

286
00:16:42,530 –> 00:16:45,800
you’re not looking as good as you
would generally like it to look.

287
00:16:46,370 –> 00:16:49,910
And if you trend that out two
years, three years, four years,

288
00:16:50,120 –> 00:16:51,320
it’s no bueno kind of thing.

289
00:16:52,490 –> 00:16:54,440
You see where we’re headed
in the wrong direction.

290
00:16:54,440 –> 00:16:58,490
Sometimes as ROAS climbs
or often as ROAS climbs,

291
00:16:59,180 –> 00:17:03,830
your overall contribution margin may
be going down and the incremental

292
00:17:03,830 –> 00:17:08,720
impact, incremental lift of your marketing
dollars often going down as well,

293
00:17:08,720 –> 00:17:12,650
meaning we’re making ourselves feel good
by looking in the ad account and pat

294
00:17:12,650 –> 00:17:14,420
ourselves on the back
with great ROAS numbers,

295
00:17:14,810 –> 00:17:18,560
but ultimately we’re not driving
new customers at an acceptable cost.

296
00:17:18,560 –> 00:17:20,510
We’re not fueling we organic growth,

297
00:17:20,510 –> 00:17:23,090
we’re not actually
driving the brand to grow.

298
00:17:23,630 –> 00:17:26,150
And that is absolutely no bueno.

299
00:17:28,120 –> 00:17:32,930
Two points of nuance on that super
quickly, two points of nuance on that.

300
00:17:34,670 –> 00:17:37,010
We were mentioning CAC
and customer acquisition.

301
00:17:37,100 –> 00:17:38,570
I got to hit my new customer count.

302
00:17:39,530 –> 00:17:44,480
So then one of the things that you do
kind of as a last ditch effort or it just

303
00:17:44,480 –> 00:17:45,710
continues and you don’t stop it,

304
00:17:45,710 –> 00:17:49,200
but it’s like bring them in with these
big promos, right? You’re like, oh,

305
00:17:49,200 –> 00:17:52,050
I hit my new customer goal
crushed on new customers.

306
00:17:52,740 –> 00:17:56,790
And then you look back six months later
and you’re like, wow, that cohort LTV is

307
00:17:59,220 –> 00:18:01,380
horrible and I’m predicting
some of my worst.

308
00:18:01,380 –> 00:18:02,910
Customers that I’ve ever had right there.

309
00:18:03,000 –> 00:18:07,890
Yeah. I’m predicting I’m requiring so
much revenue from that cohort to just

310
00:18:08,370 –> 00:18:13,170
float my business and it’s not
manifesting. That’s doom spiral land.

311
00:18:13,320 –> 00:18:17,310
You know what I mean? And so that’s
one other thing where you’re just like,

312
00:18:17,340 –> 00:18:18,173
oh wow, okay,

313
00:18:18,210 –> 00:18:23,010
I’m predicting an LTB to CAC and
now that’s not a real number at

314
00:18:23,010 –> 00:18:27,240
all because of how I’ve driven so much
new customer acquisition through just buy

315
00:18:27,240 –> 00:18:31,110
now promo 15 minutes rather
than I freaking love this brand,

316
00:18:31,140 –> 00:18:34,450
I’m going to buy from them. Stepping
nuance number one where it’s like, okay,

317
00:18:34,450 –> 00:18:39,240
it’s not just about hitting your new
customer count goals, it matters,

318
00:18:39,900 –> 00:18:41,100
but it’s like how we get them in.

319
00:18:41,190 –> 00:18:45,120
Number two is maybe more
of a subjective thing where

320
00:18:45,960 –> 00:18:49,230
I kind of think about it
as being the wacky, wavy,

321
00:18:49,230 –> 00:18:53,280
inflatable tube man kind of blow up
mascot at used car dealerships where it’s

322
00:18:54,450 –> 00:18:59,310
That kind of being the typical or
even the sleazy used card sales person

323
00:18:59,310 –> 00:19:02,550
where it’s just like, okay, we’re
going to use all the tactics.

324
00:19:03,510 –> 00:19:05,520
That’s the whole idea. You look at,

325
00:19:05,820 –> 00:19:10,260
if I’m just going to be putting out 10
million impressions of those 10 million

326
00:19:10,260 –> 00:19:11,093
impressions,

327
00:19:11,310 –> 00:19:15,210
how many of those impressions are with
creative that is like fricking buy right

328
00:19:15,210 –> 00:19:18,600
now. Here’s a problem you
have. Here’s my solution,

329
00:19:18,600 –> 00:19:23,280
here are the top features and here’s
50% off if you buy right now versus

330
00:19:24,240 –> 00:19:27,450
I’m just going to make you laugh and it’s
going to tie back to what I do and who

331
00:19:27,450 –> 00:19:30,450
I’m, but that builds the brand,
that builds the desirability,

332
00:19:30,450 –> 00:19:32,940
that preps the 95% that I know
we’re going to talk about.

333
00:19:33,630 –> 00:19:36,810
You pick your head up as a founder,
as a marketer, as a whoever,

334
00:19:36,810 –> 00:19:41,280
and you’re like, I don’t like how
this mix has shifted. I don’t really,

335
00:19:41,550 –> 00:19:45,600
is this how I’m presenting myself
to the world? You know what I mean?

336
00:19:46,200 –> 00:19:49,590
And that is one of those humbling
things where you’re just like, oh crap.

337
00:19:50,250 –> 00:19:55,140
Regardless of what any metric says,
that just is not right. You know what I.

338
00:19:55,140 –> 00:19:56,180
Mean? If.

339
00:19:56,670 –> 00:20:00,840
All we are at the end of the day is a
feeling that gets someone to take an

340
00:20:00,840 –> 00:20:04,800
action to stop them from buying the
incumbent who’s currently meeting their

341
00:20:04,800 –> 00:20:08,640
needs for what I’m trying to do, that’s
the thing where you’re just like,

342
00:20:10,230 –> 00:20:12,960
I think I got to change. So those
are two nuance on that front.

343
00:20:13,530 –> 00:20:15,360
Yeah, I love that. And
I’ll share a quick story.

344
00:20:15,360 –> 00:20:16,770
When I was right out of college,

345
00:20:17,250 –> 00:20:20,310
I was doing some consulting with local
businesses and met this piano dealer.

346
00:20:20,310 –> 00:20:21,750
Great guy, loved him,

347
00:20:22,230 –> 00:20:26,220
but they found out that the only success
they were really having was these going

348
00:20:26,220 –> 00:20:27,150
out of business sales.

349
00:20:27,150 –> 00:20:31,950
And so they would sign up to
acquire this distressed piano

350
00:20:31,950 –> 00:20:33,810
dealer and then they would
just do a liquidation sale.

351
00:20:34,470 –> 00:20:36,150
And they got so addicted to their,

352
00:20:37,020 –> 00:20:38,400
we just got to go out
of business every month.

353
00:20:40,350 –> 00:20:42,720
They have these distressed
inventory sales every month,

354
00:20:42,720 –> 00:20:45,330
and that’s legitimately what
they did. So they would start,

355
00:20:45,810 –> 00:20:48,970
we’ve got this distressed inventory
from this dealership in Illinois,

356
00:20:48,970 –> 00:20:52,510
it has to go today, and that’s
all they could get to work.

357
00:20:52,510 –> 00:20:56,020
So it’s like we’re going out of business
every month. That’s our strategy.

358
00:20:56,020 –> 00:21:00,580
And that’s an extreme example,
but totally this discount spiral.

359
00:21:00,820 –> 00:21:05,020
That’s what some D two C brands can
get into as well where it’s like,

360
00:21:05,110 –> 00:21:09,820
I can only exist if I give these
deep discounts and dial up the

361
00:21:09,820 –> 00:21:13,630
urgency to 11, then I can make money
otherwise I can’t. And it’s like,

362
00:21:14,170 –> 00:21:16,330
I like this brand building where
you’re still creating desire,

363
00:21:16,330 –> 00:21:18,730
still making people say, I want that.

364
00:21:18,730 –> 00:21:21,400
I want those shorts or I want that look,

365
00:21:21,760 –> 00:21:26,410
but it’s not the same buy now limited
inventory going out of business type of

366
00:21:26,410 –> 00:21:28,180
thing. It’s just a totally
different approach.

367
00:21:28,690 –> 00:21:32,800
Totally. Yeah. I mean we can talk
tactics and positioning all day,

368
00:21:32,800 –> 00:21:35,830
but the going out of sale thing and
only doing that over and over is just

369
00:21:35,830 –> 00:21:36,663
classic.

370
00:21:37,150 –> 00:21:37,360
Yeah,

371
00:21:37,360 –> 00:21:42,280
it’s like the perfect picture
there of the trap we can get into.

372
00:21:42,280 –> 00:21:42,460
For.

373
00:21:42,460 –> 00:21:44,110
Sure. Everyone can imagine the sign.

374
00:21:44,440 –> 00:21:47,680
You can imagine what the ad
looks like on local tv, right?

375
00:21:47,680 –> 00:21:49,030
Because all seen it before.

376
00:21:49,540 –> 00:21:52,300
I kind of joked too. I was like, we need
to start running ads where we’re like,

377
00:21:52,300 –> 00:21:54,220
we’re still going out of business,

378
00:21:54,430 –> 00:21:59,260
it’s just we’re going out
of business again. So yeah,

379
00:21:59,650 –> 00:22:04,090
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380
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381
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382
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383
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384
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389
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391
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392
00:22:58,090 –> 00:23:01,930
Well, let’s talk about this shift
that you had where you talk about your

393
00:23:01,930 –> 00:23:03,880
95 5 rule,

394
00:23:04,540 –> 00:23:07,840
and I think part of the point that you’ve
been making and I’ve been making for

395
00:23:07,840 –> 00:23:12,820
years is a lot of our businesses
have succeeded off of just capturing

396
00:23:12,820 –> 00:23:15,340
existing demand. Not a bad thing.

397
00:23:15,340 –> 00:23:17,500
We got to have demand capture
and demand generation.

398
00:23:17,500 –> 00:23:20,230
You got to have those balanced
and the right mix and whatnot.

399
00:23:20,950 –> 00:23:23,860
But talk about the 95
5 rule. What is that?

400
00:23:23,890 –> 00:23:26,470
How do you use that to
approach healthy growth?

401
00:23:26,890 –> 00:23:30,580
Yeah, and this is not,
I wish it were mine.

402
00:23:30,820 –> 00:23:33,220
I think it comes from
the Berg Bass Institute,

403
00:23:33,220 –> 00:23:38,020
which I would definitely
look them up and John

404
00:23:38,740 –> 00:23:42,610
and Byron Sharp and the
book, how Brands, all This

405
00:23:44,840 –> 00:23:49,190
availability gets into
some marketingy stuff,

406
00:23:49,190 –> 00:23:51,830
which kind of makes me
gloss over personally,

407
00:23:51,830 –> 00:23:54,020
which is why I try to make this
stuff a little bit more fun.

408
00:23:54,020 –> 00:23:58,370
But the general idea is, and I didn’t
know about this until more recently,

409
00:23:58,370 –> 00:24:03,350
so I felt it felt like a jumble of
pain and anxiety in my soul when I was

410
00:24:03,350 –> 00:24:07,220
actually running the media myself
and in the trenches operating.

411
00:24:07,580 –> 00:24:08,840
But just the general idea that

412
00:24:10,340 –> 00:24:14,720
95% of our audience at any
given time is not actively

413
00:24:15,170 –> 00:24:17,420
shopping for my category.

414
00:24:17,600 –> 00:24:21,920
So what there is two things. One,

415
00:24:21,950 –> 00:24:26,750
if I’m spending 95 or a hundred
percent of my marketing dollars where

416
00:24:26,750 –> 00:24:31,610
the goal or the outcome of
success is I convince you to

417
00:24:31,610 –> 00:24:34,280
purchase, there’s this massive mismatch,

418
00:24:34,520 –> 00:24:37,250
and this is how I think we were
for a long time at Chevy’s,

419
00:24:37,250 –> 00:24:40,220
we were spending 95% of our
dollars going to demand capture,

420
00:24:40,400 –> 00:24:44,120
rational appeal product offer urgency.
I’m going to get you right now.

421
00:24:44,780 –> 00:24:47,630
And a better ad is just an
ad that is more convincing,

422
00:24:49,700 –> 00:24:53,120
but we were only hitting that five ish
percent of people, the vast minority,

423
00:24:53,120 –> 00:24:56,390
whether it’s 95, 5 or 85, whatever
the number is, there’s that.

424
00:24:57,230 –> 00:24:58,130
And then the other idea,

425
00:24:58,130 –> 00:25:02,840
it’s simply being the creative

426
00:25:03,110 –> 00:25:07,850
that crushes it for the 5% just
goes in one year and out the

427
00:25:07,850 –> 00:25:11,600
other for the 95%, right?
Not actively shopping.

428
00:25:11,870 –> 00:25:15,290
So it’s kind of like if you’ve heard
of the term reticular activation or

429
00:25:15,300 –> 00:25:15,960
reticular.

430
00:25:15,960 –> 00:25:16,610
Love, it’s like.

431
00:25:16,610 –> 00:25:18,380
Okay, I want a red Ferrari,

432
00:25:18,380 –> 00:25:21,650
so then I see red Ferraris
Freaking everywhere kind of thing.

433
00:25:22,370 –> 00:25:26,240
Where if it’s not that, you just don’t
see it, right? You don’t even see it.

434
00:25:26,240 –> 00:25:30,950
So I’m just like if I’m
only evaluating my creative,

435
00:25:30,950 –> 00:25:34,670
my media, whatever it is by
how I’m capturing that demand,

436
00:25:35,870 –> 00:25:40,820
my job with the 95 is to prep them,
generate a memory, generate a feeling,

437
00:25:40,970 –> 00:25:43,550
get someone to say, I freaking
love that ad when X, Y,

438
00:25:43,550 –> 00:25:45,260
Z happens with that brand.

439
00:25:46,460 –> 00:25:50,990
One of my favorite ads of all time,
that just maybe hit me at a great time.

440
00:25:51,590 –> 00:25:51,860
I don’t know,

441
00:25:51,860 –> 00:25:56,840
it was the classic Dollar Shave Club
ad that YouTube ad was just so epic,

442
00:25:58,400 –> 00:26:00,520
funny, so memorable. You had to
watch it, could talk about it.

443
00:26:00,620 –> 00:26:03,890
It was easy to refer to
watch it multiple times.

444
00:26:04,520 –> 00:26:09,170
And I’d like to think CHS made a bunch
of those as well, and I think we did.

445
00:26:09,200 –> 00:26:11,750
But from another brand
and just going way back,

446
00:26:11,750 –> 00:26:16,340
that was one that just true classic true
classics. First big video ad I think

447
00:26:16,340 –> 00:26:19,970
was fricking awesome. The guys sitting
in the office love their product boss.

448
00:26:20,270 –> 00:26:24,530
It’s just such a memorable scene where
just that captures what we’re all about.

449
00:26:25,100 –> 00:26:27,350
And I remember it and
there’s countless examples,

450
00:26:27,560 –> 00:26:31,910
but I’m just thinking about
more modern brands and that

451
00:26:33,140 –> 00:26:34,280
probably did a really good,

452
00:26:34,280 –> 00:26:36,650
both of those probably did a really
good job at capturing demand, right?

453
00:26:36,650 –> 00:26:39,560
You’re like, that’s freaking awesome
because these are unicorn basic creative,

454
00:26:40,400 –> 00:26:43,890
but it did a much better job at just
prepping all of these people who are,

455
00:26:43,890 –> 00:26:48,090
I don’t need a razor subscription
today kind of thing, but,

456
00:26:50,390 –> 00:26:53,610
or I don’t need a bunch of t-shirts
today because I just bought some crappy

457
00:26:53,610 –> 00:26:57,990
Hanes at Macy’s or whatever.
But I will when my wife says,

458
00:26:57,990 –> 00:26:59,760
you look ugly, and I’m going to think.

459
00:27:00,390 –> 00:27:05,130
So I think those are the things
where if it was just like 20% off

460
00:27:05,130 –> 00:27:07,500
product shot, white
background, buy now, buy now,

461
00:27:09,480 –> 00:27:13,230
that’d be total wasted money. I think
that’s the kind of general idea was that

462
00:27:13,410 –> 00:27:15,420
totally floored me where
it was like, oh my gosh,

463
00:27:16,020 –> 00:27:18,480
it’s not because my ad sucks,

464
00:27:18,870 –> 00:27:23,490
it’s because it’s speaking to
the wrong saying the wrong thing

465
00:27:23,760 –> 00:27:24,870
to this person at this time,

466
00:27:24,870 –> 00:27:29,460
I’m not speaking to this vast majority
of people in the way that they want to be

467
00:27:29,460 –> 00:27:33,390
spoken to. My job there is to
prep to drive that emotion,

468
00:27:33,780 –> 00:27:36,840
whereas with the 5% or whatever
the number is, rational appeal,

469
00:27:36,870 –> 00:27:40,830
be as efficient as possible. You’ve to
your point, you got to balance that.

470
00:27:41,070 –> 00:27:44,220
We call it brand and
monetization, build that brand,

471
00:27:44,580 –> 00:27:46,410
build that mental
availability, build whatever,

472
00:27:46,740 –> 00:27:50,520
but then you got to clear
that funnel the best of them.

473
00:27:50,520 –> 00:27:52,200
And many of us are good at that, right?

474
00:27:52,200 –> 00:27:56,370
The thing we’re not doing is filling
the funnel or building the desirability,

475
00:27:56,370 –> 00:27:58,230
but it’s not,

476
00:27:58,980 –> 00:28:02,700
the whole idea here is just to add
balance because many modern brands,

477
00:28:03,120 –> 00:28:05,040
they’ve gotten out of
balance and it makes sense,

478
00:28:05,040 –> 00:28:08,760
right? Because the data that we now
have access to makes us feel like we’re

479
00:28:09,540 –> 00:28:14,250
media gods and that that’s all
there is and that’s capital T

480
00:28:14,250 –> 00:28:15,083
truth.

481
00:28:15,990 –> 00:28:20,760
But I think everyone kind of learns
when you start to feel this and everyone

482
00:28:20,760 –> 00:28:23,760
feels this and you earn this problem,

483
00:28:24,300 –> 00:28:28,980
this means you’ve gotten to this place
and you’ve stayed in business long enough

484
00:28:28,980 –> 00:28:29,880
to have

485
00:28:32,160 –> 00:28:36,990
is the ceiling for my brand or why am I
spending more to get all of these sorts

486
00:28:36,990 –> 00:28:39,090
of things? So you earn this problem,
it’s a great problem to have,

487
00:28:39,600 –> 00:28:42,660
but it’s just like a classic what got
us here won’t get us there sort of

488
00:28:42,660 –> 00:28:45,810
situation. And it’s like, okay, reset.

489
00:28:46,290 –> 00:28:47,940
What does balance look like for us now?

490
00:28:47,940 –> 00:28:50,280
How do we get to that
next stage of growth?

491
00:28:51,570 –> 00:28:54,330
And I would love to hear
your perspective on this.

492
00:28:54,330 –> 00:28:55,800
I’ve got a couple thoughts myself,

493
00:28:55,800 –> 00:29:00,060
but how do we find that
right mix of demand

494
00:29:00,060 –> 00:29:02,340
capture and demand generation?

495
00:29:02,700 –> 00:29:06,000
I do agree with you that most modern
brands are better at the demand capture

496
00:29:06,000 –> 00:29:10,200
piece, whether that’s through met Google
or likely a combination of the two.

497
00:29:10,800 –> 00:29:15,690
But how do we find that right mix of
demand generation, demand capture?

498
00:29:15,690 –> 00:29:16,710
How do you view that?

499
00:29:18,000 –> 00:29:22,410
Totally. I mean I think what we learned
for the Chu’s example, for instance.

500
00:29:22,890 –> 00:29:23,160
Would say.

501
00:29:23,160 –> 00:29:28,110
We’re at 95 5 in favor of performance,
right? 5% was just the slush fund,

502
00:29:28,200 –> 00:29:28,980
you know what I mean?

503
00:29:28,980 –> 00:29:32,100
That just would get cut if you miss
a number on a month kind of thing.

504
00:29:32,730 –> 00:29:35,610
And I was like, okay, great. Nice to
have. I don’t have any metrics against it,

505
00:29:35,610 –> 00:29:37,560
blah, blah, blah. And then I think

506
00:29:39,150 –> 00:29:43,570
where we evolved over time after
midlife crisis, let’s say two,

507
00:29:43,570 –> 00:29:47,950
three years after that, and
again, buckets are tough.

508
00:29:48,460 –> 00:29:51,490
So to say this is brand and
this is DR and blah, blah, blah.

509
00:29:51,490 –> 00:29:55,690
It’s like a channel tactic, creative
kind of thing. What’s the job to be done?

510
00:29:55,960 –> 00:29:58,510
So we can have that conversation,
but broadly, just to give numbers,

511
00:29:59,350 –> 00:30:03,580
it got close-ish to that 60
40, right? The classic brand,

512
00:30:03,670 –> 00:30:07,270
60% to brand, 40% to activation.

513
00:30:07,810 –> 00:30:11,050
And it’s not just on the paid side
too, right? It’s like we’ve got email.

514
00:30:11,410 –> 00:30:14,590
Email is a freaking awesome way
to capture demand workforce,

515
00:30:15,100 –> 00:30:19,300
and I’m not paying that much for
what we did a lot and SMS too.

516
00:30:19,300 –> 00:30:21,040
So what we did a lot of was like,

517
00:30:21,340 –> 00:30:26,230
let’s also view that as our demand
capture engine as well. And not

518
00:30:26,230 –> 00:30:29,440
only use paid for bottom funnel
demand capture because that can just,

519
00:30:30,280 –> 00:30:31,150
and it’s a math problem,

520
00:30:31,540 –> 00:30:36,430
but what is the cheapest
way to get you to exit my

521
00:30:36,430 –> 00:30:40,990
funnel is kind of part of the way
to think about it. But yeah, man.

522
00:30:41,050 –> 00:30:43,960
And that freaks people out,
right? No one is at 50 50,

523
00:30:43,960 –> 00:30:48,850
no one’s even at 40% to brand. No, I
mean maybe if you’re Clorox or whatever,

524
00:30:49,210 –> 00:30:52,720
but if we’re talking modern
brands that freaks people out,

525
00:30:52,870 –> 00:30:55,300
they think lack of accountability,
lack of measurement,

526
00:30:55,300 –> 00:30:56,560
they think lighting money on fire.

527
00:30:57,130 –> 00:31:01,900
So the easier answer and what I
think is a productive answer is just

528
00:31:01,900 –> 00:31:05,710
more To brand building more to demand.

529
00:31:06,310 –> 00:31:09,490
You’re so far from having
a conversation, we’re like,

530
00:31:09,520 –> 00:31:14,110
is this too much brand building?
Most of us are sub 10%.

531
00:31:15,280 –> 00:31:19,540
So if it’s 10, get to 11.
If it’s 11, get to 12%.

532
00:31:19,720 –> 00:31:23,080
Find a way to inch that up
and just test maniacally.

533
00:31:23,080 –> 00:31:25,330
And you can talk about what
we’re testing and how we measure.

534
00:31:25,900 –> 00:31:27,130
But I think one of the big things is

535
00:31:29,150 –> 00:31:32,710
there’s this humbling
reality that for many brands,

536
00:31:33,580 –> 00:31:37,900
if you just take the 10%
least efficient spend on dr,

537
00:31:39,040 –> 00:31:39,873
well first of all,

538
00:31:40,810 –> 00:31:44,350
you got to do those tests to find
what the 10% least efficient is.

539
00:31:44,530 –> 00:31:48,280
Most brands are just like, no, this
is my bread and butter. It works.

540
00:31:49,030 –> 00:31:53,200
And if you ask them, how well does it
work? If you were to cut spend 10%,

541
00:31:53,200 –> 00:31:56,530
what would happen if you were
to pulse spend up 30% in a week?

542
00:31:56,530 –> 00:31:59,770
What would happen? Would you see 30%
more growth? No, I’ve not done that.

543
00:32:00,370 –> 00:32:04,630
We can’t do those tests. No. Or you
explain it away in a variety of different,

544
00:32:05,050 –> 00:32:09,820
so I think the first part there is let’s
get to a little bit more precision on

545
00:32:09,820 –> 00:32:11,200
the level of incrementality.

546
00:32:12,070 –> 00:32:15,850
If we’re spending 95% on performance
and the thing like the bread and butter,

547
00:32:15,850 –> 00:32:20,770
like our top spending ad sets, let’s
pressure test the hell out of that first.

548
00:32:21,100 –> 00:32:24,970
And that kind of opens up the conversation
because the whole reason why there’s

549
00:32:24,970 –> 00:32:29,200
a debate about the split of brand and
performance is because a fear that you’ll

550
00:32:29,200 –> 00:32:31,030
waste money if you put it towards brand.

551
00:32:31,570 –> 00:32:36,010
But the reality is that
most brands not all,

552
00:32:37,420 –> 00:32:39,410
are already wasting way more money,

553
00:32:40,280 –> 00:32:43,250
not pressure testing their
existing performance spend.

554
00:32:43,310 –> 00:32:47,510
They don’t have a testing framework.
They’re testing, and I love house.

555
00:32:47,540 –> 00:32:48,740
I think they’re the coolest.

556
00:32:48,740 –> 00:32:52,880
I love measured all
incrementality testing is amazing.

557
00:32:52,940 –> 00:32:56,300
However, what I would encourage, and
I’m sure they encourage the same,

558
00:32:56,300 –> 00:33:01,010
is let’s test some of our
bigger closer held assumptions

559
00:33:01,010 –> 00:33:05,360
rather than these little ticky tack
micro optimizations on the margin that

560
00:33:05,360 –> 00:33:08,450
you’re like, oh, was trying nothing.

561
00:33:08,450 –> 00:33:13,220
Is trying a view content
versus an add to cart,

562
00:33:13,400 –> 00:33:16,190
is that going to, sure, maybe
there’s something there,

563
00:33:16,190 –> 00:33:18,530
but what about my bread
and butter kind of thing?

564
00:33:18,830 –> 00:33:22,820
These are the things that I encourage
us to get a better feel for the

565
00:33:22,820 –> 00:33:24,860
incrementality of because
that’s more fundamental.

566
00:33:25,100 –> 00:33:26,840
And that’s where we could basically say,

567
00:33:28,250 –> 00:33:30,980
if I’m spending a hundred
million bucks a year on X, Y, z,

568
00:33:31,280 –> 00:33:35,810
I can free up $15 million because
it’s really not doing anything for me.

569
00:33:35,810 –> 00:33:40,100
Or the marginal contribution dollar
generation on that 15 million is

570
00:33:40,340 –> 00:33:45,170
so low that either I could not spend it

571
00:33:45,320 –> 00:33:47,480
or I could just put it to
demand gen, but nothing,

572
00:33:48,230 –> 00:33:52,550
there would be no downside to that in
my business. I think that’s kind of step

573
00:33:52,580 –> 00:33:55,700
one in a lot of these
situations we’re just like,

574
00:33:55,700 –> 00:34:00,020
let’s get a little bit of humility
around where all of the money’s going to

575
00:34:00,020 –> 00:34:03,170
acknowledge that we’re probably
wasting quite a bit of money there.

576
00:34:03,440 –> 00:34:07,610
So then that takes the conversation
away from the fear being wasting money.

577
00:34:08,030 –> 00:34:10,160
And then it can be a conversation
around different things.

578
00:34:10,730 –> 00:34:15,020
How are we going to build brand? How are
we going to measure it? Yes, I agree.

579
00:34:15,020 –> 00:34:19,700
Having more demand makes sense. So
then what are we going to do about it?

580
00:34:19,700 –> 00:34:23,420
But it’s like let’s make it as
inarguable as possible and less of this,

581
00:34:24,380 –> 00:34:27,890
I know I’m not wasting money on
performance. I’m running a massive,

582
00:34:27,890 –> 00:34:31,850
I’m taking a massive flyer, a massive
risk of wasting money on brand.

583
00:34:32,330 –> 00:34:36,470
That’s a fundamentally flawed
premise that I think we need to get

584
00:34:36,830 –> 00:34:41,750
alignment on first before we then talk
about what the ideal split should be.

585
00:34:42,230 –> 00:34:45,200
So it’s kind of like those
two things, it should be more,

586
00:34:45,830 –> 00:34:49,820
and then we’re already wasting way
more money on our bottom funnel demand

587
00:34:49,820 –> 00:34:50,840
capture kind of stuff.

588
00:34:51,320 –> 00:34:54,830
So let’s acknowledge those things and
then I think we can have productive

589
00:34:54,830 –> 00:34:55,970
conversations going forward.

590
00:34:56,750 –> 00:35:00,800
Yeah, it is really a great point.
And I think that first piece,

591
00:35:00,800 –> 00:35:05,300
we’ve got to key in on whatever
you’re doing now to build your

592
00:35:05,300 –> 00:35:09,200
brand to drive demand rather
than just to capture it.

593
00:35:09,710 –> 00:35:12,620
You got to start testing
doing more of it. And yes,

594
00:35:12,620 –> 00:35:17,270
we would love to get to a point with
our marketing where we’ve got 0% waste,

595
00:35:18,140 –> 00:35:21,650
probably never going to happen. Nope.
And it’s certainly not happening now,

596
00:35:21,680 –> 00:35:25,820
even if you think you’re measuring all
of your marketing the way that you should

597
00:35:25,820 –> 00:35:29,450
be. And so I really do credit
house, I’m glad you brought them up.

598
00:35:29,810 –> 00:35:30,860
I’m a big YouTube guy,

599
00:35:30,860 –> 00:35:35,330
and so they’ve done a lot for us where
this huge YouTube mentality test and

600
00:35:35,330 –> 00:35:39,150
showed that man, you look at
YouTube performance and platform,

601
00:35:39,900 –> 00:35:44,190
the actual incremental impact is probably
almost three and a half times that.

602
00:35:44,910 –> 00:35:47,370
And so really showing, hey,
the way you’re measuring it,

603
00:35:47,370 –> 00:35:50,940
what you should be thinking about
is this driving a creative growth or

604
00:35:50,940 –> 00:35:52,920
incremental growth or growth
I wouldn’t have already had.

605
00:35:53,400 –> 00:35:57,720
And there there’s some challenges there,
but I love the way you frame that.

606
00:35:57,840 –> 00:35:59,970
And I would be curious,

607
00:36:00,210 –> 00:36:05,010
how do you look at maybe some of
those initial tests or initial looks

608
00:36:05,010 –> 00:36:09,630
at how do we understand how
incremental this activity is?

609
00:36:09,630 –> 00:36:11,340
Because there are some tools out there,

610
00:36:11,340 –> 00:36:14,400
some of them are really quite expensive
and house is probably in that bucket for

611
00:36:14,400 –> 00:36:19,080
a lot of brands. How do you start to test
incrementality? What did you guys do?

612
00:36:19,080 –> 00:36:20,070
What do you recommend that people.

613
00:36:20,070 –> 00:36:24,900
Do? Great question. And the thing
about the YouTube findings with House,

614
00:36:25,380 –> 00:36:27,450
what we’re seeing with Marathon,

615
00:36:27,510 –> 00:36:30,900
which is just effectively just trying
to measure the longer term stuff,

616
00:36:32,040 –> 00:36:34,050
is that it’s even more pronounced.

617
00:36:34,260 –> 00:36:38,550
So I think houses helpers understand
the short-term impact of YouTube and a

618
00:36:38,550 –> 00:36:41,490
variety of tactics on
YouTube, which is strong,

619
00:36:42,030 –> 00:36:43,740
stronger than chosen platform.

620
00:36:44,250 –> 00:36:47,940
But then the longer term impact we’re
also seeing is also pretty massive.

621
00:36:47,940 –> 00:36:52,050
So it’s like there’s generally
people are sleeping on YouTube,

622
00:36:52,050 –> 00:36:54,990
I guess is my point, both from the
short and the long-term perspective.

623
00:36:55,080 –> 00:36:58,530
And it backs out to a rational
first principles perspective.

624
00:36:58,530 –> 00:37:01,080
You’re at the end of the day,

625
00:37:01,920 –> 00:37:05,640
seconds of focused
attention is the thing that,

626
00:37:06,480 –> 00:37:10,170
and so that’s why TV has
been a thing for so long.

627
00:37:10,950 –> 00:37:11,783
Like the switching costs.

628
00:37:11,940 –> 00:37:12,820
Really odd, built some of the best,

629
00:37:12,820 –> 00:37:17,370
the most iconic brands were often built
on tv. YouTube is our version of tv.

630
00:37:17,970 –> 00:37:19,380
Exactly. Right. And with YouTube,

631
00:37:19,380 –> 00:37:22,200
I dunno what it’s like 50%
of impressions are on a tv,

632
00:37:22,920 –> 00:37:24,570
I don’t dunno the exact
number, but I think it’s.

633
00:37:24,570 –> 00:37:27,300
Between 50, 60%. Yeah,
it’s growing, growing.

634
00:37:27,690 –> 00:37:32,100
So I don’t know where else you get
those seconds of focused attention

635
00:37:32,160 –> 00:37:36,360
as cleanly and efficiently
and effectively as on YouTube.

636
00:37:36,390 –> 00:37:38,820
So anyways, that’s one note
that I want to mention,

637
00:37:38,820 –> 00:37:41,910
but in terms of how do we start to
think about incrementality testing?

638
00:37:42,000 –> 00:37:46,890
So there’s the poor person A,

639
00:37:47,310 –> 00:37:49,470
let’s call it the duct
tape solution thing.

640
00:37:49,470 –> 00:37:52,740
I was going to say poor man solution,
but let’s call it bubblegum duct tape.

641
00:37:53,130 –> 00:37:55,140
And then there’s like, let’s do it, right?

642
00:37:57,480 –> 00:38:00,750
But then broadly philosophy,
philosophy on measurement,

643
00:38:00,750 –> 00:38:03,210
and obviously I’m biased because I
started the measurement software company,

644
00:38:03,210 –> 00:38:05,400
but this is why,

645
00:38:05,670 –> 00:38:08,760
it’s because I think brands
under invest in measurement,

646
00:38:08,940 –> 00:38:12,360
if we’re going to spend in aggregate,
let’s call it, I dunno what the number is,

647
00:38:12,420 –> 00:38:14,490
1% of our marketing
budgets on measurement,

648
00:38:15,180 –> 00:38:18,270
you just say it like that rather than
thinking about it as a fixed cost and I’ve

649
00:38:18,270 –> 00:38:22,110
got a broad software budget.
And then you’re like, oh, okay,

650
00:38:22,740 –> 00:38:25,410
is that a good no, you think about
it, percentage of marketing spend,

651
00:38:25,560 –> 00:38:29,240
do I think I can get more than a
1% improvement in the results? From

652
00:38:35,530 –> 00:38:37,930
my experience? You’re
wasting way more than that,

653
00:38:37,930 –> 00:38:42,190
not knowing some of these answers.
Totally. So I highly recommend, yes,

654
00:38:42,190 –> 00:38:45,610
use all platform tools, but
then have your MTA tool,

655
00:38:45,610 –> 00:38:48,070
have your incrementality
tool, have your MM tool,

656
00:38:48,520 –> 00:38:50,290
and then while we’re building marathon,

657
00:38:50,590 –> 00:38:54,430
your long-term have precise
performance brand stuff too,

658
00:38:54,430 –> 00:38:58,360
which was a big missing piece is
why we’re trying to take it invest,

659
00:38:58,840 –> 00:39:02,890
don’t short shrift the
measurement stuff. And even,

660
00:39:03,430 –> 00:39:05,920
I know you were on the Marketing
Operators podcast recently,

661
00:39:06,280 –> 00:39:10,240
if you think back on one of their older
episodes was when times were maybe a

662
00:39:10,240 –> 00:39:13,510
little bit tougher and they were talking
about what do we cut and what do we not

663
00:39:13,510 –> 00:39:17,950
cut? And I think Cody from Ridge made
a good point where he was just like,

664
00:39:18,640 –> 00:39:21,940
thing you do not cut is marketing
software. You just don’t cut that, right?

665
00:39:21,940 –> 00:39:24,490
Because that’s marketing
measurement software, sorry,

666
00:39:24,610 –> 00:39:28,420
because that’s the north
star. If you’re flying blind,

667
00:39:28,900 –> 00:39:32,560
our marketing spend is our
biggest cost in this business.

668
00:39:32,950 –> 00:39:37,030
So if it’s not guided by anything
that’s really, really bad,

669
00:39:37,240 –> 00:39:39,190
you can get really upside
down on your economics.

670
00:39:39,430 –> 00:39:40,960
So it’s like a broad philosophical thing.

671
00:39:40,960 –> 00:39:45,850
It’s like whatever you’re investing in
measurement software now invest more and

672
00:39:45,850 –> 00:39:50,170
then obviously use it, prioritize
use of it. You can have

673
00:39:51,940 –> 00:39:55,570
an account with name your tool,
and if you don’t spend time on it,

674
00:39:56,410 –> 00:39:59,890
you’re going to waste money. So
essential something like how,

675
00:40:00,220 –> 00:40:03,220
if you’re wanting to
just try some tests now,

676
00:40:04,870 –> 00:40:09,430
first it’s a mindset shift outside of
I need to use measurement software.

677
00:40:09,430 –> 00:40:11,650
And that’s really important. Or
measurement tools, let’s call it.

678
00:40:12,430 –> 00:40:15,700
If you’re not going to, regardless
of how you’re going to test,

679
00:40:15,700 –> 00:40:19,390
you need to commit to, this is not
going to change my business tonight.

680
00:40:22,090 –> 00:40:23,950
This is an evolution in how we operate.

681
00:40:24,370 –> 00:40:28,870
So let’s think about what each test
for the next 12 months looks like.

682
00:40:28,870 –> 00:40:32,560
Let’s plan it out and let’s commit to it
and let’s allocate enough budget to it.

683
00:40:32,950 –> 00:40:37,810
And let’s just know that
it’s more about information

684
00:40:37,810 –> 00:40:38,643
gathering,

685
00:40:38,800 –> 00:40:43,600
like neutral information gathering
than test if that’s a failure or

686
00:40:43,600 –> 00:40:47,620
not. And that’s a different way to
approach it. So that being number one, but

687
00:40:50,590 –> 00:40:53,170
I would start with some
of our core things.

688
00:40:53,320 –> 00:40:57,940
If you think about an ad set
where you spend your most dollars,

689
00:40:58,180 –> 00:41:02,830
let’s pressure test that. Let’s cut
that 30%, cut that 40% for a week,

690
00:41:03,280 –> 00:41:04,113
see what happens.

691
00:41:04,270 –> 00:41:06,460
Post it up hundred
percent geos if you can,

692
00:41:06,460 –> 00:41:08,710
and measure those geos if
you’re set up to do that.

693
00:41:08,710 –> 00:41:11,980
Yes. So then we can talk about
that. So the pulse up and down,

694
00:41:12,160 –> 00:41:14,290
just do that to everything
and cycle through that.

695
00:41:14,740 –> 00:41:19,660
I mean starting with the
specific strategies that
you’re spending the most on at

696
00:41:19,660 –> 00:41:20,493
any given time.

697
00:41:20,590 –> 00:41:25,390
Because the other thing
is the result from a may

698
00:41:25,390 –> 00:41:29,710
test doesn’t necessarily apply.

699
00:41:30,220 –> 00:41:32,680
Next May might not even apply to December.

700
00:41:32,990 –> 00:41:35,840
These are moment in time tests
kind of thing, which is fine.

701
00:41:36,500 –> 00:41:37,520
That doesn’t make it bad.

702
00:41:37,910 –> 00:41:41,420
It’s just like we tried that two
years ago and it didn’t work,

703
00:41:41,420 –> 00:41:42,950
so we’re not going to try it ever again.

704
00:41:43,700 –> 00:41:46,190
We don’t want that stuff to
happen because things change.

705
00:41:46,190 –> 00:41:49,400
Economics change auctions
change, ad products change,

706
00:41:50,270 –> 00:41:53,990
our brand changes, our creative
changes, but just cycle through,

707
00:41:54,140 –> 00:41:57,290
if I’m going to test and just work down
from the things that I’m spending the

708
00:41:57,290 –> 00:42:01,640
most on, pulse up, pulse down is a great
way to do it. True point on holdouts.

709
00:42:01,910 –> 00:42:02,960
Holdouts are great.

710
00:42:05,330 –> 00:42:09,800
We’ve built the long-term brand
version of it at Marathon House,

711
00:42:09,860 –> 00:42:12,710
measured name your tool.
They’ve got amazing tools.

712
00:42:13,340 –> 00:42:16,940
Some people run them
themselves and that’s okay,

713
00:42:17,720 –> 00:42:22,160
but I caution because you can do it wrong.

714
00:42:22,250 –> 00:42:26,060
And then if you don’t understand the level
of statist complic significance or if

715
00:42:26,060 –> 00:42:29,810
you don’t, all of these, it’s,
it’s a statistical exploration.

716
00:42:30,020 –> 00:42:34,970
It’s less like I tested Texas
and Texas grew faster than rest

717
00:42:34,970 –> 00:42:37,400
of country. It’s like, no,

718
00:42:39,080 –> 00:42:42,350
Because Texas behaves different from
rest of country for a of reasons.

719
00:42:42,350 –> 00:42:43,880
It’s got a different seasonality curve.

720
00:42:44,450 –> 00:42:47,480
You went into that month
with different numbers,

721
00:42:47,900 –> 00:42:51,590
and so it’s like you can very easily

722
00:42:53,840 –> 00:42:57,860
be steered in the wrong way. And
I’ve made this mistake personally,

723
00:42:58,640 –> 00:43:01,760
I would just like, let’s just
Texas, California, New York,

724
00:43:01,820 –> 00:43:04,190
let’s just do it there.
Boom. That’s our test.

725
00:43:04,550 –> 00:43:05,383
I’d say.

726
00:43:07,190 –> 00:43:09,650
I dunno. I dunno if that’s better
than nothing, to be honest.

727
00:43:10,130 –> 00:43:15,050
To the extent you can get
down to a DMA level And do

728
00:43:15,050 –> 00:43:18,830
it in that way or even a zip level, I
think that’s better. But regardless,

729
00:43:19,460 –> 00:43:23,900
you got to spend more and you got to
run it for longer generally. I mean,

730
00:43:23,900 –> 00:43:26,090
I think people want
answers today, tomorrow,

731
00:43:26,090 –> 00:43:27,620
and you want to spend
as little as possible.

732
00:43:30,920 –> 00:43:35,060
And that’s why I think these tools are
clear on how confident are we in these

733
00:43:35,060 –> 00:43:38,900
solutions or what is the variability of
potential outcomes Here I’m showing you

734
00:43:39,380 –> 00:43:43,790
some number, but that’s not
the number. That’s not as,

735
00:43:43,790 –> 00:43:44,780
that’s not the specific,

736
00:43:44,930 –> 00:43:49,670
there’s a range of outcomes and I
would always just caution double

737
00:43:49,670 –> 00:43:53,150
click on what that number is, what the
range of outcomes is, what the error,

738
00:43:56,990 –> 00:44:00,020
are you happy with this outcome? Are we
happy with this outcome kind of thing.

739
00:44:00,020 –> 00:44:04,850
It could be something like that,
especially if we cut the test off earlier,

740
00:44:04,850 –> 00:44:08,330
whatever. So the way you set this up,

741
00:44:08,420 –> 00:44:09,920
the way you run the test,

742
00:44:10,760 –> 00:44:15,620
just counter the short-termism that
we as humans are fully laden with

743
00:44:15,620 –> 00:44:20,120
and know that it’s just a systematic
thing. You got to give it enough time,

744
00:44:20,120 –> 00:44:22,820
you got to run it
correctly. But the pulse up,

745
00:44:22,820 –> 00:44:25,940
pulse down and just understand, okay,

746
00:44:25,940 –> 00:44:29,840
I added a marginal 20%, what did I get?

747
00:44:30,620 –> 00:44:34,410
And do that over and over and over and
over because you’re always going to have

748
00:44:34,800 –> 00:44:35,580
variables.

749
00:44:35,580 –> 00:44:38,070
You’re going to have a good product launch
on the next week and you’re going to

750
00:44:38,070 –> 00:44:39,360
have a bad product launch on next week.

751
00:44:39,570 –> 00:44:40,050
Totally.

752
00:44:40,050 –> 00:44:44,100
Email toss. So that’s why you got
to do it multiple times as well.

753
00:44:44,130 –> 00:44:46,530
It’s not just a one and
done thing. It’s broadly,

754
00:44:46,590 –> 00:44:49,590
I’m committed to learning
this set of things this year.

755
00:44:50,190 –> 00:44:53,760
I’m not going to boil the ocean. Because
you look back and you’re just like,

756
00:44:54,900 –> 00:44:59,310
even if you think about running
a test that maybe is a little bit

757
00:44:59,310 –> 00:45:01,470
longer, you’re like, oh my
God, that’s an eternity.

758
00:45:01,470 –> 00:45:05,970
But then it’s like it takes you
10 to 15 years to get to any

759
00:45:06,360 –> 00:45:09,150
real material scale and profit
generation anyway. So you’re like,

760
00:45:09,480 –> 00:45:13,740
you’re not going to spend a month testing
what could be something that changes

761
00:45:13,740 –> 00:45:17,970
your changes the way you spend
30% of your marketing. Again,

762
00:45:18,330 –> 00:45:22,980
I would’ve felt this exact thing
and I was the one who was like,

763
00:45:23,070 –> 00:45:26,820
no, we can’t test that stuff. Just we
got to go. We got to go. We got to go.

764
00:45:26,820 –> 00:45:30,570
We got to go. So I’m the guilty guy
here. So I’ve felt all of these things,

765
00:45:30,570 –> 00:45:33,000
but those are just some thoughts
as it relates to how to do tests.

766
00:45:33,720 –> 00:45:36,900
Yeah, man, it’s so valuable
and so much to unpack there.

767
00:45:36,900 –> 00:45:39,900
I want to talk a little bit
about your measurement stack,

768
00:45:39,900 –> 00:45:44,670
and then I want to really dive into
what marathon data is measuring,

769
00:45:44,670 –> 00:45:46,740
how that fits into the overall stack.

770
00:45:46,740 –> 00:45:50,250
But I’ll give a quick analogy
here that I think will help.

771
00:45:50,700 –> 00:45:55,320
And you talk about how running one test
is silly. You had to run multiple tests.

772
00:45:55,500 –> 00:45:58,890
So there’s the heart issues in my
family, at least with a few people,

773
00:45:58,890 –> 00:46:00,150
and it’s like I’m diving
into some of this.

774
00:46:00,420 –> 00:46:03,180
And so you can measure your
resting heart rate. In my heart,

775
00:46:03,180 –> 00:46:04,080
resting your heart is really good.

776
00:46:04,560 –> 00:46:08,940
You can then measure heart
variability and how that speaks to the

777
00:46:09,420 –> 00:46:10,050
health of your heart.

778
00:46:10,050 –> 00:46:13,230
You can also then do lipid panels
and see what’s my cholesterol,

779
00:46:13,410 –> 00:46:14,190
but not just cholesterol,

780
00:46:14,190 –> 00:46:18,060
but there’s 20 ways to measure
cholesterol. And then it’s like, well,

781
00:46:18,060 –> 00:46:20,250
I need to measure that
probably three or four,

782
00:46:20,250 –> 00:46:22,410
five times throughout the
year because you measure once,

783
00:46:22,830 –> 00:46:25,080
it could be based on some other
factors. And so then you’re like, well,

784
00:46:25,080 –> 00:46:28,500
maybe I need to do a calcium
check and all of these things,

785
00:46:28,500 –> 00:46:31,650
but if you want to say,
I want be healthier,

786
00:46:31,650 –> 00:46:33,510
or I want to build for the
longterm with my health,

787
00:46:34,200 –> 00:46:36,180
you’re going to have to
measure all of those things,

788
00:46:36,240 –> 00:46:39,780
understand what they’re measuring,
understanding then based on the reading,

789
00:46:39,780 –> 00:46:43,380
what do you do with that? And
then measure on an ongoing basis,

790
00:46:43,470 –> 00:46:45,570
which kind of feels a little bit
overwhelming, but it’s just the way it is.

791
00:46:46,080 –> 00:46:50,010
And I feel like it’s the
same with marketing. We can’t
run one test and be like,

792
00:46:50,010 –> 00:46:53,010
great, we know what to do
forever now with our marketing,

793
00:46:54,180 –> 00:46:58,020
or this is the salvation for our
brand. We have MTA now multi,

794
00:46:58,290 –> 00:47:02,130
multi touch attribution. Everything
is solved. It’s never the case, right?

795
00:47:02,130 –> 00:47:04,020
It’s like we’ve got to stack these things.

796
00:47:04,650 –> 00:47:08,010
We have to understand what they’re
measuring, what that’s telling us,

797
00:47:08,010 –> 00:47:11,580
what we expect, and then what do we
do with it? And so talk about that.

798
00:47:11,760 –> 00:47:15,600
What do you believe is your perfect
marketing measurement stack?

799
00:47:16,050 –> 00:47:18,780
And then let’s go deep on
Marathon data.

800
00:47:19,350 –> 00:47:22,860
For sure, for sure. Yeah.
So I mean, I think broadly,

801
00:47:24,570 –> 00:47:27,780
before you even start talking
about marketing measurement stack,

802
00:47:27,780 –> 00:47:32,470
there’s a bit of these things are true

803
00:47:32,770 –> 00:47:35,710
and you can’t really argue them.

804
00:47:36,460 –> 00:47:39,070
And maybe this applies to the whole
conversation, but where it’s just

805
00:47:41,530 –> 00:47:45,580
most likely if you’re running into a
little bit of this with I’m spending more,

806
00:47:45,580 –> 00:47:47,710
getting less or CACs up or
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

807
00:47:47,830 –> 00:47:52,450
You’ve just reached that stage where
it’s like, maybe we got to change.

808
00:47:54,910 –> 00:47:59,200
I think we tend to jump to like, oh,
it’s like conversion rate optimization,

809
00:47:59,230 –> 00:48:02,200
or I need more creative diversity or blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. But I’m like,

810
00:48:02,200 –> 00:48:05,170
those are symptoms rather than
the cost. Part of it is like,

811
00:48:05,170 –> 00:48:09,490
let’s get to the cause and
let’s understand that most

812
00:48:09,490 –> 00:48:14,080
likely it’s that we’ve just
eaten through most of the

813
00:48:14,080 –> 00:48:17,440
people who know about us, care
about us or thinking about us.

814
00:48:18,430 –> 00:48:23,380
That’s very rational. And I think
we need alignment on that first.

815
00:48:23,380 –> 00:48:26,470
Great. Now let’s talk about measurement
stack, and that’s more specific,

816
00:48:26,620 –> 00:48:31,060
but I do think that there’s a
nice multi-touch attribution tool.

817
00:48:31,240 –> 00:48:32,073
Awesome.

818
00:48:33,100 –> 00:48:37,930
A lot of people don’t know that
GA has that. It does. It does.

819
00:48:38,560 –> 00:48:43,240
So you can get it in a variety
of different places and then some

820
00:48:43,240 –> 00:48:47,410
kind of experimentation
platform to just test something.

821
00:48:48,040 –> 00:48:50,080
And so we all, I think,

822
00:48:50,080 –> 00:48:55,030
know the great vendors there some
kind of statistical analysis tool like

823
00:48:55,030 –> 00:48:56,200
an mm M of sorts,

824
00:48:56,380 –> 00:49:01,300
an MM where you could just put a lot
of data in and get an understanding

825
00:49:01,300 –> 00:49:05,050
of what’s doing what, and it’s not
susceptible to the cookie apocalypse,

826
00:49:05,050 –> 00:49:08,410
to the iOS 14, to the blah, blah,
blah. It’s just stats, right?

827
00:49:08,950 –> 00:49:11,620
So that’s what I would view as just,

828
00:49:12,250 –> 00:49:15,820
and I think all of the ad platforms
put out papers where they talk about,

829
00:49:16,000 –> 00:49:20,920
that’s the trinity of measurement,
right? It’s MTA, it’s testing,

830
00:49:20,920 –> 00:49:23,950
it’s MM, M, all of that
together, you triangulate.

831
00:49:25,180 –> 00:49:27,130
And then in my strong opinion,

832
00:49:27,130 –> 00:49:30,490
we need to understand how we’re building
the long-term compounding value.

833
00:49:30,850 –> 00:49:34,150
How are we going to over time make sure
we get more and more of our revenue

834
00:49:34,150 –> 00:49:38,620
coming from people searching for our
brand coming direct to our site where it’s

835
00:49:38,620 –> 00:49:42,430
not fighting in that auction all
day, every day to get that click.

836
00:49:43,180 –> 00:49:46,270
And so I think that’s maybe
the segue to marathon,

837
00:49:46,270 –> 00:49:48,970
but definitely all of them.

838
00:49:49,330 –> 00:49:53,410
And I recommend that if
you’re spending, I don’t know,

839
00:49:53,500 –> 00:49:55,810
more than a million bucks a year or
something like that on marketing.

840
00:49:56,020 –> 00:50:00,370
So it’s actively every brand to
have a full measurement stack.

841
00:50:01,990 –> 00:50:02,680
Got to have it.

842
00:50:02,680 –> 00:50:06,700
And I think that that’s one of the flaws
that people are coming to understand is

843
00:50:06,970 –> 00:50:08,800
MTA alone won’t solve it, right?

844
00:50:08,800 –> 00:50:12,400
It’s good to see click data
and clickstream data and
what are people doing after

845
00:50:12,400 –> 00:50:14,230
they see an ad? It gives you some insight,

846
00:50:14,710 –> 00:50:19,300
but you need that m that shows correlation
when spend goes up on TV or YouTube,

847
00:50:19,300 –> 00:50:22,180
what happens to sales if there’s no
correlation, there’s no causation,

848
00:50:23,140 –> 00:50:26,560
but then you got to run experiments to
see, okay, but is there causation? Is it,

849
00:50:27,830 –> 00:50:30,410
is there causation? So all
those things work together.

850
00:50:30,530 –> 00:50:31,130
Yeah.

851
00:50:31,130 –> 00:50:31,550
Let’s.

852
00:50:31,550 –> 00:50:32,420
Talk about, I think
the other thing though,

853
00:50:32,550 –> 00:50:35,090
the one point that I think might be
helpful, and I know we’re short on time,

854
00:50:35,090 –> 00:50:36,260
but I think this might be helpful, is

855
00:50:38,030 –> 00:50:42,470
the MTA or even the
end platforms, we think

856
00:50:44,810 –> 00:50:47,930
they know all of the clicks and
they know all of the purchases,

857
00:50:48,410 –> 00:50:50,000
and that’s deterministic.

858
00:50:51,050 –> 00:50:55,460
Whereas models are probabilistic
and therefore less trustworthy.

859
00:50:55,880 –> 00:51:00,680
The reality is 85% of people are
opting out of tracking on iPhones.

860
00:51:01,220 –> 00:51:02,053
A lot of our.

861
00:51:02,720 –> 00:51:06,380
IPhone users, you hover over
the little I in ads manager,

862
00:51:06,380 –> 00:51:10,130
when you’re looking at data and
it says, this data is modeled.

863
00:51:10,940 –> 00:51:13,700
So even the click based roas,

864
00:51:13,700 –> 00:51:17,000
which we think is the highest we
switched to from seven day click,

865
00:51:17,000 –> 00:51:20,090
one day view down to one day click
because we’re like, we’re accountable.

866
00:51:20,450 –> 00:51:24,230
And then the reality is that the vast
majority of this data is modeled because

867
00:51:24,230 –> 00:51:26,060
there’s so much data loss. So

868
00:51:27,680 –> 00:51:29,840
there are often questions around, okay,

869
00:51:29,840 –> 00:51:32,210
I view what’s in platform
as capital T truth, right?

870
00:51:32,210 –> 00:51:35,330
Because you’ve got all of the
clicks, you know what everyone did.

871
00:51:36,170 –> 00:51:37,370
It’s unfortunately bullshit.

872
00:51:38,090 –> 00:51:42,950
And so I think the more we
realize that the flaw of this,

873
00:51:43,250 –> 00:51:44,420
just from that perspective,

874
00:51:44,420 –> 00:51:48,080
not in terms of all of the other negative
implications that it has on us in

875
00:51:48,080 –> 00:51:52,310
terms of optimizing just for short term
and just getting into this doom spiral,

876
00:51:52,880 –> 00:51:57,530
but of the fact that that data is modeled,
heavily modeled, I dunno how much,

877
00:51:57,530 –> 00:52:01,070
I don’t know the specifics, but just
hover over the little eye in Mads manager,

878
00:52:01,070 –> 00:52:02,840
I’ll tell you. And then look at the data.

879
00:52:03,290 –> 00:52:06,290
The vast majority of people are opting
out of being tracked on their phones,

880
00:52:06,740 –> 00:52:08,330
and I don’t know what the number is,

881
00:52:08,330 –> 00:52:13,250
but 70 to 80% of sessions
are on mobile for many of our

882
00:52:13,250 –> 00:52:16,370
brands, for many of our DC context, I
don’t know what the number is for Amazon,

883
00:52:16,580 –> 00:52:20,990
but it’s like it’s all modeled
and that’s okay. It’s okay.

884
00:52:20,990 –> 00:52:23,450
So let’s not poo poo statistical analysis.

885
00:52:23,450 –> 00:52:28,160
Let’s not poo P all of this stuff that
we tend to poo because all of it’s

886
00:52:28,160 –> 00:52:28,993
modeled.

887
00:52:29,960 –> 00:52:32,000
Great point, great point. Love that.

888
00:52:32,000 –> 00:52:33,770
And it’s only going to
become more and more true.

889
00:52:34,010 –> 00:52:37,520
There’s going to be less and less clarity.

890
00:52:37,520 –> 00:52:39,620
There’s going to be more and more
privacy. That’s kind of part of this,

891
00:52:39,620 –> 00:52:43,550
but we can then still
triangulate and understand, okay,

892
00:52:43,550 –> 00:52:44,600
when we’re doing these things,

893
00:52:44,600 –> 00:52:47,810
it leads to this kind of business
outcome that I’m looking for.

894
00:52:47,810 –> 00:52:52,130
And so walk through the, and I’m fine
on time actually just to clarify that,

895
00:52:52,820 –> 00:52:57,080
but what’s the thesis
behind marathon data?

896
00:52:57,110 –> 00:53:00,830
What problem are you solving? And
talk to us about how that works.

897
00:53:01,430 –> 00:53:03,020
Totally. Well,

898
00:53:03,020 –> 00:53:07,940
it starts with this realization that
brand is important. Brand is the moat.

899
00:53:08,480 –> 00:53:12,950
Brand is the thing that protects our
ability to generate profits over time.

900
00:53:12,950 –> 00:53:14,600
Protects us from competition,

901
00:53:14,600 –> 00:53:18,560
protects us from someone who’s willing
to come in and try to steal my customers

902
00:53:18,560 –> 00:53:20,420
because they can spend
twice as much as I can.

903
00:53:20,420 –> 00:53:25,010
Or some brand from name
your country who just

904
00:53:25,170 –> 00:53:27,930
straight up copies my product and
tries to sell it for half price,

905
00:53:27,930 –> 00:53:30,930
which has happened to I think many of
the listeners of this podcast ourselves

906
00:53:30,930 –> 00:53:33,660
included. What then do we have?

907
00:53:33,690 –> 00:53:37,770
How then do we continue to have people
come to our site and pay twice as much

908
00:53:38,520 –> 00:53:39,990
for our thing, you know what I mean?

909
00:53:41,220 –> 00:53:45,750
Or keep coming to us and
not need to only buy on a

910
00:53:46,350 –> 00:53:48,180
discount or whatever, selling our souls,

911
00:53:48,750 –> 00:53:53,310
that being important and that being
something that tends to happen to every

912
00:53:53,310 –> 00:53:57,810
brand as they reach some level of success.
I don’t know what the annual revenue

913
00:53:57,840 –> 00:54:00,930
is, but this general idea
that brand is important,

914
00:54:00,930 –> 00:54:05,010
brand is ultimately the most important
thing for many of us consumer brands,

915
00:54:05,010 –> 00:54:06,930
unless we have some patent,

916
00:54:07,530 –> 00:54:11,970
some other IP brand ends up
being that IP if we’re just

917
00:54:12,090 –> 00:54:16,530
selling consumer goods.
So, okay, that being said,

918
00:54:16,980 –> 00:54:21,540
it’s been really hard to measure
that so that we can connect

919
00:54:21,900 –> 00:54:25,230
that to actual revenue
growth. Historically,

920
00:54:25,740 –> 00:54:30,120
the way it’s historically been done
is surveys, brand tracker surveys.

921
00:54:30,270 –> 00:54:33,450
Let’s get our brand awareness. Number
two, problems with that, right?

922
00:54:33,810 –> 00:54:37,560
Is that you’ve got this
intermediary metric. First of all,

923
00:54:37,560 –> 00:54:41,730
it took three months to get that
metric. So you’re already like, okay,

924
00:54:41,730 –> 00:54:45,780
what is this? Okay, my brand
awareness went up five points,

925
00:54:46,050 –> 00:54:49,200
but what period of time are we even
looking at? I don’t even remember.

926
00:54:49,530 –> 00:54:52,830
I’m thinking about Black Friday, cyber
Monday, right? So what? There are two,

927
00:54:52,830 –> 00:54:57,480
so whats that are unanswered? What
did I do to get that? And then what’s,

928
00:54:58,020 –> 00:54:59,700
how much more money am I
making because of that?

929
00:54:59,820 –> 00:55:02,700
So we’re intending to kind
of get out of surveys,

930
00:55:02,730 –> 00:55:05,100
focus on actions like
you’re mentioning, right?

931
00:55:05,460 –> 00:55:08,910
Everything I do should drive an
action. Yes, love. So behaviors,

932
00:55:09,420 –> 00:55:11,070
what people do rather
than what people say.

933
00:55:11,520 –> 00:55:14,280
There’s a crap ton of that being
generated every day on the internet.

934
00:55:15,000 –> 00:55:19,440
So use behavior and then solve
the two. So whats that have been?

935
00:55:19,440 –> 00:55:23,430
The pernicious problems with measuring
the impact of brand one is tie it to

936
00:55:24,090 –> 00:55:25,560
action as much as you can.

937
00:55:25,680 –> 00:55:28,680
Not everything, But as much as you
can tie it to actions you’ve taken.

938
00:55:29,010 –> 00:55:32,970
Give yourself a daily number
that is in the form of dollars,

939
00:55:33,000 –> 00:55:34,050
which is solving the second.

940
00:55:34,050 –> 00:55:38,760
So which is like how do I
quantify or predict or look

941
00:55:38,760 –> 00:55:42,900
back and analyze the
incremental revenue impact

942
00:55:42,990 –> 00:55:47,010
of this brand building stuff,
actually make that connection.

943
00:55:47,490 –> 00:55:49,260
And so those are the two things
we’re trying to do with brand.

944
00:55:49,260 –> 00:55:50,700
And so think of us as

945
00:55:53,580 –> 00:55:56,760
all of the things I was talking about
on the short term kind of stuff,

946
00:55:57,510 –> 00:55:59,370
but for long-term.

947
00:56:00,180 –> 00:56:04,800
So our whole focus is not the
clicks, not the short-term purchases,

948
00:56:04,800 –> 00:56:09,450
but what’s happening over the next
six months and how can we think about

949
00:56:09,450 –> 00:56:13,740
building that bank revenue if you’ll
that future revenue that I’m going to be

950
00:56:13,740 –> 00:56:17,100
building into and
realizing. But then also,

951
00:56:17,100 –> 00:56:21,600
how am I driving what we focus on, which
is called resilient baseline revenue.

952
00:56:22,290 –> 00:56:26,470
So even as you look at an mm m readout
for instance, over short-term stuff,

953
00:56:26,950 –> 00:56:30,940
you’ll always get some percentage
of the revenue that wasn’t explained

954
00:56:31,030 –> 00:56:34,930
necessarily by your short-term
tactics. It was the base sales, right?

955
00:56:35,350 –> 00:56:38,470
The sales you would’ve gotten anyways
is kind of another way to talk about it.

956
00:56:38,890 –> 00:56:41,320
The big aha for us was like, yeah,

957
00:56:41,320 –> 00:56:44,140
it’s fun to look at all the
colors in the chart of the MMM,

958
00:56:44,530 –> 00:56:45,880
but what about this base sales?

959
00:56:46,060 –> 00:56:50,110
Wouldn’t it be cool if that was much
larger If the sales I would’ve gotten

960
00:56:50,110 –> 00:56:51,520
anyways was more?

961
00:56:51,970 –> 00:56:56,350
That seems like that’s awesome from
the perspective of resilience and risk

962
00:56:56,350 –> 00:57:01,030
reduction and better
forecasting and less reliance

963
00:57:01,030 –> 00:57:03,820
on third parties that I don’t control.
But these all seem like good things.

964
00:57:03,820 –> 00:57:05,560
Why do I focus on trying to build that?

965
00:57:05,800 –> 00:57:07,630
And we realized there was
nothing out there that does that.

966
00:57:07,630 –> 00:57:10,810
So think of us as how do I
build that resilient base,

967
00:57:11,110 –> 00:57:12,340
however you want to define it, right?

968
00:57:12,340 –> 00:57:17,110
If it’s like revenue from
brand search or if it’s not as

969
00:57:17,110 –> 00:57:18,910
simple, right? You’ve got
to remove all the spikes.

970
00:57:18,910 –> 00:57:21,430
You’ve got to invest for spend and
seasonality and blah, blah, blah, blah.

971
00:57:21,460 –> 00:57:24,220
How do I build that
resilient base of revenue?

972
00:57:24,400 –> 00:57:28,060
How do I drive more people to search
for my brand and buy or just memorize my

973
00:57:28,060 –> 00:57:29,410
fricking URL I’m coming by?

974
00:57:29,530 –> 00:57:32,830
Those are the purchase actions that I
want to drive more of. And that comes from

975
00:57:32,830 –> 00:57:36,820
activating the 95% when they become the 5%

976
00:57:37,630 –> 00:57:40,000
sure they’re going to be more
likely to click on my ads,

977
00:57:40,330 –> 00:57:42,850
which will make my
performance more performant.

978
00:57:43,600 –> 00:57:47,920
But I also want them to just not
have to go through that thing.

979
00:57:48,460 –> 00:57:49,780
Let’s play different games.

980
00:57:50,560 –> 00:57:53,980
Let’s spend our dollars to drive brand
search and revenue from brand search,

981
00:57:54,100 –> 00:57:58,630
that kind of stuff. So anyways,
we’re trying to, for modern brands,

982
00:57:59,230 –> 00:58:03,310
turn this, it’s like
incremental future growth.

983
00:58:03,850 –> 00:58:06,100
Think about it that way. Less
brand brand’s a scary word,

984
00:58:06,340 –> 00:58:09,820
but it’s an important word and you got
to stand by it because brand matters from

985
00:58:09,820 –> 00:58:11,350
a performance marketing mindset mindset.

986
00:58:11,350 –> 00:58:15,520
We’re just trying to turn incremental
future growth beyond what you would

987
00:58:15,520 –> 00:58:19,300
achieve if you were just continuing
to spend in the way you are today.

988
00:58:20,710 –> 00:58:23,020
So brand but into performance,

989
00:58:23,050 –> 00:58:27,910
into a performance marketing workflow
where I get data today on what I

990
00:58:27,910 –> 00:58:32,650
did yesterday so that I can act
and make decisions and basically

991
00:58:32,650 –> 00:58:37,300
run a full funnel ad account basically
across YouTube and meta TikTok,

992
00:58:37,450 –> 00:58:38,283
whatever.

993
00:58:39,430 –> 00:58:43,780
Man, I love that. I 100%
agree brand is moat.

994
00:58:43,810 –> 00:58:46,240
At the end of the day, it’s what you have.

995
00:58:46,240 –> 00:58:50,950
And I think brand shows up in
the ability to charge the right

996
00:58:50,950 –> 00:58:52,660
prices. You can protect your profits.

997
00:58:52,660 –> 00:58:57,340
It’s the ability to continue
to grow and to have people

998
00:58:57,340 –> 00:58:59,950
searching for your brand.
I know Mark Pritchard,

999
00:58:59,950 –> 00:59:04,720
the marketing director at p and g always
says one of the greatest signs that we

1000
00:59:04,720 –> 00:59:09,310
look for knowing that a brand
has traction is brand search

1001
00:59:09,400 –> 00:59:11,800
growing over time. That’s
what we need to measure.

1002
00:59:12,310 –> 00:59:14,080
And I like this idea of resiliency,

1003
00:59:14,230 –> 00:59:19,060
this baseline revenue is that growing
and that’s going to be an indicator of

1004
00:59:19,540 –> 00:59:21,590
am I doing things right?

1005
00:59:21,590 –> 00:59:26,030
And I do think there’s this sense that
brand is mushy and it’s fluffy and you

1006
00:59:26,030 –> 00:59:29,270
can’t measure it and it’s
just in the ether or whatever,

1007
00:59:29,270 –> 00:59:32,150
but that’s not really true.
Brand can be measured,

1008
00:59:32,540 –> 00:59:33,800
you just don’t measure it in the same way.

1009
00:59:33,800 –> 00:59:35,480
And you do kind of need
of a collection of tools.

1010
00:59:36,050 –> 00:59:40,040
But I think this piece that you’re
solving of how do we measure the resilient

1011
00:59:40,160 –> 00:59:42,770
growth of our brand shows
up with chubby, right?

1012
00:59:43,190 –> 00:59:44,930
Would you say eight years in a row?

1013
00:59:44,930 –> 00:59:46,970
Like the top bottom line
growth or whatever. Yeah.

1014
00:59:46,970 –> 00:59:50,060
Even in the midst of craziness.
Totally. It’s important.

1015
00:59:50,180 –> 00:59:51,530
It’s important to have
that resilient growth.

1016
00:59:51,530 –> 00:59:54,410
And so I guess maybe as we wrap up here,

1017
00:59:55,070 –> 00:59:56,690
what are some of the insights that pop up?

1018
00:59:56,690 –> 00:59:59,240
Do you have any examples
of with this data,

1019
01:00:00,560 –> 01:00:03,710
these are the insights that pop up and
then what we can do with those insights?

1020
01:00:04,220 –> 01:00:06,740
So some of the data that
has come to the surface,

1021
01:00:06,980 –> 01:00:08,540
it’s actually pretty interesting. So

1022
01:00:10,490 –> 01:00:14,690
the one point though that I would make
is that sometimes people think about, ah,

1023
01:00:14,870 –> 01:00:17,630
it seems too good to be true that
you can measure this brand thing in a

1024
01:00:17,630 –> 01:00:20,230
performance markety ish way
or even measure the impact,

1025
01:00:20,230 –> 01:00:23,390
the revenue impact of the
brand. The reality is that

1026
01:00:25,100 –> 01:00:29,570
p and g or Ford or these massive

1027
01:00:29,570 –> 01:00:30,590
advertisers,

1028
01:00:30,980 –> 01:00:35,390
they’ve worked with firms to
build these custom models,

1029
01:00:35,630 –> 01:00:38,000
they cost millions to
build and to maintain,

1030
01:00:38,000 –> 01:00:40,790
and they take a really long time to get
all the data in, et cetera, et cetera,

1031
01:00:41,090 –> 01:00:45,560
which is why we lowly 50,
a hundred million dollars.

1032
01:00:45,560 –> 01:00:48,800
Brands don’t really do this,

1033
01:00:49,520 –> 01:00:50,990
but they’ve been doing it for a long time.

1034
01:00:51,380 –> 01:00:55,700
But they’ve just been these crazy
complex models that were built by these

1035
01:00:55,700 –> 01:00:58,730
analytics firms and they
took just a really long time,

1036
01:00:58,730 –> 01:01:02,660
but it’s proven methodology. They’ve
been measuring this stuff for forever.

1037
01:01:03,200 –> 01:01:04,033
How else

1038
01:01:05,300 –> 01:01:09,980
for us modern consumer brand builders
to think that all of the traditional

1039
01:01:10,070 –> 01:01:13,580
multi-billion dollar brands have just
gotten there because they’ve been flying

1040
01:01:13,580 –> 01:01:17,300
blind, they’ve had no data. I think
we need a little humility ourselves.

1041
01:01:17,420 –> 01:01:21,770
These are very precise people. Absolutely.
It’s expensive to do it that way.

1042
01:01:21,770 –> 01:01:23,080
So I think the thing that we’re doing in.

1043
01:01:23,080 –> 01:01:24,050
America, not that it’s not measurable,

1044
01:01:24,050 –> 01:01:26,600
it’s just not measurable in the way
we’re used to. And so makes sense.

1045
01:01:26,620 –> 01:01:30,080
Not in the way we’re used to and then
up until I guess what we’re doing is,

1046
01:01:30,680 –> 01:01:32,750
and not a way that we could afford.

1047
01:01:33,800 –> 01:01:34,490
Because.

1048
01:01:34,490 –> 01:01:37,010
It would be very expensive
to build these custom models.

1049
01:01:37,010 –> 01:01:40,520
So part of the thing that we’re
doing is, let’s try to generalize it.

1050
01:01:40,520 –> 01:01:42,650
A lot of the people who built those
super custom models for those big

1051
01:01:42,650 –> 01:01:45,350
advertisers from these analytics
firms are the ones who were like,

1052
01:01:45,650 –> 01:01:48,770
this is how I would do it if I
would democratize this for everyone.

1053
01:01:48,770 –> 01:01:51,500
So when we came together it
was like, oh, this is awesome.

1054
01:01:51,860 –> 01:01:55,580
Let’s figure this out. But some of
the big things that have stood out,

1055
01:01:58,820 –> 01:02:02,360
one of the things we’ve
always knocked on is

1056
01:02:04,010 –> 01:02:08,420
whether or not a follow
or a share is valuable.

1057
01:02:09,290 –> 01:02:10,700
I think we’ve all gone through this.

1058
01:02:11,570 –> 01:02:14,300
Well at least I have this hype
cycle of that’s all that matters.

1059
01:02:14,990 –> 01:02:17,840
It’s the worst thing. There’s
no value. Maybe it does matter.

1060
01:02:19,050 –> 01:02:23,910
So the reality though is somewhere in
the middle there’s some value of someone

1061
01:02:23,910 –> 01:02:27,450
taking an action and that is an
action, it’s a precursor action.

1062
01:02:27,510 –> 01:02:29,100
It’s a non shopping behavior,

1063
01:02:29,640 –> 01:02:33,360
but there is a statistical relationship
between people taking those actions and

1064
01:02:33,360 –> 01:02:35,550
your future revenue. So
if you can find that.

1065
01:02:36,210 –> 01:02:37,950
So I think that’s one of the big things.

1066
01:02:37,950 –> 01:02:41,880
So we think about then spending
our money not to drive a purchase.

1067
01:02:41,880 –> 01:02:46,350
So now I’m talking about
non purchase campaigns,

1068
01:02:46,350 –> 01:02:47,970
which freaks people out
because they’re just like,

1069
01:02:47,970 –> 01:02:52,110
why would I do a subscriber
campaign that is insane?

1070
01:02:54,150 –> 01:02:55,200
Does it have value, blah, blah, blah

1071
01:02:57,990 –> 01:03:02,040
to get IG follows, to get, TikTok
follows to get Facebook follows.

1072
01:03:02,040 –> 01:03:03,750
Can you imagine getting a
Facebook page like that?

1073
01:03:04,530 –> 01:03:09,450
But the reality is that these sorts
of things are opening up additional

1074
01:03:09,450 –> 01:03:12,000
reach, lowering the cost per
a thousand accounts reached,

1075
01:03:12,630 –> 01:03:16,920
reaching different people. Because as
you think about if you’re the ad auction,

1076
01:03:16,920 –> 01:03:17,130
right,

1077
01:03:17,130 –> 01:03:21,030
you’re going to serve media because you’re
going to get the highest bid on this

1078
01:03:21,030 –> 01:03:21,840
set of people.

1079
01:03:21,840 –> 01:03:25,050
It doesn’t make sense to serve media to
these people who haven’t shown all these

1080
01:03:25,050 –> 01:03:28,170
intense signals that they’re in
market. So they’re not going to do it.

1081
01:03:28,500 –> 01:03:31,740
So then when you choose
different objectives, yeah,

1082
01:03:31,800 –> 01:03:35,490
the bid is different because the auction’s
different and you’re reaching all

1083
01:03:35,490 –> 01:03:37,770
these people that you
weren’t otherwise reaching.

1084
01:03:38,580 –> 01:03:43,410
And if you use your best creative
creative that our friend Jacque makes or

1085
01:03:43,620 –> 01:03:46,980
that any of these brands have
made that has earned engagement,

1086
01:03:46,980 –> 01:03:48,030
talks about who they’re what to do,

1087
01:03:48,870 –> 01:03:51,990
you’re doing the brand building thing
in a performance market. You don’t only

1088
01:03:51,990 –> 01:03:55,350
have to do billboards and linear tv,
you can do enough performance market.

1089
01:03:55,980 –> 01:03:58,890
So we’re getting people to take those
actions because that’s a lot of the

1090
01:03:58,890 –> 01:04:00,690
playbook that we used at to do this.

1091
01:04:00,990 –> 01:04:05,940
It was very much like let’s build
our community by distributing

1092
01:04:05,940 –> 01:04:08,580
content that wouldn’t crush
it in a bottom funnel.

1093
01:04:08,580 –> 01:04:12,780
Performance marketing a set
necessarily wouldn’t beat the

1094
01:04:13,230 –> 01:04:16,800
very product offer urgency sort of thing
that you got to do. Not knocking that.

1095
01:04:17,820 –> 01:04:22,740
Totally. So then I think the key
things are run media differently,

1096
01:04:23,310 –> 01:04:27,690
use different objectives and it matters.
It helps, it works kind of thing.

1097
01:04:28,140 –> 01:04:30,210
And if you want to lower CPMs,
you want to reach more people,

1098
01:04:30,330 –> 01:04:31,650
those are the unarguable rules.

1099
01:04:31,650 –> 01:04:36,330
But now we’re helping to provide a
little bit more context on how valuable

1100
01:04:36,510 –> 01:04:38,670
it’s so that you can think
about how much to budget,

1101
01:04:39,150 –> 01:04:42,870
think about what is the split
for me given my cash profile,

1102
01:04:42,930 –> 01:04:46,500
given what I demand from an incremental
role on a 30 day roll basis,

1103
01:04:46,500 –> 01:04:49,620
whatever that might be.
So that’s kind of what we’re finding,

1104
01:04:49,620 –> 01:04:54,030
but finding that YouTube is
super valuable on a long-term

1105
01:04:54,030 –> 01:04:57,360
context, pretty meaningfully.

1106
01:04:58,020 –> 01:05:01,080
But then Facebook as well, I
mean just going out absolutely,

1107
01:05:01,530 –> 01:05:05,280
whether it be post engagement campaigns
or trying to get Facebook page likes,

1108
01:05:05,580 –> 01:05:07,470
yes, that action matters,

1109
01:05:07,470 –> 01:05:09,600
but then it’s also the fact that
you’re just reaching people you weren’t

1110
01:05:09,600 –> 01:05:13,350
otherwise reaching. And then it’s
like, ah, do I have the creative?

1111
01:05:14,160 –> 01:05:17,070
Everyone has more brand building creative,

1112
01:05:17,080 –> 01:05:21,580
whether it’s amazing and fricking
awesome, different conversation,

1113
01:05:21,790 –> 01:05:23,860
but everyone’s got to start
somewhere. You know what I mean?

1114
01:05:23,860 –> 01:05:27,520
And so we’re helping you
to put numbers to your gut,

1115
01:05:27,910 –> 01:05:31,600
whereas that putting this piece of content
in front of what people is just good.

1116
01:05:32,290 –> 01:05:34,030
That’s who we are. That’s
what we do kind of thing.

1117
01:05:34,390 –> 01:05:39,010
Now we’re just validating
that with numbers. But yeah,

1118
01:05:39,040 –> 01:05:43,090
I mean to your point, brand
search not a perfect metric. Yes,

1119
01:05:43,090 –> 01:05:46,450
it’s tied to spend. Yes.
If you spend more on dr,

1120
01:05:46,450 –> 01:05:48,340
you will get more brand
search. That’s not the point.

1121
01:05:48,820 –> 01:05:52,090
The point is that there are other ways
to spend your dollars to more efficiently

1122
01:05:52,090 –> 01:05:55,900
drive brand search And to more efficiently
then get those clicks to your site

1123
01:05:56,050 –> 01:05:59,980
and more efficiently have them be high
converting. That’s more the point.

1124
01:06:00,400 –> 01:06:02,530
What we learned at Chubby’s is like, yeah,

1125
01:06:02,560 –> 01:06:04,690
let’s spend our money to drive
brand search more efficiently.

1126
01:06:05,050 –> 01:06:07,630
That’s what I want to do. That’s
how I want to use the ad platforms.

1127
01:06:09,100 –> 01:06:12,550
That puts me in a different bucket where
I’m leveraging it to meet my needs.

1128
01:06:12,550 –> 01:06:14,560
And so we’re just trying to help brands.

1129
01:06:15,520 –> 01:06:18,760
I don’t want to say see the light because
that’s implying that they’re blind or

1130
01:06:18,970 –> 01:06:21,550
whatever, but just free them up.

1131
01:06:22,240 –> 01:06:22,990
To.

1132
01:06:22,990 –> 01:06:27,940
Do the things that’ll help to truly
drive their business without seeing this

1133
01:06:27,940 –> 01:06:31,090
mythical dip. I think that’s the other
thing is people transition. They’re like,

1134
01:06:31,330 –> 01:06:32,560
oh, I going to go out of business. Well,

1135
01:06:32,560 –> 01:06:36,820
I’m transitioning to reality is absolutely
not, but it matters how you do it.

1136
01:06:37,120 –> 01:06:37,953
It matters how you do it.

1137
01:06:37,960 –> 01:06:39,730
And so we’re trying to help
people through that as well.

1138
01:06:39,730 –> 01:06:41,230
But those are some just quick takeaways.

1139
01:06:42,640 –> 01:06:47,080
That’s so important and putting data
behind your gut and your intuition.

1140
01:06:47,080 –> 01:06:52,030
I trust and believe that if I invest
in marketing in this way with a

1141
01:06:52,030 –> 01:06:55,570
really strong brand message
that compels people,

1142
01:06:55,570 –> 01:06:58,510
but it’s not the buy now save a
hundred percent type of thing.

1143
01:06:58,510 –> 01:07:01,720
It’s like it’s a good brand message.
I believe that’s going to work.

1144
01:07:02,410 –> 01:07:04,960
I’m going to trust it, but I’d
sure like some data to back me up.

1145
01:07:04,960 –> 01:07:08,200
And that’s what you guys have
built and what you’re doing here,

1146
01:07:08,200 –> 01:07:09,340
and it just makes sense.

1147
01:07:09,490 –> 01:07:12,460
We look at this all the time with YouTube
and then there’s been such an influx

1148
01:07:12,460 –> 01:07:16,540
of people coming to MG for us
to help them solve YouTube,

1149
01:07:16,540 –> 01:07:18,250
which we do all the time. But hey,

1150
01:07:18,250 –> 01:07:22,930
if we can reach the right audience
maybe for a five or $8 CPM or a

1151
01:07:22,930 –> 01:07:27,460
$10 CCP M and you’re getting a
30 or $40 CPM somewhere else,

1152
01:07:28,030 –> 01:07:29,590
that’s going to have an impact.

1153
01:07:29,920 –> 01:07:33,130
And if I can drive more branded search,

1154
01:07:33,130 –> 01:07:36,160
which comes to me at 50 cents or whatever,

1155
01:07:36,160 –> 01:07:38,980
that’s going to be better than driving
$7 clicks and some of these other areas.

1156
01:07:39,280 –> 01:07:42,100
And so it’s understanding some
of those things are powerful,

1157
01:07:42,100 –> 01:07:45,310
but now you’re putting some of the
measurement behind it to see the real

1158
01:07:45,310 –> 01:07:46,720
business impact of those things.

1159
01:07:47,380 –> 01:07:51,910
And then just trying to validating
it with straight up well run.

1160
01:07:53,020 –> 01:07:56,680
Do you hold that incrementality studies
so that when you get those results,

1161
01:07:56,680 –> 01:08:00,130
yeah, I mean it trains your
MMM or your statistical model,

1162
01:08:00,520 –> 01:08:05,230
but it also gives you data that you can
take to the CO and CFO and just be like,

1163
01:08:05,890 –> 01:08:07,060
because the tough thing
that always happens,

1164
01:08:07,210 –> 01:08:09,670
and you probably deal with this with
your clients, it’s like, oh crap,

1165
01:08:09,910 –> 01:08:12,910
October soft or September was rough.

1166
01:08:13,330 –> 01:08:13,450
You.

1167
01:08:13,450 –> 01:08:15,710
Got to cut all that stuff,
right? Only bottom funnel.

1168
01:08:16,820 –> 01:08:17,810
And then when you don’t have

1169
01:08:19,820 –> 01:08:24,080
any kind of causal holdout data,
there’s no way for you to say,

1170
01:08:24,080 –> 01:08:26,660
we would be doing worse if we weren’t
doing this brand building stuff.

1171
01:08:26,930 –> 01:08:30,680
There’s no way to say that. But
that’s true Or it’s potentially true.

1172
01:08:31,250 –> 01:08:33,410
And if you’re running these
experiments constantly,

1173
01:08:33,470 –> 01:08:37,280
if you have this culture
of experimentation, you can
actually say that, right?

1174
01:08:37,280 –> 01:08:38,113
Here’s the data.

1175
01:08:38,180 –> 01:08:42,620
Look at these geos doing way worse where
we’re not doing this demand gen stuff

1176
01:08:42,620 –> 01:08:45,770
or I don’t want to say demand
creating net new demand for our brand,

1177
01:08:45,800 –> 01:08:49,460
let’s call it. And so that’s
what we really encourage.

1178
01:08:49,700 –> 01:08:53,840
Anyone who’s doing any kind of stuff
that doesn’t necessarily optimize for

1179
01:08:53,840 –> 01:08:58,040
driving that short-term today
purchase is just run experiments

1180
01:08:59,150 –> 01:09:01,550
so that you can have that
conversation where it’s just like, no,

1181
01:09:02,570 –> 01:09:03,403
this is the whole goal.

1182
01:09:03,650 –> 01:09:07,610
We want to make more money than we would
had we just been sticking to bottom

1183
01:09:07,610 –> 01:09:09,020
funnel demand capture. That’s the goal.

1184
01:09:09,020 –> 01:09:12,470
More profit dollars sustainably
over many, many years.

1185
01:09:13,520 –> 01:09:15,060
We’re all aligned on
that front, right? Yes.

1186
01:09:15,060 –> 01:09:19,550
So if we have some numbers
in this missing fluffy

1187
01:09:19,550 –> 01:09:23,810
piece, that is the compounder,
right? That’s the end of the day.

1188
01:09:24,050 –> 01:09:24,890
It’s the compounder. It’s the compounder.

1189
01:09:25,640 –> 01:09:26,030
Yes.

1190
01:09:26,030 –> 01:09:27,290
The bottom funnel land capture.

1191
01:09:27,350 –> 01:09:31,970
It is the thing that cash
is in on the compounding.

1192
01:09:31,970 –> 01:09:35,090
But if you don’t have a compounding,
right, I mean, then we’re in trouble.

1193
01:09:35,350 –> 01:09:36,290
So we want to solve that.

1194
01:09:36,550 –> 01:09:40,460
In trouble. Man, it’s so good. So good.
I could keep going on this all day.

1195
01:09:40,460 –> 01:09:41,450
I absolutely love this stuff.

1196
01:09:41,450 –> 01:09:45,980
But we do need to wrap up and we’ll have
to do another round in the future and

1197
01:09:45,980 –> 01:09:50,960
hopefully not wait a couple years,
but who is marathon data for?

1198
01:09:51,170 –> 01:09:55,340
What’s your ICP or your ideal client
profile and how can people find out more?

1199
01:09:55,940 –> 01:09:59,780
Sure. So ICP, it’s like,

1200
01:10:00,140 –> 01:10:04,610
let’s call ’em generally
modern consumer brands who

1201
01:10:05,060 –> 01:10:06,620
maybe reached a point
where they’re just like,

1202
01:10:09,080 –> 01:10:14,000
I think part of the reason maybe why we’re
not seeing the results we want to see

1203
01:10:14,000 –> 01:10:17,000
is because maybe we haven’t been
able to invest in this brand stuff,

1204
01:10:17,360 –> 01:10:19,160
or
I know brand is important,

1205
01:10:19,730 –> 01:10:23,360
but I can’t figure out how to
invest in it or measure it.

1206
01:10:23,870 –> 01:10:27,140
So there’s that little bit
of pain or I’m crushing it,

1207
01:10:27,200 –> 01:10:29,330
but I don’t know what I’m doing
that’s helping my pressure.

1208
01:10:30,850 –> 01:10:32,840
What should I be doubling down
on? What should I be cutting?

1209
01:10:32,840 –> 01:10:34,700
Everything’s seemingly working? What’s,

1210
01:10:35,630 –> 01:10:40,610
there’s those things You’re generally
spending a lot of money on meta, Google,

1211
01:10:40,610 –> 01:10:43,700
YouTube, TikTok, you’ve
got active socials,

1212
01:10:44,390 –> 01:10:47,390
you’re trying to expand multichannel,
right? You start a D two C,

1213
01:10:47,450 –> 01:10:50,450
now you’re on Amazon, now you’re
in Walmart or Nordstrom or whoever,

1214
01:10:51,350 –> 01:10:53,390
and you don’t have to
be all of that stuff.

1215
01:10:53,390 –> 01:10:56,810
But those are generally the folks that
we work with may need to be around for

1216
01:10:57,020 –> 01:11:00,620
three, four years to have enough
history. So all that stuff,

1217
01:11:01,040 –> 01:11:02,870
but pretty much any consumer brand.

1218
01:11:04,250 –> 01:11:07,130
Love it. Love it. And then
how can they find out more?

1219
01:11:07,130 –> 01:11:09,410
Where can they get a demo? How can
they dive in? That sort of thing.

1220
01:11:09,500 –> 01:11:10,333
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1221
01:11:10,460 –> 01:11:14,850
So you can just slide
into my dms on LinkedIn,

1222
01:11:14,850 –> 01:11:18,870
just search Preston Ruther with shorts
in the middle of the first and last name.

1223
01:11:18,870 –> 01:11:23,400
Or you can go to marathon data co com or

1224
01:11:23,400 –> 01:11:27,510
Marathon Taco. Someone told me
that I think is a way better.

1225
01:11:27,840 –> 01:11:32,580
Way to taco marathon taco. That’s
perfect. You’ll never forget that.

1226
01:11:32,670 –> 01:11:34,710
But yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn,

1227
01:11:35,160 –> 01:11:40,080
read some of the stuff that kind of
helps articulate these Yammer rings

1228
01:11:40,410 –> 01:11:41,520
on the internet, but.

1229
01:11:42,090 –> 01:11:42,923
Yeah.

1230
01:11:42,930 –> 01:11:46,350
Yep. Love it, man. Really appreciate
the time. I’ll double down on this.

1231
01:11:46,350 –> 01:11:49,560
You’re still one of the best follows
on LinkedIn out there if you’re in the

1232
01:11:49,560 –> 01:11:54,090
marketing and brand building
and consumer product building.

1233
01:11:54,090 –> 01:11:56,280
And if you’re in marketing, you got
to follow precedent on LinkedIn.

1234
01:11:56,280 –> 01:11:57,540
So just do that.

1235
01:11:58,110 –> 01:12:03,000
Checkout marathon data co.com or

1236
01:12:03,090 –> 01:12:07,980
the taco. I like that even better. And
so Preston, thanks man. Ton of fun.

1237
01:12:08,160 –> 01:12:10,200
Thank you Brett, as always,
and always great to catch up.

1238
01:12:11,070 –> 01:12:14,130
Pleasure dude. Love what you’re
doing and thanks for the opportunity.

1239
01:12:14,130 –> 01:12:15,330
Hope this is helpful for the audience.

1240
01:12:15,900 –> 01:12:18,930
A hundred percent. And as
always, thank you for tuning in.

1241
01:12:19,380 –> 01:12:21,990
We’d love to hear from you. What would
you like to hear more of on the show?

1242
01:12:22,380 –> 01:12:24,930
If you found this episode helpful and
you think it’d be helpful for someone

1243
01:12:24,930 –> 01:12:29,340
else, please share it. And with that,
until next time, thank you for listening.

1244
01:12:29,670 –> 01:12:32,910
This episode is brought to you
by WAY Flyer. You’ve got demand,

1245
01:12:33,180 –> 01:12:35,640
you’ve got ads that are converting
without enough inventory,

1246
01:12:35,640 –> 01:12:40,200
you’re leaving money on the table. And
when your bank doesn’t get D two C,

1247
01:12:40,200 –> 01:12:42,720
they won’t structure
funding the way you need it.

1248
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1249
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01:12:58,350 –> 01:12:59,940
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01:12:59,940 –> 01:13:04,620
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01:13:04,620 –> 01:13:05,453
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1255
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