Loading summary
Mike McElhenney
Foreign.
Ty Degrange
Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. I'm your host, Ty degrange and today's a big day. We got none other than my very best friend, our chief operating officer, Mike McElhenney. What's up, Mike?
Mike McElhenney
Hey, Ty. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Ty Degrange
It's been a long time coming. Mike has been involved in so many aspects of Round Bar Labs, my life, our friendship. I've known Mike since I was five and I think it's about time that the audience gets to meet Mike and he's pretty badass and so gonna unleash him to the world today.
Mike McElhenney
Thank you. I prefer to stay in the shadows, but I'll come out just for you.
Ty Degrange
Amazing. So Mike is our chief operating officer. He heads up our client services. He's been an instrumental part of the Round Barn Lab story. He's. We talk about the pod and a lot of the learnings that we've gathered as an organization and as individuals. So Mike's got a ton of knowledge, to say the least. We both happen to grow up in Sonoma county near the Fountain Grove Round Barn.
Mike McElhenney
Pretty parallel tracks over the last four years.
Ty Degrange
Yeah. Yeah. Well, similar, some overlap perhaps. And Mike has seen not only a ton on affiliate influencer, but a lot of data around meta, Google, multi channel marketing, experimentation, client management. So there's definitely a wealth of knowledge here to share and talk about and, and follow up with Mike if you're, you're so interested afterwards because he's one of the best parts of rbl. So when you're Mike, when you're thinking about leading teams, when you're thinking about being a teammate, being a leader, I think that's something that stands out for me. That has certainly been something you've excelled at in your career and during your time at rbl. What are some of the things that kind of you draw from to be that leader, be that teammate that you aim to be?
Mike McElhenney
Well, I think that part of that comes from a background of being in sports, team sports in particular, and really a focus on team. It was just always something that was kind of drilled into me even, you know, when I was a kid, from my, my dad, you know, you'd be a good teammate, you know, pick your teammates up, that type of thing. And I know that we talk a lot about the sports aspect between business and all the similarities that there are. And so I think it's, it's approaching things as a team where with low ego, high empathy, those are two things that we obviously preach a lot. And I try to live it in the way that we, we work with our teammates. I always tell people when I'm interviewing them or onboarding them that been doing this a really long time, but there's a lot of things I don't know and I would love to learn from you. And if I feel like if you approach things in that way, you're more likely to learn more for one and you'll have a better relationship with the people you're working with.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, that's awesome. And it's a balancing act, as you know firsthand. But it's such a great call out. And you kind of talked about the sports analogy. I know we both talked about a lot. The book the Captain's Class, which we both enjoyed and were inspired by and when in talking about your leadership style and how you collaborate so well with people and enable inclusion and empathy. And I think often of that book because it's such a good example of that, I think it's a good one for the audience. Is there kind of things that jump out at you in terms of like stuff that you would recommend people looking at as leaders or teammates that maybe is either sports inspired or just best practices it kind of support that goal that you're aiming for?
Mike McElhenney
Yeah, I think the two books that stand out to me the most and I try to live as a leader is Captain's Class that you mentioned. And also it's Jocko's book Extreme Ownership. So those are two books that I read at a time when it was around the time that I started with RBL and was going to be managing more people. And those two books I feel like really influenced the way that I approach things and the things that I preach to our team.
Ty Degrange
Yeah. And I think like Extreme Ownership has this, you know, and Jocko I think has this like probably somewhat you know, scary or polarizing like perception to people. But I think when you actually get into like what good teammates and what high performing teams are and good, good like collaborative people are doing, it's a lot of that really good stuff that Jocko talks about in his, his own way obviously, which is definitely unique. But I think that was an, it's cool that it was such an eye opening one for, for I think both of us. And I'm. I definitely get what you're throwing down.
Mike McElhenney
You know, it's funny is that over the summer when my son was playing baseball and we were playing some of these teams, one of the teams had on shirts made up that just said good on it and all the kids, these 10 year olds who have no idea where it's from, wearing those T shirts and hopefully learning that philosophy.
Ty Degrange
Yeah. And as you know, someone who had great fatherly inspiration in your dad and is now a dad and witnessing that in the coaching realm and the parenting realm, like, are you kind of trying to employ some of the stuff as a dad? Like, how do you, how do you balance that? How do you dad. How do you dad it?
Mike McElhenney
100%. We've actually written down our kind of family ethos that we talked to our kids about just recently. This just recently happened, I think a couple months ago we wanted to write this stuff down and be like, okay, this is what we believe in. And accountability, that extreme ownership is definitely one of them. You can control what you can control and as long as you're doing that part, that's, that's all you can do. Because especially when you're a kid, there's a lot of the, you know, oh, woe is me. This happened to me. I always say I feel like I'm a walking Hallmark card sometimes, but it's, it's not what happened to you, it's how you respond to it. It's hard to explain that to a seven year old, but I try to do it in a way where it's like, hey, you know, so and so called you a name on the playground. I understand that that makes you sad, but you can't control what that person says. You can't control what they're doing. And likely tomorrow they're going to want to play with you on the playground. So you can be a duck, let it roll off your back, focus on what you can control, which is not them. Focus on how you respond to it and move forward.
Ty Degrange
Amazing. Be a duck or perhaps a goldfish if you're a TED Lasso fan.
Mike McElhenney
Yeah, exactly, exactly. We use both. That's awesome.
Ty Degrange
I'm kind of jumping topics a little, so appreciate you rolling with the punches.
Mike McElhenney
But this is not the script I prepared. So just, you know, we're going, we're going off script.
Ty Degrange
Everybody talking friends, talking life, it's just going to get personal. It's going to be great. So you've kind of been like a meta ads master and you know, you've seen a lot in, from affiliate to out buying to multiple things. You know, a good, a good 20 year run of a lot. And I'm thinking, thinking about all the things you've seen that is there something that would be helpful for the audience around kind of like not to get too nerdy on meta specifically. But I'm just curious if you kind of have some things you call out that, that you would maybe counsel people on to look for now or just some principles they can grab onto and kind of maybe think about.
Mike McElhenney
Yeah, totally. I mean, I started in meta really as soon as advertising was allowed back in 2012, 2013. I forget exactly when it was, but as soon as I could get my hands on it, I dove in and tried to get clients excited about it. And at the time that was, people were most interested in the targetability you can target by these interests and these things. And that was like, wow, blowing people's minds. And then it evolved into really a more algorithmic machine learning Trust our overlords at Meta to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time. And what I've seen a lot of people do wrong over the last couple years is to try to fight against that. You're not going to out target the algorithm, it's just not an option anymore. So people who try to have too much control in their targeting or their account structure is not going to work really. It's about consolidating and creative testing for the things that matter the most. The other big thing that I see people do that we've made changes on for our clients that have proven to be successful is instead of optimizing for a seven day click, one day view attribution window, changing that to seven day click, which really comes down to the signals that you're sending back to the algorithm. So if, you know, I always describe it as this, meta is like a dog with a bone. If you put that bone out there, the dog's gonna find it. And meta will find people who are converting. And if you're a larger company with lots of conversions from other channels, it is going to show ads to people who are getting your emails frequently, who are interacting with your social page, organic social, all these other areas. And it's going to over, it's going to over credit. And what we've seen in a lot of cases is it skews way more towards view through conversions, which view through is valuable to a certain extent. But if you optimize it towards a seven day click and you're focused on click through conversions, now this is, these are more incremental sales and you're driving new people to the website because theoretically if they've clicked through from your ad to the website and converted in a seven day period, your ad had something to do with getting them to the website. So it may not be 100% the cause and the reason, but it's going to be more than if they just happen to see the ad but got to the website later.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, it's spot on. It's like this has been bubbling up, I think even now kicking off the year and I think it gets some good attention, you know, throughout the year, as it should. But it's kind of shocking how often brands are literally relying on set it and forget it methods across the board. And it can be applicable to Google, it can be applicable to affiliate, where if you're not thinking thoughtfully about attribution, if you're not actually thinking, okay, I don't want to just chase. That's that inverse logic fallacy, if you will, where you're just chasing folks that have already purchased, already in market, already about to purchase. This happens all, all the time. And it's partially why like these channels are getting. It's, oh, it's so measurable. It's so measurable you're measuring the wrong things. And so it's, we're huge proponents of kind of stopping that habit and kind of rethinking that. And you just nailed a great example and I think it's something that surprisingly more people should be talking about. It's nice to see when people do talk about it.
Mike McElhenney
Yeah. Because what happens in that, that earlier case when people are using the default out of the box setting is you end up targeting a lot of your existing customers and unless you're a very repeat heavy business, that's not a sound strategy.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, we've, you've looked under the hood of a lot of accounts in various categories and seen some, some pretty wild examples and it seems like they just continue to come up for us. And so, so yeah, it's a great, that's a great call out in thinking through, you know, the POD theme is obviously testing and thinking about the experimentation. Experimentation has been just a huge part of how you've worked and how we've worked together and what we've been about. Are there some, maybe things that you would want to share that are interesting to people or exciting or things that you recall back that you can share about that are just good experimentation examples or best practices that you can give folks to think about.
Mike McElhenney
When it comes to experimentation with ads, landing page testing is always very exciting because you are not only seeing the results from the page itself, but then you're seeing how people interact with the page differently and there's really cool insights that you can get from that in the ad platforms themselves. I think the, the experiments that I'm, that I think most fondly about are the ones where you're focused on the signal that you're sending back to the ad platform and refining that signal. This is usually the case more with like a, like a B2B type of business or a business that has a series of steps before purchase so that you're not just optimizing for a purchase, you're optimizing for a higher quality lead that will eventually lead to, you know, a sale. And those, those are the tests where we're optimizing for something that is not the, the most obvious conversion point, whether that's a lead, but we're optimizing for something that's further down the further down the funnel in that sales process. Those are the tests that I feel like have been most exciting for me because I think B2B is challenging because of that simple, simple reason. I mean you can drive a thousand leads tomorrow, but if 20 of them are quality, you know, you've got a big problem. So constantly trying to refine the quality of the leads that are coming through and optimizing for further down funnel conversions are I think the tests that I recall most fondly because they weren't obvious. You know, it wasn't a creative test, it wasn't a hook test, it wasn't something like that. It was like, wait a second, this is a big test. It's really going to shake up the signal that we're sending back. And that's the key thing with all these ad platforms is if you're sending them the right signal, they'll continue to improve. But if you send them the wrong, wrong signal, you know, a bad, low quality lead, it's not going to improve.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, what a huge call out. You've been a master at that. I've seen it firsthand on so many occasions with some pretty, pretty massive spending clients and some pretty critical situations via strategies and QBRs. And it's pretty awesome. And I think we're even talking about it now with existing clients and prospects actively where, how do we ensure that platform data, we elevate that IQ of what platform data is saying, what their in house data is saying, what their looker data is saying. And so I think it's really something that we've obviously enjoyed to geek out on a bit. And I think clients have really obviously fortunately resonated with that. And you've been really at the, at the center of that for a long time, which is awesome.
Mike McElhenney
And one Other one other test type that is always interesting are holdout tests. Whether it's an in platform structured test or something you're doing separately. Those are always very interesting to me.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, this thought came up and I want to write something up about it. Nothing crazy but just it's a good, good reminder for people that why not go crazy time. Well let's, you know, let's go, let's go crazy today. This is our time. Just the you know, I don't think I like kind of taking that like we're kind of, we welcome the challenge to proper, you know, look at various tests and I think that's kind of the place we want to operate from. Like RBL was really created out of this like hey agnostic like just try and test and agnostic view. And obviously we've evolved into being like you know, very our go to markets very much influencer, affiliate it focused. But hey, you know, you've got a boatload of paid marketing experience. We've done a boatload of paid marketing. We've got a bunch of experimentation, CRO experience. You know, you've had your own agency, I've been in house and all kinds of that kind of informs how we think about it. And I think the, the punchline is really just welcoming that, that challenged skepticism and scientific approach of like hey, we, we don't know if this is necessarily going to always be the best performing channel or tactic or partner and be okay with that kind of like change and test and rigor that clients and holdouts require. And I think that we just kind of come from that place of. I think there's a trust element that you and I have obviously been told about from folks that we work with. But I think when you say that those types of things and the way you operate in particular, it's very much like we want it to stand up to scrutiny.
Mike McElhenney
Exactly.
Ty Degrange
Speaking of all the cool stuff you've done, you know when you kind of over the years kind of wrapped your arms around this wild thing called affiliate marketing and was there moments where you're kind of like what the heck is this? Or were there anything things that kind of shocked you? I know you've been familiar with the industry for a very, very long time, so it's not new to you, but I'm just curious like is there things that you came in when you're like what is this about?
Mike McElhenney
I think dabbling in it as an affiliate back in the late aughts I believe they were called impressive. I got dipped my toes into Affiliate. And then of course being in Santa Barbara, there's so many, so much affiliate business happening there. I think the thing that I've gotten more involved is the variety of different partners there are outside of what you would expect. Just there are so many different technical and new partner types that I did not know about that are very interesting and in a lot, a lot of ways very effective. And then the other part is just understanding the need to have a balanced portfolio. Kind of looking at it like stock trading essentially. Like if you put up too many eggs in one basket, you're going to, you're going to, you know, subject yourself to a lot of risk as a lot of people found out in the beginning of 2024 if they were had all their eggs in the content basket. And so yeah, those are two things and then the last one being just the scale potential for the channel, which I knew it was a large channel but the scale potential with affiliate is so large. It's tremendous.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, it's awesome and it's funny and I've talked about this obviously probably a ton but the fact that it's almost this like multi channel, you know, ecosystem is kind of interesting too. It's, there's just like you, you hit the nail on the head. There's a lot there. And I remember a couple years ago talking to a, you know, very sophisticated marketer, had his own agency even, they even ran affiliate and he was like shot. He was like when he was reminded of all the partner types he was like, oh wow, that's, that's new to, new to me.
Mike McElhenney
I mean essentially anything could be affiliate. That's, that's the part that I understand, I kind of put it in this box is like, oh, you've got, you've got your rakuten, you've got your honey, got some content sites and that's what I thought affiliate was. But yeah, it's really anything you want it to be.
Ty Degrange
Yeah. So there's a lot of flexibility and a lot of scale opportunity if it's managed well. Well said. We're both, you know, reforge enthusiasts. You, you are a multi time alum. We enjoy our gross chats with Brian Balfour and the like. In true reforged fashion, since you have seen so many situations in your career, you know, if you were to be dropped in as a VP of growth consumer tech brand perhaps what are some things that you might look at to try to set them up for success? Because you've seen this, this a lot. I'm curious to hear what are Some thoughts that you'd want to think about and start to look at.
Mike McElhenney
I think that the first thing that comes to mind is having a true understanding of your consumer and what is motivating them. I think that's something that a lot of businesses don't fully understand for a really long time and sometimes they get it right and sometimes their hypotheses are way off. I think back to, this is kind of a stupid example, but, you know, I feel like the user has to be able, the consumer has to be able to picture themselves using the product and just have to have that aha moment as to like, okay, this will improve my life here. I remember the example that came to mind when I was thinking about this was during the pandemic. I had recently moved to the Portland area. Lots of waterways, lots of water activities, and stand up paddle boards became, you know, we're getting really popular. I was like, ah, I want to stand up paddleboard. So I bought a stand up paddle board and then I saw an ad for these, like cup holders that stick to the side of your stand up paddle board while you're carrying. And I was like, man, how great would it be to be on the Willamette river during summer on my standup paddleboard with a beer in this, in this, this thing that would stick to it and not fall off? I could picture myself in that moment. I immediately went and bought two and used them twice.
Ty Degrange
Not the best engagement on that product, perhaps for you as a user.
Mike McElhenney
No, but I could picture myself in that moment.
Ty Degrange
Oh, man. But it was nonetheless an aha moment as defined by Reforge.
Mike McElhenney
Exactly.
Ty Degrange
Got you to convert that company still around?
Mike McElhenney
I think so.
Ty Degrange
All right. You weren't the only one.
Mike McElhenney
I'm not going to give him a plug because I can't actually remember the name of it.
Ty Degrange
But not, not required. It's all right. We're not, we're not accepting any affiliate commissions, despite the many requests. We're coming down. We're coming down to the fun stuff. These aren't, these aren't the hybrid questions. These are the purebreds. It's like say from Zoolander. Serve us up some hot takes. Some, some heat for 2025. Mike, what do you got?
Mike McElhenney
2025 hot takes.
Ty Degrange
Yeah. Predictions, hot takes, trends. What do you think? You've seen almost all this stuff. Where do you think it's going to go? Where do you think we're headed?
Mike McElhenney
I think that the economy is going to continue to be strong. I think that that's going to, that's going to continue and that's going to help out a lot of businesses. I think think that on the affiliate side of things, I think that attribution is going to continue to be a very important topic and likely non traditional affiliates are going to be going to be key beyond content as people kind of learn their lesson in 2024 to diversify more card linked offers in particular being one that we saw a lot of success with last year and you know will likely continue going forward. Yep, I don't have a lot of good answers on that one.
Ty Degrange
Hey, you just dropped some good ones. I like it. I like it. We've got more we can sprinkle into in the paid world. You know, you got your Googles and your metas and your, your Pinterest and your Tiktoks and your snaps. Is there any in there that you kind of feel are, are rising, falling flat? Interesting.
Mike McElhenney
There's the, the new contender to the Big three in Applovin that had a lot of buzz at the end of last year and the early, early results from some prominent advertisers are very positive. So there's something that, that I think could is going to take a lot. It's going to take budget from, from some of the Big three. Is it going to be a real contender? Probably not immediately but there's potential there and it at least diversifies people away from the big three. So I think that, that, that as a channel I think has a lot of potential. I'm excited to test it for some of our clients as well.
Ty Degrange
Heck yeah. Mike's bullish on Applovin. There you have it folks. I would have to agree. I think there's something the test results that we looked at and were shared around and such were very positive indicators and it wasn't just one offs either. So we shall see. I don't think it's going to take the number one spot anytime soon, but I think to have something there that can be share the pie a little bit is positive. I think you nailed it for sure.
Mike McElhenney
I mean anytime you look at a kind of mobile ad platform, incrementality is the first thing that I question. But some of the tests that we saw were compelling.
Ty Degrange
Yeah, yeah, for sure. We shall see. Coming into the fun stuff even more. Let's do it. Let's get into it. So funny memories of us together over the years. There's been a few. There's been a few. Do you have any that you want to share with the, with the audience? We're getting into the good stuff. Hope you stuck around this long for all the. The audience out there. This is where it gets really juicy.
Mike McElhenney
There's not that many I can share on a public podcast, widely distributed, very wide, I believe is it number one in business podcasts, downloads.
Ty Degrange
Soon to be soon.
Mike McElhenney
Soon to be. Soon to be.
Ty Degrange
Yeah. I heard a rumor we're breaking the top 100 here shortly.
Mike McElhenney
So we.
Ty Degrange
Number one. You know, give us some time.
Mike McElhenney
I'll take full credit for that. I mean, we have 40 years of. Of memories to go through. So. I mean, there's. There's friend weekends in Santa Barbara. There's friend weekends in San Francisco. One that actually pop up to me, popped up to me. And I was thinking about. This is. I think we were like 17 or 18, and there was that whole summer at the ranch. That's a whole other set of memories. Yeah, but the one that. The one that I thought of because I'm a very, like. I'm a very. We complement each other well because I'm very structured. Have always have a plan, kind of figure out my day. Not that you don't, but you're more prone to, you know, flying by the seat of your pants. And I remember. I think. I think we were like 18 and did. We didn't have, you know, we didn't have anything to do really. And you're like, hey, let's go to the Giants game.
Ty Degrange
Not a lot of responsibilities.
Mike McElhenney
Exactly.
Ty Degrange
At that time, generally.
Mike McElhenney
Yeah, exactly. And you're like, hey, let's go to the Giants game. And I was like. In my head, I was just like. But I hadn't planned to go to the Giants game today. And that. You're like, yeah, we just give bleacher tickets. And so we hopped in the Volvo, we drove the Candlestick park, we sat in the bleachers. JT Snow hit a grand slam. The snowball game.
Ty Degrange
Beautiful. So always be remembered as the snowball game.
Mike McElhenney
The snowball game. Exactly.
Ty Degrange
Legendary. Wow, that's. That's amazing. That took me back. Well done. That was a good day. Yeah, I remember that. That was a good day. That was awesome. Speaking of which, over and under on your Giants winning. What do you got for wins in 2025?
Mike McElhenney
So I think they're going to continue to be frustratingly average despite the. Despite the addition of Julia Domus. That I think was a great pickup. I looked on FanDuel. They're over. Under says 79 wins. I'm going to go over. I think they're 82, 83 win team. I feel a Little more confident if they gotten Corbin Burns, but they're in a tough division. You've got Arizona, who got Corbin Burns. You've got the Padres, who are just a really good team. And then you got the Dodgers that are the devil.
Ty Degrange
That's going to be our quotable for the pot. I think that's amazing. That's just my breakout. Yeah, that's gonna. Cold intro, whatever you want to call it. That doesn't. You don't get any better than that. Yeah. We're just getting warmed up with Mike. He's. He's rolling, so let's keep going. So you've had a family fun trip recently. Any. Any family vacation hacks or tips that you want to share with the audience, dads and moms out there?
Mike McElhenney
I don't have that many. I did on this. On this latest trip. You know, we went to Maui over Christmas, which was a great trip. One thing that was super helpful is I packed a camelback backpack, a little like a bigger one that has more storage but has like the. The water with it. That was helpful just because kids always get thirsty and carrying around their water bottles is kind of annoying. So having that around whenever they got thirsty was as we were kind of going from here to there and doing a little bit of everything. That was really helpful. And then thing in one place, you know, if you're. If you're like prone to going multiple places, that can be really challenging with kids because you've got to pack it all up and then move it to a new place and unpack it and then pack it all up. So.
Ty Degrange
Sounds like a lot. Did you or did you not use notion to plan your family vacation?
Mike McElhenney
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's talking about AI and that should have been my takeaway for 2025 AI. I used ChatGPT to plan the trip. Couldn't book the trip, unfortunately, because the AI agents are not evolved yet. But yeah, I mapped out the trip like, this is what you should do each day. And then I took that take, put it into a Notion page that included all the reservation information, phone numbers, maps, et cetera. That helped me just kind of like organize it all. That was super helpful to keep it all together because we try to pack a lot in on our trips.
Ty Degrange
Heck, yeah. It sounds like a good one. Yeah. And Mike's kicking butt. We're doing a lot of cool stuff within notion operationally, and I think the AI features that they've rolled out. I talked about it in one of my newsletters, and you've been instrumental in kind of leading us through elevating our notion iq. It's kind of been fun to see them get better and better and make it a good value prop for us right now. So it's really interesting to see how a lot of these SaaS tools are going to play with AI, get them integrated so they're not disrupted. And it's going to be very interesting time in the next few years. Rounding it out here, sir, we're just powering through. Is there a kind of a hot movie TV show that you're eyeing coming up on your radar that's perhaps a guilty pleasure or just one that you're looking forward to?
Mike McElhenney
I don't watch a lot, a lot of traditional tv. I, I have heard a lot of good things about Landman.
Ty Degrange
Traditional TV is so overrated. I don't watch any of that traditional TV either.
Mike McElhenney
No, it's so 1988. But I, I like to, I like, I do like, like really good tv, like Sopranos, which I'm re watching now. I'd like to re watch Game of Thrones. Whoa. Breaking Bad is amazing. I like all those ones, but the one that I haven't started it yet, but I've been heard good things is Landman being that next really entertaining show.
Ty Degrange
So I think it's top of my list as well. I think we got some teammates that have given us the suggestion too. So now that's a double suggestion for everyone out there. Now I really want to watch it. Ladies and gentlemen, Mike is, he's, he's emerged from behind the curtain and it's been, it's been a fun chat, man. Always a pleasure. Yeah, I'm sure I'll see you soon.
Mike McElhenney
Unless I become super famous off of this podcast and then go on to fame and fortune.
Ty Degrange
See you later.
Title: Role of Thoughtful Attribution in Effective Marketing
Host: Ty DeGrange
Guest: Mike McElhenney, Chief Operating Officer at Round Barn Labs
Release Date: January 13, 2025
In this episode of "Always Be Testing," host Ty DeGrange welcomes his longtime friend and COO, Mike McElhenney, to discuss pivotal elements in the realm of growth and performance marketing. The conversation delves into leadership philosophies, effective marketing attribution, experimentation strategies, affiliate marketing nuances, and future trends shaping the industry.
Mike McElhenney opens the discussion by sharing his leadership philosophy, heavily influenced by his background in team sports. He emphasizes the importance of teamwork, low ego, and high empathy in fostering a collaborative environment.
[02:11] Mike McElhenney: “I always tell people when I'm interviewing them or onboarding them that I've been doing this a really long time, but there's a lot of things I don't know and I would love to learn from you.”
Ty and Mike highlight the impact of influential books on Mike’s leadership style, notably "Captain's Class" and Jocko Willink’s "Extreme Ownership." These works have shaped Mike's approach to leading teams with accountability and a focus on collective success.
[04:04] Mike McElhenney: “These two books... really influenced the way that I approach things and the things that I preach to our team.”
A significant portion of the episode explores the critical role of attribution in marketing effectiveness. Mike shares his extensive experience with Meta (formerly Facebook) ads, emphasizing the evolution from manual targeting to leveraging Meta's machine learning algorithms.
[08:03] Mike McElhenney: “What I've seen a lot of people do wrong over the last couple years is to try to fight against that. You're not going to out-target the algorithm, it's just not an option anymore.”
He advises marketers to consolidate their targeting efforts and prioritize creative testing. Mike also discusses optimizing attribution windows to enhance the accuracy of conversion signals sent back to platforms like Meta.
[09:35] Mike McElhenney: “If you optimize it towards a seven day click and you're focused on click-through conversions, these are more incremental sales and you're driving new people to the website.”
Ty echoes Mike's sentiments, highlighting the common pitfalls of relying on default attribution settings and chasing non-incremental sales, which can skew data and reduce marketing effectiveness.
[10:35] Ty DeGrange: “It's shocking how often brands are literally relying on set it and forget it methods across the board.”
The duo shifts focus to the importance of experimentation in marketing strategies. Mike underscores the value of landing page testing and optimizing for higher-quality leads, especially in B2B contexts where the sales funnel involves multiple steps.
[12:42] Mike McElhenney: “Those are the tests where I'm optimizing for something that's further down the funnel. If you're sending them the right signal, they'll continue to improve.”
Holdout tests are also highlighted as a crucial method for validating strategies and ensuring that new tactics stand up to scrutiny without adversely affecting existing performance.
[15:30] Mike McElhenney: “Holdout tests, whether it's an in-platform structured test or something you're doing separately, are always very interesting to me.”
Ty emphasizes the necessity of maintaining an agnostic and scientific approach to experimentation, encouraging marketers to challenge existing biases and rigorously test new ideas.
Mike shares his journey and insights into affiliate marketing, noting its vast and evolving landscape. He points out the diversity of affiliate partners beyond traditional content sites, including card-linked offers which have shown significant success.
[17:19] Ty Degrange: “You know, there's so much affiliate business happening there... a lot of technical and new partner types that I did not know about.”
Mike stresses the importance of a balanced affiliate portfolio to mitigate risks, likening it to stock trading where diversification is key to stability and growth.
[19:00] Mike McElhenney: “Kind of looking at it like stock trading essentially. If you put up too many eggs in one basket, you're subject to a lot of risk.”
He also highlights the immense scale potential of affiliate marketing when managed effectively, positioning it as a critical channel for growth.
Looking forward, Mike anticipates continued economic strength bolstering business performance. In affiliate marketing, he expects attribution to remain a pivotal topic, with non-traditional affiliates gaining traction.
[22:44] Mike McElhenney: “Attribution is going to continue to be a very important topic and likely non-traditional affiliates are going to be key beyond content.”
Regarding paid marketing platforms, Mike is particularly bullish on Applovin as a rising contender, citing positive early results from prominent advertisers and its potential to diversify marketing budgets away from the "Big Three" (Google, Meta, TikTok).
[23:54] Mike McElhenney: “As a channel, I think Applovin has a lot of potential. I'm excited to test it for some of our clients as well.”
Ty concurs, noting the promising test results Applovin has delivered and its role in expanding the mobile ad platform ecosystem.
Beyond professional discussions, Ty and Mike reminisce about their long-standing friendship, sharing memories like attending a memorable Giants game where JT Snow hit a grand slam, affectionately dubbed "the snowball game."
[26:50] Mike McElhenney: “We hopped in the Volvo, we drove to Candlestick Park, we sat in the bleachers. JT Snow hit a grand slam. The snowball game.”
They also exchange tips on family travel, with Mike advocating for organized planning using tools like Notion and leveraging AI for trip itineraries.
[29:37] Mike McElhenney: “I used ChatGPT to plan the trip. Couldn't book the trip, unfortunately, because the AI agents are not evolved yet.”
The episode wraps up with Mike sharing his favorite TV shows, expressing interest in the upcoming series "Landman," and a playful nod to their podcast's growing popularity.
[31:06] Mike McElhenney: “I've heard a lot of good things about Landman. It seems like the next really entertaining show.”
Ty and Mike sign off on an enthusiastic note, highlighting the value of their conversation and the bond that underpins their professional collaboration.
Key Takeaways:
This episode offers valuable insights for marketers aiming to refine their attribution models, enhance team leadership, and explore the expansive potential of affiliate marketing. Mike McElhenney's expertise provides actionable strategies and forward-thinking predictions that can help businesses navigate the complexities of modern marketing.