Bonus: Rethinking Profitability: How to Market Like an Investment Banker with Bradley Keefer from Keen

Summary

DTC Podcast Summary: “Bonus: Rethinking Profitability: How to Market Like an Investment Banker with Bradley Keefer from Keen”

Release Date: February 5, 2025

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Introduction

In this bonus episode of the DTC Podcast, Bradley Keefer from Keen joins host Eric Dick and co-host Greg to delve into innovative strategies for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands aiming to optimize their marketing efforts and profitability. The discussion centers on shifting the traditional marketing mindset from short-term metrics like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to more strategic, investment-driven approaches akin to investment banking.

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Background of Bradley Keefer and Keen

Bradley Keefer shares his journey from working in IBM sales and energy commodity trading to joining Keen, a startup focused on empowering marketers. Greg adds context by highlighting Keen’s mission to quantify the impact of marketing efforts, enabling marketers to justify their budgets and roles within organizations.

Notable Quote:

• Bradley (00:00): “We're really trying to enable and empower marketers to actually justify why they exist as a function.”

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Mission and Objectives of Keen

Keen aims to transform how marketers plan and execute their strategies by providing data-driven insights that go beyond traditional metrics. The platform helps marketers build better plans, make smarter decisions, and predict the impact of their marketing activities.

Notable Quote:

• Bradley (04:18): “It's about empowering that marketer to make a smarter decision moving forward… ensuring marketing is both impactful and predictable.”

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Rethinking Profitability: From ROAS to NPV

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on moving away from ROAS—a short-term metric—and adopting Net Present Value (NPV) to assess the long-term profitability of marketing efforts. Bradley and Greg argue that ROAS fails to account for the true cost and long-term brand equity, whereas NPV provides a more comprehensive view of marketing’s financial impact.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg (07:18): “ROAS is typically so short excited… It exists in the vacuum that… doesn’t take into account long-term equity build.”
• Bradley (08:08): “We believe in net present value, which is the true incremental profitability driven by marketing.”

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Insights from the Latest Report

Bradley discusses Keen's latest insights report, which analyzes data from approximately 350 brands managing around $7.5 billion in spend over several years. The report reveals that smaller brands (under $500 million in revenue) typically allocate 47% of their marketing budgets to the top of the funnel (ToFu) and 53% to the bottom of the funnel (BoFu). In contrast, successful larger brands tend to follow a 70:30 ToFu:BoFu split, suggesting a strategic shift towards brand building for sustainable growth.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg (09:58): “The ideal mix for a brand is a 70, 30 top to bottom of the funnel split.”
• Bradley (11:08): “The ideal question is: when do you make that flip from driving units to building brand?”

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Strategies for Moving Up the Funnel

The hosts explore strategies for DTC brands to transition from an acquisition-focused approach to one that balances acquisition with brand-building. They emphasize the importance of not solely relying on digital channels like Meta and Google, which can lead to audience saturation and increased costs.

Notable Quotes:

• Eric (11:21): “Brands get addicted to discounting… Negative effects on your brand long term.”
• Greg (15:17): “Brands’ priority should not be moving units. Brands’ priority should be driving profit.”

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Measuring Interaction Effects and Diversification

A critical discussion point is the measurement of interaction effects between different marketing channels. Bradley explains how Keen’s platform uses time series data and custom elasticities to model how various channels like Meta, Google, and Amazon interact and impact overall profitability. By understanding these synergies, brands can optimize their spend across multiple channels without overspending on any single one.

Notable Quotes:

• Bradley (16:48): “We customize those elasticities based on your own time series data.”
• Greg (19:58): “Keen operates on what’s known as a point of diminishing return… our platform visualizes this for you.”

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Anecdotes and Examples: Poppy Soda and Others

Bradley provides real-world examples, such as Poppy Soda’s strategic investment in Super Bowl advertising, highlighting how sustained and well-planned top-of-funnel investments can elevate a brand’s category presence and drive long-term growth.

Notable Quotes:

• Bradley (20:09): “Poppy ended up spending in Super Bowl…but part of the reason is you can have the conversation around playing it safe versus driving awareness faster and lifting the entire category.”
• Greg (22:04): “Brands who are capitalizing on viral events are using them as tentpoles… changing the trajectory of their sales.”

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Future of Marketing Channels: TikTok vs Meta

The conversation shifts to the evolving landscape of marketing channels, particularly the competition between TikTok and Meta. Bradley and Greg discuss the unique advantages TikTok offers in community building and targeted advertising, posing questions about the sustainability and future dominance of these platforms amidst data privacy and AI advancements.

Notable Quotes:

• Eric (30:03): “TikTok feels more like TV or movie competitor… more time spent on it.”
• Bradley (41:55): “Data is the new gold… how we think about data and what we can do with it is evolving.”

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Conclusion and Call to Action

To wrap up, Bradley emphasizes the importance of using holistic, data-driven platforms like Keen to navigate the complex marketing landscape. He encourages listeners to download Keen’s Insights Report and explore their platform to optimize their marketing strategies effectively.

Notable Quote:

• Bradley (40:10): “Am I… throwing pennies all over the place? Look at that concentrated strategy and figure out how you can slowly incrementally make your audience wider.”
• Eric (46:03): “Download Keen’s Insights report… go to keen-ds.com and talk to Bradley.”

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides valuable insights for DTC brands seeking to enhance their marketing strategies through data-driven decision-making. By shifting focus from immediate metrics to long-term profitability and understanding the interplay between various marketing channels, brands can achieve sustainable growth and higher profitability.

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Download the Insights Report & Learn More: For a comprehensive understanding and actionable strategies, listeners are encouraged to download Keen's latest Insights Report here and visit keen-ds.com to engage with Bradley Keefer directly.

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Stay updated with the latest strategies and insights by subscribing to the DTC Podcast and Newsletter at directtoconsumer.co.

Transcript

[Bradley]

We're really trying to enable and empower marketers to actually justify why they exist as a function. Because I feel like everyday marketers show up trying to justify why they have the budgets they do, why they're even in their role.

[Greg]

Keen's objective is to be able to.

[Bradley]

Quantify the impact of a marketer and really help them build better plans moving forward.

[Greg]

The challenge naturally becomes is like, at what point do I make the flip.

[Bradley]

From I need to go drive units as a small up and coming D2C company toward I need to start building a brand.

[Greg]

You can have the conversation around, like, should I play it safe and just keep spending? X percent of my revenue gets fed back into marketing and then I keep.

[Bradley]

Step changing from there.

[Greg]

Or I could invest a bunch of.

[Bradley]

Money, drive awareness faster, and then lift the entire category.

[Eric]

Bradley, welcome to the DTC podcast. I gotta say I interviewed your CEO Greg, I don't know, just under a year ago now. And what we talked about really came to inform a lot of the conversations I had for the rest of 2024 and now into 2025, where brands are really trying to figure out the strategy, the formula for scale. Whereas in the early days of meta advertising it felt like, you know, everyone had this scale button you could just hit and you could scale to these great heights. And now we're finding diminishing returns. There's this sense that people are maybe overspending on the bottom part of their funnel. What really stuck with me with, with Greg was the, the mindset that Keen enables to allow advertisers to get more strategic about awareness and consideration, building at the top of the funnel. And this is a theme that just comes up again and again. And we did a pre interview yesterday and this is your absolute bread and butter. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

[Greg]

Yeah, first and foremost, appreciate the opportunity.

[Bradley]

To have a conversation and look forward to diving in here a little bit.

[Eric]

Just give me a little like a thousand foot view of your career that's led you to be this nerdy about DTC and E commerce growth.

[Bradley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg]

So my, my career, I mean, I.

[Bradley]

Started in the foundation of, of an IBM seller, you know, kind of thing doing probabilistic forecasting for, in the energy commodity trading sector. So like it was a completely different space and it was like, this is interesting, but the problem is, is I found that I'm a startup guy at heart. So then I joined a company at that point called Profitero and it was like the sales guys sold this thing. We don't really know what it is.

[Greg]

Amazon is this fast growing thing.

[Bradley]

We're not really sure what it is and we've kind of built, built a.

[Greg]

Solution around that, around the Amazon selling motion.

[Bradley]

So like anything as it relates to.

[Greg]

Like sales and share data to digital.

[Bradley]

Shelf optimization, which at that point we were trying to figure out, like what do we call this is like E.

[Greg]

Commerce is a digital shelf.

[Bradley]

Like so we were at that stage.

[Greg]

Where it's like we're trying to develop terms that people now use as like standard language.

[Bradley]

And then it's like at the end.

[Greg]

Of my time there it was like omnichannel was becoming this like a word that people knew what that meant and.

[Bradley]

Now it's like now it's again, it's all standard language. So just been in the CPG space, in the startup software space for, for a couple of years now, you know, in the E Comm space.

[Greg]

But now been at Keen for four.

[Bradley]

Years and really I'm just like naturally a nerd. So like I always tell people is like coming up in their career, like.

[Greg]

What are the big things that you look for?

[Bradley]

It's like curiosity and grit. Like those are my two things and I don't know if it's just because.

[Greg]

Like it's my bias being in the startup world, but like just be genuinely curious to learn as much as you.

[Bradley]

Possibly can and I think it's helped fuel my career and then just that natural grit. I don't know if you follow Angela Duckworth and any of that work, but like I'm a huge grit person and you know, the world talks about it as like work ethic and stuff like that, but that's a lot of my background and kind of like what makes.

[Greg]

Me know as much as I do.

[Bradley]

About marketing is just a general curiosity.

[Greg]

To really solve problems.

[Bradley]

And I think, you know, the problems.

[Greg]

To solve in marketing are never ending and the problems now in consumer packaged goods are never ending and you combine those worlds together and it's just like organized chaos that's evolving faster than anyone.

[Bradley]

Knows what to do about. So that's what's made me really like love, love this part of my career in this industry.

[Eric]

I feel like there's a lot of these problems that, that people can think they have solved but then when you kind of scratch the surface, you realize that, oh, it's not actually incremental revenue, it's actually and I feel. So describe to me your mission at Keen and what you're helping brands do there sort of day in, day out.

[Bradley]

Yeah. For sure.

[Greg]

At the end of the day, we're.

[Bradley]

Really trying to enable and empower marketers.

[Greg]

To actually justify why they exist as a function.

[Bradley]

Because I feel like everyday marketers show.

[Greg]

Up trying to justify why they have the budgets they do, why they're even.

[Bradley]

In their role, because they're battling against.

[Greg]

Internal folks who, like, on the spreadsheet.

[Bradley]

Like, I don't know if we actually need marketing. Like, isn't that just that fluffy creative stuff? Is there power in brand marketing?

[Greg]

So really, Keen's objective is to be.

[Bradley]

Able to quantify the impact of a marketer and really help them build better plans moving forward. So it's not just about showing up.

[Greg]

To justify your role.

[Bradley]

It's about empowering that marketer to make.

[Greg]

A smarter decision moving forward.

[Bradley]

That marketing is not only impactful, but it's also predictable and what it can impact. And that's really where a lot of the work that we do is about taking a marketer. You know, we always joke about, like, people go into marketing because they hate math, right? But at the end of the day.

[Greg]

It'S like marketers need to understand math. Because what we're trying to empower them is to be a data scientist, because their job requires them to be a data scientist, to be an investment banker, because their job requires them to be.

[Bradley]

An investment banker and be a creative.

[Greg]

Because their job also requires that. So we're really trying to make the two that they're.

[Bradley]

They don't like oftentimes and make them.

[Greg]

Easily digestible so that way they can.

[Bradley]

Spend their time being marketers and not.

[Greg]

Spend their time justifying their existence being.

[Bradley]

A data scientist or an investment banker all at the same time. So that's really what we think about at Keen.

[Eric]

Now flesh out your theory about why more media buyers and marketers should be thinking like investment bankers.

[Bradley]

Yeah, because at the end of the day, I mean, you think about day trading and stuff like that, you know.

[Greg]

Outside of this, think about your 401k.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Bradley]

Really, at the end of the day, it's like, I put a dollar in today.

[Greg]

It has a compounding factor.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

Or compounding, you know, capability.

[Greg]

Well, marketing does the same thing.

[Bradley]

It's just that we call it brand.

[Greg]

Equity or we call it brand power, or we call it brand love. Well, imagine if you could quantify that impact.

[Bradley]

I mean, that's essentially what you're doing.

[Greg]

Every marketer believes that there is power in brand.

[Bradley]

They just also.

[Greg]

Then don't quantify it in dollars and cents. They quantify it in awareness or they.

[Bradley]

Quantify it in brand love, which is not wrong. But at the end of the day.

[Greg]

That'S part of the reason why at the beginning of this conversation we were.

[Bradley]

Talking about, you know, why they have.

[Greg]

To justify their existence because who ends.

[Bradley]

Up controlling their budget and their role.

[Greg]

Is a CFO or a CEO who.

[Bradley]

May not believe in marketing because they.

[Greg]

Came out of supply chain where it's.

[Bradley]

Like, if I just turn the manufacturing.

[Greg]

On more, I can create more items.

[Bradley]

Well, marketing has a compounding factor that.

[Greg]

Also has a long term factor.

[Bradley]

And that's really where we believe at Keen.

[Greg]

We're the only players that exist in this space that can quantify that true.

[Bradley]

Long term impact, which is what?

[Greg]

Now we have to basically enable marketers.

[Bradley]

To think like investment bankers because essentially that's what they're doing and you know.

[Greg]

Doing it with dollars and cents rather than doing it with brand love or brand awareness.

[Eric]

And whereas a marketer would focus maybe on ROAS as their, as one of their North Star metrics. What do you have to say about that?

[Bradley]

Yeah, I think, I think the industry has kind of, you know, taught itself.

[Greg]

That ROAS is the gold standard. But the problem is, is that roas.

[Bradley]

Minus the cost of, you know, actually executing the campaign, factoring in the long.

[Greg]

Term lifetime value, roas is typically so short excited.

[Bradley]

And it's also like if you add.

[Greg]

Up all your roas as you should be, three times bigger than you are. Why? Because the ROAS is the wrong metric.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Greg]

Because all the platforms are trying to take the credit for all of the last clicks. They're trying to take all the credit.

[Bradley]

For the entire customer journey, but nobody's.

[Greg]

Acknowledging that there was 12 other steps that the consumer interacted with to get to that point. So not only is ROAS in its.

[Bradley]

Measurement inherently flawed in like the fact.

[Greg]

That it exists in the vacuum that.

[Bradley]

It does, but it also doesn't take into consideration that long term equity build. So at the end of the day, we believe in net present value, which.

[Greg]

Is the true incremental profitability that is.

[Bradley]

Driven by marketing, where roas could be.

[Greg]

14, but your NPV could be negative 1000. So the problem there is all of a sudden the CFO is looking at all of your campaigns that you're reporting with these magical ROAS numbers.

[Bradley]

And the CFO is like, when I look at the balance sheet, you're losing money.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

Well, that's the translation that marketers have convinced themselves that they don't need to know.

[Bradley]

And that's where we're trying to again.

[Greg]

That'S that investment banking mindset where it's like understanding net present value, which is the quantifiable impact of marketing long term.

[Bradley]

So that's my love hate relationship with.

[Greg]

Roas at this point.

[Eric]

Now, this podcast, we're going to be discussing some of the findings that you have in your latest insights report, which really kind of hits on a lot of the topics. Like I say, we're talking on this podcast all the time about how brands should diversify, channels when brands should diversify, how brands can take bigger swings at the top part of the funnel. What were some of the biggest insights that you generated from this report that you're putting out?

[Bradley]

Yeah, so just to give a little bit of information.

[Greg]

So we have about 350 brands that use our platform and we manage about seven and a half billion dollars. So we basically took all of this.

[Bradley]

Information and we looked over the last three years. So we looked at 20, 22, 23.

[Greg]

And 24, and the historic actuals of how the brands reported that they spent and all of their performance.

[Bradley]

And then because Keen not only is.

[Greg]

A measurement platform, but we're a planning.

[Bradley]

Platform as well, we took all of.

[Greg]

The 2025 plans to look at spend allocation, both historic actuals and what people.

[Bradley]

Are executing right now and locking in for 2025. And some of the stuff that we saw was, you know, there's a difference in spend at the top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, based off.

[Greg]

The size of the brand.

[Bradley]

So we typically found that brands that.

[Greg]

Are under 500 million are spending 47%.

[Bradley]

On average in top of the funnel and around 53% in bottom of the funnel. The challenge with that is that the lesbian and like a bunch of other.

[Greg]

Like thought leaders in this space and even Keen's own analysis that we did.

[Bradley]

With ibotta allowed us to show that.

[Greg]

The ideal mix for a brand is a 70, 30 top to bottom of the funnel split. So the challenge, and we can see.

[Bradley]

That in the data when we look.

[Greg]

At brands that are 500 million to a billion plus, because we basically segmented.

[Bradley]

Into five revenue segments, we're finding that.

[Greg]

Under 500 million they're around 50, 50, but the brands that are thriving and succeeding are closer to that 70, 30 split. So the challenge naturally becomes is like, at what point do I make the.

[Bradley]

Flip from I need to go drive.

[Greg]

Units as a small up and coming.

[Bradley]

D2C company toward I need to start building a brand? And again, there's a whole other podcast here around like, well, isn't some of the stuff that we're doing at the bottom of the funnel.

[Greg]

Building brand it is.

[Bradley]

Right, but how do we start to.

[Greg]

Build that wider reach of that brand.

[Bradley]

Awareness and how do we do that.

[Greg]

While balancing driving conversion at the bottom of the funnel?

[Bradley]

That's the ideal question. Right. Is like when do you make that flip? So that's some of the high level insights that we see is like, you know, really looking at what is the.

[Greg]

Right split of the funnel.

[Eric]

Yeah. And I think a lot of brands listen to this podcast that are in that like 1 to 5 million well below that, you know, the half a billion mark are probably a lot more like 80, 20 bottom of funnel to top of funnel. I would imagine, like, because we got so many of these brands came up in the environment where you've got this magic meta machine and your Google where you're capturing intent a lot, you know, you're not necessarily generating it. So what do you have to say to those brands that are maybe like really feeling like they're saturating that bottom of funnel with the digital channels they have available to them?

[Bradley]

Yeah, eventually you're going to saturate those.

[Greg]

Audiences because the audience there, whether you shift it, and we see it all.

[Bradley]

The time in the data where we see brands who come in who are.

[Greg]

Spending 80, 20, and it's like, I've.

[Bradley]

Got 90% of my budget in Metta.

[Greg]

Or the other ones who are.

[Bradley]

I've got 90% of my budget in Google or, you know, or some combination.

[Greg]

Of those two channels, which is great. The problem is, is it works for.

[Bradley]

A certain period of time and then you start to saturate that market. And in the recent last 18 months or so, what's happened is that the.

[Greg]

Cost per have gone up inside of.

[Bradley]

Those channels to the point where not.

[Greg]

Only am I saturating the market, but it's more expensive for me to hit those same audiences. And then you come in from the other side. Financially, your margins have typically gotten worse because the cost to produce the goods has gone up.

[Bradley]

So you kind of combine those things.

[Greg]

Together and what's happening is we see.

[Bradley]

A ton of D2C brands who are starting, they're still driving units, but because.

[Greg]

The cost is higher and their margin.

[Bradley]

Is lower, it's like, guys, I talk to these brands all the time and.

[Greg]

When I go through PE or VCs.

[Bradley]

And stuff like that as well, the challenge is like, that's awesome, you're moving.

[Greg]

Units, but like you're not making any money. And at the end of the day.

[Bradley]

Your job is to make money, right? And make profit.

[Greg]

So the challenge is, is like, well.

[Bradley]

How do I make profit?

[Greg]

It's like you build a base and.

[Bradley]

It'S like, how do you build a base?

[Greg]

It's like you build top of the funnel awareness.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Bradley]

So again, it's like the story is.

[Greg]

Repeated over and over again.

[Bradley]

And as I've kind of looked under the hood and, you know, looked at.

[Greg]

The data, a lot of it is.

[Bradley]

Tied to the fact that like, brands are executing.

[Greg]

Here's my meta team, here's my Google team. Nobody's focused on driving profitability in the marketing there because they're so focused on acquisition. They're not focused on building brand which leads to profitability. That the challenge becomes, is you're not even maximizing the interaction effects that happen between the channels.

[Bradley]

So it's like your siloed organization and.

[Greg]

The process that you built for when you were a less than $100 million.

[Bradley]

Company in pursuit of 500.

[Greg]

Like, the process has to evolve, the people have to evolve, the way you.

[Bradley]

Buy has to evolve. And all these channels themselves have evolved. So you kind of have this perfect.

[Greg]

Storm of problems that are hammering the.

[Bradley]

DTC world right now between that 100 and $500 million mark.

[Eric]

And I imagine brands can get addicted. Like once, once you're kind of locked in on those diminishing returns, then, you know, we just came off Q4. Brands get addicted to discounting as well. Right? Because when you have people in that bottom of the funnel, you've got to, you know, you've got a discount to kind of clear that funnel. But then that could have negative effects on your brand long term as well. If you get perceived as this discount brand, essentially for sure.

[Greg]

And then you're training your consumers to only buy you on your own promotion, because every two to six weeks you're.

[Bradley]

On promotion, depending upon your cycle. So what ends up happening is like.

[Greg]

You become so focused on moving units.

[Bradley]

Because you're just trying to keep the lights on that. What ends up happening is like you.

[Greg]

You kind of find yourself stuck there.

[Bradley]

And that's where like, we've really seen that a lot over the last two years with a, with our brands kind of post Covid where it's like everybody in certain categories coming out of COVID was flying high. And it's like, hey, things are great. And it's like now it's like all of a sudden people are like, well, hang on a second here. The cost of capital is so expensive. Like, my cost of acquisition is going up. And they kind of get stuck, you.

[Greg]

Know, sitting there and just kind of spinning. And now they're becoming cash cows where it's like, now I need to go.

[Bradley]

Find funding and the funding is too expensive. So that's why I was saying, like, we're really in this, like, unique time. And what it comes down to is, like, it's a behavior that you've built not only into how you execute, but, like, what your priority should be at.

[Greg]

The end of the day. Brands priority should not be moving units. Brands priority should be driving profit, right?

[Bradley]

And obviously they're very related.

[Greg]

If you drive more units, that's great.

[Bradley]

But you have to drive more profitable units.

[Greg]

And the execution on the marketing side.

[Bradley]

I think is the one, the big thing that we see that folks are.

[Greg]

Just like, not doing well at because they're so focused on, like, well, I've been telling this story to the board.

[Bradley]

For so long that if I all of a sudden change my story, I'm not willing to put my neck out there and say maybe I was wrong.

[Greg]

Because there's this like, defensive mechanism, right?

[Bradley]

Because again, going back to the first part of this conversation, I'm showing up.

[Greg]

To work every day to defend that.

[Bradley]

I should even be here, that I should even have a budget.

[Greg]

And now all of a sudden I'm.

[Bradley]

Going to go in and say, well, hang on a second, I wasn't executing.

[Greg]

With the right mix.

[Bradley]

So you have this, like, human element.

[Greg]

That'S built into it as well.

[Bradley]

So again, it's like the industry's kind of created its own problem of kind.

[Greg]

Of spinning its wheels based off of.

[Bradley]

All of these things that, that I just went over.

[Eric]

It's interesting, as an agency, this is something we've run into where we've sort of incentivized each of our department heads who run the Google team, the Meta team, the Amazon team. This is something we've we've fixed over the, over the past year. But we ran into a problem where everyone was running in their own silos and not looking enough at the interaction effects. And I think our audience that, like a lot of people are basically doing omnichannel digital marketing, they're starting to think more about big swings, top of Funnel, but just in terms of building that foundation. Talk a little bit about how you guys measure interaction effects and what brands should be thinking about. Between Meta and Google and Google and Amazon, for instance.

[Bradley]

Yeah, for sure. So we, we operate on what's known.

[Greg]

As, like, a point of diminishing return. So we're going to take all of.

[Bradley]

The Time series data and all the elasticities that we have as part of our ip and then we're going to.

[Greg]

Customize those elasticities based off of your.

[Bradley]

Own time series data.

[Greg]

So what we are learning about your brand, so we're incorporating our knowledge estate.

[Bradley]

With, you know, the brand's knowledge estate.

[Greg]

To create a custom prior. And then what we're, what we're doing.

[Bradley]

Is we're layering in all of your.

[Greg]

Margin information and seasonality, weekly seasonality, things like that, to essentially create a response curve which is essentially, as I spend dollars, there is a return that comes back to me. But by layering in margin, what ends up happening is there is a point at which one incremental dollar produces 99 cents, right?

[Bradley]

So that's when you're past that point of diminishing return. So you're essentially investing to burn, right?

[Greg]

So we see brands who are investing to burn where the marginal ROI or the ROI in the next incremental dollar. If you're a fast growing brand and you're willing to burn cash to get.

[Bradley]

There, your marginal roi should be 80.

[Greg]

Cents, meaning the last couple dollars you're investing are actually driving 80 cents.

[Bradley]

Because that, you know, that investment is.

[Greg]

Going to fuel the breakthrough or exit.

[Bradley]

Velocity that you desire. But what ends up happening is in.

[Greg]

That response curve, it is also shaped by the environment in which it's being executed. So it's not just meta in a.

[Bradley]

Vacuum where you see some of these.

[Greg]

Providers out there, if you're using platform.

[Bradley]

Data again, they're looking at the world.

[Greg]

As if it exists where meta is the only platform where you're spending. Well, the problem becomes is if you don't add in interaction or synergies as.

[Bradley]

The industry is talking about, kind of like they use those words interchangeably, what ends up happening is that you optimize.

[Greg]

For the point of diminishing return is if meta exists alone.

[Bradley]

So when meta comes back to you.

[Greg]

And says you could be spending $3 million with me, instead you're only spending 2. But that's true.

[Bradley]

But I actually might be able to.

[Greg]

Argue with interaction effect that you should actually be spending 6 million with Meta.

[Bradley]

Why? Because if you spend more with meta.

[Greg]

As you're spending with connected TV over here, as you're spending more with any kind of promotion over here, or your organic social over here.

[Bradley]

So as you start to look at.

[Greg]

The world and the interaction effects, it actually reshapes that response curve. So if you're just doing singular channel optimization without acknowledging interaction effect, you end up overspending in a single channel and.

[Bradley]

Don'T allow for that interaction effect because.

[Greg]

It'S not just them working together, but it's working together with timing as an element as well.

[Bradley]

Where we find where if you start.

[Greg]

To execute your CTV campaign and then.

[Bradley]

Two to three weeks later you start.

[Greg]

Executing your social campaign and then two.

[Bradley]

To three weeks later you start pushing your any kind of price promotion, you're.

[Greg]

Allowing that saturation of that curve to start to make an impact. And that's what ultimately leads to the maximum profitable return. When you allow not only interaction effect.

[Bradley]

But timing interaction effect to be considered.

[Greg]

In the way in which you spend.

[Bradley]

And all that sounds super complicated, but.

[Greg]

In our platform it's like, oh, here's.

[Bradley]

The answer, you know what I mean? So it's one of those type of.

[Greg]

Things where like there's a tool that.

[Bradley]

Exists that visualizes this for you, shows.

[Greg]

How it comes to life and then shows you where you should be spending. And that's what the Keen platform is doing.

[Eric]

Do you have any anecdotes or like, I don't know if you can give specific brand examples, but just anecdotes about a brand that was able to sort of unlock a new plateau of growth by like rethinking about how they looked at their data?

[Bradley]

Yeah, for sure. I mean you look at like I use Poppy soda as an example. So Poppy's a brand that shows up on our, on our website. So happy to talk about them a.

[Greg]

Little bit because if you watch the super bowl, you know for a fact that Poppy is a fast growing brand.

[Bradley]

You know, they ended up spending in.

[Greg]

Super bowl and there was a lot of folks in the industry who wrote.

[Bradley]

Articles about this around like, well they.

[Greg]

Really want all out and invested into that.

[Bradley]

But part of the reason is you.

[Greg]

Can have the conversation around like should I play it safe and just keep.

[Bradley]

Spending as I, you know, x percent.

[Greg]

Of my revenue gets fed back into.

[Bradley]

Marketing and then I keep, you know.

[Greg]

Step changing from there. Or I could invest a bunch of money, drive awareness faster and then, you.

[Bradley]

Know, lift the entire category.

[Greg]

So the question then becomes is like, is it the right time to make a huge investment and then step change our company rather than just that gradual change as the company gets bigger.

[Bradley]

So that's a great example of someone that we work with. You know, there's a bunch of other.

[Greg]

Examples out there of folks who have like invested in these tent pole events. We see it all the time with.

[Bradley]

Like Prime Day as an example where I'm going to go all out on Prime Day.

[Greg]

All of a sudden it spikes the brand.

[Bradley]

The problem that we generally find is.

[Greg]

That brands go all out in these tent pole events and they don't think about this, the shoulder leading up to.

[Bradley]

That event and the shoulder coming off of that event.

[Greg]

So where brands fail is when they're.

[Bradley]

Like, I'm going all out on Prime.

[Greg]

Day, they push all their dollars onto.

[Bradley]

That single day and then it goes away.

[Greg]

Where the most effective brands are looking at the weeks leading up to a tentpole event like super bowl, like Prime Day, like Christmas.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

And they're leaning up into that with their spend that lifts the peak of performance on Prime Day just to keep.

[Bradley]

Going with that example. And then if they have an effective follow up strategy, it's not only going.

[Greg]

To step higher on the peak, but.

[Bradley]

It'S going to raise a new plateau. And that's where it's like being able.

[Greg]

To see that on a weekly basis is going to change the game. So now all of a sudden you play out those artificial like pay to.

[Bradley]

Play tentpole events and what we're seeing.

[Greg]

Is that the brands who are capitalizing.

[Bradley]

Faster on viral events that are happening.

[Greg]

As well are using them as tentpole as well. So there's other brands that we work.

[Bradley]

With where they'll have like some influencer that just goes crazy, you know, with.

[Greg]

This viral post about their product. Well, it's not even a paid for thing. Like we see this all the time where it's like organically social.

[Bradley]

You know, thinking back to like the, the cranberry juice guy from a few years ago.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

Like the skateboard guy.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

They weren't planning for that, but what they did is they were able to pivot quickly, lean into that and then capitalize on that to change the trajectory of their sales. Molson Coors did the same thing with.

[Bradley]

A, with a home run that hit.

[Greg]

The digital scoreboard at a game.

[Bradley]

And then all of a sudden they.

[Greg]

Started producing product that had the black.

[Bradley]

Spot, you know, when the home where.

[Greg]

The homerun basically knocked out that part of that scoreboard.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

So it's the ability for you to.

[Bradley]

Capitalize on these, these moments whether they're.

[Greg]

Pay to play like a prime day.

[Bradley]

Or whether they're just a viral moment.

[Greg]

That is driven by an influencer who did something you had no part, you had nothing to do with.

[Eric]

When a lot of what we talk about as a performance marketer is shifting the focus from direct response to building awareness and brand awareness. And when I said this to you in the pre interview, you cautioned a little Bit on the overuse of the term awareness. Can you go in on that a little bit?

[Greg]

Yeah.

[Bradley]

I think, like I was mentioning earlier.

[Greg]

Like, there is this over reliance on.

[Bradley]

Roas in the performance marketing world, and in the brand marketing world, there is.

[Greg]

An over reliance on brand awareness or brand love as the metric.

[Bradley]

Because I think people have convinced themselves.

[Greg]

That there is a causal relationship between.

[Bradley]

Driving awareness and driving revenue. And that's not true 100% of the time, right?

[Greg]

It can be true, but it doesn't.

[Bradley]

Mean they're causally related. So I think being able to actually.

[Greg]

Look at how many awareness points do.

[Bradley]

I need to drive to actually drive revenue is, you know, is an interesting.

[Greg]

Question, but I actually recommend we have.

[Bradley]

A partnership with a company called Tracksuit.

[Greg]

They do a phenomenal job at tracking awareness.

[Bradley]

They're really disrupting that space as well.

[Greg]

From the traditional big players who are.

[Bradley]

You know, dramatically overpriced compared to what Tracksuit is doing. For a better solution, shout out to.

[Greg]

A partner at Tracksuit.

[Bradley]

But, you know, being able to look at consideration, you know, is.

[Greg]

Is interesting, right? Because consideration, those folks are more likely to buy your product or folks who.

[Bradley]

Are buying, like, products to you.

[Greg]

So it's kind of targeting the folks who are already in the category or the folks who are more likely to buy. It helps you win faster.

[Bradley]

Because without it, what ends up happening.

[Greg]

Is that brands go from this point where they're spending like 5050 like we.

[Bradley]

Talked about, and they're spending 50, 50 for so long. And then all of a sudden someone.

[Greg]

Comes along and says, we need to start spending more in brand marketing. Then they get this huge investment. And then the CEO says, all right, you turned on the TV in August and I didn't see a spike.

[Bradley]

So therefore, TV doesn't work for a brand like ours. And it's like, that's not true. That one, that's not how TV works. And two, you know, what ends up happening is like, well, then if the objective is like, well, let's go spend.

[Greg]

In tv, let's watch awareness spike.

[Bradley]

And then in December, they're like, how come I don't see more sales from that? Again, because it's like, you might have.

[Greg]

Targeted the wrong people, right? Like, you're hitting all this wide awareness.

[Bradley]

But it doesn't mean they're going to convert.

[Greg]

So unless you're willing to inject cash for the sake of, like, disrupting a category using the poppy example, or Athletic.

[Bradley]

Brewing, who's trying to disrupt and build a new category, you have to accept that some of those dollars are to.

[Greg]

Invest into building the new category. They may not convert in the short term.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

But if you're over reliant as an.

[Greg]

Established brand, so if you're a $400.

[Bradley]

Million brand as an example, you want.

[Greg]

To gradually start to spend more toward awareness and toward that top of the funnel.

[Bradley]

But you don't want to just go straight from performance marketing to awareness because.

[Greg]

You'Ve skipped all the steps in the middle.

[Bradley]

So if you're so performance focused, go to consideration.

[Greg]

That's the next step up. Take your journey toward the top rather.

[Bradley]

Than just like I've got the performance.

[Greg]

Thing now I'm just going to inject.

[Bradley]

This money at the top.

[Greg]

I forgot the whole middle part of that funnel.

[Eric]

I was just on LinkedIn yesterday and I saw a friend of mine, Rob Frazier, who runs outweigh socks. He was just debuting a new one of his, an ad that he was producing, I think one of his first stabs. He's taken at a really like cinematic, branded, story driven, like high production, video creative. And I'm curious to know where he's going to leverage that, whether he's just going to try to run awareness campaigns, whether he's going to try some linear tv. So I'm just curious from your perspective and the brands you've worked with, if you've got an eight figure brand that's focused mainly on performance marketing to this point, I guess what are the canaries in the coal mine that they are spending too much at bottom of funnel and what's your advice for the steps to take to look at to moving up the funnel?

[Bradley]

Yeah, I think, I think meta is.

[Greg]

Interesting because meta right now like it.

[Bradley]

Started as very like bottom of the.

[Greg]

Funnel but it's very top of the funnel at the same time.

[Bradley]

So it's one of those like interesting, like even if you're just comfortable in.

[Greg]

Meta, just start slowly going further toward the top of meta. Widen the audience, have a more general.

[Bradley]

Reach, general message, you know, things like that.

[Greg]

So if you're not willing to like.

[Bradley]

Hey, let's go try new channels even within meta, just start to find a.

[Greg]

Better balance in top of the funnel.

[Bradley]

Versus bottom of the funnel in meta as an example. But I think if you're looking for.

[Greg]

The right growth that we'd recommend, you're generally looking for somewhere between 10 and 15 factors or marketing channels.

[Bradley]

So we talk about them as factors or marketing channels. So that's like you know TikTok and then you know meta, then you're looking at Google, you're looking at Connected TV. So again there's generally between 10 and.

[Greg]

15 that we see that are really, really powerful.

[Bradley]

And I'd recommend like Connected TV because connected TV has a really solid reach.

[Greg]

Like tv, but it's still targeted enough because it, because of the connected TV nature.

[Bradley]

It's not like you're going to just buying you know, linear TV or spots on like Gilligan's island at 3am Right. Like you're still very, very targeted in what you're doing. And oftentimes it's a, it's a lower cost of entry because you often already.

[Greg]

Have the creative ready from what you're.

[Bradley]

Running on YouTube or what you're running on TikTok. So it's like again it's one of.

[Greg]

Those channels where we're seeing really solid results and you can typically buy it.

[Bradley]

Through Atari as an example, one of Keen's partners or you know, you could even look at the retail media.

[Greg]

So if you have a presence on.

[Bradley]

Amazon, Amazon Streaming TV is a very.

[Greg]

Effective channel right now if you're very.

[Bradley]

Targeted within those channels.

[Greg]

But the problem is it's typically a pretty high cost purse. You have to be willing to take the high cost per.

[Bradley]

But it does, it does perform really.

[Greg]

Well if you're not willing to spend all the way up there.

[Bradley]

You know, even just adding a better.

[Greg]

Influencer strategy and there's still a really.

[Bradley]

Solid return on TikTok spend. But honestly if you want to play it safe, just spend more on YouTube because YouTube, some of that is leaking on to connected DV. Anyway, YouTube is a very trusted like ROI generator for you and you can.

[Greg]

Still widen the audience reach on YouTube. So some of our recommendations are like, it depends on how risk tolerant you are. Like there's channels that have better return but it's like yeah, but to build the creative around it and stuff like.

[Bradley]

That, you know, we get it like it's, it's hard because you're typically talking.

[Greg]

About folks who have smaller teams, smaller non working dollar budgets, things like that.

[Bradley]

So it's really like how do I.

[Greg]

Take the assets that I've already created and diversify the channel mix? Because there's different people on TikTok than.

[Bradley]

There are on, on Instagram.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

There's some overlap but even just going to a different marketing platform allows you to hit a wider audience.

[Bradley]

So that's some of our early recommendations there. But again shoot for 10 to 15 channels. Like we see the problem with the.

[Greg]

Enterprise is they then have like 50.

[Bradley]

Channels and now you've got like channel.

[Greg]

Proliferation as a problem and you ask them like why are you even spending on all these channels?

[Bradley]

And it's usually like, I don't know, we just did because it was the shiny new object.

[Greg]

Avoid the shiny new objects. Go for the trusted 10 to 15.

[Bradley]

Marketing channels that are effective.

[Greg]

Spend enough in them to be effective.

[Bradley]

If you're throwing pennies all over the place, it's not going to do anything.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

So really look at that concentrated strategy and figure out how you can slowly incrementally make your audience wider.

[Eric]

You mentioned it early too. Just even within Facebook there are things that you can do just with your creative and your messaging that really help you go up funnel as well. I think of four Sigmatic, that's kind of pilot house and they got really aggressive on Amazon in a couple of ways. One, well actually on online, going by and on Google, targeting keywords and building a lot of content around like the ingredients that go in their coffee, for instance. So people are looking at cordyceps or different kinds of mushrooms end up in a funnel. So so people, they're catching them before they're brand aware, but just that they might know that they want to drink mushroom coffee. And then on, on Amazon they went crazy broad by like really starting to target people that were like sick of Folgers, like really starting to compete at the highest level with the broadest category of coffee. Starting to have a message about, you know, an alternative to, to what you're maybe sick of and it's really helped them achieve new heights. What? Yeah. Is that something you see as well, just sort of diversification through your messaging?

[Bradley]

Yeah, for sure. I mean the challenge with diversification and messaging though is that you have to go back to something we mentioned earlier, which is. But you have to make sure you.

[Greg]

Maintain that you're the same brand.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Bradley]

Because I caution against brands who are diversifying for the sake of diversification, brands.

[Greg]

Who are diversifying for the sake of reaching a wider audience and a more targeted strategy that will work. But if you're just spraying and praying.

[Bradley]

It'S going to cost you dollars, that.

[Greg]

May or may not work.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Bradley]

Again, it goes back to that causal relationship type of thing. If I'm just spraying and praying, I'm going to go to Amazon and I'm going to start retargeting against Folgers, that's great.

[Greg]

But like what's the creative that's going.

[Bradley]

To convert a Folgers drinker who may not be your target if it's Gen Z? Because Gen Z is probably not drinking Folgers, right? So it's like, you know what I mean? Like, again, it's like, could you go Target brands like that?

[Greg]

For sure.

[Bradley]

Is it going to be worth it.

[Greg]

When your budgets are scrutinized the way that they are and you have to be very mindful. Again, coming up with that right strategy is like, you might be right, but.

[Bradley]

Let'S be educated rather than just spraying and praying.

[Greg]

I mean, because we see that now.

[Bradley]

Where it's like, everybody's like, I've got to be on TikTok shop. Like, that's the latest thing right now. Is everybody like, all of a sudden.

[Greg]

Is like, TikTok Shop.

[Bradley]

Like, I got to be there.

[Greg]

Like, it is producing magic. It is for some people.

[Bradley]

For other people, it's not.

[Greg]

Because the cost to set it up.

[Bradley]

And maintain it and all that. It's not worth it at this stage.

[Greg]

For where they are because they're kind of like half doing it, right?

[Bradley]

So that's where it's like. I always caution brands to just, like, you know, figure out what's the right.

[Greg]

Strategy and execute against it rather than.

[Bradley]

Get distracted by the shiny objects.

[Eric]

I don't know why I always. I think I brought this up with Greg too, but I think of this trip I took in Cambodia one time where we got a cab driver to drive us from Thailand, Bangkok to Cambodia. And we're on these, like, why these big, dusty, wide roads. And he was drifting, but every time the dust cloud would come up, we couldn't see anything where we were actually going. He'd stick his thumb to the windshield where he knew the road would go, and he'd drive towards his thumb, which I don't know how. How good that was. But this is all this metaphor is about. How can brands who are diversifying into these channels not hit the panic, but because I think that probably happens a lot where you've got these channels that do require some build up. They require maybe a maturity on. On your investment. How does Keen help people stick their thumb on the windshield and drive towards it and not hit the panic button?

[Bradley]

Yeah, I was going to say, before you finish that question, like, the answer is, like, you use a platform like Keen, like, I know it sounds sleazy, but at the end of the day, like, that's the whole reason we exist, right?

[Greg]

Is because we've built our elasticity engine, which is our priors that we're using.

[Bradley]

In the database, based off of the.

[Greg]

Billions of dollars that runs through our system every day.

[Bradley]

So it updates in Real time. So the reality is, is I, I've.

[Greg]

Already seen every one of those roads 100 times. So the reality is, is like a.

[Bradley]

Tool like ours, I will tell you within 80 to 90% likelihood what that.

[Greg]

Road looks like ahead of you because.

[Bradley]

I've already driven it so many times.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Greg]

So part of it is like being.

[Bradley]

Able to understand how a tool like ours can help you say, I don't.

[Greg]

Know where the road is, but I've.

[Bradley]

Been on it so many times that I can at least tell you where the guardrails are and then I can.

[Greg]

Tell you the risk that's associated where.

[Bradley]

Like as the road gets narrower because.

[Greg]

Everything that we do is probabilistic as well.

[Bradley]

So you'll be able to see, hey.

[Greg]

Yes, in fact you could go spend.

[Bradley]

On Instacart, but if you go spend.

[Greg]

More on Instacart, the upside is there, but the risk of that upside is.

[Bradley]

So wide where if you send, you know, hey, maybe spending more on TikTok, it's, it's not as high.

[Greg]

Right, but it's, the risk tolerance is much lower. So in this case, like, hey, if.

[Bradley]

You want risk aversion, let's go ahead.

[Greg]

And spend over here versus over there. And the way that we know this is that every model that gets simulated through our platform feeds the meta model, which then customizes the experience for each brand.

[Bradley]

And it's customized based off of your category, your size, you know, the size of revenue you have, your margin, you.

[Greg]

Know all of the, like your distribution, whether you're brick and mortar, you're online.

[Bradley]

Only, you're a hybrid.

[Greg]

Like so we have all of these like base elasticity.

[Bradley]

So a brand can really say they've.

[Greg]

Already driven this road a thousand times with hundreds of brands.

[Bradley]

Therefore like I've got a pretty good.

[Greg]

Pulse on what's working and what's not, just based off the expertise that we've built in data.

[Bradley]

Because again, I think the other unique thing for us is that like there's nothing in it for me.

[Greg]

Like I am a math based platform so I'm not focused on like, well, hey, I'm gonna like skew the results based off of like something that I.

[Bradley]

Get out of this. I'm not taking a percent of your ad spend, I'm not buying anything that's.

[Greg]

At a better cost per, like I'm just a math based model. So there's no bias built into what we're delivering for you.

[Bradley]

So again, it's like pulse check its.

[Greg]

Norms, but it's also the accountability with an unbiased result.

[Bradley]

I think that's the unique thing that.

[Greg]

We can provide for brands who are.

[Bradley]

Looking for that thumb on the windshield, hopefully better.

[Eric]

And talk to me about how what you guys offer differs from more traditional media mix measurement tools.

[Bradley]

Yeah, so I think the easiest way.

[Greg]

To say it is we're holistic. So we're looking at 100% of your.

[Bradley]

Working dollars against 100% of your revenue.

[Greg]

And factoring in all of the environmental factors as well.

[Bradley]

So we're not only looking at your.

[Greg]

Media execution, but we're also factoring in your pricing and promotional strategy, we're factoring in your distribution, we're factoring in your.

[Bradley]

Site traffic, we're factoring in organic social.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

A lot of those things get ignored.

[Bradley]

In traditional media mix modeling where we're.

[Greg]

More of this commercial analytics.

[Bradley]

So we're looking at, hey, should I in fact take price on this? And if I take price on this, how many units am I going to sell less because my price is a little bit higher? And you know, because we see that again going back to one of your.

[Greg]

Examples, the brands who are spending on promotion that don't spend on, on media end up then, you know, selling a ton more products but at a lower revenue per unit. So it's really at the end of.

[Bradley]

The day it's like, how do I.

[Greg]

Take this holistic commercial approach and then build a revenue forecast that is based.

[Bradley]

Off a unit forecast? So at the end of the day.

[Greg]

Like Keen's not just like media measurement.

[Bradley]

Tool, we're a marketing holistic planning solution.

[Greg]

That actually feeds a demand planning because we're a unit based forecast.

[Bradley]

So again it's like I'm typically working.

[Greg]

With, you know, cmo, cfo, coo, looking at production because of how holistic we are where traditional MMM is very much.

[Bradley]

Focused just on the media buyers or the media planners and things like that.

[Eric]

And are you seeing big interaction effects between, I think of my friend runs Kanpai freeze dried candy business who's built, he's an expert at building up YouTube, organic YouTube communities and he's finding a huge interaction effect between, you know, being able to sell into stores, sell through at stores and his sort of like top of funnel YouTube presence. Do you see a big interaction effect between media and retail?

[Bradley]

Yeah, for sure. I mean one of the unique things.

[Greg]

That Keen can do is we have a portfolio capability. So oftentimes for a lot of brands.

[Bradley]

There'S the question of should I go.

[Greg]

Into brick and mortar and if I do, will it cannibalize my D2C business.

[Bradley]

Because especially we have a bunch of DTC businesses that are like their subscriptions.

[Greg]

Through their D2C, but when they go.

[Bradley]

To brick and mortar, they don't have control over that.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Greg]

So there's this like, fear around, like, well, I need the distribution. I need the awareness that comes from.

[Bradley]

Being on the shelf.

[Greg]

So what Keen is able to do in our platform is that we have.

[Bradley]

A model that looks at should I.

[Greg]

Spend in master brand marketing and if.

[Bradley]

I do, what is the interaction or the halo impact down to my brick.

[Greg]

And mortar versus to my D2C site.

[Bradley]

And then are there, are there interactions.

[Greg]

That happen side to side as well where it's like, can I take my.

[Bradley]

Brick and mortar buyer and make them.

[Greg]

Buy my DTC subscription because it's more profitable for me? So we are, we have a unique ability to measure those halos there to.

[Bradley]

Really equip brands to, you know, over.

[Greg]

Or under invest in certain channels based off their total company objective.

[Bradley]

So again, it goes back to the fact that I'm 100% holistic on your P and L strategy. Through that portfolio capability, we can measure those interaction effects.

[Eric]

Super cool. So people listening to this podcast, our call to action is going to be to download this Insights Report. What are people going to get in this Insights Report?

[Bradley]

Yeah, so out of the Insights Report, there's a couple of different sections in there. One, it's, you know, I think one of the interesting things is, you know.

[Greg]

What'S the optimal mix? Like, so we have recommendations in there that we see.

[Bradley]

So if I'm a $500 million brand.

[Greg]

Versus $1 billion brand versus a $50 million brand, what should my spend to.

[Bradley]

Revenue ratio be for the most effective return?

[Greg]

And then inside of that, you're going to get into like, well, what is the right balance of spend between search versus streaming TV versus display versus influencer?

[Bradley]

So you're going to be able to.

[Greg]

See what is the right channel mix.

[Bradley]

And all this is based off of.

[Greg]

Who we see are the best performers.

[Bradley]

Coming out of Keen's meta analysis of.

[Greg]

Those hundreds of brands that I mentioned.

[Bradley]

You'Re also then going to be able.

[Greg]

To start to double click into things.

[Bradley]

Like, you know, meta as an example.

[Greg]

So, like, it's a huge question right.

[Bradley]

Now of like, should I be spending more in meta? And it's like, well, actually TikTok is.

[Greg]

Actually surpassing them on a bunch of key metrics.

[Bradley]

So, like, if that's your objective, maybe.

[Greg]

TikTok's a better channel. So it's not Just like the high.

[Bradley]

Level, but it's also down to that right mix and then, you know, what is the interaction effect and how does.

[Greg]

It actually start to impact your brand? And ultimately what it's going to lead.

[Bradley]

You to is, you know, let me.

[Greg]

Run a free trial of Keen's platform and see what the right mix should be for me.

[Bradley]

Like, am I. Because there's a misunderstanding in the market.

[Greg]

That marketing mix modeling, like, I need to spend a certain amount, I need to be so big it's going to cost me 300 grand for a PowerPoint deck.

[Bradley]

None of those things are true.

[Greg]

So I'd encourage you to read the.

[Bradley]

Insights and then, you know, capitalize on our free trial and get some high.

[Greg]

Level insights of like, what's the right spend amount? So again, free trial comes from the Insights report and then from it, I.

[Bradley]

Mean, our subscription models, our pricing is.

[Greg]

On our website, right.

[Bradley]

You're going to see that there's an.

[Greg]

Option to enter at $35,000 a year.

[Bradley]

For unlimited model updates. So again, all the things that you're thinking about when it comes to marketing.

[Greg]

Mix modeling, you can throw them out.

[Bradley]

And start with that Insights report because.

[Greg]

It has some really good best practices that are good screen screen grabs to.

[Bradley]

Put in your next PowerPoint deck to your leadership team.

[Eric]

I bet there are a lot of brands listening here, are wondering whether they are overspending on these direct marketing channels and they're all looking for ways to kind of move up funnel. So I think this probably couldn't come at a better time. Curious, do you think this is, this is just neither here nor there. I might. This whole TikTok thing is so interesting to me and part of me is just wondering now whether you will look back on this a year or in a couple of months and we'll just be like, this was actually just a giant campaign for TikTok to like, could you, like, this is the biggest earned media campaigns probably since Donald Trump did it, you know, six months ago.

[Bradley]

Yeah, I think it's interesting. And the reason I think it's interesting is because if you look at, you know, again, we're coming, for those listening at later time, we're coming the day after inauguration where you have the tech.

[Greg]

CEOs of all the social platforms who own all of the data for every.

[Bradley]

Movement of any person in America and.

[Greg]

Arguably half of the world.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

If not more, sitting there and then.

[Greg]

In the Oval Office, he's talking about.

[Bradley]

TikTok and how, you know, America is.

[Greg]

Going to own 50% of TikTok if.

[Bradley]

They, if they want the investment to continue and they want to be able to continue playing in the US or in the US market right now. Like, it's so interesting because if it's.

[Greg]

Just TikTok, what's going to stop the US government from going and taking a 50% share of Apple or Metta or.

[Bradley]

Any of the other, you know, players.

[Greg]

Who are sitting at his inauguration speech, Right?

[Bradley]

So it's interesting because if you layer.

[Greg]

That onto the data privacy conversations that.

[Bradley]

Are happening and then you layer that onto, you know, the AI conversations that.

[Greg]

Are happening, because all these platforms are.

[Bradley]

Also pushing into AI, it's, it's interesting.

[Greg]

To see where this will play out.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

So at the end of the day, is it working for Tick Tock?

[Greg]

For sure. Will they exist a year from now? Is this just a big play?

[Bradley]

I don't know. Because of the fact that, like, why.

[Greg]

Was Zuckerberg and Cook and why were all those guys at the inauguration too?

[Bradley]

Like, it feels like there's something brewing.

[Greg]

Here as it relates to data and privacy and ad$. Like it's, it's interesting, right? Especially when you layer in the commerce strategy.

[Bradley]

So again, it's like the wild, wild.

[Greg]

West right now as it regards to the data as the new gold, right?

[Bradley]

So how do we think about data and what we can do with it and do we really want the government playing with all that data? Is a whole other conversation for tinfoil hat conversations.

[Eric]

When I start my meta political podcast, I'm going to put you on my list of guests so we can, we can discuss that in more depth. You mentioned it in the last thing you said, just about how maybe TikTok's outpacing meta. And I think about the way I use and the way I, the way, you know, the people that I know, they're using TikTok a lot more. TikTok is, is more of like a TV or movie competitor in a lot of ways with the amount of time people spend on it.

[Bradley]

But I still even a Google competitor.

[Greg]

Because Gen Z and younger, oh, I.

[Eric]

Search on it all the time for restaurant reviews.

[Greg]

They use it for search more than they do Google, right?

[Bradley]

It's like, it's no different than like.

[Greg]

You'Ve got boomers in Gen X who start on Google. You've got millennials who are starting on.

[Bradley]

Amazon a lot of times for certain, you know, for certain types of things, right? But you have this Gen Z and Gen Alpha actually starting on TikTok, which is interesting, right? And then it's like, but the Question.

[Greg]

There that's leading to these projections for this year is like, what about social commerce?

[Bradley]

And it's like, well, if they're doing.

[Greg]

That on TikTok, what, what did they do? Because Meta has been talking about social commerce for years, right? Why didn't it take off?

[Bradley]

Like, why isn't it working the way TikTok is taking off at the same.

[Greg]

Level, especially with this buzz around? Or is it just the shiny new toy?

[Unknown]

Right.

[Bradley]

So again, everybody's flocked it TikTok shop because of that. But again, it just leads to like.

[Greg]

Is it the experience that's led the adoption? Like, why, why hasn't Meta figured out how to crack this?

[Eric]

But it's part of it to me is the, is the two way nature of TikTok and that. And which is one of the reasons, I think that a lot of the governments of the world are wary of it because it is more, it feels more two way. It feels more community based and more social than something like a reels, which is just like, I'm going to get a few laughs or whatever. Where it feels like the depth that's happening on TikTok is, is fostering these communities. And I think that's one of the reasons that governments are kind of afraid of it.

[Bradley]

Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting, I think, you know, then you start to go to like CES and things like that.

[Greg]

Which we went to, and you start.

[Bradley]

To hear about, you know, the amount of AI folk, like the stuff that you're seeing on TikTok, like how much of it is actually real is interesting.

[Greg]

As well, where it's like, yeah, you're getting targeted with ads right now that.

[Bradley]

Aren'T even real people.

[Greg]

Which opens up a whole other, a.

[Bradley]

Whole other podcast, right?

[Greg]

Of like, where's the boundary here at this point? So what's the role of the influencer? Is it a real person or is it an AI based influence?

[Bradley]

Like, all these things are kind of on the table right now and it's, it's interesting.

[Greg]

But again, this is why it's so hard to be in marketing, but yet.

[Bradley]

Also why, you know, you go back to the beginning of what I said is like, you just have to genuinely be curious because, like, let's be honest.

[Greg]

None of us know what we're doing. Like, we're all making it up every day because it's evolving so fast that.

[Bradley]

You can't possibly be an expert in anything because of the fact that whatever, you're an expert in changes next week. You know what I mean, so, like.

[Greg]

That sounds more dramatic, but it's just.

[Bradley]

Like, you just got to be genuinely.

[Greg]

Curious and willing to be able to.

[Bradley]

Be nimble and, and pivot because, again.

[Greg]

The world's changing so fast and it's.

[Bradley]

Only going to get faster with the AI boom that's happening right now, especially.

[Greg]

As marketing starts to adopt it more.

[Bradley]

So it's an exciting time to be in marketing, for sure.

[Eric]

You got to look further than your thumb and you got to download Keen's Insights report, which we'll have linked in the show notes below, and then otherwise go to is keen d s.com keen d s.com keen decisioning system ds.com and you'll get to talk to Bradley. You got to follow Bradley on LinkedIn too. Is that. Was that where people would follow you?

[Bradley]

Yeah, for sure. Follow on LinkedIn and post stuff in there all the time. I like to post things that are.

[Greg]

Like, well, you think this, but what about that?

[Bradley]

Right? So I try to, you know, be a little provocative there just because I think we've, we've trained ourselves on some.

[Greg]

Of the wrong things and we haven't evolved our thinking.

[Bradley]

So happy to have debates with anybody, you know, as long as you bring data. Like, feelings are great, but data supports arguments much better. So.

[Eric]

And once you launch the report, we may have to come back and start some of those incendiary debates because, like, if anyone wants to nerd out on this stuff with Bradley, hit him up, because you're, you're a real grade A nerd on this stuff and it's really refreshing to hear. So thanks for coming on today, man. This was a lot of fun.

[Greg]

Absolutely.

[Bradley]

Thanks, Eric. Thanks for having me on.

[Eric]

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at directtoconsumeralloneword co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.