← Marketing Operators 
Marketing Operators
New Product Launch Strategy, Net New Reach on Meta, and Big Partnership Swings
01:11:06
Loading summary
Transcript157 lines
- [00:00]
Cody
The first Conor Cody only episode Connor's in China right now. We're sad, but it's gonna be a great episode. Our sweepstakes live. Golden's Gordon ticket to Paris, valued at $170,000 is live. I think people always think about Gordon as a chef, but he might even be like a better media personality, entertainer even than he is a chef.
- [00:17]
Jason
About 40% of our meta spend was actually going after repeat customers, even though we were excluding people. So we'd run a holdout with Meta and, you know, 65% of the incremental revenue was new.
- [00:26]
Cody
Joe Rogan has been a customer of Hollow for a while. He had a podcast and then naturally, like, Joe ends up plug Holo. He's like, oh, yeah, like I like his brand Holo. Like, I've been using him for a while. And now Holo is maximizing to the best of their ability, the distribution of that clip through their owned and operator channel.
- [00:42]
Jason
It's not enough to just like bundle things and put one exclusive product in this anniversary hit. We have five things that you can't buy otherwise. Some of them are actually net new products that's launching in 2026.
- [00:54]
Cody
All right, we're back. Episode 79 of the Marketing Operators. The first Connor Cody. Only episode Connor Max Cal Ripken streak ends. We're sad, but it's gonna be a great episode. So Connor's in China right now. Do we know what he's doing in China? He's. He's not injured like Cal Ripken's streak ended, probably cause he got injured. Conor's not injured. His. His fingers are working fine. He's typing away, I'm sure. But he's in China right now. Do you know what he's out there for?
- [01:16]
Jason
No. I asked Sean when. When we were at Beanstalk, I think. I think they're meeting with manufacturers. I don't know entirely what, you know, why the CMO's going out there? Maybe he's getting some. Some content in the factories. Yeah, he'll have to tell us when he's back. Might just be along for the trip.
- [01:31]
Cody
I've never been to China, so that would be. I would be interested in going just for the trip. Have you been?
- [01:36]
Jason
I've been once in. In high school, but I haven't been for. For work. So I'm trying to find reasons to go for work.
- [01:42]
Cody
But you guys. I mean, you don't do any. Where do you mean?
- [01:45]
Jason
We do a ton. We just don't go like we. We do a ton. We just do it all over WhatsApp and stuff.
- [01:49]
Cody
Oh, but you do create your products in China.
- [01:52]
Jason
We manufacture domestically, but all like packaging and a lot of the now raw materials are there. So like our director of. Of packaging is like on. We're trying to like get all of our packaging direct. It just saves so much. Usually it was like a middleman. So she's just like whatsapping people. She says at like 10 o' clock at night. We have this really cool, innovative packaging thing we're trying to do for one of our launches next year. But it's like not perfect and the tolerances aren't there. And I'm in the meeting there, I'm like, all right, I guess we're going to have to go to China.
- [02:17]
Cody
Yeah, really interesting, because you can't. Because you just haven't like figured it. You couldn't get it figured out, like through WhatsApp and async.
- [02:25]
Jason
What happens is so you'll, you'll give feedback and, you know, you're talking, they'll be like, hey, we think we can try it this way. But then they have to ship it back to you. And it's like a two, you know, two, three week process.
- [02:33]
Cody
So I see.
- [02:34]
Jason
Just because we're, we're coming up on kind of crunch time to having to, you know, get things finalized. It's like, all right if we go there, but just trying to find reasons and excuses to go. But no, I went in. I went to high school. It's awesome. I got some China stories I'll share another day. But yeah, I'm sad for Connor. Like, my heart breaks for him. I am. But I am excited to chat with you. I feel like, I feel like it's been a while. I've been like, my schedule has been crazy, so it hasn't been like the core three of us or even like. And this is the first one we've done to her, so. Definitely excited to catch up and chat.
- [03:02]
Cody
Yeah, man, same here. What's. Do you guys have anything going on? Like, any big fun stuff happening at. At JRB right now? Like products, campaigns or is it kind of like BAU getting ready for.
- [03:14]
Jason
We got a lot, so. Yeah, we, we got a lot. And I'm also just like, very deep in next year planning and working out a lot of, you know, brand deals and partnerships and product stuff for next year. But right now we, we have a lot. So Bobby just launched her book. So it's like a memoir. It's like her 10th book. So she had a really big, you know, Podcast tour. As part of that, she was on a few big ones, like Armchair Expert and stuff like that. And there's a few other, like, big ones coming out. She'll be on like, Mel Robbins and stuff.
- [03:40]
Cody
Wasn't she on How I Built this with Guy?
- [03:42]
Jason
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she was on. On that again. So obviously that helps. Yeah, well, she was on like, before Jones Road for like, Bobby Brown Cosmetics, so she did like a small segment. So obviously that's been some. Some nice halo and reach. But we launched a new lipstick as part of that. So that was this past week. Not like a giant, huge launch for us, but definitely actually seeing better acquisition performance than we expected, which actually will be relevant to today's episode, I think, because some surprises there.
- [04:08]
Cody
And what was that launch?
- [04:09]
Jason
That was classic lip. Like a lipstick. Yeah. Which like, she's kind of known for. So that helped a lot. Uh, we have our anniversary kit coming up in next week. That'll go for all October. That's like five exclusives. Doing a pretty fun teasing strategy for that. So talk about that. Then we have holiday collections in November. Um, and that rolls us right into Black Friday. So. Yeah, that's for this year. And then a lot of. A lot of big other stuff. How about you guys?
- [04:31]
Cody
I want to. Let's put a pin in the teasing strategy. Cause I want to. We also have like a fairly robust end of year product drop roadmap that I'm pretty pumped about. Some of it is variations on existing product categories which are smaller, but some of it are bigger launches that are new categories. One is like a very interesting swing. I'm very excited to, like, for the world to see it. It's going to be fun. Like, total new category. And then the other one is that I'm really excited about is an extension of cookware that I. We think our customers like really chomping at the bit to get access to. So I want to ask you about your. Your teasing strategy because I want to. I want to think through that a little bit more. Our sweepstakes launched on Monday, so that's live. Golden ticket to Paris valued at $170,000 is live, which is exciting. You know, it's. It I think I take for granted. I'm curious if you feel this way about, like, Bobby at all, but like, Gordon is just so good in front of a camera. Right. Like, I think people always think about Gordon as a chef, but he. He might even be like a better like media personality, entertainer even than he is a chef.
- [05:35]
Jason
Sure.
- [05:35]
Cody
And so, so this Year, our hero, like, everything's always centered around this hero video for the sweepstakes, right? Like, I want someone to hit the landing page and then section two in the. In the landing page is this, like, nice, well, well done video. That's like, high five. Very visually engaging. This year we went with a different visual concept for that video. And whereas last year it was like, it was of Gordon, actually, like a single shot of Gordon, like, walking in his restaurant explaining what the sweepstakes is this year that's not what it is. We actually shot something and then he responded to it. The initial thought was that. That he was just going to do like this quick and dirty intro hook and then I like, get the hero video back. And it's like Gordon, like, VO on the entire thing. And it's so well done, right? Like, and I'm sure we didn't script it out for him to, like, do it that way, but just like the. The pizzazz he can add to any video is just like, it's so amazing. Like, if you go check it out, like, even it's like, ah, petty, like, it's just like a very fun, engaging way to open the video. And like, again, like, everything you do with this guy, it just comes back and he's executed on like the 10 out of 10 level. So that was kind of the final cherry on top. We always end up shooting with like, we get a shoot with him usually around end of like middle of September, early September. So it's like his piece of the sweeps is always the last thing we produce and then we layer it in and then we launch the thing. So, yeah, the hero video turned out great. Our team actually shot the visual, like our internal content team, and they crushed it. And then he did the voiceover to it.
- [07:03]
Jason
Yeah, I was gonna ask. Cause we're looking for like a new, like, I'm trying to find new, like, TV creative agency. Like, are you guys doing all this. This kind of hero production stuff internally or with an agency or both?
- [07:13]
Cody
We are doing it internally now. Our team. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's been really cool. I've spent and I actually, I actually, I got a lot of like, slack on this on Twitter because I was like, I tweeted something about, you know, I'm like, I. I just believe in, like, really investing in places and being there for a while because I think it takes a lot of time to like, hit your full output and like, really get moving. I think this is a great example where me and the head of content at Hexclad started at the same time and we work so closely together and like he's really learned what makes a good Facebook ad. He's really learned like what makes a YouTube ad and a good CTV ad. So now he's just like, I don't even have to like brief him that much anymore. It's like, yo, like I want to shoot like Thanksgiving and holiday like CTV commercials this year. And he's like, all right, great, cool. Like I don't even really have to like be super involved in all the details. He just knows what to do. Yeah. So same thing here. Like, you know, they just know what to do now because we've done this for two years now and like, yeah, like we, we'll have three. That's one of the big things we're doing differently this year is we have three new seasonal like CTV level commercials that we shot. So we have a Thanksgiving one, we have a holiday one and then we actually have like a Black Friday Cyber Monday specific one. So we have. That's something I've been working on right now is our like flighting schedule for those assets and then you have like sale non sale versions. So like really dialing that in. That's a big level up to our, to our like Creative Stack and our video channels this year.
- [08:36]
Jason
Yeah, that could be a whole topic. I want to get to that point. That could be a whole topic. I'll. But well, as we get into it, I'll share kind of what we're doing for Creative.
- [08:42]
Cody
Yeah, well let's. All right, let's get into it. I want to hear about your teasing stuff. But before we do that, shout out to the sponsors. Motion Pression AI Rich panel after style in house and shout out to the listeners if you're liking the show. Make sure to share it with a friend, like subscribe. We're trying to get this show in the hands as with as many marketers as possible.
- [09:19]
Jason
Foreign.
- [09:35]
Cody
Motion is hosting the fourth annual Creative Strategy Summit. The virtual event is free to attend and it is where the best performance creative teams on the planet share what's working. Seriously, I have attended this the last few years and I am really blown away at the reputation and the people that Motion is bringing on and just the quality of the content that these amazing creative strategists are talking about at this event. And we're really going to learn what's working, how they're evolving their creative strategy and the overall bigger shifts in the world of DTC and creative. It's over six hours of Programming featuring elite DTC brands and a must attend event for anyone working in paid social. I'm going to be there. Cody and Connor are going to be there. Plus the marketing operators are doing a live podcast episode so we're really excited about that. There was over 18,000 people registered last year, 5,000 people tuned in live and many, many performance creative teams block out this day and just make this a learning moment for the entire company and it's been really, really critical and important for guiding our creative strategy. I remember the last few years we've had a lot of, a lot of information from the event get infused into our creative strategy in the following few months. Like I said, some of the best, sharpest creative strategy minds in DTC are presenting at the Creative Strategy Summit being put on by Motion. I'm really excited about this list of people. It includes Dara Denny, Sarah Levenger, Mirella Lee Joselowitz, Savannah Sanchez and a lot more to be announced soon. Seriously, some of the best minds in creative strategy right now. Plus if you cannot attend, all the recordings are going to be recorded so you should sign up anyway even if you're not able to attend when the recordings are live in real time. So get your free ticket at motionapp.com forward/creative-strategy-summit. It's happening on October 9th at 12:00pm to 6:00pm Eastern Time. Make sure not to miss it. All right, so yeah, you got some new products coming up. So do we. Yeah. Tell me about the teasing because like we have a, we have some new products this year that I think we could tease and like build some hype around. But we have some really big product launches coming next year in Q1 that I am building out like a pretty robust pre launch like lead generation strategy around. So I would, I'd love to hear what you're thinking for how you're going to tease these.
- [11:41]
Jason
Yeah, so it, the one thing about teasing is it's very hard to actually know because there's so many variables and like if you do a different strategy and a launch performs well, it's like did it do well? Cause we teased it, did it do well? Cause it was just a launch, you know, whatever. So it's a hard thing. So like I, I struggle with knowing what the right strategy is and like.
- [11:58]
Cody
How incremental is it? Like how much. Yeah, yeah.
- [12:01]
Jason
Like we've teased or we've tested like incrementality of like a teaser email or SMS to see if like that's worth it. But like the entire strategy is challenging so we, we launch usually there's something not always a net new product, but a shade or kit or something like twice a month. Right? Like kind of like. Right. So you can't tease them all and you can't tease them for a long period time because then you'd be overlapping and it's just too much. And you definitely do see, at least for us, like a revenue hit when you start teasing something, you know, like people are like, all right, let me wait. I was planning to get an order, I think, and we're tearing things very similar to how Ridge is doing now. We used to ABCs, now we're doing 1, 2, 3, 4. And so I think it should also be proportional to, you know, to the revenue opportunity. And you can kind of take that dip and a little bit of revenue to build a little bit more demand and hype. And I'll say for whatever reason, I think we had such, just like a dialed launch thing. Like we had multiple, multiple million dollar days last year where like we would have a launch and it would just go crazy. And for whatever reason, I think a lot of it is maturing as a business. A lot of it is our launches weren't exciting and new enough. We had a lot of like the same kits we did last year. But I also think for other reasons, like we've had to really reevaluate our strategy because I feel like some of our launches have, have fallen flat. Like the initial, the initial just demand and hype. And so a lot of this will be next year. Like I think we'll try to build more, you know, just a lot more anticipation, I think more standard beauty brands that are doing, you know, four times a year drops. Like a lot of them are like teasing and not teasing. I always like to make the clear differentiation between teasing and announcing. You know, like a lot of them are actually announcing what they have coming. Like road will do this on their site and they'll be like, hey, we have this new flavor and they'll do or you know, yeah, new flavor, new shade of like a lip product. And they'll do like a big brand campaign and they'll do trips and they'll do creative and they'll put it on their site and early sign up and they probably do see a revenue hit, but it's, you know, it's most likely worth it. So we're, we are experimenting with a lot of different things. One that I'm excited about for this product, it's the Bobby kit. It's our anniversary kit. We have so what we've learned as we've done more kits and more of our customers have more of the collection already. Right. Like, it's not enough to just like bundle things and put one exclusive product in because, like no one's gonna spend 80, 90 bucks if they already have four of the products and they kind of want one, you know. So we're this anniversary hit. We have five things that you can't buy other otherwise. Some of them are actually net new products. So like some is something that is launching in. It's like what we think will be probably a tier two product for us that's launching in 2026. And so this is your first chance to get it. One is a product that we launched in this kit last year and hasn't been able to get sent. So there's like demand on it. One is this product that actually like launched Jones Road, that like Bobby just created for fun to give away on holiday. And it's like a. It kind of like launched miracle bomb, but it's like a different product. And then two others are just shades of products you can't get. And so what we're going to do is starting five days before it. So I actually think we're starting today maybe when this comes out. I don't know. I'm like already like next year planning. We're just on that. We have the PDP live and we're just going to announce a new product every day and we're going to change the PDP image so it'll be. It'll essentially be like blacked out or grayed out, four of them. And we'll show this one and you can sign up. And so we'll have that echoed across all channels. And so hoping to just try something new, build a little bit more hype and anticipation, kind of create that open loop. We'll announce what we think is the most exciting one the day before. Trying to just get a little bit more urgency, a little bit more emotion to see if we can get like a better initial launch performance. So just something that's a little bit more fun.
- [15:24]
Cody
So you basically every day starting today, like, all right. So day one is like, all right, the first. The first. What's the verbiage you use? Like color?
- [15:34]
Jason
It depends because we have, we have some shades and then we have, we have some net new products. But just like whatever, you know, skus, we have got it. So yeah, we'll. We'll essentially say, you know, celebrating five years, here's what's coming and here's you know, we'll. We'll announce. Here's our strategy. It's not today. I just got dates mixed up.
- [15:52]
Cody
Will it be consecutive days where it's like, all right, day one we're telling you one product, then day two, we tell you the next one and then.
- [15:57]
Jason
Exactly.
- [15:59]
Cody
Okay.
- [15:59]
Jason
Exactly. And so you'll see visually. And so it'll kind of just like keep that loop open to try to build that anticipation. And then the day before the launch, which will be the fifth day of this strategy, we'll show you the last one, which is what we think is the most exciting brand new. Hopefully people just. Hopefully, right. If it works out, have their credit cards just ready, waiting to buy, you know, on. On launch day. So we'll see. But try and try and have a little fun with it, too.
- [16:24]
Cody
And it's just a product page, but instead of a shop button, it just has like a form, like kind of like a backend, like one, like.
- [16:30]
Jason
Exactly.
- [16:31]
Cody
Yeah, that makes sense.
- [16:32]
Jason
But the main product image, because it's a kit, usually we would show, you know, all five products in it as like the first product image. We'll show that, but we're going to change it every day and it'll be, you know, grayed out. And then so you'll be able to see, you know, two days into it, the two day. The two products we've announced and then the three that'll have like, the question mark.
- [16:51]
Cody
Right.
- [16:51]
Jason
So just trying to gamify it a little bit.
- [16:53]
Cody
And will you actually have. Because. Because this is going to go to your own media list. We actually have them re. Input their. Their email again to say, hey, like. Or do they just have to like, CL button.
- [17:03]
Jason
Yeah, they'll. They'll have to put email in. I don't know a way to just like, add that. Yeah, but, yeah, but for us, just. They'll get like a segment.
- [17:10]
Cody
Yep. And then how many. Do you have, like, a number in mind of, like, how many emails and phone numbers you think a strategy like this can generate of people telling you they're interested?
- [17:18]
Jason
No, it's a good question. It's a good question. I don't know. And I think there's probably a lot of people that, you know, are going to be all right. They already have my email. They'll just, like, follow along. Hopefully the impact will be outside of the net, new email.
- [17:30]
Cody
I keep hearing the same things from people lately. I'm being asked to do more with less. I have big goals to hit, but my budget is tight and every marketing dollar needs to work harder. I know I'm hearing this at hexclad. I'm sure a lot of operators are hearing this at their brands. Super relevant right now. Incrementality testing is the best way to figure out what's actually moving the needle so you can move around your ad spend in a way that's backed by science. All three of us use House rank mentality testing. We all love it. And House is now working with more than 40 of the top 100 DTC brands, which is pretty insane. I can speak personally for Hexclad. The amount of insights that we've gotten, especially on our view based channels and how those are driving impacts and efficiency and revenue for our business is not only super valuable but only possible through House. You know, channels like Connected TV, YouTube, TikTok, these very view based channels that don't garner a click the same way that Facebook and Google does have been really only measurable through Geo incrementality holdout testing and the actionable next steps from these tests in terms of deciding to scale up or down or keep spending where it's at is is really amazing. House helps you run experiments on your channel so you can confidently answer the questions you've always wondered about. Things like what channels are actually driving my business? How much should I be spending on each channel? What's the impact of my ads on Amazon or retail sales? How should I structure my Meta and Google accounts to make sure they're spending dollars in the right way? I the beauty of House is that it's built for marketers. The science under the hood is rigorous, but the platform itself is simple. So you pick a question, launch a test in minutes and get real results fast. Every customer is paired with a measurement strategist, someone who understands growth and brings a clear strategic point of view. They will get to know your business, help you build a roadmap of impactful tests and guide you as you operationalize incrementality in your day to day. Even if you're brand new to testing, you're not doing it alone. It is very much no in no way like a go sign up for the platform and figure it out on your own. You have a partner in these customer success test reps from House who's been in your shoes. And now more than ever, you need to make every marketing dollar count up. Level your measurement with House by going to house I.O. forward slash operators, that's H A U S I.O. operators and start allocating your budget with confidence.
- [19:47]
Jason
Sometimes I have these like learnings and Revelations that are just like, duh. And like, I sound so stupid saying it, but it's like, how important social proof is even at launch. Because, like, we don't currently have reviews. I don't know if you guys have done this. I know you don't launch as much. Like, when we launch a new product, we don't have reviews live on our site, Right?
- [20:05]
Cody
Oh, yes. Let's dig into this because we've been thinking a ton about this at Hex.
- [20:09]
Jason
Yeah. And a lot of brands will, you know, send stuff to influencers, so have like a creator panel that they can send stuff to. Again, like, you can't pay to people. You know, you can't pay to give people reviews, but you can just put a QR code in an influencer box and be like, if you love it, you can obviously pay creators and get content. So, you know, that's. I think a huge thing that we're trying to do is, like, really build community much more in these things, build social proof, have creator videos ready. Just, like, people showing the product, you know, people talking about it. Not just the brand talking about it, but that. And it's something that probably won't take effect this year, unfortunately, but I think it's something that's huge. We. And part of the learning for this, we were actually in the process of switch of testing this new PDP that we have a few months back, and we had a launch and the test was winning. Like, the PDP test was winning as a whole. And then when we had this launch, it started losing. And we were like, why? And we realized that was why. Because this one page of this new launch didn't have reviews on it. And that that conversion rate was just so much lower than everything else. It was like, wow. Reviews, like, are actually that important because it's. I think reviews are just so standard practice. You almost can assume, like, customers don't care as much about them because everyone does it. But, like, crazy how much of an impact it has. So that's. For us, it's like, we need to have this social proof live at time of launch.
- [21:24]
Cody
Okay, so that's super interesting because we're thinking about this too, where I'm. We're. We're trying to move our timelines up so we can launch early to a select group of people for the exact reason. Right. So we have this cooking, this Cooking with Hexcloud community and Facebook. It's about 70,000 people strong. And these people love Hexcloud. They're like our Hex evangelists. They are. It's a very active community. Not even started by hexcloud. This was actually started by a customer of it way back in the day. And now, like, we're admins in the group and like, we collaborate really well. But what I want to do, like, basically the timelines I'm trying to get to is, hey, we have a new product. Let's, let's ship in 100 of these things like two months ahead of time. Then we open it up to say, we say, hey, cookie with hexcloud, like, because you're our valued customers, yada yada yada, like, we're opening this up to you like, well ahead of time. All right, now we sell, like, let's say we sell 25 to 50 to clicking with hexclad. Then they've had it. Let's say they have it then six weeks ahead of launch, okay. Then they're using it for two weeks. Now we're four weeks ahead of launch. Then we send them an email and say, hey, like an actual custom email too. Not just like our everyday judge me review flow. Like a custom email for this. That's like, hey, like, you're our most value customers. Like, yes, we wanted to give this to you early because we, we value as a customer, but also because we want your feedback and like you leaving a review is super valuable to us and how we can like spread this product with the broader public. So I agree, like, my goal is to end up every, with every new product having like hopefully 10, 20, 30 reviews from people that are like the Hex cloud evangelist and presumably will leave like the most detailed, best, most positive reviews possible. Because I agree, I think that if we were, if we can launch a product, especially a product in a new category and have 25, like really amazing reviews from the Cooking with Hex tight community versus none. I think that's got to be a massive lift in conversion rate. I don't know if we'll test it ever, but like, it's got to be.
- [23:17]
Jason
Highly recommend it and it's something we're focused on and I think you guys will probably do a good job of it. But also, but get it on social. Like, like, watch, watch Road Road skin. Like what they do for their launches. Like, you'll just see so much of it just reposting, you know, influencer content. Like they're using their, their communities to announce stuff. I think I was always really precious. I'm like, I want the brand doing it and I think that now and like, I want I want community teasing stuff, you know, talking about it before the brand even. Even can. But I want as much content of earned media prior to launch. So I think that's like, a shift as well. Yeah, I think there's a bunch of fun things you can do. Like, I was talking. This guy, I forget his name, he used to work at Med. He's like Nate Lorenzen, I think on Twitter. I met with him once, and he was like, he does a lot of. I hope I can share this. He does a lot of, like, movie marketing. And, like, it's hard to get, like, really good paid social footage for that. So what they do is they do, like, test screenings. And when people, like, they have rights, you know, like waivers when people are coming out, they just capture, like, street interviews. And. And so one thing I'm. I'm really excited about. I don't know if you've seen, like, Grooms does this, but they do a lot of, like, sampling. They have, like, a Rivian.
- [24:20]
Cody
Yeah.
- [24:21]
Jason
And they, like. So. So we're gonna do that. I'm getting a truck. Either a Rivian or something else similar. We're gonna wrap it up and we're just gonna do a ton of sampling, like, we've really never done. So, like, we're gonna order a bunch of. And part of these new launches is we're going to do a lot of sampling ahead of. Ahead of it and get, like, street interview stuff as well. You know that hopefully it's not social, but like. Like. Like prior to launch, you know, like, this will be kind of for our tier ones. Like, we're not gonna do it for everything, but we're definitely experimenting. And. And because in the past, it's just, let's. Let's have everything just from the brand. Let's put it up. Let's not announce it. Or often we would tease things or announce it like the day before. And I think that's fine for, like, a small launch, but I think the longer you're. Or the bigger your potential peak is, probably the longer you should build that hype as well. I also. I think it's slightly different for you guys. Like, I don't think you're going to cannibalize your sales, like, as much. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong versus, like, for us, people definitely wait because they're like, all right, if I'm getting free shipping, let me, like, not place two orders. I feel like for you guys, because of your consideration, aov, like, it might not do as much, but I could.
- [25:21]
Cody
Be wrong about that, so we've, we also, we tease stuff. Like we've, what we've done in the past is we'll create these landing pages, these teaser landing pages that are just very product focus. It's like coming around these dates. You know, it has all the product imagery, it has all the use cases, lifestyle imagery, it has the product specs. We did like a, a controlled test on this at some point last year on our barbecue pan. And basically what we were trying to figure out is like did the segment, like did the audience that actually visited this page, like did they actually convert at a higher clip? They definitely did. Now who's to say they that so like because, because basically the strategy is you have your like engaged email segments that you're sending all campaigns to and you're teasing the product and then you have this landing page that you're redirecting traffic to. And then when we actually launched the product we just separated out that segment and said all right, here's just the segment of people that visited the page versus our overall engaged segment. And like of course we saw a pretty big lift from the people that visited the page. Now that's kind of also like a self fulfilling test in a way. It's like who's to say if we wouldn't have done that, that, that those people that visited that page would have, would have converted up the same clip. I like to think that it did improve the like the revenue per user on those people that visited the page because like how couldn't it. If we're letting them know beforehand what the product is like, they're primed to buy. So I do think it's worthwhile. You know one question I have for you about one of our launches coming up. I'm curious your take on it. We have a huge new category launching, like a plus launch, like maybe our biggest launch ever coming in 2026. I think what I, what I want to do is I want to take advantage of all the traffic that we're going to hit to have hit our site in November, December. But I want to do it in like a non interruptive interrupt, interruptible like a non interrupting way. So what I want to do is build out like a very robust landing page explaining exactly what the product is. I don't want to hide it because I want to have really high intent people that are giving me their, their email. But basically have this page. We'll do some own media pushes to it but other than that it'll just be like a landing page that lives on our site. And then we'll have various like modules on the site that people can click to get to it. But it's also during Q4 where we're trying to drive the most conversions possible. So it's like, I don't want to get in the way of people converting and I think there's ways to like be strategic. Like, all right, post purchase, maybe we have like a module that redirects.
- [27:39]
Jason
I was thinking about that. Yeah, like email flows.
- [27:42]
Cody
Yeah, so email flows definitely. But like post purchase, email flows. And then my goal is that like, all right, we'll hit January 1st and have tens of thousands of people that have seen this page and given me their email or phone number and name. And then we have this like, and then we keep running it through Q1 and then by the time we launch it, we have hopefully a list of like tens of thousands of people that are really excited and waiting for the product. So I think the, the, the, the thing that I'm trying to figure out is like, we're definitely going to do that, right? It's just a matter of when. It's like, what's the right timing? Should we do it on November 1st and take advantage of all the traffic hitting our site or shall we wait and let Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday have its moment and then maybe we launch it like towards the back part of December, which then we'd miss out on, you know, the tens of millions of people hitting our site. But we'll still have tens of, we'll have, still have like tens of thousands of new to file people. If we do decide to wait, we can always just hit those people up with an email campaign after peaks come and gone. So I'm trying to figure out what's the best like timing to roll this experience out.
- [28:45]
Jason
Do you think this, I know you can't give it away. Do you think this product, this launch, if somebody was on your site, you know, likely to purchase and they saw it, they would have a reason to wait. Like would, would. Do you risk losing the purchase by having this on site?
- [29:01]
Cody
I don't think so. I don't. Anyone that's come into our site and is like, they've been waiting to buy a 12 piece set and then they saw this product. I don't think it's going to be like, I don't, I don't think in their head they would ever be like, oh, I'm actually going to wait to buy the 12 piece set until this product comes out. Especially because we're going to Say like we're going to give a general timeline. It's like coming, coming Q1, 20, 26. And people know our best offers on cookware are right now or during when they are. So I think, I do not think someone would be like, I'm not going to buy my 12 piece set. I'm going to wait because I want to buy the 12 piece set. Because you're asking me, like, do you think people will wait to buy the product that we're going to be there for with the new product? Right.
- [29:38]
Jason
Yeah, because like. Cause like you're trying to put it on the site, you know, potentially now to get, you know, all the signups, all the visibility on it. But it's like. Or are you better off just acquiring as many customers as you can and like focusing on that and like, don't do anything to risk, you know, the conversion rate and like you'll be better off just acquiring more customers on your current thing, you know.
- [29:57]
Cody
Yeah, I.
- [29:58]
Jason
When is this launching? It's sometime in Q1 and the current.
- [30:01]
Cody
Plan is end of Q1.
- [30:03]
Jason
Oh, I would just like December 26th, flip the switch and like put it up. Then just like hustle as hard as you can on, you know, on, on just crushing Q4 as much as possible. As soon as gifting season is over, put it up. Then you'll still have almost three months like that. I think anything beyond that is, is, is really long. Is, is super far. You'll have all of the new customers you guys acquired. You know, it's safer. It's, it's, it's less of a risk. It's. It's a risk. I don't know. So I would, that would be what I would do.
- [30:33]
Cody
Yeah. And I think we could even, even if we wanted to like test it out before then, like, like before we launch it publicly on the site. We could even be like, all right, we're now on December 1st and we have like a three day evergreen window here and we just acquired a ton of new people. Let's just like we have the page built. It's just a matter of like how we use it. So we could just keep it like, you know, quote unquote dark. Like it's not on the core website. You could only get there through a marketing. So it's like, all right, December one hits and we actually send out a campaign. Like, hey, we know you just bought from us. We have this awesome product coming. Like, check it out. Sign up.
- [31:07]
Jason
Yeah, definitely do that for like anybody that purchased. I definitely put out in like a post purchase or campaign. But in terms of like site wide, I would, I would wait till after Black Friday person.
- [31:16]
Cody
Right. That's good for you.
- [31:18]
Jason
I'm very excited to see what you guys are, are doing.
- [31:20]
Cody
Yeah man, it's going to be fun. So if you are a brand spending, you know, eight figures on media, you have a very diverse channel mix. You definitely do not want to be going into Q4 without pressing prescient AI is going to help you beat all your goals in this critical quarter. It's going to put you out of the competition. You know, BSM is coming fast and there's still a lot to do to finalize the Q4 strategy. There's a bunch of questions I find marketers asking themselves headed into Q4 and I think Prescient can actually help solve and answer a lot of these questions. So I just wanted to run through a few of those. Question number one, if you're wondering should you increase, decrease or reallocate spend for the shopping season, Prussian shows you the optimal media mix to Drive the strongest Q4 performance whether your budget grows or shrinks. I think that's one of my favorite parts about pressure. You can actually say, hey, I'm currently at spend levels X but I'm going to bring my spend to to Y in the next X number of days. Where should I put this budget impression is going to actually deliver recommendations based on your current BFCM dynamics, your vertical and your optimal ad SPE allocation. And then the next question becomes can I adjust this in real time? You know, Hexclad moves budgets around a lot in Q4 and we really need to know, hey, where should we put that budget? So being able to do that, that spend, forecasting exercise and letting pressure know how much you're going to increase your budget and then they're giving you an optimal media mix just makes it really easy and straightforward to allocate your ad dollars efficiently. You might also be wondering and thinking I don't have time to onboard a new tool mid season. Like how can I get mmm level of visibility? That's one of the best parts about Prescient is it is super easy to onboard. They connect to your data sources in days and has your Shopify brand live in about 10 days. So you're getting granular, actionable results really fast. So Q4 it's make or break for Shopify brands and Prescient helps you make more than you're going to break. It give you full funnel visibility and campaign level insights, not just showing where clicks Convert. But all channels influence each other across Shopify, Amazon and retail. It is the only media mix modeling tool revealing halo effects on Amazon sales. So again, gives you the super holistic look at your total distribution. And finally, Prescient helps marketing leaders make smarter decisions in real time with full funnel visibility and actual insights for the strongest Q4 you can possibly have. So if you're interested in checking out Prescient, go to prescient AI.com forward/operators. I wanted to talk about Hollow and, and they're like what I'm calling like reactive marketing. I don't know if you have a better word for this, but that's like to me the most intuitive because I think they are doing a really awesome job of being part of like this organic zeitgeist that's happening around their brand right now. It's funny because actually Ryan Reynolds has a marketing agency and their whole premise is around this concept of like they create TV campaigns speaking to very timely things happening. It's like they, it's, it's all like about current events and they basically craft these campaigns around current events. So this concept of like doing really hyper relevant reactive marketing, it's like something that I think brands that are just like, that really have their pulse on like the culture surrounding their customers and their brands can like, it can be really fun and really, really high performing. So Hollow right now, basically what happened is that Joe Rogan has been a customer of Hollow for a while and I'm sure that like one day he just ordered and like they saw his name pop up in their orders and he's like, all right, cool. Joe Rogan said customer. Now he had a podcast I think this week, maybe last week with Andrew Santino the comedian. And all of a sudden they're talking about alpaca. And then naturally like Joe ends up plugging Holo. He's like, oh yeah, like I like this brand Holo. Like I've been using him for a while, yada yada yada. It's like super awesome organic plug. And now Holo is basically just maximizing to the best of their ability the distribution of that clip through their owned and operator channel. So I'm going to pull up my text because I brought it up with Zach and let's, let's find this real quick.
- [35:16]
Jason
While you're doing that, let me just say one thing about Hollow. So they talked about Zach on Operators this week. I don't know if you listened yet, but it's good we're talking about him here because they Were kind of giving him a hard time about like not having a brand and a Facebook groups. I think we should be very nice to Zach. I think Zach's doing an awesome job now. Just funny. He's going to shout out on both now. They're just talking about like a Facebook group. I don't know, it was a pretty funny conversation because they have like very different Personas with different, like political stances.
- [35:39]
Cody
But, but yeah, wait, within Hollow.
- [35:42]
Jason
Yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess Zach. And hopefully this will be good plug to let's go listen to operators this week. But I guess Zach like tweeted about like, you know, he wants to have a Facebook group for Hollow, but like he's worried that he's got like different Personas. He's got like, you know, like hiking girlies that are probably liberal and then like hunters that are probably on the right and like if you put them all in a group, like what would happen? So that was like, the conversation is funny, but that is funny. No, it's, it's, it's awesome to see this.
- [36:08]
Cody
That is a funny problem to have. Like, are you going to create this Facebook group to help like develop community in reality? You just create like this, this battleground between the two different customer types you have. That's funny. Okay, so, so basically they saw this clip happen. They acted first off Max, I think his name is Max, or he hit me up right away when this happened because he remembered when Hexpod got a Rogan plug and he was like, how'd you guys like think about this? But so now Hollow is pushing it in sms, they're pushing it in email. They actually like made this really cool, organic, like response style video with their director of product where like they played the clip of Rogan and then they like stitched together their head of product, like responding to it like in the factory with the sock, which I thought was really engaging.
- [36:52]
Jason
They happened to say they were just like shooting content in the factory. Like, just like good timing. But yeah, it's awesome they were able to turn that around quickly.
- [36:59]
Cody
Yeah. And then I think Zach said testing the a quote of it on the landing page image and PDP images. And then I think he said he's going to try to cut it into a paid ad. So really like took this clip and within like 24 hours had amplified it on every single core channel of theirs. And I think that's just like brilliant. Like that's like really good reactive marketing. It's a really good job to act on it quickly and Like, I think that's a massive endorsement and even if they were to only plug it in their own channels, I don't. There's just no way that can't be a great lifetime value driver. And like, what great validation for everyone that's already a customer of Holo to see Rogan plug it. And I just guarantee that's only gonna, that's gotta have a massive impact on like brand loyalty and affinity. I am very curious to see if they can, like, you know, I see you see a lot of, I feel like the two, like, media plugs you always see brands cutting together ads for are Rogan Plugs and Shark Tank. So I'm very excited to see them. I'm sure though, they're working on some ads right now. But yeah, just, I was really impressed with their ability to act quickly. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that?
- [38:04]
Jason
It's just cool. I mean, obviously I don't have to tell you because the whole Gordon story, but I think about that a lot. And like, I go in our Instagram pretty often, especially because like creator whitelisting partnerships are such a big focus right now. Like, I go on our Instagram pretty much every night now and I even had we use this tool called Nectar Social and I even had them build a report of like our top followers, engagers, customers by like audience size, you know, to see, like just trying to find authentic fans of the brand that like, you might not even be on your team's radar.
- [38:32]
Cody
Yeah.
- [38:33]
Jason
So I mean, I think it's just so cool when it happens organically and, and you know, it's just a customer, like, that's, that's just, it's awesome. Forget about the revenue opportunity and stuff like that. That's just validating as a founder and a business owner, you know, it's just like a really cool thing. So I think that's cool. And if they happen to, you know, to see it and if it's somebody like Rogan that, that's that big, it's just like. Yeah, it's awesome.
- [38:52]
Cody
Yeah. Have you heard of this company called Outer Signal?
- [38:55]
Jason
Tell me more. I, I'm. It sounds familiar.
- [38:57]
Cody
So it's an e Comm SaaS company and they basically plug in with your Shopify store and they tell you first off, you can do a ton of different filters, but they basically the, the, the gist of it is like, like when you hit like, like Jones Road Beauty and Hex cloud. I'm sure there's tons of famous people that have actually bought from us and we just have no clue. And like you can, you can categorize it by like famous people or like people with X X followers or more. And I think I have, we do not use it yet. I've just been like, I've been looking into it. I've been talking to some of their customers. I went on their website and I just, I knew some of the people, the brands that were using them and I've hit them up and they're like, dude, you gotta do it. Like, like we are. It's led to so many fruitful partnerships that just we would have had no clue. Because you think about like what's the. There's probably no better way to start a partnership with like some big influencer than finding out they organically ordered from you and then reaching out and be like, oh this is great. Like we would love to do A, B and C. Like that's just got to be the best partnership. So yeah, I'm excited about that tool. I think it's very interesting. I'm very curious to like have it backlog our data and just give me a list of all the famous people that have ordered from us that we just probably have no clue. And especially with cookware or like makeup where it's such a big tam and like applies to everyone. I guarantee we would both have a lot of like high profile names in our, in our order lists.
- [40:14]
Jason
The only thing is big ones will usually use a different name. Not always but you know, I'll use a different name and a different email.
- [40:21]
Cody
Interesting. Right? Right.
- [40:22]
Jason
It's one cool thing about having stores is like, is is like you know our, our teams will be like, hey, we just served this customer in store. Here's what they bought. Like we took a picture with them. So like that's cool. Like Adam Sandler was in, he was actually in our Montclair hometown like all summer filming a movie. He like loves it here. So him and his wife like went into our store were like super nice. Spent. Spent a bunch like you know, so it's, it's cool like that but. But yeah, usually people because like sometimes I'll look him up in shopify after it and like often people will use a different name especially if they're buying online. That's the only, that's the only negative there.
- [40:52]
Cody
Got it. Well, I think I'm going to try to onboard. I really want to try outer signal and see what they find. So I'll follow up here and let, and let you know if we find any like interesting things that lead to anything.
- [41:02]
Jason
Yeah, let me know.
- [41:03]
Cody
Yeah. So cool. All right. Anything else on. On Hollow?
- [41:07]
Jason
No, I'm excited to see. I mean, obviously Zach is a killer. His team's a killer. So I'm sure like they'll capitalize super hard on it. But I'm excited to see and hear performance just related to it. I think you guys do a decent amount of podcast advertising, right? Or you.
- [41:20]
Cody
Yeah, we do. I mean, it's like we. We consistently spend on podcasts. It's not a major percent of our mix, but like we do consistently spend on podcasts and we consistently cycle through new pot. Basically our strategy podcast is like we, we always hold on to like our top performers, which we're measuring by like basically post purchase survey and like discount code use. So we're like. And then we'll cycle through the bottom ones because we just were. We think podcasts is just like a great like net new reach channel. And like, we're just trying to like having more of like a, like a, you know, kind of kind of go like a mile wide, but only one inch deep is kind of our approach with podcast right now. So yeah, that's. We do a good amount.
- [42:00]
Jason
Is it. So we just launched. We're like two weeks into it. Is it like very long tail? Like, is it. How would you say, like the conversion lag is compared to something like a, like a TV super long tail?
- [42:11]
Cody
Especially with the big ones. Like when we had our Rogan podcast, which was at the end of 2023, I think we were seeing people right in Rogan. Six months later, a year, we still see people right in Rogan. So yeah, it's definitely long tail, you know, hard to measure. Of course we kind of, we kind of like to use. We'll take like in terms of measuring the channel as a whole, we'll basically take like our post purchase survey completion rate and kind of correct for that and then like multiply that by the total amount. So it's like if you have a 15 completion rate, you correct for. It's, you know, you do 100 divided by 15 and that's like your multiplier to correct for 100%. And then we'll do that for each. For the podcast just to get like some semblance of like what's the net like CPA on this channel. And it's like pretty decent. So it's. I don't really feel comfortable scaling it super aggressively. Maybe at some point we'll. We'll take a swing it honestly just hasn't been a channel. We've been like hyper focused on scaling. I'm sure if we were like, all right, let's focus on podcast. Like two months, we could probably figure out how to scale it and measure it effectively. But that's, that's kind of where we're at right now.
- [43:10]
Jason
We're using the same agency that, that Ridge uses. They recommended them and they, they're, they're great.
- [43:15]
Cody
But I think we might use some. Wait, I don't know. Actually, I'll throw sidebar on who it is, but.
- [43:20]
Jason
So we're using this software called podscribe. It's like a, it's like a, almost like a pixel for podcasts where it can kind of like track IP and stuff. So like we're using all the post purchase stuff codes as well. We'll do like gif A purchase codes because we don't want discount. But we're also using podscribe so it's kind of cool. You get to see like frequency reach impressions and you do get some, some performance numbers. So it's kind of like triangulating that plus post purchase. But it's cool to see. But, but yeah, but it's early. Like I think we have maybe seven podcasts that have gone live. It's very long tail. We're going. I think the largest pod that we're doing is Mel Robbins and it hasn't gone live yet.
- [43:52]
Cody
But that'll be like, you know, it's.
- [43:54]
Jason
A pretty big one, but still like not. It's like a lot cheaper than I'm sure Rogan. Yeah, but there's like a lot like we'll have podcasts that are like 500 bucks. Thousand. So like very long tail. I would say like a few of them are already profitable. I would say most of them are sitting at like, you know, not great CPAs. But like again, I'm just, just being patient. Like it's two weeks in and obviously there's a learning curve with any channel, but I'm sure a channel like this is going to be a pretty, you know, long tail, 30 day attribution.
- [44:19]
Cody
Oh yeah, yeah. Do you. What, what kind of budgets are you playing around with for your jump off point?
- [44:25]
Jason
We're going. Okay. A month. We'll go. Oh nice. Three months. And again, like I'm, I'm sure that's, it's, it's all relative to what you're spending. I think a mistake I've made in the past is with, with new channels not going big enough.
- [44:35]
Cody
Totally.
- [44:36]
Jason
You don't really get enough of a test, you know, and you can't test as many partners and learn as much. So I'm not going to do any channel less than that in three months. I'm not going to do any, any channel. I mean, it's different if you're testing like a Twitter, like as part of like a holdout. Like, you can do that for less, but like an influencer, like a new, like top of funnel channel. Like, it's gotta be three months and it's gotta be, you know, it's gotta, you gotta, you gotta commit to it. I think that was the mistake we've made with like some of these channels in the past. Like influencers.
- [45:02]
Cody
Yeah. And then you get to the end of the test and you haven't spent enough and you just get. You have no signal at all because it's like you didn't measure anything above baseline. I also, I gen. Like, I. This is probably different than I used to think about this. Like, when I launch a new channel, I'm not necessarily looking for like a 100 accurate signal. I'm just looking for some sort of directional signal. Like, hey, we've been spent. It's like, if we're gonna go take a swing at Pinterest and I'm gonna be like, all right, I'm gonna commit to spending 100 grand on Pinterest for three months. Like, I just am hoping that I see some sort of signal like in our post purchase survey data that shows some sort of uptick in Pinterest over like the six months. Like the three months that we're actually spending, plus the six months or the three months after. Like, you don't need. It's like, I don't need to measure the channel perfectly. I just need reason to believe that it is driving an uptick. And then we can go down the path of like, all right, now how do we actually get like a best. The best net read possible on this channel? Like, is it mta? Is it post purchase surveys at. Mmm, probably a combo. Is it a holdout? Probably that too. Um, but like, probably same with you. Like, if you go and commit to $300,000, I would hope you get some sort of good signal in your survey data showing an uptick that's like, okay, this is, this is a worthwhile channel for us.
- [46:14]
Jason
The trend is already. Is already up, even with, you know, just a handful of partners being live and early. So, yeah, it's like the CPA is like atrocious right now because it's two weeks in it's definitely incremental. We're definitely seeing code usage, which is cool. So I think there's at least something there. But yeah, same thing. Like, we're. I talked about last, last pod with Connor. I think you were on as well. We're talking partnership ads. Like, we're doing like, also influence sp, sponsored influencer stuff. And it's, you know, pretty rough at the beginning, but like, we're probably on month and like, starting to get some wins where we'll have some reels that are actually like, pretty profitable. And like, so the program as a whole is not at a, an amazing efficiency, but, like, there's something there. And I feel like if we weren't testing enough partners, like, we would have cut it earlier. And like, you don't have those wins. So now it's like, all right, let's do more of that, let's do less of that. And maybe in six months it's, you know, we just continue to pivot our strategy and I just think you have to be willing to, to be patient with it, you know.
- [47:02]
Cody
Yeah, we've, we've definitely found those, like 10 to 20% of podcasts that drive the most performance. You know, I forget the name of that. That rule, but it's very much, yeah.
- [47:14]
Jason
Parietos principle or something like that.
- [47:16]
Cody
Yeah, like 20 drives, 80 of the results. It's absolutely that 100. And then we'll cycle through the bottom 80 and then like slowly pep find winners and, you know, move them into our, like, recurring ones.
- [47:27]
Jason
Well, that's the same thing. Like, and I know we want to talk about partnership ads. Like, that's our focus right now. And like, same thing. Like, I think we d too much in the past and like, hopefully, yeah, your learnings and your hit rate gets better. But it's almost like it's almost, it's all portfolio management and it's almost like venture capital. And it's like, like if you're angel investing, like, you can't write two checks. Like, your probability is so low that, like, if you're going to do it, you have to write 10. You know what I mean? Because your first eight are going to be washes and then your ninth one is going to be carry. Carry it for the whole portfolio. But it's almost like it's actually riskier to, to invest less and, and do less because your probabilities are just going to go up with each one. And same thing with partnership ads. Kind of what you're explaining, it's like you might have two out of 10 that hit, but those two that hit are going to carry it for the rest of them and hopefully over time you can get to 4 out of 10 that hit. As you learn, you know, if it's your first time doing channel like don't expect to be at 4 out of 10, but that 2 out of 10. But you have no chance getting that 2 out of 10 if you only do 5.
- [48:22]
Cody
Yep. You gotta cast a wide net up front and take some bets. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you.
- [48:30]
Jason
Two years ago we had a crazy Black Friday. We were actually one of the top selling brands and products on Shopify. It was really cool. Harley shouted us out on TV and everything, which was awesome, but it wasn't all good news. With, with unforeseen growth comes some challenges. And one of the challenges we had was we had a crazy backlog of CX tickets. At one point, I'm embarrassed to say, we had a seven day average response time that lasted for longer than it should have. A big part of it was our CX software was just not scalable and couldn't keep up. We were using one of those old legacy slow players. There was no AI involved, there was no automation and just the UX was not great. And so when we came into Black Friday of last year, we knew we needed to prepare better so we switched to Rich Panel. It was pretty close before Black Friday onboarding was really quick. Two weeks was all it took. They got all of our macros there, they got all of our tickets, they trained our team, they just took care of everything. We got the self service widget set up. I think now like 40% of people are actually getting responses just by the self service widget. And then we're using obviously a lot of the AI. They have this like social AI moderation tool that us and Ridge are, are big fans of. Our average response time is now within hours. We've gone from 18 people to 10. We're able to, our CSAT is higher than it's ever been. And so last Black Friday, no backlog, all of our peak moments, we're able to, you know, without having to fully ramp up our team or like go crazy with it. We're able to get back to people way better, provide a better customer experience and Rich Panel is a huge part of that. So you want to get ready before peak season, before Q4 and Black Friday. Switch to Rich Panel. You'll save money on software, you won't need as many people and you'll be able to just provide a better service for your customers. So go to richpanel.com demo and tell them Cody from Marketing Operator sent you.
- [50:04]
Cody
Let's transition into the partnership stuff because this is actually the main thing I wanted to talk about. So 6 days ago you tweeted meta percent new visits L7. We're onto something with a screenshot showing your. Your new visit percent growing. So you're doing something that is driving, you know, more. More your clicks to be the first time someone's visiting your site. So I got a bunch of questions on this. Like, I want to. I think this is through partnership ads.
- [50:27]
Jason
But like, like, yeah, multiple factors, but yeah, yeah.
- [50:29]
Cody
So let's. Can you just talk about what you're doing in the attic? Because. Because we've been talking. You. I feel like we've been. You, me and Connor have been talking a lot about like, you've been planning a lot of this, it seems like in the last few months. And it sounds like some of the planning you're. You were doing is starting to like, actually spit out assets that are getting into the account. So, like, can you just talk me through what you're doing and which, like, ads are driving marginally higher net new visit rate?
- [50:53]
Jason
Yeah, yeah, we are. We are grinding. The amount that we're changing of our overall media mix and like, marketing strategies is crazy. We've changed. I don't want to say our entire team. We have new team. We have some like, killers on our team now, every agency that we work with. So we're changing a lot because I just. We just had to. And like, we're also doing it like right now, trying to get really dialed before Q4. And we're finally, we're. We're finally finding some wins, which is. Can't tell you how excited I am about it because it's been. It's been a grind and it's a struggle. So we're doing a lot of things. I do think the overall medium exchanging is helpful. Just the more new reach you have coming in from other channels is definitely important. You know, I talked about like, Waste not. I don't think I actually mentioned it on here, but like, I was kind of like patient zero for waste Not. So we had. We used to find that validated with House in Northbeam as well. About 40% of our meta spend was actually going after repeat customers, even though we are excluding people. So we'd run a holdout with meta and about 6, 40%, you know, 60, 65% of the incremental revenue was new. So it wasn't totally wasted spend because it was actually still incremental on the repeat customers.
- [51:56]
Cody
But we just, I got it.
- [51:57]
Jason
We just didn't really want to have as much spend on them. Right. Like we have different targets for that. So on regular stuff, about 65%, you know that one that we're still really not allowed to talk about with Meta, the, the. The bidding up and bidding down thing. Yeah I was about 80% new after going live with waste, not 96% new. So we like almost. We like fixed our exclusions and we had tried everything else. Like we had legitimately tried everything else. I remember I was out of office. I think I was. I think it was right around the summit actually. It was like I came from summit and just like wasn't checking in as you know as much over the weekend of stuff. And I remember seeing the day we went live our, our Amir was really rough before and it just took off. So like our total business revenue is the same but the split of new versus returning just like huge shift when we went live. So that made a big difference.
- [52:43]
Cody
How does Waste not work? So it's like you said, it's like a better way to like so because classic exclusions are like like pixel based purchaser exclusions or website or like upload a klaviyo list and exclude that. So what is waste not doing so over my head.
- [52:57]
Jason
I should know better caus it had such a big impact. One thing I. It's essentially like a CDP that'll like take data from multiple sources and kind of stitch it together and I don't know if they're modeling it or there's.
- [53:07]
Cody
Like better match rates or something.
- [53:09]
Jason
One thing I didn't know and I didn't believe it at first and I had to look up the documentation is like for klaviyo. So obviously like I think everybody knows with Pixel there's issues post iOS like there is a lot of leakage and cross device stuff, you know with, with a like a third party Pixel. But with Klaviyo I looked up the documentation because I didn't believe it. They're only sending data back to Meta if it's like a meta click ID associated with it. So like imagine you have a TV ad and you have a lot of direct traffic and that somebody purchases that's not making it to your meta exclusions. And that's like that was a large amount of customers for us, you know.
- [53:39]
Cody
So you're saying anything that any. So basically any conversion that like is from someone that didn't click a meta ad.
- [53:46]
Jason
That's my understanding and I looked. Maybe it's not the click id, but it's something related to meta. Klaviyo is not sending that back as part of your exclusion criteria but that's a lot. So that was one thing. But I will say it didn't actually improve our new visit rate. Right. And I think, I think not to be over overly like focused on the semantics but there's existing customers and then there's new reach, you know. So what happened when we fixed Wasteland? It fixed our exclusions but we still had a reach issue. We are now just increasing the frequency on people who saw our ads and clicked but hadn't purchased yet and we had to break out of that. So one of the tests we did, I just like looked and you know how you can get like a rolling reach report for meta? I've seen a few people like have built these with the API. I don't know if it's like type coding stuff so been using those tools and keeping a close eye on like rolling reach and all cost per incremental reach and all that stuff is like our main KPI now diagnose that as the issue. Oh I've talked about that. So that's where we ran mid funnel. 20% of our account on mid funnel 10% was on custom event quiz completion, 10% on view content after landing page funnel dropped our cost per incremental 26%.
- [54:45]
Cody
So did you have you ran holdouts to validate those mid funnel events?
- [54:49]
Jason
So we had done two holdouts on mid funnel just as part of like its own thing. What we did for this one was just an account wide test.
- [54:57]
Cody
Got it.
- [54:58]
Jason
So that was just our whole meta account and kind of just like a pre and post but it was clear we were overspending on conversion and so that that helped. And then we've really just been hammering Persona funnels and partnership ads. I just kind of looked around and you know I've talked about this a bunch. Was like all the brands that I know that are crushing it, this is what they're doing in their ad library. You know you got kroons, you got AG1, you got loot loop, things like that. Obviously I talk to people in network and like so we just took bets on that. So you know mom Persona has really been the big one we've done. We also built a lot of new landing pages. So you know how everyone says like creativist at targeting. We found like I don't know my, my Suspicion is like, I know Meta does crawl the landing page. I think there's a lot of memorization stored at the landing page level as well. And we have so much data on the pages we've had, you know, and so we built these very specific Persona funnels, like, five reasons why moms love this. And we have mostly partnership ads going to them. We have standard ads as well. And that was, I think the big unlock is kind of that combination, very top of funnel messaging about a Persona, you know, partnership ads. So you're getting data through the creator's handle that informs, you know, the, the, you know, targeting. And then you have these landing pages that are very specific to it. And so what I shared that 70% was kind of account wide. So I think it was a combo of multiple factors. It was also that bit, you know, we're doing a lot more of that bidding testing. But, but I think it's a combo of things and that's really been the big one. So it's so funny because on that podcast, like two weeks ago, I was like, with you and Connor, I was like, oh, we're not really having that much success with partnership ads reaching new people. And then like the next day it just like took off and like, we're starting to see it. So I don't know what I'm going to say on this podcast that we're not having success with. Like, the IRS is not giving me tax refunds, you know.
- [56:36]
Cody
Yeah. I have so many questions. So are you running the partnership ads under the mid funnel events or conversion? Purchase. Conversion or both.
- [56:44]
Jason
Mostly purchase, but starting to. We, we are starting to run that on.
- [56:48]
Cody
Okay.
- [56:50]
Jason
As well.
- [56:50]
Cody
Okay.
- [56:51]
Jason
I don't think there's a harm in having it in both. I've, you know, talked to Matt about it. I don't think, like you water down any signal. So we're starting to do both, but it's mostly purchase.
- [56:58]
Cody
So then what. What are you running in the quiz Complete optimize campaign and the View content optimized campaign.
- [57:05]
Jason
It's, it's, it's creative that we think is probably more mid funnel. So we still do have like some statics, but mostly video. It's very similar actually, because we're trying to be very upper funnel messaging with these partnership ads, very Persona messaging. So I'd say it is definitely very similar. And I don't know if there's a problem with that. But it's not just partnership ads. We have statics, we have standard videos, we have some more branded stuff, but it's very similar.
- [57:31]
Cody
We do the same. By the way we launched our more like like brand forward hi fi Video creative under those but we also launch our like native like some of our like doctor like native shot like D. We call them like the D influencing ads. It's like my God I forget the it's like it's like that these pans aren't cheap ads kind of that are super native shot. If you are running or operating a DTC brand the next few months BFCM and the holidays are your Super Bowl. The question is are you doing everything you can to maximize average order value on every single purchase After Sell by Rocked make sure you are After Sales the leading post purchase optimization suite trusted by over 50,000 e commerce brands with one click upsells carton checkout Optimizations and Rocked thanks Monetization after sale helps you get the most out of every transaction without adding friction. Brands like Jones Road Ridge Wallet, Hexclad and Shoe Classic love it and here's why the data tells the story. One click post purchase upsell that convert up to 16 of buyers instantly. Smart checkout and cart offers that feel natural, not pushy driving up to 30 higher AOV and rocked thanks which turns your thank you page into a profit center with premium partner offers from brands like Disney plus and HelloFresh. Hexclad's been using Aftercell for a really long time. I love After Sale. First off, there's no friction with after sale. It's all happening post purchase. So it plugs in really really well with your existing funnels that your team is spending hours building and optimizing. And it it truly is just incremental revenue on top of orders you're already going to get. Naturally, a subset of people that have already made a purchase for you are going to see this after sale push. There's going to be an offer that they really like and they're going to add that product on with one click. There is literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of incremental revenue happening on hexclad every single month simply through this post purchase after sale up and cross sell. And it is very easy to set up. You don't need any custom design, no custom HTML. It plugs in really nicely to your post purchase page and it's just incremental revenue on top of all the conversions that you're already driving. Really a no brainer to set up. It's crushing for Hexclad. On average, brands using after cell see a 30% lift in AOV and 20 to $30,000 in pure profit per 100,000 orders from Rock thanks alone. Don't just sell more, make more from what you're already selling. Head to aftercell.com operators to activate rock thanks and get the full after sales suite free. Exclusively for marketing operators listeners. So I want to, I want to ask you about the partners that you're working with. Like we've had some big bets pay off recently that we've talked about. But like like one of the bets that paid off recently was like a big bet, like a six figure bet for like a nine month deal basically. So you know we've already spent like we paid the creator in referencing a hundred thousand dollars and there was organic deliverables access to cut the footage up. However we wanted whitelisting. Nine months of usage and we've already spent like close to $200,000 on the creative. So like we're get a huge ROI on it. It's scaling really nicely. The other one is one of our brand ambassadors who's like a Michelin starred chef. She, she was actually I think one of the, one of the first female Michelin starred chefs ever and it's crushing. Like hi Fi, we shot with her in her restaurant, running it from her page. Are you guys taking, are these like big bets with like big creators or are they smaller bets with smaller creators or a mix of the two? Like what, what kind of like yeah influencers are you, are you working with to make ads?
- [60:57]
Jason
So we're doing I would say a lot of testing and I would say it's early, I am more bullish on the larger ones. Our top creator has like 3 million followers. Okay, so her name I can, I can have talk about. Her name is Emily Deonado. She's like a model who's turned like a creator. Yeah, she's turned you know, creator, you know, posts a ton on TikTok. She makes just like Instagram makes really great content. She's actually going to be like the face of one of our campaigns for next year year. So really excited about that. So we're even like, like making a shade in her name. So, so very excited about you know that. But yeah, we have her on a, on a, on a deal where she's just giving us content monthly now because you know if somebody performs really well we kind of go to them or like I think creators value the long term predictability and you know for brands it makes sense. So like she's the largest we've tested where she has about 3 million followers and she has performed extremely well. And so we are definitely going to be taking larger swings and testing larger size craters and seeing if there is more scale opportunity, more if it's worth paying extra for to get, you know, signal for, you know, the algorithm. And it seems like you're seeing success with that, right?
- [62:03]
Cody
Dude? Totally. Yeah. Like we, we are totally. Like some of the wins we've had in the last few months are totally changing how we're thinking about the partners that we go with. Like Sean, Sean said this to, to me and Jason a while back. He's like, you guys need to go and like cut partnership deals and the non cooking space. You already have Gordon Ramsay, right? Like, Gordon Ramsay is probably reaching most of the people that are in that cooking category. So we're, we're thinking like, what is like who's like the next big mommy blogger type person to partner with? Like, what is. What about partnering with like some of these like wise of athletes? Right? Like what about partnering like a Sequan Barkley's wife? Like, what would that look like?
- [62:41]
Jason
We're testing some athletes now and some, and some wives as well. Yeah, because. Because for us as well, I mean, I think we're similar. We talked about it a few weeks ago, but like we're not really looking for beauty creators. Like, we need people that do post beauty. Beauty. Like, yeah, I know you're not gonna be familiar with us, but some of our followers might be like a, you know, there's like a McKay, like a Michaela or somebody like that. There's like big beauty creators. That's not our look and our vibe. Like I think so like for us, like moms made sense. Like the next Persona we're testing out is a professional woman. So it's like, yeah, we're like the busy professionals, like the creators who are entrepreneurs who are talking about business and finance. Like that also happened to post beauty. You know, like that's a Persona we're going after. I think athletes makes a lot of sense, you know, as well, like the health. Health and wellness, you know, I mean it's like what that's relevant and, and similar to that. And so I think same thing for you guys because we both got, you know, Gordon and Bobby.
- [63:28]
Cody
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. Like how. Because I've seen, I've seen like you guys have shot some really well done Bobby ads before where they're like very really like shot beautifully. Really good storytelling. I think you guys whitelist from Bobby's page or do like partnership ads. Like, do those still do?
- [63:44]
Jason
Well, yeah, I just think we've reached, you know, know so many people with them that we kind of, you need to reach new audiences. And for us it's you know, new, new demos Millennial. And so that's where, you know, you know, we, I'm not saying we don't need to continue to reach our existing audience, but you know, she's probably not gonna be the person to reach all the net new audiences that we want. So that's where we're doing. Yeah, like I, I'm, I'm even thinking about like who's on TV to reach our millennials. What's our strategy there? How do we produce some TV ads with, you know, somebody in addition and have it be like a larger thing? So yeah, that's what we are, that's what we're focused on.
- [64:19]
Cody
Well, and I think, you know, I don't really have data to support this. Well, I, I have a little bit of data to support it. But like, I think one of the reasons the Nancy ads, Nancy Silverton is the, is the brand ambassador that we've, we've found some, some recent Facebook ad winners with. We also recently shot a TV commercial with her that we're running on CTV and awesome. On YouTube. That's like very high fi. It's like very much a brand forward TV commercial. And the whole, whole, the whole concept's called Chef Echo and we're, it's like basically showing it like cuts back and forth between Nancy cooking in her Michelin star restaurant and her cooking at home to like really hammer home the point of like you know, restaurant quality, you know, Michelin starred restaurant quality cookware that like you can use in your home. Right. So that's actually, it's working really well in ctv. Like if you just look at like our, our CTV provider Neon Pixels, like Analytics and you just look like at the creative, like the intro channel, channel reporting like that creative looks really good. I find it, I feel like that's gotta also be at least in some part powering the performance of the ad because like we have this very congruent experience now. We're like brand forward native asset of Nancy and CTV and YouTube. And then we get this much more doctor like your classic product review running through the value props Facebook ad. That's still hi Fi, but it's still doctor in the sense that it's like a product review. I feel like that's got to be really working well to get. Now I don't have data showing like, like, because of the CTV ad. Like, the Facebook ad is doing this, but, like, I think it's gotta be. It's just a congruent experience.
- [65:43]
Jason
Oh, I love that. I was. I was asking Connor McDonald about, like, similar thing with podcast. I'm like, will you ever take a podcaster that you work with and get, like, paid social access? Because, like, I think that would be great. If you're listening to somebody's podcast and you hear of Hexclad for the first time, and then you get hit with a waitlisted ad from that creator. Like, that's probably a great experience. So I think that makes a lot of sense. She's not huge on Instagram, though, but she's like a big name name and.
- [66:05]
Cody
The show not huge on Instagram, but she. She has a lot of. She's a. Has a lot of clout in the, like, chef space. And we always open with like, I'm Nancy Silverton, like, Michelin starred chef, like, owner of, like, abc. So, like, she does have clout in the space. But we also know that she's not a big social creator. So we always like her hook with her creative, because that is always that hook. I just read, like, just like establishing her credibility right from the jump and especially in, like, it's not as much the case anymore, but, like, I think for a long time and it probably still is the case that, like, the Chef is main. Like, I feel like a more male dominated space. So just being able to have like Gordon Ramsay, but then also Nancy Silverton and Dominique Cran, it just, like, makes us way more well rounded and it speaks to way more people. And I think that's been really valuable for us because she's not a social. Yeah, Nancy's not the person that you would be like, hey, Nancy, here's an ad brief. And, like, you're gonna shoot it on your own time with your team. Like, she's not a content creator. She's a chef, Jeff. So, like, she's one of the people we have to bring into the studio to, like, get really good ads done versus, like, you know, assault Hank, where it's like, all right, salt. Hank's a good content creator. He can make, like a fun, punchy ad just based on a doc we send him on his own time.
- [67:17]
Jason
But you. So you guys did something recently? I don't know if I think we can talk about it because it's, you know, public. But, like, you signed some, like an F1 driver or something?
- [67:24]
Cody
Yeah, Yep. We signed a deal with this. This F1 driver named Yuki Sonoda.
- [67:29]
Jason
And what can you share about that? Like, is that a similar deal where like will you shoot TV ads with them? Like what will that look like?
- [67:34]
Cody
Like Yep, yep. So we have a TV like it. It was all revolved around like a hero TV commercial that's live now and is doing well. And it's a, It's a linear TV CTV YouTube ad we shot. We're using that like some cut downs in social as well as some static images in social. We created a landing page that we're driving paid media traffic to and we're actually getting, not a ton of scale but like getting some pretty good. Some, some ads that are getting like competitive return on ad spend metrics and then like own media push to that same landing page. So if you go to HeckPod.com/forward/yuki, you'll be able to find the page and see what we built. And then we are doing some out of home as well for it. So we're doing some out of home in October in Austin when the F1 race is there. And we're also doing some out of home in Vegas in November to just have like a full360 campaign. But another great example where like that partnership is reaching a totally different audience of people.
- [68:29]
Jason
And I think. Did you say it on one of the pods we were talking about like using a partner like that to almost be like the hero for like a, an acquisition funnel was that you were saying and it could like unlock something. I've been thinking about that a lot where it's like can you test a large creator, a large partner on something that like maybe wouldn't have performed as well on like like a product or a funnel? Do you remember saying that?
- [68:53]
Cody
I mean it's very much along the lines of where we're taking influencer with like net new deals that are in totally different categories because we think they can be like really good acquisition unlocks. Like and I, by the way, I fully agree with you about like sometimes it's not even the ad, it's literally the handle. I agree with you. I think these like these, these creators that have like a lot of that do partnerships with brands and a lot of spends gone behind their handle. Like I think like meta just fundamentally like they see that, that handle and it's a paid ad and they like content aside, it's like oh, we know who to serve this to because we have so much data behind you know, this person's handle for all these different brands. It's like almost immediately you're going to tap into a new audience by launching like an ad from that person's handle.
- [69:36]
Jason
I'm bullish on it. We're continuing to test and take some bigger swings. So yeah, what I'm trying for, for each launch right now, I'm trying to have like a, a macro partner for each launch.
- [69:47]
Cody
I love that.
- [69:48]
Jason
And we'll see and we'll probably get some organic like, you know, post from them as well. But I think a lot of the value will be partnership and then yeah, I think for tv, I'm really trying to figure out like what our, what our TV strategy, you know, looks like. So I'll keep you posted. Yeah, right. Even right after this call, I'm speaking to, you know, manager of a comedian, like decently big comedian who by the way taking it like full circle, happens to be a huge fan of the brand. Like she just shot a movie and like Jones Road was used all on the movie. So like we're definitely trying taking some larger swings. So excited to.
- [70:16]
Cody
Is it Whitney Cummings?
- [70:18]
Jason
No, it's not. No. She's funny. No, not, not quite that large. But I'll, I'll, I'll share it separately if we sign it.
- [70:22]
Cody
Sweet. So yeah, I'm excited. All right, that's a wrap on episode 79. We were sad that Connor Mack missed his first episode, but me and Cody had a really, I think fun, jam packed episode. Talked a lot about the value of teasing products and like real tactics on the best way to do that. Went pretty deep into Hollow and their Rogan plug went deep into how Cody is seeing a really strong increase in net new visit rate through a variety of tactics right now. So super fun episode. Thank you again to the sponsors, Motion Pression, AI Rich panel after Style and House. And as always, if you're enjoying the show, please like share, comment and subscribe. Thanks.