FIRE Your Media Buyer: The Fix for Wasted Ad Spend

Summary

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Perpetual Traffic Podcast: FIRE Your Media Buyer: The Fix for Wasted Ad Spend

Hosts: Ralph Burns (CEO, Tier 11) & Lauren Petrullo (CEO, Mongoose Media)
Date: November 4, 2025
Episode Purpose: Unpacking the diminishing role of traditional media buyers in paid advertising, the rise of AI automation, and why brands must focus beyond campaign setup (media buying) — specifically on after-the-click strategies, customer journey mapping, and true growth-centric optimization.

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Episode Overview

Ralph and Lauren challenge classic agency and in-house marketing team mindsets by arguing that media buying has become commoditized due to AI’s evolution in ad platforms. The real leverage for business growth now lies in data feedback loops, post-click optimization, deep funnel analysis, and a holistic approach to the customer experience — not in pushing buttons inside Meta or Google Ads.
They discuss practical frameworks, handoff pains between marketing and sales, funnel congruency, the importance of strategic thinkers over mere implementation, and how business owners and marketers alike need to redefine what marketing success truly means.

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🔑 Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Decline of the Traditional Media Buyer Role

• AI has simplified campaign management: Both Google and Meta (Facebook) have automated much of the hands-on work media buyers used to do ([03:10], [09:03]).
• Many agencies and brands cling to old processes, risking obsolescence as in-app metrics become less reliable and customer acquisition shifts beyond mere optimization ([01:00], [26:16]).
• "Media buyer is dead; strategy is on." (Lauren, [23:00])

The New Growth Focus: After the Click

• True performance is driven by what happens after the ad click — e.g., landing pages, emails, and the full customer journey ([07:00], [07:59], [13:59]).
• Effective marketing is about "obsessing about what happens after the click" to maximize ROI and loyalty, not just traffic ([04:54], [05:59]).
• Example: Small-budget clients see outsized gains when little tweaks and split tests are made to landing pages instead of just creative or targeting ([06:09], [07:06], [09:03]).

Funnel Congruency & Audience Segmentation

• If landing pages don’t match ad promises (bait-and-switch), conversions tank ([07:59]).
• Customizing post-opt-in emails boosts engagement; e.g., greeting new vs returning subscribers differently ([10:35], [12:00]).
• Memorable quote:
  "I don't want a one night stand with leads or with customers." (Lauren, [00:52], [12:32])

Redefining What is a Lead & How to Qualify

• Distinctions are made between opt-ins, MQLs (marketing qualified leads), SQLs (sales qualified leads), and disqualified (DQL) leads ([14:27]–[18:47]).
• The importance of "conditional knockout questions" to disqualify unsuitable leads early ([14:27]).
• Keeping disqualified contacts for negative lookalike audiences — "I have my number eights... those who lied but tried" (Lauren, [16:35]; audience laughs at the terminology).

Strategy Over Execution

• The real value is in growth strategists, who understand the entire journey and optimize beyond platforms ([22:18]).
• Agencies and in-house teams must evolve or face extinction — "I'm seeing a lot of smaller agencies just contract and go out of business…" (Ralph, [01:00], [26:47]).
• "If all you are doing is placing the media… I need you to do the things that the algorithms can't do." (Lauren, [23:15])

Client & Agency Dynamics

• Many business owners mistakenly delegate marketing to external teams/individuals who lack true ownership or strategic oversight ([32:12], [34:15]).
• No one cares as much or knows as much about the brand as the owner — agencies must be true partners, not just "order takers" ([33:51], [34:41]).
• Quote:
  "No one will have as much discipline or dedication to your brand as the owner will." (Lauren, [33:52])

The Maturity of the Media Buying Ecosystem & Modern Team Structures

• With media buying effort minimized by AI, “everything else has gotten harder — expectations are up, competition is up, more expensive acquisition, and external market conditions are harsher” ([28:12], [28:47]).
• Top-tier client accounts at agencies like Tier 11 now involve 7–8 team members per account ([28:12]).

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🕒 Notable Timestamps & Memorable Quotes

Motivations & Outlook ([00:52]–[01:00])

• Lauren: "I don't want a one night stand with leads or with customers. Now how the heck are you trying to monetize and develop loyalty?"
• Ralph: "I'm seeing a lot of smaller agencies just contract and go out of business just because they're not adopting this mindset... Meta is going to do a lot of the work for you."

After-the-Click Optimization ([04:54], [07:59])

• Lauren: “…obsessing about what happens after the click. In the past, it’d be like, ‘Well, that’s not my responsibility. I’m not in charge of landing pages,’ …But now we're being held accountable to the impact."

Creative Diversification & Smaller Budgets ([06:09])

• Ralph: “…we kind of tweaked the scope and we created some landing pages for them. That work… what's the big lever? The big lever is still like what happens after the click. It's 50% of the effectiveness of the ad, if not more…”

Email Triage & Personalization ([10:35], [12:00])

• Lauren: “You don't often get a second first impression... The very first greeting you have, you should have maybe the first 150 characters change on that email based on who they are.”

Lead Definitions: Opt-in, MQL, SQL ([14:27]–[17:40])

• Lauren: “I define an opt in as someone that raises their hand because they want to hear what you have to say. They're not a lead for me until they want to hear what you have to sell. And then they're not a sales qualified lead until I actually want to sell to them.” ([16:35])
• Ralph: "You disqualify. I don't know where those leads go on that client… those people that don’t qualify though, they should be going to a rejection page... You want meta not to see that as a win." ([18:37])

Strategic Evolution ([23:00])

• Lauren: "What I hear is media buyer is dead. Strategy is on. Media buyer is just an order taker."

The Dangers of Shallow Metrics ([25:00], [30:51])

• Ralph: "In app metrics can be so easily manipulated and it’s not the source of truth anymore... You're just going to be swirling around the drain even though you're saying, hey, look at how great I'm doing. But the business is flatlined down."

Owner/Agency Accountability ([33:52])

• Lauren: "No one will have as much discipline or dedication to your brand as the owner will."

The “Second Sale” Standard ([35:30])

• Lauren: “…Look at your ecosystem as everyone in your CRM should be in one of three buckets. Never bought, bought once, bought more than once. Carry that through that second sale.”

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💡 Takeaways & Action Items

• Media buying alone isn’t enough — Brands and agencies must own post-click optimization, retention, and the entire customer experience.
• Define your lead stages (opt-in, MQL, SQL, DQL, etc.) clearly and ensure both marketing and sales use the same language.
• Obsess over what happens after the click — Split test landing pages, customize email sequences, and ensure congruency between ad and offer.
• Negative audiences matter: Don’t let disqualified leads pollute your reporting or lookalike targeting models.
• Team for strategy, not just execution: Value strategists and full-funnel thinkers; “order takers” won’t cut it in a post-AI world.
• Business owners and marketing leaders: Don’t abdicate strategy or discipline — own the results.

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🎤 Tone & Final Thoughts

The conversation is frank, energetic, and a little irreverent — with both hosts tossing in industry inside humor and hard-hitting real talk. Behind the joking, the consensus is urgent and clear: adapt your approach to performance marketing now, or risk being left behind by both smarter competitors and smarter algorithms.

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Get the episode’s bonuses and resources at perpetualtraffic.com.

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Notable Quote to Remember:
"If you've got a product like a supplement or a skincare product, how quickly are you getting that second order? ... I don't want a one night stand with leads or with customers."
— Lauren Petrullo ([12:32])

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Transcript

[Ralph Burns]

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[Lauren E. Patullo]

I don't want a one night stand with leads or with customers. Now how the heck are you trying to monetize and develop loyalty?

[Ralph Burns]

I'm seeing a lot of smaller agencies just contract and go out of business just because they're not adopting this mindset. Meta is going to do a lot of the work for you. Where should someone's focus be in this new age of all this AI finally coming to the front, we need to.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Make sure that you're listening to Perpetual Traffic.

[Ralph Burns]

Are you losing hours building campaigns and analyzing reports? Well, ActiveCampaign's AI agents do all the heavy lifting for you. They create content, plan campaigns and orchestrate your email, SMS and your WhatsApp all working towards your revenue goals. You get clear recommendations on what to do next backed by billions of data points. No more guessing about what's working or wasting time on manual setups. Just strategy and results. Try it all for free [e-mail] that's activecampaign.com hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, alongside my amazing co host, Lauren E. Patullo.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

The founder of Mongoose Media.

[Ralph Burns]

So glad you could join us here today. You're a Director of Marketing, VP of Marketing, or a CMO or a CEO looking to up your marketing game. You have found the right place here today because today we're going to be talking about not only Lauren's incredibly cool new microphone setup, where wherever she is in the world, you never really know where Lauren is in the world. We'll get to that in just a second. But we're going to be talking about the lack of importance of the media buyer and why we feel you need to focus your attention not on media buying, but on other areas of the sales funnel. So to speak. But also as we've talked about many, many times here, if you haven't gotten the memoir, especially on Meta, the Andromeda Update is turning the advertising world upside down. It is safe to say, and I think there is massive confusion out there on how to actually use it the right way. We've talked about creative diversification here ad nauseam. Myself, John. I've even talked about it here as well with you, Lauren. And we are of course running a special right now for the months of November and December. Over at Tier 11 you can get the Creative Diversification package. Buy the Creative Diversification package and you get your media buying and you get your tier 11 data suite for free. And yes, we're offering it to just 11 lucky clients who qualify through the end of the year. So check that out [e-mail] apply we don't even have the sales page up yet, but maybe by next episode we'll actually have it up. So just for the PT listener, but you heard it here first. So anyway, that means creative is obviously really important right now. Media buying is. I mean if you've been watching and or listening to this show, you've seen dozens and dozens of episodes of how we manage campaigns right now. And I mean, I gotta be honest, it's not that hard. It's not as hard as it used to be. So we were talking about this before we hit record today and you have an interesting take on this is that you're focused, not necessarily creative is very important. You have to have that. So that's like Baseline Foundation. But where should someone's focus be in this new age of all this AI finally coming to the front. $61 billion from Meta and 40/billion on Google. The first people to actually deploy AI in their advertising platforms. That's a whole other story unto itself. Or listen to a podcast this week and I know way too much about it now. Point is, is like where, where are you focusing your efforts aside from creative, but maybe not media buying, but what are you guys doing inside of Mongos?

[Lauren E. Patullo]

I think? So we put, we have our, you know, three services for unique selling propositions. I think two of those elements are like the focusing on the data flow going back so that we're optimizing for what we actually want versus what the ad networks are modeling for us and then kind of obsessing about what happens after the click. So we know that there's that handoff from sales to marketing. But if I click and I get your eyeballs and I'm Using social media for interruptive or search for inbound. What happens as soon as I've captured your attention? Because in the past it'd be like, well, that's not my responsibility. I'm not in charge of the landing pages, I'm not in charge of all these other things. But now we're being held accountable to the impact. And where a lot of us that we're focusing on right now, at least for Q4, is that we need to make sure that when we're sending people to your website, when we're sending people into your ecosystem, right, that first party data, you have them, you've captured them, you own them, a manner of speaking, how the heck are you treating them? Because there's a lot of opportunities that I think people are letting slip through the cracks and there's so much shiny object syndrome and the fact that AI makes life so easy. We can create lead magnets left and right. But I'm like, should you?

[Ralph Burns]

Should you what?

[Lauren E. Patullo]

So it's focusing on one funnel at a time and then that the data back from those funnels is imported so that we can optimize for more of what we want versus what meta guesses.

[Ralph Burns]

It's interesting. I was. We have a client that's in the orthopedics space and we've done this as well with some salon clients that have franchises, so forth for elective procedures, that kind of thing. And each individual center isn't spending a tremendous amount of money on ads. So we haven't been able to do the creative diversification strategy as much or as widespread as we want. So there is that. But when I was talking to the team about this, they, I was like, well, where is the lift coming from? Because their results are, are great since they started with very small tests. And I said, well, we kind of tweaked the scope and we created some landing pages for them. That work.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Oh, they just did all this extra work that wasn't built for. It's okay. Gave the results. It happens.

[Ralph Burns]

It's all right. I mean, you know, we've got this, this growth strategist on the Tier 11 team is one of those guys that he's like, listen, I'm going to do whatever it takes to, to get this to work.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

So, you know, and kudos to him. So, I mean, yeah, we didn't, we didn't bill for it. But the point is, is like he knew that it was the. After the click, he's like, all right, how much can I do ahead of the click? Now we've got some examples here. We showed one, I think that just this past show that was a rebroadcast from the ad lab where there was a $70 a day budget for creative diversification. So it does work on smaller ad spends. So it, I'm not saying that it doesn't work. The point is, is like. And there's dozens of shows, we'll leave links in the show notes if you haven't watched any of those. The point is, is what's the big lever? The big lever is still like what happens after the click. It's 50% of the effectiveness of the ad, if not more in many cases.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

I'd say it's definitely more. Well, it's what determines what is good, what is effective of the ad. If the what effective of the ad is driving traffic off platform or is it driving submissions? Because then you're talking about after the click to the immediate pre submission page. If you've got like 2000 clicks and only 15 convert, that's a landing page. Or it could be like a mismatch and have a bait and switch kind of situation. Like your ad is saying one thing, but your landing page is saying another. So that type of congruency and that that funnel I think got really skipped. And I don't know Russell Brunson and I don't know Jeff Bezos, but I blame both of them for making this hacky click Funnels same day shipping unrealistic expectations where we're forgetting so much foundational pieces of like what makes the offer good. And for me, I always say a great marketing campaign has an obvious audience with a sexy offer. And those two things we've been neglecting because we're like, oh, I'm going to sell it to everyone. I'm going to make sure that this works. And everyone must want to spend $50,000 immediately after seeing my ad only once.

[Ralph Burns]

It's just not how it works. I mean, no, it's not how it works. And you know, the creative diversification strategy allows you to create sort of a funnel within the campaigns themselves. Sort of your own like little ad funnel without Russell Brunson. And by the way, I saw him on the COVID of Success magazine when I was in the airport a couple of weeks ago. He had like a $250,000 watch on. So apparently he's doing okay. The point is, is like he has created sort of this after the click sort of part to everything. But I do think that a lot of media buyers are really obsessed with is just like the before the click experience. And it's not necessarily just that, like creative diversification, lots of content. Yes. Getting different ways in which to attract your ideal customer. Absolutely. That's important. But it's the tactical part of managing all that. Meta is going to do a lot of the work for you. We've exemplified that in dozens of case studies here on the show. The point is, what are you going to do to power it even more? And going back to our conversations with the people from Unbalance, it really is. It's after the click and it's oftentimes just doing a split test of something crazy. Paying somebody on Fiverr or Upwork or whatever it is to get a landing page on, talking to just either marketing departments or individual businesses and just testing that side of it and seeing what kind of lift you get there. That's just part of, I think, where a lot of this is headed. And people tend to forget about that because they're so obsessed with everything that happens before the click.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Yeah. And even if they're like thinking of the things that happened before the click, it's even the, the engagement someone has before the submission. Right. So then they build all these offers and you make these different landing pages. But still, what happens as soon as they enter your ecosystem system, it's like you finally got their data. Then like, evaluate again, like one funnel at a time for us. Is this is. Is the email getting delivered? That first email, that first interaction? Like, I've talked about the email triage thing a few times here. And in that, like the very first greeting you have, you don't often get a second first impression. So what is that first impression like? Too long. Don't listen. It's like, do you ask the four questions so that first question is relevant to who they are? If they're brand new to your ecosystem, this is how everyone's doing the emails. But you should have maybe the first hundred, 150 characters change on that email based on the other fourth conditions. Like, have they already been in your system? They're not new, so greet them with a little bit more acknowledgement, such as if they've unsubscribed from you before, give them a hello. Honoring that. Welcome back. Because if someone's unsubscribed coming back for a repeat chance with you, higher likelihood of being a prospect than someone who's brand new. If they didn't unsubscribe, have they ever given you money? If that's a customer and they're signing up for like the NPI's checklist and they're an existing customer, we should greet them and say like, hey, Lauren, it's so great that we can provide continuous resources for clients just like you. If they haven't given you money, have they already signed up for the MPI checklist? I'm just going to use that example because it'[e-mail] NPI yes, it is.

[Ralph Burns]

Wow, look at you.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Yeah, look at that. Look at that. But I got you. I got you. So if someone's going to tier11.com MPI and signing up for this checklist and they've already signed up for it before, that could be a good thing to say. Like, hey, maybe it went to spam or maybe since the last time you checked it, we've actually updated it or, or things of that nature. Because I know you guys have updated that like four or five times over actually. Versus then if someone has signed up, they're already in the Tier 11 ecosystem, they've never signed up for the MPI checklist, but they did the NCAT calculator, right? So then it's like, hey, I'm glad we can continue to provide additional value. Welcome back. Tier 11 van. Still just like the first 150 characters. How are you treating people now that you've gotten them into your ecosystem? What does that engagement look like? So you spent all this money to get their eyeballs. Your landing beta did the dang thing it was supposed to do. Get the submission or get that first purchase. Now how the heck are you trying to monetize and develop loyalty for you to get their continued purchases? It's like, I don't want a one night stand with leads or with customers. It's looking at not just after the click, but after the submission or after that first purchase and making sure that if you've got a product like a supplement or a skincare product, how quickly are you getting that second order? And a lot of the times the media buyer by itself doesn't give an F about it because it doesn't hold to the KPIs they're held accountable to. But that's where I told you earlier, I'm not hiring a media buyer ever again. I'm hiring someone that's going to look at the entire funnel that that's going to say I need to know the likelihood of someone like, if you're signing up for a lead, I don't want to just make a bunch of lead magnets and support all these lead magnets. I only want to spend the money on the lead magnets that have funnels that are going to build back the money you've invested in leads to begin with. Right. I'm only going to invest in the like creating all this content diversification that you need to do for the ads or the products or the funnels that you know are going to get a subscriber so that then you can fund the other products and other campaigns you want to build.

[Ralph Burns]

So a lot of it really is, I think this is part to it. I'm talking about like just the click after the ad. You're going one step further to that. It's like if it is going into a lead form or an application submission or whatever it happens to be. So then customizing that based upon who they are, maybe what their answers are. Obviously you're a huge believer, as am I in multi field form fills that.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

You need a conditional knockout question. You will never prove me wrong on that one. I need you to disqualify yourself out the gate.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah. And so client that we were just on a call with is like we're measuring their leads and like how many are unqualified leads because they have a knockout question of in this particular case they need to be a homeowner. Do you own your home? Yes. No. No. What do you do with that? Well, does that count as a lead?

[Lauren E. Patullo]

No, absolutely not.

[Ralph Burns]

No, it's not. It is a form fill, but it's not a lead. I would actually modify that statement to say that it's actually just an opt in. Unless it is.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Oh, I say everyone's an opt in.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, everyone's an opt in until they actually book a call and then they're.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

For me, they're an opt in until there's a dialogue, until you've put down credit cards or you have shown up in some capacity. You're still an opt in to me.

[Ralph Burns]

But there's a lot of different ways to look at that. But I mean I do think like you're on the right path. However you diagnose or however you not diagnose, however you define an MQL or a marketing qualified lead is sort of up to your business. And every business is different by the way, you know.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

I mean I interviewed somebody the other week and they said everybody in the company had a different definition of what an MQL was. I'm like, like to see why didn't the CEO like interject, what's this?

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Hold on, I'm going to share my screen because mine is like written. I have on. I'll Be like this is this Monk is me. If you're not watching on YouTube, well then tough you're not going to see inside of like a real doctrine.

[Ralph Burns]

Traffic.com YouTube hey, are you struggling to connect the dots across your marketing? Well, AdRolls connected advertising platform turns completely complexity into clarity with AI powered campaigns and seamless integrations. Advertise smarter, move faster, achieve more. Learn more at adroll.com PT that's adroll.com forward/pt. Lauren.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

It's always in draw.

[Ralph Burns]

She's opening the kimono.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Here's a kimono. Tits out and everything.

[Ralph Burns]

That's it.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Right. Like here's my pipeline. All seven steps. You'll note that it goes six to eight. That's because I don't have seven. But I have a zero for shadow. Shadow leads. But this for me I have. Everyone is a subscriber. Like they opted in, they want to. I define an opt in as someone that raises their hand because they want to hear what you have to say. They're not a lead for me until they want to hear what you have to sell. And then they're not a sales qualified lead until I actually want to sell to them.

[Ralph Burns]

Right.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

So in order to become a lead, I need you to show up in some capacity. Right. You could show up because you schedule a call as a marketing qualified lead. You can show up because you signed up for a live webinar. So you're going to give time but you're not a sales qualified lead until there was a dialogue. So I have my marketing qualified leads conversation. No conversation then active and inactive, but someone to say they don't. Oh, anyone who's on Marcus Media that listens to this and doesn't see this, like, you know where this lives?

[Ralph Burns]

You know what it is? Yeah. So our definition, our definition is slightly different. But the point is, is we have a definition.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

We have a definition.

[Ralph Burns]

We're all agreed on it. Like yours is slightly different than ours. So our process is just different for whatever reason. But if there's an application fill for not an opt in, not a subscribe, not a.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

That's still a lead for you.

[Ralph Burns]

No, no, no. Opt in is not a lead.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Good. I was like application submission.

[Ralph Burns]

It is an opt in. However, when somebody does fill out an application and then books a call, they become a marketing qualified lead.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Okay.

[Ralph Burns]

Now they only become an SQL after an intervention from our sales team, which is just some kind of interaction. Like do you have.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Oh, so dialogue? We're.

[Ralph Burns]

No, there is a dialogue. So we're, we're very much like they've.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Approved that you want to sell to them. They're a marketing qualified lead if they want to be sold to but they're a sales qualified lead when we want to sell to them they Right. Are they a homeowner or not? I'd love to sell to you but if you're not a homeowner. I'm a homeowner. I can't sell to you.

[Ralph Burns]

Yes. So you disqualify. I don't know where those leads go on that client. Like you know first call with them after like two months on monkey. I know but anyway those people that.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Don'T qualify though they should be going to like a rejection page. Like we like we say a no thank you page and you sure as an offer. Okay. Yeah. You can have on the thank you page a downsell or something like we want to provide you value but I am not it for you or what you were signing up for. Doesn't make sense. Sense. But you sure as better not have that lead or that complete registration or any type of standard event on the no thank you page because you have to make sure that meta doesn't see that as a win. You have to immediately disqualify them.

[Ralph Burns]

Yes.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

And then you can build a negative lookalike audience from the custom audience of people who go there and say I don't want any of these disqualified individuals. And if you have them as a form submission and you have them inside of your ecosystem if you're using HubSpot or we use high level mailchimp doesn't matter. Anyone that is a disqualified out the gate they should have a tag as dql. You saw in my pipeline those are number eights. Like my number eights. I'll just like. I think they're so funny. I'm like attended a book call but we marked as disqualified. I'm like those who lied but tried. Right. Or they tried but lied. Like how many times do vendors get on your book call sessions because they're trying to sell you on your discovery calls. I hate those butt heads. Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

Like somebody who overstates income. Like you know that they need at least $50,000 or $70,000 whatever it is. I'm trying to think of one of the clients that we have. Yeah, they have a six figure income. Like if you're not over six figures you're really not a sales qualified lead. So those people if they do slip in there. I tried but lied.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

So for me they're marketing qualified leads.

[Ralph Burns]

Though because but they are marketing Qualified leads because they do. In that particular case, that client does have a downsell in the Alex Hormozi model, but like something to sell them but they're not going to get their next level coaching program.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

I have like vendors, pack members, competitors, people that admit as self disqualified. Like so you said six figures. It's like I have a company of a fruit stand on the corner. I'm never going to take an investment. I never want to grow up beyond this current corner fruit stand. So they have self disqualified, I have them tagged as disqualified and then that's a list. I know lookalike audiences aren't strong, but I still build it into meta. And I have a negative lookalike audience because I have all my disqualified people. I don't want them to be in my ecosystem.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, see I tend to think that when you do. All right, so we have differing opinions on that. So like our team, what they do is they put in the custom audience of the current customers, current, not prospects, but current customers. And then we think all right, because it's an exclusion, they're going to not target them. Of course they wish, but they use that as a seed list to find the right type of audience. Because most of our targeting is open targeting right now, with very few exceptions. But also on the flip side of that or thinking, okay, AI knows those are the types of clients that we want, but also based upon their profile, that will also help to not include the ones that we don't want because they don't look like that audience. So there's a couple of different ways to do this. The point is it's like you're leveraging the algorithm in a certain couple of different ways. The important part to this whole thing is that you're qualifying all the way through. And that's the thing. And so back to our original point, how we teased with media buyers are no longer important because they're useless if.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

They'Re only doing media buyers.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, they still are important for sure.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Not if they're however.

[Ralph Burns]

However the most important. And we were talking about this and like how we. You just need to be patient until.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

I actually break my point, I'm muting myself.

[Ralph Burns]

Okay, is the growth strategist. The growth strategist, in my opinion is like the most important person because they understand all of this. That's how they see all of it. The example that I used with the orthopedic company came from the growth strategist. It was like, all right, I can only do so much media buying wise, but I need to do this after the click in order to make this whole thing work and to get qualified candidates for this particular procedure. So that is like the position that's really still in demand no matter what AI says. It's like I still think that that person and the creative strategist working together like they're vitally important.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Not to mention what I hear is media buyer is dead strategy is on. Media buyer is just an order taker.

[Ralph Burns]

I think it's a little. It's less important than it was. But a media buyer with a strategic mind is very useful.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

So then they're no longer just a media buyer. I think maybe I'll take back as like, if you're just a media. Like I. I've shared this with you and a few people. Like, I have two media buyers on my team where we've given them like direction that your role has to evolve if all you are doing is placing the media. And like with how much easier Google and Facebook have made it. I need you to do the things that the, the algorithms can't do. I need you to do something that I can't have some kid learn in five minutes or less. Like, I need you to be sticking your fingers in every system. Well, how is it connected to like, what's your GTM setup? What is like your pixel, your metapixel plus CAPI integration? Like, where is the data flow that's going into it? How effective is the audiences that you're bringing in? Are you bringing in new customers? Like, are we going after Net new or are you just going after whatever's the lowest hanging fruit? So you do have discredit. Yeah, the algorithm's already doing that. Google Meta TikTok, they're going to claim as much credit as possible. Email. Like, I'm sorry, unless you edit your attribution settings. I say this a lot with attentive because they're the ones I'm like the most annoyed with because you still have to send an email to change their attribution window for a text from 28 days to anything else because you can't manually change it. For me, an email gives you like four hours of attribution. SMS gets two hours max. Every like, no, if you're not clicking within four hours of email or two hours of text, you don't get the credit.

[Ralph Burns]

Is this a rant?

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Yeah, this is different. This is a. I'm angry about this, but the media buyer has to care about those different things because if you're just trying to cheat and make your Numbers look good. The way that the Facebook networks are like Meta and Google and all those pieces already are. Now I just have two people trying to claim the most amount of credit and a business owner that's saying, like, why isn't my bank account reflecting the joy that these two companies that are making money off of me are.

[Ralph Burns]

So I guess to summarize here, not that we're ending, but we're just summarizing sort of at our midpoint, is that the media buyer of just being like. I think about it as like the dumb media buyer who has no knowledge of anything else but what he sees or she sees. Inside Ads Manager, Google, mcc. And that's their world.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Media buyer.

[Ralph Burns]

All right, that's it. Like with the. What are those things called? Blinder. Well, horse. Those are just called blinders. Yeah, I guess they are called blinders. So blinders on and all you're looking at is just like in app metrics and that's it. Like, you could do your job, I guess, well enough with AI, but you're missing so much of the larger picture.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Which is you do the job well enough. You and I will never be okay with well enough.

[Ralph Burns]

I know I'm giving some grace to the media buyers who maybe aren't quite there yet.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

It's okay. But for you to evolve the grace, right now I've got Black Friday, I've got holiday sales.

[Ralph Burns]

I'm just trying not to piss off November. No. Anyway, no, actually we don't have any, like media buyers with blinders on. The point is like the media buyer with blinders is that worked in 2015, 2016 doesn't work.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

I would say it even worked through like 2023, maybe even like I, you know, I could say you could have gotten away with it till probably June this year. It's just now you can't get away with it more because there's too many more mature media buyers that have that strategy mindset that are obsessed with the growth to the client's bottom line that they're becoming so much louder that if you're a quiet blinders on only media buyer, you're going to get squished or deemed irrelevant.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah. And I do think that there's a trend that's out there right now, which is somewhat frightening if you're in this space. Cause I know there's a lot of agencies that do listen to this show is that I'm seeing a lot of smaller agencies just contract and go out of business just because they're not adopting this mindset. Right now. So I work with a group that just lost half of their consulting clients because of this particular issue. They're like, all right, I think I might just throw in the towel because I can't really keep up with this and clients are kind of ticked off about it because they're like, you know, you're not getting me the results that I want because you're not bringing the strategy component to it. I don't care what the in app metrics say. It's like you say I'm 500% of ROAS inside of, you know, name your platform but my bank account is still flat. Like that's not actual growth because you're not looking at the larger picture. Help me with my offer, help me with strategy, help me with all the things that you're talking about here. After the click the email sequence, go deep. The only way for a media buyer to bring value is to go deeper, deeper as opposed to just really talking about and focusing their effort on the ads manager, the ad platform itself.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Agree that's a one person job. I agree with all of that that it you have to go deeper. But the media buyer role is evolving and even to go that far, like we have seven or eight people on an account now.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Because of all the different views and all the vantage points that we're looking at. And I would like, I don't know agency or have come across friends with agencies where they're just throwing in the towel. I mean I can tell you that there are days where it's like it's harder. The media buying piece is the only thing that's gotten easier. Everything else has gotten harder because the expectations and like, you know, the, it's more expensive this time of year. There's. We've had not the strongest year in terms of like purchasing cycles. Tariffs are an understated component to many of our clients.

[Ralph Burns]

Businesses starting to see it with inflation quiet quitting.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Like we're seeing the impacts of inflation. We're seeing the impacts of like lack of loyalty within team members. Like, like I've got a client where they've lost almost 80% of their team. And so then as a business owner who's now having to learn all these other roles and like there's just so many things that are happening and.

[Ralph Burns]

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[Lauren E. Patullo]

I think what's hard is that you want to be an extension of someone's marketing department a lot of times, but then like your scope might increase. So you had that growth strategist like I'm just going to do these landing pages. I know this is going to make the most amount of impact. The business owner at the end of the day wants impact, wants growth. But there's this fight right now of control where they can't. I mean we talk about this like with AI and stuff. It's like how much control are you willing to give up in order to hit the targets you want to hit? And it's like this battle of understanding what's in scope, what's out of scope, what you can help with. And I think right now the lines are blurring so much that the media buyer just doing the media buying doesn't exist. That you have to be an extension. You have to look at all those other things but then you also have to realize that there's a lot more people evaluating all aspects of the funnel because one person can't be trained on all of that right away.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, I mean not to sound pitchy, but it's like you do need to focus on the metrics that actually do matter and that does produce the growth that scales ultimately. And it in app metrics, I'll say it now, I'll say it a hundred times, are can be so easily manipulated and it's not the source of truth anymore. And I think if you just have that blinder's view on the ad platform itself, you, you are not doing your client and, or your company and, or your business and or your boss. You know, if you're working in a marketing department like any favors here because you're just going to be swirling, you're going to be swirling around the drain even though you're saying, hey, look at how great I'm doing. But the business is flatlined down and we see that all the time and pretty much every onboarding we see it is because of those metrics that the previous media buyer or the previous agency was focused on and they weren't moving the needle on the business. It's like, who cares about roas when you're paying too much to acquire a customer, when. Or you're just, you're just selling old customers over and over again. And yeah, 70 or 80% of your traffic is just repeat buyers and. Or people who have already interacted with your brand. Like that's not ideal.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

I think there's a piece that we're skipping from this conversation is that a lot of small business owners, or even medium business owners hire and delegated out with the assumption that who they bring on is going to have as much ownership and understand all the technology and all the pieces of the funnel. Where there becomes a disconnect is you always work with a director of marketing or you work with a producer or you work with someone else on the client side of the team. And there's just so much that they don't know. And I just think the last two years of the advancement of AI, we've been in this information overload that we've lost the ability to cognitively understand what is priority. And everything has become a priority. Like we've seen Black Friday strategy, we've had discussions with people where they're talking about bringing on new elements when their current systems aren't set up for expansion. It's just this shiny object syndrome and the agency being so dedicated, having, let's say blinder, like focus, not blinders, but like strict attention into the marketing side of it. I think what gets really hard is business owners hire people with the intention of delegating it off. And I think a lot of business owners don't know the answers themselves. And so then it gets hard because it's emotional. You're like, well, why am I not going after new customers? Why am I the one who's steering the strategic ship when I've hired this CMO or when I have this marketing team or I'm bringing on this agency and coming in and it's. It's a kind of like a reckoning that needs to happen. Where I think a lot of brands and business owners have unfortunately delegated off the discipline and no one will have as much discipline or dedication to your brand as the owner will.

[Ralph Burns]

It's true.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

And so there's like the pieces that no one hires an agency ill intentionally and doesn't know. Like they don't know how to vet or agency or team member, internal team member. Right. Like they don't know. How do you. How do I know that you're good at email marketing? How do I know you're good at SEO, how do I know you're good at Reddit community management if I don't know how to do it?

[Ralph Burns]

It's true.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

And so that happens a lot when people hire marketing teams internally or externally. And so I just think that if you want to give grace to the media buyers, I'm going to give grace to the business owners or even like the marketing team leaders because they're just, they're having to compete with inflation, with current political climates, with current like human like emotions as well as all this emerging technology. And it's a lot for people to keep up with.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, agreed. Well, I mean I think there's a lot on this show to continue to deconstruct. Yeah, I mean there's a lot to it and I think AI has actually distracted a lot of folks from a lot of what we discussed here on today's show. And I do think that taking a more holistic view of like the overall, like taking a step back and thinking about it from how does a client become somebody who has no idea who you are all the way through to your funnel, your funnel air quoting until they actually purchase? Reverse engineering that backwards. It's like, how would I want to be treated all the way through? And that's from the click all the way to the final sale and everything in between. And I think that's final second sale.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

Yeah, I'm going to push it to the final second sale because I'm going to look at your ecosystem as everyone in your CRM should be in one of three buckets. They're a subscriber, which means they never gave you money. They are a purchaser, a single time purchaser or they are multi purchaser. I'm not talking about pipeline, I'm talking about who they are as an individual. They fit into one of three categories. Never bought, bought once, bought more than once. You have to carry that through that second sale. And I think the way I would like conclude it is that we need to remember how our grandparents ran their business and having that interaction, having that discipline to handhold someone through to the end of their second purchase, we've lost sight of and we've focused on so many other components of how do I get my stuff ranking in LLM? How do I do all these shiny objects where it's like yes, those are important things that you can do to expand visibility. But what happens when you've gotten the eyeballs, you've gotten the visibility and you've dropped the ball?

[Ralph Burns]

The customer journey there it is. So it's really, it's the customer experience is just rethinking that whole thing and stop getting caught up in all the shiny objects because those aren't necessarily the things that are going to move a business forward. They're just ways in which to amplify something that you're already doing. And if you're not doing the right things, it's just going to amplify the wrong things.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

All right.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, we have certainly covered a lot here. And of course, everything that we mentioned here on today's show is [e-mail] and of course, wherever you listen to podcast, leave us a rating and review helps us get out to a wider audience to teach people how to do this stuff the right way. And of course, as a reminder, you can get the special year end package to 11 lucky businesses who qualify where you buy the creative diversification package, all the stuff we've been talking about 30 deliverables every single month, all the 10 different ad types which our creative team will create for you, which includes UGC founder story testimonials, before and afters, us versus them, all of those ad types. And you will get your media buying for free as well as the Tour 11 data suite for free. So check that out over at toureleven.com forward/apply. We will have a sales page obviously for you to explain a little bit more in detail, but we are releasing this before we release it to the general public for you, the Perpetual Traffic listeners. So check that out [e-mail] apply all right, so on behalf of my amazing co host, Lauren E. Petrulo, ciao till next show. See you.

[Lauren E. Patullo]

You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.