What Worked in 2024 that We Want to Double Down on in 2025 with Eddie Maalouf of BAD Marketing

Summary

Podcast Summary: Perpetual Traffic Episode – "What Worked in 2024 that We Want to Double Down on in 2025 with Eddie Maloof of BAD Marketing"

Introduction

In the November 12, 2024 episode of Perpetual Traffic, hosts Ralph Burns and Lauren Ipatrulo engage in an insightful conversation with Eddie Maloof, the founder of BAD Marketing. BAD Marketing is a dynamic digital agency specializing in three primary verticals: local businesses, e-commerce, and info products/courses. With a team of approximately 200 employees and over four years in operation, Eddie shares his expertise on effective marketing strategies from 2024 and outlines his vision for scaling these tactics in 2025.

Guest Introduction

Lauren Ipatrulo introduces Eddie Maloof, highlighting his extensive experience in digital marketing and agency management. Eddie reciprocates the enthusiasm, teasing behind-the-scenes anecdotes that listeners won't hear elsewhere.

BAD Marketing: Company Overview

Eddie Maloof delves into the origins of BAD Marketing, explaining the rationale behind its bold name change from a more conventional title. He emphasizes the agency's disruptive ethos, likening it to the "anti-hero" approach, which has significantly contributed to the company's success.

Key Marketing Strategies from 2024

1. Trust Inflation and Affiliate Marketing

   Eddie and Lauren discuss the concept of "trust inflation," where earning consumer trust has become increasingly challenging. Traditional influencer marketing has seen a decline in trust due to over-commercialization and negative perceptions.

   Eddie Maloof [12:23]: "Trust inflation or something like that, basically just like it's harder to earn someone's trust now than it was a year, two years."

   To combat this, BAD Marketing is doubling down on affiliate marketing. By leveraging shared joint venture (JV) lists and influencer partnerships, especially on platforms like TikTok Shop and Amazon, they aim to enhance credibility and trust through trusted third parties.

   Lauren Ipatrulo [10:35]: "They've spent the money for those leads. And then on TikTok we're doubling down and basically bringing on our E commerce clients on TikTok shop just on profit share agreements."

2. Enhanced Content Creation for Local Businesses

   Recognizing the shift from static image ads to dynamic video content, BAD Marketing is investing heavily in content creation. They provide local businesses with professionally edited videos tailored to engage and convert better than traditional ads.

   Lauren Ipatrulo [18:30]: "We're building an entire video editing team around local businesses... the difference is night and day between someone who has a really good video and someone just has like an average ad."

   This strategy not only improves ad performance but also builds stronger brand identities for local clients.

3. Optimizing Funnel Touchpoints

   With declining engagement rates, BAD Marketing focuses on maximizing touchpoints in the customer journey. By offering multiple content formats—such as condensed video sales letters (VSLs), sales pages, and varied content delivery methods—they ensure that leads have ample opportunities to engage meaningfully.

   Lauren Ipatrulo [16:31]: "We're trying to find different mediums for people to consume the same information and starting with the one with the most time with the consumer."

4. Streamlined Media Buying Structures

   Eddie emphasizes the importance of simplicity in media buying. Instead of relying on complex hacks and button-click optimizations, BAD Marketing prioritizes high-quality ads and compelling copy to drive results.

   Lauren Ipatrulo [29:32]: "...the landing page is much more important than the traffic and the content on the traffic is much more important than the buttons that are being pressed in the traffic."

Predictions and Strategies for 2025

1. Continued Emphasis on Quality Content

   BAD Marketing plans to maintain its focus on high-quality, engaging content. Eddie warns against the over-reliance on AI-generated content, which can dilute quality if not managed correctly.

   Eddie Maloof [35:07]: "If you're a lowercase b awful creator and you leverage AI, you're just amplifying awful."

2. Innovations in Media Interaction

   Looking ahead, Eddie is excited about the integration of more interactive features in media consumption. He cites Amazon Prime's new advertising feature that allows viewers to seamlessly transition from ads on TV to purchasing products on their phones.

   Lauren Ipatrulo [38:23]: "I really think that is what's missing because now you're turning television into such a lower friction source of click."

   This advancement could revolutionize the way consumers interact with ads, making the buying process more intuitive and immediate.

3. AI and Productivity Enhancements

   While acknowledging the challenges AI poses for content quality, Eddie highlights its potential to enhance productivity. By automating mundane tasks, agencies can focus more on creative and strategic endeavors.

   Eddie Maloof [36:55]: "We've been using it so that we can produce higher amount while maintaining quality at the same price that it would have taken us to do before."

4. January as the New Black Friday

   BAD Marketing anticipates January to overshadow the traditional Black Friday in terms of marketing impact, especially for sectors like health and wellness, supplements, and personal growth products. This shift is driven by New Year's resolutions, which drive consumer intent and purchasing behavior.

   Lauren Ipatrulo [27:31]: "January is like our best month and we treat it accordingly. Like we double budgets in January compared to March, for example."

Challenges and Solutions

Eddie and Lauren address the current challenges faced by marketers, such as decreasing trust and increasing competition. BAD Marketing's solutions focus on building authentic relationships through strategic partnerships and superior content quality.

Closing Remarks

As the conversation wraps up, Eddie emphasizes the importance of maintaining quality over quantity in marketing efforts. He encourages brands to focus on creating meaningful and engaging content that fosters genuine customer relationships.

Eddie Maloof [37:54]: "If you're trying to build a relationship with a brand and get customer loyalty, that personalization, that quality is going to be a stronger play."

Final Thoughts

Eddie Maloof's insights provide a comprehensive roadmap for marketers looking to navigate the evolving digital landscape. By prioritizing trust, quality content, and innovative engagement strategies, BAD Marketing sets a compelling example for achieving sustained growth and success in 2025.

Connect with Eddie Maloof

Listeners interested in furthering their connection with Eddie Maloof can reach out via Instagram or YouTube using his full name, Eddie Maloof. Eddie ensures direct communication by personally responding to messages, offering a personalized approach to engagement.

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Disclaimer: This summary is based on the provided transcript and aims to encapsulate the key discussions, insights, and strategies shared during the podcast episode. For comprehensive details, listening to the full episode is recommended.

Transcript

[Ralph Burns]

Do you feel like you could have done so much better in 2024? Do you feel like you left so much money on the table? Or maybe your internal team or your agency just wasn't getting it done for you? You were maybe the one that was coming up with all the ideas and then they were doing the implementation. That is not how it's supposed to work. If you're the boss, your internal team or your agency is supposed to direct you and tell you what to do to scale and grow your brand, let me tell you, you are not alone. This is the number one complaint we hear from potential prospect clients who want to work with us potentially. They say their agency or their internal teams have run out of steam and they're the ones who are giving them all the ideas. Well, that's the reason why we put together a very special offer for you for 11 lucky businesses. And quite honestly, ever since we announced this promotion just or four days ago, we've already filled up five of them. We have six of these left. And the reason we're only giving away 11 with 6 left is because my internal team, I have to give them some time off in December and we want to get this done for you before the end of the year. So much so, in fact, my sales team has actually opened up more time to book these calls with you, the business owner, with you, the director of marketing, you, the person that's frustrated with the results that you got in 2024 and you feel like you can do better in the coming year. Well, we are offering 11. Well, now six, because we've already given away five of them. Free business audits for six lucky businesses. And this is not an audit that's done by AI. It is done by actual humans, where they go in and they actually look at your entire business, not just your ad accounts. They look at your tracking, they look at your after the click, they analyze your emails, they analyze all of your ad accounts, everything that you're doing within your business. And we figure out where the holes are. And usually there are plenty of holes and areas of improvement. Yeah, you need an unbiased, unprejudiced viewpoint on how you're going to hit your goals in 2025. And that's what this business audit is for. So if you are interested in being one of the lucky six remaining, there was 11. Now there's six remaining businesses who qualify for this business audit. Head on over to tier11.com2025, fill out the application and we'd love to see how we can help you scale and grow. And oh by the way, you will also get first mover access to the Tier 11 data suite, which we haven't even launched to the world yet and we'll be doing so in January. So you'll get early access to that. One of the greatest things about the Tier 11 data suite is you know, all those unattributeds, all those unknowns, all those directs inside your Google Analytics, or if you're using Triple Whale or if you're using Hiros, well, this lifts the veil on all of those. Up to 99% of your unattributed and your unknowns in your direct are now going to be known in the knowns that are going into individual channels. Your Google, your meta, your organic, your email. Those are more accurate. That's how great datasuite is. It lifts the veil finally, for data tracking unlike anything we've ever seen because it uses three Martech tools pieced together with an integration that we wrote here at tier 11. And you will get early bird access to that as well. When you fill out the application over at tier11.com forward/2025. Make 2025 the best year yet. Start by planning it right now. Book a call with our team today, fill out the application and let us help you scale smarter, not harder, in the coming year. Hey folks, Ralph here with something that could seriously upgrade your Top of Funnel ad game. If you've been a PT listener for any period of time, you know that we talk about Top of Funnel all the time and how challenging it is for you to get quality Top of Funnel clients or leads or customers and then convert them typically at bottom of Funnel. Well, TV advertising is one of those areas that we haven't discussed here on PT all that much. But our friends over at Ad Critter have figured this stuff out. They do connected TV ads so you can be everywhere without spend spending millions on super bowl ads. But they pair it with display retargeting so you're hitting the audiences with a complete approach. You reach them, then you remind them and then you collect the revenue. It's a strategy designed to deliver and let me tell you, it really works. We're testing this at tier 11 and so far the results have been very impressive. Now with AdCritter, creating custom audiences are so easy. You don't need to reformat files, you don't need to mess around with complex spreadsheets. You just upload any file in any format and you're ready to go. And the match rate is awesome. They make it easy to connect with the right people, the actual people that have interacted with your ads in the past and then allow them to naturally flow through your funnel so you can convert them at bottom of funnel. Now the folks at Adcrator, we twisted their arm to get us a great deal for you, the PT listener. They are offering a special deal for y'all and that is you can get a $500 campaign credit, meaning $500 in free money to test out the plaque platform or dollar for dollar matching on any TV campaign up to five grand. Imagine the impact of that match. Spend five grand, they'll add another five grand in display. That's a huge opportunity here. Now it's only offered to you, the PT listener. Head over to AdCritter.com PT and check it out.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.

[Eddie Maloof]

Welcome to the Perpetual Traffic podcast. I am your host for today. It is Lauren Ipatrulo, founder of Magnus Media. As Ralph, our co host is letting me connect with our very special guest, very talented agency owner himself, Eddie Maloof. And I'm so excited to connect with Eddie who is here today to talk about everything that he has seen working in 2024 and some predictions of what we think is going to help our clients and future brands in the year ahead. So yay, Eddie, welcome to the show.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Thank you. Thank you, Lauren. Happy to be here. Super excited for our talk today. It's already gotten a little exciting behind the scenes that people are never going to hear, hopefully. So I'm excited to continue the fun conversations.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah. For those that aren't privileged enough to be in the pre recording time, you got to miss how we broke down the success of Cardi B's OnlyFans account and why.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Very successful and queer.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah, very successful.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Whether it's $60 million a year successful, they might not know that.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah, $130,000 a day successful.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Crazy. Wow.

[Eddie Maloof]

So, Eddie, for those that do not know you, whatever reason, that's silly, silly, silly them. Can you tell us about yourself and bad Marketing?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah. So I'm the founder and CEO of Bad Marketing. We're a digital agency specializing in three verticals. So we have one vertical for local businesses, one for e commerc businesses and one for info products and courses. We have about 200 employees total. We've done this in about four years. A little bit more four years and four months now and pretty cool. Got to learn a lot of marketing lessons. I mean I've been running ads myself for about 10 years, but as an Agency owner with, like, actual staff on payroll of some sort. We've been doing it for a little bit over four, so. Been an exciting and stressful journey. You can see all the gray hair on the side of my head that come from this business.

[Eddie Maloof]

Well, for those not watching on YouTube, he says you could see his gray hair, but he's rocking a hat that's hiding most of the gray hair.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

You can see it on the side, right? Like, it's like that side gray. The beard gray. You know, you gotta give me some gray credit. I mean, it's cool. If you can't see it, even better for me.

[Eddie Maloof]

No, I can't. I can't. So that's like 10 years you've been doing this. I was like, I think you're like three, four years younger than me. So I was like, how old were you when you started?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

I was young. I couldn't even drink when I started.

[Eddie Maloof]

See, there you go. I'm 30, 30, 200 employees and continuing to grow. Bad marketing, which, for those that are hearing correctly, bad. His company is called bad Marketing. Like, you've got to explain that a little bit before we jump into the actual content of the show.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like the liquid death play, right? It's like the anti hero. And so, long story short, basically we had another name that was, like, super boring, and we had it for years. It was because, like, the original partners I had and they were no longer partners, so the name didn't make sense anymore. And so we basically got a lawsuit over our name because someone else was using the same name, and it was just like this giant thing. And I was like, this is stupid, so let's just pick another name. And then we're like, what's like, the crate? Like, we can pick whatever we want. We have case studies, we have staff, we make money already. Like, we don't need to, like, do something that pleases people. So, like, if we really wanted to be ourselves, who would we be? And we all decided, you know, the way we act is like, super bold, disruptive, like the anti of everything else. And that's kind of how we've always done things in one. And so someone sarcastically said, why don't we just go with bad marketing? And they all laughed. And I was like, that's a great idea. And went to buy all the domains, the handles and everything over the next few months. And we ran with it, and it's been awesome. Honestly, like, it's been one of the best decisions we've ever Made in the company to go.

[Eddie Maloof]

It's been so good since you went bad.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

So good since we've gone bad. And our motto is actually we make good brands go bad.

[Eddie Maloof]

That's good or is that bad?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Depends if it's capitalized or not even internally capital. Bad is like one thing fully lowercase. Bad is bad. Bad like not good bad.

[Eddie Maloof]

Gotcha, Gotcha. Cool. So with that, I mean you've been in the space for 10 years, you have a team for four years. What I was really excited to talk about with you, agency owner to agency owner. Like a lot of people listening on this podcast, we're close to Black Friday end of year. Most people are already in their Black Friday holiday promotions. But what they're not ready for necessarily are the things to come in 2025. So I thought it'd be really cool just to hear from you. Like what are some of the things that you're looking for and gearing up for in 2025 for your clients? Like what? Is there any area that you're doubling down in for either info products, e commerce or your local business clients?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, I think we're, we're doubling down on a lot of affiliate promotions as a whole. So like you can look at it per platform. If we're talking like info products, it's probably more like shared JV lists, cross promoing from list to list. If we're talking about like e commerce, it'd be like affiliate marketing on things like TikTok shop or Amazon through influencers. Those are definitely things that we're doubling down on in every category. We're, you know, on the info side creating a lot of JV partnerships between people in the same spaces that sell non competing products. It's just kind of free money for everyone across the board. They've already spent the money for those leads. And then on TikTok we're doubling down and basically bringing on our E commerce clients on TikTok shop just on profit share agreements and building basically a giant network of affiliates and creators that can sell their products. And we know that Lauren is really good at pet products. For example, whenever pet products come our way, we source them to Lauren and then she promotes them and that becomes like kind of her niche and category for clients like ours. So that's definitely something I'm doubling down on as a company. And I think the reason was of this whole year, I think there was just a lot of lack of trust. It was harder to get people to check out in E commerce, it's harder to get People and info to show up to a sales call because there's a lack of trust on and on and on in every industry. Right. And someone used the term. I forgot what it was. But like, trust inflation or something like that, basically just like it's harder to earn someone's trust now than it was a year, two years. I mean, heck, when I started running ads 8, 9, 10 years ago, like, I just run anything and anyone would buy anything and submit a lead for, like, pennies on the dollar. Today, it's much different. Right. You got to earn the trust a little bit more. And so I think affiliate marketing is the fastest way to earn that trust because you're going through someone else. I think there was a period where, like, influencers were less trusted because everyone knew that they were making money.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah. Hashtag ad. And how that changed everything with Instagram.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Everything, right? And now people are like, oh, my gosh, like, this guy's just doing it for money. And so, like, conversions went down and then now because of things like TikTok shop, it's actually the opposite. It's like, I'm proud that I'm making money from this and it's okay that I'm public about it. And the people that I'm talk that know I'm talking about this product know I'm making money off this product. And I'm actually just building trust with them because I'm actually only selling them good products. And so now the trust has kind of shifted to like, oh, if I've bought something from this creator, it's a good product, I trust him. And so now it's actually the opposite. Whereas instead of having less trust, there's actually so much more trust because they've established that over time from selling other good products. So it's a very interesting time we live in. There's been a roller coaster of trust on the influencer space. And I think we're going to have a pretty good opportunity over the next few years in it.

[Eddie Maloof]

I think it's interesting where it's like you talk about when we think about influencers and like two years ago, especially for Gen Z buyers, they grew up with influencers, bought what influencers said. And then a lot of influencers selling supplements, unsafe, untested products that tank the reputation. Obviously, what happened with the Jenner Kardashians and some of the stuff that they've promoted. Fyre Festival being like one of the most obvious cases that trust in celebrity influencers really tanked. But what you're talking about is a Lot more creators, content creators, where this is their full time business. And I think what is really powerful in a lot of that is you don't necessarily have to be an influencer to be influential because I bet you there are a lot of micro and nano influencers, maybe even some content creators with 100,000 followers that are super loyal and they're super dedicated because they're talking about stuff in the equestrian space, for example. And when you're a content creator at the top of your game for that specific field and you have a product that you actually put your name and brand behind, not just your face, I think that makes sense as a way for a lot more people to double down. And that trust inflation, if that's the term, that makes a lot of sense of course as well, you're talking about the E commerce side. I'd love for you to go even deeper on the info side because I bet a lot of people are in the space right now where people aren't showing up to these phone calls. They're not attending the webinars or watching them all the way through. They're consuming content and it's just this like content overload and it's just. Why aren't you following through? Didn't you love what I had to say?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, I mean it's as of the time that we're filming this, like these are kind of the lowest show rates I've seen in a while across most call funnel or you know, high ticket or info product brands as a whole. I think we just kind of have to go further of. It's either at the beginning of the funnel or in the middle of the funnel. We have to drag it out a bit. Meaning, like how many touch points are we giving the consumer before they become a lead or how many touch points are we giving the consumer between the time that they become a lead and the time that they show up for a call? And how easy is that process versus making it more difficult? So the value is there for them showing up the call because how much they've already invested prior to the call. And something that we're conscious of is like, yeah, like people aren't going to watch everything. And so we always like have layers. So like let's just take a webinar at the top webinar, you know, you know, let's call it two hours for example, sake. Two hour webinar. I mean not everyone's going to watch that. Right? Let's just say 30% of people are going to watch that. Another 20% from replays. Okay, so we call it 50. There's another 50 that'll just never watch that because they realize how long it is. But what if I just sent that 50% a 16 minute VSL of the same content that was in the webinar condensed? Would they watch it? Well, let's just say another 50% would go watch that. Out of that 50 now I have 25% remaining that haven't watched anything. I probably can't get 50% of those people to do anything. But if I can get 20% of those people, which is another 5% of the original total, to read something, hey, how about I give it to them instead of a video format, how about I turn the VSL into like a really good sales page? And how many of these people that didn't attend didn't want to read any of this or watch any of this because they don't want to sit there and watch, would gladly spend a few minutes scrolling on a toilet seat to understand everything that they originally were interested in. For I have friends who sit on the toilet for 20 minutes and they're just reading the whole time. You know what I mean?

[Eddie Maloof]

So basically are these friends with kids? Because there's also like privacy where you're like, it's 20 minutes of silence. So they're locking that door like I'm in the bathroom.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

No, Those are like 45 minute bathroom breaks for those friends. So that's another category of its own. But yeah, I mean that's basically what we're doing. We're basically like trying to find different mediums for people to consume the same information and starting with the one with the, you know, the most time with the consumer between us and them and then slowly dwindling it down essentially to provide different opportunities to consume the same info.

[Eddie Maloof]

So if that's. You're finding that in 2024 you've been distilling the information that people are missing because they've already opted in, they've shown interest in wanting to consume it. But we're busy human beings, we're forgetful human beings and we've got a lot of things competing for attention. So you, in 2024, what you have found working has been distilling that information down to shorter forms of content and to diverse forms of content for them to consume. How are you going to take that further in 2025? Does that apply for just in time webinars, like live webinars, everything and everything in between?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, I mean, I've already done that. It's for we do that for everything. At this point, obviously we're not going to do it like day one because we don't know if that webinar is going to convert and would we turn into the VSL or a sales page? Doesn't make sense. But like once a webinar is running, those are ways that we basically re optimize it. And so I mean going into 2025 it should be more of the same. It's not like this is something that everyone is doing yet. I mean I know a lot of people selling info products and I don't think any of them are doing something like this just yet. And if they are, they're definitely not taking it to a tech sales page. So I think there's just still so much opportunity to still take the same exact path we've been taking, just with more people enrolling it across the board versus just being kind of something that we tested this year.

[Eddie Maloof]

Cool. What about for local businesses? What have you seen help local businesses in 2024 that you're going to then double down in for 2025?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, great question. I think content creation is something that local businesses struggle at for ads. And so I'll give you an example. Let's just take, I don't know, local chiropractor. So like four years ago I could run a square image on canva saying $29 back adjustment, blah blah blah blah blah. And then I get flooded with leads and they come in. I can do the same thing now. Leads will be more expensive, less of them will actually respond and show up. Kind of all the metrics of trust are dwindled. Or I could invest time into one time just scripting some really creative concepts and videos for the local businesses. They film them on their phone, I edit them to be an engaging, educational and funny type video. And I run those as ads. And let's just say I say I pay the same price as the person who's running an image ad to get a lead. But my leads are better, they're more educated and they show up more and purchase more, much more compared to the ones in just square image of the promotion. So we're doubling down on that. We have on the local business side, we've never had video editors, we just have graphic designers and stuff like that because it's like local businesses now we're building an entire video editing team around local businesses and doing it for those businesses as like a service. They film it on their phones, they send it to us, we do it again. I'M not going to post organically, but I will do it just to have better ads because the ROI will be significantly better. And then as a local business, we're advising them on posting organically because there is so much money to be made from just posting organically as a local business. And even when you run ads, the thing is like if you really look at the ads path, a lot of people, what they're doing is they actually go to an ad on Instagram. They don't actually click the button on the ad, they go and click the profile of the person that is running the ad and then the profile essentially becomes your landing page slash, like business card, whatever, however you want to take that essentially, that's what it becomes. So I heavily advise them all and give them advice on how to build their social media organically for that reason for me. But really what I'm doing is I'm just investing more heavily into content. I look at what everyone's not doing and that's what I try to do. So like everyone is trying to replace people with AI conversational bots. Cool, I could do that. I'm just another person. It's not a special edge. Everyone's trying to do automations on go high level. Great. Not a special edge. Everyone's trying to white label SEO. Great. Not a special edge. How many people are actually like doing really sick ads for local businesses at a low cost and running them at scale? None. Like I mean obviously not none, but like it's like single percentage digits and that's what stand out. So that's what we're focused on. And the difference is night and day between someone who has a really good video and someone just has like an average ad like everyone else.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah. So a lot of local businesses, when you're saying there aren't a lot of people that will do it because local businesses tend to have really small budgets and they have a smaller market. They can only attract the drive in market if they have one single location for brick and mortar. What I have seen, at least a lot of local businesses will hire their best friend's niece or their neighbor's nephew, someone that is just like a younger kid that can film their videos. But they don't have the conversion mindset for a lot of that storytelling, which I think you're saying is enriching their performance against what is easy, a canvas static image ad or something that doesn't showcase personality and authenticity in who they are as a local business. And you're bringing in additional team members, cost Effective means because you have such a large production that you can pass those cost savings onto a local business. So it's like they're being treated as if they're an enterprise client even as a local business.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Exactly. And in today's world, things are more expensive online. It's harder to advertise, it's harder to get to the consumer. They have way more. So not only is it more expensive, but they have way more options. Maybe they used to look at 100 posts a day, maybe now they're looking at a thousand posts a day. And so like the amount, the percentage of their total viewership that you possibly could have is going down. It's becoming more expensive to do. So everything's just becoming more difficult. And so like you gotta out edge someone in some category. And to me the easiest one that I see is just like better ads, content wise.

[Eddie Maloof]

Better ads, content wise. But you said earlier that you don't put those videos that you make for a local business. You don't recommend that they put them in their organic feed?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

No, no, I just don't manage their organic feed. So like, you know, I'm not making the videos for the purpose of their organic feed. I'm making them just to become a sale.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. So then with coming out of Black Friday and moving into the holiday season, is there anything that you find that you're super invested in? Like I know everyone's focused on Black Friday right now and then the for E commerce at least ship before Christmas, but what is that next focus for your clients? And we can go vertical by vertical, like for E commerce, what is that pivot immediately after? They can't shift or they can't ship in time for Christmas.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, I mean the ship in time for Christmas one is kind of a weird one because at this point most of the brands we work with are prepared to like get everything up to like the 22nd, 23rd there on time. What we used to do though, because we would, we, I mean someone would come out with a new product, we'd sell out way too fast and then we'd have like, you know, a 20 day period where they definitely couldn't get it, we would give them like the ability to buy it, to pre purchase it essentially and like have their name on a tub specifically. And then we just give them like some sort of bonus to kind of compensate for it, but make it still a good enough offer for them to be worth buying up front. But as soon as Black Friday Cyber Monday ends, honestly, like we're pretty focused. Unless it's like a gifting type brand, we're pretty focused on, like, Q1. So I'll give you an example. We're really heavy into supplements. Supplements, like, don't necessarily smash it in December, but, like, as soon as December 26 comes around, supplements start killing it.

[Eddie Maloof]

Like the return New you.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, New Year. New you. Like, people now don't think, like, oh, I'm saving up to buy gifts for Christmas or whatever. The thought process is, like, vacation mode slowly kind of goes away. January 1st, there's like, another uptake because vacation mode, like, really goes away. There's like, I don't know why, but, like, half of the world thinks, like, between Christmas and New Year's, like, there's not a week. And they're just like, you know what I'm talking about? It's just like, they're like, retired for seven days. New Year's, like, basically start. New Year's Eve starts on, like, the 26th.

[Eddie Maloof]

Well, that's. My birthday is New Year's Eve, and I start celebrating on the 26th. So let's be real. I have a female. My mom saved the best for last. The real true story was, though, that she demanded I got out by midnight because she wanted the tax incentive.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

That's so funny. That's crazy.

[Eddie Maloof]

I subscribe to New Year's Eve starts December 26th because for sure, why wouldn't you?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

It's your birthday. I mean, for me, it probably started December 1st if that was the case.

[Eddie Maloof]

You know, my mom's birthday is December 2nd, so I have to give her.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Her time to shine.

[Eddie Maloof]

I'll evaluate December 3rd.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, yeah, December 3rd. I mean, even. Even the 10th. I give her a week. You know what I mean?

[Eddie Maloof]

She's done all I did come out of her body. So thanks, Mom.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

But yeah, we're focused. We're focused on January and even, like, from an agency perspective, right? If you're an agency owner, I already have landing pages, ads, everything built for January from now to get more clients. And all of them are around, like, the obvious angles, which is like, did you miss your Black Friday targets? Did you miss your Q4 targets? It's a very strong time of transition for e commerce brands. Like, they decide if they did or did not hit their annual goals. And like, usually the first person that they're blaming is the marketing agency. So always, always, right? It's like, why didn't you fix my entire company? Well, because I'm only in charge of the Facebook ads and not the other 900 things that you have.

[Eddie Maloof]

Right. But it's a make or break it season for a lot of ecommerce brands because they could be getting as much as 50% of their entire annual revenue.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Exactly.

[Eddie Maloof]

In two weeks.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Exactly. Right. So it is make or break. So basically a lot are breaking is really the point. As an agency in January, you definitely want to focus on that angle. I started in December. Like as soon as Black Friday ends, I literally turn on the ads and it's like, did you miss your targets for Q4? Did you miss your targets for Black Friday Cyber Monday make Q1 better than Q4. And it's like my entire angle. And that's how, I mean, that's how we built our agency. Right. I find the angles that make sense based on the time of the year and everything that's happening and then I ride it. So like even this year, like there was like the whole election, like I ran an entire angle with a Trump actor, got make marketing bad again, and just like rode the wave of Trump almost getting shot and everything else in between. Right. And so same for Q1. I'm. I am, I'll ride the wave of all the people in Q4 that are complaining that Black Friday wasn't as good as it was what, what we were thought it was going to be this year. There was too much competition, blah, blah, blah. So as an agency, that's what I'll be focused on. And then as an E Com brand again, some of these guys, like naturally thrive in Q1 more than they do in Q4, to be honest.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah. The health and wellness space is just. It is your Black Friday for until what, February 16, when people give up on their New Year's resolutions.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

I think that's called January 2nd.

[Eddie Maloof]

Okay, I'm going to celebrate my birthday for at least a week. I'm going to hold my New Year's resolutions for at least a month. That's how this works for me.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Okay, that's good.

[Eddie Maloof]

But yeah, so I mean, for, for sure there's a lot more brands even in the info space because everyone's in a place of reevaluating where they are. How was their year reflecting on what they want to get out of 2025. So even for those info clients, I'm sure they're it put in the self help, personal growth, business space. If they have something that can either be a biz op or an opportunity for you to improve yourself of who you are, you can have a bang on January and find that you're slower come August. Come September, when kids are back to school and you're prepping for the holidays.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, that's so accurate. I mean, January, January is like across the board. January competes with November for us in every space because of that reason and info. It definitely beats it. Like, we know January is usually like our best month and we treat it accordingly. Like we double budgets in January compared to March, for example, just because new me, new initiatives, new life goals, everything like that. Right. And a lot of honestly, a lot of the info products that we work on are either biz op, like money making based or health and wellness based. And both of them are like January. They're just like a different level of motivation and higher buyer intent as a whole.

[Eddie Maloof]

So, so then what is something that you saw either clients come to you with or prospects are talking to you about that you're like, I stop that right now. We are not doing that moving forward. That was such a gimmick. Go away. You watched a TikTok video where this thing worked. It's not going to work anymore. Like, what is the thing that you have seen a lot of brands ask you about or that current or past clients were doing that? You're like, nope, this is not going to continue moving forward.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, I think it's really just media buying hacks. I'll put it in like a whole category. So like they'll hear someone who supposedly spends a lot of money on ads somewhere say, like, oh, if you like click this button and run this ad this way specifically and blah blah, blah, then you're going to absolutely blow it out the water. And that's all you really need to change this whole account. Honestly, I'll tell you, like, my most successful accounts that spend the most money with the most return on ad spend have the simplest media buying structures with the best ads and copy and angles and funnels. And so many people look at the ads as if they're like the thing that runs the whole business, when it's really just like the area where they transact. So like the landing page, let's call it for, you know, marketing sake, like, the landing page is much more important than the traffic and the content on the traffic is much more important than the buttons that are being pressed in the traffic. And so like even internally, like when we go to solve an account that maybe is underperforming, my media buyers will be like, oh, I'm going to do a cost cap structure and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, cool. How about you just duplicate that? You do that for you and duplicate it for me and change this headline to this and add this at the beginning of this video ad and tell me who wins and I'll crush the results. Because I think we're in a world where like Facebook and Google algorithms, TikTok algorithms, like they're getting really good AI is getting integrated into them, whether we are told that or not. And they're just going to continually improve to find the right buyer pool based on previous data. And it's our job just to have the highest level copy messaging, creative, whatever it is, because that is going to be the highest leverage thing compared to like trying to really refine more technical button clicking side of things. I just don't think that's going to be as high of a leverage activity as it has been for the last 10 years. So I think, I think that's probably my biggest thing that I like even now. A client saw a video, he said, make this change. I'm like, we just got a 12x return last week. Why would I, oh, well, this video from this guy said that. I'm like, that guy learns from me. Like, yeah, there's a lot of opinions out there of things, but I just think we're moving in a direction where those assets are going to be more valuable than the technology necessarily.

[Eddie Maloof]

Interesting. So the assets will be more valuable than the technology. I hear you. When you talk about earlier about like the trust inflation and then you just have this. When a client is like, this is what I've seen, this is what I want. It's like an affiliate or an influencer in their space because a lot of clients are intermediate marketers. Like they know enough about it. And if you're listening to this podcast and you own a brand yourself, like you know enough about marketing so you can hold your agency and your marketing teams accountable to the results you're looking for. But it can be like those hacks and those viral videos where this works really well for me. For me, I get so annoying. I'm like, there's not an entire picture here. How much money did they spend? How much profit did they have? This blew up in one category, but look at the window you're looking at that says 2020. That was a pandemic year. Those numbers are not the same. We need to back this up. Like, I feel, granted, we're coming off of the election and it's just been a fact checking kind of space anyways. But a lot of those hacks that come forward or come from conversations, I'm like, yes, we can Absolutely. Test it. Always be testing, don't get me wrong. But let's have fair and realistic expectations. Because what one person said may not necessarily be true because a thousand and a half other factors that can go into it, but it sure made them popular for that instant reel, that's for sure.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

I'll tell you, the political reels right now are very popular. I am not shy to say I am taking advantage of the viewership. I never talk politics, but I'm like, it's working right now, so I'll talk about them for a little bit.

[Eddie Maloof]

Well, I think that's a really important part for a lot of people listening for 2025 at least, I can say that what we have found working in 2024, that we want to continue caring is how do we disrupt an existing conversation by inserting a brand or a story. And so you've been doing that really well with politics and where you're intersecting a trending conversation and leveraging it in a way that fits your brand, whether you're a Trump fan or not. That's not the point. You're leveraging his slogan and applying it to marketing so that you can interrupt the feed of what people are already consuming. So I think that's really important. I mean, you're talking about like doubling down on content, creating quality content with AI. There are so many tools that enable you to make content so quickly and so cost effectively. But what I've at least seen in 2024 that I don't want to continue in 2025 is the devaluation of quality. Because when you're using AI, you're using lots of tools, you're creating more a lower quality and you're just, you're doing a spray and pray and playing a volume game and forgive me on this, Eddie, but this is how I assume men date on Tinder apps. It's just a volume. I'm swiping on everything. Copy pasting, copy pasting, copy pasting. And I can't imagine that most of those individuals find love. Maybe what they're looking for they'll find because it's a volume game. But if you're trying to, like, build a relationship with a brand and get customer loyalty, that personalization, that quality is going to be a stronger play.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, agree with you on all aspects of it. I'm interested to see where AI does take us though, because, I mean, I can't afford to be obsessed with it. If I was like jobless and didn't have a Massive company to run, then I would probably just be obsessing with AI and going crazy over it. But I don't have that blessing. So I put myself in the early adopter phase, but not in the like, whatever comes before that.

[Eddie Maloof]

But yeah, the super fanatics, the ones that are going to break the systems and try.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Exactly, yeah. Like I'm going to learn from someone else. I'm not going to be the one paving the way by any means on that side. But I can already tell like creatives are going to be the thing that has the biggest leverage from the marketing side, at least short term. And a lot of people creatively are going to be out of jobs or going to have to find ways to use AI to output 10x what they currently are in order to keep their jobs.

[Eddie Maloof]

When you say 10x for me, when I agree with you 100% like AI inserted into the marketplace for marketing has been amazing but also hard for a lot of businesses. I can only speak to what we've done at Mommy's Media. We use AI. We've been using Jasper for years. We've been using surfer SEO. And by years I mean Jasper has been around for like three years. That's not actually a long time that and AI software has been around but we have been using it so that we can produce higher amount while maintaining quality at the same price that it would have taken us to do before. So we've become more efficient. But there's definitely a, like the 10x piece where we have found ourselves and others that aren't leveraging AI. That 10x, it's just, it's a growing delta because we can maintain great for a good price and you don't have that same dichotomy. And I bet you that's going to be true too for creators in that 10x where you can definitely 10x in terms of quantity all day long, but the 10x in terms of quality, when you have that creative conversion based mindset and you're. If you're an existing good creator and you leverage AI, you become a great creator. But if you're bad and you leverage AI lowercase B, lowercase b, just make it charge. Just make it true. Yeah, yeah. If you're a lowercase B awful creator and you leverage AI, you're just amplifying awful.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Agreed. Yeah.

[Eddie Maloof]

10X volume, not quality.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah. And again it's like conversational, right? Like you're feeding it the inputs that are going to require the outputs and if you suck then it's going to just give you stuff that you like, which usually sucks. So I love where it's moving though, towards like us at least commercially being able to like read spreadsheets at scale and data at scale and contracts at scale and all these other things, I think that's going to be massive. I think it's definitely going to hurt. Lawyers who are billing 400 bucks an hour to read a document, 1,000 bucks an hour to read a document, you know, they're kind of all negligent now. I can read a hundred page document in 16 seconds. So I'm really, that's what I'm most excited for on the AI side because from a productivity standpoint, I could probably run 10 times more businesses with the same amount of time just from being able to process information significantly faster and being able to make decisions based on it. So it's really cool. We'll see a year from now where we're at. But it's growing exponentially though. Super excited.

[Eddie Maloof]

Okay, so in closing thoughts and final ideas of coming into the end of the year, your new Black Friday being January, is there anything right now that you feel is missing from marketing toolkits and from technology has not yet developed the way or like, what are those, like crystal ball predictions? Like, I just wish this resource was made possible to make your job and your campaigns that you're running more successful. Do you have anything?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah. So there's something that I've been talking about since I was in university, like back in 2012. Ish. And I'm starting to see it a little bit. So basically what I was thinking back in those days, I was, this is exactly the situation. I was sitting on my couch in my like dorm, like central living room area and my roommates were there and like a Domino's ad popped up. And we're watching like, I think we're watching like Wimbledon or something, some tennis tournament. And Domino's ad popped up and I was like, how lame is it? I can't just like turn this into a transaction by like clicking yes on my remote. How come it doesn't connect to my phone directly to just open the Domino's app or website on my phone by me clicking on it. And then now this year, Amazon prime came out with that feature. When you run ads on Amazon prime, if you're connected to Amazon of some sort, you can basically click like down on your TV and it'll basically open it on your phone to where that product is on Amazon or some sort of Amazon hosted site. And so I'm really excited to See where that goes. Because I think that is what's missing because now you're turning television into such a lower friction source of click. And if we can turn mass media like television, Netflix, streaming services, etc. Into like more clicks rather than impressions because like the click through rate on those ads are so low because you're not really clicking anything. You have to like go type in a website, scanning whatever it is, right? But if I could just like have my remote next to me and something because I'm like, that looks sick. And like even just downshift or down press and like save it to my phone as a bookmark. I think technology, I mean, man, from a marketing standpoint that opens up so many doors, so much more advertising, so much more data that we have in those spaces too on those consumers in their households that now we can like advertise using. So that's something that I've gotten a taste of a little bit through Amazon, but it's only on Amazon, like if you watch the ads and they're like Papa John's ad, it's never going to have it because it's not on Amazon obviously. But I'm excited for that to become a mass adoption type situation where we can connect our devices via the WiFi in the house or wherever we're at and take a call to action from our phone or from our remote to our phone. Just from seeing that on tv, I.

[Eddie Maloof]

Think, I mean there's no one that's watching TV without their phone in their hand. And we know that people are like, look, I mean Amazon has it where you have X ray because you're like, oh, what do I recognize this actor from? And it's just allowing you to dive deeper into the content you're consuming. And further into that is you might be watching something like, I love the jacket she's wearing. Where do I get that? With Google Image, like you can scan a picture of anything and then it will pull up the Google shopping feed to give you something similar. But it does require extra steps. It's not a single button click and it doesn't give you that frictionless buying experience. And even further is imagine if that becomes personalized where you already have a history of buying books that are referenced in specific TV shows you like watching. And then you can have like a small pop up. Want to add this to your Goodreads list? Want to add this to your cart things of that nature so that all you have to do is like with your AirPods, you can shake your head, yes, if that's how you're listening. And then it's already taking that transaction step. But I do, I don't know if you remember this. There was a Super bowl ad and I want to say it was Domino's that did it, where they had in the ad where it was like, hey, insert the name of the apple. Human voice, that if I say it right now, she's going to start talking to me.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eddie Maloof]

Hey, order me Domino's pizza.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah.

[Eddie Maloof]

And so they had tried to take it where they could use the Internet of things and different devices from TV to force it. And it was just like, wait, I didn't order that. Hold on. She's listening to the wrong person.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

That's so funny. That's so funny. I feel like I remember hearing that.

[Eddie Maloof]

Yeah, I want to say it was Domino's, but it was definitely. Maybe it was a Papa John's or Little Caesars, but there was a pizza brand. Anyone that's listening to this, if you remember that or find that exact commercial, like, please go to the telegram group, perpetual traffic perpetualtraffic.com telegram and please send it to me. Because I was like, oh my gosh, it was brilliant. But the lawsuit side of it ended up getting more earned media because it was an intrusion to their listening devices. But there was no precedent or law that said you could do it.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

That's crazy. Yeah. I can't believe that wasn't even thought of as a consequence.

[Eddie Maloof]

Well, look, when there's a will, there's a way. There's always a way to hack or leverage emerging technologies. Because usually the people that are designing the technology aren't the evil geniuses of how they can leverage it for their specific use case.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

True.

[Eddie Maloof]

Cool. Well, Eddie, thank you so much for jumping in and helping me riff like agency owner to agency owner of what you think is going. Obviously you have such a successfully bad marketing company, Capital B, that I think a lot of listeners are super lucky to hear your insight because of the number of accounts and clients you've had the chance to work with and work on. If anyone that's listening wants to further connect with you, where can they best find you?

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Yeah, so Instagram. Just my first and last name. Eddie Maloof or YouTube. First and last name. YouTube's more long form, like very in depth, kind of high IQ ish content. Instagram's bits and pieces of that other stuff with some nice cars and fun stuff. So I run all my social stuff on Instagram. So if you DM me, it's me answering not a appointment setter or a robot. So feel free to reach out if you guys have any questions or anything I can help with.

[Eddie Maloof]

Cool. That's Maloof. M A L O U F Eddie thank you so so much for joining and for all of us that listening. I hope you got just as much value as I got onto it and wishing everyone, your clients, your brands, very happy Q4 and a even more momentous Q1.

[Lauren Ipatrulo]

Love it. Same to you Lauren. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Appreciate it.

[Eddie Maloof]

See ya.

[Ralph Burns]

You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.