← The Marketing Millennials
The Marketing Millennials
The Truth About Marketing Analytics with Sid Malhotra, EVP at Snap | Ep. 368
00:45:06
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- [00:02]
A
If you ever wished, you can clone yourself at work. Meet Optimizely Opal it has out of the box AI agents that learn your brand, plug into your existing stack and automate your work. That used to take weeks. Requests, revisions, approvals, all of it. Poof. See it@Optimizely.com AI. Welcome to the Marketing Millennials the no BS Marketing Podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the off. Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials podcast. Today I have Sid the EVP at Snapchat. Sid will tell his whole story, but I'm excited to talk about how to measure marketing correctly, what people are missing and measuring marketing correctly and all that good stuff. But Sid, welcome to the podcast.
- [01:14]
B
Well, thank you Daniel for having me.
- [01:16]
A
I wanted you to go into just like a little bit about your background, like how did you get into marketing and what's your journey been like?
- [01:23]
B
Oh yeah, I'm an accidental marketer. I'm an engineer by trade who ended up being a marketer just overnight in one of my first products that I was launching in back in Asia Pacific which was Samsung's first Android phone. And there I just dated myself right there. And the thing that happened was my product marketing guy who who was this French gentleman went on a summer vacation and forgot to CC us on his no doubt and my boss back then I was at the product team just introduced me as a product marketer and that was it. That three month rotation project has turned into an accidental marketing journey to now being an accidental business guy. We're into year five of building that very diversified advertising platform that connects all almost a billion snapchatters around the world with businesses who are trying to get into their attention spare. Before this I have built I was the first head of marketing at Grammarly helped Grammarly get into the B2B space from the consumer into the business and that was quite exciting. And before that I helped build Facebook's SMB ads business back when it wasn't even called the SMB ads business. And so SMBs small and mid sized businesses are near and dear to me more than just because of my career stints because my first job out of school was actually being the co founder of a startup Daniel where I learned I guess my single biggest lesson which is that the opposite of growth really hurts. And since then I've sort of moved into marketing to help other businesses find better ways to grow their own, their own business and then service. Last but not the least. I always tell people this. My real job has two very tiny human bosses at home. An eight year old and a very pesky five year old. And those are the people who are my hardest taskmasters. That's about me.
- [03:29]
A
Yeah, I mean I just got into dad life too, so that's my number one job right now. And then everything else is secondary. But I would say most marketers out there, when they think about I'm going to spend money, they look at Meta and Google and it doesn't mean that everybody's actually on those platforms or like their audience is on their platform, but they go straight to Meta and Google. And why do you. And I want you to like talk more about how you think about like the space right now, the ad space right now and why should people think beyond those two big, big channels?
- [04:09]
B
I think it ultimately comes down to where is your next best customer going to be and have you been able to connect with them? And equally as you're trying to connect with them, is your competition doing something similar in a much more crowded place? Which is where Meta and Google are right now. Right. Very powerful ad serving platforms. And what we found is it comes down to that first, the audience piece. Not many people actually know this. We're almost a billion users strong in the world today. Now, outside of a few apps in the world, this is a very big platform and service to be missing out on. But more importantly, what we've actually realized is that this audience isn't really found elsewhere. And as I mentioned, I'm an engineer turned marketer, so in true fashion, I actually asked my team, hey, can you actually go find data? We've been saying this for quite some time, but do we have data that actually proves it? Because I wasn't buying it initially. And what they came back with, Daniel, was eye opening for me. 78% of US Snapchatters will not be on Pinterest today. 40% of US Snapchatters will not BE on TikTok today. Almost a third will not be on Instagram today. And what that's telling us is that this particular audience that is using our service isn't really using many other services in the world today. The second portion that I think I talked about was if you are a marketer and you're trying to see is Meta and Google and some of the other peer services are right for my business, they likely are. The question for you as a marketer is where will I find my next biggest customer consumer there? What we're realizing is Snapchat ends up being the most efficient customer acquisition vehicle for you. And don't take it from me because I also didn't take it from my own internal team. So why should I ask you to take it from me? We actually went and spoke to independent players in the industry. So think North Beams of the World, Phosphors of the world, or Triple Whale. And it's their research over the last one year that's causing us to believe that we are the most efficient customer acquisition channel for many businesses who've tried us for the first time or given us a try again over the last year or two ROAS from one day to 90 day is increasing the most. And ultimately it's those two things that if you're a marketer that matter most to you is my audience here and am I going to get them at the most efficient and the most cost effective manner? And both of those are becoming more and more true of Snapchat than it was maybe a few years ago.
- [07:01]
A
I mean, I can know firsthand, say my cousins that are all Gen Z, they only, well, I only can text them if I'm on Snapchat. So they won't text on. They won't text on iMessage, they won't text on WhatsApp, they will only be on Snapchat to text. So they're actually using the platform for daily, their daily communication with all of their friends. So it goes beyond what traditional social media is scrolling, getting content as more people are living their life, talking to friends, having daily conversations on this platform versus Instagram, you might be sending stories and having some group text messages around Facebook. Not my generation, maybe my mom and up are using it to do messenger app and stuff. But I've never seen a group of people that are just solely talking on that platform as a messaging platform.
- [08:03]
B
It's actually quite funny you say that because you're exactly right. Many people will come to Snapchat and only use this service for pretty much everything they do. Scrolling content, connecting with their friends and family, finding out what's happening in the world around them, even figuring out where people are on a map. All of those apps that you think are standalone services in other platforms are all rolled into Snapchat. And so there's very little evidence that we see internally when people start using this service that they actually go and use other services just as much. One of the pieces that I think was an insightful piece, we continue talking to of course our consumers and our business users. And somebody told me the other day, I think Sid, that's the difference between one thumb and two thumbs. And I found that very fascinating. I'm like, tell me more. And he literally just used his left hand as a phone and said, well, this is what a thumb does on other platforms and just kept scrolling up, right? Whereas on Snapchat I'm using both my thumbs. And so my attention is squarely on the screen when I'm talking to somebody, when I'm connecting with a friend or family or I'm just interacting with a brand. And I thought that was quite insightful. And once we looked into our own data, we're finding that to be true as well. The other portion, I want to say this is also a myth that perpetuates a lot outside is well, Snapchat is just young people, right? That's about it in say 13 year olds. And that's true. The piece that people get surprised by is globally one in four Snapchatters are now 35 years or older. In US, half of Snapchatters are 25 years or older because they're growing up with the service. The service is itself more than a decade old now. So somebody who's in high school is now finding their first job. Somebody who was in college has found their first job, has probably settled down, is buying their first home and they're not leaving the service. And which is why we continue to grow our monthly active user base. So it's fascinating.
- [10:06]
A
It makes sense because I know for a fact I have the service to talk to all my Gen Z cousins. They will only call me on Snapchat, they will only text me on Snapchat. If I text them imessage, I'm on red on Snapchat I can text them and I get a response in two minutes on Snapchat and I'll get a video call on Snapchat. So I know for a fact but I want to go into more like let's go tactical on this Y so the biggest problem a lot of people are is like is measurement I would say I think how people measure today marketing and, and also how they set their budget before because meta has been working for and it's still a working channel. And you're, you're not telling people to stop marketing on Meta but that you're trying to tell there are other great customers that you're missing out on that aren't on Meta that could be on both platforms that you're, you're missing out because they're more on there more intently. So one like how do you recommend people like starting to go test a new platform like Snapchat and then also what is wrong with measurement and how could they make sure that they're measuring this correctly to show that, that what do you see in that? The actual ROI is of using a platform like Snap?
- [11:25]
B
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic question and something that I believe us digital marketers are still grappling with. I'm old and when I was growing up TV marketing was all the rage and the stat that used to be thrown around was we know half of TV marketing works, we just don't know which half. And that stat stuck with me because what that told me was, well, one, there's a number there, but that number is meaningless because you really can't do anything about it. And the second was it had this sense of throw your hands up in the air despair more. Right. Like I don't know. But I'm going to keep doing it because well, guess what, 10 other marketers or growth people I know are also doing it. And I think that's sort of traveled. That mentality has traveled with us on a different level now. And I've been trying to explain this in simpler ways and I think as usual my mini bosses explained this the best way to me. So my 8 year old explained this to me in the most fascinating manner. I call it the Hot Wheels ultimate car garage problem. And so I'll tell you a little bit of story of what happened there and then why I think it connects to your question, Daniel. So our five year old had his fifth birthday a few weeks ago. He's into hot wheels, what 5 year old isn't? And so my 8 year old took it upon herself to be the gift masters of the household to say, I'm going to papa, I'm going to go and find out the right gift for Arif. I said that's good, why don't you give it a try? So she researched online, she looked at Costco catalogs, Target catalogs, she looked up Amazon like a discerning consumer that she is, and she's quite smart. Ended up actually zeroing it on a Hot Wheels ultimate garage set and kept it in the cart, didn't buy it. She said we have at least eight days to order it. So I'm going to see if the price comes down. I'm like, yay, dad win right there. Finally, day five clicks it and buys it. That got me thinking, if I'm the Growth person on that product listing page for Hot Wheels Ultimate Car Garage on Amazon. Who am I going to give that credit to? It's probably a high credit to the product listing page, maybe a branded query because she was on ChatGPT and Google as well and searching for it. But ultimately what it all missed was some of these other touches that she had that actually influenced his journey. And you know the thing that made her buy this was the Netflix Hot Wheels series where the ultimate car garage is the first thing she sees and she knows how he reacts to that particular program. But Netflix was not in the journey. Now, I'm not advocating here for any particular platform. What I'm saying is it this whole journey was completely missed. And that's the Hot Wheels car garage problem, which is if you looked at 10 years ago, the only thing that would have gotten any credit, right. As a marketer I would have given any credit for was that last click from that product listing page in Amazon Fair, because that was the only thing I could measure. Now, with the multi touch attribution models out there and a lot of different companies and platforms making it simpler to understand measurement partners are able to attribute partial credit. Right, Sorry, I'm going to get nerdy here for a second. I'm an engineer, so. Well, there you go. And what that did was advertisers can now come back and say particular clicks had different weights. So I'm going to give this click from publisher 1 and this click from publisher 2 some credit and that's all rolled into my purchase. So I'm going to give this $100 purchase some partial credit elsewhere. What it still misses is that particular thing that actually made my daughter buy that set in the first place, which was the View, the long form video that she viewed. She didn't click on it, but that led to the branded queries and that led to the search. And I think one of our partners, actually a few of our partners have started doing some work here. So for instance, Fosva recently found out that there's a 32% uplift in the return on ad spend that happens when Amazon sales are included. Why is that? That's because people don't just buy immediately, they look for things, they research for pieces and they end up buying it elsewhere. Amazon being one such player. Another partner, North Beam, I think is doing bleeding edge work on this phase by their clicks and deterministic view model. And so what it's doing, at its very core it's allowing brands to track not just clicks, but really identifier signals in a view or an impression. It's a direct match and not a guess. And so the problem for marketers was well there's this probabilistic modeling that happens. So I'm not really sure if someone really viewed this ad because you're looking at IP device type and so on. With the deterministic view that North Beam is coming out with, it's really platform logins, it's first party keys and they're able to directly match that impression to that purchase that happened. And so now for the first time, marketers have real time knowledge of all this journey that led to a purchase. And when you build this very accurate first party data, you can actually solve that Hot Wheels car garage problem. And you probably will be able to give the credit to the right place that encouraged my daughter to buy it.
- [17:19]
A
We're also in a, we're in a more of an age of the Hot Wheels move. The hot wheel of like zero, like non click content of content. That and even more with AI now where you, if you like you have to build for an AI agent to query your stuff and not click on anything and not have multiple clicks. And that's going to even get harder for you because some of the marketers are going to do research not by themselves. An agent's going to go out and go go find the best SaaS tool, the best this for you and this if you don't have the right way to query. And then Hot Wheels. There's a reason why Hot Wheels are doing long form content too. Like yes. To buy kids. Like that's the reason why F1 people are paying a lot for F1, a lot of a lot for these long form Lego does Lego Movie. It's because they know there's like the halo effect of that when the Lego Movie, a kid watches a Lego Movie, they're going to like Legos.
- [18:24]
B
No, I think that's, that's exactly right. And this is the piece that's been very hard for marketers to wrap their brains around. Right. Because you've inundated everyone with data that's primarily last click or at least multi click ways. And I think it's these other touches in the consumer journey that are definitely getting missed or were getting missed and I think will get solved for you Raise a fascinating point about AI and I think for the first time at least in the last two decades we're going to see this move from discovery and search feedback into discovery and prompt feed where you and I are likely not going to end up searching on many many tools we'll get influenced by something either our friends and family, most likely some word of mouth, some ad, some impression somewhere who are going to go into and ask an agent to take that action on our behalf. And it takes a fundamentally different mindset for a marketer to know who to give credit to and where to allocate your media budget. At least as starter it's going to be a hard one for everyone to crack but I think it's an interesting space to keep watching for the problem.
- [19:35]
A
I also think is for the last 10 years we've overly indexed on marketing measurement to the point that it's making us not as creative as we want to be. And now the pendulum is swung from if you are this overly analytical marketer and doing none of the the creativity you probably are going to lose out because every AI could do probably better than you. Now platforms are getting smart with targeting and AI could do it for them. So what's left is creating great content creating creating great creative what's creating and if you're only relying on overly measurement I don't I, I I 100 think you need measurement tools like the ones you've mentioned and I 100 but I think there's also looking at your overall metrics and saying is is is roas go trending the right way? Is CAC trending the right way? Is blended trending the right way? Is our marketing trend at the right way and not overly indexing on things but but then it goes in the problem like that goes in the problem because meta is a walled garden. Google is a wall garden. Then there's a reason why they don't share data with each other because they want you to spend more on their platforms and they want you to feel like their platform is giving you all the credit when that Netflix movie that made someone go to hotwheels.com that got retargeted on Meta and some other is giving you credit and now I got to spend more on Meta because but it really was that Hot Wheels movie or that that content creator creating a cool video or that person and that's why you need to think broadly.
- [21:29]
B
I 100% agree and I think the piece Daniel that you hit upon is such an interesting insight that I think gets missed out and almost like the bread and the butter is the thing that's going away from our breakfast tables pretty quickly is finding the creative insight with where your customer's current headspace is. So I'll give you an example. The most used part of our service is chat. People come to Snapchat to chat, to connect with friends and family. And you're right, they don't use text messages and they don't use other services. In fact, my own wife who works at a small shop that also produces a messaging service ends up using Snapchat a lot more than using that service. What we find there is this full screen experience of just being able to connect visually is a very different creative environment. And if marketers bring the same creative that they were using for say lower funnel purchase campaigns on some other peer service, you create creative fatigue very quickly. And so the tips that I always give to people, particularly as you go to the holiday season right now is, you know what, hang on. Don't think about polished creative. Think about whitelisted ads from your creators or influencers who are talking about that category who are talking about you and just figure out a way to get that to be promoted. Use new concepts that are not about conversion directly but got you a lot of engagement elsewhere that ends up working and creating the top of funnel for you that you can then retarget later and then advertorial style videos that build trust. So don't try to sell me on something immediately. Try to tell me what your product, your service is all about first and that ends up building trust eventually builds conversion. Most of this stuff gets lost in this race for down funnel roas which is very important. But then you completely miss the creative element of it.
- [23:38]
A
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- [24:11]
B
Yeah.
- [24:12]
A
And I mean that's why there's like good platforms like Motion that you can like understand creative. There's platforms out there to help you. And I also think that people look at numbers like just because you're acquiring a customer, is it a good customer or bad customer? Is it the customer that you want? What was the creator that drove that customer to you? Is that the type of are you actually attracting like a loyal customer or a discount shopper or. I've worked with a couple companies that we did a good offer, but that offer attracted discount shoppers that are not at icp and then they never came back and bought again. So you have to also like think about what the, what the cause and effect. And also I think going back to fundamentals, like you said, basically what you said of how people are using the platform. Like actually look how people, your audience is using platforms. Look what creative works on that platform. Create creative that works on that platform. Whether it's whitelisting creators, short form video, being social first and driving, boosting organic content that did well. Like go look how people are doing. I think that's the problem is a lot of marketers aren't living in these platforms and then they're buying on these platforms, which is a total disconnect is if you buying on a platform that you're not using, you don't understand what works on that platform.
- [25:40]
B
Yeah, I think that's fascinating. That's mostly because people don't have time. Even with a deluge of all these tools that creates a sense of overwhelmed utility in that agent space. You basically have a flight for safety. What I know best is where I will continue to learn more. I think as marketers we need to be in that learning mindset. We got aware every now and then on the hat of our users and, and then go and check out how are they surfacing things.
- [26:11]
A
I want to, I want to get really tactical right now. I want to say like I'm going to do a hypothetical, you tell me what I do. So I say I'm a brand, I'm doing holiday shopping right now. I want to put some of my budget into Snapchat. What do you recommend I do? Like what is like the 1, 2, 3 step that would make me successful in testing Snapchat as a platform today?
- [26:36]
B
There are really three things that you should do, depends upon your budget. But there are really three things that I think every marketer should do. When you're first testing any platform, let alone Snapchat. But I think in Snapchat there's a third thing that's even more valuable. First, before you spend your first dollar, if you have a website or an app where you're trying to get this sale or this conversion or this purchase, make sure your data is integrated. Now whether that is a conversion app conversion API or a third party measurement partner or just plain installing Pixel, you should ensure in a privacy safe way that you're bringing your own data to work harder for you in that platform because the platform doesn't know just yet who's going to be the converting user for you. Right. Bringing that data is really integrally important. Most companies that succeed doing this, most marketers that succeed doing this do this piece really well. So that's really just the number one piece. The second, and we've seen this, when people do this, they get upwards of 20% increase in purchases and purchase value. They don't see this elsewhere before they put the data signal. The second piece that we ask all advertisers of any size to do is to allow the platform to target broad to place your ads in every part of their service because you're beginning to test the platform. So don't bring preconceived notions on. Hey, well my ads only perform on this feed based platform that has this particular Color app on iOS. Try and let this platform do what it does best for at least 14 days. 14 days is when most platforms are learning what is it that will perform better for you as a marketer. And then this last piece is try and see where the deepest engagement is happening on Snapchat particularly. And that's in chat. I was reading the study that Kanta released sometime back where sponsor Snaps, our newest ad product is proving to be the one of the most effective ways for brands to test new with new consumers. Well of course it opens into a full screen ad and so it leads to more lift and brand awareness. But more importantly it leads to 22% increase in incremental conversions. And when we're fighting for three or five point increases, 22% is a meaningful lift. So if you're a new brand coming with few hundred dollars to few thousand dollars a day to test, this is what you should do first. And the piece that's really easy that most people misunderstand. Daniel, all of what I just talked about is no more than 30 minute job. But before you hit the first purchase button, first ad campaign, this 30 minute job will be the difference between you winning and you figuring out that this testing worked for you.
- [29:56]
A
Yeah, I mean that's an easy, I mean the one which is the most, probably the most, what you said the most missed is making sure like the pipes are connected. I think like I always make this because I used to be a marketing ops. I used to be like make the analogy of like when someone goes by a house they always like say oh it has like a nice bedroom and has a nice like kitchen. It has nice appliances but they never go and like look and like say oh my goodness, the plumbing's all good. The like the electric electrical wires. But when they're in the house, they need the toy to flush and they need the, the electricity to turn on. And that's like the pipes of like your marketing. And like if you don't have that running a house without good plumbing and out good electricity is like running your marketing without those, those essential tools. And if you don't have that it all falls apart just like your house would fall apart. And I think that that's crucial. What you just said is like make sure that piece is because you need one, you need to collect data for yourself as a marketer and two, you need to make sure that things are flowing because we're under so much scrutiny and marketers so we have to be sure that this platform did this to do this. So I, I 100 agree like get the, get your pipes in order before running any marketing. I think that's a big issue that a lot of people run into. And that's also the big issue why people don't test other platforms too because they have like their pipes in order for like one platform and they don't know how to set multiple pipes to connect to one to make sure they testing things.
- [31:33]
B
Yeah. And this is where partners can come in really handy. Right. The pipes that connect to one platform can easily be hooked on for the other as well. And the, and the other piece that's really important that in that pipe analogy, if you are the city council in that, in that zone where your house is, you know that laying 10ft of extra pipe is always helpful at the end. And what marketers miss out is, well, I'm going to only connect my pipes to the platform where I intend to spend in the next two weeks. I would say go and connect your pipes to every platform because these are two way pipes. You're going to get data back into your marketing to know what's happening on unattributed purchases, what's happening on non paid media. And so there you can learn consumer insights that will actually make your marketing on the very platform you're spending much better. So you don't really need to spend at every platform to connect your pipes. But that 30 minute can help your current spend no matter where much more powerful.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah, it's like having an outlet in your house and saying okay, I don't use that outlet but now I need something there and now it doesn't work. There's no electricity and I have no more plugs in my house and now I don't know what to do. But if you just did that up front, you could Run faster as a marketing team. Like sometimes you just need to run faster and going back and doing the foundations again screw you up. So just do it ahead of time. So I like that analogy. But lastly, I just want to go into this because this was going to air right before holiday season and then going into like new Year. So for some companies they're thinking about I'm allocating budget for 2025 for, for new platforms for testing. Some people are doing people it's so it seems so easy to set up Snapchat that it could be a good. If you have test budget for Black Friday Cyber Monday, set it up. But I just want to just think about like how, how you, how would you think about marketers making sure they, they win for the holiday season and then beyond the holiday season for 2026 to set them up for to make sure that they are successful for the rest of the year.
- [33:48]
B
Yeah, that's such a great question. And certainly no one size fits all here, right? But there are a few tenets that I always advise any of my friends who are running companies today to do regardless of Snapchat. I think one, beyond the pipes portion. If you're trying to test something, it's like watching your toddler take the first few steps. Don't say the toddler can't walk because of the first fall they had in second minute. Give the toddler some time. Give their test some time. Usually in any platform, I see 14 to 21 days as that sweet spot. Now in the run up to Black Friday Cyber Monday, you're probably running up against that clock right now. So pick a platform where independent platforms are independent partners, measurement partners are saying is very efficient, and then stick to that test for at least 14 to 21 days. Even beyond Black Friday. The second portion is keep an eye on that creative fatigue. If that creative is pretty old that you've reused in other platforms and you're bringing here to Snapchat, see if it drives engagement very quickly because if it doesn't, you may need to change that creative. But don't, don't fiddle with the knobs. The knobs being your bidding strategy, the knob being the budget you're putting. The knob being the targeting you're putting. Because the more you're fiddling with the knobs, it resets any platform and they start the learning phase all over again. This is not snap specific. This happens everywhere, this cold start problem. But it's important for marketers to grasp that at times. I used to tell myself when I was running the last 100 million marketing spend was like, yeah, there's this innate desire to fiddle with the knob this Tuesday morning because I didn't see something Monday night.
- [35:39]
A
Yeah. And it's also, I mean meta, I mean the iOS, not meta but iOS update, I screwed that like with a 7 day click window and like some, and then some purchases happen, 10, 14, like 20 days. And then you're like looking at a seven day click window and you're like oh, it's not working so I need to stop. But really like we, and then that's also the problem where like some platforms where they say it's going down, it's just because like they changed like the window, not the, like the platform. It's like you changed how you measure, not because the platform is different. I mean the platform is going up in cost and all that. Like platforms are going up in cost. That's just how the world works. But a lot of people, like sometimes the window, like you got to know your purchasing behavior, your averaging purchasing behavior of your customer. Like some, some brands, it's a three day, four day, some brands is a 21, 30 day window. And you should know that when you're measuring a platform.
- [36:40]
B
Yes. And I, I would say seven days, roughly the right window. If you are offering a product or a service that can be bought that quickly. Again, take the consumer hat you probably don't take seven days to buy your most expensive car. However, if you're buying the most comfortable pajamas. Yeah, you probably will be able to make that decision in seven days. Right. So for the most brands, seven days, a good window to look into. So that's the second thing. Don't fiddle with the knobs, let the platform do its thing. The third thing that I think people do very quickly, and I can't understand why I've been guilty of doing it myself, is they start running formal lift tests very quickly. Very small budgets. You can't do it at very small budgets. Now I'm talking a couple thousand dollars a day. What you should do instead is to see is to pick the metric around first time new customers. How often are you reaching new customers with this early campaign? And then keep your guardrail metric as the blended roas or blended CPA. Is that over a seven day window in roughly the ballpark you wanted, plus minus 20, 25% because it will settle in as conversions get reported more through your new pipes. But fiddling with the knobs and then looking at the wrong metrics means your test will fail even if the platform probably didn't and then the last portion, which I think many platforms don't do well today and it's, it's bewildering. Why you should get in touch with your account team at that platform and tell them if you're not seeing something you're supposed to or equally you're seeing something you're not. And that's something that a Snapchat. We have a war room during this period where people will respond to your texts very quickly in your support team, lean on them, they will help you fix something if something is indeed broken. So in this holiday period, those are four tactics to do very quickly. Get your pipes in order, bring creative, keep looking at the creative and don't fiddle with the knobs. Look at this right, very early metrics. And then if something isn't really working before hitting the end button, talk to the support team. Talk to your sales team. As you look further into 2026, the ultimate question is again, are you looking for new customers or not? And if you are, try building an always on mid funnel or top of funnel strategy. Okay. And what we found is when people actually optimize for reach and impressions or people optimize for high level clicks, they end up converting over a seven day, 28 day window. But if you're always on, the seven day window creates a lot higher OAS and many brands, what they make the mistake of is like I'm going to only come into new platforms during this Black Friday Cyber Monday push or during the end of your push and then I'm going to go down to zero once they're doing it. It's kind of like medicine for you when you're sick. Like it's a 21 day course, man. You can't just get off the medicine on day 13 and then come back and pick it up on day 18 again. You need to let the system know who your recurring customers are and then the platform builds learned intelligence about who to send your way. So don't just go into sine waves of spend. Keep it consistent.
- [40:14]
A
Last question I have for you is what is a marketing hill you would die on?
- [40:20]
B
So is this like a badge on table kind of principle?
- [40:24]
A
Yeah, it's like I truly believe this in marketing your opinion and it could be like something that you've held right now. It doesn't have to be strongly held opinion right now.
- [40:36]
B
I think it would be to take on the founder mindset. So it's nothing about the discipline of the craft itself, Daniel, it's about the way you approach your job. Meaning Are you stepping into your CEO or your CFO's shoes as you're going about your decisions today? And too often I find marketers who do really, really well ask this question every single day. And equally I've seen people who struggle can't recall the last time they asked themselves this question. And the reason that's the hill to die on is if you ask yourself this question again, you will truly serve the discipline which is to bring new customers but drive profitable growth for your brand and business. That's ultimately the gig. And asking this question helps you get there. The these. The other piece to it and how people have seen do very well at this hill to die on is they make things super boring, man. Boring being their badass philosophy where things are repeatable, consistent so you don't really have to guess and go after new shiny projects every single time. So if you keep things boring and you keep asking yourself the question, am I wearing my CEO, my CFO hat? That's a very good hill to be on. And frankly a hill I've died on more than once in my career.
- [42:00]
A
No, I do believe that. I was talking to Preston who is the co founder of Chubby's and we were talking about how if you just think about contribution margin and profit when you're as like a sexy metric over revenue, like, like you as a marketer shouldn't be spending X amount and trying to get X amount and then like your revenue is going up but like your margins are shrinking like you should. But also like you should under like I've always thing you like the first thing you should do is get was finance. Understand the business you're in, understand like the numbers, understand like how the business works. Before you do anything in marketing like put a your business hat on instead of like a marketer hat because that will help you win. So I 100% agree on that. Lastly, where could people find you and Snapchat and all that good stuff?
- [42:56]
B
Well, I'm on, I'm on Snapchat. I'm the SMB guy on Snapchat. Like literally the SMB guy on Snapchat. That's my handle. But hey, I'm equally available on LinkedIn. I have my text messages and email that are really good. The other place I'm found is actually talking to founders in their rooms and offices. And so I'm the guy sitting in the corner trying to figure out how to hack this demo out to ship the next product out for my business friends. I love it.
- [43:28]
A
Thank you so much and go follow the SMB guy. He's going to be like the number one Snapchat creator for SMB soon. He probably is right now. I need to go follow. I need to spend more time. I literally spend time on Snapchat just to talk to my cousins but then I get all the that so and I get addicted to opening them because I hate having an unread Snapchat. So you, you, you got me. So thank you so much for coming on and I really appreciate it.
- [43:58]
B
No thank you and have a fantastic holiday season man.
- [44:03]
A
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.