Fix Your Broken Ads | Skip Wilson

Skip Wilson | Fix Your Broken Ads

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Matt Edmundson: Welcome to the e-Commerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. This is a show all about helping you deliver e-commerce. Wow. And to help us do just that today I am chatting with the legendary Skip Wilson from Draft Media Partners about all things advertising.

Oh, yes. We're gonna get into all kinds of weird, wonderful stuff, some unique formulas as well. If you're watching on video, you can see on the whiteboard behind us. The guy likes maths, right? So , right? We are gonna get into all of that. Uh, so very warm. Welcome to you. If this is your first time with us on e-Commerce podcast, a very, very, very warm welcome to you.

Uh, I hope you stick with us. Do like and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast from. And of course, we have the obligatory newsletter, which you can sign up [email protected]. If you just head over to that website. Fill in the form, we'll send you out our weekly newsletter, [00:01:00] jam packed full of all kinds of goodness, uh, that's coming your way every week.

Oh yes, now let's talk about Skip. Skip started his advertising journey at 16 as a copywriter and quickly became a digital media pioneer. From shaping CNN's iReport team to leading iHeartMedia's digital growth, his influence is legendary. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Now as the founder of Draft Media Partners and host of the Advertising Podcast, which is a great podcast, by the way, uh, he's all about innovative solutions and practical insights, making marketing magic happen for businesses everywhere.

Oh yes. Skip, welcome to the show, man. Great to have you. Great to actually chat to you in person. Uh, I, I've been looking forward to this one, man. How are you doing?

Skip Wilson: Same, same. I'm doing, doing, doing well. Thank you for having me.

Matt Edmundson: Oh no, no, no, tell me about the advertising podcast, or tell everybody about the advertising podcast, let's just tell everybody why they should listen.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, so [00:02:00] well, so the, the idea behind it was one of the things that I realized no one seems to have a skill set for even experienced advertisers is like fixing broken campaigns. And so that's essentially the format of the show is we take a campaign that's not performing. And we fix it because it's really, you know, a lot of times, uh, marketing in particular, marketing, you know, a broader category and specifically advertising, but specific to the advertising piece of marketing, it is a science.

Like there is an objective. You should be getting clicks for this much. You should, those clicks from this source or if it's a traditional media source or whatever, should be converting at this percent. And if those things aren't, Meeting that objective standard. It's like, okay, well, that's the problem. So it's, it's very much like fixing an engine or anything else.

And that's essentially what we do on the, on the podcast. It's like, all right, where's this thing breaking? There's where it's broken. Let's figure out why it's broken.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Sounds like fun.

Skip Wilson: I

Matt Edmundson: mean, do you enjoy [00:03:00] doing

Skip Wilson: that? I do. Yeah, yeah, it's the, to me, it is very much like, Working on like an engine or a, you know, any sort of like any sort of technical task.

It's just not that it's just lives out there somewhere, but it's the same concept. It's like, all right, it's, it's getting electricity to this point. So we know it's good from there to there. What's going on here.

Matt Edmundson: Where'd you get your guests from then? Or where'd you get the broken campaigns? I mean, do you advertise for those or is it just an endless supply?

Skip Wilson: Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, the world is not is not devoid of broken campaigns. We do ask the guests to to bring some with them and we did we also to we always have one or two in the bag because inevitably about A third of the guests, you know, don't bring one up, which is fine. So we have, we have our sort of deep bench of both our own campaigns that we've, that we've worked on, uh, that may be underperforming.[00:04:00]

You know what I mean? We have this month, 125 active clients. I would love to say that every single one of those campaigns is perfect, but you know, the reality is, There are sometimes campaigns, it's like, hey, this one's, you know, especially early campaigns, the first couple of months, uh, that things need to be tweaked.

And, as a matter of fact, I would say no campaign doesn't need tweaking along the way. Yeah. And so, sometimes it's our own campaign, sometimes it's campaigns we found, and you, in theory, the guest is supposed to bring one.

Matt Edmundson: In theory.

Skip Wilson: Yes,

Matt Edmundson: in theory, we've all got those in theory, the guest is dot, dot, dot. In theory, the guest is supposed to do dot, dot, dot.

We've all had that. I fully appreciate what you're talking about. Um, so the, I was talking to a friend of mine this morning, actually, I was on his show, a guy called, um, Sean O'Neill. He's got a podcast called Sean O'Neill Meats, which has nothing to do with eCommerce. He just chats to really interesting people.

And for whatever reason, he asked me to go on to his [00:05:00] show. I didn't quite understand, but, uh, we were talking about failure and, uh, in interesting how, especially in eCommerce, failure is, is something that we try and create. We try and create room for failure. Split testing in effect is figuring out what works and what doesn't work.

You're looking for failure, aren't you? You're looking for where it's not working. And it strikes me that actually this is. So, um, I think that's, in part, what you do with ad campaigns, especially at the start. It's like, building, I guess my experience here is, you have to build in the understanding that things aren't going to be hit in the ground or running at 100 miles an hour from day one, right?

And, um, so you are going to get these, even with the best agencies.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, exactly. The best, you know, with all the research and things that we have at our, at our, at our hands, that's still just a guess, right? Like you're still guessing at a campaign of, you know, Hey, these are the two or three headlines we think will work.

Hey, here's the, you know, the tactics that we think the audience is living on, [00:06:00] but you never know until something actually starts. How it's going. And that's true of campaigns. We work with a, usually we're working behind the scenes of other ad agencies and some of those ad agencies will spend, you know, several tens of thousands of dollars on research before a campaign.

Wow. And it's still really, ultimately, you don't know until. You start running the ads, like which, which of those things, which of those things are going to actually click. And to your point, we have, uh, it's packed in a box. We just moved offices, which is why it's fairly sparse here. But, um, and so it's somewhere in a box out there is, is our big sign.

One of our core phrases on repeat internally is that there's no failure, only feedback. Because the idea of a campaign failing. Is just lazy in today's world because you should be able to figure out, okay, maybe this platform isn't right for my audience. Maybe that's oftentimes, I think, a lazy excuse to you.

It's like, all right, maybe, you know, [00:07:00] a piece of an ad may fail, a section of it may fail, a landing page may fail, an offer may fail, but a campaign should never fail. It's always, as long as you're tweaking and making things better along the way. All right. It's, it's going to work.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, you'll get there eventually.

Um, exactly. You'll get there and you'll find, and this is, um, I think this is probably when I speak to eCommerce owners, one of the biggest complaints that they have, like using agencies and I've not, I've not spoke to your clients. Just want to caveat everyone that I'm about to say, skip. Uh, this is not about your company, but generally speaking, the, the, the complaint people have is, They gave the agency a shed load of money and nothing happened.

So in their mind, the whole thing failed, right?

Skip Wilson: And a lot of times that is the case. I will say that that's one of my complaints in the industry with about my own industry as well, is that a lot of them lack the resources to properly track and measure things or even the mentality. There's [00:08:00] also a certain amount of fear, usually of, you don't necessarily want to be the one to call up your client.

First and say, Hey, we're a week into this thing, and nothing's happening. Whereas we very much try to be proactive with those things. 'cause you know, it should be, Hey, we're a week into this thing and nothing's happening, so da da, da, you know, we're gonna do this, this, and this. The, but that takes a certain amount of courage, which, you know, if you're, if it's a top level.

And, you know, you're trying to make payroll next week. It can be, it can be scary to make those phone calls. So I have sympathy for, uh, for my industry, but at the same time, yeah, that's, you shouldn't go, you shouldn't spend a ton of money. And then three months later go, okay, where are my results? There were no results.

Sorry, that's, that is a, that is a failure on, on that agency's part, for sure.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. Why, I mean, am I right in assuming that actually you, you, you don't need to wait three months. You should know fairly quickly whether something's going to work or whether it's not going to work, whether you tweak it, whether you keep it, [00:09:00] um, going on that, on the right track.

Skip Wilson: And, you know, five years ago, that's been true from, for digital advertising for a long time now, and, but even traditional media now, you know, five, five months ago, I would have, or excuse me, five years ago, I probably would have said that traditional media is still a place where you do have to wait it out a little bit, but even that's not true anymore because we do get more or less real time feedback from even direct media campaigns now, because you can see like what, what's happening to site traffic.

Compared to that radio or TV campaign, and so literally I can't think of a paid media tactic. That's not very trackable.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? And I, I, it, what intrigues me, I suppose, and I, I appreciate we have just going all around the house at the moment, but these are just the questions that come into my head.

Um, as we're chatting, skip one of them, I guess then is, um, if things are trackable, why is attribution so [00:10:00] hard?

Skip Wilson: So, attribute, so, the problem is knowing what to track, and that's actually, I mean, that's why, I mean, shameless plug, but that is why we usually are working with creative agencies and other, because most, most ad agencies are actually marketing agencies, they're, they're building the messaging, building brand stories, all those things, which are all very important, um, and we don't do any of that, but what we do is purely tracking and building and scheduling the actual paid media itself, The reason for that is because knowing what to track is a little bit of an art itself.

In other words, um, we have, uh, let's say that we're trying to sell a course. Actually, I'll give you, I'll give a real example from yesterday. I can't name drop the client because it's, uh, it's one that, um, it's one that's behind a, an NDA, but that's the downside of The way our business is structured is we are working on a white label basis a lot, but whatever.

Um, [00:11:00] yeah, but the, uh, but it's a, it's an eCommerce place and they're trying to sell, they were running ads trying to sell this, this dog collar, this, this dog collar that basically will keep your dog from pulling on the leash. It's a very cool product, very innovative product. They've done a lot of testing and it's, and, uh, the product itself is great.

The problem is, is they're running ads. Uh, that, you know, before working with us, they were running ads to try to sell the product. And that seems like the smart thing to do, right? It's like you should run paid ads to try to sell this product because of course you should. But the problem is, is that there is nobody out there that's searching for a product that they don't know exists.

Right. Right. Like they don't know that that's a solution. So search is out. The best thing you could get is something that's semi closed, like. A choke collar or something else. And uh, so at best you can get close to it. Also shopping ads are much more expensive [00:12:00] per click, 8, 9 a click, those types of things and getting cold traffic to convert on an unknown product is almost impossible.

So tracking attribution for that type of campaign, it's like, Oh, well, you know, that's a, that's an easy one where it's like, well, we can't really track attribution, blah, blah, blah. The reality is that they were, the campaign was just structured wrong. What they should be doing, and what, what we've made the change to, is they also have a dog training course on how, on basically how to get your dog to not pull on the leash.

That's, every person that's in that course has the problem. So I'm like, we need to be running ads to this course. It's free.

Yeah.

Skip Wilson: To build the database, but then you're selling the product. So it's, it's not so much that things aren't, the attribution's not there. It's knowing which piece to track because then it's like, okay, for this ad, how many web signups are there?

I'm not tracking ROI for that ad. I'm tracking web, I'm tracking [00:13:00] core signups. And then for core signups. I'm tracking how many of those course signups are then converting into customers. So it's knowing what to track that's a little bit of an art, which is why I am such a math guy. That's why you got to know where the formulas are.

Matt Edmundson: You're going really well with my son. He's a bit of a math genius, that kid. He's just graduated with a degree in Mathematics. What was it he graduated with? Master's Degree in Theoretical Physics. And it's just, it's basically made up maths is what it is from what I understand. And so he loves all of this kind of stuff, which is genius.

Um, so I, let me go back to that example with the dog leash, because again, I just want to draw out something that you pulled out there. So they got it wrong because they were using ads to try and sell the product, which is the default for 99. 9 percent of people. Right. Years ago. I remember there was this big push.

You don't sell the product. You sell the lead magnet, which in effect sells the product. And then it just went straight in just to sell the product. Um, [00:14:00] but here you are using a strategy, which in effect creates, you've got a lead magnet, sell the course. Anybody that's on the course is going to be interested in the.

Interest in the, in the, in the collar. So let's then promote the collar to them. How much more effective was that or is that obviously without revealing confidential data, I'm kind of curious because it's a slightly different strategy, isn't it? The lead magnet product.

Skip Wilson: It is. Yeah. Well, I mean, they went from a, from a roughly one times ROAS, they were.

We were breaking even to now they're, now they're at four or five times zero. So I mean, it, it, it's definitely there still, I mean, four or five times. We're trying to get them to eight times, but, so full disclosure, that's one that we're still, we're still working on, but still from, from breaking even to making five times.

That's pretty, that's pretty good. Um, the rea the problem in the, in the, one of the problems that entrepreneurs especially, and I would say eComm, eComm folks seem to fall into this a lot, is that they is. The problem that I call like nothing buttery, they fall into, Oh, nothing but this or [00:15:00] nothing but that.

So lead magnets aren't anything new, but, uh, so some folks are like, okay, we, then we should always run ads to a lead magnet. The problem is, is that that might not be right for your product. We also have another client that's a coffee client that is a, uh, cold, essentially a concentrated cold brew coffee.

Actually then I can shout out Estate 98. Great, great stuff. That one's not behind, that one's not behind an NDA. The, uh, but you know, it's a 25 coffee purchase. Everyone knows what coffee is. It's 25 bucks. They have great creative that talks about why theirs is better. For that one, we are running straight purchase ads.

So it just depends on, you know, but it's a very different type of sale. It's a 300 product that nobody knows what it does versus a 25 product that everyone instantly knows what it is. You have to sort of figure out where you are on that scale because we as an industry do, especially if you're like reading Reddit forums and seeking advice and all those things, you can fall into a, Oh, [00:16:00] nothing but this is working right now.

So that's what I'm going to do for my business. It really depends on what your, where your product stands. Do people know what it is and does instantly? If so, shopping ads might work, especially if it's at a lower price point.

Matt Edmundson: That's really interesting. And I'm, do you, do you start off then with sort of like an intuitive feel about this?

So a client comes to you and, uh, and selling a product, do you intuitively know what kind of things is going to work? I guess I'm, the reason I'm asking this is. If I'm starting out in eCommerce, if I'm, you know, building a brand new site, or I'm starting to get a bit more interested in using paid media, how do I know where to begin?

I don't have the deep pockets. I don't have all the fancy research. I don't have the experience. How do you feel it out?

Skip Wilson: The, the answer to your question is yes, at this point, at this point in my life, I can more or less within a few seconds, say. Hey, this is what the campaign needs to be, but that's only because of repetition.[00:17:00]

Uh, but I hopefully if you know, uh, if you've learned, if you know anything about me yet, it's that I am very much a process person because we have new hires that don't have that experience and I want them to be able to do the same thing. The, and I didn't create this, but there's what's called problem aware, solution aware.

Um, those two, those sort of, those sort of two camps.

Yeah.

Skip Wilson: Um, or not problem, not problem, not solution aware, which is, you know, or not problem aware, not problem aware means that you've got a product that solves a solution. The problem that nobody realizes they have something like the ShamWow is a perfect example of that, right?

It's like the, you know, nobody thought, Oh, I wish I had a better paper towel. Right. That wasn't a problem that anyone realized, but the minute they saw it and you know, for those types of campaigns, you have to demonstrate the product, highlight why it's a problem. Same type of thing with, uh, you know, a lot of medical advertising is that way where, um, someone may [00:18:00] not even realize like restless, restless leg syndrome was classic, you know, example of that, where it's like people don't even know that that was a disease that existed.

And then now you're running ads about it. Yeah. Talk about the problem and it's like, Oh, okay. The, so if someone is, um, not problem aware, then you very much need long formats. Your goal is to educate the consumer. You're gonna need, you can't run direct sales because no one's going to buy it because nobody even knows that they have that problem, right?

So you can't do, uh, social media is going to be a big lift unless you're doing long form social media. Uh, in other words, if you're doing. If you are doing social media ads, it needs to be pushing to something that has a little bit more education behind it. So that's, so that's that category is the problem I'm solving to the people know that they have it.

If not, you need more long form types of ads. So video ads. Audio ads, you know, things like Spotify, those types of things. Uh, those are going to convert better and do better because you need to let people know [00:19:00] they've got a problem. If people are problem aware, the, the, the dog collar example is one where anybody that's got a big dog knows, man, I wish this thing would stop pulling, right?

So that's one where they are problem aware. They're not solution aware. They may not even know that there is such a solution. So in that case, running a sales product also, isn't going to work. Because they've never even thought of such a thing, right? People aren't going to go from having never heard of something to purchasing it if they're not even sure what it does, right?

They're going to want to do research. They're going to want to do stuff. So, in that case, uh, we, the better solution is you run ads to a lead magnet that solves that problem a little bit, as much as you can, for free, and then, that's when you follow up. So, that's a good case where you do use a lead magnet.

So, if they're problem aware, but not solution aware. That's the way to go. And then the, the last category is solution aware. You know, that coffee is a perfect example of that. I [00:20:00] know what coffee is. I've had it a million times in my life. So then you run ads. You can do more shopping ads, lower funnel ads that are basically why your product's better.

Boom, then now we go. So that was kind of a long answer, but those are the sort of three buckets I try to figure out. Like this product, what does it solve? Do people know they've got the problem? Yes or no? I need to let them know that. If they do know they've got the problem, but they don't know that there's a solution out there, can't run shopping ads.

And then if they are, if they are problem and solution aware. That's all shopping ads.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. That's fair enough. That's very, very helpful. Uh, thank you. What is then, um, in my notes, Skip, Skip's conversion equation?

Skip Wilson: Yeah. So the conversion, like that's right there. It's probably too small, too small to read. The, uh, the conversion equation.

So a conversion happens if the top number divided by the bottom number comes out to anything greater than one. [00:21:00] But when I'm looking at. A landing page or I'm looking at a piece of creative urgency and desire need to be urgency, desire, and trust need to be higher than, so it's like urgency plus desire plus trust in parentheses.

That's on the top divided by delay, cost and effort. So if it's, if delay, cost and effort are higher than how much I want it. How quickly I can get it or, um, how much I believe you will actually be able to do it, then I'm not going to buy it. So to, to walk through, you know, a very real example of that, if I am looking for, well, we'll use the, we'll use the dog walk, we'll use the dog walk example.

That's why it doesn't convert. If it's, if somebody is only problem aware. I have no trust. So the trust on a scale of one to 10 is a zero because I've never even heard of this type of product before. I've never seen it. My neighbor doesn't [00:22:00] have one. You know, it's, it's, so the trust is zero. Desire is kind of also zero.

That's why you would want to focus on lifestyle images and those types of things because everybody wants to live an active lifestyle and walk with their dog and those types of things. So you can, so that's why you want to focus on that because you want to get desire as high up as possible. So, but natural desire, desire for the collar is zero, right?

Yeah. Nobody can, nobody woke up this morning going, man, I wish I could get a new collar for my dog. The, the desire for the lifestyle is high. So that's why you'd focus on that. So, depending on how you do that, let's say desire is like an 8. And then urgency, it's not an urgent problem. It's not something that somebody's going to die tonight if they don't get it solved.

So that's why I would not, so, essentially zero trust, say maybe a 6 out of 10 for, uh, for desire. And I would say maybe a three out of 10 for urgency is maybe they did just buy the dog and it's still young enough in those. [00:23:00] So three out of 10 delay, cost and effort. Well, it's caught it's three, it's a 300 product.

So high cost. So already it's already, I know that's not going to convert. So that's why shopping ads not going to work for that, for that type of product. Um, whereas if I'm selling a free course about how to, about how to train your dog, about how to train your dog, not, not to pull on a leash, no cost. It's a, I can see that it's a two, it's a one hour video.

So low effort, no real delay. I can watch this video and then now I know, right? So very low at the bottom. I believe I've taken training courses before, so I know what it does. So I've got a high trust. I would love to be able to walk with my dog. So now I'm at a, still a six or seven out of 10 and, uh, still zero, still zero out of urgency, but because of the rest of it.

It works out. That's the conversion equation in a nutshell.

Matt Edmundson: Very good. That's very helpful. And so you take the top divided by the bottom and the [00:24:00] answer has got to be more than one.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, exactly. You rate each one on a scale of one to 10. And there, what I like about that equation and the reason I broke each section out like that is because each of those can be ramped up or down.

So trust can be ramped up or down, but that's where like testimonials come in on a page, right? Like product reviews, testimonials, those things increase trust that this thing will actually do what you're claiming. Lifestyle images, those types of things raise desire up, right. Nobody wants the vitamin, right.

Everybody wants, you know, to be smarter, faster, stronger. Um, urgency, that's where you can do things like if you have no natural urgency in your product, that's where you can do like weekend only sales or yeah. The next three days. So each of those like metrics can be ramped up or down. So that's why, uh, that's why I like separating them out that way.

Matt Edmundson: And the ones on the bottom, actually, um, the delay, cost and effort. If I look at those, they're actually more product related, aren't they? So [00:25:00] they become actually a little bit more complicated to try and resolve. But I think still probably quite helpful because when you're designing product or trying to improve your product, you can look into those three areas and go, how can I improve those?

Skip Wilson: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's why you, you don't even if you could charge, you know, let's say for the dog collar, you know, they arrived at that price point because they, because they needed to, it wasn't just because they're greedy. They landed at 299. If they could have sold it for 199, they would, right?

You want that cost to be as low as possible to increase the number of, um, effort. If there's anything that you can do to reduce the effort it takes to use, Your product or even to checkout to get started to implement it. Anything you can do to reduce effort, you should be doing. So that's why things like one click checkouts and those types of things, that just reduces the process of the actual checkout itself.

But then from a product design side, yeah, anything you can do to make it as easy as possible to use the better. [00:26:00] And then. Delay, you know, if you can, I'd rather, I'd rather lose a hundred pounds today than a hundred pounds over the next two years. Right. But yeah, the, uh, so delay as much as you can shrink that as possible.

If I did lose a hundred pounds today, I would be probably super unhealthy.

Yeah, you're

Matt Edmundson: probably right. I'd do it though. Let's have a go. You see what happens. Yeah, exactly. Like, I'll try it. Sure. See if we get on. And it's totally, it's totally fun. The, um, it's interesting, isn't it? When you think about those different things, when it, in relation to advertising. So how can you increase urgency, desire, and trust, and how can you lower.

The delay, the cost and the effort. So as an advertiser, you definitely have sway on more of those and others and you have tools in your basket to make those better. Um, and I like the equation because it's not just about you. It's about you and the product. And it's not just [00:27:00] about the product. It's about the product and the advertising, which I appreciate.

You know, it is one of those things that people still, as simple as it sounds, I still am amazed by the amount of people that think, I've got a really good product, why is no one buying it? And it's, it's still the most extraordinary thing I think in eCommerce, um, or I've spent 500 bucks on advertising, yet no one's buying my product and it's kind of like, well, these things kind of answer each other a little bit, you know, and it, it, it, it, it still intrigues me how that, how that actually works.

Where do you, um. Where do you see it all going at the moment? Because the advertising for eCommerce, you know, depending on where your budget's at, if you're starting out, it's complicated if you're, if you've, you know, if you've been around, you've got some good budget behind you, you've, you know, how to track you, you know, we've got some good return on ad spends and all that sort of stuff.

Um, yeah. Where do you, where do you see it going? We're recording, where are we? July 2024. So at the time of recording halfway through [00:28:00] 24. Um, where do you see this industry going over the next 12 months? Because I think it's a really complex question to, if you were to ask me, I don't know how I would answer it.

So I'm curious to know what you would say.

Skip Wilson: There, paid advertising essentially is renting an audience. You know, you're paying to get in front of an audience, a specific audience with some specific message. To achieve some specific result. And I think that piece will not change, at least probably in my lifetime.

Yeah, I think we've got probably a good a hundred year or so runway of paid media being getting a specific audience, a specific message, and then tracking a specific result. As far as which platforms, which tactics, those types of things, it's that's always, that's always changing. So what I, so. The, the things that I think are good and bad, the, the good, [00:29:00] the AI getting it.

So like, you know, if you've, I don't know if you've started a Google ads campaign and just like the last couple of weeks, but AI now will fill out headlines and those types of things for you, which can be helpful. It's helpful for someone trying to do their own ads may, and it very well may do a better job than someone who doesn't know what they're doing at.

But the downside to that is that it's so easy. I do worry about, uh, someone being like, Hey, I was able to build that ad campaign in like, you know, just a couple of minutes because that's just increasing the speed and eases, you know, at ease of you just like, you know, kind of making money disappear. Right.

Yeah. So that's, There's good and bad to it. Uh, I think AI in general is a good thing for, for the ad industry. Um, it just makes, you know, teams, I mean, we use it, it makes, you know, teams able to scale and, and the, and those things, but I do worry about solopreneurs in [00:30:00] particular leaning on it too much. So that's, that's, I would say that's the most like immediate threat.

The other thing too, that I think is changing a lot. Is the, uh, obviously cookies going away and those types of things that sort of already happened, but because of that, there is a sense of, well, we can't do audience targeting that well anymore, and that's very much not true. If anything, you, this doesn't apply if you're starting out, if you're starting out, you kind of, you, you really need to start building your database right away.

But if you have any sort of customer database whatsoever, audience targeting is not going away for you. You can still very much use that audience, create lookalike profiles, those types of things. That's you very much have a way to still have very targeted ads, even as things like cookies, sunset, those things.

So use your first party data, uh, even if it's relatively small, as long as it's more than five or so, 500 or so people, um, you're, you're good.

Matt Edmundson: That's really, I like that because it's, it, It [00:31:00] feels in the opposite spirit to what I'm hearing a lot of people say at the moment, you know, cookies are going or gone and therefore we're screwed.

Right? Yeah, it seems to be the general consensus of opinion. But actually that I always feel like whenever something like whenever there's a big change like this, there's, you know, There's opportunity and you either find it or you get left behind by it, right? And you, right. And so it's nice to hear a refreshingly different viewpoint that actually, no, you can still talk.

You just need to think a little bit data, uh, a little bit data. It's actually

Skip Wilson: a little bit about your own. Yeah. Yeah. Differently about your own data and use your own data, which is actually better data anyway. So that's,

yeah.

Skip Wilson: I'm, I'm glad about the, the cookie sunsetting because, uh, and not because of the privacy.

I, somebody who personally doesn't care about privacy at all, but I care about others. If someone does care about it, that's great. You should, but as far as my own, I'm like, yes, always allow it. But the, um, but I'm glad about it retiring because there was such a [00:32:00] reliance on cookies that Yeah, I think that was bad for the industry anyway, because a lot of those in market, you know, like we, we have a lot of car dealer clients and those in market for car dealer, you're considered in market for a car dealer by most of those platforms for 120 days, even though you're actually only in market for a car for 30 days.

So it's a lot of those were bad audiences anyway. So

Matt Edmundson: yeah,

Skip Wilson: so I'm good. I'm glad.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you and me both. Cause I'm hoping that I don't have to keep clicking those stupid popups. Um, I just want to get onto the website and have a look. Why do I need to, you know, thanks GDPR, but go away, you know, and I, it's, it's interesting you talk about how, I think you're right in, I think marketing has got lazy.

Um, it's probably a good way to put it in, in many ways. And, and I think this is where AI is going to have an interesting play because if you're semi average at what you do, usually means you're a little bit lazy in the ad space. Then AI is [00:33:00] actually a fairly reasonable replacement for you. And if you're starting out, you can build your own campaigns because why would I go and spend, you know, whatever X amount of dollars or pounds with this chap over here that's actually going to give me the same result because he's mediocre.

It's the guys that actually, that are, that are. I think at the top of their game that are actually a craftsman at what they do. Um, they're the guys I think actually can go, actually, I can put my prices up now, um, because I'm really going to be in demand because we're, you know, AI is always trying to catch up to us in some respects.

And I think, um, that tends to be where I see it going in the ad space, which I'm really excited about actually. Um, and I'm excited about it because if you are new to eCommerce, or if you're just starting out, the opportunities for you now, it's almost become a level playing field a little bit for you guys, because you don't have to go and spend necessarily thousands of dollars.

Dollars or pounds to get started. You can actually get a little bit of help to jumpstart. And then as you get bigger and better, bring people in. Is that a fair comment?

Skip Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. [00:34:00] I mean, I remember, I mean, when I was starting out, I mean, now 20 years ago, there was a time where you needed to have things like focus groups and testing.

And before you could, before you could even responsibly put together an ad campaign, now you can get much better information. By putting a hundred bucks into ads and seeing like, uh, which of these headlines is doing better? Which of these, you know, which of this feedback is doing better? So it is very much a great time to be starting out.

Just make sure that you are, uh, just make sure that you have someone besides yourself, especially if you invented the product, if you are, if you have a lot of buy into your own product, in other words, if you're the creator of it, make sure you have someone that's not you. Read your stuff before it goes live.

Anyway, have a barista, like read it over, do whatever. But, uh, that's, that's one of the, one of the most common things I see is, yeah, it's somebody who invented some product and then you read the description and you're like, I don't know what the hell this thing does. Yeah. [00:35:00]

Matt Edmundson: I think that's a really interesting point, Skip.

I, the amount of times you see assumed knowledge. And you see this in in so many different industries, um, assumed knowledge, the the the unwritten assumption that you actually know what the hell I'm talking about, I think is problematic just across the board in so many ways, isn't it? And I, and I find myself doing this, I find myself Like, on the podcast, I try and, if you, for example, came up with a three letter acronym or something, I would probably stop you and go, what does that mean?

Not because I'm being awkward or difficult, but because I'm aware that people listening to the show will go, I don't, I just don't know what you're talking about. Do I mean? How do I know what an ERP is, or, do you know what I mean? All these sorts of things that we like to throw out, because we get so caught up in the weeds and we get sort of so tunnel vision with the whole thing that we forget people don't know what we know.

And it's so true when you've been caught up in [00:36:00] product, your product, um, to have somebody who doesn't know anything about it, read your copy and tell you what they think it is, is quite an interesting idea. And I, and I, I'm a big fan of that. Um, I'm a big fan of, of getting people going to your website that, um, don't know you don't know your product.

Don't tell me what you think, you know, and, uh, and getting that information out of them because I think it's super, super helpful. And that when they ask questions, we're like, Well, why is that there? And you go, well, I don't know, because it just is. It's like, well, no, no, you need to think that through a little bit more, maybe.

Very insightful. Do you do that a lot?

Skip Wilson: I do. Yeah, I always, I always start off by having, um, with our own stuff. Now, I don't always, I don't always do that with, With clients because again, most of our, most of our clients are coming to us from creative agencies that have done all that stuff already, but so I don't have to worry about that as much with clients.

But for our own things, I always have. [00:37:00] Someone random, someone not in the industry. Hey, what do you think this is? What do you think this does? And, uh, you know, it's, it's always awkward to like, uh, I'm like super socially awkward anyway. So it's, those are, it's always hard to like stop someone random at like a coffee shop or something to have them do it.

But I think it's essential. Um, so that's, yeah, I think that is, that is always, always the best practice. Have somebody not that doesn't know you, doesn't know your industry, Read over it, read it, read over stuff because yeah, the clients, your customers, I mean, your customers don't. They're not in your world.

The reason they're paying you for whatever that product is, is because they don't know, like, otherwise they could have built it or designed it themselves. So, the, you, you, if anything, you're the worst person. That's the, that's my number one, my, my number one recommendation to any solopreneur out there.

You're the worst person to do your own stuff.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, that's really fun. And I love this idea, I've never done it, but I love this idea of just approaching random people in the coffee shop and say, listen, your next coffee's on me, I just need you to [00:38:00] tell me what you think this is. And that'll be the best four or five bucks you've probably spent in a long time, right?

Exactly. And just sit down and go, right, tell me what you think that is. You can't buy that for that kind of price, really. Uh, I'm going to get a call from Starbucks going, Matt, all of a sudden, there's lots of people. It's getting people in mind. So I, okay. So this is all super helpful, Skip. I know I'm kind of curious, you know, there's.

There's a myriad of platforms out there, it seems to be getting bigger, um, we have the, the traditional sort of store warts that don't seem to be going anywhere with Meta and Google, um, we have the, the New Kids on the Block, um, cue the, what is it, the 90s pop group, 80s pop group New Kids on the Block. Um, with like TikTok shop, um, and you know, the, the TikTok ads, we've had some great fun with Pinterest ads just playing around on slightly different platforms.

What are, I mean, you mentioned, for example, Spotify, [00:39:00] which, which seems a bit of an outlier, um, maybe for people in eCommerce, what are some of the other platforms that we should be looking at maybe thinking about or testing?

Skip Wilson: Well, if definitely if your product falls into the, uh, into the. Not problem aware side, or even the problem aware, but not solution aware.

Keep in mind that social media ads by and large on any platform, um, TikToks, maybe a little bit of an exception because of the heavy, heavy video, maybe Instagram too, but even, but even on Facebook, the videos are muted. So, but you need to tell a little bit of a story about what you do and why that is. And that's incredibly hard to do with, Display ads.

That's incredibly hard to do with social media ads. So I would encourage, you know, YouTube, YouTube ads, you know, are a great entry point. The Google performance max does a good job now of blending [00:40:00] video campaign with the display campaign with the search campaign. That's a good option for a lot of folks that are just looking to test a few hundred bucks.

If you have a bigger budget, I wouldn't recommend it, but the, um, but yeah, those, that YouTube, Spotify, anything OTT, even like Roku and Hulu ads, if you have to tell a story to sell your product, then I would encourage thinking of those things, not necessarily first, I mean, the nice thing about meta and what makes it hard to be is because you can get for 88 cents, you can get somebody to your website, right?

I mean, that's, that's invaluable, but then you can't expect that to sell your product. That's not that ad's job. That ad's job then, if you're using it in that way, is just to get them from not your website to your website.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

Skip Wilson: and then it's your landing page that has to do a great job selling so it's not that it can't be done or can't Be used but if you need to tell a little bit of a story of your product I would [00:41:00] definitely start thinking beyond the meta Google of the world.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's fair point. Well, I did a I was at Sub Summit, uh, three weeks ago in Dallas, Texas, which is a beautiful part of the world. Um, uh, doing a podcast recording with Amelia Coombe there. And actually she talked about similar things that actually, um, some of the, what I would call old school, uh, marketing channels actually, Where you have to tell a story starting to work quite well, even radio maybe have been replaced by podcasts, for example, but even ads in podcasts are starting to have some interest and impact.

And so, um, yeah, I, I, I think that's, that's really fascinating. Let me ask you maybe a slightly sidewise question here, Skip, as you're talking. Um, I've been talking recently with a couple of folks about the power of building funnels on social media. So for example, um, you've got to do some education. So you run some education, you know, some [00:42:00] video ads on Facebook and rather than taking people to your website, you keep them on Facebook.

So obviously people, Facebook want people to stay on Facebook, um, and you in effect build your, um, Sales Funnel on Facebook and it's only when they really get to the bottom where they need to start giving you money that you think about getting them across to your website. Have you tested that? Do you have any experience with that?

Skip Wilson: Yeah, that is the, that is, I will say those types of campaigns, um, there are, they're, they're definitely effective, especially if you have an audience that does spend a lot of time on one platform. In other words, if you've got a, uh, we've got one of our clients is a, is a, is a gym that is a multi location gym that focuses on adults over 55.

Well, adults over 55 are on Facebook a lot. Yeah. So for that type of audience. It makes absolute sense. Um, if we were doing a B2B, you know, when we do like B2B audiences, especially if it's focused on like salespeople, those types of things, doing that same concept, but on LinkedIn can be really powerful. So [00:43:00] there's definitely use cases for it.

I will say those types of campaigns do, they're not the easiest to set up for yourself. And so that's the only thing I would caution. It's a lot. It's not, it doesn't take, uh, you know, somebody who really knows too well what, you know, you can sort of stumble your way through setting up a campaign to get them from.

One platform to your site. It does take a little bit more knowledge to get them to be able to build an off site funnel But it is worth it, especially if your audience is hyper engaged on one platform. Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: fantastic Skip, listen, we've got to the stage of the show where I'm still have a thousand questions But I'm very aware of time and so I'm kind of curious We do this thing now called question for Matt where you ask me a question But I answer on my social media channel, so I'm curious You Let's skip.

What's your question for me?

Skip Wilson: So as eCommerce begins to move to more and more off site transactions, like what we were just talking about, where you can [00:44:00] now purchase from TikTok without ever going to a site, you know, and all those things. How do you think that, should that be worked into the strategy, into setting it, like if I was starting my own store today, should I work that in as the mix?

How does, how does off site checkout impact starting an eCom project today?

Matt Edmundson: What a great question. If you want to know my answer, uh, make sure you follow me at Matt Edmundson on the social media channels where I will post. The answer to that at some point, um, but Skip, listen, I, I feel like we're just getting started, bro.

I, I could pick your brains all day. There's more formula on the board behind you that I want to get my head around. Um, but if people want to know more about you, if they want to know more about Draft Advertising, um, want to listen, start listening to your podcast, what's the best way to do that? How do they get in touch?

How do they find out more about you?

Skip Wilson: Uh, so draftmediapartners. com or draftadvertising. com. Both goes to the same place. Uh, you can go ahead and sign up. We, we, we built, we don't charge to build. We actually, our DRAFT is an acronym, Dynamic [00:45:00] Response Advertising Forecast Technology. Anyway, we have a tool that will build a media plan for you.

So you can do that, play around with that. Uh, but then also, uh, info at draftmediapartners. com. Reach out, uh, that, uh, me and about five other people are copied on it, but it will at least go to me and I will likely reply. Fantastic. You'll at least get a reply from somebody. Either me or somebody smarter than me.

Matt Edmundson: Or someone just going and saying, stop spamming me. I don't want your stuff.

Make sure you go, you know, the email is, is, is well thought through and you know, I say this to people listen to this, to To the show, but I normally say this to listeners actually not on the podcast. So let me say this. If you're listening to the show, do reach out to the guests. They actually genuinely want to hear from you.

Um, so if you've got questions, uh, if you have anything in mind, no, they don't mind if you get in touch. That's why they come on the show. In effect is to make a new connections and network with new people. And if they're on this show, they're genuinely nice people. They're not going [00:46:00] to, you know, try and sell you that something that's going to cost you your right kidney before you get off the phone call.

It. It's fine. Reach out to people, reach out to Skip, make sure you say how's it and, um, and, uh, yeah, even just to say thanks for the show, man, really appreciate it. And, uh, you'll be amazed. I'm, I always love those little messages on LinkedIn that people send me, you know, after you've been on a show or something like that.

Oh, wow, someone was actually listening. That's very kind of you. Thank you. And so it keeps you going a little bit. But, um, yeah, Skip, thanks for coming on the show, man. Genuinely, Really, really appreciate it. Uh, just a quick sideways plug as well, actually. We have a sister podcast in the network that eCommerce Podcast is in.

It is called Podjunction, uh, and that podcast talks about how to use podcasting to grow your own business. So if you're in the podcasting space as well, check out Podjunction cause Skip was a guest on Podjunction as well. So, uh, yeah, you've been on two of our podcasts now, so I feel like, you know, we need to do a clean sweep, maybe.

[00:47:00] Yeah, exactly. Sounds good. I'm here for it. Fantastic. Listen, Skip, thank you so much, brother. I genuinely really appreciate it and I'm looking forward to seeing where it all goes for you with the podcast and with Draft Advertising. I'm a listener. I'm going to keep listening. So thanks for doing all you're doing, brother.

Awesome. Thank you, man. Wow. What a great show. We will, of course, link to Skip's info in the show notes, which you can get along for free with the transcript at eCommercePodcast. net. They're all on there. Just go look for Skip and you'll see his links, all that sort of good stuff. It's all on the website, eCommercePodcast.

net. Net. Love, love, love that. Now, be sure to follow the eCommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got more great conversations lined up, and of course, I don't want you to miss any of them, and in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are.

Created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. [00:48:00] Skip's got to bear it, I've got to bear it, you've got to bear it as well. Now, the eCommerce Podcast is produced by PodJunction. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. The beautiful, amazing team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon and Jonah Prisk.

Our theme music was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I mentioned, to check out the show notes or the transcript, just simply head to the website eCommercePodcast. net. But that's it from me. That's it from Skip. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time.

Bye for [00:49:00] now.