Finding Marketing Success Beyond Cookies | Amelia Coomber

[EP] Subsummit Recording - Amelia Coomber

[00:00:00]

Matt Edmundson: Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now this is a show all about helping you deliver eCommerce well. And to do just that today, well, we're doing things a little bit differently, especially if you're watching the video, you'll notice that there is no one sat beside me.

We're going to come to that in just a second. We do have a guest for today's show. Don't panic. It's going to be fine. The reason this one is a little bit different is because I want to play you, uh, the podcast which we recorded live. at Subsummit. So we recorded an episode of the eCommerce Podcast live on stage at Subsummit 2024.

It was on the Bold stage. I think you will hear me say that if I remember rightly. Um, uh, sponsored by Bold Commerce. Uh, shout out to Jay, who's an [00:01:00] absolute legend, who heads up Bold Commerce. Uh, we had a great time and I got to chat with Amelia Coomer. Now, Amelia has a been on the show before. Uh, in fact, we met at SubSummit 2023.

So we met last year at the SubSummit show. She came on the eCommerce podcast. She is an absolute legend. We hit it off straight away. Literally she punched me in the face, but that's another story. You have to listen to the old episode to find out that story. Um, but, uh, when we got the chance to do another project, we're both at SubSummit, we're like, let's, you know, jump on stage and do this.

So this is the podcast where Amelia and I are going to talk about. Well, we're going to talk about old school marketing. That's what we're going to do. And we're going to dig into some of the things that may be a work and that maybe you've not thought about in marketing that, you know, it's not the usual AI is going to change my life kind of thing.

So we have a phenomenal conversation on the stage at [00:02:00] Sub Summit. So we've got that coming up with the wonderful Amelia. So stay tuned for that. But before we get into it, let me just give a shout out to, uh, everyone who's listening, especially if you're new. Very warm welcome to you. It's great to have you with us, joining us on the show.

Uh, I'm trusting you're going to have some fun with it, uh, and you're going to learn some love. We post content every week, eCommerce content. You know, keep coming back, keep joining us, uh, on this epic journey, uh, of e commerce because like you, I'm an e commerce entrepreneur. I'm just trying to figure this thing out.

Now, one of the things I do want to, yeah, sort of quick call to action, I suppose, if you are listening to the show and you are an e commerce owner, uh, or an e commerce founder, in other words, you run your own e com business. And I know that there's thousands of you listening to the show that do. I really want to hear from you.

We're starting to add a new segment to the podcast. Um, the founders segment formed for better expression, uh, and so traditionally, I interview experts like Amelia who [00:03:00] come and share their amazing wisdom and knowledge. But we also want to start talking to you guys, um, and we want to start digging into the founders stories a little bit.

And so if you are running an online business, doesn't matter how big or small it is, whether you're new, whether you've been around for years, whether you think you've got an interesting story or whether you don't, I just want to talk to you. Um, and so there's a chance that we might be able to get you on the show.

I'm not promising it for everybody. I just want to put that out there. This is not a promise, uh, but, uh, you never know until you get in touch, right? And so we would just genuinely love to hear from you to come tell your story, come share your, uh, your secrets, what you've figured out, what you're hoping for, and all that sort of good stuff.

Just come share this journey with the rest of us. Cause it's always better, you know, When we do, and obviously we'll give a shout out to your business and your website at the same time. So if you want to know more about that, just head over to the website, ecommercepodcast. net. I think there's a link, which has applied to be on the show on there or something like that.

Just fill out the form as much as you [00:04:00] can. If you, if there's stuff on there, you don't know the answers to. Don't panic about it. Just put the information on there. That'll go through to the production team and it will kickstart the whole journey. So that's eCommercePodcast. net. Of course, if you know anybody else who would make a great guest for the show, let us know.

Again, let us know, we would love to hear from them, um, especially founders, uh, experts are great, referred guests always make the best guests, um, we've got a list as long as you're on with people wanting to come on the show and episodes waiting to be recorded, which is nice, uh, so we do want to introduce this founders section, so, I think I've said enough.

Anyway. You get the point, right? You get the point. So without further ado, here is my conversation live on the sub summit stage 2024 with Amelia Coomer.

What do you think? Great episode, great conversation with Amelia. Amelia, thanks again for coming on. You are such a beauty. A [00:05:00] legend, such a legend. Uh, so that's it for today's show. Make sure you like and subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from, because as I say, we've always got more episodes lined up.

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. I've got to bear it. Amelia has to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. It's just the way it is. Now this show is produced by PodJunction, the amazing, beautiful, wonderful team that makes this show possible with Sadaf Beynon, Jonah Prisk, utter legends.

The theme music was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I said, if you'd like to see the transcripts and all the show notes and all that sort of good stuff, just head over to the website eCommercePodcast. net. Search for this episode. Uh, with all of its links, you get links through to Amelia, it will link through to SubSummit if you want to go in 2025, there's a strong chance I'm going to be there, uh, I've been invited back.

Not officially, I mean, well I suppose, I don't know. Anyway, [00:06:00] go check out SubSummit, subsummit. com, you're not going to want to miss 2025, um, but yeah, that's it from me, that's it obviously from Amelia, uh, but have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I will see you next time. Bye for now.

okay, so welcome to the eCommerce Podcast. Great to have you. Great to have my very good friend, Amelia. We're here at Sub Summit on the stage sponsored by Bold Commerce. Quick shout out to Bold Commerce. And this is where we met, wasn't it, last year?

Well, not on this stage.

Matt Edmundson: But we did meet, we did meet here at Sub Summit.

And so when they said, Matt, come back and do a podcast, and they said, would you talk to Amelia? I'm like, yeah. Yeah, no brainer, right?

Yeah, I'm not doing that again, no, no, no. But no, welcome, thank you for coming on. Thank

you. How are you

Matt Edmundson: doing?

I'm good. I think

Matt Edmundson: you need to get close to your microphone. Remember this is a podcast. I

know.[00:07:00]

Matt Edmundson: We need microphones. We

do need microphones.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. Are you doing well?

I'm doing good, yeah. How are you?

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, really good. It's

a nice sunny day.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. It's warm. It is very warm. It's crazy because it's 35 degrees here in Dallas. I don't know what that translates to, but in England, at the moment, it's like 18, and we think it's really warm.

So it's twice the temperature, and you're just like, holy moly. So it's nice to be here,

nice to be

Matt Edmundson: in Sub Summit. So thank you for the wine, by the way. Shout out to Skater Girl. So this is a family brand wine.

It is a family brand. That's our old bulldog. She used to ride a skateboard. That's so

Matt Edmundson: cool. I'll take a photo of that.

We'll put that on there. Oops. on the show,

but we're, yeah, thank you for that.

Thank you.

Matt Edmundson: No, no, no. No, really.

Thank

Matt Edmundson: you. No one knows why you're bringing me wine.

No, no, no. Well, I was for punching you in the face last year.

Matt Edmundson: That's true. You did that.

That happened.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't get that on video,

unfortunately.

Matt Edmundson: No. [00:08:00] And why did you punch me in the face?

Amelia Coomber: It's something you said.

Matt Edmundson: There's so many people in our audience going, Go Amelia, do it again.

Oh God, one of those reach out for the hook. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The

Matt Edmundson: right hook thing, uh, was good fun. So, um, last time you were on the show, we were talking about content, talking about creating content and the crazy things that you had going on that were working for you.

So let's evolve that conversation a little bit. Um, if we can. So you are, just a quick recap, right? Um, you are with Petplate. It says here in my notes, you're a software engineer turned growth marketer, uh, with a six year track record of building and leading performance marketing teams for both high growth D2C brands.

And B2B SaaS Startups. That's a bit of a mouthful.

I know. Thanks, Chachabit. It just

Matt Edmundson: sounds like you're really busy. Busy.

For sure. For sure.

Matt Edmundson: And so, yeah. So we were talking about this, weren't we, on the last show? We were talking about all the, you know, [00:09:00] how you do marketing, the video content especially. I have to say, it's still one of the most downloaded episodes.

Ooh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Well done. That's fun. Yeah, yeah. I think it's because you were telling everybody you punched me in the face. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, probably. And they had to listen to it on like half speed. And so, you know, just listen

Matt Edmundson: to it again. That was really good. Um, so let's evolve that.

Because we were talking before the sub summit. So we're here at sub summit in Dallas. All about subscription commerce, and we were talking before about what we should talk about, right? Um, and we came up with this idea about talking about old school marketing. So let's explain that. Why did we come up with that as an idea?

Amelia Coomber: You know, there's all these new channels popping up, whether it's TikTok or, you know, different types of, you know, short form video things, and I think, you know, as privacy regulations, tracking stuff starts to get a little bit more scrutinized, Facebook's losing the ability to perfectly one to one match, uh, track [00:10:00] you across browsers, um, you know, and not to mention CPMs are just absolutely skyrocketing, I mean, those channels are so saturated, people are still struggling to figure out how to perfectly You know, uh, market, uh, TikTok ads in particular, um, you know, people are looking for ways to diversify their media mix and, um, you know, obviously Facebook and Google, they're really easy.

Obviously they've got great tracking, um, everything's in platform, they own all of the data, you have your pixel on their site, things like that, but I think the biggest thing is it's really easy to get started. You can be a brand and be like, all right, we've got a 5, 000 a month budget and, uh, we're going to install the pixel, we're going to create an ad account and there we go.

Um, so it's really easy, but, you know, the, the out of home marketing, whether it's direct mail, billboards, uh, you know, even now these buses and stuff that people are, you know, sort of plastering with their brands, um, things like CTV, things like linear connected TV, linear, more cable focused. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Sorry.

Let's just pause there, because I appreciate that whilst we're here in some summit, uh, you know, people might know what you're talking about, but given that quite a lot of people in England listen to this [00:11:00] show. Um, when you say linear and CTV, what, just explain what that means.

Amelia Coomber: Yeah, so CTV is connected TV.

It's basically streaming, so it's closer to digital, so you're watching something, um, and, and that video feed is actually, like, streaming live, um, and, and the cool thing about that is it, again, allows you to, You know, at least on the data side and the actual platform side, track the interaction. So, how much are people listening?

Are they skipping ads? Things like that. Can they skip ads? Linear is more cable, right? So it's typical broadcast television. So your sports channels, things like that. So, not children's TV, but connected TV and linear. And usually they're run together. You might, you know, sort of treat it like podcasting or streaming.

You're never break out in terms of budget. But, uh, yeah, channels like that.

Matt Edmundson: Okay, so You've been playing around with these a little bit, haven't you? Yeah, oh

Amelia Coomber: yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Because, like you say, I, with Facebook, I remember a few years ago, we were getting a return on ad spend, 14, 15, 16. We were like, this is amazing! And now the guys are saying to me, man, we're getting a return on ad spend, I don't know, what we've got at the moment.

Let's say it's three, and everyone's going, this is really great, [00:12:00] because it's above two. So, we know that those channels are harder to get the return

on ad spend.

Matt Edmundson: So you guys have been playing around with some of this old school marketing now, and this is why I love it. And I've mentioned this before on the show.

But actually for me, marketing is not about the silver bullet. And you get asked this all the time. Yep. Right? What, what, what should, what's the latest marketing thing I should do? And it's never the silver bullet. It's all about old school principles. Mm-Hmm. and getting those right and building on those.

Yep. And then maybe the silver bullet will help you. But if you just rely on TikTok shops, which I think is what it is now, you may do well, but in six months time, it's. It'll, it'll all, all have changed because marketers will have come in and screwed it up. Absolutely.

Amelia Coomber: Uh, I mean, and not to mention that, I mean, how many brands listening to this have had their ad account shut down, right?

Like that sort of stuff happens all the time when 70 percent of your revenue, you know, on a daily basis is coming through that and you have to fight through. Different regulations or different changes or, you know, so help me, the pixel gets removed, you know, because they update their, you know, conversion.

API, um, you know what you, you [00:13:00] have to, you have to have backup plans. Yeah. And, uh, you know, you can't rely on those two channels and you have to start scaling to other things. And so, you know, again, the traditional media, whether it's CTB or uh, you know, linear or direct mail or things like that. They're harder to get into, um, they're a little harder to scale, you know, again, measuring the direct ROI, it takes a little bit of time, um, but the, you know, not only are those people, brands flocking to those channels, but, uh, because of, you know, needing to diversify, but the measurement solutions around those channels has gotten really, really good, and I don't think a lot of people know that, you know, historically, it's been promo codes, vanity URLs, again,

with

Amelia Coomber: whatever you're tracking, and then QR codes came in, and those are great.

They're an extra sort of like touch point where somebody can measure, attach your UTMs to them. Um, but pixel based solutions, uh, IPs, view through rates, looking at these sorts of things. There's a lot of different methodologies that these channels, um, whether it's from certain companies that have developed them around them or whatnot, but they can still, they can be treated and they can be measured similar to digital.

It's never going to be perfect, right? Again, these things [00:14:00] happen offline, but, uh, a lot of people don't know that you can, you can have a set of sophisticated technology for measurement around some of these offline channels and that's, that's what's really exciting.

Matt Edmundson: It's fascinating, isn't it, that they've managed to do that.

It is. So, if you, if I, like you say, the reason why a lot of people don't do it is it wasn't measurable. Whereas, you know, you could say, well, on Facebook, if I put a pound or a dollar in, I'm going to get ten bucks out, right? So, um, if I, if I put a pound into direct mail, how do, how do I know what I'm getting out?

Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Um, and so we, we, we've tried for years to sort of be able to measure that, never one, never really been able to do that well. Right. It's going back. My first direct mail I ever did, um, I thought I was an absolute genius. I went to like a wholesaler, and I bought a lot of forks, like a knife and fork, just the fork, and I, I wrote a letter, and I sellotaped the fork to the letter, basically saying you pick the restaurant, and I'll pick up the bill.

Uh, [00:15:00] and I don't know why I decided to add a fork to the list, but you know what, it worked because we got a lot of people calling it. This was, you know, uh, email was around, but that was about it. Uh, but on that direct mail campaign, it was so successful. It was unbelievable.

Amelia Coomber: I believe it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I spent a fortune on forks.

Amelia Coomber: Yeah, why did you do it? Oh, you wanted to add a couple cents to that, to the amount it was going to cost you to ship? I mean, but it is things like that, right? And last time we talked about ad creative and how important, you know, like again, creating sort of like a video ads funnel is and modulizing that ad creative, But, uh, you know, I, I think the other principle to that is, is again, like, be unique, try to stand out.

And so attaching a fork, you know, we talk about, like, this concept of, like, three second hooks, right? If you can get somebody to watch the first three seconds of a video, you're gonna have a 70 percent higher likelihood of them watching the rest of the video. Um, and, and you'll see, like, you know, TikTok's really good at this, right?

You're gonna watch a video and the first part, it's almost, sometimes they're almost, like, controversial, right? You're like, why is this guy smashing an egg on the, you know, on the ground, right? It gets, gets your attention, you're, you start to watch it, and so when somebody gets You know, a direct mail piece with a fork, right, even if it's [00:16:00] not, you know, I don't care what you're selling, but you're like, wait, what?

And just that alone, like, grabbing somebody's attention, especially in this, like, attention deficit economy is so critical.

Matt Edmundson: So, what's your favorite, if I can put it this way, which, at the moment, what's the channel that excites you the most, which I would call old school marketing channels?

Amelia Coomber: Um, I mean, it's still new, right, because like, my answer is podcasting.

Um, I think that Good answer. Yeah, exactly. Uh, there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on there. I think, you know, Sure, it's not, you know, at its peak that it was during COVID. I think more so the channel starting to mature. Um, but again, the measurement technologies behind it, they're, they're really, really advanced.

They're coming up fast. Um, and I mean, when you talk about looking for new incremental audiences that you can't hit on Facebook or, you know, that they're not in the, you know, place and environment where they're ready to convert because they're just scrolling through 10, 000 other ads. Podcasting is really, really unique because it.

It's, it's an influencer, right? If somebody comes and [00:17:00] listens to your podcast, sure, they want to listen to the content, but they trust you, and they like to have, you know, they like to hear what you have to say. So when, you know, Andrew Huberman, who, you know, is one of the biggest podcasts, when he comes on and he talks about ice baths, and how incredible it is, has been for, you know, raising his baseline dopamine levels, and then he mentions an ice bath company, You know, he, to the people that listen to him, and the people that listen to you, they're almost, they treat you like a friend, right?

They're an authority source, and so when he tells you, this is awesome, you're like, fuck yeah, that's awesome, and I want that. And so I think that influence, because podcasting really is it, it's sort of a form of influence or marketing, just in a different medium. Um, they, it, it holds that, that other channels don't.

I mean, even like Direct Mail or, or CTV, right, those are, they're commercials. And I think podcasting, other than the DAI and the programmatic stuff, which has its place, um, that's more classic advertising. But when, when you do host red ads and, you know, Athletic Greens come on, comes on, again, you know, Joe Rogan, whoever it is, is talking about him, you, you get that, you know, like third party validation, I want to buy this, if it helped him, it's going to help me.

Matt Edmundson: Well, they [00:18:00] call it the Tim Ferriss effect, don't they? Uh, Mitz and Amain was a brand, they're based in Dallas, I think, they've got a store, uh, somewhere in Dallas. I've got a couple of their shirts, they're a clothing brand, um, and there's a friend of mine called Brett Curry, he does a podcast, uh, and he's just interviewed the founder of, um, Mitz and Amain, and they were a really struggling brand, and they, uh, sent some stuff out to Tim Ferriss, and they sponsored one of the podcasts.

Because Tim really liked their stuff, and it's just transformed their brand overnight.

Amelia Coomber: There's so many brands that have scaled, like, again, AG1 is even one of those, they started off on podcasting, they took a big bet, even when they were, you know, starting to ramp up, pixel based technology for podcasting wasn't even around.

Um, but there's another company called Fume, uh, and podcasting is really interesting too because they're, like, whether you're doing CBD or you're doing alcohol or, or any other sort of regulatory, like, industry that's really hard to run on Facebook and TikTok and things like that, those companies are, like, you know, investing heavily in podcasting, um, and, and, you know, if you do it right, it can be both direct response and awareness, right, so you get the awareness, [00:19:00] maybe people aren't, you know, ready to click, but they're hearing the name, they're hearing from the people that they respect.

When you attach promo codes, when you attach banded URLs, when you do pixel based attribution, and you have that great, again, testimonial from this person you respect, it can also be a really, really great direct response.

Matt Edmundson: So you're talking in podcasting, you're talking about actually sponsoring or running ads on someone's podcast, not actually hosting.

Amelia Coomber: No, I mean, and that's another really, really great strategy. And I think that a lot of companies are starting to do that. I think the production, like, costs associated with that, I mean it's just hard to get, you know, it's not hard to start a podcast, it's hard to get any downloads, um, and scale that up, but actually running ads on podcasts is a huge channel that, again, people are starting to think about, and I think, you know, when you're thinking about, alright, we start with Facebook, we start with Google, now, you know, maybe we do TikTok, I think podcasting is sort of next, even before you do CTV or linear or out of home things like that, um, again, it's harder to get into because it is influencing, right, you have to connect with that host and all those sorts of things, um, but, uh, you know, It's a, it's, it's a [00:20:00] really, really great channel for that initial scale.

And there's, again, I think the thing that I have a lot of conversations with brands about is, you know, people think, Oh, we're going to have to, you know, invest 100, 000, right, to see any sort of thing. There's a lot of really interesting ways, again, with this advanced measurement types of things, um, where you can test it.

You can spend 5K and you can actually see the direct conversions you can spend, you know, and you start to sort of scale up from there. So. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's really awesome, and I think, again, the, the influencer sort of captivating third party validation that you get, you don't get a lot from other channels.

Matt Edmundson: No, well, if you think, if you say influencer marketing, everybody thinks Instagram. Exactly. Right? I've got to have an Instagram person with 20, 000 followers to, to start with this. Um, but actually what you're talking about here is podcasting where the, the cost of advertising are actually really quite low.

In reality,

Amelia Coomber: yeah, CPMs are higher than Facebook for sure. But you know, it's the, they're, you know, they're, it's higher intent audience, right? Like they're listening. Um, and sure, maybe they're driving in the car or doing other things sometimes, but again, they, they're listening because, you know, they [00:21:00] respect what this person has to say.

Whereas they're not, you know, they're not just scrolling endlessly.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And they, it's the thing I like about it with podcasting is if people are listening, they rarely do they sort of skip forward five or 10 seconds. They do listen as long as it's an interesting ad and you hear actually now a lot of podcasters read out the ads.

Yep.

Matt Edmundson: Right, so if I was doing it on the show, we're on the stage and it's Sponsored

by Bold Commerce.

Matt Edmundson: Sponsored by Bold Commerce. So bringing you the eCommerce podcast sponsored by Bold Commerce. Well, that's an interesting thing for me to say, but if I said to you something like, you know, Bold Commerce is great because of X, Y, and Z, and I tried it on this, that, and the other.

Well, everyone's listening now, aren't they? And so getting the host to talk about maybe their experience or why it's funny is the best way. So how do, if someone is listening to the show, right, and they go, well, this is an interesting thing with podcasting, never thought about it, bit out of the box, we always have these out of box conversations, um, how would you get started on something like that?

Where would you begin?

Amelia Coomber: There's a lot of companies out there where you can get started pretty free or pretty [00:22:00] easily again more of like a self service So ACAST, I think they're one of the largest publishers slash agencies for podcast advertising in the world And you know you can if you spend 25, 000 of the course of a couple months you can basically do like your own You know, uh, host read ads.

You send in the prompt, you tell them what you want to talk about, and then again they do the measurement and all that sort of stuff. So, there's solutions like that to get started. I think the most classic way, and, and, and this is still, you know, you would do this for CTV. You would do this for direct mail.

You gotta sort of work with an agency because podcasting, again, it's like, you know, it's you. How are they gonna get in contact with you? They've gotta reach out. They've gotta get to know you. Um, maybe you're represented by somebody. So I think agencies are a really great route and that's the route that I've, I've historically gone whenever I've tested out the channel, um, because they can negotiate those lower CPMs.

They can work, make it worth your while. Um, you know, they're going to make sure that everything's delivered on what, you know, what you paid for, um, which is really, really important, right? It's not, it's not a visual channel. It's, it's audio. And so, you know, things like, you know, making sure that the host didn't say this bad word or whatever it is, right?

So, I would say, you know, [00:23:00] either sort of use one of those, um, you know, self service types of platforms to sort of just get started. Again, make sure that you have the measurement baked in or, or, you know, talk to an agency and run some small tests. Um, but there's, there's a lot of ways, again, to, you don't have to spend 100, 000 a month.

You can spend, maybe it's 10, 000, right? And, and, you know, I know that sounds like a lot, but if you're running any tests on any channel, you better not be spending less than 5, 000. You're not going to get statistical significance in order to actually validate whether this channel has, you know, uh, traction or not.

Matt Edmundson: So, uh, this is not a strategy maybe for someone who's just starting out in eCommerce. This is, like you say, do your Google, do your meta, get, get all the standard stuff in order. Um, and then try your podcasting, but you're gonna need a bit of budget to play around with it.

Amelia Coomber: Yeah, you are. And again, I think with any channel.

Um, but I, but I will say that I, again, I know a lot of brands that they start on podcasting. They know the impact of it. They know that that's where the audience they want to reach is. They know that they're going to be able to convert them at a higher rate because again, it's coming from that validation.

of that host, um, and so there are some that do, that's, that's [00:24:00] their main channel, and, and again, it might just take time, um, but you can't go off on Facebook, and, you know, you're not gonna expect, again, like a, a 10 CPA or anything, um, right away, you've gotta sort of scale, and, and let the channel do its work, but, um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great channel for that sort of next step, when you're looking at diversifying your media, you know, mix, and you're trying to figure out other opportunities for scale, I think I've seen it a time and time and again be that sort of like next one.

It's, it's semi offline. It's a little bit out of home, but it's also reaching the people when they're sort of in that intent phase. So

Matt Edmundson: how would you, so you've got your five, your 10, 000, you've, you've gone with some of these sort of self service, uh, agency type things, but if you're setting up doing podcast ads for your e com business or your subscription business, how would you set them up?

How would you measure? And how would you know at the end of the month whether this is a girl or not?

Amelia Coomber: Um,

Matt Edmundson: Have you done it?

Amelia Coomber: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, again, uh, Pixel based solutions for podcast advertising exist. Um, it's, [00:25:00] it's different than, again, like a Facebook or whatever. They can't track you across the browser.

The way that podcasts are actually distributed is very unique. So, uh, RSS feed, really simple syndication. That's where, again, you get those updates on new episodes. Um, when you click play on an episode, for instance, you open Spotify and I'm listening to your podcast. A lot of people think that you're streaming that episode.

That's not the case. That audio file is actually being locally downloaded to your device. And that's what makes podcast advertising and the tracking part of it really difficult. I sort of use the example like it's like Google Docs versus Word. Right, if I share a Word doc with you and I make a change, that change is not going to be reflected.

If I share a Google doc and make a change, that change is going to be reflected. So, podcasting is more of like the Word doc. Again, that's the same for, let's say, Linear and some of these other channels. It's more static. Um, so basically what happens is that a tracking pixel is installed inside of the RSS feed and when somebody clicks play right before that episode is downloaded, it actually redirects and pings that, you know, attribution provider's server and grabs the IP.

Um, in typical channels like [00:26:00] Facebook and stuff, they have a lot of data to do measurement, right? Like, you're, you have a Facebook profile. That's one of the biggest things that gave Facebook a leg up. Like, even compared to Google, they know your friends. They know, um, you know, before iOS 14x5, they knew where you were shopping, they knew what you were buying, they knew what you like, things like that.

And so they own all of that data, and then when it comes to matching that back, To the person who actually converted on the website, they obviously have their pixel and that matching is really easy. Um, so for podcasting, you know, again, it's, it's, you know, almost decentralized. That audio file gets downloaded to your device, they know who downloaded it and they know the IP.

And that's the main point of data that you can use to do that matching. Right. Um, and then again, you have a pixel installed on the person's website. So, um, there's a lot of different attribution providers out there, um, and again, they all have different methodologies. It's real, podcasting is going through a, a, a similar sort of evolution in terms of measurement, like, uh, CTV went through.

So, Tataris, one of the, they completely changed the game for CTV. Everything used to be measured, again, via promo codes and vanity URLs. Very, very low, uh, you know, sort of like, Uh, entry in terms of like actually calculating that, you know, it's something in [00:27:00] podcasting. It's only 30 percent of people actually use promo codes when they're checking out if they've heard it from a podcast.

I mean, 70 percent of people that, like, again, were influenced by, uh, you know, Andrew Humerman didn't use a podca uh, didn't use the promo code. So that goes unattributed. Um, so Tatari has some really, really sophisticated methodologies for CTV where they can do sort of, you know, like, You through, look through rates, they do correlation, they can do incrementality, we don't have to, you know, nerd out and go through that.

You are

Matt Edmundson: properly nerdy now. Um,

Amelia Coomber: but, uh, yeah, so, so again, you work with a, you know, an attribution provider, um, and you get those pixels installed, you make sure that, you know, whatever, uh, show or publisher you're working with that owns the show, they have the prefix installed, and then they're able to do that match rate, um, or that, that match back.

And so, again, it's not going to be perfect, there's, you know, there are things that are called, like, noisy IPs, which basically, you know, it's an IP, so you're listening in your car or in Times Square, if you're listening and other people on that same IP, they can't do that matching, because who knows if you were the reason that you converted or not.

Um, so there's some modeling that's involved and things like that, but it's, it's really [00:28:00] sophisticated and it allows you to directly see, again, how many visitors went to my website, what was that, you know, visitor to impression rate, what was that conversion rate, so it's sort of bringing, these companies are bringing podcast advertising to the digital space and giving them an experience that, you know, digital marketers expect, because I, for instance, Never bought on podcast before the last couple years because I refuse to just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what's next, right?

Um, and if we're talking about spending again, even 50, 000 on a couple month test, right? Like, If I can't measure it properly, that's going to come back on me. And so it wasn't until these, you know, again, technology sort of started to evolve, um, where you're like, all right, I can see those real time metrics.

I can optimize in real time. Um, and, and there's so many brands that I've talked to where they're like, you know, same sort of story, right? We were able to see the incremental impact, the net new audience that we were able to reach and we were able to measure that in real time.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. So you've got podcasting.

What else is on your list?

Amelia Coomber: Um, I would say sort of next again, like, direct mail might come a little bit before podcasting. There's some really interesting things you can do with direct mail, again, similar to the [00:29:00] IP stuff. Um, so, uh, if you have your pixel on, you know, a pixel on site, or you're using Shopify, you can almost, like, pass back those IPs to, like, a direct mail or a data partner, and then they can do some, like, what I call, like, de noising, and they basically grab the residential IP.

Um, so we did a lot of retargeting from direct mail, where either, again, we were passing back, uh, you know, email addresses if we had them from people who had visited the website but didn't convert, or we're passing back IPs, this data partner again is like, hey, this is who that person is, this is where they live, and then we would send them that, and that works really well, and you might even do that sometimes before, um, at least from a remarketing standpoint before you do podcast advertising, but, uh, direct mail's awesome, and again, if you can make

Yeah.

The

Amelia Coomber: creative, like interesting, and the offer is compelling. Those sorts of things work. I think a lot of people think, you know, they throw their QR code on, they have their little, you know, tagline, and then, you know, that discount, and, and of course that's going to fall flat on its face. Yeah. And I'm not saying attach a fork.

Yeah. Or, you know, attach human grade dog food to every single direct mail, um, piece, but you can do some really interesting stuff. I mean, even, you know. There's some handwritten [00:30:00] letters, there's some technologies that, uh, or companies out there that like, they've got, uh, you know.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, have you seen the desk?

Yes! Yes, uh huh, it's awesome. It's

Amelia Coomber: incredible, right? And, and, you know, sure, we can say like, oh, you know, sort of taking the authenticity away from that, but if you get a letter, right, like Subtummit gave us a letter, right, it was written by Warren, and I read the whole thing, and I was like, what, that's so cute, right?

And it wasn't just a line, it was like, there was a

Matt Edmundson: paragraph. A

Amelia Coomber: paragraph, right? Yeah. So, you know, it's. It's a letter from a founder, or you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, you can make it interesting, you can bring back that authenticity and not be like, hey, I'm just spamming your house with other shit. I think, uh, you know, there's some really great stuff that can work, so, um, I would say again, that's a great channel to test, it works really, really well from a remarketing standpoint, especially if you have a more enticing offer.

Um, and then again, CTV and Linear, I think are really, really great channels, especially for a certain level of scale. Uh, the, the difficulty, and that's why it's sort of above, you know, in terms of, uh, uh, you know, next steps above podcasting is that, you know, Usually, you know, most brands want to do like a big commercial, they're going to, you know, it's going to be a huge budget, 100, 000 just to film it, right?

[00:31:00] Um, and, and I actually think that I've seen a lot of success taking an opposite approach. Uh, if you're, you know, almost like applying the UGC style TikTok ads to these, and, and I've even watched a lot of ads where, you know, you would think like I'm watching it on my TV or my computer and I want the whole screen, like any brand person is going to be like, we need to make sure all the pixels are lined up.

Even just ads that are literally vertical, right? They look like they were taken by your phone and there's those two black bars. Those work really, really well. And it actually gives you a lot of room on the right hand side to do like other copy and like that QR code and stuff. So I think that there are ways to get into the channel without spending 200, 000 to record some sort of commercial.

Um, and if you just sort of apply the methodology from a creative standpoint that you do on Facebook and TikTok and things like that.

Matt Edmundson: That's really powerful. So I, I mean, let's go back because in all of these things, We sort of whistled past it a little bit. We're making the assumption that you're using the same, you said this at the start, you still need the hook, you still need the compelling copy, the ads on the podcast need to [00:32:00] be compelling, um, they need to be authentic, uh, and different, I suppose, in many ways, you know, they need to have that hook.

How are you finding the challenge, you know, moving from, say, the Facebook? way of writing ads and doing ads to take in those principles to say direct mail. How are you finding that shift in that challenge?

Amelia Coomber: It's diff, it's difficult for sure. And I think, uh, working with brand teams to help them understand, um, where again, you still need to, because again, you know, larger brand teams, right?

They come from the traditional sides of marketing. Direct response, direct response is relatively new. Digital marketing is relatively new, relatively new in the scope of marketing in general. Um, and so. You know, sort of convincing them that we need to take this more direct response, low fidelity, again, almost low fidelity type of approach to these things can be hard.

But I think sometimes you just need to step back a little bit and you know, what I always do is every single, you know, whether it's an ad I get on Facebook, I [00:33:00] record it, or you know, a direct mail piece, like I have a whole box of just like old direct mail stuff that I got and you know, I've gone through it maybe once or twice, it's probably like the, you know, the plastic bags you keep under your sink that you think you'll eventually use, but um, you know, get inspiration from other companies, talk to, you know, there's a lot of direct mail companies out there that are really experienced in the creative side.

Um, talk to other brands, see what they've done, um, but I think, again, you just can't expect to like put something up and, and have it convert, right? You've gotta be creative. And I think, you know, again, save time on like spending a lot of budget on like the most beautifully designed thing or the, you know, most, uh, you know, cool commercial, right?

If you're gonna do CTV and, and use that time and that money in actually developing something and maybe test a couple concepts out, right? Like I know that a lot of the new direct mail companies. You can almost A B test stuff, right? So you can have four different types of direct mail pieces. That was

Matt Edmundson: going to be one of my questions actually, because if I, if I put out a Facebook ad, right, I know instantly whether that's working and I can split test and within five minutes I can go with this ad, well,

[00:34:00] you know, more than

Matt Edmundson: five minutes, but you know what I mean?

Very quickly you can test and you can see the data. How do you even think about something like that with say the podcasting or the direct mail? You've got to think beyond the five minutes, I suppose.

Amelia Coomber: You do. I mean, there's definitely longer tails, um, in terms of, again, when those people are going to be exposed and when they're going to convert.

But again, podcasting, that exists. You can see in real time how many people listened to the episode, how many people visited the site. And so, again, that technology, and same thing for CTV. You can see in real time, maybe it's not the first second or whatever, but, uh, you can see all of those things, like, relatively new, or relatively real time.

Um, I think direct mail, I have seen a platform that allows that. Um, you know when they got delivered, um, obviously it weren't, we don't have cameras in the people's houses so you don't know when they saw them but you can, you again, correlate that back to how many visitors that went to the site so I think you just have to be a little bit more patient, um, and understand that again, you know, we need statistical significance in order to make any decisions and so, you know, You know, even if I've spent $200 a day on a Facebook ad, I can know, you know, in real time whether that ad's gonna [00:35:00] continue to perform or not.

I don't think it's the same way with direct mail. I think it's closer to the same way with CTV and podcasting and some of these other and semi offline channels. Um, and even like billboards and stuff, right? Like you can, there's a lot of really cool stuff. There's this company called AD Quick and they're kind of like the Zillow fur out of home.

Yeah. And we do a lot of this pixel based IP stuff. Yeah. Um, you have your, their pixel on their site and then, and there's. And, uh, I mean, it's just crazy. The forum, it's, uh, you know, like, there are, you know, there are a lot of, you know,

Matt Edmundson: them. You're starting out, right? I always like to ask this question because I appreciate people listening to the show at very different stages of their journey.

But if you're starting out, how does this apply? What would your advice be to a startup?

Amelia Coomber: [00:36:00] Starting out, just running out?

Matt Edmundson: Just, yeah, well, just starting out their eCommerce business, you know, they, they, they maybe turn over a hundred, two hundred grand a year, a small company that's just started.

Amelia Coomber: It's a great question.

I think we actually did a fun little one. You gave me some companies before. You were like, how would you market

this? There was like

Amelia Coomber: a krill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I think a lot of people try to go not too brand heavy, but too high level. You look at, you know, Things like maybe it's the farmer's dog or maybe it's Athletic Greens and you look at their messaging and you're like, I love this.

That resonates. We, we're going to take that, feed it in a Chachiby team. We're going to come up with something beautiful like that. Um, the thing that, you know, and it's really good to look at, you know, competition, even adjacent companies, what you have to understand is that brands like that are at such a different scale.

They've already done the legwork in terms of awareness. So they can throw out that really high level brand messaging. I saw Viore billboard the other day and it was like. You know, where people go to live free or something like that. [00:37:00] Right? Like, and, and sure, it sounds beautiful. And if you're a marketer, you're like, Oh, why didn't I come up with that?

You know, elegant phrase. What the, what the heck does that tell you? Yeah. It doesn't tell you anything. And so there's so many companies that sort of try to start out a little too broad, especially when it comes to that messaging. And I'm not saying like, you know, just throw promo codes and discounts at people's faces, but I always like to think about the problem that somebody's experiencing.

So in the krill oil right? The, you, it was a,

Matt Edmundson: oh, the, the, the vegan, yep. Omega spray instead of, uh,

Amelia Coomber: yeah. Instead of, you know, taking it from fish, right. Like we get it from krill or something like that. Algae al. Yeah. Algae. Um. Yeah, uh, and, uh, I should

Matt Edmundson: have bought you some, I'm really sorry. You should have, that's, no, it's good.

Amelia Coomber: Um, but, uh, it, it would be, you could come up with a lot of really interesting things. Again, the, understanding the problem, what is the problem with the, you know, fish oil, right? Maybe it's a little more expensive because of this, maybe It has that fishy smell, you know, so understand those like niche pain points and then try to come up with marketing and you know again It all sort of starts with the copy and [00:38:00] then the creative sort of comes and follows it after But I mean I can say the classic like interview your customers and things like that and that's all great I think if you were gonna do that you have to ask them a little bit more like broad stuff, right?

Like what? Why were you doing this? What were you doing before? You know, what were, what was the biggest pain point? Um, and you start to like learn things about those. So I think again, start, start small, go niche and find that. Like if you identify again, maybe for the krill thing, it's like this krill oil.

Now that's Omega three doesn't taste like fish. Double down on that. Right. That is so compelling. Um, and you know, sure. Not everybody is going to feel the same way and it's not going to convince everybody to go and convert, but that. You know, 5 percent of people, you know, that they're going to convert when they hear that and that's how you sort of start.

And then you find out, you know, find other value props or other pain points to sort of scale from there.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, very good. Very good. So, in closing, what are you most excited about over the next year in all of this?

Amelia Coomber: I [00:39:00] mean, I think measurements are going to get better for all of these channels. I think that, ooh, ooh, ooh, cookies, cookies, they're going away.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, not, okay, not the biscuits, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, not the

Amelia Coomber: biscuits, not the, I, I, I found my answer. Uh, cookies are going away, cookies are being deprecated, uh, they were supposed to deprecate this year, they were supposed to deprecate last year, they're actually getting pushed back again. Eventually, they will go,

they

Amelia Coomber: absolutely will, um, and so it's really important for companies, you know, whether you're a provider or you're a brand to start, you know, thinking about solutions around that.

I think what that does, and going back to like, you know, the, the efficacy and the, and the potential of these traditional channels. Again, everybody, you know, you think about podcasting versus Facebook, and of course go to Facebook first, right? They've got really great attribution, they've got great measurement solutions, they have access to a lot of data.

That stuff is going to start to go away, and so the expectation of being able to match perfectly one to one on a channel like Facebook, on Google and stuff, that expectation is going to start to lower. Um, even right now, the amount of modeling, the amount of double counting and stuff that's happening in those channels is just outrageous.

Um, use [00:40:00] a multi touch attribution provider, right? Um, but I think that brings a huge opportunity at sort of leveling the playing field for all of these other channels that have, again, sort of been forgot about and thought of as, you know, something that won't work for your brand because they don't have perfect measurement solutions.

Not only is those, that measurement for those channels going to get better because, again, cookies are going away, IPs They're never going to go away, right? You can always do that sort of tracking. Facebook's going to have to start relying on more, again, almost like archaic methods of attribution. And so I think, again, that the sort of scrutiny that these channels are going to receive, or are going to, you know, have been getting, is going to start to lower.

And they're going to, again, have more of an equal playing field. Does that answer your question?

Matt Edmundson: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, it's an interesting thing, isn't it? What are you most excited about? Cookies going. Cookies

Amelia Coomber: going away. Yeah, I just think it's a huge opportunity for all these other channels. I mean, and who knows what's going to happen with TikTok and things like that, but I think, you know, there is a huge push.

You know, the UK and places like that, GDPR is big. It's always, you know, or it's been around for a long time. [00:41:00] The U. S. is starting to sort of, you know, push towards that direction. There are other ways to track and to do measurement without Google. You know, un anonymous data or whatever, you know, identifiable data.

Matt Edmundson: Which means there's opportunity.

Amelia Coomber: Yep.

Matt Edmundson: And wherever there's opportunity, you know, you can do some good stuff, can't you? It's rather than crying over spilt milk, just go buy another opportunity for something different. But it always stresses to me, Amelia, the importance of gathering everybody's email address and being really nice to them.

Always.

Matt Edmundson: Always. The best kind of attribution ever. Have I got your email address? Yes. And am I nice to you? Yes. Okay. I'll be alright. Listen, I loved it. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Here at SubSummit. And always nice to chat to you. Always nice to sit in front of a microphone. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And

Matt Edmundson: thanks for not punching me in the face this time.

Well, you know. It's not over yet.

Amelia Coomber: Awesome. Thanks, Matt. Thanks

Matt Edmundson: What do you think? Great episode, great conversation with Amelia. Amelia, thanks again for coming on. You are such a beauty. A legend, such a legend. [00:42:00] Uh, so that's it for today's show. Make sure you like and subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from, because as I say, we've always got more episodes lined up.

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. I've got to bear it. Amelia has to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. It's just the way it is. Now this show is produced by PodJunction, the amazing, beautiful, wonderful team that makes this show possible with Sadaf Beynon, Jonah Prisk, utter legends.

The theme music was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I said, if you'd like to see the transcripts and all the show notes and all that sort of good stuff, just head over to the website eCommercePodcast. net. Search for this episode. Uh, with all of its links, you get links through to Amelia, it will link through to SubSummit if you want to go in 2025, there's a strong chance I'm going to be there, uh, I've been invited back.

Not officially, I mean, well I suppose, I don't know. Anyway, go check out SubSummit, subsummit. [00:43:00] com, you're not going to want to miss 2025, um, but yeah, that's it from me, that's it obviously from Amelia, uh, but have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I will see you next time. Bye for now.