How to Create Ad Content That Actually Works | Amelia Coomber

Amelia: [00:00:00] And what we do with all of this, what we call like raw footage is we're able to sort of dynamically insert all of these things and turn like, this is sort of my thesis.

Like, how can you turn one ad into five? Um, and that was what we did. So rather than having all of these one off scripts from different people, different influencers, which again, Matt, that makes it incredibly difficult to test. How am I going to know that this worked better than this? Because it could be the person, it could be their delivery, it could be what they talked about.

We wanted to just get raw footage of people saying these really, you know, awesome things that are still authentic. What they liked about what they didn't what problem it solved. And then we take all of that raw footage and with that raw footage, we're able to create, you know, 50 different ads from just, you know, to what would have been originally full videos.

Matt: Welcome to the e commerce podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. The e commerce podcast is all about helping you deliver e commerce wow. And to help us [00:01:00] do just that, I am chatting with the beautiful, the amazing Amelia Coomber from Subsummit, oh yes, Amelia and I met at the Subsummit conference this year and so we hit it off and so it's great to have Amelia on the show, but before we get into the conversation, let's talk about this week's show sponsor.

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Performance marketing. Amelia swapped her software engineering hat for the exciting world of startups. She's made a name for herself by supercharging early stage companies into profitable powerhouses with a knack for scaling growth, optimizing ad creative, and boosting efficiency. Amelia definitely brings the marketing magic, and that's why I'm so excited to have you on the show.

Amelia, welcome. It's great to have you [00:03:00] all the way. From sunny New York, how are we doing? We're

Amelia: doing good, Matt, and, um, how are you doing? How's that eye of yours?

Matt: Yeah,

Amelia: I was going to ask, have you ever had a podcast host punch you in the face? Because I think, I think I might have the first.

Matt: You are, we should probably explain, uh, dear listener, that when, uh, I was at Sub Summit.

This year, Amelia and I met up in the speaker's lounge cause you were speaking and I was speaking, right? And we, we got on. We, we, I thought we got on, actually. We had a great conversation. And then as you left, you punched me

Amelia: in the face. Oh, let me give you a hug. Not a handshake.

Matt: It was very funny. So it is the first time that anyone has punched me in the face.

I think my eye is just about recovered now, so we're okay. Good, good.

Amelia: It looks great. You look great, so.

Matt: It's all about these [00:04:00] moments. Sadaf, who's the show producer at Aurion Media, we were talking about Sadaf before we hit the record button, she saw your email where you sent to me an email saying, how's your eye? And Sadaf's like, I need to meet this lady that punched you in the face. That's awesome. She's like, I've been wanting to do that for a very long

Amelia: time.

That was for her, that was for her.

Matt: Yeah, she called you ahead of time, right? And said, favour, you'll get away with it. So, how was Sub Summit for you, did you enjoy it?

Amelia: Oh, it was awesome. Honestly, really one of my favorite conferences I've been to. I mean, the people that were there, just amazing. It was a huge one, too.

I've been to a lot of smaller conferences, but the caliber of people, the amount of them, just the whole thing was really, really awesome. I'd never been to Dallas either, and I don't know if I'll go back anytime soon, but like, just the entire event was absolutely spectacular.

Matt: Yeah, no, I, I, I, like you, I was, I, it [00:05:00] was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be, um, and met so many great people there, uh, but really, really enjoyed myself, and so, um, it's definitely not the first time for me I've been to Dallas.

I have friends there, so it's like the third or fourth time I've been to Dallas, I think, something like that. Um, but yeah, just, just love the conference. Can I ask, what was the standout point for you? Oh,

Amelia: that's such a good question. Um, let's see. Honestly, I mean, so the panel that I was on was with, um, a couple founders, um, one of them was the founder of August, which is like a period sexual wellness company, and then the other one, um, is called Plate Crate, and, and Josh was the CEO there, and I, you know, I, I went into this panel being like, oh, I'm gonna share my, you know, like, ad creative techniques and this and that, I swear to God, I spoke, like, for two seconds, because the entire time I'm up there, sitting with them, and they are just, like, dropping these, like, incredibly insightful nuggets, like, again and again and again.

I couldn't even, like, [00:06:00] like, I didn't have anything else to add. I, I was literally sitting there, and at one point, um, they were saying something, and I just went, like, mic drop, like, that's it, like, you guys don't need to do anything else, we can all stop. So, I, I honestly... Despite the fact that, like, this was a panel I was gonna be on, I, I literally emailed them after, and I was like, I think I got way more from that than anybody in the audience.

It was just so incredible. So that was a big highlight. Obviously, the dinners and the, you know, the meeting and the networking and stuff was amazing, and all the events were great, but, uh, I, I was just blown away. I, I was like, I don't even deserve to be sitting here with these incredible people. I'm just taking it all in.

Matt: Oh, you totally deserve to be there. How did they, um, how did you and Subsummit sort of make that connection? How did, were you invited? Did you contact them to speak? How did that work out?

Amelia: Yeah, so a good friend of mine, Jay, who, um, we spoke, or we met at a conference called Media Post like a year ago, and he was a speaker there, I, I just got back from that conference speaking again about like the ad creative and stuff, but we met there, he, uh, used to be the uh, [00:07:00] CMO of Wink and we're the same age.

So incredible, just like, you know, 27 year old that kills it, you know, publicly traded company. Um, and he left to go start his own company called the starters, which is basically like, you know, a new generation of like finding freelancers for growth marketing. Um, and so he was talking to me about how he was going to this conference and he had mentioned that they are looking to fill a couple of spots on the panels.

Um, and I was like, let's go count me in. I'll be there.

Matt: I'm there. No, great. Great. I thought it was brilliant. I thought you were great. And um, it was, it was genuinely great to meet you. And I have to be honest with you, Amelia, I have not met that many people on the planet That have just the sheer passion and enjoyment for ad creative as you.

I mean, just the energy that comes out of you when you talk about these things is quite extraordinary.

Amelia: Thank you, thank you. I'm actually, I've been told more than once to tone it down,

Matt: but I can't. No, don't do that. That's part of the magic.

Amelia: Yeah, I hope so. I agree, I [00:08:00] agree. Uh, but no, I mean, I mean, ad creative is, is, is really just one of those last, you know, levers that you can pull in performance marketing.

And I think, uh, you know, there's no more targeting as granularly anymore. All of that sort of stuff has gone away. And I think, um, you know, especially with TikTok and stuff, it, the ad creative space and Creating good, you know, video ad creative is actually so much easier because you don't need to spend 15, 000 to hire models and, you know, do this big shoot.

It's actually the opposite, you know, the best ads perform when you're literally like holding your phone up and talking to them and, you know, having influencers give a genuine testimonial. So, um, I think that, you know, we're still in this, you know, time where people, and especially like brand marketers are just trying to wrap their mind around that.

Um, but it ends up like opening just the ability to really scale that, um, and, and, you know, create better ads that perform, you know, so much better, um, easier.

Matt: So what have you learned then in this space in the, in, in recent months that's going to help us? It's a bit of an open ended question, but it

Amelia: goes. I have all the answers.

No. Um, I mean, one of the, one of the things [00:09:00] that I did at PetPlate, and again, I just came back from a conference and I, and I talked about this like modular ad creative system, but I, you know, as Matt mentioned, I'm super passionate about that. Um, you know, UGC is, is so critical. I think everybody on the, you know, DTC Twitter space is talking about how UGC is dead and yada yada.

Um, and, and I, and I agree with that to a certain extent. I think, like, just getting a bunch of influencers, um, having them create content and then expecting it to perform, that is dead. People are very aware that, like, if somebody's talking about a product, it's probably sponsored, they're probably being paid for it, and so I think that the genuinity of it, if that's the word, um, is sort of lost.

But at the same time, really the thing is, you know, why UGC still performs and has always performed is it's, it's a third party nature of somebody that isn't the company telling you why this product solved a problem in their life and was great for them. And so from that perspective, like UGC is never gonna, you know, go away.

It's always been that way. Word of Mouth is one of the Best, you know, like, marketing channels, right, that you can have, one of the best ways to, um, you know, acquire new customers, and I [00:10:00] think if you do UGC right, that's, that's what it is, um, but from a video ad creative standpoint, it can be incredibly difficult to turn out, like, new video ad creative that's gonna perform, and, um, you know, at PetPlate, I don't even waste time with static images I um, like some people, especially right now, they say that they can perform.

And I don't disagree with that. Um, but when you add motion, when you add animation, when you add, you know, like just, just different transitions and stuff to even a static image, um, you're going to, it's going to perform so much better than like a blank static image. So I say that because one of the things that we did, and I've learned over the last, you know, almost two years now at PetPlay, um, is that there's a way to unlock the ability Ability to create hundreds, thousands of different ad creative UGC style videos from very, very little content.

Um, and that's one of the things that when I work with various brands and stuff, they struggle with is how do we get new content, how do we continue, because ad fatigue is so real. And again, [00:11:00] when you're looking at paid media and performance marketing, especially on the Facebooks and the TikToks, like that is one of the last levers you can control to really improve performance.

But like, you know, you'll run an ad for two weeks, it'll kill it. And then it'll stop. And so, you know, so many companies, they're waiting for those ads to underperform and then they have to go start from scratch and create new ones. And I needed our team to make sure that that wasn't the case. Um, and so rather than again, having a bunch of influencers that we handed scripts and they created these ads, um, we narrowed our influencers down to three from like literally 18.

Um, and what I did instead of giving them a script and being like, recite these lines, blah, blah, blah, blah, was. I needed them to look and to sort of give me talking points, different clips and stuff of them talking about the problem it solved, the solution, why they liked it, yada, yada. And what we do with all of this, what we call like raw footage is we're able to sort of dynamically insert all of these things and turn like, this is sort of my thesis.

Like, how can you turn one ad into [00:12:00] five? Um, and that was what we did. So rather than having all of these one off scripts from different people, different influencers, which again, Matt, that makes it incredibly difficult to test. How am I going to know that this worked better than this? Because it could be the person, it could be their delivery, it could be what they talked about.

We wanted to just get raw footage of people saying these really, you know, awesome things that are still authentic. What they liked about what they didn't what problem it solved. And then we take all of that raw footage and with that raw footage, we're able to create, you know, 50 different ads from just, you know, to what would have been originally full videos.

Um, so yeah, we, we really worked on this system. It took a couple of key things, obviously having a media buyer in house. Um, but the biggest thing was having a video editor that we could lean on and. So, you know, whether it's changing out different hooks, whether it's different text overlays, different transitions and stuff, all of these things, the raw footage, plus the different editing styles on top, you can create thousands of unique combinations of ads.

And that's how we've unlocked performance. And, and again, made it really, really easy for ourselves because we don't need to work with 10, 000 influencers. [00:13:00] We don't need raw footage every week. Um, we really, honestly, like I shoot with a couple influencers like every quarter and that will set us up for, you know, the next 10 weeks.

Matt: Wow, okay, there's a lot there, Amelia. So you talk about this, um, modular ad creative system, and so I get what you're saying. So you get this, uh, you get this video from an influencer. You can slice and dice it, and you can mix that then with animations, overlays, and all kinds of things, different music, to creatives.

Do you give the influencers... Any kind of a steer on, I mean, I know you don't give them scripts, but do you give them these story points, these talking points to, to hit?

Amelia: Yeah, we will. I usually, and this is really, really important. We don't work with an influencer that hasn't tried the product or I don't talk with.

So, um, and, and that's why it's really important to narrow them down because I can't jump on the 30 minute calls with 1000 of them, you know? Um, so the few that we work with, I'll jump on a call with them. Um, we'll have them fill out a [00:14:00] form and that form, because PetPlate, human grade. Fresh dog food, like literally humans can eat it, like it's, it's made in human grade facilities, um, and then there's, you know, a lot of studies about how that's, you know, so important for dogs and longevity and stuff compared to like just feed grade conventional kibble, um, so all, the first thing that I'll do before I even give them any talking points is really ask them about their story.

What were the problems their dog used to have? Why did they switch over to PetPlate? Did they try other human grade dog food brands? What did they like? What did they not like? And then what did they like about PetPlate? So we try to give them talking points in the sense that we know. a way to phrase something that's gonna perform well, I think so again, it's not necessarily like a one off script, we might help them curate some of those talking points, but there's a bunch of different buckets, whether they fed their dog, they still feed their dog kibble, whether they cook for their dog, whether their dog had this problem, that once we identify that, after talking with them, we're able to sort of craft, alright, here's, here's what's going to work best from a, like, talking into the camera standpoint.

Matt: So the, when the, [00:15:00] You give them a talking point and you give them sort of specific ideas because you know that's going to work well. So you're going to hit different angles, which is, uh, which is great. They're recording that themselves, or are you bringing them into the building to record that? How does that work?

Amelia: It's a little bit of both, so if we have a couple influencers that we work with very, very closely, they happen to be in New York, we did that very purposely so that we can have them come into, and it's not even a studio, like we might have them come into our office and stuff like that, um, so we do do that, and I'll sort of like feed them lines, again, all based on their authentic experience, we'll let them sort of improv a couple things, um, but other times, again, because we work closely with them, even if they're not coming into the studio, we will just give them those talking points.

Um, and, and it can still look like a script, you know, like, Oh, hey, I want you to hit this, this, this thing, what you like about it, what you don't. Um, what would the, you know, the solution and the problem was, what the, you know, the features and the benefits of PetPlate are, were, you know, pre portioned, it comes in these great little containers that are resealable, they're not messy, you can stack them in your fridge really easily.

Um, so we give them all those things, and it might look like a script, but [00:16:00] the one thing we don't do is we don't, like, make that into one ad. I think that's sort of the difference, is that, again, All of those things can be individually, as you said, sort of sliced and diced, um, and used in any other ad. So we'll have a bunch of different people, sort of like those, you know, testimonial mute, I call them like UGC mashups, but they each, each like talking point that can be like, you know, anywhere from five to 15 seconds can be isolated and can live across so many other different, um, or across other different talking points and stuff.

So it's a script in the sense that we are feeding them, Hey, this is how this works, or this is what we. They perform best, again, they can, we, we try not to be rigid, they can, we want them to be as authentic, if they mess up, like, that's even better, we really want it to feel like they literally got PetPlate and they were like, this shit is awesome, um, but we also aren't gonna just make that into one video and be like, oh, one and done.

Matt: Yeah, so the, you mentioned then, uh, that you get them to talk between 5 and 15 [00:17:00] seconds per sort of sound, I'm going to call them soundbites. Soundbites Yeah, yeah. So each soundbite is, is like 5 to 15 seconds. Um, it's kind of problem solution oriented, um, and, uh, you know, it can sort of stand alone on its own.

Why 5 to 15 seconds? Is it a case of we need these things to be short and snappy?

Amelia: It is. I definitely think so. And I think that goes back to like a whole different thing, you know. Meta really pushes like short form video performs the best especially in the world of TikTok. And that's true, right? Like, I think probably like, you know, nine out of ten times a shorter, you know, a, a, 50, 30 second video is going to perform better than like a one and a half minute video.

We still, we don't focus on that though. The length doesn't matter. I think the beginning of an ad video is the most important. And that's where like, we make, and that's again why it's important for us to control like how we're editing and how, you know, all of these talking points are flowing. But our goal is to make sure that Everything we want somebody to know about PetPlate happens in the first [00:18:00] 15 seconds of an ad, right?

Like, it's human grade, it's pre, um, you know, pre portioned cups, they're microwavable, you can stack them, they're easy, um, it helped, you know, we'll talk about, they'll talk about how it, you know, helped their dog or whatever. We make sure anything that the user is listening to, if they don't watch more than 15 seconds, they're still gonna leave that video and know what PetPlate is and know the important things that they're supposed to remember.

The rest of it is just great. If we can get somebody to watch the remaining, like, you know, one minute of the video, that's even better, but we don't prioritize length necessarily, or, or it being shorter. We just make sure that the most important things, the things we want somebody to walk away with are in those.

15 seconds, and then if they watch the rest of the video, that's even better, and that, again, can be more authentic and stuff. So, our highest performing videos are literally a minute and 30 seconds, and we worked with some Facebook reps, and they were like, Ah, you guys are really, you know, not really following best practices here, and we sort of went back and forth with her, and she was like, Oh, like, but they're working, so, you know, don't change anything.

Like, I think it really [00:19:00] depends. Again, like, we're not, it's not some long, drawn out, like, oh, my dog was this and that, and, you know, like, we, we make sure it's, like, short, snappy, and to the point at the beginning, and then everything else is just added benefit. Yeah.

Matt: Wow. I mean, so in the first 15 seconds, you're trying to communicate a whole bunch of stuff.

Are you using, um, a lot of fast edits at this point, or is this actually a sort of like an opening script from the implement, not script is the wrong word, but it's a sort of an, in this opening soundbite, you need to say X, Y, and Z, right? These four things, hit them, and you need to do it in, in, in like 15 seconds.

Amelia: Yeah, well, again, like, so, like, so our highest performing ad, it really starts out with, like, I was watching Shark Tank, and I came across this awesome guy and a super cute dog, and they started this human grade dog food company, and they sort of, like, look confused, and, you know, I had to try it out, and yadda yadda yadda, and then they sort of, you know, that's the first, like, five seconds of it, and then they jump into, like, one of the best things about it is that it doesn't make a mess in my fridge, it's not Um, and you know, I've seen huge improvements in my dog's poop or you [00:20:00] know, stuff like, almost like visceral stuff like that, right, that sort of grabs your attention.

Um, but again, I don't need that influencer to say that in the first 15 seconds of whatever they're giving me, because since we own all that raw footage, they can say that in, you know, the, the 60 seconds of their, you know, long form video that they're sending us. We chop it up and we just make sure that those parts that we want are in the beginning.

Um, and so, Well, also, especially, this happens especially when we're in studio, in office, when we're recording with these influencers, I'll have them say, like, those lines, they'll, they'll land on a line, whether it's like, hey, I was watching Shark Tank, and I'll have them say that a couple times, and they'll use different inflections at the end, right, so that it's So, it's easy to parse those things and sort of move them in a modular way into whatever part of the, you know, full video I want, but it doesn't sound like it's super scripted.

You know, you can tell when something, if somebody was ending on a high note and they were about to continue to something else, so I'll have them sort of recite those lines a couple times so that we're able to integrate them into whatever portion of the video we want.

Matt: Wow. So, How [00:21:00] long do you guys spend, um, creating these videos?

Because it sounds to me like the recording process is pretty slick. As in, these are the kind of things that I want. It's going to take you maybe an hour to record, uh, the whole thing. Maybe two, I don't know. Uh, Amelia, correct me if I'm wrong. But the editing process sounds like this is going to take a wee while.

As they say. It can.

Amelia: It can. I, I think, um, again, that's the power of an in house video editor. It's so funny talking to all these brands, because every brand has a graphic designer. They might have a team of graphic designers. You can't have a brand without having somebody doing the design, right? Like, that's just, everybody knows that.

Unless you're a founder, and you're super, super early stage, and you're gonna do all the design. Design and the visual aspects of it. Anything marketing wise and brand wise are important. And so when I talk to these brands and they don't have an in house video editor, I'm like, I'm just flabbergasted because we live in a world of video.

And so one of the first things I did with PetPlate when, when I was sort of moving in from let's bring the team in house. So paid media, all that growth stuff, um, was I [00:22:00] made sure we hired an in house video editor. Um, and this guy is, he's an incredible. He's young, he's hungry. He's like, you know, a Gen Z. So he gets the transitions and the TikTok style and sort of the low fidelity is what I like to call it.

Um, but I can hand him and, and we'll do it all in one take, right? Right. I set up my camera. If I'm working with an influencer and I'll read them these scripts, they'll, they'll start sort of going off on their own and stuff, but it's one long 15 minute video, right? Of me being like, Oh, that was great. Say that again.

I'll hand him that stuff. He'll start chopping it up. And when you have a good video editor. They can whip through this stuff so fast. If I hand him a 50 minute, you know, video of just like, again, it's, it's gonna have 20 different raw clips that we can pull out of it. He can do that in two hours, you know, and, and they, he's like a wizard when you watch him.

Like, I don't know if you've ever seen, like, Mr. Robot, you know, and you watch, like, he's that hacker, you know, he's just, like, going through the terminal and yada, yada. Like, that's what he looks like. He's got all these shortcuts. So, when you have a good video editor that knows what they're doing, it really doesn't take them that long.

I think, One of the things we struggled with at [00:23:00] the beginning when I was first brought on, which is why we needed to hire an in house video editor, was that it was taking these agencies and stuff so long, because they're working on 10, 000 other ads for different clients. So, that's where the bottlenecks can come in, and that was again why we needed this in house video editor.

But, I mean, he can whip out an ad in, you know, An ad, a full ad, that then has 15 different versions of itself, different hooks, different styles, all that sort of stuff, he can whip that in in two days. And, again, that'll be 15 finalized ad creative pieces there, that we have a very strong, you know, in inclination, they're gonna perform well, um, really, really, really fast.

So, again, yeah, you're right. It does, it probably takes, like, two hours to film, depending on how many influencers we're doing, um, and then he'll whip through those from an editing perspective really, really, We also really had him focus on building templates and inside of the like editing platforms, Adobe or whatever, you know, you want to use, they're called, I think it's like motion graphic templates or something.

And so he'll start creating those. So we've got different like text overlay templates, different styles, different [00:24:00] transitions. So once he's actually edited that raw footage, pulled out all those raw clips, it's really almost like a drag and drop nature. Oh, hey, I want to try this. You know, hook at the beginning, we'll have this, we'll switch out this problem, solution, clip, um, with this influencer's one, and then we just overlay those motion graphic templates on top, and he can turn those out like nobody's business.

Matt: It's um, yeah, I, I, I can picture it in my head now, Amelia, him just sort of busy, because I've seen really great video editors do that, you know, and just, it's like they become one with the machine, and it,

Amelia: it's, it's actually insane, yeah, watching him, I'm just like, I, my, and I, I talk very fast, I process things very fast, I listen to podcasts on 3x speed, and watching him video ed is like insane.

Matt: You listen to podcasts on 3x speed. Why does that not surprise me in any way? I'd listen to them faster if they gave me a faster speed, Matthew, but they don't. Um, so the, let's go back to some of the components then of this modular system. So, [00:25:00] you've mentioned the need for a hook. Um, we've obviously got a call to action in there somewhere and obviously the desire within the first 15 seconds to fully understand what's going on.

Um, talk to me about those. Start with the hook.

Amelia: So hook is absolutely one of the most, if not the most important aspect of an ad. So the hook is really the first three seconds of any video. And the statistic goes, if you can get somebody to watch the first three seconds of a video or an ad, you're, you have like a 70% higher likelihood of them watching the rest of the ad, or at least like going to 50% of them.

So, um, Hooks are so critical, and I think, um, and we test out hooks all the time. Every single video, again, it'll be like a full ad creative video, we'll have just five different versions of that exact video with different hooks. And we'll have already created them, we'll create them from start, um, but hooks are really, really fun.

Um, and we have this like, you know, one of the things I had my team do at the beginning before we even started building this system was to go and find ads and go record them, whether they were going through [00:26:00] Facebook ad library or just getting served them on social media, and we would take inspiration from all of those different components of the ads.

And so hooks are really, really cool because Again, the goal is just to stop the user from scrolling, catch their attention, and get them to watch those first three seconds. Um, and so I've seen some crazy stuff. Everybody has probably seen the comm ads where it's like this 3D rendered, um, you know, like moving through sand, almost ASMR.

Right, or, um, one of my favorites is this, like, drawing app, um, that was like, you hold your phone over and it'll show you, like, the outline of it and stuff, and the, and the guy's drawing a chicken, the first three seconds of this video, he's, like, smashing an egg, right, like, so out of context, like, what the heck, but I immediately stopped, it grabbed my attention, and I was like, What the heck.

So, I think hooks are obviously really, really important. I think where they can go wrong is that people try to make them too integrated and too, like, bridging into the ad where they can actually just be, like, random aggressive stuff. Spoiled Child does this [00:27:00] incredibly well. There's a couple other brands that do this really well, where, again, The goal is really just to capture that user's attention.

Nobody ever remembers a, you know, an ad that they saw, right? They'll remember the brand, they'll remember how it made them feel, but it can be ridiculous. We had this like flaming kibble, um, uh, video. It was basically like our, um, my media buyer went to his place in Jersey. He got some kibble, lit it on fire, and it's just like beautiful slow mo of kibble burning.

And that has worked really, really well. And we're not obviously in that ad, we might not even talk about how bad kibble is or whatever it is, but like that catches somebody's attention. And so we'll do random stuff like that, we'll throw a pet plate at a wall, we'll have somebody eat out of like what clearly looks like a dog food container.

Um, so it's all those sorts of things that I think, they don't need to be like perfectly related to the ad themselves, but they need to catch that user's attention. Um, and that's one of my favorite things, we'll buy styrofoam and we'll like burn it or something, you know, and it'll just be like those first three seconds, you're like, what the heck is this, you know, what is this?

The rest of the video. So hooks are really, really [00:28:00] important. They can be really fun. We film them all the time. And again, we'll like take different videos, um, in different hooks and we'll splice and dice them and overlay them into whatever new ad we're building.

Matt: So a hook for you then is actually part of the video.

It's, it's, uh, it's a video in itself. It's not like text on the screen. It's like somebody's doing something or some event is happening on the screen.

Amelia: Exactly, something that's going to catch that user's attention, and, and, that's one of the thing, reasons why I'm so, like, I'm good at ad creative, and I'm really passionate about is because I've got ADHD, like, you, I am the best person to, like, go through and audit an ad because I, I'm thinking about ten other things while we're filming this right now, you know, and so if I, if I'm not, like, my attention is not grabbed, and I don't Stop watching a hook or watching the beginning of an ad.

Like it's a really good indicator that any random user, because we all, when we're scrolling on these social media feeds, like we're the perfect example of somebody with ADHD. We're just trying to go to the next piece of content. Um, and so you're right. They're, they're, they're interchangeable, but they are very, very central to the ad.

And there's been [00:29:00] a lot of like, we've done AB tests for this and, and, and a lot of other people have, but it can really, really impact. The actual performance of that ad just based on those three seconds. Um, and again, it's another really great way to turn one ad into five. You can have multiple different hooks and you can create whole different versions from that.

Matt: So we need a hook. Um, we need user generated content. We need these sort of story blocks, these snippets, um, to, to to soundbites as we call them to go in there. What else, what else are we looking for in this ad creative?

Amelia: Yeah, so there's a bunch of different, like, what I call, like, modules or frameworks. So, there's the hook, there's the problem, there's the solution.

Maybe there's a use case. Somebody's talking about, um, you know, how they, how they found it, or how they specifically feed their dog. Um, I'm looking for, yeah, so, um, there's also, like, an agitate. So, maybe they're talking about the problem, but then they dive into, like, why that was so frustrating for them. Um, there's, like, a desired end result.

So, there's probably 20 or, you know, [00:30:00] 30 different. Modules again, that we call them. Um, and, and not all ad videos will have every single one of them. They usually follow like hook problem, solution, feature, benefits, you know, U G C or personal testimonial, and then call to action. Mm-hmm. . But you can interchange those with a lot of, um, different ones.

And so again, like you can you, once you have. 20 different modules and each one of those modules has three different raw clips of different people talking about that again You think like you could just do the math on that like it's literally combinational like, you know Different permutations that you can end up with like 300 2000 stuff like that.

Well,

Matt: well So we've got the hook. We've got all the little bits in the middle. How do you go about? Doing the captions. So, you know that this sort of text that goes alongside the ad creative

Amelia: Yeah, great question. Um, every single ad needs to be mute first. Everything, like, when we develop website, right, it's all mobile first.

You're building mobile first. It's the [00:31:00] same sort of thing. And an ad creative should also be mobile first. Um, but it's what we call mute first. So it needs to Just to be able to be comprehended without the sound. In the world of TikTok, most people have their sound on now because they're watching Reels and they're watching TikToks, but there's still a large portion of people that are not.

They're just scrolling through while they're doing something. Um, so everything is mute first, which means that every single ad needs to have full captions. Like I need to be able to read this thing and understand what the person's saying even without hearing them. Um, so. Everything needs to have captions, like full, I'm, I'm dictating what they're saying, um, and those caption styles, we try a bunch of different ones out, I mean, and, and you could, like, look at your TikTok and see all of these different styles, um, just in general, sometimes they look like bubbles, sometimes they're, you know, like, they've got, like, little borders around them and stuff, we'll, we'll develop a bunch of different ones, and again, like, even those little things can change how a user resonates with an ad, so those are really important, um, and then when it comes to outside of just captions, text overlays, we'll overlay it.

Thank you. Like, you know, things and it'll sort of like pop out [00:32:00] when somebody says things, but it's, um, you know, the important part. So when somebody's talking about the features, they're pre portioned, they're mess free, they're microwavable, like those things will pop up on the screen alongside the actual captions because that's what we want them to take away with.

So they can understand the video without the, the sound and they can completely read, you know, everything that the person's saying, but then everything we want to be Emphasize again, like those benefits, those call, you know, call outs, those problems and stuff. We'll have those pop up when the user saying them.

Um, and, and the goal there again is to make sure that like, those are the most important things that we wanted the, you know, listener to, or the, the viewer to see and take away with.

Matt: So there's a lot going on here, isn't there on the screen and, um, and I can see how it, in one sense, I can see how that's going to capture people's attention.

But I guess thinking around this a little bit, one of the big problems you're going to have is. Is to not make it too confusing for people, I don't know if that is an issue.

Amelia: Too confusing, meaning like there's too much on the

Matt: screen. [00:33:00] Yeah, there's just too much going on, like people just feel overwhelmed.

Or is that not a thing?

Amelia: Yeah, there's a balance. I think we've probably all seen ads where there's just too much going on. I do think that's way less of a problem than people think. Um, again, like, you want the main point of whatever that screen. So if they're talking about the problems with other human grade dog food brands they've tried, they are messy, they are super, you know, smelly.

You have to put them in their fridge, you have to wait for them to defrost. Um, We'll make sure that is emphasized. And again, we'll have small captions at the bottom. Um, but we do want to make sure that there's not too much going on, but I think like. When you look at it, like, you know, you know, like, you'll know and you have to be a user, you know, a viewer, too.

You have to put yourself in a mind of somebody, like, scrolling through social media and how they would see it. You have to look at, like, where your eyes gravitated to. But I don't think it's as big of a problem as people think about. I think the more The better. Um, again, we are in just this like attention deficit sort of, you know, like, like world right now.

And, um, you're, you have to [00:34:00] control that by really like emphasizing and making sure the things that you want those people to take away are really at the forefront of whatever they're looking at. Um, but the other thing we'll do too is we'll have like other people, whether it's. You know, people that are not in our team, or other people that weren't involved in creating that ad, we'll have them watch it too, and we'll get their perspective, and, um, that's a really good way, again, to pull yourself out of, you know, the person that was creating this ad, that obviously has bias, um, to be like, alright, what did you think, where were you confused, and stuff, but, at the same time, I don't think it's as big of a problem, I think, way more often than not, People are not using enough of these text overlays because that is really at the day what grabs those people's attention that in transitions There's this whole new style right now.

Um rocket money. They do the best of this um, but like every time somebody's talking they're like zooming in and out and you're just like, you know, you're Even just that little motion, again, like, you're, you're looking at it, it's keeping your attention. So the transitions are really critical, um, and there's a bunch of other different styles.

Rocket Money also does this one where they'll have, like, somebody talking at the top, [00:35:00] um, maybe they're interviewing somebody about how frustrated they were that they had all these, um, you know, accounts that they were paying for and they had no idea, and then they'll have at the bottom, like, split screen, they'll, somebody baking a cake, you know, like, just because it, like, you're, you're watching this and you're like, what the heck?

And, like, a lot of brand people, by the way, are gonna be like, Wait, we can't do that. No way. But it gets you to watch it. You're confused and even that confusion or that sort of like controversy is going to get somebody to watch it. And then again, you're going to still take away the same thing. Oh, rocket money.

They did this. I happened to watch the video because I was watching somebody frost a cake and it was sort of soothing or whatever. But I also had the takeaway of this person being like, I was able to cut 200 a month of, you know, savings because I found out I had two accounts on Hulu or something. Yeah,

Matt: yeah, no, brilliant.

So the, you've got all of this going on. How many ads are you putting out at any one point in

Amelia: time? So every time we launch a new ad concept, we run five of them. That'll be the same, like again, full sort of like script or whatever, same full raw unedited video, and then we'll [00:36:00] have those different text overlays, those different transitions, different hooks, and we'll test them against each other.

We never run more than five of any new ad concept. When in an ad set, Facebook can't even like dedicate enough Spend to five different ones. So we'll run those five. We'll immediately see which ones, like they'll have different KPIs and stuff, whether it's like click through rate, you know, cost of add to cart and stuff, um, that we have like as benchmarks for, for what we know is going to continue to perform and like within the first 24 hours, we've probably already killed one of them within the next, you know, 48 hours, we'll have killed two.

So three is really like our sweet spot. And we'll find three ads that really, really kill it out of that five. Um, but at any given week, I mean, we're lucky because we, because of this system that we've been working. You know, and so long that we've got three or four ads that have literally been running for over a year.

And in this like post iOS 14. 5 world, like evergreen ads are very, very rare. So we got lucky. But again, we tested and we tested, um, and we know like very, very specific, you know, like we know this, you know, text overlay style is going to be far better than this one or this caption style or whatever. [00:37:00] Um, but you know, every, I would say.

Every month we're testing out 20 different ads and we'll narrow those down to like five really high Performers that will run for probably at least two or three weeks But we never start with you know, less than five of any given like sort of new ad concept And we'll narrow it down from there.

Matt: Wow. So I've got some interesting questions to ask you now I'm gonna we're gonna try a little thought experiment if that's okay Amelia.

So on my desk got various objects And I'm curious, I'm going to show you the object and I want to know how you would do the ad creative. How would you do this, right? Is that

Amelia: okay? I love this. Alright, let's

Matt: do it. First object on my desk. Lego Indiana Jones. Mmm,

Amelia: okay,

Matt: so we're trying to sell Bear in mind the new Indiana Jones movie is coming out now, actually.

Amelia: Mmm, I'm not even a huge Indiana Jones fan, so, um, the first thing I think of is like obviously the demographic is probably going to be you buying [00:38:00] this for your kid, maybe you want your kid to watch it, maybe you want, um, in the world of like Facebook and stuff, like you're most likely going to be the person watching this and you want them to buy it.

So, um, if there's a new Indiana Jones movie coming out, I would probably start with that, you know, like, oh, my kid was so, so excited. Actually, I'll stop there, um, because the audience, the person that you're gonna buy this for, is the kid. So it can seem like the kid should be the one talking about it. And so for dog food, what we had historically done is we tried to have as many dogs, like, eating our food as possible.

That never works because the dog isn't the one buying the food It's the people and the people that their time is saved their you know vet bills are saved and stuff So it might seem intuitive to have the kid do the ad I would say Matt you're gonna be the one doing that so you would get on and You might you know say something that again like we mentioned the Shark Tank stuff if this new Indiana Jones movies coming up You'd probably be like, you know my Son or my daughter is so excited about this movie, um, it's [00:39:00] still like a couple weeks out from coming out.

I was scrolling through TikTok and I saw, um, you know, this parent talking about this new toy that was launched and they absolutely loved it. And here are the, you know, three benefits about it. It rolls, it can be taken apart, yadda yadda, maybe throw in some... Um, frustrating thing about, you know, previous, like, Legos or something, you know, one of my favorite aspects of this is that, um, it really looks like Indiana Jones, you know, and so when my kid thought, he immediately knew what it was, even if that hat was removed, um, and it's got these interchangeable, like, pieces, so he can make Indiana Jones go from rolling, you know, running away from a boulder to holding his whip, um, and, you know, Uh, I'll stop there too, because I'm going in circles, but, uh, the other thing that you could do too is almost like give a story of how you guys played with it together, so my son and I, we set up this awesome scene because, you know, he was home from school one day, sick, and I needed to keep him entertained, and so we built this Awesome.

You know, little [00:40:00] system with the, you know, these Lego pieces and this Indiana Jones Lego guy. And then we built this fort out of, you know, cardboard boxes. You try to paint that story to help somebody imagine them being in your position. Um, and, and doing that with their child. And, you know, again, the, the thing for you is that obviously my son loves it and he's going to be so excited about it.

He can't wait for the movie to come out. He's going to bring his toy with him when he watches the movie. Um, but it made my life easier, right? Because I didn't know what we were going to do on this rainy or sick day Um, and so we developed this little, you know, character play of Indiana Jones fighting our dog because, you know, they were both trying to, you know, reach the medallion or, or whatever it is, right?

Matt: Fantastic. I love it! Right, I'm going to give you the next one now, and to do that I need to stand up. So this t shirt here. Uh, was designed by my daughter. Okay. Um, and so how would I, how would I advertise that? What creative would I come up with for that? I'm just trying to [00:41:00] think, I'm just trying to pick really random objects.

Amelia: So cool that she built that, um, and she made that. So let's say you guys were trying to sell that. Um, I think obviously like one way you could do it is just talking about the product itself without relating it to your daughter. So, um, these are, you know, really, really cool designs. Um, you know, and maybe she could, you could tell a story about like what it means and how it was designed and.

I think, again, a better thing would be, because, especially for, like, t shirts and designs and stuff, like, people like them or they don't, right, and I think you have to make them, like, find that story and paint that picture in their mind, so I actually think, like, the best way to tell that story would be telling about how your daughter built this and why she designed it and stuff, because I think that's emotional, they're, you know, like, somebody, they want to support this, this, you know, young woman that's, And, you know, trying to start her own business, um, to have her tell her story, um, you know, you can, again, talk about the amazing features like, oh, it's, you know, washer, washable.

It's, you know, not going to peel off even that front thing. Um, but I really think [00:42:00] when somebody is talking about their personal story, like some of our best ads are Ronaldo coming on and he's. Just authentically talking about, like, why he started PetPlate, you know, and he was on Shark Tank and all that stuff, and it, it grabs somebody.

It makes it feel like it's not a business, it's a person. People don't want to support businesses, especially in, in today's day and age. They want to support people, and so, I think, to sell your daughter's t shirt, she should be on all, you know, cute, and maybe you're, like, doing, um, you know, like, uh, um, A fast paced or what, uh, you know, sped up version of her actually designing that in something, right?

And then she's talking about her thought process and she's making some mistakes and stuff and then she has this shirt and all of her friends are around her and they're wearing it. I think, again, you have to tie it into that personal experience and make it authentic because then again, you're gonna get people that love the shirt and they were gonna buy it regardless of who designed it because they think it's cool, uh, but then you're gonna get that other audience of people that are just like, Oh, I'd love my daughter to do this and maybe this will inspire her, um, you know, and, and by wearing this.

And, oh, you know, this is really cool because, you know, I [00:43:00] would love my kids to do this at some point and we want to support other, you know, parents and children and stuff that are, um, you know, doing stuff like that.

Matt: Fantastic. I'm gonna let Zoe know. And then my final product. Uh, you ready for this one, the last one?

I'm ready. Uh, Vegetology, Vegan Omega 3.

Amelia: Ooh, okay, brain, eye, health, source from, what is that, micro, algae, or microcology. Micro,

Matt: yeah, so algae. So the story behind this, right, is fish don't actually make omega 3. This is a common misconception. Omega 3 comes from the algae that the fish eat. And so what vegetology do is they just take the omega 3 straight from the algae, which is a beautiful thing.

It's the highest strength you can get and it's mercury free plus it takes about 50 fish to create a bottle of omega 3 that big. So you're keeping 50 fish in the ocean and there's some of the sort of really cool talking points to that product.

Amelia: You just created the ad, [00:44:00] that's exactly what it would be.

Did you know that when you're taking general omega 3s, it's not actually the omega 3s from the fish, they don't create them, but you're getting it from the algae that they eat. So we thought, why kill a bunch of fish to get, you know, 20% of the omega 3s we would have gotten from the fish, and why don't we just go straight to the source?

Not only is it more sustainable... We're saving, you know, fish's lives or whatever, but we're actually creating a higher potency and we're able to extract way more of these omega 3s and a higher, um, again, you know, potency or compound, um, than if we were to just pull this from the fish. But I think that exact, like, hook at the beginning, did you know that fish do not create omega 3s?

Anybody watching this is going to be like, wait, what? Like I've been taking omega 3s. Forever. They all taste like fish and they're disgusting. Um, that's gonna grab somebody's attention and then you can sort of walk them into, um, you know why that is. And I think that sort of like storytelling is incredible.

I was just watching this ad yesterday. This guy created this like, it's called t n t for mosquitoes or something, and he starts buying goes. Do you [00:45:00] know that, like, the reason why mosquitoes really like people is because they produce CO2, and CO2 is what, like, um, uh, is what, like, is sort of, like, the sensor, um, or, like, the, you know, the little, like, eye catching thing for a mosquito, and that's why they come and eat people.

Um, but he started out, sort of, like, explaining this concept that people had in their mind, they thought they knew, and he flipped it on its head, and he said, that's not actually the way it is. And immediately I started watching it. I was like, wait, I've been told, you know, mosquitoes like me because of my blood for so long and it's actually that I just produce CO2 or I've been spraying myself with this disgusting stuff.

Why couldn't I just have this little thing outside, you know, my pond or whatever? That produced CO2 and that like sort of, you know, distracted the mosquitoes from me and, you know, made them go into them. So I think exactly how you said it is the way to do it. Um, the other things I noticed is talking about like how it's good for your brain, your heart and your eyes.

Um, obviously those can just be listed out as talking points, but I think diving into those, um, and explaining like how each one of those. Um, is really important, because somebody that's trying [00:46:00] to solve a problem for their eyes, or for their heart, or for their brain, those might be three totally different people.

And so I think, even with that alone, you can create different ads, and it might not even be beneficial to stack those sort of solutions and benefits on top of each other. Um, you should probably lay them out, and they're each gonna provide a value to a different audience. But again, I think starting with the, did you know that Omega 3s do not come from fish?

They come from the algae that they eat. Like, why the fuck have we been just killing fish for their Omega 3s? You know, let's just go directly to the source. Like that is going to catch somebody's attention. Um, and I think that's a really, really great intro to a product.

Matt: Right. I feel educated. Very, very educated.

Now, where's the, where do you see the future going for this? Because obviously it's all very exciting now. Um, Where do you see the sort of next 12, 18 months sort of going for ad creatives, different platforms as well? I'm curious to know what your predictions are for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest.

Amelia: Yeah. Um, AI is a really, really big thing right now. [00:47:00] Obviously everybody's using chat GPT. I use it every day for just. I even use it to help me create different versions of hooks, right? We'll feed it this little one line of a script, the Shark Tank thing, and it'll spit out a couple different versions.

So that's really great. Uh, the really cool thing that's happening right now is using AI for videos and static images. Um, there's a lot of different companies where you feed it a render of your product and it'll put it on top of whatever background you want, right? So that is going to... Almost completely eliminate the need to do photoshoots.

Obviously, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. And you know, when it comes to like evergreen style people holding a product, it has a little bit of, you know, ways to go. But the video ad creative stuff and the AI, um, and what AI can do, I think is really, really exciting. Because I don't think AI is going to replace ad creative videos or the need to film UGC by any means.

But I think the things and the ways that it's going to help produce those videos, the different, again, like... I should be able to feed and they actually have systems like this and tools, but I should be able to [00:48:00] feed it a video and it's gonna itself overlay all of those different types of texts, you know, overlays and stuff, and those caption styles and the transitions.

Mm-hmm. It's gonna be able to identify those. We're gonna be able to plug it into Facebook or, or have a pixel of it, um, over whatever that company is on our website that, you know, similar to what we do for Facebook. And it's gonna also be able to understand that performance. So, it's going to almost be able to train itself to adding those text overlays and the video editing styles and stuff on top.

And it's going to know what's going to perform best. Again, there's a couple tools that are starting to do that right now, especially on the organic content side. I think the ad creative side, there's going to be some really, really exciting things. And, um, you know, everybody's fear with AI is, uh, it's going to take our jobs, right?

Like, that's not the truth. Like, uh, maybe copywriters, like they need to step up their game a little bit more and become closer to prompt engineers. Um, but from a video side, from an ad creative side, Side from a design side, it's just gonna really help people from an efficiency standpoint. I mean, we were working with a, um, an agency recently to build out like a big commercial, like, and we were gonna do this huge commercial [00:49:00] push.

We're still gonna do it, um, in the next couple months. But, uh, you know, we had entire designers like create these, um, you know, like frames. They're almost, I forget what they're called, like mood boards, you know, like mock-ups. All the different, you know, stories. Here's what Ronaldo's going to be doing when he's cooking the food.

Um, and that took like a whole person to basically draw that stuff out. Like we're going to be able to completely replace that. It's going to, you know, save 17 hours of time right there from an individual doing that. Um, so there's just going to be so many different ways in which it's going to help with efficiency.

Not to mention that I've seen some of these ad creative tools and again, you feed it a render and it like. Does this amazing stuff where I was watching this demo of Adam's shoes, um, and like, it's this render of Adam's and it's like walking through the rain and then there's all these, you know, like different style y, and it was just like, it was really, really cool, and again, that would have taken some, you know, um, it's called Blender, you know, I think they do all the 3D renders in Blender, but so Blender Designer, you know, it would take them weeks to be able to do that, and now we're gonna be able to do that with AI, [00:50:00] um, and we'll see AI will start getting better because rather than it being I feed it a prompt and it gives me an output, we're actually going to be able to dynamically, like, um, sort of interact with those things.

So if it gives me a static image of, you know, like this Adam's shoe or a pet plate cup next to a dog that's eating it or something, right? I'm going to be able to, like, select different aspects of that image or that video and be like, Remake this. I want it to look like this and stuff. So right now, AI is not like that.

It's very input output. I think there's gonna be a world in the next couple months, in the next, you know, year or whatever, where you're gonna be able to interact with that a lot easier, um, and sort of like tweak those designs rather than just resubmitting a prompt and continuing to

Matt: iterate from there.

Fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing where it all goes. Have you tried, um, something I did the other, uh, The other week was I had, um, I was writing a video sales letter, right, for one of our products. Um, and this was not an e commerce thing, this was a podcast thing, so we're writing this, you know, 45 minute webinar video type thing, and we wanted a [00:51:00] hook video at the start, and so we used ChatGPT to, to come up with a concept and a script for the hook video.

I was dumbfounded with the ideas that it came up with, and then the script that it wrote. I don't know if you've tried doing this, but it, the, the fact it can generate an idea. Based on what you want, you want it to interrupt, you want a pattern interrupt, you know what I mean, all these different things.

And it just came up with this really fascinating concept and then scripted it. And I was like, wow, this is, there's no real excuse now not to be able to create these kind of videos in a lot of ways. Now you've got ChatGP to help you at least figure out some of the basics.

Amelia: Exactly. No, we do this all the time.

And I think, again, it's like, Utilizing AI, it's all about the prompts, like, and you reach a point where you're like, I'm getting the same response, I'm seeing the same sort of stuff, um, you have to get really good at that. But, uh, we do that all the time. Again, I'll feed it that here, here's the best, you know, hook that we have that I was watching Shark Tank and I came across this super, you know, awesome guy and his cute dog and it'll, [00:52:00] it'll come up with a bunch of different versions from that.

And then to your point, yes, you can have it generate full scripts. Um, I think the thing that I've seen is, is chat TBT in particular, um, it. It just makes things long, and it makes things really well written, but it sort of goes into, like, it'll repeat stuff and whatnot, so I've never used, like, a script that Chachi Boutia spit out, like, verbatim, but, like, I'm not a writer, I suck at spelling, and I suck at grammar, and so when it comes to, like, helping me with those ideas, and just that, like, quick start or start stop problem, it is Absolutely, like, a game changer.

I don't have to be a copywriter anymore and I can continue to refine that. Hey, I liked this paragraph, rewrite this, make it a little less, blah, blah, blah. Um, so, yeah, it's, it's so crazy. Um, and I think it's only gonna get better. Again, um, the next stage is gonna be a way to interact with it a little bit easier, highlight certain words.

Hey, I want you to remove all of this or I want you to switch this to that or whatever. But, um, you know, the, the prompt engineers that are out there posting content about this stuff, like, It is a science, you know, [00:53:00] and like the technical specifics. I was playing around with mid journey the other day and I was watching some people in the prompts that they were giving and it was, they wanted to generate a house with this and this style, but then they were mentioning like where the, the angle that the light was supposed to come in and the camera lens that it was supposed to use.

And I would have never thought, you know, mid journey could understand that, but it does, and so you just have to get better at really understanding its full capabilities. And again, like. Prompting is everything. Um, so it'll continue to, you know, just advance in that, especially if you've got like a, you know, a glossary of different prompts and different specifics that you can feed it.

Matt: Yeah. One of the things that I've done, which has proven to be very successful, uh, is to use ChatGPT to feed in a series of really well written prompts into ChatGPT. Um, and then tell ChatGPT to write the prompt.

Amelia: To make a better prompt? I love that!

Matt: To create, and it creates a prompt that I can then use in mid journey, and it creates the most insane outputs.

It's so good!

Amelia: That's the type of thinking though, right? That [00:54:00] we're literally in the midst of like, our brains, we have not evolved to be able to think that way, you know? And it's like, so, you know, when I'm, uh, using ChatGPT to come up with prompts, right? I'm, I'm actually, the first thing I did was I googled it, like, what's the best prompt?

And then I like, stopped and I was like, Wait, like, what am I doing? Like, ChatGPT can answer the questions that are gonna, you know, produce the best results for itself. So, it's something that, you know, we're gonna just continue to have to get used to, but, uh, no, that, that's just beautiful. I mean, even asking it, like, you know, build this, this, you know, like, front facing website or whatever, and HTML and stuff, you know, like, the first thing I was doing is, like, Googling how I would do that.

And then I was like, wait, I can ask ChatGPT how they would ask that question, then feed that into ChatGPT, and people will find it

Matt: from there. The crazy thing now, Amelia, sorry to go slightly off topic here, the crazy thing that now is there's, you can get plugins on ChatGPT. So you can now say to ChatGPT, go to this YouTube video where some guy has spent 40 minutes outlining how to create the perfect homepage.[00:55:00]

Go to that video. Um, and take notes of all the key points that it says and write them out in bullet points and follow it step by step. I want the step by step instruction. So then it goes, watches a video and it brings a step by step in. So I no longer have to watch the YouTube video and then I can go, great.

Now using that platform, here's the context for our company. Write for me the homepage, just like, this is just. It's

Amelia: getting bonkers now. It's crazy. It really is crazy. I mean, we are in probably one of the most exciting times of the human species in general. Like, there's nothing else like this, um, and it's, you know, there's a, it's scary a little bit.

I don't know if you've watched any of like Lex Friedman's podcast re interviews some of the AI engineers and stuff, but, um, it is, it is absolutely insane, um, and really exciting in, in so many different ways.

Matt: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Listen, Amelia, I just love talking to you, especially when it's behind a camera and you can't punch me in the face.

How do people reach you? How do they connect with you if they want to [00:56:00] do that? Yeah,

Amelia: I mean, you can find me on LinkedIn. Um, I just, um, Amelia or a, a Coomber is my LinkedIn. Um, Amelia at Coomber. com is a great way. Just feel free to email me, but uh, yeah, you know, all

Matt: of the above. Fantastic. Now I googled, well I didn't google, I went onto the web and I thought Coomber.

com. What is that website? It turns out it is a wine website. What's that all about?

Amelia: So my dad, he's brilliant and, and he's technically brilliant in some ways and not, but uh, so long ago he grabbed the Coomber domain, which is super rare. And so I've had that forever and it's amazing. Um, but Coomber is, uh, my parents wine company.

So in 2009, Uh, they're big wine drinkers. They invested in this, what was called a custom crush plant, which is basically like a white labeling facility for wine, um, and they just wanted, you know, to get wine for themselves, but legally you can't ship a bottle of wine without a label on it, so they sort of, you know, did a little piss take and they built this like Coomer family wines label and it had all of our animals on it, it It looked like we [00:57:00] lived on a farm, um, but they've been making wine for the last 15 years or so.

And the first time they did it, they won a couple of awards on Wine Enthusiasts and it just sort of started to just become their passion. So, um, yeah, you can check out their little winery and wine tasting room in Oceanside, California. But, uh, yeah, I get lots of free wine, which is awesome.

Matt: Yeah, you too.

And I, here, I have a question. Uh, because your boyfriend is from New Zealand, and New Zealand make some really great... Um, and they have a lot of, uh, vineyards, small vineyards that are around, um, how does your boyfriend, uh, feel about your parents wine? Is he a fan or not? He loves it. Because to me this is the litmus test.

Oh, does he like it.

Amelia: He does like it. He's much more of a beer drinker, but we've gotten into the wine thing. He, he wasn't going to be accepted by my parents if he didn't at least like wine, so.

Yeah, um, but, uh, no, he's a big fan. It was, it was funny. We got back from New Zealand in [00:58:00] February, um, and I kept just buying a bunch of wine bottles and I was looking, I, because my parents own a wine company, I know like what an expensive bottle of wine is and what it isn't, you know, like it's all about the label.

Um, and so I was buying these 7 bottles of wine that I knew were going to taste great and none of them were from New Zealand and he was so angry at me. I was buying. Wow. That's awesome. Chilean wines and Australian wines. Um, we wines and they were amazing. Um, but, uh, yeah, so funny.

Matt: Yeah, I can imagine. I think in New Zealand you have to go to the small vineyards.

That's my, uh, having been there a lot, you have to go to the smaller independent vineyards and you get some great wines. Amelia, listen, I, it's been phenomenal chatting with you about this. Feel super inspired, very educated, uh, and, um, just love your passion, love your heart, love your enthusiasm. I think you're an amazing person.

And so thanks for coming on to the podcast. I have genuinely loved every minute of it. It's been an absolute treat. Thank

Amelia: you, Matt. This has been amazing.

Matt: Yeah, it's been good fun, hasn't it? Good fun. [00:59:00] What a great conversation with the beautiful Amelia there. And again, thanks Amelia for joining me today.

Also a big shout out to today's show sponsor, the e commerce cohort. Remember to check out their free training at e commerce. www. ecommercecycles. com, that's all one word, ecommercecycles. com and be sure to follow ecommerce podcasts wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got some more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss a single one of them.

And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first to tell you, you are awesome. Yes, you are. Created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Amelia has to bear it. I have to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, the e commerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.

The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Estella Robin and Tanya Hutsuliak. Our theme song was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I [01:00:00] mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, you can find them for free on the website. ecommercepodcast. net where incidentally you can also sign up for the weekly newsletter.

So that's it from me. That's it from Amelia. 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 now.