Joshua Chin 4:32
Let’s talk a little bit about YouTube. And I guess we were talking a little bit before we hit record. And YouTube has evolved as a, as a platform for advertisers from being stuff, an awareness type of play to a conversion play, where it’s possible to scale really consistently on YouTube. Especially when compared platforms again, like other platforms, like Facebook, what? What type of brands would perform well with YouTube? And how do you like as an agency? How do you qualify and tell a brand? If they’re thinking about YouTube, whether it’s for them or not?
Jeremy Gillespie 5:16
Yeah. So I think, you know, I like to focus on brands and products that that serve a core problem that the consumer has, and have a competitive advantage over over their competition. When it comes to YouTube, typically people are there to certainly they can be there to watch you know, cat videos and, and things like that. But oftentimes they’re there to, to educate themselves, or to solve some some sort of problem in their life. So I really like to focus on brands, and products that that solve a core problem, like I mentioned, before we hopped on here, do really well with health and supplement brands, workout workout brands, in those related products, because oftentimes the consumer is motivated and is trying to solve a core problem in their life. The other thing, when you talk about qualifying these these prospects, certainly it’s going to come down to the ARV. I don’t think it’s a secret that YouTube is not the cheapest planet, or cheapest platform on the planet. But the quality and scalability for outweighs that. And so if you can have ideally an ARV above $70 I’d like and prefer 120 or above. That’s really where we see the opportunity.
Joshua Chin 6:38
So 120 and above is is the sweet spot and at least 70. and above. What about from the point of view of repeatability or are replenishable replenishable or versus non replenishable doesn’t matter at all.
Jeremy Gillespie 6:59
It does it for sure. And you know if it’s a consumable product or something where you can get some continuity from it, you know, maybe your front end ARV is $70. But you know, over the next, say, six to 12 months, that net lifetime value is going to go to 150 $200. That That certainly makes a huge difference. But I think the important piece there is making sure that the brand understands that there’s all there’s this education process where, you know, certainly there, they’re going to want three, four, or 5x return on their adspend. But if you want to hit those 50k a day type spend or more, you start to have to really look at your lifetime value in spending based on that not your front end conversion.
Joshua Chin 7:44
That makes sense. And we talked about how expensive YouTube can get. But um, I guess the the expensive portion of YouTube comes in two parts from actually buying the ad itself. And also the creatives, I would imagine, what I’ve heard is that on YouTube, you cannot skimp on quality of creative, you have to be of a certain level. And is that true? And how do you think about how important?
Jeremy Gillespie 8:15
Yeah, I think I think there’s some truth in there, but it’s not like you need a you know, like a crazy poopourri style video to do well on YouTube. And I think that’s a that’s some of the barrier to entry that people have. So I would say that it’s not like you need to spend 1520, you know, 50k in production to get something that’s going to work, where I think sometimes there’s more effort than then brands don’t realize is in those iterations. So how are you going to record unique intros to test on some of these different videos and so certainly low what I consider low quality, whether it’s testimonial style videos with influencers, and things like that, you can certainly get away from that way with those. But I think the biggest piece in time in potential costs is in constantly iterating and figuring out what is that messaging that’s going to resonate not only in the in the first kind of five seconds of the hook, but also when you do the product reveal and things like that. That’s the bigger piece I think a lot of brands don’t understand when they go into to YouTube.
Joshua Chin 9:38
First by second of the hook, do you have I know some brands, some agencies have this, but do you have frameworks and um, you best practices that you fall back on in terms of like the structure of that book that you know works again and again. Is there anything yeah
Jeremy Gillespie 10:01
Yeah, for your specifically for the Hawker that video and in total,
Joshua Chin 10:05
I guess for the hook since you’re spending so much time testing is
Jeremy Gillespie 10:08
reading that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so three things that we like to test right out of the gate. First one is just a straight curiosity hook, which will lean heavily on, you know, why does this certain thing or what you what you didn’t know about watermelon that’s going to, you know, cut, you know, five pounds from your from your waistline and the next seven days are could that’s a that’s a curiosity hook. I also like credibility and just leading with the credibility piece first, a lot of times brands brands pack that further back in. But if you’re going to capture someone’s attention for 3060, whatever seconds, you need, you need to really focus on on that credibility piece upfront. And so we’ve been seeing much better results with the credibility leading with that. And then the third one that we always that we always test. So it’s curiosity, credibility. And then from from there, the next thing that we’re going to test is calling out the avatar. And so we want to repel anybody who’s not in our audience at the very beginning, and test that one. So if it’s like, if you’re so and so basically, if you’re a dog parent or a dog owner, and you’re dealing with bad breath, and all of these different things, stay tuned for x y&z and really calling them out and getting people who are not going to be in that audience to just skip that ad. And that’s that’s another thing that we always test to start, because we’re, we can get into the metrics. But we’re going to balance some some things very, very closely, that’s going to be our cost per view, our click through rate, and things like that. And even you know, we have cpms and things like that, that that will depend based on like the length of the video and stuff. So we’re going to try to figure out very, very quickly, which one of those is going to give us the most beneficial metrics upfront.
Joshua Chin 12:21
you’re optimizing based off cost per view, click through in CPM, versus just like retention of views.
Jeremy Gillespie 12:30
I mean, the first thing we’re going to look at is conversion rate, and ARV. And, and I think there’s, there’s an interesting piece here, certainly we want our click through rate. And these things to be at a certain baseline. So like, we want our click through rates to be above 1.25 is kind of our baseline, we want our C PVS to be, you know, around 15 cents. But that’s going to depend on like we have some brands that we run 20 or 40 minute vsls and our CPV is that they’re much higher. But and this is the interesting piece is a lot of people will look at those retention metrics or look at click through rates and things like that, where we know we can get an additional 10 $15 $12 in a movie, on some of these longer videos, we can get better conversion rates on some of these longer videos as well. And so a lot of people will throw those videos in the trash because they don’t meet these, these front end metrics. And you really have to look at these back end metrics first, and focus on the actual results that are coming through rather than these, these leading indicators that
Joshua Chin 13:44
can be misleading. Didn’t make sense. And that allows us to scale. I mean, if once you’ve proven profitability at some level, it’s easy first and then start looking at the higher level metrics.
Jeremy Gillespie 13:58
And I think I’m sorry to interrupt there. But I think one of the interesting pieces that we do differently is a lot of brands will say great, you know, or I’m sorry, a lot of agencies will take a brand, they’ll say, here’s my, you know, five to 10 creatives that want to test, they’re going to start with the creative testing. And we certainly test creatives upfront, but our first and primary test is the landing page. The landing page, we found is such a big lever in increasing the ARV, and getting data back to the platform so that the platform is able to optimize quicker. So let’s just say for instance, you have a landing page that’s converting at 1%. a landing page is converting at 2% and a landing page that’s converting at 3% your ability to get information back to the platform from a conversion standpoint is you know 3x higher on that 3% converting landing page and the 1%. And so to me and to us That is the most critical point in figuring out if we can get a campaign to scale is how quick and where can we get our conversion rate. And once we have that locked in, and we feel good about that, then we like to test it a ton of different creatives. But I like to focus on that piece first.
Joshua Chin 15:19
That makes so much sense. Is that also the approach that you take for, let’s say, a brand and has absolutely no data on YouTube at all? Would you start by looking at your existing landing pages and say, Alright, let’s test something out with something that you already have? Or would you start with something completely brand new.
Jeremy Gillespie 15:40
Um, I like to, I like to test things that they already have, just to see if we can get any quick wins. But typically, there’s like, at least three different landing pages that we like to test. One is like a PDP style, kind of more of a standard Shopify style page, I prefer for that to be no navigation separated in Zen funnel. I do like short quizzes or assessments. So you know, three to four question quiz that gets them in the buying mindset, make sure that they identify that they have this pain or problem is it funnel number two, then funnel number three, is sending them to a VSL. So they’re, they’re on a video first platform, let’s get them to a VSL. Or maybe it’s an advertorial with a VSL at the top, to further move them through the funnel, give them an experience, where they’re just all they’re seeing is that video and content, they’re not distracted by the other things going on on YouTube. That would be the third one. So those are the three standard and there’s certainly variation there that we like to test.
Joshua Chin 16:52
That makes sense, what, in your, in your experience? How do you how do you look at the sequencing of you to Google and Facebook as a brand that say, is scaling from close to seven figures to eight figures? What’s that, like step by step sequencing that you see typically works
Jeremy Gillespie 17:18
in in like, using these different platforms? Like, gotcha, cool. Yeah, I mean, I think in starting off, you can, you can get fairly far when it comes to Google, when you talk about search, high intent, search, shopping, things like that. But when it comes to the sequencing across all of those different platforms, once you hit that kind of seven figure figure range, I like to really start to look into what is that impact. And we work with a lot of brands right at that range. And so they’re looking for that next Quantum Leap is, you know, how can we layer in additional cold traffic, typically, that’s going to be YouTube or display to get more people in the funnel, and see how they convert over the next, say, 14 to 30 days. And so it’s more top of funnel awareness. And one of the things that’s important when it comes to YouTube is understanding the impact that it’s having to your organic traffic, your direct traffic, your referral traffic, because usually you will see those bump up. But the reason that that you want to look at those is because as you you spend more on YouTube, you’re going to see those increase. And we see anywhere from from 10 to 15, sometimes even 20% lift in those areas. And then the other thing is that when we talk about high intent, search term brand search terms, as well as shopping, typically you hit a ceiling. In those campaigns, yeah, you might be able to spend a few $1,000 a day there. But depending on the niche, you’re not going to be spending say $10,000 a day on on shopping or search. Again, that’s going to be dependent. But what you will see is as you start to sequence in spend on YouTube, you will see your ability to spend in those channels increase because you’re layering in your retargeting audiences, you have more brand awareness. And so that’s why I sequence it in that way to see if we can raise the watermark or the ceiling in those those channels that you feel are kind of tapped at that point.
Joshua Chin 19:37
And part of that comes in the form of what you call the halo effect during Yeah, but how do you account for something like that the halo effect as it as an agency, do you plan that into your strategy? Or is that kind of like a bonus kind of a thing?
Jeremy Gillespie 19:56
Yeah, it’s it’s kind of a bonus. I mean, as much as I can talk about it until I’m blue in the face to brand owners and things like that, you know, they’re they want to see I spent $1 here, I got $2 $3 out, and the halo effect is important to them. But you know, if they’re not seeing it on paper, when it comes to the ad reports, it’s, it’s essentially meaningless to them. But what we traditionally do, especially when we start is, is take a snapshot of, of those different channels that just went through. So we’re gonna have our impressions on brand search, we’re gonna have our organic traffic, direct traffic, we’re gonna take a snapshot, and then we’re going to do a little bit of a lift analysis, after the first 30 days to see where that baseline has moved. That way we can we can give a better picture of that halo effect to the brand. Makes sense? Yeah.
Joshua Chin 20:58
Typical questions for that agencies ask them. What? What is? Here’s a tough one. what’s what’s one question that brands should be asking your agencies or ask agencies before deciding to work with with them?
Jeremy Gillespie 21:19
Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question. I think you often get from branch you get the how many times were you? How many times are you looking at my account? How many times are you going to meet with you? And they’re very not outcome focused questions. They’re like, yeah, you know, there it’s just like, needy is the wrong word. But it’s like, once you start to get a lot of those as the agency owner, you’re like, Okay, I understand you know, where this person is that typically that’s a brand owner that has had a bad experience in the past you know, may or may not be at a certain place in their business, but where where I think a lot of agency owners need to ask tougher questions are you know, are you what are you going to do to help us improve our our ARV our conversion rate are there is there anything that you’re seeing that’s working right now that’s helping us move some of these back end metrics that help us be exponentially more profitable on our ad spend? That’s really where you know I think a lot of brand owners should be asking questions because ad costs aren’t going down and if your agency of record is not thinking about the full picture and how you’re going to increase your lifetime value, you know, are you working with an email provider that’s going to add an additional say 25 to $50 in lifetime value in the next 12 months? Like those are the questions that need to be asked not these these front end click through rates and things like that that are important as a snapshot but in the in the longevity of the business aren’t aren’t important and you want a partner that understands the full the full business
Joshua Chin 23:09
what’s a what’s a red flag for for you as a leader if you had to take a step back and take the seat the participants shoes of your brands? What’s it What’s a red flag that you see, especially for brands that come to you from other after working with other agencies having that experience? What are some typical red flags and in agencies
Jeremy Gillespie 23:35
that aren’t doing a great job? I think testing cadence is a huge one. If you don’t have an agency that’s launching tests on a in an outbreak down the test that I like to look for on a regular cadence and sometimes this will differ depending on say the budget things like that as well as the ability to create assets but at least weekly testing on Creative certainly testing landing pages and what I’m sorry copy and creative should be done weekly in my in my at the very least weekly landing page tests. With like, those are the three I want to look at if it agencies and doing that that’s a pretty big red flag for me. Since
Joshua Chin 24:25
Jeremy, what are some brands that you look up to that you’re either a customer or a fan of?
Jeremy Gillespie 24:32
Yeah, and you told me you’re gonna ask me this and I was like, man, I haven’t I haven’t thought of that. But I think for me 10,000 is a brand that I’m, I’ve been following for the last year so they’re in the kind of fitness apparel beach. I really like the way that they do things. A yellow is a brand that I’m I’m definitely following it. Not so much. Because I’m into younger anything, but their ability to build community in bringing influencers is certainly impressive and I think they’re they’re bringing that kind of next wave of how you build a community around them around the brand. And similar to that, but but what I think I mentioned here before the show is are things like peloton. peloton for for me, is where the market is going, where they have a core product that they sell. But they keep you around and build this cult like following with kind of their their content or their value add. And so I see a lot of brands moving towards an adding that kind of media arm media entertainment coaching. That’s something that I’m super excited about seeing evolve. And I think, in general, and I know this wasn’t the question, but in general, where that I see things going is there’s going to be a consolidation. Because you you’re going to get away from all of the dropshippers. And really, everything is going to be built on brand equity in the value that you give to your to your end consumer. And if you’re if you’re just a brand that’s looking to just trade products for for a one time purchase, you’re going to be priced out from an ad standpoint very, very soon.
Joshua Chin 26:29
It’s it sounds like it’s beyond just the the product alone, but the experience and the community behind the products that you’re looking at.
Jeremy Gillespie 26:39
Yeah, 100% 100%. And I think that experience, and where I think a lot of ecommerce brands are having issues is because they’re they’re not focused on solving that core problem that people have come to them in the first place. And so weight loss is a super easy one. But like, you know, why aren’t you giving them additional content on a monthly basis that’s helping them reach their goals? Why? How are you going to continue to improve this experience so that when they think of peloton, they don’t think of a bike, they think of a partner in their health journey or something like that. And that’s really where I think brands are need to, to shift from. It’s a difficult shift, but it’s no longer as easy as putting up a Facebook ad and turning it a dropshipping store into a million dollar store.
Joshua Chin 27:39
Yeah, that that totally makes sense. And I’m just looking at 10,000 here 10 thousand.cc. Right. Yeah. I’m looking at the, the the way that it’s that the brain is structured, and they sponsor quite a ton of CrossFit athletes. Yes, it’s really smart. And it’s what I really like about them is that they have designs that are led by the community, both from your athletes, and I think from your customers feedback as well, not all the exact, so smart, because then the customers, the people in the community are involved in the evolution of the brand. And I think that creates a sense of ownership and relationship that just goes beyond anything that a transactional brand can do.
Jeremy Gillespie 28:34
Exactly, exactly. I think, you know, for me as a, as a, you know, a marketer, and specifically more on the paid ads side, this isn’t something that I touch as much as potentially I would like. But this is really the the piece that I think is is separating the winners from the losers here and the next I would I wouldn’t even say like five years I would say like 12 to 24 months. If you’re not building in this community aspect or this experience that is above and beyond the competition. You’re you’re leaving yourself at huge risk.
Joshua Chin 29:12
Thanks that’s it. Hey, Jeremy. What is what’s one question that I know you do a ton of these podcasts? So what’s one question that I should be asking you that I’m not
Jeremy Gillespie 29:26
there anything else that I missed out? I think we touched on it but i think you know if we’re talking specifically about YouTube, the the importance of of landing pages and conversion rate optimization. I think that’s a question that often gets overlooked I think one typically it’s it’s a hard question to to solve for a lot of brands. But you know, when you when you think About your ability to improve performance. From a paid standpoint, oftentimes people are talking about the creative, which is extremely, extremely important and becoming more and more important after going through all of these changes to the platforms, and iOS, but, you know, for me, the landing page, and I kind of gave it away, I think the results that you can get by getting a 20% bump in your conversion rate, I think far outweigh a lot of the other tactical things that people are trying to do in their ad accounts. And sometimes even the creative, it’s like, you know, your your creative, can get you so far. But if you can get that additional conversion rate bump or a V bump, you know, I don’t think enough people are thinking and talking about that. And I think it’s subjective, and it’s tough. And that’s why a lot of brands aren’t focused on it.
Joshua Chin 31:00
Great advice. Jeremy, if people are looking to connect with you, and learn more about your agency and potentially work with you, where should they go to?
Jeremy Gillespie 31:08
Yeah, you can go to builttoscale.co, or simply just shoot me an email, Jeremy@builttoscale.co, I don’t, don’t have anything to kind of give away or anything like that. But if anybody has questions, I’m more than happy to answer any of them. And just make sure that you feel like you’re on the right journey and maybe answer or answer some of those tough questions that I don’t think enough agencies are asking themselves.
Joshua Chin 31:36
Perfect. Jeremy, thank you so much for being on the show.
Jeremy Gillespie 31:39
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Outro 31:43
Thanks for listening to the eCommerce Profits Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get notified of future episodes.
