w/ Andrew Foxwell, Foxwell Digital
If you're struggling with Facebook ads, you’re not crazy and you’re not alone. Social media advertising is not what it once was, and neither is Q4. This new landscape is really, really hard.
Guest Bio: Andrew runs Foxwell Digital, where he not only advises companies on their marketing strategies and overseas digital ad campaigns on behalf of clients, but he also runs a community of 400 digital marketers from beginner to expert, which collectively spends over $100M per month on Facebook and Instagram.
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
Andrew Foxwell 10/11/2022
Kurt Elster: There is shenanigans afoot. Well, not shenanigans. Malaise? Frustration. There’s certainly frustration afoot because recently we had a conversation with Rand Fishkin who basically said we’re done with Zuckerberg. This guy’s ripping us off. I don’t care anymore. We’re just going full SEO. And I agreed with him. He convinced me. I enjoyed the conversation. But what I did not expect, because I am a terrible predictor of what will and will not resonate with you, my friends, as far as the interviews we record. I knew it was a good episode. I didn’t realize that the response to it would be so tremendous. I mean, really, you spoke, you loved it.
But the catch to that conversation was that Rand is not a Facebook ads guy. I need the other side of the conversation. I need someone who is a media buyer, who is working with media buyers, who is knee deep in trying to make this work, day in, day out, who has the experience, and who can tell us in depth more of what’s going on. I want to know what’s happening in the streets with Facebook ads.
And so, to help me figure that out, I have invited Andrew Foxwell from Foxwell Digital to join us, and not only does he advise companies on marketing strategies and digital ad campaigns. He also runs a community that I happen to be a member of with 400 digital marketers, all ranging in levels of expertise from beginning to expert, and collectively that group spends over $100 million per month on Facebook and Instagram, on Meta ads, and so he seems like someone who could try and help us out here.
But first, I’m your host, Kurt Elster.
Ezra Firestone Sound Board Clip: Tech Nasty!
Kurt Elster: And this is The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Mr. Foxwell, thank you for joining us.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Kurt. It’s always good to talk to you.
Kurt Elster: Give me a temperature check. What’s going on in here? Because my crew, very frustrated with what they feel like is just wasting money on Facebook ads for sales they were gonna get anyway.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. Yeah. I just want to say from the outset of the interview what we were talking about before, that I think one of my goals with this interview is to speak as if it’s just you and I, because I think sometimes previously in podcasts that I’ve listened to too, it sounds… It just sounds more canned and doesn’t sound like a real conversation. So, I’m gonna give you my honest read about sort of what’s going on.
You know, I think the first thing is I think we got as advertisers and brand owners, I think we got spoiled by the way that it worked before and how well it worked before. I know certainly I did. I could launch an ad for a suboptimal product to the PDP, and when I say ads, I’m talking about just Meta ads, right? At that point just Facebook ads and Instagram ads, and it would do pretty well. I think where we stand now is we… So, we got spoiled, and I think where we stand now is we have an issue where the way that many people measured how successful a campaign was is now dated for the most part.
So, you’re not able to really rely on purchase or conversion-based in-platform metrics for Meta, because that’s modeled. I’m not saying you can disregard them entirely, but you’re not able to really rely on them completely. And you really have to figure out a measurement plan. You have to know what am I going to measure and how am I going to measure this to actually know success. Then it requires a lot of different steps.
And I think the landscape is more competitive. I think that it’s more expensive. And because of the data loss and signal loss that we have from after iOS 14 of people opting out, the optimization algorithm is not as effective as it was in as short of a period as it used to be. So, you have a lot of people that really bet the farm on Facebook, and now even agencies, we have to… Agencies that are successful now that led with Meta ads four or five years ago are now doing… They have to do more. They have to do creative services. They have to do email. They have to do probably Google ads to some degree, right?
So, it requires a lot more work to have a successful product, and a lot of people don’t have the bandwidth, and so people in your audience, I’m sure a lot of these people are solo practitioners. They’re doing it themselves. And honestly, I spend all day doing this, and it’s a lot of work for me, so if I’m a brand owner that used to be able to run Facebook ads myself, it’s just exponential, the challenge and the time that you have to dedicate to it.
So, I think that’s a little bit in a nutshell where we stand, and why an episode like with Rand resonated with people, because people are frustrated. And then you compile it with things I haven’t even talked about, which are like technical issues, banning issues, bugs, sales issues with Meta, that just piles on and makes you feel like, “What in the hell is happening?”
Kurt Elster: Yeah. You just go like… It’s an uphill. Sometimes it really feels like an uphill battle in which they are actively trying to make me just quit running ads on the platform, between like Business Manager’s seeming necessity to redesign itself every six to seven days, and just the weird bugs that happen, and then you’re right, where it’ll just be like, “Oh, I was selling screwdrivers and then Facebook said that those are weapons and kicked me off the platform.” You’re like, “What’s going on here?”
And you hear those stories, and then attribution’s broken. We don’t trust it. Even with broken modeled attribution my ROAS numbers are still down. And so, I really have no idea what does or doesn’t work. And then you’re right. On top of it, it went from in the past where it’s like, “All right, you have a really attractive ad,” which was an image and a headline, right? And then you sent it to a landing page. And that would work. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Now, to get anyone’s attention, I need to have portrait video, and it needs to be clever on top of it. That’s not easy. Even if you’re just sitting around making a 10 to 30-second portrait video every single day, how often do you get hits? And that’s just dumping stuff into the algorithm organically, let alone trying to get paid ads to work that way.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. And you know, I think it’s important to point out too that the thing that I always wonder is when I hear from a brand or an agency that says, “I’m really struggling,” my first thing is yes, I hear you. That sucks, right? The question that I have is how much is this a function of the immediate question that comes to my mind. How much is this a function of actually things are… Sales might be down. They’re not… I talked to an agency owner the other day, or a brand owner the other day, and he said, “Our sales are even year over year, but Facebook looks a lot worse. Post-purchase survey shows 70% of our conversions are because of Facebook and Instagram. That’s what people say. Yeah, that’s where I heard about it from. And in the backend attribution it was something like only showing 20% of conversions were attributable over a 14-day period.” Yeah, I think it was 14 days to Facebook and Instagram.
Okay, so my first question always is like how much of this is a function of people not truly having a measurement plan and understanding like, “Okay, what am I gonna look at here?” I think another thing that I’ve really had to bone up on is… You know, Kurt, you have an MBA, so this is not news to you. It’s like basic financial calculations of running a brand. And I don’t… Agency owners, we were not… This is not something we did before, but if you’re going to do your job successfully today you have to know how to look at that, and you have to say, “Okay, how are we backing into customer lifetime value? How are we backing into looking at a blended return on ad spend?”
You have to be able to speak to the things that all the merchants you guys know, people listening to your podcast, and help walk people through that, and the measurement plan is gonna look a little bit different for everybody, but I think some of it’s like how much is it is that we’re actually just not measuring the right way? And how much is it that actually things are awful and they’re not doing well? And I think that if you look at the agencies in our membership, for example, that are successful, what they’ve done is they’ve mapped a couple things out. One is they have some way of explaining a measurement plan to people, so they’re saying, “Here’s what we’re looking at. Here’s why. Here’s the windows we’re looking at. Here’s how we’re making decisions in the short term and the long term. Here’s how we’re also going to use the combination of Meta properties, Performance Max likely, potentially some TikTok depending on your niche and your vertical that you’re in, some third-party measurement tool probably designing landing pages, as well, and some sort of creative testing protocol.”
Okay, now that’s like six things, right? It used to be like one, really. You’d take ads and you’d put them on the platform. But the people that are successful are doing that work. And I think a lot of it is the trust factor, too, to be honest. I think a lot of people, they don’t trust Meta, and so because the agency can’t explain things properly of how they’re doing it because maybe they don’t know, then the trust is lost and people are like, “Well, I’m gonna bring it in house,” and then they continue to flounder.
So, that’s a challenge, as well. I mean, there’s so many places you can go with this. One thing that comes to mind too, outside of the measurement plan thing, the shift to looking at the type of content that works, like you said. Has to have a hook. It has to be quick. It has to be in the first three seconds. And not always, but you have to have that as part of the mix. We had a brand that we were working with for about four or five months this year and they refused to do any UGC, and I was like, “Well, that’s gonna be an issue.” They didn’t like the way that it looked on their brand.
Kurt Elster: My eyebrows just about hit the ceiling at that comment.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. I mean, they would say, “Yes, we did agree to do UGC,” but they didn’t. None of it was really in brand. And these are good people, like I really liked working with them to be honest with you.
Kurt Elster: What was the resistance?
Andrew Foxwell: It was that the brand was… It was like they felt that the brand was most important, and so they weren’t really willing to test things in the way that we wanted to because they felt that the brand was more upmarket than what-
Kurt Elster: So, they felt like UGC, real, authentic UGC has a look, and it’s not the super polished branded look, like Apple is not using UGC.
Andrew Foxwell: They didn’t want to do that. Right, like they felt that their contemporaries were YETI, and Vuori Clothing and things, right? They were wanting to go up market. Which I don’t necessarily disagree with, but I’m saying you have to have some UGC in there. You have to have a diverse set of content because not everybody’s gonna respond to that, right?
Kurt Elster: Yeah. That’s what’s odd there. It’s not mutually exclusive. Why fight it?
Andrew Foxwell: Right, and ultimately it ended up not working with them, because that was a real challenge for us. And they brought it back in house and stuff, and that’s okay. I guess the reason I bring that up is like there’s so many things now that have to be part of the equation that weren’t before, so if you’re a brand owner, you’re looking at this, it's like you’re able to take, like you said, a static ad and get it going and it ran for conversions and purchases and you could trust it. Well, now you do that and number one, right out of the gates you launch it, and your purchase conversion pixel is modeled data from Facebook, so you can’t-
Kurt Elster: Modeled data meaning like, “This is a best guess.”
Andrew Foxwell: Meaning Facebook is… Yeah. Yes. Exactly. And you know, I put out a tweet yesterday stupidly, which I did without thinking too much about it, because I said, “I can’t believe how many agencies are still using only Meta numbers to measure purchases.” Well, then everybody told me I was an idiot on the internet, which is the best, you know? And I’m like, “Well, no. What I mean is that you can’t only look at that only one thing, purchases from Meta, which is what we all used to do.”
But now it’s modeled, so people are scaling on numbers that aren’t real. So, that’s even before you do anything, that’s confusing.
Kurt Elster: If I went to the IRS and said, “Hey, look. I gotta pay my taxes. I’ll tell you what I made. Here’s my income statement. It’s modeled. It’s just modeled income. This is what, based on some inputs, we feel we made. That’s what I’m gonna pay taxes on.” It would not fly. And yet for the sums of money that people are spending with Facebook, not everybody, but enough people, it’s a little shocking that they get away with calling it modeled data.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. Yeah. So, that’s confusing too, but this is the crap on Facebook fest, obviously, but I think that if you… It is important to validate that there are brands that I see every day that are still successful using Meta as the lead channel.
Kurt Elster: Hmm…
Andrew Foxwell: And there are agencies that are successful today using Meta as the lead channel. And what it really comes down to is a combination of the things we’ve talked about. It comes down to they understand and clearly know the path that they’re heading with some sort of measurement plan, and that includes usually a mix of in-platform numbers, numbers from a third-party attribution tool, and that would be… We know the players in that game.
Kurt Elster: Now, is that like post-purchase? Or is that like first-party data?
Andrew Foxwell: This would be like first party. This would be like a Northbeam, a Triple Whale, a Rockerbox. They have some other validation. Then they’re also having GA, usually, which is measuring a lot of different things, but mostly you’re looking at things like time on site and UTM parameters, and you’re triangulating those numbers, okay? And then the post-purchase as the final part of that.
So, that’s one part, that’s a successful part of the measurement plan. The next thing that they have, and where everybody’s led, and that you hear a lot of chatter on Twitter about, is creative strategy. And that’s not wrong. You have to have a creative strategy that is a testing strategy and an iterative creation strategy of how you’re gonna get new stuff in the pipeline, okay? How are you testing new hooks? How are you testing different types and formats of creative? Et cetera.
Then you are also, the third part of this is that they are testing to some degree variations on landing pages. And you and I have talked about this a lot, and this is something obviously that’s really in your lane, but it has to be… There has to be some variation of not just the classic of collection to PDP, like, “Oh, let’s just try that.” We’re talking about generally there’s some sort of maybe an advertorial, maybe there’s a quiz page that helps assign the type of shirt that they would like the best, that brings people in, and you bring them through the funnel that way. Maybe there’s a five reasons type of page, right?
So, there’s something happening that’s not just a, “Hey, here’s your product. See you later. Bye. You should buy this. And thanks.” And then I think those are the main components, but I would say the next sort of like part of that, of 4A, would be channel diversification. So, there’s some sort of channel, not speaking about email, which I think is an obvious one that most people have to have as an underlying base, but I think you’re talking about things like there’s some testing happening in Performance Max, there’s some testing happening in TikTok potentially, depending on where you are, or let’s say YouTube. As Performance Max, obviously that’s kind of in there. But there’s some other channel testing taking place that it’s not all in one bucket.
So, those I think are the successful components of what I see.
Kurt Elster: So, we go, all right, if we want to make it work, so number one, if you’re still doing the same thing that you did on Facebook 12 months ago, 18, 24 months ago, and you’re mad that it doesn’t work, all right, at that point it’s on you. If number two, you gotta have… We just have to accept that modeled data, I would not take it at face value. You don’t just trust it on its own. And so, you have to have a measurement plan. You could use MERS, or what is our marketing spend versus what do we make. That’s a larger, like 10,000-foot view. Tools that introduce first-party data, like Triple Whale and Northbeam, and then also post-purchase attribution surveys, like KnoCommerce, EnquireLabs.
So then, all right, we have a much… If we do those things, we have a much better idea of how these things are actually performing, but still not like a strict one to one. But truthfully, in retrospect, I don’t know that we ever actually did have that genuine one to one for attribution. All right, then the other issue is we have to have a creative plan, and this is where things got harder rapidly, and TikTok is what did it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Honest, you don’t need to buy additional tools. Your phone, you have everything, all the tools you need, like I use an iPhone and Videoshop to edit portrait view very quickly on my phone, or you could just do it right in these apps.
If it works as a reel, it’ll probably work as an ad potentially, and so… And then you combine that with UGC, which now, suddenly this year there’s like these platforms and marketplaces popping up where we can buy UGC, like it’s a cottage industry of people just sitting in their houses making portrait video. How cool is that? Like Shopify Collabs, TikTok Creator Marketplace, and there’s another one that starts with a B whose name always escapes me. Like Bilbo Baggins. That kind of thing. And so, and then finally, ultimately things are still only as good as the landing page, and that was always the case. None of that has changed.
And so, yeah, for sure, if you’re running that old playbook, you’re in trouble. If you’re adapting to it and going into it eyes open, and then you’re also combining it with other channels, like we heard recently… We got the crash course on Google Performance Max from Brett Curry, and that seems legit. Has many of the same issues with attribution, but still seemed like it’s got potential. And then, of course, your newsletter. And even being able to segment and create audiences from the newsletter to seed lookalike campaigns or the equivalent in PMax.
And then finally, the thing I have not played with and don’t particularly have experience with, TikTok ads. You could do native advertising on TikTok. As a recap, did I get it right? Do we…
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, definitely. I think there’s a couple things to say. One is to jump in really briefly about speaking about looking at Performance Max, and there is a new thing called Advantage Plus that’s rolling out to all accounts this fall that’s from Meta that is basically Meta’s answer to… It’s almost exactly like Performance Max, and it’s the idea that you take ads, and then you put them in, and then let them decide. And it has shown a lot of promise, and it essentially matches the type of creative to the person based on where they are, and it’s much less manual, right?
Kurt Elster: Is this in beta? Have you played with this?
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is actively being tested. We’re talking about it. I would say right now about 60% of accounts worldwide have Advantage Plus from Facebook or Meta, so-
Kurt Elster: Oh, so quite a few may have access to this.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. Yes. And it’s getting better. And you know, there’s best practices for it. You can check out our blog at FoxwellDigital.com/blog and we have content on this that we’re actively putting out, because there’s like what Meta says and then there’s like the reality, right? So, Meta’s saying put 10 creatives in the Advantage Plus campaign. Well, it’s like you see better performance with five.
And so, there’s stuff like that that is part of it that’s good, that’s helping, but jumping back to the overall point, I think that I just want to validate for brand owners that if you’re looking at this and you’re talking about this plan, and this all sounds great because this is like what I do, and what you do, but like if I’m listening to this as a brand owner I’m like, “Yeah, that’s like five times more shit that I have to do that I didn’t have to do before.”
I mean, number one, people already don’t have any time, and people are busy running their businesses, and so it is… Just validating. To take this right, it takes a lot more work. And then if you’re someone that’s making X number of dollars on the margin and you don’t have the money to hire an agency to help you do this, how can you not be so frustrated? Of course, you-
Kurt Elster: Yeah, you get trapped.
Andrew Foxwell: Of course, you’re gonna do SEO, because you’re like, “It’s a longer play but it’ll maybe live longer, like Rand Fishkin sounds great to me.” So, I think that validating that to people is important, and to be successful today, which you can, and there’s still a lot of growth to be had, it just requires a lot more work. And you have to make a call of saying I’m either going to invest in this, and my time in this, or I’m going to hire someone to do it.
And you know, there’s a brand owner that’s in the group. Well, there’s a lot of brand owners in the group, but one of the guys, he wrote in saying, “I’m seeing a lot of success with this.” And he, it was a combination of like all of these things that we have been talking about in the group, and he did this himself. He built the ad himself. He built the quiz form from Octane himself. Octane AI, like the quiz format. He built all this different type of UGC, was running it through, and had been testing a lot of stuff, and he was seeing success. He was validated in the third-party attribution tool, and he was scaling on this thing.
And I was like, “Well, that’s awesome.” But to get to that point, he was saying it’s like it’s 10 hours a week, you know what I’m saying? It’s a lot of lift. So, I just want to validate that for people because I think it’s easy to say on a podcast. It’s for us to be like, “Yeah, just do all these other things.”
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Just do this.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah, but it’s a lot of work, and a lot of people can’t, don’t have the luxury, and can’t afford it. To be honest with you. So, what do you do then? So, then it’s like the answer is okay, at a minimum you have to sit down, and look at, and understand the measurement plan and how you’re actually gonna measure this, because you can’t be reliant on only one thing. So, if you do nothing else, I would test different types of creative and I would have some sort of a plan that looks in a longer window. See, because we’re still in the days of thinking… A lot of people, I talked to an agency owner the other day, like one of the biggest agencies, ironically, in Australia. And she was showing me how they optimize with in-platform numbers, and I was like, “Oh, man. Love you so much but you can’t be doing that.”
You can be doing it with soft metrics. Things like clickthrough rate, and custom metrics like see more rate, or thumb stop ratio, but you can’t count on the purchases because it’s just not gonna actually be something that’s scalable. So, if you have some kind of plan, okay, this is how we’re doing it. We’re gonna look in a 14 and a 30-day window and then on a daily basis we’re gonna look at these things to make decisions. That’s something that we all have to develop.
So, I think it can be accomplished with a little bit from the brand owner’s side, but it is. It’s a different way of thinking and it’s a lot more time. And to be honest with you, you know, the advice world that I’m a part of, that’s why I started the membership to be honest, because I started it because we needed it. Everybody was saying different shit. Nobody had any idea what was going on. So, anyway.
Kurt Elster: That is one of the odd things about it, is like you simultaneously have access to unbelievable educational resources, right? There is anything I want to learn, I can find 100 places and people online that will tell me how to do that. The problem is which one is the right one, right? And you have all these competing ideas and opinions. And you really have no idea until you start. Just go like, “Well, I think this one’s trustworthy and so we’re gonna run down that road.”
And you’re flipping a coin as to whether or not you pick the right source. But again, it’s like doing is the only way to learn it and figure it out. Your other option is do nothing or throw money at it. And same deal. Did I hire the right agency? Did I hire the right freelancer? And that’s a scary proposition too.
Andrew Foxwell: Oh my gosh. I mean, just to talk about that really briefly, I think that that actually is a real challenge that I have, that I think everybody has in today’s digital environment if you’re doing digital marketing or running a business, is the bifurcation of information. You have people, there’s a guy in our industry that they speak in a way that is so obtuse that you’re like confused, and that’s the marketing strategy, is to speak in a way that’s so obtuse and confuses the hell out of people to make sure that they feel like they need you.
Kurt Elster: Oh, no.
Andrew Foxwell: Okay, so that’s a problem. The reality of all this stuff, whether you listen to Ezra Firestone, who I like a lot and have always liked, or you listen to David Herman on Twitter, who is a real practitioner in the weeds. He’s been a friend of mine for like 14 years now.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. He’s a good dude.
Andrew Foxwell: He’s a good dude. Here’s the real answer, is that it depends, number one, and number two, you have to… It’s not one answer. And so, more of what it is today is like looking at the information from people that you trust and then triangulating it to have your own conclusion, generally. The formulaic world, we all want a formula. Trust me. I would love to have a formula. And there’s some of that, but it’s so different than it once was, and so the first step actually if you’re going to be assuming this where am I getting that information and how am I gonna consume it? It’s just like reading the news. You know that in the United States anyway, but that actually is an issue, because there’s a lot of people that say stuff that’s confusing, and also people go down the total hole.
One thing that’s been talked about in our industry all the time, because people… Agencies are finding better margins on creative services, okay? So, they’re gonna bump up creative services. Well, then you have people creating podcasts dissecting ads. Okay, that’s a great idea. I think that’s helpful for people. But then you actually ask the question. Okay, does an ad that has a better hook rate, or see more rate, where people are clicking on seeing more on the video itself, does that actually translate to better results? Well, then you get into the weeds. Not always.
So, yeah, you can create better ads, but sometimes take a photo on your phone of you wearing the hat that you’re selling and that performs better than anything else.
Kurt Elster: Because it’s real.
Andrew Foxwell: Right. So, I guess my point is that like you can easily overthink this stuff and that’s sort of the rabbit hole you want to go down, but it’s also like there’s parts of this, but it’s also like just start somewhere, right? Trying one of those components to see if there’s success there.
So, anyway, I’m just validating outwardly a lot of the feelings that hopefully some of you have had, because I don’t think there’s a lot of people that speak like this in the industry, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to just be really honest about it.
Kurt Elster: You know, it feels good to have an authentic conversation about it.
Andrew Foxwell: #authentic. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Such a buzzword. Yeah. It’s kind of weird. Instagram was the one that gave us influencer culture and then had this very clear aesthetic, and it was all based on you had to show… It was all based on like success, which was kind of interesting, so Instagram had this very… Everything was this real polished look that lent itself to a lot of fakery to keep up with that, like how am I gonna post daily content about all my world travels? It's just who has this budget?
And then, you know, over time it turns into recycled content, where it’s like, “We’re just gonna post memes, memes, memes on Instagram.” And then the next platform shows up. I don’t know. Thinking about the lifecycle of social media platforms is a little weird.
Andrew Foxwell: It is. But jumping back to the TikTok thing, which I think is important to also talk about for people, TikTok itself has been good if it’s in your niche and it works, and I think it works in more niches than I would have thought, right?
Kurt Elster: If your audience is there.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. If your audience is there it works in more places than I would have imagined.
Kurt Elster: Like what?
Andrew Foxwell: I mean, an example is something like farmer TikTok is very popular.
Kurt Elster: See, I wouldn’t have guessed that.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah, like people on tractors, because a lot of tractors now are self-driving, so farmers have a lot of time on their hands. I mean, somebody’s gonna hit me up and say that’s not true, but I think a lot of modern farmers that are in the United States doing soy bean and corn, which a lot of people are, there’s time to sit on your phone and be in the tractor as you’re in harvest season because it’s driving itself and all you have to do is turn it when it gets to the end of the row.
So, that’s a thing, so like that’s interesting. There are active communities there. The issue that I think, and it’s helped people be successful, and I did an interview with David and Cody Plofker from Jones Road earlier this year and sold those as webinars, and we got into the deep parts of TikTok, and it really has helped a lot of people grow. It’s interesting.
However, the downside of it is the content that it needs, like the volume is so absurd. I’m talking like to do it well, you can test it at like five videos a week, but if you really are starting to scale we’re talking like 10 new creatives a week that you gotta be pumping into this baby. Because it dies so quickly. So, that’s really a lot, so that’s the downside of it is that it’s created even more work on that side of it, but…
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Wait. I gotta be feeding this thing polished portrait video content that hooks people how many times a week?
Andrew Foxwell: I mean, I think to do it right today, if you’re spending a decent amount of money, you’re talking like five to 10 new pieces of video a week that you’re gonna want to be cycling in from a testing standpoint.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. There’s no way to… Unless your full-time job is content production, how are you gonna do that? And even then, you run out of ideas.
Andrew Foxwell: That’s true. I mean, you know, there’s one guy that he… It’s like a gifting thing that they… Anyway, it’s like gifts. It’s like an Edible Arrangement type thing. It’s not, but it’s that kind of format. Anyway, he’s in the group and he does he said three a week, and I think they’re spending probably something like maybe $5,000 to $10,000 a month, and he said that’s on the low side for them, but he makes sure those are absolute bangers.
So, the downside is it’s just like it’s more work, but it can be helpful, and it is something that if you are looking at channel diversification and you know that your customers are there, conversing, it’s worth trying. It’s worth that effort. I think especially if you have something that’s unique and you’re creating TikTok-style content, the good part is if you’re starting to develop it for TikTok, it generally can be used over on Instagram, and it’ll do pretty well. Instagram, TikTok-style content on Instagram actually does pretty well.
Kurt Elster: TikTok has trained us what good video is, right? It’s kind of interesting in that the algorithm has trained the people who are using it as to what works. And it’s you need… Generally, the video’s gotta be… They have to be fast or at least start that way and have a lot of quick edits, like one to three seconds, and your hook needs to happen immediately. There’s no like, “Let’s take it slow and build up here. Get some hype.” No. Open with what it is in the first two seconds or they’re just swiping to the next because it’s like it’s too easy to skip it.
So, if something performs well for that algorithm, it’s probably gonna work well as an ad. At least as a thumb stopper. Now, whether or not it gets people to buy, that’s a different story.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. I mean, it’s wild. Teacher TikTok is another one that’s really wild, like educator TikTok.
Kurt Elster: That doesn’t… It surprises me and it doesn’t. It makes sense. Kids are on it, and so, like teachers will often adopt things that their kids do, because they want to connect with them and see what’s going on, and be part of the conversation, and so you see, all right, now they’re on TikTok and have had their own thing. And a lot of educators going into the profession are younger, and so it makes sense.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: What else? We’re coming to the end of our time together. Have you done anything, have you tried direct mail?
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. You know, we have with a couple places, and I got inspired to give it a shot through Zach Stuck, who heads up Homestead. He’s actually one of my closest friends. And he said they had seen decent results with it, and so I talked to Drew Sanocki, who owns PostPilot, and anyway, we fired it up for just a loyalty campaign, and it did great. It actually did really well. And it integrates with Klaviyo. It's pretty easy, to be honest. So, anyway, yeah, that is another thing that’s decent that I think… that’s worth giving a shot to, especially during Q4 really, right? Holiday season.
Kurt Elster: That’s like a win back, too.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah, win back. Even cart abandoners. That’s a nice one. So, the QR code thing, I always hated QR codes, but they actually worked in the one that we did, so that’s funny.
Kurt Elster: Oh, you put the QR codes on the direct mail? On the postcard?
Andrew Foxwell: Put the QR code and a unique code too, so it was in both places, so the QR brought them to a specific URL, and then with kind of the… It didn’t have it preloaded, but it was like built for the campaign. It’s an easy thing to spool up. So, that was nice, and then we had the code on there too, so like doubly making sure that they saw that there was the discount thing, but so that’s another thing to give a shot to. I think that’s a nice complement.
I think that that is, the fact that we’re talking about direct mail underscores the point that you can’t just do one thing anymore. You used to be able to.
Kurt Elster: I don’t think it was ever the… It was a strange universe in which you could do only one thing. Think about all advertising prior to Facebook ads popping off.
Andrew Foxwell: I agree with you. Oh, totally.
Kurt Elster: It was solely about staying top of mind through frequency of impressions, and that’s why it’s like we have a magazine ad, we have a radio ad, we have a billboard, we have TV ads, we’re gonna send you mail. All of it was to increase the total number of impressions. Now, those tools have been democratized. There is so much more competition because these things are so much more accessible. So, it’s like it’s pay to play, but 500 bucks you could start advertising on TV because of streaming services, like you could get ads onto Hulu or Sling for 500 bucks. You can advertise in podcasts. That’s modern radio. You could advertise on radio if someone still has one of those.
Andrew Foxwell: Your Beetle does.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. What’s funny, I have an extremely odd configuration on our Tesla. I do not have AM/FM or satellite radio. Just like it’s a weird… There’s a lot of odd configurations with those cars. Mine, no radio whatsoever.
Andrew Foxwell: But you’re the master of the old car, so you’re very familiar with it. Does your Bronco have an 8-track player or anything cool like that?
Kurt Elster: No. I’m sad. Both of them had like janky Best Buy radio installs done before I got them, and so I put in like nice aftermarket radios that match, but I’m sad I don’t have the originals.
Okay. Closing thoughts here. Facebook ads work. The landscape can still work. The landscape has changed. Number one, we need a measurement plan. Number two, the same old content’s not gonna work. It sounds like we need UGC video content, but also just to be open and willing to try and test different things continuously. Number three, as always, the landing page will make or break you. No one wants to hear that, but that’s the case. And then number four, it’s hard. No matter who you are, who happens to be lucky enough to be able to throw resources into it, and occasionally you get lucky, and you have a niche where it’s easier.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah. Yes. The answer is yes. And yeah, I’m happy to talk about this, and you know, I think just to talk about it, two promotional things. One is if you’re interested in looking at the community, FoxwellDigital.com/membership is the Foxwell Founders Group, and you know, it’s a supportive group, and I think that there’s a lot of help. I know there’s a lot of help that happens in there. It lives as a Slack group. And so, that’s one thing I think you’re looking for.
We also have a new course out called the AAA Program, which is Assessment, Action, Ascension, and really it takes you into from zero to 10, basically, of what people need to know about advertising now, and it walks you through a lot of stuff we just talked about in deep detail. It’s like it’s absurd. It’s seven and a half hours of content, to be honest, so it’s gonna get you. It’s gonna be a lot, but that’s an option too. So, I wanted to mention that because there are resources, and if you also don’t want to spend any money and you just want to email me, you can always hit me up at foxwelldigital.com and I’m happy to help point you in the right direction.
I think that part of my mission now is really just validating that it’s tough. It’s tougher than it used to be. And so, the answers are much more complex, and you have to live in that nuance, and if you’re ready to live in the nuance and the complexity, then we can help.
Kurt Elster: I really like that approach. I like acknowledging this. I like trying to come up with constructive solutions. I greatly appreciate what you’re doing here. This episode has tons of links in the show notes. Tap or swipe up on the show art to get to those. But of those links, please be sure to check out Foxwell Digital, where there are a ton of resources, especially their blog, their webinar series, courses, community. Check that stuff out.
Andrew Foxwell, FoxwellDigital.com, thank you so much. This has been inspiring.
Andrew Foxwell: Yeah, man. Thank you.