Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
Digital is a demanding and competitive field. And women are still grossly underpaid & underrepresented. But we are not powerless; we have each other. Together Digital Power Lounge is your place to hear authentic conversations from women in digital who have power to share. Listen and learn from our amazing guests along with host Amy Vaughan, Owner and Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital. Together Digital is a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital who choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. To learn more, visit www.togetherindigital.com.
Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
Digital Marketing, How to Spot a Fraud
Are your digital marketing efforts falling short of expectations? In this episode of The Power Lounge, host Amy Vaughan welcomes Anna Covert, founder of Hawaii’s largest digital marketing firm and author of The Covert Code. Anna shares actionable strategies to tackle online advertising fraud, precisely target your audience, and maximize your marketing ROI.
A true entrepreneur, Covert also operates several other marketing and technology businesses, including reactium.io, which is currently being used by enterprise organizations worldwide with contributors from Apple, Microsoft, and IBM.
Listen in to uncover insights that will help you refine your digital strategy and ensure every dollar you invest drives meaningful results for your business.
Connect with Anna Covert:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Websites: Covert Communication & Anna Covert
Get Anna’s book: The Covert Code – Mastering the Art of Digital Marketing HERE.
KeyTakeaways:
Anna Covert's Journey into Digital Marketing
Authenticity in Digital Marketing
Targeting the Right Audience
Trust and Smart Bidding Practices
Dealing with Digital Marketing Fraud
Search Marketing Insights
Influence of Remarketing in Digital Marketing Success
Social Media Marketing: Organic vs Paid
Common Client Concerns in Digital Marketing
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
02:11 - "Power Lounge: Digital Marketing Insights"
05:30 - "Together Marketing Rescue Podcast"
15:28 - Ecological Impact of Digital Advertising
20:57 - Understanding Conversions and Value
26:20 - Managing Marketing Bids Efficiently
30:09 - Google's Financial Struggles Explained
35:26 - Ad Targeting via Finger ID Mapping
39:57 - The Need for Marketing Education
43:49 - Questioning Digital Advertising Effectiveness
48:24 - "From SunPower Client to Direct Partnership"
53:20 - Navigating Digital Media's Complexities
58:53 - "Pay to Play Marketing"
01:03:01 - Outro
Quotes:
"Digital marketing is about meaningful connections. Allocate your budget smartly and let transparency build trust."- Amy Vaughn
"Technology opens doors for billions. True success comes from authenticity and ethics."- Anna Covert
Connect with the host Amy Vaughan:
LinkedIn
Power Lounge Podcast
Learn more about Together Digital and consider joining the movement by visiting togetherindigital.com.
Hello everyone and welcome to our weekly Power Lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power and connections. Learn more about us and join the movement at togetherindigitalcom. Everyone, please help me.
Speaker 1:Welcome today, anna Covert. She is joining us from, as we were just talking before, we hopped online, hawaii, where she runs Covert Communications, the state's largest marketing firm. And now, if you're like most business owners, you've probably asked yourself are my digital ads actually working? Am I reaching the right people? Is the website really delivering on what my customers need?
Speaker 1:For those of us who are in the digital space and marketing and who are listening, members or not, we know these questions because, again, we get the screws put to us right when it comes to reporting and the data and the ROI or the ROAS or whatever term they like to use.
Speaker 1:Well, these are the questions that Anna spent her career trying to help businesses answer, and what makes today's session particularly special is that Anna is going to share the same high impact strategies that she details in her bestselling book, the Covert Code. We'll drop the link in the show notes. She has worked with hundreds of businesses, from local startups to Fortune 500 companies, and she's developed a remarkably clear approach to something that often feels pretty daunting and overwhelming, especially for us business owners making digital marketing actually work for your business. So we've got a packed hour ahead with lots of questions, but, as always, live listeners. We would love it if you would share any questions that you have in the chat and we will get those asked, but we are going to break down everything from fraud prevention to creating smart budgets that make sense for your business. She's going to help show you how to take back control of your digital strategy and make sure that every dollar that you spend is working for you. Anna, thanks for joining us in the Power Lounge.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. We're really glad to have you here with us, excited to have this conversation Kind of sort of wishing it was in person but you have helped to build Hawaii's largest digital marketing firm. What sparked your journey into digital marketing and what made you decide to share the strategies that you've shared, which are a little unorthodox right In the covert code, rather than keeping them trade secrets?
Speaker 2:That's a really great question. I think it really starts much younger in my life, so I'm going to take you on a little journey. So my story echoes out of many. I was a girl born in the early 80s, the year just before the Apple computer and that's 1983, for those of you trying to do the math and my story was that of many. I was born in a very part of a very fluent community. I attended private schools, I had a safe family and I had every opportunity to succeed. The problem was that I'm dyslexic and no matter how hard I worked and work hard I did I still struggled in school. The result I cried a lot and it wasn't fair. And that didn't change until much later in my life, thanks to the unwavering support of my mother.
Speaker 2:But, as many of you might have guessed, the computer. It opened up my world to opportunity. Finally I could read my own handwriting. I had tools like Excel, word and others that helped level the playing field for me. And technology has done just that for billions of us made our lives easier, safer, healthier and fairer. But as the saying goes, every technology is both a burden and a blessing.
Speaker 2:What I've found is that those very same strategies that have helped my career as a business or digital marketing expert flourish, have had the exact opposite effect on millions of business owners, and today it is rare that a business would have no experience with online advertising. Even the smallest mom and pop has a GoDaddy or Wix website, has tried to boost a social media post, added some SEO, enhancement, something, and, as a result, not a day goes by that I don't speak to business owners of all sizes, from all industries with the same outcry that, by the time they've reached me, they've already been through three or more agencies, often spending hundreds of thousands of dollars without the promised return. I had clients crying to me on the phone when had I been? And finally I had enough. We had to reach people faster. We had to do something and I realized that with my expertise, partners and technology that I could make that meaningful change. And luckily, forbes agreed and helped me expedite my book from pitch to publishing in 11 months, because the crisis is real and really.
Speaker 2:You know, when I was going to college back in back in the day, you know there wasn't digital advertising. You know a website was a virtual brochure and there really wasn't. There wasn't social media, which I'm grateful for. But I actually started the learning. But I had to learn it all myself, and that started when I had a back injury in my late twenties and I was going to a physical therapist and she asked me if I could build her website.
Speaker 2:And at the time WordPress was really taking off and I had a boyfriend and he was not the. He was very good looking, but not the sharpest tool in the shed. And at the time, wordpress was really taking off and I had a boyfriend and he was not the he was very good looking, but not the sharpest tool in the shed and he had been telling me that he was building WordPress websites. And I was like, wow, you know, if he can do it, I'm sure that I can do it. So I reluctantly told her that I could, for, you know, for therapy trade. And that's what started my, my learning. I built my first WordPress website, I started my first AdWords campaign and then from there, in the last 15 years, it's just built.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's fantastic and, again, I think I relate to you so much in a lot of your journey and what you've done and why you've done it. Because it's like there is this advertising marketing, digital especially. It's such a great mobilizer for businesses and small businesses especially, and they are at such a disadvantage oftentimes and it can feel, like you said, very overwhelming and they do get burnt sometimes. Right, I haven't plugged this new podcast yet on this podcast, but I need to. We started another spinoff podcast called Together Marketing Rescue, which, Anna, I would love it if you came on and listened. It is for our members only to listen to, but the podcast episodes themselves are live so you can go out and find them in the world under Together Marketing Rescue and the goal is kind of in line with, like, what your mission is. It's like we are trying to figure out how do we marry up small businesses with marketing service providers that are smart about how they use their money and their time right and then they report well and like they're being ethical.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying because you're a big business that you're not ethical, but you have more overhead, you have more layers of complexity, and not every small business it can afford, nor needs a big agency to do the work that they need have done. And so the goal of, you know, marketing rescue was to really help solve a problem, both for our members who own marketing services, who are struggling to find clients, and all these amazing small businesses, mom and pops, that have really kind of maxed out their own capabilities. You know, because, like the first episode is my friend, kristen, who owns sweets and meats barbecue, and you know they know barbecue that's that's what she's there for. Like her and her husband, that's what they're doing. They don't need to be worrying about like are there social media ads performing? They need somebody to help them with that response, responsibly and ethically. Ethically because they're just good people who started with the grill and $800, you know.
Speaker 1:And so I just I love so much about what you have done and what you're doing with your book and with the way that you're approaching marketing, because, yeah, it just is really helping a lot of people like grow their business, which means food for their family, school for their kids, it's. It's such a great equalizer and helping grow the economy in the places where we need to be growing it right now. So I'm kind of curious you serve as a lot of clients to get back to you, a lot of clients across different industries. How do you help businesses find their authentic voice in a digital space too? Because that's a challenge, right, and this is very now. Like you said, when we both went to school, digital was not a thing, and now we're just all a grain of sand in the desert that is the internet.
Speaker 1:How are you helping clients?
Speaker 2:work through that. Well, yeah, I think you made a really interesting comment there, because a lot of you know, I always hear every day people talk about SEO, right, and oh, I have to be in the first page of search. And did you know that there are over 250,000 websites that come online worldwide every day? Woo, 170 a minute. So you know, the idea of search is changing.
Speaker 2:As I said, you know, we're a needle in the haystack and the most important thing is really to, in today's day and age, to have that be authentic, you know, really share the real story and have a value proposition. And brands of today. They don't just have a mission statement, they're proving that that's part of their business, right, like, how are we going to evoke and share? Okay, you know we care about the environment. Okay, well, what are your proof points of that? And those little authentic stories are really what AI can't, you know, can't mirror right, Because it's in the real world and we see that that's really really important for what to do to stand out. But every business, I think is the most important thing is to determine who is your audience. And now, with digital, the good news is that we can reduce waste by really drilling into how we're going to target that person and move them through the purchase funnel.
Speaker 1:I love that when it comes to helping find your clients find their authentic voice. I mean, I'm already thinking about the examples of the few episodes we've recorded one with Crystal who owns Magnificent Morsels and one with Kristen who owns Sweets and Meats. I mean sometimes I mean for those two I'm just going to give an example to help. Maybe you answer this. But you know one of them in particular, like that whole notion of them starting with a girl and $800. I was like I just feel like that more people need to know and understand that. And then, like I only just learned that like all of the recipes they use were handed down throughout her husband's family and that to me as a consumer, right, it makes me choose differently. I was wondering if you could kind of dive a little deeper, like what are the ways in which you're helping your clients, like be specifically more authentic, because we throw that word around a lot in this industry and then I don't think people understand how to actually get to that point.
Speaker 2:You know it really boils down to storytelling, which is one of the most common behavioral science strategies that we can utilize. Because you know one of the most common behavioral science strategies that we can utilize, because you know humans. That's how we all began around campfires, sharing stories, and so it's like what? That's the story. It's about the, you know the, the legacy. It's about the community. It's about you know what is the story. That's the reason why you're here. Why are you?
Speaker 2:I mean everyone, when they start a business, they really are, you know, they have, they have to think they're going to provide something that's not being provided in that way. Well, and how did they arrive at that decision? Because it's a big decision to start a business. Yeah, your barbecue says it's better. Well, why is it better? Well, well, because you know these are the stories that make up up the reason why we knew that we had to. You know the passion, was there able to invest our time and love, and it's all about love. If you can't show that love, then the consumer won't respond to it and you won't last, you won't make it. So just really sitting down and thinking. We always go through these brand exercises with clients and asking those questions Like if you were a car, what car would you be? If your brand was a car, what music would they be listening to? What is the personification and what are the stories that they tell people about who they are and why they're here and who they'll be in the future?
Speaker 1:And do you ever find any clients and I'm even thinking about this from like an individual personal branding standpoint people holding back because it's like they want to have like a certain ideal self out there in the world or an ideal product or brand without any vulnerability? I mean, how much vulnerability do you think is required for a brand to really reach authenticity?
Speaker 2:I think in today's day and age, you have to be completely vulnerable, like you should not hold anything back, because those are the key differentiators, like we call them leverageable points of difference, what make you better, unique. And if you're holding back, that's the brand of the past, where we were in control. Like you know, the how media worked before we had social media and online, it was a one-way discussion. We told the brand, you know, we had print, we had radio, we it was a one-way conversation, brand, brand to consumer, and then you could control it. Right Now, with today, with this dialogue that's happening, the brand has to realize that they can't hide because people will figure it out right and then, once that trust is lost, it's impossible to get it back.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I so agree. Such good advice. Thanks for letting me dig in more with that question. Let's talk a little bit about a part of your book that emphasizes a lot about reaching the right people at the right time, and how has this targeted challenge, or targeting challenge, evolved over your 20 years in digital marketing?
Speaker 2:And I think it's related to what we were just kind of the topic we were just talking about, because you know before it again was back to that one way conversation, right, and we could control the dialogue and as and even with digital and its early stage stage and to some degree, you know not.
Speaker 2:When I say early, I mean even the last five or 10 years what's happened right is that we are treating it the same way we try treated any media, right. If I wanted to advertise online, I would go to directly to that company let's say it was people magazine and I have a media buy and I'm on their site and now I'm available to anyone who comes to peoplecom. But is that? Does that? That's blanketing it out there? Is that same person the one who is actively seeking or interested in my product? The answer is maybe, but you're wasting a lot of inventory and marketing budget on everyone and today, with the digital tools we have available, the most important part is to reduce waste and increase, and that's what I think is all goes down to reducing waste, you know.
Speaker 2:I don't want to see a power commercial or like a power tool commercial or a diaper commercial, right, you know? And the? And as a marketing person, I don't want to show my ad to somebody who's not interested in it. Right, it's this targeting and the ability to say okay, like you know, are they raising their hand for these products, are they? You know, I'm a big believer in universal consent and I think a lot of companies miss it.
Speaker 2:You know, marketers have been those ones who have always been the abusers of data. We'll call it right and and reluctant. I mean, I talk to clients all the time about, oh, the data in their database, so we don't want to get rid of any of it. Well, why, right, you know it's. Why are we holding on to like squirrels, Like you know? Like, oh, they're all of our acorns? Well, you know, and there's a cost associated with that. There's risk associated with that. As someone, they should. It should be just as easy for someone to opt in as opt out. I might be interested today in giving you my email for a 10% off coupon, but tomorrow I decided I don't want it. You coupon, but tomorrow I decided I don't want it. You know, remove them from your database. You're holding you to pay to hold them into MailChimp and any of these programs you pay for texting. There's risk to your domain if you send too many emails and they spam them.
Speaker 2:And you know and same thing with data. I mean with California consumer protection and other global standards.
Speaker 1:you know the rights of the consumer are important and that makes marketing better, because you are going to only be speaking to people who are wanting to engage with you oh my gosh, there's so many implications to what you're saying, anna, and it makes so much sense, and I just wish we could kind of scream it from the rooftops for the amount of money that gets wasted on, like over indexing, on impressions, the economic impact like not the economic but the ecological impact, like not the economic but the ecological impact on those things.
Speaker 1:It's like one of those things I never even knew until probably 10 plus years into my career that, like all of that you know you'd think that, oh, it's all going into the ether, it's all on the internet, it's all cloud storage. No, it's taking like a toll on our environment when we blast the world with a ton of advertising without being responsible as to, like, who we're trying to reach and why. And again, we have to treat time and attention like it's gold, not just on our own end but for our consumers ends, because, yeah, we're all just sitting here being very like overwhelmed by choice, right, and then we end up defaulting to like whatever's there. So right time, right place is still so important. But I think like leaning that into that even harder for a number of reasons makes a whole lot of sense. I think it used to just be a passing thing.
Speaker 2:If you buy something, and then how many times have people listening to this? And they bought something. Maybe they wanted a vacuum cleaner and they bought the vacuum cleaner and now they're getting bombarded by vacuum cleaner right.
Speaker 1:Well, I bought it. I know it's done right and that's just wait.
Speaker 2:So that's not that. That's using old strategies of list acquisition and and things where I mean as a, for instance I give this example, my book, like you know, if, um, most you know top of funnel companies where that are doing awareness advertising online. That's top of the funnel. They they are using lists right to acquire data. And I'll give you an example. So let's say that an eBay is one of the largest sellers of data. So let's say I'm going to a baby shower and I go to eBay and I buy a baby stroller.
Speaker 2:Right Now I'm on a list that says I'm the parent of a toddler, but I'm not the parent of a toddler. I bought one product one time. Now I did work for the hospital here. I built this baby app for the women's hospital. So now we buy this data and we're now starting trying to serve ads to someone who is a parent of a toddler.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why and this is one of those red flags I think we'll talk about later is that if they tell you, oh, it's going to take 60, 90 days for it to work, well, that's a red flag. The reason why is because they're trying to match consumers in ways that they can't be matched. And today, with the tools we have, we know I would never serve an ad to someone on that list, I wouldn't use a list like that. But there are hundreds of metrics. If I was a parent of a toddler, I would be going to mommy blogs, I would be doing a hundred other activities that would identify that. Yes, not only am I a tall parent of a toddler, but I'm in market for this specific thing now, and that can change once I got that stroller.
Speaker 2:Now I'm on to the next thing yeah and so that's why it's so important to pick the right partners and the right data sources and be, you know, open to. If it sounds too good to be true, it is probably is that's so true, and it's funny, probably is that's so true and it's funny, it's like it's.
Speaker 1:Instead, as marketers, I think the point you're making at least what I'm hearing is like we have to look at the correlation of behaviors versus one trigger behavior, because this has come up and happened in the past too, because I as well have worked on products for like women and we used to do like we don't anymore like Mother's Day type of posts or emails, like we don't anymore like Mother's Day type of posts or emails, and I know I think it was Target at some point that was able to kind of like approximate based on women's purchases when or if they became pregnant.
Speaker 2:But it's like also that's also pretty risky. I don't want to interrupt you, but that's actually something that's very risky for the consumer and we're seeing that already where you know, like because of their buying behavior, they're starting getting like this woman, a young girl, I mean like a teenager she was pregnant and her father found out you know about the story yeah, found out because of the ads exactly what I was getting to right yeah, yep, that's exactly what I was getting to or you know
Speaker 1:you have that instance of the woman who the the birth, something happens and you know she isn't able to carry out the pregnancy, and then that's devastating. And then throw on top of the devastation, a bunch of ads thrown in your face about babies, like no thanks, that's not the right time, that's not the right place. But you're right, we have enough data out there if we can learn how to use it properly and use it well versus, you know, only thinking about like their advantage, thinking about how it will impact others. Um, I think it comes back and I think it proves to be, like you're saying too, more effective and more impactful because it truly is the right time and the right place and not just the assumed right time and place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and that's the goal. What is our role as a business provider and service provider? And because now, trust is so important for the consumer and we know that those who even share their privacy and how they use data are getting more adoption than those who aren't. And would someone shop at Target again? I mean, probably not, I wouldn't. So it's a business decision that's going to pay off.
Speaker 1:I agree. So, speaking of trust, in your book you talk about how businesses should never trust anyone to bid on their behalf. Can you talk us through maybe some examples of what that is and what that means and where you've seen this go wrong and what should have been done differently?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know that's a really great question and it comes down to that. Companies like let's talk about Google for a minute. There's so many that we can talk about. But Google, right, you know anyone, they you know they make it sound so easy for you. It's called smart bidding, right, and what they say is that, hey, don't worry about you know anything, you just tell us what you want to spend for a day and we're going to handle the rest.
Speaker 2:I think we can all understand that they can't know what our customers worth to us and what is a conversion. And when there's a shopping ad, for example, it's much easier to determine because there was a credit card that was swiped and the transaction was occurred on that visit. But for B2B or anything else, if I saw a lot of solar I do a lot of solar work you know a conversion is a lead, but did we meet with that customer? Were they qualified right? Did they sit with us? All these different things.
Speaker 2:So if we're letting an algorithm say, oh, it's worth this, well, they don't know the whole story, right. And the same thing with zip codes. They don't know the whole story, right. And the same thing with zip codes. Like, back to solar. Not all zip codes. I might cover California, but then we can agree that there are different territories in California or zip codes where they're higher income residents. Not everyone is worth the same and they can't know that. It's your business, right? You have to be the one who's going to know and be in control of that process, and so they'll spend all your money and there you are wondering well, where's my ROI?
Speaker 2:Well, you let it up to someone who knows nothing about your barbecue sauce, right? And so that's one of the kind of easy examples. Another one is that the media, unlike traditional advertising where there's a fixed insertion order, like meaning that I'm agreeing to spend $5,000 on a print ad, this is what I'm going to get, this is my column width and length and this is where it's going to be distributed, and whatnot. Online advertising is a real-time auction, happening 24-7, meaning that it changes daily based off of, you know, seasonality, environmental issues, even the weather right, we see it affect online behavior, competition. A lot of times we see big companies will do what's called flighting. So let's say that I'm back to solar. You know, like a Tesla or a big company like that could decide they're going to launch a new product and they're going to spend a million dollars online in California in these two weeks. Well, that, then, is going to push all the bids up, right, because they're bidding very, very aggressively. Well, if you're not paying attention and you're not really looking at your data and what you're spending and how many people you're reaching we call that search impression share Well, then you might make some bad decisions, you might all of a sudden be competing with someone who has five or six times the budget you have, whereas if you start to really realize you are in control. And while there's a lot of things we're not in control of, we can at least make decisions quickly and decide, you know, okay. Well, today I was bidding, or yesterday I bid $5 and I reached 30, 40% of the audience. Now that same bid I'm only reaching 110%. Well, what's happening in the market? Right, and am I going to radically try to adjust or am I going to just wait it out, because those flights don't last? And so those are the kind of reasons why you need to be in control.
Speaker 2:And if you let someone else pay, what they're going to do is spend all your money and, like, the last one I'll give you is Facebook and it's all. If you let someone else pay, what they're going to do is to spend all your money and, like, the last one I'll give you is Facebook. Yeah, and it's all. If you remember nothing else, just remember that their job right, and they want to help you. I'm not saying that they don't, but they're going to spend all your money, no matter what.
Speaker 2:That's why Facebook. They won't promise you anything. They give you an estimate of impressions and clicks right. It's not a promise, right? So the trick here is to give it enough time. So if I have a promote, if I want to spend $500, we'll give it five. Give it a month to spend the $500, a lifetime budget. Because if you do a daily budget or a short-term window, what's going to happen is that, no matter what, by the end of that budget, by the end of the day, they will have spent all your money.
Speaker 2:But we can't. We don't know what happened, right? Did those impressions ever get served? And the answer is that no, they don't. Because how do we know that the impression was ever served? Right? And then for our listeners in traditional advertising, if I run a TV commercial and I want to know did it run? I can call Nielsen. Nielsen reports every TV station in the country. They can pull up a report and show me that, yes, my spot ran. This is how many people were tuned in If grandpa slept through it or someone left their TV on for the dog.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not their fault, right? And?
Speaker 2:it's fair. Scarborough does it for the radio. There are third parties that follow print publications and make sure they're distributed. There are companies that stand on the side of the road and click billboards as they pass by, or click cars as they pass by billboards to confirm impression share. There is no third party oversight online at all. You have to believe the media company that what they've said in terms of impressions oh, I served a million impressions, great. How do you know that? Yeah, and that's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:There are ways that you can. You know there are protections for that and for bots and with the rise of the bots, now half of all traffic online is fake and they're getting smarter and smarter. So, you know, using bot protection, picking the right partners that will allow us to put a third party pixel into our ad to see that it was viewed. You know there are so many ways to be taken advantage of at every level, by the publisher, by the browser, by the. You know. So I write about all that in my book. But, really understanding, you know that you have options and if you trust the other third party, well then that's your fault. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess you're kind of paying for that inconvenience, so just might as well consider like a big old convenience fee at the end of the day. So what are some? I think you gave some good strategies and tips and ways in which we could start to look into and make sure that you know, I think, part of why people go to the bid on behalf. Well, one businesses do what we know because they can make a quicker buck right for the convenience factor, but us as marketers, you know it might be more of like time constraints. So maybe what would some tips that be that you would have for marketers who want to do more of this, where they aren't using the automatic bidding but they have a multitude of clients that they're trying to serve? Like how do you kind of manage all of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I mean, it's actually really not that, not that challenging, and on my website, the Cobra code, I have free resources. You can download a checklist for Google and you can just follow the instructions and within 20 minutes you will have saved 20% or increase your conversion at the same value. I'll give you another like this is a really easy one, right?
Speaker 2:If anyone has Google ads and they're on their computer right now, log in and you go to your settings, campaign settings. Go down to location, right, you might, let's say I'm targeting some, I want to target people in Hawaii. Okay, well, right underneath the location section there's a little hidden setting there and it says you know location settings and you turn it on and there are two options there. One is the default from Google, two options there. One is the default from Google and it says target people who are located or have interest in my target location. That's recommended, yeah, and the one right below that is target people physically located in my location.
Speaker 2:Now let me give you an example. If I let Google do what they recommend and that they automatically default, let's say I'm back to solar here. I have a solar company here in Hawaii and I'm targeting people in Hawaii. Well, you have interest in Hawaii. You're coming on vacation in Hawaii, so you're looking at hotels, you're looking at activities, you're looking at all kinds of things restaurants, where am I going to stay. You have interest in Hawaii. Now you're back home in Ohio and you want solar. Right, you go online, you search, boom up pops my ad. You click on it because it's hard to tell a location from an ad. Right and you see this solar company is in Hawaii. You click right out 30% of budgets or more are spent because people are allowing that one default.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's impressive. Thank you so much. I love all this more in the details nitty gritty, tactical stuff and I know our members do as well, because they're in this every day. One of our live listeners, jillian, was just commenting how insightful this was, because she sets up campaigns every day that utilize this automatic bidding and she's trying to fight it, but love being able to see different viewpoints, since her clients are always set on these lists and these automations.
Speaker 1:But I think if you can go back to them, Jillian, and share some of this data of like yeah, 30% waste, Does that sound good to you client?
Speaker 2:Like, maybe we try a different route you know, we only want to target people in our zip codes, right? Do you have clients in Nebraska? No, well then let's not make sure that they're not getting ads right. And another easy one that people can use, and it's one of the ones that they always hide, right? So there are three different networks. Right, there's Google search. Right, meaning that you go to Google and you search. There are Google partners which they won't even share a list. That should be a red flag for you, but why won't they share a list? Right, there's all these other partners that they say they can serve ads on their site. Then there's a display network right, which is basically the same thing as the partners, but just a display ad. Okay, so how we buy media online is a really important segue here, right? So anytime that I go, let's say that I'm doing display network and no remarketing is one of the things we'll talk about in a little bit. But, uh, and so every time, every, whoever you pick to be your distributor in this case it's google every site that they serve my ad on, they have to pay that that site. So if my ad shows on people, google has to pay people, right for that impression, right? Well, how does google get paid? Well, they get paid by cost per click.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people don't know this, but it it was a time a couple of years ago where they were like worried about going bankrupt. Ok, and it's a shock. People are like what? But the problem was is they were so big and so bad and they were on. You know, they were on. They were like the no one could compete, right, and they were serving millions of impressions. Yeah, serving millions of impressions, but they were only. You know, some of these ads were. They had eight ways to bid. Back then you could only, you know, some people were paying like 20 cents a click. Well, google realized, oh my God, they had these bills that they couldn't pay because they were now having to pay for every ad.
Speaker 2:So what did they do? Well, they did two things. They made, they changed all the bidding strategies. There's now only three ways. Two are in Google's control. The only way you can use is max cost per click and then you can set it. So you can say I want to bid by max cost per click. So I say I always start with like a $5 or $3, right, no matter what, it is Set that that's a max that you're willing to spend, right, and then we're going to use exact match keywords to make sure that that's what's being shown, right, you know? But so now you know. Then the other thing that they did was they deployed bots to click on their own ads to make sure they could pay their partners. So, and for that reason, my favorite partner is ClickSeize, and actually on my website, if you go to the partner section under resources, I have some affiliate links. We do a donation to Maui for the fires that people sign up using my account.
Speaker 2:I love it. You know, within seven days it's only like $65, right for the big plan and you will immediately. So it blocks the bots, right? The first bot will be tracked, will be built to you, but then after that they block that IP and then what that's going to tell you is that the only way you can do that really is through Google search. Does Google search cost anything to Google? No, they don't have to pay themselves. If they show an ad on their own site, it's opportunity cost who? What they're doing is saying, okay, how many advertisers do I have who are meet the criteria? And now it's a bidding war, right, but it's just an opportunity cost for them. It doesn't cost them anything. So only use Google search. Don't add partners, don't add display. You know at all, right, and no matter what they tell you, it's not going to be good for you, right? The bots are clicking on it and you can't protect them. Then get click-seize and connect your Google Ads account and you'll immediately see that you're saving 30% from day one.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I can't wait to start doing some of these things.
Speaker 2:You can go down to the checklist on my website.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it and I love all the resources and all of it. It's just so awesome and generous. So I mean, we're kind of tiptoeing around this already but like and I don't know if this is just the one of them or one of many but I was wondering if we could kind of talk through some of the bigger red flags, that digital marketing experts how do you know if they might be a fraud?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so there's some really easy ones. So the first you're going to ask them a couple questions, and the first question is how are you going to prove to me that this impression ran and the first question is how are you going to prove? To me that this impression ran well, you know because if you and and a lot of times I mean the fact is they, they're, they may not be able to right and so that's a red flag, right?
Speaker 2:you know, um, and I always have a lot of clients ask you know I'll be, you know I'll call the client, a potential client and oh, they're like, oh, we do remarketing. I'm like, oh, that's great. You know i've'll call a potential client. And oh, they're like, oh, we do remarketing. I'm like, oh, that's great. You know, I've been to your website. I haven't seen any ads. That might be because I'm in Hawaii, you know, yeah, do you ever see your own ads? Oh, well, maybe. Well, no, it shouldn't be. Maybe Do you see your own ads, like, I see my to see it, to believe it. Right, that's a easy one, right? Yeah, um, if you're googling yourself and you don't see your own ad, that's a red flag, right. But how are they going to prove it works? What is the protection against invalid traffic? Do they use bot protection and are you paying for invalid traffic?
Speaker 2:you're not right and over. This is how we're going to track it. This is what we're going to do about it, right? Um, and? And then you shouldn't pay for invalid traffic. There are partners that will you know, on the top of funnel who will share it with you, and then you won't pay for it. No-transcript. We can you know you're interested in the military? Great, we can put a fence around the military base and we can serve ads. Okay, well, great.
Speaker 2:How are you going to do that with the technology available today? Because there's no tracking, location tracking on the phone anymore? Yeah, tracking, location tracking on the phone anymore. Yeah, how? So? Well, I mean, you know, oh, then they're gonna be like well, how are you going to prove that? Right? And then there are, there are some partners who.
Speaker 2:There are some better ways we can do it, but basically it's if you have, like the cable companies, if they have control of the IP, then we do know that's called addressable inventory. We know their house is there because they have the internet, and then we know, right, that they're there, right? But other than that, how they're doing it is based off of list acquisition back to that. So they're buying a list of people in an area that match your, a woman, and this age. We think, because of a third party, that they live there and then they're going to try to serve you an ad, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:How are they going to serve you that ad? How are they going to? You know, on a computer there's cookies, right, and cookies. We all probably have heard of cookie degradation and what does it mean, and all that which we'll get to. But on a phone it's called finger ID mapping, so there's no IP address on your phone, right? So how they're looking for the connection is based off of an email that matches somewhere that they do have and they're trying to connect it.
Speaker 2:That's why in apps a lot of apps, they have location tracking. That's one of the ways that they can try to associate. But then how many ads can you serve? How often are they in that app? So you have to be very, very careful when people throw around these terms. And then you're like, okay, great, I want to believe you. I do want to believe you. Prove it to me, prove to me, and you know so.
Speaker 2:If, let's say, probably a lot of people are listening right now, you may. I would point to an event, right, and you have a booth at an event. Wouldn't it be wonderful to geofence this conference center and then serve ads, people who attend? Yeah, that'd be the dream, right? Okay, they're going to say that they can do it and no problem. And then you're going to ask them well, how, what is the frequency that you're going to be able to serve these ads? And they're going to hum and ha and well, and you probably will get back something like three, a frequency of three. Over what time? Well, 30 days, okay. Well, do you think that, with all of the chaos and all of the things you consume daily, that three impressions over 30 days is going to be enough for them to move. No, it's not Not going to move them. Same thing with your Facebook ads. If you look at a report after and you look at the frequency it's going to come up.
Speaker 2:Usually every industry is on 1.5. Well, 1.5, that's a weird number. First of all, right, how do you have a half an impression? But that's not enough to move someone from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel. When they say it takes seven to win, you need to see something at least seven times. Yes, and you know over, and that's the easy way. I mean, I have more, more kind of math and details in my book about how, the way that I, you know, use digital online. Right, because there isn't any critical mass messaging equation. Right, of course. It's best because, just back to, how would we ever know? Right, because it's a dark hole.
Speaker 2:Google can control everything. If you've heard of this antitrust lawsuit and you look at the graph, I have a graph that I've it might be on my website but I can share with you later and it just shows basically, there's three parts of the buying right and Google is making money at every single part. There's no way to serve an ad online today where google doesn't make money. Yeah, let's make sure they don't make all the money. Right, you can pick. I can even buy google from the media exchange. I don't have to buy from right. Yeah, so you must see it to believe it. You ask them. You know how do you?
Speaker 2:How are we going to prove that these impressions are served? Because another thing that can happen if you're let's say you're on CNN, an ad gets displayed, and how you know it's on the media exchange is there's a little blue cone in the top corner. If there's no cone, that means that that person went directly to CNN and bought a package like traditional advertising, right. But if you see the cone, you know a lot of times an ad will play and then another ad will play right behind it. It'll play another ad or your same ad. That's because they're delivered stacked in a container. So there might be multiple ads that are served or in stacked in the container, but that doesn't mean that you reviewed that ad as I'm scrolling down the page, that you reviewed that ad as I'm scrolling down the page I made. It's up there but it's not viewable to me. Well, a lot of people will charge you for it being delivered to the page. That's what's called the viewability score, right?
Speaker 2:So how are we going to prove that the impression ran and was viewed? What percentage? You know? A lot of times I say like, okay, we're looking for like a 50% view, right, because people are scrolling and you know we can't have it all right. Or 75%, but you have to be in control of that. No, especially with YouTube, for example, right, you know, if you go right to YouTube, first of all there's no bot protection and they can skip after seven seconds. If I buy it through the media exchange, I can guarantee the view through is 75% or 100% and I can validate invalid traffic. So you have to know that. You know you're in control. You know you pick the right partners and then you ask the right questions and they won't be able to answer them if they're fraud.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and I mean I would also say that, like I would go so far as to say that I just don't think that there's enough education in general, which is why I appreciate what you're doing so much for marketers themselves not to behave in what feels like a fraudulent manner of like just not knowing and not recognizing and realizing, because I think oftentimes you know digital, you know, like we said, it wasn't, it wasn't even like a line of coursework within school for us 10, 15 years ago, and even nowadays the tools are changing constantly, right?
Speaker 1:So, like in all of the mass hysteria over going to G4, right, it's like they're always evolving and they're always changing, and I think what we sometimes forget is, like what you're saying we have control, but we also have to recognize that they have the data, which means you can't implicitly trust every platform to basically be performing to your best interest in dollar. You have to do what you're doing, anna, which is asking the questions, digging harder into the data and being a smarter marketer at the end of the day, which is what makes me so excited?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you made a really good point there. It's something so important. I always tell clients that a lot of times I hear there's a lot of fear. Right, you know? Oh, it worked before. Why isn't it working now? Right? Or if I stop the ads, then what's going to happen? Well, okay, if your ads any ad you're doing should have some kind of trackable, measurable result.
Speaker 2:If it doesn't, don't spend more. I mean, that's one of the number one things I hear. Oh, they told me I increased my budget. No, you don't be afraid to push, pause and regroup. Look at the website. You know what is the mobile experience. You know what is. How do we get we're getting traffic. How do we get more from that traffic? Because, before you spend a dollar on on paid search or anything, you need to make sure that the website is converting and and that's. And then, if they do change cause they'll change and it's not working all of a sudden, well, hey, let's regroup and it's better to cut your losses. Tomorrow will come, but you don't want to spend $2,000 waiting for that realization.
Speaker 1:No, no, I mean again small businesses. That's just definitely not ideal. Let's talk about search marketing. Because we've brought it up a couple of different times, I'm curious, like if you have some advice or thoughts on some of the more counterintuitive things you have learned about this, when businesses should or shouldn't invest in it, you said. I want to go back to something you said a little earlier too, about search versus display, even.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. I mean, I think that I can give you an example of so. We're always, you know, because of this evolution I guess it's off the same topic we're always testing new things out, you know, with clients, and so one a couple of years ago I think it was two years ago Performance Max campaign came out. Probably people are oh yeah, performance Max and it sounded great because I always loved that Gmail targeting and what they got rid of, you know, inside the Gmail Right. So this was like a sound, two good features a blend right of YouTube map, gmail search display and and that was based off of a smart campaign pretty much.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, performance max means that you you have to have a daily budget and Google's going to serve the ads where they want, right. But you had a client. We're like like, let's try it out, right and right from the get-go. Well, this is before. I knew about bot protection, right, but I wish it wouldn't have worked. But, um, that's here nor, neither here nor there, anyway. So the campaign starts and all of a sudden we're starting to see so many conversions and we're like, oh, my god, it's a holy grail like this, right. But then our Slack channel is pinging and the client's like, oh, we're getting all these forms filled out on their Unbounce page. But then we start looking through them and their bots, right, and it's clear. It's like you know, mike at Botzillacom, yeah, and so you know, it was a lot of times, especially with companies, when you're not the one who's in control right or you're the business owner, you're busy, you're doing other things.
Speaker 2:You know you might be looking at a report and like, oh, wow, this is working. But then you have to say, well, is it really working? You know, what are these conversions that Google's tracking, and do they matter to you? Right? So that's, you know, kind of one of the pieces of like that we try things out and you know, but back to that you can't really trust it. You know, and and I think it all depends what tool you pick really depends on where you are in the purchase funnel. And this is a really important factor, because what we've been trained to believe, right and is that digital advertising is all trackable, right, and it should happen immediately, right, and and to some fact, you know, at the bottom of the funnel. So the for the people listening, in case they don't know. So the purchase funnel is, there's a awareness, is at the top right, consideration, intent and action. So my example for solar I'm aware solar exists, okay, great consideration. My bill keeps climbing. What am I going to do about it? Intent oh my, I'm going to call my neighbor. They have solar. I'm going to call my mom. Oh, I'm going to go online now and search for solar. What do I know about it? I'm going to start learning.
Speaker 2:An ad gets served, they click on the ad, they go to a website and now they leave. So a lot of times people make the mistake of not understanding what is the customer's journey, how long it's going to take Once they go to the site, what do we expect it to be before they come back on their own and convert? So what we determined, with hundreds of pixels, is that the solar journey is between 28 and 32 days. So if I was looking at a report and I was spending $5,000 a month and whatnot, and oh well, I don't see it working in, you know, 15 days, it must not be working. Well, you haven't given the customer enough time. Right, shopping is shorter window. It's called a seven day time decay. If they didn't buy it within seven days, chances of them buying it slipped dramatically. It depends on the type of industry and how long. The more expensive it is, the bigger investment, the longer the journey will take. It could take a year. Understand that, you know, figure out, and that's when you say, okay, if I'm going to spend money. And before I get there, you know.
Speaker 2:And so the idea of tracking right, and this is something we talk about every single day. Right, like, everyone wants to give everyone credit, right? Well, everyone wants to take credit. It's called attribution. So in your G4 account people listening go to your settings, click on attribution and you want to make sure you have data driven attribution and you want to include paid and organic. Then 30 day click recommended and then right below that, there's going to be another option that's going to have 90 days as a recommended setting. Change it to 30, because you want everything to be equal so that you can evaluate what actually did happen.
Speaker 2:So, and I'll give you an example so let's say, I clicked on an ad and I go to the website and I don't convert. I don't fill out a form. The only time a UTM is tracked right is when it completes on the same visit. Google ads can, now that we're going to give it, this authority can take credit for up to 30 days if they come back from an organic channel. Let's say now I see a remarketing ad and I click on it and I still don't convert. Now I see a social media post. Finally, I click and I convert.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're looking at a traditional report, it's going to. You might think that you have three conversions One from Google, one from the remarketing company and one from Facebook. But you didn't have three conversions, you had one and they all assisted. So don't get buried in the weeds of like oh, I can't track everything, just you know everything online. It's a, it's a environment, it all works together.
Speaker 2:And then you have to use your little detective hat to see okay, well, what was the first instance? I always give the first visitor, like you know, the greatest value of that source. But everyone else participated. So when you want to, you know when the boss says, oh, we need to, you know, make, make more money, we need more leads. You know you're going to allocate your budget appropriately to support the length of the time. Hey, boss, if we spend $10,000 today, we're not going to get that back for 60 days. Yeah, we're going to get it back for 90 days. What is the expectation? Because if you're not sharing that right plan, then what's going to happen is you could cut marketing too soon before you had the chance to re-engage that customer on that journey.
Speaker 1:Yep, and what you're talking about a lot. There is remarketing too, which is a great segue into. My next question is if you could share a success story where remarketing delivered unexpected value for clients, because I think it is a kind of an undervalued and often not like something that you put into place in a smart or strategic way, not like something that you put into place in a smart or strategic way.
Speaker 2:You know I got. One of my favorite examples is is is my own example. So I, you know, as a this was almost 10 years ago and I was doing some work here in Hawaii. But I was doing work for my first solar client through another agency in California and they were a SunPower dealer, a big SunPower dealer, and SunPower recently went bankrupt but they were the largest solar manufacturer for 36 years, right, and they're big, you know. They had 800, 900 dealers. Anyway, one day, eventually, that client did come over and work with us here directly. But one day I get a call from SunPower and I'm like I'm this tiny little agency of like two or three people and I'm like is this a joke? Who's pranking me? You know why is sunpower calling me? You know, and it was from. They don't understand that. Sorry, my furry terror. She's like this big, but she thinks she's a big big dog, right?
Speaker 1:from some power.
Speaker 2:Paul sullivan he had gone to solar at solar technologies website. They were doing better than others in california, so he wanted to see why. And he went there. And then he left and I was. He was getting cyber stalked all over the internet, right. And he was like Whoa, you know he was. He was like I was the client, was everywhere. So then he goes back to the site, scrolls to the bottom, sees power by me, right, goes to my site. Same thing happens.
Speaker 2:So that's what prompted him to call. He's Like you know, do you want to go to our dealer or network? And I was like wow, you know, yeah, but if you want to get an example and that was back then when we just had display, now, with the power of programmatic, we have full funnel remarketing and guys, this is so important, like if you go to the covert code to download your checklist, I'll start to remarket to you full funnel. What that means is you'll see me on television, right. You'll see me in an app, you'll hear me on a podcast sponsorship if there's radio commercials streaming, right. And that is so powerful. Because now the storytelling and that we were talking about storytelling earlier can you really share your story at a banner ad?
Speaker 1:And the answer is no right.
Speaker 2:But it's used for their memory of it, right? But if now, I mean, I'm only spending $300 a month on what you're about to witness?
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:I love it and I love that you're using yourself as the example too.
Speaker 1:That's how you got to do it. I love it. That's amazing. All right, I've got one more question before we go into our power round. But, listeners, if you have questions, don't be shy about throwing them into the chat. We definitely want to hear them, and I feel like we need to have you come back and do like a masterclass with us, cause I really I'm so itching now to like, get into, like behind everything you know, look at all that we're doing and being like, oh that's right, we are, we already?
Speaker 1:done. We've already got this in the bag. This is like the blessing of being super efficient. I'm like, yeah, I should do this thing. No, amy, you've already done it. You know I'm back. That's right, because we talked about the masterclass first and then we decided the podcast, versus the other way around. Yes, I'm so excited to be on in that and shout out to our friends, bobby at the innovationwomenorg website. By the way, that is how I found you and that's how I found so many amazing speakers for this podcast and our masterclasses that our members get to enjoy for free. So, yes, definitely check out that website. And, anna, thanks for refreshing my memory. All right, last question before we go into our power round what is the most common pushback that you get from clients about digital marketing and how do you address it?
Speaker 2:pushback that you get from clients about digital marketing and how do you address it? You know, I think, I think it really is that you know that, oh, that it's not working because they can't track it exactly, Right, oh, the CRM we're seeing, oh, we're seeing so much, you know, we're seeing organic leads, we're seeing, you know, direct traffic, but we're not seeing Google paid search. Yeah Well, guys, you know like, and that's why it's so important. We yeah Well, guys, you know like, and that's why it's so important. We talk about all the time that even if you're using UTMs, even if you're using these things, it's only in that same visit that we're going to get the credit. And so you know, we've got to remember that if we're doing better, like it's because it's all connected, Right, and and just because we can't immediately track it Like we used to, especially if you're doing top of funnel, If I'm running a CTV ad, can someone click on it?
Speaker 2:No, Right, but there's another. We have other metrics to say. Okay, if they're in the same household. We know that there was a secondary view through that. They went to the website later. Right, that's not going to show up in a CRM, it's not going to show up in a UTM. So you it's like you know, really, really educating them and I make clients go through like a digital media best practice presentation.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yes, good for you.
Speaker 2:I didn't scream that on the phone. You know, you know, I remember this one client. He was like I'm, you know, but he was right, he's like. He's like I'm glad you like your data, I want you to like your data, but on my side of the page the numbers aren't adding up, and I realize it's because, you know, we're talking about impressions, we're talking clicks, we're talking about bounce rate and that's great, but it doesn't matter if it's not making the cash register ring Right, and so it's like well, are we giving it all credit? Right? Is business doing better overall, right, and what is the benchmarks and what data we're going to be looking at to see if it's working?
Speaker 1:Yeah, can I just lament, though, for a second and just say you know, I started off in direct mail and I've done TV and I just you know all those. I'm just like digital. We just get the screws put to us because there is so much that's trackable. But then I love that you have your clients go through that basics of digital media training, because we do spend so much of our time educating people to understand that just because the numbers are there do not mean they're wholly accurate, do not mean they all interconnect and you can follow somebody from point A all the way to the cash register, point whatever, d, e, f, you know.
Speaker 1:And so it's just one of those things I think advocating for you know again, ethical digital marketing, helping people understand and know the ins and outs of how to spend their money wisely, how to not waste other people's time and money. I mean, it's all so important and I love, love, love that you are taking the time to do this, because it's helping you even stand out in the market.
Speaker 2:And another thing I'll just say really quickly, before we get into the power routes, is one of the other things to look out for and this is an easy one. Right Is when traditional media companies which are all doing now they're selling you digital packages outside of their network, because we already have that trust, you know, like you bought TV from Joe for years and you trust Joe, yeah Well, you know. Ask them those same questions, because they're also reselling and they don't know. And then, in an effort to stay relevant, you know they're selling things that they don't know about, and it's, it's, it's. You know it's scary for them too, but you have to. That's why it's even more important, because they don't want to be unethical, right, they don't, but they don't know any better. To your point before, exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly. All right, let's get into the power round. I'll keep an eye on the chat in case any questions drop in. I love this one. It's what is the one metric most businesses obsess over that they should just ignore.
Speaker 2:You know it's, it's cost per click, cost per thousand impressions and most important thing is is it working or not? Yeah, I mean I'll spend a hundred dollars in cost per thousand impressions If I can see that there there's a, an ROI that is within the cost per lead, cost per sale, cost per sale that I'm after.
Speaker 1:I love it. I always like asking that question because it always opens my eyes up to a metric and looking at it in a different way than I did before. Including that one, so awesome Name. Three questions every business owner should ask before hiring a digital marketing agency.
Speaker 2:Well, that is you know how are they going to prove that the impressions ran? Going to prove that the impressions ran, how do they validate that clicks are real, from real people, not bots and I think that those are probably. And then, how are they acquiring data? Is it lists? Yeah, those are it.
Speaker 1:I love it. And then I think this is also good to know for our marketers that are in the house listening which is most of our Together Digital community, so that they can inform and educate themselves and empower themselves to be good advocates for responsible digital marketing, but then also good stewards of their clients. So I love this. What's the minimum budget for a small business that needs to start seeing real success from digital marketing?
Speaker 2:I'd say $2,000 to 2,500. We usually run, especially with search, we'll do a $1,000 to $2,500. We usually run, you know, especially with search. You know we'll do a $1,500 launch. So if you're a new advertiser, for one campaign, well, yeah, for well, not a campaign for the whole account Okay, okay, and and. So if you're a new advertiser, you'll get $500 from Google. When you, then we spend their 500 and then we spend another 500 usually, and then that gives us a baseline of what is possible. And if we have to make adjustments to landing page or try, you know, creative, to increase conversion rate, if I'm not getting the conversion rate I'm after, then we stop there for a minute, you know, and we regroup. But then the rest should be on remarketing. You must, must, must do not spend any money on search or anything unless you have a robust remarketing program in place I love it that's such great advice.
Speaker 1:Well, and not only that well, because, yeah, it's continuing to move them down the funnel, but then also it's, it's um, it's making the most of the opportunity. And then I lost what I was going to say, because it's so friday, it was a good, I know right, um. So what was it we were talking about? It wasn, wasn't the remarketing.
Speaker 2:It was your comment before that.
Speaker 1:Say that again.
Speaker 2:Budget.
Speaker 1:That's what it was. Thank you, my friend Gosh. You are the other half of my brain today, girl. So yeah, it is that it is budget. I think a lot of small businesses, small to medium sized businesses right, I've worked with clients that are like fortune 500 and like bigger and where they've got money to kind of spare. It almost seems like sometimes cause they aren't scrutinizing. But then when you are a small business, oftentimes you will forego marketing altogether, which is such a detriment to you and your business because they think that it requires a shit ton of money. But you're talking 1500 to $2,000 that could actually, yeah, even $500, $300.
Speaker 2:I have a client, we know Yaya Hawaii and we spend like $300 on full funnel remarketing and we see it on TV. You know people are and then you look bigger than you are. You know if you're driving the traffic to your site, you know that's the mothership. Then you know. Then you know, follow that person.
Speaker 1:They're the one who's engaged. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, right, yeah, and don't think you have to qualify everybody. Look at it as you're disqualifying. You know you don't need, you're not for everybody, it's not always their time, their place and the thing that you're not the thing they need. Ah, good conversation, all right. Last question, and then we'll call it a day Social media. We haven't really touched on this one very much. We've talked a lot more about Google and search and things like that and some programmatic. But as far as social goes, how do you feel about organic versus paid?
Speaker 2:I would say paid is more. You know, if you're wanting to start something, you start with paid because, again, the goal is to drive traffic to the website and then to see if it's working. No one's going to see your ad in Facebook or no one's going to see your organic content unless you pay for it anyway.
Speaker 1:Right, you have to boost that content.
Speaker 2:You've got to grow a fan base. Right, it's pay to play, now, it's just like any. And one of the most important things is they're trying to keep that customer on their app. Right, they don't want you to leave, right. So, but with an ad, then at least the focus is to get the traffic to the site and so and it's a big time investment A lot of clients, you know it gets so overwhelmed with. Well, everyone's doing social media. I've got to do it. No, it's not the case, you know it's a big time commitment you around it. It's a one little quick tip here for everyone is if you're, um, you know, the second you post something, send it to all the team, right, the faster that you get the likes, that tells the algorithm to show more, right.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people are like, oh, no one's liking our content. Well, you don't need to like your content. Hello, right, the faster, you know you can get, get their logins. You like your content for you, you know. But that's a way because the it's all based off of engagement. You know how it was. Active engagement, that's a like, comment, share, watch or hover, right. But bottom line, you know, like unless you're. You're doing that. You know that's a content strategy, but most people are in social media because they want to get traffic right. Yeah, it's also. It depends. You know e-commerce sites. It's a lot easier, right? Social proofing is really important for them, and people will be like you know shopping and you know I am a big. I buy so many things from Instagram.
Speaker 1:Everything I see, I'm like oh.
Speaker 2:I want that one, but for anything else that's not shopping related, it's really not very often that it's successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now, this has been so, so insightful and really helpful. I have so many more questions, but that's okay, we're going to keep talking. I did want to give another mention to members. If you're listening which I know you guys are Make sure that you check out our social media engagement channel on Slack. It's doing exactly what you're saying and we basically ask people if you're doing social media and you need engagement, post the post up here and we'll, if we've got two seconds, we'll help you, give it a boost.
Speaker 2:And we do that for each other.
Speaker 1:That is wonderful, right, we're having a membership period, right, exactly, I get that boost. So, yeah, definitely check out that channel if you haven't already members. It's been a lot of fun and, honestly, I mean I get a nice little quick dopamine hit when, like, one of our members does some amazing content and I get to go support it and like it because, yeah, I'm busy, don't? I'm not always scrolling through every platform to protect my sanity, so it's nice to just be directed to the other good things anyways too. So definitely check out the channel.
Speaker 2:You don't even see it necessarily, exactly. You know, think about like your friends, and they're like oh, I went to Egypt for Christmas. You're like, really, you didn't see my social media posts? No, because if you don't like comment or share, you're not going to see it, right? And so you know this, thinking that they're going to scroll and find it. Well, I guess again there's so many people competing for those same eyeballs.
Speaker 1:Absolutely All right, anna. We're just a little over time, so we're going to go ahead and call it, although, like I said, this conversation can go on and on because there's so much good stuff to dig into. I definitely recommend you all go onto her website, check out the downloadable content there, get her book and, anna, we look forward to your masterclass here in the next few months. Thank you again for your time.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me. It's been really wonderful to share. And happy Aloha Friday and Valentine's Day to everyone.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely All right everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We're excited to see you all next week. Until then, keep asking, keep giving and keep growing. We'll see you later.
