Issue 113: I turned $0 into $30M before 30 with Robert Oliver

+ The "No Best Practices" Approach to Meta Testing

May 16, 2024

NGL… Thursday hits different when you know you have an entire weekend ahead of you to… probably focus on your brand. 😅 

Free time is for the weak!

| TWEET OF THE WEEK

I’ve spoken to and consulted with a lot of folks who want to launch a brand with Meta ads, or who want to launch Meta as a growth channel for their brand. The top questions I get: how do I structure my first campaign, and how do I know my ads are working?

Here are my answers to those questions.

Scaling Meta Is Not Just About Ads

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: not every brand can run Meta ads successfully (more on that here). Here are the steps you should take before you hand Zuckerberg a single cent…

If you are starting a brand from scratch:

  • Set a hard limit on what you’re willing to spend to validate your brand and/or find winning, scalable ad creative.

  • Better yet, try to make 50-100 sales in person, and use the feedback you receive to develop your product assortment, brand, offer and ad creative.

If your brand already has a DTC selling history:

  • Download Lifetimely and figure out what percent of your new customers make a repeat purchase. If it’s below 20%, figure out why and get it up to 25% before moving forward with ads.

  • Figure out what percent of your first purchase AOV you can spend on marketing while remaining contribution margin-profitable on your first order. If this is below 25%, fix your unit economics until you can spend at least 25%.

  • Calculate your AOV for the last 6 months. If it’s below $75, try to get it up.

  • Figure out what product or category you’ll “hero” in your ads. Your best seller is usually a good choice. Analyze the current path to purchase for this product and determine how you can remove optionality (prevent analysis paralysis).

  • If you’re selling a product where the audience is skeptical, lots of education is required, or switching costs are high, consider building out a landing page before you launch your ads.

One more thing: the recommendations here will only work for brands where the consideration period is one to seven days. If you’re selling something expensive or complex, read this instead.

| YOUTUBE UNIVERSITY

I turned $0 into $30M before 30 with Robert Oliver

| TOGETHER WITH HEY FRANKIE

Hey, it’s Ryan Shell. 👋 I’m a fellow Workspace6 member, brand owner and [insert evil overlord music] an ecommerce agency owner.

There are two things we probably immediately have in common.

  1. We both dislike most agencies because they typically overpromise and under deliver. Feel free to hit me up in the Slack group if you want to swap horror stories.

  2. We both love great email design.

If you don’t agree with #2, just pretend for a bit because I can’t go back and rewrite this.

One of Hey Frankie’s Core Four services is email marketing and we love developing great designs that convert.

That’s one reason we created The Ultimate Email Redesign Library. Snazzy name, right? It’s a collection of 20 average looking emails that we’ve redesigned with conversions in mind. 💰️ 

And yes, it’s obviously free for you to download.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here.

If you don’t want a copy of the library, no sweat. My wife’s a therapist and I can talk through the rejection with her. 🥹 

Paid social, email, SMS and strategy are the Core Four we help most clients with. If you are looking for help, we’d be happy to have a chat.

Feel free to shoot me a DM on the Workspace6 Slack org. 🤙 

| QUICK SHOTS

  • @MattiSchroder: We should really talk less about Meta and Google ads, and more about how to align costs and inventory with sales. The real business killer is getting stuck with old inventory, having too much overhead, and cash flow issues - not saving a few dollars in CAC.

  • @Codie_Sanchez: If you don’t understand acquisitions, you’ll never be truly wealthy. Here’s what you need to know about how the rich buy businesses:

  • Drew Sanocki: Learning a >lot< more about your customers. Takes 3 steps and ~1hr/wk. It's very unsexy, but very effective: Step 1: Talk to your customers (30 minutes) Scary, but true: I mean on the phone. Every week, rank your customers by spend. Call one customer from the top 25%. Ask these Qs:

  • @heyitsalexP: High Sport’s go to market is the polar opposite of most DTC brands, and that’s why you should listen to this pod about their strategy…

  • Nick Lamothe: Is TikTok executing the best rope-a-dope we’ve seen in digital? For those unfamiliar with the boxing term, it’s basically absorbing lots of punches to tire out your opponent, so you can dominate them in later rounds when the gas tank is empty. Muhammad Ali was famous for this in fights against guys like Joe Frazier and George Forman. So how does it apply to TikTok?

| HERE FOR THE MEMES

| AND IN OTHER NEWS…

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Meta needs to make a clear stand against the expanded use of AI images.

Beyond Meat Hopes New Burger Will Reverse Sales Slump

In its quarterly earnings call, the plant-based meat maker said dwindling demand could be offset by the introduction of a less fatty U.S. burger offering with more protein.

Splitit Gives Banks New Checkout Experience to Reclaim Pay Later Space

Nandan Sheth, CEO of Splitit, says its new solution lets banks and issuers offer installments at checkout — a critical point for consumers.

On-demand fashion helps tackle industry's notorious sustainability problem

In contrast to the traditional mass-production model, on-demand fashion only makes goods when there is actual demand for them.

YouTube Adds Simplified Ad Campaign Creation Within Studio

A new, simplified way to get more views for your YouTube clips.

| GET LINKED

Secret way to cut fashion brands CPA by 50% by doing this 1 thing

(I’m not sure why more brands aren’t doing this)

Here’s what it is:

Repositioning.

We have a brand that sells a Western-inspired Peguche jacket. The CPA was $98 when we took over.

Instead of launching 100’s of ads to cut that down. We ended up changing 1 thing…

The positioning of the ad.

Before, the ads were focused on this:

  • Style

  • Quality

  • Ethically sourced

No wonder the CPA was trash. So, we changed the repositioning to address a much bigger problem: The answer to $1billion a year in textile waste.

The new ad did this:

  • Showed the Western-style jacket

  • Cut to the $1bil/yr industry problem

  • Demonstrated how this jacket uses recycled textiles

  • Their process of making the jacket using Ecuadorian ingenious roots.

Boom.

| YOU’RE HIRED

Brand

SaaS

Got a job you want us to list? Let us know.

| THE OUTRO

Let’s get back to it y’all! Consider yourselves informed.

Until next time! ✌️

Workspace6

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