Where To Start When Ad Performance Has Taken A Dive
Join Foxwell Digital Membership and get instant access to a network of 500+ top advertisers. No fluff, just real insights and strategies.
Phil Kiel, the managing director at Hello Earth Agency, shares his insights on troubleshooting and improving performance in digital advertising. He emphasizes the importance of understanding seasonality, analyzing key performance metrics like revenue, CPA, ROAS, and conversion rate, and making data-driven decisions.
Hosts, Edwin & Tristram question Phil on the role of creative strategy in driving performance and the need for collaboration between media buyers and creatives.
Phil also highlights the significance of effective communication and building trust with clients during challenging times.
Takeaways:
Why its so important to understand seasonality and compare current performance to previous periods to gain insights.
The 4 metrics you should focus on when making account decisions.
When its important to reduce the number of live campaigns, ad sets, and ads in an account
Why it's so important to collaborate closely between media buyers and creatives
The one thing you must do to have client support during challenging times.
Two campaigns to consider running before retargeting.
To learn more about Phil and The Hello Earth Agency head here:
If you'd like to learn more about the Founders Community or want to become a member you can do so here.
Full Transcript:
Tris Dyer (00:00.545)
the thing. So yeah do you want to Edwin do you want to introduce the whole thing again? We're at 28 this time.
Edwin @ Snappic (00:05.16)
Yeah. Okay, cool. Guys, we are on episode 28 of the Foxwell Founders podcast. No gatekeeping here. We have Phil Kiel. He is the managing director at Hello Earth Agency. Here's a little secret. This is the guy that we call when we don't know what to do. So you guys are in for a treat today. Tris, kick it off.
Tris Dyer (00:28.725)
Nice one. Phil, thanks for jumping on. Thanks for your time. I know you're a busy man. Listen, just starting off, right, as Edwin said, you're the first guy we call when things kind of hit the fan. You know, CPAs dropping, things are struggling. Where do you look? What do you do?
Phil Kiel (00:44.906)
I mean we haven't, we've never had to do it as much as we have this year, like the fan is big this year, it's been like 12 weeks of shit hitting the fan so if it's any consolation I mean that's a broad yeah if it's
Tris Dyer (01:00.079)
Really?
Edwin @ Snappic (01:04.132)
It is a consolation. It is a big consolation.
Phil Kiel (01:08.246)
If it's any benefit, you're not alone. And I know that's not the answer to the question you asked, but I think it's just helpful to start off, especially for people who are media buying internally, they've just got one ad account. It's like tunnel vision. I think it's easier when you're at an agency, or it's different when you're at an agency. You might have five accounts, 10 accounts. If you're looking across every account under your agency, there could be even more than that. So there's definitely...
Tris Dyer (01:24.558)
Mm.
Phil Kiel (01:38.206)
ups and downs and when one account gets worse another account improves because of something specific to that one account. So like these things do affect different accounts at different times and we've definitely seen that this year. My first
go to is always look at seasonality. Like has this change in performance happened before? Did it happen last year, six months ago? You know, what?
Tris Dyer (02:06.149)
Thanks.
Phil Kiel (02:15.534)
have we hit this same level of ROAS or CPA or conversion rate before? Is this a new low? For example, has it never been this bad? Or actually, what's the comparison? You know, this isn't as bad as where we were in April 2023.
Tris Dyer (02:22.501)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Tris Dyer (02:35.138)
Yeah, makes sense.
Phil Kiel (02:35.158)
Therefore, you know, so trying, it's not about painting a picture so that you can spin the client into, you know, don't worry about performance. It's actually helping you make better decisions. And everything that we do nowadays at the agency is all about increasing the chance that we make the right decision in the moment because you either go door one or door two, left or right, increase spend, decrease spend, launch an ad, pause an ad.
Tris Dyer (02:55.845)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (03:04.694)
you know, testing in your audience, pause that audience, and it really comes down to like a human making a decision a lot of the times, and therefore I think you've got to start off with gathering that information, so seasonality, what's changed, yeah.
Tris Dyer (03:20.073)
Yeah. So just on that, like so seasonality, do you look at seasonality through CPM, CPA? Do you focus a lot more on like, what is it that you're catching? Is it because, yeah, seasonality is massive, right? I mean, we're coming in just into April now, we're starting to see things pick up a little bit at the end of April. I don't know about you, certainly the first four months have been dog shit. But I think that I think we can be that out. But I think like the after that, though, you know,
What are you seeing this improving, if you are seeing it improving, what do you go to when you start to be like, okay, seasonally, the CPMs are up or down. Do you look at CTRs? Like, what are you looking at?
Phil Kiel (03:55.07)
Yeah, good question. So revenue, it's gotta be first point of call because put yourself in the client's shoes. That's what they're gonna be thinking about. I did two grand yesterday, I did five grand the day before. That's usually where they're thinking in revenue numbers. Then it's gotta be CPA, ROAS and conversion rate. So revenue, spend, CPA, cost per purchase, ROAS.
Edwin @ Snappic (04:00.548)
Yep, 100%.
Edwin @ Snappic (04:10.192)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (04:24.522)
and conversion rate, I would always recommend you focus on those and use those to make decisions. I think CPMs, click-through rates, cost per click, they're all important because we've got one client, cost per clicks are up massively year on year and conversion rate is down, so therefore we're getting less traffic, it's converting less and that's what we've had to struggle with all year long, so we've got used to looking at that cost per click figure. So then...
when we've gone from like a one pound cost per click to like a 50p cost per click, that makes a difference even though people might say like soft metrics don't make matter. Well, like they do, because even if conversion rate stays the same, you know, we're up. So yeah, that's how I would go revenue, CPA ROAS conversion rate. And then I would try and make a decision off those figures. And then I would start to look at like the softer stuff if I'm still stuck.
Edwin @ Snappic (05:07.017)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (05:19.696)
So you're running the first step is seasonality. You're checking, all right, month on month revenue. Or if I look at year on year revenue, does it display seasonal pattern? All right, cool. So let's say seasonality, we've taken seasonality out of the equation. Well, what is the next step? Well, what are your next steps after accounting for seasonality?
Phil Kiel (05:39.922)
Yeah, yeah, really good question. Usually seasonality is the answer, so you can... We're good. You know, we can go, we can carry on now. It's got to come down to what's changed, where can you see change? And that's a broad, that's like a politician's answer, you know, it could be are we in stock or out of stock? Did the theme change?
Tris Dyer (05:44.933)
Ha, that'll do it.
Phil Kiel (06:07.37)
Was there, you know, there used to be a pop-up. Now there isn't a pop-up. Those sort of things are important because the consumer experiences that change. So what's changed at the customer level that is changing how they behave? I'd get someone else to look at that. So go away, complete that project. You've also got to be looking at what's changing in the ad account. Has the spend moved from over here on the left?
you know, this, if you're in a CBO, this ad set used to receive all of the spend and now it's moved to here. Like why, why over the space of a week, did we see spend move? Top spending ads, has the top spending ad gone from ad one to ad five? Like why is that ad now receiving all the spend? Or has the opposite happened where
Edwin @ Snappic (06:35.281)
Okay.
Phil Kiel (06:59.526)
All of the spend has stayed very consistent. It's just been drilled into one ad set. It's just been drilled into one ad. And actually what you're seeing is sometimes when you get an ad with a lot of spend, it can be quite polarizing. The engagement on the ad just builds up such a momentum, especially if it's like more negative engagement. At that point, okay.
I'm gonna make a decision, I'm gonna make a change. So you've gotta start off with what's changed and then B, do I need to make a change? Pause and add, sir. Pause and add. Those sort of things.
Tris Dyer (07:32.358)
And you typically then going for ads first or you going for ad sets first? Where is the kind of the first changes you're making?
Phil Kiel (07:38.514)
Yeah, good. Yeah. So at the ad level, usually that's predominant because like advantage plus. So you've just got one ad set at the moment. And CBO would usually like two ad sets max and usually one of them gets all the spend. And then if you're testing creative in like an ad set budget campaign, you know, you're going to be changing at the at the ad level, especially because that's the bit that touches the consumer is the ad.
Edwin @ Snappic (07:41.874)
Oh, okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (07:46.744)
Oh true true, yeah yeah.
Tris Dyer (08:07.333)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (08:08.51)
I think ad sets nowadays, like ad sets kind of just like overlap. So all the ad sets kind of speak to the same customer.
Tris Dyer (08:13.731)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (08:17.485)
This is it. You get that notification in Facebook. You see a lot of people saying it's saying overlapping. How much are you paying attention to that? Is that really a thing that's going to change your decision?
Phil Kiel (08:26.418)
Yeah, definitely, yeah. And a lot of, like if we're talking about performance getting worse, you know, reducing the number of live ad sets. And I've just said, start at the ad level, but if you've got like 10 live ad sets and you don't think you're spending enough to justify 10 ad sets, like half them, start to pause the worst performers. And what you'll usually see is you'll get the same number of sales, but they'll be attributed to fewer places.
Tris Dyer (08:55.67)
Mm-hmm. OK.
Phil Kiel (08:56.33)
And that goes back to what I mentioned earlier on decision making. I would much rather have two ad sets with 20 sales attributed between them rather than 10 ad sets with 20 sales attributed between them because then you can say, you know, 15 are here, five are there.
Edwin @ Snappic (09:08.484)
Yep.
Phil Kiel (09:19.574)
That's what we're scaling into. Whereas if you've got 10 ad sets and they're like, it's like ones and twos, sales attributed between them, it's like there's no statistical significance to say, I'm gonna put my mortgage on this ad set. So reducing the number of live things, that's what we, you know, if we do an audit, that's one of the first things we look at a lot of the times is you've got too much stuff live.
Tris Dyer (09:44.505)
Hmm.
Edwin @ Snappic (09:45.536)
And so let's say, let's say you have the ad account, right? You've accounted for seasonality, your top tellers are in stock, you didn't change the theme, everything you like, your head is just spinning. So it used to be, it used to be that we would just destroy and we would rebuild from a retargeting, like from a retargeting base. A lot of us now, retargeting is taking, a lot of us, let's be honest, we don't spend that much on retargeting anymore. So tell us.
What is the plan? Are you destroying and rebuilding? Like when your head is just spun around all different ways, like what is the go-to strategy?
Phil Kiel (10:23.186)
Yeah, I know a lot of people out there are very frequently duplicating everything and pausing. We don't do that much of that because I like to have a bit more faith that the campaign and the ad set that we've invested hundreds of thousands, millions in, you know, I'm not just gonna... Yeah, I'm not gonna bin it and then you know you've got an answer to the client, you know.
Edwin @ Snappic (10:43.864)
last six months of your life.
Phil Kiel (10:50.982)
So that's what we're paying you for is to just copy and paste. And it's like, I hope we can have a, well, you know, some people see success. Um, I would be scared if nothing else is working and we've gone through all those bits that we just spoken about. We, this year we have seen improvements when we've scaled back, given it a week. We've seen improvements during that lower spend.
And then that's then given us data points to say, I'm going to scale up now, here, here and here. You know, scale back, you see CPA improve. You know, you're now getting the CPA that you were getting two weeks ago at higher spend. And then that then gives you the right information to make a decision again. And hopefully that's scale back up. Yeah, yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (11:27.886)
Okay.
Tris Dyer (11:43.449)
Makes sense, makes sense. And so, I mean, look, on this, you know, the question comes in, obviously we're talking about testing, testing new things, when you go back to start scaling back up again, you know, one of the things you may see, for example, and throwing some examples I've seen the last couple of weeks, CTR is obviously dropping, and we want to try and increase people clicking through to our site. Answers really statics, you know.
That's not really going to get the message out there though, right? I've got a little bit of a complex product. Well, you know, what way would you approach that problem? If you know you're getting some stat, you've got some static, you've got some statics that kind of look OK, but they don't get the message across. Are you putting those in testing them or what are you looking for then? How do you get to videos?
Phil Kiel (12:25.65)
Yeah, so everything we've spoken about so far has been, you know, website, business, stock, sort of ad account stuff where, like we've ignored the biggest lever, which is like the marketing element. And usually when performance drops off, that's the bit that you kind of ignore, you focus on, you know, what's going on in the ad account. Our go-to is really challenging the idea that the creative,
Tris Dyer (12:45.869)
Hmm. Yeah.
Phil Kiel (12:54.422)
doesn't speak to what our customers care about. And this only really works with direct response, problem solution type products. If you're selling like a premium streetwear brand, you're not gonna use, it's a different type of messaging. You're not tapping into what someone cares about. You're just tapping into a desire to purchase the product. So this only really works with skincare, health products.
Tris Dyer (12:58.818)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (13:22.07)
those sort of problems solutions. So, yeah, do I think this message is very sharp and very pointed and my customers care about it and care about the output that we're trying to sell? And usually if the performance isn't what we want, then the answer is no.
the customers don't care about what we're not, we're not speaking to what they're looking for. So if it's, you know, it's classic, you know, fine lines, wrinkles, aging, sleep, you know, those sort of human truths that we wanna try and tap into, you know, like weight, your appearance, confidence, those sort of things. If you go sharper on those, that's usually when you can.
hit new levels of performance that exceed where you were previously. And I actually think when we see performance drop off, the natural reaction is to try and get performance back to where we were.
Tris Dyer (14:13.529)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (14:26.178)
Whereas if performance is dropped off, we've got our backs are against the wall, we've got nothing to lose. What we should be really trying to do is exceed our previous benchmark, because that is the moment where, you know, we haven't really got anything to lose.
Tris Dyer (14:42.709)
So it's kind of throwing not quite Hail Mary's but kind of throwing kind of longer shots at that at the target because you know We're gonna you know, what do you got to lose? You're gonna get slightly better. You want to go triple?
Phil Kiel (14:54.406)
Yeah, and we spend a lot of time at the briefing stage. So we've definitely developed our like, static briefing doc now, where there's a lot more fields in it that the designer doesn't, that aren't totally beneficial to the designer. Normally when you create a brief for a graphic, it's like, you know, these are the images that we want you to use. This is the inspo. This is the in-image messaging. These are the formats required.
put them in this folder. Actually, we've got a lot more info in that brief now, which is what's the strategy behind the brief? We're seeing growth in this product market on Google Trends or something like that. Why does this brief and ag exist? So we're not just making it to tick a box. We're not just making it because we've got a quota to deliver a set number of creatives.
Why do we think the customer will care about this creative? And those are all things that our media buyers do it, you might have a creative strategist, those are all things that we want that person to think about before they get to the bottom bit, which is the text in the image, the image that we want people to use, go deeper. It's about when someone has a creative idea, it's about challenging them. So what do you mean by that?
Okay, but what do you mean by that?
Tris Dyer (16:21.476)
I hear you.
Tris Dyer (16:25.154)
Yeah, makes sense.
Edwin @ Snappic (16:25.164)
And so like, so the reality, so when, when performance is bad, the reality is, look, we're working on it. You got to figure it out. But how there's also a communications part of it, right? Because you're, you're on, you're basically, you're on the chopping block, right? And so what are ways that you've found to like effectively communicate or just basically to basically to get grace from the customer to give you enough
bandwidth to figure it out.
Phil Kiel (16:58.666)
You've got to show them that you understand how important it is. So... You've got to be interested in what's happening. So on the front foot, so taking the performance to them, rather than letting them spot it and, you know, why are we seeing this drop off? So attacking it. Owning the activity, so...
Edwin @ Snappic (17:12.293)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (17:24.934)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (17:28.438)
this is what we're seeing, this is why we think it's happened, and this is what we're going to do. I think actually Tris has got a great sort of example of how you structure that, you know, three-part piece. And if it is like a platform-wide issue, including that, so Edwin, this isn't just your problem, we're also seeing it across these other brands, you know, across our like portfolio, that might provide some reassurance.
Tris Dyer (17:53.533)
Mm-mm.
Phil Kiel (17:59.022)
It's tough, I think jumping on a call, taking comms out, you know, we speak with clients in Slack, but it can be helpful to do these things. You know, if you've got five minutes to chat right now, so it's difficult and it takes time to learn. And actually, I think the biggest benefit to this is, it's about banking trust. So when performance is great, you're putting trust in the bank.
Edwin @ Snappic (18:23.793)
Okay.
Tris Dyer (18:28.441)
Hmm.
Phil Kiel (18:28.65)
So you've got to work really hard on your account management then. So that when the shit hits the fan, you can beat that out. That you can withdraw that trust, you can cash in on it. I think if you do a bad job when performance is great, you're not going to have any slack when you need it. So it's about playing the long game.
Edwin @ Snappic (18:41.288)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (18:47.801)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
I hear that, I hear that. So just on that, like, so, you know, when it comes to kind of the basis of that, you know, talking about like doing a good job, it's that part that you mentioned there is this doing the job and then telling someone you're doing the job. It's kind of identifying that as well in the good performing teams versus the poor performing teams. In the good performing teams, you've got.
Like you've got that micro chat, you've got that conversation, hey, this is working, this isn't working. I think some of the best creative teams I've seen and best creative performance that I've seen is when the media buyer is super clear with the creative and there's a really kind of tacit understanding of where they're trying to get to.
I think that's what you're referring to. I think it is massively important. I guess the question I have, like on the back of that for you is just like, how do you communicate between media buyer and creative? What is the kind of the key level of understanding that both sides have to have for you for it to perform very well?
Phil Kiel (19:51.232)
I think they have to almost swap jobs. And...
Tris Dyer (19:55.946)
Like a secret undercover boss kind of thing.
Phil Kiel (19:58.362)
Yeah undercover boss but no but no yeah um no one gets you out of that so yeah um they've got to be respectful of each they've got to walk in each other's shoes basically so like we do fortunately we have some like creative strategists who actually joined us as media buyers
Tris Dyer (20:02.657)
No, boss.
Edwin @ Snappic (20:04.016)
Okay.
Tris Dyer (20:17.135)
Nice.
Phil Kiel (20:17.822)
So that's perfect because they could jump into the ad account and build the ads if they wanted to. They've got that level of, they can look at and they can review the performance figures and they can speak to their client about the media buying element of that creative. And then media buyers who understand marketing and that human truth, speaking to what customers care about.
That's the biggest skill that a media buyer can learn nowadays, I believe, to improve their performance. And if you're listening and you're thinking, okay, well, how do I take my very analytical media buyer and get them to think about that? I would walk them through writing a brief, one a week. Why are we making this brief? Why is the customer going to care about this brief?
Like why, or like the creative that comes out of the brief. And it's about reps. Just like we were speaking about the gym earlier on, like it's gonna be hard at the start, but the more you think about that, the better. So they've almost got to overlap and then, being personable, I think that's really helpful. So like they're not...
Tris Dyer (21:26.362)
Mmm.
Phil Kiel (21:37.994)
The worst team is going to be when there's like a competition and the media buyer thinks it's the creative's fault and the creative thinks it's the media buyer's fault. Same team, same goal. Like, you've got to spell that out, yeah.
Tris Dyer (21:46.296)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (21:51.937)
Makes a ton of sense, makes a ton of sense.
And like, this is the thing, you say you had somebody join your team who's a creative strategist or a media buyer turning to creative strategists, vice versa. That's fantastic. Like that's the, you know, euphoria of what you're trying to define or the nirvana of what you're trying to find. I think the thing that, you know, obviously brands and in-house people are going to struggle with that. Right. So, you know, you're the same coin, you're two sides of the same coin. You're trying to fight to fill both roles. You know, what are the things do you think that you should look out for first? Should you be looking at media buying things first or should it be more creative focus?
what is like, because you're the guy that we, like you said at the start, we look to for when stuff goes wrong. Am I looking at this going, huh, creative sucks? Or am I going, is this audience sucky? Or like, I know this is, we kind of talked about it a second ago about like, you know, where do you look first? But what hat do you put on first when you sit down and look in that account? Because you've got both hats, right?
Phil Kiel (22:44.614)
Yeah, if you can just tick this box from a media buying point of view, then you can do everything at the creative and marketing level. And the media buying box that you have to tick first is, do I have too many campaigns, ad sets, and ads live for my budget?
Tris Dyer (23:03.853)
Hmm.
Edwin @ Snappic (23:04.226)
Okay.
Phil Kiel (23:05.266)
We've reviewed some accounts recently where they're spending like 200 pound a day and they've got like five campaigns And like multiple ad sets in each campaign And they're and they're trying to test like creatives through like a you know a process where like creators get duplicated through like a structure like if
Edwin @ Snappic (23:12.688)
No.
Tris Dyer (23:13.381)
Wow.
Tris Dyer (23:17.295)
Wow.
Edwin @ Snappic (23:17.891)
Oh.
Tris Dyer (23:25.317)
I hear you. So is that a number? Is that because we obviously, you know, like to us three here, obviously, that makes a ton of sense. Do you have a number based on like, do you look at and go, oh, you know, I'm spending X amount, but my CPA is it? Because that might make sense of two dollars or two pounds as a CPA. Like, what is what is the number in comparison to, you know, in reference for that for that company?
Edwin @ Snappic (23:26.372)
and like 250 ads.
Phil Kiel (23:48.966)
Yeah, I know you can, so like back in the day you would look at sort of, you know, like 50 conversions a week, what's the CPA, and try and come up with a number like that. I would, I don't do that often to be honest because I try and look at, okay, what can the business afford to spend across the account and you know, and how does it work, testing new creatives, how many new creatives have we got, all that sort of stuff. To answer your question.
Tris Dyer (24:17.529)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (24:18.61)
Um, if you've got more than three campaigns, you'd best be spending more than like, more than 1500, more than two grand a day. I really think I've already I've already. Yeah, because it comes back to this piece. So that's the tick box. You know, you've got to have less. So if you're spending a grand a day and you've got more than three campaigns, you better you better have a good reason. That sounds a bit threatening, doesn't it? But like.
Tris Dyer (24:28.373)
Right, OK, so there's a number.
Edwin @ Snappic (24:28.816)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Tris Dyer (24:48.939)
Uncle Phil's coming for you.
Phil Kiel (24:50.726)
You know, yeah, there's gotta be, I'm gonna be checking your homework. There's gotta be a justification, you know, and there's always reasons why you might argue against that justification. You know, is it different countries? Is it different segments? Is it different products? But, like less, especially if performance is dropping off. Put it all together in one campaign, one advantage plus one CBO. Once you've got that box tipped, it's gotta go to...
Tris Dyer (25:05.202)
Hmm
Tris Dyer (25:10.65)
Mm.
Phil Kiel (25:19.894)
the ad level, the creative, the copy, the landing page, the website, the product, the offer, the price point.
Tris Dyer (25:26.053)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (25:30.014)
There's always that anecdote where if your product is good enough, if the price point is good enough, you can have the worst setup in meta, you can have the worst ads as well and you can have the worst website and you'll still get a 7% conversion rate. So what I'm trying to say is you've got to focus on speaking to that customer once you've got the foundations correct and you're not spending £200 a day on 10 campaigns.
Tris Dyer (25:53.254)
Mm-hmm.
Edwin @ Snappic (25:59.344)
So let's say you have an account, you're looking at the account, it's consolidated in, but you're experiencing a CPM spike, right? Like you're looking year on year, and CPMs are literally 2X of what they were year on year. The ads are still, it's a lifestyle brand, ads are just vibes, right? Right, see they're in season. What do you do?
Phil Kiel (26:25.011)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (26:29.084)
to help that situation or is that just a situation that you just need to pull back a little bit and write it out? Like, what do you do?
Phil Kiel (26:36.65)
Hopefully you've been building your email list because at that moment you might cash in on a segment in that email list and the risk there is that you then start to squeeze that list too much and you can't then rely on that list in two months down the line at Q4 or whatever. Looking at your email list.
Edwin @ Snappic (26:40.252)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (26:47.336)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (26:54.705)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (27:02.212)
Okay.
Phil Kiel (27:06.906)
Because that's not a CPM game then. You've already invested in that asset and...
Edwin @ Snappic (27:09.104)
Okay. So flash sale. Flash sale to the email list.
Tris Dyer (27:09.26)
Mm.
Phil Kiel (27:14.502)
Yeah, or, you know, remind them that you've got a new product. Yeah, 90% off. That's the one. Good thinking, Edwin. You know, remind them of a new product launch. Have you got a product that's just coming back in stock? You know, if you're trying to be careful with the messaging, that's what I would be doing straight out the gate. And then, potentially scaling back. But you've got to be cautious with that because that might kill all of your momentum. And then...
Edwin @ Snappic (27:19.993)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (27:24.081)
Okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (27:42.009)
Okay.
Phil Kiel (27:44.53)
you've got to really look at your numbers and understand is this a CPM spike that is going to go back down or is this the new normal and we need to change our thinking because if we can make the business work at this increased CPM we'll win and outlast our competitors
Edwin @ Snappic (28:07.272)
How do we know that? What do we do, Rick? How do we know that?
Phil Kiel (28:11.601)
I would usually presume that the CPM isn't going to go back down.
I can't
Tris Dyer (28:18.297)
Okay.
It's always on and up and to the right. That's how they increase the stock price, right?
Phil Kiel (28:24.58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (28:24.866)
Trist, did that just mess up your day? It kind of messed up my day a little bit.
Tris Dyer (28:28.469)
Yeah, yeah, just the touch, just the touch. It was sunny outside a second ago. The clouds have come out. Uh, there's a, there's a damning statement. Have ever, ever heard.
Phil Kiel (28:33.294)
Look at this.
Phil Kiel (28:38.702)
I mean, if we're talking about, it's a case of like what actions can you actually take? So making sure that you've got the creative that the platform wants to spend into different placements. So like stories, reels, those sort of things usually have a lower CPM. So it's all the creativity in the account one by one, square. You're never gonna spend on reels and stories if you've just got square assets. So.
increasing your ability to spend into those different placements? Are you just using interest targeting, broad targeting might have achieved for CPM, can you ship internationally? That's not straightforward for everyone, but that can be a way to sort of spread the load. I mean one brand we work with at the moment, their UK account, they've been trying to get into the US for a long time.
Tris Dyer (29:18.792)
Mm.
Phil Kiel (29:33.442)
Their CPC is up year on year and their conversion rate is down in the UK. So more expensive traffic, therefore, and they're trying to spend the same. So therefore less traffic on site and conversion rate is down. So like squoze at every angle. We're testing ads in the US now. CPM is double.
Edwin @ Snappic (29:46.614)
Oh no.
Edwin @ Snappic (29:52.327)
Okay.
Tris Dyer (29:52.513)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Phil Kiel (30:00.342)
But their click-through rate has gone from like 0.8 to like 3%. So their cost per click has gone from one pound to 50p. So, and conversion rate has stayed flat. So it's not like the US traffic is converting at a better rate. It's just that the US traffic is 50% off. Yeah. And that's because that's because this brand has been live in the UK for like five years.
Edwin @ Snappic (30:05.436)
What?
Edwin @ Snappic (30:12.496)
What is this? OK.
Tris Dyer (30:23.657)
Right, interesting.
Edwin @ Snappic (30:29.072)
Okay.
Phil Kiel (30:29.454)
and then we're now, we're going to, you know, the UK's got like 60 million population, the US, you know, however many, hundreds of millions, and then it's like a brand new market. So I think that's how I would try and attack that CPM increase is how do we win with a higher CPM?
Edwin @ Snappic (30:38.152)
Crazy.
Tris Dyer (30:49.061)
Hmm. I hear you. And so, I mean, this is the other thing. So that just on that brand, I mean, without going into that brand too much in detail, I mean, they're starting off in the US, they're starting off a new market. You know, they're building obviously some reach and awareness. Is it is, you know, would you run reach and awareness campaigns before starting to run to retargeting? Is that a strategy still in 2024?
Edwin @ Snappic (30:49.08)
Okay.
Phil Kiel (30:57.184)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (31:12.038)
Um, we're doing it a little bit. We're not doing it across every account just because we don't yet have the decision.
Edwin @ Snappic (31:18.216)
wait, this is a slippery slope. You gotta qualify it or else all the Facebook reps are gonna, they're just gonna take that clip and they're just gonna play it to all their people. Ha ha ha.
Phil Kiel (31:30.114)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are, we're doing it a little bit, but we're not doing it enough because I don't, I'm not totally confident to say we should be doing that. I think when first time impression ratio was still a thing, I was a bit more bullish on like traffic and stuff because you could see first time impression ratio dropping over time.
and there was a reason to do that. There is something that we're trying, which has been discussed a little bit in Foxwell Slack, but it hasn't, I don't think it's been shouted about enough yet, which is the idea of tracking.
Tris Dyer (31:53.521)
Hmm.
Phil Kiel (32:11.278)
tracking how much additional Google traffic your meta ads drive.
Tris Dyer (32:19.217)
Hmm, okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (32:19.304)
Brendan search, more Brendan.
Phil Kiel (32:20.934)
Yeah, so you create a custom conversion for a page view on your pixel where the referring domain is Google.
Phil Kiel (32:36.542)
So first of all, if you do that, and then after a couple of weeks, you can add that as your column, a custom column. So you can have Google Visit as a custom column, you can have cost per Google Visit. And what that will tell you is, which campaign or ad set or ad is driving people to search for the brand.
Tris Dyer (32:59.365)
Wow, that's a banger.
Edwin @ Snappic (33:00.737)
Wait, but how do you know the order? How do you know the order? How do you know that? Because what you're saying is that they saw the ad on Facebook and then they googled.
Tris Dyer (33:05.061)
It's not the order. It's not the order, right?
Phil Kiel (33:10.326)
Yeah, so that would have to happen. The impression would have to come. The impression or the click, the view or the click would have to come before they've visited the site from Google.
Edwin @ Snappic (33:23.02)
But how do you ensure that? Because if it's a UTM, it doesn't ensure the order, right? Because it doesn't ensure the causality. Am I missing?
Phil Kiel (33:30.486)
Yeah, because it's been attributed back to a campaign. Which is on like a seven day click, a one day click attribution window.
Edwin @ Snappic (33:41.764)
We, okay. So say, okay. Say, say, say that again. So is that my brain can process this again? So you, you add a UTM. Bram on, on all your campaigns. Good. Well, walk through it. Okay.
Phil Kiel (33:55.562)
No. So, yeah, you create a custom conversion on your Pixel for a page view event.
Tris Dyer (33:58.358)
No, no, no. Forget UTMs. Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (34:07.665)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (34:09.238)
where the referring domain is Google.
So that pixel event only fires when someone visits the website from Google, organic or an app. That will fire that custom conversion.
Edwin @ Snappic (34:28.296)
Oh.
Phil Kiel (34:30.21)
So then once that's up and running, you can then go into Ads Manager and add it as a column, and it will then say, purchase, add to cart, initiate checkouts, all of those get attributed back to your campaigns after the person has clicked or viewed on an ad.
Edwin @ Snappic (34:36.057)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (34:47.792)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (34:49.142)
and then you then add Google Visit and additional column. And you can see, okay, cost per Google Visit, the number of Google Visits, back to your Advantage Plus CPO. And it'll all be a much of a muchness. What we are seeing is traffic campaigns don't drive people to search for the brand. Engagement, don't. Awareness.
Tris Dyer (35:10.874)
Mmm.
Tris Dyer (35:15.383)
interesting.
Phil Kiel (35:19.042)
do. Awareness campaigns, we're seeing Google visits tracked back to those campaigns. But...
Tris Dyer (35:21.686)
Hey.
Tris Dyer (35:25.329)
Hey, this is starting to really be fire now. So you're tracking, so we're clear just really because we've got to break this down step by step. You're tracking how much Google traffic is coming from your campaigns on Facebook by using custom conversions of people who land on the site referred by Google.
Phil Kiel (35:49.462)
That's it, yeah. So if you double spend, will my traffic through my Google Ads double? Ideally, it would be yes, because the whole halo effect would get bigger. That's what, yeah. And if you're on Amazon, then, and your Amazon ad appears next to your Google shopping, that's logical, people are gonna be clicking on that as well.
Edwin @ Snappic (35:49.745)
And then
Edwin @ Snappic (35:53.081)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (36:00.176)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (36:00.485)
Mm-hmm. There's no metric for that.
Got it.
Edwin @ Snappic (36:06.056)
but oh.
Phil Kiel (36:14.998)
So you can't track that. So traffic, engagement, those campaigns we don't see yet, drive additional Google visits. Awareness, we do, so a brand awareness campaign. The final piece which has only happened this, like the last seven days is, a conversion campaign optimized towards that custom conversion that we set up at the start.
Tris Dyer (36:15.064)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (36:43.71)
So it's a traffic campaign. So we're optimizing towards traffic where the referring domain is Google and that we are seeing drive very, very cheap Google visits. Yeah.
Tris Dyer (36:44.665)
Mmm.
Edwin @ Snappic (36:46.6)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (36:56.249)
qualified traffic.
Tris Dyer (37:00.085)
And you're finding that traffic optimized. So, oh yeah, go on. Sorry, Adam. Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (37:01.285)
and brand lips?
Phil Kiel (37:04.094)
Cheap, cheap, go. Go.
Edwin @ Snappic (37:05.352)
wait, but money, but money like, like we're buying houses, like we're buying cars and we're buying houses that that's it that's happening.
Phil Kiel (37:15.222)
Yeah, so cheap CPMs, high click-through rate. So it all looks like a traffic campaign. You're like 4% click-through rate, CPMs are lower. But then we are seeing them come back to Google, to the site via Google. I mean, it's early days, it's been like a week or two, but we're spending more.
Edwin @ Snappic (37:20.591)
Okay.
Tris Dyer (37:34.817)
Edwin wants houses. Edwin wants houses now.
Edwin @ Snappic (37:38.548)
I need like houses. I want house money. That is what I want. I want house money. Mama needs a new kitchen.
Phil Kiel (37:42.126)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (37:44.812)
I love that. Down straight. Okay cool. So that's Jesus Phil. That's top notch. I love that.
Phil Kiel (37:48.054)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (37:54.178)
So that's like hot off the blocks. You know, we've shared a little bit in Fox World Slack. So if you're thinking about joining, like the conversation's already happening in there. But yeah, I'll share more when I've got enough to put my mortgage on it.
Edwin @ Snappic (38:02.95)
Yeah.
Tris Dyer (38:10.613)
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that's one of the things I was gonna ask you. We talk a lot about the Foxwell Group, and obviously we met through that, and I met Edwin, and we talk a lot about it. But is there anything that you would say to people who are thinking about joining?
Edwin @ Snappic (38:10.648)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (38:27.618)
There is a lot of places where you can chat, performance marketing, Facebook ads, Google ads, Ecom, you know, Lead Gent, all that sort of stuff on Twitter and LinkedIn, you know, all different groups. The one thing that is really different on Foxwell, which I think has been different since day one, is like zero ego. So I...
Tris Dyer (38:49.519)
Yeah.
Phil Kiel (38:52.114)
I'm in Foxwell as both like an agency leader, someone who's got lots of ideas on how to run ad accounts, I'm sharing all that stuff, but I'm also very happy to post in the Foxwell group to say, why isn't this working anymore? I almost act, sort of, no ego, no risk of question, and all types of brands.
Tris Dyer (39:09.507)
Mm-hmm.
Phil Kiel (39:21.922)
There's people spending 100 grand a day, there's people spending 50 quid a day. And I think you can learn from both ends of the scale. And that only happens in Maxwell.
Tris Dyer (39:26.297)
Mm-hmm.
Tris Dyer (39:30.253)
Absolutely. I'm the same. I found myself learning so much, but also then from every aspect, right? Add accountants to managing agency to managing distribution. You know, everything in there has been next level. So I mean, it's great to hear that you're saying the same thing. It's not just me learning, as you say, zero ego, which is good. Super. Will I tie this off then, Edwin? Or have you got more questions?
Phil Kiel (39:49.015)
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (39:54.722)
No, I'm good to go. I'm good. Take us out. Take us out, Tris.
Tris Dyer (39:56.557)
go ahead sorry that was a banger so I was gonna say Edwin sorry Phil what we normally do I think I've said it's early this before I just say you know I wrap up and say we talked about whatever and then we say our names and then bye so
Guys, that was an absolute banger. We went through so much. This is going to be the podcast you go to find out what's going wrong and how do you fix it. So listen, we went through it, like we talked about CPA, CPM, what's going to be the next difference and should you really be running awareness campaigns? It's not what you might think. Anyway, I've been Triss.
Edwin @ Snappic (40:32.101)
I'm Edwin.
Phil Kiel (40:33.416)
I'm Phil.
Tris Dyer (40:34.533)
Thanks, see you guys, talk next time.
Edwin @ Snappic (40:36.824)
next time.