Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Ash Melwani
Co-Founder & CMO of MyObvi
Olly Hudson
Founder - http://soarwithus.co

EVERY Brand Needs To Use TikToks Ads (Kind of)

In this episode of ad spend we get into the thick of it, going over everything tikrok-related and why brands should be trying it. #Adspend

Notes & Links

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Follow the people featured in this episode here:

- Rabah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabahrahil
- Ash's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashvinmelwani
- Olly's Twitter - https://twitter.com/oliverwhudson

Transcription

Olly Hudson (00:00):

I think you can go two ways with the creators. Those, I think you can either go where a brand is synonymous with one person and that that person is like in every, everything they do. And then you push to like an organic page off the back of that. Um, or you can go with like breadth and, and like loads of different creators and therefore you likely see multiple odds, multiple people, um, and kind both ways can work.

Rabah Rahil (00:29):

All right, folks, we are back with another episode of your favorite D to C podcast ad spend. We are joined by Ali Hudson, one of my favorite humans, uh, in the uk. I come to visit him. I'm still salty about it. We have a road show in London and he's out gallivanting in Lisbon, but whatever, you know, I guess he, he's soft and he needs a vacation. Hasn't taken a vacation in like three years, and now he needs a holiday. I mean, he's these kids these days just so entitled. Anyways, as we move on, and then, uh, as always, I'm joined with, uh, my favorite Brownie ashmani. Ash, how are you doing, my friend? How are you doing?

Ash Melwani (01:08):

Good, man. Good.

Rabah Rahil (01:10):

I think today we should really get into some TikTok, because one, I know Ollie, your, you're pumping proper numbers through TikTok, but two, I've heard a little bit through the grapevine and then kind of just anecdotally through what we've seen through Triple Well, where, again, D to C and SAS are very apples and oranges, hard to compare, but Ash is also running some fairly successful TikTok campaign. So I wanna kind of toss it over to you to let me know kind of what you're seeing across your accounts. Is this still a really good ad buy for your clients? Um, just kind of gimme a little bit of the temperature there in terms of TikTok, and are you bullish on it, bearish on it? Where do you still kind of land?

Olly Hudson (01:47):

Who wants to go first? I feel like Ash, Ash can be more free. I feel like I have to be bullish on it from the position I'm in, the kinda turning people away. Um, so yeah, I'm still definitely bullish on it. I think it's still, there's variables like with anything, um, not every company's gonna work on there. Still. There's, there's a massive amount of foundational, I I guess could call it infrastructure that you need in place to, to have success or to have scale anyway. Um, you can probably have success, but to get stability in scale, I think you need a lot of systems and operations in place to facilitate that if you can put those in place. However, I'm definitely bullish on it from both it, from both what it drives itself and from what impact it has on like an ecosystem. Um, so yeah, def definitely bullish. Um, but again, there's, there's always, there's always people who are gonna find it harder than others.

Ash Melwani (02:42):

Yeah. So I, I think for, for us, we've had these like really good months with TikTok and then it kind of just like dips and then it's back up again. Right? And I think every time that's happened, and I think it, it kind of references what you're saying is having that infrastructure to back and I think that really is just content creation. Um, and if it's more than that, I, I think let's dive into that, but at least for us, what I've, I've seen in our, in our first round of success, right? I think May we spent 115,000 that month, right? Nothing, nothing crazy compared to what we're spending on Facebook, but it was something that also helped overall efficiency, right? Something that we talked about on the previous pod, John. Um, what I noticed is that when we introduced new creatives that month, uh, new styles like very TikTok styles, like things that TikTok made me buy, here's, you know, three ways that I was able to stop my hair from falling out, right?

(03:37):

Stuff like that. Um, when we launch that at first because it's completely new to the platform and you know, we're fresh account, fresh pixel, everything, we're hitting completely new people entirely, right? So that, that measure of, or that that effective discovery is completely there, right? Then the following month is when we're like, ah, it's like kind of slowing down, I don't know what it is. July not doing well and we were pumping out creatives every week, right? What I think happened, and you tell me if you're seeing this as well, is that there is that creative fatigue, but then there's also creator fatigue, right? And so that's why when we started looking for more creators, just to one, just spice it up a bit, you're not seeing the same person running the, like you're not seeing the same person in different ads, um, and you're seeing multiple people use a product, then it's like, Oh, I'm seeing different stuff. Oh, everyone's kind of using this product. And that's what gave us another bump in August, right? And that's why we were able to scale up in August. So I think it really came down to the amount of creatives, amount of creators. Is there anything you would add to that equation to, I guess, have brands understand what is needed for their infrastructure to scale on TikTok?

Olly Hudson (04:54):

Yeah, I would say community. I think community is a massive level. If you can have a really, really engaged organic community in your making for your page somewhere that people want to spend time, um, and when someone lands on that page having never interacted you with it before, it, it, there's so much value add. There's so many pain points being qualified out. There's a massive amount of like, comment replies and things. I think that's quite unique to the platform. Definitely provides lift. Not many people actually do it. Even some of our biggest spenders don't, don't have the resource on how to do it. Um, but those who do get really good lift from that, um, I'd say don't like offer offer on the platform. I think it's a much more offer heavy offer dependent platform than Facebook for sure. Yeah. Um, currently I think it offer, offer provides massive leverage.

(05:41):

If you can play around with that and you can take a for Aspecific code, um, I'd say likes good but necessarily, yeah, definitely. And kind infrastructure is the biggest. I I see there's two kind of thresholds once you get past a certain spend, I feel like you almost become like ever present like conducive with the platform itself. Like people are seeing you ads so much. Like we've got a couple of clients that like, if I ever mention that we work with them to a friend, they like, I've seen them everywhere like three or four times a day and it's like you almost break people down by just being in the face so much once you get to a certain spend on there. Um, so that, I think it's a little bit less important at that scale cause you you kinda reinforcing the trustworthiness by being ever present. But yeah, definitely content, content infrastructure is the biggest. And I, I also agree with the creator. I think you can go two ways with the creator. I think you can either go where a brand is synonymous with one person and that that person is like in every everything they do and then you push to like an organic page off the back of that. Um, or you can go with like breadth and, and like loads of different creators and therefore you'd like to see multiple ads, multiple people, um, and kinda both ways can work.

Ash Melwani (07:04):

Rob, do you have anything otherwise? I wanted to get into the tactical love.

Olly Hudson (07:07):

Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (07:08):

Yeah. So I just wanna kind of touch on that. So one, there's a couple things unpack. So are you saying that like an organic strategy is really necessary to run actual money on TikTok or it just helps if you can do it?

Olly Hudson (07:25):

It definitely helps. We're we're, we're running way more spark adss now since they updated than we were like, uh, like even like two, three weeks ago. Just cause now they actually show landing page and don't Yeah, cause we were finding that because they used to go add to organic profile and then you'd have to click a link in the buy, like the drop off there wasn't worth it. Like it wasn't worth, Cause you, you also don't click on all your other pixels if you website straight away. So we weren't firing the Facebook, we were losing like 30% of traffic off the profile. However, now you've got like the, where it comes up and it shows you the landing page shows you like 60 to 8% of it. The effectiveness of those have definitely increased. And then also like the effectiveness of like influence or whitelisted, um, sparks definitely increased as well. So, um, but yeah, I find that the organic side is the brands with good organic and then adding paid on top of that always do better. It's the same as if you had no Instagram profile. I think like you, you'd probably find the same but different kinda engagement and different kinda value add.

Rabah Rahil (08:27):

Yeah, no, I'm totally tracking there and there's two other things then I, I'll toss it over to you Ash. Um, I do find it is fairly in, we, we haven't ran TikTok ads for a couple months now. And again, SAS is totally different than uh, ddc, but we have found it's fairly offer dependent because a lot of times people don't make, you know, bigger purchases on their mobile. They're making it usually at a desktop or an iPad. They're sitting down, they have their wallet out or what have you. Um, so is that kind of what you're saying when you say offer dependent where you don't see it working well with higher AOV items? Or have you pushed kind of some higher ticket items with success?

Olly Hudson (09:06):

Um, we, we, it's definitely harder for it higher a v definitely. Um, yeah and obviously I wouldn't wanna discount, well what I meant by that was more like if, if you run an ad without an offer and you run an ad with an offer, like the lift off that offer is, is more significant on TikTok than any platform. I, I'd say like people are more, it's like price elastic elasticity I feel likes are more price elastic platform than Facebook. Um, due to like I think you just skews still skews a bit younger, still lot newer, a lot less trust. So that kind of mentality is different. Um, I would say yeah is definitely more of a challenge. We've pushed, we've pushed products up to, we've really higher, um, personally and we've got success up to that part price point. Um, but then I'm not saying you want be using discounts and high ov items cause that's kind completely anti like opposite of what your business model is in the first place. Selling high ticket, you don't fit platform. Um, but yeah, guess what I was trying to say. Yeah, people are more price elastic and more responsive to so it's the than it would on somewhere else.

Rabah Rahil (10:16):

Yep, totally tracking. And then the last thing and then Ash take over is one of the things that actually we were chatting about a little bit in the last pod as well is something that seems ubiquitous for everyone is um, the creative fatigue or the creative life cycle is just much shorter on TikTok than pretty much any other platform. Is that something that you experience as well?

Olly Hudson (10:38):

Yeah, like we, I'd say yes and the impact of refreshing creative is just exponential. Like we can, we'll have, we can flip returns like massively just by introducing new creative, I I kind of like two theories on this. Our biggest problem with high spending accounts is frequency. Like we get if we're, we've gotten a couple of accounts spending in smaller regions, one in New Zealand for example, where we were spending like 4K a day SD in New Zealand, which is a very, very small population. Yeah. And we were getting really good results, but we were getting like 23 frequency on a basis. So like if you think the US is bad for like needing to refresh creative, you can imagine like we were like I was, we were cycling every two days in that region and it's just like you just need so much volume and you, you can kind of, you can, you can hack the volume by making small changes or like changing the hook or, but even that takes obviously resource and takes like time and effort.

(11:35):

Um, so the frequency's a big issue. I still believe, I have no way to prove this, but I, I really believe that TikTok buckets creative heavily. Like that's why I, I don't think it is, it has so as much stability of Facebook, obviously it has a small user base, but it's still a massive amount of people on the platform and I just, I believe that you are, you are either your pixel, but I dunno, which either your pixels booking it, booking it into demographics or the actual platform itself is pushing creative based on who's resonating with it and it's not really breaking beyond that. And that's why you see even the girls why I think we see like six, seven frequency in US accounts where we're not spending that much money. And I was just like, I can't really explain that. It's really hard to like hypothesize why that might be, but that's the only thing I can think. It's just like it's only targeting these people who it thinks the right fit for your business and not even giving the rest of chance.

Ash Melwani (12:29):

That's exactly, that's talk about right Ash circle, the

Rabah Rahil (12:33):

Sharks kind of just start circling the same blood in the water.

Olly Hudson (12:35):

Yeah, yeah,

Ash Melwani (12:36):

Yeah. That's why like you just, that's why creative refresh is so important because then you do hit different, if you can hit different angles as well rather than like refreshing the same one. I think it's better off if you're like, uh, one of these creators did, um, I was losing hair because of postpartum depression. Depression and that's an entirely different angle that we never tried before. And the engagement that it got was a lot more than our like other ads. And I was like, there's so many things that we could try here, like just going into different maybe illnesses or like, you know, things like that where it's like you can hit different types of like conditions, like at least for like a collagen product, right? Or you know, there's so many things that you can um, kind of go after. Um, and then that too with the different style of creative as well.

(13:29):

Um, I've noticed a transition in, you know, how you have like the toile like font, I've noticed a transition in the fonts that people are starting to use now, which is a little bit more higher quality like callouts and those ads have been performing better for us too. So like I've even, I've seen it on Twitter, like a lot of people are like, yeah the future of TikTok is more professional style videos. I'm starting to believe that because the way that the platform is gonna evolve evolve, I think it also needs to evolve in the ads as well. So like I've seen brands that are doing professional style videos with like just talking about the offer instead of making it feel like a TikTok. It's like it, those are actually working too. Like it, I think people are expecting. I think now we've getting to the point where people are expecting ads on the platform versus like, oh, like they're just rolling it out but it still needs to look like TikTok style, like organic content. I think you can start getting away with offer driven ads. Have you, have you started to see that as well?

Olly Hudson (14:36):

Um, we do, we are very heavy ugc but I've definitely companies a really good that pops is, I think I'd say that is definitely the case. I think there'll still, I feel, I feel like there will always be a place for both and it'll be probably unique to each business obviously for them. Like they're a, they're a cosmetic dentist. Like they're going to, they're going to benefit from having a high production, high trust environment within the content. Whereas if you're selling like, I dunno, like I'm trying to think of an example off the top of my head. Um, something that doesn't really require that level of trust, like yeah, yeah. Like something that's like a gadget or a to gun like then probably don't need that. Yeah. Whereas for, for yourself it would be interested to know within, with within those ads, do you see any difference in like conversion by age group? Like do the older people attach themselves more to the high production stuff? Do the younger people resonate more with the UGC stuff? I'd probably find in my mind that would make sense but without the data I wouldn't know. Makes sense. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it'd be interesting to see like how that changes. I do, I agree. I do think you'll become more high production. Um, yeah, bringing out obviously long video on the platform and everything. Dunno it to develop

Ash Melwani (16:11):

Stuff if you're ready. Cause I know you got some, you know, you tweet out some like, you know, secret sauce and, and you know, like one ad per ad set type of it feels like 2016 Facebook again, you know, like you can kinda hack your way to, to conversion. So I'm wondering what you're seeing now in terms of like, are you, like what's your testing structure look like, what your scaling structure look like for, I think that's the biggest question that I get. It's like how are you, how are you structuring everything? And to be completely honest with you, it's like it's a crapshoot like it nothing works for more than a week. I'm always changing shit. So I'm wondering what you're doing that's like, that's that's that's proving to be successful.

Olly Hudson (16:50):

Yeah. Um, so ours depends on budget. So like if you, if you're small, if if you've got a lot of money to spend, like we, we basically set up a massive creative sandbox and isolate all the creative testing. The reason we do that is because the spend all, you must have seen how bad the spend allocation is that like, I think at all levels, but especially creatives so favored towards like engagement as one side and just if something works, just let's just spend and give the um, and then you isolate them and then you'll find that oh well all three of these could, um, that's why we I on the of like your creatives when you're testing them because of what we said earlier about them gating 'em into different demos, like one might be good, you might that, that that's what's giving us the gateway to scaling accounts to like eight, 10 k a day spend is like isolating the videos and then building, trying to see how much money each video can support, like is basically what we do.

(17:51):

And then just cycling them out is the fatigue. Um, but yeah, testing structure is, is is if we have enough money, isolate the creatives. If not, we'll just go kind, um, three creatives just usual stuff. Try and find the, try and find the winners and then we'll set up kind of scaling campaigns beyond that. Um, I have to agree with you to be honest. Like we do, we do do a bit of everything in the account. It's not near as scientific run a ads that feels lot like formula whereas feels like let's throw some stuff at a wall and see what sticks for a bit and then let's, let's, let's, but let's always be testing, let's always be iterating, let's always be trying new things. Cause as you say, like one week ACO might work the next week, like cost cap, cost caps work really well if you, if you, if you go into like a payday period because you get loads of great signals and you can get like one, $1 or below CPMs but then they'll stop working after you go through that period. So it's definitely, definitely compared to there's a lot more time in the account and a lot more like, like hypothesizing test and then kind of validating or disproving your ideas.

Ash Melwani (19:03):

So I have a few like maybe like rapid fire questions kind of just based off of what like I'm seeing. Um, do you, so like how many ads are you typically testing at like one time?

Olly Hudson (19:16):

As, as many as the budget will support, like in one account at the moment I've got 18 ads in a creative sandbox with each add at 50 a day. And we'll just like, we'll just cycle and we'll also scale the sandbox. So if something works, I'm not turning it off, we're just like, let's how much money this can take. Um, so literally as many as we can with the budget that we're given.

Ash Melwani (19:37):

And then how long are you typically letting these tests run before deciding? Great

Olly Hudson (19:42):

Question. Uh, we, we do three days just because it's just, i, that may not be the most efficient way to spend the money. Like you may be able to make that decision quicker, but it just works for us. It's, it allows us to be a bit more systemized in the accounts and then if it works we'll just leave it and we'll scale it like, we'll double budgets on it every day pretty much until it stops working.

Ash Melwani (20:01):

And then how are you, so let's say out of these 10 tests that you're running for the week, right, let's say three perform really well, okay, what's your, what's your next step? What do you, what do you do in a scale?

Olly Hudson (20:15):

If it's a big spend account, I'll take each creative and set its own campaign up and run one creative per campaign and one, or you could do it in all the same campaign and name the ad the different creative and basically see how much money you put. Ad we, we run horizontally at the moment. I know a lot of people run a lot of vertical scale through the, through TikTok, but I've, I I've, I do, we do that because of like risk, um, attitude to risk. Like I'd rather have four ad sets at two 50 pound a day, then one ad set a thousand pound a day because of how unstable the platform is. And when we launch those, one of them might get like $10 CPA and the other one might get 15. It's like, well that makes no sense cause I'm using the same audience but must just be the algorithm. So, um, we'll take it, we'll launch like as many as we can. We'd still, the key to that is you still have to use the 50, you gotta target 50 conversions in a week and be aggressive with your budget on those because otherwise it's just like a roller that goes, you've got no chance. So, um, yeah, you've gotta have enough money to still do that and you've gotta date to that point. But if we've got enough spend, we'll we'll broaden out and we'll we'll throw all that.

Ash Melwani (21:29):

So the goal would be to get out of learning, right? The 50 conversions? Yeah. Cause that's, that's something that I've seen. I feel like when I do want to move things into scale, I typically wait until that's out of learning before I set up another scaling at asset. I don't know if you try to do the same, like I try to keep like 20% of my budget in learning or testing, whatever it is, but the rest has to be outside of learning or whatever it is just cause like I've noticed less volatility that way. I don't know if it's just like pure coincidence or just in my head, but what your thoughts there?

Olly Hudson (22:03):

That's interesting. I've not actually tracked percentage just spending, that's something I'd have to like be more intentional tracking myself. Um, something I could ask the team and then reflect on. But um, I think we're just quite aggressive with budgets. If something's working, if we find it creative that works, it's, we usually quite confident to get aggressive with the spend behind it. Um, cause it'll usually hold well and then eventually it'll just working. Um, business allow us, we'll get we'll

Ash Melwani (22:47):

What does that look like for you?

Olly Hudson (22:51):

Um, so again, product specific, if it's something that's very broad with an office, so like low price demo, a like recommended interest, we, we'll test like a and clothing as a stack. We'll try and keep those audiences broad though, because I'd rather benefit from the lowest CPMs on a product like that than than try and like gate it into this like niche niche band of people. Um, we'll test like look like at large, large scale lookalike stacked, um, a bit of everything in, in honesty there. Um, but, but mainly broad. And then once we've got a bit of data, we'll start cutting out segments and trying to down best if it's a niche product then at that point we'd get a little bit more like specific with what we're targeting. Um, so I'm trying to think like if, if again top of my head, if it's something for vegans, then let's, let's like try and segment these very obvious people into, into some sort of targeted group. Um, use the customer list probably more use the use the look likes more than we would with something that's that's very broad.

Ash Melwani (24:10):

Have you done uh, automatic targeting yet?

Olly Hudson (24:13):

Yeah, I, I, I've had mixed experience with it. It works really well for, again, for, I find it works really well for us Niche. Yeah. Like, I dunno if you're a niche products but you're a little bit more niche than like a jewelry, bit like mainstream jewelry. Again, like when I say mainstream jewelry, you think about those like relationship bracelets that you saw on the platform loads at the of the year. Like do, do you need to do automatic targeting when you can pretty much just run it to everybody on the platform? Um, whereas for you, like the learning that TikTok probably gets off the people who actually click on your ads and engage probably allows it learn a lot and then shift that target. So I that that's something that people when they're like, what is your demos than just kind of following what people say they're doing on and stuff like it with those decisions. But yeah, automatic's working for, for us fairly well.

Ash Melwani (25:12):

Nice. Sorry Rob, I'm I'm good on my questions.

Rabah Rahil (25:15):

<laugh>. No, no, those are fantastic questions. No, they're super sensation. I love them. I just had one to make sure we're bringing everybody along. Can you explain what you mean when you say horizontal scaling versus vertical scaling?

Olly Hudson (25:26):

Yeah. Um, so vertical would be basically consultant real consolidated. So if you, well, if you've got, again, if you've got anset that's on like a a thousand a day and you wanna double your budget, then you'd increase the budget on that adset to 2000 a day over a period of time. You wouldn't just w it on like let's go, let's do it, let's just double it now. Uh, whereas horizontal would be like, you'd duplicate that adset, maybe you'd add three more ad two more ad sets at five a day or three more ad sets at 3, 3 50, well, you know what I mean. Um, a day and, and like have more adset rather than one, um, central core campaign and, and core Adset having like that's how we do it again, more due to attitude, to risk more due to like assessing how unstable the platform is and being like, well I wanna insulate against that as much as we can, but I know that other people have success just so everything in one big CBO and just letting it rip. So it's more like treat, try and do what the account likes and, and see, see what it likes and then just follow that. Um, I'm pretty sure Cody still runs. I don't, I haven't actually seen any, anything from what he's doing, but I'm pretty sure he's pretty, he's very much like, spend as little time in the a account as possible. Let's put it all in one, one thing and let's let it run. Um, so yeah, that's just what we do.

Rabah Rahil (26:49):

What would you say to somebody that is like TikTok curious like, Hey Ali, I wanna start bringing TikTok on as an acquisition channel, but I don't know where to start. What advice would you give to that person?

Olly Hudson (27:02):

Uh, consume a lot first, if you've not time on the platform consume interesting. Like a lot of people will come to and any time it's like someone who's mainstream to jump on, so they're gonna naturally treat it like a Facebook or like whatever channel they've been spending money on. So I think it's important to go and consume like the ads library, spend some time on the platform, maybe not too much time, like don't spend eight hours a day like some people do, but, but dive in like consume some brands content like the funnels and, and then see what people are doing and assess how it's obviously an entertainment platform. So like you and that you've got that. Just put, put some ads up and see what metrics you get and then learn off those. Like the data's gonna tell you right, people don't resonate with this video. Use the use like your hooks, your hook metrics, use your watch times, like learn, learn from that information about like what people do and like from there. Cause that's what you really just, just learning iterate and progress.

Rabah Rahil (28:27):

Amazing conversion campaigns only or do you run any other objective?

Olly Hudson (28:32):

Yeah, uh, con we, we only run conversions really. Um, Okay. We, we did, so we did some hashtag targeting them run video views and that kind worked. It's a bit of a hack though. I don't know if I wouldn't recommend it if then if you first starting out, just keep it simple, you'll have to warm the pixel, which is a bit annoying, but um, you can, you can kinda skip that to a degree now you just put it on cart and just let it run for a few days and switch to purchase.

Rabah Rahil (28:55):

Yeah. Amazing. And then last question is, so I can't repurpose any content. So if I have this big library of from say Facebook or something like that, you would not recommend somebody. So say I I did all the Ollie check marks of, I played with the platform, I understand what my users want, I have kind of a ideal customer profile in my head, I'm kind of understanding the, the funnel, the flow, et cetera, et cetera. I have all these prerequisites but now I don't have any content. Do you wait and find like either like hire your agency for UGC or somebody that can make videos for TikTok or do you just try and let it rip with, you know, repurposing some things like possibly I have some vertical video from Facebook or Snapchat or something like that. Can that work? Or is it exclusively built for tick hop?

Olly Hudson (29:44):

I think it depends on the video. I think you've gotta go and look at those videos and like be a bit like honest with yourself and Leo after I've just done all this research, does this fit what I've just told myself is needed for this platform? If it does then and there's, to be honest, there's no harm in spending like $50 a day for a few days and seeing what data you get warm up the pixel while she's producing the content, maybe like get some data, get the pixel going, make the content at the same time rather than waiting. Um, but yeah, I I I I'm doubtful that you, you'd get that much success repurposing. There's always gonna be outliers to that. There's people who are gonna be already making pretty good content and just transfers well or it fit all their brand just naturally fits it or the office so strong that it works. Um, but yeah, I think I would, I would, I would find a few creators. Creators aren't hard to find. You can find them on Twitter. You can come and use like us, you can use like, um, incense, so many different platforms. Just make sure your briefs are good cause people, creators are a bit loose sometimes. Um, and then yeah, just get some videos and go for it.

Rabah Rahil (30:51):

Amazing. Um, Ash, have you seen any cross pollination? Do you guys ever do that where, cuz you guys have some fantastic creatives, um, for Facebook and TikTok, but um, do you ever double purpose them or is it strictly pretty much only Facebook or Facebook or do you at all ever bring TikTok creator into the Facebook ecosystem?

Ash Melwani (31:13):

Yeah, um, Facebook to TikTok didn't work and, but again, we, we tried that in April May. Um, I'm noticing a lot of like, like you said, smile direct and like there's another one who, who's really like slamming almost like banner ads on TikTok. I forgot it was, but like, it's been running for a while so I, I have to imagine they're seeing some type of success, but like, I might have to try it again. But TikTok ads on Facebook Crush, like that's, that's a no brainer. I feel like every single video right now on Facebook is a TikTok because they're pushing real so hard. So like that placement, if you're not using that placement, like your, your media mix needs to include that. So yeah, I mean that's like the bulk of what's performing video wise on our like Facebook account. Um, and the thing is they last a lot longer than they do on TikTok. So we have like a, a ton of content that we haven't even tested yet. Um, but yeah, I I'm, I'm interested to see if it now works knowing that people anticipate ads on TikTok more, if that makes sense.

Olly Hudson (32:26):

I I, I'd also be interested to know if like if you are one of those brands that are shifting really high spend then can you then maybe pull in some middle and bottom of funnel targeting with some of these more facebooky offer led like product focus, discount focus stuff that's that's already watched your already engaged the community. Maybe that's just

Rabah Rahil (32:57):

Uh, super fascinating. Where do you guys see the TikTok ecosystem kind of maturing and going to, cuz it did, it does seem like there's some, some space shifts where there was that old adage don't make ads, make talks. And I I think to your point, Ash, it's kind of inverting now, right? Where it's like make ads and put 'em on TikTok <laugh> and so it's kind of like a, you know what is old is new again. And so no, I'm just seeing that just anecdotally for me, the ads that I, it's uh, you know, scrub at ease and all these things of like really fun in platform stuff. But I to your point, I think people are, it's almost like the hipsters are stopping not drinking PBR anymore because everybody's drinking PBR and so now they're drinking a Bud Light or something like, like it's just this weird inversion of like what used to be so novel everybody jumped on the boat or I like to call it the Waze effect.

(33:48):

I don't know if you guys use Waze, but Waze will give you like these little, it's the navigation app and it'll give you like these little back roads to like figure it out through a traffic jam. But then there's a certain amount of people that are taking that little back road and then that back road gets traffic jammed. So I'm just kind of figuring out where, where we're going here. So I'll start with you OIE and then we'll go to you Ash, what do you think in the next like four to six months or especially cuz we're, we're about to hit our tax season, right? Like Q4 is is where the money's made for almost all businesses and that's pretty much a month away. So you have maybe, I don't know, 15, 20 days to get your armies mobilized. So what do you thinking is gonna happen here in terms of we also have some really interesting macroeconomic headwinds as well. So where, where are your thoughts Ollie?

Olly Hudson (34:34):

I think long, longer term the stability will get better. I think they need to figure out that hold targeting and, and like just, yeah, a lot of what we've talked about like buckets and creative cause it definitely happens if they can figure that out and they can allow you to expand beyond that initial pool of people and, and, and it would, it would turn into more of like a long term. You can, you can put creative what you can run it for a long period. I think one big shift is like, I, I think there's a real, and Ash may disagree, but I think there's um, there's a lot of u GC creators, but there's only 10% of really good u GC creators. Um, and like we've got, we've got some really good u GC creators on, on our roster, but there's also, there'll be a lot of brands who are, who are going and UTCs who aren't good, um, and therefore not getting the results they wanting. So i's that's like be shortage moment.

(35:37):

Um, so I think that might be a bit of a struggle for Q4 for some brands is like getting the right content, getting it, getting those UTCs on board. Um, I'd be interested to see like, I think as I said, offers offers SMASH on TikTok. So like in theory if if that carries to Black Friday, then Black Friday should, should be crazy on there. Um, again, whether, whether we can support this type of spend numbers that people are gonna wanna move through the platform, no idea until we try it, it's, it's, it's, it was nowhere near the same platform last year. We spent some decent money but not, not anywhere to what we're gonna probably put through in November this year. Um, I dunno if there's anything, anything else. I think the, like most of the targeting I I'd say will stay the same for, for now. I think it'll stay like broad or automatic. Obviously we just wanna keep testing it'll, it'll stay like Facebook took a long time to get to a point where it was, it was more saturated, it was, it was more like formula and its approach. So I imagine TikTok will probably be the same for while.

(36:41):

What do you think Ash?

Ash Melwani (36:43):

Yeah, I think, um, let me let start with the structure. I think, I think over time the platform will get a little bit better at discovery, right? So like for example, let's say, let's call it like first time impression ratio, right? Um, I would say that it'll start to get better because I was talking to somebody who works at TikTok, some of you guys may know him from Twitter and stuff. Um, but he said that the algorithm for the for you page and the algorithm for the ads is different. So what you're into on your for you page may not reflect what ads you see And interesting, I would've thought that was their biggest, I guess, advantage when it came down to the platform, right? So I think when they figure that out, the balance between the two, that's where it kind of opens up, all right, instead of just circling for the same people, it'll start opening up the gateway to get a little bit more discovery from, from more people outside of what TikTok thinks is this content is relevant for Right.

(37:55):

Um, two, I think we're gonna start moving towards higher quality video, standing out more in the ads side of things. Um, I also do think there's gonna be a little bit of a relaxation in terms of like how organic things need to look because people are going to expect ads in the feed. Um, for example, last week we ran at talking about the collagen, but at the end we really pitched the offer, which we, we don't usually do. It's a very soft um, oh if you're looking to, you know, improve hair skin to nails, you should definitely check out Avi. This was like click order now and get four samples for 1199. Like a, like a closed, like a, a direct cta and that was the best performing ad the last two weeks. So I think people are expecting to get ads. I think people are expecting to like now get sold on and once that starts to kind of become the norm, I think this is where the platform becomes a little bit more, sorry, a little less volatile and becomes an actual channel for like pretty solid spend for the brands that can nail that.

(39:11):

I still think content is going to be king, it's just what type of content is it I think is going to change over the next few months.

Olly Hudson (39:19):

Just just to touch on it's

Rabah Rahil (39:22):

Interesting.

Olly Hudson (39:22):

Oh sorry, go on. I was just on page don't striking I hard for like, like seeing some of my mates for you pages are just like, just, it's just like such funny videos that have no relevance to any like macro topic in life. So it's like how do you use that data? It's like some guy running down the beach eating, eating crisps really quickly. It's like, like what is this video? Um, it's like its, and I also think if you your for, well I guess you could play that to your advantage, your you changes so quick if you start engaging with something. I think that the platform's gonna be a really interesting place over the 20 20 20 US election. I know it's quite far away, but like you think about like how Facebook didn't deal with that well. Um, and they're just having to deal with paid ads, like's organic algorithms gonna be gonna be so like, almost like weapon in that environment to certain people certain and it's polarized headaches related to, I won't go for the tangent. Um, but yeah,

Rabah Rahil (40:42):

I'm tracking what you're saying though cuz um, so one of the, my biggest ways to feel rich is Spotify premium and YouTube premium. Like I love it. I hate ads and so like these are like not that much money and they're fantastic but I'll go to hotels when I'm traveling or whatever and they'll have YouTube and so we watch a lot of YouTube at my house and so like YouTube premium and we watch it on the TV in the living room. And to your point, it's crazy when you see a logged out version versus your actual homepage and I feel like the logged out YouTube, uh, homepage is very similar to a four U page on TikTok for somebody that does that lurks a lot that basically just kind of doesn't give the algorithm that much interaction. So it is, it is fascinating that you say that because um, that for me that analog is just really strong.

(41:30):

If you guys ever want just open it incognito tab and go to youtube.com and like these are the top videos that you're showing me YouTube, this is crazy. Whereas like when you actually interact with the algorithm, it's actually really good. Um, so I do see that there's gonna be some, some issues there or, or as, as things progress and people kind of understand what to do and how to do it, it gets into a bit of a chicken and egg problem, right? Like they moved algorithm and then the people kind of have it, it's a, it's almost like the old hat, right? Like SEO cause it's the exact same thing with seo, like used to stuff, keywords and all these things and blah blah blah and then that stopped working, then you did this thing and then do that thing. So, um, so those are really interesting, really interesting predictions.

(42:11):

I think that uh, I'm pretty much a lot of both of you guys. I don't, I think the spend is gonna go up. I still think Google and Facebook or Facebook in specific and Google will still be king. I think they're gonna spend a ton. Um, I think TikTok will be a much bigger third channel, but my, the big impediment that I see to TikTok is just there's not enough O Hudsons or Ash Milanis in the world where it's just a big lift. I don't know anybody that's like TikTok is easy where I know a lot of people that's like if you get your Facebook right, like it's not that it's like quote unquote easy but I like the word you use Ollie. It's formulaic where it's more of a science and you can kind of run this machine where TikTok is just a lot of f and work.

(42:55):

Yeah, you gotta source people and then to ashe's point, even if you do get all that in line, uh, and I love this phrase too, I'm gonna steal it from you. Ashes create her fatigue where it's like you're just kind of running through. And that's kind of what we've seen a little bit just us anecdotally is we, we get, we run a lot of ugc but it's hard for us to run UGC because one, we have to find people that are actually know what they're talking about marketing two, we have to find people that have a triple oil account cause we don't currently have a demo account. So there's just all these headwinds for us. Um, and what we found with TikTok, cuz we actually had a pretty strong organic presence on there for a while. There was no business relevance, like nothing spilled over. So we'd have videos pop off to like 2 million views or something and you wouldn't fill it. And so that was the the other thing for us where it was just really challenging. So I don't know, I I'm pretty bullish on TikTok. You've brought me back around Ollie. I just think that there's a lot of headwinds in terms of, Yeah, the the other thing too is like that stability, right? Like, I don't know anybody possibly probably that is,

Olly Hudson (44:00):

It's just like, it takes, obviously our job is to spend your, our time in the other account for the business. But like if you are, it's like it takes comparing it to how much time like a Facebook media buyer for us in our other agency is more content strategy, funnel strategy, helping them optimize various elements like shifting product focused as we move stock around. Like whereas our TikTok media buy is like, oh, like we're just gonna spend all day testing and, and and and like chopping and changing ads. Um, so yeah, I think that's so it it is definitely different. Um, I do think on the creator fatigue, I think like, and this is again, I not, we don't do this currently as a service, but like this is how I, I feel like if you, if your demo is somewhat younger, a community is a, is a way to to to fill that void.

(44:52):

Like if you are targeting like below 25, there is gonna be a lot of people in that who are making videos, actively making videos on TikTok and if you can incentivize them to make videos for you, then you're already making content. You obviously you maybe have to put 'em through a funnel that teaches them how to make videos within your brand guidelines, but that's not hard to make. Um, and that might produce like a positive flywheel effect as well and get. So I think you can, there's ways to, its definitely harder to those systems where you can just a single on it rights still possible to systemize it but then it also makes a higher barrier to entry. So maybe it'll stay easier to get good results for those who are willing to do it for longer.

Rabah Rahil (45:40):

Yeah, I'm with you there. Well ti tidying up this and then we'll go into the last question is, um, to your point, I think that the UGC market is super saturated right now and you can get really turned off because you're gonna go through five to six, maybe even eight or nine creators to your point because there's only really like 10% of creators that are actually quality to understand X, Y and z and things of that nature. So there's also that headwind as well. We're finding good UGCs, like finding UGC is not hard, but finding quality UGC is can be quite the task sometimes and you have to, you have to be willing to lose a little bit to find that person and I think some people aren't really willing to make that bet yet. And so, um, that's the other challenge again that I see for TikTok is like, it's just really difficult to make Yeah.

(46:25):

Uh, creative and then even if you do find a creative that wins, it goes back to that stability issue. Like it, it wins for like two seconds and so it's just this viral thing that then dies out and you're like, okay cool. And you're kind of in a loop just chasing, trying to find lightning in the bottle. But, um, okay, last question for you guys. What are you guys doing to prepare for Black Friday, Cyber Monday? Any tips, tactics? What do you think it's gonna be like bigger this year, smaller this year? Um, gimme some color there. We'll start with you Ash and then we'll go to you Ollie.

Ash Melwani (46:55):

I'm gonna try and test my theory on the direct offers and like see if that performs well. So if that does then obviously Black Friday I'm gonna go heavy on offer specific content. Um, other than that really just getting a backlog of content ready to go. Um, just testing as much as I can to deploy. And then I, I really think that's it. Maybe just dedicated, um, offers for TikTok, like all you mentioned. Um, you know, it's very, very specific to the platform, um, and just really, you know, trying to, to nail what that funnel looks like. And then I, I know there's one thing that we didn't talk about, which um, we did see some success was with like instant pages. So instead of using like landing pages, actually using the instant page experience where you can build out like listicals or just editorials directly on TikTok. So as soon as you hit shop now really boom. Instant page. Yeah, like that experience is very interesting. I've played around with it and it's done decent so I'm maybe I'll experiment for that for, for Black Friday. But I think, um, backlog of content testing specific offers and then specif landing pages just for for TikTok? Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (48:06):

Early sales at all or are you gonna do the normal calendar?

Ash Melwani (48:10):

I I think we'll do, I know last year we did the full month of November, I mm-hmm <affirmative> think I want to, I don't know if I wanna do that this year. I wanna maybe start closer to Black Friday cause I feel like the sentiment is like not there anymore. But that's a, that's a,

Olly Hudson (48:25):

We track another pod. We, we track that across our client base last year and we got more efficiency doing it over a short timeframe than doing it longer. Longer you peak and you just get this of real inefficiency then you another results.

(48:48):

What about you oie? Uh, so it is a bit of an unknown. As I said like last year we just run loads on top of funnel this year. We are, we we're build we're gonna build more of like a funnel structure around the cause it's basically, cause it's actually retargeting functionality nowadays than the pretty much wasn't. Um, we're also gonna bring in some of these ads that are a lot more like Facebooking, more like bottom of middle of funnel like offer driven ads. Especially for those who have spent a lot of money over the last six months where they're gonna have decent brand recognition on the platform anyway. Um, creative backlog a lot of time in the other accounts is definitely gonna happen. A lot of cost caps is gonna definitely occur as well. Like the cost caps that I think will, will allow you to see some insanely low CPMs and cost per clicks through that period.

(49:33):

Um, probably lower than you've ever seen on TikTok. Like sub $1, probably sub 10 p consistently for a period of time. Um, but yeah, beyond that it's gonna be, it's gonna be a testing different things on different accounts to be honest. It's, it's, it's, we're not gonna sit here and lie and say we're gonna be like, oh this is our structure that's gonna work for everybody. It's not, it's not the way we can approach it cause we've not really ripped it before. So, um, yeah, you're gonna try and approach it as best we can on the instant pages. Amazing. The instant pages are good and I also think they're good because in app browser is horrendous, which doesn't help. Like it's so slow. They need to solve that asap. Yeah. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:14):

Yeah, that's also I think the snap issue as well. Like the, you get to that external and it's just like, it's such a terrible experience. Like I'm not gonna, if you do buy, you're like I'm gonna buy later. Yeah, whatever. Like it's just so hard to get that direct conversion sometimes. Cause that experience is is quite atrocious. That's

Olly Hudson (50:29):

Why I think branded Google is massive off talk. It's that's

Rabah Rahil (50:34):

Fair.

Olly Hudson (50:35):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:35):

You're just gonna search it and grab it. Um, alright, you guys ready for the creepy question?

Olly Hudson (50:40):

God, this is a thing I'm terrible at. Quick fire question.

Rabah Rahil (50:46):

It's just a creepy question. The, it's not like ro as rapid fire, it's just one creepy question and we'll even let you go second. Um, alright Ash, if you had to choose and bet on a pirate versus Ninja who you bet on who's gonna win the fight?

Ash Melwani (51:07):

Ninja. I feel like Ninja ninja's like such a day. Yeah, hundred percent. Hundred. All day.

Rabah Rahil (51:12):

All day. All day. Okay. Team Ninja, what about you Oie?

Olly Hudson (51:15):

Do pirates have pirates have guns? Don't they like ninjas have those weird things that they can, I think it's 50 pirates got one shot. Hasn't has to do the whole reload.

Rabah Rahil (51:28):

Usually care. They, that's why they carried so many weapons. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why they carried so many guns because they didn't ever refill or uh, a reload. They would just shoot the guns and a lot of times they're faulting.

Olly Hudson (51:40):

I'm gonna go ninja cause I think you'll hop around too much and you'll miss and then just, just throw one of those stars and it's over.

Rabah Rahil (51:47):

That's fair. I gotta go pirate just because they're scrappy <laugh>. I know. I feel like they'll get it done. Maybe fake like they're dead. And the ninja's on. That's

Ash Melwani (51:55):

What I, I was thinking

Rabah Rahil (51:56):

Like a pirate will do something sketchy cuz it's a win at all cost kind of guy or gal. Yeah. Versus uh, a ninjas is an honorable person, but uh, two ninja one pirate. Yeah, I like it you guys. It was good logic. It's good logic. I take it. Good. It's good. Ollie. Tell the people where they can find you. Tell them how to get more involved with. So with us, you're a TikTok agency this time is yours my friend.

Olly Hudson (52:17):

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter mainly Oliver w Hudson. Um, yeah, we've got obviously two agencies. If you're looking for anything TikTok related, we've got fo advertising.com. We've getting a new website. I've had a lot of beef for the website on Twitter recently, so try not to gimme any anymore <laugh>. Um, it's coming soon. And then if you're looking for anything beyond that, anything general e then we've got your full service agency. So find us there. Thank you for having us on.

Rabah Rahil (52:43):

Amazing, amazing. Of course, Anytime Ash, you know what to do. Tell the folks what happens if they drive by Vitamin shop. Do they need to pull the youi?

Ash Melwani (52:54):

If you pass the vitamin shop and you don't pull the ey, I don't want ever talk to me again. <laugh>. Go to a vitamin shop, go to the beauty section, find Avie, put it up on the top shop. I'm just kidding. Take a picture, tag me on, uh, tag me on Twitter, which you could follow me there at as for Melani, um, also on Mentor Pass, if you need any help with paid Facebook, TikTok, this and that, um, I'm your guy. And, um, I think that's, I think that's it. I think

Rabah Rahil (53:24):

That's it. Be on the lookout. The, uh, November Q4 come help these guys out. Buy all that amazing collagen fruity cereal bars are amazing. And then you said you had, uh, a new one for me.

Ash Melwani (53:36):

New one coming out tomorrow. So by the time this launches I'll probably already be out, but I can't tell you.

Rabah Rahil (53:41):

Okay. Tell me

Ash Melwani (53:43):

Mint chocolate chip. Ooh.

Rabah Rahil (53:45):

Oh, is that the one that you were trying, Everyone was trying to get us? Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, they're so good. Good ice cream flavor.

Ash Melwani (53:51):

They're so good. You guys sent out a bunch of stuff. Insane. I'm gonna have to send you some raa It's, Please, please. Yeah. Have you had those Andy chocolates?

Rabah Rahil (53:58):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Ash Melwani (53:59):

It's, that's it. Exactly

Rabah Rahil (54:02):

It. After this, after the Sizzler Buffet baby, I grabbed me a couple. Andy Fish bash Bosh, close it out.

Ash Melwani (54:07):

Exactly, Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (54:09):

I have that. Amazing. Ooh, I'm looking forward to those. That's fantastic. Ooh. Right before the Q4 too. Great timing. Yep. Great timing. If you folks wanna get more involved with Triple Well, we are triple well.com. We're on the Bird app at Triple Well. And then we have a wonderful newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday called Whale Mail. You can subscribe right on our website, triple.com/whale mail. Um, and that's it. That's all in the books. If you do wanna hire me, I am on Mentor Pass as well. I'm also mentor Sneaker Habit. I gotta send you the, Oh, look at this. The triple. Yeah, we're all always amazing. Get get you some time with Ollie Hudson. Amazing. Yeah, shout out Kenny. Uh, I gotta send you my new office setup. Ash, you're gonna love it. My sneakers are in the office. I ran a poll and um, the sneakers won out instead of the bar cart, so we have sneakers in the office, so we'll send that out. Uh, what else? Yeah, folks, and if you do enjoy this podcast, share with your friend, uh, subscribe. It's available on YouTubes and then your favorite podcast catcher. Um, and that's all we got. Thanks so much again for your time, Ali, you're the best. Get, get out to Austin soon, Ash. Hopefully everything kind of quote unquote works out for you. And I get to see you in Austin in a couple weeks. And, uh, yes, that's it. It's another ad spin in the books. Thanks for joining us, everybody.

ā€

Podcast

EVERY Brand Needs To Use TikToks Ads (Kind of)

March 18, 2024

55:27

Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Ash Melwani
Co-Founder & CMO of MyObvi
Olly Hudson
Founder - http://soarwithus.co

Episode Description

In this episode of ad spend we get into the thick of it, going over everything tikrok-related and why brands should be trying it. #Adspend

Notes & Links

šŸ¦ Follow us on Twitter for Industry insights https://twitter.com/triplewhale

Follow the people featured in this episode here:

- Rabah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabahrahil
- Ash's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashvinmelwani
- Olly's Twitter - https://twitter.com/oliverwhudson

Transcription

Olly Hudson (00:00):

I think you can go two ways with the creators. Those, I think you can either go where a brand is synonymous with one person and that that person is like in every, everything they do. And then you push to like an organic page off the back of that. Um, or you can go with like breadth and, and like loads of different creators and therefore you likely see multiple odds, multiple people, um, and kind both ways can work.

Rabah Rahil (00:29):

All right, folks, we are back with another episode of your favorite D to C podcast ad spend. We are joined by Ali Hudson, one of my favorite humans, uh, in the uk. I come to visit him. I'm still salty about it. We have a road show in London and he's out gallivanting in Lisbon, but whatever, you know, I guess he, he's soft and he needs a vacation. Hasn't taken a vacation in like three years, and now he needs a holiday. I mean, he's these kids these days just so entitled. Anyways, as we move on, and then, uh, as always, I'm joined with, uh, my favorite Brownie ashmani. Ash, how are you doing, my friend? How are you doing?

Ash Melwani (01:08):

Good, man. Good.

Rabah Rahil (01:10):

I think today we should really get into some TikTok, because one, I know Ollie, your, you're pumping proper numbers through TikTok, but two, I've heard a little bit through the grapevine and then kind of just anecdotally through what we've seen through Triple Well, where, again, D to C and SAS are very apples and oranges, hard to compare, but Ash is also running some fairly successful TikTok campaign. So I wanna kind of toss it over to you to let me know kind of what you're seeing across your accounts. Is this still a really good ad buy for your clients? Um, just kind of gimme a little bit of the temperature there in terms of TikTok, and are you bullish on it, bearish on it? Where do you still kind of land?

Olly Hudson (01:47):

Who wants to go first? I feel like Ash, Ash can be more free. I feel like I have to be bullish on it from the position I'm in, the kinda turning people away. Um, so yeah, I'm still definitely bullish on it. I think it's still, there's variables like with anything, um, not every company's gonna work on there. Still. There's, there's a massive amount of foundational, I I guess could call it infrastructure that you need in place to, to have success or to have scale anyway. Um, you can probably have success, but to get stability in scale, I think you need a lot of systems and operations in place to facilitate that if you can put those in place. However, I'm definitely bullish on it from both it, from both what it drives itself and from what impact it has on like an ecosystem. Um, so yeah, def definitely bullish. Um, but again, there's, there's always, there's always people who are gonna find it harder than others.

Ash Melwani (02:42):

Yeah. So I, I think for, for us, we've had these like really good months with TikTok and then it kind of just like dips and then it's back up again. Right? And I think every time that's happened, and I think it, it kind of references what you're saying is having that infrastructure to back and I think that really is just content creation. Um, and if it's more than that, I, I think let's dive into that, but at least for us, what I've, I've seen in our, in our first round of success, right? I think May we spent 115,000 that month, right? Nothing, nothing crazy compared to what we're spending on Facebook, but it was something that also helped overall efficiency, right? Something that we talked about on the previous pod, John. Um, what I noticed is that when we introduced new creatives that month, uh, new styles like very TikTok styles, like things that TikTok made me buy, here's, you know, three ways that I was able to stop my hair from falling out, right?

(03:37):

Stuff like that. Um, when we launch that at first because it's completely new to the platform and you know, we're fresh account, fresh pixel, everything, we're hitting completely new people entirely, right? So that, that measure of, or that that effective discovery is completely there, right? Then the following month is when we're like, ah, it's like kind of slowing down, I don't know what it is. July not doing well and we were pumping out creatives every week, right? What I think happened, and you tell me if you're seeing this as well, is that there is that creative fatigue, but then there's also creator fatigue, right? And so that's why when we started looking for more creators, just to one, just spice it up a bit, you're not seeing the same person running the, like you're not seeing the same person in different ads, um, and you're seeing multiple people use a product, then it's like, Oh, I'm seeing different stuff. Oh, everyone's kind of using this product. And that's what gave us another bump in August, right? And that's why we were able to scale up in August. So I think it really came down to the amount of creatives, amount of creators. Is there anything you would add to that equation to, I guess, have brands understand what is needed for their infrastructure to scale on TikTok?

Olly Hudson (04:54):

Yeah, I would say community. I think community is a massive level. If you can have a really, really engaged organic community in your making for your page somewhere that people want to spend time, um, and when someone lands on that page having never interacted you with it before, it, it, there's so much value add. There's so many pain points being qualified out. There's a massive amount of like, comment replies and things. I think that's quite unique to the platform. Definitely provides lift. Not many people actually do it. Even some of our biggest spenders don't, don't have the resource on how to do it. Um, but those who do get really good lift from that, um, I'd say don't like offer offer on the platform. I think it's a much more offer heavy offer dependent platform than Facebook for sure. Yeah. Um, currently I think it offer, offer provides massive leverage.

(05:41):

If you can play around with that and you can take a for Aspecific code, um, I'd say likes good but necessarily, yeah, definitely. And kind infrastructure is the biggest. I I see there's two kind of thresholds once you get past a certain spend, I feel like you almost become like ever present like conducive with the platform itself. Like people are seeing you ads so much. Like we've got a couple of clients that like, if I ever mention that we work with them to a friend, they like, I've seen them everywhere like three or four times a day and it's like you almost break people down by just being in the face so much once you get to a certain spend on there. Um, so that, I think it's a little bit less important at that scale cause you you kinda reinforcing the trustworthiness by being ever present. But yeah, definitely content, content infrastructure is the biggest. And I, I also agree with the creator. I think you can go two ways with the creator. I think you can either go where a brand is synonymous with one person and that that person is like in every everything they do and then you push to like an organic page off the back of that. Um, or you can go with like breadth and, and like loads of different creators and therefore you'd like to see multiple ads, multiple people, um, and kinda both ways can work.

Ash Melwani (07:04):

Rob, do you have anything otherwise? I wanted to get into the tactical love.

Olly Hudson (07:07):

Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (07:08):

Yeah. So I just wanna kind of touch on that. So one, there's a couple things unpack. So are you saying that like an organic strategy is really necessary to run actual money on TikTok or it just helps if you can do it?

Olly Hudson (07:25):

It definitely helps. We're we're, we're running way more spark adss now since they updated than we were like, uh, like even like two, three weeks ago. Just cause now they actually show landing page and don't Yeah, cause we were finding that because they used to go add to organic profile and then you'd have to click a link in the buy, like the drop off there wasn't worth it. Like it wasn't worth, Cause you, you also don't click on all your other pixels if you website straight away. So we weren't firing the Facebook, we were losing like 30% of traffic off the profile. However, now you've got like the, where it comes up and it shows you the landing page shows you like 60 to 8% of it. The effectiveness of those have definitely increased. And then also like the effectiveness of like influence or whitelisted, um, sparks definitely increased as well. So, um, but yeah, I find that the organic side is the brands with good organic and then adding paid on top of that always do better. It's the same as if you had no Instagram profile. I think like you, you'd probably find the same but different kinda engagement and different kinda value add.

Rabah Rahil (08:27):

Yeah, no, I'm totally tracking there and there's two other things then I, I'll toss it over to you Ash. Um, I do find it is fairly in, we, we haven't ran TikTok ads for a couple months now. And again, SAS is totally different than uh, ddc, but we have found it's fairly offer dependent because a lot of times people don't make, you know, bigger purchases on their mobile. They're making it usually at a desktop or an iPad. They're sitting down, they have their wallet out or what have you. Um, so is that kind of what you're saying when you say offer dependent where you don't see it working well with higher AOV items? Or have you pushed kind of some higher ticket items with success?

Olly Hudson (09:06):

Um, we, we, it's definitely harder for it higher a v definitely. Um, yeah and obviously I wouldn't wanna discount, well what I meant by that was more like if, if you run an ad without an offer and you run an ad with an offer, like the lift off that offer is, is more significant on TikTok than any platform. I, I'd say like people are more, it's like price elastic elasticity I feel likes are more price elastic platform than Facebook. Um, due to like I think you just skews still skews a bit younger, still lot newer, a lot less trust. So that kind of mentality is different. Um, I would say yeah is definitely more of a challenge. We've pushed, we've pushed products up to, we've really higher, um, personally and we've got success up to that part price point. Um, but then I'm not saying you want be using discounts and high ov items cause that's kind completely anti like opposite of what your business model is in the first place. Selling high ticket, you don't fit platform. Um, but yeah, guess what I was trying to say. Yeah, people are more price elastic and more responsive to so it's the than it would on somewhere else.

Rabah Rahil (10:16):

Yep, totally tracking. And then the last thing and then Ash take over is one of the things that actually we were chatting about a little bit in the last pod as well is something that seems ubiquitous for everyone is um, the creative fatigue or the creative life cycle is just much shorter on TikTok than pretty much any other platform. Is that something that you experience as well?

Olly Hudson (10:38):

Yeah, like we, I'd say yes and the impact of refreshing creative is just exponential. Like we can, we'll have, we can flip returns like massively just by introducing new creative, I I kind of like two theories on this. Our biggest problem with high spending accounts is frequency. Like we get if we're, we've gotten a couple of accounts spending in smaller regions, one in New Zealand for example, where we were spending like 4K a day SD in New Zealand, which is a very, very small population. Yeah. And we were getting really good results, but we were getting like 23 frequency on a basis. So like if you think the US is bad for like needing to refresh creative, you can imagine like we were like I was, we were cycling every two days in that region and it's just like you just need so much volume and you, you can kind of, you can, you can hack the volume by making small changes or like changing the hook or, but even that takes obviously resource and takes like time and effort.

(11:35):

Um, so the frequency's a big issue. I still believe, I have no way to prove this, but I, I really believe that TikTok buckets creative heavily. Like that's why I, I don't think it is, it has so as much stability of Facebook, obviously it has a small user base, but it's still a massive amount of people on the platform and I just, I believe that you are, you are either your pixel, but I dunno, which either your pixels booking it, booking it into demographics or the actual platform itself is pushing creative based on who's resonating with it and it's not really breaking beyond that. And that's why you see even the girls why I think we see like six, seven frequency in US accounts where we're not spending that much money. And I was just like, I can't really explain that. It's really hard to like hypothesize why that might be, but that's the only thing I can think. It's just like it's only targeting these people who it thinks the right fit for your business and not even giving the rest of chance.

Ash Melwani (12:29):

That's exactly, that's talk about right Ash circle, the

Rabah Rahil (12:33):

Sharks kind of just start circling the same blood in the water.

Olly Hudson (12:35):

Yeah, yeah,

Ash Melwani (12:36):

Yeah. That's why like you just, that's why creative refresh is so important because then you do hit different, if you can hit different angles as well rather than like refreshing the same one. I think it's better off if you're like, uh, one of these creators did, um, I was losing hair because of postpartum depression. Depression and that's an entirely different angle that we never tried before. And the engagement that it got was a lot more than our like other ads. And I was like, there's so many things that we could try here, like just going into different maybe illnesses or like, you know, things like that where it's like you can hit different types of like conditions, like at least for like a collagen product, right? Or you know, there's so many things that you can um, kind of go after. Um, and then that too with the different style of creative as well.

(13:29):

Um, I've noticed a transition in, you know, how you have like the toile like font, I've noticed a transition in the fonts that people are starting to use now, which is a little bit more higher quality like callouts and those ads have been performing better for us too. So like I've even, I've seen it on Twitter, like a lot of people are like, yeah the future of TikTok is more professional style videos. I'm starting to believe that because the way that the platform is gonna evolve evolve, I think it also needs to evolve in the ads as well. So like I've seen brands that are doing professional style videos with like just talking about the offer instead of making it feel like a TikTok. It's like it, those are actually working too. Like it, I think people are expecting. I think now we've getting to the point where people are expecting ads on the platform versus like, oh, like they're just rolling it out but it still needs to look like TikTok style, like organic content. I think you can start getting away with offer driven ads. Have you, have you started to see that as well?

Olly Hudson (14:36):

Um, we do, we are very heavy ugc but I've definitely companies a really good that pops is, I think I'd say that is definitely the case. I think there'll still, I feel, I feel like there will always be a place for both and it'll be probably unique to each business obviously for them. Like they're a, they're a cosmetic dentist. Like they're going to, they're going to benefit from having a high production, high trust environment within the content. Whereas if you're selling like, I dunno, like I'm trying to think of an example off the top of my head. Um, something that doesn't really require that level of trust, like yeah, yeah. Like something that's like a gadget or a to gun like then probably don't need that. Yeah. Whereas for, for yourself it would be interested to know within, with within those ads, do you see any difference in like conversion by age group? Like do the older people attach themselves more to the high production stuff? Do the younger people resonate more with the UGC stuff? I'd probably find in my mind that would make sense but without the data I wouldn't know. Makes sense. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it'd be interesting to see like how that changes. I do, I agree. I do think you'll become more high production. Um, yeah, bringing out obviously long video on the platform and everything. Dunno it to develop

Ash Melwani (16:11):

Stuff if you're ready. Cause I know you got some, you know, you tweet out some like, you know, secret sauce and, and you know, like one ad per ad set type of it feels like 2016 Facebook again, you know, like you can kinda hack your way to, to conversion. So I'm wondering what you're seeing now in terms of like, are you, like what's your testing structure look like, what your scaling structure look like for, I think that's the biggest question that I get. It's like how are you, how are you structuring everything? And to be completely honest with you, it's like it's a crapshoot like it nothing works for more than a week. I'm always changing shit. So I'm wondering what you're doing that's like, that's that's that's proving to be successful.

Olly Hudson (16:50):

Yeah. Um, so ours depends on budget. So like if you, if you're small, if if you've got a lot of money to spend, like we, we basically set up a massive creative sandbox and isolate all the creative testing. The reason we do that is because the spend all, you must have seen how bad the spend allocation is that like, I think at all levels, but especially creatives so favored towards like engagement as one side and just if something works, just let's just spend and give the um, and then you isolate them and then you'll find that oh well all three of these could, um, that's why we I on the of like your creatives when you're testing them because of what we said earlier about them gating 'em into different demos, like one might be good, you might that, that that's what's giving us the gateway to scaling accounts to like eight, 10 k a day spend is like isolating the videos and then building, trying to see how much money each video can support, like is basically what we do.

(17:51):

And then just cycling them out is the fatigue. Um, but yeah, testing structure is, is is if we have enough money, isolate the creatives. If not, we'll just go kind, um, three creatives just usual stuff. Try and find the, try and find the winners and then we'll set up kind of scaling campaigns beyond that. Um, I have to agree with you to be honest. Like we do, we do do a bit of everything in the account. It's not near as scientific run a ads that feels lot like formula whereas feels like let's throw some stuff at a wall and see what sticks for a bit and then let's, let's, let's, but let's always be testing, let's always be iterating, let's always be trying new things. Cause as you say, like one week ACO might work the next week, like cost cap, cost caps work really well if you, if you, if you go into like a payday period because you get loads of great signals and you can get like one, $1 or below CPMs but then they'll stop working after you go through that period. So it's definitely, definitely compared to there's a lot more time in the account and a lot more like, like hypothesizing test and then kind of validating or disproving your ideas.

Ash Melwani (19:03):

So I have a few like maybe like rapid fire questions kind of just based off of what like I'm seeing. Um, do you, so like how many ads are you typically testing at like one time?

Olly Hudson (19:16):

As, as many as the budget will support, like in one account at the moment I've got 18 ads in a creative sandbox with each add at 50 a day. And we'll just like, we'll just cycle and we'll also scale the sandbox. So if something works, I'm not turning it off, we're just like, let's how much money this can take. Um, so literally as many as we can with the budget that we're given.

Ash Melwani (19:37):

And then how long are you typically letting these tests run before deciding? Great

Olly Hudson (19:42):

Question. Uh, we, we do three days just because it's just, i, that may not be the most efficient way to spend the money. Like you may be able to make that decision quicker, but it just works for us. It's, it allows us to be a bit more systemized in the accounts and then if it works we'll just leave it and we'll scale it like, we'll double budgets on it every day pretty much until it stops working.

Ash Melwani (20:01):

And then how are you, so let's say out of these 10 tests that you're running for the week, right, let's say three perform really well, okay, what's your, what's your next step? What do you, what do you do in a scale?

Olly Hudson (20:15):

If it's a big spend account, I'll take each creative and set its own campaign up and run one creative per campaign and one, or you could do it in all the same campaign and name the ad the different creative and basically see how much money you put. Ad we, we run horizontally at the moment. I know a lot of people run a lot of vertical scale through the, through TikTok, but I've, I I've, I do, we do that because of like risk, um, attitude to risk. Like I'd rather have four ad sets at two 50 pound a day, then one ad set a thousand pound a day because of how unstable the platform is. And when we launch those, one of them might get like $10 CPA and the other one might get 15. It's like, well that makes no sense cause I'm using the same audience but must just be the algorithm. So, um, we'll take it, we'll launch like as many as we can. We'd still, the key to that is you still have to use the 50, you gotta target 50 conversions in a week and be aggressive with your budget on those because otherwise it's just like a roller that goes, you've got no chance. So, um, yeah, you've gotta have enough money to still do that and you've gotta date to that point. But if we've got enough spend, we'll we'll broaden out and we'll we'll throw all that.

Ash Melwani (21:29):

So the goal would be to get out of learning, right? The 50 conversions? Yeah. Cause that's, that's something that I've seen. I feel like when I do want to move things into scale, I typically wait until that's out of learning before I set up another scaling at asset. I don't know if you try to do the same, like I try to keep like 20% of my budget in learning or testing, whatever it is, but the rest has to be outside of learning or whatever it is just cause like I've noticed less volatility that way. I don't know if it's just like pure coincidence or just in my head, but what your thoughts there?

Olly Hudson (22:03):

That's interesting. I've not actually tracked percentage just spending, that's something I'd have to like be more intentional tracking myself. Um, something I could ask the team and then reflect on. But um, I think we're just quite aggressive with budgets. If something's working, if we find it creative that works, it's, we usually quite confident to get aggressive with the spend behind it. Um, cause it'll usually hold well and then eventually it'll just working. Um, business allow us, we'll get we'll

Ash Melwani (22:47):

What does that look like for you?

Olly Hudson (22:51):

Um, so again, product specific, if it's something that's very broad with an office, so like low price demo, a like recommended interest, we, we'll test like a and clothing as a stack. We'll try and keep those audiences broad though, because I'd rather benefit from the lowest CPMs on a product like that than than try and like gate it into this like niche niche band of people. Um, we'll test like look like at large, large scale lookalike stacked, um, a bit of everything in, in honesty there. Um, but, but mainly broad. And then once we've got a bit of data, we'll start cutting out segments and trying to down best if it's a niche product then at that point we'd get a little bit more like specific with what we're targeting. Um, so I'm trying to think like if, if again top of my head, if it's something for vegans, then let's, let's like try and segment these very obvious people into, into some sort of targeted group. Um, use the customer list probably more use the use the look likes more than we would with something that's that's very broad.

Ash Melwani (24:10):

Have you done uh, automatic targeting yet?

Olly Hudson (24:13):

Yeah, I, I, I've had mixed experience with it. It works really well for, again, for, I find it works really well for us Niche. Yeah. Like, I dunno if you're a niche products but you're a little bit more niche than like a jewelry, bit like mainstream jewelry. Again, like when I say mainstream jewelry, you think about those like relationship bracelets that you saw on the platform loads at the of the year. Like do, do you need to do automatic targeting when you can pretty much just run it to everybody on the platform? Um, whereas for you, like the learning that TikTok probably gets off the people who actually click on your ads and engage probably allows it learn a lot and then shift that target. So I that that's something that people when they're like, what is your demos than just kind of following what people say they're doing on and stuff like it with those decisions. But yeah, automatic's working for, for us fairly well.

Ash Melwani (25:12):

Nice. Sorry Rob, I'm I'm good on my questions.

Rabah Rahil (25:15):

<laugh>. No, no, those are fantastic questions. No, they're super sensation. I love them. I just had one to make sure we're bringing everybody along. Can you explain what you mean when you say horizontal scaling versus vertical scaling?

Olly Hudson (25:26):

Yeah. Um, so vertical would be basically consultant real consolidated. So if you, well, if you've got, again, if you've got anset that's on like a a thousand a day and you wanna double your budget, then you'd increase the budget on that adset to 2000 a day over a period of time. You wouldn't just w it on like let's go, let's do it, let's just double it now. Uh, whereas horizontal would be like, you'd duplicate that adset, maybe you'd add three more ad two more ad sets at five a day or three more ad sets at 3, 3 50, well, you know what I mean. Um, a day and, and like have more adset rather than one, um, central core campaign and, and core Adset having like that's how we do it again, more due to attitude, to risk more due to like assessing how unstable the platform is and being like, well I wanna insulate against that as much as we can, but I know that other people have success just so everything in one big CBO and just letting it rip. So it's more like treat, try and do what the account likes and, and see, see what it likes and then just follow that. Um, I'm pretty sure Cody still runs. I don't, I haven't actually seen any, anything from what he's doing, but I'm pretty sure he's pretty, he's very much like, spend as little time in the a account as possible. Let's put it all in one, one thing and let's let it run. Um, so yeah, that's just what we do.

Rabah Rahil (26:49):

What would you say to somebody that is like TikTok curious like, Hey Ali, I wanna start bringing TikTok on as an acquisition channel, but I don't know where to start. What advice would you give to that person?

Olly Hudson (27:02):

Uh, consume a lot first, if you've not time on the platform consume interesting. Like a lot of people will come to and any time it's like someone who's mainstream to jump on, so they're gonna naturally treat it like a Facebook or like whatever channel they've been spending money on. So I think it's important to go and consume like the ads library, spend some time on the platform, maybe not too much time, like don't spend eight hours a day like some people do, but, but dive in like consume some brands content like the funnels and, and then see what people are doing and assess how it's obviously an entertainment platform. So like you and that you've got that. Just put, put some ads up and see what metrics you get and then learn off those. Like the data's gonna tell you right, people don't resonate with this video. Use the use like your hooks, your hook metrics, use your watch times, like learn, learn from that information about like what people do and like from there. Cause that's what you really just, just learning iterate and progress.

Rabah Rahil (28:27):

Amazing conversion campaigns only or do you run any other objective?

Olly Hudson (28:32):

Yeah, uh, con we, we only run conversions really. Um, Okay. We, we did, so we did some hashtag targeting them run video views and that kind worked. It's a bit of a hack though. I don't know if I wouldn't recommend it if then if you first starting out, just keep it simple, you'll have to warm the pixel, which is a bit annoying, but um, you can, you can kinda skip that to a degree now you just put it on cart and just let it run for a few days and switch to purchase.

Rabah Rahil (28:55):

Yeah. Amazing. And then last question is, so I can't repurpose any content. So if I have this big library of from say Facebook or something like that, you would not recommend somebody. So say I I did all the Ollie check marks of, I played with the platform, I understand what my users want, I have kind of a ideal customer profile in my head, I'm kind of understanding the, the funnel, the flow, et cetera, et cetera. I have all these prerequisites but now I don't have any content. Do you wait and find like either like hire your agency for UGC or somebody that can make videos for TikTok or do you just try and let it rip with, you know, repurposing some things like possibly I have some vertical video from Facebook or Snapchat or something like that. Can that work? Or is it exclusively built for tick hop?

Olly Hudson (29:44):

I think it depends on the video. I think you've gotta go and look at those videos and like be a bit like honest with yourself and Leo after I've just done all this research, does this fit what I've just told myself is needed for this platform? If it does then and there's, to be honest, there's no harm in spending like $50 a day for a few days and seeing what data you get warm up the pixel while she's producing the content, maybe like get some data, get the pixel going, make the content at the same time rather than waiting. Um, but yeah, I I I I'm doubtful that you, you'd get that much success repurposing. There's always gonna be outliers to that. There's people who are gonna be already making pretty good content and just transfers well or it fit all their brand just naturally fits it or the office so strong that it works. Um, but yeah, I think I would, I would, I would find a few creators. Creators aren't hard to find. You can find them on Twitter. You can come and use like us, you can use like, um, incense, so many different platforms. Just make sure your briefs are good cause people, creators are a bit loose sometimes. Um, and then yeah, just get some videos and go for it.

Rabah Rahil (30:51):

Amazing. Um, Ash, have you seen any cross pollination? Do you guys ever do that where, cuz you guys have some fantastic creatives, um, for Facebook and TikTok, but um, do you ever double purpose them or is it strictly pretty much only Facebook or Facebook or do you at all ever bring TikTok creator into the Facebook ecosystem?

Ash Melwani (31:13):

Yeah, um, Facebook to TikTok didn't work and, but again, we, we tried that in April May. Um, I'm noticing a lot of like, like you said, smile direct and like there's another one who, who's really like slamming almost like banner ads on TikTok. I forgot it was, but like, it's been running for a while so I, I have to imagine they're seeing some type of success, but like, I might have to try it again. But TikTok ads on Facebook Crush, like that's, that's a no brainer. I feel like every single video right now on Facebook is a TikTok because they're pushing real so hard. So like that placement, if you're not using that placement, like your, your media mix needs to include that. So yeah, I mean that's like the bulk of what's performing video wise on our like Facebook account. Um, and the thing is they last a lot longer than they do on TikTok. So we have like a, a ton of content that we haven't even tested yet. Um, but yeah, I I'm, I'm interested to see if it now works knowing that people anticipate ads on TikTok more, if that makes sense.

Olly Hudson (32:26):

I I, I'd also be interested to know if like if you are one of those brands that are shifting really high spend then can you then maybe pull in some middle and bottom of funnel targeting with some of these more facebooky offer led like product focus, discount focus stuff that's that's already watched your already engaged the community. Maybe that's just

Rabah Rahil (32:57):

Uh, super fascinating. Where do you guys see the TikTok ecosystem kind of maturing and going to, cuz it did, it does seem like there's some, some space shifts where there was that old adage don't make ads, make talks. And I I think to your point, Ash, it's kind of inverting now, right? Where it's like make ads and put 'em on TikTok <laugh> and so it's kind of like a, you know what is old is new again. And so no, I'm just seeing that just anecdotally for me, the ads that I, it's uh, you know, scrub at ease and all these things of like really fun in platform stuff. But I to your point, I think people are, it's almost like the hipsters are stopping not drinking PBR anymore because everybody's drinking PBR and so now they're drinking a Bud Light or something like, like it's just this weird inversion of like what used to be so novel everybody jumped on the boat or I like to call it the Waze effect.

(33:48):

I don't know if you guys use Waze, but Waze will give you like these little, it's the navigation app and it'll give you like these little back roads to like figure it out through a traffic jam. But then there's a certain amount of people that are taking that little back road and then that back road gets traffic jammed. So I'm just kind of figuring out where, where we're going here. So I'll start with you OIE and then we'll go to you Ash, what do you think in the next like four to six months or especially cuz we're, we're about to hit our tax season, right? Like Q4 is is where the money's made for almost all businesses and that's pretty much a month away. So you have maybe, I don't know, 15, 20 days to get your armies mobilized. So what do you thinking is gonna happen here in terms of we also have some really interesting macroeconomic headwinds as well. So where, where are your thoughts Ollie?

Olly Hudson (34:34):

I think long, longer term the stability will get better. I think they need to figure out that hold targeting and, and like just, yeah, a lot of what we've talked about like buckets and creative cause it definitely happens if they can figure that out and they can allow you to expand beyond that initial pool of people and, and, and it would, it would turn into more of like a long term. You can, you can put creative what you can run it for a long period. I think one big shift is like, I, I think there's a real, and Ash may disagree, but I think there's um, there's a lot of u GC creators, but there's only 10% of really good u GC creators. Um, and like we've got, we've got some really good u GC creators on, on our roster, but there's also, there'll be a lot of brands who are, who are going and UTCs who aren't good, um, and therefore not getting the results they wanting. So i's that's like be shortage moment.

(35:37):

Um, so I think that might be a bit of a struggle for Q4 for some brands is like getting the right content, getting it, getting those UTCs on board. Um, I'd be interested to see like, I think as I said, offers offers SMASH on TikTok. So like in theory if if that carries to Black Friday, then Black Friday should, should be crazy on there. Um, again, whether, whether we can support this type of spend numbers that people are gonna wanna move through the platform, no idea until we try it, it's, it's, it's, it was nowhere near the same platform last year. We spent some decent money but not, not anywhere to what we're gonna probably put through in November this year. Um, I dunno if there's anything, anything else. I think the, like most of the targeting I I'd say will stay the same for, for now. I think it'll stay like broad or automatic. Obviously we just wanna keep testing it'll, it'll stay like Facebook took a long time to get to a point where it was, it was more saturated, it was, it was more like formula and its approach. So I imagine TikTok will probably be the same for while.

(36:41):

What do you think Ash?

Ash Melwani (36:43):

Yeah, I think, um, let me let start with the structure. I think, I think over time the platform will get a little bit better at discovery, right? So like for example, let's say, let's call it like first time impression ratio, right? Um, I would say that it'll start to get better because I was talking to somebody who works at TikTok, some of you guys may know him from Twitter and stuff. Um, but he said that the algorithm for the for you page and the algorithm for the ads is different. So what you're into on your for you page may not reflect what ads you see And interesting, I would've thought that was their biggest, I guess, advantage when it came down to the platform, right? So I think when they figure that out, the balance between the two, that's where it kind of opens up, all right, instead of just circling for the same people, it'll start opening up the gateway to get a little bit more discovery from, from more people outside of what TikTok thinks is this content is relevant for Right.

(37:55):

Um, two, I think we're gonna start moving towards higher quality video, standing out more in the ads side of things. Um, I also do think there's gonna be a little bit of a relaxation in terms of like how organic things need to look because people are going to expect ads in the feed. Um, for example, last week we ran at talking about the collagen, but at the end we really pitched the offer, which we, we don't usually do. It's a very soft um, oh if you're looking to, you know, improve hair skin to nails, you should definitely check out Avi. This was like click order now and get four samples for 1199. Like a, like a closed, like a, a direct cta and that was the best performing ad the last two weeks. So I think people are expecting to get ads. I think people are expecting to like now get sold on and once that starts to kind of become the norm, I think this is where the platform becomes a little bit more, sorry, a little less volatile and becomes an actual channel for like pretty solid spend for the brands that can nail that.

(39:11):

I still think content is going to be king, it's just what type of content is it I think is going to change over the next few months.

Olly Hudson (39:19):

Just just to touch on it's

Rabah Rahil (39:22):

Interesting.

Olly Hudson (39:22):

Oh sorry, go on. I was just on page don't striking I hard for like, like seeing some of my mates for you pages are just like, just, it's just like such funny videos that have no relevance to any like macro topic in life. So it's like how do you use that data? It's like some guy running down the beach eating, eating crisps really quickly. It's like, like what is this video? Um, it's like its, and I also think if you your for, well I guess you could play that to your advantage, your you changes so quick if you start engaging with something. I think that the platform's gonna be a really interesting place over the 20 20 20 US election. I know it's quite far away, but like you think about like how Facebook didn't deal with that well. Um, and they're just having to deal with paid ads, like's organic algorithms gonna be gonna be so like, almost like weapon in that environment to certain people certain and it's polarized headaches related to, I won't go for the tangent. Um, but yeah,

Rabah Rahil (40:42):

I'm tracking what you're saying though cuz um, so one of the, my biggest ways to feel rich is Spotify premium and YouTube premium. Like I love it. I hate ads and so like these are like not that much money and they're fantastic but I'll go to hotels when I'm traveling or whatever and they'll have YouTube and so we watch a lot of YouTube at my house and so like YouTube premium and we watch it on the TV in the living room. And to your point, it's crazy when you see a logged out version versus your actual homepage and I feel like the logged out YouTube, uh, homepage is very similar to a four U page on TikTok for somebody that does that lurks a lot that basically just kind of doesn't give the algorithm that much interaction. So it is, it is fascinating that you say that because um, that for me that analog is just really strong.

(41:30):

If you guys ever want just open it incognito tab and go to youtube.com and like these are the top videos that you're showing me YouTube, this is crazy. Whereas like when you actually interact with the algorithm, it's actually really good. Um, so I do see that there's gonna be some, some issues there or, or as, as things progress and people kind of understand what to do and how to do it, it gets into a bit of a chicken and egg problem, right? Like they moved algorithm and then the people kind of have it, it's a, it's almost like the old hat, right? Like SEO cause it's the exact same thing with seo, like used to stuff, keywords and all these things and blah blah blah and then that stopped working, then you did this thing and then do that thing. So, um, so those are really interesting, really interesting predictions.

(42:11):

I think that uh, I'm pretty much a lot of both of you guys. I don't, I think the spend is gonna go up. I still think Google and Facebook or Facebook in specific and Google will still be king. I think they're gonna spend a ton. Um, I think TikTok will be a much bigger third channel, but my, the big impediment that I see to TikTok is just there's not enough O Hudsons or Ash Milanis in the world where it's just a big lift. I don't know anybody that's like TikTok is easy where I know a lot of people that's like if you get your Facebook right, like it's not that it's like quote unquote easy but I like the word you use Ollie. It's formulaic where it's more of a science and you can kind of run this machine where TikTok is just a lot of f and work.

(42:55):

Yeah, you gotta source people and then to ashe's point, even if you do get all that in line, uh, and I love this phrase too, I'm gonna steal it from you. Ashes create her fatigue where it's like you're just kind of running through. And that's kind of what we've seen a little bit just us anecdotally is we, we get, we run a lot of ugc but it's hard for us to run UGC because one, we have to find people that are actually know what they're talking about marketing two, we have to find people that have a triple oil account cause we don't currently have a demo account. So there's just all these headwinds for us. Um, and what we found with TikTok, cuz we actually had a pretty strong organic presence on there for a while. There was no business relevance, like nothing spilled over. So we'd have videos pop off to like 2 million views or something and you wouldn't fill it. And so that was the the other thing for us where it was just really challenging. So I don't know, I I'm pretty bullish on TikTok. You've brought me back around Ollie. I just think that there's a lot of headwinds in terms of, Yeah, the the other thing too is like that stability, right? Like, I don't know anybody possibly probably that is,

Olly Hudson (44:00):

It's just like, it takes, obviously our job is to spend your, our time in the other account for the business. But like if you are, it's like it takes comparing it to how much time like a Facebook media buyer for us in our other agency is more content strategy, funnel strategy, helping them optimize various elements like shifting product focused as we move stock around. Like whereas our TikTok media buy is like, oh, like we're just gonna spend all day testing and, and and and like chopping and changing ads. Um, so yeah, I think that's so it it is definitely different. Um, I do think on the creator fatigue, I think like, and this is again, I not, we don't do this currently as a service, but like this is how I, I feel like if you, if your demo is somewhat younger, a community is a, is a way to to to fill that void.

(44:52):

Like if you are targeting like below 25, there is gonna be a lot of people in that who are making videos, actively making videos on TikTok and if you can incentivize them to make videos for you, then you're already making content. You obviously you maybe have to put 'em through a funnel that teaches them how to make videos within your brand guidelines, but that's not hard to make. Um, and that might produce like a positive flywheel effect as well and get. So I think you can, there's ways to, its definitely harder to those systems where you can just a single on it rights still possible to systemize it but then it also makes a higher barrier to entry. So maybe it'll stay easier to get good results for those who are willing to do it for longer.

Rabah Rahil (45:40):

Yeah, I'm with you there. Well ti tidying up this and then we'll go into the last question is, um, to your point, I think that the UGC market is super saturated right now and you can get really turned off because you're gonna go through five to six, maybe even eight or nine creators to your point because there's only really like 10% of creators that are actually quality to understand X, Y and z and things of that nature. So there's also that headwind as well. We're finding good UGCs, like finding UGC is not hard, but finding quality UGC is can be quite the task sometimes and you have to, you have to be willing to lose a little bit to find that person and I think some people aren't really willing to make that bet yet. And so, um, that's the other challenge again that I see for TikTok is like, it's just really difficult to make Yeah.

(46:25):

Uh, creative and then even if you do find a creative that wins, it goes back to that stability issue. Like it, it wins for like two seconds and so it's just this viral thing that then dies out and you're like, okay cool. And you're kind of in a loop just chasing, trying to find lightning in the bottle. But, um, okay, last question for you guys. What are you guys doing to prepare for Black Friday, Cyber Monday? Any tips, tactics? What do you think it's gonna be like bigger this year, smaller this year? Um, gimme some color there. We'll start with you Ash and then we'll go to you Ollie.

Ash Melwani (46:55):

I'm gonna try and test my theory on the direct offers and like see if that performs well. So if that does then obviously Black Friday I'm gonna go heavy on offer specific content. Um, other than that really just getting a backlog of content ready to go. Um, just testing as much as I can to deploy. And then I, I really think that's it. Maybe just dedicated, um, offers for TikTok, like all you mentioned. Um, you know, it's very, very specific to the platform, um, and just really, you know, trying to, to nail what that funnel looks like. And then I, I know there's one thing that we didn't talk about, which um, we did see some success was with like instant pages. So instead of using like landing pages, actually using the instant page experience where you can build out like listicals or just editorials directly on TikTok. So as soon as you hit shop now really boom. Instant page. Yeah, like that experience is very interesting. I've played around with it and it's done decent so I'm maybe I'll experiment for that for, for Black Friday. But I think, um, backlog of content testing specific offers and then specif landing pages just for for TikTok? Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (48:06):

Early sales at all or are you gonna do the normal calendar?

Ash Melwani (48:10):

I I think we'll do, I know last year we did the full month of November, I mm-hmm <affirmative> think I want to, I don't know if I wanna do that this year. I wanna maybe start closer to Black Friday cause I feel like the sentiment is like not there anymore. But that's a, that's a,

Olly Hudson (48:25):

We track another pod. We, we track that across our client base last year and we got more efficiency doing it over a short timeframe than doing it longer. Longer you peak and you just get this of real inefficiency then you another results.

(48:48):

What about you oie? Uh, so it is a bit of an unknown. As I said like last year we just run loads on top of funnel this year. We are, we we're build we're gonna build more of like a funnel structure around the cause it's basically, cause it's actually retargeting functionality nowadays than the pretty much wasn't. Um, we're also gonna bring in some of these ads that are a lot more like Facebooking, more like bottom of middle of funnel like offer driven ads. Especially for those who have spent a lot of money over the last six months where they're gonna have decent brand recognition on the platform anyway. Um, creative backlog a lot of time in the other accounts is definitely gonna happen. A lot of cost caps is gonna definitely occur as well. Like the cost caps that I think will, will allow you to see some insanely low CPMs and cost per clicks through that period.

(49:33):

Um, probably lower than you've ever seen on TikTok. Like sub $1, probably sub 10 p consistently for a period of time. Um, but yeah, beyond that it's gonna be, it's gonna be a testing different things on different accounts to be honest. It's, it's, it's, we're not gonna sit here and lie and say we're gonna be like, oh this is our structure that's gonna work for everybody. It's not, it's not the way we can approach it cause we've not really ripped it before. So, um, yeah, you're gonna try and approach it as best we can on the instant pages. Amazing. The instant pages are good and I also think they're good because in app browser is horrendous, which doesn't help. Like it's so slow. They need to solve that asap. Yeah. So yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:14):

Yeah, that's also I think the snap issue as well. Like the, you get to that external and it's just like, it's such a terrible experience. Like I'm not gonna, if you do buy, you're like I'm gonna buy later. Yeah, whatever. Like it's just so hard to get that direct conversion sometimes. Cause that experience is is quite atrocious. That's

Olly Hudson (50:29):

Why I think branded Google is massive off talk. It's that's

Rabah Rahil (50:34):

Fair.

Olly Hudson (50:35):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:35):

You're just gonna search it and grab it. Um, alright, you guys ready for the creepy question?

Olly Hudson (50:40):

God, this is a thing I'm terrible at. Quick fire question.

Rabah Rahil (50:46):

It's just a creepy question. The, it's not like ro as rapid fire, it's just one creepy question and we'll even let you go second. Um, alright Ash, if you had to choose and bet on a pirate versus Ninja who you bet on who's gonna win the fight?

Ash Melwani (51:07):

Ninja. I feel like Ninja ninja's like such a day. Yeah, hundred percent. Hundred. All day.

Rabah Rahil (51:12):

All day. All day. Okay. Team Ninja, what about you Oie?

Olly Hudson (51:15):

Do pirates have pirates have guns? Don't they like ninjas have those weird things that they can, I think it's 50 pirates got one shot. Hasn't has to do the whole reload.

Rabah Rahil (51:28):

Usually care. They, that's why they carried so many weapons. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why they carried so many guns because they didn't ever refill or uh, a reload. They would just shoot the guns and a lot of times they're faulting.

Olly Hudson (51:40):

I'm gonna go ninja cause I think you'll hop around too much and you'll miss and then just, just throw one of those stars and it's over.

Rabah Rahil (51:47):

That's fair. I gotta go pirate just because they're scrappy <laugh>. I know. I feel like they'll get it done. Maybe fake like they're dead. And the ninja's on. That's

Ash Melwani (51:55):

What I, I was thinking

Rabah Rahil (51:56):

Like a pirate will do something sketchy cuz it's a win at all cost kind of guy or gal. Yeah. Versus uh, a ninjas is an honorable person, but uh, two ninja one pirate. Yeah, I like it you guys. It was good logic. It's good logic. I take it. Good. It's good. Ollie. Tell the people where they can find you. Tell them how to get more involved with. So with us, you're a TikTok agency this time is yours my friend.

Olly Hudson (52:17):

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter mainly Oliver w Hudson. Um, yeah, we've got obviously two agencies. If you're looking for anything TikTok related, we've got fo advertising.com. We've getting a new website. I've had a lot of beef for the website on Twitter recently, so try not to gimme any anymore <laugh>. Um, it's coming soon. And then if you're looking for anything beyond that, anything general e then we've got your full service agency. So find us there. Thank you for having us on.

Rabah Rahil (52:43):

Amazing, amazing. Of course, Anytime Ash, you know what to do. Tell the folks what happens if they drive by Vitamin shop. Do they need to pull the youi?

Ash Melwani (52:54):

If you pass the vitamin shop and you don't pull the ey, I don't want ever talk to me again. <laugh>. Go to a vitamin shop, go to the beauty section, find Avie, put it up on the top shop. I'm just kidding. Take a picture, tag me on, uh, tag me on Twitter, which you could follow me there at as for Melani, um, also on Mentor Pass, if you need any help with paid Facebook, TikTok, this and that, um, I'm your guy. And, um, I think that's, I think that's it. I think

Rabah Rahil (53:24):

That's it. Be on the lookout. The, uh, November Q4 come help these guys out. Buy all that amazing collagen fruity cereal bars are amazing. And then you said you had, uh, a new one for me.

Ash Melwani (53:36):

New one coming out tomorrow. So by the time this launches I'll probably already be out, but I can't tell you.

Rabah Rahil (53:41):

Okay. Tell me

Ash Melwani (53:43):

Mint chocolate chip. Ooh.

Rabah Rahil (53:45):

Oh, is that the one that you were trying, Everyone was trying to get us? Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, they're so good. Good ice cream flavor.

Ash Melwani (53:51):

They're so good. You guys sent out a bunch of stuff. Insane. I'm gonna have to send you some raa It's, Please, please. Yeah. Have you had those Andy chocolates?

Rabah Rahil (53:58):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Ash Melwani (53:59):

It's, that's it. Exactly

Rabah Rahil (54:02):

It. After this, after the Sizzler Buffet baby, I grabbed me a couple. Andy Fish bash Bosh, close it out.

Ash Melwani (54:07):

Exactly, Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (54:09):

I have that. Amazing. Ooh, I'm looking forward to those. That's fantastic. Ooh. Right before the Q4 too. Great timing. Yep. Great timing. If you folks wanna get more involved with Triple Well, we are triple well.com. We're on the Bird app at Triple Well. And then we have a wonderful newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday called Whale Mail. You can subscribe right on our website, triple.com/whale mail. Um, and that's it. That's all in the books. If you do wanna hire me, I am on Mentor Pass as well. I'm also mentor Sneaker Habit. I gotta send you the, Oh, look at this. The triple. Yeah, we're all always amazing. Get get you some time with Ollie Hudson. Amazing. Yeah, shout out Kenny. Uh, I gotta send you my new office setup. Ash, you're gonna love it. My sneakers are in the office. I ran a poll and um, the sneakers won out instead of the bar cart, so we have sneakers in the office, so we'll send that out. Uh, what else? Yeah, folks, and if you do enjoy this podcast, share with your friend, uh, subscribe. It's available on YouTubes and then your favorite podcast catcher. Um, and that's all we got. Thanks so much again for your time, Ali, you're the best. Get, get out to Austin soon, Ash. Hopefully everything kind of quote unquote works out for you. And I get to see you in Austin in a couple weeks. And, uh, yes, that's it. It's another ad spin in the books. Thanks for joining us, everybody.

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