Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Cody Plofker
Director of E-Commerce Jones Road Beauty

Cody Plofker on Managing an 8 Figure A Year Brand

Cody Plofker the Head of Marketing at Jones Road stops by to share his journey from S & C coach to media buying savant. He articulates some macro takeaways on how he structures budget and pontificates on the epicness of jet skiing. The force is strong with this one...*Editor's note: I forget to switch my headphones. There is a little echo in the first couple mins that goes away. Sowwwwy. Won't happen again :)#ROAS

Notes & Links

📧Subscribe to Whale Mail for exclusive industry insights and in-depth marketing breakdowns: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tripl...

🐦 Follow us on Twitter for Industry insights https://twitter.com/triplewhale

Cody's Twitter - https://twitter.com/codyplof

Jones Road - https://jonesroadbeauty.com/

Transcription

Rabah Rahil (00:11):

All right. Folks, we are live for another episode of you are not your RO, as you might see somebody missing max blank is out doing superhero stuff right now, and he will be back for the next one. So you'll just be stuck with me, but, but to make up for that, I have an extra special guest Cody. Flocker the DTC Titan, the makeup Maven, the PT specialist is here to drop bombs for us. Cody. Welcome.

Cody Plofker (00:40):

What's up, man? Thanks for having me having

Rabah Rahil (00:41):

Me. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, as always I'm in our Austin HQ in Cody, where does this podcast find you?

Cody Plofker (00:49):

I'm in New Jersey suburbs of New York city, just across the river, New Jersey, New Jersey.

Rabah Rahil (00:54):

Oh, fantastic. And you went to school out there? Yeah,

Cody Plofker (00:57):

I actually went to school in Oregon. I'm I'm from here. So I'm from Montclair, New Jersey, but I actually went to school I out in Oregon, in Oregon and then was far away just decided to, to move back, move

Rabah Rahil (01:05):

Back. Oh, I love it. Um, what'd you study?

Cody Plofker (01:08):

I studied exercise science, actually science

Rabah Rahil (01:10):

Actually. Oh, okay. That's where the PT stuff comes in. Yeah. That we'll get to. Okay, cool. Cause, okay. Yeah. So take us into that. So you got into exercise science, you got that. And then recently married and you are business partners as well, correct?

Cody Plofker (01:24):

Yeah, exactly. So when I graduated, even when I was school, like I, I was strength, strength and conditioning coach. So love it, you know, was, was really into training, really into strength and conditioning. Um, did that for a bit. So I started training like NFL athletes started training, like doing some combine stuff and then just probably not the best employee. Wasn't happy where I was at. So, um, my girlfriend who was, or my now wife was girlfriend at the time is a physical therapist, decided we should start our own business cuz we couldn't figure out anything else better to do. And we thought it would be easy. And, and you know, um, that was probably about five, six years ago. Um, and just since then learned a ton really got, you know, I, I wanted to be a strength coach cuz I thought it was cool to wear gym clothes all day and, and work out and not do business stuff.

Cody Plofker (02:09):

Ironically, I actually ended up falling in love with the business stuff. Didn't really care as much for training and, and that lifestyle. So I, I, I have a very addictive personality, so I just got hooked on marketing and just once I learned it, because I, I knew so little, I had, I just always thought that if you were good, people would come and obviously that's important, but actually understanding how to get the word out and how to message people and just got absolutely hooked on marketing to the point where it's like, just all I've studied since then. And um, you know, Facebook ads specifically, but, but definitely try to be a little bit of a generalist. And that brings me to where I'm at today. Uh, I'm director of eCommerce of Jones row beauty. So it's a pretty new clean skin, um, cosmetics and, and skincare brand. It's actually a family company. So my mom is, is pretty well known. She's the founder of it. Um, and they brought me on to help with, you know, how cool growing, growing this, you know, DT T DTC company, we're, we're just director, consumer, um, completely self-funded, but growing really fast, we just ha passed our first year and well over eight figures. So things are going pretty well. So far

Rabah Rahil (03:16):

Business is booming, baby. That's fantastic. Appreciate it. So tell me that transition so I can see the overlap. So I, I'm kind of an odd bird as well. I came from economics and I wanted to be an investment banker and then, um, got into technology and then jumped into marketing. But tell me that the S and C kind of like, so that, that just spilled over. How did you skill up or were you always kind of analytical or like, tell me a little about that cuz kind of, I, I know a lot of trainers, I was in the CrossFit world in specific for a really long time and they're fantastic people, but they're so far from kind of to be Frank, like how skilled up you are and how did you do it in such a short amount of time?

Cody Plofker (03:55):

That's a good question. I mean, I've always, again just been like super single track minded. So like when I was in strengthen conditioning, like I would just read nonstop. I would like be on the beach reading like Russian science textbooks. Like, like there's definitely something wrong with me. So just kind of get super obsessive about things. Um, and you know, I, I realize especially, you know, as I got older and had a business, like, you know, it's really hard to focus on everything and I really started liking the business stuff way more than, than I would've thought. Um, and I, I guess it just became kind of a, you know, a passion thing and, and kind of became obsessed about it. So yeah, I mean, I, I originally kind of learned from, we did like a marketing class. We, we, our business was pretty much running outta money. We had like seven grand left in the bank. We were like, holy shit. Like we gotta figure out what we're doing or like we gotta close the doors. Like we'll have to put more money in. And so we spent half of that on like a, uh, on a marketing for physical therapist, like class, like kind of, of course, pretty much a mastermind. And he exposed us to like Dan Kennedy. I don't know if you're familiar, like

Rabah Rahil (05:03):

Not particularly. Yeah, yeah,

Cody Plofker (05:04):

Yeah. Okay. Just like, like all of this like direct response, like lead gen stuff. Okay. Like direct response copywriting and just like, absolutely like blew my mind and just kind of got super hooked on it. Um, and from there just kind of continue just to study and, and, and nonstop and just get, you know, went further and further towards, towards e-com and, you know, Facebook ads definitely was kind of thing that I focused on the most, but I don't, I definitely don't think I'm the best Facebook buyer, but I, I think I try to be pretty well rounded and understanding overall, you know, psychology and you know, how to message to people. And then also I'm definitely not like a numbers guy at heart, but just trying to understand like the analytics and the financial side of it, I think has made a huge difference.

Rabah Rahil (05:49):

Yeah. I think that's kind of, one of the interesting parts right now is, um, like if you came up in like the last four to six years or so maybe even four to eight years, you really didn't even need to care about profit. You didn't even care about any of these things where like the channels were just so successful. You could use channel metrics and now it's just like, man, it is just crazy town out there. That's so cool. Um, okay. Kind of switching gears a little bit, maybe get to know you a little bit deeper. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Cody Plofker (06:18):

The nicest thing someone's done for me recently or anytime,

Rabah Rahil (06:23):

Anytime,

Cody Plofker (06:23):

Man. That's such a hard question. My mom giving me a job

Rabah Rahil (06:31):

There. Hey, there you

Cody Plofker (06:32):

Go. Does that count? Is that a cop out?

Rabah Rahil (06:33):

Yeah, absolutely. Shout out mom. Hey. Um, and then, so what's your favorite part in terms of running all these things? Like, was it cause are you still, you're still part of the PT business?

Cody Plofker (06:48):

Uh, we're actually in the process of selling it right now, which hope was hoping to be wrapped up by now. Um, all right. So now I definitely not, not enjoying that. Um, <laugh> near nearly as much cuz to, to be honest, I love the, again, the marketing, the business side, but you know yeah. The patient care and stuff like that. It's, it's not definitely what my, what I feel like my calling is anymore. So definitely I'm just hooked on direct to consumer. I, I think it's amazing. I mean, I think everything I'm wearing right now is probably from a DTC company. Like yeah, everything. Like, I, I just, I just love it. And I'm just obsessed with that.

Rabah Rahil (07:22):

What's one of your favorite like DTC darlings, what's one of your favorite companies out there that's you think is doing some awesome stuff.

Cody Plofker (07:28):

I've been a magic spoon fan for a while. Try to eat pretty healthy, but I still have like a, you know, a sweet tooth, so loves some magic spoon and, and I think the product is great. Gotta Ali pop right here. A little pop.

Rabah Rahil (07:40):

Hey, what's up? Eli

Cody Plofker (07:42):

Have, have one of those like almost every day after work.

Rabah Rahil (07:45):

Yeah, yeah,

Cody Plofker (07:45):

Yeah. Um, I use supply razor. That's been great. Yeah. Um, and then I just got these like cuts, um, cuts pants. I was telling my wife like a month ago I was like, girls are so lucky they get to wear like, you know, leggings to work and also like, oh for sure. You know, they're super comfy. And like, you know, like I had some Lu lemon pants that, that were pretty good, the ABCs, but like these pants they're called the AO joggers. Like legitimately feel like sweatpants, but like, I, I can wear 'em to work, like no problem. Yep. So I bought my first pair like two weeks ago. Um, and I just bought the second one, like a week after cuz I, I wore 'em for two days and I'm like, I'm wearing these like every day from now came 'em over. So yeah, those are a few of my favorites.

Rabah Rahil (08:26):

I have to check out cuts. I see there they're ads sometimes. Um, so I have to give 'em a shoutout, but uh, that's fantastic. What are some

Cody Plofker (08:32):

Of your favorite jogger?

Rabah Rahil (08:35):

Um, I like, uh, pool suite. So, uh, Marty vacation ink does it's like this super eighties brand and they have just fun merch and stuff like that. Okay. Um, last crumb cookie is like the super

Cody Plofker (08:48):

Have you had 'em

Rabah Rahil (08:50):

Yeah, I got 'em they're they're insanely expensive. They're fantastic. But you gotta be, they

Cody Plofker (08:53):

Have to, you gotta be like 30 seconds. Right?

Rabah Rahil (08:56):

I, I missed them like five times and I finally got 'em. So what we're talking about people, um, is this company called last scrum cookie out of LA and they make these incredible cookies. Their branding's amazing. Like everything is incredible, but, but they're pretty much impossible to get in. They're 140 bucks for like 12 cookies. So it's a little spicy, but I had to try it out. I had to try it out. Looks

Cody Plofker (09:18):

So good. I know. I thought I was gonna get time. I got like the text right as they launched and like I know honestly, 15, 30 seconds later it was too late.

Rabah Rahil (09:26):

Yep. Yeah. Um, muddy bites. I don't know. I'm pretty sure muddy bites is DTC. He might be doing some wholesaler stuff now. Um, but muddy bites is pretty strong native cos the all natural deodorants I

Cody Plofker (09:36):

Use native. Yeah. I love just the founding story and everything and

Rabah Rahil (09:40):

Yeah. So cool. And yeah. Yeah. He's great. Yeah. Yeah. Um, fantastic questions. All right, Cody, you made it through the main segment UN phase. I should have known the strength and conditioning's coming back out then during is still there. My friend we done

Cody Plofker (09:53):

<laugh>

Rabah Rahil (09:54):

Okay. So this is why people bought the ticket. This is the value add segment. So we're gonna kind of go deeper into the weeds kind of some nerdy stuff. Um, so in specific for like Jones, beauty, or for your DTC client kind of if you were taking on a DTC client. Yeah. How do you think about like deploying paid media in terms of like channel and like just kind of give us a peak into your, uh, process there?

Cody Plofker (10:16):

Yeah, for sure. Definitely. I think this question would be, so my answer would be so different a year ago, two years ago. Right. I probably would've gotten like super tactical and talked about like messaging or like account structure or something like that. And now I feel like it's like business fundamentals first. So, you know, there's a saying, this is actually Dan Kennedy's thing, but like whoever can spend the most to acquire a customer wins. It's it's just like, you have to make sure your business is actually set up to succeed on Facebook. And, and what that means is first of all, you have the proper margins. Like your margins are actually good enough above 75%. Um, you don't need, I don't wanna say you need LTV, but it totally helps. Excuse me, if you're a single purchase business and you don't have high LTV, you have to be profitable on first purchase.

Cody Plofker (11:04):

That's just gonna be really, really difficult, especially if you're trying to grow and scale. Um, so those are extremely important. And then I think also organic traffic, I think a lot of people don't talk enough about this, but understanding really what, what matters is not what's in your ad account, you are not your robot. I'll I'll plug the show a little bit right there. What really matters is, is what you got at the end of the day, right? Like what, what your cash flow looks like at the end of the day. And so it's super important to understand two things is like your overall C your blended C if you have, you know, a hundred dollars, um, CPA on Facebook, if you believe that, you know, and you get 75% of your traffic paid 25% organically, you're sitting at a $75 blended C if you're at 50 50 paid to organic, which is what I think you, you want to be at, even without, without moving your, your paid CPA numbers at all, you're gonna be at a $50 pack, just a lot safer again, it's just a lot safer. Your overall C is better. So you're gonna just be left with better profit and more ability to grow and, and do so without having to worry about running outta cash.

Rabah Rahil (12:16):

Yeah. I absolutely love that. I was actually just watching. That's such a phenomenal answer. I, I love that to the moon. The, I was watching, uh, really interesting, um, YouTube video and they were talking about nations that are, it's called the resource curse and economics where nations that are have a lot of natural resources. A lot of times don't develop very quickly. And the reason for that is basically the wealth gets concentrated. And so for me, I forgot where I was going with that, but <laugh> long. And the short I was wondering it was, yeah, I was, I just totally missed it. It'll come back to me. But understanding the economics of the business is just so huge. I I've said this before, but I had a client that I brought on where he made a million dollars last year in revenues and he netted a negative 22 K like that ain't the path dude.

Rabah Rahil (13:03):

That is not the path. And there's just so many, um, businesses that in a lot of ways, just aren't situated for page yet. Like they're just not ready for it. And there's ways you could still spend, right? Like you could batch it around in, in the little spurts here and there do give away something like that. But in terms of like paid I'm with you, I think you need to build that ecosystem in terms of you want about 25 to 30% of revenues coming from email. You wanna have that, uh, nice organic that you're talking about. And to your point, that's exactly what I look at as well is essentially like the ecosystem performance. Because if my email can start popping off, then I can scale paid more because I know once we get people into this ecosystem, that lift to your point, when you start to blend the metrics, you can see that lift there.

Rabah Rahil (13:48):

It's there where it's like, oh man paid, isn't doing any better, but we're making way more money. Oh, this is great. Like, okay, cool. Well, let's turn it up and jokingly enough, uh, another podcast, but like what's old is new where now it's essentially about incre mentality where it's like, okay, cool. Let's turn up paid or we're making more money. Cool. Turn down paid. We make less money. All right. Let's kind of do this cuz attribution just fucked. Sure. Like it's just, there's gonna be really no way to get channel attribution again. I think the incentives are just so misaligned where apple wants privacy and they have their own ad network. So it's like they have zero incentive to roll anything back, if anything, um, they're gonna go harder in the pain on it.

Cody Plofker (14:25):

Exactly. Totally. A hundred percent agree with you. It's what's in your ad account is almost pointless. It's almost meaningless. Like you can be profitable and you could have some terrible metrics in there. And you know, and I always used to wonder, like, I, I didn't know this early in, in, in being so new to this industry, like what's a good ROS and obviously you saw all these screenshot numbers and it's like, what's a good, do I, do I need a four? Like, do I need a three? Like I, I don't even know what, what good is. And, and, and it is funny cuz there is no good, it's completely dependent on your business. Finances, your risk tolerance, you know, your what, what payback periods you're optimizing for. But yeah, I think that's the most important thing. Like don't start running traffic, don't start buying ads until you know that stuff.

Rabah Rahil (15:08):

Yep. I, I, I love that. I think it's so, so underrated and it's so lost. I think again, like a lot of people didn't have to worry about like the economics of the business and it's just really, it's so essential, man. You can't just sell $20 bills for $10 and then go to your client, look like, oh, we got a five X row ads. That's fantastic. But we're down 25% month over month in revenue. Like what? And so I love that. Um, okay, cool. So tell me kind of, what do you think some of the biggest challenges are facing, um, DTC e-com owners right now? What are the big headwinds?

Cody Plofker (15:42):

I, I, I feel like I don't wanna sound like probably every other guest you've had and anybody in DTC on a podcast right now, but obviously it's Facebook costs are up at an all time high and um, you know, Facebook is still trying to grow. They're still trying to, trying to, you know, hit, hit their revenue targets and then also, you know, attribution, I mean, so it's, it's kind of two things that people talk about is attribution, not actually knowing what's driving sales, not actually knowing how our ads are performing. And then obviously because of that data loss, you know, reduced efficiency. So CPAs are way up for most brands. So I think, I think that's a really important thing and a really challenging thing to figure out for most people. How are my ads actually doing? Most people don't really know anymore. I don't, I can't exactly tell you either.

Rabah Rahil (16:29):

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the biggest, the biggest issue right now as well. Um, how do you see the landscape evolving for paid media? Like in the next year or two, do you think like people flee Facebook, do you think people concentrate more, people lean more into organic or an email? What are your thoughts?

Cody Plofker (16:48):

I think it's been so easy. It's been so cheap. I think Facebook has been so easy and over and underpriced this time, like this whole time. And I also think it's probably made a lot of us way worse marketers because instead of kind of doing what the old advertising legends had to do and speak to people based off of like their stages awareness and like market sophistication, we're just putting like DPAs up and just like bottom a funnel messaging to everybody. And it's like, Facebook, you go do the work for me. And, and it's like, again, like the same way that like businesses with not great economics and not good organic traffic were able to succeed because Facebook was so low, like same thing, like not great marketing was able to succeed. So it's one of those things, survival. The fittest, I think a lot of companies are gonna hurt and probably be dead or just not be able to grow nearly as fast. But I think the brands that have real brands, organic traffic, LTV, subscriptions, loyal audiences, all that kind of stuff, they're gonna be okay. Even if, even if their CPAs go up, they're still gonna be okay.

Rabah Rahil (17:57):

Yeah. I'm, I'm a hundred. We need to, we need more heat as they say, we're too much in agreement. That's, that's exactly what I think as ask you something controversial. We need more hot takes. Uh, no, I think that's the exact accurate analysis as well. And uh, again, it's kind of coming back to, uh, I think there's just been to your point of market correction of like, there was just a lot of the, the old line. Everybody looks like a genius in a bull market. Exactly. Where it's like anything worked. We're just in the last five to seven year.

Cody Plofker (18:24):

Yeah. And it's like the first bear market in like this young industry kind of

Rabah Rahil (18:29):

Since yeah. Since the, the, basically the, the inception of the newsfeed, which was like the Cambridge explosion of advertising, I mean, or paid media and specific, like, I mean, it was just nobody's it was just, it just printed money. It was just this, this thing that you put money in and you just, it spit money back at you and you just put more money in it. Spit more money back. Didn't

Cody Plofker (18:49):

Have to have good creative. You didn't have to have LTV. You didn't have to even have good products.

Rabah Rahil (18:53):

That's why you didn't have to care about profit. Right? You were just making so much money. It didn't matter. There's a certain point of financial thresholds where it's like cash flow's king. When you have so much cash flow coming in, you can get away with operating your business really terribly at the operational level. And you're still gonna be fine. You have money. Um, the problem is when there's a problem.

Cody Plofker (19:10):

<laugh> yeah, I totally agree. No, it's, it's so funny cuz it's like all these solutions to iOS is like all the stuff we should have been doing from the beginning it's oh, you gotta build up email list or like we gotta invest in creative or it's like, it's all stuff we should have been doing. And, and I'm sure the really, really good brands have been doing the whole time, but it's like, if you haven't been doing them, it's a lot harder right now.

Rabah Rahil (19:32):

Oh, absolutely. I, I also think there's a bit of, um, you heard like the ways effect no. Or like you get the, the Rero so you like you're, you're trying to get around the traffic and so ways reroutes you into this, uh, the GPS app, it routes you into the new little back streets, but then everybody starts getting routed into the back streets. So now the back streets are backed up. I feel like that's kind of how Facebook is now. Like all the hacks and all the account structures and all this stuff is just like, it's all been normalized to a point that it's so ineffective. Like there's no more first mover advantages. And so getting back to the, to your point kind of circling all the way back, what we'd started, like knowing the business fundamentals, knowing the economics and actually understanding like how to usher this person along this journey and how is it gonna make their life better?

Rabah Rahil (20:16):

Why can they brag to their wife? Why they they're so smart that they bought this? Like, there's all these, it's almost like the OG era of mad men, right? Like it's like, what is old you where it's like coming back to like attribution nonsensical. So I don't care. But if I look at the bank account and look at the shops, like if we're making money and I'm, I know I'm spending this much money and I'm making this much money, I can work with that. You know, it's not ideal, but at the same time, I'd rather make money and spend this much money than not make money. And so I think it's a really interesting era. Um, and so I think there's gonna be a, a lot of more, more media buyers like you that are more that are closer to the economics than I think there was a lot of creatives that came in as media buyers and no judgment there, but there's just not a lot of interest in kind of the P and L and actually like how this affects the business. Cause I would just go into some accounts and it's like, yeah, this is a top selling product, but why are you putting paid media behind it? It's the worst margins of all your products? Like, I'm not saying you should stop selling it, but I'm saying don't put paid media behind it. Like you're gonna have to pay people on top of that. And by the time every this transaction nets out, you're gonna lose money on it. Yeah. But I bet the, do you wanna scale something, lose money that

Cody Plofker (21:24):

With you, but I, I also think there's also gonna be more creative types. I think the media buyers were like, like media buyers have actually been like very analytical, not, not in terms of understanding business finances and stuff like that, but just in terms of like being able to like scale budgets and look at like the numbers and the platform and stuff like that. And it's like, like you said, like that was a first mover advantage when you had, when you had to like scale by actually manually bidding or, or like manually, you know, turning on ads and, and optimizing ads ads, now that you don't have to do it. It's like, well, really what are your levers? It's it's really messaging. So who can write really good copy making, making creative and, and offers it's, which is like that just mad men style, you know, bare bones advertising. So I agree with you, but I think it's also the creative types. It's, it's kind of those it's skill.

Rabah Rahil (22:12):

Yes. Yes. I agree. I think I got conflated a little or the message and got conflated. I, those creative types had a harder time, uh, transitioning into the numbers game, but yes, I think creative is absolutely important and the, um, whole life cycle understanding and I would throw one more value out in there as strategy. Cause I, I do agree. I think the, the, the agencies there is gonna kind of be that barbell effect and there's gonna, I don't think the value is gonna go away from agencies per se. I just think it's gonna transfer into those things that you're talking about, where it's like, we're basically gonna set up big, broad campaigns that we're gonna help you out with offers. We're gonna help you out with creative and we're gonna help you out with strategy and even more. So if you can get that full stack where it's like, Hey, we can run your email as well. We can run your SMS and we can control your whole marketing ecosystem. And that way we can show the lift, cuz it gets weird when there's different channel owners. And then you have to kind of report on your channel metrics as a whole because you know, things as we've discussed, get a little fuzzy

Cody Plofker (23:07):

For sure. I totally agree with you there.

Rabah Rahil (23:10):

Um, how do you scale accounts when you start to win, how do you, how do you give them more money? How do you feed the beast?

Cody Plofker (23:16):

So I'll say I'll just kind of start this with a few disclaimers again. Like I don't think I'm like the most knowledgeable or sophisticated Facebook ad buyer out there. Um, I only run one account right now. I'm on the brand side, so it's not like I have a lot of like exposure to a bunch, excuse me. And also like what works for us and our company and our account might be completely different just at different spend levels or, or different goals. You know, I will say though, right now I try to go as broad as possible. That doesn't mean only broad, but I try to go as broad as possible. I try to do as little in the account as possible. So as little, um, I've never used the manual bid in my life. I probably should test some, but I've never used one of those as little, um, you know, moving around budgets.

Cody Plofker (24:03):

So I try to go CBO when I can. It seems to work pretty well in our account. I try to make the audiences as big as I can get away with. Even if it means maybe not the best performance up front, I think longer term it, it does a lot. And I think a lot, one thing people don't talk about a lot is like, where's your time being spent. And even if I was getting slightly better performance by having a lot of assets in ABO and, and doing a lot of things manually, that's where my time is going. I'm the director of e-commerce of brand. I got like, I have like one intern helping me. I have like one like junior person doing copies. So like I have a lot I have to focus on for besides just Facebook and I, I want my time to be going where it actually matters and not chasing these little short term hacks, you know?

Cody Plofker (24:50):

So I wanna be spending my time on what offers are we coming out with, right? Like what landing pages are we building? What am I doing to maximize our post click experience? So, you know, what offers are we driving to? Are we driving to quizzes? Are we building landing pages, articles? What bundles are we doing to improve our AOV? Cuz like that's really how you scale an account is bring up your allowable CPA. Cuz when you scale, your CPA's gonna go up no matter what, if you wanna keep your same efficiency, you gotta make sure you're bringing up that allowable C CPA by getting your AOV and your LTV up or getting your conversion rates up. That's how you scale accounts. In my opinion, at least

Rabah Rahil (25:28):

The force is strong with this one. <laugh> that? That's pretty interesting to have all of that. There's um, it's interesting because you've kind of skipped so much, um, in terms of your journey, but you're already at that expert level, there's this kind of, um, interesting graph, you know, you'll see when you have this, um, kind of, uh, acquisition of expertise, if you will. And so at the beginning you kind of have no clue what you're doing. And then at the kind of peak, it's kind of like a bell curve, you have all the tools, right? You want to use everything. It's kind of like working out, right? Like you get, you get to a point where it's like working out, but then at that peak you can spend more time in the gym, just looking at what piece of equipment to use versus that person that's suboptimal over there, just doing pushups or something, but you found the best piece of equipment, but you use an hour to do it where that person already got their workout in.

Rabah Rahil (26:17):

And then you go to the expert level and the expert level actually prefers not to use any tools. Another analogy was climbing. So I, I used to be really into climbing. And as you scale over climbing, you want every cool little bet, everything that you want, like, and you just have this crazy belt. And then I would go climb with my climbing partner who was like the climbing climber. And he'd literally have like rope gloves and like a few, um, bets and that's it. And that's what he preferred cuz he was at that level level. And so what you're telling the too long didn't read is what you just described as, um, a very expert level way of looking at things and, and for the kids out there, I do have an economics degree. So I'd be, um, negligent to not say that what Cody just described so eloquently is referred to as opportunity cost <laugh>

Cody Plofker (27:01):

Well, yeah, but by the way, I, I totally agree with you and I, I think kind of to your point, like first of all, I, I don't think I know shit. I think I have so much to learn and there's so many, you know, people that I'm really fortunate to be able to learn from. But I think like luckily I've been able to take a lot from my previous career of being a strength, conditioning coach and being a local business owner and apply those lessons cuz it's the same thing in strengthen and conditioning or the same thing in, in being a business owner where it's like the experts, the experts are focusing on the basics and like they're not using all the bells and whistles, you know, that's that's for the novices. So that's something that I feel like is very true and it's a really good point. You make it's really true across like all types of industries.

Rabah Rahil (27:42):

Yeah. That's I mean, that's, that's so spot on. It's just, it's really the path and then you'll never go wrong. Mastering the fundamentals. Like every single, I, I know really high level coders that literally search like the most basic stuff because that's not a value driver for them. They know these, they know the syntax, they know the macro level stuff and then just remembering things it's it's pointless. Why am I gonna clutter my brain with that? I'll just Google it. Um, I, I absolutely love that. Yeah, for

Cody Plofker (28:06):

Sure.

Rabah Rahil (28:07):

Okay. One last question. Before we get in the rapid fire, what's one tip you would give our listeners, um, to improve their paid media performance.

Cody Plofker (28:15):

Creative, uh, creative is key. Use the ADA formula. So a I D a um, most important thing is a thumb stock, right? So that that's your awareness shoot for a 35, you know, 30 to 40% thumb stop have a really, really, really good hook. Don't be afraid to be a little bizarre pattern, interrupt movement. Um, good, good call out. Really good headline test a bunch of it close up. Definitely works better than not, but get that thumb stop up. And a lot of things will improve from there. If you don't have a good thumb stop it's it's definitely tough.

Rabah Rahil (28:49):

I love that. I love that. All right. Cody strap in, you made it to the rapid fire around. Okay. Ready? All right. Overrated, underrated, Facebook ads.

Cody Plofker (29:04):

Underrated still.

Rabah Rahil (29:06):

Ooh, I love it. Still underpriced. Okay. Exactly. Dynamic creative, overrated, underrated,

Cody Plofker (29:12):

Overrated. Don't use it. Ooh. You want like why? Or you just want short answers

Rabah Rahil (29:17):

If you wanna interject why it's totally. I'm a witness in your world, baby. Okay.

Cody Plofker (29:21):

Yeah. Now just never's got the same performance from it and now you can't see breakdown. So just build it manually.

Rabah Rahil (29:29):

Indian food, overrated, underrated,

Cody Plofker (29:32):

Underrated. Um, my wife is Indian. Her, her mom's home cooking is amazing. It's not what they sell in stores. I w I wish they did. It's not all, you know what most people are are used to, but yeah, underrated definitely

Rabah Rahil (29:44):

Underrated another one. TikTok overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (29:48):

I'm obsessed, man. Underrated. That's like my guilty pleasure. I think, I just think the content creators there are just so damn good. And like, as a not creative person, like I can't make stuff. Yeah. I don't know how to make content, but I can, I can appreciate it when I see it. Like sometimes I'll be seeing ads on there and I don't even realize they're an ad for five seconds. I'm like, I'm a marketer. I'm looking for ads. It's like, they're, they're really impressive.

Rabah Rahil (30:11):

Yeah. I couldn't agree more that algorithm, dude. I have to. Cause I have much like yourself in an addictive personality and I'll, I'll find myself like 30, 45 minutes. Like what the hell just happened. I just fell in this to hole and the, the videos are so engaging. And what's interesting to me, not to, uh, cramp your style on the rapid fire, but the, um, they're almost making a play in terms of YouTube where I've gotten some really great, like financial advice, like really good tidbits where it's not just like thirst trap kind of stuff. It's like, there's actual, like in, in certain niches, like really valuable stuff in there. It's, it's pretty

Cody Plofker (30:42):

Interesting to me. I was feeling guilty about it. I was like, man, this is just for kids. This is a waste of time. And then I was having a conversation with another marketer and they were like, no, like I feel they're like when I go on Instagram, like I feel dirty after it. I feel like my self esteem is worse. So like when I go on TikTok, like I feel better after it. You know, I was, that's a

Rabah Rahil (30:57):

Really good point.

Cody Plofker (30:58):

Interesting. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (30:59):

Like that's really interesting.

Cody Plofker (30:59):

You laugh like you, you know, you get funny content, you get really helpful stuff. You get motivational. Yeah. It's yeah. There's some dumb stuff on it, but it's all about what you watch.

Rabah Rahil (31:08):

That's so interesting. I love that. Uh, golf. Overrid underrated,

Cody Plofker (31:12):

Underrated.

Rabah Rahil (31:14):

Interesting.

Cody Plofker (31:14):

I played, I played golf in college actually.

Rabah Rahil (31:16):

Oh, you did? Yeah. How fancy, what was the, what is the, uh, the handicap? That's the, they rate you guys handicap, right? Yeah. How'd

Cody Plofker (31:24):

You shoot best. I was scratch.

Rabah Rahil (31:26):

Oh, like

Cody Plofker (31:27):

That's not bad. Trying to get back into it. Got a little hip problem. So trying to get back into it.

Rabah Rahil (31:31):

I love it. I love it. Uh, jet skiing, overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (31:34):

Oh my God. Do you like, did you like stalk my social media or something?

Rabah Rahil (31:37):

I stalk all the guests. I was gonna

Cody Plofker (31:39):

Say

Rabah Rahil (31:40):

Underrated,

Cody Plofker (31:40):

Man. I wanna jet ski so bad.

Rabah Rahil (31:43):

What do you prefer? A lake or ocean. Have you have you jet skied on a lake and jet ski on ocean lake? Well, no, the ocean lake. Yeah. It's way better. I understand.

Cody Plofker (31:52):

I am so afraid of sharks. Even just like getting in to do like some water, like water ski or something or wakeboarding an ocean. I like, I hate it.

Rabah Rahil (31:59):

<laugh> I love that. Okay. Last overrated, underrated, uh, LinkedIn overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (32:06):

So overrated. I, I don't go on LinkedIn. I never do so overrated. Twitter's where I

Rabah Rahil (32:11):

Finally got overrated outta you. I finally got overrated outta you. Yeah. Perfect. All right. Favorite meal and why

Cody Plofker (32:18):

Favorite meal? Um, I gotta go with pizza. It's just so good.

Rabah Rahil (32:24):

Is there a particular pie, like style? Do you like New York style or?

Cody Plofker (32:28):

I like New York style. Definitely. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (32:30):

Just a, just a pepperoni.

Cody Plofker (32:32):

Yeah, probably just cheese, but like pretty thin. Gotta have like a good crunch to it. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (32:37):

Yeah. Yeah. Civil man. Simple pleasures. I love, love it. Uh, favorite newsletter

Cody Plofker (32:44):

Triple well newsletter. Of course. There

Rabah Rahil (32:46):

We go. Well, well plug love it. Favorite place travel to and why

Cody Plofker (32:52):

Favorite place travel to and why? Um, I went to coast of Italy recently, so like Pasano Capri for my honeymoon. So it was beautiful there for vacation since COVID and it was for my honeymoon. Cool. That's definitely do it.

Rabah Rahil (33:08):

That's on the list a hundred percent. It was. Oh, wow. That is the, that's a magical area over there. Uh, favorite way to spend your time.

Cody Plofker (33:16):

I need some goddamn hobbies, especially now. I can't play golf cuz my hip <laugh> I eat hobbies. I'd say walking with my dog Parker. That's when I do best thinking.

Rabah Rahil (33:26):

I love it. Favorite follow on Twitter.

Cody Plofker (33:30):

Favorite follow on Twitter man. Man, man. There's so many. That's that's a tough one. Who's yours. Well, I think who's your,

Rabah Rahil (33:40):

Uh, I've been a super fan of uh, Hey it's Alex P um, she's actually done some whale mail posts and then, uh, Shane Ross, dad. He's also, he does some CRO stuff. Good dude. Yeah. He has some good stuff over there

Cody Plofker (33:52):

Stuff, man. That's that's such a tough one. If I'm going, especially like DTC e-commerce um, I'll say Taylor holiday. He's a super smart guy. Probably mostly over dude stuff, but I've learned so much e-commerce from him, so,

Rabah Rahil (34:06):

Oh, I know. I totally, if he did damnit, I skipped over that overrated. Underrated. We gotta circle back. NFTs, overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (34:12):

Shortterm overrated long term. Very underrated.

Rabah Rahil (34:16):

I love that answer. Okay. Last one for you, Cody, if you could have dinner with anyone dead or live three people fictional nonfictional, who would they be?

Cody Plofker (34:25):

Fictional. Nonfictional. Who would they be? Jay-Z done. Um, long term Elon Musk

Rabah Rahil (34:36):

Done.

Cody Plofker (34:38):

Um, last one, man. These are, these are some tough ones.

Rabah Rahil (34:46):

<laugh> it's the rapid fire has to live up to the reputation.

Cody Plofker (34:50):

Someone funny will Ferrell beautiful.

Rabah Rahil (34:53):

Everyone alive. No, no historical. I like that. Live in the present. I'm into it. Well, Cody, you made it through the whole episode unscathed. I expected nothing less. Your reputation lived up to the showing. Very impressive. Uh, you wanna plug anything John's road? Uh, your PT biz selling it. Anything following you into

Cody Plofker (35:13):

Twitter? No, I, I got nothing to plug. I'm always looking to, to connect, especially with people who are, you know, on the brand side. So people who work for brands always just love to share. What's working. What's not working how we can help each other. So definitely active on Twitter. I don't even know what my handle is. I think it's at Cody puff, but yeah. Hit me up and

Rabah Rahil (35:31):

Check. We're putting show notes.

Cody Plofker (35:34):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (35:34):

Check out. Joe Joe beauty.

Rabah Rahil (35:36):

Joan Joe beauty. And uh, we'll put Cody's handle in this show. What a pro I love this guy, Cody. Thanks so much for taking your time. If you all want to get more involved in triple whale, we are on the bird app at tri triple whale. Um, we can also take you on the wait [email protected] and then, uh, as Cody alluded to, if you ain't subscribed to mail, well whale mail, what are you doing? What are you doing? Get, get, get subscribed. Cody. Thanks so much for taking the time brother. We'll talk soon. Yeah, man. Appreciate.

Podcast

Cody Plofker on Managing an 8 Figure A Year Brand

March 18, 2024

36:21

Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Cody Plofker
Director of E-Commerce Jones Road Beauty

Episode Description

Cody Plofker the Head of Marketing at Jones Road stops by to share his journey from S & C coach to media buying savant. He articulates some macro takeaways on how he structures budget and pontificates on the epicness of jet skiing. The force is strong with this one...*Editor's note: I forget to switch my headphones. There is a little echo in the first couple mins that goes away. Sowwwwy. Won't happen again :)#ROAS

Notes & Links

📧Subscribe to Whale Mail for exclusive industry insights and in-depth marketing breakdowns: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tripl...

🐦 Follow us on Twitter for Industry insights https://twitter.com/triplewhale

Cody's Twitter - https://twitter.com/codyplof

Jones Road - https://jonesroadbeauty.com/

Transcription

Rabah Rahil (00:11):

All right. Folks, we are live for another episode of you are not your RO, as you might see somebody missing max blank is out doing superhero stuff right now, and he will be back for the next one. So you'll just be stuck with me, but, but to make up for that, I have an extra special guest Cody. Flocker the DTC Titan, the makeup Maven, the PT specialist is here to drop bombs for us. Cody. Welcome.

Cody Plofker (00:40):

What's up, man? Thanks for having me having

Rabah Rahil (00:41):

Me. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, as always I'm in our Austin HQ in Cody, where does this podcast find you?

Cody Plofker (00:49):

I'm in New Jersey suburbs of New York city, just across the river, New Jersey, New Jersey.

Rabah Rahil (00:54):

Oh, fantastic. And you went to school out there? Yeah,

Cody Plofker (00:57):

I actually went to school in Oregon. I'm I'm from here. So I'm from Montclair, New Jersey, but I actually went to school I out in Oregon, in Oregon and then was far away just decided to, to move back, move

Rabah Rahil (01:05):

Back. Oh, I love it. Um, what'd you study?

Cody Plofker (01:08):

I studied exercise science, actually science

Rabah Rahil (01:10):

Actually. Oh, okay. That's where the PT stuff comes in. Yeah. That we'll get to. Okay, cool. Cause, okay. Yeah. So take us into that. So you got into exercise science, you got that. And then recently married and you are business partners as well, correct?

Cody Plofker (01:24):

Yeah, exactly. So when I graduated, even when I was school, like I, I was strength, strength and conditioning coach. So love it, you know, was, was really into training, really into strength and conditioning. Um, did that for a bit. So I started training like NFL athletes started training, like doing some combine stuff and then just probably not the best employee. Wasn't happy where I was at. So, um, my girlfriend who was, or my now wife was girlfriend at the time is a physical therapist, decided we should start our own business cuz we couldn't figure out anything else better to do. And we thought it would be easy. And, and you know, um, that was probably about five, six years ago. Um, and just since then learned a ton really got, you know, I, I wanted to be a strength coach cuz I thought it was cool to wear gym clothes all day and, and work out and not do business stuff.

Cody Plofker (02:09):

Ironically, I actually ended up falling in love with the business stuff. Didn't really care as much for training and, and that lifestyle. So I, I, I have a very addictive personality, so I just got hooked on marketing and just once I learned it, because I, I knew so little, I had, I just always thought that if you were good, people would come and obviously that's important, but actually understanding how to get the word out and how to message people and just got absolutely hooked on marketing to the point where it's like, just all I've studied since then. And um, you know, Facebook ads specifically, but, but definitely try to be a little bit of a generalist. And that brings me to where I'm at today. Uh, I'm director of eCommerce of Jones row beauty. So it's a pretty new clean skin, um, cosmetics and, and skincare brand. It's actually a family company. So my mom is, is pretty well known. She's the founder of it. Um, and they brought me on to help with, you know, how cool growing, growing this, you know, DT T DTC company, we're, we're just director, consumer, um, completely self-funded, but growing really fast, we just ha passed our first year and well over eight figures. So things are going pretty well. So far

Rabah Rahil (03:16):

Business is booming, baby. That's fantastic. Appreciate it. So tell me that transition so I can see the overlap. So I, I'm kind of an odd bird as well. I came from economics and I wanted to be an investment banker and then, um, got into technology and then jumped into marketing. But tell me that the S and C kind of like, so that, that just spilled over. How did you skill up or were you always kind of analytical or like, tell me a little about that cuz kind of, I, I know a lot of trainers, I was in the CrossFit world in specific for a really long time and they're fantastic people, but they're so far from kind of to be Frank, like how skilled up you are and how did you do it in such a short amount of time?

Cody Plofker (03:55):

That's a good question. I mean, I've always, again just been like super single track minded. So like when I was in strengthen conditioning, like I would just read nonstop. I would like be on the beach reading like Russian science textbooks. Like, like there's definitely something wrong with me. So just kind of get super obsessive about things. Um, and you know, I, I realize especially, you know, as I got older and had a business, like, you know, it's really hard to focus on everything and I really started liking the business stuff way more than, than I would've thought. Um, and I, I guess it just became kind of a, you know, a passion thing and, and kind of became obsessed about it. So yeah, I mean, I, I originally kind of learned from, we did like a marketing class. We, we, our business was pretty much running outta money. We had like seven grand left in the bank. We were like, holy shit. Like we gotta figure out what we're doing or like we gotta close the doors. Like we'll have to put more money in. And so we spent half of that on like a, uh, on a marketing for physical therapist, like class, like kind of, of course, pretty much a mastermind. And he exposed us to like Dan Kennedy. I don't know if you're familiar, like

Rabah Rahil (05:03):

Not particularly. Yeah, yeah,

Cody Plofker (05:04):

Yeah. Okay. Just like, like all of this like direct response, like lead gen stuff. Okay. Like direct response copywriting and just like, absolutely like blew my mind and just kind of got super hooked on it. Um, and from there just kind of continue just to study and, and, and nonstop and just get, you know, went further and further towards, towards e-com and, you know, Facebook ads definitely was kind of thing that I focused on the most, but I don't, I definitely don't think I'm the best Facebook buyer, but I, I think I try to be pretty well rounded and understanding overall, you know, psychology and you know, how to message to people. And then also I'm definitely not like a numbers guy at heart, but just trying to understand like the analytics and the financial side of it, I think has made a huge difference.

Rabah Rahil (05:49):

Yeah. I think that's kind of, one of the interesting parts right now is, um, like if you came up in like the last four to six years or so maybe even four to eight years, you really didn't even need to care about profit. You didn't even care about any of these things where like the channels were just so successful. You could use channel metrics and now it's just like, man, it is just crazy town out there. That's so cool. Um, okay. Kind of switching gears a little bit, maybe get to know you a little bit deeper. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Cody Plofker (06:18):

The nicest thing someone's done for me recently or anytime,

Rabah Rahil (06:23):

Anytime,

Cody Plofker (06:23):

Man. That's such a hard question. My mom giving me a job

Rabah Rahil (06:31):

There. Hey, there you

Cody Plofker (06:32):

Go. Does that count? Is that a cop out?

Rabah Rahil (06:33):

Yeah, absolutely. Shout out mom. Hey. Um, and then, so what's your favorite part in terms of running all these things? Like, was it cause are you still, you're still part of the PT business?

Cody Plofker (06:48):

Uh, we're actually in the process of selling it right now, which hope was hoping to be wrapped up by now. Um, all right. So now I definitely not, not enjoying that. Um, <laugh> near nearly as much cuz to, to be honest, I love the, again, the marketing, the business side, but you know yeah. The patient care and stuff like that. It's, it's not definitely what my, what I feel like my calling is anymore. So definitely I'm just hooked on direct to consumer. I, I think it's amazing. I mean, I think everything I'm wearing right now is probably from a DTC company. Like yeah, everything. Like, I, I just, I just love it. And I'm just obsessed with that.

Rabah Rahil (07:22):

What's one of your favorite like DTC darlings, what's one of your favorite companies out there that's you think is doing some awesome stuff.

Cody Plofker (07:28):

I've been a magic spoon fan for a while. Try to eat pretty healthy, but I still have like a, you know, a sweet tooth, so loves some magic spoon and, and I think the product is great. Gotta Ali pop right here. A little pop.

Rabah Rahil (07:40):

Hey, what's up? Eli

Cody Plofker (07:42):

Have, have one of those like almost every day after work.

Rabah Rahil (07:45):

Yeah, yeah,

Cody Plofker (07:45):

Yeah. Um, I use supply razor. That's been great. Yeah. Um, and then I just got these like cuts, um, cuts pants. I was telling my wife like a month ago I was like, girls are so lucky they get to wear like, you know, leggings to work and also like, oh for sure. You know, they're super comfy. And like, you know, like I had some Lu lemon pants that, that were pretty good, the ABCs, but like these pants they're called the AO joggers. Like legitimately feel like sweatpants, but like, I, I can wear 'em to work, like no problem. Yep. So I bought my first pair like two weeks ago. Um, and I just bought the second one, like a week after cuz I, I wore 'em for two days and I'm like, I'm wearing these like every day from now came 'em over. So yeah, those are a few of my favorites.

Rabah Rahil (08:26):

I have to check out cuts. I see there they're ads sometimes. Um, so I have to give 'em a shoutout, but uh, that's fantastic. What are some

Cody Plofker (08:32):

Of your favorite jogger?

Rabah Rahil (08:35):

Um, I like, uh, pool suite. So, uh, Marty vacation ink does it's like this super eighties brand and they have just fun merch and stuff like that. Okay. Um, last crumb cookie is like the super

Cody Plofker (08:48):

Have you had 'em

Rabah Rahil (08:50):

Yeah, I got 'em they're they're insanely expensive. They're fantastic. But you gotta be, they

Cody Plofker (08:53):

Have to, you gotta be like 30 seconds. Right?

Rabah Rahil (08:56):

I, I missed them like five times and I finally got 'em. So what we're talking about people, um, is this company called last scrum cookie out of LA and they make these incredible cookies. Their branding's amazing. Like everything is incredible, but, but they're pretty much impossible to get in. They're 140 bucks for like 12 cookies. So it's a little spicy, but I had to try it out. I had to try it out. Looks

Cody Plofker (09:18):

So good. I know. I thought I was gonna get time. I got like the text right as they launched and like I know honestly, 15, 30 seconds later it was too late.

Rabah Rahil (09:26):

Yep. Yeah. Um, muddy bites. I don't know. I'm pretty sure muddy bites is DTC. He might be doing some wholesaler stuff now. Um, but muddy bites is pretty strong native cos the all natural deodorants I

Cody Plofker (09:36):

Use native. Yeah. I love just the founding story and everything and

Rabah Rahil (09:40):

Yeah. So cool. And yeah. Yeah. He's great. Yeah. Yeah. Um, fantastic questions. All right, Cody, you made it through the main segment UN phase. I should have known the strength and conditioning's coming back out then during is still there. My friend we done

Cody Plofker (09:53):

<laugh>

Rabah Rahil (09:54):

Okay. So this is why people bought the ticket. This is the value add segment. So we're gonna kind of go deeper into the weeds kind of some nerdy stuff. Um, so in specific for like Jones, beauty, or for your DTC client kind of if you were taking on a DTC client. Yeah. How do you think about like deploying paid media in terms of like channel and like just kind of give us a peak into your, uh, process there?

Cody Plofker (10:16):

Yeah, for sure. Definitely. I think this question would be, so my answer would be so different a year ago, two years ago. Right. I probably would've gotten like super tactical and talked about like messaging or like account structure or something like that. And now I feel like it's like business fundamentals first. So, you know, there's a saying, this is actually Dan Kennedy's thing, but like whoever can spend the most to acquire a customer wins. It's it's just like, you have to make sure your business is actually set up to succeed on Facebook. And, and what that means is first of all, you have the proper margins. Like your margins are actually good enough above 75%. Um, you don't need, I don't wanna say you need LTV, but it totally helps. Excuse me, if you're a single purchase business and you don't have high LTV, you have to be profitable on first purchase.

Cody Plofker (11:04):

That's just gonna be really, really difficult, especially if you're trying to grow and scale. Um, so those are extremely important. And then I think also organic traffic, I think a lot of people don't talk enough about this, but understanding really what, what matters is not what's in your ad account, you are not your robot. I'll I'll plug the show a little bit right there. What really matters is, is what you got at the end of the day, right? Like what, what your cash flow looks like at the end of the day. And so it's super important to understand two things is like your overall C your blended C if you have, you know, a hundred dollars, um, CPA on Facebook, if you believe that, you know, and you get 75% of your traffic paid 25% organically, you're sitting at a $75 blended C if you're at 50 50 paid to organic, which is what I think you, you want to be at, even without, without moving your, your paid CPA numbers at all, you're gonna be at a $50 pack, just a lot safer again, it's just a lot safer. Your overall C is better. So you're gonna just be left with better profit and more ability to grow and, and do so without having to worry about running outta cash.

Rabah Rahil (12:16):

Yeah. I absolutely love that. I was actually just watching. That's such a phenomenal answer. I, I love that to the moon. The, I was watching, uh, really interesting, um, YouTube video and they were talking about nations that are, it's called the resource curse and economics where nations that are have a lot of natural resources. A lot of times don't develop very quickly. And the reason for that is basically the wealth gets concentrated. And so for me, I forgot where I was going with that, but <laugh> long. And the short I was wondering it was, yeah, I was, I just totally missed it. It'll come back to me. But understanding the economics of the business is just so huge. I I've said this before, but I had a client that I brought on where he made a million dollars last year in revenues and he netted a negative 22 K like that ain't the path dude.

Rabah Rahil (13:03):

That is not the path. And there's just so many, um, businesses that in a lot of ways, just aren't situated for page yet. Like they're just not ready for it. And there's ways you could still spend, right? Like you could batch it around in, in the little spurts here and there do give away something like that. But in terms of like paid I'm with you, I think you need to build that ecosystem in terms of you want about 25 to 30% of revenues coming from email. You wanna have that, uh, nice organic that you're talking about. And to your point, that's exactly what I look at as well is essentially like the ecosystem performance. Because if my email can start popping off, then I can scale paid more because I know once we get people into this ecosystem, that lift to your point, when you start to blend the metrics, you can see that lift there.

Rabah Rahil (13:48):

It's there where it's like, oh man paid, isn't doing any better, but we're making way more money. Oh, this is great. Like, okay, cool. Well, let's turn it up and jokingly enough, uh, another podcast, but like what's old is new where now it's essentially about incre mentality where it's like, okay, cool. Let's turn up paid or we're making more money. Cool. Turn down paid. We make less money. All right. Let's kind of do this cuz attribution just fucked. Sure. Like it's just, there's gonna be really no way to get channel attribution again. I think the incentives are just so misaligned where apple wants privacy and they have their own ad network. So it's like they have zero incentive to roll anything back, if anything, um, they're gonna go harder in the pain on it.

Cody Plofker (14:25):

Exactly. Totally. A hundred percent agree with you. It's what's in your ad account is almost pointless. It's almost meaningless. Like you can be profitable and you could have some terrible metrics in there. And you know, and I always used to wonder, like, I, I didn't know this early in, in, in being so new to this industry, like what's a good ROS and obviously you saw all these screenshot numbers and it's like, what's a good, do I, do I need a four? Like, do I need a three? Like I, I don't even know what, what good is. And, and, and it is funny cuz there is no good, it's completely dependent on your business. Finances, your risk tolerance, you know, your what, what payback periods you're optimizing for. But yeah, I think that's the most important thing. Like don't start running traffic, don't start buying ads until you know that stuff.

Rabah Rahil (15:08):

Yep. I, I, I love that. I think it's so, so underrated and it's so lost. I think again, like a lot of people didn't have to worry about like the economics of the business and it's just really, it's so essential, man. You can't just sell $20 bills for $10 and then go to your client, look like, oh, we got a five X row ads. That's fantastic. But we're down 25% month over month in revenue. Like what? And so I love that. Um, okay, cool. So tell me kind of, what do you think some of the biggest challenges are facing, um, DTC e-com owners right now? What are the big headwinds?

Cody Plofker (15:42):

I, I, I feel like I don't wanna sound like probably every other guest you've had and anybody in DTC on a podcast right now, but obviously it's Facebook costs are up at an all time high and um, you know, Facebook is still trying to grow. They're still trying to, trying to, you know, hit, hit their revenue targets and then also, you know, attribution, I mean, so it's, it's kind of two things that people talk about is attribution, not actually knowing what's driving sales, not actually knowing how our ads are performing. And then obviously because of that data loss, you know, reduced efficiency. So CPAs are way up for most brands. So I think, I think that's a really important thing and a really challenging thing to figure out for most people. How are my ads actually doing? Most people don't really know anymore. I don't, I can't exactly tell you either.

Rabah Rahil (16:29):

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the biggest, the biggest issue right now as well. Um, how do you see the landscape evolving for paid media? Like in the next year or two, do you think like people flee Facebook, do you think people concentrate more, people lean more into organic or an email? What are your thoughts?

Cody Plofker (16:48):

I think it's been so easy. It's been so cheap. I think Facebook has been so easy and over and underpriced this time, like this whole time. And I also think it's probably made a lot of us way worse marketers because instead of kind of doing what the old advertising legends had to do and speak to people based off of like their stages awareness and like market sophistication, we're just putting like DPAs up and just like bottom a funnel messaging to everybody. And it's like, Facebook, you go do the work for me. And, and it's like, again, like the same way that like businesses with not great economics and not good organic traffic were able to succeed because Facebook was so low, like same thing, like not great marketing was able to succeed. So it's one of those things, survival. The fittest, I think a lot of companies are gonna hurt and probably be dead or just not be able to grow nearly as fast. But I think the brands that have real brands, organic traffic, LTV, subscriptions, loyal audiences, all that kind of stuff, they're gonna be okay. Even if, even if their CPAs go up, they're still gonna be okay.

Rabah Rahil (17:57):

Yeah. I'm, I'm a hundred. We need to, we need more heat as they say, we're too much in agreement. That's, that's exactly what I think as ask you something controversial. We need more hot takes. Uh, no, I think that's the exact accurate analysis as well. And uh, again, it's kind of coming back to, uh, I think there's just been to your point of market correction of like, there was just a lot of the, the old line. Everybody looks like a genius in a bull market. Exactly. Where it's like anything worked. We're just in the last five to seven year.

Cody Plofker (18:24):

Yeah. And it's like the first bear market in like this young industry kind of

Rabah Rahil (18:29):

Since yeah. Since the, the, basically the, the inception of the newsfeed, which was like the Cambridge explosion of advertising, I mean, or paid media and specific, like, I mean, it was just nobody's it was just, it just printed money. It was just this, this thing that you put money in and you just, it spit money back at you and you just put more money in it. Spit more money back. Didn't

Cody Plofker (18:49):

Have to have good creative. You didn't have to have LTV. You didn't have to even have good products.

Rabah Rahil (18:53):

That's why you didn't have to care about profit. Right? You were just making so much money. It didn't matter. There's a certain point of financial thresholds where it's like cash flow's king. When you have so much cash flow coming in, you can get away with operating your business really terribly at the operational level. And you're still gonna be fine. You have money. Um, the problem is when there's a problem.

Cody Plofker (19:10):

<laugh> yeah, I totally agree. No, it's, it's so funny cuz it's like all these solutions to iOS is like all the stuff we should have been doing from the beginning it's oh, you gotta build up email list or like we gotta invest in creative or it's like, it's all stuff we should have been doing. And, and I'm sure the really, really good brands have been doing the whole time, but it's like, if you haven't been doing them, it's a lot harder right now.

Rabah Rahil (19:32):

Oh, absolutely. I, I also think there's a bit of, um, you heard like the ways effect no. Or like you get the, the Rero so you like you're, you're trying to get around the traffic and so ways reroutes you into this, uh, the GPS app, it routes you into the new little back streets, but then everybody starts getting routed into the back streets. So now the back streets are backed up. I feel like that's kind of how Facebook is now. Like all the hacks and all the account structures and all this stuff is just like, it's all been normalized to a point that it's so ineffective. Like there's no more first mover advantages. And so getting back to the, to your point kind of circling all the way back, what we'd started, like knowing the business fundamentals, knowing the economics and actually understanding like how to usher this person along this journey and how is it gonna make their life better?

Rabah Rahil (20:16):

Why can they brag to their wife? Why they they're so smart that they bought this? Like, there's all these, it's almost like the OG era of mad men, right? Like it's like, what is old you where it's like coming back to like attribution nonsensical. So I don't care. But if I look at the bank account and look at the shops, like if we're making money and I'm, I know I'm spending this much money and I'm making this much money, I can work with that. You know, it's not ideal, but at the same time, I'd rather make money and spend this much money than not make money. And so I think it's a really interesting era. Um, and so I think there's gonna be a, a lot of more, more media buyers like you that are more that are closer to the economics than I think there was a lot of creatives that came in as media buyers and no judgment there, but there's just not a lot of interest in kind of the P and L and actually like how this affects the business. Cause I would just go into some accounts and it's like, yeah, this is a top selling product, but why are you putting paid media behind it? It's the worst margins of all your products? Like, I'm not saying you should stop selling it, but I'm saying don't put paid media behind it. Like you're gonna have to pay people on top of that. And by the time every this transaction nets out, you're gonna lose money on it. Yeah. But I bet the, do you wanna scale something, lose money that

Cody Plofker (21:24):

With you, but I, I also think there's also gonna be more creative types. I think the media buyers were like, like media buyers have actually been like very analytical, not, not in terms of understanding business finances and stuff like that, but just in terms of like being able to like scale budgets and look at like the numbers and the platform and stuff like that. And it's like, like you said, like that was a first mover advantage when you had, when you had to like scale by actually manually bidding or, or like manually, you know, turning on ads and, and optimizing ads ads, now that you don't have to do it. It's like, well, really what are your levers? It's it's really messaging. So who can write really good copy making, making creative and, and offers it's, which is like that just mad men style, you know, bare bones advertising. So I agree with you, but I think it's also the creative types. It's, it's kind of those it's skill.

Rabah Rahil (22:12):

Yes. Yes. I agree. I think I got conflated a little or the message and got conflated. I, those creative types had a harder time, uh, transitioning into the numbers game, but yes, I think creative is absolutely important and the, um, whole life cycle understanding and I would throw one more value out in there as strategy. Cause I, I do agree. I think the, the, the agencies there is gonna kind of be that barbell effect and there's gonna, I don't think the value is gonna go away from agencies per se. I just think it's gonna transfer into those things that you're talking about, where it's like, we're basically gonna set up big, broad campaigns that we're gonna help you out with offers. We're gonna help you out with creative and we're gonna help you out with strategy and even more. So if you can get that full stack where it's like, Hey, we can run your email as well. We can run your SMS and we can control your whole marketing ecosystem. And that way we can show the lift, cuz it gets weird when there's different channel owners. And then you have to kind of report on your channel metrics as a whole because you know, things as we've discussed, get a little fuzzy

Cody Plofker (23:07):

For sure. I totally agree with you there.

Rabah Rahil (23:10):

Um, how do you scale accounts when you start to win, how do you, how do you give them more money? How do you feed the beast?

Cody Plofker (23:16):

So I'll say I'll just kind of start this with a few disclaimers again. Like I don't think I'm like the most knowledgeable or sophisticated Facebook ad buyer out there. Um, I only run one account right now. I'm on the brand side, so it's not like I have a lot of like exposure to a bunch, excuse me. And also like what works for us and our company and our account might be completely different just at different spend levels or, or different goals. You know, I will say though, right now I try to go as broad as possible. That doesn't mean only broad, but I try to go as broad as possible. I try to do as little in the account as possible. So as little, um, I've never used the manual bid in my life. I probably should test some, but I've never used one of those as little, um, you know, moving around budgets.

Cody Plofker (24:03):

So I try to go CBO when I can. It seems to work pretty well in our account. I try to make the audiences as big as I can get away with. Even if it means maybe not the best performance up front, I think longer term it, it does a lot. And I think a lot, one thing people don't talk about a lot is like, where's your time being spent. And even if I was getting slightly better performance by having a lot of assets in ABO and, and doing a lot of things manually, that's where my time is going. I'm the director of e-commerce of brand. I got like, I have like one intern helping me. I have like one like junior person doing copies. So like I have a lot I have to focus on for besides just Facebook and I, I want my time to be going where it actually matters and not chasing these little short term hacks, you know?

Cody Plofker (24:50):

So I wanna be spending my time on what offers are we coming out with, right? Like what landing pages are we building? What am I doing to maximize our post click experience? So, you know, what offers are we driving to? Are we driving to quizzes? Are we building landing pages, articles? What bundles are we doing to improve our AOV? Cuz like that's really how you scale an account is bring up your allowable CPA. Cuz when you scale, your CPA's gonna go up no matter what, if you wanna keep your same efficiency, you gotta make sure you're bringing up that allowable C CPA by getting your AOV and your LTV up or getting your conversion rates up. That's how you scale accounts. In my opinion, at least

Rabah Rahil (25:28):

The force is strong with this one. <laugh> that? That's pretty interesting to have all of that. There's um, it's interesting because you've kind of skipped so much, um, in terms of your journey, but you're already at that expert level, there's this kind of, um, interesting graph, you know, you'll see when you have this, um, kind of, uh, acquisition of expertise, if you will. And so at the beginning you kind of have no clue what you're doing. And then at the kind of peak, it's kind of like a bell curve, you have all the tools, right? You want to use everything. It's kind of like working out, right? Like you get, you get to a point where it's like working out, but then at that peak you can spend more time in the gym, just looking at what piece of equipment to use versus that person that's suboptimal over there, just doing pushups or something, but you found the best piece of equipment, but you use an hour to do it where that person already got their workout in.

Rabah Rahil (26:17):

And then you go to the expert level and the expert level actually prefers not to use any tools. Another analogy was climbing. So I, I used to be really into climbing. And as you scale over climbing, you want every cool little bet, everything that you want, like, and you just have this crazy belt. And then I would go climb with my climbing partner who was like the climbing climber. And he'd literally have like rope gloves and like a few, um, bets and that's it. And that's what he preferred cuz he was at that level level. And so what you're telling the too long didn't read is what you just described as, um, a very expert level way of looking at things and, and for the kids out there, I do have an economics degree. So I'd be, um, negligent to not say that what Cody just described so eloquently is referred to as opportunity cost <laugh>

Cody Plofker (27:01):

Well, yeah, but by the way, I, I totally agree with you and I, I think kind of to your point, like first of all, I, I don't think I know shit. I think I have so much to learn and there's so many, you know, people that I'm really fortunate to be able to learn from. But I think like luckily I've been able to take a lot from my previous career of being a strength, conditioning coach and being a local business owner and apply those lessons cuz it's the same thing in strengthen and conditioning or the same thing in, in being a business owner where it's like the experts, the experts are focusing on the basics and like they're not using all the bells and whistles, you know, that's that's for the novices. So that's something that I feel like is very true and it's a really good point. You make it's really true across like all types of industries.

Rabah Rahil (27:42):

Yeah. That's I mean, that's, that's so spot on. It's just, it's really the path and then you'll never go wrong. Mastering the fundamentals. Like every single, I, I know really high level coders that literally search like the most basic stuff because that's not a value driver for them. They know these, they know the syntax, they know the macro level stuff and then just remembering things it's it's pointless. Why am I gonna clutter my brain with that? I'll just Google it. Um, I, I absolutely love that. Yeah, for

Cody Plofker (28:06):

Sure.

Rabah Rahil (28:07):

Okay. One last question. Before we get in the rapid fire, what's one tip you would give our listeners, um, to improve their paid media performance.

Cody Plofker (28:15):

Creative, uh, creative is key. Use the ADA formula. So a I D a um, most important thing is a thumb stock, right? So that that's your awareness shoot for a 35, you know, 30 to 40% thumb stop have a really, really, really good hook. Don't be afraid to be a little bizarre pattern, interrupt movement. Um, good, good call out. Really good headline test a bunch of it close up. Definitely works better than not, but get that thumb stop up. And a lot of things will improve from there. If you don't have a good thumb stop it's it's definitely tough.

Rabah Rahil (28:49):

I love that. I love that. All right. Cody strap in, you made it to the rapid fire around. Okay. Ready? All right. Overrated, underrated, Facebook ads.

Cody Plofker (29:04):

Underrated still.

Rabah Rahil (29:06):

Ooh, I love it. Still underpriced. Okay. Exactly. Dynamic creative, overrated, underrated,

Cody Plofker (29:12):

Overrated. Don't use it. Ooh. You want like why? Or you just want short answers

Rabah Rahil (29:17):

If you wanna interject why it's totally. I'm a witness in your world, baby. Okay.

Cody Plofker (29:21):

Yeah. Now just never's got the same performance from it and now you can't see breakdown. So just build it manually.

Rabah Rahil (29:29):

Indian food, overrated, underrated,

Cody Plofker (29:32):

Underrated. Um, my wife is Indian. Her, her mom's home cooking is amazing. It's not what they sell in stores. I w I wish they did. It's not all, you know what most people are are used to, but yeah, underrated definitely

Rabah Rahil (29:44):

Underrated another one. TikTok overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (29:48):

I'm obsessed, man. Underrated. That's like my guilty pleasure. I think, I just think the content creators there are just so damn good. And like, as a not creative person, like I can't make stuff. Yeah. I don't know how to make content, but I can, I can appreciate it when I see it. Like sometimes I'll be seeing ads on there and I don't even realize they're an ad for five seconds. I'm like, I'm a marketer. I'm looking for ads. It's like, they're, they're really impressive.

Rabah Rahil (30:11):

Yeah. I couldn't agree more that algorithm, dude. I have to. Cause I have much like yourself in an addictive personality and I'll, I'll find myself like 30, 45 minutes. Like what the hell just happened. I just fell in this to hole and the, the videos are so engaging. And what's interesting to me, not to, uh, cramp your style on the rapid fire, but the, um, they're almost making a play in terms of YouTube where I've gotten some really great, like financial advice, like really good tidbits where it's not just like thirst trap kind of stuff. It's like, there's actual, like in, in certain niches, like really valuable stuff in there. It's, it's pretty

Cody Plofker (30:42):

Interesting to me. I was feeling guilty about it. I was like, man, this is just for kids. This is a waste of time. And then I was having a conversation with another marketer and they were like, no, like I feel they're like when I go on Instagram, like I feel dirty after it. I feel like my self esteem is worse. So like when I go on TikTok, like I feel better after it. You know, I was, that's a

Rabah Rahil (30:57):

Really good point.

Cody Plofker (30:58):

Interesting. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (30:59):

Like that's really interesting.

Cody Plofker (30:59):

You laugh like you, you know, you get funny content, you get really helpful stuff. You get motivational. Yeah. It's yeah. There's some dumb stuff on it, but it's all about what you watch.

Rabah Rahil (31:08):

That's so interesting. I love that. Uh, golf. Overrid underrated,

Cody Plofker (31:12):

Underrated.

Rabah Rahil (31:14):

Interesting.

Cody Plofker (31:14):

I played, I played golf in college actually.

Rabah Rahil (31:16):

Oh, you did? Yeah. How fancy, what was the, what is the, uh, the handicap? That's the, they rate you guys handicap, right? Yeah. How'd

Cody Plofker (31:24):

You shoot best. I was scratch.

Rabah Rahil (31:26):

Oh, like

Cody Plofker (31:27):

That's not bad. Trying to get back into it. Got a little hip problem. So trying to get back into it.

Rabah Rahil (31:31):

I love it. I love it. Uh, jet skiing, overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (31:34):

Oh my God. Do you like, did you like stalk my social media or something?

Rabah Rahil (31:37):

I stalk all the guests. I was gonna

Cody Plofker (31:39):

Say

Rabah Rahil (31:40):

Underrated,

Cody Plofker (31:40):

Man. I wanna jet ski so bad.

Rabah Rahil (31:43):

What do you prefer? A lake or ocean. Have you have you jet skied on a lake and jet ski on ocean lake? Well, no, the ocean lake. Yeah. It's way better. I understand.

Cody Plofker (31:52):

I am so afraid of sharks. Even just like getting in to do like some water, like water ski or something or wakeboarding an ocean. I like, I hate it.

Rabah Rahil (31:59):

<laugh> I love that. Okay. Last overrated, underrated, uh, LinkedIn overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (32:06):

So overrated. I, I don't go on LinkedIn. I never do so overrated. Twitter's where I

Rabah Rahil (32:11):

Finally got overrated outta you. I finally got overrated outta you. Yeah. Perfect. All right. Favorite meal and why

Cody Plofker (32:18):

Favorite meal? Um, I gotta go with pizza. It's just so good.

Rabah Rahil (32:24):

Is there a particular pie, like style? Do you like New York style or?

Cody Plofker (32:28):

I like New York style. Definitely. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (32:30):

Just a, just a pepperoni.

Cody Plofker (32:32):

Yeah, probably just cheese, but like pretty thin. Gotta have like a good crunch to it. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (32:37):

Yeah. Yeah. Civil man. Simple pleasures. I love, love it. Uh, favorite newsletter

Cody Plofker (32:44):

Triple well newsletter. Of course. There

Rabah Rahil (32:46):

We go. Well, well plug love it. Favorite place travel to and why

Cody Plofker (32:52):

Favorite place travel to and why? Um, I went to coast of Italy recently, so like Pasano Capri for my honeymoon. So it was beautiful there for vacation since COVID and it was for my honeymoon. Cool. That's definitely do it.

Rabah Rahil (33:08):

That's on the list a hundred percent. It was. Oh, wow. That is the, that's a magical area over there. Uh, favorite way to spend your time.

Cody Plofker (33:16):

I need some goddamn hobbies, especially now. I can't play golf cuz my hip <laugh> I eat hobbies. I'd say walking with my dog Parker. That's when I do best thinking.

Rabah Rahil (33:26):

I love it. Favorite follow on Twitter.

Cody Plofker (33:30):

Favorite follow on Twitter man. Man, man. There's so many. That's that's a tough one. Who's yours. Well, I think who's your,

Rabah Rahil (33:40):

Uh, I've been a super fan of uh, Hey it's Alex P um, she's actually done some whale mail posts and then, uh, Shane Ross, dad. He's also, he does some CRO stuff. Good dude. Yeah. He has some good stuff over there

Cody Plofker (33:52):

Stuff, man. That's that's such a tough one. If I'm going, especially like DTC e-commerce um, I'll say Taylor holiday. He's a super smart guy. Probably mostly over dude stuff, but I've learned so much e-commerce from him, so,

Rabah Rahil (34:06):

Oh, I know. I totally, if he did damnit, I skipped over that overrated. Underrated. We gotta circle back. NFTs, overrated, underrated.

Cody Plofker (34:12):

Shortterm overrated long term. Very underrated.

Rabah Rahil (34:16):

I love that answer. Okay. Last one for you, Cody, if you could have dinner with anyone dead or live three people fictional nonfictional, who would they be?

Cody Plofker (34:25):

Fictional. Nonfictional. Who would they be? Jay-Z done. Um, long term Elon Musk

Rabah Rahil (34:36):

Done.

Cody Plofker (34:38):

Um, last one, man. These are, these are some tough ones.

Rabah Rahil (34:46):

<laugh> it's the rapid fire has to live up to the reputation.

Cody Plofker (34:50):

Someone funny will Ferrell beautiful.

Rabah Rahil (34:53):

Everyone alive. No, no historical. I like that. Live in the present. I'm into it. Well, Cody, you made it through the whole episode unscathed. I expected nothing less. Your reputation lived up to the showing. Very impressive. Uh, you wanna plug anything John's road? Uh, your PT biz selling it. Anything following you into

Cody Plofker (35:13):

Twitter? No, I, I got nothing to plug. I'm always looking to, to connect, especially with people who are, you know, on the brand side. So people who work for brands always just love to share. What's working. What's not working how we can help each other. So definitely active on Twitter. I don't even know what my handle is. I think it's at Cody puff, but yeah. Hit me up and

Rabah Rahil (35:31):

Check. We're putting show notes.

Cody Plofker (35:34):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (35:34):

Check out. Joe Joe beauty.

Rabah Rahil (35:36):

Joan Joe beauty. And uh, we'll put Cody's handle in this show. What a pro I love this guy, Cody. Thanks so much for taking your time. If you all want to get more involved in triple whale, we are on the bird app at tri triple whale. Um, we can also take you on the wait [email protected] and then, uh, as Cody alluded to, if you ain't subscribed to mail, well whale mail, what are you doing? What are you doing? Get, get, get subscribed. Cody. Thanks so much for taking the time brother. We'll talk soon. Yeah, man. Appreciate.

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