Audience Bridge [Insights]
Audience Bridge Insights is a podcast for newsletter operators, marketers, and media founders who want to scale smarter. Each episode dives into real-world strategies, tools, and conversations with industry experts on email deliverability, list growth, monetization, and the evolving tech behind the inbox.
Audience Bridge [Insights]
He Kills Most Facebook Ads in 3 Days. One Has Run for 2 Years. w/ Manny Reyes
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Most newsletter publishers buying Facebook ads are hunting for a winner. Manny Reyes kills losers fast enough that the winners can pay for them.
Manny is the founder and CEO of Boletín Growth, a paid growth agency for newsletters. He's helped acquire more than 5 million subscribers over six years of media buying, including time at Morning Brew. In this episode of Audience Bridge Insights, we get into how he tests, kills and scales ads, and why the cheapest CPA is often buying the wrong people.
In this episode:
- Why a $1,000 test tells you nothing, and the month-one budget he needs instead
- The 10–20% ad win rate, and why creative volume is the only way the math works
- UGC creators vs. AI actors: why paying $250 for one video no longer makes sense
- His rule: never scale an ad more than 15–20% a day
- How he "graduates" a winning ad from testing to the main campaign
- Using beehiiv's MCP to cut cohort analysis from a full day to about ten minutes
- Why Facebook lead forms fill your list with email addresses from 2001
- LinkedIn is overrated for newsletters, and ads in other newsletters are underrated
- The sub-$2 CPA myth
Connect with Manny:
- Boletín Growth: https://www.boletingrowth.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mannyreyesm/
- X: https://x.com/mannyyreyyes
Connect with Chris:
- Subscribe to Our Newsletter: https://links.audiencebridge.io/subscribe-v2
- Follow Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismiquel/
- Follow Chris on X: https://x.com/miqchris
If you liked this episode, subscribe to my channel!
Intro
SPEAKER_00The cost to pay a UGC creator these days is just not worth it when you can make dozens and dozens of variants of that same ad with AI actors or AI Avatars. What style of ad you're seeing out there that's working the best right now?
SPEAKER_01If the question is like out the gate style just between static and video, I would say How long are you given a new ad to decide whether it's got legs or to kill it? Normally it's like a maximum. What percentage of your clients are trying to monetize people up front through some type of mid-path welcome journey versus just trying to build that list and let the newsletter be the main monetization point?
SPEAKER_00I definitely wouldn't recommend hiring an agency to just handle a thousand dollars an ad spin for you. Like figuring it out on your own and seeing if it's sustainable is probably best.
Meet Manny Reyes
SPEAKER_01Happy to have you on the show. How are you doing, Manny? Doing well, how are you, Chris? Thank you for having me, man. Doing good. Doing good. I mean, the with the weather here in Florida is kind of crappy, you know. It rain every every afternoon, it's getting hot as crap, and the humidity is getting to like 100%. So it's not as nice as uh what San Diego where you're at right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, San Diego's going through a little bit of a of a quote unquote heat wave.
SPEAKER_01Um, but heat wave out here is like temperature or the heat wave.
SPEAKER_00I think heat wave out here by definition of San Diegans is like high 70s. If it's not in the perfect 68 to 72, everyone's just freaking out. So uh yeah, it's uh you still get plenty of sunshine. That's not it's not rainy or anything on the other coasts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I feel like San Diego is like always between like 65 and 75 degrees like year round.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It's uh I think I I just saw something that it's like 300 plus days out of the year, it's in that range, which is which is a wild stat compared to anyone that I help on the phone with in the in the Midwest or anything, you know? Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01Well, Manny is obviously uh a media buyer, really focuses, really focuses, he's he's dedicated on really Facebook buys and running that through his agency for his clients. Um, so we're gonna get into a lot of that, discuss what his strategies are, kind of how he does that, and then we'll get into some stuff, you know, maybe how he's leveraging AI and things of that nature. So if you can kind of just give a a little breakdown on kind of like how you manage your campaigns, work with your clients to kick off these campaigns, and then what's your kind of your your strategy or your system for like scaling those campaigns up to obviously get more fun? Because I think that's always been the hardest part uh when it came comes to Facebook, is a lot of people are like, Oh, I'm getting these great costs for leads and stuff doing good. And then they try to scale it up and usually it kind of blows up in their face. Yeah. Um, so if you can kind of give us a little peek behind your your strategies and your and your system,
Setting expectations and minimum test budgets
SPEAKER_01uh absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'll I'll get into it. Um yeah, the uh overall like setting the stage for anyone that we work with is um obviously setting the right expectations out the gate on their their biggest why on the the why behind the investment into paid growth. I think it's one of those things where if it's not just like something where it's like there's there's capital investment or or something, some other external factor that is pushing the the growth investment here, most of the time, I would say 80 to 90 percent of the time, it is you know bootstrapped is like what whatever revenue has been um brought into the business for the for for the news that they're operating is obviously being reinvested into growth. And also just the why as to where where the ROI is at on paid growth. If it's just you know top line growth, being able to charge advertisers more, if it's you know, doing specific funnels for um low-ticket digital products, um, always understanding the why and setting those right expectations. And I think is where we always um like to set the stage before we even bring them on and and think about running a single dollar in ad spend. Uh what once things are are going, it's very much like done for you on our end with anyone that we work with, where the only thing we ask them to do is to review and approve the creative every single week. And then we launch it, we test it, we look at the data, and we pull the levers that we need to on our end. For the most part, I think the conversation around the right expectations and how to scale up and and the right ways to scale up spend come down to making sure that the first month is not one of those months where, well, for for starters, like we also don't really want to have anyone spending less than two to three thousand a month in month one um as like their their test budget, because it does get to that point where if for some reason we allowed someone to come on board and only spend a thousand dollars a month in their first month in ad spend, yeah, CPAs may look incredible, uh data may may look like it's crushing, and then month two, month three come around and they say, Hey, we want to spend, we we like the data, we want to spend five, six, ten K. Um, yeah, it the the numbers are gonna be whole whole different ballgame just based on how aggressively it scales month over month. So for the most part, um, I've always said that if we can get some specific, like a specific sample size of data within three to five K an ad spend in month one, very likely that we can replicate those numbers with the right creative strategy, obviously, in place um at 8k at 10k a month plus. So for the most part, that's kind of how I always set the stage for anyone coming in into the picture of of paid ads for the first time for their newsletter, is to sure like if if if the if it's mainly a test and it's very much bootstrapped and you just want to see some data, um, I definitely wouldn't recommend hiring an agency to just handle a thousand dollars in ad spin for you, like figuring it out on your own and seeing if it's sustainable is probably best. For the most part, with us, like how we can scale it is by making sure we have the right amount of budget in month one and then being able to say we feel confident that wherever baseline CPA we found in month one at this budget, we can very likely replicate it in month two and month three if you want to scale it up, you know, 20 to 30 percent. So that that's I think that's probably the the biggest conversation we have is setting setting the right stage for things to actually scale past month three, four, five, and six of um of the the paid growth efforts that they're that they're taking on, you know.
SPEAKER_01Are you are you working with B2B and B2C clients? Um, or you just focus on on one one side or the other?
B2B vs. B2C and audience size
SPEAKER_00No, uh it it ranges, man. Um B2B and B2C for sure. We work with uh a lot of a lot of authors uh on B2C side for their content. Um we work with a couple different B2B newsletters. One that always comes to mind on how B2B things can get is um home pros, and they're a newsletter that runs the newsletters mainly for HVEC owners and managers in the US. So it can get pretty niche in terms of like B2B, the B2B side of things. Um yeah, we don't discriminate uh in terms of like what area or category you're in. It's mainly just on setting the right expectations on the total addressable market. You know, it's a totally different ballgame on the cost per acquisition that you can expect from, you know, James Clear having a total addressable market of tens of millions versus home pros having a total total addressable market of maybe 40 to 60,000 plus uh in the US, um of like you know, the the high quality B to B audience that you're looking for in that ICP. Two two different ballgames in terms of expectations and projections you can make, you know, on on all your your growth spend there.
SPEAKER_01So what are you what are you looking at like in those two faces? Um obviously they're there's different, you know, they're monetizing differently. Obviously, the the HBAC guy, I'm assuming they're trying to get service contracts, new AC stuff, or I'm I don't even know. I mean they're they're targeting the the service people, so I don't know if it's who owns it. Um but how are you determining what what what stats are you looking for uh on that side to judge what the LTB is, what's your you know, LTB over CAC for this person versus uh B2C, you know, what stats are you monitoring there? Where are they judging their revenue? You know, there's obviously different people that know their LTB over CAC down to the science, like Matt Paulson over at Market B knows every everything down to the dollar. So, you know, I'm not sure what James Clear has on this size. I'm sure he's got his own products or something he might be pushing and and and selling that are causing, you know, generating revenue or whatever. So, like what uh are the differences that you're looking for stat-wise for different types of people? Um, and then what's the main driver behind it all? Engagement LTB, like if you don't have the for those for those newsletters that don't really have, can't really tie maybe the revenue to a specific subscriber to really know that this source for this cohort basically generated this much revenue. It's kind of just blended because they're doing, you know, sponsorships, ad stuff, and all this stuff, it's just kind of blended, then you know they'll maybe have like a revenue per engage subscriber they still they can base it on. What does that kind of look like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I will say that the there is no the it's very different when you're talking about B2B and B2C. Like there are some similarities, but there's also a lot of differences across every newsletter product and um every newsletter business model. Like you said, there's some newsletters that are running four different monetization models and some newsletters that are crushing it with just sponsorships, strictly that, you know. So it does vary on like where the LTB to CAC um conversation goes just based on what their model is and and how they're attributing that to you know reinvest back into growth. I out the gate, I think for anyone who isn't, you know, really, really like mature in in that sense of um being able to tie it back to the dollar LTB to CAC in that conversation. I think on the B2B side, I will initially always say is sorry, I don't know if you saw my dog right there. Yeah, he's wagging a tail just me.
First-party data and the post-sign-up survey
SPEAKER_00Um the um where was I? Oh, on the B2B side, yeah, for the home pros uh side of things or for any B2B newsletter, we really, really like to focus on making sure that first party data is in in place to be gathered and and and collected. I think um tons of B2B newsletter operators and Jacob Donnelly has always like been shouting from the rooftops to making sure that is like the bare minimum for any B2B newsletter that's out there that's spending on paid ads is to make sure that you're acquiring that first party data to be able to measure of the ads, then you know, going tying back into UTM sources of the people that we acquired on Facebook in the last month, how many of them are actually within my ICP based on the questions that they answered on on that post subscribe survey. That is like out the gate, just one pretty strong measurement of success in being able to say uh if the ads are working or not working, in the sense of like, are they actually attracting the right subscriber to your newsletter versus just any Joe Schmoe that is somewhat interested in your in your content? So um on the B B side, that that's where I would definitely lean into, like I said, as the bare minimum. For the sake of like the the LTV to CAC ratio, we are definitely chatting with them with each newsletter operator on their model to understand at what CPA does this make sense for for their current, you know, be it monthly revenue and you know, just looking at the different funnels that they're running, different monetization models, I should say, that they're running, because sometimes, you know, specific CPA works strictly for this monetization model, but it doesn't work for a different monetization model that they're working off of if they're looking at each one individually. Because a lot of the times there's always like, you know, for for the ones that are running three to four monetization models on a newsletter, most of the time, I would say like one, maybe two of them are actually the the biggest drivers, and the other two are just bringing in 10 to 20 percent of the revenue, if that uh per month. So that's kind of how we we like to just this discuss with everyone on being able to say like towards which monetization models are we actually reverse engineering all these CPA projections and and you know goals for, and from there that that's just on us to make sure that we can implement the right creative strategy and the right app copy for them to be able to actually at least achieve that net CPA that they're looking for to back into their their monetization and all their projections that they're having. So I I would say that's probably the same for B2C. Um obviously B2C's normally it tends to scale a little bit uh faster and more aggressive just based on based on like if the need for them is growth to be able to charge more to advertisers, that's normally where B2C plays into. Um, but at the same time, that I I don't think B2C is is one that you can that that you should like absolutely discriminate against uh acquiring first party data because that is still data that you can use to your advantage in some way, shape, or form. It it I've seen it plenty of times where it's not just helpful to have discussions with advertisers on who is on my list just to be able to tell your advertisers like my list has you know 60% of them or over 150,000 in in you know income, just that one data point. But it can also like bring up some ideas later on in the business around different products or different um, yeah, different needs that you can fulfill for your audience just based on that data that you have on them. Uh and it could turn into a different monetization uh stream later on. So it all ties back, I guess, to like that one bare minimum point that I mentioned.
Payback periods: 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days
SPEAKER_00Um, but the conversation around LTB to CAC does vary. Like I I could probably have 24 completely different conversations with each one of our clients um on that uh conversation, and it's all gonna vary just based on you know what what they're running so far, uh, and also payback period, all that jazz on some some of them. Like we know people, I'm sure you know people who wanna have the the payback period be in 24 hours. Some people look at it in six months, uh, and some people look at it, you know, six to twelve months.
SPEAKER_01So um I never I never I never I never believed the guy that says 24 hours, by the way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no. I've I've seen it, I I've seen it be done um maybe once, and I say maybe, um, but it it's it's a it's a very it's a tall order for for any news or operator. Um most of the time I do believe it where you can it can happen in 30 days for someone who has things incredibly dialed in. And I when I say somebody, I mean like Matt Paulson that is incredibly dialed in on those efforts to to achieve like a payback period there. And but it it also kind of just depends on you know all the channels that you might be running for for pay to as an acquisition as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just uh I just had Andy Mackison from the assist on the show. Um and I mean he's got it dialed in too. I mean, his he actually had payback of like seven days or less than seven within seven days, he's got his payback, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So you you you and I both know Andy, and we all know that he he can get the payback down to 24 hours for some subscribers, but for folks on his average, yeah, seven days is is definitely there. Um which is you know not something uh to discount. Like there it does like for for for most people, it does sound like um a very achievable thing to get that payback period down to under seven days or even seven to thirty days. But I I I forget who I was chatting with uh about it on like the infrastructure needed to have that happen is no small task. Um it it it probably took Andy and Joanna months, and and I know I know this, I've chatted with them before that it it takes, you know, relationship building with advertisers, it takes months of like setting the right the right infrastructure on the back end of all the surveys, all this, all that, um, to the point where like m some people just don't really realize like that Matt Paulson is the same way. He's been setting up infrastructure to have it so dialed in now for years. Um and it and it just takes time. It's not one of those things where you can come into the newsletter world and spin up a newsletter, spin up paid eyes, and expect the the money to just be flown within seven to thirty days either. Um I think it just it's a matter of being strategic, but also putting in the legwork because it does require a lot of legwork for that that payback period to be as short as possible that that most people are are kind of like itching for sometimes, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean Andy said uh it took him six to nine months to to optimize the the landing page to where it's at now, uh which increases conversions. I think he said like 35% up to like 60%, or cheap. So I mean that's like you're basically getting double the acquisition that you were for the same spend. So you you just basically cut that in half, which means your paybacks
Monetizing before the first newsletter
SPEAKER_01will be faster. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um different layers to pool for sure. Um but yeah, it's I mean oh go ahead.
SPEAKER_01I say what percentage of of your clients are trying to monetize people up front through some type of mid-path welcome journey versus just trying to build that that list and let the the newsletter be the main monetization point. And and do you see the any difference between the two models and the the length of engagement that a subscriber is kind of staying on the list?
SPEAKER_00I would say to the first question is probably max of like 20 to 25 percent of the clients that we work with are running that like mid-path um monetization effort slash you know funnels journeys and and setting them up in in that way. For the most part, it's it's not a super popular thing where I don't think I'll I'll we'll ever get to like a client roster of 30 plus clients to where 50% of them are running that because it goes back to what you and I were just talking about the infrastructure. It's not something that everyone's uh down to like really dig deep on to set that up for six to nine months and and then be able to run it successfully because you can set it up in a month or two, it may not be dialed in, you may not have the highest conversion rates, and you know, it's just not gonna live up to those expectations. Differences that I see uh be between the two is that yes, that no matter what conversion rate, if you have at least like you know, uh 0.5 to 2% conversion rate on some of those mid-passe journalists, depending on if it's low ticket, medium ticket, or whatever on the audience, um, for the most part, I do see that being like a longevity play. I think it it does allow you to recoup some ad costs, obviously out the gate, just like if you were running Sparklooper or up scribe right after, um, if it's you know recouping 40, even 30 to 40 percent of your ad costs per month, that kind of ties into the longevity of okay, we can let the other 60% definitely come in within the next three to six months. But for the most part, on the other ones that are not running those myth path journeys, I think it it just comes down to understanding like on the B2B side, I think it's comes down to like understanding advertiser demand sometimes too, if it's um strictly like that being like 90% of the revenue there. For the for some B2B news artists that we work with, they've they're already sold out for all of 2026. Uh for others, you know, they're still working on trying to sell a couple of them Q3 and and most of Q4. But that comes down to, you know, obviously still understanding like the the scale of of the newsletter. And also like what one conversation that I literally just had uh an hour ago is that if they are at that point of um tens of thousands of subscribers and they're sending two to three times a week, every newsletter send is an opportunity for churn. So that that's where the other like why uh like why am I investing into it is just to not go into the red sometimes, also um to be able to continue that um you know those those rates that you may be putting out to an advertiser. So those are the two main differences that that I see on like the the questions that these operators are asking themselves um on a daily weekly basis. Um for the most part, I think it it there's so many reasons why like the the the investment makes sense uh in into paid growth. But for a lot of them, uh real realistically, we don't work with anyone that does like this whole kind of like just considering it a game or you know, and I'm sure you you and I have have come across plenty of it where they can just consider the news that are like a cash game, like how inputs and outputs, right? Can I put in 5,000 here and get 10,000 out here kind of thing? Uh we don't work with anyone like that. It's very much like established creators and/or like media businesses that are looking at this at a at a 12-year uh or you know, 12-month rate of where can we be at in six to 12 months based on this investment on this RI with these monetization models and go
Which ad formats are winning right now
SPEAKER_00from there. So that there's a lot of similarities between them too, you know. Um, I think it kind of just depends which which avenue you want to take.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Makes sense. The um let's let's dig into more of the the meat of of campaigns and stuff like that. When you're when you're you guys are setting up campaigns and running campaigns, I guess first, what style of of ad is you're seeing out there that's working the best right now?
SPEAKER_00If if the question is like out the gate style, just between static and video, I would say video is where most of our ad spend is going. Probably the 80% plus of the ad spend as a whole. Uh, if you put all the ad spend of all the the clients that we have at the agency, probably 80% plus of all that ad spend is going towards video. Um, we've seen some some like waves of success with static, um, but it's never been like a long-term thing where it lasts where you know more than three to six months of statics being the the winner every single time. Um, so video is is definitely where it's at. I think we've all seen it at this point around like how call it like basic or ugly maybe uh some of the video ads that that actually win uh are out there. Um it's one of those things that I don't think myself or any other newsletter uh growth agency uh is going to change. It's what one of those things that like it's it's it's not broken, why fix it kind of thing. Uh especially and and because at the same time, if we try to fix it and it breaks and we just try to go outside the mold of like, let's just try to run these statics because everyone else is doing these specific videos or or just running video, um, it's also a disservice to the people. that are trusting us with the with the ad spend in there so that's why we kind of stick to what works but there's a lot of experimentation on a weekly basis where the the team on on on my end is pumping out dozens if not hundreds of creatives per per week um across all the clients to test and be able to see if there are different formats that might have a potential to be like in in the winning race that we can double down on. So yeah videos is probably the the best one in when you say I know for a while I was always saying stuff like you know one of the big winners is the I mean it's video not video it's like the the background moving but then like there's the text text text over yeah yeah yeah text overlay is that is that considered video or is that that that is considered video yeah um just because there is like some background movement to it and because it it can obviously like lay within the the Instagram reels uh ad placement it obviously come up as a video rather than just a static image on there so so we consider uh video the the UGC side of things like um most of that has um for uh on our end it it hasn't been a strong strong winner across multiple ad accounts for a while now um
UGC vs. AI actors
SPEAKER_00but we still test it because there are some scripts that you know with good copywriting you can make a really really good UGC ad. But it it has um kind of like transitioned into much more of like an AI production scene and for some clients they're just not into that which is totally fine. We always are very transparent and ask before we try to uh put that together if they know it's like a a deep fake or or an AI avatar that's um actually speaking into it. There's a lot of video editing that goes into it before we push any ad out in in into the wild so that you don't you can't tell whether the the AI avatar like is is uh is actually AI with the with the lips looking off or whatever. But it has moved into that because the cost on at least on on my point of view the cost to pay a UGC creator these days to make an ad make a singular ad is just not worth it when you can make probably dozens and dozens of variants of that same ad with the same script across 12 different actors AI actors AI avatars and so you you kind of are are spreading your lookout a lot more on the UGC side when whenever we do that rather than paying the one UGC creator 250 bucks for the video to just hope you know cross our fingers we paid him let's cross our fingers that this works for us we're out of that money um especially if it's being transferred over on that cost to the to the client as well you know are you are you when you're doing like um UGC ads for like one of your creators say James Clear are you giving him your that copy to kind of like go go off of and get recorded or is he just giving you a bunch of there's recorded shit and you're kind of just like slicing it up most of the time we slice it up um but there is like uh a lot of um we we go like line by line we never tell anyone that's like doing a a founder like point of view whether it's Jane Square or someone else who like we're talking about in the first person point of view of them being the writer and founder of the newsletter. It is normally like they we just tell them go line by line, read into a couple times, we'll pick the best ones and slice it all together rather than them memorizing the entire script and trying to look into the camera to read it off. So on on that part, yeah it it does take it's a little bit more of a complex process for for the actual you know founder writer of the newsletter to actually get it done. But for the most part I I think those are also some of the more uh successful ads. Um the other thing that we've we've done a lot of is the just using the the voiceovers sometimes we've done it before where um we we just tell them like just do voice notes just send us voice notes of this script a couple different of the lines and we'll put it together with again some video background in there and the subtitles and that can be another one that was one of the newsletters that I highlighted in um my my newsletter where I I share like each like each week it's one of those like winning ads that that we're seeing that that's working and it was one of those AI voiceover ads but it's also one of those things where it does take a video editor it does take the the recordings all the subtitles kind of thing it's not a uh a two minute thing that you can spin up in Canva either you know so so you're providing all that for people are you doing all the creative the video editing yeah managing setting up all the ads and all that stuff yeah it's A to Z on on our team in terms of um what we take care of the literally the only thing we ask people to do is review and approve the creative every single week. They're not writing any ad copy they're not launching anything within meta ads so long as uh they tell us what budget they want to spend it's on us to get the creative and the ad copy produced launch it optimize them over time report uh every single week on what we've seen in the last seven days on the data uh and then just have those weekly or monthly conversations on where do we want to be at next month, um what went right, what went wrong uh in these last couple of weeks, um, etc, etc. That's kind of like what the the the comms look like between us and and every newsletter operator that we work with.
How fast to kill an ad
SPEAKER_01How how long are you giving given a new ad to decide whether it's got legs or to kill it?
SPEAKER_00Normally it's like a max of three to five days very a very very like strict max of three to five days. Sometimes we can tell within the first 48 hours um if it's got legs and this is all just based on like how complex your media buying strategy is on like how many ads you're putting into each ad set all this other stuff and then how much control you're giving meta to to test different copy variants or whatnot. But normally we we can tell just based on where the ad spend has been going and where the click through rates are at, you know, obviously backing into the the CPAs and whatever that we can we we've done it before where a lot of times we kill some ads within the first 48 hours of them running. Other times we kind of let them run for three to five days to see if there's any swings towards other other variants. And then at that point it allows us to keep you know two out of five ads instead of just only running one out of the five uh for a little bit longer. But uh yeah all that said it's it it the there's probably a lot more uh axing done of ads that we launch of all the ads that we create than success rates on like having a bunch of them be winners and then trying to distribute the wealth amongst them. For the last six years that I've done this I would I would say that you know if if you have one out of four 25 out of your 25% of the ads that you make um actually be winners and actually hit the the CPAs that you want to hit and you know back into um just your overall ROI targets um you're you're crushing it. Most of the time it's probably more like 10 to 20% of the ads that you create are are actually going to crush it and sustain the ad account. So it's a pretty good uh humbling expectation to set uh when when getting into it where you do need to play the numbers game and not spin up two ads in a week and really cross your fingers that both of them work because if neither of them work then you're just gonna be burning cash for a week or two, you know?
SPEAKER_01Right. And now that you identified a winning ad, what does scaling that ad look like time wise? Like I don't know give us like a basic kind of scenario scale where like you're your whatever you you would say like you're starting, I guess what's your stu what what would
Testing vs. main campaigns
SPEAKER_01you say you're how are you splitting the budgets when you're testing? And then from once you get that winner or whatever that is, how do you scale that up to where you're getting the most out of it before you're starting to see you know diminishing returns?
SPEAKER_00Yeah I think uh for the most part like we we do this uh the strategy of of we normally have two campaigns running with every newser that that we're working with. One is where the winners are always running and that's where 80 to 90% of the ad spend is is working of the monthly budget that we have set. 10 to 20% is where the testing budget comes into play. Once we have you know three to five days worth of data to be able to actually call it a winner then we call when we do what we call like graduating that ad from the testing campaign to the main campaign within its own ad set or if one of the one of the um ads in in the the main campaign that has a lot of the budget is proving you know showing some diminishing returns then we might just completely replace it and then start you know driving a a bit more ad spend towards there. For the most part I I think most of the time when we're testing ads it's like 40 to 50 bucks a day to be able to get enough conversions over three to five days and be able to like take that data at face value. If we're only spending 10 bucks a day on it we're you know by day three we still may not have enough data to actually say it's a winner. So by that point like once we're moving it on to graduating if it's starting at 50 bucks a day no matter what it starts at 50, 100 or 200 bucks a day on what we consider a winning we're never scaling it by more than 15 to 20% daily. And that's just a cardinal rule to not do the whole like learning phase reset within the campaigns um because then you know you're you're just confusing the the algorithm every single day on the data that it's getting and just literally hitting a hard reset button. So no matter where it starts on the baseline 15 to 20% gradually is where we go. Normally we don't uh do like 15 to 20% for like two to three weeks unless it's absolutely necessary to hit a target monthly budget. But for the most part um we have plenty of assets and plenty of winners all working at the same time that we can spread it out uh amongst there. But yeah 15 to 20% is where like I we always cap it off on on scaling that. And then once we you know do it probably like four to six times on that 15 to 20% increase normally try to see if we can let it settle see if it can sustain that CPA after we've increased it almost you know 100% over the last you know two weeks see if it can sustain the the right CPAs that we're looking for. And if not if it's just continuing to increase every day or every two days then we start looking at okay where where can we distribute a little bit more where can we test a little bit more at the same time in the background once we identify a winning ad there's also stuff going on on the back end of the team where we've identified winning ads across different ad accounts we need to double down on this format, on this copy, on this hook. That way we can just spin up like call it like V2 of of this ad that's a winner already. Just you know hopefully have a a second variation of it that can run on its own with its own budget and hit the same targets that we're looking for. So more of an R and a science kind of complex once we like identify winning ad on what happens within the ad account and what happens outside of the ad account to be able to sustain that long term. Because at some point or another, yeah, it it does it thing things will go south and most of the testing and creative production that we do is to be prepared for when things do go south to not have to freak out and and have to like you know pull down ad budget aggressively because it's not looking right or whatever, you know?
SPEAKER_01Right. I've I'm I've blown up of an ad campaign or two myself in my in my days. Yeah
Graduating a winning ad
SPEAKER_01same same what uh when you when you're talking about graduating just so the listeners understand when you're talking about uh because I don't have the answer I'd like to know when you say you're graduating uh an ad set or an ad into kind of your your winner campaign are you able just to move an ad or an ad set over there or you just have to recreate it over there so that it's in there and then the other one it's the the answer's kinda kind of both because like you you can't really you can just duplicate it like if you if you're pretty good at media buying you can just duplicate that ad but have it be duplicated within the new campaign or within a new ad set the more manual way is just going to your your OG campaign where most of the ad is at either creating a new ad set or creating a net new ad within an ad set that already exists.
SPEAKER_00But both are both are doable but both are like what we would consider graduating one from one ad from from one campaign to the other. Yeah it's it's it's one of those things where you kind of have to roll the dice on it some I will say when it when I say like roll the dice on like moving that over because whichever route you take of the two that I just mentioned it is still like a hard reset where you may not see the right the same CPAs that you sell within the testing campaign.
SPEAKER_01So that's our plus that's then I was that's why I was asking I was gonna be like so when you did it you do you see it not perform as well sometimes just because it hasn't it's a relearn or whatever it was and like so that's kind of yeah that was what I was asking.
SPEAKER_00It's a good question because plenty of times one thing that I forgot to mention is that we don't just if we if it's a winning ad within the test testing campaign sometimes it's on us to just be like hey it may not work once you graduate or over and if it's if we try to run it from 50 bucks here to over to 100 to 200 bucks plus a day on on that campaign. So let's keep it live let's see what happens in in the the high spend campaign and if the data just isn't looking right then we just kill it in in the high spend campaign and try to scale it within the testing campaign on its own. Obviously it's a little bit more management because then it's trying to scale both campaigns or an ad set within both campaigns within the testing in the original campaign. But it is something that we always keep in the back of our heads uh and not just completely shut down once we've decided that it's a winning ad within the testing campaign we're gonna be like okay let's just shut it off let's let's cross our fingers and hope that it works once we graduate it uh we kind of look at both over the first three to five days once we actually put it in the new campaign and then decide make another decision okay w which one which one is actually still performing over time which one do we scale uh sometimes it's both uh sometimes you know most of the time we we end up uh keeping it within the graduated campaign but there are a handful of times that we're just continuing to scale in the testing campaign because that's where again meta's ad machine that some some things on on the back end of meta's ad machine we just don't control we just kind of have to roll with the punches and and kind of tweak it in in the best way that that we can you know
The ad that's run for two years
SPEAKER_00and then from that what is the longest running winner you've you have active right now on on any any any campaign any client whatever like how long has it there been an ad running probably more than two years of of an ad running I don't I don't I don't think I'll I'll say the the name that of of you're about to say it I'm just I was just wondering how long uh yeah it's probably probably been two years um that one single ad is would run there's been multiple ads running and I I can't say that it definitely hasn't been that like 90% of the ad budget over those two years has just been going towards that ad. Right. But a fair share of the ad budget has been going towards that one ad that has been running for more than two years. And I think one thing to mention on like the tactical side of things for this is that when when it does get to that point there's two routes that an ad can take it can take the route of sustaining for two plus years like with the one that we're that we're talking about and the reason why it'll do that is because it gets so much organic engagement at the same time where this ad when you see it on Facebook or Instagram it has thousands of likes thousands of comments because it's been running for that long with so much budget behind it. Most of the time I will say that it only works for an ad that has a high very high total addressable market. I I don't I don't think we've ever found an ad to run for more than like four to six months on the B2B side um because the total addressable market it's just the frequency of how many times the audience that you're targeting um that that fits for for this ad sees it just turns into diminishing returns. So for the most part I think you can set your sights on an ad normally lasting four to six months at most. Definitely on the B2B side on the B2C side you you might get lucky and it can run for six to twelve months plus but most of the time like I said it it it kind of works out uh on the B2C side if it runs for that long because it gets so much organic engagement that it just looks like a regular post that so many people have engaged with and it it's kind of just more of like pouring fuel in the fire for that one sometimes. So yeah not not not the that that definitely doesn't happen like out of yeah I knew it didn't happen often I was just wondering I knew there's there had to be a an outlier there just to see yeah it's always one like definitely an outlier there there's definitely a couple of others I I would probably say like handful probably five or six where there's an ad that's been running for six or twelve months um plus most of them again on the B2C side but it it kind of just depends on it it's it's like you you struck gold in in a way once you can find an ad that lasts that long without um having the CPU blow up you know you ever be like fluctuation like it's like crushing it performing then it kind of goes down then comes back and keeps going it's kind of like pretty steady. Yes and no when I say yes the the period of it like going through through that rocky wave is no more than a week or two where we're like when when we're when we're like very much hawkeying it and seeing if it if this is the time that it just has to be shut down. But again for the most part I think once it passes that six month mark six to eight month mark very likely that it can keep running for another six months just based on the how
Using beehiiv's MCP for cohort analysis
SPEAKER_00much organic engagement has gone behind that ad um and how that translates to really strong ad performance in on the back end.
SPEAKER_01Awesome since the hot topic uh everywhere in every industry these days is AI.
SPEAKER_00Is it like I saw you uh recent post years excuse me talking about how you're using Beehive's MCP dig into the data and then using that to help you either create better ads know what's performing better you know feed that back into the feedback loop uh at least share kind of how you're using that to help you guys with your with your media buys yeah absolutely um I think on on on the media buying side and like how I guess how it's helping us make the right decisions and and pull the right levers is by just being able to like understand uh a little bit more of how everything is tying together on on the acquisition side of things on on the CPA side of things and the engagement and the first party data there's so many questions that we can ask it to be able to like tie in all those metrics together and not just fully rely on just open rate or just click through rate like being able to tie all those things together and you can give it like a rubric in in a way of being able to to to like outline every single metric that you're looking for and also tie to the first party data like if you can ask it you know if if you're a a a newsletter that is um acquiring you know HR directors or or C-suite people in in HR being able to ask it of the people who have answered my post sign up survey within within the C suite what is the breakdown of of these people that have been acquired by Facebook ads and then you say you know the UTM source equals Facebook ads pull strictly from there what are all these metrics that I'm looking for break them down by each ad saree cohort and then you start looking into the UTM mediums that that's kind of how we break it down because we use the UTM sources to be able to do this kind of segmenting on the back end within just the segment tool or the MCP um and be able to go back into the ad account and off of whatever the the MCP gives us and being able to put in all those metrics like take all those metrics into account we can then say okay we really have to tone down the budget on this ad set because it's clearly like fourth or fifth place where all these metrics are are being combined in here. And then on others we're like okay this this this ad set is and this ad is is proving like some really strong signals based on the click through rate the open rate just overall you know engagement that's going on with within the past four weeks let's try to you know bump it up 15 to 20% for two weeks and see if it can hold this like we'll ask the same questions in two weeks after we pull some levers and see if it's actually proving out our our hypothesis andor if it's something that like we blew up and we have to like go back to the drawing board on it. So the those things that like it's it's one of those things that would take just any newsletter operator probably a full day at minimum to really like pull in all the data slice and dice it as much as you want and then be able to make a decision off of it for the sake of your ad spend at minimum might take you at least half a day to to a full day this can do it in 10 minutes and the the the MCP can do it in 10 minutes and we can do it across all the clients every single week on a given day to be able to tell our media buyers these are the levers that we have to pull because of XYZ that that we pulled from it. So I just think it's really powerful for the sake of the like replacing the manual grind of segmenting like cohort analysis like cohort analysis was one of those things that and still is one of those things that uh is not done by the majority of user operators on a daily weekly or monthly basis because it is a manual grind especially when you're acquiring thousands of subscribers um per month being able to get to go in and tie all that data back into something you know one or two sentences that gives you like some actual decision making power to go back into your ad account and pull a lever is a grind. And I've I've done it before and it it takes you a couple hours per client sometimes. Now it's it's completely replaced and you can do it like I said in 10 minutes. So I just think it's really powerful to like remove almost completely remove that barrier of entry to um like some actual productive cohort analysis on the subscribers that you're acquiring and the subscribers that are on your list currently to be able to like I said make make more informed decisions and just make better decisions for your ad spend because that's realistically why we're using a a lot more within us because every client that comes on and partners with us is trusting us with whatever budget they're they want to put behind meta ads. So if we can use the MCP to make it you know even five to ten percent more Efficient over time, over the next six to twelve months that they're working with us, it does very much add up into the right decisions being made weekly and monthly, you know. So that's really how we use it, kind of just combining a couple different metrics. Uh, you know, some sometimes the the qu the questions that we ask are are a little bit um too total of an order uh at times, but uh we we can we can ask separate questions and then try to piece it all together ourselves. It gets us 80% of the way there, like like any LLM should, you know what I mean? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, I mean the stuff it can do is me and what I'm thinking of right now, I don't know if you've been able to do this yet or not, but like, because now you can dig in so easily with the the AI, um down to the the medium or the campaign level, down to the ad set. Um have you like in the B2B case, say um you're targeting right senior level employees, but then you see like, oh, this ad is generating a lot of junior level employees versus this ad, which is all senior. This this one might be a little more expensive, but it's giving me my senior level employees, or this one isn't, but actually my cost per senior level employees way lower over here, and then use that to kill the other one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's exactly that. I think I I I wrote up a post about it very recently on my LinkedIn around the a very, very almost exactly similar case like that, where we we were running a couple of different tests, and within the two to three days after that test started running, we started noticing data just like that, where um 50% plus of the ads was going towards the wrong ad and the wrong ad set. Uh, so we made a very quick decision in in in that case to make sure that we shut that one down or you know, Ramish decrease the ad budget there. And even though the cost was going to be higher on the other ad set and the other ads that were running through there, those were very clearly just based on all the first party data that was being gathered that can be connected to um the UTM source and and all the other um items in there that we're looking for, it makes a very uh makes it a very easy decision to to pull those levers on on our end. So yeah, like I said, I I just think it's it's very powerful, very powerful for the sake of making, yeah, just making more informed decisions, but also not having to spend hours to to piece that data. Yeah, yeah. To get to get all the data to get. Like I said, I've I've done it before, and I completely I didn't say that to like nudge at like news or operators doing the wrong thing for not doing cohort analysis every week or every month. Um it's it's very much a grind. But I think if you're on beehive and and you have access to it, um might not be that much of an excuse anymore if if you can get it done within 30 minutes and and really a lot a lot of the ESPs are starting to give access to an MCP, which is great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, you know, the problem's always been even with Beehive before the MCP, like they didn't give you the data you needed. You know, you could create segments, but that's about it. So you don't get the historical stuff. So trying to get your LTB and your cohort now as impossible. I mean, they have their at least they had their little cohort kind of graph, you could see stuff. So that's that's definitely gonna be a game changer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think it'll make every musical arbory just a lot a lot smarter in every decision that they make. Um, not not just on the growth side of things, but any organic acquisition uh that that's being played in might even help the content strategy. I I can absolutely see it help the content strategy um side of things. If you can dig into the engagement on certain subject lines, the engagement on you know certain things with your welcome email. Over time, as people come to play with it, I think we're gonna see a lot more like very, very useful case study, like case studies of this on our part. We're just so like we have like the horse binders on to be able to use it for the right decision making on the media buying and within the ad accounts,
Is SMS worth it?
SPEAKER_00you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Are you are you guys driving any um any campaigns for SMS signups?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, actually. We we were working with one or two early, early on into uh this when the agency came about um to uh a little over two years ago, but it has not been like a huge appetite across uh any of our current clients um or any realistically in the last month that I've had probably anywhere from like 10 to 15 calls with like net new news or operators that are thinking about paid growth. I don't think they've they've chatted about SMS either. Right now, I think it's um I think SMS comes into play a lot more when not to say you're tapped out, but when you're trying to measure uh like a different monetization stream or try to attempt well, you have to have a big you have to have a big monetization stream because SMS is so expensive to send.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you have to you have to be able to monetize it and people, especially on the B2C side. If it's just a newsletter, say you know, 1440 or Morning Brew or something, like they can't really monetize it. People are trying to find ways not to monetize it, but it's it's not easy. Obviously, uh Paulson at Mark could be monetized like crazy, but he also uh is in finance, and that's one of the you know higher higher netting uh niches. So it worked for him.
SPEAKER_00He's able to promote great. The right stars have to align for sure because, like you said, uh like Morning Brewing 1440, if SMS was really the one of the end all be all uh these days across the newsletter industry, those guys would be doing it at that scale because we can say like any newsletter, you know, 500,000 plus or a million plus subscribers can can actually get into it because they can sustain the costs, but it actually doesn't back into it sometimes when you look at the costs and what you know again, LTV to CAC on what that looks like and if you can afford the additional costs on on it. So yeah, I mean I I think at some point it may it it may be done strategically, but uh now I feel like the conversation has been here has been around for at least two years, um lightly and and maybe in the last year gotten a little bit more aggressive on it. But for anyone that I think starts to like really look into it and then realizes the costs, most of the the monetization models that they have in place don't really support the the the total cost of it right now. Yeah, that that's why I think right now none of our our client roster is is working off of it. And I I I just don't see it being like a aside from like the I guess you you do have to look into like the the niche that you're in, like within the finance when you're talking about MapPuls, and I I think if if your your niche and your monetization models both support something like that where it there is a much more high, just overall uh higher average or earnings per subscriber that you can get off of it, then it might be something to look into, but something that I feel like most people still need to dial in what they have going on with
Facebook lead forms: yes or no?
SPEAKER_00email first, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right. Uh Facebook forms, yay or nay?
SPEAKER_00Nay. Uh the the leave forms, right? Where you yeah, Facebook leave form. Auto fills, yeah, hard nay. I my my my initial um nay for it has always been that the autofill is almost there there's a certain amount of friction that you have to create uh to still be able to get a high enough conversion rate and it be a quality email and a quality lead. For the most part, what I've seen uh unless they changed it and it's autofilling a different email these days, like based on like what Meta can capture off the user, it'll always auto-fill that email that you created your Facebook account or Instagram account with. And so it's still like the there's just not enough friction to be able to say, Oh, there's already an email auto-filled. I just click and I click submit and I'm done. And I and I sign up to this newsletter, but I signed up to this newsletter with an email that created in 2001 when I made the Facebook account. And so most of the time I've I've just haven't seen it um play out successfully. Um, and I just think it's the right amount of friction comes down to the landing page being used. All that said, I could still be wrong because I see very mature uh media companies and uh some newsletter operators uh running towards lead forms, but not the majority. There's still like 20 to 25 percent of the newsers out there that I see doing it that I think are very well established to have to have this knowledge and it might still be working for them. I know it works for them on the CPA side of things because you'll always get a much you know a much better CPA overall because the friction is so low and the conversion rate can be 70 to 80 percent on those forms versus 40 to 60 on a landing page. But um, if I had to like get into my head, it had to be a yes or a no, I I would always be a no on it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's it's it's the right answer. Um perfect perfect analysis, rubber stamped. Uh I mean this is this is just like last month I was I was working with someone. They were getting like sorry, my my schmerl is going crazy over here. Um the uh they were getting like five percent like open rates and stuff on their welcome email and and stuff like that. I didn't know they were running Facebook forms, and I'm like, oh god, fuck your deliverability's awful. We gotta think it's on like looking into it, and then finally Doug Annie found out he was doing Facebook lead forms, and I'm like, what? I'm like, stop that. Just run regular Facebook to a landing page and we'll see what that looks like. And then he switched it, did that, and then like I mean, like overnight talking like 45% open rates on the data coming in and everything. It's like it's it's it's like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. You have that case study. I have probably at least anywhere from like eight to ten case studies over the last years of any newsletter operator that I've talked to about this that they they tell me they've been doing lead forms, they like the CPAs, but their open rates are are are trash or whatever this and that. Anytime I was actually able to convince them to move to a landing page, same thing. Same thing happens on open rates are up, CPAs are still you know stable. It's not not to say that it's uh an issue with your creative, you know what I mean? It's an issue with well, what email you're getting out of out of that that flow through there. Yeah, it's it's normal normally always a culprit. So hopefully maybe this podcast will convince at least one person to switch over to landing page. Because he has still anyone now.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll just just to you know be devil's advocate. If you are running it for a call center, probably still good. Because the phone number is probably the right phone number. Um, that's probably those more that you're seeing like quality people running those ads is because they're they're probably they probably have a call center slash SMS back office thing that they're they're they're using those leads for, not just to send emails out.
Overrated and underrated paid channels
SPEAKER_01Uh all right, so we're getting to the end of it. Uh go through a few quick lightning questions. Um, no, you're just doing Facebook right now, but I think you have experience with some other channels. Uh, you know, going back some. Is there a paid channel that's overrated right now? That's overrated? Yeah. Oh, I think if there's one that's overrated right now. Um, we're gonna back it up with underrated one. So if you have the underrated one first, you can call that one out, and then you can come overrated.
SPEAKER_00I think overrated in terms of it just not working, but on the B2B side, it there they're just being like such a strong appetite for it lately uh for us to try it with with with some of our clients has been LinkedIn. I think there's been a lot more trials and tribulations in the last year or two within our agency, within the newsletter ecosystem as a whole on the B2B side, where it just has not been turned into very extremely common knowledge that LinkedIn is just 90% of the time too expensive to advertise on for a newsletter. Most of the time you're you're going on there, you're gonna get anywhere from $10 to $30 as a cost per subscriber just based on the CPNs that you're that you're being charged by LinkedIn. LinkedIn will never identify that you're a newsletter advertising on the platform. Most of the time it's it's SaaS where they have they can they they can spend $300 on on an email submission and they're fine. That's a good lead gen for them, you know. So I think that's why that one's probably um my most like overrated because it's it's tough to really like nail that one down to to where like unless you can make you know 50 to 100 bucks off of every subscriber over the course of a year or two, uh, I don't think it would make sense. Um underrated uh advertising platform. This one, this was probably like an easy answer for me, um, because I've seen it done before, but it's also not extremely scalable uh is newsletter to newsletter advertising. Um, you've seen it before and it's always been talked about. I did it when I was at Morning Brew a lot, um, advertising and other newsletters because people who read newsletters will read you your newsletter. So it's kind of like the same thing within like the engagement. Most of the time you will get the highest engaged readers and subscribers from advertising in another newsletter within your you know category of of content or niche in there. But it's also not scalable. Um, most of the time you it's it's it's a grind for one or two people on your team to reach out to the newsletter, get something set up, provide them ad copy, provide this and that. Uh, and sometimes it's it's very much like taking bets because you you you don't know if the the appetite of that audience is actually going to be strong for your newsletter. So you might end up paying way more than you expected on on the on the CPA side of things. So um it's it is a bet, but it is still underrated if you can kind of line things up very well with within your content category to advertise in other newsletters because nine times out of ten, when we did this at Morning Brewer, any any case studies that I think you've heard of people doing this, they will always say that that's their number one acquisition channel for the sake of engaged subscribers that they can get from it. It's just a grind, and it's it's definitely not something that you'll ever be able to scale into the the tens of thousands and spending a month. So just because there's also like a limited bucket of newsletters you might be able to advertise in, you know.
SPEAKER_01And and you can't, it's like you can't run that in it every every day.
The biggest myth in paid newsletter growth
SPEAKER_01So you're not gonna get a constant flow of leads from that one provider, like once a week, once a month, maybe, or you're if you to keep on getting quality subs. Right. What's the biggest myth about paid newsletter growth?
SPEAKER_00The biggest myth. I think the biggest myth would easily back into the the CPA side of things that anyone can get under under a dollar or under two dollars for for your CPA because it it does very much change up the the conversation. Like if now I I know the the conversation is very much shifting month over month out into not chasing the lowest CPA possible. You're also not saying like put shitty creative out into the world and get the highest CPA possible. That's also not the solution here. But the conversation is changing towards work on the monetization models that can actually allow you to pay a bit more per subscriber that can back it up and and actually pay for pay more for the engaged subscribers rather than chasing the the lowest uh cost per lead there. For the most part, I think it it's always going to be a conversation around what wanting the most efficient cost per subscriber. And I uh I'll never negate that because again, um the right creative strategy and the right ad copy will get you the most efficient cost per subscriber, but sometimes the lowest uh is not the most efficient. The most efficient is obviously getting somewhere in the happy medium of a of an efficient cost per lead, which may be more like two to four, four to five plus, but also making sure that's an engaged subscriber or a subscriber that's valuable and will actually convert to whatever you know uh products or or funnels that you're you're putting out or you're piecing together within your own newsletter ecosystem. I think that's that's always gonna be the biggest myth is going into it that uh that your target CPA should be under a dollar or or under two dollars for any and all newsletters, you know. Well, hey, if you're if you're running local, it should be like 35 cents a year. Yes, yeah, yeah. Local, I I uh I think you and I were both gonna comment. Uh uh you might have already done it on Dan Dan Oshinsky's great guy, because I know where he works with a ton of local newsletters, but I've I've worked with local newsletters in the in the past, you know, five, probably five to six of them. And you you can absolutely get it, get it there, but it only lasts like two to three months in the sense range before you start. The the TAM is just always way too small on a local newsletter. Not to be
What to fix before spending a dollar on ads
SPEAKER_00sustainable, yeah. So um, yeah, I mean you you you can you can get it there at the 35 cent mark, but right that conversation translating into B2B is a is a hard, hard uh hard wall to run into, I guess, as a as a new proper if you're expecting that.
SPEAKER_01And we'll we'll we'll end on this last question here. Maybe, you know, for all those like people who have up-and-coming newsletters or they're getting their stuff started and they're looking obviously to to run some paid acquisition, Facebook, maybe, not ready for for someone like yourself or an agency to run it more than an expert. What is the one thing you would tell the publisher to fix uh or have ready before spending a dollar on ads?
SPEAKER_00Fixing your one, making sure that you have a welcome a thank you page and a welcome email. Uh the thank you page can obviously be after the the signup survey if you're in B2B, um, to make sure you have a signup survey after uh they subscribe. Make sure after that, make sure you have a thank you page and welcome email. But if you already have all three of those uh put together, fixing those and making sure that they have the the best structure possible. There's there's so much knowledge out there from like yourself, Matt McGarry, anyone else who like knows that these components from the start of a of a subscriber journey really, really do matter because I I do think it can be a pretty pretty significant like cash burning strategy to not one, not have any of those in place, but two, also not having them as optimized as you can um to make sure that you can kind of get them like quote unquote activated correctly. That's something that I've seen in the last like year or two, especially within this agency, on understanding the like how how those things are actually like a pretty primary factor on on making sure they're they're they exist, but also are optimized before we spend uh a single dollar on on ads because it can turn into just lower engaged subscribers overall, deliverability. I'm sure it affects it if you don't get those replies or clic on your welcome email, etc. etc. Those would be those two things. And like I said, there's so much knowledge uh out there on on all of them. Beehive provides the knowledge on it. Yourself, Matt, a couple of other experts and pros in the in the news industry that provide like best practice structures on on those things, those would be my my my go-tos in terms of what to fix before before spending a dollar. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01Well, where where can the people find you if they want? And you there anything you want to pitch?
SPEAKER_00No, nothing to pitch. Uh uh outside of yeah, if if uh if if pave growth ever is ever of appetite, uh I know a guy. But uh after that, uh yeah, you can after that you can find well, my my handles on on social are kind of weird because it's many arrays with two Y's in both of them. So if you can put that together, cool. If not, Bulletin Growth, B-O-L-E-T-I-N. I don't know if uh any Spanish speakers will be watching this podcast to know that bulletin means newsletter in Spanish. So uh you can you can spell that out. I just didn't want to go. I also probably didn't want to buy the domain newslettergrowth.com. So that's that's where you can find me. Awesome. And I'll have links to that in the description and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Uh anyone who's listening. Um awesome, man. Well, Manny, I appreciate you coming on. Uh love the insights on the media buying side. Uh I'm sure the audience is gonna enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this was great. Thanks for having me on. Uh I'll I'll be sure to uh keep active with you on LinkedIn and and for more uh for more insights to to any anyone listening or or or trying to read our stuff from from time to time on LinkedIn. Awesome. All right, Manny, well take care and uh we'll get to talk again soon.
SPEAKER_01All right, thanks one. Alright.