This is what Blissy knows about customer acquisition that you don’t

Happy.....Sunday Monday! I hope those who are impacted by Hurricane Ida are staying safe — it made me sad to think how many people will be sleeping without power or unknowing of what their neighborhood might look like tomorrow. If nothing else, it's a great reminder to make sure that you're prepared.

If you're wondering why we're off schedule and are receiving this on a Monday, instead of the usual Sunday night....I could say it's for an A/B test (always be testing). But actually, it's because the person who gets things set (that's me, David) is in Europe, and things move a bit slower there. 

If you're reading this email and it was forwarded to you, click here to subscribe for yourself. Don't let them get this email before you do!

Some good links before today's email on marketing channels:

A podcast with Ryan Babenzien. If you haven't already heard from the streets, the former founder of GREATS sneakers is launching Jolie. Jolie is Masala Capital's first investment, and I am so excited about how this company is going to change people's lives in many ways. Listen to this podcast with Rob Dyrdek where Ryan talks all about Jolie.

11 candidates were hired from the jobs board I launched with Pallet. You can post here, or look for your next role here. P.S. Sharma Brands is hiring a video editor to join the team, ideally in New York, but remote is OK too. 

5 ways to improve landing page copy by Kaleigh is a great read. If you aren't already getting her "A Cup of Copy" newsletter, it's a great Wednesday read with nuggets every time. 

Morning Brew wrote an insightful Twitter thread on WTF an NFT is! If you open Twitter you see apes, pixelated avatars, bananas with eyes, and a cat with a spacesuit. Those are all NFTs.

Let's get into the email.

A couple weeks ago I asked you what you wanted to hear from me. Many of you talked about new marketing channels, outside of Facebook and Instagram, to acquire new customers. So as a precursor to today, last week I wrote out a 2am rant I recorded on my phone about how you cannot just judge everything like it's the FB ads manager. 1, because not every platform has the same design and data team as Facebook, but 2, you just can't rely on publisher numbers for your most accurate data.

That said, today, I am going to make a very simple email going through a handful of platforms that are easy to get started on, and where to find good resources for each. If you have a platform in particular that I should write about, reply to this email, and I'll work it into an article with everything.

In all these channels, the most important thing to think about is how the ads live in the context of the content. These are all technically "publishers" in that they distribute or create content, and your ads live within this content. Some platforms like Instagram or Taboola very naturally can generate clicks that lead to site experiences, but ones like TikTok or display ads might not — that's ok too!

Snapchat

This past week I woke up to a text from a friend who runs performance marketing at an LVMH brand, saying "Have u tried Snap? It's crushing for our RT campaigns." The 'RT' stands for retargeting, and with an AOV of $2,000 USD, that's a great sign for Snapchat.

With Snapchat, you'll likely have success looking for view-through conversions from a retargeting audience. Those are people who have been to your site before, you show them an ad, they watch it, don't need to click it, and Snap will help convert them a bit faster. A positive sign is seeing your time to purchase get lowered when adding in Snapchat.

By the way, Sharma Brands is a Snapchat partner, which means you get $2,000 in ad credit when you sign up with this link. There's no catch to it, it's just free ad credit that matches your spend. If you sign up with it, Snapchat sends us enough money to pay for a team lunch!

If you add a swipe up to Snapchat, make it easy. Don't make it your homepage, and don't make it the same landing page you would send Facebook/Google traffic to. It should have 1-3 options of where to click, or it should be email/phone collection to make it a quick experience.

TikTok

TikTok most closely reminds me of where Instagram was a few years ago, with advertising, but with slightly more advanced features, earlier on. 

If you're not investing in organic TikTok content with a creator (my friend JT can help you here) then you should start there. It's important as an advertiser to know how this platform works, from how to swipe around, to how badly no one wants to visit a complicated web page, to how to play into trends or the comments section.

The easiest way to start with proven TikTok ads is find what does well organically, and then amplify it. If you seed a product to creators and the TikTok does well, ask them for the ability to whitelist their post (read more here). TikTok makes it 10x easier than Instagram to whitelist and begin running ads.

If you're wondering how to find creators easily, then you can use the TikTok Creator Marketplace. It's free. Just apply to join, and you get approved fairly quickly.

It's pretty amazing how advertiser-friendly and helpful TikTok is. Their help center in the ads platform is also very quick to respond.

Similar to Snapchat, don't expect last-click conversions to be driven by TikTok. It should be additive to the funnel to drive someone outside the platform to get back to your site. I would suggest testing with a retargeting pool, understanding the events you can hit comfortably, and then going into more prospecting audiences.

Pinterest

Pinterest has been a channel that has really amazed me this year. We used it with a millennial-mom-targeted brand, and out of all the channels, it had the highest time on site, and highest conversion rate.

Why? Because Pinterest is like Google search, but on steroids. People use Pinterest to look for answers (use that context for the creative), and when they find the answer and click, they research and then shop.

From what I've seen, many brands go from Pinterest into blog posts (usually reviews or editorial style shoppable articles), or they go to a landing page that gives more context. Similar to Google, you want to make sure that you have enough education or information on the page so that when someone lands, they're not spending too much time on their own doing their research.

Give them all the answers.

Programmatic or Direct Display

The billboards of the internet. You might think they don't do anything, but with the right creative, you might have some luck.

Most companies who run display advertising on your behalf (Criteo, etc) want to show you they have incredible ROAS numbers, but those are all view-through conversion numbers, and typically with the largest attribution windows (some up to 180 days).

In English, this means they are confident that somewhere along the buying journey they can show an ad to someone (it can be a tiny one at the bottom of the page), and within 180 days they will convert. While that sounds good, the reason that person converted is because another ad platform was probably working to convert them, not the billboards.

That said, there is a very good use case for display advertising. First make sure you're not getting poor inventory. Second, create ads that are simple and to the point. Don't get fancy with too many animations or too much text.

AdBeat is a good platform I use to just search up anyone and see what kinds of ads they are running.

Lastly, when running these, don't look at the CPA in an isolated fashion. Couple it with your main advertising driver and look at the increase or reduction in CPA. For example, when I was running display ads with a $1m/month FB budget, we saw that adding display really brought CPA down, and allowed us to get more aggressive with attribution windows, however when we lowered FB spend, the effectiveness of the display ads lowered, too.

Taboola/Outbrain

Have you ever scrolled to the bottom of an article and seen the section titled "You May Also Like..."? That's Taboola. Outbrain is just like it, and they both do pretty much the same thing. They almost became one company but that was called off last September.

There are 3 types of site experiences I've seen work incredibly well with these native content ad units:

1. Really lengthy landing pages with inserts of editorial content
2. Listicles/articles/comparicles (listicles comparing 2+ products/brands)
3. Pointing to really good earned media content, in which case after the click, Taboola or Outbrain wait for the user to hit the brand's site

You can see in this example, the page is insanely long and looks really sketchy. Somehow, this works and drives a great CPA for the brand.

If you remember my email about Performance PR, you'll recognize this article. I know Mack Weldon used it on Facebook a lot, but unsure if they ran it on native ad networks — either way, it would be great content to live there.

With these networks, your goal is to launch, understand the types of publishers that work, narrow down to specific publishers, and then ramp up spend. You should be looking for new customers here with short conversion windows, because you lean on content for the education of the consumer.

What platforms did I miss?

On to some fun stuff...

Software/App of the Week:

Affirm — The Leader in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)

When Sharma Brands launched JUDY in January 2020, people were racing to get prep kits and we sold out. After we restocked and began running ads, we had one main problem: there was a higher barrier to entry than with the average DTC product like deodorant, protein powder, or Poo~Pourri spray.

Landing pages, better targeting and good creative were all practices in effect, but we found one specific unlock that helped us increase our click-through rate in our social ads, as well as the on-site conversion rate. It was making the Affirm payment option clear to customers in the ad and on the site.

For JUDY, not only did customers get the prep kits they needed in time for upcoming or ongoing emergencies (wildfires, hurricanes, storms, etc), but the Affirm customer cohort also held a higher AOV than the typical customer.

Affirm is truly built FOR your customers. How?

• There are no late fees.
• No hidden fees.
• No “gotcha” fees.
• They approve about 20% more customers than their competitors.
• They can help customers finance purchases from $50 to $17,500.
• And they have the industry-leading NPS score of +79.

Put simply, Affirm is the perfect partner, especially if your goal is to use BNPL to increase conversion. Plus, their retail partners see an average AOV lift of ~85%.

Give your customers the ability to get what they need from your store today.

>> Click here to get started with Affirm <<

Brand of the Week:

Eddi — The sustainable solution for your soap

First of all, this product is beautiful. Yes, it's a soap dispenser, but it's a gorgeous one. I was an early investor in Eddi not because it's just a soap dispenser, but in 5 years I see Eddi as a marketplace for brands like Black Wolf Nation to get their product into an Equinox bathroom that houses Eddi.

All the soaps come as reusable tins, so you just plug it into the bottom and it's good to go — you don't waste an entire plastic bottle when you run out. 

The pre-orders just launched, and you can get your set here for almost 20% off.

That's all for this newsletter. It was a late one because I got distracted playing with puppies at the Rescue City adoption event today. I don't need a dog... right? That would make no sense. But should I? No.... well... idk. Heart says yes, mind says no.

I hope you got your 9 hours of sleep last night, have an amazing start to your work week, and stay safe, happy, healthy, rested, and hydrated.

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