EP. 97 The Black Friday Blueprint Episode You Wished You Listened To Last Year

Trevor: Yo , what's going on everybody ? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast . With me , as always , is Mark Goldheart . Mark Goldheart , how are you ? Trevor Crump , I'm good . It's been a long time since we We've had like a three week . Has it been three weeks ? I think it's been three weeks since we've recorded a podcast and published one . Really I believe so . No , I know , maybe two I can can look , but I'm three . That's a long time confident . Well , I think I think it'll be three weeks but it's summer , launches yeah , well , actually just to let everybody know yes , it's summer . Normally we take summers off but we love you guys normally we just kind of say hey , hey , you know what Guests are , you know on vacation , we are on vacation , we have things going on , let's take the summer off , and we have not done that this summer . So this is episode 97 , by the way , Three more to 100 . Three more after this to 100 .

Mark: Should we have a special guest . I've thought about that .

Trevor: Should we have a special guest ? I've thought about that . Do we have a special guest ? Do we have a ? Maybe ? I think episode 100 , you and me prep and we , I think , we do it solo , we don't share it with somebody , and we like , like having a birthday party but not inviting anyone .

Mark: Yeah .

Trevor: What we should do is do a podcast .

Mark: My birthday party .

Trevor: sorry , we should just do a podcast in like a public area episode 100 , and invite a bunch of people out , but that seems like too much work .

Mark: Yeah , yeah , that I'm not interested in doing .

Trevor: But what I think we should do is we should have a recap , we should do a giveaway . I love a giveaway . We'll do a big giveaway .

Mark: Let's do some I don't know golf bags .

Trevor: We can do some product giveaways and we can do some consulting giveaways , Some of our favorite brand giveaways yeah , that's cool . I like that . That's what we'll do .

Mark: We'll do a giveaway of like Maybe get some shoes .

Trevor: Review the podcast . Anyone who reviews the podcast will get entered into a giveaway and shares about the podcast .

Mark: Yeah , let's reach out to some and we'll have some standard issue .

Trevor: We'll have some Jones golf bags . We'll have some .

Mark: Kizik shoes .

Trevor: We'll have some good stuff .

Mark: Maybe we can get some Bruce .

Trevor: Bolt gloves , we'll have some Bestie swag .

Mark: Oh yeah , We'll have some really good Bestie swag .

Trevor: Some Bestie swag and then we'll maybe give like a couple hours of consulting . I like it . But anyways , what I was gonna say is , maybe episode 100 is us going through the last like 100 episodes and carving out like biggest impact lessons that guests or I guess we address , I or I guess we address , I like it . We can kind of go like a round robin of like our top five favorites each . Maybe three to five that could be a good episode 100 . Episode 100 . You ready for that one ? We're going to TLDR the previous 99 episodes in an hour . Yeah , we should An hour and a half .

Mark: No , we probably won't do that , but we will do a TLDR , yeah .

Trevor: Yes , I've got to tell you the story from last weekend .

Mark: Let's hear it . It's a really good story and there's a life lesson in there . I think everyone will enjoy it . Okay , so my oldest is seven . He's old enough to take him on a little fishing trip , so I took him on a father-son fishing trip , just me and him . He can do some things . You know , a four-year-old or a little too young to be there for too long . Yep , and we go to a little lake that is well known for catching big fish , but you can only use fly lures , like you can't be using bait . And we went out there and on day one we caught some cutthroat trout pretty , pretty good size , like 16 inches , pretty solid . But what was funny is we caught one , so we caught two of them . It's not a lake that you can't catch a lot of fish . You just catch some big fish and then you're trying to catch like a really big fish . That's kind of all you do there . And so we caught two and in one of them , as we were unhooking it , there was a fly inside of its mouth . That was still hooked .

Trevor: So somebody cut the line . It just broke .

Mark: It broke , yeah , it got away . So I pulled out that little fly and it's called a damsel , like a blue damsel . So there's these little blue dragonflies that hatch on this lake and they're everywhere . And so I pulled out this fly from this fish's mouth and I realized , because I didn't have one of those fish's mouth , and I realized because I didn't have one of those and I was really bummed because I didn't have one of those flies . But I pulled it out , shook it off , got some floating on there so it'd float again , and then at that time lake had kind of heated up , fish weren't jumping , so we left yep for the day and then went back that evening , used that fly and we caught like the biggest , fattest tiger trout that I've ever caught with that little fly . We pulled out of another nice fish's mouth nice and it was on the last . It was on the last cast of that evening too , because my kid was like kind of done , he's like , all right , I'm done yeah I'm let's do 10 more casts , and it was literally on the last cast . Monster tiger pounds that fly . We get to bring it in . My son gets to hold this big old fat fish . Yeah , it was incredible .

Trevor: Nice .

Mark: So there's a life lesson in there .

Trevor: Yeah , that's what I was going to say . Give me the lesson .

Mark: Well , life lesson number one is you can recycle stuff . So in your marketing strategy and those hooks , you might have used a hook in the past and it got away , or you might have used an ad or a concept Like you can recycle stuff Totally . Again , totally you don't have to just throw everything away . Right , and in fact , a lot of companies see a lot of success going through old content , recycling it using video editors , right ? Yep , you go through , you get all that content and you compile it into new ads , yes , and then you can use voiceovers or there's different techniques to turn that into a— Sure repurpose it all . Yes , into a full-fledged ad . Yes , okay , so there's different techniques to turn that into a purpose at all . yes , into a full-fledged ad yes okay , so there's life lesson number one . Life lesson number two was at the end of that evening . It was like , hey , let's do 10 more . Like we see them jumping , they're starting to rise . Let's just do 10 more casts . It's getting a little late , so let's just figure this out 10 more , but then we're done . Yeah , it's getting a little late , so let's just figure this out Ten more , but then we're done . Cast number ten we catch the biggest fish . Like the whole reason why we went there was to catch a fish like that .

Trevor: Right .

Mark: And so life lesson number two is it's about averages in marketing . Like you're never striking , like you're never hitting every ball that's thrown to you .

Trevor: Yeah , not every . You're not catching every fish in the lake . Every ad dollar does not bring back more revenue not necessarily every single ad dollar no , it's , you're playing averages here .

Mark: And if you , we were on a raft , like a fishing raft in this lake and you could see how many fish were in this lake yeah , I mean , there's see how many fish were in this lake yeah , I mean there's hundreds , if not maybe a thousand , of these fish like and big fish in this lake , like you're seeing them swim under . Oh yeah , like they're , they're hanging out in their schools like they're hanging out at the inlets , like you know , they're eating . There's tons of these fish , but we caught three , yeah , in a day and a half . Yeah , and that's successful for that lake for sure . So to catch three of those fish , that's like , hey , you , you had an awesome day and a half there because you caught three 16 inch plus fish yeah but most people would say oh , but there's a thousand two hundred three hundred four hundred five hundred , maybe a thousand fish in there , like that's not that good yeah so you gotta just realize like you're playing averages here , like your conversion rates , your hit rates with your ads , everything you're not trying to get everyone . Yeah , like you have to define what your success actually is before you can define if you've actually won or lost in your strategies I think I mean mean the other lesson in there , like marketing lesson that you can pull out of .

Trevor: that is that and I feel like you know maybe now I'm taking things too far , making this a little more cheesy than it needs to be . But the other lesson is , like you know , sometimes just because something doesn't work in one area of the lake or a certain fly isn't working , or it was just simply the time of day , yeah , or time of day , like sometimes .

Mark: Things don't work until they work you know , yes , and , and sometimes you got to let an ad or a strategy play itself out before you can define if it's a failure or not . So in this example , right on cast number 10 mean there's far more casts than that , because we had 10 left Right , but we got there a little early that evening , so it was still just a little hot . The fish weren't rising a ton , but you could see that they were starting to rise as that sun was setting . And then there's like this sweet little window of like okay , now we're seeing some jumpers , like let's hurry and try to to get one . Um , so , like you said , yeah , like you don't , it's not that that hook we pulled out of the other fish's mouth wasn't working , it's just we had to wait for the fish to be ready to come up . Yeah , so it was just the time of day , yeah . And so sometimes your , your strategies , depend on seasons . They depend on seasons , they depend on the time of day , it depends on your audience , it depends on where you are . And , again , you can't define success by a few failures , because really successful brands , really really successful brands , miss out on 95% of the people that go to their website . Yeah and more probably Like think about that right Like your conversion rate's an awesome , awesome conversion rate it's 5% .

Trevor: That's an incredible conversion rate . It's incredible .

Mark: You're still missing 95% of the people that come through your website .

Trevor: Yeah , for sure . Well , speaking of seasonality stuff , right as one of those things we are , we are on the cusp of the biggest season seasonality trends for most brands , which , which is Q4 , black Friday holiday shopping election season . So I think you know we're mid-August , so this will come out mid-August , which means that we are . But that means officially three months right September , October , november , three months away from Black Friday season , 90 days . So we figured it'd be a good idea to let's talk about it . Let's start talking about Black Friday . If you're not thinking about it , if you're not thinking about holiday season , we're gonna give you some reasons why you should be thinking about it . So I kind of want to talk about . You know we consult and have a number of clients that some of them had really successful Q4s , especially Black Fridays . Some of them had average ones , you know . Actually , everyone had a pretty good one that we worked with , you know , but there were some that excelled more than others that I'd love to yeah , and to maybe , and to maybe , paint that picture with a little more contrast is there's a , there's a few people whose novembers aren't phenomenal well , just naturally , because of that business .

Mark: right , yeah , and and that and that has a large part , just speaking of knowing your audience . How a large part of that is the audience , or their customers' motivation to buy from them typically revolves around things that don't have to do with sales . Right , like they don't buy because of a sale . They're buying because they're releasing . You know they have new releases every week or every month . Yeah , there's two , so they're buying for a different kind of reason . Yeah , and yes , people still buy during the sale . Sure , and we're not necessarily speaking that November isn't bigger in revenue . Right , we're talking profitability .

Trevor: It just might not be this .

Mark: It's not the best profitable month of the year .

Trevor: Yeah , what we've recognized is there's two types of brand . I mean , there's probably several more , but from our experience there are two types of brands , at least that I can think of . Maybe you can think of another one that , like a black friday season or a sale season , is not going to be their biggest time of year , like it might . Like you said , it might be good revenue but might end up being sixes from a profitability perspective , as may you know , or something like that yeah you know , and it's like you said , brands who are constantly releasing new things and have just naturally have high returning customer rates . We see them like , yeah , they're gonna have a good november , but it's not gonna be this . Hey , 35 percent of our revenue and profits came from this individual month which for some companies that is what november a lot of yes . And then the second brand type are problem solution brands that we generally don't see , these massive yeah , because people buy them when they need them .

Mark: Yeah , exactly , it's not a oh , I'm waiting to need . I like I need this problem solved and I'm gonna wait till november to get it yeah , exactly if I need a band-aid .

Trevor: I'm not waiting for them to go on sale .

Mark: I'm buying a band-aid because I gotta wait for that sale price on prime day . Yeah , exactly , you know , and yes , people do buy bulk in those situations for sure , yeah , but typically yes , like you're not like fingernail clippers yeah , like nobody's waiting on for those to go on sale like they're just gonna go get them and we're talking , I mean band-aids and fingernail clippers are are , uh , maybe not the best examples .

Trevor: Uh , like to give a better example , let's say like , uh , um , a baby bottle warmer , that's a problem solution thing , you , you know what I mean .

Mark: Like , yeah , like either you have a baby and you need to warm your bottle , yeah , You're .

Trevor: If you're a bottle feeding mom , you know , and have a bottle feeding baby , uh , and all it takes is one time at a restaurant to not have that bottle warm enough , and you have a baby who's screaming for 10 minutes while it's heating in a hot thing of water for you to say , no , I need something that's going to do that in 60 seconds .

Mark: So I'm going to buy this we're on the go and yeah , yeah , two minutes , yeah , exactly so like that .

Trevor: That's maybe a little bit better from , like an e-commerce perspective , because I'm sure there's probably very few people who are selling band-aids or you know , but something that people can relate to a little bit more . True so so not to say that your November can't still be great . If you're selling problem solution , slash , new release , high returning customer rate kind of stuff , you still will have great Novembers , I'm sure .

Mark: But you have to define what that means . Yeah , like , what is success for your company in that month ? And I think a lot of people look at other companies . That's fine . You can look at some baselines , but look at your seasonality trends , look at what you've done in the past and then set benchmarks based off of what your projected growth is , on top of what you have seen this year and ad spend . Yeah , let's , let's like you can come up with a projection and say , hey , this is a successful November for us . We don't have to do necessarily 4x . But how do we do ? 30% more than last year , or 10 , 15% more than last year ? Just depends on where you are .

Trevor: Yeah , let's break that down a little bit , I think , and then let's get in . We can get into some examples and things you should be doing , but let's break this down because I think what Mark's saying is super important . I say , well , let's define success , and there's a handful of ways you can define success . So the first way I think a lot of people look into it is how do we just get as much revenue as possible ? Ok , but you have to break that down break that down .

Mark: We have seen yeah , you have to break that down because we have seen companies kill it in revenue and come out not making a profit in november , but but that can be bad and that can be bad or good , depending on what your cohorts look like exactly right .

Trevor: So let's break this down . It's bad if those people aren't coming back correct , correct , right . But if you know , if you have a brand , a product , a solution that and a retention strategy that can get those cohorts to come back use word of mouth then all of that can be very , very good , because you could then have good Decembers , januaries , februaries , marches and so on and so forth , right ? So you just have to look like losing profitability or making less than a previous month can be super detrimental , depending on what your customer's next actions are going to be . And those next two actions are one of two and theoretically , hopefully both , which is let me tell everybody else about it , because I love it .

Mark: Are they going to buy from me ? Can I come back again ?

Trevor: Yeah . So if you have , if you have those two things dialed , then having high revenue months and high net new acquisition months , but lower profitability , that's not a bad thing , especially if you have the cash flow to cover it Right , because you know that you're going to make that back in the cohort and in the net new acquisition later . Right , if you don't have those things , because you know that you're going to make that back in the cohort and in the net new acquisition later , right , if you don't have those things , that's a problem .

Mark: Then you've got to reevaluate your actual cost per acquisition .

Trevor: Exactly , and profitability should be . Maybe first-time profitability should be more of an important thing and you should look at it from a first-time profitability , not necessarily on just the first person . Obviously you start for like for the individual . So let's say , let's say , without the discounts , your first-time profitability I'm just making up a number here is 40 , like that's what you're making after cac , um and cost of goods sold and shipping . You know all your variable costs . And let's say you're netting 40 bucks first time customer on a non-sales month . But when you give 50 off and the conversion rate goes up because of it , maybe that net of 40 bucks per customer new customer drops down to 25 or 30 bucks . New customer drops down to 25 or 30 bucks .

Mark: That's not a bad thing if you also triple you know well or double , and that's a good point because people need to remember when you're giving a discount , those , those cost variables don't change right , but your profit does , so that that discount eats into your profits because you still have to pay the same amount .

Trevor: Your cogs aren't going to be fixed costs unless you're so big and you order for black friday specifically and you get a correct . You know we don't need to get into the semantics of , but generally speaking , mops and costs are .

Mark: But yes , yeah , those are gonna stay constant . Yeah , but so that discount , like your 40 profit might shrink all the way down to like 10 .

Trevor: Right , but you may go from a thousand new customers to at $40 profit to . So what is that ? $40,000 in profit a month to , maybe , you know , 10,000 customers ? Yeah , $10 , you know .

Mark: so it just changes things you might At $10 , you know . So it just changes things . But you have to map that out , yeah , so you have to define success , and you can do this all in a spreadsheet , by the way . Yeah , find out what your actual fixed costs are , yep , what your variable costs are going to be with marketing , what your projected profits are . And then you just do a tiered approach of hey , if we increase spend by this much , based off of the last six months of data or last year's data , what is it going to look like for us come October , november , december ? Can we increase our customer acquisition enough to make the decrease in profitability per acquisition totally worth it ? Yep , and if you can do that math , then things become a lot less scary .

Trevor: Yeah .

Mark: And more predictable for you Totally , because the whole point of marketing is to create a predictable sales funnel . Yeah , in my opinion yeah . Yes , it's to get your name out there and whatever . But in the end of yes , it's to get your name out there and whatever , but in the end of the day , the beautiful part about marketing is , as you market consistently , you get consistent sales . Yeah , and that becomes predictable . And then , if you can make a predictable sales channel , you can grow predictably and profitably . You can grow predictably and profitably .

Trevor: I mean , it's a game changer , right ? Because the number one thing that brands who get into scaling mode have the hardest time figuring out is projections around product , and it's the biggest thing that hurts them . Because number one if they order too much , then they feel like they have to . Oh my gosh , we are low on cash flow because we've paid so much for product we're not selling at the rate we should . Therefore , we need to discount more and we need to go full blown sales mode and just like , try to get rid of everything so that we can make up the cash flow and or , depending on the shelf life of the product . You , I know you and I have been into those situations depending on the shelf life too . Yeah , that could . That could hurt you , um , or sometimes what's even worse is you order too little and you scale so much and you weren't able to predict it that you miss out on so much the opportunity cost the opportunity costs are huge . So you're right , like brands that can predict things and obviously it's no one's perfect at it well , it's not a perfect science because , for example , there's black swans .

Mark: You've had inflation in the last three years you have yeah , yeah and covid , and so you can't predict that .

Trevor: However , if your channel is predictable , then it makes it a lot easier to adjust for yes variables that you cannot expect 100 , and this is all stuff that , by the way , like this is all stuff we never promote ourselves . We don't really promote ourselves , but this is all stuff we do , consulting wise , like that's all . What we're trying to do is help people to predict things better . This episode is brought to you today by bestie . If you are an e-commerce store on shopify , stop and listen up . Are you surveying your customers ? Do you know how they get to your website ? Do you know what marketing channel introduced them to you ? Do you know what motivated them to buy ? Do you know what your MPS score is if people actually like and love your products ? If you don't know the answers to some of those questions , or any other questions you might have for your customers , you need to start using post purchase surveys . Bestie is the only post purchase survey provider that utilizes AI to not only help you craft your questions , but also takes the insights that your customers give you and creates actionable insights and steps for you to make as a business to help grow and scale your company . Today , bestie just lowered their prices , so you can be serving your customers for as low as $39 a month , and not only that , they have a 14-day free trial in the App Store . So go check them out right now . Test the 14-day free trial . If you happen to pay the $39 a month , you are not going to lose out on much and you are only going to be able to gather more data around your customers to help grow and scale your businesses . We love Bestie and we use it for every single brand we work with . Go check them out today at bestieai . So okay , so let's talk . What should people be doing ?

Mark: Well , to prepare for Black Friday . Number one define success , yep . So , like we just said , go back , get a spreadsheet , look at your average cost per and when I say cost per acquisition , look at your new customers right , and then you can do aggregations of like AMERs , what a lot of people call it , or AROI , acquisition , roi or acquisition marketing efficiency , return or I don't know what rate . So do that , figure out what it is , and then look at last year and what it was , and between looking at last year's quarter , three , quarter , four , and this year to date , and like a three month rolling average or two month rolling averages , you're going to be able to come up with some kind of predictive model . Totally , it's not going to be perfect if you're not a data scientist , but it will give you at least a line of sight of where , where it's going 100 . So look at that , define what success is , and then start looking at what trevor talked about , which is , hey , if we're planning on doing a 50 discount , how much does that eat into our profit per yep unit sold ? yep and then , if you can do that , you can understand what scaling opportunities and what levers and levers are available to you yep come october and november , so that way you can define what success actually looks like for you and what profitability looks like for you and what revenue looks like for you and from there perfect right . Just like me fishing on that lake , I knew if we caught three fish that's like super successful . I knew that going into that lake , I knew that we're not going to go in and catch 10 fish , so my expectations were tempered and my son's were too . It's like hey , do you want to catch a few big fish or do you want to go to an ? Easier lake and use bait and catch like 6 , 7 , 8 ? And he said I want to go to the big fish , so nonetheless , I digress . Lots of fishing analogies . Number two is how do you start preparing your storefront and your marketing strategies ? yeah , so I think you , we could start with your storefront which is which is someone that I think a lot of e-commerce brands always screw up every time , even if they think they're prepared . You see websites that don't have the banner up or they don't have the promotion up or the promotion was launched too early and now it's in meta shops and people are seeing it . When they shouldn't see it .

Trevor: Yeah , you get a lot of people , a lot of people we have this happen a ton where you get these brands who don't want to give the discount . In a perfect world they don't want to give the discount , right Like they don't like in a perfect world they don't want to give the discount , but they know they have to . And so there's a ton of brands that we've worked with before who ? What Mark is saying is like they won't put it in the announcement bar , they won't put it on the banner , they won't put it all over the website , it's only in the emails , it's only in the emails . It's only in the emails . It's only in the emails . It's only in the ads .

Mark: Yeah .

Trevor: So that , like people who are just happenstance be coming to the website , they're going to buy at full price and they think that .

Mark: Because they'll buy it anyways .

Trevor: Yeah , they think that they'll make . Like , the money they'll make on people buying full price will outweigh the increase in conversion rate if everyone sees that there's a 30% off or a buy one , get one free or whatever that offer might be . And why is that the wrong move ? It's the wrong move just because , especially for a Black Friday , like , no one's going to a website without the assumption that there's going to be some sort of offer , so like and by the way , some of the mentality and maybe you guys have fallen into this and we have too in the past like it's not .

Mark: You know , we all make mistakes here , but one of the mentalities behind it is well , I don't want to be seen as a discount brand , right , that's one , so I don't want to . Yeah , I want to be exclusive with my discounts , yep . And then the other one is what trevor said is well people are going to come anyways and buy , yeah then I want to yeah , I'm pinching pennies here , yeah , and it's it's going to cost the consumer well you're .

Trevor: You're robbing peter to pay paul right in that sense , thinking like , oh , I'm going to make more money when , at the end of the day , actually what will probably happen is your conversion rate , will you know , oftentimes double or triple during that time . So why not have somebody who's first time they're ever hearing about ? You see this offer and opportunity and you might as well go for it . I mean , I think that there's a brand right now that I think is going to get into some trouble . I'm really curious to see what they're going to do this year . So one of my favorite um brands that I shop with and my wife shops with for active apparel , so for workout gear , is fury Um and they for the last two years have done like the dumbest promotion possible . Um and and people on Twitter and people like have been like way upset about it . It was last year . It was spend like $175 and you get this like ghetto dad cap , like it was such a stupid it wasn't a discount , you just know it was the and it was . It was a hat you didn't even get to choose . It was such a dumb Viorey hat and so it's like , okay , cool . Well , like , I'm not going to waste my money over black Friday shopping with Viore , just understanding that , like , like , why would I spend during that time ? I'm going to go spend during another time and if , if a active wear brand happens to catch my eye that offers opportunity for me to test them out at a discounted rate , there's a really good chance that I could move from a die-hard fury fan where everything I wear when it comes to activewear is fury and I can move that over to roan or something like that , because they're giving me an opportunity . Does that make sense ? Yeah ?

Mark: Well . So that brings up pleasant and unpleasant surprises . So the reason I think , first and foremost the reason why this is a bad move if you're trying to hide discounts and you're trying to make make it too complicated for the consumer , it just goes to consumer or user experience .

Trevor: Yeah .

Mark: Like you don't , the customer is always right . Like you want to give the customer a good experience . It's a pleasant surprise . And , by the way , evergreen ads that don't even announce a sale tend to perform really well during sales . So don't turn them off . Yeah , no , keep them going , because it's a pleasant surprise to catch an ad that you're interested in and it's not telling you there's a discount . But then you're going to the website and oh , there's a sale , super , yeah , super good . Psychological hack , awesome . Right . Like that's a pleasant surprise . Like I wasn't expecting a sale . I was just interested in this company , this product , this message , and now there's an opportunity that I can take advantage of . That's pleasant .

Trevor: Yeah , it's like . I mean it's like are you more likely to buy ? So let's say , you see an ad that doesn't say 50% off versus one that does say 50% off and you have two people who click on that ad . Who's more likely to buy when they see 50% off on the website ? For sure the person who didn't know that it was happening . Right , that's just a psychological hack , and we're not saying not to put up . Well , there's retargeting .

Mark: Yeah , yeah , there's . There's reasons to do sales ads , but don't turn off ads that are working , no , just because they don't announce a sale .

Trevor: No , cause those conversion rates on those clicks tend to be significantly higher .

Mark: Yes .

Trevor: Than the people who know what they're getting into when they click on it . Yes , just naturally .

Mark: Sorry Cause sometimes , sometimes it's the yeah . The reverse psychology of that is sometimes you're willing to look just because it's a sale , not because you're truly bought in Totally . It's like , oh , yeah , like you said , hey , another activewear has 50% off , Like , I'll check it out . Yeah , I'm not sold , but like , I'll check it out because it's 50% off . Which is why you should still run those ads , because there are people that just will only check you out if there's a sale , for sure . But your conversion rate is still going to be great and perhaps your best performance will still be evergreen ads . And so that's a pleasant surprise . An unpleasant surprise is hey , you know , it's Black Friday . Like , you know it's sales season . You're going to a website and it's full price . It's like , uh , that's not great , yeah . And then you compound that bad experience with well , you know , I'm really bought into this brand , I'll buy . And then you buy . And then you find out through an ad oh , they do have a discount sure , yeah , that's , that would be huge , right ?

Trevor: or you buy for the first time , opt into their email , start getting emails saying hurry , buy , now there's a , there's a sale , 25 off .

Mark: Like dude , I just bought , yeah yeah , and then you're , and then it's a customer service nightmare . So again , I just think , put the experience of the , the customer , first and you can't go wrong and the best experience is don't make it all sneaky and weird and hard . Yeah , and don't try to gamify it too much . Like , yes , cart promotions are great . Like if you're running a sale and it's like , hey , if you spend 150 bucks you can get a free gift . Yep , that's fine , but don't make it so complicated that someone's like , wait , what kind of math do I have to do here to figure out the discount ?

Trevor: yeah , yeah , there's people who'll do that all the time . Hey spend , spend $100 , get 20 off . Spend $200 , get 50 off . Spend $400 , get this off .

Mark: And your conversion rate will go down .

Trevor: if it's too complicated , here are three different promo codes that you should use , depending on which one you're going to be in . Yes , don't do it . There's all sorts of stuff who run ads or you know , big discounts for Black Friday .

Mark: No , sometimes you're a brand . Like we said , there's a brand that we work with where November is not their best in terms of profitability , but it was a lot better last year because they realized we're not a discount brand . Yeah , and people don't buy with us because of discounts . They buy with us because of the collectability and the new releases and the one-offs that we do . So let's just tone down the sale discount Because of the collectability and the new releases and the one-offs that we do , yep . So let's just tone down the sale Yep Discount range and let's just make sure that we're staying true to who we are . We're not doing this big sale Totally . Hey , this is who we are . There's a 25% discount through Black Friday , but that's not a huge discount . Yeah .

Trevor: So nail the offers , so figure out what the offer is going to be . Make sure that you are super , super prepped , uh , across all channels to share that . I mean I even would put that in my social bios because you know , depending on the brand you're like 20 to 50 percent of your clicks go to someone's social page , not the actual website . So make sure it's front and center there Update the bio . Hey , 50% off when you shop today for Black Friday , or 20% off or buy whatever that offer is .

Mark: And don't forget about your shops .

Trevor: Yeah , don't forget about your shops .

Mark: Don't set it up too early , the integration . So this is something that a big mistake that people are making , and we've already seen it this year . All of your codes are getting pushed into meta from shopify , yeah . So if the shopify meta integration , if you have a code , go live , even if you're trying to quote , hide it , it's going to pop up over in meta , yeah , which can also pop up in ads too , depending on what kind of dynamic qualities you're running in ads . So if you're not ready for a code to go live , don't have it go live . And this is another reason why you shouldn't hide things is because you're going to miss one of these avenues where that code is going to be seen and give people bad experiences . Yeah , for sure , give people the good experience , but also just be cognizant that those codes are going to show up in meta , tiktok and your shopify store yep um , a couple of things .

Trevor: Like you know , I know that one's like prep this is how to be prepped for day of but some things I want to talk about that people can start doing like right now . Um , like one thing that that happens a lot of times is people september and and october , depending on the brand , obviously , uh , they can be , quote , unquote , poor , like not as great months , especially october , because sometimes people I know I know me as a consumer if I'm looking to buy , uh , I have my favorite brands , like I stopped buying in october for some of those favorite brands because I know that in historical time , like previous times , that a brand was going to give , is going to give , me 25 plus percent off , so why not wait a month ?

Mark: so so it depends yeah , so it depends .

Trevor: So you see a lot of brands who will decrease their spend significantly in October in preparation for November . And this is where Mark comes into . You got to figure out and define success and you got to look at your numbers . You got to know your numbers historically because one that could be a good idea . It definitely could be a good idea if you understand your customer base , but we just recently went into , so there's a lot of people most people don't look at this . In the Shopify analytics dashboard , I think over the last maybe 12 to 18 months , this is a new piece which is their cohort analysis tab or like a little tile , yeah , in the last year year , yeah , and essentially what that code you can , you can for shopify plus yeah yeah , you can look at this several different ways , but essentially , what this little , what this , what this cohort analysis does , it'll say like , hey , of the people who purchased in um , of the new customers that purchased in october , how many of those people came back and bought again and for , and how much money did they spend in October . How many of those people came back and bought again and how much money did they spend in November , how much money did they spend in December ? And it will tell you the cohort from July , august , september , october , how likely that cohort is to come back and spend in November . So you can go and look at data and so there's a lot of brands that we're working with who tend to want to decrease their spend in October . But when you go back and look at their like last two to three years of October cohorts , october cohorts are the biggest spenders in November and that goes back to I think it was a you know it was a Taylor Holiday tweet , uh , mixed with uh Aaron Orndorff I think they worked on it together when they were both at uh CTC where it was they . They do kind of like a lifetime value analysis , which is , if you can get somebody to to purchase a second time with you within a 60 day timeframe it might even be 90 days that they they do it . If you can get that person to buy a second time , their ltv is likely to be like five times higher within that year , you know . And so what I'm trying to say here is when somebody buys in october and the product delights them , you're that much more on their kind of radar to succeed . Because if I just bought these pants and I'm in love with them , Well , if they're willing to try you in October , no one's dumb .

Mark: Like everyone knows , there's sales coming in November .

Trevor: Yeah , exactly , and then all of a sudden I get a 50% off or buy one pair of pants get a second one for free , and I love the pants . Even though I might not need them , of course , I'm going to buy them yeah .

Mark: And that goes back to this other brand , for example , which is and this might be you , and the reason why I keep bringing this up is just to offer a different perspective , Because everyone thinks and hears the stories of Black Friday and how their November should be , but your company might just not be that this other brand , whose Novembers aren't always great . Their best profitability months are September and October .

Trevor: Yeah . Because it's their wardrobe changing months , sure and because they're doing limited releases and fashion Wardrobe changing months , meaning you're going from summer to fall in july , august , yes to cooler months , and so that's what mark means right ? You're going from shorts to now . I'm never wearing shorts , I'm only wearing pants .

Mark: You're going to pants long sleeves , sweaters , layers yes , keep going um or it's , you know , collectible items . And so october crushes for these people . Yeah right , it just crushes . And september does too . And november's good , but it's just not quite as good , because that's when people aren't necessarily like , hey , I'm , you know , I want to get this special item for this season . It's just like , hey , I want to do , I'm just buying stuff , I'm buying gifts , because , again , there's a lot of gift buying in november . It's not just I'm buying for me , I'm buying for family and friends . And whatever yeah , and that goes into the some of the psychology of going into november . So just just remember , though , what trevor said is like hey , yes , november , but october and september can be phenomenal months for you , and they might even like for some brands , they're the best yeah .

Trevor: Yeah , even August , a hundred percent . And August , september and October oftentimes will make or break what happens in November for a lot of people it will .

Mark: So look at your numbers previous data , cause you're still fresh on their mind from September and October . If they bought from you in July , are they even looking at your emails anymore ? Yeah , probably not . I don't know . And again , define success .

Trevor: Go , look at your metrics and see what your engagement rates are .

Mark: But a lot of people just think , hey , I bagged some people back in quarter two , I'm just going to retarget all of them in quarter four .

Trevor: It's like they might not care about you anymore . Yeah , yeah , exactly , yeah , exactly . And if you weren't doing your due diligence in July , like , let's , let's go back to like a workout brand . Okay , like , and I'm . The reason why I keep bringing up like a workout brand is because workout brands , um , you go , you tend to burn through clothes quickly , um , because there's more wear and tear on that , um , from sweat to rubbing to whatever , and so you're oftentimes buying more and more workout clothes . And if you're not continually staying top of mind , um , there's the . You know , workout brands are a dime , a dozen . Uh , I used to be a huge Lululemon guy , um , and they got out of my ear and now I haven't bought anything from Lululemon in the last probably two years , um , so , yeah , staying top of mind is is super critical , especially , you know , in Q you know , not Q H2 , the last half of the year , um , another thing that I think could be really cool that I'd like to talk about that people can do to prep and the reason why I announced hey , we're a year about like 90-ish days away from this holiday season , this Black Friday , this like mecca of shopping . This is something most brands don't do , but I think there's such awesome opportunity and you see it in the retail space and people love it and what it is is getting a product specifically ready for Black Friday . So launching a product specific to Black Friday or creating a gift with purchase that is specific to Black Friday .

Mark: So we're having a sweepstake .

Trevor: Yep , Sweeps it , having something that you don't ever do . And the reason why that's really cool and important is because Black Friday does become I mean , it's , it's , it's an absolute , you know , dumpster fire fest in many ways , in the sense that , like , everyone's going to up their email sends , everyone's going to up their texts , everyone's going to be doing discounts and and you're going to be seeing ads and you're going to be getting bombarded like crazy and most people because of the point you made , which is make you . You made a point which is , hey , simplify your discounts . Most people you are going to see it's either going to be a buy one , get one or it's going to be a percent off , right , those two are going to make up 80 percent and and by the way we have , we have run surveys with percentages off uh-huh during to understand what a good discount .

Mark: Yes , yes , during black friday outside of black friday during black friday . A good discount is During Black Friday , outside of Black Friday . During Black Friday , if your discount is not 30% or more , they don't consider it a good Black Friday deal . Yeah , they don't consider it a good deal People are upset .

Trevor: Just to let you know , we run that survey after every Black Friday . After every Black Friday we put a survey out and it's consistent across the board . Anything under that is awful . People just like I'm not going to buy if it's not that .

Mark: To the point where we have run tests with brands about pop-ups outside of Black Friday . So a lot of people run pop-ups . Hey , sign up for an email and get 15% off your first order . And we have run tests and run your test because your audio . It just depends on your audience . But some people see a better conversion rate just getting rid of pop-ups and a 15 because a lot of people don't even consider 10 or 15 a good deal anymore .

Trevor: Yeah , yeah , five years ago was an awesome marketing tactic , now tactic .

Mark: Now it's whatever it's like , I don't care . And you just like blew this , like my whole page up . So discounts aren't everything for everyone , yep , and depending on your audience , totally .

Trevor: So back to this , like product strategy . There's a really cool product development strategy that I think can help your brand stand out . I remember my mom um , she loved uh , like my mom loved Victoria's secret , like perfumes and like they had uh lotions . I'm really glad you . I know I had to say that really quickly , because I didn't want to be like my mom .

Mark: My mom really loves Victoria's secret .

Trevor: I was like , uh , where are we going here ? She loved like their pajamas and she loved their uh , like I said , their , their lotions and and stuff like that , and they , like , every holiday season , had this like the ultimate mom tote that they would give to anybody who came and shopped in person and spent more than X amount of money , x amount of dollars , and everyone got it and people like she like lived and died by that bag . It was the only reason she shopped at Victoria's Secret really ever , and she would buy all of her lotions for the year , you know . During Black Friday , get her tote Because she got this tote . That probably cost Victoria's Secret seven bucks to make Right Probably even less with how big Victoria's Secret used to be . I know they're not as big anymore , but little things like that go a long way . But most brands don't think about it until they start prepping for black friday , normally in like mid october , and they're like oh well , crap , our , our turn times for product is 60 to 90 days . We can't get anything . So if you're like that interests you at all , you want to do a gift with purchase for people who spend x amount of dollars , which crushes it some kind of exclusive new release , yeah , or an exactly , or an exclusive color that only it like hey , hey , you know , once again , if you're a collectibles , that's a great idea for these new releases , brands maybe , who don't have great Novembers . You want a way to maybe have an awesome November is to do a really exclusive release on a color or whatever of something . And maybe that is huge for you and then you can make , eventually you can make a name for it . And guess what ? Usually , if you do that and you have an exclusive color but you also have a discount going , they're not just going to buy that exclusive color , they're also going to be like well , I might as well continue to shop . They have a 35% off discount code or they have a buy one , get one free here , so I might as well buy multiple things . Yeah , so product . I think that's one of the biggest , one of the most underrated strategies because , like I said , most people aren't thinking about black friday . one of the most untapped yes , far enough in advance , and it's a great , great way to stand out and and just so everyone knows we've been on the brand side of this .

Mark: like we know why a lot of people don't prepare for Black Friday until October . It's because a lot of you companies are running thin . You're lean , you're lean . Everyone's doing a lot of things . It's hard to sit and project , but you've got to spend the time , make the time , carve it out , make it sacred , like you have to project out a quarter in advance of what you're trying to achieve that quarter and what possible avenues you can to help make it better . Yeah , I agree I agree .

Trevor: Another . Another thing that is awesome like we saw , we've seen brands now a couple years in a row do this um . It's going back to this discounting um to get people in the door , or uh , getting somebody in the door as a first-time customer and then hitting them with a discount three weeks later , six weeks later , whatever , and how much more likely that person is to buy again . We've seen brand the brands last year and two years previous to this who had the most success for a Black Friday month were people who did an early pre-Black Friday sale in November , end of October or November .

Mark: So like you could do a Halloween sale .

Trevor: Yeah .

Mark: Or you could call it pre-Black Friday sale .

Trevor: Yeah , a lot of them did pre-Black Friday , first week of November , and it was anywhere from a two to five day sale , yep . And then , if I remember right , black Friday was like late , it was Like 27th , 28th or something like that .

Mark: Yeah , I want to say it was like the 24th or something like that . Yeah , I feel like I want to say it was like the 24th or something .

Trevor: Yeah , because I feel like cyber monday went into december last year yeah , I think you're right , it could have been . It could have been two years ago , but it was late enough that they they . The reason why this worked really well is they did this sale , like I said . Let's say it was like the 7th through the 10th of november , um , and then they did and they just called it . They just called it black friday month or something like that . They didn't quite like , so it almost alluded yeah , the black friday was on the 24th oh , was it okay . So maybe the previous year it was into uh , cyber , well , that week , so cyber monday would have been the 27th , right , yeah ?

Mark: so that would have ran through jan , december 1st , that Friday , okay , and most people ran it a week , so it was 24th to the 1st Yep .

Trevor: And then what they do is they put out either the same deal or better or slightly different , but like same value , because you don't want to get a ton of people who are complaining a second time . And the reason why this works so well is one Mark and I used to work on a brand side . We used to work for this brand who never did a Black Friday deal . In fact , we always did something called Un-Black Friday , I think is what it was called Like two weeks before , and it was a week or two before , and our whole messaging was we give our team Thanksgiving off , so we and we don't want anybody focused on work , we just want people focused on time and we thought that that message was such an awesome message because it is an awesome message , awesome message . But we thought that that message would out . We thought it would outweigh the conversion rate we were missing out on over Black Friday timing , and so we never did these Black Friday sales . But then our last year at the company together , we decided to do an actual Black Friday sale , because we had looked at the previous three weeks or three years and our conversion rate on Black Friday , even though we didn't have an offer , was almost always double so like we had tons of people going to the website when we weren't increasing .

Mark: Yeah , like you said , there was a small discount , but it wasn't .

Trevor: No , no , we never did for the , for the , for at least the first two years , we never did a discount . There was a discount always two weeks before .

Mark: Well , what I mean is like there was still a discount running with the email pop-up .

Trevor: Sure , yeah , you still got the 15% off or whatever we were doing . Maybe it was 20% . But people were still buying on Black Friday , yeah and we'd have like , if a normal day for us back then was like $20,000 , and we were doing we'd and you were like , but it was just because people's mentality was buy , buy , buy , buy , buy . I need to buy something . So we decided to do it and we had our biggest Black Friday sales ever . When we just moved the sale from two weeks previous , we still put out the same messaging , which was hey , we're not going to ship this out to you because no one's going to be working on that Friday or that Saturday .

Mark: People are with their families .

Trevor: Yeah , people are still with their families , you know , enjoy thanksgiving . So , um , back to this , this doing these two different discounts . The reason why I think it worked really well for these , these brands who did it , was one . I do think people's mentality is the last three years especially . I think covid started this because people just needed capital . They started doing black friday sales early . So now I think people's mentality is hey , black friday sales could come actually much earlier than Black Friday . So you get a ton of people I mean , black Friday is just a month at this point , yep , so you get a ton of people who take advantage of the sale number one , okay . And then you got a ton of people who didn't do it , who regretted it , and then , when Black Friday sale . When Black friday the actual black friday sale happened , all those people who regretted either not buying a second thing , spending more money , came and bought again and you had a ton of people who buy just because they were waiting for black friday . So this like tool , this not tool , this dual , dual selling was awesome . The brands that did the worst I will say still did okay , but did the worst were people who did a full month's worth of sales because it excluded any of that psychological stuff yeah , they like they did for one week , two weeks or they did for the full month and then yeah and all the full month had the worst performance .

Mark: Not that they had a bad november , but just but significantly not as good .

Trevor: Yeah , and I'll eat crow on that , because two years ago , or maybe it was three years ago , I was like so bullish . In fact , we had a podcast episode of like hey , what should you do ? And I , I think we did a , we did a draft pick , because that was a trend run , the and I was like discount all month discount all month 100 , and all the brands who did it . Like I said , they didn't have as successful as they could have had , so and some of this , again based on your audience .

Mark: If you have a male , predominantly male , audience , men tend to buy later . They are not as great at buying in advance , last minute I mean yes , yeah so one of the brands that we saw have the best success with the strategy was a male based brand . Sure , because the first one . You get all the ones that actually do jump in , get it like early yep , but they still had so many stragglers , just like that , I'll just , I'll just wait until the end of the sale . And then they forgot , yeah , and then they launched the second round of discounts two weeks later and that round , crushed it . Yeah , but again , some of this is a little bit gender biased , like depending on your audience or whatever . But yeah , so look at , look your audience , look at their behaviors , look at who , who they are , what they do , what they want , and then start planning that out . And so if you want to do a discount , do it , or a two-tiered discount one week beginning of november and then last week . Last week Is what we saw work best across the board .

Trevor: Yeah , just whenever Black Friday , Cyber Monday is , whatever that is this year .

Mark: So either one week , and that's just Black Friday , or do the two weeks , which is , or three days . When we say two weeks , it's like it doesn't have to be a full week , the first sale . Totally it could be three to five days and most people didn't do a full week do yeah , it was .

Trevor: It was usually three to five days .

Mark: It was like that weekend . Yep going into november . Yes , yeah , for sure yeah , like the early bird , early , like black friday discount or something crushed it .

Trevor: It's so good like those , those brands , like I love the strategy , I still do .

Mark: It's something that we're talking to all of our clients about and really pushing them into it because a lot of buyers start adding the cart you like they start planning out what they want to buy for the discounts , and so if you can capture them early , then you have the opportunity to have them buy again later .

Trevor: Yeah , Another thing that's really cool that I've seen some brands do that seems like a small thing but I think just helps with this conversion rate is back to what Mark was saying hey , everybody's doing this . Like , hey , get 10 , 15% off on your first time order and that's what your pop-up says . Most brands don't match their pop-up with what their Black Friday deals are going to be . So I would recommend , two weeks before that sale , changing your pop-ups to say , hey , get your first time order at the , we're going to be doing a 35% off deal or whatever . Like you can match it to that . And most people will think , oh well , that's going to kill my sales today and you're like , yeah , it might , but once again you go back to the averages . Like you're not looking at , you're not looking at in November , you're not looking at what November 1st did for you and what November 2nd did for you . At the end of the day , you're going to look at what November did for you . And so if you changing your pop-ups to match the offer is going to delay a sale , but eventually get more people and build that email list , it's significantly worth it .

Mark: So I think that's another really cool preparation thing that people can and should do yes , and , like you said , the averages , like you're gonna see dry weeks , yeah , but it doesn't matter , like it doesn't matter how . November 10th through the 18th does .

Trevor: What matters is what october through december did for you . Yes , what ?

Mark: matters is what the quarter did and what the months do . Oh , 100% . And yes , there's strategies with cost caps , depending on what your profitability is , and so defining success again is important here , because some people say , well , should I drop spend on those weeks that aren't performing ? And there's two ways to think about that , which is you need to look at your user behavior on site . So if nobody's buying and they're just waiting for a sale , should you not spend money ?

Trevor: yeah , I would decrease spend a little bit , but if their behavior is is .

Mark: Hey , your ad , your ad to cart rate has gone up , that's , that's true .

Trevor: But your conversion rates down or your email subscribers is going , up Is going up , Then yeah , keep the spend going .

Mark: Like , why would you stop spending right ?

Trevor: But if none of that's happening then , yeah , maybe you do look at decreasing spend a bit .

Mark: Yeah , maybe you do so . Maybe you put in some cost caps , and then again it also depends on what is your customer's buy life cycle . So how long does it take for them to come to site to buy or know about you and buy ? Is this a seven-week average or is this a seven-day average ? Totally so , if they're buying within seven days usually , then there's a good argument that hey , we don't need to really pile up a big list a month before .

Trevor: Yeah , because people buy on the spot , yeah , or within a couple of days . But that , that and that's a good like reason . Like make sure you have those bestie surveys running right and you're doing your post-purchase survey stuff to understand how long it takes somebody to buy , what those first channels are really understanding that customer journey and that stuff you need to be doing now . Yes , absolutely , because it's going to help theoretically dictate your spending strategy for your strategies within the moment .

Mark: 100% . Because , once the game starts , you do have a strategy , but you have to adjust . Yeah , and again , there's going to be some adjustments this year with the election that's November 4th or 5th , I believe , yeah , something like that . So sometimes we don't know how that's truly going to affect all of the advertising dollars out there . There's going to be a huge influx of advertising spend from political campaigns , probably starting in September to October . It's already starting , but it's just going to get more and more and more because again , people have short time or short memories . Yep , like , people are still undecided , so they spend a lot of money going into the coming weeks . Yep , and , and just know what's your strategies on how to adjust ? Well , you have to know how to measure . If you want to adjust , yep , it's easy to do that in a basketball game or a football game , because you know what the score is right . Right , like , okay , there's a score , I can see what's happening , I know what plays , I know what defense they're running , so I know how the offense might need to adjust . But with with your e-commerce strategy , if you're not measuring what the score is and you're not measuring , right , what the impacts of all these little variables are , then you don't know how to adjust .

Trevor: Yeah , yeah , for sure .

Mark: So , like you said , hey , if my add to cart rate's going up or if my subscribers are going up , but my sales have just slumped like crazy . Well , yeah , you're two weeks away from Black Friday . Yeah , people just want a discount .

Trevor: People are researching and prepping and Yep exactly .

Mark: So maybe you start sending them emails , prepping them , yep right , like what's the strategy to make sure that you don't lose their attention over the next week or two ?

Trevor: totally , but you don't cut spend off just because of that I got three more and I can move through them quick because we probably need to end this podcast . Three more yes , it'll be quick .

Mark: Okay , email more often than you think you need to twice as often as you think you need to yes , I mean if you , if you think you're capped at two times a week , then you should be doing it four times a week and I think you should be doing it one to twice a day , like you can go big time .

Trevor: I actually think nowadays there's so many emails , people should just be emailing every day , like if you're doing it you have to write strategy over on it , but email text , more especially during the actual sales , yes , okay . So yes , that's number one . Number two , which goes back to my product one , is make sure your best selling products are in stock . The worst thing possible is that your hero acquisition product is out of stock halfway through the sale , so make sure you prep inventory appropriately .

Mark: And if inventory is running thin , you better get some aired yes which ?

Trevor: means that right now , do your projection for what you're going to sell september , october because if you're going to be running lean in november , you can get really , really screwed over massive , massive opportunity we're still far enough away that you should be able to get an order .

Mark: I mean shipped . I mean what ?

Trevor: 90 days , yeah you're 90 days , so you are . I mean , we are kind of cutting it a little close depending on the brand , like depending on what country you , you , that's true , get out of , but but if you're 90 , days out like you can still get it in and guess what you can for sure air it , you can for sure air , but guess what ?

Mark: some people , a lot of people , are fine not getting this in three days . Yeah , most people's expectations double for those kinds of things have your contingencies in place If you're going to cut it close and that shipment's not going to get for a week just say , hey , we're backed up . It'll be there in a week or two .

Trevor: Also , not to mention that Chinese New Year is coming up . Yeah , in a week or two , also , not to mention that Chinese New Year is coming up . So if you are getting your stuff from China , your last POs probably should be placed for the year by early October . And then the last thing , finally , is just get a slew of content ready , lots of content . Not all of it has to be your discount content .

Mark: A big old slew .

Trevor: Get UGC , get founder-facing content . Get you old slew , get UGC , get founder facing content . Uh , get a lot of videos . Get some statics , uh , because you want to test so much creative . And make sure that , because you're a lot of people are going to double triple their ad spend , um , which means that you're going to burn through creative quicker . So make sure you have a lot of creative . Don't don't think that the same amount of creative you use with a $50,000 or $100,000 a month ad spend is going to be the same amount of creative you should use with a $200,000 a month ad spend . Yes , that's it . Start prepping right now . If you have other questions , reach out to us . We'd love to chat with you guys , bestiemediaco . You can reach out to us , um , we'd love to chat with you guys , bestymediaco . You can reach out to us through there , or you could also reach out to us , uh , um , through instagram . Uh , that the trevor crump , um . But yeah , that's all . That's all we have today . Let's go . Episode 97 , episode 100 coming soon . We'll see you guys next week . Ciao . Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast . Please go , rate and subscribe the podcast , whether it's good or bad . We want to hear from you , because we always want to make this podcast better . If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback , please go follow me and get in touch with me . I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok . Thank you , and we will see you next week .