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Why eCommerce Brands Stall Despite Higher Ad Spend | Krista Karpan · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Selling on Giants.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is about why e-commerce brands plateau and what it actually takes to start growing again.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joined by Krista Karpon, co-founder and CEO of Milk Media, an award-winning performance marketing agency that works with fashion, jewelry, beauty, and home brands across page social, email, Google, and creative production.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Krista's path into marketing was not exactly linear.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: After experimenting with several business ideas, including trying to build the messaging app and learning how to code, she eventually found the area where she had the strongest skill set and the most interest.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: She and her business partner launched Milked Media, went all in on e-commerce, and built the agency into a team that has helped more than 60 brands generate over$160 million in revenue.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, we break down how to identify whether a brand is truly plateauing, why overall Shopify revenue and marketing efficiency often tell a better story than platform-reported ROAS, and why the real issue may sit outside the ad account.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Krista also explains how meta-targeting has shifted toward creative, why product launches and fresh offers help brands create new demand, and how website conversions, positioning, UGC, and partnership ads all work together to improve performance.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: We also get into what brands need before they invest in paid social, how Milk Media approaches the first 90 days of an engagement, and why testing remains the foundation of long-term growth.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: If your brand is spending more but seeing less movement, this episode is for you and you'll have a deep understanding of where to look first.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Krista, welcome to the Selling On Giants podcast.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to have you here.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to dive into how to diagnose and fix an e-commerce growth plateau.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Before we jump in the main topic, I'd love to learn a little bit about you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: How did you get into marketing and what inspired you to start Milk Media?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh got into marketing uh simply because it was something that um I was already doing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was working with another agency, just kind of happened upon upon that job, was kind of working with them as a contractor and was doing a little bit of everything for everyone, kind of local businesses.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we did organic social and email marketing and Facebook ads.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I really fell in love with meta ads.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I fell in love with the the meta-ad side of things as well as uh email marketing.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's really where I found the most enjoyment and working in.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so me and my business partner, who happens to be my friend, who we have known each other since high school, uh, happened to come together at the same time wanting to start a business.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had uh tried to start several other businesses before this, which were a little bit over my head.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to build a messaging app with no coding experience, and that did not work out well.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, maybe now with Claude, you could I could have maybe done it, but back then, you know, 10, 15 years ago, no, didn't work out.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh yeah, then I tried.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, all right, well, maybe I should try to learn to code.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't for me either.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't work out.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when my friend came to me wanting to start a business, I was like, you know what, I'm going to do something I know I already know.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna try and do this, you know, huge thing that I don't have experience in.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where we really fell into marketing to really start milked media as it is today.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: How did you guys get your first clients?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was it all through that the other agency of just doing contracting work and eventually you build your book of business, or was it uh uh was it more involved?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we actually uh were working with this this other agency on a contract, and that's kind of where the bulk of our income was coming from.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And one day we basically said, we're just gonna have to cut the cord, we're gonna have to dive all in.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there were some rough, rough times there in the beginning.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I this is not good financial advice, but I literally cashed out my 401k.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I like borrowed some money from my mom just to be able to go all in.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we found those first couple of clients uh through networking.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that really worked back then.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we were able to land a first couple of clients.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we were still struggling.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: We eventually hired a business coach who told us we were doing too much for too many people.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when we really niched down to e-commerce, uh, the industries of fashion, jewelry, beauty, and home, and focused on meta-ads and uh email marketing.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So worth the investment, even though we didn't really have the money then.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: We decided it was what we needed.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh from there, that really catapulted our business by being able to focus in.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and we really built our e our business back in um 2020 uh with cold email.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Cold email was how we got some of those first few clients.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't work as well now because I feel like everybody's doing cold email.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I personally receive so many a day, and I'm just deleting them, but it worked in 2020.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: It also happened that we focused on e-commerce in early 2020, right before the world shut down, and everybody was online shopping.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a good time to focus in on that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, we really just grew our business from there.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're six years in, and I know you received a pretty substantial award for a boutique agency from Meta.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you mind telling me a bit about the journey and kind of some of your accolades?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was pretty a pretty cool moment.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: I uh didn't expect to win, uh, but we saw that you know Meta was having their agency awards, which apparently I didn't know this either.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Last year was the first time they did these agency awards.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we saw it come through and we're like, all right, we should we should apply for this.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you know, being a small business owner with everything going on, we literally submitted our application on the deadline.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we we got in there and then yeah, we won and we were like, wow, this is awesome! So it was for our client, um, heretic, they're a perfume brand.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: They did a collaboration with the film Nosferatu for uh uh perfume and uh the creatives there, which my my business partner worked on, um were really strong, really eye-catching, really played into kind of the the creepy, you know, gothic type nature of the perfume and the movie.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was really strong, creative.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we ended up we ended up winning that that award, which um yeah, was a pretty pretty high moment in business.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty exciting.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations on the win.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's always hard to win those awards, and like we have stuff to summon on Amazon.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, a lot of competition.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact you guys had such great uh brand to work with and great creative, it says a lot about uh how you guys work as a team over at Milk Media.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Chris is great getting to know you a bit, but let's jump into our main topic how to diagnose and fix e-commerce growth uh plateaus.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to jumping in and picking your brain, especially somebody being more on the Amazon side.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, for founders who feel like growth is stalled, what does an e-commerce growth plateau actually look like?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is it a lot like six months of stagnant sales?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it not year-over-year growth?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are there other KPIs you might be looking at when you're saying, hey, I think we've we've capped out our our our growth on this platform?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would say it's probably yeah, looking at the year-over-year numbers is typically what we are looking at.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um when we're looking at the data, we typically are evaluating period over period as well as year over year.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So typically, you know, month over month or quarter over quarter, but really the biggest picture is going to tell you that year over year picture because it is, you know, there's a lot of seasonality to be in play.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be comparing November to October.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your November is always going to be stronger with Q4 to Black Friday.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we typically will look at uh year over year numbers to to diagnose if you know we're seeing a decline, no good.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if it's yeah, or if it's plateauing.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, our goal is we want to see that year over year uh increase.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, are you looking at total sales or ad sales?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like so, Amazon, for example, we use an uh a KPI called tacos, total advertising cost of sales, because we know that advertising sales influences organic ranking and sales.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like that's our North Star for most of the brands we work with.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is it uh is that what you're referring to as you're talking about the meta and the the general e-commerce journey, or is it different?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, we're gonna be looking at overall overall Shopify revenue.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, that is their their bottom line.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing: this is honestly what we would never want to happen is where Meta is telling one story and it's saying, you know, performance is up, but their actual overall Shopify revenue is down.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So at that point, it doesn't matter.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter that Meta is reporting more purchases.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not bringing in more money, something is broken, something needs to be fixed.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd almost rather see where it appears like Meta performance is down, but our overall Shopify revenue is up.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, it's a tricky game with attribution because you know, every platform reports a little bit differently on that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Meta reports on a one-day view, seven-day click.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to purchase within that time frame in order for it to be attributed to the ad.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of our clients are in the you know, uh fine jewelry space.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but I'm probably not gonna click on an ad and buy a$5,000 ring within three days.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: It typically doesn't happen.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: The purchase journey is a lot longer, there's a lot more consideration.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we typically like to look at um MER.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tacos, I never heard that one, but yeah, so MER is the marketing efficiency ratio, which is just gonna take our total spend divided by our total revenue.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it takes attribution out of it.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: How much are we spending on ads and how much are we making overall?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's typically going to tell you, tell you the better story.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that makes sense.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So because of the um, I guess the latency window, that attribution window is so short, which I would consider Metad, you can correct me if I'm wrong, like mid-funnel, you're building audiences and you're catching people who may be interested, but they haven't necessarily shown intent.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So by um by just looking at MER, which is pretty much the same thing as tacos, then you know, hey, maybe they click 30 days later, but we're we're still able to capture that investment.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: How does it go with educating your clients around that?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get a lot of pushback?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do they understand it's not always a dollar in, a dollar out if they look directly at their return on Ed Spen?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're getting better at that, but I will say uh most clients uh are very fixated on BroAS, which is Meta's platform reported number.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it because it's an easy number to look at.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's what Meta is saying, is saying you spent$10,000, you made$30,000.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Your return on ad spend is a three times.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So they're fixating on this number.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: But like I just said, it doesn't always tell tell the full story with just looking at that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Even Meta is uh, you know, prioritizing like conversion lift tests.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: You used to have to go through a meta rep to do that, they've now made it available to everyone within Meta.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: You have to spend a certain amount, but essentially that's looking at the overall effectiveness of the ads and taking out the act outside the attribution.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it takes like two groups, people who have seen the ads and people who haven't, and how that affects their their purchase decision.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: So even Meta's saying, you know, look at the bigger picture here, it may not all fall within this attribution window.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a lot of sense, and that's pretty interesting.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what I I like that it's it's pulled together, so it creates a clean story.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of what we do on the agency side is like explaining the data, you know.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a client who's focused on production and everything else, they may not understand like the the omni channel, enough to sound outdated, but there is there, it's just the nature how we shop these days.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Has uh before we go, I have questions about the the plateauing, but does AI play into anything that you're doing right now with uh with Meta?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Does it offer AI support and are you guys using it?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I feel like every platform now has their own built-in AI, and then they also have like an MCP with Claude.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a lot of lot of AIs out there, but um, yeah, Meta's built-in AI we may use sometimes, but yeah, we've definitely been using the Meta MCP with Claude more.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it is not foolproof.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would never, you know, say, hey, Claude, make all these changes in the account.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we have recently been building some skills within Claude to help more with the um the analysis piece.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and basically telling it exactly, uh it's almost like training an employee, honestly.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like telling Claude exactly what we look at at the accounts, what metrics are important, you know, what kind of account structures we tend to prioritize, and then using Claude for that analysis piece to then help us dissect what Claude is saying in order to make decisions in in the account.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we've definitely been leaning on Claude a lot more for that data analysis part.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I like the insights, it's smart too, because it can analyze a lot more data a lot faster than we can, that's for sure.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes a ton of sense.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for uh for some of our newer sellers, what are the most common reasons an e-commerce brand stops growing?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, based on your experience, and I'm sure you get lots of prospects that come in, they're like, hey, we're done with this agency or we need to try something new.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sales are stuck at X.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are what do you normally see that's like, okay, I've seen this a hundred times?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I do feel like it's could be a lot of reasons, but um I mean, a lot of times I feel like a brand stops growing, um is not really offering anything new or exciting to their audience.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then if you're not doing that, then you have to become reliant on sales in order to offer more of that new or exciting, exciting thing.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's definitely a a situation we don't want our clients to become in, where they're now training their customer to wait for sales, um, having to do sales in order to get the needle to move.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, I can go back to our client, you know, heretic.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: They um, you know, there was a period there where they weren't launching a lot of new products, you know, some products maybe were were sold out.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're doing, you know, everything we can do on our end to to really leverage, you know, the evergreens in the ad account and play into that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then you know, they got into a cadence where their launch schedule uh really improved and they are launching new and exciting products, and that is something that we're able to leverage in the ad account, even with the messaging like limited edition.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: We just see saying limited edition messaging in the ad account works so well.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it really creates that sense of urgency.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think on the the brand end is really creating more of those peaks throughout the year, creating more of that excitement, um, that newness.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that helps our efforts in the Addy Count to be able to promote that and it keeps the audience um interested and engaged rather than feeling stale.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and another point on that I would say is, you know, you really do have to know know your who your audience is um and and really know what your value props are.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: What are your you know unique selling propositions?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like why, why would someone buy from you, especially with some of the brands that we we work with in the jewelry space?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many, there's so many jewelry brands out there.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're selling, you know, a sparkly, sparkly piece of jewelry, but like why?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why would I shop from you over someone else?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And especially there's a lot of jewelry brands that look pretty similar.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So give me a reason to shop from you.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think really understanding who your customer is, what they they uh respond to, and like leaning more into those value props really helps in the ad account.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have that, the ads will the ads will struggle.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're working with milk media, some of the things you guys are doing, you're obviously split testing, messaging, pricing, positioning, like some of the marketing basics.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is that fair to say?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do a lot um of testing on obviously messaging and the the creative strategy and kind of what is going to resonate with the with the audience.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we leverage a lot of data to see who is already interacting with the brand, who is that ideal customer, and then being able to, you know, speak to who that customer is.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: For some of our clients, you know, just looking at the brand, we're like, this seems to skew younger, but then when we look at the data, we're like, wow, this is actually like a 55 to 65-year-old woman who is purchasing this.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we need to adjust our strategy.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be speaking to that customer with our creative and and with our messaging.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever change the creative or branding based on the platform?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'd imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, like Meta probably skews older.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: My mom still is on meta a lot, whereas myself and my wife more Instagram and some of our younger employees are all about TikTok.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not sure if you operate on all those platforms, but fundamentally, do you does your messaging shift or do you use the same messaging across all the platforms?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we're yeah, mainly yeah, meta, yeah, Facebook and Instagram.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: We pretty much let the algorithm do its thing.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: We never push ads to just Facebook or just Instagram.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: We say you tell us where this ad is going to convert and you deliver it there.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the algorithm, unfortunately, you know, it knows more about me and you than we probably would like, but it's really a bad stuff.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, we will test different messaging.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And like the the thing is with um with meta the way it is now is we used to kind of back in the day, we would, you know, put in interest-based targeting or we would do like a look-alike audience.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: We would get a little bit more granular with the targeting.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: The way that it is now is you really want to keep your targeting as broad as possible.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So literally targeting everyone in the United States, or maybe narrowing down to female in the United States.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there, we're building our creatives to essentially unlock these different audiences.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe there's a mom audience we want to get in front of.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: We'll craft um, you know, more mom messaging within the ads or more mom focused creatives.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we upload those creatives into Meta, that's essentially how we are doing our targeting is through the creative versus telling Meta who to go after.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're providing it the creative, and meta is saying, okay, this is who this, this is who this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is going to resonate with.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's less about uh typically like how it works on Amazon with DCPs, it's less about me building and identifying audiences.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: The ad creative meta is scraping the video andor static image, and I'm sure the messaging text that's part of it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's using that to index it against this large general audience to serve it to the right human being, essentially.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that has changed a lot.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Man, how does that oh man, do you have do you think you have less control or more control over who sees your ads with that uh type of setup?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just curious.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, it really there are now only so many levers you can pull on the back end.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I feel, you know, previously it's like, oh, let's test this different audience.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's test like a 3% look-alike versus a 1% lookalike.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't work anymore.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there may be, you know, slight um different account structures that we test, or maybe some different optimization settings within meta, like optimizing for the value of conversions versus the volume of conversions.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there are still a lot of a lot of levers to to press back there.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as like testing new audiences or new campaign structure, it honestly it's not worth it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably gonna just blow up the account.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta focus in on the creative.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it's going to come down to at the end of the day, is focusing in on your creative strategy.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed any difference in performance between AI creative versus um like studio uh quality creative?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying it's a big difference or is it about the same?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we'll use AI sometimes to kind of like fine-tune a uh creative, but we definitely have not passed off, you know, full creative control to AI.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's not that good.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And like at the end of the day, what we're certain, it's an ad.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: You want you want it to be a good ad and not just some AI slop, to be honest.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, recently, you know, attended the the meta agency summit, and one of the things that they were saying is that, you know, more of the human crafted content is still what is working at the top of the funnel, and more of the kind of like AI generated or AI assisted um type creatives can work better at the bottom of the funnel.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're trying to get in front of a new audience, you still gotta wow them a little bit.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta be creative, you gotta, you know, come out with a good ad.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Once it's a little bit more bottom of the funnel, you're just kind of reminding them of the product or the value props, that may be where you can lean a little bit more into AI.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty interesting.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense too.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be authentic as a brand, so you're mid and upper funnel, you're probably gonna want some good quality stuff.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: But once they've been exposed and they've showed interest, I'm sure just uh a picture of the product or image on a hand model or whatever would probably do the job just well.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so let's just say I'm uh I'm a jewelry brand because we've been talking a lot about fine jewelry, and uh, I come to you and and you've diagnosed some of the issues and challenges.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the ways that you actually help brands overcome these sales plateaus?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what do we test?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are we adjusting?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you kind of alluded to it, but let's go into it a little deeper.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: How how would you help me increase my sales?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's there's several things there too.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, one, a big one that it always comes back to is the website, the on-site experience.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we are not web developers here.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't make any changes on the site, but something we do with all of our clients when onboarding is we do an audit of their website.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're essentially going to make recommendations to help drive more conversions from the home page, the collection page, and the the product page, as well as the checkout experience.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if we're spending all of this money on ads to drive traffic to a website that is not set up for conversions, you might as well burn your money.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: There needs to be certain things in place once they land on the site to help drive drive those conversions.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Really, you know, the product pages are super important to basically overcome any obstacles, especially for fine jewelry, um, where it is a bigger consideration piece.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: You need to give them all of the information.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: You need to have a size guide.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how does how can I, you what size ring am I?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Help them figure that out.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it needs the assets.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is a big one too.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: The the photography or the videos that are featured on the um product page need to really showcase, showcase the piece.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm going in blind with never having seen this thing in person and it's five, ten thousand dollars, I need to be convinced on that, on that product page.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, always showing the product on on a hand or on a neck, if it's a if it's a necklace.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: That is a big one.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: People want to see what it's going to look like on them.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any UGC of real life um stories, including that on the product page, reviews, social proof.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: People are definitely looking at that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: They want to see someone else say, I had never bought an engagement ring online and then I came here and I bought it and I love it.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they need that that social proof there.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, if it is a higher you know, AOV item, always having some sort of payment option in place and having that displayed from the uh from the product page.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can break this up into six easy payments with a firm, whatever it is, letting them know they have that that option there.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: You guys do a lot of conversion rate optimization on web pages.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is uh that's pretty detailed for for just being responsible for meta ads.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you deliver that audit, do you typically uh the prospects make a lot of those changes?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do they push back?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you help at all?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like how does that how is that audit received?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do an audit um of yeah, their entire website and we try to make it as easy um as possible.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we do that audit, which is a little bit detailed and kind of a lot to go through.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: From there, we extract it into a checklist.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: We literally break it down on your home page, make this change, this change, this change on your collection page, make these changes.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to put in a checklist format and hand it off to them to make those changes.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're typically never going to be like, typically, uh redo your entire site.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just small tweaks and changes that you can make that can significantly drive more conversions.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we do that during the um onboarding phase that that all happens during week one.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then on our kickoff call, we'll go over that with them and we we advise them to try to make these changes in the next um two weeks while we're working on our launch ads.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that by the time our launch ad creatives are ready to launch in the account, hopefully they've made those changes on the site.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Most of our clients are pretty receptive and will make a lot of those um changes.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, they want to see the the conversions there.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, and usually, usually they're um they participate in that.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just say we have two different types of brands.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start with a small brand and a big brand.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm a small brand, what do you think are the minimum I need to have in place in order to start some meta ads?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, if I'm a new brand, probably not gonna have a ton of reviews.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I hopefully was smart enough to invest in some digital assets at least, but like what would you say is the minimum?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll go into a bigger brand because I have some additional questions.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, at a minimum, I mean, yeah, it's going to be the Shopify, Shopify site.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's always gonna be step one.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you need to have that in place.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I do think branding is very important.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it helps um us on the ad side to be able to pull from a brand guide so we know exactly how to speak as your brand.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: We know exactly who, you know, making sure that we're staying true to the brand.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's important for them to know that too, because a lot of times clients don't know.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know who they are, they don't know what their they stand for, they don't know what their their value props are.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: We will help with that to a degree, but it's always helpful to work with a you know professional branding person to really help you have that in place.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And for the most part, unless you're doing a full rebrand, once you get that done, you have that as kind of your your Bible, your go-to to for all the people that work in your business to reference to make sure that it's a cohesive experience and that you know your brand is represented properly.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um I would I would invest in um branding as well.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then yes, another big part of it um are the assets.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of AI, it is crazy now with a lot of the the production piece, it is very possible now to create a lot of assets with AI and have them look pretty legit, pretty decent.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, if you don't have a ton of money to to drop on a huge photo shoe with, you know, a creative director and a bunch of models, and now we have to rent out a location.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh AI can do a pretty good job of of doing that.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there does need to be some you know photo video assets in place in order to not only use on your website, but obviously in the uh the marketing mix as well.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good point, too.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: You'll need at least a basic image for AI as well, because they can't just create it.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: But just to summarize, so I like this.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm a new brand and I'm kicking off, some of the most important things, Shopify store obviously needs something to process payments and showcase my my brand, brand guidelines.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad you mentioned this.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned having a coach.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing I did when we got our coach years ago, and it makes a huge difference when you know who you are and and who you work best with.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the other I love the AI aspect of images.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you're new, you know, a photo shoot could cost you seven to fifteen thousand dollars.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're if you're just testing a concept, that could be a large investment on top of inventory and everything else.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I like using AI as a way just to test the market.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then if it works out really well, you can invest and and get those better images.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm a larger company.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do you look at that um like I'm a prospect and I'm coming into your funnel?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what does it look like for the brands that succeed the best with you guys or with Meta in terms of the marketing advertising?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they have what you mentioned on the newer side, they're gonna have good assets, they're gonna have the branding on point.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: But is there anything else that you would look at and be like, okay, we're gonna be able to do really good with this brand, whether it's they have a lot of brand equity or whatever, whatever other KPIs you might be looking at?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say maybe for more um established brands, um, the benefit of that is that we have typically a ton of data to left.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're able to see what they've already done, what they've already tested, what works, what hasn't.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this can really guide our strategy not only from a meta perspective, but from an overall business perspective too.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: So whenever we're uh working with clients, like yes, we are running their meta ads, we're handling that fully, you know, Google Ads, email marketing.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we really aim to be a strategic partner.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we help them map out like their marketing calendar if they want our help there.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some of our clients already have that all dialed in.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we'll make recommendations around like how how to launch a product, what to do around bigger sale periods for Black Friday, Cyber Monday.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're always um, you know, helping guide them about what is going to be the most effective and helping them create those peaks throughout the year so they're not seeing, you know, stagnancy and really leveraging what not only has worked maybe for them in the past or hasn't, but also for our other clients.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have a database of so much data amongst all of our other clients of what tends to work around these bigger moments that we're able to use in their account.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I guess I would say uh something we haven't really, really touched on, um, but is really important in the the meta account uh nowadays is user-generated content is more of that UGC.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even some of the bigger brands, you know, we come to don't have a steady, um, steady strength of UGC.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Another big point, Meta is pushing hard our partnership ads, um, which essentially is, you know, UGC, but with the option to run the ad from the creator's account versus the brand account.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so again, just adding in another layer of authenticity.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and those are working really well.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Meta is pushing it very hard right now.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so where UGC was almost like, yeah, we recommend it.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: You should have it in the account.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's now like, no, you need to have it.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they also said um the new meta algorithm that just came out, Andromeda, um, it favors creative diversity, creative volume, and it favors partnership ads.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're not doing it, you're almost actively working against what the algorithm wants.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: And commerce has changed so much in like the last five years.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: So uh are you a big proponent of affiliate marketing to get a lot of that UGCs?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you recommend a lot of that to your brand?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do they necessarily need to be the largest influencers, or is it just about variety and volume?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it it depends on your goal.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are looking to unlock new audiences, you're looking to expand your reach, obviously, having uh working with an influencer who has an established audience.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you want that to be an audience that would likely purchase from your brand.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: That works really well in conjunction with our efforts because these influencers, again, it's just another piece of the marketing puzzle.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: These influencers are helping to drive traffic to the site.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: We can remarket them with Meta and Google Ads.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: It all works together.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for our purposes for ads, you don't necessarily have to have a big following.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're typically working with creators.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So almost people who are just better actors than influencers.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: We want people who are good in front of the camera, they're good at, you know, selling a product.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And even if we are doing a partnership ad with this person and they don't have the biggest following, it doesn't really, it doesn't really have have an effect.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if your goal is more getting the content, running partnership ads, any creator who's good at their craft can do that.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you're looking for, you know, more reach, audience exposure, yeah, you'll probably want an influencer who does have, you know, at least somewhat of a following.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: But for the ads, it's about the quality of the creative, which makes sense because you're gonna advertise that creative and you want it to be a good experience.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is super helpful.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Christian, is there anything I didn't ask before we talk a little bit about a little bit about milk media and what it's like to work with you guys?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think we I think we did pretty much cover it all there.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Covered a lot.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love talking advertising.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I got into this.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know you run another agency, and I love talking about agencies and onboarding.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, it's not only fun working with e-commerce brands, it's fun helping them get to that next level.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's it like to actually work with Milk Media?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what does the first 90 days look like?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do you onboard?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a bit about the journey if we decide to work together.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh always, you know, the biggest undertaking for us in that first 90 days.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting to know each other, we're you know, figuring out the business.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's where obviously most of the kind of cleanup and and testing really happens.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, when we are working with a a new client, we do we do uh a pretty thorough onboarding process.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure that we get this right um from the get-go.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure that we're not just throwing ads up there.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: We do a pretty deep dive into the business to really make sure that we are, you know, leveraging the data and also uh really understanding who the brand is, who their target audience is, why people would buy from them, why they wouldn't, um, and helping the client craft some of that messaging as well.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, most of the clients we work with, it is very important to them to have their brand represented in the way that they see it.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: We work with a lot of founders who are very close to the brand and maybe have had bad experiences handing off creative to people who just didn't get their brand or their target audience.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: We hear that all the time.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we really want to make sure that we we take that time in the beginning.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, all happens during you know, week one is when we're doing kind of our our into the brand.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is when we do the audit of the website of obviously the the channels that we'll be working on.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: We also do an audit of their organic socials.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times when people see an Instagram ad, if you don't recognize the brand, you're probably not gonna click to the website.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, who is this?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna click on their Instagram profile.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to make sure that that Instagram profile is acting as a good landing page and it's telling exactly, you know, what you sell.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you wouldn't believe, but like it's not clear like what are you actually selling?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: So making sure that is perfectly clear, again, showcasing those value props.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, we do a pretty thorough, thorough audit.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is when we will do our budget planning and analysis.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we help them plan what they should be spending in the account in order to hit their overall revenue targets.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: We'll do a profitability analysis with that as well.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we also help them build out their um initial marketing calendar during that first first week, as well as all the fun like backend account setup, making sure everything is is firing properly.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then uh yeah, from there we move into like our launch ads creative uh development, which we usually launch with with quite a bit.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but really, yeah, during that first 90 days, I always try and educate our clients.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one, we have the data we can leverage that they've done before.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Two, we work with a lot of similar brands.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we tend to know what works.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: However, every brand is going to be slightly different.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Something that works in one account may not work in another, even if those brands are pretty similar.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: So during that first 90 days, we do lean heavy into testing to really find uh, and it says creative testing to find what is going to resonate with our audience.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Once we start to find some of those winners, we can lean more into what is working, less into testing.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when you start to really see the waterfall effect or the traction, and you start to be able to hit more of those KPIs once we are able to establish more of that winning strategy.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's pretty interesting.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the the first almost 90 days, the first week or two, it's like just who are we messaging?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting you're getting a lot of information about how you're gonna present this brand to the customer as well as like the back end conversion rates and everything else that needs to happen.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, it's just about testing and iterating to you find what works.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you find what works, it's gas on the grill, right?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just add more gas.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, our goal is we obviously want to find these winning at creatives.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I won't say once you find it, it's like, oh, that's it.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's we've we've unlocked it.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's continuous testing, it's continually trying new concepts.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can lean less into testing as you start to develop to find some of those um winners, which essentially just helps you be more efficient with your budget um and allows you to you know better meet some of those KPIs.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then Krista, who's the team we'd be working with?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do we work with the owners?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have strategists?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like how how is the uh the team makeup?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we are a team of 10.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we do have uh several account strategists working on the meta, email, Google side of things, um, as well as um some designers as well, um, and a project manager who kind of is your go to for everything.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: She's making sure all of the I's are dotted, T's are crossed.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: I always say that one backwards for some reason.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, she's kind of making sure we have everything we need.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: She's making sure.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: That the clients have everything they need, and then there's myself and my um business partner who kind of oversee oversee everything.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a pretty tight team.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on that note, this was super helpful.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Coming on to we went deep on meta, so I was excited.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot personally.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do a lot of meta ads being on Amazon, but we know a lot of our brands do.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it was pretty eye-opening, kind of the differences between the platforms.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris, I appreciate you taking me down the rabbit hole and kind of explaining some of the nuances, but also how you work as a business as another boutique agency delivering outsize value to the brands that choose to work with you.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: For our audience, anybody who's interested in meta, Google, or email marketing, where can they find you, Krista?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the best place would be uh to fill out the contact form on our website, which would be at miltimedia.com slash work with us.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, also, when you're there, highly would recommend joining our email list.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: We share a lot of great insights there on the newest trends on the platforms.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: We also share our own client numbers on a monthly basis so you can kind of see, you know, some industry benchmarks there and compare it to what you're seeing as well.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is pretty awesome.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Krista, thanks for coming on the show.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: All links will be provided in the show notes.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: That wraps up today's episode of Selling on Giants with Krista Carpon.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest takeaway from this conversation is that a growth plateau is rarely solved by making one adjustment inside an ad account.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Krista explained why operators need to look at the entire business, starting with overall revenue and marketing efficiency rather than relying only on the numbers that Meta reports.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Platform ROAS can be useful, but it does not always capture the full customer journey, especially for higher consideration products with longer purchase cycles.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: We also covered how much paid social has changed.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Broad targeting now places more responsibility on the creative itself.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: The messaging, format, customer angle, and product story helps Meta determine which audience should see the ad.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: But creative alone cannot fix a weak offer or a poor customer experience.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Brands still need clear positioning, strong product pages, useful photography, social proof, financing options where appropriate, and a reason for customers to pay attention.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: New products, limited releases, consistent launches can help create those moments of demand without training customers to wait for a discount.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Krista also shared why UGC and partnership ads are becoming more important, almost a necessity, and why brands should think carefully about the difference between creators who produce strong content and influencers who bring an established audience.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about Krista and Milt Media, visit their website and join their email list.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Krista's team shares current platform insights, client performance trends, and benchmarks that operators can compare against their own results.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: All links are available in the show notes below.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you found this episode helpful, please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review for selling on Giants.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: It helps more e-commerce operators find the show and it keeps these conversations going.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Till next time, thanks for tuning in.