December 19, 2024 • 26 mins
Grab your essential FREE guide - How to clear excess stock without damaging your brand.
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In this episode, I’m joined by paid ad specialist Aggie Meroni to discuss everything about paid advertising in 2024 and projections for 2025.
Aggie, founder of White Bee Digital, shares valuable insights on Meta ads, ad trends during Black Friday, and practical tips to enhance ad performance for retailers.
The discussion covers how you should measure your ad performance against buyer behavior, the importance of being strategic with which products you put money behind, the evolving Meta platform, and the surprising success of employee-generated content.
Catherine and Aggie also explore future strategies for advertising, emphasizing a human touch and intentional content planning.
[01:32] Meet Aggie Moroni: Paid Ad Specialist and Founder of White Bee Digital
[01:59] Black Friday Ad Insights
[05:06] 2024 Advertising Landscape
[11:44] Meta Platform Changes and Strategies
[18:43] Boosting Ad Performance: Practical Tips for Retailers
[24:53] Looking Ahead to 2025
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Learn more about the Resilient Retail Club: https://www.resilientretailclub.com/membership/
Learn more about my mastermind for product business owners: https://www.resilientretailclub.com/retail-business-mentoring/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Catherine Erdly (00:00):
Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan.
Hi, I'm your host, Catherine Erdly.
I'm a small business and retail expert.
I'm also the founder of the ResilientRetail Club, which is my membership group
and mastermind for product businesses.
Go to resilientretailclub.
com to find out more.
Today I'm joined by Aggie Meroni, who isa paid ad specialist and we're going to be
talking about all things paid advertising.
(00:23):
How it was in 2024 andwhat's ahead for 2025.
Don't miss out on her superpractical tips on how to boost the
performance of your advertising.
Welcome to the Resilient Retail GamePlan, a podcast for anyone wanting to
start, grow or scale a profitable creativeproduct business with me, Catherine Erdly.
(00:47):
The Resilient Retail Game Plan isa podcast dedicated to one thing,
breaking down the concepts and toolsthat I've gathered from 20 years in
the retail industry and showing youhow you can use them in your business.
This is the real nuts and bolts ofrunning a successful product business,
broken down in an easy, accessible way.
This is not a podcast about learninghow to make your business look good.
(01:11):
It's the tools and techniques that willmake you and your business feel good.
Confidently plan, launch, and manageyour products, and feel in control of
your sales numbers and cash flow to helpyou build a resilient retail business.
(01:32):
Aggie, thank you so much forjoining me on the podcast.
Do you want to start us off byintroducing yourself and your business?
Aggie Meroni (01:39):
Hi Catherine, thanks so much for having me.
My name is Aggie Meroni and I'mthe founder of White Bee Digital.
We're a paid social agency, sowe manage meta ads, Facebook
and Instagram, Pinterest andTikTok for e commerce brands.
And we help them to scalewith the advertising.
Catherine Erdly (01:56):
Fantastic.
And let's just jump in.
How are meta ads working atthe moment for retailers?
Aggie Meroni (02:03):
It is because we're recording this just after Black Friday.
It's going to have a Black Fridaysteer, like my answer, but it is such
an interesting time of year comparedto what we've seen in the past.
So this year, Black Friday fell late.
It was like right at the end, even wentinto December, which is really rare.
(02:26):
It's usually about a week earlier.
So we saw retailers start their BlackFriday sales literally 1st of November.
I honestly thought I'dbeen served the wrong ads.
It's like an ads manager somewhere,put them on a month early or something.
I was like, this is really odd.
But speaking to other retailretailers, they're like, yes,
because everyone's comparing thisyear against last year, they have
(02:49):
to hit November's numbers at least.
So they start discountingearlier to make up for it.
So, okay, that makes sense.
But what we found at our agency is asa result of Black Friday being so late,
Sales were slow, like through the whole ofNovember and it was a nail biting month,
I'm not going to lie, for our clientsgetting extremely tense saying, Oh my
(03:10):
God, we're down, we're down, we're down.
And ads follow humanbehavior and the sentiment.
So if you see that something happensin the news and oh my God, interest
rates are going up, your ads do sufferbecause people stop spending as much.
So we noticed that with the ads.
But the week off black friday,it started to kick off.
Like people were starting to get thosejuicier deals coming in and Black
(03:34):
Friday itself was the killer day.
Like we saw that as the day wherethe highest volume of sales happened.
However, they weren't the mostprofitable day for our clients.
And the reason for that is theirCPMs, which is the cost to show
your ad a thousand times, wentup nearly doubled sometimes.
It was insane how expensive the adsbecome because all the big brands
(03:56):
The household names, they floodthe market with their ad spend.
So all the prices go up becauseeveryone's competing for
those buyers on that weekend.
So we found our clients who launchedads a couple of days before, some
launched like the Monday of that week.
They had very strong sales thatwhole week, and they were much
more profitable before the actualBlack Friday weekend happened.
(04:19):
But people did buy for the whole weekend.
They dropped off a bit.
On the Monday and there was a big dipthe week after because everyone had
bought all their deals and they've donetheir shopping and now it's picking
up again and I'm exactly this person.
I've realized there's loads of stuff.
I've got to buy.
So now I'm buying it all.
So we're seeing that the results of that.
Like coming back up again, and thatis a pattern that you see every year.
(04:41):
So it goes up a lot over the weekend.
So you have a dip afterwards andthen people start buying again
and went back up in that zone.
The ad costs have massivelycome down as well.
After that weekend, the fact like, youknow, drops 30%, 50%, you know, they're
still high, but they've massively dropped.
So I would say this is a timethat a lot of retailers will
(05:02):
make their profitable sales.
Yeah.
Catherine Erdly (05:06):
So that was black friday If you had to sum up and I
know it's hard to sum up a whole yearBut what what was your feeling of
until black friday or what was yourfeeling in general about 2024 with ads?
Aggie Meroni (05:20):
So again, it was very human behavior led.
So this is something that thesuccessful advertisers understand
and the ones that struggle.
It's why they struggle.
So
Advertisers, especially if they're neweradvertisers will put money into ads.
And then if people don't buy on dayone, they're like, the ads don't work.
(05:41):
It's okay, you need to remember that atthe other end of your computer, there
is someone who's actually going to buy.
They won't buy necessarilythe first time they see an ad.
And I think because there's been somuch financial turmoil this year, the
impulse buying has not been as greatas it has been in the past, so people
(06:02):
have found it harder to generate thesales that they used to get with ads.
However, the ones that pepperedtheir sales with launches.
So not just relying on evergreensales, always the same, but , I
want to be careful how I word thisbecause it can be misinterpreted.
So.
When I say launches for one of ourclients, they have a set product
(06:24):
range and they don't do muchdevelopment, but how they merchandise
those products was different.
So they re bundled something andrenamed it and sold that as a launch.
So I'm not saying you need to alwaysinnovate and always have like new
stuff coming out cause that's notprofitable either, but how you,
your messaging is so important.
So the brands that, Adapted andlooked around and what was going
(06:46):
on and, changed up their messaging,changed up their creatives.
They did really well.
So I'd say it's not that there was atrend in ads that all ads were really good
and all ads were really bad, but it wasmore like it was the business strategy
behind the ads that drove results.
Catherine Erdly (07:04):
Yeah.
That's so interesting.
I totally agree with you specificallyon newness, because I always say to
people, you know, newness is just anotheropportunity to start a new conversation
with your customer, but it totallycould be, as you said, Putting two
things together or a limited edition,something, or you buy in you, maybe if
you develop your own products and youcan't be releasing new products all the
(07:25):
time, you could have a limited editionpackaging, or you could have one new
color of one thing, you know, it's.
It doesn't have to be like a huge,in fact, it generally shouldn't be
like a huge product range all thetime, but that will allow you to then
have that conversation, which is, isa nice conversation starter, right?
With a, with a customer.
And it gives you somethingto build excitement around as
(07:46):
opposed to repeating yourself.
And then the other thing that I wasjust going to say as well is that I
definitely feel like the considerationwindow is getting longer and it sounds
like you've seen the same thing.
So people are needing longer tothink about things, but presumably
that is then part of the ads.
(08:07):
Then it's a shifting strategy, right?
So that you may have to showthem more times or they may have
to show different types of ads.
Yes.
Aggie Meroni (08:14):
Yes.
And also how you interpretyour data is different.
So the biggest pitfall I see when Ispeak to advertisers is they panic
because they're like the ROAS is downand I'm not getting as many sales.
I'm like, okay, let's just take a breath.
Where are you looking?
What, where, where, where are yougetting your information from?
And they're like the ads dashboard.
(08:36):
I'm like, okay.
Do not just trust that becauseads are only tracked for seven
days after someone clicks the ad.
So if you have something that's maybeslightly more expensive, or maybe
it would only be bought in a certainseason, or, for example, like we've
been selling workshops for one brand,they need to ask their friends.
Are you available this day?
(08:56):
Can Susan come on this day?
Should we buy on this day?
So it might take a couple of weeksfor everyone to reply to that
WhatsApp group to say we're in.
So then you won't track that hugegroup sale from your ads because the
people at the other end have takenlonger to buy than Meta's tracked.
So I always say Please, please, please,whether you are just looking at your
(09:17):
Shopify dashboard or maybe you'vegot Suite analytics, triple whale,
whatever it is you're using, make sureyou're really tracking your revenue,
not just day by day what sales arehappening because it, you have to
see like the general upward shift.
And also the data is changed as wellsince 2021 when we have this huge privacy
(09:38):
updates, a lot of the data is delayed.
A lot of the data is missing as well.
So that's why it's really importantto look at the bigger picture.
Catherine Erdly (09:47):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I was, I saw somebody was talkingon LinkedIn about this toothbrush
called Suri, S U R I, which Iactually bought one, I think
Aggie Meroni (09:56):
I have one
Catherine Erdly (09:56):
oh, you've got one.
Aggie Meroni (09:59):
from an ad and actually one of my friends had it and recommended it.
So no, you have to buy it.
It's really good though.
Word of mouth as well.
So it all plays into it.
Catherine Erdly (10:08):
But it's that whole thing about you know, it's,
it could be a really long journey.
I mean, it was a pretty long journey.
I don't know how long I spentthinking about it, but I probably saw
the ads and that alerted me to it.
And then I did a bit of research onthe website and then I maybe looked
at the social or like you say, butthen ultimately someone else says,
Oh, I've got one and it was great.
(10:28):
And boom, that's it.
You know, so it's, it's so, itmust, it's an absolute nightmare,
really attribution, isn't it?
Aggie Meroni (10:35):
Absolutely.
And it's what we call the messy middle.
It's really rare someone to seean ad and buy it straight away.
especially, and I think that toothbrush isa really good example, and we work with
a hair care brand and it's the same thing.
You're disrupting ahabit in someone's life.
So to change a toothbrush, you're changingsomething that they use day to day
that they've probably used for so long.
(10:56):
I mean, before that I had anotherelectric toothbrush that I'd had not
the same one, but the same brand for15 years, I don't know, a long time.
So for me to then trust It's nota cheap, cheap investment either.
It was quite expensive for that product.
So it was a considered purchase.
He add that into it as well, but evenhaircare, even though the products price
or unit price is much lower, someonehas got trust in the existing brand
(11:20):
and they've been using that for ages.
And there has to be somethingreally disruptive to make
them like stop the habit.
And even if they stop buying your product,it's not because they don't like it.
Maybe there's something, maybethey got a big gift bundle, from
a relative, or maybe they wentabroad and bought something back.
So, you know, there'salways other elements.
It's not always just the ads thatare causing the change in behavior.
Catherine Erdly (11:42):
yeah, yeah, for sure.
So let's talk a little bit about, youmentioned that things are changing.
So obviously the meta platformchanges all the time, but what
are some of the latest changes andwhat do they mean for advertisers?
Mm
Aggie Meroni (11:59):
Sure.
So there's three areasthat I've seen changes.
So the first one is structurallyinside the dashboard.
It's a big hoo ha for nothing.
So they used to be business managerwhere you'd have like your umbrella
of your assets, your ad account,Facebook page, Instagram account.
Then they changed itto business portfolio.
In September, which caused a tailspinbecause everyone panicked and was
(12:23):
like, Oh my God, what is this?
Even I did.
I was like, I don't understandwhy this has changed because
it's exactly the same thing.
They've just moved everything.
They've moved everything around andthey called it something different, but
all the elements that were in businessmanager are in business portfolio.
So if you see that,that's what's happened.
They also decided to change the nameof ads manager to adverts manager.
(12:46):
Wow, you know, like these, these, thesethings are just ridiculous in my opinion.
It doesn't make any difference,but some of the bigger
changes that will impact you.
There's like targeting differencesnow, so they're not new, but
it's worth being aware of.
So Meta is doing a huge push to getpeople to use Advantage Plus audiences.
Catherine Erdly (13:08):
Mm hmm.
Aggie Meroni (13:09):
I would not recommend that right now.
So effectively, and they'll say you canswitch back to the original audiences.
I would recommend you do keepusing original audiences.
Now, the reason why I'm stillpro original audiences is because
advantage plus audiences arevery algorithm led and AI driven.
(13:30):
So you can give a steer to Meta, just say,say for example, you're selling hair care.
So you're like, okay, I want, people thatare interested in hair care, personal
care or, , whatever styling products,you know, you put all your interests in.
Meta won't just target people, thoseinterests, it will just take it as
a guide and still target everyone.
So you can't really, you don't really knowIf you're targeting has had any impact,
Catherine Erdly (13:54):
Right.
Aggie Meroni (13:56):
you also can't exclude any audiences with advantage plus.
Now this is really important if you'retrying to just target fresh people.
So if you just want new eyes onyour ads, you want to be able to
exclude your website visitors,your social media, engages your
email list, your past purchases.
You can't do that with Advantage Plus.
(14:18):
So effectively, Meta is going to gofor the low hanging fruit all the time.
It's going to go forall the warm audiences.
So you're just going to waste yourmoney because you're just going to be re
showing to the same people and to grow.
You need new people.
You need new eyes.
So if you're in growth mode,Go for original audiences.
One thing that is a really good featureis audience controls, they've now got
(14:43):
two sections where you can actually tellMeta who the engaged people are in your
audience and who your past purchases are.
So when you do run a report, youcan see how much of your budget is
actually going to completely fresh.
eyes, which is really, really importantbecause again, you want to make sure
that you're not just showing the samepeople all the time what you're selling.
(15:05):
So I would say search forthat in your settings.
It's an ad set settings, andyou can set that for yourself.
And thirdly, creatives.
So creatives are like the bigthing now, now that audience
targeting isn't as precise.
Meta, again, is trying to force you withAI to let them tweak things for you.
(15:28):
Disaster.
Don't do it.
It just looks horrendous.
So you'll have an optionwhen you're uploading your
imagery, videos, everything.
It pops up this big dashboardof enhancements and it will just
auto selects most of them, Iwould just deselect everything,
have control over how ads look.
Catherine Erdly (15:45):
So, what kind of , what kind of enhancements?
What are you seeing it trying to do?
Aggie Meroni (15:50):
It will try and put a new background on your product image.
It will do random text overlay.
It will jumble up all your ad copyacross different areas of your ad.
If you're quite sensitive froma brand visuals perspective.
It looks very ugly because it brings inodd colors, odd fonts as text overlay.
It looks awful.
(16:10):
And it will auto apply things as well.
So I've had instances where ads have beenlive and they've just sort of released
some new enhancements and just autoapplied it to all my ads that are live.
And then I'll be served an adand I'll be like, what is this?
I did not set this.
So I have to go through everysingle account to switch
off all these enhancements.
(16:31):
So just be aware that that's happening.
They also have AI generated ad copy,
Catherine Erdly (16:37):
Right?
Mm-hmm
Aggie Meroni (16:40):
So it's getting better, I have to say.
So there might be certain phrasesor different ways of saying the same
thing that you might actually like.
If that happens, go for it, youknow, add it to your campaign.
We haven't really been usingit because it isn't really, I
don't think, good enough yet.
But there are certainphrases that have come up.
(17:00):
I'm like, it's getting better.
That's actually quite a niceway to phrase something.
And there's one other sneakysetting that I would just flag.
Which is multi advertiser ads.
They'll be like a little boxthat they'll auto select for you.
Deselect.
Because what they'll do is they will showyour ads next to your competitor ads.
(17:21):
Now, we don't want this.
They're like, where, whereyour performance may improve.
It's we don't want to beassociated with our competitors.
And also all it takes is like aslip of the finger and you've gone
to your competitor's website andthey're suddenly buying from, you
know, your competitor or whatever.
So no, we are not, we are deselecting.
So those are the keychanges in those areas.
Catherine Erdly (17:43):
so why do they think they've done that?
Aggie Meroni (17:47):
So I think it's because the meta algorithm is the
most sophisticated one in the world,and that's why it's so powerful.
And when you're running, say, an advantageplus shopping campaign, we have found that
the longer those run, the more efficientthey become because the algorithm learns.
Catherine Erdly (18:07):
Mm,
Aggie Meroni (18:09):
So I think they're trying to use the same thinking
that if we give loads and loads ofdata to our algorithm, then it will
automatically create these amazing ads.
The thing is, if you let it, it'seffectively using your ad budget
and your business as a testingground for their own benefit.
So it's not, it justisn't good when you do it.
(18:32):
So that's what my thinking is on that.
They're training their ownalgorithm with your content.
Catherine Erdly (18:37):
right, right.
I see.
Which is not, not, yeah, notwhat, know what you want.
So if a retailer is looking toboost their performance, but they
don't want to go down the routeof allowing meta free reign.
What are some , what are someof the simplest things that they
could do to, to boost the results?
Aggie Meroni (18:57):
So number one.
You need to be very strategicas a business owner.
So first of all, audit your products,what is actually selling organically?
What are your best sellers?
What sells well together?
And those are the things you shouldbe focusing on, because if there
is organic demand for those things,if you put money behind it, fresh
(19:18):
people will also want that thing.
So that is the, honestly, thequickest way to improve your ad
results by showing the right things.
Also be bold.
So what I mean by that is bereally observant on your own phone
about ads that stand out to you.
So you will notice thesimplest ads perform the best.
(19:41):
So I see so many times thatadvertisers get a bit overwhelmed.
They're not really surewhat to show in the ads.
So they put lots of things.
There's lots of like product cutoutsof one image or there's lots of
text overlay and for someone that'sfresh to your business, they'll
just look at that and go, Whoa,
Catherine Erdly (20:00):
Yeah.
Aggie Meroni (20:01):
I don't know what I'm supposed to look at here.
This is, there's a lot of informationand you just have to remember
how people consume social media.
So they're literally swiping, talkingto friends, watching TV, cooking.
They're not really focusing that much.
So you need like bright colors.
Bold text, something that's justgoing to grab their attention
or, a video that really shortpunchy video with a read like this.
(20:25):
We call it front loaded.
So the fact that the most importantthing in that video is right at the
beginning so that they're hookedin and want to watch the rest.
That will do really well for you.
So if you're used to making reels.
Do that.
Even GIFs.
So if you've just got static images,you can add them to Canva to a
GIF and it'll just keep replayingthese like flashing images.
(20:45):
That can be quite effective.
That's quite easy to do.
And I'd say we touched on itearlier and it's not something
I can say lever or this lever.
Just remember who you're speaking toin your ads and how they buy from you.
So smaller businesses are actually,they have an advantage on this because
I think they know their audience better,the bigger brands, because they're
(21:07):
in the DMS with them all the time.
Maybe they're seeing themin actual like fairs.
They're talking to them every day.
So they know what their motivations are.
They know the emotionsbehind why they're buying.
They might get ideas on complimentarythings that they can sell them
as well, like cross sell upsell.
That's where you'll make the money.
So getting them to spend more andagain and again and again, that's where
(21:29):
you get the most return for your ads.
So I think a lot of advertisers lookfor the dopamine hit of the ads, make
the sale today and you need that tohave the cash flow in your business.
But there are also these other sortof satellite things that you need to
be thinking about, which do actuallyimprove your results the most.
Catherine Erdly (21:47):
So those would be things like brand
building and explainer videos or
Aggie Meroni (21:53):
absolutely.
Like even like a gift unboxing videobecause you're buying people into
that emotion of Oh, what a nice,beautiful, like someone like that.
Sandra would love that as agift or I'm going to give that
to myself because I deserve it.
I've had a really hard time recently andyou see that angle in a lot of ads like
self gifting is quite a big message thatyou see online but also, you know, I was
(22:18):
talking to a brand earlier about matchymatchy things, you know, it's a big trend
to have the whole family in the samepajamas or to have matching wellies or
to have, you know, football kits that dadand son or mom and daughter or whatever.
So it's that emotional connection.
It's like the bonds that you'recementing or activities you can do
together, but you kind of hint at them.
(22:38):
In the ads, that's whatgets people buying.
Catherine Erdly (22:41):
Right.
Yes.
And what do you think about therole of like user generated content?
Or do you think it's better tocreate your own specific content?
Aggie Meroni (22:50):
So this is actually a bit of a talking point in
the ad world at the moment.
Catherine Erdly (22:54):
Okay.
Aggie Meroni (22:55):
So I'm glad you asked.
So user generated content as anads manager, if it's done well,
it's gold dust, but it's amazing.
And what you consider as good contentis obviously you don't know until
it's tested in the ad account.
But I know from working withmy clients, it's so hard to get
(23:15):
decent imagery from customers.
Like even if they have good intentionsand they take the time to take photos
for you, maybe it's out of focus, maybethe background is really bad, maybe
like you know if it's jewellery there'sa stray hair in it which you can kind
of photoshop out but then it looks abit weird or you know the lighting's
really bad and it's really frustrating.
You know it's on goodwill, you can'treally say oh do you mind just reshooting
(23:37):
that for me because the moment's gonefor them, you know they wore that
outfit and that earring or whatever.
The thing that is, Absolutelykilling it at the moment is
employee generated content.
So this is your team, your staff,even you, if you're a founder
doing like QVS style videos.
When you see live selling on TikTok,TikTok shop and people are making
(23:58):
like six, seven figures from theselike live demos, if you can replicate
mini versions of those for your ads.
Test those.
they have been doing really well for us.
Obviously, it's a genre, so notevery single ad that you create.
That's like that will do well, butwe're seeing more of those types
(24:18):
of ads doing well because it's the,it's the human element that people
want to see behind the scenes.
They want to see yourpassion for your products.
Like, why should I care?
And like founders and small teams care.
Catherine Erdly (24:30):
Yeah.
Aggie Meroni (24:31):
cut that really comes across in the ads.
Catherine Erdly (24:33):
yeah, for
Aggie Meroni (24:33):
So yeah, I would, and it's cheap to do right.
You just need a phone andsomeone that's willing to do it.
He's pulling the straw.
You know, he's pullingthe short straw today.
Like you are in the video today.
I
Catherine Erdly (24:47):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
This has been really in really usefuland and thanks for giving the overview.
So into 2025 then what's your, what areyour thoughts about advertising in 2025?
Aggie Meroni (24:58):
I think it's really important to have a long term view.
So I would.
Be strategic in your marketing budget.
So you have enough to advertisethrough your quieter periods
and your more busy periods.
As I said, having a human touchto your marketing is, seems to
be what's working at the moment.
(25:20):
And also making sure you invest enoughtime in thinking about your content.
So it's very intentional.
So you, you know, you're really, reallytalking to who you want to in your ads.
That is, that is what will make them sell.
Catherine Erdly (25:35):
Brilliant.
And if people wanna find outmore about you and White Bee
Digital, where should they go?
Aggie Meroni (25:40):
Sure.
So you could I'm either on Instagramat white B digital, or you can find
me on LinkedIn at Aggie Meroni.
Catherine Erdly (25:49):
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Please do take a moment to rateand review the podcast if you
could in Spotify or Apple podcasts.
And if you of course follow orsubscribe, whatever it's called on
the platform you're on, you'll be thefirst to know about every new episode
that comes out every Thursday morning.
See you next week!
Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan.
Hi, I'm your host, Catherine Erdly.
I'm a small business and retail expert.
I'm also the founder of the ResilientRetail Club, which is my membership group
and mastermind for product businesses.
Go to resilientretailclub.
com to find out more.
Today I'm joined by Aggie Meroni, who isa paid ad specialist and we're going to be
talking about all things paid advertising.
(00:23):
How it was in 2024 andwhat's ahead for 2025.
Don't miss out on her superpractical tips on how to boost the
performance of your advertising.
Welcome to the Resilient Retail GamePlan, a podcast for anyone wanting to
start, grow or scale a profitable creativeproduct business with me, Catherine Erdly.
(00:47):
The Resilient Retail Game Plan isa podcast dedicated to one thing,
breaking down the concepts and toolsthat I've gathered from 20 years in
the retail industry and showing youhow you can use them in your business.
This is the real nuts and bolts ofrunning a successful product business,
broken down in an easy, accessible way.
This is not a podcast about learninghow to make your business look good.
(01:11):
It's the tools and techniques that willmake you and your business feel good.
Confidently plan, launch, and manageyour products, and feel in control of
your sales numbers and cash flow to helpyou build a resilient retail business.
(01:32):
Aggie, thank you so much forjoining me on the podcast.
Do you want to start us off byintroducing yourself and your business?
Aggie Meroni (01:39):
Hi Catherine, thanks so much for having me.
My name is Aggie Meroni and I'mthe founder of White Bee Digital.
We're a paid social agency, sowe manage meta ads, Facebook
and Instagram, Pinterest andTikTok for e commerce brands.
And we help them to scalewith the advertising.
Catherine Erdly (01:56):
Fantastic.
And let's just jump in.
How are meta ads working atthe moment for retailers?
Aggie Meroni (02:03):
It is because we're recording this just after Black Friday.
It's going to have a Black Fridaysteer, like my answer, but it is such
an interesting time of year comparedto what we've seen in the past.
So this year, Black Friday fell late.
It was like right at the end, even wentinto December, which is really rare.
(02:26):
It's usually about a week earlier.
So we saw retailers start their BlackFriday sales literally 1st of November.
I honestly thought I'dbeen served the wrong ads.
It's like an ads manager somewhere,put them on a month early or something.
I was like, this is really odd.
But speaking to other retailretailers, they're like, yes,
because everyone's comparing thisyear against last year, they have
(02:49):
to hit November's numbers at least.
So they start discountingearlier to make up for it.
So, okay, that makes sense.
But what we found at our agency is asa result of Black Friday being so late,
Sales were slow, like through the whole ofNovember and it was a nail biting month,
I'm not going to lie, for our clientsgetting extremely tense saying, Oh my
(03:10):
God, we're down, we're down, we're down.
And ads follow humanbehavior and the sentiment.
So if you see that something happensin the news and oh my God, interest
rates are going up, your ads do sufferbecause people stop spending as much.
So we noticed that with the ads.
But the week off black friday,it started to kick off.
Like people were starting to get thosejuicier deals coming in and Black
(03:34):
Friday itself was the killer day.
Like we saw that as the day wherethe highest volume of sales happened.
However, they weren't the mostprofitable day for our clients.
And the reason for that is theirCPMs, which is the cost to show
your ad a thousand times, wentup nearly doubled sometimes.
It was insane how expensive the adsbecome because all the big brands
(03:56):
The household names, they floodthe market with their ad spend.
So all the prices go up becauseeveryone's competing for
those buyers on that weekend.
So we found our clients who launchedads a couple of days before, some
launched like the Monday of that week.
They had very strong sales thatwhole week, and they were much
more profitable before the actualBlack Friday weekend happened.
(04:19):
But people did buy for the whole weekend.
They dropped off a bit.
On the Monday and there was a big dipthe week after because everyone had
bought all their deals and they've donetheir shopping and now it's picking
up again and I'm exactly this person.
I've realized there's loads of stuff.
I've got to buy.
So now I'm buying it all.
So we're seeing that the results of that.
Like coming back up again, and thatis a pattern that you see every year.
(04:41):
So it goes up a lot over the weekend.
So you have a dip afterwards andthen people start buying again
and went back up in that zone.
The ad costs have massivelycome down as well.
After that weekend, the fact like, youknow, drops 30%, 50%, you know, they're
still high, but they've massively dropped.
So I would say this is a timethat a lot of retailers will
(05:02):
make their profitable sales.
Yeah.
Catherine Erdly (05:06):
So that was black friday If you had to sum up and I
know it's hard to sum up a whole yearBut what what was your feeling of
until black friday or what was yourfeeling in general about 2024 with ads?
Aggie Meroni (05:20):
So again, it was very human behavior led.
So this is something that thesuccessful advertisers understand
and the ones that struggle.
It's why they struggle.
So
Advertisers, especially if they're neweradvertisers will put money into ads.
And then if people don't buy on dayone, they're like, the ads don't work.
(05:41):
It's okay, you need to remember that atthe other end of your computer, there
is someone who's actually going to buy.
They won't buy necessarilythe first time they see an ad.
And I think because there's been somuch financial turmoil this year, the
impulse buying has not been as greatas it has been in the past, so people
(06:02):
have found it harder to generate thesales that they used to get with ads.
However, the ones that pepperedtheir sales with launches.
So not just relying on evergreensales, always the same, but , I
want to be careful how I word thisbecause it can be misinterpreted.
So.
When I say launches for one of ourclients, they have a set product
(06:24):
range and they don't do muchdevelopment, but how they merchandise
those products was different.
So they re bundled something andrenamed it and sold that as a launch.
So I'm not saying you need to alwaysinnovate and always have like new
stuff coming out cause that's notprofitable either, but how you,
your messaging is so important.
So the brands that, Adapted andlooked around and what was going
(06:46):
on and, changed up their messaging,changed up their creatives.
They did really well.
So I'd say it's not that there was atrend in ads that all ads were really good
and all ads were really bad, but it wasmore like it was the business strategy
behind the ads that drove results.
Catherine Erdly (07:04):
Yeah.
That's so interesting.
I totally agree with you specificallyon newness, because I always say to
people, you know, newness is just anotheropportunity to start a new conversation
with your customer, but it totallycould be, as you said, Putting two
things together or a limited edition,something, or you buy in you, maybe if
you develop your own products and youcan't be releasing new products all the
(07:25):
time, you could have a limited editionpackaging, or you could have one new
color of one thing, you know, it's.
It doesn't have to be like a huge,in fact, it generally shouldn't be
like a huge product range all thetime, but that will allow you to then
have that conversation, which is, isa nice conversation starter, right?
With a, with a customer.
And it gives you somethingto build excitement around as
(07:46):
opposed to repeating yourself.
And then the other thing that I wasjust going to say as well is that I
definitely feel like the considerationwindow is getting longer and it sounds
like you've seen the same thing.
So people are needing longer tothink about things, but presumably
that is then part of the ads.
(08:07):
Then it's a shifting strategy, right?
So that you may have to showthem more times or they may have
to show different types of ads.
Yes.
Aggie Meroni (08:14):
Yes.
And also how you interpretyour data is different.
So the biggest pitfall I see when Ispeak to advertisers is they panic
because they're like the ROAS is downand I'm not getting as many sales.
I'm like, okay, let's just take a breath.
Where are you looking?
What, where, where, where are yougetting your information from?
And they're like the ads dashboard.
(08:36):
I'm like, okay.
Do not just trust that becauseads are only tracked for seven
days after someone clicks the ad.
So if you have something that's maybeslightly more expensive, or maybe
it would only be bought in a certainseason, or, for example, like we've
been selling workshops for one brand,they need to ask their friends.
Are you available this day?
(08:56):
Can Susan come on this day?
Should we buy on this day?
So it might take a couple of weeksfor everyone to reply to that
WhatsApp group to say we're in.
So then you won't track that hugegroup sale from your ads because the
people at the other end have takenlonger to buy than Meta's tracked.
So I always say Please, please, please,whether you are just looking at your
(09:17):
Shopify dashboard or maybe you'vegot Suite analytics, triple whale,
whatever it is you're using, make sureyou're really tracking your revenue,
not just day by day what sales arehappening because it, you have to
see like the general upward shift.
And also the data is changed as wellsince 2021 when we have this huge privacy
(09:38):
updates, a lot of the data is delayed.
A lot of the data is missing as well.
So that's why it's really importantto look at the bigger picture.
Catherine Erdly (09:47):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I was, I saw somebody was talkingon LinkedIn about this toothbrush
called Suri, S U R I, which Iactually bought one, I think
Aggie Meroni (09:56):
I have one
Catherine Erdly (09:56):
oh, you've got one.
Aggie Meroni (09:59):
from an ad and actually one of my friends had it and recommended it.
So no, you have to buy it.
It's really good though.
Word of mouth as well.
So it all plays into it.
Catherine Erdly (10:08):
But it's that whole thing about you know, it's,
it could be a really long journey.
I mean, it was a pretty long journey.
I don't know how long I spentthinking about it, but I probably saw
the ads and that alerted me to it.
And then I did a bit of research onthe website and then I maybe looked
at the social or like you say, butthen ultimately someone else says,
Oh, I've got one and it was great.
(10:28):
And boom, that's it.
You know, so it's, it's so, itmust, it's an absolute nightmare,
really attribution, isn't it?
Aggie Meroni (10:35):
Absolutely.
And it's what we call the messy middle.
It's really rare someone to seean ad and buy it straight away.
especially, and I think that toothbrush isa really good example, and we work with
a hair care brand and it's the same thing.
You're disrupting ahabit in someone's life.
So to change a toothbrush, you're changingsomething that they use day to day
that they've probably used for so long.
(10:56):
I mean, before that I had anotherelectric toothbrush that I'd had not
the same one, but the same brand for15 years, I don't know, a long time.
So for me to then trust It's nota cheap, cheap investment either.
It was quite expensive for that product.
So it was a considered purchase.
He add that into it as well, but evenhaircare, even though the products price
or unit price is much lower, someonehas got trust in the existing brand
(11:20):
and they've been using that for ages.
And there has to be somethingreally disruptive to make
them like stop the habit.
And even if they stop buying your product,it's not because they don't like it.
Maybe there's something, maybethey got a big gift bundle, from
a relative, or maybe they wentabroad and bought something back.
So, you know, there'salways other elements.
It's not always just the ads thatare causing the change in behavior.
Catherine Erdly (11:42):
yeah, yeah, for sure.
So let's talk a little bit about, youmentioned that things are changing.
So obviously the meta platformchanges all the time, but what
are some of the latest changes andwhat do they mean for advertisers?
Mm
Aggie Meroni (11:59):
Sure.
So there's three areasthat I've seen changes.
So the first one is structurallyinside the dashboard.
It's a big hoo ha for nothing.
So they used to be business managerwhere you'd have like your umbrella
of your assets, your ad account,Facebook page, Instagram account.
Then they changed itto business portfolio.
In September, which caused a tailspinbecause everyone panicked and was
(12:23):
like, Oh my God, what is this?
Even I did.
I was like, I don't understandwhy this has changed because
it's exactly the same thing.
They've just moved everything.
They've moved everything around andthey called it something different, but
all the elements that were in businessmanager are in business portfolio.
So if you see that,that's what's happened.
They also decided to change the nameof ads manager to adverts manager.
(12:46):
Wow, you know, like these, these, thesethings are just ridiculous in my opinion.
It doesn't make any difference,but some of the bigger
changes that will impact you.
There's like targeting differencesnow, so they're not new, but
it's worth being aware of.
So Meta is doing a huge push to getpeople to use Advantage Plus audiences.
Catherine Erdly (13:08):
Mm hmm.
Aggie Meroni (13:09):
I would not recommend that right now.
So effectively, and they'll say you canswitch back to the original audiences.
I would recommend you do keepusing original audiences.
Now, the reason why I'm stillpro original audiences is because
advantage plus audiences arevery algorithm led and AI driven.
(13:30):
So you can give a steer to Meta, just say,say for example, you're selling hair care.
So you're like, okay, I want, people thatare interested in hair care, personal
care or, , whatever styling products,you know, you put all your interests in.
Meta won't just target people, thoseinterests, it will just take it as
a guide and still target everyone.
So you can't really, you don't really knowIf you're targeting has had any impact,
Catherine Erdly (13:54):
Right.
Aggie Meroni (13:56):
you also can't exclude any audiences with advantage plus.
Now this is really important if you'retrying to just target fresh people.
So if you just want new eyes onyour ads, you want to be able to
exclude your website visitors,your social media, engages your
email list, your past purchases.
You can't do that with Advantage Plus.
(14:18):
So effectively, Meta is going to gofor the low hanging fruit all the time.
It's going to go forall the warm audiences.
So you're just going to waste yourmoney because you're just going to be re
showing to the same people and to grow.
You need new people.
You need new eyes.
So if you're in growth mode,Go for original audiences.
One thing that is a really good featureis audience controls, they've now got
(14:43):
two sections where you can actually tellMeta who the engaged people are in your
audience and who your past purchases are.
So when you do run a report, youcan see how much of your budget is
actually going to completely fresh.
eyes, which is really, really importantbecause again, you want to make sure
that you're not just showing the samepeople all the time what you're selling.
(15:05):
So I would say search forthat in your settings.
It's an ad set settings, andyou can set that for yourself.
And thirdly, creatives.
So creatives are like the bigthing now, now that audience
targeting isn't as precise.
Meta, again, is trying to force you withAI to let them tweak things for you.
(15:28):
Disaster.
Don't do it.
It just looks horrendous.
So you'll have an optionwhen you're uploading your
imagery, videos, everything.
It pops up this big dashboardof enhancements and it will just
auto selects most of them, Iwould just deselect everything,
have control over how ads look.
Catherine Erdly (15:45):
So, what kind of , what kind of enhancements?
What are you seeing it trying to do?
Aggie Meroni (15:50):
It will try and put a new background on your product image.
It will do random text overlay.
It will jumble up all your ad copyacross different areas of your ad.
If you're quite sensitive froma brand visuals perspective.
It looks very ugly because it brings inodd colors, odd fonts as text overlay.
It looks awful.
(16:10):
And it will auto apply things as well.
So I've had instances where ads have beenlive and they've just sort of released
some new enhancements and just autoapplied it to all my ads that are live.
And then I'll be served an adand I'll be like, what is this?
I did not set this.
So I have to go through everysingle account to switch
off all these enhancements.
(16:31):
So just be aware that that's happening.
They also have AI generated ad copy,
Catherine Erdly (16:37):
Right?
Mm-hmm
Aggie Meroni (16:40):
So it's getting better, I have to say.
So there might be certain phrasesor different ways of saying the same
thing that you might actually like.
If that happens, go for it, youknow, add it to your campaign.
We haven't really been usingit because it isn't really, I
don't think, good enough yet.
But there are certainphrases that have come up.
(17:00):
I'm like, it's getting better.
That's actually quite a niceway to phrase something.
And there's one other sneakysetting that I would just flag.
Which is multi advertiser ads.
They'll be like a little boxthat they'll auto select for you.
Deselect.
Because what they'll do is they will showyour ads next to your competitor ads.
(17:21):
Now, we don't want this.
They're like, where, whereyour performance may improve.
It's we don't want to beassociated with our competitors.
And also all it takes is like aslip of the finger and you've gone
to your competitor's website andthey're suddenly buying from, you
know, your competitor or whatever.
So no, we are not, we are deselecting.
So those are the keychanges in those areas.
Catherine Erdly (17:43):
so why do they think they've done that?
Aggie Meroni (17:47):
So I think it's because the meta algorithm is the
most sophisticated one in the world,and that's why it's so powerful.
And when you're running, say, an advantageplus shopping campaign, we have found that
the longer those run, the more efficientthey become because the algorithm learns.
Catherine Erdly (18:07):
Mm,
Aggie Meroni (18:09):
So I think they're trying to use the same thinking
that if we give loads and loads ofdata to our algorithm, then it will
automatically create these amazing ads.
The thing is, if you let it, it'seffectively using your ad budget
and your business as a testingground for their own benefit.
So it's not, it justisn't good when you do it.
(18:32):
So that's what my thinking is on that.
They're training their ownalgorithm with your content.
Catherine Erdly (18:37):
right, right.
I see.
Which is not, not, yeah, notwhat, know what you want.
So if a retailer is looking toboost their performance, but they
don't want to go down the routeof allowing meta free reign.
What are some , what are someof the simplest things that they
could do to, to boost the results?
Aggie Meroni (18:57):
So number one.
You need to be very strategicas a business owner.
So first of all, audit your products,what is actually selling organically?
What are your best sellers?
What sells well together?
And those are the things you shouldbe focusing on, because if there
is organic demand for those things,if you put money behind it, fresh
(19:18):
people will also want that thing.
So that is the, honestly, thequickest way to improve your ad
results by showing the right things.
Also be bold.
So what I mean by that is bereally observant on your own phone
about ads that stand out to you.
So you will notice thesimplest ads perform the best.
(19:41):
So I see so many times thatadvertisers get a bit overwhelmed.
They're not really surewhat to show in the ads.
So they put lots of things.
There's lots of like product cutoutsof one image or there's lots of
text overlay and for someone that'sfresh to your business, they'll
just look at that and go, Whoa,
Catherine Erdly (20:00):
Yeah.
Aggie Meroni (20:01):
I don't know what I'm supposed to look at here.
This is, there's a lot of informationand you just have to remember
how people consume social media.
So they're literally swiping, talkingto friends, watching TV, cooking.
They're not really focusing that much.
So you need like bright colors.
Bold text, something that's justgoing to grab their attention
or, a video that really shortpunchy video with a read like this.
(20:25):
We call it front loaded.
So the fact that the most importantthing in that video is right at the
beginning so that they're hookedin and want to watch the rest.
That will do really well for you.
So if you're used to making reels.
Do that.
Even GIFs.
So if you've just got static images,you can add them to Canva to a
GIF and it'll just keep replayingthese like flashing images.
(20:45):
That can be quite effective.
That's quite easy to do.
And I'd say we touched on itearlier and it's not something
I can say lever or this lever.
Just remember who you're speaking toin your ads and how they buy from you.
So smaller businesses are actually,they have an advantage on this because
I think they know their audience better,the bigger brands, because they're
(21:07):
in the DMS with them all the time.
Maybe they're seeing themin actual like fairs.
They're talking to them every day.
So they know what their motivations are.
They know the emotionsbehind why they're buying.
They might get ideas on complimentarythings that they can sell them
as well, like cross sell upsell.
That's where you'll make the money.
So getting them to spend more andagain and again and again, that's where
(21:29):
you get the most return for your ads.
So I think a lot of advertisers lookfor the dopamine hit of the ads, make
the sale today and you need that tohave the cash flow in your business.
But there are also these other sortof satellite things that you need to
be thinking about, which do actuallyimprove your results the most.
Catherine Erdly (21:47):
So those would be things like brand
building and explainer videos or
Aggie Meroni (21:53):
absolutely.
Like even like a gift unboxing videobecause you're buying people into
that emotion of Oh, what a nice,beautiful, like someone like that.
Sandra would love that as agift or I'm going to give that
to myself because I deserve it.
I've had a really hard time recently andyou see that angle in a lot of ads like
self gifting is quite a big message thatyou see online but also, you know, I was
(22:18):
talking to a brand earlier about matchymatchy things, you know, it's a big trend
to have the whole family in the samepajamas or to have matching wellies or
to have, you know, football kits that dadand son or mom and daughter or whatever.
So it's that emotional connection.
It's like the bonds that you'recementing or activities you can do
together, but you kind of hint at them.
(22:38):
In the ads, that's whatgets people buying.
Catherine Erdly (22:41):
Right.
Yes.
And what do you think about therole of like user generated content?
Or do you think it's better tocreate your own specific content?
Aggie Meroni (22:50):
So this is actually a bit of a talking point in
the ad world at the moment.
Catherine Erdly (22:54):
Okay.
Aggie Meroni (22:55):
So I'm glad you asked.
So user generated content as anads manager, if it's done well,
it's gold dust, but it's amazing.
And what you consider as good contentis obviously you don't know until
it's tested in the ad account.
But I know from working withmy clients, it's so hard to get
(23:15):
decent imagery from customers.
Like even if they have good intentionsand they take the time to take photos
for you, maybe it's out of focus, maybethe background is really bad, maybe
like you know if it's jewellery there'sa stray hair in it which you can kind
of photoshop out but then it looks abit weird or you know the lighting's
really bad and it's really frustrating.
You know it's on goodwill, you can'treally say oh do you mind just reshooting
(23:37):
that for me because the moment's gonefor them, you know they wore that
outfit and that earring or whatever.
The thing that is, Absolutelykilling it at the moment is
employee generated content.
So this is your team, your staff,even you, if you're a founder
doing like QVS style videos.
When you see live selling on TikTok,TikTok shop and people are making
(23:58):
like six, seven figures from theselike live demos, if you can replicate
mini versions of those for your ads.
Test those.
they have been doing really well for us.
Obviously, it's a genre, so notevery single ad that you create.
That's like that will do well, butwe're seeing more of those types
(24:18):
of ads doing well because it's the,it's the human element that people
want to see behind the scenes.
They want to see yourpassion for your products.
Like, why should I care?
And like founders and small teams care.
Catherine Erdly (24:30):
Yeah.
Aggie Meroni (24:31):
cut that really comes across in the ads.
Catherine Erdly (24:33):
yeah, for
Aggie Meroni (24:33):
So yeah, I would, and it's cheap to do right.
You just need a phone andsomeone that's willing to do it.
He's pulling the straw.
You know, he's pullingthe short straw today.
Like you are in the video today.
I
Catherine Erdly (24:47):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
This has been really in really usefuland and thanks for giving the overview.
So into 2025 then what's your, what areyour thoughts about advertising in 2025?
Aggie Meroni (24:58):
I think it's really important to have a long term view.
So I would.
Be strategic in your marketing budget.
So you have enough to advertisethrough your quieter periods
and your more busy periods.
As I said, having a human touchto your marketing is, seems to
be what's working at the moment.
(25:20):
And also making sure you invest enoughtime in thinking about your content.
So it's very intentional.
So you, you know, you're really, reallytalking to who you want to in your ads.
That is, that is what will make them sell.
Catherine Erdly (25:35):
Brilliant.
And if people wanna find outmore about you and White Bee
Digital, where should they go?
Aggie Meroni (25:40):
Sure.
So you could I'm either on Instagramat white B digital, or you can find
me on LinkedIn at Aggie Meroni.
Catherine Erdly (25:49):
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Please do take a moment to rateand review the podcast if you
could in Spotify or Apple podcasts.
And if you of course follow orsubscribe, whatever it's called on
the platform you're on, you'll be thefirst to know about every new episode
that comes out every Thursday morning.
See you next week!
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