May 21, 2025 • 39 mins
Skip Wilson (CEO, Draft Media Partners) on how to turn around an underperforming marketing campaign. Skip highlighted the importance of recognizing that every campaign has room for improvement. He discussed why a systematic approach is important and why the need for clear audience targeting and effective messaging is paramount.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Nobody in the B2B marketingworld launches a campaign in the
hopes that it doesn't succeed.Experience has taught us to
always have a backup plan and toprepare for the unexpected. So
what do you do to turn around anunderperforming marketing
campaign? Welcome to thisepisode of the B2B Marketers on
a Mission podcast, and I'm yourhost, Christian Klepp. Today,
I'll be talking to Skip Wilson,who will be answering this
(00:23):
question. He is the CEO atD.R.A.F.T media partners who
endeavors to help people solvetheir marketing problems and
scale their businesses. Tune into find out more about what this
B2B marketers mission is. Mr.Skip Wilson, welcome to the
show.
Thank you. Thank you for havingme.
(00:44):
Great to have you on the show.And I'm really looking forward
to this conversation because,man, we are talking about
something today that is going tomake some marketers feel a
little bit uneasy. But man, youknow, you know what they say
about growth and continuousimprovement, right? You've got
to, you've got to be comfortablewith being uncomfortable. And
I'm oversimplifying that now,right? But...
(01:06):
Absolutely, yeah, no, it's, it'strue in all areas of life. I
feel like it's like you've gotto be willing to be to be
uncomfortable, or push yourselfpast whatever, like past where
you would normally stop, right?
That's right, all right. Well,you know, without further ado,
let's, let's dive right in. SoSkip you're on a mission to help
marketing and advertisingprofessionals get real
(01:28):
predictable results and improvetheir business operations. So
for this conversation, let'szoom in on a topic that has
become part of your professionalmission, and that's how to turn
around an underperformingcampaign. And you know, if we're
going to be honest, like no B2Bmarketer wants to admit that
their campaign isunderperforming, but it does
happen, right? So let's kick offthis conversation with two
(01:48):
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them. Number one, what
are some of the most commoncauses of an underperforming
campaign? And number two, wheredo you see many B2B marketing
teams struggle with campaigns?
Really, every campaign, for themost part. I mean, the dirty
secret is that I think thereisn't really a campaign that
(02:09):
doesn't have room forimprovement. Because always,
when you go into a campaign,even if you know, we do the
research and the planning aheadof time, and we try to figure
out, you know, who should beseeing the ads and what messages
we should be doing, virtuallyeverybody does a good job
nowadays of like AB testing,meaning testing different
creatives or differentaudiences, or both. But by
(02:29):
definition, you're doing that inhopes that you find a difference
between what's working andwhat's not working, implying
that at least some part of it'snot working. So I think being
willing to admit that, hey, thiscampaign is has room for
improvement. It's critical.Because, I mean, of course it
does. Otherwise, what are youtesting? If it's going to be
perfect, right off the bat,there is no need for AB testing.
(02:52):
It would only be A testing andso, you know, in nowadays too, I
think it's just so much easier,because you get such immediate
feedback. It's easier to put 500bucks into a test campaign than
it is to spend $30,000 onresearch or something like you
would have had to do 20 yearsago. So with the idea that there
really isn't a campaign that'snot going to at least have some
(03:17):
room for improvement, the mainthing that you want. The main
thing that you're always sort oftrying to figure out is the part
that is working.
It's the same as like trying tofix an engine. That's the way I
think about it. As long asyou're clear about what parts or
pieces make up the campaign,like this part gets from here to
(03:38):
here, and then this part getsfrom here to here, as long as
you know what those steps are,then it becomes very easy to
fix. I would say, the mainreason why it's so such like a
mystery sometimes is like, oh,which part should we fix? Or,
you know, hey, my client's notgetting leads, or my client's
not getting the sales that weprojected. The reason why that
(03:59):
that becomes such an unfixableproblem is because you haven't
clearly broken out what thosesteps are, and then also laid in
the tracking to figure out howto test each piece, you know,
it's just like, it's the same astrying to figure out if my
laptops randomly not turning on.It's like, okay, well, is power
getting from the, you know, wallto the computer. And is, how is
(04:22):
the power getting from thecomputer to the monitor? You
know, it's the same process.It's like, all right, are people
clicking the ad? That's thefirst job, you know, if it's a
digital marketing or if it'sdirect mail, are people scanning
the QR code? If not, then I'veeither reached the wrong person
or I'm saying the wrong message,breaking down the pieces. I
would say, is, like the firststep. And I don't know,
(04:43):
honestly, if I answered eitherof your questions.
You did. You did. You definitelyalluded to in your description
what the causes are ofpotentially a campaign
underperforming, right?
It is always just two things. Itis, if a campaign's not working,
it's either that you're talkingto the wrong person or that what
(05:04):
you're saying isn't getting themto do the thing.
Right, right. So the call toaction like you haven't
encouraged them to take thatnext step. So called.
Yeah, exactly. Either you'vesaid it in an uncompelling way
or you've been unclear about it.I would say that we take over
this type of campaign all thetime where, let's say it's a
(05:25):
financial advisor or somethinglike that, and they run a
campaign that is, schedule afree consultation, and they put
that out there. That seems likea good idea, because that's
ultimately what they want,right? They want more
consultation. So it's like,okay, well, let's do an ad
targeting high net worthindividuals that are looking to
invest, and let's tell them toschedule a free consultation.
(05:47):
The problem is, that's notterribly compelling, because if
they wanted to schedule aconsultation, they would have
already talked to someone rightlike that ad, if you have a big
enough budget, like if you'rebuying a Super Bowl commercial
with something like that on it.I don't know that you'd get a
return on investment, but you atleast would get appointments out
of it, because you're reachingsuch a massive audience, I still
(06:07):
think it would be veryinefficient, but that's okay.
But if you're trying to do thatwith a, you know, 10 grand
budget or something like that,you're just not going to get
that many appointments. No,because nobody woke up today
going, let me talk to afinancial advisor, right?
Nope, certainly, certainly not.And, I mean, let's just brush
aside the fact that the SuperBowl ads are, you know, you
spend a ridiculous amount ofmoney to give even get in there.
(06:30):
Right.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. And so, just moving
on to the next question. You'vekind of alluded to it already,
but like, what some of the thesekey pitfalls... What are some of
these key pitfalls thatmarketers should avoid, and what
should they be doing instead?
The number one pitfall isusually poor planning, like,
(06:51):
prior to the number of timesthat I get a brief of a
campaign, our company usually isworking two, about two thirds of
the time we're working behindthe scenes of another of another
ad agency, and so we get handedthese briefs of what's been put
together and presented to thosethings, and they'll usually do a
(07:12):
great job of doing like marketresearch, or they'll do a great
job of coming up with thingsthat are on brand as far as
messaging, but the where theydon't do a great job, which is
good, because if they did agreat job of this, then my
company wouldn't exist. But thewhere they usually fall down is
the actually figuring out of,okay, what's the sequential
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messaging? In other words, whatis that initial ad did to get
somebody who was not planning ontalking to this business at all
today, to now start consideringthis category, getting them, you
know, so instead of sayingschedule a consultation, instead
it's, you know, get up to datemarket trends. Well, not
something that every high networth individual cares about. So
(07:56):
okay, sure, I want up to datemarket trends, getting them to
go from not caring at all tosome sort of piece of content,
usually not saying sign up for anewsletter, I think that's a
little bit old hat that workedgreat a few years ago. That
doesn't, that is harder now, nota bad thing, but harder now,
(08:17):
especially if you don't have anaudience, but you know, trying
to get them to engage with somepiece of content, and then it's
like, All right, well, and thennow we got to get them back to
the page, because realistically,most of the people coming to the
first time aren't going to doanything. They're going to
leave. So getting them back tothe page, you want to have a
very clear like step. Almostevery campaign needs to follow
that same structure of coldtraffic, gets them to a thing,
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and then you want a good followup strategy. Once they get to
that thing, it's whether, youknow, Facebook, Google, those
types of things, it doesn'treally matter as much. There's
efficiencies there. But ifyou've structured your campaign
to where it's cold audiencehere, then warm up that audience
once they get there, you'regoing to have a successful
campaign, even if you could getit, you know, if you get a 3x
(09:03):
campaign to a 3.6x by movingplatforms, maybe, but you'll
have a successful campaign nomatter what you're doing.
Right, right. No, those are somereally good points. There was
something that you werementioning earlier, and I just
wanted to follow up on that, howmuch of the underperformance of
a campaign do you feel in yourexperience is related to the
(09:26):
team just messing around withtoo much tech? And you know, the
tech is not, you know, it's nottalking to one another. But more
importantly, let's go a levelabove that, to your point about
poor planning, there is actuallyno plan in place for the
technology. It's like, let'sjust keep piling up the tech,
(09:48):
right?
Exactly. So almost everyplatform does get better with
time now, like so Google doesget better at finding out these
types of people click, thesetype of people don't. Yeah, but
because of that, the number oftimes that a client is told, Oh,
well, you're underperformingcampaign. It'll get better. Just
give it another couple ofmonths. That's very rarely true.
(10:12):
It is true that, like I said,you can get maybe a couple of
points like difference, like a,you know, 3.4 ROAs (Return on
Assets) to a 3.5 but if yourcampaign is just not working,
it's not going to go from notworking to working on its own.
That's putting way too muchfaith in Google or Facebook or
trade desk or any of thisplatforms. It's putting way too
(10:33):
much faith in their algorithm.Their algorithms are great, but
they are incredibly like, that'skind of like trying to clean
your house with like, atoothbrush, right? Like it's
great for getting those, like,fine corners and things, but
that's not going to take anunderperforming campaign to make
it perform. And so I do thinkthat there is a massive over
reliance on, oh well, Facebookoptimizes within itself, or meta
(10:55):
optimizes within itself. So justlet it sit there for a little
bit. That's just not true. Itcan take two or three months,
but if it's taking that muchtime, you should be testing
different audiences and testingdifferent headlines. Otherwise,
it's not going to just magicallyimprove.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. And you did bring it
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up earlier, but would you saythe part of it is also just
going back to the point of poorplanning, part of it is also,
like, maybe not doing the rightresearch. I'm gonna say, like,
there's working under theseinternal assumptions that, like,
yeah, we know what the customeris. We know the target audience
is for this. So we don't, wedon't need to do any more
(11:38):
research on that, because we'repretty confident we know who
this is going on to.
Absolutely actually, justyesterday, it's not a brand I
can mention, but unfortunately,but it is a kava brand, I'll say
that, which is a new type ofbeverage that is like an alcohol
alternative. They've hadessentially no sales. So very
(11:59):
brand new company, huge budget,though, they have big backers
and those things, but they camewith this very thick briefing on
who their customer is, with nosales data, you really have no
idea who your customer is,right? Like you can do a little
bit of research on who's doingit in the market, or who's
(12:19):
buying it in the market. But thereality is that's purely a, what
I call a swag or a strategicwild. Let the A stand for
itself. Guess that it's a it andyou know, it looks great, but
ultimately, when I'm actuallyputting together like that
campaign, I'm going to take thatas like a mere suggestion, more
(12:41):
so than the hard Bible.
Very different. For like, acompany that's, you know, had
five years of, you know,continued sales and has a strong
customer base. In that case, weare building lookalike
audiences. But when you've hadno sales, no you're just
guessing. And for smallercompanies, you know, if you're a
roofing company or those things,a lot of times we'll get the
(13:01):
other end of the spectrum, whichis, oh, our target audience is
homeowners, right? We just careabout homeowners. But it's
really not true. You only careabout homeowners of homes over
10 years old, right? Because ifit's less than 10 years old,
it's probably still covered bywarranty. They're not going to
call you, right? And so you theit's falls on two there's danger
(13:21):
on both sides of those things,but definitely, you want to sort
of be as strategic as you can,but you do want to work from a
place of knowledge. In otherwords, do as little guessing as
possible, because guessing isbad and work. But if you do know
something you know, play aroundwith it, and think actually,
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what do I know about myaudience? It's not all
homeowners. It's homeowners of10 years and older that are in
hail damaged zip codes, and nowthat's a very easy to target
place that's going to get a muchbetter ROI as than just
targeting homeowners.
Also knowing, being realisticabout each piece of this
campaign as well. That's part ofwhy I do think it's worth always
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planning out my ads get fromhere to here. Usually let's say
a platform like Facebook orGoogle or whatever, to a landing
page. Being realistic on what isa landing page conversion? Those
are Google able numbers like youtwo seconds of research you can
find out if I'm a dentist, whatshould my landing page be
converting at you want to knowthose things? Because I think
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every marketer in the world hashad those meetings where they've
done a bad job of preparing theclient beforehand. And then you
walk into that meeting going,you know, hey Mr. Mrs. Client,
we got you, you know, 40 leadslast month, and then they're
going, that's terrible. 40leads. We needed 200 leads. And
you go and wait a second, Whotold you 200 leads? Right? You
know, knowing what's realisticfrom a campaign is important,
(14:49):
and it is. There's no excuse forthat nowadays. Nowadays, if that
happens, and it's does happen,sadly still, even sometimes, but
it's purely because that stepwasn't done at the base. Getting
because you should, in today'sworld, if it's a Roofing Company
in Des Moines, here's what ourcost per click should be. And if
roofing company is going toconvert at 8% you know, or
(15:11):
whatever, actually 8% I think,is about right for roofing, but
doesn't matter, you know, thosethings ahead of time, then you
can compare. Because then youbecause otherwise you end up
going, Okay, well, if I'm afinancial planner, which has a
very low click through rate, ifI'm a financial planner, you
could, it's easy to look at likea Google ad campaign and go, you
know, 1% click through rate.That's terrible. When I Google
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what a ad word click throughrate is. It should be two or
three. But that's not true forfinancial planning. Financial
Planning is about one so knowingrealistically what you're what
it should be doing before youstart the campaign is a critical
step.
Absolutely, absolutely. And youknow, going back to your point,
it's a very dangerous thing tobe speculating, right? So I
(15:54):
think you know, in terms of whatyou mentioned earlier, with the
Google ads like that, thisgeneralization of like, Yeah, we
should have a 1% click rate,right? But that doesn't
necessarily pertain to yourcustomers, like industry or
their niche, right? So peoplehave to be very careful if
they're making these kinds ofassumptions, right? Okay,
(16:18):
fantastic. Skip. I'm going toask you to put on your not hat,
of you know, the doctor's outfitwith a stethoscope, because
we're gonna, we're gonna do alittle bit of a diagnosis here,
right?
Got it.
If we're talking already aboutunderperforming campaigns, walk
us through how B2B marketers caneffectively turn around a
(16:41):
campaign that's not performingand specifically twofold. So how
can they do the right audit oranalysis, and what steps do they
need to take to generate betterresults? And let's appreciate
that every industry, as you'verightfully alluded to, can be
different, but generally, whatdo they need to do?
(17:02):
So I am a big fan. What I alwaysdo. I take a piece of paper,
although now I use this likepaper listening, but because
we're a paperless company, butquick, quick plug there, but
yeah, but you take whatever itis if you have to use regular
paper, use regular paper, butyou take whatever you write with
and just draw two, make threecolumns. On the far left column,
(17:24):
you write basically what thestage is, which would be,
usually cold traffic ads, andthen whatever you're trying to
get that cold traffic to or todo, and then, so usually it's
going to be ad, and then landingpage or content, and then
whatever your remarketing orcontent funnel is getting, that
(17:44):
depends a little bit, but youwrite that on the far left hand
side, then on the other twocolumns. And one of them you
write audience, the other one,you write message. And now you
just sort of judge each piece.So when I look at the ad, you
know, clicks and impressions geta bad rap now because, as they
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should, because too manymarketers have gone into client
meetings going, Yeah, I'm sorryyou didn't get any leads. But,
you know, boy, look at yourclick through rate. However, you
don't want to throw the baby outwith a bath water, because click
through rate is actually a greatmeasure of whether or not that
cold traffic ad is actuallygetting your audience to do the
thing that that ad is designedto do.
(18:27):
So, you know, I do judge it byclick through rate. It is a
simple Google search to figureout what that click through rate
should be based on that platformin that industry, that answer
can vary widely, but if you'rehalf of what it says the average
is, then you know that you'veeither got an audience problem
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or a messaging problem. And soif you find out that you know
you should be at a 2% clickthrough rate, and you're at a
point three, then you can circlethat as one of your problems.
And then you want to deep diveon did I clearly define the
audience, and did I say amessage that would get that
audience to do the thing I'mtrying to get them to do? Let's
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say that it is. Let's say thatit's like, okay, well, then that
piece is working. We're gettingpeople to click the ad. It's a
good click through rate, butthey're just not actually
filling out the form or a phonecall or those things. Now you
dig into that. I use Microsoftclarity, but there's hot jar.
There's so many different toolsnow to be able to figure out
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what like, what is actuallyhappening once someone comes to
a landing page, if it is, if youare driving to like, a piece of
pillar content, like a podcastepisode or YouTube, you know,
those types of things, thenyou're looking at, like,
viewership rates. But let'sassume it's landing pages,
because that's going to be the,I think, the one that applies to
most people, if you're lookingat it, and your landing page
(19:52):
should be converting at 5% butit's converting it 1% the thing
I look at is time on site,because if you're getting. In
time on site, that's like under10 seconds. That means you're
getting a lot of fake traffic,which means that you probably
should consider movingplatforms. That's happening a
lot. Where you're looking at,you know, you're going, Oh,
we're getting 300 people to thewebsite, but nobody's signing up
(20:15):
for anything. If you look onyour time on site, I bet it's in
the like teens, which means it'sa lot of robots. And so in that
case, let's not make changes tolanding page. We're going to
take a step backwards and make achange to where the platform is
that we're running ads simpleways to eliminate bot traffic.
(20:37):
One you can buy, you can buystuff like click sees and those
types of things. But the otherway is to make sure that you're
doing things like running,taking like for Google, for
example, making sure that you'rerunning not based off of
interest location, but presence.In other words, changing it from
US or Canada or Australia orwherever you're trying to run
your ad, and changing it towhere presence, instead of
(21:00):
interest is the location, littlethings like that can greatly
reduce the amount of bot trafficyou have.
Let's save your time. Let's sayworst case scenario, one of the
hardest problems to fix, whichis your click through rates
good. Your time on site is good.They're still just not signing
up for your thing. That meansthat your thing stinks, your
(21:23):
offer stinks. In that case, youprobably are running something
like a schedule, a freeconsultation type ad, which just
has such a low likelihood ofworking because that only
appeals to the person that wasgoing to call today anyway. So
you want to figure out, whatelse could we talk about, you
(21:44):
know, is it a, you know, let'slike said, if it's a financial
planner, or, since this is B2B,will say, let's say it's an
accountant instead of scheduleyour, you know, booking your
bookkeeping consultation today,instead of that, it's which is
only going to matter to somebodywho was thinking about calling a
(22:04):
bookkeeper today anyway. Insteadof that and say something like,
yeah, sign up for a freebookkeeping analysis, whatever
that is. And it's the samething. You're just essentially
rewording that consultation,right? It's just a lot more
compelling, and I'm actuallywould get benefit from it, even
(22:24):
if I wasn't thinking abouttalking to a bookkeeper. Or, you
know, does your small businessneed bookkeeping? You know,
here's 10 signs, something likethat. Those types of things are
going to appeal to a much largerpercent of the audience than the
2 or 3% of the audience thatwe're going to call a
bookkeeper. Anyway, those stepswill solve most stuff. The other
(22:46):
part of it, I would say,usually, retargeting is kind of
simple. If your retargeting isnot working, it's probably
because you're don't haveretargeting set up, in which
case do say that's that solves90% of that problem.
Oh, man. Fantastic advice. And Iwould say even to the
bookkeeping, and I do appreciatethat not all bookkeepers and
(23:07):
accountants do this, but thanksto the effect of, like, how
small businesses, or how B2Bbusinesses can save money, how
they can bring, 10 ways you canbring your taxes down, right?
Like things,
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
And I know accountants that thatyou know straight out of the
gate say, I don't do taxes inthe taxes, and that's fine.
(23:31):
Exactly, it's like, but youknow, if you can figure out,
okay, well, what do you do thatbrings value, and then what
could you do that would appealto basically everyone? Now,
let's just center the campaignon that, and if the answer to
that is nothing, then you knowyou're going out of business
anyway. You shouldn't be runningads. You should be working for
someone else.
(23:52):
Absolutely, absolutely, allright, I'm gonna move us on to a
question, and I really hope thatthis never happens to anyone
like I wouldn't wish this on myworst enemy. But you know, all
this goes Skip, especially thebigger the organization is, and
you're running a marketingcampaign and it's not
(24:13):
performing, then I wouldn't evensay the paranoia begins, but
then the micromanagement starts.The senior managers are going to
want to have an an update on aregular basis of how you're
turning this around and how, howare the numbers. Where are we
going with this? And you know,it's just the worst feeling, I
think, for anyone, is just tohave somebody like either a)
(24:35):
breathing down your neck or b)It's that feeling of somebody
standing behind you looking atyour monitor. 24/7, right for
sure. I bring, I bring all ofthat up to say, how do you how
should B2B marketers effectivelymanage expectations internally
as they navigate what is goingto be this challenging process
(24:59):
of turning around anunderperforming campaign?
It's always easier to do aheadof time. You know, it's always
easier. Like if in an idealworld, before you ever spent a
dime, you said, here's the mapand here's the journey, and
here's what we're thinking isgoing to happen. And then when
it doesn't, you're able to say,Okay, we projected a fork. We
(25:20):
thought we would get a 2% clickthrough rate here, where you're
getting a 1% click through rate.So we're revamping that ad.
Ideally, you had thatconversation beforehand, but
let's say that you didn't. Let'ssay that, no, you find yourself
with, yeah, that that VicePresident that's just breathing
down your neck and going everyday, hey, what's changing?
What's changing?
In that case, I really thinkthat bringing people on the
(25:43):
journey, I think that it's mostscary when you don't have a
roadmap. One of the reasons thatairlines still do the like the
safety briefing and those typesof things isn't is actually to
like, put the consumer, theperson buying a ticket at ease,
as much as it is for for safety,actual reasons, right? Because,
(26:08):
I mean, the reality is, if youfell out of a plane at 10,000
feet, like, you know, it doesn'treally matter whether your seat
can float or not, the reasonthat they're doing that is
because it makes you realize,okay, there is a plan, like, if
something goes bad, there's aclear protocol and plan. And
really, I think that's usuallywhat that middle management
person is is looking for.They're looking for, okay, this
(26:30):
isn't working. That stinks. Whatis the plan? And so if you have
laid out that piece of paper, Iwould make it look better,
because now take that piece ofpaper, still do it, like I said,
but then take a second to put iton a like Google document or
something, to make it look nice,but then you're sharing it with
them of this is what thebenchmark should be for this
(26:52):
pillar or this piece. It's notthere, so we clearly see what
the problem is, and we're goingto keep iterating headlines or
variations until we get thispiece to perform the way it
should.
Because what I feel most of thetime is so frustrating, is we've
all had those situations whereit's like, I don't know what the
(27:12):
right solution here is. Andthat's the part that I think is
the scariest thing right like,to use the airplane example, if
your pilot comes out and says,you know, both engines have
stopped, and I don't know whatto do. That's... now, everyone's
panicked, right? But if, but ifhe or she comes out and goes,
both engines have stopped, butthere's an airport that's five
(27:35):
miles away, and we're goingthere, and everyone's fine,
right? It's the not knowing orthe lack of confidence that is
the scariest thing and causesmicromanagement half the time.
So if you're able to confidentlysay, this is the piece that's
not working, this is the partwe're iterating on. That makes
everyone more comfortable andhopefully gets that person off
(27:58):
of your back.
Absolutely, absolutely. I thinka lot of it also calls for some
crisis management skills, right?It's, I think it's with to your
point, in the marketers interestto have that, not just a plan,
but also that conversation aheadof time. Like, look, this is,
(28:19):
this is what we're anticipating.This is what we're forecasting.
This is where it couldpotentially go, for lack of a
better description, simulatingscenarios. And if scenario A
happens, that's the backup. IfScenario B happens, that's the
backup. And also being able tocommunicate like, Hey, listen,
this is the challenge that we'rehaving right now, and this is
(28:41):
what we're doing about it.Option 123, right? So we're
recommending option two. Whatare your thoughts, right? As
opposed to, like, what you'resaying, like, like the pilot
coming out saying, like, hey,guess what? Both engines stopped
working. No solution.
Does anybody have any ideas?
(29:05):
Yea, well.
Now that pilot might be like intears when they close that door,
right? But you at least wantthem when they're talking to
everyone to like, sound likethey know what they're doing,
right?
Absolutely, absolutely, allright, my friend, we get to the
point in the conversation wherewe're talking about actionable
tips, and you've given us plentyalready, but like, let's just
(29:25):
assume there's a B2B marketerout there that's listening to
this interview, and I certainlyhope not, but you know, they
might be going through somethingthat is that kind of like,
Sounds like their campaign couldpotentially be underperforming.
I'm trying to put it asdelicately as I can here, but
like, what are like, in terms ofeverything that you've said
(29:49):
right now, what are like? Threeto five things you would advise
them to do immediately afterlistening to this interview.
First thing is recognize thatadvertising is a science. So
unlike organic content andthings, which is very much has a
place in the marketing world,paid ads is an objective
science. So one know that thereare clear, regular benchmarks
(30:13):
that you each piece should behitting, or it is objectively
not working. So I think thattakes care of the emotions of
it, right? There's no emotionsin this. It's either, oh, this
is working and we just didn'tproperly set expectations ahead
of time, or no, this isn'tworking. Because there are often
times where a campaign feelslike it's underperforming, but
(30:33):
it's actually just that, youknow, the they were, the client
was expecting a $20 cost perlead, and that's completely
insane for that industry, orsomething like that. So one you
want to know, what is myscorecard and how is this
campaign performing againstthat? That's step one, is to
truly objectify the campaign. Itis a scientific thing.
(30:58):
Or quantify, I should say. Thesecond piece is to then figure
out exactly which piece of it'snot working. Like I said, Take
that piece of paper, split itinto three columns, go through
it. And then the third piece isto be willing to admit, I think
as marketers, a lot of times, wedon't want to be the ones to say
to the client, you know, hey,we're noticing that this isn't
(31:22):
working. We're kind of justhoping that they don't notice.
But I think that's a disservice,and I think you can always gain
a lot of respect and and it'sjust a better way to do
business, to be the first one togo, you know, hey, Mr. Mrs.
Client, this is the part that'snot working, and we're working
(31:42):
on it, and we've got a plan tofix it, but I get that you're
probably frustrated, and justknow that we are working on it
and we know what we're doing.Otherwise, what happens is you
just sort of hope the clientdoesn't mention results, and you
just kind of hope that theyaren't watching, but they always
are watching. They're just, ifthey're not having that
conversation with you, you'vegot two clients, or you've got
(32:03):
the client that's breathing downyour neck always, the other
client is the one that secretlyis unhappy and just not telling
you. And neither of those are agood scenario for a business,
right? Like you want, you wantboth of those folks to be, you
know, brought into theconversation and talked to and
managed.
Absolutely, absolutely, somegreat advice there. And yeah,
you I mean it as difficult as itis, I think as marketers and as
(32:29):
agencies, marketing agencies,it's our responsibility to help
the client. And if we're ifwe're doing something that's not
working, I always feel it'sbetter to come clean now, then
wait until the volcano erupts,and then you say, Oh yeah,
that's on us, right? It's notjust about the trust, it's about
(32:50):
it's about their investment aswell, right? And the time and
the effort and the commitmentand all of these. Because you
know this better than I do. Acampaign. There are so many
moving parts in this ecosystem,right?
Exactly, and there are plenty oftimes where we've gone to a
client and said, This isn'tworking. Let's even pause things
(33:11):
I don't know that it can workfor you. The number of times
that we've done that and thengotten referrals, or that client
come back having fixed whateverproblem there wasn't, you know,
operationally, I mean, thathappens, that that happens a
ton. I mean, that's, there'snothing that gets more respect
than being willing to be upfrontand honest with a client. Just a
better way to live, better wayto do business.
(33:32):
Absolutely okay, sir, get up onyour soapbox. What is, what is a
status quo in your area ofexpertise that you passionately
disagree with, and why?
I think that one of the mostdamaging things that's about to
come out, like one of the thingsthat I think, if you go to a
(33:53):
conference right now, thatyou're going to hear and that is
about to be espoused andpreached everywhere, is the re-
emergence of the importance ofbranding. Now I love branding
campaigns as an advertisingagency, because they're easy and
they're great, and we have a fewcampaigns that are like
(34:13):
government contracts, where thegoal is awareness. Those
campaigns are great, right?Because they take a few minutes
to plan and it's all profit. Butthe reality is, I really don't
think that's a good move intoday's world. I disagree with
the idea that it's not thatbranding is unimportant.
Branding is important, but theeasiest and best way to brand is
(34:34):
actually with customerexperience. You know, like Apple
is a good example of that. Youknow, their branding is in their
packaging and their stores andtheir customer service. The idea
of advertising brand is just athat's not a great way to for a
vast majority of businesses,unless you're publicly traded,
it's not a great way to trulyspend your advertising dollars.
(34:57):
But it's about to be espoused.The reason it's being espoused
is be. Because with the collapseof the cookie and the collapse
of the lower level types oftracking that most advertisers
have come to rely on, it becomesvery difficult to track return
on ad spend unless you're atthat sort of mid to higher level
of sophistication. And sobecause of that, everyone's
(35:19):
talking about branding, and Ireally don't think that's a good
idea.
Being a branding guy myself. Ido, I can totally understand
where you're coming from, andI...
Ad dollars.
Yes, it's.
Don't put ad dollars towardsBranding. Branding important,
branding good.
Absolutely, absolutely. But Ithink, and this may have been
(35:42):
your point as well, people don'talso quite understand what goes
into branding, and that initself, opens the door to things
like what you were saying, let'sjust go through this very
expensive branding exercise, andthey don't actually quite
understand what that's supposedto accomplish, right? Like you,
(36:05):
I'm all I'm all for branding,but there's a time and a place
for it, and expensive brandingcampaigns are not going to fix
are not going to fix yourproduct. They're not going to
fix a bad customer experience,right?
Exactly. Yeah. And if you'reand, you know, in the B2B space,
(36:27):
if you're an accountant orsomething, unless you're one of
the big four, unless you'reDeloitte or you know, Ernst &
Young, why would you try tofight in the branding world? My
accountant is an older guy thatlives down the street from me,
right? Like, I'm not workingwith him because of his brand.
And I think that's true of most,you know, I'm working with him
(36:49):
because of the customer service.Now, I do think that branding is
important, even in that space oflike, late, you know, we have in
our office, we've got our logo.Oh, there you go. Branding is
important, but I'm not going toput ad dollars behind it,
because nobody ultimately careswho we are. Well, I mean, we're
a white label service, soactually, I mean, two thirds of
our clients don't actually knowthat we exist.
(37:09):
Right, absolutely.
It's a... So, yeah, it is abranding is important, mostly
for your current customers, Ithink for most businesses.
Exactly, exactly. Okay. Herecomes the bonus question. So I
have a good authority that you,at a young age, started looking
(37:30):
for writing work because youwere trying to impress a girl.
And now I'm not going to ask youwhat you wrote her, okay, that's
for your and her eyes only. Butwhat I will ask you Skip is
this, if you were, if you wereto look back on what it was that
you wrote her, what copywritingadvice would you give to your
younger self?
(37:50):
So I have the nerdiest answer tothat question ever. I'm very
much a systems guy. I was eveneven then. So the I had it, I
had in my sort of sights on thisperson who now is my wife, I
(38:11):
actually did a lot of researchthat I came up with. The prior
to that, I came up with what Icall the great method, which is
goal research, put together anaction plan, and then execute.
And I literally did a bunch ofresearch on what types of things
to say even had, like, ourearlier conversations, like,
sort of, like scripted out oflike, what kinds of questions to
(38:32):
ask on the phones back whenpeople phone that and those
types of things.
Yeah.
So that I did research on, like,what a first date should be
like. And so all of thosecommunications early on were,
they weren't quite scripted, butthey were definitely formulaic
in terms of, I wanted to makesure that I like, okay, ask a
few softball questions and thendeep question and, you know,
(38:54):
just things like that. So doing,putting together, figuring out
what you're trying toaccomplish, then reading a bunch
of books back then you had to goto the library to read books,
but the but then doing yourresearch on that topic, how
other people that have achievedthat goal, put together an
action plan and then execute it?That's, that's how I wrote this
(39:17):
stuff. I wrote to her, andthat's still more or less how I
like, how I do things.
Well, it works. It looks like itworked, man.
That's right, exactly. I've gota 100% close rate.
So fantastic. Such a greatstory, though, such a great
story.
(39:38):
Yeah, she's gotten used to myways, right? Like some some
folks would hear that story, andsome folks hear it and think
it's romantic, others think it'sthe opposite of that. She sees
the romance in it.
Good, and that's what matters,right? That's what matters.
That's right.
Yeah, fantastic. Skip. This hasbeen such a great conversation.
Thanks so much for your time andfor sharing your expertise and
(39:59):
experience with the listeners,quick introduce yourself and how
folks out there can get in touchwith you.
Yeah. So Skip Wilson with withDraft advertising, Draft
advertising technology, I guesstechnically full name, but the
reach out to me.Skip@draftadvertising.com or
info@draftadvertising.com.Either of those, and look
(40:19):
forward to talk.
Gotcha. Fantastic, fantasticonce again, Skip thanks so much
for your time. Take care, staysafe and talk to you soon.
Sounds great. Thank you.
Nobody in the B2B marketingworld launches a campaign in the
hopes that it doesn't succeed.Experience has taught us to
always have a backup plan and toprepare for the unexpected. So
what do you do to turn around anunderperforming marketing
campaign? Welcome to thisepisode of the B2B Marketers on
a Mission podcast, and I'm yourhost, Christian Klepp. Today,
I'll be talking to Skip Wilson,who will be answering this
(00:23):
question. He is the CEO atD.R.A.F.T media partners who
endeavors to help people solvetheir marketing problems and
scale their businesses. Tune into find out more about what this
B2B marketers mission is. Mr.Skip Wilson, welcome to the
show.
Thank you. Thank you for havingme.
(00:44):
Great to have you on the show.And I'm really looking forward
to this conversation because,man, we are talking about
something today that is going tomake some marketers feel a
little bit uneasy. But man, youknow, you know what they say
about growth and continuousimprovement, right? You've got
to, you've got to be comfortablewith being uncomfortable. And
I'm oversimplifying that now,right? But...
(01:06):
Absolutely, yeah, no, it's, it'strue in all areas of life. I
feel like it's like you've gotto be willing to be to be
uncomfortable, or push yourselfpast whatever, like past where
you would normally stop, right?
That's right, all right. Well,you know, without further ado,
let's, let's dive right in. SoSkip you're on a mission to help
marketing and advertisingprofessionals get real
(01:28):
predictable results and improvetheir business operations. So
for this conversation, let'szoom in on a topic that has
become part of your professionalmission, and that's how to turn
around an underperformingcampaign. And you know, if we're
going to be honest, like no B2Bmarketer wants to admit that
their campaign isunderperforming, but it does
happen, right? So let's kick offthis conversation with two
(01:48):
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them. Number one, what
are some of the most commoncauses of an underperforming
campaign? And number two, wheredo you see many B2B marketing
teams struggle with campaigns?
Really, every campaign, for themost part. I mean, the dirty
secret is that I think thereisn't really a campaign that
(02:09):
doesn't have room forimprovement. Because always,
when you go into a campaign,even if you know, we do the
research and the planning aheadof time, and we try to figure
out, you know, who should beseeing the ads and what messages
we should be doing, virtuallyeverybody does a good job
nowadays of like AB testing,meaning testing different
creatives or differentaudiences, or both. But by
(02:29):
definition, you're doing that inhopes that you find a difference
between what's working andwhat's not working, implying
that at least some part of it'snot working. So I think being
willing to admit that, hey, thiscampaign is has room for
improvement. It's critical.Because, I mean, of course it
does. Otherwise, what are youtesting? If it's going to be
perfect, right off the bat,there is no need for AB testing.
(02:52):
It would only be A testing andso, you know, in nowadays too, I
think it's just so much easier,because you get such immediate
feedback. It's easier to put 500bucks into a test campaign than
it is to spend $30,000 onresearch or something like you
would have had to do 20 yearsago. So with the idea that there
really isn't a campaign that'snot going to at least have some
(03:17):
room for improvement, the mainthing that you want. The main
thing that you're always sort oftrying to figure out is the part
that is working.
It's the same as like trying tofix an engine. That's the way I
think about it. As long asyou're clear about what parts or
pieces make up the campaign,like this part gets from here to
(03:38):
here, and then this part getsfrom here to here, as long as
you know what those steps are,then it becomes very easy to
fix. I would say, the mainreason why it's so such like a
mystery sometimes is like, oh,which part should we fix? Or,
you know, hey, my client's notgetting leads, or my client's
not getting the sales that weprojected. The reason why that
(03:59):
that becomes such an unfixableproblem is because you haven't
clearly broken out what thosesteps are, and then also laid in
the tracking to figure out howto test each piece, you know,
it's just like, it's the same astrying to figure out if my
laptops randomly not turning on.It's like, okay, well, is power
getting from the, you know, wallto the computer. And is, how is
(04:22):
the power getting from thecomputer to the monitor? You
know, it's the same process.It's like, all right, are people
clicking the ad? That's thefirst job, you know, if it's a
digital marketing or if it'sdirect mail, are people scanning
the QR code? If not, then I'veeither reached the wrong person
or I'm saying the wrong message,breaking down the pieces. I
would say, is, like the firststep. And I don't know,
(04:43):
honestly, if I answered eitherof your questions.
You did. You did. You definitelyalluded to in your description
what the causes are ofpotentially a campaign
underperforming, right?
It is always just two things. Itis, if a campaign's not working,
it's either that you're talkingto the wrong person or that what
(05:04):
you're saying isn't getting themto do the thing.
Right, right. So the call toaction like you haven't
encouraged them to take thatnext step. So called.
Yeah, exactly. Either you'vesaid it in an uncompelling way
or you've been unclear about it.I would say that we take over
this type of campaign all thetime where, let's say it's a
(05:25):
financial advisor or somethinglike that, and they run a
campaign that is, schedule afree consultation, and they put
that out there. That seems likea good idea, because that's
ultimately what they want,right? They want more
consultation. So it's like,okay, well, let's do an ad
targeting high net worthindividuals that are looking to
invest, and let's tell them toschedule a free consultation.
(05:47):
The problem is, that's notterribly compelling, because if
they wanted to schedule aconsultation, they would have
already talked to someone rightlike that ad, if you have a big
enough budget, like if you'rebuying a Super Bowl commercial
with something like that on it.I don't know that you'd get a
return on investment, but you atleast would get appointments out
of it, because you're reachingsuch a massive audience, I still
(06:07):
think it would be veryinefficient, but that's okay.
But if you're trying to do thatwith a, you know, 10 grand
budget or something like that,you're just not going to get
that many appointments. No,because nobody woke up today
going, let me talk to afinancial advisor, right?
Nope, certainly, certainly not.And, I mean, let's just brush
aside the fact that the SuperBowl ads are, you know, you
spend a ridiculous amount ofmoney to give even get in there.
(06:30):
Right.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. And so, just moving
on to the next question. You'vekind of alluded to it already,
but like, what some of the thesekey pitfalls... What are some of
these key pitfalls thatmarketers should avoid, and what
should they be doing instead?
The number one pitfall isusually poor planning, like,
(06:51):
prior to the number of timesthat I get a brief of a
campaign, our company usually isworking two, about two thirds of
the time we're working behindthe scenes of another of another
ad agency, and so we get handedthese briefs of what's been put
together and presented to thosethings, and they'll usually do a
(07:12):
great job of doing like marketresearch, or they'll do a great
job of coming up with thingsthat are on brand as far as
messaging, but the where theydon't do a great job, which is
good, because if they did agreat job of this, then my
company wouldn't exist. But thewhere they usually fall down is
the actually figuring out of,okay, what's the sequential
(07:34):
messaging? In other words, whatis that initial ad did to get
somebody who was not planning ontalking to this business at all
today, to now start consideringthis category, getting them, you
know, so instead of sayingschedule a consultation, instead
it's, you know, get up to datemarket trends. Well, not
something that every high networth individual cares about. So
(07:56):
okay, sure, I want up to datemarket trends, getting them to
go from not caring at all tosome sort of piece of content,
usually not saying sign up for anewsletter, I think that's a
little bit old hat that workedgreat a few years ago. That
doesn't, that is harder now, nota bad thing, but harder now,
(08:17):
especially if you don't have anaudience, but you know, trying
to get them to engage with somepiece of content, and then it's
like, All right, well, and thennow we got to get them back to
the page, because realistically,most of the people coming to the
first time aren't going to doanything. They're going to
leave. So getting them back tothe page, you want to have a
very clear like step. Almostevery campaign needs to follow
that same structure of coldtraffic, gets them to a thing,
(08:40):
and then you want a good followup strategy. Once they get to
that thing, it's whether, youknow, Facebook, Google, those
types of things, it doesn'treally matter as much. There's
efficiencies there. But ifyou've structured your campaign
to where it's cold audiencehere, then warm up that audience
once they get there, you'regoing to have a successful
campaign, even if you could getit, you know, if you get a 3x
(09:03):
campaign to a 3.6x by movingplatforms, maybe, but you'll
have a successful campaign nomatter what you're doing.
Right, right. No, those are somereally good points. There was
something that you werementioning earlier, and I just
wanted to follow up on that, howmuch of the underperformance of
a campaign do you feel in yourexperience is related to the
(09:26):
team just messing around withtoo much tech? And you know, the
tech is not, you know, it's nottalking to one another. But more
importantly, let's go a levelabove that, to your point about
poor planning, there is actuallyno plan in place for the
technology. It's like, let'sjust keep piling up the tech,
(09:48):
right?
Exactly. So almost everyplatform does get better with
time now, like so Google doesget better at finding out these
types of people click, thesetype of people don't. Yeah, but
because of that, the number oftimes that a client is told, Oh,
well, you're underperformingcampaign. It'll get better. Just
give it another couple ofmonths. That's very rarely true.
(10:12):
It is true that, like I said,you can get maybe a couple of
points like difference, like a,you know, 3.4 ROAs (Return on
Assets) to a 3.5 but if yourcampaign is just not working,
it's not going to go from notworking to working on its own.
That's putting way too muchfaith in Google or Facebook or
trade desk or any of thisplatforms. It's putting way too
(10:33):
much faith in their algorithm.Their algorithms are great, but
they are incredibly like, that'skind of like trying to clean
your house with like, atoothbrush, right? Like it's
great for getting those, like,fine corners and things, but
that's not going to take anunderperforming campaign to make
it perform. And so I do thinkthat there is a massive over
reliance on, oh well, Facebookoptimizes within itself, or meta
(10:55):
optimizes within itself. So justlet it sit there for a little
bit. That's just not true. Itcan take two or three months,
but if it's taking that muchtime, you should be testing
different audiences and testingdifferent headlines. Otherwise,
it's not going to just magicallyimprove.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,absolutely. And you did bring it
(11:17):
up earlier, but would you saythe part of it is also just
going back to the point of poorplanning, part of it is also,
like, maybe not doing the rightresearch. I'm gonna say, like,
there's working under theseinternal assumptions that, like,
yeah, we know what the customeris. We know the target audience
is for this. So we don't, wedon't need to do any more
(11:38):
research on that, because we'repretty confident we know who
this is going on to.
Absolutely actually, justyesterday, it's not a brand I
can mention, but unfortunately,but it is a kava brand, I'll say
that, which is a new type ofbeverage that is like an alcohol
alternative. They've hadessentially no sales. So very
(11:59):
brand new company, huge budget,though, they have big backers
and those things, but they camewith this very thick briefing on
who their customer is, with nosales data, you really have no
idea who your customer is,right? Like you can do a little
bit of research on who's doingit in the market, or who's
(12:19):
buying it in the market. But thereality is that's purely a, what
I call a swag or a strategicwild. Let the A stand for
itself. Guess that it's a it andyou know, it looks great, but
ultimately, when I'm actuallyputting together like that
campaign, I'm going to take thatas like a mere suggestion, more
(12:41):
so than the hard Bible.
Very different. For like, acompany that's, you know, had
five years of, you know,continued sales and has a strong
customer base. In that case, weare building lookalike
audiences. But when you've hadno sales, no you're just
guessing. And for smallercompanies, you know, if you're a
roofing company or those things,a lot of times we'll get the
(13:01):
other end of the spectrum, whichis, oh, our target audience is
homeowners, right? We just careabout homeowners. But it's
really not true. You only careabout homeowners of homes over
10 years old, right? Because ifit's less than 10 years old,
it's probably still covered bywarranty. They're not going to
call you, right? And so you theit's falls on two there's danger
(13:21):
on both sides of those things,but definitely, you want to sort
of be as strategic as you can,but you do want to work from a
place of knowledge. In otherwords, do as little guessing as
possible, because guessing isbad and work. But if you do know
something you know, play aroundwith it, and think actually,
(13:42):
what do I know about myaudience? It's not all
homeowners. It's homeowners of10 years and older that are in
hail damaged zip codes, and nowthat's a very easy to target
place that's going to get a muchbetter ROI as than just
targeting homeowners.
Also knowing, being realisticabout each piece of this
campaign as well. That's part ofwhy I do think it's worth always
(14:03):
planning out my ads get fromhere to here. Usually let's say
a platform like Facebook orGoogle or whatever, to a landing
page. Being realistic on what isa landing page conversion? Those
are Google able numbers like youtwo seconds of research you can
find out if I'm a dentist, whatshould my landing page be
converting at you want to knowthose things? Because I think
(14:26):
every marketer in the world hashad those meetings where they've
done a bad job of preparing theclient beforehand. And then you
walk into that meeting going,you know, hey Mr. Mrs. Client,
we got you, you know, 40 leadslast month, and then they're
going, that's terrible. 40leads. We needed 200 leads. And
you go and wait a second, Whotold you 200 leads? Right? You
know, knowing what's realisticfrom a campaign is important,
(14:49):
and it is. There's no excuse forthat nowadays. Nowadays, if that
happens, and it's does happen,sadly still, even sometimes, but
it's purely because that stepwasn't done at the base. Getting
because you should, in today'sworld, if it's a Roofing Company
in Des Moines, here's what ourcost per click should be. And if
roofing company is going toconvert at 8% you know, or
(15:11):
whatever, actually 8% I think,is about right for roofing, but
doesn't matter, you know, thosethings ahead of time, then you
can compare. Because then youbecause otherwise you end up
going, Okay, well, if I'm afinancial planner, which has a
very low click through rate, ifI'm a financial planner, you
could, it's easy to look at likea Google ad campaign and go, you
know, 1% click through rate.That's terrible. When I Google
(15:34):
what a ad word click throughrate is. It should be two or
three. But that's not true forfinancial planning. Financial
Planning is about one so knowingrealistically what you're what
it should be doing before youstart the campaign is a critical
step.
Absolutely, absolutely. And youknow, going back to your point,
it's a very dangerous thing tobe speculating, right? So I
(15:54):
think you know, in terms of whatyou mentioned earlier, with the
Google ads like that, thisgeneralization of like, Yeah, we
should have a 1% click rate,right? But that doesn't
necessarily pertain to yourcustomers, like industry or
their niche, right? So peoplehave to be very careful if
they're making these kinds ofassumptions, right? Okay,
(16:18):
fantastic. Skip. I'm going toask you to put on your not hat,
of you know, the doctor's outfitwith a stethoscope, because
we're gonna, we're gonna do alittle bit of a diagnosis here,
right?
Got it.
If we're talking already aboutunderperforming campaigns, walk
us through how B2B marketers caneffectively turn around a
(16:41):
campaign that's not performingand specifically twofold. So how
can they do the right audit oranalysis, and what steps do they
need to take to generate betterresults? And let's appreciate
that every industry, as you'verightfully alluded to, can be
different, but generally, whatdo they need to do?
(17:02):
So I am a big fan. What I alwaysdo. I take a piece of paper,
although now I use this likepaper listening, but because
we're a paperless company, butquick, quick plug there, but
yeah, but you take whatever itis if you have to use regular
paper, use regular paper, butyou take whatever you write with
and just draw two, make threecolumns. On the far left column,
(17:24):
you write basically what thestage is, which would be,
usually cold traffic ads, andthen whatever you're trying to
get that cold traffic to or todo, and then, so usually it's
going to be ad, and then landingpage or content, and then
whatever your remarketing orcontent funnel is getting, that
(17:44):
depends a little bit, but youwrite that on the far left hand
side, then on the other twocolumns. And one of them you
write audience, the other one,you write message. And now you
just sort of judge each piece.So when I look at the ad, you
know, clicks and impressions geta bad rap now because, as they
(18:06):
should, because too manymarketers have gone into client
meetings going, Yeah, I'm sorryyou didn't get any leads. But,
you know, boy, look at yourclick through rate. However, you
don't want to throw the baby outwith a bath water, because click
through rate is actually a greatmeasure of whether or not that
cold traffic ad is actuallygetting your audience to do the
thing that that ad is designedto do.
(18:27):
So, you know, I do judge it byclick through rate. It is a
simple Google search to figureout what that click through rate
should be based on that platformin that industry, that answer
can vary widely, but if you'rehalf of what it says the average
is, then you know that you'veeither got an audience problem
(18:48):
or a messaging problem. And soif you find out that you know
you should be at a 2% clickthrough rate, and you're at a
point three, then you can circlethat as one of your problems.
And then you want to deep diveon did I clearly define the
audience, and did I say amessage that would get that
audience to do the thing I'mtrying to get them to do? Let's
(19:09):
say that it is. Let's say thatit's like, okay, well, then that
piece is working. We're gettingpeople to click the ad. It's a
good click through rate, butthey're just not actually
filling out the form or a phonecall or those things. Now you
dig into that. I use Microsoftclarity, but there's hot jar.
There's so many different toolsnow to be able to figure out
(19:32):
what like, what is actuallyhappening once someone comes to
a landing page, if it is, if youare driving to like, a piece of
pillar content, like a podcastepisode or YouTube, you know,
those types of things, thenyou're looking at, like,
viewership rates. But let'sassume it's landing pages,
because that's going to be the,I think, the one that applies to
most people, if you're lookingat it, and your landing page
(19:52):
should be converting at 5% butit's converting it 1% the thing
I look at is time on site,because if you're getting. In
time on site, that's like under10 seconds. That means you're
getting a lot of fake traffic,which means that you probably
should consider movingplatforms. That's happening a
lot. Where you're looking at,you know, you're going, Oh,
we're getting 300 people to thewebsite, but nobody's signing up
(20:15):
for anything. If you look onyour time on site, I bet it's in
the like teens, which means it'sa lot of robots. And so in that
case, let's not make changes tolanding page. We're going to
take a step backwards and make achange to where the platform is
that we're running ads simpleways to eliminate bot traffic.
(20:37):
One you can buy, you can buystuff like click sees and those
types of things. But the otherway is to make sure that you're
doing things like running,taking like for Google, for
example, making sure that you'rerunning not based off of
interest location, but presence.In other words, changing it from
US or Canada or Australia orwherever you're trying to run
your ad, and changing it towhere presence, instead of
(21:00):
interest is the location, littlethings like that can greatly
reduce the amount of bot trafficyou have.
Let's save your time. Let's sayworst case scenario, one of the
hardest problems to fix, whichis your click through rates
good. Your time on site is good.They're still just not signing
up for your thing. That meansthat your thing stinks, your
(21:23):
offer stinks. In that case, youprobably are running something
like a schedule, a freeconsultation type ad, which just
has such a low likelihood ofworking because that only
appeals to the person that wasgoing to call today anyway. So
you want to figure out, whatelse could we talk about, you
(21:44):
know, is it a, you know, let'slike said, if it's a financial
planner, or, since this is B2B,will say, let's say it's an
accountant instead of scheduleyour, you know, booking your
bookkeeping consultation today,instead of that, it's which is
only going to matter to somebodywho was thinking about calling a
(22:04):
bookkeeper today anyway. Insteadof that and say something like,
yeah, sign up for a freebookkeeping analysis, whatever
that is. And it's the samething. You're just essentially
rewording that consultation,right? It's just a lot more
compelling, and I'm actuallywould get benefit from it, even
(22:24):
if I wasn't thinking abouttalking to a bookkeeper. Or, you
know, does your small businessneed bookkeeping? You know,
here's 10 signs, something likethat. Those types of things are
going to appeal to a much largerpercent of the audience than the
2 or 3% of the audience thatwe're going to call a
bookkeeper. Anyway, those stepswill solve most stuff. The other
(22:46):
part of it, I would say,usually, retargeting is kind of
simple. If your retargeting isnot working, it's probably
because you're don't haveretargeting set up, in which
case do say that's that solves90% of that problem.
Oh, man. Fantastic advice. And Iwould say even to the
bookkeeping, and I do appreciatethat not all bookkeepers and
(23:07):
accountants do this, but thanksto the effect of, like, how
small businesses, or how B2Bbusinesses can save money, how
they can bring, 10 ways you canbring your taxes down, right?
Like things,
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
And I know accountants that thatyou know straight out of the
gate say, I don't do taxes inthe taxes, and that's fine.
(23:31):
Exactly, it's like, but youknow, if you can figure out,
okay, well, what do you do thatbrings value, and then what
could you do that would appealto basically everyone? Now,
let's just center the campaignon that, and if the answer to
that is nothing, then you knowyou're going out of business
anyway. You shouldn't be runningads. You should be working for
someone else.
(23:52):
Absolutely, absolutely, allright, I'm gonna move us on to a
question, and I really hope thatthis never happens to anyone
like I wouldn't wish this on myworst enemy. But you know, all
this goes Skip, especially thebigger the organization is, and
you're running a marketingcampaign and it's not
(24:13):
performing, then I wouldn't evensay the paranoia begins, but
then the micromanagement starts.The senior managers are going to
want to have an an update on aregular basis of how you're
turning this around and how, howare the numbers. Where are we
going with this? And you know,it's just the worst feeling, I
think, for anyone, is just tohave somebody like either a)
(24:35):
breathing down your neck or b)It's that feeling of somebody
standing behind you looking atyour monitor. 24/7, right for
sure. I bring, I bring all ofthat up to say, how do you how
should B2B marketers effectivelymanage expectations internally
as they navigate what is goingto be this challenging process
(24:59):
of turning around anunderperforming campaign?
It's always easier to do aheadof time. You know, it's always
easier. Like if in an idealworld, before you ever spent a
dime, you said, here's the mapand here's the journey, and
here's what we're thinking isgoing to happen. And then when
it doesn't, you're able to say,Okay, we projected a fork. We
(25:20):
thought we would get a 2% clickthrough rate here, where you're
getting a 1% click through rate.So we're revamping that ad.
Ideally, you had thatconversation beforehand, but
let's say that you didn't. Let'ssay that, no, you find yourself
with, yeah, that that VicePresident that's just breathing
down your neck and going everyday, hey, what's changing?
What's changing?
In that case, I really thinkthat bringing people on the
(25:43):
journey, I think that it's mostscary when you don't have a
roadmap. One of the reasons thatairlines still do the like the
safety briefing and those typesof things isn't is actually to
like, put the consumer, theperson buying a ticket at ease,
as much as it is for for safety,actual reasons, right? Because,
(26:08):
I mean, the reality is, if youfell out of a plane at 10,000
feet, like, you know, it doesn'treally matter whether your seat
can float or not, the reasonthat they're doing that is
because it makes you realize,okay, there is a plan, like, if
something goes bad, there's aclear protocol and plan. And
really, I think that's usuallywhat that middle management
person is is looking for.They're looking for, okay, this
(26:30):
isn't working. That stinks. Whatis the plan? And so if you have
laid out that piece of paper, Iwould make it look better,
because now take that piece ofpaper, still do it, like I said,
but then take a second to put iton a like Google document or
something, to make it look nice,but then you're sharing it with
them of this is what thebenchmark should be for this
(26:52):
pillar or this piece. It's notthere, so we clearly see what
the problem is, and we're goingto keep iterating headlines or
variations until we get thispiece to perform the way it
should.
Because what I feel most of thetime is so frustrating, is we've
all had those situations whereit's like, I don't know what the
(27:12):
right solution here is. Andthat's the part that I think is
the scariest thing right like,to use the airplane example, if
your pilot comes out and says,you know, both engines have
stopped, and I don't know whatto do. That's... now, everyone's
panicked, right? But if, but ifhe or she comes out and goes,
both engines have stopped, butthere's an airport that's five
(27:35):
miles away, and we're goingthere, and everyone's fine,
right? It's the not knowing orthe lack of confidence that is
the scariest thing and causesmicromanagement half the time.
So if you're able to confidentlysay, this is the piece that's
not working, this is the partwe're iterating on. That makes
everyone more comfortable andhopefully gets that person off
(27:58):
of your back.
Absolutely, absolutely. I thinka lot of it also calls for some
crisis management skills, right?It's, I think it's with to your
point, in the marketers interestto have that, not just a plan,
but also that conversation aheadof time. Like, look, this is,
(28:19):
this is what we're anticipating.This is what we're forecasting.
This is where it couldpotentially go, for lack of a
better description, simulatingscenarios. And if scenario A
happens, that's the backup. IfScenario B happens, that's the
backup. And also being able tocommunicate like, Hey, listen,
this is the challenge that we'rehaving right now, and this is
(28:41):
what we're doing about it.Option 123, right? So we're
recommending option two. Whatare your thoughts, right? As
opposed to, like, what you'resaying, like, like the pilot
coming out saying, like, hey,guess what? Both engines stopped
working. No solution.
Does anybody have any ideas?
(29:05):
Yea, well.
Now that pilot might be like intears when they close that door,
right? But you at least wantthem when they're talking to
everyone to like, sound likethey know what they're doing,
right?
Absolutely, absolutely, allright, my friend, we get to the
point in the conversation wherewe're talking about actionable
tips, and you've given us plentyalready, but like, let's just
(29:25):
assume there's a B2B marketerout there that's listening to
this interview, and I certainlyhope not, but you know, they
might be going through somethingthat is that kind of like,
Sounds like their campaign couldpotentially be underperforming.
I'm trying to put it asdelicately as I can here, but
like, what are like, in terms ofeverything that you've said
(29:49):
right now, what are like? Threeto five things you would advise
them to do immediately afterlistening to this interview.
First thing is recognize thatadvertising is a science. So
unlike organic content andthings, which is very much has a
place in the marketing world,paid ads is an objective
science. So one know that thereare clear, regular benchmarks
(30:13):
that you each piece should behitting, or it is objectively
not working. So I think thattakes care of the emotions of
it, right? There's no emotionsin this. It's either, oh, this
is working and we just didn'tproperly set expectations ahead
of time, or no, this isn'tworking. Because there are often
times where a campaign feelslike it's underperforming, but
(30:33):
it's actually just that, youknow, the they were, the client
was expecting a $20 cost perlead, and that's completely
insane for that industry, orsomething like that. So one you
want to know, what is myscorecard and how is this
campaign performing againstthat? That's step one, is to
truly objectify the campaign. Itis a scientific thing.
(30:58):
Or quantify, I should say. Thesecond piece is to then figure
out exactly which piece of it'snot working. Like I said, Take
that piece of paper, split itinto three columns, go through
it. And then the third piece isto be willing to admit, I think
as marketers, a lot of times, wedon't want to be the ones to say
to the client, you know, hey,we're noticing that this isn't
(31:22):
working. We're kind of justhoping that they don't notice.
But I think that's a disservice,and I think you can always gain
a lot of respect and and it'sjust a better way to do
business, to be the first one togo, you know, hey, Mr. Mrs.
Client, this is the part that'snot working, and we're working
(31:42):
on it, and we've got a plan tofix it, but I get that you're
probably frustrated, and justknow that we are working on it
and we know what we're doing.Otherwise, what happens is you
just sort of hope the clientdoesn't mention results, and you
just kind of hope that theyaren't watching, but they always
are watching. They're just, ifthey're not having that
conversation with you, you'vegot two clients, or you've got
(32:03):
the client that's breathing downyour neck always, the other
client is the one that secretlyis unhappy and just not telling
you. And neither of those are agood scenario for a business,
right? Like you want, you wantboth of those folks to be, you
know, brought into theconversation and talked to and
managed.
Absolutely, absolutely, somegreat advice there. And yeah,
you I mean it as difficult as itis, I think as marketers and as
(32:29):
agencies, marketing agencies,it's our responsibility to help
the client. And if we're ifwe're doing something that's not
working, I always feel it'sbetter to come clean now, then
wait until the volcano erupts,and then you say, Oh yeah,
that's on us, right? It's notjust about the trust, it's about
(32:50):
it's about their investment aswell, right? And the time and
the effort and the commitmentand all of these. Because you
know this better than I do. Acampaign. There are so many
moving parts in this ecosystem,right?
Exactly, and there are plenty oftimes where we've gone to a
client and said, This isn'tworking. Let's even pause things
(33:11):
I don't know that it can workfor you. The number of times
that we've done that and thengotten referrals, or that client
come back having fixed whateverproblem there wasn't, you know,
operationally, I mean, thathappens, that that happens a
ton. I mean, that's, there'snothing that gets more respect
than being willing to be upfrontand honest with a client. Just a
better way to live, better wayto do business.
(33:32):
Absolutely okay, sir, get up onyour soapbox. What is, what is a
status quo in your area ofexpertise that you passionately
disagree with, and why?
I think that one of the mostdamaging things that's about to
come out, like one of the thingsthat I think, if you go to a
(33:53):
conference right now, thatyou're going to hear and that is
about to be espoused andpreached everywhere, is the re-
emergence of the importance ofbranding. Now I love branding
campaigns as an advertisingagency, because they're easy and
they're great, and we have a fewcampaigns that are like
(34:13):
government contracts, where thegoal is awareness. Those
campaigns are great, right?Because they take a few minutes
to plan and it's all profit. Butthe reality is, I really don't
think that's a good move intoday's world. I disagree with
the idea that it's not thatbranding is unimportant.
Branding is important, but theeasiest and best way to brand is
(34:34):
actually with customerexperience. You know, like Apple
is a good example of that. Youknow, their branding is in their
packaging and their stores andtheir customer service. The idea
of advertising brand is just athat's not a great way to for a
vast majority of businesses,unless you're publicly traded,
it's not a great way to trulyspend your advertising dollars.
(34:57):
But it's about to be espoused.The reason it's being espoused
is be. Because with the collapseof the cookie and the collapse
of the lower level types oftracking that most advertisers
have come to rely on, it becomesvery difficult to track return
on ad spend unless you're atthat sort of mid to higher level
of sophistication. And sobecause of that, everyone's
(35:19):
talking about branding, and Ireally don't think that's a good
idea.
Being a branding guy myself. Ido, I can totally understand
where you're coming from, andI...
Ad dollars.
Yes, it's.
Don't put ad dollars towardsBranding. Branding important,
branding good.
Absolutely, absolutely. But Ithink, and this may have been
(35:42):
your point as well, people don'talso quite understand what goes
into branding, and that initself, opens the door to things
like what you were saying, let'sjust go through this very
expensive branding exercise, andthey don't actually quite
understand what that's supposedto accomplish, right? Like you,
(36:05):
I'm all I'm all for branding,but there's a time and a place
for it, and expensive brandingcampaigns are not going to fix
are not going to fix yourproduct. They're not going to
fix a bad customer experience,right?
Exactly. Yeah. And if you'reand, you know, in the B2B space,
(36:27):
if you're an accountant orsomething, unless you're one of
the big four, unless you'reDeloitte or you know, Ernst &
Young, why would you try tofight in the branding world? My
accountant is an older guy thatlives down the street from me,
right? Like, I'm not workingwith him because of his brand.
And I think that's true of most,you know, I'm working with him
(36:49):
because of the customer service.Now, I do think that branding is
important, even in that space oflike, late, you know, we have in
our office, we've got our logo.Oh, there you go. Branding is
important, but I'm not going toput ad dollars behind it,
because nobody ultimately careswho we are. Well, I mean, we're
a white label service, soactually, I mean, two thirds of
our clients don't actually knowthat we exist.
(37:09):
Right, absolutely.
It's a... So, yeah, it is abranding is important, mostly
for your current customers, Ithink for most businesses.
Exactly, exactly. Okay. Herecomes the bonus question. So I
have a good authority that you,at a young age, started looking
(37:30):
for writing work because youwere trying to impress a girl.
And now I'm not going to ask youwhat you wrote her, okay, that's
for your and her eyes only. Butwhat I will ask you Skip is
this, if you were, if you wereto look back on what it was that
you wrote her, what copywritingadvice would you give to your
younger self?
(37:50):
So I have the nerdiest answer tothat question ever. I'm very
much a systems guy. I was eveneven then. So the I had it, I
had in my sort of sights on thisperson who now is my wife, I
(38:11):
actually did a lot of researchthat I came up with. The prior
to that, I came up with what Icall the great method, which is
goal research, put together anaction plan, and then execute.
And I literally did a bunch ofresearch on what types of things
to say even had, like, ourearlier conversations, like,
sort of, like scripted out oflike, what kinds of questions to
(38:32):
ask on the phones back whenpeople phone that and those
types of things.
Yeah.
So that I did research on, like,what a first date should be
like. And so all of thosecommunications early on were,
they weren't quite scripted, butthey were definitely formulaic
in terms of, I wanted to makesure that I like, okay, ask a
few softball questions and thendeep question and, you know,
(38:54):
just things like that. So doing,putting together, figuring out
what you're trying toaccomplish, then reading a bunch
of books back then you had to goto the library to read books,
but the but then doing yourresearch on that topic, how
other people that have achievedthat goal, put together an
action plan and then execute it?That's, that's how I wrote this
(39:17):
stuff. I wrote to her, andthat's still more or less how I
like, how I do things.
Well, it works. It looks like itworked, man.
That's right, exactly. I've gota 100% close rate.
So fantastic. Such a greatstory, though, such a great
story.
(39:38):
Yeah, she's gotten used to myways, right? Like some some
folks would hear that story, andsome folks hear it and think
it's romantic, others think it'sthe opposite of that. She sees
the romance in it.
Good, and that's what matters,right? That's what matters.
That's right.
Yeah, fantastic. Skip. This hasbeen such a great conversation.
Thanks so much for your time andfor sharing your expertise and
(39:59):
experience with the listeners,quick introduce yourself and how
folks out there can get in touchwith you.
Yeah. So Skip Wilson with withDraft advertising, Draft
advertising technology, I guesstechnically full name, but the
reach out to me.Skip@draftadvertising.com or
info@draftadvertising.com.Either of those, and look
(40:19):
forward to talk.
Gotcha. Fantastic, fantasticonce again, Skip thanks so much
for your time. Take care, staysafe and talk to you soon.
Sounds great. Thank you.
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