Secrets to High ROI Ad Programs in 2025: TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Offers & the Art of Storytelling
January 25, 2025 • 25 mins
Mastering Performance Marketing and Digital Advertising in 2025 with Dave Valentine
In this episode, we dive deep into performance marketing and digital advertising with expert Dave Valentine. Dave shares insights from his 20+ years in the industry, highlighting strategies for leveraging storytelling in marketing campaigns.
He discusses success stories, including a standout campaigns, and offers actionable tips for improving ROI, retargeting audiences, and creating compelling offers.
Tune in to learn how to navigate the challenges of advertising inflation and explore alternative platforms that are driving impressive results like TikTok, Pinterest, and Reddit.
00:00 Introduction to Performance Marketing
00:13 Guest Introduction: Meet Dave
00:26 Dave's Career Journey
01:27 Success Story: Chocolate Brand
02:27 The Power of Storytelling in Marketing
07:36 Strategies for Better ROI
11:10 Exploring Alternative Advertising Channels
16:13 Creative Marketing Offers
21:13 Final Tips and Special Offers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:01):
Today we are talking about performance, marketing,
digital advertising and how tomaster it, and we have the
perfect guest to help us talkabout that.
Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Valentine (00:15):
Thanks, eric, happy to be here, brother.
Eric Eden (00:18):
So why don't we start off?
You've had a great career.
Talk a little bit about who youare and what you do.
Dave Valentine (00:25):
Yeah, I've been in marketing and advertising for
the past 20 years.
I used to run Friendster andMySpace pages.
I freaked my junior staff outwhen I tell them that we had to
text in tweets, because theyhave no memory of that being a
thing, and I've been doingmarketing that long.
I've been a serial entrepreneur.
For the past 12 years, I'veeither started or acquired 11
(00:48):
different firms, sold nine ofthem, and a lot of my experience
is in the marketing andadvertising space, although I
have experience in SaaS products.
I started a flight school withmy brother owns a private equity
firm, so you name it, I've doneit, and a lot of my strengths
are in go-to-market strategy forbrands that you've never heard
of and Fortune 500 companies.
Name it, I've done it, and alot of my strengths are in
go-to-market strategy for brandsthat you've never heard of and
Fortune 500 companies.
Eric Eden (01:08):
Amazing and you run a really good performance agency
and you help a lot of clients dothis based on all your
experience and we're ready to beinspired.
Tell us a story about some ofthe best marketing that you've
done in recent times that you'rethe most proud of.
Dave Valentine (01:27):
So this chocolate brand that's doing a
few million dollars a year inrevenue no one's heard of them
outside of Southern California,essentially, and even that they
don't have a great pull through.
So what we started to do was Ireally started to talk to them
about positioning andstorytelling and then how we can
use that to leverage into theiradvertising.
So here's what we started to do.
Here's the basic premise behindthis brand.
(01:49):
The owner and founder is afourth generation chocolatier.
She and her family come fromAustria.
She's been making chocolatessince she was a small child.
This is a history of passing itdown generation to generation
and it's going through all ofthe women in the family.
So her great grandmother wasthe first one to start and she's
(02:12):
brought the different flavorsthey have and styles and they're
really beautiful.
They're like airbrushed,they're stunning visually, but
there was no storytelling aboutwhy this One of my favorite
(02:34):
assets for any entrepreneur,business owner or business to
use is you could do anythingwith your life, and so we kind
of talked about how thechocolate is a part of her
family history, her lineage, andshe wants to pass that on.
But also she wants to enhancethese beautiful moments between
couples, kids, family members,whatever.
So as we dove into that, shestarted to shoot more video
(02:56):
about how she came to do this.
She went to Costa Rica, whereshe works with local cacao
farmers and gives them not afair trade but a living fair
trade, which means that they'remaking way above what the
average person makes in theirarea certainly for a farmer and
she sources all of her cacaoethically.
(03:16):
We started to tell that storyas we started to do that, eric,
this really beautiful thing, andthis just happened in the past
few months.
This is hot off the presses.
This is why I love this story,because it's speaking to the
moment that we're in right now.
We also started to run adcampaigns that were specifically
designed to attract more likesand more followers on social
(03:38):
media in particular, so reallyboosting those numbers each and
every day.
So we had more and morefollowers.
So then what ends up happeningis, as we have more followers,
more page likes, we start tohave more people that are
engaging with our organiccontent every single day, which
then amplifies that organiccontent reach even further.
Then, as that starts to grow,we start to retarget our
(04:01):
followers and page like peoplewith ads saying hey, come,
purchase our chocolate.
You already like what we'redoing and all of those ads to
give them to be followers and tolike our page.
They're all storytelling aboutthe brand, about how this came
to exist.
So it's using that as the hookand what we've been able to
accomplish is a 16 to one returnon ad spend simply by using
(04:25):
storytelling, running ads toattract new followers and likes
and then retargeting thosepeople with ads to come purchase
our products.
That combined with some thingsthat we're doing right now, like
.
We created a creative campaigncalled let's Melt, and it's
essentially this idea of likehey, let's melt together this
Valentine's Day season, and itcontinues to drive massive
(04:47):
return on ad spend, which meansfor every dollar that that
client is putting into theiradvertising, they're literally
making $16 back.
If any of us had that machine,we'd put every cent that we
could into it, and she's doingthe same.
Eric Eden (05:00):
That's awesome.
It's a much different strategyfor a business you you could
argue that's commoditized.
I mean you go to the store andthere's 100 different types of
chocolate you could buy rightand I think telling a story and
making people feel somethingdifferent about that product is
(05:20):
probably a superior strategy tosaying you cost 20 cents less or
something like that or tryingto describe how the chocolate's
different than other chocolates.
It's a different strategy,right?
Dave Valentine (05:33):
Yeah, as the longer that I've been in
marketing, the longer I've beenin the entrepreneurial space,
the more that I have come tounderstand in like.
I always knew this as in peoplehad said it to me.
I didn't embody this until thepast four or five years in a
meaningful way.
You have to find a way todifferentiate.
(05:54):
The easiest way todifferentiate is your own story.
Struggling with that, there'sso many ways to go about finding
how to tell your story.
Chat GPT can be a helpful spacehere to have it.
Ask you questions to pull outwhat your story is.
That's an idea.
(06:16):
You don't have to do that.
But there's also this thing too,eric, where so many people are
me too Like, oh, we're just likeso-and-so.
I'll even hear some clients saywe built our website to look
just like fill-in-the-bl.
We do like.
I'll even hear some clients say, well, we built our website to
look just like fill in the blankcompetitor.
And I always chuckle and I gowell, no one, no one wants to
buy them again.
They want to buy you, so whatcan you share?
That's really going to change.
(06:36):
And one of the things that Ifound, too, eric, is the more
that people tell their story,the more they're able to charge
for their products.
Because if I know that this isan ethically sourced cacao that
goes into my chocolate that'sbeing handmade, not made by a
bunch of machines handmade inSan Diego, I'm willing to spend
an extra $15 on that productthan I would be if I didn't know
(06:58):
that part of the story.
So it all plays together toactually increase margins,
increase how much profitabilityyou have and allows you to
acquire customers a heck of alot easier.
Eric Eden (07:11):
It's really interesting because I've been to
Austria and I've been tochocolate shops.
They have in Austria and theydo not mess around with their
chocolate.
This is fresh chocolate.
They make it fresh.
People consume it the week it'smade and it like spoils, like
if you don't eat it, it's notlike it's sat on the shelf in
the store for six months, and sothey have that story to your
(07:31):
point of how they make it in aspecial way.
So bringing that out in theadvertising I think is great,
because the one thing I hearfrom a lot of marketers today
that I want to ask you about isthat a lot of marketers would
say that there is inflation inthe costs of Google advertising
(07:54):
and advertising on the socialnetworks like LinkedIn, and I
think the knock against it rightnow would be it can be very
expensive and a lot of peopleare not getting the sort of ROI
of for every dollar they put in,they get 16 out.
I think a lot of people aregetting dramatically less than
(08:14):
that.
So what do people need to do inaddition to telling their story
, like you already said, to getbetter ROI with the advertising
in today's market?
Dave Valentine (08:27):
said to get better ROI with the advertising
in today's market.
Yeah, it depends on whereyou're at right.
So if you have a let's talkabout a B2B sort of item here,
so you're selling a service orselling a high end product or
software, maybe you know yourreal goal there is to generate a
lead to follow up with.
So in order to do that, you'regonna have to have a great offer
, like something that's got tobe really, really compelling.
(08:48):
So I always like to think if Iwas, if I was the person that
was buying this you think aboutthe objections you get.
You know, eric, you and I arebusiness owners.
I think about the objections Iget all the time.
What would be an offer thatwould make it so that that
objection isn't even anobjection anymore?
It's just easy for people to gooh, there's no risk in this, or
(09:10):
the risk is minimized, orthere's no issue.
So I always think through thatfirst for the B2B side, and then
I start throwing out ads thatspeak to that hey, we do this
thing that no one else does.
If you're doing on the businessto consumer side, like selling
chocolate, a lot of it iscreating fans and then
remarketing to them.
Like so many times.
(09:31):
I'll give you an example.
There's a brand that I'vepurchased from I won't mention
who they are, because it wouldbe me.
There's a brand that Ipurchased from in 2024.
In 2024.
(09:51):
And I drove about $4,000 worthof revenue to that specific
brand.
Now they're a decent sizedcompany.
However, I know that that's aninordinate amount of money for
someone to spend with thatcompany.
They've never sent me anotherapp Now.
They've sent me a lot of emails.
I've never seen another adonline.
So it's low hanging fruit andit's an easy way to get people
to come back for a direct toconsumer play.
(10:14):
It's just sending them aretargeting ad.
It's going to be your cheapestway to get a new acquisition or
to get somebody to come back andmake a purchase.
The other thing that I'd say isadd more value.
Don't reduce your price.
Everybody's running to zero.
Don't run to zero.
Add more value and charge moreLike it's it's.
By the way, that's an easy thingto say.
It's a harder thing to do inpractice.
It does up-level the abilityfor us to say like, okay, what?
(10:38):
What do we want to say here?
Like what's the most effectivething that we can do to drive
more value, and how is thatreally going to help us achieve
our goals right?
So I think that when it comesto getting more return on ad
spend, start with retargeting.
It's going to be the one thathelps you think about great
offers, that where you add morevalue, you don't subtract.
(11:00):
You know your margin and if youcould figure that out, you're
going to be in good shape in b2band in b2c relationships.
And it's also realizing thatyou know there are other
platforms beyond adwords andmeta, like there's tiktok,
there's reddit, there'spinterest.
We have clients that arecrushing it on pinterest.
(11:22):
There are other places for youto go get wins that would
surprise and shock you.
Double down on those spots thatother people aren't playing in,
perhaps.
Eric Eden (11:33):
I like those three ideas a lot, in particular the
offers one, because I don'tthink people are nearly creative
enough in coming up with goodmarketing offers, whether it's
in B2B or B2C.
It's like some of the peopleare not even trying, like
they're just like can I have 15minutes of your time to pitch
you?
Like that's their offer.
I'm like that's not an offer.
(11:55):
So I see other people who dosome creative things, like they
offer to do a complimentaryanalysis with no commitment and
give you some insights, somesort of gift in exchange for
their time.
(12:31):
And a lot of times incentiveswork as part of offers, because
people were going to look atbuying the product or service
you have, but what the incentivedoes is that it makes them
prioritize you and looking atyour product for something they
would already probablyordinarily do, and you'll get
some riffraff and people inthere wanting the free stuff and
(12:53):
you just sort of had to figureout how to manage that sort of
thing.
But I just think that peopleshould be a lot more creative
with offers and I love the ideaof going back to customers for
repeat business.
I think some people don't dothat at all, like you're saying,
and some people don't do itwell.
So I think there's some greatideas in there.
(13:15):
When I hear a lot of people saythat they're not getting a good
return on their advertising andthat advertising is too
expensive largely I think thatit is true because there is
inflation and the cost per clickon Google and on LinkedIn, for
example, but I think people canovercome some of that with these
(13:36):
tactics.
I'm curious when you mentionedother channels.
That's an interesting ideabecause Reddit went public last
year.
I haven't heard anybody talkabout.
Oh, I'm killing it onadvertising with Reddit.
And when I read Reddit I'm likewould anybody ever click on any
of these ads?
I'm just curious what channelslike Reddit have you heard?
(13:58):
Are people killing it withReddit ads?
Dave Valentine (14:01):
Our clients are averaging.
Our clients averaging return onad spend is a 9.8 on reddit in
2024.
We're recording this in early2025.
So, yeah, people are crushingit.
It's a.
It's a.
It's all about demographics,right.
So, like, when you thinkpinterest, you automatically
think women.
(14:23):
I do, and that's true.
In the platform statistics,about 90% of the people that are
on Pinterest on a weekly basisare women.
So when we think about whatproducts or services do we place
on Pinterest, it should begeared towards more feminine
audience.
On Reddit, it's very differentit's 75% men.
So I'm thinking about thingsthat are going to make sense
(14:47):
there.
It's it's kind of like one ofthose things where.
So we, we represent a brand thatmakes really nice knives and
they shot a beautiful commercialand said where do we put it?
We said how much do you have?
So we looked at the budget.
They don't have a robust budget.
(15:13):
They've never advertised on TVbefore.
It's never been a thing they'vedone.
So we said, hey, let's tiptoeinto this, let's advertise on
Monday night football it's areally nice high quality knife
on streaming services only, sonot on linear TV, on streaming
only.
And they were spending 25 grandevery Monday night football
game for the entire footballseason.
Their results were massiveright audience, good, creative
(15:39):
at the right time.
That's the game.
So, yeah, you can win withReddit.
It just depends on the productor service that you're selling.
You got to remember that mosthome buying decisions are made
by women.
It's over 90% of home buyingdecisions are made by women.
I think the latest stat that Isaw was 93%.
So if you're trying to sell,like a home services plumbing,
(16:00):
roofing, electric interest isn'ta bad spot for it.
Shockingly, because they'remaking the home buying decisions
.
If you're trying to sell aproduct or service that is not
about the home in particular,finding Reddit is a good spot to
go Really quickly, eric,because I think it's a fun story
about creating offers.
(16:23):
I had this client years ago now.
They were a wholesaler ofcannabis products and they were
launching a new line inCalifornia, and so, the way that
you know cannabis laws are setup, you have to produce the item
in the state that you're goingto sell it within, because it
can't go across state lines,federal guidelines, that whole
thing.
So they said, hey, we want tobreak into California, we're
(16:46):
going to do some cold emailoutreach.
One of my agencies was runningin the past and they said we
just want to give away freesamples.
And I said don't do that.
Everybody gives away freesamples.
That's not what they want.
They go we're just going togive away free samples.
And I said look, our job is tobook you meetings through cold
email outreach.
I think you're going to bookone or two meetings a month.
This is not going to work.
They're like we're going to doit anyways.
Great, so they do it, eric.
(17:07):
First two months they book oneor two meetings.
They're like this isn't working.
We need to chat.
So I sit down with them and I gowhat's your average wholesale
client?
Like there's 450 dispensariesin California.
What's your average wholesaleclient?
Like they said, well, on thelow side, 40 grand, on the high
side, 400.
Great, where are they?
It's cannabis online, unlessit's in a website you don't
(17:29):
necessarily want to beassociated with, perhaps, and so
you have to really usetraditional marketing places and
you have to really think abouthow to bring foot traffic in,
because dispensaries are weird.
They're either like this Swisssanitarium or they're like a
(17:50):
seedy back alley, like rightnext to the back alley, where
the drug deal used to go downright, like there's no in
between versus breweries,distilleries, wineries.
They're kind of family friendly, you know, like they have
concerts and events.
So here was the idea that Ipitched them, eric, because
it'll speak to that offercreation and really acquiring
new customers in a profound way.
I said we're going to do one oftwo things.
(18:11):
Let's throw both of these out.
One we're going to do aco-branded billboard.
So when people, if they sign up, we'll do a co-branded
billboard with the dispensaryand say, hey, listen, come, buy
our cake pops five miles downthe road at such and such
dispensary.
That's option one.
Option two is we'll send a chefto decorate cake pops that
(18:32):
don't have THC in them and handthem out for free at the
dispensary.
What's that do?
It's driving foot traffic.
They were skeptical but theydecided to try it.
In the first month that theystarted trying that, they booked
16 meetings.
The second month, 34.
The third month, 39 meetings.
They went from one or two to 39in 90 days.
The only thing we changed wasthe offer.
(18:54):
Why did it work?
Because they were emailinggeneral managers, owners and
product managers.
They all want to buy it.
Because they're like, hey, it'sgoing to help us achieve our
goals.
We're going to have people comein and buy these cake pops Done
.
So that's an idea of how Ithink about offer creation, and
why it can be so powerful andtransformative to your business
(19:16):
is because you're actuallyhelping your clients and
customers solve problems thatthey have after they purchase
your product or service.
Eric Eden (19:22):
Clients and customers solve problems that they have
after they purchase your productor service.
I love it.
That's fantastic, very creative.
So, in addition to that, trumpjust saved TikTok for the time
being.
Do you have clients that havebeen killing it with ads on
TikTok Because it's anotherchannel that's relatively new?
Dave Valentine (19:44):
Yeah, selling on TikTok is prolific for a lot of
brands.
There are so many ways to do ittoo, with the commission-based
selling that you can do withinfluencers.
Now it's actually the way thatwe're getting the best bang for
the buck for most of our clientsis by leveraging micro
influencers to sell products forcommission.
(20:06):
It's going gangbusters thatchocolate company that I was
discussing.
They've got a number of peoplethat just constantly push their
brand.
In the advertising space inparticular, it depends on the
product.
A lot of people on TikTok areyounger, not everybody.
There's 170 million Americansthat use it every single week,
(20:27):
so it's more than just Gen Z andGen Alpha.
There are certainly millennialson it.
I'm on it all the time.
We have a lot of people on ourstaff that have many followers
as well, and what we're seeingacross the board, eric, is
somewhere greater than a fiveand a half return on ad spend is
kind of the average for ourclients right now and a lot of
(20:48):
the things that are working.
It really depends on thecreative, and that's kind of
where advertising continues togo is what you produce in.
The creative is way moreimportant than it was five years
ago 10 years ago for sure, andit continues to be the most
important thing outside of theoffer.
Eric Eden (21:07):
Wow, full circle back to Mad Men.
Dave Valentine (21:09):
I love it.
That's right, that's right.
Eric Eden (21:14):
So any other final tips about how people can be
successful with performancemarketing and advertising in
2025?
Anything we haven't covered.
You wanted to throw out thereAny secrets that we didn't get
to.
Dave Valentine (21:32):
Yeah, oh, I'm going to give a good one.
Have a 72-hour feedback loop.
If an ad isn't working in 72hours and working is defined by
your parameters of how it shouldbe change it.
Change up the creative, changeup the targeting, change up the
offer.
If you're trying to get acheaper and cheaper cost per
lead or cost per acquisitionagain, don't just try something
(21:53):
cheaper that actually may becounterintuitively impacting you
in a negative way.
Try something that has morevalue, more perceived value, and
then head in that direction.
What you'll find is you can getwhere you want to go if you're
determined to make it happen.
It's only when people give uphonestly or go.
Well, I just can't figure itout.
(22:14):
Or I guess inflation is justmaking everything too expensive.
No, give yourself 72 hours.
If it's not working, change itand if you get really good, you
can start to make those changesevery 24 hours.
But move fast, break things,fail fast.
You'll find success, I promise.
Eric Eden (22:30):
I like that.
You got to test things and trydifferent things and give
yourselves a clock to test it,enough time to be right, but
change it up.
Keep at it, because just thefirst thing you try isn't
usually always the best thing.
So I love it.
Thank you very much for beingon today sharing these stories
and this great advice.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your LinkedIn so
(22:53):
people can get in touch if theywant to learn more and chat with
you in more detail.
Dave Valentine (22:57):
Yeah, by the way , I've got an offer for your
listeners, so I've got to gettwo offers that can take me up
on either one.
So offer number one is we'llrun your ads for 90 days for 10%
of any ad spend.
You give us no long-termcommitment.
It allows us to prove it to youbefore you buy, essentially.
And so if you come in with athousand bucks a month and
(23:18):
you're like, hey, that's what Iwant to do, we'll only make a
hundred, I'll just tell you welose a lot of money doing that,
but it's our way to prove it toyou and show you how we can get
it done.
Or, number two we'll do an adsaudit, and the ads audit is
pretty great because we'll go inand look at what you're
currently doing, give you somefeedback on it, and one of three
things will happen.
(23:38):
Number one we don't give youany.
You want to go execute on yourown?
Great, go for it.
Number three you love it andyou want us to run it?
We actually give you a creditback for part of the amount that
you paid for the audit.
So either way, in that auditsituation you win, and that's
kind of the goal for all of theoffers we've put together.
So love to practice what Ipreached there.
You guys can take advantage ofthat by emailing me,
(24:00):
davevalentineatfinchcom.
Just mention the name of thepodcast in the email headline
and we'll be sure to get youhooked up.
Eric Eden (24:08):
Awesome, Dave.
Again, thank you very much forbeing with us today.
We appreciate it.
Dave Valentine (24:13):
Yep, thanks, eric.
Today we are talking about performance, marketing,
digital advertising and how tomaster it, and we have the
perfect guest to help us talkabout that.
Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Valentine (00:15):
Thanks, eric, happy to be here, brother.
Eric Eden (00:18):
So why don't we start off?
You've had a great career.
Talk a little bit about who youare and what you do.
Dave Valentine (00:25):
Yeah, I've been in marketing and advertising for
the past 20 years.
I used to run Friendster andMySpace pages.
I freaked my junior staff outwhen I tell them that we had to
text in tweets, because theyhave no memory of that being a
thing, and I've been doingmarketing that long.
I've been a serial entrepreneur.
For the past 12 years, I'veeither started or acquired 11
(00:48):
different firms, sold nine ofthem, and a lot of my experience
is in the marketing andadvertising space, although I
have experience in SaaS products.
I started a flight school withmy brother owns a private equity
firm, so you name it, I've doneit, and a lot of my strengths
are in go-to-market strategy forbrands that you've never heard
of and Fortune 500 companies.
Name it, I've done it, and alot of my strengths are in
go-to-market strategy for brandsthat you've never heard of and
Fortune 500 companies.
Eric Eden (01:08):
Amazing and you run a really good performance agency
and you help a lot of clients dothis based on all your
experience and we're ready to beinspired.
Tell us a story about some ofthe best marketing that you've
done in recent times that you'rethe most proud of.
Dave Valentine (01:27):
So this chocolate brand that's doing a
few million dollars a year inrevenue no one's heard of them
outside of Southern California,essentially, and even that they
don't have a great pull through.
So what we started to do was Ireally started to talk to them
about positioning andstorytelling and then how we can
use that to leverage into theiradvertising.
So here's what we started to do.
Here's the basic premise behindthis brand.
(01:49):
The owner and founder is afourth generation chocolatier.
She and her family come fromAustria.
She's been making chocolatessince she was a small child.
This is a history of passing itdown generation to generation
and it's going through all ofthe women in the family.
So her great grandmother wasthe first one to start and she's
(02:12):
brought the different flavorsthey have and styles and they're
really beautiful.
They're like airbrushed,they're stunning visually, but
there was no storytelling aboutwhy this One of my favorite
(02:34):
assets for any entrepreneur,business owner or business to
use is you could do anythingwith your life, and so we kind
of talked about how thechocolate is a part of her
family history, her lineage, andshe wants to pass that on.
But also she wants to enhancethese beautiful moments between
couples, kids, family members,whatever.
So as we dove into that, shestarted to shoot more video
(02:56):
about how she came to do this.
She went to Costa Rica, whereshe works with local cacao
farmers and gives them not afair trade but a living fair
trade, which means that they'remaking way above what the
average person makes in theirarea certainly for a farmer and
she sources all of her cacaoethically.
(03:16):
We started to tell that storyas we started to do that, eric,
this really beautiful thing, andthis just happened in the past
few months.
This is hot off the presses.
This is why I love this story,because it's speaking to the
moment that we're in right now.
We also started to run adcampaigns that were specifically
designed to attract more likesand more followers on social
(03:38):
media in particular, so reallyboosting those numbers each and
every day.
So we had more and morefollowers.
So then what ends up happeningis, as we have more followers,
more page likes, we start tohave more people that are
engaging with our organiccontent every single day, which
then amplifies that organiccontent reach even further.
Then, as that starts to grow,we start to retarget our
(04:01):
followers and page like peoplewith ads saying hey, come,
purchase our chocolate.
You already like what we'redoing and all of those ads to
give them to be followers and tolike our page.
They're all storytelling aboutthe brand, about how this came
to exist.
So it's using that as the hookand what we've been able to
accomplish is a 16 to one returnon ad spend simply by using
(04:25):
storytelling, running ads toattract new followers and likes
and then retargeting thosepeople with ads to come purchase
our products.
That combined with some thingsthat we're doing right now, like
.
We created a creative campaigncalled let's Melt, and it's
essentially this idea of likehey, let's melt together this
Valentine's Day season, and itcontinues to drive massive
(04:47):
return on ad spend, which meansfor every dollar that that
client is putting into theiradvertising, they're literally
making $16 back.
If any of us had that machine,we'd put every cent that we
could into it, and she's doingthe same.
Eric Eden (05:00):
That's awesome.
It's a much different strategyfor a business you you could
argue that's commoditized.
I mean you go to the store andthere's 100 different types of
chocolate you could buy rightand I think telling a story and
making people feel somethingdifferent about that product is
(05:20):
probably a superior strategy tosaying you cost 20 cents less or
something like that or tryingto describe how the chocolate's
different than other chocolates.
It's a different strategy,right?
Dave Valentine (05:33):
Yeah, as the longer that I've been in
marketing, the longer I've beenin the entrepreneurial space,
the more that I have come tounderstand in like.
I always knew this as in peoplehad said it to me.
I didn't embody this until thepast four or five years in a
meaningful way.
You have to find a way todifferentiate.
(05:54):
The easiest way todifferentiate is your own story.
Struggling with that, there'sso many ways to go about finding
how to tell your story.
Chat GPT can be a helpful spacehere to have it.
Ask you questions to pull outwhat your story is.
That's an idea.
(06:16):
You don't have to do that.
But there's also this thing too,eric, where so many people are
me too Like, oh, we're just likeso-and-so.
I'll even hear some clients saywe built our website to look
just like fill-in-the-bl.
We do like.
I'll even hear some clients say, well, we built our website to
look just like fill in the blankcompetitor.
And I always chuckle and I gowell, no one, no one wants to
buy them again.
They want to buy you, so whatcan you share?
That's really going to change.
(06:36):
And one of the things that Ifound, too, eric, is the more
that people tell their story,the more they're able to charge
for their products.
Because if I know that this isan ethically sourced cacao that
goes into my chocolate that'sbeing handmade, not made by a
bunch of machines handmade inSan Diego, I'm willing to spend
an extra $15 on that productthan I would be if I didn't know
(06:58):
that part of the story.
So it all plays together toactually increase margins,
increase how much profitabilityyou have and allows you to
acquire customers a heck of alot easier.
Eric Eden (07:11):
It's really interesting because I've been to
Austria and I've been tochocolate shops.
They have in Austria and theydo not mess around with their
chocolate.
This is fresh chocolate.
They make it fresh.
People consume it the week it'smade and it like spoils, like
if you don't eat it, it's notlike it's sat on the shelf in
the store for six months, and sothey have that story to your
(07:31):
point of how they make it in aspecial way.
So bringing that out in theadvertising I think is great,
because the one thing I hearfrom a lot of marketers today
that I want to ask you about isthat a lot of marketers would
say that there is inflation inthe costs of Google advertising
(07:54):
and advertising on the socialnetworks like LinkedIn, and I
think the knock against it rightnow would be it can be very
expensive and a lot of peopleare not getting the sort of ROI
of for every dollar they put in,they get 16 out.
I think a lot of people aregetting dramatically less than
(08:14):
that.
So what do people need to do inaddition to telling their story
, like you already said, to getbetter ROI with the advertising
in today's market?
Dave Valentine (08:27):
said to get better ROI with the advertising
in today's market.
Yeah, it depends on whereyou're at right.
So if you have a let's talkabout a B2B sort of item here,
so you're selling a service orselling a high end product or
software, maybe you know yourreal goal there is to generate a
lead to follow up with.
So in order to do that, you'regonna have to have a great offer
, like something that's got tobe really, really compelling.
(08:48):
So I always like to think if Iwas, if I was the person that
was buying this you think aboutthe objections you get.
You know, eric, you and I arebusiness owners.
I think about the objections Iget all the time.
What would be an offer thatwould make it so that that
objection isn't even anobjection anymore?
It's just easy for people to gooh, there's no risk in this, or
(09:10):
the risk is minimized, orthere's no issue.
So I always think through thatfirst for the B2B side, and then
I start throwing out ads thatspeak to that hey, we do this
thing that no one else does.
If you're doing on the businessto consumer side, like selling
chocolate, a lot of it iscreating fans and then
remarketing to them.
Like so many times.
(09:31):
I'll give you an example.
There's a brand that I'vepurchased from I won't mention
who they are, because it wouldbe me.
There's a brand that Ipurchased from in 2024.
In 2024.
(09:51):
And I drove about $4,000 worthof revenue to that specific
brand.
Now they're a decent sizedcompany.
However, I know that that's aninordinate amount of money for
someone to spend with thatcompany.
They've never sent me anotherapp Now.
They've sent me a lot of emails.
I've never seen another adonline.
So it's low hanging fruit andit's an easy way to get people
to come back for a direct toconsumer play.
(10:14):
It's just sending them aretargeting ad.
It's going to be your cheapestway to get a new acquisition or
to get somebody to come back andmake a purchase.
The other thing that I'd say isadd more value.
Don't reduce your price.
Everybody's running to zero.
Don't run to zero.
Add more value and charge moreLike it's it's.
By the way, that's an easy thingto say.
It's a harder thing to do inpractice.
It does up-level the abilityfor us to say like, okay, what?
(10:38):
What do we want to say here?
Like what's the most effectivething that we can do to drive
more value, and how is thatreally going to help us achieve
our goals right?
So I think that when it comesto getting more return on ad
spend, start with retargeting.
It's going to be the one thathelps you think about great
offers, that where you add morevalue, you don't subtract.
(11:00):
You know your margin and if youcould figure that out, you're
going to be in good shape in b2band in b2c relationships.
And it's also realizing thatyou know there are other
platforms beyond adwords andmeta, like there's tiktok,
there's reddit, there'spinterest.
We have clients that arecrushing it on pinterest.
(11:22):
There are other places for youto go get wins that would
surprise and shock you.
Double down on those spots thatother people aren't playing in,
perhaps.
Eric Eden (11:33):
I like those three ideas a lot, in particular the
offers one, because I don'tthink people are nearly creative
enough in coming up with goodmarketing offers, whether it's
in B2B or B2C.
It's like some of the peopleare not even trying, like
they're just like can I have 15minutes of your time to pitch
you?
Like that's their offer.
I'm like that's not an offer.
(11:55):
So I see other people who dosome creative things, like they
offer to do a complimentaryanalysis with no commitment and
give you some insights, somesort of gift in exchange for
their time.
(12:31):
And a lot of times incentiveswork as part of offers, because
people were going to look atbuying the product or service
you have, but what the incentivedoes is that it makes them
prioritize you and looking atyour product for something they
would already probablyordinarily do, and you'll get
some riffraff and people inthere wanting the free stuff and
(12:53):
you just sort of had to figureout how to manage that sort of
thing.
But I just think that peopleshould be a lot more creative
with offers and I love the ideaof going back to customers for
repeat business.
I think some people don't dothat at all, like you're saying,
and some people don't do itwell.
So I think there's some greatideas in there.
(13:15):
When I hear a lot of people saythat they're not getting a good
return on their advertising andthat advertising is too
expensive largely I think thatit is true because there is
inflation and the cost per clickon Google and on LinkedIn, for
example, but I think people canovercome some of that with these
(13:36):
tactics.
I'm curious when you mentionedother channels.
That's an interesting ideabecause Reddit went public last
year.
I haven't heard anybody talkabout.
Oh, I'm killing it onadvertising with Reddit.
And when I read Reddit I'm likewould anybody ever click on any
of these ads?
I'm just curious what channelslike Reddit have you heard?
(13:58):
Are people killing it withReddit ads?
Dave Valentine (14:01):
Our clients are averaging.
Our clients averaging return onad spend is a 9.8 on reddit in
2024.
We're recording this in early2025.
So, yeah, people are crushingit.
It's a.
It's a.
It's all about demographics,right.
So, like, when you thinkpinterest, you automatically
think women.
(14:23):
I do, and that's true.
In the platform statistics,about 90% of the people that are
on Pinterest on a weekly basisare women.
So when we think about whatproducts or services do we place
on Pinterest, it should begeared towards more feminine
audience.
On Reddit, it's very differentit's 75% men.
So I'm thinking about thingsthat are going to make sense
(14:47):
there.
It's it's kind of like one ofthose things where.
So we, we represent a brand thatmakes really nice knives and
they shot a beautiful commercialand said where do we put it?
We said how much do you have?
So we looked at the budget.
They don't have a robust budget.
(15:13):
They've never advertised on TVbefore.
It's never been a thing they'vedone.
So we said, hey, let's tiptoeinto this, let's advertise on
Monday night football it's areally nice high quality knife
on streaming services only, sonot on linear TV, on streaming
only.
And they were spending 25 grandevery Monday night football
game for the entire footballseason.
Their results were massiveright audience, good, creative
(15:39):
at the right time.
That's the game.
So, yeah, you can win withReddit.
It just depends on the productor service that you're selling.
You got to remember that mosthome buying decisions are made
by women.
It's over 90% of home buyingdecisions are made by women.
I think the latest stat that Isaw was 93%.
So if you're trying to sell,like a home services plumbing,
(16:00):
roofing, electric interest isn'ta bad spot for it.
Shockingly, because they'remaking the home buying decisions
.
If you're trying to sell aproduct or service that is not
about the home in particular,finding Reddit is a good spot to
go Really quickly, eric,because I think it's a fun story
about creating offers.
(16:23):
I had this client years ago now.
They were a wholesaler ofcannabis products and they were
launching a new line inCalifornia, and so, the way that
you know cannabis laws are setup, you have to produce the item
in the state that you're goingto sell it within, because it
can't go across state lines,federal guidelines, that whole
thing.
So they said, hey, we want tobreak into California, we're
(16:46):
going to do some cold emailoutreach.
One of my agencies was runningin the past and they said we
just want to give away freesamples.
And I said don't do that.
Everybody gives away freesamples.
That's not what they want.
They go we're just going togive away free samples.
And I said look, our job is tobook you meetings through cold
email outreach.
I think you're going to bookone or two meetings a month.
This is not going to work.
They're like we're going to doit anyways.
Great, so they do it, eric.
(17:07):
First two months they book oneor two meetings.
They're like this isn't working.
We need to chat.
So I sit down with them and I gowhat's your average wholesale
client?
Like there's 450 dispensariesin California.
What's your average wholesaleclient?
Like they said, well, on thelow side, 40 grand, on the high
side, 400.
Great, where are they?
It's cannabis online, unlessit's in a website you don't
(17:29):
necessarily want to beassociated with, perhaps, and so
you have to really usetraditional marketing places and
you have to really think abouthow to bring foot traffic in,
because dispensaries are weird.
They're either like this Swisssanitarium or they're like a
(17:50):
seedy back alley, like rightnext to the back alley, where
the drug deal used to go downright, like there's no in
between versus breweries,distilleries, wineries.
They're kind of family friendly, you know, like they have
concerts and events.
So here was the idea that Ipitched them, eric, because
it'll speak to that offercreation and really acquiring
new customers in a profound way.
I said we're going to do one oftwo things.
(18:11):
Let's throw both of these out.
One we're going to do aco-branded billboard.
So when people, if they sign up, we'll do a co-branded
billboard with the dispensaryand say, hey, listen, come, buy
our cake pops five miles downthe road at such and such
dispensary.
That's option one.
Option two is we'll send a chefto decorate cake pops that
(18:32):
don't have THC in them and handthem out for free at the
dispensary.
What's that do?
It's driving foot traffic.
They were skeptical but theydecided to try it.
In the first month that theystarted trying that, they booked
16 meetings.
The second month, 34.
The third month, 39 meetings.
They went from one or two to 39in 90 days.
The only thing we changed wasthe offer.
(18:54):
Why did it work?
Because they were emailinggeneral managers, owners and
product managers.
They all want to buy it.
Because they're like, hey, it'sgoing to help us achieve our
goals.
We're going to have people comein and buy these cake pops Done
.
So that's an idea of how Ithink about offer creation, and
why it can be so powerful andtransformative to your business
(19:16):
is because you're actuallyhelping your clients and
customers solve problems thatthey have after they purchase
your product or service.
Eric Eden (19:22):
Clients and customers solve problems that they have
after they purchase your productor service.
I love it.
That's fantastic, very creative.
So, in addition to that, trumpjust saved TikTok for the time
being.
Do you have clients that havebeen killing it with ads on
TikTok Because it's anotherchannel that's relatively new?
Dave Valentine (19:44):
Yeah, selling on TikTok is prolific for a lot of
brands.
There are so many ways to do ittoo, with the commission-based
selling that you can do withinfluencers.
Now it's actually the way thatwe're getting the best bang for
the buck for most of our clientsis by leveraging micro
influencers to sell products forcommission.
(20:06):
It's going gangbusters thatchocolate company that I was
discussing.
They've got a number of peoplethat just constantly push their
brand.
In the advertising space inparticular, it depends on the
product.
A lot of people on TikTok areyounger, not everybody.
There's 170 million Americansthat use it every single week,
(20:27):
so it's more than just Gen Z andGen Alpha.
There are certainly millennialson it.
I'm on it all the time.
We have a lot of people on ourstaff that have many followers
as well, and what we're seeingacross the board, eric, is
somewhere greater than a fiveand a half return on ad spend is
kind of the average for ourclients right now and a lot of
(20:48):
the things that are working.
It really depends on thecreative, and that's kind of
where advertising continues togo is what you produce in.
The creative is way moreimportant than it was five years
ago 10 years ago for sure, andit continues to be the most
important thing outside of theoffer.
Eric Eden (21:07):
Wow, full circle back to Mad Men.
Dave Valentine (21:09):
I love it.
That's right, that's right.
Eric Eden (21:14):
So any other final tips about how people can be
successful with performancemarketing and advertising in
2025?
Anything we haven't covered.
You wanted to throw out thereAny secrets that we didn't get
to.
Dave Valentine (21:32):
Yeah, oh, I'm going to give a good one.
Have a 72-hour feedback loop.
If an ad isn't working in 72hours and working is defined by
your parameters of how it shouldbe change it.
Change up the creative, changeup the targeting, change up the
offer.
If you're trying to get acheaper and cheaper cost per
lead or cost per acquisitionagain, don't just try something
(21:53):
cheaper that actually may becounterintuitively impacting you
in a negative way.
Try something that has morevalue, more perceived value, and
then head in that direction.
What you'll find is you can getwhere you want to go if you're
determined to make it happen.
It's only when people give uphonestly or go.
Well, I just can't figure itout.
(22:14):
Or I guess inflation is justmaking everything too expensive.
No, give yourself 72 hours.
If it's not working, change itand if you get really good, you
can start to make those changesevery 24 hours.
But move fast, break things,fail fast.
You'll find success, I promise.
Eric Eden (22:30):
I like that.
You got to test things and trydifferent things and give
yourselves a clock to test it,enough time to be right, but
change it up.
Keep at it, because just thefirst thing you try isn't
usually always the best thing.
So I love it.
Thank you very much for beingon today sharing these stories
and this great advice.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your LinkedIn so
(22:53):
people can get in touch if theywant to learn more and chat with
you in more detail.
Dave Valentine (22:57):
Yeah, by the way , I've got an offer for your
listeners, so I've got to gettwo offers that can take me up
on either one.
So offer number one is we'llrun your ads for 90 days for 10%
of any ad spend.
You give us no long-termcommitment.
It allows us to prove it to youbefore you buy, essentially.
And so if you come in with athousand bucks a month and
(23:18):
you're like, hey, that's what Iwant to do, we'll only make a
hundred, I'll just tell you welose a lot of money doing that,
but it's our way to prove it toyou and show you how we can get
it done.
Or, number two we'll do an adsaudit, and the ads audit is
pretty great because we'll go inand look at what you're
currently doing, give you somefeedback on it, and one of three
things will happen.
(23:38):
Number one we don't give youany.
You want to go execute on yourown?
Great, go for it.
Number three you love it andyou want us to run it?
We actually give you a creditback for part of the amount that
you paid for the audit.
So either way, in that auditsituation you win, and that's
kind of the goal for all of theoffers we've put together.
So love to practice what Ipreached there.
You guys can take advantage ofthat by emailing me,
(24:00):
davevalentineatfinchcom.
Just mention the name of thepodcast in the email headline
and we'll be sure to get youhooked up.
Eric Eden (24:08):
Awesome, Dave.
Again, thank you very much forbeing with us today.
We appreciate it.
Dave Valentine (24:13):
Yep, thanks, eric.
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