EP. 103 Scaling Your Business At Any Size w/ Russ Hannig, VP of Growth @ Gabb Wireless

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Russ Hannig, VP of Growth Marketing at Gabb Wireless, as we explore the intricate relationship between social media and children's mental health. Russ shares his personal journey of aligning his professional role with his values as a parent, highlighting Gabb Wireless's mission to provide safe communication technology for kids. You'll gain valuable insights into how this innovative company is tackling the challenge of harmful online content and learn from Russ's experience in becoming a more mindful marketer and parent.

Our discussion branches into the sophisticated world of marketing attribution and measurement. With examples from industry leaders like Gabb and Ancestry, we unravel the shift from third-party data to first-party cookies and the importance of a centralized data warehouse. We'll guide you through advanced tools like multi-touch attribution and Marketing Mix Models (MMM), offering a roadmap for e-commerce businesses to balance sales and brand-building efforts. The conversation underscores the necessity of creativity and a deep understanding of your audience, especially when traditional metrics fall short.

We also navigate the strategic landscape of marketing methods and analytics, uncovering how to optimize advertising across geographic regions with match market tests and holdout tests. Discover the nuances of marketing for political campaigns and the importance of maintaining a consistent brand presence. From leveraging platforms like Meta to adapting strategies for television and digital media, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Whether you're aiming to boost brand visibility or seeking to build strong team relationships, the focus remains on aligning marketing efforts with core business goals and brand identity.

Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
At Gab, part of our core is that social media is
hurting our kids.
Yeah.
It is crushing our kids.
More kids are depressed, morekids are anxious, more kids are
bullied, and social media is abig part of that.
For us, it's part of our brandpromise.
It's core to who we are.
We will take a stand againstwhat social media is doing to

(00:20):
kids and it might alienate somepeople people, but they're not
our target audience yo, what'sgoing on everybody?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
welcome to the unstoppable marketer podcast.
With me, as always, is myco-host, mark marcus goldheart.
It's not really marcus no it isjust mark.
Yeah, just mark I feel likeI've asked you that I feel like
we've known each other for eightyears and I should just yeah
that answer down.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
I think marcus would be more of like Roman heritage,
but oh really.
Yeah, like Marcus Aurelius.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, how are you?

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Good yeah, great.
Well, however you want to sayit.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Well, I'm excited about today.

Speaker 4 (00:57):
Yeah, me too, we haven't had a guest for a while.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
We've got a guest on today.
It's been a minute actually,since we've had a guest guest on
today.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
It's been a minute, actually, since we've had a
guest.
It has, and I'm excited forthis one because it's going to
be a little, it's d to c it'sgoing to be very relatable, but
there's also just kind of aunique twist to it so let's
introduce our guests.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Uh, I want to introduce russ hanning.
He's the vp of growth marketingover at gab wireless.
Um russ, how are you?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I'm so good.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Thanks for having me here, you guys, so good to have
you Well, russ.
So we had Nate Randall on thepodcast, who is the CEO current
CEO of Gab Wireless, for thosewho are listening, and it was
one of my favorite podcastepisodes.
It really was, and part of itwas selfish, more for me so when
I say it was one of my favoritepodcast episodes.

(01:43):
It was one of my favoritepodcast episodes.
It was one of my favoritepodcast episodes from, like what
I learned about needing to be abetter parent for my kids.
So, and it was kind of thatepisode actually got a crazy
amount of downloads and listensfor what it was, because we did
not dive a crazy amount intomarketing Like we, we picked a
piece pieces of it out, but likeit was a.

(02:04):
A crazy amount into marketinglike we, we picked a piece
pieces of it out, but like itwas a, it was a master class in
the dangers of parenting, uh, ofwhat kids are going through.
So for those of you who don'tknow, and and correct me if my
one sentence is wrong about gabwireless, you'll nail it but, if
I remember right, gab wirelessis uh, um, child safe tech.
That's right, essentially right.

(02:24):
Um, they create phones, watches, for you to be able to
communicate, uh, for kids to beable to communicate without all
the potentially scary thingsthat a iPhone or other device
can bring into a kid's life.
That's right.
For those of you don't't know,probably one of my top five

(02:45):
favorite companies in the entireworld right now.
I am such a massive fan.
I have three kids All three ofmy kids have the watch and we
are so wildly dedicated to makesure our kids can communicate,
not be left out, but also beprotected from the scary things

(03:05):
that 12-year-olds, 14-year-olds,18-year-olds can find on
devices in their pocket.
100% Sorry, that was a longspiel, but welcome.
I'm stoked to have you because,nate, this is how Russ came on.
I hadn't really known who youwere.
I mean, I obviously knew that Ihad seen your name, I knew that
you had worked for Gab and andyou happened to like comment on

(03:27):
one of my LinkedIn posts and Ijust thought, hey, you should
come on our podcast and you'relike sure I'll do it.
I'm like I was kind of I'll dothose things just to like I have
nothing to lose you know, andyou responded very, very
positive.
So, and so now we're here.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Trevor and Mark super happy to be here and hopefully
I add some value that people arelistening will go.
Oh, that's helpful.
I'm definitely not the smartestguy, that's for sure, but
you'll make up for all of theall of the non smart.
No, when I, when I met.
So I actually met Nate Randall.
We met actually on a trip.

(04:05):
It was a sponsor trip that Iwent with my friend to watch the
jazz play in Mexico City.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Oh cool and we met there and then Was he working
for the jazz at the time?

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah or Vivint.
Okay, sorry, nate.
I don't remember.
But then, when they had aposition open, he met me on the
phone.
We talked for an hour and I gotdone and I I wasn't looking to
leave ancestry and I called mywife and I was like honey, I

(04:37):
think we have to take this oneseriously.
And I said I think I'll be abetter dad if I work at Gab and
I've definitely taken the pathless traveled in my career.
I've really much more successfulfriends that you guys should
have on this podcast.
But there's something aboutwhat we're doing at Gab that I

(04:57):
have been a better dad, yeah,and it matters a ton.
So, yeah, super proud of whatwe're doing at cabin?

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, so cool.
Well, why don't you give us aquick spiel?
Tell us a little about yourtime at ancestry, what ancestry
is, and let's just you know.
Take a quick minute so so thelisteners can understand who you
are, why they should actuallybe tuning in, Cause this podcast
we're going to get like getmeaty in this episode just to
let everybody know like therewill be actionable insights you
will be able to gain.
It's not just going to bestorytelling, it's going to be.

(05:27):
It's going to be some reallygood stuff.
So, give us a little bit ofspiel so people can understand.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
yeah so I fell into marketing.
Um, and I'm grateful I did.
I got my first job at ancestrywas a sophomore in college, nice
, michael shared.
Shout out to Michael in Dallasand what were you studying in

(05:50):
college, marketing?
I hadn't even taken a marketingclass and Michael, who was the
VP at Ancestry, took a chance ona young kid.
So I did several things atAncestry.
I actually worked at Ancestrytwice and I'll talk about that
really quickly, but I worked attwo different Ancestries.
So Ancestry, when I was firstthere, they were so much smaller

(06:15):
, so much smaller, a couplehundred million maybe in revenue
.
And now yeah, and then I left.
I went to work for the Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, which is a lot of coolexperience there, and then came
back to Ancestry and when I cameback you know billion dollar
company had DNA was just rightat the very beginning when I

(06:38):
came back.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Tell listeners what Ancestry is.
Now was Ancestry founded inUtah?
It was Because theirheadquarters were in San Fran,
right?
No, it's so, or did they justhave an office there?

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, just an office there, um, founded here.
Um.
Paul Allen, um uh, came up withthe idea and uh and said we
could be better at putting someof this stuff online.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
So Ancestry was started in 1983 as a publishing
business but then turned intomore of an online genealogy
family history in 90, you know,late 90s I did not realize it
was that old.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy, but so early part of
my career I got to do a lot ofdifferent things.
Figure out, you know, do I likethis, do I like this, do I like
that?
But I got to see how.
Ancestry grew from, you know, asmaller, more local niche
company to punching way abovetheir weight.

(07:38):
People think Ancestry is waybigger than it is, especially
outside of you know, we're inUtah.
Outside of Utah Ancestry I Imean their unaided awareness is
80s and it is uh, it is amazingwhy?

Speaker 4 (07:50):
how, how strong they are?

Speaker 1 (07:52):
um, so yeah, so to see that and I got to, I got to
see up close, especially younger, my career being like oh yeah,
okay, I see how tv played a rolehere yeah oh, I see how you
know.
You know, tv commercials playeda role here.
Oh, I see how you know, youknow, TV commercials played a
role here.
Oh, I see how digital over hereplayed a role.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
So what years were you there?
The first round?

Speaker 1 (08:12):
2005 to 2012.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Okay, so you experienced the emergence of
Facebook.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yes, yeah, like right around that, like Google Ads
was a thing, right, but like theemergence of actual social
advertising 100% and as I got tosee that and then come back in
2017 when DNA was just like itwas just at the beginning, yeah,
I remember, you know, my firstholiday.

(08:40):
I don't remember all thenumbers.
My ancestry friends are goinggonna comment and be like you
have those numbers off, but uh,maybe two million kits on a in
in a two-month period jeez Imean just so it's basically you
guys in like what 23 and me yeah, yeah and, and had a lot of
major, you know credible lessonshaving.

(09:03):
You know watching those twobrands go at each other and how,
how one came out on top and theother is struggling quite a bit
um and how they did that yeah,yeah.
So 23andme is struggling well,they were in the news recently.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
They uh um they got caught up with some some naughty
no-nos.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Some naughty no-nos.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I don't know all the details some privacy breaches.
I'm pretty removed, potentially.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
I'm pretty removed are they cloning people?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
maybe, maybe I might be one of them.
I used it and I'm so nervousnow, oh you did yeah.
Ken's and I did where's thereal Trevor?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
hi bring him back?
Who?

Speaker 4 (09:46):
knows, could be a clone, who knows?
They just swapped him out lastweek okay, so you ancestry and
then.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
And then, what year did you move over to gab?

Speaker 1 (09:54):
um, it was two years ago, so 2022 amazing yeah,
awesome.
And then been doing that eversince and, and you know, being a
gab, we've grown 60 in arr.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Wow, in two years good job and well no the team is
.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
I'm a big fan and and and I have had amazing mentors
help me understand this but it's, it's about hiring.
Oh, knowing your weaknesses andhiring to those weaknesses.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
And I know where I'm not very good yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
And my team at Gab is incredibly talented yeah, so
that's why it has very little todo with me.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
That's me too.
I know where I'm not good.
It's just like everything, soit's really easy.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
And me too.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
Man, yeah Just fill in the gaps.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
We all just are so self deprecating right now.
Oh yeah, it's just.
We all just are soself-deprecating right now.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
No, it's you, but hold on.
I want to back up for a secondbecause there's two interesting
things here.
I think the vertical thatyou've operated in is
interesting because you have anancestry, and then you have gab,
which are both about connectingfamilies, but in different ways
, right, but in different ways,right.
So ancestry connecting familieswith maybe more of a storied

(11:08):
tradition, also the DNA markersso that people would understand
maybe what they're at risk for,et cetera, their genomes and
then you have gab, which is kindof more that immediate
intrafamily connection.
That's right.
So that's pretty interestingthat you've been in this family
business twice Now.

(11:28):
The next thing I want to diveinto before we get into Gab
specifically, is 2007 to 2012was a pretty big paradigm
shifting moment for advertisersand marketers because of the
emergence of social media.
But you were not there whenInstagram became a thing and
became a boom.
So when you went back in 2017,that's kind of peak Instagram

(11:51):
boom period and that's when thealgorithms and attribution
people are getting obsessed withthat.
So I just want to ask you aquestion In 2007 to 2012, you
were playing with a lot oftraditional advertising Very
much With very weak attribution.
Yes, unless you're using like amarketing mix model, right

(12:13):
Mm-hmm and using more of like a.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Back then Ancestry wasn't doing that.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, okay, so they're not doing that.
So you're not using anyadvanced techniques.
You were just using it tryingto see where the correlations
were right.
That's right.
So how did that help you?
In today's world, where peoplegot so obsessed with attribution
and understanding where everysingle dollar is spent, how has
that helped you provide growthto a company?
Or trying to understand whereevery single dollar is spent?

(12:38):
Or trying to understand like howdo you go about attribution and
where do you say it does notmatter?
To put at this point Like, yes,it matters, but there's a line
that you cross that's just sunkcost that you never recover.
So how have you found that line?

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Such a good question, mark.
So I think that I think that,first of all, I want to say
attribution is really important.
I think that there's never beena better time to be a marketer
ever.
We can understand, and at Gab,when I first came to Gab, we

(13:19):
were relying on third-partyplatform data to make decisions.
On third party platform data tomake decisions, yep, and I
worked with somebody at AncestryActually, it was a smaller
agency Bonsai started thatfriend of mine and he was at
Google forever and he startedthis agency.
There's a better way to measure.

(13:39):
There's a better way to measure, so I immediately brought him
on as an agency to help us outand they have transformed us at
gab.
Like we are, we have betterdata than I've ever had, ever in
the history of me being amarketer.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
I, I, we do a can you explain exactly what they do
with their, with their model, oris it proprietary?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
no, no, no.
One thing I love aboutbonsonsai is geez.
I'm doing an ad, matt, I'm here, man.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
But they were first party cookie all the way.
We don't even rely on thirdparty.
Yep.
And we first started with it.
We didn't even have a datawarehouse, so it's getting all
of our data in one spot and theyhelped us do that.
And then we took that data andwe started just to look at a

(14:32):
multi-touch attribution.
Look at what we were doing aswe started to grow over the year
.
Plus, we started to get moreand more into brand, where
you're not going to see theattribution necessarily.
So now we do a six-month lookback every other month in MMM.
So in the past I would do anMMM and I'm going to get to your

(14:54):
question mark, but I would doan MMM and it would take three
or four months just to even getall the data in there and yada,
yada, and then you're lookingsix months back and it wasn't
worth it.
It was it was like thanks, thatwas thanks.
It's now may yeah you'retelling me what I did december
to july last year cool yeahthanks.
Now we're getting like live,like how we're doing what's

(15:16):
incremental, what's notincremental.
But what ancestry in the earlydays taught me?
Where we didn't have a lot ofthat measurement is you can't.
There's a lot of ways that wemarket um, that you have to use
your creativity and you have torealize that it's not all going
to be 100% measurable.

(15:37):
Yeah, so you have to say youhave to know your audience
enough to say where are they,where are they really listening?
Your audience enough to saywhere are they, where are they
really listening?
We started testing out podcastsand the numbers aren't blowing
me out of the water, but it'ssuch a unique way to talk about
Gab.

(15:57):
You know we work with thesehosts.
Give them our, give them ourproduct, let them use it for a
little bit, and then you know,we ask, and then we ask for a 30
to 60 second spot.
Well, they're talking for threeminutes.
They're like oh my gosh, this isso cool because I can do this
with my kid and I say and I'vetalked to my team over and over
like you can't buy that andyou're not going to be able to

(16:20):
measure it, and it's not goingto be like tomorrow we're going
to get a sale from that, measureit.
And it's not going to be liketomorrow we're going to get a
sale from that.
It's going to be that momlistening to this other mom
going.
I'm going to keep that in mind.
Like that's, I don't even knowthat existed.
Which is our biggest problem atgab is people don't know that
there is safe tech yeah so thatwas a long answer, mark.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
I don't know if that was that got to where you were
saying it's attribution isreally important Finding the
line where because because Ithink what we're getting at is
ancestry and gab, I think havebigger marketing budgets.
There's a lot of money raisedin these kinds of tech companies
, but a lot of our listeners aremore of the e-comm side of

(16:59):
things.
Yep, and in e-comm there's beensuch a push for attribution and
all these things.
But what we have found is a lotof times, those attribution
models.
I don't want to say a lie, butthey give you a vanity metric
that doesn't actually give youthe incremental growth over time
.
Yes, Because you're not fillingthe top bucket.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yes, Sales overnight brand over time my mentor top
bucket.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, sales overnight.
Brand over time yeah, my mentor.
So how do you build the brandover time and measure that, that
build, which takes time to do,but it is possible.
And it and MMMs these days, Imean, we're not going to get too
technical today, but there youcan hijack MMMs with AI modeling
now, so you don't actually haveto wait, it's, it's it's not
the time lag.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, it's not the time lag that people's not the
time lag that people think it doyou want to explain what an m&m
is, mms?
Just like an m&m, but withanother m on it give the 20
second explanation, becausewe're we're using that term,
yeah, yeah um, uh, yeah, so it'scalled a mixed marketing model
or marketing mixed model, Idon't know.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
People say both Yep, and essentially all it is.
Tldr is you are running acorrelation analysis of the
impact of each channel on yourbusiness and on each other so
you're able to determine hey, ismy TV advertising giving me an

(18:21):
incremental lift past whatevermean or whatever?
However, you're measuring it inmy direct traffic, yep, and is
that providing sales or is italso providing a lift in my
social media organic reach?
Is it so that way you can say,hey, for every dollar spent on
meta, spent on meta, for example, I know that it has a lift of

(18:51):
1.5 on average in my directtraffic, but it also lifts my
organic search by 1.2.
So then you come up with thisdollar figure of like your
return on that dollar spent forawareness versus like return on
actual sales over time.
But there's there's things inMMMs called weights.
So when you're doingstatistical analysis, you have
to weight things, becausethere's just certain factors

(19:11):
that a model doesn't know unlessyou tell it.
So for, for, an example of whata weight would be is
ancestrycom, if they're runningthis MMM, or if Gab's running an
MMM.
They have to understand whatyour like by consideration
window is.
They have to understand whatyour buy consideration window is
because that helps youunderstand what the look back
window is.
There's no point in lookingback 12 months if people's buy

(19:31):
window is nine weeks.
But most people right, and theproblem with attribution and
that's why people are movinginto this MMM world is your
cookie window that you can passback to Facebook or in these
digital advertising channels isonly 28 days.
Yeah, yep, now you do havefirst party cookies that say
they'll keep it for 90, but thepassback window is only 28.

(19:55):
That's right, so you can onlyoptimize for 28 days yeah at
that, at a maximum.
and facebook, technically youcan only maximize for seven.
Yeah, right, the seven dayclick, one day view, that's
right, or seven-day click?

Speaker 3 (20:06):
So yeah, that's more technical than I expected you to
.
Yeah, there's a little way out,I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
I should have cut it off.
No, that's good.
That's basically TLDR, yeah,and there's different techniques
.
There's Bayesian techniques andthere's whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
But, I think.
What I'd like to underline,what you said, though, is it's
easier now than it's ever been,and even if you're a smaller
company a much smaller companythere's ways for you, Um, and
there there are partners thatyou can.
You can go and search out.
That isn't going to break yourbank, you know, depending on
where you're at Um, but it'sthat idea of and, honestly, if

(20:41):
you're small enough, youprobably just need to go.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Hey, we did this initiative on the 10th did we
see any lift from it within 14days.
That's why I'm like it's.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
It's even easier like you don't have to get into that
much detail we kind of had this.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
We've talked about this a lot.
It's like it's so crazy how farwe've come with how much
technology is out there thatactually, sometimes, depending
on how big you are I think, thesmaller you are, the more
confusing it makes you.
I think, as you get bigger andyou can afford to hire these
people who can create thesemodels that really, really work.
I think a lot of these brands,I would probably say and you

(21:17):
guys might disagree with me,like anybody probably under the
$25 million mark and and under,like you, you can get away with
having less oh, much less andyou could maybe even make an
argument around 50 million andunder right, and it just depends
on how complicated the businessis.
but but yeah, we're almost overcomplicating so much stuff that

(21:38):
it's it's like, hey, we have allthis stuff to do it, but it's
like what is it telling me?
Versus on the 10 the 10th, Iincreased my meta budget 55%.
How much traffic did I see grow?
How much revenue did I see grow?
How many more products did wesell?
Did we at all?
And you can kind of just startto just measure from there, like
, okay, we saw a lift that wassustainable.

(22:00):
Our acquisition costs onlyincreased 10%.
Therefore, this was a good move.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Well, one of the things that anyone can do,
whether you're a $25,050,000 or$100,000, it doesn't matter
whatever, and we actually relyon MMTs, which is match market
tests, where you take a market,that you take two markets that
are very, very similar and you-.

Speaker 4 (22:23):
Now, when you say market, are you saying
geographic region of a market ora?

Speaker 1 (22:26):
demographic Like a geographic region that are very
similar.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
So like Nashville and and like Orlando, orlando.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Okay, whatever you take those and you say I'm going
to do this, I'm going to dothis type of marketing here and
I'm going to hold everythingelse constant.
You don't need someone to anagency or whoever to tell you
how to do that.
Yeah.
And we've done that.
That's to me.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
Another name for that's called a holdout test,
holdout Sure.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
And for people just.
Yes On the digital side,because he's talking geographic
regions, which would be the MMT.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
So we rely on those MMTs or holdouts to really give
us, because MMM will give you adirectional.
You know your, your, yourmulti-touch attribution will
give you directional, but youknow a match market test will go
.
Oh my gosh, when we did that inOrlando that made a difference.
Look what traffic was inOrlando versus Nashville and
those were acting the exact samethe previous 90 days.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
And I just can I add something to what you're saying
is what he's referring to rightnow for the listeners is
directional, would be likechannels, right?
So multi-attribution modelshelp you understand the channels
he's saying.
With the holdout test, this isbasically a creative test to
understand what substance ofadvertising and messaging is
working in those markets, right?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, yes, and so we just did a test with Meta, um,
and we said, hey, we're weak inthis part of the country, um,
and, and that that part of thecountry is so similar to this
part of the country, we're,we're going, the country we're
we're going to, we're going topump up our spend, um, and it

(24:07):
wasn't crazy, but pump up ourspend in meta, in this part of
the country, for six weeks tosee how, if, if, we can get
these, these, these markets toact, similar.
Yeah, and we saw someincredible results.
We go whoa, okay, so metaclearly is going to help us in
this region.
Let's continue to do that.

(24:27):
What if we layer on somethingon top of that?
What if we layer on anotherchannel?
But you can also do creative.
Like you said, it could be acreative test 100%.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
But here's my question Are you separating,
because a lot of people saybroad on meta right yeah a lot
of people say broad on meta,right, yeah, so get in, get into
that a little bit if you thinkit's well, if it's worth it for
smaller brands to try geographicregions, because meta will bias
itself to whatever yourcustomer base currently is.

(24:58):
So if your customer base is 80%California, meta will spend 80%
in California, always, unlessyou nudge it right yes,
typically or unless yourmessaging changes so much that
it's not resonating inCalifornia.
Yep, so what he's saying ishe's run into problems where,
like, okay, like the messaginghas changed, but we're still

(25:21):
targeting California.
So, like, how do we actuallygrow this geographic region or
this demographic of people?
Right, yeah, so, so, yeah, soyou go into this region, you do
the holdout test, the MMT verse,whatever you find success with
meta.
So you're doing a geographicbased target.
Yes, you're, you're, you'regoing, you're raising budgets,

(25:43):
and then you say, okay, nowlet's layer on a new channel.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yes, now did the message change in that holdout
test.
No cause.
They got to keep thoseconsistent Otherwise.
Otherwise it turns into acreative test and you're adding
your variables.
So you try to keep what youwant.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
So all you were doing was saying we just need to get
the spend up in this area.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
More impressions.
What do more impressions mean?
Because again, that's whereit's really hard.
You got it, you got to use yourgut a little bit.
Yeah, you got to say I don'tknow if I'm able to totally
measure all this, but will theseimpressions make a difference?
Sure, um, so I have.
I have a close friend uh worked, uh and meta forever, and he'll

(26:19):
, he'll argue, meta has beendoing this forever.
Trust them, just trust theiralgorithm to go do their job.
Yep, and I do think that thereis truth to that.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
Which 90% of the time , works every time.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
But in the scenario you just said, mark right, it
was gosh well.
We've been growing inCalifornia.
Can we grow outside ofcalifornia?
Because, meta just keeps sayingcalifornia is great, yeah, yeah
so which you'll.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
What happens just for our listeners to get into the
meat and potatoes here is you'llstart seeing certain top line
metrics or your uh leadindicators.
Your kpis, like frequency, willstart going up in that region
because the algorithm gets stuckin the mud a little.
Yeah, and that's how you canmeasure.
Hey, for example, an easy oneis go look at your audience

(27:12):
segments and go look how muchyour frequency has risen over
the last three months with yourexisting customers.
Yeah.
Like you'll notice all of asudden, oh, if you're not
excluding those existingcustomers, like you're
retargeting them 20 times a week.
Like you'll notice all of asudden, oh, if you're not
excluding those existingcustomers, like you're
retargeting them 20 times a week, like you're not getting
incremental growth out of that,that is wasted spend, and I'll
fight anyone on it because we'vealready run these tests.

(27:34):
Yes, so what he's saying islike okay, we know that we grew
in California, but now ourfrequencies are going up.
They're looking at these topline KPIs, their CPMs might be
rising Fre up.
They're looking at these topline KPIs, their CPMs might be
rising, frequencies are going up, so their cost per 1000 reach
has really gone up.
So like, and that's the otherthing, right, because people

(27:55):
look at CPMs, like you said,impressions, which is a good
indicator, but sometimes youhave a really low CPM because
the Facebook algorithm is givingyou an advantage to retarget
people that aren't really goingto buy.
So it's the cost per reach goesup, but a lot of people don't
look at cost per 1,000 reached.
So are those the measures thatyou're looking at?
And then you're saying, okay,something's wrong here.
We need to now look atexpanding and pushing the

(28:17):
algorithm in a way we want it to.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah, I won't even because you just nailed it.
That's so many things.
That's you just kind ofdescribed a little bit of our
journey.
Well, a lot of our journey atgab.
I'll add one more little nuance.
Um, we were two years ago whenI joined.
We were so heavily reliant onmeta.
We weren't even doing much insearch um and there was a lot of

(28:41):
search demand to go grab and wesaw CPMs rising in meta.
So we went and we just lookedat every state.
You know big DMAs in the US andwe just categorized them into
you know negative ROAS hey,we're not getting return in this

(29:01):
region right now.
And then positive ROAS doingreally, really well, and then
ROAS that's breakeven Okay,there might be something here
and we just turned down spendwhere we were not doing well and
said we're just going to takethat spend.
I didn't go ask for more money,we just said same amount of

(29:21):
money, we're just going to takethat spend and we're going to
pump up these two areas that arereally, really like this one
shows promise where we're, atleast you know, even on ROAS,
and this one shows, you know,some positive growth and that
has changed our marketing, maybemore than anything we've done,
because now we're taking thatapproach throughout the United

(29:44):
States, cause, again, ourbiggest problem at gab is
awareness.
Do you know that there is asafe tech alternative when you
are, when your kid is saying Iwant a phone, I want a phone,
and they're nine or 10.
Um, how do we, how do you getthe mom to say not just to go
into Verizon and Adeline?
So so we've seen dmas, you knowchicago, uh, you know dallas,

(30:08):
la, um, atlanta just start totake off and now we were just
looking at data two days ago therust belt is starting to really
take off.
Now we still have some regionsthat are not that great.
Yeah, so we're, we're lettingthose lie while we grow these
other regions, because there'splenty of TAM total addressable

(30:30):
market to go out and get.
But yeah, I would layer thatonto what you said, mark, and
that's kind of been our journeywith layering on a lot of brand
media.
We've done it.
We're doing a lot more TV,because I learned that from
Ancestry.
Yeah.
What made the biggest differencefor Ancestry back in the day,

(30:51):
when measurement wasn't all upin your face, was they built a
brand.
It's why they punch above theirweight.
Right.
They built a brand and and Iknow that Gab needs to build
their brand, yeah, and so we'vedone.
We've done linear tv, um, withour, with an agency, um we've

(31:15):
we've done streaming youtubequite a bit, um, and podcasting
and and can I ask you about whatyour percentage of spend is in
traditional media versus digitalor new age?

Speaker 4 (31:32):
And when you say new age, we've defined new age as
podcasts, right?
Digital marketing, youtube andI know digital marketing kind of
covers a lot of that.
But new age is essentially allthe new mediums that people are
watching and on wheretraditional I even include.
I include Netflix andtraditional so like linear.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
I would say that's traditional advertising because
it's still TV based, it'sinterrupting a show or whatever
it might be.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
It fluctuates, um, and one of the things that we're
trying to get better at ishaving a constant brand.
Drum you again it's, it's, it'ssales overnight brand over time
.
Yeah, so how do you have aconsistent beat that isn't
fluctuating with?
Oh my gosh, I have more morningmoney this month because it's a

(32:22):
bigger month with back toschool, because that's a big
time for us.
We have more money to go spend,so let's go spend.
No, let's in those other monthswe've got to stay consistent
with our brand spend.
It's traditional, versus, versus.
You know new age.
As you put it, it's probably 30traditional.
Put it, it's probably 30traditional, uh, maybe 35.

(32:48):
Can I ask you a politicsquestion now?

Speaker 4 (32:50):
okay, wow we're taking yes, let's go, please.
We discuss politics becausewe're not discussing politics
but the marketing strategies ofeach presidential campaign.
Where the the harris camp hasbeen very traditional, the Trump
camp has been very new age,which is interesting because
Obama was more new age.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
He was very like grassroots, grassroots,
grassroots and very digital.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
I can't remember.
I mean because that was 2008when he was first elected.
So was that Twitter?
Was Twitter around in 2008?
I literally don't know.
I think so, was it yeah?
Yep in 2008?
I literally don't know.
I think so, was it yeah?
So the question I have is like,if you were going to critique
these campaigns, what would yousay?
Would you say you should beleaning into new age or you

(33:35):
should be leaning intotraditional?

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Speaker 1 (34:55):
The answer is is you?
It depends on where you're atas a brand.
Yeah.
But the more you ignore, themore you ignore.
Big mass media say tv is dead.
It's not.
It has made a huge difference.
Our traffic is up double yearon year.
Do you know why?
It's tv.
Tv has made all of thedifference.

(35:16):
And you would go.
Come on, people are cuttingcords, right come on nobody,
nobody, no, no.
And TV has gotten better andeasier to buy.
You can buy TV in no matterwhat size of company you are.
You had to.
It was so hard to buy TV before.
It's so easy to buy TV now.
And I'm not saying, go out andblow your budget on TV, but

(35:39):
you've got to start using thosebig, big swings.
I'll tell you one example.
So when we were first startingon tv, our agency came to us and
said hey, uh, it was game fiveof the world series, game six.
I don't, I'm not a baseball guyI love baseball, but I remember

(36:00):
it was the last game and theysaid, hey, we got a fire sale.
Is this last year?
Last year?
Is this?
Who was in arizona and was itthe phillies?

Speaker 3 (36:07):
wait, when are the?

Speaker 4 (36:08):
padres.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
I don't have the padres ever gone, or were they
just before?
They might have got eliminatedjust before I don't know, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Arizona yes yes, yes, it was.
So our agency came to us andsaid we got one spot in game,
five or six, whatever.
It was November 1.
It was right to kick offholiday for us.
Do you want it?
And I said how much.
They said they gave me theamount.
It was $32,000 for a spot and Iwas like let's do it, let's do

(36:41):
it.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
But I'm imagining you , you, you just are.
You already mentioned this.
You said Dallas was one of yourgrowing areas, and so yeah, was
it.
The Rangers?

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yes, yeah, so you had , you had.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Texas and Arizona.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Phoenix is growing, yes, and I said and I said, okay
, yes, we looked at the teamsand we said let's go for it,
let's see what happens right,yeah, no, mmm here, no, like,
let's just.
And our site went down.
We took down Gab.
Now, bummer that we took downGab, but we had so much traffic

(37:16):
within five minutes after thatspot aired and everybody had
their phone blowing up.
Oh my gosh, I just saw you inthe World Series.
What there's up.
Oh my gosh, I just saw you inthe World Series, what there's
something.
Yes, traffic Measurable, great.
But there's somethingintangible about when somebody
sees your product and I don'twant to be this whole thing
about TV I don't want to overindex here.

(37:37):
No, no, no.
But you see a product on TV, yougo, oh, they're for real.
Oh yeah, okay, they're for real.
This isn't like something youscroll past on on meta.
Sure, yeah, I've seen them onmeta, but I just that's a,
that's a solid, that's a solidstory they're telling.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
It's almost like.
It's almost like we talk aboutsocial proof as someone else
having to give the brand thatright.
A testimony is social proof, arating is social proof, ugc is
social proof.
You know, influencers even canbe social proof, yeah.
But there's something about,yeah, seeing tv and being like

(38:19):
they must be something somethinglegit, right, it's almost like
the paid.
So it's almost like paid socialproof.
You can just like manufacture.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
Like an influencer.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah but it's almost kind of like what followers were
back in 2018, right, I jump on.
You have 100,000 followers likewhoa, a million followers.
These guys must be legit.
I'm buying from them.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yes, you know, yeah, sorry, keep going.
No, no, hopefully that'shelpful yeah, brand legitimacy
yeah, now you can over index,and, and, and I think that so
that's my question do you thinkthese camps?

Speaker 4 (38:54):
if you were going to be an outside consultant, would
you say, hey, harris, you needto, you're lean to, you're
overexed into this mainstream,traditional channel.
Or what would you say toTrump's team?

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Would you say you guys are way over-indexed into
social Well, again, I thinkthere are probably some smart
people on both sides doing somegood things, but I think that to
me— being generous there.
I think that I know I'm hedginghere, but I would say I feel
very comfortable in a 70 30 mixwhere 70 percent is in what you

(39:33):
call New Age, this very digitalworld, and 30 percent is pretty
mass and but you got to makesure that you're creative, is
telling a positive brand storyacross those, because they do
connect in people's minds.
It's not linear in a story, athrough line, but it's they're

(39:56):
going to associate you so withthose spots.
So to me it's would lean moreon the the new age side, for
sure, um, but to forget abouttraditional um, I think is a
miss yeah, because I don't thinkeither of them.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
I mean, the harris campaign just came out and did a
podcast with caller daddy andIs that more new age yet?
So that's her first, I thinklike new age appearance.
Yeah.
But yeah, we talked about thisa couple of weeks ago.
We said, yeah, it's interestingbecause Trump's team is
dominating search traffic.
That's not.
He also, I believe, wasdominating search traffic during

(40:38):
the Biden the Biden campaign in2020.
I don't remember.
But nonetheless, like theinterest is up, like you get a
lot of surge, and then we'relike, well, it also could be
demographic, right, because theyalso know who their core
demographics are.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Yeah, and so maybe Kamala has to relate to the
older demographics.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
So she's leaning traditional, and maybe Trump's
trying to get a youngerdemographic, so he's leaning new
age.
Yeah, totally.
So that could also be part ofthis mix that we're not
necessarily seeing.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Yeah, Because there's core strategies with politics
which are a little differentthan businesses.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Like they kind of forget about their core.
It is and it's a short come out, it's a short term outcome.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
It's November, November, November, November.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Versus building a brand over time.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
But it is interesting just to think from a brand
perspective, like, oh, you gotto know who your core audience
is.
Right, they're both trying notto alienate their core audience,
their core customer, andthey're both trying to get
people to come in.
Yeah, and that's similar towhat you did, right?
Like I have a geographic region.
I already know who my core is.
Hey, I need this geographicregion to go up.
Like, how do I relate to thatone geographic region?

(41:42):
Maybe it's just simply gettingmore spend there, yeah, or maybe
you need to change a messagefor that region.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
How are you?
One question I'm curious aboutis because I love this
discussion around brand right,because so many people are so
interested in when I spend adollar, how do I make that
dollar back plus X amount more?
And oftentimes when youintroduce a branding strategy,
you have to start to.
You have to start to be morepatient with when that dollar is
going to come back into yourpocket, and it could be three

(42:09):
months and it could be two years, depending on, or never or
never, yeah, very much so.
So what are you doing to makesure that you're so?
Let's just take one of these.
You've you've given us a lot ofreally good examples, which is
like okay, cool, we noticed that, uh, the Dallas market is doing
really really well, so we wantto up our spend over there.
When you up your meta spendover there, is that when you go

(42:31):
to your traditional team, do youalso start to say, okay, we saw
the positive lift over there,now let's start getting more
brand over there?
How are you making the decisionwhere to put the brand?

Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, so in where we can control it, you know, like
for YouTube or streaming it's,it's.
It's easier to say let's, let'sgive a little more juice in
Dallas, Yep, Um, in linear it'smore national, Sure, Um.
I mentioned that we werestarting to see some really good

(43:01):
movement in the Rust Belt andthat's because I think, where I
don't think the, the TV thatwe've been targeting, I think a
lot of people in the rust belt,and that's because I think,
where I don't think the, the tvthat we've been targeting, I
think a lot of people in therust belt, it like hits them,
like it's it's it's the tv thatI think that they resonate with
most, and we've been running tvfor a year, so, uh, I think that
that's having an impact.
Um, but you asked, like howyour dollar in, how much you can

(43:24):
dollar a dollar out, twodollars in, like you got to
measure this the way we measureit right now, because we really
do got to be cost conscious.
We don't have the budget ofAncestry.
Sure, sure, it's about traffic.
Yeah.
So we measure our brand spanagainst traffic Cool, against

(43:48):
traffic Cool and peoplesearching for gab on Google,
which are, which are, are easyways for us to say, as spend is
going up in brand, what, what istraffic doing to our site?
Yes.
And what is searches?
What are searches?
You know what's the trend withpeople searching for gab.
Yeah, that's tangible.
You can hold it and it and thenyou know retargeting those
folks you, you can start to seeare, are they are, you know, as

(44:10):
we retarget them on meta.
How are they working out?
Is it successful, is it not so?
That's, that's a way to maybetiptoe into brand yep, um,
that's more tangible becausewhere where marketers getting
themselves into trouble is theCFO or the CEO isn't necessarily
a marketer, and so they'll saywhoa, whoa, whoa, what are you

(44:34):
doing with our money?
And you have to be able tojustify it.
So, even going back to what wewere talking about at the
beginning, mark, it was, hey, atthe beginning of my career, my
career didn't have a lot ofmeasurement.
Now I do it.
I've got to be able to talk tofinance with a finance lens.
I got to be able to speak theirlanguage.

(44:55):
Yeah, otherwise it's alwaysgoing to be an argument yeah,
you can't have that money sureyou're not doing anything.
Why you just cut that over there?
Well, no, because that's doinggood.
How?
How is it doing good?
You have to be, have to be ableto give a story.
So right now, at Gab, that'sone of the primary ways is we
are saying let's look at traffic, let's look at search, let's

(45:18):
use an MMM to help usdirectionally understand what's
happening.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
I don't know if Trevor got your answer and,
depending on how advanced yourMMM is, a bigger company will be
able to determine that top linetraffic coming in.
So if you have new users,there's predictive models where
you can say, hey, based off ofbounce rates and average time on
site, like you can justify thespend because in the past, like

(45:44):
we can't say we got the moneyback now.
But if you're talking tofinance, you can say, hey, we
dedicated 15% of budget to this,this is the traffic, this is
how interested they are.
We can say that we should seethis kind of projection out from
like three months from now.
If we don't, then we know itwas a failure.
Yep, so you don't have to hidethe fact that it might be a
failure, but you have to tellthe story of well, this is the

(46:07):
logic behind it.
We're not just throwing moneyand we actually just had that
conversation with a client ofours.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, I was going to bring up this example.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
It's like hey, this isn't a home run yet.
We just started this test aweek ago, but you're still
projected to do better profitsthan you did in the last five
months, so it's not a huge win.
It's not a huge loss.
We're going to have to go aweek and kind of measure this
out.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Well, the other thing to talk about storytelling is
like there's been clients andpeople we've worked with too who
have had really, really strongabilities to retain customers
right.
They have products that justpromote buying over and over and
over and over again and, andyou know, when you build
something, you know a lifetimevalue analysis.
Over 12 months or two years orwhatever it might be, you can

(46:56):
see that this brand is wildlyprofitable just within 12 months
.
And so there's been times wherewe've conned to people to say,
hey, obviously it's, it's ourgoal to.
It should be your goal toacquire customers at a net
positive if you can.
But we know that if you stopspending money on acquisition
and trying to build your brand,that will acquire customers.

(47:17):
What is going to eventuallyhappen is you are going to
you're going to start losingmore customers mirrors than
you're bringing in, and you haveto be able to fill that bucket
because everyone it doesn'tmatter how great you are at it-
and this conversation alwayshappens September, October.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
Yeah, for sure, For sure, Because I don't know about
Gab, but in the e-commerceworld your best returning
cohorts are August, September,October.
Like you, those cohorts comeback and pay you back twofold in
November.
But people want to cut spendbecause their acquisition costs
start going up as you're nearingNovember and you're like I mean

(47:52):
, yeah, you can cut spend, butthen you're just going to miss
out on this new cohort thatcomes back at 20%, 40%, 50%.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
You guys do good during breakfast school, but
don't you guys crush duringBlack Friday 100%.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
So you guys are probably seeing the same thing,
right, we?

Speaker 3 (48:07):
went to buy this Black Friday and the site was
down.
Yeah, I think, if I recall.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
I know I'm so sorry.
Everybody watching I'm so sorrywe're getting better, we are,
we are.
That is the that's for thoselistening.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
It's a crazy deal.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, the things that I learned at ancestry.
You know ancestries.
You know, when I was thereearly on, they went public, then
they went private, then theygot bought again and they got
bought again and so they'remeticulous.
Their finance team over thereis tops, yeah, um, they're
meticulous on where dollars arespent.
Um, that's why I think you know, especially in this area,
there's so many former ancestrypeople are all over because we
cut our teeth.
Yeah.
You know, learning that way.
You know, Karen Peterson atChatbooks is one of my good
friends.
Like we all cut our teeth thatway, yeah.

(48:54):
So to get to your question, Iknow that this can maybe make
people feel a little heartburn,but we categorize our media in
two different places.
One is is this dollar meant toacquire a customer or is this
dollar meant to introducesomeone to our brand?
Two different jobs to be done,Cool.

(49:15):
And we measure our CAC, ourcost to acquire that customer,
based on our dollar that's goingout to acquire the customer.
That's going out to acquire thecustomer and our brand, spend
people introducing our brand topeople.
Better, keep that dollar figurelow so you can performance

(49:37):
media yourself into the ground,where you are just search,
search, search.
I'm just capturing all thedemand for everybody who's
searching for me.
It's good, but your costs youjust said it the costs are going
to start going up and theneventually you're going to be
like it's too expensive toacquire a customer.
That's why you have to startlayering on some of these brand
market.
You know brand channels andmeasure it in an appropriate way

(50:01):
, totally and the biggestoverall measurement.
You can go to your CEO or yourCFO and say look at our
performance media, where it's adollar to acquire a customer For
us, it's gone down.
Competition has gone up for Gabthere's more, there's, you know
, custom media has gone up, butour costs in performance media

(50:22):
is down year on year.
Why?
Because we're spending more inbrand and so our overall total
media cac is actually going up.
But our performance media cacis going down because we're
bringing more and more peopleinto the funnel and the dollars
that are introducing people togab more and more new eyeballs.
Yes, yes, and so you that's whenyou're starting out you just

(50:45):
want to go capture demand.
That's totally, that totallymakes out.
You just want to go capturedemand.
That's totally, that totallymakes sense.
But you're going to start tosee costs rise and when you
start doing that, you have tostart thinking how am I going to
build my brand story?
What channels can I start touse to build a brand story and
start to layer it on, becausethat's going to help you bring
those costs somewhat in line towhere the market is Totally.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
That's good, yeah, you bring those costs somewhat
in line to where the market is.
Totally.
That's good, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
What advice do you have?
Because what's been cool is Ithink you've done a pretty good
job at this, but I think we canget a little more specific.
Gab, I know your budget's notas big as Ancestry but it's
bigger than a lot of people thatare probably listening to this
podcast right now.
Okay, and I'd probably say evenmore, the majority of people
listening to this podcast.
What?
are your recommendations for thebrand who's in that like under

(51:36):
$5 million range to startworking on building that brand
story?
Working on building that brandstory like what?
What are you?
What are?
Those what are those quick wins?
Or or safer yeah, you knowtests that these people can be
running and doing?
Yeah any, any thoughts.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
I think this is interesting too, because you
you've worked for companies thathave sensitive topics, right
with gab.
When you're talking about childsafe tech, you also have to
talk about pornography predators.
There's a very dark side tothat message.
With Ancestry, when you guysgot into the bio field, there's

(52:17):
a lot of flack that you can getfor that.
There's a lot of oppositionthat people would probably come
out and attack you guys for.
So I think this this is aninteresting question for you not
to hijack, but you've had todeal with sensitive subjects.
So how do you build a brand andtell a story that you can build
upon for if you're just startingout?

Speaker 1 (52:39):
yeah.
So two questions the one, the 5million, or 5 million or less,
I would say that go intochannels that are that are
measurable.
I've talked a lot about TV.
If you're 5 million dollars, Idon't necessarily think that TV

(52:59):
is the next place, somewherelike layering on a top of funnel
.
You know, more traffic campaignon meta would be a good place
to start and just and just seewhat happens.
Right, go into YouTube andtarget the same type of people
that are coming to your site onYouTube to see what happens.

(53:20):
Don't throw don't throwthousands of dollars, throw
hundreds of dollars and see whathappens.
Cool, I could go into much moredepth, but I think that's a
good place to start and then seewhat happens with traffic.
I'd say what happens.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Watch traffic.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Watch traffic, watch your search.
Are people searching for yourterms?
More Yep, and then again, I'dbe very measured to say I'm
going to do this in Atlanta.
Yeah.
So that you aren't goingnational and you can say what's
happening in Atlanta, sure.
And you can be even moreprecise, and you can feel more
comfortable, but be brave, yeah,be brave, don't, don't be

(53:55):
scared.
Be brave, go do it.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
As far as sensitive topics Um were you saying brave
for Atlanta, cause the Atlantabraves?

Speaker 1 (54:02):
Yeah, exactly Pun intended.
That's exactly what I wassaying.
One thing I want to add to thatone thing.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
We've had this guy.
We keep quoting this, but doyou know who Alex MacArthur is?

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yeah, he doesn't know me, but I know him.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
He came on the podcast and he his belief system
is very similar to your beliefsystem, right?
The things that you'vedescribed and what he says is
his famous quote that we'vequoted probably 15 times since
he's been on is sales, follow,search, right, and that's why
Russ is saying look at search,look at traffic, because that is

(54:38):
going to be the next bestindicator that somebody's going
to buy.
That's why in media buying,people are gonna look at the
link click-through rate and notjust the click-through rate,
because link click-through rateis going to be one step closer
to understanding if thatperson's interested in
purchasing versus just clicking.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
So sorry.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Go ahead, you can answer his question now but I
want to kind of like circle thatyeah, yeah, connect those
pieces Well.
Yeah, connect those pieces Well.
And, like I said, like againthe shout out to you know Mike
Linton, who CMO at Farmers, ebay, best Buy, and he was my
manager at Ancestry and I stilltalk to him today and he has a

(55:19):
cool podcast too Again, I'vequoted him several times which
is it's sales overnight, brandover time, sales overnight brand
over time.
Don't sacrifice so sensitivetopics.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
Because a lot of brands, when they're starting
out, they're afraid they mightnot have a sensitive topic about
their brand.
But they're afraid of rubbingshoulders with the wrong
audience or saying somethingthat might be inflammatory about
a competitor.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Drawing a line in the sand.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
So they almost just kind of sit there in this kind
of tepid marketing approach.
That's not very intriguing.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
So I'm talking to myself Basically because, like
you said, be brave.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
I think you have to be brave when you're starting
out, so how would you?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
I'm talking to myself just as much as I'm talking to
anybody listening.
Yeah, sometimes we think morepeople look at our marketing
than are looking at ourmarketing totally.
So we're afraid to like make amistake.
Um, you can make a mistake.
There's two kinds of mistakes.
There's's a mistake like oh mygosh, I talked to my competitor
this way, or I or I, you knowwhatever it was.

(56:30):
I don't know if I should havedone that.
Yeah, versus.
Oh my gosh, I hit a huge hotbutton in in politics or
whatever that that could, youknow, hurt me.
If you're a smaller brand, bothof those are the.
The risk is pretty small ifyou're a bigger brand.
That second one is really,really important to ask yourself

(56:52):
what's core to our brand,what's our brand promise, and is
this a story that delivers on abrand promise?
So at ancestry, we had recordsthat talked about you know you,
you know women's, you knowability to vote.
That's a that could beconsidered a hot button topic or
a lot of, a lot of contentaround slavery.

(57:13):
Yep.
We were really, reallythoughtful because we knew what
our brand stood for aroundtalking about those things, not
shying away, talking about thosethings in the right way.
Yeah.
Um, and we made some mistakes.
I one in particular we probablydon't have time to talk about,
but we ran a commercial inCanada, thought we'd run it in

(57:33):
the US and it backfired.
After that we learned from itand we said we've got to get a
group of people who are from allaround the world here to just
again.
This is more for a bigger brandbut let's have them look at our
content.
Who are from?
all around the world here tojust again.
This is more for a bigger brand, but let's have them look at
our content.
We're getting to that placewhere we got to be really
thoughtful with what we'retalking about.

(57:53):
At Gab, part of our core isthat social media is hurting our
kids.
It is crushing our kids, and soyou'll see in our TV
advertising.
Which a lot of people don'twant to hear, they don't and
they actually advocate for theopposite.
I know.
No, they need, they need theconnection.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 (58:12):
And if they're?
Left out, if they're not a partof it.
They'll feel left out andthey'll be bullied.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
And so we've said no.
A part of our brand promise isthat this is the data.
The data says that more kidsare depressed, more kids are
anxious, more kids are bullied,et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
and social media is a big partof that.
So we have been, we've taken astand, we said so.
We have a.
We have a campaign right now onTV called One Childhood.

(58:38):
A kid gets one childhood.
So so we have kids talkingabout what social media is doing
for them.
We have, we talk about it in afunny way, like kids saying I'm
ready for this thing, I'm readyto drive Mom, like no, no no,
not yet, not yet not yet.
I'm ready for this app?
No, not yet.
Like you're doing, great, butnot yet.
So we'll talk about it in lightways and some heavy ways,

(59:01):
Because if you don't, for usit's part of our brand promise,
it's core to who we are.
We will take a stand againstwhat social media is doing to
kids and that might alienatesome people, but they're not our
target audience.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
That's a good answer.
Makes sense If it's for yourtarget audience then you can't
shy away from it.
Yeah, yeah, I think that'sprobably the message, right it's
like if it's gonna, if it'sgonna be for your tam yep then
go for it.
Yeah, and also gab is talkingabout competitor, because a lot
of this really has to do withlike oh, I don't want to call

(59:39):
out a competitor.
Well, gab is fighting thebiggest company in the world.
Right, they're fighting theMicrosofts and the Apples.
And the Instagrams and you guyshave to call them out directly
and you can't shy away from it.
But that's done nothing buthelp you by calling it out.
Like you're not saying thateverything about Apple is

(01:00:00):
horrible.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
No, not at all, and not everything about social
media is horrible.
There's a time and place youhave to.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Yeah, social media is horrible, but you have to.
Yeah, like you said, you haveto define.
I liked what you said definelike what your core principles
and promises are to youraudience.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Yeah, and again I learned that through good ways
and the hard ways at ancestry,we're still at the beginning of
a gab where there we still haveso much more to go.
Um, and I'm learning so much.
Um, I know we're wrapping up,but one thought I would leave
with too, and I maybe said it tobegin with when you're building

(01:00:33):
a team and you're just startingout, you've got got got to hire
the right people, who areproactive, who care about
building relationships, who aresincere.
I care, honestly, less aboutwhat you know about marketing
and who you are than who you are.
And because I and the internetand everybody else can teach you

(01:00:55):
how to do search marketing.
Totally yeah, but I can't teachyou how to build a relationship
with product.
Yeah.
I can't teach you how to builda relationship and understand
how to talk to finance.
Yeah.
I can't teach you how to build arelationship and understand how
to talk to finance.
I can't teach you to not theway to get ahead isn't to take
all the credit, but to give thecredit to somebody else.
So at Gab we have an amazingteam that does that and I think

(01:01:19):
the success that we're seeing atGab 60% growth in ARR in the
last two years is because ofthat team.
That would run through a wallfor each other.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
For sure.
There's something about amission as strong as Gab's that
you're going to get talent thatan Apple might not get because
their mission is so different.
Not that Apple doesn't haveprobably a good mission, but
your mission is there's so muchgood to it right mission is

(01:01:49):
there's so much good to it right?
And so you, you mix like youknow, like having the right, the
right team with the rightmessage and and there's a lot of
really good that can, that cancome from that.
So I I think that's a reallycool way to end the podcast and
I appreciate that.
Um, well, russ, thank you somuch.
Dude, this has been thank you.
It's been awesome, like super,super tangible.
Uh, where can I know you sayyou don't get that much right?
You, I can't remember you weresaying that.
Were you saying that while wewere recording or no?

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
you're not, I don't, I'm not on.
I need to be better.
I have been.
I've honestly been taught bysome of the best of the best.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
This is your coming out party here.
All right, this is your comingout and I just gotta I, I just
got it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
I'm I'm more comfortable sitting with my team
and grinding and and helpingsave kids yeah but I but I.
I want to help others who arecoming up yeah and I and I want
to be better that way.
So thanks for the opportunityabsolutely, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
well, you can find, gab is gab wirelesscom, it's
gabcom.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
We've dropped wireless.
We're simplifying our brand, soit's gabcom.
We've dropped wireless.
We've simplified our brand.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
So it's gabcom, beautiful, so much better and
you can find Russ Haneg onLinkedIn right, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
yeah, I'm not super, you've got some good posts.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
I've seen it, you know.
Thanks.
I'm going to send you a bunchof content Okay, and you're
going to have a bright red faceas you click, click post.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
I will I will have a bright red face.
This has been awesome.
Thank you so much, man.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
So much.
Well, and thank you everybodyfor listening.
We'll see you guys next week.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unstoppable Marketer
podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from youbecause we always want to make

(01:03:31):
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.
I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you, and we will see younext week.