Episode 696: What’s Working Now: Meta Andromeda Update, TikTok Shop Ads & Pornhub Ads?

May 13, 2025

Ralph Burns and Lauren Petrullo pull back the curtain on Meta’s latest Advantage+ transformation, powered by the underreported Andromeda algorithm. With Meta silently replacing manual campaign controls with full automation, the hosts dive into what this shift means for media buyers, business owners, and performance marketers. From breaking down Advantage+ Shopping’s evolution to analyzing its strategic implications for ad spend and conversion optimization, Ralph and Lauren explain why understanding Meta’s AI is now mission-critical. If you’re managing Meta ads in 2025, this episode is your wake-up call.

Chapters:

00:00:00 – Dive Into the Chaos: Welcome to the Professional Traffic Podcast
00:01:33 – The Truth About Meta’s Advantage+ and the Stealthy Andromeda Rollout
00:03:17 – Hot Takes: Our Raw Reactions to Meta’s Automated Future
00:05:28 – Meta’s $65 Billion Bet on AI—What It Really Means for Advertisers
00:07:42 – Tariffs, Tension & Traffic: Why It’s Time to Diversify Beyond Meta
00:11:41 – Beyond the Big Two: Alternative Ad Networks You Shouldn’t Ignore
00:17:30 – Snapchat Isn’t Dead: Surprising Wins and What the Data Shows
00:19:23 – TikTok’s Rise and the Platforms Quietly Dominating the Feed
00:21:00 – Dollars and Downloads: The Platforms Driving Real Economic Growth
00:21:09 – Threads is Blowing Up—Here’s What That Means for Marketers
00:22:03 – Personalized Ads That Don’t Suck: Cracking the Relevance Code
00:23:06 – Wait, Did We Just Say PornHub? The Untapped Traffic Opportunity
00:24:15 – Can Threads Deliver Ad Results? Here’s the Smart Way to Find Out
00:25:25 – TikTok’s Secret Superpower: B2B Lead Gen Done Right
00:30:02 – Lead Quality Over Quantity: How to Actually Score Buyers
00:31:07 – Mic Drop: Final Thoughts, Must-Know Takeaways, and Show Notes

LINKS AND RESOURCES:

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READ THE TRANSCRIPT:

What’s Working Now: Meta Andromeda Update, TikTok Shop Ads & Pornhub Ads?

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Professional Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, founder and CEO of Tier 11, alongside my amazing co-host, Lauren h Petillo, the founder of Mongoose Media. So glad you joined us here today. You’re calling in from Nashville. I. Yha, did you do any like square dancing or anything like that while you were there?

Uh, I, I skipped. I walked in a square. You walked in a square. Gringa who can’t dance, so no. Oh. So I pretended to honky tonk. That’s good. That’s good. Uh, well we, we’ve been told to keep things moving here. We can’t like do too much like back and forth, wrap our take kind of stuff ’cause it bores our listeners.

So. Fair, actually, fair enough. Like we did get a co, we got an interesting comment that [00:01:00] said. Guys get to the point when you’re like talking about something. Um, and I think it was just the introduction that was actually an episode where me and you both had like our worst mics, like both of our mics failed at the last minute.

Like this is the trials and tribulations and running a podcast. Always have a backup mic, which I don’t have today. So hopefully we’re actually recording here today.

Ralph: we have been known to be mobile. Like you’re in Nashville. I’m in like multiple locations all the time. That’s just the way that it is. So anyway, so hopefully you can hear us all here and we are getting right to the point. ’cause today’s show, it’s all about what’s working now. And we’ve done a lot of shows here where we’ve talked about all the advantage plus stuff there is, which now people are calling the Andromeda update.

Ralph: By the way, I don’t think you and I even knew that ’cause Meta’s been kind of cryptic about it. I mean, you look at, now, if you actually Google Meta Advantage plus News, you’ll see us rank right at the top, by the way, I dunno if you realize [00:02:00] that, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of information about this, so.

Ralph: Just to reiterate, advantage Plus is now moving towards a fully automated solution as opposed to, and we did a screen share this. We’ll leave links in the show notes about this, but this is a pretty massive change. And the massive change means that you as an advertiser no longer have manual control, or will slowly no longer have manual control over your Advantage Plus shopping campaigns now just being called sort of man advantage plus.

Ralph: Sales or just Advantage Plus. So Meta hasn’t really, if you look at press releases and so forth, they’ve been sort of vague about this. It’s been people like us and others who have reported on it, but all of this is backed by the Andromeda algorithm. So that’s kind of what it was. And you and I sort of thought like.

Ralph: It was llama that was backing it. ’cause that was the AI algorithm that was powering everything. But no, it’s [00:03:00] called Andromeda now. So they’ve changed quite a bit without really even announcing a whole lot. There isn’t even a press release on this. It’s something from way back in December. So anyway, we’re here to clear all that up for you.

Ralph: and then give some insights as to how it’s working. What are your thoughts on it so far? It’s only been a couple of weeks since this has been starting to get rolled out. We’ve done a lot of tier 11 lives on it. John has, John Moran has got his opinions on it. What, what’s your sense inside Mongoose media at this point?

Lauren: well, full disclosure, we’re a little biased in the sense that like, we really like. Meta and the AI pieces. from the Advantage Plus pieces in our last episode, I was hyper skeptical. I hate that they removed so much control because Advantage Plus audiences aren’t working well for us right now.

Lauren: It’s just not as efficient as we’d like it to. But following our most recent episode, talking about those new rollouts, we did look and see that [00:04:00] in general for our e-commerce clients. Advantage Plus new sales campaign where you can’t do very much to. It has a 15 to 20% lift. Better conversion results. So on the e-commerce side, , we’ve got some people that are like all in and excited and then like hyper skeptical.

Lauren: I’m excited for it working, but I’m not holding onto it for very long. And then the bias comes into like, I’m literally gonna be with the meta AI folks in two weeks in DC so I’m gonna be like. I don’t know enough about the andro to stuff. You have to fill me in because, uh, it’s having a further discussion along of how we use AI and a lot of that Advantage Plus audience.

Lauren: so that’s where I’m biased. Like I have to gear up for that meeting to make sure I’m as informed as possible because I’m gonna be in the room with a lot of really smart people.

Ralph: Well, also, that’s gonna be a great episode for us to sort of update everyone about. All of this, because I don’t, it’s been a clunky kind of rollout and it’s, such a massive change and meta has remained largely.[00:05:00]

Ralph: I wouldn’t say silent, but there wasn’t any big release. So anyway, just to clear this up, we’ve been talking about Advantage Plus and the changes going from manual to fully automated, but the thing that powers it is this Andromeda to read from Meta Press release. Andromeda is META’S proprietary machine learning system design.

Ralph: For retrieval in ad recommendation focused on delivering of step function, improvement and value to our advertisers and people. Wow. That is horribly written, but what it is, is it’s basically, it’s part of their $65 billion in 20 25, 60 $5 billion. Lauren e Petrillo with a B, like imagine it. That is what Zuck is investing in AI and I believe mostly on remada, not just like AI to compete with chat GPT and all these others, but to enhance the algorithm.

Ralph: So,

Lauren: so what they do, what they make money on, which is ad placements. So it’s like we use a generative AI [00:06:00] all day, and I find that when you use generative AI within meta, you end up getting more booths because I assume the narrative they wanna show is like, look at the better efficiencies when you leverage AI so that you can remove the burden of operations from.

Lauren: The small business owner, but there’s like, instead of chasing that like, another component, like another Claude, another pilot, another GPT, I think Zucks investment is gonna be like we went all in on metaverse and creating something that’s completely different. Whoops, let’s now go all in on AI in the way that we had invested with.

Lauren: Metaverse.

Ralph: Yeah, I think initially it was, I felt like Llama was the response to chat GPT and now Google, Gemini, Claude, name it, you know, perplexity whatever, whichever answer machine you want on the LLM side. But it really is, they make the money on advertising. Selling to me and you. That’s why they [00:07:00] treat us well, which is good ’cause we spend lots of money there.

Ralph: But at the end of the day, like that’s what drives their earnings and that’s the thing that’s driving everything in their business. So, it’s interesting. In their earnings call, they didn’t really mention the metaverse much. That’s sort of like slowly mention less and less and less. Which is funny because that’s the Wall Street.

Ralph: Just wax them for that. They like, why are you spending $20 billion? And now they’re like, oh, we’re spending 65 billion on AI and Wall Street’s like, yay. So, which makes sense because it’s in alignment with their, the way that they make money. What drives earnings?

Lauren: Yeah, it’s ads and if you don’t have success running ads, you’re not going to invest with ads.

Lauren: And I know we talk about the terrorists and if you’re living under a rock or like avoiding the news, good on you, but like this is coming and it’s hurting, people’s wallets and like my assumptions in the next like six to eight weeks. If the tariffs and stuff continue to go through.

Lauren: I know that like, Mark Carney and President Trump sat down in the Oval Office [00:08:00] yesterday and they had their first discussion. So Canada was like, super firm. We’re not gonna become a 51st state. Trump was like, never say never, but we understand like the White House is not for sale. You’re telling us Canada’s not for sale.

Lauren: So to that extent, like we don’t know. Canada’s our number one client, so we don’t know. Where the tariff situation is evolving, but it is happening and like we’re talking about e-commerce, where we see the advantage plus like this is a tremendous shift that is going to an external impact that anyone who does advertising is gonna feel.

Lauren: Because if I cannot prove profitability, I. Even at large with advertising on meta, I’m gonna pull from that ecosystem. Like, that my big thing for Q2 at my company is I’m, I’m trying to meet with every single non Google, TikTok and Meta ad network possible so that I could be testing those ad networks with my clients in Q3, because Q4 is a bloodbath on the top three.

Lauren: So if I’m not gonna see success on meta, I’m gonna divert that money into another ad network. So Mark is reading. [00:09:00] What’s coming where we need to have better ad delivery so people keep buying ads and AI can probably compound growth faster than a human in some areas of this business.

Ralph: Absolutely. I mean, can you compete as a media buyer?

Ralph: With $65 billion in investment in a technology that’s going to be a gazillion times smarter than you in so many different ways to be able to, if this thing works. And yes, we’re seeing positive results as well. You know, we’ll probably have a case study here very shortly between yourself and myself to sort of show like what the effect is.

Ralph: But it, this is still in early days, but that’s what this podcast is all about, is talking about the stuff that’s coming down the line and also testing it in real time with real money. You know, I mean, I, my chief traffic strategist has already spent a million dollars of his own money and his own businesses to test it prior to bringing it over to, to, uh, tier 11.

Ralph: But anyway, so that’s like real [00:10:00] money there. The point is, is like. The Zuck knows he needs to stay ahead of the curve. And if you’ve got that big. That, that, that, uh, just tidal wave of cash. Like, you know, the, the ability to be able to spend 65 billion like that, like you and I go out and buy something for a thousand bucks.

Ralph: It’s probably like what he thinks. Oh, I don’t know, 65 billion. It’s kinda a lot, but you know, we’re sitting on 200 billion in cash, so who cares? you know what I mean? So it’s like, it’s nothing. But he realizes that that is gonna give them a competitive. Advantage overall versus the other networks, which let’s not forget here, the, the main reason why this is happening is, not for you and me necessarily.

Ralph: you have very talented media buyers. We have very talented media buyers. This is really, I look at it as like, yet another way for them to expand. The metaverse of meta in the advertising space is to the small business advertiser, the [00:11:00] e-commerce brand, the new Shopify store who’s like, maybe they’re a couple hundred thousand in revenue, or maybe they’ve made their first five figure month, or maybe like, those are the people that this stuff is really targeting because that’s gonna expand the usage of the platform even more, which is, I think the number one thing that they want.

Ralph: Secondly to that, that means more competition, that means maybe at a later date this is going to be even more competitive. And we know that one thing to be true in all platforms is CPMs don’t go down typically.

Lauren: Well, we have inflation in the ad network as we do with cash. And I’ll say like with that competition, it’s like we’ve had great guests on the show.

Lauren: Like we’ve talked about TikTok, we’ve talked about Shopify, like these different ad networks and ways that you can put your money. Like I. Cannot emphasize how great shop campaigns have been for our clients. that’s something that I learned. If you remember, like Andris came on the show and he was telling us like with the winter update, how that became available [00:12:00] for all Shopify stores, not just Shopify Plus, which was where it was exclusive before.

Lauren: We’ve rolled this out even on clients that we’re consulting with or clients that like may not be a good fit that shop the shop campaigns. Is a practically guaranteed roas. No one else can do that, and that has allowed us to shift some serious money from some accounts because this is the in-app ROAS that is as trackable as it can be because Shopify owns the ad network.

Lauren: Shopify has all the stuff. So they are providing your consumers with the gap between what they’re willing to pay and what you’re willing to pay for that consumer. So they’re giving away $10 shop pay coupons for your store. They’re incentivizing. reasons for people to buy within shop campaigns, ala fetch, how fetch has been doing it so well.

Lauren: So I think like fetch and shop campaigns and more ad networks that are coming out that own the full [00:13:00] ecosystem of the user, they’re so successful. Whereas, like Mark Zuckerberg’s team has it shop like Instagram shop Meta Shops has been around for years and they have not nailed. A system. The way that others Instacart’s ad network, same situation.

Lauren: I mean, granted that’s exclusively for brands that are being sold in other stores. Like you have to have a wholesale channel for it to work. But there’s ad networks that are working very well outside of Facebook, Google, and TikTok that have incentivized people to invest in those capitals. Into those platforms and shop campaigns is the one that I think most listeners, if you have a Shopify store, can easily jump into and try.

Lauren: So I know we’re talking about what’s working now, like I’m telling you, it’s doing very well.

Ralph: I, I think it’s totally relevant to this whole conversation is that meta is trying to get bigger. At the same time, the goal of getting bigger is. To take a lot of the media buying, not necessarily strategy, but the day-to-day [00:14:00] like button pushing as we sort of refer to it out of it, but also put it in the hands of the small business owner to be able to expand the market.

Ralph: Now, we’ve seen this happen many times before. Usually when there’s a lot of, rookie money coming into play. Or in the case of like Cyber Monday, black Friday, cyber Monday, black Friday, cyber Monday. I always say Cyber Monday, black Friday, but it’s really sort of the reverse. there’s a lot of stupid money that comes in there, like you and I both know that huge brands just pouring money in CPMs rise as a result.

Ralph: So I think what you’re talking about here is alternatives to this machine that is still working and is gonna get even more powerful over time. And I know that meta. Like they have so much data. Well, last time we checked it was 55,000 data points on each individual. That was like three years old. I gotta figure that’s 10 x now.

Lauren: I imagine so, yeah. Like especially with AI being involved in WhatsApp and Instagram, like now you have more of those conversational pieces and like the decentralization of search. there’s a lot of [00:15:00] search bars that are now leaning to how. You search and chat. People aren’t saying like red boots, they’re like red boots that I can wear at a bachelorette party in Nashville, Tennessee in July.

Lauren: Like people are having expanded search like it We’re evolving as consumers, and I think this like $65 billion investment for market is a really good ploy because like, I’ll take it back to my Disney Days. Disney World wanted to do everything they could to get you into their. what, 47 square miles?

Lauren: It’s the same size as San Francisco or twice the size of Manhattan. Like Disney World is massive. But Disney World was never able to get a monorail from the airport to Disney. They were like, Orlando, we will give you whatever you need. We’ll bend over backwards. Let us have a free train from the airport to Disney World.

Lauren: And Orlando was like, no way you’ll monopolize the vacationer. Because then they never have a chance to put their money in anything universal. SeaWorld, Legoland, taxis, that’s like, if you don’t know [00:16:00] this, sorry, like. I come from Disney. I live in Orlando. This is why I know so much of these things. But hopefully some people like to out.

Lauren: But yeah, they, if you know the monorail which transports you from Magic Kingdom to some of the resorts to Epcot, they wanted to install that from the airport in Orlando is terrible transportation. So the only ways that you can leave Orlando Airport to Disney World is you can rent a car. They used to have a magical express.

Lauren: there’s other ways that you can get to Disney World, but what’s happening is that then people are being exposed to other places they can spend their money. And I think that’s what’s happening with meta. We are divesting money off of meta. Sometimes people are gonna continue to look for easier, fewer buttons for them to push with a guaranteed roas.

Lauren: Meta owns more information on the consumer and they have to rebuild a system because otherwise that those dollars are being diverted to other places, which is good ’cause you don’t wanna put all your eggs in one basket. But I think it’s a bit of a reckoning that’s coming that Mark Zuckerberg and his team of like brilliant humans.

Lauren: Are hyper aware of. [00:17:00] Yeah, totally. So let’s talk about that. Like in the time we have left here, I mean, we’re talking about meta getting bigger and more powerful and then bringing in new advertisers. We’re also talking about, we still don’t really know what the effects of the tariffs are. We’re gonna put a pin in that, as everyone likes to say.

Ralph: Now you ever know, like everyone is using that same expression. Let’s put a pin in that. It was like, let’s think outside of the. Box. anyway, let’s put a pin in that for right now, because you’re talking about other advertising platforms. We had TikTok on here for three shows. We’re having Snapchat coming on very soon.

Ralph: Woo-hoo.

Lauren: I’m so excited, by the way, like really excited because I have questions for them. Actually, wait, Ralph, since we get to tell people that they’re coming, like this is exciting. Um, if you’re in our telegram group. You have a question for Snap? Like if you have tested Snap Ads, I would love to know at our agency, our most successful Snapchat ads, like we worked on a huge account [00:18:00] that was spending more than anyone could possibly imagine on a daily basis.

Lauren: Like I’m like too intimidated to say the numbers out loud anyways. You could, if you read my lips and you’re watching YouTube, you might be able to figure out how much it was a day. It was a lot.

Ralph: Perpetual traffic four slash YouTube. Okay.

Lauren: But, to that, like at volume, Snapchat was amazing. And then at smaller ad budgets, Snapchat really worked well for the non-obvious Snapchat audience.

Lauren: And I’m talking older adults because people assume Snapchat is predominantly like Gen Alpha, gen Z, but we had success on smaller, limited budgets. For the 50 plus crowd. So I’m excited for Snapchat to come back because, and if you’ve tested it, like if you’re in the Telegram group, submit your questions because I am, I’m coming hard because my, like I told you, my biggest goal is I need come in hot.

Lauren: I need to find other networks because if I’m over reliant on Facebook, Google, or TikTok. I’m just paying more when there’s opportunities for paying less. And what I’m [00:19:00] thinking is I believe what Zuckerberg is aware of that many others are thinking about. And he’s like, no, no, stay, stay, stay. I’m like, show me why.

Ralph: Well, I mean, if it’s more powerful and it’s better than it is right now, I mean, we’re seeing lifts on both of our ends like that. That is a reason to stay. However, if you were, and this is part of the what’s working now, which is fascinating. if you were to say, okay, we’ve got the two big, big ones, Google and Meta.

Ralph: All right, everybody, we talk about those all the time.

Lauren: I’ll say TikTok is the next tier, like that’s the, like third is TikTok.

Ralph: If you’re a Shopify store. I assuming like, or what else in there?

Lauren: even for lead gen, they have that native lead form, which is great. So it’s a new resource to build your top of funnel.

Lauren: I think it’s an incredible discovery platform. TikTok shops, obviously, when you have that direct integration, they do have like the Advantage plus equivalent if you’re driving website conversions, which we got to talk about with their team a lot.

Ralph: We’ll leave links in the show [00:20:00] notes for that one.

Ralph: It’s

Lauren: a, it should be a part of your media mix, I would say after Google and Meta the obvious Next one. Is TikTok, assuming YouTube is counted within your Google ads, by the way, for that disclosure?

Ralph: Well, I think most people, hopefully at this point in time, know that Google, YouTube is part of Google.

Lauren: I I have people asking me, well, what about Instagram ads when I’m like, here’s our Facebook budget.

Ralph: I know. Isn’t that crazy? It’s like I have to, I mean, I still say Facebook every now and then about Meta, but it’s like meta is like, uh, it’s a lot of things.

Lauren: They’re pushing it so hard. It’s all on their, like mini dev, if you look at business portfolio, if you log in@business.facebook.com, it’s like, meta Business, meta for Business, formerly known as Facebook for Business.

Lauren: So they’re, they’re in that transition. They, they’re using some of those dollars to have a more uniformed perspective. But yeah, so, uh. after Facebook and Google? I would just say that TikTok is a very strong contender and I know it was hot in the news and people didn’t think it was gonna have anything with it.[00:21:00]

Lauren: I never thought it was going away. It’s too much of a contributor to the economy. Uh, but yeah, that would be the top three. So that’s where I’m like desperate to find like, what are my four or five and six?

Ralph: So the other one is, that’s interesting, and this just recently came out, is that Threads, which was the fastest, is it still like this, the fastest growing app at that point in time when it was launched through Instagram?

Ralph: Now we’ll have ads on it. We don’t have any data on that too, but I mean, as far as like what’s working now and just like breaking news, that’s one of the things that did come up from meta this past week. Our partner manager, messaged us about that just a short while ago. Right before you know about a.

Ralph: Four or five days ago, prior to this podcast here, so super interesting. But yeah, meta is now threads, including, but also Instagram like goes through it

Lauren: as an additional placement, right. So that you’ll have the ability. Now we, at Mons Media, we like, again, we just heard about threads being released as well, so we are trying to figure out.[00:22:00]

Lauren: How are ways that we can do advertising specific to that platform? So what’s working now at a high level, like Ralph and anyone that’s listening for sure is just personalization and relevancy. So like you wanna have ads that make sense for that platform. You don’t wanna have just the same ad everywhere.

Lauren: And the best way I can describe this is if you’re taking the train. You can see those billboard ads that take up very specific sizes they’re made to fit those placements. The best one I had ever seen was, I think it was Giovanni Iana, the Italian BAA company. They had like a. Before, immediately before, after.

Lauren: So there are three different billboards based off of how that building was set up. Oh, it’s cool. Or it was before.

Ralph: Yeah. It’s a cool analogy actually. You,

Lauren: yeah. Oh. Like the way, oh, thanks.

Ralph: I like that.

Lauren: But it’s like when you can have it play off of your environment.

Ralph: When you’re in Nashville, I appreciate it.

Lauren: No, I wouldn’t say only Nashville, but I appreciate it, Ralph. I appreciate keep things going.

Ralph: People say too much [00:23:00] rapport building. Sorry. Come on. Come on. Things snappy,

Lauren: personalized relevancy to the location. So same as like for a lot of, like a lot of people that know, like I love PornHub as an advertising platform, but you have to use.

Lauren: PornHub relate. You have to be mindful of it. I know we’re gonna ruin our rating. Yep. But if you’re not advertising on PornHub, it’s an amazing solution. So it’s Meta Track, then

Ralph: Google, YouTube, then TikTok, then PornHub, top four

Lauren: I I. It depends. It depends on what you’re selling. Your clients that are not interested in being present on PornHub, the reality is it’s one of the best websites you can spend nothing to get.

Lauren: But you have to, you have to have it relevancy, right? Like we’re having ads for Mon News media that are, say click here before you finish. And then it goes to a VSL where I’m talking about, Hey, if you wanna stop blue balls in your bottom line and want an erection, your sales call us. There goes the rating on podcast.

Ralph: There it goes. Apple.

Lauren: You know what? Apologizing in

Ralph: advance, you know.

Lauren: Why? Why? Just, we have nothing to apologize for [00:24:00] when stuff worse. We don’t get

Ralph: delisted by the apple gods, which are coming out with their own ad network, by the way. And that’s another thing. But

Lauren: we knew that was coming when they made it so that like Best Buy and at t and all these brands can have their texts.

Lauren: But Sorry, I’m just gonna finish this. One thing of the relevance. Finish. Finish your thought we’re doing with threads. Mm-hmm. You wanna be strategic about that placement? So we are, our approach right now is how do we use threads as an ad placement, not for a conversion goal that’s typical of other platforms, but for a conversation starting goal.

Lauren: Because what Threads is, is a place for people to connect. Social media is social first. So threads is socialization. Yep. So our ads that we are going to launch first with threads are gonna be starting conversations that our brand can command. So if you’re in the sexual health space, if you’re in the weight loss space, what is something that your audience is actively talking about, thinking about?

Lauren: You get to start the discussion, and the way Zuckerberg has explained meta and social [00:25:00] media for them is this is your public living room. This is your town hall. Bring people into the conversation, and when you’re facilitating that conversation, you’re guiding it. You’re showcasing your expertise, you’re building your ability to know, like, and trust.

Lauren: Your audience with you. Mm-hmm. And then you can present solutions that they’re. Relying on to work. Makes sense. All right. Last but not least, I wanted to ask you this. Any tips that you have for people, because we’re mentioning TikTok shops as sort of like a, your third platform or the one that you should test first.

Ralph: TikTok. TikTok, not just shops, TikTok Shops is a placement. I know, but Tik, like you’re specifically mentioning TikTok shops as like the first place you would go for if you’re an e-commerce brand. No. Oh, TikTok shops and shop campaigns. I’ll put both of ’em. Okay. You can’t scale shop campaigns the same way you can scale TikTok shops.

Lauren: TikTok shops. You can just keep going. Yeah. Until you run out shop campaigns, you’re extremely limited by the number of impressions I can do because it’s, basically [00:26:00] guaranteed or ROI, so I would love to give them a million dollars. Mm-hmm. Because I know I’m gonna get a million dollars in sales.

Ralph: Mm-hmm.

Ralph: you only pay on the purchase. So one. Yeah.

Lauren: Well, you set the parameters. Yeah. You can say, what do you need the ROAS to be? Anyways. yeah, TikTok. TikTok is amazing, but I would explore TikTok, not just for e-commerce, because they’re TikTok, they have native lead gen, so you can get people into your ecosystem, and it’s a really good discovery platform that then you can convert on Google, YouTube, and Facebook later.

Ralph: like what’s your thoughts just at a very high level on TikTok for lead gen? Because it was one of the big conversations we had, and they didn’t really, I don’t think they really had a great answer for you. And when they were on here a couple months back anyway, what’s your thoughts? It was when we started, I was like, I hadn’t even known that it was there.

Lauren: My reality is, is I know that over 80% of people that get into our ecosystem, for anyone that’s generating leads, are never, ever, ever, ever, ever gonna buy. So if I can generate. Marketing qualified subscribers, and I say subscribers hard because I don’t think you’re a [00:27:00] lead until you’ve shown me proof of life and proof of life is clicking or replying to an email.

Lauren: So if I can get people into my ecosystem even cheaper, like med ads is dirt cheap, but I’m able to ask specific questions and I can get them to ecosystem, absolutely. I’m doing it on TikTok because it’s the same audience and I know people are. like personally, I know people that are abandoning Instagram because it’s too much and they’re using TikTok.

Lauren: ’cause those algorithms are providing them more content that helps them learn to be a better entrepreneur. So, I know they’re spending more time on TikTok, so I’m gonna capture their information when they’re currently in the, I’m watching TikTok to learn about ai. I’m watching TikTok to learn about how to eat healthier.

Lauren: I’m watching Instagram for puppy videos and print.

Ralph: It’s true. It’s become Well, it’s so true though, because TikTok has become like for so many people, like the default search when they’re searching, the way that a lot of people will, I. Search, YouTube for discovery and or [00:28:00] education, the same thing.

Ralph: Heavily user behavior is very similar over on TikTok.

Lauren: I love that you did that. ’cause the other day, so I just presented at founder’s board here in Nashville, which is why I’m here. I had done like my email triage and just talking about how like these micro changes lead to macro growth. Mm-hmm. And I. Was doing it in Canva.

Lauren: Canva. And I was like, why? How do I animate this so that each bullet goes through and I’m layering like white Lotus gifts. Yeah. I thought I was hilarious with them. If you’re not watching the show, who are you? But whatever. I mean, I used to use Schitt’s Creek, now I’m using White Lotus Gif. You tend to go

Ralph: heavy on one show.

Ralph: But anyway, keep going. Oh yeah, yeah,

Lauren: absolutely. To have continuity. So, in that. I use chat for search. Honestly, I rely on chat for search, but they fail me on instruction videos. I like to watch videos, so I will always go to Google for my default searching. Yep. Because I don’t wanna search on a social media app ’cause it.

Lauren: Man, and I’m like, avoid, avoid. It’s true. But I’ll Google. They’re almost I know, I know. It’s so, I, [00:29:00] I know my weekend. It’s so, it’s a how to search,

Ralph: like if you do a how to search on TikTok, it’s too much for you.

Lauren: Yes. Like it’s because I, I’ll get distracted and be like, oh, this is good too. Come, this is good too.

Ralph: It’s one of the reasons why I tend to not use TikTok at all. ’cause it’s like, it is so good. It’s so incredibly addicting. Which is probably one of the bigger reasons for you to potentially think about advertising around that platform. Dude,

Lauren: I I, and recommend everyone to give a shot to the lead gen side ’cause it’s such an under underutilized aspect of TikTok advertising.

Lauren: But TikTok videos, if you’re not posting your videos on TikTok, you should, ’cause they have a higher increase rank on Google. And so I learned how to animate because of a TikTok video that showed up in my Google feed.

Ralph: That’s great. And last but not least, on lead gen, if somebody has not listened to your diatribes.

Ralph: Multiple on this show in the last two years, on lead gen on TikTok. How do you make sure that it’s qualified lead or a subscriber? Not yet a lead, but then like [00:30:00] what are quick down and dirty there?

Lauren: you always ask a pre-qualifying question so that they can opt out as being qualified. You kick ’em out.

Lauren: You don’t want them in for, like, if you’re a business that’s not spending X amount a month, or if you’re not doing X amount a year, I might not have a solution for you on the agency side. That can work maybe on the group coaching or the private consulting, but like, I, I need to filter you into whichever bucket makes the most sense.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. If you only serve, for example, I’m like, what’s closest near me? Uh, okay. Stanley Cup, right? Mm-hmm. SAU only. Serve it, have a Stanley Cup made for athletes, and you ask, how active are you? You’re like, not at all. Okay, cool. You already know that they’re a disqualified persons. Do you always have to have a qualifying question that allows you to eliminate someone?

Ralph: Your knockout questions, your first question. Got it. Makes sense. All right. You know, we just, we just took on a franchise. They’re like, what’s your first question? they just gave us the form and everything. It was not, are you a homeowner? Because it has to be that. It’s like if you’re not a homeowner, they’re not [00:31:00] gonna do any sort of improvements to their house.

Ralph: Like you do not pass. So there’s your qualifying question Anyway, knockout question. That’s the big tip right there. That’s what’s working Now I know you gotta check outta your hotel room, so I don’t want you to incur any late fees here. Keep probably waiting, but, we’ll leave all links over in the show notes, all those TikTok episodes.

Ralph: If you didn’t listen to that series, I would highly recommend you go back to that. We sort of hit on a lot of the high level stuff here. It was really good. Like we got some of the smartest people in TikTok there, especially in the advertising.

Lauren: We had huge executives, like we had the people direct in the place and I saw some of them at, shop Talk in Vegas, which is amazing, because they are boots on the ground.

Lauren: When they have something like a Shoptalk, which is probably like a 200 to 400,000 investment that they made to have that booth. But otherwise, they are, they are in the system. They are leading the charge of these products. So if you don’t have the ability to pay over five grand just to get a ticket to go to [00:32:00] Shoptalk, where you can meet those teams, you can listen to the episodes and then have access to what they said and, and I’m.

Lauren: Not sure. I’m sure if everyone remembers, but one of them gave their direct email in the recording to say, reach out to me if you have questions.

Ralph: That’s like what do they call that? like the hidden gem. No, that’s the Easter egg. That’s it. I knew there was a name for it. Alright, we’ll leave links over in the show notes over@perpetualtraffic.com.

Ralph: Of course, you can watch this over on perpetual traffic.com/youtube. That’s our YouTube channel. You can see us and you can see you in Nashville. See, there you go. There’s a sale right there. It’s like, it’s

Lauren: like my brother is right next next to me. Yeah. It’s

Ralph: amazing. It’s such a Broadway visual representation on Broadway Street, right?

Ralph: Yeah.

Lauren: Just a plain, background. I’m in the kitchen of the hotel rooms. I’m like super boring. It’s

Ralph: okay. It’s fine that , the juice isn’t what We squeezed here in the episode, so there you go. I don’t even know what that means. All right. Well, like I said, all links are over on the show notes. Make sure that you do leave a rating and review.

Ralph: We actually do read [00:33:00] them and respond to them even if they’re negative. We

Lauren: appreciate the feedback. Yeah, I appreciate feedback. Well, it’s not that it’s negative, it’s like, and necessarily it’s, it’s honest. Yeah. And I think that we can’t improve if we don’t know how to. That’s true. We can guess. We appreciate you all.

Lauren: Thank you so much.

Ralph: Yeah. Thank you all. All right, well that’s it for this week’s show. So on behalf of my amazing co-host, Lauren e Petru,

Lauren: t

Ralph: Until next show, see ya.

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