Are media buyers becoming obsolete? With Meta’s Andromeda update and AI automating campaign optimization, most marketers are still stuck tweaking ads while missing the real levers that drive growth. If you’re still relying on Ads Manager, you’re already behind!
In this episode, we break down why media buying alone won’t cut it anymore. We discuss how AI is handling 80% of the heavy lifting and why your focus needs to shift to everything that happens after the click.
From landing page congruency to email triage, customer reactivation, and how data flow impacts optimization, we share what agencies and brands must do to stay profitable. If you’re managing campaigns or scaling a business, this one’s for you!
In this episode:
02:15 Media buying and “after the click” opportunity
06:28 Funnels, offers, and landing page congruency
09:03 Redefining leads, opt-ins, and MQLs
14:15 Disqualifying bad leads and data hygiene
20:23 The role of growth strategist vs. media buyers
24:48 Why small marketing agencies are struggling
29:29 Shiny object syndrome vs. real business growth
32:02 Rethinking the customer journey to boost sales
Resources mentioned:
Andromeda Episodes: https://perpetualtraffic.com/?s=john+moran
Episode 744: The Pros and Cons of Meta’s New Advantage+ Creative Image Generator Tool: https://perpetualtraffic.com/podcast/episode-744-the-pros-and-cons-of-metas-new-advantage-creative-image-generator-tool/
Episode 743: Stop Pausing Winning Ads! Andromeda Ad Strategy That Changes Everything: https://perpetualtraffic.com/podcast/episode-743-stop-pausing-winning-ads-andromeda-ad-strategy-that-changes-everything/
Creative Diversification Playbook: https://perpetualtraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Creative-Diversification-Playbook-Practitioner-Guidance.pdf
Marketing Performance Indicators Checklist: https://www.tiereleven.com/mpi
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https://www.youtube.com/@perpetual_traffic?sub_confirmation=1
We appreciate your support!
Visit our website: https://perpetualtraffic.com/
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Connect with Ralph Burns:
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburns
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ralphhburns/
- Hire Tier11 – https://www.tiereleven.com/apply-now
Connect with Lauren Petrullo:
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/laurenepetrullo/
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenpetrullo
- Consult Mongoose Media – https://mongoosemedia.us/
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
FIRE Your Media Buyer: The Fix for Wasted Ad Spend
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:07:08
Lauren
I don’t want a one night stand with Leeds or with customers. Now how the heck are you trying to monetize and develop loyalty?
00:00:07:09 – 00:00:23:11
Ralph
I’m seeing a lot of smaller agencies just contract and go out of business just because they’re not adopting this mindset. Meta is going to do a lot of the work for you. Where should someone’s focus be in this new age of all this? I finally coming to the front.
00:00:23:16 – 00:00:27:05
Lauren
We need to make sure that.
00:00:27:05 – 00:00:34:13
Ralph
Hello, and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, alongside my amazing co-hosts.
00:00:34:15 – 00:00:37:17
Lauren
Lauren Eve Trudeau, the founder of Mongoose Media.
00:00:37:18 – 00:00:58:22
Ralph
So glad you could join us here today. You’re director of marketing, VP of marketing, or a CMO or a CEO looking to up your marketing game. You have found the right place here today, because today we’re going to be talking about not only Lauren’s incredibly cool new microphone setup, where wherever she is in the world, you never really know or Lauren is in the world.
00:00:59:00 – 00:01:01:22
Ralph
We’ll get to that in just a second. But we’re going to be talking about
00:01:01:22 – 00:01:28:00
Ralph
the lack of importance of the media buyer and why we feel you need to focus your attention not on media buying, but on other areas of the sales funnel, so to speak. But also, as we’ve talked about many, many times here, if you haven’t gotten the memo, especially on meta, the Andromeda update is turning the advertising world upside down.
00:01:28:01 – 00:01:46:20
Ralph
It is safe to say, and I think there is massive confusion out there on how to actually use it the right way. We’ve talked about creative diversification here ad nauseum, myself, John. I have even talked about it here as well with you, Lauren. And we are of course running a special right now for the months of November and December.
00:01:46:20 – 00:02:09:08
Ralph
Over at tier 11, you can get the creative diversification package by the creative or vacation package, and you get your media buying and you get your tier 11 data suite for free. And yes, we’re offering it to just 11 lucky clients who qualify through the end of the year. So check that out over at your 11.com/apply. We don’t even have the sales page up yet.
00:02:09:12 – 00:02:30:19
Ralph
But maybe by next episode we’ll actually have it up. So just for the listener. But you heard it here first. So anyway, that means creative is obviously really important right now. Media buying is. I mean, if you’ve been watching and or listening to this show, you’ve seen dozens and dozens of episodes of how we managed campaigns right now.
00:02:30:21 – 00:02:55:17
Ralph
And, I mean, I gotta be honest, it’s not that hard. It’s not as hard as it used to be. So we were talking about this before we hit record today, and you have an interesting take on this is that your focused not necessarily creative is very important. You have to have that. So that’s like baseline foundation. But where should someone’s focus be in this new age of all this.
00:02:55:18 – 00:03:22:02
Ralph
I finally coming to the front $61 billion for meta and 40 plus billion on Google, the first people to actually deploy AI in their advertising platforms. It’s a whole other story unto itself. There was no podcast this week and I know way too much about it now. What else is like where? Where are you focusing your efforts aside from creative but maybe not media buying, but what are you guys doing inside of Margot’s?
00:03:22:07 – 00:03:40:09
Lauren
I think, so we put AI, we have our, you know, free services for unique selling propositions. I think two of those elements are like the focusing on the data flow going back. So there were optimizing for what we actually want versus what the ad networks are modeling for us. And then kind of obsessing about what happens after the clicks.
00:03:40:09 – 00:03:57:22
Lauren
So we know that there’s that handoff from sales to marketing. But if I click and I get your eyeballs and I’m using social media for interruptive or search for inbound, what happens as soon as I’ve captured your attention? Because in the past I’d be like, well, that’s not my responsibility. I’m not in charge of the landing pages. I’m not in charge of all these other thing.
00:03:58:00 – 00:04:14:17
Lauren
But now we’re being held accountable to the impact and where a lot of us that we’re focusing on right now at least for Q4, is we need to make sure that when we’re sending people to your website, when we’re sending people into your ecosystem, right, that first party data, you have them, you’ve captured them. You own them in a manner of speaking.
00:04:14:17 – 00:04:27:00
Lauren
How the heck are you treating them? Because there’s a lot of opportunities that I think people are letting slip through the cracks. And there’s so much shiny object syndrome and the fact that AI makes life so easy, we can create lead magnets left and right. But I’m like, should you.
00:04:27:01 – 00:04:27:10
Ralph
Should you.
00:04:27:11 – 00:04:37:16
Lauren
Wait? So it’s, focusing on one funnel at a time, and then that the data back from those funnels is important so that we can optimize for more of what we want versus what might. I guess.
00:04:37:17 – 00:05:06:23
Ralph
It’s interesting. I was, we have a client that’s in the orthopedics space, and we’ve done this as well with some salon clients that have franchises so forth for elective procedures, that kind of thing. And each individual center isn’t spending a tremendous amount of money on ads. So we haven’t been able to do the creative diversification strategy as much or as widespread as we want.
00:05:07:01 – 00:05:28:08
Ralph
So there is that. But when I was talking to the team about this, they I was like, well, where is the lift coming from? Because their results are great since they started with very small tests. And I said, well, we kind of tweaked the scope and we created some landing pages for them that were.
00:05:28:10 – 00:05:34:00
Lauren
Oh, they did all this extra work that was involved for it’s okay. Give the results. What happens?
00:05:34:02 – 00:05:49:13
Ralph
It’s all right. I mean, yeah, you know, we’ve got this this growth strategist in the tier 11 team is one of those guys. And he’s like, oh listen, I got to do whatever it takes to to get this to work. Yeah. So you know and kudos to him. So I mean yeah we didn’t we didn’t Bill for it.
00:05:49:13 – 00:06:06:23
Ralph
But the point is is like he knew that it was the after the click. He’s like all right how much can I do ahead of the click. Now we’ve got some examples here. We showed one I think that just this past show, that was a rebroadcast from the ad lab where there was a $70 a day budget for creative diversification.
00:06:06:23 – 00:06:26:10
Ralph
So it does work on smaller ad spends. So I’m not saying that it doesn’t work. The point is it’s like and there’s dozens of shows we’ll leave links in the show notes. If you haven’t watched any of those. The point is, is what’s the big lever? The big lever is still like what happens after the click? It’s 50% of the effectiveness of the ad, if not more.
00:06:26:12 – 00:06:45:07
Lauren
In many, I’d say it’s definitely more. Well, it’s what determines what is good, what is effective of the ad. If the what the factor of the ad is driving traffic off platform or is it driving submissions because then you’re talking about after the click to the immediate Pre-submission page. If you’ve got like 2000 clicks and only 15 convert, that’s a landing page.
00:06:45:07 – 00:07:07:03
Lauren
Or it could be like a mismatch and have a bait and switch kind of situation. Like your ad is saying one thing, but you’re landing pages saying another. So that type of congruency and that that funnel I think got really skipped. And I don’t know Russell Brunson and I don’t know Jeff Bezos, but I blame both of them for making this hacky Clickfunnels.
00:07:07:05 – 00:07:31:00
Lauren
Same day shipping unrealistic expectations where we’re forgetting so much foundational pieces of like, what makes the offer good. And for me, I always say a great marketing campaign has a, obvious audience with a sexy offer. And those two things we’ve been neglecting because like, oh, I’m going to sell it to everyone. I’m gonna make sure that this works, and everyone must want to spend $50,000 immediately after seeing my ad only once.
00:07:31:00 – 00:07:49:05
Ralph
It’s just not how it works. I mean, no, it’s not how it works. And, you know, the creative diversification strategy allows you to create sort of a funnel within the campaigns themselves, sort of your own, like little ad funnel without Russell Brunson. And by the way, I saw him on the cover of success magazine when I was in the airport a couple of weeks ago.
00:07:49:05 – 00:08:12:00
Ralph
He had like a $250,000 watch on. So apparently, yeah, he’s he’s doing okay. The point is it’s like he has created sort of this after the clicks sort of part to everything. But I do think that a lot of media buyers are really obsessed with is just like the before the click experience. And it’s not necessarily just that, like creative diversification, lots of content.
00:08:12:00 – 00:08:31:07
Ralph
Yes. Getting different ways in which to attract your ideal customer. Absolutely. That’s important. But it’s the tactical part of managing all that. Meta is going to do a lot of the work for you, and we’ve exemplified that in dozens of case studies here on the show. The point is, is like, what are you going to do to power it even more?
00:08:31:09 – 00:08:53:21
Ralph
And going back to our conversations with the people from on balance, it really is. It’s after the click and it’s it’s oftentimes just doing a split test of something crazy, paying somebody on Fiverr or Upwork or whatever it is to get a landing page on and talking to just either marketing departments or individual businesses, and just testing that side of it and seeing what kind of lift you get there.
00:08:53:22 – 00:09:03:08
Ralph
That’s just part of, I think, where a lot of this is headed and people tend to forget about that because they’re so obsessed with everything that happens before the click.
00:09:03:08 – 00:09:20:11
Lauren
Yeah. And even if they’re like thinking of the things that happen before the click, it’s even the the engagement someone has before the submission. Right. So then they build all these offers and you make these different landing pages. But so what happens as soon as they enter your ecosystem? It’s like you finally got their data then like evaluated again like one funnel at a time.
00:09:20:13 – 00:09:36:20
Lauren
This is the email getting delivered. That first email, that first interaction. Like I’ve talked about the email triage thing a few times here. And in that, like the very first greeting you have, you don’t often get a second first impression. So what is that first impression like a too long listen. It’s like, do you ask the four questions.
00:09:36:20 – 00:09:57:03
Lauren
So that first question is relevant. Do they are if they’re brand new to your ecosystem, this is how everyone’s doing the emails. But you should have maybe the first 100 140 characters changed on that email based on the other fourth conditions. Like have they already been in your system? They’re not new, so greet them with a little bit more acknowledgment, such as if they’ve unsubscribe from you before, give them a hello honoring that.
00:09:57:03 – 00:10:19:02
Lauren
Welcome back. Because if someone’s unsubscribe coming back for a repeat chance with you higher likelihood of being a prospect than someone who’s brand new if they didn’t unsubscribe, have they ever give you money? If that’s a customer and they’re signing up for, like, the NPIs checklist and they’re an existing customer, we should greet them and say like, hey, Lauren, it’s so great that we can provide continuous resources for clients just like you.
00:10:19:04 – 00:10:26:12
Lauren
If they haven’t given you money, I’ve already signed up for the MPI check list. I’m from these that example because it’s that tier level incompetence.
00:10:26:14 – 00:10:28:03
Ralph
Yes it is. Wow, look at you.
00:10:28:07 – 00:10:56:14
Lauren
Look at that, look at that. But in a blog, I got you, I got you. So if someone’s going to tier 11, not comply and signing up for this checklist and they’ve already signed up for it before, that could be a good thing to say. Like, hey, maybe it went to spam, or maybe since last time you checked it, we’ve actually updated it or things of that nature, because I know you guys have updated that like 4 or 5 times over, actually, versus and if someone has signed up, they’re already in the tier 11 ecosystem.
00:10:56:14 – 00:11:12:23
Lauren
They’ve never signed up for the MPI check checklist. But they did the uncapped calculator. Right. So then it’s like, hey, I’m glad we can continue to provide additional value. Welcome back. Tier 11 fan feel just like the first hundred and 40 characters. How are you treating people now that you’ve gotten them into your ecosystem? What does that engagement look like?
00:11:12:23 – 00:11:31:15
Lauren
So you spent all this money to get their eyeballs. You’re landing to did the dang thing it was supposed to do get the submission or get that first purchase. Now, how the heck are you trying to monetize and develop loyalty for you to get their continued purchases? It’s like, I don’t want a one night stand with leads or with customers.
00:11:31:15 – 00:11:50:08
Lauren
It’s looking at not just after the click, but after the submission or after that first purchase, and making sure that if you’ve got a product like a supplement or a skincare product, how quickly are you getting that second order? And a lot of the times the media buyer by itself doesn’t give an F about it because it doesn’t hold to the KPIs they’re held accountable to.
00:11:50:08 – 00:12:05:07
Lauren
But that or I told you earlier, I’m not hiring a media buyer ever again. I’m hiring someone that’s going to look at the entire funnel, and that’s going to say, I need to know the likelihood of someone like, if you’re signing up for a lead, I don’t want to just make a bunch of lead magnets and support all these lead magnet.
00:12:05:08 – 00:12:11:18
Lauren
I only want to spend the money on the lead magnets that have funnels that are going to build back the money you’ve invested in leads to begin with.
00:12:11:20 – 00:12:12:09
Ralph
Right?
00:12:12:10 – 00:12:27:01
Lauren
I’m only going to invest in the like creating all this content diversification that you need to do for the ads of the products or the funnels that you know are going to get a subscriber so that then you can fund the other products and other campaigns you want to build.
00:12:27:03 – 00:12:48:16
Ralph
So a lot of it really is, is I think this is part to it. And I’m talking about like just the click after the ad, you’re going one step further to that. It’s like if it is going to a lead form or an application submission or whatever it happens to be. So then customizing that based upon who they are, maybe what their answers are.
00:12:48:16 – 00:12:54:23
Ralph
Obviously you’re a huge believer, as am I. And multi field form fills the need.
00:12:54:23 – 00:13:02:05
Lauren
A conditional knock out question. You will never prove me wrong on that one. Okay I need you to disqualify yourself out the gate.
00:13:02:07 – 00:13:20:20
Ralph
Yeah. And so client that we were just on, call was like, we’re we’re measuring their leads and like, how many are unqualified leads because they have a knock out question of in this particular case, they need to be a homeowner. You own your home. Yes. No, no. What do you do with that? Well, is that count as a lead?
00:13:20:22 – 00:13:22:00
Lauren
No. Absolutely not.
00:13:22:00 – 00:13:33:18
Ralph
No it’s not. It is my yes form fill. But it’s not a lead. It’s me. I would actually I would actually modify that statement to say that it’s actually just an opt in. Unless it.
00:13:33:18 – 00:13:35:07
Lauren
Is. Oh I everyone’s an opt in.
00:13:35:11 – 00:13:38:18
Ralph
Yeah. Everyone’s an opt in until they actually book a call. And then they’re.
00:13:38:22 – 00:13:46:02
Lauren
From and they’re an opt in until there’s a dialog, until you’ve put down credit cards or you have shown up in some capacity, you’re still an opt in to me.
00:13:46:04 – 00:14:02:18
Ralph
Well, right. There’s a lot of different ways to look at that. But I mean, I do think like you’re on the right path, however you diagnose or hover over you, not diagnose, however you define. And then KCL, our marketing qualified lead, is sort of up to your business in every business different, by the way, you know.
00:14:03:00 – 00:14:03:06
Lauren
Yeah, I.
00:14:03:06 – 00:14:15:00
Ralph
Mean, I interviewed somebody the other week and they said everybody in the company had a different definition of what an Mql was. I’m like, I didn’t like the C and I didn’t. The CEO like interjected, what’s this? Oh, that one dollars.
00:14:15:03 – 00:14:30:08
Lauren
I’m going to share my screen because mine is like written I up on I’ll be like, this is this is not me. If you’re not watching on YouTube, well then you’re not going to see inside of like a real world traffic.com/youtube. It’s always interesting.
00:14:30:08 – 00:14:33:11
Ralph
Yeah, she’s opening the kimono.
00:14:33:13 – 00:14:35:16
Lauren
Here’s a kimono. Tits out and everything.
00:14:35:16 – 00:14:36:15
Ralph
That’s it.
00:14:36:17 – 00:14:54:22
Lauren
Right. Like, here’s my pipeline. All seven steps. You’ll know that it goes 6 to 8. That’s because I don’t have seven. But I have a zero for shadows. Shadow leads. But this for me, I have everyone is a subscriber. Like they opted in. They want to. I define an opt in as someone that raises their hand because they want to hear what you have to say.
00:14:55:00 – 00:15:04:02
Lauren
They’re not a lead for me until they want to hear what you have to sell, and then they’re not a sales qualified lead until I actually want to sell to them.
00:15:04:04 – 00:15:04:23
Ralph
Right.
00:15:05:01 – 00:15:21:03
Lauren
So in order to become a lead, I need you to show up in some capacity. Right. You could show up because you schedule a call as a marketing qualified lead. You can show up because you signed up for a live webinar. So you’re going to give time, but you’re not a sales qualified lead until there was a dialog.
00:15:21:03 – 00:15:33:10
Lauren
So I have my marketing qualified leads conversation, no conversation then active and inactive, but someone to say they don’t know anyone who’s like Mongoose Media that listens to this and doesn’t see this like, you know where this lives.
00:15:33:12 – 00:15:57:01
Ralph
You know what it is. Yeah. So our our definition is slightly different. But the point is, is we have a definition. We are we’re all we’re all agreed on it. Like yours is slightly different than ours. So our process is is just different for whatever reason. But if there’s an application fill for not an opt in, not a subscribe, not a.
00:15:57:03 – 00:15:58:09
Lauren
That’s still lead for you.
00:15:58:14 – 00:16:01:14
Ralph
No, no, no, there is not a lead. Good.
00:16:01:14 – 00:16:04:00
Lauren
I was like submit apply.
00:16:04:04 – 00:16:23:10
Ralph
It is an opt in. Yeah. However, when somebody does fill out an application and then books a call, they become a marketing qualified lead. Okay. Now they only become a SQL after an intervention from our sales team, which is just some kind of interaction. Like do you have oh.
00:16:23:11 – 00:16:24:11
Lauren
So dialog where.
00:16:24:15 – 00:16:26:06
Ralph
There is a dialog. So we’re very much.
00:16:26:11 – 00:16:37:20
Lauren
A proof that you want to sell to them. They’re marketing qualified lead if they want to be sold to but there are sales qualify lead and lead to sell to them. Right. Are they a homeowner or not? I’d love to sell to you, but if you’re not a homeowner, I’m not a homeowner.
00:16:37:21 – 00:16:39:00
Ralph
I can’t sell to you.
00:16:39:02 – 00:16:39:22
Lauren
Yes.
00:16:40:00 – 00:16:48:13
Ralph
So you disqualify. I don’t know where those leads go on that client like you know, oh, first call with them after like two months on monkey. No, no. But anyway. Or there’s people.
00:16:48:13 – 00:17:05:04
Lauren
That don’t qualify though they should be going to like a rejection page. Like we like we say a no thank you page. And you sure or no you have any an offer? Okay. You can have an email thank you page a down sell or some like we want to provide you value. I am not it for you or what you were signing up for.
00:17:05:04 – 00:17:28:00
Lauren
Doesn’t make sense. But you sure she it better not have that lead or that complete registration or any type of standard event on the no thank you page, because you have to make sure that mana doesn’t see that as a win. You have to have, oh, she’ll disqualify them. Yes. And then you can build a negative lookalike audience from the custom audience of people who go there and say, I don’t want any of these disqualified individuals.
00:17:28:02 – 00:17:44:23
Lauren
And if you have them as a form submission and you have them inside of your ecosystem of HubSpot or we use high level MailChimp, doesn’t matter. Anyone that is a disqualified out. The gate, they should have a tag as Dkl you saw in my pipeline. Those are number eight. Like my number eights. I’ll just like I think they’re so funny.
00:17:44:23 – 00:18:00:04
Lauren
I’m like attended a book call, but we marked as disqualified. I’m like those who lied but tried. Right? Are they tried but live like. How many times do vendors get on your book call sessions because they’re trying to sell you on your discovery calls? Oh, I hate those potheads.
00:18:00:05 – 00:18:18:10
Ralph
Yeah, like somebody who overstates income. Like, you know that they need at least $50,000 or 70,000 or whatever it is. I’m trying to think of one of the clients that we have. Yeah, they have a six figure income. Like if you’re not over six figures, you’re really not a sales qualified lead. So those people, if they do slip in there I tried but lie.
00:18:18:10 – 00:18:20:14
Lauren
So tell me they’re marketing qualified leads though because but.
00:18:20:14 – 00:18:32:01
Ralph
They are marketing qualified leads because they do. In that particular case that client does have a down sell in the Alex pharmacy model. But like something to sell them. But they’re not going to get their next level coaching program.
00:18:32:01 – 00:18:51:01
Lauren
Yeah I have like vendors, pack members, competitors, people that admit a self disqualify like so you said six figures. Like, I have a company. I have a fruit stand on the corner. I’m never going to take an investment. I never want to grow up beyond this current corner fruit stand. So they have self disqualified. I have them tagged as disqualified.
00:18:51:03 – 00:19:03:09
Lauren
And then that’s a list. I know lookalike audiences aren’t strong by so builds it into meta and I have a negative lookalike audience because I have all my disqualified people. I don’t want them to be in my ecosystem.
00:19:03:10 – 00:19:20:04
Ralph
Yeah, see, I tend to think that when you do. All right, so we have differing opinions on that. So like our team, what they do is they put in the custom audience of the current customers, current not prospects for current customers. And then we say, all right, because it’s an exclusion. They’re going to not target them. Of course they do.
00:19:20:04 – 00:19:44:04
Ralph
We wish, but they use that as a seed list to find the right type of audience, because most of our targeting is open targeting right now with, with very few exceptions. But also on the flip side of that or thinking, okay, I knows those are the types of clients that we want, but also based upon their profile that will also help to not include the ones that we don’t want because they don’t look like that audience.
00:19:44:06 – 00:20:03:21
Ralph
So there’s a couple of different ways to do this. The point is, it’s like you’re leveraging the algorithm in a couple of different ways. The important part to this whole thing is that you’re qualifying all the way through. And yes, that’s the thing. And so back to our original point, how we teased with media buyers are no longer important because they’re.
00:20:03:21 – 00:20:05:18
Lauren
Useless if they’re only doing media.
00:20:05:22 – 00:20:08:09
Ralph
Well, they still are important for sure.
00:20:08:10 – 00:20:08:23
Lauren
Not if they’re.
00:20:09:00 – 00:20:18:19
Ralph
However, however, the most important and we were talking about this and like how we you just need to be patient. So the tie actually my point.
00:20:18:21 – 00:20:20:09
Lauren
I’m muting myself okay.
00:20:20:15 – 00:20:46:16
Ralph
This is the growth strategist. The growth strategist in my opinion is like the most important person because they understand all of this. That’s how they see all of it. The example that I used with the orthopedic company came from the growth strategies because like, all right, I can only do so much media buying wise, but I need to do this after the click in order to make this whole thing work and to get qualified candidates for this particular procedure.
00:20:46:18 – 00:21:02:09
Ralph
So that is like the position that’s really still in demand no matter what I says. It’s like I still think that that person and the creative strategists working together, it’s like the vitally important. Not to mention when I.
00:21:02:09 – 00:21:07:20
Lauren
Hear is media buyers dead, strategy is on media buyers is an order taker.
00:21:07:22 – 00:21:16:12
Ralph
I think it’s a little it’s less important than it was. But a media buyer with a strategic mind is very useful.
00:21:16:15 – 00:21:34:18
Lauren
So then they’re no longer just a media buyer. I think maybe I’ll think back is like, if you’re just a media like I’ve shared this with you and a few people, like, I have two media buyers on my team where we’ve given them like direction that your role has to evolve. If all you’re doing is placing the media and like with how much easier Google and Facebook have made it.
00:21:34:22 – 00:21:53:04
Lauren
So I need you to do the things that the the algorithms can’t do. I need you to do something that I can’t have some kid learn in five minutes or less. Like, I need you to be sticking your fingers in every system. Well, how is it connected to like, what’s your GTM setup? What is it like? Your pixel, your megapixel plus copy integration?
00:21:53:04 – 00:22:10:21
Lauren
Like where is the data flow that’s going into it? How effective is the audiences that you’re bringing in? Are you bringing in new customers? Like are we going after net new or are you just going after whatever’s the lowest hanging fruit. So you do you discredit. Yeah. The algorithm is already doing that. Yep. Google made a TikTok. They’re going to claim as much credit as possible.
00:22:10:21 – 00:22:36:04
Lauren
Email like I’m sorry. Unless you edit your, attribution settings. I say this a lot with attentive because they’re the ones I’m like, the most annoyed with, because you still have to send an email to change their attribution window for a text from 28 days to anything else, because you can’t manually change it. I, I for me, an email gives you like four hours of attribution assignments gets two hours max every like no, if you’re not clicking within four hours with email or two hours of text, you don’t get the credit.
00:22:36:06 – 00:22:37:10
Ralph
Is this a rant?
00:22:37:12 – 00:23:01:06
Lauren
Yeah, this is different. This is a I’m angry about this, but the media buyer has to care about those different things. Because if you’re just trying to cheat and make your numbers look good, the way that the Facebook networks are like Meta and Google and all those pieces already are. Now I just have two people trying to claim the most amount of credit, and a business owner that’s saying, like, why isn’t my bank account reflecting the joy that these two companies that are making money off of me are?
00:23:01:08 – 00:23:23:02
Ralph
So I guess to summarize here, not that we’re ending, but we’re just summarizing sort of at our midpoint, is that the media buyer of just being like, I think about it as like the dumb media buyer who has no knowledge of anything else but what he sees or she sees inside as manager, Google mic. And that’s their world.
00:23:23:04 – 00:23:25:04
Lauren
I think that’s that’s media buyer.
00:23:25:05 – 00:23:46:23
Ralph
All right. That’s it. Like with the, what are those things called blind? Well, or those are just called blinders. I guess they are called blinders. So blinders on and all you’re looking at is just like in-app metrics and that’s it. Like, you could do your job, I guess. Well, enough with AI, but you’re missing so much of the larger picture.
00:23:47:01 – 00:23:51:01
Lauren
Which is is a job well enough. You and I will never be okay with well enough.
00:23:51:01 – 00:23:56:12
Ralph
I know I’m I’m giving some grace to the media buyers who maybe aren’t quite there.
00:23:56:14 – 00:23:56:19
Lauren
It’s.
00:23:57:00 – 00:23:58:10
Ralph
But for you to.
00:23:58:12 – 00:24:04:20
Lauren
Have the grace. Right now, I’ve got Black Friday, I’ve got holiday sales.
00:24:04:20 – 00:24:06:03
Ralph
I’m just charting this off.
00:24:06:04 – 00:24:07:05
Lauren
No November.
00:24:07:11 – 00:24:17:08
Ralph
Now anyway. No, actually, we don’t have any, like, media buyers have blinders on. The point is, just like the media buyer with blinders is that worked in 2015, 2016 doesn’t. Yeah.
00:24:17:12 – 00:24:48:08
Lauren
Oh I see it even work through like 2023. Maybe even like I, you know, I could see you could have gotten away with it till probably June this year. It’s just now you can’t get away with it more because there’s too many more mature media buyers that have that strategy mindset that are obsessed with the growth to the client’s bottom line, that, they’re becoming so much louder that if you’re a quiet blinders on, only media buy going to get squished or deemed irrelevant.
00:24:48:10 – 00:25:05:09
Ralph
Yeah. And I do think that there’s a trend that’s out there right now, which is somewhat frightening if you’re in this space, because I know there’s a lot of agencies that do listen to this show is that I’m seeing a lot of smaller agencies just contract and go out of business just because they’re not adopting this mindset right now.
00:25:05:09 – 00:25:25:18
Ralph
So I work with a group that just lost half of their consulting clients because of this particular issue. They’re like, all right, I think I might just throw in the towel because I can’t really keep up with this. And clients are kind of ticked off about it because they’re like, you know, you’re not getting me the results that I want because you’re not bringing the strategy component to it.
00:25:25:20 – 00:25:44:07
Ralph
I don’t care what the in-app metrics say. It’s like you say, I’m 500% of Roas inside of, you know, name your platform, but my bank account is still flat. Like that’s not actual growth because you’re not looking at the larger picture helped me with my offer. Help me with strategy. Help me with all the things that you’re talking about here.
00:25:44:07 – 00:26:00:12
Ralph
After the click the email sequence. Go deep. The only way for a media buyer to bring value is to go deeper. It’s supposed to just really talking about and focusing their effort on the ads manager. The ad platform itself. Agree.
00:26:00:13 – 00:26:25:07
Lauren
That’s the one person job I agree with all of that, that you have to go deeper, but the media buyer role is evolving and even to go that far, right. Like we have 7 or 8 people on an account now. Yeah, because of all the different views and all the vantage points that we’re looking at. And I would like, I don’t know, I didn’t see or have come across, friends with agencies where they’re just throwing in the towel.
00:26:25:07 – 00:26:48:19
Lauren
I mean, I can tell you that there are days where it’s like, it’s harder media buying pieces. The only thing that’s gotten easier, everything else has gotten harder because the expectations and like, you know, the it’s more expensive this time of year. There’s we’ve had not the strongest year in terms of like purchasing cycles. Tariffs are an understated component to many of our clients.
00:26:48:19 – 00:26:49:17
Lauren
Businesses are.
00:26:49:19 – 00:26:50:14
Ralph
Starting to see it with.
00:26:50:14 – 00:27:09:02
Lauren
Inflation quitting like we’re seeing the impacts of inflation. We’re seeing the impacts of like, lack of loyalty within team members. Like like I’ve had a client where they’ve lost almost 80% of their team. And so then as a business owner who’s now having to learn all these other roles and like, there’s just so many things that are happening.
00:27:09:02 – 00:27:27:12
Lauren
And I think what’s hard is that you want to be an extension of someone’s marketing department a lot of times, but then like your scope might increase. So you had that growth strategist like, I’m just I’m do these landing pages. I know that’s going to make the most amount of impact. The business owner at the end of the day wants impact wants growth.
00:27:27:14 – 00:27:48:08
Lauren
But there’s this fight right now of control where they can’t. I mean, we talk about this like with AI and stuff. It’s like, how much control are you willing to give up in order to hit the targets you want to hit? And it’s like this battle of understanding what’s in scope, what’s out of scope, what you can help with.
00:27:48:08 – 00:28:04:20
Lauren
And I think right now the lines are blurring so much that the media buyer just doing the media, buying doesn’t exist, that you have to be an extension. You have to look at all those other things, but then you also have to realize that there’s a lot more people evaluating all aspects of the funnel.
00:28:05:16 – 00:28:09:07
Lauren
Because one person can’t be trained on all of that right away.
00:28:09:09 – 00:28:49:23
Ralph
Yeah. I mean, not to sound pitchy, but it’s like you do need to focus on the metrics that actually do matter and that does produce the growth that scales ultimately and, and in-app metrics. I’ll say it now, I’ll say it 100 times. Can be so easily manipulated and it’s not the source of truth anymore. And I think if you just have that blinders view on the ad platform itself, you’re you are not doing your client and or your company and or your business and, or your boss, you know, if you’re working in a marketing department, like any favors here because you’re just going to be swayed, you’re going to be swirling around the drain,
00:28:50:01 – 00:29:21:00
Ralph
even though you’re saying, hey, look at how great I am doing, but the business is flatlined down, and we see that all the time. And pretty much every onboarding we see, it is because of those metrics that the previous media buyer or the previous agency was focused on, and they weren’t moving the needle on the business. It’s like, who cares about Roas when you’re paying too much to acquire a customer, or you’re just you’re just selling old customers over and over again.
00:29:21:00 – 00:29:22:01
Lauren
And Zellers.
00:29:22:02 – 00:29:29:14
Ralph
70 or 80% of your traffic is just repeat buyers and or people who have already interacted with your brand. Like, that’s.
00:29:29:14 – 00:29:57:00
Lauren
Why there’s a piece that we’re skipping from this conversation is that a lot of small business owners, or even medium business owners, hire and delegate it out with the assumption that who they bring on is going to have as much ownership and understand all the technology and all the pieces of the funnel, where there becomes a disconnect, as you always work with a director of marketing, or you work with a producer, you work with someone else on the client side of the team, and there’s just so much that they don’t know.
00:29:57:00 – 00:30:19:03
Lauren
And I just think the last two years of the advancement of AI, we’ve been in this information overload that we’ve lost the ability to cognitively understand what is priority. And everything has become a priority. Like we’ve seen Black Friday strategy, and we’ve had discussions with people where they’re talking about bringing on new elements when their current systems aren’t set up for expansion.
00:30:19:04 – 00:30:41:02
Lauren
It’s just this shiny object syndrome and the agency being so dedicated, having, let’s say, blinders like focus, not blinders, but like strict attention into the marketing side of it. I think what gets really hard is business owners hire people with the intention of delegating it off. And I think a lot of business owners don’t know the answers themselves.
00:30:41:04 – 00:31:08:09
Lauren
And so then it gets hard because it’s emotionally like, well, why am I not going after new customers? Why am I the one who’s steering the strategic ship when I’ve hired the CMO, or when I have this marketing team, or I’m bringing on this agency and coming in and it’s it’s a kind of like a reckoning that needs to happen where I think a lot of brands and business owners have unfortunately delegated off the discipline, and no one will have as much discipline or dedication to your brand as the owner.
00:31:08:09 – 00:31:27:14
Lauren
Well, it’s true. And so there’s like the pieces that no one hires an agency ill intentionally and doesn’t know, like they don’t know how to vet or team an agency in order to keep our team or internal team member. Right. Like they don’t know. How do you how do I know that you’re good at email marketing? How do I know you’re good at SEO?
00:31:27:14 – 00:31:32:21
Lauren
How do I know you’re good at Reddit? Community management if I don’t know how to do it?
00:31:32:23 – 00:31:33:08
Ralph
It’s true.
00:31:33:08 – 00:31:56:12
Lauren
And so that happens a lot when people hire marketing teams internally or externally. And so I just think that, if you want to give grace to the media bias, I’m going to give grace to the business owner or even like the marketing team leaders, because they’re just they’re having to compete with inflation, with, current political climate, with current like, human like emotions, as well as all this emerging technology.
00:31:56:12 – 00:31:59:02
Lauren
And it’s a lot for people to keep up with.
00:31:59:04 – 00:32:39:04
Ralph
Yeah, a great. Well, I mean, I think there’s a lot on this show to to continue to deconstruct. Yeah, I mean there’s a lot to it. And I think I has actually distracted a lot of folks from, a lot of what we discussed here on today’s show. And I do think that taking a more holistic view of like the overall, like taking a step back and thinking about it from how does a client become somebody who has no idea who you are all the way through to your funnel, your funnel, or until they actually purchase reverse engineering that backwards?
00:32:39:04 – 00:32:47:03
Ralph
It’s like, how would I want to be treated all the way through ads from the click all the way to the final sale and everything in between. And I think that’s.
00:32:47:05 – 00:33:03:06
Lauren
A second sale. Yeah. I mean, to push it to the final second sale because I’m gonna look at your ecosystem. Is everyone in your CRM should be in one of three buckets. They’re a subscriber, which means they never gave you money. They are a purchaser a single time purchase or there are multiple purchaser. I’m not talking about pipeline.
00:33:03:06 – 00:33:33:10
Lauren
I’m talking about who they are as an individual. They fit into one of three categories. Never bought. Bought one spot more than once. You have to carry that through that second sale. And I think the way I would like conclude it is that we need to remember how our grandparents ran their business and having that interaction, having that discipline to hand-hold someone through to the end of their second purchase, we’ve lost sight of and we’ve focused on so many other components of how do I get my stuff ranking in low?
00:33:33:15 – 00:33:44:22
Lauren
How do I do all these shiny objects where it’s like, yes, those are important things that you can do to expand visibility, but what happens when you’ve gotten the eyeballs? You’ve gotten the visibility and you dropped the ball?
00:33:45:00 – 00:34:05:04
Ralph
The customer journey. There it is. So it’s it’s really it’s the customer experience is just rethinking that whole thing and stop getting caught up in all the shiny objects, because those aren’t necessarily the things that are going to move a business forward. They’re just ways in which to amplify something that you’re already doing. And if you’re not doing the right things, it’s just going to amplify the wrong things.
00:34:05:08 – 00:34:28:20
Ralph
All right. Well, we have certainly covered a lot here. And of course, everything that we mentioned here in today’s show is over a perpetual traffic.com. And of course, wherever you listen to podcasts, leave us a rating and review helps us get out to a wider audience. Teach people how to do this stuff the right way. And of course, as a reminder, you can get the special year end package to 11 lucky businesses who qualify where you buy the creative diversification package.
00:34:28:20 – 00:34:52:23
Ralph
All the stuff we’ve been talking about 30 deliverables every single month, all the ten different ad types our creative team will create for you, which includes UGC, founders Story, testimonials before and afters, us versus them, all of those ad types and you will get your media buying for free as well as the tier 11 data suite for free.
00:34:53:01 – 00:35:14:13
Ralph
So check that out over at tier 11.com/apply. We will have a sales page obviously for you to explain a little bit more in detail, but we are releasing this before we release it to the general public for you, the perpetual traffic listener. So check that out over at 11.com/apply. All right. So on behalf of my amazing co-host Lauren E Petrillo.
00:35:14:14 – 00:35:24:18
Ralph
So so next show you.
