All right, we are back. Kossum, what is your number one prediction or not necessarily your number one prediction, but a prediction for digital marketing in 2024? There's going to be a market collapse in the paid media space. As a matter of fact, Ralph, I'll say there has to be a market collapse in the paid media space. And we've talked about this a lot, but I'll just, I'll repeat the narrative for everybody. It used to be that, the cost per click was a couple of cents and you could mint money. And then it was, an efficient model where, You know, we were paying two or 3 per click and, you could build a pipeline that, allowed you to profit on the front end and then massively profit on the backend. And then the goal was to self liquidate, which means that at least you're covering your traffic costs. And then the goal was, I'm not liquidating on the front end, but I'm, liquidating through Ascension. And now the goal is I'm profitable through LTV. And that LTV mile marker is getting pushed out further and further and further. First, it was 30 days, 90 days. Now you have businesses that aren't profitable for the first year. And that's not an uncommon occurrence. And as with any market, the stock market, bond market, any organic market, we are now seeing Unsustainable costs, unsustainable prices. And I think businesses are going to go, in other directions with their media spend. And I think it's going to happen all at once as these things are apt to do. And then you're going to see a collapse and that collapse is going to result in, traffic costs that are far cheaper than anything we've ever seen, but you'd have to stay in the game in order to see that. So who knows how well this ages, that's the game you play when you make predictions. But dude, I've got so many clients that I'm just looking at. The way their model is structured against paid advertising. And I'm like, I don't see how this works for you long term. And I think a lot of people are in that exact same space. So something's got to give. So a separate prediction, but related is I do see. moving away from the straight line conversion model, which is where all the expensive ads are. And we talked to the marketing ants, the grain guys about this, but I just see that as there is no other way to survive in this space, especially if you don't have the war chest. of the software industry or CRM or whatever it happens to be, or you're, playing the long game. If your return on your ad spend is less than 30 days, you're going to be squeezed out really of that conversion market. It's a cashflow issue. So you have to be able to look at things longer term, obviously build, not only upsells and Ascension models, but also continuity. Other ways to enhance lifetime value. So there is that, which is absolutely essential for any business. And we'll do a show on LTV cause it's keeps coming up all the time. at least, in the audits that we're doing now, by the way, like we gave away 10 of those things, like seven of them, I think we did our eights like this week so that we're seeing a ton of businesses come from this podcast here that obviously they, Are looking at how do I survive and thrive in 2024? And AOV is a huge deal right now. It's something that a lot of businesses struggle with because if you can do both, if you can enhance your AOV, but also you can play that awareness consideration conversion game that we've talked about here on the show many times, that's where you're investing in different campaign types that aren't as expensive. And in some cases it's 10 to 20 times less to get in front of maybe the audience that isn't ready quite yet to purchase, or maybe considering purchasing, but maybe you can create your market for you through awareness ads, through reach ads, through video view ads, and then maybe even a Middle transitionary period with a lead magnet that ultimately leads to the sale, that type of traffic is less expensive and it's still less expensive. And I see that as a trend in 2024 is maybe even a resolution to what you're talking about here or a strategy moving forward. That's what the squeeze, that's where you got to go. Forces people top of funnel forces people, alternative media routes, I guess the segue would be your next prediction, Ralph, but I have a piggyback on this. for when the time comes. lay it on us. come on. one of the alternative routes that I see people pursuing is the influencer space. I think that influencer marketing, if I can't go to Google and I can't go to Meta and I can't just say, I want to play and here's what it costs. The next smartest thing for me to do is to find the influencers and micro influencers in that space, and partner and pay with them. And I think the level of sophistication in that model is going to increase. And I think there's going to be an absolute gold rush towards influencers and Michael influencers. and I don't think it's going to happen to the directories. It might happen through, agency broker, talent managers, et cetera. but really the best way to leverage influencers is through direct relationships with those influencers. and I think influencers are going to wield so much more power. And it's going to be cross platform. Like it's an influencer inside of Instagram. Generally speaking, look at Evan Carmichael. Evan Carmichael is a YouTube guy, but his Instagram is super hot and his Facebook super high. You know what I mean? Like it cascades across multiple channels. And their reach will exceed a per channel perspective and their ability to move users. Because when you get a placement, CPM with an influencer is way different than CPM with an ad network. Because if I get a thousand views in meta, that's a thousand views to a cold audience. If I get a thousand views from Evan Carmichael, the world authority inside of YouTube, people trust him and he's already specific and he's identified his niche. and if he's smart, I know Evan, Personally, I know he is, he's only going to represent brands that he knows are in alignment with his audience. And so the value of that traffic is exponentially higher. And right now, interestingly, it's actually a lot cheaper. That's a pain in the ass to structure. Those deals are hard. The relationships are hard doing the outreach is hard, but I think that people are going to get better at that moving forward. I don't know exactly how it manifests, As an end result, but if you're looking for a place to put your ad dollars, man, I'd go. I'd go to influencers right away. that's one of the things that we talked about with the marketing against the grain guys was that strategy, which they're doing. And I think HubSpot is great because HubSpot is many times like leading especially on the AI side. But what their strategy is really smart because they're not going for the, the Kim Kardashians and the rocks of the world, and they're not going for the tiny little guys who will just do anything for anyone like the micro influencers. And there's apparently there's like seven different levels of influencer, but really the ones that are in the middle have a large enough following that they will. Back your product and, utilize your product only if they believe that it will help their audience. But it's context appropriate too, right? So like correct for HubSpot, that's a much larger influencer than if I'm a landscaping company. Dude, there's a mommy blogger in your city, Mr. and Mrs. Landscaper right now today that has 250 people following her, but that's 250 homes. Most landscapers don't have that many clients. term micro and the seven levels you're talking about, they're so context dependent. I wouldn't dismiss small influencers, especially if you're a small business because some of those folks. My wife's a really good example of this, man. She's not what you would consider to be like world famous, but the people that follow her, she does a lot of geopolitical stuff. She has a degree in international human rights. She can move mountains and she gets on podcasts and people are really interested in what she has to say. and so I think the right small influencer could actually be more impactful than the larger influencers who have diluted messaging or diluted audiences. They're not niched down. I think it really has to be a match for you. And this does take some work.