Welcome to the perpetual traffic podcast.
Lauren:I am your host for today.
Lauren:It is Lauren E.
Lauren:Petrillo, founder of Mognus Media as Ralph, our co host is letting me
Lauren:connect with our very special guests.
Lauren:very talented agency owner himself, Eddie Malouf.
Lauren:And I'm so excited to connect with Eddie, who is here today to talk about
Lauren:everything that he has seen working in 2024 and some predictions of what
Lauren:we think is going to help our clients and future brands in the year ahead.
Lauren:So yeah.
Lauren:Yeah.
Eddie:you.
Eddie:Thank you, Lauren.
Eddie:Happy to be here.
Eddie:Super excited for our talk today.
Eddie:It's already gotten a little exciting behind the scenes that people are
Eddie:never going to hear, hopefully.
Eddie:so I'm excited to continue the fun conversations.
Eddie:successful.
Eddie:60 million
Lauren:For those that aren't privileged enough to be in the pre
Lauren:recording time, you got to miss how we broke down the success of Cardi B's
Lauren:OnlyFans account and why and where.
Lauren:Yeah, very successful, whether it's top of funnel, middle funnel.
Eddie:They might not know that
Lauren:Yeah.
Lauren:130, 000 a day successful.
Eddie:crazy.
Lauren:so Eddie, for those that, do not know you, whatever reason
Lauren:that's silly, silly, silly them.
Lauren:Can you tell us about yourself and bad marketing?
Eddie:yeah.
Eddie:So I'm the, founder and CEO of bad marketing.
Eddie:we're a digital agency specializing in three verticals.
Eddie:So we have one vertical for local businesses, one for e commerce businesses
Eddie:and one for info products and courses.
Eddie:We have about 200 employees total.
Eddie:We've done this in about four years, a little bit more four
Eddie:years and four months now.
Eddie:And, pretty cool.
Eddie:We got to learn a lot of marketing lessons.
Eddie:I mean, I've been running ads myself for about 10 years, but as an agency
Eddie:owner would like actual staff on payroll of some sort, we've been
Eddie:doing it for a little bit over four.
Eddie:So it's been a, exciting and stressful journey.
Eddie:You can see all the gray hair on the side of my head that comes from this business.
Lauren:Well, for those not watching on YouTube, he says you could see
Lauren:his gray hair, but he's rocking a hat that's hiding most of the gray
Eddie:see it on the side, right?
Eddie:Like it's like that side gray, the beard gray, you know, you
Eddie:gotta give me some gray credit.
Eddie:I mean, it's cool if you can't see it even better for me,
Lauren:No, I can't.
Lauren:I can't.
Lauren:So that's like 10 years.
Lauren:You've been doing this.
Lauren:I was like, I think you're like three, four years younger than me.
Lauren:So I was like, how old were you when you started?
Eddie:I was young.
Eddie:I couldn't even drink when I started.
Lauren:So there you
Eddie:I'm 30.
Lauren:30, 200 employees and, continuing to grow bad
Lauren:marketing, which for those that.
Lauren:Are hearing correctly bat b a d.
Lauren:His company is called bad Marketing like you got to explain
Lauren:that a little bit before we jump into the actual content of the
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:I mean, it's kind of like the liquid death play, right?
Eddie:It's like the anti hero.
Eddie:, and so long story short, basically we had another name that was like
Eddie:super boring and we had it for years.
Eddie:That was because like the original partners I had and
Eddie:they were no longer partners.
Eddie:So the name didn't make sense anymore.
Eddie:And so, we basically got a lawsuit over our name cause someone else
Eddie:was using the same name and it was just like this giant thing.
Eddie:And I was like, this is stupid.
Eddie:So let's just pick another name and then we're like, what's like the crate?
Eddie:Like we can pick whatever we want.
Eddie:We have case studies.
Eddie:We have staff we make money already.
Eddie:Like we don't need to like do something that pleases people.
Eddie:So like if we really wanted to be ourselves, who would we be?
Eddie:And we all decided, you know, the way we act is like super bold, disruptive,
Eddie:like the anti of everything else.
Eddie:And that's kind of how we've always done things in one.
Eddie:And so someone sarcastically said, why don't we just go with bad marketing?
Eddie:And they all laughed.
Eddie:And I was like, that's a great idea and went to buy all the domains, the handles
Eddie:and everything over the next few months.
Eddie:And we ran with it.
Eddie:And it's been awesome, honestly, like it's been one of the best decisions
Eddie:we've ever made in the company.
Lauren:To go it's been so good since you went bad
Eddie:So good since we've gone bad.
Eddie:And our motto is actually we make good brands go bad.
Lauren:That's good.
Lauren:Or is that bad?
Eddie:Depends if it's capitalized or not.
Eddie:Even internally, capital bad is like one thing.
Eddie:Fully lowercase bad is bad bad.
Eddie:Like, not good bad.
Lauren:Gotcha.
Lauren:Gotcha.
Lauren:Cool.
Lauren:so with that, I mean you've been in the space for 10 years.
Lauren:You have a team for four years.
Lauren:what I was really excited to talk about with you, agency owner
Lauren:to agency owner, like a lot of people listening to this podcast.
Lauren:We're close to Black Friday, end of year.
Lauren:most people are already in their Black Friday holiday promotions, but what
Lauren:they're not ready for necessarily are The things to come in 2025.
Lauren:So I thought it'd be really cool just to hear from you.
Lauren:Like, what are some of the things that you're looking for and gearing
Lauren:up for in 2025 for your clients?
Lauren:Like, what is there any?
Lauren:Area that you're doubling down in for either info products, e commerce
Lauren:or your local business clients.
Eddie:I think we're doubling down on a lot of affiliate promotions as a whole.
Eddie:So like, you can look at it.
Eddie:Per platform, if we're talking like info products, it's probably
Eddie:more like shared JV lists, cross promoting from list to list.
Eddie:if we're talking about like e commerce, it'd be like affiliate
Eddie:marketing on things like tiktok shop or amazon through influencers.
Eddie:those are definitely things that we're doubling down on in every category.
Eddie:We're You know, on the info side, creating a lot of JV partnerships between
Eddie:people in the same spaces that sell non competing products, it's just kind of
Eddie:free money for everyone across the board.
Eddie:They've already spent the money for those leads.
Eddie:And then on tick tock, we're doubling down and basically bring on our e
Eddie:commerce clients on tick tock shop, just on profit share agreements and, building
Eddie:basically a giant network of affiliates and creators that can sell their products.
Eddie:And, we know that Lauren is really good at pet products, for example,
Eddie:whenever pet products come our way, we, source them to Lauren.
Eddie:And then she promotes them and that becomes like kind of her niche and
Eddie:category for clients like ours.
Eddie:so definitely something I'm doubling down on as a company.
Eddie:And I think the reason was of this whole year, I think there
Eddie:was just a lot of lack of trust.
Eddie:It was hard to get people to check out, in e commerce.
Eddie:It's harder to get people and info to show up to a sales call
Eddie:because there's a lack of trust.
Eddie:On and on and on in every industry, right?
Eddie:And someone used the term, I forgot what it was, but like trust
Eddie:inflation or something like that.
Eddie:Basically, just like, it's harder to earn someone's trust now than
Eddie:it was a year or two years.
Eddie:I mean, heck, when I started running ads 8, 9, 10 years ago, like I
Eddie:just run anything and anyone would buy anything and submit a lead
Eddie:for like pennies on the dollar.
Eddie:today it's much different, right?
Eddie:You got a, Earn the trust a little bit more.
Eddie:And so I think affiliate marketing is the fastest way to earn that trust because
Eddie:you're going through someone else.
Eddie:I think there was a period where like influencers were less trusted because
Eddie:everyone knew that they were making money.
Lauren:Yeah.
Lauren:Hashtag ad and how that
Eddie:exactly
Lauren:everything with Instagram.
Eddie:everything.
Eddie:Right.
Eddie:And now people are like, Oh my gosh, like this guy's just doing it for money.
Eddie:And so like conversions went down.
Eddie:And then now because of things like Tik TOK shop, it's actually the opposite.
Eddie:It's like, I'm proud that I'm making money from this.
Eddie:And it's okay that I'm public about it.
Eddie:And the people that I'm talking, that know I'm talking about this product,
Eddie:no, I'm making money off this product and I'm actually just building
Eddie:trust with them because I'm actually only selling them good products.
Eddie:And so now the trust has kind of shifted to like, Oh, if I've bought something
Eddie:from this creator, it's a good product.
Eddie:I trust him.
Eddie:And so now it's actually the opposite.
Eddie:Whereas instead of having less trust, there's actually so much more trust
Eddie:because they've established that over time from selling other good products.
Eddie:so it's a very interesting time we live in, This has been a rollercoaster
Eddie:of trust on the influencer space.
Eddie:And I think we're gonna have a pretty good opportunity of the next few years in it.
Lauren:I think it's interesting where it's like you talk about, when we
Lauren:think about influencers and like two years ago, especially for Gen Z buyers.
Lauren:They grew up with influencers, bought what influencers said, and
Lauren:then a lot of influencers selling supplements, unsafe, untested
Lauren:products, tanked their reputation.
Lauren:Obviously what happened with the Jenner Kardashians and some of the stuff that
Lauren:they've promoted, Fyre Festival being like one of the most obvious cases, that trust
Lauren:in celebrity influencers really tanked.
Lauren:But what you're talking about is a lot more creators, content creators,
Lauren:where this is their full time business.
Lauren:And I think what is really powerful in a lot of that is, You don't
Lauren:necessarily have to be an influencer to be influential because I bet you there
Lauren:are a lot of micro and nano influencers, maybe even some content creators with
Lauren:100, 000 followers that are super loyal and they're super dedicated because
Lauren:they're talking about stuff in the equestrian space, for example, and when
Lauren:you're A content creator at the top of your game for that specific field.
Lauren:And you have a product that you actually put your name and brand
Lauren:behind, not just your face.
Lauren:I think that makes sense as a way for a lot more people to double down on that.
Lauren:Trust inflation.
Lauren:If that's the term that makes a lot of sense, of course, as well.
Lauren:you're talking about the e commerce side.
Lauren:I'd love for you to go even deeper on the, Info side, because I bet a lot of people
Lauren:are in the space right now where people aren't showing up to these phone calls.
Lauren:They're not attending the webinars or watching them all the way through.
Lauren:They're consuming content and it's just this like content overload.
Lauren:And it's just, why aren't you following through?
Lauren:Didn't you love what I had to say?
Lauren:Oh
Eddie:Yeah, I mean, it's, as of the time that we're filming this, like
Eddie:these are kind of the lowest show rates I've seen in a while across most
Eddie:call funnel or, you know, high ticket or info product brands as a whole.
Eddie:I think we just kind of have to go further of.
Eddie:It's either at the beginning of the funnel or in the middle of the funnel.
Eddie:We have to drag it out a bit, meaning like, how many touch points are we giving
Eddie:the consumer before they become a lead?
Eddie:Or how many touch points are we giving the consumer between the
Eddie:time that become a lead and the time that they show up for a call?
Eddie:and how easy is that process versus making it more difficult?
Eddie:So The value is there for them showing up the call because how much they've
Eddie:already invested prior to the call.
Eddie:and something that we're conscious of is like, yeah, like people
Eddie:aren't going to watch everything.
Eddie:And so, we always like have layers.
Eddie:So like, let's just take a webinar at the top webinar, you know, let's call it two
Eddie:hours, for example, sake to our webinar.
Eddie:I mean, not everyone's going to watch that, right?
Eddie:Let's just say 30 percent of people are going to watch that.
Eddie:Another 20 percent from replays.
Eddie:Okay, so we call it 50%.
Eddie:There's another 50 percent that will just never watch that, because
Eddie:they realize how long it is.
Eddie:But what if I just sent that 50 percent a 16 minute VSL of the same content
Eddie:that was in the webinar condensed?
Eddie:Would they watch it?
Eddie:Well, let's just say another 50 percent would go watch that out of that 50.
Eddie:Now I have 25 percent remaining that haven't watched anything.
Eddie:I probably can't get 50 percent of those people to do anything, but if
Eddie:I can get 20 percent of those people, which is another 5 percent of the
Eddie:original total, To read something.
Eddie:Hey, how about I give it to them instead of a video format?
Eddie:How about I turn the VSL into like a really good sales page and how many of
Eddie:these people that didn't attend, didn't want to read any of this, or watch
Eddie:any of this because they don't want to sit there and watch would gladly spend
Eddie:a few minutes scrolling on a toilet seat to understand everything that
Eddie:they originally were interested in for.
Eddie:I have friends who sit on the toilet for 20 minutes, and they're
Eddie:just reading the whole time.
Eddie:You know what I mean?
Eddie:So,
Lauren:Now, are these friends with kids?
Lauren:Because there's also like privacy where you're like, it's 20 minutes of silence.
Lauren:So they're locking that door and be like, I'm in the bathroom.
Eddie:no, those are like 45 minute bathroom breaks for those friends.
Eddie:That's another category of it.
Eddie:But yeah, I mean, that's basically what we're doing.
Eddie:We're basically like trying to find different mediums for people to consume
Eddie:the same information and starting with the one with the, you know, the most
Eddie:time with the consumer between us and them and then slowly dwindling it down.
Eddie:Essentially, it's probably different opportunities to consume the same info.
Lauren:So if that's you're finding that in 2024, you've been distilling
Lauren:the information that people are missing because they've already opted in, they've
Lauren:shown interest in wanting to consume it.
Lauren:But we're busy human beings, we're forgetful human beings.
Lauren:And we've got a lot of things competing for attention.
Lauren:So you in 2024, what you have found working has been distilling that
Lauren:information down to shorter form of content and to diverse forms
Lauren:of content for them to consume.
Lauren:How are you going to take that further in 2025?
Lauren:Does that apply for just in time webinars, like live webinars,
Lauren:everything and everything in between?
Eddie:Yeah, I mean, I've already done that.
Eddie:it's for we do that for everything at this point.
Eddie:Obviously, we're not going to do it like day one because we don't know
Eddie:if that webinar is going to convert.
Eddie:And when we turn into the VSL or sales page doesn't make sense.
Eddie:But like once a webinar is running, those are ways that we basically re optimize it.
Eddie:And so I mean, going into 2025, It's not like this is something
Eddie:that everyone is doing yet.
Eddie:I mean, I know a lot of people selling info products, and I
Eddie:don't think any of them are doing something like this just yet.
Eddie:And if they are, they're definitely not taking it to a tech sales page.
Eddie:So I think there's just still so much opportunity to still take the same
Eddie:exact path we've been taking just with more people and rolling it across
Eddie:the board versus just being kind of something that we tested this year.
Lauren:what about for local businesses?
Lauren:What have you seen help local businesses in 2024 that you're
Lauren:going to then double down in for
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:Yeah, great question.
Eddie:I think content creation is something that local businesses struggle at for ads.
Eddie:And so I'll give you an example.
Eddie:Let's just take, I don't know, local chiropractor.
Eddie:So, like, four years ago, I could run a square image on Canva saying 29 back
Eddie:adjustment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Eddie:And then I get flooded with leads and they come in.
Eddie:I can do the same thing now.
Eddie:Leads will be more expensive.
Eddie:Less of them will actually respond and show up.
Eddie:Kind of all the metrics of trust are dwindled, or I could invest
Eddie:time into one time, just scripting some really creative concepts and
Eddie:videos for the local businesses.
Eddie:They film them on their phone.
Eddie:I edit them to be an engaging, educational and funny type video.
Eddie:, and I run those as ads and let's just say I say I pay the same price as the person
Eddie:who's running an image ad to get a lead.
Eddie:but my leads are better.
Eddie:They're more educated, and they show up more and purchase more, much
Eddie:more compared to the ones and just square image with the promotion.
Eddie:So we're doubling down on that.
Eddie:We have, on the local business that we've never had video editors.
Eddie:We just have graphic designers and stuff like that.
Eddie:Cause it's like local businesses.
Eddie:now we're building an entire video editing team around local businesses and doing it
Eddie:for those businesses as like a service.
Eddie:They film it on their phones.
Eddie:They send it to us.
Eddie:We do it again.
Eddie:I'm not going to post organically.
Eddie:but I will do it just to have better ads because our while be significantly
Eddie:better and then as a local business, we're advising them on posting
Eddie:organically because there is so much money to be made from just posting
Eddie:organically as a local business.
Eddie:And even when you run ads, the thing is, like, if you really look at the ads path,
Eddie:A lot of people, what they're doing is, they actually go to an ad on Instagram.
Eddie:They don't actually click the button on the ad.
Eddie:They go and click the profile of the person that is running the ad.
Eddie:And then the profile essentially becomes your landing page slash like business
Eddie:card, whatever, however you want to take that essentially, that's what it becomes.
Eddie:so, I heavily advise them all and give them advice on how to build their social
Eddie:media organically for that reason for me.
Eddie:But, really what I'm doing is I'm just investing more heavily into content.
Eddie:I look at what everyone's not doing and that's what I try to do.
Eddie:So like everyone is trying to replace people with AI.
Eddie:Conversational bots.
Eddie:Cool.
Eddie:I could do that.
Eddie:I'm just another person.
Eddie:It's not a special edge.
Eddie:Everyone's trying to do automations on go high level.
Eddie:Great.
Eddie:Not a special edge.
Eddie:Everyone's trying to white label ICO.
Eddie:Great.
Eddie:Not a special edge.
Eddie:How many people are actually like doing really sick ads for local businesses at
Eddie:a low cost and running them at scale?
Eddie:None.
Eddie:Like, I mean, obviously not none, but like it's like single percentage digits.
Eddie:and that's what stand out.
Eddie:So that's what we're focused on.
Eddie:And the difference is night and day between someone who has a really
Eddie:good video and someone just has like an average ad like everyone else.
Lauren:Yeah.
Lauren:So a lot of local businesses, when you're saying there aren't a lot of people
Lauren:that will do it because local businesses tend to have really small budgets.
Lauren:And they have a smaller market.
Lauren:They can only attract the drive in market if they have one single
Lauren:location for brick and mortar.
Lauren:What I have seen, at least, a lot of local businesses will hire their best
Lauren:friend's niece or their neighbor's nephew.
Lauren:Someone that is just like a younger kid that can film their videos, but
Lauren:they don't have the conversion mindset for a lot of that storytelling, which
Lauren:I think you're saying is Is enriching their performance against what is easy,
Lauren:a canvas, static image ad or something that doesn't showcase personality.
Lauren:And authenticity and who they are as a local business.
Lauren:And you're bringing in additional team members cost effective means
Lauren:because you have such a large production that you can pass those
Lauren:cost savings onto a local business.
Lauren:So it's like they're being treated as if they're an enterprise
Lauren:client, even as a local business.
Eddie:Exactly.
Eddie:And in today's world, things are more expensive online.
Eddie:It's harder to advertise.
Eddie:It's harder to get to the consumer.
Eddie:They have way more.
Eddie:So not only.
Eddie:Is it more expensive?
Eddie:But they have way more options.
Eddie:maybe they used to look at 100 posts a day.
Eddie:Maybe now they're looking at 1000 posts a day.
Eddie:And so like the amount of the percentage of their total viewership that you
Eddie:possibly could have is going down.
Eddie:It's becoming more expensive to do so.
Eddie:Everything's just becoming more difficult.
Eddie:And so like you gotta out edge someone in some category.
Eddie:and to me, the easiest one that I see is just like better ads content wise.
Lauren:Better ads content wise, but you said earlier that you don't put those
Lauren:videos that you make for local business.
Lauren:You don't recommend that they put them in their organic feed.
Eddie:No, no.
Eddie:I just don't manage their organic feed.
Eddie:So like, you know, I'm not making the videos for the
Eddie:purpose of their organic feed.
Eddie:I'm making them just to become a sale.
Lauren:Makes sense.
Lauren:Makes sense.
Lauren:So then, with coming out of black Friday and moving into the holiday
Lauren:season, is there anything, that you find that you're super invested in?
Lauren:Like, I know everyone's focused on black Friday right now.
Lauren:And then the free commerce, at least ship before Christmas.
Lauren:But what is, that next focus?
Lauren:For your clients.
Lauren:And we can go vertical by vertical, like for e commerce.
Lauren:what is that pivot immediately after they can't shift or they
Lauren:can't in time for Christmas,
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:I mean, the shipping time for Christmas one is kind of a weird one because at
Eddie:this point, most of the brands we work with are prepared to like get everything
Eddie:up to like the 22nd, 23rd there on time.
Eddie:What we used to do though, cause we would yeah.
Eddie:I mean, someone will come up with a new product.
Eddie:We'd sell out way too fast and then we'd have like, you know, a 20 day period
Eddie:where they definitely couldn't get it.
Eddie:we would give them like the ability to buy it, to pre purchase
Eddie:it essentially, and like have their name on a top specifically.
Eddie:and then we just give them like some sort of bonus, to kind of compensate for it,
Eddie:but make it still a good enough offer for them to be worth buying, upfront.
Eddie:But as soon as black Friday, cyber Monday ends, honestly, like we're
Eddie:pretty focused, um, unless it's like a.
Eddie:gifting type brand.
Eddie:we're, we're pretty focused on like you want.
Eddie:So I'll give you an example.
Eddie:we're really heavy into supplements.
Eddie:supplements like don't necessarily smash it in December.
Eddie:but like as soon as December 26 comes around supplements, start killing it.
Eddie:Like
Lauren:new year, new you.
Eddie:Yeah, new year, new you like people now don't think like, Oh, I'm
Eddie:saving up to buy gifts for Christmas or whatever the thought process is like
Eddie:vacation mode slowly kind of goes away.
Eddie:January 1st.
Eddie:There's like another uptake because vacation mode like really goes away.
Eddie:there's like, I don't know why, but like half of the world thinks like
Eddie:between Christmas and New Year's like there's not a week and it's just
Eddie:like, you know what I'm talking about?
Eddie:It's just like, they're like retired for seven days.
Eddie:New Year's, like, basically start New Year's Eve starts on, like, the 26th.
Lauren:Well, that's my birthday is New Year's Eve and I start
Lauren:celebrating on the 26th.
Lauren:So let's be real.
Lauren:I have a female, my mom saved the best for last the real.
Lauren:Truth story was though that she demanded I got out by midnight
Lauren:because she wanted the tax incentive.
Eddie:so funny.
Eddie:That's crazy.
Lauren:Subscribe to New Year's Eve starts December 26 because
Eddie:Why wouldn't you?
Eddie:It's your birthday.
Eddie:I mean, for me, it probably started December 1st.
Eddie:If that the case, you know, uh,
Lauren:my mom's birthday is December 2nd.
Lauren:So I have to give her her Her time to shine, but I'll,
Lauren:I'll evaluate December 3rd.
Eddie:December 3rd.
Eddie:I mean, even even the 10th, I give her a week.
Eddie:You know what I mean?
Eddie:She's done a lot.
Lauren:Should I did come out of her body.
Lauren:So thanks mom.
Eddie:but yeah, we're focused, we're focused on January and even like
Eddie:from an agency perspective, right?
Eddie:If you're an agency owner, I already have landing pages, ads, everything
Eddie:built for January from now to get more clients and all of them are around like
Eddie:the obvious angles, which is like, did you miss your black Friday targets?
Eddie:Did you miss your Q4 targets?
Eddie:That's a very strong time of transition for e commerce brands
Eddie:like they decide if they did or did not hit their annual goals.
Eddie:And like usually the first person that they're blaming is the marketing agency.
Eddie:So always, right?
Eddie:It's like, why didn't you fix my entire company?
Eddie:Well, because I'm only in charge of two facebook ads, and not the
Eddie:other 900 things that you have.
Lauren:Right.
Lauren:But it's a make or break it season for a lot of e commerce brands.
Lauren:Cause they could be getting as much as 50 percent of their entire annual
Lauren:revenue in a matter of two weeks.
Eddie:exactly.
Eddie:Right.
Eddie:So it is make or break.
Eddie:so basically a lot are breaking is really the point.
Eddie:as an agency in January, you definitely want to focus on that angle.
Eddie:I started in December.
Eddie:Like, as soon as Black Friday ends, I literally turn on the ads and it's
Eddie:like, did you miss your targets for Q4?
Eddie:Did you miss your targets for Black Friday?
Eddie:Cyber Monday?
Eddie:make you one better than Q4.
Eddie:And it's like my entire angle.
Eddie:And That's how I mean, that's how we built our agency, right?
Eddie:I find the angles that make sense based on the time of the year
Eddie:and everything that's happening.
Eddie:And then I write it.
Eddie:So like even this year, like there was like the whole election, like
Eddie:I ran an entire angle with a trump actor got make marketing bad again.
Eddie:and just like rode the wave of, trump almost getting shot
Eddie:and everything else in between.
Eddie:Right?
Eddie:And so, Same for Q1.
Eddie:I am, I'll ride the wave of all the people in Q4 that are complaining that Black
Eddie:Friday wasn't as good as it was what we thought it was going to be this year.
Eddie:There's too much competition, blah, blah, blah.
Eddie:so as an agency, that's what I'll be focused on.
Eddie:and then as an e com brand, again, some of these guys like naturally thrive
Eddie:in Q1 more than they do in Q4, to be
Lauren:Yeah.
Lauren:The health and wellness space is just, it is your black Friday.
Lauren:For until what, February 16th, when people give up on their new year's resolutions.
Eddie:think that's called January 2nd.
Lauren:Okay.
Lauren:Oh, look, I'm going to celebrate my birthday for at least a week.
Lauren:I'm going to hold my new year's resolutions for at least a month.
Lauren:That's how this works for
Eddie:Okay, that's good.
Lauren:But yeah, no.
Lauren:So, I mean, for, for sure, there's a lot more brands as even in the info
Lauren:space, because everyone's in a place of reevaluating where they are, how was their
Lauren:year reflecting on what they want 2025.
Lauren:So even for those.
Lauren:Info clients, I'm sure is there.
Lauren:It put in the self help personal growth business space.
Lauren:If they have something that can either be a biz op or an opportunity for you
Lauren:to improve yourself as who you are, you can have a bang on January and find
Lauren:that you're slower, come August, come September when kids are back to school
Lauren:and you're prepping for the holidays.
Eddie:Yeah, that's so accurate.
Eddie:I mean, January, January is like across the board.
Eddie:January competes with November for us in every space because of that reason.
Eddie:And info, it definitely beats it.
Eddie:Like, we know January is usually like our best month.
Eddie:and we treat it accordingly.
Eddie:Like we double budgets in January compared to, March, for
Eddie:example, just because new me.
Eddie:New initiatives, new life goals, everything like that.
Eddie:Right.
Eddie:And a lot of honestly, a lot of the info products that we work on are
Eddie:either biz op, like money making based or health and wellness space.
Eddie:And both of them are like January.
Eddie:They're just like a different level of motivation and higher
Eddie:buyer intent as a whole.
Eddie:So I
Lauren:So then what is something that you saw either clients come to
Lauren:you with or prospects are talking to you about that you're like, I.
Lauren:Stop that right now.
Lauren:We are not doing that moving forward.
Lauren:That was such a gimmick.
Lauren:Go away.
Lauren:You watched a Tik TOK video where this thing works.
Lauren:It's not going to work anymore.
Lauren:Like what is the thing that you have seen a lot of brands ask you about
Lauren:or that current or past clients were doing that you're like, Nope, this is
Lauren:not going to continue moving forward.
Eddie:Yeah, I think it's really just media buying hacks.
Eddie:I'll put it in like a whole category.
Eddie:So like, they'll hear someone who's supposedly spends a lot of money on ads
Eddie:somewhere say like, Oh, if you like.
Eddie:Click this button and run this ad this way specifically and blah, blah, blah.
Eddie:Then, you're going to absolutely blow it out the water and that's all you
Eddie:really need to change this whole account.
Eddie:honestly, I'll tell you like my most successful accounts that spend the most
Eddie:money with the most return on ad spend.
Eddie:Have the simplest media buying structures with the best ads and copy and angles
Eddie:and funnels and so many people look at the ads as if they're like the thing that
Eddie:runs the whole business when it's really just like The area where they transact.
Eddie:So like the landing page, let's call it for, you know, marketing sake, like the
Eddie:landing page is much more important than the traffic and the content on the traffic
Eddie:is much more important than the buttons that are being pressed in the traffic.
Eddie:And so, like, even internally, like when we go to solve an account
Eddie:that maybe is underperforming.
Eddie:My media bars will be like, Oh, I'm going to do a cost cap structure
Eddie:and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Eddie:And I'm like, okay, cool.
Eddie:How about you just duplicate that?
Eddie:You do that for you and duplicate it for me and change this headline to
Eddie:this and add this at the beginning of this video ad and tell me who
Eddie:wins and I'll crush the results.
Eddie:because I think we're in a world where like, Facebook and Google
Eddie:algorithms, TikTok algorithms, like they're getting really good.
Eddie:AI is getting integrated into them, whether we are told that or not.
Eddie:and they're just going to continually improve to find the right buyer
Eddie:pool based on previous data.
Eddie:And it's our job just to have The highest level copy messaging, creative,
Eddie:whatever it is, because that is going to be the highest leverage thing compared
Eddie:to like trying to really refine more technical button clicking side of things.
Eddie:I just don't think that's going to be as high of a leverage activity as
Eddie:it has been, for the last 10 years.
Eddie:So I think I think that's probably my biggest thing that I like, like, even now,
Eddie:a client saw a video he said make this change i'm like we just got a 12x return
Eddie:last week Why would I change anything?
Eddie:Oh this video from this guy said that i'm like that guy learns from me like
Eddie:yeah, there's a lot of opinions out there of things but I just think
Eddie:we're moving in a direction where those assets are going to be more valuable
Eddie:than the technology necessarily.
Lauren:Interesting.
Lauren:So the assets will be more valuable than the technology.
Lauren:I hear you when, you said, talk about earlier about like the trust inflation
Lauren:and then you just have this when a client is like, this is what I've seen.
Lauren:This is what I want.
Lauren:It's like an affiliate or an influencer.
Lauren:And their space, because a lot of clients are intermediate marketers.
Lauren:Like they know enough about it.
Lauren:And if you're listening to this podcast and you own a brand yourself, like,
Lauren:you know enough about marketing, so you can hold your agency and your marketing
Lauren:teams accountable to the results you're looking for, but it can be like
Lauren:those hacks and those viral videos where this works really well for me.
Lauren:For me, I get so annoyed because I'm like, there's not an entire picture here.
Lauren:How much money did they spend?
Lauren:How much profit did they have?
Lauren:This blew up in one category, but look at the window you're looking at.
Lauren:That says 2020.
Lauren:That was a pandemic year.
Lauren:Those numbers are not the same.
Lauren:We need to back this up.
Lauren:Like I feel granted, we're coming off of the election and it's just been a
Lauren:fact checking kind of space anyways.
Lauren:But a lot of those hacks that come forward or come from conversations, I'm
Lauren:like, yes, we can absolutely test it.
Lauren:Always be testing.
Lauren:Don't get me wrong.
Lauren:wrong, but let's have fair and realistic expectations because what one person
Lauren:said may not necessarily be true because a thousand and a half other factors
Lauren:that can go into it, but it sure made them popular for that instant real.
Eddie:That's for sure.
Eddie:I'll tell you the political reels right now are very popular.
Eddie:I am, I am not shy to say I am taking advantage of.
Eddie:The viewership.
Eddie:I never talk politics, but I'm like, it's working right now.
Eddie:So I'll talk about him for a little bit
Lauren:Well, I think that's a really important part for a lot
Lauren:of people listening for 2025.
Lauren:At least I can say that what we have found working in 2024 that we want
Lauren:to continue and caring is how do we disrupt an existing conversation
Lauren:by inserting a brand or a story.
Lauren:And so you've been doing that really well.
Lauren:With politics and where you're intersecting a trending conversation and
Lauren:leveraging it in a way that fits your brand, whether you're a Trump fan or not,
Lauren:that's not the point you're leveraging, his slogan and applying it to marketing
Lauren:so that you can interrupt the feet of what people are already consuming.
Lauren:So I think that's really important.
Lauren:I mean, you're talking about like doubling down on content,
Lauren:creating quality content with AI.
Lauren:There are so many tools that enable you to make content.
Lauren:So quickly and so cost effectively, but what I've at least seen in 2024 that I
Lauren:don't want to continue in 2025 is the devaluation of quality because when you're
Lauren:using AI, you're using lots of tools, you're creating more a lower quality
Lauren:and you're just, you're doing a spray and pray and playing a volume game and
Lauren:forgive me on this Eddie, but this is how I assume men date on Tinder apps.
Lauren:It's just a volume.
Lauren:I'm swiping on everything.
Lauren:Copy, pasting, copy, pasting, copy, pasting.
Lauren:and I can't imagine that.
Lauren:Most of those individuals find love, maybe what they're looking for, they'll
Lauren:find, 'cause it's a volume game.
Lauren:But if you're trying to like, build a relationship with the brand and get
Lauren:customer loyalty, that personalization, that quality is gonna be a stronger play.
Eddie:Yeah, no 100 percent I mean I agree with you on all aspects of it
Eddie:I'm interested to see where I does take us though because I mean I can't
Eddie:afford to be obsessed with it If I was like jobless and didn't have a massive
Eddie:company to run then I would probably be obsessing with AI and I Going crazy over
Eddie:it, but, I don't have that blessing.
Eddie:So, I put myself in like the early adopter phase, but not in the,
Eddie:like, whatever comes before that.
Eddie:but
Lauren:Mm.
Lauren:Yeah.
Lauren:The, super fanatics, the ones that are gonna break the systems and
Eddie:exactly.
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:Like I'm going to learn from someone else.
Eddie:I'm not going to be the one paving the way by any means on that side.
Eddie:but I, can already tell like creatives are going to be the thing.
Eddie:That has the biggest leverage from the marketing side, at least short term.
Eddie:And a lot of people creatively are going to be out of jobs or going to have to find
Eddie:ways to use AI to output 10 X, what they currently are in order to keep their jobs.
Lauren:When you say 10 X, for me, when I agree with you, 100 percent
Lauren:like AI inserted into the marketplace for marketing has been amazing, but
Lauren:also hard for a lot of businesses.
Lauren:I can only speak to what we've done at Marmos Media.
Lauren:We use AI.
Lauren:We've been using Jasper for years.
Lauren:We've been using Surfer SEO.
Lauren:And by years, I mean, Jasper has been around for like three years.
Lauren:That's not actually a long time that an AI software has been around, but we have been
Lauren:using it so that we can produce higher amount While maintaining quality at the
Lauren:same price that it would have taken us to do before so we've become more efficient
Lauren:But there's definitely a like the 10x piece where we have found ourselves and
Lauren:Others that aren't leveraging AI that 10x.
Lauren:It's just it's a growing delta because we can maintain great for a good price You
Lauren:And you don't have that same dichotomy and I bet you that's gonna be true too
Lauren:for creators in that 10x where you can definitely 10x in terms of quantity all
Lauren:day long, but the 10x in terms of quality when you have that creative conversion
Lauren:based mindset and you're, if you're an existing good creator and you leverage
Lauren:AI, you become a great creator, but if you're bad and you leverage AI, you.
Lauren:Lowercase b,
Eddie:Just making sure,
Lauren:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lauren:If you're a lowercase b awful creator and you leverage AI,
Lauren:you're just amplifying awful
Eddie:Agreed.
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:And it's,
Lauren:volume, not quality.
Eddie:And again, it's like conversational, right?
Eddie:Like you're feeding it the inputs that are going to require the outputs.
Eddie:And if you suck, then it's going to just give you stuff that
Eddie:you like, which usually sucks.
Eddie:So, I love where it's moving though, towards like us, at least commercially
Eddie:being able to like read spreadsheets at scale and data at scale and contracts
Eddie:at scale and all these other things.
Eddie:I think that's going to be massive.
Eddie:I think it's definitely going to hurt.
Eddie:Lawyers who are billing 400 bucks an hour to read a document thousand
Eddie:bucks an hour to read a document you know, they're kind of all negligent.
Eddie:Now I can read 100 page document in 16 seconds.
Eddie:So, I'm really that's what I'm most excited for on the side
Eddie:because, from a productivity standpoint, I could probably run.
Eddie:10 times more businesses with the same amount of time just from
Eddie:being able to process information significantly faster and being
Eddie:able to make decisions based on it.
Eddie:So it's really cool.
Eddie:We'll see a year from now where we're at, but it's growing exponentially though.
Eddie:Super excited.
Lauren:Okay, so, in closing thoughts and, final ideas of coming into the end of the
Lauren:year, your new Black Friday being January.
Lauren:is there anything right now that you feel is missing from marketing toolkits and
Lauren:from technology has not yet developed to the way or like, what are those like
Lauren:crystal ball predictions are like, I just wish this resource was made possible
Lauren:to make your job and your campaigns that you're running more successful.
Lauren:Do you have anything?
Eddie:Yeah.
Eddie:So there's something that I've been talking about since I was in
Eddie:university, like back in 2012 ish.
Eddie:and I'm starting to see it a little bit.
Eddie:so basically what I, what I was thinking back in those days, I was,
Eddie:this is exactly the situation I was sitting on my couch in my like dorm,
Eddie:like, central living room area.
Eddie:And my roommates were there and like a Domino's ad popped up and we're watching,
Eddie:like, I think we were watching like Wimbledon or something, some tennis
Eddie:tournament and, Domino's ad popped up and I was like, How, lame is it I can't
Eddie:just, like, turn this into a transaction by, like, clicking yes on my remote?
Eddie:how come it doesn't connect to my phone directly to just open the Domino's app or
Eddie:website on my phone by me clicking on it?
Eddie:And then, now this year, Amazon Prime came out with that feature.
Eddie:when you run ads on Amazon prime, if you're connected to Amazon of some sort,
Eddie:you can basically click like down on your TV and it'll basically open it on
Eddie:your phone, to where that product is on Amazon or some sort of Amazon hosted site.
Eddie:And so I'm really excited to see where that goes, because I think that is what's
Eddie:missing because now you're turning.
Eddie:Television into such a lower friction source of click.
Eddie:And if we can turn mass media like television, Netflix, streaming
Eddie:services, et cetera, into like more clicks rather than impressions.
Eddie:Cause like the click through rate on those ads are so low because
Eddie:you're not really clicking anything.
Eddie:You have to like go type in a website, scanning QR code, whatever it is.
Eddie:Right.
Eddie:but if I could just like, Next to me and something because
Eddie:I'm like, that looks sick.
Eddie:And like even just downshift and they're down, press and like save
Eddie:it to my phone as a bookmark.
Eddie:I think techno, I mean, man, from a marketing standpoint that opens
Eddie:up so many doors, so much more.
Eddie:Advertising so much more data that we have in those spaces to on those
Eddie:consumers and their households that now we can like advertise using.
Eddie:So, that's something that I've gotten a taste of a little bit through
Eddie:Amazon, but it's only on Amazon.
Eddie:Like if you watch the ads and they're like Papa John's at, it's never going to have
Eddie:it because it's not on Amazon, obviously.
Eddie:but I'm excited for that to become a mass adoption type situation where
Eddie:it's We can connect our devices via the Wi Fi in the house or wherever
Eddie:we're at and take a call to action From our phone or from our remote
Eddie:to our phone from seeing that on TV.
Eddie:I
Lauren:I mean, there's no one that's watching TV without their phone in their
Lauren:hand, and we know that people are like, look, I mean, Amazon has it where you
Lauren:have x ray and because you're like, Oh, what do I recognize this actor from?
Lauren:And it's just allowing you to dive deeper into the content you're consuming.
Lauren:And further into that is you might be watching something like,
Lauren:I love the jacket she's wearing.
Lauren:Where do I get that with Google image, like you can scan a picture of anything,
Lauren:and then it will pull up the Google shopping feed to give you a Something
Lauren:similar, but it does require extra steps.
Lauren:It's not a single button click.
Lauren:and it doesn't give you that frictionless buying experience.
Lauren:And even further is imagine if that becomes personalized, where you already
Lauren:have a history of buying books that are referenced in specific TV shows you
Lauren:like watching, and then you can have like a small pop up want to add this to
Lauren:your Goodreads list, want to add this to your cart, things of that nature.
Lauren:So that all you have to do is like with your AirPods, you can shake your head.
Lauren:Yes.
Lauren:If that's how you're listening and then it's already taking that transaction step,
Lauren:but I do, I don't know if you remember this, there was a Super Bowl ad and I
Lauren:want to say it was Domino's that did it where they had in the ad where it was
Lauren:like, Hey, insert the name of the apple.
Lauren:human voice that if I say it right now, she's going to start talking to me.
Lauren:Hey, uh, order me Domino's pizza.
Eddie:Yeah
Lauren:And so they had tried to take it where they could use the
Lauren:internet of things and different devices from TV to force it.
Lauren:And it was just like, wait, I didn't order that.
Lauren:Hold on.
Lauren:She's listening to the wrong
Eddie:so funny.
Lauren:Yeah.
Eddie:so funny.
Eddie:I feel like I remember hearing that Uh,
Lauren:to say it was Domino's, but it was definitely a, maybe it was
Lauren:a Papa John's or Little Caesars, but there was a pizza brand.
Lauren:Anyone that's listening to this, if you remember that or find that
Lauren:exact commercial, like please go to the Telegram group, pretzeltraffic
Lauren:forward slash pretzeltraffic.
Lauren:com forward slash Telegram and please send it to me because I was
Lauren:like, oh my gosh, it was brilliant.
Lauren:But the lawsuit side of it ended up getting more earned media because.
Lauren:It was an intrusion to their listening devices, but there was no precedent
Lauren:or law that said you couldn't do it.
Eddie:that's crazy.
Lauren:Yeah.
Eddie:I can't believe like that wasn't even thought of as a consequence.
Lauren:Well, look, when there's a will, there's a way.
Lauren:There's always a way to hack or, leverage emerging technologies, because usually the
Lauren:people that are designing the technology aren't the evil geniuses of how they can
Lauren:leverage it for their specific use case.
Lauren:Well, Eddie, thank you so much for jumping in and helping me like
Lauren:riff, like agency owner to agency owner, like what you think is going.
Lauren:Obviously you have such a successful lead bad.
Lauren:Marketing company, capital B.
Lauren:but I think a lot of listeners are super lucky to hear your insight
Lauren:because of the number of accounts and clients you've had the chance to work
Lauren:with and work on, if anyone that's listening, wants to further connect
Lauren:with you, where can they best find you?
Eddie:yeah, so, uh, Instagram, just my first and last name, Eddie Maloof
Eddie:or YouTube first and last name.
Eddie:YouTube is more long form, like very in depth, kind of high IQ ish content.
Eddie:Instagrams, bits and pieces of that other stuff with some nice cars.
Eddie:Fun stuff.
Eddie:So, I run all my social stuff on Instagram.
Eddie:So if you DM me, it's, me answering, not a appointment center or a robot.
Eddie:So feel free to reach out if you guys have any questions or anything I can help with.
Lauren:Cool.
Lauren:That's Malouf.
Lauren:M a L O U F Eddie.
Lauren:Thank you so, so much for joining and for all of us that listening.
Lauren:I hope you got just as much value as I got out to it.
Lauren:And, Wishing everyone, your clients, your brands, very happy
Lauren:Q4 and a even more momentous Q1.
Eddie:Love it.
Eddie:Same to you, Lauren.
Eddie:Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Eddie:Appreciate it.
Lauren:See ya!