Kevin Simonson

Is Wunderkind truly the savior of DTC email growth, or just a mirage? 👇👇👇 Opinions are split—while some hail it as a top revenue accelerator, others (like myself) are less enchanted, witnessing firsthand its disappointing underbelly. Enter Digioh , the dark horse revolutionizing the market right under Wunderkind's nose. I've dissected six reasons why Digioh is different. 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀. Are you a Wunderkind lover, or on the fence about its superpowers? #emailmarketing #emailgrowth #dtcemails

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Another great read from AdExchanger. Allison Schiff continues to shine a light onto the worst of the worst Made For Arbitrage shenanigans. I know some people argue it's tough to differentiate between MFA and simple ad cluttered sites. But the fraud and absolute content garbage is exactly what it looks like. My take? There is too much ad tech crossover between buy side and sell side. Too much disincentive for major change. https://lnkd.in/eEvMhYjn

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Stop Burning Ad Dollars – Enterprise SaaS advertising isn’t just hard—it’s a minefield of wasted spend, wrong metrics, and missed opportunities. But it doesn’t have to be. In my latest blog, "How to Unf*ck Your Ad Spend – Part II", I break down the Five Pillars of SaaS Advertising Success and how you can: ✅ Nail your targeting with precision ✅ Craft creative that actually stops your audience in their tracks ✅ Choose the right platforms for every stage of the buyer journey ✅ Align your ads to real business outcomes (not just clicks) And here’s the kicker: I’m not talking theory. These are actionable strategies built for the real-world chaos of enterprise GTM motions. Whether you’re struggling with attribution, lackluster ROI, or just trying to avoid “that meeting” with the CFO, this framework has you covered. 💡 Pro tip: The quickest win might not be where you think. Sometimes it’s about tweaking what happens after someone clicks your ad. 👉 Ready to stop wasting money and start driving meaningful results? Check out the blog [link in comments]. Let’s fix your ad spend and turn it into a pipeline powerhouse. 💪 #EnterpriseSaaS #B2BMarketing #AdSpend #SaaSAdvertising #ABM #GrowthHacking

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With Reddit’s growth, brands have new ways to engage. Here’s the playbook: 🔹 Join niche subreddits for direct engagement 🔹 Leverage Reddit Ads for targeted visibility 🔹 Build loyalty through genuine community interaction https://bit.ly/40y7m3B #industrynews #marketingtrends #reddit

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Mr. Miyagi’s Two Rules for GTM in 2H 2024 1) Just when you think you have it figured out; everything changes. Thats the new reality, successful teams are nimble and creative. 2) First learn rule #1

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“Thank goodness events are working again,” shared a relieved CMO from a $60m SaaS company. Then other CMOs in the huddle offered variations on this theme. 🐧 The collective relief was palpable. Several important insights emerged. I’ll get to the event-related insights. But there’s a bigger fish to fry first. And that’s the general unease that exists among B2B CMOs right now. The demand gen playbooks that many rely upon have hit a wall. CMOs are grumbling about the costs of once-vaunted ABM tools relative to the value delivered. In reality, macroeconomic factors like higher interest rates have lowered the purchasing tide for most marketing boats. Whether or not you blame the economy or the playbooks, B2B CMOs are in a funk. And that’s a problem too. CMOs, like spiritual leaders, need to project confidence. Given the typical lag time between action and impact, great marketing requires a leap of faith. And before the attribution junkies get out your darts, allow me to explain. 🐧 Great marketers transform businesses. They uncover the insights that drive the ideas that differentiate the brand inside and out. They fix broken go-to-market strategies. They tell the stories that motivate employees and rally customers. They build the tools that make it easier for prospects to justify purchases. They bring focus. And yes, they drive pipeline and revenue. But not without a significant lag time between these actions and their related impact. 🐧 Okay, pep talk over. Back to events. For the relieved SaaS CMO, their events were not trade shows or bespoke dinners. They weren’t even intended to drive net new revenue. Instead, this company held educational seminars at the offices of their largest customers. Like many SaaS providers, they knew their customers weren’t always using their software to its fullest potential. Fixing this would increase customer satisfaction and lower churn. 🐧 But a funny thing happened along the way. Other employees showed up. And, when they felt their peers' excitement, they requested licenses too. Suddenly a retention effort became an acquisition campaign. “These events have become our most effective revenue drivers,” exclaimed the CMO, “which is huge since doing these events is not cheap!” Other CMOs noted that events were similarly working for them. “We’ve been doing roadshows in our top markets,” shared a CMO from a $750m cybersecurity firm. “Most of the attendees are our customers and they do all of the selling to the prospects who join us,” the CMO declared. Part of the story is that work-from-home execs crave in-person contact with peers. But the bigger message is that investments in retention can double as acquisition vehicles. Marketing is rarely a straight line from action to intended impact. But then again, neither are most B2B purchase journeys. You can do no wrong by doing right by your customers. They will sustain you during challenging economic times. In the meantime, keep the faith. 

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Why did Stitch partner with Talon.One? Three main reasons... 1️⃣ In working with Braze customers, we've seen an incredible amount of pain with their existing loyalty platforms (looking at you, Punchh & CrowdTwist, Inc.). 2️⃣ The platform is 👌. The response time and the ability to customize workflows is elite. 3️⃣ The combination of Braze + Talon.One is a marketer's dream. Scale, capability and efficiency bridging marketing & loyalty together.

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Working with multiple agencies? You might be losing out on significant ROI. That's because scale is a major benefit of having an Agency of Record (AOR). An AOR consolidates your media buys and partnerships, which means better scale and connectivity. This leads to reduced platform fees and more working dollars going toward actual advertising. An AOR's scale can slash both platform and management fees. In our Retail Media practice, we find this often allows our advertisers to re-invest around 7% of Retail Media fees straight back into working media. Don't reduce your budgets - get more scale and more sales for the same total investment.

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Alex Greifeld has been working in eCommerce for more than 10 years in roles ranging from operations to performance marketing. Her experience spans bootstrapped indie brands, private equity-owned brands and publicly traded global brands. Alex writes a blog and newsletter named No Best Practices. She publishes content that helps DTC brands run marketing campaigns that actually improve the bottom line. There are a lot of gurus and growth hacks in the marketing world, but smart brands know that there are No Best Practices. We talk about: What ties all of the marketing together Her "WHY" The Start of Online Marketing THE DATA What skills new folks should learn Where the Magic Happens The Future of DTC TikTok and the effect on eCom AND SO MUCH MORE! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Resources: "Success After iOS14" Monthly Webinar: https://bit.ly/3PbHRwS Shape of Disrupt to Come Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3L4angN Follow Me: Twitter: https://bit.ly/3wb9IWR Instagram: https://bit.ly/3lh8m6F TikTok: https://bit.ly/3N1HSli Pinterest: https://bit.ly/3sOB6b5 Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3ytD58g Subscribe: Video: https://bit.ly/37DQQGs iTunes: https://apple.co/3Fxrpml Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3M2hlEn Probably the greatest joy I get from teaching, and passing down the lessons I’ve learned over hundreds of millions of dollars in spend & over 1 billion in revenue driven, is the success and joy I see from my students If you’re ready to make 2022 your best year ever If you’re sick of wasting money listening to people reselling the same information over and over again If you don’t want to waste another year of your business life My 'Master Facebook Ads" Masterclass is perfect for you... and its free Learn more @ https://lnkd.in/gNq_3m7E This isn’t just how to run Facebook ads This is how to properly align the single greatest intent creation device in the history of mankind with fundamental business skills This is how you go from unsure and lack of confidence, to having to hire people and having your life changed There’s a reason why everybody charging a couple hundred bucks a month for the slack channel, or a couple hundred bucks for their gum road course all sound the same… It’s because they’re teaching what they’ve learned You can learn from the student, or choose to finally learn from their teacher's teacher I’m here to help you start that right now Take control of your 2022 today!

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Instacart not having negative keywords as an option is the best example of what "machine learning" actually costs brands to support. The best solution I've found? Take their auto applied keywords and make their bid the lowest possible (30 cents). I built a really solid ads structure supporting each of our Target sku's and woke up to us bidding on "Ben and Jerry's" as a "optimized auto applied suggesition" for our Vanilla Ice Cream Whey. Gee, I wonder what sophisticated dev team decided "auto bid on product title". Yeah, in the world of CPG there could neeevvverrr be issues with that. Who leads this team and how much do you make. (Hint: too much). Happy Friday to everyone except overpaid leadership that don't actually understand what they're building and get paid boat loads of money for it.

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Well hello again Google Land! For the heck of it, I decided to run the visibility numbers for the 380 sites I'm tracking closely that were heavily impacted by the September HCU(X). I wanted to do that since we are almost two weeks out from the end of the March core update. Like I expected, none have bounced back at all. That's not shocking since the update is done... but I do believe we could see changes after Google reviews the form submissions. I shared about that earlier and in my latest post about the helpful content system being baked into core. But, I also just ran the visibility numbers comparing pre-September HCU(X) visibility to today. 270 of the 380 sites I'm tracking have dropped 90%+ since then (with many 95%+). Again, I don't believe all of those sites should recover, but some definitely should recover to an extent. Something seems very off with the systems assessing the helpfulness of content within Google's core ranking system. Let's see if things change after those submissions are reviewed... #google #seo

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Join Vivian Chang from The Clorox Company and I in room 313 at 230pm in Vegas as we discuss transitioning to business outcomes and Ai + Human operating models. Three insights to remember: 1. The right tech & people can scale any advertiser with fixed headcount. 2. Hidden value is everywhere you just need to know where to look. 3. Evolving KPIs into business outcomes is easier than you think.

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If you think PMM communities are dark... wait till you see PMM subreddits ☠️ 90% of the time it's because PMMs feel like they constantly have to justify their seat at the table. Here’s what helped me SHOW value to stakeholders back when I was in-house: 1️⃣ Win/loss analysis The very first one might feel overwhelming, but I found it to be the fastest way to onboard myself and start interesting conversations internally. HOW: - Choose a specific timeframe. 12-24mo back worked well for me for a first win/loss ever. After that - aim for a quarterly cadence. - Mix of quant and qual data. Start with CRM data, compliment with interviews and call recordings. - Share what you learned. Take it to a roadshow with sales + marketing; exec team; and publish a shorter version to the entire org. 👉 Don't chase customer interviews if that feels impossible at first. But if you do the best analysis possible with the resources you do have + hypotheses and what else you'd like to find out... who knows, maybe next time you'll actually get a budget. 2️⃣ Competitive intel I don't mean how many battlecards you can whip up. HOW: - Take inventory: is the existing intel recent and relevant? - If not, identify the top players and do some more research. - Hone in on the meaning of your findings (hint: a detailed feature comparison list isn't it) 👉 By order of impact/ importance, make a wishlist of strategic projects: Playbooks, competitive campaign ideas. Share what you found and your ideas with folks in product, marketing & sales. You don't have to tackle everything alone. 3️⃣ Leverage analyst firms If you have access to them, use them as a resource, not just to get on the next wave or MQ. HOW: - Engage with your ICP's most relevant analysts - Ask questions about the market and buyers - Bring the feedback back to your product leadership and broader exec team. 4️⃣ ICP This is something you want to be on top of even if you think you know it. Doing win/loss regularly helped me to keep myself honest about it too. HOW: - Documentation is half the battle. If it isn't findable, it doesn't exist. - Don't stop at firmographics and technographics. Add details about pains and triggers. - Communicate and enable sales, marketing and product. 👉 You’d be surprised by what you can learn. I’m working on a project right now where we noticed a nonlinear pattern of success which leads me to think we might discovered a new use case. And it's not unusual - I’ve seen similar patterns at two other companies in the last year. 5️⃣ Communicate internally like your life depends on it. The more channels the better: - Roadshow in other team meetings and all hands - Internal slack channel dedicated only for updates - Internal newsletter, monthly write up (even an email) to the exec team, quarterly win/loss reviews, etc. ---- PMMs, what helps you establish credibility? Non-PMMs, where else have you seen PMMs impact?

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Why scaling Google Ads without knowing your contribution margin is a recipe for disaster. We helped an outdoor furniture brand go from overspending to optimizing by forecasting based on their real contribution margin. Here’s how we saved them tens of thousands.👇 Most DTC brands look at their total revenue, but here’s the thing… Revenue doesn’t equal profit. To scale profitably, you need to know your contribution margin – how much money is left after covering variable costs like production, shipping, ad spend, your agency fees, and CC fees. Here’s how you forecast Google Ads spend using contribution margin: Calculate Contribution Margin (CM): Revenue – Variable Costs = Contribution Margin. Example: If you sell a product for $97.99 and your variable costs are $52.00, your CM is $46. Determine Your Ad Budget Based on CM: Once you know your CM, you can calculate how much you’re willing to spend to acquire a customer and remain profitable. Optimize Ad Spend: Track how well your campaigns are performing against these margins. If you’re overspending on CPAs, it’s time to adjust bids or pause underperforming ads. Build your ad strategy around contribution margin, not just total revenue or ROAS. It’s the only way to grow while staying profitable. Need help building a forecasting model? I’ve done this for dozens of DTC brands. Let’s connect and chat about scaling profitably.

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Fan of Matthew Fantazier - well spoken / well written marketer at Kenvue. “Matt’s Hot Takes” on Substack, too! Insights on 2024 trends (or lack of) in convo with Jake Piasecki of Roku : - social commerce has been “coming soon” for years. The tech exists. Why not a behavior here, like it is in China? - #AVOD? Explore the possibilities and get creative. “The scale has made it viable now and it’s targetable.” - #Sports. “Moving into streaming - like NFL playoffs only streamed - is an interesting change. Biggest moment? Tonnage of Olympics being streamed! [note: see my interview w/ Fencing CEO! https://lnkd.in/de27Y6Ts ] You’re going to see more in the “live + experience.” Sample of predictions for 2025? The Brand Innovators room gave a collective “wooo!” of surprise when Matt said he is not bullish on the growth of #Retailmedia “the way it exists now. The data feeds do not make sense for the performance. It won’t grow at the pace they think it will.” You heard it here first!

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👻 Nothing gets Adtechies in the spirit of Halloween more than Mark McEachran's recent AdExchanger piece. #RIPCookies Advertising is changing. External drivers such as major FAANG plans no longer overshadow internal sell side strategic initiatives. It turns out executing against roadmap priorities: ♻️ mitigates engineering waste 😨 eliminates scope creep 🎁 secures tangible deliverables 🙄 There is nothing more irritating than committing to a roadmap, but everything under the sun and outside of your control delaying it. We know Google's announcements derailed things more than once. Now that the embrace of Alt IDs is taking shape, its time to focus more on analytic attribution instead of inferred uplift. Answering the question of ROI was always the more important and interesting conversation anyways. That said, Mark does a great job explaining the shift and I'd recommend taking a read if you haven't gotten around to it yet.

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It can take 2-3 months just to get approval to run ads for RMG operators. That’s before you even think about testing, scaling, or optimizing campaigns. It’s frustrating, it’s slow, and it’s filled with red tape. But having someone on your side who knows the ins and outs of this process is everything. Here’s what it actually looks like when you’re trying to launch a campaign in this space: Month 1: Compliance Checks & Waiting Around You’ve filled out every form, submitted all your documents, and followed every rule in the book. Now you wait. And wait. If you’re lucky, you’ll get feedback from Meta or Google saying you missed some tiny detail. If not, your account just sits in “review” for weeks. Month 2: Maybe Some Progress...Maybe Not If you get approved on one platform—great! But don’t get too comfortable. You might find out that the ad creative isn’t compliant or your landing page needs tweaks. Best case? We launch a small campaign to test the waters. Worst case? We’re still going back and forth. Month 3: Finally, Some Traction! By now, we’re hopefully live on one or two platforms. But instead of blasting out your full budget, we need to scale cautiously. Spend too fast, and you risk getting flagged. Plus, the data we collect in these early stages is crucial for optimizing the long-term strategy. Here's why it's worth it: Most agencies rush in, set up a campaign, and are shocked when approvals don’t come through. They’re not built to handle the waiting, the compliance setbacks, or the constant pivoting. But we’ve done this before. We know how to navigate every roadblock and keep things moving. Because at the end of those 2-3 months, when everything’s finally dialed in, you’re not just live—you’re set up to scale. 🔥

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Announcing Aperiam's Latest Investment: Gigi! 🍒 Aperiam continues to make strategic bets in commerce media and CTV, the fastest-growing segments of digital advertising. With Amazon Ads being the largest commerce media channel AND the fastest-growing Streaming TV ad platform, we are excited to introduce our latest investment: Gigi. Why Gigi? 1) The product. Gigi’s unique ability to integrate a brand's first-party commerce data with Amazon's data for audience enrichment and deterministic omnichannel measurement sets it apart. This powerful combination enables brands and agencies to buy and measure Amazon Streaming TV ads more effectively. 2) The team. The founders behind Gigi consists of experienced commerce media executives - led by cofounder and CEO, Adam Epstein - who have a bold vision for the future of Streaming TV, commerce media, and data collaboration and a history of success in commerce media. Their expertise ensures that Gigi is at the forefront of innovation in this space. We believe Gigi’s capabilities and the vision of its team will drive significant advancements in how brands leverage data to enhance their advertising strategies on Amazon’s platform. Check out Gigi here: https://gigico.tv/ cc: James Borow Joe Zawadzki Danilo Tauro, PhD

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