Sean Popen

Why we should all take a lead from the Geico Gecko If I were starting a brand today the one thing I would seriously consider is creating a brand character If that seems like some throw back to 1980's cereal brands then the data would back you up as incidents of brand characters in award winning IPA entries has tumbled dramatically from around 40% to 15% over that time. They really aren't that fashionable today. But you ignore them at your peril because they are one of the most powerful advertising tools out there Orlando Wood who describes them in his incredible book Look Out as "character fluent devices" has shown that they have a profound impact on business results get a copy you won't regret it!) Take the 2024 Super Bowl for example. Had you used a celebrity like most advertisers then the average Star score (emotional response) was exactly the same as those without one. However had you used a branded character then on average you would have seen a massive 1 Star advantage over non characters & celebrities. Add to the fact that they don't charge the same fees as a celebrity and its the Advertising effectiveness bargain of the century! In the latest episode of Uncensored CMO I caught up with the very clever Michelle Moscone (she/her) who is in charge of brand and creative at Geico about the importance of their famous Gecko which is 30 years old now She puts it in a beautifully simply way that the Gecko enables the audience to have a really fast connection with the brand in a lovable way creating a short cut for your brand and message. It's well worth reading Jenni Romaniuk's brilliant book called Distinctive Brand Assets which covers a lot of research on types of assets and how they work. Link to the episode in the comments section below Jon Lombardo Peter Weinberg Vanessa Chin Andrew Tindall Kerry Collinge

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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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We are living the midwit meme right now in eCommerce. Brands have zero confidence in the allocation of their media dollars. Despite having more tools than ever before, I have never seen more confusion inside of organizations. Proxy metrics have been substituted for financial measures and the allocation of capital has become disassociated from the financial return it intends to create. With the introduction of so many difference forms of measurement you create the ability to defend every channel. Your MTA, In platform, post purchase survey and incrementality studies often all say different things making every decision "defensible". Combine that with agencies or employees whose financial incentive is tied directly to channel performance and you immediately create a counter incentive to the financial health of the company. I can't tell you how much money we have seen be wasted on account of this problem. So what is the solution... Simplify. Build a connection between your in-platfrom results (i recommend 7 day click) and your primary business measurement for media (i recommened aMER). Best way to do that is with a geo holdout experiment that gives you a relative incrementality % for platform results. Use that weighted measure to set cost controls and you will never have to think about measurement again. But regardless of what system you choose fight for clarity and speed to action. Avoid decision paralysis and ambiguity. Think from first principles and measure the bank account.

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Retail Media Ad Tech: Why cheap can cost you $$$ 🤑 In retail media, tech isn’t just a simple tool—it’s the engine driving ad revenue. Opting for budget tech may cut costs, but it often caps your growth potential. Here’s why: A retail media platform generating $50M in ad revenue might spend $5M on tech fees. Budget options could cut this to $1.5M, saving $3.5M—but that “savings” can cost you up to $200M in unrealized revenue. Advanced platforms double click-through rates and allow you to expand ad inventory, turning $50M into $250M. Leaders like The Home Depot and CVS know that high-performance tech is an investment that pays off. Oh, and we’re called Pentaleap for a reason—that’s the 5x our clients have seen in the many A/B tests we've run. Choose tech that drives growth, not just savings. #retailmedia #commercemedia #pentaleap

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DTC managers at multi-channel revenue brands are getting under-credited. Let me explain. I talk to dozens of brands per year that: • Sell across 3 primary channels (DTC, in store, Amazon) • Have "growth" or "performance" laddering into the DTC team • Track P&Ls separately across each rev stream It's usually the CMO or the VP of Growth or whoever manages the DTC line item who reaches out to me. They say something like this: "Ben, I keep having to cut my ad budgets because my DTC revenue is barely growing and efficiency is terrible! Can you help improve our marketing program?" This is a classic case of where company structures and KPIs dictate performance. The poor DTC manager is out here thinking that their growth marketing program is bad, but, in reality they've misdiagnosed the problem. When I dig in further with them, I end up finding out: • The DTC marketing budget is 90% of the ad budget • Amazon and in-store are both growing very well • There's no clear reason why a customer would buy direct Here's the harsh truth: it is very very VERY hard to make people buy in an experience that they don't prefer. Direct to consumer ecommerce is still only 13% of all retail transactions in the US. 13%! That's it! People prefer to buy on Amazon, or in Target, or at Sephora. Why wouldn't they? They've spent tens of billions of dollars building a brand that has a wide assortment of access, best prices, best fulfillment, etc. How can the lil ol' DTC manager compete? When I start to ask how the DTC team is being measured, it is usually some combination of: • DTC revenue over performance marketing costs • Touch based attribution performance • Customer surveys and trends How is it fair that 90% of the marketing budget is going toward something that's likely to only produce 13% of the sales? That doesn't mean that the marketing is ineffective, on the contrary, it means that the brand is measuring wrong. The Amazon and in-store team get all the credit while the DTC manager gets shafted. So how can you fix this? Properly understanding the contribution of ALL marketing across ALL revenue and customer interactions. We often see an equal if not GREATER contribution to incremental revenue and customer acquisition across Amazon and in-store than in DTC, even from "performance" campaigns that are driving directly to the website. Yes, really. For example: a performance Meta campaign might have a 1.5x incremental ROAS on DTC, a 1.5x incremental ROAS on Amazon, and a 1x incremental ROAS on in-store retail. That's a total of 4x iROAS vs the "proven" 1.5x iROAS. See it all the time across hundreds of tests and marketing mix models. Reach out to me and I can help dig you out of this pit. #dtc #attribution #incrementality #omnichannel

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The Director of Marketing for a $500M merchandise retailer internally reviewed their CDP. Here are 2 things she says the vendor aced and 2 that might get them fired: 🏆//1 Great at Unifying Data She’s faced difficulties integrating past CDPs with the many 3rd-party tools her company uses. It always led to site slow-downs that limited their conversion rates. But her current vendor has seamlessly unified all their customer data across channels. No site slow-downs, no integration issues. And she loves how much it’s helped her better understand customer interactions. She’s also thrilled by how it’s made it easy to craft more relevant, compelling, and effective marketing in real-time for her customers. 👎//2 Not User-Friendly This CDP starts running into trouble with content creation and audience segments. She says, “It’s unnecessarily complex and difficult to manage.” Plus: - Navigating the platform is challenging - And its segmentation tools aren’t as intuitive as they could be - Causing friction in leveraging the CDP’s full range of capabilities 🏆//3 Effective Identity Resolution “We have a high number of customers using different platforms,” she says. So she needs a tool with strong identity resolution (IDR) capacities. The good news: She’s been thrilled with her CDP’s IDR. She says it’s significantly improved their reach “by uncovering an extra 20% of users across different devices!” 👎//4 Lack of Actionable Insights Despite the CDP’s effectiveness, she’s frustrated at how little guidance the vendor offers. “I’ve found myself guiding our CDP more than it’s been helping us,” she says. “It’s not ideal.” She’s hopeful though, as the platform has teased an upgrade that promises enhanced actionable insights. But if the vendor doesn’t deliver — this is going to be a big sticking point for her. She’s felt similarly irritated by a lack of actionable insights in other tools… Like their: - A/B testing AI tool - Personalization tool - Product recommendation tool She doesn’t want to have to waste hours digging for actionable insights. She wants platforms that make it easy for her to get the main points and quickly act on them to drive market growth. ___ Tl;dr A few *amazing* features won’t make up for others that constantly frustrate your clients. MarTech is a competitive market – if you don’t offer the full enchilada, buyers will find a competitor who will. Thoughts?

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Walmart's astounding $43 billion+ in online sales annually speaks volumes about the power of a robust SEO strategy. Centered around creating consumer-focused content and optimizing for search engines, Walmart exemplifies SEO mastery through: ✅ Educational how-to guides & product reviews ✅ Engaging video tutorials ✅ A mobile-optimized website ✅ An expanded social media footprint ✅ Strategic internal linking Moreover, Walmart's use of a parent-child structure for product pages showcases innovation in keyword ranking, contributing to their #19 ranking in the US with 854.9 million visits in December 2022 alone. This blend of consumer education and technical optimization sets Walmart apart in the digital arena, proving the value of SEO in dominating the competitive landscape. Inspired to up your SEO game? SocialJack Media is here to craft your success story. Let's start today. #SEO #SuccessStory #Walmart #SocialJackMedia #DigitalMarketing

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Google is pushing a setting change hard on ALL accounts even though it will hurt SOME accounts. Expect it to hurt yours if your product or service is a necessity purchase. I’ll explain. The big push is… From TCPA (Target Cost per Acquisition) To TROAS (Target Return on Ad Spend) With TROAS the algorithm is looking for value-based conversion. i.e. Searching for higher conversion value or higher revenue per order. And one of the primary ways it does that is by targeting users who typically spend more online. In Google’s giant mass of aggregated data, that tactic works. Because for the vast majority of online purchases, how much I spend online is a great indicator of how much I’m likely to spend in the future. But not for something like a certified document translation. And that’s exactly what one of our clients sells. Obviously: It’s a service you would only buy when you need it. And your need has nothing to do with your spending habits. So anytime Google suggests a setting change in your account… Think about it before blindly clicking accept. If you can’t figure out why it makes sense for you, chances are it doesn’t. And if you’re not sure, I highly recommend asking an expert.

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For years I’ve been on the data-side of the ECOM equation. “𝒀𝒐𝒖’𝒓𝒆 𝑬𝑪𝑶𝑴, 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈.” “𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆.” But in the past couple months I’ve played a lead creative strategist role and it’s both invigorating and eye-opening. While there’s much to say about the media buyer/creative strategist role, I’ll save that for another post... For now, here are a few things I’ve learned (and re-learned): (1) 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐢𝐭. You have to have a flywheel of creative to fuel your ad accounts. In a perfect world this means something like: Day 1 - analyzing performance Day 2 - briefing Day 3 - approving/revising Day 4 - launch Rinse and repeat You get a predictable 10+ new creatives per week, and everything is hunky dory. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Business priorities shift, things take longer to approve, or budgets get adjusted. Allow yourself (and your team) to draw outside of the lines of the system. (2) 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐭. Angles, hooks, concepts, formats, off-image copy & headlines, audience segments… the list goes on. I tried to systematize our briefs and naming conventions to define the concept, angle, hook, and format for every ad. Then I threw it out the window. Give me a good angle and the reason behind it. Then let’s test it. (3) 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲. If the media buyer is only responsible for providing the data, they have no motivation to contextualize it. If they are also responsible for the performance of new creative, they will make sure all new creative is going in the right direction based on what the data is telling them. This is where systemization can become an enemy more than a friend. If you systematize your reporting too much, you may be grabbing “insights” that are really nothing. You have to allow for flexibility in reporting to allow the data to tell its story. For the experienced creative strategists out there... agree or disagree?

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Walmart builds wide lead among US retail media networks, report finds: 1. Walmart Dominates Impressions Walmart's retail media network is leading the pack. In Q1, Walmart generated 11 billion impressions. Target, the closest competitor, had fewer than 7 billion. Chewy, The Home Depot, and Kroger also made the top five. 2. Specialized Retailers on the Rise Niche players like Chewy and Sephora are growing. They each generated over 1 billion impressions in Q1. This shows the expanding scale of specialized retailers. 3. Onsite Media Success Walmart excels in onsite media impressions. They have monetized their owned properties better than others. Retail media networks are now pushing into offsite media. This move aims to tap into additional revenue streams. 4. The Future of Retail Media Retail media networks are evolving. They are exploring new ways to generate revenue. Walmart's success sets a benchmark for others. Specialized retailers are also making significant strides. The landscape is becoming more competitive and diverse. 5. Key Takeaways Walmart leads in retail media impressions. Specialized retailers are growing their presence. Onsite media is a strong revenue stream. Offsite media is the next frontier. Retail media networks are continuously evolving. #walmart #retailmedia #paidmedia

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Adding distribution channels increases sales, but decreases visibility. I say it all the time: marketing can influence demand, but it can't influence behavior. Meaning that customers will shop where they prefer to shop. Let's build out an example: Ben's Bread is sold purely on DTC. • $10m a year in DTC revenue • $2m a year in paid ads • Measurement: blended MER of 5x Ben wants to expand his bread empire, and so starts to sell it on Amazon. After a year, it looks something like this: • $11m a year in DTC revenue • $4m a year in Amazon revenue • $3m in DTC spend, $1m in Amazon spend ($3m total) • Measurement: separate Amazon + DTC P&Ls Just looking at these numbers you might say something like "wow we increased a million dollars in DTC centric spend, but we only increased a million dollars in DTC revenue." That's technically true, but, not actually true. Because what's happening is that a good chunk of the "DTC spend" is actually creating demand that is getting captured on Amazon. How much? We don't know with this simple measurement method. Expanding even further, Ben decides to sell in 500 Target doors: • $15m a year in DTC revenue • $5m a year in Amazon revenue • $20m a year in Target revenue • $5m in DTC spend, $2m in Amazon spend ($7m total) • Measurement: all three have their own P&L If I look at DTC in isolation I've gone from a 5 MER to a 3 MER. But that's because the DTC revenue stream is suffering all of the burden of the spend, but recognizing a significantly smaller portion of the incremental demand. In this example brands might be tempted to go "all in" on Target and cut their performance program. But, what they don't realize is that all of these channels synergize and cannibalize with each other. There are some customers that straight up won't buy from you unless it's on Amazon. There are customers who will find you in Target, search your website in the aisle, and make a purchase decision right there. The more revenue options you have to buy, the more effective your media is. BUT, the harder it is to measure. #attribution #omnichannel #retail #dtc

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🚨 2025 TCPA Changes: Your Lead Gen Strategy Needs a Pivot Game-changing FCC regulations hit January: • Lead aggregators must disclose ALL buyers upfront • Early tests show massive consumer drop-off • Third-party lead costs will skyrocket But here's the opportunity:  Direct-to-consumer campaigns = lower costs, better control, stronger brand. Smart players are already building first-party systems. Don't wait. The future favors those who own their lead gen destiny. #TCPA #LeadGeneration #Mortgage #Compliance Ready to build your direct lead system? DM me and let's talk 💬

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9/10 eComm brands I talk to struggle with attribution & don’t know if their ad spend drives an incremental impact on their store. This is something we’ve been battling with for the better part of 2024. It’s especially important for our brands that spend over $5000/day. Looking at the Facebook or Google ads manager has proven to be pretty unreliable... So one way to solve this issue is using post-purchase surveys which we try to set up for every client we work with. Asking people how they first heard about you will give you probably the most accurate representation of which channel is working best for you and which channel is wasting your ad spend. We track responses daily and use internal spreadsheets to track the total New Customer CPA which you can monitor while scaling the ad spend on 1 channel and maintaining your ad spend on every other channel. 3 questions I advise every eComm brand to include in their PPS are: ✅ How did you first hear about us? ✅ How long have you known about us before deciding to purchase our product? ✅ What are you most looking forward to from your purchase today? You have to do everything in your capabilities to understand the customer journey otherwise you might be easily lighting your money on fire.

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Maybe measuring last click isn’t the best way. It’s actually archaic and only building growth for Big Tech, and not your company. “Our research across hundreds of brands in dozens of categories shows that it’s possible to rigorously measure and strategically target the feelings that drive customers’ behavior.” If marketing is in the business of selling something… and we know we all buy things based off a myriad of emotions… then maybe it’s time to start measuring something else. It’s not rocket science. It’s emotional science. https://lnkd.in/euwMST4u #brand #marketing #storytelling #video #controlthenarrative #emotionsells

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Robin Bonn from Co:definery helps agencies create a future-proofed, high margin business by creating their ‘Market of One’. Robin joined me on the Creative Agency Account Manager podcast and explains why the agency market isn't oversupplied, it's under differentiated. He shares how he is helping agencies define their market of one and accelerating their growth. We also discuss the challenges agency owners are facing right now and tips for how to remain positive in the current climate. Link to the full episode is in the first comment below 👇

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The latest from our R&D blog

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On this week’s episode of the Agency-X Podcast, Kim Winter, VP of Product Marketing at Yotpo stopped by to discuss their new Loyalists Campaign. Kim and I chatted about why brands need to focus on customer personas and how to speak to your most loyal customers Link in the comments below! #podcast #ecommerce #yotpo

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