Zach (01:55):

Of the rich ed Torres podcast. It's your host, Sam Johnson. I'm with Mr. Dylan Carpenter, Dylan. You excited to talk to an OJI today,

Dylan (02:03):

Man, when it comes to day, that seems like he knows what he's talking about. So I'm going to go ahead and buckle up and get the pen and paper out, man.

Zach (02:12):

Yeah, man. He's today's guest. We're very fortunate to have guy. He does not do any speaking podcasts. Uh, you know, you really, he's a really difficult guy to get ahold of. He's a bit of a hermit if I may say so myself, but the guy's got over two decades of experience and all the media buying and his, uh, really ran some massive massive campaigns, uh, Mike Hill, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here.

Mike (02:40):

I appreciate being here with you guys. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to, hopefully I can, uh, help you or help someone who's listening on the line to have a better ad experience,

Zach (02:50):

Better ad experience. Oh my gosh. Okay. So what's, uh, what's, what's new with my kill man. I it's like, uh, we don't have to go through all 20 years of, uh, of a background. Hopefully the folks listening to this show, they're pretty sophisticated, either affiliates or advertisers or agencies, but give us like a little bit of update on what's new with you this year and what you got going on.

Mike (03:15):

Sure. Uh, we have, uh, you know, I've been running my agency for over 20 years now and um, this year we decided that we wanted to kind of, uh, trim things back. So we eliminated almost all of our client load and just to now focus on, uh, just two clients and, uh, our media spend is currently anywhere between a million and a half and 2 million a month. And, uh, we're, uh, very, very excited about the future and testing. Um, you know, a lot of really next generation, uh, ad types and seeing how we can kind of, uh, you know, evolve our own ad experience for our advertiser and for their customers as much as possible. So, um, really we're focused on, you know, just playing this year, you know, really having

Zach (04:00):

Fun. Awesome. Well, yeah, well this is the year where pretty much all the rules kind of go out the window. Um, but you have to really lean on the fundamentals, um, uh, which you guys have nailed down pat, but that's awesome. 20 million, 25 million a year in spend that's, uh, across to clients. I mean, that's, that's no joke, man. Uh, so congrats on that. Thanks for that. Uh, let's get into it, man. What's, what's a rich ed what's, what's working for you guys right now.

Mike (04:30):

Um, oh boy. Uh, for us what's working the best right now is, you know, it's horrible to say, but it's always the same. It's, it's always the same stuff, just a different day, right? And th the what's working is relevant ads, you know, um, and relevance is, uh, is a continually changing beast where, you know, you might have relevance today for a specific type of ad. And then, you know, tomorrow you're going to have to completely change everything that you did and the way in which you present yourself, because the psyche of the consumer is changing. So for us, what's working right now is remembering to have a lot of fun with the clients, right? Meaning that the end customers, right. And to make sure that we're having a nice diversity of ads so that we don't hit a lot of saturation, because as you know, at these spend levels, depending, you know, nobody has a limitless audience unless they are global. We're not, we're, you know, we're, we're focused only on the United States. So, you know, we have a 330 million person audience potentially as that's the max and at our spend level, you're going to start hitting a lot of those people very frequently. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah,

Zach (05:34):

A hundred percent. I mean, I was, uh, I felt like I was much more relevant in my, a young 20 something year old Zack, and now I'm just not relevant as a 30 year old. So

Mike (05:48):

I literally heard some 20 year olds who are, you know, and just let them sit and write out ads. Cause I don't, I do it, but man, I am. So we, I am so deprecated on creativity compared to the kids today where they just come up with the craziest stuff. My, my, my daughter's boyfriend melted a, uh, the Turkey that was shaped a butter shape or excuse me, a Turkey shaped piece of butter. And it got, you know, like, I dunno, half a million or a million views on Tik TOK. And I'm like, you just melted a thing of butter. I don't get it.

Mike (06:25):

You know, we're getting more and more irrelevant every day, just completely irrelevant. Well, if you really want to knock out of the park these days with all these called students and memes, you can get some cheap, you know, outsource labor. It kind of really, Hey, we'll give you 500 bucks a month to just come up with relevant memes, depending on what's going on. Yeah. You're spot on these younger kiddos. They definitely know what's trending and whatnot. So, I mean, Hey, you can incorporate some memes to make a relevant, they're not going to last forever, but Hey, it could be a good way to really cater to your audience and, you know, relate with them even more, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I mean, even, even a Tik TOK has that whole, uh, whole contributor model now. And there's a lot of fun stuff that you can do, you know, they they've, they have actually tapped into it. You know, Facebook can take a cue from Tik TOK on letting contributors contribute instead of having it be, you know, just a bunch of people in the Facebook headquarters who think they got it down, but you know, really, maybe not as much as the tick-tock contributors.

Zach (07:21):

Oh my gosh. Okay. So what's like, what's the playbook here for you guys, Mike, in terms of keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to fresh creative and how do you, how are you doing this for, uh, for these few clients you're working with?

Mike (07:35):

Um, that's a really great question. I mean, and I think that the, the answer was already kind of mentioned. I think that the, the, the playbook really consists of constant diversifying creative that has relevance to the current mindset or the, uh, of the audience always. Right? So as an example where it could be holiday based creative, right. Or, or it could be creative, that leverage is a more recent mean that as Dylan said, you know, I mean, that's actually gone popular and playing with that. It's leveraging Tik TOK trends. It's understanding the need for the consumer. The consumer creates an emotional bond with the advertiser when there is an emotional resonance and there's an, and it's difficult to get a true bond and emotional resonance with emotion. Um, for the sake of trying to drive a love emotion, it's much easier to get that emotional resonance when you're having funny ads.

Mike (08:22):

So I, I believe we're going to start seeing the next wave of advertising in 2021 for Facebook advertisers that will last are going to be ads that make you just laugh your off. If the ad doesn't make you laugh your off, and there's no affinity for that advertiser because they want to look forward to your ads. You're going to continue to see what we are experiencing. And others are experiencing who are in the DM marketplace, just continual ad fatigue, and very quick at atrophy. Now, speaking of ad fatigue now with what kind of budget y'all have crank and out there, when it comes to, you know, I'm, you have, you know, two or three winning ads that can, you know, really take up majority of the budget. So with those kinds of winning ads, how much do y'all back behind it, or is it really, Hey, we may have 20 ads that all may spend the same, or, Hey, we have three out of these 20 that just really take up, you know, 60 or 70% of the budget there.

Mike (09:10):

That's a really good question. Traditionally speaking, they algorithm, it makes a lot of those determinations. And obviously we assist it, you know, by, uh, or inflating budgets and, and turning off poor performing ads. But in general, traditionally at, around, you know, 40 to 60, 70,000 a day, um, you're going to have the bulk of that inventory going to about five, you know, five to seven ads most, you know, and you can, you know, we found, you can really stretch an ad up into that $10,000 per day range, 15 thousands, like the cap. And then it starts to really see a point of diminishing returns. So generally speaking anywhere from four to eight ads is what we have found is kind of our sweet spot and the algorithm likes to reward that as well. But then they have a finite shelf life, of course. Oh, for sure.

Mike (09:56):

Everything dies at some point now with, yeah. I mean, I imagine they'll test a ton of creatives. Y'all do weekly creative tests, daily creative tests. Cause I mean, with what you're spending, I mean, you definitely, I imagine are testing a ton of new angles for the most part. Yeah. We have creative testing being done on a constant basis. You know, I mean the, the most difficult part of course, for any, uh, brand conscious advertisers, making sure that you're staying within brand guidelines, but also not creating ad blindness, which happens very, very frequently. You know, how much are you actually deviating on the creative? I mean, when we were spending $15,000 a day, that was, it was one story, you know, but at $50,000 a day, it's a totally different story. I mean, you cannot, you know, you, you have to have a great diversity of ads that don't look anything like the previous ad, but yet still be able to incorporate the brand's presence. So that's, that's one of our current challenges to be candid.

Zach (10:50):

I mean, that's what I hear pretty much from our top ad current users that are spending, you know, 5,000 K a day, pretty much all the, say the same thing. Hey, like we're doing really well, but can you please just find somebody to like, take the burden off of creative and have like a creative mindset? So I don't have to do this like every week and they don't care about any other skillset. That's like all they do. So the, um, we get that quite a bit. Uh, so I, I definitely hear it. Okay. I want to hear about, what's not working my own. I know something that you legitimately we're like actually incredibly excited about. You thought with all your years experience, you, you just thought this is, this is the best thing that I thought, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to crush it for my client. Totally bomb. What's your poor at?

Mike (11:44):

Um, yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to, I'm trying to think of what would be the best poor ad. I mean, obviously we fail every day. I mean, that's the whole point of marketing is to fail fast, but to win a win big. Right. So, um, we have, we have constant failures. Uh, I'd have to say if I, if I was to pick one big, big failure, it would be, um, Hmm. You'll probably have to be looking at thinking that we are creating clever ads and making ads that really, uh, hit home on the left brain, but then just fall flat on their face because there is actually no passion behind the advertisement, you know, that's, to me, that's every time we, we do that, we, we see the kiss of death. There must be an emotional component to the ad if you want to continue and maintain that scale.

Mike (12:34):

I mean, if you look at the grapes and I, when I pointed the grapes, I'm talking about people who sell the, that's impossible to sell like insurance, how in the hell the guy go in progress, turn insurance into something fun to watch ads for. We look forward to seeing insurance ads. Now it's hard to believe that we're actually saying that, but we look forward to seeing insurance ads. That is the, that is the, uh, the drive that we have to have as advertisers so that we can do the same thing in areas where we're actually have something that's fun to advertise. You know what I'm saying?

Zach (13:02):

Yeah. I think like to maybe rephrase it a little bit is, uh, is just like trying to be cute. Uh, but there's no passion or no emotional connection behind it, right? Like kind of like maybe, uh, sorry, I'm being sarcastic or cute or funny, but there's no like, oh, like, oh gosh, that really like, you're putting up for my side. Like, um, like that's the difference? Is that like kind of what you're trying to describe here of where it's like clever, but it's not.

Mike (13:35):

Yeah. Right. When you think that your ad is clever and you've got a bunch of people who are all patting their own back and you're like, yeah, that's, that's going to work really, really well. But then in reality, the truth is that the ad doesn't leave an emotional imprint on the consumer in a way that actually resonates. I mean, you can, I'm not going to say, I think that was used back. I'm not going to say that you can't use cringey ads because you can totally take cringe to a whole new level, but cringe can actually bring affinity if the cringe has done cringy enough, but you can't do half cringe and half true. I love that. And I mean, even from the insurance example, you got the get-go 15% or even there's some new email, one with some yellow background. I don't even know what the brand is, but I know they're a jingle because it's kind of a funny insurance commercial with an EMU running around the streets or something.

Mike (14:22):

So rather than turning something. Yep. That's what it was. They kind of made it fun. So I definitely get where you're coming from there. Yeah. They, they took the cringe to a whole new level. My mom watched, I mean, literally the commercial came on yesterday. I never see commercials, but like one of them came on and she's like, oh my gosh, I love that one where the email has a girlfriend and I'm like, wow, these guys, I didn't know. I didn't think they're going to be able to pull this whole thing off when I first came out. I'm like, that is just stupid, but it's working. It's the crannies.

Zach (14:51):

Yeah. That's awesome, man. Okay. So we're moving, man. We're cranking. Thank you so much for being here, Mike. This is, um, this is show is all about blending, you know, finance and advertising, and you're working with some pretty big budgets now and have throughout your entire life of your ad agency, but how do you work with clients? Like, I'm sure you've had clients where they've been pretty bad at this, right. And they kind of tell you to spend, and next thing you know, they're out of money or they're out of cash. And, uh, I'd imagine you potentially have some good systems in place of, um, helping clients at least forecast or manage this, or at least win over budgets. You know, what are some principles of how you've helped your clients, um, scale up and manage the cash and finances?

Mike (15:40):

That is a really great question. I have, um, Ben left holding the bag on hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past because I was, uh, I was inexperienced trusting and foolish to be completely candid. And, um, here's the, here's the thing, don't assume that everybody's going to get paid just because they've been getting paid every single week for a long period of time. Doesn't mean that that train is going to stop. So now we, we had to put in place rules over a decade ago that say, once you've exceeded this, then you're going to have to pay us, um, every single X period of time or the ads stop. So we, we, uh, make it very clear. We are not your finance company. We are not even remotely close to being, uh, someone interested in financing. And so what you have to do is you have to get your together.

Mike (16:28):

So we teach people on how to establish their corporate credit, how to, uh, start setting up credit lines, how to use their dun and Bradstreet listings, how to leverage credit cards. I mean, credit cards are a great way for you to be able to take a 30 day float and be able to, uh, you know, hopefully you've got done your due diligence to make sure that you're actually receiving your return before your 30 day window expires, but you can do an awful lot with a credit card window, especially if you can get paid by your merchant vendor and in a timely fashion. And you can put a lot of money behind it. I mean, there's times when we've been making payments to our American express card every day, just because we're like, okay, they're going to freak out. And then that's how they ended up inviting us to have the Centurion card and all the other stuff, because you're like, they're like, oh my God, this is just so much volume.

Mike (17:12):

Um, but we have to make sure that our clients were paying us so that we could pay them. Now we don't actually flow anything. We make all clients have direct relationships and we make sure that they have a really solid credit lines with their publishers and Facebook, Facebook will extend really nice credit if you, if the advertiser has a good, um, you know, a good track record. Now with that track record, you may not have any insights on this. I feel like it's black box with Facebook, but is it based off, Hey, no payments have been, you know, any errors there or is it more of, Hey, they've spent over a hundred K with good payments or is it 500 K with good payments to kind of get on that invoicing cycle essentially, if that makes I'm sorry, I lost you for a second. Could you repeat that and how do they get on the invoicing cycle?

Mike (17:53):

Is that what you ask? Yeah. Yeah. So like in Facebook size, when it comes to kind of getting your accounts on these, you know, different kinds of, you know, credit lines, like for Facebook, for example, now, do you notice it just based off, Hey, all of our payments have been on time in a courteous manner or is it, Hey, they've spent, you know, 500 K with all payments on time or is it just based off, you know, making sure all the payments get kind of locked and loaded there? Well, I can't, well, I mean, obviously I'm not, uh, I'm not on their, uh, their, uh, uh, credit team or the credit worthiness team, but I mean, they use all of the same factors that everyone else does. I mean, they're gonna look at the dun and Bradstreet. They're gonna look at your amount of creditors are looking at your amount of debt, look at your cashflow.

Mike (18:27):

You know, they're gonna look at everything. Um, they'll will extend small amounts of credit. I'm sure to many people who have at least the fundamental minimum requirements, I think payment, I think payment timelines are important. And we, uh, you know, our clients have always made payments on time, done a great job. Um, we've never come close to. I mean, if you're going to look for financing from your publisher, you better make sure you're not coming close to, you know, anything close to 80% of your allocated, uh, your allocated, um, credit limit, right? You, you got to treat like a credit card float that sucker in the 10 to 30% range, keep asking for credit increases. And then, you know, if you start getting into that, you can justify the request for increased credit. When you start to hit the 50, 60, 70% credit range, cause they start work, they start wondering, and then you have to justify and explain why is it that you're asking for this additional line increase and you have to show here's what's happening. We got this coming down the pipeline, here's the revenue that we've got for it. We've got cash in the bank. We just, you know, it takes X days for that, uh, for this to mature. I mean, you have to run it like an actual real business and you have to make sure that you're presenting your case properly. And when you do you get what you want it provided, you're actually, you know, telling the truth.

Speaker 5 (19:42):

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Zach (20:48):

Is actually here in Austin. And, um, we, we have pretty regular chats. One of the interesting things is there's actually like only 6,000 accounts, like in, in, I think north America that are on invoicing, um, from, from what I remember, but like, that's a very small amount, right? There's like 6 million plus like Facebook advertisers. Um, but those 6,000 accounts like represent half of their, like, I think half of their budget, or like it's crazy. And, you know, most folks like the qualifier used to be, I would say like pre COVID was like spend 10 K a month consistently for three months. But now, you know, they're, it's like invite only and they're kind of hunting down the Crunchbase and, you know, they're like if you've raised money, VC money and you announced on Crunchbase, like they'll hit you up. Um, but it's very much a about brand, you know, on an invoicing terms at the start and the prospecting just, I would say just as much as about the payments, right?

Mike (21:56):

Yeah. Well, that makes sense. I mean, literally they're not in the business of financing, a bunch of amateurs they're in the business of working with professionals, you know? So if you're you're, if someone deemed you worthy enough to give you VC funding, then clearly they have an understanding of your vision and they have invested in you, which makes you a lot less likely to be, uh, walking away from a debt with Facebook, where if you're, you know, Mr. Arbitrage, yeah. That that's not gonna, that's not gonna float so well in that case,

Zach (22:28):

Mr. Arbitrage, uh, ClickBank, uh, platinum member, uh, dot com. Okay. Love it. All right. Mike, tell everybody how we can support you and, uh, how can folks get in touch?

Mike (22:44):

Well, you can support me by, um, making your ads actually good. Don't make claims because the more you make claims and where you undermine consumer confidence, so don't be a tool. Um, that's the best way you could support all of us is to help us bring consumer confidence back by making your ads realistic. And don't, you know, don't in the water that we all have to swim in. So don't off Facebook, just be cool. Don't off Google, just be cool, run a solid business hookup with people like Zach and, you know, uh, and, and, and folks who can help you to be able to make good choices. Um, and then we all win, you know, a rising tide raises all ships, right? So w when we have to compete against a bunch of people who, uh, you know, make claims or and moan it, it just makes everybody's job more difficult. So, you know, just, just do, do good, be a good advertiser, understand psychology and start to actually, you know, treat the customers with respect and have a lot of fun with them. Um, so that's, that's, that would be my ask is, you know, my ask is, and for me, my ask is for the well-being of all the public who give us money without that we are all dead. So,

Zach (23:46):

Um, that's my ask. Oh, that's well said.

Mike (23:49):

Thanks, brother. Um, and then, uh, if you want to reach out to me, I would say the best way is probably I in 22 years act, you know, me, man, we've known each other for a very long time. I don't advertise, I don't take on clients unless it's a special exception. Um, I do have a conscious marketing academy.com is still up. So, uh, if someone wanted to go there, um, they could reach me or my staff through that. That is the only, uh, presence that I have online. And it's not really for agency. It's really just for, you know, for a bunch of stuff that I wanted to share as I was going through a growth period. Um, I haven't updated anything there in a long time, but if you did want to reach me, that'd be the best way to find me. Oh my gosh, I love it. Or through the, uh, we, our group, the Facebook group, we used to be in our marketing super friends. And now it's conscious marketing academy on Facebook. So either of those two ways, buddy.

Zach (24:33):

Yeah. Nice. Oh, actually one other question. What do you think? Like, um, I mean, this, this would also be incredibly relevant for the agencies listening, but like, who is like your ideal clients, like the fo your partners that you've been working with, like the longest you guys have done the best work for? Like, who is that? Like, if you said, if you are spending 50 K to talk to Mike,

Mike (24:56):

Uh, well, the, the client that I have now, I made an ex. They saw me speak at traffic and conversion summit, like a decade ago. And, uh, when they came to me, the only we're spending $2,000 a month, that was what they asked for, you know, like, can you help us? We don't have a lot of money. I believed in them. I followed their vision and I doubled down on them. And it worked out really, really in our favor. Now we're not at that point anymore. So I want to say everybody starts out small. So just because you don't have a huge budget, doesn't mean you're not going to get there. Everybody starts small. But right now for us, I don't need somebody who's spending 50,000 a day. I have clients that, you know, are spending, I don't know, probably 50,000 a month. Oh, I'm afraid I have one client that's spending around 50 grand a month.

Mike (25:35):

Um, I still love that guy. You know, I mean, for me, it's not about the amount of money that's being spent as much as it is about the relationship and what is expected from me. If I'm expected to be the one who is paddling the boat, and then you decide to throw on a cruise ship. And now I got to paddle my little boat and I got to tug a cruise ship. This is going to be a bad relationship. And I have no interest in being in it. But if I got somebody who's like, Hey, you know what? This is really great. We have it. Um, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna throw you X money. Um, plus, you know, your, your fees, um, as a, as an agency and you let us, you help us teach our creative team what needs to happen. I like forging long-term relationships. Both of the clients that I have that are currently with me have been with me for over nine years. So that's interesting to me, you know, not like charity cases and not you saved my business or you know, that I have zero interest in saving anyone.

Zach (26:32):

I have zero inches. That's awesome. I love it. I mean, well, that's a guy, that's a guy that's been in the agency game a long time, and I have mad respect for knowing exactly your ideal client is, and you're going to protect yourself as well as protect them. Uh, and, uh, yeah, my so, well, very cool. Thank you so much, Mike. We'll definitely have you back on soon. I appreciate you. Thank you very much. Thanks Dylan.

Speaker 5 (27:03):

Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the rich, add more at podcasts. If you're like me and listen to podcasts on the go, go ahead and subscribe on apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and rich dad, poor dad.com/podcast. And if you absolutely love the show, go ahead and leave a review and a comment share with a friend. If you do take a copy screenshot of it, email me zach@funneldash.com. Show me you left a review. I'll give you a free copy of the rich add or ed book. Learn more about the book. Go to rich ed for a.com to leave a review that a rich ed or ed.com/review. Thanks again.

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