Zach (02:07):

Ready to get to a, I'm ready to get into it, man. This guys, uh, today's spending upwards of 20 to 50 K a day. Oh yeah.

Dylan (02:17):

I've been seeing his ads. If you're looking for some legit gold Jane's, you know, this is the guy to talk to, but we have a bad-ass brand has mentioned. I've been seeing their ads for shoot months and weeks, and I know their media buyer and he kills it, but we have the co-founder and COO of Jackson, Josh Pierce. What's good, man. What's happening guys. I'm stoked. Thank you guys so much for having me on, I think, uh, I think I'm, I'm about to learn a bunch from you guys innovating the game, but yeah. Um, Heights, I saw the rope before Mario and I think gold chain would that velvet rope, maybe it looks good. Oh

Zach (02:52):

Man. I love it. So tell everybody about Jackson. How'd you get started? Like what are you guys trying to

Josh (02:58):

Do? Sure. Yeah. Um, cool. We're way back in 2017. Uh, my business partner, his wife actually was looking to get them a little gift while they were getting married. I think it's kind of like a traditional thing, right? Where the, you know, the fiance, they gift fiance, gift each other. And she was looking for kind of like a minimal clean, uh, you know, gentleman's like chain to get him. And she kind of ran into this issue is what we call it, where she either had to decide between, you know, like a really well-known mall name brand, uh, overpriced chain, if you will. And then there was the kind of like urban look or some people call it ice stout, or, you know, you can tell a little bit of a difference has like more of a hip hop culture vibe to it. And she kind of just saw it as like, Hey, you know, we give credit her name's Julia.

Josh (03:47):

We give credit to Julia because she really identified the issue first. And my business partner, Josh, he hit me up. I had just come back from working for red bull in Manhattan, New York. And he was like, Hey man, there's a, there's a market gap here. Uh, let's do an e-commerce business. And uh, we went for starting right there. Um, so yeah, that's our story of how it kind of got started. Our, our mission basically is to be the number one most trusted brand to come and get quality jewelry and get something that you can trust and know that you're getting at a fair price and from a good people, man. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, to a point you brought up it's it's for the men's jewelry side, it's, it's not very, you know, easy to find something. I mean, I was going to a black and gold party and I had to go to party city to get a fake gold chain to look fly in it, whatnot where the next cheapest ones I could find were like three to 400 bucks.

Josh (04:42):

And I'm like, this is a one night or deal here. So I mean, I think y'all are really hitting a market. That's just really untapped, right? Yeah. We thought the same thing and um, yeah, we felt a little confused. Um, it was, it was right there, you know, it was definitely an opportunity and we, we dove head first. Uh, we were in downtown Los Angeles running up and down floors, learning about it, checking different things, learning about the market, learning about the commodity itself. And we thought, oh shoot. You know, I mean, there was, there was an ethical part to it too, right. Where it was like, geez, like one thing to do this as a cool idea. But we felt like people were getting screwed on what they were buying and what, what the quality was and what they were understanding about jewelry as a whole. So yeah. I hear you. I think I'm sure you pulled off the party city swag, but I think we'll help you out at the next black and gold party. A hundred percent, man. Uh, I got the turtle neck ready, you know, so it's one of those things. The stash comes out for a, the gold matches, but

Zach (05:37):

I want to know, I want to know what's the ad that's, that's, that's killing it here for what's the, uh, what's the winning end,

Josh (05:43):

The ad. Yeah. I'll um, I'll let you guys know, but I'd love to hear what you think would be really, really great for Jackson probably offline. Cause I'm sure you could, you guys can be the wizards to me and what we're doing, but um, yeah. So what's working for us like of stemming back to that, you know, our goal for Jackson is we're not necessarily trying to be the craziest or the coolest per se, but rather like just the most trusted, the most certified the most, you know, stamp of approval where people just know that they're going to get something great. And, and that kind of stems to our best ad right now, which I will say is it's it is a QVC style, someone with an amiable, you know, benevolent vibe who's explaining precisely what we're offering precisely what the product is and what the differences are.

Josh (06:37):

So it sounds funny, but you know, our ad is simply, we've ran all kinds of, you know, they call it speed ramping, you know, crazy effects. Cool, cool video, cool audio. And what trumps that every time is simply someone saying, Hey, stop and look, this is what we got. This is what makes us different. And I appreciate you and your time. Um, so I'd call it a QVC ad where our guy, J D is his name, just crushes it and lets everybody know why we're different, man. And yeah, I'm checking out shells ads right now in the ad library. And I even love the angle angry angle. You have words, is he hard to shop for? So I'm even kind of curious on how you kind of incorporate the creatives for men versus women. Cause I would imagine it's going to be a different scenario there.

Josh (07:20):

Sure. Yeah. I think, uh, one thing for me, you know, I'm not the greatest ad buyer out there, but I will say that it's always a good refresher for any media buyer or anyone, you know, building their brand or building their ads to just think, Hey, who's really buying this. Right. Like, you know, we were a men's forward brand for a while. We do have some women's items. Now we're diving into that market more and more, but you know, we never really realized that we were a phenomenal gift for men and, and there was such a huge opportunity for us to advertise the women and let them know, Hey, you know, this is, this is a great, uh, lifelong lasting gift that, that, you know, can have some emotional tie to it and something that he wears every day. Right. So, um, yeah, you're totally right.

Josh (08:07):

We we've been looking at different methods and rethinking of who buys Jackson actually. Right. So that's been a cool realization for us along the way, man. Yeah. And I love that. So when it comes down to it are, y'all kind of noticing, well, I guess what I'm getting at is do you have, you know, one or two ads that kind of take the majority of the budget or is it pretty from what you know, is it pretty spread across all of them pretty equally? Or do you all have, you know, one or two that take up, you know, six or seven, 8% of the budget as being that proven? Yeah. That's a great question. I think that we all wonder sometimes too. And I think for us it is the freight train approach. I call them freight trains because you let them go and they keep growing and they only grow smarter.

Josh (08:47):

They don't like Facebook only lets that spear drive further and further and further through the Bush. Right. And I think for us, we do have the train model right now where we have a couple leading ads that just eat up that budget and are just wrecking havoc, if you will. Ooh, I love it. Now of course I'm on the ad sites. I'm always curious about this, especially knowing Blake's running the ads like heck yeah, man, with how much data y'all have and the spin when it comes to like what audiences are working for, you all are always letting the algo do its thing kind of going wide open or are you getting really specific where it's, you know, women in relationships, men in relationships that kind of salary is kind of, you know, going broad with zero interest, zero look likes and it's kind of letting the algorithm do its thing.

Josh (09:29):

Yeah. I can say that we do both in that. We've had success with both and I can't point out any huge differentiator in terms of success. I will say that around that gifting season, we do see a spike in the female audiences getting gifts for him and we thrive there. It's been a great audience for us, but to your point, um, we see a lot of success in, in broad and then I, and then we see a lot of success in hyper-targeted. So if I was to get a little more granular to answer your question, we don't really do semi broad. If you will, it's either, you know, really, really targeted on those interests or, you know, relationship status, what have you. And then it's, it's wide, wide open. I love that. So it's good to hear what's working good for y'all but what's something you thought would kill it that just crashed and burned.

Josh (10:19):

Yeah. Uh, okay. Yeah. This is something that, that was, you know, it's probably probably really simple for, especially you guys running just huge ad budgets, understanding from people that are absolutely crushing. It probably here in the country and around the world. But for us, we had to learn the hard way that, you know, making something really quote unquote dope, uh, or having someone, you know, in the perfect outfit and the perfect location, looking what we think is cool and making, you know, walk and slow and we're shooting it in 120 frames per second, or like, you know, super slow motion and speed ramping and making cool cuts, making audio sounds, adding like birds flying in there, whatever those ads have consistently, you know, saying crashed and burned is pretty heavy. But you know, for the sake of the show, let's say they crashed and burned, right?

Josh (11:11):

They don't convert nearly as well as something that has value propositions or something that has someone, you know, warm and welcoming speaking to you. Uh, as much as we would love for them to convert and, you know, get people to purchase, they do not sell nearly as well as something a lot more simple. Right? I mean, nowadays I think correct me if I'm wrong on your guys' perspective, but people are learning, Hey, you can get that right person shooting you a selfie, iPhone video, explaining the product or explaining the brand. And that's going to be so much more approachable than something that's that looks like it's a Lexus commercial. You know, this is like beautifully crafted and shot. Not that those commercials don't sell, but for what do that has been the crash and burn aspect too. Oh yeah. I mean, even to going from the car commercial, they all have beautiful people and I've even been noticing for ads whenever we get the more, you know, average Joe or plain Jane.

Josh (12:05):

I mean those convert really well because people can kind of relate there. So I think, and it's kind of funny, you bring that up too, because even for Blake's old podcasts, it was, you know, a professionally shot, you know, video showcasing the hot sauce, which probably costs like 20 K and the other, you know, rich had, was essentially them going to a SaaS festival, letting people try it and recording it for free. And which one, one, it was the free, you know, video letting them taste it basically. So it's kind of, it's so weird how it kind of works, but I mean, I would imagine that the same case for you also, that's just, that's pretty silly. A hundred percent. I think we've learned to balance, you know, ads and speaking to people and first touch and cold traffic, and then also bringing them in to our world because there's a balance there, right?

Josh (12:45):

You also want to explain to them, Hey, we are a quality brand. We are a quality product. You're not, you're not buying a stainless steel chain, right? That's the same material as your kitchen sink, but you are buying Sterling silver, solid gold straight from Italy. And that, that is embodied in your website and your imagery. And I've, I've always personally had an opinion that if your content is high quality, it means that you do care and the message that you're sending. And it means that you're taking the time to have quality content being made. Right? It's the same. It kind of all ties back into the brand. So there's a balance to be had there, right? You want to, you don't want to scare people off by making them feel uncomfortable or that it's too flashy or not approachable on first touch or cold traffic, but the deeper you go in our funnel and the more, you know, immerse you become in our website, you're going to notice that we do care a lot about content and athletic of everything.

Josh (13:40):

Now, now, before we dive into the final segment, I'm curious on this bad boy, cause y'all are killing it on Facebook, but what other acquisition channels are you all kind of using Snapchat? Sick talk. Google Pinterest. Yeah. Sure. So, um, we, uh, Google obviously Google, we do pretty well. There's good search volume in the jewelry space. Um, there's some, there's some good competitors out there and, uh, who are crushing it too, but we do pretty well on Google, Google shopping. Um, we tried Pinterest, we, we aren't doing that right now. We didn't see a lot of success. I'm sure that a lot of people do not us at the moment. Um, Snapchat, um, again, I don't like to speak on bad points of, of anyone or any company, but for us we had a little bit of trouble while with attribution. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think, you know how it is.

Josh (14:28):

I think Snapchat's got a great ad model and they run ads and they have cool team, but you know, sometimes it's gotta be built out a little more robust for us personally, to move forward on a bigger budget with Snapchat. Um, and then yeah, we're trying to crack the YouTube code and get some more YouTube content there and stuff too. So yeah, we're not diving, uh, we don't have this, um, you know, octopus, legged platform approach quite yet. I know that that's always the future. Right. And I'm sure you guys would advise me and everyone else to kind of be on the tip of the spear and make sure that, you know, everyone's learning and going forward, these new platforms like Tik TOK and such oh, big time, man, all snap, two segments knocked out. Let's dive into this final piece of the pie here.

Josh (15:16):

So of course what the name of the podcast, we'd love to kind of find the crossroads of the marketing and the financial side of things. Right. So what kind of financial tip of principle can you kind of share with the audience that's, you know, based on your expertise here? Yeah, that's a good, that's a good broad question. I think, depending on what stage you're listening at, right? I mean, if you're, if you're at the stage where you have a spend, that's similar to ours are much higher than ours, then, you know, ideally you have someone or yourself that's monitoring that from a, you know, almost a CFO's level and understanding, Hey, what kind of return across the board do you need to have to where you're profitable or you're able to do the things that you want to do with your business, right? Whether that's getting new team members, launching new products, um, getting more inventory in, uh, creating new packaging, adjusting the website, you know, all those kinds of things.

Josh (16:06):

Right. But on the flip side, if you're, if you're a kind of a penny pinching is probably the wrong word, but if you're really, really tight, you know, I've really good friends that do phenomenal on ads and they are every single day changing budgets, um, changing bids, changing ad campaigns the whole lot. And that's just kinda what they do, right. That works for some people works, doesn't work for others. But, um, to come back to answering your question more specifically, I think for us, uh, at the beginning we were, we were all risk, all reward. We were, I remember I tell a story. I won't go full in depth, but I remember I had told my parents one time, you know, oh, we, we were buying Facebook ads on a credit card. And I remember saying, ah, yeah, we had a couple, a couple hundred bucks on there, maybe a few grand and my parents didn't know.

Josh (16:58):

And they're like, oh, you know, you gotta be careful. And it was, uh, like 10 X that, right? Like it was so much more hanging on the balance. And I just remember sweating in bed sometimes like, oh my gosh. So I think, um, in controlling the finance, you just it's sometimes it feels like nothing great really comes without risk. Right. And I think you gotta be willing to set a 30 day term with yourself, maybe on a credit card in order to have that patience and see some results, especially for something you believe in. So hopefully that kind of answers both ends of the spectrum. Um, but happy to answer further, if you think

Speaker 5 (17:36):

More in depth on that

Speaker 6 (17:39):

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Speaker 5 (18:43):

I think it's pretty

Josh (18:44):

Solid. Zach, is there anything you want to kind of dive more in depth on there? Cause I would have been, you know, if I was in y'all shoes, I mean, I was just launching, I just want to break even, or, you know, make some profit on the front end. It's kind of gauge where LTV is, but I mean, yeah, I think you're spot on, you really got to have that risk factor in place to really, you know, get somewhere where you want to be and really disrupt the market there. Right. So don't mean to interrupt you Zach, but, um, like yeah. To speak further on that, right. Our products we're w we, we have a high average order value, right. So we did have, um, I mean, maybe call it the luxury of, you know, having a little bit higher of a CPA, you know, a bit higher of a, you know, we're willing to spend, oh gosh, you know, we'll get this ad up to, you know, 70, 80, $90 then boom, someone purchases.

Josh (19:32):

So we ha we had that ability to kind of have that padding. Uh, it also obviously really depends on what you're selling, right. Like if it's something for 30 something for 50 something for 500, it varies. Oh yeah. Y'all have a good AOV. I think that's that's any media buyers dream because if you have those, AOVs under 50 bucks, I mean, Facebook is getting hard these days. So I mean, to get a CPA, you know, under 30, then you got the cost of goods sold, then everything on the back end. I mean, it's, it's tough to, you know, make the needle move, but with y'all having that, you know, a hundred plus AOV, uh, you know, at the very first sale that gives you a ton of wiggle room. Right, right. Yeah. It does help.

Zach (20:08):

Awesome. Oh man. Well Josh, thank you so much for your time, man, until everybody, how we can support you and how everybody can get in touch.

Josh (20:16):

Oh yeah. Okay. No, I, I think, uh, obviously I've learned some stuff from you guys and I'm going to learn stuff from your podcast. So I think the best way is to support your guys' podcasts. Probably on the flip side, I think, uh, supporting me is just growing things that, that help all of us, other entrepreneurs and people doing e-commerce and sticking their necks out there through the iOS 14 war and the ad buying war like you're talking about, you know, but in terms of Jackson's specifically it's J a X, X O n.com. And, uh, whether you're wearing a velvet rope or a blank white people, we got, we got good, good quality made in Italy changed. So we're excited to get them in people's hands. I love it. Thanks. Ma'am absolutely loved it, man. Thanks for jumping on the podcast. Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 6 (21:09):

Well, 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 zack@funneldash.com. Show me you left a review. I'll give you a free copy of the rich add or ed book to 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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