Dylan (03:04):

Yeah. You know, I think we had Zach Horvath on live a great story. We were launching a Kickstarter and let me tell you it crashed and burned pretty bad. So I mean, yeah, I've had my successes, but definitely some failures.

Zach (03:17):

Oh my gosh. Well today, uh, is the founder of heart, soul and hustle.com. It's a Facebook ad agency that has gotten some pretty amazing results. You know, these clients have, as you know, are trapping anywhere between 20 and 60 grand, uh, on a particular launch in a matter of a few weeks, you know, less than a month in, in, in many cases. And I think, uh, Zach Spuckler has done an amazing job. He's gotten a pretty Epic ROI, right. And in terms of ROI, you typically hear results. Like I put a dollar in, you know, I'm getting a 200, 300% row ads, but Zach's clients, uh, on the launch side, I mean, we're, we're talking, you know, 900, uh, 900%, a thousand percent ROI. And that's the, not only a Testament to the model of launches, but that's also a Testament to a guy like Zach who knows how to dial in the paid advertising strategy for launches.

Zach (04:19):

So without further ado, Zach, welcome to the show, Hey, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, man. I'm excited. So Zach and I originally connected through James Wedmore's mastermind a few years back. And I think at that time, James, you were, you were basically running your own products and doing your own product launches. And now you're basically you've bundled all that expertise. So the last couple of years, and you're serving a pretty much, a lot of clientele that was, you know, kind of very similar to your, your, your old business, would you, is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. We had a fully course-based business, some coaching, some consulting, but mostly courses was the, the bulk of our business digital products. And, uh, we pivoted, uh, it's funny, James James Wedmore, whose mastermind we met through, he has this saying, he says, you know, Zig zags.

Zach (05:13):

I don't know that that's his trademark phrase, probably heard it before, but you know, I thought the, the ultimate zag would be like, everybody talks about going one to many and how one-to-one is it scalable? I was like, you know what, let's do it, let's go the opposite way and see what happens. And, um, it's been an incredibly rewarding and interesting ride, totally different from what I used to do, but, um, really awesome. And in a lot of ways, Oh, that's awesome. And you know, it's pretty nice, like on the client side to be working with somebody that's been in there and done that for themselves and not just, you know, has like only has experience on the agency side. Uh, so I, I feel like you're really able to understand your clients, uh, quite well, um, because of your

Zach (05:58):

Previous experience in selling courses. Yeah. And, and that's, you know, we like to say that's our super power is a lot of people either start as an agency or are an agency that's done it for other people. Um, but you know, we've, we've both managed, you know, six-figure multiple six-figure launches for clients. Um, and we managed, uh, you know, internally I worked with a team and we did $174,000 launch of our own digital course. So like we've, we've played both sides of the coin. Um, and that really gives us a competitive edge when it comes to supporting people that want to do the same. Cause we do get the logistics. We do get the fallout, we call it launch free fall where you're like, Oh my gosh, is this going to work? I just spent all this money and now what's going to happen. And, um, you know, it's nice to have an intimate understanding of your client's ad emotions as I love to call them and emotions.

Zach (06:47):

I love it. So walk us through, like it fair to say you do a lot of ads for, for product launches. Like what goes into, you know, high level advertising strategy for somebody that's, you know, looking to follow that, that product launch formula. Absolutely. So the first thing we do is we consult our clients on the launch strategy. So one of the things that's really important to us as an agency is that we have some hand in the strategy now to be completely transparent. It's like a 90 minutes to two hours strategy calls. So we tend to work with people who are a little more experienced or have launched before. We're not like, all right, you got this idea. You want to launch it. What's that look like we're going to figure it all out in two hours. But what we do like to do is have kind of our hand in the pot to have some sense of, you know, what's the messaging, what's the positioning, what's the goal, what's the span?

Zach (07:36):

What are the metrics? What are things looks like in the past? What do we want things to look like in the future? And we talk high-level strategy for the launch, and then we create, um, a launch ad schedule. So you kind of mentioned it, uh, during the intro is like there's a lot happening in a short period of time. So for all of our clients, we create a master spreadsheet with due dates and timelines and creative briefs and budget, uh, restrictions and budget goals. And so, you know, before a launch ever starts, we know what the launch is, what the core strategy is, what ads are running when they're running, when they're shut off, how much we want to spend on them. And, you know, I think we're going to talk about this a little later, but you know, we have a good sense of what the entire launch is going to look like both conservatively, optimistically and pessimistically.

Zach (08:25):

So that before we ever spend a single dollar where like this, this is the reality, right. And one of the things that we do that I think is a little unique, um, or I shouldn't say that, I guess I don't know what every other agency does, but one thing that we're really clear on is that, um, with all of our clients, with all of our contracts, we tell people that we are morally legally, ethically, unable to guarantee anything. And I think that for launches, that's so important because you know, whether you subscribe to that belief or not, you, you actually can't promise anything with ads, right? You never know what's going to happen, but we're really transparent with our clients from the jump that, like the only thing that we promise is that we're going to show up professionally, have our hands in your strategy from the background of knowing what works and show up for them fully for the launch. And so we find that even our clients who have a lackluster launch, um, refer other clients to us, um, or send other people their way or come back to us when they figured out their messaging or their product. Because I, you know, I think we've all had this experience as a media buyer. It's not all home runs, right. So what we do do is make sure our clients feel really fully supported and that leads to a lot of referrals that leads to a lot of growth for us. Um, so yeah,

Zach (09:39):

I want to talk about some home runs. So I want to talk about, I want to talk about this, this rich ad you sent over here, Zach. Um, tell us about some of the results you got behind this thing. So I sent over an ad back from when we were doing

Zach (09:58):

Of course, uh, ads or when we were selling digital courses and we still do some digital products, but it's not quite at the same scale or magnitude. Um, but this was an ad that we ran and I'm actually gonna pull it up so that I'm looking at it. So if you guys hear me clicking around, cause I have a, I'm a, I'm a tab, a I'm a recovering.

Zach (10:19):

So

Zach (10:21):

Was an ad that we ran for a launch. And that's why I actually picked this one. This was an ad. We ran for a launch, I got a six X ROI and I wanted to talk a little bit about it because I think especially in the launch industry, you know, there's what we call market or math. And that's people being like, Oh my gosh, I made a trillion dollars in 30 days. And I'm like rich now. And it's like, well, that's top-line revenue, but like, what are your costs? What are your team costs? What are your affiliate costs? Right? Um, but this was straight $1 into ads generated $6 out directly from ads. And the reason that this ad worked so well and why I pulled it is because we see stuff like this, but what a lot of people don't see as the, just below the surface, which is this ran to our warm audience.

Zach (11:08):

So this ad works really well because we had a really nice hook. Um, and we kind of lead in with like, does the idea of a big program launch feel overwhelming because you know, having done launches, having worked in the launch space, both personally and now as an agency, I know that a lot of people just feel overwhelmed. They're like, how am I going to spend all that money at once? What are my emails going to say, what is this going to say? And the ad works so well because it had a great hook, but then it was also a picture of me to an audience I was highly visible with. So there's also a level with your advertising that congruency matters. So like we work with someone who's in a really, um, niche market with Instagram and all of her branding tends to in her advertising matches her Instagram branding.

Zach (11:53):

So when we run them to warm audiences, there's this congruency. So it can be congruency of brand, it can be currency of identity, but there was this really strong congruency. And then, um, we also like the, the ad copy is so simple in terms of the headline, uh, free masterclass, the challenge launch. But I think there's some sort of, um, you know, there's some sort of poetry there. That's like when you have the right audience with the right message and the right creative copy always matters. But like I do tell my clients, like, I, you know, I say like, I'd never say this publicly, but here I am saying it publicly. Your copy is not as important with a really dialed in audience. Right. So this copy could have been stronger. If I was looking under a magnifying glass, I'd re I'm I'd much rather have a stronger set of copy, um, for the headline, but it's still converted really well.

Zach (12:44):

So we probably could've got a cheaper cost per lead. We probably could've increased our ROI a little bit, but ultimately it worked. Right. So the other thing I'll say about this ad that worked really, really well is that we hadn't really tangible outcomes in the copy. So I, I always say there's two types of people on Facebook, the people who read the ads and the people who don't read the ads, right. They get drawn in by the image, or they're like, I see the image now I want to read the copy. And so for those that read the copy, we really dove into why a challenge launch works the best. So, um, you know, this was an older ad. So I was like, I've personally made over $50,000 with a simple system that you can implement. I'm going to give you the vital components. I'm going to teach you how to do it with a low advertising spend. I'm going to teach you how to get paid. I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask questions. Um, and this was an older ad because we we've now done like multiple six figures with challenges. Um, but leading into this, it was just, uh, it was good targeting, decent copy the right message at the right time to the right people. Um, and I think all of that just led to a really rich ad experience that resulted in a six X ROI directly from ads.

Zach (13:54):

That's awesome, man. I mean, two, two thoughts that come to my mind to deal with all excited challenger funnels have just grown in insane levels of, of, of popularity since you actually ran this campaign. Uh, I mean, uh, like every time I, I, I, uh, I hear about somebody creating a new challenge or funnel. I'm like, Hey, let's jump on a call this week. I can't, I'm working on my challenger funnel. Um, but they've really grown in popularity, uh, for sure. And the second part of what you said, which is really knowing, you know, marketer math and the, um, really helping, you know, somebody in real time and proactively understand what, uh, their economics are not just, you know, spend and top line revenue, but taking into consideration all the costs to really make a launch or a challenge or funnel really come into place, whether it's your, your agency fees, your software fees, your program, these your refund rates.

Zach (15:00):

And, uh, this was a big part of, um, you know, inspiration for, uh, uh, insert native advertisement here for ad card in the sense that we wanted, um, you know, advertisers to be able to spin up a dedicated virtual card or a dedicated card for every single expense that goes into customer acquisition. Right? So the agency could have like some level of insight into this of what's happening, right? Cause like, I mean, you Zack well, people know that you get inside in terms of the ad performance data and maybe the transaction data, but like it's a black box in terms of how your clients are actually spending that money, you know, in their operating accounts, like what their actual cashflow looks like. So, um, that was a really big part of, Hey, you know, you need to be able to ha uh, have visibility into this app, the spend level as it's happening and not just wait, you know, 30, 60, 90 days until your books close. And then you get, you know, some P and L from your bookkeeper or contract CFO. Um, at that point, the launch is over, Zach's already done his job and, uh, and, uh, you know, it's, it's not really a proactive if that makes sense.

Zach (16:19):

Yeah. And I think, you know, especially in the launch space, like market math is very, um, prevalent in that people just want to talk about how much money they're making, but they don't want to talk about the expenses or the, of the, you know, the top line or the affiliates. And, you know, the more intimate you can get with realizing that a launch is not, I spend a dollar on ads, I make $400. It's I spend money on ads between launches. I spend money on team. I spend money on everything. And ultimately that leads to a clear ROI. That's not just $1 on ads is $6, right? Because I have team costs and I have, uh, affiliate costs from that launch. And so, you know, I just think that I could talk about that all day. Cause I, you know, I think we're all guilty of it, especially in this space is like, Oh, I'm going to share the big numbers, but it's like, it's all market or math.

Zach (17:09):

And you have to keep that in mind that a person doing a six-figure launch, doesn't take home a six figure salary from that launch. Yeah. I call it Roundup revenues. So if you do a launch, you round up to the nearest million or 10 million versus rounding up to the nearest dollars, right? So if you're doing 50,000, you just round up to the nearest 1 million instead of, you know, 50,000 and someone sends in dollars, right? That's just, that's just kind of how we do math over here. Um, this episode is brought to you by funnel lashes, add card, the only charge card exclusively for your digital ad spend. And if you're an ad

Zach (17:50):

Agency that manages seven or even eight figures a year in media and ad spend for your clients, and you're looking to double your profits over the next six to 12 months, then check out ad card. See the typical agency model is this, you charge 10% of your spend. We make 10 to 20% margin at the end of the day. So that's really one to 2% of your clients spend that is profit in your business. The easiest way to double that is a really find a way to earn in that one to 2% cash back of the card that is on file of your clients has ad account. And before add card we had to do was invoice all your clients for their ad spend upfront. She's really difficult on a cash flow basis and very difficult ask. And then you had to put the card on your own Amex or whatever card of choice to get that level of value back into your business with add card it's entirely different in streamline. You simply get your clients on add card and make yourself the agency of record and you'll get the cash back. As long as you're managing the ad spend, it's a great way to double your profit without doing any additional work.

Zach (19:00):

Check it out@funneldash.com. All right, let's dive into this. Pour out here, take it away, Dylan. Let's let's see what it's all about here. Yeah, go ahead and check your email for this bad boy. It's a very terrible ad. Lots of reasons. Why not only because the watermark is so on the actual image itself, but it's very death oriented. Um, it's a picture of a coffin, you know, looking really depressing plants are from nine bucks a month, guaranteed acceptance for ages 40 to 85. No physical exam required call us now. But to me it seems like funeral planning got a funny, terrible ad. Zack, what are those first thoughts? Yeah, I mean, for me, the big thing is like, you know, I was going to be objective because everybody's coming at this from a different level of experience, but the big thing is like, you never want to take a photo and you don't have permission to use and run an ad to it, which is essentially what's happening here.

Zach (19:59):

Um, the other thing I don't love that we can learn from this is like the, the call now is the call to action, but then the learn more is linking to a website, whereas maybe that could link to a messenger or some other sort of contacts. So that there's congruency between the message and the copy and the call to action to actually get them to do something. And then one thing that a lot of people don't know, and I don't know how advanced, but the Facebook algorithm, the AI that they use actually scans pictures for detecting levels of negativity. And I would venture to guess that like a coffin is probably not up there on the most positive things. So there's a good chance that either through manual or automated review, this is actually going to get a low quality score, which is going to mean it costs more money and reaches less people.

Zach (20:47):

So for me, it's like I get where they're coming from. Um, but I think that the, the shock and awe approach isn't going to work as effectively on Facebook, regardless of your niche, because they do have that AI. So for me, like, you know, the, the copy is okay, the image doesn't really work for me, especially since they don't have permission to use it. And then the call to action is not congruent. So overall, I mean, I see what they're going for. And I always like to give people benefit of the doubt, but there's just a couple of big mistakes that I think could improve. This, can improve this a lot.

Zach (21:20):

One thing that I'm confused on is just the offer itself right. Of the page name says policy advisers, the copy says guaranteed acceptance for ages 40, 40 to 85. So that the copy says we're selling you a life insurance or health insurance image. And then the headline plans starting at $9 a month makes me feel like you're selling me a casket because it's a casket with a woman. And I'm like, Oh, okay. So like, I need to die. Like I need to like buy this, this casket, like right in front of me, that's $9 a month to kind of like prepare for my own funeral. So the first half of it I'm confused or am I selling, you know, a policy and then the image, the $9 a month is, um, like it's not super clear that they're, they're selling, uh, in insurance. Um, I don't know

Zach (22:18):

About you, but I mean, that's only three days of coffee

Zach (22:21):

A month to be able to afford this. I mean, the image, if it was right image, like you could have gone in this whole direction of like, don't leave your, your family. Um, you know, just like put the fear of God and people that's, that's how you sell insurance, right? Of like, don't leave your family like empty handed. Like don't let leave. I'm like paying for your casket and you know, your bills, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's where I would have gone with the copy and providing a better narrative around how to sell insurance. Um, and tying it into like this, this casket, if you are going to keep that image, if you have, I mean, six feet under a $6 a month, you know, what are you going to pick? Oh, wow. I love it. Thank you. Thank you, Dylan. Thank you. Thank you, sack. That was, that was amazing. Super entertaining. Um, well that was this last segment, Zach, you just nailed it. Um, right when we were talking before the show, and I'm excited for you to share, uh, you know, this financial principle when it comes to managing and scaling ads for the audience, but I would love for you to really break down the conversation that you have with your clients, um, before

Zach (23:46):

Going into a launch before taking them on as a client and really break down this triple R uh, conversation that, that, uh, that we talked about. Yeah. So, you know, for us, what we were finding when we were first starting as an agency, is that one of the questions we would ask, a lot of people is, okay, what's your budget for the launch? And when we first started, we would basically just kind of like, you know, nod our heads and be like, perfect, great, we'll manage that amount for you. Um, you know, as long as we were able to manage that amount and it made sense with our fees, but what we learned after just a couple of months, or maybe, you know, maybe a few months is that a lot of people were setting budgets based on what they had not setting them based on their revenue targets or their goals.

Zach (24:29):

And so what we started doing with our clients was reverse engineering things. Now, again, like I said earlier, you know, we can't promise guarantee, um, you know, say without a shadow of a doubt that your cost per lead is going to be $5 for example. But after doing this for awhile, you know, we've worked in a variety of industries. We worked in a variety of niches and we kind of have a sense of what leads are going to cost. We also tend to work with people who have launched before and are now amplifying or accelerating the results of their launch. And so they have past data. And so what we do is we actually calculate, okay, based on this spend, what does that actually look like in terms of leads generated in terms of bad conversion rates, good conversion rates, like where are we ultimately going to end up?

Zach (25:12):

So to really put legs to this, we were working with a client who said, you know, I've got 25,000 to spend, and I want this many leads. And I think it's going to be $8 a lead. And we said, perfect. Um, here's how many leads you're going to get at $8 a lead based on past history, based on what that's gonna look like. If you convert it to three and 4%, here's what that's going to look like, including our costs and fees. Here's what your profitability is going to be. You also need to factor in your team, your expenses, things like that. So we'll leave that up to you. You don't have to disclose all your financials to us as your agency. Um, but what we did was we really figured out what does the whole picture look like? And so it brought us to this conversation, um, both with our client and the conversation we had prior to starting recording, which is that we want reserves regardless of results.

Zach (26:00):

And so, especially in a products launch, there is what we call the launch free fall. And the launch free fall is basically that time, right after you spent all the money generating leads, uh, right before you released the product for sale. And for some people that's spending 20, $30,000 with no return yet, you've just put the money out. And now you're crossing your fingers, that it comes back in the little hyperbolic. Because again, if you have past history and you have a proven product, not just crossing your fingers, you're making a really smart, educated investment. But what a lot of people do is they get into this launch fall and they go, Oh my gosh, I've spent all this money. I'm going to, I'm going to hold on to the rest and I don't want to spend anymore. Um, and we've had that happen with clients who are like, I want to stop spending money.

Zach (26:42):

And we're like, well, hang on. Because actually once the cart is open, once you've generated the leads, once you start selling the thing, everybody who's been exposed to it as low-hanging fruit. So we want to make sure that regardless of what happened, that lead generation phase, we have reserves for the retargeting, right? So for our clients, a lot of times it's a three-phase system ramp up lead generation retargeting and sales. Um, so the re-targeting and sales is the third phase. And so we want to make sure before we ever go into the launch, that if they say my budget is 22 or $25,000, a lot of clients think that means, Oh, well, I can generate, you know, 25,000 divided by $8, or like, no, no, because you have to have money in reserves for the retargeting. You have to have money in reserves for the warmup.

Zach (27:29):

And so, for example, we worked with this $25,000 budget client and they were like, okay, cool. Well, it turns out only about 19,000 was going into lead gen. And so we did have to lower their goals because they didn't want to spend more. And that's not a bad thing. It's not a, it's not a good or a bad thing. I think it's objective. And I do think that there is this element, especially with marketer, math of like shame and, uh, beliefs that come with setting certain goals. Like if your goal for a launch is 80,000, instead of a hundred, like, Oh, it's not a six figure launch. It doesn't count. Or if it's one 80 instead of 200, well, it's not multi six-figure. So like it's not as good. Right. And I think all of those things are like things that we have to as media buyers, as agency owners, help our clients get past, because that stuff doesn't need to hold you back.

Zach (28:18):

It's just the nature of the numbers. Right? And so for some people they're like, cool, I'll extend myself a little and I'll increase the bottom line budget to get to that number. And for some people they don't have that level of risk tolerance. And so, you know, the, the thing is whether your client has high or low risk tolerance, you want the reserves regardless of the results so that you can always have money for what you need money for. And just having that conversation upfront with clients, just having that preparation, that it's not just give us $10,000 and we'll make you a hundred, it's give us 10,000. Let's see what that looks like. Let's allocate the money, let's figure out the goals and then playing a game where we're working towards metrics, not working towards, um, you know, ideologies or dreams. It just creates a better experience, better expectations, better results, um, and ultimately better return on investment

Zach (29:13):

Reserves, regardless of results that you've heard. Have you heard it here for some of the rich and poor in podcasts? I love it, man. Like, uh, I think that's a really, um, great way to look at it versus just kind of, uh, faith, faith based budgeting, which is like, I'm going to spend a hundred grand and I'm going to have a little bit of faith that Zach's, Butler's going to bring it back to me. It's a dangerous to be

Zach (29:42):

Awesome. It, yeah. So, yeah. Thank you so much, SAC. This is, this has been awesome. Tell everybody a little bit about, uh, what you're up to, what you're excited about next, um, how we can support you and how people can get in touch. Absolutely. So, you know, what we're working on right now is we're working with a couple of clients on low ticket offers, which is a little different for us, but we're really getting jazzed up about it. Um, we work with one client who we put a dollar into ads when we return one or 1.8 to two, uh, two X ROI direct to a product page. And if you'd have asked me six, 12 months ago, if I thought you could just run ads directly to a low ticket offer and create a backend profit direct from the ad without some backend funnel, without some high ticket products without sales calls, I would have called you crazy.

Zach (30:32):

Um, but I don't know if it's a shift in the industry. I don't know if it's a shift in expectations, like we're still studying and learning. And I'm investing with mentors and teachers who are really already crushing this game. Um, but we work with clients who want to bring in low ticket offers as a larger part of their strategy. So the one client we're working with that we do get the 1.8 to two X ROI depends on the day, depends on the, the, how much we're going warm versus cold, how much warm audience we're building. Um, but we've also help scale up their launches because now the leads they're attracting are buyers and they've been exposed to their paid products. And we're in an industry where not everybody's familiar with courses. So the low ticket investment exposes them to this idea of online education, um, and then gets them to buy higher ticket products, creates higher lifetime value.

Zach (31:20):

So that's something that's new and exciting on the horizon for us. Um, the other thing is still managing launches. So we still love managing launches. We still take on launch clients. Um, but you asked what was new and exciting. So I thought I would, yeah. You up a little bit. Um, but we, we really just manage launches for people. And we find that we bring in a lot of great clients by managing, uh, a digital product launch. And if they love it, then we create a longterm relationship or we're managing some of their evergreen systems. Some of their low ticket offers to ultimately build bigger launches. And I have a friend, Tiffany Lee by master who goes by coach glitter. And she likes to say, when you're not launching you're, pre-launching when you're not launching or preparing for the next launch to come. And I think that's so such incredible advice. And so what we want to do is build launch relationships that foster long-term, uh, connections where we're helping people prelaunch all the time, whether it's low ticket lead generation, or just engagement to grow the list when it is time to launch the product. So, yeah, that's, that's a little bit about us and what we do. So if you want to connect heart, soul hustle.com, uh, and we would, we would love to hear more about your business. I love it. Thank you so much,

Speaker 7 (32:32):

Zach. This has been awesome. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me [inaudible]

Zach (32:42):

Thanks for listening to another episode of the rich ed or ed podcast. If you're like me and listen to podcasts on the go, go ahead and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and rich ed [inaudible] dot com slash 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 and I'll give you a free copy of the rich add or add book to learn more about the book. Go to rich ed [inaudible] dot com to leave a review that a rich ed or at.com/review. Thanks again.