Letters from Tom: Vol. 1

*Note from the Author: These company wide emails, sent by our CEO, Tom Logan, are typically sent every other week. For ease of publishing and peak authenticity, we’ll publish them the way he writes them: Directed to the Cohley team.

How, ACTUALLY, does more creative testing combat iOS changes?

Here's my exchange with the editor of the DTC Pilothouse newsletter...it all stemmed from them posting this Met Gala meme. The prompt was "We asked AOC what brands should do on the ad buying side to mitigate the effects of iOS updates."

I then emailed Eric (editor) and asked..."How would you describe the why/how behind why testing more creative helps combat iOS changes?

I told him my description would be this...Changes to iOS have forced marketers to return to some important fundamentals. Among those is the importance of testing more and more creative assets, running an "always on" feedback loop that's constantly challenging the winning creative. Among the benefits of finding new creative? On avg, brands see a 10% lift in CTRs and a 4% reduction in CPMs with every new winner that they find. Seeing as approximately 1 in 20 (5%) of new creatives unseat the winner, more creative is the answer!"

He loved that response and fwd'ed it to his team, which was some welcome validation for us!

The Reviews Generator is LIVE

The Reviews Generator is officially...LIVE! The goal of the generator is equal parts lead gen and PR, providing a ton of (free) value for brands to the tune of up to 250 product reviews for up to 5 products.

Some of you may have seen my LinkedIn post on the subject, but I'm fired up about this offering. We're following Unsplash's lead with this "side project," and in the words of Unsplash's founder...."The day we launched, we not only experienced the immediate benefits of creating value but also a much bigger shift in how marketing needs to be done today in order to be heard. When you create value first, people pay attention."

Note: While 250 free reviews is generous, there are some real limitations that should prompt A List (or qualified) brands to talk to sales. They include the following...

• Reviews aren't auto tagged w/ SKU IDs
• There's no way to auto push the reviews to Yotpo or PowerReviews, which means syndication to Target / Walmart is challenging
• Shopify only, while paid Reviews Briefs can include BigCommerce
• No ability to select creators, meaning that any sort of demographic focused sampling isn't doable
• There's a 5 product max

If a brand needs the above functionality, they'll need to pay for it. The majority of qualified brands will want at least some of that functionality, and that will act as a great ledge for our sales folks.

AdRoll Beta

We're still early but the data from our Adroll test with Nau Clothing is through the roof...we've upped their ROAS in retargeting ads by 9.2X!! It's purely the result of introducing creative testing where it wasn't previously possible, in digital automation.

This is going to be huge, and it's just the tip of the iceberg for us. I can't wait to make it easy for our team to draw a straight line between a brand's work with us and obvious, real lifts in ROI. The goal is to set our clients up with as many integrations as possible, and put more broadly, we're going to position ourselves as a total "no brainer" for brands looking to get the most out of their marketing stacks. I can't wait.