GOING-TO-MILLIONS WITH
Do you believe in magic?
In a young Growth Marketer’s heart?
How the accurate data can free them whenever it starts
And your paid ads are magic if the data is reliable
It makes you grow profitability when you scale
I’ll tell you about the Magic that will free your P&L
It’s called Northbeam, and to attribution confusion we say farewell!
This is my first song. Some might call it copyright infringement, I call it sampling. Yes, I give PROPER ATTRIBUTION TO THIS ARTIST (The Lovin’ Spoonful). One thing’s for sure: I was inspired.
When I think of Northbeam, I quite frankly think they’ve done the impossible. Dare I say, the magical. They’ve figured out a scaleable, MACHINE LEARNING/ ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE POWERED workaround to the hell that was life as a growth marketer post iOS 14.5.
Northbeam = 1st-party data, IN 2022.
Call it a miracle. Call it magic. It’s almost Halloween, so hell, call it spooky.
I don’t care what you call it, I just have one ask:
Don’t Go-to-Market without intelligent paid media.
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In order to grow profitably with paid ads, you need to run experiments. You need to TEST your way through your assumptions, and from those tests, winners can emerge.
I say can, because the reason to test is to LEARN.
TO LEARN WHAT IS GOING TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE.
BUT, HOW CAN YOU TELL WHAT THE VERDICT OF THOSE TESTS ARE WHEN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE REAL, NEUTRAL RESULTS ARE?
WE NEED north-star quality data to find the ads that work. We’re not out here running paid media campaigns.
We’re out here fighting for our lives. We’re out here to WIN. TO GO-to-Millions (or, ideally, BILLIONS).
WE CAN’T SCALE OUR EFFORTS UP WITHOUT CLEAR WINNERS AND LOSERS.
That’s where Northbeam comes in.
Here’s why we trust Northbeam and Northbeam only:
When we bring a new brand to market, or when we’re running paid for a brand that is already in market, we know our ads will outperform our competitors.
Maybe, not on day 1. On day 1, all of us growth marketers are relying on a hunch, on our gut.
We put forth our best ad creative. Our favorite hooks. Our most compelling landing pages behind those ads. Our most strategic ad copy. Our most well-planned ad campaign structure. Eye-catching offers.
And then?
We let it ride.
Knowing full well that on day 1, even with our best foot forward, even with our best guesses cast, that there is oh so much room for error. And, oh so much room for growth.
Then, the fun begins. BUCKLE UP, SWEETHEART. We start to get RESULTS.
And, no, we don’t dare trust attribution reporting in-platform. Gross. Barf.
Sorry for using the B word, but I’m quite frankly sick at the thought.
In-platform reporting is flawed. It’s flawed because it’s overly generous to the platform. Facebook, oops, forgive me for using the F word. Meta is always going to capture conversions as attributed to Meta that really were converted at the hands of Google. And, same for Snap. And, TikTok.
Step #1 to running creative ad experiments that work:
Knowing who to trust. Sorry to get all Sopranos on you, but would you trust the restaurant that sold you your meal to tell you how good your meal was?
No, because that doesn’t make sense.
We have to watch our backs. If Meta is where I’M SPENDING MY ADVERTISING BUDGET, THEN META IS GOING TO REPORT AS MANY RESULTS (CONVERSIONS) AS THEY CAN GET THEIR STICKY LITTLE FINGERS ON.
We need a trusted 3rd party. A trusted 3rd party, with 1st party data, actually.
Yep, that’s what we need.
Step #2
With bad data, those paid experiments (the ones that we growth marketers desperately need to run) simply don’t work. Northbeam is the solution (but only for marketers who are looking to scale ads profitably across every channel).
If you’re a growth marketer who doesn’t like data, you know where the unsubscribe button is.
Ouch! Ari, that was harsh. Ari, shut up! Truth hurts!
Ari, did you just tell me to shut up???
Ari, stop it, you’re scaring them.
Oh! Anywho, where were we?
Step #3
Let’s get tactical. Shall we?
GENERAL WAYS WE LIVE OUR LIVES AS WE’RE MONITORING WHICH CHANNELS AND WHICH ADS DESERVE OUR BUDGET:
- Within Northbeam, my personal North Star view is 1 day click. If 1 day click is trending over a period of 7 days in a singular direction, I trust that trend and we make ADJUSTMENTS. IF OVER 7 DAYS SNAP IS LETTING US DOWN, we adjust our budget and creative. We’ll know that something is wrong, and that we need to focus on 1) New creative 2) Not scaling budget significantly until we see indications that our creative is resonating.
- Here at Go-to-Millions, we are team UTMs. For new paid creative that we’re testing out in the wild, let’s say that Meta says the ad is crushing it. That’s great! But, let’s check that. Let’s call their bluff.
We’ll go into Northbeam, distill the data down to the ad level, and then let’s say Northbeam says the ad is just mediocre – that it’s not driving as many conversions as Meta claims. We’ll check that, too. We’ll hit up Google Analytics (GA) and here’s where we rely on our UTMs: GA almost always is in line with what Northbeam said about the ad (because the UTM doesn’t lie). GA + Northbeam = reporting the same thing. Allows me to confidently consider the ad mediocre, if that’s what GA + Northbeam match on. So long, over-inflated Meta attribution. SEE YA.
- WE REMEMBER TO RELAX. TO LET IT RIDE. TO NOT OVERREACT (this one is hard for me, as you can probably tell lol – I wasn’t born with a lot of ~chill~).
That said, knee-jerk reactions aren’t cute on paid social.
We can’t kill creative within a day of launching it. We also can’t throw our entire budget at a channel, even if it is showing positive signs for a couple of days. THE BEST MEDIA BUYERS WATCH TRENDS IN DATA. AND, THE BEST MEDIA BUYERS ARE MADE BETTER BY ACCURATE DATA.
Here are a few examples of the SPECIFIC WAYS TO CHOP UP NORTHBEAM DATA to see how ads are performing out in the wild.
l’ exemple #1
- Within the Northbeam platform, at the ad level, go to the 1st time vs returning report
- Export that puppy
- Create NEW iterations of the ads that your DATA tells you drove the most new customers
- Next week, do it again. And, again.
l’ exemple #2
- Find your best performing ad by funnel stage
- Make lots of versions, only changing the CTA
- Compare those versions against each other by metric, by funnel stage
- Find the best one
- Next week, do it again. And, again.
In summary, I highly, highly personally recommend Northbeam. I actually jumped for joy when I heard they wanted to partner with me. Little old me. There isn’t a more important piece in my tech stack. If you’re spending real $ on paid social, and Northbeam is currently missing from your tech stack, remain calm. But, urgently fix that. Schedule a demo with Northbeam. Let them walk you through the tech. The stars will align from there.
Thank you for reading this. Love you all to the moon.
Yours,
Ari