Tune in to this totally eye-opening exchange with Stephen Nations, Director of Strategy for Drive Social Media  - and unofficial “Off-Line Conversion King” who’s had phenomenal success in bringing  everyone from tiny mom and pop shops to professional NHL teams out of the dark ages and into the digital world. In today’s show, we’ll dissect marketing diamond engagement rings for a local brick and mortar jewelry store.  Turns out that a traditional upscale ad approach translated into (literally) no sales. Find out what they changed -- and more importantly WHY -- to turn a bomb of a marketing effort into a “Ice to Nice”blowout that delivered 28X ROI and hauled in $120,000.  Dig into this treasure chest of marketing gold now.

•  Why “serious” isn’t always the best way to sell expensive upscale products.

• The 100% worthless, real-estate-wasting phrase you should NEVER use in an ad for a local retailer.

• What Facebook feature to use to sift website info to get the kind of granular data to build out a lot more accurate look-alike audiences

• Why online engagement with an ad rarely translates into an in-store purchase (and what actually does).

•  How drilling WAY down on purchasing data unearthed a totally unexpected  target audience profile.

BIO:

Stephen Nations is the director of public relations for Drive Social Media, a St. Louis and Nashville-area-based digital marketing agency. He is obsessed with creating compelling content and finding new ways to connect brands with their target audience. 

TRANSCRIPT:

Host:  Dylan Carpenter

How are y'all? So hey, welcome to another episode of Rich Ad, Poor Ad. Today we have Stephen Nations, he is the Director of Strategy at Drive Social Media. Also does a ton of freelancing on the side. Roughly manages, shoot, 200K'ish a month, and actually has a case study from Facebook on the augmented reality side. So Stephen, man, thanks for coming on, we're pumped to have you, but I'd love to have you introduce yourself, let the people know who you are, and what you're getting into over there.

Guest: Stephen Nations

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me, Dylan. So, like Dylan said, I'm the Director of Strategy at Drive Social Media, which is a data-driven social first digital marketing agency in St. Louis, and we have offices in Nashville, Tennessee, and Miami, Florida as well. We run the gamut of what businesses we work with, all the way from tiny mom and pops that have a couple hundred thousand dollars in revenue, all the way up to professional NHL teams, Orangetheory Fitness, stuff like that. We dabble in a little bit of everything. We do some AR/VR, we do website builds, email marketing, PPC, but our bread and butter's Facebook. I'd say 80% of our ad spend is on Facebook. And really, what I spend a lot of my time doing is, working with these small business owners who are trying to come out of the dark ages actually. A lot of these businesses maybe have been on TV, radio, billboard print, maybe a little email here or there, but haven't really done any data driven, digital marketing, social media marketing.

So we spend a lot of time getting systems set up, capture data, and putting together integrated strategies that have a multi-prong approach where we're trying to pull new people into the funnel, as well as push people down through. And then the really cool thing that I like that we do is, we're able to connect the dots between what happens on Facebook and what happens in the real world. So if you're interacting with ads online, and you walk into a brick and mortar store and make a purchase, whether that's a dentist, a retailer, a gym, a restaurant, what have you, you see an ad on Facebook and then go and purchase from that business offline afterwards, we can connect the dots and tell you exactly how much the people are spending from your ads.

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Oh yeah. And I mean, shoot, I'm a media buyer myself, so I totally understand the importance of being able to track money coming in and money coming out. So I mean, the fact we're going to have a local business on here, it excites me. And especially when it comes down to how well they've done. So I mean, as mentioned, we're going to be having The Diamond Family on the showcase today, roughly spending $2-3K a month. I want to say, you mentioned they started off maybe spending 300 bucks a month.

Guest:  Stephen Nations

Yep.

Host: Dylan Carpenter

You scaled them up. But I mean, based off that, you've generated well over $120,000 in sales on that jewelry side, on a local level from these offline conversions. So I mean, I think this is going to really add some value, it's for a lot of people, and saying, hey, if you can track this, there are so many clients out there to really knock out of the park. And hey, you are the Offline Conversion King. So, I mean-

Guest: Stephen Nations

There you go. I'll take it. So yeah, not self bestowed at least. Yeah. You know, that's the cool thing. A lot of these small business owners, they might've dabbled in Facebook, tried to run some of their own ads, maybe optimizing it for things like likes, and comments, and shares, like a lot of people think they need to. And obviously we know that stuff doesn't drive results. So they go in, they don't have a great strategy, they don't really know how to do targeting or optimizations, and within a month or two they've wasted a couple hundred bucks and they say, "Facebook didn't work." When really, it's just a matter of having the right strategy. You don't need thousands of dollars a month to do well on Facebook. If you start with a minimum budget, you can scale it to where you need to over time without really being too risky.

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Oh, spot on. And I mean, the other part about it is, creative is King in these scenarios. So I think I would love to dive in and say, how y'all came up with this creative? Just because, going from the Poor Ad to the Rich Ad was quite a 180. So I mean-

Guest:  Stephen Nations

Yeah, absolutely.

Host: Dylan Carpenter

It's super cool. We got three videos on the Rich Ad side, we'll post in the show notes. Y'all check them out. They are hilarious. But then on the other side, on the Poor Ad side, it's very kind of more broad, competitors are similar in those areas. But before we dive in too much, what are you feeling over there, Stephen, the Poor Ad first or the Rich Ad?

Guest: Stephen Nations

Let's dive into the Poor Ad first, I'd rather beat myself up at the beginning.

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Heck yeah.

So, on the results side, how did these do?

Guest:  Stephen Nations

Terrible. Give you a little background on the business, The Diamond Family, they've been in business since 1978. They're in St. Louis, Missouri, they're very well-known, and they've traditionally had the typical jeweler feel. They're very high-end, they're not Zales or anything like that. They ge...

Listen in on a free-wheeling discussion with Andrew Molz, founder of Monster Agency, home of “Scary Good PPC” from hyper-tested, kick-ass creative that delivers results -- starting with their own self promo efforts.  Here we’ll talk about how Monster cranks out at least 2 killer agency video ads every month with eye-ball-snagging spoof concepts  that range from  the Nightline-ish “To Catch an Advertiser” to raucous riffs on Dr. Phil, Oxyclean, kitschy TV painter Bob Ross and more.  We’ll dissect the results of the hilarious but ruthlessly-tested ads that Monster spends $40K a month on to bring on high profile clients like Phil Heath Labs, Mr. Olympia, and two-time Patriots’ Super Bowl Champion, Jarvis Green’s shrimp pate’. Grab a pen - cause you’re gonna want to take notes.

• The reason graphics work as well -- and sometimes BETTER than video - that only Facebook insiders know.

• Why “niching down” isn’t always the smartest agency business model -- and the drop-dead simple mindset that makes it easy to get clients in every category imaginable.

• The keep-it-simple-stupid reason a “Top Gun” concept got shot down in the marketplace -- hand how it might have been saved.

• Which comes first,  the copy or the video? -- an eye-opening  peek behind the creative development curtain.

• The old school marketing vehicle that -- ouch -- delivers long term results at a fraction of the cost of creating and running Facebook ads

BIO:
Before starting Monster Agency in 2019, Andrew Molz served as VP Digital Marketing, Sales and Communications  a variety of Dallas-Ft. Worth area companies, including The Reputation Shop,tOnyx Heart, DynaMAXX International, Infrassure and others.  An avid researcher self-admitted data freak, he is fanatical about tracking KPIs to create needle-moving A/B tests that result in high-converting, cost effective sales funnels.

TRANSCRIPT:

Host: Zach Johnson

All right, here we go. Dylan, you ready to rock and roll?

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Let's do it.

Host: Zach Johnson

Today's guest is Andrew Molz, a founder of Monster Agency, who has, clearly and undeniably, the best agency ads on all of Facebook these days. I literally was watching some of them before this, Dylan, and I laughed out loud. Luckily, Andrew wasn't on the call, but I literally rolled off my chair. It was that funny. But if you guys are in online marketing, and you do Facebook ads, you probably have seen Andrew's ads. How would you describe Andrew's video ads, Dylan, that you've seen in the Facebook newsfeed the last couple of weeks?

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Really relatable and hilarious. Everything's going to bring up that nostalgia feeling, whether it's old-school games, Billy Mays, the Texas Hammer. We're in Texas, so that's a big no-brainer for us, but everything is really similar to where it rings a bell, but it's done in its own way, and it just cracks me up. I think it's super thumb-stopping, and it's really catchy to where I bet, shoot, the people who watched the full videos are pretty high up for people who don't dip out, so it's pretty cool there.

Host: Zach Johnson

Yeah, yeah. Well, cool. Without further ado, let's get Andrew on here, and let's talk about which one of these is actually the winning ad that's making him rich and which ad is making him poor. So Andrew, thanks so much for being on the show.

Guest: Andrew Molz

Hey, what's up? Appreciate you all having me, happy to be here and chat with you guys.

Host: Zach Johnson

Yeah, man. So I've seen three of your ads, and I'm going to totally botch trying to describe them, but one is this Adler impression, which is basically like a personal injury attorney style ad, just watched that one. The second ad I've seen is, I don't know, is it like a Nightline style deal, or it's like-

Guest: Andrew Molz

To Catch an Advertiser.

Host: Zach Johnson

Yes. It's so good.

Guest: Andrew Molz

That's what we titled it.

Host: Zach Johnson

Yeah. And then you've got the other one, which is you basically acting as a political candidate, so I would love to dive into those three. My bet is that, and we'll link up these three ads, what I'm talking about, in the show notes, but my bet is those are Rich Ads. 

Like those ads are performing really well for you. And I want to dive into those, but I want to know, man, it seems like you guys are on a total winning streak. I want to know some ads that haven't quite worked out as well as those. But they're absolutely hilarious, so why don't you describe those three ads, Andrew.    I did a really high-level overview, but, break down the concept for us.

Guest: Andrew Molz

Yeah. We'll think of some stuff that makes us laugh. And like myself, I'm 37, and might not be in the demographic of everybody who's watching, but our targeting meshes up well because we target 30 to 54-year-olds. And I think it's a good mix of having some of that nostalgia, and then having stuff a tad bit more current like the To Catch an Advertiser. 

And for the concept of it, it just comes down to what we find as funny. I like to think that we're funny people, and we like to laugh, and crack jokes, and just have fun with what we're doing. And I think it does resonate pretty well with our ads that we're putting out there, especially when we're talking about more so the comedy stuff.

Host: Zach Johnson

Yep. Yeah, so To Catch an Advertiser, that's basically like the To Catch a Predator. It was like that crime watch where he always came out of the kitchen. He was always in the kitchen. I don't know why.

Guest: Andrew Molz

Yeah.

Host: Zach Johnson

You just fully leaned into that, right? And the way you guys, in the video, I don't even know how long the video ad is, but you even lean into pulling up the online chat conversation.

Guest: Andrew Molz

That was pretty clutch. We wanted to have that one and do it in a way that is tasteful, but you still get the idea of what it's spoofing.

Host: Zach Johnson

Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes.   So, how are these three ads doing? I would love for you to tell everybody, obviously, a little bit about Monster Agency and everything you guys do, but I'd also like to just get right to the good stuff here in terms of how are those three ads doing for you?  What are the results?

Guest: Andrew Molz

It's those in combination with others, there's two other ones. We've got a Dr. Phil one as well, and then we also have a Bob Ross style one where I'm there painting with an easel and almost…

Host: Zach Johnson

Yeah. You describe it so well, but you're throwing out these glorious ads, and you're just calling it the Dr. Phil ad, but these are amazing. So break down the Dr. Phil ad for us.

Guest: Andrew Molz<...

Dive into a no-holds-barred back and forth with digital marketing rockstars Rohan Sheth and Matt Farmer of GrowRev  who’ve built their  top 1% agency by investing and managing  over $40M in advertising spend across all channels for monster bands like Mastermind.com, ClickFunnels, and Knowledge Source.  We’ll talk about the company-killing dangers of running non-compliant Facebook ads that will instantly put you into the poor house.  Then we’ll take a closer look at a  killer “free + shipping” book offer that not only crushed on response but helped build the client’s email list at rock bottom prices by doing one simple counter-intuitive pivot ..and more, including:

• How to avoid “de-platforming moves” that can shut you down, tank  your company, and destroy your ability to advertise on Facebook -- forever.
• The ONE question you should NEVER ask in a headline. 
•  The  go-to offer that used to be a webinar selling staple -- but now is 100% Facebook radioactive.  
• The insanely cheap, 30¢ to 40¢ a lead way to capture emails and ROI the hell out of your offering.  
• Why RIGHT NOW  is the time to focus on building  your list rather than selling your product.

BIO:

While Rohan Sheth was still  in high school he  pulled in over $100,000 from his friends selling pocket bikes. He then transitioned into marketing, selling the 'unsellable'. Today he’s the CEO of GrowRev which manages more than $5M Per year in digital advertising that  consistently delivers highly mastered results to high-end celebrities and organizations around the world.

 With over 10 years experience managing digital advertising for some of the world’s largest brands, Matt Farmer has extensive experience on all major advertising platforms including: AdWords, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, OutBrain and Taboola, as well as almost all other large web and mobile networks.

TRANSCRIPT: 

Host: Zach Johnson

All right.  Welcome to another episode of the Rich Ad, Poor Ad podcast. How you doing Dylan? 

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Hey, doing good ready to crank this one out. It's gonna be a juicy one man.  

Host: Zach Johnson

Today we got on the show the partners and founders of GrowRev agency.  These guys manage $40 million a year in ad budget across all channels. You name it. These guys are at the top of the game and I'm so excited to have him on the show. 

Host: Zach Johnson

It's actually pretty hilarious. Dylan, wouldn't you say like the actual Rich Ad, Poor Ad combo that they sent over?

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Yeah, yeah, that's badass, the definition of something that will get you shut down. So I'm pretty excited to dive in.  

Host: Zach Johnson

It’ll  send you to the poor house super, super quick, that's for sure. But these guys may manage ads for some pretty big influencers online spending  upwards of $25K a day and with some household names I'll let them name drop.  But without further ado, let's welcome Rohan and Matt Farmer to the show.

Guest: Rohan Sheth

Thanks for having us Zach and Dylan.

Guest:  Matt Farmer

We're excited for this one. Yes, yeah.

Host: Zach Johnson

Thanks. Thanks for popping on.  I'm so excited. I would love to start with Rohan telling everybody a little bit about how awesome GrowRev is as an agency.  And then would love to dive in a little bit about your guys'  background  pre agency.

Guest: Rohan Sheth

Yeah, absolutely. Matt and I have run GrowRev for coming up on six years together now. Matt’s been in the industry, coming up on 11 years.  I've been in the industry nine years. 

And the way,  Matt and I kind of came together was I was heavy, direct response kind of in the affiliate-esque world and selling random shit online through paid advertising. I love media buying. 

But I went into the agency world. Me and Matt have known each other since before the 2007 -- 2008 economic collapse.  And he saw me transition into the media buying world and he's like, “What the hell are you doing here?” And kind of one thing led to another being good friends prior to this --  he told me what he was running. And I'm not going to ruin that for this podcast, I'm going to let Matt talk about his background and the stuff that he's done. 

I was just like, “Alright man, I've built this agency to a certain level, I'm going to just hand you 50% of this bloody company. And we're going to take this and scale this thing to the roof” because he knew he would perform, and he knew I could sell. 

So that's kind of how our initial partnership came into play. Fast forward to today. We've got a team based out of Vancouver, Canada. We've got a couple guys that work with us in the United States.  Then we're very actively building a team out in Australia since 40% of our clients are in Australia.  We managed three of the top- spending info accounts in Australia right now. So that's the overall GrowRev and then Matt, I’ll tee this one off to us so that you can kind of come in and introduce  the media buying side.

Guest:  Matt Farmer

Yeah, no problem at all. So I've been doing this for about 11 - 12 years right now. Before I partnered up with Rohan, I worked with a company called Digital Brand Services. We had some absolutely massive clients.  We worked with people like the Olympics, Sky Sports, ATP Tennis, ICC Cricket --pretty much everybody in the sporting world we worked with and spent a pretty significant amount of money. 

I basically  partnered up with Rohan because I was really tired of “share of voice” advertising. You know, I'm direct-response at heart.  And I love seeing a good old ROI and optimizing around that, versus like hit 100% of boxing fans in the US. That just gave me a lot more purpose. 

So I partnered up with Rohan, that’s really kind of how it went down. We specialize in phone events, but we also do a lot of stuff around e commerce etc. Because I've been in the industry so long and have rode the wave. So, started with Google ads, went to Facebook back when I thought Facebook would never be a good platform and that proved me wrong. And now because of Facebook, we jump into stuff as early as we can. So the latest network we've been jumping on is TikTok. And it's been pretty amazing so far.

Host: Zach Johnson

That's awesome, man. That's super cool. Now you guys have some pretty monster trophy clients, I would love to have you guys name drop some of the people you guys have been able to help out in the last year or so.

Guest:  Matt Farmer

In the last year or so a couple of clients, we've run traffic for Mastermind.com. So that's obviously Dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins combination there. And then j...

Join us for a juicy discussion with Chase Diamond, founder of Boundless Labs -- one of the world’s top e-commerce email agencies, where we’ll find out how he regularly increases new client email revenue from 0% to 15% to 25% to 30% a month or more.  We’ll dive under the covers of a killer email campaign for a weighted blanket brand that had an open rate of about  53% and a click through 4%  or 5% -- but that wasn’t the reason it rocked.  Then we’ll pick apart the anatomy of an email layout and point out the layout pitfalls that all too many marketers fall into…. and more. 

•  Why testimonials suck compared to the social proof power of these platforms. 
• How one Facebook ad ended up driving 60% of a client’s revenue.  
• How to solve catastrophic mobile app email mistakes from the top down. 
• The absolute best incentive to get customers to leave favorable reviews -- it’s not what you think it is.
• What you can do to get out of your agency echo-chamber and into the mind and buying motivations of your best customers.

BIO

Since launching Boundless Labs in 2018, Diamond has helped his agency’s clients send hundreds of millions of emails resulting in over $40 million in email attributable revenue for high-profile clients like The Chive, IBEX, Original Grain, TUSHY and Vinyl Me Please.

TRANSCRIPT

Host:  Dylan Carpenter   

Cool, cool. How's it going everybody? Welcome to another episode of Rich Ad, Poor Ad. Today we have one of my buddies Chase Diamond online. He is one of the partners at Boundless Labs. He is the Chief email marketing (guy) --  done roughly $35 million plus in revenue for his clients, all via email marketing. So while we dive into the ad side, we're going to be mixing in some emails with this as well. They have some good email practices, bad email practices, and kind of all the shenanigans get involved there. But hey, Chase, thanks for hopping on today. I would love to have you dive into a little bit about what you're doing.  A little background there so people have some kind of insights there.

Guest: Chase Diamond 

Yeah, appreciate you guys having me. Thank you. 

Host:  Zach Johnson  Definitely. 

Guest: Chase Diamond   Awesome. So yeah, currently  run Boundless Labs, we're a team of about 12 people and we're specifically focused on email marketing for e-commerce. So full service email marketing agency, we work with about 35 to 40 clients right now. Most are selling seven and eight figure brands, an email typically accounts for about 20% to 30% of these brands’ revenue. So it's pretty significant. So at a high level, that's kind of what I do. And that's what I'm up to today.

Host:  Dylan Carpenter 

Oh, man, that's awesome. When it comes to a lot of the brands you take on, what percent of revenue are they sitting at originally versus kind of once you get your little wheels  spinning over there to end up at?

Guest: Chase Diamond   

Yeah, so let's say we kind of run the gamut. Some brands literally are doing almost next to nothing, right? So their email attributable revenues are sitting anywhere from like zero to maybe like 3%, right? So it's very minimal. And then some other brands that come to us or maybe doing 10% to 15%. They kind of feel like they've done everything that they've can, and they don't know what they don't know, right? So they're looking to bring in a second pair of eyes and ears and to bring in some experts to help them. 

So typically anywhere from just starting out to maybe 10% to 15% on the high end, and definitely over the course of maybe three to six months of working together, we're pretty consistently able to get these brands to be doing 20%, 25%, 30% of their revenue. 

And again, that's not for every brand, right? We've got some brands that are doing well higher, some brands are doing 40%, 50%, 60% of the revenue from email. And some brands are also doing 10% or 15%. Right? Maybe they started at zero. So it really just depends, but on average, it's about 20%  to 30% of the revenue coming from email after a couple months.

Host:  Dylan Carpenter 

That makes total sense. And what's the size of these kinds of businesses you are working with? Or have they been around the block a little bit?  What's the lifeline or timeline of the businesses you're working with there?

Guest: Chase Diamond  

Yeah, so in e-commerce, I think we've probably touched almost every single vertical. Everything from like CBD to skincare to haircare apparel, to fashion to jewelry, accessories, you name it. Most of our brands do in the ballpark of about one to $20 million in annual revenue. And they typically have been around anywhere from maybe nine months on the short end, all the way up to five, seven, maybe even 10 years for some businesses. So again, like it's that's really what I love about the industry that we all work in is that some of these brands become this overnight success and other brands that could have been more established and are growing steadily. So it's really fun to have this really well rounded kind of mixture.

Host:  Dylan Carpenter  

Oh, man, I love that. So I mean, from your point of view, what's been one of the funnest clients to work with? One you've had a lot of free reign on their messaging or you've been able to have fun with their copy. What's one of those dream clients you've been able to obtain over there?

Guest: Chase Diamond 

So for me, if you guys are familiar with The Chive, by any chance, they're like the men's millennial site.  They're really popular.  Not that they're not popular today, but they're really popular when we were like, maybe in middle school or high school. You guys know The Chive?  Like The Chive for me and all my buddies growing up, obviously, you know, as young dudes, it was like this coolest site ever, right?

Like, oh, man, that'd be such a fun company to work for one day. And somehow, in 2018, I got connected with their chief strategy officer. We had hit it off and I've been consulting with them ever since. 

So I work with them specifically on their e-commerce brand The Chivery. They're an eight figure e-commerce brand really leveraging the cult-like following of The Chive and they create tons of cool graphic tees and apparel and coins and they have really great partnerships with like Bill Murray and other people. So for me just growing up kind of like looking at this brand as like, “Oh, this is so cool”. And now being at a place where they look to me to  advise and consult them on email related practices --  has been really rewarding and fulfilling.

Host:  Zach Johnson

Oh The Chivery and  Bill Murray -- like you can't like can't go wrong with that. I wonder if there were any like failures when they were rolling that out? Because like I feel like that's been such a win.

Guest: Chase Diamond   

Listen in on -- and learn from -- this eye opening discussion with 27-year-old, monster online-brand-builder Joshua “Snow” Elizetxe about how he turned Snow Teeth Whitening into the #1 oral care brand in the world. We’ll talk about the tactics, tools, and strategies that drive his phenomenal cash-flow management that lets him self-fund the company -- and gives him instant access to $10M to roll into R&D.  100% debt and VC free.  Then prepared to be impressed by a fly-on-the wall campaign that crushed -- and shocked by a “try before you buy” offer that almost tanked the company...and more, including:
           
• How Josh got insanely rich earning $60,000 a year.

• The anatomy of a “ripple effect ad campaign” that has generated a virtually un-churnable customer base.

• The priceless financial lesson Josh  learned from a company that sold bologna to Walmart at a breakeven price -- and ended up being bought for $1.3 billion.

• Why the oldest, tried and true offer in the world  nearly assassinated his business -- and what he did to dig himself out of the mess.

 • How to cash in on the customer converting power of celebrity endorsements -- using $0 of your own money.

BIO:

At just 20 years old,  Joshua “Snow” Elizetxe graduated Summa Cum Laude from the W.P. Carey School of Business and Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University with a degree in Information Technology while running a successful company -- Pocket Your Dollars -- from his dorm room.  After graduating he started Foresold, a private holding company for high-performing online companies. The company bootstrapped (absolutely zero outside capital) its portfolio into becoming a leader in several hyper-competitive industries. 9-figures in sales.  In 2017, he founded Snow Teeth Whitening,  a direct to consumer leader in oral care and oral cosmetics that has over 1 million fans, and customers in 175+ countries around the world.

TRANSCRIPT

Host: Zach Johnson

All right, all right, all right here we go! Dylan, you ready to kick up another episode of the Rich Ad, Poor Ad podcast?

Host: Dylan Carpenter

Yeah man you know I'm honestly a little cold but I feel like it may be Snow!

Host: Zach Johnson

Yes, we have an amazing guest, an amazing entrepreneur on today I'm so pumped to introduce. You guys have probably all heard the brand.  You've seen it everywhere online. It's the number one oral care online brand. TrySnowcom. These guys are killing it.  if I could overuse that term, 10s of millions in revenue, nine figure valuation, 2.6 million visitors in traffic in April alone. And a phenomenal entrepreneur. So I'm so excited. Welcome to the show, Josh Snow. How’re you doing?

Guest: Josh Snow

Hey, what's going on guys?

Host: Zach Johnson

Yeah, man. We're so excited to have you. You are like the epitome of a “Rich Advertiser” that has taken paid ads to the next level man. So we're excited to dive into not only the winning ads, which you obviously get to talk about all the time, but like what sent you to the poorhouse.  I want to  hear about the losers today. So tell everybody a little bit about you. For those that may not have heard about Snow, give us a little overview of the brand and your entrepreneurial story as well.

Guest: Josh Snow

Yeah, absolutely. So we're on Instagram as Snow.  Snow is essentially an oral care company. But we like to think that we've reimagined the oral care space and really met at the intersection of oral care and beauty. So we consider ourselves as much a personal care brand as we do as a beauty care brand. 

And so you can see from the products we create -- we create every single product ourselves.  It's something that we hold very close to us when we're thinking through which products we're going to provide to our customers. There's a reason why we still only have a handful of products years into it. It's because we are focused on developing hero products that we can sell for the next 50 years and feel comfortable about. We also make iterations upon our products, but at the end of the day we are an oral care, beauty care brand,  

We're primarily direct-to-consumer. We've got about a million social media followers --  we're really close with our customers. And they now pretty much dictate what we do in terms of which products they want to see us come out with next.  We've been kind of coined is, like the “Apple” of oral care in the sense that not just from our packaging and the quality product we produce, but the anticipation and the excitement from our customers of what is Snow going to reimagine next. What are they going to do next?  And so that's exciting. 

There's also a lot of pressure on us.  That's a good way of making sure that the products we do come out with are something that not only that we would use on a daily basis, but something that we could recommend at the highest level. 

My background has been for more than half of my life now, in terms of years in the online marketing space.  So I stumbled into entrepreneurship when I was 13 years old, literally. And I've got websites sitting on my old computer that date back to when I was 14 years old. And so I'm 27 now, so I started 14 years ago, building websites, designing websites.  I've self taught 100% through books and YouTube and Google.  I kind of learned all that myself and was fortunate to discover search engine optimization, which led me down a path of online advertising and then into paid advertising, once I had a little bit of money to do it. 

And so by the time I was 16 or 17 years old, I was managing a lot of money for clients --  just paid ad  management.  Nobody knew how old I was.  

Host: Zach Johnson

What kind of ad budget did you get to manage on a yearly basis when you had your agency?

Guest: Josh Snow

So when I was just 16, 17 years old, I was in charge of millions of dollars of management at that point.

Host: Zach Johnson

That's awesome. Good way to bring it in.  So one of the things we're all about at FunnelDash is helping advertisers deal with more cash and more liquidity. One of the things that I'm particularly impressed about from the outside looking in is how much Snow has been able to not only handle the day to day, just insane level of growth, but we all know that growth is expensive. It requires a ton of cash right? And so margins are typically super small in D2C and ecom.

I want to talk to you about how you've done it. Inventory.  How you manage cash flow, and at the same time invest so much into R&D. I mean one of those is typically the one to give right?    And most ecommerce brands don't have that much cash to invest into R&D. 

So you’ve clearly done a great job, because you're self funded, right? Like, that's the beauty of this whole story is that you've gotten this level of scale, which means you have to be incredibly disciplined with your cash management and the investments that you make. 

So how have you done it, man?  Open up the kimono Josh and and shed some ...