Managing Director of Pillar Inc. | Performance Driven Marketing Agency for 7-8 Figure Businesses | 🏒🥍🏌️♂️🇨🇦 @Everton Fan |
Toronto, Canada
Joined January 2010
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Smaller brands that are lacking traction to start, seemingly also have poor feedback loops with customers.
Be consumer-centric always, but more so when starting.
Talk to them, email them, set up post-purchase surveys, create a VIP Customers Group (Facebook or elsewhere).
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Everton opened a club shop inside Liverpool One, the shopping centre in England, and named it Everton Two.
So the address is literally Everton Two, Liverpool One. 😂 Proper shithousery from the Toffees. 👏💙
Kevin Thompson retweeted
I see so many sales emails that don’t have any urgency or scarcity.
If you blast out on offer you always need to give a reason to buy NOW.
Keep this in mind for BFCM
A good sales email is like a a good offer page.
Here are some rules for a good sales email: (sounds simple but so many people don’t this properly)
1. Clear offer communication that is easy to understand
2. Big CTA button
3. Urgency / scarcity
4. Keep it as short as possible
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Carney supporters in Canada were so angry President Trump used Tariffs to protect American jobs meanwhile Canada removed the requirement for Employers to review Canadian applications FIRST before Foreign, and they have no issue with THAT
I swear Elbows Up is Anti Canadian
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Sign 2 clients a month at $8K and lose 10% of your roster every month, and you top out at 20 clients. $160K a month.
Get churn to 5% and the same 2 signings take you to 40 clients. That's double the agency with the same sales team
Kevin Thompson retweeted
You need wayyyyy more than a “subscribe & save” button to get people onto a subscription and keep them there.
Here’s the setup I’d use:
Start with the offer:
- Lead with a subscription and offer one-time upsells, or start with one-time and offer the subscription after.
- Build the offer around the hook.
- Run multiple offers at once. Don’t bet everything on one hero.
Make the subscription choice obvious:
- If you pre-select it, be VERY clear about what they’re choosing.
- Show one-time vs. subscription side by side.
- Make the savings easy to understand. The second someone feels trapped, you’ve got a problem.
Get the first 48 hours right:
- Send a welcome email immediately explaining how to manage the subscription.
- Make it easy to find where they can make changes.
- Give new subscribers attention while the decision is still fresh.
Make sure billing is stupid easy:
- Send reminders before renewals so there are no surprises.
- Let them make adjustments from email without login barriers.
- Keep the cancel button visible. Hiding it destroys trust.
Actually test the post-purchase offer:
- A simple layout with the strongest savings offer won the post-purchase test with a 65% lift over baseline.
- Let the results pick the layout.
- Don’t assume a more complicated page makes a stronger offer.
The offer, the welcome email, the renewal reminder, the ability to make a change, all of that is part of the subscription.
You can’t set it up at launch and then never look at it again.
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Alright I’ll give away the sauce on this one
Everyone is nostalgic. Everyone looks at the past through rose colored glasses.
Most people are pessimistic about the present.
So, you should be writing copy that makes people feel like your product can make life as good as it used to be.
“Reclaim your confidence”
“Restore your health”
“Rebuild your body”
“Your peak performing days don’t have to stay behind you…”
Saying “reclaim” on this headline test literally beat saying “get 7 free [GWPs]”
Nostalgia is a powerful weapon
Wield it wisely
Cheers
--
Bourbon Nathaniel
Chief Messaging Officer
Bottoms Up Copywriting
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Some interesting takeaways from Meta's lastest earnings call:
Price per ad rose 14% while impressions rose only 10%, so auctions are getting more competitive faster than inventory is growing. - While Meta is suggesting this is a good thing, I actually believe this is part of the problem. Meta has become SO good at hitting middle and bottom of funnel (in-market segments). This is a BIG reason why you see these sudden CPA spikes. Meta just runs out of steam.
So what do you do? Honestly it's running more reach and frequency campaigns. Every brand in which I have them on has stable performance. 5-10% max ft your top creatives ran in custom placements (no audience network etc) and using a custom audience.
It works. But don't think you'll see it impact you for at least 4-6 weeks. It takes. time. TRUST it and just let it run.
Test longer, descriptive copy. - Meta gave a reference to a syrup brand that massively improved performance because their ad copy was rich, descriptive. In theory, it makes sense right? The LLMs LOVE when you're descriptive and Meta is no different.
I'd 100% be testing longer form ad copy if you haven't already. Almost all the brands I manage have 4-5 paragraph versions of ad copy as a dynamic copy paired with a short version. These same to hold stable performance.
CREATORS!!! Partnership Ads grew 97% year over year to a $15B+ annual run rate. - If you haven't invested in partnership ads yet, and you're going into BFCM without a plan for them, start NOW. Every brand I work with that saw massive growth this year is heavily invested in creators. If you're not doing it, you are paying higher prices.
Lastly, this one is one I see Meta talking about a TON but very few mention here. They even talked aobut it last night again via Muse. Product feed and catalog quality become a competitive advantage. With agentic shopping slowly increasing advertisers absolutely need to make their product feeds better. This means video, more imagery, more enriched copy etc.
For years we just slapped Flexify up or just used the basic catalog from Shopify. The brands enriching the data I have to imagine will slowly become better as agentic stuff takes off.
Ok, that's my two cents. Back to waiting for my sports card in the mail.
Kevin Thompson retweeted
The average man who rebuilds his life is 37.
Not 22.
The average man who drops the addiction is 34.
Not 21.
The average man who finds direction is 36.
Not 23.
The average man who takes real accountability is 33.
Not 25.
The average man who becomes a leader in his home is 39.
Not 27.
Building self-control takes years of practice.
Not one New Year’s resolution.
Becoming the man your family can rely on takes a decade of work.
Not six months of motivation.
So stop treating every year after 20 as proof you are already finished.
You were not robbed. You are still here.
And you are still on time.
Kevin Thompson retweeted
"Facebook ads are way too expensive nowadays, I must diversify now!"
This couldn't be further from the truth and is pure cope slop
If you have a great product that a lot of customers truly want and you price it fairly (i.e. the same price it'd sell for on a shelf in nationwide retail), there is infinite scale for you
The formula is simple but not easy:
- Great product with big TAM
- Excellent, engaging marketing
- Fair prices
I believe the fair prices is the most overlooked part, your customers are much smarter than you might think and intuitively know how much margin you are making off of them
"I have GREAT margins thought" - you will just pay it back to Meta in CAC and complain that Meta doesn't work
You can have a great product and excellent marketing, but if your prices are ridiculous, customers will know and at scale it simply won't work
People want to buy great products without getting ripped or scammed on price, the brands doing this are scaling like there is no tomorrow
How do you think $99.99 AG1 is doing against $29.99 Gruns? Not good I'd bet!
Estimated action rate is just as important of a factor in your bid as your "allowable CAC" that you try to juice with artificially high AOVs
Lower AOV = lower CAC = more volume = more signal to Meta = lower CAC ...
Sub $20 CACs and the low AOV game is more alive than it has ever been ... do not believe anyone telling you otherwise
Kevin Thompson retweeted
If your Black Friday offer takes a paragraph to explain, it’s probably too complicated.
Customers are seeing hundreds of promotions.
They should understand yours immediately.
Not:
“20% off this category, 30% off that one, plus $50 off if you spend $300, excluding…”
Make the value obvious.
Simple beats clever.
Especially when everyone is shouting at the same time.
Who has switched to Whop over Stripe for their Agency?
I'm so new to Whop and what it's capable of...
Any tips/info?
Kevin Thompson retweeted
The truth about what happened in Ceuta was covered up by the media.
The truth about what is happening with the riots in France is being covered up by the media.
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Rioter in France.
“In the name of Allah, we will kill them all!”
But apparently it’s about classrooms.
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Brand is just keeping your promises and staying in business long enough to be remembered. We’re all slaves to Zuck. Make a profit, take it out through distributions, invest well.
Kevin Thompson retweeted
See too many people justifying their lack of success by saying "I have a real brand though"
First off, you don't. None of us do
Secondly, how do you define a real brand?
Is it through repeat purchase rate? If so, the DR demon supp brands have you beat
Is it LTV? Again, DR demons have you beat
Revenue? DR demons again
Is it pretty images on a website? Everyone can have that with a few clicks
In my mind having a real brand is simply that you are associated with something and that association sits deep in the collective conscious of the consumer market
Again, none of us on here have this. I don't care how cool your brand guide is
Mcdonalds has this, Coca Cola has this, Rolex has this
The people I see coping about 'brand' are almost always just bad at ads and funnels and they need some way to make themselves feel better instead of just facing reality
Skill issue
Kevin Thompson retweeted
Something is seriously off with Meta traffic right now.
We're seeing conversion rates drop by as much as 30–40% across parts of our portfolio over the last 3 weeks.
And it's not just e-commerce.
DTC, B2B, lead gen. Different industries. Same pattern.
Here's the weird part:
CPMs? Fine.
CTRs? Fine.
Add to carts? Fine.
Initiated checkouts? Fine.
Actual conversions? Falling off a cliff.
The brands struggling the most have one thing in common:
They're NOT running aggressive promotions.
Meanwhile, brands that have been pushing offers through Labor Day, Prime Day, and now Halloween?
They're doing just fine.
We've seen similar behavior around major shopping events before, but I don't remember seeing it at this scale or for this long.
And after speaking with other Tier 1 advertisers, I'm hearing very similar stories.
Which makes me think something bigger is happening.
Two possibilities:
1. Meta is making significant backend changes, as they frequently do, with very little communication about how those changes affect delivery and traffic quality.
2. We're seeing broader macroeconomic or consumer behavior shifts that are starting to affect even Meta's ability to find high-intent buyers.
And that second possibility is particularly interesting.
Meta has historically been exceptionally good at finding people who are ready to buy, even when the broader market isn't doing particularly well.
But right now, something isn't adding up.
I don't know which explanation is right. Could be a combination of both.
What I do know is that this isn't isolated to a few underperforming accounts anymore.
What are you guys seeing?
Kevin Thompson retweeted
According to CSIS, Canada's spy agency, at least 11 MPs and 13 staff were implicated in Chinese foreign interference.
But I don't think that's what Mark Brookfield is talking about here.
