Creating Retention-Oriented Paid Advertising with Savannah Sanchez of The Social Savannah

Kristen: 

Hey, Savannah. Welcome to the show. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and the work you do at Social Savannah?

Savannah: 

Hey, Kristen, thanks so much for having me. So my name is Savannah Sanchez. I am the founder of the Social Savannah, and it is a small boutique agency or freelancing service, which what it really is, where I'm servicing a handful of eCommerce clients, helping them with their Facebook ads strategy, their creatives, as well as exploring new channels like Snapchat and advertising.

Kristen: 

Yeah. And this is so exciting. I think some of the listeners may hear that and immediately be like, "Wait, the show's about retention, not acquisition. And now we're talking about paid ads."

Kristen: 

But this is why I'm so excited about it because there is this really unique bridge that we're going to be able to make today and kind of connecting the dots between the two. Which is why, when you messaged me on Twitter and said you wanted to be a guest, I was like, "Yes, the expertise in what I don't know, this is what we need."

Savannah: 

Awesome. Yeah. There's definitely so much overlap in the two and you can't do Facebook ads without understanding the retention side. So I'm really excited to be here.

Kristen: 

Yeah. That's a really key statement that you just made that I think a lot of brands actually miss out on is that you really can't perform on your advertising all that well if you're not thinking about the longterm, if you're not thinking about retention. Before we get into that, I'm just curious. I know you've worked with a lot of really amazing eCommerce clients who have been kind of some of the most fun brands you've gotten to work with.

Savannah: 

Sure. So right now I'm servicing a handful of clients. One of them that I'm really excited about is Peel phone cases. So they've been around for a few years, but really we just started ramping up their Facebook advertising just a couple months ago and exploring some new segments and audiences through new creatives with them. So very excited about that client. And then another client that's also really interesting is a men's briefcase brand I'm working with. And that's been both a challenge and find because it's a $400 briefcase.

Kristen: 

Oh yeah.

Savannah: 

So trying to convince someone on an Instagram ad to get $400 out. It's definitely a different challenge than having them buy a $30 phone case. So it's been a fun, but interesting challenge trying to navigate that.

Kristen: 

Oh yeah. I bet. Now I have to ask when you get a new client, what are the steps you take to kind of determine which channels are going to be best for that client going between like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, now TikTok's coming on the scene. How do you kind of take a brand and say, "Okay, I think these are your best places to be advertising"?

Savannah: 

Sure. So I still think Facebook and Instagram is the best place for the most distribution. They have the most ad inventory, especially with last year's release of Instagram stories as a new ad placement. I would still recommend for all my brands to run on Facebook and Instagram. However, with that said Facebook and Instagram advertising has become more and more competitive. There's millions of advertisers, tons of brands that are doing great creatives now on Facebook and Instagram. It's not like the olden days where it just drop shippers and you can just put up an ad of any product and start printing money. It's very much, has to be brand focused. It's much more difficult and a lot more competition.

Savannah: 

So if [inaudible] product, so if it's like a low AOV product and they're trying to target like the gen Z, young millennials, so like that 13, 25 year old age group, then I say, "Okay, we can get much cheaper traffic running through Snapchat advertising, and there's not as much competition there. And then I'm very excited about TikTok this year, once they're out of their beta, I think that's going to be a huge opportunity for brands trying to reach gen Z at a much cheaper CPM than Facebook or Instagram advertising.

Kristen: 

Yeah. That's really exciting. And I followed you on Twitter for a while and we'll be sure to link up to your Twitter in the show notes because you've been actually posting a lot about the TikTok creative that you've been making. It's really cool. And it seems like it's going to be a much more unique place for brands to actually market instead of having very similar Facebook ad styles, very similar Instagram ad styles. It's like such an open channel for creativity, which to me is the most exciting part about it.

Savannah:

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And that's something I've been preaching I think for the last six months. Is that with ads, especially on social media, it has to look very native to the platform. So that's why I love TikTok because it's these young adults and teenagers making these fun videos with their iPhone being so creative with it. And when they're introducing brands into these videos it seems very natural. It doesn't seem forced. So when you're watching even a Snapchat ad or a TikTok ad, it doesn't seem like it's interruptive to your experience. It's a video that's adding some sort of comedy or value or something novel with it. So I really enjoy that platform as well.

Kristen:

Yeah. And I think that actually drives us really well into this topic of kind of bridging acquisition and retention, because like you're saying on TikTok, it requires a lot more creativity. It requires a lot more kind of storytelling so that it feels native to the audience. And I think that's going to become more popular kind of across the board with advertising. So I'm curious really other than the common costs are rising everywhere. We know it's getting more expensive. How has really the world of paid advertising shifting as the market is shifting?

Savannah: 

Sure. So it's shifting in a few ways. So from the pure media buying side, so my background is in on Facebook media buying, I used to work at an agency where I led the Facebook and Snapchat media buying teams. So even looking at media buying over the last two years and the type of clients we work with, it's become very much more simple to advertise on Facebook and Instagram in terms of utilizing audiences. It's not so much about niche targeting. And then the way that people used to quote unquote win with Facebook and Instagram ads is they would almost have to like hack their way to success. So they would have all of these bidding strategies and hundreds of different campaigns going. It was very much something that you had to have a lot of experience around in terms of media buying. Very technical. Yeah, if you pitch like a media buyer, like very much like in the weeds of the data trying to just hack the system.

Kristen: 

Yeah I remember few years ago being at a marketing agency and going into an ad account, they asked me to edit some creative for that account. And I went into the Facebook ads manager and I was like, "Nope, Nope, Nope. Get me out of here."

Savannah: 

Yeah, it is so [inaudible], it really is. And I think it scared away a lot of brands from advertising on Facebook and Instagram because they thought, "Okay, hiring an experienced media buyer and being able to hack our way to success." That was a huge barrier for brands. And that's of course, bad news for Facebook because Facebook wants large brands with big advertising budgets as many people as possible to advertise on their platform. So kind of the revolution that's happened, I would say even in the last 12 months is Facebook has really simplified the way that they want people to do media buying. So like I said, utilizing power five, which is CBO, automatic placements, broad audiences, and they've also released a lot of great creative testing platforms, like dynamic creative testing. All of these were released in the last 12 months to make it easier for advertisers to come and advertise on Facebook and not have this huge knowledge barrier.

Savannah: 

So with that said, they're also been penalizing people who have been utilizing these old tactics of manual media buying. So kind of the end result of this is that Facebook really doesn't want these drop-shipper type people to succeed on Facebook. They don't want you hacking your way. The best case scenario for Facebook is to show the best products to the right people. And usually those best products are brands with great creative, great storytelling. They want people to stay on the Facebook platform. So they want advertisers to be developing creatives that are adding value. So whether they're interesting or novel, they don't want just some drop-shipper crap product getting on to the feeds because that's going to scare people off the platform.

Kristen: 

Yeah, definitely. And that's, I feel like Facebook gets a lot of grief for their advertising and a lot of it is I think well-deserved. But then at the same time, it is exciting to hear that Facebook is putting this emphasis on better businesses with really good creative who are telling stories and who are actually providing value to the people on Facebook. It's shifting slowly, but it's really exciting I think, especially for consumers to think that the advertising world is getting to a place where we're caring more about the experience of our ads versus just the conversion rate of the ad itself.

Savannah: 

Exactly. And the way that Facebook is even measuring who gets the best ad spots and the cheaper CPMs they're ranking the quality of your ad against other people who are trying to bid for the same audience. So ad quality and how people are engaging with the ad in terms of video watch time, click through rates, how long are they even spending on your website? So it takes all that data of who you're serving the ad to, how long did they engage with the ad, and what they ended up purchasing on the website to decide if they're going to give you cheaper ad space going forward. So it's very much favoring brands who can have great engaging, creative, great website experience.

Savannah: 

And of course, going back to retention those who can nurture those customers and make them come back again and again. They really want to make Facebook almost a marketplace to connect users with the best brands that they're going to become loyal to. So I think it's absolutely fantastic news for brands. Not so great news for drop shippers. But in terms of brands, actually trying to invest in customer experience and great creatives and storytelling, this is really best case scenario for them, which is very exciting.

Kristen: 

And you're really backing up something that has become kind of the theme of the season. Which is that at the end of the day, all of these different tactics we can do for acquisition, for retention, for referrals, for everything, it really all does kind of come back down to the customer experience. And in every facet of the business, if your customer experience is nailed down and you're providing a really good experience that's bringing value to your customers, it's going to be rewarded across the board. Which is exciting to hear that that Facebook is kind of rewarding this behavior too. So we we've started to dive into this. My next question was going to be, can paid advertising play into retention? Obviously we both feel very strongly that yes, it obviously can. Can you kind of dive into how then paid advertising actually plays into customer retention?

Savannah: 

Sure. So the way that I structure my Facebook advertising campaigns is doing different campaigns for different parts of the funnel. So having different creatives and different messaging for prospecting new customers, also different messaging and different offers for people who have been to the website haven't purchased as well as those who have purchased. And now we want to give them new products, new offers, and new creatives to be served on those platforms. So something, I think a lot of brands miss out on is that they're not really diving into the post-purchase advertising on Facebook.

Savannah:

So they're very concerned with the acquisition campaigns, which is great. You need to get great top of the funnel metrics. However, where there's a lot of low hanging fruit and not a lot of brands are developing a strategy around is, "How do we get these customers to come back? And what's the best messaging to get those customers to come back through Facebook?" So, something I like testing is once someone has purchased, like what is the best next product to serve them and develop a funnel in terms of, "Okay, let's sell them on this kit now or different product." Or messaging saying like, "Hey, like this is just an offer to our loyal customers. We're having a exclusive sale." Whatever it is, but not just focusing all of the attention on acquisition, but to be developing a strategy around retention as well.

Kristen: 

Oh, I love that so much because it really is. You don't hear a lot about, I mean we hear about retargeting, but not really in depth about really the best ways to do it. But really we definitely don't hear about the thought of pairing your advertising with all of the other funnel work you're doing. So if you're putting this much work into creating an email flow, that's really good for your customers. If they're also getting kind of matching messaging on an advertisement too, it's a very powerful system that's creating this really kind of holistic experience for the customer. Where they're seeing different messages from the brand, but they're all coming back to a whatever messaging, whatever value it is that they connected with on the first purchase. And then just driving that repeat purchase rate, it's really cool. And it's a really cool way to think of it. If there's a brand listening and they're thinking, "Oh God, we haven't done any kind of post-purchase ads." What would be kind of your first step for figuring out what to even do in a post-purchase ad?

Savannah: 

Sure. So I have a good example for this. So there's this brand that I'm pretty loyal to, they sell these great bags. And I bought a bag for them, of course, that's like a $200 bag and absolutely loved it. And I found them through a Facebook ad. But once I bought the bag from the ad, I kept seeing ads for the same bag over and over and over again, they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising for a month, but they were using that budget to show me ads for the bag I already bought. And so I messaged the founder on Twitter. I was like, "Hey, I'm so loyal to you guys. I love my bag. You guys have all of these great products to compliment your bag. However, every day this week I've got another bag ad."

Savannah: 

Yeah. And it seems so obvious. Like when I told him this, he's like, "Oh, of course, like that's wasted ad dollars. You've already purchased and you love our brand. And we have these new duffels coming out. We have these new wallets." So I think part of it is learning how to structure your campaigns so that you're excluding all past purchases from your prospecting, that's step number one. And then step number two is identifying, okay, "If someone's purchased a bag, then the next best upsell is the wallet. So come back and buy the wallet." Alternatively, some other strategies I've seen work well for my clients is a referral program. So showing ads like, "Hey, we hope you loved your bag. Refer a friend, get 15% off." So showing ads for those types of offers, as well as exclusive deals, stuff like that. So I think it comes down to first excluding all of your past customers from the prospecting campaigns in your funnels.

Kristen: 

Yeah. That's something that I experience all the time.

Savannah: 

Really.

Kristen: 

Yes. I constantly see it happening and I'm like, "Oh, come on. I just bought this. There's no point to be advertising this to me because I'm not going to buy another one." And those are really, really great tips too. Do you have any tips for kind of, if it's not super clean cut, if it's not clear cut like it would be, say like a bag to a wallet. How would you go about determining kind of the best product for an upsell, the best thing to follow up with on advertising after a purchase?

Savannah: 

Sure. So the way I go about it is a bit specific it relies on a program called Glue. Maybe some of your users or listeners have heard of it. But they have a cool feature where they can show if someone has purchased this product, what is the second product that they're most likely to purchase? So this program actually makes it incredibly simple to see, this is the best next product after your hero.

Kristen: 

Oh, that's awesome.

Savannah: 

I go about it in probably a lazy way of relying on a program. But it connects to your Shopify store, has all the data. And then I just look to my clients and like, "Oh, this is the best next product."

Kristen:

Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously after that, I feel like it's one of those things where it's kind of a trial and error thing. You test new ads, you see how they're working, you see if they're driving repeat purchases and then going back to the drawing table and figuring out, is it the product? Was it the messaging? Was it the creative? What was it in this ad that maybe didn't quite connect with customers?

Savannah:

Exactly

Kristen:

I think there's this additional little bonus that maybe brands wouldn't think about, that this is also not only are you serving your customers ads that are going to encourage repeat purchases, which is everything that we've been talking about for the last six months. And I think we'll be everything we continue to talk about in DTC for the next few years is really the importance of those repeat purchases. But oh God, I just went on a, I went on a rant and I lost my place in my train of thought.

Kristen: 

Oh, I know where I was going. I know I was going, I was coming around to the bonus that not only are you, are you getting to put money behind ads that are actually driving repeat purchases, but you're also getting this insight into your customers and the customer behavior and what potential flows of a customer journey might look like. And that's going to inform everything it's going to inform the next ad set. You try. But also the email welcoming series, the post-purchase flow of emails, the social ads that you're putting up, the social posts that you're putting up. You're actually getting really, really valuable insight into the steps your customers tend to take. And it's just fueling this retention machine by focusing some ads on that second part of the funnel too.

Savannah: 

100%. I couldn't agree with you more. I think that's the beauty of Facebook advertising is that you get data back so quickly. So if I don't even know where to start and I just want to try three different things. So maybe it's a product upsell, maybe it's a comeback we miss you offer. And the third is like showing them a new product release, whatever it is. You can put all three of those ads up towards that past purchasers audience. And within even a week, you can see, "Okay, this one has better return on ad spend. This one's getting more click through rate. So it can 100% inform the offers that you give on your email, upsells, your social channels. And I just love it because every week when I'm putting in new creatives and new ads, I'm getting new data, that's informing the entire business, not just what we're going to do next on social. So I'm really glad you brought that up.

Kristen: 

Yeah. It's such an important piece because we like to rely on data really, really heavily in DTC. And a lot of times it's necessary to rely on data. But with retention, it's really hard to rely on data. And a lot of times, because there's this kind of long time that you have to wait to really decide, "Okay, is the LTV going up? Is it going down? How are we doing?" But this is a really good signal and kind of a short, quick signal of, "Okay, are my retargeting ads working? Therefore, am I learning how to connect with my customers?" And just these little lessons that you can get, like you're saying, it's informing the entire business, not just the next set of ads that go out. Which, it's a really cool concept that I don't think a lot of brands really think about the longterm impact of the ads they're putting out.

Kristen: 

And going into retargeting a little bit. This is something that I think almost every DTC brand has some level of retargeting setup. If you don't listeners, you should talk to Savannah. What kind of messages and advertising have you found work best for retargeting customers? And also what channels are working best for retargeting customers?

Savannah: 

Definitely. So I think that there has to be different creative for retargeting versus prospecting campaigns. That's the number one thing I see when I do account audits is that they'll have the same creative, same messaging for top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel. And I think part of that comes down to just pure resources. They only have a small creative team. They don't have time to make ads. But something that I really focus on when I work with my ad designers is creating great messaging for bottom of the funnel campaigns that are separate from prospecting. So I think the main difference is just thinking about what are the pain points on the website of why someone didn't purchase? Is it the price? Is it the offer? Is it a product they have more questions?

Savannah: 

So something that I'll focus on on bottom of the funnel campaigns if I think that the main barrier is the price. So for example, for the briefcase brand where it's $400, then maybe I'll say, "Okay, we have lifetime guarantee free shipping. We have after pay options." Really trying to narrow down of why someone would use price as a barrier and trying to knock down all of those concerns.

Savannah: 

Whereas I would never do that in a top of the funnel prospecting campaign because there, I'm just trying to educate them about the product and the value props. But that's so not necessarily the bottom of funnel. Now I'm trying to say, "You already know the value props. You already saw my ad and you've been to my website. Why didn't you purchase? Is it answering customer questions like frequently asked questions? Do I need to show them more UGC and reviews to validate the quality?" So every ad I make for the bottom of the funnel is just trying to answer one of those core questions. Why is it in someone buy?

Savannah: 

And I think for retention campaigns, the same applies if someone bought from me and they haven't purchased in six months, I get that audience segment out. Why would someone purchase and not purchase again? And so trying to answer those questions in ads, I don't have to reeducate them on my brand story and my product, they already have it. So it comes down to answering those questions of why aren't they purchasing?

Kristen: 

Oh, I love those tips. Those were such actionable tips that the listeners can really take and actually go apply. Thank you for that.

Savannah: 

Oh, no problem.

Kristen: 

That was really cool to hear how your brain works through the different funnels, different steps of the funnel. And it's so similar to something as simple as like an email funnel that I think just about every DTC marketer can understand how you bring someone through kind of that buying journey of top funnel to bottom funnel. This is a bit of a new concept I think in advertising, at least it's not one that seems to be talked a lot about. So it's really, really cool and exciting to hear how you as a professional media buyer for all these cool brands are actually thinking through that entire customer experience.

Kristen: 

And you're totally right. It's coming down to as you're planning out your funnels, thinking about at each step, what are the questions or what are the obstacles the customer is facing? And then not just creating an email, that's going to help answer those questions, but if you're sending them an email and they're also seeing a social post, but then they're also seeing an advertisement that's getting over those objections. The person's going to be coming into contact with your brand multiple times, coming into contact with that, that content that you've created. And now you've given yourself three times more of a chance that they're going to come back and buy because you've hit them on so many different angles here.

Savannah: 

Exactly. It's all about hitting them on different angles. And while we're talking about that, I think something I want to bring up is how I've used Snapchat for retargeting campaigns in particular. So a strategy that I've seen work really well, that I would recommend to any listening out there is thinking about Snapchat advertising. Even if you think it's not your right demographic, it's too young, that 13, 25 year old range. What I've seen is I can retarget my website visitors and past purchasers on Snapchat, much cheaper than I can on Facebook, nearly 10 times cheaper.

Kristen: 

Wow.

Savannah: 

Yeah. And most people don't understand like how cheap the CPMs are. So what I'll do is I'll prospect on Facebook and Instagram to my core customer audiences. And then usually in a segment of those audiences do have Snapchat accounts that are active on it. Might not be all of your website visitors, but definitely maybe half or at least a fourth of those website visitors or past purchasers also are active on Snapchat. And so there, I can give really cheap retargeting ads to show them new products, new offers, UGC 15 second story creatives. But because it's so much cheaper, I'm seeing much higher return on ad spend on my Snapchat retargeting than I am on Facebook, nearly double the results I'm getting on Snapchat versus Facebook retargeting. Because retargeting on Facebook is very expensive. The smaller you get with your audience. And if you only have, let's just say a thousand purchasers in your pool, they're going to be extremely expensive to reach because it's so niche. Where on Snapchat the CPMs are incredibly cheap. So it will be way cheaper to reach that same audience.

Kristen: 

Oh, I love that. That it's so interesting too. And also, like you said earlier, Snapchat has a very unique kind of feel to advertising in that when you're advertising on Snapchat, it doesn't necessarily feel like it's interrupting the experience so much so as it is maybe on Facebook or Instagram, which kind of goes into that whole customer experience at every touch point, you're giving your customers that are there, you know that they're there, you know that they're using that channel. You're just hitting them with the right message in the right place at the right time, which is the whole backbone of proper marketing in a sense.

Savannah: 

100%.

Kristen: 

Yeah, I love that. And you mentioned UGC, which is user generated content and you post a lot about this. And I see that you have a really good knack of creating really quick short ads that's kind of user generated content for your clients. And I love how simple it is that a lot of times with advertising, we can get really in our heads and try to create the most perfect advertisement that looks as good as the top brand out there. But actually what I've learned from you is that a lot of the ads that work really well are actually really native looking, their user generated content, it's not highly produced and it looks really natural. Do you have any tips for brands who want to start going down that road?

Savannah: 

Yeah, for sure. It was so UGC is just been such a huge trend, especially over the last six months. And even the top brands that you think have very polished ads are actually utilizing user generated content for Instagram stories and Snapchat campaigns. So I really think the key comes down to just not making it seem like an ad. It's a real person, not an influencer or a celebrity who's endorsing the product. Or if it's a skincare or makeup, they're showing the application, trying on the clothes and showing me even the unboxing experience. There's so many ways you can go about it, but it's all about showing the end user. This is a real product and people are enjoying it. And because there's so much distrust out there, I would say, with products on Facebook.

Savannah: 

And what I mean by that is because there's a lot of bad brands out there and people are afraid of getting screwed over they don't want to buy something and then get it in the mail. And they're like, "Oh, it's a piece of crap. I wasted my money." And there is a lot of those brands out there, unfortunately. So utilizing user generated content and showing a real person interacting with a product, it's not just as beautifully designed commercial where when you get the product it's something completely different. You want to show people exactly what they're signing up for so that when they do purchase, the experience is seamless. Once they receive the products, they already kind of know what that experience is like from watching the user generated content.

Kristen: 

Oh yeah. I love that last point you made. It's something that I've talked a lot and I've written before about it is this idea of when you set your perceived value in an ad or in a discounter or anywhere that you're just kind of setting the expectation of what your brand is going to deliver on. You never want to over promise and then under deliver, it's better to under promise, over deliver. And in that point that you're saying, we're not showing some experience that regular Kristen who orders, this thing couldn't possibly experience. You're showing the real experience someone else had. And it being a really great experience with the product and that builds so much camaraderie and understanding of that, "This is for someone like me." Versus seeing a very stylish ad of someone like in a loft in New York city wouldn't really get to me. I wouldn't connect to that. And that's where I think there's just so much power in that user generated content. And on top of it, it's pretty easy for brands to create this kind of content and actually can be really inexpensive, right?

Savannah: 

Just take your phone, get your products to a few of your friends. That's how I always started, filming videos of myself. Brands would send me products and I always just talk about it like it's the best thing since sliced bread. But I think an easy place to start is just with your highly loyal customers and every brand knows who they are. There's there's those few brand evangelists. So if you're able to reward them with a gift card or whatever incentive that you come up with in order to create some short 15 second, IG stories talking about the product and why love it. You can cut those altogether from your different customers and create a really powerful ad.

Kristen: 

Yeah. And not to mention that you've just given your most valuable customers a really incredible touch point where now they feel even more involved in the brand. Which is just another side bonus of this.

Savannah: 

Oh, for sure. It's like, "Hey, we want you to represent us. We don't want Kim Kardashian as the face of the brand. We want you talking about our product and why you like it." And those people are going to be so genuine with the ad creatives of showing the different product benefits and talking about why they love it, because they're already doing that to their friends most likely if they're your top customers. So if they're going to be able to see that on the ad and know that they are the person that you want as the face of their company, they would just be so ecstatic.

Kristen: 

Yeah, I don't think we've made it through an episode yet without me mentioning Outdoor Voices, but it's this simple thing of Outdoor Voices is my absolute favorite brand. For example, they released just this week that we're recording this, or last week they released their jogger pant. And I got the email, opened it, purchased it, bought $30 next day, shipping within about 10 minutes. That is the amount of loyalty I have to Outdoor Voices. And just thinking from a consumer perspective, even if it wasn't written by Ty Haney, but if say an email comes to me and says, "Hey, Kristen, we've seen you buy all this stuff. We'd love if you'd make like a quick 15 second clip saying why you love Outdoor Voices and we might use it in advertising." I would be over the moon excited about that. Like that is such a cool thing for a brand to do.

Savannah: 

Yeah. That just creates such a unique touch point that I don't think enough brands are taking advantage. Brands are still thinking about influencers because they know that having real people using the product is important. So they're reaching out to micro influencers, sending them product in exchange for videos. I think that's been established for the last couple of years. But it's really only a few brands that are doing a great job with reaching out to their existing customers and making them the star of their ads.

Kristen: 

Yeah. Do you have any brands that you would say are doing that really, really well?

Savannah: 

Yes. So Curology is one of the brands I'm such a fan girl of in terms of their ad content. So not only do they reach out to past customers, but also do a lot of work with YouTube influencers who I think are just fantastic content creators, because they know how to talk to a camera, apply the product. YouTube influencers is something that I love to use in my strategy, but they use a lot of real customer reviews for their ads. So I always look to them for inspiration.

Kristen: 

Yeah. It's funny you mentioned them because my best friend actually signed up for Curology not too long ago and she obviously knows what I do for a living and she signed up and she was like, "Hey, I just want to let you know that I signed up for Curology because I kept getting these ads. And there was this girl who looked exactly like me and it looked like she had the same kind of acne as I did. And she was talking about how much she loved it. And it just made me buy."

Savannah: 

Yeah, exactly.

Kristen: 

And I was like, "Oh yeah, that's the whole thing right there." I was like, "I love hearing that." And that's a story from a consumer that has no connection to DTC or marketing or anything. So it really is something that consumers notice. I think we can get, we can get lost sometimes in like marketers talking to each other and we're saying, "Oh yeah, it works. It works. It works." But actually hearing from a customer.

Kristen: 

And when I heard that, I was like, "Oh yeah, there's so much power in that huge user generated content. Which, it's just a cool story that I like to share.

Savannah: 

I live that.

Kristen: 

So I'm glad you brought up Curology because they are so good at it. Their ads are so, so good. I love them. So just to wrap up, I've got a couple more questions first. Do you have a current favorite DTC brand?

Savannah: 

That's hard.

Kristen: 

I figured that's be hard.

Savannah: 

There's Outdoor Voices. I always think of my favorite brands in terms of who has the best ads, because that's the world I live in. I'm constantly trying to think of new ad creatives and angles. So this one, probably not a lot of people have heard of, but it's a brand called Sand and Sky. Have you heard of them? I have not. Oh, okay. So they sell these, it's an Australian pink clay mask. It's like I said, it's very niche. But they do such a great job with their ad creatives. And it's something that I always share with my community, the ads that they're coming out with. So they also have really rely on UGC.

Savannah: 

But what I really like about them in particular, which goes back to our point earlier in this conversation is that their funnel is still well-defined. So when you add something to the cart and get to the checkout page and you end up bouncing, then you get an after pay ad of like, "Clear skin, but don't want the price tag? Split it up into four easy payments." It's almost like they're reading your mind of like, "Oh. They didn't just because it's reason." Or just some, or like, if I add something to the cart and I didn't reach the check out page, they're like, "If you reached $50, get a free scrubber." Or whatever it is. But every ad I get from them, I know that they have their funnels so nicely planned out and they're always refreshing the creatives. I never see the same ad twice. So I'm a huge fan of them just from the ad side.

Kristen: 

Nice. We'll be sure to link up their website so you guys can go and then abandon a cart and go watch all the ads that you get.

Savannah: 

Yes, do it.

Kristen: 

And then buy from them.

Savannah: 

Yes, hopefully.

Kristen: 

If you're going to make them advertise to you, you better buy from them at the end, okay. What do you want to see kind of more from DTC brands in the next few years, as things continue to evolve?

Savannah: 

I would say the focus on story content and just thinking about 2020 in particular,. I don't think a lot of brands are fully grasping or taking advantage of the cheaper placements that you can get from both Instagram stories, Snapchat stories, and then TikTok. So I think brands investing in short form vertical content. And when I say short form, this is less than ten second content. And I think it's a big challenge for brands. They try to tell their entire story in 10 seconds, but it's really not what it's about anymore. It's just showing something that's intriguing, gets your attention and then doing the brand story and storytelling on the product page.

Savannah: 

So it's just a big switch I think that a lot of DTC brands need to make in terms of their advertising of, we need a native looking interesting story content, less than 10 seconds. Don't try to explain the product or all those value props, just get them to the website and then let the website tell the story and have all the content on there.

Kristen: 

I love that.

Savannah: 

Yeah. So it's a shift because if you think about how Facebook advertising was done, even 12 months ago, you would have these brand videos that you would get in your Facebook feed. And they're a minute long and they're explaining the value props, there's all these people wearing the product. And it's so different now. Now it's not about creating content like that. It's about utilizing like TikTok style content to get attention and then doing the selling on the landing page. So I'm really excited to see what brands this year really master that art of ten second storytelling.

Kristen: 

Yeah, definitely me too. And for anybody who wants to kind of follow along on your own learning journey and see the stuff that you're putting out, where can people find you and learn more about Social Savannah?

Savannah: 

For sure. I'm hugely active on Twitter just as Kristen. So the best place to get my tips is my Twitter handle is Social_Savannah. And then my website is the socialsavannah.com.

Kristen: 

Awesome. Thank you so much. This was such a great conversation. I am so glad that we were able to tackle this kind of acquisition versus retention conversation and bring it all together.

Savannah: 

For sure. Thank you, Kristen for having me, this was fantastic.