At K&J Growth (performance marketing agency) we’re spending $200,000 per week on ads across Facebook, Instagram & Tiktok.

And right this minute we’re seeing a shift in the types of best performing creative (videos & images used for ads).

Until recently highly produced, TV-like adverts have been the most effective way to advertise on social media. But we’ve seen the pendulum swing back to under-produced low-budget content.

Tiktok is dominating social media and we think the short in length, selfie-style creative that’s made that platform popular is influencing our preferences.

We’re talking <$250 to make and 15 – 30 seconds long. Like this ad, we’re running for our client HeyPal. This ad has generated over 10,000 app downloads at an average cost of $.68 USD.

These ads are performing well across all age groups and industries. We’ve used this style for high-end B2B through to low-ticket e-commerce and across the board, our results have been markedly better.

Even large brands like Oura Health (an $800 million health-tech company) are shifting to this style – see here. That add probably cost <$200 to make.

Take advantage of this moment by creating and testing this selfie-style, TikTok formated low-budget ads.

Seeking Alpha: How To Survive A Recession

More news shows that we’re heading towards an economic recession every day.

We’re seeing this at our gym, our eCommerce brand, and our marketing agency clients. It’s simply tougher today to make a dollar than it was yesterday.

Considering that a net profit margin above 10% is good. It won’t take much of a slip for many businesses to struggle.

In good times a business can afford to optimise its way to incrementally better results. Like new branding, different website copy or new product colour.

In tough times a business can’t afford to tinker; it needs to act decisively. We’ve seen a 30% drop in revenue in one of our companies. Optimising a landing page won’t turn this decline around.

Instead, we’re better off taking actions that leap us forward. I like to call these Alpha actions (stolen from a similar concept in finance). They produce unmissable, confrontational improvements in results. You don’t need to trawl through google analytics with a fine-tooth comb to find them.

Like the new marketing campaign we’re running at our gym. We spent $1,000, generated 15 leads, and sold 11 new memberships, adding $21,000 in recurring revenue to our business.

The framework I follow to find these big wins is;

1. Set big goals, and estimate your critical path (plan).
2. Test a lot with small bets to prove your plan right or wrong.
3. Ignore small wins and wait till you find alpha.
4. Then double down and swing for the fences.

If you’re interested, I’ve laid this out in detail here.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

~ Heraclitus

Where We’re Learning

• Building your 10x crew -> A few episodes back we talked about the value of networking. In this blog post Codie dives deep on how to create a small but high leverage group of friends (hypemen).

• Sam Ovens 80/20 Powergrid-> A tool to help you focus your attention on high value work. Use this matrix to make sure you’re spending your time doing the right work.

The Lindy Effect: Finding Replicatable Methods Most Likely To Replicate Results

There’s a problem with this Newsletter.

We share methods, frameworks, and ideas that have worked for us and others and hope they’ll help you.

But the world we live in is complex. So you can guarantee that our circumstances and context are different from yours, which creates a problem. Replicating what we share here will never precisely replicate our results for you.

This is called the scientific method fallacy, where a hypothesis like the methods and frameworks we share are true until they are not.

For example, say you hypothesise that all eggs will break when dropped on a hard surface from a height of 1 metre. And you drop 1,000 eggs, and they all break. Then you ask 10 of your friend’s todo the same, and they get the same results.

You haven’t proven your hypothesis wrong, and your experiment is replicable. So the scientific method says your hypothesis is true.

Until I drop an egg that bounces, the truth only moments before is now false.

Applying this concept to business. If you want to find the insights, tips or whatever you want to call them that are most likely to be true for your business.

Look for tactics that have been used many times and for many years.

The more times the same experiment has been proven true across different businesses, industries, and countries, the more likely it’ll work for you. Example – Tiktok style creative is working well for everyone at the moment – highly likely it’ll produce good results for you.

And the longer a tactic has worked across time, the more likely it will work for you. Example – Sales copy techniques that have worked for 70 years to sell products are highly likely to work for you.

Read the next episode

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