Today’s articles are particularly useful and interesting. All 5 of them. It’ll be worth your time to read all of them, even if you’re extremely busy this week.
10 things we’ve learned at Golden Hippo after spending over $1B (of our own money) on online media [Twitter thread]
This Twitter thread by Craig Clemens (co-founder of Golden Hippo, direct-to-consumer marketing agency) is too good to be buried in a Twitter stream. Here’s what they learned after spending $1B+ on paid traffic (check the thread for more comments):
- “They must see your ad 7 times before they buy” is the biggest line of B.S. in advertising history
- No matter how long you’ve been doing this, what you think will work is often wrong
- Great ad ideas can come from anyone – and often do. Some of our best ad ideas have come from people in totally different departments
- Pushing something hard because it’s what you “want” to work (for branding purposes or whatever), never works
- Nothing will cost you more money over time than a “just ok” converting ad campaign
- Leading with a benefit can do well, and leading with curiosity can do well. But Benefit + Curiosity = magic
- Your ad must match what comes next. Don’t turn the curiosity or benefit knob further than your landing page delivers, or you’ll be wasting clicks
- Most ad agencies suck and will leave you disappointed. Build in-house if at all possible
- “Influencer marketing” is for companies that like burning money
- Your customer cares literally zero about your company, your story, your brand, or even your product. What they do care, is what it can do for them. Don’t fight this, embrace it.
eCommerce Case Study: How Frank Body made $20M selling leftover coffee [Viral Loops]
Frank Body makes cosmetic products based on coffee. Not interesting enough?
They made $20M in 2 years.
After a lot of research on how they achieved that amount of sales, this is what this case study is all about.
Frank Body is doing great things in terms of marketing, emails, copywriting. It’s worth taking a closer look.
14 Email Drip Campaign Examples And Why They Are Successful [Moosend]
A compilation and analysis of 14 email drip campaign examples to dig deeper and get more by doing less.
- Netflix’s Win-Back Campaign
- Patagonia’s Weather-Based Recommendations Campaign
- Dollar Shave Club’s Cross-Selling Campaign
- Leesa’s Limited Offer Campaign
- Kenneth Cole’s Cart Abandonment Campaign
- Paul Mitchell’s Break Up/Unsubscribe Campaign
- Tone It Up’s 21-Day Challenge Campaign
- Leah Kalamakis’ Freelancing to Freedom Project
- Drift’s Welcome Drip Marketing Campaign
- Twelve Days to Trello
- Becca Cartice’s Free “Step-by-Step” Workshop
- SkinnyDip’s Website Re-Engagement Campaign
- Bellroy’s Post-Purchase Campaign
- Zendesk’s Onboarding Campaign
Money Words: Seven of the words and phrases we use most often in high-converting copy [Copy Hackers]
This one is very tactical: the actual words you’re putting on the page.
Which ones work better, why, and how to use them, with examples.
- Money Word #1: should
- Money Word #2: “you”
- Money Word #3: “still” and “already”
- Money Word #4: “here’s the thing” or “the tricky thing is”
- Money Word #5: “the truth is” or “the fact is”
- Money Word #6: “even if”
- Money Word #7: the word your reader keeps using
Always Use Thumbnails to Represent Additional Product Images (76% of Mobile Sites Don’t) [Baymard Institute]
This article discusses the test findings from Baymard Institute’s large-scale UX research related to image gallery thumbnails. In particular:
- How desktop users overlook additional images when presented as indicators or text instead of thumbnails
- How mobile users struggle to use gallery indicators as a fallback for navigating product images
- The importance of information scent when it comes to product images
- How thumbnails resolve many issues observed with other gallery implementations
Radek Sienkiewicz
PS. Here’s the thing. You should read all 5 articles above, even if you’re struggling to find time this week. The truth is, what you’ll learn may be more important than most of the things you have planned for today.