Tactical & Practical

Since I'm taking some time off from full time employment, my entire steak & whiskey budget is now dependent on freelance work... So, I'm going to market my freelance services the way I wish freelancers & agencies marketed to me while I was on the brand side. Which means... 1. I won't make you hop on a call if you don't want to, I'll explain everything in this podcast. 2. I won't gatekeep my process, I'll lay it out in detail. If you have an internal team that are experienced & talented copywriters, & they have the spare time to adopt new processes, you can send them this and you can execute on it without paying me a dime. You're welcome. 3. I won't charge bigger brands bigger retainers just because they can afford it. The price is the price is the price, and I explain in this episode why my flat fee (no percentage of spend bullshit) is a no brainer and you're guaranteed to make a ton of money off my work. Who's ready to write better copy & make more money?

Some of you have spent a year split testing on your website and don't have anything to show for it... and I think I know why. I ran a headline test on a landing page. The control variant was a very evidence-based, authority / credibility kinda headline. The variant that won the split test, and increased CVR by 48%, was on the other end of the spectrum, it was very emotional & benefit driven. THAT DOESN'T MEAN I SHOULD JUST SET THAT HEADLINE LIVE AND FORGET IT. All the results of that split test tells us is that CURRENTLY, our ads are doing a better job of bringing emotional buyers to our website. It means that we're NOT good at bringing logical buyers into our funnel. So now, my job is to create two separate funnels for the same product, one that appeals to emotional, benefit driven buyers, and the other that appeals logical buyers. Split testing should teach you how to grow your TAM, not just increase conversion rate for one specific cohort of your target market.

How I build marketing teams When you should hire in-house vs agencies/freelancers How to keep employees accountable & productive without endless meetings & micro-managing & more don't miss this episode.

Don't hire a performance marketers to do a brand builder's job.

Did you know that you don't have to just ask "How did you hear about us?" in your post purchase survey? I think it's way less valuable to use it as a form as attribution, and way MORE valuable to ask them questions that'll shape your marketing strategy in the future. At Adapt, I'm asking "When did you first hear about us?" "Who supports you on your health journey?" "How do supplements fit into your daily routine?" "What's your favorite way to stay active?" Each of those will affect how we measure our marketing efforts, how we position our brand, what kind of organic content we'll create, which influencers we'll partner with, and what IRL events I'll want us to be a part of. Those insights are way more valuable to me than hearing someone try to remember where they heard about us. - Then, we have some winning results from a brand who just INCREASED their prices - Tweet of the week is really tactical Meta advice - A JUICY Marketer's Anonymous from a guy who's about to quit his job

Most of the time I buy whiskey, I'm happy, celebrating, I'm buying to have a good night with friends or to mark a milestone. But on rare occasions... I buy whiskey when I'm sad, angry, frustrated, stress, I buy it as a coping mechanism... Now that's not good, and it's been a long time since I've done it so don't worry about me, lol... but it exposes a flaw in the way that most of the industry is talking about customer personas. How can one buyer (Me) have two completely opposite mindsets (happy or angry), that lead me to the exact same purchase decision (11 shots of Jack Daniel's)? And if that's possible, why aren't we trying to market to all those different motivators? In this episode, I break down how I use Valence & Intensity zones in my performance copywriting process to reach new areas of our market that some of our top ads just can't resonate with. Watch this episode, then ask Claude to analyze and indentify the valence & intensity zones of your top performing ads, and re-write new variations in the other zones. You'll reach buyers who are in-market for your product, that don't resonate with the tone of your current ads at all.

In this episode I break down how we just: - Doubled ad spend while increasing aMER - How doing less allows you to do more - Testing CTA button text - Resending emails to non openers (the easiest, lowest hanging revenue in all of ecom) - & what to do what your top selling product starts to plateau

Learn how I've helped 7 figure brands break through the 8 fig/yr mark, here some anonymous questions from marketers early in their careers, and check out a recent DISCOUNT test I ran with suprising results, my Tweet of the Week, and a JUICY Tactical Tip for SuperBowl Sunday.

We need to throw out the word "brand" I think our simple, performance-marketer brains completely crumble when we try to think about building a "brand." It's abstract, it sounds antithetical to performance & growth, and it leads marketers into a lot of bad behavior Instead, you should be trying to build PERSONALITY into your company. A personality that is capable of showing up in the right context, to each persona you're trying to sell to. Think about your own personality. You show up differently to saturday night dinner with friends than you to do sunday afternoon lunch with your in laws. You might dress different, you might drink differently, and you definitely talk different. You dress differently to a concert friday night than you do to work on monday morning. You're not being fake, you're being authentically you in every one of those situations, but you're showing up in the right context for different people, places, and times. That's what our "brands" need to be able to do in 2026 and beyond. Can we show up with the proper context, to specific personas in our target audience, at the right times, on the right channels, with the right influencers & partners? That's how the next great brands are going to be built.

Discounts are like binge drinking - Lots of fun in the short term (big revenue boost) - Leads to bad behavior (hacky marketing) - Creates shallow, meaningless relationships (low LTV customers) - Terrible Hangovers (awful performance after the sale) - It's more acceptable to do around major holidays (if you're doing it august I assume your life & business are not going well) ...But a great offer is like sharing a pour of Kentucky's finest bourbon. It starts with meaningful connection (strong messaging), and creates a long lasting relationship (profitable LTV). Listen to this episode and hang around till minute 6 where I show the results of a split test where we reduced our discount from 30% to 20% and decreased our CAC, and increased CVR & RPS.

The best ad I saw in all of October didn't come from a DTC brand you've heard of... It wasn't even a DTC brand... In this episode I break down the best ad of October & teach you how you should be applying the principles that make it a great ad to your next batch of creative. If you want your ads to work better, start testing creative, copy, and offers on your WEBSITE with Intelligems.io. Use code NATE10 to get 10% off your subscription price.

2 Undefeated Advertising Tactics, regardless of any algorithm change, or the channel, or the year... these two tactics, when executed well & consistently, will improve the effectiveness of your advertising 100% of the time: 1. Understand your customers' REAL consideration journey. How long does it take someone from discovery to purchase? What micro decisions do they need to make along the way before they make the final purchase decision? What are the external & internal factors that are capable of affecting that decision making process? Who (other than the brand) can affect that process? Influencers? Social proof from real customers? An authority in your space? When is the right time in their lives to make this purchase? If you don't have solid answers to those questions, then you're FORBIDDEN from listening to another marketing podcast. Don't listen to mine, don't listen to anyone else's. In fact, unfollow me on twitter until you find the right answers to those questions (HINT: you can upload all your customer reviews to Chat, ask it those questions, and it'll give you a great foundation to start with) Then, you can start crafted better messages, offers, and campaign schedules to accelerate those customer journeys and more effectively persuade more of your target audience to buy. 2. Understand how your advertising impacts your ultimate business goals. When you advertise product X, how much revenue comes in from product X? How much revenue comes in from other products who saw an ad for product X. What does the customer journey (12-month LTV) look like for customers acquired on product X? Add up all that revenue, subtract COGS, CAC, and any other costs that went into selling it (software, content creation, etc). Is it actually creating the profit you thought? Then you need to watch how your advertising inputs affects these outcomes. You might come up with an offer, like a big discount, that produces a higher 7-day ROAS. BUT, if the cohort of customers acquired on that offer are WORSE customers (less repeat purchases), then you might be hurting the long term health of the business. So, those are my 2 undefeated advertising tactics: - Understand your customers' real & complete consideration & purchase decision making process, and use that info in your marketing efforts - Understand how your advertising inputs affect the business outcomes, and make sure that aligns with what the shareholders want to happen. Stop talking about andromeda please

None of you should be copying & pasting the same exact tactics that 9-figure brands use in their marketing to your 6-, 7-, or even 8-figure/yr brands. You should take inspiration from them, but then run those tactics through the FILTER of your brand, your budget, your bandwidth, your skillset, and your customer base, before applying those tactics. In this episode of Tactical & Practical, I talk about how we've taken inspiration from Ridge's creator strategy with MKBHD, Portland Leather Goods' Meta ad creative strategy, and how we've used similes & metaphors like great songwriters to improve our direct response copywriting. Go to Intelligems.io to start split testing high impact areas of your website and making your ad dollars more efficient! *before any of you say trickle down economics don't work so you hate this episode, shut up. Idk what trickle down economics are but I've made good money doing this^ and trickle down tactics was a catchy name for this episode. Stop being a dork.