Ep 120: Slashing Facebook Ads Budgets in Half and Growing 300% with Olipop Growth Marketer, Steven Vigilante
DTC Podcast · with Steven Vigilante · July 13, 2021 · 47 min
Summary
Olipop’s Growth Marketing Manager, Steven Vigilante, shares how the brand dramatically cut Facebook ad spend by 50% without revenue loss, achieving 300% growth by shifting focus to direct response influencer marketing. He reveals how Olipop discovered Facebook’s attribution discrepancies led to 8-10x higher actual acquisition costs and how a centralized data platform like Source Medium was crucial for identifying high-performing influencers and improving retention. This episode is a must-listen for DTC brands looking to optimize ad spend, improve attribution, and leverage authentic influencer partnerships for sustainable growth.
Key takeaways
Implement robust internal attribution tracking to validate platform-reported acquisition costs; Olipop found Facebook's reported CPA was 8-10x lower than actual.
Reallocate ad spend from underperforming channels (like Facebook Ads in Olipop’s case) to direct response influencer marketing, which demonstrated higher conversion rates and better retention.
Utilize a centralized data platform (e.g., Source Medium) to unify e-commerce data, gain comprehensive performance insights, and identify top-performing influencers based on sales and retention metrics.
Prioritize authentic influencer partnerships by targeting individuals with genuine product affinity, as this drives higher engagement and conversion rates compared to generic collaborations.
Actively monitor organic mentions of your brand; swiftly reach out to enthusiastic advocates to explore partnership opportunities for rapid, impactful campaigns.
Continuously analyze CPA and retention levels across all marketing channels to identify true ROI and optimize your budget allocation strategically.
Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup We have a powerhouse pod guest this week - Olipop’s Growth Marketing Manager, Steven Vigilante. Let’s jump in: 🙊People over-rely on what Facebook tells them
After realizing that Facebook couldn’t be trusted as an attribution source of truth and doing a little internal digging, the Olipop team realized that their actual acquisition costs on the platform were 8-10x higher than what Facebook was reporting. Olipop has since cut their Facebook spend half, doubled down on influencer marketing in the paid performance space, and they haven’t looked back. They saw no notable shift in revenue. For Olipop, CPA and retention levels have been much higher with influencers than Facebook Ads, and influencer partnerships have seen much higher conversion rates. 👀Recommendation: Source Medium Steven believes the data centralizing platform Source Medium has changed their business. It stitches together all your eCommerce data into one place with a beautiful dashboard, and it pushes a report into slack every day. You can really deep dive into the data and see who your top influencers are both in terms of sales and retention. 🤳Authentic Influence Olipop has seen real success with direct response influencer marketing. Steven’s strategy is to target influencers who have a real relationship with the product and can authentically talk about the brand. Olipop recently struck partnership gold when they heard Sports newscaster Kenny Mayne talking about how much he loved Olipop on a podcast.
Steven immediately reached out to Mayne on Twitter, and in two weeks, they had turned around a killer ad shot in M
What does this episode say about paid acquisition?
Implement robust internal attribution tracking to validate platform-reported acquisition costs; Olipop found Facebook's reported CPA was 8-10x lower than actual.
What does this episode say about influencer & creator?
Reallocate ad spend from underperforming channels (like Facebook Ads in Olipop’s case) to direct response influencer marketing, which demonstrated higher conversion rates and better retention.
What does this episode say about analytics & attribution?
Utilize a centralized data platform (e.g., Source Medium) to unify e-commerce data, gain comprehensive performance insights, and identify top-performing influencers based on sales and retention metrics.
What does this episode say about dtc strategy?
Prioritize authentic influencer partnerships by targeting individuals with genuine product affinity, as this drives higher engagement and conversion rates compared to generic collaborations.
What does this episode say about paid acquisition?
Actively monitor organic mentions of your brand; swiftly reach out to enthusiastic advocates to explore partnership opportunities for rapid, impactful campaigns.
