In this episode, host Ibrahim sits down with two e-commerce heavyweights: Jad Sfeir, Director at Chalhoub Group and a seasoned retail leader, and Andy Kazandjian, Head of E-Commerce at Bad Marketing. Together, they break down the strategies brands need to succeed in today’s digital-first world. From reducing customer acquisition costs to launching products without stock, this episode is full of real-world tactics for anyone in the e-commerce or retail space. Jad offers insights from his leadership role at Chalhoub Group, one of the region’s most prominent luxury retail players, while Andy brings hands-on performance marketing knowledge from scaling high-growth DTC brands.
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🔗 Tune in to learn how top brands across the MENA region are transforming how they market, sell, and grow.
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Hey guys. Welcome to Below the Fold. Hello. Hello, hello. How everybody? Everybody's great. Awesome. How are you? Let's do this. Let's do this. We've got some really [00:01:00] good guests on the show today. One guest. One guest. Jad Sfeir? I don't know. I'm a guest too. Why do you think it's one guest? Okay. You know, like, uh. I'm a guest host.
You're a guest host. Fine. Fine. We'll take it. We have two guests. We're we're switching roles. It's a middle like, count me one and a half on each side. Right. How about a little intro before, before we, uh, uh, prolong this, uh, guest, uh, host, uh, conversation, debate way too, way too much for my opinion. Start?
Yeah, sure. Okay. Um, where do I start? Where do you start? Um. I've been in retail and e-commerce for quite a while. Mm-hmm. I'm not gonna tell you 'cause they'll, they'll give off my age and that's not nice for a lady. Uh, 38. Really? I'm just throwing a number. Okay. Whatever. Uh, no, no. Unfortunately more. Um, so yeah, I'm, I've done it across multiple companies, uh, from bigger scales, like department store formats to smaller ones where we have, uh, multi-brand, uh.
[00:02:00] Specialty stores, let's say, um, across re Lafayette, the Good Life and so on. Worked in sportswear as well, quite a few years of my career. And I am currently leading, uh, projects department for the, um, multi-brand division and Tanagra. So all of the own concepts of, uh, Shaub, uh, group, and that's about it.
Awesome. Great to have you on the show. Nice career. Yeah. Uh, my name is Andy Kazandjian and I, I've been in the agency space for most of my career, so I started off with running my own agency with one of my good friends, and we did that for about two to three years. And then I got a message from Eddie Malu, who is the owner of Bad Marketing, and he was hiring agency owners.
So I saw that on Instagram stories. I'm like, why are you hiring agency owners? What's the point? Uh, he's like, I want someone who understands, not just like one specific department, but really [00:03:00] knows the ins and outs of the agency space, client acquisition, customer retention, team management, you know, doing the, doing the whole thing on agencies and, um, that's how I landed in bad marketing.
Yeah. What did your agency specialize in? So we used to do a lot of things. It wasn't very niched or focused on one specific thing, but we were doing everything from. Social media marketing, basically ads, performance emails, uh, websites, applications like mobile apps. Uh, just literally everything. It was my first time opening my own business.
Yeah. So we were just doing everything we can to make some money. Did you start that right off the bat after graduation or, uh, yeah, almost. Yeah. Same year I graduated. That was one of the first things I was working on. So first experience in professional life hundred percent was opening your own business's awesome.
Yeah, I, I mean, I thought it was a good opportunity, like instead of. Graduating and then starting a job like most of my friends did. I'm like, mm-hmm. I mean, it's, it makes sense, but if I'm not gonna take the risk now, you know, why, uh, [00:04:00] why do it when I'm 40? Yeah. So, and there's, there, there is a good outcome from following a corporate career, right?
Like, I, there's a, there's no right or wrong issue from anything, you know, I got, uh, I, I used to work during college as well, and then I continued, you know, the. The career ladder ascension. Mm-hmm. I would say, mm-hmm. Um, I used to work in nightlife when I was in university, and then I went into daytime because Mama wanted, uh, uh, and then, and then from there, you know, it was just a natural evolutions of me getting bored and getting other things to do.
Um, kind of a cycle that repeats itself. Yeah. Uh, and, but yeah, I mean, honestly, I would never have imagined myself opening a company, but I, I, I really commend you for that. It's, uh, it, it takes, I mean, more than balls, you know, uh, either complete ingredients or absolute courage, but, or a bit of both. Uh, but it's awesome.
And now you're, now you're in e-commerce? Yeah, now I'm fully specialized in e-commerce and uh, it's just how it transitioned. We're [00:05:00] doing everything websites, apps, and social media to now just focus purely on e-commerce. Fantastic. And you did suggest a couple topics that we're going to discuss today that I found interesting.
Uh, that we'll discuss. But before we get to that, this is Judd's second appearance on the show. Is it? It is. He must be dragging in views for sure. He, he is definitely dragging in views. Uh, and the last time around Jad, we spoke about a couple of things about, about e-commerce, and I'm interested to know, please don't quote me if anything's changed.
Let's see. A lot has changed. When was the, when was the last years? So it was a year ago. Approximately. A year ago. It was a bit over a year ago. Right? Yeah. And one of the, I think it was the beginning of, of AI back then. Right? I was just about to say, AI is probably one of the, definitely was like mainstream AI became a thing, right, right.
About then. AI's been a hype since then. Yeah, exactly. Then more or less, I think, I think we've had the, we've had it, we. We were still, I, I remember one of the main topic was, uh, [00:06:00] cookies. Mm-hmm. Remember deprecation? Yeah. That was come, that was becoming a thing back then. Yeah. And data ownership and customer journey ownership and how creating your own, it was, it was something.
And then, you know, AI just sidetracked everything. Right? 'cause I mean, why would you still dwell on cookies if you can hyper-personalized everything and you know, get your own personal channel to everybody that ever. Passes through exactly. Any of your interactions on any of the platforms, but also one of the things that we spoke about is how much e-commerce is reliant on investment.
Do you still think that's a valid, uh, point? Yes, of course. Um, investment changed, I would say. Mm-hmm. Uh, the amounts are still relevant. It is. What it is, there's a lot more eCom player, the biggest one in the region here, that is doing more and more physical presence. Mm-hmm. And taking over spaces, you know, uh, trying to merge that omnichannel experience.
Yep. Um, omni channel ask in case nobody, it didn't click for now, but, uh, yeah, they're the, they're our [00:07:00] number one luxury player in the region. Fi is the term, right? Fial Yes. Is one of the terms that's that's correct. Right. But I mean, like, um, it's more of experiential spaces rather than creating retail spaces.
You mean like popups, events, that kind of thing? Exactly. Yeah. There's quite a few spaces that are coming up. Uh, I mean, you've probably seen about the sham popup that they did in, uh, kite Beach. You know, they had a. Um, uh, like semi long term popup of Dolce Gavana in, uh, um, Atlantis, the Royal, they're doing some in Mandarin Oriental as well.
So they've, they've acquired multiple physical spaces in order to connect cus with the customers on, on our level field and then transact through the website or vice versa. So investment's still important and it's not just today performance marketing for growth, right? It's also of. But then create, we have the expert here who can tell us more about that, that how can you create experiences, right, for the end customer.
How can you create this better, [00:08:00] uh, presence around your customer through digital experiences, popup shop, et cetera. What do you think? Performance marketing or Yeah. Experience. It's, uh, it's not that this or that question. I think to start, obviously you can't be comparing yourself to the likes of onas or, you know, the shaub.
Uh, brands level, these guys are already at a different stage than, you know, most people who are just starting out. Mm-hmm. So if your audience are people who are just thinking about starting their business, the last thing you want to think about is, where can I do my pop-up? Where can I do an event?
Because it's gonna cost you a kidney. Yeah. Uh, I think the start is always performance marketing. Mm-hmm. It's the easiest barrier to entry. All you have to do is. Get your website up, get your brand, work with a freelance designer, get your product sourced. And then from there, I think the journey begins. And as you start facing new challenges and new problems, that's where you need to think about like, okay, my cost per acquisition on meta is X.
How do I bring this down? Fine creatives could be a nice [00:09:00] way, working with influencers is a nice way, but then you'll face new challenges in every single level. The answer will probably lean towards what you're saying is. Offline events, popups, working with, you know, live, uh, off offline marketing. 'cause that's where you get to connect with the customer.
Yeah. So, but I think as a beginning for sure, my answer every single time would be. Um, performance marketing and online. Yeah. And when we say performance for everything, for apps, across everything 100%. Because doesn't matter what you're selling. Service brand nothing. Product, nothing. A hundred percent. Okay.
The reason, the reason I think that is because the cost is just so cheap for you to test if the, the product or service even works in the first place. So one of the, one of the small tests that we've done before is, uh, there was this new client, fresh, has never sold anything before. He has a product idea in mind.
We literally made a landing page. We're saying this is not available yet. It's just pre-order and we're running ads to the landing page to see if people will buy it in the first place. If people are not hyped [00:10:00] or interested to even try, like the pre-launch, we're hyping it. There's only 200 available and they, you see no interest whatsoever.
Why go through the investment of ordering 50,000 products? Why go through the hassle of opening a brick and mortar store if you don't even know if there's interest around it? Okay, so I think one of the biggest. Mistakes people do is they get excited about their idea mm-hmm. Without proving it first. And we live in an age where you can prove it with less than a thousand dollars.
So prove the, prove the idea, prove the model first. And if you see there's clear interest, go for it. If you wanna do your store, sure. If you want to do something offline, sure. But I mean, there's a very easy way to do so you went from doing the MVP to mimicking an MVVP or simulating an MVP and saying it actually works and, and the idea is like most MVPs are.
Minimum viable product, right? Like there's very minimal things you can test, but when you have a landing page where you're asking people to pay you for the product, it's no longer an MVP. You've got the money, you've got someone to pay you for it. So you know that they're interested. [00:11:00] Now it's not like, uh, hey, test this out and tell me what your opinion is.
I'm asking for your opinion. So you refund the person and say, sorry, we're gonna push the product in six months. No, you would, you would have that, you would have that on your landing page saying like, if you put the order now, it's gonna come to you in eight months. If that's the projection of, you know, when you're going to actually launch.
And obviously if you decide not to go for it, obviously you're gonna have to refund, refund the money. But like that would be a very, very smooth test. Uh, and if it works, you just, you just made money to start with. You can now use Okay. The customer's money to order your products. It's such an easy barrier.
It's just a very fast way to test if this works. Obviously if, if you already have money and you wanna take the risk anyways, go for it. But for someone who's just starting out, this would be the best way in my opinion. Yeah. Okay. Well, sounds like a good model for dropshipping. Right. And you're triggering me now.
It does sound like, uh, what would, what Dropship said drop should drop should it, it's such a clickbait, uh, the caption of this YouTube video's gonna be, is drop should be that There is, there is some sexiness to it, you know, like, don't own the [00:12:00] product. Don't put the cash, but make money out of it. No, no. So I'm not saying, just to clarify, I'm not saying don't own the product.
Yeah. Do the brand, get the fully branded. Product, make it yours just like you would've launched. Anyways, what I'm just saying is don't order the product. Yeah. You still need to design the product. Hundred percent. You need to work on the brand, the branding brand entity. Be a hundred percent and you need to, you know, you need to order the sample as well.
Yeah. You need to see it yourself. I'm not saying like, let the Chinese supplier just ship it directly to someone living in UAE or the us. That's not what I'm saying. Yeah. What I'm saying is just before you make the investment to not lose it. Yeah. Test it out first. Yeah. And see if it works in the future.
No, I, I get it. But I think drop shipping, he, he was. Testing something like another topic altogether, right? Yeah. Because shop shipping is a reality of income right now, so Yeah. And it works. And it works. Yeah, exactly. It works. Uh, but, but this is an interesting, uh, approach and I wouldn't say it's, uh, for you to, uh, for brands to completely, uh, uh, cancel entire products.
It could be used also to learn more about the product, [00:13:00] right? Yeah. Maybe feedback on the product, ways to improve it. Uh, before ordering the final batch. Right? Yeah. Alternatively, I mean, if someone doesn't want to absolutely not order products, maybe ordering a hundred, 200, your cost is probably going to increase significantly because it's not big quantities, but I mean, a hundred, 200 if you actually want to test it live and send it to people, sure.
That works as well. Yeah. But I mean, the zero way to do it, like the zero sum is. Not ordering at all. Yeah. With with, with the pre-order a move. Yeah. See if you're actually solving a pain point or not by creating a new product. But this only applies for new products, right. Or technologies that you Absolutely.
Which is why like the, the point is, you know, onas and level and all these big players, you can't really compare what they do to what starting brands will do. Um, I think as you get towards their level, then you start playing these big games 'cause it's gonna cost too much money. Correct me if I'm wrong. I, it costs the money that you wanna put into it, right?
But, uh, you can do popups for cheap and you can do popups for million of dollars the same way you can do performance [00:14:00] marketing for cheap and then do performance marketing for a hundred thousand dollars per month. Per month. So sky's the limit in the end. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, I agree. Uh, it is a lot more cost effective way, and it does kind of take you to a faster.
What perception of yield, let's say. Yeah. Because if you target a hundred thousand and then you get a thousand click and then you, from the a thousand click, you get 50 or 60 orders, then you have a better idea of the metrics, you know? Yeah. Or of the possibilities and capabilities of the product you're, that you're trying to sell.
Um, but what about existing businesses? You know, 'cause I'm sure that's the bulk of your, of your customer base right now. I don't, I don't think there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are trying to come and test, oh, what about this new lollipop, major size that I wanna sell that nobody, you know. So what about the existing, because how do you, how do you cater for them?
What would you recommend for them? If they gave you a budget, would you assign 80 to 90% of that on performance marketing or, yeah. So. My, [00:15:00] my expertise lies in e-comm, so I will always take the money and put it to performance marketing. 'cause that's what I know best. I'm not the offline crazy experience guy.
Um, maybe if they have a contact for that, I would definitely allocate some money towards it if they can afford it. So maybe, maybe give us more a broader understanding. 'cause performance marketing is one part of e-comm. Right? What are the other things that you do under that umbrella that you say you, and you're specializing in e-commerce?
Yeah. So there's different touch points. So you have obviously meta Google. Mm-hmm. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all these would fall under paid ads, Snapchat. So that's one aspect that we manage. But then there's also. Once they see your ad, where are they going? Mm-hmm. Which is the website, the landing page?
Mm-hmm. So we optimize that as well. 'cause there's a lot of people who would have rock solid ads, but then they go to the website. The website experience is just horrific. No spending you talking about drop rate, then you improving your, yeah. Hundred conversion rate would be low. Like, okay, I'm spending a hundred thousand [00:16:00] dollars a month.
I'm getting a hundred thousand clicks, $1 per click. I have a hundred thousand people on my landing page, but my landing page is converting at a 1% like you just wasted. At least three, four extra percent that you could have added to that. So I mean that's another thing that, wow. Okay. That's a metric I'm happy to hear.
You're saying 5% conversion. Absolutely. This is like the interesting, what we try to aim for is 5% conversion rate on any product that's within sub $200, um, range. The more expensive the product is, the more That's very interesting. 'cause I mean like if you look at industry standards out there, even in the states, which is like the precursor of e-comm, right?
Yeah. We're still talking about 1.2 to 2.5300000000000002%, right? Yeah. Uh, I mean, 5% is not something that people usually promote because it's difficult to deliver. Yeah, it's difficult to deliver, but it's what's going to help you start getting higher profitability rates. 'cause the problem is there's different touch points that you can tweak.
Change your p and l day and night. Mm. If you have a 1% conversion rate versus three, [00:17:00] we're talking about three x on, on the conversions. Fixing that or, or, uh, a 70% discount on cost. Right. A if you on the other side percent, a hundred percent, you're literally, your paid ads will cost you less to acquire a customer.
Exactly. If you are landing page or if your website is converting at higher rate. So most people don't really think about it this way. They're like, oh, my ads are performing at whatever, a $30 cost per acquisition. Okay, but what's your landing page converting at? Oh, it's 0.9%. What, what do you mean? Get that to 1.5?
Yeah, get that to two. You probably won't achieve it, but I mean, that's definitely one of the, the KPIs you want to push for is get as high as humanly possible. Um, ideally if it's like $150 product, it's not very difficult to get a 5% conversion rate. Mm. Because you, if the product is actually solving a pain point, you're solving a customer need.
You're talking about 95% of people not buying. So when you put it into perspective, it's actually not that bad. 5% are buying 95. No [00:18:00] 5% is big. No, it's not that bad as it's not a huge number. I agree with you. Yeah, but it's still like we, we need to, you know, the way we browse online is very different from where the way we browse.
'cause when we browse in the store, we've actually made the pain painful effort of going there, going no. Online. It's like, it's just the click. Oh, I clicked by mistake. My son clicked, you know, like, uh, I, I opened it. Ah, I didn't want to go there. Oh, I thought the product was different. Uh, you know, so you get a lot of that for sure.
That you won't see in the store. Yeah. You know, and, and, and, and because of that, automatically, your, you, your percentage conversion drop hundred percent. Absolutely. Dramatically. Even if you're talking like. To go back to our physical, if you're talking about a street store compared to a mall store, you're gonna have a very different type of conversion.
Yeah. A street store is gonna have three to four times the conversion rate that a, a mall store is gonna have because they're going specifically to that store. 'cause a person's going to the mall, not the store you Yeah. Just like an Amazon page. Exactly. So the more painful, the, the more friction there is to get.
[00:19:00] To a place, the higher the conversion, because I've also, I've, I've already made all this effort to come here. You drove your car, you parked it, you went out. I had to park it, you know, if it's a street, I had to find the street. I had to pay RTA, I had to go into the store. I mean, this, you're not coming out without buying anything, you know?
Yeah. Uh, where you go to a mall, you might go to the cinemas and then maybe buy something or not so convert, and you have thousands of other options. If you go online, you're on the couch. So you're not, but you can say the same about a website. If a user came from search. Yeah. Versus he came from uh, a TikTok or a social media page.
Right? Yeah, of course. If he came from search, he probably, it's the same intention. Exactly. There's much more intent there you go. From store, like street store to mall mall, mall store. Great example. You know, so, so your street store is search 'cause you've actually intending to go to this website. Yeah. You know, but on, on social, you're not intending, you're just like, somebody fed you a picture that looks nice and you're like, okay, I'll click on this.
Yeah. And then you look at the product and you're like, ah. [00:20:00] Right. But the question is, is social still playing an important role in pushing the customer to actually buy? You wanna start? No, please go ahead. Yeah. So first let's define, what do you mean by social? Do you mean an influencer posting or your friend posting or an ad?
'cause they're three different things that will lead to three different. Outcomes, events, outcomes, right? I mean, it could be any of these. You tell me which one is what, doing what. But the, the idea is, uh, today people think that, uh, there's more conversion that comes from search and, and therefore their investment in social media is not as, is not as a, is not a priority as much as searches.
Right. Uh, but would you say that. Would you say no to that? And, and would you still advise brands to have a presence on social media to help with, [00:21:00] with the, uh, with, with the conversion, with the purchase? Yeah. So is it an attribution game? Maybe it's an attribution game. If you look at last click, obviously most of it will go to search, right?
Yeah. But maybe if you look at different attribution models, first click will probably be, for example, socials like Instagram, meta, anything Meta or TikTok, snapchat. All these for sure will be first click, right? Um, I think when you, when you go into the attribution trap, the conversation will not end. This is what I faced with clients.
Oh, we need to look at last. Lastly, oh, we need to look at firstly, oh, we need to look at the holistic view. Oh, we need to look at this. Everyone is right because the, the logic for each one makes complete sense. Um. And everybody's wrong 'cause there's no way to track Correct. The entire journey. Yeah. I mean there's still no way, unfortunately, maybe soon hopefully be there.
There are certain, maybe, hopefully, but there are certain guidances that you can get. Like for example, a lot of Middle Eastern brands do not have this a post purchase survey. Yeah. So what that means is you make the purchase, there's literally a, a small [00:22:00] questionnaire that says. What made you purchase?
Where did you Yeah, exactly. Facebook. Where did you find us? Google emails. SMSA friend, influencer. None of the above, but still, even if you do that, they'll only give you the last one. So the last click. Correct. So they, they won't give you the entire journey. The assumption, the assumption here is, will the person who's selecting the, the one of the answers, are they going to think last click or first click?
Prob Probably not. What they're gonna think about is what was the biggest, the most. Exactly. So if they think that. They actually purchased because they were browsing for, let's say you're selling a phone cover, right? Mm-hmm. They browsed phone covers and then they saw your design and that's why they bought, yeah, maybe Google actually did convert them because that's where they found your brand search.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. But if they saw an ad on Instagram of a super cool video where they're doing like, I dunno, an unboxing A SMR into the microphone, and that's what triggered them to like say, oh, I wanna buy this. Probably meta is the answer. So I think. Just listening to the person who's answering is probably the best [00:23:00] bet.
There will for sure be some, uh, human error, let's say where probably the actual impact was meta, but they selected emails or a friend. Mm-hmm. Maybe, or maybe someone just answered because they didn't see the X button, so they just randomly clicked on one and then submitted. It's, it's a buildup, right? It's a buildup to top of mind.
Now, top of mind can be about product. It can be about brand. We usually attribute it to brand, but top of mind can be a need as well to be addressed, you know? So the building of the need to be addressed, somebody that crashes their screen on their phone and then you put a cover that shows you that your screen won't be, won't be scratched, automatically wants, makes them want to buy.
Mm-hmm. Maybe not, and maybe not immediately, but the next time they scratch and fix their phone. You know what I mean? So. Uh, how do you know if he's seen it on meta or Snapchat or searched and bought? There's, it's impossible. Yeah, it's tough. It's really be, really impossible. But to answer, to answer your question specifically, because there are cases, um, like, like what you guys were explaining before, like maybe they, they saw it on search, maybe they [00:24:00] saw it on social, the answers to be everywhere.
That's literally, that's literally the bottom line. Agree. Yeah. You'll see a lot of brands, especially Middle East, obviously, because e-comm is, you know, newer, let's say, than it is in the us. The US have been playing this game for a long time, but they're not everywhere. Most brands are in oh one or two places.
Um, majority is, is meta not Google, I would say. Mm-hmm. But there's such a big gap in brands using Google to their advantage. Mm-hmm. They would bid on Google. Google using Google so far has always been about SEO. Right? So it's a a hundred percent not apps. It's been like S-E-O-S-E-O, SEO. O SEO o. But it's a hard battle.
Why would you, why would you work, you know, for once two years on SEO, when you can just. Pay for the click. It's $1. Get the purchase. I'm not saying don't do, S-E-O-S-E-O is for sure something great that you should have because when, I dunno, you're, you're low on cash, you wanna turn off your ads, you'll still rank somewhat good in a good rate, but, and it'll help your PPC be more profitable.
Hundred percent, hundred percent efficient. Absolutely. Every brand should work on it. But what I'm saying is like bid on the main key terms because other competitors, if they bid on [00:25:00] it, you're now, even if your SEO is ranked one. Correct. You're technically third because there's two people bidding on ads for those key terms.
Yeah. What's the point? Get your SEO to be ranked first. Great. Also bid on the key terms. And the problem is also not getting first, it's staying first. 'cause it's the same cost. Right? So you continue having to optimize everything from your metadata to your picture, to the naming of your products. Your GTIN.
Everything needs to be top box, the blog post. Someone has to continuously write your blog post for you continuously. Like, it's not a race that you get to the finish line and then you're done. Exactly. You can rest now. No, the finish line always moves as you move with it. A hundred percent. So yeah. The, the bottom line is, it, it's not, which is more important.
Mm-hmm. Uh, I think you need to be everywhere. Yeah. Um, but if you ask me where the biggest impact is going to be 100% social every single time. 'cause if you look at the, uh, and, and mostly depends on the industry, but if you, if you're in an industry that has. An insane search volume per month. So like basic stuff like coffee.
Coffee [00:26:00] is, everyone drinks coffee. So probably if you look at the search trends, coffee is like at all time highs. So when people are searching for coffee, you'll probably be able to make a lot of money from Google compared to. Uh, you know, a meta ad. Yeah. So really depends on the industry, but most cases, if you don't have a crazy high search volume for the product you're selling, social is the answer.
Right. Uh, okay. So be on social, be everywhere, everywhere. But how would you define then how much budget to allocate on each platform? So you can start each platform, each uh, each post. 'cause you know, at some point you told us like there's organic, which is like content, like consumer to consumer content, right.
And then you have. Like not paid content, but influencer content. Mm-hmm. Right. Which is Unorganic. Yeah. And then you have your paid, right? Yeah. Yeah. So how do you split between those? Yeah. So, so you can, you also need to look at different placements, right? Yeah. Is it a, is it a, would you say that maybe it's a test and learn?
There's, there should be a test and learn approach for sure. Yeah. Um, for sure. It's a test and learn thing. You can [00:27:00] probably spend whatever, if you're starting your business or you're midway, you're spending, let's say 50 KA month on meta ads, but your realize is you're starting and spending 50 KA month. No, no.
Midway. Let's say you're midway and you're spending 50. Maybe it's a big audience. No, because I mean, like, if you want to talk about Deepak is definitely why not? It's a small budget, but if you're talking about your average newcomer, no, no new newcomer. So newcomer is very different or, or midway even.
$50,000 is a, it, it's a huge amount. It's, it's an amount, I'll put it this way, it's not for starters. I don't want people to listen to us and think like, oh, this, it's $600,000 of, of paid a per year. Yeah, fair, fair point. Fair point. But you do need a substantial budget for you to get substantial learnings.
Um, yes and no. So here, here's what I'll say. Based, based on the, the point you brought up is. I'll split it into three categories starters. For anyone who's just starting, choose one platform. Do not be everywhere. Pick one thing and perfect it, because if you're gonna, let's say spend, you only have $2,000.
It's, it's stupid to put one K on meta, $500 on Google, [00:28:00] $500 on Snapchat, because one, it's not a significant enough budget for you to really get learnings. Mm-hmm. And two, you're gonna dilute your focus onto three different platforms, which you do not understand. So you can, you're probably not an expert in all three anyways.
So I would say focus on one platform, ideally meta. That's how I started. Um, once you've perfected meta and you're able to get. $2,000 spend at a two plus roas? Anything above? When you say method, you save just specific Facebook, Instagram. Facebook, Instagram. Both. Yeah, because anyways, when you, when you launch ads on meta, it automatically selects both.
No, I know. That's why I'm saying when you, I just wanted to specify we're, we're specifying both channels. Correct. So that's practice to select both. Both channels as mixed placement. Hundred percent. So I would say start there. If you're able to generate that, if you spent the 2000 and able to generate anything above a break even.
So let's say you break even. You need to bare minimum, get 1.5 roas. If you get above that, keep going. Do not focus on anything else until you get that $2,000 budget in that month to 4K the next month to eight k [00:29:00] the next month, and just keep going, going, going. You're gonna reach a point where you are going to realize, so you're saying invest more, keep the same roas more or less if you can.
Yeah. Likely as you, as you spend more euro as is going, is gonna come down, but as long as it's above your break even and you're somewhat profitable. You should keep going. Yeah. Until you reach a point where you realize on your own that the numbers no longer make sense for me to put all my budget into meta, that's when I would say, okay, let's bring that down a little bit.
Take it down 10, 15%. Let's put it on Google. Now let's start dominating that platform. Once you've realized you're good there, let's move on to the next one. Because most founders or or people who are running their own businesses, specifically in e-comm, they want to be everywhere all at once. When starting.
Very big mistake because you don't even have a team. You're, you're gonna do this all on your own folks on thing. Plus content is different Right. Because a hundred percent Yeah. Where somewhere a still picture could lead somewhere. Mm-hmm. Still picture somewhere else will lead you nowhere. Right? Yeah. I mean, yeah.
And, and, and the nature of like, let's, let's talk about, let Snapchat content versus Instagram stories [00:30:00] content versus feed content, right? They're three completely different things. Yep. So you're telling me you're gonna produce three different types of content. Per month per ad. No way. Not charge and pay five times more on content than you're actually probably gonna pay on propagating them, which is not the right way.
Exactly. And if God forbid you as a sub break even now you're down so bad. Yeah. So for starters, this is what I would say, choose one platform, low budget, start there and slowly start scaling it. Mm-hmm. For anyone midway, they're already crossed that stage, so they already know where they lie in terms of what's my numbers look like on meta, what does it look like on Google?
Based on that, you should be able to allocate different budgets. Most of the brands that we work with at bad, uh, bad by the way, is bold and disruptive. Just for reference. It's bad marketing. I, not such bad. Okay. It's not actually bad. It's Bad is a cool name too, by the way. It's so good. It's so good. It's very good.
Like, where'd you work at? Bad Marketing. Bad marketing. Remind me. Never to employee that. No, but, but it's such a, it's such a good marketing stunt. We've, we've heard a lot of like clients who, that who come in Yeah. They [00:31:00] were thinking about the process. They're like. Guys, the bad marketing name is never outta my head.
It's, it's such a good way to capture people. It creates a buzz because it's controversial. Exactly. Um, the, the slogan is, we make good brands go bad. Okay. So it's, uh, just a play on words. But anyways, I was saying the, the, the most of the clients we work with at Bad we're spending north of 1 million per month.
Just D two C on meta and, uh, Google. That's where the majority of the money goes. The split between them, for most cases, 99 5%. 80% of that budget is on meta. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Up until today, iOS 14, all that stuff that people talk about doesn't matter. 80% of the budget will always go to meta because we see the highest return there.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Very few cases where brands have ridiculous search volume in the niche that they're in. The budget is closer to 50 50. Why do you think, because when you're trying to solve a problem with, with a product, it's so difficult to find. The key terms people are [00:32:00] searching for when trying to solve it and having your ad show up and convincing them through a Google ad link, just like whatever the title is, it's so hard.
It's very, very difficult. And then the second thing is the search volume is probably not high in most cases. No. Compared to other platforms, social platforms, forget Google. I mean, I mean like why is Meta, oh, why not? TikTok, for example. Or Snapchat. Snapchat. Or Fair, fair point. Um, look. TikTok is very organic.
Mm. It's a very organic platform, and I think, I'm still not like, uh, hardcore into TikTok yet, but every time we launch ads on TikTok, they just don't perform as good as it does on, on meta. I think people are used to meta ads. I, I genuinely, I'm not a hundred percent certain why there's this huge discrepancy, but organic just crushes on TikTok.
So I think that if you're playing the TikTok game, try, it's a branding game. Try to get like the Gen Z. Yeah. Uh, like it's a brand equity top of mind. People rec recognize the product or that, [00:33:00] but not necessarily transact with it. Right. The brands that are crushing on TikTok are not, most of them are not really going hard on ads.
What they're doing is TikTok shop. Right. So what is TikTok shop, if you think about it? It's, it's like an affiliate. So it's me. Yeah. Like as an influencer or a regular person using this product. And I'm marketing it as if I bought it myself, and I love it. So the video will be like someone putting the phone there, guys.
Oh my God, I just got these sleep gummies. I slept for like nine hours. It's not an ad. Yeah. It's just someone trying to portray the the product and how good it is and they wanna share it with their audience. Yeah. That type of content is crushing on TikTok, but then on on meta, it could be like a simple graphic of can't sleep the picture of the gummy and it'll convert like crazy.
So it's just easier to convert on meta, and I think people are more used to it on TikTok if you see an ad swipe. Yeah. The ads are not tailored for that platform. It's a creator content play on TikTok. A hundred percent. Yeah. So I think the game there is more organic. Obviously ads work. There are brands that are crushing with ads.
Yeah. But most people are just [00:34:00] not able to crack it. Yeah. Because the content they make is not built for that platform. If you want to do TikTok ads, you really need to tailor it to that platform, which is. These Gen Z style ads where it's like super raw, super authentic, and organic. On meta, you don't really need to do that.
It would be great if you can, but yeah, the game is very different. There are two different platforms and people still haven't cracked this yet. Is it also because there's an audience difference? Right, because I feel that Facebook is more like there's a generational gap, right between. The one plus billion users on, on, on TikTok and the two plus billion users on Facebook.
I don't think they're the same, you know? Right. Yeah. Facebook for sure. I think it's, it's a mis three plus billion on Facebook. It's three now. Okay. It's three. Yeah. Half the world. Uh, look, I think there's a misconception on TikTok where people think their kids using it. Uh, yeah. But there's actually a very, very, very big percentage of people who are.
You know, twenties, thirties, forties. But I think that some of these twenties are, don't even have Facebook accounts. That's what I'm saying. Probably, probably. I mean, there's [00:35:00] 3 billion people if you were to guess, they probably have a Facebook account, but, um, there is, I think they're more or less the same.
Facebook, I think would be the exception. I feel like grandmas use Facebook, Instagram, I think on the other hand, is very similar to the TikTok audience. Um, I'd say it's a bridge. I don't know. I, I mean, I, I feel like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like, uh. People that are, uh, in, in this, in our generation, let's say, as opposed to your generation, for example, would be more likely to have Instagram than have Snapchat or TikTok.
You know what I mean? Potentially. Um, I, I genuinely, I'm not on, I'm not a hundred percent certain on what you should know. You should tell us. You're, you're the guy who's at Meta. Yeah. Um, no, I mean, Facebook is definitely the biggest platform Yeah. Across the globe. And it's a geographical. Uh, nuance. Mm-hmm.
Snapchat is more prominent in Saudi example, and it depends. And us, number one. Number two, markets, it really depends on the market. TikTok is China, for example. [00:36:00] Instagram is huge in Turkey, for example. Yeah. So it really depends on the, on the demographics. Yeah. Yeah. Age, but, uh, do you, do you see like huge discrepancies between Facebook and Instagram?
Do you feel like older people use Facebook more than they use Instagram? More older pe I would say more like, yeah. Yeah. Let's say outta 3 billion on Facebook, for example, you probably have 1 billion that are not on TikTok. Yeah. For example. And these 1 billion would probably be the older generations rather than the younger ones.
Yeah. Uh, this is my opinion. I genuinely have no idea. I would say it's a. Potentially, uh, uh, maybe, maybe in some markets, uh, Facebook is more skewed towards, uh, an older demographic, older age groups. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But what I find surprising is the performance on Facebook versus other channels. Like even though it may not, uh, be the exact same audience as other platforms, the, the, the.
Cost efficiency. Crazy is just so good. Thank you. Mark Zuckerberg? Yes. The guy has made millions for people. [00:37:00] Genuinely, I, I can't, it still is not like sunk in yet. Mm-hmm. The amount of money people can make on meta, whether they're just starting out or whether they're already huge brands, is abnormal. There is no platform that's more efficient than Facebook period.
Not Facebook Meta as a whole. Yeah, nothing comes close to it on paid ads. It's ridiculous. So what happens when, when the, when the brand starts looking at last click attribution, it becomes horrible? Uh, no, I think look for what we do with our clients is we, we make it a mission before they even sign the documents of, of, you know, signing up the contract for three months, six months, whatever the case is, we make it a mission.
Even the sales team, uh, at bad, they really need to understand what they're signing up for. You're not signing up for, uh, you know, you come in, you get a six row as, you're not going to see a six row as I, I literally get on calls with some of our clients when I'm, you know, overseeing the process. We have 40 plus clients, so every time there's like shaky shakiness in the relationship, they're [00:38:00] doubting the process.
I get on call with 'em, I'm like, Hey guys, look, compare yourself to other brands in the space. No one is seeing a six row as it's, get it outta your head. Um, so it's just setting the expectations, right, that if you break even. On new customer acquisition. Thank God. Thank God. That's most brands, when they're scaling, that's what they really need to aim for is as long as you're breaking even or you're slightly profitable, you're good to go.
Because if you do think your product is rock solid, but that's not, that's right. For newer brands, right? No, no, no, no. For for all brands. Everybody, even brands. We're scaling. We have a couple of brands making 50 60 scaling. Yes. But 50 16. Maintaining, optimizing. No, I mean if you're not growing, you don't have a cost anyways associated to acquiring new customers, right?
Yeah. It's not crazy, but when you're ramping up your spend and you're scaling, you're making whatever, let's say you're acquiring, so it really depends on what the brand wants, right? If you want to double, triple, quadruple your, your audience, then the amount of money you're putting in is to grow that correct.
But what expectations where it's skewed is they think they can still have a ridiculously high roas. It's not going [00:39:00] to happen. Very, very few cases where you'll continue seeing like a three, four ROAS on new customer acquisition. Tough. Um, for most brands, again, with the a OV range of somewhere around 200 or sub 200, it's very difficult to get these ridiculous ROAS numbers.
So I think as long as you are breaking even or you're slightly profitable, it's excellent. The reason is because if, if you're doing this for the long run and you really believe in your product, then the customer will come back. Mm-hmm. So what people don't really understand when, when they're looking at their numbers, and this is what causes.
90% of the business is to fade here. We talk about very interesting metric. Yeah, yeah. It's the, it's unbelievable how the amount of founders do not look at these numbers. Yeah. They're like, oh, TV. My role is on time, time value that people don't really look at a hundred percent. So what we do is when we're acquiring customers, fine.
Let's say you, we acquired the customer at $25. And they paid you $30, right? You, you've probably lost money on that order because you have shipping [00:40:00] product, uh, you know, packaging more or less, you probably lost money, right? So, so the owner will come to us and say like, guys, what the hell? We, we, we had 10,000 orders this month and our customer acquisition is 25 bucks and they only paid us 30.
We're down so bad, right? I'm like, yes, you're right on the first order, you're, you're not profitable. What's your recurring customer rate? Uh, three, four, they don't know, right? Yeah. I pull up their Shopify 50%. So you're telling me from the 10,000 orders that we got you, 5,000 of them likely are gonna come back and buy again.
So you're telling me on the second order you're gonna get an additional $30 with zero cost on on meta ads. So now your ROAS is no longer 1.2, your ROAS is 60 in 25 out, you're looking at over a two roas. Mm-hmm. So that's your actual roas. Your ROAS is on LTV, not on just the first time. It's important to understand your first time customer.
Uh, acquisition cost so that you can [00:41:00] project how many customers you can acquire per month. But the general, like when you're looking at the longevity of the business, you need to factor LTV because it changes the game completely. It's like investing, right? If you invest in the stock market today, no one's gonna promise you a 10%.
You're not gonna get 10% today. Tomorrow you're gonna get 10% over a year. Right. Right. And if you, if you're lucky. If you're lucky, and then if you, especially when Trumps has at the presidency. Right. That's another thought. So, but if you, if you look at it over a 10 year horizon, your average will be a 10% per year.
Right. Or 2020 year horizon when you're investing, it's the same thing with e-comm. Mm-hmm. You need to look at the horizon of how many times will people come back. Most businesses will realize that they have at least a 20, 30% recurring customer rate. And when you have that over four years, the customers are coming back again and again and again.
You only paid for them once. So it's, it's a totally different way to look at e-comm when you factor in LTV, right? And, um, and it's absolutely okay to, uh, uh, attribute LTV to your, to [00:42:00] your, um, entry point channels a hundred percent. So you can attribute your LTV to where you got this customer from. For example, it could be meta.
Uh, even though meta didn't, may not have played a role in the second purchase or third purchase. Yeah, because that's where, that's where I got you in from, right? Yeah. You, you're, you, you bought 10 times because I got you in from meta the first time. Now obviously from order number two to order number 10.
Meta will not play a huge role anymore in terms of getting them to come back. It depends, but that's where it depends on the type of product. Depends on a lot of things. Of course. I mean, you always want to be you, you always wanna be in their feed, right? Mm-hmm. That's like a, a given. Yeah. Because you know, brands are competing for your attention.
Yeah. And if you're not there, you're nowhere to be found. Exactly. Obviously it's not gonna work, but as long as you're, you exist in their life on their feed, you're good to go. You don't need to do anything crazy. Think where the game is to get them from order two to order 10. That's where email, email comes into play.
Mm-hmm. Like most of the brands, especially in the Middle East, they send ridiculously stupid emails. [00:43:00] Get 25% off, um, uh, whatever, uh, use this code. Mature markets have shifted from discount here. We're still in that era, right? So the problem is they don't give value. Like for me to come back for order number two to 10, I'm no longer thinking about the cost.
I want you to affect my life. Right? So like brands, like, I don't know, whoop, for example, they've dominated Middle East. Yeah. The, the subscription fee that they're charging is, is ridiculous. It's a very expensive product, but because they're able to portray. The impact on your life and, and the positive things it can do for you.
People no longer think about these things. Yeah. It's like subscribe, especially giving you the first month for free to try it out in order, percent order to see if this will impact your life at all. And God knows how much money they lose, right? Yeah. When you order, when you order the whoop, they're sending the, the product, the shipping cost, the, the, the band, the, the, the device.
It's, it's a problem for them. That's how much they believe in their product. That's where, what e-commerce needs to get to. Mm-hmm. They, you need to start making products that people actually like or don't play the game. What, what are you trying to do? Like [00:44:00] a, a quick, quick buck on a few orders and then dip if Sure.
You can do that. That's what drop shipping is pretty much. But if you're in this for the long run, you need to get outta the mindset of what's my ROAS on? First time customers? Yeah. Then what's whoops, ROAS on. First time customer, God knows they're probably down in the hole so bad. Yeah. But when you look at the quantity of people who are coming back, staying for three years, four years, five years, paying them 1000 dead homes per year, now we're talking.
Right. And that's what they base their entire decisions on is LTV, not first time roas. Right. So I think e-comm brands need really need to start getting into this momentum of. You know, get outta the first time customer row as a mindset and to get from purchase number two to 10. Also, personalization is important, right?
A hundred percent absolute. Like when you use your own channels like emailers, there's so many free channels out there. So many frees to be personal. Organic content. Organic content, right? You're not paying for acquisition anymore. You're thinking about how do I elevate my brand? Mm-hmm. How do I get the message across of how my product can help you?
[00:45:00] If you look at most brands in the Middle East, what are their posts? Product pictures. Yeah. Someone holding the product like this. Okay, sure. Go ahead. Do one or two like that. But how does your product help me in my day-to-day life? Portray that, right. They don't do that very well. Yeah. Uh, even, even in the US they're not really good at this because they're not thinking long term.
They're thinking, you purchased, no, I'm good. Thank God you purchased. Okay, fine. Get me to come back eight more times when you play that game. Emails, SMS. Um, live events, offline marketing, huge, huge. Plays a huge role in getting people to come back. Uh, influencers, very big one. So like now you're, you're looking beyond paid ads.
You're looking at everything else you can do to get them to come back from two to 10. Right. And if you don't do that right, all your efforts on your first time meta, what would you say is the biggest waste, biggest, most successful? Me, like, not metric, but channel or, or tool in order to do two to 10. It's not a channel, it's your product.
I would [00:46:00] say something else, I would say the brand, no app to send, like, uh, notifications. When you convince, when you convince someone to download an app, the long-term value is much more probable than I see where you're coming from because you're probably thinking the likes of onas and level, right? Not only, no, no.
I'm talking when you, when you develop an app or when you develop a, uh, an app, an app. Uh, a website that's app applicable. Okay. On your, on your phone, you allow a company direct access to you. Yeah. Free direct access to you all the time. You send a notification whenever you want. Exactly. I completely agree.
And that's number one. So good signals. You also have access to data. Super hyper-personalization because you have direct. Yeah. Right. And this goes back to the cookie deprecation problem, you know? Yeah. If you convince somebody to download your app, you're done game. You can solve everything, you know? Yes.
And then you can leverage AI and you can leverage data and you can put RPAs, and then you get emails. You can get emails sent to this person, and then you can follow them on their drop cart. And then you [00:47:00] can bing them on products that are similar to what they bought. Yeah. The ecosystem in which you put them in, it's like you've actually taken them and put them in the store literally, and they will never leave that store because they'll never leave.
That common the the only nuance I would add to this is a lot of e-comm brands, especially the ones we work with, will not be able to pull off an app. Yeah. The reason is because. Um, I don't know. Let's say you sell, I'm thinking of a product, uh, like true classic. So the T-shirt I'm wearing right? They're, they're on, they're on their website, but probably the quantity of times people come back is like maybe once or twice a year.
Yeah. 'cause you're buying like 10 black shirts, 10 white shirts all at once. Right. Unlikely to be able to pull off like ridiculous app gains. Uh, or maybe even not, not even true class, maybe fashion, they'll be able to pull it off. Um. More basic products like, I dunno, coffee. Yeah, no one's going to download NCA's app.
You're just gonna buy from the supermarket. There are some brands, no Nestle's app, you download who app they could Nest. [00:48:00] Download Nestle's app. Oh fine. Maybe, maybe like, not, not product specifically, but I mean, do you really want to have like a Nestle app on your, I don't know if people will be leaning towards that a lot.
I, let's think outta the box right now. Okay. Imagine Nestle did a subscribe model that's as profitable, if not more than uh, Amazon, right? Because Amazon is selling Nestle's product on the subscribed model that is cheaper than what you could buy them in supermarkets, right. But who owns the ip? Who owns the brand, who own, you know, you know what I mean?
Like who can actually leverage that lever that, that model. Yeah, fair point, fair point. I think if you're able to launch an app and sustain it and make it, uh, um, still managed to be profitable because it's, it costs money right? To, to have an app. Uh, I think it's a great source of data to be able to personalize your a hundred percent your, your communication.
But I think when it comes to personalization, you need to be, you need to be personalized everywhere. Agree. You need to apply personalization everywhere, and you can do it through an app. An app is great. Agree, but you [00:49:00] also have to manage to be personalized in on social media, uh, on the website. Right. Even on on emails or, or SMS the one that doesn't have the other.
Absolutely. Yeah. And, and the, the amount of depth you can take this to is actually crazy. Even on emails, like most of the brands that I buy in Middle East, right? Middle East based brands. The email goes out to everyone the same way I'm on my eighth order. Stop sending me 25% off. Like, show me, show me, show me something else.
I, I, I'm done. You've already convinced me to buy your product seven times. I don't need another 10% off. It's not going to change my life. Um, the personalization should be through segmentation, right? So you segment. Yeah. People who are sub three orders, you need to talk to these people very differently than you talk to the 10th plus order people completely, they're already convinced.
Stop convincing them that your product is good for them. They already know and show them. And the next, in the next few months, I think people are gonna go even further. They're gonna want. That you te [00:50:00] you speak to them individually. You don't put them in a pot anymore, you know? Yeah. You can't speak to people that have sub three orders, plus three orders, eight orders, doesn't matter.
You need to speak to Andy. You need to speak to Rahim. You need to speak to me. It's, and this is exactly how it's gonna go. Right? Yeah. It's not, it's no longer gonna be acceptable the same way that we like. 10 years ago, it would've been dear guest. Yeah. You know, today if somebody sends you, dear guest guest, in which decade are you still in?
You know, and tomorrow is, it's not gonna be dear. It's not gonna be anything. It has to be in the tone of voice that you are used to. You know, like if, if you're a person that says bro to everybody, you would expect to have an email that's bro from a, from a brand. You know what I mean? Like this is how.
Specialized we're gonna become in terms of communication. Yeah. Um, uh, we, we have to wrap this up unfortunately. 'cause I and I, and I'm, I, I'm saying unfortunately because I feel like there's, there's more to talk about. Sure. I feel like we could have, yeah, let's make a sequel. We can make, we definitely make a sequel because I feel like we can talk a lot [00:51:00] more.
About where can brands get data from to be more personalized? And I feel like we touched a bit on it with the app. Yeah. I think we can talk a bit more about what, what could be other sources as well. Uh, but thank you guys for, for joining the show. We still have a minute words of wisdom to end our, to end the session.
Words of wisdom. To who? To anybody doing e-commerce or want to do e-commerce. Want to do e-commerce, I mean. Uh, based off of my experience, e-commerce is the number one way to be able to go from zero to one. I think if you have no experience, you're just graduating from university, probably the best thing you can do is launch your own e-commerce business.
It'll teach you everything from it, finance, managing your cash flows, inventory, making your own brand design, customer service, web development. You're going to literally learn how to run a business with very little upfront cost. Um. It's genuinely the easiest barrier to entry [00:52:00] compared to any other business model.
Um, and probably the best place you can learn this, I dunno if you guys know, uh, Jad, Ani Wolf of Bay. Yeah. He literally teaches how to start from scratch. Zero, like from zero teaches you everything you need to know on how to launch your business. And it's tailored form Middle East. So if your audience is Middle East based, this would be the the go-to, in my opinion, of where to learn.
And then take that and run. Amazing, God knows where you can land afterwards. No money was paid on a podcast by Wolf of Bay on a podcast. It's so good. No money was paid for From By Wolf of Bay? No, no, no, no. Is free media not, not sponsor. Hopefully we can bring in Marketing hasn't paid for this either. Cool.
Well good stuff. Awesome. Good speaking to you guys. Great to have you. Have a great day everyone. Thank you for having me.