Is Anything Real In Paid Advertising?

[00:06.0]
Welcome back to "Is Anything Real in Paid Advertising?", the show where we unpack what's real and what's just noise in today's chaotic world of marketing and media. I'm your host, Adam W. Barney, and today's guest is someone who lives the phrase "market like you mean it".

[00:21.1]
Mason Cosby is the founder of Scrappy ABM Content first growth engine scaling through daily LinkedIn posts, weekly podcasts, cold ads, and speaking gigs at manufacturing conferences. That's true actually. Mason Cosby, welcome to the show.

[00:39.5]
He's also testing what works outside of echo chambers and learning what most ad happy agencies are missing. So welcome once again. Adam, thanks for having me. Excited to dig into it. You got it. I'm psyched to dig in. So across this idea of "Is Anything Real in Paid Advertising?", I know you're running two podcasts, 15 webinars across like two months and posting daily twice.

[01:02.9]
How are you building this at scale without burning out? Great questions. One, the quick context is we've scaled the business in the past two years so we're a two year old business and while I had lots of energy, I just worked roughly three jobs all at once, and then was able to hire.

[01:24.2]
So we've now hired a team that sincerely is better at doing the work than I would be. So I've actually then created the time, energy, space, and margin to focus on training and education, both internally and externally, and then team leadership, team management, and then running the actual business.

[01:43.3]
So for many organizations and founders that are in marketing agencies, they can't get out of doing the actual client work every day. At this moment, I only have one client that I am directly actively working on. It was our first client and I actually still love it. So like that's, that's our one client.

[02:00.5]
So I focus on building our marketing and sales program. I'm focused on retaining and expanding clients through great process development and then I'm working actively in one client so that I stay sharp. But outside of that, the rest of my time goes towards continuing to educate the market.

[02:15.9]
So I just work a few 55 hour work week which is late for an agency owner, but that's, that's how I have the time. 55 isn't, isn't too bad. And I know, you've made that bet on content and cold ads, across that sort of portfolio what's working better than expected?

[02:37.0]
Podcasting. We've now got, I'm super like, I, I've always enjoyed podcasting. My perspective on it shifted because when I was running my first podcast, which is called The Marketing Ladder, I worked at another agency, wasn't running a business and it was a hobby that happened to create revenue for my day job on occasion.

[02:56.6]
Interesting. Now, we really needed to get this dialed in for us. We also run podcasts for our clients. So I knew the strategy would work. But now that I've got roughly 11 shows that we're looking at from a data perspective, what we're seeing is that the booking rate on a podcast is still roughly 70 to 80%, when you ask people, and then from there roughly 40% become an opportunity within the trailing 90 days.

[03:26.8]
And the math on that is it's not directly every guest that comes on the show becomes an opportunity. What we're seeing is that's actually more like 20%. But if you've got great scripting and ways of continuing to engage the guests past the interview, we have seen another 20% send referrals our way that look like our target accounts.

[03:47.9]
So that system has worked extraordinarily well. We just earned $3 million in pipeline in about two and a half weeks because we went on a, you referenced it at the beginning, but I did 60 podcast interviews in 60 days, and as a result, that then within the trailing 90 days created lots of pipeline for us.

[04:07.6]
That's incredible. That's incredible. And I know, you know, you've mentioned to me before that you've also got a 2,000-plus account target list with a five year conversion runway, how does that long term approach bleed into what you were just talking about with the success of the podcast?

[04:24.0]
Yeah, so we're talking about 20% become an opportunity from that target account list within a trailing 90 days and then another 20%'s in referrals. But that's 90 days. Like the people that I have on our show, we've now created some systems. You referenced we've got a couple of shows now.

[04:42.1]
So what we're actually doing is guest swaps between Scrappy ABM owned shows so that we maintain those relationships. So they came on my show, they were a great guest. Well now they're going to go on our AE's show and actually since we've talked we've launched two more shows.

[04:59.6]
So then they're going to go on our head of podcast strategy show and then also they're going to go on our lead content strategist role or lead content strategist show. So we have four shows, and if we then engage them, through our program, which is they come on my show, they're a great guest, we then invite them onto my account executive show, which is very similar in nature, but shorter, more succinct.

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We then invite them back for a panel discussion with two or three other podcast guests from my show a quarter later. We then send them on a different show with our content strategist. And then lastly they land back on a show with our head of podcast strategy.

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So in the course of about a year to year and a half, they've created content with our brand four, five, six times and then developed relationships with multiple different team members. Wow, that's that value proposition that you can build through that process.

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That's incredible. And you know, in the show notes, we'll link of course to each of those podcasts, you know, to help there. But, you know, shifting gears a little bit, I know you've also spent a lot of time launching paid LinkedIn thought leadership ads behind that top content.

[06:13.2]
What's the goal and what's the result with that side of the play? Yeah, such a great question. Primary goal. Let me super clear, we're, we're still building this out. I would not claim personally to be a deep paid media expert. What I would say is we are focused first on generating that awareness within our target accounts because I feel really great about some of our lower funnel conversions and programs and I feel really good about our pipeline.

[06:40.9]
So I don't need to convert people probably the rest of '25 that don't know we exist. So what we need to focus on is how do we build awareness and engagement for '26, '27, and '28. So our ad programming is primarily focused on just generating specific engagement, creating followers of our content, getting them into our newsletter content, and getting them from being casual consumers on LinkedIn into engaged fans through content and newsletters and podcast.

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So when we look at it, the entire objective is just awareness. Wow, that's incredible. And one of the other things I know we touched on and that you've openly said is that your team isn't even touching on the retargeting side yet. That honestly surprised me because even though it's not a huge piece of the puzzle, you know, usually everyone's doing a little bit.

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What's been the rationale or the hesitation there? It's a great question. So one is our website traffic is actually fairly low in the grand scheme of things. So we roughly get 1,000 to 1,500 website visits on a monthly basis.

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And we've got a couple of different tools that we're already experimenting with right now around website denonymization. And what we are seeing is the ability to just directly reach out to people. And then many of the people that we know are markers that are in the know. So I've actually gone to the extreme of literally screenshotting the feed where we see people that are on our website, and I just send it to them and I say, hey, saw on our website, anything I can be helpful with?

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We currently, this is another problem to solve for another day, but if you Google ABM Agency, we are not currently in the top 10 pages of Google. So we only get found because people have already engaged with our brand and our content.

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So no one really stumbles on our website. They're there for a purpose and an intention. So when I look at it, and I can de-anonymize that traffic and then just reach out directly because they're already engaged and they're opted into other things. We have found that as a lower cost way to get us started. That said, with us now starting more on the cold layer of advertising, we are seeing an uptick in traffic where they are not engaged in other mediums and forms of content where we don't have that often.

[09:08.5]
So it is something that we're going to start launching here in the next quarter because it is such a huge opportunity to retarget your current traffic. The other component of that is we are about to launch a lot of new case studies, and ROI calculators, and things along those lines, that would then be better for a retargeting program versus just a pure book a meeting.

[09:31.9]
Or even I would argue building like marketing specific landing pages. Right. That's another opportunity there on that side to get outside of what is more stereotypically known as retargeting. I love that website de-anonymization process.

[09:47.2]
That's an incredible, powerful thing to open up. And you know, that helps you I think also in thinking about getting outside of your own network bubble a little bit. So in that realm though, across the clients you work with and across the broader industry of marketing and paid advertising, where do you see the biggest disconnect is between content creators and ad buyers?

[10:12.9]
One is, I think we aren't mapping where the buyer is in their journey. So when we run paid media programs, often we are seeing clients that are running to all of the same audiences, similar ads, that don't have nuance for their levels of past engagement.

[10:32.4]
So that's one thing that I think is a miss, because then what we're doing is essentially saying, okay, algorithms, you serve up what you think is the best content to our buyers, and we just kind of drop everybody into very similar programming, which I think is a mess. Versus creating specific programs that are based on pastels of engagement and then guiding the buyer through their journey based on what we know of them.

[10:58.5]
Now, is that perfect? Of course not. Nothing is going to be perfect. But if we know this person doesn't know we exist, great. Maybe let's not run an ad program that's focused on getting meetings booked. Maybe let's focus on more problem awareness type content that makes sure they know they have a problem.

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Oh, they've already been on our website like four times. Maybe that's more like case study ROI type content where we force them to book a meeting. Like, mapping that content to where the buyer is in their journey and then ensuring your paid media programs are set up effectively for that distribution is, I think, the largest disconnect today.

[11:31.4]
That's a huge piece of it. And another part, you know, that we talked about was the barter arrangements that you have in place. And that kind of blew my mind. You know, setting up, say, HubSpot in exchange for PR and speaking opportunities is an incredible platform also to grow your business.

[11:48.3]
Walk us through how that came together. Yeah, I had clients that had other vendors that they were working with, and those vendors were like, man, like, how did you get all this set up so well? And that client said, oh, I worked for Scrappy ABM.

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And they were, I'm gonna say this lovingly. They were poor, in the sense that they didn't really have $10k a month to just throw around, but they had skill sets that I don't want to pay for, but that I would like to have. Like, they had lots of connections in the event space or in PR, that helped us to build our brand credibility.

[12:25.0]
So the main ways in which we actually drive revenue as a business, we, referenced LinkedIn, we referenced podcasts. It's also a lot of speaking engagements. I do lots and lots of speaking. And by working with this PR agency, we were able to take our excess capacity, because it was over the summer, and I think a lot of agencies have a slower summer.

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So we took what would have been otherwise dead space and then did a HubSpot implementation and trained their sales team on how to run a new sales process. And from there, we got them making introductions to about 10 different conferences and events.

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And now we are starting to get a part of those speaker lineups, which is helpful because I largely live in a LinkedIn bubble, and I would like to engage audiences that aren't living on LinkedIn. Right, right. And when you think about, I know manufacturing is one that you've been focusing on, that's an increase in ROI with that kind of exposure versus traditional ad spend.

[13:29.8]
It's also something that you spoke about with that one-to-one connection being where we're moving to. Right. What would you tell other agency owners who are considering building that speaking portfolio, but they're not sure how to get started, or maybe they're not ready for that barter arrangement kind of agreement.

[13:51.4]
What I would start with is a podcast circuit. So one. I mean, we'll talk about this pretty openly. I just hopped off a different meeting, and now I'm here. Yep. And then this is reps for me on our talk tracks and how we speak about our business.

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So it is lower commitment, but still same desire on the talk track front. Yep. And there's no cost associated. So that's the first thing is I would just get some reps and some public exposure that you are a very valid speaker.

[14:25.6]
That's first thing. Second thing, I would look at events that happen in your city or within a driving distance of your city and try to get connected with whoever coordinates those events and say, hey, I just want to give you a heads up. I know you've got a great speaker lineup.

[14:44.2]
If you ever have someone drop out last minute and you need a backup speaker. Oh, I love that. I love that play. That's a great one. It's very helpful, it's how I got my start. I'm happy to show up and I travel cheap, AKA I'll get myself there and you want to pay me a dime.

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Right. And then that's how we got on a speaking circuit, is I got a speaking opportunity. I want to be super clear: was I a professional speaker? No. Was I good enough that I got asked back for the next year?

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Yeah. And then I ended up. I've now spoken at this conference called bwmx. I think next year will be my fifth year speaking in a row and I've gotten keynote sessions, and I've gotten massive, like, three-hour breakout rooms. So like what I actually heard from their event organizer is that I am a standing speaker until told otherwise.

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So I don't have to apply. They just have the expectation, and I have the expectation that I'm going to be there. And then when people ask, have you spoken in other places? I actually have files of me speaking to a room of 400 people where it was actually people were sitting on the floor to be in the session.

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Now they don't have all the other context surrounded of like it was actually the first keynote and like they, there was no other session but what they say, one of the conference versus conference. Right? Yeah, they don't have any of that context, but what they see is me on a stage holding a microphone, speaking to 400 people, and people writing notes.

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Right. And that looks really good. So that's helped me get more speaking engagements because I have that experience. And then the last thing that I'll throw out is build your own stage. So, often we look at speaking as earned.

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Right. You can own a speaking engagement. Like you could just do a small event in your city for like 30, 40, 50 people, video it, and then send that in as a submission that you have experience doing public speaking on a topic.

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Right. So you don't have to always look to earned first, sometimes you create your own experience, get the portfolio through owned things. And then start to get on a speaker circuit for earned events. That's incredible. I mean, that gets into that realm of where I've led across 20 years of marketing teams of saying so much of what we do, and I equate this back to fake it until you make it, to a certain extent.

[17:22.3]
Right. You know, it's that self-belief that you can, you can do it. Let me, I also wanted to ask, you know, Mason, I know you're also a fractional CRO for a media business. What are you seeing there that more founders should be paying attention to on that side of the marketing puzzle that we work within?

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There's a couple angles I could take this. Do you want to go how to sell, or do you want to go more the how do we think about growing? What's the one that pushes the corner on it or pushes CROs into a little bit of a thinking pattern there maybe.

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You know, as we've been looking at. So I'm also essentially CRO for our business. Like I have a CEO that runs the delivery side, but I now manage the direct sales process. And sales teams for two, arguably three organizations.

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Okay. The biggest thing that I'd recommend for people is understanding your seasonality. And what I am seeing is a better approach for actually securing deals is not discounts, it's actually, timing of payments.

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So right now I'm doing wild things where people are saying, our budget for '25 is already set, but we really need the help. I'm saying, totally fine, let's do an annual commitment. We'll do net 180, so you don't have to pay until January, but we'll start the work now because we have the capacity and you need the help.

[18:58.3]
Yep. And that offer is working because essentially we delay payment and have probably gotten to a point six months in where we've generated enough pipeline to pay for ourselves based on their standard close metrics. So, like, that offer is just really helpful.

[19:14.5]
But you can only make that offer if you've got the cash in the bank to sustain for six months without a payment. So what I would just throw out is understanding your levers of negotiation for selling, and knowing where you can make compromises you're happy about.

[19:33.9]
So that'd be the first thing. On the media side, if you're trying to figure out how to grow your brand, there's this really, really helpful post from a guy named Taylor Offer that runs a D2C business that's a clothing company.

[19:50.2]
When Facebook jacked up their paid media prices, by like 2x. I think it was like a year and a half ago or two years ago at this point. Yep, I remember. Oh, yeah, it was tough. Very rough. He just had this moment whereas the reason I spend money on Facebook is because it had the best CPL that made sure we had a highly effective CAC.

[20:15.4]
But if I think about it, the whole goal of anything we spend money on, on the marketing front, is to have a reasonable CAC. Yep. So if what I'm looking at in media or in a channel is that for some reason overnight our CAC went through the roof, or our CPLs went through the roof.

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Reassessing and looking at different things through the lens of a CPL has been massively helpful for us actually making sales on the media side because we run virtual conferences that are very. So Guru Conference is the company I'm the fractional CRO for.

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So last year we had 24,000 email marketers show up for a two-day virtual conference. We sell based on the CPL of where are you going to invest $50,000 to get back a lead list of 24,000 leads that on average spent eight hours of actively engaging content in a two-hour day.

[21:22.4]
Wow. They're segmented, they're engaged. And based on the CPL, they're actually shockingly cheap. So if you're looking at media and media spend for the purpose of brand reach and engagement, CPL is the main thing to look at.

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And for context, that's $2.08 on $50,000 for 24,000 actively engaged contacts and leads. That is so efficient and effective. That's wild.

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So, it's just math. So, yeah, that's what I'd recommend. Oh, man. Mason, this was a master class in how to actually get loud without just shouting into the void. And I know with Scrappy ABM, you're building a machine that's converting attention into traction.

[22:12.8]
Where can folks connect with you and follow your journey and your team's journey there at ScrappyABM? Main one is gonna be LinkedIn. So just go look up Mason Cosby on LinkedIn. And then the other thing is, if you Google Scrappy ABM, there's a newsletter, there's a podcast, there's a website.

[22:30.0]
There's an ungodly number of webinars. And then we are trialing this right now of doing a full day "ABM in a Day" workshop. It's six hours and it's free. So I don't know when this is being released, but if it, is before August 7th, scrappy.com/workshop.

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And then if this goes well, we'll probably do this workshop every quarter because it's already been a lot of fun. That's fantastic. All right. And then finally, Mason, for the agency founder who's burned out on cold ads but not seeing ROI from content yet, what's your one small piece of real talk advice that they could take away?

[23:09.1]
Two or three small pieces of advice. One, know your numbers.

[23:17.4]
And I don't just mean like your P&L, I mean, know your actual close rate. So that's the first most important thing. Because I had very low pipeline six weeks ago because it was summer and everybody's on vacation and I got sad.

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I was like, is this even worth building this business anymore? Like, I've put two years and like, I put my family on. A small spiral existential crisis that I'm sure we've all had at least twice a day. And then I like, isolated it, and I was like, okay, let me look at why I'm actually this sad.

[23:52.2]
Oh, I need five deals in the next three months. Okay. And I stopped being sad because I knew my numbers and I could isolate why I was frustrated. So those are two. And then you can build that path on how to get those five. Exactly.

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Because when you actually know your numbers and you go from I've got to engage 10,000 people this quarter to I need four customers, there's lots of ways to go get four customers. But you actually know what you're actually aiming for versus I just want to get to the like. Yes, you need to scale, that's great.

[24:31.6]
But, like, just know the number. And as a result, you can then break it down into what I actually need to do or the actions and the tactics that we need to go execute to hit these numbers. And then you go from anxiety, because it's unclear, to conviction, because you know what you need to go do.

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So know your numbers. It quantifies. Yeah. Yes. Know your numbers, break down your emotions, and then go act. I love it. All right, Mason. Well, thanks, everyone, for tuning into "Is Anything Real in Paid Advertising?", the show where we find the signal behind the noise. I'm Adam W. Barney.

[25:03.8]
Subscribe, leave a review, and check the show notes for more. But, Mason, thank you so much for joining. We'll have links to everything that Mason mentioned below in the show notes. And, I really appreciate you being here. Adam, thanks so much for having me.