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So good, it’s scary …

📺 Sarah Carusona unlocks TV advertising by answering 5 questions.

📊 Connor Rolain on how to forecast contribution margin — just in time for Q4.

🤯 Connor MacDonald drops a last-chance listicle stacked with 15 “reasons why.”

👻 Matt Bertulli challenges you to look into the eyes of a haunting subject.

This week’s top-five trending news with links, executive summaries + a bonus 🐼

Connor MacDonald CMO, Ridge

15 Reasons Why You Should Attend This Week’s Creative Strategy Summit​

We’ll let the lineup speak for itself.

1. Savannah Sanchez
2. Connor MacDonald
3. Connor Rolain
4. Cody Plofker
5. Alex Cooper
6. Dara Denney
7. Ben Yahalom
8. Phillip Jackson
9. Alysha Boehm
10. Jake Mehani
11. Shahbaz Khokhar
12. Sarah Levinger
13. Mark Alvin Magdayo
14. Abir Syed
15. Fraser Cottrell

This is your last chance to register for the event!

It’s free. It’s virtual. It’s two days of exceptional presenters + training this Thursday and Friday.

Don’t miss the opening session. Motion is going to drop some big announcements.

Pro tip: Once you register, you can add your favorite sessions to your calendar. Tune in to a few or attend them all.

Sarah Carusona Alpha Lion & Caskata

Fractional Head of Growth & CMO; previous Dir. of Ecommerce at OluKai; Operators Podcast E062​

For Meta and Google advertising, there’s more data than we know what to do with.

When I began managing 8-figure TV budgets, I was excited to dig in and discover how to scale.

What I got was a 30-minute weekly meeting with our agency. They’d say something along the lines of …

That’s it? I’m just supposed to trust it’s “okay,” and Animal Planet is a good bet?

Nope, not gonna work.

So, I started asking questions — a lot of questions to a lot of different experts in the space.

Here’s (almost) everything I learned:

1. Why? Benefits
2. When? Diversification
3. What? Definitions
4. How? Measurement
5. Who? Examples

 1. Why? Benefits 

About 315 million people in the US live in homes with a TV, ~95% of the population. Getting your ad on the “big screen” opens up immense reach and adds credibility.

While streaming is gaining higher viewership percentages — over 40% in June 2024 — and CTV ad dollars are projected to surpass linear in 2025, when a consumer watches TV …

They don’t think of it in the context of linear or streaming. To them, it’s all television.

And there’s still something special about seeing a TV commercial, especially for up-and-coming brands.

Being smart about adding TV can exponentially impact brand awareness and halo effects across all your distribution channels.

Plus, potential arbitrage as advertisers pull out of linear.

Being not-so-smart can have you wasting a ton of money for little reward. That’s what I want to save you from.

 2. When? Diversification 

Entering TV is tied to a larger question. When should you diversify channels? From my POV, based on monthly spend …

• <$300K: Meta & Google
• $300-$600K: TikTok & Bing
• $600-$1M: YouTube
• +$1M: Television

These are general guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.

I firmly believe that top-of-funnel is defined by content, not channel. Nonetheless, TV’s reach aligns with top-of-funnel goals + metrics.

Before we get to measurement, I want you to consider a few more ingredients.

• Creative assets​
  ​
  You don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars for a TV ad but you should be prepared to drop at least $25K+ on production and editing — much more depending on talent and licensing for music.
  ​
• YouTube strategy​
  ​
  YouTube is a great place to test your TV strategy’s core audiences and creative (the best awareness + response) before investing in linear — where you have to pay to traffic every new ad.
  ​
• Internal resources​
  ​
  Hiring a full-time TV manager isn’t required. But you need to have someone internal who can become the TV expert. Agencies are good to learn from, but you must be able to advocate for yourself.
  ​
• Budget and costs​
  ​
  Though I’ve seen $100K total monthly budgets succeed, you should start exploring TV past $1M. You’ll need to devote at least $40K per month plus creative costs and any agency fees.

Continue YouTube as your testing ground and turn your attention to the next question …

 3. What? Definitions 

First, there are two types of TV advertising: (1) linear and (2) streaming.

Linear TV is like circa 2015 Meta advertising. You buy audiences, channels, and day parts; analyze creative against those parameters; then, make human-led decisions on what to do.

Though ahead of Meta in terms of ad revenue — at least until mid-2025 — it is far behind on technology.

This is the inventory that large companies haven’t already bought up in what’s called “upfronts” — buys that happen many months before airing.

Remnant inventory has been made approachable by large TV agencies. You give the agency money; they place the buys. CPAs determine performance based on creative and placements. Winning combinations get more budget. Losers get removed.

Streaming TV — also known as Connected TV or CTV — has two forms: (1) direct and (2) programmatic.

Direct CTV involves going straight to the streaming platform to place a buy (i.e., Hulu). Programmatic CTV is buying the audience and serving across various apps + placements the advertising platform has inventory on.

It’s helpful to think about them across three areas:

• CPMs
• Reach
• Targeting

 4. How? Measurement 

Each type of TV placement and each TV partner will have slightly different ways of measuring.

But they follow similar principles …

Linear TV attribution takes your site traffic and observes abnormal spikes after a TV commercial airing — typically no more than 5 minutes.

Those “lifted” users beyond the baseline are attributed as TV-driven traffic and measured over an attribution window (usually 7-30 days) to see if they convert.

Streaming CTV triangulates IP addresses along with other consumer data points (emails, phone numbers, physical addresses, etc.) to determine how likely it is that a person in a household where your ad was shown also went to your site … and made a purchase.

Be very careful here!

I’ve seen streaming platforms set their default traffic attribution window to 14 days after viewing the ad. Then give another 30 days post the initial visit for purchase attribution. Must have been one hell of a commercial.

If you’re anything like me, you take platform-reported conversions with a grain of salt. Especially if the agency or partner is incentivized for you to spend more.

• Direct + search traffic and orders​
  ​
  What is the consumer behavior after seeing a TV ad they find interesting? They search for the brand. If your TV ads create a response from the consumer, they’ll show up via paid and organic search or direct channels.
  ​
• Paid search & social performance​
  ​
  Are you more likely to click on a Meta or Google ad if you already heard of the brand elsewhere? Consumers should be clicking, engaging, and purchasing at a higher rate when your TV ads are performing well.
  ​
• Post-purchase survey data​
  ​
  The responses for TV should ebb and flow in a similar pattern to your TV spend and performance. While this should be the least weighted data point in your decision-making, still pay attention to it.

Lastly, bucket your TV performance — both linear and streaming — into key audiences:

• News
• Information
• Entertainment
• Reality TV
• Home improvement
• Comedy
• Sports

Some of these have subcategories, the obvious one being sports: basketball, baseball, football, college, etc. Some you might not want to be associated with during certain time periods (e.g., news during the election).

Once defined for your brand, ask your TV partner to …

This way, you can see if a 30-second emotive ad performed better on sports and a 15-second product-driven ad did better on news. You’ll also find out what ad types and audience combinations don’t work.

For us, this led to conversations about where to invest and how to strategize creative per placement so we could double down on the highest converting audiences and creatives.

Use this strategy to level up your TV advertising by taking a modern, data-backed approach to a traditional medium.

If you’re wondering:

Not to worry … I‘ll include a flood of examples next time!

Until then, feel free to reach out to me with any questions you still might have on Twitter (X) or LinkedIn.
​

THE FEED

How to Manage Your Wealth

• ​YouTube​
• ​Apple​
• ​Spotify​

Resident’s EVP on Attribution, Analytics Teams & Data-Driven Marketing

• ​YouTube​
• ​Apple​
• ​Spotify​

Matt Bertulli CEO, Lomi & Pela Case

On more than one episode of the podcast, we’ve talked about category expansion.

In full transparency, it’s not something we’ve done well at Pela Case. Sean and I even jammed about this on a recent recording, digging into some of the things we’ve tried … but abandoned.

You could point to Lomi and say we did expand categories.

But Lomi’s an entirely separate business we (literally) chose to stand up at the same time we were building Pela.

I’m more talking about additional product categories under the Pela brand itself.

We launched sunglasses in 2019 and had a little bit of success, generating 7-figures in revenue in our first year.

Funny enough, we wound up shutting that category down because of the launch of Lomi. Had we kept it going, it’d probably be an 8-figure revenue stream.

I believe Pela can be the Patagonia of accessories.

A great brand that has a large following around the world. We’re closing in on 2M customers. With the right category expansion, we’ll see that number grow to 10M+ over the next 5-7 years.

One of the hard rules we put on ourselves when building Pela was around the idea of “graceful end of life” with materials.

Turns out, this is very restrictive — not everything can (or should) biodegrade as our phone case material does. While ambitious, the goal hurt our business in the short-term.

“Better” to us means less wasteful, whether that’s at the product’s end of life or its beginning (manufacturing).

We also evolved the brand to layer in accessibility. Changing our pricing + offers to make it easier for more people to purchase and attacking the notion of a “Green Tax” head-on.

I’m sharing this because I think challenging the beliefs we have about our businesses is valuable.

It’s not so much about expansion itself.

What’s something you believe to be true about your business right now that you should question?

What belief do you have for no better reason than it’s been around for a while?

What belief is holding your business back?

That’s what haunts me. Let it haunt you, too.

Connor Rolain Head of Growth, HexClad

Last week, I dug deep into HexClad’s Black Friday offer strategy. Cody Plokfer did the same thing with Jones Road’s Q4 plan.

Specifically with Oct–Dec’s uneven revenue distribution.

At HexClad, forecasting starts bottom up by calculating contribution margin at different MERs.

Here’s the tool we use to do that:

• ​Google Sheet: Make a copy​
• ​Loom 1️⃣ Instructions​
• ​Loom 2️⃣ Summary​

THE TRENDS

This week’s top-five trending news stories, curated by the editor of CPG Wire

1. Oura Acquires Metabolic Health Startup: TechCrunch​

Oura, the Finnish hardware company behind the Oura Ring, has acquired Veri, a personalized metabolic health startup. Veri utilizes continuous glucose monitors (CGM) and an app to guide users to the right foods and habits.

According to Oura, metabolic health is a key area of interest for its users, with 97% expressing interest in understanding how the food they eat impacts their health.

2. Row Raises Funding at $1B Valuation: Business of Fashion​

The Row, the popular but under-the-radar fashion brand co-founded by Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen, raised an undisclosed amount of funding at a valuation north of $1B. Investors include Tethys Invest and Mousse Partners, Chanel heirs’ family office.

3. Some BevAlc Ecommerce M&A: The Spirits Business​

Two of the largest players in the DTC alcohol space — Flaviar and Speakeasy — are joining forces after the former acquired the latter in a cash and stock deal. The combined company will process over half a million orders this year with 9-figure gross revenue in the US and Europe.

4. General Mills Bails on Yogurt: Food Dive​

General Mills, the cereal & snack giant that’s worth around $40B, is selling its North American yogurt division for $2.1B in cash. The buyers are Lactalis and Sodiaal, two leading French dairy firms. General Mills is divesting its yogurt business to focus on much larger cereal & snack divisions.

5. L Catterton’s Buying Spree: Global Cosmetics News​

L Catterton has acquired a majority stake in Stenders, a Latvian bath and body care brand that boasts over 300 retail stores worldwide. In April, L Catterton shelled out $1.5B to buy KIKO Milano, an Italian cosmetics brand, and they also invested in Alice Mushrooms, Squared Circles, and Viee.

 BONUS  🐼 Kanpai Foodz Expands into Target Nationwide

Famed swords salesman and organic-content juggernaut Isaac Medeiros’ candy brand has expanded beyond DTC, Amazon, and Hot Topic. As of yesterday, nearly 1.7k Target stores across the US now stock Cosmic Crunch Freeze Dried Gummy Clusters. Less than a year old, Kanpai is already an 8-figure enterprise.

Unfortunately, as Sean Frank pointed out, you “CAN NOT” invest in it. Isaac was unavailable for comment — probably because he manufactures in the basement of a haunted (former) asylum.

Enjoying the newsletter? Here’s the online version of today’s email … we’d love for you to share it.

Sarah’s segment set the bar! If you’re up for that level of depth and insight …

Hit reply to let us know (1) your topic + (2) your expertise. Our executive editor, Aaron Orendorff, will reach out if it’s a fit.

With thanks and anticipation,
The Operators

PS: Special thanks to Motion for backing us as a sponsor even before day one.

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