Amy Vaughan:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly power lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughan, and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. Learn more about us and join the movement at togetherindigital.com. Everyone, please help me welcome today Anna Covert. She is joining us from, as we were just talking before we hopped online, Hawaii, where she runs Covert Communications, the state’s largest marketing firm. And now if you’re like most business owners, you have probably asked yourself, are my digital ads actually working? Am I reaching the right people? Is the website really delivering on what my customers need? For those of us who are in the digital space and marketing and who are listening, members or not, we know these questions because, again, we get the screws put to us, right, when it comes to reporting the data and the ROI or the ROAS or whatever term they like to use. Well, these are the questions that Anna spent her career trying to help businesses answer.
Amy Vaughan:
And what makes today’s session particularly special is that Anna is going to share the same high impact strategies that she details in her best selling book, The Covert Code. We’ll drop the link in the show notes. She has worked with hundreds of businesses from local startups to Fortune 500 companies, and she’s developed a remarkably clear approach to something that often feels pretty daunting and overwhelming, especially for us business owners, making digital marketing actually work for your business. So we’ve got a packed hour ahead with lots of questions, but as always, live listeners, we would love it if you would share any questions that you have in the chat, and we will get those asked. But we are going to break down everything from fraud prevention to creating smart budgets that make sense for your business. She’s going to help show you how to take back control of your digital strategy and make sure that every dollar that you spend is working for you. Anna, thanks for joining us in the Power Lounge.
Anna Covert:
Thanks so much for inviting me.
Amy Vaughan:
Absolutely. Absolutely. We’re really glad to have you here with us. Excited to have this conversation. Kinda sorta wishing it was in person, but you’ve helped to build Hawaii’s largest digital marketing firm. What sparked your journey into digital marketing, and what made you decide to share the strategies that you’ve shared, which are a little unorthodox, right, in the covert code rather than keeping them trade secrets?
Anna Covert:
That’s a really great question. I think it really starts much younger in my life. So I’m gonna take you on a little journey. Yeah. Right? So my story echoes out of many. I was a girl born in the early eighties, the year just before the Apple computer, and that’s 1983 for those of you trying to do the math. And my story was that of many. You know, I was born in a very or part of a very fluent community.
Anna Covert:
I attended private schools. I had a safe family, and I had every opportunity to succeed. The problem was that I’m dyslexic, and no matter how hard I worked and worked hard, I still struggled in school. As a result, I cried a lot, and it wasn’t fair. And that didn’t change till much later in my life, thanks to the unwavering support of my mother, but as many of you might have guessed, the computer. It opened up my world to opportunity. Finally, I could read my own handwriting. I had tools like Excel, Word, and others that helped level the playing field for me.
Anna Covert:
And technology has done just that for billions of us, made our lives easier, safer, healthier, and fairer. But as the saying goes, every technology is both a burden and a blessing. What I found is that those very same strategies that have helped my career as a business or digital marketing expert flourish have had the exact opposite effect on millions of business owners. And today, it is rare that a business would have no experience with online advertising. Yeah. Even the smallest mom and pop has a GoDaddy or Wix website, has tried to boost a social media post, added some SEO enhancement, something. And as a result, not a day goes by that I don’t speak to business owners of all sizes from all industries with the same outcry. By the time they’ve reached me, they’ve already been through three or more agencies, often spending hundreds of thousands of dollars without the promised return.
Anna Covert:
I had clients crying to me on the phone. Where had I been? And finally, I had enough. We had to reach people faster. We had to do something. And I realized that with my expertise, partners, and technology that I could make that meaningful change. And luckily, Forbes agreed and helped me expedite my book from pitch to publishing in eleven months because the crisis is real.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
And, really, you know, when I was going to college back in the day, you know, there wasn’t digital advertising. You know, a website was a virtual brochure, and there really wasn’t, there wasn’t social media, which I’m grateful for. But I actually started learning it all myself, and that started when I had a back injury in my late twenties. And I was going to a physical therapist, and she asked me if I could build her website. And at the time, WordPress was really taking off, and I had a boyfriend, and he was not the, he was very good looking, but not the sharpest tool in the shed. And he had been telling me that he was building WordPress websites, and I was like, wow. You know, if he can do it, I’m sure that I can do it. So I reluctantly told her that I could for, you know, for therapy trade, and that’s what started my learning.
Anna Covert:
I built my first WordPress website. I started my first AdWords campaign. And then from there, in the last fifteen years, it’s just, built.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. That’s fantastic. And, again, I think I relate to you so much in a lot of, like, your journey and what you’ve done and why you’ve done it because it’s like there is this, you know, advertising, marketing, digital especially, it’s such a great mobilizer for businesses and small businesses especially, and they are at such a disadvantage oftentimes. And it can feel, like you said, very overwhelming, and they do get burnt sometimes. Right? I think and I need to, I haven’t plugged this new podcast yet on this podcast, but I need to. We started another spin off podcast called Together Marketing Rescue, which, Anna, I would love it if you came on and listened. It is for our members only to listen to, but the podcast episodes themselves are live. So you can go out and find them in the world under Together Marketing Rescue.
Amy Vaughan:
And the goal is kind of in line with, like, what your mission is. It’s like, we are trying to figure out how to marry up small businesses with marketing service providers that are smart about how they use their money and their time. Right?
Anna Covert:
How to be fair.
Amy Vaughan:
Fair. Right? And then they report well, and, like, they’re being ethical. And I’m not saying because you’re a big business that you’re not ethical, but you have more overhead. You have more layers of complexity. And not every small business can afford nor needs a big agency to do the work that they need to have done. And so the goal of, you know, Marketing Rescue was to really help solve a problem both for our members who own marketing services who are struggling to find clients, and all these amazing small businesses, mom and pops, that have really kind of maxed out their own capabilities. You know? Because, like, the first episode is my friend, Kristen, who owns Sweets and Meets Barbecue, and, you know, they know barbecue. That’s what she’s there for.
Amy Vaughan:
Like, her and her husband, that’s what they’re doing. They don’t need to be worrying about, like, are their social media ads performing. They need somebody to help them with that response responsibly and ethically because they’re just good people who started with a grill for $800. You know? And so I just I love so much about what you have done and what you’re doing with your book and with the way that you’re approaching marketing, because, yeah, it just it’s really helping a lot of people, like, grow their business, which means food for their families, school for their kids. It’s such a great equalizer in helping grow the economy in the places where we need to be growing it right now. So I’m kind of curious. You serve a lot of clients, to get back to you. A lot of clients across different industries.
Amy Vaughan:
How do you help businesses find their authentic voice in a digital space too? Because that’s a challenge. Right? And this is very now like you said, when we both went to school, digital was not a thing. And now we’re just all a grain of sand in the desert that is the Internet. How are you helping clients work through that?
Anna Covert:
Well, yeah. I think you made a really interesting comment there because a lot of you know, I always hear every day people talk about SEO. Right? And, oh, I have to be on the first page search. And did you know that there are over 250,000 websites that come online worldwide every day?
Amy Vaughan:
Woo.
Anna Covert:
170 a minute. So, you know, the idea of search is changing. Yeah. As I said, you know, we’re a needle in the haystack. Yeah. And the most important thing is really to, in today’s day and age, to have that be authentic, you know. Mhmm. Really share the real story and have the value proposition.
Anna Covert:
And brands of today, they don’t just have a mission statement. They’re proving that they’re part of their business. Yeah. Right? Like, how are we gonna evoke and and share? Okay. You know, what we care about is the environment. Okay. Well, what are your proof points of that? Yes. And those little authentic stories are really what AI can’t, you know, can’t mirror, right, because it’s in the real world.
Anna Covert:
And we see that that’s really, really important for that authentic you know, what to do to stand out. Yeah. But, you know, every business, I think, is the most important thing to determine, you know, who is your audience.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
And now with digital, the good news is that we can reduce waste by really drilling into how we’re gonna target that person and move them through the purchase funnel.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Amy Vaughan:
I love that. When it comes to helping your clients find their authentic voice, I mean, I’m already thinking about the examples of the few episodes we’ve recorded. One with Crystal who owns magnificent morsels and one with Kristen who owns Sweets and Meats. I mean, sometimes I mean, for those two, I’m just gonna give an example to help maybe you answer this. But, you know, one of them in particular, like, that whole notion of them starting with a girl and $800, I was like, I just feel like that more people need to know and understand that. And then, like, I only just learned that, like, all of the recipes they use were handed down throughout her husband’s family. And that to me as a consumer, right, it makes me choose differently. I was wondering if you could kinda dive a little deeper.
Amy Vaughan:
Like, what are the ways in which you’re helping your clients, like, be specifically more authentic? Because we throw that word around a lot in this industry, and then I don’t think people understand how to actually get to that point.
Anna Covert:
You know, it really boils down to storytelling, which is one of the most common behavioral science strategies that we can utilize. Because, you know, humans, that’s how we all began, around campfires, sharing stories. And so it’s like, what ‘s the story? It’s about, you know, the legacy. It’s about the community. It’s about, you know, what is the story that’s the reason why you’re here? Why are you I mean, you everyone? When they start a business, they really are, you know, they have to think they’re gonna provide something that’s not being provided in that way. Well and how did they arrive at that decision? Because it’s a big decision to start a business. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
Your barbecue sauce is better. Well, why is it better? Well, well, because, you know, these are the stories that make up the reason why we knew that we had to you know, the passion was there Yeah. Able to invest our time and love, and it’s all about love. If you can’t show that love, then the consumer won’t respond to it, and then you won’t last. You won’t make it. So just really sitting down and thinking we always go through these brand exercises with clients and asking those questions. Like, if you’re a car, what car would you be? If your brand was a car, you know, what music would they be listening to? What is personification? And what are the stories that they tell people about who they are and why they’re here and who they’ll be in the future?
Amy Vaughan:
And do you ever find any clients, and I’m even thinking about this from, like, an individual personal branding standpoint, people holding back because it’s like they want to have, like, a certain ideal self out there in the world or an ideal product or brand without any vulnerability? I mean, how much vulnerability do you think is required for a brand to really reach authenticity?
Anna Covert:
I think in today’s day and age, you have to be completely vulnerable. Like, you should not hold anything back because those are the key differentiators. Like, we call them leverageable points of difference. What make you better, unique. And if you’re holding back, that’s the brand of the past where we were in control, like, you know, the way the media worked. Before, we had social media and online. It was a one way discussion. We told the brand you know, we had print. We had a radio.
Anna Covert:
We had a one way conversation, brand to consumer, and then you could control it. Right? Now with today, with this dialogue that’s happening, the brand has to realize that they can’t hide because people will figure it out. Right? And then once that trust is lost, it’s impossible to get it back.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. Oh, I agree. Such good advice. Thanks for letting me dig in more with that question. Let’s talk a little bit about a part of your book that emphasizes a lot about reaching the right people at the right time, and how has this targeted challenge or targeting challenge evolved over your twenty years in digital marketing?
Anna Covert:
Yeah. It’s a really great question. I think it’s related to what we’re just kind of the topic we’re just talking about because, you know, before, it was back to that one way conversation. Right? And we could control the dialogue. And as and even with digital in its early state stage and to some degree, you know and even when I say early, I mean, even the last five or ten years of what’s happened, right, is that we are treating it the same way we treat any media. Right? If I wanted to advertise online, I would go directly to that company. Let’s say it was People magazine. Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
And I have a media buy, and I’m on their site. Now I’m available to anyone who comes to people.com. Mhmm. But if that does that, that’s blanketing it out there. Is that same person the one who is actively seeking or interested in my product? The answer is maybe, but you’re wasting a lot of inventory and a marketing budget on everyone. Yeah. And today, with the digital tools we have available, the most important part is to reduce waste.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
And increase you know? And that’s what I think it all comes down to reducing waste. You know? I, the consumer, don’t wanna see a power commercial or or, like, a power tool commercial or a diaper commercial. Right? You know? And as a marketing person, I don’t wanna show my ad to somebody who’s not interested in it.
Amy Vaughan:
Right.
Anna Covert:
It’s this targeting and the ability to say, okay. Like, you know, are they raising their hand for these products? They are and I’m a big believer in universal consent, and I think a lot of companies miss it. You know, marketers have been those ones who have always been the abusers of data, we’ll call it. Right? And reluctant. I mean, I talk to clients all the time about, oh, and the data in their database. So we don’t wanna get rid of any of it. Well, why? Right? You know, why are we holding on to it like squirrels?
Amy Vaughan:
Like, you know, like like, oh, they’re all of our acorns.
Anna Covert:
Well, you know and there’s a cost associated with that. There’s a risk associated with that. If someone Mhmm. They should it should be just as easy for someone to opt in as opt out. I might be interested today in giving you my email for a 10% off coupon, but tomorrow, I decided I don’t want it. You know, remove them from your database. You’re holding you need to pay to hold them into Mailchimp and any of these programs.
Anna Covert:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
You pay for texting. There’s a risk to your domain if you send too many emails and they spam them. And, you know, the same thing with data. I mean, with California consumer protection and other global standards, you know, the rights of the consumer are important, and that makes marketing better because you are gonna only be speaking to people who are wanting to engage with you.
Amy Vaughan:
Oh my gosh. There’s so many implications to what you’re saying, Anna, and it makes so much sense, and I just wish we could kinda scream it from the rooftops for the amount of money that gets wasted on, like, over indexing on impressions, the economic impact like, not the economic, but the ecological impact on those things. It’s, like, one of those things I never even knew until probably ten plus years into my career that, like, all of that, you know, you’d think that, oh, it’s all going into the ether. It’s all on the Internet. It’s all cloud storage. No. It’s taking, like, a toll on our environment when we blast the world with a ton of advertising without being responsible as to, like, who we’re trying to reach and why. And, again, we have to treat time and attention like it’s gold, not just on our own end, but for our consumers’ ends because, yeah, we’re all just sitting here being very, like, overwhelmed by choice.
Amy Vaughan:
Right? And then we end up defaulting to, like, whatever’s there. So right time, right place is still so important, but I think, like, leaning that into that even harder for a number of reasons makes a whole lot of sense.
Anna Covert:
I think it used to just be about passing things that buy something. If you buy something and then how many times have people listening to this have bought something. Maybe they wanted a vacuum cleaner, and they bought the vacuum cleaner. And now they’re getting bombarded by vacuum cleaners. Right.
Amy Vaughan:
Well, I call it. I know. It’s done.
Anna Covert:
Right? And that’s just waiting. So that’s not that it’s using old strategies of list acquisition and things where I mean, for instance, I’ve given this example in my book. Like, you know, if, most, you know, top of funnel companies where that are doing awareness advertising online, that’s top of the funnel, they are using lists, right, to acquire data. And I’ll give you an example. So let’s say that and eBay is one of the largest sellers of data. So let’s say I’m going to a baby shower, and I go to eBay and I buy a baby stroller. Right? Now I’m on a list that says I’m the parent of a toddler. But I’m not the parent of a toddler.
Anna Covert:
I bought one product one time. Mhmm. Now I work for the hospital here. Then I built this baby app for the women’s hospital. So now we buy this data, and we’re now starting trying to serve ads to someone who is a parent of a toddler. Mhmm. Well, that’s why and this is one of those red flags I think we’ll talk about later. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
Is that if they tell you, oh, it’s gonna take sixty, ninety days for it to work. Well, that’s a red flag.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
Right? The reason why is because they’re trying to match consumers in ways that they’re, you know, they can’t be matched. Right? Yeah. And today with the tools we have, we know, you know, I would never serve an ad to someone on that list. I wouldn’t use a list like that. But there are hundreds of metrics. If I was a parent of a toddler, I would be going to mommy blocks. I would be doing a hundred other activities that would identify that, yes, not only am I a tall parent of a toddler, but I’m in the market for this specific thing now. And that can change.
Anna Covert:
Once I got that stroller, now I’m on to the next thing. Yeah. Right? So that’s why it’s so important to pick the right partners and the right data sources and be, you know, open to if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Probably is.
Amy Vaughan:
That’s so true. And it’s funny. It’s like, it’s instead of as marketers, I think the point you’re making, at least what I’m hearing is, like, we have to look at the correlation of behaviors versus one trigger behavior because this has come up and happened in the past too because I as well have worked on products for, like, women, and we used to do, like, we don’t anymore, like, mother’s day type of posts or emails. And I know I think it was Target at some point that was able to kind of, like, approximate based on women’s purchases when or if they became pregnant.
Anna Covert:
But it also could be risky. I don’t wanna interrupt you, but that can be something that’s actually risky for the consumer, and we’re seeing that already where Yep. You know, like, because of their buying behavior, they started getting, like, this woman a young girl or, I mean, like, a teenager. She was pregnant. Her father found out you know about the story. Yeah. Found out because that’s exactly what.
Amy Vaughan:
I was getting to it.
Anna Covert:
Right? Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Yep. That’s exactly what I was getting to. Or even though you have that instance of the woman who gave birth, something happens, and, you know, she isn’t able to carry out the pregnancy, and then that’s devastating. And then throw on top of the devastation a bunch of ads thrown in your face about babies. Like, no thanks. That’s not the right time. That’s not the right place. But you’re right.
Amy Vaughan:
We have enough data out there if we can learn how to use it properly and use it well versus, you know, only thinking about, like, their advantage, thinking about how it’ll impact others. I think it comes back and I think it actually proves to be, like you’re saying too, more effective and more impactful because it truly is the right time and the right place, and not just the assumed right time and place.
Anna Covert:
Right. Unethical. You know, like, what is our role as a business provider, you know, and Yeah. And service providers. And Mhmm. You know, because trust is so important for the consumer. And, you know, we know that those who even share their privacy and how they use data are getting more adoption than those who aren’t.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
And, you know, once, you know, would someone shop at Target again? I mean, probably not. You know, I wouldn’t.
Amy Vaughan:
No.
Anna Covert:
Right? So, it’s a business decision that’s gonna pay off.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. No. I agree. So speaking of trust, in your book, you talk about how businesses should never trust anyone to bid on their behalf. Can you talk us through maybe some examples of what that is and what that means and where you’ve seen this go wrong, and what should have been done differently?
Anna Covert:
Yeah. So, you know, that’s a really great question. Sorry. And, it comes down to that company is like, let’s talk about Google for a minute. There’s so many that we could talk about, but Google. Right? You know, anyone. They, you know, they make it sound so easy for you. It’s called Smart Bidding.
Anna Covert:
Right? And what they say is that, hey. Don’t worry about, you know, anything. You just tell us what you wanna spend per day, and we’re gonna handle the rest. I think as we can all understand that they, you know, they can’t know what our customers are worth to us. Right? And what is a conversion? And when there’s a shopping ad, for example, it’s much easier to determine because it was a credit card that was swiped and the transaction occurred on that visit. But for b two b or any anything else, if I’m a I sell a lot of solar. I do a lot of solar work. You know, a conversion is a lead, but did we meet with that customer? Were they qualified? Right? Did they sit with us? All these different things.
Anna Covert:
So if we’re letting an algorithm say, oh, it’s worth this, well, they don’t know the whole story. Right? And the same thing with ZIP codes, like, back to solar. Not all ZIP codes. I might cover California, but then we can agree that there are different territories in California or ZIP codes where there are higher income residents. Not everyone is worth the same, and they can’t know that. It’s your business. Right? You have to be the one who’s gonna know and be in control of that process. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
And so they they’ll spend all your money, and
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
There you are wondering, well, where’s my ROI? Well, you let it up to someone who knows nothing about your barbecue sauce. Mhmm. Right. Yeah. And so that’s, one of the, you know, kind of easy examples. Another one is that the media, unlike traditional advertising where there’s a fixed insertion order, like, meaning that I’m agreeing to spend $5,000 on a printout. This is what I’m gonna get. This is my column width and length, and this is where it’s gonna be distributed and whatnot. Online advertising is a real time auction happening twenty four seven, meaning that it changes daily based on, you know, seasonality, environmental issues, even the weather.
Anna Covert:
Right? We see it affect online behavior. Competition. A lot of times, we see big companies do what’s called flying. So let’s say that I’m back to solar. You know, like, Tesla or a big company like that could decide they’re gonna launch a new product, and they’re gonna spend a million dollars online in California in these two weeks. Mhmm. Right? Well, that then is going to push all the bids up, right, because they’re bidding very, very aggressively. Well, if you’re not paying attention and you’re not really, like, looking at your data and what you’re spending and what you’re how many people you’re reaching, we call that search impression share.
Anna Covert:
Well, you know, then you might make some bad decisions. You might all of a sudden be competing with someone who has five or six times the budget you have. Mhmm. Whereas if you start to really realize you are in control
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
And while there’s a lot of things we’re not in control of, we can at least make decisions quickly Mhmm. And decide, you know, oh, okay. Well, today, I was bidding or yesterday, I bid $5, and I reached 40% of the audience. Now that same bid, I’m only reaching 10%. Well, what’s happening in the market? Right? Mhmm. And am I gonna, you know, radically try to adjust, or am I gonna just wait it out because those flights don’t last? Right. And so those are the kind of reasons why you need to be in control. And if you let someone else pay, what they’re gonna do is suspend all your money.
Anna Covert:
And, like, the last one I’ll give you is so is Facebook. Yeah. And so when and and it’s all if you remember nothing else, just remember that their job, right, and and they wanna help you. I’m not saying that they don’t. But they’re gonna spend all your money no matter what. Yeah. That’s why Facebook, they can’t, they won’t promise you anything. They give you an estimate of impressions and clicks.
Anna Covert:
Right? It’s not a promise. Right? So the trick here is to give it enough time. So if I have a promo if I wanna spend $500, well, give it 5 give it a month to spend the $500, a lifetime budget. Because if you do a daily budget or a short term window, what’s gonna happen is that no matter what, by the end of that budget, by the end of the day, they will have spent all your money.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
But we can’t, we don’t know what happened. Right? Did those impressions ever get served?
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
And the answer is that no. They don’t. Because how do we know that the impression was ever served? Right? And so for our listeners in traditional advertising, if I run a TV commercial and I wanna know, did it run? I can call Nielsen. Nielsen reports every TV station in the country. They can pull up a report and show me that, yes, my spot ran. This is how many people were tuned in. If grandpa slept through it or someone left their TV on for the dog, well, that’s not their fault. Right? And it’s fair.
Anna Covert:
Scarborough does it for the radio. There are third parties that follow print publications to make sure they’re distributed. There are companies that stand on the side of the road and click billboards as they pass by or or click cars as they pass by billboard to confirm impression share. There is no third party oversight online at all. You have to believe the media company that what they’ve said in terms of impressions, oh, I served a million impressions. Great. How do you know that? Yeah. Right? And that’s the bottom line.
Anna Covert:
There are ways that you can, you know there are protections for that and for bots and with the rise of the bots. Now half of all traffic online is fake, and they’re getting smarter and smarter. So, you know, Yeah. Using bot protection, picking the right partners that will allow us to put a third party pixel into our ad to see that it was viewed. You know, there are so many ways to be taken advantage of at every level by the publisher, by the browser, by the you know? So I write about all that in my book. But really understanding, you know, that you have options. And if you trust the other third party, well, then that’s your fault that you trust it.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Yeah. If you’re paying I guess you’re kinda paying for that inconvenience, so just might as well consider it, like, a big old convenience fee at the end of the day. So what are some I think you gave some good strategies and tips and ways and tips and ways in which we could start to look into and make sure that, you know I think part of why people go to the bid on behalf well, one, businesses do what we know because they can make a a quicker buck, right, for the convenience factor. But us as marketers, you know, it might be more of, like, time constraints. So maybe what would be some tips that you would have for marketers who want to do more of this where they aren’t using the automatic bidding, but they have a multitude of clients that they’re trying to serve? Like, how do you kind of manage all of that?
Anna Covert:
Yeah. You know, I mean, it’s actually really not that challenging. And on my website, the COBRA code, I have free resources. You can download a checklist for Google. Yeah. And you can just follow the instructions, and within twenty minutes, you will have saved 20% or increased your conversion at the same value. I’ll give you another. Like, this is a really easy one.
Anna Covert:
Right. If anyone has Google Ads and they’re on their computer right now, log in and you go to your settings, campaign settings. Go down to the location. Right? You might let’s say I’m targeting some I wanna target people in Hawaii. Okay. Well, right underneath the location section, there’s a little hidden setting there.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
It says, you know, location settings. So you turn it on, and there are two options there. One is the default from Google. Right. And it says, target people who are located or have interest in my target location. Okay. That’s recommended. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
Alright. Then the one right below that is target people physically located in my location. Now let me give you an example. If I let Google do what they recommend and that they automatically default, let’s say I’m back to solar here. I have a solar company here in Hawaii, and I’m targeting people in Hawaii. Well, you have an interest in Hawaii. You’re coming to Hawaii on vacation, so you’re looking at hotels. You’re looking at activities.
Anna Covert:
You’re looking at all kinds of things, restaurants. Where am I gonna stay? You have an interest in Hawaii.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
Now you’re back home in Ohio, and you want solar. Right? You go online. You search. Boom. Up pops my ad. You click on it because it’s hard to tell a location from an ad. Right? And you see, oh, well, this solar company is in Hawaii. You click right out.
Anna Covert:
Yeah. 30% of budgets are or more are spent because people are allowing that one default.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah. Wow. That’s impressive. Thank you so much. I love all this, like, very, like, more in the details, nitty gritty, tactical stuff, and I know our members do as well because they’re in this every day. One of our live listeners, Jillian, was just commenting how insightful this was because she sets up campaigns every day that utilize this automatic bidding. And she’s trying to fight it, but loves being able to see different viewpoints since her clients are always sitting on these lists and these automations.
Amy Vaughan:
But I think if you can go back to them, Jillian, and share some of this data of, like, yeah, 30% waste. Does that sound good to you, client? Like, maybe we will try a different route.
Anna Covert:
You know? We only wanna target people in our ZIP codes. Right? Do you have clients in Nebraska? No. Well, then let’s not make sure that they’re not getting ads. Right? And another easy one that people can use, and it’s one of the ones that they always hide. Right? So there are three different networks. Right? There’s Google search, right, meaning that you go to Google and you search. There are Google partners, which they won’t even share a list with.
Anna Covert:
That should be a red flag for you. But why won’t they share a list? Right? There’s all these other partners that they say they can serve ads on their site. Then there’s the Display Network, right, which is basically the same thing as the partners but just a Display ad. Mhmm. Okay. So how we buy media online is a really important segue here. Right? So anytime that I go let’s say that I’m doing Display Network. I mean, no remarketing is one of the things we’ll talk about in a little bit.
Anna Covert:
But, and so every time whoever you pick to be your distributor, in this case, it’s Google.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
Every site that they serve my add-on, they have to pay for that site. So Mhmm. If my ad shows on people, Google has to pay people, right, for that impression. Right? Well, how does Google get paid? Well, they get paid by cost per click. Mhmm. Right? So a lot of people don’t know this, but it was a time a couple years ago where they were, like, worried about going bankrupt. Okay? And it’s a shock. People are like, what? But the problem was they were so big and so bad, and they were on you know, they were like no one could compete.
Anna Covert:
Right? Mhmm. And they were serving millions of impressions. Yep. But they were only you know, some of these ads were they had eight ways to bid back then. You could only know, some people were paying, like, 20¢ a click. Well, Google realized, oh my god. They had these bills that they couldn’t pay because they were now having to pay for every ad. So what did they do? Well, they did two things.
Anna Covert:
They changed all the bidding strategies. There’s now only three ways. Two are in people’s control. The only way you can use it is max cost per click.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
And then you can set it. So you can say, I wanna bid by max.
Amy Vaughan:
Oh, that’s great.
Anna Covert:
So I say I always start with, like, a $5 or $3, right, no matter what it is. Yeah. Set that that’s the max that you’re willing to spend.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
Right? And then we’re gonna use exact match keywords to make sure that that’s what’s being shown. Right?
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
You know? But so now, you know, then the other thing that they did was they deployed bots to click on their own ads to make sure they could pay their partners. Yep. So, and for that reason, my favorite partner is Clicksease. And, actually, on my website, if you go to the partner section under resources, I have some affiliate links. We, we do, donate to Maui for the fires that people sign up using my account. I love it. But, you know, within seven days, it’s only, like, $65, right, for the big plan. And you will immediately so it blocks the bots.
Anna Covert:
Right? Well, the first bot will be tracked. Well, it’s built for you. But then after that, they block that IP. And then what that’s gonna tell you is that the only way you can do that really is through Google search. Does Google search cost anything to Google? No. They don’t have to pay themselves if they show an ad on their own site. Mhmm. It’s an opportunity cost.
Anna Covert:
Who what they’re doing is saying, k. How many advertisers do I have who meet the criteria, and now it’s a bidding war.
Amy Vaughan:
Right? Yeah.
Anna Covert:
But it’s just an opportunity cost for them. It doesn’t cost them anything. So only use Google search. Don’t add partners. Don’t add a display, you know, in at all. Right? And no matter what they tell you, it’s not gonna be good for you. Right? The bots are clicking on it, and you can’t protect them. Then click, see, and connect your Google Ads account, and you’ll immediately see that you’re saving 30% from day one.
Amy Vaughan:
That’s awesome. Yeah. I can’t wait to start doing some of these things.
Anna Covert:
The most accurate thing available to check this on my website.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I love it. And I love all the resources and all of it. It’s just so awesome and generous. So, I mean, we’re kind of tiptoeing around this already. But, like and I don’t know if this is just the one of them or one of many, but I was wondering if we could kinda talk through some of the, bigger red flags that, digital marketing experts. How do you know if they might be a fraud?
Anna Covert:
Oh, yeah. So there’s some really easy ones. So first, you’re gonna ask them a couple questions. And the first question is, how are you gonna prove to me that this impression ran? Mhmm. Yeah. Go, oh, well oh, cool. You know? Deer in headlights. Well, because if you and and a lot of times, I mean, the fact is they they’re they’re they may not be able to.
Amy Vaughan:
Right?
Anna Covert:
And so that’s a red flag. Right? You know? And I always have a lot of clients ask, you know, I’ll I’ll be, you know, on a call client a potential client, and, oh, they’re like, oh, we do remarketing. I’m like, oh, that’s great. You know what? I’ve been to your website. I haven’t seen any ads. That might be because I’m in Hawaii. You know? Yeah. Do you ever see your own ads? Oh, well, maybe.
Anna Covert:
Well, no. It should be maybe. Do you see your own ads? Like, I see my ads all the time. Right? Yes. So you gotta have to see it to believe it. Right? That’s an easy one. Right? Yeah. If you’re googling yourself and you don’t see your own ad, that’s a red flag.
Anna Covert:
Right? But how are they gonna prove it works? What is the protection against invalid traffic? Do they use bot protection? And are you paying for invalid traffic?
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Right? Yeah.
Anna Covert:
You’re not. Right? And over this is how we’re gonna track it. This is what we’re gonna do about it. Right? And then you shouldn’t pay for invalid traffic. There are partners that will, you know, on the top of the funnel who will share it with you, and then you won’t pay for it. Mhmm. And then the other one is, you know, when it comes to one of the words I hear all the time, and I have a whole section of my book about it because it’s so egregious, is the idea of geotargeting. Right? Or geofencing more geofencing.
Anna Covert:
You know? Yeah. And it sounds too good to be true because it is too good to be true. Right? What they’ll come to you and say is, oh, guess what? You know, I can you know, you’re interested in the military? Great. We can put a fence around the military base, and we can serve ads. Okay. Well, great. How are you gonna do that with the technology available today? Because there’s no tracking location tracking on the phone anymore. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
How so well, I mean, you know, oh, then they’re gonna be like, well, how are you gonna prove that? Right? And then there are some partners who there are some better ways we could do it. But, basically, it’s if you have, like, the cable companies, if they have control of the IP Okay. Then we do know. It’s called addressable inventory. We know their house is there and because they have the Internet and Mhmm. And then we know, right, that they’re there.
Amy Vaughan:
Right.
Anna Covert:
But other than that, how they’re doing it is based off of list acquisition back to that. So they’re buying a list of people in an area that match your woman and this age. We think because of a third party that they live there. And then they’re gonna try to serve you an ad, which is ridiculous. How are they gonna serve you that ad? How are they gonna you know, on a computer, there’s cookies. Mhmm. Right? And cookies, we all probably have heard of cookie degradation and what does it mean and all that, which we’ll get to. But on a phone, it’s called finger ID mapping.
Anna Covert:
So there’s no IP address on your phone. Right? So how they’re looking for the connection is based on an email that matches somewhere that they do have, and they’re trying to connect it. You know? Yeah. That’s why in apps, a lot of apps, you know, they have location tracking. That’s one of the ways that they can try to associate. But then how many ads can you serve? How often are they in that app? Right? So you have to be very, very careful when people throw around these terms. Right? And then you’re like, okay. Great.
Anna Covert:
I wanna believe you. I do wanna believe you. Prove it to me. Prove to me. And, you know, like so if let’s say, probably a lot of people are listening right now, you may I would go into an event. Right? And you have a booth at an event. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to geofence this conference center and then serve ads to people who attend? Yeah. That’d be the dream.
Anna Covert:
Right? Okay. They’re gonna say that they can do it and no problem. And then you’re gonna ask them, well, how is the frequency that you’re gonna be able to serve these ads? Yeah. And they’re gonna and and well and you probably will get back something like three, a frequency of three. Over what time? Well, thirty days. Okay. Well, do you think that with all of the chaos and all of the things you consume daily.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
That three impressions over thirty days is gonna be enough for them to move on.
Amy Vaughan:
It’s not. Not gonna move the
Anna Covert:
The same thing with your Facebook ads. If you look at a report after and you look at the frequency. They’re gonna come up usually in every industry, around 1.5. Well, 1.5, that’s a weird number, first of all. Right? Yeah. How do you have a half a comp impression? But that’s not enough to move someone from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel. We say it takes seven to win. You need to see something at least seven times.
Anna Covert:
Yes. And, you know, over and that’s the easy way. I mean, I have more math and details in my book about the way that I, you know, use digital online. Right? Because there isn’t any critical mass messaging equation, right, versus this. Because Yeah. Just back to how we would ever know. Right? Because it’s a dark hole. Google can control everything.
Anna Covert:
If you’ve heard of this antitrust lawsuit and you look at the graph I have, it might be on my website, but I can share with you later. And it just shows basically, there’s three parts to buying. Right? And Google is making money at every single part. There’s no way to serve an ad online today where Google doesn’t make money. Yeah. Let’s make sure they don’t make, you know, all the money.
Amy Vaughan:
Right? You can click.
Anna Covert:
I can even buy Google from the media exchange.
Amy Vaughan:
I don’t have to buy it from Google. Right?
Anna Covert:
Yeah. So you must see it to believe it. You ask them, you know, how are you gonna prove that these impressions are served? Because another thing that can happen if we’re you’re you let’s say you’re on, you know, CNN. An ad gets displayed, and how you know it’s on the media exchange is there’s a little blue cone in the top corner. If there’s no cone, that means that that person went directly to CNN and bought a package, like traditional advertising. Right? But if you see the cone, you know, a lot of times an ad will play, and then another ad will play right behind it. Right? It’ll play get or another ad or your same ad. Right? That’s because they’re delivered stacked in a container.
Anna Covert:
So there might be multiple ads that are served or stacked in the container. Right? But that doesn’t mean that you reviewed that ad. As I’m scrolling down the page, I think it’s up there, but it’s not viewable to me. Well, a lot of people will charge you for it being delivered to the page. That’s what’s called the viewability score. Right? So how are we gonna prove that the impression ran and was viewed? What percentage? You know, a lot of times I say, like, okay. We’re looking for, like, a 50% view rate because people are scrolling and, you know, we can’t have it all, right, or 75%. But you have to be in control of that and know, especially with YouTube, for example.
Anna Covert:
Right? You know, if you go right to YouTube, first of all, there’s no bot protection, and they can skip out for seven seconds. If I buy it through the media exchange, I can guarantee the view through is 75% or %, and I can validate invalid traffic. So you have to know that, you know, you’re in control.
Amy Vaughan:
You know,
Anna Covert:
You pick the right partners, and then you ask the right questions, and then they won’t be able to answer them if they’re a fraud.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Well and, I mean, I would also say that, like, I would go so far as to say that I just don’t think that there’s enough education in general, which is why I appreciate what you’re doing so much for marketers themselves not to behave in what feels like a fraudulent manner of, like, just not knowing and not recognizing and realizing. Because I think oftentimes, you know, digital you know, like we said, it wasn’t even, like, a line of coursework within school for us ten, fifteen years ago. And even nowadays, the tools are changing constantly. Right? So, like, in all of the mass hysteria over going to g four. Right? It’s like they’re always evolving and they’re always changing. And I think what we sometimes forget is, like, what you’re saying. We have control, but we also have to recognize that they have the data, which means you can’t implicitly trust every platform to basically be performing to your best interest in dollars.
Amy Vaughan:
You have to do what you’re doing, Anna, which is asking the questions, digging harder into the data, and being a smarter marketer at the end of the day, which is what Yeah.
Anna Covert:
And I think that is a really good point there. It’s something so important. I always tell clients a lot of times I hear there’s a lot of fear. Right? You know? Mhmm. Oh, it worked before. Why isn’t it working now? Right? Or if I stop the ads, then what’s gonna happen? Well, okay. If your ads, any ad you’re doing should have some kind of trackable measurable result. If it doesn’t, don’t spend more.
Anna Covert:
I mean, that’s one of the number one things I hear. Oh, they told me I increased my budget. No. Right? Don’t be afraid to push, pause and regroup. Look at the website. You know? What is the mobile experience? You know? What is how we get traffic? How do we get more from that traffic? Because before you spend a dollar on paid search or anything, you know, you need to make sure that the website is converting and that’s Yes. Oh my gosh. And then if they do change, because they’ll change, and it’s not working all of a sudden, well, hey. Let’s regroup, and you’re better off cutting your losses. You know? Yeah. Tomorrow will come, you know, and and you can but you don’t wanna spend $2,000 waiting for that to come true.
Amy Vaughan:
No. And I mean, again, small businesses, that’s just it’s definitely not ideal.
Anna Covert:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Let’s talk about search marketing because we’ve brought it up a couple of different times. I’m curious, like, if you have some advice or thoughts on some of the more counterintuitive things you have learned about, this is when businesses should or shouldn’t invest in it. You said so I wanna go back to something you said a little earlier too about search versus display even.
Anna Covert:
Yeah. You know, I mean, I think that well, I can give you an example of, so we’re always you know, because of this evolution, I guess, it’s off the same topic, we’re always testing new things out, you know, with clients. And so one, a couple years ago, I think it’s two years ago, the Performance Max campaign came out. Probably people are oh, yeah. Performance Max. And it sounded great because I always loved that Gmail targeting and which they got rid of, you know, inside Gmail. Right? So this was the sound of two good features. Like, a blend, right, of YouTube map, Gmail, search, display, and and that was based off of a smart campaign pretty much.
Anna Covert:
Right? You know, performance max means that you have to have a daily budget, and Google’s gonna serve the ads where they want. Right? But we had a client. We’re like, let’s try it out. Right? And right from the get go well, this is before I knew about bot protection. Right? But, that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, so the campaign starts, and all of a sudden, we’re starting to see so many conversions, and we’re like, oh, my god. It’s a holy grail. Like, this is amazing.
Anna Covert:
Right? But then our Slack channel’s pinging and the client’s like, oh, we’re getting all these forms filled out on their Unbounce page. But then we start looking through them and their bots. Right? And it’s clear. It’s just like, you know, mike@botzilla.com and Yeah. All these and so, you know, it was, a lot of times, especially with companies when you’re not the one who’s in control, right, or or or you’re the business owner, you’re busy. You’re doing other things. You know? Yeah. You know, it might be looking at a report and, like, oh, this is working.
Anna Covert:
But then you have to say, well, is it really working? You know, what are these conversions that Google’s tracking? Yeah. And do they matter to you? Right? So that’s, you know, kind of one of the pieces of, like, do we try things out and you know, but back to that you can’t really trust it. You know? Yeah. And I think it all depends what tool you pick really depends on where you are in the purchase funnel. And this is a really important factor because what we’ve been trained to believe, right, is that digital advertising is all trackable. Right? And it should happen immediately. Right? And to some fact, you know, at the bottom of the funnel, so the for the peep for people listening in case they don’t know, is the purchase funnel if there’s an awareness is at the top. Right. Consideration, intent, and action.
Anna Covert:
So in my example for solar, I’m aware solar exists. Okay. Great. Considering that, my bill keeps climbing. What am I gonna do about it? Intent, oh, my I’m gonna call my neighbor. They have solar. I’m gonna call my mom. Oh, I’m gonna go online now and search for solar.
Anna Covert:
What do I know about it? I’m gonna start learning. An ad gets served. They click on the ad. They go to a website, and now they leave. Right? So a lot of times, client people make the mistake of not understanding what is the customer’s journey, how long it’s gonna take. Once they go to the site Mhmm. What do we expect it to be before they come back on their own and convert? Yep. So we determine with hundreds of pixels that the solar journey is between twenty eight and thirty two days.
Anna Covert:
Yep. Right? So if I was looking at a report and I was spending $5,000 a month and whatnot and, oh, well, I don’t see it working in, you know, fifteen days. Must not be working. Well, you haven’t given the customer enough time. Right. Yeah. Shopping has shorter windows. It’s called seven day time decay. If they didn’t buy it within seven days, chances of them buying it slipped dramatically.
Anna Covert:
You know, it depends on the type of industry and how long the more expensive it is, the bigger the investment, the longer the journey will take. It could take a year. Understand that. You know? Figure out and that’s when you say, okay. If I’m gonna spend money and and and before I get there you know? And so the idea of tracking. Right? And this is something we talk about every single day. Right? Like, everyone wants to give everyone credit. Right? Well, everyone wants to take credit.
Anna Covert:
It’s called attribution.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
So in your g four account, people listen, go to your settings, click on attribution, and you wanna make sure you have data driven attribution, and you wanna include paid and organic. Then thirty days, click recommended. And then right below that, there’s gonna be another option that’s gonna have ninety days as the recommended setting. Change it to thirty because you want everything to be equal so that you can evaluate what actually did happen. Yeah. So, and and what’s I’ll give you an example. So let’s say I clicked on an ad and I go to the website and I don’t convert. I didn’t fill out a form.
Anna Covert:
The only time a UTM is tracked, right, is when it completes on the same visit. Google Ads can, now that we’re gonna give it this authority, can take credit for up to thirty days if they come back from an organic channel. Mhmm. Let’s say now I see a remarketing ad, and I click on it, and I still don’t convert. Now I see a social media post. Finally, I click on it, and I convert. Well, if you’re looking at a traditional report, it’s gonna you might think that you’d have three conversions. One from Google, one from the remarketing company, and one from Facebook.
Anna Covert:
But you didn’t have three conversions. You had one, and they all assisted. Right? So yeah. Don’t get buried in the weeds of, like, oh, I can’t track everything. Just, you know, everything online, it’s an environment. It all works together. And then you have to use your little detective hat to see, okay. Well, what was the first instance? I always give the first visitor, like, you know, the Uh-huh.
Anna Covert:
The greatest value of that source. But everyone else participated. So when you wanna you know, when the boss says, oh, we need to, you know, make more money. We need more leads. You know, you’re gonna allocate your budget appropriately Right. To support the length of the time. You know, if hey. Hey, boss.
Anna Covert:
If we spend $10,000 today, we’re not gonna get that back for sixty days. Yeah. We’re not gonna get it back for ninety days. Right? What is the expectation? Because if you’re not sharing that, right, plan, then what’s gonna happen is you could cut marketings too soon before you have the chance to reengage that customer on that journey. Mhmm.
Amy Vaughan:
Yep. And what you’re talking about a lot there is remarketing too, which is a great segue into my next question is if you could share a success story where remarketing delivered unexpected value for clients. Because I think it is kind of an undervalued and often not, like, something that you put into place in a smart or strategic way.
Anna Covert:
You know, one of my favorite examples is, it is my own example. So I you know, as this is almost ten years ago, and I was doing some work, you know, here in Hawaii, but I was doing work for my first solar client, through another agency in California. And they were a SunPower dealer, a big SunPower dealer. And SunPower recently went bankrupt, but they were the largest solar manufacturer for thirty six years. Right? And they’re big. You know, they had 800, nine hundred dealers. Anyway, one day eventually, that client did come over and, you know, work with us here directly. But, one day, I got a call from SunPower.
Anna Covert:
And I’m like, I’m this tiny little agency of, like, two or three people. And I’m like, is this a joke? Who’s pranking me? You know? Why is SunPower calling me? You know? And it was from something they didn’t know. I’m saying that. Sorry. My furry terror. She’s like this big. But she thinks she’s a big big dog. Right?
Amy Vaughan:
She’s got a little dog syndrome.
Anna Covert:
My that someone from SunPower, Paul Sullivan, he had gone to solar at Solar Technologies website. They were doing better than others in California, so he wanted to see why. And he went there, and then he left. And I was getting cyberstalked all over the Internet. Right? He was like, woah. You know? He was like I was, the client was everywhere. So then he goes back to the site, scrolls to the bottom, sees he’s powered by me. Right? Go to my site.
Anna Covert:
The same thing happens. So that’s what prompted him to call. He’s like, you know, I’ve seen you everywhere. Like, you know, do you wanna go to our dealer or network? And I was like, wow. You know? Yeah. But, if you wanna get an example and that was back then when we just had a display. Now with the power of programmatic, we have full funnel remarketing. And, guys, this is so important.
Anna Covert:
Like, if you go to the code to download your checklist, I’ll start to remarket to you full funnel. And what that means is you’ll see me on television. Right? You’ll see me in an app. You’ll hear me on a podcast sponsorship if there’s radio commercials, streaming. Right? And that is so powerful because now Yeah. With the storytelling and that we’re talking about storytelling earlier, can you really share your story in a banner ad? And the answer is no. Right? But it’s used for the memory of it. Right? But if now, I mean, I’m only spending $300 a month on what you’re about to witness.
Amy Vaughan:
That’s amazing. I love that. And I love that you’re using yourself as an example too. That’s how you gotta do it. I love it. That’s amazing. Alright. I’ve got one more question before we go into our power round. But listeners, if you have questions, don’t be shy about throwing them into the chat. We definitely wanna hear them.
Amy Vaughan:
Hannah, I feel like we need to have you come back and do, like, a master class with us because I really I’m so itching now to, like, get into, like, behind everything. Look at all that we’re doing and being I think.
Anna Covert:
We’re doing one in April. I think we’re doing one in.
Amy Vaughan:
Oh, that’s right. We are. We’re already done. We’ve already got this in the bag. This is, like, the blessing of being super efficient. I’m like, yeah. I should do this thing. No, Amy. You’ve already done it.
Anna Covert:
You know?
Amy Vaughan:
I’ll have it back. That’s right. Because we talked about the master class first, and then we decided the podcast versus the other way around. Yes. I’m so excited to put you on in that. And shout out to our friends, Bobby at the innovationwomen.org website, by the way. That is how I found you, and that’s how I found so many amazing speakers for this podcast and our master classes that our members get to enjoy for free. So, yes, definitely check out that website.
Amy Vaughan:
And, Anna, thanks for refreshing my memory. Alright. Last question before we go into our power round. What is the most common pushback that you get from clients about digital marketing, and how do you address it?
Anna Covert:
You know, I think I think it really is that, you know, that, oh, that it’s not working because they can’t track it exactly. Right? Oh, and CRM, we’re seeing, oh, we’re seeing so much. You know, we’re seeing organic leads. We’re seeing, you know, direct traffic, but we’re not seeing Google paid search. Yeah. Well, guys, you know, like and that’s why it’s so important. We talk about it all the time that even if you’re using UTMs, even if you’re using these things, it’s only in that same visit that we’re gonna get the credit. And so, you know, we’ve gotta remember that if we’re doing better, like, it’s because it’s all connected.
Amy Vaughan:
Right? Yes. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
And just because we can’t immediately track it like we used to, especially if you’re doing top of the funnel. If I’m running a CTV ad, can someone click on it? No. Right? But there’s another thing we have other metrics to say, okay. If they’re in the same household, we know that there was a secondary view through. They went to the website later. Right? Yep. That’s not gonna show up in a CRM. No.
Anna Covert:
They’re not gonna show up in a UTM. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
I mean,
Anna Covert:
I even so you it’s like, you know, really, really educating them. And I make clients go through, like, a digital media best practice presentation.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it.
Anna Covert:
Yes. The second thing is you. Data we could write. I didn’t scream that on the phone. You know? Oh, you know, I remember this one client. He was like, I’m you know? And he was right. He’s like, he’s like, I’m glad you like your data. I want you to like your data.
Anna Covert:
But on my side of the page, numbers aren’t adding up. And I realized it’s because, you know, we’re talking about impressions, we’re talking about clicks, we’re talking about bounce rate, and that’s great. But it doesn’t matter if it’s not making the cash register ring. Right? And so it’s like, well, are we giving it all credit? Right? Are we doing better overall?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
Right? And what are the benchmarks and what data are we gonna be looking at to see if it’s working?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Can I just lament, though, for a second and just say, you know, I started off in direct mail, and I’ve done TV? And I just you know, all those other I’m just like digital. We just get the screws put to us because there is so much that’s trackable. But then I love that you have your clients go through the basics of digital media training because we do spend so much of our time educating people to understand that just because the numbers are there, did not mean they’re wholly accurate, did not mean they all interconnect and you can follow somebody from point a all the way to the cash register point, whatever, d, e, f. Oh, you know? Right.
Amy Vaughan:
And so, it’s just one of those things I think advocating for, you know, again, ethical digital marketing, helping people understand and know the ins and outs of how to spend their money wisely, how to not waste the other people’s time and money. I mean, it’s also important, and I love love love that you are taking the time to do this because it’s helping you even stand out in the market.
Anna Covert:
And I wanna say really quickly before we get into power routes is one of the other things to look out for, and this is an easy one. Right? Mhmm. Is when traditional media companies, which they’re all doing now, they’re selling you digital packages outside of their network. Mhmm. Because we already have that trust. You know? Like, you bought TV from Joe for years, and you trust Joe. Yeah. Well, you know, ask them those same questions because they’re also reselling and they don’t know.
Anna Covert:
And then in an effort to stay relevant, you know Yeah. They’re selling things that they don’t know about, and it’s and it’s it’s, you know, it’s scary for them too. But, you know, you have to. That’s why it’s even more important because they don’t wanna be unethical. Right? They don’t but they will know any better to your point before. Exactly. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Exactly. Alright. Let’s get into the power around. I’ll keep an eye on the chat in case any questions drop in. I love this one. It’s what is the one metric most businesses obsess over that they should just ignore?
Anna Covert:
You know, it’s cost per click, cost per thousand impressions. And the most important thing is, is it working or not?
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Covert:
You know, I’ll spend a hundred dollars in cost per thousand impressions if I can see that there’s an ROI that is within the cost per lead, cost per sale, cost per sale that I’m after.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. I always like asking that question because it always opens my eyes up to a metric and looks at it in a different way than I did before, including that one. So awesome. Name three questions every business owner should ask before hiring a digital marketing agency.
Anna Covert:
Well, that is, you know, how they’re gonna prove that the impressions ran.
Amy Vaughan:
Yeah.
Anna Covert:
How do they validate that clicks are real from real people, not bots? Yeah. And I think that those are and then how are they acquiring data?
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm. Yeah. Those are great questions.
Anna Covert:
You know? Yeah. That is it.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. And then I think this is also good to know for our marketers that are in the house listening, which is most of our Together Digital community so that they can inform and educate themselves and empower themselves to be good advocates for, you know, responsible digital marketing, but then also good stewards of their clients. So I love this. What’s the minimum budget for a small business that needs to start seeing real success from digital marketing?
Anna Covert:
I’d say $2,000 to $ 2,500. We usually run, you know, what especially with search, you know, we’ll do a $1,500 launch. So if you’re a new advertiser campaign? Well, for yeah. For well, well, not a campaign for the whole account. Okay. Okay. And, and so if you’re a new advertiser, you’ll get $500 from Google when you spend $ 500. Yes.
Anna Covert:
So we spend 500, you know, then we usually spend another 500. And then that gives us a baseline of what is possible and if we had to make adjustments to the landing page or try, you know, creative Yeah. To increase conversion rate. If I’m not getting the conversion rate I’m after, then we stop there for a minute. Yep. You know? We regroup. But then the rest should be on remarketing. You must, must, must not spend any money on search or anything unless you have a robust remarketing program in place.
Amy Vaughan:
I love it. That’s such great advice. Well and then not only that, well, because, yeah, it’s continuing to move them down the funnel. But then, also, it’s making the most of the opportunity, and then I lost what I was gonna say because it’s so Friday.
Anna Covert:
It was a good little hot spot.
Amy Vaughan:
I know. Right? So what was it? We were talking about remarketing. It was your comment before that. Say that again?
Anna Covert:
Budget?
Amy Vaughan:
That’s what it was. Thank you, my friend. Gosh. You are the other half of my brain today, girl. So, yeah, it is that. It is a budget. I think a lot of small businesses, small to medium sized businesses. Right? I’ve worked with clients that are, like, Fortune 500 and, like, bigger and where they’ve got money to kinda spare, it almost seems like sometimes because they aren’t scrutinizing.
Amy Vaughan:
But then when you are a small business, oftentimes, you will forgo marketing altogether, which is such a detriment to you and your business because they think that it requires a shit ton of money. But you’re talking $ 1,500 to $2,000 that could.
Anna Covert:
Actually, yeah. Even $500, 3 hundred dollars. I have a client, we know, Yaya Hawaii, and we spend, like, $300 on full funnel remarketing, and we see it on TV. You know, people are a big have you been you look bigger than you are. You know? If you’re driving the traffic to your site, you know, that’s the mother ship. Then, you know, then, you know, follow that person. They’re the one who’s engaged. Because it has a lot of money.
Amy Vaughan:
Right. Yeah. And don’t think you have to qualify everybody. Look at it as you’re disqualifying. You know? You don’t need you’re not for everybody. It’s not always their time, their place, and the thing that you’re not the thing they need. Good conversation. Alright.
Amy Vaughan:
Last question, and then we’ll call it a day. Social media. We haven’t really touched on this one very much. We’ve talked a lot more about Google, and search and things like that and some programmatic. But, as far as social goes, how do you feel about organic versus paid?
Anna Covert:
I would say paid is more you know, if you’re wanting to start something, you start with paid. Because, again, the goal is to drive traffic to the website and then to see if it’s working. No one’s gonna see your ad on Facebook or or or and also it’s your organic content unless you pay for it anyway. Right? You have to boost that content. You gotta grow a fan base. Right? It’s pay to play now. It’s just like any and and one of the most important things is they’re trying to keep that customer on their app. Right? Yep.
Anna Covert:
They don’t want you to leave. Right? Yep. So but with an ad, then at least the focus is to get the traffic to the site. And so it’s a big time investment. A lot of clients think, you know, it gets so overwhelmed with, well, everyone’s doing social media. I gotta do it. No. Yep.
Anna Covert:
It’s not the case. You know? Mhmm. It’s a big time commitment. You have to spend money to be seen, period. Right? Unless you’re and there’s some other ways you can go around it. It’s a one little quick tip here for everyone. Yeah. If you’re, you know, the second you post something, send it to all the team.
Anna Covert:
Right? The faster that you get the likes, that tells the algorithm to show more. Right? So a lot of people are like, oh, no one’s liking your content. Well, you don’t need to like your content. Hello? Right? Get your own to like your content. Give them the fastest, you know, you can get the logins. You like their content for you. You know? Yep. But that’s a way because it’s all based on engagement.
Anna Covert:
You know? How it was an active engagement. That’s a like, comment, share, watch, or hover.
Amy Vaughan:
Yep.
Anna Covert:
Right? But bottom line, you know, like, unless you’re doing that, you know Yep. That’s the content strategy. But most people are on social media because they want to get traffic. Right? Yeah. It also depends. You know, ecommerce sites are a lot easier. Right? Social proofing is really important for them. And, people will be, like, you know, shopping in you know, I am a big I buy so many things from Instagram.
Anna Covert:
Everything I see, I’m like, oh, I want that one. You know? But, that’s that’s the but, you know, for anything else that’s not shopping related.
Amy Vaughan:
Mhmm.
Anna Covert:
It’s really not very often that it’s successful. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah.
Amy Vaughan:
Now this has been so, so insightful and really helpful. I just have so many more questions, but that’s okay. We’re gonna keep talking. I did wanna give another mention to members if you’re listening, which I know you guys are. Make sure that you check out our social media engagement channel on Slack. It’s doing exactly what you’re saying, and, we basically ask people if you’re doing social media and you need engagement, post the post up here, and we’ll if we got two seconds, we’ll help you give it a boost. And we do that for each other.
Anna Covert:
That is a wonderful Right? Having a, like, a membership period.
Amy Vaughan:
Right? Exactly. I get that boost. So, yeah, definitely check out that channel if you haven’t already, members. It’s been a lot of fun. And, honestly, I mean, I get a nice little quick dopamine hit when, like, one of our members does some amazing content, and I get to go support it and like it. Because, yeah, I’m busy. I don’t. I’m not always scrolling through every platform to protect my sanity. So it’s nice to just be directed to the other good things anyways too.
Amy Vaughan:
So definitely check out the channel.
Anna Covert:
See it. You know, like, you know, what you know, and then think about, like, your friends. And they’re like, oh, I went to Egypt for Christmas. You’re like, really? They’re like, you didn’t see my social media posts? No. Because if you don’t like, comment, or share, you’re not gonna see it. Right. And so, you know, this thinking that they’re gonna scroll and find it, well, guess again, there’s so many people competing for those same eyeballs.
Amy Vaughan:
Absolutely. Yep. Alright, Anna. We’re just a little overtime, so we’re gonna go ahead and call it. Although, like I said, this conversation can go on and on because there’s so much good stuff to dig into. I definitely recommend you all go on to her website, check out the downloadable content there, and get her book. And, Anna, we look forward to your master class here in the next few months. Thank you again for your time.
Anna Covert:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been really wonderful to share, and, happy Aloha Friday and Valentine’s Day to everyone.
Amy Vaughan:
Yes. Absolutely. Alright, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re excited to see you all next week. Until then, keep asking, keep giving, and keep growing. We’ll see you later. Aloha.
Outro:
Produced by Heartcast Media.
