The Re-Hire Nobody Saw Coming

[00:00:00] Taylor: Hey, this is, uh, Coach Taylor. I'm here for a special edition of the Ecommerce Playbook podcast. It's been a minute. It's been a minute. But got some exciting news today. So today I'm bringing back a special guest, and not just as a guest. No, no, no, but as a resident, as a reunited part of the whole, and we're gonna tell you a little bit about how it happened.

[00:00:23] So you ready? Welcome with me the one- The only Mr. Nick

[00:00:32] Taylor 2: Shackleford, baby. Woo-hoo.

[00:00:34] Taylor: Everybody on

[00:00:34] Taylor 2: your

[00:00:35] Taylor: feet. You didn't see that coming, did you, internet? Nope. I didn't. No, he didn't. No, sir. But here we are. Uh, so this, this episode, uh, we're literally physically near each other. You can see here. Uh, Nick is back in the office hanging out, and we're announcing something really exciting.

[00:00:52] Uh, it's not that we're partners in Commerce Roundtable. Already did that part.

[00:00:56] Nick: Check.

[00:00:57] Taylor: It's not that we're running High Rocks together in Anaheim December 3rd or 4th.

[00:01:01] Nick: Yep.

[00:01:01] Taylor: Come support us.

[00:01:02] Nick: Second

[00:01:02] Taylor: one. Check. We need, we need your support, but it's that we are back in business full-time together. Nick, the prodigal son, Shackleford, is returning to CTC, and we're here to tell you why.

[00:01:12] So Nick, welcome back, man.

[00:01:14] Nick: It's been eight years. It's been a long journey.

[00:01:16] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:01:17] Nick: But I mean, you were joking with me right beforehand. You're like, "You had to go get way more tattoos, sell some paraphernalia-

[00:01:23] Taylor: Yep ...

[00:01:23] Nick: and learn a lot of things." So-

[00:01:24] Taylor: Yeah. Nick needed to go travel the world, sow his wild oats- ... start a illicit beverage dri- Like, uh, you needed to go and go on a journey.

[00:01:33] Every young man does before they return home. But, um, I wanna start actually, 'cause I don't think... It's been a long time since people probably know the very first story of how you came. I was thinking about this the other day, of how you first showed up at CTC. So I remember, um, we were in our old office, uh, which is now the Nelk Boys office.

[00:01:52] Yep. If you look that up on the internet, that's where our office was. And we were interviewing for a strategist. I think Andrew was there. Was Scott there, Scott Cramer? Scott was

[00:01:59] Nick: there.

[00:02:00] Taylor: Okay. So two-

[00:02:00] Nick: Caitlin, Adrianne.

[00:02:01] Taylor: Caitlin, Adrianne, a bunch of legends, uh, still in the game. And this guy came in for an interview, um, and you showed me PPE wrappers.

[00:02:11] Do you remember this?

[00:02:12] Nick: I, not only do I remember this, I was, like, very proud of this.

[00:02:15] Taylor: Yes. Okay. So at the time, F-Facebook, we were still fairly early to Facebook because that wasn't, like, really why we started the agency. We started more as, like, an organic social influencer thing. And so this media buyer guy comes in, and he's like, "Oh, do you guys run PPE wrappers?"

[00:02:30] And I was like, "What's a PPE wrapper?" And, like, I felt pretty proud of my business manager knowledge. And he's like, "No, no, this is what you need to do, is you take your post ID, you run a separate engagement campaign using the post ID, and you pay for engagement to boost the post, drive down CPMs, and improve your performance."

[00:02:47] And you helped me set up a PPE wrapper on all of our ads, and my mind was blown. So that's... Do you remember that?

[00:02:53] Nick: It was the existing post ID.

[00:02:54] Taylor: Yes.

[00:02:55] Nick: Existing post ID. It was like, it was like the po- the, the... It was less the PPE, which look, some of you guys out there are gonna be like, "Yo, that shit, that was-" It was pretty incredible.

[00:03:01] ballin'." And I was like, some of you are gonna be like, "I remember that." You remember this. This was like- You might...

[00:03:05] Taylor: 2000s. You know, this was dirty

[00:03:06] Nick: game. It was early.

[00:03:07] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:03:07] Nick: But, but what, what it led me was like- I gotta come in, I like tell him something. He's like, "All right, let's do it right away."

[00:03:13] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:03:13] Nick: And I gotta implement right away, which is-

[00:03:14] Taylor: Yeah, so it was cool, something new.

[00:03:16] It was like, oh, okay, this guy knows more about this Meta thing than we do, and he was, you know, like deep in the Tim Burd Facebook group era. He was running the Facebook buyers group. Like, so this was early days. And Nick, uh, we got to work together. How long were you there? Four years at the time? Uh, well, checking back in, it was basically

[00:03:32] Nick: a year

[00:03:33] Taylor: and it was like a- almost two and a half years.

[00:03:35] That's it?

[00:03:36] Nick: Yeah. Really? Or maybe that's wrong. Maybe that's wrong.

[00:03:38] Taylor: I don't... Yeah. But it felt like three offices we moved through. But, um, but yeah- Yeah ... we did a lot of cool stuff together. And when you left, I remember on, all along the way, you kind of always had a s- you always were a side gig guy, big side gig guy, always a thousand things going on.

[00:03:52] And-

[00:03:53] Nick: Yeah ...

[00:03:53] Taylor: the reality was, is that your skill and talent demanded greater opportunity than we were set up to provide at that time. And I think even where CTC was, we were very missional helping entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. Like we weren't financially focused in creating enough upside for someone with your market demand.

[00:04:12] And so it made sense. And also- Sure ... I think you're entrepreneurial, you always wanted to go and do your own thing. And so in a very friendly, I still remember you weeping. You left, you cried when you left.

[00:04:20] Nick: It was rough. Yeah. It was just like, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm an entrepreneur, but I feel like I was given the skills, really good skill in media buying, had an idea of branding, but I was like, "All right, I have a skill, so I should go."

[00:04:30] Yeah. That was kind of like-

[00:04:31] Taylor: And, uh, you, uh, well you had a lot of clo- close friends. Like we were all close. That was like, so I think it was emotional. You were appreciative. Like, I think it was the right time in a way that was positive. And candidly, like I was in my head like, "Oh, maybe that'll... Nick's gonna go on and do his own thing.

[00:04:44] We'll always be supportive of each other." But it was- Yeah ... felt like, yeah, like it felt like that was, that was gonna be it. And probably for however long it's been, five, six years, we stayed in touch intermittently, but not too much, right?

[00:04:57] Nick: Well, no, not until actually really like when, when I had my son.

[00:05:01] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:05:01] Nick: Like when, when Kingsley came in about two and a half years ago now, I was like, I just need a good man with that, like cared about family and I was at the core. Yeah. And that was-

[00:05:10] Taylor: See,

[00:05:10] Nick: this

[00:05:10] Taylor: is

[00:05:10] Nick: when,

[00:05:10] Taylor: this is when the young men appreciate me again. When they, when they have their children, they come back around, they're like, "Oh, that guy, that old guy I know has kids."

[00:05:17] Nick: But, but, but also I'll say that you guys, you guys were not as built out as you are now. Yeah. You did not have the tech that you do now. No. Yeah. You, you were, you were, we were good enough at Mediavine, but they were still like indoctrinating a system that was in change.

[00:05:30] Taylor: Yeah. Well, I think even like Jordan, my business partner I founded with, even you to an extent, like I think that w- we were so relationally driven in that era.

[00:05:39] It was like trading on your network, Jordan's network in a way that like who we were as an agency was very different back then. It was all in person. It was so human, like centric in a way that the technology and innovation and was really a lot of the remote work drove demand for those kinds of systems and processes that pre-COVID I, I don't know that we had to get there and I also don't know that we were trying to build.

[00:06:00] We were still doing the four by 400 thing.

[00:06:02] Nick: Correct.

[00:06:02] Taylor: We had the 3PL. We had so many other irons in the fire at the time and so I think it, it was just different. So what have you been doing?

[00:06:10] Nick: So we went and built an agency called Structured.

[00:06:14] Taylor: Yep.

[00:06:14] Nick: And we spent a lot of time like being really good at media buying, and then we actually acquired Chase, Chase Diamond's agency.

[00:06:20] Yeah. So Boundless, a team called Boundless Labs way back when, years ago at this point, and we kind of became pretty much email. Yeah. Like we were retention and email, and then in 2023 stepped away. Jake was running the day-to-day, started to build out a team, 'cause my vision was like, okay, if I'm not needed, I don't wanna be in a place that is not contributing.

[00:06:40] Like I'm not contributing, what am I getting paid for? Right. It was kinda like the my, my thing.

[00:06:42] Taylor: And I always feel like you always have this sense of like, my skill set is this specific thing, and so you wanted to put yourself in the position to be effective at that, and if that wasn't needed in the moment, then you would do, go to a place where it was.

[00:06:52] Nick: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I-- it's, uh, I get a lot of self-worth out of like output and creation, and so if I'm not able to do it, I'm like, "Why am I here?" kind of thing. And all of a sudden I get a call from another partner, so it was like- structured, okay, not needed, pretty self-sus- sustaining, like let it go, let it do its thing, and then I get a call from Aaron.

[00:07:12] Aaron's like: "Hey, I think I'm gonna start this beverage." And I go, "Yeah, yeah, like th- that's definitely something that I wanna go do," because I have no idea how to build a beverage company, and even today, uh, still don't know how to build a beverage company. But it-- he told me, he's like: "I need, I need check-in, I need someone to like make connections," which obviously is a, a skill set that I'm really, really good at.

[00:07:29] And so we came in, and what ended up being this last three and a half years of growth was know how to do media buying, learn how to do retention, learn subscription, which is a whole beast of itself-

[00:07:39] Taylor: Totally ...

[00:07:40] Nick: and then actually know how to run a company and a business. Yeah. And then this is kind of like entering back where you kind of came back into me.

[00:07:45] Taylor: Well, right. So I'm watching you, and w- we connected when you were working really heavy in Breeze, and you're like: "Dude, I'm back in the day-to-day. I'm learning, grinding retention, subscription, learning this world-

[00:07:54] Nick: True ...

[00:07:54] Taylor: intimately," in a way that it had been a long time since you were into that level of day-to-day execution.

[00:07:58] In it,

[00:07:58] Nick: yes. Yes.

[00:07:59] Taylor: And I thought that was really cool because I think, like one of the things for CTC was we've always been so acquisition-centric, we've, we've worked to try and develop a retention offering. We've looked at various ways to do it, and we've never really cracked it ideally. And then in addition to that, there's this other thing happening, I think, where subscription businesses, CPG, consumer, is also on the rise.

[00:08:17] And so it's very obvious to me that there's this thing happening right now where more and more the connection between the scale of acquisition is related to the quality of the retention, subscription businesses, developing customized offerings, building our tooling- Yes ... to better support those things.

[00:08:31] You would show me some of the reports and tooling and things that you were doing to look at and, and evaluate that, and so it became like, ooh, Nick's got a new skill set. Yeah. Like, he went out and sharpened his sword in this novel and interesting way. And so I think that was the first thing that I was like, "Oh, that's brought us back together in business."

[00:08:45] We kind of just jammed on those things. You would stop by the office every now and again, and we would stay in touch. And that was like, okay, there's a touch point for us to be connected again.

[00:08:53] Nick: Yeah.

[00:08:53] Taylor: Um, you have, uh, Kingsley, and that's the second thing. Um, and then I think golf was a- another thing.

[00:08:59] Nick: Yeah, I just did not know.

[00:09:00] Like, it's weird because like when you look at Taylor, you're like, "Ah, he's pro-- like, yes, he was a professional athlete," but then like you look at him at beforehand, he, he's not as lean, as fit as he was now. Like, there's no way this guy can golf, and there's no way this guy can ca- he carried the entire Hyrox.

[00:09:14] Like I was, I was- dead the entire time. But we played golf, and I remember I drove- But really

[00:09:19] Taylor: it was the weekend. Do you remember the tournament that you threw? The one out in Arizona.

[00:09:22] Nick: So- This is with George too. Yes,

[00:09:24] Taylor: yes.

[00:09:24] Nick: Yes, yes. So, uh, Prestient sh- Prestient AI. Yeah.

[00:09:27] Taylor: Mike and the k- squad.

[00:09:28] Nick: And I grabbed a group together.

[00:09:29] I was like, "I'm gonna grab as many dudes as possible to, to golf," and we c- got a mansion- Yeah ... and we played two incredible courses in Scottsdale. And that was kind of out of nowhere, and it was like usually- I picked you up.

[00:09:39] Taylor: Right. Usually those things are kinda hard 'cause I've got kids, like- Yeah ... for whatever reason it worked out, and you drove me to Arizona, so we sat in the car together for six hours.

[00:09:46] Um-

[00:09:47] Nick: We did a live video. We did a Q&A.

[00:09:48] Taylor: Yeah. That's right. And that, like, that was an... We just had a lot of fun. That weekend was awesome. Yeah. Um, good group of people, hanging out, playing golf, and so that was just a, another connection point. And then we came back, we played golf a few times. You got super into it.

[00:10:00] You would carry your, like, four clubs around in your mini bag that you would have. It's a

[00:10:03] Nick: Sunday bag. Shout out Sunday boys.

[00:10:04] Taylor: It, it was mainly about the outfits for Nick. It alway- it always was. It was just he liked the golf attire. You gotta look the part. Yeah. But that was like, okay, another connection point.

[00:10:12] And then the Hyrox thing happened where it was like... And I, I forget, Dane got hurt. Okay. So I had a partner. We, we... The CTC guys, we had all agreed to do it 'cause my wife dragged me into a Hyrox, then we got a bunch of people in the office to do it, and I had this partner. He's a, a super old man at our office.

[00:10:27] His name's Dane. He's in his- Wise man ... he's late... Yeah. He's like, who I go to if I'm having children issues, you know? Um, and then he got hurt his back, like a few weeks out, and so I was like, "Okay, I need a l- late sub." So in fairness to you, you said I carried you. I gave you like two weeks notice.

[00:10:43] Nick: It was three weeks.

[00:10:44] Yeah. He goes, "You wanna do it?" I go, "Yes." I didn't even ask. I was like, I didn't even know it was in Vegas.

[00:10:47] Taylor: Right.

[00:10:47] Nick: So-

[00:10:47] Taylor: And if you know Nick, Nick's a yes guy. Like, which is, like you need friends that are yes guys, um, where part of the reason he ends up doing so many things is because he's like that. He's like, he's just down for it.

[00:10:58] Uh, and so there aren't many people that would be like three weeks out, this crazy fitness thing. I'm, I've been tr- You had been like... You said you were training for a half marathon or something. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:05] Nick: Light runs.

[00:11:05] Taylor: Yeah, light runs. So he jumped in and did it, but then he got the bug, and so now we've been training together for Hyrox.

[00:11:12] So building blocks, right?

[00:11:13] Nick: Yes, yes.

[00:11:13] Taylor: All these things start connecting in a way, um- And then, you know, for me, where I'm at in the CTC journey is I'm not forever for this place. Like I'm 100 years old, and the-- one of the things that we're building and has been a big part of our story is we're basically a media company inside of CTC from the podcast newsletters, original content series.

[00:11:32] And so Nick carries a level of gravitas and network for himself and has been in the content game in a way, he's, you know, like the best-selling founder series ever and, you know, he's got a great bot that writes for him on X and, uh, whatever else it might be. But I think he's gonna be incredibly additive.

[00:11:47] So you look at the skill set of the retention subscription knowledge that maybe we didn't possess. You look at that media empire that he can help add to, and then we both ca- have always been people that love partnership. We love being in person, we're extroverts, and our lives just intersected in a way that all of a sudden it was like, "Hey, this, this might make sense."

[00:12:05] It

[00:12:05] Nick: made sense. Well, and, and to be, to be completely fair is like I, I didn't know how fast and how deep you were gonna build- Yeah ... Statlas into like this operating system that a lot of people don't know how to use. Mm-hmm. And then I also didn't know it would serve eight-figure, nine-figure brands. Yeah. 'Cause it's easy to build like an O- like you can build an OS for five, six, starting out seven, but then when you started going like, "Oh, no, no, we have these specific offering," like my, the way my brain works on this is if you have the correct offering and the correct people to service that offering, and then the, the actual demand is there, and every single time you guys have done a launch or every single time you guys have done something in the market, it's been received, A, from professional other marketers who've been like, "Yo, kudos."

[00:12:47] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:12:47] Nick: And the demand from the actual brands.

[00:12:49] Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. So I- It's hard to do. Exactly. So I think we, we became a vehicle that had a unique and a value proposition to you as a marketer to go, "I wanna use those tools." Yes. And then also the organization became big enough and financially motivated enough in the phase of the journey that we're in to support an opportunity that's worth it for you.

[00:13:06] And so you put all these things together, and life is like this, right? It creates these rare moments where it makes sense again. And I think one thing that never left is we always respected each other. We always had an appreciation for each other, and so that never changed, but our life just meandered in different directions.

[00:13:21] And so it was cool for this moment, um, to show back up, and I'm stoked.

[00:13:25] Nick: There we go.

[00:13:25] Taylor: So Nick's back. Uh, so m-maybe now let's talk a little bit about like, what does that mean for somebody who's listening? Like, if you're out there and you think, "Oh, I've always followed Nick. I love Nick." Oh. Sorry about that.

[00:13:37] Back to me. Kicking my chair. Um, what do you think, how will they experience that benefit? And I know we're still dreaming this up as we go, but where are you gonna help us be better?

[00:13:47] Nick: Look, there's two reasons that I love most about this, and so it's, it's not just Taylor and the community, but it's also I, I think Grant and Luke and some of the OGs that have been here.

[00:13:57] There's a lot more people that can speak and talk about it, and it's not just solely dependent on you anymore. Yeah. And it shouldn't be, right? Right. For the longest time, you've carried a lot of voice, and the longest time you've carried a lot of new creation.

[00:14:06] Taylor: Yep.

[00:14:07] Nick: And so I think having opportunities to use an incredible state-of-the-art room that we're building in, have the ability to do events, which I love- We're already on.

[00:14:15] Yep ... I love, I love, I love. And so the more education I think is necessary for the people that are willing to get in person, I wanna do more of what you guys do, too. Yeah. So, so that's it. So

[00:14:24] Taylor: that's a great start. So yeah, we just got done this last week with a seven-figure workshop, had 35 brands here in office, including people-- s-some dudes flew from Egypt.

[00:14:32] Like, it was really cool. That's Nick's bread and butter. He's gonna be super awesome. We're in commerce roundtable together. We're dreaming of ways to expand beyond their two pillar events in, you know, Austin and San Diego, which they do an incredible job of to like, okay, how do we fill in in between? How do we bring that relationship further?

[00:14:46] So there's cool stuff there. So the event and marketing thing is a place where you're gonna see, see or Nick continue to shine and do what he does, uh, while waving the CTC flag in partnership.

[00:14:55] Nick: Plus retention.

[00:14:56] Taylor: And then on the service side, I think you're gonna help us improve this product. Totally.

[00:14:59] Nick: Right?

[00:14:59] Je-Je-Jeanette, like when I look at how you guys are already doing it- Yeah ... and the, the unfair advantage that I think most people don't get to hear enough about, dude, there's Hundreds of brands. Yeah. Hun- hundreds of brands by industry, by niche-

[00:15:11] Taylor: Right ...

[00:15:11] Nick: that can truly impact. I know you guys are the D2C index.

[00:15:14] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:15:15] Nick: But there's just another layer and level of like, "Hey, this is what's working for all retention flows for this industry." That's right. Dude, there's just, there's just a lot of examples and there's a lot of stuff that has to be shared, and unfortunately, with a, with a team this big and how much brands they're gonna work with, you need a dedicated person to highlight it and talk about it.

[00:15:31] And so

[00:15:31] Taylor: I think- Well, and, and that's the thing is, yeah, our voice has always been so strong in one direction that building reputation... I think people would be shocked how big our email business is, like relative to most of the people in the space. They're like-

[00:15:42] Nick: Yeah ...

[00:15:42] Taylor: Jeanette and Brandon and the team, they do, they do an amazing job, and now it's like, I think you're gonna be able to both help us think about how to tailor the product to some of these CPG-specific businesses and other ones that I think, uh, you have this, this specific experience on, and then also for us to be able to tell the story of what's happening there more often.

[00:15:59] And even some of the tooling, like the way that we can use the, the ad plan- or, or the email planner integrated into the forecast, into the... Like, there's a lot of stuff that exists that is really, really cool that we just don't get to. It's not natural. It doesn't come first to my head when we think about it.

[00:16:12] Tony does awesome on the paid side, Luke on the growth side. Like, the voices that we've developed have just never been strong in that way, and I think you see things first through that lens in a way that's really helpful.

[00:16:22] Nick: Which is, which is also important because the-- when you're on email, it powers all the paid.

[00:16:27] Taylor: That's right.

[00:16:27] Nick: And if you have the, the profit engineer that's thinking about how am I gonna hit the, hit the goal, you have to have email. Email has to be a part of that. That's right. It's gonna really help the team. And so if you don't focus on it, especially with you guys are producing as much on the acquisition.

[00:16:39] Dude, I would even go like one layer deeper on this, and this is something that we're still learning how to, like get off the ground in a very meaningful way, is like offer, ad, and page alignment. Yeah, continuity. Yeah. Like there's just like this continuity of, uh... And you're gonna talk a little bit about this on stage at Commerce Roundtable, where it's like we're in this, a very weird state of- There's a lot more content than we all ever wanted.

[00:17:01] Taylor: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:02] Nick: And then that content now, if we're not focused on making as much content at volume, then we have to start focusing on the next touch point after that content and like how much customization can we do there? So it's like add to targeting, to offer, to landing page, and that's what brands don't do.

[00:17:16] Like the biggest brands you guys have, I'm talking like the Nikes of the world- Yeah ... they're not doing congruency around cortisol face.

[00:17:23] Taylor: Right. Right. No, right. I think that's so-- We've gotten so shallow in our attempt to like exploit the top of the funnel from a customer standpoint that we're just like faceless influencers saying anything they can to create a thing that once the customer has the actual experience with the product, it may or may not be connected to that at all.

[00:17:41] Nick: Ever.

[00:17:41] Taylor: Right? And I think back to the Qalo days where we would go so deep with a story where it's like Jason Khalipa moving story into image ads about him into landers to where you would call the customer service and it'd be his voice on the recording. Crazy. Like that level of like depth of continuity is so hard because the brands are so rapid at the top of the funnel, trying so many different thing, try but thousand ads, which we're big proponents of, but at the same time figuring out to, okay, now how do we think about the experience as we give that customer a transaction to now, okay, where, what is that flow that gives them an experience?

[00:18:15] What does it look like? The other thing is retention And email, these words get conflated a lot in terms of they-- people think they're the same, just one thing. Like retention is email. But there's so much more than that that goes into it to where, how do we think about our media plan for existing customers?

[00:18:29] What is the distinction between an active and lapsed customers? How do we treat a sale moment versus not? How do we think about the relationship between paid and email? Are those things... I heard, you know, Cody and, uh, um, Connor having this conversation the other day about like, is it incremental to run your paid with an email sale at the same time to your existing customer base?

[00:18:44] How do we think about inventory within the context of these things? And so I think I'm excited that we have-

[00:18:48] Nick: Yeah ...

[00:18:49] Taylor: a lot of innovation to come on the product side as it relates to how we interact with the customers that a brand already has.

[00:18:54] Nick: Because it's gonna help the engineers. Like it's gonna help the core group that's going to be building for the brands.

[00:18:59] And if you can give them more like ammunition of like, "Hey, we don't have any more money to spend, but we have these unique offers, pages, and playbooks that can just be plug and play."

[00:19:06] Taylor: Yep.

[00:19:07] Nick: That's as-- That's really where I want it to go.

[00:19:08] Taylor: And like Ally and I were t-having this conversation, so Ally runs, she's our director of growth strategy or profit

[00:19:13] Nick: engineers.

[00:19:14] Taylor: Who was on the team. Who was, who, who was the first person you hired. You know, was there when I-- She, she was the buyer for you for your first team ever. Correct. And now she's the director, which is awesome. Um, and, uh, so a profit engineer, the planning process for me so importantly starts with the marketing calendar.

[00:19:28] You cannot build your f-financial forecast without the marketing calendar. And even to me, what a marketing calendar entails is every email send plan for the entirety of the month so that I can flow the daily revenue expectation to map against that. Correct. Correct. But profit engineers, they so often skip that and go straight to the media plan.

[00:19:44] Correct. Standard. Right? And so even still today, I was h- this past week I was hammering Ally. I was like, "I wanna export, I wanna see... We're getting ready to plan for September. I wanna see who has their marketing calendar done, who has the full email plan." Even when we're not responsible for it, it's such a critical input that if we're gonna get better at forecasting, we have to get better at email planning.

[00:20:02] Like if that's actually such an intimate part of being able to tie those things together, um, and like it-- people neglect how much... Like we have a brand, um, Spiral Bible right now, uh, and shout out to Alex, he's doing an amazing job with that. But like this is a brand with very little LTV, right? They sell a, a book and email, uh, is, and then again, this is often not intuitive, is actually a huge driver of new customer acquisition Because you get so many email signups, right, along the way as you're driving all this traffic, that their email volume is actually more tightly correlated to their new customer revenue than their returning customer revenue.

[00:20:36] Nick: Good.

[00:20:36] Taylor: Um, and so that becomes an opportunity that, like, I can't, as the meta buyer, work and think about acquisition without thinking about how email's supporting me, right? And you have to work really hard at that to know, okay, the offer is here. What does the pop-up say? What's the welcome flow? How do those things have some connection?

[00:20:54] Because if I'm, like, hammering it out at the top of the funnel for a prayer journal, and then you get down here and it's, like, a completely unrelated product in the email pop-up, that's a problem.

[00:21:02] Nick: Well, and, and it's like when do you get introduced to s- the, like, secondary and tertiary products? Yeah, right.

[00:21:06] Like, that's all email. Like- Exactly ... you really don't wanna spend again on product B for them to come back on, and I think that is... And do you as a media buyer, you're just like, you just don't default into, like, what's my email flow going to be?

[00:21:17] Taylor: That's right.

[00:21:17] Nick: So being from paid all the way to offer and understand, like, I think there's just so much more education around who's doing what at what scale.

[00:21:24] 'Cause a lot of the times, and I actually believe this more than anything out of being in, like, the trenches lately, is If you can rotate and change the offer or the entry point of the top of the funnel, usually you could influence LTV or usually you can influence the, the repeat purchase rate.

[00:21:39] Taylor: Yeah, totally.

[00:21:40] Nick: But you got... If, if you're not thinking about it or not playing there, it's just the last thing you're gonna

[00:21:43] Taylor: do. Well, and often it's true that you can't alter the LTV if you don't change the thing at the top of the funnel. Right, so like, so sometimes- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... these things exist in isolation where you're hammering an email marketer to improve LTV, but they have no control over the top of the funnel or vice versa, and it's like, "Hey, hang on."

[00:21:57] These things always need to work in con- in, in congruence with one another. So I think you're gonna- There's so

[00:22:01] Nick: much to play with there. Yeah,

[00:22:02] Taylor: yeah. And it's funny because you were like the prototypical meta buyer. Like that- that's how you began your career as the- Aggressive ... meta guru of gurus, again, running the...

[00:22:12] For those of you who've been around enough, the Facebook Media Buyers group on Facebook was home to all of the grimiest rats on the internet. All of us were there. We were in... And you wanna s- if you think that like Twitter battles were bad, go look at some of those old comment wars. That's where it really went down.

[00:22:28] It

[00:22:28] Nick: went personal. It got personal.

[00:22:29] Taylor: That's where you honed your craft of debate. You wanna know how I'm good at Twitter X debate? It was honing your craft. If you fired off an opinion in that group, oh boy. And that was Nick. But now like seeing you go- ... deep, deep in the retention game with Breeze, which is like, you wanna talk about a business where you can't possibly make money selling cans on the internet if you can't...

[00:22:48] And the only reason you guys made it possible was because you could drive subscription on a, on a beverage- Dude ... which is abnormal.

[00:22:53] Nick: We were acquiring an eight-pack at $85.

[00:22:56] Taylor: Yeah. You don't, you don't- That's ...

[00:22:58] Nick: you don't do that. Like you literally do not do that. Everyone tells you to not do that.

[00:23:01] Taylor: That's right. I re- I, I remember even arguing with Aaron about it and telling him what a terrible idea it was.

[00:23:06] I was like, "Hey, this is never gonna work."

[00:23:07] Nick: Yeah.

[00:23:07] Taylor: Right? Uh, no, you never, you should never underestimate the power of, uh, illicit, uh, illicit toxins, but-

[00:23:13] Nick: Or loopholes ...

[00:23:13] Taylor: or loopholes. But, but the point was that you, you h- it was like- We had to learn ... I like to say that brands evolve the skills that they need to survive.

[00:23:22] And if you're in a business like Ridge, which has no LTV, you're not gonna evolve retention as a deep skill. You're gonna be world-class at acquisition.

[00:23:30] Nick: And ads, yeah.

[00:23:30] Taylor: Yes. But you guys, in order for Breeze to survive, you had to evolve the skill of retention. And

[00:23:36] Nick: so for you to do that- It wasn't even an ad.

[00:23:37] I've, uh... You put a, any of the ad up, it would, it would always work.

[00:23:39] Taylor: That's right.

[00:23:39] Nick: It was only offer and ad or offer and page.

[00:23:41] Taylor: So, so now you get to walk in having like, it's like a mutant, like you develop, you know, you're a Pokemon that mutated to the next level. Yeah. You know? You didn't stop at meta. You kept going.

[00:23:50] Nick: No, this is a genuine transformation.

[00:23:51] Taylor: Father, mutation. Hyrax, mutation. Little leaner, right? And now the retention skill mutation into pretty soon your final form, I think.

[00:24:01] Nick: Well, we don't know what the final form's gonna be 'cause it's... We'll probably discover it here.

[00:24:04] Taylor: Well, and robot. Also mutated into robot. I-

[00:24:07] Nick: Full

[00:24:07] Taylor: body tat robot

[00:24:08] Nick: when I left, I had no tattoos.

[00:24:09] Taylor: No, you, you didn't have none.

[00:24:10] Nick: I had three.

[00:24:11] Taylor: You had three.

[00:24:12] Nick: Three. And then now we have all.

[00:24:13] Taylor: So a lot of mutations But that's for the benefit of all of you. So, uh, I'm sure we're gonna post some, uh, posts on LinkedIn and X and get everyone excited about this. Uh, we're gonna talk about it from stage here in a few weeks.

[00:24:25] Hope to see all of you at Commerce Roundtable. If you haven't signed up yet, what are you doing? What are you doing? It'll

[00:24:29] Nick: be a big one. It'll be,

[00:24:30] Taylor: it- Nick hosting. You've got Jimmy, just the kindest, most giving soul on earth, running point. You know they're gonna do everything they freaking can to ensure you get value out of it.

[00:24:40] Nick: Dude, we're giving away a trip to F1.

[00:24:41] Taylor: Woo.

[00:24:42] Nick: We're giving away a Hawaii trip. We're giving away

[00:24:44] Taylor: a- CEO of Hyrox ...

[00:24:45] Nick: the CEO, which, which is big time. Big time. Especially what just happened.

[00:24:49] Taylor: Yeah.

[00:24:49] Nick: Big time.

[00:24:49] Taylor: Nowhere, uh, the story's not anywhere but there, right? So really cool stuff. Um, and dude, Sinio's just the best.

[00:24:56] Nick: Yeah.

[00:24:56] Taylor: So come hang. Um, and drop in the comments, what do you want to see from Nick and CDC? What do we... What can we do? And if you're a business that's interested in subscription retention, chatting with the man, the legend, he's here to help make it happen. Um, and we're gonna build some new tools and keep it evolving.

[00:25:11] But dude, I'm stoked. I'm, you're, you're giving me youthful energy in my journey here. I'm excited to, to have you back in the house. It's always... You, you lighten the space when you walk in,

[00:25:20] Nick: bro. Thanks, brother.

[00:25:20] Taylor: So-

[00:25:21] Nick: Good to be back ...

[00:25:21] Taylor: let's get

[00:25:23] it.