💡 What You'll Learn:

The exact strategies Ovidia used to turn Perfect Jean into an eight-figure DTC powerhouse

How to avoid the creative stagnation that stalls growth in Meta ads

The truth about creative volume vs. creative quality in paid social

Why product quality and retention are the secret weapons for profitable scaling

The game-changing importance of tight creative testing, charismatic creators, and data-driven feedback loops

Real-life examples of media buying—like campaign consolidation and CBO/ASC tactics—that led to 3-5x ad spend growth

How to refine messaging, hooks, and storytelling to engage niche audiences (including plus size/big & tall customers)

Managing agencies vs. in-house production: what really works for sustainable scaling

Optimizing for second purchase and combating rising CPMs and CAC on Meta in 2025

👖 Whether you're an ecommerce founder, DTC marketer, or growth lead, this episode will equip you with practical insights for supercharging paid social results using modern creative strategies and disciplined growth frameworks.

🔍 Keywords: scaling meta ads, Facebook ads scale, creative testing, DTC growth marketing, ad strategy 2024, ecommerce scaling, perfect jean story, creative operations, retention marketing, paid social success, winning creative, plus size ecommerce, agency vs in-house, performance creative

Timestamps:

[00:00:00] Intro & Ovidia’s Background Who is Ovidia? Career recap and journey.

[00:02:44] Early Ad Creative Lessons Learning the impact of strong creative assets

[00:03:42] Launching Perfect Gene Launching with focus on unit economics, profitability.

[00:04:11] Creative Operations & Brand Voice Why attention-grabbing creative was crucial.

[00:04:42] Early Growth & Product Differentiation Great product’s impact on initial success.

[00:07:00] Hitting Scaling Roadblocks Problems with team, agencies, stale creative.

[00:08:57] Fixing Creative & Agency Feedback Changing processes, candid feedback, sharpening creative.

[00:11:55] Developing a Creative Vision Why creative diversity and quality matter.

[00:12:53] Messaging, Audiences, and Ad Angles Leaning into Plus sizes and strong messaging.

[00:14:46] Retention & Customer Loyalty Product quality driving repeat purchases.

[00:16:24] Media Buying Strategy Changes Campaign consolidation and testing with ASC.

[00:18:06] Creative Quality vs. Quantity Focus on narrative, scripting, compelling creators.

[00:20:11] Creator Selection & Agency Collaboration Choosing the right creators, balancing relationships.

[00:22:15] Creative Volume & Testing Philosophy How creative volume fits into the strategy.

[00:23:24] Coping with Rising Costs on Meta Optimizing for second purchase, channel diversification.

[00:25:08] Conclusion & Final Thoughts Operating with control and impact in marketing.

Connect with Marco and me here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aazarshad/

https://x.com/Aazarshad

https://x.com/recklessventure

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

#marketing #growthmarketing #ads #advertising #creativity #psychology #entrepreneur

Discover how to effectively run Facebook ads in 2025 with proven strategies from seasoned agency owners. 

We explore creative diversification, ad account structuring, and optimization techniques tailored for ecommerce and DTC brands.

Learn how to reduce ad frequency, test new creatives, and balance quality versus quantity for maximum impact. 

Gain actionable advice on scaling Facebook ads, improving conversion rates, and staying ahead with the latest advertising trends.

Time stamps:

00:06:51 — ABO Testing with Multiple Variations

Isolate concepts and quickly spot winners.

00:07:00 — Immediate Scaling in Testing Phase

Don’t wait: scale right away when you see traction.

00:07:08 — Post ID Scaling to ASC+

Move winners to Advantage Shopping+ for higher budget spends.

00:07:21 — Cost Cap Strategy for Weekend Scaling

Unlock spend when conversion rates spike.

00:07:32 — Alignment: Ad Copy & Landing Page

Ensure copy, angle, and landing page match perfectly.

00:07:44 — Whitelisting Influencer Ads

Boost results through whitelisted influencer campaigns.

00:08:03 — Leveraging Topical & Tariff Messaging

Capitalize on trending topics or tariffs for relevance.

00:09:25 — Audit-First: Problem Diagnosis Before Launch

Begin with a deep audit to pinpoint big wins.

00:09:58 — Relaunching Past High-Performing Post IDs

Revive dormant winners for instant traction.

00:11:36 — Dynamic Testing Budgets & CBO Switch

Adjust testing strategy based on hit rates.

00:12:01 — Re-Optimization and Scaling Conversations

Iterate based on results: scale, re-optimize, or pull back.

00:13:58 — Team-Driven Creative Strategy Ideation

Guide in-house or external teams for fresh concepts.

00:14:48 — Mining User Content from Instagram Tags

Source genuine creative from tagged customer posts.

00:26:22 — Resurrection: Duplicating Dying Ads for New Life

Duplicate ads to ‘resurrect’ their previous performance.

Join us for a comprehensive guide to mastering media buying in the modern age. 

Check out Marin's Youtube where he shares these insights regularly: https://www.youtube.com/@UCzAGEQQ-RaqUjpXeDKGkI0Q  

Connect with Marco and me here: The Performers Newsletter:

https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe 

The Performers Agency:

https://theperformers.io/ 

The Performers Mastermind:

https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco'sAgencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/ 

https://www.shepherdagency.co/ 

#marketing #growthmarketing #ads #advertising #creativity #psychology #entrepreneur

In this episode, we discussed dumb ads that really worked for us. Especially when we didn't think they'd win. Guess what? We might have thought they were dumb, but they worked.

The pattern?

These ads weren't actually dumb. They were:

• Memorable

• Authentic

• Simple

• Emotionally resonant

Takeaway:

Sometimes the ads that seem ridiculous in the boardroom are exactly what will cut through the noise.

The best marketing doesn't always look like marketing.

What matters isn't how clever your ad seems internally.

What matters is whether it stops the scroll, creates an emotion, and drives action

Timestamps:

00:01:21 – First ad example: “Living with low T is tough” – why this simple, ‘dumb’ ad keeps working and insights from its success.

00:02:37 – Discussion on why the ad works: simplicity, imagery, and relatable headline.

00:03:36 – Iterations and headline successes from the ad.

00:04:14 – Second ad example: cartoon-style ad for kids’ emotional regulation—format, copywriting, and why clients don’t like but audiences do.

00:06:01 – Third ad example in the same theme: “Say goodbye to boring summer” and the effectiveness of cartoon hands.

00:08:02 – Next ad analysis: “golden milk with spice”—lack of benefits in the copy and how it still lands with the right audience.

00:09:26 – Another example: Betacamp ad about building a business in summer; hands holding signs as a recurring theme.

00:10:46 – Observations about the “sign” creative theme in successful ads.

00:11:42 – Branded SaaS ad example that unexpectedly outperforms others due to clear value proposition and branding.

00:12:22 – Story about Fermat and how a landing page graphic became a winning ad.

00:14:08 – More surprising ad success stories: poorly designed or ‘mistake’ ads that excel in performance.

00:16:41 – Listening to an Ozprint ad: humor, Aussie culture, entertaining elements.

00:18:02 – Why humor and cultural cues help the Ozprint ad work so well.

00:19:50 – Another Ozprint ad: breakdown of elements, storytelling, and video structure.

00:21:25 – Discussion on editing, relatability, and final thoughts on ad creativity.

00:21:57 – Wrap-up and key takeaways: try sign ads, make mistakes, and embrace funky concepts.

If you need timestamps for any specific ad, story, or segment in more detail, just let me know!

Connect with Marco and me here:

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Creative Ad Strategy Bootcamp: https://theperformers.io/creative-ad-strategy-bootcamp

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

#marketing #growthmarketing #ads #advertising #creativity #psychology #entrepreneur

In this episode of we deep into actionable ways to leverage AI for ad creation, focusing on research, ideation, and scripting—without losing the human touch.

You'll learn both hosts’ proven frameworks for using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Poppy to.

Tools:

Atria: https://tryatria.com/?linkId=lp_879287&sourceId=aazar-shad&tenantId=atria

https://aazar--cleverprogrammer.thrivecart.com/poppy-ai-checkout/

Discussion:

Do deep customer and market research

Uncover hidden motivations and buying behaviors

Find high-converting ad angles, headlines, and copy ideas

Turn real customer reviews and emotional triggers into compelling ads

Generate ad scripts and creative storyboards in under 15 minutes

Whether you’re running ads for DTC, e-commerce, or agency clients, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at real tools and methods that have generated seven figures for clients. Plus, watch as Aazar and Marco actually create an ad for a candle brand in real time—from discovering insights to writing and visualizing the ad concept!

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction

00:51 – Marco’s 7-figure AI research framework

09:21 – The first principles mindset for ad creation

09:45 – Aazar’s rapid-fire research & scripting process

16:04 – Turning insights into ad copy and creative

22:56 – Workflow, tools, and quick ideation tips

24:51 – How to apply these AI methods for your brand

If you’ve ever wondered how leading agencies use AI to shortcut ad research or want to build better creatives (without generic outputs), this episode is for you!

Connect with Marco and I here:

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

🎧 Listen, learn, and start creating high-converting ads with AI today!

P.S. AI Image credits goes to Joanna Lambadjieva. She has an amazing LI content on AI.

#AI #AdCreatives #GrowthMarketing #Copywriting #marketingpodcasts

00:00 Importance of Structured Creative Testing

04:19 Ad Analysis and Strategy Development

09:06 Optimizing Product Advertising Headlines

11:49 Creative Testing Unlocks New Meta Audiences

13:01 Focus on Weekly Winning Ads

18:11 Decoding Customer Insights Systematically

20:36 Effective Client Campaign Strategy

23:17 Consistency Over Daily Fluctuations

26:28 Key Metrics for Creative Testing

29:49 Creative Strategy: Minor Tweaks, Concept Iteration

35:30 Creative Testing Pitfalls in Marketing

36:16 Creative Strategy and Testing Mistakes

39:26 Creative Content Generation Techniques

Connect with Marco and me here:

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

03:50 Tariff Ads

08:30 Tea DTC Ad Creative Working

11:23 Sexy Ad We Wish We Created

13:33 Meggings Appeal Dynamics

18:30 UX Familiarity Ad Format Working

21:29 90-Day Growth Roadmap To Win ANY Ad Account

90-Day Creative Roadmap link.

Connect with Marco and I here:

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

00:00 AI Tools That Create Stopping Brolls

07:03 Ad Format You Should Steal

11:01 How to Fix An Ad Account Struggling Suddenly

14:03 Market Challenges: Low Repeat Purchases

17:04 DTC Brand Aazar Took Over

20:19 Fashion Strategy Diverges from Ecom Trends

24:10 Fashion Ads: Why Features Are Important

26:01 Upcoming Tests & Video Ads

Connect with Marco and I here:

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

04:05 AI Tool Fixes Lip Sync Problem

08:06 Automated Audience Targeting with Proxima

12:50 Why this carousel ad worked for us

15:32 Business Fundamentals Beat Marketing Tools

20:34 Ad simple ad format worked for us

24:12 We stacked multiple psychology ticks in this ad

Tools we discussed:

Proxima: https://www.proxima.ai/demo?utm_source=aazar&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=platform-demo

Captions: https://captions.ai/

Connect with Marco and I here:

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

https://www.ctrfactory.com/

https://www.shepherdagency.co/

Show notes:

00:00 Rethinking Advertising: Focus on Branding

05:51 Authentic-Looking Advertorial Strategy

06:37 Innovative Ad Pricing Strategy

12:04 Viral Success from Super Bowl Ad

13:09 Engage Audiences Without Huge Budget

17:04 Observing Social Media Trends Indirectly

20:53 Lengthy Answers Boost Engagement

Connect with Marco and I here:

Marco Lange: X I LinkedIn

Aazar Ali Shad: X I LinkedIn I TikTok I Instagram

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

• https://www.ctrfactory.com/
• https://www.shepherdagency.co/

1. AI in Script Writing: The Reality Check Discover Marco's experiments with AI-only scripts versus traditional creative strategist-written content. While AI offers innovative ideas, it hasn't yet mastered the art of evoking the emotions that drive engagement. The verdict? Listen to the episode.
2. Revolutionizing Media Buying with AI Learn about the revolutionary tool, Magic X, which Marco has been testing to streamline media buying. By leveraging AI to automate decisions based on set parameters, Marco's team is witnessing more efficient and profitable campaigns. Could this be the future of media buying?
3. Grüns' Winning Creative Strategy Uncover the secrets behind Grüns' rapid growth to a $100 million brand. Their simple yet effective creative strategy emphasizes relatable content and smart positioning. Their focus on pain points—with a creative twist—shows that sometimes less is more when connecting with your audience.

Why Tune In? This episode is packed with actionable insights for leveraging AI effectively in your marketing efforts while showcasing creative strategies that yield substantial results. Whether you're a small agency or a freelance marketer, there's a nugget of wisdom here for you.

Tools we mentioned

• MadgicX

Show notes:

00:00 AI-Driven Marketing Script Debate

05:40 AI Complements Human Strategy

08:20 AI's Idea Generation vs Emotional Impact

10:25 "Automated Ad Management with AI"

13:01 "Magic X: AI Tool for Freelancers"

17:27 Targeted Ads Solve Parenting Challenges

Connect with Marco and I here:

Marco Lange: X I LinkedIn

Aazar Ali Shad: X I LinkedIn I TikTok I Instagram

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

• https://www.ctrfactory.com/
• https://www.shepherdagency.co/

Show notes:

00:00 Advertising Enthusiasts Discuss Latest Trends

06:08 Scaling AI Models for Realism

08:48 Authentic LTV Showcase Strategy

10:53 Improving Ad Performance Metrics

15:53 Effective Comparison Advertising Strategy

18:07 Effective Ad Tweaks Impact Results

20:11 Effective Ad Strategies

The tools we mentioned:

• Icon
• Poppy AI

Show notes:

Introduction to the Podcast

• Aazar introduces the podcast "Growth Marketing Stories" and explains the new format.
• Marco Lange is introduced as Aazar's partner for the new format.

Discussion on Advertising

• Aazar and Marco express their passion for advertising and its dynamic nature.
• They highlight the noise in platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

What’s New in Advertising

• Aazar introduces a new advertising tool called Icon Me.
• The capabilities and potential of Icon Me as an end-to-end advertising tool are discussed.
• Specific features and predictions about the tool are highlighted.

Marco’s Agency and Projects

• Marco shares information about his agency, Shepherd, and the services they provide.
• The Creative Factory project and its focus on performance-based ad creation is explained.

Aazar’s Current Focus

• Aazar discusses his transition from growth marketing to advertising.
• Emphasis on his work with education, health, and tech companies.

The Role of AI in Advertising

• Aazar elaborates on the use of AI tools like Icon Me and their impact on advertising jobs.
• Issues with onboarding and lip-syncing in AI-generated content are discussed.

Advertising Tools and Solutions

• Detailed insights into the Poppy AI tool.
• How Poppy AI aids in script creation and the integration of multiple functionalities.
• Personal experiences and testimonials on the effectiveness of Poppy AI are shared.

Successful Advertising Strategies

• Marco shares a successful ad strategy using a comparison format against competitors.
• Details of how to highlight product advantages and the impact on customer interest.
• Aazar discusses the effectiveness of Venn diagram ads.
• The importance of finding key benefits that resonate with the audience is mentioned.

Connect with Marco and I here:

Marco Lange: X I LinkedIn

Aazar Ali Shad: X I LinkedIn I TikTok I Instagram

The Performers Newsletter: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/subscribe

The Performers Agency: https://theperformers.io/

The Performers Mastermind:https://theperformers.io/mastermind-community

Marco's Agencies:

• https://www.ctrfactory.com/
• https://www.shepherdagency.co/

If you like this episode then:

• Connect with Toby Winch
• And check out my newsletter where I share tactical content to improve your paid marketing: https://www.blog.theperformers.io/

If you are interested in my mastermind group, DM me on Twitter for more.

Timestamps:

1:42 - Dara's story about how she got into paid social marketing

6:08 - Who inspires Dara to look up to?

8:34 - What Dara has changed her mind about Facebook Ads?

13:24 - How do you fight the low ROAS?

14:40 - What if the CTR is above 1% but conversions are still low

17:29 - How do you fight attribution on Apple store post IOS14?

19:33 - Key scaling lessons

22:33 - UGC vs IGC content

27:48 - Is retargeting still relevant in 2022 and beyond?

30:52 - What are your Black Friday lessons

Links

Dara is pretty active on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DenneyDara

And her YouTube channel is worth following: https://www.youtube.com/@DaraDenney

Join our Paid Social Mastermind here if you are interested: https://forms.gle/LyW9VHiecQ3qB1TS6

This was discussed in our mastermind group; if you want to level up your paid social marketing skills, join our group here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeMAeF1jMu7oukDdCYNJfVacxUmTjv85W8IKQNMw09rQx6dqg/viewform?usp=send_form

In this episode, we discussed the following:

• Education on paid social
• Ad account structure
• Creative testing process
• The new meta guidelines
• TikTok vs Meta ads

Links:

Check out Cody's content and profile to learn more:

• Twitter
• Down to Chat Podcast
• Cody's newsletter

If you want these lessons in text: https://twitter.com/Aazarshad/status/1414585344058564611

Join my newsletter where I share marketing frameworks I learn and I ask my guests to share it too: https://aazarshad.com/newsletter/

Join the paid social mastermind here: https://forms.gle/a7m2G4bQGueFdLWV6

Below are some timestamps:

00:59 - A bit about Daphne's growth background

03:22 - The heights story of increasing 300% conversion rate

12:03 - How they drilled down 16 to 3 key value props

13:38 - How churned customers helped

15:35 - How founders were a key persona and why they should not have ignored it.

19:22 - 3 key mental models from this story

Leave your feedback here: https://galas.fm/episode/1c037a73-33ac-59e1-a6e1-232baa825a21

Show notes

• Daphne's LI profile
• 300% increase article
• My LI and Twitter if you wanna connect.

And here's a good email as an example: https://twitter.com/Aazarshad/status/1555179700087029766

• The main thread: https://twitter.com/Aazarshad/status/1432689651823742978
• How to launch on Product Hunt: https://www.swipefiles.com/articles/how-to-launch-on-product-hunt
• Quora Marketing: https://albacross.com/newsroom/organic-quora-marketing/
• Slack marketing: https://awario.com/blog/slack-for-social-media-marketing-user-acquisition/
• Newsletter for more: aazarshad.com/newsletter

• My Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/Aazarshad/status/1434864249650630659
• My Newsletter: https://aazarshad.com/newsletter/

1:52 - The beginning of MyObvi: How three friends wanted to build their own brand

8:41 - How they used scarcity and social proof to create FOMO

10:53 - Journey till 200K

13:35 - What changed at $1mn revenue

14:50 - What changed at $10mn revenue

15:49 - What they different from $10-30Mn revenue

17:01 - How do they build a community as an ecommerce company?

18:48 - Mental models to grow Instagram organic

21:04 - How everyone is a CEO at My Obvi

Key links

My newsletter to get 10 best learning from all these podcasts: https://aazarshad.com/newsletter/

Ron's Tweet thread on his business: https://twitter.com/obviceo/status/1509933638154133513

Check out Myobvi

Ash is a great follow to learn performance marketing: https://twitter.com/ashvinmelwani

We discussed:

1:00 - Intro

1:20 - How his process is different from other CROs

5:36 - What is continual optimization?

7:54 - Why best practices are for beginners?

15:02 - Scientific method vs silver bullets

20:18 - Why should you stop marketing when someone becomes a lead?

24:06 - How to use email marketing the right way?

Key Links

• Jon MacDonald's website: https://jonmacdonald.com/
• The Good's website: https://thegood.com/
• Opting in to Optimization book
• My Twitter & LinkedIn

Show notes:

1:36 - About Alex and his story of how he got in

4:15 - Keeping pace with a billion-dollar valuation company

5:44 - How do marketers in their career join a unicorn early

8:31 - How Alex was able to build a media company for HR people

12:23 - How to build a community that sticks

15:41 - Becoming a media company is overwhelming, how to do it right?

22:01 - How Alex grew to be a VP of Marketing (lessons)

27:18 - How to manage folks who have more experience than you?

29:32 - How to manage up?

34:02 - How did he come up with Dock

Key links

• Alex's blog
• Check out Dock for onboarding ANYONE

1. Why SEO
2. How to find the keywords that help you get high intent leads (ROI-Led Keywords)
3. How to write content that ranks
4. How to get backlinks (without spamming & begging for links)
5. How to convert existing users to leads & customers from your blog
6. How to distribute your content elegantly on social platforms

Key links:

• Webinar if want to watch
• Twitter Thread
• The Secret SEO Formula To Get Thousands of Free Leads for SaaS Companies in 2022
• The presentation

Reach out if you'd like me to recommend you some writers or agencies.

Discussion timestamps:

2:17: How to think about job switching as a marketer

7:10 - How Amanda drove product-led content with Sparktoro

12:11 - The challenges with product-led content

16:39 - How to think about content when you are creating a category

26:36 - Her hot take on A/B testing

Links:

• Amanda's Twitter Account
• Sparktoro
• Marketing 201 Content Course

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

We discussed:

1:38 - How did he come up with the idea?

3:39 - Why a marketplace, not a product?

3:57 - What's Growth Mentor's mission?

6:09 - Why do so many folks offer their time for free?

12:43 - How Foti found supply side

14:14 - Successful and unsuccessful growth initiatives

17:10 - How to launch programmatic SEO?

20:45 - How doing things that don't scale helped

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

This is my story about growing Twitter organic socials.

Very tactical and mental models based.

Please reach out on Twitter if you have any questions regarding this.

Key Links

• How To Take Over The World Podcast (Give it a listen)
• Follow Ben (his tweets are REALLY good)

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

Timestamps:

1:42 - Intro

4:38 - How did he grow the podcast initially

6:47 - The growth story

12:18 - How did he make his passion project so good?

14:40 - Storytelling mental models

19:14 - How to edit (pick the right moments?)

23:49 - More mental models on scriptwriting

28:11 - What did you learn from these greats?

Key Links

• How To Take Over The World Podcast (Give it a listen)
• Follow Ben (his tweets are REALLY good)

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

Casey Hill recommends podcasting.

Casey's podcast course

Sample podcast pitch

Listen to what he says.

If people want more in-depth lessons on growth tactics they can opt into Casey's newsletter: https://growthcorner.ck.page/

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

Aditya Gaur asked this question. Hope this helps him and some of you too.

Please reach out to these mentors if you want to dive more:

Mentor Soundbite # 1 Nikki Elbaz:

Website: nikkielbaz.com

Newsletter: nikkielbaz.com/subscribe

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nikki-elbaz

Twitter: twitter.com/nikkielbaz

Product (ecomm focus): nikkielbaz.com/email-playbooks

Mentor Soundbite # 2 - Parikshit Joshi

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

We discussed:

2:15 - Mental models for marketers from baseball

5:55 - Story behind LivingCozy

15:57 - How to outrank big brands

20:26 - What about boring listicles?

23:45 - The layering mental model (done is better than perfect)

29:23 - How to beat buffer in its own game

32:43 - What if Web3 takes over Google search?

35:53 - Metrics that make LivingCozy successful

Key Links

• Go from 0 to 100K pageviews a month with Webflow
• LivingCozy website
• Ash Read's Twitter

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

Marketers have struggled to choose either of them for growth. We wanted to give the full picture.

2:37 - Intros

5:09 - Why Vanessa loves thought leadership more than SEO

9:24 - Lusha's story about brand revamping and thought leadership

14:00 - George's client SEO story on ranking for growth

21:01 - Pros and cons of SEO

24:00 - Pros and cons of thought leadership

28:00 - Backlinks seem to be a useless process in SEO -- Listen to Geroge's take

31:05 - George's take on constantly fighting on ranking and content updating

34:48 - What about the long unnecessary articles that the visitors don't need for SEO?

38:41 - Vanessa's take on thought leadership could be a hit or miss.

42:59 - What about thought leadership not contributing to the revenue? (Vanessa's response)

45:04 - What's the right percentage to allocate thought leadership vs SEO as a content team?

52:44 - My take on the whole debate

Key Links

• Reach to Vanessa for her amazing thoughts
• Reach out George if you want help with SEO
• George's agency Minutia
• Check out Lusha.com (Vanessa's company)

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar15 and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

We discussed:

1:51 - Nelson's background in B2B Sales & Marketing

3:30 - What are Predictable Revenue and the problems with it

6:05 - What about the outbound approach to reaching out to the right customer at the right time?

13:15 - How to approach Account-Based Marketing?

__

Links:

• “The Death of the SDR: And the Birth of Buyer Centric Revenue”

Supported by - Growth Mentor

What if you could tap into the experience of 340+ startup and marketing mentors?

Have 1-on-1 conversations about growth, marketing, and everything in between with the world's top 3% of startup and marketing mentors.

Use the code aazar and get an exclusive 15% discount for Growth Mentor listeners.

Here's what we've discussed:

1:44: Kate's startup experience and mistakes she wants you to avoid

11:07: Should copywriting be based on Jobs-To-Be-Done or benefit-led or outcome-led?

15:05 - Which 4 questions do you need to figure out buyer psychology & triggers?

21:31 - How I applied her 4 questions and my results

33:30 - How to ask questions that lead to insights

37:84 - Rapidfire round

Key links:

• There are only 4 questions you *really* need to answer to get started
• Reach out to Kate on Twitter (she is kinda very popular but responsive there)
• Clarity Calls Cheat Sheet (highly recommend to buy)

Important, I would not have been able to do without Badal's help.

This podcast is interesting because we cover A-Z of Facebook Ads which I feel like many people charge $2000-$3000 for it.

Some questions we also covered: 

• How do you approach a Facebook campaign at the early stages?
• How many campaigns, ad sets, and creatives based Tofu, Mofu, and Bofu? 
• What kind of ad objectives I should run on this?
• What are some powerful ad targeting ideas?
• How much budget an ad campaign should have?
• Common mistakes advertisers do
• How to reduce cost per acquisition?
• What metrics are important?
• What kind sof creatives work well?
• How to write a copy for an ad?
• How to structure a UTM campaign?
• How to scale a Facebook campaign?
• How to think about the landing pages?
• Best practices to prevent ad account to be blocked
• How much budget should I have to run Facebook ad campaign?
• What do you think about engaged shoppers or birthdays campaign?
• How to run holiday campaigns?
• What kind of ads grab attention on FB ads?
• How to analyze Facebook Ad Campaign?
• How long should you run an unprofitable ad?
• When should you use Campaign Budget Optimization?
• Key mental models for Facebook Ads

Key links:

• Check out the ads I ran here
• Connect with Badal on Twitter or LinkedIn
• Work with XLR Media

Links:

• Connect with Aggelos
• Check out Growth Sandwhich agency

2:29 - How growth marketing & chess are very similar

5:58 - The whacky path to growth marketing but with the right mindset

9:33 - Key mental model learned with paid ads

17:25 - Generalist vs specialist debate

21:54 - Growth experiments with Trends newsletter

27:27 - How to be ahead with influencer marketing

32:53 - Copywriting mental model from Sam Parr

33:35 - Product-Led Growth experiment at Trends

41:21 - Side hustle mental models and lessons (how to do it right)

Key Links

• Stephsmith.io
• Doing Content Right
• Doing Time Right
• Sh*t You Don't Learn in School

We discussed:

3:07 - The Truebill original story

5:25 - How did he think about differentiation?

7:13 - How Truebilll was on a death bed? How did he pull it off?

12:17 - What's the framework to grow a B2C business?

19:49 - What are the growth levers from 0-$100K, $100K to $1Mn, $1MN to $10Mn and $10Mn to $100Mn for Truebill?

23:17 - Why did not referral marketing work for Truebill?

27:19 - Favorite growth marketer?

28:10 - What's the worst piece of advice you ever got?

29:51 - What have you recently changed your mind about?

Key Links

• Yahya Mokhtarzada
• Check out Truebill

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

Subscribe to the newsletter to get exclusive podcast notes and mindset-changing growth marketing mental models and stories in your inbox.

We talked about:

2:35 - How attributing the device wrongly led to a growth fiasco

6:20 - How investing in SEO "seemed" like a bad idea but it worked.

13:03 - How to think about B2B attribution

16:41 - How Gorgias took advantage of DreamData to get $2Mn of additional revenue

19:27 - What's working for DreamData currently as B2B SaaS company?

21:51 - Rapidfire round

Key Links

• Connect with Steffen to learn B2B Revenue Attribution
• Check out DreamData
• How Gorgias transitioned from single-touch to data rich multi-touch attribution using Dreamdata
• Learn more about B2B Attribution: https://dreamdata.io/b2b-attribution,

I'm sharing these reports here:

• The State of SaaS Onboarding 2020
• The State of SaaS Onboarding 2021

Show notes:

• The blog about this story
• Product Adoption School

This episode is only for listeners of my podcasts.

I don't promote these because it is special for you.

I share my story behind moving from sales-led to product-led.

Enjoy!

We discussed:

3:19 - How did Zoelle figure out Airtable's use-cases?

4:21 - What was happening before finding PMF?

5:48 - How did they figure out early growth?

5:49 - What does reverse churn mean for Airtable?

11:20 - Why Airtable focused on customer success teams early on?

15:38 - Having so many use-cases and personas, how did you think about nailing it down?

17:48 - What were some acquisition strategies you focused on that gave a good ROI?

20:02 - How did you reach out cold to different enterprises?

22:09 - What is the framework that you learned from Airtable's PMF story?

24:46 - What were the early Aha and activation moments?

27:35 - How did you figure those moments out?

31:34 - Where some mistakes you made while achieving the PMF that others should not do?

Links:

• Zoelle's LinkedIn Profile (do let her know that I sent you)
• Twitter thread on Airtable's story

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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We discussed:

00:41 - Mick's background & about Traffit

02:18 - Mick's net negative churn story

06:05 - How did he ask for an upsell?

10:10 - How he incentivized the customer success team to upsell more?

14:15 - What are some metrics he moved?

16:06 - Who is his favorite growth marketer?

17:30 - What has he recently changed his mind about?

18:33 - What does he think about internal numbers and salary transparency?

Links:

• Mick's LinkedIn Post on Net Negative Churn
• How to Achieve Net Negative Churn for SaaS (the article Mick Mentioned)
• Mick's LinkedIn Profile
• Check out Traffit

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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1:22 - About Alfred Lua and his background in Marketing

3:07 - His opinion on being a fluid marketer

4:40 - How they grew from 1mn to 1.5mn organic pages views per month (the story)

11:00 - How to beat big publications like Hubspot on search? 

13:44 - How do you really stand out in a newsletter as a company? 

16:04 - How to look for business metrics while growing organic traffic for conversion?

19:12 - How to see the ROI on trendy blog posts?

25:54 - How much does branding play a role in business & content?

29:30 - My lessons and mental models from the podcast.

Key Links

• Alfred's website
• How Buffer Drive 1 Million+ Sessions Per Month with Evergreen Content and Social Media
• How Buffer Increased the Readership of Buffer’s Blog to Over 1.5 Million Visits
• Alfred's Twitter

Supported by Oribi.io - Oribi is a new Google analytics alternative for marketing teams. With Google Analytics, you still need to set it up, run a data studio and ask developers for help. Oribi automatically does that and tracks events without compromising on privacy. You can find attribution and user journey much more comfortably. I wrote a review about Oribi for you to further dive into it. Get 20% off with Oribi.io with the code "gms".

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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02:28 - How Iris founded 3 different SaaS ventures and how she came up with the idea of Oribi.

5:58 - My Questions around Oribi's capabilities as a Google Analytics alternative.

12:49 - The paid social strategy story

14:27 - Why she chose paid social although it is an expensive channel

16:29 - Iris' mental models to leverage paid social

23:38 - Did she struggle with the ads initially?

24:48 - What's the worst piece of advice she has ever got?

25:51 - What has she recently changed her mind about?

Links:

• Iris Shoor's LinkedIn Profile
• Try Oribi
• Oribi's Youtube Ad

Supported by Oribi.io - Oribi is a new Google analytics alternative for marketing teams. With Google Analytics, you still need to set it up, run a data studio and ask developers for help. Oribi automatically does that and tracks events without compromising on privacy. You can find attribution and user journey much more comfortably. I wrote a review about Oribi for you to further dive into it. Get 20% off with Oribi.io with the code "gms".

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

Subscribe to the newsletter  to get exclusive podcast notes and mindset-changing growth marketing mental models and stories in your inbox.

He grew it from zero to 8-figures.

We discussed:

4:19 - Tanner’s background before e-commerce.

7:08 - His story how he faced different challenges to build a successful e-commerce store.

17:37 - What is revenue optimization in e-commerce?

24:13 - How to battle iOS14 changes?

29:58 - Who is Tanner’s favorite growth marketer?

30:31 - What’s the worst advice he ever got?

31:41 - What he has recently changed his mind about?

35:42 - What he said something to “why not” instead of why?

Key Links

• Build Grow Scale Program
• Tanner's Twitter profile

Supported by Oribi.io - Oribi is a new Google analytics alternative for marketing teams. With Google Analytics, you still need to set it up, run a data studio and ask developers for help. Oribi automatically does that and tracks events without compromising on privacy. You can find attribution and user journey much more comfortably. I wrote a review about Oribi for you to further dive into it. Get 20% off with Oribi.io with the code "gms".

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

Subscribe to the newsletter to get exclusive podcast notes and mindset-changing growth marketing mental models and stories in your inbox.

We talked about:

3:59 - Casey's background

5:00 - Why SaaS marketers should be doing more of such initiatives?

7:16 - Why this initiative worked?

9:58 - The story behind co-marketing initiatives

14:33 - What should you consider in a good partner?

18:05 - How success looks like when this is over?

19:21 - Why didn't you go with a webinar series?

22:51 - How would you convince a skeptical CEO listening to this podcast about such initiatives?

Key links

• Design Pickle & Bonjoro key story page
• Casey's LinkedIn
• Try Bonjoro for free

Supported by Oribi.io - Oribi is a new Google analytics alternative for marketing teams. With Google Analytics, you still need to set it up, run a data studio and ask developers for help. Oribi automatically does that and tracks events without compromising on privacy. You can find attribution and user journey much more comfortably. I wrote a review about Oribi for you to further dive into it. Get 20% off with Oribi.io with the code "gms".

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

Subscribe to the newsletter to get exclusive podcast notes and mindset-changing growth marketing mental models and stories in your inbox.

More importantly, how he started his growth initiative with agencies without any brand.

We discussed:

3:34 - About Blake & his story

5:52 - Tone's story on running agency partnership

9:58 - How did Blake create an outbound plan?

13.53 - Why did he go for doing things that don't scale

15:07 - Blake's agency partnership framework

20:08 - What agencies really care about?

23:44 - What happens after signing a contract and showing a demo?

29:57 - I created a framework after listening to his content for agency partnership

Supported by Oribi.io - Oribi is a new Google analytics alternative for marketing teams. With Google Analytics, you still need to set it up, run a data studio and ask developers for help. Oribi automatically does that and tracks events without compromising on privacy. You can find attribution and user journey much more comfortably. I wrote a review about Oribi for you to further dive into it. Get 20% off with Oribi.io with the code "gms".

Links

• Blake's LinkedIn Profile
• Tone's website
• Blake mentioned the Delivery Value Course by Andrew Capland (I took it too, I highly recommend it)

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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1:47 - The story about category creation.

7:35 - When it started making sense to create a category of "Customer Lifetime Value".

9:03 - What efforts Omniconvert is making to create a category.

14:54 - Three things you should remember when creating a category.

20:43 - My thoughts on category creation.

Links

• Connect with Juliana on LinkedIn (awesome account to follow)
• Check out Omniconvert
• Customer lifetime value course

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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He shared his exact tactics to grow his newsletter in this article and we dived deeper into it.

We discussed:

1:36 - Story in the startup scene and how he started the newsletter.

9:35 - How to improve writing in general if you?

12:30 - How he got his first 10 subscribers

16:10 - His tactics on promoting the newsletter on Twitter & Slack

18:09 - From 1000 to 2000 subscribers, how referral marketing helped him?

21:04 - From 1000 to 10,000 subscribers, what worked and what didn't?

26:00 - People who are starting today, how should they think about starting a newsletter?

28:17 - What does "value" mean in terms of creating content?

30:54 - Rapid fire round

33:45 - My summary and 5 mental models from the conversation with him about newsletter writing and promotion

Key links

• Growing First 1000 (this newsletter) to 10k Subscribers
• Ali's Twitter handle
• His most popular tweet (I love his contrarian way of thinking)

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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We discussed:

02:26 - How Arvid started an entrepreneur and built his audience (the story)

19:32 - How he fights the impostor syndrome

23:08 - How to build empathy while building an audience 

27:28 - His simple framework to be a trusted domain expert

33:52 - How he thinks about company audience building on Twitter

Key Links:

• Arvid’s Twitter Profile
• The Embedded Entrepreneur Book
• Zero to Sold Book
• Arvid’s Podcast

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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In this episode, I talked to Animalz's Director of Marketing to share his thoughts on why do they ONLY do "thought leadership" content.

About Ryan: Ryan is the Director of Marketing at Animalz, an agency that provides high-end content marketing solutions to SaaS and tech companies.

Ryan shared:

2:13 - The story about how & why they went with thought leadership from the beginning

6:05 - What kind of thought leadership Animalz writes?

10:11 - What is his process of writing the content writing & ideation?

12:42 - How does Animalz engineer content virality?

15:36 - How do they convince clients to write about thought leadership content?

18:56 - How should you think about thought leadership content when you don't have personal experience?

19:24 - At what stage should you choose thought leadership and commodity SEO content?

21:46 - How to promote content without being too promotional?

24:13 - How to compete with amazing substack writers who sometimes do better jobs than we do?

Key links

• Ryan's Twitter Profile
• On thought leadership content
• Copycat content
• The idea farm
• The second-mover advantage
• Content maturity model

Please leave a review for the podcast if you are a regular listener.

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Topics that we have touched:

1:35 - The story behind growing Animal House Brand with influencer marketing.

7:40 - How do you find and track these influencers and their posts?

9:43 - How do you really genuine build relationships with influencers?

14:59 - How do you use influencers' content to grow further?

18:56 - What is whitelisting? And, how does it really work?

26:33 - Some folks have tried influencer marketing but it did not work for them - What would you tell them?

Key Links:

The Art of Scaling From 0 to $3 Million in Six Months

The Beginners’ Guide to Influencer Marketing in Ecommerce – Everything You Need To Know

Wins and loses is my new series sharing my personal growth marketing stories and lessons.

It's a short story and I hope you find the lessons learned interesting.

Show notes

• Munich Unicorn: Celonis 1500 letters stunt
• Buying the Ultimate Sales Letter Book to improve my copywriting
• The second episode on Direct Mail Marketing
• Sendwithscout

1:20 - Status quo: What made Dopoll changes their strategy?

3:80 - How they started focusing on growth marketing?

7:32 - How they figured out their value proposition to position themselves better?

10:26 - How they found the activation sweet spot? Converting from 1% to 4% in freemium

15:56 - How they improved landing page conversion from 4% to 14%?

Links

• Dopoll's case study
• Follow Marc on Twitter

We've discussed:

2:53 -How she got an interview and then an offer from Instagram Reels?

5:37 - During an interview, what is a bad, good and great answer?

7:55 - Why did she reject such a lucrative offer?

13:57 - How she grew her newsletter early on?

16:38 - What's the secret to promoting content on Reddit?

21:10 - What advice she'd give to her earlier self when starting a newsletter?

22:56 - How she created her personal monopoly?

Check out her story in detail by reading these blog posts:

• I quit my tech job, here's what I learned
• How I negotiated $375K Facebook PM offer
• What it's really like as a new entrepreneur
• Product Toolkit
• Personal Monopoly Notes (David Perell)

We're talking about the following topics:

1:40 - About Nick and why left sales

2:48 - His story of 0-479K organic visits from Do Not Pay (detailed case study below)

4:27 - How did he do it?

5:42 - What about the quality of the content while writing so much?

7:42 - Does domain authority matter to rank for organic visits?

8:56 - Isn't web traffic a vanity metric? How does he think about bringing qualifies leads?

13:49 - How does he think about freelancers vs in-house writers?

15:09 - How does think about non-native English writers?

17:10 - What if Google's algorithm changes and his strategy won't work?

19:03 - What does "providing value" means to rank on search?

20:03 - How does he think about ranking for competitive keywords?

23:30 - Does keyword difficulty matter?

24:48 - How does he think about writing for the future? Can his writers pull that off?

Key links:

• The #1 SEO Case Study of 2020
• Follow Nick on LinkedIn
• ContentDistribution

We've covered:

1:09 - Nick's experience in CRO & UX Research

2:04 - Backstory of Thigh Society's hunches to insights

4:54 - How did he decide which insights to pick?

9:08 - How did he decide to to pick the right customer for his research?

11:19 - Research sometimes leads to information overload - How to fix that challenge?

12:18 - Nick's golden framework to prioritze these insights to a good CRO initiative

14:03 - Rapid-fire round

Links

Thigh Society case study

Nick's Finding Clarity Podcast

Nick's Value-Based Design book

Jobs To Be Done Framework

Don't Make Me Think

We've discussed:

2:18 - How Peep moved from a software engineer to a leading CRO in the world.

04:05 - How did he land into making an e-learning platform from consulting?

05:52 - How Wynter's concept came into being?

11:16 - Why rebrand from Copytesting to Wynter.com? When does it really make sense?

23:59 - What's his playbook for brand building and category creation for Wynter?

32:37 - How should a not-so-popular and zero-email list founders think about growing his startup? Not everyone is Peep Laja.

39:49 - Who does he follow and admire?

42:40 - What he has recently changed his mind about?

Subscribe to this newsletter to get the podcast summary: https://aazarshad.com/

Links

• Peep's Twitter
• Win on messaging with Wynter
• Check out Wynter Games

We've covered:

1:31 - Rob's story about how he got into Y-combinator

6:15 - His framework to research for any product

7:08 - How he stumbled on helping a friend to share his notes and that lead to the book - Write Useful Book's

10:41 - Three lessons from his latest books (DEEPP framework). Desire - Effectiveness-Engagement - Polish & Professional

15:41 - How do you find out where exactly in the book people get bored to optimize it? 

18:16 - How do you actually find out the audience for your book?

26:45 - Rapidfire questions:

• What's the worst advice he ever got?
• What he has recently changed his mind about?
• When did you last say 'Why not' to something?

Check out Write Useful Book Resources & Rob's Details:

• Pre-orders for immediate access and community
• Rob's Website
• His Youtube Channel and Rob's Twitter handle

We discussed:

1:35 - Why and How Match Moved from Sales-Led to Product Led Growth

5:44 - What were the key changes made for the Product-Led Growth model

8:00 - What metrics they started following?

10:51 - How did they deal with the free-loaders who never subscribe?

13:26 - Did they take advantage of the referral and vitality?

15:26 - What resources would Giovanni recommend for Product-Led Growth?

16:01 - My thoughts on Product-Led Growth and Why Userpilot is not 100% still not a freemium product.

Links:

Connect with Giovanni Hobbins and pick his brain on LinkedIn

Follow Product-Led Institute

Articles that helped me with Product-Led Growth:

Understanding Viral Growth in SaaS

The Three Rules of Freemium

My take on Product-Led Growth:

How to Run Sales in the Era of Product-Led Growth

The Pillars of Product-Led Customer Success

The Marketer’s Guide to Product-led Growth Marketing

Show notes & key topics we've discussed:

00:00 - 6 freemium tips from Claude Hopkins in his book Scientific Advertising.

02:34 - What is Product-Led Growth?

04:27 - How did PandaDoc launch their freemium and Why?

11:12 - How do you balance between freemium and free trial offering (if you have both)?

14:49 - How did you actually make sure that salespeople keep getting the leads in freemium?

16:29 - What happens if people downgrade because of freemium?

18:49 - What metric was moved by Product-Led Growth strategy i.e. freemium?

21:22 - Did they change lifecycle emails from free trial to freemium? How do you find a balance?

23:12 - How should you think about value metrics and pricing to not lose business while launching freemium? 

25:57 - When is the right time to launch a freemium offering?

Links

• Check out PandaDoc
• Connect with Tanya on LinkedIn
• Leave a review

In this episode, we dived into product growth and activation. User Activation is the key to growth. We talked about:

2:02 - What makes Matheus passionate about product growth?

3:08 - How is he always optimizing for user activation?

4:04 - What's the confusion around activation?

5:03 - How is he thinking about the sign-up flow optimization?

6:28 - Does adding social proof really help?

7:59 - How user research really helps with activation?

11:27 - How did product walkthroughs help?

12:44 - How should we really look into data while doing the user research?

17:24 - What's the difference between Product Growth & Product-Led Growth?

Key Lessons

• Product Growth is a discipline between product and marketing. It's like science and art together. That's why it's so interesting.
• To fix activation you can always find some low-hanging fruits like improving the sign-up flow and conversion/funnel optimization.
• People think you can fix activation and you're done. You're not done, activation is a continuous optimization of the funnel.
• To improve sign-up flow, you can add AuthO to reduce friction to login. You can always find more friction points tp improve the funnel conversion.
• Before asking questions in user research, try to look into the quantitative data. Find out the problems in the funnel.
• Product walkthroughs did help with user activation.
• Product Growth is a discipline and Product-led Growth is a Go-to-Market Strategy.

Links

• What's the Aha & Activation Moments?
• Connect with Matheus Mello
• Check ProductBoard's Activation, Sign Up, and Onboarding Flow

Before figuring out anything about your business. You need to figure who you are selling to, how are you different, and where do you stand in the market. And, that’s called positioning.

This podcast episode is a follow-up to Obviously Awesome book, April’s podcast appearances, and articles you’ll find on the internet. 

In this episode, we’re covering the following topics:

3:02 — Why positioning is gaining importance?

7:02 — What is NOT positioning?

9:32 — What’s the difference between category creation and positioning? Is category creation absolutely necessary to win?

15:49 — What is conversational marketing? A Positioning or Category?

18:30 — Is cost-effective pricing or ease to use a differentiator? 

22:21 — Which brands have nailed the positioning well?

33:56- How to use positioning in your sales calls?

35:57 — What’s the difference between strategic narrative and positioning?

41:13 - How Level Jump nailed its positioning to grow faster.

Links:

• A story about a failed start-up
• Level jump positioning
• April Dunford's website
• Obviously Awesome (her book)
• Reach out to April on Twitter for more
• A Quick Guide to Positioning

In this episode, we’ll learn from Aleksandra’s story about how & why she failed running a virtual summit paid campaign on LinkedIn. And, how she quickly adapted to drive growth.

Show Notes:

• 0:53 - Aleksandra Panyukhina background in event marketing
• 1:54 - The story about how she failed at LinkedIn Ads & Inmail
• 5:23 - Lessons from the campaign failure
• 12:31 - What works on LinkedIn right now?
• 14:59 - When should you start thinking about Event Marketing?
• 19:33 - Why Event Marketing works for SEMrush?
• 21:43 - What works with Event Marketing?

Connect with My Guest

• Reach out to Aleksandra on event marketing questions

Check full post here: https://aazarshad.com/podcasts/linkedin-ads-and-inmails-event-marketing-lessons/

He had amazing Q1 growth in 2020.

Then, at some point, the business was about to die.

Revenues dropping. Cancellations.

They had all the challenges one could think of during COVID-19. You name it.

Then, they re-iterated their product and opened a new business line by solving an existing problem of their audience.

Result?

They started growing again.

Curious?

It's a long emotional story on how they helped military recruits to stay connected with their family when everything stopped working.

In this episode, we discussed:

• Why Craig hates growth hacking?
• How Craig fixed activation of upside when the users were not coming back?
• How to increase brand stickiness? 
• Drive value instead of trying to make more money. Prioritize user experience 
• How to NOT die during COVID but also expand new revenue
• How Craig tweaked his course with psychological principles to get 100K in revenue

Show notes:

2:06 - What are Craig's thoughts on Growth Hacking and Why he also does not approve of it.

4:56 - How Upside.com was able to increase activation with non-active users?

14:44 - How Craig found & diagnose the actual activation problem

18:38 - Craig's thought experiments for growth

20:33 - How Craig was able to save a dying business that was highly impacted by COVID

32:36 - How he was able to get 6-figure course revenue by applying psychological principles and tweaking a few things.

Links:

Craig's Growth University: https://growthminded.co/

Connect with Craig on LinkedIn

There were some principles that needed more details and stories. 

So, we decided to record an episode on that. We discussed:

• 2:01 - Corey's story in the marketing world
• 4:15 - What's the inversion principle? How did Corey use to at Baremetrics?
• 10:46 - What's Cobra Effect? How did Corey realize while trying to increase the activation metric?
• 17:17 - A key lesson learned while trying to increase activation
• 18:47 - Ockham's Razor & Overfitting story related to his landing page
• 25:25 - Favorite growth marketers according to Corey
• 25:52 - Worst advice Corey ever got? 

There are 40+ Mental Models Corey has in his course. Check out 👉 Mental Models for Marketing

Key takeaways

• Use inversion to think otherwise. Other consequences. I use inversion for budget planning.
• Cobra effect — Align your marketing to customers, not the other way around
• Keep it simple silly - Ockham's razor
• It’s always okay to say that you don’t know and that you’ll figure it out.
• Instead of learning the next big hack, try to understand your customers and position yourself in their context

Links

Connect with Corey here: https://twitter.com/coreyhainesco

Check out his free newsletter here: https://swipefiles.co/

We discussed:

• Why does your content team need to think like a product team?
• How does it benefit?
• Live case study on how to think
• What's a ProdPad way of thinking?

Follow -- ProdPad's Twitter account & Andrea's LinkedIn Profile to stay updated. I personally learn from Andrea's mindset and posts on my LinkedIn newsfeed.

I've divided those insights into:

• Content Creation & Marketing
• Product Growth
• Promotion & Ads

Plus, Happy New Year :-)

We talked about:

• Back story about how Nelio left corporate world and joined a startup like Careem.
• How’s Nelio’s company (Washmen) was struggling with Facebook Ads
• Why Facebook Ads were not working?
• How they kept Facebook ads quality score high for 8 months and became a case study for Facebook
• How understanding end-users helped him get ahead of the competition

What are some key learning

• Don’t believe your boss. Test the channel first.
• Start with ad ad creative and copy first approach i.e. Brand-driven growth.
• If you want to win at any kind of marketing. Understand your customers and find those insights to get ahead of your competition
• Creativity > Number crunching 

Links:

• Nelio’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelioleone/
• The Facebook Ads Case Study
• Check out his website if you're looking to double down on paid ads: https://www.urbanmonks.io/

Jay Acunzo is my mentor. He actually taught many of us how to create a stellar podcast.

We've discussed:

• What's his professional mission?
• Why he moved away from a well-paid Google job to pursue content marketing?
• How did he have his epiphany over time?
• How content creation should be actually done?
• Why Head of Content At Hubspot was still done good enough?
• How Jay's VC podcast considered as good as the A16z podcast?
• How to find podcast ROI?
• How a SaaS brand should have podcast creation?
• What's smug clarity and why should we avoid it?
• We did a case study live on - What should be Userpilot's (my company) podcast premise?
• How I start growth marketing stories, and how Jay help me?
• Worst advice Jay ever had?

Jay's content you should DEFINITELY read if you're planning to start a podcast:

• Check out Jay's workshop
• Jay's on-demand course

Must Read Jay's Blogs

• The Experience Spectrum (a framework for understanding how others experience our shows, so we can avoid creating commodities and focus on making proprietary experiences)
• The Style Spectrum (a framework for understanding how our own personal involvement in the experience can radically effect it, and how to be proactive about that)
• The Fortress of Favoritism (a framework on how to be someone's favorite podcast)

Show Notes

• Jay's favorite book on podcasting: Out on the wire
• Jay's favorite show maker: Anthony Bourdain
• Jay's favorite marketer: Andrew David

In this episode, you'll hear Niels speaking about:

• How pandemic hit and he lost his job
• How he created demand for himself
• How he got 33 interviews and 8 offers

This is a short-story led podcast format.

If you like this episode, please leave a review so others can find it too.

Links

You can connect with him on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/niels-zee/

Check out the website he promoted: https://nielszee.com/

His story on LinkedIn:

• When he got the job offer
• How he appeared as a authority in growth marketing
• His first touching post when he lost his job

We’ve discussed:

✔️ How Aaron left college and his job to start a business.

✔️ How he kept failing and never wanted to be an entrepreneur AGAIN.

✔️ How he kept growing without any paid channels.

✔️ Why he thinks this channel works well.

✔️ How you can leverage this channel and ideas.

✔️ Live case study with this channel.

Show notes:

1:07 - Who is Aaron and How does he help SaaS companies with growth.

1:56 - Aaron's emotional story of failures to find traction for his business.

6:27 - How he started with SEO and Facebooks to deliver results.

11:40 - How he found partner marketing is ultimate channel and how he nurtures them.

14:40 - How Aaron would build relationship with Segment (advice to me & Userpilot)

22: 58 - How Aaron will solve a VOIP SaaS Startup's traction problem with partner marketing & development 

Links:

• Aaron's Website
• Aaron's Facebook Group
• Russel Brunson his favorite growth marketer
• His favorite book by Dana Dericks - Dream 100

Find us on Twitter/LinkedIn

• Aaron's LinkedIn & Twitter

My profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aazarshad/

-Twitter my profile & growth marketing stories

✔️ How Ayat got into CRO?

✔️ How she launched a SaaS in a Crowded SaaS Space

✔️ 5 key lessons she's learned in her 14 years career

Show notes:

Her product: Figpii

- The book she recommended: The Education of An Idealist

-Ayat's profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayatshukairy/

- Her agency: https://www.invespcro.com/

We recently wrote this on Userpilot's blog, so I'm sharing it here:

 A friction-based flow is one that will make it harder for the user to complete the signup process in exchange for more value-added later on. For example, booking a demo that goes to your sales pipeline first is also counted as friction-based. On the other hand, a frictionless flow will make it much easier to complete the signup process hoping that the UI is good enough to demonstrate the value of the app on its own.

I also discussed advantages and disadvantages of both in our podcast or you can simply read this blog.

We covered:

• What is friction? - 00:54 - 00:60
• What are the advantages & disadvantages of frictionless & friction-based flows? 00:61 to 3:21
• Max's challenge with having a frictionless flow for Ottonova - 3:25 to 5:21
• How he found out after making it friction-based & How did he found out that it would work? 5:22 to 7:43
• What were some best practices & inspiration he followed? - 7:44 to 10:40

Resources:

• Connect with Max - Maximilian Rast
• 2 Ways to Design Your Next Signup Flow [Examples & Best Practices]
• Why Adding Friction to Your Onboarding Funnel Can Actually be Good Idea [Case Study]
• Why We Love Drift’s Signup Flow & Onboarding
• How to Improve User Activation Rate
• Breaking Down The Perfect Sign Up Flow

He recently had a good success with making great content on marketing. His newsletter has 37K+ marketers & his twitter has 72K+ followers. 

We’ve talked about:

• How Harry started Marketing Examples. The story behind it.
• Why & How his content is getting viral?
• How he finds good content?
• What means “better” and “selective” when choosing a content piece? 
• How to do it better?
• How to get viral on twitter?

My key learning from this episode is how Harry thinks about his content. This episode is pure gold for content marketers.

You can find Harry’s content here:

• Marketingexamples.com
• https://twitter.com/GoodMarketingHQ

If you like this episode, tweet at GoodMarketingHQ about this.

In this episode, we’re going to dive deeper in to this question with Robert’s growth marketing story. 

We talked about:

• How did he go with his intuition?
• Did he look into data?
• Was it a feature request?
• What kind of decisions should be on intuition or data?
• How to know - what you’re building is going in a right direction?
• Lessons learned

Show notes

• When to Rely on Data and When to Trust Your Gut
• Bannersnack Carousel Feature
• Bannersnack Instagram Carousel Feature

In reality, his book was the starting point of why I thought GH is BS.

However, these are behind the scene stories that you might not know. So, I thought I should share with you.

We discussed:

• Why Growth is BS? Why Rand Fishkin is also against it?
• Story regarding search engine ranking factors that got Moz SO much attention.
• Growth marketing flywheel story that’s not related to SEO.
• What’s a good content?
• Can your article actually be discoverable on Google if it’s so good? Do you still need backlinks to it?
• What’s Sparktoro’s Go-to-Market Strategy and flywheel?

Show Notes:

• Rand’s Book: https://sparktoro.com/book 
• Emily Vice’s Story: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/10/how-emily-weiss-grew-glossier-from-millennial-catnip-to-billion-dollar-juggernaut
• Search Engine Ranking Factors: https://sparktoro.com/blog/resources/google-ranking-factors-2019/
• My research (passion project): https://userpilot.com/saas-product-onboarding/

• Why Growth Hacking is BS?
• What is good growth marketing?
• What is pain-point SEO?
• How I think about pain-point SEO?
• What are some low effort and high impact tactics that marketers aren't doing right now?
• What metrics we should follow as a growth marketer?

Connect with Alice De Courcy on LinkedIn

Although, Marta had two great 10X content but she still failed to make two of these initiative successful.

We discussed:

• She launched two 10X content: Business Proposal Guide & Buffer Marketing Report
• How did she come up with the idea?
• What was the goal?
• What were the results?
• What was the key learning from this 10X content launch?
• How would she do it if she has to do it again?

Connect with Marta on LinkedIn or Book a Growth Mentor Call with Her to learn from her checklist if you're launching something soon.

• How Nadya grew Venngage’s blog in the early days?
• What mistakes she did during that time?
• How Nadya thinks about SEO after having such a great domain authority of Venngage?
• What kind of content frameworks can always give you that edge to drive more traffic & conversions?
• What if the keywords are driving wrong traffic to you?
• How can you get ahead of your competitor on search engine?
• How she boosted her website domain authority by using creativity? (The most fun part)

Show notes:

• Check out: https://venngage.com/ and https://thisisnadya.com/
• Nadya’s blog that talked about in the blog: SEO Content Framework and Nadya's Framework
• The book she recommended: Creativity Ink
• Sara Cooper as her favorite growth marketer - although, she is a comedian, find out why in the episode (I love her tweets too)

In this episode, we've discussed:

• Pop's SEO strategy & Content
• Paid Marketing
• How using his own app helped to convert more?
• Should there be more friction on the landing page?
• How to think different?

Max admires:

• Ferdinand Goetzen as a Growth Marketer
• Hates asking folks who push unsubscribe to re-subscribe (more in the podcast)
• Loved Indistractable by Nir Eyal  

Not only that but it also increased search appearance for SimScale 247%

What did we discuss in the episode:

• How Agata took 80% of marketing ad spend to search
• How she took risks to do things in SaaS that others don't do (influencer marketing)
• Her growth experiments that helped the company grow faster

..and much more.

If you like this episode, please don't forget to let me know. That's how I keep going.

or leave itunes review.

We covered:

• When should we go with external vendors?
• How to convince our team?
• How to find ROI?
• How to set a goal that pushes you as a growth marketer to do a better job?

This is the first story. Agata had another growth marketer story. We'll chat about it in the next episode (it's related to influencer marketing).

So, stay tuned. If you like this episode, please don't forget to give itunes review.

This episode is all about how Ian Naylor (What-a-guy) found personalization as an effective CAC reducing strategy and how he built a business on it, and gave it to others. 

You can find the resources here: https://aazarshad.com/podcasts/growing-fast-reducing-cac-with-personalization/

For feedback and help, reach out at aazar@aazarshad.com

Or you're unable to retain when the users sign-up.

Andrew Capland shared his growth stories and gave us lessons that product growth folks should apply in practically.

We've talked about:

• Sign-up flow
• Product experiments
• Pricing experiments
• User onboarding experiences

and much more.

Andrew is former Head of Growth at Wisita and now he's driving growth for Postscript.

Tools we've talked about:

• Userpilot
• Fullstory
• VWO

Resources for you:

• Andrew loves coaching growth folks, reach out here:https://deliveringvalue.co/coaching
• Hooked

• How Thinkific & ConvertKit took advantage of webinars as their primary channel?
• How to double down on webinars?
• Step-by-step playbook of webinars
• How to apply bullseye framework to your webinars & other growth channel

If you like this episode, please do subscribe to my podcast or by email here: https://app.popt.in/landing/75248bbde77be

I'd love to your feedback at aazar@aazarshad.com.

If you need help with growth marketing, please feel free to reach out.

• Is direct mail marketing effective for you?
• Is it good for B2B?
• How to delight your customers prospects?
• What are the benefits of direct mail marketing?
• How to track and measure the direct mail campaign?
• When should you do it?
• How to become a better marketer?

..and much more.

Listen to this podcast, and I’d love to know if it helped you to think different.

Reach out at aazar@aazarshad.com. I'd love to hear from you. I need to improve this podcast for you.

I was always curious - how folks are growing their business from Facebook groups organically?

In this episode, we try to cover Lazar's story on organic growth marketing on Facebook groups.

Lazar has cracked Facebook, and you'll find inspiration to do it right once you listen to the episode.

You can find Lazar & Glorify information below:

Lazar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazapavlovic/

Glorify: https://www.glorifyapp.com/

Here's glorify's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/glorifyapp/

Give this a listen and reach out to me at aazar@aazarshad.com or Twitter or LinkedIn

I've been a 2 times founder, and now a growth marketer.

This podcast is about sustainable growth marketing stories, where we go on a journey to explore how growth marketers are moving their business needle and to get inspired.  

On the show, we'll deconstruct several growth marketing stories, and learn how growth marketers think. Often time, it's not the tips or hacks, it's how these folks think.

This show is about getting inspired from these growth marketers.

Every week we’ll focus on one inspiring story that will tickle your creative neurons to find inspiration for your own work. 

This is Growth Marketing Stories.

Subscribe for the show if you think growth marketing is a mindset, not copy pasting.