11 Years Of Facebook Advertising Expertise In 30 Minutes — Sam Piliero | Why Scaling Ad Spend Hits Limits, What Role AI Plays In Advertising, Why Behavior Analysis Drives Better Optimization, Why Brands Need Scaling Readiness First (#429)

In this episode, we dive into the challenge of scaling ads profitably and avoiding wasted spend. 

Sam Piliero, CEO and founder of The Moonlighters, shares how his M3 method helps brands break through growth plateaus by betting on the best-performing channels, structuring campaigns the right way, and using cost controls to drive predictable results. 

He also reveals strategies for scaling faster, creating winning ad creatives, and preparing for Q4 growth.

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why brands hit scaling walls with ad spend. 
• How doubling down on winning ads works. 
• What role AI plays in advertising today. 
• How to balance new creative concepts with iterations. 
• What the M3 method reveals about campaign performance. 
• Why understanding user behavior drives optimization. 
• How proper agency onboarding sets success. 
• What compensation structure aligns agency goals. 
• Why brands need scaling readiness first. 
• How proactive Q4 planning determines success. 
  
  

Links & Resources 

Website: https://themoonlighters.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sampiliero/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamPiliero
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sampiliero/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SamPiliero

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/25rmx7hw

Transcript

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:23:04
Sam Piliero
Why the entry method is the entry method be straight up. It's a fancy way of saying three step process first. I call it that on the fastest horse. You should bet on whatever time's DES platforms placements are most likely to make you cash. Second piece of this is structure and strategy and the final piece of the entry method is a.

00:00:23:06 - 00:00:42:20
Claus Lauter
Hello and welcome to another episode of the E-commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we're diving into one of the biggest headaches for online sellers scaling its profitability. Most brands hit a wall because the ad spend the data and campaigns are too broad to drive real growth or worse, they're just burning cash. In this episode, we're breaking down how to turn ads into a profit machine.

00:00:42:21 - 00:01:04:19
Claus Lauter
My guest today is Sam Piliero. He is the CEO and founder of the  Moonlighters, a marketing agency that helps brands scale from 1 to 10 million. And above, was made to end Google ads. Before that, he led grows at Barkbox and rent paid ads for top brands at VaynerMedia Media. Sam has 11 years of Facebook advertising experience and he is here to share the strategies that actually work.

00:01:04:21 - 00:01:08:11
Claus Lauter
We have a lot to cover, so let's get into it. Sam, welcome to the show.

00:01:08:16 - 00:01:10:23
Sam Piliero
Thank you very much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

00:01:11:00 - 00:01:22:15
Claus Lauter
Sam Most brands know the frustration and that includes me when their campaign stall. From your perspective, what's the biggest mistake? You'll see when they are trying to scale that spend?

00:01:22:17 - 00:01:42:23
Sam Piliero
You know, it really depends on the size that you're at right now. I'll give us an example. We were just looking at some data literally this morning on an account that was pretty much running for the last two straight years that was spending no more than 3 to $5000 per month. And they started to tick things up a bit that really dug into some advice.

00:01:42:23 - 00:02:06:20
Sam Piliero
They'd started to to increase spend ten, 15%, 20% every couple of days. And then we started working with them. And this is no means to just what we did on our side, but really just breaking through the barrier, the mental barrier of scaling. And we work with them for about 60 days, still working with them 60 days, and we went from about $17,000 in ad spend to 50.

00:02:06:20 - 00:02:36:01
Sam Piliero
And then this month we're on pace for 139 and that doesn't happen by increasing 10% or increasing 5%. It also doesn't happen when you're wasting ad spending a lot of different places. So the approach that we took with this account and that we've been taking with plenty of accounts but this is just a real true winner is that we don't mind if a chunk of the total ad spend is going to two or three ads, like if 70% of the entire accounts are going to two or three ads.

00:02:36:05 - 00:02:57:18
Sam Piliero
Fantastic. You have winners like double down on those winners, Right? There's a reason, like you can use any analogy in the in the sports word world, for example, you pay your best player an outsized amount of money compared to everyone else on your team. You need everyone else to make the team actually function, but without the star player, you never make it to the playoffs.

00:02:57:18 - 00:03:19:06
Sam Piliero
You never win the championship. And I think that's a good analogy that people should think about when they see one ad that gets 80% of their total ad spend. And then in that same vein, not being held to like the learning phase that we've been indoctrinated with and just really feeling like you could push up spend when you're hitting your targets.

00:03:19:08 - 00:03:41:14
Sam Piliero
So with this brand in particular and anyone could apply to any brand, we pushed very, very, very hard to see my team pushed very hard when things were going well. So when we're under the target, CPA or over a target return on ad spend, depending on what kind of how you manage your business, don't worry about 10% increases.

00:03:41:16 - 00:03:59:07
Sam Piliero
Be completely content with 40% increases on that campaign, 50% increases. Right. Because that's the only way. I mean, it's a 60 day time line from 17000 to 140000 or 139,000. That doesn't happen with 15% increments.

00:03:59:09 - 00:04:26:08
Claus Lauter
I think it's important to highlight that it takes a couple of weeks to get there. You know, in Q3, Q4 is around the corner. So if you really run the ramp up, you need to get started there. Now, specifically matters of platform. Also, Google has changed a lot and put a lot of air in there. So and people are probably under pressure now is like air takes care of everything and I don't have to do anything.

00:04:26:10 - 00:04:28:18
Claus Lauter
Is that true or not?

00:04:28:20 - 00:04:56:19
Sam Piliero
I think the laugh at the end there probably indicates that, you know, that it's not true. Yeah. Like, I think maybe we get to a point way down the line where that is fully the case. The algorithms are getting better, but they're not necessarily perfect by any means. And what you needed to do, I'd say probably seven years, eight years ago now, like 2018, rough range are the things you still need to be doing today.

00:04:56:21 - 00:05:17:11
Sam Piliero
So we've been so indoctrinated in the last really five years to go all broad, right? I was 14.5. Huge paradigm shift. Everyone's like broad, broad, broad brush broad. All you can do is go broad. The long story short on this is that that was true for a period because Facebook lacked all the data because they had to stop collecting the data.

00:05:17:13 - 00:05:44:12
Sam Piliero
Then they reinvented with the copy, they reinvented how their pixel functions, how they collect user information, etc.. And we're at this point now where we have a lot of information again, and one of the highlights of that information is two things that you can do for free in your ad account right now, which is set up your audience breakdowns so you can see new engage in existing audiences and then be use or at least look at incremental attribution.

00:05:44:13 - 00:06:17:17
Sam Piliero
And I think when you know, when I think about the ramp up to Q4, when I think about, you know, some bleeding of cash sometimes and how these algorithms are supposed to be making that easy for us, they're really not, because oftentimes all they care about is where is the next cheapest available purchase when in reality the next cheapest available purchase or customer is the one that's probably going to convert without spending any more money on them or only requires a little bit of cash on them.

00:06:17:19 - 00:06:48:10
Sam Piliero
So your incrementality rates decrease when you let Facebook run wild. And if you're a brand that spending, you know, $1,000,000 a month, this doesn't apply as acutely to you. But if you're a brand that's spending $20,000 a month, $50,000 a month or in the ranges, right, then you wasting $5,000 on existing customers or engaged audiences as opposed to the only needing to spend 2000.

00:06:48:12 - 00:07:05:15
Sam Piliero
Well, think about it like this. If you spend 30 as your total, I won't go too hard into math, but if you spend 30 on your total and you could have saved $3,000 on audiences that we're going to maybe convert anyway, or you could have hit for free on email, SMS, etc. that's 10% of your budget that could have went to new audiences.

00:07:05:21 - 00:07:09:11
Sam Piliero
That's a lot over the course of months, weeks, etc..

00:07:09:13 - 00:07:26:19
Claus Lauter
No, it totally. I get this and I'm sort of relieved that you say it's sort of back to the old times to a certain degree with a now was the help of I'm doing lots of Facebook ads and Google ads for ages and I stuck to it sort of against the two news coming out is doing everything now.

00:07:26:21 - 00:07:34:11
Claus Lauter
One thing people I think struggle the most is coming up with new ad creative all the time. What's your take on that?

00:07:34:13 - 00:07:58:23
Sam Piliero
You're right. The two sides of creative that have kind of swung back and forth have been, do we just keep creating new iterations or do we always create brand new concepts? There's a book actually right behind me can't. It's hidden behind there. It's called Steal Like an Artist. And when I joined VaynerMedia in my first week, my boss there gave me this book, Steal Like an Artist recommended to everyone.

00:07:59:03 - 00:08:20:22
Sam Piliero
It's basically adult picture book, like it's a kid's book. You can read it in 30 minutes. And essentially what it breaks down is the idea of taking your competitor ideas and making them better. It's a super short version of it, but they break down a little formula, you know, it's nice. So that really applies to ad concepts these days.

00:08:20:22 - 00:08:46:23
Sam Piliero
And I think the biggest brands in the world, what they're doing is a combination of home runs where they're trying a totally new concept out. But then very, very fast iterations. I just recorded something on this to share our this in a similar vein where the best thing you can do is, you know, take the homerun swing, but pre think about the variations that you need to create for this.

00:08:47:01 - 00:09:07:13
Sam Piliero
So for example, let's say I was selling AirPods here and it was a picture of me smiling at the camera, but no one would buy it. But, you know, if it was me behind the camera and variation two was me with the AirPods open behind the camera, and variation three was me with them in my ears behind the camera.

00:09:07:15 - 00:09:30:20
Sam Piliero
Those are easy, easy variations that can be created in the same photo shoot, essentially at the same time. And I can go for video and go for four stills. It can go for carousels, etc. And that doesn't just apply to me. Maybe it could be if this shot worked with holding the AirPods up next to me, maybe we now just need a woman to do the exact same thing.

00:09:30:22 - 00:09:55:07
Sam Piliero
Or maybe we need someone that looks a little bit different than me, do the exact same thing. And I think if you could pre shoot some of your iterations, then when the main primary concept proves to work, you then have this like gasoline ready to go, right? You have the boost ready to go and you see, like Dr. Squash do a fantastic job at this, especially, you know, like my my favorite.

00:09:55:07 - 00:10:24:16
Sam Piliero
You see brands like Talentless s in the U.S. do a fantastic job at this. These brands that have almost either pre shot or have the ability to shoot like next day and get their iterations out the door and they find winning concepts and instead of just always trying to reinvent reinvent they just keep making new of the concept they know works right whether it's a certain template over an image or a certain hook on a video with a different person.

00:10:24:16 - 00:10:47:09
Sam Piliero
Right? There's there's these core concepts or staples. We should say that some brands have the capability to carry forward, and if they stick to those staples and always just try another home run every couple of weeks, try another home run, one of those home runs hits a lot. Strikeout. You miss a lot of home runs. You get out on most of those.

00:10:47:11 - 00:10:56:21
Sam Piliero
But when they work, then you have winning concepts and winning themes. Then you can create iterations on top and you're almost stacking. Does that make sense?

00:10:56:23 - 00:11:20:13
Claus Lauter
No, it makes perfect sense. And sometimes, as I said, you have basically three iterations of the same topic and one will win. It's subtle changes, but sometimes it's human psychology. One of the versions of the variance, as you said, is a winner, while the other one's, for unknown reasons, do not converge. It makes perfect sense. Now, at the moonlight touch, you do things a little bit different than other agency, and you have something that's called the M three method.

00:11:20:16 - 00:11:22:12
Claus Lauter
Talk me through it. What is it?

00:11:22:14 - 00:11:51:04
Sam Piliero
Let me preface by saying the moonlight is is built for the 1 to $10 million business. Right? So there's big businesses and there's big agencies for those those hundred million dollar businesses, and then there's very small businesses and those should generally require consultants and such. But the reason that the moon ladders was built and why we focused on this specific brand size is because they're underserved in the market.

00:11:51:05 - 00:12:13:21
Sam Piliero
So if you just look very quickly at the market, you'll notice that the VaynerMedia is the world place, Places where I've worked in the past or even a stage under those agencies. You know, there are 20,000, $30,000 per month scopes of work or greater, $50,000 scopes of work. And what that obviously creates is a you have a massive profit and big teams on those sides, which is beautiful.

00:12:13:23 - 00:12:37:19
Sam Piliero
But a $3 million business cannot afford that. There's literally no room to spend that much money. It's the equivalent of hiring six people full time. Doesn't make any sense. And then on the flip side, there's these very, very small built agencies that hire all overseas staff and the overseas staff situation. People could argue, Oh, they work better, they do this.

00:12:38:01 - 00:13:01:00
Sam Piliero
They might, but they don't culturally understand the ads that are showing up in the US right here, right now. And they don't often speak the same lingo. Language is fine, but lingo, right? They don't they don't understand the same business terminology. And let's just call it for what it is you are generally looking for people who are based either in the US, Canada, UK, like you're looking for sharpness.

00:13:01:01 - 00:13:27:15
Sam Piliero
So what we decided to do was say, Let's cut all the fluff out of a normal business, normal agency model. Let's hire U.S., Canada, UK only, and let's focus on the 1 to $10 million business and let's create our scopes for that. So what that means is the way that we approach things is very different than the way a big agency approaches things where they can, you know, put $50,000 worth of resources on your account.

00:13:27:17 - 00:13:59:13
Sam Piliero
And then very different than the small agency where you have like this account manager and media buyer's staffed, who knows where and you have to play telephone. It's very awkward. The same person on our Zoom call everyone growth directors, we only hire senior talent. But the reason I add all this context around what the AM3 method is is because the method only works when you have someone who's understanding what the business needs and is implementing as well, because it all ties together.

00:13:59:13 - 00:14:23:10
Sam Piliero
So we never are looking just like at Facebook performance alone or Google performance alone. What we are looking at, what does Shopify say? What's what's profit, what are the margins, what's it cost of goods like? We're understanding more than just the top top level and really what that all boils down to and why the and through method is the entry method be straight up.

00:14:23:10 - 00:14:54:09
Sam Piliero
It's a fancy way of saying a three step process. That three step process is first, I call it bet on the fastest horse. Betting on the fastest horse is a great concept of if you're in a horse race, you would never put $100 on every single horse. You would lose, The house would win What you should do instead is you should Well, I know no gambling advice here, but you you should bet on whatever times DES platforms placements are most likely to make you cash.

00:14:54:10 - 00:15:21:02
Sam Piliero
It goes back to like 20 1516 at strategy and day of the week is the most impactful one day of week analysis. I'm interweaving a few stories here, but when I was at my time at Barkbox, which is a $100 million business at the time and about $2 billion business when we IPO'd, basically we spent different money on different days of the week and different amounts.

00:15:21:02 - 00:15:41:18
Sam Piliero
We did not plug in $100 a day on Facebook at that it was like $100,000 day, but we did not plug in $100 day on Facebook and say Monday through Sunday, 100 hundred. What we did was we figured out which days of the week performed better. We spent more on those days of the week almost every single business has a relationship like this with their customer.

00:15:41:20 - 00:16:02:09
Sam Piliero
If you're in PET, then when your pets are home, they're going to you're going to convert better. If you're in fashion Thursday, Friday, Saturday, you generally convert better if you're in like grocer Sunday, right? There's just like all different things per category. But you could confirm this with yourself in your own business by just looking at your Shopify metrics.

00:16:02:09 - 00:16:27:09
Sam Piliero
There's no silver bullet, so that's stage one. We always want to look at where can we allocate the cash where it's most likely to make the most money back. The second piece of this is structure and strategy. So structure wise, I hinted at before one of the most important things you can do these days is have clear what I call swim lanes.

00:16:27:11 - 00:16:54:01
Sam Piliero
So I call these swim lanes because if you think about them as like walls, then it's not a true representation in a swimming pool. You have water that's shared between the lanes and sometimes these the water is moved around in each lane. You can feel the impact of each lane if you have a fast swimmer in a slow swim or something, or a big person, a small person, but you're staying in your lap generally.

00:16:54:01 - 00:17:25:18
Sam Piliero
And that's why we always break out our accounts in a specific structure. And that structure is mostly prospecting clearly on its own retargeting, clearly on its own retention, existing customers really on its own, and then at the top, a scaling mechanism in place. And the final piece of the entry method is cost controls. A lot of people know these as cost caps, whether it's cost caps, bid caps, T, ROAS, TPA, target impression, share it.

00:17:25:18 - 00:18:05:14
Sam Piliero
It doesn't matter. It's just the idea that we need our system to get better with randomness. Most people think that randomness is the enemy, but if you're set up right, randomness is actually the best possible thing for an ad account, because when it's hot out and you sell beach towels, people are going to buy more beach towels. So if you're set up in a way where you don't have to do a thing and it's hot weather in Florida for three days and, you know, you're going to surge beach towels, then the algorithm and the amount spent has wiggle room for you to actually increase spend on that specific day and then decrease them when you're

00:18:05:14 - 00:18:17:19
Sam Piliero
not able to hit your cost cap. That's probably the quickest lesson I can give on cost caps. But they're generally a very important control that actually favor randomness. I should say. That makes sense.

00:18:17:21 - 00:18:35:16
Claus Lauter
It makes perfect sense. I think you're just that was a master class, a short one in how to structure a campaign. And also, I think there's a lot in gold nuggets in all listeners listen to this twice. What I like is that you really go as deep as into the day, into the hour of the day to optimize.

00:18:35:17 - 00:18:55:06
Claus Lauter
I think a lot of brands are dead. It just seems like, yeah, we have, I don't know, a summer season or up day after different seasons and then that's over the year. How they optimize their marketing budget overall. And I think really breaking it down to the user behavior on the weekly basis on a daily basis makes much more sense.

00:18:55:08 - 00:19:15:17
Claus Lauter
So I think that's that's a thought that really is a good takeaway to think about and maybe just look into the data is that Shopify would present you as the data and think what what's happening in your business. Now I was on your website. I see you have a lot of very good testimonials there. Can you give me an example or a case study of a brand that you worked with and what kind of results they saw?

00:19:15:19 - 00:19:48:08
Sam Piliero
Yeah, So again, there's so many brands that I can't share their exact name and the exact result that I would love to, but I'll give you one of our oldest standing clients that we've been working with for quite a while now. This is a client that we worked with. I worked with that VaynerMedia and then when we when I left VaynerMedia eventually, thanks to the amazing how do you say like the the spreading of wealth of Gary Vaynerchuk.

00:19:48:10 - 00:20:16:08
Sam Piliero
He was so happy when they wanted to follow me and run. Allow me to continue to run their ads. So these clients are young nails. They're a nail care brand. They were a professional brand when they first started working with us. They literally had a password on their store like it was that behind closed doors. And this was roughly 2017, 2018.

00:20:16:10 - 00:20:46:13
Sam Piliero
This is one of my first clients. I learned a lot with them. And along the way, this brand has shifted from literally backs against their wall. Like we have three months left of runway in this business to a can't say the exact number, but a tens of millions. DECA deca million business folded up a few times there. They really took not just the strategy and advice by the horns, but they just saw every opportunity and they just dove in, right?

00:20:46:13 - 00:21:13:06
Sam Piliero
They doubled down on social the moment reals came out, doubled down. Once TikTok became popular, doubled down. Right. They went from a company that basically had no skills behind the camera, was not a creative company. I mean, literally, like like PowerPoint editing, like it was ugly to like full blown best in class video cannon cameras everywhere you could walk, Right?

00:21:13:06 - 00:21:42:10
Sam Piliero
They just leveled up one at a time, at a time. And then they learned this is what hooks do, This is what body does, this is what free value does. And I think not to tie this too hard to like, the philosophy that they taught me through working with them has been that if you just keep giving value to the market in no matter your market and you position that value properly, you can put yourself in a scenario where you have too many customers.

00:21:42:12 - 00:21:54:12
Sam Piliero
You can put yourself in a scenario where you have waitlists longer than you ever expected or selling out every single time you throw something on sale or drop a new product just because you're giving outsized value to the market.

00:21:54:14 - 00:22:17:03
Claus Lauter
Mm hmm. I love the example that you need to be willing to learn and to stay on top. What's happening in the digital marketing world. And there will be always new things coming. And normally the platforms that push whatever new feature they have very hard so that people jump on it. And that's probably the best time to jump on it because it's the cheapest, it's only getting more expensive the longer these features are around.

00:22:17:05 - 00:22:26:03
Claus Lauter
Now tell me about the the onboarding process with you guys. How long does it take? What kind of homework do I need to do? How does it work?

00:22:26:05 - 00:22:50:15
Sam Piliero
So basically on our side right now, thanks to just the good graces of a lot of brands and people not leaving, which is wonderful. We have about an eight week waitlist at this current recording time. Now we don't want that waitlist to always be a full eight weeks, but basically have a onboarding works on our side is I'll give you a full the full detail.

00:22:50:17 - 00:23:11:22
Sam Piliero
If you're above a certain revenue and spend and you're ready to take on an agency, and I should say you shouldn't take an agency on if you're not even spending $10,000 a month. Right. We're not trying to take your money. They don't don't it's not time yet. Work with your consultant. Get dangerous if you're a founder, if you don't even know ads to just get dangerous, learn.

00:23:12:00 - 00:23:32:00
Sam Piliero
I mean, I have 100 plus YouTube videos that you could watch for me or for other people out there, too. Like it's just get get dangerous in the ad platform because then when you actually work with someone like my team or anyone else's agency or consultant, you're going to be able to critique that so much better than if you go in blind, right?

00:23:32:00 - 00:23:57:10
Sam Piliero
People get taken advantage of all the time. You can't if you're an owner of an e-commerce business, especially, like you'll just get dangerous with your numbers, you'll get good. So I'd always advise people said $10,000, do it on your own. Once you start to get to 10 to $30000, somewhere in that range, something starts to happen where it takes way more time and then be not only is there a time change, but your business is growing.

00:23:57:10 - 00:24:21:12
Sam Piliero
So what you're needed over here goes from, Oh, I need this much time to I need this much time on this side. And this thing, this ad side went from taking up this much time to this much time. So you have two things that grow together and you just don't have the time anymore. And also a 5% change at $100,000 versus a 5% change at $1,000 is very different.

00:24:21:14 - 00:24:45:14
Sam Piliero
So I would always encourage people, Minimum 10-K, to really start to look for an agency or start to look for a premium consultant on our side. Not to get too far off your question, our onboarding process is fairly simple. You go to the website dot com slash apply, you fill out like five or six questions on there that will let you know if you actually qualify to even work with us.

00:24:45:14 - 00:25:08:04
Sam Piliero
If you do, you book a 15 minute call with our team, someone on our teams and ask more questions to you. We want to make sure we vet every single brand we work with. People get annoyed at this. So like, Well, I'm trying to pay you. It's like, Well, we actually only work with certain brands that are actually ready to scale Once we get through that discovery call that are 1015 minutes, then we get serious and we do an audit.

00:25:08:06 - 00:25:32:11
Sam Piliero
So someone on my team, even sometimes me, I did one. Today we do an audit of the ad accounting question or ad accounts in question, and then we take it to a strategy call. Strategy calls it an hour long call, very comprehensive salesperson on my team who's just a partner in my business, really, really dialed in as soon as possible, 99% beyond that call and he goes through it is a soup to nuts.

00:25:32:11 - 00:25:53:01
Sam Piliero
Everything that we do on our side at that point, we know if we're going to put an offer out to the person. He ultimately has the executive decision if he's going to be putting out an offer. If we get an offer, we begin the onboarding process fairly immediately after we get access to the accounts and we start on our side.

00:25:53:03 - 00:26:16:04
Sam Piliero
Huge thing on our side is that all the analyzes that I just broke down happened before kickoff. So we have an onboarding date, let's say today, seven days later, that's when we actually decide, but that's when we actually kick off. Excuse me, that seven day gap is when we prep everything. And the goal is that on the day of kickoff, we actually start making changes.

00:26:16:04 - 00:26:48:00
Sam Piliero
We actually move the needle. That, to us has been one of the smoothest processes out there because it gives us a little bit of time and space to actually do what we need to do to prepare properly. It builds a little tension on the client side to be like, I hope this works, I hope this works. And then when those things actually do start to fire and work and we see improvements in return and I spend or we spend more and revenues going up, those are just like the biggest dopamine rush is, is is given to the clients.

00:26:48:02 - 00:27:07:10
Claus Lauter
I can imagine. I think what you said and I 100% with you is it's important to learn the platform yourself. That's an advice that I give to all my coaching clients. And they they're sort of surprised as they know no before you because a lot of brands reach out or startups reach out too early to two agencies that just want to get rid of it.

00:27:07:10 - 00:27:25:09
Claus Lauter
But they have literally no idea how it works. And then what you mentioned is you want to talk to them on a level. You want to know and understand what you'll get back and if it's worth it. And I think a lot of brands have been burned and it's not the fault of the agency. Most of it actually, it's the fault of themselves because they don't know what they have in front of them.

00:27:25:11 - 00:27:47:14
Claus Lauter
So advice to our listeners on the platform first, Sam 100% on point there and then go and grow with an agency together. Now onboarding, as I said, I think it's a good step to build up a little bit of momentum first before you really dive in. Really good process. I like that. Tell me about your cost structure. How do you charge for your services?

00:27:47:16 - 00:28:06:00
Sam Piliero
Yeah, so we charge with a base fee and a percentage of ad spend with everyone we work with. We try to basically position it as a base fee, just keeping the lights on that just like for us to just pay our salaries, but then the performance fee, that's where we actually make our profit because it's where the actual customer makes their profit too.

00:28:06:06 - 00:28:32:01
Sam Piliero
So everyone on our team, I think this is a huge point, actually, everyone on our team is compensated on client performance as well, so everyone has skin in the game. It's not just me collecting a bunch of cash. It's like every single growth director on our team who has seven plus years experience like worked with dozens of other brands, probably more over their career.

00:28:32:03 - 00:28:57:17
Sam Piliero
They all are getting compensated based on the performance that they achieve for the client as well. And we do percentage of ad spend over everything else we've tried. Every model, percentage of ad spend is the best for sure, because the client's always in control of their budget. We're only going to scale when they say yes, you have the green light to scale at a certain return on outspend or at a certain CPA.

00:28:57:19 - 00:29:16:02
Sam Piliero
What winds up happening in those revenue models or those role models are, okay, we got your ROAS back to where it is now or where you wanted it to go, and now you have to pay us way too much, which is unsustainable. So let's scale together at low percentages of ad spend that works so well.

00:29:16:04 - 00:29:37:11
Claus Lauter
MM No, makes sense. And it gives you the flexibility to really work by budget, work by cash flow. I mean, a lot of brands are sort of running on cash flow and then marketing budget is a bit of a variable factor where they need to look at very good SEM before our coffee break comes to an end today, is there anything you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet?

00:29:37:13 - 00:30:04:23
Sam Piliero
I mean, I'll keep it pretty simple for everyone. It's Q for Get Sharp. This is this is that time of the year, whether you're working with an agency or not. Just take a close look right now because don't let October blow away and November 1st rolls around. You feel like you need to make a change because any good agency may not be prepared to take you on with a week's notice.

00:30:05:00 - 00:30:24:07
Sam Piliero
So, yeah, really, really lean in, get sharp now, understand what's going on. Understand your goals. Start to plan for the fourth quarter and then on our side. Look, if you are one of those fits to potentially work with us, if you're at least take an ad, spend probably upwards of 2030 and ad spend, you can go to the moon letters dot com to apply to check us out more.

00:30:24:10 - 00:30:43:01
Sam Piliero
I have hundreds of literally hundreds of free videos and resources on my YouTube channel. If you just want to pick my brain some more. I try to reply to a bunch of comments there and it's been fantastic. I appreciate all your questions. Appreciate us going over a few minutes here and looking forward to maybe around to in the future.

00:30:43:03 - 00:30:58:01
Claus Lauter
I will put the links as always in the show notes watching the videos. Very good idea. I had a look at the YouTube channel. There's a ton of information. So for our listeners, click on the show notes, check out the moon lights, and I'm sure there will be something in it for you. And if you want to read it, get started, then talk to us some.

00:30:58:05 - 00:31:01:07
Claus Lauter
Thanks so much for your time today and I hope to talk to you soon. Thanks so much.

00:31:01:09 - 00:31:01:19
Sam Piliero
Thank you.