Empowering The Underdog With SEO and PPC: Charley Brennand

In this episode of the Simple and Smart SEO Show, host Crystal Waddell (that's me!) sits down with PPC strategist Charley Brennand to explore the role of storytelling and empathy in digital marketing. 

Charley shares her journey of overcoming underestimation and the valuable lessons she’s learned about making paid advertising accessible, especially for those considered “underdogs.” 

Listen as Charley dives into how she approaches PPC with a balance of technical acumen and creativity, why storytelling can be a game-changer in client communication, and essential steps to ensure a website is ready for PPC investment. 

Key Takeaways:

1. The Power of Storytelling in PPC: Charley emphasizes that storytelling in marketing, especially in technical fields like PPC, can make a significant difference in client communication and results.
2. Recognizing and Overcoming Personal Limiting Beliefs: Charley discusses her own experiences of being underestimated and how she uses those lessons to inspire others to shoot for more in their careers and businesses.
3. Fundamentals of PPC Success: A good website is essential for PPC success. Charley advises fixing issues like slow loading times and poor user experiences before investing in paid ads.
4. Understanding Platform Audiences: Each social platform has unique user behaviors and buyer intent. Charley advises knowing these distinctions to maximize ad spend.
5. Budgeting for Ads with Realistic Expectations: She shares a simple approach to calculating PPC budgets, factoring in search demand, cost-per-click, and average click-through rates.

Episode Highlights:

• “Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s pursuing things despite being scared.”
• “If your website’s not user-friendly, don’t waste your money on paid ads—it’s setting yourself up for failure.”

Listener Action Items:

1. Evaluate Your Website for PPC Readiness: Before launching a paid campaign, ensure your website offers a seamless user experience.
2. Identify Your “Why” for Marketing: Clarify the purpose behind your campaigns—whether it’s brand visibility, lead generation, or another goal.
3. Explore Your Customer Journey: Map out the steps your customer typically takes before converting. Use this knowledge to create targeted content and ads across platforms.

Connect with Charley Brennand
LinkedIn
Instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 And a lot of the time it's people that mean well.
• 0:02 They don't want you to fail.
• 0:03 They don't want you to experience disappointment.
• 1:33 Charley's Mission and Inspiration
• 2:19 Overcoming Underestimation
• 3:41 The Importance of Storytelling in PPC
• 4:39 Personal Experiences with Underestimation
• 6:32 Facing Fears and Embracing Courage
• 7:24 Speaking at Brighton SEO
• 7:49 The Role of Storytelling in SEO
• 12:35 Creating a Successful PPC Campaign
• 18:53 Understanding FTSE and Business Size
• 19:30 The Role of Google Account Managers
• 19:55 Challenges with Google Reps
• 20:34 Decoding PPC and CPC
• 22:20 Advertising Costs and Strategies
• 23:30 Understanding Audience and Platforms
• 24:39 Mapping Customer Journeys
• 26:39 Organic vs. Paid Marketing
• 32:19 Charley's Upcoming Projects and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Introduction and Guest Welcome

[00:00:00] Charley Brennand: And a lot of the time it's people that mean well. 

[00:00:02] They don't want you to fail. 

[00:00:03] They don't want you to experience disappointment. 

[00:00:05] They, you know, want you to shoot your shot but not too high because they don't want to be feeling silly for telling you to have gone for something that you're not quite qualified for.

[00:00:14] In this day and age, actually the advice is completely the opposite.

[00:00:18] The advice, from really successful people is shoot your shot and learn along the way. 

[00:00:22] Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the third season of the Simple and Smart SEO Show. The podcast dedicated to empathy driven, brand building SEO. 

[00:00:30] I'm your host, Crystal Waddell. I leverage my obsession with user experience to help business owners just like you optimize your website with confidence. 

[00:00:38] Thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:40] Let's jump into another great

[00:00:41] episode. Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO Show podcast. 

[00:00:45] I am here with a new friend from across the pond and I'm so excited to chat with her.

[00:00:49] I know you guys are going to love her. Her name is Charley Brennan. 

[00:00:52] Oh my gosh, she's so funny.

[00:00:54] And I ran into her on the streets of LinkedIn. 

[00:00:58] And it was funny how we had a few different things in common. 

[00:01:00] But before we jump into that, Charley, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on the simple and smart SEO show podcast. 

[00:01:06] Charley Brennand: You are so welcome and I am psyched to be here. 

[00:01:10] I actually, I'm so excited for this conversation after our five minute pre recording conversation.

[00:01:17] I feel like this is already going to be a hit. 

[00:01:19] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I know. 

[00:01:20] I think that's what's really great about not only podcasting, but like LinkedIn and just social media in general. 

[00:01:25] When it's really done well, you feel like you've made a new friend online, and I think that can even be true on the business side.

Charley's Mission and Inspiration

[00:01:33] Crystal Waddell: I'm glad that you're here and I want to tell everybody the reason why Charley got my attention initially. Was because in her profile, she has one simple mission. 

[00:01:43] That's exactly what it says. It says one simple mission to make PPC more accessible and to inspire the underdogs. 

[00:01:50] And if that didn't speak to my soul, I don't know what could.

[00:01:53] So could you tell us like why that is your mission? Like how that came to be? 

[00:01:58] Charley Brennand: Yeah, of course. I think like anything, I think you have to understand your purpose. 

[00:02:03] Your reason why, you know, whether you are knee deep in Simon Sinek podcasts or, those types of really inspirational people that are like, hey, once you've found your why, everything's easy.

[00:02:14] Ultimately, not everybody's why is super, super easy, nor is everybody super, super clear. 

Overcoming Underestimation

[00:02:19] Charley Brennand: But for me I guess I've always been somebody that people massively underestimate. 

[00:02:25] Whether that's because of my upbringing. Or I've never quite fitted in the, perfectly in the mold of the places that I've been.

[00:02:32] Whether it's, my attitude towards certain things there's a lot of people that struggle with certain authority types and I quite happily fall into a bucket of those people. 

[00:02:43] But yeah, I think ultimately it comes from being underestimated and actually the impact that can have on your own ability to see your potential. 

[00:02:54] If you have got people that are more advanced, more experienced, more everything than you, underestimating you and saying, I don't know if you have the ability. 

[00:03:04] I don't see you have the ability. You're never going to really be equipped with, beliefs that are conducive to wanting to grow yourself.

[00:03:13] There you're jam packed with a bunch of limiting beliefs. 

[00:03:15] Yeah, it's come from own personal experience, certainly, but the PPC side of it is I guess to be honest, I'm not a super technical PPC, right? 

[00:03:24] Like obviously SEO side of things, you can be one or the other. You can be both. But there is almost like a, quite a clear divide of, there are two components to it for PPC. 

[00:03:35] It's always been very technical, very data heavy, very, you are a numbers person, you're a data person.

The Importance of Storytelling in PPC

[00:03:41] Charley Brennand: And actually the thing that's made me quite successful in my career, is my ability to see past the numbers.

[00:03:49] And really excel in some of the softer skills that perhaps typically don't come from people that are technical. 

[00:03:57] Or, they're not naturally, you put your hand up. Yeah, I feel if you are bucketed as somebody as, being a nerd or being.

[00:04:04] More technical than anything, like a lot of developers, for example. 

[00:04:08] A lot of developers, you think of a developer or a coder and you're like. 

[00:04:12] They probably have their hood up, lights dimmed, window, blinds closed, probably don't talk to anyone during the whole day. 

[00:04:20] Quite happy. Probably play games in the afternoon and into the evening. And a bit of a night owl.

[00:04:25] But the reality of it is as the markets change, and we're having to change as professionals, right? 

[00:04:30] So that's where I think people need to be more educated on PPC. 

[00:04:34] That it's not just about being technical, it's about your ability to be so much more than that. 

Personal Experiences with Underestimation

[00:04:39] Crystal Waddell: Okay, there's so much to unpack right there, but I have to back you back like way up to where you were talking about being underestimated. 

[00:04:48] Because again, that just resonated with my soul.

[00:04:51] And it reminded me of a time when I was younger because, and I've tried not to get too much into this because last time I did, I gave myself a heart attack. But Like a literal one. 

[00:04:59] I'm of mixed race. 

[00:05:00] My father's black, my mother's white. And there was a person that was very close to us that really genuinely, I think, believed that I was incapable of doing certain things because I was part of a minority.

[00:05:14] And I remember, feeling like that growing up. And then when I graduated, From the university of Kansas here in the States. I remember him just looking at me with this look of awe. 

[00:05:25] Like you actually could do that, and so it's interesting. I never really thought about myself as feeling as one of those that had been underestimated. 

[00:05:34] But I completely identify with it, like completely identify with it.

[00:05:38] Charley Brennand: It happens in so many different capacities, whether it's your parents. 

[00:05:42] And a lot of the time it's people that mean well. They're, they don't want you to fail. 

[00:05:46] They don't want you to experience disappointment. They, want you to shoot your shot but not too high because they don't want to be feeling silly for telling you to have gone for something that you're not quite qualified for. 

[00:05:57] In this day and age, actually the advice is completely the opposite.

[00:06:01] The advice, from really successful people is shoot your shot and learn along the way. 

[00:06:06] And actually it's such a more exciting way to live life. Yes, prone to heart attacks, as you just said, I think that living that sort of way of life. 

[00:06:15] But ultimately like you just experience so much more and you learn so much more that way as well.

[00:06:21] Crystal Waddell: I love that. And you're talking about like just not having a fear of failure. And it's rare to meet someone who's not afraid to fail. That's what you sound like. 

[00:06:30] Is that right? Am I picking up the right thing? 

Facing Fears and Embracing Courage

[00:06:32] Charley Brennand: Do you know a speaker called Michelle Poehler? Have you ever heard of her? She's really interesting, right?

[00:06:38] She's Hispanic I believe, and she's actually quite a big public speaker over in America. 

[00:06:43] She is incredible the way she articulates it, and she was quite famous for basically just being really scared of loads of things. 

[00:06:52] So she committed to filming a hundred days of facing her fears. And Honestly, how she describes it is courage isn't the absence of fear, right?

[00:07:02] It's not. It's not. Fearless is not what we're aiming for because fear is good. 

[00:07:06] Fear tells you you're human. Actually, true courage is actually going after things in spite of being scared. 

[00:07:13] And actually being brave enough to tackle them in spite of the fear of failure. 

[00:07:18] Crystal Waddell: That is so awesome. I'm definitely going to look her up. 

[00:07:20] And so, speaking of making big moves and shooting big shots. 

Speaking at Brighton SEO

[00:07:24] Crystal Waddell: You were speaking at Brighton SEO over there in England. Is that correct? 

[00:07:29] Charley Brennand: Yeah. So I spoke back in the the Brighton conference in April. 

[00:07:33] And I spoke on the power of storytelling, actually, of all things.

[00:07:39] And again, maybe the average person would be like what business does a ppc person have about storytelling? 

[00:07:46] But again, it's really fundamental to doing the job well. 

The Role of Storytelling in SEO

[00:07:49] Crystal Waddell: And we talk a lot about story. 

[00:07:52] And brand stories and personal stories and customer stories on the podcast. 

[00:07:57] I have a small group of Entrepreneurs who meet every week. 

[00:08:00] And we talk about our websites and we talk about you know It Everything from content technical to, whatever. 

[00:08:06] Just brand and user experience.

[00:08:08] And there was a specialist that came on the podcast about a year ago. Her name's Emma Boshart and she's from Canada. 

[00:08:15] And she was the one who introduced me to this idea of brand stories and brand storytelling. 

[00:08:21] And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is genius. And of course it makes sense because. 

[00:08:26] When you tell the stories of your brand and your product, SEO is naturally infused in that.

[00:08:32] And so it's the most natural way to optimize your website. 

[00:08:37] By telling the stories that surround your product, business and customers. So what, can you give us just a little piece of what you talked about there? 

[00:08:46] Charley Brennand: Yeah, of course. Storytelling. How to drive more leads. with storytelling. Was essentially the topic of it.

[00:08:52] And ultimately it was, it was alluding to the fact that if you're firing information over to, a chief marketing officer or a managing director of a company or anybody at a high level that really doesn't have, and it's the same with any, division of marketing, whether it's SEO, CRO, PPC. 

[00:09:09] We as specialists are all too guilty of being like, Hey, I drove a cost per lead of 200 pounds this week.

[00:09:17] And we got you 10 leads. How great is that? How great is that? 

[00:09:21] And actually we've got your cost per lead down 50 percent week on week. Brilliant. Aren't we the best? 

[00:09:26] The CMO is going to turn around and think. 

[00:09:28] What does that even mean? What does that mean to me? 

[00:09:30] And ultimately relies on us as practitioners to really be able to piece together, different bits of information. 

[00:09:37] To make the story make sense.

[00:09:39] So we're trying to pull together information from business so that it contextually makes sense for the business. 

[00:09:46] The right way to maybe approach that conversation is, Hey, look, we drove 10 leads last week. And actually what I can see is those 10 leads converted to five marketing qualified leads in your system. 

[00:09:58] Which then ultimately went on to have a average contract value of 300k.

[00:10:04] So actually what we've done is we've spent 300 pound. 

[00:10:07] And delivered a potential contract value of 300k. 

[00:10:11] Like, isn't that good, Mr. CMO? 

[00:10:13] And he's yeah, money in, money out, I understand that. 

[00:10:17] And ultimately, I think there's so much onus on The business to provide that context. 

[00:10:24] But a lot of people that we're working with, especially from a contract perspective or an agency perspective. 

[00:10:30] They hire us because they don't have the ability to do what we do.

[00:10:33] So why would we then expect them to know how to tell the marketing story effectively? 

[00:10:39] Crystal Waddell: Wow. That is so great. And I was, my follow up question was going to be, okay what do you say instead? 

[00:10:44] So I really appreciate like that example. 

[00:10:47] I've noticed so much of just all communication. Whether it's in business, whether it's in SEO, whether it's just in life. 

[00:10:55] Is all about translating, like translating in some way, form or fashion. And so that was just a beautiful way to show how you translate marketing speak into something that people can actually have a normal conversation about. 

[00:11:10] Well done, girly. Okay. So. 

[00:11:12] Charley Brennand: It's the same with SEO, though. It's the same for every single division. SEO probably have it harder because, a lot of the time it's like I've hired someone in SEO. A month later, what are my results?

[00:11:22] And you're going, Oh, it takes longer. It takes longer. Obviously I'm not an SEO specialist. 

[00:11:26] But it's really been able to go, okay, but what KPIs matter to them? 

[00:11:30] Have they increased their market share? Have they increased their visibility on key areas that actually the business wants to grow?

[00:11:37] So it might be that, Some fashion brand. 

[00:11:40] They're an up and coming fashion brand.

[00:11:42] Their business objective is to increase their market share by 10 percent this year. 

[00:11:46] Okay, if I can't give them concrete KPIs to do with things like, oh, we drove X amount of sessions or we've increased this. 

[00:11:53] They don't care about the platform metrics.

[00:11:55] They care about, okay, but what impact does that have commercially? And I think that's what we have to get a little bit better at as marketers in general. Is really being able to tie what we do back to commercial impact. 

[00:12:07] Crystal Waddell: Absolutely. And I consider myself a business first SEO, and that's because I run an e commerce company, so every SEO effort that I personally make to improve my website is time that's taken away from other activities or whatever.

[00:12:21] And so I need to know that it's going to have a financial benefit. Okay. And, hopefully a profitability, element to it. 

[00:12:28] A lot of entrepreneurs, which is the audience of this podcast. 

[00:12:32] Maybe they haven't created a marketing budget.

Creating a Successful PPC Campaign

[00:12:35] Crystal Waddell: Maybe they're not really prepared to understand like what it takes from a financial perspective. 

[00:12:41] To, not only have a business goal., like actually making and verbalize a business school. 

[00:12:46] But then understand like what type of funding it takes in terms of advertising and PPC. To make that goal happen.

[00:12:54] Do you have any thoughts on that? 

[00:12:56] Charley Brennand: Do I? Yes, I have lots of thoughts on that. 

[00:13:00] So generally speaking If I can be frank: if your website's crap do not spend on ppc. Do not do it You are setting yourself up for failure. 

[00:13:10] You are setting yourself up for false stories. 

[00:13:12] Crystal Waddell: So what is crap? Can you give us a 

[00:13:15] Charley Brennand: course?

[00:13:15] Like terrible loading speed. Or the content on it's not particularly good. If it's not clear. 

[00:13:20] If if you were setting up an e commerce site, can you actually check out without any issues? Can you then go through the user journey? 

[00:13:28] This sort of feeds back to, again, all of the SEO side of things.

[00:13:32] You guys know what it takes to have a good website. And I think probably one of the biggest ones is having the content, really on the site.

[00:13:39] If the content's not very good on site, if it's not very clear, it's not a nice user journey or user experience, do not waste your money on paid ads.

[00:13:48] I've dealt with quite a few clients that they want to invest in paid ads. 

[00:13:52] And then they're just not getting the conversion rates that they need to make the sales at the, the scale that they want. 

[00:13:59] And it's, Oh, can we change this ad copy? Can we do this? Yeah. Do you know what?

[00:14:03] We can change the ad copy every week. Every single day if you want. But that's not going to fix the fundamental problem that actually you have an 88 percent drop off rate when somebody clicks through to site. 

[00:14:14] And goes, what is this? It's so annoying. Why isn't it loading? Oh my God. Where's the thing that I was advertised?

[00:14:21] It ultimately is how does that all piece together? Would somebody consider doing paid ads with a very basic website? 

[00:14:28] Yes, absolutely. 

[00:14:30] To put it quite simply it doesn't have to be all bells and whistles. 

[00:14:34] It doesn't have to be a hundred K site. It can be, it can still be like a Wix dot whatever, or a WordPress dot whatever site for all I care.

[00:14:43] As long as the user experience, the user journey is as frictionless as possible. 

[00:14:49] That's the simplest way I can put it really. 

[00:14:51] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so let's assume that we don't have a crappy site with all of those issues. 

[00:14:55] So then how do we create a budget and how do we create this plan for a successful PPC campaign?

[00:15:03] Charley Brennand: So, most PPCers worth their weight in anything will generally do a sort of free of charge consultation. 

[00:15:11] To see if it's worth their time and your time. If they don't that's an immediate red flag for me anyway. 

[00:15:18] But yeah, so reaching out to, anybody within your network or people that you know, that can connect you with those types of people. 

[00:15:24] Getting that initial consultation and trying to understand the actual search demand for the product or service you are selling.

[00:15:31] It's at that point, really, that you can start to understand, okay, how much money am I going to need to spend? 

[00:15:36] So there's a couple of factors that play. So it's search demand, Which, again, it's not a new concept from an SEO perspective. There's a great website called Google trends. 

[00:15:46] I'm sure plenty of your listeners may already have used it.

[00:15:49] But within that, you can look at a country level on a very rudimentary level. 

[00:15:53] Like what the demand is and how it's trended over time. Or certain phrases. 

[00:15:58] So say for example, if you were a tech services company. You might be like, okay, IT managed services in Canada. 

[00:16:05] Like what's the search volume trends like for that?

[00:16:08] It will give you that information free of charge. What it will also do is it will show you other related terms. 

[00:16:14] So this is purely on the basis of you not having somebody do that for you. 

[00:16:18] So that's all what you can do on your own. 

[00:16:20] When you do engage somebody like myself or, any other sort of PPC freelancer. 

[00:16:25] They can pull the information down to how much is the average cost per click.

[00:16:29] So it's basic, simple maths in all honesty. So we look at what the average cost per click is. 

[00:16:35] Roughly what the amount of impressions are. The average click through rate for that industry. Which you can find on things like word stream that's released, I think once or twice every year they update it.

[00:16:45] You can look at the average click through rate for things like Google ads, meta ads. 

[00:16:50] Split by industry. So this is somebody that's never run ads before. 

[00:16:54] So all you're doing is going, if searches are X amount. Average click through rates is this. 

[00:16:58] How many clicks is that going to drive? Okay, fine. How many clicks times the average cost per click?

[00:17:03] Roughly, that is what I can expect to spend a month. 

[00:17:06] So that's how we start pulling together what a budget should look like. 

[00:17:10] There's another factor in that. that would be your, how do you work out what your target KPI should be?

[00:17:18] A lot of people say that your budget shouldn't be any less than double what your KPI is.

[00:17:23] It's really hard because obviously it depends. Are you a transactional business? Are you a lead gen business? How good is your conversion once it hits your sales team? 

[00:17:31] So there's so many other things to that. So if you are just trying to say, okay, Mr. Customer, this is your budget and it's been worked out based on.

[00:17:39] If you were to achieve the benchmark average click through rate, roughly you could spend X amount. Now, usually when you launch new ads, it will take a time period to start spending at that level. 

[00:17:51] And obviously it depends on the quality of your ad copy how competitive the industry is. 

[00:17:55] Again, somebody like myself will be able to, by keyword, actually see how competitive each of these terms is. So that is basically saying how close to that top end CPC will you likely be pushed. 

[00:18:07] Because somebody else is bidding on it. So you can see competition index rate within Google Ads. So none of this is finger in the wind, so to speak.

[00:18:16] It's very much based on Google data. 

[00:18:18] Today, I feel like five pound cost per click. Although, arguably that's exactly how PMAX operates, but we won't go there. 

[00:18:25] Yeah, so there, there is, a whole database of data. That Google trolls and it goes, okay. There's average 40, 40 searches a month for that term.

[00:18:35] This is the average cost per click. This is the average click through rate. So this is what you can expect. 

[00:18:39] So that's, I suppose on a very basic level, how we would put together the budget. 

[00:18:43] Crystal Waddell: When you set up google ads a lot of times they say hey, you can meet with a google ads person What do you think 

[00:18:50] Charley Brennand: of that?

[00:18:51] One don't do it. 

Understanding FTSE and Business Size

[00:18:53] Charley Brennand: Yeah, I'll be honest, I think until you are a FTSE 250 company- 

[00:18:58] is FTSE global or is that just UK? 

[00:19:02] I think that's just UK, but tell us what that means. 

[00:19:04] Yeah, so it's to do with the size of the business so it's to do with the, like, where they're listed on the stock exchange. 

[00:19:10] How big the business actually is in terms of revenue.

[00:19:13] So I don't know what would be your yeah, there's the stock exchange, the stock market, the biggest companies, right? 

[00:19:19] So you've got the likes of I don't know. Pick a big company in America. 

[00:19:23] Pick Walmart. So Walmart probably spend an absolute obscene amount of money on advertising.

The Role of Google Account Managers

[00:19:30] Charley Brennand: So their Google account manager is worth their weight in gold. 

[00:19:34] Because Google go, Hey, this is somebody that spends a ton of money with us and allows us to pay all of our staff. 

[00:19:40] And have our nice fancy meals out. 

[00:19:43] And all the new stuff that we want to buy for the office and label it with Google, so those are great account managers because they are fundamentally tasked with helping. Helping them achieve their business goals. 

Challenges with Google Reps

[00:19:55] Charley Brennand: Unfortunately, the further down the ladder you go in terms of spend and business size, the less helpful the Google reps tend to be. 

[00:20:04] And it's not for any fault of their own, other than most of them are outsourced to, call center farms in India or Europe or the U. S. or wherever it might be and their only job is to just answer the question and to sell the products. 

[00:20:18] They're not specialists. A lot of them probably have maybe worked for Google for four weeks that you end up speaking to, so they don't really have that power. Fundamental understanding of how do we achieve your business goals?

[00:20:29] All they're focused on really is achieving google's business goals, unfortunately. 

Decoding PPC and CPC

[00:20:34] Crystal Waddell: And we jumped into it and I even said ppc but for those listening who aren't familiar with some of these acronyms, like PPC CPC. 

[00:20:44] Could you tell us what those are and explain what the acronym means? 

[00:20:47] Charley Brennand: Of course. 

[00:20:48] So we love a good acronym in PPC, I would say we deal 70% in acronyms.

[00:20:54] PPC is pay per click, so this is anything that costs you money when customers click on. 

[00:21:01] So whether it's a Facebook ad, whether it's a Google ad, whether it's a Microsoft ad, whether it's a display ad.

[00:21:08] There's so many different formats now. Anything that you accidentally click and it takes you through to another site, you can bet your bottom dollar. 

[00:21:14] It's probably always a PPC ad. 

[00:21:17] In some way, shape or form. Because what happens is the advertiser gets to get charged essentially every time somebody clicks through on an ad, whatever format that might be.

[00:21:27] So PPC pay per click. 

[00:21:29] CPC cost per click. Generally, and historically, it has been very click based. 

[00:21:35] But as we have moved into a much more video focused world, probably over the last couple of years. 

[00:21:42] You have a lot more view based costs. Associated with some of these platforms.

[00:21:47] Very nicely labeled cost per view. Or cost per impression. 

[00:21:52] And I hear you say, what is an impression? An impression is literally just the number, the time that you actually appear in searches. So if somebody searches for grey cigar holder. 

[00:22:02] Do you show up in the search results at all for that?

[00:22:05] Yes. Okay, great. You've got an impression. 

[00:22:07] Does it matter that you're on page 76? No. It's still an impression. 

[00:22:11] Did you show up in the search results? Yes, you did. Well done.

[00:22:14] Charley and Crystal Mix: Oh, that's so funny. I'm over here laughing. But I'm trying to mute myself so that I don't cut you off. But that is very funny. 

[00:22:20] Crystal Waddell: Okay. 

Advertising Costs and Strategies

[00:22:20] Crystal Waddell: A lot of times when I hear people talk about ads, there's two things that kind of pop up that confuse me in a way. 

[00:22:27] Number one is that I, I read recently, like there's some tech people who are spending I don't, I can't remember what it was.

[00:22:34] if it was like 200 to acquire a customer that only paid a dollar or something. 

[00:22:40] Like it was a lot of money to acquire a customer. 

[00:22:43] And really thinking like it would take two years to make back that investment. 

[00:22:49] And I'm like, I don't know any small business that can afford to approach their advertising like that.

[00:22:56] And then the other thing is usually lead gen. For service based business. 

[00:23:00] And so between those two things, and then the fact that like on Pinterest, for instance, they recommended that I think you said this earlier. 

[00:23:08] That you spend four times the amount of your product for sale per day as a recommended ad spend. 

[00:23:17] And I'm just like, these are big numbers for me. 

[00:23:19] My average product sells for about 200. So that's Hey, come spend 800 a day with us right out the gate. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, what are we supposed to do with this information? 

Understanding Audience and Platforms

[00:23:30] Charley Brennand: So I think it's just about understanding where your audience is, right?

[00:23:34] Is your audience in the buying frame of mind in Pinterest? No, they're not. They're browsing what wedding flowers they should have. 

[00:23:42] What outfits to put together for autumn. Are they on there? Yes, absolutely. 

[00:23:46] They are on there, but is it likely that they will convert on there? 

[00:23:50] So actually, when anybody starts really deciding, okay, I'm ready to market my product.

[00:23:56] One of the biggest bits of advice I could give to anybody from a paid or organic perspective is just really understand. 

[00:24:01] What the platforms are. And what are your audience doing on the platforms? Especially if you are not a native user and I'll hold my hand up and I'll be like, look, I don't use TikTok.

[00:24:11] And that is outrageous for a lot of people. They're like, oh, how do you work in marketingand not use TikTok? 

[00:24:16] And I'm, it's just one of those things. So I. Still have to understand what are people doing? How are they consuming the media? And what value would it bring if we were to advertise on that?

[00:24:27] So there's a couple of things. So understanding the platforms. Understanding what your audiences are doing on there. But also understanding how many touch points somebody needs in order to buy your product or service. 

Mapping Customer Journeys

[00:24:39] Charley Brennand: So it's very rare if somebody's never heard of your brand before that they will see one ad and convert.

[00:24:45] Then it becomes a question of, okay how do I hit these customers across multiple different platforms? 

[00:24:50] So they're getting the exposure to me. Without it costing me an arm and a leg. 

[00:24:55] And that's where, a lot of social media Platforms are really coming into play for the wider marketing strategy. 

[00:25:02] Because it used to be PPC was the one to bring all the sales da because that is the, ultimate last touch for most businesses.

[00:25:10] But now it's actually, we're starting to think of of the whole customer journey. 

[00:25:14] And go when do they first engage with us? They might've seen a post on LinkedIn about us. Okay. 

[00:25:19] When do they next? Oh they might've seen a post that we've done on Facebook, because maybe it was a sponsored or boosted post because we chose to retarget them.

[00:25:26] Anybody that's visited our site or seen a certain LinkedIn post. 

[00:25:30] So there's a lot more to mapping out your customer journey. And I think that's quite overwhelming for a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of business owners. But, you said yourself you run an e commerce business, right? 

[00:25:40] Why would you not want to map out the route to purchase for your customer?

[00:25:45] Why would you not want to know how they're consuming different platforms? 

[00:25:49] And like the example that you used then 200 to acquire a customer for a product that might have been a quid or a dollar for the US guys over there. 

[00:25:57] That just screams TikTok to me, and a lot of people are like, hey, race to the bottom because you've got people like Alibaba and Temu are selling products on there. 

[00:26:05] For, a dollar or a pound or whatever it might be.

[00:26:08] But you're getting charged per, I think it's one second, after one second or one impression. It's impression based cost or something, I think. 

[00:26:16] So yeah, the cost can very quickly amass few thousands for a very small value. 

[00:26:22] So actually you go how do we utilize the platforms? without just sticking ads on them?

[00:26:27] That's when it starts getting interesting, right? Because it's really forcing a business's hand to think outside the box. 

[00:26:34] Because what used to be a marketing funnel, your traditional funnel is now Mr. Messy. 

Organic vs. Paid Marketing

[00:26:39] Charley Brennand: So it's so important for you to Understand, okay if we can't get paid to work on there, let's shoot our shot organic.

[00:26:46] Let's see what we can do. There's been, oh my God, there's been some incredible organic content on TikTok. 

[00:26:52] And I say this as non user because it makes its way to Instagram. Where I like to consume my TikTok content. 

[00:27:00] Like we don't have the budget to do that on paid, but why should we not attack it from an organic perspective? 

[00:27:05] And a lot of that, again, is just based on fear of the unknown, fear of not understanding how the platform works. 

[00:27:11] But the beauty of the organic side of it is, It doesn't cost you anything except your pride.

[00:27:16] Crystal Waddell: Yep. And a little bit of time and research and actually putting it together. 

[00:27:19] That's the lowest barrier to entry for an entrepreneur to, get their brand exposed online. 

[00:27:26] Jonas Sickler, who works over at Terakeet in the U S. 

[00:27:29] He came on the podcast and talked about owned asset optimization. 

[00:27:33] Which is a super fancy name for this thing that I called perfect product promotion, but owned asset optimization, I'd like it much better, it's like where you take your owned assets, which are like your graphics, your website, just the things that you have ultimate control over. And then you distribute them across the internet.

[00:27:50] And that's what I've been doing for years. And it's the ultimate organic approach. 

[00:27:54] Where a lot of people say, Oh, you don't have to be on every platform. I take it from an SEO perspective of 

[00:28:00] Hey, the more platforms you are on, the more, Real estate you take up like in the search engine results.

[00:28:07] So it's like people are searching for the main keyword that you are trying to rank for. If they're searching for your business. 

[00:28:13] You're showing up across all of these platforms where you can leverage their domain authority. So it's I have loved that approach like for myself and for entrepreneurs.

[00:28:22] And yes, it does take a little bit more like grunt work, upfront. 

[00:28:26] It's never going to be a bad thing for people to find the same you everywhere.

[00:28:30] GA4 gives these random insights to me that I don't understand. But

[00:28:34] I like when they show up in a little block and it says something like 60 percent of your conversions followed an organic search path, or something like your customers take an average of six touch points before conversion.

[00:28:47] And, there's some crazy numbers out there. Some people said that like it takes upwards of 20 or 60 or whatever touch points. 

[00:28:53] That's not the case for me personally. And I found that out through Google analytics. So I'm like, if someone's listening and you can, access your Google analytics, look for that statistic.

[00:29:03] I'm not sure where to find it. 

[00:29:04] What I use that information for was to say, okay, if. It typically takes six touch points. Then what are the six touch points? 

[00:29:12] And because I'm close to my customers and I have conversations with them. Mapping that out has been fairly easy, but like you said, a lot of times that last touch point.

[00:29:24] Is an advertisement. 

[00:29:25] It's that's almost always the closest thing to conversion. And I don't do that. So it's just making me think okay, Am I missing an opportunity there by not having a PPC? Just Relying mainly on SEO. 

[00:29:40] Charley Brennand: Would you pull in some more work and sales? 

[00:29:44] Possibly. But again, it just totally depends on the competition there.

[00:29:49] For what it costs you now to acquire a customer, that cost would only go up, right? 

[00:29:54] So if it's already. like quite a fine cut ratio. That's the question you've got to ask yourself. Okay. Do I actually have the budget to, to scale? 

[00:30:02] Because that's what you're doing. You're not changing the way you work.

[00:30:04] You're just scaling it up from what you've got right now. And I think, it's a really good point. Once you understand how many touch points it might take. 

[00:30:13] It's about just reassessing your expectations of your marketing efforts, right? 

[00:30:17] Because if you're just serving one type of ad. One time and expecting sales to roll in off the back of it.

[00:30:24] When you know that it takes six touch points for somebody to convert. 

[00:30:27] Soon, you go, okay, cool. What else can I be doing? What else can I reach them on? What else can I be doing to make my marketing efforts more robust? 

[00:30:37] Cause that's all it is, right? That's all it is just making your marketing efforts more robust, more shop windows, exactly as you said, then to making, your business take up more space on the internet.

[00:30:47] And there's, more businesses than ever before on the internet. It is important. It is important to do that. Taking up more real estate. Yeah. Sometimes it results in more sales. Sometimes it doesn't, but that would be something that you would find out fairly quickly after a little bit of investment.

[00:31:02] If you already have a really strong website, if you already have, already a steady flow of of sales coming through. it should amplify what you've got rather than detract. 

[00:31:12] So all of a sudden, if you are looking at your Google analytics and you're like, Hey, PPC now accounts for, you know, 30 sales a month. 

[00:31:19] But all my SEO sales have gone. 

[00:31:21] You'll be like actually, I'm just cannabilizing in my SEO sales.

[00:31:24] So it's really about taking small and concentrated efforts. 

[00:31:28] Especially when the budgets are a little bit smaller. One thing with smaller budgets is that the data just flows in a little bit slower. 

[00:31:34] So that can sometimes be a challenge if you are a business owner, an entrepreneur, and you are strapped for cash from a paid ads perspective. 

[00:31:42] Just know that it will take you longer to learn the smaller your budget is because Google deals in data.

[00:31:49] As do all of the bidding platforms, they deal in data. So the lower your spend is, the less data they are able to pull through on a daily basis. 

[00:31:57] Meaning the less they are able to piece together that journey and go, okay, when I spend this, this happens. 

[00:32:03] When I spend this, this happens. That's not to say go spend, 10 grand in one day.

[00:32:08] Definitely don't do that. That is not me advocating for lunacy. 

[00:32:11] But yeah, it's just to be mindful that with every option you choose, there will be an opportunity cost to it.

[00:32:17] Crystal Waddell: That is so amazing. Okay. 

Charley's Upcoming Projects and Final Thoughts

[00:32:19] Crystal Waddell: So who is like a best fit for working with you? And if they would like to work with you. 

[00:32:26] And learn more about you, how can they find you, Charley? Oh, 

[00:32:29] Charley Brennand: If they want to work with me, it's a terribly sad story that I am up to my eyeballs in it. They can't, even if they wanted to.

[00:32:36] I'm really sorry. Unless you are Nike or Adidas, those are like, Up there with some of my dream, dream clients to work with. 

[00:32:43] If you're listening to this and you work for one of those brands, holla baby in the most cringy way. 

[00:32:49] No, in all seriousness, people want to find me. Typically, I would say LinkedIn is the best way to find me.

[00:32:55] Honestly, if you want to start following me on Instagram, do it. 

[00:32:58] I tend to post mostly about my inability to stop drinking coffee. And my son, generally. Yeah nothing work related too much on there. 

[00:33:07] So LinkedIn's the best way to find me.

[00:33:09] There are some really exciting projects that are coming up. 

[00:33:11] Which hopefully will start echoing across the pond. 

[00:33:14] And you'd be like, Oh, I heard about this girl on this podcast ages ago! 

[00:33:19] Is she running that conference? And I don't know what you can actually translate out of that little mumbled heebie jeebie that I just gave you then, but ultimately.

[00:33:28] I'm planning to launch a performance marketing conference next year in in my hometown of Manchester in the UK. 

[00:33:34] Yeah, it's super exciting. I also plan to launch a PPC apprenticeship that is government backed. So that will be coming out at the end of this year with the learner cohort starting the start of next year, I believe.

[00:33:47] So there's some really big things happening, but ultimately you asked me at the beginning, Inspiring the underdog. 

[00:33:53] What does that mean? Like, where, where's that come from? 

[00:33:56] It's honestly just trying to give people what I didn't have. Maybe that's the mum in you. 

[00:34:02] Maybe it's, not wanting people to struggle the way you struggle, but also seeing a problem and going, hey, I've got a solution.

[00:34:09] It's not that I'm not fearful of failure. I just think if not me, somebody else will do it. So why not me? 

[00:34:14] I think that's what we have to start asking ourselves a little bit more often, right? Is why not? 

[00:34:19] What is the reason not to do something? What is the reason not to try PPC or not to invest in your website?

[00:34:26] What is the reason to not take that chance on a business venture? If it fails, guess what? We learn, we move on, no one dies.

[00:34:34] Crystal Waddell: That is amazing advice. 

[00:34:36] Very inspiring, especially the part about us not dying. 

[00:34:39] Like that's the really good part. 

[00:34:40] But seriously, Charley, you're awesome. I will link to all of the stuff that you talked about in the show notes. 

[00:34:46] And best of luck with all of that. I'll be following you. And maybe someday I'll make it across the pond to attend one of your events.

[00:34:53] And, but I'll definitely be following you cheering for your mom, who I know is an Etsy seller. 

[00:34:58] And yeah, this has been amazing. So thank you so much for coming on today. 

[00:35:02] Charley Brennand: Thank you for having me. It's been so lovely. 

[00:35:05] Crystal Waddell: All right guys, I will catch you next time. 

[00:35:07] ​