Drive and Convert

D&C (EP 050) – What Will Traffic Look Like In 2022?
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[00:00:00] Narrator: You're listening to drive and convert a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine with John McDonald and Ryan Garrow

[00:00:16] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): 2020

[00:00:17] Jon MacDonald (The Good): was crazy for everyone, but great for e-commerce businesses is as Ryan. I'm sure you can attest to. I certainly can. And 2021 surprised us all and it just seemed like it was even crazier. So maybe not as great for many e-com businesses. We've talked a lot about the changes around tracking and email and Facebook and everything, but let's look into the crystal ball right now and see what 2022 has in store for online traffic.

[00:00:43] Ryan, you've been seeing trends in traffic for over 12 years. What do you think this year has in store for e-commerce businesses and how can they best prepare and succeed on that? So I think this is gonna be a fun topic. Mm-hmm and I'm excited to see, uh, what you have to say. Yeah.

[00:00:59] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): I mean, I can honestly say, uh, I didn't see 20, 20 coming, and I can say that I was probably off on most of my thoughts on 21 coming into it.

[00:01:09] So. Uh, as it played out, you, you can't be mad at me if any of the, with what we think is wrong, but. At least we're gonna look back and, and we have some things to base it off of at least and make educated guesses that hopefully can guide and direct a lot of these people. And so I think when you're, whenever you're looking forward, I think you've gotta start by looking backwards at least and see what happened and what you need to change and do.

[00:01:29] So any business owner. Or marketing team thinking through 22 and planning that you've gotta really see, where did we do really well in 21, where did we fail miserably and then make the plans based on what you have seen and then try to say, okay, where am I going to experiment? And I think when we're looking at a lot of traffic trends, it's the, it's the gambling money all almost as I like to put it, that is the ones that, yeah.

[00:01:54] Yeah, more often than not, you're gonna lose, but when you hit, you can hit really big. And I think from a traffic perspective, that's why I think you're gonna get a lot of stuff in, in, in 22 mm-hmm is honestly, I think it's gonna be the gambling money. That's gonna pay off for some businesses. I like that.

[00:02:09] Jon MacDonald (The Good): Okay. So then let me ask you this. It, it, it probably makes sense to take a. A look back really quick. Right. Cause if you can't have 22 without 21 mm-hmm . So what was the biggest surprise about 21, besides the fact that you had no idea that this was gonna

[00:02:24] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): happen? yeah, I mean, going into 21, it was, we all looked like really smart marketers.

[00:02:30] Like it just didn't take a lot to succeed in 20 from an eco perspective. So I that's the big asterisk here. I focus a lot on e-com uh, local businesses obviously struggled mightily. But going into 21, the biggest surprise I thought was the drop in demand. Most of us didn't see that coming. It was kind of like everything was going up into the right, and this is gonna be even better when the economy quote, unquote reopens.

[00:02:56] And so, and it looked exactly like that going into March. I mean, March was up cross the board bonkers. Mm. Uh, even my personal brands, everything, Amazon volume was just crazy. And I think we just said, Hey, you started buying online. Like, why would you not keep buying online? Like so much easier? Yeah. Uh, it's less risky all these things.

[00:03:17] And we had that kind of perfect storm that just, I mean, nobody could have seen that coming with the iOS. We knew I exchange was. So that, that part, wasn't a surprise, but combine that with a massive drop across the board of people, actually looking to buy things online was a. Blew my mind. And I thought that we were just being really bad at marketing until we started looking at the data.

[00:03:40] I was like, oh my gosh, we are terrible at this. And when people started traveling and going into restaurants and going in for the experiences that had been bottled up, cause you couldn't do any of these things for an entire year in 20, in 2020, that money was not buying stuff. It was buying. And I, and I think we talked about this earlier last year that our family was guilty of that when we traveled for three weeks, mm-hmm , we bought zero things online and spent way more money going out.

[00:04:05] So if I had looked at my own habits, I probably would've been better at figuring out what was gonna happen, but I'm promising to be better in 22, John. Uh,

[00:04:16] Jon MacDonald (The Good): well, one of that starts with data. And so what, you know, what do you think is gonna be the biggest surprise of 22? Um, if we're really looking at okay, well, 21 was a massive surprise to us.

[00:04:27] Yeah. We knew iOS updates were coming, but they had way more of an effect than anyone thought mm-hmm . And as things opened up in that brief spot between variants, that was there when people will try. Now that's kind of clamping back down again. I, I kind of feel like I'm seen, uh, as things people are getting weary of, of travel.

[00:04:46] Again, even as we're recording this right over the holiday season, at the end of the year, I'm seeing that numbers are picking back up again after. Black Friday, cyber Monday during that time, that week typically you see things just trail off for the rest of the year. I'm seeing that online continues to grow right now and sell.

[00:05:07] And I think that that's because people are getting locked down again and they're not as. You know, I mean, I went to the mall here in Portland. Um, I don't know about a month ago. And this was before Omni Omnicon was like huge, but still there were too many people at this mall. I felt very uncomfortable just walking around the mall, shoulder to shoulder with hoards of people.

[00:05:28] I was like this, I know I've been cooped up for a couple years, but like this feel right, considering that I could probably walk outta here with a virus. And so I'm wondering what you're kind of thinking is gonna be the biggest surprise and hopefully haven't tainted your view a little bit

[00:05:43] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): there. not at all.

[00:05:45] I, cause I did the same thing. My wife wanted a Peloton, so we went and, and bought one, had to go into the mall, which was again, I think the first time I'd been at the mall and I don't know how long. Yeah. Cause I don't, I didn't like malls before lockdown. Okay. But it felt kind of cool to be like, I'm in a mall like spending money.

[00:06:01] This was kind of cool. Like don't get a Starbucks Ooh. Back to however, 2017 used to be. But I think the biggest surprise for most companies online that are driving traffic through various channels, I, I think is going to be when CPCs drop, cuz we've been in this environment. Through 21 where CPCs have just gone up astronomically like it seemingly without inflation is a thing, but CPC inflation was not even talked about, but it was terrible.

[00:06:35] uh, we had limited inventory on Google where you there's only so many spots available, multiple advertised. There's trying to compete to make up for lost, uh, or missing forecast and, and following behind 2020 numbers. Mm-hmm so a lot of people thought they were. Just being bad marketers when in row, the demand was going way down and then Amazon jumping back in, again, all these things we talked about, I think what we're expecting, a lot of people here at LP are thinking about this way more than I am and, and providing some of the data.

[00:07:00] But they feel like when we get to Q2, we're gonna start seeing CPCs drop. Like we won't have the big, massive year over year stuff. Mm-hmm, , we'll have people having better forecasts. Hopefully I can't imagine we're gonna go back into some sort of lockdown, but I think people will have less. Desire to travel or go.

[00:07:19] I think it'll be more of a self-imposed almost. In fact, I heard that this past week, the UK had a, had a bunch of London restaurants voluntarily decide that they were gonna go into lockdown. Mm-hmm because they're like it was too risky for their staff. And so I think the government's probably not gonna mandate it well,

[00:07:33] Jon MacDonald (The Good): and I'm I'm hearing as well.

[00:07:34] I mean, there's just, uh, a speech from president Biden yesterday, where he said, without question, we just need to learn to live with this, and we're not gonna do a national lockdown. Again, because we need to learn to live with this and everything that comes with that. And I can understand that perspective.

[00:07:50] And I think that that is going to be, if we're gonna have continuing waves like this, then we're definitely going to have. Continuing waves of e-commerce, um, uptick mm-hmm and I think, you know, it's almost like we can chart it out. Right. A new wave gets into the news. Well, e-commerce is gonna uptick here in a couple weeks.

[00:08:09] Yep. And it's just one of those things that, that I think we'll be able to better predict over time.

[00:08:14] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): I hope so. Cause I like the knowing part and not being surprised. Mm-hmm I obviously that's not happening for a couple years, so it'll be a really nice. Surprise when I'm not surprised, but I think that's gonna be a lot of companies are going to be pleasantly surprised by drop in CPCs.

[00:08:32] That's obviously gonna fluctuate overall and, and has to do with a lot of some massive brands and small brands maybe jumping out when they realize they couldn't, you know, survive long term in a really competitive environment. You , it actually is surprising. I was talking to somebody in the office the other day about how many really awesome ideas.

[00:08:52] Are out there and how many business owners I talked that have just phenomenal products. Mm-hmm but they have zero sales and they have no idea how to get 'em it. I, I talked to one company like brilliant, multiple scientists create this really cool soil that, I mean, far and away, just some of the best stuff you can get.

[00:09:10] There's no sales, can't figure it out. Don't know how to sell anything. And it's like, That's way more common than I think it should be. Yeah. But I think a lot of those companies kind of try different things and, and there's not a real long term strategy and a commitment to certain things of this is how you do it.

[00:09:24] So there's, hopefully a lot of them can listen to this podcast and get some ideas on how they can drive and convert traffic. Yeah. Uh, well, I do find it interesting

[00:09:30] Jon MacDonald (The Good): that. What we've seen over the pandemic. And, and I've seen this too. I mean, we don't work with really small brands or just brands who are starting up, but we do get a lot of inquiries from them and they read a lot of our content and follow things like this podcast, et cetera.

[00:09:43] And so I always find it interesting when, when I get a note that says, Hey, we're having a hard time converting anyone on our site. We've we've only had of purchases or we've had no purchases. And I'm finding as I talk to these folks that. A lot of them just set up an e-commerce site in COVID and expected sales to happen.

[00:10:02] Mm-hmm and you know, and, and my question usually goes back to 'em well, when you started the brand and you were doing through wholesale or retailers or whatever your other method was, how did you get those sales? And, and it took time. Right. And they're like, well, I had to go talk the wholesalers and sell to them.

[00:10:17] And, and, and I'm like, yeah. And you just put up a website and expected people to show up. That's not how this works. It takes work and time and effort, and you gotta spend money to make money. Unfortunately, mm-hmm and I usually send 'em your way, so sorry for for creating that is your problem moving forward.

[00:10:33] But, uh, usually it's like, Hey, don't, don't give us any money. Like, first of all, you like. I, I couldn't get you a return, so it doesn't make sense until you start having a lot more traffic mm-hmm and second of all, you need to invest in driving traffic before you do anything else. Um, but I do find it interesting.

[00:10:50] So kind of thinking about that, are there, are there news sources of traffic that these companies need to be aware of? Whether folks who are newer or folks who have been investing already?

[00:10:59] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): I mean, I hope so. I think all of us in the e-commerce world are wanting something new whether it happens or not. Who knows, but I mean, we've, for a while we've been writing the Google, Amazon Facebook marketing trains, and there's not been a lot of.

[00:11:18] New things come about that have been even close to as successful as those three. Uh, I mean, being's always there. So if you're doing Google, I'm making an assumption that you're on Bing. And if you're not just duplicate your Google count over there, cuz there's easy traffic. But I think the biggest desire for traffic is going to be on TikTok.

[00:11:36] That's the biggest buzzies thing right now. Now there's a ton of users on it. Most companies are wanting TikTok to work, wanting it to work for traffic. And it actually working are very different things. And that's where I think a lot of brands are going to waste a lot of money. Mm-hmm, trying to, trying to make it work.

[00:11:53] Um, I think they'll have bad expectations and I think they'll have bad execution and lots of details there. But I, I think that TikTok has some really good potential, but it does come with some asterisk on, on how easy is it to duplicate the experience? Mm-hmm I think Snapchat. Figured that out the hard way, um, like Instagram could easily steal all of your cool things and nobody has to leave Instagram for the same things.

[00:12:16] Jon MacDonald (The Good): I mean, I see, I don't have a TikTok account. Maybe that's surprising to you. Hopefully not. I don't need it. I don't have the time. Right. I was thinking that I don't have time to go down that rabbit hole and, and sit there for 30 minutes swiping of these. But the, the more of the reality is that. I see I am on Instagram and I'd say half or more of the stories that reach me on Instagram are things posted from TikTok.

[00:12:41] And you can tell cuz it has the TikTok logo still in the video. And you're like, so I mean, Instagram effectively is stealing that traffic people are putting it both places, which. Is a great content strategy. Yeah.

[00:12:53] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): But yeah, and, and as we've seen evolution of social channels, generally it's adopted by younger and then it moves to older.

[00:13:00] And so that's why I know I'm gonna go on Facebook cuz it's all my mom and her friends and mm-hmm we know that. And I I'm assuming my kids will never even be on Instagram. And I think the advertisers follow the dollars. It, it of, of where buyers are. Yep. And so there's certain products that you're gonna be advertising on Facebook because it's an older demographic.

[00:13:19] Uh, when you have the, the millennials and, and the Xs, you're gonna generally be on Instagram. And then if you wanted to target younger kids, it's probably the tos at this exact moment. And if TikTok it's really cool or I have to watch my kids, I'll probably go down and get one, but it's, it's understanding your market fit.

[00:13:36] If you're not gonna probably put arthritis cream on TikTok and find success, even though there's people there mm-hmm, TikTok and it's primarily, and the. The change I'm seeing, this is probably an important one. As you're starting to market on these channels is Facebook and Instagram were more, they were more designed for connecting with people and like keeping up with people you didn't see as often, or like college buddies that I, you know, can't see face to face.

[00:14:01] TikTok seemed way more geared towards entertainment. Oh yeah. Less about like, oh, keep up with your friends. It's like, I'm gonna see cool stuff. But. For me, that's what Instagram is now. Mm-hmm, like, I don't use it to compare. I don't, I don't need to post pictures of my kids or what I, you know, what I had for lunch.

[00:14:15] It's not important to me and or the people that I've probably contact with. I'm actually using funny enough text chains, an iMessage more often than not as I would've used to use like a social media platform. Right? Like I go golf with a bunch of guy eyes every year. And every year we keep a text chain going called the golf idiots.

[00:14:33] Yep. And that's how we communicate. None of us go and post on Instagram, but with like, Yeah.

[00:14:38] Jon MacDonald (The Good): It's I have the same thing with the basketball teams. I play on the family, like it's, you know, and then you pin 'em. I have so many that are pinned to the top are all the ones who, you know, groups of friends, college, friends, things of that sort I'm hardly ever on Facebook.

[00:14:50] Like very rarely. I, I intentionally try to stay off of there unless I need to be part of a group on there or something.

[00:14:56] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): Yeah. I, I took the app off, so I don't get notifications. Yeah. Because it just distracted me. Uh, but so Instagram is generally me scrolling for entertainment. Like, Hey, it's, I'm winding down my day.

[00:15:05] When I turn my brain off, let's go laugh at a couple, you know, things I follow and get myself in a good mood before I sleep . So it's product fitment, understanding what the people are doing there. You're not gonna sell a really complex CNC machine on TikTok mm-hmm, but. If you wanna sell a, you know, $30 USB, blender, great, great people to be in front of, but you also have to commit to the platform too, and understand that it's not gonna work right away.

[00:15:28] Mm-hmm I don't mm-hmm lightning will strike occasionally, but if you plan for that, you're gonna be disappointed. 99.999% of the time you plan for it. I'm gonna commit to TikTok for a year. We're gonna put content out, knowing it's not gonna give us a return for a while test different ad formats. Um, so I, I would say TikTok is, is going to get.

[00:15:48] Some investment dollars and, and a decent amount of traffic this year. Yeah. Does it work really well for brands remains to be seen? I would say there's. No scenario I'm seeing in which TikTok plants, Instagram, or Facebook for brands, our most successful brands that we manage that we've seen on TikTok.

[00:16:07] It's three to 4% of their social revenue on the, in analytics. And that's for a really, I mean, that's a big brand that I'm thinking of right now where they're doing two and a half, 3 million just from their social channel on analytics. And it's a Mo an over a hundred million dollar brand, but that's a really solid one.

[00:16:22] Mm-hmm, where they're getting. Three 4% of their overall red, social red than new right from TikTok. So interesting expectations.

[00:16:33] Narrator: You're listening to drive and convert a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are John McDonald, founder of the good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors in the buyers and Ryan Garrow of logical position, the digital marketing C offering paper, click management, search engine optimization

[00:16:56] Jon MacDonald (The Good): and website design

[00:16:57] Narrator: services to brands of all sizes.

[00:17:00] If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on apple podcasts and sharing it with a friend or Holly. Thank you

[00:17:10] Jon MacDonald (The Good): on TikTok. And at least the TikTok I see on Instagram. It seems like it's entertainment, but it's less ads and more influencers who, you know, are doing the, the pitching, the, the famous one that I, everyone makes fun of is almost, should be a meme.

[00:17:27] If it's not prob probably is, is like everyone asks me about my morning routine. So here's everything I do. And here's the makeup I use and blah, blah, blah. And you're like, no one asked you. Yeah. Somebody paid you to say this. And so you're like, you know, wanna sound like you're popular. So you're like everyone is asking, so I thought I'd do a video on it.

[00:17:46] You're like, okay. Yeah. Um, so do you feel like influencers are gonna be a big bet? I, I kind of feel like they are, but I don't know. I, it seems like an easy way to get out there some social proof. And when done, correct. Um, can can really kind of. Make the ads less of an ad if you will. Yes.

[00:18:07] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): I mean all yes. To all of that.

[00:18:08] I mean, I in influencers are, are awesome, but they're very difficult. Mm-hmm um, it's not like we can all pick up the phone and call Kim Kardashian, be like, Hey, can you just give me a cool little shout out on all your channels and thens? I'm a millionaire mean?

[00:18:25] Jon MacDonald (The Good): If you had enough

[00:18:25] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): money, you probably could.

[00:18:27] Yeah, but it might cost me a million to make a million. I mean, who knows? I, I don't have a million cash lane around to, to give Kim Kardashian to calling out, but even brands that had her, we've worked with a lot of brands that launched alongside her and a lot of her friends and, and a lot of those specifically beauty brands got the call out and you ride this way, but then you have to follow it up to actually keep selling that product, have a legit product.

[00:18:46] There's a lot of things that go with influencers that are not just get the influencer to call you out. Mm-hmm and I've struggled with this personally on, on joyful dirt and how we get. Influencers that work. And I've made a lot of mistakes, wasted, a lot of money paid for some great content, but it didn't scale.

[00:19:03] Well, even when we advertised it, so it's difficult. Mm-hmm um, but I think all brands should be trying to figure out how they leverage influencers. Mm-hmm I mean, it's basically your, your sponsor. People and you're sponsoring. It's like, it's how does the average person, like, act like Nike almost like how do I get my shoes or whatever on all these people that have influences over small people, uh, uh, groups of people you just kind do like name, most brands can do with like the micro influencer.

[00:19:31] Like you've got some followers, but you're not Kim Kardashian. Yeah.

[00:19:35] Jon MacDonald (The Good): Well, this is where the new name and likeness for college athletes comes in. And I have a good friend who runs cross net, which is four square meets volleyball for lack of better term. And they did a whole campaign where they had hundreds of college athletes, uh, enrolled in this and they got sent a free cross net and ball and, and some swag in exchange for them am doing pieces of social content.

[00:20:02] And almost in that influencer status. And then they got to use all that content elsewhere. So then they were able to add on to their site, some of the best videos that were made and things of that sort. And they've been very public about it, but they dialed it way back because the quality of assets they were getting wasn't that great.

[00:20:19] And the quantity will only like half the people would meet their requirements. Mm-hmm after, because they'd already been given the goods. And so they're kind of like didn't have as much incentive. And so now they're really focused on the quality over the quantity. And so I, I find that interesting because one of the things that you have in the notes here is, is influencing its scale mm-hmm

[00:20:41] And so do you mean that massive amount of influencers or more on the side of doing a, a, you know, a lot of content via few,

[00:20:51] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): I'm not as worried about volume of content in, in a way, way. I look at it. What you're trying to figure out generally through trial and error. Is what type of influencer fits your brand mm-hmm and what kind of, what do they have to post to get the right interaction, to get the right people, to come to the site and take action, which is for all of you probably should be buying.

[00:21:14] It's not just having the right followers. It's having followers that are following them for the specific reason that you can solve. Mm-hmm like, for example, we found out with joyful dirt. If we find an influencer that has a great looking. Home with good house plants. Great for pictures and content terrible for people taking action.

[00:21:32] They're not there for the, for the plant or the plant food that made the plant better. They're there for the architectural beauty or viewing of that house, remodel, whatever. But if somebody's following an influencer, because they're trying to go through this process of be healthier and plant. And eating plants is part of that.

[00:21:48] Mm-hmm, really successful. And I wouldn't have known that until I went out there with money and, and put it on the line and and made the mistakes. Uh, and I think a lot of brands are gonna go through that. Uh, but there's this really cool part of influencer marketing. That's not necessarily as easy to execute at this exact moment for all brands, but it's this thank, uh, you may have heard of it called dark posting.

[00:22:09] Yeah, sounds dirty. So I think we need to change the name somehow because it's not, not what it, it

[00:22:16] Jon MacDonald (The Good): sounds like, like Ryan hast only fans, or like ,

[00:22:20] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): it's like black hat SEO or something. It's like, Ooh, don't do that. Um, but dark posting basically means that the influencer puts some tent up for, because of the brand, the brand gives them product to post about like this cross net.

[00:22:33] It'd be great. Influencer puts it up. Well, the brand can link into that advertiser's account and pay to boost it. Mm. Because we know that people, you could post it and you could be really famous and post something, but only a small fraction of your followers find that post. Yep. And if people aren't interacting with it normally, cuz it's like, yeah, it's a good picture, but I don't know what this.

[00:22:53] you know, cross net thing is being able to boost that will allow more people to see it and make that content probably more successful. And it it's a way to link up behind the scenes. There's all these API accesses mm-hmm , but it it's a much more effective way. I think for brands to be advertising mm-hmm than on their own Instagram, for example, uh, we've got a client that is, is spending seven figures, monthly advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:23:17] Successfully, but obviously last year they saw the return drop from what it or 21. So this is 20. Yeah. In 21, they saw the return drop from what it was in 20, which a lot of people saw cuz of iOS and just general changes in the market. But they also started spending six figures a month on dark posting influencers, cuz they have a massive amount of influencers that they're leveraging for various things all over the dark posts are by far the best performing social ad.

[00:23:43] They have. Wow. And so we're looking at a large sample of data and it is, I believe that more and more brands are going to be moving that direction. It is interesting how people look at dark posts because it's basically I'm boosting content to get in front of the followers. Right. But you're basically advertising as the.

[00:24:01] As the influencer. So the brand's not necessarily seen it's some, that's why it's called dark posting. Yeah. But there's probably gonna be some, you'll see some changes in how those appear probably on social media. I think

[00:24:12] Jon MacDonald (The Good): there's a big push I've seen around understanding. What's an ad. And there's a lot of legal stuff happening around that right now.

[00:24:19] Right. So if you're an influencer and you post something, it has to be very, very clear. And the last recommendations that I've seen are that you have to have it in baked into the image and in the content. So you need to have like, you know, use the overlay text that says ad something of a, that sort of sponsored post mm-hmm

[00:24:38] Um, and there's a great lawyer that I saw speak. That does nothing but social speaking of Instagram, I follow on Instagram. Let me if I find this. Yep. Robert Ford law, F R E U N D Robert Ford. And he has some really great posts, all about the legalities of what you're doing with online advertising. And he represents brands who get sued by different things like the government for.

[00:25:06] Posting, you know, when an influencer's posting don't market as an ad. And he was talking about a case that he was following. I don't know if it was his case or something else, but where the government came after this, this high profile influencer, because they would post on TikTok and it would have in the description that it was an ad, but then when it got cross posted to Instagram, the description and didn't go with it.

[00:25:28] And so it was no longer at, and so they would get in trouble for posting it on Instagram and it not being clear that it was paid so interesting. There's a lot of stuff like that happening now that I think will definitely change the landscape

[00:25:40] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): as well. Yeah. It's much more powerful to get in front of people that are followers already of an influencer, rather than jumping in as a brand because you follow this influencer.

[00:25:49] And so I think that, you know, again, the advertising dollars will find a way to make this work from a legal perspective. And I think the platforms have to geared out yeah. As well, because they need that, that revenue coming in. And I think that's where TikTok can easily make. Some inroads is to make it easy, to connect big advertiser dollars to influencer tos.

[00:26:12] So that even if a brand isn't as active on TikTok, which a lot of them are not gonna be able to jump in and create all this video content mm-hmm , they can have a link to the website off of TikTok coming through an influencer. So it's a much easier way to jump into TikTok. Cause I can't go. I mean, I could, but you go create a real simple TikTok for your brand and then start advertising.

[00:26:30] Yeah. That's just not gonna be great for most people. They're gonna go to the table. Oh, you have five followers. You started last week. Am I gonna go spend 50 bucks on your website? Yeah, probably not. Right. So again, I think dark post is gonna be a great, great thing in 22. I think it's gonna take off big and it's probably gonna force all these legal issues to be taken care of quicker, hopefully, and I, but the problem is going to be scaling the, in you can't just dark posts when you have no influencers.

[00:26:57] In fact, a few of our clients I talked to about that says, Hey, this would be really powerful for you. And they're like, great. Let's do it. I'm like, well, where's your influencers? Mm. Like what do you mean? I just wanna, I wanna, I want a dark post, sorry. It's not that easy. Uh, you're gonna have to build the relationships with influencers first.

[00:27:14] And there's a lot of platforms that can help that you can get influencers that are based on a, you know, like an affiliate model, which can work and be a good way to start. Uh, but even just finding and doing the grunt work, I think is what a lot of brands are gonna get stuck on is saying, let's go find some influencers, pay to get some content created and then test some dark posting.

[00:27:31] Yep. There are agencies that'll help. Define influence. Logical position is not one of them. , uh, but we will help with some of the dark posting, which can be powerful. So it's just not a, it's not easy. I'll say that, but if you go through the work, I think the upside on having a solid network of influencers for your brand is going to allow you to play much longer.

[00:27:54] In the social game because it'll cross over platforms. Mm-hmm because if you got a million followers on Instagram, it's very easy to go get half a million on TikTok by saying, Hey, I'm posting unique content here. If you really like me. Um, and that, that influencer. Will continue to have more and more influence.

[00:28:10] I think it's gonna be the, the influencer realm of the rich get richer, kinda like we've talked about on Google, the first party data you have that mm-hmm, stay with it. Influencers that are committed to being an influencer as a career, have some massive upside I think, uh, coming in 22. So

[00:28:24] Jon MacDonald (The Good): where's traffic and what's it gonna look like in 2022?

[00:28:27] Well, I think we, we cover it a lot today, Ryan, from what I can re recall and remember right now, never been known for my short term memory, but. You're thinking that there's gonna be a lot of shift in demand that hopefully TikTok and Pinterest, et cetera, kind of figure this out over this year, but you do think CPCs will drop in Google, which is great.

[00:28:50] I think that's gonna be a lifesaver for a lot of brands. Hopefully mm-hmm . And then influencers are kind of the path forward to some degree, along with dark posting. I had never heard of that, but it definitely makes sense. And that's something new that I learned today, which is always fun. Maybe

[00:29:05] Ryan Garrow (Logical Position): we could change the name to like ad posting well, or,

[00:29:09] Jon MacDonald (The Good): or, yeah, I don't know what you would call that, but I'm I'm with you.

[00:29:11] It sounds dirty, but it's not. And so I, I you're saying. It's it's, uh, a whole nother level of sponsorship to some degree. Right. All right, Ryan. Well, thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. And thank you. Always learn some new stuff as I mentioned. So have a wonderful afternoon. You too, John.

[00:29:29] Bye. Thanks for listening

[00:29:30] Narrator: to drive and convert with John McDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe, drive, and convert.