Proxima

Hyped to share our latest case study — this one's a triple threat: Proxima x Astronaut Party Inc. x Simon Pearce 🚀 Despite their efforts to target customers in new regions, Simon Pearce wasn’t reaching audiences with the same purchasing power or intent as the core customer base they've built in the Northeast. But the team at Astronaut Party — a leading eCom growth agency — was up for the challenge. And they knew that solving this problem would require serious data science chops. So, they began experimenting with data-enriched audience targeting. The results? → 31% reduction in CAC → 51% increase in ROAS → 60% in TOF Ad Spend Lukas B. Snelling, President & Founder of Astronaut Party, was initially wary of asking his client to pay for a new tool. So we set them up on a free trial with Proxima to test our AI Audiences against their existing targeting strategy. Spoiler: Proxima was the clear winner. Lukas summed it up perfectly: “For agencies, expanding the reach of your clients’ ads is the easy part. The hard part is knowing which audiences to target; you need sophisticated tools to do this efficiently. Proxima's AI Audiences should be a crucial step in every agency’s playbook.” How’d we approach audience building for Simon Pearce? 1) We ran a comprehensive ad account audit and customer base analysis to understand the core shopping trends of their most loyal customers 2) Our algorithm identified consumers with similar traits and purchasing behaviors across the Proxima Shopper Universe™️ 3) We then built data-enriched audiences that were uploaded to Simon Pearce's ad account via the Meta API (and the underlying customer data refreshed weekly) Experimenting with audience targeting in this fashion opens up a level of customization and precision well beyond the capabilities of Meta's broad algorithm. A strategic approach to targeting presents a serious opportunity for every agency and brand. That’s what we’re developing at Proxima — tech that enables marketers to take back control of their targeting. Read the full case study here ➝ https://lnkd.in/eHpdc_qZ  

We spent $230k+ on our Proxima lookalike audiences last month… Yes, going broad is the go-to strategy. But try this targeting experiment: A) Go broad – let Meta decide who to show your ads to B) Go targeted – upload Proxima’s boosted seed audiences and run LALs Put these up against each other. We found that not only do these audiences scale and compete with broad, but we’re also giving Meta additional data points to find incremental audiences to scale into. The point is – don’t fall into the trap of “best practice bias” There are wins to be had beyond broad. Media buyers should not be ignoring audiences as a tool to leverage in Meta. No matter which avenue you dive into, whether you stick to going broad or experiment with audience targeting, if you test audiences against each other (especially in a CBO) you’re only going to get spend when something works. And we’re seeing a lot of success here. So it’s worth testing something outside of the “go-to” strategy.

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always 👏 be 👏 testing 👏

What happens when you make the jump from a 7-figure to an 8-figure consumer brand? In my experience: you need to get serious about the less exciting parts of your business. You're evolving into a 'real business.' Growing a brand in the early days is high-octane fun. Sure. It's hard work but with a lot of freedom and few constraints. You get to be scrappy. I've been there with my brands WellPath, Finn, and Grummies. The early days are a blast. But scaling to the next level requires two specific shifts in your strategic thinking as a founder: 1) Prioritization and leveling up of operational systems. This means systemizing operations and growth/marketing by making key hires in those areas (I'll make another post on those key hires at some point). 2) You need to go omnichannel at this stage. DTC alone isn't enough. #1 is straightforward. It’s not easy, but with the right hires, you'll be able to hand off more of the main functions in the business as a founder. #2 is tricky. Selling DTC straight from your website doesn't cut it anymore. You also need to be on Amazon, considering big box retailers (like Target, Walmart, etc.), and thinking about wholesale. Scaling gets a lot more complex, fast. Oh and of course, you also need to keep your DTC machine running consistently with all these moving parts in play. It takes a team and a lot of trust in that team. But when it’s working, it's incredibly fun. I'm curious though. If there are any 8-figure founders & operators reading this, what were the biggest learnings you had when pushing beyond $10M in revenue? PS: I’ll be sharing more about my past experiences running DTC brands, as well as how that parlays into what we’re doing at Proxima—would love to have you following along. 

Your success as a brand founder isn't going to earn you any extra sleep at night. Here's the reality of scaling past the $10M revenue mark as a consumer brand. As soon as you start to scale the brand, the goalposts move. And as your brand grows, so do your problems. The problems you solve scaling from 0 ➝ 1 create new problems for you to solve to get from 1 ➝ 100. The new problems aren't a bad thing. Founders and early-stage operators are problem solvers by nature. Tackling new challenges should energize you. But if you’re not prepared, it can feel overwhelming. As you scale from 7 to 8 figures, here’s what you can expect: (1) Manufacturing volume requirements and costs will increase. (2) Your supply chain, which has held strong until now, will need a serious upgrade. (3) Post-iOS 14, it's way harder to maintain healthy unit economics if you're heavily reliant on paid ads to fuel growth. Look. Scaling to 8 figures is incredibly exciting. It's a huge milestone you should celebrate. But sustaining it isn't as straightforward as getting there. Keep the above three points in mind and you’ll be on the right track. Question for you: Of the 3 points I mentioned, which would you want to see a more in-depth post on? Let me know and I'll make it happen. PS: If you do want to scale your paid media spend more efficiently, you should check out what we're building at Proxima (shameless plug 😉)

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*taking notes*

I’ve been a successful brand founder, launching and exiting an 8-figure supplement brand. I've also been an unsuccessful brand founder, shuttering one of my brands ~1.5 years in. Like most founders, I’m familiar with wearing both hats (heads up—neither hat is necessarily comfortable). I’ve done a lot of learning as an operator—probably more learning than coaching. Some of this learning is fun, some of it is painful. But these experiences have been invaluable. A couple of the biggest learnings I’ve uncovered (and what led to the creation of Proxima in the first place) are 👇 → In a post-iOS 14.5 world, traditional DTC CAC/ROAS models stopped working.  → Customer acquisition became more expensive (too expensive for many) and it legitimately led to an adapt-or-die environment. You NEED to be ready to adapt. And I know. You’ve heard it before. But trust me, it’s better to “hear” that sentiment than to experience it—at least the “die” part. I built Proxima with the above learnings top of mind. To lower CAC and increase LTV through sophisticated predictive data intelligence—regardless of market fluctuations. It’s led to our recent Series A, but we’re only just getting started. I'll be sharing more of the learnings during my time running consumer brands and more of how we're thinking about scaling Proxima post-Series A (hiring, tech updates, etc.). I plan on getting a lot more into the weeds of what it really takes to run a successful brand in 2024, and how to use data to do so. If that sounds compelling, would love for you to follow along.

Heading to SubSummit on Monday with Alex Song and Kevin Sun. First event in the new Proxima gig and excited to sponsor the Chew On This reception. Let me know if you'll be in Dallas next week 🤙 https://lnkd.in/ggAJYJZF