Omer (00:10.080)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode, I talk to Todd Chambers, the director and founder of Upraw Media, an Amsterdam based agency that helps SaaS companies to grow and scale using paid media.
In this episode, you'll learn the top six mistakes that SaaS companies make with pay per click campaigns and how you can avoid them.
Whether you're running Google AdWords, Facebook advertising or LinkedIn ads, you hear some useful advice from a PPC expert about how to be more effective with your PPC campaigns.
You'll learn about the importance of understanding SaaS unit economics, why you need to track both online and offline conversions, how to take a full funnel approach to your PPC campaigns, the one key metric that SaaS companies often don't focus enough on, why you're probably under investing in your conversion rate optimization and the importance of aligning sales and marketing to make your PPC campaigns effective.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Todd, welcome to the show.
Todd Chambers (01:33.300)
Thank you so much for having me.
Omer (01:35.540)
So for people who don't know anything about Uproar media, tell us, like, who are your ideal clients?
How do you help them?
And you know, what's the big problem that you're trying to solve here?
Todd Chambers (01:50.410)
Yeah, so our typical clients are SaaS companies, SaaS companies looking to scale.
And a problem we're trying to solve is to help them scale and grow using paid media, which requires quite a specific set of skills.
And we also do conversion rate optimization.
So we help them build experiments, hypotheses, and then we also do measurements.
So we help them understand the impact of their paid media spend and how that translates into revenue.
Omer (02:16.380)
So when you, when you talk about ppc, where does most of that focus go?
Is it on search ads?
Is it.
I mean, obviously Google is a big part of that, but we're talking more broadly, right?
There's, there's a whole bunch of different places that you can be spending your PPC budget these days.
Todd Chambers (02:33.420)
Yeah, absolutely.
And we typically work in a B2B environment when in SAS B2B lead gen.
So the majority, I would say more than 50% goes to Google.
Not just search, that would be GDN display, remarketing YouTube video campaigns, maybe Gmail ads, small amount on Bing for US clients and then LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and then some other niche platforms like Quora and yeah, soon to be TikTok.
Omer (03:00.270)
Okay, so just tell us a little bit about yourself.
You know, you're here as the PPC expert who's helping SaaS companies.
So just tell us about you and sort of how you ended up doing, doing what you're doing.
Todd Chambers (03:12.720)
Yeah, sure.
I've been basically working in PPC for over 10 years, used to work in central London, running agencies there.
And we're actually currently based in Amsterdam.
We have a small team here of eight people and around three years ago I decided just to focus purely on SaaS.
In my experience in PPC, SaaS companies tend to make really good working partners because they're technically proficient.
Usually the whole business is based on online.
So there's kind of, yeah, there's a good synergy there with SaaS businesses.
So yeah.
Omer (03:44.060)
Okay, great.
So today we're going to talk about six mistakes that you've seen SaaS companies make with PPC.
So without further ado, why don't we start digging into that?
So what is mistake number one?
Todd Chambers (04:06.470)
Yeah, okay, so all the mistakes I've seen.
So I think the first thing to understand about a SaaS business is that the kind of the unit economics are different to maybe a normal traditional type business.
So in an ideal world you'll be optimizing towards ltv, you'll understand what your customer lifetime value is and then you're basically saying how aggressive or how profitable do we want to be?
So what percentage of that lifetime value are we willing to give up to gain that customer?
The customer acquisition cost cap, which I'm sure your listeners will understand.
And then how many conversions will it take us to get that customer acquisition?
So in my experience in dealing with SaaS companies spend hundreds of thousands or whether they spend 5 or 10,000, 95% of the time.
People don't take the time to understand the unit economics.
So if you think about it, if you're optimizing towards LTV, it might be 18 to 24 months before you actually realize that LTV.
But if you're giving up, say I think traditionally in SaaS it said roughly 33% or 1/3 of your LTV should be given towards CAC.
But if you're giving that 33% up in month one and it takes you two years to realize it, you can get into this kind of negative cash flow trough.
So taking the time to really understand that, I see most SaaS companies don't do.
Omer (05:25.230)
So let's just give a really simple example.
Let's say we have a SaaS company where the lifetime value is $1,000.
Right.
Just a easy number to work with.
And when we think about CAC or the customer acquisition cost, if we, if we go with the third guideline, it could be, well, we are willing to spend, you know, $333 to acquire that customer through PPC, but that spend goes in month one.
But we might not realize the full value of that customer for the 24 months.
So how is that going to kind of balance out?
And then I think the other part you just talked about was the conversion.
So I guess this is about how many leads or clicks I guess I need to generate in order to be able to get that one sale.
Is that what you mean by that?
Todd Chambers (06:25.860)
Absolutely correct.
Yeah, indeed.
So just reverse engineering each piece of the puzzle.
How many conversions do we need to get to realize that customer acquisition cost?
Omer (06:35.140)
So just in terms of best practice, what is the right way to sort of do this?
Todd Chambers (06:41.140)
Yeah, so it can be difficult because obviously if you're a startup, you may have just launched or you're three or four months in and you're running a SaaS business and you don't really understand your LTV because it could well be that people stay on board for 24 months or maybe.
Maybe, yeah, or maybe you haven't even got the measurement in place.
So that's a difficult one to answer.
I mean, the best thing you can do is make good assumptions.
And even by making predictions and assumptions, it's a much better starting point than just kind of putting your finger in the air and hoping for the best.
But I would say depending if, of course, if you have funding and you're able to spend money to kind of accumulate over the long run, although the cash flow trough can be deeper, at the end of it you'll come out with much more profit.
Whereas if you maybe don't have so much cash, it's maybe better to have a kind of much quicker buyback period to get your customer acquisition costs.
So maybe just a super simple example.
So maybe if your customer acquisition cost is $75 and your SaaS subscription is $25, then it's going to take you three months to gain back the customer acquisition cost.
So basically, if you don't have much money, you need a shorter time period to regain the cac.
Omer (07:55.120)
Got it.
Okay.
And in terms of conversion, what is the objective?
There is just to sort of figure out how much you can potentially bid on an ad.
Todd Chambers (08:07.680)
Yeah, so there's a, there's a ton of nuance in this because obviously the conversion rate from Each channel will be different.
So if we just take search is usually the typical place to start.
So making sure you have all the measurement in place with the CRM and following through the original click, it's called the Google Click id.
Making sure that's sent in with the form which kind of leads nicely on to the next point which is not tracking offline conversion.
So yeah, let's go there.
Many people, what they'll do is they'll just track conversions and a typical thing we hear is that they want better, they want quality leads.
Well, the only way you can really do that is by connecting offline with online.
So making sure you have the G cleared.
For example in Google, the click id, making sure that's sent through with the form and making sure that that is sent through with each phase of the sales process.
So when they become an MQL and a SAL and close one, the qlik ID is associated with that and then you can measure more effectively and then you can retrospectively go back and make sure that your original assumptions are correct.
So not tracking offline is a big mistake.
We also see.
Omer (09:17.500)
Okay, let's kind of just clarify this as well.
So if you have a SaaS business where it's pretty much self serve, people come to the website, they can sign up for a trial, they can put in their credit card information and you know, they can start paying that that's a lot clearer because you can measure basically end to end from the point where I got a click from let's say LinkedIn through to that person becoming a trial or whatever my model is for getting those people in or activating them through to you know, this is now how much they're paying and you know, they're a customer.
So that's, that's, I guess that that part is easier to track.
The online offline piece challenge becomes when you're a business that does there's some level of sales involved and so the online component is just generating the lead for you.
Then there's a whole bunch of like you said, you know, okay, is this, you know, you know, an MQL marketing qualified lead handing off to sales conversations, demos, more demos, whatever it takes until you get to a point where you can close that sale.
Todd Chambers (10:31.500)
Yeah, you're absolutely correct.
And often in a B2B and like enterprise level SaaS you see much longer sales cycles.
So really what, what they're to go one step further, the end game is that you're not optimizing in your ad account towards a conversion, you're optimizing towards another offline event which is closer to the sale.
So this is where it becomes tricky because you need.
So for example, if we say we're not going to track conversions, we want to optimize towards MQLs.
So in an ideal world you'd have the GCLIB pass through you, then maybe say 20% of conversions become.
Omer (11:05.760)
Todd, just explain the GCLIT for people who don't know what that is.
Todd Chambers (11:08.880)
Sure.
So every time you click on a Google Ad, there's a like a UTM parameter, there's a unique ID in the URL and then it's basically you capture that ID in the cookie and then when someone submits the form on HubSpot or whatever, an Unbounce, it captures that click ID, which leads nicely onto my next point.
What you ideally want to do is then when that person becomes an mql, that original click ID is associated in the CRM and then you can push that back into Google Ads, for example, systematically.
So you can then start optimizing in the account based on MQLs.
Or even if you have enough data, you could even go further in the maybe a sal or as far as you can go where there's enough volume.
So the algorithm's actually learning based on further down the funnel.
That's kind of the best possible solution.
Omer (12:01.290)
Right.
And the reason that's important is because it really gives you much better understanding or visibility of how you're actually converting and how effective your PPC campaigns are.
Because in that kind of environment where you have some, some offline component or sales, and maybe there's a long sales cycle, it's not uncommon that six or nine months down the road you close a sale and you don't know where that lead came from.
Todd Chambers (12:29.860)
Indeed, there's only one slight nuance in that, the click ID.
In the case of Google, that GCLID has a 90 day shelf life.
So once the sales cycle goes over 90 days, you can't re import back into Google Ads.
So again, that's another nuance you need to consider if you have super long sales cycles.
Omer (12:46.820)
Okay, so let's talk about the next mistake.
Todd Chambers (12:49.350)
Yeah, okay, mistake number three.
So not taking a full funnel approach to PPC.
So in my experience, dealing with lots of SaaS, companies, and particularly ones that have funding, they have lots of money and they have kind of really aggressive growth targets and investors, you know, they need to grow, they need to grow fast and they think they can kind of throw money at the problem.
And typically what happens is they run search Campaigns lower funnel search.
People that are actively looking for solution maybe, and they, they throw as much money as possible and they get into this kind of negative Google quality score problem where Google kind of realizes you're pushing really, really hard.
They lower your quality score and it kind of exponentially increases the cost with very little kind of extra volume in terms of growth.
Omer (13:33.870)
Just explain that before you get a little Todd.
Like, like, if I'm spending more money on an ad on, let's say Google, a search ad, why would Google reduce my quality score?
Unless my ad is crap, Right.
What other reasons would there be for reducing that quality score?
Todd Chambers (13:53.260)
Yeah, that's a good question.
So there's obviously only a finite number of people actually making those searches.
So that's one thing.
And the reason the quality score tends to happen is people think they can throw money at it and they can just run kind of lower funnel direct response type landing pages to everybody.
So they just say like, sign up to my free thing.
It's like, it's free to sign up, just very limited information.
Just sign up.
But obviously what Google likes is good content.
They like the user to be able.
They don't want users to bounce.
So yeah, it's typically because they have very low information, direct response landing pages kind of to everybody.
And Google doesn't really like that because it's not a good user experience.
They hit you with low quality score.
Omer (14:36.130)
Okay.
And I guess the other part of that is that if you are, let's say your reach is again, let's say 5,000 people every month are searching for a keyword that you're targeting and you get super aggressive with that ad in terms of spending more, you could be in a situation where those 5,000 people are seeing your ad over and over and over again.
And because you're sort of trying to get to the, the final piece in terms of sign up for my product without maybe thinking about what I can do earlier to, to sort of, you know, warm up this lead.
You don't get enough clicks on the ad.
And then so Google looks at that and says, okay, you've got an ad.
Not enough people seem to be clicking on it.
That's another reason that the quality score is going to go down.
And we'll probably prioritize somebody else who might do a better job.
Todd Chambers (15:27.260)
Well, maybe not, maybe not with search, because with search they typically make a search or maybe they make a different search.
So it's not really a case of search ads.
You see the same ads over and over again.
Definitely with display where you get remarketing and you get the same ad over and over again that drives you crazy.
I have that.
That can kind of have a negative effect.
But I think the solution to the problem is that you need to take a full funnel approach.
So think more about how can you provide more upper funnel.
How can you provide value to these people and kind of bring them along the journey, maybe bring them into an email automation, Then you can maybe do remarketing and you can give them even more valuable content.
It's more about.
It's more of a branding exercise when you kind of go up a funnel to bring people down.
Omer (16:11.630)
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, we're looking at a slide here, which is a little awkward if you're on, you know, just listening to the podcast, but I'll kind of just try and explain to people.
So in terms of the funnel, we're saying, okay, well, at the top, it's really about where you're getting all of these different leads coming through.
It could be from, you know, podcasts, blogs, it could be on LinkedIn, it could be ads, whatever.
And then people go through this process where there's sort of awareness, consideration, conversion.
I think anybody who's done any kind of sort of marketing probably has a sense of that.
And, you know, there may be different ways you can describe a funnel, but effectively you're moving somebody who doesn't know anything, maybe doesn't even understand they have a problem through to making a sale.
And so sort of the first, if you sort of start at the bottom, you're sort of saying, okay, I'm going to focus on the people who are most aware.
They know they have a problem, they're looking for a solution.
They know about my product and I'm going to put it in front of them and they're going to buy it.
And that kind of works.
But that's probably a really small percentage of the total market of potential, you know, leads that are out there.
And so if you move higher funnel.
Well, there are people who, you know, maybe they're looking for a solution, but they haven't figured out what the right product is.
Or if we go even further up, maybe there's people who don't even realize they have a problem.
And so you'd be much better off rather than pushing your solution to try and use content to maybe educate them more about the problem.
Todd Chambers (17:46.079)
Right, that's absolutely correct.
Yeah, perfect.
And that there's a slightly sophisticated way, which the next point is how you can, for example, with so different types of content for different people in the funnel, of course, and you kind of build that credibility.
But the next point is that you can use, for example, Facebook, these kind of sequencing.
So you can say, I'm going to use video for people top of funnel.
So a cold audience, they maybe don't even know they have a problem yet and I need to educate them on the problem or they don't know a solution exists.
You can run the video ads on that audience and say, for example, if they watch 80% of the video, then they go into a separate audience, which then gets more middle funnel ads.
And if they engage in some way, then they get the more lower funnel, which could be like book a demo or download pricing.
So having a kind of systematic way that you can bring people down the funnel and the ad platforms works really well.
Omer (18:37.660)
Yeah.
And so I think for me, the big takeaway here is think about where your, your potential customers are, what stage they're at, and focus on the right type of content, ads, whatever the solution is to sort of serve the need that they sort of currently have and then to move them through to the next stage.
Todd Chambers (19:03.060)
Absolutely.
Omer (19:03.700)
Okay, perfect.
Okay, so mistake number four.
Todd Chambers (19:07.860)
Yes.
So not focusing on activation of users, so spending a lot of money to generate free trials.
And then once they actually get them on board, they kind of overlook the obvious.
Things like what actually happens when someone's taking a free trial.
Are we actively showing them how to use the tool with videos, with tips?
I think that's potentially a really, really big oversight.
Another thing would be maybe with email sequences.
So once someone does sign up, how can you further educate them with your automation and things of that nature?
Omer (19:41.850)
Right, yeah.
And then the reason this is important is this is part of the whole conversion process.
And we're going to talk about conversion in a little bit.
But if you're not doing a good job activating those leads and trials, then it's kind of like that leaky bucket syndrome.
Right.
You're doing a lot of work and spending a lot of money on ads and you're getting people to sign up for a trial and then they're just not converting.
And it's like, well, it doesn't stop when they've sort of just clicked through to the ad.
There's still obviously work to do.
And I think most founders sort of know that onboarding activation is an important part of that.
Todd Chambers (20:22.870)
Absolutely.
Omer (20:23.990)
But yeah, I mean, so like, maybe it's sort of an example of maybe that you've seen something that.
Todd Chambers (20:29.420)
Yeah.
So I think you can use really sophisticated tools now, like Heap is a tool, I often hear about tools from people we work with.
Heap is a really good tool and you can basically create personalized experiences based on the engagement of people in the platform.
So I'm not particularly an expert on activation, but I definitely see that people spend a lot of money and then they realize that people are actually getting into the tool, they're signing up, but then they're not activating and actually starting to pay.
So I just think it's an overlooked area and like you said, leaky part of the bucket.
Omer (21:03.320)
Yeah.
Okay, so mistake number five, not investing
Todd Chambers (21:07.160)
enough in conversion rate optimization.
I think, Again, I see SaaS companies spending hundreds of thousands a month, 100,000 per month on Google Ads, and then they'll allocate 1,000 in conversion rate optimization.
So if you're spending all that money to get someone to your site into your landing page, well, you've only really, actually done a very, very small part of the job.
Although it's a huge kind of budget allocation, really, it's only just started.
You've written an ad, they've seen it, they've clicked well, you know, the whole user experience is a huge, huge part of that.
And so I think this is overlooked.
And having a systematic approach to experiments, maybe doing a lot of research on collecting, both the quantitative and the qualitative research, I think will give you a good, A good head start.
Omer (21:56.750)
Yeah, I mean, I think conversion rate optimization, I think, is super important.
I do agree with you.
I've seen a lot of examples where there's fair amount of money being spent on ads and then you get through to the landing page and you're like, wow, it's not surprising.
Or I wouldn't be surprised if actually this isn't converting well at all.
So obviously.
But, but conversion rate optimization isn't just about the landing page.
It's also about constantly testing every aspect.
So, you know, if we sort of think, think this through from a search ad perspective, it could be, am I targeting the right keywords and am I testing different keywords that I should be sort of targeting?
If it was running LinkedIn or Facebook ads, it's like, you know, the audience targeting, am I targeting the right people and do I test different audiences and see what.
That's what's going on there?
Then sort of the next step is the ad, right?
So what type of ad do I have?
What's the headline, the text?
What's the creative?
Is that actually doing the job?
What other sort of tests am I doing alongside that?
But I think it gets even more sort of sophisticated as you go in.
Right.
Because it's very easy to set up an ad, but it's much harder to figure out how to optimize it.
And I think, you know, one example I can think of is seeing someone spending a lot of money on.
I think it was LinkedIn or I think it was Facebook ads.
And then you sort of drill in and you realize that all the conversions were coming from mobile and clients on the desktop weren't really converting, but there was a big chunk of the PPC spend going towards people on the desktop.
So again, you can start to get more sophisticated and say, well, if no one on the desktop seeing this ad on the desktop is converting, maybe I just turn that off and focus on, you know, people on mobile devices as an example.
Right.
And then, yeah, you've got the.
The actual landing page and so on.
So there's.
I think the.
The challenge though, probably with this is it just seems like a lot of work.
Todd Chambers (24:15.110)
I think it is.
I think that's probably why people put it off.
And everything you just said is totally correct.
I mean, conversion rate optimization is all encompassing, of course, in ppc.
I think typically people do that quite well.
They test the hell out of the audiences, they test the ads, the campaign objectives and all that stuff, and they kind of work in silo and then they overlook the whole user journey and the landing page to me, and user journey just.
It doesn't get enough resources allocated.
So you don't have to go crazy on this.
I mean, even just personalizing landing pages with a keyword level or bucketing your keywords into different types of intent and then just changing a headline or a value proposition?
So just a certain level of personalization is much more than what I see most companies do.
Omer (25:01.130)
Yeah.
Do you sort of agree with sort of doing conversion rate optimization, but sort of starting fairly simply and then kind of, you know, getting more sophisticated?
Like, I don't think what you're saying here is like, hey, if you sort of start a.
Any whatever type of PPC campaign tomorrow, make sure that you have 10 different ads from day one that you have, you know, 20 different variations of landing pages, et cetera, you might get there.
But you could probably start simpler by saying, okay, at least I'm going to test two different ads.
Todd Chambers (25:39.780)
Yeah, indeed.
And the size of the account will dictate how quickly you can get to statistical significance, because if you're spending hundreds of thousands, then you definitely should be investing more in landing page optimization.
If you're Spending just a few thousand, then it's going to take you much longer to get there.
So, and you said about, you know, kind of.
It also depends on the kind of the baseline of where you're at.
So if your landing page is really, really poor and you can tell, then I would say maybe start with an overhaul, do some research and I can share some more information on how I would approach that.
And then of course, yeah, make sure you're at least doing some experiments which fall in line with the amount of traffic you get.
And VWO calculator has a really nice tool that helps you kind of gauge how long it would take to get to statistical significance based on your traffic volume.
Omer (26:27.880)
Yeah, yeah, I remember seeing that a few years ago.
So, and for people who not familiar, VWA is like visual website optimizer.
And so I think, as I recall the idea is you just put in like a few things in terms of, you know, here's kind of like, you know, my potential reach, how many people will see this ad, et cetera, whatever.
Right, yeah.
And then it'll tell you, I mean, that's a challenge, right?
If you're starting out, you're in the, in the early stages, you don't have a lot to spend on your PPC campaign.
It might take you a really long time to get to any sort of level of statistical significance.
Do you think that that's still the right way for them to do that?
Or maybe in the earlier stages where it's like, well, I just need to use a little bit of gut instincts and common sense to figure this out because I can't wait 14 months before I have enough traffic.
Todd Chambers (27:24.930)
Yeah, well, it's crazy.
I remember, I remember playing around with VW calculator and way back we had some clients and we plugged in the numbers and you say how many sessions they get visits per day per week.
And I got like, it would take eight years to get to statistical significance, which is a little bit of a wake up call.
So yeah, I think, yeah, it only
Omer (27:45.690)
makes sense if you have enough traffic.
Todd Chambers (27:47.570)
Yeah, indeed.
But what you can do is in the case of, if you have a slight small amount of traffic, you can do kind of week over week comparisons or you know, two week over two week comparisons.
It's definitely not an exact science because seasonality and all sorts of other factors, but that's probably a good place to start.
Omer (28:03.320)
Okay, let's talk about mistake number six.
Todd Chambers (28:05.960)
Yeah.
Not aligning sales and marketing.
So it sounds really, really obvious.
Honestly, I've had clients where Worst case scenarios where we literally spending hundreds of thousands and then they'll say, oh, we just realized yesterday that the whole sales team was at an event and it's like, okay, we spent like €7,000 yesterday on the ads and now all these leads are sitting there, 100 leads sitting there, or whatever, and no one's dealing with them.
So I think that leveraging the experience of sales and kind of combining both sets of knowledge in my experience, gives a lot of uplift.
So simple things like what information do we actually need in the form of like, at the moment we're asking them for what country they're in or what industry do you need that?
Do you actively use it?
No.
Okay, that's good insight.
We can reduce the size of the form.
Oh, we seem to be getting a lot of leads in Egypt and we don't really, you know, service leads in Egypt or whatever it is.
So just speaking to people on the ground that actually dealing with the leads and the kind of the fruits of your labor connecting those two teams will provide a lot of insight.
Omer (29:12.100)
Yeah.
The form example, I guess, also connects back to conversion rate optimization.
Like, I guess the more questions you ask, the lower your conversion rate probably is going to be.
So what's the minimal information that you need in order to be able to sort of move forward with the lead?
Todd Chambers (29:36.180)
That's, I guess, kind of a simplistic example.
Another example would be going back to conversion optimization when you're thinking about building a landing page.
So the first thing is you need a really, really strong value proposition.
And the less known you are in the market, the less brand equity you have, the more strong that needs to be.
The other major thing I would think about is how can you reinforce motivations, how can you address barriers before they become a barrier, and how can you answer important questions?
And the people that typically know this are the sales team because they're all customer success or even speak to your customers, of course.
But by aligning those two teams and getting that feedback, it will help improve performance overall.
Omer (30:17.310)
So are you saying, like if, hey, you talk to salespeople and they say every time we get new leads, we often hear some sort of objection that the product is too expensive.
Then, okay, well, so you're saying, well, what can you do from a marketing perspective to address that before they even start talking to salespeople?
So for example, it might be, can we use some sort of price anchoring like in the message, so when they get to the landing page we can.
Even though we might not go specifically into the cost of our product.
Maybe we can anchor that by telling them how expensive it would be if they were trying to do this some other way.
Todd Chambers (31:02.630)
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, very good point.
I think pricing is another big one as well.
And you see that with lots of SaaS companies.
Probably the number one question most people have is how much is this thing going to cost?
And it amazes me how often people use smoke and mirrors and they try and get people into just give us your email.
They don't tell you about pricing, instant access.
And then the second you give the email, then they ask for more information and which is kind of clever in a way because once humans, we like to finish things.
So then people finish and then they speak to sales and they do this dance and ultimately it's completely out of the scope of their budget.
So I just think being transparent and being clear is the best way to go.
Omer (31:44.910)
Okay, great.
So those are the six mistakes.
One sort of question that I wanted to ask you is when we started this conversation, we talked about there are lots of different ways that you could be spending your ad budget and whether it's search, whether it's the Google display network, whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, even more sort of niche kind of things.
Well, like I guess Quora isn't niche, but you know, you know what I mean?
Compared to Google, probably it is, right?
Todd Chambers (32:19.200)
Yeah, sure.
Omer (32:21.170)
So what would be your advice for somebody who's saying, okay, I want to start spending this money, I think I need to do some pay per click advertising.
But there's so many choices.
How do I figure out what's right for me?
Todd Chambers (32:39.490)
Yeah.
So whether you're B2B or B2C will play a part in that.
Obviously B2B more towards LinkedIn.
B2C, I would say Facebook.
On the search side, it really depends if there are already people actively searching for a product just like yours.
If you've created some kind of new SaaS product or tool that is completely revolutionary and people don't even know it exists, well, then search is probably not the best place to start because people aren't actively searching for it.
And you maybe then want to start thinking about how to create content, how to bring value.
I think video is an incredibly good way to do that because you can use it on all different platforms.
LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube.
So I guess it depends.
Yeah, B2B whether there's already search traffic and your budget as well.
If you have a small budget, I think realistically the go to starting place would be Google search.
Omer (33:26.830)
Okay, great.
So let's move on to our lightning round and wrap things up here.
Todd Chambers (33:33.470)
Sure.
Omer (33:33.830)
Okay, so I'm going to ask you seven quick fire questions.
You ready?
Todd Chambers (33:37.230)
Yes.
Omer (33:38.190)
Okay.
What's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?
Todd Chambers (33:41.970)
I think good now is better than perfect later.
Omer (33:44.930)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Todd Chambers (33:48.450)
I would say I really liked Dare to Lead by Brene Brown.
Really good.
If you were trying to build a team, just how to lead with vulnerability and use empathy and yeah, really, really.
I gained loads of value from that book.
Omer (34:01.730)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Todd Chambers (34:06.610)
I would say persistence for me is the number one thing because you're going to come across so many challenges and roadblocks.
Just the ability to keep getting up, learning from mistakes and just going day after day.
Omer (34:17.350)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Todd Chambers (34:20.550)
I'd say getting exactly 7 hours and 45 minutes sleep for me, which is my average.
If I sleep, I perform much better.
So I used an aura tracking ring and since then I've been able to really understand how to improve my sleep and just really helps my productivity.
Omer (34:36.870)
Has it made that much difference?
Like figuring out exactly 7 hours and 45 minutes?
Todd Chambers (34:41.910)
Yeah, it's taken quite a lot of time.
But you really realize how things like for me, exercising late in the evening, I would often play football late in the evening, like 8 till 9pm and it really, really kind of increases my heart rate and I always have trouble sleeping and also with things like even just a couple of glasses of wine late in the evening and certain types of food.
So yeah, it's definitely shone a light on all my terrible habits.
Omer (35:09.410)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Todd Chambers (35:13.330)
I'm sure it's not crazy or new, but I'm pretty obsessed about coffee, so I think some kind of SaaS coffee type business would be great.
Omer (35:22.210)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Todd Chambers (35:26.210)
I would say I'm currently based in Amsterdam and I met my Dutch girlfriend on a beach in Sri Lanka and then ended up moving here.
Omer (35:34.230)
And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Todd Chambers (35:38.070)
I would say coffee.
It's sad to say, but as we said before, I think I'm a coffee snob.
Omer (35:43.110)
Should come to Seattle.
We have some decent coffee here.
Todd Chambers (35:46.070)
I would love to.
I'll take that as an invitation and I'll send you the flight cost.
Omer (35:50.150)
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
Great.
So thanks for joining me, Todd.
Thanks for sharing these lessons and mistakes and letting me pick your brain here.
If people want to find out more about Uproar Media, they can go to uproar media.com yeah.
And we'll include a link in the show notes to that.
And if they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Todd Chambers (36:14.040)
I would say via the site.
Or you can also connect with me on LinkedIn as well.
I'm not hard to find.
Todd Chambers.
There's not many, I don't think.
Omer (36:19.520)
Right.
And then there's also a spreadsheet that you have that we're going to share with people.
Todd Chambers (36:25.000)
Yeah, it's the SaaS unit, economics.
And basically you can plug in some numbers and it will tell you what your LTV is, what the CAC to LTV ratio is.
And it also then projects month over month and graphs the cash flow trough we spoke about.
And you can compare two different sets of metrics to see in the end which would be most profitable.
So, yeah, it's a nice tool.
Omer (36:46.850)
Great.
Well, thanks for sharing that.
Todd Chambers (36:48.450)
You're welcome.
And thanks so much for having me.
It's a pleasure.
Omer (36:50.690)
Yeah, it's my pleasure.
And, you know, thanks for staying up late.
I know it's probably.
What is it?
Todd Chambers (36:55.250)
It's 7:16pm, so that's not.
No problem at all.
Omer (36:58.980)
Too bad.
All right, cool.
Thanks, Todd.
And I wish you all the best.
Cheers.
Todd Chambers (37:03.380)
You too.
Thanks, Emma.
Speak soon.
