Lily Ray

META Ads Aren’t the Problem—Your Efficiency Is Here’s the hard truth: Most Shopify brands I talk to don’t have an ad problem—they have an efficiency problem. 👉 Your ROAS is “fine,” but is your MER tanking? 👉 Your ads are running, but how much waste is baked into that budget? 👉 You’re spending, but are you scaling—profitably? Just this week, I spoke to a brand founder who: • Didn’t know their break-even CAC. • Had no idea what aMER was. • Thought a 0.8x ROAS was “just part of scaling.” No, it’s not. That’s a recipe for burning cash while META keeps raking it in. META Isn’t Here to Help You Win META’s algorithm doesn’t care about your profitability—it cares about maximizing its own revenue. And unless you’ve got a strategy that puts you in control, you’re just feeding their machine. 💡 Efficiency is the key to Shopify growth in 2025. Here’s What Efficient Brands Do Differently: 1️⃣ Track What Actually Matters Forget vanity metrics like ROAS. Focus on: • MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio): Total revenue vs. total ad spend. • aMER (Acquisition MER): How efficiently you’re driving new customers. 2️⃣ Test Smarter, Not Harder The best brands don’t test 100 creatives blindly. They test strategically: • One variable at a time (hooks, angles, formats). • Daily analysis to cut losers fast and scale winners faster. 3️⃣ Run Lean Campaigns Overcomplicated setups kill performance. Efficient brands: • Separate testing from scaling campaigns. • Use cost caps and bid caps to control spend and maintain profitability. 4️⃣ Obsess Over Contribution Margin Profit isn’t just about revenue—it’s about what’s left after ad spend. If you’re not tracking contribution margin, you’re scaling blind. Stop Letting META Win If you’re not obsessed with efficiency, META will gladly take your money. But if you are? • Your CAC drops. • Your LTV grows. • Your brand thrives—without blowing your budget. Let’s talk—what’s your biggest roadblock to efficiency right now? Drop it in the comments 👇 and let’s fix it.

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I’ve been thinking about why so many programmatic campaigns underperform and it often comes down to trade-offs that just aren’t talked about enough. - Want higher quality inventory? You'll pay higher CPMs. - Want massive scale? You'll likely compromise on quality in places. - Want rock-bottom costs? Forget premium placements. Most tools in our industry pretend these trade-offs don't exist. But just because the brief is to maintain quality AND reduce costs AND increase reach - doesn’t mean that’s how it actually works.. The best media strategies aren't about avoiding all trade-offs - they're more about making conscious ones that align with the overall campaign objectives. For example: - A luxury brand might happily trade scale for quality - A performance marketer might accept higher risk for better cost efficiency - A brand awareness campaign might prioritise reach over in-depth engagement The problem isn't that these trade-offs exist (because they always will!). The issue is actually how often we make them blindly, without any real data to help understand what we're actually trading off. That's why transparency in inventory intelligence matters. When you can see the quality, risk and opportunity signals of your inventory, then you can make more deliberate choices rather than hoping for the best.

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I’m not convinced using hashtags does anything for brand growth. If anything the opposite, it just makes you look incredibly desperate for attention. If you want a wider audience, make better content.

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Okay, I'm a little late, but as a former PayPal employee, I need to jump in on this Honey discussion. Of course, being in the affiliate space as long as I have meant that I worked with Honey (and other extensions) long before PayPal decided to purchase Honey for $4 Billion dollars. When the acquisition went through, I, along with others in the industry, were a bit... perplexed. We knew even at that time that a lot of program managers wanted to pull away from these types of partnerships especially as incrementality became a running question mark for the channel. Where I get really annoyed by this is yet another use of the words "scam" and "fraud" in relation to the affiliate space. To be clear, I'm not mad about Metalag's use of these words, but the actions of partners that further perpetuate this perspective. This is why EDUCATION is so important in this space. In the past 12 months alone I've experienced... 1️⃣ CEO who thinks that affiliate marketing steals conversions, provides little to no incrementality compared to other channels and drives poor quality conversions 2️⃣ Prospective client (who was referred by a very reputable platform!) who literally started off a call saying that he thought affiliate marketing was a "scam" 3️⃣ New technology partner that almost completely exited from the affiliate space entirely because they weren't getting credit for 90%+ of the conversions that they were driving (hmmm, I wonder why? 🤔 ) 4️⃣ A rise of folks that think affiliate marketing is a new MLM scheme or a way to "get rich quick from home!" because of IG and TikTok creators posting misinformed content and paid courses Outside of partner recruitment and management, I'd say about 70% of our time goes to educating clients on the right partners to work with, explaining that affiliate marketing is NOT just coupon/cashback and encouraging testing across "non-traditional" publisher types (that often require flat fees) to create a balanced program. Generally, Affiliate Marketing Partners works with finance/fintech clients, so we tend to not do too much with coupon/cashback/loyalty partners, but two of our current clients (one in finance, one in eCommerce) are currently working with extensions. We did not onboard these partners, we inherited them when taking over existing programs. Since taking over those programs we've pulled back on paid placements, adjusted attribution models and implemented situational commissioning to help combat their influence over the conversion path. Do I think these affiliates are valuable? If they are in a closed loop network and/or promoting new products and offers to their member base through email, push, content, etc. then yes! If they are simply providing a code at checkout? Meh, maybe. There is a case to be made about their influence on AOV and conversion rate, but if they are driving the majority of a program's conversions, I'd say that program is in dire need of a new management strategy.

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Yext just published "A statistical look at regional and industry variation in local SEO ranking factors". Really interesting, especially this graphic. Here are the quickest takeaways: All effects are weak. Every correlation is small (roughly −0.10 to +0.14), so treat these as gentle signals, not causes. Biggest positives, by industry: Hospitality: Has Business Hours (+0.14, strongest overall), Has Merchant Description (+0.11), Profile Completeness (+0.10), Rating (+0.09). Healthcare: Review Count (+0.12) and New Reviews/Month (+0.11) lead; several review/engagement metrics sit around +0.07 to +0.08. Retail: Review Count (+0.08) and New Reviews/Month (+0.07); smaller bumps from Total Attributes and Photo Count (~+0.05). Financial Services (FINS): Review Count (+0.08), New Reviews/Month and Rating (+0.06), plus modest lifts from Attributes/Photos (+0.05). Food & Dining: Very small signals across the board; nothing much above +0.04. Consistent positives across industries More reviews (total and recent) and higher ratings are positive everywhere. Owner review responses (year/month/week) are positive but small. Consistent negatives Slower average review response time is negative in every vertical (worst in Healthcare at about −0.07). Notable outliers In Hospitality, having a local landing page shows the strongest negative (≈−0.10), and photo count is slightly negative (≈−0.04) - unique compared to other industries. Popular Times (presence of that feature) is more helpful for Healthcare and Hospitality (~+0.07–0.08) than elsewhere. Practical gist Focus on review volume, recency, and ratings everywhere. Respond quickly to reviews (slow replies correlate with worse outcomes). Hospitality: make sure hours, descriptions, and profiles are complete; don’t rely on a local landing page to help visibility. Retail/FINS: keep attributes and photos filled out; keep reviews flowing. Food & Dining: expect weaker gains from these particular profile tweaks, other factors likely matter more. ---- What do you think? #localseo #localseotips #localsearchrankings

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I Hit Pause on a Profitable Program—Here’s Why After months of running Search Party—my community-driven SEO program—I decided to hit pause. Not because it wasn’t working. But because the search landscape has shifted and having a really good Google Search Program, wasn't good enough. Here is why I am shifting. ➡️ AI search isn't the future, it is here. ➡️ I was still teaching Google tactics from 2023. ➡️ Tools like ChatGPT are giving business recommendations now—real ones that influence buying decisions. My content was starting to feel out of date as I was delivering it. So I’m taking the rest of thesummer to completely rebuild the program. Not just a surface-level refresh, but a full reset for what search actually looks like today—and what clients need next. A lot of us are trying to retrofit old SEO strategies into this new world, when we really need to start from scratch. If you're a fellow marketer or agency owner, ask yourself: Are you solving yesterday’s problems or preparing clients for tomorrow’s search behavior? Are you teaching keyword research while your audience is turning to TikTok or Perplexity for recommendations? Sometimes the bravest, most strategic move you can make is pausing what’s working—so you can build something better. ----------- 👏🏼 Hi. I am Meg. I love community and building Search Party has been so fun and rewarding...but I justcan't maintain my current work load and rebuild the program at the same time. So. For now, I will continue to do deep Search Audits and 1:1 work until Search Party 2.0 is ready.

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I'm setting a new rule. If you ask for an embargo on reporting a new feature or product, but publish that new feature or product on your public website, I won't agree to it. Because it's already public. Don't assume reporters are part of your marketing plan. Also, watch you put on double secret probation text threads.

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Reaching the right audience isn’t just keywords or job titles. Advanced targeting and customer journey mapping have become survival skills for advertisers. The stakes are high because you risk wasting your budget if you miss the right audience or stage. In the latest article in my Hero Conf San Diego preview series for the PPC Hero blog, I cover why precision, authenticity, and smarter journey design are reshaping paid media, with insights from: 👉 Garrett Mehrguth on LinkedIn Ads tactics learned from $68m in B2B spend 👉 Ashley Mo on scaling trust with LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads 👉 Jordan Stark on uncovering hidden revenue by optimizing every stage of the customer journey If you want to refine your targeting and turn wasted impressions into WINS, this is one to read before Hero Conf! Link in comments 👇

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Taboola released a report saying performance advertisers are seeing declining results on social and are shifting spend. The implication is that's good for the open web, and driving performance on the open web helps Taboola. I'm not going to interrogate the findings seeing as I am a lowly discourse merchant. On the level of go-to-market, this is a message I expect many adtech companies with a stake in the open web to imitate. In essence, they will translate the performance TV thesis (which is animating startups such as tvScientific, Vibe, and MNTN as well as DSPs such as Viant) to the open web / display and OLV. Taboola aside, the real variable here is AI. I think there's a substantive case that you can use AI to make better creative and do better targeting while also limiting waste, all of which ultimately boosts performance on the open web. That would make the open web more competitive with (as the argument goes) the oversaturated, overpriced walled gardens. It would also offer hope even as open web traffic declines. This much is true, I think: The game is not growing open web traffic. That's declining. The game is to maximize the value of every interaction with open web audiences. That's something the "performance open web" thesis might capture. And AI could provide the credibility for the argument.

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Today's TTD acquisition of Sincera signals the industry's focus on "curation.” This basically means using as many data signals as possible to aggregate ad inventory and execute ad buys in a way that meets a marketer’s objectives.  It's worth noting that "marketer objectives" fall into two broad categories: brand and performance. This acquisition is aimed at curating to meet the needs of brand advertisers. As it relates to TV, this is basically aimed at the largest 500 brands that invest in TV or CTV as a brand awareness channel. The other category — the 9M+ search and social advertisers that drive $300B in spend — have different requirements. The type of curation they need is less about proxy KPIs like reach and frequency and third-party quality KPIs — it’s about actual advertiser outcomes. For us, as a performance CTV company, curation means investing heavily in identifying what works for advertisers (where "works" = achieving advertiser-declared outcomes), and then algorithmically doing more of what works and less of what doesn't work — in real time, within campaign flights. In so doing, we are in effect bypassing proxy KPIs, like what does company x, y, or z think quality means. Instead, we go right to the bottom line — what actually delivers performance for advertisers, where performance equals driving real-world business outcomes like sales, ROAS, and CPI. #TTD #PerformanceTV

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How did you hear about us? Actual answer patterns for Meta Ads traffic: Ever since ATT, it's common practice to use an attribution survey in oboarding. (If you don't, please add this now.) (And while you're on it also ask for age, gender and user goals) Yet relying solely on this data will give you the wrong impression. User journeys are complex and so are answer patterns. The attached screenshot shows a user segment driven 99% by Meta Ads. Identified by running an incrementality test, this is the true value provided by the channel. Do users attribute themselves the way you would? Most likely not. I tend to see 10-20% self-attributions to other channels. Users who see an ad and go Search on Google (View-through) attribute themselves to "Google" Users who see an ad and go Search on the store (View-through) attribute themselves to "App Store" Users who've seen the ad because a friend shared it on socials attribute themsevles to "From a friend" Users who came through other Meta-initiated funnel or just hate these surveys attribute themsevles to "Somewhere else" Data sources to keep an eye on to assess the true value of Meta: Meta attributed events Incrementality testing App Store Connect Attribution survey (MMP if available) 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝘁𝗶𝗽: compare incremental trial volume and attributed trial volume to calculate your match rate. -> allows you to factor in the missing performance piece -> gives you a metric to optimize (event tracking tech) AEM attributing 89% of my incremental trials is the highest I've seen.

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Coming this week or next in The Content Technologist newsletter: How SEO ends. I, too, hate "[media thing] is dead" statements because usually, the thing is not dead. But last week's Hubspot kerfuffle, the arrival of more sophisticated AI agents, and the conversation around Site Reputation Abuse from the last couple of months have me thinking that the writing's on the wall for most very loud SEO practitioners, and maybe some of the quieter ones too. SEO's not dead. It just sucks now. And it'll probably be absorbed by the long-established disciplines of editorial, marketing, and customer service within ten years. I'm stoked to look at the history of: - Why thought leadership in SEO has not advanced in 10 years - Why the best SEO leaders aren't posting their thoughts - How the SEO thought leaders that are extremely online are (mostly) not actually at the forefront of the practice, and why that hurts the discipline - Why the general population doesn't know what SEO is (and that's probably because of the thought leaders) so it's probably not a discipline so much as a set of software - How the Site Reputation Abuse policy illuminates the dire state of Google's inventory problem (we need to make better web, stat!) - Why UX and content strategy may suffer the same bleak fate as SEO (but there's still time) - Why, if your SEO agency is still reeling from recent algo updates, you should fire them and hire an editor. If you're into teasing out the political economics of thought leadership and the crucial differences between entrepreneurial, institutional, and academic voices, tune in. I'll also explore how content professionals can improve the information environment, if not the profession of SEO. Click on the Subscribe to Newsletter link, sign up for The Content Technologist, and get the essay in your inbox.

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