👋 What's growing: this Ohio farm family's bank account. Three sisters inherited a rare dime that just fetched $506,250 at auction. Just in time for BFCM season — who knows what you might be sitting on.

TRIVIA

In what year was Coca-Cola launched in the US market?

1. 1886  

2. 1906  

3. 1926  

4. 1946  

Scroll to the bottom to find out!

TACTICS

Pro-Level Prep for BFCM

Whether you sell services, tech products or consumer, wallets open on BFCM. If you’re looking to capitalize on it, here are a few tips from people who’ve been through the ringer before (Proxima).

Think Bigger Than The 4 Days Of BFCM

• Before: Test ads and hooks in the month leading up to it. 

• During: Go hard on the winners during the BFCM weekend.

• After: Shift to "gift" messaging for Christmas and lean into urgency. Target low competition, high intent.

Website Checklist

• Make your offer REALLY CLEAR on your website

• Quadruple check your checkout flow and discount codes (careful not to make stackable offers)

• Check that all of your email and SMS automations are updated with your new offer

• Attach UTMs to all of you ads to track your traffic

• Test all tracking events to make sure they're firing properly across paid, email, SMS and organic

• Remove all unnecessary products from your feed

If You’re Not Managing The Ads…

How to find a good agency: Semrush has curated a list of good value, trustworthy service providers so you can hire with peace of mind. 

If You're Managing The Ads…

Schedule your ads ahead of time. Standard approval time is increased because of BFCM ad volume, plus the election. Be sure to run them through review early. You want time to spare in case they get rejected and you have to go through the process again. 

Raise your credit limits. Make sure Meta or Google are approved vendors with your banks, and let the bank know you’ll be paying a lot out to them so they don’t get blocked. 

Next, raise your spend limit on your ad account — talk to your rep. 

Campaign tactics. Proxima recommends cost controls. They allow you to set efficiency rather than spend, which should help you avoid falling victim to overspending for no results. They take a little fine-tuning, so you need to start testing them now and adjust the balance between bid and budget before BFCM. 

Here’s a sample campaign from Proxima to help you get started:

• Campaign type: ASC

• Bid type: Cost Cap

• Targeting: Broad

• Ads: 7-10 top performing Post IDs from L90

• Bid: 25% over target CPA (to get things going, you’ll adjust it down)

Let it run for 3 days. If it doesn’t spend, refresh ads or increase the bid. If you're spending inefficiently, dial the bid back, $0.25 to $0.5 at a time. There’s no science to it, you need to feel it out. 

IN THE NEWS

A Billion Dollar Exit Not Built On Meta

Ghost energy drinks were acquired by Keurig Dr. Pepper for nearly $1B.

After just 4 years in a crowded market, and without relying on Meta. 

It’s a beautiful story of well executed fundamentals, plus a little luck. 

Differentiation. They went for a full disclosure, healthy alternative in a notoriously unhealthy category. 

Licensing deals. This allowed them to partner with candy brands (Sour Patch Kids) and ethically market to younger populations. They also capitalized on the candification trend (Obvi, BelliWelli) of boring products and used their licensing deals to bring fun flavors to protein powders and supplements. 

Branding over performance. They associated their name with gaming clans and music festivals, leaning in on their health benefits (nootropics) and positioning themselves as a lifestyle brand. 

Luck. Early on, their flashy product caught the eye of an executive at AB InBev, the largest brewing company in the world (Budweiser, Corona, Stella Artois) while he was shopping. He cold emailed them and AB InBev bought a minority stake in the company to help them penetrate retail. 

Gotta be good to be lucky and lucky to be good.

DIVERSIFY YOUR LEAD GENERATION WITH SEO

It’s easier than you think. 

1. Check your site speed. If low, follow these steps to improve it.

2. Figure your SEO strategy in 5 mins with this guide. 

Bonus: kickstart with an exclusive, double duration free trial of Semrush’s tools. 

MARKETING CULTURE

P.T. Barnum’s Publicity Stunts

P.T. Barnum is known in some circles as the greatest showman ever. 

What he was really adept at was generating buzz through absolutely fantastical claims. 

He claimed to have George Washington’s nanny — which in the 1830s would have made her about 161 years old. She was actually 81, which was revealed when he made a show of her autopsy (for a 50 cents entry fee). The newspapers rushed to denounce him, but Barnum is also known for having said: “there's no such thing as bad publicity.” 

He claimed to have the remains of a mermaid. In truth, it was a monkey carcass stitched to a fishtail. It worked like a charm.

He had someone sue him for publicity — one of his freak-show attractions was the original bearded lady, Josephine Clofullia. He had someone sue him for false advertising, accusing her of being a man. Doctors confirmed she was a woman, but the story hit the papers and buzz buzzed. 

After his first few stunts, he moved his shows into a broken-down museum in New York City, which attracted 38 million visitors between 1841 and 1865 — at a time when the US population was only 32 million.

He also tried to buy Niagara Falls and the city of Pompeii. 

Be noisy, people.

Pssst, hey: know someone who would enjoy this newsletter?

MEME-Y

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