Marketing Happy Hour - Taking Calculated Risks in Performance Marketing | Megan Toscano of charity: water

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:56 Hey, Marketing Happy Hour listeners, welcome back. Today, we're chatting with Cassie's previous coworker, Megan Toscano, now the Director of Performance Marketing at Charity Water. In this episode, Megan shares some of the key differences between agency and in-house marketing teams and gives us a peek into what marketing for a non-profit looks like. She also chats through the importance of strong creative in advertising and why taking calculated risks can be the key to success. Grab your favorite drink and let's listen in. Megan, I am so excited to have you on the show today. You and I collaborated, worked together up in New York City at an agency for a bit. And now here you are today. Gosh, like, I don't even know, three or four, how many years later. And it's so exciting to check in with you. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's so exciting to be in with you. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's so

Starting point is 00:01:45 exciting to be here with you and to meet Erica for the first time. And I'm just excited to talk to you about my experience and hopefully share some fun tips and tricks with everybody listening. Absolutely. Well, before we get to it, we have to know Megan, what is in your glass right now? What are you sipping on? We're going full alcoholic salt here. Well, I wasn't going to give the brand because I feel like it's just like a very like basic thing to say, but it is white claw. It's pineapple. I love pineapple. I would die for anything pineapple. So that's what I have right now. But to tell the truth truth if I had like the time and the actual ingredients I probably would be drinking a frozen margarita right now that's

Starting point is 00:02:31 my go-to that what's your recipe do you have one honestly I have a bunch of recipes like tagged to my refrigerator and I don't remember any of them I mean it's like such a general margarita recipe it's I probably found it from like the first google search I ever took looking are you a spicy marg girl or are you just more along the regular marg I am the blandest person you'll ever meet I won't even eat like spicy food like if somebody gives me a mild taco like a mild spice taco I'm just like no can't do it too spicy I would die on the show hot ones that is so funny I um so I have two beverages not shocking uh I have water and I have to call out it's in a mickey cup for Megan because I know Megan is a fellow fan. And then I also have a, I've been sipping on this all day. I'm,

Starting point is 00:03:26 I think I'm ready for alcohol at this point, but I have a non-alcoholic mango cart beer, which is very different for me. I don't typically drink beer, but I like this one a lot, but yeah. Erica, what do you have? Um, well season one, two, and probably three listeners will not be surprised to hear this, but I haven't talked about it in a while. I have an Onda, which is Shea Mitchell's tequila seltzer brand. These are actually the ones that Cassie, you brought me when I moved into my new apartment in November, and we are currently recording in May. So I still have them, but it doesn't say anything about my love for them

Starting point is 00:04:05 because I still do love them so much. It's the watermelon one. So shout out to them as usual. Love it. You're savoring them. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Gotta save them for the right times.

Starting point is 00:04:18 Yes. Okay, Megan, super excited to meet you. Just to echo Cassie, just excited to hear your story and the Charity Water story. Could you just walk us through your career journey so far and how you landed in your current role? Yeah, I'm going to give you a very abridged version because I feel like it's quite long. But my journey specifically into marketing all started with photography. So I actually went to school. I got a BFA in photography from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Starting point is 00:04:51 And while I was there, I kind of started piling on internships and jobs on top of my class schedule. And I was really just determined to kind of like explore the world, capture it with my camera, wanted to be a creative forever. And then after graduating college, I ended up working at a small handbag company called Oriani, and I led all their digital creative work. And mainly a lot of what I did there was I worked really closely with our buyers, and they needed a lot of creative content. But also at that time, social media was getting more and more prominent, specifically from an organic perspective. So like Instagram was getting big, brands were still a very tiny wholesale company. They're completely not interested in doing any marketing besides what our buyers wanted us to do. And so I was there,

Starting point is 00:05:50 I think for about two years and decided, okay, I'm actually really interested in marketing. And there's such a big creative element to marketing. Let me explore what that looks like. So I had a couple of interviews mainly for different small agencies and I ended up joining a small social media marketing startup, which I was out with Cassie for a while. Their name is Socialfly. And I ended up working there for about five years. So really like that five-year period for me was this time in which I gained a lot of autonomy and responsibility. I kind of accelerated my growth and understanding of marketing. And there was like a lot of broad

Starting point is 00:06:32 kind of learnings that happened through those five years, because obviously at an agency, you're working really fast paced, you're working with a lot of diverse brands. And so I think in my five years, like I must have worked with over 50 brands, kind of learning how to manage clients, how to take calculated risks, how to kind of turn a lot of failures into successes. And I think it was a really good learning experience for me, especially in my early twenties. I think it was, I must've been like 23 when I started there and around 27, 28 when I left. It was also there that I started falling in love with performance marketing specifically. So mainly what I was in love with is managing advertisements for our clients when it came to the actual visual work of the ads.

Starting point is 00:07:24 So kind of working with our teams to curate really beautiful and relevant creative for our audiences, exposing it to that audience, and then actually being able to measure the response of the audience, which previously as a creative, I wasn't really able to measure a response before. So I was really interested in just the dynamic between like leveraging creative and actually getting like pure metrics out saying whether the creative is performing well or it's not. And then of course, with that data sort of helping businesses iterate on what's working, what wasn't working and really strengthening like their mission, their vision and kind of business outcome, they were looking to our team to provide them.

Starting point is 00:08:09 So that was about, you know, five years of kind of running around and learning a lot and falling in love with advertising specifically. Five years at an agency is a very long time for anyone listening in. I don't know if I, you know, if I look back on it, I think all the five years were worth it, but I think I seriously burned myself out staying that long at an agency. And I think it's really common at an agency to like burn out within like one to three years. So eventually kind of walking away from agency, knowing that I needed a change, I really wanted to transition to an in-house role.

Starting point is 00:08:52 And really that was just because there's, there's some kind of cons to an agency in relation to like limitations of the work you could do. We were obviously working off of scopes where maybe if you even wanted to go further or learn more about a brand, you couldn't. And so I decided to accept an offer for a fitness brand. I headed up their digital acquisition for about three years. And it was there where I think I really grew like my ability to build and manage teams. I was responsible for all digital acquisitions. So paid social, influencer, television, advertising, out-of-home advertising, you name it, we probably tested it. So I was there for three years. And then at the end of those three years, what I was feeling was just this disconnection, like a very big disconnection from the work I was doing and the person I actually was.

Starting point is 00:09:48 And for me, I'd always really been interested in the nonprofit world, but I just never, it was never the right time or right opportunity for me to transition into nonprofit. But I had actually known about Charity Water since I was in my early 20s. I listened to our founder and CEO, Scott Harrison, speak in my early 20s. I had been so impacted by his story. And I had started doing birthday fundraisers for them. And so Charity Water was always in my mind, I think, for eight-ish years. But it just was never the right time,

Starting point is 00:10:27 right place, right skillset. And that's why I say timing's everything when it comes to finding jobs, because just as I was looking, they were starting to build their marketing team in house. So here I am, it's, I think a year and a half later now I'm leading performance marketing for Charity Water, an organization that I was like fundraising for right out of college and like donating to since I was really young. So I couldn't kind of be more grateful to to be here. So that's sort of the bridge version of how I got here now to Charity Water. Yeah, that's so great. That is so fun to hear, like especially the disconnect piece that you were talking about. Like, I feel like no one talks about that because there is a point where you's okay to go find, you know, a new position or something new to work on and go more towards those passions. So I love that you did that. Looking at your LinkedIn though, it looks like several of your

Starting point is 00:11:36 past roles, you were able to be promoted pretty frequently in the different companies. Any tips for being promotable? Yeah, I have a couple, but I will just say something about my particular LinkedIn and why it's sort of challenging to answer. I think promotions can look so different depending on the size of a company you're within. So I was extremely lucky early on in my career to be working at organizations that were a bit smaller. And I was extremely lucky early on in my career to be working at organizations that were a bit smaller. And I was also being overseen by leaders who were, they were just immensely invested in how do we grow the team we already have rather than look outside. And so those two things were like, certainly working in my favor when it comes to being promotion promoted. But I would say aside

Starting point is 00:12:25 from those kinds of strokes of luck, it's a lot of hard work and a lot of raising my hand. Oh my God. The amount of times I raised my hands, like, let me do it. Let me try it. Uh, I swear to God, I'm going to do a good job. I was just always kind of, uh, to take on a challenge. And I think that that's such a, it's, it has to be learned. It wasn't something I was comfortable with at first, but, but I think for me, I always wanted to push myself to be really transparent with my colleagues and my bosses of like, this is where I want to be. This is where I see myself going. And at some point I got so like steadfast and unashamed to ask for opportunities to prove myself. I was like, please just let me like, I swear. And the more I did it and the more I

Starting point is 00:13:11 succeeded, the easier it was to ask for those opportunities and to kind of accelerate that growth in my career. And I think that that's probably the key takeaway I would give, which is like, don't be shy discussing what you want for yourself. That's re it's a really hard skill to learn if it's not something that comes naturally to you. But if you're proactive and taking those steps and being transparent, then I think you're going to get where you want to go ultimately. Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I'll say to bragging on you a little bit, just based off of my experience working with you, you did a great job at stepping up and being a leader, both in your department, but for the agency in general, you know, we were a smaller agency, like you said, but

Starting point is 00:13:56 you were always the one presenting data and presenting new ideas. And you were really raising your hand on that side too, but also setting a really good example for your paid media team. So that's one thing I noticed too. And so no matter if you have a leadership role or not, if you're able to kind of act like a leader and step into that kind of position, um, I think that certainly helped. And I can tell that helped in your favor too. So just wanted to call that out. Thank you. Well, yeah, I think a component of that too, is being in the right company with the right team, because I'm not going to say that every team's going to allow you to have that sort of autonomy and ability to lead. I think we got really lucky at social fly, which is, I feel like they really wanted us to step up

Starting point is 00:14:44 and allowed us to step up. But I know that at some companies, it doesn't work like that. So a component is also like, be careful of the companies you decide to move forward with in your career, because they're either going to accelerate your growth or they're going to snag your growth. Absolutely. Well, speaking of agency, I would love to hear what you think are some of the differences between agency and in-house marketing work. And why do you feel like having experience in both sectors has contributed to your personal growth as a professional and just your success overall? Yeah. There are so, there are so many differences first and foremost you know I think specifically for me

Starting point is 00:15:28 um at an agency being at an agency really early on in my career was worked in my favor a hundred thousand percent I got exposed to a variety of industries off the bat so as I was kind of growing my skill set in marketing I was also able to grow that skillset with such like a broad understanding of different industries and verticals and audiences and brands. And then I think there's kind of a second element there, which is accelerated learning at agency. You're dealing with really tight deadlines. You're dealing with demanding clients. You're kind of thrown into the water a little bit and trying to figure out if you're going to sink or swim. So I think because you have to be so on top of everything, you're really pushed into having to like explore and be aware and be up on all the trends within the space. But I think also because you're

Starting point is 00:16:27 constantly in motion, there's cons to that, right? Like pretty long hours, maybe no work-life balance, not a lot of creative control. You're kind of at the mercy of your client and what they want at the end of the day. And then when you switch to in-house, the pace kind of settles a bit because obviously everything you're doing is now around a single entity rather than kind of like this broader scope of industries. So I think when you're in-house, what you really start realizing is you're able to have this kind of deep connective understanding of your brand. You have increased control over what you're doing, how you're doing it. And then I think because you have that greater sense of

Starting point is 00:17:10 ownership and pride in your work, you tend to be a little bit happier, or I guess like more stable in the realm of, you know, how you're waking up and going about your day and what you have to do. And you're not switching your mind on and off from one thing to the next 24 seven. But then there's a cons of like, there's less exposure to other industries. There's less exposure to networking opportunities. There's a bit less resourcing in reference to like, who's on your team. Do you have the type of people to do the work you need them to do? And I think there's also limitations to how much you're exposed to like new technologies and trends as well, because you're, it's a little less focused on your growth and it's a little bit more focused on the brand.

Starting point is 00:18:00 So for me, kind of going back to your original question, which is like, why is having experience in both beneficial? I think they all kind of bring different things as pros and cons, but I think having experience in both allows you to be prepared for any twist and turn your career can kind of take you in. I think you're basically ready for, for anything if you've been at both and, and you kind of know how to switch what people's needs of you are and what you need of yourself based on the different environments you're in. And so a lot of it's just like, how do you, how do you adapt? Are you

Starting point is 00:18:40 adaptable? Are you flexible? And yeah, I think that kind of explains it. I will say more than anything else, I think being at an agency made me the type of marketer I am today. Like I can't imagine if I started in-house how different I would be because I truly think that kind of broadened understanding and that fast pace and the kind of constraints that you have at agency really allow you to meet a lot of challenges with such like a solution oriented mindset. And I think sometimes in brand that's stunted because everything's like, everybody has an opinion about everything, whereas agency is a little bit different. Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of that too, you know, you get to work with so many different types of people and with different viewpoints on how marketing works. I mean, same goes for

Starting point is 00:19:34 in-house too. There's a lot of different opinions tossed around, but I think it's cool to kind of build that thick skin and, you know, no matter what type of challenges thrown at you, you understand and learn how to adapt to that. So when you go back to the in-house situation, you kind of have seen and done it all. So I feel like that there's a lot of power in that and learning how to navigate different types of, uh, personalities and opinions and thoughts and ideas and challenges that a brand faces. Um, but I agree early on, if you can do that experience that builds your, your marketing muscles and kind of learn what industry you might want to focus on, I think is really huge. Yeah. Agency is a great way. They'll just push you wherever the wind blows.

Starting point is 00:20:19 I was going to say, do you guys know of anybody who has like started at an agency and stayed there forever? I feel like everybody who starts agency side eventually goes brand side. Yeah. My experience has been that like most of like my that I know of, I think that I think the difference is like, oh, there's, it's a lot easier to get an entry level role at an agency than it is in house, like generally in house, they're looking for a very particular skill set and a very particular tenure. Like, I don't even think there were opportunities for me to work in house when I was first trying to go into marketing, it was just all agency. And I think that's like the

Starting point is 00:21:03 difference of why people kind of started agency. I've had a lot of, I know a lot of people who've been at agency have gone in house and then eventually, but generally it's when they're much higher in the ranking that they're, that their work is like a little bit more focused. So I think that transition is so different than being, you know, like, let's say like an account manager who's a little bit like lower level in client services. But yeah, it's, it's a great note. The way I feel is I don't know if I could ever go back to an agency. And it's not because of the work itself. It's because of the work-life balance of agencies in general. And I just have yet to experience one person tell me working at this agency was wonderful. And I was able to have a full, like lovely life. Yeah. It is a lot of work, but I do also agree

Starting point is 00:22:02 with the fact that if you're trying to get like the most experience possible in a bunch of different areas, that's the best place to start. Yeah, you could almost see it. Like, I don't know if it was the same for y'all, but in middle school, they made us take a couple of different languages before we chose a language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of see an agency, go to an agency, get the get kind of a really good foundation of what you're looking for, what you're interested in. And you're going to go out into the workforce that much stronger, having that kind of foundational knowledge. And I obviously stayed at agency for a long time. And I don't regret any minute I spent there because I learned so much. But yeah, in my 30s, I just don't know.

Starting point is 00:22:48 Yeah. Yeah. Do it, do it while you're young, fresh out of college, not married, like no, nothing tying you down and you can just dedicate a lot of time to work. Um, totally agree with that. Well, I want to ask you kind of a similar question, but for the nonprofit sector. So how do you feel marketing and nonprofit is different than a for-profit organization? What has your experience been there? There's probably a lot of tactical differentiations, like just in relation to how a not for nonprofit works versus how a profit works. I think for me, like something that was kind of challenging coming in is in relation to the way we talk about consumers and revenue on the profit

Starting point is 00:23:31 side versus the nonprofit side. There's a lot of different nomenclature. I think there's also at a nonprofit, a lot of more sensitivity around how we're messaging things, how we're talking about donations, and kind of like the crux of transparency within our work is really important. And that's not something that's been important for any for-profit brand that I've really worked for. But I would say the biggest differentiation for me has just been feeling as if I'm part of something much bigger than myself and that my whole team is part of something much bigger than themselves. So that I think before, maybe I was a little bit more driven by like challenge and revenue and CPAs. And now it's this idea of like, you're challenged by the notion that everything you're doing or not doing is either contributing or not contributing to the solution of the mission of your organization.

Starting point is 00:24:33 And so we're not just focused on selling just to sell, which is kind of what most of marketing is. You know, we're focused every day on ending a crisis that quite literally harms people every single day. And so that's a really big differentiation for me in the way I work and the way I kind of prioritize my time and kind of's like the purpose behind it is so great. I feel like I already probably said this earlier, but a lot of times, like when you're in a role within a brand that is just aiming to sell, sell, sell, I want to like help the people. I want to like help our consumer. And this is just like even an added layer to that and just having all of this purpose behind it. I love that so much. So that's so awesome that you're there and I'm sure you're thankful every day that you are. Okay. Let's talk about performance marketing. We've had a few people on the podcast that are talking about performance marketing, but you have a unique approach with your BFA in photography. Let's talk about that. What is the importance of strong creative and paid ads? Yeah, so I could truly wax poetic about this all day, but I'm not going to. I think for me, visuals are kind of the primary way in which we capture an audience's attention, right? So if you think about every brand you've kind of come into interaction with, you tend to think about what did you see of them? How were you stimulated by what you saw from them? So I think for me in general, but also for us in Charity Water, you know, if we're able to create, to craft creative that is compelling and memorable and relevant to the audience's

Starting point is 00:26:36 desire, the effectiveness of everything we're doing via advertising is going to increase. And there are, you know, there are obviously like way other methods outside of creative to optimize and increase efficiency of campaigns. But I do think at the end of the day, creative is probably the most prominent from the perspective of testing and refining and iterating and being able to like continually improve every day, no matter what the digital landscape throws at you. And so, you know, I think it's really important. I actually would set it as like the number one thing that you should be thinking about as you're creating a performance marketing strategy, which is what story are you telling and how relevant is that story to your audience? And if you don't have that figured out, nothing's going to work. That's my prerogative on it.

Starting point is 00:27:36 No, totally. And what kind of tips do you have around developing that like compelling creative that will answer those questions for the target audience? Yeah. So I'm actually creating a presentation about storytelling right now. So this is great timing. Love it. I don't know this off of the top of my head. It's just I've been practicing a presentation of it for a while. But there's this great study by cognitive psychologists. And in it, he says that people are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it's wrapped within a story. And so I think that's, for me, the most important tip about developing compelling creative is just, you're not creating an ad, you're not creating an asset to an extent, especially if we're working with a prospecting audience, you're telling a story and all creative, I think should be built in that mindset.

Starting point is 00:28:22 There are obviously like, I don't know, 700 other tips, right? Like try to understand your audience first, try to research and intuit what type of story would be compelling to them. Try to create assets that can be leveraged across multiple platforms. So you're limiting resources. I think a big one for us as well, especially in the storytelling space is like, how are we injecting hard numbers into the story so that there's a greater impact when you're going for the call to action? So instead of us just saying like, there's a global water crisis and give us, you know, a $20 donation, we're really trying to make people understand from a statistical perspective what's actually

Starting point is 00:29:05 happening. So the difference is instead of us saying there's a global water crisis, we might say something like one in 10 people don't have access to clean water around the world. Like you're actually trying to get people to understand the magnitude of what's happening so they understand why you're asking them for that donation. And then I think otherwise, the biggest tip I have is just testing as much as possible, refining and iterating as much as possible. So don't just say, let's create two assets this year, put them up and just let them go. But this idea of you're collaborating with your creative team and your

Starting point is 00:29:46 production team to really produce content, at least in, I would say, a quarterly perspective, that you're saying, this is what worked. How do we make that even better? This is what didn't work. Should we throw that away? Should we try something different with it? And I think that really allows most teams to just get better and better over time at crafting creative that's relevant for their audience. Yeah. Well, speaking of audience too, how do you currently approach targeting? I know a lot of the platforms are getting a lot more intuitive. They're learning and they're optimizing on their own a lot more strategically, but how are you specifically putting different frameworks in place to make sure those messages get out to the right people? Yeah, it depends. It really depends where we're placing the ads. So for instance, I would

Starting point is 00:30:37 say on digital platforms, which I feel like is what most people are probably from a tried and true perspective using, targeting is out of whack. There's a lot of limited capabilities since all of the changes to iOS and all of the kind of drama around Facebook and Instagram. For us, our focus is really understanding our audience from a third party perspective. So using a partner like an Epsilon or a separate type of data vendor where we're telling them, we're giving them files of who our donors are and they're telling us information about where are they over indexing from a demo, a geographic behavior or affinity perspective.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And we're using that to really craft and model lookalikes. Right now, we haven't gone as far to like excessively use third party lookalike models and upload them into the platforms. But I do think that that's where we're actually headed, especially given that Google's going away with their lookalike audiences, which I think is maybe this month, maybe next month. So I think, you know, just being more strategic in relation to how do we use our third party partnerships to get the types of audiences that make most sense for us. And that's really kind of the strategy we're taking currently. But I do think to an extent, eventually we're probably going to dive a little bit more extensively into

Starting point is 00:32:11 geos, especially when we do more brand awareness focused campaigns. Yeah, that's awesome. No, that's great to hear. I'm always curious how everyone's approaching that now, especially with all the technological changes like you mentioned. And you also mentioned at the top of the episode, taking calculated risks and how all of this experience has allowed you to kind of adapt in that way and learn to not be afraid to take some of those risks. So because I know with advertising and really creative in general, you really don't know how something sometimes is going to perform depending on the data you have. You may be able to project and

Starting point is 00:32:49 assume it's going to go in a certain direction, but how have you adapted your mindset over time and taking those calculated risks with creative ad ideas? Yeah. First, I want to make a comment on projections because I feel like projections just follow us advertisers around like a chip on our shoulder everywhere we go. Like we can't live without them and we can't do our work without them. But so many people take projections from like a status quo perspective and are like, this is what's going to happen. Even like the tried and true assets we have live, the way they perform changes month to month because of creative exhaustion.

Starting point is 00:33:28 Right. So like our audience has been saturated with that video that's performed so well in month four, it's going to stop performing. So we can't even really project off of what's working sometimes. Um, I think just in relation to risks in general, obviously some things are an outright risk. Like you have no idea, you can't base it on anything. You don't have any sort of hypothesis. You're just shooting in the dark.

Starting point is 00:33:52 I think for some things you're taking more calculated risks. So like there's, like you mentioned, methods to try to justify doing it. So how can we use qualitative or quantitative data to tell us it might be a good idea or relevant to our audience? Can we get feedback from our team? Can we get feedback from friends? So we obviously try to do due diligence in relation to, okay, if we know this is a risk, how do we justify that it's a risk that's worth taking? Because we can take risks all day if we're not doing that. So I think any risk I take, I try to be as justified as possible in taking it. But after that, I mean, I think for me,

Starting point is 00:34:34 it's not everybody's perspective, but I try to outweigh the risk with something less risk averse. So like we're not going in and testing a big new exciting creative or campaign and just shutting off everything that's working. We're kind of reallocating and restructuring either the platform or what we're doing holistically to assume like, okay, this budget is going to go into what we know is going to work. And we're going to say

Starting point is 00:35:01 that that's going to be stable acquisition that we're getting no matter what. And then maybe 25% of the monthly budget will go into this thing that maybe we're a little scared about. And so it's, we're still taking the risk, but we're not doing it so extensively that it's going to severely harm the business or performance in like the span of like a minute. And then of course, for us, I think a component is just being able to adapt to performance. So if we decided to launch something and we said, let's give it two months and a month in, it's so terrible. There's no way it's going up from there. Being able to say, okay, this is a decision we didn't think we'd have to make right now, but it's something we have to adapt to and we need to change because we don't want that to hurt the business. So that's kind of how I see calculated risks in general. And I think it's

Starting point is 00:35:49 really important as a performance marketer to take risks. I don't love taking risks in my own personal life. And I think that's why I love taking risks at work. It's like finally some place where there's a rhyme and reason on, on how do you actually take those risks? Yeah. It's good to have an outlet to kind of practice those risks, taking muscles essentially. But let's say something doesn't perform as well as you expected, or even you didn't know what to expect and it just didn't do well as a flop per se. How do you kind of assess that piece of creative and decide to move forward? Are you adjusting one part of the ad and running it again? Are you deciding to shut it down altogether? What

Starting point is 00:36:30 is kind of the thought process there? It depends on how badly it performed. And it kind of depends on what we see when we're looking at the data analysis, right? So let's say we're talking about like, oh, we launched a creative campaign. We had new creative. We had new audiences. We had new landing pages. We had new optimization. There's so much new going in there. So I think first off, it starts strategically of trying to refine what you're testing so

Starting point is 00:36:56 that you're not testing too many things that when you look at the metrics, you can't understand what's happening. Like for us, when we do big tasks, we try to keep the audiences similar to audiences we've used in the past. We try to keep the landing pages somewhat similar unless it really needs to be cohesive with the ad. But I mean, structurally, like we're trying to create something that isn't like too different from each other. And so that's why, like, if we're really looking at creative, we can say, all right, look at the click through rates, look at the engagement rates, look at the video watch times.

Starting point is 00:37:28 Like, is something happening at the creative level that's harming us? If nothing's harming us at the creative level, the next step is, okay, let's look at the click through rates. Let's look at the conversion rates. Let's look at the average gift. Is that harming us? Like kind of really using those metrics to figuring out where are we hurting and then figuring out, is it easy enough to change something to make us hurt less or to potentially

Starting point is 00:37:53 put us in a better situation? So let's say like an issue was, oh, like our cost to acquire is great with this, but the revenue is just terrible. And we see, okay, well, the issue is the average gift size for one-time donors went from what we assumed was 80 and it's actually $10. Then we could say, oh, maybe we should reset what the preset for the one-time donation is on the landing page, or maybe we have to modify the call to action to call out what we want them to give. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's not.

Starting point is 00:38:26 I would just say one thing about there's been lots of times in my life where the whole thing fails. Like you'll look at the metrics and nothing's good. It happens. And I think it happens more often than people even like to admit, unless they're not taking risks at all, in which case they probably don't come into this a lot. But I like to live by the motto, fail fast and learn faster. For me, kind of with every team that I've led at least, if we aren't failing a couple times a year, then we're not succeeding multiple times a year. And it's just because if we're not failing, then we haven't taken enough opportunities to learn. Um, and, and I would say sometimes even getting a flat failure is better than getting something where it's just like, oh, it performed.

Starting point is 00:39:17 Okay. Right. Cause that's not really directionally getting you anywhere, but if something just falls flat on its face, you're like, okay, we have to go so far in the other direction. So that's kind of how I kind of talk to my team and even my agencies about, you know, the risks we're taking and what happens if we fail. And I think it's really important for leaders to take, especially in our, in where we are to take the perspective of like failing is a form of learning for us. And we need to transition it to this place where it's not taboo if we fail, but we take it and we move forward. Yeah. That's a great, I feel like even life lesson too. So thank you for sharing that. I do have to ask one more question, kind of platform-based. So

Starting point is 00:40:06 I know TikTok and LinkedIn are two platforms that people are still kind of dabbling in the paid space on. Do you have any thoughts on those platforms? And if someone is looking to test one of those, the best way to approach that? Yeah, I think LinkedIn, I have a little less knowledge and prowess over, so I can't really speak to that. But TikTok specifically is something we tested at the fitness brand I was at. We're testing at Charity Water. We kind of continue to test in and out at Charity Water. I think the biggest kind of learning we've seen from TikTok is you can't just take creative from another platform and expect it to work on TikTok. It's never going to work. We really tried to make it work because we were just like, we don't have the resources. Let's just see what happens. As long as it's the right

Starting point is 00:40:56 audience targeting, maybe it'll be relevant enough, but it's such a different platform in the way it's used and the way that content is kind of consumed than the other platforms that I feel like you need to make something very relevant to the platform itself and somewhat trending. For Charity Water, we launched a campaign called the Dirty Water Cooking Series. It's actually up for a Shorty Award. Awesome. a it's a little it's a bit of a bait and switch but the idea is kind of starting with this trend of like people on tiktok are always making recipes and you start with somebody making a recipe and instead of using clean water which is what they should use they use dirty water without even talking about the global water crisis, we kind of show somebody formulating like these big recipes with like this gross, buggy, leachy water.

Starting point is 00:41:51 Terrible. And then at the end, we kind of stop the recipe and say, did you know and kind of inform the individuals. And that actually worked really well for us. And that was also built to be really native to TikTok. That's the only time it worked for us. I will say it didn't work to convert for us. Keep in mind, it's a pure prospecting audience. So direct response isn't always going to work for these things. But what we did find was like a lot of engagement, a lot of reach, and a lot of interest. And then to an extent, we also got a bunch of comments saying like, why can't you just give me the damn recipe? You know, I think that's kind of my biggest recommendation, which is go into some of these platforms with a very different mindset and strategy of what you have to do.

Starting point is 00:42:51 And it's probably not worth really exploring unless you have the resources and time to make space just for it itself. Otherwise, you're kind of going into it trying to maximize on things you're already doing and it's just not going to be worth it. LinkedIn, like I said, I can't really speak to it, but I do feel LinkedIn is probably very similar in relation to kind of the strategy and the amount of copy and creative work you need to, to kind of facilitate the right engagement there. Yeah, absolutely. That's so unique. I love that TikTok idea that you guys did the ad and congratulations on the nomination. Cause that's awesome. Yeah. I, that's something that I've noticed on TikTok too when I'm scrolling.

Starting point is 00:43:28 I'm not looking at the ads that you can clearly tell are like just the same content or creative that's copy and pasted over from Instagram reels or from Facebook watch. I don't even think exists anymore. I'm not looking at those. I'm scrolling right by them. I don't care about them. But I'm not looking at those. I'm scrolling right by them. I don't care about them, but there have been a few that stopped me in my tracks and it's still clear that it's an ad, but it like really speaks to that consumer, especially that demographic that's mainly on TikTok. I think that's huge. I do have a question interested to hear your

Starting point is 00:44:03 thoughts. We are about to do some advertising, some paid advertising for marketing happy hour. We've never done it before for marketing happy hour. Where would you suggest that we start? Oh God, I've never advertised for podcasts before. So wait up. Exercise in your skills. It's so like, I do wonder like for this particular podcast, how much it could skew towards like a younger audience, depending on like the age of the people that are on the podcast and where they are in their careers. I just assume it might be more relevant to people who are a little bit earlier in their careers. I would say mainly like the probably safest place you can go and immediacy is Instagram.

Starting point is 00:44:58 Probably the most interesting place you could be is likely TikTok. But again, like the amount of content curation alone that would be necessary to do that. I think the interesting thing about TikTok is I've only used it for brands that sell something and y'all aren't selling something. So it could be so different in relation to getting somebody to listen to a podcast versus like, give us $20, which is obviously like quite a big ask. So I think if it's relevant enough content and you've got the

Starting point is 00:45:25 right audience targeting, it might actually be easier than anything I've ever done on TikTok simply because it's, it's like a simpler follow through to the podcast. Awesome. Totally appreciate your thoughts there. Yeah. We're trying to, we're dabbling in it and trying to figure out exactly what we're going to do. So that's, it's all very exciting. And we'll, we'll have to report back and tell you what works because we also have no idea. But yeah, a lot of our listeners are like the in college or right about to graduate and like the young professionals. And I think all of those people are probably on TikTok scrolling endlessly. So I think that is probably a good place to start. We've started to post organically. Yeah. I'm in my early thirties and I'm still scrolling. Yeah. Yeah. And there's everyone's scrolling on TikTok. Yeah. People would be

Starting point is 00:46:16 surprised. There's like a lot of even like older people that are on TikTok because they're just hanging out. My mom is now she'll send me talk sometimes I'm like I love it doing that's fantastic okay I'm also curious to hear your thoughts on predictions for the future of paid media this is something we like to ask um pretty much everyone who comes on who specializes in one skill area um do you have any predictions sort of I don't know how great the predictions are and let me tell you one thing is I was still an agency I'd probably nail this so good because I'd be so up my like forward thinking tech um I think for me and I mentioned this before like there have been so many changes specifically to

Starting point is 00:46:56 the digital paid media landscape that I think in the last several years what I've been talking a lot uh about with I would say like VP level or like even president level executives at companies is how we're challenged in the way we track and how that's going to change maybe how we decide to allocate budget over time so obviously like if you look back at let's say five to ten years ago, putting money in digital ads made so much sense because you were tracking every single person that clicked that ad. We don't have that. And obviously that shift, when that shift happened, all of these other media forms that

Starting point is 00:47:38 weren't as trackable started getting softer, right? So like you've got your TV, you've got your out of home, you've got a lot of things that are non-digital that I would say have been getting much lower investments, at least from a lot of direct response focused brands. And so I think because we're going to start seeing softness in tracking from a digital perspective, what's going to happen is we're going to go in reverse and we're going to diversify into channels that maybe haven't gotten as much love because the tracking capabilities were not where digital was. And now they're going to look a little bit more like apples to apples than the apples to oranges they used to be. I also think

Starting point is 00:48:16 from a perspective, and it could be more of like who I'm talking to, who I'm consulting with, the fact that I'm at Charity Water. But for us really looking at expansion of the organization, we have to focus on things that don't just drive direct response, right? If a person doesn't know your brand, they can't buy from your brand. If a person doesn't know your organization, they can't donate to your organization. And especially for nonprofits, that rings true because it's not as if we have something they need. At least when I was at the fitness brand, the perspective can be, I know that you're interested and in market for this equipment because I've seen you looking for

Starting point is 00:48:55 it because you probably want to get stronger. But with a nonprofit, we don't have, there's nothing I can sell you. Like you're doing this out of the good of your heart and because you want to, and because you're impacted and because this is a mission that you've decided to make your own. And so for us, that's why like the brand awareness component is so important because hitting people and asking for a donation right away

Starting point is 00:49:20 is not gonna allow us to grow and expand to the rate that we want to, to end the global crisis. Yeah. So good. Thank you for that. Well, Megan, we want to ask you one of our absolute favorite questions to ask all of our guests. Uh, what do you know now that you wish you knew early on in your career? Oh my goodness. Uh, a lot of things, uh, of things is the actual answer. I mean, I think I echoed these before. I think fail fast, learn faster is a one that I really, it really took me a long time to get there. And even if I had mentors telling me like that failure is a good thing, I think it was really

Starting point is 00:50:00 hard for me to not be hard on myself. So I think that's one component, which is like, learn to have grace with with yourself. And you failing is not always a sign of weakness. And the way that you move forward after that failure is certainly a sign of strength. The other one I echoed before is be transparent, speak up for yourself, ask for what you want. Also a learned skill that is not easy to have. If you are going into a new job and you are trying to figure out what they're going to pay you, be upfront about it and just ask for what you want because you're probably leaving money on the table no matter what.

Starting point is 00:50:43 And I think the third, just to give you another Megan motto, I swear to God, I don't walk around telling mottos to people all the time. I just like have them in my head and I'll bring them once in a while. But the other thing I always used to say, I said it a lot at the fitness brand I was at is progress, not perfection, which is we all have goals. You know, maybe we have personal goals. Maybe we have career goals, whatever they are. You can't get from zero to 100 in one day or one month or one year. And furthermore, if you get from zero to 100, you can't stay at 100 forever.

Starting point is 00:51:18 That's not how life works. And that's also not how marketing works. And so for me, what I try to think about in my daily life is not if something is perfect, but if something's just from a pattern perspective, at the very least, getting better every day. And I think that that is something I work on every day for myself, obviously, because as I mentioned, I'm a little hard on myself, but I also think it's something that I wish 20 year olds me knew because I, I just want immediate results all the time and it's life doesn't work that way. And certainly when you're in your twenties, life doesn't work that way. And so just always kind of looking, looking toward improving and not perfecting is really important. Yeah, absolutely. Great little tidbits there. And I have to ask too, you mentioned a couple of times leading a team and managing different people in

Starting point is 00:52:20 across your department. Do you have any tips for professionals going into a leadership role? I know a lot of times that kind of happens over time in our career, but as we step into that kind of position, there's sometimes a lot of unknowns in terms of how do we manage people? How do we communicate effectively and how do we build trust with, with those team members? So do you have any tips specifically in just your experience so far? Yeah, I actually think at every single one of my companies, we had some sort of like personality indexing. Here at Charity Water, we have Colby.

Starting point is 00:52:57 We had something at P-Vol. I think we also had something at Socialfly. I think that is really helpful. Obviously, if you have an idea of what your team looks like, what motivates them, and how they like to be spoken to and how they like to do their work, that's certainly going to be helpful. If you don't have that as a resource from your company, my recommendation is to just get to know your team and to just ask them the question. So, so whenever I used to get new team members, I'm not getting any new team members right now, but whenever I used to at every company, I would sit them down kind of the first day and ask like,

Starting point is 00:53:42 okay, like what motivates you? Like, is it money? Is it me telling people about your achievements? Is it like what at the end of the day is going to make you feel inspired and motivated to keep doing great work here? And the other thing I would always ask is like, how do you want me to oversee you? Do you want a heavy hand? Do you want me to leave you alone? Like how, how do you work to the best of your ability? Because so many people are just so different in what they want and what they need. And I've had employees where they're like, Megan, I want you to be around every day. And I want you to be able to answer at least 10 questions for me a day. Cool. I'll do that if that's what you want. And then I have, I've had other employees who were like,

Starting point is 00:54:28 please just leave me alone. I will ask when I need you. And mainly I don't want you at all. And that's okay too. I'm like that as employee. I'm very much like, please just get out of my bubble. I want to be in my bubble. I want to do my work. So again, kind of leading back to just like be transparent. And I think as a manager, having those conversations as a level set, when you get a new employee is so important, writing them down somewhere and going back to them when you're not sure how that employee would like to be kind of handled and managed and having check-ins with them. I think quarterly check-ins are really important with any employees to just understand how are you feeling? Where are you

Starting point is 00:55:12 going? Where do you feel in relation to your career in this job? How can I be a better manager to you? What are some issues you're going through? And just knowing that a part of being a manager is not just managing, but being an outlet for that employee and being a confidant for that employee in a way obviously in a professional form um but to an extent there needs to be a significant amount of trust to have a good employee manager relationship and I think because of that it can't just be about work all the time. It needs to be what is the health of my employee from a personal, mental, emotional, everything, well-being perspective. Yeah, those are really, really excellent points. We had someone that used to work at Magnolia down in Texas

Starting point is 00:55:58 on our podcast, a previous episode, and she had a conversation all about that thoughtful leadership, and that's really what described and I think it goes beyond just the work that you're doing and really into you know being people and work is part of your life it's not your whole life but I think there gets to be a time where you're at a company and you're there for a while and then you're like, what is my purpose here? So I think having those quarterly check-ins, having that like confidant status even with your employees is really, really important.

Starting point is 00:56:38 So thank you for offering that advice. We've approached the end here. So where can everybody find you follow along with what you're doing with what charity water is up to? Where can people donate? Tell us all the good stuff. So you can donate at charitywater.org highly recommend you can donate once if you just want to do it once. We also have a recurring program called the spring. We love our water puns at charity water. So, so if you want to give monthly, you can do that as well. You can follow charity water. I'd say you can follow charity

Starting point is 00:57:10 water at charity water, basically on any social platform, but Instagram is my personal favorite. Um, and if anybody wants to follow me, I'm at Megan Toscano. It's really not exciting. It's very personal stuff. It's just mean in cute outfits most of the time. But you're more than welcome to follow me there. Fantastic. Thank you so much again for joining us. This is so fun to meet you. And I'm sure Cassie had a great time catching up with you as well.

Starting point is 00:57:36 Thank you, Megan. Of course. Thank you both. That's it for this week's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode or learned something new, share with us by subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. For more from Marketing Happy Hour, head over to our website, marketinghappyhr.com or follow us on Instagram at marketinghappyhr. We'll see you next week. We are so excited to share that our first ever free Marketing Happy Hour digital resource is

Starting point is 00:58:20 now available. Download the Dream Career Game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where you're at and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind, but the framework can be applied to any industry. Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly elevate your career, whether you're in the market for a new position or just looking to make your mark in your current organization. No matter where this resource finds you, we are cheering you on every step of the way.

Starting point is 00:59:02 So go check it out at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie to download and make your career dreams come true.

Marketing Happy Hour - Taking Calculated Risks in Performance Marketing | Megan Toscano of charity: water

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