312: How to Win with Twitter Ads - with Chris Orzechowski

EPISODE SUMMARY

In a world dominated by social media giants like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, a new player has emerged on the advertising scene, promising untapped potential and unprecedented opportunities for software business growth. Enter Xvertising – the launch of Twitter ads, a platform often overlooked yet brimming with potential for those willing to seize it.

In this episode of Scale Your SaaS, Chris Orzechowski, CEO and founder of West Egg “Xvertising” Agency, shed light on the transformative power of X ads with host and B2B SaaS Sales Coach Matt Wolach. With over two years of experience navigating the nuances of Twitter advertising, Chris's insights offer a roadmap for SaaS businesses seeking to harness the full potential of this emerging platform. 

PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE

Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach

Episode: Episode No. 312, “How to Win with Twitter Ads - with Chris Orzechowski”

Guest: Chris Orzechowski, CEO & Founder at West Egg "Xvertising" Agency

Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor

Sponsored by: Leadfeeder

TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Cracking the Code of Xvertising
• Embracing the Opportunity
• Overcoming Hurdles
• Charting the Course Forward

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• The Genesis of Xvertising
• Unveiling the Potential

TOP QUOTES

Chris Orzechowski

[07:11] "No one was talking about it. So I started playing with my own money and running ads to my own campaigns for my own products and services and things. And they were actually worked pretty well."

[10:52] "That's like saying Facebook Ads work. That's like saying, direct mail doesn't work. Like it works for some people who figure out how to make it work."

[21:52] "Your job as a founder as a marketer, CMO, Director of marketing, whatever it is to identify what those hooks are that get people's attention, move them action, and then amplify those."

Matt Wolach

[09:56] "X ads offer a unique opportunity for brands to reach a wider audience. Early Adopters may gain a competitive edge."

[20:02] "It is something that's ripe for opportunity right now. I think it is like the early days of Facebook ads."

LEARN MORE

To learn more about West Egg Agency, visit: https://westegg.agency/ 

You can also find Chris Orzechowski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-orzechowski-b5531823a/ 

For more about how Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.

Head over to leadfeeder.com and sign up for a 14-day (no strings attached) free trial: https://www.leadfeeder.com/ 

Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:

• Sales Tips
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Instagram

Transcript

Matt Wolach: 0:06

Hello, and welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Very glad that you made it here. Thank you very much. By the way, if this is your first time joining us, this is a program specifically designed to help you do what it says scale your SaaS. So let's grow some leads. Let's make sure we know how to close those leads. let's understand how to scale our team so that we can get to our dreams. And one of those ways of growing leads we're going to talk about today I have Chris Orzechowski. With me, Chris, how you doing?

Chris Orzechowski: 0:31

How's it going, Matt? Thanks for having me.

Matt Wolach: 0:33

Absolutely, I'm really glad that you came looking forward to this one. And I want to make sure everybody knows who you are Chris. So Chris is the CEO and founder of West Egg "Xvertising" Agency, and I love that extratising, you'll understand what that means in a second, we're talking about x Twitter ads, they are an emerging cost effective platform for business growth. And with a substantial user base and significant ad inventory. X ads offer a unique opportunity for brands to reach a wider audience. Early Adopters may gain a competitive edge, I totally believe in that. And this is something that's really reminiscent of the early days of Facebook ads. And so it's something we got to think about and jump on. He's also the author of The Moat. This is how to build a durable, profitable brand that can last forever. It's really good book I want to check out. So Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Chris Orzechowski: 1:23

Yeah, I'm excited to talk about x ads, because it's, it's crazy. Like I started, you know, I've been on X for a little bit over two years, I used to have an account. And then I logged off for a while and didn't do any social media. And I hopped back on two years ago, a little bit before Elon took over. And I just had like a lot of frustrations in my own life with like Facebook, I was locked out of my Facebook account for two years, because I forgot to transfer my two factor authentication code from my old phone on my new phone. So like I couldn't get it and it just completely No, I couldn't even talk to anyone. So when we start like investigating X ads, like maybe I could run ads there. And so I started looking stuff up. I was like, you know, someone's gotta be teaching this. There's got to be courses. There's got to be YouTube channels. There was nothing. And I was like, Hold on how was like in fate for Facebook, Google, all these other channels. There's these entire cottage industries, there's agencies, there's coaching programs, there's masterminds, there's nothing. So I was like, well, that's kind of weird. And then as I was going on, I kept seeing more and more ads, and some of these ads from big companies, big software companies, big ecommerce companies, big enterprise level, you know, companies, and I was like, okay, so what did they know? Like, they're here for a reason, right? But no one was talking about it. So I started playing with my own money and running ads to my own campaigns for my own products and services and things. And they were actually worked pretty well. But one of the first experiments I did, I spent, like, $1,057, I got eight leads for my services. And I was like, Okay, there's something here, you know, like, there's definitely something here. And it was funny, because everyone's like, X ads don't work. It's a bad platform, blah, blah. And I'm like, Okay, well, the clue you're working for some people. That's like saying Facebook Ads work. That's like saying, direct mail doesn't work. Like it works for some people who figure out how to make it work. So I was like, I'm going to be the guy to figure

Matt Wolach: 3:05

I love it such a great story of this. I totally that out. agree with you. I think it is something that's ripe for opportunity right now. Because I think it is like the early days of Facebook ads. I think that a lot of people haven't come around to this and don't realize the power of it. And I think it's something that can really kind of take off going forward. But getting in early is key, right?

Chris Orzechowski: 3:26

Yeah, like right now, there's, there's a number of companies, a lot of the bigger companies who are kind of doing like an omni channel strategy. They're like, Okay, we're gonna advertise everywhere. And then we'll just throw a percentage of spend towards x as well. And I've talked to some of these people, some of these multiple nine figure brands, marketers who work at these brands, and they're getting great results, in some cases are actually getting better results than Facebook right now. You know, the spend is not as high obviously. Because for a lot of people just so new. But yeah, it's great. I mean, I bought software's for my own company. And then for some of my clients, companies from ads, and there's a lot of interesting frameworks, it's definitely a different type of platform. Facebook, meta, let's call meta right? Meta is really good at, you know, skimming the top 3% of people who are in market ready to buy right now. And which is awesome, right? Because you can optimize for conversions and leads and things like that. But what happens is, and I've had clients who there'll be spending, you know, north of 500k a month, and they just can't break past that plateau, right? Because they're in, like, with the way that the I mean, I'm not an expert on the Facebook algorithm, but like, you know, I know that there's buckets that say, Okay, well, you know, your stuff appeals to people in this bucket. And when you're in the bucket, it's great. But once you've exhausted all the leads in that bucket, it's hard to break out into another bucket and expand. So a lot of people have that problem. But with X, it doesn't seem to operate the exact same way. Because you can get very granular with the targeting. It's almost like a mix between meta and Google AdWords where you can choose specific keywords you can choose specific people to target Getting target the followers that look like so the followers, you can target your own followers. So if you do a lot of organic, it's a great way to escalate those people. So it's really interesting the way that it works because you can go with a small audience, or you can go with a large audience. And if you have a good offer, and a good funnel that converts, that works really well. I mean, I have campaigns running right now for myself, that are getting 38 cent CPMs, Yes, a CPM is is a term that means, what is the cost to show the ad to 1000 people to get 1000 impressions, and it's obviously not the most important metric, I mean, in my eyes row as the return on your advertising dollars is always the most important. Or if it's, you know, the number of leads that convert, you know, sometimes SaaS companies have a bit of a longer sales cycle, depending on what the product is, especially if it's like a high end B2B type thing, you know, that might be different stakeholders than decision. But it's like if you put $1 into the machine, how quickly does dollar come back? How many friends dollar bring with them? What's the timeline look like? Right? So CPM is not necessarily the most important thing in the world, but it's a lot cheaper. And you can get very granular, instead of going super broad and targeting everyone. You can just say, I want these people, these people and these people, I want these age groups, these device types. So you could really slice and dice it any way you want, and get super targeted and get in front of the right people. And if you have good offers, it's going to convert just like any other type of advertising platform, like if you have something really good people gonna buy.

Matt Wolach: 6:32

Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's really cool. And I also think it's interesting, because, you know, there was obviously some news with some big major advertisers maybe leaving Twitter. I actually have heard that some of them regret that now. But what do you think that's done that's kind of influenced, you know, how small brands can kind of take over some of that space? Is that right?

Chris Orzechowski: 6:50

When I first saw that, that there were, you know, tons of big brands leaving, I was like, Hey, okay, there's a vacuum here, right? Like, people are like, Why did they leave? No, there's there's content that, you know, Elon is thinking about making the Free Speech platform, and people say that there's bad content, but like, I go on Facebook, I see a lot of horrible people say horrible things. On a platform. There's a lot of horrible people that's called social media. You know, like, I understand, but I see that stuff all the time on Facebook, and Instagram, all these other channels, right. So there was this big vacuum. And you know, the universe abhors a vacuum, right? So I said, Okay, there's a lot of inventory, and so much inventory, that they were essentially selling the inventory to other networks, right? To try to get more ad dollars. And so I saw that, and I said, Okay, well, I can rush in my company, even though I'm a lot smaller than than Netflix, or some of these other companies, and take advantage of that arbitrage. And the funny thing is, like Netflix specifically was one of those companies pulled out. And then like, two months later, they came back and I said, everyone's telling me, I said, so I'm working with why are they coming back then? Right? Like, there's got to be something here. Like, why are they coming back? Like, if it's that bad, it's like they need there's something about it. And I think the thing with X, I mean, everyone has different platforms, the Hangout on like, I have an Instagram, I have a Facebook, I don't really spend a ton of time, you know, if I have to go into ads manager or go on Facebook, but I'm not spending time like consuming content there. I spend all my time on x. That's what I do. Like, that's where I interact with our network. That's where I meet clients. That's where I you know, interact with my friends online. So I know there's a lot of people like me who they don't spend any time on other any other platforms, right so like everyone's like Facebook has 2 billion people I'm like that's cool. But a the you know, if you're talking the United States, United States only has what 340 ish million people. So like when you think about it, like you're not marketing necessarily always to 2 billion people you only marketing to a total addressable market of let's say 340 million, but some of those are kids, some of those people don't use the internet, right? So we chop it down like the difference in size of the network's like yeah, Facebook and Instagram are definitely bigger than x but it's not that much bigger. And you know, if you're marketing to 100 million people, instead of 150 million people like okay, well how many customers do you need to make your company work? It'd be nice to have 150 million you probably don't need that right? So I just looked at it like as this great opportunity and there's a lot of people it's funny because the people who are making it work they don't want anyone know they're always like don't tell anyone specifically for SaaS.

Matt Wolach: 9:19

Yeah, I agree. I have some friends who are doing really well with it but you know, some people are not and some people are struggling and we talked about that, but it feels like there may be just not doing it the right way. So what are some of the mistakes that you see that people are making when it comes to x advertising?

Chris Orzechowski: 9:34

I think the biggest thing is that x is built on like rabbit holes like people want to tumble down rabbit holes. I don't necessarily know if it's the exact same on Facebook and Instagram, where like the post is the post but like on X like if you have these long form stories or these threads, or like just really insightful posts, people would want to go and check the comments on those posts, right? Or like They'll see this person sharing the story of this, you know, in the business world, someone who had a company and then, you know, it almost went to zero, and then they, you know, rescued it. And here the steps they took, and it's like this interesting content. And that like people want to tumble down those rabbit holes, right. So what we actually do with clients is we create these things called I call them xtutorials, which is a play the word advertorial, which if you're not familiar, and who's listening are not familiar with that. an advertorial is just, you know, typically, you'd see it on like Google display, or you can see it on Facebook and other places. But like usually Google Display, it's like, it doesn't look like an ad looks like a news story, you click the link, and then you go to this page, and maybe it looks like it's like a news outlet page. And there's some kind of story. It's like a bridge page, that is kind of like content. And that kind of warms you up. It's like a traffic microwave, right? So warms up that cold traffic kind of pre frames you to think about your problem in a certain way. And then you click through to another page, and that's the product page. So that concept of an advertorial where you're not necessarily like trying to like ramp, a sales pitch down someone's throat, what you're doing is you're kind of warming them up with content. So their natural defense mechanism is down a little bit, and they lean in, because they're interested, we actually do that with X ads, because when you can do, you could run an engagement ad, assuming engagement objective ad, which means you know, there's different objectives within the ads manager, you could do keyword objective, you could do a reach objective, to go out to, you know, talk more top of funnel traffic engagement is just to get a lot of people engaging in the post, which means they're reading, they're interacting with it, they're clicking on it. But we have some times we'll take these long form content pieces, where there's no mention of the software, or anything, I'll give you an example. There's just one software. It's called retention exits and ecommerce software. It's really awesome software. And this was the first one of the first things I bought from Twitter. And it's the software that plugs in the Shopify and analyzes like, they have this incredible, like machine learning to analyze all of your data, and actually have an AI it's not the only feature, but one of their main things, they have an AI and they say, Hey, we analyzed, you know, your customer list your data, if you market to this segment of people right here, you know, they're ripe for for making a purchase. So you can click one button, create a segment, and then send out an email to them. And I'm like, This is amazing, right. But the way that I got into that ad, was it was about cohort analysis, in terms of, you know, tracking, all the, you know, leads were coming through the funnel, how they're converting how much money each cohort is worth. And it was like seven different, you know, things to look for when you're doing cohort analysis. I don't remember the exact time but or something along those lines. And I was reading it, and I was like, Oh, this is great. This is great. Because I was working as a CMO for an E commerce company was like, wow, this is really great. And the end I was like, oh, wow, there's a software that does this, I immediately bought it, right? If they just said, Hey, buy this thing. It's this cool tool, I'd be like, No, whatever. But they kind of demonstrate it in the ad. And it was this thread that was maybe 10 tweets long, it was super educational. And I saw that and I was like, Oh, this is great. So and then I wound up telling people, you know, six different clients about it. And now I'm here telling everyone about it. So it's like, it's funny, it's all came from one ad that showed up in my newsfeed.

Matt Wolach: 12:56

That's amazing. So it is okay to do threads like normal as an ad. So I thought I was just like an image post, like Facebook or something. But threads are okay as as as well.

Chris Orzechowski: 13:06

I think it's better to do threads. I think for every kind of even in E commerce company, I think you can because, and I've done this a lot with email over the course of my career where you know, sometimes you see in SaaS Seaton, brick and mortar, you see it in E commerce a lot, where it's just like a picture of a product and then set the buy button or like maybe discount code and like, that might work. You know, it'll work, okay, it'll work average, right? But like, I don't want to be average, I want to be the best. And I think when you're puting ad dollars behind it, then you really don't want to just be average, you want to average returns on your ad dollars, right? You want outsized return. So when you get that is by using long form copy, and you look at like all these old space ads from the 50s 60s 70s. And like tons of long form copy, like they had really great imagery, but the copy is the thing that cut into the image grabs the attention, but the copy is what makes the sale, right. So that's the approach that I love. And I have a client right now, they have a digital product, of course, about how to start a newsletter. And we just started with a very small budget, we just started like a week ago, they're already out of 5.27x roas. And all we did was essentially take one of their really educational informative story based emails. It was like an origin story email about you know how my client has started his newsletter, and grew into a seven figure business. And it's really educational. There's tips in it, and then it leads to and if you want more, you know, here's this course where we teach the whole system. And it's great because if you just took an image, we ran an image test where it's like, let's just take a piece of static have like two or three sentences of copy, and it's getting clicks, but it hasn't really made any sales, but the long form ones making sales because it's pre framing people properly. Because again, like when people are on x, it's like they're looking for interesting things. They're looking for those rabbit holes to tumble down. So you can convert people with a static, you. It might depending on the product targeting it could work. I've seen it work obviously. But what I like to do is use that extra tutorial style approach where you're pre framing people, you're warming them up with the ad itself. And we see this too, with all kinds of products. You know, sometimes people will have a Facebook ad even, you know, we're on different platforms. There'll be one cents sentence a copy and a static and like those could work, okay. But then people go, and they'll test the long format, and that'll out convert a lot of times, right? Because again, it's about meeting your people where they're at. And especially with SaaS, you there usually is a bigger decision process unless it's a five or $10 a month, like, you know, app on your phone or what you know, where it's like, oh, cool, 10 bucks, impulse purchase, whatever. But if it's a SaaS, that's $100 $200$500 $1,000 a month, like, it's a bigger decision that needs to be made. So people need to be educated.

Matt Wolach: 15:35

Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's a really powerful story, especially like you said, the origin story is amazing. And I've seen several origin stories that I just followed, I got into the thread thinking, Oh, this is just really interesting at the end, they're like, and that's how I came up with this software that you should probably get and I'm like, Yes, I should get that. And then you when you when you buy into the story, you're so emotional about that, that generating that emotion is really cool. I think it's it's something that obviously we try to do in any part of the of the funnel, but especially right there at the top of the funnel when people are first meeting you that that how this whole thing came to be is really powerful.

Chris Orzechowski: 16:14

Oh, yeah, I mean, and that's something like

Matt Wolach: 16:14

Makes a lot of sense. And something else I'm I love repurposing assets, especially for these kind of thinking of right now is? Okay, so if you're going to advertise things. Like, if you've written that as an email, maybe that's the first email on your welcome sequence. Try that as an ad, you know, like those converts. So well, sometimes. I mean, we I've worked with tons of clients where like, first thing to do is send the welcome sequence or rewrite that first email, we've had a 50% lift in conversion, just from literally just doing that one thing. So I always think like, a good hook is a good hook. Right? It doesn't really matter if it's on Google, if it's on YouTube, if it's on Facebook, if it's on Instagram, if it's on x, if it's an email, if it's on a postcard, if it's in your deck, your presentation that like a good hook is a good hook, right? So your job as a founder as a marketer, CMO, Director of marketing, whatever it is to identify what those hooks are that get people's attention, move them action, and then amplify those. So you know, it's a lot of testing, obviously, right? Just like it is with everything. But you know that you have a good hook. And every time you know, there's a hot button topic, and every time you mentioned it, your customers eyes light up, you're like, Okay, that's the ad, that's what we're going to run with, let's build an angle around that. on X, should you also be posting organically as well to maybe start building your account? Or do people sometimes get stuck? Because they're like, Well, I want to advertise on X, but I should be posting organically, I don't have time to do that yet. So I'm just not going to advertise yet. What's your take on all that?

Chris Orzechowski: 17:39

You don't need to I think it helps. You know, I think in general, any platform, the more content you have out there, I view it as like owning, it's like the Monopoly board, it's like, the more properties you own the Monopoly board, the more money you're gonna make, because the more chances someone's gonna land on your properties, you're gonna get paid, right. And that's always the analogy I like to use. So I think it helps, I don't think it's completely necessary. I've seen some companies that absolutely crush and they'll have 1300 followers, and, you know, they'll post every, you know, once a month, twice a month, but they're just so dialed in with the ads, that it doesn't really matter. It really depends on the product. But I don't want that to stop people. Because, you know, you don't have to necessarily, it's going to be an accelerant if you do. But again, if you know, if you're just posting, you know, one piece a week, but it's really insightful, and then you turn those in the ads. And all you have to do is there's this button in the ads manager that when you do an engagement campaign, it says Use existing ad and then you could just pull the ad right into the ads manager, right now the way that it works in the ads manager for the urban side is like you have the character limit. So like you want to type it out, you can type out a long form. But if you use the use the existing ad button, I think it's actually mislabeled it should say use existing post, you could pull an organic post in and run that as an ad. And it'll take all the social proof and everything that's on that post. And then you supply the targeting parameters, and then distribute it. So yeah, I mean, it's not necessary, it can help, but I don't think it should be an obstacle for you to get started.

Unknown: 19:06

Yeah,

Matt Wolach: 19:06

Yeah, great point. And we've talked a lot about, especially in this podcast, a lot about the difference between a company brand and a personal brand. How do you work with your clients? Do you recommend the ads under the company brand or under the personal brand or both?

Chris Orzechowski: 19:21

I don't think it matters. I've seen people do it both ways. So you can really make it work either way. It's you know, if you are posting more content on one versus the other, then maybe run it from there. But again, it's not gonna matter that much in the grand scheme of things in my opinion.

Matt Wolach: 19:39

Okay, cool. So, as we wrap up here, Chris, businesses, they might be hesitant about investing in Twitter advertising, what would be your advice to them? What would you share with them?

Chris Orzechowski: 19:49

I would say start small. You know, if you have really good content that's worked elsewhere, just start small and see what happens, right. You know, I don't think you have to start spending$1000, $2000, $3,000 a day. I mean, if you're an enormous company, you know, if you're a billion dollar company, then like, yeah, that'd probably be where you want to start. But if you're a smaller company, if you're, you know, seven figures, or multiple, six figures, whatever it is, you're just kind of just getting started. You know, I have clients start with$10 a day, and doesn't seem like a lot. But again, if you're reaching 10,000 people a day with your ads, because the CPMs are so low, if you're getting dollar CPMs, or even $2, CPMs, or reaching 5000 people, you're gonna get feedback pretty fast, which is nice. You're gonna get a, I think, a pretty statistical, a good statistical significance, you know, 10, 15 20 bucks a day, I look at it like investment to like, if you are committed to growing with ads, I mean, that's the ultimate, like, when you have an ad funnel, where you can put $1 and get more than dollar back, and an advantageous timeline for you that works for your business. It's like playing the game with cheat codes, you know, I mean, it's, it's so much easier, because, you know, you have a scalable system now, and it works without you because you know, you're spending money, you're getting the money back and you're getting the customer, right, so most SaaS businesses just about I mean, I'd say what 90 95% They operate on monthly recurring revenue or annual subscription plans. So you have rebuilds built in, right. So if you know what your lifetime value is, and you know what you have to pay to acquire customer, even if you break even on the front end, right? Even if you have to spend $100 to get $100 month purchase, or whatever it is, that's fine, because month to year, you're all profit, right? And then from there on out, you now own that customer.

Matt Wolach: 21:24

Totally agree, I think it's amazing. And one of the things I've learned in terms of advertising on any platform is if you go into it as a rookie, and you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna probably waste a lot of time and money. So have an expert. So Chris, it's awesome that you've come in and share this anybody out there if you guys are thinking of, hey, I think I want to do this definitely talk to Chris. He's the expert at this, Chris, we're the best places that people can get a hold of you and learn more about how you can help.

Chris Orzechowski: 21:48

If you want to reach out to me on X, my handle is @chrisorzy. You can also go to 100yearbrand.co That's like my main site for consulting started from email list is something I talk about. And I also have a newsletter on beehive it's called"Xvertising". Think it's Xvertising.beehive.com. I think that's the URL probably should get a custom URL at some point. But I'm just using the free one. But I published a newsletter every week about x ads and just you know deep results from experiments that I'm running and things that I'm learning as I've been you know, experimenting with the platform and talking with people internally on the team and sharing what I've learned so a lot of free stuff there. I've published eight issues so far published one every week and you know, it's it's a it's a good if you want to do it yourself. There's a lot of good info in there. And and obviously, if you want help always reach out to me too.

Matt Wolach: 22:41

Okay, perfect. That's really, really helpful stuff. We'll put all that into the show notes. So if you're listening right now, go ahead and grab it right there. But, Chris, this has been great. Thanks so much for coming in and sharing all this.

Chris Orzechowski: 22:51

Thank you for having me, Matt. Appreciate you.

Matt Wolach: 22:53

Absolutely. And everybody out there. Thank you for being here as well. Again, make sure you are subscribed, you do not want to miss any other experts coming up. We're gonna drop gold like Chris just did for us. So hit that subscribe button, you'll be good to go. Also, we're looking for reviews. So if you think this is really helpful, if you think you're growing from this, please give us a good review. That way other people will notice this and you'll be helping the community at large. Thank you very much for being here and we'll see you next time. Take care