Nate Lagos is a vice president of marketing for original grain, a direct watch manufacturer. Redes on Facebook advertising, but not for immediate customer acquisition.
“Platforms like Facebook are megaphones, not sellers,” he says.
In our recent Nate conversation, he shared its marketing origin, advertising tactics, driving influence and more.
Our whole sound conversation is inserted below. The transcription is modified for length and clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Give us a quick overview of who you are and what you are doing.
Nate Lagos: I am a vice president of marketing in original grain, tracking company that mixes wood and steel and creates a watch that boys want to wear. I have been here for four years, which leads to growth through innovation products and creative marketing campaigns. Previously, I served as CMO for several smaller electronic trading brands.
The last four years in OG have been exciting, fast and sometimes stressful, but very beneficial.
My marketing journey started at college. After my first grade, I fell in love with this topic, but I quickly realized that the school would not teach me how it was in the real world. I had one big professor, but most fell short classes. I started freelance during my Sophomore of the year, running organic and paid social campaigns for local businesses and I built from there.
I host a podcast twice a week called “Tactical & Practical”. Each episode is 10-12 minutes and immerses in one tactics we used, or the challenge I face. The aim is to create a kind of honest, tactical content that I would like to have on my first CMO work at the age of 24 when I had no idea what I was doing.
Bandholz: How do you approach the purchase of media and advertising strategy?
Lagos: I see advertising as a way to amplify great brands, not as a tool to direct customers. Platforms like Facebook are megaphones, not dirty. I am for the budget to this megaphone, because the impressions have a long -term value, even if they are not immediately transferred.
Almost all our Facebook advertising budget, primary for conversion campaigns. Our average order value for new customers is $ 360. Their purchasing decisions often take months. Therefore, we do not pose everyday costs of getting customers – we focus on the brand awareness and affinity that this country turns off during key moments, such as holidays.
Our performance metric is direct: If we spend $ 10,000 and we earn $ 40,000, ads are effective, visible Facebook internal metrics. If we only earn $ 11,000, we will reduce expenses, a new creative test or move messages.
We usually advertise in the top five watches, not in your own catalog. We structure our campaigns according to the collection and measure success both at the level of individual products and on the collection-learn-on-ad-sprending. Meta represents 95% of our expenses. The rest goes to Google, YouTube and Influencers that we would like to grow, even if the scale and produce content.
Bandholz: What is your strategy to change advertising creative for meta?
Lagos: I still think. Historically, we have not launched a large number of advertising-typically around 10-15 a week and last year, we grew by more than 100%of the eight-seater base. This year we increased up to 30-40 ads a week. This is not because we need more volume to find winners, but because Facebook will not allocate expenses unless we run more.
The platform tends to push our top ads, which is fine. Previously, we could introduce new creativity into the same set of ads and Facebook Wow distributes expenses. This is no longer happening. Given the increase in volume, we now see new ads to spend quickly and faster to look for winners.
For a full -time photographer, it is also our creative inspiration, handling of graphic design and brand. At the beginning of this year we hired operating lines. It focuses on Plaviyo and PostScript planning and helps with social and affecting campaigns. So there are three in the team.
Most of our messaging angles come from a copy and test on site. As soon as we see what it converts there, we will take this language to ads.
Bandholz: Thirty pieces of content a week requires work.
Lagos: Approximately one third of our content consists of iterations of past winners of duplicates of subtitles, graphics and styles of photographs. If the creative works, we replicate it across our top five watches and insufficient performance we want to push.
For new content, Chris (our creative guidance) and I Brainstorm every week using a shared Canva board. I rely on inspiration in the old school-vintage Rolex and cigarette advertising-the artistic adapts modern examples of electronic trading and consumers. We compare notes about what we like and dislike, and adapt our messages and offers to these styles.
We are deliberate with testing. If we try a new visual format, we pair it with a proven offered, title and tracking. If it fails, we know it is a visual that did not land, not copies or product. It helps us remain effective and avoid confusion when something doesn’t work.
Bandholz: Why is your best product successful?
Lagos: We started our best -selling watch two years ago. It’s an automatic watches of the skeleton, so you can see all the internal drives. It is a black stainless steel plate with burnt whiskey with casual wood and the combo crushes. Since then, we have launched another watch using similar elements and many of them worked. Our founders do them incredible work.
Success determines the way it is not marketing. We started this watch with the same e -mail, advertising and strategy as others. So when one is out and the other, no one blames marketing-it’s all about the product market.
Maintaining these watches in stock was a real challenge. In November 2023 we launched 400 units and sold out quickly. We thought it was a timing of vacation, but it continued to sell – another 500, then thousands per fathers and then massive run in the 4th quarter 2024. I finally increased the prices and downloaded advertising to slow down the sale.
Bandholz: You mentioned influence. What is your strategy?
Lagos: We are lucky that we own in the audience-35 to 50 years old boys who drink whiskey and love outside, harsh things. So we fans of the people we’re working with. We are also exploring our customers about their musical and sports preferences that lead to influence on the selection.
Our range is mostly manual. We send cold direct news and sometimes I turn to LinkedIn agents. Having partners with a big name, such as Jack Daniel’s and Taylor Gutars, gives us immediate credibility. Influencers take us seriously when they see who we are working with.
We do not make affiliate or return the share. It does not compare it with our long shopping cycles. Instead, we pay a flat fee for a specified number of contributions or inclusion on YouTube. Instagram cooperation allows us to report contributions as advertising. They are not high smugglers, but provide a great impression and cost click.
We use codes and links to monitor YouTube performance and a calculator returned for a thousand impressions. Some audiences, such as whiskey content creators bring 80 RPM $ 8, while comics of lifestyle bring $ 20. If we pay under love, the channel works. We also had a success with truck, outdoors and even music creators, even though the music was hit or missing.
Bandholz: Where can people buy your watches and address?
Lagos: Originalgrain.com. I’m on X and LinkedIn. My podcast is tactical and practical.
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