Nate Lagos is vice chairman of promoting for Authentic Grain, a direct-to-consumer vendor of luxurious watches. He depends on Fb promoting, however not for rapid buyer acquisition.
“Platforms resembling Fb are megaphones, not salespeople,” he says.
In our latest dialog, Nate shared his advertising and marketing origins, promoting techniques, influencer administration, and extra.
Our whole audio dialog is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for size and readability.
Eric Bandholz: Give us a fast rundown of who you might be and what you do.
Nate Lagos: I’m the vice chairman of promoting at Authentic Grain, a watch firm that blends wooden and metal to create timepieces that guys wish to put on. I’ve been right here 4 years, main progress by product innovation and artistic advertising and marketing campaigns. Earlier than that, I served as CMO for a few smaller ecommerce manufacturers.
The final 4 years at OG have been thrilling, fast-paced, and at occasions aggravating — however extraordinarily rewarding.
My advertising and marketing journey began in school. I fell in love with the topic after my top quality, however shortly realized faculty wouldn’t train me the best way to thrive in the true world. I had one nice professor, however most courses fell brief. I started freelancing throughout my sophomore yr, working natural and paid social campaigns for native companies, and constructed from there.
I host a twice-weekly podcast known as “Tactical & Sensible.” Every episode is 10-12 minutes and delves right into a single tactic we’re utilizing or a problem I’m going through. The aim is to create the sort of sincere, tactical content material I want I had at my first CMO job at age 24, once I had no concept what I used to be doing.
Bandholz: How do you method media shopping for and ad technique?
Lagos: I see promoting as a means to amplify nice manufacturers, not as a device to accumulate clients straight. Platforms resembling Fb are megaphones, not salespeople. I pour funds into that megaphone as a result of impressions have long-term worth, even when they don’t instantly convert.
Almost all of our ad funds goes to Fb, primarily for conversion campaigns. Our common order worth for brand spanking new clients is $360. Their shopping for choices usually take months. So, we don’t obsess over day by day buyer acquisition prices — we deal with constant consciousness and model affinity that pays off throughout key moments, resembling the vacations.
Our efficiency metric is easy: If we spend $10,000 selling a watch and earn $40,000 from it, the adverts are efficient, no matter Fb’s inner metrics. If we solely make $11,000, we reduce spend, check new inventive, or shift messaging.
We usually promote our prime 5 watches, not our whole catalog. We construction our campaigns by assortment, and we measure success each on the particular person product degree and the collection-level return-on-ad-spend. Meta accounts for 95% of our spend. The remaining goes to Google, YouTube, and influencers, which we’d prefer to develop, although they’re more durable to scale and produce content material for.
Bandholz: What’s your technique for altering ad inventive on Meta?
Lagos: I’m nonetheless figuring that out. Traditionally, we didn’t launch numerous adverts — usually round 10–15 per week — whilst we grew by over 100% final yr from an eight-figure base. This yr, we’ve ramped that as much as 30–40 adverts weekly. It’s not as a result of we’d like extra quantity to seek out winners, however as a result of Fb received’t allocate spend except we launch extra.
The platform tends to push our top-performing adverts, which is okay till these adverts plateau. Beforehand, we might introduce new inventive into the identical ad set, and Fb would distribute spend. That’s now not occurring. By growing quantity, we’re now seeing new adverts spend sooner and discover winners extra shortly.
Our full-time photographer can be our inventive inspiration, dealing with graphic design and model path. We employed an operations lead earlier this yr. He focuses on Klaviyo and Postscript scheduling and helps out with social and influencer campaigns. So there are three of us on the staff.
Most of our messaging angles come from copy I check straight on our web site. As soon as we see what converts there, we repurpose that language into adverts.
Bandholz: Thirty items of content material weekly takes work.
Lagos: Roughly one-third of our content material consists of iterations of previous winners — duplicate headlines, graphics, and pictures kinds. If a inventive is performing, we replicate it throughout our prime 5 watches and underperformers we wish to push.
For brand spanking new content material, Chris (our inventive lead) and I brainstorm weekly utilizing a shared Canva board. I lean towards old-school inspiration — classic Rolex and cigarette adverts — whereas he pulls fashionable ecommerce and consumer-focused examples. We evaluate notes on what we like and dislike, and adapt our messaging and provides to these kinds.
We’re intentional with testing. If we’re making an attempt a brand new visible format, we’ll pair it with a confirmed provide, headline, and watch. If it flops, we all know it’s the visible that didn’t land, not the copy or the product. It helps us keep environment friendly and keep away from confusion when one thing doesn’t work.
Bandholz: What makes your prime product so profitable?
Lagos: We launched our top-selling watch two years in the past. It’s an computerized skeleton-dial watch, so that you see all of the interior mechanics. It’s black-plated stainless-steel with charred whiskey barrel wooden, and that combo crushes. Since then, we’ve launched different watches utilizing comparable parts, and lots of have labored. Our founders do an unbelievable job designing them.
I’ve realized it’s not the advertising and marketing that determines success. We launched this watch with the identical e mail, ad, and technique as others. So when one sells out and the opposite doesn’t, nobody blames advertising and marketing — it’s all about product-market match.
Retaining this watch in inventory has been the true problem. We launched 400 models in November 2023, and so they offered out shortly. We thought it was vacation timing, but it surely continued to promote — 500 extra, then hundreds for Father’s Day, after which a large run in This fall 2024. Finally, I raised costs and pulled again adverts to sluggish gross sales.
Bandholz: You talked about influencers. What’s your technique?
Lagos: We’re fortunate as a result of we’re our personal audience — 35 to 50-year-old guys who drink whiskey and love outdoorsy, rugged stuff. So we’re already followers of the individuals we find yourself working with. We additionally survey our clients about their music and sports activities preferences to information our influencer choice.
Our outreach is usually handbook. We ship chilly direct messages, and I often attain out to brokers on LinkedIn. Having big-name companions resembling Jack Daniel’s and Taylor Guitars offers us prompt credibility. Influencers take us critically once they see who we work with.
We don’t do affiliate or income share. It doesn’t align with our lengthy buy cycles. As a substitute, we pay a flat price for a set variety of posts or YouTube inclusions. Instagram collaborations allow us to repurpose posts as adverts. They aren’t excessive converters however ship nice impression and click on prices.
We use codes and hyperlinks to trace YouTube efficiency and calculate income per thousand impressions. Some audiences, resembling whiskey content material creators, convey $80 RPMs, whereas way of life comedians convey $20. So long as we pay beneath these quantities, the channel works. We’ve additionally had success with truck, open air, and even music creators, though music has been hit and miss.
Bandholz: The place can individuals purchase your watches and attain out?
Lagos: OriginalGrain.com. I’m on X and LinkedIn. My podcast is Tactical & Sensible.
