Tried and True Media

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO and founder of G-Plans, a company based in San Diego, Calif. that offers health and nutrition programs online.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tried and True Media?

We wanted to acquire and grow our business through media buying campaigns and digital marketing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tried and True manages all of our media buying campaigns, primarily for Facebook, Native, and Google. They provide the creative, as well as research and analytics reporting. Their team also provides CMO-level marketing services, helping us design and build models for our business to continue growing.

What is the team composition?

I work with Robbie (Founder, Tried and True Media), who is very involved in our overall strategy, as well as Cathy (COO, Tried and True Media).

How did you come to work with Tried and True Media?

Robbie reached out to me directly, and I hired him immediately after he provided an analysis of our business and where we should be.

How much have you invested with them?

The percentage they're getting is around $20,000–$50,000 a month, and we anticipate that to increase as our performance keeps rapidly improving.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together since December 2017.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Tried and True has helped us 3x our business, and they'll easily double that again in the next year. They don't merely ask us to spend a lot of money, but rather take a very strategic approach and plan out ways for us to continue increasing KPIs.

How did Tried and True Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We hold weekly calls, and their team is always on top of tasks and on time. We also chat with them regularly through Slack, but there's no need for us to micromanage their work, because they're very proactive about keeping us informed and getting things done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their data-driven approach sets them apart. They also offer high-level marketing services, creating models based on our customers' lifestyles and values and figuring out how to leverage that information to maximize our cost per acquisition (CPA) and goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, no. They're doing a fantastic job and I'd highly recommend working with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m head of marketing for ButcherBox. We deliver 100% grass-fed beef, organic chicken, and heritage breed pork in the mail on a monthly subscription basis.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tried and True Media?

We needed help with scaling Facebook ads. Another firm managed Facebook ads for us previously, but we were growing quickly and needed a group with more experience.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re responsible for all the campaign management. Their value was in scaling the campaigns, managing the spends, and identifying the highest performing ads. They gave good input on the strategy with our Facebook ads. They also helped with building creative, but most of the creative came from us.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact was their COO.

How did you come to work with Tried and True Media?

One of our advisors had worked with their founder. They said that they had more experience scaling Facebook ad campaigns than the company we were using. It seemed they could get us where we wanted to be with a scale and a monthly spend.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May 2017–June 2018.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Facebook ads have become a big part of our marketing strategy. They did a tremendous job with one of our biggest Facebook campaigns, scaling it up dramatically. We went from spending around $50,000–$100,000 a month to upward of $500,000 a month.

How did Tried and True Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well and their communication was strong. We had a weekly call with them. As far as communication about what ads they ran and how the ads performed, they were excellent. However, there were times when we had to push them to focus more on doing a creative work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They got results and were receptive to feedback. They did exactly what we wanted them to do in helping us scale up our Facebook ads dramatically.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have been stronger in coming up with creative ideas for ads. We anticipated they’d bring more creativity to the table.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re an excellent group to work with. You can trust them to effectively manage your ad accounts. You will need to have someone in-house to help build and test creatives.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of AlgeCal Inc. We market osteoporosis supplements direct to consumers online.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tried and True Media?

We sell directly to consumers via sales funnels like Google AdWords and Facebook. We’ve been trying to make Facebook ads profitable for three and a half years but we’ve just been losing money. We decided we needed a new contractor.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tried and True Media is responsible for all paid Facebook marketing. They worked together with us – we provided a developer and a couple of people in-house to get things done that Tried and True Media gave us direction on. We had weekly meetings where Tried and True Media gave excellent presentations. They would gather all the relevant data and put it in a slideshow and then we would decide what the steps are for the coming week were.

What is the team composition?

The two primaries were their Founder and their CMO.

How did you come to work with Tried and True Media?

I met the founder at a marketing conference and was super impressed with all his experience. He was one of the very few people in direct response that was buying over a million dollars a month in Facebook ads. If you want to get to a million a month in Facebook ad spend then you need to get someone on board who can actually do it.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2016 until May 2018.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We struggled to be profitable with Facebook ads for three and a half years but Tried and True Media helped us scale up to ten thousand dollars per day and hit revenue profitably.

How did Tried and True Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They held well-organized presentations and meetings that were really helpful. They were actually pushing us to move faster and get more team members involved in the beginning.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of their strengths is that they have experience dealing with large clients who are very successful in the industry. They’re able to draw on their experience and show us how to build sales funnels successfully. It saved us a lot of trial and error. Of the dozen agencies we’ve used for everything from Amazon services to Adwords to SEO, Tried and True Media is the only one that’s actually gotten us results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our business provides sports-related video instruction and subscription products, as well as offering physical goods to our members.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tried and True Media?

We were trying to find a partner who specialized in paid website traffic and audience acquisition. We needed a vendor to manage our paid media partners who was willing to work with us to align incentives around performance. We wanted someone who could create and test different advertisements, landing pages, and cart checkout processes to optimize performance.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team handles all of our accounts including primarily Google and Facebook. They take care of our creative designs and creative testing of our ads. They report on different traffic funnels including CPC, customer acquisition, return on investment, and  return on ad spend. They make recommendations on what changes we should make to our landing pages and we design to increase the amount of content on our pages. They also help us with Facebook targeting and promoting our existing campaigns.

What is the team composition?

We work with the founder, Robbie who created many of the strategies we use. Additionally, we work with Cathy who is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Tried and True Media?

Our CEO was working with a consultant who knew an employee of Tried and True very well. We were introduced to one another and they started to strategize with us while we were working with another firm at the time. We decided to hire Tried and True to replace our previous vendor because we were so impressed with the potential upside.

How much have you invested with them?

We are in the middle of the second year of our contract with the company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our engagement with them back in June 2016 on an official basis.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I do not have a firm number of how much our marketing improved, but there has been a significant improvement since hiring them. I recommended them to other parts of our business.

How did Tried and True Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They excel at project management. Someone is dedicated to our account and we have a weekly call. The structure of those calls is very productive and it has been working for my team. We discuss all aspects of the project on a weekly basis to make sure we are always on the same page. Cathy our project manager is always in touch with us and available to us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate their open communication. Every week, they ask me to score them on their performance. It drives honesty and conveys their dedication to striving for a quality project. If there is something that is not up to par, we have a discussion about it. By the next week, any problems are fixed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The international nature of the TnT team proves to be slightly challenging across different time zones on the rare occasion, but they always ensure someone is available to jump in at any time necessary.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I recommend being completely transparent with them. They can handle any task you give them because they are dedicated to being partners. Do not be afraid of tiptoeing around anything and be incredibly clear and direct.