How We Stopped Copying Apple, Turned Website Data Into Ad Gold, and Why Your Customers Are Better Than Any Focus Group

🔍 FUNNEL VISION:

There are levels to marketing.

People think they should copy Apple and Nike.

You can.

But do not copy what they are doing today.

Copy what they were doing when they were in the same position as you.

• For pros: You have to carve out your own lane. Don’t spend too much time studying competitors. Be in a position where they study you.

• For beginners: Look at brands in the early stages to see what they were doing that led them to be a massive brand today.

🥡 THIS WEEK'S FUNNEL FEED

What we're testing: We're shifting our ad creative focus toward weight loss messaging after discovering that our low-carb filter is the most-used sorting option on our website, indicating that a significant portion of our audience has weight management goals rather than just convenience or taste preferences.

What's happening so far: Early signals show higher click-through rates on weight loss-focused ad creative compared to our general "healthy meal delivery" messaging. We're seeing more qualified traffic that aligns with user behavior patterns already happening on our site, suggesting better message-to-market fit.

Why this approach works: Three data-driven principles driving this pivot:

1. Behavioral alignment: Our ads now match the intent signals customers are already showing through their filtering behavior on our platform

2. Specificity over generality: Weight loss is a specific, emotionally-charged goal versus the generic "eat healthy" messaging that everyone uses

3. Problem-first positioning: Leading with the problem (weight management) rather than the solution (meal delivery) captures attention from people actively seeking solutions

How to try it:

FOR $10M+ BRANDS:

• Analyze your website's filter and search data to identify the most common user behaviors

• A/B test ad messaging that directly speaks to these revealed preferences

• Segment your campaigns by the specific problems your data shows customers are trying to solve

• Create dedicated landing pages that match the messaging and continue the customer's filtering journey

STARTING OUT? TRY THIS:

• Check your website analytics for the most-used filters, search terms, or product categories

• Create one ad that specifically addresses the top behavior pattern you discover

• Test this specific messaging against your current generic positioning

• Use the same language in your ads that customers use when they filter or search on your site

🍱 THIS WEEK'S CONTENT BUFFET

These are some pieces of content that I felt inspired to write about.

I’m a little biased because two of my best friends are in this video.

S/o Henry and Mike - aka The Pointer Brothers.

But I think Cuts crushed it with this video.

I’m a huge Entourage fan.

Have probably seen the show no lie 8 times over.

This is an example of playing in the big leagues of marketing.

This is a brand awareness play.

It could take months or years to see a true ROI from this.

But what it does is create fans of the brand.

So stay tuned, maybe Nutre will do something similar.

Over the last few months, we’ve taken advice from outside consultants and agencies about our ad account at Nutre.

When things are going great, we start to lack confidence.

This led to restructuring things and making changes in our method.

But the truth is, nobody understands your business as much as you do.

It’s good to take advice from other people, but they don’t know the economics of your business.

Also when performance is down all of a sudden, typically it's due to outside factors.

For example, the economy isn't doing great. There are threats of World War III and consumer confidence is very low.

With all that taken into account for people probably aren't jumping at the idea of signing up for a meal delivery subscription.

This doesn't mean you don't make changes and try to do things, but you have to truly understand the full picture before you start messing around with things too much.

Right now we're gonna be spending the summer collecting data fixing holes and getting ready for a massive September push.

🍟 SWIPE OF THE WEEK

Why it's smart: 

• People don’t even realize it’s an Ad

• It’s entertaining to the MAX

Steal this idea: 

If you’re a brand, try to partner with people creating videos like this.

Or if you’re skilled enough - create your own AI avatars.

🧪 AI SECRET SAUCE

Tool/Prompt I'm Using: Zapier AI automation that creates SEO-optimized blog posts from trending topics, automatically researching and writing full articles that get published to Google Docs without any manual intervention.

Step 1: Topic Research & Setup:

• Use Manus (or similar trend research tool) to identify trending topics in your industry

• Create a Google Spreadsheet with columns: Topic, Target Keyword, Content Angle, Status

• Populate 20-30 trending topics that align with your brand and audience interests

• Set up Zapier to monitor this spreadsheet for new entries

Step 2: Zapier Automation Flow:

1. Trigger: New row added to Google Sheets (your topic list)

2. AI Action: ChatGPT/Claude creates SEO-optimized blog post using this prompt: "Write a 1,500-word SEO-optimized blog post about [Topic] targeting the keyword [Keyword]. Include: compelling headline, meta description, 5-7 H2 subheadings, internal linking opportunities, and actionable takeaways. Write in a conversational tone for [Your Audience]."

3. Output: Automatically create new Google Doc with the finished article

4. Notification: Send Slack/email notification when post is ready for review

Step 3: Quality Control & Publishing:

• Review AI-generated posts for brand voice and factual accuracy

• Add internal links to your existing content

• Upload to your CMS with proper SEO settings

• Track performance and feed winning topics back into your spreadsheet

How to use this approach:

• Start with 5-10 topics to test the automation quality before scaling

• Create topic templates for different content types (how-to, listicles, comparisons)

• Use trending data to prioritize which topics get automated first

• Set up weekly batches rather than continuous automation to maintain quality

Pro tip: Add this instruction to your AI prompt for better results: "Before writing, research the top 3 ranking articles for this keyword and identify content gaps or unique angles not covered. Structure the post to be more comprehensive than existing content while maintaining readability and including specific examples relevant to [Your Industry].

🧂 UNDERRATED TACTIC

Turn your highest-performing organic posts into ad creative.

Most brands create separate content for ads when their best organic posts already have proven engagement. If it got 500+ likes organically, it'll probably perform as a paid ad too.

Your audience already told you what works – just add budget behind it.

🧃 FOUNDER FUEL

🍽️ WHAT'S COOKING

Nutre is having it’s first major event called Sweat Social.

It’s pretty much a workout party with tons of sponsors.

450+ people have signed up for it.

Check it out here.

✌️ That’s All For This Week

Hope you guys got value out of this email.

If you have any specific questions or want me to cover any topics, just respond to this email and I'll do my best to get to them.

See you next week!