Alice Zhang founder of MyPocketCFO interviews Pennock Founder

Pennock Digital is a female-led ads management agency specializing in helping DTC brands scale from $7 to $8 and $9 figures per year.

I had the opportunity to sit down for a conversation with Nikki Lindgren.

MyPocket CFO: How long has Pennock Digital been around and what led you to start it?

Nikki Lindgren: I officially launched the agency, Pennock, as the COVID pandemic was hitting in March 2020. Prior to that, I had managed Pennock as a consultancy for a few years, working with a freelance team. In 2020, all new team members were hired as full-time employees. Hiring FTE was a significant move for me because I wanted to retain 100% control over our output, which was something we were not able to do with freelancers. Since 2020, we have served over 75 clients in the CPG, beauty, and lifestyle space and have managed $30M in ad spend.

Why did I start Pennock? Well, I had worked in-house at DTC brands and agency side. When I was in-house, it was my job to hire and manage our agency partners, so I felt like I had a deep understanding of the nuances within the agency and client relationship, and that I could bring a team together that worked more closely with clients on aligned outcomes. Since launching, we’ve retained most clients for over 2.5 years.

MyPocket CFO: That’s awesome. Female-led seems to be a message you market. Why is that important?

Nikki Lindgren: At first, it wasn’t. Neither was working with only eCom brands within CPG, beauty, and lifestyle. In the early days, my MO was casting the widest net possible to ensure we maximized agency revenues.

I finally got wiser in 2022 when we learned our unique selling propositions were within a few categories and working with female marketing teams and female leadership client-side. We’ve predominantly been a firm of people who identify as female, so pushing this message became a natural extension of what was happening organically within our team structure.

MyPocket CFO: What are the number one concerns of brands within the paid ads space right now?

Nikki Lindgren: Keeping up! Creative output is at an all-time high. Landing page tests are also high, and we need to strategize with our brands to make sure they are excelling across all fronts. Also, brands are questioning the value of ad-buying, and with all the innovations in LLM and AI, I don’t blame them. As an agency, it’s our job to show (and prove) how we do things better than AI. This may not always be the case; sometime in the future, it’s possible that ad-buying will be done primarily by AI, so we need to stay agile enough to prove strategy and other values for our brands.

MyPocket CFO: Speaking of creative and landing pages, what works?

Nikki Lindgren: Where do I even start? Well, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all, but there are a few playbooks to follow. With creative, quality content, at scale, is key. For every $2-$3K in spend, a new asset is required (varies a bit by platform). The types of assets winning right now are low-fi video 0:10-0:30 seconds in length. The video will serve two main purposes. One: to educate those unaware of the problem, solution, and brand. Two: to convince the audience that “our” product is the best for them. As it relates to landing pages. We need to test moving content sections around on the mobile page to figure out what iteration generates the highest time on page and conversion rate. Sometimes this will be leading with different elements than your competitors. Again, being authentic is key here. Using a product like Fermat can help simplify the landing page development process for teams that are light on internal resources.

MyPocket CFO: Going back to AI, what products are generating value within the ad space?

Nikki Lindgren: We’ve been looking at different AI to augment our creative process, everything from creative briefs and creative development as well as ad buying and campaign management. No AI has wowed us that much that we are going to use to do 100% of ad buying, creative development, etc. But there are solutions that are getting closer to having capabilities of a person and we’ll start layering them into the agency as we see fit. And of course, we have ChatGPT prompts for days to help with everything from media planning to ad copywriting. It helps carry us past the first draft, but beyond that - it’s pretty hands-on by a human!

MyPocket CFO: What are a few tips you’d give early-stage founders to scale?

Nikki Lindgren: Nail down owned media and earned media before launching paid ads. You have to have a stable foundation in these channels before moving into ads. Why? You NEVER want more than 60% of your monthly revenue coming from ads, it doesn’t pan out in the long run (unless of course, you are funded and are focused on growth!).

MyPocket CFO: What keeps you up at night?

Nikki Lindgren: Thinking about new opportunities for my team members to grow and new test campaigns we can run for clients. My team's tenure with Pennock as well as our client's tenure with us is really important to me.

MyPocket CFO: Thanks, Nikki, this has been great!

Nikki Lindgren, an agency founder and startup advisor, is reshaping the landscape of beauty and lifestyle brand marketing with a human-centric approach. Over two decades, she has left her mark on the strategies of more than 228 brands, including Kinship, Juvia's Place, Face Reality Skincare, YesTo Skincare, QUAY Australia, Chronicle Books, Fred Segal, Hunter Bell, Marco Bicego, and DedCool.

As a trailblazer in scaling DTC businesses, Nikki excels in driving customer acquisition and revenue growth. Her innovative marketing strategies, blending talent, automation, and tools, have consistently delivered +65% month-over-month growth for clients. At the helm of Pennock, where she serves as founder and managing partner, Nikki has overseen the management of over $100 million in digital media. From high-growth tech startups to established household brands, Nikki guides her clients in leveraging their strategic advantages to achieve impressive ROAS.

Nikki's extensive experience spans a spectrum of marketing domains, including search engine marketing, pay-per-click, paid social, display advertising, remarketing/intent-based marketing programs, performance marketing, mobile/video marketing, organic search, app store optimization, native advertising, and influencer/blogger relationships.