The Pennock Knockdown: How Creative Testing Can Supercharge Your Ads
Watch or Listen to Episode 4 with Cassidy Mace
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Cassidy Mace is a Pennock Marketing manager with more than 10 years of experience in marketing. Her background ranges from sports and entertainment to fashion and beauty marketing.
Brands Mentioned
Transcript
Nikki Lindgren
Welcome to another episode of The Pennock Knockdown, a podcast for unpacking key strategies and tactics for digital marketing leaders. Today, I'm joined by our very own Cassidy Mace. Cassidy, welcome to the show.
Cassidy
Thank you. I'm excited to talk to you, Nikki.
Nikki Lindgren
Cassidy, you have a pretty lengthy experience across digital marketing overall. You've worked with entertainment brands, sports brands. You've worked with local businesses, I think businesses that are franchised. And now at Pennock, you are account managing and leading a handful of strategies for beauty, lifestyle, and some Med Spa clients. So, really excited to unpack some of your key insights today.
We like to start with a softball and ask about any beauty products that you've recently discovered and are trying or are excited to try.
Cassidy
Off the top of my head, one of them I'm most excited about is MOB Beauty. I'm typically pretty low-key, like a drugstore girl, but finding MOB—they’re super affordable. You can make like a whole customizable palette with exactly what you want. So, it's not like a palette where you use like one or two colors, which has been really nice for me.
I like to travel, like do just a little personal item or whatever—you can slip it in. So, that's been really nice for me, a nice alternative to just running to Target. And you feel a little bit better about it because it's, you know, a small business. It's clean, definitely just makes you feel a little bit better about it.
Nikki Lindgren
To interject quickly, because you're the second guest who's brought up MOB Beauty as one of their favorite new beauty brands. It's exciting to hear that MOB is creating more of an awareness play for themselves, and people know them a lot better than they did in the past.
Cassidy
Yeah, definitely. It's been fun to see some of the organic things that have come through for them. They've had some really cool, random reviews from people who just found them. I think especially their foundation—the shade range is really appealing to a lot of people. And I really like the foundation just for the formula too.
So, that's really nice. And then in the skincare line, I'm really excited. I started using Tretinoin because I'm turning 30 this year. So, hopefully, that will make a good difference for me. Yeah.
Nikki Lindgren
Lovely, awesome. Nothing like a good anti-aging product, right?
Cassidy
Yeah, hopefully it works.
Nikki Lindgren
Awesome, well, thank you for sharing some of your favorites at the moment. We at The Pennock Knockdown aim to really figure out playbooks and recipes for success within the digital space. And I know we already talked about some of the details of your role here with us at Pennock, but I'd love to have you spend a couple of minutes walking through strategies you've launched that have either excelled or flopped and what you think kind of put them in that light or that position.
Cassidy
I used to work in internal marketing, just with one company at a time. But I think what's been really interesting about agency work is that I get to work with a lot of different brands, and they all kind of come with their unique challenges and opportunities.
And one of those opportunities actually happened here at Pennock. I had a client who had very extreme fluctuations in performance when they had organic launches or promos going on—something I’d never really seen before. Without specific creative related to the launch or promo in their paid, just from the organic piece, we would see up to like a 27X ROAS. So, that was something very new for me and very cool.
Nikki Lindgren
Huge.
Cassidy
But really the question there on our side of things was, okay, well, what do we do with that? How do we need to change our strategy to match that when that's something that is not very typical for a lot of clients and is something that's really great to see?
So, with that, we made an adjustment to our strategy to really spend higher on those days where they're seeing that really big launch, ramping up to that slowly so we're not sending anything back into learning. And, you know, really just maximize that profitability when they're having those really unique moments.
On the flip side of that, it came with kind of a unique challenge of proving the benefit of paid media to that client. Because, you know, if they're having these really amazing, great organic moments, and they're going to have that regardless, why are they putting money behind it?
So, that came on the other side of things—just really talking to them and making sure that we had a really consistent performance on the days when that wasn't happening. So, in diving into that deeper, we've actually been able to maintain a 4X ROAS on days where that's not happening.
So, you know, I like to tell them if you never had another promo, if you never had another product launch again, you would still have a 4X ROAS from paid. So, it really is a good place for your money to be. But really such a unique strategy that we had to fly with and figure out in real time, and it has been really helpful in learning for other clients how we can be super fluid and adapt to their individual businesses.
Nikki Lindgren
I know we've, as an agency with so many clients over the years, had others that have similar success rates with launches or collection drops. So figuring out the right mix client by client is something that is really not a one-size-fits-all. Like another example of a client we have is on their collection launch days, we usually spend minimally and let their email program—like their VIP best customer program—be what generates the sales on those days.
Then, day two of the new collection drop is where we really ramp up paid media. But it’s interesting because, as you mentioned, there are so many different ways to do this. And then, for brands that don’t have launches or promos, we typically find ourselves spending the same average amount day over day unless we notice trends like weekends performing better or worse. In those cases, we do bid adjustments systematically.
Really crazy—you’re talking about a 27X ROAS on the days of product launches and promos. That’s insane.
Cassidy
Yeah, I mean, it’s really cool. Overall, it was a great learning experience for me, leaning into what works for a client and using that to help lift other parts of their business. We’ve used paid ads to help grow their email list, boost organic reach, and even get them over to TikTok. So it’s been nice to help build up other parts of their business and also apply those learnings to other clients who might not have a lot built up in those areas. It’s all about leaning into what works and using that success to create better opportunities in other marketing channels.
Nikki Lindgren
I know we’ve recently wrapped up seasonal timeframes with Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us. Was there anything different about what you had planned versus what actually came through?
Cassidy
Nothing super different from what I was expecting. Definitely, our clients with really clear messaging, strong promo assets, and a good offer saw strong results. Nothing was super surprising there. Urgency messaging really shone, as it has in most of our past promos.
Nikki Lindgren
Looking at some of the other accounts we’re on that you’re maybe not involved with, and just reading the literature out there, it seems like image assets worked better than expected this year. Static text overlays—those big takeover assets—seemed like a moment of relief from the craziness of video-heavy digital marketing.
Another thing I noticed was that I didn’t see a ton of evergreen assets during Thanksgiving or Giving Tuesday. It was all promo content. In years past, keeping evergreen content live was part of the equation and best practice for some clients. It’ll be interesting to see how we approach 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday because the digital landscape could change so much by then.
Cassidy
I kept running business-as-usual campaigns, but for my clients, their business-as-usual campaigns tend to see an automatic lift during promo times because they have really strong landing pages with promotional messaging. For next year, I’ll be thinking about website design and messaging—what that looks like across the board. Does it make sense to continue running business-as-usual campaigns if that messaging is clear and available?
Nikki Lindgren
What would you say is the hardest topic with clients right now? How are you navigating those conversations? What’s on their minds?
Cassidy
Honestly, attribution is a big one. We’ve talked about this internally a lot—explaining the value of paid ads, especially when platforms don’t attribute correctly. GA4 tends to underrepresent revenue coming from Meta and often gives more credit to Google Ads. It’s been a challenge to show clients that Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, and other platforms are strong places to invest.
We’ve been focusing on giving clients numbers they can trust, talking about top-line performance, and contextualizing what we’re seeing in-platform versus what GA4 reports. It’s a tough conversation, but it’s essential.
Nikki Lindgren
We’ve talked about using Shopify as a source of truth. How are you finding that data compared to GA4?
Cassidy
Shopify feels like a middle ground—it’s better than GA4 in some ways, but I wouldn’t use it as the number one source of truth. I mostly use Shopify to discuss other channels like email and how they’re performing in relation to paid media. But even Shopify’s attribution for Meta is so different from in-platform data that it’s hard to rely on.
Nikki Lindgren
That’s where Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) comes in. It’s a great catch-all for assessing overall business performance. Do clients respond well to that, or is it still a bit foreign?
Cassidy
We’ve found MER to be really helpful when attribution feels cloudy. It helps us focus on the overall business impact—top-line performance, month-over-month and year-over-year growth.
For Meta specifically, we’ve had great success showing that 75-90% of customers purchasing through Meta are new customers. That’s been a strong talking point. We’ve also adjusted attribution windows to align better with client expectations, but sometimes metrics like new vs. returning customers resonate more with them. It’s about showing the value of these platforms in a way that clients can understand and trust.
Nikki Lindgren
Meta and Google now allow us to look at new customer revenue and ROAS or CAC versus total customers. I feel like platform-side enhancements will continue to make the case for trusting platform data.
Nikki Lindgren
Our buyers are looking for vendors in general, and our buyers would be the CMOs or VPs at Brand-side who are looking for partners like Pennock to run paid, you know, other programs like email, organic social, etc. What do you think these service buyers are looking for from their vendors in 2025?
Cassidy Mace
Yeah, definitely. I think there has been quite a bit of change in the time I've been in marketing. I mean, I know I haven't been in marketing as long as some people, but even in the last, like, five years, I've seen a really big shift in what people are looking for. I think, at this point, it's not enough to meet goals, to hit your ROAS, to, you know, meet expectations. You really need to be driving the strategy and the next steps for the clients beyond what your kind of, quote-unquote, contracted business is.
So with that, we've been really lucky. We have some really amazing clients and great partners where they've allowed us to, you know, kind of step into different areas and give them advice and, you know, even send them references to maybe other agencies if it's something that we're not particularly in-house with. But definitely, like, digging into their landing pages, looking at their email, seeing how everything is being impacted overall, as well as just driving overall long-term marketing strategy versus month-over-month.
So something that's been a big project for us internally with all the account managers is building out 2025 calendars. Looking at, okay, here are the promos we've seen worked in the past. Here's what we would recommend. Here are the budgets we're recommending. You know, not just saying, okay, we spent ten thousand dollars last month, so let's spend ten thousand dollars this month. Really being strategic and, again, kind of making sure we're putting money where it makes the most sense. I always like to think of it as, like, investing as if it's your own money. You want to make sure you're getting the most out of it.
So I think that's really what we've been seeing from clients. And even before I came over to Pennock, something that I was seeing start to happen and definitely something we're focusing on internally to make sure that we are on top of as clients are having that raised expectation for agencies.
Nikki Lindgren
Yeah, and so in summary, back to, like, the raised expectation, it’s really a strategy that delivers profitability, not just top line or something other, like saying we hit our ROAS KPI or whatever it was. Okay, love that. Yeah, and I know Cassidy personally has done a huge lift in terms of analyzing and auditing email flows for brands, landing page recommendations, and experiences to kind of make sure—
Cassidy Mace
Yeah, definitely.
Nikki Lindgren
—the conversion rates in other channels are working well for brands. So I think that's definitely a value add that a lot of partners might not offer and a lot of brands probably wouldn't expect from a marketing agency that's primarily paid media and SEO.
Cassidy Mace
I think there's a lot of opportunities, and our whole team is really strong. If you find something that could use improvement, you know, either taking that on ourselves or really giving them the next steps to address things internally. So even though we are a digital marketing agency, that doesn't mean that our partnership ends at, you know, paid ads.
Nikki Lindgren
So true, and I feel like we've been giving so many referrals out to our handful of vetted partners for areas of marketing that complement us. So I do think that the connection is formulating, and brands are knowing that they don't just need paid media to grow their business; they need a lot more than that these days.
And speaking of just changes in 2025 in general, what do you think is going to happen for the digital landscape around marketing mixes, even like stacks or technologies? Anything that you're keeping your eye on in terms of leading changes that you think brands should be implementing?
Cassidy Mace
This is more maybe of, like, a personal hope for, you know, specifically brands I've been lucky enough to work with. I'd really like to see more brands, especially kind of in the early days, VC area, really invest in awareness, work on building up those earned and owned organic channels, spending on awareness on paid. I think what happens a lot of times is people don't see that immediate, you know, return. Obviously, if we're spending fully in conversion, you can see that change in revenue, you know, weeks, days, a month max, versus awareness takes a little bit longer. But, you know, speaking again about the really great organic lift that having strong awareness can give to your paid, to your email, to everything, I think it's such an important—
And I'd really love to see more clients and just more businesses in general really invest in building up those channels. Kind of hand-in-hand with that, obviously, I think everybody talks about all the time, but more and more brands are going over towards TikTok. TikTok's really starting to get, you know, things put together, creating some really great programs for brands to get involved, get working with partners, start spending in ads.
And TikTok is a really amazing awareness platform. That's really where I've seen the most strength for my clients on TikTok, through awareness—really low CPMs. I think it's a great place to connect. So that, for me, again, is really more personal, that I'd like to see people really start to invest there. I know it's easy to just go for the ROAS and go for the conversion for the revenue right now. But when you're talking about long-term business growth, really investing in those is what's going to build you up over time and just create a much better strategy for you year over year versus relying so heavily on paid.
Nikki Lindgren
And I have to ask you, because of the work you're doing at Pennock right now, which is mainly paid media, what do you think brands are getting wrong? Like, say it's a brand-new brand, it's been around for just a couple of months, we're setting up their ads accounts, we're probably spending less than 15K a month on ads. What are brands getting wrong in terms of output or expectations in those early months together of running ads?
Cassidy Mace
Yeah, I mean, I think it is really kind of an impatience. And I understand it. Like, I understand you want to see immediate results. And the thing is, like, we can probably get you immediate results, but it's not going to be the best for your business overall. And again, like, we always really try to think of us as a partner for brands. So again, like, I'm constantly recommending, let's build up your awareness, let's get—
You know, that top of funnel ready, so that way we can really make a lot more impact at the bottom of funnel versus just running, you know, an ASC campaign to everybody and, like, you know, getting okay ROAS. But, you know, so I think it's really just people not willing to give it time, sometimes maybe just not listening to good advice as much as I hate to say that.
When you hire a digital marketing agency, it's really nice if you trust them as the digital marketing experts, and you let them do their jobs, and you let them help your business grow. Because at the end of the day, that's all we want. And sometimes it feels like we're all going towards the same goal, but we're fighting about how to get there. So that's definitely something that I sometimes see, especially newer brands that are just kind of like, we need something, and we need it now, struggling with, is not giving it any time to really see long-term and sustained growth.
Nikki Lindgren
Yeah.
Yeah, and I would say because creative is so much of the formula these days for ads, understanding the trends of creative early on for new assets that have gone live, but also, like, politely raising our hands and telling clients in advance of an ad going live if we know the creative really just isn't up to snuff and it's not what is getting the response the brand is looking for. Because budget can be wasted quite quickly if the assets are weak. And I know we've recently partnered with Motion, and we use Best Ever for some creative lifts. Having more creative real-time insights at our fingertips, I think, has really helped elevate the conversation and the results the clients are getting.
Cassidy Mace
Luckily, we've had some really amazing creatives, and honestly, sometimes it's a volume game. I guess the other piece of, you know, brands really early on not giving the opportunity to test. Like, every brand is a little bit different. You know, we have some brands that really resonate with some creatives, and we're always gonna give advice, but you don't know until you see how it connects with your individual audience. So,
you know, having a volume of creatives so that we can test different things, not just, we've run these in the past, just, like, let's reflight these five creatives that have done well in the past. Allowing us to turn down creatives when they do start to fatigue, having those to come up and fill that space is really helpful. So it definitely takes some time to test, but again, it's gonna get you better long-term results.
Nikki Lindgren
There's nothing worse as an ad buyer than watching something fatigue and knowing you have nothing you can do about it because you're just waiting for that next set of creatives to come through. So definitely a painful position for any ad buyer to be in.
Cassidy Mace
Yeah, as you pointed out, Motion has been really great in helping us identify opportunities for iterating on strong ads. So, you know, sometimes you don't need an entirely new creative. Maybe we take the concept and we just tweak a couple of things, or we take the first five seconds of one video and put it with the call to action of another. So, another great opportunity, especially with those clients that maybe have a little bit more of a struggle, like generating new content, is it's given us the opportunity to help fill that gap for them.
Nikki Lindgren
In fact, you shared out, I think it was earlier this week with our team, that a test you recently ran and tracked on Motion was around logos in meta ad assets versus no logos. And what we found is, like, don't put logos in your brand assets. Your experience and your ad presence within the platform is already branded. The asset itself doesn't also need the branding. So, I think that was a good learning.
Cassidy Mace
Yeah, so that was one opportunity where, you know, kind of our hypothesis was proven wrong. So we tested not only logo versus no logo, but also a text overlay, just highlighting a USP or, you know, a tagline with that specific thing. And we found what really was resonating with the consumers was just the image. They were really enjoying that, and that's what was getting people to click. That's what was getting people to convert. So, even though we recommended the test, like, "Hey, let's put a logo, let's put the copy on there," what we found is just the images are really what's resonating. But that's good because that can help influence our future recommendations to that client. So, it's good to run the test.
Nikki Lindgren
Always be testing, right?
Cassidy Mace
Right.
Nikki Lindgren
My final question for you is really around advice you'd give yourself. So, if you were starting all over again in this business, being a marketer, what advice would you give your younger self?
Cassidy Mace
Yes. Yeah, that's hard because I'm obviously very happy with where I ended up. And you start to think if you changed anything earlier on. I know I definitely think I maybe would have challenged myself to get into specifically digital earlier on because I was really in like the full marketing mix—organic, running websites, that kind of thing. But, again, I think that's what gives me a little extra edge with some of our clients right now, is having that experience.
So, if I was actually to give myself advice, I'd probably just say to have a little bit more confidence. I've been so lucky to work with really amazing people, have really, really cool experiences where sometimes, you know, I felt maybe even a little bit out of my depth, but it took me a while to realize that I actually have a good instinct. You know, I know what I'm talking about, and that I can actually be somebody who helps others. I can be that, you know, kind of learning role to other people, which is really all I wanted to be in marketing. So, I wish I had that confidence a little bit earlier to just trust myself and go with my gut. And definitely, feedback I got earlier in my career was just not being fully confident in what I was saying, even when I knew what I was talking about. So, definitely wish I would have gotten that down a little bit faster.
Nikki Lindgren
That's really good advice. Thank you for sharing.
Cassidy, it was great having you on today's episode. I assume we'll be seeing more of you in the future as we learn about more tips and tricks as quarters pass, and algorithms change, and technologies change. So, looking forward to future moments with you. As we wrap, is there any way people should be getting in touch with you if they want to learn more or chat with you about today's topics?
Cassidy Mace
I think the best way would be through Pennock's website. I think I'm on there. I think all my contact info is on there. If not, just submit a little thing. DM. It'll get to me somehow. But definitely through Pennock is the best option.
Nikki Lindgren
Thank you so much for your time today, Cassidy.
Cassidy Mace
Hey, thank you so much.
