Lenny's PodcastTimothy Davis: How Shopify validates new ad platforms fast
Through signs of life tests on 1% Meta lookalikes, Shopify proves a paid channel; agencies kickstart the work, then internal teams own the playbook fast.
Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- July 28, 2024
- Duration
- 1h 42m
- Channel
- Lenny's Podcast
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Timothy Davis has led performance marketing for all of Shopify for the past 2.5 years, and as a consultant has helped companies like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Redfin, and Eventbrite kickstart and scale their performance marketing teams. In every one of those cases, he got them so performant at paid growth that they significantly scale spend and investment in these channels. In our conversation, we cover:
- When and how to start investing in performance marketing
- Common mistakes companies make with paid ads
- How to build and structure a performance marketing team
- How to get your creatives performing better
- Strategies for optimizing workflows and team efficiency
- How AI will change performance marketing
- Much more
— Brought to you by:
- BuildBetter—AI for product teams: https://buildbetter.ai/lenny
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Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/performance-marketing-timothy-davis Where to find Timothy Davis:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothypatrickdavis/ Where to find Lenny:
- Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
- X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Timothy’s background (02:31) Understanding performance marketing (06:31) The importance of paid search (08:39) Identifying growth potential (09:54) Case studies: Hairstory and Ipsy (12:22) Experimenting with new platforms (18:57) Choosing the right platforms (20:23) LinkedIn for B2B marketing (27:56) When to start investing in paid growth (33:33) Common mistakes in performance marketing (37:41) Working with agencies and consultants (40:36) Hiring for performance marketing (47:33) Metrics that matter (54:43) Competitor analysis and CPC insights (56:15) Custom reports and data visualization (56:38) Understanding impression and click share (59:10) True competition metrics (01:02:14) Attribution and incrementality (01:08:52) Building a performance marketing team (01:10:53) Creative and ad copy collaboration (01:15:48) Managing workload and hiring strategy (01:20:52) Training and onboarding new hires (01:24:41) Impact of ATT on performance marketing (01:25:56) The power of creative in ads (01:29:47) Using AI in performance marketing (01:37:16) Lightning round Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
SPEAKERS
Lenny Rachitsky
hostTimothy Davis
guestChristina (OneSchema CEO/founder)
guestNarrator
other
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Lenny Rachitsky and Timothy Davis, Timothy Davis: How Shopify validates new ad platforms fast explores shopify’s Timothy Davis Reveals How To Win With Paid Growth Timothy Davis, who leads performance marketing at Shopify, breaks down how companies of all stages should approach paid growth and performance marketing. He argues that “paid is for everyone,” with search as a near-universal starting point, and shares how to run low-risk “signs of life” tests across platforms. Davis dives into tactics for targeting, creative, measurement, attribution, incrementality, and how to interpret dense ad-platform data. He also explains when to hire agencies vs. in‑house talent, how to structure a performance team, and which emerging channels are worth exploring.
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