SEO Attribution Is COMPLETELY F**CKED, Dressing Nice Doesn't Make You More Money, How To Get A 50% Discount On Luxury Clothes

0:01Our mutual friend Gaetano posted this yesterday and basically the headline here is SEO attribution is completely effed right because all you're getting way more impressions impressions but you're not getting the clicks and so what should you do about attribution right let me tell you one thing no no give me the the cookies real quick okay so anyway the cookies over here guys i'm not getting paid to say this is everything sourdough right these are healthier cookies right like they have all these healthy ingredients i bought this off of i i i can't even attribute who tweeted this but i bought six bags instantly and then neil just ordered six bags over here i ordered six bags when i landed in miami for my event a couple weeks ago as i just got the bags and these are, I'm like, healthier cookies.

0:42Sounds amazing. That robot vacuum that I was telling you about that scans your whole place, that's about to arrive, right? I bought that for$1 ,200, but someone tweeted it and then I read a Wired article and I bought it. You cannot attribute that. I bought a Starlink mini the last week. I sent you the link to it. Why did I send it to you? Because there's a discount. So Elon retweeted a discount for 50 % off. I'm like, done, discount. But you got to pay a monthly fee. I know. I'm not going to pay the monthly fee. I can cancel. I can come and go for the 50 bucks a month or a hundred bucks a month or whatever it is.

1:11It's not a contract. Or do you have Wi-Fi or cell service on your iPad? No. I'm too cheap. Oh, so I do that. Yeah, I'm too cheap. I always do it because if I'm doing like a webinar or something, we have like 5 ,000 people and I get disconnected, I have a backup. How fast is it? It's really fast. Like, did you run it on fast.com? Here, if I actually disconnect from Wi-Fi right now. While you do that, I think the point of what I'm saying is that, you know, the quote, But remember in the 1800s, one guy, a really rich dude was like, you know, half my marketing works. I just don't know which half. Right.

1:45Yeah. And that that's that's OK. It's it's by the way, guys, this is called marketing school. But marketing is a subset of business. Business means doing a good job for your customers. And marketing is that supports that. It's not marketing first, then business. Go ahead. It's fast. So the download, it goes from 18 to 40. So it's somewhere in that range. Not fast enough. But it's fast enough for like a webinar or anything that you need to end up doing on it. I can stream Netflix. No problem High quality. Uh-huh. Really? Wow. Yeah Still this is the download speed here, but we're in a steel building right now The moment I go outside the reception But my point is you can't attribute this stuff like you just bought it the way I bought it It's like you just you just and I'm not saying don't think about attribution you should but I think the problem is 10-15 years ago Especially you and I like working in tech I think we over index on trying to attribute every little thing and that over obsession Actually ends up costing you over optimize and I know for a fact because you and I open google analytics every day It was an unhealthy obsession Yeah, but dude going back to the cookies and attribution there I eric was like, oh, this is the company.

2:49You just go to their website I googled everything sourdough and I could not find their website and he's like dude Just use the qr code on the back and their website was like everything sourdough co.com It wasn't even in the top 10 when I Googled. I'm like, this is terrible. But I was able to scan it and then buy it. But I agree with you. Attribution is getting tougher and tougher. And I think that's going to be the way it's going to continue moving forward. You have a vacuum that cleans your whole house. You're going to test it out soon. Let me know if it works. You're for sure going to buy it.

3:21But I saw on Instagram little mini goat carts that work inside your house. Goat carts? Uh-huh. and they're called like a like kid cleaner card or something like that i'm getting the name wrong but i know it has cleaner in there and it has a mop attachment that you put in the front and it puts like a swiffer pad at the bottom yeah so when my kids i got two of them one for each so when they zoom around it goes five miles i have wooden floors it straight up sweeps up everything on the floors do you buy it i've had it for a long time i saw instagram video of it it was like 200 something bucks each bought two of them my kids use it probably for 20 to 30 minutes a day they clean up the house sweep up like all the dust and everything without me doing anything that's great that see that could be attributed though so we're not seeing guys but how is it attributed no one knows because i saw instagram was that instagram shops or an ad no it was just an instagram video of someone showing organic posts and then i just google it and i found it on amazon yeah and then i go from there but three three touch points look at that yeah yeah Yeah.

4:24And when I Googled it, found it on Amazon. And then from there, I picked one. There was tons of different options, bought one of them. So our point here is guys, like, don't worry. Like, yes, you should, we're not saying don't, don't abdicate tracking. You should keep tracking whatever you can, but also don't over-index on tracking too much. And so when they say SEO attribution is completely effed, maybe, maybe not, but like, you know, do what you can, but then focus more on creating a good product and getting more word of mouth. Dude, but attribution, if you look at analytics, a lot of it's been not provided for ages.

4:56Over 10 years. Yeah, you use, I don't know how long, but it's been a long time. Use Google Search Console to get more data. It's hard to get exact conversion data for specific keywords. It's easier to get conversion data when you're actually bidding on the keyword and you can see it. And a lot of the studies we've done, we look at AdWords data to figure out which keywords mechanically convert the best. And by the way, like sometimes when I listen to some of these e-commerce podcasts, like they start using all these mixed media modeling, incrementality testing and all this shit. Right. And I'm just like, that sounds all cool, but you can't try to over index.

5:32And it starts to become this science. Right. But business is there's it's part science, but it's also part just delivering good value and being good to your customers and listening to your customers. So you got to do both. yes but i get why large corporations do the media mixed modeling because when you're spending a hundred million two hundred million totally you want some i'm talking about the e-commerce companies that are not even these large corporations that are over indexed like you're too small to over index on this stuff i agree and even the large corporations they do all this stuff yeah part of it is science part of it is gut feeling and art and then it's just going from there it's not or it's and right i think too many people have gone through or and and and that's what it is so that's why i say look website traffic is going down and sg like attribution might be going down as well um but you know that is your opportunity and i think uh what is this ran fish can i think he popularized like we're in this world of zero click marketing now but that is your opportunity to do well on youtube for example like we're spending more time on optimizing on youtube that's your chance to do better on other channels better on email maybe owning your audience as well.

6:38And so there's a lot of opportunity and it's very much a blue ocean when it comes to doing hard work. It's a red ocean with the easy work, right? So do the harder stuff and you'll be in a blue ocean, which means less competition. Yes. And I look at things like SEO, whether it's search everywhere optimization or the traditional SEO, you got to do this stuff to be top of mind and have your brand out there. If you don't, you're going to end up losing revenue. And I look at digital marketing turning into television advertising. When you think about television advertising companies for so many years, even right now, I know there's companies like Tartari that help track in when people have a internet based or connected TV to try to say, oh, they watch a commercial, then they went to your website and converted.

7:26It's not exact, but it kind of works. But I look at this whole model here of the traditional old school TV advertising where companies did it for a very long time and just got their brand out there this is why companies like amex or nike or mercedes coca-cola or coca-cola have done so well their brand is just out there because of all the years of just pushing brand related marketing yeah dude um we can come back to google on youtube in a second but um i just got this one so um palmer lucky was doing you know palmer lucky the enduro guy who's also uh did oculus yeah so he sold oculus to the meta And so I have this quote in here.

8:04I think he was doing an interview with Peter Diamandis. But let me just read this to you because you had a blog post on this a very long time ago. Okay. So you see Trump here. He's with one of the sheiks, right? I think this is from Saudi Arabia. So what is the sheik wearing? That's Doha. Doha. Doha. Okay. Qatar. Okay. So what is he wearing? He's wearing sandals. Okay. Similar to what I'm wearing right now, but mine are black. Yeah. Okay. And then Trump's dressed up really well, right? And Trump usually will wear like a suit. So the point is for them, that is dressed up. Yeah, but that's not casual.

8:36So they have different versions of that clothing. It's more so because it gets 120 degrees. They tend to wear all white. This part's fine. I think this is funny to me. I like, and I'm sure the sandals are nice and they're really expensive, right? But Harshdeep Rapal says, if you have enough money, no one asks you if you have a business suit or shoes. And then Palmer Luckey's like, this is definitely true of my experience. And then Palmer Luckey's got like this goatee, he's like always wearing shorts and stuff, right? Yeah. But the point is, we've talked about this before. Don't get me wrong. I think you and I, we like nice things.

9:05Let me establish that. We like nice things. But for the most part, I'm usually wearing yoga clothes. And then you're wearing a yoga... Viore. I wear Viore and Buck Mason. That's my daily outfit. So the thing here is, does dressing nice make you more money? I think it depends on the industry that you're in. So if you're doing real estate or if you're an investor, yes, you should probably wear a suit all the time, right? um but it doesn't it just depends on the industry that you're in um but i think what we found is that dressing nice at least for me i'll speak for myself doesn't typically make me more money because i i have you know i have the cool suits and all that type of stuff but i hardly wear it because it's not comfortable to me so no do you do you actually have suits yeah of course i have like i have like usually you're supposed to have a couple go-tos like that's that's what i have I bought one recently and it's my only suit.

9:54Really? Yeah. But you had so many... I don't fit in them anymore. Oh, that's right. I've gained like 10 pounds. Yeah, but you used to have a lot. I remember your Vegas closet. Like 20 to 30 suits. That's a lot. And tuxes and stuff like that. That's a lot. And then sport coats and jackets and all that stuff. Yeah, you gave me one. I still have one of your sports coats. The Tom Ford one, right? So the point here is... And by the way, you used to have a stylist and everything. And now you don't care as much anymore. I think the stuff is still nice. but you don't care as much. When I first started my business, the overwhelm was real.

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12:37I think that's probably my go-to store. I'm assuming that's yours as well. That's the best. before you know i shopped a lot at loropeana i think the majority of my my wardrobe is from loropeana tom ford probably an ex brunello is the newest brand but i've been shopping with them for a while now and i would say those are probably the three main places you know where my clothes are from so you want a discount on it one of our mutual friends because he's so good with people can get a like a 40 50 discount on prunello i don't really buy much anymore okay see that just let us know in the future yeah so and this is what i was getting to you know i've been working with uh some of the same people for so many years and some of them know that i end up spending money on clothes like a lot of my loro hoodies are like four or five thousand dollars a pop but they look like twenty dollar you know just casual hoodies yeah and i wear them not because of the brand you can't see the logo you know unless you i take it off and it's on the inside and it's just a tag i wear them because it's soft and they're super comfortable and i have a lot of the same ones in case you know kids spits up on it or one rips yeah one rips um but going through that whole process i bought a lot of fancy clothes and you know a lot of people i work with always tell me you spend all this money on clothes you don't really wear any of them and i'm like what do you mean?

14:04They're like, if you look at what you really wear, you wear, I tend to wear Viori. I don't know what they're called, like yoga pants, right? Well, let's call it a hundred bucks. And I have one for every day of the week. It's the same exact color, looks exactly the same. There's no difference. I just have duplicates of them. And I wear these Buckmation t-shirts, which I don't know how much they cost, 20, 30 bucks, 40, 50 max. And I have 20 of them in my closet or 30 or something like that. And I buy them like once or twice a year, but they're just like, you have all this nice stuff. This is all you wear.

14:35And you usually put a sweater on top. That's typically blue or gray in color. And it's Laura Piana. And it's just a standard, normal looking sweater that I may have spent a thousand something to 4 ,000 bucks on. And I tend to wear the ones that are a thousand to 2 ,000 the most, because other than the hoodies, the hoodies are expensive, but they're just the most comfortable. And they're just like, you start shopping at Brunello and Tom was like, you are none of it. I'm like, oh yeah, this is a good point. And I started looking at how much I'm spending on shopping a year. I didn't go back long enough, but I was looking at my credit card statements.

15:09Call it on average 20 grand a month for clothes. I don't really wear any of it. So over the last few months, I just cut it all off. And my closet is still the same size. And when I look at what I actually wear, because I'm really paying attention now to what I pick, No joke. I wear like three or four sweaters, same white t-shirts, same pants, same shoe. And that's it. And I don't wear anything else in my closet, even though I have it. And I've gotten to the point because I still speak a lot. I have these like gray dress pants from Loro Piana. They won't make me any more of them because they don't have the fabric anymore.

15:45And I have like 12 or 13. But, you know, I was talking to my wife and I was like, do you think I can get away speaking in Viori yoga pants? And she's like, don't go that far. Why not? And look at what Gary Vee wears when he's doing it. Dude, that's what I was saying. I was like, but why can't I? I don't want to wear dress pants anymore. And, you know, because my business is global and we're in so many countries, in certain countries, like in Asia, like when I go to Hong Kong, everyone dresses up. So in certain countries, I would feel more uncomfortable wearing the yoga pants. But still, I'm like, why can't I?

16:25Who the crap cares? Well, your sweater is nice enough, so how are they going to know, right? That's my perspective. Because usually you're wearing a nice sweater up top, and the other stuff is just yoga and your inside is still a Henley. And by the way, when you look at Gary, he's always wearing a hat, right? He's always wearing a T-shirt or whatever. And so that's just who he is. And so my point is we've gotten older now where maybe that stuff might have mattered in our 20s. I just don't care anymore. Yeah, that's true. I think I should just try speaking at conferences and wearing yoga pants.

16:54I thought you've been doing that already no I wear the Loro Piana dress pants they look the same to me I'm sorry they look the same to me no but they're slacks you can tell that they're slacks they have a crease in the middle this is how much I don't care I just to me you look the same because also guys don't care too yeah guys don't care but here's what I want to call it too like so yes Neil had a blog post a long time ago this is like in our mid-20s or so on how he spent X amount of dollars and it made him this amount but like it wasn't like a huge amount at the end of the day right It helped.

17:25It was revenue, not profit that I made. So I'd probably still say it was a loss because if you look at how much I spent on clothes, when you're generating revenue, there's expenses on that. But the big thing I would say when I did that article and I did that experiment, times have changed. Back then, more people dressed up than they do now. I think we've gone to athleisure wear culture. Well, it's because tech made it cool, right? A lot of tech people, Mark Zuckerberg just wore whatever. But now Mark Zuckerberg is wearing nice things. Yeah, but if you look, That article is more than 10 years old, right?

17:57Athleisure wear wasn't as popular as it is now. It was starting to become, it was on its way up. It was on its way up, but it was nowhere near where it is now. And especially in the corporate world, people were not wearing athleisure wear. Now they wear athleisure wear. And then the other thing is, and I would still say this is relevant, when you're younger, I think it matters much more than when you're older. if you're an entrepreneur and you're 18 or 20 years old people look at you differently than when you're 30 or 40 right you've got to make a good first impression yes in your 30s 40s you can just tell the way you carry yourself in a conversation they can tell whether you've been there or not um so like it's so does dressing nice like does it make you like for us right now it doesn't necessarily i would i wouldn't say it makes us more or less i would say in our younger years probably it does um and you kind of have to prove yourself in your earlier 20s right here's what i will say though, if you want to get 50 % off from luxury brands like a Brunello or a Laurel Piana.

18:54So one of our mutual friends does this. The way he does this is he basically becomes really good friends with whatever store associate. And he's tipping them all the time on the side, right? $1 ,000 gift here,$5 ,000 gift here,$4 ,000 gift here. And then whatever he goes to buy things, he buys a bunch at the same time. And that's how he gets 40, 50 % off. Cause a lot of these sales associates, they get a big discount. And so if there's one thing that he stands out with, it's always becoming really good friends. Like whenever we go to a hotel or whatever, he's always pre-tipping a lot. And I actually stole this from him.

19:25So there's this health network thing that we've used. And I actually helped his daughter, his friend's niece actually with a rare condition. So I went through the YPO network and then they have this health thing, right? So I reached out and then what I did on the side was, I was like, I just copied what he did. So I just sent like a couple of thousand dollars on the side and then boom, she's taking care of us with everything. And they got that health condition, into super rare taken care of. And then I told that mutual friend and he's like, oh my God, that's so genius. I was like, it's not genius at all.

19:53I just copied you. So this goes all the way around. It's just like, sometimes you just take care of someone else first. It's the rule that you learn from the book Persuasion. If I give you something by default, you feel like you owe me, right? Which is why like, I never want you to buy me something and I never want you, you never want me to buy you food or whatever. I just don't want to owe you. Like psychologically, that's just how it is. On a side note, I just looked up Darmesh Shah HubSpot speech. I was just curious to see what he'd wear. He doesn't wear anything special. He just wears usually like a T-shirt.

20:23Agent AI T-shirt. Sometimes it's a collared shirt, like kind of buttoned up, but not like fully. I don't even know if he tucks it in. But you can see a T-shirt underneath. Yeah. And yes, he is like 100 plus times more successful than I am. Congrats to him on owning OpenAI shares. Oh, yeah. He's going to crush it on that one. But I was like, wait, I should just probably start wearing t-shirts and yoga pants for everything. I'm going to just start trying that out instead of dressing up at all. Why don't you just have a shirt that says search everywhere optimization? No, I like my Buck Mason t-shirts.

20:57You know, Tim Solo from Ahrefs wears a lot of t-shirts. I like wearing it. I wear his t-shirts, by the way, the Ahrefs shirts. They're nice. He dresses up, though. He does wear a blazer on top of it. Yes, and his shoes are Xenia second skin shoes. Yeah, like a thousand something dollars. Yeah, yeah. Well, he does well. He does well. He does extremely well. Yeah. All right. We will see you tomorrow. Please don't forget to rate, view, and subscribe.