Millennials vs. Gen Z: How They Spend, Scroll and Shop

0:00Hi, everyone. This is Scalable, a weekly show about the business of the creator economy.

0:04Jasmine Enberg: I'm Kaya Yurieff. And I'm Jasmine Enberg. Every Thursday, we take you beyond the headlines to tell you what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. Betches is turning 15 this year. As millennial women ourselves, this is both such an exciting milestone and makes us feel really old. We now reach one in two young women online this year. Revenues are up 70 % year over year. The NFL told me we have the most coveted audience in the industry. We're going to discuss some of the similarities and differences between millennials and Gen Z, who also now make up a big part of Betcha's core audience.

0:40Jasmine Enberg: And sorry in advance to Gen Z, it's not all as different as you would like to think.

0:50Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Kaya. And hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into Scalable, our weekly show about the business of the creator economy.

0:58Jasmine Enberg: Betches is turning 15 this year. That means the quintessential millennial woman media brand is now half as old as the youngest millennials who will turn 30 this year. As millennial women ourselves, this is both such an exciting milestone and makes us feel really old. Later in the show, we'll go deeper into Betches' business and growth ambitions with Maggie Milnamau, who is the new chief commercial officer at Betches, whose voice you just heard at the top of the episode. Maggie previously worked at Business Insider and the New York Times, and she told us that Betches now reaches one out of every two young women online.

1:30And this year, revenue is also up 70 % from 2025. But to kick things off, we're going to discuss some of the similarities and differences between millennials and Gen Z, who also now make up a big part of Betches' core audience.

1:44Jasmine Enberg: So very fittingly, the idea for today's episode actually came from a viral Instagram video featuring none other than Lindsay Lohan, a true millennial icon. It was an ad for Chime, which is a financial services company, and it plays off the differences between millennials and Gen Zers, especially those that are born on the cusp of the two generations, meaning 1996, who have traits from both. Take a listen. So 1996 babies, are you millennials or are you Gen Z? You make a heart like this? And like this. Interesting. You did grow up watching my movies, but you rented them from a vending machine. Odd.

2:23But ultimately, you do answer the phone when someone calls. And that's what makes you one of us. You're our millennial babies. And now it's time to glow up financially. Okay, Lindsay Lohan is making a full comeback after some rocky years in her youth. In the past few years, she's starred in several Netflix rom-coms, returned to the big screen with Freak Year Friday, made a cameo in the new Mean Girls movie, and she has a new Hulu miniseries called Count My Lies coming out. She even hosted Betcha's annual Betcha the Year Awards in 2025. The award went to Amaya Espinall, who is known as Amaya Papaya Online, and she won the first season of Love Island USA in 2025.

3:04And she now has more than 3 million followers on TikTok. Amaya is 26 years old, so she is firmly in the Gen Z category. And as a side note, I have not watched Love Island. Neither Jasmine and I are big reality TV consumers, but I immediately resonated with her because my first email was kaya papayatan at yahoo.com.

3:24Jasmine Enberg: I love that you were a Yahoo girl, though. I was a hotmail girl. I was dancegirl075 at hotmail.com. That is a classic. And yeah, I mean, I'm not a big reality TV person. You're not either. I've never watched Love Island USA, but I do have to admit that I binge watched season five of the original UK Love Island because of Molly May and Tommy Fury. In my defense, it was during the pandemic. It was very boring. And if you've seen the season, you will understand why. Anyway, back to what we're actually talking about. A big reason why Lindsay Lohan and so many other millennial media personalities or franchises from Hilary Duff to Laguna Beach to The Devil Wears Prada are really having a comeback moment right now is that everybody seems to have recognized that millennials, especially millennial women, have become a major economic force.

4:16Jasmine Enberg: And I feel like it was really the heirs tour back in 2023, 2024 that really started to set these light bulbs off. But we're now seeing that repeated over and over again, especially as we're all in our 30s now. Like, yeah, okay, companies do still want to be seen as cool with Gen Z, which I hate to break it to you is probably never going to happen, especially if you're always trying. But it's millennials who have the real money to spend right now. Like the youngest Gen Zers, they're only 14 years old. So while they can definitely influence their parents' buying decisions, and many of them do, and many also have side hustles, including being a creator and making money that way, they're still years away from entering the workforce in a meaningful way.

4:59Jasmine Enberg: Meanwhile, you have millennial women who are now making household buying decisions, whether it's for themselves, because many of them live alone or with roommates or for their families. And a lot more of them are the primary breadwinners when you compare it to previous generations. So it makes a lot of sense that you see brands, entertainment companies, you name it, all really trying to reach this generation. Just to put a couple of figures around this, in 2023, which is the last year for which data is available, people born between 1981 and 1996, meaning millennials, spent roughly$82 ,000 that year.

5:34Jasmine Enberg: People born 1997 or later, meaning Gen Z or Gen Alpha, spent about$53 ,000. The biggest spenders, however, were Gen Xers who spent nearly$96 ,000. And that's all according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yeah. And to your point about all industries now waking up to the power of millennial women, you're even seeing it with sports leagues. I mean, whether it's the NFL, FIFA or Formula One. We actually talked a lot about this with Toni Cohen Brown in a recent episode because she's one of the few female F1 commentators and creators out there. And we asked her why it's important for F1 to expand its audience to women.

6:09And she really hit the nail on the head with her answer. Take a listen. We are saying this to each other, that it's the women that move the needle. It's the women with the spending power. And the way I explain it in Formula One is when a woman enjoys the sports, she's not just bringing the plus one. She's bringing a plus three, a plus five, a plus 10.

6:23Jasmine Enberg: We're organizing, we self-organize, bring more people together. So it's just that weird thing in Formula One where it's like the moment you cater to women, your numbers are going to 10x, not 2x, because that's what women do. One thing that's interesting to note, though, is that Gen Z is showing up to sporting events differently than previous generations. And it's not for the love of the game. New research from USC Annenberg found that 78 % of Gen Zers would attend a live sports event because of celebrities, concerts, or brand activations. And almost 50 % said they got into sports through athletes, creators, or viral content.

6:58But anyway, what Tony said about women's influence and organizing power applies to basically every other industry too, not just sports. I mean, you mentioned the Eros tour, which is a huge one and just music and concerts more broadly. So many women attended the Eros tour or Beyonce's Cowboy Carter tour with their female friends or sisters or even arrange special trips with friends to tour destinations.

7:19Jasmine Enberg: Or with their dads. I didn't get to see the heiress tour live, but I went to go see the movie version of it with my dad and I loved it. So my sister and I flew to Hamburg, Germany together to see Taylor Swift because I had FOMO from the US leg. So I had to hit the international leg and I happened to be in Poland. So it wasn't like a totally random faraway destination. But I'm seeing the same thing happened with Hillary Duff's tour this year to people going with their sisters going with groups of friends. But there's so many other examples, too. I mean, book talk is heavily driven by women and has helped propel so many authors like Colleen Hoover, romance novels and other genres to major success.

7:56And obviously, women are such drivers in general of product decisions and what trends online you have Sephora halls to the Stanley Cup, which became such a staple for both millennial and Gen Z women. I mean, remember the days of the hot girl walk during the pandemic, when women had their giant water bottles in tow. But the other thing about millennial women and just millennials in general is that we're a bridge between the analog and digital worlds. And as we're seeing Gen Z nostalgia continue to grow, a lot of what they're nostalgic for are actually things from our childhood or our teenage years, like Y2K fashion, digital cameras, wired earbuds flip phones are making a big comeback as well as of course fashion trends low-rise skinny jeans which I just simply cannot condone some things really belong in the past

8:44Jasmine Enberg: and another one recently capris are back and I just cannot with those either there's this great stand-up comedian whose whose name I can't remember right now but there's a reel that I saw of her doing this bit about how we as millennials fought so hard to get the waist of the pants to rise up Like, please don't bring them back down again. So I'm totally with you there on the low rise pants and the capris. Like, we don't need those back. But yeah, to your point, I mean, Gen Z gets all of the credit for driving online culture, and they do deserve a lot of it. But so much of what we see online, including from Gen Zers themselves, is actually rooted in millennial culture, whether it's them being nostalgic for millennial relics or more often pushing back against millennials the way that you see younger siblings do to their older sisters and their brothers.

9:29Jasmine Enberg: And the best example of this is actually how Gen Z have totally rejected the Girlboss, which was like such a defining characteristic of millennial woman in the early 2010s. So if you don't remember, Girlboss was coined by Sofia Amoroso, who founded Nasty Gal, which was a fast fashion retailer. For so many of us back then, Girlboss represented things like empowerment, hard work, ambition, and financial success, and all of those things that were out of reach for women in previous generations. It was also the time when we'd wear a blazer to work and then to the club. So there's that as well. Day to night.

10:08Exactly.

10:09Jasmine Enberg: For Gen Z, though, it represents burnout and toxic workplace culture all wrapped up in this millennial pink aesthetic. Of course, it didn't help when Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy either. And what Gen Zers have supposedly replaced Girlboss with, at least according to The Atlantic, is what I would call quiet success. So they cannot be seen as trying too hard and their achievements, meaning money and success, are, quote, a byproduct of following their dreams and doing what they love. So we do not have time to go into how dangerous and how dumb that is. But one thing I will say in opposition is that if you're not your own biggest cheerleader and you're not promoting your own accomplishments, nobody else is going to do that either.

10:52And it was also the era of a lot of female founders getting canceled and leaving their companies from The Wing, which if you don't remember, was a female-only WeWork, to Luggage Company Away, whose CEO and co-founder Steph Corey was accused of creating a toxic work environment back in late 2019. And then, of course, there was Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, who is in a class all her own and was convicted of major fraud. You know, a lot of these women had splashy profiles written about them. You know, Holmes was on the cover of Forbes. So when they were canceled, it was just that much more heightened.

11:23And all of these things really sunk the image of the girl boss. But speaking of The Atlantic, last week we aired my conversation with Nick Thompson, who is the CEO. And we talked a lot about how the company is thinking of working with creators. And what was so interesting is that the approach they're considering is not so different from what Betches does, even though obviously they are very different media companies with very different business models and coverage areas. Here's what Nick said. I think that there are going to be a lot of people who, folks who are writing features to the Atlantic in five years.

11:53Some of them are going to have to come in through interesting routes like creators. I would also like to create a creator network on YouTube, like find people who are amazing YouTube creators who have Atlantic values and standards, who aren't making enough money on YouTube by themselves that they can sustain it. But if they were part of an Atlantic network, they could make more money and then be good for everybody. And here's Maggie. We sort of act as this incubator for incredible comedic talent. But usually as you come through, you know, Hannah Berner called it Fetha's Bootcamp. Every day we're producing 7, 12, 15 pieces of content.

12:27It's got to be funny. It's got to vet through the brand guidelines. And, you know, there is like a lot of pressure on that. But it creates this incredible talent, you know, that, you know, is tested.

12:39Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, and both of these companies have been really good at putting their creators or their writers front and center, allowing them to build their own followings and be recognized themselves. And I think that's a big part of what has made them both success stories in this media landscape where almost everyone seems to be under massive turmoil. So Maggie told us that Betch's revenue is up 70 % year over year this year. And while Nick didn't share exact numbers for The Atlantic, he did say that their revenue is, quote, significantly more than the$100 million that was reported back in 2024. Back to today's real topic, which is Gen Z versus millennials.

13:16Jasmine Enberg: We're going to answer three big questions. What is their relationship with the creator economy? How are they consuming media? And what influences their purchase decisions? And sorry in advance to Gen Z, it's not all as different as you would like to think. Okay, let's start with our relationship to the creator economy, because I cannot count how many times people have cited that study from years ago that showed more kids want to be YouTubers than astronauts. A lot of other studies since then have pointed to similar results, except a recent one, which paints a very different picture. Only 5 % of Gen Zers say they want to be a digital creator influencer, according to May data from Yahoo and YouGov.

13:56Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a really sharp contrast from other studies in recent years, including one from Morning Consult in 2023, which found that 57 % of Gen Zers aspired to be creators, which is just a wild statistic. But it is one study, so the results do need to be taken with a grain of salt. But it is also a sign of a couple of things. I mean, one, Gen Z is growing up. And I think like older generations, they're probably starting to realize that fame isn't all that it's cracked up to be. And wanting to be a creator in many ways is like how millennials wanted to be rock stars or actors before they realized that only the top 1 % ever really make it to Hollywood.

14:35Jasmine Enberg: And Gen Z are probably also realizing that it's harder than it looks to make a real living as a creator. Like there are now some cracks in the story that social media just democratized content creation and made it so that anybody can be Alex Earl or Mr. Beast and basically overnight. And now we're seeing the industry start to resemble Hollywood in negative ways, including pay disparity. So I always go back to that creator IQ stat, which showed that the top 1 % of creators earned 21 % of brand payments in 2025, and the top 10 % earned 62%, meaning that we're really seeing the money start to consolidate at the very top.

15:12Jasmine Enberg: So to put this another way, what that means is that 90 % of creators are now fighting for less than 40 % of all brand ad dollars. Yeah, that is a pretty stark stat. But yeah, I mean, it's been a long running misconception in the creator economy that being a creator is easy. And I agree. I think Gen Z is realizing that it's a lot harder than it looks. And the comfort and predictability of a more traditional full-time job may just seem more attractive to them. But it's also very possible that they may end up getting jobs at creator founded companies, as many seasoned execs from tech, media, and entertainment companies are also heading in that direction.

15:46There was a flurry of executive hires by creator companies in 2023 and 2024. Most of these were for, you know, business facing roles like CEO, COO, president, but now we're also seeing creators hire chief content officers and even looking for CMOs. Even so, there are still plenty of more junior positions that creators are also hiring for from video editors to social media managers, which might be a better fit for younger Gen Zers who are still, you know, very early with their work experience. Also, as a side note, we mapped out executive moves recently as part of our original research, which you can access on our website, scalablepod.com slash research.

16:23But either way, we're definitely curious to see how many Gen Alphas want to be creators when they grow up.

16:28Jasmine Enberg: Obviously, for us as millennials, we did not have that option growing up being a creator wasn't a thing. But that actually leads us nicely to millennials relationship with the creator economy. First of all, we built it. And in many ways, we're also still sustaining it because of all of the reasons we talked about earlier. I do definitely want to give a lot of credit to the mommy bloggers who actually really started it all in the early 2000s, though. They figured out how to monetize their daily lives through affiliate links and through marketing, which, you know, are still a huge part of the creator economy.

16:58Jasmine Enberg: They were more Gen Xers than millennials. And earlier this year, we actually spoke to Stanley's chief brand officer, Kate Ridley, about this and the power of mommy bloggers and how they helped make the Stanley Cup what it is today. Take a listen. It really did facilitate so much of Stanley's popularity. Well, first and foremost, we partnered with a group of moms in Utah. This is back before the pandemic. There is a platform called The Buy Guide. And actually, those influencers reached out to Stanley. They were the first ones who said, like, we love your product. And that was really the first group of influencers who just skyrocketed Stan Lee's visibility and growth.

17:41Jasmine Enberg: Even so, it really wasn't until YouTube and its ad revenue sharing program hit and then Instagram exploded in 2012, 2013, that the creator economy really started to expand and have a business model that worked at scale. And those were primarily millennials who built that, including many of the tech bros like Mark Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom who were making the platforms. And then, of course, the female influencers who popularized influencer marketing, which is still the largest revenue stream within the creator economy. Yeah, and in the Stanley example, it really wasn't until TikTok and the pandemic and the hot girl walks that we talked about that really made the Stanley Cup so popular with millennial and Gen Z women.

18:22And it also basically kickstarted a revamp of the entire water bottle industry, which is pretty wild. I mean, it inspired so many dupes and memes. I mean, it feels like there is a new cool it water bottle that trends every year. The latest was like the O 'Walla, but maybe that's really dated. I'm not up on my water bottle trends.

18:41Jasmine Enberg: I'm not either. I'm a Stanley Cup girl and I will not. I will not change. But my favorite memes, to your point, are the ones of men walking around with like these giant plastic trash cans. and, you know, these gallon-sized tubs pretending that they're women carrying around their Stanley cups, but they will never get it. It's an emotional support water bottle. But anyway, all of this to say, as millennials, we've really gotten to see the creator economy go through all of its different phases, from, you know, the picture-perfect, aspirational influencer on Instagram days to lo-fi TikToks to now long-form YouTube and its creators being, you know, quote, the new TV.

19:16Jasmine Enberg: And so I think our relationship with it is probably quite complicated and maybe a little bit more practical and even jaded than, you know, Gen Zers at least originally had with the creator economy. Yeah, and I think that also ties into the attitudes we see from different generations about authenticity. I mean, in case you missed it, we have basically declared a ban on using the word authenticity because it's just so overused in this industry. We wrote a whole column on it back in December, but only 35 % of Gen Z value authenticity from influencers compared with about half of millennials, Gen Z and baby boomers, according to 2024 data from Sprout Social.

19:53And some of the Gen Z sentiment is probably more just rejecting the word rather than its meaning. I mean, Gen Z has long fought back against kind of established labels or terms, even as they've adopted some of their own. And that applies to everything from kind of how they express gender identity to the slang they use. But it's also at least partly because they didn't go through that millennial aspirational influencer phase that you mentioned. So they don't maybe have as strong feelings against it. And they more so came up in the time of TikTok where authenticity was kind of more of the baseline.

20:23People were filming videos in their messy bathroom or with clothes in the back of their bedroom, right? Like it was just a completely different vibe on TikTok than it was on Instagram.

20:33Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. And to their credit, I think they also get that authenticity is largely performative at this point. Like, yes, they want real, real life content, but they also get that even though posts might look unfiltered, feeds are still highly curated. And they know that that 30 second TikTok clip that was filmed in their messy bedroom can take hours to edit and script. And so to your point, I think you're right that the shift from this kind of highly polished Instagram aesthetic to the more raw, lo-fi feel of TikTok during the pandemic just didn't feel as jarring to them or as freeing as it did for us millennials.

21:08Moving on to our next big question, what kinds of media are Gen Z and millennials consuming? So let's start with something that Maggie said about how Betches has evolved as a company, because I think that paints a good picture of how these two generations are getting their entertainment and information. So for context, Betches was started as a website in 2011, which both of us were obsessed with at the time. And then they moved to Instagram when it got big and built their following there. Here's Maggie. We're not one thing. We have a massive audience on Instagram. And that's really the first place that we're serving.

21:38But second, we also have podcasts, we have our YouTube channels, and then we also have a website and sub stack. And our fans are constantly asking, when are you going to launch the next sub stack? When are you going to launch the next newsletter? We believe that social will continue to play a huge role because that's where young people are. And they're going to continue to ask for more from companies like us, we're going to continue to serve that audience. But we also believe in how we describe our community as a fandom and how we continue to give to that. What we're thinking about is live experiences.

22:13On our website, it's been a big part of our business and it has been something that's actually been a big strength for us as we've had this agility to be able to pivot as algorithms change.

22:24Jasmine Enberg: Okay, so much to unpack there and definitely tune into the full conversation for more on how Betches navigates all of these different channels and monetizing them. But big picture, what Maggie is kind of alluding to here is that media companies don't fit neatly into one box anymore. I mean, everybody is now a little bit of everything. And that's because people aren't just using one form of media that the way that they used to. And that's a very different take than what you might hear otherwise. I mean, often Gen Z are referred to as the TikTok generation, or sometimes a Snapchat generation, and they are, but they're also the Substack generation.

22:59Jasmine Enberg: They're the YouTube generation. They're the Instagram generation, even though they might not want to admit that. I would not go so far as to say they're the Facebook generation, but they do use the platform, even if it's mostly for Facebook Marketplace. So obviously, you know, their portfolio of apps is just much bigger and more diverse than it might seem. And at the same time, they're also craving more offline experiences. They're going back now to shopping malls. They're seeking out live events. We talked a little bit about sporting events before. They're even in movie theaters. And I think what's new now is that they want those in-person experiences to better reflect what they're experiencing online.

23:37Yeah, and I mean, to Maggie's point, social media is where Gen Z and millennials really are spending so much of their time. I recently was out with friends and everyone in the group was like, oh, yeah, I don't really watch TV anymore. But then they admitted that they basically replaced TV with watching Reels or TikTok. But then on the other hand, you have the other millennials like Lindsay Lohan, who are the opposite of this. She doesn't pay too much attention to TikTok or what's happening online, she told People Magazine. As part of an article reflecting on 2025, she was asked about some of her favorite moments from the year.

24:08And the top ones really came from kind of traditional media, right? TV screens and movie theaters rather than the internet. She apparently is a big fan of Apple TV's The Morning Show.

24:17Jasmine Enberg: As am I. I am shocked that none of your friends watch TV anymore. I mean, for me, it's still it's not traditional TV, but it's this was a very small, unscientific sample. But I just thought it was funny that it's like people are like, oh, yeah, I'm not doing that. And then they're just watching reels. It's just a different screen. So for me, I mean, I'm not watching traditional TV anymore, but I do love the end of every day when I can turn on whether it's Apple TV or Netflix or Hulu or one of the 7000 different streaming services that we have and can just kind of sit there and veg out for a little bit before going to bed.

24:47Jasmine Enberg: But anyway, I think that goes back to your earlier point about millennials being both analog and digital and that people are getting their entertainment and their information pretty much everywhere at this point. On millennials, though, I mean, we started using Facebook as high school or college students. I remember getting my NYU email address in 2006 before Facebook had opened up to the public, going to my high school's Mac lab to create an account. It's actually a core memory of mine, but it was such an exciting moment. It felt like you were sort of part of something bigger, but also exclusive at the same time.

25:20Jasmine Enberg: It is safe to say, though, we've all pretty much firmly transitioned to Instagram as being our core platform at this point, though there are obviously millennials who love TikTok. Data backs this up. 76 % of millennial social media users are on Instagram, according to data from Sprout Social. I remember I got my Facebook account in 2007. Very exciting moment. Also transitioning from MySpace, leaving MySpace in the dust. Oh, poor MySpace. I know. But I know that Instagram is also the platform of choice for both you and I. I mean, I did get very into TikTok during the early pandemic, and I still go on it.

25:56But I'm definitely not a daily user. Meanwhile, Instagram is basically the first thing I open up every morning when I wake up, like it's the morning news. I mean, sometimes I even check Instagram before my text messages, which is kind of embarrassing to admit.

26:10Jasmine Enberg: Okay, same though. And then when I open up Instagram, I normally have like 10 DMs from you with reels and carousels, which is great because it's like you already checked Instagram for me. I will also add though to all of this that Instagram is big for Gen Zers. 75 % of them use it monthly according to eMarketer and 18 to 24 year olds spend almost twice as much time on the platform than total users do. So again, Gen Z aren't as different from millennials as they might like to think. Anyway, on to our final question. What influences Gen Z and millennials purchase decisions? So Maggie had a really interesting take on this, too, when we asked her why she decided to join Betches after having a long career at both Business Insider and the New York Times.

26:53Jasmine Enberg: And here's a little bit of what she said. What it means to be news and journalism, publisher. I mean, it's already changing, right? In this moment where everything's being shaken up. And I think it's also like at the end of the day, is it quality? Is it something that entertains you? Can you count on it to inform you? And then also we're hugely helpful to brands. We're driving in store traffic. We're moving. We're changing hearts and minds. We're literally shifting a product that someone uses. Like we're able to be a massive mover. And I see that continuing to grow. So what she's saying in this quote is just so emblematic of how both the media landscape and the advertising landscape have changed.

27:35Jasmine Enberg: It feels like we're in this moment now where all media is marketing to borrow a line from one of the smartest analysts out there, Doug Shapiro. And millennials, Gen Z, and the creator economy really have played a massive role in that. Yeah, totally. I mean, creators and influencers have become such a huge driver of purchase decisions, especially among younger generations. There was some other data that just came out from Sprout Social, which found that 81 % of Gen Zers made at least one purchase based on an influencer's recommendation in the past year. I mean, that is huge, huge stat. And that's also had a ripple effect among older generations, too.

28:09According to the same data, two thirds of consumers have bought something because an influencer recommended it in the past year, with 29 % saying they did it 10 times or more. That is also huge.

28:21Jasmine Enberg: Yeah. And the other thing that was so interesting about this data is looking at what types of influencers were driving those purchases. So people were slightly more likely to buy from a niche influencer that was cited by 21 % compared with a large influencer at 15%. But 33 % or the biggest share of respondents were totally indifferent, meaning that they would buy from either or. This is kind of subjective since Sprout Social didn't really define what constitutes large or niche. So we don't know how many followers that is. I also don't think that niche necessarily means small, but clearly in the survey, that's how they're using it.

28:57Jasmine Enberg: And regardless, it does help to debunk an old myth that micro creators or micro influencers are the ones driving purchase decisions, whereas large creators can't. That's never really been true. According to the data, people have always bought, you know, based on recommendations from all different types of creators. And now we're starting to see data support that. I don't think it's surprising to hear that creators are influencing people's purchase decisions. I mean, that's one reason why we're seeing influencer marketing budgets continue to rise. Spending on creator ads is expected to reach over 44 billion in the US this year, according to the IAB.

29:31But as we always say, it's not the creator economy or bust. And that applies here. People don't just get inspired or influenced to buy things in one place. I have to see something over and over again to buy it usually. And it's very rarely an impulse purchase for me, especially when online shopping. Like obviously, when you're in store, sometimes you have a little bit more of the scarcity FOMO mindset. But like, I have certainly bought plenty of things that creators have recommended, but I definitely trust and rank recommendations from friends more. I will say one of the few places I will impulse buy from is TikTok shop because the stakes are generally low and the items are not expensive.

30:09I'm also not alone. Apparently, millennials are the most active buyers on TikTok shop, according to Edison Research, which makes sense. Millennials are, you know, the largest generation in the US workforce. Many members of Gen Z will still, you know, have to ask their parents to buy something online. And as we discussed with Kim Tipton, who's a social media strategist at Kimberly Clark, the path to purchase typically isn't linear. Yes, you may buy something quirky and trending on TikTok shop on a whim, but But otherwise, it's usually more complicated than that. I don't really believe in the funnel, especially with digital.

30:42I just think that the funnel doesn't exist. I think people are constantly in and out of all the phases. It's like more like a windy road where people enter and exit the funnel.

30:51Jasmine Enberg: It's not linear. I think the problem is, is that we're in this sort of performance media era where you have that one metric that you can show and say, hey, this worked. Look, they bought something. But to your point, that's not, you know, necessarily how most people are buying things, especially last like attribution where it's like oh this is the reason why they bought probably not you know you can also go from like not knowing anything about a product a product to jumping all the way down to purchase via tiktok shop right like you can be like oh just found out about this immediately purchasing you didn't need to do prospecting or warming the lead or anything they just tiktok is one of the only social platforms that has really been able to turn impulse buying into a habit online.

31:36Jasmine Enberg: But to your point about the path to purchase not being linear, Gen Z and millennials are also leading the charge when it comes to shopping with AI now. So there was some data from Capgemini that showed that almost half of both millennials and Gen Z now use AI while shopping. That doesn't mean, though, that they're going from discovery to purchase on AI apps or AI platforms, and they still trust other sources, including their friends or creators or social media more. But even there, meaning on social media or with creators, they need reminders. We did this research at eMarketer last year, which showed that people need to see a creator recommend a product at least three to four times before they make a purchase.

32:15Jasmine Enberg: What was so interesting is that those same people didn't necessarily care whether it was the same creator or a different one. That obviously has so many implications for brands and creators, meaning what types of and how many partnerships they're doing. It also shows the importance of amplifying content as paid ads to make sure that you're breaking through and reaching the right audience at the right time. So this is literally me because I and maybe it is just for the brand. They have to have a strategy that's just multi-pronged. Do you remember the Summer Fridays like jet lag mask? That was their first like breakout hit.

32:49So yes. OK, so I saw that mask so many times. I saw influencers recommending it. I saw friends. and then I just saw it so much that finally I went to Sephora and bought it. But like who gets the credit, right? Like it was this joint effort to get me to buy it. Ultimately, Summer Fridays won, but like for the creators, you know, the creator I saw it from didn't necessarily get the affiliate revenue.

33:09Jasmine Enberg: Yeah, especially if it's something that you want to try on. Like obviously you're not going to try on the Summer Fridays mosque in Sephora, but like if it's a pair of shoes or a pair of pants or something and you know that they have it in store, like sometimes I will go do that. But to your point about who gets the credit, I mean, you made this point earlier in our affiliate marketing episode too, that when you were scrolling through TikTok, you saw the, was it the selfie light? Yes. From multiple different creators. And then you ultimately just bought it from whichever random one happened to be, you know, the lucky winner.

33:35Jasmine Enberg: And so, you know, it's the same no matter where, you know, you're making these purchases. But anyway, now it's time for our conversation with Maggie. Maggie Milnamau is the chief commercial officer of Betches Media. She joined the company earlier this year from Business Insider, which is actually where she was working when we first met. This year is Betcha's 15th birthday, and the company has a lot to celebrate, from signing with CAA to a high-profile partnership with the NFL to their creators starring on Broadway shows and in microdramas. Betcha says it now reaches one in two young women online, and it also has big ambitions for its next chapter of growth.

34:12Hi, Maggie. Welcome to Scalable. Thank you. Excited to be here.

34:16Jasmine Enberg: It's Betcha's 15-year anniversary this year, so congratulations. It's crazy. I mean, we're both OG fans. I mean, are you guys really? Yes, I remember just reading the blog way back in the day. The website. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? It started as a blog. We now reach one in two young women online through our ecosystem of Instagram content, podcasts, video on YouTube. And we're expanding to a lot more, which I'm really excited for. That's why I joined a couple of months ago. But what we mean to women and like how we stand out, the brand IP, She's always been consistent throughout. And it's really strongly felt in women that have been with us for a long time.

34:56So we're excited by that milestone. And it's been a lot of growth for us over the last couple of years. We were bought by Lad Bible Group two and a half years ago. That was a huge moment for us, for our founders, what they've built. Since then, revenues have doubled over the last two years. That's been really great. What's also exciting is this year revenues are up 70 % year over year. So I'm joining and my job is to continue to grow us and really bring us to the next chapter of elevation and growth. And doing that with Aileen, who's our founder, one of the founders and CEO. And then Paul, who was hired as our chief operating officer.

35:38And we are also hiring a head of content too. So it's an exciting time. Lots of growth, lots of opportunity. But what we mean to women is as strong as it's ever been.

35:48Jasmine Enberg: So I definitely want to talk to you about the growth and the next chapter for Betches. But how do you characterize Betches as a business? So many of, you know, the people who work at Betches are also media personalities, online personalities, recognizable faces. But do you consider yourself a creator economy company? Is it a digital media company? What is it? We exist in a space that's really unparalleled. And I'll tell you what I mean. We're really an entertaining company for young women. And my belief in what the people at Betches believe is like entertainment and what it means to be prime time is forever changed.

36:19We're, you know, really targeted toward millennial and Gen Z women. They're spending so much time on social and really consuming the most amount of media on their phone and on social. And so we are entertainment to them. That's how I think about the role that we play to them. What's more, we exist in this space of like the creator economy meets young women meets entertainment and culture. We're storytelling around what's going on in culture, sports and entertainment. And we're helping to interpret that for young women. So we have clients that say, are you a publisher? Are you a creator? We have 25 creators on staff.

36:59We also have a creator network with a larger group of creators that are creating content for us. So we're not a single creator or a few creators. We're actually much bigger than that. And I think that's the opportunity. That's why I think it's so exciting. And by the way, I love your newsletter. It's like a must read for me. What's also interesting is young women, right, are becoming more and more powerful, right? They have the highest amount of investable assets and financial growth that they've ever seen over the next five years. So we believe like those two trends are really interesting. And then the third thing is the dissatisfaction with traditional media and traditional advertising.

37:39And also all the magazines are gone, right? Exactly. They're disappearing by the minute that we used to read when we were growing up. What is a magazine anymore? Like, what is it? And how do you, you know, what does it mean? And I think that's a place that we can really play in. Where it comes back to is like what we mean to young people and how we continue to give to that and super serve that. So that's how I think about who we are. We're not one thing. I remember reading Betches as a college student. I love the Bachelor recaps. They were so good. I literally almost just watched the Bachelor for the recaps.

38:12The commentary was amazing. Over time, you shifted heavily to Instagram and kind of growing that presence. And I interviewed Eileen, I think it was three years ago. And she said, you know, I wish we had kept more of the website. Obviously, you still have it. But in retrospect, like you realize you don't own the social platforms. You don't know what algorithms are going to do. So it's so crucial, obviously, as a business to own your audience. But at the same time, you need social for distribution. So how do you think about balancing those things, creating IP, all of that stuff, while still obviously being known very much for your meme pages and accounts and content on social?

38:45It's such a great question. I think there's a couple of parts to it. First, we have a massive audience on Instagram. And that's really the first place that we're serving. But second, we also have podcasts. We have our YouTube channels. And then we also have a website and Substack. And our fans are constantly asking, when are you going to launch the next Substack? When are you going to launch the next newsletter? We believe that social will continue to play a huge role because that's where young people are. And they're going to continue to ask for more from companies like us. We're going to continue to serve that audience.

39:20But we also believe in how we describe our community as a fandom. And how we continue to give to that, what we're thinking about is live experiences. The second thing is we talk about direct messaging and we talk about share rate a lot because we do have a direct relationship with our audience. Even though we are on social, we have a social first way of publishing. They are DMing us. They are sharing us often. And we message back to them. Aileen does too. And so we have some of that going on, but there's a lot more that we are working on in terms of, is it subscriptions? Is it community? Like, how do we really connect that community of young women?

40:03And we feel like there's a white space for it. We don't feel like there's a lot of communities for young women connecting across friendship, empowerment, bringing levity to the world across what's going on in culture. They're sort of like communities for older women across business, but really young women, especially Gen Z and millennials, we think there's a way in there. On our website, it's not a big part of our business. And it has been something that's actually been a big strength for us as we've had this agility to be able to pivot as algorithms change. I don't know what websites are in a couple of years.

40:36And I've come from two really traditional publishers that I love and revere, but I don't know. And I think especially for young people, right? Like I look at the kind of young people we serve.

40:48Jasmine Enberg: How does that impact how you monetize, though? I mean, obviously having social media sort of where your core audience is these days, I mean, it has its pros and cons in terms of monetization. And it's very different from, say, monetizing a live event or monetizing a website way back when. So how do you think about that? I think that it is the most innovative way that I've ever gotten to partner with clients because we're not selling standard advertising. We are telling big, ambitious stories for brands. And social gives us a way to do it with a lot of levers and a lot of fun ways in. So, you know, the majority of how we work with our partners is creating stories or integrating them into our own content.

41:33We've been doing this with brands like L 'Oreal, Pepsi, Uber Eats, Google Gemini. and we have a really fun partnership with Dunkin Donuts. Part of it is they're integrated into our content. So I think social is not limiting. I think of it as like there's lots of opportunity and ways in. And what's important to us is like, we really understand what the problem is that the brand is trying to solve. A lot of times for us, it's we can't reach young women. We need to figure out how to break through and we want to be more culturally relevant to young women. And you guys have those two things, like help us figure out what's the insight.

42:12How can we break through? So we see a ton of opportunity on social. And I think once you combine experiential and some of the stuff we're doing with sports and style, it just continues to get richer. And that's on social alone. So I do think there's a huge opportunity there. We're not so concerned about it. So we're kind of thinking about how can we create more on it and thinking of it as truly like prime time. Like that is prime time. That's what we think. I'd love to just also say that like Betches Sports has been a really interesting way in for us. So we have an official partnership with the NFL.

42:46They came to us and said, we're having trouble breaking through to young women. And the NFL told me we have the most coveted audience in the industry. I was like, can I take that and run with that? That's like on all of my sales time. You can't get any better than that. And it's the NFL recognizing the value of young women and how young women are rising. How important of a vertical is sports to Betches?

43:08Jasmine Enberg: I mean, clearly it's really important to the NFL to be partnering with you all. But what about the reverse? It's hugely powerful for us. Why? There are so many female fans out there completely unsatisfied by the coverage of their team, their sport, and also women's sports. So Betches sports is not women's sports like that. And people are doing a great job at it. We'll cover women's sports. We're going to be a big advocate and continue to be that for women's sports. But we're also covering women who love the NFL, who love NHL, who are obsessed with F1. So the NFL partnership that we have will continue on for a number of years, which we're excited for.

43:48We're also talking to four or five other leagues about developing those official partnerships, too.

43:53Jasmine Enberg: I imagine that helps bring in different types of advertisers as well, right? It does. It does. Yeah, it's helped us with a lot of QSR, a lot of CPG, and then a lot of advertisers who are interested but don't have an official NFL relationship. And so we can help break through in that way. And it gives us rates. Look, we're at the training camps. We're at the combines. We're creating watch parties outside of the stadium. What has the reception been like when you show up at these events? So many sports leagues are, you know, trying to expand their audiences. They're leaning into creators that aren't typically associated with sports.

44:27Jasmine Enberg: They're partnering with publishers or other creator economy companies like yourselves. But that, you know, could alienate some diehard fans. It's a balance. Yeah. So how do you balance that? And what has the reception been like, do you think? Interesting. We've been welcomed with OpenArcs and I think the official partnership with the NFL has helped us because they've introduced it in a way that is like, this is a must win audience for us. We need to win this audience to grow. And these guys know how to create and storytell for this audience in a way that no one else does. So I think that is different because we have that official partnership.

45:04So it's been a really warm reception so far. And the NFL has been a tremendous partner. They've really like unlocked a ton for us. But also athletes, they're like, come on in. You know, like our creators are, you know, young women. They stand out sometimes on those sidelines and they're kind of asking different questions, right? It's not like the play-by-play of every game and kind of the spots and dots on a particular sport. Or it's, you know, more about cultured entertainment or something that's going on that we ask the perspective on. We're playing red flag, green flag with that. You know, the list goes on.

45:37And so it's not as endemic as like the other kind of sports media networks are. You just signed with CAA as well. Congratulations. Thank you. So kind of two-parter, but, you know, what's sort of the end goal with signing with CAA? I mean, you're doing this 15 years into the company. And do you expect kind of the revenue mix to change or do you think brand partnerships will continue to be the main? I think brand partnerships will always be a growth part of our business. I think we'll continue to see it to grow two to three times over the next couple of years. There's just so much untapped opportunity.

46:10And then on the other hand, CAA, super excited about that partnership. I think they have really creative ways of working that are totally out of bounds from the ad partnerships and brand partnerships that we've built. And we think that can open up lots of new revenue streams. We'd love to continue to build out. We call it a Betches cinematic universe shows, Broadway shows. You know, there's lots of interesting partnerships. Interesting, yeah. I'm not promising that, but there's like lots of interesting ways that like we think we can stretch out. Broadway is good alliteration. Can you imagine? There's so many creators out there in Broadway shows, which is interesting.

46:49So we have like a few ways in. And then, of course, Tess signing with Magic Mike. There's this really interesting. So I think there's like lots of ways to stretch. And, you know, my job is how do we figure out how to grow across a number of fronts? And that's really the job of our whole executive team. And so brand partnerships will continue to rise, but also will be a more diversified business, certainly. And advertising and ad-driven dollars will be a part of that, but not the whole thing. I think there's lots of opportunities, not just with CAA, but community, subscription at some point in real life, and really sports, where we see different ways that we can partner with leagues and other relationships that we're working on developing, too.

47:33To go back to the creators you work with, how do you align incentives? What happens? And we're examples of this. You work at a company, you build your name, and then you go off on your own. You obviously want the creators and the voices working under the Betches umbrella. So how do you kind of align incentives and how do you structure that program? Aileen said to me, I think this is a great way to think of it, that we sort of act as this incubator for incredible comedic talent. And I've seen it. I mean, Jared Seed, who maybe you all know, he's in one of our podcasts with Georgiana, who's one of our founders.

48:07and it's called You Up. He is also on his first Netflix special. And, you know, there's also a tour that he's doing across the country where he's doing comedy shows right now. And we're so excited and super supportive of that. We have Tess, who is one of our creators that's here. She's super beloved. She's featured in Sisters. Everybody knows her. She's going on to be a part of the Magic Mike Broadway show later this fall. And, you know, we're so excited for her. They're all super funny. They're punchy, they're edgy. They have their own tone, but it's all kind of true to the Betches tone and point of view.

48:48And so they're getting noticed, which is great. And they have their own communities, too. You know, some of them have millions of followers. Some of them have 10, 20, 50K, you know, and are rising. But usually as you come through, you know, Hannah Berner called it Betches Boot Camp. Every day we're producing 7, 12, 15 pieces of content. And you got to, it's got to be funny. It's got to vet through the brand guidelines. And, you know, there is like a lot of pressure on that. But it creates this incredible talent, you know, that, you know, is tested. So we look at it as a huge opportunity when talent rises like that.

49:26And I think we'll continue to see that to happen because now we are on such a platform. Like we have been growing too. And so we're just being consumed by more people than ever before. So I think it's going to continue to happen as a result, too.

49:41Jasmine Enberg: So pivoting a little bit, because as you mentioned, you were in traditional journalism for about 15 years. Business Insider before that, the New York Times. What drew you to Betches? I think there's nothing like this moment at this place with the team that we have and are continuing to build. And you guys have covered the creator economy for a long time. what it means to be news and journalism, publisher. I mean, it's already changing, right? In this moment where everything's being shaken up. And I think it's also like at the end of the day, is it quality? Is it something that entertains you? Can you count on it to inform you?

50:19Or what is it kind of value does it bring in your life? And that's something that Times like from a very young age was obsessed with is like that value and super surveyed those audiences. And the same is true at Vetch's. Young women, how they continue to give to that audience is something from the beginning of the blog they've wanted to do. And I don't think there's anywhere like it. And then also we're hugely helpful to brands. We're driving in store traffic. We're moving. We're changing hearts and minds. We're literally shifting a product that someone uses. Like we're able to be a massive mover.

50:59And I see that continuing to grow. We just announced the acquisition of Uncovered, which is a social first creative agency out of the UK. I see that growth also happening in the US. I think M &A is a big opportunity for us. We're actively looking at how can we continue to build out what will complement and elevate what we offer. What types of companies are you looking at? Can't really say. Except for that, like, it will complement us. And it will be really in this kind of social first space. But it's all, like, really exciting. And again, it all comes back to, like, how to own young people. Like, how do we really own that space?

51:37LAD has a really incredible ownership of young people in the UK and across Europe. We really owe young women. But I think there's, you know, a way we can expand to other kind of other things with some of the M &A that we're talking about. So more to come. I'll have to come back and tell you guys when I can share it. Is it mostly companies or would you acquire like a creator's channel or company? We're looking at all of it. I think, look, I mean, creators are companies. That's like the exciting thing about this time. So I could see us doing both.

52:13you