In an insightful interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Sean Hurley, Co-Founder of Hyperscale, delved into the complexities of Facebook advertising and startup growth. He emphasized that despite its challenges, Facebook remains a preferred advertising platform due to its unparalleled targeting capabilities and ability to engage users early in the buying process. Sean also highlighted the importance of clear communication, data literacy, and human-centric approaches in driving startup success. He introduced Hyperscale as a pivotal tool in optimizing ad performance, crucial for enhancing the financial longevity and revenue predictability of startups, underscoring its role in reducing customer acquisition costs and maximizing effective ad spending.
With 16 years of experience in Marketing and Growth, Sean Hurley has successfully managed teams of over 500 individuals. Under his leadership, these teams have generated more than $500 million in revenue, emphasizing predictable and profitable growth. Sean’s expertise spans across Marketing, Operations, and Data Analytics.
Facebook ads often fail to deliver expected results, yet it remains a top choice for advertisers. What in your opinion are the key factors that lead to the failure of Facebook ads, and what makes it still a highly favored platform despite these challenges?
Facebook still has the largest market share of any ad platform for finding users at the top of the funnel. Unlike Google paid ads that are often further down the funnel, they know what they are searching for. This means you can find, attract, and convert people who might not have started the buyer journey. From targeting to flexibility on creative types, it’s still one of the top-performing channels in the market.
Throughout your career, you’ve been instrumental in helping startups grow. Can you share the most valuable lessons you’ve learned about fostering startup success and how these insights have shaped your approach at Pathright?
It comes down to three areas:
Communication and alignment – Are the company’s goals clear, are you communicating them clearly to the entire company, and have you gone the extra mile to connect thoughts and goals to each team? There have been so many incredible companies where the only barrier to growth was effective communication from the leadership team.
Data literacy – Does every employee in the company know how they impact revenue? More often than not, this is overlooked in employee training, but from my experience, it has been one of the most significant drivers of company-wide growth. In my eyes, everyone owns growth, not just sales and marketing. When someone understands their inputs into growth, they have complete control over their impact on the output, in other words, revenue.
Being human – This can sound vague, but from my experience managing over 500 people, the most common disconnect and driver of employee churn is not feeling “heard.” This is everything from career development to giving proper praise and recognition.
Hyperscale is a significant part of your strategy to enhance data literacy. How does Hyperscale work and how is it crucial in today’s data-driven business environment?
Hyperscale was built by a proven framework for building profitable growth on paid channels. The platform reviews every single live ad in your account, reviews performance against the top ad and makes recommendations to either scale or cut.
Most ineffective spending on Facebook ads comes down to underspending on winning ads and leaving poor performers too long. The goal of any business is to drive consistent revenue while reducing costs. That’s Hyperscale.
One of the objectives of Hyperscale is to increase the survival rate of startups. What are the effective ways Hyperscale is achieving this goal and the measurable impact it has had so far?
Every startup has a limited amount of cash (also known as “runway” – the amount of time before you run out of money), and that cash needs to be spent well.
Hyperscale was built to drive predictable revenue and drive down CAC (Customer acquisition costs – or how much it costs to acquire a customer) at the same time.
By helping companies spend their money more effectively, the success rate of success for that company will vastly improve.
Facebook can be a powerful tool for business growth when used effectively. What according to you are the key strategies or approaches that businesses need to adopt to harness the full potential of Facebook for their growth and success?
If you’re going to start or currently spending on Facebook, ensure you have the following investments in mind.
First, most of the growth you generate on Facebook will come from suitable creative (ads). The companies that underinvest in creative usually have the most expensive costs.
Second, stay ahead of creative burnout (how fast your ad burns out where costs go up).
This means building a production schedule around Facebook ads, where you often review and build new ads. The more you spend, the faster they burn out.
And third, track everything. Have a link framework that aligns with your internal analytics teams, ensure you have landing page or website tracking setup, and review often.
