WD-40 Turned AI Ad Production Into A Growth Lever

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/ Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire China is releasing models that are not as good and are good enough, at a fraction of the cost, and getting real penetration in the United States. Neil and Eric work through what that does to pricing, then get to WD-40, which used Amazon's generative video ads to triple daily unit volume with an 86% new-to-brand rate and a 45% higher click-through rate. Eric's answer to every founder asking whether this kills agencies is the same question back: who is going to maintain it. He had that exact conversation with a multi-billion dollar hospitality company this week. Key takeaways◾Good enough at a tenth of the price is a pricing event, not a quality debate◾AI ad production collapses cost per asset, it does not manage the account◾Every founder building agents for each team member is telling you they are understaffed Chapters00:00 China’s Price Disruption03:55 Raising the AI Bar05:10 Marketing Needs Adaptability08:43 Singapore’s AI Optimism11:05 WD-40’s AI Ad Win15:13 Why Agencies Still Matter15:37 Agentic Web Future

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Speaker 01

  And China pulled an amazing marketing move. If you look at a lot of what's happening in AI, there's a lot of uncertainty in the public markets. The reason there's a lot of uncertainty in the public markets is largely because of China. China's releasing models that companies are now using. They may not be as good, but they're good enough. And they're a fraction of the cost, and they're just like, hey, you can use our models. It's way cheaper. And they're getting amazing penetration in the United States. And I don't believe organizations and political people like governments thought that, wait, our citizens and our corporations will want to use Chinese products.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  But they do, because, hey, you want to offer something for one-tenth the price that's good enough to get the job done? I hate to say it, most people are going to sign up for that. Including me and Eric.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  I'm going to share it with all new hires or all new prospects to scare them away. Because that is how I see it. Like, if you have the ability or the desire to work on hard problems and you have high cognition, then we want to hire you. If not, like, I would prefer that you want... This is a problem I've been having, and Neil, I actually did the math yesterday. Let me ask you the question here real quick, and I'm going to come back to the article, because we got to talk about Singapore too. So, when you look at the... What would you say is the percentage of people that started the year AI-native? Like, starting? So what percentage would you say that is? And what do you think it is today for your organization?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you're saying what people that are joining a company are AI-native?

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Not joining, but let's say, let's say, beginning of the year, maybe, you know, 10% of your org was AI-native, right? What do you think that number would be today? So what was it before, and what is it now as of August 2026?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  I would say... I honestly don't have the exact percentage on my team. We look at it a little bit differently. AI is evolving so fast. If you felt you were good at the beginning of the year and you didn't keep up, we look at it as you can regress and go quite a bit backwards. OpenAI published a stat, I forgot who, I think it was OpenAI. I think less than 10% of their users even use agents. It was something small or miniscule like that. And we're seeing the same thing in which people say they're using agents, they're using AI correctly, they're getting the most out of it. But when we dive a little bit deeper and go under the hood,

• 3:08Speaker 01

  when we interview candidates or talk to candidates, the quality or the results for what we're looking for doesn't match up to what they're saying in most cases. So people can say a lot, but the action, when we really dig deep,

• 3:26Speaker 01

  is not really there on what they're claiming for most people and most candidates.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  So, here's what I'll say. I've talked to a few people yesterday, and I've actually even pasted into this AI group, right? And so, and to Neil's point, this is not an exact science. We're all kind of figuring it out as we go, but I think generally, leadership has a sense of how things are, right? So, I talked to a mutual friend yesterday, and I was like, so what did it start at? He's like, well, the year we started at maybe 5%. I was like, so what is it now? He's like, 10%, right? Now, that being said, let's say, you know, headcount is 1,000, so going from 50 to 100 is, I would still, that 50 people is still like a good chunk. And I talked to someone else, like, these are both nine-figure companies, but they went from 2% to 8%, okay? In terms of, you know, the AI nativeness, right? And then, for a lot of these companies, it's kind of the same.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Now, I'm looking at our organization, like, our headcount is smaller, right? It's much smaller, in fact. And so, beginning of the year, Neil, I would say we started at 10%, okay? As of today, I looked through the kind of people yesterday along with my CTO, so we kind of ran through the entire list, and I'm like, yeah, it's about 50%. So it went up 5X, but, like, if you were to guess, like, is it because we did start doing hackathons? Is it because we started doing AI office hours? Is it because we started doing training? No. And by the way, I'm not saying training is bad by any means, but what happened is the talent standard went up. So, what we look for when we hire, what we look for when we fire, and then also, like, what does training look like? What does retention look like with these people?

• 4:53Speaker 00

  So, it all came, and the CTO said this, like, it's like, we can talk about all the training we want every day, and we should absolutely still do those things. But what matters is, are we just bringing in the right people? Much easier said than done, but that also comes down to, okay, what are your standards? What questions are you going to be asking these people when they're coming in? And then, are you not afraid to be unapologetic about ending those interviews early if the call isn't working out, right? And so, that we're going to continue to refine that, but I think most companies need to think about, yes, hackathons, absolutely, AI office hours, all that. But at a certain point, you just have to decide, hey, our bar is just going to be this, and that's what it is. And people are like, oh, those people are so hard to find out. Trust me, those people are out there, because those people are actually trying to leave the companies right now that aren't on top of it, right?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  So, if you market yourself the right way with where you're trying to go, you can attract these people. So I think it's possible for everyone.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Dude, definitely. I think it is. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier, and just mindset. And I see that with so many marketers, you know. The most common message that I get when I see marketers in person is, times are hard. You know, Google's taking away top of funnel. ChatGPT is taking away top of funnel. Social media doesn't want to send traffic to your website. You can't tell people to click on a link in your bio anymore. It just screws up your watch time, which just messes up, you know, all the metrics. And I really look at everything in which, you know, it's... If you have the right mindset and you want to push hard, you're going to be better off. If you want to take the lazy mindset and not push hard, you know, you're screwed and you're doomed.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  You got to have the mentality that things can get better. You got to keep testing, you got to keep pushing and trying new things. In marketing, Eric and I, I don't think any times in our career, we ever created a business and we're like, this is the exact way to market a business. We're going to do this, and for the next three, four years, we didn't change anything. It doesn't work out that way. There's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of changes that have to happen.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  The biggest losers in marketing are the marketers who are entitled, okay? Oh, I lost my traffic over here. Oh, screw Google, screw this. Like, it's everything to point the finger outward, but to not look inwards and be like, how do I adjust? How do I adjust? How do I adjust? And when I speak at these SEO conferences, by the way, I'm like, guys, don't even complain about the algorithm. Don't even complain about how the game has changed, right? You guys are SEOs. Like, you're supposed to be the most adaptable marketers. You're supposed to... The only thing that's constant is change, right? And so, if you have a good relationship with change, that actually means, for the most part, like, you're generally a higher-agency person. You're okay with surfing the wave as it comes versus letting the wave hit you. And so, my whole thing with marketing in general now, or even this whole, you know, debate around cognition

• 7:34Speaker 00

  and, you know, being optimistic about AI, is as long as you have high agency, you know, a good relationship with change, you like solving tough problems, you're going to be just fine. The ones who complain, and by the way, I look at Neil and I, never once in my 15, 16 years of knowing Neil, have I seen him complain about a marketing channel not working. Not once have I seen him complain. And that's not even an exaggeration. Like, we might complain about other things, but not about that.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  We definitely complain about other things, but yes. I also think as marketers and entrepreneurs, we like the chaos. Because when times are good, we do enjoy them for the first six months, but then things get boring. We kind of like the ups and the downs. Maybe I'm a little crazy. I'll talk, you know, about myself. I won't say that about Eric. But maybe that's why I like the ups and downs, but it keeps me going. If things were always just good, I would get bored.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Neil, I was saying I'm pretty crazy too. Remember, so Neil, and we won't go into too much details here, but Neil called me five, six years ago, and as a friend, he said this, right? He said, he called me, and, you know, we're in trouble at the time. He's like, hey, it might be time to just bankrupt this thing, dude. And he's like, he's like, I have an idea, I have an idea. Bankrupt it, right? And so, by the way, like, that was a situation where I was like, you know what? It's going to be a great story if we're able to turn everything around. And we're talking about, this is millions and millions of dollars, right? We're talking about, like, I'm just going to leave it at that. But to be able to go through that and be in the position that we're in today, like, man, what a ride. Would I want to do it again? No. But it's through those moments that you learn the most, right?

• 9:07Speaker 00

  And, like, Bill Gates, a lot of people don't look at him too positively anymore, but I will say he has a good quote. "Success is a lousy teacher," right? And that's what I would say. So, by the way, let's come back to Singapore for a moment, Neil. So, they're a very wealthy company, you agree, right? Not company, country.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  And they are, you would say they're not an emerging market. You would say they're more of a developed market, right?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  They're developed. They're not emerging. Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Okay. So, what percent of Singaporean respondents are optimistic or negative about AI?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I would say most of them are optimistic about AI.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Is that what the status? Yeah, you want to know something interesting about Singapore?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Did you know all the citizens have to contribute money? And that money is used for their retirement, not like a 401k, but like investment like the Sovereign Wealth Fund? So when Singapore, Temasek, or any of their GIC invests in, you know, these AI companies, the citizens benefit from it. So they actually can make money and participate. The reason they do this is so that way when people are older, they have homes, stability. They have a low population. The government also provides them government housing at a much more affordable rate and dollar amount. So then that way, no one's left behind and they don't have a homeless problem.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  We should have that, like, I, I think we're moving in the right direction with the whole Invest in America accounts. But I think we, everyone should have that. So there's, there's less of this rich against the poor thing. It's more about being productive and building things and working on hard problems. I, I think this whole, like, it's very easy to fall into this whole rich versus poor mentality because it's easy to blame. It's easy to point the finger, right? And then when you use language like, again, oh, screw the billionaires, whatever. But you replace the word billionaires with successful people, screw the successful people. You realize it doesn't make any sense. So anyway, wanted to share that piece. So I, here, I, I got more here, Neil. You want to see this, uh, this WD 40 ad production center?

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Frictionless Growth Marketing hosted by Sonya Thompson shows how modern brands grow by removing the friction in their marketing and customer experience that pushes customers away every single day, often without leaders even realizing it. Each episode delivers practical insights, real brand examples, and conversations with marketing leaders, showing brands how to win with the new rules of growth, identity-driven marketing, cultural relevance, and frictionless customer experiences. Listen to Frictionless Growth Marketing wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  And they work with a whole host of global companies or a global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as UberSuggest and Answer to Public. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more and we'll see you on the other side.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Okay. When you say WD 40, I think of the spray.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Exactly. That's exactly, here, let me show you what I got here. So this is how WD 40 used AI video Amazon ads to boost performance, okay? So let's just look at the numbers here, okay? So I'm gonna, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, too many ads. Okay, so anyway, so they use Amazon, uh, Amazon's DSP. Look at dude, stop. Oh my God, all right.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  So I'm, I'm getting hit by all these pop-ups here, but the campaign produced a, I'm just gonna look over here. So this campaign produced a 45% higher click-through rate than category benchmarks, with video completion rates reaching nearly 90%. So Amazon's AI-based video ads lowered the cost to create these assets at a much higher rate. It didn't provide details on cost, but I think the thing to call out here, and screw you media posts for all these, these, these pop-ups. But I think we're gonna see more of this. I think that you listening to this right now, you shouldn't interpret this as, oh, we're just gonna create a lot more ads and we're just gonna let AI do it. It's more so, you're still gonna need someone managing it for you. You're still gonna need to hire, hire an agency to do it.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  Because Neil, I actually talked to a, um, a health company, multi-billion dollar, um, not health company, hospitality company this week, right? And they're like, okay, Single Brain looks really cool. So what's the, what's the secret sauce, right? Like, if, if we can build this, like, what's the secret sauce? And I just looked at him and I was like, so who's gonna maintain it? And he's like, oh. And then like, yeah, because he was complaining about his team the whole time. They're not, he, he, he talked about how he made, uh, and we're not gonna name names. But he was talking about how he built AI agents for each of his team members, right? Or, or like to do tasks that his team was doing. I'm like, the fact that you're doing all this stuff right now means you don't have enough people to actually help you.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  And so this WD 40 thing, the whole like, hey, we can have, we fire your agencies, do this, do that, like, who's gonna manage it for you, right? And so we ain't going anywhere. Neil and I, we're still gonna be here, so when people need the help, we'll be here. Don't worry.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  It's like people telling me there will be no need for agencies. You can just do it all with AI.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Who tells you that, by the way? I'm, I'm curious.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  So, uh, Entrepreneur Today told me, just look at media buying and buying ads online. You no longer have to do it. AI can just end up doing it for you. And I was like, have you run ads yourself? They're like, yeah, I've, I've been running ads for, I think they said like six years. I said, okay. So back in the day, there were solutions like Kenchu and Marin. I'm assuming you remember them, that would help you do bid management. Eventually, Google and Facebook ended up releasing a lot of the features. It got better and better. You know, there's, you know, um, PMax, AI Max, the list goes on and on. They continue to make it easier and easier for you, yet companies still use agencies.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  And one can say, oh no, there's no need, it's a scam. But what if I told you I have case studies to prove companies doing it on their own and hiring internal people, using all this latest and greatest technology? And then going through us, and then us in many cases, um, for a lot of our bigger spenders. I'm talking about people who are spending five, 10 plus million dollars a month, showing them 20 plus percent improvements in revenue while spending less. So the delta is actually much more than 20% here, right? Because you're getting them 20% more revenue and you're spending less money. And that's after fees. So overall, it's a highly profitable, or much more profitable than it was.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  And the reason I, what I told them is, the reason people pay agencies is for expertise. They see a lot of data, they work with so many different accounts in different industries. They can tell you what you should change and adjust and what you should try out. And you can end up trying AI, there's nothing wrong with it. We use AI, a lot of companies use AI. But if the AI just replicates the same strategy for everyone, what is your edge?

• 16:22Speaker 00

  People go to agencies, why? Because agencies want, they have expertise, they also have the data as well, right? And it's not only that, it's, it's, you have the expertise piece, but you also get a, a shop that can handle multiple things at once. And ultimately, what they're doing is they're delivering outcomes and they're taking a lot off of your plate. And that's something that's worth paying for. That's all. And so as long as humans will be hired, agencies are still gonna be around.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Dude, I totally agree with you on this.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  So actually, speaking of agency, let's talk about Asians for a second, Neil. So, um, so, you know, our, our good friend Elon Musk tweeted this. So he says, AI agentic internet traffic will obviously vastly exceed human usage. So not even a close call at all. CloudFlare's forecast is accurate. So CloudFlare, um, they said humans will be a rounding error on the internet. According to CloudFlare's forecast, bot traffic will exceed human traffic by a factor of 1,000 within, uh, five years. So what's interesting to me, before we react to this, Neil, I've been very impressed by CloudFlare. So you have probably never logged into CloudFlare dashboard, but I logged, I happened to just log in because I was just curious over the, the weekend, right? And I looked at it, I was like, dude, they have all these agentic things. All these like things, you, you can click like the MD file, you can like add, you know,

• 17:31Speaker 00

  the ability for agents to buy things and things like that. I think every site needs to become like this, and I'm sure you've seen this already, Neil. I, I'm like, every site needs to become agent-ready, right? Like how Shopify launched their UCP and there's all these, you know, PC and CP, all these things launching out, right? And so I think it's, it's, bless you, I don't know if that's a, that's a sneeze, but, um, I think it's helpful for us to start to think about not just answer engine optimization, but it's also answer engine optimization for, are you doing it for humans? Are you doing it for agents? Because we're already seeing that, um, the number of agents is, is rising. You want to make it easy for them to buy things, and a lot of times, these agents just want to bypass the UI.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and CloudFlare has been releasing quite a few new features. So for example, they make it easier for, um, uh, you know, agents and AI to end up crawling down, uh, to crawling your site. Like they released markdown for agents, which automatically converts HTML into just clear, concise, uh, text-based answers. And then that way, the crawlers can get what they're looking for faster. Uh, and then this also, uh, reduces costs for the company. But yeah, they've been making a lot of changes. I've been logging into my cloud for quite a bit over the last few months. It's because they, they keep emailing me saying they want us to pay more money.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  And I've been arguing that I don't want to pay more money and I should get a cheaper price.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Well, see, the problem is Neil actually enjoys those conversations.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then my team's just like, hey, they presented this, we think it's reasonable. Like, no, no, no, no, put me in the conversation. I'm like, I want to pay less. They're like, no, no, they're trying to charge us more. I'm like, yeah, but I want to pay less than what we're paying.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  So it's, it's, Neil wants to get more for less, then that's how you do it. That's negotiation, right? So here, like, I actually pulled up, um, the, it's like, here are all the quick wins you can add over here, right? And it's like, here's this technical groundwork, you need to expose the directive of your web services. Share login details for AI bots, preferences for bot behavior, like the MD files Neil was talking about, manage AI bots, right? And then there's like these, all these integrations down here. So what I just did, Neil, I just took a screenshot of this and I just dumped it into my, my agent. I was just, hey, how high leverage was this for us, is this for us? And so interesting enough, for our agency website, Neil, it's like, this is like a 50 out of 100 high leverage, right? But when I looked at the other sites, like Single Brain or Care to whatever, or Clickflow, it's like, yes, absolutely make those agentic. Make it easy for them to access the API, make it easy for them to buy as well.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  They can even do these little microtransactions, um, like if they want to pull from Answer to Public, they want to do all these microtransactions, maybe you guys can make money off of that. And so I'm like, someone needs to be on this. And ideally, I think if you're an AEO, SEO person watching this right now, you should learn how this stuff works. We're just making you aware of this. And like, in my younger years, I probably spent the time learning how to make this all work, but I just forward this to the team. I'm sure, sure, same thing for you too, Neil, so.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yep. Dude, I, and, and of recently, I don't know why, in the last few weeks, I've been getting a lot of people adding me to just random group texts, like introducing me to people. Like, hey, you should talk to so-and-so. And it's pretty much sale, like someone's introducing me to someone so I can buy their products or services. And, uh, people are starting to get upset and I no longer respond to them. And I do, you know, especially if I know the people, I've, if, if I think it's legitimate and it's good, I forward it to my team. But people are like, hey, did you respond to them? You should get on the call with them. I'm like, I don't have the time for this. I'm like, forward. I'm like, it is what it is.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  The picture wasn't good enough to convince me to join the call.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  Well, here's what I'll say, I, I mean, this is, like, people should learn introduction etiquette 101. And when it's a big intro, by the way, you want, and you respect the other person, you probably want to do a double opt-in. And you want to be cognizant of what their interests are. And, and if you spend, if you go the extra mile here, you're, you're gonna get remembered, right? Versus just randomly introducing. Now, here's what I'll say, there's a caveat to that. So if a Neil's coming from, like a Neil, if, if a intro is coming from someone like I, that I trust, like a Neil, for example, right? I'm gonna trust that he's spent a time and it's something that Neil has already thought about my interest, right? I'm just gonna go ahead and go with that. But if someone barely knows you and they're just putting you into a thread, I think that's rude. And I think it's stupid and I think that's low cognition, and I think that's part of the mental underclass.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  The new mental underclass.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Dude, I totally agree with this. People need to understand, you know, what a person actually wants, get their permission. It's like a double opt-in, right? You guys do it with email, do it with introductions over text. And I think that is the best way, or else people just ignore it. Like, I've had friends that I've known for 15, 20 years introduce me to people. And they're just like, hey, follow up with these guys. I'm like, dude, I don't have time. I'm like, I don't, I'm not even in this department that makes a decision for this progress service. I'm like, I'm the wrong person to make the introduction.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  You're, you're nice in those situations. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm actually pretty mean in those situations. And I, I do like, follow up what? And I put a period, not a question mark. I put a period.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. Then, then, then they know not to, that they know to stop doing that. Well, I think that's a good place to end. Guys, we will catch you next week and, uh, yeah, have a good weekend.