Closing More Leads, Losing Google Traffic, and Calling Out SEO’s Biggest Lie

In this episode #3021, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss Erewhon’s creative marketing approach, earnings of top OnlyFans creators, and how entitlement can block success. They also share how luck, hard work, and networking together shape business achievements. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES (00:00) Air One's Marketing Genius (02:59) OnlyFans Revenue Insights (05:56) The Role of Entitlement in Success (08:59) Luck vs. Hard Work in Business (11:51) Networking and Opportunity To suggest a topic, go to https://www.marketingschool.io. For more content from Eric and Neil, check out Eric’s Leveling Up with Eric Siu YouTube channel and Neil’s Neil Patel YouTube channel. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric's ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel, @ericosiu Instagram @neilpatel, @ericosiu Drop Us a Review If You Enjoyed the Episode!

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Speaker 01

  We're starting to see some signs of agency businesses pick up. And I'll read this from a text I got from someone on my team. So this is just some stats and data. This is for S and B division where the sales cycles are smaller. So Weeks 708 and 715, so this is Weeks of July 8th and July 15th. Closed rates inside two weeks, rates rose by 40% versus 23% in late June. So we're continually seeing the close rates from a lead coming in to them willing to sign to continually increase. June increased at 23%, July increased another 40%.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  On top of the base number from the previous? Not from June, but from the base number or whatever it was before June. But June picked up over the previous months. And then July picked up again over June. They didn't share data from the last two weeks of July. Maybe they don't have it yet.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Indicates acceleration began before August bookings, suggesting pipeline quality lifted mid-July.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  We, oh, Week 722, I didn't actually read all the text. Oh, there's more here. Week 722, 100% of the wins came in less than two weeks. Week 729, same 100% of the wins came in less than two weeks.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  So fastest turnaround all year, even in small, small numbers. That's what I'm, they're using like text language, like small N, capital N. I'm assuming that's numbers. It's a clear step change versus early June.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  August is usually, July, August are usually slower and it's picking up.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  There are slow months.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  The summer months are slowest for enterprise.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Which is interesting for us because it's been, it's been, I would say it's been better than average. And then it does feel like it's picking up even though it's August right now. Because right like our, right now, we're still, even though our, our main, um, sales head is, is out on vacation. We still close, I think we closed like one or two this week.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  How'd that work? You took a sales head from a competitor. We won't name the competitor, but how'd that work out?

• 2:55Speaker 00

  Really good.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  So they, they understand sales better, it's working, the pitch is tighter.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Pitch is tighter and, um, things are moving along and then it's always, in my mind, it's always been like, you know, we get this, these leads, this gold, right? And it's like, but how come we're not closing more? And so I would say that it's been, it's been good. And now I'm like, okay, how, how do we get more?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  So the sales rep that you took from a competitor, I know this for a fact, they get a lot of their leads from, I believe it's Clutch. Clutch is the site that ranks the agencies. I'm pretty sure it's Clutch.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  I think it's, their S U is really good.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, they get a lot of leads from Clutch as well.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  The last time we talked to Clutch's sales rep, they claimed that they were the largest spender on Clutch.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Wow, that company.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  That company.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Wow. I didn't know that.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Clutch is expensive. Clutch is great. It's expensive though. I, I like the whole, you know, get emails and webinars.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I look at it just you do everything and somehow they end up coming in.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. You, you don't pay for Clutch, do you?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  I don't know if we pay for Clutch, but I'm going to guess with no because they required too long of a contract and we weren't willing to, uh, run it that long. We spent a decent amount on Meta. Meta does well for us.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  For collecting emails or webinars?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  No, for getting customers.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Oh, really? Straight up? Yeah, you, you do run ads. That's right. I ran that little, uh, that little cursor thing. And it was just straight up retargeting or straight up cold?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, we do cold and redo remarketing, but we spend majority of the money on cold.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  That's funny. That actually works, but.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  We don't spend a lot though.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  It depends what, it's a lot. We only spend, if I had to guess, I think we're spending around 50 grand a month.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  For your size, it's like, it's not a lot, it's not a little, so.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Well, we only spend the money for SMB division. So it's not a ton of money. It's.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  But your SMB is other people's enterprise.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  No, not really.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  Okay, what are the minimums per month?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  I don't know what the minimums are.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Okay, so is it okay for V to say?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know more than me.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  So you told me before it was around, call it 15 a month, right? Which is for smaller agencies, that's like a lot, because smaller agencies don't charge a lot.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  No, that's not, that's not our enterprise. I'm saying we don't do the 15.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  No, I'm talking about for your SMB division, you're charging 15 a month.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  That's what you told me before.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  No, I said we skip the 15s. When you asked me a comparison, because you're comparing for a single green, I'm saying we don't have that. You consider that middle market.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  You don't have?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  We don't have that. We have some clients, now you're talking about average, right? We have some clients that pay more.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Average for NPXL.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  It has to be way lower.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Really?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  If I had a guess, my guess is gonna be around like 5 grand a month.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  So I misunderstood then.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  But what I'm getting at with SMB is we don't have that middle tier. So we have NPD, that's enterprise. We're like, we'll work with like the DHLs of the world. And then we have the SMB divisions that'll work with smaller budgets. And what I'm getting at is, we're helping mom and pops for like 5 grand a month, alright? I'm averaging it out. My numbers could be off, but I know it can't be that far off. And we do have customers at our SMB division that are paying 15, 20, 30, 40 grand a month. But that's not the majority. If you look at the average, it has to be closer than 5 grand. When I say I'm guessing, I know I'm probably within a 90 percentile of my estimate.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Because I've seen the numbers, because we get monthly updates, right? I just don't know every single month, but it's pretty steady, because we've had our SMB division for a while. Our enterprise though, we have a lot of accounts paying us millions and millions and millions of dollars a year. So there's a big gap in between. So when you're talking about your agency, or Power Digital, or a lot of the other agencies that focus on that middle market, or like Mute6, there's another Mute6 alternative that I forgot the name. They're based somewhere in SoCal, they do like D to C. I think they sold to private equity maybe.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Common Thread?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Common Thread is another one. They have what I would consider more of that middle market, where they're selling their ideal customers paying like 15, 20 grand a month. We don't have a ton of those. We have lower end, we do have some middle. But if you look at our percentage of revenue, at least in the United States, international... I don't have the numbers off the top of my head and you can't look at it that way because of the currency exchange.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  So their version of like, we have clients in Latam that are paying us 20, 30, 40 grand a month. But that is enterprise in Latin America for like in Mexico because of currency exchange, right? So, but yeah, we don't have that middle market like you or Power Digital has.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  That makes sense. I misunderstood it previously. By the way, I want to go back to something. Talk about getting, getting lucky, right? So I remember I told you I was doing, I started doing these AI dinners a couple of weeks ago. And so that AI dinner has now led to an AI lunch that I'm going to. And that AI lunch has actually, there's a couple of, there's like two or three billionaires there, right? And then you have a bunch of, and it's, it's like sponsored by a sovereign fund that lunch, right? And there's like 10, 15 people there or whatever. But my point of saying this is if, if some of you are asking, well, how do you actually get luckier? This is one of those ways you host these things. You don't know what's going to happen. My only, I was thinking about it this morning. I was like, I have no expectations when I host these. I was like, yes, I do. I absolutely have an expectation. My expectation is that I end up creating more luck and that good things will happen in the long term. And that just happened every single time, right?

• 8:17Speaker 00

  So I mean, whether you're hosting lunches or dinners, that's how you create more luck and that's how you become wealthier in the long term. Because and even this, like, it's not like I want customers or whatever, but even like I got that, the invite yesterday. And then actually the person hosting is like, oh, by the way, you should talk to this person over here. Did an intro. It's like, oh, they actually need marketing help, right? You just, by the way, I had no intention, hey, guys, come buy my shit. Nope. Didn't do any of that. So.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 00

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• 9:16Speaker 01

  It's a lot of people just don't put themselves out there so they feel that they're not lucky. It's that they're just not trying.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're actually an extroverted person. Remember the personality test? I'm actually very introverted, right?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  I'm introverted.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  On the first line, you said you're extroverted.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Or let me rephrase. Forget personality. I don't do much stuff that's extroverted where I actually talk to other people or go out.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  But when you go somewhere, you're very extroverted. You bring a lot of energy.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yes, but my problem is I don't go anywhere.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, like, OK, so when we go to lunch or Novakoff, you talk to the waiter, like, you're very engaging, right?

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  Whereas like if I'm hosting something, yes, I'm it's very hype. People think I'm extroverted. But compared to you, when we go out and eat, when we order or whatever, like, I don't try to talk, so.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but a lot of my conversations are really awkward and my wife tells me you can't ask people these kind of questions. It's like they think I'm trying to rob them or something like that. I'm like, I'm just trying to find out.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  How much you've got.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  No, it's just more so it's like, I'm not trying to be rude, but it's just like, how many people come here through lunch? Which is, are busy or how many people for dinner? What do most people order? Because I just want to understand how much.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Wait, why can't you ask those questions?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Because they're rude.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  How does rude?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I don't know. That's what I was told. I like asking.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  I think there's a fight.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, anyway.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  All right, we both have a similar topic in here. Google claims search traffic isn't declining. I don't know if you saw their press release or blog post.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, you go, go.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  But Google just put out a vague statement that search is up, more people are using search. And they said they're not necessarily seeing people see a decline in search traffic. They're seeing some people also get gains. They did not give specific numbers and I bet you they did they did it on purpose.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  I think Google's VP of Search is lying about how Google is actually doing because they said, oh, total organic click volume from search to websites has been relatively stable year on year. And it's sending slightly more quality clicks than a year ago. I don't know about your traffic. I see the alligator, the open jaw. I'm just like, what? Like, definitely we're losing clicks.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  I think we've more so lost clicks and it's stabilized and I don't think we're losing a ton more right now. We've seen some customers get good wins. We've seen some customers, of course, get losses. We've seen the alligator as well. But we've seen a lot of companies make up the losses in traffic. Not necessarily getting more traffic, but getting higher conversions from AI traffic. So we're not seeing AI drive anywhere nearly the volume of organic traditional Google search. Or Bing search, but we're seeing ChatGPT and perplexity driving a very, very, you know, fraction of a percent in traffic, but the conversions are through the roof.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  And that's making up some of the losses from organic search. And as you and I both know, a lot of the factors are pretty much the same. There's some nuances, but.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  So, look, I, I just think they have to protect what they need to protect. Like they always, they'd always never completely tell the truth for the most part, like more often than not, even when you had the search liaison, all these people. And it's okay, right? Like you, you take what they say with a grain of salt and you try to interpret it with your own data. So that's how I look at it.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  We have a similar topic here. Ours is a little bit, titles are a little bit different, but go with it when you're talking about a female model. Actually, before you go into that, let's talk about Reddit losing traffic from Google and then we can get into the female model.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Where's that one?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Reddit is starting to lose Google traffic.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Did I have that one? Oh, there we go.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. So this is from Glenn Gabe on X. And so Glenn, by the way, so he's an SEO consultant. And so he said that Reddit CEO said traffic from Google varies from week to week. But overall, it was a headwind in Q2, headwind meaning that it's, it's kind of going against them, right? Tailwind is when you're getting carried by it. So regarding headwind, quote unquote, check out international visibility trending for Reddit. I'm seeing that across tools, not great for them. That can change and jump back up. But I'm seeing a drop across several countries outside the US. I wonder if these AI translations are causing problems now that Google has seen that in place over time. Maybe another reason they are pushing forward with becoming a search engine, Germany, France and Italy are below. So you can see what's happening is you can see it going up and then it kind of just drops and it's slightly rising again.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  This one was, this is Reddit.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Daily updates, I don't know what it is. But yeah, you can see it's not doing well. I think they're

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Quality, they were showcasing Reddit so much in their search results on page one. And the quality of the results were not relevant for a lot of keywords, but they were just pushing it.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, they had to dial it back at some point. Like, but it's like, whatever Google gives in the past, if you're an SEO, you know that they're gonna take it away at some point. That's just how it is.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Well, when they're giving that much.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  They were giving a lot.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  The only one that I would say has been pretty steady over the years, they may have seen some ups and downs, is Wikipedia.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  But Wikipedia does not monetize.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  So I think it's a little bit of a different story with Wikipedia.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  And it doesn't even matter that Reddit has a deal with Google or whatever, they're gonna do what they need to do, so.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they're paying them for the data, so then, you know.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  They can do whatever they want.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Anyway, that's for today, guys. Bye.