Geo-fencing and Qujam | Jeff Swartz

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, marketers, media buyers, and business owners. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Jeff Swartz, CEO and Founder of Ethic Advertising Agency and Qujam. Jeff has been an ad agency owner for 10 years with a passion for targeted advertising, creative culture and entrepreneurship. He's the author of the e-book, Nine Reasons Why Advertising Doesn't Work, keynote speaker on Culture in Advertising, and in his spare time he volunteers at local humane and children focused nonprofits. Jeff, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Jeff Swartz: Yeah, thanks David. Thanks for having me on. David McBee: Jeff, you hold the distinct title of being our very first guest on Simpli.fi TV back in April of 2023, and I want to thank you for being brave enough to be a guest on a show that didn't even exist back then. Jeff Swartz: Yeah, no, it was my pleasure and it's been awesome to see how it's developed and flourished, and I appreciate you having me back on the show as well. David McBee: Well, when you start with great seeds like you, it's bound to grow a beautiful fruit, right? Jeff Swartz: Yeah. That's kind of you to say. David McBee: So if I recall correctly, and I know I do, so I don't know why I said that, but... You and I discussed geofencing and SMBs and you had just released a new platform called Qujam, which is your self-service geofencing platform. Is that correct? Jeff Swartz: Yes, that's correct. David McBee: All right, so before we jump into what Qujam does and how it works, let's revisit why you're so passionate about the whole concept of geofencing. Why do you believe it's important for all sized businesses? Jeff Swartz: Yeah, so geofencing, and really what our agency is built on is focusing on hyper targeted localized advertising. So geofencing with its capabilities of being hyper local specific, it's been a very valuable asset to us, part of our brand and our identity as well as we're mixing it with other unstructured data kind of elements and other capabilities that we have mixing all together to do a really good holistic campaign for small and medium sized businesses. Geofencing is actually one of those things where we just started getting known for it. We've leveraged, Simpli.fi for many years with it, and it's been a really fascinating element to dive into. We've written articles around it, we've had a reputation around it. We've created partnerships that's caused us to have literally hundreds if not thousands of conversations and contacts specifically just about geofence advertising. And that's one of the reasons why I love it is because the people that we're working with could use some education and some explanation, a little bit transparency into that technology, and that's part of our DNA. So we're kind of blending those two things together when someone wants to talk about that particular ad tech. David McBee: So what's your 30-second elevator pitch about why geofencing is great for SMBs? Jeff Swartz: So geofencing, we found very diverse in the industries that it can serve. We've seen it do really well with even big businesses that are maybe industrial, but they only care about a select few locations. But we've also seen it work really well with very small businesses as well too, because it is so hyper focused and hyper specific in their location. So the benefit to more smaller companies is where they can not have a lot of waste. We're talking with a client today of doing a comparison of owning your backyard versus going after an entire designated market area. There's pros and cons to both, so that's why it's a nice leveraging tool, where we found that there's certain cases out there that a small business can spend just a very little bit of money in order to go after a very niche audience that's relevant to them based off of their physical locations that they can actually leverage. And that's actually why we created Qujam, because our agency has minimums that people couldn't meet, but they're like, "Hey, I'm like, that does make sense, but we're not going to make enough money as an agency. I have too much overhead with my people." And that's why we created the self-serve platform. David McBee: So tell us a little bit about Qujam and what you've learned since launching it. Jeff Swartz: So since launching it, we launched it right after we had talked the first time in March of 2023. A, we've learned the Simpli.fication of it is important, but also people want a little bit more information from it. So we've done two iterations of it and really kind of found a little bit of a sweet spot to make it a kind of Facebook boosted post version of geofencing or a kind of walkthrough feel of doing a job posting on LinkedIn or Indeed. So the user experience was really kind of big. The other thing that we found too is that we have a variety of users using it. We have small agencies that want to use this, but maybe they aren't quite the right fit to be on the entire DSP. We have small businesses that are using it as well too. So there are some times where people that are knowledgeable and that they can use it and they have a good concept around advertising and marketing. Then we also have some people that are like, "This seems cool. I'm going to try it." And it's almost like giving a gas tank and a match to a five-year-old. You don't really know what you're going to do. It's very powerful, but we've had to jump in and be like, "Hey, you need to have your creative say this." "Hey, this is some guidance." We've been creating thought leadership around it as well too, but it's been interesting where it's not quite right for everybody, just like any platform, but we're trying to make it right for that niche of people that have maybe smaller budgets or they want to use credit cards or they want to do it themselves, but not have to learn an entire platform and everything as well as have very reasonable CPMs and be able to have that kind of control and that power and not talk to anybody. We found there's people that want to talk to us and there's people like, "I love the fact that I don't have to talk to a single person and be sold anything. I can just go on there and use it." David McBee: Yeah, that's my wife when she orders pizza or something like that, she won't pick up the phone. Do you have any success stories you're able to share? Jeff Swartz: Yeah. So our agency has had a lot of successes in that side of things. So geofencing, we've had successes. We've seen the industrial person that I was talking about, they increased their sales by 150% for a product that they sell for a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars, and they only spent maybe $30,000 on geofencing, which is really good. We've had successes as well too as an agency of bringing that holistic localized approach. There is a auction app where they take returned and discontinued items, and they sell it on their auction, on their website or on their app. When we started with them, they were like, "We just want to double what we're doing in one year", and a little over one year we eight x them, in three years we helped them 35 x, and they have a great product and they're doing a lot of great things as well too, but it's been awesome to be a part of that. So we've seen that. The other recent case study that we love, because our agency doesn't just focus on just geofencing, that's all we're doing. We bring that holistic kind of white glove approach, is there's a fantastic nonprofit we worked with for a year called the Paul School for Hearing and Speech that works with hearing impaired students for over a hundred years, and five years ago, five and a half years now, we sat down and I said, "Hey, this is the game plan they have. This is the expectations that you should have, and if we follow this, it'll take some time to build up the enrollment, the donations that we want." And then last October is great because one of our long-term points of contact came up to me and said, "Hey, you remember that conversation that we had about that five years ago?" I'm like, "Yeah." She's like, "Do you realize that exactly what you said came true?" They have the enrollment, they have the donations coming in. They could always use more. So if anybody has a tie to that community, the poll would obviously take any donations or participation, or if you have a child that would need that, they'd be a great resource as well too. But at the same time, it's some of those stories that are great case studies, but really they just make me feel good and make the team feel good and validated. David McBee: I love the part about the advertiser, the nonprofit advertiser coming to you and telling you that you succeeded. That's not how it usually works in this world. Jeff Swartz: Yeah, they're a fantastic partner. We've worked with them for years and it is great to have that conversation, because you're right, usually people in our position, they get told the problems and those kind of things, but we try to create a culture. Like I said, like you said, I focus on culture a lot. We try to create a culture internally and externally where people can celebrate the wins just as much as they celebrate the losses. It's hard to do from the external back to the internal, but at the same time, those are conversations that pop up every once in a while and they're always appreciated and we love to share them with our team when we get them. David McBee: Yeah. Well, the audience at Simpli.fi TV is media buyers, it's agencies like yours, it's your peers. Do you have any just general advice for them? Jeff Swartz: I guess the one thing that would be unique is the diving into ad tech. Going from using other people's tools to applying our own tools and building technology on top of Simpli.fies platform as well too with that tech in the Qujam space. But it's been a roller coaster of a ride just starting an agency or being a part of agency sometimes is of getting into ad tech. But it's also been very rewarding. I've seen a lot of benefits of creating technology in that space and validation into, oh, these people are doing more than just using someone else's tools and becoming experts in it as well. So if you're thinking of dipping your toe into technology that you're creating yourself as well too, definitely find good people that can help you that you trust. Do it methodically, just like you would approaching a media campaign for a client or your own business if you're on the entrepreneur side of things. But we've seen the struggle with that. We've also been seeing the benefits as well too, and understanding that there's got to be a runway of time and money and patience just like any kind of startup as well and everything. But I would say if you're thinking about adding some kind of ad technology or any kind of technology to your mix, it's definitely rewarding and worth looking at. Just be cautious and careful and have a contingency plan if it doesn't work out. David McBee: Solid advice. Thank you. Jeff Swartz: Yeah. David McBee: All right, you know this next part, do you have a podcast or a book that you'd like to share with our listeners? Jeff Swartz: Yeah, so the first one that I mentioned was Traction by Gina Wickman. I still like that one, but the other one that I really like is a good book called Built to Sell and stuff. And that book is a fictional book based off of real business acumen, and it's actually about a agency creative shop owner that wants to exit, wants to sell and everything, and realizes "I can't, my company's not worth much." So he goes to this friend of his that has had a lot of success in entrepreneurship. Then the whole story is about him learning how to build his company to sell it and stuff. I love that book and I read it a long time ago, and what it made me realize is I want to build a company that's built to sell, not necessarily because I want to sell it, but honestly because that's the kind of company that I would want to be a part of, something that's making money, something that's enjoyable to work at, something that has value to other people as well too. So years ago when I read that, it actually had a couple of light bulbs go off, and it was more enjoyable because it was more of a fictional kind of read than it is technical as well too. But Built to Sell is definitely an easy good read and I love the fact that it is in the agency space as well too and built upon that creative shop. David McBee: Awesome. I haven't heard that one before, so thanks for sharing that. Jeff Swartz: Yeah, if you pick it up and read it, I think you'd really like it. David McBee: All right, so what is the best way for our viewers to learn more about you? Jeff Swartz: Yeah, so I'm active on LinkedIn, so I imagine we'll have links to my profile in there as well too. You can also reach out to me through our websites ethic-adsadds.com and Qujam.com, Q-U-J-A-M .com. But I welcome anybody to hit me up and chat if you're curious about Qujam, whether it's our referral program or using it or how we built it or anything like that. I can talk about that if you're curious about collaborating as agencies as well too, or whatever it might be. I like talking with people. We're a friendly kind of group and so am I. Welcome everybody to actually like, "Hey, if you connect with me, send me a message and tell me what you have going on and we can maybe grab 30 minutes." David McBee: Awesome. Thank you, Jeff for being our guest on Simpli.fi TV. Jeff Swartz: Yeah, thanks David, I appreciate it. David McBee: And thank you guys for watching Simpli.fi TV. Please help us with a like, comment, share, review, all those things and be sure and follow or subscribe to be informed about new episodes. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored, of course, by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee, be awesome and we'll see you next time.