125. SPN: How to drive organic AND high quality traffic
Plus, THE most important question in any marketing interview
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In this week’s SPN:
Uncover exceptional talent with these questions
How to drive more quality, organic traffic to your site
Lots of Jobs that took my fancy this week
My Favorite Job Interview Questions
After a couple hundred job interviews as a hiring manager, and many more this week, there are a handful of questions that I’ve found cut through the noise and reveal the true potential of any marketing candidate. I ask some of the standard questions too of course but I always add these ones to the mix.
Fair warning: They may be a bit unconventional. But that’s the point - to uncover exceptional talent that might slip through the cracks of a traditional interview.
1. Have you ever built an audience from scratch?
Candidate: CMO, VP, Director, Manager - ALL
This is THE most important question I ask in any marketing interview.
Show me that you grew *any* audience - for an app, a personal social account, a Facebook group, an Org’s newsletter, a side project. I want to see that they understand the pain of growing from 0 to 10, and from 10 to 10,000.
As a marketing and fundraising team, we’ll work together to expand our reach and relevance - and I want to see that they really know how hard it is.
What to look for:
Specific examples of audiences they’ve grown from 0.
If no audience built - experience moderating or managing forums.
Creative tactics they’ve used.
Ability to apply audience-building skills to other contexts (e.g., organizing events).
Red flags:
Claiming sole credit for audience growth while in an employee role, without acknowledging somebody else’s network or existing Org resources.
Absolutely zero examples of building an audience or managing communities.
2. Tell me about a time you used Fiverr / Upwork
Candidate: CMO, VP, Director, Manager - ALL
I want to see if they outsource tasks they’re not capable of doing themselves (e.g. design, coding, video editing). It shows an ability to solve problems creatively by leveraging external resources.
And bonus points if they’ve introduced Fiverr / Upwork to their Org, and had to get buy-in and contracts signed.
What to look for:
Ability to identify tasks suitable for outsourcing.
Examples of tasks they’ve outsourced creatively (either for work or for personal projects).
Understanding of how to manage remote freelancers.
Red flags:
Never used gig platforms at all / someone else’s problem to solve for.
Over-reliance on themselves / internal help for everything.
Lack of self-awareness regarding personal skill gaps.
3. What’s your favorite marketing resource?
Candidate: CMO, VP, Director, Manager - ALL
The specific answer matters less than the excitement they show when discussing it. I want to see that they’re obsessed with marketing - it’s not just a job but a passion.
What to look for:
Shares specific lessons from the resource.
Has multiple favorites, hard to pick one.
Eyes light up, talks faster, sits up straighter.
Red flags:
Can’t articulate why it’s a favorite.
Struggles to think of anything!
BONUS: Have you ever organized an event?
Candidate: CMO, VP, Director, Manager - ALL
Pulling off an event - whether it’s a small meetup or a big conference - requires hustle, creative problem-solving, an eye for detail, and the ability to manage a thousand moving pieces.
That’s why I ask about event planning experience regardless of role specifics. It shows how they handle pressure, adapt on the fly, and ultimately deliver a great experience for people.
You can learn a ton about someone’s project management abilities from the events they’ve organized. It’s all about the resourcefulness they bring to the table and getting it done.
What to look for:
Experience as main organizer, not just helper.
Creative problem-solving when issues arose.
Understanding of attendee experience.
Jobs & Opps 🛠️
World Central Kitchen: Associate, Community Fundraising ($60,000 - $66,000)
National Wildlife Federation: VP, Ranger Rick Brands & Engagement ($140,000 - $160,000)
Wikimedia Foundation: Senior Manager, Major Gifts & Planned Giving
National Trust (UK): Fundraising Compliance Manager (£36, 621)
Represent Us: CEO ($300,000)
Rockefeller Foundation: Director, Strategic Communications & Media Relations ($176,562 - $236,017)
The Metropolitan Opera: Director, Digital Marketing ($110,000 - $125,000)
Breast Cancer Research Foundation: Associate Director, Partnership Marketing and Communications ($110,000 - $120,000)
National Disability Institute: Director, Communications and Marketing
Royal Brompton Hospital (UK): Director of Fundraising & Marketing (£80,000)
→ More jobs updated daily to SPN’s sister website: www.pledgr.com
Explore: Build Your Tech Stack (link)
Searching for new tools or trying to trim down your tech stack? Play around in this infographic. I add to it most weeks.
Drive More Quality, Organic Traffic to Your Site
Even outside of the US Election, paid advertising costs are climbing. These 5 tactics have helped me drive a ton of quality, organic traffic:
Deploy YouTube ads
Run native ads alongside Meta & Google ads
Leverage blog content and SEO → but still think social first
Create more organic content, get creative
Establish a deep connective tissue with Supporters
Let’s dig into each one.
Deploy YouTube ads.
More Orgs should focus on collaborating with YouTube creators and focus on sponsoring evergreen content. The beauty of these videos and ads is that links stay in the video descriptions forever. You’ll continue to reap rewards as the video gets more views over time and it's typically driving a scale-friendly ROI.
I know I’ve still acquired donors several months later from YouTube videos, for example, that featured my ads, long after the initial campaign flight was over. It’s an easy, simple hack and it works.
Run native ads alongside your Meta & Google ads.
Another big channel that a ton of Orgs should be using especially for top of funnel awareness is native advertising. Start with Taboola, which I’ve written about here and here.
Taboola is the Meta Ads Manager for the open web. They have access to over 22,000 publications with 500M daily active users. The publisher sites in their network receive billions of total page views per month. These are brands like USA Today, NBC, Business Insider, The Weather Channel, Bloomberg, Fox, etc that you can advertise on.
The CPMs for native advertising are very competitive and the top of funnel awareness is great. I’ve shared before that Orgs should be hesitant about launching new channels in Q4 but if I was going to add one new channel to my media mix, it would either be native ads with Taboola or CTV. Both are super compelling alternatives to Meta and Google right now and both are great tools in the toolkit to use.
Taboola is a leader in native ads category (publicly traded company too, not just a startup) and they work really well alongside your evergreen campaigns (test it - I see incremental revenue every time). They also drive more than 1 million monthly transactions for brands like Walmart and Skechers. I don’t know why more Org’s aren’t using it, at least testing it!
Leverage blog content and SEO - but still think social first.
I’m not an SEO expert but I do think more brands should focus on creating SEO-optimized content that people actually search for. That said, when sharing this content, Org’s would do well to stop simply posting the blog title with a link on their socials to promote it.
Take a look at your X/Twitter or LinkedIn feed - is it just blog links with their titles? How much engagement is that driving? With whom? I doubt not much of anything…
There’s a massive opportunity to think more creatively and natively about how to share your content across different platforms to the benefit of your Supporter’s experience with your Org. Post Twitter threads, LinkedIn slideshows, or even TikTok stories highlighting a thought provoking fact or takeaway from your blog posts. My general POV here is to always think social first.
99% of your content should be native to the social platforms and presented in ways that people like to engage. Less and less people are going to your blog on your .Org site. More and more people simply want to see the summary as a tweet thread or a 60 second video explaining the concept on IG.
Blogs are useful for long-term SEO and also to have in-depth written content, which you can share with anyone at any time. For example, can you write 1 hero article on all of your most important donor service questions, then arm your Donor Support team with the link to each blog post that they can share with donors who have contacted them to speed up your ticket resolution process?
Or for those who leave commonly asked questions in your ad comments, you can link back to those blog posts in your comments. I like this play as a very efficient use of long form blog content for any Org.
Create more organic content.
There’s no silver bullet to winning on organic social. Consistency and providing value are the two main factors that determine growth.
My favorite way to spin up 25-50 pieces of content for any Org is to take the top 25 most-asked questions on social or via email or donor support tickets, and make videos addressing each one on platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. This constant push of organic content works really well for brand visibility and donor trust.
To take it one step further, depending on your Org and its assets, seeding product to organic creators to get user and donor generated content-style product in use clips for videos + reviews is gold too. I strongly believe that every Org needs to both make their own original content and seed to creators. It’s not either/or, it’s both!
Build emotional connection.
IMO, the goal of any “brand” should be to create something that people want to associate with publicly. The goal is for them to become ambassadors or as a former boss of mine use to say - “Super Fans”. Not because you ask them to, but because they believe in your Org’s mission and how you operate and who you operate for.
Super Fans stem from a brand identity that people find compelling and want to share with their friends. The best way to know if you have Super Fans? Word of Mouth. People will screenshot and DM their friends about your Org’s events or program updates or forward fundraisers. If your content gets sent to the group chat, you’re winning big here ;)
OK, that’s all for today!
As always, ping me with any questions and ideas or asks. I’m here for them all!
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Reads From My Week
Google wraps AI future in imperceptible watermarks (Media Post)
‘I woke up and found myself famous’: Rory Sutherland on his TikTok success (Guardian)
How brands can navigate the murky world of online streaming (Vogue Business)
How social media video clippers have become some of the most powerful outlets of the 2024 campaign (Nieman Lab)
New optical storage breakthrough could make CDs relevant again (Tech Spot)
Content Marketing is still a thing Costco Has a Magazine and It’s Thriving (The New York Times)
Having hit the headlines for planning to enter the streaming business Chick Fil A are now talking about launching an app, featuring branded entertainment. Could be interesting if entertainment wins out over brand (The Daily Item)
X Algorithm Feeds Users Political Content - Whether They Want It or Not - Elon looks to be loading the dice (WSJ)
Inside the Secretive $700 Million Ad-Testing Factory for Kamala Harris (NYTimes)