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#15 - Staying true-to-brand with genuine UGC, creative testing and channel exploration

Connor Dault sits down with us to talk about how Caraway’s growth team is leaning in to (or moving around) the latest trends in the industry.

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Don't V*LOOKUP, Teddy Kolva & Bar Bruhis
April 11, 2024

Hope everyone is recovered from an eclipse week and post-whalies blues. We wanted to drop you a little present to dive into over the weekend or on your travel back home.

After giving us a master-class in UGC, creative testing, and new channel exploration, you would think Connor Dault, Caraway’s VP of Digital, would tell us you can use data to solve anything. 

But by the end of our 30-minute sit-down in March, we asked him what one of the biggest pain points of his job is today. His answer?

“The real stuff that keeps me up at night is how do I create an engaging, fulfilling, challenging environment for the teams at Caraway that I oversee?”

Remote work, he said, particularly makes for a more challenging environment to inspire and coach talent. Cherene Aubert expressed this sentiment a few episodes ago too.

The things without obvious data — that’s where it gets harder to lead, and it’s a constant experiment and work in progress,” he told us as the interview wrapped up.

Watch Connor’s refreshing, humble perspective on more than a few industry trends below, and enjoy:

#15 - Connor Dault VP of Growth @ Caraway

Listen to this episode from Don't VLOOKUP on Spotify. Connor Dault sits down with us to talk about how Caraway’s growth team is leaning in to (or moving around) the latest trends in the industry. For more in depth writeup and insights subscribe here: https://dontvlookup.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=PHkwaWg3mT

open.spotify.com/episode/5d4vgcFuGhxqWP39ajXfiy?si=9RbVmzE9RhaNdGVAF2A44A

🎯 The TL;DR of our conversation 🎯 

  1. (7:25) Genuine UGC doesn’t need the latest Beyonce album as background music. Connor and team emphasize UGC storylines that are more evergreen and stand the test of time. He encourages his team to buck creative format trends (I.e. Beyonce-inspired line-dancing to Texas Hold ‘Em) and pursue the stories relevant to Caraway’s anti-microplastics position in market instead.

  2. (10:07) Discipline in channel diversification keeps Caraway’s growth team focused. Connor implores his team to “have strong beliefs, but loosely held” when evaluating other new channels or tools in market. This means that they don’t go running to the ‘next big thing’ the minute they see down-performance in Meta or Google. Finding out why their biggest channels aren’t growing is priority-zero, but but they are open to arbitrage opportunities in the space, like Flip.

  3. (11:57) Democratizing data access makes diagnosing growth problems, an organizational problem. Connor speaks to how Caraway distributes data from every paid channel to members of CX and organic social teams.

  4. (13:48) “Can your channel actually grow marginal revenue for our business?” Incrementality is a new channel’s first big pressure-test at Caraway. Connor employs geo-based holdouts in new tests, and in his love-hate relationship with TikTok (15:32), which seems to perform best with a promotional offer attached.

⭐️ North Star Metric & Key Data Tools ⭐️ 

North Star Metric:

Blended Company ROAS

Key Data Tools:

  • Haus.io - for geo-based incrementality testing with time-to-value and automation in mind

  • Good ol’ Google Sheets - shared to all marketing and non-marketing personnel at Caraway, to democratize access to important channel metrics

For more from Connor and other Don’t V*LOOKUP guests, don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel, or listen on Spotify or Apple.