Daniel Patterson

| | marketing, music education, SaaS

[☆ @Literarium24]

The video l watched every morning At 6 AM for 6 months.

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

@shwarmadev Did Fastlane create this Tweet?

[Mambo Italiano @mamboitaliano__]

Social media trends have turned the world’s most beautiful places into endless bathroom lines at a concert, where everyone waits for hours just to take the same photo to show to people who couldn’t care less 🌎📸

Nothing captures the shallow decay of our time better than this

[Noah Kagan @noahkagan]

Last Saturday night, 2:55 AM started the worst week of the year for me.

Facebook restricted our ad account out of nowhere.

Fifteen years of running Facebook ads. Over $20M spent cumulatively. I personally helped build Facebook Ads in the early days. And on a random Saturday night, an email landed saying our account was restricted, no reason given. 😞

I figured it would resolve itself. Our ads are straightforward comparison ads for products we promote on AppSumo. I called Facebook (you can actually call them), and the rep said they'd review it and have it cleared in 24 to 48 hours. I looked at the recent ads. Two had been rejected, both AI software ads. Nothing that should take down a whole account.

Context: my last startup got permanently banned by Facebook. That ban killed our revenue from $150K a day down to $15K a day overnight. That's a story for another time. But sitting there at 2:55 AM, all of that fear came rushing back.

48 hours later, Monday morning. Still restricted. I called again. They said it looked positive and we'd get an email when it cleared. I started checking email obsessively. Nothing.

So I went into Hail Mary mode. I reached out to Naomi, a VP of product. To the COO. To the CTO. To old account managers. To friends who work there. I even found a guy whose entire business is getting people's Facebook accounts unbanned. (Ours wasn't technically banned, just restricted, but yolo.)

Every night that week, my family would go to sleep and I'd go upstairs and call Facebook ad support. I was depressed. I was frustrated. The thought running through my head was that 16 years of work was about to get erased because some intern or agency we'd worked with did something stupid I didn't know about.

Thursday, 1 AM. I'm in the account again, scrolling through the restriction page, and I notice something I hadn't seen before. A line that says "data sources restricted." I click into it. It says: you're sending traffic from an adult site. WHAT!?!

I sat there staring at it. That is not possible.

I started digging to figure out wtf.

It turns out there's a thing called pixel bombing. Pixels are public. Someone can grab your pixel and intentionally place it on bad sites to get you banned. I didn't know this existed until that moment. Maybe it was this?

Then I dug deeper and realized years ago we'd built a product, and someone had taken our AppSumo Facebook tracking pixel and put it on that product. A random user of that product put it on a adult site. Facebook saw traffic from an adult site coming into our pixel and flagged the whole account.

I removed the pixel from the product. Blocked the offending sites in Facebook's settings. Submitted a new review request. The next morning, the account was unlocked. Poof.

A few lessons for others:

- Audit your pixels. Know where they are placed.

- Have a separate ad account running as a backup so if something happens you are not dead in the water.

- Get an account rep account support set up before you need it. Or find an agency who has direct Facebook contacts.

- And if you're a smaller company doing 50% or 75% of your revenue on one channel, build a hedge. The day Facebook decides you don't exist, you don't.

One thing that was a quiet positive in the middle of all this: our ads were dark for 48 hours and the revenue impact was smaller than I expected. Facebook ads are 5-10% of our business. Worth knowing what each channel actually contributes when it goes to zero.

That was the worst week of my life in the past years! And it came down to a pixel I forgot we had, on a product I forgot we built, on a site I never visited.

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

@anishmoonka Absolutely agree. Our son slept in our room until he was 4. In a co-sleeper by the bed and then on a mattress on the other side of the room.

He almost NEVER woke us up after he was an infant.

It’s a sweet memory to have of him. He’s 13 now.

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

@CollinRugg Couldn’t they just interview the crocodiles?

Typical cops.

Shoot first, ask questions later.

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

BEING A GREAT COACH IS

a. understanding human nature
b. pattern recognition
c. having the courage to tell people what you see

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

For larger schools, hiring a team is a necessary precursor to growth and scale… But, it adds a whole new dimension of complexity to your business. A dimension that often catches owners flat-footed… https://t.co/H1kgxfROmr

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

How much should you charge for your lessons? I answered this question + a lot more in our latest episode. https://t.co/8XyAfxsJLw

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

If you struggle to find good teachers or support staff for your school… This podcast episode is for you! Free to listen, no signup required. https://t.co/zc780VbQ2f

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

Nate and I have really been enjoying the live Q&A format this year… And this is another episode where we took audience questions and answered them rapidly and thoroughly. https://t.co/XmfEZhJjjr

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

Sam of https://t.co/W2n267MVUQ has observed large academies and he has seen “patterns of excellence... ” profitable schools that have similar characteristics. This ep will give you some serious food for thought if you want to grow a PROFITABLE academy. https://t.co/QZHBgNYcuS

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

Nate and I had a looooong conversation about teacher performance… And we decided to cut it into two parts (just as an experiment). This is part 2 of that conversation. https://t.co/Cb3s1DQKYS

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

School owners ask me:

"Daniel! What's the best billing model? Monthly? Semester? Flat? Per lesson?"

The truth? It doesn't matter.

What matters is how you communicate it... and how you respond when you're challenged.

So - pick whatever seems best to you!

Thoughts?

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

Student performance and teacher performance are linked… So, how do you measure teacher performance? https://t.co/vCfpw5Ntjt

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

Nate and I have been doing live Q&A episodes every month for most of this year. In this episode, we tackle a number of important questions from YOU… our listeners! https://t.co/CnElCaGtTv

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

Should you scale your school? Or would it be better to let it stay at its current size? https://t.co/bA90vhR9wX

[Daniel Patterson @GrowMusicStudio]

This episode is practical and tactical… a guide that you can use to quickly improve operations and growth at your own school! https://t.co/HQXh4JN0oz

[BLUNTTIPS @blunttips]

Some funny Photoshop requests that will brighten your day (part 2).😂😂

Click to open thread 👇

1. 🤣🤣😂😂