Kevin O'Rourke

Head of Marketing at @BogeyBrosGolfCo | Former course logo snob

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

I don't care what you say, I am counting this as a hole in one

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@Fortuze Trash

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@jforjacob How’s this?

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@johnhickey1970 I love how they always try to guilt you at the end “I’d digital marketing ever becomes a priority”

[Preston Rutherford @PrestonRuther10]

I used to think Brand was bullsh*t, so imagine my surprise when I was asked to speak at Meta's Performance Marketing Summit about Brand to a room of performance marketers

How'd this happen?

Many moons ago, I co-founded Chubbies. It's a nine-figure brand now: 8 straight years of top and bottom-line growth, EBITDA up 40% yoy

But we almost went out of business first — running the exact playbook a lot of performance marketers are running right now

CAC creeping up every year. Only 'growing' when we discounted harder, longer, wider. Same ads, same people, growth on loan from the algorithm

Then we incorporated Brand into our 'performance' media, and revenue re-accelerated. More importantly, so did profit

Here are 3 mistakes I made, 3 things I learned, and 3 actions you can take on Monday:

Here's what I had wrong:

1. I thought brand was logos, fonts, or a brand book nobody opens
2. I thought spending ANY dollars on ads that didn't drive a conversion was the dumbest thing a performance marketer could do
3. And when I finally tried it, I chased the wrong thing — we went for meme-lord reach, piling up views with no connection back to the brand

Here's what I know now:

1. Brand is the moat. It's pricing power. It's why people buy from you without you competing on price and features
2. The "trough of despair" everyone's scared of? It doesn't show up — because you fund brand by reallocating your least-efficient dollars, not by adding budget (and other reasons)
3. And it's accountable. Build a behavioral funnel, drive a real action like branded search, measure it with a geo-holdout. It's not a vibes contest

More on this "trough of despair" being a nothing burger:

1. The brands we do this for don't see the trough. A ~$75M denim brand grew contribution dollars roughly 50% year over year — with new customers and total revenue climbing the whole time
2. An outdoor brand ran brand media alone — and the lift showed up everywhere its customers shop: its own site, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and strongest of all, 2.5x incremental revenue on a major brick-and-mortar retailer's shelves
3. A six-month geo-holdout showed brand driving 1.93x incremental revenue — while the saturated direct-response they'd been relying on was returning a blended 0.91x

Les Binet's research concurs: grow your share of search, and good things follow

So, three things you can do Monday:

1. Find the marginal return on your least-efficient dollars. Those can move to brand with no short-term revenue drop
2. Look at the creative you ship. Would your friends be hyped to see it — or "ugh, he's selling me something"? You want a healthy mix
3. Build your behavioral funnel. Define the action at every stage so brand stops being soft and starts being math

The full vid is attached. Case studies in the comments.

If you still think "performance" brand is bullsh*t — let's discuss

What's the data you'd need to see to change your mind?

Tell me where you're stuck/skeptical and let's get into it below

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@mikefutia META

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@nicktheriot_ @niakjaw 🔥

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@herrmanndigital Meta won’t let me upload new videos for some reason…

Every time it says “upload failed”

Are you seeing this? Or is it a me problem?

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@herrmanndigital Seems like a skill issue. Have you tried increasing your opportunity score?

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@landforce Claude’s new design feature created templated assets for a big product drop of ours in about 10 minutes instead of 1-2 hours.

It’s going to do a lot of the lifting for easy design work. But not relying on it for anything net new yet

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@EcomKostnchko_ Depends on how and where you add them. It should not fuck up your momentum though

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@mannybarbas_ METRICS

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@ButlerCabin1894 @sneds_brandt Swing grease*

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@johnhickey1970 Tools are only force multipliers.

A better tool doesn’t make a bad idea good.

A good idea doesn’t need a good tool to succeed

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@BogeyBrosGolfCo 🤣🤣

[Bogey Bros Golf Co @BogeyBrosGolfCo]

Gotta hold yourself accountable🤣

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@matuniox What if the expected value of an instagram follower is higher than the cost to drive a new one?

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@matuniox

[Bogey Bros Golf Co @BogeyBrosGolfCo]

We’ll see🤣

[Kevin O'Rourke @KevinRORourke]

@NOTdaRealGil Those guys in the last pic aren’t even wearing the real @BogeyBrosGolfCo polos, they’re wearing the cheap Amazon knock offs

[Bogey Bros Golf Co @BogeyBrosGolfCo]

The polo that parties everywhere: