Agency Founder Touts YouTube TV Ads

Alex Walser founded his North Carolina-based marketing agency, Savant Syndicate, in 2024. The firm manages advertising campaigns for ecommerce brands, with a focus on Google Ads.

He says YouTube ads provide the most upside, especially YouTube TV. “I’m more bullish on connected TV ads than traditional YouTube,” he told me.

In our recent conversation, Alex addressed his increasing reliance on AI, Google Ads KPIs, and why he favors YouTube TV.

Our entire interview is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.

Eric Bandholz: What the heck do you do?

Alex Walser: I’m the founder of an ecommerce marketing agency called Savant Syndicate. We run acquisition and retention advertising campaigns for seven- to eight-figure brands. We’re a boutique shop with a small team of experts, no juniors on the accounts.

I’m an AI power user. I adopted Claude Cowork early on. Plus, I put Claude Code in a terminal to be the brain of many projects. The terminal is a window to type into.

For the last eight years, we’ve focused on Google Ads. No one is managing that channel correctly. Everyone measures success on falsified reporting, such as equating branded traffic with new customers.

I see the most upside on YouTube. It has been a hard channel to crack at scale, especially with multiple clients. There are so many KPIs, such as views versus clicks. AI has let us build a workflow where we can choose from multiple metrics to see what’s working and why.

Bandholz: How do you determine the right key performance indicator?

Walser: AI helps me to understand different pieces of the puzzle. First, what do Google and its audience favor? For that, we can look at the cost per view.

Next is how the ad fits the ecosystem that you’ve put it in. If the cost per view is cheap, that’s Google saying, “People like this; let’s keep pumping it out.” It’s important to learn what drives that popularity. Is it a trendy topic? A hook? A new avatar?

For a brand awareness campaign, the KPI is the click-through rate. The ad was so interesting that viewers clicked on it to learn more about the company. Once they landed on the website, what was the average session duration? How many pages did they crawl? What did they add to the cart? Did they check out?

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Bandholz: What about conversion-focused campaigns? At Beardbrand, we use post-purchase surveys that ask how customers heard about us. It’s our North Star metric.

Walser: A sales cycle could be upwards of 30 days. I try to look at the first click; it’s the source of truth for the timeframe, even for brand awareness ads.

A decent frequency is somewhere between 2.3 and 4.0. That’s impressions divided by unique viewers. Most folks see an ad several times to make an impact. But frequency above 4.0 to 5.0 is potentially too high. If viewers don’t respond after the fourth or fifth view, they likely never will.

There’s also YouTube TV. In some ways, I’m more bullish on connected TV ads than traditional YouTube because viewers are in more of a consumption state. On YouTube alone, viewers could watch a how-to video on fixing a car. The connected TV landscape is much more conducive to purchasing.

Bandholz: Can you buy ads just for YouTube TV?

Walser: Yes. Google Ads has a program for premium TV placements. I’ve never used it. A better option for connected TV ads could be Vibe, a platform to advertise across a range of CTV channels.

For YouTube TV on Google Ads, I exclude mobile, tablet, and computers. That leaves only TV.

My process is this. I launch a traditional YouTube campaign, then review the data, such as men aged 25 to 40 with a certain household income. I get very granular.

I take that data into YouTube TV. I’d rather be a sniper than just shotgun it and pray. If the content is popular, the per-click cost on YouTube TV could range from $0.60 to $1.15. An ecommerce Shopping Ad on Google could cost $3 to $4 per click.

Bandholz: Where can people follow you, reach out, hire you?

Walser: Our site is Savant-syndicate.com. Connect with me on LinkedIn.