Sirge.IO’s Chase Chappell On Thriving In A Changing Business Landscape

“During COVID, as more people were staying at home, businesses realized they had a whole new audience to tap into, so we just about tripled our revenue numbers on the agency side.”

Presented by Luke Lintz

Digital advertising might not be in the first ten industries in the United States when ranked by size, but it’s still incredibly huge. A ReportLinker report puts its size at $140.2 billion in 2020, accounting for more than a third of the global digital advertising market. It’s only getting bigger, too, as consumer habits continue to shift online, and retailers and other businesses continue to follow them.

Still, the digital marketing industry doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it’s affected by events from outside of it, as well as those within it. Chase Chappell, the marketing entrepreneur behind Sirge.io and Chappell Digital Marketing, has seen both recently.

“During COVID, as more people were staying at home, businesses realized they had a whole new audience to tap into, so we just about tripled our revenue numbers on the agency side,” Chase explains. “On the other hand, Apple released the iOS 14.5 update which hobbled tracking, causing advertising metrics to become inaccurate, which is a pretty big deal in a metric-powered industry like digital advertising.”

With his experience and expertise in the field, Chase was able to adapt to both. The pandemic-induced boost caused him to scale the agency as much as he was able at that point. The iOS update made him start Sirge.io as a way to give Shopify eCommerce businesses a way to ensure proper tracking and attribution of their Facebook ads. It’s clear that Chase Chappell knows how to thrive in a field as dynamic as digital marketing, and he’s not averse to sharing a few of his secrets.

Understanding The Landscape

The first step to learning how to deal with any kind of circumstance is acknowledging their existence. For Chase Chappell, who focuses much of his work on Facebook ads, this means recognizing the fickle nature of the platform.

“There’s always something going on with Facebook, like Cambridge Analytica, iOS changes, even back in the day when they used to send people off the platform when they clicked on an ad,” he explains. “The one thing we’ve always done was being super adaptable, and always adjusting to changes. So we’re very versatile, and we adjust pretty quickly.”

The secret behind being able to adjust quickly is always being prepared for a change to happen, and no one can be that if they have their head buried in the sand. Even in periods of relative stability—and Chase Chappell and his teams can attest to how few and far between those are—businesses who want to stay successful in a climate prone to change need to always be vigilant.

Finding Ways to Stand Out

More agencies and individuals are entering the digital marketing industry every day. Even the relatively newly established fields, like the one Chase Chappell has been working on with Sirge.io, are already seeing a lot of activity. Entrepreneurs can’t be blamed for jumping on an opportunity to provide valuable services and make money, but they can’t be ignored.

Chase’s idea for standing out among the competition involves investing in the products and services his companies offer. “We’re basing a lot of what we do on offering more value. So while we offer the same integrations as other individuals, we can provide a much cleaner dashboard that looks and feels as if they were managing their ads, something they’re used to doing,” he explains. “We’re looking into providing training and onboarding, as well as the level of support that no other company is offering.”

Of course, having a unique differentiator works best if there’s a good baseline established by solid results. Chase Chappell’s companies are known for achieving great things for their clients, and as such, they’ve been recognized by both clients and the platforms they operate on.

Spread the Knowledge

One of the best ways to establish oneself as a leader in a field is by helping other people succeed in it. Chase Chappell has spent countless hours working on training programs, helping others find success with Facebook and TikTok ads. His work has nurtured the whole field—even though it’s brought him competition, it also raised the level of the game to make it all the more enjoyable.

“We’re taking people from $100k to $300k in sales from the ads in just ninety days, pretty consistently,” Chase explains. “We had one app that we took to number one in the App Store, with more downloads per day for a solid week than the biggest apps, all off a TikTok ad.”

Spreading the knowledge and keeping the magic happening is key. But the bottom line and one of the most important pieces of advice Chase Chappell would give, would be to just remember the basics. “Audiences change every day; algorithms change all the time,” says Chase.

“It comes down to the message, the offer, the creative, and understanding how to best optimize when changes are happening.  You have that, and you can pretty much survive just about any change.”