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Transmission Initialization

Welcome to the first edition of The Otherside Protocol.

My name is Cory Dobbin, and I am the founder of OTHERSIDE, a digital ad agency specialized in helping brands diversify their media mix with profitable programmatic campaigns.

This is where I intend to document building this new service agency from the ground up - sharing why I'm doing this, how I'm approaching it, the good, the bad, and what's ahead.

Thanks for following along; this first edition is longer than future ones will be, so get comfy.

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For a very long time, programmatic ads have been rightfully ignored by most of the digital advertising world when it comes to performance/Direct-Response (DR) advertising — where you put in a dollar and get a dollar back right away.

Programmatic has been seen mainly as an awareness tool. It generates traffic, but tracking issues and traffic quality made DR success difficult.

That is, until now, which brings us to the inception of OTHERSIDE.

Recently, I departed from my role as CEO of Shoelace, where I oversaw millions in ad spend across hundreds of eCommerce accounts. This wasn't my first rodeo—I've been managing paid media for over a decade, personally handling more than half a billion dollars in ad spend.

During this time, I've learned how critical digital advertising is to business survival. Most brands now rely almost exclusively on paid media for customer acquisition. Having reliable paid media is crucial for maintaining growth.

The problem: the digital advertising landscape is changing drastically toward a less reliable future. Meta and Google remain primary drivers for most eCommerce brands, which is becoming problematic. While generally good at DR, they're becoming increasingly unreliable black boxes where the actual mechanics are harder to understand.

These platforms are becoming more restrictive by reducing targeting options, optimization capabilities, and tools to respond to poor performance. They're also under constant pressure from third parties. Meta recently prevented Health & Wellness brands from optimizing for lower-funnel actions, likely due to pressure about health data handling, dealing a massive blow to a $7 trillion industry.

Brands with all revenue coming from these platforms live in uncertainty. It's only a matter of time before the tools you use for customer acquisition are negatively impacted by changes, or before Meta's automated system incorrectly flags your account (which happens more than you'd expect).

One thing has become abundantly clear: Brands must diversify their spend away from monopoly-led black box platforms before it's too late. Their survival depends on media mix.

DIVERSIFYING

This diversification has been difficult. There are few options that allow brands to meaningfully diversify away from Meta and Google:

• TikTok/Snap: You're just moving from one social platform to another. There's opportunity to reach new people, but considerable overlap. TikTok is massive but performance can be mixed, with many window shoppers. Snap doesn't offer the scale most diversifying brands seek.

• Pinterest: More like Google (a search engine), better for demand capture than generation. It can add revenue but won't move the needle like Meta did initially.

• Programmatic Display: Traditionally, these have underperformed for eCommerce due to low traffic quality, making results lackluster. That is, however, a thing of the past now (mostly).

In my personal experience, these channels have dramatically underperformed for eCommerce brands. Traffic quality is low, and volume is high, making it hard to parse meaningful data while results are lackluster.

TAKING CONTROL

Beyond diversification, I have a broader issue with advertising: control. Every year, platforms become more restrictive – partly from external forces like legislation removing targeting capabilities, but also from the platforms themselves automating toward their own margins.

The big players increasingly restrict your ability to target specific audiences, optimize campaigns your way, and view user behavior. Campaign structures like ASC on Meta or PMAX on Google remove control from media buyers while becoming the "best practices" pushed by platforms.

Fewer tools not only restrict performance optimization but also limit marketing creativity. With fewer options, creating unique strategies to solve your company's specific needs becomes harder.

So where should you put your dollars? That's the million-dollar question I'm solving.

THE TRADE DESK

When I departed Shoelace, I took as many calls as I could with as many people as I could. I wanted to talk to everyone to better understand the industry and see what was out there.

During one conversation, a friend mentioned The Trade Desk (TTD).

Think of TTD as an interface to the open web's ad auction. Through TTD, you can place ads across different channels under one roof programmatically, without approaching each provider individually:

• Connected TV (CTV) - smart TV/streaming ads

• Display & Native ads

• Mobile Apps & Games (think AppLovin)

• Programmatic Audio (think Spotify)

• Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH)

• And more

Each channel has individual publishers, too. Within TTD's infrastructure, you can buy through networks like Outbrain and Taboola all under one roof.

This single-platform, cross-channel programmatic buying is a huge sell. It allows for more efficient spending and presents unique cross-channel targeting opportunities.

Imagine running an ad on a mobile game, then retargeting people who engaged across Netflix or Spotify. Using TTD's pixel, we can track people across networks and channels. This solves the creativity issue—marketing strategies can be as complex or simple as you want with more delivery options.

This is a huge solver for one of the issues above, in that it now allows brands to get creative again. Your marketing strategies can be as complex or simple as you want, because you have many more options for delivery.

Additionally, TTD faces less political pressure than Meta or Google, retaining more targeting capabilities. You can target almost anyone, anywhere, plus they have data partnerships with Nielsen, Walmart, TransUnion, and others, offering nearly infinite targeting possibilities.

It's excellent for spend diversification, with hundreds of billions of ad impressions available daily across channels. Plus, the audience is new. People using Instagram likely use TikTok too, but many internet users don't use Facebook or Instagram. TTD helps you reach them everywhere, opening new customer markets while supporting retargeting efforts beyond social feeds.

So, in my mind, taking control = solved.

THE INCEPTION

I spent weeks studying TTD and programmatic intricacies. My experience in programmatic was limited, but I found a mentor who answered my questions.

I learned rapidly, turned down a CEO offer at another company, and went all-in on this opportunity. I could uniquely position myself to help brands diversify their ad spend away from restrictive monopolies, doing so profitably through TTD's toolset.

Through all of my experience, I’ve learned how eCommerce brands work, how they think, and know what’s most important to them. Now I know how to solve one of their biggest digital ad problems.

Thus, OTHERSIDE was born.

OTHERSIDE?

Why this name? Simple: for eCommerce brands, this is the "other side" of digital advertising. Many don't consider this option because it feels removed from standard practices. There's the ordinary way (Meta/Google) and the other way (exploring new channels).

This is the OTHERSIDE.

Side note, shout out to my close personal friend, Shane Turner, for helping me with my branding. If you want someone with great attention to detail at a fair rate, hit him up for branding and design work. He’s one of the best.

And shout out my other close personal friend, Coleman Wallace, for helping me make some super cool animations of my logos to make my brand feel more sci-fi. If you need 3D design work, shoot him a DM.

System Optimizations (The Good)

Let's talk about what's gone well so far. This took substantial work—more than expected, despite my agency experience and recent CEO role.

I spent the early days building processes—onboarding forms, sales decks, client communication channels. These weren't perfect initially, but their flaws helped me improve them quickly. I'm a fan of "fail fast" – I built processes to be good enough for day one, knowing they'd need improvement.

So, with that aside, let’s dive into exactly what has gone well so far.

RECEPTION

Reception to OTHERSIDE has been incredible. I've spoken with ~60 brand operators, and almost all see the value in using TTD to diversify their spending.

I discovered I'm uniquely positioned in this space. Few competitors exist, and those that do don't speak "DTC"—they're traditional, corporate, and work primarily with B2B brands, focusing on CPMs/impressions/clicks.

There appear to be no other agencies doing this for eCommerce brands with my level of experience. This has been a huge differentiator. It feels like we're riding the crest of a major shift in digital advertising, and I'm positioned to capitalize on it.

Within my first week, I signed two clients. My second week, I signed two more. At the end of my first month, I had five clients already. This was moving fast. Unfortunately, a bit too fast (will touch on this in the bad), but again, a wonderful learning opportunity.

BUSINESS MODEL

This is something I’m really quite proud of. I didn’t just want to create a new company for a quick buck - I wanted to build something that could become generational. Something I can use as a vehicle to hire many great minds down the road to keep building and shaping the future of digital advertising. What we’re doing here at the moment isn’t necessary a quantum leap, but it’s a start. So, starting with a strong foundation as it relates to the entire structure of the business model was important.

TTD is prohibitively expensive to access, requiring substantial monthly spend just to access the platform. By partnering up with a friend of mine, I can run ads for brands without them paying these fees, reducing barriers for smaller brands.

I also have an affiliate arrangement with TTD allowing me to take a small cut of ad spend. After using this to pay fees for various addons and credit card fees, it’s a small amount, but it enables me to price monthly retainers lower than competitors while maintaining profitability. By reducing my monthly retainer, I once again knock down a barrier to entry for brands.

This model has proven to be very well received by clients so far, and has worked out well on my end from a cost/profit perspective. With affiliate fees covering most operational costs, my overhead is low, providing substantial profit margins even with lower retainers.

CONTENT

Your network is your net-worth, or at least that’s what they say. I have learned this first hand over the past decade, having started my X account to network with marketers and since having it literally change my life. Most of the opportunities I’ve had in the space have come from being there and giving without expecting.

After a single post announcing OTHERSIDE saw >20 brands reach out, I realized this service was uniquely valuable.

This realization lead me down the rabbit hole of organic social as my main marketing channel, at least for now. After seeing the great response, and understanding that there is something unique being offered and therefore something easy to write about and pitch, I started working with a ghostwriter to help me produce content.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - ghostwriters suck. Yes, I agree, mostly. I’ve worked with a number of ghostwriters in the past and their quality was always lackluster. That is until I spoke with a friend of mine about his content. I asked him how he was pumping out so much great content (which didn’t appear ghostwritten) and he pointed me to Aidan Collins, a talented ghostwriter who produces high-quality content that doesn't feel generic. He takes time to understand my business and communication style, providing me with a month of prepared content.

My secondary channel is my newsletter, and no not this one. Before OTHERSIDE, I had started a newsletter called The Marketer’s Playbook. It’s a weekly newsletter that covers the most important marketing news and strategies, and over the course of a few years has grown to just over 11k subscribers.

Previously a side project generating revenue through ad sales, it's now an OTHERSIDE asset. I occasionally insert OTHERSIDE ads to my target demographic while maintaining the newsletter's independent feel to retain authenticity.

MARKETING

The success of OTHERSIDE will require a period of education before adoption, but I have no doubt that with the right marketing strategy I can achieve just that.

You see, unlike the ads I run for my clients, this company is not the kind of thing that can simply be ‘sold’. Programmatic ads management is a big deal for brands to buy into, so there is a steep consideration period.

The main reason I wanted my branding to be so bold and contrasted in colour is to make it stand out in the market of service providers, thereby giving me a leg up in brand recall. Frankly, the branding doesn’t look like a service company’s branding. It looks more like a streetwear brand, and this was by design. If marketing this company requires making people aware and educated so that when the right time comes they remember my name, then I want to make damn sure that they remember my name. Or, at least my brand.

So, the strategy here is:

1. Educate people on programmatic expansion benefits

2. Shift the programmatic narrative from cost-center to profit-center

3. Build brand awareness

4. Maintain visibility for when clients are ready to decide

Each of those components have their own unique strategies, but generally speaking simply being loud and confident in this space is a good first step.

PROCESSES

Having strong processes in place is possibly the most critical part of launching a business towards success. In fact, I’d argue (and personally exercised this) that having great processes put into place before you ever sign your first client is the real difference maker, for a few reasons:

• Going through the exercise of creating your process before you launch a client gives you a window into what might be. It forces you to sit down and image every scenario that may come up, how you’d respond to it, what you’d need in place in case you were asked for something, etc.

• First impressions are everything. Signing your first few clients is generally the hardest part, and you’re going to want to use them for testimonials and case studies to build up your marketing materials to more effectively go acquire more. These people require special attention, and disappointing them with sloppy (or zero) processes can spell disaster.

• Lastly, making your life easier, of course. Having strong processes in place means being more organized, and being more organized means less redundancy. This is an upfront cost of time for endless time returns in the future.

So, yes, processes are key. I spent a lot of time dialing this in. After some experimentation, these are the important pieces of software I use to operate my business and why:

CRM: Notion - In fact, I use Notion for a lot. I even built myself an entire AgencyOS, including task management, client tracking, client portals, templates, storage for links and documents, and more.

Storage: Drive, of course. Not only because I use Gmail so it’s easy, but I also use Google for many other things, including Sheets (my Excel alternative), Looker (for client reports - see below for more), etc.

Payments: Stripe. It’s straight forward, and allows me to get clients to sign up for subscriptions. Related to this, I had some issues given that I am Canadian and charge in USD and work primarily with US clients. After some research I discovered Venn (Previously Vault), which helps with currency conversion. It’s simple, effective, and cheap.

Client Comms: Slack. This might be controversial, as many other agencies prefer to keep things to email due to clients typically overwhelming them with messages, but I firmly believe that this is a baseline value add that is low impact on my end and high reward on their end. After all, we are running a service business here, and so I shall provide service.

Contracts: SignNow. Many of the bigger names have just become so expensive it doesn’t make sense, at least for a start up. SignNow gives me everything I need, without all the unnecessary bells and whistles, at a reasonable cost.

AI: Claude. Can’t leave AI out of the conversation, of course. No matter what new tools or new models come out, I still end up going back to Claude. Yes, it has its downside - it can’t access the web, and it can’t generate images, but the core of it is really good.

ACTIVATION

Very much related to the section above, the activation process required a lot of forethought to get right, and I’m glad I spent a lot of time preparing this part of the funnel.

Something that’s very important to most eCommerce brands is speed. They are agile, they move quick, and this side of the industry generally doesn’t move quickly. I had to address and solve for this.

After some tinkering, I was able to get the time it takes to move a client from signed contract to ads live down to just one week. This didn’t go without some speed bumps, but ultimately we got this time down to one-week, which is highly, highly competitive in this market.

PERFORMANCE

Coming from DR, I understand performance importance for eCommerce, which is actually one thing I always disliked about programmatic - it’s typical for agencies or platforms to report on only high-level metrics, and driving ‘ROAS’ wasn’t really an option.

With OTHERSIDE, though, this is different. Given that I know how to drive performance for brands, and TTD’s ability to track and report on this, I am in a very good spot to help brands achieve their goals. Not only because of the tools and strategies available to me, but because I have a secret weapon:

An algorithm.

You see, platforms like TTD don't have a DR-focused algorithm making micro-optimizations behind the scenes. It's all very manual, except for the few who have built their own optimization tools. I partnered with a company that built an algorithm I could bolt onto TTD to drive better optimization decisions.

This algorithm has reduced the learning and optimization window from the industry standard of 4-6 months to only 4-6 weeks on the high end. In fact, I recently launched two brands who found success in only two weeks! With this, I am able to confidently position programmatic as a tool for eComm brands - not just the big players.

The good news: it works.

The better news: it helped me discover a new campaign structure delivering a 3.4x ROAS across all campaigns at $1k/day spend. Early indicators show tremendous potential for meaningful performance. I created a case study in partnership with the client (who would prefer to remain anonymous for NDA purposes) here if you’d like to check it out.

It’s still early days and there’s a lot of learning, experimenting, and growing to do here, but indicators already point at a lot of opportunity for brands to drive meaningful performance.

REPORTING

Reporting was a massive headache early on, but it ended up helping me discover an effective solution that saves me money and frustration.

My workaround is literally scheduling reports out of TTD to my email and manually copy and pasting it into my own Google Sheets files from which I can sort and pull data. I use this data to build dynamic and interactive performance reports for clients through Looker. It’s a bit of manual work, but thankfully my lovely wife is happy to help out with administrative tasks like this.

Here’s a preview of what they look like - I think they turned out great!

WEBSITE

Websites are expensive, and I needed to be scrappy to get this in motion. I didn’t have the extra budget to pay a developer to build what I needed, so I put my head down and learned how to build on Webflow. Over the course of a single weekend, I built my website myself.

Is it perfect? No. Does it need more? Yes. Will it suffice for now? Also yes. I think it’s effective in communicating what it needs to while remaining on brand, chic, and modern, which checks all the boxes for - at least for now.

This brings us to the end, finally, of the good. But, as you know, nothing is easy in business and with all of these wins there is a flip side of the coin - the bad. So, let’s bite the bullet here and take a look at what didn’t go well so that we can all learn from it together.

Anomaly Reports (The Bad)

Of course, there can’t be good without bad. This is the natural cycle of all things in life. The important part is how you respond to it. So, what went poorly in the first few months, and what did I do about it? You’ll notice a theme here - nearly every point above in the ‘good’ section has an matching ‘bad’ in this section. Taking a failure and turning it into a win is essential for forward momentum. So, let’s dive into how I did this.

ACTIVATION

While this eventually turned into a good, it didn’t start that way. Despite preparation, initial client activation took nearly a month instead of a week due to unforeseen challenges.

I expected this to be quick, but as I progressed through activation I discovered something I wasn’t prepared for… then another… and another. Before long, my first client was nearly a month in and their ads weren’t live yet. This was… not great.

Unfortunately, this delay came at the cost of my first client, who ultimately churned because of timelines and scope creep. I regret that it went that way, but I don’t blame them. In fact, I thanked them for the experience and opportunity to learn from what went wrong.

I had the foresight to record every misstep and created a revised activation process that could help me launch much faster. After a few more client activations, I have the process down to just 7 days. This is where I wanted to be all along.

There's no way to know for certain what's going to come at you, but if you respond appropriately, you can turn any hurdle into a lesson. All the processes I've ever built came from trial and error. Take this lesson and apply it to everything.

REPORTING

TTD's API is slow and antiquated, making it hard for third parties to pull data dynamically. I began with Supermetrics, one of the few third-party providers that integrate with TTD to pull data from on demand. For those experienced with Supermetrics, you're probably already cringing.

Supermetrics is difficult—slow, buggy, and unreliable. Worse, their TTD integration comes only in their most expensive tier at ~$12k USD/year. Not a huge cost for something as critical as transparency in reporting, but that’s assuming it works.

During my back-and-forth with them, client reporting was broken, creating friction. One of my core selling points is "transparent performance reporting," so this was problematic. Eventually, this led me to develop my current solution, which costs nothing and offers greater flexibility, as mentioned above in the ‘good’.

PERFORMANCE

I’d be lying if I said performance was good on day one. As a new endeavor, there was learning to do. Despite having a mentor to guide me toward good strategies, discovering what works best for eCommerce brands required testing.

Performance in the first month was pretty poor - poor enough to ultimately lose another client over it. Totally understandable. We all understand the risks with digital advertising, and while I wasn’t able to lock in performance for them in the first month, their time helped me dial in an insanely strong strategy that is now helping brands win consistently. Again, with all bad there comes good.

I’d be remised to not mention AppLovin. On one hand, the massive hype behind AppLovin helped me generate leads because brands wanted to try their platform but couldn’t access it. On the other hand, the hype set an unreasonable expectation among eCommerce brands about the performance of Mobile App video ads.

Clients needed to have Mobile App video ads running in their account because they were seeing posts about the amazing performance online. We could do an entirely separate write up about this, but at the end of the day I believe AppLovin’s numbers to be very misleading, which had some level of a trickle down effect on client expectations here on TTD.

Once I was able to convince clients to pivot their top of funnel efforts over to CTV instead, things really started to pick up. Of course, this isn’t to say that I don’t think there’s opportunity in the Mobile App ad space, because some clients have seen success there, but it’s not as performative as people believe - at least for now.

Trajectory Forecast

We still have one more important thing to cover: what’s next. Generally speaking, I have been proceeding with relatively short-term goals. Build processes. Sign and activate clients. Optimize campaigns to get performance. Work on the website. There’s a million tiny components to running a business that can take all of your time away from you, but to build a hedge against potential future pitfalls, you need to plan ahead.

Sitting down to write this is a way for me to do this, in some ways. Giving me a reason to sit down, breathe, and think things through. And, thinking things through, I have a clearer vision of where things are headed.

So, where exactly are they heading?

PROJECTIONS

A tough lesson that I learned from years of helping businesses grow is that you can’t predict the future. Well, of course you can’t, but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try. Yes, there is some level of naivety that goes into creating projection models given that we know things won’t pan out exactly as expected, but you can lay the ground work required to give you the highest possible chance of having it occur.

Thinking about what I want to do with OTHERSIDE, one thing is very certain: I want to win. In fact, I need to win. Not only because I’ve foregone the security of my career to pursue this, but because I deeply believe that there is a shift in the digital advertising world and this business has the unique potential to capture this and become something great.

So, what does ‘success’ look like? The frank answer is I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone knows.

If I need a practical metric, it's revenue. My cost structure is low enough that nearly everything I bring in is margin, so maximizing EBITDA is important, yes, but generally moves closely in-line with revenue. I can control for EBITDA relatively quickly as all expenses run through me, so I’ve decided to focus on top-line revenue.

This is going to sound silly, but I decided that my goal is to hit a $1M/year CAD monthly run rate (~$57,500 USD/month) by December. An arbitrary number, for sure, but within reach.

By my numbers, this also means having ~14 active clients, which would require extra costs associated with wages etc to manage, but let’s cross that road when we get there.

After Q1 2025, I am ~25% of the way there, which is exactly where I need to be. Even better, I expect an exponential curve of growth as the gospel of programmatic permeates, giving me more opportunity to capture more business as the year progresses.

TECHNOLOGY

There’s an opportunity to build a few things here that could make a big difference in how I operate. This stuff doesn’t necessarily need to be immensely revolutionary, but I see a world where some more proprietary tech could enable greater efficiency.

Future technology opportunities include:

• OTHERSIDE Shopify app - For easier pixel integration with Shopify. Nearly every client struggled with correctly installing our Universal Pixel, so creating an app that would automate this would save a lot of time.

• AI Agents - There are a number of manual tasks that we are performing here on a daily basis that can, and probably should, be handled by some sort of AI automation. Updating spreadsheets, pulling data for reports, launching activation processes, etc. This is probably something I will focus on in the short term to put into motion, as I see a big opportunity from a cost/value perspective.

• Data Lake Product - Data is critical in making good decisions. Imagine you have two clients, one in the women’s beauty space and another in the women’s health space. Odds are there’s some overlap there. Creating a data lake product could facilitate the sharing of this data between them, using hashed data to create strong lookalike audiences. This is a long-term vision, so while it’s on the backburner for now, I will keep it in mind.

Ultimately, what we are trying to accomplish with the software components here is creating a delta between the value of the service we offer and the value of the business as a whole. Not only does the tech here enable me to deliver faster, more effective services, but it bolsters the company’s health and value at the same time. It’s a win-win.

MARKETING

Marketing is, in my opinion, the central pillar of early success here, next to performance. Of course, if there is no performance then there is nothing to market, though maybe some snake oil vendors would disagree with this sentiment. Thankfully, we have performance, so it’s time to get the word out.

In the next few months, I am putting marketing content at the front and center of my strategy. I am going all-in on short-form video and written content. I’ve spent the money to improve my video setup at home, and the time to better understand editing best-practices with Premiere.

Side note, I am a huge film nerd, so I’ve been taking this opportunity to try and put a fresh spin on my short form content. It’s still ‘talking head’ content, but I at least try to approach it from a cinematic lens. Maybe this is just me being pretentious, but very much under the same ethos of having my brand stand out, I want the content to do the same.

Protocol Termination

As we wrap up this first transmission, I find myself energized by the possibilities ahead. What began as a personal quest to solve a growing problem in the digital advertising landscape has quickly revealed itself as something much bigger.

The fragmentation of digital attention isn't slowing down—it's accelerating. Consumers are spreading their time across more platforms, channels, and formats than ever before. The days of Meta and Google dominating the entire digital landscape aren't necessarily numbered, but their monopolistic grip is weakening. This isn't a problem for brands; it's an opportunity for those willing to venture into new territories.

What excites me most isn't just building an agency but potentially reshaping how eCommerce brands approach customer acquisition. The old playbook is becoming obsolete in real-time, and we're writing a new one with every campaign we launch.

Do I think programmatic is the future of all eCommerce advertising? Not entirely. But I do believe it's an essential piece of the puzzle that's been missing for too long. The brands that figure this out first will have a significant advantage in the coming years.

To those of you reading who took the time to follow this journey from the beginning: thank you. Your support, whether you're a current client, a potential partner, or just someone interested in where digital advertising is heading, means everything. This is just transmission one of many, and I promise the signal will only get stronger from here.

Just getting started,

Cory