Hal Smith says lowering clients’ customer acquisition cost on Meta and Google is a focus of his agency, H Street Digital. He cites five performance levers, starting with the offer.

Hal founded the D2C-centered agency in 2020 after stints managing political fundraising campaigns. “I learned the importance of the right message,” he told me.

In our recent conversation, Hal shared his approaches to ad messaging, testing, targeting, and, yes, reducing CAC. Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.

Eric Bandholz: Who the heck are you?

Hal Smith: I’m the founder of H Street Digital in Austin, Texas. We manage performance marketing for direct-to-consumer brands, mostly in the outdoor space.

I started in political advertising, such as small-dollar grassroots fundraising.…