Austin Price, Director of Social Media at H&L Agency in Oakland, frames social as the real-time nervous system of the market and runs every campaign as a portfolio of hypothesis-driven tests where creative is the question and data is the answer. He uses engagement rate as a default metric while warning that every metric eventually gets gamed, so the right measure depends on the campaign goal — impressions and engagement for awareness, lower-funnel signals for conversion. Austin gives a piece of content roughly 24 hours, not 30 days, to reveal whether to pivot or lean in, using prior content samples as his baseline so he can recognize an above-line or below-line read fast enough to redirect spend. He pushes back on raw reach as a vanity metric, pointing to a campaign that hit 100 million impressions against a 5 million addressable market as the cleanest tell that targeting is broken, and warns that giveaway-driven engagement can stall purchase intent because prospects pause buying to see if they won. He reframes quality versus quantity as a consistency problem (cell phone or full crew, the channel rewards on-message posting at a cadence you can sustain for a year) and treats the comment section as the missing context layer behind every dataset, the source that tells you why a piece of data happened rather than just what happened. His closing claim is that social is now the testing ground for every other channel: Hulu's Chad Powers began as a Manning brothers YouTube video, the Dr. Pepper jingle clip became a national TV ad, and authentic social formats are now mimicked in CTV and traditional advertising.
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Austin Price
Director of Social Media, H&L Agency
Most marketers still treat social media like a megaphone. Austin Price treats it like a nervous system. In this episode of Content Amplified, Austin, Director of Social Media at H&L Agency in Oakland, walks through how he runs creative as a hypothesis and lets data confirm or kill it before a campaign scales. He explains why engagement rate is his default metric (and how it gets gamed), the 24-hour read he uses to decide whether to pivot or lean in, and why a 100 million person reach against a 5 million person addressable market should embarrass everyone in the room. Austin also reframes the quality versus quantity debate as a consistency problem, points to Chad Powers and the Dr. Pepper jingle as proof that social is now the testing ground for every other channel, and makes the case that the comment section is the context layer that data alone can never give you. If you want a practical model for running social as a portfolio of tests, this episode is for you.
“to be able to take risks, but back that risk with data.”
“I've been with companies where you have these huge budgets and then it's like, yeah, we reached 100 million people. Well, the addressable market is 5 million here.”
“Everybody could be an influencer if they wanted. You just gotta consistently post content and you'll find your audience. The hard part is doing that for a year.”
“Social media is the real time nervous system of the market.”
Hypothesis-First Social Testing
Treat every piece of social content as a structured hypothesis with a stated reason, an expected outcome, and a clear metric tied to the actual goal of the campaign — engagement and impressions for awareness, lower-funnel signals for conversion. Run multiple tests in parallel rather than rolling a single big bet, but require every creative — even the absurd ones, like a squirrel in a football uniform driving a car — to point back to the data signal it is testing. Engagement rate is a fine default, but every metric eventually gets gamed, so re-anchor to the goal of each campaign before you call success or failure. The discipline is not in the creativity itself; it is in the rule that nothing ships without a reason and nothing keeps running without a check-in.
The 24-Hour Pivot Window
Drop the 30-day "see how it lands" model and bake quick-cycle check-ins into every campaign. Within 24 hours of publishing a piece of content, synthesize the data and decide whether to pivot or lean in — most posts will tell you, nine times out of ten, where they are going inside that window. Use earlier samples from your own channel as your baseline so you can recognize what an above-line or below-line performance actually looks like, then act on it instead of waiting for the campaign to age out. The point is not speed for its own sake; it is that sitting with a dead test for a month is how budgets get burned and learning compounds for nobody.
Reach vs. Addressable-Market Efficiency
Before celebrating an impression number, divide it by your real addressable market. If you are reaching 100 million people against a 5 million addressable market, you did not run a successful campaign — you ran an inefficient one, and the same is true of giveaway-driven engagement that pulls in audiences who only want the prize. Treat addressable-market overlap as the gating metric for any awareness budget, and watch the second-order trap where giveaways stall purchase intent because prospects pause buying to see whether they won. Reach without fit is a vanity metric; reach inside the audience that can actually buy is the only kind worth defending in a quarterly review.
Austin Price (00:02) So it's a very, you know, dialed dance. To be able to take risks, but back that risk with data. And the way that I do that a lot is I'm constantly in a testing mentality where we're always seeing what is happening and why. And everything that we do, we do it with a reason. So there's no just throw spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks. Yeah, we might have a lot of tests going at the same time. But everything is backed with data so that we can back up those decisions. Benjamin Ard (00:59) Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Austin. Austin, I'm excited. This is gonna be a great episode. I'm excited to dive into everything that you have to share about the subject. Your background is super relevant to today's subject. So let's dive in. If you don't mind, let's share with the audience who you are, work background, history, all that kind of fun stuff. Austin Price (01:21) Yeah, absolutely. You can probably tell by my accent that I'm a Texan, but I live out in California now and really started my career in content creation, video production and learning, editing, production, shooting, the whole nine when it comes to what does it take to create a video. And in that process, social media came around. So here I was at Texas Christian University in the athletics department creating content for all of the sports teams. And they said, hey, this stuff would work really well for Facebook. You want to run our Facebook account? So I dove straight in and I kind of saw, wow, OK, this is going to be something. It's not going anywhere. And sure enough, and I'm not just talking about Facebook, I just mean social media in general, it really became its own practice, obviously. I just kind of ran with that. And at the time I was at the university, so I decided to go back and get an MBA and really marry the right and the left side of my brain so that not only could I create the content or understand how to create the content, I knew how to measure it. I knew how to understand what's working and what's not working. And from there, I left Texas and came out to California. And that's where I got into more of the tech startup world and figuring out how to grow companies, grow marketing funnels from ground zero to the next steps. So that's really what brought me to where I'm at today, where I'm currently a director of social media at an agency, H&L Agency in Oakland. Benjamin Ard (03:06) I love it. This is amazing. And social media is ever evolving. And I think a lot of times when people just publish content on social media, it is a hundred percent throw it at the wall, see what sticks. And so what we're going to kind of focus on today is how to optimize social content strategy across different channels. So first question that I have for you, Austin, on this subject. When you're looking at social media content, there are all sorts of different channels. There's all sorts of impressions and metrics and there's a lot of things to consider. And then there's also on the flip side, voice and authenticity and all sorts of things about a brand. How do you kind of measure and keep the creativity front of mind, but balance that with the analytic side of the equation, especially when you're posting on behalf of a business that has specific objectives to achieve? Austin Price (04:04) Yeah, well, that's a really good question. And I think the creative side is, I guess the best way to describe it is testing. And you want to test as much as you can. You use the data to — so creative is more of that hypothesis. And then the data is there to tell you, did this work? Did it not? Now, I think the hardest bridge to cross there is, one, convincing a brand, hey, let me deep fry this content and turn it into Brain Rot because right now your demographic loves Brain Rot. And for them to go, yeah, sure, let's go spend some money on that. So it's a very, you know, dialed dance. To be able to take risks, but back that risk with data. And the way that I do that a lot is I'm constantly in a testing mentality where we're always seeing what is happening and why. And everything that we do, we do it with a reason. So there's no just throw spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks. Yeah, we might have a lot of tests going at the same time. But everything is backed with data so that we can back up those decisions on why we tried this, why we tried that, why did you have a squirrel in a football uniform driving a car? Well, it's because of this, this, this, this, this. So anytime we can back it, it's backed with data. Benjamin Ard (05:31) I love it. So when you're looking at all of this, what data are you looking at in particular? Is it universally specific metrics you love to hold onto? Does it change per campaign and initiative? What are the golden data points that you really care about? Austin Price (05:45) Yeah, it changes with initiative. And really, that is one of the anchors to drop when approaching a campaign or a client in general is to go, what are we trying to accomplish here? Because we are going to look at different metrics depending on what those accomplishments are. If we're looking at brand awareness, then we want eyeballs. Let's look at impressions. Let's look at engagements. If we're trying to get people into a store or sell something directly online, then we're moving a little further down the funnel. And obviously, I think at the end of the day, everybody wants a full functioning marketing funnel, where everything we're doing, we are getting a customer from it. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in, where every eyeball turns into a customer, but that doesn't mean that all those eyeballs don't count. So if I had to give a metric that I said, this is my go-to metric for anything on social, I'd be looking at engagement rate. But then also, just like with any metric, you can game the system once you've learned it well enough. So I think it really depends on what is the goal of a campaign or a brand and then creating those and then looking at the metrics pertaining to that goal. Benjamin Ard (07:04) Yeah. And I love that you talked about the data can be manipulated. What I found in my career is data can tell any story you want to if you just keep digging into it. To avoid that, are you typically finding and setting, OK, not only are we going to measure success via certain metrics, but success is if we hit this certain metric in advance? Or do you have baselines? How do you know if success has been hit after you've decided what metrics you're actually going to focus on? Austin Price (07:34) Yeah, that's a really good question because with the testing mentality that I told you, that also means that you have to be very fluid in your approach, right? So you're not sitting there going, let's run this campaign for 30 days. And at the end of 30 days, we're going to tell you if it was successful or not. You have to drop in those check-in points to go, it's been a week. What do we need to change? What do we not? Then let's do that. Let's pivot or lean in and keep going that route. Well the way you do that is by synthesizing your data and looking at it. Within posting a piece of content on social, within 24 hours, you kind of understand what's happening, right? And there are some outliers there obviously, but on a, nine times out of ten, you kind of understand where this is going. And based off of your other content, your other samples of data, you can really have a dialed in approach of what should we do now? And that's how you do it. You set in these quicker check-ins to go, what's happening with this? Where do we see it going? How can we make it better? Do we drop this and go in this direction, or do we lean in to what's working here? So that's what I would say with that. And I'll say one thing that I like is, and I know you know this from a startup world, you can get these budgets and to manipulate the numbers and whatnot is — I've been with companies where you have these huge budgets and then it's like, yeah, we reached 100 million people. Well, the addressable market is 5 million here. You're like, oh, OK, so not very efficient on what we were doing. We reached a lot of people, but you do that, you know, like even organic social, you know, if you want to, if you really want to get eyeballs and impressions, go do some giveaways. Austin Price (09:22) You're definitely going to get some eyes on that. Now, are you getting the right eyes on it? Probably not. Are people buying products? Arguably, you could say it's hurting you a little bit because if you're giving away your product, now people that join the giveaway might be waiting to make a purchase because they want to know if they won the product or not. So now you just put a stopgap in your purchase decision that, yeah, you're getting a lot of eyeballs and impressions and engagements, but is it really driving to your goals? Benjamin Ard (09:51) Yeah, I love that. So everything that you're saying right now, I really aligned to. I love how you're looking at metrics and a lot of it comes down to the quality. And I feel like when it comes to social media, there is this battle that always takes place — quality versus quantity. Because social media goes by so quick that there are a lot of people that want frequent interactions. How do you balance the quantity versus quality side of things to know where kind of a happy medium needs to sit for you and the groups you work with? Austin Price (10:24) Yeah, it's finding — I've had this conversation a lot of times about quality versus quantity. And I think at the end of the day, it really comes down to consistency. And what I mean by that is, you can have a broadcast quality content, like where you're a full shoot and it should be on television, right? Or you can have somebody that's just on their phone and walking around with a selfie stick. Production levels vary is what I'm saying, and I don't think that that is the lens that people should be looking at quality versus quantity. I think what they should be looking at, because that's really where the heavy resources come in, right? You're talking about extreme differences in budgets when you're working with just a cell phone or when you're working with a whole crew. So that's not the quality versus quantity conversation, meaning quality is high production value. No, it means that you're on message, you're on brand, and that you're consistent with what you're doing. I tell this to people all the time, everybody could be an influencer if they wanted. You just gotta consistently post content and you'll find your audience. Now, do that for a year and you'll find your audience and they'll come to you. The hard part is doing that for a year. It's very difficult to consistently post. I mean, look, you have this podcast and upcoming on 400 episodes, like, man, that's a lot of work to go into that to be consistent in doing it. So that's what I would say is, it is a balance of quality versus quantity, but it's really just about being consistent. Austin Price (12:00) Because what will end up happening there is you'll either have people go too far one way or they'll go, well, forget quality. Let's just crank out a bunch of content. And you're not doing yourself any favors there. You just need to be true to who you are and keep pounding that drum and you will find your people. Benjamin Ard (12:20) That's awesome. Okay, when we're talking about social media too, I love all the optimization that you're talking about here, focusing on the quality, focusing on the metrics, knowing your audience, all of that kind of good stuff. How does social media play a role in the overall marketing strategy, the overall marketing machine? How should people kind of consider those channels and that mechanism as they're really trying to factor out, especially as we're just pretty early in 2026, like what it can do for them on those platforms and what it looks like? Austin Price (13:06) Yeah, I'll say this. Social media is the real time nervous system of the market. So if you want to understand what people are doing, what they're consuming, what they're purchasing, how they live, it's on social media. So the way that social plays a bigger part of the entire, all of your marketing efforts is, one, it's the ultimate listening tool. Arguably it's one of the only marketing mechanisms that is a real time two way conversation between you and your audience. And really being able to understand the nuances of what is happening in the market. We talk a lot about data and one of the things I like to say is data is great, and data will tell you what happened. But when you add in the comment section, that's going to give you the context about why it happened. So social gives just this added layer of context to your data, to what you're creating, to your content, to your efforts to understand what's happening and what to lean into and what to stay away from. And there's just so many examples you can give of how — just recently, Dr. Pepper, there was a video of the woman who did the jingle and now it kind of came full circle because now they actually have the TV ad of the jingle that's now everywhere. And you just sit there and go, wow, that never could have happened without social media. So there's these like full circle moments that happen and that's where I see social playing the bigger role. It's a listening tool, the ultimate listening tool to give you the context around your data and what's happening. I already said it's a real time nervous system of the market. It's the ultimate testing ground for content and ideas. You used to have companies that would go out there and drop a ton of money on an ad or commercial, whatever, some content, and it would just flop and it's like, sunken costs there. Well, we know not to do that again. Now you test that stuff very quickly on social. I'll give you another example — the Hulu original show, Chad Powers about the football player. Austin Price (15:13) Which I think was up for some awards at the Golden Globes. That was a YouTube video that the Manning brothers did where he went undercover at like Ole Miss as an old football player. There was so much success from that YouTube video, they turned it into a television series. Like, tell me this isn't a testing ground. So that's where I see social. And then I'll give you one other way it plays into the bigger picture is upcycling content. Austin Price (15:39) This goes back to that testing ground. It's where you're able to put stuff out into the world, quickly understand how people engage with it and interact with it. And then if it's working, then we use it across every other medium that we have access to. And you're starting to see that more and more where you'll see CTV ads or any number of ads outside of social that mimic social. Whether they're trying to do some of the same functionality on the screen or it's just how the content looks. And that goes back to that authenticity. And that's where I really see social as playing a bigger part of that or plays into the bigger picture of your marketing effort. Benjamin Ard (16:29) Love that. Testing grounds, proving grounds, understanding where the market's going, fast ways to hypothesize, reiterate, refine. I love it. Social media is amazing. This is incredible. Austin, thank you for the insights. We have run out of time today for this episode, but for anyone listening, how and where can they find you to connect online? Austin Price (16:50) Yeah, find me on LinkedIn, Austin Price. Connect with me. I love talking about social media content, marketing in general, and just connecting with like-minded people. So yeah, check me out, find me on LinkedIn. Benjamin Ard (17:05) Love it. For anyone listening, scroll down to the show notes regardless of what platform you're on. You will find a link to Austin's LinkedIn profile. Connect there, hit Austin up, tell him he did a great job and thank him for his advice. Austin, again, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for the time and insights today. Austin Price (17:21) Thank you, Ben.
About the guest
Director of Social Media, H&L Agency
Austin Price is the Director of Social Media at H&L Agency in Oakland. He started his career in video production and content creation at the Texas Christian University athletics department, where he was handed the school's Facebook account in the early days of social and never looked back. After earning an MBA to pair the creative side of his brain with measurement, he left Texas for California and moved into the tech startup world, building marketing funnels from zero. Austin is a self-described "test everything" practitioner who believes every creative risk should be backed with data, and that the comment section is the missing context layer behind every dataset.
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Austin runs creative as a hypothesis and lets the data confirm or kill it. Every test — including the most absurd ones, like a squirrel in a football uniform driving a car — comes with a stated reason that ties back to the campaign's goal. Engagement rate is his default metric, but he warns that every metric gets gamed once you learn it well enough, so the right measure depends on whether you are going for awareness, store traffic, or direct sales. The discipline is that nothing ships without a reason, and nothing stays running without a check-in.
Austin says you usually understand within 24 hours of publishing where a piece of content is going, because nine times out of ten the early signal is the signal. Setting frequent check-ins lets you redirect spend or creative quickly instead of waiting a month to learn the same lesson. The fluid approach means running 10 tests at once is not chaos as long as each one has a quick read window and a baseline drawn from your own historical content. Sitting with a dead test for 30 days is how budgets get burned and learning compounds for no one.
When your addressable market is 5 million. Austin has watched companies celebrate huge reach numbers without checking whether the audience could ever buy the product, which is the cleanest tell that targeting is broken. The same problem shows up with giveaway-driven engagement: people enter, you get a spike of impressions, but new buyers may pause their purchase decision until the giveaway resolves and hurt near-term revenue. The fix is to treat addressable-market overlap as the gating metric for any awareness budget rather than chasing raw eyeballs.
He thinks the frame is wrong. Production value is not the right axis, because a phone-and-selfie-stick post and a full crew shoot can both work as long as they are on brand and on message. The right axis is consistency: any creator can build an audience if they are willing to post for a full year on a clear voice, but the hard part is the year. So Austin reframes the question as what cadence and message can you actually sustain, and treats inconsistency, not low production value, as the real reason most social channels never find their audience.
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