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Lookalike Audiences and Brand Control

Host Trevant With Alex West (Hill's Pet Nutrition) Published  November 12, 2026 13:50

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Brands should let platform algorithms move budgets but keep control of who they reach, says Alex West, senior brand manager at Hill’s Pet Nutrition. Lookalike audiences can make short-term ROI look fantastic while bringing in households that won’t grow the brand, so brands need to set the guardrails on audience strategy. Alex and Alyson also cover automated reporting, why social video shouldn’t be judged by completion rate the way CTV is, and how creators fit into retail media.

Key takeaways

  • Let algorithms move budgets across assets and line items. Brands should still own the strategy and set the guardrails.
  • Lookalike audiences can lift short-term ROI while bringing in households that don’t grow the brand.
  • Rule-based automated reporting turns a monthly review into about 45 minutes.
  • Judging social by video completion rate, the way you would non-skippable CTV inventory, makes social look terrible. Treat them as frequency plays in one media ecosystem.
  • Creator content links directly to commerce, but purchase shouldn’t be the primary goal of an influencer activation.

Show notes

Guest: Alex West, senior brand manager at Hill’s Pet Nutrition. He has been at Hill’s for three years, oversees brand media activations across the US and retail media, and previously worked agency side. 

Pull quotes:

  • “There is a responsibility for brands to continue to own the strategy and set those guardrails.” (04:43, Alex)
  • “Might make your short term ROIs look fantastic. But in the long term, those households that are coming in aren’t gonna be what grows your brand.” (04:43, Alex)
  • “Both can exist in their own environments, especially with how fragmented the digital landscape is.” (08:06, Alex)
  • “If you’re trying to display your superiority, the best way to do it is through human storytelling.” (07:04, Alex)
  • “Data’s only as good as it can be used.” (02:46, Alex)

Mentioned: Advertising Week, Amazon storefronts, GMV Max on TikTok. 

FAQs

  1. Should brands let platform algorithms control audience targeting? (04:43) Alex West says algorithms are great at moving budgets around assets and line items. But brands have a responsibility to own the strategy and set guardrails, or they risk growing segments that leave the category.
  2. What’s the risk of lookalike audiences? (04:43) You don’t know what mechanism decides someone belongs in your audience. In pet, growth comes from specific segments, so fully fluid targeting across age and gender may not match business goals, even when short-term ROI looks fantastic.
  3. How can AI and automation help with media reporting? (02:46) Automating and rule-basing a monthly report with hundreds of lines lets Alex’s team spend about 45 minutes a month on it. That same review used to take hours, at least half a day. It also helps Hill’s turn big productions into smaller variants for social.
  4. Why shouldn’t social be judged by video completion rate like CTV? (08:06) Treating social metrics the way you treat non-skippable inventory makes social look terrible. Alex views the two as frequency plays that coexist in one ecosystem.
  5. How do creators fit into retail media? (09:01) Creators drive purchase quickly because their content links directly into commerce, such as Amazon storefronts. Alex says purchase shouldn’t be the primary goal of an influencer activation, so it should connect to a retail environment.

 

Chapters

 

Transcript

Introduction

Alyson (00:19)
Hi, I’m Alyson. Welcome to Influence at Scale by Trevant. Today I have Alex West, or do you go by Alexander West? Okay.

Alex West (00:27)
Only if my mom’s mad at me.

Alyson (00:29)
Alex West. Yes. Alex is the senior brand manager at Hill’s Pet Nutrition. Welcome to our podcast. Thank you. Happy to be here. Thanks for being here. Okay, Alex, tell us a little bit about your role at Hill’s, how long you’ve been there, and kind of what you oversee.

Alex West (00:44)
Yeah, I’ve been at Hill’s for three years now. Fast three years. That’s fast. Yes. I oversee all brand media activations across the US. So any paid dollar that goes into market essentially for building the brand of Hill’s comes across my desk, and I get to work with fantastic partners like Trevant. Yes. Before being at Hill’s, I was on the agency side. Have that nice little both sides of the fence experience. Yeah, really, really happy to be here to talk about all the great work we’re doing.

What changes when you move from the agency side to the brand side?

Alyson (01:09)
Yeah.

What is the biggest difference coming from the agency side to the brand side? What was the biggest learning or pivot or kind of aha thing that surprised you by that move?

Alex West (01:21)
Yeah, when I was on the agency side, I would always be, I guess, frustrated because I was like, clients, you don’t understand all the work that goes into all these huge media plans. But I realized that media activations are ten percent of my daily activity. I’m talking about volume run rates, pricing, category dynamics and growth. It’s really broader. But then having partners and experts that can come in to see how specific channels can help grow the category, find new audiences.

It’s really important to have those partners. but I think it’s just so much more expansive on the client side. And having to answer questions about price package architecture, things I didn’t even know about three years ago.

Alyson (02:00)
Right.

Yeah. You bring that kind of empathy for the agency world into your role, which is nice. And I know that we feel that working with you as your paid social agency is that you just get it. You get how the agency works, you get why it’s so important for all of the agency partners, even when there’s multiple to really hold hands and work together in effort. Appreciate that. And best interest for the business. Appreciate that. Yeah. Okay.

How do you use AI to cut reporting time and build content variants?

Let’s get into the big topic that everybody, especially Advertising Week, and at large, is talking about, which is AI and automation. How are you personally using AI at work? And then we’ll talk about how Hill’s at large is sure is leveraging automation.

Alex West (02:46)
Yeah, personally, I mean especially in media, there’s a million metrics that you can look at at any given time on any time horizon for any asset. It’s too much. Yep. I think a couple of years ago we were hitting that critical mass of too much data to make any sort of actionable decision. What I use automation for today is really to analyze and aggregate all the data that’s at our fingertips to really make smart, quick decisions. Data’s only as good as it can be used.

I truly believe you can get analysis paralysis if you keep looking at it. So we have these huge monthly reports that I’m sure your team is very, very familiar with that has hundreds of lines. And automating that and having it be sort of a rule based sort of report allows us to spend forty-five minutes a month looking at some sort of spreadsheet that would usually have taken us, you know, hours. Yeah. You know, at least half a day. Right. Not even to pull but to go through.

Yeah. It has been huge. And then at Hill’s overall, there’s a lot of work streams around how we can create content quicker. Mm-hmm. Not just with original sort of creatives. That’s, you know, still very important to have large productions and bring that through, but how you can cut those down into smaller segments, create variants, and then push them out into social channels too. I think it’s gonna allow us to work a lot quicker. Yeah. As well as more like effectively too. Yeah.

Alyson (04:03)
And more testing at scale too with having more assets in market. Exactly. Yeah.

Who should control the audience: the algorithm or the brand?

A lot of the platforms have been, but really in the last eighteen years, when I think about Meta’s and TikToks and all of the paid social platforms, but even, you know, GMV Max and on TikTok and how, you know, all of the platforms are pushing for broader, more automated, less control over audience targeting and bids and budgets and placements.

For a company like Hill’s, how are you navigating that when you still want to maintain some control over the audiences that you know work and are tried and true? How are you balancing that?

Alex West (04:43)
Fantastic question. And this is one that I know you’re aware of my feeling about look-alike audiences. We’ve had many debates about that. It’s similar to where these algorithmic ad-serving systems have existed for a decade now in some capacity. They’re being rewired as AI sort of automated learning, which there is some of that, but ad servers have always incentivized the sort of fluidity of budgets, let us determine the right audience. I think there are more data points now than there have been in the past, which is great.

But I worry about lookalike audiences because you don’t know what sort of mechanism they’re using to determine someone will fall into your audience set. Or within the pet category, growth comes from very specific segments. And if we know that, having it be completely fluid across age ranges, gender, it doesn’t necessarily align with where our business goals are. So it really is a balance. I think allowing algorithms to have the flexibility to move budgets around assets and, you know, specific line items is great. But I do think there is a responsibility for brands to continue to own the strategy and set those guardrails, or else you’re gonna be growing segments that are maybe leaving the category. Right. Might make your short-term ROIs look fantastic. But in the long term, those households that are coming in aren’t gonna be what grows your brand. Right.

What is the biggest shift you’re seeing in paid social right now?

Alyson (05:59)
Yeah. What is the biggest shift that you’re seeing in paid social right now?

Alex West (06:04)
What’s the creator economy? That’s what we’ve heard about a lot. It’s either AI, podcasts, or creators. That’s everything that’s being discussed in Ad Week. And how you can authentically partner with creators, I think, is the next frontier. Mm-hmm. Authenticity is important. Trust, building trust through that. And then just what is really creative fit for purpose, I think, is a lot of what Trevant has really beat into my head over the last year and a half. And I success. Yes. And I fully agree.

That some sort of branded asset that’s shot for a wide angle that’s being fit for a vertical video is is just not gonna perform in the same extent that an authentic story from a creator would. Right. And that sort of shift is going to be whoever can win there at scale, I think is going to have a severe advantage. And having partners like Trevant that’s able to do that, I think is foundational. You have to have an agency that really helps you get to that endpoint.

Why do creator strategy and paid media have to run in lockstep?

Alyson (06:54)
Right. How important do you think it is to have your creator strategy in lockstep with your paid amplification and paid media strategy? Yeah.

Alex West (07:04)
Huge.

Yeah. Huge. I think if you they aren’t then you’re not doing it correctly. Yeah. We talk a lot about what the brand says is important, but also what others say about your brand is also equally as important. And with influencers, if you contract with them, it’s kind of by proxy that they’re talking about your brand. But advocacy and social is the way to grow your brand these days. Those big placements on CTV will never walk away from them. They’re incredibly important. But if you’re trying as a premium brand, which Hill’s is, if you’re trying to display your superiority, the best way to do it is through human storytelling. Yeah. Human experience with those benefits, it hits a lot better; it resonates more. so yeah, if you’re doing social with your vertical assets resized anymore, it’s just not gonna it’s not gonna work the same.

Why shouldn’t social be judged like CTV?

Alyson (07:48)
Yeah.

Thinking about the bite-sized short-form content that we know works really well across the paid social channels, how do you calibrate that with the longer-form storytelling that is so essential to influencers’ content and message?

Alex West (08:06)
Yeah, this is a complicated one. Yeah. And another thing we’ve talked a lot about is the metric of video completion rate. Yeah. It’s a big one. If we continue to treat social sort of performance metrics like video completion rate in the same lens that we do with non-skippable inventory, it’s gonna make social look terrible. But that’s not really the value. Both can exist in their own environments, especially with how fragmented the digital landscape is. People will watch CTV while on their social devices. Right.

They can both coexist. I view them more as frequency plays. It’s a whole ecosystem of media delivery. Because yeah, a thirty-second social spot, I don’t care how engaging it is. I don’t know if I would watch it either.

How do creators fit into retail media?

Alyson (08:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s kind of pivot into the retail media space because I know that you also oversee retail media at Hill’s. You wear many, many hats. I do. How do you see creators fitting into retail media?

Alex West (09:01)
Sure. It's I think another superpower of what creators are able to do is drive purchase much quicker. That advocacy is great at changing perception, but it’s even better at driving a purchase today. I have probably a dozen Instagram purchases lying around my house because someone that I trust told me to purchase it. Right. Which is great. But it being directly linked into commerce is huge. Amazon storefronts have been around for a while, but I think that the velocity in which traffic is going there now, but also purchases are happening too.

We see in pet specialty more retailers for trying to figure out how those integrations can happen. But it’s huge. It shouldn’t be the primary, at least in my mind, the primary goal of influencer activation shouldn’t be to drive immediate purchase. But they are three, four X better at it. Yeah. So it has to be linked to some sort of retail environment. Absolutely. Good.

What separates a great agency partner from a good media activator?

Alyson (09:49)
Trevant has had the privilege of working with Hill’s and your agency partners for ten years now, which is such a huge milestone. I know that you’ve been on board for three of those ten years. What is working with Trevant like day to day? And how do we help you do your job easier, better?

Alex West (10:09)
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well, at Hill’s and at Colgate at large, we’re really fortunate to work with a lot of great partners. But what I think makes Trevant special is your desire to not only deliver fantastic media, you know, align on the strategy, but truly understand our business. That you’re not afraid to, in meetings, when you hear something that isn’t truly aligned to what we’re trying to do, you will speak up and say, Actually, this isn’t what we’re trying to accomplish. Yep.

And I think that is really the secret sauce that takes somebody from being just a good activator to being a great partner because we can trust Trevant to have our best interests at heart and grow the brand rather than deliver a media campaign. It’s really easy to deliver impressions, clicks. You have savvy media buyers across the country that can do that. What’s different and special is that truly that understanding of what we’re trying to do. And it allows us to trust so much more with investment with, you know, time spent with Trevant too.

To grow our business. It’s the first place that I look for any sort of incremental funds because I know that we obviously have scale, which is great. Yeah. But I know that they will be activated to the best they possibly can. I can’t say enough kind words about the great work your team has done. It’s been fantastic.

Rapid fire: sushi, ChatGPT, and Andy Reid dog mustaches

Alyson (11:20)
Thank you. Rapid fire. Are you Coke or Pepsi? coke. All day long.

Alex West (11:24)
Yeah, I used to work on the Coke business, so they had me for life, I’m afraid.

Alyson (11:28)
Loyal. Okay. Also a Coke Girl. Yes.

What is your favorite meal?

Alex West (11:32)
I don’t know. I could eat a hundred pieces of sushi a day, no sweat.

Alyson (11:39)
Okay, this is...

Alex West (11:40)
I love sushi.

Alyson (11:41)
This makes it harder

You would only be able to eat sushi for the rest of your life. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Alex West (11:46)
Yeah, crush that. No sweat. ’Cause they have sweet potato rolls. my god. They have — they have the what is it, the egg that you can put in there too? Okay. What’s yours? Yeah.

Alyson (11:57)
My favorite food?

I am a steak and potatoes girl, but could I eat that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of my life?

Alex West (12:04)
I think whatever it is, you’re gonna hate it after a while. I know, right?

Alyson (12:06)
It doesn’t matter. All right. What is the last book that you’ve read?

Alex West (12:13)
The one that I have been chipping away at, I’m almost done with, is Weavers, Scribes and Kings. Mm. It’s about, like, a history of the ancient Near East. Okay. It’s like a textbook. It’s incredibly interesting. I like

Alyson (12:26)
Hence chipping away at it.

Alex West (12:28)
Right. No my gosh. Yeah, it’s like seven hundred pages too. But it’s yeah, it’s I like that sort of era of history. Yeah. It’s interesting. What about you?

Alyson (12:35)
I’m reading The Wedding People or The Wedding Guest. It’s such a rom-com easy read. So I feel like that says a lot about how different we are.

Yeah. What is the most ridiculous thing that you’ve purchased from an influencer on Instagram?

Alex West (12:51)
No, now you’re gonna expose me. There is okay. I’m a Kansas City Chiefs fan. Of course. There is this thing that you can put on your dog, which is like a rubber band you put around, and it’s a mustache for Andy Reid. It’s a mustache. And I bought four of them. Okay. Because I keep losing them. okay. Yeah.

Alyson (13:12)
Hopefully you got like a bundle.

Alex West (13:13)
One the yeah, that

The influencer’s gonna be really thankful. That really helps their sort of conversion rates. Cause I’m a hundred percent in conversion every time I see their ad I can do that. I can do that.

Alyson (13:21)
That’s amazing. I’m gonna need a picture of the mustache. Awesome.

Alyson (13:27)
Well, Alex, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It was a great conversation.