You may not know Tim Doyle by name or face, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen one of his ads. From putting his hand up to handle the Australian Labor Party’s digital advertising strategy in 2016, to becoming head of marketing and digital strategy at Koala Mattresses, Tim’s now running his own agency: Eucaluptus.vc

His new venture is the “brand engine” behind three new e-commerce companies: Pilot (men’s health), Kin Fertility (contraceptive pills) and Software (prescription skincare).

“This is a very different conversation for me to be having. It was filmed a couple weeks before the US election, so we naturally get stuck into the role that social platforms will have in the election, online advertising, how the algorithms play an enormous role in our lives, and why advertising on Pornhub has been really important for Tim’s new business. It’s a refreshing conversation with a young guy who’s full of energy and excitement for Australian entrepreneurialism.” -Mark Bouris

Tim Doyle explains to Mark Bouris how Pornhub has been one of the key platforms for his mens tele-health business to advertise on.

“We do a lot of advertising on Pornhub. It’s a good example of where we’ve pushed the boundaries. Funnily enough, Pornhub has an advertising engine behind it that is relatively close to the strength of Facebook’s. It’s called traffic junkie and it plugs into all of the porn sites.”

For many of us, the internet and online advertising is a mystery box that only a select few of dark actors in the marketing and advertising space can utilise to influence our day to day lives. OR is it really? How susceptible are we to algorithms and online targeting?

For Tim Doyle, “Whatever way you think about it, the genie out of the bottle. What we need to do as a society is raise the level of literacy that people have for how these systems work and the role that they play in them.”

“I really believe that the most important thing is that people understand how these systems work and don’t get caught in them. We have generations now that are so internet capable that these things don’t hit in the same way. the internet means different things for different generations and I think the issue at the moment is that 50% of our population, probably more, that saw the internet come to life in the later part of their lives. So they were never educated on the darker parts of it and therefore are exposed in ways that society wasn’t really prepared for.”

“If we can raise the level of literacy then I think social media and the advertising world that is online advertising is not necessarily a force for evil.”

Where’s the line? Do we need online regulation? According to Tim, regulation “has been completely ham-fisted to date”.

Speed to market. That’s the game when it comes to political advertising. Tim Doyle was one of the first marketers in Australia to utilise social media advertising for the Labor Party in the 2016 election campaign, so he knows a thing or two about digital campaigns.

According to him, Biden’s digital campaign was “one of the most sophisticated left wing campaigns that’s ever been run.”

Why? “The game now is how fast you can produce content. Facebook’s advertising tools are so developed that it’s table stakes to be good at those. The game is now how fast you can produce content and get that content in front of people.”