eCommerce Evolution

If Google isn’t within your top 2 channels for new customer acquisition - 2024 should be the year you change that.

In this episode, I interview Matt Slaymaker on the latest and greatest from Google.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• What are the best brands doing on Google that others aren’t?
• What are the keys to a better, more productive relationship with your agency?
• How has PMax evolved, and how can you fully leverage it?
• What about Demand Gen - Google’s newest campaign type? Spoiler alert: it’s not great... yet. But we see potential. 
• How should we think about AI with Google ads?

So much has changed on Amazon since we started helping sellers on the platform in 2016 (I can’t believe we’ve been in the Amazon game for 8 years).

In this episode, I chat with Trenton Bodenbach, OMG Amazon Strategist. 

We discuss some new potential game-changers on Amazon for 2024, strategy, and who’s winning and who’s not on the platform.

Here’s a quick look at a few of our topics:

1) Vertical Video for Sponsored Brand Video. Sponsored Brand Video is one of our favorite Amazon ad types. It’s usually in the top 2-3 most effective ad types for the brands we work with. Now, it supports vertical video. Likely, you have more vertical video than anything else. Now, you can use it on Amazon. 

2) Shop on Facebook. Amazon controls this for now, but likely there’s more to come. This will allow shoppers on Facebook to buy products directly from Amazon without leaving the Facebook app. 

3) Amazon’s continued growth and dominance and what it means.

4) Amazon storefronts, posts, and other tools for branding. We believe that building your BRAND on Amazon is the ultimate key to success. Not just selling stuff. And Amazon has more tools than ever to help you build your brand. 

I love this episode. 

Not just because my guest, Rabah Rahil, is a super smart dude with an eye for fashion.

I love it because we tackle two of the biggest issues facing brands, agencies, and developers in the DTC space:

• How to think about and utilize AI for better results (especially if you’ve resisted it a bit).
• How to evolve the customer shopping experience to wow customers and drive better conversion rates.

If you’ve been somewhat bearish on AI or maybe just slow to experiment with it, perhaps you need a better framework.

Rabah lays out his framework by comparing AI to oil companies and how oil companies find land, drill for oil, and refine it for profit-producing products. 

It might not be clear right now, but this is a pretty accurate analogy for getting the most from AI.

We also talk about the social dilemmas of using AI in our daily lives. 

For example, if I use AI to write my wife a poem, does that count, or is it cheating? If I use AI to help me craft answers for a job interview, is that a sign I shouldn’t be hired or that I know how to utilize tools? Or does it depend? 

We also talk about a few of his favorite tools:

• Gong(.io): A tool that Fermat now uses to analyze sales performance and run sales meetings. It’s a game changer in taking data from your CRM and delivering actionable insights and talking points. 
• Riverside: The podcast recording tool that now has AI features that are awesome (and getting better all the time). 

Plus, we discuss some AI features masquerading as businesses. These will undoubtedly come crashing back to reality. 

On the customer journey side, we talk about how creating a cohesive experience that’s also customized at scale is the future of the DTC industry.

3 things have to be in alignment:

We talk about when and how this goes wrong and what to do.

And we throw in some fun 80s/90s references. 

Super fun. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording.

In the DTC space, there are always headwinds.

Supply chain issues. Amazon account shutdowns. Meta or Google ad account issues. 

And new headwinds pop up daily.

That's why I love this conversation with Aaron Nosbisch so much. Aaron and my buddy Nick Shackelford run Lucyd - a social ad agency that focuses on CBD and Cannabis products, and now Brez, a very tasty THC drink that's legal in all 50 states.

At Lucyd, Aaron and the team grew from nothing to one of the largest CBD agencies in the world. And the road was anything but easy. The story is a crazy one and even involved Aaron emailing Mark Zuckerberg directly when he was getting nowhere with Facebook support.

At Brez, they're building a THC brand publicly. The wins and losses are right there for everyone to see. 

This interview is fun, inspiring, and insightful. Here's a look at what we cover:

• Why "hacking" your way to solving difficult problems isn't the answer. Being really, really good at the fundamentals is the answer.
• Why building in public is more fun and likely less risky than building in private. 
• What being "mission-driven" looks like for a CBD/THC brand.
• What's working on with X (Twitter) advertising, and what should we expect next year?
• The two ways to innovate. 
• Plus more!

Cody Wittick is the man. College hoops player. Agency owner. Podcast host. And, now, new dad!

Most important for this discussion: Cody knows how to scale DTC brands with influencer marketing. 

In this episode, we discuss the right and wrong ways to build an influencer marketing program. We talk about winning creatives and who's smarter: media buyers or the machine. And highlight the parallels between running a business and being a father. 

What was my favorite part of the conversation, you ask...? 

How to use influencers to build a creative flywheel.

I'm convinced you need enough quantity and quality of creative on a weekly basis to scale on all of your most important platforms. 

And in the episode, we talk about how. Enjoy!

This year was an AMAZING year of podcast guests.

Today, I wanted to reflect on and recap 12 of my favorite lessons from this year.

1. Creative Thinking as a Competitive Advantage - Million Dollar Mindset (Ep 231)

This episode was the most shared episode of the year. It ended up in a few forums and got a lot of love. 

What helped Will and the team grow Organifi from $18M annually to over $100M? It wasn’t just hard work. It was creative thinking and problem-solving.

Learn the secrets of Moneyball, the Hollywood Black List, and more!

2. You Can 13X Through Creative, Data-Driven Marketing - Brendan Bannister (Ep 221)

In a similar vein to the podcast with Will Hughes, this interview with Brendan Bannister was a banger. Brendan ran paid media for William Painter during their years of meteoric growth. We talk about the power of design and simplicity. 

3. What You Don’t Know About Your Customer Is Costing You. The Missing Piece to Your Attribution, CRO, and Marketing Is Customer Insights - Trevor Crump (Ep 250) / Jeremiah Prummer (Ep 262) 

I’m completely sold on the idea that when done properly, customer surveys uncover tremendous insights that will shift how you advertise, position, and optimize your products. I cover my 4 favorite questions to ask in post-purchase surveys. 

4. Why Your Price Is Likely Wrong and What to Do About It - Byron Myers (Ep 255)

The way you set your initial price is not the way you determine your optimal price. There’s an optimal price for rev maximization and one for profit maximization. 

How does demand and conversion rate shift when price increases or decreases? After you get some data, you need to get scientific. Chart out your demand curve and conversion rate to find your ideal price. 

This isn’t static, though. You should be testing at least 2 times per year or likely every quarter. 

5. Customer Value Optimization Trumps CRO Every Time. And It Informs CRO. - Drew Sanocki (Ep 245)

Not all customers are created equally. You have some whales (your most valuable) and some minnows (your least valuable). 

What’s more important than almost anything else you do is identifying whales and attracting more of them. 

This is a key part of understanding that there are only 3 ways to grow your business:

6. Organic Growth on YouTube. 3 Types of Content. - Liz Germain (Ep 234)

YouTube is the 2nd most visited site on the planet. 

Users spend a TON of time on the platform. If you’re good at creating content, you can build a large following and drive awareness and traffic for your brand. 

In this episode, I talk to YouTube pro, Liz Germain, about the 3 types of content you must create to build an organic following.

7. Brand is Everything - Person Rutherford (Ep 260)

Want a huge exit? Want all of your advertising efforts to improve? Want greater retention and higher LTVs? Want to charge a premium? You need to focus on brand building.

The good news is you can do this profitably.

If you want customers to seek you out by name, tell others about you, and feel pride in associating with your products, you need a BRAND. 

Preston Rutherford, one of the co-founders of Chubbies who had a 9 figure IPO, knows all about this. Brand building can’t be done overnight. It’s a long

How is your finance stack?

We all love to talk about our tech or marketing stacks, but the financial side gets less attention.

Heck, you might not even know for sure what your finance stack is! 

My guest today is an eComm legend, Bill D'Alessandro. Bill is the founder and CEO of Elements Brands. He's built or acquired 8 brands and sold 7. 

Before his time in eComm, he spent 5 years in the investment banking and private equity world. 

Talking about ad creativity or the latest case studies on scaling with Facebook ads is more of a dopamine hit than talking about finance. BUT, knowing what levers to pull, what to do, and what NOT to do as it relates to your finance stack can instantly add $100s or thousands to your bank account. 

Here are the 4 components of your finance stack that Bill and I dive into today. Trust me, this interview is fast-paced, interesting and guaranteed to put more cash in your bank account.

You don't need to be a CFO or a CPA to get value here. You just need the 80/20 of how to optimize your finances. Here's a look at what we cover in this episode:

• Why it's not always best to maximize assets and reduce liabilities; for example, accounts receivable are an asset, but they're also NOT cash in your bank.
• When it's "OK" to use Debt and when you shouldn't.
• What's essential and what's not when it comes to a bank?
• How 2 simple shifts in credit card usage can add $10s or $100s of thousands in your pocket…money you will NOT receive a 1099 for.
• Why working capital is the blood of your business. 
• A few simple tips for accounts payable - when you do this right, this is the cheapest form of "debt" you can use
• Why Merchant Cash Advances so commonly start a death spiral and what to do if you're in this trap.

What do you do when you grow 25% YoY but realize you’re losing money? 

How do you adjust when what has always worked in the past stops working? 

What steps do you take when your cost to acquire a new customer is skyrocketing, and nothing is bringing it down?

If you’re like some brand owners, you keep doing the same stuff but try to do it better. 

Sometimes, you need a larger shift that starts with asking better questions and understanding what problem you’re trying to solve. 

This interview with Anthony Mink, CEO and Co-Founder of Live Bearded, was super fun and energizing to record. 

Live Bearded is an 8-figure brand that experienced something pretty dramatic but also not uncommon in eCommerce. Their new customer acquisition ads stopped working across ALL ad platforms. 

We know the brand well; we’ve been running Google and YouTube ads for them for years. Seeing their CPA skyrocket across all channels (Facebook, IG, YouTube) and then helping it come down to the lowest it’s ever been was inspiring and insightful. Especially while spending more than ever on top-of-funnel efforts. 

Ultimately, they discovered they had a fundamental positioning and messaging problem. Their offer was good (basically a free sample), but the way they positioned their product had taken them as far as possible. They needed to reposition! 

In this episode, we uncover that journey, and it’s PACKED with valuable lessons.

Here’s a quick look at some of what we cover:

• How you first have to clearly define the problem before you can solve it. (This is a step entrepreneurs usually want to skip.)
• How positioning is likely the most powerful lever you can pull in your business.
• The power of Stories, States, and Identities in your marketing
• The power of Brand and how Nike has it, but Hyatt doesn’t.
• The concept of Better Your Best (and NOT Better Your Meh).
• The messaging that cut Live Bearded’s CPAs in half.
• Plus more!

In some ways, we know everything and nothing about our customers at the same time. 

We have mountains of data at our fingertips for every customer interaction. 

But we can’t see our customers. 

We don’t really know what they love, why they buy, or what they’re into—even insights into why they bought from us or how they first learned about us are muddy. 

Even when we think we know, our view is incomplete. 

That’s where KNO Commerce comes in. 

Sure, you have a few different attribution tools. They can be helpful but also confusing. 

And they have biases. 

Sure, you know conversion rate optimization best practices, but every brand and every customer is slightly different. 

Getting customer insights through post-purchase or abandon cart surveys can provide clarity into what your attribution or CRO data is telling you…or, more importantly, what it’s NOT telling you. 

The good news is you don’t have to use KNO to get great customer insights. Any survey tool can work. 

In this episode with KNO Founder and CEO Jeremiah Prummer, we discuss the following:

• 40% of your shoppers buy in less than 1 week of learning about your brand. 60% take longer than 1 week. (This probably contradicts what GA and your attribution tools tell you).
• The biases in surveys and how to work around them?
• The biases in the attribution model.
• How abandoned cart surveys can be a game changer in addition to email flows.
• What questions to ask your customers for the most actionable insights
• And More!

Download The YouTube Ads Checklist Here

YouTube offers TREMENDOUS scale opportunities.

Just ask Dr. Squatch, Purple Mattress, Organifi, and Manscapped.

But it's NOT the easiest platform to scale with. We're one of the top spenders on YouTube ads. We've spent more than almost any agency our size on the platform and learned what works and what doesn't.

In this episode, I break down the 11 factors that determine YouTube's success.

Here's a sneak peak:

• What has to be true about your landing pages before you can fully accelerate on YouTube?
• When should you launch a YouTube ad campaign?
• How to approach YouTube ad performance measurement.
• What creative elements need to be in place?
• What role do email, search, and shopping play in your YouTube success?
• How to think about remarketing and YouTube.

Plus, much, much more.

Few DTC brands have been as polarizing or as successful as Chubbies.

The Chubbies story is a wild one. It started with humble beginnings, selling shorts one by one in parks around the Stanford campus, leading to an IPO.

Four Stanford college students had 3 things in common: 

1. They were tired of working for the man. 

2. They didn't fit the "Abercrombie" fashion mold of the late 2000s and 

3. They loved shorter shorts - BEFORE the short shorts trend. 

And so, Chubbies was born.  

This is a deep dive with Co-founder Preston Rutherford on what Chubbies got right, what they got wrong, and how to think about building a brand.

Here's a look at what we cover:

• Feedback loops. This started when the co-founders were selling their shorts in person. They could immediately read customers' reactions and hear what they liked, what they didn't like and what needed to be tweaked. As the company grew, this shifted to digital and online feedback loops tied to ad creatives, social posts, and user experience.
• Downplaying vanity metrics. We all want to brag about ROAS and revenue. But, these metrics can be misleading. If you maximize ROAS, you sacrifice long-term growth for a sale today. And you get into a trap that squeezes profits and becomes hard to break. 
• Obsessing over core metrics. We should focus on metrics like contribution margin, total profits and branded search growth (as a sign of a growing, healthy brand).
• Building a brand. Want to have a big exit? Want to charge a premium? Want to drive consistent demand? It's all about brand.  

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

“The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.”

Not sure where I first heard these quotes, but they definitely apply to this week’s episode.

I firmly believe that to grow like no one else is growing, you must do what no one else is doing.

In this episode, I walk through 5 growth opportunities that you’re likely under-leveraging or completely missing.

This is the recording from a recent talk I gave in Austin, Texas, to a group of 1,200 eager Amazon Sellers and DTC brand owners, where I unpacked these 5 growth opportunities.  

While there are a few cases where seeing the video might be more helpful (watch it here), the audio should still be helpful! 

I hope you enjoy it.

How can you make the most of the Cyber 5?

It all comes down to strategy, planning and execution.

Ideally, you’re planning all year and working on the perfect strategies to attract new customers and inspire existing customers to buy more. 

But planning is only part of the success equation. Making adjustments and tweaks based on what’s working and what’s not is also crucial.

On this episode, I’m bringing on a star-studded cast of OMG experts. We talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday success from essentially every angle. 

We talk about successful email and SMS promotions. We cover do’s and don’ts for maximizing Amazon profits and share insights for getting the most from Google, YouTube and other channels. 

My guests:

• Bill Cover, Google Strategist
• Nick Flint, Email Strategist
• Trenton Bodenbach, Amazon Growth Strategist

What we discuss:

• Top BFCM mistakes merchants make.
• What you need to plan ahead of time and lock in vs. what you can change on the fly during the Cyber 5.
• Or favorite Cyber 5 growth strategies.
• Protecting margin while still driving purchases from customers who expect deals. Can you make a 10% off deal irresistible?

I believe in the who, not the how, for more business problems and opportunities.

Want to grow faster?

Need to solve a nagging problem?

Rather than thinking about how to solve it, you might want to start with who.

But that only works well if you have strong leadership skills. As your business grows, you’ll be doing less and leading more. 

My buddy Peter Awad joins the show today. He’s an eCommerce vet. He launched his first online venture in 2000 and co-founded Mission Meats, an online snack company, in 2015.

Now, Peter’s passion is coaching and building great leaders. 

I’m a big believer that culture and leadership will trump strategy any day of the week.

Here are a few of the things we discussed:

• What’s it like on the other side of me?
• Knowing yourself first.
• Radical candor or ruinous empathy.
• The nothing to lose, nothing to prove, nothing to hide approach to discussions.
• The fact that the life you want, the business you want, is on the other side of a few hard conversations.
• How to lead vendors, freelancers, and agencies better.
• How to have better meetings.

Are you dabbling with generative AI or using it to gain a competitive advantage? 

Are you getting better at using AI or staying the same? 

If you're like some professionals I know, maybe you've gotten frustrated with only slight gains using AI, so you've moved on.

I'll admit, I'm still just dabbling compared to my buddy Fred.

Fred Vallaeys is one of the smartest dudes I know. His perspective on AI is inspiring and sure to get your wheels turning. 

But first, take a peek at Fred's resume! 

• One of the first 500 employees at Google
• He was on the team that acquired Urchin, the precursor to Google Analytics 
• He was on the original Quality Score team
• He was one of the original 6 people who built the AdWords editor

Now, he's the co-founder and CEO of Optmyzr and the author of 2 amazing books.

Here's a look at the taste AI morsels we chew on in this episode:

• Practical ways to use Generative AI that you might be missing.
• How to ground the AI so it doesn't "hallucinate."
• Understanding the best LLMs and how they impact generative AI.
• How generative AI is different from Machine Learning.
• Embedding, vectors, and chain prompting

Ready to step up your AI game? I am!

Price. It’s an emotional topic for shoppers and for brands. 

As shoppers were more influenced by price than we care to admit.

As brands we’re often afraid to change our prices. And our current prices were probably created a long time ago. It’s almost a certainty that they price for at least some of your products is wrong right now.

Byron Myer’s is a super smart dude. He started Inogen, a med-tech business, while in college and took it public in 2014. Now he runs Glimmer Wish with his wife and daughters. He used price theory and price strategy to add tens of millions in sales at Inogen. He’s also used it to scale Glimmer Wish from 0 to over 7 figures in less than a year. 

And this isn’t a “let’s raise prices a bit and see what happens” approach. This is a scientific, mathematical way to find the optimal price to maximize profits.

Why is your pricing wrong:

• It’s likely based on flawed strategies like competitor benchmarking or cost plus. Both strategies are ok to start with but do NOT produce your optimal price for total profits.
• You’re following old customer psychology that states you should always charge $19.99 instead of $19.97 instead of $20 or $22. Often this is incorrect.
• You haven’t changed the price in over a year.
• In the current environment if you’re not changing price or running tests quarterly, your pricing is probably off.

This topic will make you Cold. Hard. Cash. Give it a listen!

Why does one hook work and another flops? 

Why does one offer get customers clicking and buying and another offer get’s only a shrug? 

How can you know BEFORE you spend money on an ad if it’s likely to convert?

Today’s episode is a recording from a recent talk I gave at Ezra Firestone’s Blue Ribbon Mastermind. 

I break down 7 ad tests guaranteed to make ANY ad better. 

Follow these tests and your ads will have more stopping power, more engagement, and drive more ACTION. 

The visuals do help with this one, so watching on YouTube might be a good idea, but the audio sill captures most of the value.

Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll learn:

• How to tell if your ads differentiate your product ENOUGH from the competition
• A test that great standup comedians use that applies to your ads as well 
• A test that’s best illustrated using a cat, and one that’s best identified using a donkey. Any guesses what these tests might be about?
• How to handle lingering objections
• How to tell if your ad has the power to motivate your prospects to take action
• Plus more!

This presentation was super fun for me. Hopefully you’ll find it entertaining and helpful! 

Liz Saunders knows the Amazon game well. She was the Chief of Staff for Jungle Scout as it grew from under 40 employees to a few hundred. And the founder of Fluencer Fruit. Through software, coaching, and services, she helps brands and influencers maximize their results with Amazon’s Influencer program. 

The Influencer game is still early at Amazon, but right now, it’s free for brands to participate in and driving some compelling results. 

Take This Case Study:

An Amazon product with no change in ads, no improvement in organic rankings, and no change in ratings saw a 45% MoM increase and a 3x YoY increase in sales - ALL From Influencer content. 

Do I have your attention now? 

Check out what Liz and I discuss in this interview:

•  How you as a brand can qualify for the Influencer Program (good news - it’s pretty simple).
• How to attract and recruit the right influencers for your brand.
• Where does influencer content show up, and how do you influence the best placements?
• The difference between the Inspire and Discover Feed on Amazon.
• How to use Influencer and Amazon Lives.
• Plus more!

Amazon DSP is a misunderstood platform. Heck, even the name is confusing! 

The Amazon DSP we’re referring to in this episode is the Demand Side Platform. Not to be confused with Amazon’s other DSP - Delivery Service Provider (the independent contractors who deliver your Amazon packages). 

Amazon DSP Ads are a way to target shoppers on and off Amazon with highly relevant image and video ads based on Amazon’s behavioral shopping data.

No one has more shopper data than Amazon. But Amazon doesn’t publish that data or allow anyone to use it unless…you advertise using Amazon DSP.

DSP is one of the most powerful advertising platforms I’ve ever encountered. But it’s also commonly misunderstood, and it is advanced. This is not for beginners. 

There are a lot of ways to waste money with it. But there are a few ways to accelerate growth. 

Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• The top mistakes advertisers make when running DSP ads.
• The top 3 strategies for accelerating growth with Amazon DSP.
• Why running DSP remarketing only and testing too small will likely fail.
• What it means to have a DSP “seat” and why they are so rare.
• How one seller tripled their DSP spend and accelerated growth by 35%, all while lowering their TACoS.
• Understanding DSP attribution and why it’s a hotly debated topic.

Your Amazon listings are probably NOT as optimized as you think. Your products likely aren’t merchandised as well as they could be either. In this episode, Brandon shows you how to find obscure keywords to dramatically grow your sales and rankings. He also shows you how to merchandise your product to fly off the shelf. 

We also talk about AI, competitor research, new product development, and what it will take to get ahead and stay ahead on Amazon. 

Brandon is in an elite club of 8 figure sellers on Amazon. His brands will sell over $ 30 million this year on Amazon, and he’s targeting over $ 50 million in sales next year. 

Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• The two main factors that impact ranking on Amazon: 1. Performance and 2. Relevance and how to improve BOTH.
• How to find obscure keywords that you can rank for quickly to boost sales.
• The 2 biggest mistakes sellers make when it comes to merchandising and how to fix them easily.
• How to get feedback faster and easier on product designs so that you don’t waste time or money on products or merchandising that’s likely to fail.
• How to use AI to quickly synthesize what your competitors are doing well, what they’re doing poorly, and what you should do about it.
• Using AI to get a clear picture of your ideal buyer.
• How stacking small changes can allow you to double or triple sales year over year.

Post-purchase surveys can teach you a lot about your customers, and no one knows that better than my most recent guest, Trevor Crump. 

Trevor is the co-founder of Bestie, which is one of the fastest-growing post-purchase apps on Shopify. 

We talked about the key questions you should ask your customers and how you can turn their answers into extra cash! 

Make sure you give this episode a listen to learn key things like...

• The 3 questions that need to be on your post-purchase survey. 
• Where your customers are coming from (because we all know how hard attribution can be). 
• What Trevor has learned from running one of the most popular post-purchase survey apps on Shopify. 
• Plus, some of the most surprising things surveys can reveal. 

Gracey Ryback, an A-List Amazon Influencer, began her journey on TikTok by talking about products she loved. Soon after, she started hosting Amazon Lives. To date, she has driven seven figures in new sales for various products on Amazon. 

I first met Gracey when we both spoke at SellerCon in Austin earlier this summer. Her presentation was amazing, and I immediately knew I had to get her on the show.

If you’re like most of the brands I know, then you’ve likely never tried Amazon Lives, or if you did, you did it as a brand and got little to no traction. 

The good news is that your competition likely isn’t using Amazon Lives or Amazon Influencers either... so you have a potential edge.

Here’s what Gracey and I discuss:

• Advantages of Amazon Live with an A-List Influencer vs. Live as a brand.
• How to show up on the Amazon home page with your Amazon Live.
• How to find Amazon Influencers to work with that fit your brand.
• TikTok Shop - how it works, how to leverage for growth on and off Amazon.
• How to fully leverage influencer content.
• What is the influencer marketing mindset, and why is it critical for success in influencer marketing?
• How creative control may be killing your results with influencer marketing.

#influencermarketing #amazonlives #tiktokshop #digitalmarketing #digitaladvertising

FREE RESOURCE: OMG's Ultimate Email Marketing Testing Checklist

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mt6eOX2wxCM61uhGc0WoSVWSlemUJRP0T9mfgBk2o-M/edit#gid=1837668272

How can you triple your results from Email & SMS? Is crafting a single captivating subject line the key? Does discovering the ultimate promotion hold the answer? Likely not.

Making huge improvements is all about finding dozens of small wins, stacking them on top of each other, and letting the improvements compound.

In this episode, Nick Flint, our Email Strategist at OMG, breaks down 8 Email & SMS tests you need to run right now! We talk about how Email & SMS can improve EVERY other channel. We’re talking Google Ads, YouTube ads, Facebook, Amazon - ALL made better by leveraging Email & SMS.

Here’s a peek at what we cover. 

• Why opt-in rate is NOT the key metric, you need to measure for your opt-in pop-up. (And why that spinning wheel might be doing more harm than good.)
• How making some prospects “work for it” can increase purchases and email engagement.
• Should you show your price in emails or make people click to see the price?
• How Everyday Cali used a creative “break our site” offer to drive engagement and get solid customer feedback.
• Plus, much, much more…

Tomer is a speaker, an Amazon Seller, the host of the Top Dog community, and the author of "Ride the Amazon Wave." We recently met when we both spoke at SellerCon in Austin.

Tomer has a unique approach to getting 5-star reviews and scaling sales on Amazon. No, this does not include buying reviews, begging for reviews, or doing anything that toes the line of Amazon's TOS. 

He is all about surprise and delight. And I couldn't agree more! I learned things from Tomer about reviews that I haven't heard ANYWHERE else…and I've been doing this for a while. 

Here's a look at what we cover:

• Why the raw number of 5-star reviews for you or your competitors isn't what matters most, and how to shift your focus to the 5-star review RATE instead.
• Why 4-star reviews hurt your listings.
• 5 keys to a 6-star experience on Amazon that you probably have yet to think of.
• Creative ways to delight customers without spending more. 
• Why offending some customers can be a good thing.
• Thinking about every element of your product as an "experience."

What if you could find one strategy that, if properly executed, could:

• Triple your revenue
• Build a hyper-engaged community around your brand
• Get feedback on exactly what products to launch next (and create anticipation around the launch of new products)
• Create an ongoing, repeatable marketing vehicle that improves CAC and LTV
• Establish a content machine

Sounds too good to be true? That's exactly what creating "Challenges" did for Alicia Reynoso and her fiancé. They went on to build a "60-Day Hydration Challenge" around their brand: Live Infinitely.

They leverage their challenge to grow from a mostly Amazon brand, to 50/50 Amazon and Shopify, to having a successful exit.

In this episode, Alicia and I dive into the why behind "Challenges" and what it takes to make them successful.

#eCommerceEvolution #ChallengeBasedMarketing #LiveInfinitely #AliciaReynoso #eCommerceTips #CommunityBuilding #CustomerValue #BusinessGrowth #RevenueBoost #HydrationChallenge

Drew Sanocki has successfully turned around 8 and 9-figure eCommerce brands not once, not twice, but 5 times. Among his successes are AutoAnything and Karmaloop. 

Drew is also the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Post Pilot (direct mail made for DTC and eCommerce). 

He knows the strategies behind what it takes to succeed in DTC better than almost anyone I know. 

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Jay Abraham’s 3 ways to grow any business. 
• New Customer Acquisition (NCA) is only ONE way to grow your business and is almost certainly the most expensive way.
• Why Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) can be misleading and why focusing on Customer Value Optimization (CVO) matters more.
• What all failing eCommerce brands have in common and how to avoid the death spiral. 
• The principle of optimizing before you multiply. 
• Using direct mail for retention, remarketing, AND new customer acquisition.

#Podcast #Ecommerce #DrewSanocki #PostPilot #EcommerceStrategies #CustomerRetention #DataDrivenDecisions

Whatever you do, don't mention "Growth Hacking" to Nirav Sheth. Trust me, he's got something even better! 

Nirav is the CRO mastermind driving success for some of the fastest-growing and most loved DTC brands like Molekule, Mack Weldon, Athletic Greens, Four Sigmatic, and more.

He has a truly unique and effective way of approaching optimization that defies all traditional CRO norms. It all begins with understanding what we should test and what we shouldn't based on the dollars behind it. 

What we cover: 

• How an eBike company turned the tables on their "add to cart" rate, resulting in a jaw-dropping $12 million impact. 
• How a shoe company reworked its mobile experience to simplify and improve conversions. 
• When to run quizzes, when to not, and when to ask more questions instead of less (this will likely surprise you).
• How to think about CRO from the customer's perspective in terms of "micro journeys."
• Should you go headless? Why Nirav thinks it's usually a bad idea, and when to consider it.

YouTube is a different beast. It has arguably greater reach than Facebook, with more ad inventory available. 

But it’s not easier to scale on. And it’s not easier to measure. 

For brands that get it right, YouTube can accelerate growth like no other.

Take Dr. Squatch as an example. They scaled from $3 million per year to over $150 million per year, in large part due to the success of their YouTube ads. The same goes for Manscapped, William Painter, Organifi, and DOZENS more.

This episode is unique because Jacques Spitzer and I interview each other! Jacques is the CEO of Raindrop (the creative agency behind Squatch, Manscapped, Shady Rays, and more) and the podcast host Marketing People Love. 

OMG and Raindrop have collaborated on several campaigns (including NATIVE), with Raindrop handling the creative side and OMG handling the media and strategy. 

In this show, we discuss:

• Why most brands get YouTube creatives wrong and how to fix it.
• Why measuring YouTube performance is harder than most and why you’re probably not measuring YouTube properly.
• How to truly achieve “exit velocity” with YouTube.
• Getting the proper view of brand lift, search lift, and halo effect from YouTube ads.
• Creative breakthroughs and much, much more. 

Over 1 billion shopping experiences take place on Google alone every single day. Millions more occur across popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.

Are your products showing up on the “digital shelf” for eager shoppers? 

Feed marketing is the perfect blend of art and science, advertising and merchandising.

Feeds power Google Shopping Ads (PMAX) and Facebook ads. They lay the foundation for eCommerce brands, enhancing all other marketing efforts and driving better results.

Here is a look at what we cover: 

• Common feed mistakes that keep your products off the digital shelf and unavailable to eager shoppers.
• How a sporting apparel company increased clicks by over 200% with better product titles.
• Optimizing your efforts as you go (based on results). 
• Giving shoppers AND platforms (Google, Facebook, etc.) what they want so that you attract more new customers.
• What Dynamic Prospecting is, and how optimized feeds can fuel new customer acquisition.

Community and great brands go hand-in-hand. If you want to maximize LTV, build raving fans, stimulate referrals, and create a stable base of customers - COMMUNITY is at the center. 

Carlos Alvarez is a legend in the eComm and Amazon seller space. He's been a full-time seller on Amazon for 15 years. He's also in the super-elite club of 9 figure sellers.

He's built the world's largest Amazon seller meetup group. It used to be fully in-person before the pandemic, but is now hybrid, allowing for greater accessibility and participation. And that's not all! He's created a community exclusively for physical product brands as well.

Here's a look at what we cover:

• Why focusing on size alone isn't the way to build a large and thriving community.
• The secret sauce principle of "if everyone is invited, no one is invited."
• The mechanics of building an email list and how to build an engaged community from that list.
• How to structure an offer ladder.
• Tools for building community.
• Plus more!

Josh Hadley is a podcast host and a successful brand builder. His business Hadley Designs, just crossed 8 figures in annual sales.

One key to his success is hiring manager-level talent overseas. His approach to hiring is fantastic. It's definitely one of the better ones I've seen.

But that's not all! Before we dive into our discussion on hiring, we do a rapid-fire exchange of our top 6 takeaways from recent podcast episodes. Super fun and hopefully inspiring. 

Here's what we cover: 

Bonus Content: 

• Creative problem-solving as a competitive advantage. 
• The numbers behind successful infomercials. 
• The metric YouTube cares about to boost your brand's YouTube channel? 

Hiring Content: 

• How to get clear on WHO you should be hiring. 
• How to measure the success or failure of a new hire before you hire them. 
• How to create a compelling job description. 
• How to find, attract, and retain top-level talent overseas - get Josh's full formula.

What started as a way to boost sales during slow summer months has turned into two of the largest shopping days of the year: Prime Day. 

More accurately, the event is 48 hours of lightning deals, promos, coupons, and shopping frenzies. 

Prime Day is a great way to attract new customers and gain momentum that can impact your business. But, it’s not without risk or peril. It's not uncommon for things to break or go wrong in the lead-up to Prime Day or during the event itself. 

In this episode, two OMG experts are joining me to talk about maximizing Prime Day sales. If you sell on Amazon, this is a MUST-watch episode. The insights are not only applicable to this Prime Day 2023 but will boost your success for future Prime Days, as well as upcoming holidays.

What we cover:

• Pricing Strategy - Raising your prices is a no-no in Amazon’s book. Lowering prices is almost always welcomed from Amazon’s perspective but could be detrimental to your business. Here’s how you should think about pricing strategy leading up to Prime Day. 
• Listing Optimization - While you don’t want to make big changes leading up to the event, you do want to give your listings a boost. Here’s what you should consider changing and what you shouldn’t. 
• Overall Ad Strategy - Your ad strategy could make or break your Prime Day performance. How should you approach bidding and budgeting, and what factors should shape your ad strategy? 
• Post-Prime Day Ad Strategies - How can you get new customers who learned about your brand during Prime Day to… 1. Buy again, and 2. Buy other products you sell? By running great ads. 
• How much caffeine should you consume while watching and managing Prime Day performance?
• Plus, extra tips and bonuses like Amazon Live, Amazon Influencers, Amazon Posts, and more that could give you an edge.

This episode of eCommerce Evolution is one-of-a-kind!

Recently, I had the pleasure of joining Matt Edmundson on his show, the eCommerce Podcast, and let me tell you, it was an absolute blast! We had such a great time that I couldn't resist featuring it on eCommerce Evolution as well.

Matt Edmundson is an eCommerce expert and CEO at Auron Media. With over 20 years of experience, he has left a mark on the industry as both a successful business owner and a respected teacher.

His podcast serves as a valuable resource for entrepreneurs looking to level up their stores! 

So take advantage of this opportunity to gain insights on what is working now with Google and YouTube Ads.

Here's a sneak peek at what we cover: 

• Why you should consider running YouTube ads.
• How to use YouTube as an advertising channel. 
• The importance of long-form content on YouTube. 
• The differences between TikTok and YouTube advertising.
• The relationship between Google and YouTube ads. 
• What Performance Max is, and how it works.
• Plus more! 

P.S. If you are interested in the topic of “leadership,” I invite you to listen to our discussion on Matt’s other show Push To Be More, a podcast centered around what it takes to make life work! 

Andrew Foxwell and I go way back. We recorded our first podcast together over 6 years ago!

Andrew is a seasoned expert in the advertising industry and the driving force behind a remarkable Meta agency that collaborates with renowned brands like Trek.

He also runs an amazing community of brand owners, agency owners and marketing professionals called Foxwell Founders. (Over 400 members strong and collectively spending 250 million plus per month on ads.)

Join us as Andrew shares his invaluable insights on the ever-evolving advertising landscape.

Here's a glimpse of what we cover in this episode:

• What creatives are working best right now on Meta and Google, and are TikTok-style ads worth testing on multiple platforms?
• How answering questions is essential on more platforms than just Google search.
• What strategies are working right now with different Meta campaign types.
• Why having great creatives is only valuable with proper creative testing.
• How to focus on what's really unique about your product in your ads.
• Andrew's approach of "scaling in place" and how it applies to Meta and YouTube.
• Operational AI vs. Platform AI.
• What Andrew's "not, not excited" about AI means (I tend to share his perspective).

Good ads are just the beginning when it comes to growing your business. The real game-changer lies in your landing pages. They hold the key to turning visitors into loyal customers.

That's why you can't afford to miss our latest podcast episode. We've brought together two absolute legends from OMG Commerce - Matt Slaymaker and Bill Cover - to discuss their favorite landing page tips and share real-life examples.

With over $100 million managed annually in online advertising, we've witnessed firsthand the critical role landing pages play in conversion rates and return on ad spend. They hold the power to either make or break your ad performance, while also impacting your word-of-mouth and organic growth.

Here's a look at what we cover: 

• How landing page improvements turned a skincare brand's ad campaign from a dud to a success.
• What good landing pages and amazing in-store experiences have in common.
• The 4 C's of a good lander.
• 5 tips for dedicated landing pages.
• Where to start - homepage, landing, or dedicated lander.
• How landing pages and ads work together to create winning (or disappointing) results.
• Our favorite landing page examples and a FREE swipe file of our favorites!

Khierstyn Ross has made a name for herself by successfully launching products and brands on Kickstarter. However, the crowdfunding landscape has significantly changed in recent years, particularly on Kickstarter. It is NOT the same world it was in 2019.

While the barrier to entry for launching a successful project has become higher, it's still a good fit for many clients. 

In addition to helping brands on Kickstarter, Khierstyn is also a pro at helping companies grow on Amazon. She's mastered the art of launching new products and pre-sells on Amazon. 

Here's a look at what we cover:

•  What products do well on Kickstarter, and what products usually flop?
•  What kind of $ do you need to invest for a successful Kickstarter launch?
• When to launch a new product on Shopify vs. Kickstarter.
• How to build a brand on Amazon.
• What kind of results should you expect when launching on Kickstarter?

Liz Germain is a YouTube PRO and a repeat guest on the show! We first met when I was speaking at an eCommerce event held at the YouTube LA Offices. 

Liz is responsible for well over 200 million organic views on YouTube and has worked and consulted with some of the top influencers online today. 

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The three types of content you should create on YouTube and how to approach each.
• How search-driven views only account for less than 10% of total watch time on the platform.
• The 4 phases of creating a massive following on YouTube.
• The metrics YouTube cares about and you should obsess over.
• How YouTube ads and YouTube organic do NOT mix, but how you can still leverage both for growth.

Steve is a legend in the eComm space. He is not only the store owner of Bumblebee Linens, but also the host of the highly successful marketing podcast, "My Wife Quit Her Job,” which ranks among the top 25 in its category. He has been successfully running an eComm event for 7 years, and it is one of my favorite events to attend and speak at.

He’s also the author of a brand new book - The Family First Entrepreneur.

His impressive combination of experiences gives him a unique perspective on eCommerce and entrepreneurship.

Here is a look at what we cover: 

• How to grow using lifecycle marketing when only 12% of your customers buy more than once.
• How Steve thinks about customer buckets to grow cross-sells, upsells, and repeat orders.
• How Steve and his team use Chat GPT4 to 10x their organic traffic.
• What’s the future of AI and white-collar jobs?
• How Steve thinks about pricing and why they no longer offer deep discounts.

Aaron Sheehan and I go way back. We first met when Aaron used to work for an agency that OMG supported.

Now, Aaron is the Director of Competitive Strategy at BigCommerce. He brings a fresh perspective on the eCommerce industry, and a unique point of view on eComm platforms and the future of eComm technology.

Coincidentally, his office is only a quarter of a mile from mine. In hindsight, we probably should have recorded this show in person.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• What is Headless, and how does it compare to Composable? Are these just buzzwords or trends that are here to stay?
• Aaron’s and my take on the state of eCommerce and why we see a prevailing “cautious optimism.” 
• The eCommerce trends Aaron is most excited about and what omnichannel means today (vs. what it meant 10 years ago).
• When should you consider upgrading your tech stack, and where does the BigCommerce offering fit in the marketplace?

What got you here won’t get you there. 

What will it take to reach your next big breakthrough?

Whether or not we want to admit it, we all have limiting thought patterns that create a sort of blindness, preventing us from seeing breakthroughs. 

I first met Will when he was the Head of Growth for Organifi. He helped grow the brand from an $18 million per year run rate to a $100 million per year run rate in short order. 

In today’s episode, Will Hughes wants to help you think differently. And not just a philosophical kind of thinking, but big, business-altering, breakthrough kind of thinking. 

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The remarkable story of the Hollywood Blacklist and how we can find treasure in what others are rejecting.
• Using creative thinking as a competitive advantage.
• How to avoid being a copycat (while still paying attention to competitors).
• What Google vs. Yahoo can teach us as entrepreneurs. 
• The power of reticular activators.

Online marketers can learn a LOT from direct response TV (DRTV) ads.

• The power of an irresistible offer.
• The art and science of a problem-solution ad.
• The appeal of a “magic product demonstration.”To name a few!

This episode features Jordan Pine, a seasoned DRTV veteran who has also had success in the online marketing space. I wanted to pick his brain on how to be successful with DRTV. I’m convinced that some of the lessons he knows and that other DRTV pros know can be leveraged by online marketers. Recording this episode was an absolute BLAST! We went a full hour, and I could have easily continued for another couple. It was fun and insightful! Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The “Divine 7” for choosing the right product to advertise.
• The 10 TNT (Tried-and-True) elements of DRTV.
• Why the Ginsu Knife commercial belongs in the DRTV Hall of Fame.
• The “problem scale” and how to use it to analyze a product and the strength of a problem/solution opening.
• Gluing people to ceilings, running over flashlights with tanks, and other “torture test” product demos.
• Lessons from the Godfathers of marketing like Claud Hopkins, Rosser Reeves, Joe Sugarman, and more.

Chris Brewer is an agency veteran, marketing expert, and former golf pro. Not to mention my business partner and OMG Commerce’s co-founder.

Each year, Chris has the privilege of talking with hundreds of DTC brands, both big and small. He hears about their goals, struggles, plans, and more. As a strategist, I also consult with large-scaling eComm brands. Through our perspectives, we’d like to highlight ways in which great brands get in their own way and offer some candid advice when it comes to working with agencies.

We love the brands we talk to and the clients we serve. But, like anyone else, brands can sometimes overlook how they inadvertently hinder their own growth. Here are a few topics we cover that we hope you’ll find helpful:

• Having goals that aren’t battle-tested.

• Still thinking like it’s 2020 in some areas of your business.

• Prioritizing automation and tools over strategy.

• Shooting for perfect data and ignoring actionable data.

• Stopping short of getting results.

• When you shouldn’t hire an agency.

• How to get the most from an agency relationship.

• Plus more!

Jeremy Horowitz is one of my favorite follows on LinkedIn.

He recently dropped some brilliant (and terrifying) posts about the economy, the impending debt crisis, and what DTC brands should focus on now.

Jeremy and I go way back. In fact, this is our 4th podcast together over the years (he used to host a show too). Jeremy has been in the DTC SaaS space for years, having previously managed marketing for a large DTC brand. Jeremy is now the Sr. Partner Manager at Gorgias, and he and his team run the DTCX events, which have become some of my favorites to speak at and attend.

Here's a look at what we cover. Some of it's heavy, but it also speaks to the amount of opportunity on the horizon:

• What keeps Jeremy up at night? A potential consumer debt crisis? More at this link.

• 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Those making over $100k per year are in the same boat.

• What you can learn from Liquid Death.

• Understanding how and where your customers want to buy.

• Avoiding the discount doom loop.

• Getting your inventory as close to "just-in-time" as possible.

• A different way to look at your marketing budget and performance.

At one time, Charles Tichenor was a top 100 advertiser on Facebook.

On the platform, he frequently manages 7 figure budgets per DAY!

In the early days, he managed FB ads for Apple, New Balance, major automotive brands, and more. Facebook gave him test budgets ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 per day to test new features and Betas.

In this episode, Charles and I dig into what’s working now, what mistakes he’s seeing, and a bit of his framework for success.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How Facebook Advantage Plus ads give you an unfair advantage - and what you should do about it right now.

• If you want to win more customers, you have to BE your customer.

• How chasing “what’s working now” with Facebook creatives is likely to make you a second-rate advertiser - and what to do instead.

• The AI Charles was using before Chat GPT and how you should use it.

• Creative ways to use Chat GPT to speed up your marketing process.

• How TikTok is different from all the other platforms.

• How to win with TikTok organic and paid ads.

• How to land on the right creatives for your brand.

• Plus MORE!

This episode of the eCommerce Evolution podcast is truly unique.

It's not uncommon for us to talk about branding, storytelling, and entrepreneurship. But in this episode, we also discuss faith, family tragedy, chasing your dreams, and nerd out a bit on basketball legends like Michael Jordan and Steph Curry.

Ashton Owens is living many kids’ dreams…but more importantly, he’s living his own. He works directly with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and other pro athletes. He runs Triple Threat - a creative agency specializing in branding and storytelling for pro athletes.

Ashton and I have a lot in common. We go to church together (how we met), share an affinity for professional basketball, lost a parent when we were teens, and experienced some fun and wild entrepreneurial journeys.

Here’s what we cover:

• How growing up in an entrepreneurial family and losing his father as a teenager shaped Ashton’s faith and professional accomplishments.

• How inviting Michael Jordan to his birthday party as a child influenced Ashton’s belief that the world is full of possibilities.

• The crazy story of Ashton’s first meeting with Steph Curry and Under Armor.

• The meaning behind the Steph Curry logo and how it relates to storytelling.

• Ashton's belief that most people count themselves out before they start and how to shift their thinking.

• Plus more!

According to Chad Rubin, there's a lot of reckless advice from "gurus" when it comes to pricing on Amazon.

Just raising your price because of inflation, might not be your optimal move. In some cases lowering your price, improving sell through, improving BSR can raise your total profits. But lowering your price could have devastating impact to your profits. So should you raise or lower your price? The short answer is - it depends. The key is to test, watch the data, and optimize.

Chad Rubin recently exited Skubana, Prosper Show and his own agency. He’s now the founder of Profasee a dynamic AI repricing tool for Amazon sellers to help you maximize profits without hurting your ranking on Amazon.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Prepping your business to sell and how Chad successfully exited Skubana.

• The fallacy of managing your Amazon ad spend to an ACoS goal.

• The art & science of Amazon pricing.

• How to price on other marketplaces so you maximize sales on amazon and preserve margin.

• Product assortment strategies on and off Amazon and where Chad would launch a new eComm brand if he started today.

In this episode, you’ll hear Rick Watson’s unfiltered hot takes on the latest changes coming from the “Big 2” in eCommerce: Shopify and Amazon.

Rick Watson is an eCommerce influencer, former software CEO, and the host of The Watson Weekly podcast. Frequently speaking at large retail events like ShopTalk, NRF, and IRCE, he knows his stuff!

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How Rick grew from 0 to 45,000 followers on LinkedIn in a few years (fun side notes for anyone wanting to grow their social following).

• The recent Shopify rate increases - people are complaining, but no one is leaving.

• Headless Commerce and Shopify Components - it’s new(ish), it’s sexy, and everyone is talking about it. Is it right for you?

• Amazon FBA changes related to IPI - this shows that Amazon is smarter than the rest of us.

• Buy with Prime - what is it, when does it make sense vs. when does it not?

• Walmart, Target+, and the other marketplaces - should you care?

Bear Handlon is a former Yale football player, Naval Officer, and the Co-Founder and CEO of Born Primitive, one of the hottest brands in the fitness, athleisure, and outdoor apparel space. Bear’s story is truly unique and full of valuable insights.

Bear had a simple idea, $4,000 in the bank, and was about to ship off to officer candidate school, but he decided to launch a company anyway. He parlayed the success of his initial product, custom-made compression shorts, to build a large and diverse brand with a wide array of products.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• When to focus vs. when to expand your product offering.

• Born Primitive’s 3 keys to building a growth flywheel.

• How to turn mistakes into extreme customer loyalty.

• How getting the product right fuels everything else.

• Why being face-to-face with customers is the key to product innovation and marketing.

• While products can be replicated, a strong and unique “brand identity” cannot.

Rabah Rahil has done it all when it comes to marketing.

Rabah is the CMO for one of the hottest and fastest growing SaaS companies in the DTC world - Triple Whale. Prior to that, he worked on the digital marketing team at Whole Foods, was a part of an agency that managed traffic for Oprah, and owned and operated his own agency.

Triple Whale is a leader (and one of my favorites) in the world of 3rd-Party Attribution tools. Triple Whale helps you make sense of what channels, campaigns, and ads are moving the needle. It also brings all of your important data from Shopify, Amazon, and your ad channel into a single dashboard.

In this episode, we talk about attribution from a high level and what platforms are getting the most ad spend right now.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Why trying to get perfect attribution data is impossible (and why it’s not the point).
• A "party" analogy that could shift the way you view your ad channels.
• With data from 6,000 Shopify stores, where are most advertisers spending their ad budgets?
• Is TikTok where you should focus your time and budget in 2023 (the answer may surprise you)?
• Is Facebook slipping?
• Where should I prioritize Snapchat?

Brendan Bannister, the CEO of Naturalabs.io, is one smart marketer.

We first met in 2018 when he was the CMO and Creative Director at William Painter. After taking my YouTube/Google course, he scaled ad spend on YouTube from $2k per day to $100k per day!

We decided to start meeting and swapping ideas, war stories, and things we were testing. We soon realized the value of sharing this knowledge with others and decided to record a session and bring it to the world!

In this episode, we dive into CRO, creatives, data-driven marketing, R&D for marketing departments, and the golden years for YouTube and Facebook Ads and how they achieved 13x growth for William Painter.

Here are some highlights:

• How the famous da Vinci quote, “Simplicity is Ultimate Sophistication” should be a guiding principle for marketers.
• Is media buying dead? If so, what is taking its place?
• How good brands are sort of like algorithms.
• “Design is hack” and what that means for your marketing efforts.
• The role “brand” plays in your ability to scale.
• Why Brendan is now living and working full-time in Dubai.
• Plus more!

Retention marketing is crucial for any business.

When the economy is thriving, you need retention marketing to cut through the clutter and help you stand out.

When times are tough, as they may be in the near future, retention marketing is essential. During a recession, it’s critical to get the most out of your marketing efforts.

The most effective way to accomplish this is to maximize your Lifetime Value (LTV) through retention and loyalty marketing.

That’s why, at OMG, we launched email and SMS marketing as a service last year. (email growth@omgcommerce.com to find out more).

In this episode, I had the pleasure of hosting Daniel Budai, a retention marketing expert and the founder of Budai Media.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The mindset shift needed to impact how you approach retention marketing and loyalty.
• Why you are likely not emailing your list enough and how emailing LESS has the opposite effect.
• How to maximize your results by combining SMS and email marketing.
• How to create a user-friendly loyalty program that incentivizes desired actions, such as referrals.
• How to use postcards as part of your retention and loyalty efforts.

Chris Mercer - aka “Mercer,” is the man when it comes to measurement and analytics. He’s the guy the pros like Justin Brooke, Mike Rhodes, and OMG turn to when we need help.

If you haven’t heard (and I’d be shocked if you haven’t), Google Analytics 4 or GA4 is coming, and Universal Analytics (the current version) will go away in July of 2023.

GA4 isn’t just an upgrade. It’s an entirely different animal. It has to be! Given how technology, user preferences, and policies around privacy have changed over recent years - Google is forced to abandon UA and build something completely new.

In this episode, we talk about what’s new, what’s different, what we’re excited about, and what you can do to prepare.Here’s a glimpse of what we cover:

• A simple way to understand events and how Google measures them in GA4.
• Data storage and how to hold onto your data - If nothing is done, your data will be gone in 2-14 months.
• What’s going away vs. what’s here to stay?
• How to use GA4 to make better decisions.

The most difficult aspect of eCommerce is attracting new customers.

With CPMs and CPAs on the rise, great brands must learn to increase the average order values (AOV) and customer lifetime value (LTV) of their customers.

That’s where building a brand marketplace comes into play.

Yes, you need to be developing new products and expanding your line. However, partnering with other complementary brands can provide immediate value to customers while also increasing AOV and LTV.

But if done poorly, it can actually hurt your brand. Here’s what we dive into in this episode:

• How Brooklinen thinks about brand marketplace and gives customers the option to "shop the room.”
• How Realtree expands its product line beyond camo to include high-quality rain gear and more products through their brand marketplace.
• How to structure a marketplace to strengthen your brand, not erode it.
• How a kayak brand used drop shipping competitors products to increase sales, trust, and customer loyalty for their own goods.
• How Flxpoint makes it easy!

Cyber 5 2022 is in the books!

In this episode, I’m joined by two OMG Commerce veterans to unpack the juicy tidbits and key takeaways from BFCM.

Bill Cover is a senior Google Strategist with 6 years of experience at OMG and over a decade of experience in eComm. Amber Norell is the Amazon Director at OMG. For 8 years, she has helped large brands with scaling on Amazon in the most competitive niches!

This year’s data was both fascinating and surprising. Some speculated that high inflation and economic concerns could squash the holiday sales rush and turn Cyber 5 into a downer. However, the data tells a VERY different story.

Here’s some of what we covered:

• How did Cyber 5 2022 compare to last year?
• How did BF compare to CM? When we looked at Amazon sales versus DTC sales, the answer was different.
• Did Prime Early Access - Amazon’s sale in October - impact Cyber 5 or holiday sales in general?
• What was the level of discounting this year vs. last year?
• How did ad costs change during Cyber 5?

• How to completely change the math on your cold traffic by creating irresistible offers that don't cheapen your brand.
• How to utilize tripwires and micro offers as an eComm brand.
• Audience building and how it can lower ad costs (especially during peak seasons like a holiday).
• The best book written on remarketing and loyalty (hint: you’ve probably read it to your kids before).

What you don’t know about YouTube is hurting you.

Justin Sardi is the founder of Tube Sift and Video Ad Vault. He is a true YouTube OG.

He’s been running ads and geeking out on YouTube organic growth since 2012.

He’s built two of the leading YouTube research and spying tools on the web - Tube Sift and Ad Vault. The team here at OMG actually uses both regularly. Justin is a sharp dude with a wealth of YouTube knowledge.

Here’s what we dive into in this episode:

• Misconceptions about YouTube holding you back from growth.
• How to capture top-performing YouTube ads to learn from - for FREE!
• What’s changing on YouTube, including some of our favorite targeting options?
• Why Google’s first-party data and AI is second to none.
• Some YouTube SEO tips you probably haven’t thought of.
• Do you need a 2nd YouTube channel?
• Video Discovery ads - what are they and how to make them work for you?
• Plus more!

Kurt is a legend in the eComm space and hosts one of the most popular podcasts in our industry.

His show, The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, just crossed the 2 million downloads milestone.

Kurt and his company are all about one thing - helping Shopify store owners make more money. And the best way to do that is by split-testing everything.

An important first step of split testing is questioning your assumptions. (We all know what happens when we assume.)

Here are a few recent tests Kurt and company have run. We discuss the results on the show...yes, that's a teaser. Listen to find out what test won!

• Does free shipping always result in better performance (and is it even worth testing)?
• Should I put a slider on my home page?
• What about hero images and banners on my category pages?
• Do add-to-cart buttons on your collections pages help or hurt conversions?
• What about stuffy old early 2000s breadcrumbs - are they helpful or not?
• Plus, favorite tools, tips, and tricks that Kurt uses often.

John Parkes and I go way back.

In the early days of OMG, we partnered with Russell Brunson on a project called DotComSecrets Local. John helped oversee the project. It was pre-ClickFunnels in 2010 and an excellent time to work as an online entrepreneur. Having an upfront seat watching Russell and his team was inspiring and educational.

Fast forward to today, and John is the Chief Traffic Architect for ClickFunnels. Or CTA for short, which is a nerdy and satisfying job title for a media buyer. John is a great media buyer, strategist, and marketer. He’s wicked smart and fun to talk to!

In this episode, we dive into rethinking Facebook Ads. Plus, we talk about the grandfather of direct response marketing - Dan Kennedy. Interestingly, many people (myself included) thought Dan was dead. He’s not, and now he’s part of the ClickFunnels team.

Here’s a look at what we dive into:

• The experience of buying Dan Kennedy’s company and brand. Opening up new markets and introducing the current market to The Godfather of direct response marketing.
• D.W.E.L.L. - audience strategy for focusing.
• How to build “set it and forget it” remarketing ads.
• How Google and Facebook Ads work together - this can really unlock growth when you understand it.
• Is TikTok really a game changer from a marketing and business growth perspective?
• A sneak peek at ClickFunnels 2.0.

Preparation is the backbone for success during the holiday season.

Today I am talking to a few of our OMG experts on preparing to win the 2022 holidays. Joining us is Amber Norell, OMG’s Amazon Director, Bill Cover, one of OMG’s amazing Google Strategist, and Savannah Knight, one of OMG’s rockstar Google Specialists.

This holiday season should be quite interesting. Inflation, rising ad costs, privacy issues, and new campaign types have this year shaping up to be anything but ordinary.

In this episode we cover how to:

• Drive MORE traffic profitably
• Go omnichannel
• Turn every interaction (even support) into sales opportunities

Preparation is the backbone for success during the holiday season.

Recently we just recorded a holiday webinar featuring Kristina Muntean and Jenna Galardi. Kristina works for Gorgias, an online customer support service who has worked with big brands such as Steve Madden and OLIPOP. Jenna Galardi has over a decade of experience helping businesses grow online. In current role as Senior Omnichannel Growth Manager at BigCommerce, she focuses on helping merchants strengthen their online presence and adopt social commerce, marketplaces, and product feed optimization solutions to scale their growth.

This holiday season should be quite interesting. Inflation, rising ad costs, privacy issues, and new campaign types have this year shaping up to be anything but ordinary.

In this episode we cover how to:

• Drive MORE traffic profitably
• Go omnichannel
• Turn every interaction (even support) into sales opportunities

I love Arrae as a brand and as a group of products.

I also think Nish Samantray is one of the brightest up-and-coming eCommerce founders in the game right now.

Arrae is unique because it’s a supplement brand that combines natural ingredients with amazing packaging and design. Their supplements are designed to work in under an hour. So their bloat pill allows you to eat pizza and not feel terrible afterward. And the jars are a work of art. So are the labels. It’s truly a product you would love to see in your medicine cabinet or sitting on the counter.

Nish and the team are doing a LOT right in creating Arrae’s meteoric growth.

Here are a few things we discuss in today’s episode:

• Why asking what customers want next is a terrible question and what to ask instead.
• How to think about in-store growth.
• When everything gets more challenging, how you get better.
• Influencer marketing with events and thinking more like a mom who loves to host neighbor kids.
• Nish’s favorite books and resources for growth
• Plus more!

Content is King. Regardless of the platform.

Want to scale on TikTok? You’re only as good as your content.

Want to step up your IG game? Content, baby.

Want to finally scale on YouTube? Hire OMG (ha!) and create great content!

Today I’m interviewing Danil Saliukov, CEO and Co-Founder of Insense. I met Danil when we both spoke at Geek Out in San Diego a few months ago.

Insense is a marketplace that connects creators with brands and facilitates the creation of great content.

Creating great content comes down to 3 things:

Here’s a look at what we breakdown on the show:

• Where brands go wrong when creating content for marketing - Not every creator is an influencer, and not every influencer is a creator.
• What separates brands that do really well from the rest?
• The key to finding creators that best fit a brand.
• How brands can help creators create great content.
• How brands should approach TikTok.
• Actors vs. content creators vs. real customers for UGC.

• How to cultivate raving fans.
• How Travis and Jenna shifted from selling plastic to serving a person.
• How and why they built a YouTube channel.
• How they almost sold the business for nothing but then turned things around.
• His most important lessons from success and failure.

My guest today is a longtime friend and colleague, Jon MacDonald.

Jon is the CEO and founder of, The Good. He and his team help brands like Nike, Xerox, and The Economist turn more visitors into customers.

He’s one of the best conversion rate optimization specialists I know.

In this interview, we wanted to go beyond the typical hacks and quick tips and look at principle-based optimization or optimization as a way of doing business. This approach will yield far greater results over the long haul than just trying the CRO-hack “flavor of the day.”

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Why best practices are for beginners and how you should think about CRO in general.
• What most eComm brand owners forget about the scientific method and why chasing “silver bullets” is killing your results.
• New visitors are at your site for two reasons, and it’s not just to hang out or learn all about you.
• How Jon’s simple yet effective “Trust Trifecta” will help you earn more conversions.
• What Kim Kardashian’s assistant can teach you about "surprise and delight" user experiences.
• How discounting isn’t optimization; it’s margin drain. And what you can do instead of discounting.
• Plus more!

Long-time fans of the show might remember me saying that SEO was the first online marketing skill I learned and was also the first service OMG offered.

We got out of the SEO game years ago, but I still love it. And I believe it's a massive area of opportunity that most eComm brands are missing.

I first heard my guests speak at Geek Out in San Diego. Their talk was so good I asked them to come on the podcast. Kevin is the CEO of GR0, and Jon is the Chief Growth Officer. Both are wicked smart.

In this episode, we bust SEO myths and misunderstandings and talk about how they've helped eComm brands 10x their organic traffic through consistent SEO practices.

Here's a look at what we cover:

• The most common SEO mistakes or misunderstandings from eComm brands.
• Where in the funnel does SEO fit?
• How SEO is just storytelling in a lot of different ways.
• Content must haves when creating content for organic growth.
• Favorite SEO tools.
• How someone could get started with SEO.

Email marketing is the ultimate money maker for eCommerce companies.

When you have email marketing dialed in, EVERYTHING else gets better. Your product launches improve, you can spend more on top-of-funnel marketing efforts, convert more abandoned carts, and give your customers a better experience. The list goes on and on.

Nick Flint is the lead Email Strategist here at OMG Commerce. He took his knowledge from building his own eCommerce brand while in college and scaled that into successfully running email marketing for brands for the past 6+ years.

Here’s the deal. Even if you think you’re doing pretty well with email marketing, there are at least a few things you can improve on. Grab your pencil if you know you have holes in your email game. You’re about to unlock some serious growth for your brand.

Here’s a look at what I cover with Nick in this episode.

• Three simple ways to make any subject line better.
• What to do with your winning email tests.
• The paradox of sending more emails.
• How to properly combine email and SMS marketing for better results (without bugging your customers).
• Two super-fast email hacks that you can digest and implement tomorrow.
• A simple, no-brainer way to improve your flows.
• Plus more!

• Where to get started and where to learn affiliate marketing.
• Should you hire an affiliate agency or go it alone (most charge $10k per month or more)?
• Why landing page is everything and what Krik has learned through testing.
• How fraud is a real issue and what to do about it.
• Why starting with low-quality traffic and then upgrading could be a good strategy for you (or even a must).
• Top affiliate marketing tools.
• Understanding the metrics behind affiliate marketing.

• Why you shouldn’t start a video project by deciding what YOU want to say. Follow Jacques advice instead.
• How you’re likely assuming way more attention than your prospects are giving.
• How ads that scale can completely change the game.
• What people are really buying when they buy your product.
• Do shoppers actually care about your why?
• What branded performance creative is and why it makes scale and brand lift so much easier.

• How to use IG DMs to run quiz funnels.
• How to combine bots and human creativity for outstanding results.
• How Natasha helped cut lead costs in half for companies like Foundr.
• Top mistakes people make with Chat marketing.
• Misconceptions about Chat marketing.

• What you’re actually buying when you buy an existing business.
• How Mike looks at brands, he wants to buy or invest in.
• How to approach due diligence as a buyer or a seller.
• Surprises to look for in the due diligence process as a buyer or a seller.
• How getting your business ready to sell now will make your business better regardless of if you sell it or not.
• The good, the bad, and the ugly of M&A.
• Plus more!

I’ve always believed that writing good copy is one of the most profitable skills you can have as a marketer. And even if you don’t want to write copy yourself, understanding the process that your team should go through to create great copy is super important.

Recently I spoke at Nick Shackelford’s Geek out in San Diego and I met Brandon Ham there. Brandon used to work for Agora Publishing, the multi-billion direct marketing behemoth that was built on great copy.

Whether you want to write better email subject lines, create more engaging video ads, craft display ads that drive conversions, or improve your landing page conversion rates, this approach can really help.

Here’s what we cover:

• Brandon’s 3-step research process for powerful copy.
• How to spy on competitors and see what’s working and what’s not.
• The biggest mistakes to avoid when watching competitors.
• How to “tell your story better”.
• You sell with your ears, not with your mouth and what that means for copy.
• How to speak your customer’s language.
• Plus more!

Prime Day is now one of the most anticipated shopping events of the year for both shoppers and sellers.

It started in 2015 as a way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Amazon. Mostly it was designed to help boost sales during one of the slowest times of the year (July).

It has since grown dramatically and rivaled some of the largest shopping days of the year.

In this episode, we break down what we saw this year including some surprises, key learnings, and take aways for upcoming big sales events like other Prime events and Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

OMG is large enough now that aggregate data from our clients is informative and meaningful. In this episode we unpack global Amazon trends and data and data from our growing list of OMG clients.

Amber, OMG’s Amazon Director, and Trenton, our Amazon PPC lead, join the podcast to break down what we saw from OMG clients and what we saw globally.

Here’s a look at what we cover.

• 300 million items were purchased on Prime Day 2022.
• 60,000 items purchased per minute (wowza).
• Most shopping was done from 8p-9p PT on Wednesday 7/13.
• What happened to CPCs and conversion rates during Prime Day.
• What offers and deals did well, vs. what didn’t do so hot.
• What categories really shined and outperformed others (some pretty surprising results here).
• Key learnings to apply for Prime Day Early Access and Cyber 5.

The Google ads ecosystem offers opportunities to grow your brand that you really can’t find anywhere else.

Google is the world’s most popular search engine and the number 1 most visited site on the planet.

YouTube is the world's 2nd most popular search engine (even though it’s really a video site) and the world’s 2nd most visited site.

You can leverage both channels for both targeted growth and scale. But how?

We’ll show you in this episode. Matt Slaymaker is a Lead Google & YouTube Ads Specialist at OMG Commerce. Dubbed “Slaymaker the Playmaker” - Matt joins me to talk about top strategies and tactics to achieve Full Funnel Growth on Google Ads in 2022 and beyond.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Where to start with Search and why this is still super important even though it’s the true Google OG.
• What has changed with Google Shopping.
• What channels we recommend for remarketing and how to structure your audiences.
• What the best audiences are for YouTube Ads.
• And more!

• You can still get $.40 and $.80 clicks.
• GDN offers targeting that you can’t match on Facebook.
• GDN creates the impression that your brand is “everywhere”.

• His unique approach to GDN for eCommerce.
• His landing page must-have elements.
• How quality is in the quantity when it comes to GDN headlines and copy.
• Testing 3 angles for every idea - toward pleasure, away from pain, and something controversial.
• Utilizing the overnight celebrity strategy with testimonial GDN ads.
• How deadlines and testimonials work together.
• How to work hand-in-hand with the algorithm for amazing results.

Andrew Eckblad is one of the sharpest video minds I know. He started in TV and film and even won a few Emmys. He was Frank Kerns’ “video guy” for over 10 years. Now he runs convertsmart and works with DTC brands making videos that convert on all platforms: Facebook, IG, YouTube, and TikTok.

In this episode, we focus on the 8 biggest mistakes he sees DTC brands making when it comes to video marketing.

Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• How the pattern interrupt really needs to do more than interrupt - it also needs to frame the video.
• What the real goal of the first 5-10 seconds should be.
• How you need to lean into authenticity and what that looks like.
• What the ideal length of a video is after millions of dollars of testing.
• A simple yet HUGE recommendation for your CTAs (I’ve been guilty of making this mistake).
• How you might be overthinking your video strategy.
• Plus more!

As you know, I’m no stranger to YouTube ads. It’s been an obsession of mine since 2016.

But, I love talking shop and swapping ideas with other YouTube ad experts.

My guest today is Brian Moncada. He and his team run YouTube ads for other marketing legends like Frank Kern, John Asaraf, and others. Brian knows his stuff!

Brian has worked mostly with info marketers and influencers. We work almost exclusively with DTC brands. So our combined perspective on YouTube ads is pretty powerful.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Brian’s ad framework.
• How to harness intent-based targeting.
• How to create urgency and scarcity.
• Why most YouTube ads fail.

No one knows more about eCommerce growth than my friend, Ezra Firestone. Arguably, no one is a more interesting interview than Ezra either. This episode does NOT disappoint. Ezra bootstrapped growth for Boom from $0 to $40mill + per year. He also recently bought another high-profile eComm brand (more on that in the show).

This episode is straight fire.

Here’s a look at what we dive into:

• How Ezra is approaching email marketing and email list growth in 2022. I’m guessing you’re missing his email strategy - even if you consider yourself an email marketing pro.
• How BOOM is approaching front-end offers.
• Why you should consider inventing a holiday and how BOOM did just that.
• How to grow your SMS list.
• Plus MUCH, much more!

I’ve never met anyone quite like Miki Agrawal.

She’s incredibly creative. No really. She once hosted a “funeral for a tree” at an old cathedral in NYC hosted by comedians and actors. It drew a crowd of thousands, generated millions in free press, and helped shed light on the toilet paper waste that her company TUSHY can help solve.

She understands trends in marketing. She knows how to grab attention. So much so that she was banned by the NY transit authority from running subway ads. Which led to a PR fight that she won…and in the end, got more press and attention than if they hadn’t been banned.

She’s also warm and kind and FUN.

She’s created multiple 9-Figure businesses and has garnered some pretty incredible recognition. She was named "Fast Company's Most Creative People", “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum and INC's “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs”.

She’s also the author of #1 best selling books Do Cool SH*T and Disrupt-HER.

In this episode we unpack Miki’s wacky, impossible-to-forget and wildly successful marketing strategies and tactics.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How Miki was banned from advertising on the NYC subway and turned that into a huge PR win for her brand THINX.
• How to use Accessible + Relatable language.
• How to create ads that are both effective and “fridge worthy”.
• How iteration is perfection.
• How to start with play to create great ideas.

Today we’re going Old School. We’re not talking email. We’re not talking TikTok, Facebook or even YouTube.

We’re talking Snail. Mail. The gold old USPS. Physical mailboxes.

Why?

Because this is an untapped opportunity for DTC brands.

My guests today are two legends in the eCommerce space - Drew Sanocki and Michael Epstein. Drew and Michael most recently ran and successfully exited Auto Anything a multi nine figure eCommerce brand. Now they are helping DTC brands grow through direct mail marketing. And while that might not sound sexy, it’s incredibly effective.

Why postcard and direct mail marketing? 20-50% of your customers don't have a good email address on file. And email open rates are only 20-30% at best. So you’re missing a lot of your current and past buyers if you’re just relying on email and SMS.

Here’s a look at what we cover in this episode:

• How should brands use direct mail?
• How to build a great postcard
• What postcard campaigns to start with
• How Ezra Firestone turned $1,400 into $4,000 using a simple postcard
• How to make direct mail part of your email and SMS flows

In this episode we discuss top email and SMS mistakes Ecommerce store owners make, what strategies are working now, and what the future holds for these channels.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The top 3 automations you need to build right now.
• How relying on templates could be dragging down performance.
• What to do now that open rate isn’t a thing anymore.
• Utilizing push notifications and tap cart - what you need to know.
• Top email strategies - what’s changing and what isn’t.
• Real World email examples.
• Plus more!

• Law of Quarters - and how it should help you think about margins, product pricing, and operations.
• How failing to introduce successful 2nd, 3rd, and 4th products can spell death to a brand.
• How to structure a successful Ambassador program that will become a new content engine for you.
• Tips for building a real community around your brand.
• Knowing your numbers and your MER (Media Efficiency Ratio).
• How to generate an unending supply of amazing User Generated Content.
• Plus more!

Kim and Tim Lewis are truly an inspiring success story. They’re happily married with 3 kids. They run a business that just raised $4 Million in crowd-funded equity. They’ve been on Shark Tank and they were featured as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things. They have huge goals for the future. So what is their brand Curl Mix? It’s a line of hair care products formulated for curly hair…and it has a raving fan base.

In this merchant success episode we unpack some key lessons including:

• How Curl Mix got started and how doing FB lives from the shower helped their products go viral
• How they got on shark tank and tips for doing the same
• The definition and explanation crowdfunded equity
• 3 tips for raising $4.5 million + of crowdfunded equity
• How CurlMix plans to become a black-owned P&G
• How to increase recurring revenue
• Plus more!

Cody is a former college hoop star turned influencer marketing pro. His resume of influencers he’s partnered with is pretty impressive. He’s worked with the likes of Lebron James, Mike Trout, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and more. His passion is helping great eCommerce brands scale with simple, effective influencer marketing. And he believes that most brands approach influencer marketing all wrong.

Here’s a look at what we cover in this episode.

• What’s changed in the last year in influencer marketing?
• What mistakes are ecomm brands still making?
• How do you work with people like Lebron and Mike Trout?
• What’s the solution to tracking in a post iOS 14.5 world.
• Tips for getting started and executing an effective influencer marketing program.
• Plus more!

Supply chain and logistics. When everything is running smoothly, it’s a breeze. When there are problems, inventory issues can cripple an eComm business. Inventory, and supply chain management has been struggle city in 2020 and 2021. Unfortunately, 2022 isn’t looking much better.

In this episode I interview Chelsea Cohen of So Stocked and we unpack some super smart inventory and supply chain strategies. This content is a MUST if you want to remain competitive (and avoid pulling your hair out from supply chain pain).

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The Golden rule of logistics - don’t let anyone have all of your stuff - and how to apply it.
• Container optimizations - with the cost of containers rising, container optimization can have a big impact on your overall profitability.
• Carton optimizations - This is a next-level tactic that can save you big. Especially when you combine it with container optimization.
• 4 points that impact your restock limit with Amazon
• 3 triggers to pull to avoid restock limit crashes during out of stock periods

The market for eCommerce businesses has never been hotter. Now dozens of brand aggregators have war chests of $100s of millions of dollars with one mission - buy and grow eComm brands. We’re now seeing valuations in the 5-6x of EBITA where just a few years ago we were only seeing 3-4x multiples.

Now is a great time to sell an eCommerce brand. And, if done right, it’s still not a bad time to buy a brand.

Chris Yates is co-owner of Centurica a company that offers buy-side due diligence for digital businesses. He’s also the founder of Rhodium Weekend - a vetted community of digital entrepreneurs and investors.

Here’s a look at what we cover.

• Mistakes when going through due diligence
• Most important steps/tips when going through due diligence
• Mistakes when evaluating your own business
• As you hit different vacation tiers - types of buyers and buyers wants and needs change
• How aggregators are changing the landscape of DTC M&A
• What is Rhodium weekend? Mastermind and speakers. Real in the trenches stuff and fun activities

Josh Martin is fearless. At age 24 he’s winning contests, designing new products, building communities and partnering with some real movers and shakers in our industry. In this episode I grill Josh (pun intended) on his success with his BBQ company and his experience in the wine business. There are tons of lessons in this episode whether you’re running an 8 or 9 figure business or just getting started.

• How Josh won the Million Dollar Brand Scholarship Award
• Influencer marketing mistakes to avoid
• Keys to $.25 email list opt-in strategies
• How to run good customer surveys and getting useful data
• Understanding the “why” behind your product and how that influences marketing and future product launches
• Plus more!

The holy grail right now for online advertising is to be both funny and persuasive. To be relevant and engaging. Funny videos that sell are rare. Mostly because most people don’t know how to create them. In this episode Joseph walks us through his 8-step process for creating funny videos that sell without hiring an expert.

Joseph Wilkins has a rich background in creating videos that convert. He launched his career in the infomercial business while working on the launch of Little Giant Ladder. That infomercial went on to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ladders.

I’ve had the privilege of working closely with Joseph on a mutual client - Tru Earth. Joseph and his team created videos for Tru Earth that have now racked up over 100 million views! More than that, though, they are driving new customer acquisition.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Why having a crystal clear picture of your customer in your head is a must before you do anything else. You wouldn’t write a letter without knowing who you’re writing it to, would you?
• How Joseph assembles a team of people to write scripts and why this is more important than fancy editing skills.
• How to find talent for videos
• Why you should probably forget about going viral
• Getting your pace right and testing before you go live with a video
• How and when to add humor to your ads
• How to think about production quality

• How to maximize your SEO efforts for launching new products on Amazon
• How to integrate and tweak existing listings that already rank to get them to rank HIGHER
• Leveraging your 6 images for maximum conversions
• What to do with A+ content to make your product nearly irresistible
• How Yes Bar gets it right with their listing optimization and storefront optimization
• Top Amazon listing mistakes sellers make and how to avoid them

If you’re thinking about selling now or anytime in the next 5 years, you need the info in this episode.

In the first half of 2021 alone, $2.5 billion in capital has been raise by brand aggregators all looking to acquire eCommerce brands.

Currently there are over 100 aggregators just in the eCommerce space. A few months ago, I met Dave Bunch at Ezra Firestone’s Blue Ribbon Mastermind in Miami. We were both speaking there and when I heard his story, I knew I wanted him to be on the podcast. Dave is the President of Growve a $250 Million dollar aggregator with close to 25 brands under one roof.

So why the rise of aggregators? What makes that business model so attractive? Why are brands selling to aggregators? Those are all questions I wanted to ask Dave.

Here’s a look at what we talk about:

• Why right now might be a good time to take some chips off the table
• The benefits of rolling equity vs. full buyouts
• Why you should be weary of large offers
• When deals go bad - how to better prepare for the issues that always arise when closing deals
• What’s the end game for aggregators including going public through SPACs, selling to Private Equity and selling to strategic investors

• Missing the connector of brand and strategy that make your team and your agencies to be successful
• The story of an awesome DTC product that never fully figured out who they were
• The power of Vision and commanders intent
• How to be a visionary that integrators love to work with
• What “knowing your numbers” really means and really looks like
• How to avoid being a “genius with a thousand helpers”

​​Most of the high growth eComm companies I know are all building to sell. Some want to sell once revenue hits $5 million, some $25 million and some $100+. Regardless of what your target number is or regardless of if you even have a number, this interview with Chad will be super helpful.

Hear how Chad built his pet brand business and sold it for 7-figures in under 3 years.

Here’s a look at what we’ll cover:

• Tips and advice for sellers
• Maximize EBITA as you prepare to sell
• Practical tips to “think profit first.”
• Tips for prepping to sell your business
• Learning from successes and failures
• Understanding how self-imposed limits are holding you back!

KetoBrownie (now rebranded as Sinless Snacks - https://www.sinlesssnacks.com/) started where a lot of great food brands start - in the founder’s kitchen. Nick Raccuia’s story is a great one, full of insights and inspiration, successes and failures. It includes nailing product development on a few products and failure with other products. It covers periods of near burn out followed by the power of partnerships and strategic investors.

Now Nick’s company produces two of my favorite sinless and guilt-free snacks: the original Keto Brownie and the Sinless Snacks cereal bar.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Knowing your customer is the key to product launches. Learn from NIck’s product successes contrasted with a few painful flops.
• The benefits of a strategic investor and how to find them
• Not launching on Amazon soon enough
• Packaging and transit issues
• How obsessing over your customers and products leads to wins

While getting free PR for your brand isn’t easy, it’s not impossible. And the rewards can be huge. Great companies and CEOs have always understood this. From Steve Jobs to Walt Disney to Richard Branson and others. Free press can be worth millions to your brand. And you don’t have to be as dynamic as Richard Branson to get free PR.

Ali Karsh is the co-founder of LVPR, a PR company that works exclusively with cool DTC brands like NATIVE, Cloud Paper, Everyday Humans, and many others.

In this episode, we condense Ali’s 15+ years of PR experience into a power-packed interview. We cover the most important topics so you can start getting free PR now for your brand. Here’s what we discuss:

• When’s the best time to engage with media?
• How to craft a compelling founder story that the media is eager to share?
• How the pandemic has made getting PR easier (and harder)
• LVPR’s 5 Rules for brands it works with
• What is commerce/affiliate PR and how it’s changing the PR game.
• Plus more!

Justus Murimi is a guy that once you meet him you’ll likely never forget him. Why? Justus is one of the best askers of questions that I’ve ever been around. I first met Justus at Ryan Daniel Moran’s lake house in Austin Texas. It was a meeting of eCommerce investors. I was part of a group discussion with Justus and he was asking insightful question after insightful question. Then I had a chance to spend some time with him and we immediately hit it off. He has a knack for understanding entrepreneurs and helping them get unstuck. He’s the Community Manager for the One Percent with Ryan Daniel Moran. He’s also the head coach of the Incubator. Every week he’s coaching, teaching, and mentoring eCommerce businesses at every stage of growth.

I LOVE this topic. While we don’t get super tactical, I believe this episode could prove to be one of the most helpful we’ve ever published.

As entrepreneurs, we're all prone to getting stuck. And it’s not just a one-time deal. Depending on the stage or growth your business is in, you could get stuck for a variety of reasons. In this episode, I turn the tables on Justus and fire probing snd insightful questions his way. Here’s a look at what we cover.

• How early-stage entrepreneurs are most likely to get stuck.
• How to overcome overthinking and gain a new frame on failure
• Where growing businesses get stuck and how some entrepreneurs develop a messiah complex.
• Where business owners fall short when preparing for an exit.
• What role does fear play in getting stuck and getting unstuck

Who doesn’t love eating cookie dough with a spoon? Having a tasty product that customers crave is helpful. That’s part of the reason DoughP (pronounced like dope) has been so successful. But for the real reason behind DoughP’s amazing growth, look no further than the co-CEO team of Kelsey and Is. Not only are they co-CEOs, they’re also married. And they produce some addictively good cookie dough that’s shipped directly to your door

There’s a lot we can learn from DoughP both from a branding and eCommerce growth perspective.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• When you get your branding right, marketing becomes easy
• How to detach and make unemotional decisions
• How to be fun, relevant and also have a serious mission side to your business
• How and when to pivot
• How to scale operations from $50k per year online to over $350k per month in one year.

Amazon has always been a jungle for sellers. Battling sabotage from unscrupulous competitors, protecting yourself from listing takedowns, and avoiding account suspensions are all enough to keep you awake at night. So how do you protect your Amazon business from all the forces trying to kill it? My advice is to learn from and get to know former Amazonian Chris McCabe. Chris used to work at Amazon in the policy enforcement team. Now he works daily with sellers to mitigate issues and fight suspensions.

He’s been so effective at helping sellers that he’s been awarded the nickname ECommerce Chris. He’s also the host of the podcast, Seller Listing Solutions, and speaks at leading Amazon events like the Prosper Show. Chris is a guy you need to know.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

- Top reasons listings get taken down and what’s in your control.

- Reasons for listing takedowns that most sellers don’t know about.

- What it was like working at Amazon

- The leading reasons for account suspensions and how to protect yourself

- Top strategies for brand defense and fighting sabotage.

- The best strategies for preventing problems and getting listings and accounts reinstated.

Tom Worcester is a tremendous success story. Grit, determination, and the ability to pivot he has in spades. He started his eCommerce business lunchboxpacks.com in 2018 to cater to the festival and event-going crowd. He hustled and used in-person marketing at events to help his theft-proof hydration backpacks (think a camelback, but with security features). The products took off. Then the pandemic hit. No festivals. No in-person events. But Tom knew his customers still craved community. So he continued to build community and he helped build another business - Create with Carousel that helps eComm brands build great video content.

Here’s what we dive into:

• How to build community online for an ecomm brand in record time with a unifying topic
• How to positively create echo chambers for your brand
• What hooks you need to use to build community
• Creating incentives to grow your community
• 3 layers of a product to consider when you craft a video ad…most people only think about the first two layers
• How assuming you’re wrong can help you get it right with video ads
• When and how to best use CTAs in your video ads

We’re all but guaranteed to see another record holiday season on Amazon this year. But that does not guarantee that you will have a banner holiday season. This year is sure to be challenging for online sellers. More shopping will take place in stores than last year during the height of the pandemic. Ad cost are also on the rise. Combine all of that with increased competition and you see why success this holiday season won't be easy. Getting the most from the Cyber 5 and beyond will really boil down to three things:

We cover it all in this episode. Check it out and then share this with your team and other sellers you know who might find it helpful.

Are you fully prepared for Holiday 2021? This year is sure to be unique. While eCommerce is still growing, it’s growing at a slower rate than last year. Stores are opening, and, for now at least, shoppers are spending more money on experiences than they were during the height of the pandemic. So how can you maximize your online holiday sales this year?

In this episode, we listen in to the recording of the recent webinar we hosted that covers 7 ways to have a record holiday season including:

• How to leverage the latest YouTube ad formats to get more exposure and more conversions at a lower cost.
• What you’re likely missing with your current search and shopping ad structure and how to fix it.
• Why now is a great time to consider Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
• How to deliver the right holiday message at the right time
• How to combat rising ad costs
• Plus more!

With iOS 14 and privacy updates throwing advertisers for a loop and increased ad costs making reaching your ad goals harder than ever, scale on Facebook may seem illusive.

On today’s episode, I wanted to hear from an up-and-coming Facebook ad manager and co-host of the Rich Ad, Poor Ad podcast Dyland Carpenter. Dylan specializes in eComm media buying and is fanatical about testing, experimenting, and finding ways to scale ad accounts. Here’s a quick look at what we cover in today’s episode:

• Common mistakes keeping you from scaling with Facebook ads
• Why creative is everything and how to approach creative testing
• Finding the winning campaign formula - learn how Dylan uses controls and tests to always be leveling up.
• Thoughts on iOS 14
• Budgeting for scale and how to be aggressive without breaking the algorithm
• Plus more!

Are you ready to crack the YouTube ads code? Ready to learn how to win now and into the future even as privacy issues are causing media buyers to pull their hair out?

Here’s the Audio from a recent, wildly popular webinar I presented at. We had just over 2,000 people attend to hear our Winning Formula for Scale for YouTube ads for eCommerce.

This presentation is fast-paced and full of practical tips and examples. Here are 3 reasons to listen:

• Learn how top eComm brands are profitably spending $500k per month on YouTube ads. Many were spending $0 on Google ads just a few months or years ago.

• Diversity. In a world of tracking issues, algo updates, and constant uncertainty - you need to diversify your customer acquisition channels.
• Understand how creative, campaign, and audience strategies work hand-in-hand to deliver stellar results.

Several of my successful eComm friends are selling all or a portion of their businesses right now. It makes sense. Ecommerce valuations are at an all time high. Also, when you consider that entrepreneurs make 50% or more of all the money they will EVER make from their business when they sell it - you have to be thinking about when and how you want to sell your business.

In this episode I interview my friend and expert M&A advisor, Joe Valley. Joe is a partner at Quietlight Brokerage, one of the leading online-focused M&A advisory firms in the world. Before joining the team in 2012, Joe sold his own business through Quiet Light. Since then, he has helped facilitate nearly a half billion in online exits and now is the author of the bestselling book, The EXITpreneur’s Playbook - How to Sell Your Online Business for Top Dollar.

Here’s a look at what we discuss in this episode:

• What is an EXITpreneur and why it pays to think and operate like one
• Why you should start “training” for an exit now
• What if someone says - I love my business…I don’t want to sell.
• Top mistakes to avoid when selling your business
• Real life business selling horror stories
• Plus more!

I do highly recommend Joe’s book. You can get your copy today at EXITpreneur.io and begin to understand the true value of your business - and how to get maximum value for it whenever and however you decide to exit.

Nearly every day we have eCommerce companies reaching out to us wanting to know how to grow their eCommerce brands using YouTube ads. YouTube ads are both exciting and mysterious to most store owners.

In this episode, I’m bringing you insights from some of the best and brightest minds at OMG Commerce. This is the audio recording from a recent YouTube ads expert panel that I moderated. This was a really fun panel for me because it was made up entirely of my team. I brought in 6 of our top YouTube ad specialists from team OMG to answer your burning YouTube questions. I think you’ll really learn a lot and enjoy this format. Here’s a look at the questions we dive into:

• What are the best YouTube audiences to launch with and what are the best audiences to SCALE with?
• How are YouTube ads different from Facebook and IG ads and different from ads on other platforms?
• How long does it take to start reaching your CPA or CAC goals?
• What kind of scale is possible with YouTube ads
• When things go wrong on YouTube - what’s usually the cause?
• How important is production value to the success of your campaigns
• What new YouTube features are you most excited about?

Prime Day 2021 was a year of firsts. It was the first year Prime Day took place in the 2nd quarter. From 2015 to 2019 Prime Day was in July. In 2020, due to the pandemic, Prime Day was moved to October and became the de facto kickoff to holiday shopping.

This year was also the first year that Prime Day experienced year-over-year growth of 10% or less. But when the 2-day event brings in $10-11 billion in sales, any year-over-year growth still represents HUGE growth in real dollars.

For this episode, I brought in OMG’s Amazon Director Chris Tyler to help unpack what we experienced with our clients this year during Prime Day. Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• Some surprises we saw in the OMG client sales data
• How advertisers may have been more excited than shoppers this Prime Day
• Prime Day may not be a great fit for every seller - some categories crushed it during Prime Day, other categories were “meh.”
• Why inventory issues for many sellers influenced the prevalence of deep discounts and likely took some of the urgency out of Prime Day shopping.
• The strange shopping behavior we saw during day 2 of Prime Day.
• How to maximize Prime Day or holiday shopping by thinking Full Funnel with your ad approach
• Plus more!

You want low CPMs (like the early days of Facebook)? You want massive engagement from eager shoppers? Are you looking for a little virality to go with that? Then you need to consider TikTok and SnapChat ads. I’ve had more clients and other agency friends ask about TikTok and Snap ads in the last few weeks than I can ever remember before. Both platforms are still in their infancy from an ads standpoint (with SnapChat being more established than TikTok). Both still offer tremendous opportunities for first adopters who are willing to learn the platforms.

Today I’m bringing on two experts, Madison Grover VP of Social from Pouch, and Anders Piiparinen CEO from Wallaroo Media. They’re giving us a crash course on what we need to know about TikTok and Snap ads.

• Why you should build TikToks and NOT ads
• How creating consistently great content on TikTok can have a compounding or “resurfacing” affect
• How to repurpose TikTok content on other platforms
• Why you can’t repurpose YouTube or IG content on TikTok
• Understanding key TikTok metrics
• The basics of a solid Snap ad
• How to drive conversions from TikTok and Snap

Every website is leaking sales and conversions somewhere. While I love talking about driving more traffic, sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is improve your conversion rate. In this episode, I interview the founder of Conversion Crimes, Quinn Zeda and we discuss the most common eCommerce conversion crimes she sees. If you fix even a few of these you’ll see a meaningful improvement in your website performance. Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• Understanding visual hierarchy and the metaphor of volume knobs
• Creating a process of testing and iteration vs. launching a full site overhaul
• Using customer intel to create marketing breakthroughs
• Keys to better navigation and menu structure
• How to not confuse or overwhelm your visitors
• Using action colors
• Plus more!

Ryan McKenzie is doing what he can to help save the planet. His super-effective laundry detergent strips are keeping millions of plastic laundry jugs out of landfills each year. He also wants to save your brand from bad video advertising.

I invited Ryan on the show again because his approach to video advertising is just awesome. Here at OMG Commerce, we have the privilege of running all of his Google and YouTube ads so we’ve seen firsthand their rocket ship growth. They were Canada’s 2nd fastest growing start-up and have grown from 7 employees to 200 in record time. In this episode, we break down Ryan’s 7-step framework behind his video ads that are fueling $100k/day in ad spend. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• What is a powerful pattern interrupt and how to use one.

• Why having a villain in your ads is a good thing. Hint: Your villain probably isn’t a person.

• How many and how to most effectively use Calls to Action.

• Biggest surprises on what works and what doesn’t.

• How to use logic and emotion.

If you think the Amazon marketplace is wild right now, you should have seen it in 2003. My guest today is Jason Boyce. Jason is a former Top 200 Seller on Amazon - a spot he held for 10 years before selling his company. Now he’s frequently interviewed and quoted in the media on all things Amazon. He was recently interviewed for a PBS Frontline Documentary called Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos. We discuss some hot takes on broader Amazon topics, plus dive into specific tips for sellers.

Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• How big is Amazon really…and why it’s actually BIGGER than you think
• Amazon and antitrust and what it means for sellers
• How little improvements to CTR and conversion rate create a compounding effect
• Owning the digital shelf - what it means and what you should be focusing on
• Controlling your brand. How to proactively control and protect your brand
• Lessons from Jason’s new book - The Amazon Jungle

The death of email has been boldly proclaimed and then retracted so many times I’ve lost count over the last 10 years. Finally, I think most people agree that email marketing is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

This episode is a double-header in terms of topic but still delivered in the same amount of time as usual. It’s a “two topics for the price of one” special! Itay Paz is an online marketing veteran of 25 years. He’s also the publisher of the Morning Dough newsletter and an SEO expert.

Morning Dough is one of my favorite newsletters. It’s one of the few that I open regularly. In this episode, we talk about how and why eCommerce brands should be using email marketing beyond just transactional emails.

We also talk Web Core Vitals and how Google is going to use certain core performance metrics to score your site. How your site scores in Google’s eyes will have a direct impact on both your SEO and your paid ad performance.

• How to land on a newsletter strategy that fits your personality and your brand.
• Tips for getting your emails opened and read.
• How often you should send emails and how to avoid spam and promotional folders.
• What are Web Core Vitals and why you should care.
• How to test your site in 60 seconds to see how it performs what Google’s Web Core Vital.

Andrew Morgans is a true OG when it comes to success on Amazon. Andrew is the founder of Marknology (think marketing combined with technology) an Amazon brand accelerator and the host of the Startup Hustle podcast. He’s been helping brands grow on Amazon for 9 years. Needless to say, a LOT has changed on Amazon in 9 years and Andrew has seen a little bit of everything. In this episode, we go deep into what successful brands are doing right now on Amazon and where things are headed on the platform….

• Andrew’s philosophy of “if your product can’t sell with your photos and videos alone, you need to go back to the drawing board.”
• How your copy and photos should flow
• How A+ content, storefronts and copy really come down to just 2 things
• Andrew’s favorite tools that he uses daily…but when he doesn’t use them to make decisions.
• How to view Amazon ads in light of how the advertising industry is shifting
• Going international - Amazon is doubling down on international growth…why now is the time to consider it for your brand

• Why Austin is so excited about subscription businesses and who’s running them well
• How different business models could be your next growth evolution
• How privacy could create a renaissance of sorts when it comes to the value of good ad creatives
• How pricey changes will impact audience building and audience targeting
• Formulas for creating high-converting content
• Shifting your role in business to greater growth

Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping events of the year. We now fully expect Prime Day to land in June of 2021 (at the time of recording this podcast we were still uncertain of whether it would be June or July). OMG’s Amazon Director, Chris Tyler and Amazon Specialist Amber Norell join me for this week’s episode to break down what we’re expecting for this year’s Prime Day and what you need to do to get ready.

If you do nothing as an Amazon seller, you’ll likely see some lift in sales for Prime Day. If you use some of the tactics we discuss in this podcast, you could generate some record sales days for your brand. Here’s a look at what we cover in this episode.

• Prime Day discounts and coupons - which is usually better and how to structure your offers.
• Amazon Live! - a perfect complement to your Prime Day deals
• Lightning Deals
• Amazon posts
• How to maximize your storefront for Prime Day
• Does and don’ts to get your listings ready for Prime Day

Plus more. Listen to the full episode or read our complete Prime Day Blog here.

Matt Clark knows what it takes to scale a business. He’s the CEO of Amazing.com the creator of the most successful information product of all time - Amazing Selling Machines.

He’s also the co-owner of Lifeboost, a company that he and his business partner Charles Livingston have grown from just $17k per month in sales to over $2 million in monthly sales in just a few short years. So that begs the question - How did they do it? That’s what we dive into in this episode. We discuss their keys to scale both from a marketing and a product development standpoint. Here’s a snapshot of what we cover:

- How focusing on the hook, headline and offer in their ads allowed them to scale from a few thousand in spend to over $400,000 in monthly Facebook spend.

- Their simple approach to testing and optimizing that doesn’t require any fancy software or split testing tools.

- How they are building their business to sell to the right investors

- How they forecast and measure to make sure they are constantly improving and hitting targets

- Mistakes they made while expanding their product line and their new approach to developing products

- How to better listen to customers

- More!

Myth: marketing texts are annoying.

Truth: bad marketing texts are annoying. Good text messages foster customer loyalty and drive sales.

Ready for the 4 Keys to powerful text marketing right now? While text marketing isn’t overly complex, there is certainly a right way and a wrong way to approach it.

81% of all shoppers have signed up for text messaging from a brand. Customers are clearly open to receiving texts from you. If you approach text marketing strategically, your customers will even welcome your texts. Arri B is here to show you how to effectively do that. Here’s what we cover in this episode.

• Choosing the right text platform

• No list, no bueno. Learn the most effective ways to build a list fast.

• Using your text list to build community

• What to text? Learning an effective content strategy for your text campaigns

• Optimizing and split testing

• Plus, more!

How would you like to generate a whopping $250k in sales on a new product launch without running Facebook ads and without offering deep discounts? Sound impossible? It’s not. It’s the magic of Gated Launches.

So what’s a gated launch? It’s a product launch that’s only available to VIPs or top customers. While it may sound complex, it’s really not. It does take some work to build a VIP community. But, if you do it right, it’s actually pretty easy to maintain. In this episode Jordan West, founder and CMO of Little and Lively, a children’s apparel brand, breaks down how his gated launches have generated as much as $120k in sales in the first two hours after going live.

Here’s a look at what we discuss in this episode:

• The psychology behind gated launches and why they are so powerful
• How to build a healthy, vibrant VIP group that is low maintenance
• How to foster the proper buying mentality in your VIP group
• How to harness VIP feedback for new product development
• The secret of using personalized 1-to-1 videos
• Plus more

If you’re like me, then you're fascinated by the stories of “tech geniuses.” I never get tired of hearing the origin stories of great tech startups and geniuses behind them (The Social Network is still one of my favorite movies). In this episode I interview Shawn Livermore, author of the new book Average Joe: Be the Silicon Valley Tech Genius.

Shawn’s new book uncovers some of the magic behind blockbuster tech products like Gmail, Dropbox, Snapchat, Ring, Bitcoin and more. We bust some long-held myths and underscore how you can learn from the success of tech icons. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How moving slow is the new fast in some key areas
• How believing you have to be a genius to succeed in business (even tech) is a myth
• How to properly incubate ideas and allow your brain to work the way it works best
• The story of Gmail and it’s creator Paul Buchheit
• The story of Polaroid and how to innovate

How quickly can you find the following key metrics from your business?

Contribution margin.

Inventory turn ratio.

Return on inventory (the other ROI).

If you struggled a bit finding those answers (or if you just want to go to the next level), you need to listen to this episode with John Canetta. This episode was super fun for me and the content is what separates eComm companies who just get by vs. those who thrive (and end up with big exits). It’s a must-listen for serious store owners.

You HAVE to know your numbers. And your P&L may be lying to you and you don’t even know it.

• How his hedgehog concept allows him to consistently hit 80% margins vs. 40-50% like some of his competitors.
• His piggybank metaphor and how it shapes his decision making
• Marketing is fun, but operations are where your profits are
• Understanding your numbers and making it SIMPLE -
• How to look at and use Post Aggregate Gross, Contribution Margin, and Return on Inventory to hit his goals
• John’s 3 keys to business success

Brennan Agranoff was building spreadsheets at age 13. He learned a little HTML in High School. Growing up playing club basketball in Oregon with Nike HQ in his backyard, Brennan saw the appeal of custom socks as a young teen. So he launched his first eComm brand called HoopSwag at age 13. Brennan is a master of creative growth ideas. He combines that with an intense focus on product and process development and automation. We talked about both growth ideas and process automation at length in this episode.

• How creative gifting has opened up his Micro-micro influencer approach
• How to go from VA to automation
• Always asking “how do I remove myself from this?”
• How Brennan shares a similar philosophy to Amazon to automate anything repeatable
• The comparison of good code to good process development
• The power of good mentors
• Plus more

If you sell a great product, then no doubt you’re getting referrals. Referrals are great, but just waiting for them to happen on their own is NOT a formula for rapid growth. Referral programs are a proven, but underutilized strategy for growing eCommerce brands. In this episode, I interview Arlen Robinson, referral marketing specialist, podcast host, and co-founder of Affiliate Software. We dig into some powerful points to help you take your referral marketing and affiliate marketing to the next level. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• What’s the difference between referral, affiliate, and influencer marketing and how they each impact your business.
• To incentivize or not to incentivize? Understanding the when, why, and how of referral incentives.
• Creating a viral loop to get customers into your referral program
• Tools and approaches to make it easy
• Plus some real-world case studies

This eCommerce power couple is ON FIRE. They are cranking out AMAZING products on Amazon and growing fast. More importantly, they’re having fun in the process.

More surprising and impressive than the growth is that they’re married, work together and, wait for it...still like each other!

We uncover some really powerful lessons in Amazon growth, business growth, and maintaining healthy work relationships. I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed recording it!

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How to pivot and grow
• How being in the right role to compliment each other is super important (whether you’re married to your business partner or not)
• Mistakes in hiring the wrong people and how to get this right
• How to know when and how to “let it go” and not get your feelings hurt
• How Tenacity and passion create the ultimate 1-2 punch
• Learning from your successes - a great tragedy is business is succeeding and not know why you succeeded.
• Knowing your super power and using it consistently

Facebook is still a land of opportunity, but it is NOT currently smooth sailing. The most powerful storm right now is, of course, privacy concerns. Namely, the iOS 14 update and how it will impact advertisers' ability to track and optimize campaigns. Facebook’s ability to track users everywhere online as they did in the past is going to be severely limited. Whenever I talk to Facebook advertisers right now, uncertainty is the best way to describe their outlook on the platform.

In this episode, Bob and I tackle some really key issues facing Facebook advertisers right now. How do we continue to scale and maintain CPAs in the face of privacy changes? What kind of video ads are working right now? What data do we focus on and optimize toward when some data is taken away? Bob is the author of a brand new book - The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising (4th edition). And he owns a company that specializes in creating authentic video content called feed stories.

• Spend 80% of your time on your offer and on your creative
• What is the conversion API and why you need it
• The power of interview-based video ads
• How you should think about audience targeting right now
• How targeting based on engagement metrics such as watch time on a video ad can be just as effective or MORE effective than retargeting landing page visitors.
• While Facebook is pushing for shorter videos Bob is finding success with :60 to :90 videos consistently
• How changes in online platforms is creating a renaissance of sorts for marketers

Andrew Youderian is a bit of a legend. Podcaster, investor, former eCommerce store operator, and now founder of the premier online community for 7 and 8 figure eCommerce store owners - Ecommerce Fuel. That’s why I’m super pumped to have him on the show this week to talk predictions for the rest of 2021!

In this episode, we put on our Nostradamus hats and try to predict what we might see more of this year. I focus a little more on the ad and marketing space as it relates to eCommerce. Andrew focuses his predictions more on eCommerce as a whole, plus a few macroeconomic predictions.

Hopefully, you find this fun and entertaining, and helpful. Even if we end up being dead wrong about our predictions, I think you’ll find some interesting nuggets here.

How does potty talk on Instagram lead to a thriving eComm brand and a world-class influencer marketing program? Normally it doesn’t, but Adi Arezzini isn’t your typical eCommerce entrepreneur.

Few companies run influencer marketing as successfully as Adi Arezzini. And few people understand what it takes to build a brand and a community like Adi. What started as discussions on Instagram about gut and bowel health transformed into a thoroughly engaged community and a brand that’s growing by leaps and bounds.

Everyone says they want to build a brand. Few know what that means. Even fewer are willing to do what it takes. In this episode Adi and I break down her step-by-step approach to influencer marketing + brand and community building.

Here’s a quick look at what we discuss:

• How to find influencers with REAL influence
• How influencer marketing help Adi land in UltaHow to use a spreadsheet to build your first influencer lists
• The difference between IG and YT influencers
• How to leave nothing to chance and help influencers feel like you’re rooting for them and helping them succeed
• When to pay fees for influencers vs. when to pay commissions
• Tools to tracking and making influencer marketing easy
• How spreadsheets can be your secret weapon when getting started with influencer marketing
• Plus more!

Once upon a time you could source any old product you wanted from Alibaba, slap your name on it, throw up a listing on Amazon, and presto! Instant sales. I personally know several people who sold 7-figures + per year doing this. Well….those days are over. Everyone I know who ran that kind of business is either 1. Out of business or 2. Had to make a hard pivot.

To succeed on Amazon now you need to build a brand. You need products that delight customers and serve a unique purpose. You need listings that clearly communicate your brand difference and value proposition. And you need to work on driving rankings the right way.

My guest today is Emma Schermer Tamir - Co-founder of Marketing by Emma. We talk about how listing optimization on Amazon has shifted in recent years and how brand building now plays a major role in your success on Amazon. Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• From brand registry to making customers happy, to Google traffic - why building a brand makes sense.
• Spammy product titles or more pleasing to the eye titles - what works and what doesn’t when crafting the perfect title
• Why skimmability should be one of your primary goals when writing bullet points and descriptions
• How proper listing optimization on Amazon can possibly lead to more traffic from Google
• What great brands can teach us about A+ content, product differentiation, and breaking through the noise on Amazon.

Few eComm and wholesale businesses reach the heights that VHC Brands has reached under the leadership of Ken Kline. You’ve maybe seen their home decor products in big retailers like Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond or online at Wayfair, Amazon and many more.

Also, few eComm businesses have faced the setbacks that Ken and team have faced. From a fire that completely destroyed their inventory in the mid 2000s to COVID wrecking their in-store retail plans in 2020 - they’ve faced some crazy times and come out stronger.

Here’s a look at what we cover.

• Why over communicating is the secret to vendor, investor and employee relationships.
• How they overcame a warehouse fire that likely would have destroyed most businesses (Plus the story of Ken’s Winston Churchill painting that miraculously survived the fire).
• How to relay your road map to your team, make adjustments and celebrate along the way (even when things are bleak).
• How to take initiative to help your retail partners in selling more of your stuff.
• How to inspire and empower your team when challenging times hit.

Jared Mitchell has a unique perspective on the eCommerce industry. He and his wife, Alana, run two eCommerce sites - skincarebyalana.com and alanamitchell.com. He’s also the lead eCommerce consultant for Neil Patel and he runs an eCommerce training group at beefysites.com. This guy has forgotten more good eCommerce ideas than most will ever learn.

Jared is also a close friend and he’s my surfing mentor. We do take a very brief detour to talk surfing on this episode, but mostly we talk about overlooked growth ideas!

Here’s a look at what we explore on the podcast:

• How to NOT be a one-trick pony. And many, many successful eCommerce businesses are far too reliant on just one traffic source or one product.
• Why Jared recommends at least 10 sources of sales and what channels make his top 10 list.
• Push notifications - how and why they work and why you shouldn’t over-think them
• Phone sales - customers who buy over the phone often have twice the average order value of other buyers.
• Postcards - how Jared and Alana sold almost $30,000 worth of product on a simple and cheap postcard.
• Live video - what to share in a live video, how to broadcast your video, and how to repurpose your video once it’s complete.

Cyber 5 Recap

While holiday shopping is still in full swing at the time of this writing, we do have some preliminary numbers for the Cyber 5 2020 (Thanksgiving Thursday–Cyber Monday) and an early look at how Holiday 2020 as a whole is shaping up. Here are five key observations, so far, for Holiday 2020.

Day

Total Sales

YoY Growth

Thanksgiving (11/26/20)

$5.1B

21.5%

Black Friday (11/27/20)

$9.03B

21.6%

Small Business Saturday (11/28/20)

$4.68B

30.19%

Cyber Monday (11/30/20)

$10.84B

15.1%

Predictions for the remainder of the holiday shopping season. With more cities across the US seeing surges in new cases of COVID-19, it’s unlikely to see a material shift from online shopping back to in-store shopping. We should see this record breaking pace continue for the rest of the holiday season. The wildcard is shipaggedon. My prediction is that we’ll see a fair number of digital gift cards purchased and printed off, as well as pictures of gifts...

Colby Bauer has personality. He’s a half-pipe skating, snowboarding, former collegiate athlete who turned a simple idea into a thriving eComm business. He and his wife McKenzie started Thread Wallets with just a single product idea. Simple, functional, minimalist wallets with personality. That initial product took off and Thread quickly grew into a team of 22 that now boasts an expanding product line including lanyards, phone cases, and more.

While there’s a lot to be impressed about with Colby and McKenzie, and their team I really wanted to key in on Thread’s culture and the unique steps they took to grow. I think you’ll find a ton of good lessons here:

• How the key to scale might be engaging in activities that DON’T scale
• How financial intelligence (or lack thereof) can make or break startups
• How to hire for culture first and is the “hire slow, fire fast” mantra really the way to go
• How installing a half-pipe at the office lead to a fight amongst the thread founders, but lead to mental health as a focus for the company
• A good CEO is a non-busy CEO…what does this mean and how is it the key to effectiveness

Conversational commerce. What is it? Basically, it’s taking the in-person shopping experience of asking questions and talking to retail sales staff and moving it into multiple online channels seamlessly. Today shoppers want to interact with you in a variety of ways and they want near-instant feedback. Messenger. SMS. Chat. Facebook comments. Your customers expect you to be everywhere they are when they need you.

In this interview, Phil and I talk about some of the foundations of conversational commerce - both strategies and tactics. This will help guide all of your conversational commerce efforts. Here’s a quick look at what we discuss.

• What components of conversational commerce should you consider?
• What impact can conversational commerce have on conversion rates?
• How to look at the dashboard and KPIs related to conversational commerce.
• How this impacts your paid acquisition efforts.
• Lots of real-world examples
• Plus more

Very little about 2020 has been normal - including Prime Day. This year’s Prime Day was in October vs. Amazon’s usual July time frame. What did this mean for 2020 Prime Day vs. 2019 Prime Day? Would this year’s Prime Day make the official launch of holiday sales?

In this episode, I bring back OMG Commerce’s Amazon Director Chris Tyler to discuss what we noticed this year during Prime Day with our clients.

Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• Total prime day sales grew 70% year-over-year in 2019 vs. 2018, but only grew 45% year-over-year in 2020 compared to 2019 (Statista report).
• $3.5 billion of the estimated $10 billion in total sales on Prime Day were from 3rd party sellers, but the most popular item on Prime Day was Amazon’s deeply discounted Echo Dot.
• What categories of products we saw perform the best for our OMG clients. 62% of Prime Day purchases this year were for gifts for someone else according to Digital Commerce 360.
• Why we didn’t see as dramatic of a list for 2020 Prime Day vs. 2019 Prime Day, but sales immediately after prime day this year have been strong.
• The impact of Prime Day on Sponsored Brand Video Ads and overall ad performance
• Interesting Amazon DSP trends during Prime Day and since
• Plus more!

Khierstyn Ross is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to launching products on Kickstarter. She’s experienced the highs of multiple 6-figure product launches, plus she’s endured the heartache of a launch gone bad. She knows what to do and, just as importantly, what to avoid.

In this podcast, we talk about the keys to building a 6-figure crowd-funded product launch including:

• What products work best for a Kickstarter launch
• Why audience building is so important, how to do it, and why so many people underestimate it.
• What kind of targets to set for your first day of your Kickstarter launch
• What to consider when it comes to shipping
• Top mistakes to avoid
• How storytelling fuels crowd-funding launches

Plus more!

What do six-packs, successful pilots and 2020 have in common? No, it’s not a drinking game. We’re talking data here people! Do you know your data…like really know your data? Do you have a feel for it? Do you look at the right numbers daily?

Let’s talk pilots for just a second. If you’ve ever seen a cockpit, it looks kinda like most eCommerce dashboards - an overwhelming amount of buttons, data, dials, and meters. But pilots actually focus mostly on just a few key instruments. The rest is there to help if there’s trouble. The same should be true for the dashboards you use to run your business.

I absolutely loved this interview with Dan LeBlanc at Daasity. We cover some really important topics to help you really get a handle on managing your business. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Is your data accurate? Seems like an easy question. Not always an easy answer.
• Do you know what your metrics mean? It’s all in the definition. If you don’t have the right definition, you can’t make good decisions.
• How you should look at your Lifetime Value (LTV) and why Cohorts matter
• Why contribution margin is super important plus an easy way to calculate it
• Knowing your RFM - Recency, frequency, and monetary value. Here’s how to look at this and why it matters.

There are two different types of sponsored YouTube influencer videos:

Stand-alone sponsored influencer videos are what most brands use and what most people think of when they hear “YouTube influencer marketing.” Stand-alone videos are typically an influencer providing a quick review or endorsement about a particular product. So the video is titled “Widget 12 Pro Unboxing and review.”

An integrated sponsored influencer videos is an ad put inside of video on a separate topic. The video might be about fortnite or camping, or whatever, but inside the video is a 30 second ad, read by the creator, for your product. These integrated video ads are Ridge Wallets secret sauce.

Here’s a quick look at what we uncover on the show:

• Why integrated sponsored videos are so great and why they scale better than stand alone influencer videos.
• How to approach influencers
• Why subscribers on YouTube is largely a vanity metric
• How to spot a dead channel vs. an active channel
• How to measure the impact of your influencer videos
• What to pay influencers and how to think about CPMs (cost per thousand)
• How to achieve scale in your outreach and deployment of influencer videos
• Plus more!

During a pandemic, marketing for a travel company isn’t easy. Kevin Urrutia and team at Chester Travel are getting creative and hustling to drive sales now and set themselves up for success in the future. In this episode, we talk about the perfect combination of short term and long term growth strategies. Using influencer marketing for short term growth and SEO for long term traffic and growth has proved to be a winning combination for Chester Travel and their line of modern luggage.

Here’s a look at what we cover in this episode:

• Leveraging returns and unsold inventory for influencer marketing.
• Understanding the value of your product in influencer marketing.
• Simple outreach for influencer marketing….you’re probably overthinking it. Try this one sentence approach.
• How a solid Instagram account is a necessary prerequisite for influencer marketing.
• Leveraging your homepage to rank your blog posts
• Combining remarketing and SEO to drive sales.

In a word, Chris Lynch is cool. So is his brand Everyday California. It’s not a surprise then, that what started as an adventure tour company also became a super popular apparel line. But Chris and the Everyday Cali team didn’t stop there… The brand has now grown to include flip flops, beer, CBD and even a line of sunscreen. So what separates a solid business move into new products vs. an unhealthy distraction? When should you partner, license, go on your own, or scrap an idea? Here’s what we dive into on this episode:

• When to lawyer up and why it’s sooo worth it
• Be patient - speed in some instances almost guarantees that you land on your face.
• One of the best questions to ask about adding a new product is “does it feel right?”
• How Chris and team partnered with a brewery on a California IPA and a CBD company to make a CBD product all while strengthening their core brand offering.
• Lessons learned from a few license deals
• How and why Everyday Cali is launching a brand new sunscreen - if you’re considering a line extension, you’ll love Chris’ advice.

Mission meats is just a few years old, but it’s gobbling up market share in the red-hot meat snack category. Peter Awad is a long time eCommerce pro. He started selling auto parts on eBay in 2000. Now he and his co-founder Nick have built a meat snack store with a mission. They’re using profits from eCommerce to help fight deforestation, educate children in Africa, and support homeless women and children.

But they don’t just have big hearts, they have some serious marketing chops too.

In this episode, we explore the challenges and opportunities of marketing a product that could literally appeal to anyone. We also explore how to maintain the balancing act of growing your own store AND growing on Amazon.

• How to treat Amazon from a merchandising perspective.
• Prospecting for new customers - Is this and Amazon first or Shopify first strategy
• How to increase repeat purchases in a fun way
• How pride or ego can limit growth with any paid ad channel
• Crazy CRO tests and the practice of asking “what if the opposite were true?”
• Important mindset issues that help fuel successful entrepreneurs

• How to have the right mindset for navigating volatility (this is more important than you think)
• What to do when ad performance tanks
• Where you should tinker to improve performance and where you shouldn’t
• Why this is still the greatest time in history to be a marketer - volatility and all.
• 3 Spot checks to make sure you are ready to scale traffic
• The impact of the California Consumer Privacy Act and new changes coming to iOS 14….the good, the bad, and the scary.

This year’s online holiday shopping season will be one for the record books. Most people say they’ll shop more online or exclusively online this year. And online shopping will also start earlier this year, indicated by Google study results where 69% of holiday shoppers say they will shop earlier this year to avoid items being out of stock.

To dominate the Cyber 5 this year you need to:

• Get the most from your remarketing efforts,
• Cover any gaps you have in your search and shopping efforts,
• Run compelling offers and ads that compliment your brand, and
• Get your Top of Funnel efforts dialed in.

Check out our latest blog outlining these helpful tips and the video replay from our recent webinar with Google, and be on the lookout for the audio version in this week's episode of eCommerce Evolution.

Amazon Advertising has exploded in recent years. In fact, Amazon is now the 3rd largest online advertising platform behind only Facebook and Google. Pretty impressive for a company who’s a retailer first, cloud computing 2nd, and online advertising 3rd.

In this episode, I wanted to bring on the sharpest mind in Amazon Advertising that I know - OMG’s very own Chris Tyler. I brought him on so we could deep dive into the two hottest trends in Amazon Advertising right now - Sponsored Brand Video (formerly Video in Search ads) and Amazon DSP. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• What is Amazon DSP and how can sellers use it to reach shoppers on an off Amazon?
• How to target people actively shopping for your competitor's products who haven’t purchased yet.
• How Sponsored Brand Video (SBV) ads are outperforming ALL other ad types for most of our clients.
• 5 keys to a great Sponsored Brand Video Ad
• How you can test SBV without spending a fortune on video production
• Plus more!

Is something broken in your business? Not reaching your growth goals like you’d hoped? Then you likely have a systems or delegation problem.

My guest today is Trent Dyrsmid. Trent is the host of the Bright Ideas podcast as well as the founder of an Amazon reseller business that just ranked #254 on the Inc. 5000 list. He is also the co-founder of Flowster.app a premier workflow management tool for eCommerce businesses. He knows a thing or two about systems, delegation, and growth. He’s now fully delegated himself out of his Amazon reseller business as it continues to scale rapidly.

How does he do it? Clear systemization and delegation. On the show, we talk about one of his favorite quotes from the Honorary Chairman of Toyota -

“We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes – while our competitors get average or worse results from brilliant people managing broken processes”

~ Fujio Cho, Honorary Chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation

In this episode we cover:

• What to systematize first - a 2-pronged test
• When you have a systems problem vs. a people problem
• What to delegate vs. what to do yourself
• Why and when you should delegate something you’re really good at
• The difference between process management and project management
• How Flowster helps eCommerce companies with process management
• Plus more!

Michael Jamin knows a thing or two about telling a good story. He’s written for popular sitcoms like King of the Hill, Rules of Engagement, Tacoma FD, and Beavis & Butthead to name a few. More importantly, for our purposes, he’s also the Co-Founder of Twirly Girl - an eComm brand that features some truly magical storytelling ads. I wanted to have Michael on the show so we could learn some of his secrets….and because I knew it would be a ton of FUN. He delivered. Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• Using setup and punchline to deliver features and benefits in a truly fun, funny and memorable way
• If customers focus on price, it’s your fault and how to fix it
• How some powerful tweak in FB ads dropped their cost per share from $178 to just $1.16
• When Michael combined what he knew about TV script writing and eComm Twirly Girl grew 30.6%
• Why people aren’t really buying stuff, but rather relationships and magic
• A few powerful “story makeovers”
• Plus more

Almost every eCommerce company I talk to is investing heavily into Facebook and Google Ads. Probably less than 30% are actively investing in Affiliate marketing. I first met my guest, Greg Powell, while we were both providing consulting services for another agency. I instantly could tell that he knew his stuff. Now he’s running an extremely successful Affiliate Marketing agency - Tactical Marketing based in Joplin MO.

• Fringe benefits of an affiliate marketing program including free PR and new audience discovery and testing.
• 3 ways to tell if your product is a good fit for Affiliate marketing
• Avoiding affiliate horror stories - namely, how to avoid coupon site hell.
• How attracting the right affiliates makes all of the difference.
• Best affiliate networks for your category
• Plus much more!

The online buying journey is a complex process. It rarely looks exactly the same for different shoppers. BUT, there are distinct stages that most shoppers pass through in their unique journey. Video can be your secret weapon along each stage of the journey - compelling customers, educating customers, and delighting customers.

Ben Amos lives in Australia’s Sunshine Coast and is a master at creating video content that shapes buying behavior. In this episode, we talk about how video can impact these 4 distinct stages of the shopping journey:

Everyone knows that word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing. The problem? How do you facilitate, encourage, and track it without being weird? Enter Nick Stagge and Wooly. In this episode, we discuss two important topics - building Ambassador Programs and putting digital rails around word of mouth advertising. Nick has worked with some awesome brands including Skull Candy, Purple Mattress, and more. Here’s a quick look at what we cover in this episode:

• Salomon shoes got 22.6 million impressions without running a single ad
• How to Identify and segment your best customers and how to know when you have a customer make a referral that ends in a purchase
• How ambassador programs focus on credibility while some influencer programs focus on reach…and why credibility is often better and more profitable
• Word of mouth customers are happier, better educated and often stick around longer - here’s how you get more of it
• Driving six figures of incremental referral revenue.
• Plus more

Online shopping has shifted dramatically since the start of the pandemic. Some experts believe we’ve seen 5+ years of eCommerce growth condensed into just a few months. Attitudes towards quantities ordered, shipping rates and times, and pricing have ALL shifted from the norm. I wanted to have Jon MacDonald come back on the show (see his first appearance on the podcast for Episode 60 to talk about what’s working right now in terms of Conversion Rate Optimization. We cover some truly fascinating subjects including:

• How buying in bulk it a new trend - even if your marketing to non-peppers
• How to structure new shopping options for buying in bulk to make the process easier on shoppers and easier on your fulfillment centers
• 3 ways to use SMS marketing to before, during and after the shopping experience to surprise and delight customers
• Where you should start optimizing now including some key data points and quick wins with Google Analytics that you’re likely missing
• How to quickly and inexpensively benefit from Heat Maps
• Why taking care of your highest value customers is more important now than ever before

Learn how Tru Earth is disrupting the laundry detergent space by selling subscriptions and understanding the power of villains in marketing. My guest in this episode, Ryan McKenzie is a marketing and eComm wiz. He built his first online business in his 20s and after some extreme wins and some humbling losses, he found his eComm game. In this episode, we uncover some of Tru Earth’s keys to success including

• 3 types of offers that get shoppers to subscribe to auto-replenishment.
• How to structure pricing and discounts for subscriptions
• Blair Warren’s amazing 4 keys to persuasion (literally one the best marketing quotes I’ve ever heard) and how to leverage it for your business
• How finding a “villain” can make your marketing more powerful and help you build a closer community (hint: villains don’t have to be people)
• How to approach ad fatigue and new creative development for Facebook
• How OMG Commerce is helping Tru Earth leverage Google Shopping and YouTub ads
• Plus more!

CrossNet Game began as a crazy idea dreamed up late at night by two brothers and their best friend. But ideas are a dime a dozen. Chris and his brother Greg and co-founder Mike turned their crazy idea into a wildly popular product and a rapidly growing company. So what is CrossNet? It’s 4-way volleyball. Put another way, if volleyball 4 square had a baby, it would be CrossNet. And it’s amazing.

This is a phenomenal story about how to launch a product from total obscurity into a sensation. We talk about how the product came to be, how the founders successfully boot-strapped everything initially, and how a combination of playing volleyball all day on the beaches of Miami plus Facebook Ads fueled their launch. Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• How their first “prototype” and first test market let them know they were onto something big
• Why they packed their bags and moved from Connecticut to Miami to launch CrossNet
• Creating the snowball effect - doing lots of little things well and watching success and momentum grow over time.
• Their first brand ambassadors and their first influencer…all by accident (but still duplicatable)
• Their most important sales channels
• How they view Amazon
• How they are using events (pre-pandemic) to grow the brand
• Getting their product in 5,000+ schools
• Getting into Dicks Sporting Goods, Academy Sports and more
• What products are next for CrossNet and how they plan to grow (including running YT ads with OMG Commerce…)

Jeremy Horowitz helped create the marketing engine behind Lumee, the selfie phone cases made famous by the Kardashians. He now helps growing eCommerce brands create 6 figure + product launches. He also builds what he calls “replenishment engines” - a concept that was new to me but that I absolutely love.

Interested in doing $100,000+ in sales in 24 hours on a new product launch? Want to know the secrets of building huge demand, selling out of products, and generating real urgency like Supreme, Jordan and Kylie Cosmetics.

Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• The difference between a product launch that sells out vs. a “meh” launch
• How to create a “web” so that your customers are highly engaged and eager to buy
• How to build anticipation, excitement, and generate huge sales without discounting
• How to utilize messenger marketing and Facebook private groups
• Lessons from movie launches
• Plus more

You walk to your mailbox. Inside you find a hand-addressed envelope. It looks like it could be a thank you note of a birthday card. What are the odds you open it? 100%.

I love direct mail. Especially now because mailboxes are nearly empty (compared to 15-20 years ago). In this episode I interview David Wachs, CEO of Handwrytten. We discuss creative and affordable ways eCommerce companies can use Direct Mail to build customer loyalty and increase sales. We also discuss how his technology allows for automated handwritten notes...it’s pretty fantastic.

Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• How to use handwritten thank you notes to increase referrals
• How an online fashion company sent 700 handwritten notes, scored a 16.8% redemption rate and drove an ROI over 300%.
• Using direct mail to build your loyalty program
• Leveraging direct mail to get more positive reviews and/or mitigate negative reviews
• Launching direct mail Win-back campaigns
• Abandon cart direct mail sequences
• Automating handwritten thank-yous
• And more!

In early February before all live events were cancelled I presented at Social Media Marketing World 2020 in San Diego. My talk covered the latest tactics and strategies we’re using right now to scale on YouTube. This is the recording of my presentation at this paid event. Here’s a quick look at what I cover in this talk:

• Could YouTube be your next big thing?
• 2 Proven Ad formulas for cold traffic
• Ad formulas for warm traffic
• What is progressive audience testing and how to use it
• How to leverage YouTube and Google Display Network together
• Plus more!

I’m sure you’re aware of chat marketing. But if you’re like most marketers and Amazon sellers, it’s still an area of immense opportunity for you. Maybe it’s even still a bit of a mystery to you. Michelle Barnum Smith is the Queen of chat marketing for Amazon sellers. I had a chance to sit down with her and discuss some super powerful ways to grow your Amazon business with chat marketing that you probably haven’t thought of, including…

• The 3 types of messenger campaigns to run consistently
• Why product re-ranking campaigns using chatbots should probably be an ongoing strategy for you
• The difference between a 2-step URL and a Search, Find, Buy campaign
• How many times per month should you message your list on messenger…too many and they’ll hate you. Too few and they’ll forget who you are and be annoyed the next time you message them.
• How to build a chat bot list.
• Plus more!

Strengthening customer relationships. Building valuable assets. Improving and documenting SOPs. Growing email and remarketing lists. Watching every episode of the Michael Jordan/Chicago Bulls Documentary - The Last Dance. That’s just a few of the ways Ezra and Co are surviving and THRIVING in the current climate. Ezra is often the first person eCommerce entrepreneurs turn to when they need advice. This episode delivers some true and timely gems and words of wisdom. eCommerce will likely come out of this crisis stronger than ever. Will your company be ready to thrive in the new normal?

My guest today knows a thing or two about growing DTC eCommerce brands to 8 figures and beyond. His agency, Wavebreak, focuses on email, SMS and loyalty marketing for growing eCommerce brands. On today’s episode we talk about how email marketing has shifted in light of the pandemic and how it will likely continue to shift in the months and weeks ahead.

Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• How to go on offense without being offensive
• How to build community and goodwill now
• How to stay true to your brand but adjust your message in light of the recent crisis
• Top email marketing mistakes to avoid
• How email, sms and loyalty programs work together

This is an episode a couple of years in the making. I’m a huge Ryan Daniel Moran fan. We had dinner together after an event for speakers at an event in LA a few years ago. Then we both got busy. Ryan came on the show to discuss some burning topics facing all entrepreneurs right now.

• Advice for an eCommerce company who’s struggling right now in the pandemic
• Advice for an e-commerce company who’s excelling right nowThe number 1 way to be instantly happier right now (and it leads to better business outcomes)
• How Ryan thinks about eComm companies to invest in - it’s way more about the leader and the product than anything else.
• Not playing the comparison game
• How to instantly be happier where you are right now
• The 3 phases of growing to $1 million in 12 Months.

Currently, over 77% of our eCommerce clients are either still UP in sales even during this time of extreme uncertainty or are the same (plus or minus 1-2%). Yes, some are hurting - but for most eCommerce businesses you CAN do something about sluggish sales right now. We’ve learned a lot in recent weeks on what messages resonate with prospects and what falls flat. In this episode (taken from a recent highly-popular webinar) Chris Brewer, Co-Founder of OMG Commerce and I dive into these important topics:

• Understanding the different physiological segments of shoppers right now and how to appeal to them
• People still want to buy even when stuck at home - how to provide retail therapy to your customers
• How to handle paid search on both Amazon and Google right now (search trends are shifting)
• Why this could be the perfect time to consider YouTube ads…viewership is up 100%+ on the platform and ad costs are down 20% or more
• How you can gain market share and get ahead of the competition right now

Supply chain, lock down, store closures, falling ad costs, rising costs of sanitation…just a few of the areas impacting retail and e-commerce right now. In my interview with Eamon Kelly of Edgewater Research, we talk about the following hot topics to recent data points.

• How ad costs are impacted on Amazon, Facebook and Google during the crisis
• What categories are seeing spikes vs. dips in sales…there are a few surprising areas here plus some opportunities for companies to pivot.
• What major retailers like Dick’s sporting goods are seeing
• How retailers like Chewys are experience both growth and interesting shifts in costs and increased margin pressure
• How to think about inventory levels with more shopping shifting online

Original Grain has an origin story that’s as cool as it’s products…and as cool as it’s founders. In this interview, we tackle some critically important topics for all DTC brands. We discuss building a product that has an authentic story that resonates. We look at the Original Grain approach to sourcing and designing that next winning product. We hear the Original Grain example of launching successful kickstarter campaigns, and we talk about marketing during a crisis and much more.

Brother’s Ryan and Andrew Beltran grew up playing basketball together and starting businesses together from painting houses to mowing lawns. In 2013 while living in Hong Kong, Ryan had the idea for wood and steel watches. The brothers took that inspiration and started what is now a leader in the watch and accessories space.

Here’s a look at what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How a chance meeting at a nearly failed event lead to their most successful watch line to date
• How wooing an investor (I love this story - and it embodies the entrepreneur’s spirit) led to some of their most popular collector’s edition watches
• How Original Grain is going up-stream while strengthening its core watch offerings
• How they plan to market and stay strong during the COVID-19 storm
• How to build an authentic voice and truly connect with customers even when being together physically is impossible
• What’s ahead for Original Grain

Economic Crisis - time to panic or time to press ahead? While challenging and painful, there are huge opportunities right now. Some of the world’s most successful companies grew leaps and bounds during recessions (Toyota, Kellogs and many others). On this show investor, mentor and brilliant marketer and entrepreneur Roland Frasier and I talk about what you need to do to survive and thrive right now. From getting your head right, to ensuring financial stability to how to market your product - right now. The market has shifted but money is still up for grabs. Here’s what we cover:

• Understanding the physiological segments of the market and how to reach customers that are still actively buying now
• How your product positioning should pivot during times of extreme uncertainty
• How companies like Toyota and Kellogg’s crushed their competitors during a recession
• How to secure financing right now
• What to measure and how to measure to keep your head above water

Liz Germain is a YouTube Marketing legend. We met when I was speaking at an event for eCommerce brands at the YouTube LA Offices. Between her own fitness channel and her client’s channels, she’s helped rack up over 100 million organic video views on YouTube. Wow. In this interview, we deep dive into how she does it. From the content, she creates to the research that inspires it. We also discuss where you should start and how to take your YouTube channel to the next level.

Here’s what we cover

• Liz’s killer YouTube Influencer structure that leverages evergreen content for years of leads
• How Liz created a video and blog post for a natural birth control method that is still generating leads and sales 4 years after it was created. Compare that to an Instagram story that has a shelf life of just 24 hours.
• The 3 types of YouTube content and where you should start
• The fundamentals of building a great YouTube Channel
• Plus more!

We’ve all had the following experience. We’re on a quest for a specific product hoping if will fulfill a very specific need. So we visit a product page on Amazon or another eCommerce site hoping that this might be the product we’ve been eagerly searching for….But, to our disappointment the product page doesn’t clearly tell us if the product will meet our need or not. So we don’t buy. Uh-oh.

Pop quiz. What can increase customer engagement, improve conversion rates by 2-10x, and drive substantial organic traffic? Easy - Q&A content. My guest this week is James Arnold, the Co-Founder of Answer Base a SaaS platform that makes it easy to collect and leverage Q&A and FAQ content. In this episode we dive into the following:

• Why Q&A content on product details pages is so powerful
• Taking a cue from Amazon where and how to use Q&A content on PDPs
• How to build a Knowledge Based that answers 80%+ of your shoppers questions
• How to structure your Q&A content to rank well on Google….HINT: Google LOVES Q&A Content. And so do shoppers.
• How to leverage FAQ pages
• Plus more!

Quick - what’s the best, most effective viral video ad you’ve seen? Poo-Pourri? Purple Mattress? Maybe Squatty Potty? Chatbooks? Each of those videos (plus dozens more) were created by my guest today and his team at Harmon Brothers. And not only where these videos viral hits…they SOLD stuff. Funny. Memorable. And persuasive to the tunes of hundreds of millions in sales. That's hard to accomplish.

In this episode, we dig into some of the tips, tactics and secrets behind the Harmon Brother’s unrivaled success. We dive into the following:

• 3 big mistakes most companies make when it comes to video ads
• Why humor is NOT a silver bullet
• The inside scoop behind Poo-Pourri and haw it launched the Harmon Brothers to national prominence
• How do you land on the right “BIG idea”
• How and when to get feedback on your script and initial video edits
• How to think and create videos like the Harmon Brothers
• Plus more

• What market you should target first when you go international
• What markets should you consider 2nd and 3rd when going International
• What are some non-obvious benefits to going international like lower ad costs and lower competition
• What about Australia?
• What steps to take and when to try your first international market
• Plus much more!

Transparency. Sustainability. Social responsibility. More than just buzz words these are now expectations that consumers have of the brands they buy from. In this episode, we dive into what it means to be a mission-driven eCommerce brand. We share lots of powerful examples like Everlane, All Birds and more. My friend Ezra Firestone’s company Smart Marketer has the perfect slogan - Serve the World Unselfishly and Profit. Now you can do the right thing by fighting hunger, helping orphans, cleaning up the environment or supporting mental health AND build a profitable brand in the process.

In this episode with Stephen we discuss the following:

• Who is the conscious consumer and how are they impacting eCommerce?
• Do companies have to go “all-in” on a mission or can this be a gradual process?
• What is “greenwashing” and why should you avoid it.
• Exploring the Mission Driven Marketing Playbook
• Plus more!

There are over 150 million Alexa devices in use today. Google has sold upwards of 50 million of its Google Home devices. While most devices are used primarily to listen to music or play games or control appliances like lights and heat and air…voice commerce is on the rise too.

In this episode, I interview Anmol Oberoi the Founder and CEO of Emitrr - a voice-first SaaS Platform. We dive into voice commerce use-cases that are making an impact now. We also talk about where voice commerce is likely heading in the near future. Here’s a quick look at what we discuss:

• How games and quizzes through voice can benefit ecommerce companies
• What voice skills to develop and launch first and how to use customer feedback to make sure you’ll have high adoption rates
• What are the most popular voice skills that customers want right now
• How voice can build loyalty and put a “fence” around your top customers keeping competitors away
• How smart devices with screens like the Echo Show and Google’ Nest Hub might make the biggest shopping impact right away

Shopify apps are great. Someone else spends hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, developing functionality that you can use for just $30 per month. Apps on Shopify are so easy to install and so seemingly harmless that many store owners install dozens and dozens of apps - many of which they uninstall or never use. This approach can have serious unintended consequences.

In this episode we dive into a smarter approach to apps that can help any Shopify store owner. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How to determine if it’s better to use an app or hire a developer to hard code a desired functionality.
• What category of apps are best to consider now for Shopify
• What apps are almost always a bad idea
• How to tell if you have app conflict
• When should you consider apps vs. just switching to Shopify Plus
• Plus more!

It’s safe to say that your SEO approach is likely outdated. If you’re looking for the latest hack, trick or SEO loophole - you’re barking up the wrong tree. If you’re obsessing over ranking and traditional keywords then you may be off target.

In this episode we talk about why “intent” is now the most important word in SEO and content marketing. We look at how search behavior is changing. We also consider how Google is indexing different forms of content like podcasts and video transcripts and what that means to us as marketers.

In this episode we dive into:

• The BERT Update. What is and how it’s the nail in the coffin for old-school SEO.
• Why is intent the most important word for SEO?
• How REI tackles intent and what you should learn from their content strategies.
• Different content types - articles, podcasts, etc.
• How do you figure out what people are searching for and asking at different stages
• How to create content and rank that content for shoppers at different stages of the buying journey.
• Plus more!

Mike Ugino is the CMO and co-founder of Sellbrite a SaaS platform for marketplace sellers. Sellbrite was recently acquired by GoDaddy. In this episode we breakdown how Mike and his business partner Brian approached building the company with selling it in mind. We also talk about what the acquisition process was like including saying no to GoDaddy initially. In this episode we uncover some golden ideas for scaling and exiting your business including:

• How constraints lead to creativity
• What building it to sell means and looks like
• Hitting plateaus and how to grow again
• How to know if a deal is right and saying “no” when it isn’t….even if it means turning down GoDaddy
• How to keep your culture when you sell

• What’s the psychology behind storytelling?
• How good storytelling can increase the perceived value of a product by 2x or more.
• Common storytelling mistakes to avoid.
• The process MIG uses to get their overall story right…and then to get the story right for each product.
• How to turn customer testimonials into stories
• How do you deliver your story across email, product detail pages, and more.
• Storytelling resources

Jeremiah Allen has been driving growth for small-to-medium-sized eCommerce companies since 1997 — before the internet was cool — and has helped hundreds of company founders grow. While he still enjoys client work, in 2017, he began acquiring and building his own eCommerce brands.

In this episode, we get super TACTICAL. It’s a deluge of tips and tricks on how to improve your checkout process. There’s so much here you’ll probably want to listen to it a few times. Here’s a sneak peek at what we cover.

Tips:

• How to use a cart slide outs after you hit add to cart and why it’s effective.
• Simple works - larger fonts, larger buttons, larger thumbnails can all create big wins.
• What % of your shoppers should hit checkout and what % should complete checkout? If you’re below these numbers you have some work to do.
• How shipping options can increase checkout.
• 4 ways to drive post-purchase upsells - fast!
• What asks and offers should you put on your thank you page.
• How an email from the founder can be your secret weapon.
• How to handle payment options.
• Plus sooooo much more.

• How and why some merchants will shift some of their focus away from Amazon (we’re already seeing this with Nike).
• How merchants will shift their video strategy in 2020 (will we go short form or long form?)
• Why “profitability” may be the focus rather than scale in 2020
• How SEO is shifting away from traditional keywords in 2020
• How automation is working (and how it doesn’t replace everything)
• How new privacy laws and policies will make things harder (and easier) for marketers
• Plus more!

Molly Pittman is a bit of a legend in the digital marketing space. Bartender turned marketing intern for Ryan Deiss, turned VP of Marketing for Digital Marketer, turned entrepreneur - Molly’s story is an inspiring one. And she flat knows her stuff!

In this episode, we dig into some real gems. We do go pretty deep on what’s working now on Facebook, but we also talk about the benefits of building an in-house team vs. the benefits of an agency. We talk about entrepreneurial lessons and what life is like in Amsterdam (where Molly currently lives).

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Why being fluid might be the most important entrepreneurial trait…and why it’s important for digital marketers
• Why curiosity and fascination are crucial in our current marketing landscape
• What is CBO and how it’s impacting Molly’s Facebook ad campaign and what you should do about it.
• What are the 3 facets of Facebook’s new Quality Ranking and how to optimize your ads
• How low quality rankings can dramatically drive up costs or get your ads shut down
• Plus more

Charles Livingston knows a thing or two about rapid growth. He turned a supplement offer into a 12 million per year business. And now his Coffee Company - Lifeboost Coffee has grown 1,000% in less than 1 year.

What’s the secret to this kind of growth? Good Marketing and becoming a “yes” company.

Charles is also known for having his picture displayed in every single Ezra Firestone presentation. And this isn’t any old picture. It’s a shirtless pic of Charles all swole up wearing a stethoscope. Yes, there’s a story behind this that we dive into in the podcast.

More importantly, here’s a breakdown of the keys to rapid growth we breakdown on this episode:

• Become a “yes” company. How saying yes more has led to a shockingly low 1.5% refund rate for Lifeboost Coffee.
• Why clarifying your message is key to scale. ‘
• How to find your hook and your hone in on a powerful positioning statement
• How to engineer a great customer experience framework
• How to charge a premium and make customers gladly pay more
• How to encourage subscriptions and improve your “stick rate”
• What’s better - building a brand on Amazon or building a brand off Amazon?
• Plus more!

I recently saw Rachel speak at an agency event in New York City. I was blown away. Rachel has quite the resume.

Forbes listed Rachel as one of its “30 under 30 Who Are Changing The World”, Fast Company named her one of "The Most Creative People in Business", AdAge named her one of "The Most Creative People of The Year," Entrepreneur named her one of the "50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs," Inc named her to the “Female Founders 100,” and the list goes on and on. After being the Global Director of Digital and Social Media at Gap Rachel traveled the world for 100 days and then founded MikMak, the first native commerce platform for the social video generation.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Why big companies like Facebook and Google and Amazon are at war for first party data.
• Why Rachel believes in the philosophy that if you give up your first party data, you give up your brand.
• Rachel believes that today’s funnel starts at the consideration level first and that true brand building and loyalty start after the first purchase.
• Lessons from Kylie Jenner and Native Deodorant
• Rachel’s thoughts on Twitch and how it might be a glimpse into the future
• Social is the world's largest mall and point of end checkout...are you treating it that way?
• Plus much more!

Matt Clark is the Chairman and Co-founder of Amazing. Amazing is the company behind the most successful info product/training course of all time - Amazing Selling Machines. He and his partner Jason Katzenback also run SellerCon - one of the leading events for Amazon Sellers.

In this episode we take a quick look into what’s new on Amazon and then we dive deep into a subject I’m quite passionate about - making better decisions. I’m not sure of another skill more valuable than this one. This doesn’t need you need to always be right...you just need to get it right. We share a great Steve Jobs story in the podcast to illustrate this point.

Here’s a look at a few of the topics we cover:

• Confirmation Bias - and getting it right vs. being right
• Mitigating Risks - with lessons from Sarah Blakely and Richard Branson. Here Matt shares how he wasted $1million in Ad Spend when he could have tested with only $20,000. Also we discuss the the Fire bullets, then cannonballs framework from Jim Collins.
• Diderot Effect - This deals with how to handle success and how success can lead to bankruptcy. We also discuss 2nd and 3rd order consequences.
• Keep a decision log - Why and how and what this looks like for Matt.
• Some of Matt’s favorite books on the subject
• Plus more!

If you’re currently running ads to cold audiences - whether that’s on Facebook, YouTube, Google Display Network or anywhere else - you need to consider where you’re sending that cold traffic. Do you send it to your home page? Product detail page? Those options can work, but you need to test sending traffic to pre-sale content.

What is pre-sale content? To explain, I brought in one of the foremost experts on the subject, Lindsay Marder.

Lindsay Marder is a self-proclaimed content marketing nerd. She served as Managing Editor for Digital marketer for 4 years. Now she’s working with brands to spread their missions and engage with customers. She’s also the Co-founder of Digital Strategy Bootcamps with Molly Pittman and John Grimshaw.

Here’s what we cover on the show:

• What is pre-sale content?
• Why pre-sale engagement content is PERFECT for cold traffic, especially paid cold traffic.
• Real-world examples including the legendary 5 make up tips for older women - page used by Ezra Firestone and Boom by Cindy Joseph.
• How Third Love used pre-sale content to show women everywhere that they were putting on their bra all wrong.
• How do you identify topics using free Google tools and some simple online research?
• How to let customers write your ad headlines and content headlines for you.
• What can you learn from 5-star and 1-star reviews from your competitor’s products (this is so brilliant).
• Dos and Don’ts for the page itself
• Plus more!

What’s the ultimate metric you should measure to grow your business? Smart direct response marketers might say Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) or Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Advanced direct response marketers might say Lifetime Customer Value. But what does John Grimshaw say? Well, you’ll have to tune in, but I’ll give you a hint? It’s CVV.

John Grimshaw is traffic Marketing Director at Smart Marketer. He runs a consulting business called Data Centric Marketing. More importantly than any of that, he’s wicked smart.

I LOVE this episode. Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• What is lifetime customer value (LCV)? Why it’s important and why it’s so tough to calculate.
• How should you calculate LCV and why it’s such a head-scratcher for most entrepreneurs.
• Why LCV is often a flawed or imperfect metric and why Customer Value Velocity (CVV) is a better metric for scaling your business.
• Real world example of how to use CVV to scale?
• Why you should ignore the canned Lifetime value metric in Google Analytics (but we got nothin’ but love for GA in general. Just not this metric.).
• John’s favorite tools and resources for measuring CVV.
• Plus more!

Building an irresistible culture. Creating raving fans. Treating your customers like friends of 10+ years. These are some of the philosophies that’s taken LiveBearded from a single product lifestyle business to now a leader in the men’s personal care space.

The only thing more impressive than Anthony Mink’s beard is the culture of raving fans he and co-founder Spencer Bryce have built together.

Mink has gone from traveling to 30 countries in 7 years to now having a warehouse, office and an incredible team.

This episode is critically important to any eCommerce company. Especially as competition heats up and more and more products are becoming commoditized.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Why culture is the most valuable asset you have
• How adding value should be your objective ...but this doesn’t always mean cash value.
• Why every touch point matters and how to create memorable experiences
• How Live Bearded has created its own mottos and lingo that fans have adopted.
• Treat your customers the way you would a friend of 10 years
• Your main job is to build raving fans
• Some crazy Live Bearded stories
• Plus more!

Kiri Masters is the founder & CEO of Bobsled Marketing and marketplace institute and host of ECommerce BrainTrust. Author of Amazon Expansion Plan and new book Amazon for CMOs. We talk Amazon a lot on this podcast. I wanted to have Kiri on to discuss her philosophy both in how to expand and how to manage growth. We discuss some really interesting topics including:

• What CMOs of big brands know about Amazon that we don’t
• Who you need on your Amazon team
• How to assemble your own all-star Amazon team?
• How to take advantage of the full Amazon stack rather than just focusing on one area.
• Plus more!

Arri is a whizkid of sorts when it comes to messenger marketing and SMS marketing. At the ripe old age of 22 he’s leading his team at Conversmart and has worked with some pretty impressive brands including Tuft & Needle, Poo-Pourri and the Beard Club just to name a few.

I know very little about SMS marketing for eCommerce so I was super excited to have Arri on the podcast to learn how he does it. We both spoke at Ezra Firestone’s event in Seattle a few months ago. I was so impressed by his talk that we immediately scheduled a time to record the podcast.

Here’s a quick look at what we cover on this episode.

• Some stats around mobile usage related to text messaging that are important to note?
• How does SMS marketing compare to email marketing
• What are some of the top ways eCommerce companies should consider using SMS marketing
• How to grow SMS subscribers
• Most common SMS campaigns and tactics with some real examples
• How to combine SMS + email + messenger for mind-boggling results

To date, this was one of my favorite episodes to record. Partially because I love Amazon and love hearing behind the scenes stories from people who’ve worked there. Brad does share a couple of great stories.

Mostly I love this interview because the advice shared is pure gold. Brad Moss has a unique perspective on business and growth. At Amazon he served as the first business lead over all of Seller Central. To say he’s had the inside scoop on seller central would be a gross understatement.

I met Brad at an event in Miami. When I found out he was a former Amazonian I was eager to find out a few things - 1. A good Jeff Bezos story. 2. What is was like to work there. The stories he told when we met and the stories told on this episode did not disappoint!

In this episode we cover some pretty powerful lessons including:

• How Amazon thinks about and deals with areas of the business that stop growing. As you might guess, they don’t have warm and fuzzy sentiments here.
• How Amazon looks at analytics…this is truly brilliant. Understand how Amazon decides what data to measure, and what to change to get better results. This is part of the key to Amazon's speed and their ability to scale successfully.
• Two mindset shifts that Amazon looks for in their employees that will help instantly make you a better entrepreneur.
• A few funny (and potentially painful stories) about how little Amazon celebrates successes. These stories underscore the Bezos mantra that “it’s always day one.”
• Top mistakes Brad sees Amazon sellers making and how to avoid them.
• Plus more!

Paulina Masson is the founder of Shopkeeper and a longtime Amazon seller. She has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to pricing products. She understands the competitive forces behind pricing decisions as well as the psychological factors.

Ultimately you want to price in such a way to maximize total profits. While you should consider profit per transaction, that might not be the ultimate metric to try and maximize. Here’s what we look at:

• How to run pricing split test and why it’s so complex.
• How to price your products at launch including a free margin calculator
• How to balance competitive price factors with consumer perception and psychology
• When to end your price in 99, or 97 rather than 00. And how a premium product or your target market might influence this.
• 3 Types of Shoppers on Amazon and how to price for each
• When and how to use coupons - when to do a % off vs. a $ off
• How price impacts conversion rates
• Plus more!

Is AI coming for all of our jobs? As agencies and marketers, are we on the road to irrelevance? Probably not fully, but our roles and our perspectives better shift and shift quickly. Frederick Vallaeys is a brilliant marketer and programmer. He was one of Google’s first 500 employees and was on the original AdWords Quality Score team. In this episode, we discuss how agencies and marketers of the near future should think more like pilots or doctors, or coaches (my metaphor). Pilots increasingly rely on instruments and AI to do their job. So do doctors. But, deep expertise, strategy, and a human element are still really important. Here’s a hopeful but eyes-wide-open look at the future with Frederick Vallaeys.

• How Quality Score was yesterday’s black box and AI is today’s black box.
• Using Fred’s Two Levels of Automation - Leveraging things like AI and Machine Learning (ML) and then creating a layer of automation to keep the machines in check.
• How is AI most impacting marketing now and how will it impact marketing in the next few years.
• What new changes to Google Ads is Fred most excited about.
• Some of Fred’s favorite Google Ad Scripts?
• Automation can be simple. AI and ML are cool but you can achieve a lot with the simple stuff

A few months ago I delivered a talk at Social Media Marketing World 2019 on how to create a full funnel with YouTube ads. Feedback on the session was great so I wanted to share it here on the podcast.

Why YouTube ads? Watch time for “which product to buy” videos on YouTube doubled this past year. Nearly 70% of shoppers say they are open to learning about products on YouTube directly from brands. In this talk, we’ll explore 3 ways to utilize YouTube ads for growth. We’ll uncover 3 proven YouTube ad formulas to put the right video in front of the right prospect at the right time. We’ll also examine the best bidding strategies and winning campaign structures to implement for success.

Christian Zeron started selling vintage watches online in college. We started mainly with some free time, a lot of creativity and a serious watch obsession (he’s a self-described watch geek). He’s since leveraged that into millions of YouTube views, millions in sales and over 1.8 Million monthly page views… without running ads.

I’m an ads guy so my experience with organic YouTube is minimal. I wanted to have Christian on the podcast to walk through his story and to give us practical tips on how to succeed on YouTube with organic content.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How Christian uses Gary V’s jab, jab, jab, right hook in his approach to YouTube content.
• How he’s learned from and grown from his YouTube failures
• How he grew from 0 to 68,000 YouTube Subscribers and millions of views
• How he comes up with ideas for 3 shows a week that generates raving fans.
• How his new pivot was an epic failure and how he’s retooled to make it a smashing success.
• What watches are his personal favorite
• Why selling a $10,000 watch is easier than selling a $300 watch

Casey Guass started Viral Launch as a broke 24-year-old college drop out. The rest is history. It’s now one of the most beloved SaaS platforms for Amazon sellers. Like most great companies it’s gone through some serious product evolutions. But, the core has remained the same - helping Amazon Sellers rank better on Amazon.

In this podcast, we cover a lot…and get pretty nerdy with data. Here’s a quick look at what we discuss.

• 3 Amazon ranking factors you might be overlooking including considering your canonical url for better ranking on Google (we explain what this means in the podcast).
• How conversion rate factors into organic rankings and what to do about it.
• Why you’re likely focusing on the wrong keywords and how to shift your approach.
• Casey’s 6-step road map for ranking a product on Amazon - this is pure gold.
• Casey’s advice that he would NOT give to clients, but might try for selling his own products.
• Why you’re thinking about Amazon PPC is probably off a bit and how you should adjust.
• How to use brand analytics data for some “blow your mind” insights.
• Plus more!

In just a few short years Bill D transitioned from investment banker to single brand eCommerce store owner, to now owning and leading a portfolio of 10 eComm brands through his company, Elements Brands.

I wanted to pick Bill’s brain - one, because he’s just wicked smart, but, two, because I think all eCommerce store owners could benefit from his perspective. In this power-house episode we uncover:

• How Bill went from investment banker to owning a portfolio of growing eCommerce brands.
• What Bill looks for when he’s considering buying an eCommerce business (there are lessons here for you, whether you’re looking to sell right now or not).
• Why diversity of traffic is so important and what to consider here.
• What’s the metric to rule all metrics? No, it’s not conversion rate, or AOV, or Return on Ad Spend. (Hint: you’re probably ignoring it or not calculating it the way you should.)
• Why profits are sanity and revenue is vanity.
• How well document processes build value now and later.
• Plus much, much more!

I’ve always loved the psychology behind why people buy. It’s what originally attracted me to sales and marketing when I was in college. I’ve always loved the study of persuasive headlines and compelling video ads. I’ll admit that I think less about shipping than I probably should. If we want to talk about pure conversion rates and growth, shipping is a huge deal.

That’s why I decided to invite Akhilesh Srivastava, CEO of Fenix Commerce, on to the show to talk about improving shipping, both pre and post-sale. Akhilesh knows a thing or two about this topic. He’s worked for big brands like Walmart, Nike, Petco, Staples, and Microsoft. Prior to starting Fenix Commerce, he was in charge of shipping and returns for eBay. He’s spent the last 10+ years living in the data behind shipping practices both on its impact on sales and the costs behind it for merchants.

Here’s a quick look at some of the fascinating points we dive into:

• How studies of eBay customers consistently revealed that 2 of the top 5 reasons people decide to buy or not buy are related both to shipping costs and shipping time.
• How the “get it by” feature can improve conversions and reduce abandoned carts by 20% or more.
• How Men’s Wearhouse is using the “get it by” feature and how it’s now been identified as their largest top-line growth opportunity for 2019….wow!
• Practical tips to lower shipping costs and improve your speed.
• How the USPS can “fill in some gaps” for you and help improve your speed of shopping

Michael Jackness is the President & CEO of Terran.com - owner of multiple commerce brands including tactical.com, wildbaby.com, icewraps.com, color it and more. He’s also the host of the EcomCrew podcast and is a fantastic trainer and speaker. I got to hang out with Mike recently at an event and I was reminded of why so many people in the eComm space look up to him. He’s a brilliant marketer and eComm store owner. In this podcast, we dive into some of the most powerful growth levers available to commence merchants today and how to best use them.

• What are Mike’s tips and advice online extension? How important is it, and how and when should store owners consider it?
• Mike’s favorite tips for cross-selling & upselling because “you win or lose by what you do on the backend.”
• The most under-leveraged assets Mike sees in his students’ businesses?
• Favorite growth levers to pull when tasked with growing an eComm biz.
• Some of your favorite recent marketing wins from Mike’s many eCommerce companies
• Underutilized growth tips for Amazon.
• How important is User Generated Content (UGC) and how to get it.

My guest today is a man who needs no introduction. His podcast, Ecommerce Fuel, is one of the most downloaded Ecommerce podcasts on the planet. And Andrew runs one of the largest most successful private eCommerce forums - EcommerceFuel.com.

Each year Andrew sends out a poll to hundreds of successful merchants to get a pulse check on all things eCommerce. It covers an incredible number of details including growth rates, conversion rates, On-Amazon and Off-Amazon performance, ad performance, profitability trends and much, much more. I wanted to have Andrew on the podcast to dig into some of the most fascinating insights from the report and to share what we believe these insights mean to our community and to you as a merchant.

Here are a few things we cover:

• What is the future of drop-shipping as a business model?
• What surprises came from the on-Amazon growth stats that weren’t maybe as high as expected this year?
• The stark growth contrast between private label sellers vs. resellers
• The number #1 traffic source for successful eCommerce merchants
• The most popular vs. most effective ad channel…spoiler alert - they aren’t the same channel! The most popular channel according to the survey was nowhere near the most effective. Quite the contrary. We explore why.
• We explore Andrew’s spin on KPI - the Kardashian Performance Indicator…this is pretty funny
• Plus much more actionable data!

As some of you may know, my very first foray into online marketing was in the crazy world of SEO. That was circa 2004. After creating some wins for an online print shop I was hooked on SEO. In the early days of OMG Commerce SEO was our bread and butter. Now it’s still an important channel, but as Google has become more of a pay-to-play environment, more companies come to us wanting help with ads. But…ignoring SEO is a mistake. The best, biggest and enduring eCommerce companies have an SEO strategy and they execute it. My guest on the podcast today is one of the very first OMG Commerce employees, Brandi Johnston. She runs our SEO department and works with Amazon organic optimization.

In this episode we cover a host of practical tips and insights related to SEO including:

• How SEO had changed since 2013 and what that means for us today.
• What are the easiest SEO wins merchants should focus on?
• What are some SEO wins that take a little more work but still pay off in the long run?
• What is a rel=canonical tag and a cross-domain rel=canonical tag and could we get any nerdier?
• What is a zombie page and how doe they impact SEO results?
• What are the top SEO tools, blogs and extensions to consider?
• Plus more!

Connor Young is a bit of a health nut - and an exercise enthusiast. He’s also an entrepreneur.

He’s combined his passions into a powerful and growing commerce business called Ample Foods. Connor and his team are doing a lot of things right with Ample. What potentially stands above the other wins is that they have achieved two very successful crowdfunding campaigns. The first was a traditional crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, which set the platform’s record for highest funded project in the food category. The second was an equity crowdfunding campaign that raised just under $800,000 on a $15 million valuation.

If you’re launching a new product or considering a crowdfunding project or equity funding project you need to check out this episode.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• 3 elements of any great crowdfunding pitch
• Why your crowdfunding pitch needs to go viral and how Connor did it for Ample Foods
• Use crowdfunding both to launch a company or a new product
• Why Connor would skip hiring a PR firm for his crowdfunding campaign if he had to do it all over again
• How to use Facebook Ads and Influencers for a successful campaign
• How “all the work” is in the pre-launch
• How to set your goal and why it’s important to be strategic about your goal
• Why momentum especially in the first 2 days is so important.
• When to consider your campaign a failure
• Plus more!

The first glowing testimonial I heard about Joana Galvao was from Ezra Firestone. Next was my buddy, Jared Mitchell of Skincare by Alana. Joana was described as a designer who “Gets it” - who understands how design impacts online experience and sales.

She recently spoke at Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego and I heard she brought down the house. So I wanted her to come on the podcast and talk about how design and visuals impact shopping behavior. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• The branding triad and where most businesses fall short
• How color can influence experience and results…and a truly mind-blowing laundry detergent user experience that illustrates this beautifully.
• How we’re wired to make assumptions at the subconscious level about whether something is expensive or cheap, quality or shoddy…all within in seconds. You need to incorporate this for your products!
• How your product packaging should engage all of the senses.
• How to make your copy more visually appealing
• Joana’s 5-Step Process that every brand should go through for better performance.
• Plus more!

Austin Brawner is a legend in the eCommerce space, namely because his podcast - Ecommerce Influence - is one of the most popular in the industry. Austin has worked with, and is friends with, many of the top DTC brands in eCommerce - MVTM Watches, Pura Vida Bracelets, Blenders Eyewear, Four Sigmatic and many others. In fact, we reminisce on the podcast about a dinner we both attended in San Diego with the founders of those companies all together in a room hanging out and swapping stories.

What separates eCommerce brands that scale vs. those that stall and plateau? What separates the Bonobos and Away Luggage companies of the world from an eCommerce company that hits a ceiling at 5 or 10 million per year in sales? Austin has a unique perspective on this topic, having walked alongside dozens of the biggest eCommerce brands of our generation.

In this episode Austin and I break down the following:

• What you need to know about AOV and LTV and how it directly impacts your ability to scale.
• How product market fit impacts scale potential - and why combining a hungry market with a product people want to identify with is so important.
• Demand Generation vs. Demand Capture…which is better and which lends itself to scale.
• The road map to building a team and scaling your business
• Why a CEO’s role is mainly about people and product and what that means.
• How and when to hire an agency.
• Why it’s hard to scale single SKU businesses and why line extension is imperative.

My buddy, Johnny Pinto has a unique product, a unique story, and a unique approach to eCommerce growth. He’s the CEO and Co-Founder of BoomBoom. BoomBoom produces an essential oil based inhaler that refreshes and energizes you. These types of inhalers are super popular in South East Asia, and BoomBoom is determined to make them popular in the US too. The story of BoomBoom is chock full of fantastic marketing and entrepreneurial lessons.

John got his start in business working for an LA start-up that would later become SnackNation which is now a 200 person thriving company. When John joined he was one of 3 employees. That’s also where he met our mutual friend and host of the Ecommerce Influence podcast - Austin Brawner.

I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and I’m confident you will too. Here’s a look at what we cover:

• How John has masterfully used bootstrap marketing and “sampling” to propel his company’s growth - you should too!
• How John and his wife Chelsea got on Shark Tank.
• What he learned from being in the tank and why the ultimately walked away from a deal.
• How the went viral on Twitter AND ended up on Ellen.
• How he’s perfected the art of boot-strap marketing. Most ecommerce companies overlook this to their detriment.
• Their philosophy for building long-form PDP pages that convert!
• What’s next for BoomBoom!

Ro Bhatia has some serious eCommerce chops. He started his career at Google, then spent 5 years at Yahoo, then worked for eBay with merchants, then ran the dot com division for Home Depot. Now he’s the Chief Product and Strategy officer at Limelight Ecommerce.

In this episode we dig into growth tactics that you probably either haven’t thought of or aren’t leveraging properly. Ro has a wealth of experience and he dishes it out in this episode. Here’s a quick look at what we cover:

• If you’re using chat on your site, you’re probably making one fatal flaw. Here’s how to fix it quickly, plus Ro’s favorite chat tool.
• Cross-sells and upsets make up 30% of eCommerce sales! We talk about Ro’s favorite ways to boost cross-sells, upsells and downsells.
• In the new relationship economy cost of acquisition is high, and bumping AOV is critical. If you don’t have a high enough AOV your marketing options will be limited.
• How to properly use data to create buckets of users to show them the right message at the right time (plus an embarrassing eBay story).
• How to delight your customers like Netflix does…(and how “stale” is a kiss of death)
• How to build loyalty and beat friendly churn.
• The best remarketing cohorts to build and how to communicate with them differently.
• How to put all of this together to create a compounding growth effect!

I just got back from a trip to the Amazon HQ in Seattle. Chris Tyler, our Director of Amazon Services, and I were there visiting with our Amazon DSP reps (more on DSP in a minute). We recently found out we were the fastest growing agency in 2018 in terms of DSP spend. We got to preview new audience targeting options, discuss new ad options coming soon to the Amazon ecosystem and more…Blow your mind kinda awesome stuff.

If you’re not familiar with it, Amazon DSP (stands for Demand Side Platform) is a way to run display ads on and off Amazon targeting Amazon shoppers. With DSP you can run retargeting ads targeting people who’ve visited your product listings on Amazon but didn’t purchase. You can also target people who’ve visited your competitors' products on Amazon but haven’t purchased. And there are a TON more audience targeting options to consider. Here’s a quick look at what we cover on the episode:

• Highlights from our Amazon trip including dogs, domes, and, of course, great coffee!
• What about Amazon DSP makes it “blow your mind awesome?”
• What are the top audiences to target with DSP and where should you start?
• What kind of return can you expect from DSP?
• How to use DSP to build loyalty with Recapture, Reorder and/or Cross-sell/Up-sell campaigns.
• How does Amazon DSP compliment Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands - the core of Amazon advertising?
• Plus more!

My guest today is John Li, co-founder of Pickfu. John is a really sharp dude, with a very unique service. A service that started as a side project and became a standalone business sort of on accident…more on that in the episode.

Pickfu is a consumer feedback tool that allows you to get real customer feedback in minutes. This has driven insights into product page enhancements, better product imagery, better ads, better Amazon listings and more.

In this episode, we dive into some of the top learnings John and his team have gained from the myriad of tests run on their platform. Some are quite surprising. I’m confident that you’ll take away a few things you need to test or change to improve your sales on and off Amazon. Here’s a highlight of what we cover:

• Surprising learnings from testing images and how your biases might be hurting your results on and off Amazon.
• 3 keys to better descriptions on your Amazon listings that consistently outperform the norm.
• How to find out what features and benefits a customer is really buying when they buy your product so you can highlight those features and benefits in your ads.
• How there are probably some things that you think are “good enough” that are probably costing you sales.

• How to properly run a test and how to ask consumers good questions. If you ask bad questions, you’ll get bad feedback...the kind that’s unhelpful and not actionable.

• Plus more!

Steve Chou is an eCommerce podcast host, eCommerce store owner, and former microprocessor designer. In fact, the microprocessor running the phone in your hand was likely designed by Steve’s team. All of that to say, Steve is a pretty smart dude.

I recently saw Steve in San Diego at Social Media Marketing World where we were both speaking. We had lunch and talked a little about Chatbots. I was instantly intrigued. Chatbots and Messenger ads have huge potential to create more helpful, more personal experiences with your brand. All with the goal of increasing sales and building loyalty.

Here’s a quick look at what Steve and I discuss...

• The rules behind using Messenger as a business. Facebook is very strict here. If you don’t know the rules, you’ll likely get yourself into trouble.
• How often should you send promotional messages on Messenger?
• When to run true Messenger Ads vs. when you can run other ad types on Facebook but tie in Messenger in a stealthy way (this will save you some money on ads).
• How Steve is using Messenger bots to cut down on customer service calls by 70%.
• How Steve sees using chatbots in the future.
• Steve’s favorite tools for chatbots.
• Plus more!

My guest on this show is a legend in the eCommerce space. He’s the founder of the Shopify Agency, Ethercycle. He’s the host of the wildly popular Unofficial Shopify Podcast. And, he’s just an overall really smart dude.

When most ecommerce companies consider conversion rate optimization they usually immediately think of split testing, multivariate testing, cart optimization, etc. BUT, most merchants fail to ask a very important question - “where should I start with my conversion optimization efforts?” And, according to our guest today, the answer to that question is rarely - if ever - split testing.

I knew the general direction of this interview before we started to record, but I didn’t know specifics. I was blown away by the simplicity, but also the power of Kurt’s suggestions. EVERY store owner would benefit from going through the exercises discussed in this episode. Here’s a quick glimpse at what we covered:

• The power of surveys for your best customers and how a recent survey totally transformed a brick oven seller.
• How to ask questions of your best customers including Kurt’s 3 favorite questions to ask.
• What information to glean from people who visit your site and don’t convert.
• How to harness the power of heat maps and scroll maps.
• The little known “coffee shop gift card” test for watching how users interact with your site.
• Some of Kurt’s favorite tools for testing
• Tips for split testing if you chose to go that route.
• Plus much more

Video ads on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram continue to rank among the best performing ads right now for ecommerce companies. The difference between a great video and an OK video is HUGE. To really scale on any of those platforms though, you have to know how to craft a video that converts.

Enter Andrew Eckblad.

Andrew Eckblad was killing it with online video before it was the cool thing to do. Andrew has spent the last 10 years serving as Frank Kern’s video guy. He’s also the Manager of Video Marketing and Production for Kartra. And he’s the founder of ConvertViews.com a collective of direct response video editors. His videos have directly grossed over $100 million in product sales.

Here’s a glimpse of what Andrew and I cover in this interview:

• Andrew’s simple but profound 2 keys to a video that sells
• Nuances to consider for videos that work on Facebook vs. Videos that work on YouTube
• How to apply the “do I care” test to your videos.
• The importance of pacing, transitions, and on-screen text
• Using the principles of a good headline to craft the perfect video opener
• How to use pattern interrupts
• How Andrew got the job working for Frank Kern
• The difference between videos for gurus vs. videos that sell ecommerce products.
• How to get people to take action
• Plus much more!

This is one of my favorite interviews of late. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did….then go out and create some killer videos!

Brett

There probably isn’t a more consistent rule in business or in life like the 80/20 rule. Usually, 80% or more of your results and success come from just 20% of your efforts. I’m all about finding the 20% of activities, changes, etc. to focus on to deliver the biggest impact.

In this episode, I bring back my business partner Chris Brewer to outline the 7 key areas you should focus on to grow your business both on Google and on Amazon this year. These are 7 factors that should provide a big return for you.

We’ll cover a variety of topics including:

• How and why you should invest in YouTube ads
• What to expect and what to consider with Google’s automation and smart bidding options
• How the SEO practices that everyone has forgotten may be a secret weapon for you.
• How Amazon is pouring more money and time into their ad platforms and what that means for growing your business.
• Plus more!

Ross Beyeler knows a thing or two about ecommerce sites that convert. He’s built a few sites that I really love. Charley Hustle (mostly because I’m a huge Chiefs Fan and KU Jayhawks fan), Bottle Keeper, Johnny Cupcakes, Assoline and more.

We get into several key design, UX and conversion rate optimization topics and examples including:

• Home page optimization and how the approach shifts if you have a large vs. small SKU count
• Storytelling in ecommerce and why successful ecommerce brands are great storytellers
• Product Detail Page (PDP) “must haves” for a better experience and better conversions
• Creating better collection and improved navigation
• 4 conversion killers to avoid like the plague
• Site search and recommendations for doing this better especially for larger SKU counts
• How to mine site search data for improvements
• Plus more!

Tom Wang is a true Amazon success story. He builds a very successful brand on Amazon after a pretty big crash and burn experience. Literally a “burn” experience as his first venture was in hoverboards.

In this episode we breakdown Tom’s success and talk about what is relevant for growth on Amazon in 2019. We tackle Tom’s advice for some pretty critical Amazon tasks.

• How to get reviews now and not violate Amazon’s terms of service.
• How to diversify traffic and boost organic rankings
• Product line extension and how to launch your next product on Amazon
• How to successfully use Amazon Giveaways and lightning deals
• Plus more!

Don’t miss it!

Matt Ward built an Amazon business from nothing with a goal of selling it for $1million in 12 months. His goal once the sale was final was to work on stuff that mattered more to him….He reached his goal of selling his company and now he’s running a podcast and writing books on some pretty interesting topics. He’s had the privilege of interviewing some pretty stellar people including one of my marketing heroes - Seth Godin.

Matt is a fascinating person and extremely bright.

In this episode we get into some pretty interesting territory, including:

• How Matt scaled so quickly,
• What AMZ sellers should consider now and what the future holds

• What’s next for Amazon
• What’s Amazon’s goal with Echo devices and owned brands (like Amazon Basics) and who will continue to win as Amazon’s domination grows.
• Voice Search and Smart home - and what it means for Amazon and Google and YOU.
• Facebook Portal and our predictions on it.
• Why 10x results doesn’t require 10x effort
• Plus, more...

The Cyber Five (Thanksgiving - Cyber Monday) this year broke all kinds of records and was an interesting departure from years past in several ways. In this episode I welcome back to the podcast my business partner, Chris Brewer. We look at this holiday shopping season from a few different perspectives. We talk in general terms about how our clients who are mostly in the $5 to $50 Million per year in sales did during the Cyber 5 and after. We also looked at trends and data from the largest ecomm companies.

By the numbers….a Look at the Industry as a Whole.

Here are just a few of the highlights we look at in this episode.

• Thanksgiving weekend was up 23% - total spend was $24.2 billion. Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
• Mobile spend was $10 billion of that (approaching half) and that’s up 44% from last year. So doubling the growth rate of the holiday trend as a whole.
• Main Drivers of online sales
• • Email at 26% - up 2% YoY
  • Paid Search at 22% - up 6% YoY
  • Social - minimal impact 1.3% of sales….(remember this stat is from the big guys, not mid-sized companies).
  
  

Surprises from our clients:

• Black Friday was our clients biggest day by a long shot with Cyber Monday finishing 2nd.
• Social continues to be a big investment for our clients but getting the same results as last year has been difficult mainly due to rising ad costs.
• YouTube big as well - one of the top 3 channels for several of our clients.

Winning Formula:

We talk about what our most successful clients did well so you can properly plan for next year. We look at several winning tactics including:

• Email - build, cultivate and prime your email list for Cyber 5. Multiple email reminders - often 3 per day.
• Start early - Wednesday even. We found our most successful clients started sales or at least started promoting sales early. Consumers have finite dollars to spend, get their attention early and you’ll have a better chance to grab your share of wallet.
• Build your retargeting audiences early - our clients who had the most success had large lists of people who’ve visited their site in the past or viewed a YouTube video who we could then retarget.

If you’re like me then you’re not overly familiar with affiliate marketing. It is a bit of a mystery for a lot of us marketers and ecomm entrepreneurs.

However it does have some huge positives:

• Scalable: Once you attract the right affiliates and have the right offer, you can go from 0 to thousands of orders in no time.
• Predictable - As you know, I’m a PPC guy. I’ll always love PPC, but there are variables there. With Affiliate marketing you pay the same cost per acquisition every time giving you some predictability.

My guest on this episode is Nate Lind. Nate is an eCommerce entrepreneur, a marketer and the founder of the Online Seller’s Summit. He’s also a guy who knows a thing or two about affiliate marketing. Nate’s best single day using affiliate marketing was $4.6 million in sales. He now has a student doing up to $1million in sales per day from affiliate marketing. Not only has Nate built multiple businesses off the profits from affiliate marketing, he also built a tool to better manage affiliate marketing called Offer Profit. This tool was so successful - he sold to Limelight.

On the podcast we discuss what it takes to succeed with affiliate marketing:

• Keys to a good offer
• Making the math work - how to structure your affiliate offers to both motivate affiliates and maximize your growth.
• Customer lifetime value and Nate’s favorite marketing mantra
• The best businesses for affiliate marketing
• How Nate lives a 4 hour workweek
• Why getting punched in the mouth is OK
• Plus more!

Recently I had a chance to catch up with my friend and fellow entrepreneur, Dave Woodward. Dave is the Chief Business Development Officer at ClickFunnels. He’s a motivator, a marketing mastermind, and an all around awesome guy.

I first met Dave in 2009 or so when my business partner, Chris Brewer, and I were partnering with Russell Brunson (Co-Found of ClickFunnels) on a project.

It’s been amazing watching click funnel scale from just an idea to a $200million + per year software as a service (SaaS) company in just a few years.

So how do you achieve that kind of growth? That’s what I wanted to hear from Dave. Here’s a look at what we covered. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did!

• Philosophy and mindset that allows for meteoric growth
• How the founders of Click Funnels got the team side of things right in order to scale
• How ClickFunnels acquired customers at a profit or breakeven when approximately zero SaaS companies have achieved that mark
• Marketing channels that are the most important to the growth of ClickFunnels
• What makes for a great eCommerce funnel
• What’s next for ClickFunnels
• Plus more!

Interested in better email campaigns, more persuasive product detail pages and more irresistible videos? Maybe you need to start incorporating a little humor.

By now we’ve all seen a Harmon Brother’s video (Think Poo Pourri and Squatty Potty) and we’ve seen the magical effect those videos can have when launching a product….Or maybe you recall the simple, Dollar Shave Club video that launched an empire that Unilever bought for $1 Billion. But...we’ve also seen some funny ads that did zero selling. Sometimes we can’t even remember what product the ad was for after we saw it, but it did make us laugh.

So what’s the difference? How can you use humor to actually sell?

A few months ago I was speaking at a Blue Ribbon Mastermind event run by Ezra Firestone and I heard another speaker and immediately fell in love with her topic - using humor to sell more.

Lianna Patch is the Founder of Punchline Copy. She has a wealth of experience as a standup comedian, and improv actor, and a copywriter for eCommerce brands. In this episode we dive into the following:

• How to blend humor with persuasion for better conversion rates
• Where you should use humor first
• What ecommerce companies properly use humor
• How a jewelry store leverage humor for double digit improvements in conversion rates
• How to use humor in emails even if (or especially if) your product category is “boring” or even “B2B”.
• Plus more

Check it out!

If you want an inside look at Amazon you’d be hard pressed to find a better person to talk to than James Thomson co-founder of Buy Box Experts and the wildly popular Prosper Show.

In this episode we get into the details of what sellers on Amazon should be thinking and doing right now on a variety of important topics including:

• Sales Tax! This can be some scary stuff. We talk about the Wayfair Supreme Court decision, the recent ruling in California and what it all means to you. Not the sexiest of topics, but one that could kill your business if you’re not taking action now.
• Brand equity. There’s never been a better time to build a brand on Amazon. We’ll talk about what it means to build and try to hold on to brand equity on Amazon.
• 1p vs. 3p vs. Hybrid - what’s best and why.
• Most common mistakes sellers are making right now and how to avoid them
• How Amazon approaches their private label game and when are they coming for your category.
• Prosper Show 2019 details
• Plus more!

The best eCommerce companies I know are on a quest to constantly improve conversion rates. Every lift in conversion rates means more money for product development, or traffic to grow your brand or just more money for your pocket.

On this episode I interview Jon MacDonald, CEO of the Good. Jon and team have worked on Conversion rate optimization projects for companies like Nike, Xerox, Adobe and the Economist as well as many other ecommerce companies.

Jon’s perspective and approach are unique and I’m confident you’ll pick up several CRO nuggets including:

• The 4 types of data that should influence your conversion rate optimization
• What data to ignore vs. what’s critical and actionable
• Must have elements for UX
• Product detail page essentials
• Making the complex simple and bringing products to life on your site
• Great eCommerce examples for UX to pay attention to
• Plus more

In recent years SEO has lost its luster as a “hot” traffic source. Panda and Penguin updates have made it all but impossible to “game the system” and trick Google into ranking your site. That said, organic traffic can still be insanely powerful for your brand. SEO can help drive relevant traffic at nearly every stage of the shopping funnel - helping your build a following and sell more stuff.

While there are no viable SEO tricks now, there are proven strategies that will help you rank well and rank relatively quickly.

While I’ve been an SEO practitioner since the early 2000s and even though OMG Commerce offers SEO services for eCommerce - I still wanted to have Dale Bertrand on to talk SEO. Dale is the Owner and Digital Strategist for fireandspark.com and he knows his SEO.

Here’s a look at the SEO topics we cover in this episode.

• Link building that works in 2018 and beyond. Quality backlinks are still one of the most powerful ranking signals in Google’s algorithm. The catch is that Google is better than ever at sniffing out and ignoring or penalizing spammy backlinks. In this episode we discuss the right way to approach link building.
• Building content without being a writer. My guess is that creating content isn’t your favorite activity. But good content is CRUCIAL for effective SEO strategies. We discuss how to generate content without the pain of writing.
• How to make category and product detail pages rank. Category and product detail pages are your money makers, but getting them to rank can be a challenge. We discuss how.
• The value of “pillar content” and how to create it. Without “pillar content” your SEO will be at a disadvantage. We discuss what it is and how to go about creating it.
• Technical structure for a solid page. We nerd out a little bit on technical SEO, but not too much.
• Plus more!

This episode is a treat both in terms of topic and guest. I have my long-time business partner Chris Brewer on to talk about the most important topic of the year for most eCommerce companies - Holiday Sales.

For most eComm companies the Holiday season will determine whether you have a good year or a not so good year. For some companies every day of holiday sales is the equivalent of a week or two the rest of the year. Having a great holiday season requires planning, attention to detail and some creativity.

I see things lining up for most eCommerce companies to break sales records this Holiday. Will you be one of them?

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Getting Your Google Ad Campaigns Ready - getting your search, shopping and brand campaigns ready to “make hay” this holiday season.
• Getting Your YouTube Ads Ready - Do you have remarketing in place? Are you capitalizing on your competition? Do you have a unique holiday message? All of this and more is important to maximize YouTube results.
• Getting Your Amazon Ads Ready - Amazon is poised to CRUSH IT this holiday season. Are your ad campaigns ready?
• Getting Your Email Marketing in Place - Email marketing could be your x-factor this holiday. Remember to segment and remember the rule of 3!
• Planning your promotions - Get your promo calendar finished now!
• Staying on Top of Everything - We talk about ways to stay on top of everything and make sure nothing is missed this holiday season.

Here’s to making Holiday 2018 your best ever...

There are two critical ways Patent Law impacts online merchants:

My guest for this episode is Patent Attorney, Rich Goldstein. Rich is a wealth of knowledge on patent law and has carved out a niche in the eCommerce space. I am NOT a legal expert, to say the least, so I was really excited to dive into this topic and learn more myself.

Here’s a look at what we covered:

• When should you consider a patent and how much do they cost?
• What’s the number 1 reason for a patent?
• What are the 2 factors to see if a product is patentable?
• Talk about the different enough test?
• 2 Types of patents and when to consider each type
• How to protect against knock off and specifically protecting yourself on Amazon.
• How do you avoid patent infringement?
• Top resources and guides for patents and IP.

I’m convinced that the most successful eCommerce companies in the years to come will be those who build a brand.

Building a community, telling a brand story that resonates, building products that people are passionate about, differentiating from the competition - all are part of what it asked to build a successful brand.

Companies that just learn a few tricks and tactics to sell more on Amazon or those that rely on just a few google traffic hacks, or those who only sell products that are available from other sellers are in a much weaker position than those who build a brand. That’s why I was super excited to bring on the show a brand building powerhouse like Rick Cesari. Rick has been involved with some pretty stellar brands over the years including the George Foreman Grill, GoPro Cameras, Sonicare Toothbrush, Oxiclean and others. He knows what it takes to position and market a product to make turn it into a massive winner.

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Using direct response ads principles and building a brand at the same time.
• Tips to building a great brand including feedback loops, crafting a USP, getting to the benefit and more. Learn how Rick helped the Juiceman brand go head-to-head with Krups and Braun and generate $75 million in sales in just 4 years.
• How to differentiate. We both love Sally Hogshead’s quote “Different is better than better.”
• Tips for great videos. One of our favorite topics and an area that Rick is an expert in. We talk about what makes for a great video.
• Using Ricks brand-building and marketing tips on Amazon.
• Plus more

Whether you’re planning to sell your eCommerce business in 1 year or 3 years or never, the information in this podcast is pure eCommerce gold. Regardless of your exit plans, it’s important to know how to make your business more valuable now.

My guest for this episode is Joe Valley, Director of Brokerage Services at Quiet Light Brokerage. Joe is a seasoned eComm expert and a former business owner. As a broker of eCommerce businesses his perspective is unique and insightful. Here’s a look at what we discuss:

• What is my eComm business worth? Everyone wants to know this. Joe lays out some quick guidelines to keep in mind.
• The 4 Pillars of a sellable company. The beauty of these pillars is that they also will help you run a better business NOW!
• Biggest mistakes people make when they decide to sell?
• Biggest success story of someone who sold?
• Most important financial metrics to determine value?

• The story of profitability and why cash flow isn’t the whole story
• Trend analysis and how it impacts value
• How long does it take to sell an eCommerce business
• How does a company being on Amazon vs. not being on Amazon impact value?
• Plus more!

• How to approach building a new funnel?

• Keys to a successful funnel

• Diagnosing and improving struggling funnels

• Building a community and a following like a Boss

• Plus more!

• Millennials prefer to pay with debit cards

• Only 1 in 3 millennials have credit cards

• Not having credit cards impacts the way millennials shop online and most don’t like the hassle of applying for a card.

• How outerwear company 686 raised AOVs by 22% and increased total sales by 5% by offering payment plans

• How athleisure store Inflow Style raised AOVs by 40% and increased totals sales by 8% by offering payment plans

• How and when to pivot as an entrepreneur

• The 3 ways to grow a business and how payment plans can help with all 3.

• Plus the history of credit cards (call me a nerd, but this was interesting to me)...

• Why customers actually prefer page takeovers to other exit pops (and the numbers back it up)

• Headline tips from marketing masters and why your current headlines might suck

• How Neil Patel gets more conversions on his properties

• Headline formulas to get more clicks, signups and sales

• Lead magnet ideas that drive conversion vs. lead magnets that lead to eye rolls.

• Plus more conversion optimization gold

• How your prospects are using YouTube and how that should influence your strategy

• The best audiences to target with your ads

• 5 Tips to creating great video ads that hook prospects and get them to take action

• YouTube for Top of Funnel - the bulk of this talk is about remarketing, but YouTube has some great benefits for Top of Funnel which I outline here.

• Targeting options - If you go Top of Funnel what kind of targeting options should you consider.

• Plus more!

• Why you need to spend time perfecting your Product Detail Pages (PDPs). As a reference see what companies like Bliss World Cosmetics, Kelty and Solo store have created amazing PDPs.

• How to build community by leveraging micro influencers and by creating amazing content.

• Payments! How understanding Amazon Pay, Apple Pay and Consumer Financing can help you improve checkout and increase conversion rates.

• Plus more!

• How Shopify Stacks up in the ecommerce platform ecosystem

• Shopify myths that need to be busted - such as “Shopify is bad for SEO.”

• Dynamic check out - Now that Amazon’s one click checkout patent has expired Shopify has built their own version...and it’s awesome.

• Now Fraud protection is built in and available for those who use Shopify pay.

• Want to get all of your marketing app data in one place? You can with Shopify’s new Marketing dashboard.

• Kit how you can have a legitimate automated “bot” employee

• Thinking of replatforming? What questions should you ask before you do?

• Plus more!