What if you could double your business with Facebook over the next year?

That’s exactly what happened for Oral Essentials when they doubled-down on their FB advertising and focused on scaling up.

Oral Essentials CMO, Justin Maddahi, joins us today to discuss some of the game-changing tactics that have helped him grow the business with Facebook. He talks about why he’s shifted to nearly all user-generated content, how he approaches creative testing, and why he’s managing all aspects of Facebook in-house.

If you’re trying to scale up your advertising, you won’t want to miss this episode.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:15 The birth of Oral Essentials and what separates them from other oral care brands.
• 8:11 Justin’s journey from science major to CMO.
• 9:48 Why Justin decided to expand the business beyond Amazon and start owning his own channels.
• 11:56 The Facebook tactics that helped Oral Essentials see massive growth, including what Justin says you must start doing right now.
• 13:00 Why shifting to user-generated content is key to Facebook success.
• 16:01 How Oral Essentials got into influencer marketing and the main metrics to look at when deciding which influencers are best for your brand.
• 20:44 Justin’s approach to A/B testing Facebook ads and how much he recommends tweaking an ad before giving up on it.
• 23:45 Why it’s worthwhile to sacrifice a lookalike audience for the sake of testing.
• 25:12 The reason Justin hasn’t tried Facebook’s new Dynamic Creative Testing feature yet.
• 27:24 Don’t get hung up on targeting -- creative is what changes the game.
• 29:29 From ad agency to in-house: why Justin first outsourced his ads, and then decided to bring then back in.
• 31:37 Pro tip: engage with your audience when they comment on your ads.
• 32:47 Oral Essential’s growth strategy: why they’re expanding into retail stores and the impact their increased Facebook budget has had on retail sales.
• 35:00 The two most important things Justin’s learned while doubling the business over the last 12 months.
• 38:41 If you truly want to see success with your Facebook ads, get help from an expert.

Links And Resources

• Oral Essentials
• Upfluence
• Episode 173: The Five-Step Process To Optimize Your Facebook Ad Account (the RCAB-P Process) 
• Book: Wizard of Ads
• justin@oralessentials.com 
• Ecommerce Coalition
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

If someone tells you the secret to success is working as much as you possibly can, they’re wrong.

Successful, productive people don’t work more, they work on fewer things that have greater impact.

Today we’re joined by productivity expert and ex-world champion poker player Chris Sparks, who is also the founder and CEO of The Forcing Function.

Chris helps entrepreneurs identify what they truly want in life (step #1 to increasing your productivity) and then works with them to achieve their goals in the most effective way possible.

We talk with Chris about how to figure out what you actually want, the importance of leveraging your unique assets, and why reflection is the missing ingredient to progress.

Episode Highlights

• 6:44 Introducing Chris Sparks and how his obsession with productivity began at the poker table.
• 10:12 Why Chris decided to forego a job opportunity at Ford to become a professional poker player.
• 14:56 The double-down inspiration for Chris’ new book: Experiment Without Limits.
• 19:46 What sets Chris’ action-oriented (and free) productivity workbook apart.
• 22:33 The first question Chris asks when he starts working with a new client.
• 23:38 The difference between peak performers and those who are not.
• 25:42 Common myths about what productivity actually looks like.
• 28:39 Why it’s better to take one small step forward every single day rather than make big changes all at once.
• 32:12 How to figure out what you actually want.
• 38:18 What to do when your business has incredible momentum, but it’s costing you the lifestyle freedom you dreamed it would give you.
• 44:28 The importance of reflection to your productivity and progress.
• 47:04 The biggest weapon in any entrepreneur’s arsenal.
• 48:23 Tools Chris uses every day that increase his productivity.

Links And Resources

• The Forcing Function
• Free Workbook: Experiment Without Limits
• Performance Assessment
• Blog: 100+ Resources for Optimizing Your Productivity and Performance
• Oura Ring
• Chris Sparks on Facebook
• @SparksRemarks on Twitter
• @SparksRemarks on Instagram
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Do you ever get into a rut with your marketing ideas?

If you’ve been spinning your wheels looking for a new way to move some inventory and surprise and delight your customers, you don’t want to miss this episode.

Meri Geraldine, founder of the sustainable jewelry brand Gardens of the Sun, joins us to share the creative way she moved $25K in product in just a few hours.

Meri also talks about building an ethical supply chain, ingraining her personal values into the ethos of her business, and how she grew from a small Etsy shop into a full-blown ecommerce store.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:55 Introducing Meri and how she transitioned from working as a sustainability consultant in Indonesia to creating Gardens of the Sun.
• 9:18 How Meri’s quest to meet everybody in her supply chain led to the creation of a sustainable gold mining cooperative.
• 12:15 From an Etsy shop to a full-blown business.
• 14:49 The unexpected joys and challenges of growing a successful business.
• 16:38 How Meri incorporates her values into the ethos of her business.
• 18:53 Benefits of having a Bali-based business.
• 21:16 Maximizing your VIPs: How Meri sold $10K of inventory live on Instagram in just a few hours.
• 25:55 Smashing her monthly sales record with a specialty live sale on Facebook.
• 28:01 How Meri manages invoices and missed payments during live sales.
• 31:53 The other advertising levers Gardens of the Sun uses.
• 33:05 Lessons learned as a sustainability consultant that made Meri a better entrepreneur.
• 34:31 The 3 things Meri is trying to grow in the future: sapphires, creatives sales, and marketing through storytelling.
• 36:59 Resources Meri recommends to other business owners and marketers.

Links And Resources

• Gardens of the Sun
• Twitter: @GardensOfTheSun
• Instagram: @GardensOfTheSun
• Kurt Elster's Unofficial Shopify Podcast
• Unofficial Shopify Podcast Insiders FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UnofficialShopifyPodcast/
• Ecommerce Coalition
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Hey advertisers, Facebook doesn’t care about you.

It cares about its users.

That’s why it recently launched a new tool called the Customer Feedback Score.

Facebook is using this tool to crackdown on drop shippers and other advertisers whose products don’t deliver.

Today we’re going to talk about where to find this tool, how to interpret the data it provides, and what you can do to improve your score.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:40 How Facebook is cracking down on drop shippers and shoddy products with its new tool.
• 8:25 Where to find you Customer Feedback Score in your account.
• 9:36 What you’ll see when you access your Customer Feedback Score and how to understand your score.
• 11:40 Reviewing positive feedback: what your customers want more of.
• 13:46 Identifying opportunities for improvement.
• 17:30 Don’t let your score drop too low or your ads, and your page, will be banned from Facebook.
• 18:55 As the big 3 ad platforms work to create better experiences for consumers, you’ve got to plan ahead and shift your approach accordingly.

Links And Resources

• The Facebook Customer Score
• Facebook and Instagram Pro Ad Buyers Group
• Episode 215: Practical Tips From A Founder Who Got Slapped By Google…And Recovered
• Article: Facebook ramps up customer feedback surveys to crack down on misleading e-commerce ads
• Article: Introducing Checkout on Instagram
• andrew@foxwelldigital.com
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @andrewfoxwell on Twitter
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Sometimes it takes a lot of failures before you make it big.

Today’s guest is no stranger to failure -- he once invested $250K in a company that never even launched.

But now, Josh Meyer is the CEO and co-founder of Brickell Men's Products, the fastest-growing company in Maine and the fastest-growing skincare company in the world.

Josh joins us to talk about the challenges Brickell faced with their rocketship growth, why he’d never raise money for a business again, and his love-hate relationship with Amazon.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:44 Introducing Josh and his path to becoming the CEO and co-founder of the fastest-growing company in Maine.
• 9:45 How Josh runs a business based in Maine, while living in Florida.
• 12:23 The moment Josh realized Brickell’s success was real.
• 14:00 Lessons learned from a $250K business flop.
• 17:32 Some of the challenges of being a fast-growing company.
• 20:39 How Josh assesses Brickell’s success and growth potential, and why he doesn’t trust Google Analytics.
• 24:56 As you spend more money on Facebook, you need to be critically examining the leads you acquire.
• 27:58 Brickell’s approach to customer loyalty programs and how it’s shifted as they’ve grown.
• 31:10 Why Brickell is willing to sell their soul to capture email addresses.
• 33:27 How Josh’s approach to email has evolved as the business has grown.
• 36:49 Why Josh thinks spending money on social media influencers is total BS.
• 39:01 When it comes to rolling out new products, if you’re going to fail, fail quickly.
• 41:14 Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer: how Amazon contributes to Brickell’s continued success.
• 44:54 Resources that have helped Josh along the way.
• 48:30 Now Hiring: Brickell is looking for a Marketing Director.
• 51:18 Three things you can do right now to start growing your business even faster.

Links And Resources

• Brickell Men's Products
• Eight Saints
• josh@brickellmensproducts.com
• Hiring: Marketing Director for Brickell Men's Products
• Klaviyo
• Upwork
• Asana
• Monday
• Noah Kagan: What I Learned Growing an 8-Figure Business
• Private Intensive Workshop
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

When I ask business owners what’s holding them back from making their next big hire, you know what they tell me?

Hiring sucks.

I’ve heard this time and time again.

Over the last month, I've gone through the process of hiring a marketing apprentice. I used an approach that’s helped me successfully hire many people over the years -- without stress.

Today, I’m going to share my entire approach with you, so you can make your next great hire, painlessly.

We’ll discuss how to create a job post that will attract great talent, how to conduct the pre-interview evaluation process, how to conduct a really great interview, and more.

Episode Highlights

• 6:59 The first step in the hiring process: figuring out what you’re looking for.
• 8:05 Don't make this mistake when creating your job listing.
• 9:01 How to write a job post that will attract great talent.
• 12:44 Writing your post to attract the right people, repel the wrong ones, and make it easy to disqualify applicants.
• 15:03 Outlining the skills and responsibilities you’re looking for in your job post that connect with your company ethos.
• 16:20 Some places to consider posting your job.
• 18:50 How to filter through your first round of candidates.
• 20:09 Round two of the application process: the test task.
• 23:27 How requiring a test task helps you make the right hire and why it’s not too much to ask, especially for remote positions.
• 25:58 The weeding out process after completion of the test task.
• 27:14 Round 3: getting to know your top candidates before the interview.
• 28:19 A lesson we learned at the interview stage and the change we’ll make in the future.
• 30:07 How to approach the face-to-face interview and some questions to ask.
• 34:17 Why we always request a Kolbe score before making a hire.
• 36:09 Extending an offer, onboarding, and beyond.
• 38:48 During this entire process, stay true to your company’s values.

Links And Resources

• Want access to all of our job post templates and resources? You can find them in the Coalition.
• We Work Remotely
• Dynamite Jobs
• Handshake
• Craigslist
• AngelList
• Indeed
• Ecommerce Fuel
• FlexJobs
• RemoteOK
• Kolbe Index
• Episode 205: Becoming A Brand: Instagram Moms And Peruvian Product Misadventures
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

What would you do if your organic traffic dropped by 90% overnight?

That’s exactly what happened to today’s guest earlier this year.

Mike Colavita, founder of Fat Buddha Glass, joins us today to talk about his experience being on the receiving end of a big Google slap and how he's recovering from an organic search drop. He shares why his site was dinged in the first place and the changes they’ve implemented since then to make nearly a full recovery five months later.

What at first seemed like the worst possible situation turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to Mike’s business.

I know you're going to enjoy this episode!

Episode Highlights

• 5:00 Introducing Mike Colavita and his entrepreneurial journey. 
• 6:45 The birth of Fat Buddha Glass.
• 9:20 How to raise brand awareness when you’re banned from practically every channel.
• 12:10 The turning point from part-time business to full-time endeavor.
• 15:19 Finding new marketing channels through content partnerships and placements.
• 16:41 The dire effect of the Google algorithm update on Fat Buddha Glass.
• 18:55 Why Google dinged Fat Buddha Glass and why Mike says it was actually one of the best things that’s ever happened to his business.
• 21:09 What mistakes Fat Buddha Glass was making with their SEO strategy and how they’ve fixed them.
• 24:45 Content is more than just your blog.
• 25:59 The strategies Fat Buddha Glass implemented to recover from its Google slap.
• 30:40 Google reveals what they’re looking for when evaluating web content.
• 32:06 The role blog posts played in improving Fat Buddha Glass’ rankings and why they prioritized product descriptions first.
• 34:57 Tools Mike recommends that helped him on his road to SEO recovery.
• 40:36 The value of having a phone number on your website and how it builds trust.

Links And Resources

• Fat Buddha Glass
• Klaviyo
• Google's SEO Guidelines
• Ahrefs
• Google Docs
• Wunderlist
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• The Ecommerce Coalition
• Grasshopper
• mike@fatbud.com
• @FatBuddhaGlass on Instagram
• Episode 179: Making A Comeback After The Google Medic Update
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

If you’ve been wondering how to improve your Facebook ad creative, you’re not alone.

Great Facebook ad creative really sets successful brands apart. But, there’s not a lot of information out there about the fundamentals of building a system to generate ongoing creative and how to test whether it’s actually working.

So today we’re breaking it down for you. We talk about how to approach creative if you’re spending $5000 a week or $100,000, the questions to ask before you start testing, what’s working right now in terms of creative sizing, and some new tools you must start using.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:48 The amount of Facebook ad creative you need to be testing, and why it’s easier to create content now than ever before.
• 8:16 Clarifying the correlation between how much you can test and your overall budget.
• 9:28 A quick and simple way to pull together UGC and create an ad.
• 13:18 The most common issue businesses run into with putting together new creative.
• 15:22 A system for new creative development that will scale up, whether you’re spending $5K a month or $50K a month.
• 17:21 How often you should be putting new content into your funnel.
• 18:26 The frequency to look for that signals it’s time to update your Facebook ad creative.
• 20:06 What’s working with ad sizing right now and the new tools you need to know about.
• 24:54 The first question to ask yourself before you start testing your ads.
• 27:32 A step-by-step process for testing your creative and what to look for to determine success.
• 29:35 How much money to put behind your creative testing.
• 30:28 Which audiences to test your ads on.
• 31:39 Dynamic Creative Testing and why Andrew believes this is the most efficient way to test your ads.

Links And Resources

• Slack
• Canva
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

If you can sell water online, you can sell anything.

Today’s guest, who has been managing social strategy in the direct-to-consumer space since he was 15 years old, helped Hint water make a killing when he was their Director of DTC business.

Recently featured on Forbes 2019 list of 30 under 30, Nik Sharma is an expert at DTC marketing.

We chat with Nik about what he’s invested in now, his thoughts on building a brand, and his insightful tips on how to write scroll-stopping ad copy.

The DTC space continues to evolve and Nik is at the forefront. I know you’ll learn a lot during this episode just like we did.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:51 Nik’s fascinating career journey, starting at age 15.
• 9:07 How Nik successfully managed to sell water online with Hint.
• 12:14 The role of storytelling and the willingness to test new ideas in Hint’s marketing success.
• 14:50 The company structure that allowed Nik to accelerate Hint’s growth.
• 16:55 Changes Nik has seen within the direct-to-consumer space and the three things right now that are driving revenue.
• 22:06 How to evaluate whether you’re copy is going to be scroll-stopping.
• 26:34 Haus’ unique offering that made them so appealing for Nik to invest in.
• 31:07 Components of building a strong community as a brand.
• 35:33 Where Nik would start if he built his own brand today.
• 38:28 The important data to evaluate before investing in a company and the tech stack Nik recommends to access it.

Links And Resources

• Haus
• The Quench
• VaynerMedia
• AdEspresso
• Brooklinen
• Dirty Lemon
• Rex by The Infatuation
• Looker
• Glue
• Mixpanel
• Text Nik: 917-905-2340
• @mrsharma on Twitter
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @AndrewFoxwell on Twitter
• Ecommerce Profit Summit
• Foxwell Digital Courses (use code FB50 for $50 off)

Many business owners tell me one of the reasons they started their own company is to have the freedom to travel.

However, as their business grows, travel becomes stressful and they feel like they have less freedom, not more.

Today we’re helping you get that freedom to travel back by sharing our strategies for stress-free and productive traveling. We both have a lot of experience traveling and working, and we want to give you our tips for enjoying yourself, and getting stuff done, while on the road.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:08 The travel mindset and setting expectations.
• 6:59 The pace of business travel vs. ongoing travel.
• 7:59 A key thing to do on travel days that will help reduce stress.
• 10:47 In order to keep the freedom to travel as your team grows, you need to protect each other’s time.
• 13:42 The travel kit to put together to help you be more productive.
• 15:24 Andrew’s addition to his travel kit that’s been a game changer for staying calm on the road.
• 16:02 Tips for making the most out of long flights and drives.
• 19:05 Andrew’s road trip recipe for success.
• 21:50 What to do right away when you land in a new city to get grounded and ready to be productive.
• 25:20 Some travel apps/access hacks.

Links And Resources

• Headspace app
• Airbnb (if you haven't used Airbnb before, this link will give you $40 off)
• Work Hard Anywhere app
• LiquidSpace
• Breather
• LoungeBuddy
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @AndrewFoxwell on Twitter
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

The Golden Era of the direct-to-consumer business may very well be over.

But there are still ecommerce brands out there who are crushing it and in today’s episode we explore some of the reasons why.

Former Shopify Plus blog editor Aaron Orendorff has written a ton about ecommerce and the direct-to-consumer craze.

Today we have a thoughtful conversation about what it means to build a ecommerce brand in the current climate, what some fast-growing, successful companies are doing to show up in a more unique way, and how a bigger picture process around customer acquisition is helping them succeed.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 7:00 Introducing Aaron Orendorff and his two distinct professional lives.
• 10:26 Aaron’s transition from Seminary to Shopify Plus.
• 16:03 Why the Golden Era of direct-to-consumer is over.
• 18:26 How do small ecommerce brands with limited products succeed at shifting categories to scale up?
• 24:18 Engineering AOV from the start to the end of your sales funnel.
• 28:58 Good loyalty program tactics.
• 29:59 The three ingredients to a successful loyalty program.
• 33:37 Some companies who are killing it with their rewards programs.
• 37:23 Why it’s better to drive paid media to content rather than your product page.
• 41:52 SEO as part of the long game for the success of your ecommerce brand...is it right for everyone?
• 44:13 Which brands should invest in content and which ones shouldn't.
• 48:58 You can’t build a brand around itself, you build it around your community.

Links And Resources

• MarketingProfs
• How direct-to-consumer brands can avoid startup purgatory (VentureBeat)
• The State of D2C Marketing in 2019 (Yotpo)
• GHOST Loyalty Program
• @AaronOrendorff on Twitter
• @WilsonGHung on Twitter
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @AndrewFoxwell on Twitter
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Some Ecommerce Brands Make It Big While Others Stall Out, It’s A Fact.

But there’s really no big mystery behind why this happens.

A few months ago I was interviewed on a podcast by my good friend Brett Curry on the Ecommerce Evolution Podcast. We break down what separates e-commerce brands that scale up versus those that plateau.

After re-listening to the episode, I decided to share it with you. Brett and I talk about a variety of things, including average order value and lifetime value, and how that directly impacts your ability to scale up. We talk about demand generation versus demand capture: which is “better” and which lends itself to being able to scale. We talk about the roadmap to building a team and scaling up your business, how your role as a CEO changes as you grow, and much, much more.

I had a great time chatting with Brett, and I hope you enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 8:25 Why I’m so passionate about dissecting why some brands scale and others don’t.
• 9:56 The KPIs that separate the businesses that can scale from those that can’t.
• 11:18 Demand capture vs. demand generation and which one will allow you to scale.
• 14:51 Factors I look for when evaluating a product’s potential for growth.
• 16:53 How a passionate market can contribute to success.
• 21:03 Why having competitors in your market is a good thing.
• 21:44 Average order value and lifetime value: why they’re important and what to look for if you want to scale.
• 24:48 How to evaluate CPA across different channels and the other metric I recommend examining.
• 27:30 It’s OK if your business doesn’t scale — and this is why.
• 30:28 Growing your business by expanding your product line.
• 34:20 A true entrepreneur falls in love with their customers, not their product.
• 35:47 Great founders know when to ask for help.
• 37:17 Why business founders need to become experts at their marketing channels before handing over the reins.
• 41:23 How a CEO’s role shifts as the company grows.

Links And Resources

• ECommerce Evolution Podcast
• Business Lunch Podcast
• 2PM
• Episode 189: What’s Actually Working In SEM And On YouTube In 2019 (with Brett Curry)
• Profit Summit Intensive Workshop
• The Ecommerce Coalition
• Training: What’s Working With Google Ads Right Now
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Email is one of the most trusted ways to drive revenue in ecommerce.

But I still see too many people leaving money on the table and missing out on low-hanging fruit.

Today I’ll walk you through how to do a two-day email overhaul that will help you increase your revenue.

We’ll start by making sure your email service provider and integrations are set up correctly, create a branded email template, ensure you have a great offer that’s capturing tons of leads, and identify the email flows to build that have the biggest financial impact for your business.

This is the exact email overhaul process I’ve used with my clients to help them bring in $10K from email in just one week after set-up.

Can’t wait to hear your results!

Episode Highlights

• 5:06 How to ensure your email service provider is set up correctly.
• 6:20 The importance of tracking viewed products.
• 7:30 Other common mistakes Austin sees with ESP setup and integrations.
• 10:20 Creating an email template for your brand (without a designer).
• 13:45 Lead capture: the questions to ask yourself to make sure you’re set up for success.
• 14:55 How to come up with a good offer.
• 16:38 Deciding which tool is right for your lead capture.
• 18:55 The email flows that have the biggest financial impact for your business.
• 21:25 Simple tests to run that will improve your email performance and a tip for using profile properties to evaluate the success of your email sequences over time.
• 25:25 Tips for improving your subject line copywriting.
• 26:55 Using plain text emails to drive clicks.
• 28:00 Adding animated GIFs to emails with Soapbox.
• 28:50 Merging your content with commerce.

Links And Resources

• Klaviyo 
• Omnisend 
• CartHook
• ReCharge
• Justuno 
• Soapbox
• Private Intensive
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

If you’ve been on Facebook in the past week, you’ve probably seen an ad from Buffy.

What started as an idea to disrupt the bedding industry has grown into a multi-million dollar business.

Today Buffy co-founder Shoaib Kabani joins us to cover a range of topics.

We talk about everything from product development, to the importance of testing, how landing pages can improve your funnel, and what performance KPIs you have to be thinking about as you scale. , how he thinks about scaling up their business, what's worked for them.

Whether you’re a business owner or an ecommerce marketer, you’re going to get a lot out of this episode.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights: 

• 4:49 How a desire to change the bedding industry led to the creation of Buffy.
• 6:21 The training Shoaib got from his start in consulting that’s helped him as an entrepreneur.
• 7:35 Developing the initial idea and concept for Buffy: providing value and values.
• 9:31 The process of validating the concept online, on social, and in person before going all in.
• 12:48 How do I make this a no brainer for the consumer?
• 14:16 What’s worked for Buffy from a creative perspective and changes they’ve made as they’ve scaled.
• 18:40 Some of the unintended consequences of having a free trial offer.
• 19:56 Unique KPIs Shoaib looks at on a daily basis.
• 22:00 A funnel analysis tool that’s been a game changer as Buffy’s scaled up.
• 23:10 The materials and brand values that make Buffy stand out in the bedding industry.
• 25:05 How Buffy uses landing pages to enhance its sales funnel.
• 28:09 Addressing customer lifetime value when you have a limited number of products.
• 32:08 Shoaib’s approach to launching into new ad channels, specifically with affiliates and podcasts.
• 37:14 How the Buffy founders set their budget for testing new channels and concepts.
• 39:10 What you, the ecommerce business owner, need to be thinking about to be successful.
• 41:25 Exciting insight into what’s next for Buffy.

Links and Resources: 

• Buffy
• Heap
• Shoaib on Instagram: @ShoaibKabani
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

It’s our goal to help our clients succeed, but even the experts get it wrong sometimes.

As we've seen in the first six months of the year, things have changed wildly within Facebook. Today, Andrew shares some of the advice he’s given that hasn’t worked out. And while he’s never intentionally led anyone astray, things don’t always go as planned. Andrew talks about five times his advice has failed on Facebook and the lessons learned from those mistakes.

We hope by sharing some of the worst Facebook advice of the year we’ll prevent you from making any of these mistakes yourself.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights: 

• 3:02 Why we’re talking about failure.
• 6:11 Budget advice: what we’ve said before and how we’d correct it.
• 10:35 Creative is the most important part of the FB ad equation, bottom line.
• 13:15 The gut check question to ask yourself before you run with your creative content.
• 14:55 Honesty around product market fit when you have a very specific niche.
• 18:40 Campaign budget optimization: it’s still the Wild West.
• 22:00 Not all lookalike audiences are created equal.
• 23:42 How to determine if your audience is viable for creating a lookalike audience.

Links and Resources: 

• Episode 191: How An Artist And Engineer Turned Business Owners Built A “Cult” 
• Episode 196: The Ugly Truth About Why Your Business Isn’t Scaling
• Episode 198: How To Create Winning Content On Facebook And Instagram
• Episode 202: How I Scaled From $500/Day To $15,000/Day In Ad Spend In 30 Days
• Andrew on Twitter: @andrewfoxwell
• Austin on Twitter: @a_brawn
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

Q3 is officially here. What are you doing to prepare for the second half of the year?

For my team, the end of the quarter means it’s time to get out of the day-to-day grind and do some bigger picture planning.

Every three months we do a quarterly business offsite, where we take a step back so we can review our goals, and set new ones, that will help us move forward in the right direction.

Today we’re talking about the process we follow for our quarterly business offsite and how you can host one of your own. I’ll share the questions we ask to review the previous 90 days, how we capture ideas for improvements, and how we come up with our north star goal for the upcoming quarter.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 2:49 Why Austin’s excited to get off the grid and plan for a new quarter.
• 4:44 How to start preparing for your quarterly business offsite.
• 9:35 Questions to ask as you prepare for your offsite that will help your employees take ownership in the business.
• 12:35 A question that will help narrow in on the vision for the upcoming quarter.
• 13:29 Bonus question: what is one unique way we could create more monthly recurring revenue for the business?
• 14:59 The themes we use for each day of our offsite.
• 15:49 The big question Austin asks himself when reviewing the numbers from the previous quarter.
• 18:11 Questions to answer during a freewriting session to gain clarity on where you want the business to be one year from now.
• 19:10 A more structured alternative for creating a vision for the future.
• 20:59 The freedom and flexibility this kind of planning can give you, both in your work and in your life.
• 25:20 Reviewing your website and evaluating your funnel with critical eyes.
• 26:24 Day two of the quarterly business offsite: goal setting for the next 90 days and identifying your “north star.”
• 30:49 How to successfully wrap up your offsite (don’t forget to celebrate!).

Links And Resources

• Book: The Goal
• Chris Rudolph: Freedom Business Family
• UserTesting
• Episode 203: Why You Should Stop Selling Yourself Short And Think Like A Billionaire
• Andrew on Twitter
• Austin on Twitter
• The Coalition
• Brand Guild
• Foxwell Digital Courses
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Join The Coalition

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I have something really exciting for you. For the last year and a half I’ve been coaching business owners and marketers inside a group called The Coalition. What launched as an experiment became a game changer for our over 150 members. 

If you’d like me and my team of expert marketers and ecommerce operators to coach you on your journey to scaling up your ecommerce business, this is your opportunity. We go in-depth on all the topics we talk about on this podcast and provide actionable training every single month. You’ll also get one-on-one coaching from me to help you grow your business. 

Head over to JointheCoalition.com to learn more. Can’t wait to see you inside.

It’s not always easy to maintain high-quality standards, especially when you want to sell organic, sustainable, and made-in-the-USA products.

Costs get high and sometimes that means concessions have to be made.

But sticking to your guns can lead to major payoff, especially when your customers have your back.

Today we chat with Jen and Kevin Long of Noble Carriage, who share the amazing story of how they built their dream company selling organic and sustainable baby clothes.

They share how they built and nurtured a supportive community, how this community helped them in the creation and launch of their own products, their challenging product sourcing journey, and how they’ve stood by their strict sustainability standards along the way.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:23 A game changer quick win tip on A/B testing.
• 8:35 How the search for safe and sustainable baby clothes led to the creation of Noble Carriage.
• 10:26 How Noble Carriage engages with its online community of moms in a way that provides support and establishes trust.
• 15:05 The importance of slowing down and examining your profit margins when evaluating your business and your ability to scale. 
• 18:39 What Jen and Kevin would have done differently in the growth of their business and why it’s so important not to get stuck living in the grind.
• 21:26 One of Kevin’s big lessons: If you’re going to fail, fail fast.
• 23:04 The value of understanding their audience before creating and launching their own products.
• 26:59 The challenging journey of sourcing organic and sustainable baby clothes.
• 31:09 The role of Noble Carriage’s community in their successful product development and launch.
• 33:08 How Noble Carriage marketed their new product across multiple channels. 
• 35:03 What’s working with email for Noble Carriage.
• 37:17 Jen’s plans for expanding their ambassador program.
• 40:51 Some exciting new Noble Carriage products coming later this year to Noble Carriage that people must watch out for and when these will be released.

Links and Resources:

• Noble Carriage
• Noble Carriage on Instagram: @noblecarriage
• Episode 149: The Art Of Doing Less But Better W/ Greg McKeown [Part 1]
• Episode 150: The Art Of Doing Less But Better W/ Greg McKeown [Part 2]
• Ecommerce Profit Summit (formerly the Brand Growth Experts Intensive)
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

Join the Coalition

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I have something really exciting for you. For the last year and a half I’ve been coaching business owners and marketers inside a group called The Coalition. What launched as an experiment became a game changer for our over 150 members.

If you’d like me and my team of expert marketers and ecommerce operators to coach you on your journey to scaling up your ecommerce business, this is your opportunity. We go in-depth on all the topics we talk about on this podcast and provide actionable training every single month. You’ll also get one-on-one coaching from me to help you grow your business.

Head over to JointheCoalition.com to learn more. Can’t wait to see you inside.

Quizzes are powerful tools used by some of the most successful companies I work with.

They can help you capture more emails, display personalized product recommendations to your customers, and increase your conversion rate. In today's episode, I'll share my tips on what companies can see the biggest gains from a quiz, who is killing it right now with their quiz funnels, and how you can build one for your business today.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 5:46 Why the most successful companies Austin works with use quiz funnels.
• 6:47 The company or product type that’s a perfect fit for a quiz funnel.
• 8:13 If you have a lot of organic traffic, here’s an example of how a quiz funnel can turn visitors into subscribers.
• 10:44 The companies quiz funnels don't necessarily work well for.
• 12:51 Two examples of companies that are successfully using a quiz funnel.
• 15:31 What sets successful quizzes apart.
• 16:17 Figuring out the right questions to ask.
• 19:10 How to create your first quiz.
• 21:31 Austin’s recommended quiz building tools.

Links and Resources:

• Typeform
• Klaviyo
• Annemarie Gianni Quiz
• Annmarie Gianni thank you page
• Beardbrand
• The Ecommerce Marketing Quiz
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners, and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo 

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Brex

Most online brands will tell you their biggest challenge is cash flow, right? Usually, you’re paying an arm and a leg on interest and fees to finance your inventory and seasonality.

Brex is the only corporate credit card built specifically with the needs of ecommerce business in mind, with crazy-good terms: Net 60 float, with no personal guarantee. Your card limit’s based on your monthly sales, not your credit score—and, oh yeah, there’s absolutely no interest and no fees. Whatever you spend on day 1, you have a whole 60 days to pay back. What you spend on day 2, you have another 60 days to pay, or day 61. Brex’s whole goal is to shrink that window between you paying for shipping or inventory and the revenue that’s going to generate, so you can keep growing. Brex is really built for ecommerce—it’s amazing. Right now, Brex is in the US only, so if that’s you, sign up with the code “influence” and a $250 credit will be added to your account and Brex will waive your card fees for life.

Got to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/brex to sign up.

Have you stopped to consider the next step in your entrepreneurial journey?

Perhaps you own a six or seven figure business now, but where will you be in 10 years? Will you still be living in the grind? Or are your sights set on acquiring companies and building a portfolio?

Today’s guest has done it all. He’s built his own business, was the CMO of Karmaloop, worked as a consultant, and now is the CEO of AutoAnything (just one of the businesses in his current portfolio). Drew Sanocki is back to talk about this journey and his recent entry into the acquisition side of ecommerce.

Drew will share his insights on buying businesses, establishing company culture, hiring the right team, and why these days he’s more focused on creating alignment than hustling.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 2:53 A quick win with Facebook’s new cost cap bidding.
• 9:55 The perspective Drew gained from a trip around the world and how it led him to think like a billionaire by focusing on acquiring assets rather than hustling.
• 13:14 How Drew made his first acquisition.
• 16:39 Drew's journey from Chairman of the Board to becoming CEO of AutoAnything.
• 18:50 What it's like to run a $100 million dropshipping company.
• 20:09 Comparing life as the CMO of Karmaloop vs. the CEO of AutoAnything.
• 23:29 The importance of making the right hires if you want to be a successful CEO.
• 25:28 Drew’s approach to building a strong company culture.
• 28:58 The impact of a company’s size on its culture.
• 32:17 How long it took Drew to make cultural changes once he took over as CEO.
• 34:36 Drew’s ebb and flow between lifestyle businesses and managing a company at a larger scale.
• 37:59 A lesson in the importance of thinking like a billionaire.
• 40:01 What you need to know now in order to succeed as an investor in the future, and how to use your current skill set to your advantage.
• 48:25 How Drew made the decision to make a change in his professional life.
• 51:05 The importance of rest, setting boundaries, and work-life balance.
• 53:57 How being starved for resources helps you to prioritize.
• 54:59 OKRs: What are they and how they’ve helped create alignment and focus within Drew’s business.
• 58:15 Why Drew is fired up about direct mail in 2019.
• 1:00:12 How Drew manages to run three companies at once.

Links and Resources:

• Netflix Culture Deck
• AutoAnything
• PostPilot
• GoSimple
• Nerd Marketing
• Book: Powerful by Patty McCord
• Book: Measure What Matters by John Doerr
• Book: Deep Work by Cal Newport
• Drew on Instagram: @drewsanocki
• Episode 183: How To Manage Your Time Strategically While Growing Your Business
• Episode 116: 4 Profitable Email Strategies You Can Swipe For Your Brand
• Cost Cap Facebook Bidding
• Klaviyo
• Ecommerce Profit Summit (formerly the Brand Growth Experts Intensive)
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Join The Coalition

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I have something really exciting for you. For the last year and a half I’ve been coaching business owners and marketers inside a group called The Coalition. What launched as an experiment became a game changer for our over 150 members. 

If you’d like me and my team of expert marketers and ecommerce operators to coach you on your journey to scaling up your ecommerce business, this is your opportunity. We go in-depth on all the topics we talk about on this podcast and provide actionable training every single month. You’ll also get one-on-one coaching from me to help you grow your business. 

Head over to JointheCoalition.com to learn more. Can’t wait to see you inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo 

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Shoelace

Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores build brand equity, increase conversions and grow revenue using Customer Journey Retargeting by showing the right ad to the right people at the right time.

Shoelace is excited to announce its all-new integration with Klaviyo. This integration lets you seamlessly synchronize your marketing activity across your email and retargeting channels. Boost your email campaigns by automatically retargeting email recipients across multiple channels. Increase campaign engagement by showing ads to recipients who didn’t open or click an individual campaign. Most importantly, drive growth by effortlessly retargeting all of your Klaviyo lists and segments with personalized messaging.

To find out more visit ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and supercharge your email campaigns today.

When you talk about scaling up in ecommerce, Facebook ads are often the first thing on most business owners’ lists.

Today Andrew shares the exact steps he followed to help a client scale from $500/day to $15,000/day in ad spend in 30 days. He talks about what you need to do before you start scaling and the steps to follow as you grow.

If you’re ready to dive deep into the weeds of your Facebook ad account, build new audiences, test new placements, and explore bidding options, this episode is for you.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:22 Words of caution when you hear someone say there’s only one way to do something.
• 9:20 How to establish your baseline before you start scaling up your Facebook ads.
• 11:31 Preparing to address the creative gap as you scale.
• 13:32 What’s worked for Andrew when it comes to images on Facebook and Instagram.
• 15:50 Building your arsenal of audiences: what to test as your ads scale.
• 17:45 Andrew's thoughts on how Facebook creates value-based lookalike audiences and potential audience overlap.
• 20:42 The definition of horizontal scaling.
• 21:05 The importance of testing different audiences to find the one that works best.
• 23:55 How to set up an interest CBO with help from Google Analytics.
• 25:25 Setting up your remarketing audiences as you scale.
• 28:09 The most valuable thing that worked for Andrew’s client: top of the funnel Instagram stories.
• 30:15 Andrew's process for setting up your Facebook and Instagram placements.
• 32:00 How to bid effectively as you scale.
• 35:10 How to approach ad account monitoring so you don’t kill your own progress.
• 36:43 Campaigns with CBO vs. other campaigns: when to use it and when you might not want to.
• 30:07 Austin shares his experience in running a campaign CBO as an experiment.

Links and Resources:

• Episode 198: How To Create Winning Content On Facebook And Instagram
• Episode 191: How An Artist And Engineer Turned Business Owners Built A “Cult”
• Episode 146: Why Your Ads Get More Expensive As You Scale (And What To Do About It)
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Shoelace

Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores build brand equity, increase conversions and grow revenue using Customer Journey Retargeting by showing the right ad to the right people at the right time.

Shoelace is excited to announce its all-new integration with Klaviyo. This integration lets you seamlessly synchronize your marketing activity across your email and retargeting channels. Boost your email campaigns by automatically retargeting email recipients across multiple channels. Increase campaign engagement by showing ads to recipients who didn’t open or click an individual campaign. Most importantly, drive growth by effortlessly retargeting all of your Klaviyo lists and segments with personalized messaging.

To find out more visit ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and supercharge your email campaigns today.

Advertising plays a big role in any ecommerce strategy. So what do you do if your brand is banned from advertising on Facebook, Google, and Amazon?

That’s the challenge faced by Chad Lio, Director of Marketing for Veritas Farms, a company that sells CBD. While not technically regulated by the FDA, there are still many limitations when it comes to advertising CBD.

Today Chad joins us to talk about Veritas Farms’ multifaceted marketing approach, and how they successfully drive sales, despite being banned from some of the top ad platforms. He’ll share what’s working for them with influencer marketing, media buying, SEO, and more, and the critical role research plays across their entire strategy.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:48 Chad’s experience in digital marketing and ecommerce.
• 6:12 Multifaceted marketing: what it means to be the Director of Marketing for a company that sells both online and in retail brick and mortar.
• 8:02 Navigating the wild, wild west of selling CBD.
• 12:10 The detailed process Chad and his team follow to find the right influencers.
• 15:32 The importance of doing your research, especially when it comes to SEO.
• 19:15 Content Marketing: deciding what channel you want to go after first.
• 22:15 Chad’s #1 piece of advice for content marketing in ecommerce.
• 25:10 How Veritas Farms uses the 80/20 rule in their content marketing strategy and the role media buying plays for them.
• 27:54 What to look for when seeking publishers for your sponsored content.
• 29:57 The marketing strategy that's most effective for Veritas Farms.
• 31:47 Questions to ask before you start focusing on conversion rate optimization.
• 35:35 The email sequence that’s most successful for Veritas Farms, and a new Klaviyo feature you won’t want to miss.
• 37:50 Veritas Farms lead generation strategy and the importance of segmenting your email list.
• 41:35 Why research is a critical component if you want to successfully scale up.

Links and Resources:

• Veritas Farms
• Episode 129: Content Marketing – What You Need To Know With Nat Eliason
• Hotjar
• Visual Website Optimizer
• Crazy Egg
• Klaviyo
• Chad on Instagram: thechadlio
• Chad on Twitter: @thechadlio
• Chad on LinkedIn
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Shoelace

Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores build brand equity, increase conversions and grow revenue using Customer Journey Retargeting by showing the right ad to the right people at the right time.

Shoelace is excited to announce its all-new integration with Klaviyo. This integration lets you seamlessly synchronize your marketing activity across your email and retargeting channels. Boost your email campaigns by automatically retargeting email recipients across multiple channels. Increase campaign engagement by showing ads to recipients who didn’t open or click an individual campaign. Most importantly, drive growth by effortlessly retargeting all of your Klaviyo lists and segments with personalized messaging.

To find out more visit ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and supercharge your email campaigns today.

When I’m working with my private coaching clients our conversations inevitably end up focusing on how to become a more effective executive.

In today's episode, Andrew and I share four rules to follow that will help you make better decisions as an executive and run your business, team, or agency more effectively.

These rules include tracking and understanding your time, focusing on doing more of the right things, setting and reviewing your goals often, and asking yourself what the business needs from you. We'll also share how we've implemented these rules in our own businesses and how they've made us more effective.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:49 Rule #1: Respect and understand your time.
• 5:04 How to efficiently track your time and what to do when once you understand where you’re spending it.
• 6:56 How finding his “Zone of Genius” helped Andrew focus his time and better delegate tasks.
• 9:02 Rule #2: Do more of less.
• 11:12 The importance of setting aside uninterrupted time for high leverage projects.
• 12:29 Rule #3: Set the right goals and review them often.
• 14:14 The metrics you should be tracking to predict success (HINT: Revenue isn’t one of them).
• 16:06 Rule #4: Ask yourself what you can do to help the business.

Links and Resources:

• Episode 183: How To Manage Your Time Strategically While Growing Your Business
• Episode 084: (Part 1) The Art & Science Of Doing Twice As Much In Half The Time Using Scrum For Ecommerce
• Episode 085: (Part 2) The Art & Science Of Doing Twice As Much In Half The Time Using Scrum For Ecommerce
• Episode 086: (Part 3) The Art & Science Of Doing Twice As Much In Half The Time Using Scrum For Ecommerce
• Episode 149: The Art Of Doing Less But Better W/ Greg McKeown [Part 1]
• Episode 150: The Art Of Doing Less But Better W/ Greg McKeown [Part 2]
• Toggl
• Tracking Time
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

JT Marino wanted to build a company that would disrupt an industry.

With Tuft & Needle he did just that, bootstrapping his way from nothing to the largest online mattress retailer in the world.

JT, co-founder of Tuft & Needle and now the Chief Strategy Officer for SSB Phoenix, joins us today to share his incredible story.

We talk about why customer-centricity was one of Tuft & Needle’s core principles from the beginning, and the role it played in their eventual merger with Serta Simmons. JT shares his thoughts on the importance, as a founder, of having an intimate understanding of how every aspect of your business works, and why they decided not to take any outside investments when they first started out.

This is one of my favorite founder interviews we’ve done and I hope you enjoy it!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:52 Introducing JT Marino
• 5:41 How the friendship and partnership started between the founders of Turf & Needle, JT and Daehee
• 10:07 How the Tuft & Needle co-founders maintain a strong friendship while running a business together
• 11:45 How JT’s prior experience with heavily-funded, but unsuccessful, Silicon Valley start-ups influenced Tuft & Needle’s decision to not take outside investments.
• 16:15 The importance of identifying “the problem” when you’re building a business, and how this led to the creation of Tuft & Needle
• 18:22 Some of the other principles the Tuft & Needle founders committed to before starting their business
• 20:05 How JT and Daehee used a problem-solution approach to determine whether they had product-market fit for Tuft & Needle
• 26:53 The benefits of being highly involved with and having an intimate understanding of every aspect of the business, from manufacturing to supply chain to marketing
• 29:57 How Tuft & Needle moved through the pit of sorrow and started to scale
• 34:06 How a Hacker News blog post contributed to explosive growth ofTuft & Needle
• 36:51 The importance of customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth to Tuft & Needle’s success, especially when they had a limited advertising budget
• 38:34 The various channels that helped grow the business over time
• 41:39 JT's approach to tracking attribution across a variety of channels
• 44:49 How Tuft & Needle developed advertising techniques and targeting that span across digital and non-digital
• 49:28 The unconventional reason Tuft & Needle started selling on Amazon
• 52:33 The Net Promoter Score target T&F set before making the decision to list on Amazon
• 55:04 JT’s advice if you’re considering selling on Amazon and the importance of looking at the market picture as you start to grow
• 58:29 The role customer-centricity played in Tuft & Needle’s decision to merge with Serta
• 1:05:40 The future of the mattress industry
• 1:08:42 JT shares his hobbies and what’s in store for him in the next year

Links and Resources:

• Tuft & Needle
• How to Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham
• Blog: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com
• Meet the Warby Parker of Mattresses
• JT on Twitter: @johnmarino
• JT@tn.com
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Most of the time when our clients get big wins they can be traced back to the quality of their content.

Big wins come from winning content, and today Andrew and I are going to discuss how to create that winning content for Facebook and Instagram ads. We’ll share the specific features your content must have if you want to stand out, and our top tips for creating winning imagery, video, and copy.

These principles apply not only to Facebook and Instagram, but can be integrated across your entire marketing funnel to help you in all aspects of your business.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 2:40 A tactic that helped one of Andrew’s clients see an 8X return during their spring launches
• 5:14 What’s working now with Facebook and Instagram advertising and the winning features your contents must have
• 6:30 The three fundamental things you must get across in your content: trust, previous customer experience, and quality
• 10:04 How to turn a Facebook ad into its own landing page with all the fundamentals included
• 12:02 When you’re creating imagery, ask yourself: How can I make this look real and represent what it actually looks like when someone’s using it?
• 12:57 Why user-generated content can provide you with the best imagery, and a company that’s killing it with their UGC content
• 14:49 Andrew's take on lifestyle imagery and making sure your product is at least 50% of any image
• 17:21 What you should consider when it comes to creating  video content, and why you might not want to do it at all
• 18:08 Types of video content that can work well
• 21:29 If you have a product that needs an explanation, then video may be a necessity for your advertising.
• 23:44 What makes good copy, including: ratings, your unique value propositions, a clear CTA, scarcity, and more
• 28:58 Austin's tips for how to get started with writing your winning content

Links and Resources:

• Book: Influence
• Grin
• Episode 184: Use These 20 Questions to Get Unstuck With Your Facebook Ads Part 1
• Andrew@foxwelldigital.com
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Katana

If you’re in the product making business, we have great news for you. There’s now a Shopify app built and designed for merchants that make their own products. You can manage your sales orders, raw materials, production schedule inventory and material purchasing from one single dashboard. The name of this app is Katana.

Katana is designed for makers, crafters and small manufacturers selling on Shopify. Until now, product makers selling in ecommerce had to settle with messy spreadsheets or regular inventory management software, which can be challenging if you make your own products. Katana is built from ground up with the needs of small manufacturers in mind. Production scheduling and inventory management has never been this easy for Shopify merchants.

For a free 14-day trial of Katana, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/katana. And, use the code “influence” when signing up to get 30% off from your first 3 months of a paid subscription.

Establishing trust among your customers can be challenging, especially in certain markets.

Kevin Chen is Vice President and co-founder of iRestore, a company that sells laser hair growth systems. Despite selling a product with a particularly skeptical audience, iRestore has grown to eight-figures over the last few years.

Kevin joins us today to share his story of success. He talks about how he establishes trust and builds social proof with his customers, how he became an expert in Facebook advertising and iRestore’s secret behind their success with video on Facebook.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:51 How Kevin got started in the ecommerce space.
• 7:24 “Does it really work?” How iRestore gained the trust of a skeptical audience.
• 9:41 How iRestore keeps their customers engaged during their hair growth journey in order to cultivate social proof once they get results.
• 11:19 iRestore’s journey from Amazon to Shopify, to Facebook, and when Kevin realized he had a business that worked.
• 13:14 How hiring an agency helped Kevin became an expert at Facebook advertising.
• 15:40 The contribution of iRestore's in-house customer service team in collecting user-generated content.
• 18:19 How the changes to Facebook’s advertising platform have led Kevin to focus more on lead generation.
• 20:25 Why you don’t have to be so focused on conversion objective as explained by Andrew.
• 22:10 A conceptual example of why you don’t have to solely focus on conversion and ROAS.
• 23:56 iRestore’s secret behind their winning Facebook video ads.
• 27:41 How Kevin sees different paid channels working together to both drive and capture demand.
• 30:00 The realization Kevin had while the business is growing that he's no longer doing right now
• 32:26 Shiny Object Syndrome: how Kevin is learning to say no.
• 34:25 Kevin's input in hiring: what he looks for when hiring and the importance of mindset.
• 36:16 What Kevin is working on right now that he’s most excited about and his goal for iRestore this year.
• 38:11 How Kevin is approaching new product development in terms of increasing LTV and AOV.
• 40:08 How Kevin keeps himself motivated and healthy despite the demanding hours at work.

Links and Resources:

• Restore
• kevin@irestorelaser.com
• Now Hiring: iRestore LinkedIn
• Now Hiring: iRestore Indeed
• Help Scout
• Animoto
• Google Data Studio
• Book: Traction
• Episode 183: How To Manage Your Time Strategically While Growing Your Business
• Austin on Twitter: @a_brawn
• Andrew on Twitter: @Andrewfoxwell
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Katana

If you’re in the product making business, we have great news for you. There’s now a Shopify app built and designed for merchants that make their own products. You can manage your sales orders, raw materials, production schedule inventory and material purchasing from one single dashboard. The name of this app is Katana.

Katana is designed for makers, crafters and small manufacturers selling on Shopify. Until now, product makers selling in ecommerce had to settle with messy spreadsheets or regular inventory management software, which can be challenging if you make your own products. Katana is built from ground up with the needs of small manufacturers in mind. Production scheduling and inventory management has never been this easy for Shopify merchants.

For a free 14-day trial of Katana, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/katana. And, use the code “influence” when signing up to get 30% off from your first 3 months of a paid subscription.

We know how frustrating it is when your business isn’t growing at the rate you think it should.

Andrew and I have gone under the hood of dozens of different companies over the years and now when a company approaches us, it’s easy to spot the ones that will be able to scale up, and the ones that will struggle.

Today, we share seven reasons your business might not be scaling and what you can do to fix it. We’ll talk about market size, margins, LTV, and product diversification, and how all of these things impact your ability to scale. This episode will help you identify potential issues and give you solutions for the most common reasons why your business may not be scaling.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:32 Reason #1 that your business might not be scaling: Your market is too small or too cheap.
• 6:25 What to do if your market is too cheap.
• 7:50 One solution for scaling up if your market is too small.
• 8:43 Reason #2 that your business isn’t scaling: Your contribution margin isn’t large enough.
• 10:29 How to solve your contribution margin issue..
• 11:26 Reason #3: Your AOV or LTV is too low to advertise profitably.
• 13:13 The workaround for increasing LTV if you have a low AOV.
• 15:02 Reason #4: You don't have any repeat customers.
• 16:08 How to build a product system that will get you repeat customers.
• 18:21 Reason #5: You don't have complementary products.
• 20:20 Reason #6 why you might not be scaling: You're too cheap to hire quality people.
• 22:25 Reason #7: You have a product that you sell, not a business.
• 23:48 If you’re just selling a product, here’s what you need to do to build a business.
• 25:39 You don’t always have to scale to be successful.

Links and Resources:

• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Running one company can be a challenge. But what about running 12?

Our guest today is doing just that. Ecommerce investor Shakil Prasla of Pro Click Ventures joins us to talk about how he built his portfolio of ecommerce businesses. He shares what he looks for when acquiring new companies, how to hire CEOs, and what’s possible on the acquisition side of ecommerce.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:38 Shakil Prasla's background and how he got started in the ecommerce space.
• 7:54 From website builder to ecommerce investor.
• 9:57 How Shakil structured his 12 businesses and how they operate together.
• 12:47 SEO and content: the importance of these when considering acquisition and future growth.
• 16:39 Income and age of company: Why these two criteria are essential in evaluating a company to see if it’s worth buying.
• 18:22 How Shakil is able to productively manage 12 businesses at once and the apps that help him to be more efficient.
• 22:42 Shakil’s experience with buying companies with a bank loan and how to go about financing a loan.
• 227:35 How Shakil gives his businesses a competitive advantage: through the lens of an investor.
• 30:02 What Shakil looks for when hiring managers and CEOs.
• 33:43 The incentive structure for the CEOs of Shakil’s businesses, and what he does if they quit.
• 36:54 The other factors Shakil looks for when determining whether a company is a good buy.
• 41:07 The advice Shakil would have given himself when he was just starting out.
• 42:26 Shakil’s biggest mistake when buying a business.
• 43:41 Shakil's structure for reviewing prospective companies, and how many actually make it to the due diligence process.
• 46:12 Why Shakil doesn’t believe you need to focus on one thing at a time to be successful.

Links and Resources:

• Pro Click Ventures
• Shakil@proclickventures.com
• eCommerceFuel
• Klipfolio
• Gantt chart
• Asana
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It's my online coaching community and it's an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com and you can learn some more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

If you’ve been having issues with Facebook recently, you’re not alone.

My Twitter feed has been blowing up with people talking about the problems they're having and screenshots of breakdowns and errors.

So in today’s bonus episode, Andrew and I provide some background on how these Facebook issues started, what changes are here to stay, and what you can do to manage your clients' (or your own) expectations.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 2:42 When the Facebook issues started and the problems we’re seeing.
• 6:07 Andrew’s theories on why this massive disruption is happening on Facebook.
• 8:50 The 4 things you can do to help your client or team when confronting these Facebook issues.
• 9:18 #1: Show them the data to prove you’re taking action to stabilize the account.
• 10:18 #2: Send your client this podcast.
• 11:01 #3: Let them know it’s not permanent.
• 12:02 The macro trend that’s going to continue on Facebook even after the current issues are addressed.
• 12:52 #4: Communicate the importance of quality creative and great UX both on Facebook and your website.
• 14:08 Other channels to consider for diversification and stability.
• 15:47 The bigger question you should be examining in relation to your business model as Facebook costs continue to rise.
• 17:47 Why these issues actually present a great opportunity for you or your clients.
• 18:41 The Facebook and Instagram Pro Ad Buyers Industry Group.

Links and Resources:

• Post-Facebook Outage, Ad Buyers are Grappling with Out-of-Control Costs
• Facebook and Instagram Pro Ad Buyers Industry Group
• Andrew on Twitter: @Andrewfoxwell
• Andrew@foxwelldigital.com
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

If you’re not yet familiar with Campaign Budget Optimization, now is the time.

Facebook recently rolled out this new ad feature and has plans for it to become a requirement for all advertisers later this year.

Today, Andrew goes in-depth with everything you need to know about Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO). We discuss what CBO is all about: the framework for setting it up, how to approach your bids, and other killer tips that will make sure you’re set up for success when you start testing it out.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:57 The new feature for your Facebook Ad campaigns: Campaign Budget Optimization.
• 5:15 What is CBO and how it's different from the traditional model.
• 8:27 How to set up the ideal CBO campaign.
• 10:57 Determining your audiences within the CBO.
• 13:38 Strategies that are staying the same with CBO.
• 14:36 Recommended bidding for CBO.
• 15:37 How CBO works within prospecting and remarketing.
• 17:35 Reasons why CBO scales well.
• 19:39 What are minimum and maximum spends within CBO and how to manage them.
• 22:22 Killer tips from Andrew to get the most out of CBO.

Links and Resources:

• Episode 173: The Five-Step Process To Optimize Your Facebook Ad Account
• The Brand Guild
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, or hiring a team, diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

How often have you added a new element to your website because you thought it “looked cool”?

The reality is that a jumble of “cool” widgets and features can slow down your site and actually worsen your customer experience.

In today's episode, we bring back Kurt Elster who is a specialist in conversion rate optimization and runs an ecommerce website design and development agency, Ethercycle.

Kurt shares his insights on the key components of a successful ecommerce website design. Learn the how-tos and what-nots of what makes a great website, including product page design, the importance of great copywriting, and why design actually shouldn’t be your #1 focus.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:02 “Ruthless Empathy”: the mindset Kurt says you need to have when analyzing your website.
• 6:44 The core elements of successful ecommerce website design.
• 8:46 The questions to ask yourself to determine whether you really need all those widgets on your site.
• 10:41 How to balance simplicity with complexity in your website.
• 13:22 Why you should approach your website design with a clear decision framework, rather than a design wishlist.
• 15:36 The interesting things Walmart is doing with its web design that have helped increase its online sales.
• 20:04 What Austin sees as a standout on Walmart's site that a lot of Shopify stores don't do.
• 21:29 Which design should come first: mobile or desktop?
• 24:49 The key elements to include on your homepage.
• 27:00 Aspects of homepage design that work to direct people to the product page (and why this should be your #1 goal).
• 30:59 Your product pages: the must-haves, what's usually missing, and the perfect example of a business that's doing it right.
• 35:08 Why Kurt doesn’t believe you should use artificial scarcity to drive people to buy.
• 37:20 How to use urgency and scarcity in a legitimate way.
• 38:54 Why you should be using video on your product page.
• 41:34 An alternative to artificial scarcity as suggested by Austin.
• 43:49 The best ways to sell complementary products to people and increase AOV.
• 49:39 Why Kurt’s excited about the future of personalization.
• 51:19 Something Kurt believes to be true that most other entrepreneurs don’t agree with.

Links And Resources

• RightMessage
• The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
• KurtElster@tokurtelster.com
• Ethercycle
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

Become a Member

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It’s my online coaching community, and it’s an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners, and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com for more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Your customers are worth more than what they purchase from your store today.

If you can retain them as a customer over time, you can gain more profits for your business.

This week, Andrew and I have a meaty, and sometimes conflicting, conversation on customer lifetime value (LTV). We start by breaking it down with the basic definition and then share higher level strategies for how you can increase customer LTV, as well as some tactics you can implement today.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:02 How to measure customer LTV (and why it’s difficult to do).
• 5:52 The first question Andrew has his client’s answer when they ask about LTV.
• 7:39 Calculating retention rate: why you can only do it if you have a subscription business, and what to look for if you don't.
• 8:37 The 3 metrics to increase in order to improve LTV.
• 10:17 What Native Deodorant is doing during their checkout process that’s driving increased customer LTV.
• 13:08 The benefit of a subscription business and why you should consider it, even if you don’t think that model is right for you.
• 18:01 Andrew's view on how lifetime value can increase by finding out clients motivation points.
• 19:04 Why Austin cautions against giving using surveys and VIP customer discounts as a way to increase LTV.
• 20:52 The number one thing Austin now believes is the best option for increasing LTV.
• 22:21 How utilizing value-based lookalikes and bid optimization on Facebook can increase LTV.
• 23:24 A Facebook tactic for increasing LTV that most people don't know exists.
• 24:33 A trend Austin believes is going to be very successful for companies in the future.
• 25:22 Additional Facebook and email tactics for increasing LTV.
• 28:25 Why cost of acquisition prices are going up and what you can do about it.
• 31:41 How to boost LTV on the next re-bill using Recharge.

Links and Resources:

• Wilson Hung’s Blog Post on Customer Lifetime Value
• Episode 178: You’re Treating Your Customers Equally (And It’s Costing You Money)
• Native Deodorant tweet
• Dynamic Product Ad on Facebook
• ReallyGoodEmails.com
• ARPU
• Recharge App on Shopify
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Success in the ecommerce world doesn’t happen overnight.

Our guests today are not only big contributors to the ecommerce community, but are also co-founders of a business they built from nothing to one that now has a cult following.

I met Matt and Meredith, owners of Boredwalk T-Shirts, at an Intensive I led a couple of years ago. Today they join us to share the story of how they built their “cult” of customers, including customer service best practices and how they overhauled their hiring process to rebuild a team that is excited about the core values of the company.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 6:29 How it all started for Matt and Meredith in the ecommerce space.
• 8:06 The cheeky birth of  Boredwalk T-Shirts.
• 11:11 The big team and operational changes Matt and Meredith made in 2018 that allowed them to grow their business.
• 13:45 How Matt and Meredith's revamped their hiring process to find the best people for their business.
• 18:41 Things Matt and Meredith tried last year on Facebook and Pinterest that didn't deliver the results they hoped for, even though, hypothetically, they should have.
• 25:08 The journey from focusing on the marketplace side of the business to focusing on customer retention (i.e., building a “cult”).
• 30:00 Matt and Meredith’s customer service philosophy: responding promptly, managing expectations, and not negotiating with terrorists.
• 33:10 Why the Boredwalk founders go against the industry standard when it comes to dealing with bad customer behavior.
• 35:55 How not to talk to customers: the operational side of Boredwalk’s customer service strategy.
• 39:30 How Matt and Meredith take extra care of their “whales" and bond with their audience.
• 40:51 The realities of owning an ecommerce business: why it’s not just a side hustle and what it takes to be successful.
• 44:49 Mental health of entrepreneurs, and why Matt and Meredith don’t recommend the ecommerce world to all.
• 47:15 How the Boredwalk founders have changed in the last four years and what’s helped them make it to where they are now.

Links and Resources:

• Boredwalk T-Shirts
• Ecommercefuel.com
• Matt and Meredith's blog post on the job advertising process
• Book: Traction
• The Boredwalk Podcast interview with Brian Swichkow
• Episode 116: 4 Profitable Email Strategies You Can Swipe For Your Brand
• Help Scout
• Scan Mailboxes
• eCommerceFuel Podcast: Cultivating Better Mental Health as Entrepreneurs with Sherry Walling
• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you've been a podcast listener for a while and you've yet to join the Brand Growth Experts Membership, now is the time to do it. It's my online coaching community and it's an incredible resource for you. We've got about 120 members, all ecommerce business owners and marketers. And in that community, I work with you one on one to help scale up your business.

That could be scaling up advertising, hiring a team, or diving into marketing strategy. We go really in depth every single month on topics that we also talk about on the podcast. So, if you've enjoyed the podcast, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership. Head over to brandgrowthexperts.com and you can learn some more information. Can't wait to see you guys on the inside.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re looking to grow your business, there’s only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they’ll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that’ll help grow your business and make more money. That’s why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

A topic that’s come up a lot in my recent conversations is how to hire a high-level marketing person.

Finding the right candidate can be tough, and when you’re a business owner doing a million other things, it can be even tougher.

In this episode, Andrew and I talk through the hiring process, from deciding when to hire, to where to look for the best candidates, and the questions to ask before hiring to make sure you’re getting the best person for the job.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:41 How to know when it’s time to hire a CMO or Director of Marketing and one of the key signs to look for.
• 6:28 Two main things to understand when you start the hiring process for a high-level marketing candidate.
• 7:35 The most effective way to find the ideal candidate.
• 9:23 Tips for working with a recruiter to find your next CMO.
• 11:14 The two different types of candidates you’ll find when hiring a Director of Marketing.
• 13:24 What to ask a potential new hire before you bring them in for an interview and the type of answers to look for.
• 17:32 Once you confirm someone is a good fit, it’s time for the 15-minute phone call. Here are the questions to ask during that call.
• 19:42 What is a “T-Shaped Marketer” and why you want to hire one.
• 23:46 The framework for the in-person interview and what to look for.
• 25:29 The last thing to do before hiring the person you think is the right fit.

Links and Resources:

• The Brand Guild
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you're looking to grow your business, there's only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they'll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that'll help grow your business and make more money. That's why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

The customer purchase journey is no longer a linear path.

SEM and YouTube advertising have changed not only the way consumers find products, but also how businesses track where purchases come from.

Today we’re joined by returning guest and CEO of OMG Commerce, Brett Curry. Brett shares his expert advice on where to get started with search-driven advertising, the resources to better understand attribution from each channel, and how you can use SEM, Google Shopping and YouTube to increase customer lifetime value.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 6:04 Brett’s background in SEO, Google Shopping and direct response marketing.
• 8:12 Search, Google Shopping, or YouTube: which is best for ecommerce and where you should start.
• 12:42 The importance of understanding why people are on YouTube in order to successfully reach your audience.
• 15:02 Why Brett thinks Facebook is ahead when it comes to conversion tracking and the importance of understanding attribution across different channels.
• 17:44 Recommended resources to help business owners understand attribution models for YouTube, SEM and Google Shopping.
• 18:40 How search is impacting the customer journey and the entire sales funnel.
• 22:08 The types of audiences to build on YouTube to successfully reach your potential customers.
• 26:44 Getting your audio and visuals right on YouTube is directly related to understanding how someone is using the channel.
• 28:11 The type of team you need to build to successfully support advertising on YouTube.
• 31:50 What type of budget Brett recommends to get you started on YouTube.
• 33:42 How to determine your budgets for promotion on YouTube vs. Google Search and Shopping.
• 35:57 Brett’s thoughts on lifetime value of customers coming from YouTube vs. Facebook.
• 38:02 YouTube,  Google Shopping, or SEM: which is best for raising lifetime value and how they can work together.
• 41:48 Why you should absolutely be investing in paid search for your branded keywords.
• 44:34 How to determine how much of your budget you should be spending on branded keywords.
• 46:43 Why you should separate out branded from non-branded keywords in terms of reporting.
• 50:04 Some of the challenges advertisers run into with Google Shopping and how to get around them.

Links and Resources:

• Episode 064: Brett Curry, OMG Commerce – Tips, Tricks & Hacks To Big Returns With Google Shopping, The Premier Advertising Channel For Ecommerce
• OMG Commerce
• Smart Marketer: 2-minute Crash Course on YouTube & TrueView Ads, with Brett Curry
• Think with Google
• Article: How Search Intent is Influencing the Marketing Funnel
• 7 Tips for the Perfect YouTube Ad From Brett Curry
• Ecommerce Evolution Podcast
• Brett Curry on LinkedIn
• Brett Curry on Facebook
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you're looking to grow your business, there's only one way. By building real, quality customer relationships. Most marketing software will claim that they do this, but they'll never deliver on those promises. Klaviyo, though, is different. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening to and understanding cues from your customers, which allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages that'll help grow your business and make more money. That's why over 10,000 innovative brands have switched to Klaviyo.

If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Making the decision to outsource your paid social to an agency can be tough.

It’s a big decision to hand over the reigns of your social advertising to someone outside of your business, and one of the questions Andrew and I get a lot is, “when is the right time to hire an agency?”

Today we address that question, as well as the specific questions to ask when you’re vetting your agency (and the answers to look for), and what you can do as a client to ensure you have a great relationship with your new partner.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:41 The first thing you need to do before you hire an agency.
• 7:00 Andrew's calculation for determining whether or not it makes sense to hire an agency to manage your ads.
• 12:24 If you don’t want to do the math, why you should at least be tracking your time.
• 16:11 The first question to ask when vetting an agency: Do you manage my ads in my own ad account or in your business manager?
• 18:29 Question #2: Who is in charge of creating the creative?
• 21:48 Question #3: What are your best performing look-a-likes or audiences?
• 22:38 Question #4: How do you normally approach mid-funnel targeting?
• 24:29 Question #5: What previous experience do you have and can you show me results?
• 25:46 Question #6: What are the expectations for performance?
• 27:40 Why you have to be careful as a business owner with over promises from agencies.
• 31:08 Question #7: What are your best clients doing and what do you expect us to do if we want to perform like your best clients?

Links and Resources:

• Episode 181: The Changing State Of Paid Social: Tips, Strategy, And How To Win
• Episode 183: How To Manage Your Time Strategically While Growing Your Business
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

Magical things can happen in your business with a strong brand and a loyal customer base.

Bryan Anthonys’ founders Amber Reynolds and Ed Glassman built a seven-figure business, in part by creating a brand and products that their customers feel deeply connected with.

Today the husband and wife team share the story of how they built their business, the lessons they’ve learned along the way, and the secret to their customer loyalty.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:07 From hustling on Ebay to building their own ecommerce store: the story of how Ed and Amber started Bryan Anthonys.
• 8:52 What’s working for Ed and Amber’s business right now.
• 9:35 Tough lessons learned when it comes to expanding your product portfolio.
• 10:55 The strength of Bryan Anthonys’ brand and how they design products that really connect with people.
• 14:44 How Ed and Amber's build customer loyalty.
• 16:44 Why Bryan Anthonys made the bold decision to have all aspects of their business (manufacturing, shipping, distribution) based in the US and the impact it’s had on their vendors.
• 21:02 Bryan Anthonys approach to customers service and one story that set them as the gold standard for Gracie.
• 25:48 How Bryan Anthonys uses text message marketing to bring in revenue from cart abandoners.
• 29:15 The power and value of having a good agency partner and what it’s done for Ed and Amber’s business.
• 31:37 What to expect with Bryan Anthonys in the upcoming years.

Links and Resources:

• Bryan Anthonys
• Gorgias
• Retention Rocket
• Bryan Anthonys on Instagram
• Bryan Anthonys on Facebook
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

Too many established ecommerce stores run out of money before they can scale.

Over the last several years, I’ve helped 126 ecommerce brands build more profitable businesses. 78 of them scaled into 7-figure businesses. 2 them had $100 million dollar exits.

Through this experience, I’ve learned that if you observe certain principles as you scale, you’ll increase your chance of doing it profitably.

Today I share my 3-step formula for profitably scaling your ecommerce business. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:10 The two conversations Austin had with clients that inspired this episode.
• 5:55 Strategy #1 for profitably scaling: Mindset.
• 6:20 Understanding your business’ DNA to get into the right mindset for growth.
• 9:40 The tough choices you have to make when you commit to growing profitably.
• 11:15 Strategy #2 for profitably scaling: Money.
• 11:32 How to calculate and set a profitability goal for your business.
• 14:17 Most business owners are paying themselves to little. Here’s how to calculate a fair wage for yourself.
• 17:31 Figuring out how much money you need to have in your business to be fully capitalized.
• 19:40 Is now the right time to hire? How to calculate how much you can spend on salaries based on your profitability goals.
• 24:29 The three financial components on your business to focus on after setting your salary cap.
• 25:57 Strategy #3 for profitably scaling: Method.
• 26:54 The biggest levers to focus on to grow a more profitable business.
• 34:33 Increasing average order value with "priority processing."

Links and Resources:

• Episode 178: You’re Treating Your Customers Equally (And It’s Costing You Money)
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

Earlier this week, Andrew shared the first 10 of 20 questions he asks when auditing clients’ Facebook accounts to see whether they’re managing them to their fullest potential.

Today he shares the rest of his tactical questions to help you optimize your Facebook ad account, including questions about audience overlap, value bidding, and your add to cart to purchase ratio. Part two of this episode will give you the full list of questions so you can complete a professional level Facebook audit on your own.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 3:42 Question #11: Do you have too high of an audience overlap?
• 4:37 How to know if audience overlap is an issue for your account.
• 6:31 Question #12: Have you tried or requested value bidding?
• 9:41 Question #13: If things are feeling stale on your account, have you tried a bid override?
• 14:16 Question #14: Are you advertising to previous customers?
• 16:48 Question #15: Have you tried product bundling to bring up the AOV?
• 21:19 Question #16: Are you remarketing to engaged users?
• 22:41 Question #17: What does your age report breakdown look like (and where to find it)?
• 25:39 Question #18: What is your Add to Cart to Purchase ratio?
• 27:25 Question #19: Have you tried campaign budget optimization?
• 28:44 Question #20: Do you have consistent naming conventions set up in your account?

Links and Resources:

• Episode 184: Use These 10 Questions to Get Unstuck With Your Facebook Ads Part 1
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• andrew@foxwelldigital.com
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

A few weeks ago Andrew shared his five-step process for optimizing your Facebook ad account.

In part one of this two-part episode, Andrew takes a more tactical approach and shares 10 questions he asks when auditing clients’ Facebook accounts to see whether they’re running things in the best way possible.

After auditing more than 200 Facebook accounts last year, Andrew has seen accounts that are killing it and those that have a lot of room for improvement. Whether you’re on one end of the spectrum or the other, these questions will help you identify changes you can make to improve what you’re doing on Facebook.

Stay tuned later this week for part two of this episode, where Andrew will share the additional 10 questions to ask when auditing your Facebook account. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 8:06 Question #1: Is user-generated content integrated somewhere in the creative?
• 9:16 Question #2: Are you utilizing reviews in your copy?
• 10:53 Question #3: Are you utilizing square video link posts?
• 12:39  Question #4: Is your product at least 40% to 50% of your ad image?
• 14:20 Question #5: Are there unanswered comments or questions on your ad??
• 18:26 Question #6: Is there a discount integrated at some point in the funnel?
• 19:56 Question #7: If you have an ad set that you stopped running because it died, have you tried duplicating it and running it at a lower budget to give it new life?
• 21:13  Question #8: Have you introduced new prospecting audiences based on dynamic pixel actions?
• 23:07 Question #9: Are you trying broad match dynamic product ads layered with interests?
• 24:03 Question #10: Have you split you dynamic product ad time windows, separating the adds to cart and the view content?
• 25:07 How long it typically takes for Andrew to audit an account and the process he goes through.
• 26:23 The most common mistakes Andrew sees when he’s reviewing Facebook ad accounts

Links and Resources:

• The Five Step Process To Optimize Your Facebook Ad Account
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• andrew@foxwelldigital.com

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Shoelace

This episode is brought to you by Shoelace. Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores tell their brand story, increase conversions, and grow revenue through Customer Journey Retargeting. This personalized approached to retargeting shows the right customers the right ads at the right time based on where they are in the buying journey with your brand. Whether a visitor is discovering your brand for the first time or a loyal repeat-customer is considering a purchase from your latest collection, they'll see tailored ad content that evolves like an engaging story in the days and weeks following their visit.

Shoelace's automation platform makes it a breeze to run memorable retargeting experiences. Visit ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and get started on working with Shoelace today. Mention "Ecommerce Influence" to claim a special offer during your free trial!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

Something most of my clients tell me they struggle with is time management and always being busy.

There’s so much to do and it feels like there’s never enough time to do it. Often most of their time is spent in their business, leaving little time to spend on the things they enjoy in their personal life.

Time is something both Andrew and I are focusing on this year: how we can spend more time doing the things we want to do while continuing to grow our businesses.

Today we’ll share some of the strategies and tools we use for effective time management, and the impact they’ve had on our lifestyles.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 7:34 Buffer days versus focus days: Austin’s approach.
• 9:36 Andrew’s take on buffer days and buffer zones.
• 13:36 Creating an ideal schedule that works for you.
• 16:23 The importance of protecting your schedule once you’ve planned it out.
• 17:19 Building milestones or keystones into your week to keep yourself on track.
• 19:23 Andrew's approach to setting goals, including a 100-year vision and the “One Thing.”
• 20:10 Starting with your “One Thing” and building in the other time management frameworks to create change in your life.
• 22:22 How giving away control of your time is like giving away control of your bank account.
• 23:21 Learning how to say NO, or at least no-ish.
• 26:06 What Austin does before making a decision about a requested meeting or opportunity.
• 28:18 The benefit of estimating time for tasks and tracking how long things actually take.
• 30:07 Using time tracking to understand time spent vs. revenue and which tasks are actually aligned with your larger financial goals.
• 32:11 What Andrew is using as an alternative to email in order to spend less time in his inbox.
• 33:08 Tools Austin uses to effectively manage his time.
• 35:19 Time management tools Andrew is using.

Links And Resources:

• Book: Essentialism
• Episode 149: The Art Of Doing Less But Better W/ Greg McKeown [Part 1]
• Episode 150: The Art Of Doing Less But Better W/ Greg McKeown [Part 2]
• Productivity Planner by Intelligent Change
• Panda Planner
• Freedom App
• Be Focused App
• Freedom Business Family Weekly Planning Sheet
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Shoelace

This episode is brought to you by Shoelace. Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores tell their brand story, increase conversions, and grow revenue through Customer Journey Retargeting. This personalized approached to retargeting shows the right customers the right ads at the right time based on where they are in the buying journey with your brand. Whether a visitor is discovering your brand for the first time or a loyal repeat-customer is considering a purchase from your latest collection, they'll see tailored ad content that evolves like an engaging story in the days and weeks following their visit.

Shoelace's automation platform makes it a breeze to run memorable retargeting experiences. Visit to ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and get started on working with Shoelace today. Mention "Ecommerce Influence" to claim a special offer during your free trial!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

As the world of digital marketing continues to become more integrated it becomes increasingly difficult to analyze your metrics across various channels.

This is particularly true when it comes to attribution.

Late last year Facebook launched a new attribution tool that will allow you, for the first time, to easily compare data across all of your paid channels at the same time.

If you’re running ads across multiple channels, you won’t want to miss this episode. Andrew talks about the Facebook Attribution tool’s best features, how to set it up, and why you should start using it right away.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 5:48 Facebook’s new Attribution tool: what it is and how it works.
• 7:53 Some of the common issues people run into with attribution.
• 11:58 Why you should start using the new Facebook Attribution tool.
• 15:26 How to set up the Facebook Attribution tool.
• 18:48 A big benefit of the Facebook Attribution tool? Discovering hidden profits.
• 19:30 The difference between various attribution models and the questions to ask yourself when you’re setting things up.
• 24:47 Andrew shares his advice on choosing an attribution window.
• 29:10 The dashboard you’ll see once you set up Facebook Attribution, and how to use it to start digging into your data.
• 31:38 The three most valuable things Andrew recommends looking at within the Facebook Attribution dashboard.
• 37:11 Why it’s absolutely worth your time to set up the Facebook Attribution tool.

Links And Resources:

• Book: Atomic Habits
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Andrew@FoxwellDigital.com
• iTunes

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Shoelace

This episode is brought to you by Shoelace. Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores tell their brand story, increase conversions, and grow revenue through Customer Journey Retargeting. This personalized approached to retargeting shows the right customers the right ads at the right time based on where they are in the buying journey with your brand. Whether a visitor is discovering your brand for the first time or a loyal repeat-customer is considering a purchase from your latest collection, they'll see tailored ad content that evolves like an engaging story in the days and weeks following their visit.

Shoelace's automation platform makes it a breeze to run memorable retargeting experiences. Visit ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and get started on working with Shoelace today. Mention "Ecommerce Influence" to claim a special offer during your free trial!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

One of the most exciting (and frustrating) parts of being a marketer today is that platforms are constantly evolving and our strategies have to evolve with them.

Today we’re joined by Susan Wenograd, Account Group Director at Aimclear, who brings her insights on the changes that are coming in 2019 and how ecommerce business owners and marketers need to start thinking differently about their paid social strategies.

Susan talks about how paid media is moving from a direct response channel to an integrated one, the impact this has as content and budgets are split into increasingly smaller parts, what to do when you start seeing a decreasing ROAS on Facebook, and the role brand awareness plays in all of this.

If you’re investing in paid media, you will not want to miss this episode. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 8:50 How the marketing landscape changed in 2018, especially with paid social, and what ecommerce business owners and marketers need to be aware of moving into 2019.
• 11:34 As paid media becomes more of an integrated channel rather than direct ROAS, you’re going to have to think differently about your messaging.
• 12:55 The consequences creating snack-sized content has on your messaging and your ad spend.
• 15:58 What sets great agencies and practitioners apart, and what to look for if you’re hiring.
• 17:54 Multi-touch attribution: what it is and how to start measuring it.
• 21:58 Common multi-touch models and their upsides and downsides.
• 24:17 The cross-channel trick to increase the click-through-rate of Facebook ads.
• 26:04 How to adjust your cross-channel SEM tactics depending on your budget.
• 28:08 Why it’s important to integrate a brand awareness strategy into your funnel and where to do it.
• 34:24 The types of interactions Susan sees on ads with general brand messaging vs. on ads that are pushing a sale.
• 36:07 Susan’s tips for managing your marketing spend this year, and your expectations.
• 40:51 Where content marketing fits for ecommerce businesses.

Links And Resources:

• SusanEDub
• Atomic Habits
• Marketing Land
• Aimclear
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Shoelace

This episode is brought to you by Shoelace. Shoelace helps fast-growing ecommerce stores tell their brand story, increase conversions, and grow revenue through Customer Journey Retargeting. This personalized approached to retargeting shows the right customers the right ads at the right time based on where they are in the buying journey with your brand. Whether a visitor is discovering your brand for the first time or a loyal repeat-customer is considering a purchase from your latest collection, they'll see tailored ad content that evolves like an engaging story in the days and weeks following their visit.

Shoelace's automation platform makes it a breeze to run memorable retargeting experiences. Visit ecommerceinfluence.com/shoelace and get started on working with Shoelace today. Mention "Ecommerce Influence" to claim a special offer during your free trial!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you're going through this, they're going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

In 2018, I radically changed my approach to setting goals and running my business. As we enter a New Year, I wanted to put together an episode focused on how to set goals that will leave you more fulfilled.

Instead of setting massive goals, I ask myself simple questions and make strategic changes to my business and life based on my answers. Those strategic changes led to more profit, less stress, and more personal freedom.

In this episode, both Andrew and I share a glimpse into our businesses and our personal plans for 2019.  We also offer you some straightforward questions you can use to help you set more fulfilling goals in 2019. This episode will give you a head start for 2019. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 2:09 How Austin is approaching 2019.
• 4:16 The reason Austin wants to discuss goal setting and the impact it made last year.
• 5:24 2 questions Austin is asking himself right now.
• 8:05 Andrew shares a crazy story about a client who sold his business accidentally.
• 10:14 Other questions Austin is asking himself for 2019.
• 12:05 Andrew's most important framework for this year.
• 12:23 Distinction between growth in the business vs growth in your profit.
• 13:02 The focus Austin has on working forever.
• 14:18 Andrew's framework that he wants to do this year.
• 15:48 What going all-in would mean and examples of it.
• 17:50 How to go about building a portfolio business.
• 20:48 How the cash-flow grow strategy work.
• 23:05 Main focus of a cash flow grow strategy.
• 23:41 Why Austin used cash flow grow strategy from the previous year.
• 26:53 Things Austin had seen over the last year that made a big impact on businesses.
• 28:48 Tips on a better lifestyle free from stress this 2019.

Links and Resources:

• Brand Growth Experts Membership
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor:

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

The Google Medic update a few months ago caused a big upset for many people in the ecommerce space.

Our guest today, Nat Eliason, is an expert in content marketing and SEO, and he shares his insights into what happened, the outcome, and why he thinks Google is smart for the changes they’ve made, even those some of his own clients were impacted.

Nat joins us on the podcast for the second time and you won’t want to miss his discussion about why solid, well-written content is still the best way to drive traffic to your site and his recommendations for the best tools for auditing your site and improving SEO.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:44 Why Nat practices intermittent fasting.
• 7:36 How Growth Machine has grown over the last year since Nat’s first time on the Ecommerce Influence podcast.
• 11:10 Why creating awesome content is still the best way to drive traffic to your site.
• 14:21 Nat explains why it’s better to be paying a bit more for better writers and better content.
• 15:30 How the 80/20 rule applies differently when it comes to writing a creative article.
• 18:30 Google Medic update: what it is and its effect on different sites.
• 21:37 Nat’s hypothesis about why some health sites were hurt by the Medic update more than others.
• 25:06 Recommendations for those that have been hurt by the Medic update.
• 26:36 Why creating a second blog might be a good strategy to try to increase your results on Google.
• 30:08 Why Nat says Google was smart to make the update.
• 31:17 Nat’s favorite tools for site auditing.
• 32:51 The main things to look for in your site audit results.
• 33:46 Other tools Nat recommends.
• 35:23 “No More Struggle Porn” – how Nat’s article originated, why he took a stance on idolizing the obsession with working hard, and how it reached more than 350,000 views.
• 42:21 The reality of what it actually looks like to be an entrepreneur.
• 44:16 Realizing that working harder and struggling can be a false sense of progress in your business.
• 49:40 The importance of creating space for play within the business lifestyle.
• 51:42 The books that had the biggest impact on Nat this year.

Links And Resource

• @nateliason
• NatEliason.com
• Growth Machine
• AHREFS
• SEO PowerSuite
• Clearscope
• It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work
• Elephant in the Brain
• Discipline and Punish
• Darwin's Dangerous Idea
• Gödel, Escher, Bach
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Klaviyo

Today’s episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Over 10,000 brands have joined Klaviyo to help them build higher-quality relationships with their customers. Klaviyo does not force you to compromise between speed and powerful functionality, you get both. Interested to see Klaviyo’s impact? Tune into their 12-part docu-series following three brands—Chubbies, SunSki and the Love Is Project. You’ll learn how they prepared for Cyber Weekend 2018, marketing throughout the holidays, and beyond. Along the way, we’ll fill you in on what you should be doing as a business to push your marketing strategy to the next level.

Also, as you’re going through this, they’re going to show you how to prepare the business to continue to take it to the next level segment and grow and use it to use Klaviyo to drive more profitable interactions. If you want to go check out this docu-series, go to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/beyond.

Today, we’ve got an excellent interview with Wharton Professor and entrepreneur Peter Fader.

He's a two-time guest. We wanted to bring Peter back on the show because he’s an expert in customer lifetime value and customer centricity.

How do you predict lifetime value? What models should we use to predict lifetime value? This is what Peter spent his entire career focusing on.

In this episode, Peter is going to talk about the difference between contractual businesses and subscription businesses. He's going to talk about share some big name eCommerce businesses that on are track to go out of business because of their product-centric model.

It's a deep dive into customer centricity, lifetime value, and it's something I think you guys will enjoy.

Episode Highlights

• 4:37  The work Peter Fader did with Zodiac that made Nike wanted to buy it.
• 8:45 What is lifetime value and its importance to your business.
• 9:54  Tips on making more money.
• 10:27  What really sets Amazon aside that makes their number two better than other companies number one.
• 14:06  What are lifetime value scores?
• 15:49  What makes EA sports a good example of a customer-centric company.
• 20:20 Answer to why big companies scale too quickly and fail when hitting a certain level?
• 26:55 The concept of quality interaction over quantity interaction
• 28:10 How responding to customers needs becomes an issue?
• 29:50 Distinction between contractual versus non-contractual businesses
• 33:44 Two metrics that non-contractual businesses should demand to see
• 34:56 CRM: expectation versus reality

Links And Resource

• PeteFader.com
• ThetaEquity.com
• The Customer Centricity Playbook
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

If You’ve Been Listening To This Show For The Last Few Months, You’ve Heard Us Make Predictions About How To Approach Q4 Advertising.

Many of those predictions worked out well. Others, not as much. There were a TON of Facebook bugs this year that came out of nowhere and really fouled people up.

Now that we’re through the busiest part of the season, we’re bringing you an episode on BFCM advertising and what we learned.

Andrew brought in four top media buyers to give you a detailed Black Friday/Cyber Monday recap. You’ll learn how it went down, what they learned, so you can adjust and improve your strategies going into the new year.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:13 How value optimization helped one client get a 7X ROAS during Black Friday.
• 6:55 The amped-up offer and focused traffic-driving strategy that worked for Ryan Kovach.
• 8:34 Bid caps: how are they working for low spends vs. high spends.
• 10:06 What exactly is a bid cap?
• 11:27 The importance of putting in the work before Black Friday/Cyber Monday that led to 5X ROAS.
• 12:44 The benefit of building your warm audiences in advance.
• 14:10 Campaign Budget Optimization and how it worked well for a number of different clients.
• 16:03 Testing campaign budget optimization and minimum ad set budgets.
• 17:48: Campaign budget optimization and interest targeting.
• 18:46 Should you split your placements across Instagram and Instagram stories?
• 20:53 Interests vs. lookalikes – which performed better?
• 22:53 How to identify what interests you should be going after with your ads.
• 23:59 Guests share their worst Facebook bug experiences.

Links And Resources

• JPORT Media
• jason@jportmedia.com
• 11:11 Digital
• alex@1111digital.com
• Red Giant Growth
• pkrass@redgiantgrowth.com
• Social Outlier
• Twitter: @kovachr
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become A Member

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Hotjar

Today’s episode is brought to you by the always wonderful Hotjar. Hotjar is an incredible tool that allows you to see what’s happening on your site with potential customers with recorded sessions. You get to basically go back and look at what’s happening, what people are doing, where they’re dropping off, why they’re not adding something to cart on mobile, on a desktop, and you can actually understand that.

Hotjar allows you to get in-the-moment visual feedback, see how people are using your website, and uncover insights to make the right changes. Hotjar is absolutely one of my favorite tools out there and if you’ve not used it, we definitely recommend checking it out.

You can go to EcommerceInfluence.com/hotjar to learn a little bit more.

For over 12 years, Jeana LeClerc has been operating two businesses.

She’s owned a local spa in Redding, CA and sold skin care products on ArtofSkinCare.com. Her business has grown and changed over the last decade, but her commitment to her customers has not.

In the last year and a half, her business has taken off. She has grown from a two-person team to an eight-person team and completely changed the way she operates. Jeana shut down her local spa and doubled down on her online store. After narrowing her focus her passion for the business has been completely reinvigorated.

I love a good founder story and today’s episode delivers. Jeana tells her story and shares a few of the learnings that have allowed her to get to the next level. I hope you enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 4:53 How Jeana went from being a stay-at-home mom to starting her own business.
• 8:58 The most helpful thing Jeana learned at her first Intensive with Brand Growth Experts.
• 10:20 How Google Adwords helped Jeana make a come back after leaving Amazon.
• 12:14 Why Jeana’s motto is to “Really take care of her customers” and how a personalized customer experience helps her do it.
• 14:39 How Jeana sets her business apart from other companies.
• 16:16 How consultations help Jeana build personal relationships and keep customers coming back.
• 21:02 The email strategies Jeana uses that have led to a 65% open rate and drive repeat purchases.
• 24:00 How hiring the right people in the right roles helped take Jeana's business to the next level.
• 28:16 The lessons Jeana learned and how her role has changed as she’s grown her team. 
• 28:58 The importance of recognizing what you are (and are not) good at.
• 32:42 Changes Jeana is making in 2019 to take her website to the next level and improve customer experience.

Links and Resources

• Art of Skin Care
• hello@artofskincare.com
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

Today's episode is brought to you by the always wonderful Hotjar. Hotjar is an incredible tool that allows you to see what's happening on your site with potential customers with recorded sessions. You get to basically go back and look at what's happening, what people are doing, where they're dropping off, why they're not adding something to cart on mobile, on desktop, and you can actually understand that.

Hotjar allows you to get in-the-moment visual feedback, see how people are using your website, and uncover insights to make the right changes. Hotjar is absolutely one of my favorite tools out there and if you've not used it, we definitely recommend checking it out.

You can go to EcommerceInfluence.com/hotjar to learn a little bit more.

Today’s episode is a little bit different, in a good way. We've had some great questions recently in the Brand Growth Experts Membership.

They were so good we decided to answer some of them for you guys who are the listeners.

We answer questions including how to attribute Amazon sales, how to weed out inactive email subscribers, what type of an ROI you should expect on your Facebook Ads, and Andrew explains the best way to set up a budget and test Facebook ads. This is a meaty episode. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

Links and Resources

• Brand Growth Experts Membership
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Hotjar

Today's episode is brought to you by the always wonderful Hotjar. Hotjar is an incredible tool that allows you to see what's happening on your site with potential customers with recorded sessions. You get to basically go back and look at what's happening, what people are doing, where they're dropping off, why they're not adding something to cart on mobile, on desktop, and you can actually understand that.

Hotjar allows you to get in-the-moment visual feedback, see how people are using your website, and uncover insights to make the right changes. Hotjar is absolutely one of my favorite tools out there and if you've not used it, we definitely recommend checking it out.

You can go to EcommerceInfluence.com/hotjar to learn a little bit more.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

This episode is also brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

If Someone Looked Under The Hood Of Your Business, What Would They Find?

If you hired someone new today, would they be able to easily access the information they need to get the job done? Or would they be sifting through a clutter of files, or, worse yet, is everything they need to know stored only inside your brain?

Our guest today is Tiago Forte, founder of Forte Labs, a company that specializes in productivity. Tiago talks about the importance of building and maintaining a solid knowledge management system for your business, otherwise known as a “second brain.” Having a second brain not only makes it easier to onboard new employees as your business scales, but it can also help increase your overall organization and productivity.

Andrew and I learned a ton from this episode and we hope you enjoy it!

Episode Highlights

• 5:11 The goal of Forte Labs: Finding transformational paradigm shifts in productivity.
• 7:10 The impact of an international upbringing on Tiago's work and mindset.
• 9:17 Tiago's big realization about the best way to help people.
• 10:54 Defining "design thinking" and why it's fundamental to entrepreneurship
• 13:47 The difference between productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.
• 15:53 Being organized as a state of being and the method Tiago created to help people get organized.
• 19:32 The benefit of micro projects.
• 23:02 How micro projects help you elevate your perspective.
• 26:48 The importance of having a knowledge management system as your business scales.
• 29:37 Building your knowledge management system, i.e., your second brain.
• 35:33 How to increase your productivity without working faster or working more efficiently.
• 37:38 Linking your communication apps and your productivity apps.
• 41:27 One easy thing you can implement right now that will increase your productivity. 

Links and Resources

• Forte Labs
• Building a Second Brain
• Book: Design Your Work
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is also brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

One of the most common questions Andrew gets from his clients is: how do I optimize my Facebook ad account?

Today he talks about RCAB-P, his five-step process for optimizing and improving Facebook ads. We'll cover the number one thing you need to do before you start optimizing, and walk through each of the five steps in detail to help you successfully optimize your ad account.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 3:41 The first thing you need to do before you start optimizing your Facebook ad account. 
• 5:13 How much you should be spending before you start thinking about optimization.
• 6:10 Step one in the optimization process: Reporting Metrics.
• 7:23 The fundamental questions you want to answer with your metrics report.
• 9:01 Understanding secondary metrics, and a common metric that Andrew doesn't recommend tracking.
• 11:01 Step two: Optimizing Creative (your most important lever for optimization).
• 11:33 The new creative ad feature Facebook just rolled out.
• 12:57 Creative optimization: using different creative at different points in your funnel.
• 16:23 Step three: Audience Optimization.
• 17:02 First Time Impression ratio - what it is and why it's important.
• 18:57 Dynamic vs static custom audiences and how to optimize each of them.
• 21:31 Step four: Bidding Optimizations
• 23:50 Using manual bid overrides during Black Friday. 
• 24:53 Step five: Placement - the huge optimization many people are not taking advantage of.
• 27:46 What to do if you get through the five step optimization process and you're still not getting results. 
• 28:18 Another new Facebook feature to try: campaign budget optimizations.

Links and Resources

• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is also brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

What if you could make more money in a single day than your business previously made in its entire lifetime?

That's what happened for Mark Arruda last August, typically his company's slowest month.

Mark, owner and CEO of Constantly Varied Gear, joined us earlier this year to talk about how he uses Facebook Messenger in his business. Today, he's back, and in the eight months since we last had Mark on the show he's continued to ramp up his Messenger marketing and is seeing incredible results.

In this episode, Mark shares the Messenger strategy he used that fateful day in August, and the other tactics he's using to grow his list and drive sales.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 7:13 The Facebook Messenger tactic Mark's using to gain Messenger subscribers and how it connects with his on-site lead capture.
• 9:56 When Mark got started with Messenger bots and how long it's taken him to build his current system.
• 11:09 How allowing customers to vote on products via Messenger has been incredibly successful for Mark.
• 14:39 A good thing to do if you're just starting out with Messenger.
• 17:27 What is a Facebook Messenger sequence?
• 22:04 How Mark maps out his Messenger marketing plan.
• 23:48 The first thing you should do before getting started with Messenger marketing.
• 26:08 The chatbot Mark is using to grow his list and stop potential customers from leaving his site. 
• 28:45 Why Mark is shifting almost all of his prospecting efforts to Click-to-Messenger ads.
• 31:22 Using Messenger across different business verticals.
• 33:35 The best copy for Click-to-Messenger ads.
• 36:18 The Messenger strategy that led Constantly Varied Gear to do more sales in a single day in August than during the entire lifetime of the company.
• 39:25 The importance of reaching your customers through a variety of different platforms, and how Messenger can tie into all of them.

Links and Resources

• Messenger Mastermind Podcast
• Constantly Varied Gear
• ManyChat
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor: Justuno

This episode is brought to you by Justuno. Justuno is a visitor conversion suite that offers pop-ups, push notifications, offers, and more. It's highly personalized and customizable and is awesome for capturing leads, recovering abandoned carts, and increasing sales. They recently launched an integration with Facebook Messenger so you can create a seamless experience from offsite to onsite with unified messaging.

If you haven't used Justuno yet, we absolutely recommend checking it out. Lots of our clients are using it and it integrates well with Shopify, Klaviyo, and more. Head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/justuno and you'll get a 15 day free trial + 15% off.

Sponsor: Klaviyo

This episode is also brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Earlier this week Andrew shared his story, and now we’re turning the tables.

Today I talk about how I went from pursuing a career in investment banking to realizing I wanted to become an entrepreneur and eventually starting Ecommerce Influence.

Digital marketing has evolved so much over the last decade, especially for ecommerce, and my career has evolved along with it. I’ll share how I built a business I'm excited about while also creating a lifestyle that gives me freedom and flexibility.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 3:54 Why Austin started Ecommerce Influence
• 5:07 Moving away from the typical agency: The birth of Brand Growth Experts
• 7:09 Austin's early career pursuits begin in China
• 8:14 When Austin realized he wanted to become an entrepreneur
• 9:38 Start-up life and learning how to become an entrepreneur
• 12:02 If you can sell a $100,000 product with triggered emails, you can sell anything with triggered emails
• 14:25 How working for a start-up provided the best education for growing a business
• 16:42 Austin starts building his own business
• 21:19 An evolution in personalized, lifecycle marketing
• 24:43 The inception of Ecommerce Influence and why Austin decided he didn't want to run a traditional agency
• 27:31 How Austin's created a business that reflects his core values
• 31:10 Helping business scale with the Brand Growth Experts Membership
• 35:23 The project Austin's most excited about right now

Links and Resources

• Brand Growth Experts
• Brand Growth Experts Membership
• Brand Guild
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

One of the questions we love asking our guests is: how did you get where you are today?

It’s a question our listeners frequently ask Andrew and I too, and in today’s episode, Andrew is going to share his story.

Andrew has been working in digital advertising since before the inception of the Facebook News Feed in 2009 and he’s learned a lot along the way. He shares his first experience working in “new media,” tells the story of how Foxwell Digital was born, and talks about what success means to him.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 3:18 How Andrew got started in digital marketing
• 6:04 A congressional campaign leads Andrew out East and into "New Media"
• 8:11 Andrew's experience working in Congress during the invention of Facebook Ads
• 12:45 When Andrew launched his first newsfeed advertisement
• 14:29 When social proofing meant getting the most Likes
• 15:46 The birth of Foxwell Digital
• 18:15 How Andrew and Gracie went from teaching seniors how to use iPhones to getting their first official clients
• 21:06 How Andrew and Austin connected
• 22:34 When Andrew official joined the Ecommerce Influence Podcast
• 26:39 How documenting and synthesizing makes you more creative and a better teacher
• 28:34 The future of Foxwell Digital
• 31:24 Why you don't have to make $100 Million to be successful

Links and Resources

• Foxwell Digital
• Brand Growth Experts

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Happy fall. Happy Q4. Andrew and I love this time of year. It's when so many of the companies we advise make the majority of their revenue. A lot of you that are listening know how high the stakes are.

It looks like things are, as we predicted, even more competitive than last year. But so far, things are going good. We're getting ready for the big show here so we decided to bring in the big guns. Today we’ve brought back Justin Marshall from Adhoc Media to talk about how he’s getting his clients ready for the holidays.

Justin is a 2x guest. His first episode was one of our all-time most downloaded and this one doesn’t disappoint. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:10 How Justin explains the phases of Q4 to his clients.
• 7:43 Why you shouldn't just be pushing traffic to your site without a focus on conversions.
• 10:11 The offers you should be considering through the holiday season.
• 14:30 Not sure what creative you should be using? Checkout what's working best for Adhoc Media and their clients.
• 18:36 Why you should be driving your traffic to these landing pages for Q4.
• 21:00 How to make sure your ads are seen during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday rush.
• 27:56 How to Optimize your ads for peak performance during Black Friday/Cyber monday.
• 36:22 When you should be notifying your fans of the holiday deals to get them ready to shop with you.

Links and Resources

• AdHoc Media
• Justin's First appearance on Ecommerce Influence: Episode 136
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

When you're just starting your business and running it small and lean, it’s easy to implement new projects right away. Right?

If you go to a conference and get a new idea, you can go in and execute it. As your business and team scales up, it's no longer possible to implement your ideas immediately. You need to plan and get your team involved.

Many businesses get stuck here and never move forward. They feel momentum but can’t take advantage of it because they can’t effectively manage their marketing at scale. This leads to stress, burnout and missed opportunities.

How do you transition from doing everything right away to having to plan it out and delegate it out? This often requires taking a step back before stepping forward. In today’s episode, we’re going to share a 3 step process to help you manage your marketing at scale.

Episode Highlights

• 6:03 What it means to be at scale.
• 10:29 The questions you should be asking when planning to scale you business.
• 11:54 How discovering your Kolbe score can unlock your potential to scale your business.
• 14:00 How documenting tasks can shine a light on what you are really doing in your business.
• 16:18 How templating projects or tasks can bring about improved creativity.
• 17:20 The most important thing you should consider if you are listening to this podcast.
• 18:20 What to look at first before delegating out any documented tasks.
• 19:32 Your business is not different, you can delegate tasks too.

Links and Resources

• Kolbe Score
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

In today’s episode, we explore how Kettle & Fire went from a couple of guys boiling bones in a pot to closing $8 million dollars in Series A.

I first met Jack Meredith in January when I hosted a Private Intensive here in Austin for him and his team. He was the first employee at Kettle & Fire, and they’ve been on a rocket ship of growth - mostly fueled by affiliate marketing. For most companies, affiliate marketing starts out as exciting opportunity but ends in disappointment. Not so with Kettle & Fire. If you are familiar with the paleo world, you’ll quickly notice they’ve got all the top health influencers and affiliates as supporters. Today, Jack shares the process that led to actually getting those people to support and promote Kettle & Fire. He also shares challenges they've faced as they have scaled, how to think about growing a team, and a framework for thinking about new projects. I had a great time recording this episode and I hope you enjoy it!

Episode Highlights

• 10:31 The first step Jack took to setting up measured growth for Kettle & Fire.
• 12:50 How Kettle & Fire tested the waters of affiliate marketing.
• 15:00 Why Kettle & Fire has seen such success with their affiliate program.
• 22:00 How changing up their email flows and layering in segmentation significantly increased the ROI of Kettle & Fire.
• 24:00 The approach Jack takes to testing new channels and how to tell its time to hire a person to manage it.
• 28:30 The best teams don't have to be in the same room: How the entire staff of Kettle & Fire works remotely.
• 33:10 Why raising a funding series can open up opportunities to test and try new avenues of marketing
• 36:30 A few of the key tools in the Kettle & Fire toolbox that you can use too.

Links and Resources

• Kettle And Fire Careers
• Jack Meredith
• Asana
• Things App
• Media Rails
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it. If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money. I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

About two weeks ago, my wife and I moved into a 100 year old bungalow here in Austin Texas. When you decide to move into an older house you expect certain things aren’t going to work. Each day you start adding to a checklist of all the things you’re going to need to fix.

That’s the easy part. The hard part is getting the right people out to fix what’s broken.

In addition to managing my team here at Brand Growth Experts and producing the Ecommerce Influence podcast, I’ve been coordinating electricians, plumbers, and painters to fix things at our house. Construction workers in Austin are so busy right now that getting people to show up is like herding cats. It’s been a lot of work and inspired today’s episode about managing a team.

In this episode, I’m going to walk through the framework I use to accomplish more with my team in much less time. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:10 The Scrum methodology and how it works for Product Management.
• 8:12 Step 1: The Data Dump: Getting all of your ideas on to paper
• 9:56 Step 2: Identifying the roles of your organization and their responsibilities related to the project.
• 13:42 Step 3: weeding through and prioritizing all of the projects you've previously put down on paper.
• 16:00 Step 4: How to break down the steps needed to complete the project(s)
• 21:50 Step 5: Preparing for the sprint and defining the size of the tasks to complete the project within the sprint goal.
• 26:45 Step 6: Daily check-ins and the 3 questions each team member needs to answer during the check-in.
• 28:20 Step 7: Sprint review, also known as the show & tell of the project sprint.
• 29:31 Step 8: Reviewing the sprint and deciding if the product/project is done  and what to do if it is not complete.
• 30:19 The one part of Scrum you should never skip

Links and Resources

• Productivity Sheet (Need Link)
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

About four years ago, Allan Shoemake was Skyping with his daughter and hated how the poor lighting was impacting the video quality. He strapped a couple of LED lights to the side of his phone case and LuMee was born.

Two years later, Kim Kardashian West picked LuMee as one of her “selfie secrets” and the company exploded from there.

Our guest Jeremy Horowitz is LuMmee’s Ecommerce Manager. He attended my email Intensive last August and then he went on to have a ton of success with email. In today’s episode, he shares what they've been working on, what's been working well, how they think about growth. I think you’ll really enjoy this tactic and results heavy episode. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 7:03 The email strategies that are currently working for Lumee.
• 8:50 The pages you should be placing pop-ups to increase your sales.
• 10:15 Why you should be using heat maps to find the holes in your funnel.
• 13:46 How Lumee changed their approach once Kim Kardashian West started promoting their cases.
• 19:50 How surveying your customers at these points in the funnel can lead to improved growth and a better customer profile.
• 24:11 The KPI's that Lumee focuses on and the book that changed their approach to tracking performance.
• 27:39 Lumee's plan for Q4 and the 1 holiday secret weapon they plan to use and you can too.
• 32:00 Why Jeremy is "nerding" out on Chatbots and messenger marketing right now.

Links and Resources

• Lumee
• Measure What Matters - Book
• Dot Com Secrets - Book
• Manychat
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Today, we’re continuing our theme of “things you should do right now to prepare for Q4”.

I’m not going to let you get to the end of October without a plan for the holidays. Not this year. We're going to start early so you can avoid that annual freakout.

In this episode, Andrew and I share the key differences between Facebook and Instagram advertising this year and last year. There are a lot of similarities (creating good offers, creative, etc) but we’ve noticed some big changes and in this episode we’ll help you approach Q4 with your Facebook and Instagram ads the right way. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:17 Here are the big differences between this year and last year when it comes to marketing with Facebook & Instagram.
• 13:11 Why you should be separating out ad placement and setting up ads that only run on Instagram in Q4.
• 14:35 How to social proof your ads and why this process is so valuable.
• 17:45 The changes in how Facebook lets you bid in the auction and the approach you should take during Q4.
• 21:10 Andrew's 3 phases of Q4 and how you should approach your ad objective through each phase.
• 24:34 Facebook inventory in the Newsfeed will max out during the holidays. Here are a few other placements you should be considering.

Links and Resources

• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

I have a fascinating episode for you today. This week, Andrew Foxwell sat down with Jason Moser, a senior analyst for the Motley Fool investment research team. You might be wondering why we are interviewing someone who helps people pick stocks for a living. It turns out, Jason's whole job at the Motley Fool is to research and analyze companies in the e-commerce sector and learn how they are innovating.

This is a big picture episode and they talk about a whole bunch of things. Andrew and Jason get into talking about Wayfair and Amazon. They also talk about the state of ecommerce, Shopify, Facebook, Instagram, and a bunch of other things. I think you'll really like this episode and I look forward to hearing your feedback on it. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:05 How Ecommerce brands are innovating the marketplace.
• 9:00 The two trends you should be exploring if you're a growing ecommerce brand.
• 11:27 How creating your own version of Amazon's "Prime Day" can generate revenues greater than Black Friday.
• 13:52 What Shopify is doing to help their clients grow their brands.
• 17:20 The 1 thing Dollar Shave Club has done to grow their business and how you can use it to grow yours too.
• 22:26 What your customers are really looking for (Hint: it's not a discount).
• 30:00 The future of ad products on social networks and their perceived value for advertisers.
• 38:56 The one tip you should always follow if you plan to invest in the market.

Links and Resources

• Motley Fool - Money Podcast
• Motley Fool - Market Foolery
• Motley Fool 
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Today’s episode was inspired by a conversation with a colleague about building audiences and stockpiling potential customers for use in Q4.

Last year, he said he put $10,000 into audience and list building for Q4. He expected he would be able to use those audiences but he had no idea when or the return on ad spend he would get.

He believed if he brought people in, told the brand story and got them in his remarketing and email lists, he'd be able to earn back his investment. Off of that $10,000 investment he made almost $150,000 and basically spent all his Q4 ad spend just retargeting those lists. Didn't do any prospecting.

This is important because right now is the time you should be thinking about your Q4 strategy. This is the time when the people who are going to have their most success through the holidays are starting their prep. And that's what this episode is going to be about.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 8:00 How running engagement ads with the intent of being "social" will help you build an audience you can re-target and warm up over time.
• 11:00 Why lead generation ads are a great way to learn about your customer while building a more qualified audience for Q4.
• 13:45 How providing value through Messenger ads could lead to a huge with in Q4 this year.
• 15:17 The importance of using the "view content" objective in a Facebook conversion ad as you ramp up to Q4.
• 17:00 Why now is the best time to work on dialing in your lead capture and how a quiz funnel may be the way to go.
• 18:13 The number 1 thing you can do to ensure you have a stellar Q4.
• 20:40 For those who are managing accounts or reporting results to others, here's how to set the expectation for Q4.
• 22:16 Not sure where to start for Q4? This is what you should be doing right now.

Links and Resources

• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Today’s guest has a really cool business. He creates beautiful custom designed maps of National Parks, Mountain Ranges and Hydrology of states. And if you’ve ever been in an REI, you’ve probably seen his work featured in all their stores.

In today’s conversation, we were able to catch up with Jared Prince and learn how his business has changed over the last year.

We brought him on to talk about the sustainable growth he’s built into his business and how he has done it. He shares feedback from 6 months after attending both Intensives Andrew and I hosted in February. He shares what’s been going well, and how he thinks about growing his business after 5 years.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 9:40 What happens when the PR "buzz" wears off and how to turn it around.
• 13:33 How building an email list and properly segmenting that list has helped grow business for Muir Way.
• 14:42 The one thing Jared says Facebook and Instagram ads are great at generating for business.
• 16:10 Launching a new product? Here's how Muir Way just made a big splash with their new release.
• 18:22 How Jared's role has changed within Muir Way as the business continues to grow.
• 20:28 How offering a chance to win the "right" prize for subscribing to an email list has improved Muir Way's subscriber quality vs just a discount on purchase for signing up.  
• 23:51 The two ecomm remarking strategies Muir Way has not implemented and why they were not a fit for the brand.
• 25:56 How A/B testing of one small copy change led to a 5x difference in ad performance.
• 28:02 The one thing ecommerce brands should be talking more about when scaling their businesses.

Links and Resources

• Jared at Muir Way dot com
• Muir Way
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Have you ever wondered what makes the difference between brands that scale and those who don’t? A couple of months ago, I was asked this question on an interview with Kurt from the Unofficial Shopify Podcast.

After re-listening to the episode, I decided to share it with you. Kurt asks great questions and I outline my entire philosophy on growth. It’s especially timely to talk about scaling given the recent sale of MVMT Watches to Movado for $200 million.

In this episode, we talk about defining a growth strategy, scaling your advertising, and how to hire the team necessary to get to the next level. I also share what I’ve learned from working with some of the fastest growing brands in the country.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 4:30 How Austin has helped many brands scale from $500k to $1MM.
• 7:00 Why it is so important to do almost every job in your business before turning it over to someone else.
• 8:27 The big differences between the Shopify brands that scale up and those that don't.
• 12:00 How to remove tasks from your plate so your business can scale.
• 14:20 These are the core KPI's that Austin uses to understand his client's scalability.
• 15:56 Understanding what your net promoter score is and why it is so valuable to ecommerce brands. 
• 23:00 The point at which Austin regularly sees businesses die out and how you can overcome it.
• 30:17 Everyone wants to scale their business but it does come with a few downsides.
• 33:45 How PR has helped many ecommerce brands become successful before they ever were.
• 39:34 The questions you should be asking yourself to help you define your success.

Links and Resources

• Dean Jackson
• Unofficial Shopify Podcast
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Mike Danner is the VP of Digital Marketing for Ancient Nutrition (formerly Dr. Axe) the largest natural health website in the world with over 20M visits a month.

Last year, they landed at #35 on the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies in America list and was the #1 fastest growing company in Tennessee in both 2016 and 2017. To top things off, in March of this year they received a $103M investment for a minority share of their business. To say they are “scaling quickly” is an understatement.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Mike last year when I hosted a Private Intensive Workshopat their headquarters in Tennessee. He is razor sharp and very practical, which is on full display during this interview. He’s become an expert on hiring (out of necessity), and shares the inner workings on how they’ve managed to keep the business powering through unprecedented growth.

This is an interview I’ve wanted to bring you for a long time. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 7:12  How scaling your business will lead to your role in the business changing over time.
• 11:36 Why Dr. Axe was able to scale so quickly and overcome their failures quickly.
• 17:20 Here are the tactics that Mike is thinking of as he looks to 2019 and beyond.
•  21:10 The two reasons why you should be connecting/staying connected with thought leaders.
• 26:28 The one quote (of many) that Mike uses as a guide for success.
• 27:49 Mike's process for hiring incredible talent in places you'd least expect to find it.
• 30:37 The two hacks Mike uses (and you can too) to hire incredible talent.
• 37:46 The one question you should asking people in your network to find the right talent for your job opening.
• 45:40 The one thing you can do now to see results by the end of the week. 

Links and Resources

• Ancient Nutrition
• Dr. Axe
• Drive (book) By Daniel Pink
• Drive (Ted Talk) By Daniel Pink
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

This is part two of a two part episode on Youtube Advertising for Ecommerce. If you haven’t listened to the first episode in the series, I would start there.

If you have listened to the first episode, I hope you enjoy the 2nd part of my conversation with Tom Breeze of Viewability.

We get into the details of who should be using Youtube Ads (and who shouldn’t), the difference between advertising on FB and Youtube, a discussion about creative, and a lot more. I call this a 101 episode because I intend it to help you go from knowing nothing about them to understanding whether or not they would work for your business.

Enjoy part two of this very informative episode!

Episode Highlights

• 1:47 Telling your brand story on Youtube and how to get it right.
• 5:29 What level of quality your video needs to be successful on Youtube.
• 9:48 How much you should budget for testing Youtube ads and where to find the easy wins.
• 12:42 How Google will, fairly quickly, start to tell you where to find your converting audiences.
• 14:13 Want Youtube ad inspiration? Here are the brand's Tom thinks are doing it right with their ads.
• 16:25 Here is Tom's cascading video strategy & why it converts and also keeps users from getting video fatigue.

Links and Resources

• Viewability
• Tom Breeze
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

For the last few months, I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking about Youtube Advertising. And for good reason. Andrew and I spend a lot of time talking about what’s working on FB and IG and email, but very little time talking about Youtube Ads.

It’s not because I’m holding out on you. Frankly, it’s because I don’t know a lot about them.

I’ve never run Youtube Ads and have always thought of them as a bit of a black block. To remedy that, I brought a best-in-class guest (Tom Breeze of Viewability) on the show to explain how you can use them to grow your business.

We get into the details of who should be using them (and who shouldn’t), the difference between advertising on FB and Youtube, a discussion about creative, and a lot more. This a 101 episode because it will help you go from knowing nothing about them to understanding whether or not they would work for your business.

Enjoy part one of this very informative episode!

Episode Highlights

• 5:31 Why you should be paying attention to Youtube ads now.
• 7:53 Not quite sure of the placements and ad types on Youtube? Here are your best  options.
• 11:14 The big difference between Facebook & Youtube audiences: why Youtube says their viewers are "leaning In" and looking to buy.
• 11:52 The 4 reasons people go to Youtube and how you can leverage this to connect with your audience.
• 15:13 How to tell if Youtube ads will work for you and your business
• 19:33 How Google develops what they call similar audiences to automatically help you find your audience
• 26:02 Why Youtube ads can be a great way to remarket to your other social traffic to give an omni present feel to your brand.
• 28:17 The importance of your brand story and how it is peril to a successful Youtube (or any) ad campaign.

Links and Resources

• Viewability
• Tom Breeze
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Intro: If your Facebook and Instagram Ads have been struggling recently, you’re not alone. Performance across Facebook and IG has been down for a number of businesses over the last few months. Wallowing in despair can be therapeutic, but it won’t get you anywhere. When things are going poorly, how do you turn it around?

In this episode, Andrew will walk you through what many of his coaching clients have been paying him to do recently...which is to help them get back on track.

You’re going to learn steps you can take to turn your failing advertising campaigns around. He’ll discuss how to assess what’s working and what is not, share some tools and tactics to help understand delivery metrics, and talk about what is actually working now.  Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 6:28 The questions you should first ask when assessing your failing Facebook Campaigns.
• 8:25 The metrics Facebook uses as core signals when serving your ads.
• 9:29 The 4 metrics Andrew regularly reviews and the ideal benchmarks he’s looking for.
• 11:15 Why your Facebook & Instagram campaign performance is likely getting held up in these two places.
• 13:12 Why you should be using the Delivery Insights tool and what you should be looking for.
• 17:52 Why relevance score is sometimes more important than if the ad is converting.
• 20:15 The placements you should be using and how you can test allocating spend.
• 22:20 From failing to scaling, here are the next steps to build your ads back up.

Links and Resources:

• Ecommerce Influence Podcast Episode 136
• Ecommerce Influence Podcast Episode 146
• Delivery Insights
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Become a Member:

If you liked this episode, you’re going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

Today's guest is no stranger to spending money on advertising. But as you'll learn, nowadays he's more focused on delivering an amazing customer experience than optimizing his ad spend.

Babak Azad is the former SVP of Media & Customer Acquisition at Beachbody. During his time there, his team spent over half a billion dollars in media and acquired over 10 million customers through their website, on Amazon, and over the phone. Those are some big-time numbers.

In today's episode, we discuss the danger of falling into the "Cost Per Acquisition > Lifetime Value Game" and share a few surprising things most ecommerce businesses are missing in their quest for scale. This is an exceptional episode with an exceptional guy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:15 Chicken or the egg: Babak's thoughts on pushing sales vs brand awareness to build a brand.
• 8:44 Why customer experience is not just about online UI and UX.
• 11:31 The one thing you must do to create a great customer experience.
• 12:00 How being different can increase your sales and improve your customer experience.
• 13:30 The surprising thing that most ecommerce sites are not focusing on.
• 16:00 How shout-outs, badges & leaderboards help Peloton dial in their customer experience.
• 23:30 The 4 buckets Babak uses for breaking up and creating a great customer experience.
• 25:00 Why you need to understand who you're serving and what they really value.
•  28:55 How niching down and clearly speaking to your core customer can really help you succeed.
• 31:47 These are the metrics you should be reviewing to track customer experience

Links and Resources

• Babak's Blog: Crafting Amazing Customer Experiences
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Join the Membership

If you liked this episode, you're going to love the Brand Growth Experts Membership.  It’s a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

If you want to make sure you’re growing as quickly and sustainably as possible, click here to learn more. Hope to see you on the inside!

I just completed a successful two-day Private Intensive here in ATX with a client. We floated down the Guadalupe River and even played a little Top Golf, but most importantly made some big improvements to their website.

In today’s episode, I want to share a big win we got from those two days so you can replicate it at home.

Problem:The client had seen a 10% drop in conversion rate over the last month. The last 9 months were rock solid consistent, so it was very strange. A 10% drop in CR cost them around $35K a month!

Solution:We installed HotJar and activated the screen recording function. After running a Google Analytics for exit pages and watching screen recordings, we identified a bug preventing users from customizing the product they wanted. It was literally stopping people dead in their tracks! After identifying the bug, the devs fixed it in a few hours.

Episode Highlights

• 2:43 How a drop in conversions may be the result of issues (a bug) on your site.
• 4:46 Why step one should always be to confirm your inventory and that you are not out of stock on key products
• 6:27 Once you've used HotJar to record your site user's journey, here's what you want to look for.
• 7:12 What you should look at first once you've defined your top exit pages.
• 11:24 How a screen recording coupled with a screen shot can help your dev team quickly correct site issues and get you back to converting.
• 14:15 Recap: The 3 steps you can take to making sure your site is converting the best it possibly can

Links and Resources

• Hot Jar
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Are you an ecommerce business owner using Shopify? Then this episode is a must-listen.

Kurt Elster is a master at helping Shopify businesses uncover hidden profits from their stores and increase their conversion rates. The Ethercycle founder joins us today to share his expert tips on where to look for profits you may be missing out on, the design mistakes people consistently make, and the #1 thing that will give you the biggest competitive advantage over Amazon. Plus, he talks about the test you should do today to see how your customers are really engaging with your site. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 7:26 The 30,000-foot-view-quick win when it comes to optimizing your Shopify site.
• 9:48 The things top brands are getting right with website optimization.
• 12:37 The maximum number of apps your Shopify site should be running and why they maybe slowing you down, even if you've uninstalled them.
• 14:13 How simply improving your website's messaging can increase your conversions overnight.
• 15:01 Don't over complicate the landing page and why a "quickie" product page could end up being your best landing page
• 18:15 The things you can do to make your cart and checkout page more seamless and more user friendly.
• 19:46 Why if you're not using "order notes" for something meaningful you should have them turned off
• 25:45 The post checkout optimizations you should be making to increase your AOV.
• 29:46 The two misconceptions Kurt regularly sees when it comes to CRO.

Links and Resources:

• KurtElster.com
• Ethercycle
• The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
• The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Key Smart
• Tactical Baby Gear

Membership

Doors are now open for the Brand Growth Experts Membership, a community of top ecommerce business owners and marketers who I coach one-on-one to help scale up their businesses. Together we’ll create a plan that will help you scale up your business, and then I’ll help you execute it.

The Membership is open for a limited time only, and doors close at midnight CST on Tuesday, July 24. If you want to join, make sure you don’t miss your chance. Click here to learn more.

Sponsors:

Klaviyo

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sezzle

Looking for an easy and effective way to increase your e-commerce site’s conversion rate while also providing your customers a simple and convenient way to pay? Then Sezzle is the payment app you’ve been looking for.

Sezzle allows your customers to buy now and pay in monthly installments. Sezzle settles up directly with the merchant through the purchase process and handles all verification and repayments directly with the customer so you never have to worry about dealing with missed payments. On average Sezzle customers saw a 6.5% increase in sales and a 55% growth of their average order value. Learn more at http://www.sezzle.com/influence.

Here’s the deal with Dynamic Product Ads or “DPAs” as you might know them. Everyone is using them and they work well. But as you’ll learn in today’s episode, the effectiveness of DPAs can create some unique problems for ad buyers.

WFor example, you might have a DPA with a high return on ad spend and a low relevance score. Meaning it’s driving sales but people are indicating they don’t want to see it. How confusing is that!?

In this episode, you’ll learn how to tweak your DPAs for top performance. We’ll talk about managing frequency, bidding, copywriting, and why you need to be thinking about your prospecting traffic. It’s a bit technical but if you’re running these ads (or want to) you’ll get a ton out of this episode. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 6:10 The biggest error in how most brands are structuring their dynamic product ads (DPAs).
• 8:05 Why turning up the spend on your successful DPA may actually be killing your audience.
• 9:25 How to structure your DPA budgets so you're ad frequencies don't skyrocket.
• 11:06 Why you need to watch your DPAs over time and the key things you should be watching for.
• 12:12 How changing copy of even top performing DPAs on a weekly basis can increase your results.
• 14:00 The step by step process you should take to improving your DPAs.

Links and Resources

• Facebook Dynamic Product Ads
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Sponsor: Klaviyo

If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Sponsor: Sezzle

Looking for an easy and effective way to increase your e-commerce site's conversion rate while also providing your customers a simple and convenient way to pay? Then Sezzle is the payment app you've been looking for.

Sezzleallows your customers to buy now and pay in monthly installments. Sezzle settles up directly with the merchant through the purchase process and handles all verification and repayments directly with the customer so you never have to worry about dealing with missed payments. On average Sezzle customers saw a 6.5% increase in sales and a 55% growth of their average order value. Learn more at http://www.sezzle.com/influence.

Today, I have a special episode for you. For our American listeners, July 2nd is two days before the 4th of July holiday. From here on out it will also be known as the day Custom Audience terms got updated! This is huge stuff right before the holiday.

We’re talking about this because after Cambridge Analytica, Facebook has decided to evaluate their process and in my opinion cover their own ass. If you’re delivering ads to custom audiences (you should be) you’re going to need to accept new terms and start specifying exactly where your list came from. These changes will have a direct impact on how you’ll be able to advertise. In this episode, we’ll share what you need to know and how to stay above board. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 4:15 Why Facebook is changing up their custom audience terms
• 6:00 What you will be required acknowledge when uploading a new custom audience
• 7:55 How consumers will now be able to see more info on why they are being served ads
• 8:58 Why you may just have to validate current audiences vs. uploading them all over again
• 10:10 Here is what you will have to do if you are sharing custom audiences as an agency/with clients
• 13:04 The importance of reading the new custom audience terms and conditions

Links and Resources

• Facebook Custom Audience Terms
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Sponsors

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Looking for an easy and effective way to help your ecommence site increase it's conversion rate while also providing your customers an easy and convenient way to pay? Then Sezzleis the payment app you've been looking for. Sezzle allows your customers to buy now and pay in monthly installments. Sezzle settles up directly with the merchant through the purchase process and handles all verification and repayments directly with the customer, so you never have to worry about dealing with missed payments. On average Sezzle customers saw a 6.5% increase in sales and a 55% growth of their average order value. Learn more on how Sezzle can help your bottom line today at: http://www.sezzle.com/influence

Earlier this week, we dropped part one of our incredible interview with NYT best-selling author Greg Mckeown. We had a ton of fun chopping it up with Greg about how to improve your life by doing less. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I’d recommend starting there.

Greg’s book Essentialism has had a profound impact on both Andrew’s life and my own. If you feel like you’re spending time on trivial tasks and you want to remove the “trivial many” and focus on the essential few, this episode is for you. Enjoy part 2!

Episode Highlights

• 4:15 How the criteria you use to set goals will dictate where you plateau.
• 6:00 The closet metaphor you should be using to dial in your success.
• 8:39 When it comes to the essentials have you asked yourself this one question?
• 10:14 The 4 key questions you should be asking of yourself and your brand.
• 12:19 The Southwest Airlines moto that can help you find your perfect customer and what happened to Continental Airlines when they tried to copy Southwest.
• 19:10 How Greg McKeown personally wraps up his week, month, year and retreats
• 25:37 The 100,000 foot view that Greg uses to help him understand the essential vs. nonessential.
• 26:41 How Greg thinks every business owner/executive should be making decisions for their business.

Links and Resources

• Greg McKeown - Essentialism Book
• Twitter.com/Greg McKeown
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

About 2 years ago I purchased and then subsequently devoured the book Essentialism. At the time, I was stretched thin and had too many irons in the fire. The wisdom of Greg Mckeown helped me refocus on what really mattered. Today, I have the tremendous privilege of welcoming Greg on the show.

Have you ever felt the urge to declutter your work life? Do you simultaneously feel overworked and underutilized? The remedy is rarely to “get more done” and almost always to “do the right things.” In today’s episode, we explore what stops otherwise outstanding people from breaking through to the next level, and dive into why most people struggle to define what’s important in their life. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

• 5:22 The meaning of being an essentialist as defined by author Greg Mckeown himself.
• 8:26 How contribution may be keeping you from getting to the next level.
• 12:23 Why it's impossible to have multiple priorities and still be successful.
• 14:08 How to train your brain to focus on the most important thing you should be doing right now.
• 17:30 How scheduling free thought time can keep you from mimicking others and help you get ahead of the competition.
• 20:22 The 4 things you should focus on when planning your day and the one thing you may realize as you develop this habit.
• 25:11 Why you shouldn’t feel guilty saying “no” when the work doesn’t fit with your internal goals.
• 30:18 The 3 stages of essentialism and how to use them when interacting with colleagues and clients.

Links and Resources

• Greg McKeown - Essentialism Book
• Twitter.com/Greg Mckeown
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

The number one question I get from ecommerce business owners, whether they’re just starting out or making $4MM a year, is: how do I scale? If you’re asking yourself that question, this episode is for you.

In today’s Flash Episode I’ll walk through the big picture strategy that will help guide you on the path to 8 figures. We’ll talk about the three phases of growth, from $0 to $10MM, and what you should be doing at each phase in order to grow your business. I’ll talk about how your role as business owner will evolve as your company scales, and the three levers you should focus on to scale your business. And, I’ll share my #1 piece of advice for what you can do today to kickstart your growth.

Episode Highlights

• 4:03 (Phase 1) The importance of finding a marketing channel that works for you, learning it well and doubling down on it.
• 5:36 (Phase 2) Now that you’ve mastered the channel, here’s why you need to remove yourself to continue growing.
• 7:41 Once you've found your replacement, its time to focus on increasing these key metrics.
• 8:47 How email is still king when it comes to increasing buyer frequency.
• 11:25 (Phase 3) If 8 figures is in sight, it might be time to step out of the way and develop a team to take over
• 13:59 How developing a hiring plan can increase your growth to 8 figures
• 14:55 This is the one thing you should never expect when hiring someone to replace you in a role.

Links and Resources

• EP 131: Productivity Hacks with Sebastian Marshall
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyoand you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Did you know that messenger bots have the highest engagement rates at the lowest cost per lead? Did you know that messenger subscribers can be 5-10 times more valuable than email subscribers? If you’re ready to grow your business with personalized, highly targeted communications, then this episode is for you.

Mikael Yang, CEO and Co-Founder of ManyChat, joins us today to talk about messenger bots. Messenger has bypassed social networks to become the number one channel people are using to communicate with each other, and with brands. Yang shares the opportunities ecommerce businesses have with messenger bots to reach their customers in this highly intimate and engaging channel. Only 1% of marketers are using messenger, which is anticipated to become the main communication channel for B2C in the near future, and Yang talks about why now is the time you should start.

Episode Highlights:  

• 6:53 Why Messenger is the future of B2C communication.
• 7:46 The Chinese ecommerce bot strategy that the West may not be ready for.
• 10:39 The one mistake Mikael sees most ecomm businesses making when it comes to bots.
• 11:59 How messenger bots may be the final nail in e-mail’s coffin.
• 12:43 The reason why bots will elevate the level of messaging over what we currently see with email.
• 15:52 How the structure of email encourages marketers to spam their audience and what Facebook is doing to ensure relevance to its users with bots.  
• 20:39 The ways Mikael sees Facebook controlling costs and rewarding businesses for positive messenger engagement.
• 22:52 What’s really working for brands using messenger bots right now.
• 28:02 The 3 actions you should take with messenger bots.
• 33:40 How to develop a conversation with your audience through messenger bots to understand what they really want from you.
• 38:28 New to messenger bots and looking for the “quick win”? This is what Mikael suggests.

Links and Resources:

• ManyChat
• ManyChat Facebook Community
• Free Messenger Marketing Course (ManyChat)

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. If you’re running an ecommerce business and sending emails to your customers, you should be using Klaviyo. It will help you find out who your best customers are and target them one-to-one to make more money.

I’ve been using Klaviyo since they were just two employees. Now they have a team of 150 and are rolling out new features almost weekly. If you aren’t already a customer, head over to www.ecommerceinfluence.com/klaviyo and you’ll get a free trial + priority on-boarding.

Are your CPAs on Facebook or Instagram rising? If so, you’re not alone. As more advertisers pour into the channel the cost of advertising is going up! Today, we’ve got a special “Flash Episode” for you. We share why your acquisition costs always increase as you spend more and we go step-by-step through a process that will help you advertise more effectively and profitably.

This is a technical episode and one you might need to listen to a couple of times. But if you’re struggling to scale up your ad spend, it could be the ladder you need to take it to the next level.  Andrew and I go super deep into the FB weeds and talk about audience building, refreshing ads, horizontal scaling, etc. Paid social advertisers...enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:30 The super tool that Facebook has given advertisers and you’re likely not even using it.
• 6:08 How to find the “First Time Impression Ratio” for your ads to make sure you are reaching new users.
• 10:23 Red Alert: Your CPA’s are rising: Here are the 5 levers you can pull to see overall improvements
• 14:23 If you haven’t tried Instagram placement in over a year or even the last 6 months, you should be trying and testing Instagram placements
• 16:06 How you can correct a failing ad set with just 5 minutes and a pen and some paper.
• 16:20 The advice Molly Pittman shared with Andrew as it relates to scaling your business on Facebook.
• 17:24 Austin’s key takeaway from his recent read: Scientific Advertising  

Links and Resources:

• Delivery Insights
• Scientific Advertising
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital

Are you ready to scale your business and ship internationally, but feel intimidated by the complexities involved? Are you currently shipping abroad, but struggling with all of the different contracts, customs, and taxes? If so, we’ve got a fantastic episode for you today.

Shipping outside of the United States can be a huge component of scaling your business, but there are many challenges related to finding the best courier in every country, understanding different regulations, and having proper documentation. EasyShip is a shipping platform that takes care of all of these issues and helps ecommerce businesses ship all over the world.

Tommaso Tamburnotti, co-founder of EasyShip, joins us this week to talk about international shipping for ecommerce. We discuss the process of moving from domestic to international shipping, common inventory issues, and how to stop leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of the international market.

Episode Highlights:  

• 7:21 Understanding how Easy Ship came to be and how they’ve helped many ecommerce brands go international.
• 14:21 How to identify international markets and scale your business.
• 19:25 Why the language barrier shouldn’t keep you from testing international sales.
• 21:53 The international markets you should be considering.
• 23:15 The 5 main steps you need to take to start shipping internationally and how Easy Ship simplifies the process.
• 30:53 How to overcome the customer service nightmare of getting a product stuck in customs.
• 33:53 Why there is currently a huge opportunity for US brands to start selling internationally.
• 32:23 The two main problems that Tommaso sees with US brands when they sell internationally. 

Links and Resources:

• Get $20 added to your account when you sign up for Easy Ship with this link.

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the information out there about how to grow your business? I know I do, it’s a freaking jungle out there.

There is so much noise out there telling you to build this, optimize that, or to invest in some new shiny marketing channel it’s difficult to choose where to direct your attention..

It’s easy to get distracted from the simple fundamentals of how to grow your business. If you’re feeling stuck and are looking for inspiration on how to jumpstart growth, this episode is for you.

This week we share the three levers you should focus on in order to grow your business, the simplest and least expensive way. These include: number of customers, average order value and frequency. We talk about how to calculate each of these, and how, as well as how much, you need to increase them by to double your business over the next year.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:42 Lever #1: Reviewing your product pages to identify opportunities for increasing the number of customers.
• 6:05 How the creation of a “best-sellers” page can ensure you are not leaving money on the table.
• 7:28 Lever # 2: Increasing your Average Order Value.
• 10:28 The data is in and this is the minimum AOV you should be targeting for to see success with Facebook and Instagram advertising.
• 13:37 Lever #3: Increasing your purchase frequency.
• 17:20 Here is Austin’s formula for figuring out purchase frequency and how to scale it up over the next year.        

Links and Resources:

• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Cart Hook
• One Click Upsell

This was one of my favorite episodes to record in the last year. I’ve often struggled with work-life balance and am no stranger to trying things that haven’t worked. This week we bring you a refreshing interview with my friend Victor Delacruz about the ups and downs of entrepreneurial life.

Victor Delacruz is the founder and owner of ChristianPlanner.com. Victor shares his journey as an ecommerce entrepreneur - from youth pastor to Air Force Captain to Jazz Piano student at NYU to the business owner he is now.

Victor talks about the benefits of having a solid daily routine for optimizing your personal and professional life, and the importance for finding what works best for you. He shares the challenges he has faced within his personal and professional life, and the game-changer tactic he used for growing his email list, gathering customer testimonials, and getting tons of user-generated content that was repurposed for social ads and a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Episode Highlights:

• 5:28 The path to success sometimes starts with a journey towards failure.   

• 13:04 How Victor came to the decision to start again after his many setbacks.

• 13:26 Step 1: Doing the research and understanding the audience size and opportunity in front of him.

• 14:30 Why the key to a great ecommerce site starts with a simple name.

• 16:00 How a single open ended question in the first email of Christian Planner’s email sequence lead to hundreds of responses and the growth of the brand.

• 17:40 This is how Christian Planner gathered user generated content to create a video that helped them raise money, gain followers, increase email subscribers and new product ideas.

• 28:18 The one thing that Victor learned in the military that has helped him grow in his business.

• 32:00 Exploring neurofeedback, floating and other methods to get a mental edge in a distracting online world.

• 38:15 The daily routine that helps Victor stay on track and the “have-to-dos” that he uses to measures his growth & success

Links and Resources:

• Christianplanner.com

• 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

• Gleam.io

• Joe Rogan Experience

• Instagram.com/VictorDelacruz

Do you want to be ahead of the curve when it comes to testing new Facebook advertising strategies? Then this episode is for you.

We’re always looking for ways to increase Facebook ad performance and drive more revenue, and today Andrew shares four things he recently learned that are having a big impact for his clients.

We cover how to use value bid optimization to target not only the people most likely to convert, but also the people who are most likely to give you highest return on ad spend, the importance of experimenting with your bidding windows within conversion campaigns, how to set up better social proofing tied to your product catalog ads, and how to review your customer lifetime value within Facebook analytics in order to test the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Episode Highlights:

• 3:18 The value of ROAS optimization and why you might just want to give it a chance.
• 6:20 When you should be adjusting your bidding window to increase scaling opportunities.
• 8:45 Why tagging a product AND social proofing your ads is a double dose for success.
• 10:55 Facebook’s Lifetime Value analytics and how this data is a game changer for growing the value of your customers over time.
• 13:54 The key formula for growing your business in ecommerce.  
• 14:13 How you can test a few of Andrew’s findings on email as well.

Links and Resources:

• Jonloomer.com
• Klaviyo.com
• If you’re looking to scale your ecommerce business, visit BrandGrowthExperts.com and see how we can help!

Do you want to know what it really takes to build a $100 million business and brand? Then this episode is for you.

Building a successful multi-million dollar business is a marathon, not a sprint. Jake Kassan, founder and CEO of MVMT Watches, was one of my first clients when he was just launching the brand back in 2013. He joins us today to talk about how things have changed since then, and how MVMT has grown to what it is today.

MVMT strives to be a best in class brand and best in class in all around marketing, and Jake shares the strategic approach to marketing MVMT uses to achieve those goals. He also talks about how having a strong team is essential to scaling your business and shares his experience hiring a CMO and supporting team, and what you need to know to do it.

Episode Highlights:

• 7:48 How building relationships with customers through direct sales online helped MVMT scale.
• 10:25 The best success comes in stages and this it what each stage of growth has looked like for MVMT over the last 5 years.
• 12:15 Jake’s #1 tip for successfully scaling a business (hint: it’s not email or Facebook ads).
• 13:42 What MVMT would do differently if they had to do it all over again.
• 18:12 As an entrepreneur, Jake believes it’s important to always be testing and working through those results to find success.
• 19:25 The basic math MVMT used to scale in the beginning and how they look at “spending-money-to-make-money” now.   
• 21:30 Where MVMT is testing for acquisition and where they’re seeing success.
• 25:23 What you need to know when growing your team so you can successfully scale your business.
• 30:10 How MVMT solidified their appeal with customers through user-generated content.
• 33:40 What Jake loves most about building a lifestyle brand.
• 36:41 Every business goes through low times, here’s a few MVMT went through in order to grow.
• 42:20 Why Jake feels it’s so important to network with and learn from other founders. 

Links and Resources:

• MVMT Watches
• Hims
• Jake Kassan
• Instagram.com/JakeKassan
• Twitter.com/JakeKassan

Are you frustrated with the increased competition on Facebook’s mobile news feed? Are you struggling with rising advertising costs and want to maximize your spend as effectively as possible? Then this episode is for you.

Andrew shares two simple Facebook ad strategies that will get you more bang for your buck and help you compete on the news feed. He also talks about where on Instagram you need to be testing ads, if you’re not already, and the great success he’s seeing with his clients.

Episode Highlights:

• 2:29 Things we’ve noticed recently regarding the newsfeed that are affecting your ads.
• 3:15 Are you testing your product catalog in a top of funnel ads? Here’s why you should.
• 5:58 How to visually set up product catalog ads to make them most effective.
• 9:55 Still haven’t tried Broad Match Ads? Here’s how to set them up for success.
• 11:50 Why your ad copy is so important for getting the best ROAS possible.
• 12:30 If you’re not testing Instagram stories you’re likely missing out on a 4x return on ad spend.

Links and Resources:

• Podcast@ecommerceinfluence.com
• Andrew@Foxwelldigital.com

Have you been wondering about the impact Facebook’s recent data privacy issues will have on digital marketing? Do you want to know what you need to do to get your ads in front of the right audience as social advertising continues to evolve? Then this episode is for you.

Master digital marketer Molly Pittman joins us to talk about all things Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. She discusses the three key things you need to launch a successful ad campaign as competition and costs continue to rise, the positive outcome she hopes to see from Facebook following the Zuckerberg hearings, and how to stay relevant as messenger continues to grow as an important advertising platform.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:20 Understanding the current state of advertising on social media.
• 7:20 The future of digital will include more informed consumers and a more regulated digital space.
• 10:22 The best way to combat rising ad costs may lie within your offer.
• 13:30 Why research and this free web tool (hint: you likely use it every day) are so important to the success of your ads.
• 15:53 Did you pick up on this during Facebook’s Congressional hearings? This is where Facebook is likely headed with advertising.
• 19:10 We are only at the infancy of marketing as we know it and here’s why.
• 20:33 Communication with marketers may be the next big step for improving Facebook.
• 21:49 Why Messenger is the next frontier for Facebook.
• 25:39 So what about Instagram? Here's how it will likely grow in the digital advertising space.
• 29:14 Why ManyChat isn’t worried that Facebook will create its own bot.
• 33:22 What you should be doing to sustain your marketing mix for Q2.
• 37:30 Molly’s workflow for creating great Facebook ads and which step she spends the most time on.

Links and Resources:

• Digital Strategy Bootcamps
• Digital Marketer

Today we’re launching our first FLASH episode! These shorter, bite-sized episodes will have actionable tips and takeaways you can easily implement in your business that will start driving immediate results. We love interviewing experts in the ecommerce space, and will still share those interviews every other week, but also want to offer content that will give you some quick wins.

In today’s episode we talk about three common mistakes I see almost all of my clients making with their email marketing. You’ll learn: which setting must be turned off in your browse and abandoned cart campaigns to prevent you from missing out on $100s (if not $1000s) in sales, the importance of list segmentation and how to avoid ending up in the spam box, and why opt-in rate isn’t the best metric for measuring the success of your offers, and what you should measure instead.

Episode Highlights:

• 4:45 The importance of making sure the Smart Sending Feature is properly set so you’re not leaving money on the table
• 7:00 Why it is so important to be segmenting and sending emails to your engaged audiences
• 8:30 How sending emails to those who are inactive on your email list can get you put in the spam box
• 9:36 When it comes to measuring your email list, this is the metric you should be using
• 10:12 Why it is so important to not just review the number of opt-ins you get, but how they opted in and when/how often they converted after that

Links and Resources:

• The Daily Podcast
• My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast
• Brandgrowthexperts.com/intensive
• podcast@ecommerceinfluence.com

Running an online business can be a lonely endeavor. It's easy to second guess yourself if you don't have other business owners to connect with. Have you ever wished you could find out how other companies are managing their growth? In today's episode, we get the inside scoop on what’s working (and what’s not) at the fast-growing gifting startup Greetabl.

Joe Fischer, the Founder of Greetabl, joins us today to talk about what worked for him as he grew his business from an idea to an industry. Joe talks about which marketing channels have worked best to fuel Greetabl’s growth, how to hire quality talent as you scale (even if you’re in a small town), the reality behind fundraising for your business, and the five key areas ecommerce brands need to focus on to see ongoing, sustained growth in the coming years.

Episode Highlights:

• 9:16 How Greetabl got in front of people to grow their business
• 11:18 The campaign that Greetabl is excited about launching (Note: print marketing is not dead)
• 15:45 Thinking about bringing everything in house? Here is how Greetabl is weighing those costs as a positive
• 18:49 How to hire quality talent even if you are small business just starting to scale
• 22:24 What ecommerce businesses can be doing to maintain sustained growth through 2018 and into 2019
• 25:20 Who Greetabl views as their competition and how they address competition as a whole
• 30:27 How to raise capital for you business and the secret sauce you will need to do it.
• 33:37 The best ads that are crushing it for Greetabl right now
• 38:44 Email does it. The Campaigns that are delivering great ROI for Greetabl
• 43:45 The tools and tactics Joe uses to balance life & work

Links and Resources:

• Asana
• Both Sides of the Table Blog
• Effective executive
• Ecommerce Influence Episode 135 with Sebastian Marshall
• Getting Things Done
• ToDoist

Joe Fischer:

• JF@Greetabl.com
• Twitter.com/TheJoeFischer

Are you an ecommerce business owner who’s managing your own Facebook ads? Do you want a breakdown of the best tactics to implement right now that’ll help you create and run ads that convert? Then this episode is for you.

Dive deep into Facebook Ads with Justin Marshall, from Ad Hoc Media. He talks about specific targeting strategies, optimization tactics for each part of the sales funnel, how to scale and ramp up your ads, and where he’s seeing surprising success (hint: it’s not with the typical CTA button ads).

Episode Highlights:  

• 4:35 How Facebook advertising has changed and the ad type that’s out-performing traditional ads.
• 6:25 The resources that Justin uses to keep up with ongoing Facebook ad changes.
• 8:13 Automated Rules: What they are and how you can better use them in your Facebook campaigns.
• 10:45 Why thinking like the algorithm can improve your ads performance.
• 11:25 How having a higher average order value can improve ad testing and overall success.
• 14:31 What Justin looks for in a brand before helping them successfully scale with Facebook ads.
• 18:36 How to properly structure audience overlap, and why you shouldn’t be so concerned about your ads competing with each other.
• 25:33 The counterintuitive objective structure that is actually working.
• 29:16 How boosting organic posts has actually helped deliver a 10x return for some clients.
• 31:39 Have your ads started to flop? Justin’s method for overcoming this and getting ads to correctly scale.
• 36:38 The difference between Broad Match and general broad audiences and how they are both helping find new customers for brands.
• 39:34 The most common mistakes you’re likely making with managing your ads.  

Links and Resources:

• Jon Loomer - PHC
• Facebook Blueprint
• MuteSix - Spend $10k A Day Podcast
• Facebook Ads Manager/Power Editor Users (Unofficial) Group
• Reveal Bot
• Smartly.io

Justin Marshall

• AdHocMedia.co
• Justin At Adhocmedia.co
• Twitter.com/JBenMarshall

Are you currently advertising on Facebook, and unsure what next steps to take to start scaling your business? Do you ever wonder whether other entrepreneurs actually see success after listening to our podcast and attending our Intensives? We know talk is cheap, which is why we invited one of our listeners to join us today to share what he’s learned, and implemented, after working with us.

Mark Arruda, owner and CEO of Constantly Varied Gear, is a long-time podcast listener and previous attendee of both the Email and Facebook Intensives. He joins Andrew and Gracie Foxwell to chat about Facebook advertising, including how he’s using Facebook messenger ads to get people into his sales funnel and make conversions, the creative way he’s developing lookalike audiences to expand reach and scale, and his favorite tip from the Facebook Intensive that’s driving major engagement and social proof.

Episode Highlights:

• 3:40 Here’s how to use what Mark calls an interest based lookalike
• 7:00 This one tip from the intensive is like social proofing on steroids, plus Austin’s power-up move at 9:50
• 10:45 Why you should be testing the bid optimization to capture the most relevant results
• 11:30 How segmenting your lookalike audiences may be beneficial to your brand’s success
• 13:15 If you’re running dynamic product ads, this is why you should also be doing a broad match DPA
• 16:40 Taking an inside look at what CVG’s chat flow for messenger ads looks like
• 21:24 How testing with messenger bots doesn’t need to be scary or too expensive
• 24:25 These are the creative ad types that are working for CVG that you can be testing too

Links and Resources:

• Constantly Varied Gear
• Facebook Intensive
• Email Marketing Intensive
• The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing (Facebook Group)

Have you ever wondered how to get started with Conversion Rate Optimization for your store? Do you sometimes wonder if you’re leaving money on the table by not running A/B tests? If so, you’re not alone.

Today, I have the legend Peep Laja of Conversion XL with me to help demystify CRO and share some practical ideas to boost your conversion rate.

Peep is an expert in CRO and runs the most successful optimization agency I know of. He was also the first person I started to learn from when I found his very successful blog.

I’m going to be at Peep’s event, ConversionXL Live at the end of March. If your business is doing over $10 million a year, I consider it a must attend event. It’s going to be a lot of fun, we’re going to learn a bunch, and you’ll be surrounded by people leading the fastest growing companies in the world.   

Peep will even give you 20% off the ticket price when you use the code Ecommerceinfluence to register.

Click here to learn more and book your ticket.

Episode Highlights:

• 3:20 Ready to approach conversion optimization on your site? Here’s where to start.
• 5:00 The amount of time you should spend optimizing your site for conversions might surprise you.
• 8:20 Follow these steps to make sure your website has an analytics clean bill of health.
• 11:30 How to tell when your data is ready to begin analyzing and making assumptions.
• 13:10 Here is the magic number of transactions needed to A/B test and how to get there if you’re not there yet.
• 16:40 This is the place that most businesses are leaving money on the table when it comes to their site and how you can dial it in.
• 21:07 These are the tools that Peep keeps in his digital tool box, and when it may be time to hire a pro.
• 26:00 All about CXL Live: March 28 - 30, 2018

Links and Resources:

• Hotjar
• Typeform
• Google Analytics

It has been a whirlwind month! Andrew and I finished up our first ever back-to-back Email and Facebook Intensive here in Austin TX. Both Intensives were wildly successful and we’ve been spending this week reflecting a bit. As much as these Intensives are focused on sharing what we know, we also learn a ton from each business who attends. In this episode, we share our discoveries from the event with you.

We unpack an unusual success story from Facebook Messenger, we discuss how to use the new Visual Flow Builder in Klaviyo, and key in on a powerful use case for the Gleam platform. We also share a few surprises from the Intensives. Successful marketing campaigns come in many different forms and working with almost 40 businesses over a 4-day period reminds you to continually test your assumptions.

This episode is chock full of tips and ideas. I hope you enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 4:50 The power Messenger & Messenger Bots: how some are seeing open rates as high as 95%
• 7:55 Klaviyo’s  visual flow builder what it is and how you can accurately split test your email business assumptions  
• 10:55 Worried you don’t have a big enough budget for effective Facebook & Instagram advertising? Here’s what you can do.
• 11:27 The one ads tactic that Andrew learned during the Intensive that is actually working for attendees
• 12:51 How two of our attendees in the B2B space instantly started seeing a 7x & 3x ROAS on Facebook almost overnight.  
• 15:24 How this attendee used Gleam.io pro to run a giveaway that generated user testimonials, fans, purchases and marketing materials to later deliver them huge success with their Kickstarter campaign
• 17:39 Thinking of creating video content? Here is why you may only need your iPhone
• 18:10 Still not sure how to social proof your Facebook ads? Andrew explains the value and exactly how to do it
• 20:13 if you’re on a Shopify site here is why you should be running dynamic product ads as a part of your retargeting strategy.
• 21:22 Email best practices and the one practice that Austin is surprised most ecommerce people are still not doing
• 23:48 Finding your best customers (whales) through the use of Facebook’s Time On Site custom audience
• 25:49 Austin & Andrew share their overall highlights of the intensive (hint: it includes axe throwing)
• 30:00 Thanks to the listeners and what’s coming up on future shows

Links and Resources:

• Gleam.io

Happy 2018! We’re back -- and we’ve got something special for you. Last week Andrew Foxwell and I hosted a Facebook Live where we talked about our email and Facebook marketing predictions for 2018.

Email marketing is alive and well, but there is one email opt-in technique that needs to be put to bed once and for all -- are you using it? There’s been a ton of hype around Facebook Messenger, but it has yet to live up to it -- will 2018 be its year?

Tune in to hear what we think will change and what will stay the same this year, and what you need to do to keep up with the ever-evolving world of online marketing.

Episode Highlights:

• 2:00 How product integrations will grow and opportunities will increase with broad match Facebook targeting
• 4:15 As email open rates continue to decrease in 2018, you can stay competitive with segmentation
• 5:40 The expansion of Facebook Analytics: seeing the journey of a Like to a purchase
• 7:20 The increased effectiveness of connecting with cart abandoners through Facebook Messenger & Messenger bots
• 10:00 The continued integration and expansion of Instagram opportunities for advertisers
• 13:30 Email continues to be a top 3 sales driver (it’s far from dead)
• 14:30 Spin-to-win: why it’s likely ruining the quality of your email list
• 16:40 Advertising in Facebook Groups and other sub-communities
• 17:50 Expansion of bidding optimization - Facebook will help you reach your MVPs
• 19:07 Chat bots become better at lead capture and finding your best leads
• 23:30 Set yourself up to make 2018 your most profitable year yet by attending the Facebook or Email Marketing Intensive

Links and Resources:

• Facebook Intensive 
• Email Intensive 

If something happened to you today, how long could your business run before things started falling apart? How much time are you actually spending on value (i.e. profit) producing work and how much time is wasted on low-level, time sucking tasks? Get ready to save time, get more done, and be happier with the tips we’re sharing this week.

Productivity superstar Sebastian Marshall is the co-founder of Ultraworking, and writes 6000 words per week for Strategic Review. He shares the top the three things to do to set yourself up for consistent productivity and success, and the single most important question to answer before starting any project that will help you stay on track and achieve your goals. Also, find out what you need to start doing right now that will change the way you work forever (you’ll be surprised how simple it is).

Episode Highlights:

• 7:23 Is this your routine? What the not-so-productive cycle really looks like
• 12:25 The one question you should ask before every project or task
• 15:44 The time frame of productivity:  now, tomorrow, the week, the month, the year
• 17:31 How to estimate your time correctly to increase your productivity
• 21:00 Why having a monthly “theme” will help you become more consistent week to week
• 23:50 Working into the future: How working ahead just 1x can make you more productive  
• 25:32 Fine tuning the process: why you should be making your weekly work easier
• 29:30 How the #1 car company (Toyota) categorizes their work output and how you can too
• 33:25 Why handing off a project actually reduces productivity
• 36:30 How tracking the time of the work you do on your most important tasks may surprise you and how it can help you refocus
• 40:00 Here’s how Sebastian defines and then prioritizes his most important tasks
• 48:30 Asking yourself this one powerful question will help you define what you want to happen and what you need to do to get there
• 49:30 Describing what a work cycle is and how it can help you if you don’t know where to start your work
• 55:00 More about Sebastian’s Pentathlon and how you can join in the fun

Links and Resources:

• Ultraworking.com/ecommerce
• The Strategic Review
• Ultraworking Pentathlon
• Peter Drucker - The Effective Executive
• Sebastian@ultraworking.com

A mega PR hit can be the gift that keeps on giving -- so why aren’t more ecommerce business owners getting in on it?

This week, Peter Friis, CEO and co-founder of ESSIO Shower and CEO and founder of PR Volt, talks about how PR, combined with Facebook advertising, helped grow his business from 0 to $1 million in sales in just two years. Friis shares the key elements of successful PR campaigns, and what your product must have in order to get news editors’ attention. Find out how you can get started with PR for your business today, and the best way to package PR wins into ads that produce results.

Episode Highlights:

• 8:07 The two key elements to use when reaching out to editors for PR opportunities
• 10:20 How Good Morning America (GMA) helped Essio Shower focus their marketing efforts
• 12:01 Why using Facebook video ads helped get more conversions
• 15:30 How hitting a PR “homerun” like GMA can impact your ecommerce business even a year later
• 17:00 The two most effective ways to turn your PR “wins” into great advertisements
• 20:14 Videos on Facebook can be hard for converting on top of the funnel, Peter shares the ad objectives that are most most successful
• 22:30 Does your ecommerce have these key qualities? Then you should be doing PR
• 24:40 Here is what you should be looking for in a PR agency (hint: it’s not who they know)  
• 27:16 What to expect: the lifetime value of good PR for a brand/product
• 33:05 3 types of videos that are working on Facebook for Essio Shower that you can create too
• 36:05 The tools that literally built PR Volt from the ground up

Links and Resources:

• Essio Shower
• PR Volt
• HARO
• Cision
• Streak CRM
• Zapier
• Air Table
• Moz
• Diskbot

Peter Friis

• Peter@prvolt.com
• Clarity.fm/PerterFriis
• Twitter.com/spiritfriis

Have you ever wondered how a few brands crush it with their content marketing, while the vast majority of blogs fall flat? Are you interested in being able to track your blogging efforts? Do you want to know whether you should you be writing your content for shares or SEO? And how much is a realistic minimum investment (in both time and money) to make content marketing successful for you?

In this episode, Nat Eliason, former head of Growth at Sumo and the founder of Growth Machine, answers those questions, and more. Join us as Nat talks about what’s working in content creation, how to create a strategy, and whether you should even do it at all. He also drops the truth about the 80/20 strategy related to content creation vs. promotion -- and what he says just might surprise you.

Episode Highlights:

• 8:08 Who should be doing content marketing and what kind of content is successful?
• 9:20 What’s the minimum investment for quality content marketing?
• 13:00 The WIKI Strategy and how to use it to plan your content.
• 19:46 How to approach content marketing if you are a product (not service based).
• 25:04 Nat’s strategy for paid content -- what he does (and doesn’t do) will surprise you.
• 27:22 You’ve created the content, here’s when you can expect to see results.
• 30:00 Setting the record straight on the 80/20 rule of content marketing.
• 31:10 What Nat does his first two weeks with a new client to set them up for success (and you can do them too).
• 32:30 The #1 thing most blogs fail to do: Actionability.
• 37:11 Are you answering people’s questions or are you trying to entertain? Nat talks about what your priority should be.
• 45:44 What’s in Nat’s daily toolbox that makes his life better.

Links and Resources:

• Google Docs
• Trello.com
• Slack.com
• Zapier.com
• Edgar.com
• Quuu.co
• Wordable.io
• Ahrefs.com

Nat Eliason

• Twitter.com/NatEliason
• YourGrowthMachine.com
• Nat’s Wiki Strategy

You want the cream of the crop, the best of the best, the bee’s knees if you will. We’ve got you.

Everyone knows the right idea at the right time can have a huge impact on your business. In this episode, we deliver our favorite and most actionable segments of the last year in a bite-sized format you can put right to work.

You’ll discover the best way to start Influencer Marketing with Chase Fisher of Blenders Eyewear. You’ll explore the mysterious concept of Kickstarter “Super Backers” with Jeff Sheldon from Ugmonk. You’ll learn how to work less and make more with Tyler Sullivan of Bombtech. And last but not least, you’ll dive into a segment about “social proofing” your ads with Deidre Kelly.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• 6:06 Outlining strategies to grow your brand with influencers…the tools
• 10:11 How to track influencer marketing
• 13:29 Discovering "Super Backers" and their value on Kickstarter
• 16:25 How much time you should commit to your Kickstarter video
• 20:15 How to set up Social Proof on your Facebook Ads
• 23:00 Facebook placements and where you should be putting your ads
• 27:39 How you can improve your business by finding the things you’re not good at
• 30:00 Grow your Ecommerce business: Eliminate the options

Links and Resources:

brandgrowthexperts.com/intensive

Chase Fisher

• Blenderseyewear.com
• 119: [Case Study] The Science of Influence: How To Double Your Business Using Instagram

Jeff Sheldon

• UgMonk/Gather
• 123: [Case Study] How Gather Raised Over $430K on Kickstarter

Deirdre Kelly

• Sum Digital
• Search Engine Journal
• Social Media Examiner
• 126: The Big Facebook Advertising Episode for Q4: Part 2

Tyler Sullivan

• Bombtechgolf.com
• 124: [Case Study] The Effort Illusion: How Working Less Allowed Bombtech Golf to Finally Explode

The holiday season is almost upon us -- do you want to maximize sales while minimizing stress? Are you ready to learn tips and tricks for standing out during this highly competitive time? If so, this is the episode for you.

Austin and Andrew share the top five things you must do to prepare for a successful holiday season. Find out the best email marketing schedule for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when to start (hint: it's probably earlier than you might think) and which customers to direct your messages to. And, learn how to make the most of your VIP relationships by giving them something special, and locking in high-quality sales before Black Friday hits.

Preparation is key this time of year, so get ready to learn how to make this your best holiday season yet.

Episode Highlights:

• 2:45 - The first thing you want to do to prepare for Black Friday/Cyber Monday
• 5:19 - How planning multiple offers for Facebook and Instagram might not be so easy
• 9:49 - Maximize your touch points by synchronizing your email & Facebook messaging
• 12:04 - Running through a sample Black Friday email campaign and how not to overwhelm potential buyers
• 15:22 - How to dial in your advertising the two weeks leading up to Black Friday
• 16:50 - Why prospecting before the holidays is so difficult, costly and not a great idea
• 18:44 - Austin’s Black Friday Tip #5: Reward your loyal customers
• 23:28 - How to segment your email list and incentivize your customers  

Links and Resources:

• 2017 Holiday Promotional Calendar
• Klaviyo.com
• Foxwelldigital.com
• Twitter.com/AndrewFoxwell
• Twitter.com/AustinBrawner

Do you want to know the secret formula for creating high converting Facebook ads? Are you ready to make video ads work for you? Then get ready for part 2 of our big Facebook advertising episode.  

Molly McCarty returns to share her plans for making Q4 a success despite high CPCs and CPMs. Deirdre Kelly joins us to talk about value-based optimization and what you need to know about this offering to ensure you get the most out of it for your clients. Deirdre also shares one of her secrets to creating great lookalike audiences - Klaviyo integration.

Klaviyo is one of our favorite tools - if you’re interested in a free trial, you can sign-up via this link.

Did you miss Part 1 of our big Facebook advertising episode? Check it out here!   

Episode Highlights:

• 2:50 - Molly sets the record straight on what creative converts the best.
• 5:42 - What the “gurus” are saying is great right now, but actually isn’t working.
• 7:38 - What your Facebook video needs to do in :15 or less
• 8:04 - Why strong creative and this seed audience will be mega important to your Q4 strategy
• 12:30 - How Broad Match DPAs are helping change the Facebook game
• 16:30 - Facebook is only getting smarter. Here’s how you can set your Broad Match DPAs up the right way
• 21:12 - Here is the ad creative that Deirdre Kelly is still most surprised by and why you should still be using it
• 25:15 - Why consolidation with your ad sets works and how to do it
• 30:35 - If you’re a summer focused brand, here’s how you can compete in Q4

Links and Resources:

• Brand Growth Experts
• Jon Loomer Business Manager Course
• Klaviyo

     Molly McCarty

• 3Q Digital
• Twitter/Molly_McCarty
• Molly At 3Q Digital.com     

    Deirdre Kelly

• SumDigital
• Twitter/DeirdreMMKelly
• Search Engine Journal
• Social Media Examiner  

Are you ready to put a Facebook advertising plan in place for Q4 that's actually going to drive conversions, and not just clicks? Have you implemented Facebook's recommended advertising tactics, but they just aren't giving your brand the results you desire? Well this episode has what you're looking for, and more.

David Hermann and Molly McCarty share the truth about what really works and what doesn't when it comes to Facebook's recommended advertising approach. Learn the important first step that's necessary before launching conversion ads, and the best ad layout to help you drive sales. And, get an insider look at Facebook's new feature: household targeting.

Enjoy part 1, and stay tuned for part 2 coming soon!

Episode Highlights:

• 6:37 - Do your ads have great social proof?
• 12:00 - Want to boost your ROAS? Launch DPAs
• 13:13 - Why it pays to go against Facebook’s recommendations
• 15:40 - What surprises you most right now with Facebook ads (David’s reply)
• 20:50 - What is your Q4 strategy? (David’s reply)
• 24:00 - Why you want this new targeting feature: Household Targeting
• 29:50 - Why you shouldn’t stop testing seed audiences
• 30:40 - oCPM bidding: when you should kick it into manual vs auto bidding
• 33:30 - Just getting started? Here are the seed audiences you should be starting with
• 35:12 - Surprise, Audience Network is a successful placement? No Way!

Links and Resources:

• Brand Growth Experts
• Jon Loomer Business Manager Course

     David Hermann

• Social Outlier
• Twitter/HermannDigital

     Molly McCarty

• 3Q Digital
• Twitter/Molly_McCarty
• Molly At 3Q Digital.com

Does the thought of cutting back on hours put fear in your mind? If so, you’re not alone. In this episode you’ll learn why cutting back on hours could be the secret to unlocking growth.

About a year and half ago, Tyler “Sully” Sullivan from Bombtech Golf found himself at a familiar entrepreneurial crossroads. Burned out from 80 hour weeks and frustrated by the limited time he had with his newborn, Sully decided to pull the pin on excessive hours. From now on he’d only work 2-3 days a week. That decision led to the fastest growth in Bombtech history. Now he’s working smarter, growth is easier, and spending more time with his family.

In this episode, you’ll learn what it takes to unlock growth, why you should do things that don’t scale, and how to start a community.

Episode Highlights:

• 8:56 How you can improve your business by finding the things you’re not good at
• 10:48 Do you want your business to grow? Eliminate the options
• 14:03 Why you should be using Facebook Groups to grow your test group
• 14:47 If you’re posting on social just about you, no-one is going to care.   
• 16:56 How eliminating the “I’m the Owner” mindset with your customers will help you scale your business
• 17:22 The social media post that lead to Bombtech’s first million in sales
• 20:22 Never underestimate a hand written thank you note
• 22:44 Pulling levers: why you should consider adding an ads specialist  
• 23:50 What's the hardest part of delegating? Hiring those who are skilled enough to take over
• 26:42 How bombtech is focusing on the customer & a new backyard game 
• 30:09 Why you should do podcast ads
• 34:53 The low bar we’ve all set for customer service

Links and Resources:

• Bombtechgolf.com
• Facebook.com/BombTechGolf
• Twitter.com/bombtechgolf
• Instagram.com/bombtechgolf

Have you ever thought about starting a Kickstarter campaign? Do you wonder how some people seem to have cracked the code on crowdfunding? If so, we’ve got an fantastic episode for you.

Jeff Sheldon set a goal to raise $18,000 and ended up with over $430K in pre-orders. In this episode, he unpacks the details of his recent blowout Kickstarter campaign. Jeff shares what it takes to hit a crowdfunding home run and how to avoid some unexpected consequences of Kickstarter success. Enjoy!

Episode Highlights:

• Talking the talk: The Kickstarter Process 5:40
• What set Gather apart from others on Kickstarter? 6:27
• Building Mass Effect: How to tease your product on Instagram 9:51
• Off to the Races: The first day of the Kickstarter campaign 11:30
• Discovering Super Backers and their value on Kickstarter 14:06
• The Facebook ROAS of Super Backers 15:50
• How much time was spent just on your Kickstarter video? 17:04
• The Future of UgMonk 19:59  
• What they don’t tell you: The downsides of running a Kickstarter campaign 22:56
• Recovering funds: Where did all the backers go? 24:52
• Where is Gather now in the production cycle?: 27:15
• Productivity hacks: What Jeff uses to stay on task 29:03  

Links and Resources:

• Dropbox paper
• Help Scout
• www.Ugmonk.com
• Facebook - UgMonk
• Twitter - UgMonk
• Instagram - UgMonk
• Jeff (at) UgMonk.com