Chain Pod

The final instalment of our NYC takeover, and this one's the absolute tea. ☕

After a week in New York, Adele and Shelby share the culture shock: ads that feel like satire, 90-day agency contracts, and a US agency that puts around 80% of client effort into affiliate marketing and treats Meta as a middle- and bottom-of-funnel channel only.

They also cover why Australia doesn't have TikTok Shop yet, what one Instagram story taught Shelby about affiliate links and why it's time for Aussie brands to be early adopters. 🤎

That's a wrap on our NYC takeover. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Stay tuned, because there's a top-secret idea in the works, and you'll hear about it soon. 🤎

If you enjoyed the series, we’d be so grateful if you hit follow and left a review. It helps more Aussie brands and agencies find us so we can continue sharing our knowledge with you!

💌 Links & resources:

30% OFF THE META ADS MASTERCLASS. Watch Chain’s 26x SOLD-OUT Meta Ads Masterclass On-Demand, 30% off with code: BFCM30 https://www.chainacademy.com.au/offers/QxW6Eo8j/checkout

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: https://chainsocial.com.au/chain-pod/

Email: [email protected]

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

Welcome to episode two of our New York City takeover, recorded straight from the Meta Agency Summit. 🗽

Adele and Shelby sat in a room full of agencies and walked out more optimistic than they walked in. They cover the move from media buyer to orchestrator, why consulting beats building your own tech, why agencies will get leaner and why human messiness is about to become your biggest advantage.

If you're an agency owner, a freelancer or a brand working with one, this one's for you. Don't be scared of change. 🤎

Next up is our final NYC episode: a quick one on everything we saw and learned about how Americans shop and consume.

💌 Links & resources:

30% OFF THE META ADS MASTERCLASS.

Watch Chain’s 26x SOLD-OUT Meta Ads Masterclass On-Demand, 30% off with code: BFCM30 https://www.chainacademy.com.au/offers/QxW6Eo8j/checkout

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: https://chainsocial.com.au/chain-pod/

Email: [email protected]

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

Welcome to our NYC mini series 🗽🤎

Meta invited Chain to New York for its Agency Summit, and we were one of only three Australian agencies there. The day after, Shelby and Adele sat down in an iconic New York studio to tell you everything while it was still fresh: the new features, the big themes and what the next 6–12 months look like for anyone running ads.

In this episode:

💫 Meta Ads Creative Studio: deeper creative analysis, performance by demographic, and industry benchmarking

💫 Optimising for margin, lifetime value and profit, not just CPA

💫 Why your signal back to Meta matters more than ever (and how to fix it if you're a service business)

💫 Live shopping coming to Instagram, and running your lives as ads

💫 Incremental vs standard attribution, explained simply

💫 Reviews and sentiment showing up in ads, and why community-led brands will win

💫 The Meta MCP, AI and the "orchestration era," and why your media buyer is now the coach

💫 What US agencies told us over dinner (spoiler: it blew our minds)Stay tuned for Part Two!

💌 Links & resources:

30% OFF THE META ADS MASTERCLASS.

Watch Chain’s 26x SOLD-OUT Meta Ads Masterclass On-Demand, 30% off with code: BFCM30 https://www.chainacademy.com.au/offers/QxW6Eo8j/checkout

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: https://chainsocial.com.au/chain-pod/

Email: [email protected]

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

If they didn't buy during your November sale, why would they buy the week after at full price? In our final Black Friday episode, Adele and Shelby unpack the post-sale hangover, and what to do when sales fall off a cliff after BFCM.

In this episode:

That's a wrap on our Black Friday series. Next up: Our exclusive NYC Takeover, three-part series.

💌 Links & resources:

30% OFF THE META ADS MASTERCLASS.

Watch Chain’s 26x SOLD-OUT Meta Ads Masterclass On-Demand, 30% off with code: BFCM30

https://www.chainacademy.com.au/offers/QxW6Eo8j/checkout

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: ⁠⁠www.chainsocial.com.au⁠/chain-pod

Email: [email protected]

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

Creative is more than half the outcome on Meta, and in November every feed looks the same. Adele runs through the Black Friday creative types that keep winning: simple offer statics with your logo on them (yes, your logo), cart screenshots showing the savings, text message exchanges, founder and employee content, pack an order with me, and creator content like unboxings, try-ons and demos. Meta is pushing paid partnership ads harder than ever, so if they're not in your mix, you'll fall behind.

We also get into refreshing last year's winners with a sale banner or a green screen founder callout, why only 1 in 10 creatives will be a winner, and why 30% of your creative should be outside the box. Plus scroll-stopping hooks that still fit your brand, sale-specific brand kits, and why urgency matters now that shoppers are holding out for the final offer. Our biggest rule: don't cheapen what you've built for a short-term win. No more Microsoft Paint scribble ads, unless that's genuinely your brand.

💌: Links & resources

Connect With Us:

If your Black Friday strategy starts in November, you're already behind. Adele breaks down the runway that actually decides your sale. September is for testing creative motivators, targeting, campaign types and bidding strategies. October is for building a high-quality audience while shoppers hold out, and November is your Super Bowl, where you stop testing and scale.

We get into why you need to relax your efficiencies across September and October, why your conversion rate will dip in October and why that's normal, and swapping purchase objectives for add to cart to get up to four times the traffic for the same budget. Adele also shares her biggest BFCM tip: launching VIP early access to your email list before going out on Meta, so you're not paying for customers who would have bought anyway. Plus reminder ads, keeping your BAU campaigns simmering, and how we scale with a cost per result bid strategy (not one for beginners).

Next up: Black Friday creative. Start early, or pay for it later.

💌: Links & resources

🔗 Want this taught properly, in a room, with your own account open? Final Meta Masterclass of the year is almost sold out for Brisbane: ⁠JOIN HERE⁠ https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/1989065789320?aff=oddtdtcreator

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: www.chainsocial.com.au

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

Episode ten and we're going straight to the thing that decides your November — the offer. Adele spitfires every offer type we've seen work (and flop) across our client base: sitewide percentages, gift with purchase, spend and save, BOGO, the hidden collection play, and why free shipping alone will get you unsubscribed.

We get into share of wallet and why shoppers pre-plan their November spend, whether it's even worth partaking if you can't beat 10%, auto-applied discounts vs codes, using subscriptions to rescue an expensive November CPA, and the tip we run for every client — testing your offer on a small Klaviyo segment in October so you're not guessing on Black Friday.

First of four from the Meta Marketing Summit run. Keep your offer simple, or lose.

💌: Links & resources

🔗 Want this taught properly, in a room, with your own account open? Final Meta Masterclass of the year is almost sold out for Brisbane: ⁠JOIN HERE⁠

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: ⁠⁠www.chainsocial.com.au⁠⁠

Training: ⁠⁠www.chainacademy.com.au

So with peak season coming, Adele's in the hot seat for a mini episode. We reveal the winning creative on Meta, how many new ads you actually need each week, the 70/20/20 split and how to preheat creative so you're not gambling in your purchase campaigns come Black Friday.

Short, sharp and straight into the nitty gritty so you can be prepared for a record-breaking BFCM this year.

💌: Links & resources

🔗 The Motion creative benchmark report — the table we referenced, broken down by industry and spend, with how many new creatives you should be testing each week: DOWNLOAD
🔗 Want this taught properly, in a room, with your own account open? Final Meta Masterclass of the year is almost sold out for Brisbane: JOIN HERE

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: ⁠www.chainsocial.com.au⁠

Training: ⁠www.chainacademy.com.au

We sat down with Steff Anderson of Pinnacle Road, Chain Social's accountant of ten years, and the woman we send our clients to when they need someone realistic in the room. 🤎

This one's for every e-comm founder heading into BFCM on vibes. Steff joins Shelby and Adele to pull apart the numbers behind the biggest sales period of the year. What your margin actually needs to be before you can discount, why in-platform ROAS isn't telling you the truth and the bills that land in your inbox long after the sale ends.

Warning: you may want a spreadsheet open.

In this episode:

💸 Why MER beats in-platform ROAS as a measure of business health

💸 The 80% margin benchmark, why it's near impossible to move once you've set your RRP, and what wholesale really takes

💸 Where shipping actually sits in your numbers (and why minimum spend thresholds are non-negotiable on lower-priced products)

💸 The case for treating ad spend as a fixed cost, not a variable one

💸 Steff's red flag: never let 50% of every dollar go out the door on ads in your first six months

💸 Why 70% margins and 40% off sitewide don't mix and what a discount does to your perceived value forever

💸 If you can't go big at BFCM, don't go. The birthday sale and January alternatives our clients run instead

💸 The post-BFCM bill nobody forecasts: BAS, quarterly GST landing end of Feb, replenishment stock, returns, peak pick-and-pack, packaging

💸 Why Steff would talk you out of a Shopify loan almost every time

💸 Cash flow buckets, 12–16 week forecasting, and why conservative always wins

💸 What Steff's most successful e-comm clients have in common

💸 How to tell if your accountant actually understands e-comm and the first question to ask them

Plus: build awareness in September and October so you're not being discovered for the first time on November 1st, and the very real difference between a healthy P&L and cash in the bank.

Links

🔗 Steff's BFCM profit impact calculator

Loved this episode? Send it to the founder friend who's about to go 40% off sitewide 🤎

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: www.chainsocial.com.au

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

This week, Adele is joined by Amelia (aka Mims) Chain's Email & CRM weapon and the woman behind the email ecosystems doing 30%+ of revenue for our clients. She's across flows, segmentation, deliverability, loyalty, the lot. And she's here to kick off our BFCM series.

Because here's the thing: no one is discovering your brand in November. It's too loud, it's too expensive and every other brand is shouting at the same inbox. The customers who buy from you during BFCM are the ones you nurture between now and then - which makes August, September and October crunch time.

In this episode:

💌 The health check every ecom brand should be running right now

💌 The flows most brands never build (and the revenue sitting in them)

💌 Send time tips

💌 The case for hype and the one segment that saves your inbox

💌 Adele's non-negotiable rule for lead gen :eyes:

💌 How to avoid the December hangover

Plus we reveal high-converting subject lines you can steal and the Win Your Cart tactic that works for our clients year, after year.

Open your notes app. You're going to want to lock in for this one.

Links & mentions 🔗

✨ Email Marketing Masterclass with Amelia and Adele 28 September, Mornington HQ.

Small, intimate and in our stunning new space. JOIN WAITLIST HERE

✨ The Email Subject Line Swipe File - 200 Subject Lines you can steal immediately DOWNLOAD HERE

Connect With Us:

Instagram: @chainsocial

Instagram: @chainpod

Web: www.chainsocial.com.au

Training: www.chainacademy.com.au