Drive and Convert

From struggling marketplaces to recent stock turmoil, Jon and Ryan explore the factors impacting traffic and sales in the ecommerce industry. They take a deep dive into how competition, economic factors, and changing consumer behavior are reshaping the e-commerce landscape. 

In this week’s episode, they discuss powerful strategies for driving traffic and sales and how brands can leverage Google's algorithms to their advantage. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How the decrease in search volume on Google affect transaction and sales volume
2. What methods Amazon uses to drive traffic beyond search traffic
3. How brands can leverage Google's algorithm to increase product discovery
4. Why testing and experimentation are crucial for staying ahead of the competition

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

It can be difficult to convince new customers to purchase from your site the first time they visit. Instead of driving traffic and new visitors to your site, why don’t you focus on the customers you already have?

This week, Jon and Ryan share how you can leverage nine proven strategies to help you increase average order value. By improving the average order value of your website, you can grow your business without having to invest heavily in additional marketing and advertising. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How to find out your customer’s needs 
2. Nine proven tactics to increase AOV (with examples)
3. Why social proof is such a powerful tool
4. How to execute limited offers properly
5. Why it’s important to remember post-purchase offers

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Each holiday season is different, so how do you prepare for one? As a business, it’s important to use data-driven strategies and think creatively when planning for your holiday campaign. In this week’s episode, Jon and Ryan share a few ideas on how to think about the holidays and what you need to do to stand out from the competition. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. Why each holiday season is different
2. How to define the holiday season
3. How to use data to determine holiday periods
4. How to prepare for the holiday season
5. When to start advertising for the holidays

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Sharing winning tests isn’t just a way to celebrate success with previous clients. The patterns and insights from winning tests can offer a lot of ideas for other brands looking to improve their conversion rates and boost sales. 

In particular, Jon and Ryan talk about three areas of a site that tests work really well in: category pages, social proof, and website copy. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How personalization can improve category pages 
2. Why you need clear and specific labels on your navigation 
3. How to leverage different types of social proof 
4. How small changes in copy can lead to big results 

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

So much energy is focused on driving traffic to a site via different platforms, but Jon and Ryan share why email should be the most profitable traffic acquisition channel. 

In this episode, they discuss how you can set up your account and create automatic email flows. Ryan puts emphasis on not buying your email list. They also dive into examples of automatic email flows, such as a welcome series or an abandoned cart email, before sharing 5 points to help you successfully scale your email marketing campaign. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How to utilize free email systems like Klaviyo and Mailchimp
2. Why you need to keep growing your email list 
3. Why you need to segment your customers and personalize their experience
4. How to leverage your email data for your other marketing channels
5. Why it’s important to test your email marketing campaign

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

In this episode of Drive & Convert, Jon and Ryan share important metrics for businesses to monitor including customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and conversion rates. They stress the importance of understanding which metrics will impact the bottom line and align with the company's strategic goals.

They also delve into the importance of tracking your raw data, channel mix metrics, and evaluating subscription and consumable products. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How to determine and evaluate significant ecommerce metrics
2. Why you should focus on long-lasting customer relationships
3. What value can you get from post-purchase surveys
4. What is the “first-touch” metric
5. How to improve your own ecommerce metrics

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

In this podcast episode, Jon and Ryan discuss Google's recent announcement about sunsetting certain attribution types in Analytics. They both emphasize the need for businesses to get creative and find new strategies to compete with larger brands. Jon suggests that small brands have an advantage in being more willing to take risks and test different approaches. For small brands, they suggest exploring social media, influencer marketing, affiliate partnerships, and top-of-funnel strategies to drive awareness and engagement. They conclude that the evolving digital landscape requires businesses to adapt and find new ways to stand out in the competitive e-commerce space.

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. What attribution models are being removed from Google
2. Why Google is sunsetting four of its attribution models
3. How these attribution changes could affect transparency and Google algorithms
4. What alternative options do big and small brands have 

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

What’s the best type of navigation to use for your website? Jon and Ryan reveal that there is no one-size fits all approach to this question. 

However, customer research and experimentation can help determine the most effective navigation style. Jon offers 10-pointers for website owners to test or steal, which are based on what has worked well for other brands. They stress the importance of designing navigation based on what customers want, not what the brand wants.

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. Why website navigation is crucial to a website’s functionality

2. The different types of website navigation

3. How to improve your website navigation 

4. 10 stealable tips for website navigation

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

For more information, read the full article at: https://thegood.com/insights/website-navigation/ 

A lot of emotions are involved in exiting a business, and Ryan emphasizes the importance of legal advice and research along the way. 

In this episode, Jon and Ryan also talk about failing and growing throughout the experience and seeing everything as a learning experience. Every business exit is a little different, so there is no defined timeline for going through the process. Ryan advises that you should do it when it feels right, and the numbers will work themselves out. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. Why it's important not to burn bridges and end things on a positive note 
2. How relationships with employees change 
3. Why doing more research is important 
4. Why you should invest in a good legal team 
5. What to look forward to after exiting an ecommerce business 

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Conversion rate optimization is important for any ecommerce brand, but it’s markedly more difficult for brands with lower traffic. However, there are still ways how you can increase website conversions with low traffic.

In this week’s episode, Jon and Ryan highlight the significance of leaning into rapid testing in the absence of data to validate statistical significance. They also discuss other validation tactics, such as surveys, user testing, heatmaps, and many more. 

Listen to the full episode if you want to learn:

1. How to use the confidence/tolerance relationship to your advantage
2. The benefits of rapid testing
3. Validation tactics beyond testing
4. How social listening and session recordings work
5. Why eye tracking is simple yet effective 

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We're Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.