Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share E-Commerce with Coffee?!
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
E-Commerce with Coffee?!
By Amber EngineBusiness
E-Commerce with Coffee?! episodes
- 26. Online Quizzes for E-Commerce with Ben Parr, President & Co-founder of Octane AI
Ben Parr of Octane AI joins this episode of E-Commerce with Coffee?! appropriately caffeinated and energized to talk about zero-party data. This is the “future of e-commerce,” he assures us, and brands who don’t take action within the next year to year and a half will pay the price.
Ben makes a compelling case for the critical importance of zero-party data. Zero-party data, or data the brand collects directly from the consumer, will not only improve marketing but bring a better customer experience for consumers, too. Listen to this great episode for Ben’s insights!
What to listen for:- Ben starts the interview by telling the story of how his company got started. Back in 2016, they were well ahead of the curve, and many companies came to them later for advice. The biggest lesson he learned early on, he said, was how to build relationships and brand culture.
- Ben also makes a pitch for what brands must do to attract the best talent. “The best talent is looking for flexibility,” he says, referring specifically to remote work. “The world has changed, and the only question is what companies have changed to meet them.”
- “The world of e-commerce has fundamentally changed this year,” Ben says, moving on from hiring to behind-the-scenes e-commerce sales strategies. Privacy changes have defined this shift, with 96% of iOS users opting out of tracking when the new iOS 14 was launched. The platform update took a new spin on privacy, and as a result, third-party cookies are phasing out fast.
- On third-party cookies, Ben elaborates: “third-party cookies are going away. E-commerce was built by companies just buying that data, but that won’t happen anymore.” Zero-party data is the new way—and now, essentially the only way—for brands to collect consumer data like preferences, interests and behavior.
- For a brand getting started now with their own zero-party data collection, “start with a conversational pop-up over a quiz,” Ben suggests. For one, it’s easier to build out. What’s more, the data collected from those questions and answers helps a brand decide what questions need to be on a quiz later.
- What’s a brand to do with that zero-party data once they have it, anyway? In the second half of the interview, Ben digs into this in detail. “Number one, number two, number three: connect it to your email.” Listen to the full episode for examples of what that looks like.
- Whether or not brands act on this now, they will be impacted for better or worse. Today’s ad strategies based on cookies will be totally broken before long. “If you’re too reliant on ads and third-party data right now (and don’t change that in the next year or year and a half), you’re scr*wed." Consumers don’t want more choices, they want better choices. Zero-party data is how brands will deliver on that.
- It turns out you can take a quiz on Ben’s website to get started yourself, too! Be sure to listen to the full episode for even more insights.
27 min - 25. Amazon Brand Advantages (If You Know About Them) with Andrew Morgans, Founder & CEO of Marknology
Andrew Morgans is the Founder and CEO of Marknology, an Amazon consulting company. He was drawn to e-commerce with a hunger for creative work, and he definitely found it. Having now worked and consulted with brands as big as Adidas and Marvel, when he started his own firm seven years ago he was primed with his own clear goals and a little more.
Andrew describes e-commerce as “marketing and technology combined.” His early work focused on identifying the hurdles brands face in e-commerce and paving a new path forward for them with technology. Now, through Markology he works with 300 brands worldwide to help them with operational efficiencies and also help tell their stories.
What to listen for:- Andrew acknowledges how much work it takes to reach goals in e-commerce. He describes how much he loves simple conversations at the gym because they’re so relaxed. In his day-to-day work, in contrast, he puts every bit of energy into creative work discussions with clients. “Working with millions of dollars in ads can be stressful,” he admits. Listen to the full episode to learn how he balances responsibility with “goofing off.”
- Setting goals is how Andrew stays motivated. He’s been that way since he was a kid growing up as the son of missionaries in the Congo. If he wanted anything—to have, experience, or be—then he had to make his own plans to get it. He’s carried this into his adult life and structures everything he does around his personal and professional goals.
- Andrew got into e-commerce by joining a start-up as the third member of the team. He was hungry for a more creative opportunity, and he found it. He was overtaken by ideas. He describes it as the time he redirected “passion, sadness, everything” into innovation.
- Another thing Andrew loves about e-commerce is how “if you’re good at [it], results speak for themselves.” The industry is so new that there isn’t a status quo or “boys’ club” to fight against, meaning he gets to collaborate with all types of creative professionals.
- In the second half of the interview, Andrew digs into the Amazon sales models, specifically 1P versus 3P. 1P was the original Amazon model (still popular today) where manufacturers sell their products in bulk to the e-commerce marketplace, then let Amazon handle everything from advertising to pricing to logistics. This model is still the best for brands just getting into e-marketplace sales for the first time.
- Once Amazon as a business “graduated” from a growth mode to a lean one, they introduced the 3P model. This is where brands and manufacturers determine their own prices, create their own bundles, handle shipping themselves, etc. The trade-off? Brands have full control of their products and pricing, customer journey, and customer data. Listen to the full episode to hear how Andrew describes choosing one Amazon model over the other.
- Andrew describes brands that prefer the 3P model as those equally interested in direct-to-consumer (DTC) commerce. These are the brands focused on their brand image, their social media strategy, and influencer marketing. These brands want to use customer data to “tell their story more effectively” to their target audience.
- For brands just starting on Amazon, Andrew describes how to set realistic goals. “Consider that first phase an initial investment phase,” he says. After the investment, there will be a growth phase, and then come optimizations. The first phase will take longer, too, while brands build momentum. “I can take a brand way faster from one to two million than from $200,000 to $500,000.”
43 min - 24. Hacks to Improve Revenue, Profitability, and Your Brand with Brian Johnson, Co-Founder of Canopy Management
Brian R. Johnson, Co-Founder of Canopy Management (an Amazon advertising consultancy, community, training system and software) has served as a leader in online advertising and conversion rate strategy for two decades. He’s worked with tens of thousands of brands, and now he’s taken all that experience to this episode of E-Commerce with Coffee?!
Brian describes his “superpowers” as growing brand profitability, managing native and display ads on Amazon, and optimizing conversion rates. Brian wasn’t born with those powers, though—he developed them with a lot of work. The interview opens with him remembering how things were in e-commerce just seven years ago. With no courses on the web to “make it” on Amazon, and scarcely a resource in sight, Brian started his own Facebook group to crowdsource success. Listen to hear what happened next and what Brian lays out for brands on how to be successful selling online.
What to listen for:- Even Brian’s caffeine energy management is as much a science as his Amazon ad and conversion optimization. The interview opens with Brian revealing how he reverse engineered his former cocktail of caffeinated beverages to cut caffeine while still keeping his energy where he needed it.
- When Brian describes how he got started in e-commerce, he remembers how a recent claim to fame that really got him jazzed. It turns out he overnighted a product to the producers of Breaking Bad that appeared in an episode filmed the next day.
- Getting more into the meat of the interview, Brian then digs into what’s changed in Amazon ads. For starters, he says, they’re more competitive (and therefore costing more). New ad options are rolling out every couple of weeks, too, as Amazon tests new features.
- The interview then takes an introspective turn when Brian explores the conundrum of “what happens when enough people take your advice.” The result? Too many people are doing the same thing. Today, Brian’s consultation goes in the opposite direction of what he told thousands of brands before, because that’s what’s required today to stand out. The goal is always to get a user to slow their scroll just enough that they really see you. Going counter-culture “is a great opportunity...in order to stand out.”
- The number-one reason to work with a mastermind or agency, Brian explains, is to access their breadth of knowledge and let them keep a pulse on changes. Changes happen too fast in e-commerce for a brand to keep up (on top of running their own business).
- Amazon today is sharing more data with brands, and Brian leaves listeners in awe of the insights they can offer. Amazon knows whether consumers are “in the mood” to buy right then or if they’re just browsing, giving brands “more insight into what shoppers are really looking for, and what’s trending from a search standpoint.” Amazon has broken down demographics, psychographics and so much more. Most of this data is managed through DSP (demand-side platform), Amazon’s enterprise ad management system.
- You’ve heard it before, and Brian agrees: consumers don’t want more options, they want better options. Brian says, “if everyone throws too many choices at the consumer, they’ve going to create paralysis by analysis...all you see is noise, visual noise.”
- Brian then makes a case for why conversion rates are the driving force for success online. “Focusing on profitability means you’re protecting your brand,” he says. “Even if it takes a year, it’s worth it,” says Brian about a 2-5% increase in conversion rates on products.
- “Seed to forest” is a system of optimization processes that Brian’s company uses internally and also teaches to client brands. Listen to the full interview to hear about this proprietary system and more!
1 hr 1 min - 23. Sourcing Products and Building Brands with Kian Golzari, Founder and CEO of Sourcing with Kian
Kian Golzari is the Founder and CEO of Sourcing with Kian. He’s designed, developed, sourced, and manufactured over 2,500 products. As the result of this breadth of firsthand experience and success, Kian has mentored over 200 Amazon entrepreneurs on better sourcing practices and won numerous international awards, including the 2017 Sunday Times Fast Track Award for Top 100 UK Companies in Export Growth.
With all those accolades, Kian brought his expertise to this episode of E-Commerce with Coffee?! to talk about how to develop, manufacture, and source products from China. Listen to the full episode and come with your notepad ready!
What to listen for:- The interview opens with a look at how Kian got to be where he is. Listen to the full episode to hear how he came to source for the NBA, Olympic Games, the Ministry of Defense, and more.
- Kian speaks downright affectionately of the sourcing community, too. Over the last several years he’s jetted around the globe for speaking events, and the energy and excitement are infectious.
- Kian offers some direct advice for manufacturers who previously sold through distributors but now sell on Amazon and other direct channels. He asks, “are you branding or are you selling?” Listen to hear how he describes and differentiates (and prioritizes) these two activities.
- Kian prompts those same brands to define their core values, too. “It’s such an important part of the brand journey,” he affirms. If you haven’t established your core values, he cautions, “you don’t know your brand yet.”
- Kian also speaks to selling new and innovative products and how to test the waters on other channels before selling on Amazon. “You don’t get email addresses from Amazon,” Kian explains. You’ll therefore get better insights into your target consumers with better data feedback from purchases and conversions on another platform.
- A sizable portion of the interview looks at brands meeting sustainability and corporate responsibility expectations today. Consumers want brands to be conscientious, and Kian has boiled down to a science how brands can vet manufacturers based on these standards.
- Developing products is something Kian has down to a science, too. “The best way to develop products…is to have an understanding of how products are made,” he says, speaking to his own first experience visiting a factory in 2010. Listen to the full story to hear what he learned.
- Kian also gives listeners a detailed step-by-step on how to navigate Alibaba to source the best manufacturers. Listen in for the full breakdown—and be prepared to take notes!
- Kian also talks about some of the most important websites for sourcing research, including Alibaba, GlobalSources.com, Import Yeti, and IndiaMart.com.
- When vetting product sources, there are three key things brands should focus on, says Kian: pre-shipment inspections, sellers outgrowing their suppliers, and “realizing that there’s profit in the buying price and not just in the selling price.”
- The interview wraps with Kian describing what it’s been like to see the growth of commerce, nightlife, tourism, and more in Shanghai and throughout China since he first visited. Being around that kind of growth, he says, creates a growth attitude in you, too.
48 min - 22. Elevating Brands On and Off Amazon in 2022 with TJ Hyland, Director of Global Partnerships at Elevate Brands
TJ Hyland of Elevate Brands joins the E-commerce with Coffee?! podcast to talk about the aggregator model and the nuances of how businesses are acquired in order to “Elevate” brands in many different ways. Some entrepreneurs simply want to exit brands and cash out in a responsible manner, and some want to continue their growth but are limited by capital among other things. Aggregators can be a solution.
TJ joins Nate Svodoba on this episode and walks us through important details like what makes certain businesses attractive to the aggregator model, what entering the aggregator model looks like, and some interesting management points like how a strong Amazon presence pays off on other channels as well.
What to listen for:- TJ runs through the aggregator model, its history, and some important examples like Elevate.
- Entering the aggregator model can be nuanced. Many times entrepreneurs will cash out in order to move onto another project with newly acquired capital, but the best transitions for the business often happen before the founders are ready to part ways with their business.
- Especially given our modern blockchain setting, giving sellers the option to cashout in cryptocurrency is just another way of giving sellers the freedom to handle their payout however they wish, and makes diversification just that much easier.
- The aggregator model doesn’t just look to acquire as many businesses as possible. There are certain indicators that make a business more attractive for acquisition, such as room for growth and a low amount of skews and variations. TJ dives into more details on this.
- The majority of online buyers are checking Amazon before they check anywhere else, and Amazon’s shipping infrastructure has become the standard for customer expectations, so a strong presence on Amazon is both crucial and beneficial for your brand off the platform, as well. That being said, depending solely on Amazon can also be dangerous.
- Every brand is different, and every entrepreneur has different wants and needs, so there isn’t a one-size-fits-all to cashing out. At the same time, this certainly isn’t the business to be feeling around in the darkness for what feels right. Having somebody on your side that knows what direction to take can be what makes or breaks your business or exit.
41 min - 21. Healthy Relationships with Agencies and Outsourcing Your CMO with Erik Huberman, CEO of Hawke Media
Erik Huberman of Hawke Media joins the E-commerce with Coffee?! podcast to talk about outsourcing marketing and the relationship between brands and agencies. Recently having published The Hawke Method alongside his team, their book and this episode are both chalked full of insights and experiences that go into a successful marketing strategy.
Erik joins Nate Svoboda on this episode to break down his marketing insights, to explore why his marketing strategy works where traditional methods might fail, and to solidify that the most profitable brand-agency relationship is not a contentious one, but one where collaboration is both open and positive.
What to listen for:- Erik starts us off with his background, from growing up with entrepreneurial influences to having to navigate the 2008 financial crisis. Learning from every position and exploring the world of commerce, he realized that the marketing ecosystem was truly broken. Hence Erik’s a-la-carte CMO philosophy.
- It’s no secret that running a business is tough work–Nate calls it a “full-contact sport.” One of Erik’s main takeaways after working with so many businesses is that, as a business owner, the best thing you can do is take ownership of the challenges and lean into the chaos that is business. You can always exit and take a job if things get to be too much, but realizing that it’s your choice to stay in the game is one of the best ways to keep rolling with the punches and tackling the big problems.
- There’s some commotion in the industry surrounding how to properly run certain ads. Erik suggests that many brands simply don’t know how these ads fit into the ecosystem of the company, and Hawke Media’s more grounded strategy allows them to navigate these issues smoothly.
- There are plenty of advantages to outsourcing the CMO position. For one, vetting actual marketing talent for in-house positions is much easier said than done. Outsourcing marketing is also more cost-effective, more flexible, and can provide a much-needed outside perspective.
- A lot of brands take a very binary look on in-house and outsourcing things like marketing–Erik believes that it shouldn’t be this way. At some point, it is important and necessary for companies to have their own head of marketing, which can actually make hiring a second set of eyes like Hawke Media even more valuable.
- While having an in-house head of marketing is important, it’s also important not to make the switch cold turkey. Again according to Erik, the best solution is to balance in-house with outsourcing, which can save your business a lot of heartache down the road.
- Sometimes brands hire agencies into a sort of contentious relationship, but this ultimately hurts the same brand more than anybody else. Treating the agency as a partner and a collaborator is how brands see the best returns.
- Erik gives us a quick pitch for his team’s new book: The Hawke Method. He breaks down the three fundamental pillars to their approach, which are awareness, nurturing, and trust.
32 min - 20. From Start-Up to the “Prolific Zone” with Quin Amorim, Founder of Prolific Zone
Quin Amorim of Prolific Zone joins this episode of E-Commerce with Coffee?! for a superb interview. Quin actually hosts his own two podcasts, QA Selling Online and Fail Fast Podcast. That alone gives you a view of what Quin is all about:
- Selling online
- And building brands with lessons learned
Quin joined E-Commerce with Coffee?! in this episode to talk to Nate Svoboda about start-ups launching in digital commerce. Covering everything from the history of e-commerce to social proof and PPC, the conversation is packed with clear answers to real questions.
What to listen for:- When it comes to e-commerce, Quin’s been around the block. The interview opens with him reminiscing when Ebay sellers were paid by check. With up to two weeks to receive the check and then up to four weeks for the buyer to receive a product, in e-commerce almost 25 years later we have same-day delivery and dozens of payment options.
- It’s hard for start-ups and brands migrating to e-commerce to know what channels to focus on first, but Quin likes Amazon. He explains why, then talks through the factors a brand needs to consider to decide which channel is right for them.
- Older consumers are showing a growing preference for Walmart.com over Amazon, and Quin explains why. This is just one example of the factors brands should be ready to consider in their own launch to e-commerce.
- The interview then gets into questions about physical versus online retail. “On a shelf, someone will walk by you eventually,” Quin says. Listen to the full interview for all his insights on this “divided retail reality.”
- Quin also talks about how much capital is needed for a start-up brand or manufacturer today. It even comes down to factors like the physical size of your product or the landscape of your niche’s competition, and Quin explains why.
- When it comes to where to spend that capital, every expert today has an opinion on what brands should focus on first. Should it be content or PPC? Quin says product photos are the number-one thing to focus on first, followed very closely by titles. Listen to the full episode to learn why.
- “Some brands think that you launch, then you win that first position, and then you’re done. But you’re never done,” Quin cautions. Changes like new reviews and what the competition is doing will always move the dials of a brand’s listings and relevancy. Look at it like cleaning your house: if you focus on deep-cleaning one room a week, your home will always be spotless. In the same way, brands can focus on one thing after another even after they’ve “arrived” at that first-place position. Listen to the full interview for examples of what brands can focus on.
- Quin also offers some easy-to-implement advice on approaching influencers. Listen to the episode to hear all about it.
- Of all the lessons Quin has learned and seen learned, he says it was a game-changer to realize that PPC is “not just to get sales—it’s also to get conversions for a certain keyword.” The vast majority of brands and PPC providers will immediately turn the gas off on keywords that don’t convert to final sales, but Quin says that’s like shooting yourself in the foot. Clicks—with or without sales—gain you relevancy. They also stop competitors from getting that keyword, because “someone else will show up if you don’t.”
33 min - 19. Marketing Post-Pandemic… and Post-iOS with Stephanie Bregman, CMO of Manly Bands
Stephanie Bregman is the Chief Marketing Officer at Manly Bands. The brand has an easy-going and hilarious voice, but Stephanie works behind the scenes as the science-based marketing professional who keeps everyone aligned with a common “why” and clear direction.
In this interview on E-Commerce with Coffee?!, we learn why Stephanie believes in “taking marketers’ opinions out of the equation.” She sees marketing decisions elsewhere made based on assumptions and personal preference, but she instead found success looking at the right data in the right way. Listen in for her insights on what numbers matter today and how to use them in omnichannel marketing success.
What to listen for:- The interview opens with Stephanie telling the story of Manly Bands. Its origin is an empowering one—with one customer’s dissatisfaction with a status quo, an idea was born. Stephanie explains how the idea was merged with top technology and a clever marketing strategy.
- Stephanie stepped into the CMO position ready to roll with the punches. Global disruptions like a pandemic hit industries like wedding bands particularly hard when weddings were postponed and canceled, but she was ready. Even today, Stephanie is still excited by the growth opportunities, because: “who doesn’t want to sell a client a product at one of the happiest moments of their life?”
- Right as lockdowns started to sweep the country in 2020, Stephanie held a meeting and said, “all the stuff we were going to do is going away. We’re going to have a totally new way to talk to our customers.” Her focus was simple: “What could make someone laugh when there’s so much stress?”
- Stephanie then digs deep into some of the shifts Manly Bands had to make with recent changes in consumer thinking. They already had a killer brand voice going into the pandemic, a sort of “wingman” vibe that customers found instantly relatable. However, Stephanie and her team quickly learned how short the shelf life was on certain jokes. Listen to the interview for the full story.
- Manly Bands has an all-star customer service team that takes real agency to find opportunities for customers and for the brand. Listen to the full interview to hear what Stephanie says about how that kind of company culture is built.
- Brand voice is something Stephanie’s team has mastered in a truly remarkable way. In the interview, she discusses how that kind of brand voice comes from a team ready to evolve its voice over time. Every time a new campaign is launched, one of the questions Stephanie workshops with the team is, “what will our voice be for this?”
- Being present on multiple marketing channels is different than being on multiple channels with a consistent brand voice, Stephanie assures us. “This is a big missing part of the omnichannel strategy.” Stephanie avoids this common problem by filtering every campaign on every platform through the team’s shared “WHY.”
- Stephanie also digs deep into some of the new beta programs on TikTok and trends in video content in general. Listen in as she explains how Manly Bands often gets 1,000 new followers from one single video!
- The interview then dives into Stephanie’s insights on the iOS 14 update. It’s admirable for a company like Apple to focus on better consumer security, she says, but the unintended consequences will cloud what benefits there are. Listen to the full interview for all of Stephanie’s predictions.
- The show wraps with Stephanie’s suggestions about how brands can use data. “Looking at consumer data, we’re getting cloudy information and it’s getting cloudier,” she explains. Looking at A/B testing brings bigger benefits, and Stephanie leaves no doubt as to why.
36 min - 18. E-Commerce Scaling in the “New Normal” with Yoni Kozminski, Founder and CEO of Escala
Yoni Kozminski of Escala and MultiplyMii joins the E-Commerce with Coffee?! podcast to talk about scaling in e-commerce. Yoni got his early experience working on operations optimizations and strategy with brands like Sony and Mastercard. Now he’s focused on e-commerce, drawn in by exciting scaling opportunities there.
In fact, one of Yoni’s companies, MultiplyMii, connects brands with executive-level offshore hires. Why? Start-ups can scale faster with more accessible budgets while still gaining the specialized talent they need. Most of the roles brands fill this way, Yoni says, start with job titles that didn’t even exist five years ago. Listen to the full episode to learn what Yoni has to say about this and other changes in the digital landscape.
What to listen for:- Right out of the gate, Yoni talks about how businesses today can identify needs and talent. These go hand-in-hand because, in the world of e-commerce, half the roles needed today are job titles that didn’t exist five years ago.
- Yoni got his own early experience in operational infrastructure and strategy for brands like Sony and Mastercard. That’s where he first learned how to determine bandwidth and create the business model that he used for MultiplyMii. Listen in to learn how his company finds executive-level talent specifically for the e-commerce ecosystem.
- Yoni’s other business, Escala, is a consulting firm born to help e-commerce brands leverage people, processes, and technology. The origin story of Escala and MultiplyMii is well worth a listen to the full interview!
- “I thought we were bringing on a Chief Marketer,” Yoni says of one recent project. “But it turns out we were bringing on a Chief Growth Officer.” Listen in to hear what this example tells us about uniting needs with talent—as it turns out, most businesses looking to scale in today’s environment don’t even know the best titles for the roles they actually need to be filled.
- E-commerce represents a professional ecosystem that didn’t exist even five years ago. As consumers, our entire interaction with some brands is now completely digital. Roles like Funnel Specialists, Chatbot Specialists, and even UX and CX professionals have to be on brands’ radar today, and Yoni elaborates on why.
- Yoni then gets into some of the key signs that a brand is ready to scale out its team. For example, are high-producers burning out (or at risk of burnout)? Listen to the full episode to learn what Yoni says should come next.
- The biggest challenge in scaling an e-commerce business, Yoni explains, is the transitional phase when brand leaders get processes on paper. This is also the crucial moment when a brand should start creating a deliberate company culture. Yoni explains how company leaders should be prepared.
- Toward the end of the interview, Yoni wraps with an Abraham Lincoln quote: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” Yoni loves this quote in the context of scaling an e-commerce business, and he makes it clear why. Listen to the full interview to hear what he has to say!
34 min - 17. E-Commerce Growth: Ads and Opportunity with Antoine Gagné, Founder & CEO of J7 Media
Antoine Gagné of J7 Media was born to navigate the dynamic tides of Facebook ads. He hit the ground running while still in school, promoting local clubs through Facebook Events when he was just 16. When he was 18 he started an ad agency.
Four years later, he bought his partner out and beefed up the agency with new creative and media teams that now manage $3 million in Facebook ads a month. He's also the host of the Hypergrowth podcast which is well worth a listen for e-commerce brands looking to reverse engineer the success of the best. He also hosts the Social Selling podcast where he discusses trends and strategies in performance marketing across social and e-commerce platforms.
What to listen for:
- Listen to how Antoine talks about some of the most successful brand campaigns his agency has managed. He explains how brands bringing something to the market that others don't are the ones who see hypergrowth. "There will always be saturation for products that always exist," he says.
- "Companies with success on Google don't necessarily have success on Facebook," Antoine explains. Consumers looking for a service or good on Google are already researching the solution a brand offers, whereas Facebook ads take a different targeting approach. Listen in to hear how Antoine advises brands to bridge the gap.
- Changing regulations (like the new iOS and new tracking regulations on Facebook) have forced brands to re-work their strategies in a big way. "Last year we lived in a bubble where everyone was buying stuff online," Antoine says. "But now, e-commerce brands have hit a wall."
- The recent Facebook crash (those fateful six hours without the platform or the company's other platforms) was a big wake-up call for brands. "Double down on Facebook if it's working for you," Antoine says. "But be ready to shift...put the time in now on other platforms like SMS and email." This agility is what brands need for their long-term marketing strategies to see real hypergrowth.
- Facebook is trying to tap the "Amazon phenomenon," as Antoine articulately describes over the latter half of the interview. Facebook wants the same complete data that Amazon enjoys, where advertisements and final clicks to "buy" are all on the same platform.
- How to drive traffic is one thing, and how to drive qualified traffic is another. "Don't try to outsmart the [Facebook] platform," Antoine assures us. "You don't tell Facebook, 'target the 28-year-old who lives 5 km away,' you just tell Facebook: 'find purchasers.'" Listen to the full episode to hear how Antoine describes what brands should really be doing with their time instead. "You spend all your time crafting a good landing page and the fundamental messaging element of it, then let Facebook handle the targeting."
- Antoine and Nate talk about the impact of the holidays on sales and ad bid costs, too. "It's definitely not business as usual," Antoine says. Q4 is the quarter where advertisers spend most of their money, and it's only well spent if it's strategic. Facebook is a bidding platform, which means everyone else is bidding more in Q4, and what brands were doing before suddenly might not work. Listen to the full episode of how Antoine advises brands to get around that by "creating gigantic retargeting audiences."
33 min
About E-Commerce with Coffee?!
From the publisher's feed
E-Com secrets for brands over your favorite brew.