The 9th installment of our popular AMA series.

In this Ask Me Anything episode sourced from our listeners, we discuss...

• Free resources to get you prepped for BFCM
• App recommendations for promos
• Plus data, design, and business decisions.

If you're struggling with Facebook ads, you’re not crazy and you’re not alone. Social media advertising is not what it once was, and neither is Q4. This new landscape is really, really hard.

Guest Bio: Andrew runs Foxwell Digital, where he not only advises companies on their marketing strategies and overseas digital ad campaigns on behalf of clients, but he also runs a community of 400 digital marketers from beginner to expert, which collectively spends over $100M per month on Facebook and Instagram.

• Foxwell Digital
• Northbeam
• TripleWhale
• Blog: Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns
• Octane AI
• David Herrmann
• TikTok Ads Webinar with Cody Plofker
• Direct Mail: PostPilot

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Performance MAX campaigns are HOT right now. This super campaign type combines ALL of Google's channels into one campaign - Search Ads, Shopping Ads, Display Ads, Gmail Ads and YouTube ads all in one. We're seeing amazing early results and believe this will be a game changer for eCommerce brands.

To break it down, we're joined by Google Premier Partner Brett Curry.

Brett is the CEO of OMG Commerce, a digital marketing agency, Google Premier Partner and Amazon Ad Partner. Brett is the host of two leading eCommerce podcasts - Spicy Curry and eCommerce Evolution Podcast highlighting what’s new and what’s next in eCommerce. He and his team manage Google, YouTube, and Amazon ad campaigns for growing eCommerce brands. They’ve worked with an impressive array of brands including NATIVE, Boom by Cindy Joseph, Monin, Organifi, Madison Reed and many more. He's a frequent speaker on top industry stages like Traffic & Conversion Summit, Social Media Marketing World, SellerCon, IRCE and more.

• OMG Commerce
• YouTube Ad Examples Guide
• How to Create Google Shopping Ads for Your Store

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Do you feel like you're burning money at the altar of Facebook while Zuckerberg builds a VR empire? Are you earning break even ROAS, and hoping ad prices don't rise any further?

If you are, that's not uncommon.

In August, I was at Ecommerce Day in LA, and heard their keynote speaker say "Facebook and Google's entire business model is to take credit of sales that were already going to happen."

And then he convinced me that was true.

Joining us today with some unconventional wisdom on building a better marketing plan for your brand is Rand Fishkin.

Rand Fishkin is cofounder and CEO of SparkToro, makers of fine audience research software.

Rand's Bio: In 2018, Rand started SparkToro with Casey Henry and published, with Penguin/Random House, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. Rand previously co-contributed to two books: Art of SEO, and Inbound Marketing & SEO. He’s been profiled in the Seattle Times, featured in Puget Sound Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, named to BusinessWeek’s 30 Under 30, written about in Newsweek, The Next Web, the Inc 500, and hundreds of other publications. He is, however, most proud of his prominent appearances in Geraldine’s first book, All Over the Place. Geraldine and Rand are also small investors in TinySeed Accelerator, LegUp, TeamSportz, Techstars Seattle and Backstage Capital.

• SparkToro
• SurveyMonkey
• Lost and Founder
• Virtual Confernece: Spark Together

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

If you're a little older than me, you may remember a particularly cool pair of sunglasses that was famous for using NASA satellite tech in their lenses and for being the first real activewear sunglasses in the 80s.

I'm talking about REVO sunglasses.

Our guest today is Cliff Robinson, CEO of Revo. Cliff has fashion in blood. You see, he was born into fashion, his family’s nearly century old business designs, manufactures, sells and distributes high-quality designer brand eyewear right in my home state of Illinois.

Today we're going to discuss the journey from an old school family business licensing other people's names to becoming a brand owner, and the learnings that come along with this shift in business strategy.

• Revo Sunglasses - Discount for listeners - use code KURT for 20% off on revo.com

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Today's guest co-founded the #1 cat travel brand in the world. You read that right.

We're joined by Emily Miethner from travelcatshop.com, now the #1 cat travel brand in the world, and a fast-growing, global 7-figure DTC brand serving catstomers in 75+ countries. As the Chief Marketing Officer, Emily manages influencer marketing, SMS and email marketing, organic digital content, retail, product development, and partnerships.

She's been featured on Good Morning America, in-studio on Cheddar TV Live, and in The New York Times, Wall Sreet Journal, Vice, U.S. News, Vogue, Fast Company, and more, and on 20+ podcasts.

• Travel Cat
• IG/@yourcatbackpack
• Linkedin/emilymiethner
• Stray (game()

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Today's guest is Jake Karls, a co-founder at chocolate factory & DTC brand Mid-Day Squares.

Jake's job goal is to grow their brand by building genuine relationships – with investors, buyers, journalists, and their 80-person team. He's done that with a content marketing approach that he describes as "starring in our own reality TV show" that includes real life therapy sessions and inspiring others to be unapologetically themselves.

Though Jake was recognized as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist this year, his self-proclaimed “greatest accomplishment” was learning how to be confident in himself.

• middaysquares.com
• IG/@middaysquares
• Jake Karls on LinkedIn

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Today's guest is Nick Disabato, a conversion rate optimization consultant who believes "Ecommerce isn’t a video game. It’s relationships with real people, at scale." In this episode, we'll learn how his customer-focused mindset has helped in improve conversion rates and shift company cultures at the same time for his clients.

You'll hear:

• Design Mindset & Cognitive Biases
• Customer Phone Interviews
• Scary Tests, Tools, and where to start

Through his consultancy, Draft, Nick Disabato conducts research-driven optimizations of online stores, so they can grow without needing to increase their ad spend. Rather than running the usual marketing playbook, Nick uses design research as the fundamental tool for optimization. He also wrote design best-sellers Cadence & Slang and Value-Based Design.

• Draft - Nick's design consultancy
• @nickd's twitter rant
• Google Optimize - Split Testing tool
• Store Design - Nick's new mini how-to guide
• Hotjar - Heatmapping tool

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Scott Brown & Tim Swindle are the creators of PaddleSmash, a new outdoor active game that combines elements of Pickleball and Spikeball.

Scott Brown is the co-founder of Marbles: The Brain Store, a retail concept focused on building better brains through play, which eventually grew to 40 stores, a website, a catalog business and a proprietary product division.

Tim Swindle created Utter Nonsense, an entertaining card game that was quickly carried by several retailers and ultimately within all 1,800 Target stores. Utter Nonsense was acquired in 2017 by private equity backed, PlayMonster.

What did the learn and where are they going? Today is all about product development in the toys & games space.

• PaddleSmash
• Tina Seelig: Can We Control Our Own Luck?
• Kickstarter: Utter Nonsense

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

Today's topic is PR...

PR or "earned media" is very attractive. Authentic content and engagement that you dont have to pay for. Its like SEO for press.

Sounds great? So why isn't everyone doing it? Because it's hard and expensive.

As the host of a moderately successful podcast, I get a lot of pitches from PR firms and they're mostly awful. Or we've had clients hire PR firms and feel like they flushed $10K/mo down the toilet.

So how do you do it right? Like many things, the answer might be Do It Yourself, at least at first.

The attraction is clear. Who wouldn't want to be featured in Wirecutter, GQ, Engadget, Techcrunch, Forbes, CNN, Wall Street Journal, or even huge YouTube channels like iJustine. Our guest today has, and he's going to tell us how to do it.

Our guest today has been doing PR for eight years as part of his role at NOMAD GOODS. We're joined by listener & recurring guest Chuck Melber. During his tenure at Nomad he has established a strong foundation in advertising, email marketing, affiliate marketing, PR, and influencer marketing.

• NOMAD
• Cision
• Streak

• Free 30-day trial of Zipify OCU - To get an unadvertised gift, email [email protected] and ask for the "Tech Nasty Bonus".
• Back up your store with Rewind
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Privy: The Fastest Way To Grow Sales With Email & SMS

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.