Even if you're not a numbers person, you need to understand the math behind your marketing. The good news is that this is not nearly as complex as it seems. This does NOT mean you need to be a math wiz kid, or a coder, or a master of analytics. But you do need to know the story your data is telling you. Chris Mercer (known mostly as Mercer) is one of the smartest analytics guys I know. But more than just understanding the technical side of analytics, Mercer knows how to find actionable data. Tha...
Apr 18, 2018•50 min
For most marketers, Facebook Messenger is the ultimate black box. What is it really? How are customers using it? What's a marketer to do with it? These are a few of the many important questions that marketers may have a hard time answering. The temptation for some marketers is to treat Messenger marketing like they would email marketing. Big mistake. It's a very different platform at a very different stage of maturity compared to email. Then there's the question of chatbots…what are they? How ca...
Apr 05, 2018•47 min
I've been looking forward to this interview for months. I met Bryant Garvin at Ezra Firestone's Blue Ribbon Mastermind in Nashville back in January. Hearing the details of how Bryant and team leveraged YouTube (as well as other channels) to achieve massive scale at incredible speed blew me away. I knew immediately I wanted to have him on the podcast. Purple Mattress has grown from obscurity to being one of the most popular mattress-in-a-box offerings in just a few short years. In 2017 they poste...
Mar 28, 2018•50 min
Today I’m excited to welcome back my business partner and the co-founder of OMG Commerce - Chris Brewer. Chris Brewer is a seasoned entrepreneur who’s successfully started and sold multiple businesses in the advertising and marketing space. In 2010 he and I started OMG Commerce. Since then we’ve consulted with, partnered with and provided agency services for HUNDREDS of eCommerce stores. We’ve seen nearly everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly of eCommerce. In this episode, we break down t...
Mar 07, 2018•50 min
Amazon truly is a jungle. Legitimate competitors are chomping at your heels vying for your rankings and clicks. Unscrupulous and even fraudulent competitors are wreaking havoc and forcing a “race to the bottom” with product prices. In this episode I interview John Bullard Sr. John has a unique perspective on Amazon. First off, he’s a successful seller with a $3 million per year private label Amazon business. He also has 30 years of experience as a retail wholesaler. On top of that, he owns and o...
Feb 21, 2018•49 min
Logan Christopher doesn’t do anything halfway. He’s one entrepreneur you likely wouldn’t want to challenge in a test of strength. Logan is thin but deceptively strong. He’s deadlifted 505 lbs, rack pulled 1,000 lbs. In his spare time, he juggles flaming kettlebells and pulls fire trucks with his hair. Not making this up. Check out the details at legendarystrength.com or visit his YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/LegendaryStrength ). While this is impressive and interesting, this is...
Jan 26, 2018•52 min
Today we take a deep dive into Amazon from two unique perspectives - from that of a very successful seller and that of an Amazon Ad Specialist. As we close out 2017 we do so with two record sales days under our belts. Black Friday and Cyber Monday both set online sales records. Amazon was a big driver of that online growth. All signs point to continued growth into 2018. In this episode, we'll outline how you can get the most from Amazon in the coming months. First a little about our guests… Bran...
Jan 10, 2018•59 min
Few people know Facebook advertising like Ralph Burns and his team at Dominate Web Media. In this interview we take a look at the latest features, strategies and tactics working for eCommerce merchants on Facebook. This episode is rich in content and contains some real Facebook gold. Here’s a look at what we cover: - Top misconceptions regarding Facebook ads that are holding you back - Top targeting methods you should be using - Ralph’s 3-Step video marketing formula - Understanding the Facebook...
Dec 08, 2017•51 min
In 2009 Chegg was one of the leaders in the online college textbook market. They offered college students the ability to rent textbooks online for a fraction of what they could pay at the campus bookstore. Word of mouth from delighted students and strong online marketing efforts fueled rapid growth…Then they had an unwelcome competitor enter the ring - AMAZON. Most companies would shrink in terror, get angry, cry about the world being unfair and potentially leave the space altogether. Chegg had ...
Nov 22, 2017•47 min
Few people have mastered social media marketing like Michael Stelzner. Michael is the founder of Social Media Examiner, one of the most visited social media marketing websites on the planet. He’s also the host of the Social Media Marketing podcast. He started the podcast in 2012 and has since racked up over 12 million downloads. Michael and team also run the Social Media Marketing World - featuring some of the top social media marketers sharing their best stuff. I’m super excited about the 2018 ...
Nov 15, 2017•49 min
This is part of the "how I did it" series where we interview successful eCommerce entrepreneurs and dig into the tactics and strategies that propelled them ahead of the pack. This interview with Jared Mitchell, Co-Founder of Skincare by Alana, is a great example of building a community, testing everything , and diversifying traffic. Jared and Alana's story is pretty awesome. Jared went from a bass player with a record deal that fell through to self-employed deck builder to helping his wife launc...
Nov 08, 2017•46 min
This is Jeff Bezos’ world…we’re just living in it. Or at least, that’s how it feels for an eCommerce merchant. It’s hard to overstate the continued growth, innovation, and reach of Amazon. With 214 distribution centers and growing. Sales growing at 20-30% per year. Forays into apparel, electronics (Kindle and the Echo family of products), batteries, and several other categories. It’s hard not to look at Amazon with awe and wonder. So, what's a merchant to do in light of Amazon's dominance? Is Am...
Nov 01, 2017•45 min
Going fast is fun. Just ask Ricky Bobby. "Hair on fire" type of growth in business can be a real rush. It can also be painful. In this episode, I interview JD Crouse the co-founder and Queso Grande (Big Cheese) of BolderBand.com - a trendy manufacturer and retailer of activewear headbands. Bolder Band grew from the kitchen table and dusty sewing machine of JD's wife Amy to do over $3.5 million in revenue their first year. To call that rapid growth is an extreme understatement. Amy and JD won the...
Oct 25, 2017•1 hr
If you want to up your eComm game then you have to be paying attention to leading eComm brands and eComm marketers. I just got back from speaking at the 2017 Content & Commerce Summit put on by Digital Marketer. I had the privilege of "sharing the stage" with top brands like Casper.com, Chegg.com, Racked.com, Fossil Watches and more! I got so much from the event that I wanted to share some of the most impactful takeaways with you. So I invited my friend, and the director of content at Digita...
Oct 04, 2017•49 min
Shopify just reached the milestone of powering over 500,000 online stores. Today on the show I interview David Moellenkamp a self-proclaimed automation geek, former long-time employee of BlackBerry and now the Director of Product at Shopify Plus. One of the goals I have for the podcast is to interview and uncover what’s new and what’s next for the major eCommerce Platforms. If we want to truly understand where eCommerce is headed, we need to get a better picture of what the companies who build o...
Sep 21, 2017•47 min
While it's not a platform I'm intimately familiar with, Woo Commerce is gaining market share fast. By some estimates, it's approaching 30-40% of online shopping carts. Largely because Wordpress powers approximately 26% of the web. In this episode, we dive into Woo Commerce and some general conversion boosters for any site owner. Cody Landefeld is the founder of Mode Effect and a Woo Commerce and conversion expert. Here's a look at what Cody and I dive into: - Why Woo is exploding. - New Woo deve...
Sep 13, 2017•46 min
Dubbed the "eCommerce Renegade" Chad Rubin is the author of the book Cheaper, Easier, Direct and is one of the top 250 Amazon Sellers in the world. With over 2 million sellers on Amazon worldwide, cracking the top 250 is no small task. But that's not Chad's only day job. He's also the CEO of Skubana, a multi-channel inventory management, and ERP software. Chad brings a wealth of knowledge on what it takes to build a brand and succeed on Amazon and other marketplaces. You'll love his story and we...
Sep 07, 2017•47 min
The story behind Xero Shoes is a crazy one. World-class sprinter over the age of 50 gets hurt, takes advice to start running barefoot and immediately sees improvements. Then goes on to design a prototype for a barefoot running sandal that would soon land him a spot on ABC's hit show Shark Tank. This episode is a ton of fun and is chock full of insights and stories from a really unique online merchant. Steven Sashen is a competitive sprinter, a TV and film veteran, an SEO, and an entrepreneur thr...
Aug 30, 2017•56 min
As you know, we are huge fans of YouTube ads. At OMG Commerce we run a lot of Shoppable TrueView campaigns - the joining of YouTube and Google Shopping (for more info on Shoppable TrueView check out Episode 10 ). Tom is the CEO of Viewability and a master of YouTube ads. He's built very profitable campaigns for marketing gurus like Neil Patel, Frank Kern, Amy Porterfield, and Brendan Burchard. Frank even mentioned that his YouTube campaigns are working better than Facebook right now. I specifica...
Aug 23, 2017•1 hr 5 min
B2B eCommerce is poised to explode in the coming months. In fact, Forrester predicts that B2b eCommerce will be twice the size of B2C eCommerce by 2020. If you are a B2B company or if you're a service provider working with B2B companies, or if you just want to see how B2B will shape eCommerce - this episode is important to you. In this episode I'm honored to welcome two veterans of eCommerce - Darren Sepanek and Carrie Weidenbach . Darren joined the Magento team in 2010 and helped launch and run...
Aug 09, 2017•46 min
Facebook ad spend has skyrocketed in recent years to the point that Mark Zuckerberg announced recently that this year they may "run out" or ad space causing rates to go up ( techcrunch article ). For online merchants, it's often the number 2 or even number 1 traffic source with Google usually taking the other spot. Molly Pittman, VP of Marketing for Digital Marketer, is a legitimate Facebook ad expert and seasoned practitioner. Today on the podcast we dive into Molly's 5-Step checklist for makin...
Aug 03, 2017•52 min
It’s very possible that your data sucks. Or if your data is accurate, it's likely that you're fixating on the wrong metrics. I LOVE this interview. While I can’t pick favorites, it would be hard to find an episode that was more important to your business than this one. Charles Farina and the team at Analytics Pros craft data and analytics solutions for large companies like Yelp, Starbucks, TOMS, Asics and more. This episode is highly actionable….and fun, in a nerdy way. Here’s a look at what we ...
Jul 26, 2017•1 hr•Ep. 24
Product discovery on Amazon is almost exclusively driven by search. So if you want to drive more sales on Amazon you have to get better at search - both the organic side (SEO) and the paid ad side. In this week’s episode, I interview a man who knows Amazon search inside and out - George Lawrence. He started Merchant Words in 2013 and has grown it into one of the most popular Amazon research tools on the market. In my chat with George, we dive into all things Amazon search including… - Common Ama...
Jul 19, 2017•50 min
Facebook ads are one of the hottest paid channels for online merchants right now. FB ads played a huge part in Ezra Firestone's growth from under $10million in revenue to over $22.5 million in a single year. Part of achieving success on Facebook is keeping up to date on what's working now.….And it's a moving target. Ezra spends upwards of $15,000 per day on Facebook Ads and he's tracking his performance carefully. Here's a glimpse of what we cover on the show: - How Ezra is currently building hi...
Jul 12, 2017•41 min
Bart Mroz has his finger on the pulse of the eCommerce industry. He's the co-host of the Register Podcast and writes for Entrepreneur, Retail Dive, Social Media Today and more. This episode is all about emerging trends, what's next, and how we should approach (our least favorite term) omnichannel. Bart moved to the US as a boy who spoke no English. We talk some about being an immigrant entrepreneur and then dive into some pretty compelling questions such as: - What technologies will disrupt eCom...
Jul 05, 2017•46 min
What are you doing to delight your best shoppers? How are you encouraging or incentivizing your best customers to come back and tell a friend? How are you consistently growing repeat purchases? If your answer is "I'm not sure," or "I could do more," or even "we're doing pretty good there," this episode is for you. I've seen different studies, but I think it's safe to say that driving a new customer is 5 to 25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one. With that in mind, it makes sense to...
Jun 28, 2017•45 min
If you're not continually tweaking and testing for better conversion rates, you're leaving money on the table. Nick Disabato is a guy that I never heard of until all of a sudden I saw him everywhere. From working on BOOM with Ezra Firestone to speaking at eCommerce events to being interviewed on multiple podcasts. All of a sudden I couldn't escape this guy. :) Nick is incredibly bright and has a great process for finding and fixing conversion rate problems for eCommerce sites. In this episode we...
Jun 21, 2017•49 min
Without good copy, you're sunk….or at best fighting an uphill battle. I love all the new tools for eCommerce that we have at our disposal. From AI tools, to automation, to personalization, augmented reality etc. But here's the deal. None of that matters if you can't tell a good story or produce copy that compels people to buy. Often, she who tells the best story wins… I review dozens of eCommerce sites each week and it's very clear to me that good copywriting is a lost art. My guest on this week...
Jun 14, 2017•47 min
My guest on the podcast today has a unique perspective on both Amazon and on building your ecommerce team. Nathan Hirsch built a wildly successful drop shipping business on Amazon in 2009. He's since scaled that to multi-million dollar per year business. in 2015 he launched freeeup.com to help online merchants find vetted outsourcers with eCommerce experience. In this episode we dig into some Amazon news and trends to pay attention to and we provide some specific insights for building your ecomm...
Jun 07, 2017•47 min
Few entrepreneurs achieve what Russell Brunson has. From selling "how to make potato gun" information in his college dorm to 40,000 paid monthly subscribers on Clickfunnels, his current SaaS platform, Russell knows how to make stuff happen. That's why leaders like Tony Robbins and The Profit's Marcus Lemonis speak at Russell's events and even go to him for marketing advice. In today's episode we cover: - What a successful ecomm funnels look like - Top ecommerce funnel mistakes - Why building a m...
May 31, 2017•52 min
