It's the most philosophical I've ever gotten on the podcast, and it's all around this question: why are you actually doing what you're doing in business? What's the point? And is it creating the kind of joy deep contentedness that you're longing for at the core of who you are? This is an easier question to ask than to answer, but as my own business has filled up its capacity and my earning has exceeded my expectations, I'm working through it myself. On this episode, I'm asking these questions an...
May 09, 2023•27 min
There's no one I've met who knows Amazon like Bryan Porter, the Chief Ecommerce Operator at Simple Modern. Simple Modern will do over $100M on Amazon ALONE in 2023, and it's not an accident. It's the downstream affect of intelligent strategies that stretch all the way back to when Bryan and his two co-founders were testing which products to go to market on Amazon with in the first place. If you're trying to scale a business (or just a portion of your business) on Amazon, you'll need to go beyond...
May 02, 2023•48 min
Your product didn't just appear out of thin air. It's the result of hundreds of hours of hard work, complete with crucial decisions you made so you could get it just right because you care about serving your customer well and being proud of the product you give them in exchange for their money. But your customer doesn't know any of that. At least they don't if you don't tell them. I'm back to discussing creative strategy on this episode, and the idea here is simple but constantly overlooked: lea...
Apr 25, 2023•15 min
Kelsey Lehrich is the co-founder and CEO of 365 Holdings, an aggregator that currently has nine brands in their portfolio. Which gives Andrew a chance to revisit one of his favorite questions: is the aggregator model broken, or was Andrew just a poor leader of it at 4x400? Kelcey’s business is very much not broken, and that means there’s lots to explore about what makes it work and what others can learn from it. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [02:34] About 365 Holdings [06:25] Keeping the portfolio vs focus...
Apr 18, 2023•44 min
It's the most obvious thing about selling products on the Internet. It's also one of the easiest things to forget. And being conscience of it is the bedrock of great digital communication. What am I talking about? I'm talking about what I call the "digital gap" between your customers and your products. Put simply, it's the fact that your customers can't actually touch, smell, taste, or even REALLY see or hear your products. Just like a Zoom call can't fully replace an in-person conversation, an ...
Apr 11, 2023•33 min
SPONSORED EPISODE. Gregg Carey is the CEO of Section 119 and co-founder of More Staffing. More Staffing helps e-commerce businesses locate, hire, recruit, train, maximize the value of incredible talent in the Philippines, and they're also my current sponsor. I don't usually offer sponsored episodes to my advertising partners, but I'm so compelled by how and why Gregg is working with ecom professionals in the Philippines that I wanted him to explain to my audience how and why they can do the same...
Apr 07, 2023•38 min
Today's interview is with one of my very favorite people in ecommerce, Andrew Youderian. Andrew is the founder of E-commerce Fuel, an online community of 7-figure & higher ecommerce store owners. Ecommerce Fuel is the best-run online community I've ever personally seen, so I started by asking Andrew what makes great online community. From there, the conversation shifted to his unique perspective (as the head of a community of over 1,000 ecom store owners) on the state of the ecommerce landsc...
Apr 06, 2023•46 min
You should be buying your Meta Ads with Cost Controls. I've believed that for awhile now, but in the last six months my conviction on this point has solidified to where I now believe advertisers are costing themselves huge amounts of money in both efficiency AND scale when they refuse to implement this incredible tool. In today's episode I'm explaining that belief with 6 arguments aimed at convincing you to see the light of Bid Caps, Cost Caps/Cost Per Result Goal, and Minimum ROAS bidding. EPIS...
Mar 28, 2023•34 min
So your business is growing? That's great. But it also comes with complications. Every team member you add means another line of communication, another position description to right, another onboarding process to nail, and another person to loop into the systems & processes that make your business work. Panagiota Hatzis has seen all of this, and she's helped multiple organizations navigate growth to set themselves up for successful scale. On this episode, we talk about how good process helps...
Mar 21, 2023•46 min
In this solo episode, Andrew gets incredibly practical. Want to better harness the power of Meta Ads for your business? Great. Here are 4 truths that most accounts he's audited have gotten wrong. TIMESTAMPS [0:58]: CAC is not ROAS [05:38]: Lowest Cost is not Highest Value [08:56]: AOV is not LTV [11:52]: Spend is performance Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com Music Intro: " Tell Me Mama " by The Devious Means Music Outr...
Mar 14, 2023•18 min
Aaron Orendorff is the best B2B marketer I know, and it's not just because he's an elite writer (with a byline in the New York Times to show for it). It's also because he has a clear framework for what he's trying to accomplish in his messaging. That framework? Keeping customers from hell and taking them to heaven. He's thought about it in his posts as a marketing lead at Shopify Plus, Common Thread Collective, and now as the Head of Marketing at ReCart. In this wide-ranging conversation, Aaron ...
Mar 07, 2023•58 min
Your brand has great LTV, so everything is easy. Right? Not so fast. While growing a high-LTV brand is easier than growing a low-LTV brand, having a clear roadmap of how and when to generate growth AND profit can make all the difference between success and wasted opportunity. In this episode, Andrew talks about how to operate a high LTV brand, from planning where profit comes in your P&L to the specifics of how to run a Meta Ads account when you're forecasting high LTV. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [0...
Feb 28, 2023•32 min
There's just no one else quite like Isaac Medeiros that I know of in ecommerce. With a team of a ~dozen creators, 16 freelance scriptwriters, multiple YouTube & TikTok accounts, and now a Discord channel, Isaac has taken the content-driven approach to DTC to a whole different level. The result: a fast-growing, profitable DTC brand with a PNL that doesn't look like any others I know of in the space. I chatted with Isaac about what it really takes to build a machine like the one he has–and whe...
Feb 21, 2023•33 min
Are you SURE you need that attribution tool you're paying for? I'm not. The closer I've looked at the performance of the brands that I work with, the more convinced I have become that third party attribution tools don't provide incremental insights at best and are overtly misleading at worst. Today on the show I make the case that you should carefully evaluate whether or not your attribution tool is actually providing you any value–and I'll tell you exactly how I do that with my clients. EPISODE...
Feb 14, 2023•37 min
Matt Bertulli has seen a lot: he's run a successful agency, raised venture money, and now runs two large and fast-growing ecom brands in Lomi and Pela Case. Which means he's thought a lot about how important it is to do at least one really important thing right: nail your customer experience. Matt joined me for a wide-ranging discussion on how to make sure you do that, how that creates value in your business, and how the visual design of Lomi creates ongoing value for the brand. Follow Matt on T...
Feb 07, 2023•39 min
Let's talk retention, but instead of pure methods and tactics, we're analyzing the "genetic" elements of high-retention brands and products. I've got 6 of them, and I put them in order of most important to least important. The good news? If these factors don't describe your brand or products particularly well, you're the one with the power to change them. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [2:17] The category of your product [4:54] The customer & product experience [8:28] Product subscriptions [11:03] Sales...
Jan 31, 2023•19 min
Bill D'Alessandro is back! A couple months ago, Bill wrote a post that blew up in the Ecommerce Fuel forums titled " This Is An Intervention: Stop Taking Fixed Fee Loans " where he explained why the quick & easy revenue-based loans from folks like Wayflyer, ClearCo, and Shopify Capital are so much worse than they look. I'll be honest: I myself realized how poorly I had been thinking about this kind of debt, and I knew I needed to have Bill back on the show to explain more to the rest of us, ...
Jan 24, 2023•44 min
You didn't become an entrepreneur because you think, "Nothing will work out and I won't even try." Quite the opposite. But if you're the CEO of your company now, it's your job to flip that instinct around and start asking, "How will this go wrong?" For optimists like many of us, that's not intuitive. But it's necessary. In this episode I'll explain why. TIMESTAMPS [00:34]: Andrew’s "CEO's should be pessimistic" advice [03:33]: Planning for the worst case scenario in a business [04:54]: Challenge...
Jan 17, 2023•17 min
If you gave me a list of 100 businesses and asked me to rank which ones were most likely to die in the next 5 years, I'd be shocked if you found me 5 I'd rank higher than the national retailer I'm talking about in this episode. But here's the thing: I'd be wrong. Not only is this business still around; it's growing . And the story is full of great lessons even for those of us running very different types of businesses. Today we're talking about the basics of how customers interact with products,...
Jan 10, 2023•16 min
Bear Handlon isn't on Twitter, and if you aren't a CrossFitter you might not have heard much about Born Primitive. But I've seen them up close for years now and I can tell you for certain: it's one of the best ecommerce businesses you don't know. BP is a mid-8-figure brand, punctuated by putting up $1.2M in two hours to kickoff BFCM. Bear is a remarkable guy who started BP with his then-wife, Mallory, while being active duty in the Navy. Oh: and he's only now getting to Amazon and brick-and-mort...
Jan 03, 2023•42 min
It's the "very special episode" time of year and I'm doing my part. To round out 2022, I joined up with The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast for a colab episode where Taylor Holiday (CEO of Common Thread Collective ), Richard Gaffin (Senior Copywriter & Podcast Cohost at CTC) and I reflected on the unique ability of failure to form us and teach us for the long term. Whether it's been a great or terrible year for you in 2022, there's something here for you to chew on. Places to follow up with Taylo...
Dec 28, 2022•41 min
There's one really simple way to make certain that your DTC business simply cannot be successful at scale: lacking any organic revenue. In this episode, I'll walk through the foudnational design of a scalable ecommerce business, including the two main ways to generate organic revenue on the back of your paid acquisition. TIMESTAMPS [01:10]: Importance of growing organic revenue [06:26]: Ways of growing organic revenue [15:51]: The word of mouth effect [23:22]: Overstated fact about product quali...
Dec 20, 2022•30 min
Is there anything more certain in digital advertising than the importance of regularly testing new ad creative? Most people (including me!) would usually tell you that the answer is a resounding "no." But this week on the podcast, I lay out the case for when and why you should quit the creative testing if you really want to get the most out of your ad account. Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: www.ajfgrowth.com Intro Music: " Tell Me Ma...
Dec 13, 2022•27 min
Bill D'Alessandro is the founder and CEO of Elements Brands, an aggregator that includes the rapidly growing Natural Dog Co. And while it's always too much to talk about "the secret" to someone's success, it's not an accident that Bill's success comes alongside his obsession with tracking & optimizing for contribution margin. In this episode we start by defining "contribution margin," talk about why and how Bill's team ruthlessly reports on it, and how it helps you get away from the deceivin...
Dec 06, 2022•34 min
Creative is the key to success on Facebook Ads, right? Right. But lots of brands aren't thinking strategically about the foundation underneath creative testing that makes it possible–which means they're REALLY not thinking about how to operationalize it into their business. That means they're leaving a lot of customers and profit on the table. In this episode I walk through what drives great creative testing, and therefore profitable customer acquisition. It's obvious once I say it, but the impl...
Nov 29, 2022•18 min
Andrew Campbell sits in a unique position: he's the Head of Data Science at the most ambitious project in all of ecommerce, OpenStore, which means he's thinking about ecommerce data & how to automate operational processes from a perspective that no one else is. So I grabbed 40 minutes of his time to talk about what's happening at OpenStore, what it's like to row in the Olympics, and why you should be at least trying Bid Caps for your Facebook Ads. Follow Andrew Campbell on Twitter: @TheAndyC...
Nov 22, 2022•43 min
"We need to diversify our ad spend away from Facebook!" That's one of the most common things I hear ecom operators & marketers say right now, and it's mostly a bad idea. In this episode, I'll explain to you why the better path is to focus more resolutely on the best opportunity for efficient customer acquisition at scale–Facebook–and only diversify if and when the conditions are right for it. Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewjfaris Email Andrew: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work with Andrew: www.aj...
Nov 15, 2022•26 min
It's the last day of my weeklong BFCM special! This week I've got 5 very short episodes with super ecom experts giving you ONE (and only one!) tip to maximize Black Friday/Cyber Monday. The best part? They're ALL still actionable for your teams, even this late in the game. To close out the week, I just couldn't stay away from my business partner, friend, and former CTC & 4x400 colleague and boss, Taylor Holiday. Taylor's got one last tip for BFCM focused on making sure you understand your fi...
Nov 11, 2022•5 min
Day 4 of my weeklong BFCM special! This week I've got 5 very short episodes with super ecom experts giving you ONE (and only one!) tip to maximize Black Friday/Cyber Monday. The best part? They're ALL still actionable for your teams, even this late in the game. Today's episode might be the silliest Andrew has ever gotten on this show while still being loaded with ecom insight, both of which are thanks to the guest, Cherene Aubert. Cherene is currently the Head of Growth at Bobbie Baby and former...
Nov 10, 2022•9 min
It's Day 3 of my weeklong BFCM special: 5 very short episodes with super ecom experts giving you ONE (and only one!) tip to maximize Black Friday/Cyber Monday. The best part? They're ALL still actionable for your teams, even this late in the game. Today on the show it's Lauren Schwarz, owner of The Loft 325, a creative agency that does one and only one thing: makes you ad creative that actually sells product. Lauren's got great input on the simple truth about BFCM creative. You can follow Lauren...
Nov 09, 2022•5 min
