"Every brand is different. Make sure to test what works for yours." That's some of the most common advice about how to run an ecommerce business and I think it's deeply misleading and unhelpful. In this episode of the Andrew Faris Podcast, I make the case that instead of testing everything, you should learn from the collected wisdom of the people who already have. EPISODE SPONSORS MORE STAFFING Register for More Staffing's free webinar, "Empowering Business Owners with Coaching Skills: 5 Coachin...
Jun 19, 2024•33 min
WHAT IS OPENING THE BOOKS? "Opening The Books" is my series of live-recorded coaching calls with brand operators who get my time for free in exchange for recording the call, including showing actual ad accounts and other financial data on the call. For more info and resources from this episode, visit www.ajfgrowth.com/zollie EPISODE SUMMARY Sarah Resnick has been helping crafters and, more specifically, weavers create beautiful custom projects for years. And as she did, she realized something: ...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr 42 min
Where do you need to focus your attention to grow your Meta spend? Is it in writing new angles? Increasing the volume of ads? Adding influencer content? Better media buying tactics? Or solving attribution? Well: it depends. Growth with Meta Ads is different depending on which stage your account is. Today, I'm breaking down the 3 stages of account growth so you can think through where to dedicate your resources next. EPISODE SPONSOR: MORE STAFFING Virtual assistants can be helpful. Virtual profes...
Jun 05, 2024•29 min
I'm amazed at how good some ecommerce businesses are. Not necessarily the ones you read about or see on social media. They may or may not be good businesses. I'm thinking instead of businesses that I have seen up close and personally. In these businesses, when operators get crystal clear that bottom line profit is the ultimate driver of the value of their business, they can build SERIOUSLY profitable, valuable businesses. It sounds so simple: relentlessly pursue profit. But it's much easier said...
May 29, 2024•42 min
Email & SMS are cornerstones of DTC growth marketing, so I brought in one of my most trusted experts on the subject, Joel Biery. Joel is the founder of KapturBox, an email & SMS agency with whom I've worked on shared clients. So I've seen the quality of his work and can vouch for him: he knows what he's talking about. On today's episode, we talk about how to use owned channels to drive bigger moments on your marketing calendar and why you're probably not sending enough email but too much...
May 22, 2024•52 min
Drew Fallon knows what financial mistakes you're making in your DTC business. And he wants you to stop. From being the CFO & COO of Mad Rabbit Tattoo to launching Iris (a brand new DTC financial data tool), Drew has thought about ecommerce finance from just about every angle. On this episode of the Andrew Faris Podcast, Drew and I tell you to stop spending ad dollars, start forecasting more carefully, and ultimately, create a more valuable business. EPISODE SPONSORS MORE STAFFING Register fo...
May 14, 2024•55 min
Everything is going great for a business: your ads are working, scale is happening, and you're seeing huge revenue growth for both new and returning customers. But you can't figure out why: were the new ads you made THAT much better than the old ones? Or sometimes it's the opposite: nothing is working, including the ads that were doing great only a few weeks ago. So what's the difference? More often than you realize, it's seasonality. Today, I explain the point and tell you what to do about it. ...
May 07, 2024•33 min
Almost exactly a year ago, Nasrin Jafari recorded my first ever Opening The Books podcast episode. A few months after that, she hired me and my team as her agency. So how has it gone since that first conversation? On this episode of The Andrew Faris Podcast, Nasrin is back to talk about the highs, lows, and what she (and I) have learned on the way to doubling her fashion brand's business. EPISODE SPONSOR Virtual assistants can be helpful, but virtual professionals can change your business. Recru...
Apr 30, 2024•57 min
What's your brand's pathway to profitable growth? Well, that depends: what type of brand do you have? If you understand the answer to that question, you can focus on the highest leverage areas of your business for creating profitable growth. Today on the show, I'm breaking down 5 categories of DTC brands and telling you how to approach growth in each. EPISODE SPONSOR Register for More Staffing's webinar titled "Managing an International Remote Team in the E-commerce World: The Massive Advantages...
Apr 23, 2024•43 min
If you want your DTC brand to grow profitably, it can't JUST be about steadily improving your ads, emails, etc. That's great, but there is a more effective way to spike your revenue quickly, profitably, and in a way that's replicable throughout your brand's journey, and it's by leveraging the marketing calendar effectively. Today on The Andrew Faris Podcast, I'm telling you exactly how to do just that. EPISODE SPONSOR Register for More Staffing's webinar titled "Managing an International Remote ...
Apr 19, 2024•24 min
It's a pod colab! Today on the show, The Ecommerce Playbook and The Andrew Faris Podcast join forces for a longer, wider-ranging, in-person conversation with Common Thread Collective's CEO and DTC super-genius Taylor Holiday. Among the topics covered: Do you really HAVE to grow your business? The case for negative CAC (i.e. YOU GET PAID to acquire customers) My ongoing defense of the longform explainer And much more. Enjoy! EPISODE SPONSOR Virtual assistants can be helpful, but virtual professio...
Apr 16, 2024•2 hr 4 min
IMPORTANT NOTE Get every resource mentioned in this episode emailed to you for free by visiting www.ajfgrowth.com/prettyboy EPISODE SUMMARY Ben and Kevin are best friends, partners, and the founders of PrettyBoy—a men's personal care brand whose first product is a moisturizer that helped Kevin clear up serious skin issues on his face that started when he was in college, playing football at Ohio State. They launched with big dreams, but also with ads that were losing them money and an untenable s...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 46 min
It's not just about sales velocity. What happens if you've got a product that isn't selling much, but you think has potential? Should you put time and money into running ads against it? Or what about the opposite? What about if you have a high sales velocity product, but it's lower margin and lower LTV? Then what? In this episode I'm walking you through a 5-part framework on how to think about the next base products for you to put resources into advertising. EPISODE SPONSOR Virtual assistants ca...
Mar 26, 2024•29 min
Countless ecommerce operators complain about getting taken for a ride by agencies, freelancers, and software companies. In this episode I explain the most important thing you need to know to avoid the frustration and costs of having that happen to you—and to scale your business profitably in the long term. The key? Point of view. EPISODE SPONSOR Virtual assistants can be helpful. Virtual professionals can transform your business. Get connected to incredible ecommerce talent from the Philippines ...
Mar 19, 2024•23 min
I've already had Jack Rubin on once before, and that's for a simple reason: he's one of the most impressive DTC operators I've been around, building one of the best DTC businesses I've seen from the inside. So there's lots to share. In this episode, learn how Jack's relentless focus on his core funnel led him to increase his Meta spend by 500% in the last year while lowering his CAC and growing to a very profitable $50M+ in revenue. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:14] DTC business growth [05:33] Business...
Mar 12, 2024•40 min
"Make Ugly Ads." It's on his hat. It's on his mic. It's on his wall. Barry Hott isn't afraid to tell you as many times as you need to be told, and it's for a simple reason: he's right. Ugly ads work. Barry has a lot of years in the ecommerce/DTC/paid social/growth marketing space, and I brought him on this episode ostensibly to discuss the how and why of ugly ads. But for two guys who just love talking shop it was impossible to keep ourselves from delving into all kinds of growth strategy and me...
Mar 05, 2024•54 min
"Test creative until you have statistically significant results, then scale the winners based on that." That seems like good advice on first glance. How can you disagree with methodical testing that's attentive to good statistical principles? Because it's almost impossible to actually do without burning huge amounts of money on Meta, for one, and for two, it's unnecessary anyway, since Meta's machine learning can use better methods of forecasting your creative's performance than frequentist-styl...
Feb 20, 2024•35 min
You probably know Beardbrand and its founder, Eric Bandholz. Beardbrand rose to prominence in the ecommerce landscape as they built a YouTube channel with over a million subscribers, thereby powering their customer acquisition with basically zero investment in paid marketing channels. But as the impact of their organic efforts began to fade in 2022 and into 2023, Bandholz and his team decided that they needed to crack the code on Meta Ads. The problem? This channel had never been successful for ...
Feb 16, 2024•2 hr 36 min
We're taking a break from the tactical, but this episode is no less practical. Taking a full day completely off of work every week has been one of the most important practices for keeping my relationship to work in its right place in my life while also providing the rest required to perform at work at as high of a level as possible. In this episode, I explain how the ancient practice of Sabbath has unique power for people like me who love our jobs, and I give practical recommendations on what ha...
Feb 14, 2024•33 min
My last episode with Jones Road Beauty CMO & CRO Cody Plofker is the most popular episode in my podcast's history. Which meant it was time to bring him back. This is a wide-ranging episode in which Cody and I talk about how to think about Contribution Margin as a dollar amount (instead of just efficiency metrics like MER or aMER), how to forecast a DTC brand effectively, and how to use the concept of a "unique mechanism" in your DTC ad messaging. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:52] Cody's switch to b...
Feb 06, 2024•57 min
I've always said that the offer is the foremost driver of performance in direct response advertising. But I haven't always aligned my actions with that thought. But after some recent & massive client wins centering on running the same ads to new offers, I've been reminded of just how crucial it is to get this right. So in this episode, I'm categorizing defining what I mean by "offer" and categorizing offer type that can move the needle for different kinds of brands. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:00...
Jan 30, 2024•31 min
A few weeks ago I told you that longform explainer ads are the best performing ads I run in an episode where I went through an overview of the concept and structure of the ads. But then I thought: "Wait, why don't I just record myself actually writing one of these instead?" So I got together with my good friend Dave Rekuc, President & COO at Bambu Earth, and we briefed out a longform explainer ad from start to finish to prep for an upcoming shoot of his. The result is a (long) episode in whi...
Jan 25, 2024•1 hr 44 min
One of the most common pieces of advice I give ecommerce operators is to hunt for savings in their supply chain so that their unit economics can better. Supply chain savings go straight to the bottom line (or open up more room for you to spend on customer acquisition). It's good advice, but it often isn't actionable, because there is an obvious follow-up question: How? Lara Guevara knows the answer, and on this episode of the show, she tells you. We talked about knowing your suppliers' suppliers...
Jan 11, 2024•57 min
What if you could be running ads that pushed your spend up 50% at your target metrics–and they cost you nothing to create? And also, you already made them? If you're not turning (almost) all of your existing organic content into ads, there's a good chance that's the exact scenario you're in. Today on the show: a simple but important push to get your organic content into your ad account. EPISODE SPONSOR Virtual assistants can be helpful. Virtual professionals can transform your business. Get conn...
Jan 11, 2024•25 min
The first place you should spend your ad dollars as a DTC brand is Meta. The second is Google. Most people would agree with this comment, but they also see the same problem I do: it's incredibly easy to waste money on Google Ads because of the black box that is Performance Max and the 500 other ways Branded Search clicks inflate ROAS and hide bad dollars. I know enough about this to have helped some clients stop wasting money in these ways. But I haven't known enough to help clients actually MAK...
Jan 04, 2024•54 min
Fan Bi sees 10 different ecommerce businesses every week and has seen ~1,000 in the last year. That's because Fan's job is to buy DTC brands for The Hedgehog Company, the aggregator where he's the CEO. He's got 4 now and looking to add. The upshot of all that? He has one of the deepest senses of the market for ecommerce brands of anyone I know, and he can tell you very quickly if your business is set up well for an exit. So on this week's episode, Fan and I talked through what makes a good DTC b...
Dec 27, 2023•50 min
I'm a huge believer in creative diversity. I've devoted at least one episode to the idea that brands who truly maximize Meta Ads do so by building out the operational processes required to generate creative across a wide range of formats. And yet: There is one type of ad that I see that most consistently outperforms the rest of the account. That ad type is the "longform explainer," and if there's one creative strategy that's core to the AJF Growth Meta Ads playbook, it's this. Today on the show,...
Dec 21, 2023•36 min
It's one of the biggest, most remarkable exits I'm aware of in ecommerce: in 2022, Hero Cosmetics sold for $630M. So in this episode, I brought Hero's co-founder and former CEO, Ju Rhyu, on to the show to talk about how in the world they accomplished such a big outcome, what she's up to now, and whether or not all that money actually made her happy. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:02:03] Acne care brand and product. [00:03:18] Launching on Amazon. [00:08:30] What made Hero successful? [00:09:38] Focusing...
Dec 12, 2023•44 min
Success! That was mostly what I felt after BFCM this year, including 3 clients with their biggest revenue days ever. But that doesn't mean everything was a win this year. And after a couple weeks off to manage the BFCM chaos, I've analyzed the results and collected my top 7 lessons from the biggest week of the year in ecommerce. SUBSCRIBE ON YOUTUBE The Andrew Faris Podcast is now available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@andrewfarispodcast. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:01:28] Ad ac...
Dec 11, 2023•34 min
When Cody Plofker and I finished recording this episode, I told him, "That was basically Meta Media Buying 401." And that's exactly what I loved about this episode. Cody is the CMO at Jones Road Beauty, a beauty brand quickly approaching nine figures in revenue, all of it DTC including three brick-and-mortar locations of its own. So on this episode, Cody and I didn't hold back. If you're new to media buying, listen to this episode and jot down your questions as you go. If you're more experienced...
Dec 08, 2023•47 min
