The Ecommerce Influence Podcast

Establishing trust among your customers can be challenging, especially in certain markets. Kevin Chen is Vice President and co-founder of iRestore, a company that sells laser hair growth systems. Despite selling a product with a particularly skeptical audience, iRestore has grown to eight-figures over the last few years. Kevin joins us today to share his story of success. He talks about how he est...

We know how frustrating it is when your business isn't growing at the rate you think it should. Andrew and I have gone under the hood of dozens of different companies over the years and now when a company approaches us, it's easy to spot the ones that will be able to scale up, and the ones that will struggle. Today, we share seven reasons your business might not be scaling and what you can do to f...

Running one company can be a challenge. But what about running 12? Our guest today is doing just that. Ecommerce investor Shakil Prasla of Pro Click Ventures joins us to talk about how he built his portfolio of ecommerce businesses. He shares what he looks for when acquiring new companies, how to hire CEOs, and what's possible on the acquisition side of ecommerce. Enjoy! Episode Highlights: 4:38 S...

If you've been having issues with Facebook recently, you're not alone. My Twitter feed has been blowing up with people talking about the problems they're having and screenshots of breakdowns and errors. So in today's bonus episode, Andrew and I provide some background on how these Facebook issues started, what changes are here to stay, and what you can do to manage your clients' (or your own) expe...

If you're not yet familiar with Campaign Budget Optimization, now is the time. Facebook recently rolled out this new ad feature and has plans for it to become a requirement for all advertisers later this year. Today, Andrew goes in-depth with everything you need to know about Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO). We discuss what CBO is all about: the framework for setting it up, how to approach your...

How often have you added a new element to your website because you thought it "looked cool"? The reality is that a jumble of "cool" widgets and features can slow down your site and actually worsen your customer experience. In today's episode, we bring back Kurt Elster who is a specialist in conversion rate optimization and runs an ecommerce website design and development agency, Ethercycle . Kurt...

Your customers are worth more than what they purchase from your store today. If you can retain them as a customer over time, you can gain more profits for your business. This week, Andrew and I have a meaty, and sometimes conflicting, conversation on customer lifetime value (LTV). We start by breaking it down with the basic definition and then share higher level strategies for how you can increase...

Success in the ecommerce world doesn't happen overnight. Our guests today are not only big contributors to the ecommerce community, but are also co-founders of a business they built from nothing to one that now has a cult following. I met Matt and Meredith, owners of Boredwalk T-Shirts , at an Intensive I led a couple of years ago. Today they join us to share the story of how they built their "cul...

A topic that's come up a lot in my recent conversations is how to hire a high-level marketing person. Finding the right candidate can be tough, and when you're a business owner doing a million other things, it can be even tougher. In this episode, Andrew and I talk through the hiring process, from deciding when to hire, to where to look for the best candidates, and the questions to ask before hiri...

The customer purchase journey is no longer a linear path. SEM and YouTube advertising have changed not only the way consumers find products, but also how businesses track where purchases come from. Today we're joined by returning guest and CEO of OMG Commerce , Brett Curry. Brett shares his expert advice on where to get started with search-driven advertising, the resources to better understand att...

Making the decision to outsource your paid social to an agency can be tough. It's a big decision to hand over the reigns of your social advertising to someone outside of your business, and one of the questions Andrew and I get a lot is, "when is the right time to hire an agency?" Today we address that question, as well as the specific questions to ask when you're vetting your agency (and the answe...

Magical things can happen in your business with a strong brand and a loyal customer base. Bryan Anthonys' founders Amber Reynolds and Ed Glassman built a seven-figure business, in part by creating a brand and products that their customers feel deeply connected with. Today the husband and wife team share the story of how they built their business, the lessons they've learned along the way, and the...

Too many established ecommerce stores run out of money before they can scale. Over the last several years, I've helped 126 ecommerce brands build more profitable businesses. 78 of them scaled into 7-figure businesses. 2 them had $100 million dollar exits. Through this experience, I've learned that if you observe certain principles as you scale, you'll increase your chance of doing it profitably. T...

Earlier this week, Andrew shared the first 10 of 20 questions he asks when auditing clients' Facebook accounts to see whether they're managing them to their fullest potential. Today he shares the rest of his tactical questions to help you optimize your Facebook ad account, including questions about audience overlap, value bidding, and your add to cart to purchase ratio. Part two of this episode wi...

A few weeks ago Andrew shared his five-step process for optimizing your Facebook ad account. In part one of this two-part episode, Andrew takes a more tactical approach and shares 10 questions he asks when auditing clients' Facebook accounts to see whether they're running things in the best way possible. After auditing more than 200 Facebook accounts last year, Andrew has seen accounts that are ki...

Something most of my clients tell me they struggle with is time management and always being busy . There's so much to do and it feels like there's never enough time to do it. Often most of their time is spent in their business, leaving little time to spend on the things they enjoy in their personal life. Time is something both Andrew and I are focusing on this year: how we can spend more time doin...

As the world of digital marketing continues to become more integrated it becomes increasingly difficult to analyze your metrics across various channels. This is particularly true when it comes to attribution. Late last year Facebook launched a new attribution tool that will allow you, for the first time, to easily compare data across all of your paid channels at the same time. If you're running ad...

One of the most exciting (and frustrating) parts of being a marketer today is that platforms are constantly evolving and our strategies have to evolve with them. Today we're joined by Susan Wenograd, Account Group Director at Aimclear, who brings her insights on the changes that are coming in 2019 and how ecommerce business owners and marketers need to start thinking differently about their paid s...

In 2018, I radically changed my approach to setting goals and running my business. As we enter a New Year, I wanted to put together an episode focused on how to set goals that will leave you more fulfilled. Instead of setting massive goals, I ask myself simple questions and make strategic changes to my business and life based on my answers. Those strategic changes led to more profit, less stress,...

The Google Medic update a few months ago caused a big upset for many people in the ecommerce space. Our guest today, Nat Eliason, is an expert in content marketing and SEO, and he shares his insights into what happened, the outcome, and why he thinks Google is smart for the changes they've made, even those some of his own clients were impacted. Nat joins us on the podcast for the second time and y...

Today, we've got an excellent interview with Wharton Professor and entrepreneur Peter Fader. He's a two-time guest. We wanted to bring Peter back on the show because he's an expert in customer lifetime value and customer centricity. How do you predict lifetime value? What models should we use to predict lifetime value? This is what Peter spent his entire career focusing on. In this episode, Peter...

If You've Been Listening To This Show For The Last Few Months, You've Heard Us Make Predictions About How To Approach Q4 Advertising. Many of those predictions worked out well. Others, not as much. There were a TON of Facebook bugs this year that came out of nowhere and really fouled people up. Now that we're through the busiest part of the season, we're bringing you an episode on BFCM advertising...

For over 12 years, Jeana LeClerc has been operating two businesses. She's owned a local spa in Redding, CA and sold skin care products on ArtofSkinCare.com . Her business has grown and changed over the last decade, but her commitment to her customers has not. In the last year and a half, her business has taken off. She has grown from a two-person team to an eight-person team and completely changed...

Today's episode is a little bit different, in a good way. We've had some great questions recently in the Brand Growth Experts Membership. They were so good we decided to answer some of them for you guys who are the listeners. We answer questions including how to attribute Amazon sales, how to weed out inactive email subscribers, what type of an ROI you should expect on your Facebook Ads, and Andre...

If Someone Looked Under The Hood Of Your Business, What Would They Find? If you hired someone new today, would they be able to easily access the information they need to get the job done? Or would they be sifting through a clutter of files, or, worse yet, is everything they need to know stored only inside your brain? Our guest today is Tiago Forte, founder of  Forte Labs , a company that specializ...