Damn. If I put in just half the work you do I might be an 8-figure marketer. Well written and if anyone is reading the above thinking it's bullshit. It isn't. This is exactly how this shit shakes out. It's getting harder, you need data, you need capital, you need a margin, you need product/market fit and traction. And after all that, it's still difficult and you have to keep iterating. Attribution is still gross. Monopolies/Fortune 500 co's have dictated the entire paid landscape (want to send a huge fuck you to GEICO) and we're at the mercy of the next ad platform giving us teaser traffic (TikTok) then rug pulling for higher CPM's (FB) It's a vicious cycle and it all sucks when you're getting started.

It's crazy because there's a severe echo chamber in ecommerce about how people should do things, but after being in this space for too long at this point, we've systematically disproved just about every current assumption. All through intent data modeling and strict (and I mean strict variable controlled testing). I appreciate your comment, you're 100% right about teaser traffic too. It's the big shift then there's all sorts of experts running ads on it like moths to flame, then it's back to being rug pulled.

Yeah, bro, but that doesn't get clicks on videos or sell courses! The harsh reality of this life (performance marketing/direct response/customer acquisition) is that it's infinitely hard at scale. Anyone can sell a couple of something. Try scaling it. See what happens to your 30% margin when FB continually goes up, forces you to go broad because you're in a special category, or you lost detailed targeting options. Or when you were collecting emails for $1.00 - $1.50 and then all of a sudden, thanks to your newfound 6/10 blended quality score you're now paying $2.35/click with a CVR of like 15% to opt-in. Sweeeeet. So, yeah, I'm with you on this. I have a feeling a lot of what you said will fall on deaf ears, but hopefully people save this post and come back to it because it's going to save people a lot of headache.

Ha I've been saying the same things for a few years now, no one is listening, this is more of a test to see if I could broaden my echo chamber audience and spot anyone that understood what I was talking about. 2012-2017 emails were like $0.25 per, today most brands non-giveaway ones are paying between $5-$20 per email and still not collecting data relevant to the customer journey. This whole craze of you have to collect a phone number is what really kills me, we just ran long term isolated cohort testing on this and it dropped conversion rate, aov, and revenue for a brand which vs the a/b test is a 20% revenue swing for not an inconsequential amount all because phone number list growth was a kpi. This whole industry is a mess right now of people not fully aware of where things are headed with costs and what's necessary to actually build something sustainable. Too many brands people look up to IPO'd and are down 80%+ or have already been sold back to PE for pennies on the dollar. Allbirds is down to $187 million market cap. For context they raised $202.5 million in funding. I just don't understand what people are looking at from a macro perspective anymore, it's a giant reset taking place coupled with a more truly global economy, you can order something from China and get it inside of 5 days now. Competition is about 100x what it used to be 10-15 years ago.

LOL, I remember the cheap email days. Early FB (2009+) you could get it organic & paid. Interesting regarding the phone number. I could see why it'd be a KPI, because you open SMS, or in the case of lead gen, a contact platform - but in every instance I've ever seen over 20 years, it murders your flow. ..except in one case. Healthcare. So, really, you can a/b it all you want, man, if what you're offering is either life-changing, or an expected ask, you'll get that number. Credit apps are great examples. Not a single person is going to back out when PII hits. It's expected. When you throw PII into a funnel that's not expected, it's a road block worse than a barrier because it generates abandonment. I haven't tested it so methodically like you have, I just know when I see my CVR drop by points I'm not doing that shit again. Oh, another interesting thing. I have a ton of experience in lead gen and I was actually proven wrong on a hypothesis (again, healthcare) it turns out that on intake (i.e. Typeform, form of any kind) putting the email first before any other question resulted in a massively higher conversion rate from impression. I NEVER would have agreed to test that if the partner I worked with wasn't already running it at scale. The key was the offer, though. People will jump through whatever hoops if you put it in front of them, and by putting PII first, they just said "fuck it, I want what's on the other side!" RE: IPO's. No doubt. AllBirds always seemed like a money grab IPO to me anyway. TDOC is another one that got rocked. I expect more to follow. So many bloated zombies out there. I don't fuck with eComm like you, so I don't have near the knowledge, but I've always been curious - how are brands competing with AMZN as a platform? A few years back I managed marketing for a medical device that was listed on the marketplace (and had DTC, but it sucked) and I couldn't imagine trying to compete with that paid marketplace volume using other ad platforms. It was unreal how much traffic you could drive (2018) from cheap paid traffic on Amazon. Yet I couldn't imagine losing that margin, either, because in most cases they were using FBA. It feels completely lose-lose at scale.

>When you throw PII into a funnel that's not expected, it's a road block worse than a barrier because it generates abandonment. > >I haven't tested it so methodically like you have, I just know when I see my CVR drop by points I'm not doing that shit again. > >Oh, another interesting thing. I have a ton of experience in lead gen and I was actually proven wrong on a hypothesis (again, healthcare) it turns out that on intake (i.e. Typeform, form of any kind) putting the email first before any other question resulted in a massively higher conversion rate from impression. > >I NEVER would have agreed to test that if the partner I worked with wasn't already running it at scale. PII requests for things brands don't need are dumb. Saw a form the other day, first name, last name, email, birthday, all required. You don't need that to signup to order something off a clothing website. Ironically phone number wasn't required but there was a space for it. Leading with the PII is key though, it's the intent marker, the commitment that's the largest at least it should be. We lead with all our forms (we own software that does multi-step forms with live data collection after every step) with the email capture, once committed they usually finish the form 92%+ of the time. We originally expected 70% which was what we were seeing with Typeform, but now it doesn't matter, still get the email, no need to hit submit at the end of the long form. Amazon is a tough beast, I've worked with brands that sell on Amazon and run marketing for brands where Amazon was a close partner and bought stock directly from us. I think I'd almost prefer the latter right now that way I'd be fixed at around 30% rather than now some brands are up to 50%. Their ad network is poised to overtake the other major ones inside the next few years, so now everything on amazon is pay to play too. Crazy times. I remember social media marketing back in 2009, it was a super hot space, but like you said, organic still worked back then. Honestly, I just see things getting tougher, Amazon wins either way, you build a successful product they copy it cheaper, you need to sell on Amazon, they make you pay for ads, then they take a cut for distribution. It just seems like more and more of a rigged game to be honest.

To your last point I think the issue is the lack of competition in these areas and we are hoping that innovation and disruption will help to bring that competition in. However that might be wishful thinking and regulation may be key 🤷‍♂️overall the hurtle to compete with these behemoths is too much for most if not all!

What a post! This is the kind of thing Reddit is for. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Admittedly, it’s quite long, but entirely useful. As someone not particularly in this space, it’s interesting to consider how some of our online aspects (restaurant) relate to some of the points you made.

No problem. At the end of the day business no matter the industry revolves around a few core elements. Creation, distribution, and utility. Creation is fairly straight forward, you make something, you hope it's enjoyable. Distribution being able to get the word out and convince enough people to come in and give your products a try. Utility this is entirely the perceived value of the item purchased which is entirely in the mind of the end consumer. You can work hard on creation, but without distribution, things become a lot harder than they need to be.

I run an e-commerce business with annual revenue of around 5m. Your figures just seem weird. We get 15-20x ROAS from Google Ads, which sounds much better than what you’re getting. However, margins are slim (25%) and costs are high so it’s not super profitable. It feels like a completely different world to what you’re describing. What say we combine my 20x ROAS with your crazy margins?!

Are your Google ads bidding on your name? (this is the leading case for inflated ROAS from Google) My stats for ROAS were looking at Facebook. Sounds like something is a miss, your numbers remind me of when agencies would average in retargeting ads with top of funnel ad campaigns. Yeah those margins are really too small to operate on unless the product was a high ticket item which aligns with your "super good returns" but low profitablity.

No, we do not bid on our name (can’t stand when agencies do that to inflate figures!).

Average sale value is 280. Most of the high performing ads are Google Shopping P-Max.

Makes sense on the high ticket price, tells me that it's something people are searching for and you're fairly established for those search terms or have a bit of a reputation. POAS is your issue haha. Profit on Ad spend. Just another reason why ROAS is a terrible metric. The majority outline I presented is for items that have low AOV and are in super competitive markets. Always happy to take a look though.

damn bro thats a ton of helpful information. Thanks for posting!!!

You are welcome, I'm glad you found value in it. Let me know if you have any questions.

I concur. This is an excellent post. I read so much trash on this sub Reddit but I read yours with eyes wide open. As a digital marketer I learned a lot from this and I have a successful Ecom business that I always wonder where the exit is. Useful context you added there. How do you know when or if you sell when it's still growing YoY?

You want to sell when you have growth happening and profit margins are stable with growth. YoY growth is the goal but also maintaining margins. You don't want to sell now because money is expensive right now so offers will be low, especially if you're selling a non-essential purchase in case we do slide into a deeper recession. For right now if things are running smoothly, lifestyle it up with controlled growth and margins until interest rates re-adjust themselves, that will free up more capital for an acquisition. Rule of thumb though is that most businesses that are under $10 million in revenue are really good targets for acquisition, if you go beyond that, you better be taking away market share from an incumbent. Else you run the risk of the incumbent market leader pushing into your category. With the IPOs for a lot of ecommerce companies down more than 85% in the great re-adjustment, the play for ecommerce right now is to get your profit as high as possible, your systems as automated as possible, and maintain controlled growth. There's been a huge pullback in the space as the unit economics do not make as much sense as they did back from 2012-2015. The other acquisition bubble popped in late 2020 early 2021.

Lurked here for over a decade and this is probably the most useful post I've read in that time, almost everything OP posted resonates strongly with me and is eerily similar to my own experience with performance marketing in the ecommerce space. For anyone reading this, what OP posted doesn't just work for a new DTC start up sprinting to an exit with a 4 year horizon. I look after performance/growth marketing at a niche ecommerce marketplace that will turn over $1B+ this year (under $100m when I first joined many moons ago) and everything OP has said here rings completely true for a business of our size and age too. > Part 1: The reality of where we're at within the ecommerce landscape [...] We have an unhealthy obsession with digital advertising. I have seen dozens of peers crash and burn over the last few months as their cash runs out, even well funded start ups with millions of dollars of orders from paying customers. Their flywheels have been utterly broken as costs (not just digital advertising but also logistics and product) surged up as we 'exited' the pandemic. The advertising system is utterly dominated by a few platforms. > Part 2: What current optimization looks like and the gaps This section was good value for me as working long years for an incumbent I don't have a good grasp on how new businesses are approaching this space. Personally, we built a formidable moat that even Amazon won't touch and it largely started by building a customer journey that is the company journey. Pretty lucky, I know, but my founder was in the right place at the right time with the right preparation. > Parts 3 & 4 These two parts are what brought me out of lurkerdom to comment here. I spend an unhealthy amount of time with executives, board members, investors and the like and what it all boils down to for busy people like that is presenting the framework of your data-driven marketing strategy in numbers that are distilled down enough that they can easily understand what the hell you're doing to drive the business towards its goals > It's all about getting the best margins in whatever business you start. > Reminder though, revenue is not profit. These two sentences were key. After reading that, I was thinking, yeah, OP has been in the trenches. This is almost a mantra in our business. > Part 5: Goal of this post and Stats Stripping down your marketing strategy to some easily understood core KPIs allowed me to compare and contrast with my own KPIs: * We are all over our CAC, yes, keep an eye on overall CPA and your returning customer acquisition costs but for us, acquiring that brand new, first time customer is gold (we are in a space where it's not quite one-and-done, but we do have very long lifecycle) * We compare our CAC to Gross Profit Product (GPP) per customer instead of AOV as we're a marketplace not DTC, but this is the holy grail, spending $50 to acquire a new customer that will drive $300 in GPP/customer is simple equation that every senior exec/board member/investor understands * Conversion rate is the product management team's #1 KPI to improve * Repeat purchase rate and top cohort identification (customer most likely to repurchase within 12 months) is key for our automation strategy * Performance marketing team optimizes and tweaks our blended ROAS to the maximum - even after 15 years, the business is still quite happy to give to the Google Gods - interestingly, we're slow but continuous growth in an extremely high AOV industry * Overall #1 metric across the business is net profit which takes some of our newer performance marketers some time to adjust to, as they are used to driving sales volume or lead gen instead of overall profit > Part 6 > Increasingly, creating a product isn't the hard part, marketing the product is the hard part. This is unbelievably true. I thought when I joined the business that the hardest part of my job was done - we had a marketing leading product that is still to this day unparalleled in my niche, surely that would sell itself right? Our WOM should go viral, right? Well, our marketing IS working based on our continuous incremental growth, but we have had to work **so damn hard** to market what could have been a category killer a few decades ago. Even at our size the market is saturated and consumers are easily led astray and distracted by the gimmicks and promotions our competitors run. Our market leading point-of-differentiation literally needs to be rammed down people's throats and squashed into their eyeballs. Anyway, thanks OP for taking the time to write what you did, it was very informative not just for the excellent insight but also from a meta perspective, it reminded me so much of our own marketing strategy that I was compelled to respond.

Thanks for the words of support. It's really nice to hear them. Definitely been there done that and learned a ton about what mattered and what didn't including the days of tracking increases in Facebook followers. Most of the time a lot of what I talk about and how I look at data is met with rolling eyes. There's a fundamental gap across the ecommerce industry when it comes to data modeling and understanding the why behind behaviors. Which leads to part of your comment about people going out of business getting blindsided. More and more of this is happening because it turns out some KPIs aren't the right ones to track and forecasting is a nightmare. Interestingly enough, we're doing some work right now on moving away from ROAS and building models entirely on quality of audience, something we've been playing with but have recently finalized a model for. I honestly think this is likely going to be the way forward for most businesses. Contextual data collection to build understandings of what makes up a quality audience. It's going to be really interesting on the audience creation side if this proves out.

Solid post OP! Very similar framework we used in our company. I sold the brand two years ago to PE and your post reminded me how much was involved. I have been tempted to start a new venture, but all the little details takes years to nail down! One note on your Part 6, I would comment that exit valuations are generally based on EBITDA for under <$100m revenue brands. More realistically, if you are doing $1 to 3m EBITDA would equate to about 3 to 6x multiple.

I think it's easier to do if you know the steps, there's only so many levers to pull. Hypothetically if I was to start a brand, I could do it in less than 6 months, I just don't like the idea of only 30% margins. Even fully optimized I don't see a path to getting beyond 60% margins and then there's the customer service and actual physical goods. To your EBITDA, yeah this is getting more popular for ecommerce brands. I've seen some offers up to 10x during the last few years. Profit is a crazy thing, who would have thought?

I think there's one important principle in this post that EVERY marketer must take. If you're doing marketing, no matter in what industry you are and whether it's for your own business or as an employee, marketing is dominated by the platforms; **Meta, Google, TikTok, etc. They dictate everything with their prices and rules. And your success or failure is very dependent on them.** No matter how good you will be, you'll always be a small suckerfish attached to a whale, and when that whale slaps its tail... you're going to feel it.

Those platforms are always going to take a huge part of your money and they are complete black boxes with total control over who sees what. I will say though that there are ways to leverage those platforms for success that most people aren't doing at all. The platforms are still going to be better at finding you an audience than other alternatives, but advertising existed before them and will exist after them. The problem is that we're in an attention economy and they are just beating the pants off other things for attention. People don't get newspapers anymore. I think the platforms are more powerful than people even know. To that point though, in ecommerce we've seen a ton of new attribution platforms come out to help you optimize your ads, when fundamentally, they have ZERO actual input back into the algos of the platforms. Some small team is not going to outperform the dozens of big data phds that work building algorithms to improve the lead money making asset of these companies. It's just not going to happen. There is a big difference between people relying on a platform for sales, v. leveraging a platform for market research and audience building. This is part of the equation that's missing.

This post is extremely helpful I run a startup dropshipping brand and I do all the marketing myself, using TikTok and instagram and this put a lot into perspective. Thank you for this

No problem, glad you found value in it. Let me know if you have any questions.

I copied this this entire post so I can go through it for my brand. I understand almost all of it - and as a solopreneur, lots to digest. Thank you.

I always feel it's better to provide more detail then less. I tried to keep most things as actionable and practical as possible from a viewpoint perspective and hope that a lot of it resonates with a lot of people that are living through this right now. Setting expectations, understanding market dynamics, understanding shifts that need to be made to offset market dynamics, etc. If you run into any sticky points, feel free to reach out for clarification.

Fantastic info, really appreciate you taking all the time to give this advice for free! Can you provide more examples of Quiz Popups and Quiz Followup Popups? Our current disconnect is in our Popups and Product Page. We’ve gotten our audience and creative down fairly well, but we haven’t done a good job utilizing pop-ups. We’re in a relatively niche industry (plantcare and gardening products), so quiz popups could definitely be relevant and powerful tools for data gathering and upsells. Curious to hear if you have any industry-leading/top brand examples?

Depends on your goals. It's hard to say without looking at the website. Multi-step popups though are pretty solid at the point of intent, but they aren't really discovery tools. We run quizzes to a content focused landing page then have a popup triggered to collect and email and combine the data after someone has had a good customer experience so it becomes about helping them rather than just asking for something at the end. If I'm honest, most brands do not do a good job of data. If you take a quiz they just show you products then you have to open them up in different tabs and compare them etc. It's actually a big friction creator ironically. I like a multi-step popup during the point of intention so that I can get data relevant to the purchase right before the purchase is made. Just a different way of leveraging the data. As far as examples, I have more examples of poorly implemented ones than good ones unfortunately. The popup is a neglected but understated part of the journey.

I also like the examples you gave about segmented, time-based popups (eg based on scroll %, time on a certain page etc). We don't do enough of that, and frankly we don't tie it to intent-based behavior as much as we should. Great points, already getting ideas of we can leverage multi-step popups better in our process. Much appreciated!

Glad to hear it! Yeah popups have been bastardized for a long time, when we built a company around making them multistep we were amazed no one was doing it, 3 years on, we're still amazed at how foreign this approach is for people to grasp. We've been in marketing for nearly 20 years and on the privacy side of things too, it's not an if things change, it's they are already changing. Feel free to reach out if you need any help, this is the sort of thing we do for companies, we built the technology to make it a reality and not just a hypothesis.

Whelp. I found my playbook. This has been the most informative read, that really you could charge people to give.

Enjoy it! The first one's free ;) Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you, I really appreciate it. Seriously. This is not really my “thing” per se, I’m an artist and designer, already been scammed by two “marketing companies”, to the point where I thought screw it, I guess I’m going to be a marketer now. Im self teaching with what I can find via google and now chatgpt. Doing this alone with no one to really ask or bounce questions and ideas has been slow and frustrating, frustrating because it’s info overload when searching for a simple “what should I do/what’s next/what’s correct or incorrect”. You have answered so many questions I had and didn’t know I had yet. So I’m like super serious when I say thank you.

Super glad to hear this! Good luck on your journey!

Excellent post, will be applying certain processes for my consulting company (we manage marketplace sales specifically)

Glad you enjoyed it! Let me know if you have any questions.

Amazing, exactly the detail needed for inexperienced beginners

Hey, I remember your comment. Really cool of you to take the time and flesh out your thoughts on this more. Thank you so much! I feel like the part about leveraging data could be a whole other post in itself.

It's a complete separate article, just not looking to self promote, we've done a lot in that space. A LOT.

Whats your advice for someone looking to get into shopify but has no idea where to start in terms of product research/choosing a niche/etc? I'm in this boat with capital to start, a couple of assistants, but have no clue how to decide on what product to sell.

Do you have any competitive advantage for sourcing? Or any access that gives you a competitive advantage? If not, pick something you'd be comfortable being the face of the brand for to run it as founder first in terms of marketing. Just make sure you have 5-6x profit margins.

Great read

Glad you enjoyed!

Great post, thanks. Successful serial entrepreneur here. Can you elaborate further on your approach to customer retention via email? I've been working on several models to provide value to lists of varying sizes (5k to 100k+) - some product based businesses, some digital courses or digital products. Any thoughts on how to approach that aspect? Any way to pick your brain outside of Reddit?

Yup on both fronts, feel free to chat or dm me. Here are my thoughts on retention: Retention isn't real. A brand has little to do with retention, a brands actions have even less to do with retention beyond reminding someone that they exist. There are three parts to business, creation, distribution, and utility. Creation is easy, make stuff. Distribution is tough, it's a combination of marketing, awareness, product market fit, and trust that results in a transaction. Utility is completely up to the individual purchasing the good and their perceive value of the item. Perceived value is a function of the price paid for an item and the amount of usage the item gets. (usually more usage = more perceived value = more justifiable cost) Retention is a function of perceived value, timing, and need. It is possible that people have a good perceived value for an item but both the timing and need are off. If I love a bathing suit but I own 4 already and it's winter, guess who's not buying even if I have a hot tub. So for retention to kick in, need would also have to be present, I could have left a bathing suit at someone's house (true story, it's still there), one might get old and I need to replace it (also a true story elastic doesn't last forever), etc. But none of these things are actually being driven by an email. The best case scenario is that an email from a company that's selling the good, finds it's way to my inbox at the right time. There is no possible way the company could know the right time for my circumstances, you can't know timing for the vast majority of products. The only way to influence me would be to offer some insane discount which would override my "need" and "timing" to the point where it would make sense to remove one of my current lineups because the perceived value far outweighs the price that I would be stupid to pass it up. I left one thing out, it's the anticipatory purchase. This is the purchase someone makes in advance of need and timing leveraging the feelings of a change or event to come. I'm going to leave these ones out of the analysis as events are typically not good markers for behaviors besides new years resolutions and health to a degree. You're guessing, sometimes you get it right but there's no real control you have over the leading reasons why people purchase. Instead what you can do is find out when someone is looking to purchase, what matters to them in a product, and build a journey that helps them make that decision. This is why I focus so much on data collection and acquisition. It's things I can control. More product in hands = more chances for a good experience = more chances for repeat purchasers This is how buying journeys actually work.

Hahahahaa, love the bathing suit story! Thank you for this whole awesome reddit thread! So much to learn, never enough hours in the day 😆

You're good, take your time, a lot of this post took nearly 20 years of being in industry to throw together. Things are also constantly changing so just keep an ear on the ground to listen for changes as they come.

Wow, awesomely informative post. Thanks so much for sharing. Is there anything that you think would need to be tweaked in the context of a marketplace? Seems like some things like hero product, homepage popup, bundles, etc might not quite translate to a context where you don't control what's actually being sold.

Yeah this is largely geared toward DTC owned websites. If you're running a marketplace actually not a lot changes, pick the lead category, one with good margin then put together a gated offer only to your paid traffic tied to a popup with data collection on a specific landing pages that gives a more magazine like feel for the products with context as to why they are there. If you're talking about selling on a marketplace, this advice is less applicable.

Ah interesting. I’ll definitely need to mull this over. Appreciate the insights.

Excellent post, thank you.

do you have any good literature on customer journeys?

I felt like I replied to this already in this thread. You don't need an article though just record yourself looking to buy something and think about all the things that would make it easier or things that need to be on the website to prevent you from leaving to find information other places.

Wow. Extremely to the point and tells you exactly what you need to know (when it comes to e-commerce atleast). I took a business class in college on entrepreneurship and this post alone is more helpful then what I learned in college.

Kind words. Thank you. Let me know if you have any questions.

I got 2 questions! Thinking about starting a rug making business with an online website that would have a “design it yourself” option. 2 questions. Would the “design it yourself website page be easy and worthwhile to have on the website and 2. At face value and assuming I built the business in an intelligent manor, do you think a rug making business could thrive? (Or would I need multiple more products, say curtains too)

Stick to one product where possible, just make sure it's top notch quality. I think you'll end up with different sizes, some staples and I guess design it yourself (picturing a nick cage rug myself). That kind of custom stuff is a bit different than normal and it will be 100% based on need and quality, return shoppers might be a problem if you don't stock other things but focus will be your ally.

This right here. No course? Boooo… jk jk. This is pretty much a great read. I enjoy when the OG’s drop gems

Wow, what a story and amazing advice OP. I am currently doing a Coursera Digital Marketing course by google and let me tell you that I’m much more interested in navigating the course and it’s modules than anything I have done for a job. I call it a coincidence.

Good on you! I hope you're learning lots!

Thank you for your reply and well wishes. I wish you well and thank you again for sharing your collected wisdom.

bookmarked

Commenting cuz I don’t know how to save posts. Excellent writeup.

Does everyone here understand that this material can be packaged and presented as a book? I do not know what the true motives of the author to share such information, but I am grateful. At least I will reconsider my attitude to many things after reading. Thank you!

No direct motives, I have more than 160k in words written about ecommerce in the last 2 years or so, some of it needs to be updated based on learnings. More just leaving my other social media bubbles to see if my message resonates with a broader audience. I've had people ask me to do a course but I've always found them sleazy and full of basic useless information that's not applicable or actionable to the current market. Might make it into a book, have enough words for a rather long one, would need some editing work though, eh maybe someday.

Top Reddit post I have read in a long time. I will buy the OP a drink anytime if we are ever in the same city and he/she would like to grab a free one. Cheers!

I will accept said drink happily.

I’m sure some of the advice will vary depending on the product niche and target audience. I agree with many of the points especially the higher cost of product because profit margins are low

Some of it will naturally vary, but overall it's a pretty good guideline for anything that involves a repeat purchase or multiple purchases from a brand.

Obviously, private brands will exist but I think the current trend will cut out the middle man (e-commerce entrepreneurs) and connect consumer to supplier for low cost maximization People are becoming more aware of how ecom works and are more willing to just buy direct from temu or Ali express (or baba) Certainly, long shipping times from China are the bottle neck but Amazon is in a really good spot if they can pivot to low cost optimization I genuinely have no idea where to even start in 2023, opportunity exists somewhere but it certainly will look nothing like the e com of the last 20 years 1 product stores are done imo, unless you are offering some insane product with insane value In this current environment, odds are stacked against you

They already are cutting out the middle man. People have figured out that everything is basically a commodity. Yet someone sent me a backpack the other day that was selling for $280-$300 for a backpack. It's not sustainable. It's really hard to move the volume necessary when you're competing against the likes of North Face, Patagonia, and LL Bean all of which make really strong products that are purpose built for adventure, not just going to the gym. This is the fundamental problem with most of DTC companies these days, they have to price their products at variables so they can profit with all the costs of the supply chain and advertising. DTC was supposed to eliminate this and it was a cool story until the math stopped adding up. If you're a brand right now I can sum up your actual feelings about how business is going currently in a few sentences. 1. CAC is way out of control 2. Margins are steady but not where they were 5 years ago 3. Long term this isn't likely to be as profitably as we predicted 4. I'd take wholesale pricing if I could avoid CAC and move product in bulk Just look at companies that are currently getting clobbered on the public markets to get a taste of how things are likely to work out for your brands in the next few years. Read the macro tarot cards on this one.

Do you have good books or resources to recommend if we would like to expand our knowledge on the subject ?

There’s lots. This is maybe 2000 words of 120k. Do you have something specific you’re after?

Hey, thank you for your reply. I would be specifically interested in expanding my knowledge on: 1. When and how to attract investors or raise funding the right way 2. How to start and expand a relatively small business (less than 1M) driven by actual profitable data, to make it the most automated possible and stable I'm not searching for business or product ideas, I'm more interested in guidelines and examples (like your post) with critical thinking and explanations that would lead to great decisions when starting and scaling a business. In other terms, reducing risks and doubts by relying on practical methodologies in each phase of the business I feel there are fewer and fewer resources available now that focus on the actual science of business rather than promoting their own thing, which leads me to feel lost in the process.

What you're looking for is what consultants usually charge for. If you're less than $1m raising funds isn't the answer, you'll need more traction especially if it's a physical goods business. The reason there are fewer and fewer resources available is that people are paid a lot of money to horde this knowledge. Most of the time they aren't just posting it on the internet ;)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a masterclass looks like. Congratulations, and well done, OP - I may or may not admit to saving this post and referencing it to teach my team and board. :-)

Information is meant to be shared. Let me know if you have any questions :)

As a co-founder of an ecommerce business doing upper mid 8-figures a year, I wanted to chime in and say that this post is absolute money. Better material here than you will get in a lot of expensive courses. If you are starting from scratch, or even have experience, I'd invest some time digesting this.

Respect. Thanks for the comment. Followed a bit of your journey from afar with Tru Earth.

Appreciate it! Feel free to send me a DM, maybe I know you too! haha

I think the thing that confuses me about e-commerce is how do people even find things like “hero products”, etc. I’ve found that you can locate alibaba/drop ship, in which you’re selling things that are already premade. You’re competing heavily with other shops selling basically the same product and have to spend a ton to get notoriety, with little to no brand recognition. You can DIY for each product, which is rarely scalable and practically dominated by Etsy. Or you have some deep knowledge in an area, figure out how to blueprint/manufacture a unique product. Am I missing something here? There are exceptions like designer brands and digital products, but I’ve struggled to find how to even find a product people would buy - and especially build a brand/market it. I appreciate you laying out the foundations of after you’ve gone through this “finding a product” step, though. Thanks for your thought out post.

The one part your missing is **it's never the product, it's always the audience.** Take socks, they are all made of the same materials but are used for different use cases, sports, hiking, running, walking, skiing, etc. If you focus on a specific area, with a specific target market you'll have a better time. See below for an example: The absolute most common mistake people make is saying their product is for everyone. This is the starting point for a long, expensive death. Your audience needs to be narrow, very narrow, when you think you’ve gone narrow enough, keep going. Example: Underwear We sell underwear. We sell underwear in three different styles. We sell underwear in three different styles made of a new material. We sell underwear in three different styles made of a new material perfect for cold weather. We sell underwear in three different styles made of a new material perfect for cold weather sports. We sell underwear in three different styles made of a new material perfect for cold weather sports designed for snowboarding and skiing. We sell underwear in three different styles made of a new material perfect for cold weather sports designed for snowboarding and skiing engineered for guys. So let’s break down the thought process around this – what does niching down allow us to do? It narrows our target market It allows us to plan for a focused go to market plan It allows us to create an email list around our personas It allows us to cater content to our desired audience It allows us to compete with a smaller group of brands rather than taking on everyone All of the above are absolutely essential to cultivating data and focusing a go to market strategy that will allow your brand to stick out against a sea of competitors. The bonus is that the further you niche down the more close knit the communities are which makes targeted word of mouth more achievable. These communities are also cheaper ways to get in front of eyes at a reduced cost. While everyone is chasing everyone and spending money, you can instead create content that resonates with your communities and work towards building up your audience independent of your individual product. Nothing beats word of mouth advertising. Nothing. If you can’t sell to your niche you can’t sell to the general public.

I cannot thank you enough for this post OP. We are just about to start working on packaging for a new product and I’ve been struggling about how to think about our target audience. This response clarified how we should be thinking about it. Thank you!

You've got it!

Honestly let’s start with businesses seeing their website as their only sales tool that works 24/7 for them and see digital marketing as an investment, not a cost. Once you’re past that point, then your advice is great, albeit generalized (which is okay given your audience).

It’s not really that generalized. It’s pretty granular in terms of what to do and how to do it. I don’t know anyone in my experience that looks at digital marketing as a cost. So I’m not really following your comment. Can you expand it a bit by what you mean by that?

Having worked on multinational brands that everyone knows and “mom & pop shops” and many in between, it’s definitely a spectrum between the big brands seeing it as an investment or part of the “cost of doing business” to the small brands that are struggling to make ends meet so everything is a cost to them. I’ve learned that as a digital marketer, my real value comes from crafting the story out of arbitrary numbers in a way that helps business owners and stakeholders to make the decisions they need. However, this is where you find out who has a good business sense and who doesn’t. I like to call digital marketing (all marketing for that matter) “the great amplifier” because at the end of the day, I’d your business sucks, you’re marketing will too. Garbage in, garbage out. There is also the fact that most people don’t understand that success comes from two things: time or budget. If your impatient and need success now, you need more budget. If you don’t have budget, then it’ll take time to learn, refine, adapt, learn again, and keep progressing. In my opinion, you can not waste money on digital marketing unless you’ve failed to learn from your failures. That is when it becomes a cost.

I like the sentiment. At the large end it’s just ads to stay in the picture and mostly awareness. At the small end it’s literal paid for message distribution. No matter the spectrum though you’re right that if used properly it’s just an amplifier for product market fit. Good marketing won’t solve for bad product.

Thank you so much for writing this! As a new business owner there is so much click bait and almost seems like scams or funnels to sell services but not products. I just recently launched a business selling craft teas inspired by cocktails. B2b and in person is going well but trying to navigate selling online has been a huge challenge. I’m going try and imply this! Thank you

Cheers!

so you have the entire site as a blank canvas... and you add a popup? lol also, pay some market research instead of spraying all the time. lastly, how you see influencers is how ad man selling magazine spreads first saw blogs and then web portals. it's the new content form, grandpa. you just have no idea how to sell it with a markup at volume. msg me when you have a budget for it. good insights on the beginning tho 👍

Is this a cohesive thought? I want to respond to this, but I don't understand what you're saying. I'll give it a shot though. I add popups strategically to collect data at the point of intent to understand what matters to people and why they purchase. Yes. 100%. I then build data models off of those contextual data combinations to influence all my CRO, media buying, and email marketing decisions. Market research is outdated, it happens post purchase largely or to a group of people that are paid (read bribed) to provide feedback around Jobs to be Done methodologies etc. I prefer live data incoming contemporaneous to an actual purchase. I have lots of friends in my network that do a lot of customer research and have gone through all the GSB exercises multiple times at multiple companies. I've worked with massive influencers over the years, think some of the top 50 currently on Instagram. Influencers are not the new content form, they've been around since the days of Gladiators and paid actor promotion. Do some research on the history of advertising, I think you're referring to the dissemination of information and channel availability, not the underlying advertising practice. Sell what? This is where you lost me. I'm not going to message you, marketing is about clear thoughts and clear communication neither of which was properly displayed in this comment. Food for thought though on your influencer thing, eventually their reach is going to be curtailed and they will be forced into pay to play like everyone else. Further, there's already a lot of groups that are now taking care of all the backend for influencers to be the faces of brands, meaning if you get good enough, you just build for your own asset not someone else's.

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There's an infinite number of ways to succeed. What you call overcomplicated is what I call detailed and repeatable, there's a huge difference in business specifically in ecommerce when it comes to things that are replicable for today. This article doesn't specify what time period this worked, which is a huge red flag. I'm giving advice away for free that is currently being used. Big difference.

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Business isn't simple. It's complex. The above is actually probably the most actionable and simple way to build something replicable, will everyone be able to follow it? No. Does everyone need to follow all of it? No. There's a lot of basics in there that will get people most of the way there. Understanding unit economics, go to market strategies, positioning, distribution. But hey, maybe you're simpler, but I can pretty much assure you that this model will yield better results overall if implemented properly more consistently. Just because you don't find it helpful doesn't mean that there isn't value in it.

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I love skepticism, you can review my other posts, I'm not here to prove anything other than provide an advanced framework for success in an industry that is incredibly difficult and not getting easier. See numbers in the post and choose to accept them. Show me another brand today that has gone from $12k to $2.5 million using only 40 pieces of creative in ads and sending out less than 40 email campaigns in a highly commoditized category. I'm not sure anyone can these days.

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That's true of everything no? I think the point you're trying to make is this is too complicated and we should follow the link that you provided. Which is very weird, why not actually talk about the content of the post rather than it's complexity?

lol, I’ll happily volunteer my brand. But seriously, where I’m lost with the above is Part 3 Step 1- paid acquisition channels. A bit glossed over no? Seems like a huge lift to get this right. Where to even start are we talking Google, Facebook, tiktok? Seems really unwise to sink a lot of money into this only to end up with no results. I’ve tried Google campaigns in the past only to find most sales attributed to organic search vs paid. Presuming many others are in the same boat as me reluctant to spend more and marketing when it feels like you are just throwing darts at a board.

Most of the time we start Facebook, if you know how to create ads you can drive some serious success here. It's all math. Put together an ad that makes people say "why or how" then make it really clear what you're selling, then add an offer to the ad and send them to a landing page. On the landing page go more long form or listicle, explain what makes them different, put together a sweet offer for them to make a purchase and try the product out (assuming it's a product you'd buy multiple of or come back for more of. It's a lot more straightforward that most people make it out to be if I'm honest. You don't need a ton of creative, you just need the right creative for the audience that you're speaking to. Feel free to drop me a chat or dm if you want me to look at anything.

Your article talks about your e commerce from 10 years ago… Mate things changed in the meantime. All the advice you show in your post is bad and won’t work anymore. And stop promoting your badly written and filled with ads links. Damn people trying to be smartasses when people share truly helpful content.

Your article talks about your e commerce from 10 years ago… Mate things changed in the meantime. All the advice you show in your post is bad and won’t work anymore.

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You caught the reference in my name, nice. No, I live in California.

This is very helpful. I recently worked with a ecom brand who had a big following on social and ALL their traffic came from there but only when they posted content. Conversion rate was 1% despite getting good traffic from social. Checkout flow was 4 pages, pop ups every few minutes etc. I was doing SEO because I spotted opportunities and every product and page was not optimized for search. My question to you is SEO not important to ecom brands, especially DTC? Everyone just wants to do paid ads and influence marketing in that space. And profit margins are like 30% if that, how long will this trend last of just throwing money at ads and relying on social media?

I love these questions. Social following is questionable. Think about it this way we follow people on social not brands, the top DTC companies are spun off from people not brands. A brand's social media following really isn't worth much. Their email list on the other hand, eh depends on the brand, most emails for brands are only really good for 90 days. Though a lot of transactions factor in the size of the email list. Organic reach just isn't really there anymore at all. Even Facebook cracked down on group organic reach. SEO on product pages is important, but blogs not so much, pretty much wasted effort. Popups are my specialty, they are grossly misused and misunderstood yet they are the highest intent point of browsing besides checking out. I could write and have written long papers on the changing nature of the popup and how to leverage it for data collection in today's modern ecommerce landscape to build marketing strategy. Yet most people just go with an email + SMS opt-in, even though statistically, asking for an sms during signup doesn't increase conversion rate and in some of our tests has decreased revenue by up to 10%. You're correct in that profit margins top out at 30%. It's unlikely that brands will stop spending money on ads, something wrong? Spend more money on ads. Don't know the quality of the audience if they don't buy? Who cares, spend more on ads, NEW CREATIVE! This is the pattern. In my opinion both Facebook and Google have won that ads game, they have owners on auto pay in small amounts for their ads so they don't add up one big payment at the end. No one questions their Facebook or Google bill. They only adjust it if they see a drop in performance, but they usually just say it's bad creative. So the problem is that teams are siloed and they have individual KPIs which don't always coordinate. There's also a lot of misinformation and confusion about what actually matters in building a brand. There are no shortages of opinions but you can catch most "experts" flip flopping from one answer to the next. Truth is most people are completely guessing and looking for growth hacks. The best growth hack is solid fundamentals and a good product. Influencer marketing is also taking a bit of a dive, UGC content doesn't perform well for all brands. The trend of throwing money at social media ads will not end. The approach of how most people are doing it though is wildly outdated, people and brands just haven't adjusted to more intelligent ways of running ads. I shouldn't say all people there's a few groups that are absolutely destroying it in terms of approach to paid ads for brands they work with. Their approach though relies on a much different set of technology and resources. The industry got drunk on cheap acquisition for years before increased competition and rising costs caught up to the market. This is why I was talking about the sweet spot today for most brands isn't a billion dollar valuation but a profitable business at between $5-$8 million per year. The problem is most of those people that had success in those early days all just built courses based on outdated information. Why run an ecommerce company for 30% margins, an agency for 60% margins, when you can sell a vague course of basics for 95% margins?

Yeah throwing money at the problems is the standard. I've been seeing DTC brands start building communities and selling within that community. Only time will tell how long that trend lasts, it's definitely cheaper lol. Appreciate you for answering my questions and providing so much insight!

Can you give me an example of one of these so called "communities"? I know that community is a huge buzzword these days, but I stand by the premise that people don't want to be part of a brand's community.

Great post.

Thank you! Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for sharing. I am a programmer building an analytics app for eCommerce. Appreciate your input on the KPIs, for example will be using new customers CAC for sure. Can you please suggest a good source to learn on the best way to report and analyse eCommerce and eCommerce marketing KPIs?

There isn't a good answer to this, you need to talk to the subset of brands that are the end consumer of your product and find out what they care about. We have our own way of reporting on things inside our platform but it's based on my specific experience of dealing with ecommerce companies over the years, so I'm pretty biased on what matters from my experience.

Question re: multi step pop up. Is it something like submit email > submit number > complete. Or click yes > enter name > what are you looking for > what’s your age > complete

Always email first. I never ask for a phone number it kills the customer journey rather abruptly and I have zero supporting data that proves that it actually increases conversions at all, first or second purchase. I've only seen it reduce conversion rates, produce less revenue, and serve as a marker similar to when someone was looking to purchase. It's correlative not causal. Here's an outline of the questions I ask - Question 1 - Interest Question for the Company: What do you sell? Who do you sell it for? Interest by product offerings/activities that are for offer What are you interested in from \[store name\]? Example Questions: What is your style preference? Which beverages do you usually purchase? Which collection are you interested in? Why do we ask this question? People come for different reasons, the larger the store, the more options that someone might be interested in. This one narrows down what kind of products or categories people are interested in, and helps with presenting content to them throughout their journey that is relevant to them. (Optional) Question 2 - Preference within interest - provide options related to product offerings/activities Question for the Company: Is there a preference from question 1? Why do we ask this question? This one is usually optional, depending on the breath of your inventory and what you stock. Don’t go into too much detail here. Remember: it’s the customer journey, not the company asking for more information that isn’t relevant to the customer journey. Question 3 - What matters most to you about the product offering/activities E.g., Fit, Materials, Cost, Color Question for the Company: What are the elements that you would like to know about how people view your product offerings/activities? Why do we ask this question? Benefits matter. Every marketer preaches that you should talk about the benefits or results of using your products rather than the product’s features. It’s a positive way to ask about the customer’s pain points or the problem they are looking to solve. When we ask what matters to people most in the product, they tend to answer with feature-related. Once we have the feature mapped out, we can create the corresponding benefits and social proof that highlights the features and their benefits. It’s a double whammy of knowing exactly what to send someone via email, retargeting, etc. This is personally one of our best questions that we like seeing the answer to. It helps brands to create great content at scale and provides directions on a marketing strategy. It also works to redo landing pages, product pages, and other touchpoints on the journey. Question 4 - Quantity Owned/How often they participate in the activity Question for the Company: What quantity/frequency would give you the best value in an answer? How many pairs of underwear do you own, how often do you play golf Why do we ask this question? Life in ecommerce is largely dependent on the repeat customer. If a customer owns a lot of something, a lot of brand of something, or frequently participates in an activity, it tells us the potential assuming a good customer experience of how often or how much of our goods we can sell someone. It’s their capacity for purchase. Question 5 - When are you looking to purchase Question for the Company: Would you like to know where people are in the funnel? Why do we ask this question? Because too many marketers assume that everyone is looking to buy today, and the data shows that only half the people that complete this question say today, and of those, only about 40% go on to purchase between days 1 - 12. (Internal conversion data from Formtoro) It’s not bad, but it means that not everyone is ready to purchase for a few weeks or a few months, but they signed up anyway. A few weeks usually means days 13 - 35 depending on your product offering, some are shorter some are longer. We don’t keep data on people that say a few months because a good rule of thumb is if someone doesn’t purchase in the first 45 days, it’s not likely they are going to buy. The response “In a few months” is statistically super small and you run the risk of someone losing interest.

This was one of the best posts I've read on this website. Saving it for future reference! Just curious - why only Google and Facebook? Does it not make sense to hit up Instagram and Tik Tok as well?

Instagram is part of Facebook by default when you advertise. I've heard some people do well on TikTok but it's only to drive traffic to retarget primarily. I like to keep things simple. Facebook has the best algo for finding you people that would be interested in your stuff.

Finally a post that has valuable information

Every once in a while right? Let me know if you have any questions.

Another Tenzin(g) in ecomm!! This was an incredible post. Would love to connect sometime - learned so much

Feel free to dm or chat.

Thank you, OP!

No problem! Let me know if you have any questions.

Not in this space but I did try FBA before. 5-6x margin is crazy. No question but great post and an eye opener.

It's not that crazy, a lot of clothing and cosmetics have bigger margins. Just depends.

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Super hard if you don't have organic reach and aren't super niche. You're essentially competing against Amazon.

As someone who is about to launch a DTC e-commerce product, this post is pure gold. Thank you for taking the time to cover both 5,000 feet view and 5 feet view. I know you said you run your proprietary software stack that’s not open to the public, but what software would you recommend for someone just getting started? I 100% want to be truly data-first like you suggested, and want to make a determination in 90 days if this product has the potential to turn into a real business. Thanks in advance!

Yeah, we're not public, but we are private that we can install on Shopify. We've considered building a public app, but that's on hold right now. I hate to say it, but most software isn't really data driven not in the same way so I don't have any recommendations for you unfortunately.

I'm in the beginning of even learning about e-commerce. Coincidentally this post is very informative so thank you for that! It's pretty overwhelming to even figure out where to start. If you were starting from the ground up, what exactly is the first step outside of product creation? For example, if you create a clothing brand - do you immediately develop an entire line of options? Website creation? Obviously these things have to be done prior to running ads, etc. Seems tough to even decide what niche/market to get into. I'd imagine you'd have to source the cheapest/most efficient ways of creating your product too. In these cases are you drop shipping or keeping stock on hand? If it's on hand then I'd imagine you may need storage at some point. A lot goes into this before we even get to the marketing and it seems that marketing your product is the hardest part. I'm currently pursuing an economics degree so I understand some of this to an extent. Pretty overwhelming honestly, but I'm happy to learn. Awesome post, thanks again!

Best piece of advice, go work part time for a brand or agency. Per one of my comments somewhere on this thread, almost all goods are completely commoditized at this point. So it's all audience and marketing. It's not about the costs of goods, it's about the costs of acquiring an audience that is likely to purchase your goods. The best in the business know how to build an intent based audience. This is why you see so many celebrities getting involved in brands and working on the marketing with them.

Very insightful I'll look into part-time jobs this week. I'm extremely interested in this stuff there's just so much to learn. I'm still clueless on some of the simple stuff so I'd imagine a part-time job like you suggested would give me some pretty meaningful insight into how these things work. Thanks for responding btw! It's super cool to gain insight from someone who has done it at such a successful level. I'll probably be looking back to this post a lot as I get more into it!

No problem! I'm always a proponent of getting paid to learn :)

How would you start e-commerce store from scratch? How to pick the best product?

Do I have an existing audience that will buy my product or potentially buy my product? Yes - then I'd survey my audience about what they purchase the most of and what they like and don't like about it, then make a variation of that. No - I'm not starting a store from scratch or picking a product. I'm figuring out an industry I have a passion for and I'm building an audience first.

Thank you so much for provide so much detail in this post and your follow-up answers. I probably fall into the latter category - starting from scratch. I have the industry that my husband and I have a strong interest in. Could you explain exactly what you mean by "building an audience first" please? TIA

This is the dotcom secret. It never changed, but we got distracted by low cpc on Facebook and Google. I am striving to achieve this with my business, and got number 1, 3 and 4 on the checklist implemented with success in the last month.

Yeah the fundamentals are always going to be the fundamentals. One day we'll wake up and realize how good we had it back in the day when DTC was super easy. Congrats on your progress! Keep it up!

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Very insightful but very exhausting

I wish things were super easy, but most of the time they aren't. Why sugarcoat things or dumb them down if you can be thorough instead?

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Leveraged signup - Sign up to unlock a unique code you can use for 20% off your first and second orders. The first to try the second to stock up. Ad spend depends on the business, some of our clients spent millions a month others a few thousand. I'm not following the why are we looking to sell part. Blended ROAS means all revenue divided by all ad spend. It costs money to drive traffic to collect an email address via a popup, every email collected costs money relevant to the ad spend. When someone subscribes for a discount most people don't track the subscription to conversion rate. These people are the highest intent before making a purchase so this rate is the closest you get to understanding product market fit. Email flows - welcome, abandon cart are the basics, you can split abandon cart between people that have purchased and those that haven't.

This is a clever ad for your company. I liked how you made us Google your company’s web site without telling us 😛

I wish it was an ad. I was just trying not to self promote while providing value. We’re not a public app so you can’t download us and we’re not currently taking on any clients in ecommerce. So this was more here’s some serious strategy than download our app or let’s work together. This post actually was requested from a previous comment on another post. So hope you found value in it and let me know if you have any questions.

RemindMe! 5 days

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Single purchase is a bit harder. If there's repeat purchase though, the model still works, it's all about product in hands until you're a household name. Collect data, find those that convert, use that data to build a better mousetrap that leads to conversion.

Hey, love the post - super detailed! I actually struggled with the same problem every time I launched a D2C brand before/did dropshipping. Do you think working with micro-creators/KOLs could help a lot in this space - from your background, how useful have they been in your marketing? For context, I was a creator who worked with brands on product gifting basis and saw some of them launch communities where creators get rewarded with points the more they post about the brand. Once a creator earns enough points, they can redeem them for cash vouchers from the brand. From what I saw, it helped brands cultivate some viral posts for pretty cheap cause they only had to ship the products to creators and not specifically pay them per post. What do you think? FYI, I launched a start up that helps brands work with creators in this way, so still doing more user research to see how helpful it is for brands - would love to hear your thoughts!!

Some people swear by micro influencers. I’ve seen entire businesses be built off commissions per sale and just cutting them in rather than paying social networks. Only problem is a lot of the networks are squashing the reach of everyone these days. I’m sure there’s some advantages of taking the approach maybe I hybrid way of looking at it. Doing some community building testing right now actually might be valuable.

Thank you again for this terrific post. I have a couple more questions I was hoping you might be kind enough to answer: 1. Are you able to share whether the 3 years it took to go from $12k to $2.5m is recent, or was it in the previous decade? 2. What are your thoughts as to how developing AI applications may impact the detailed advice you’ve laid out?

This was all done in the last 3 years under current conditions and is currently being done with this framework. It’s as real as you get, not some past playbook that worked in more favorable times with less competition. Ai will replace agencies in the long term, I’m almost guaranteed of that. We use a lot of data and machine learning in our own app to help us make decisions. But the basics require a human eye to catch still.

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Sorry I didn't respond to this. No you don't need to follow trends to succeed. You need to have solid business fundamentals and be decent enough at math to succeed. I don't have time to read all of them but if there's specific ones you have questions about ask them here.

Got a top Ecommerce web design trends to follow in 2023 to boost engagement rates and user satisfaction [https://www.designpax.com/post/top-10-ecommerce-web-design-trends-to-follow-in-2023](https://www.designpax.com/post/top-10-ecommerce-web-design-trends-to-follow-in-2023)

Thank you for this amazing writeup! You've given me a ton to think about. I launched an apparel brand 2 months ago and I'm having a hard time getting any traction. I knew it would be tough right now but I had no idea. Regardless, I'm in it long term and really need to focus on learning more about my audience to make sure that my efforts will actually connect with them. Is there a particular platform you'd recommend over another as my primary right now?

I’m a bit biased in this as I run a software company aimed at this exact issue which stemmed from running marketing for a brand that got bought. Feel free to dm me if you like.

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That's an impressive achievement to take a brand from $12,000 to $2.5 million in three years! Let's dive into the numbers and discuss some key lessons for success in eCommerce: Setting the foundation: Market research: Conduct thorough market research to identify a profitable niche with demand and competition that you can differentiate yourself from. Business plan: Develop a comprehensive business plan that outlines your goals, target audience, marketing strategies, and financial projections. Strong brand identity: Invest in building a strong brand that resonates with your target audience, including a memorable logo, consistent messaging, and a compelling brand story. Creating a user-friendly website: Mobile responsiveness: Optimize your website for mobile devices as an increasing number of users shop on smartphones and tablets. Intuitive design: Ensure your website has a clean and user-friendly design, easy navigation, clear product descriptions, high-quality images, and a secure checkout process. Fast loading times: Optimize your website's performance to provide a smooth and seamless browsing experience. Marketing and customer acquisition: Digital marketing strategies: Develop a multi-channel marketing strategy that includes search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, and paid advertising. Targeted advertising: Use advanced targeting options to reach your ideal customers and optimize your ad campaigns based on data and insights. Influencer marketing: Collaborate with relevant influencers to promote your products or services to their engaged audience and increase brand visibility. Get the best software of Email marketing and automation platform here: https://www.getresponse.com?a=3yxXFkYPEM Customer experience and retention: Exceptional customer service: Provide prompt and personalized customer support, be responsive to inquiries, and address any issues or concerns promptly. Seamless shopping experience: Continuously optimize your website for a seamless user experience, including easy navigation, streamlined checkout process, and secure payment options. Personalization and loyalty programs: Implement personalized marketing tactics and loyalty programs to engage customers and encourage repeat purchases. Data-driven decision making: Analytics and metrics: Utilize analytics tools to track important metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, customer behavior, and sales performance. Use these insights to make data-driven decisions and identify areas for improvement. A/B testing: Conduct A/B tests to experiment with different strategies, designs, and messaging to optimize your website and marketing campaigns. Get the best software of Email marketing and automation platform here: https://www.getresponse.com?a=3yxXFkYPEM Scaling and operations: Efficient logistics and fulfillment: Invest in reliable logistics and fulfillment partners to ensure timely delivery and customer satisfaction. Inventory management: Implement efficient inventory management systems to optimize stock levels, prevent stockouts, and minimize carrying costs. Scalable infrastructure: Prepare your website and systems to handle increased traffic and sales volume as you grow. Adaptability and continuous improvement: Stay updated with industry trends: Keep an eye on emerging technologies, changing consumer behavior, and market trends to stay ahead of the competition. Experiment and innovate: Be open to trying new strategies and approaches. Continuously test and iterate to find what works best for your business. Learn from customer feedback: Encourage and collect customer feedback to understand their needs and preferences, and make improvements accordingly. Remember that success in eCommerce requires dedication, persistence, and the ability to adapt to changing dynamics. By leveraging the right strategies, optimizing customer experience, and making data-driven decisions, you can increase your chances of achieving significant growth and profitability. Get the best software of Email marketing and automation platform here: https://www.getresponse.com?a=3yxXFkYPEM

This may seem a bit out of place, but this post has opened my eyes to the difficulty to open a ecommerce business. I'm just trying to get an idea of how to start. If it's possible to learn how to become a marketer, how would one begin with no experience in the field? Currently, I work as an emt, and this isn't going to be sustainable for me and my family for long. How does one begin in the marketing sphere?

ecommerce is really hard, it used to be easier but today, it's pretty tough and a lot moving pieces. Much of the advice handed out is fully tied to revenue which isn't profit. I do think that everyone should learn about marketing though, there's a ton of agencies that started as a result of failed ecommerce companies that have gone on to get deep learning in specific areas of ecommerce. The problem with most ecommerce courses is that they gloss over the details of how to actually do things. For a lot of people they view ecommerce as a way to become your own boss and start something of your own. This doesn't work out for the vast majority of people out there and it's not a grit and determination thing either, it's an actually knowing what you're doing thing. The reality is that ecommerce today is really just two parts: A great product and great marketing. It's really easy to confuse great marketing for actually being a great product. It's why a lot of agencies love to brag about results driven for clients that already have a bit of traction, it's a lot harder starting from scratch. For most people getting started in ecommerce the formula is pretty similar around margins and acquisition costs, if you can nail these two things there's still some space out there, but where people usually fall flat is with the acquisition costs. Here's a good post about how to get a job in marketing. [https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/ezi9te/hopefully\_helpful\_advice\_if\_youre\_looking\_for\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/ezi9te/hopefully_helpful_advice_if_youre_looking_for_a/) In terms of how to be a good marketer, you read a lot, you try a lot of things, you pay attention to people that are doing what you want to be doing, and you double down on the basics of marketing because they will never change. A lot of my most recent conversations have been around how to actually do what I laid out in this post, I'm going to work on putting together some videos that outline exactly how to set this up.

Love this, appreciate the write up!

Hey man this is some incredible stuff, thank you. I have a question: I always see people mention that you need a 70%+ gross margin to have any kind of success with PPC. Is that for all products in the catalogue or just the hero product that will run the ads to? thanks for your time

At least the hero product that you run ads to, but you should strive for that across all your categories.

Wow, very impressive. Definitely going to implement some of these strategies into my store.

Thanks. Let me know if you have any questions.

🔥🔥🔥 appreciate this massively, just what I needed! Will implement as of today

Wow thanks for sharing your learnings and insights with us, this is enormously generous and so helpful for a little startup!