Secrets To Scaling Your Ecommerce Brand

Send us a textNot knowing your numbers and focusing on the wrong metrics can make you lose sight of the big picture. If you are losing money or making a lot of it and you don’t understand your numbers, you won’t be able to scale.In this episode, Jordan West and Joe Putnam talk all about the kinds of numbers to monitor in your business and why your ROAS can be a horrible metric to focus on.Listen and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEIf you don't know your numbers, you won't be able to scale.Separate your variable cost and your fixed cost and keep an eye on them.Paying too much attention to return on ad spend can be a pitfall.ROAS doesn't tell you how much money you're making and your profit.Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) tells you more of the picture than just the ROAS itself.Brands that invest in their branding and storytelling are winning long-term.Jordan: Google is the unsexy place that will probably make you a lot of money.Put the time to know your numbers and wrestle with them until you understand them.The best decision any business owner can make to scale successfully is to find somebody who's already accomplished what they want to do and work with them. Recommended App:Notionhttps://www.notion.so/ Triple Whalehttps://www.triplewhale.com/ Recommended Book:Myth Revisitedhttps://books.google.com/books/about/The_E_Myth_Revisited.html?id=HHJVIpbpSgsC Buzzmarketing by Mark Hugheshttps://books.google.com/books/about/Buzzmarketing.html?id=0o1x0gumuBMC Today’s Guest:Joe Putnam is the founder of Conversion Engine.Conversion Engine helps eCommerce brands use highly effective paid ads and e-mail and SMS marketing to grow and make more.Connect and learn more about Joe and Conversion Engine here: Website:  https://theconversionengine.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-putnam-8935052 Twitter: https://twitter.com/JosephPutnam E-mail Address: joe@conversionengin.co This month’s sponsor is 8fig, an eCommerce funding, and planning platform that gives entrepreneurs the freedom to scale their store to new heights through continuous, equity-free capital and supply chain planning. Find out more about how 8fig is helping sellers grow through adaptable funding at 8fig.co.Promo Code: mention upGrowth during sign up for 5% off the cost of capital of an 8fig Growth Plan!We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textAfter auditing over 75 brands in the last year and onboarding more than 25 brands it was clear brands don't have a complete picture of their numbers as they invest into paid ads. Dashboards show great results, revenues are increasing, yet, you have less money in the bank. If this sounds familiar, you probably don’t know the numbers you need to know. In this episode, Jordan West talks about the six numbers you must know as a marketing leader, founder or CEO of your company to scale profitably!Listen and enjoy this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEThe 6 Numbers that Matters1. Burn Rate What is the minimum fixed operating expenses each month, regardless of your monthly sales volume? Do you know how fast you are going through your money.2.  Cost of Goods Sold What are the total variable costs for that product to be sales ready? Calculate this by sku!3. Loaded Cost of Delivery What are the costs associated with fulfilling and delivering that order to a customer?4. Contribution Margin Before Marketing Spend Do you know what your sales volume needs to be to hit break even? 5. Revenue MixWhat percentage of sales comes from new versus existing customers?If it's too much on existing customers, then you probably need to focus more on acquisition. 6. Contribution Margin After Marketing Spend What is the maximum that you can spend to acquire customers profitably?You need to understand your customer's LTV to know what you can spend to acquire a customer. Connect with Jordan here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-west-marketer/This month’s sponsor is 8fig, an eCommerce funding, and planning platform that gives entrepreneurs the freedom to scale their store to new heights through continuous, equity-free capital and supply chain planning. Find out more about how 8fig is helping sellers grow through adaptable funding at 8fig.co.Promo Code: mention upGrowth during sign-up for 5% off the cost of capital of an 8fig Growth Plan!We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand to help you find your 6 Must Know Numbers! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textNow that the eCommerce space has grown so much, to succeed you have to create something different. Otherwise, you are just going to spend a lot more money to capture attention and acquire a customer. You have to stand out.In this episode, Jordan West and Jason Wong talk about what's working and what is not in the current landscape. Jason shares his journey in the eCommerce space since he was a teen and the lessons he learned from it now as an investor in numerous successful companies!Listen and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEA lot of success comes down to timing, the right opportunity showing up, a little bit of luck, and some skill.Even a silly idea should have contingency plans for it.Every founder needs to think through the consequences of doing a certain thing, how they can minimize their risk exposure, how they can make their life easier down the line, or how they can make more money by doing this one thing.Brands should be innovative.If you're just making something mediocre, you're not going to stand out.Only brands that have that wow factor in their product are going to survive.Beyond the IOS 14 level, the algorithm has changed how people consume content, driving a different landscape for what kinds of products survive and what don't.    Media buyers nowadays aren't the media buyers that you're seeing years ago. Hiring the right people to bring your visions to life makes a huge difference to your business.Recommended App: Bountyhttps://www.bounty.co Recommended Book: Pitch Anything by Oren Klaffhttps://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/10321016 Today’s Guest:Jason Wong has been an eCommerce founder since he was 14 and now owns multiple brands and consults on some of the fastest growing DTC and technology companies in ecommerce.Connect and learn more about Jason Wong here: Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/eggroll Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pug  Podcast: eCommerce Building Blockshttps://open.spotify.com/show/10CBUCOefYMW1daDnzNBnn https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/ecommerce-building-blocks/id1609342466 This month’s sponsor is Parker, the first card built exclusively for eCommerce. Free up cash flow and grow your business with Parker by getting net-60 terms on every transaction. Parker is currently offering a $1000 sign-up bonus for Secrets To Scaling Your Ecommerce Brand listeners. Go to getparker.com to chat with the team today - and make sure you mention where you came from! We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textThe greatest problem solvers win the game. Things are always changing in the e-commerce space and we can’t keep on relying on the old practices that we used to. We should always look at the macro-perspective to better solve problems and reach success for our businesses.In this episode, Jordan West and Nigel Thomas, CEO of Alpha Inbound, talk about the things that you need to hear in the e-commerce space right now. Nigel also shares the two metrics to check that will almost guarantee the success of a TikTok ad.Listen and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODESharing knowledge and best practices with other people in your space and learning from each other can greatly benefit you and your market. 2022 is brutal but it is also a test to see who the real problem solvers are.Now, you can't rely on just ROAS. To grow the business, you need to focus on how much it costs to acquire a new customer.See your marketing efficiency ratio- that's what puts the power in your hands.If you look at the micro-perspective, you'll see that competition and ad costs are going to get higher and this isn’t going to change. If you can afford to pay three times more to acquire a customer than who you're competing with, you're going to win the game.If you're building a business and a brand, it's not about today but rather what you are building for the future.Going into new markets is extremely powerful with TikTok. The hook rate ratio and retention rate ratio are the two main metrics to focus on with TikTok.Branding is the hidden lever that affects how good your paid media is in the long term. Recommended App:EdgeTaghttps://www.edgetag.io VideoWisehttps://www.videowise.com Recommended Podcast:The Game with Alex Hormozihttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-game-w-alex-hormozi/id1254720112 https://open.spotify.com/show/6YNopzKDGDwf0auIpPTIID Today’s Guest:Nigel Thomas is the CEO of Alpha Inbound.Alpha Inbound is a marketing agency that works with 7 and 8-figure DTC brands and helps these brands drive more revenue from paid social.  Connect and learn more about Nigel here: LinkedIn:  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/nigelthomas-ai This month’s sponsor is Parker, the first card built exclusively for eCommerce. Free up cash flow and grow your business with Parker by getting net-60 terms on every transaction. Parker is currently offering a $1000 sign-up bonus for Secrets To Scaling Your Ecommerce Brand listeners. Go to getparker.com to chat with the team today - and make sure you mention where you came from! We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other ecommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textGetting deals with big celebrities is challenging and working with high-profile investors can add a layer of difficulty to your business, but if you can overcome these obstacles, there’s a massive upside.In this episode, Jordan interviews Julius Langkilde of Christopher Cloos. He shares his company’s journey from how it started to where it is today. He also talks about getting celebrity endorsement deals for their brand from the likes of Tom Brady, Robin Thicke & more.Listen and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEIt's about making the right marketing story. You’ve got to make sure that the talent is not necessarily economically invested in the business but emotionally attached to the project. A pull from the celebrities' followers is what you want to get from your deals with them.You want to be category exclusive with the talents.If you can get the talent to at least discuss equity with you, that is also a good path to go together. You have the responsibility to be a leader that your employees will appreciate.Recommended App: Shopifyhttps://www.shopify.com Recommended Podcast: The Peter Schiff Showhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peter-schiff-show-podcast/id404963432 Today’s Guest:Julius Langkilde is a co-founder and the president of Christopher Cloos.Christopher Cloos is a Danish eyewear brand with a mission to dress a million faces across the planet with their eyewear. It is also their mission to make these eyewear frames from biodegradable materials. Connect and learn more about  Julius and Christopher Cloos here: Website:  https://christopher-cloos.com LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/julius-august-langkilde-hoeedt-8322b764  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christophercloos Email Address: julius@christophercloos.dk This month’s sponsor is Parker, the first card built exclusively for eCommerce. Free up cash flow and grow your business with Parker by getting net-60 terms on every transaction. Parker is currently offering a $1000 sign-up bonus for Secrets To Scaling Your Ecommerce Brand listeners. Go to getparker.com to chat with the team today - and make sure you mention where you came from! We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other ecommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textYou have to think bigger to grow bigger. Seeing the infinite possibilities around you makes you see the world in a different way and it makes your world better. When you start to believe that you can be something bigger, you start to make things happen. In this episode, Daniel Price of My 1st Years talks about his company's journey and its growth from a brand new startup to a thriving 8 figure brand.Listen and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODETaking on investment is about scaling quicker than you would otherwise.Bring on the right partner who believes in the journey.A lot of people take on investment because it sounds great and a lot of people think they need £1-2 million but they haven't looked at why they need it.Brand story, brand partnerships, and out-of-the-box ideas are critical to get to the right people.When someone wants your help as a consultant for a few days and you're pricing it up, you're not pricing the few days but the years of your experience.  Think bigger than anyone else in your space.Recommended App: LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/ Recommended Audiobook:Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knighthttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27220736-shoe-dog Today’s Guest:Daniel Price is the co-founder of My 1st Years and the founder of Alberti Group.My 1st Years is a personalized children gifting brand in the UK.Connect and learn more about Daniel Price here: LinkedIn:  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/danielprice1 E-mail Address: daniel@albertigroup.co This month’s sponsor is Parker, the first card built exclusively for eCommerce. Free up cash flow and grow your business with Parker by getting net-60 terms on every transaction. Parker is currently offering a $1000 sign-up bonus for Upgrowth listeners. Go to getparker.com to chat with the team today - and make sure you mention where you came from!We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textAfter IOS 14.5, Meta lost so much data. The good news is this platform is now reinventing itself. Their new campaign type utilizes AI to produce incredible results.In this episode, Jordan talks about the new advantage plus shopping campaign on Facebook and some of the best practices to do in this type of campaign. Listen and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEYour interest audiences, your look-alike audiences, and all these little things that everyone loves to talk about are not that big of a deal. Let Meta do the targeting for you and find your ideal customer.Put in the people who have converted for you on Meta, and they’ll create whatever look-alike they can, based on that data.Make sure that you've got a lot of data to feed to them. The more data, the better.Use purchase as your conversion event.Add your desired location targeting.30% budget cap is recommended for your existing customers and the rest of the budget is going to be put towards people who don't know about you.You've got to focus on your offering and your creative, not on targeting.In most cases, you've got to do a 7-day click and a 1-day view for attribution. Most of your customers are going to take a few days before they purchase your product and not everybody immediately clicks on your ad.You can take suggested ads or you can take creatives that have worked well in the past or currently are performing and test them there.You can take a look at an audience performance breakdown.Connect with Jordan here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-west-marketer/This month’s sponsor is Parker, the first card built exclusively for eCommerce. Free up cash flow and grow your business with Parker by getting net-60 terms on every transaction. Parker is currently offering a $1000 sign-up bonus for Upgrowth listeners. Go to getparker.com to chat with the team today - and make sure you mention where you came from!We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textAuthentic user-generated content greatly influences your brand engagement and conversion rates. It generates trust and loyalty for your potential customers. In this episode, Brian Blum from Grind Basketball talks about creating your in-house user-generated content, running TikTok ads, and SEO. He also shares how they’ve been building their business.Listen up and learn in this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEYou can leverage being a creator on Instagram or TikTok and put dollars behind those posts as advertisements.In-house UGC increases social proof. It's an easy way for a family to visualize what the product is going to look like in their houses.  Call out your potential audience in the first 3 seconds of your contentTake a step back and think of what content you would watch.You want content that people would almost disagree with or have a comment on.Slow and steady wins the race.Understand your side and the customers' side and what that relationship means because they are paying you for value.Give people what they want and make sure you don't go broke.Recommended App:TikTokhttps://www.Tiktok.com Curastoryhttps://www.curastory.co Recommended Podcast: My First Million Podcasthttps://www.mfmpod.com Today’s Guest:Brian Blum is the Chief Marketing Officer at Grind Basketball.Grind Basketball is a company that merges sports design and engineering to create innovative products for athletes.Connect and learn more about Brian and Grind here: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-blum-707660b3/ Twitter:  https://twitter.com/brian_blum1 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@grindbasketball Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grindbasketball_ This month's sponsor is Triple Whale.  Triple Whale's powerful analytics platform clarifies your ad performance across channels, keeping you instantly in the know. Hit trytriplewhale.com/upgrowth and use promo code Upgrowth for 15% off today.*** PROMO CODEUpgrowthWe love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textHaving a good product is one thing, getting people to care about it is another. Taking advantage of technology and doing out-of-the-box marketing to tell your brand story is essential to modern virality.In this episode, Jeremy Kim from Nectar Hard Seltzer talks about his company's growth and how things went during the time of COVID. He shares the secret sauce that resulted in the explosive growth of his brand. Listen and learn from this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODETake advantage of the social and technological landscape.TikTok is all about consistency over time.There aren’t a million distribution options as an alcohol brand- you have to prove yourself.You need to have a good product and you have to tell a story.When thinking of ideas, think about what is going to be valuable for you, the people involved, and your overall community.Placing an ad to hopefully drive someone to the store is hard to track. With SMS, you can have an immediate response from the customer.Create stories and calls-to-actions to get people who care into your SMS funnel.Build a community.Recommended Tool: Pomodoro TimerRecommended Podcast: Bad Friends with Andrew Santino and Bobby LeeToday’s Guest:Jeremy Kim was an artist manager and now a co-founder and the CEO of Nectar Hard Seltzer.Nectar Hard Seltzer is a brand of Asian-inspired hard seltzer available in 4 different flavors (Asian Pear, Mandarin, Lychee, and Yuzu).Connect and learn more about Jeremy and Nectar Hard Seltzer here: Website: https://nectarhardseltzer.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremykim2020 Phone Number: 310-388-6729This month's sponsor is Triple Whale.  Triple Whale's powerful analytics platform clarifies your ad performance across channels, keeping you instantly in the know. Hit https://www.triplewhale.com/upgrowth and use promo code Upgrowth for 15% off today.***PROMO CODEUpgrowth  We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast

Send us a textPerformance Max is not a rip-off. It is not just a giant branded keyword campaign. It is today’s most highly-evolved machine learning advertising system ever built.In this episode, Jordan talks about how Performance Max is not a rip-off like some marketers think. He also discusses why some of the metrics that you are seeing, especially when it comes to branded keywords, can be a red herring.Listen and enjoy this episode!KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODEPerformance Max works like a pre-funnel mechanism.Google is going to start showing ads to people before they even realize that they want your product. Performance Max is the new Facebook.Performance Max utilizes all Google placements but it knows when to hit those people and with what kind of content. Don't just look within the platform, understand your metricsDo not give up on your Performance Max campaign.It is important to train Performance Max on what you want it to do.Connect with Jordan here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-west-marketer/This month's sponsor is Triple Whale.  Triple Whale's powerful analytics platform clarifies your ad performance across channels, keeping you instantly in the know. Hit https://www.triplewhale.com/upgrowth and use promo code Upgrowth for 15% off today. ***PROMO CODEUpgrowth  We love our podcast community and listeners so much that we have decided to offer a free eCommerce Growth Plan for your brand! To learn more and how we can help, click here:upgrowthcommerce.com/growJoin our community and connect with other eCommerce brand owners and marketers!https://www.facebook.com/groups/secretstoscalingpodcast