Let me warn you now: you'll want to have a notepad ready before listening to this episode, because it may be our most actionable ever. Peter Friis is CEO and co-founder of ESSIO, the world's first aromatherapy diffuser for your shower. He recently had a major breakthrough in their conversion rate by designing an entirely new landing page using industry best practices and directing traffic to this page instead of their website. The results? A 665% lift in add to carts and 494% lift in conversion rate overall. This was great until they ran out of all their stock (because their CPAs were so low). They decided tp take the same landing page and convert it into a crowdfunding page where people could effectively get in line (and get a great discount) by pre-ordering. Mind you, they did this all outside of Kickstarter and without the framework of a traditional crowdfunding platform. Over the course of 3 months, they sold more than $200K worth of product and were nearly sold out again when their new inventory arrived. On today's show, we dive into Peter's story and the ins & outs of what they did and how others can replicate their success. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: How they came up with the idea as a family Peter's method for validating the idea for $100 How he gets so much PR, and how to create the perfect pitch How we got his product on Good Morning America The breakthrough that enabled his Facebook ads success The elements of a successful product video And finally, the techniques that 5x'd their conversion rates Links: EssioShower.com Peter's Landing Page Zipify Crowdfunder App Pick Peter's Brain on Clarity.fm PRVolt Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Peter founded Fringe Sport out of his garage in 2010 and grew it to 7 figures in revenue in 18 months. Now he is CEO of Fringe Sport, focused on bringing Great Products with Great Prices and World Class Customer Service to WODers and weightlifters. He has one problem though: his friends think he's crazy for his most recent marketing decision... — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: The market research tactic he used when starting his business The three pillars of his current marketing strategy How he's made customer service culture more than just lip service And the biggest mistake he wish he could change Links: FringeSport Recommended Reading: The Lean Startup Recommended Reading: Ogilvy on Advertising Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Of all the store owners I hear from with thoughts on finding & engaging customers on social media, Candice Galek, CEO and Founder of Bikini Luxe is by far one of the most impressive. In under two years, she took her Shopify store from her living room in Miami Beach to a warehouse and a team of more than 40 employees worldwide all while amassing a social media following of more than 250,000. In today's episode, Candace pulls back the curtain on her humble beginnings, tremendous growth, and her contrarian approach to social media. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: The importance of face time How she grew her following to 250K people Her approach to social media How to get influencers to sell for you How she went viral on LinkedIn for a 20% boost in sales Links: Bikini Luxe Is This Appropriate For Linkedin? The Hustle Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

One of the best things about Shopify is its extensibility and the ecosystem that goes along with it. Recently we released our first (and currently only) Shopify app, and wanted to share that experience with you. It turns out it’s surprisingly easy to custom apps for a store’s private use, and almost as easy to monetize those apps in the Shopify app store. Jeremy Green, who developed Crowdfunder App with us, joins us to discuss the experience. Jeremy Green is a software architecture consultant specializing in Ruby on Rails and Ember for SaaS applications. He's the founder of Remarq.io and CloudHdr.com. He's an active contributor to the Oklahoma tech scene through his involvement with Techlahoma, Code for Okc, and OkcRuby. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: How long it took What to budget Difficulty level How apps work within Shopify What the approval process is like Links: Crowndfunder App Jeremy Green Remarq.io Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Klaviyo's Chad Vanags joins us to explain just how easy it's become to use data-driven personalization in your email marketing to make more money on autopilot. He breaks down what email flows consistently make the most money, and what the best practices to use when implementing those workflows. Currently the head of agency training at Klaviyo, Chad teaches how to successfully implement email flows for immediate success. Previously, he was the co-founder of the agency Ecommerce Influence where he worked with brands like MVMT Watches, Tipsy Elves, Stance Socks, Blenders Eyewear, and many more. He was also the producer and co-host of the Ecommerce Influence podcast. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: The easy tips Chad has for ecommerce stores looking to get ahead this season The specific tactics or trends that are really helping to improve targeting for ecommerce stores The most successful emails that stores should be sending Links: Try Klaviyo Free Today

Kiri is the CEO and founder of Bobsled Marketing, an Amazon marketing agency that has changed the way businesses sell and promote their products in the online marketplace. The agency was launched in 2015, following Kiri’s own entrepreneurial efforts on Amazon with her own brand, I Like That Lamp. Trying and testing tools and strategies with her own brand, Kiri realized that many product businesses would benefit greatly from being Amazon, but have neither the time or experience to properly launch their products there. At the core of Bobsled Marketing’s success is a self-designed, self-tested, comprehensive process that Kiri created to launch and optimize product listings on Amazon with a clear objective: to drive maximum revenue through the channel. To-date, this same process has been replicated by the Bobsled Marketing team for over 200 products across most product categories on Amazon. Bobsled Marketing had humble beginnings. In July 2015, Kiri was doing piecemeal freelancing projects for consumer goods companies who needed help with maintaining and growing their sales on Amazon. Soon, she took her business to a whole new level. Kiri identified an overlooked opportunity amongst crowdfunded brands, which needed to quickly develop sales & distribution channels after their Kickstarter campaign ended. This niche approach has boosted Bobsled Marketing into one of the go-to Amazon marketing agencies for established brands in less than a year, offering new opportunities, both for new businesses and for digital professionals looking for the right company to harness their extraordinary analytical skills. Kiri’s company grew to more than 10 staff, and manages 7 figures per month in sales on the Amazon marketplace for more than 30 clients. These clients now range from crowdfunded hardware startups and large European manufacturers to a billion-dollar consumer brand. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: Why should brands consider launching their products on Amazon? What are the top things that brands do wrong when they launch on Amazon? What does Amazon cost? What does that get? Links: Kiri's free Facebook group The Amazon Expansion Plan Bobsled Marketing Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Facebook is giving us more ways than ever to quickly and inexpensively generate custom audiences. As a busy store owner, learning to navigate Facebook's myriad of advertising options effectively can be a time-consuming endeavor. Kurt Bullock joins us to discuss Facebook's new options, and you can use them to set up a sales funnel that segments and targets customers through their relationship with your brand. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: Learn why interest target isn’t every effective How to reach the right people on Facebook The new Facebook Custom Audiences available The top of funnel ad type that converts best Links: Free Download: Custom Audiences That Increase Sales Our Facebook Sales Funnel Offering producedept.co kurtbullock.com Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com Transcript Kurt Elster: Today, I've got none other than Kurt Bullock, slightly confusing we have the same first name. He's a Shopify marketing master who specializes in Facebook ads. I noticed because he's been working with me for the last several months fulfilling a lot of our projects and doing an extraordinary job. I'm really excited to have him here with us. Anyway, we're going into it. We're recording live from Ethercycle Headquarters outside Chicago. I'm your host, Kurt Elster. Kurt, thank you for joining us. Kurt Bullock: Good morning, Kurt. Kurt Elster: How're you doing? Bullock: I am doing great. Kurt Elster: Diving right into it, Facebook ads and Shopify, we know Facebook ads are great way to drive new traffic, qualify customers to your store, bring back prospects, people who haven't bought yet but a lot people who implemented themselves do it in a way probably differently than you and I would go about it. Let's start with, what's the wrong way? How are people doing it and screwing it up? Bullock: I think that a lot of people go at it with the approach of trying to put together a profile. This is the way that before there were all these cool new targeting methods, it was really only way to go. This is what they teach in a lot of courses. You would go in put together a profile of your target customer, find all their interests... Kurt Elster: Like a customer avatar? Bullock: There you go. You're putting together a customer avatar, trying to find all the magazines that they read, their customers, their competitions, Facebook pages and try to put together a profile and run ads to that group of interests. The problem with that is you are reaching a pool of audience at that point. They don't know anything about you and it's an expensive and a hard way to go. A lot of people come away from Facebook ads, Googling it doesn't work, I think, because they have difficulty with the targeting. Kurt Elster: Interest targeting not very effective. What works better than interest targeting? Bullock: When I work with a new client, the first thing I do is get them to upload, let's say, a customer list if it's larger than 100 or 200 customers or their whole newsletter list so that we can create a custom audience. Kurt Elster: Why do we need the two different lists? Why not just lump them together? Bullock: It's great if you can segment and find the most, let's say, your best customers. For instance, if you were to rank them just your newsletter members are going to be less targeted, less relevant than your customer list who have all gone through and decided to purchase your product. If you have enough customers that you can upload this to Facebook and the reason you did enough, I say that, is because Facebook's then going to use their algorithm magic and try and create a new audience for you. Create a lookalike audience with completely unique people in there for you to target your ads to. Kurt Elster: That's based on if I give them a list of email addresses or a list of phone numbers which is less successful. What's the minimum for to make a lookalike audience? Bullock: I'm not sure what their hard number is, to be honest. I usually don't upload anything less than 200. I don't have very good luck if I go under 200. They may have a hard limit but I couldn't tell you what it is specifically. Kurt Elster: It changes. It's hard to keep up because the stuff changes so quickly. Bullock: Yes it does. Kurt Elster: It used to be 100. If you upload a list of 100, that assumes 100 percent match rate, right? Not every email address will correspond to a Facebook account. Bullock: That's right. Kurt Elster: 200 is a totally safe number to do with. Let's say, I had a bigger list of past customers. I'm not even playing devil's advocate here. I generally wonder about this. Is it better to upload, let's say, I've got a list of 10,000 customers, and just put everybody who's ever given me $1, or more? Or segment it and say, "All right, should I only upload the 1,000 repeat customers I have, since they'd be my best buyers, or upload the buyers who spent more than $1,000 with me in the last year?" Bullock: That's exactly right. I would definitely go ahead and upload the repeat buyers, or the buyers that have exceeded a certain threshold, if you have numbers like 10,000 to work with. A lot of people don't. You put together the best audience that you can and give Facebook the best material to work with. Go ahead. Kurt Elster: For lookalike audiences, we want quality over quantity for my source material? Bullock: You've got it. Garbage in, garbage out. That's exactly right. You want to make sure that you give them the best audience possible. They'll give you a new audience to target. Sometimes, you do have to jump up to your newsletter list, if you don't have very many people to do that with. Kurt Elster: They generate. We give it source material. We want whatever we have, but the highest quality we have, minimum 200 to be safe. It generates a lookalike audience of that. It just says, "All right. Facebook bought loyalty card data, and credit card data, and unbelievably creepy stuff that they know about you," but it makes for effective ads when they can build these profiles. It's not like there's a person doing it, which if that helps you, make it feel less creepy. It's an algorithm that does it. No one can individually pinpoint people. They're very careful about that. It creates a list of two million people, say, in the US. Once I've got that list of two million people, here's another one, where again, I'm not playing dumb. I really wonder this. Is it a good idea to run the ads against that entire list of people, or if I have a clear idea of who my best buyer is, to run some segmentation on that list? I say like, "Here's my best buyers. Give me a lookalike audience." Now I know my best customers are women, 25 to 34. Should we limit the custom audience to just that? Bullock: That's what I try and go with. Two million is a high number. Facebook is getting much better at being able to handle that. Before, it was a bad idea, in my opinion, to run against two million. I still try and put on some limits. Albeit, when I start a new campaign, I do try and go broad so that I can collect data. Sometimes, I am surprised at who really is engaging and who's purchasing. I oftentimes, try and go broad. If I'm selling something that is for women primarily, I'll go ahead and select women but I might leave the age range open and then let it run for, maybe, a week or a few days at the very least. Then go back. Check the results. I can begin to focus that in before I have wasted too much money on, maybe, those outlying age segments. Kurt Elster: Do you use the Audience Insights tool for this? Bullock: Yes. I use Audience Insights to research it. I build the ads in the Power Editor. It's got a real similar form that you'll find in the Audience Insights tool, you'll find in the Power Editor for building these. Kurt Elster: I am addicted to the Audience Insights tool. It is my favorite thing. [laughs] It is the coolest thing to play with because you don't have to spend any money with Facebook to use it. You could just say, "All right. Facebook, you've got all this info. Give me all the demographic data about my Facebook page likes." Or, "Here's an email list," or, "Here's a list of phone numbers. Tell me, what does this audience look like." They tell you like, "OK, well, they're dislikely to own a home, be married, in this age range, have this level of education." It's just unreal. I think it's a ton of fun to play with. Bullock: It is. It's crazy. As you mentioned before, Facebook purchases all these third party, big hunks of data. They try and assimilate that, and match it to their Facebook users. You can find out stuff that's not related. For instance, if they're in a market for a car, their buying purchases, if they have a mortgage, and then stuff that you do indicate on Facebook. I was talking yesterday with somebody that did things for people that are getting married, and weddings. You can see if people are engaged and target people that are getting engaged. It can be creepy, if you're not careful with the way that you approach it, but really, really great information. Kurt Elster: Yeah, it's a little disturbing when we were shopping for a house, and suddenly I'm seeing ads for houses. I didn't put anything on Facebook about that. We hadn't announced to anyone that my wife is pregnant, and we're already seeing ads on Facebook. It's a little weird. Bullock: That's a little much. Kurt Elster: Facebook is your snoopy aunt who knows too much. [laughter] Kurt Elster: The end result though is it creates relevant advertising, it's very personalized, it feels real. I've got my custom audience, I've got my Audience Insights, I've got all this stuff loaded into Facebook. Well, I always view that there's three kinds of customers that I can advertise to. I got cold traffic people who've never seen or heard of me before. Warm traffic people, say, visited the site in the last two, three, four weeks, and purchasers, people like my active customers who bought from me. What do I do now? Bullock: The goal would be to try and get to warm as quickly as possible. If you're brand new to the Facebook platform, if you don't have a pixel on your site, I don't know if we need to clarify that for any of our listeners but... Kurt Elster: Yeah, explain it. Kurt Bullock: The Facebook pixel is just a little piece of code that you get from Facebook when you sign up for an ad account. You want to put it on all of your web properties, on every page of all your sites, whether you're marketing them right now or not. The sooner the better, because the day will come when it's useful to you and it can be a real treasure trove if you have had it sitting there collecting information. I guess the way that it collects information is that as people visit your site, this will communicate basic information about their activities on your site to Facebook that you can then use to market to them. For instance, I had a customer, we had put a pixel on their site about six months ago. He forgot about it. They engaged with us and for our first promotion, we had a list of 22,000 people that had visited their site and not taken any action. The owner in this case didn't know how he had collected that information, but it was because we had that pixel on there. That's key. You really can't do Facebook advertising without a pixel. One last point on the pixel, that's what gets your analytics data. You can see if any of your ads are converting, if sales are coming from those ads, and it can really help you steer your efforts. Without it, you're pretty much going blind. Kurt Elster: In Shopify, there's two ways to implement the Facebook pixel. I can either just drop it into...under website settings, it will say like, "Google Analytics," and then your Facebook pixel, and you just give it the ID number. Makes it very easy. When they first rolled that out, it had issues. It didn't report right. Has that been fixed? Do you use that or do you manually write it into the theme and the checkout settings? Bullock: I do both, depending on the customers' commitment to sending data and also their needs. You're right, it used to be really bad and almost unusable, and then they took major steps to fix that. Now, you can actually get by -- better than get by -- you can do well by just putting the pixel in there, it'll send good data. I still run into issues with my customers that if we want to get really custom, then I usually go in and use Google Tag Manager and we do a custom setup so that we can send exactly the data that we want for different actions that they take. You can go custom, but if you guys are getting started, by all means, just get that pixel ID number and you can Google that. I'm sure there will be 100 screenshots that show you how the pixel ID looks like, pop it into your Shopify theme, you just go to the online store, and then preferences, and then it's going to be about halfway down the page. Kurt Elster: I've got my email lists uploaded, I've generated lookalike audience based on those, I've run through them with Audience Insights to get a clearer picture of who my customers are. I've got my Facebook pixel integrated on my site, which you can also run Audience Insights on the anonymous visitors to your site so it gets the value out of that, which is cool. At that point, I'm set up. I'm ready to start paying money and running ads, which is cool at this point. We still haven't spent any money yet in this process. We both approach it as a funnel, right? You should always approach everything as a funnel. Where do I start? What do I do? Bullock: Facebook's done some really cool things with custom audiences, so my first objective when I'm building a funnel is to take that cold traffic, that really wide audience, could be a few million if you scope it that high, and bring that down to just the people that have a realistic chance of being prospects for my products. There's a lot of ways to do that, but one of the ways that Facebook has recently introduced is we can create custom audiences based on video views. What I would do is after I have all the stuff that you just described set up, you could then put a product video, explainer video. The old way to remember it was to educate, demonstrate, or entertain as many as you can. I put together a video like that and then you can have Facebook create a new audience, a new custom audience with people that have watched a certain percentage of your videos. If you sort it by people who have watched 95 percent or more, they will be more relevant, but it will be a smaller audience. That's the trade-off. If you need a larger audience, then you could go to people that watched 25 percent of your video or 50 percent. The idea here is that people would only stick around and watch 50 percent or 95 percent of your video if they are interested in what you're talking about. That builds that next custom audience and this audience is going to be more focused and this is where I'm going to begin to really focus my advertising dollars and my retargeting campaigns from here down the funnel. Kurt Elster: I love product videos, especially to get that initial traffic. They're moving in my timeline, they indicate a higher level of sophistication that if I just had an image ad. What makes a good video? What are the caveats here? How long should they be? What should I go for? Bullock: There's a lot of testing being done and it depends on your market. That's the thing that, unfortunately, you hear over and over again, is that it's all about testing and experimenting, which is also cool because you can find out the answers for your particular store by running a few tests. Having said that, I have had really great luck with videos that are two minutes or less. I've got a friend who actually had these seminars that he had recorded and posted. We're talking like 60, 70 minute seminars, and he posted those and gave those a shot as well, and figured, "Boy, if somebody sticks through that whole thing, then they're definitely interested in what I have to say." He came with a really small audience, the very focused. What I normally do for an e-commerce store is a two minute product video. You could feature a bestselling product, a new product. I've had great luck with behind the scenes footage, customer stories, all this stuff that gives customers a behind the scenes look at who's running the company and about your products. Helps to form that relationship so they can start to trust you, and the next time you speak to them, it's not, "How do you do, sir?" a cold new introduction. Now you can speak to them as acquaintances. You already know each other and something about each other at this point. Kurt Elster: The only caveat...Go ahead. Bullock: One last point on that...Go ahead, Kurt. Kurt Elster: Videos, if you watch, you can graph in Facebook how long people watch, like what the drop-off is. It looks like a black diamond ski slope the longer it gets. Even a two-minute video, I've seen you'll lose 60 percent of people in the first 30 seconds. Anyone past 30 seconds is like super engaged because they've watch the whole thing. The only caveat I've seen is you have to assume that the video has to work without sound. Either at close captioning to it, which they make very easy, or just try use title cards to try and have it make sense without sound. Bullock: That's exactly right. Another thing that I would like to add is you can include call-to-action link. The three that I use most often for ecommerce, I had to shop now, learn more, or signup. There's little call-to-action there. Even if they don't take action, if they only watch the video, they are now in your funnel, which is pretty amazing. Kurt Elster: Do these have to be professionally produced video, or can I just take my iPhone 7 and turn it horizontal and film myself talking? Bullock: That's exactly right. It's funny. A lot of times, people see a slick production and skip it. It seems marketing material. It's something that at apartment put out, maybe. When we see somebody that has a phone turned towards themselves or they're filming a product, as long as it's not real shaky and annoying in that way, then I've had really great results with that. Oftentimes, better results with a slightly Lo-Fi video compared to the really polished ones. Kurt Elster: Because it feels authentic. Bullock: Polished ones feel really effective. That's exactly right. You get the authenticity, which is what people are looking for when they're engaging and trying to learn about your business. Kurt Elster: At this point, in theory, the person clicked through the ad or watched most of the video. Now, what do I do with them? I'm assuming they haven't bought yet. Bullock: If they have bought, then you can eliminate them from the rest of this ad funnel. What I typically do is after I have them sorted by, let's say, people that watch 50 percent or more of your video, then I start making what maybe would be my old cold offer. For instance, you could take a carousel ad of your five best selling products. Send that to them with a promo for new customers. First time buyers, promo code, and here're some of our top products. Now, instead of running this ad right into the huge audience, it's a more focused audience for advertising, those are more effective. It's interesting that further you go down the funnel, the higher your ROI and the lower your cost, your CPM goes down to the cost observe a million impressions to your viewers. That's the next thing I do, is try and get them to the site to take a look at a product. Kurt Elster: How do we do that? Bullock: Oftentimes, I use those carousel ads. Kurt Elster: One of those? Bullock: Yes, carousel ads with top selling products are awesome for that step. Once they make it to your site, then the efficiency of your ads go ways up. It goes way up because you can see what they looked at, and the next ad that you show. If they didn't convert, then the next ad you show them can be related to whatever they checked out on your site, which is amazing. It's awesome. You can deliver a message that is appropriate to a product they look at and how far they are down the funnel. If they've added the card, then you can send them a card and didn't purchased, then you can send them on a banning card message. Kurt Elster: These are all variations on re-marketing, right? Bullock: Yes, you got it. Everything is re-marketing below your initial cold traffic campaign. Once you have a custom audience built, then you are re-marketing, which is super effective. Kurt Elster: I love re-marketing. Essentially, you're only showing ads to people who raised their hand. Suddenly it goes for people who you really like. You're a street vendor at that point just yelling at them in their news-feed like, "Hey, check this out. We're selling Simpson and Son Tonic." Like that, how it feels when it's just these drive-by ads versus the re-marketing ads. Those people evolve. They have in some way raise their hand and said, "Hey, I am recently interested in what you're selling." They're familiar with it. It doesn't feel quite so strange, it feels personalized. The other thing is you're no longer biding against this huge pool. You're only targeting your own audience now. Suddenly, the cost per click goes way down. Bullock: Absolutely. There's new features that Facebook has ruled out you. Not everybody will see this in their accounts if they were to look today, but they're ruling them out actively right now. For instance, when somebody makes it to your site, you can now do things like you can create a custom audience of people that have added a particular item, or added anything to their cart more than once. Let's say seven-day period without making a purchase. You could target people that have purchased a certain amount in a time period. You can target people that have looked at, let's say, five pages or more. There's all kinds of cool stuff that you can do now with these new audience. The way that you find those is when you're building custom audiences just like the way that you normally would in Facebook, there's a new button that will appear. It says, "Advance mode." If you click on Advance Mode, that's where you can really unlock all of this potential. It has modifiers like it will sum numbers for you, do greater than, less than, at least, all kinds of cool stuff. The goal of this is obviously to find the most relevant audience. Pick up the low-hanging fruit, the people that are ready to take that next step and give them the right offer. Kurt Elster: If you've got an existing store, you have existing traffic sources, I would focus on editing the re-marketing because that's your low-hanging fruit. You can add this safety net of sorts to bring people back to the site. We know on the average, I don't even need to see the site. People will have to see it like, three, four, five, maybe up to eight times before they make a purchase decision. What was I going to say? I lost my train of thought. Versus if you have no traffic, then the re-marketing really is going to be a struggle. It's nice to put it in place early because you only need an audience of 100 people before they'll start showing. You want to focus on that top of funnel, which is so much harder. With videos, it really makes it much easier because they're engaging. They don't have to be high production or crazy. Bullock: This could be anywhere, but it can be the top of your funnel cold. Now, Facebook lets you target people that have engaged with your Facebook page. It lets you target people that have opened up a new type of ad. It's not that new anymore, but a lead ad. There's all kinds of ways that you can build these custom audience. It's where it used to just be people that visit your website. Now, you can target people. They are taking different actions with your content on Facebook. If you are getting started, you don't have a great web presence, then you can start with a Facebook presence, or just start posting content on Facebook and targeting people to interact with. You can send ads to people that thumbs up your post, if you want, or share them, or all kinds of different actions. It's a great way to fill the top of your funnel, and of course build those re-marketing audiences. Kurt Elster: There's lots of great advice here. In 20 minutes, we packed in a ton of info. I'm sure some people's heads are swimming with the stuff. You put together a download that walks us through it. What's that about? Bullock: I put together a download. It's got 14 different targeting custom audience setups that we run through. With screenshots, that will show you how to create them on your end. I was talking about how to target people that had purchased two times or more in 30 days. You can see exactly how we put that together. You can download that from our site. The web address is producedept.co/unofficial-shopify-podcast. Kurt Elster: I'll include that link in the show notes, of course, for people. You sent me the PDF. I've got it in front of me now. It is literally screenshots of here is the custom audience, here's exactly how to set it up in Facebook. It makes it super easy to start experimenting with stuff right now. Bullock: You could start using the stuff this afternoon with your ads and see better results, make more sales, target the right audiences. Kurt Elster: Kurt, we're coming to the end of our time together. Do you have any closing thoughts? What's one thing you wish every shopify store owner would do? Bullock: The crown jewel of Facebook advertising is getting dynamic product ad setup, that's another episode. You could Google it, but they're amazing. It's something to strive for. It's not very difficult to setup. That's one thing. The other thing is really just focusing on learning how to create cold traffic. As you mention, that can be the most difficult part, but that's the key. It's learning how to bring cold traffic into your funnel. If you can do that, then these other campaigns that we've talked about will take care of the rest and bring people safely down to purchase and repeat purchaser. Kurt Elster: Where could people go to learn more about you? Bullock: You can check out our main site, which is producedepartment.co. I've also got another site, kurtbullock.com, which has some of the other things that I work on. I have developed some software ads and that sort of thing. Kurt Elster: That was incredibly helpful. I hope people start experimenting with these new features in Facebook ads. They're really quite extra ordinary. It was years ago, you had to be some big enterprise to have access to stuff like this, with a huge and minimum advertising budget. Now, Facebook has absolutely democratized it. They have made it available to everybody. It's extraordinary. Anyway, Kurt, thank you. I appreciate it. I learned a lot. Bullock: Thanks a lot, Kurt. Kurt Elster: I have an announcement. Our first Shopify app went live in the Shopify apps store on Tuesday of this week. This episode comes out Thursday, went live on Tuesday. It is a crowdfunding app. If you have an existing store with an existing audience, but you want to have better pre-orders, our crowdfunding app, it's called Crowdfunder, we'll let you setup a countdown timer, show how many have purchase, set funding goals, and then chose what happens when it ends, and if it was fund or not. It's very cool. It's got a free trial. It's only 90 bucks a month after that. [background music] Kurt Elster: Check it out. I would really appreciate it. Go to the App Store, search Crowdfunder. Thanks, everybody, and we'll be back next week.

Google Shopping ads are one of the leading traffic sources that can give you the ultimate edge. This hidden gem is often overlooked by store owners (and your competition.) Brett Curry, author of The Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping, joins us to walk through setting up profitable product listing ads. Brett Curry is the CEO of OMG Commerce. Brett started his first marketing agency in 2003 and launched his first search engine marketing campaign in 2004. After some early big wins, Brett was hooked. Now he leads a team of SEO and SEM professionals serving ecommerce clients. Brett is also the host of the eCommerce Evolution podcast aimed at bringing you what's new and what's next in the world of eCommerce. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: Why is Google Shopping such a powerful channel for most online merchant? What are some common Google Shopping mistakes you see merchants making? What are some quick win tips for better Google Shopping results? Links: The Ultimate Guide to Google Shopping Google Shopping for Merchants Google Shopping App OMGcommerce [eCommerce Evolution](http://ecommerceevolution.com/"eCommerce Evolution") Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

What's a good conversion rate? One that's better than last month. But how did you get there? Nick Disabato has built a career on research-focused A/B testing. Over the past year, he's helped Shopify Plus store KeySmart achieve extraordinary success. He joins us today to discuss that journey and how you can improve your store 5% monthly with his approach to split testing. "Never forget: focusing on your customers brings you more customers. Are you focused on helping your customers, or are you focusing on what your coworkers want?" — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: How testing makes you money What makes a successful test Testing's impact on design Why testing defangs your internal debates Links: Draft The A/B Testing Manual nickd.org Visual Website Optimizer Hotjar Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com Transcript Kurt: 00:06 Before we continue, I wanted to share a quick tip from our sponsor, Referral Candy. We'll find out what's working, then do more of that, so look at your top sales channels and then double down. It's the 80 20 rule and action. For many stores, word of mouth is a top channel, but how do you double down on the word of mouth? Check out Referral Candy - increase word of mouth sales by giving your store a refer a friend program. They're giving you guys 50 bucks to get started with it. Just go to Kurtelster.com/referralcandy to get started. Kurt: 00:37 Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unofficial Shopify Podcast. I'm your host, Kurt Elster, agency owner, Ethercycle, author of the Ecommerce Bootcamp, and a lot of other things. Find out more on Kurtelster.com. That's my podcast radio voice. At this point, I can't say Unofficial Shopify Podcast any other way. I apologize for that. Joining me today is a wonderful gentleman who, through a mastermind group that he started, has changed my life and a lot of inspiration to me and is also an quite the interesting character who's been on the show before. Please welcome Nick Disabato. Nick: 01:11 Hi there. How's it going? Really happy to be here. Kurt: 01:15 So Nick, the last time you were here, it was a good episode. I enjoyed it. I like talking to you, but for you, you had a great outcome from it. You landed your favorite client. Nick: 01:27 No offense to my other clients. All of my clients are really my favorite client. I landed a fantastic client. They are a lifestyle, everyday carry brand called Keysmart. If you go to getkeysmart.com - they are wonderful. It's essentially like a multifunction tool for your keys and it makes your keys a little bit more organized, has a few extra tools and all these other things. Just to talk about what I do for a living - I run A/b tests for e-commerce and SaaS businesses. Those in the audience who don't know what A/B tests are - you have a change, you want to vet the economic impact of it, you test it against the control and you determine what the actual lift is. You've come up with ideas through research, you end up making that a core part of your design process so that you're not making bad decisions that could potentially hurt your business and you're more carefully and scientifically vetting what could actually convert better. Keysmart's revenue has gone up. I forget the last calculation I had done. I think it's something like 75 percent as a direct result of my A/B testing over the past nine months. Nevermind the fact that they have also been growing significantly as a company. So that helps as a force multiplier, right? Like they're getting more traffic, they're getting more sales, and then people who come in are more likely to convert that last bit is because of my work. Kurt: 03:02 On Shopify Plus, they have a really cool custom theme. I've done a few few modifications to it for them. There's like a lot of brands you hear talked about on Shopify that are very popular and you don't hear Keysmart talked about that often, which I always find strange because it's a cool product, but it also is quantifiably one of the most successful stores on Shopify. Nick: 03:25 I even mentioned to Andy, who's one of the people there, that we should just say we have like thousands of happy customers. Then he said we have millions of happy customers. I'm like, great. Kurt: 03:37 I was talking to Andy, who has been on the show before to say, wow, your facebook campaigns and your marketing... Andy's the one who did this stuff and it's phenomenal. I've never seen anything this successful. And he said, yeah, we could scale it, but we can't ship fast enough. That's your problem?! Your bottleneck is because you literally can't get the product out the door quick enough. That's nuts. I've never heard anyone say that Nick: 04:05 That's a really good problem to have. I like when I can cause problems for my clients. Kurt: 04:13 That's what you did. How did that happen? What is the test you ran? How did you go about it? How did you know what tests to run? Cause I know with a/b testing, everyone thinks it'll help them pick the right button color. And it's not that at all. It's quite a bit more complicated than that. Nick: 04:32 Yeah, everybody wants to know where they should start with testing. When they ask me that, it's as if they want the one weird tip that causes the revenue to go up by 75 percent. That's not at all true. I'm so sorry. What I do is research what your customers are doing and then come up with informed guesses as to what these tests may be. Button colors generally don't work. Headlines work. If you have a clear idea of what kind of headline you should be writing, there is no such thing as just writing a headline for the sake of it being "more persuasive." So what I'm doing is going into Google Analytics and figuring out if mobile is converting dismally. OK, why? Well, the page time is taking really long time to load. Nick: 05:20 Well, that kind of sucks. Why is the page to taking a long time to load? Oh, you have a one megabyte product image on your page and you never bothered compressing it and it loads great on my comcast for business connection, but then I go into chrome and simulate a 3DG connection that's dropping occasionally and the page takes 38 seconds to load. You're not closing a sale. That was one example of research. What I did was go into one of the product pages and then extensively compress the product image and it ended up being like a 38K product image. It looked a little granular. Whatever. It's on your cell phone, you're on a train. You don't know what it actually looks like, and it's probably smaller than the actual product in person, but I ended up converting something like 11 percent higher because way more people were able to load the page effectively and make a purchasing decision. Nick: 06:17 They don't care how compressed your product image is or what CDN is serving it. That was the most basic mobile optimization thing. But I went in, said this isn't working, let's fix it. It's leaking money. That wasn't a headline, it wasn't a button color, it was something that should have probably happened at the beginning of this site being built out, but nobody caught it. So that's one thing. Another thing that I run is heat maps on your site. I determine where people are clicking, how long down the page people are scrolling, that sort of stuff. One thing that I find very frequently in Shopify is that they keep the same navigation on the same template from page to page. So you end up having like the full blown navigation and all these things all over every page of the site. And that includes your shopping cart and your checkout pages. Nick: 07:13 That sucks for a variety of reasons. This is a rare moment where I'm going to recommend something pretty fervently and say it will probably convert better. When I say probably, I mean it's likely to. Don't blame me if it doesn't. You have to test it, but try removing those links in your header navigation. When people get to the shopping cart page - Amazon does it, Ebay does it, and it works extremely well for keeping people focused on conversion. They're not just like, oh, shiny. And then go somewhere else when they're just about to pay you. The last thing people want to do at any point in the transaction is fill out a form, but you have to make them do it and you'll have to make them do it at the last step. So I strongly recommend doing that. Nick: 07:59 We have most importantly over the past nine months crafted a process and an internal culture around constantly checking our own beliefs around things. I think that's been the biggest outcome. We have a part time developer on staff right now who is constantly making changes to try and optimize stuff from a programming and technical debt perspective, which allow us to run tests considerably faster. Ideally, you always want a test to be running as much as humanly possible. You want there to be kind of consistent tempo around it so you want to be building the next test while a given test is running. So, we have a Trello board for vetting test ideas and researching them and we move things along on this Trello board and when we get to the point where we need to be building it, then I coordinate with the developer to build it. If you don't have a developer, one thing I would recommend installing as few plugins as humanly possible in your Shopify store, and I know that sounds so cringe worthy because plugins are a huge value add to Shopify, but they add a lot of code dependencies and craft that might actually bite you later on. I'm not saying this about Keysmart necessarily, but I have seen it enough. Kurt: 09:17 It's true of any store that installs into several plugins; even one could start adding these bizarre dependencies. And then to your earlier point about performance optimization, there are two things that generally cause those performance slowdowns. One is the giant image like you described. It's very common because people want their image to look the best. So they save it out in the highest possible size that causes these bloated load times. Plugins and Apps - each time you add one that starts adding code dependencies. You'll see sites that load jquery like four and five times because of these apps aren't paying attention to each other and you've installed something and installed it. But yeah, it's a little bit of a rabbit hole there. Nick: 09:56 Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, that's definitely something that can weigh down your site and keep you from being able to make changes and deploy. And it's so funny, it's this combination of like the full facebook move fast and break things mentality, but you're doing it in a way that isn't so fast. We need to research it. So you're making a lot of changes, but a lot of it is like almost infrastructural where you're figuring out, OK, well how am I creating a separate product so that I can make changes to that and shunt people there as a variant page. How can I create variations on Shopify's end using if/then logic. There's no in built framework for this. So you're running a test maybe on maybe one product page that has if/then logic, if you're particularly sophisticated, or you're just running two skews and hoping to God that the inventory works out. I've definitely encountered both of those situations. If you're in a position like Keysmart, you cannot afford to have two different skews and hope that the inventory works out for reasons you had just mentioned, Kurt, right? It can be really difficult there. Kurt: 11:10 So going back, you had mentioned heat maps. Two questions. What is good heat mapping software and what am I supposed to get out of heat mapping? Kurt: 11:24 I'm going to start with the second one first. You're supposed to understand where people are interacting with the page and where people aren't interacting with the page. Then you figure out how that squares up with your business goals. I've written a huge, huge, deep dive on heat maps recently that actually goes through a couple of example ones and then says, OK, well people aren't clicking on our primary call to action and why is that happening? Well this area is lighting up like a Christmas tree. Why are they going? And you just have to ask yourself, why are they going, how can I make them do something else? Because they're not going to be cajoled into actually doing the thing that you want. You have to investigate their motivations, right? Nick: 12:07 Why is the page persuading people to go to the things that I don't want them to go to? Then you start to come up with some speculations about it and you'd say, well, OK, well maybe they're not ready to buy. Maybe it's a high involvement product, maybe it's not our flagship product, but it's the cheapest product. Maybe a masthead - we've never bothered swapping out the masthead image. Maybe it's just the first place that people go after viewing a facebook ad. And so we haven't like actually segmented this sensibly enough. The thing you're trying to figure out about heat maps is like real world customer behavior, right? Good tools for it - for most of my Shopify clients, I already have heat maps that I get out of my a/b testing framework, which is visual website optimizer. Nick: 12:54 You could go to vwo.com. It's a little bit overkill if you're not actually running a/b tests yet. In that case, I would recommend hotjar.com. They're like $29 a month. It's just comically cheap and you get heat maps, scroll maps, you get to see people's cursor and finger as they go around the screen. It's amazing and always really compelling evidence for a client. Usually when you show heat maps to clients, they feel like they're staring directly into the matrix because they've never actually seen the real world behavior in that visual way before. They go a little feral over it, which is great. Right. But heat maps and Google analytics are only two of the things that I do. I also actually get paying customers on the phone and talk to them for an hour about why, what competitors they vetted in, why they chose to buy it at this point in time, what motivated them, whether they're using it now, and what their problems were beforehand. Nick: 14:03 I actually ran an annual survey for Keysmart in particular recently and it was asking about like other every day carry things. That's going to shape a lot of the other products that we're going to be putting out later. So there's a lot of like other strategic things that you can be doing; it's not just about vetting the impact of the design decisions, but you end up like drilling down to the business needs in a lot of ways and saying, OK, well what does this business stands for? Is it selling a bunch of this widget to people or is it providing a broader ecosystem around the thing that we care about? Neither bad answers, right? You just need to know what the answer is so you don't go down the wrong rabbit hole. Kurt: 14:39 This sounds a lot like a lot less like traditional a/b testing in more business and user research which are incredibly valuable things. But is it a/b testing? Nick: 14:59 Well I say it's research-driven a/b testing. A/b testing is a tool that you use in the service of optimization and it is usually the last step if you're getting a certain number of sales. If you're on Shopify Plus and you're listening to this, you probably get enough sales for a/b testing. If you get 500,000, that's probably the minimum, especially if you have one flagship product and all your traffic is going in there. You should not be stabbing in the dark on your design decisions. You should not be arguing internally about your design decisions and wheel spinning and then saying, well, a/b tests our way out of the hole. That is not a good strategy for making changes to your site. That is how you end up getting a 12.5 percent success rate on A/b tests industry wide. And that is true, right? But if you research stuff and just say people aren't clicking here; even something that basic ups the success rate to around 58-59% in Draft's case. That's tests that are generating revenue, not mailing list sign ups, not people are engaging with the page more. No, no, no. Screw those things. What matters is that you are increasing revenue, decreasing costs, or decreasing risks to the business. And in A/b testing, you're getting at least two of those things every single time. Nick: 16:32 You have to end up backing it up with research. It's absolutely essential. If people say, I want to cut the research and I just want you to run a/b tests for me, I'd probably nope out of the project. Kurt: 16:44 Knowing you, I can assure you that's what you would do at that point. You're just shooting in the dark. Nick: 16:55 Yeah, honestly I charge you. I have probably a moral obligation to not take the project at that point because I would take early five figures of your money, do a bunch of research via Marionette for you, not get good business results, and you would waste money on me. And then we would part ways and everyone would feel frustrated. And you would think that a/b testing writ large as a failure. My goal in my career is to make sure that people understand that design decisions have an economic impact. I'm doing a tremendously bad disservice to the cause of design if I would take a project that did not actually have research as a component for it. Kurt: 17:32 I don't have a good follow-up question. Kurt: 17:42 Give me a good next question. I've got nothing. Nick: 17:54 This is a big mindset thing. Like it's, it's something people are used to design decisions by debate, right? There used to be around ideas. Kurt: 18:06 You know, even getting hired as a designer, you go through this constant back and forth with clients and that's why you have to back up a lot of design decisions. Saying, I didn't just pick that because it looked pretty, here's the reasoning behind it. I've cited my sources. Even then you're going to get push-back. The person's going to say, well, my dog doesn't like blue. So you have to change those kinds of things. Nick: 18:28 Yeah. And I actually run into the study testing clients, like I've had one recently, a keysmart were lovely clients. They are insanely brilliant. They're a wonderful team and there is a forgivable foible at play here where we have the Trello board where we're suggesting different design decisions and all these things and we'll start batting it around. And in the critique process, most good designers, they have what's called the yes. No, yes. Other places called the Shit Sandwich. And uh, where you say, I love this idea, I think that we might need to change it in a little bit this way or what's your thinking on that? Or something like that. And then you end up with another yes. Like, uh, again, I think that this is really cool. I just wanted to know what's going on here. So that is classic critique, active listening technique, non-violent communication that allows people to not feel threatened or imposed upon when you're proposing something. Kurt: 19:20 Right. Um, which is great, right? Um, it's super useful and what they see is, that's a great idea. And they're like, great, I just shipped it and I'm like, well no, this is a board for testing ideas that have to be tested and researched and there's gotta be a process. And so I ended up having to like spell out, here's what happens when a t how, here's how test ideas get on fire, hose them on, here's what happens when they get on, they need to go through this process, not only to make me feel good about having this actually go the way we wanted to, but also to kind of expose it to the harsh light of day, right? Like we need to make sure that not only is it a good idea to us, but it's actually a revenue generating idea for the business. Kurt: 20:07 And that involves research that involves spending a little more time actually thinking about the ramifications of the decision that involves squaring it up against all the other decisions that we've put together in the past. Right? Like the more tests we run, the more likely it is we're going to continue coming up with decisions that don't work for us or that we've already tried. And some other form and we want to make sure we're not spinning our wheels on this. Um, so I had to go and sit down and say, you know, you want to do ab testing like you hired me. That seems obvious enough, but your still thinking in a way that is like the socratic inquiry design decisions that, that everybody does and I get why you do it. It's because you have like 10 years background in this industry and that's all you've known. Kurt: 20:57 And then I asked to come in and be the fun ruiner right? I'm really good at ruining people's fun. I'm really good at it. Um, and I don't like having to come in and be the fun ruiner I like it when people agree broadly with the concept of Ab testing and then figure out the execution behind it. Right? And there's a lot of like, psychological impact that too, you know, like when a test fails and you have to say, well we should keep testing. You don't look good politically by doing that as a consultant or as a worker or anything. If you're the champion of the project, you look terrible to your boss and the best clients are ones where we'll spend like three months planning a task and putting together this giant, ambitious reworking. It fails miserably and they're like, it's OK. Kurt: 21:47 I saved you from wasting more time on what would be a boondoggle of a project. But if you let, you know, if you get emotionally invested in it and you have people you know, fighting for, um, you know, they're, they're designed candidate for just to save face. It doesn't work. And that's where it split testing gives everyone this easy out. You know, when I argue with my children clear, like they just want an out, but they don't want to have to say, well, I was wrong. They'll always take the out if you give it to them. And I think that's um, as a tool for ending Itar internal debates, split testing is wonderful and you know, in your own language you say, well, it defines them. Kurt: 22:26 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it, it, if you have a process for considering design decisions, defangs them. And it also removes what in Ux parlance, it's called the hippo or the highest paid person's opinion. I love it. I relish it. Nothing more than when the like high school marketing intern comes up with a testable design decision that bumps revenue by 15 percent. And I just know about the CEO is design decisions. It's like one of my favorite things. It's so satisfying. I'm like, you know John over here, I'm actually about 15 percent more revenue for the business and we're paying him barely minimum wage credit. Kurt: 23:07 No one wants. No one's gonna argue with it because who doesn't? If you're, if you're the business owner, if you're the employee, you're goal is roy in Split testing gives you this beautiful framework to do that. Right? Kurt: 23:21 Roi Is also measurable in decreasing costs. Right? And I can come in. The most classic example for Ab testing is like this was a disastrous thing and it lost 11 percent revenue and now we're not rolling it out to everyone. So we avoided a bullet, right? That's the most classic one. But I tell you, I've run shopify Ab tests that pair to back the number of skews that we were offering and ended up decreasing overall like cost of goods and cost of manufacturing by like 25, 30 percent because it turned out nobody gave a crap about all the ancillary products that we were offering and offering it in one color, one size actually worked better for us. Kurt: 24:04 You're eliminating, um, in many cases you're eliminating choice paralysis. People don't have to consider the thing they probably don't want. And even if it was like one in five, you still have a Pareto's principle, the 80 20 rule. And you're exploiting that by offering fewer products. People like storage often act like I'm crazy when I suggest that. I'm like, have you considered offering fewer products? Here are fewer options. So they're like, what? No more products means more money and it isn't the case. Not always. Kurt: 24:33 Yeah. And then you can cite a bunch of consumer research around it, but like shopify store owners have printers in general, they have a habit of like they made a successful product and now let's make it green. Or let's make it slightly larger or let's put Swarovski crystals on it or something, you know, and, and they, they get antsy because there's this constant process of reinvention and it might juice the numbers temporarily because you're getting a little bit more engagement from like collectors or something like that. And that could work in the long-term if you're a brand like field notes and you've released something new every three months and you can run out of it really quickly, but most storefronts probably don't have that luxury or they're probably not creating goods that are amenable to doing that. And so I would, you know, removing products is one of those things and that's one where it's like maybe we are settling intubate, but like what's the monetary upside? And I asked them to like, you know, we got rid of these products. That's great. Like what's the upside for you? It was like, oh, probably we just produced manufacturing expenses by 25 percent. I'm like, peel jaw off the floor. Like, are you kidding me? Like oh, OK, fine. Kurt: 25:52 Yeah. If I want to hire nick D, if I want to hire you to do my split testing, I know you actually run a business that's small by design. Um, so you can take out of the limited number of clients at any one time so I can hire you or, Kurt: 26:12 or you can. Um, so there are, there are a few ways to, uh, enlist my services. So the easiest thing that you can do right now, if you go to ab testing manual [inaudible], I, uh, I'm writing a book and creating a video course around everything that you need to know about Ab testing for your store. Right? There are three different packages. One of them is just the book. If you just want to know tactics about how to run an ab test and research it. Another is the video that talks about all the strategy, like the things that we were just talking about around, like dealing with disappointment around Ab tests, dealing with the psychological impact of it, the mindset shift needed in an organization. And then the third thing, which is obviously my favorite, is I come in and do a giant tear down of your site and you get the video course and everything else and it's like a hour long video tear down, like I actually go through on screencasts and pick everything apart and offer a ton of testable ideas. Kurt: 27:11 I also run heat maps and fine tune your google analytics install for you. So that's the deluxe wash if you want the really big package where I come in and run a b tests for you and dictate your strategy, um, that is probably going to be accepting new clients shortly before the holidays. Knock on wood. Um, I don't know when this episode runs, but um, I'm hoping to open up like one slot for a store owner probably end of November, ish. That might give us enough time to start ab testing and Ernest for the holidays. Um, it might get us enough time to get a plan going, but timeline depends heavily on like where your sites at and what you've gotten stalled, what your team looks like, that sort of thing. Um, but if you go to draft a dot and you, I spelled it all out, I'm probably your best option is grab a copy of the Ab testing manual, read through it, see if it makes sense as something that you should be doing for your business. You should really only be working on ab testing. You could work on optimization. Anyone can do that. Anyone can fix browser bugs or compress the images on their mobile pages. Um, but if you're running ab testing, you should probably have around 500 to 1000 transactions a month minimum. Ah, and that's not everyone who's listening to this, but it could be you someday. And maybe you'll think of me then. Kurt: 28:35 So what's, we're coming to the riverside together. Want to see if you have any closing thoughts. What's one thing you wish every shopify store owner would do? Kurt: 28:43 God, your biggest enemy is yourself. Most of the time when you think about the way that people are engaging with your product, you may be wrong and that is scary. You're the one who is the most informed about your product. Um, you think about it every day. It's your job, it's your life's work, um, but that's exactly why you shouldn't trust yourself on it, and the most important thing that you can do is listen to your customers and do what you can do, research it, whether or not you ab test anything after is that's up to you, but take the time to like run a survey. You can put together something on type form in 15 minutes and blasts it out to your mailing list and put it as a call out on your homepage for a week and then analyze what the impact is and it might teach you a lot. Kurt: 29:29 What do you think about including a link? If you made a survey like that, it's easy to use type form [inaudible]. There's no reason you shouldn't have the data you get out of those things is unbelievably valuable. What do you think about including that in the, uh, order confirmation and the receipt? Kurt: 29:42 The thing that I actually love doing kind of like life cycle emails too. So you get an order confirmation but, and actually deliver the product yet the order confirmation might be like jobs to be done type stuff like Clayton Christensen type questions. Like what led you to do this? What was the last thing you had an objection about before you went and purchased? Um, who else did you consider that sort of stuff. That's really great to get right at the height of purchase because it's also the height of enthusiasm. I love also sending a survey or sending a survey separately. Um, maybe like two or three months after they received the product. Like are you still using it? How did you enjoy it? Do you have any issues with it? Um, were there any problems with like assembly or something like that? Those are amazing. Amazing for figuring out. Kurt: 30:29 Not just like how to actually talk about it on your website and get revenue generating changes, but maybe even for like how would you help with onboarding on the product, right? Like how you help with maintenance of the product or something like that. Like is it a leather wallet? Is it prone to cracking? Great. Sell a bottle of needs, foot oil on your site and get people to condition their wallets, pushed that a lot in a little card that you ship with the product, that sort of stuff. Um, it's, you know, optimization effects every part of the business. Kurt: 31:00 Absolutely. Those are all great tips. Um, so what's one piece of information you'd like to correct about Ab testing? Kurt: 31:07 Um, it is not a sack of money button. It is a tool, it is not a panacea for your job and it is a tool and it is one part of optimization and you have to be considering things more holistically than just this headline converts better. Kurt: 31:24 Very good. And lastly, where can people go to learn more about you? Kurt: 31:28 Draft Dot n u a n as in Nick, U as in the letter u university that um, and uh, yeah, if you want to learn more about the AB testing manual, ab testing manual, [inaudible] is your best option there. Kurt: 31:45 Nick. Thank you. It's been my honor and pleasure. Kurt: 31:48 A total honor. Thank you so much for having me back on. Kurt: 31:50 So however this audio made it until find out more about an unofficial shopify podcast.com, and if you'd like to be notified whenever a new episode goes live, subscribe in Itunes, join our facebook group, unofficial shopify podcast insiders, or set up for my newsletter. Speaker 5: 32:05 I'll shoot you an email whenever we post a new episode. Thanks everybody and we'll be back in. Our program was produced today by Paul Reeder. The unofficial shopify podcast is distributed by either cycle, LLC will be back next week with more value bombs for shopify store owners. If you're looking for more high quality and actionable advice on learning the business of e commerce, join thousands of other shopify store owners on our totally free newsletter at ecommerce bootcamp. That's e-commerce hyphen bootcamp.

Today's guest runs the least politically correct store we've come across, and we love it. Yanne Root, founder of Violent Little Machine Shop, has made a business out of inappropriate morale patches. In this episode, we talk about Yanne's individual journey, what makes his business successful, "the voice" he presents to customers, and the mindset he uses to stay successful. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Links: Violent Little Machine Shop @ViolentLittle ReWork, 4 Hour Work Week Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

In this episode we're talking to Steven Fisher, Co-Founder and CEO at State & Liberty Clothing Company, about his journey and meteoric rise to success. Prior to founding the company, Steven graduated from the University of Michigan and worked for the Detroit Tigers in data analytics. After being disappointed and frustrated with all other dress shirts on the market, Steven and co-founder Lee launched State & Liberty Clothing Company in January of 2015. By focusing on fit, feel and a professional look, they've have created the best dress shirt on the market for the athletically built. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: Why you should sell a product that you want to use How to validate products with your friends The social strategy that skyrocketed sales Steven’s #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Links: State and Liberty Instagram: @stateandliberty Use coupon code "unofficial" to take 10% off any shirt order. Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

"You can play video games all day if you want, but I'm busting my ass, I want to build an empire." That's what Beav Brodie told me about his journey building his Shopify store TacticalBabyGear.com, an amazing niche store selling tactical-style diaper bags for today's dad. (I know I'm buying one.) Dads are actively dedicating themselves more than ever to their children’s upbringing these days. While a generation ago tackling a diaper change may have scared off many a dad, these days dealing with a baby’s messy habits is frequently a team endeavor. This co-parenting is a beautiful new norm that extends beyond loaded diapers -- it's a world in which parents find themselves in the trenches of child rearing together. So why are diaper bags still designed as if the wife will be the only one carrying them? — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: The journey Beav took in starting his business The exact Instagram Strategy he used to grow And his favorite app to run their growing store Links: https://tacticalbabygear.com/ https://www.instagram.com/tacticalbabygear/ https://www.facebook.com/TacticalBabyGear/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Building a base of loyal and repeat customers is a top goal of many Shopify stores. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find what characteristics these valuable customers share so stores end up with weak, generic customer retention plans which lose them customers. Instead, by focusing on three key metrics for your repeat customers in your retention plan, you can keep those customers loyal and grow your store's revenue. Eric Davis joins us to walk through why what key metrics we should be checking, and why. He's suited to discuss it as his consultancy, Little Stream Software, helps ecommerce entrepreneurs customize their Shopify stores using public and private Shopify Apps. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group — Learn: Why your repeat purchase rate is an excellent measure of your future success How to calculate your repeat purchase rate and average order values Why defining the path of your ideal customer can help you evaluate marketing and retention tactics Why focusing on repeat customers can have an out-sized ROI impact on your revenue Links: Eric's free course on repeat customer metrics: http://www.littlestreamsoftware.com/l/unofficial-shopify/ Repeat Customer Insights App: http://apps.shopify.com/repeat-customer-insights http://www.littlestreamsoftware.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/littlestreamsw Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Ezra says, "If you have a business driven by the ad model, you MUST understand upsells, cross sells... it's what's allowed us to grow to $1.5million/month." Ezra Firestone is a partner in BOOM! by Cindy Joseph and the company’s head of digital marketing. He runs a private network of eCommerce websites and regularly consults for companies across the U.S and Canada. He is the founder/creative director of SmartMarketer, an information hub for do-it-yourself entrepreneurs. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Learn: Conversion bonuses your site needs to have The difference between cross sell and upsell The right way to do cross sell How Ezra sets up post purchase upsells Ezra reveals all of his stats including his email revenue and the product you’ll never guess he sold in 2009 Links: https://smartmarketer.com/ https://zipify.com/ http://www.boombycindyjoseph.com/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

What's the best product to sell? Your own! Most people have likely had an idea for a product they'd like to make, but that's all they have: an idea. We don't know what to do next. In today's episode, I talk to product designer Dorian Ferrari about what exact steps to take to go from idea to reality, how much it'll cost, and what pitfalls to watch out for. Dorian Ferrari helps inventors and small businesses take their concepts to prototype or production ready 3D models. With 20 years of experience, his clients come from all over the consumer product spectrum from toys to phones. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Learn: Going from concept to prototype Hiring a product or mechanical designer The difference between prototypes to mass manufactured What to bring to your product designer How much to budget for your prototype Where & how to get 3D prints made Pitfalls of entering the manufacturing stage and mass production How design for 3D printing is different than design for manufacturing. Best ways to bridge your prototype and production. Links: http://www.catzdesignfarm.com/ http://www.3dprintingcrashcourse.com/ http://www.shapeways.com/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

In this listener mailbag episode, I discuss the must have apps for your Shopify store. As you'd expect, it's opinionated, but only five minutes. Have a question you'd like answered? Subscribe to my newsletter at http://kurtelster.com then reply to any email, and let me know what question you'd like answered. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Ever experience a crappy product and think, "I can do that better!" That's what happened to Joe Scarpati. When faced with a nylon watch strap that didn't meet his expectations, he decided to do something about it. But not before some research to ensure his success. Joe’s background is in market research, which he has leveraged to offer watch enthusiasts a better nylon watch strap through his company, BluShark. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Learn: Learn why the most successful sites have only a few SKUs. Why the most successful stores figure out a mathematical formula on how to market. How to turn your angriest customer into raving fans What are the future big opportunities of ecommerce? FirstName’s #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Product number doesn’t matter, Links: BluShark Email Joe Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Can you build a profitable brand by ignoring all that online marketing bullshit? Today's guest, Matt Giovanisci, believes you can, and intends to prove it. Matt is the creator of Swim University and a co-founder of Listen, Money Matters, a personal finance podcast that gets more downloads in a day as The Unofficial Shopify Podcast gets in a week. He also recently started MoneyLab, a series of documented experiments in making money online. Matt candidly shares his story of success building Swim University – an online resource site for swimming pool and hot tub owners that earns him six figures annually. Oh, and he once rapped about his podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnH4CSg-gR8 — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Learn: Matt’s “one stop shop” concept for content marketing The reaction your visitors should have when they land on your site How humor enables better marketing Why & how to write for people, not Google The importance of a single sentence Matt #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Links: http://www.moneylab.co/ https://twitter.com/mattgiovanisci/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

"The first time we ran video ads, sales immediately tripled." Andy has been running PPC ads for a while, but struck gold about a year ago with Facebook video ads. After just 2 weeks of running video ads he was able to triple the revenue of a large Shopify store. Now he has set up thousands of ad campaigns, and he has discovered a formula for telling good stories that make great video ads. He spills the beans on that formula so you can make profitable Facebook video ads for your Shopify store. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Learn: Learn why the most successful sites have only a few SKUs. Best practices for video ad The formula for crafting effective video ads The optimal length for a video ad Which tools can make video ads easily And the one thing most video advertisers get wrong Links: Andrew's Course: http://www.fbvideocourse.com FB Best Practices for Video: https://m.facebook.com/business/news/updated-features-for-video-ads Plainly Simple Studios: https://www.plainlysimplestudios.com/ TUSP Exclusives Get any Bold App free for two months I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Jay Myers is one of the co-founders of Bold Commerce. He has a long history in ecommerce and uses that to help build some of the best apps on Shopify. Currently he heads up marketing at Bold, and works very close with the product team. With 22 apps in the app store, and a staff of one hundred, Jay Myers and the Bold Apps team has learned a lot about ecommerce. Jay had some online retail shops that he built on the Shopify platform, but Jay wished they could do a little more for him. After all, Shopify is a brilliant, efficient, and easy to use platform for selling your goods, but Jay wanted to do more. Big surprise. He wanted to market directly to his shoppers while they were on his website and make more sales. Lucky for Jay, Shopify allows developers to create plugins, add-ons, and applications and put them in their App store for all to use. But Jay also found that most third party developers were creating apps for managing the back end of your store and nothing really existed to help market products on the front end, help customers buy more, and help retailers sell more. So Jay called up a couple friends of his who were very well versed in eCommerce software design and pitched them the idea of building some apps for his store that they could then also put in the Shopify App Store and provide to other store owners. These gentlemen became the ownership team of the Bold Innovation Group, Shopify's leading app developer. With tens of thousands of app installs, Jay has learned firsthand what makes some stores succeed. In this episode, we learn what separates successful stores from the rest of the pack. — Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS — Learn: Learn why the most successful sites have only a few SKUs. Why the most successful stores figure out a mathematical formula on how to market. How to turn your angriest customer into raving fans What are the future big opportunities of ecommerce? Links: TUSP Exclusive: Get any Bold App free for two months Recommended reading: Hug Your Haters https://twitter.com/jasonnmyers https://twitter.com/bold_commerce Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Email marketing can be HUGE for ecommerce stores and online retailers. Problem is, most companies do it wrong. Or they just don’t do it at all. Joining us to unpack email marketing is John McIntyre. John McIntyre is the founder of ReEngager, a done-for-you ecommerce email marketing agency. ReEngager helps ecommerce companies increase total sales by 15-30% with email marketing. He is the host of The McMethod Email Marketing Podcast, one of the highest-rated marketing podcasts on iTunes. John has a knack for getting world-leading marketers, copywriters and entrepreneurs onto his podcast, and this has lead to the wild success of the show. Since 2012, John has helped thousands of business convert more customers online by implementing a variety of email marketing and email copywriting strategies. Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Learn: How to set up an abandoned cart sequence that works How to keep an email list warm and gradually move them closer to making a purchase What to expect from email marketing John #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Links: https://www.ometria.com/ http://www.reengager.com/podcast/ http://www.themcmethod.com/category/podcast/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

"We all have the currency of time that we can't get back, so where do we invest it?" Nate Murray is the founder of Merchline. Merchline is "Official Online Storefront Fulfillment Provider & Screenprinter to the band/artist/apparel line industries." Started in 2001, Merchline now operates a whopping 42 Shopify storefronts on behalf of artists like Skrillex, Christina Perry, Reach Records, and more. Nate has taken the DIY ethic and applied it with astonishing success to his business. Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Learn: The mindset that empowers Nate's success Why to stop analyzing and start shipping How to combat the Amazon Effect Nate’s #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Links: http://merchline.com/ https://twitter.com/everynewday https://unicornfree.com/just-fucking-ship/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

One of the most misunderstood aspects of any online business is SEO. (And that’s for several reasons that I could do an episode on alone but I won’t.) Instead, we talk to a guest that I’m honored to have, Rand Fishkin Rand Fishkin uses the ludicrous title, Wizard of Moz. He's founder and former CEO of Moz, co-author of a pair of books on SEO, and co-founder of Inbound.org. Rand's an unsaveable addict of all things content, search, & social on the web, from his multiple blogs to Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a shared Instagram account. Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Learn: Why Wikipedia talks about his mustache How he would market an ecommerce business Which is more important: on-site SEO vs backlinks How should eCommerce stores deal with duplicate content? Is performance important? Why four star reviews are better than five star reviews The ​_one_​ piece of eCommerce SEO misinformation out there you need to know Rand's #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Links: Rand blogs at https://moz.com/ Rand will answer your questions on Twitter: https://twitter.com/randfish Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

We talk with Eric Bandholz of Beardbrand on how we went from community to business. Growing slowly and organically at first, and eventually blowing up into a bearded sensation that's sparked copycats and inspired thousands. "At Beardbrand, we're trying to change the way the world views beards." Eric is a self-described "husband, father, entrepreneur, world traveler, ancap, designer and founder of BeardBrand." Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Learn: How to use content marketing Why to focus on improving your customer's life better Why to help your customer become a better version of themselves FirstName’s #1 tip for The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Links: http://www.beardbrand.com/ https://twitter.com/bandholz Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

"If I was 95 and selling toys, would I be happy? Yea!" -Chris Tsang on finding your passion Chris Tsang is the founder of Mindzai, a designer toy store and toy design company. Chris started his company in his bedroom 3 years ago and has since grown his business into 2 brick and mortar shops in Canada and now expanding into the US Market. In addition, after 2 successful Kickstarter campaigns, he’s moving quickly into toy manufacturing and wholesale distribution. Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS We discuss... Why you should go to conventions The importance of email lists Why to sell to existing lists Why not to make your emails overly polished Why you should think about making your own product The personality traits of successful entrepreneurs Contact Info: http://www.mindzai.com http://facebook.com/mindzaicreativeshop http://instagram.com/mindzai Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Jake Starr, a 12 yr veteran firefighter, always enjoyed making his own gear by hand. He worked with leather and fashioned gear that included backpacking hammocks. After joining the Louisville fire department, Jake’s need to create handmade goods would not go extinguished. A few years ago his department was getting ready to replace older hoses. He asked his Chief if he could take some of the discarded hoses to create iPad sleeves and explore other ideas. After working long shifts at the Firehouse, he would head home and put in work from behind a sewing machine. Learn: How Instagram Photography and a great story fueled his marketing and growth How small-scale manufacturing can lead to large scale profits When to source a US Manufacturer Dealing with copycats and following your passion Links: Check out http://www.RecycledFirefighter.com and be sure to to follow @RecycledFirefighter on Instagram. Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

"We don't know anything about marketing." That's what one entrepreneurial couple with a successful niche store and growing community of brand evangelists told me. They may think they know nothing about marketing, but they're actually doing everything right. This is one of our favorite episodes because it's jam-packed with great advice from regular folks. Lizzy and Spencer both quit their day jobs work full time on Stitch People. With two books already out and several more in the design queue, Stitch People is becoming a common name in the contemporary cross-stitch market. Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Links: Check out Stitch People online: http://stitchpeople.com or follow them on http://instagram.com/stitchpeople and http://facebook.com/stitchpeople to see what authenticity in marketing looks like. Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Richard is the brains and the stomach behind The User Is Drunk, a site set up a few months ago to help people learn just how their site looks to a drunk person. Here is his process: Richard gets drunk, looks at your website, and tries to give advice about how it could be better while he pretends to be a normal user. Richard and I talk a bit about his story and what you can do today to make your site just that much better for drunk — and, more importantly, sober — users. More about Richard Littauer: He's a developer, UX designer, and digital nomad. His clients include the MIT Media Lab, Hubspot, and VWO. Currently, he lives in Boston, and enjoys writing and reading emails and haiku. He writes a weekly newsletter, available on his website at burntfen.com. Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Show Links http://theuserisdrunk.com/ http://burntfen.com/ https://tinyletter.com/richlitt http://drunkusertesting.com/ Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

Our topic today is using lead magnets to triple your email opt-in rate! An important topic because every online entrepreneur is in the business of list building. But that old opt-in form in your footer won’t collect much of anything these days. As marketers, though, we evolve with the times, and our tactics evolve, too. We began to offer free products such as e-books, courses, checklists, and videos for anyone who signed up to our lists. These are called lead magnets because they attract leads. And it worked. Joining this episode is Neil Patel, founder of KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg, QuickSprout & Hellobar. Neil was named one of the top 10 marketing experts by Forbes, called a top influencer by the Wall Street Journal, and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama. See Neil's best performing lead magnet (and subscribe yourself) at http://neilpatel.com/blog/ Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on iTunes Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast on Stitcher Subscribe to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast via RSS Free Guide I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com

To build a sustainable ecommerce business, getting customers to buy should only be the start of a much longer relationship. Retaining customers (and turning them into brand evangelists) is the secret of revenue maximization that the big boys have known for years. Ross Beyeler of Growth Spark joins us today to discuss how to achieve prolonged success with your Shopify business. You'll learn the 5 Stages of Customer Retention: Support Loyalty Advocacy Analytics Automation And the best tools to capitalize on those stages. A graduate of Babson College, Ross Beyeler has been an active entrepreneur in the technology space since 2005 with experience ranging in digital marketing, business development and strategic management. In 2007, Ross co-founded For Art's Sake Media, Inc., a technology company servicing the art industry, where he led the organization through its seed funding, team building and product launch. In December 2008, Ross went on to start Growth Spark, a design and technology consultancy focused on helping eCommerce and B2B service companies become more efficient and more profitable. Since it's founding, Growth Spark has completed over 225 projects and led Ross to a 2010 nomination as one of BusinessWeek's Top 25 Entrepreneurs under 25. Ross can be reached through http://growthspark.com/ or Twitter: https://twitter.com/rbeyeler Show Links: https://apps.shopify.com/help-scout https://apps.shopify.com/sweet-tooth http://www.olapic.com/ https://apps.shopify.com/klaviyo-email-marketing https://apps.shopify.com/lumiary https://apps.shopify.com/nosto-personalization-for-shopify

Alex O'Byrne recently launched the new Negative Underwear website, which took an astonishing 100 orders on the first day alone, followed by 7000 unique visits in just 5 days. A fantastic achievement that any ecommerce entrepreneur would be thrilled with. Alex pulls back the curtain and discusses the strategies necessary to achieve those results... and they're surprisingly grassroots. Alex O'Byrne is a Shopify Expert and co-founder of the UK's top-rated e-commerce agency WeMakeWebsites. He speaks regularly on the topic of marketing and e-commerce for design-led retailers and organizations such as the London College of Fashion and Startup Weekend. His agency, WeMakeWebsites builds beautiful and effective online stores for creative retail companies. Show Links: http://wemakewebsites.com/ https://twitter.com/alwaysmaking

Diana is an authenticity driven entrepreneur who is constantly seeking, creating, developing, growing and learning. She is passionate about business, personal development, wellness, travel, spirituality, productivity and maximizing her time and life to live exceptionally across all facets: faith, relationships, business and health. Being very unsure of her career path in her youth, she became even more unclear after completing law school. Pushed to find her passions she started her first company Tiny Devotions Inc. after taking a sabbatical in Bali post-graduating. Being keen to identify niches – Diana literally started an industry with her company selling mala beads and intentional accessories. Now with hundreds of competitors, Tiny Devotions founded in 2009 is still the innovative leader in the space. Having come from a very entrepreneurial family, the buzz of business, startups and deals is part of her DNA and a constant adventure no matter where she is in the world on her extensive travels with her husband. Hear our journey and the lessons she's learned along the way. Show Links: http://www.tinydevotions.com/ http://www.dianahouse.com/ https://twitter.com/dianahouse_ PS: I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Get it at http://ecommerce-bootcamp.com/

I owe much of my business success to my Mastermind group– I credit being in a mastermind with boosting my revenue 10x. So what is a Mastermind, how do they work, and why or how should you join one? To answer that question, Kai Davis and Jonathan Stark join Kurt to discuss their own mastermind experiences. Jonathan Stark is a mobile strategy consultant who helps senior executives transition their business to mobile. Jonathan is the author of three books on mobile and web development, most notably O'Reilly's Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript which is available in seven languages. His Jonathan's Card experiment made international headlines by combining mobile payments with social giving to create a "pay it forward" coffee movement at Starbucks locations all over the U.S. Kai Davis is an Outreach Consultant in Eugene, Oregon, who helps bootstrappers, product creators, self-funded startups, and single founder companies grow their audience and promote their best products and content. He connect with influencers and finds opportunities to expose your best products and content to their audience. Show Links https://mastermindjam.com/ https://expensiveproblem.com/ http://doubleyouraudience.com/

The year is almost over, and that means one thing: time to get your books in order! With running a business, you already know you need to stay on top the accounting that goes along with running a store. Joining us in this episode is Donnie Cooper of LessAccounting, to discuss why and how to make bookkeeping nothing like going to the dentist. You'll learn: The difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper (and when to use each) Why you want a bookkeeper What's a minimum viable company When and how do you owe taxes What to do when you're late on taxes Why not to ignore the IRS The secret to success: outsource anything you're not great at and why you should "just take next steps." If you'd like to automate your accounting with a real life bookkeeper, reachout to Donnie at http://lessaccounting.com/autopilot

Joining us is friend and colleague Keir Whitaker. Keir works at Shopify as their Designer Advocate. Like us, he's also had a lot of side projects. In this episode we discuss: What's a side project, why have one? The importance of projects. I have many, some worked, most didn't, and all were lessons learned Using Shopify to launch an MVP and validate a side project. How despite all the advances in technology, good business is still about personal relationships (and conferences are the fast track to those) Sign up for Keir's newsletter at: http://keirwhitaker.com/newsletter/ (Oh! And check out Kurt's new website --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.)

Want to stop competing against Amazon and everyone else? Consultant Philip Morgan will teach us how to use hyper-specific positioning to make that happen. In this episode, you'll hear how to position your business in a way that leads to higher conversion rates and better customers. Get Philip's free crash course on positioning - https://philipmorganconsulting.com/free-positioning-crash-course - Though focused at dev shops, the knowledge is still useful. (Oh! And check out Kurt's new website --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.)

Joining our episode is special guest Paul Jarvis, a self-described freelancer evangelist who teaches creatives & freelancers how to make their businesses work on their own terms. Paul's worked with companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and MTV, plus entrepreneurs with massive digital empires, including Danielle LaPorte, Alexandra Franzen, Marie Forleo and Kris Carr (and a whole bunch of amazing folks in between). He applied what he learned in his web design work to writing, and grew his audience from zero to releasing a bestseller, just a year-and-a-half after writing his first book. His words now appear in every major business publication and reach over 100,000 people every month. Those are the numbers and facts. But, Paul's goal isn’t to earn millions or become a bullshit thought leader; it’s to do work that matches his internal compass and provide real value. Defining success on his own terms has made him who he is, and that's what we're going to discuss: the importance of finding your authentic voice and using it in your business. Sign up for Paul's Newsletter at https://pjrvs.com/signup and join 16K+ others reading his weekly articles about freelancing, life and creativity. (Oh! And check out Kurt's new website which was inspired by Paul's! --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.)

"A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising." - Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO Why doesn't everybody do referral marketing, then? Why isn't it more popular? Because referral marketing is notoriously hard to execute properly. It requires a significant investment of time, energy and resources. It requires commitment. It requires a quality product that's worth talking about. It requires great incentives, effective communications, and the system has to be functionally watertight, or you'll have unhappy customers. In this episode, we talk with ReferralCandy CEO Dinesh Raju how to get it right. He shares what he's learned from running thousands of referral programs for merchants, retailers and businesses of all sizes, across all verticals. We'll discuss every single detail, from the incentive structures to how to effectively communicate them to your advocates. Add A Refer-A-Friend Program To Your Shopify Store: http://pages.referralcandy.com/InterviewPodcast.html Oh! And check out Kurt's new website --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.

If you've ever run a Shopify store you've almost certainly taken a stroll through the Shopify App Store and installed some of the Apps on offer. But what are Shopify Apps, really? And how can store owners make sure they pick reliable, well-developed Apps that provide a measurable return on investment? In this episode we talk to Gavin Ballard, founder at Disco and author of Mastering Shopify Themes and Mastering Shopify Apps, about all things Shopify Apps, including: The "problem first" approach to finding Apps that deliver value; How to evaluate the reliability and quality of Apps in the App Store; Two things to watch out for when taking on board App recommendations; The benefits of having a custom application built, and how to find a professional developer to build it. If you enjoy this episode, USP listeners can grab a FREE copy of Disco's Shopify App Handbook, which covers the above material and more, from https://www.discolabs.com/handbook/?code=usp. Links: Mastering Shopify Themes: http://gavinballard.com/mastering-shopify-themes/ Mastering Shopify Apps: http://gavinballard.com/mastering-shopify-apps/ Useful Gifts: https://www.usefulgifts.org/ Screenflow: http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm

We've got a mini bonus episode for you on getting your store ready for the holidays! The holidays are a stressful time. Your in-laws fly in for a long visit, the weather is lousy, you spend more than you anticipated on gifts, and you can feel yourself coming down with a cold. For 72 hours or more, your life turns into a bad sitcom. Oh, and if you're reading, you're probably also a retailer. On top of the personal drama, you’re facing a single day that may make or break your entire fiscal year: Black Friday. That’s actually why it’s called Black Friday. It’s the day that a retailer’s books go from red (operating at a loss) to black (operating at a profit). With the holidays around the corner, let's talk about how we can make the most out of the holidays with the highest degree of success – and the lowest degree of stress. So tackling a full-site redesign in October is probably out of the question. While it might work, it’s too risky. Instead of gearing up for a huge project, let’s focus on some quick wins that you can implement to prep now to prep your store before Black Friday and the holidays.

After a brief hiatus, we're back with season 2 of TUSP! Last month, I spoke at The Double Your Freelancing Conference that took place in Norfolk. It gave me the opportutinity to pick the brains of a lot of great people, and now I want to to share that information with you. In this episode, Kai Davis, who spoke with me at the conference, joins me to discuss what key takeaways we got from the conference. You'll learn the mindset shifts we uncovered at Double Your Freelancing Conference from our fellow speakers. You'll be inspired to take action, apply a new direction to your own businesses, and strive for productivity and focus. You know, all the things that make you more money. Links: Kurt's DYFC Retrospective The Traffic Manual Website Teardowns

Have you wondered why your store doesn’t get more conversions? There are two types of businesses: 1) the kind that intimately understand their customers, and 2) the kind that shoot aimlessly and occasionally hit the target. Both types of businesses may succeed for a while, but let’s face it: the second type of business isn’t sustainable. You know that talking to your customers is the the only way to know them, but it’s one of those things that slips to the bottom of your to-do list. That’s okay. In this episode we talk to Liston WItherill of Good Funnel to find out: Why don’t people get more excited about my business? Why aren’t I getting more sales from my website? How do I answer objections, right in the copy that I write? How do I improve my onsite conversion rates by at least 30%? Liston is here to help you resonate with your audience to get more leads and conversions. In other words, we can answer these pressing questions for you. Liston Witherill is an online marketer and Chief Creative at Good Funnel. He helps tech and info businesses understand their customers to sell more. He studies copywriting, persuasion, pricing, positioning and automation to help businesses hit the hockey stick - or at least come close. After serving as Director of Marketing for a $10M company, Liston declined their CMO position to instead pursue his own business. He has a MS in Environmental Science and a BA in Political Science and Economics. He’s an environmentalist and hiphop artist, too - but that’s a different story. Learn more about Liston at http://goodfunnel.co/ and be sure to sign up for his email course.

New store owners often look to social media to kickstart their marketing efforts, yet rarely succeed. To help break the social mediocrity that most brands engaged in, we talked with Mojca Marš from http://superspicymedia.com/ about how to achieve it. Mojca Marš consults with companies on the use of social media, email marketing and content marketing. Since social media is her passion, and she loves to communicate with people and create active communities around great brands/companies.

Ever wonder how to buy or sell a website? We did, so we talked to David Newell, an experienced business broker. David is Brokerage Director at FE International. Starting out as an banker, he moved online to use his transaction experience for website brokerage. At FEI, he spends his time speaking with buyers, executing deals and working on raising industry standards to encourage more investments. In 2014 he closed more than $6M in sales and wrote a book on buying internet businesses for investors new to the space. Useful links: Buyer Guide: http://feinternational.com/buyerguide/ Advanced Buyer Guide: http://feinternational.com/advancedbuyerguide Valuing businesses: http://feinternational.com/blog/how-do-you-value-an-online-business/

Yesterday I spent the whole day at the Shopify Retail tour. They'd invited me, along with a few other folks, to answer questions about Shopify and Ecommerce from existing and potential Shopify customers. From 10am until 4:30pm, I talked to a diverse and interesting lot of folks. But every single person asked me some variation of one universal question: "how do I SEO?" I get why they're asking. If your site appears at the top of google searches for a variety of things related to your products, you'll have loads of traffic. And potentially you didn't pay for it, if only you could crack the code on SEO! If only you knew the magic formula of H1 and alt tags to make the google machine happy. But that's not realistic. It's at best an attempt to game a hugely complex and constantly changing algorithm into giving you traffic you don't deserve. I say you don't deserve it because you're trying to cheat the system. Instead, let's come up with a real strategy that works. Step 1: Let's forget about obsessing over html. If you're using a new premium theme from a good developer like Pixel Union or Out of The Sandbox then you've already done 99% of everything you need to support technical SEO efforts. Open graph, schema markup, etc. All there and done. Don't waste more time and money on this because you'll never get a good ROI out of it. Let's face facts: google engineers are smarter than you. Step 2: on site SEO. Google wants what your customers want: relevant, valuable content. You have to write articles, guides, interviews, and all the other valuable content you enjoy on other sites. My most successful Shopify Plus couldn't care less about SEO. Instead of fussing with alt tags, he hired three writers to produce great blog content for him. It only costs $1200/mo which is way cheap for the ROI he gets. Here's the best part: he never worries about writing the perfect SEO copy, because he's instead creating on-topic and relevant articles. You can do the same thing. Write on your own or hire someone. I already know your objection: "Kurt I'm a lousy writer and I can't afford a writer." I've got a hack for you that I use. Dictate your articles using the text to speech already built in to your device. Macs are great at this. Then send it to a copy editor. I pay $30/article on average for copy editing. Step 3: off-site SEO. Links to your site from sites with a similar audience are massively important. (Note: The spammy blog comment links you buy from a snake oil salesman SEO pro for $500/mo are the opposite of this.) Here's where we need to again forget about SEO; start thinking like a public relations firm. The best SEO strategy I've ever seen is PR outreach. Find blogs, forums, YouTube channels, and Instagram rockstars who are in your niche. Now email them. Email them and offer them free product in exchange for an honest review. This is a numbers game but it's the only way you'll get relevant links with qualified traffic. This tactic is powerful in that you'll be able to trade up the chain. You'll start with small blogs and as word of mouth grows you'll be able to build relationships that move you up to blogs getting millions of daily visitors. This tactic isn't particularly difficult but it is time consuming. You can hire someone to do it for you which will save you time and speed things up because outreach professionals already have a network to leverage. (I personally recommend Kai Davis for this kind of work, he's pulled great results for my clients.) What's the takeaway here? Instead of trying to learn the finer points of semantic HTML while guessing at google's algorithm, all you need to do is share your passion. Make your love of your niche infectious and the SEO will follow.

What happens when a new visitor hits your website? They don't buy. And that's okay! In this episode, we skip the guest interviews, and instead Paul and Kurt talk through the strategies and tactics involved in building trust with customers. The Chain: Anonymous visitor Engaged prospect Cart abandoner Buyers Repeat buyer Brand evangelist You'll learn to visualize your relationship with your customers and the tactics we recommend to turn anonymous visitors into brand evangelists.

Jordan Gal is the Co-Founder and CEO of CartHook, an effective abandoned cart recovery solution. CartHook tracks and captures the email addresses of visitors going through your checkout process. When a visitor abandons a purchase, an automated email campaign is triggered that is designed to bring the customer back to the site to complete the purchase. CartHook customers are recovering an average of 10% to 20% of abandoned carts and boosting revenue by up to 15%. Previously he was the Co-Founder of YCA Shops which operated a network of niche ecommerce stores. That company grew quickly and was acquired in mid-2009, so Jordan knows a thing or two about successful ecommerce. On top of that, he hosts the popular Bootstrapped Web Podcast. So what we're saying is Jordan knows a thing or two about ecommerce, and optimization in general. He joins us today to share his experience, and in particular, two powerful anecdotes about learning from your customers that you won't want to miss. Be sure to check out CartHook as well as follow Jordan on Twitter.

Josh Highland Giese Better known as Josh Highland, owns and operates Venntov.com, a software and services company focused on the Shopify platform. Venntov.com has been a certified Shopify Expert since 2011 and has assisted hundreds of Shopify shop owners. Josh has literally written the book on SEO for Shopify stores. We talk to him about what that means and why you should care. You'll want to take notes for this episode. You can get his book from http://shopifyempire.com/ Learn more about Josh at http://joshhighland.com/ or even hire him at https://venntov.com/