Nicholas Waldron

PSA for ecommerce brands:  Subscribers won't always buy the products you feature in the email.  And that's ok. Rule of thumb I learned from $345M generated from email: "People don't want to be sold... but they love to buy." So focus your email broadly on discovery. The products you need to sell should be sent to an affinity segment to start.  This way you cover your specific product offer and encourage discovery from everyone else. Sell more product and let the others buy what they need. Best of both worlds. --- Follow me for the secret email, SMS and retention strategies of the top ecommerce brands. #emailmarketing #ecommerce #retentionnation

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3 reasons your DTC Brands are holding back your growth 👇 1. Focusing too much on ROAS and neglecting new customer acquisition. 2. Preferring only advantage + shopping campaigns, while overlooking audience testing. 3. Running complex retargeting setups. What other signs have you noticed?

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If you're thinking of taking your DTC brand to Amazon... Don't upload your entire catalogue. Start with your best-sellers first. Amazon hard limits your storage and you can't afford to run out of stock because your inventory is too spread thin. Let your best-sellers grow, add on variations to increase conversion, wait until listing starts to mature (6 months in minimum) Then add in your other SKUs and start building from there. #amazonfba #fba #shopify #DTC #ecommerce

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Five reasons why you shouldn't do TikTok Shop 1. You can't afford sending 300+ units as free samples to creators 2. Your products are $100+ AOV in a category with $50 AOV on TTS 3. You can't afford to do discounts 4. You have a long lead time when products go out of stock 5. You aren't ready to breakeven or lose money in month 1 and 2

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As an SEO, seeing a client launch their new site w/o proper redirects is agonizing. Ideally, every old site url would be redirected before the launch, but what if the new site's been live for several months+ at this point? Is it still worth creating redirects or is your link equity lost? If you're rebuilding because the old site is outdated, then url structures are likely less-than-optimal as well. This creates mandatory manual correction before mapping/implementing your redirects. For particularly large migrations, it may not be worth the legwork if the pages' traffic has already fallen off. In this sitch, don't spend more time than needed. The most valuable pages to prioritize for manual redirection are those with incoming backlinks remaining. — 🔷 Step 1 Identify old pages with backlinks: Tools like Google Search Console, Semrush, or Ahrefs help to identify old pages with incoming backlinks— eg, Semrush allows filtering for backlinks pointing to 404s on your site. Identify any valuable urls with backlinks remaining (also a good time to note content topics for future revisiting). — 🔷 Step 2 Create 301 redirects: Map each old URL you noted as worth keeping, to the most relevant page on your new website (old -> new). On your website, implement permanent 301 redirects for every broken page on your redirect map. This redirect type is recommended for preserving link equity. Note: Many CMS platforms, including Wordpress, allow a bulk upload of your redirect map as a .csv file. Take advantage of this if you can. — 🔷 Step 3 Update outdated internal links: If the internal links of your website haven't been updated since launching with a new url structure, it may be worth updating to allow for faster crawling. This also helps with user navigation and ensures a seamless site experience. — 🔷 Step 4 Submit updated sitemap to search engines: After implementing redirects, submit an updated sitemap to Google (or other search engines). This makes your new urls easier to discover, crawl, and index. — 🔷 Step 5 Monitor performance: Monitor the performance of the pages your directed to. Tools like Google Search Console can provide insights into how well the redirects are working. — 🔷 Bonus Step Consider Outreach: While redirects pass most of the link equity, direct links are preferred. If you have high-authority external sites linking to your old pages, you may consider reaching out to these companies and asking them to update the link directly, rather than relying on redirects. While redirects pass most link equity, direct links are preferred. — 📕 In Conclusion SEO efforts are often spent on tasks that won't move the needle. If you realize redirects weren't implemented on a site that launched a year ago, manually creating redirects for every old page might be a time-sink with no valuable return at this point. Use the process above to garner any remaining link equity for the new site while staying effective and efficient with your time.

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Cannabis brands: hire SEO agencies by results, not deliverables. Here's why: Deliverable-based contracts encourage box-ticking for the sake of box-ticking. They incentivize agencies to focus on pushing out as much work as possible, instead of thinking deeply about whether (and how) each piece of work is contributing to your business' growth. On the other hand, result-based contracts encourage agencies only to do the work necessary to achieve results. This improves the quality of the agency's work, and it means you won't be paying for extra work that doesn't actually help your business. It's also more efficient for the agency (but only if they're good). If you're hiring an agency, pay for results, not deliverables. - Want to work with a revenue-focused agency built specifically for CBD and cannabis brands? Book a call with me at the link in the comments.

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If you've been told, "You can't get better than 1:1 ROAS in Meta," you're being lied to. Here's the mistake we see too many DTC brands (or agencies working with brands) make: ➝ Running highest volume awareness campaigns to boost metrics ➝ Not getting efficient conversions and direct business impact ➝ Blaming the "algorithm" and not running enough creative We refuse to make that mistake — you need a fundamentally different process for fundamentally different results. Here's how we operate at Kynship: 1. Using financial forecasting to set benchmarks If you don't know first order profitability (based on unit economics), how can you expect to run profitable ads? This is where most agencies mess up, not digging into your numbers and creating an accurate forecast based on profitable CPA targets. 2. Collect and source as much creative as possible Anything you have in Google Drives, Dropbox folders, ad accounts, etc. is creative leverage. In most cases, we also supplement existing creative with influencer seeding to generate a large volume of native, organic content to be leveraged in ads. 3. Leverage high volume against cost controls Remember our forecasting and profitable CPA targets? We're setting those as benchmarks in your Meta ads, then pushing as much creative as we can to unlock potential winners. By using cost controls, anything Meta spends against will be profitable, meeting your target ROAS (whether it's 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, etc.). Any questions about our performance marketing approach? Let me know 🤝 

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Frequent creative refreshes: - Meta says to do it 2x a month - We say 4x a month/1x a week Most DTC brands don't hit 2x, much less 4x. But if you want better performance, frequent refreshes are a key lever to pull.

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Hot Take: Lack of emotion in copy is a quick way to kill customer interest. Customers are scrolling through an infinite flood of content, websites, and reviews all day, every day. Everything’s moving fast. Your copy needs to make people stop scrolling and skimming + carry your customers through a journey to your target CTA/Conversion. Here’s how I do it for brands I work with: 1️⃣ Tell a story: Humans love humans. Share relatable experiences that hit home. Tell your customers who you are, how a new product came to be, or what’s happening behind the scenes at your brand. Build a family/fanbase of the brand, then selling won’t be an issue. 2️⃣ Speak their language: Use a tone and language that feels personal and real. Find the balance that feels friendly, but still educational and intentional about getting them to the CTA. The goal is that customers are excited to read the new emails, posts, and texts that you send them. 3️⃣ Highlight benefits over facts and features: Show HOW your product makes life better, WHY someone should buy it, not just what it does. It’s important to make what customers get when they purchase clear, but it’s equally important to make what they feel, do, or think when they get the product clear and emphasized. Personalization is the way to cut through the smoke. If you can make your audience feel something - they’ll stick around, share your brand FOR you, and then come back for more.

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SEO Helpful Hint #1 (I'll be sharing weekly SEO tips to help you boost your Google rankings 🚀) SEO "gurus" might complicate things, but here are only 8 important things to remember to insert keywords effectively: 1. Make sure your keyword is in your URL or URL page slugs. For example: domain/dog/treats/soft-and-chewy-treats/ 2. Make sure your keyword is included in your article title. 3. Make sure your keyword is in your first 100 words. 4. Make sure your keyword is used at least 3 times throughout your article (but don't overdo it). 5. Make sure your keyword is included in some supporting headlines or sub-headings. 6. Make sure your keyword is included in the last 100 words of your article. 7. Make sure your keyword is included in the Alt Text of any images. 8. Make sure you include related search term keywords, known as LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. For instance, if your main keyword is 'dog treats,' include related search keywords such as 'dog treat recipes,' 'dog treats for training,' 'best dog treats,' and 'dog treat brands.' These tips aren't about "hacks." They're fundamental to helping Google understand your content. Google is becoming more intelligent every day, but it's still an algorithm. By using these 8 important factors, Google will understand what your article is about... and will be more likely to rank it higher. #SEOtips #RaiseYourRank #BattleshipSEO

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3 steps to increasing revenue for your DTC brand: Step 1: Drive traffic Step 2: Convert traffic Step 3: Retain customers But....there’s a catch. Don’t neglect step 3. If done well, step 3 pays the cycle all over again. For free.

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What’s a bigger lever than paid ads, SEO, & influencer marketing for a DTC brand? To the surprise of many, its email flows. Once they’re dialed-in, they’re the closest thing you’ll ever have to a legal money printer. Most brands have picked up on this, yet there are still criminally few brands that utilize every email flow at their disposal. For example, many DTC brands have an abandoned checkout flow but aren’t aware they also need an abandoned add-to-cart flow. Here’s a screenshot of two flows we built for a DTC brand. They were missing the Abandoned Add-To-Cart flow, while their ‘standard’ Abandoned checkout flow wasn’t performing well. We added over $33,000 of monthly revenue to their business on autopilot. It scares me to think how many other brands are missing out on these flows. If you’re looking to add more flows to your DTC arsenal, send me a connection request to get started.

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This will sound "duh" but a lot of new DTC brands don't realize it until it's too late. Invest in really good photography. The difference between a forgettable eCommerce site and one that gets the order (besides a good story, good marketing copy, and social proof) can come down to the quality of the creative assets. In a world of a million knock-offs and shoddy products, showing high-quality photographs of your actual product in the hands of real people in a genuine setting: big difference. We've never had a situation where we've had too many great photographs. The more the merrier. If you're a DTC Brand CEO looking to boost your revenue, then grab 'The 5 Ways High-Performing DTC Brands Get 10-20% eCommerce Conversion Rates'. This guide reveals the 5 tactics that the highest-performing DTC brands employ daily to achieve 10-20%+ conversion rates on their eCommerce websites. Note: If you don't see my comment below with the link, choose 'Recent Comments' in the dropdown below my post.

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It's here! Our latest Marketing Happy Hour Open for Hire article features 26 incredible marketing professionals currently looking for their next opportunities. If you're #hiring, we highly recommend taking a peek at this shortlist of talent as you search for the perfect fit! Meet 26 Marketing Professionals Open For Hire Right Now 🤝 https://lnkd.in/gFwRkwqm Thank you to Cambry Thompson, MBA, Lindley Patton, Ishaba Iashfy Haque, Jake Terrell, Emma Prewitt, Lauren Roth, DeAnna Woods, Shelby Dubin, Jessica B., Cameron Kelly, Rebecca Spencer, Kyla A., Emily Wildenhaus, Kayla Evett O'Rorke, Ben Dupuy, Jay Jones, Alex Lukin, Eshaan Chakraborty, Emily Harold, Karine Wills, Ashley A., Marisa Schaeffer, Kasey Dunn, Taylor Burt, Sudeshna Das, + Danielle Kilberg for sharing your stories with us! Some stand-out answers to our favorite question: What's something you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? "One thing I wish I knew earlier in my career is the significance of networking and building professional relationships. Networking isn't just about collecting business cards or LinkedIn connections; it's about cultivating genuine connections with others in your field. These connections can open doors to new opportunities, provide valuable insights and advice, and offer support during challenging times. Investing time and effort into networking early on can greatly accelerate career growth and development." - Ashley A. "The only way you're going to develop in your career is by asking the hard questions and having the hard conversations. Be inspired to learn, and don't be embarrassed to ask when you don't understand something. Honestly, everyone would rather you ask, ask and ask again than to do something but do it wrong without saying a word." - Rebecca Spencer "Build a portfolio of everything you work on as it's happening, even if it just starts out as bullet points. It's easy to say "oh I'll just go back and add everything later" but in reality, you'll forget important details or entire projects you've worked on depending on how long you wait. It's helpful to have a living, breathing doc of all the things you've accomplished not only for future employers but also so you can recognize how much you've grown and how far you've come." - Taylor Burt #MarketingHappyHour #marketingprofessionals #marketingjobs #openforhire #opentowork #hiringmanager #jobsearch #jobhunt #talentsearch #recruiters Cassie Tucker

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The biggest mistake DTC brands make when trying to grow: They run ads for all of their products. Your aim shouldn't be to have a low CAC across your entire assortment. Your aim should be to have a healthy CAC while only advertising products that: 1, Drive repeat purchases. 2. Make customers want to try more products from you. 3. Make customers want to share your product with their friends. Once you look at your data and realize that not every product in your assortment can do these things, Growth becomes easy.

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Our team 5x’d email revenue for this DTC brand, from $8,865/m in July to $44,183/m in September last year. This brand was suffering from low open rates due to poor deliverability. Fixing deliverability can be a lengthy and delicate process when lots of prior damage has been done. In this case, it took us 3 months to solve their inboxing issues. A ton of effort, but the results speak for themselves. We added half a million dollars in additional revenue to this brand per year. PURELY through fixing their deliverability. Fixing sender reputation can make the difference between a 6-figure & 7-figure DTC brand. Despite this, criminally few DTC brands (and sadly, email marketers) understand the importance of email deliverability. Here are 5 reasons why fixing your deliverability is so important: 1/ Direct sales hit Your emails won’t generate any sales if nobody sees them. Imagine running Meta ads to Facebook Messenger instead of stories or news feeds. Same concept. 2/ Wasted effort All your email efforts are wasted with low deliverability. Did you hire the best copywriters to compose highly converting emails? With a weak sender's reputation, this is money and time down the drain. 3/ List churn Bad inboxing means your list will eventually disengage. All that money spent driving people to your email list is wasted if people unsubscribe. 4/ Less brand awareness Email can do the heavy lifting of nurturing a true relationship with your audience & building up brand awareness. That opportunity shrinks to zero when nobody sees your emails. 5/ Negative brand image What’s worse than no brand awareness? Negative brand awareness. When people actually consider checking their spam folder, they’ll associate your brand with “junk.” I can’t think of a worse outcome than this. Concerned your email deliverability isn’t where it should be? Send me a connection request & I’ll help you out.

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When did DTC marketing become so lazy? Let's do an exercise: 👩 Customer visits website 👩‍💻 DTC marketer - HEY! You want 20% off? - Give me your email and get 20% off! - You're trying to leave? But we offered you 20% off... we were going to send you eXCluSivE offers you definitely can't find anywhere else on the internet. - Thanks for your email. Here's your 20% off. - How come you haven't bought yet? - Friendly reminder, your cart will explode 💥 in 3 hours and you will never be able to purchase from us, EVER. - We upped your EXcLusIVe offer to 25%, we don't do this for anyone 😑 - Your 25% off is ExPIrinG tomorrow 👀 - These sell really fast and there are only 2 left on the planet. - Did you hear us? This is your last chance. 🚶‍♀️ Customer has left 👩 9 days later... customer comes back to site 👩‍💻 DTC marketer again: - Hey, you want 20% off!???? This may be the best example for #DTC marketers to take a page out of the #B2B marketer's playbook. You have to understand that there is a buying cycle for consumers just like there is for businesses. Instead of pushing offers 24/7, do this: - Understand where they are coming from and what interests them - Personalize their experience and provide value, talk about the benefits and results they'll achieve with the product - Educate them and provide social proof - Talk about how it will make their life better or easier, and try to do it in an entertaining way Stop pushing offers as you're only marketing strategy. Start entertaining, educating, and providing some sort of human element. I guarantee you, this is the best #marketingstrategy to see growth.

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Google Ads has lots of demographic information you can lean into with your paid media targeting. Check out the latest Paid Media Pros video & Joe Martinez will give you a full rundown! >> https://lnkd.in/eQAsuBFd

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