Issue 142: Leadership Lessons from Shopify & AG1

+ AI took err jerrrbs!

September 17, 2024

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So, where are we at? From the last issue… cats and dogs are currently in danger… Trump’s been shot at again and ALSO hates Taylor Swift… Founder mode is on? Off? Have we decided?

It’s all a bit much for this Tuesday, folks. Might need to add some extra macha to cleanse from the non-stop non-sense.

silly modern family GIF by HULU

| TWEET OF THE WEEK

This week was great. I was lucky enough to have Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, on the Marketing Upgraders podcast, and also had a friend, Kat Cole, CEO of Athletic Green, speak to our team about leadership and feedback.

I've been reflecting about both this weekend and wanted to share my takeaways from these two incredible leaders and friends. Unfortunately, the Kat talk was amazing, but it is private and just for our team. However, you will have the opportunity to hear Harley nerd out about e-commerce, Shopify, and Founder Mode on an upcoming episode of Marketing Operators, so stay tuned.

There are three big things that stood out to me. Number one, they are both really customer obsessed. They had some great moments and lines, and both highlighted the importance of having customer obsession as your mission, and your critical North Star. Doing so is probably the best way to align teams and incentives, especially in a growing organization and during tough times. No company, as great as Shopify or Athletic Greens, is immune from challenges, so that was a great reminder to be customer focused.

For example, Harley has his own side hustle, a tea brand, and he frequently reviews TikTok ads performance and is in the Shopify dashboard, truly embodying the principle of eating your own dog food. Kat is also very customer obsessed, evident in their marketing, products, and customer service.

She emphasizes what is best for the customer when decisions have to be made, especially when teams may not agree. This is a great principle, and it's something we've been trying to implement. We're having every employee in our company work in our stores a few times a year, which has been a really fun initiative. So, the first takeaway is to be customer obsessed.

| YOUTUBE UNIVERSITY

Facebook Ads HOT TAKES 🌶 (with Barry Hott and Archit Batlaw)

| TOGETHER WITH BRANDWISE

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| QUICK SHOTS

  • @sourfraser We’re making more and more ads that have 0 background music and 0 captions. Performance is proving positive.

  • @SeanEcom Fake success and real success look very similar online. Guy posts a lambo, screenshots, says you can have it all. Looks pretty legit right? Then, you have @mikebeckhamsm…

  • @andrewjfaris So you've just run a big, successful promotion. It went great. What do you expect to happen when you go back to evergreen offers and ads after? What do you do to handle that time period best, if anything?

  • @zachmstuck 7 Step DTC Playbook (if you want to hit 7 figures profit in the next 12 months)

  • @CoryDobbin If you're a struggling DTC brand, here's a secret: most aren't winning. Only 25% of businesses succeed long-term, and I'd bet that's even less for eComm. Keep going. You're not alone. Ignore the online noise that's discouraging you.

| HERE FOR THE MEMES

| AND IN OTHER NEWS…

Exclusive: Why Grove Collaborative’s Evolving Business Model Required Replatforming - Retail TouchPoints

Grove Collaborative takes RTP behind the scenes of its replatforming and shares learnings as it gets ready to launch early next year.

How Cole Haan is tweaking its product pipeline to become a more everyday lifestyle brand

Cole Haan wants to outfit people from "nine to five and five to nine" as a lifestyle brand, its brand president David Maddocks said.

Online Marketplace Faire Launches Advertising Tool For Brands

Faire, the online marketplace created to connect wholesale vendors with small retailers, is offering brands a way to boost sales with promoted listings.

What on earth's going on at Boohoo? - Retail Gazette

As Boohoo faces plummeting profits, fierce competition from Shein and a looming debt deadline, Retail Gazette looks at what's going on at the business amid a series of confusing u-turns.

1st UK TikTok Shop Super Brand Day with L'Oreal Paris - ChannelX

1st of its kind Super Brand Day takeover on TikTok Shop will see L'Oreal Paris offering up to 60% off on their best-selling products

| GET LINKED

Tom Goodwin on LinkedIn:

I'm nothing like arrogant enough to think I'm right here, but hear me out, after years of thought, I'm still sure the entire $700,000bn Digital Advertising industry is built on the entirely wrong principles.

There are 7 profoundly interesting differences about making ads for the "Digital" vs "trad media"

1) Targeting
We have lots of data to help us target the ads and can serve audiences of one. We can also target based on prior actions, or other triggers that show interest.

2) Tracking
We can see what people do after seeing or clicking on the ad and form a data trail we can use to see concurrent events

3) Democratization
Ads are now cheaper, supply costs are near zero, and minimum buys are much smaller, this means even tiny companies can make/place ads.

4) Interactivity
People when served an ad, can unlike trad media, click on it and make something happen, which combined with (2) means we can optimize ads and combined with (1) it means we can retarget people

5) Amazing canvas
Screens connected to the internet are the best canvases we could imagine. The resolution is incredible, images can move, sound can be played, ads can be supplied in real time, they can become 3D, they can animate, seduce, unfurl, they can be vast and reduce in size, they can be 1 second long and titilate

6) Sequential and Dynamically made
Ads can built over time and tell stories in consquetive units, ads can be instructions to create creative based on logic and real time data, ads can be more specific, more timely, more compelling

7) Shoppability
Ads can sell you anything, anywhere, within 2 clicks. And have real time pricing, dynamic pricing, and personalized pricing.

8) Abundance
Digital screens are where we spent more time than any media, ever made, it's where EVERY demographic is, especially " the hard to reach ones"


It's worth knowing

1) Targeting has largely been shown to be fairly ineffective for most brands and strategies, the data is often wrong and the cost of it, mostly greater than the impacts benefit.

2) Tracking has been shown to be unhelpful. It helps companies claim success but not create it. Targeting and tracking together are used to optimize ads for higher Click Through Rates, which makes little sense as countless studies show that CTR's have no impact on business success, they merely track weird users and bots/
-------

I'm totally baffled as to why the media play for digital ads wasn't

8) Large companies, come to us, TV is dying, print is dead, you need to be here, reach mass audiences like NOWHERE else

7) Anyone, you can now sell anything in a click, lets show you ads that sell like no other

6) Sequential, lets make ads that build over time and tell richer more compelling, more helpful stories.

5) Ad formats, let's make premium, rich, impactful seductive ad formats that feel big, expensive, bold and get your messages noticed.

Every single thing about digital media seems sophisticated, explainable but dumb.

| RECOMMENDED SOFTWARE & SERVICES

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  • For 7-9 figure Shopify merchants: Are your automated emails pulling their weight? I focus on maximizing the revenue from what you already have—no fluff, just smarter, more profitable emails. If you’re done paying for ‘optimization’ without seeing results, let’s talk.

| STAT ATTACK 👊

| THE OUTRO

Less than two months before we come to a definitive conclusion on this year’s presidential race, the results of which we’re absolutely 100% certain both sides will wholeheartedly accept.

✌️ Hang in there!

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