Optily Radio: Accelerate eCommerce Marketing

As the data-sharing relationship between large platforms and brands changes, are you covering your bases with zero-party data? This week we discuss how quizzes can help you build up your database and personalize your approach with each potential customer.Gen Furukawa is the co-Founder of Prehook, a leading quiz platform for Shopify merchants. Gen has been in eCommerce for over 10 years, with the last 7 years in eCommerce SaaS. Prior to Prehook, he was part of the founding team and VP of Marketing at Jungle Scout, the leading software for Amazon sellers. He is also the host of his own eCommerce marketing podcast, Cart Overflow.Kevin Stagg is our Chief Marketing and Customer Officer who brings a wealth of experience from working at both B2C and B2B brands, big and small, including international companies like Microsoft and Ding.Three highlights from our discussion were:Growing brand reputation through quizzesA template for a successful quizEnriching your existing marketing lists

Email marketing is a tough nut to crack with spam filters getting more robust and inboxes overflowing. Jacob Anson takes us through what brands can do to ensure they make the most of their campaigns and product launches through email and SMS.Jacob Anson is the Co-founder of AgencyJR, an eCommerce email marketing agency working with 7 & 8-figure brands. He's grown a fully remote team to 50 people, led huge email and SMS campaigns, and generated multiple 7-figure results in revenue with his digital marketing agency.Brendan Hughes, Optily's CEO, has decades of experience on both the ad-buying and ad-selling sides of the business.Three points we covered in this episode were:Email list segmentationServer whitelisting to avoid spam foldersThe balance between evergreen and promotional content

Developing unique creative for social media is a crucial element in your marketing strategy. Given the volume of competition, it can be really difficult to stand out and tell a story within a very limited timeframe.Lauren Schwartz, CEO and Founder of The Loft 325, discusses the strategies and tactics that have worked for her clients in making stand-out videos and statics for their eCommerce campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Lauren is a thought leader in profitable creative strategies for eCommerce brands and a design professional with over 15 years of experience within the digital space. Lauren's passions lie in creating top-performing ad creatives. She has personally led the creative strategy for brands such as Love Wellness, Needed, Kate Farms, AutoBrush, and many more.Claire Murphy, Optily's Creative Director, also joined the conversation to add her expertise to the discussion. She has over a decade of experience in design and advertising. Starting with an M.Sc. in Multimedia, her love of all facets of digital media has only continued to grow. Claire has experience as both an in-house creative lead and as a freelance designer. At Optily, she produces and oversees all the elements of branding, design, and visual content creation for organic and paid marketing.Some of the topics we covered in this episode include:The major Dos and Don'ts of video marketingTelling a story in a short videoClean briefing for internal and external designers

Have you thought about tapping into audio for promoting your brand both internally and externally? This week's guest, Nora Sudduth, goes into private podcasting and how it can help grow your business.Nora Sudduth is the Co-founder and CRO of Hello Audio, a company that turns your content into private audio feeds that your customers can listen to any time, anywhere. She is a leading marketing and conversion strategist who has helped businesses sell over $500M worth of products and services online. She's also designed several courses and coaching and certification programs that have generated millions more.In addition to being our CEO, Brendan Hughes has authored a book on helping eCommerce companies grow through digital marketing and has worked with a variety of businesses in helping them scale through online strategies.The highlights from our conversation are:Why is audio a powerful tool for brandsThe difference between public and private podcastsWays for companies to easily launch podcast content

Are you leveraging product seeding with your influencers? This week's guest, Cody Wittick, goes into the details of making the most of your influencer marketing program.Cody Wittick is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Kynship, an influencer marketing agency located in Orange County, CA. Prior to co-founding Kynship, Cody began his journey at QALO, the brand that created the silicone wedding ring. Throughout his time there, he built out a robust influencer program of over 500 influencers, all through the foundation of seeding. Eppie McDonnell is a skilled social media and digital marketing executive, having helped brands scale their growth through paid social campaigns. She is now an Account Manager on the Optily+ team, helping eCommerce companies grow by implementing cross-channel strategies to increase the overall return on ad spend.The main points we covered were:Creating a relationship with influencers through product seedingPaid media with influencer contentThe value of video over static

Email marketing is a powerful tool for eCommerce, but are all your newsletter blasts effective if they're the same for each person? Erica Salm Rench discusses the power of customizing emails, SEO tactics, and organic growth strategies.Erica Salm Rench, COO of Rasa.io, the only AI-driven smart newsletter platform designed so organizations of any size can personalize content for every subscriber on their email list. She gets to blend her love of digital marketing technology, partnership development, and customer service in order to support the incredible community of rasa.io clients.The highlights from this episode include:Tools and tactics to stand out in the competitive world of SEOAI and automation for content creationCustomized email marketing with a variety of contentResources:SemrushMarketMuseMarketing AI Institute

Is your business leveraging SMS in the most optimal way for communications and sales? Osa Gaius discusses the best ways eCommerce companies can introduce SMS as a highly personalized channel.Osa Gaius is the Founder and CEO of Parrot, a mobile payments platform that helps companies sell products directly to their customers over text and collect 1-click payments.Kevin Stagg, Optily's Chief Marketing and Customer Officer, brings a wealth of experience from working at both B2C and B2B brands, big and small, including international companies like Microsoft and Ding to the conversation.The main topics we discussed were: How SMS can be a hyper-personal form of engagementScaling personalized communication without being spammySMS for subscription servicesResources:Hiyo Alcohol Alternative

Are you missing out on sales by not partnering with other brands in your space? Why let customers leave your site to buy a helmet elsewhere if you only sell bikes?David Perry, is the CEO and Co-Founder of Carro, a new eCommerce partnership network that over 30K Shopify brands use. He talks to us about changing how eCommerce brands can partner with other brands and influencers.Adam Vaira, the Client Strategy Consultant at Optily, was on to share his view on partnerships as a Shopify store owner himself.Three of the main topics we discussed were:How partnerships between brands benefit both partiesThe problems with the current influencer marketing modelLinks between eCommerce and the gaming world

ROAS isn't the only metric you need to be considering in the complex world of eCommerce. Overall profitability and product-specific profit and loss are incredibly important according to this week's guest, Kathleen Booth.Kathleen Booth is the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Tradeswell, where she's on a mission to empower a new generation of digital-first marketplace brands. Prior to joining Tradeswell, she led marketing at several VC-backed B2B SaaS businesses in the eCommerce and cybersecurity spaces and was the founder and CEO of a digital marketing agency where she advised hundreds of companies on go-to-market and digital marketing strategies. Outside of work, Kathleen is the host of the long-running Inbound Success Podcast, which features interviews with top-performing marketers, and was named one of the Top 50 B2B Marketing Influencers of 2021 by TopRank.Grace Mercer is an Optily Account Manager who has years of experience working with brands as a Digital Media Strategist and Consultant, Content Creator, and Freelance Media Assistant. At Optily, she works with new eCommerce brands to help them develop the most effective growth strategy for their business.The three standout topics we covered were:How to compete in real-time, data-driven eCommerceUnifying data across various systemsAligning your teams within your companyResources:The Future of Empowered Ecommerce: Report from the survey of 300 eCommerce leaders

Leveraging marketing to bring new customers to your store is the first step, but applying data to increase your existing customers' lifetime value is a crucial follow-up. In this episode, we dive into RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) modeling and tactics from customer value optimization (CVO) evangelist Valentin Radu.Valentin Radu is the Founder and CEO of Omniconvert, a growth enabler for mid-size DTC eCommerce and retail companies looking to increase customer lifetime value and decrease customer acquisition costs. As well as being a prolific speaker on CVO, Valentin is also the Founder of CVO Academy, a platform that teaches eCommerce business leaders how to scale their brands profitably and sustainably.Valentin has generously offered a free year of instruction (worth $749!) to the first commenter on this podcast! Brendan Hughes, Optily's CEO, was on with us again to add his own years of experience in helping growing eCommerce brands scale.We covered off a lot in this one, but three topics especially stood out:The importance of measuring data and applying RFM modelingEducating eCommerce leaders to create customer-centric approachesPersonalization of ad campaigns based on customer segmentationResources:CVO Academy

User experience, according to Ciarán Harris starts with the very first interaction someone has with your business. It's on the brand to ensure every touchpoint is examined and optimized to ensure you capture as many interested users as possible.Ciarán Harris is the Co-founder of Each&Other, a Dublin-based award-winning global UX Design consultancy.  He is an award-winning Principal UX Designer, a seasoned technology leader, product strategist, and team creator, who has pioneered early technologies for mobile picture messaging, mobile gamification, and commercial IoT products.Among the topics we discussed were:What encompasses the user experienceHow to efficiently conduct user testingThe main annoyances to avoid on your site

Is customer service part of a company's brand or marketing? Mia Bobak says it's both.How you approach the pre-purchase interactions is so critical to a customer's purchase decision. And if there are any issues after they buy, how you go about resolving them can be the deciding factor between a brand evangelist and a 1-star reviewer.Mia Bobak is the Technology Partner Manager at Gorgias, where she collaborates with tech partners to strengthen “better together” relationships and achieve joint goals. Prior to Gorgias, Mia has experience building and scaling partner programs from the ground up.Adam Vaira, Optily's Client Strategy Consultant and Shopify store owner, joined to share his own insights from helping online businesses scale over the years. Among the topics we discussed were:Turning your customer support into a profit centerHow to leverage automation most effectively to grow salesEfficiently tying together cross-channel inquiriesResources:Gorgias (2 months free for Optily Radio listeners!)OLIPOP Case Study

Shopify is built so that virtually anyone can launch their own eCommerce store easily. While customizable templates and a simple UI make it easy, the overwhelming number of apps and options can be a bit much for a busy store owner to sift through.Keith Matthews of Milk Bottle Labs, Ireland's top Shopify agency, spoke with us about what aspects of a store can really make a brand shine.Keith is the agency's founder and host of his own eCommerce podcast, the Milk Bottle eCommerce Show. Previously, he worked with several Blue Chip organizations, including O2, Telefonica, and Digicel.Brendan Hughes, Optily's CEO, joined the conversation, drawing from his extensive experience with eCommerce clients.Among the topics we discussed were:The value of project management for store building action itemsWhen a business can benefit from professional web developmentEmail automation for business growthResources:BasecampRewindKlaviyoOrderlyEmails and OrderlyPrints Loox

Search Engine Optimization is a long-term strategy that can pay off big. Sure, paid ads are great for quick wins, but growing your business is about the marathon approach. In this episode, we talk to two organic growth experts, Kevin Miller and Bridget Reed from GR0, a digital marketing agency specializing in SEO, about how eCommerce brands should approach SEO and Content Marketing. Kevin is the Co-Founder and CEO of GR0 who started off in the tech and marketing world in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a few years at Google, before moving south to LA. He worked in Growth Marketing, invested in several companies, and freelanced in SEO before launching GR0 with Jon Zacharias in 2020.Bridget, GR0's Director of Content, started off as a freelance SEO consultant and is now heading up the content creation for Gr0, overseeing 200+ content writers in their network.Among the topics we discussed were:Setting realistic expectations for SEO strategyUsing generic language vs. brand-specific termsHow new brands can rankResources:Bite Toothpaste AhrefsSemrushKw FinderScreaming FrogGrammarlyClearscope

Influencer marketing also referred to as creator commerce, is a powerful tool to get your brand and products more visibility. Creators traditionally benefited from sponsorships by leading visitors away from their own sites and towards product pages on a brand's site. A higher bounce rate equating to more success didn't seem to make much sense to this week's guest, Rishabh Jain.His solution to this oddity in marketing was Fermat Commerce, a platform that enables creators to embed products and carts directly on their sites. He discusses the value that brand/creator partnerships have for both parties in making the user journey smooth for the customers.Kevin Stagg, Optily's Chief Marketing and Customer Officer and frequent guest on the show, joined us to discuss fixing this broken arrangement between creators and brands that results in a "wow" for customers, rather than frustration.Among the topics we discussed in this episode were:Online content communities inspiring purchasesBrands as content creatorsThe best way to create a partnership with a creatorResources:Fermat CommerceUpfluenceGrinCreatorIQMarine Layer

There's something rewarding about making a purchase you've worked towards--and there's research to back that up. Haggling can leave you with the satisfaction of locking in a good deal, while also making the seller happy to have earned a new customer. In this episode, we discuss a new app that's bringing haggling away from market stalls and into the Shopify store environment.Rosie Bailey is the CEO of Nibble Technology, an interactive chatbot that enables you to haggle for a product you're interested in purchasing. She discusses the power of instant interaction with your customers who might otherwise leave without checking out. Max Tomlinson, Optily's Marketing Automation Manager, joined the conversation to add his expertise in automating our own chatbot, email marketing, and customer inquiries. Among the topics covered in this episode were:User retention and conversation rate optimizationIncreasing average order value through negotiationTargeting chatbot negotiation based on a variety of triggersResources:Nibble TechnologyNoneconomic Motivations For Price Haggling: an Exploratory Study, Research showing the 3 needs that haggling fulfills 

Is Magento a solution that you've considered for your scaling eCommerce company? We wrap up this first season of Optily Radio by talking to Robert Rand, Director of Partnerships & Alliances at JetRails, about this robust platform solution. Magento is definitely not for everyone, but for growing companies who need more customization and flexibility, it can be a great alternative to other SaaS offerings.Robert Rand is the Director of Partnerships & Alliances at JetRails and also hosts his own eCommerce podcast, the Jetrails Podcast. Prior to working for Jetrails, he helped co-found Rand Internet Marketing, a full-service digital agency. Chris Machin is Optily's Director Strategic of Partnerships. Chris has nearly a decade of experience in partnerships, having worked with all the major platforms in eCommerce.The big topics we discussed were:Site performance impacting SEOAdopting third-party solutions to fill all eCommerce needsLooking at the long game when it comes to eCommerce and marketingResources:Hyvä Themes

Is your Shopify store operating at full capacity? This week's chat with Chase Clymer, Co-Founder of Electric Eye, and Brendan Hughes goes into the process his agency takes with helping  Shopify vendors succeed.The past year and a half has been hard for brands--from lockdowns to iOS 14 and 15. Chase provides many insights into how eCommerce brands should respond to maximize growth. Chase Clymer is a fellow podcaster of Honest eCommerce and Co-Founder of Electric Eye, a fully remote eCommerce agency, that works with Shopify stores on design, development, and marketing to help them scale.Brendan Hughes is our CEO here at Optily and has decades of experience on both the ad buying and ad selling sides of the business. Some of the themes we touched on were:Conducting an in-depth business audit with a new clientThe importance of market research and product/market fitBuilding out custom dashboards for analyticsResources:Klayvio: for email and SMS marketingTraction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman

Finding money to fund your marketing and inventory can be tough for early-stage eCommerce businesses. Revenue-based financing could be an option to consider. In this episode, Outfund CEO, Daniel Lipinski, takes us through the difficulties many founders have with traditional lenders and the motivation for starting a company that is now the top investor of eCommerce companies in the UK.Some of the topics we covered off in this episode were:The benefits of revenue-based financing over other funding optionsInconsistency with supply chains The results of a social spending experimentDaniel Lipinski is the CEO and Founder of Outfund. Outfund is a new player in the Fintech space, specializing in revenue-based funding for eCommerce startups. Prior to starting Outfund, Daniel was CEO of ParcelBright, a VC-backed logistics platform, which was acquired in 2016. Hilary Knox is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years of experience in the finance industry, working in financial planning, reporting, and analysis for several companies across Ireland and Australia, including ten years at Vodafone. Resources:Outfund's social media experiment details

Are your Amazon listings optimized to maximize conversions?In this episode, Emma Schermer Tamir, founder of Amazon marketing agency, Marketing by Emma, takes us through the key things to remember when building out a top-notch Amazon listing.Emma Schermer Tamir is the owner of Marketing by Emma which she founded in 2016. It's an agency that specializes in eCommerce copywriting, especially for Amazon, but also for websites and landing pages.  Emma is a third-generation creative with over ten years of marketing experience in the US and abroad.Amy Coyle is our Head of Customer Success and has nine years' in-house and agency-side experience in digital marketing and account management, across a variety of sectors including eCommerce, travel, hospitality, and event management. She's worked for some big names in Ireland including, Wolfgang Digital, Pressup Entertainment Group, and Oracle.Among the topics we discussed in this episode were: Basing your language choices around your target audienceAmazon SEO research, creativity, and best practicesAmazon sales only being finalized once the product is received and keptResources:SEO research: Helium 10, ZonGuru

Do you truly understand your customers? A/B testing can only get us so far and doesn't provide insight into the "why" behind their preferences.This week's episode goes into the fascinating approach to creating customer personas based on mindtyping. Charles Chy is the CEO of MindCart AI, a startup that's building upon the cutting-edge technology developed by Dr. Howard Moskowitz for a whole swatch of industries with huge success.Charles Chy is the CEO of MindCart AI, a consumer insights platform built for B2C marketers who crave a deep, fundamental understanding of their customers. He's also an advisor for Cheffe Inc, a smart cooking platform that provides guided recipes powered by AI, and is also an advisor for Soltech Solutions, an eCommerce company that specializes in plant lights for interior design.Kevin Stagg is our Marketing and Customer Director here at Optily. He's got nearly 20 years of experience working with both B2C and B2B brands, big and small, including international companies like Microsoft and Ding.In this episode, we covered off topics including:- The difficulties in striking the messaging fit for new companies- Quantifying the consumer's thinking and mindset through testing- Testing the market before you enter the marketResources:Malcolm Gladwell TED Talk on Dr. Howard MoskowitzThinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahnema

Amazon is a marketplace, not a catalog. It's not a "set it and forget it" environment, which is something many brands are not fully aware of. Are you making the most of your Amazon listings?In this episode, Tom Baker of FordeBaker goes into the ways you can bring in customers through ads, leveraging reviews, and SEO to ensure you maximize the potential of this truly powerful eCommerce channel. Tom Baker founded FordeBaker in order to fill the need for an Amazon consultancy that could help companies succeed on this often overwhelming platform. It is now a full-service Amazon marketing and operations agency helping businesses with creating listings, improving SEO, advertising, and much more. Prior to starting the agency, Tom was the Head of Marketing for an emerging STEM toy brand at Technology Will Save Us, and has years of experience working in marketing for the gaming industry at Betway, BoyleSport, Ladbrokes, and bwin.Keith O'Reilly is an award-winning product innovator and has over 20 years of experience in product development in advertising across online, offline, in-store, and social media. In this in-depth conversation about the potentials, pitfalls, and variety Amazon can add to an eCommerce business, we covered several big topics, including:Review management and a proto-CRM systemLeveraging the Amazon ads networkAmazon data analytics and attributionResources:The Ultimate Guide to Winning the Buy Box on Amazon

Data visualization can help marketers extract so much valuable information that would otherwise go unnoticed. Why is it then that there can often be such a huge disconnect between the data teams and marketers?In this episode, we get into the ways that we can bridge that divide with Michel Guillet of Salesloft and our own Director of Data and Analytics, TJ Sizemore. Michel Guillet is Senior Product Manager of Reporting, Analytics, and Data Science at SalesLoft. He is a creative product leader with over 10 years of experience in information product management and data products. He also currently teaches at Georgia State University as an Adjunct Professor of Data Visualization and at the General Assembly Atlanta in Data Analytics. Tj Sizemore is Optily's Director of Data and Analytics and heads up the creation of our data-driven predictive models for ad spend optimization. He has over a decade of experience in Data Analytics, with extensive experience with some of the big names in eCommerce including Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Kohl's. He completed both an MBA and a Master's in Analytics from Georgia State University, where he took a Tableau workshop led by Michel. Among a ton of topics about the intersection of data and marketing, we touched on:The importance of knowing who you're presenting toStorytelling with dataInteractive data presentationResources:Garr Reynolds, Presentation ZenAmanda Cox, NY Times quote. "There's a strand of the data viz world that argues that everything could be a bar chart. That's possibly true but also possibly a world without joy."  "If I had more time I would have written you a shorter letter."Juiceanalytics: A good source of information design resources and simple reporting tools. Shopify Analytics 

Is your site optimized to ensure the highest number of visitors end up buying something? This week, we talk to Navah Hopkins a PPC and CRO expert on what eCommerce businesses can do to ensure they make the most of their website real-estate.Navah Hopkins, who goes by @Navahf on Twitter, is the Director of Paid Media at Justuno, a company that uses AI to optimize websites for high conversions. She's been in the digital marketing field since 2008 and she loves sharing her experience at various public speaking engagements. She's also a regular contributor to Search Engine Journal, SEMrush, WordStream, and PPC Chats on Twitter. Navah's also been named among PPC Hero's Top 25 Most Influential PPC Experts.Helen Grimes is Optily's User Experience Designer and has years of experience in UX. She's currently working on our big redesign project for the Optily app. Prior to joining our team, she interned as a User Experience Designer at Agilent Technologies in Germany. She is also a graduate of TUD, where she received a Master's in Creative Digital Media and UX with a specialization in Interaction Design.Resources:CRO ToolsLogrocket: User journey, site errors, and rage clicksAdobe XD: WireframingInVision: Usability testingFullStory: User journey and reactionsGoogle Analytics: Free option HotJar: Heatmaps

"Audience is the new keyword." A pretty bold statement for those who have lived and breathed keywords in digital marketing. In this week's episode, Jon Kagan takes us through how search has changed over the years and where he sees it going in the years to come.Jon Kagan, on Twitter under the handle @JonKagan, has been working in the digital marketing field since 2005 and is currently the VP of Search and Biddable Media at 9rooftops. Prior to this, he ran search marketing teams at Mediacom, Forbes, and Digitas. In 2013, Jon received the Google Search Excellence Award and more recently he's been named among PPC Hero's Top 25 Most Influential PPC Experts. Jon is a regular contributor to Search Engine Journal and PPC Chats on Twitter.Kevin Stagg is our Marketing and Customer Director here at Optily. He's got nearly 20 years of experience working with both B2C and B2B brands, big and small, including international companies like Microsoft and Ding.Resources:How Paid Search Incrementality Impacts SEO (Does 1+1=3?) (Jon Kagan)Remember When Keywords Mattered Most in PPC? Well, That's Changing (Jon Kagan)Analyzing the Relationship Between Organic andSponsored Search Advertising: Positive, Negative,or Zero Interdependence? (Sha Yang and Anindya Ghose) University Study on 1+1=3)Competitor Bidding Strategy in SEM: Waking Up and Choosing Chaos (Jon Kagan)

Are you advertising beyond just Facebook and Google? If not, you could be missing out on really valuable audiences that can be found on Quora, Reddit, or YouTube.  This week we chat with Joe Martinez and Brendan Hughes about how going beyond the major channels can pay off big for your eCommerce marketing.Joe Martinez (@MilwaukeePPC)  is a veteran of the pay-per-click world and was named among the Top 25 Most Influential PPC Experts by PPC Hero three years in a row. He's a regular columnist on Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and WordStream, along with being a frequent contributor to many other digital marketing online publications. He's also spoken at some of the industry's largest conferences and co-founded the Paid Media Pros Youtube channel.Brendan Hughes is the CEO here at Optily and has decades of experience creating and implementing digital marketing and eCommerce strategies. He's led teams across many high-growth consumer-facing organizations, so he's very familiar with both the challenges and opportunities digital marketers face every day. Resources:Quora for BusinessAdvertising on RedditHulu Ads

Facebook and Instagram ads are kind of a must in eCommerce, but are yours set up in the best way? This week, we talk to Akvile DeFazio about how to structure a great campaign on these two huge social platforms, the best ad formats to use, and how she's been adapting to recent privacy changes. Akvile is the founder of Social Media Agency AKvertise, which won the best small agency award in the U.S. Social Media Awards last year. She has experience working with a wide array of companies, from outdoor gear and apparel eCommerce, to pet health insurance, online publications, and event marketing via paid search and social. She's always posting interesting thoughts on new developments in social media advertising on Twitter, so make sure you're following her there at @AkvileDeFazio.On the Optily side, we had our Campaign Manager, Klayvann Camargo, join the chat. Klayvann's got over a decade of experience running social ads and also started his own micro-agency in Brazil before he joined the Optily team. Resources:How to Drive More Conversions (In Less Time) with Facebook Dynamic Ads, Akvile DeFazio

If you're in eCommerce there's a good chance you're on Shopify. Even if you're not, this week's guest, Kelly Vaughn, goes into eCommerce strategies that pay off no matter your platform of choice. Things like owning that you're a small team, being a more human brand, and making sure your visual assets are uniform can be applied across the board.Kelly is a developer whose path to eCommerce is somewhat unorthodox. She's the founder of The Taproom, a Shopify development agency that's grown in leaps and bounds over the past year. She's also the co-host of two podcasts of her own, Commerce Tea and The Ladybug Podcast.  She's got a large network on Twitter, where she constantly posting about her work and personal life, so make sure to follow here there at @Kvlly.Kevin Stagg, Optily's Marketing Director, joined the conversation this week too. Kevin is a marketing leader with nearly 20 years of experience in B2C and B2B marketing. He's got a ton of experience in both SMBs and Enterprise level businesses with international reach, including Microsoft and Ding. Resources: Demystifying omnichannel: selling everywhere (Commerce Tea)

While eCommerce has suddenly shifted to the main way of shopping during the pandemic, there are certain things that people will still prefer to buy in person. Is your store 100% online or do you also have a physical presence? Greg Sterling (known on Twitter as @gsterling) and Keith O'Reilly join us in the studio to chat about the melding of online and offline, the importance of making it easy to shop, and knowing what your customers want.Greg is the VP of Market Insights at Uberall, a company that creates "Near Me" brand experiences. He has been working in search, particularly local search marketing for over 2 decades. He's recently finished up his 14-year tenure as a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land.Keith is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Optily. He is an award-winning product innovator and has over 20 years of experience in product development in advertising across online, offline, in-store, and social media.Resources:COVID-19 is the asteroid that struck American small business, Greg SterlingAt least 2M Amazon customers went to Kohl's to make a return last yearPrimark refuses to go online despite £1bn lockdown lossGoogle My Business

It's hard to get around Google Shopping when you're in eCommerce, but do you know when to use Google Smart Shopping instead? Kirk Williams, known by his Twitter handle @PPCKirk, joins Brendan Hughes, Optily's CEO, in this episode to talk about the data black hole you get with Smart campaigns, tips on structuring your Google Shopping campaigns, and his new book "Ponderings of a PPC Professional."Kirk Williams is the Owner of ZATO Marketing, a small agency that specializes in paid search on Google and Microsoft and caters especially to eCommerce businesses. He's been named among the Top 25 Most Influential PPCers in the world by PPC Hero for the past 5 years. Brendan Hughes is the CEO here at Optily and has decades of experience creating and implementing digital marketing and eCommerce strategies. He's led teams across many high-growth consumer-facing organizations, so he's very familiar with both the challenges and opportunities digital marketers face every day. Resources:Ponderings of a PPC Professional, Kirk WilliamsSmart Shopping Campaigns with PPCKirk (Udemy)

Search is getting harder, especially when we're told to write for humans who don't read, not for robots who do. In this episode of Optily Radio, we have Google expert, Barry Schwartz, and Optily's resident Google Guy, Randall Glick, on to talk about Google news and trends: cookie-free Chrome and FLoC, how link building has become a lot more complex, and what steps companies can take to ensure they're ranking for the terms that matter to them.Barry Schwartz is the founder of Search Engine Roundtable, News Editor of Search Engine Land, and CEO of Rusty Brick, a Web service firm specializing in customized online technology, based out of New York. He's worked in Search for almost 2 decades and has spoken, moderated, and coordinated at many a search marketing conference. In 2019, Barry won the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land and in 2018 the US Search Personality Of The Year award from US Search Awards.Randall Glick is the Product Manager at Optily. He's worked in Digital for over 20 years with agencies, corporates, and startups, and has been on both sides of client/supplier relationship. Randall is also a lecturer in Digital Marketing, having provided content for programs at various institutions, including local colleges here in Ireland TU Dublin and UCD, along with Boston College in the States.Resources:Barry's TwitterAccount @RustyBrickGoogle's FLoC Is a Terrible Idea, EFFFLoC is coming — Here's what we know so far, George NguyenFeatured Snippets Back To Normal Levels In Google Search, Barry SchwartzRusty Brick Youtube Channel

The inaugural episode of Optily Radio hosts Brendan Hughes, Optily's CEO, and his wealth of experience in eCommerce and digital marketing across a variety of sectors on both the media buying and media selling sides of the industry. We talked about how hard it was for small businesses to know what's working in digital advertising, the importance of a strategic approach, and whether the sales funnel is still a thing.Brendan took time over the Christmas period to put together a book detailing some topics that he discussed here and more, including:Is the sales funnel dead?How can we accurately measure ad attribution?Which analytics data should I trust?How should we talk to audiences at different stages?Brendan's free eBook will be out soon and you can register your interest HERE to be the first to download your copy.