SalesGenomics

Increase conversions in Q4 to maximize profits before year-end. Our Q4 BFCM 2022 Shopify Optimization Checklist will help you end 2022 on a high note.

BFCM 2022 Shopify Optimization Checklist LP

Want to 5-10X your profit this Q4?
Prior preparation and strategy are crucial if you don’t want to leave (easy) money on the table.
What areas to focus on to maximize profit?
Our marketing experts, who generated $75M+ for hundreds of businesses, discuss this in-depth in our latest video.
Click below to watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_YbZo-4XiM&t=2s

$10mln ULTIMATE Q4/BFCM MARKETING STRATEGY for Ecommerce Business Want some Black Friday - Cyber Monday Creative Marketing Ideas and Shopify Optimization Checklist? Click the links below:1. Shopify Optimization Checklist: ...

How to counter increasing costs and advertising fees in times of galloping inflation?

Carry out this one simple test, and…increase pricing.

Surprising as it sounds, it brought great results for one of our skincare clients.

Having worked closely with them for about a year now, we’ve identified the potential for a significant profit increase without
increasing their ad spend.

And so we advised them to test out the following marketing hypothesis:

“Set a higher price for your best-selling kit to increase the profit margin (at the cost of a slight drop in conversion rate)”.

The result? Even better than we expected!

We increased the price from £49 to £59 and the profit-per-order went up by a whopping 23%!

Granted, the conversion rate dropped slightly but we expected that.

Now, what is this price test telling you about?

If you’re running an e-commerce store, especially at the beginning, figuring out your market’s price sensitivity is one of the top priority things you should focus on.

When you know that you can charge more for the same, you’ve just made extra profit without any cost or effort.

And the best way to figure out your market’s price sensitivity is by carrying out pricing and offer tests.

Your goal is to find that sweet spot where your profit is maximized and your conversion rate doesn’t suffer.

Because the more you bump up the price, the more likely that the conversion will drop.

For our client, the CVR dropped slightly but the extra profit was well worth it.

If your agency doesn’t look at your business holistically - it’s time to change the agency, and we have 2 spots for September left.

So, happy (price) testing!

🤯 How to use a retargeting tactic that brings 300% better results compared to FB retargeting but is neglected by many eCom owners?
🔥 How to improve your product page to get more conversions?
🤔 What feature do you have to have when selling in Europe to increase your profit?

This - and much more you'll learn in your eCommerce & Paid Advertising monthly summary – July.2022

Link in the first comment.

From $113k To $200k At 8.9X ROAS, In Just 3 Months [Key Lessons].

Check our last interview with Jessica – our eCommerce Strategist on how we increased the Shopify baby clothing brand from $113k to $200k at 8.9X ROAS in just 3 months.

All of that with Facebook & Google ads, and creative production in a non-English market.

Link: https://sgxmarketing.com/a-baby-clothing-brands-revenue-taken-from-113k-to-200k-at-8-9x-roas-in-just-3-months-key-lessons/

On a monthly basis, we prepare a summary of eCommerce and Advertising news you - as an eCom owner or marketeer should not miss. And it's free.

Hundreds of hustlers are reading our newsletter to improve their eCom revenue. Why don't you?

Check the latest summary here https://twitter.com/sales_genomics/status/1536605172914434049

🚨 BREAKING NEWS in the world of ATTRIBUTION...

TikTok has JUST begun rolling out cross-session conversion tracking for those who opted out of iOS14 tracking.

This is a huge update for TikTok advertisers everywhere as it will now:

1. make TikTok numbers paint a clearer picture into true ad effectiveness

AND

2. should improve performance as the TikTok algorithm should be able to get stronger by reducing the number of false negatives (people the pixel think didn't purchase from an ad, but in reality did actually purchase) that it had previously been operating on.

More info here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6940966475461447680/

🤬 Is Poor TikTok Tracking Killing Your ROAS? 😳
🔥💣 If So – Check Our Case Study Where We Reveal an “Out Of The Box” Tracking Secret to Hit 3.5-ROAS 🔥💣

Click here to check it 👉🏻 https://sgxmarketing.com/is-poor-tiktok-tracking-killing-your-roas-a-tiktok-expert-reveals-an-out-of-the-box-tracking-secret-to-hit-3-5-roars/

How to make viral TikTok videos?

We have analyzed hundreds of viral TikTok videos made by us and made by other agencies and influencers (to not be biased by our perception). Based on this deep-dive analysis we have found 6 factors determining virality.

It should lighten you how you can improve your creatives now.

Happy to answer all questions :)

CS*3 formula to go viral on TikTok [general] CS*3 formula to go viral on TikTok You probably have seen dozens of articles about why TikTok is cool and why you should start work on TikTok for your brand or clients so I won’t go into this. I’ll just put 1 argument - only on TikTok, you can go viral with almost no subscribers, no paid adverti...

🥵 Are your social media marketing efforts not producing results?

You can keep posting for the sake of posting and waste time, resources, and energy in the process.

Or, you can have a clear strategy in place and get the results you want in 21 days.

Find out how with this 21-day roadmap that we have developed to help you create your social media content strategy. You will be guided on what steps to take and which areas of your strategy you should focus on each day.

Get your free copy by clicking the link below ⬇️

21-Day Roadmap: Social Media Content Strategy Roadmap 21-DAY ROADMAP: Social Media Content Strategy This roadmap serves as guide for business owners who plan to integrate social media in their marketing efforts. Social media is a powerful tool especially for businesses, but to be effective, your content strategy should be aligned with your...

SalesGenomics updated their website address.

Will China’s New Business Model Completely Turn the E-Commerce World On its Head in the Next 3-4 Years? (Hint: It Already Has ) ​ ​ ​
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C2M (Consumer-To-Manufacturing). That’s the name of the business model that’s been revolutionizing the e-commerce stage in China the last few years by prioritizing consumers’ needs. ​
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This new, disruptive business model connects manufacturers and consumers via different platforms to produce customized products at lower prices. ​ ​
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Compared to traditional B2C or D2C models, the biggest difference is that in C2M, product design and demand are driven by consumers rather than by brands and manufacturers.​
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All thanks to the power of AI-driven data analytics. Thanks to AI, online retailers, consumer brands, and AI companies are now making mass customization possible for buyers in China.​
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Platforms such as Pinduoduo, with 536.3 million active buyers and 7 billion products sold in the first half of 2019, are the best examples of what’s sometimes called the “fourth technology revolution” (the first three being steam engine, electricity, and automation).​
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How Does C2M Work?​
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Probably the biggest benefit of the C2M model is that it produces on demand. Unlike traditional B2C or D2C, the user places an order first, and then the factory produces the item. This eliminates potential inventory problems. ​
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How do products get customized? ​
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In C2M, a manufacturer uses large amounts of social media data and consumer digital activity (e.g. from website and app cookies) to precisely identify consumer desires and needs. Based on those insights, manufacturers tailor new product design and production quantity.​
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C2M vs Standard Product Customization​
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C2M is distinct from typical product customization, where, for example, a consumer can specify a unique color, length, or trim of a garment. ​ ​
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In C2M, big data is responsible for identifying and capturing clients’ preferences. ​ ​
This means that the same product design is manufactured in repeatable batches, but is now catered to a much narrower niche. ​
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In this way, C2M manufacturers can keep prices and margins higher and produce products more quickly to capture a demand that might only be temporary. ​
This is important, because in the standard product design process, it typically takes more than 18 months to develop a new product. ​
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How Does Data Get Collected? ​
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Top Chinese marketplaces like tmall.com, jd.com and Pinduoduo have vast quantities of customer data. ​
They know who their avatars are, where they live, what they buy, where and how they travel, brands they like, and so on. ​
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Manufacturers get access to this data by participating in innovation programs that enable them to deliver C2M processes and products.​
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The Advantages Of C2M​
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The C2M model streamlines the functioning of all intermediate links, such as inventory, logistics, general sales, and distribution. As a result, unnecessary costs are reduced or removed. And consequently, users can buy good quality products at super low prices.​
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For manufacturers, the switch to C2M will also benefit them in the long run.​
On one hand, it makes them more flexible in crises by pivoting online and selling directly to users. On the other hand, factories can also save an average of 20-30% in production costs. Therefore CPA also goes down.​
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Youth Are Taking the Scene ​
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C2M has gained momentum over the last two years due to two significant shifts. ​
First, customization options for consumers were previously costly and limited to luxury product categories. ​ ​
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Second, the younger generation that typically celebrates their individuality wants more personalized products to meet more sophisticated demands. This has largely accelerated the rise of C2M, which from this point onward can only grow. With that said, the future of e-commerce seems to be really interesting.

Rising CPMs and What You Can Do About It?​
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Have you gone through performance turbulence lately? It’s not only you. Mainly due to iOS changes, but also because of the changes happening in the world right now, some advertisers are experiencing bad results. ​
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Facebook is doing what they can to fix this, but it’s not an easy fix. We all know that their algorithm lost a huge amount of data due to Apple’s limitations. So the algorithm is no longer great at behavioral predictions. Yes, Facebook was able to predict who would buy your product. You were playing with the golden ball all the time without knowing it. ​
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So, thanks to our Facebook insiders we’ve got a comprehensive report on the Facebook auction system...how it works and how to use it to your advantage. Let’s go through some of the best practices to set up for long-term success.​
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Let’s see some facts:​
1. In Q1, demand for ad impressions increased by 12% and ​
​ ​ ​ the average price per ad increased by 30%.​
2. Facebook determines which ad to present (and how ​
​ ​ ​ much you will pay for it).​
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“A very relevant ad can win the auction, even with the low advertiser bid. You may place an expensive bid on someone but if we don’t think this person will take any action on the ad or if it’s not enjoyable for the user, we won’t end up delivering the ad to that user. In this way our auction is designed to maximize both advertiser value and Facebook user value.” – Facebook representative ​
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3. Why are CPM rates rising? ​
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a. Facebook is trying to convince us that we are seeing higher CPMs because we’re reaching the highest value users. In other words, we’re paying more but we should see an increase in both CTRs and CVRs because Facebook is delivering your ad to the relevant people. Based on what I’ve seen on many accounts this doesn’t seem to be the whole truth. ​

b. The second explanation is much more plausible. We see rising CPMs because of increased spend from competition and decreased number of ad impression opportunities (fewer people sitting on their phones but instead enjoying time outside). In other words, seasonal commercial moments and macroeconomics shifts might lead to increased CPMs. ​
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4. How do supply and demand determine CPM?. Look at this great graph. It illustrates how price per impression (P0, P1) is determined by supply and demand curves. D0 and S0 is the ‘regular’ season and D1 and S1 is the holiday season when supply and demand increases but price also increases (that’s why Q4 is so expensive). ​
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What can you do to navigate the new Facebook algorithm? ​
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- Consolidate account structure ​
- Use longer time frames to judge performance​
- Make fewer changes ​
- Implement CAPI​
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I hope this helps you to understand rising CPMs and provides you with some helpful advice.

If recent iOS changes have made your life as an e-commerce owner or a marketer more difficult, then this post is for you. ​
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The bad news is that there’s, unfortunately, another tsunami wave coming this fall. ​
So, what do you need to know about iOS 15? ​
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The changes introduced by iOS 14 have already seriously disrupted the marketing landscape.​
iOS 15 will be no different, but it’ll impact email marketing exclusively. ​
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Most of its new features will focus on privacy, data tracking, and user security. ​
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Two features in particular: “Mail Privacy Protection” and “Hide My Email”, will make the lives of many online business owners harder.​
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Specifically, it’s going to impact activities such as: ​
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- Blocking the sender’s ability to track opens and forwards ​
- Optimizing list health by removing unengaged contacts​
- Split testing your campaigns​
- Targeting re-engagement campaigns​
- Tracking IP addresses that determine physical location ​
- Respecting privacy by identifying and deleting ​
​ ​ unengaged contacts​
- Triggering sequential emails in an automated nurture ​
​ ​ flow​
- Optimizing send time to maximize open rates​
- Real-time personalization​
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By default, iOS 15’s Mail Privacy Protection is not enabled. Users have to opt-in. Now, although the feature to hide an email address has been introduced before, Apple will soon be promoting it more so that increasing numbers of users are aware of this feature. ​
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Inevitably, this will make lots of people choose it as their default. ​ ​
And no wonder. ​
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It’s a great “innovation” for individual users...not so great for marketers and e-commerce stores relying heavily on that channel. ​
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On the flip side, this change creates an opportunity to improve your emails. ​
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Better privacy for consumers could require marketers to do a better job of understanding and segmenting subscribers.​
How?​
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The main issue with the new update is that marketers won’t be able to tell if someone with an iOS device has opened an email or not. ​
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The reason for that is that an invisible tracking spy pixel added by Email Software Providers such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp or Active Campaign will not be loaded anymore.​
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And by the way, this isn’t a novelty because anyone can already do this in just about any email client. You just need to turn off loading images automatically.​
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As of now, opens are primarily a way to measure list health and subscriber activity. ​
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They also help segment your list based on the engagement. ​
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Access to open metric also helps clean your list of all the disengaged users. This improves your domain reputation, and a higher domain reputation leads to higher deliverability. ​ ​
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However, the new policy will force us to look at a click rate instead of an open rate to evaluate the performance of an email. ​
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We can choose to look at it as an opportunity for a few reasons: ​
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- Clicks and conversions are better at measuring ​
​ subscriber value​
- Clicks are better for subject line optimization​
- They are more accurate than opens ​
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What To Do To Prepare Ahead Of Time ​
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In the months to come, you should find new benchmarks of healthy engagement that are not based on open rates. ​
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An overall better subscriber experience should compensate for the loss of visibility of specific metrics. ​ ​ ​
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So our advice is to test open rates before this fall. Hide My Email will likely impact deliverability. Keep an eye on those rates and make sure your ESP removes hard bounces promptly. ​
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Create before and after benchmarks for:​
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- Subject lines​
- Pre-headers​
- Time of day​
- Day of week​
- “From” lines​
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Another opportunity the new policy creates focuses on channels beyond email marketing, such as SMS, using push notifications and social channels. ​
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SMS, for example, offers many ways to measure user engagement. You can track Open Rates, CTRs, Conversion Rate, Return On Investment, Earning Per Message, and Unsubscribe Rate.​
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It is important here to use UTM links within every text. This is particularly helpful for Google Analytics to eliminate the overlap between SMS and email. ​ ​
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Like email, SMS also lets you segment your subscribers based on their stage in the customer journey: Subscriber, Purchaser, Clicker, Instagram Follower.​
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Based on that you can send them more personalized and effective messages. ​
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You can also A/B test your messages to find out which CTA works best; you can test SMS vs MMS or the best time of the day to send a message.​
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To Panic Or Not To Panic, That is The Question​
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The answer is obviously to keep cool! As it’s been since ancient times, marketers will always find a way to adapt to the new rules. ​ ​
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Research has shown that most consumers are willing to share their data to create a more personalized experience. Buyers also expect to receive personalized and relevant content as part of their trust in your brand.​
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So the bottom line is that it may not be as bad as we might think. ​
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At the same time, it could be much worse, too, LOL. ​
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So the best bet is just to do whatever it takes to prepare and mitigate the risks. Then, optionally, you can send some prayers to Steve, hoping that his spirit will haunt the new CEO and bring Apple back on the right track. ​ ​
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We have no data though, whether this method works or not.

Why would you, as an ecom store owner, ever work with an agency?​
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There’s one really good reason for that:​
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Because they can make you a lot of MONEY.​
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But ONLY if you work with the right agency.​
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First, let’s discuss the reasons why you might want to:​
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Marketing agencies have certain advantages that allow them to get ahead of the curve:​
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First of all, they work with a multitude of clients, so they are able to separate business problems from market problems. So for example, when your ROAS is going down, they will be able to tell you what the real reason for that is and apply accurate measures.​
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Secondly, they have their delivery processes cost-optimised and polished to perfection. If the agency is just focusing on nailing email or paid media, they know exactly how to find and train the top talent, how to keep them motivated and they have resources to train them internally—which you may not. As a result, they can drive very good results for a much lower cost than you’d need to pay if you were to hire a ready-made expert externally.​
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Finally, if you work with the right agency, they can save you a ton of time. They will do all the things you don’t have time to do, such as proper recruitment, supervision, reporting, integration and so on and so on. Agencies will focus on what they're best at (a certain area of marketing) so that you can focus on what you’re best at (building your business). ​
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But aren’t most of the agencies just money drains that help to fix 1 thing but break the other 3 in the meantime?​
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To be honest, most of them are, so you’ve got to be very careful when hiring one. They don’t have their processes really nailed, they fake their results to make it look much better than what they really are and they try to keep you on against your will with sneaky tricks and bizarre contract clauses.​
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However, if you find the right agency to work with, it will work wonders for your business.​
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So, how can you find them?​
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It’s actually not that difficult. ​
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The first thing you need to do is identify that specific thing you need help with in your business. Once you get a hint, you’d then ideally do some network research to see which of your friends currently work with agencies and what the results are ​ that they provide. I hire agencies (yes, we hire agencies for non-marketing stuff, like web development) not only from my network, but also sometimes from Google Search and cold emails. Basically, I use whoever I think has the capacity to deliver. So the research is the first step, but it doesn’t end there...​
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The next thing you want to do is assess if they're worth working with. I use the same technique as I do for recruitment, where I test for attitude, ability and skills. ​
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So, attitude first: If it’s a hard close or they try to create fake urgency, it’s a no go. However, if they take time to understand my business and suggest an offer to me that is an easy way to test working together, I will go for it.​
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For ability and skills, I will see their case studies and maybe talk with their current or previous clients. Honestly, I often skip this step if the offer they give me is something easy.​
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The one thing left is to just try and work with them for a test period of 1-3 months, see what the outcomes are, and then decide if I want to continue. ​
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However, there’s still one more objection that comes to mind...​
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Namely, if the marketing agency owners are so good at what they do, they would just run their own stores, correct?​
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In general, it doesn’t matter that much. Running a marketing agency is just a different model to running your own ecom. Basically, eCom takes a higher entry investment to start and is a higher risk, versus if you’ve been a marketer before, you can get some clients to start with and your risk is distributed more evenly. So, naturally, some people will go for running their own store, while others will go for an agency model—and both can benefit from that.​
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However, we run our own stores, so we are kind of an exception on the market. This gives us a unique advantage of understanding how it is to be on both sides of the fence.​
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We know that marketing is actually the easier part of the equation, and the real difficulty is in building a sustainable and scalable business model that needs to take into consideration other elements of the system, such as fulfillment, logistics, branding, demand, delays, etc, etc.​
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This is why, whenever we work with a client, we love to integrate with their team deeply to really understand all the subtleties of their business so that we can work seamlessly as one thriving organism. This is our agency’s magic sauce.​
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The effect?​
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Both clients and us make TONS of MONEY. ​
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So, if you’re thinking that you should start working with a marketing agency, reach out to a few of your friends or agencies directly and see what they can help you with. You can contact us, and I promise you that I will give honest advice as to whether it makes sense for us to work together and what the realistic outcome is that you can expect from doing so.