EP #309] [ENG] - How to scale brands outside of Amazon with Meta ads - Dan Melnick

EP #309] [ENG] - How to scale brands outside of Amazon with Meta ads - Dan Melnick Unknown Speaker: Welcome to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. This is the place for everything related to Amazon private label and e-commerce. Learn exactly what you need to start or scale your business. Get insights from the top industry experts who will discuss the latest trends and best practices in the world of Amazon. From choosing products and sourcing from a supplier to setting up your Amazon account and marketing your business, you will hear it here. Let's get started. Here is your host, Vincenzo Toscano. Speaker 2: Hello guys. Welcome to another episode of The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy, the place where everything related to Amazon, FBA, Private Lab and Ecommerce. My name is Vincenzo Toscano, founder and CEO of Ecomcy and today we bring another special guest. His name is Dan Melnick and he's the founder and CEO of Zync, which is, you know, one of the top solutions out there when it comes to helping Brands succeed in the D2C space, everything that has to do with solutions such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and much more. So that's why I wanted to bring Dan today because his expertise in the space is significant. And I know a lot of Amazon brands that listen to our show and watch the show are always asking, you know, how do I grow my brand beyond Amazon? What are some of the things I have to consider when I jump into the D2C space? And we're going to be having a lot of conversation around that today. So Dan, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. How are you doing? Speaker 1: I'm good. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Speaker 2: Thank you, man. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. And, you know, for those that maybe might not know you, just give us a quick intro by yourself about SYNC and then let's jump into the topic. Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, so I live here in Austin, Texas. I started this company about three years ago, but I've been in ecommerce since 2011. My first ecommerce business was an eBay store. I used to sell autographs online and I started that back when I was growing up in the Chicago area. I'd go to downtown Chicago, I'd go get autographs and sell them online. And then, yeah, after that, I had a different company, not ecommerce, but I met a really good developer who was my partner. And he was like, hey, why don't we go and try and get some clients together? We had some good results early on, a client that raised about $15 million and that validated our skill level. And I said, listen, let's go and do this full time. So yeah, we're a full service DTC agency. So meta ads, CRO, email marketing, really helping brands scale from their DTC side of things. Speaker 2: Love it. So I think, I mean, that's why I'm very excited to have you because on the D2C side of things, if I'm honest with you, everything that has to do with the strategies that are surrounded that, a lot of Amazon sellers significantly struggle mainly because they come from From a marketplace where, you know, a lot of things that you have to do on the D2C side of things don't really exist. You don't really have to have realistically, you know, optimization in terms of email marketing or having your own website kind of dynamic test in terms of the colors and everything or figure out how to do retargeting. A lot of things are much simplistic in the Amazon kind of ecosystem. And I think what I want to talk on today is what are some of the basics people have to figure out to successfully scale the brand D2C because If you don't get the basics correctly, then at the end of the day, whatever you do after is not going to scale any further. Tell us, you know, starting from, I guess, the foundation, like, what are some of the things you see people struggling the most when it comes to scaling and getting started on the D2C side of things? Speaker 1: For sure. Well, first of all, getting your own website is super important, but not just any website, right? Your website should be optimized for conversion. And what we're seeing today is 70 to 80% of customers are coming from mobile. So make sure it's very optimized and frictionless on mobile. And then you're handling every objection possible on your site. So similar to Amazon, you want to have FAQs. You want to have a guarantee, right? You want to make sure that when somebody goes to your site from cold traffic, that there's no reason for somebody not to buy your product, right? So every single objection is answered. There's a guarantee saying, you know, 30 days, 60 days, whatever you want to offer, but something to assure a customer who's never heard of your brand that, hey, listen, If I'm going to buy this product, I can feel comfortable that if it doesn't work, I can send it back, right? Most of the time that doesn't happen, but having an offer on the table is super important. So really making this frictionless experience super easy to click and shop and buy now and add to cart, you know, not having too many distractions, but also just bringing as much value as possible to your customer when they land on your site. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think talking about those elements of trust, I totally agree. When you have your own website, like one of the main frictions that people, you know, have never shopped from you before. They don't know if they're going to get the product or not. They don't really know, you know, if the payment is going to be a scam. Like there's always those like elements that, you know, that's why a lot of people are super loyal when it comes to shopping on Amazon. And you need to figure out a way to generate a trust somehow within I'm here to talk to you about how you create your own kind of bubble, which is your website, right? So I guess when it comes to that, beyond the elements of creating trust and everything, like how you also create, I guess, the consistency of people coming back to your website, because a lot of times, I'm seeing this sometimes across some D2C brands we work with, Sometimes they struggle to keep them engaging with the website. Then they might jump to a marketplace or they might go and shop somewhere else and that can disrupt the experience you can give your D2C ecosystem. What is your experience when it comes to keeping them engaged with your website? Speaker 1: For sure. There's many different offers, loyalty programs, discounts that you can offer people. Finding a way to keep people engaged for sure. Retention marketing like emails. You know, obviously if you have products or somebody can subscribe, you know, having that option right there, subscribe and save. But yeah, I mean, if you're, if you can offer deeper discounts, if you can offer more certain points where people can use those points to save money in the future, things like that, right? Just giving your customers rewards for shopping on your website, that's going to be a huge incentive. But yeah, I mean, listen, Amazon obviously is a great platform. Sometimes there is a level of attribution where we do meta ads for clients. Somebody goes to Amazon and buys a product. You can't always measure that, but it's intertwined. So some people just want to buy from marketplaces. But yeah, I mean, listen, if you can keep people engaged in email and SMS and keep them like a part of your community, people will definitely buy more from your site. But it really just depends on how you keep them engaged. Speaker 2: Yeah, which gets me to my next point, which is, you know, retargeting at the end of the day, like that's a conversation we're having before going live. A lot of people don't really know how to master like Meta Ads or Google, right? And I think with Meta Ads specifically, if you know how to pixel your clients or the visitors successfully, you can be super, super clear in terms of their engagement you do through the platforms to bring them back to your website. So tell us how important you are seeing Meta being in your strategy. Is that something that always has to be part of the mix or you see some D2C brands not relying heavily on Meta anymore? What is your take? Speaker 1: And meta should always be part of your mix, but really just focus on meta for top of funnel and middle of funnel. For bottom of funnel, email is where it's at, right? Once they've already bought from you, you have their email, don't waste money on ads, right? Don't waste ad money by retargeting them. That makes zero sense, right? Use SMS, use email. You have their information, right? But if they're top of funnel, if they've never heard of you, if they're middle of funnel, if they're kind of hovering around your site, checking out your website, social media, you know, getting some awareness, Do what you can, you know, and offer to get them over the table, right, or over the line. But, you know, yeah, Meta has to be there. I mean, it's the number one platform still today. TikTok is great, obviously, but Meta is still number one. And most people, you know, not just in the U.S., but around the world, are using Meta to some extent, you know, every month, not every day, right? Whether it's Instagram or Facebook and WhatsApp in some parts of the world, but it's very, very important. And it still has the best data. So yeah, meta has to be an important part of your strategy, but it's to your point, figuring out, you know, the right audiences. And then on top of that, you can go from Shopify. Once you have some good audiences, take the audience and put it back into meta, you know, build those lookalike audiences once you have those sales. So a lot of it is doing as much as you can to leverage data and Shopify, scaling up on meta. Speaker 2: Cool. I guess the only question I get a lot when it comes to building the data is the timing associated and the cost involved, right? Because sometimes you have to go to the phase that you're spending money, but not necessarily you might be getting that in the shape of revenue or profitability. So I guess, To answer that question, how do you usually come across understanding how long it might take you to effectively get a positive return on investment? It's going to be weeks, it's going to be months, it's going to be years. I know this is going to be very specific to the product, the brand, the audience and all of that, but is there some rule of thumb that you use to figure out if actually assessing yourself and saying, am I actually going the right direction? I'm not. And be able to fix things from there. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think in terms of making sure that you're actually profitable, you're obviously looking at your margins for sure. There's a lot of possibilities there. But yeah, I mean, it's super important to start small, right? And you can be profitable by starting small. Many of our clients are spending just starting. $50 a day. That's it. It's very doable, right? And then once you're getting good results, then you scale up in 60, 70, 80, 100. But that's a good place to start. You can start $50 a day. Making sure that you're testing constantly every couple of days, seeing what's working, what's not. Once you're getting some good results, then start ramping that up, right? But you don't need a whole lot to start with. You really don't. And I think that that is a misconception. And $50 is enough to touch me. Obviously, if you have the budget to spend $50,000 a day, sure, that's great. But most people don't. So you can start small and just test it, test it, and ramp it up. And make sure that you know when you're acquiring new customers. Your customer acquisition cost is low enough to where it makes sense, right? And if it's not, how do you get that down? You know, and on top of that, you know, if it's not low enough, okay, maybe on the first sale, you might lose some money or at the very least break even. Then that second sale, third sale, fourth sale, then you can get into a profitability mode if you have that type of product, right? So understanding your whole equation and what makes sense. But yeah, I mean, if you're doing meta ads, Definitely should not be something where you're losing money, at least not for too long. Speaker 2: Cool. You mentioned at the beginning owning the customer. Once you get the email, effectively, you can be more aggressive in terms of the way you communicate with them and stop relying too much on top of the funnel. When it comes to that, how do you see email marketing performing these days? Some people believe that email marketing is dead. Some people say it's back. Some people say it's the best way to really scale a business forward. Some people even do SMS. So I guess, what are you seeing in the D2C space? Is email marketing still very strong or you're seeing people changing more toward other channels? What is your take on that? Speaker 1: It's still very strong. Most people, especially most Americans, are checking their email constantly, all the time. It's spam filters, but at the end of the day, this is not cold email. This is an email where you're subscribed to your favorite brand, you've already bought from your brand. You know, most emails are being opened, especially if they're adding value. But yeah, I mean, email marketing works, SMS works, you know, and they're great channels. Like I said, it's not, you know, cold email, it's not cold texting. It's really people who have bought from you and it's just giving them better offers, getting them back in the door. And once again, it's the most cost effective way to scale because ads to your point can get very expensive. I always say don't waste ad money reacquiring your customers. Save that for email, save that for SNS. It'll save you tons of money. Speaker 2: Cool, cool. And I guess the other thing I would like to bring to the mix is Google, right? I know we're talking meta, we're talking email marketing. So how does Google come into the mix here? Because we're seeing a huge shift towards how people now use Google for shopping. They might start a search on Google to look for top 10 phone cases, top 10 TVs. So they might do some research and then that's how potentially they might land ...into your website, which is where potentially other topics which we can quickly bring to the table, such as PR releases or blogs, can also be a huge strategy. So has that also been affecting the performance of some of the brands you are encountering in the D2C space? Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Google is a great channel. You know, I still think Meta is better. Google has its place. I mean, Google is similar to Amazon, right? It's like a search marketplace and people are searching on there. And so it can become like a race to the bottom. It's like a lot of competition. And that's a challenge sometimes, right? So if you're selling phone cases, so are tons of other people. So it's like you're competing against lots of people for those keywords, for those ad words. It can get expensive. But if you like a more unique product, maybe Google makes sense just for positioning. But even then, if you're introducing something to the market, people are not going to be Googling that. It's so new. So it's understanding, okay, listen, what is my product? Where am I at? How competitive, how much budget I have, because yeah, I mean, Google can be very expensive. But yeah, if it's a new product, definitely Google is not great for that. But if it's something that's already in the market and people are searching for it, it could work, but just make sure that you have enough margin there to where it makes sense. Because yeah, I mean, if it's a popular product like a phone case, there's a lot of competition. And does it really make sense to spend five bucks to sell a phone case for 10, Probably not, right? So it's understanding what your margins are and what makes sense. Speaker 2: Cool. Now, let's go back to the platforms where these D2C brands are getting built. We have so many options. We have Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, and so on. And so many people have, you know, usually preferences over other depending on usually the apps that they encounter or the way the team is structured in terms of how they do the coding behind their websites, right? So I don't know that all of them could potentially be effective. But the reality is I've been talking to multiple people who specialize in D2C space. It's usually one that keeps coming back, which is usually either, you know, Shopify or WordPress, right? It's usually the main two that I see coming back. So what is your feedback on those? Like, do you think it's something that you recommend people to test and see which one is a better fit for them? Or you think there's specifically certain ones that are better depending on what you're trying to do? Speaker 1: Yeah, Shopify is great for direct-to-consumer. You know, WooCommerce, BigCommerce are great for if you have a B2B component. You know, Shopify's B2B is not great at this point, and it can be very expensive. You really can't use their B2B unless you pay for Shopify Plus, which is like $2,500 a month. And if you're an early-stage brand, that's a big hit to your P&L. So yeah, understanding kind of what your objective is. If you're B2B, you're looking at some sort of B2B component, BigCommerce and WooCommerce can be good. If you're D2C, Strictly Shopify is really good. There's also like a new platform out there called Shopline, which is big in Asia, Singapore or South Korea, Japan. They're just coming here to North America. And so they have a good USP because For them, you know, it's totally free to use all their apps. It's all built in, right? And the challenge on Shopify is there are many, many merchants that have a very expensive tech stack. It can be sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a month spending on all these apps. But Shopify has many of these apps built in. It's a huge cost savings for merchants, right? So, I mean, that's really one option as well, which is like a newer option here in the US. But yeah, I mean, understanding what your tech stack is going to be because those apps can definitely add up. It can be very expensive. Speaker 2: Cool. And I guess the other question I get asked a lot is, you know, how to figure out the right KPIs for success in D2C because I feel coming from Amazon, a lot of people only focus on acres and ROAS, which sometimes are very top of the surface kind of KPIs. They don't really give you the full picture. And I think D2C, you have to focus more on what's the lifetime value of your client, what's your retention and things like that. So what are some of the KPIs you've seen like really making sense to track in D2C? Because I'm sure you have this conversation constantly and you have figured out the ones that give you the best lead indicators. So what is your take on that? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think MER in terms of overall growth for sure is important. Obviously, ROAS, LTV, but it's like looking at overall growth because like I said, it's like Amazon is a great platform. It's the number one marketplace and I'm a big Amazon shopper. Many people, and I'm the same way, will see an ad on Meta, see an ad on TikTok, see something on social media, go and buy an ad on Amazon, right? And it's hard to make the attribution, but it's there and it exists. So understanding when you're looking at overall growth, because it might not be just real ads or for Meta ads, Meta is great for awareness. I might see an ad and then I go to Amazon and I can buy it. That's one thing. But for sure, lifetime value, retention. What is your repeat order rate? How many people are repeating? And if it's not that high, how do we get that to a higher number? Because like I said, there's a lot of possibilities, lots of potential there as well. Speaker 2: Cool. And I guess the other question I also wanted to ask you is when it comes to reporting, right, and really figure out your analytics, you know, especially in the D2C space, you're going to find that some platform like, for example, Shopify might be very top of the surface in terms of the metrics that you might need to really understand what is going on. Is there any tools that you recommend to connect to your D2C site that can give you more insights when it comes to, you know, what is actually happening with your D2C brand? Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, TripleWhale is a great tool for sure. I mean, they give you all the data all the way around. But obviously, within like the Meta Ads Manager within Shopify, there's a lot of good data there, right? And Shopify What I love about Shopify, really good data. You know, I can tell you the exact attribution, where customers are coming from, are they from Meta, are they from somewhere else? So, yeah, triple whale in terms of like overall data, in terms of seeing where people are, you know, are shopping, their overall growth, definitely gives you tons of value. Speaker 2: Cool, cool. Okay, and I guess now the other thing is going back to the advertising side of things. This is something I actually just remembered that I got asked a lot. So when it comes to creating the audiences and everything to effectively become more accurate in terms of targeting a specific audience. Do you see, you know, we're talking about how you could potentially upload emails and how you could potentially upload data to those meta campaigns to effectively start with a base, right, and start it from scratch. From your experience, does it make sense sometimes buying like a list of emails or anything or audiences that you can preload? Like let's say you don't want to start from scratch, but you know you're selling yoga mats. So potentially you find audiences that have to do with yoga, even if they haven't seen your brand before. Do you see the kind of approaches working or you always recommend starting from scratch when it comes to creating your audience? Speaker 1: Definitely start from scratch. That approach is typically very challenging to scale because You know, it's hard to know and, you know, data's always changing. So you can even start with broad targeting and also run a campaign in parallel and you can test different audiences, right? So you always want to be testing, testing, testing, testing. So you have one campaign, if it's broad, if it's working on the backend, test something more specific, right? And so even if, you know, your campaign is crushing on the backend, you know, 25%, you always want to be testing new things. So yeah, buying emails, buying data, I don't recommend it because data is always changing and it very well might not be relevant. You know, listen, that is data as it is. It's actually really good. As I said earlier, it's really good. So, you know, you can find different audiences and people based on interest and age and location that's, you know, very effective and understanding that, you know, is super important because, yeah, buying email lists, buying any data, I haven't seen that work. Maybe it does for some people, but I've never seen that work in my case. Speaker 2: Cool, cool. And I guess to start coming to a conclusion today, I mean, we've already been talking about advertising, we're talking about platforms, we're talking about, you know, the KPIs, engagement. Like, what are things you feel we haven't touched on today that you think would be beneficial for the audience when it comes to the B2C side of things? Speaker 1: Well, for sure, average order value is super important. You know, it's something where, you know, what can you do to get your customer to spend more at checkout in the shopping cart? If you have one product, okay, push them to get a bundle of two or three. If you have multiple products, seeing which products using AI or other tools to get some good upsells going in the shopping cart, because that is a huge value add. And especially in D2C, right, so many brands, every brand should have a certain threshold for free shipping, right? If it's 50 or 100, depending on your product. Okay, so if someone has $30 in their cart, What can you offer them to get them to that $50 number? Then maybe increasing 60, 70. What can you do to really make sure that you're profitable, getting your customers to spend more? But yeah, raising that free shipping threshold, creating offers, bundles, et cetera, because there's a lot of opportunity and value in the shopping cart with upsells and cross-sells. Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think is one of the beauties of having your own website. Like, at the end of the day, you can be very clever with everything that you do throughout the checkout and through the after checkout or while you're browsing. You can gamify the whole thing to the point that you can, you know. Ensure you get the most out of a transaction, right? So I guess to Conclude this point. Is there some things you feel working the most when it comes to the upsell? What I mean is it's usually a coupon to check out the most effective or a pop-up or a follow email What are some of the things you see working the most? Speaker 1: Yeah, the best upsells I see are right in the shopping cart, you know right then and there because you know when somebody's checking out you say hey listen, by the way, I Add this product to get free shipping. It'll put you over this threshold. Or add this product. This product is similar to how Amazon does it. This product goes well with this product, right? But in the shopping cart is the best. But of course, when somebody buys, shoot them an email and thank them. Ask them for a review. Welcome them to your team, right? To your group. Those things are super valuable. Yeah, if you want to get cross-sells and upsells, the shopping cart is the best opportunity. Speaker 2: Cool, cool. Awesome. So I think the conversation has been very insightful. I'm sure it's only the tip of the iceberg, as they call it, when it comes to this. And I'm sure some people might want to have a deeper conversation, more technical, figuring out how they can tailor this to a specific Amazon brand or ecommerce business in general. So I know that's why you guys specialize in this thing. Tell us more about, you know, how people can find you, how people can reach out to you or talk to your name. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram, xdanpmelnick. You can find me there. We're just danmelnick on LinkedIn. And then, yeah, I mean, myzing.io is our website, so you can find us there as well. But yeah, danmelnick. I'm very active on social media. Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going to make sure for everybody watching and hearing this to put everything in the description below. Other than that, Dan, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for the knowledge and hopefully I get to see you soon at some of the upcoming events. Thank you so much. Speaker 1: Sounds great. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Dan. Pleasure. Bye-bye. Awesome. Unknown Speaker: Thanks for listening to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. While you are at it, we would appreciate it if you could leave an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. That will make it easier for others to find out about the show and benefit from it. Want more? Visit our website at www.ecomcy.com where you can get your first consultation for free or find us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn at Ecomcy.