Ryan McMillan

I’m still trying to figure out the exact format I want to use, but I think I’ll just start by giving you updates on the 3 Shopify EMD projects, on a weekly basis and I’ll let the format develop over time. Out of the 3 EMD projects, 1 targets the US, and 2 target Australia, we’ll call the US project, Project A, and the Australian projects, B and C. Here are the updates! Project A) Spent the week arranging a lot of the access, moving billing details from one card to another, getting a VA in place with my business partner, to fulfill the orders, and identifying a great potential candidate to run the operations and manage the project. We’re still figuring out exactly what we’re going to do with the prices (we believe we need to increase prices to become profitable on Google Ads), but we’ll give it some more time. Until then, the main focus is collecting as many 5-star reviews as possible, and getting Google Ads profitable, we’ll also start building out some email flows/automation shortly. Project B) This is the project that made 4 sales last week, exclusively from organic traffic with no links, no content, no collection texts, just 100-something collections created, on-page optimized, and indexed, along with about 250 products added to the store. This week we added about 200 additional products from new suppliers to further fill out the collection pages, and the majority of the week was dedicated to image enhancement. Unfortunately, the images we get from suppliers usually aren’t of the highest quality (this is a super good opportunity for any supplier to up their game by the way - improve your image quality). Because of that, we’ve bulk-exported all product images, and we’re using an AI image enhancer to bring up the quality of the images and make the entire brand look more premium. We should have this fully done in the next few days, and on Friday we have a meeting to launch Google Ads, which I’m incredibly excited about. Project C) This one is the most insane because we literally haven’t even created any collections, we haven’t added anything to the homepage and the site doesn’t even have a navigation menu… Yet, somehow we got a $300 order in last week. Absolutely nuts. This is a higher ticket store, which has the potential to do a few million a month in revenue once it’s running at full speed… But because the project is so massive, with so many product categories, it is taking us quite a while to plan out all the keyword research, as we’re going to be targeting over 6M keywords. I’ll be getting an update shortly from my team on when this will be ready, but other than that, this week we mainly planned out the homepage, the theme we’re going to use and we’re going to start with the site layout build-out process. Other than that, I also added all 3 projects into our indexing tool a few days ago, to ensure as many product pages get indexed as possible, and that’s that. Any feedback on the format of this post?

24

7 Comments

Really strong quarter for my client. They are an Aussie Ecommerce Supplement company. With 45% growth in revenue! Mainly Google ads but with some Meta, TikTok, email and Bing. Funnily enough the Roas is actually climbing… I always tell people the clients that I get the best results for are those that stick around the longest. They must also genuinely want to scale. Most people think they want to scale. But when things break they quickly back off. Things will break several times. You just need to know what to do to get things back on track. If you’re stuck between $50k - $500k I can more than likely help you grow profitably with my Google Ads focused Ecommerce method. #ecommerce #shopify #ppc #googleads #sem #advertising #dtc

15

13 Comments

🏠 🏠 November 2024 Property Purchaser Intent Data 🏠 🏠 Quantitative snapshot of aggregated intent data across 70+ Social Garden property brand awareness and lead generation campaigns. The green shoots of positivity are growing! ⏳ Timeframe To Purchase ⏳ Q = When are you looking to purchase? 0-3 months = 45% (up from 43%) 3-6 months = 17% (up from 16%) 6-12 months = 19% (up from 17%) 12+ months = 19% (down from 24%) In-market buyers (0-3 months) continues to increase, which is one of our strongest historic lead indicators of overall market confidence. 💰 Finance Status 💰 Q = What is your finance status? Finance approved = 39% (up from 37%) Have deposit, not approved = 23% (down from 27%) Seeking financial advice = 0% (down from 5%) Still saving = 38% (up from 31%) Finance approved leads have hit their largest % since Feb 22. 🪴 Land Status 🪴 Q = What is your land status? Titled = 31% (no change) Untitled = 8% (up from 7%) I don't own land = 38% (no change) Not yet, I am still reviewing land options = 17% (down from 20%) Not yet, but I am interested in a particular land option = 6% (up from 4%) No significant changes this month. Titled land has been on a steady decline MoM since May 23. ❓ What Does It Mean ❓ The positive intent signals from October continued into November. It will be interesting to see January results in particular in what is the highest research month for new buyers. Talks of potential interest rate cuts in before the end of the fin year could be the trigger that pushes these researchers into a more active purchase phase. My advice: Get ready for the shift. The lead volumes might not be there now, but you need to be focusing on maximising brand awareness by staying active in communicating with researchers or your database.

5

1 Comment

Just chatted to a founder who has developed a backpack currently selling for $450USD ($737NZD). The design is slick and has some really cool features, but would you pay that much for a backpack?? Unsurprisingly, conversion rates are low and they've had a few swing-and-a-miss attempts with agencies/freelancers trying to get paid ads working. Here's my idea: This needs to be a status play – The backpack becomes a symbol of success, prestige and luxury. This needs to be framed as "The Bugatti of Backpacks" The type worn by investors, entrepreneurs, C-Suite execs and high status individuals. Great marketing looks beyond just the functional utility of a product and appeals to emotions, desires and status shifts. #marketing #ecommerce #d2c

4

1 Comment

Why did you decide to use a .com domain on your website versus .com.au or vice versa? Find out if you made the right decision or if you should make a switch in our latest article 😎

5

In 5 days, we scheduled 11 meetings for PixelRush (Australian SEO Agency) 5 things we do since Sept 2022. 👇 Pixel Rush and The Scalelab have been working together for the past 22 months 5 things we have been doing consistently: 1- Nailing down the ICP/Buyer Persona 2- Having regular conversations with Byron (CEO) 3- A/B testing campaigns 4- Doing tests 5- Doubling on what works and stopping what doesn’t Of course, it’s not every week like that. But, Over the past almost 2 years we demonstrated multiple times that our service can provide a clear R.O.I. (Return-On-Investment) to their business. Doing outbound is a long-term investment - - PS: If you: - Are a SEO agency - Are based in APAC (Singapore, HK, ANZ) or English speaking countries (UK; USA) - Do > 1 M $ in Revenue - Want to diversify your lead acquisition using outbound DM me “Outbound”. We will have a chat ;)

38

23 Comments

What DTC brands using AU’s largest agencies are telling me: “We’re not happy with their cookie cutter approach” If you’re tired of: ⮑ Being treated like a number ⮑ Having a generic strategy & it’s ⮑ Not bespoke to your brand’s needs It’s time you consider a boutique Google Ads agency that: ⮑ Caters to your business ⮑ Creates a customised strategy ⮑ Based on your performance data If you’re not happy with your current agency Comment or DM me “DTC Growth” I might be able to help

16

14 Comments

Over the past weeks I audited over a dozen Google Ads accounts and honestly... I was astounded 😱 Most of these ads accounts were managed by medium or large agencies. And of course it's always easy to criticize, but most of these findings are the fundamentals... ❌ Location settings were set to interest while only serving specific locations. ❌ Conversion tracking was not implemented or was missing important data like conversion values. ❌ Underperforming and expensive keywords were not paused or removed. ❌ Some of the accounts had so many campaigns for no good reason. ❌ Product feeds were not optimized. Bad producttitels, html in the descriptions and missing a lot of recommended attributed. ✅ The good news... we also audited 1 account that was in perfect condition. Kudos to that agency! Are you looking to scale your business with Google Ads. Check the link in my bio and book a free audit.

13

1 Comment

My client’s CPL reduced from £226 → £40. In 2 months of working together. Here's the process we took: 1. Strategy - defined the ideal client (wine investors) 2. Marketing - decided what platforms to use to get leads 3. Ads setup - set up ads on Google and Meta 4. Optimise - consistently improved the ads That's a very simplified version of what we ACTUALLY did. If you want to reduce your cost per lead, you can: Look at my content, a lot of it’s there. OR If you want to speed up the whole process and get more leads, Click ‘Book an Appointment’ at the top of this post. ⬆

14

4 Comments

I've worked at 3 of Australia's largest marketing agencies and in-house for Australia's largest Ed-tech company and only 1 of them ran split tests (A/B Testing) whilst I was there (from my knowledge). Out of these companies only 2 of them ran heat-maps and optimised their landing pages whether it be SEO or Paid Ads to increase conversion rate. Can you guess which one did run split tests? (read until the end) A lot of specialists I spoke to would always try to optimise for conversion "in platform" rather than optimising the landing page. They would tell me "change this button" and "change that one".. And yes - what they did of course yielded some results. But imagine doing both in platform optimising and optimising on your website? Have you heard of the saying "you can bring a camel to water, but can't force it to drink"? And i'm not "dissing" anyone here - I am trying to potray the value of optimising both in platform and website. Maybe the onus is on the owner of the business (not the agency) - regardless I still think this is important. What I don't understand is: - running paid ads/SEO without knowing DETAILED landing page conversion metrics. - focusing on the latest "Google/SEO/Meta" hacks, rather than focusing on what actually matters - the offer and the landing page / user experience. You might be reading this thinking - "what does this guy even know". Well, you might be right to think that.. but at the same time you would be wrong to think that there is no value in reading this or even running a split test / heat-map. Because guess what everyone's trying to stand out in the crowd right now and the easiest way is to offer value based on things that people are not doing right now. And giving your clients extra data about actions on their website is just that; how can you increase the sites conversion rate by 1% and bring in millions of extra revenue? Here's how you get more bang for your buck (dummies guide): Microsoft Clarity (in 30 seconds): Step 1: Install microsoft clarity onto your website or landing page (free). Step 2: Watch what people are doing on your website via the recorded sessions. Step 3: Find where people are getting stuck / not making the action you want them to. Step 4: Analyse the heatmaps for data at scale (lookup a guide on Hotjar Website) Step 5: Compare heatmap with recorded sessions. A/B Test - VWO (Free for 50,000 sessions p/m): Step 1: Create a hypothesis which is a single variable test: (If i change this headline, will I be able to drive more leads/sales) Step 2: Create a control page and a variable page Step 3: Set a conversion action Step 4: Split the traffic, fitty/fitty (50/50) Step 5: Wait.. and see which one drive more! Best Regards, Dean Gravina PS: It was the in-house agency that ran split tests.

2

1 Comment

PMax is great and all but don’t let it do ALL the heavy lifting if you plan to truly maximise profit from Google Ads. PMax can be seen as a discovery campaign. Use it to discover new things that work. Once discovered, those new things should be implemented into manual campaigns where you improve the ROI through more strategic management of things like targeting and creative. If you’re a busy biz owner running your own ads, I forgive you for only using PMax if that’s what you are doing. But if you’ve hired an agency or person and THEY are only doing PMax despite them being a full time Gads pro, this warrants some concern.

2

Ok, I get it—most popular CMS platforms have pretty solid tracking and metrics built in. (I personally love the granular detail you can get from Wix, and Shopify’s no slouch either!) But I feel like a lot of businesses are sleeping on GA4. Yeah, the transition from the OG Google Analytics was rough, and learning a whole new system is a pain. But having a proper GA4 setup is super important for a few reasons: 🌟 A Single Source of Truth Your CMS metrics are great, but GA4 is platform-agnostic. It collects data from across all your digital channels (not just your website), giving you a holistic view of your customers. That means consistent and comparable data, whether you’re tracking web traffic, app interactions, or something else entirely. 🌟 Future-Proofing Your Data Let’s say you decide to switch CMS platforms down the line. If you’re only relying on your CMS for tracking, you’ll lose all your historical data and be starting from scratch. A solid GA4 setup means no data gaps, no matter how often you switch platforms or tools. 🌟 Hidden Gems in GA4 While GA4 doesn’t come with as many pre-built reports as the original Google Analytics, there are goldmines in there. Features like predictive metrics, cross-platform tracking, and advanced segmentation aren’t always available in a CMS’s reporting. These are key to unlocking deeper insights into user behavior. 🌟 Trust but Verify Got trust issues with your CMS data? GA4 can help. Being able to compare data from multiple sources (like your CMS and GA4) means you can cross-check metrics and make sure nothing’s slipping through the cracks. 🌟 Neutral Ground Unlike your CMS, which might push its own agenda (like driving you toward certain e-commerce tools), GA4 is neutral. It’s not here to sell you on Google Ads (surprisingly!). It just gives you clean, unbiased data. 🌟 Track Third-Party Software If you’re using third-party tools like ticketing systems or booking software, GA4 is your best friend. CMS platforms typically track only the data happening on your site, but GA4 can track interactions across other software and services too. This means you get a complete picture of your customers’ journey, even if it happens outside your website. 🌟 It’s Critical for Google Ads If you’re running Google Ads, GA4 is basically a non-negotiable. Without feeding GA4 data into your campaigns, you’re not going to get anywhere near the full potential of your ads. GA4 powers smart bidding, remarketing audiences, and other advanced features that can boost your ROI. Other reasons? If you’re doing any cross-platform tracking (mobile apps, for example), GA4 excels at unifying data across web and app interactions. And GA4’s event-based model gives you far more flexibility in tracking user interactions than the old session-based model. #GA4 #marketingdata #googleanalytics

6

2 Comments

It's 9pm on a Saturday night. I've been building the investors deck for SEO Stack. Excited and hopeful is an understatement, those who know me know how utterly committed I've been to getting this platform from a bedroom concept to a fully fledged SaaS. We're over 2000 users strong and growing daily. We've done it all with no funding, no marketing, nothing, just me posting on LinkedIN and reaching people query counting on my SEO audits io webinar series. I've never been so excited, despite version 1 failing and me losing over £120k of savings, version 2 has been a huge success. Now we're looking to scale rapidly, we've got a huge product roadmap with stuff that'll leave SEOs utterly blown away by our commitment to joining up project management with search console and GA4 data. Bringing AI to analysing large data sets on website data. Back to the investment deck I go and one more pint before I knock it on the head for the night. I promise the SEO community just you wait and see what's coming 💪💪💪💪 #seo #seotools #seosaas #digitalmarketing

191

29 Comments

At the moment I'm auditing 10+ Klaviyo accounts per week One thing I'm seeing is a decline in new customer acquisition New website traffic + Pop Up form submissions in most Klaviyo accounts have been on a steady decline throughout this year This decline usually dates back 3-4 months before they realise their is an issue and they reach out for an audit It's important to stay on top of your marketing that is geared towards new website visitors as opposed to retargeting The performance of this is a leading indicator of your sales in a few months time

8

2 Comments

Did you know HyperWeb Pty Ltd can also grow your online presence with Google & Social Ads ↓ If you are looking to attract new customers and boost sales, our highly targeted PPC campaigns are designed to build your business presence. 🖱️Why Pay Per Click? While SEO builds long-term growth, PPC offers immediate results. With Google Ads and social ads on Facebook and Instagram, you can quickly increase brand awareness, promote specific products, and run seasonal campaigns. 📈 Our Services Include: - Keyword research - Campaign strategy + design - Ad design + content - Campaign management - Budget + keyword optimisation - Audience targeting + remarketing - Performance data reporting - Integration with other digital marketing efforts Let HyperWeb handle your Google Ads and social ads management. We bring expertise, education and transparency every step of the way. Ready to see those clicks skyrocket? Enquire with us now, more info via the link below. https://lnkd.in/gAi2nibW #HyperWeb #DigitalMarketing #PPC #GoogleAds #SocialAds #BoostYourBrand

7

1 Comment

Why making ads work (and highly profitable) on the front end is not down to luck - It's about tapping into new pockets of demand. Let's rewind a bit. We recently started working with this client. They had one of Australia's biggest advertising agencies previously running their ads. If you run any business, you've heard of them. I actually quite like their ads. Funny and entertaining. For our client though, it was a different story. One that I've gotten quite used to hearing. Goes like this. They get great results in the first week or two. High fives all around. Then creatives start to "burn out". Costs start rising. Return on ad spend suffers. So the agency pumps out new creatives. This improves performance for some time. Then it drops again. To make things worse, each time they introduce new creatives, they're less effective than the previous time. Costs increase further. The agency starts blaming the ad platform for "rising ad costs" (usually backed up by some report from some blog) Oh and don't even mention the "s" word. Scaling just sends the acquisition costs right through the roof. Eventually (sometimes within a month or two), these ads become unprofitable - and the business gives up on running ads. Same reasons: "ads never really worked for us" or "it's too saturated" or "our customers don't spend time on Facebook" ... the usual suspects. Then a few months go by .. with not much growth. So the business decides to "give it another go". But they run the same types of ads again. Just different versions of it. And you guessed it - same results. The cycle continues. The reason this happens is because most businesses are running ads to "product aware" audiences. You know the type of ads that start with "Are you xxx looking to get xxx ...." Most advertisers do it because everyone else is doing it. Vice versa. And Versa vice. But here's the thing. When you run ads like these, you exhaust the pent up demand in your market very quickly. That's why your ads "burn out" so fast. Because after your audience has seen your ads once, they only have two options: 1. Become your customer 2. Ignore all your future ads When the truth is, the vast majority of your audience is not "product aware". As in, they don't know they need your solution. It is the advertisers job to educate them and make them aware of the need for that solution. And this starts with the very first line in your ad. It needs to tap into newer demand pockets. It's what sets the tone for the second line .... then the third ... You get the idea. Your product/service will get mentioned. But not until the prospect is educated enough to even consider it. When you get this right, you tap into a blue ocean of customers. Ones who trust you and see you as the obvious logical choice to work with. That's when you have ads that don't burn out for months (or even years). Your costs actually start decreasing. And your ads become profitable and scalable.

4

1 Comment