Want your Facebook and Google ads to generate more revenue? Curious how Google Analytics data can help you find website optimizations that will help?
To explore how optimizing the customer journey helps you boost sales, I interview Tanner Larsson.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.
In this episode, I interview Tanner Larsson, an eCommerce optimization expert who focuses on revenue and the author of Ecommerce Evolved. His consultancy is Build Grow Scale, and he hosts an event called Build Grow Scale Live.
Tanner explains how marketers can analyze their whole customer-acquisition process to optimize revenue.
You'll also discover how analytics data can identify four revenue leaks that are easy to fix.
Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
Listen Now
Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Revenue Optimization
Tanner's Story
In 2001, Tanner owned window cleaning and Christmas light businesses that were doing well, but he was bored. So he began learning about online marketing and sales with eBay and quickly became a PowerSeller. Although he loved selling online, the technology for eBay sellers was still so basic that he spent lots of time doing things he didn't like, such as weighing packages and printing labels.
Tanner then left eBay for ClickBank, an affiliate platform for informational and digital products. Inspired by people selling how-to business courses, he created one about building a window cleaning business. When he didn't get rich from this course, he realized the online space wasn't a magic place for making money. It was simply another business medium.
Tanner then began learning about online marketing and sales tactics. He not only loved implementing everything he learned, but also needed a new way to make a living. After almost going blind, he had a cornea transplant, which involved a long, restrictive healing process. Because he couldn't go outside or pick up anything over five pounds, he had to sell his window cleaning business.
After shifting to online sales, Tanner realized he preferred selling physical widgets, gizmos, and gadgets online. When you're selling an informational product, you have to go above and beyond to convince someone they need to buy it. Selling a physical product is easier for him because he can simply provide the supporting information.
Today, as a founder of Build Grow Scale, Tanner focuses only on eCommerce. The scope of his work has included online stores, sales funnels, and hybrid solutions. Through all of his big wins and losses, he's tested everything and learned to focus on a data-driven approach to eCommerce.
Some big losses with a Shopify store were especially useful in shaping Tanner's thinking about eCommerce. At first, the Shopify store took off, selling tens of thousands of products per week. But after a sudden change, he was writing $200,000 checks each month to keep the business afloat because the cash flow couldn't keep up with the growth.
After Tanner figured out what wasn't working, he started looking at data in a different, deeper way. Although his principles are based on eCommerce, you can use them for selling more than physical products. They would also work for visual products, services, and so on.
Listen to the show to hear more about Tanner's experience selling on eBay.
3 Mistakes Marketers Make When Acquiring Customers
When marketers try to acquire customers, Tanner often finds they make three big mistakes. First, they're too focused on acquiring a customer and the first sale. Specifically, they want to cover all of their expenses and extract a profit from the first sale. This approach is a recipe for disaster and makes staying in business more difficult because you generate real profit from subsequent sal...