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BUSINESS
From $0 to $200M helping ecomm owners exit their business
This is the story of Thrasio, a start-up founded in mid-2018 by Carlos Cashman and Josh Silberstein. Since its birth two years ago, Thrasio has enjoyed meteoric growth and generated steady margins ever since its inception.
What does Thrasio do? Amazon seller hunting! No, they don’t go around shooting them… Thrasio finds the “top-reviewed, bestselling” essential everyday products on Amazon and buys the brands from small business owners.
“These kinds of businesses are easy to get started but when they succeed, they become harder to manage over time,” said Siberstain.
Most of the time, there are no institutional buyers for companies with less than $5M in revenue. That’s where Thrasio comes in, buys the entrepreneurs out, and integrates the brands into its growing constellation.
Among the 43 companies they have already acquired, there is fitness equipment brand Beast Gear, anti-fatigue floor mat seller Trailbuddy Hiking Poles and Pet Deodorizer.
Bottom line: In the last 18 months, Thrasio generated over $200M in revenue and has a $35M EBITDA over 12 trailing operations. The start-up has been valued at $780M and has already raised $110M in funds.
Zoom Out: Small e-commerce stores, whether it’s on Amazon or Shopify, are starting to attract the eye of investors. Even the smaller ones that wouldn’t usually find a buyer are now on the shopping list. Nice story if you want to exit… tough if you gotta compete with these fat-pockets guys…
TOOLS
Save CPU, diss low-quality content, swipe those video ads
The Crew is back at it bringing you some useful tools to integrate into your stack:
- Zest: A Chrome extension that uses manual community-curation and AI to filter out low-quality content for you. You already have us for this but hey, the more the merrier 😉
- FBDown net: This lets you download videos from Facebook. You can use it as a way to swipe video ads you like so, when they get turned off, you still have them for reference.
- The Great Suspender: Make your computer run smoothly by suspending all those tabs you aren’t currently using, saving you precious CPU power and RAM.
That’s it! What are the tools you could never be without? Let us know about your toolbox. We’re serious, we crave knauuledge!
SPONSORED
Gotzha Report Shows 10x Increase In These Verticals: COVID-19 in Performance Marketing
Yes, the current pandemic has clearly had a huge impact for the online and offline businesses. Consumer trends and behavior changed in the blink of an eye.
However, this also means there are new chances in performance marketing that if addressed in a timely manner, could ensure success.
Gotzha reviewed some of the verticals that are or will be influenced by current global conditions and provides suggestions for overcoming obstacles and maintaining high revenue streams.
Their latest report covers areas such as:
- The struggles of lead generation.
- Benefits and pitfalls of gambling.
- Thriving markets of streaming services & video-on-demand.
- CC submits.
Gotzha saw an increase in the diversity and growth of gambling games now that the usual live sports betting options are gone. For example, fantasy games such as League of Legends have seen a tremendous increase of 1050% in unique paid activities and 707% in entry fees.
The detailed report compiled by the Gotzha team here is free and without any opt-in. It’s open to everyone on their website so you are just one click away. Or tap if you have a phone in your hand…
The key takeaway from this extensive report? Even with so much chaos going on right now, for us online marketers, we still have the advantage to continue our work and quickly pivot where needed.
Bonus tip: Communicate with your affiliate manager to be guided in the right direction for new verticals, geos and traffic sources.
Major blow for the search giant
We’ve recently been sharing news reports about Google running into trouble with the authorities, and this one will get chalked up as a major defeat for the search giant in the EU.
The company lost an important case in France that obligates Google to compensate French news publishers for using their content.
+ What happened? Well, the French authorities have been able to prove that the company has not been compliant in trying to negotiate a fair price for the use of user content.
In fact, it was found that these French news companies were forced to comply with terms allowing the free use of their content in Google News.
Here’s the translated version of the verdict:
“Google unilaterally decided that it would no longer display article extracts, photographs and videos within its various services, unless the publishers give it to them without a cost.
In practice, the vast majority of press publishers have granted the company licenses for the use and display of their protected content, without negotiation and without receiving any remuneration from Google.”
+ How do things look for the big daddy? Google has three months to negotiate, in good faith, with news publishers to pay for the right to use titles, images and snippets.
It must also submit a report in four weeks detailing its plans for solving this problem, and follow-up reports must be submitted every month thereafter.
+ What does it mean for Google? It appears to be a big blow for Google as it creates a precedent for the company to pay news publishers for the right to use snippets, titles and images.
Google’s business model of freely using content from news publishers might be coming to an end, in France at least.
+ Will these measures be applied and followed globally? We are all eager to know how things unfold, and The Crew will keep you posted as usual.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- E-COMMERCE: Kris Sugatan shares some strategies she followed to grow a new store to $100k in 3 months, top performing creatives included.
- GOOGLE: This script allows you to automatically view and modify your budgets across multiple Google Ads accounts using a single Google Sheet.
- SEO: Can one rank in Google SERPs in less than a minute with just three clicks? We don’t know, but maybe Pablo Rosales does. Check out his secret.
- MICROSOFT: Microsoft Advertising added two new conversion goals options: Include in Conversions and View-through conversions.
- E-COMMERCE: Justin Woll talks consumer psychology and brings up real-life examples of applying these principles in product pages.
BRAIN TEASER
I act like a cat, I look like a cat, Yet I am not a cat. What am I?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Is this good or bad… you decide
The good part? Tech giants Apple and Google have made a big announcement.
They are building an opt-in contact-tracing tool which uses Bluetooth to help public health officials track the spread of COVID-19.
The bad part? A host of privacy and security concerns. The app will have access to your smartphone log whenever you come into close contact with other people.
If any of those people later report COVID-19 symptoms to a public health authority, your phone would send you an alert.
Plus, it also brings forward an unprecedented partnership between two competing tech giants, one that could forever change the way our devices talk to each other.
Understanding the privacy and security implications of this contact-tracing technology will take time, but the app will start rolling out soon.
This is not only about privacy though. Imagine in the future you’re hanging out in a pub and you suddenly see a friend you haven’t seen in years. You move closer to say hello, but receive the dreaded COVID-19 alert. What would you do? Run away?
Like we said, whether this is for the greater good or bad, you decide.