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E-COMMERCE
Steve Tan opens the curtains on the Garth Henderson and the LetsTalkScale drama
We didn’t talk about this when the rumours initially emerged because they were exactly that: Rumours. It simply looked like a bunch of misunderstandings between partners, but it turns out we were wrong.
In a surprising turn of events, Steve Tan uncovered some very questionable actions and motivations from Garth with regards to the project they were working on together, LetsTalkScale.
OK, so who are Steve and Garth? Steve is one of the most popular dropshipping entrepreneurs out there. He and his brother Evan started the Ecom Elites Mastermind FB group, speak regularly at conferences and hold masterminds.
Posts from their FB group have been featured by us before, so you are likely familiar with the duo already.
What about Garth? We know less about him, but we do know that he is also known for dropshipping. He advises newbies on how to start and scale their dropshipping business. In other words, we’ve heard of the name but haven’t followed him regularly.
To make a long story short, here’s what happened:
- Garth Henderson, Steve Tan and a few others partner up to create an e-commerce agency in Singapore that helps run ads for e-commerce brands.
- When looking to hire and execute, Steve notices that things aren’t going exactly to plan.
- There’s a fallout between Garth and another partner, so Steve decides to avoid the drama and wasted time by stepping away from the project.
- Steve left the partnership, but the drama continued without him. Now we are here…
You can check Steve’s long but detailed post about everything here, including some conversation history from Garth. To summarise it for you:
- Garth was stealing good products from the agency clients to run himself.
- Also shows they intended to “take fame, get leverage and then bounce” from this partnership.
- Planned clearly unprofitable campaigns because the agency was charging on ad spend.
- Agency income was redirected to private accounts to fund the lifestyle they were trying to show off.
Have a look at Steve’s post for more. It includes many screenshots and video recordings, then you can make up your own mind about the scandal. We just thought it’s a must-share topic so you can be aware of any potential dangers.
REPORTS
Most valuable brands of 2019: Brandz100 Report
The 2019 edition of the BrandZ Global Top 100 was released at an event at the NYSE.
The 388-page report explains what we can learn from top global brands and celebrates the value these big brands bring to businesses.
Here are some of the key findings from the report:
- Amazon has surpassed Apple and Google to reach the No. 1 spot. With a 52% Y-Y growth rate, Amazon achieved a brand value of $315.5B.
- Luxury outpaces all categories, increasing 29% in value, followed closely by Retail (25%).
- Instagram almost doubled its brand value, rising 95% Y-Y to become the fastest rising brand.
- Nine newcomers joined the Global Top 100, with four of them from technology field. Of these nine brands, four are Chinese and two are Indian.
- Brands shifted an average of 9.6 ranks up or down, almost equaling the shift in 2012 when the markets were recovering from the global financial crisis.
Read the full report and find out more about Amazon’s rise to the top, the trends affecting brands today and the key lessons you can learn for brand growth.
SEO
Preferred domain setting dropped
Google announced that it is discarding the preferred domain setting in Search Console. This feature is not moving from the old Google Search Console to the new version.
What does it do?
This setting lets you communicate the preferred domain setting that you would like to use to index your site’s pages.
This feature is being removed because Google is now able to automatically choose the preferred domain for you based on various signals it gathers.
Why is this important?
If you are currently relying on Google to select your preferred domain through this setting, you might need to make some changes.
You will need to ensure that your canonical URL listed in Google is not affected by this change.
You might not receive any communication from Google if this change results in your site switching its canonical URL in Google’s index. Instead, you need to audit your Google results yourself to ensure no changes were made.
What should you do now?
You can now tell Google about your preferred domain through good site architecture. These four methods will help Google determine your preferred canonical domain:
- Use rel=”canonical” link tag on HTML pages.
- Use rel=”canonical” HTTP header.
- Use a sitemap.
- Use 301 redirects for retired URLs.
If you’re still stuck, read this help document for a better understanding and detailed instructions on what your next steps should be.
INFLUENCER MARKETING
How to scale an influencer marketing campaign
Struggling to deal with influencer marketing? Well, sometimes things are much easier than they look.
At least, this is what you can catch from the strategy that Coltton Fredericks uses to scale influencer marketing campaigns.
The strategy helped him to get $149k, with $34k in ad spend. 90% of it comes from influencers, with 10% coming from retargeting.
Let’s dive straight into it.
How to pick the right influencer: Look for accounts without spam/bot comments and check their engagement rates (likes and comments vs followers). Additionally, Coltton suggests staying away from theme accounts. He says these are unlikely to work well unless you’re selling cheap products.
Getting in touch: Just shoot them a direct message or reach out to them via email. Get straight to the point and make sure that they understand the goals you’re trying to accomplish.
Starting out: Start with low budget influencers (100k – 500k followers), and then work your way up. Campaigns only last around 24 hours, so you can calculate ROI quickly, make decisions, and take action in a short period of time.
Scaling: Once you find an influencer that delivered a positive ROI, you can use him/her again.
Increasing the ROI: Don’t limit yourself to influencers. Gather data about the audience you hit through the influencer campaign. Install the FB pixel and capture as many emails as you can. Then, you can run retargeting campaigns yourself.
Build Lookalikes Audiences: Use that data to run retargeting cam build LALs and scale your business.
There you go. Looks easy, eh? The hardest part is probably finding that initial influencer with a positive ROI. It’s quite similar to testing different audiences, but once you find one that works, it’s relatively easy to scale the campaign.
Moreover, Coltton Fredericks says that influencer campaigns help you to build a brand that pays in the long term, rather than just scaling a product before moving on to the next milkable cow.
Good luck with influencers! Remember to be careful with the ones that have fake followers and engagement.
FROM THE CREW
WTAFF Founder’s story
If you’ve followed us for a while, you probably already know about the founder of WHAT THE AFF, Emanuel Cinca.
Before creating this marketing magazine, Manu has been on many adventures: Founding a software company, being an affiliate, leading the business operations at STM Forum and other ventures.
A lot of experiences and many people met along the way. Some lessons to be learned as well, even if you are a veteran.
If you want to know more about his story, you can head over to this interview released by Affiliate Valley.
He talked about how he started with affiliate marketing, how he took inspiration for WHAT THE AFF, his best days, 5 figures losses and much more.
It’s a 7 minute read and it will help you get to get to know more about the people behind WHAT THE AFF.
Grab a hot coffee and have a good read!
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Facebook’s Next Big Thing
This has been all over the Internet since being announced yesterday. If you’ve heard about it, you already know what we’re talking about, right?
If you haven’t, well, it’s big news.
Facebook has officially announced a digital wallet service named Calibra.
The first product Calibra will introduce is a digital wallet for Libra, a new global currency powered by blockchain technology.
The wallet will be available in Messenger, WhatsApp and as a standalone app and is expected to launch in 2020.
At first glance, this looks like any other payment company. However, FB’s ability to leverage the huge user base of WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram could give it a significant advantage over any rivals.
The most interesting thing? You won’t need a Facebook account to use Libra.
Fraud detection is a feature of its underlying blockchain technology.
Does this mean you will be able to target users based on their purchase history, like you can on Amazon? Could that be one of the goals behind this?
Well, FB says it will never share your transaction history with the social network’s advertising divisions. Your Facebook account data will largely be kept separate from your Calibra account.
But between us, you know how things are. *wink wink*