Christopher Chen

Sharing Barrel's Q3 new biz pipeline results... - 102 total leads (+17% vs. Q2) - 44 calls taken (+7% vs. Q2) - 19 proposals sent (-30% vs. Q2) - Avg. proposal value (-11% vs. Q2) - 6 wins (2 more than Q2) Note: these do not count wins or opportunities with existing clients, just new clients we've never worked with before Hope to get aggregated numbers for all of Barrel Holdings at some point. We're not able to identify all of the lead sources, but the QoQ bump in lead volume is mostly coming from Shopify and Webflow directories, which tend to be poor fit opportunities. Hence, only a 7% uptick in calls taken. Our agency partners continue to be a robust source of leads although the opportunities are hit or miss. Our proposal value continues to decline as we opt for smaller initial projects (audits, small tweaks) with new clients which can then lead to larger engagements. Q3 could've easily had 3 more wins (9 total) but we'll likely get signatures this week or next. Oh well. We added 3 new CPG logos in Q3, continuing our efforts to niche down. Check out our updated Barrel website (www.barrelny.com) which positions the agency around CPG commerce. What trends are you seeing with your pipeline? How was your Q3 and how are you feeling about Q4?

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Quick tip to increase AOV for your store: When setting up an ASC+ campaign, choose the “Maximize conversion value” optimization. We’ve seen this bump AOV by 30-40%. Only works if you drive traffic to best sellers page. Try it out and watch your numbers grow.

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Do you own a B2B consulting firm? Here's what you need for your business: - Clear & concise website - Messaging that speaks to pain points - Technically sound SEO for website - Clear value prop Check out some of our most recent work where we helped a Charlotte based Fractional CTO firm revamp their site & messaging & dial in their technical SEO. Hit us up if you're curious about elevating your digital footprint!

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Controversial DTC topic of the day... Does your ecom business look at "Acquisition" and "Retention" as two separate things? Are both handled under one team, or separately?

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Like it or not, #Amazon is where shoppers want to shop, and brands that aren’t there will leave a void that will be quickly filled with competitor listings. And yet selling on Amazon gets more expensive and challenging each year. So how can brands market profitably? My guest, Michael Begg, of AMZ Advisers, has killer tips for maximizing #profit and #revenue on Amazon. Don’t miss our new interview! #adstrategy #brandawareness #influencer #partnerships

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You see screens everywhere you shop.... nCountR helps retailers monetize this space and creates a disruptive network of incredibly valuable ad inventory.... watch this thing explode! #retail #instoremarketing #digitalmarketing Vericast

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Some good points are made by PubMatic’s Andrew Baron in AdExchanger’s latest Data-Driven Thinking column. Ironically, cookies were never that big of a problem in the first place—your humble, anonymous cookie is far less personal than a hashed email (which, as the FTC recently reminded us, is in fact still PII). But to the writer’s point, years of worrying about their impending deprecation have led to some very positive changes. First- and carefully curated and enhanced second- and third-party data will always yield better results, assuming you can protect the privacy of the consumers who produced it. And yes, whatever more personally identifiable data you’re working with—whether it’s sell-side targeting, modeled audiences, or contextual signals—alternative IDs have shown great promise in creating a layer of privacy protection. However, the real challenge arises when these identifiers traverse the bidstream and are shared with third parties. No matter how secure your encryption, once data leaves your control, it’s vulnerable to exploitation or reverse engineering. Anything can happen. The signals aren’t the problem—it’s the way we’re sharing them. We built Symitri to solve these inherent privacy challenges in adtech infrastructure. By ensuring that personally identifiable data never leaves the control of its owner, Symitri offers truly deterministic targeting without sacrificing privacy. With Symitri, you can achieve precision, performance, and privacy—no compromises necessary. #Symitri #Privacy #DataProtection #Trust #TRUSTX https://lnkd.in/eS9Aem8B

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Why did Stitch partner with Talon.One? Three main reasons... 1️⃣ In working with Braze customers, we've seen an incredible amount of pain with their existing loyalty platforms (looking at you, Punchh & CrowdTwist, Inc.). 2️⃣ The platform is 👌. The response time and the ability to customize workflows is elite. 3️⃣ The combination of Braze + Talon.One is a marketer's dream. Scale, capability and efficiency bridging marketing & loyalty together.

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Struggling to optimize your social media marketing? I've created a free guide to help e-commerce brands do exactly that. Gain insights and learn how to optimize your overall strategy for better results and a happier audience. Get the guide 👉 https://bit.ly/3XAYR6A #digitalmarketingaudit #freeguide #ecommercemarketing #dataanalysis #socialmedia #strategy

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The Profitable Growth Index of NRR:PP is a powerful tool to monitor the growth and profitability of your retail business. In this newsletter, I am reviewing PGI and the components of Net Revenue Retention and Payback Period and why it's critical to brands who are struggling today. https://lnkd.in/e24KBkpk

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Mr. Miyagi's Two Rules for #GTM in 2025. 1) The days of big outbound machines are long gone. Your GTM engine should focus on two components. Acquiring the most inbound "at bats" within your designated budgets, and giving those at bats to the players you know will hit the most home runs. 2) First learn rule #1

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One of the many lessons I teach clients is the importance of owning your data in order to create new opportunities for your business. This article is a great example on understanding why.

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Walmart's astounding $43 billion+ in online sales annually speaks volumes about the power of a robust SEO strategy. Centered around creating consumer-focused content and optimizing for search engines, Walmart exemplifies SEO mastery through: ✅ Educational how-to guides & product reviews ✅ Engaging video tutorials ✅ A mobile-optimized website ✅ An expanded social media footprint ✅ Strategic internal linking Moreover, Walmart's use of a parent-child structure for product pages showcases innovation in keyword ranking, contributing to their #19 ranking in the US with 854.9 million visits in December 2022 alone. This blend of consumer education and technical optimization sets Walmart apart in the digital arena, proving the value of SEO in dominating the competitive landscape. Inspired to up your SEO game? SocialJack Media is here to craft your success story. Let's start today. #SEO #SuccessStory #Walmart #SocialJackMedia #DigitalMarketing

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A lot of DTC businesses make this common mistake that costs them growth: → Not having a deep understanding of their target audience segments. Sure, you know who your audience is. You probably even know their pain points. But what about what drives their purchasing decisions? How do they shop for products like yours? What types of information do they need at each stage of the customer journey? ⏫ This is where the magic happens. This is what helps my clients get results like… - 1044% revenue growth and 96% ROAS lift - 84% revenue growth and 34% decrease in CAC - 66% decrease in CAC while on a path to 10x growth The businesses that achieved these results were all wildly different - different audiences, categories, and stages of growth. But having a deep understanding of their audience was the one thing in common that helped them achieve these results. (Well, the one thing besides me. 😉) These insights feed your marketing strategy, from your channel mix to your tactics to your messaging. And with the right insights, you can create a strategy that not only reaches your audience but resonates deeply with them, driving both efficiency and growth. If you think you’re leaving growth on the table - like these businesses were before working with me - let’s chat. Send me a DM and I’ll take it from there.

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I run a full service marketing agency (Fluency Firm) with 30+ brands that we manage. Many of them are break even or profitable. The 3 common trends with the profitable businesses 1- solid / superior / high-quality product. Customer reviews say it all. If the product is crap, you don’t get repeat buyers, and you don’t have customer evangelists. 2- retention is key. 50%+ revenue coming from repeat customers on a monthly basis (this depends on growth and scale, but as a rule). These brands have great products that a customer is purchasing multiple times a quarter or year (refills, subscriptions, etc). Or they are an apparel brand with great merchandising and a strong customer base that keeps coming back. 3- a mix of paid acquisition and earned traffic / awareness through brand moments, PR, collabs, social media / content, and ambassadors. If a brand is expecting to buy their way to scale and stay profitable, I think it’s a long road.

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Terrific insights for how best to refine focus in a challenging new logo acquisition environment.

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Failure to diversify across selling channels is killing e-commerce businesses. I talk with A LOT of brands. And lately, many conversations sound like this: "Meta ads are broken." or this: "Amazon fees are killing us." The one thing they relied on isn't working, and now they're exposed and realizing they built a one-trick pony. A diversified distribution channel makes you less exposed when the one thing isn't your one thing anymore. That's why today's video is all about how to dominate on the Walmart Marketplace. How can you make your brand stand out and delight +120 million repeat customers? https://lnkd.in/e9giaa3u #ecommercebusiness #omnichannel #walmartmarketplace

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btr media | Adam Mellott "We're spending more money at a higher ACOS. How is it possible that our TACOS is improving?!" Here's a scenario: ▶ New brand coming into season in Q2 ▶ Strong brand presence in respective categories, products in retail stores ▶ Brand's Ad Sales% of Total OPS is VERY high ▶ SP, SD CVR% exceptionally high vs. Sponsored Brands What does this suggest? ▶ We can assume branded SV is heating up due to seasonal demand ▶ Opportunity for efficiency cleanup via SB ▶ Opportunity for proper Defense campaign segmentation ▶ Possible significant % of SD budget to VCPM Views Remarketing What did we find? 🛑 Heavy budget allocation across Auto 🛑 No Rank strategy utilization 🛑 Improper branded negation across nonbranded strategies 🛑 Heavy % of budget into SP Defense strategies 🛑 Competitors owning SB TOS across high SV category keywords, top converters What adjustments did we make? ✅ Immediate brand negation across all nonbranded strategies ✅ Immediate pausing of SD VCPM (93% CVR... 😒) ✅ Breakout of SP Defense, which included all brand products + heavy budget decreases, drawing a line between branded vs. nonbranded ✅ Isolated TOS strategies (SP, SB) across high SV top converting kw's to remain top-of-mind in the category + general brand equity & education + organic rank improvement ✅ Extraction of converting ST's via Auto, relaunched across SP broad/phrase/exact with profitability-focus Short-Term Results: 🏆 +$316 increase in avg daily spend MoM 🏆 +$2,014 increase in avg daily ad sales MoM 🏆 +$7,143 increase in avg daily total sales MoM 🏆 -$1.09 DECREASE in ROAS MoM due to Rank, TOS utilization 🏆 -15% Ad% of Total OPS improvement MoM 🏆 -10% decrease in TACOS MoM Evaluate, Identify, Explain, Strategize, Execute, Educate. ☑ Evaluate account ☑ Identify issue or opportunity ☑ Explain reasoning ☑ Strategize & craft solution ☑ Execute properly & thoroughly ☑ Educate through data 🚀 #amazonads #amazonadvertising #amazonppc #ppctips #btrmedia

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What makes a killer ad for CPG products?  ​ Spoiler alert: It's not packing in every feature. It's not relying on humor or celebrity endorsements. It's not even having a cool product or a catchy slogan. ​ It's about the team working behind the scenes FOR the ad. Yes, you read that right.   ​ 99% of the time, you'll need more than one person to make great and converting ads. ​ Here's the lineup of the people that'll make your ad get you the results you want: ​ -Media buyers who know where to place your ads -Creator coordinators who keep everything running smoothly -Creators to shoot the content -Photographer/Videographer to shoot new content -Designers who make your product look drop-dead gorgeous -Video editors who can turn boring footage into eye candy -A creative strategist who ties it all together ​ Without those people, your ad is like a bird with clipped wings. It might look pretty, but it's not going to fly far. Because great ads don't fly solo. ​ Again, who are the people on your ad team? ​  ​ Are they giving your ads the wings they need to soar, or are you trying to do it all yourself? ​ Your answer to those questions determines the results you get.

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