Identifying Growth Levers for an E-commerce Business - Adam Riback

Justin Aronstein (00:01.786) Welcome to check in to check out, Adam. So glad to have you. So happy to hear your expertise and everything you have to tell us about growth around e-commerce. Adam is director of digital at PS Seasoning. And I think this will be a great conversation. So Adam, how are you feeling today? How's your week going? Adam Riback (00:23.886) That's a great question. You know, I think like most e-commerce or digital marketers, I think we all kind of go through a myriad of emotions on a daily basis. You know, like how's the economy doing? You know, what are people up to? Are they buying my product? Are they not buying my product? You know, I would say for me, you know, I'm just trying to figure things out on a daily basis and my goal is to just understand, you know. my consumer behavior is trying to understand my own behavior is trying to understand, you know, everything that I can to just make myself a better marketer or e-commerce, you know, person, I guess. And that's, you know, that's kind how I feel almost every day, I guess, is just like, how do I get better at this? It never really stops. Connor (01:04.426) Very true. Justin Aronstein (01:07.034) I hear with you're not quite saying it. It sounds like there's a lot of maybe stress or Trying to hit goals that are not unattainable that are maybe difficult this quarter. Is that accurate? Adam Riback (01:20.718) think I'm hitting my goals this quarter. just think that it's like, you know, it's like a constant. You know, it's like a it's a it's a balance, right? Like it's like what works every quarter does not work the next quarter. So like as you're working through Q2, it's like, do I have a good strategy for Q3 and especially Q4 when, you know, buying signals are way higher? And so that's like, you know, one of those things that like you're constantly focused on, like, am I doing again, like the right things now? Am I I focused on the future or am I just like firefighting on a daily basis? And I think like, you know, your job kind of is an amalgamation of both, you know, like you're trying to do both. at the same time like you're trying to firefight daily triage all the things that are working not working and then also like strategize towards the future and so it's you know I don't know any I've never met a marketer didn't have like a high blood pressure rate or you didn't wasn't able to deal with pressure because you pretty much have to be able to in order to do this job I think effectively Connor (02:15.474) Yeah, we have a lot of guests who I think kind of speak to that sentiment about the role. I think a lot of them also talk about burnout, and this is a question I tend to ask a lot, but do you feel like that's something you come up across and maybe you have some sort of strategies for it? Adam Riback (02:20.098) Yeah. Adam Riback (02:33.198) I do box breathing, that helps a lot. If you're not familiar, it's you know, four seconds breathing, know, hold it for four seconds and then four seconds to breathe out. That helps out a lot. But I mean, kind of joking aside, I would say that, you know, it's kind of inevitable. You kind of have to take time to really think about like what your breakdown is. Like I try to use like a 70, 30 percent. Connor (02:39.252) Mm-hmm. Adam Riback (02:56.494) Structure where I'm like focused on 70 % of the things that are going on in the future and 30 % of my tasks on a daily basis are focused on today and I think that that that kind of helps out with it But like if you feel good about the strategies you're doing and the things that are that are working I think that it kind of makes the stress go easier but I don't think that there's really like a Silver bullet or one-size-fits-all strategy to that only because you know, there's there's no way of predicting You know what what everybody's dealing with and my my struggles are probably different than what you guys go through But you know at the end of the day our goal is growth our goal is you know that's personally and through you know are the businesses that we represent so you know it's tough to always it's tough to always reach every goal that you have I think it's pretty much impossible and so like you're gonna have disappointment in your job no matter what but at the same time you do have to be happy with the things that you do on a regular basis to say you know I did enough today or I'm doing my best I did everything I could do and like no regrets Connor (03:52.65) Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I love the four, four, seven, eight rule for breathing too. It's, it's much better than the paper bag. So it's always a good solution. But yeah, that sounds about right. You know, I think a lot of people have that, that issue. think it's, it's managing your own expectations too, right? Like understanding what your own goals are, what you're actually capable of. think sometimes people set too far of an expectation. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Adam Riback (04:00.321) You Justin Aronstein (04:19.364) So what do you own right now at PS Seasoning? Adam Riback (04:23.694) So I technically own all the digital strategy and all the digital implementation, whether that comes to. Email strategy, email implementation versus, you know, page strategy. There is a person on our team that does paid social, kind of more from the organic aspect. I kind of focused more on the paid side. You know, it's pretty much everything that you can think of when it comes to, you know, influencer marketing or, you know, that's, that's managed by someone else in our team too. But also it's like, you know, we, we kind of have to strategize together on what we want that to look like and how we want it to go. And it's a lot of collaboration with a lot of different teams, but at the end of the day, like the growth of the site, everything that has to do with sales like that, that somehow touches me in every way. anything that has to do with those aspects is pretty much what I focus on. And I've I've known a lot, I think, you know, different people who have worked in similar roles kind of like to mine. And I think that they kind of have the same kind of burden of growth, you know, no matter what and through every channel, you know, like kind of like I do. And so, you know, it's it's part and parcel to the to the job, but it's also, you know, an occupational hazard. know, you you're going to do everything. You're to learn every you're gonna have to figure everything out if you don't know it, you know, it's like how do you implement all these things? Do you use AI? you know, do we have the marketing stack, tech stack that we want? you know, it's one of those things that you're always evaluating, you're always figuring out what you have, what you don't have, just what do you own, what you don't own, like even side projects for development, like I own those too, like anything that I can do, I can do. Anything that I can't do, I try to hire out, you know, like, it's pretty much like how it goes, I think, for most of us. Justin Aronstein (05:57.85) So it sounds like you use agency partners as well as kind of your in-house teams Adam Riback (06:03.522) Yeah, have to. You know, there's not really a lot of ways to get away from using an agency at this point. Like I would just say that they're, they're usually cheaper than hiring a person internally. Although you could have that argument all the live long day, you know, which is better, an internal or an external person, or should I hire this person or that person? And it's, it's tough because, know, like you really want a partner of your business. No matter what you do, you really want to have somebody that like, Hey, I can rely on this person no matter what to do all the jobs that I do. And they want to, I want them to care about it at the level that I care about it. It's almost, you know, it feels sometimes like daunting to find a partner like that, but there are just so many agencies out there that can help businesses and help them grow that it's hard not to, you know, use anybody else, you know, just besides like growing your own digital team in-house. And it seems like that's kind of where the money's gone. Like I can't even tell you, I think I've gotten 155 emails in the last two months from people selling me digital services. And that's like an ongoing counter. So every day I probably get six or seven more, but that's, that's pretty normal. Connor (06:56.542) you Connor (07:02.858) Yeah, that checks out. Justin Aronstein (07:03.269) I'm glad I haven't been one of those in your inbox. Adam Riback (07:06.54) You know, not yet, but it could be one day. You know, you might end up there. Justin Aronstein (07:09.06) Good bit. Awesome. Excuse me. Connor (07:12.682) Let's go. Adam Riback (07:16.076) I mean, does that seem like out of the realm of what you guys are used to hearing or is that about power for the course? Justin Aronstein (07:19.898) No, that's... Yeah, and we know every e-commerce director is dealing with this exact same problem. They have an idea of what problems they want to solve. They've prioritized them. They know what resources they have. Connor (07:20.99) That's pretty accurate. Justin Aronstein (07:35.212) And then they're constantly getting inundated with offers like, hey, you need this service. I sell this service. I sell this service. And anytime an agency partner is reaching out, anytime, most of them are very like, this is what I do. Not like, hey, what's your problem? Maybe it's so like they're always talking about themselves as opposed to the e-commerce director or the e-commerce leader. So it's tough to figure out who actually can do the job and to take the right risks. Connor (08:07.496) I feel like we run into that a lot too, where we find e-commerce directors who've had horror stories with agencies and so much of it, feel like can end up being trial and error. And that tends to be something we hear expressed by them pretty often. Connor (08:28.884) Given that you actually do delegate a lot of stuff out and do work with agencies, do you think there's any part of your job that people might be surprised that you do handle or that you might be more hands-on with? Justin Aronstein (08:29.658) Thanks Adam Riback (08:42.008) Probably development. Number one, the first thing that to my mind is that is development. like for an e-commerce director, they almost expect you to be able to like, add forms or like add different things to this, that, or the other thing. And it's like, they just want you to be able to do everything as it pertains to the website. And they feel like, you know, hiring you to do growth and, you know, development is like kind of part and parcel to you doing that. And then like, Justin Aronstein (08:57.914) You Adam Riback (09:05.486) I guess with the advent of like AI tools and things like that, people want you to be able to like explain the design that you want and explain the creative and what it should look like. And then you're like trying to use AI to be like, Hey, I kind of want to look like this. Can you make that? And they're like, all right, that's too complicated or that'll take too long or you're kind of just figuring out what you're supposed to do there. But you're kind of like as a person, a creative agency, a development agency, a growth agency, and you're like all wrapped up into one, like one specific human being that's like, I'm supposed to be doing all this. So I Connor (09:12.52) Yeah. Adam Riback (09:35.392) I say, you know, those probably those two things the most is probably what I have to help out with. And like, mean, it's not it's not different for any business that I've worked with. Like, it's been the same for the last 15 plus years of my career. like, can you do creative? Can you do, you know, tech stack? Can you develop? You know, can you do all those things? And it's like I can try. I'm not perfect at any of them, but I'll do my best, you know, to figure each one out. And I think I've gotten better at it over the years. But again, I'm not I'm not great at like, you know, development or like writing code. I can use chat GPT as good as the next person, but I am not a developer. I could not tell you what things I did wrong or right. Connor (10:12.682) Yeah, they, they, there's an expectation to be not only a vibe coder, a vibe designer, a vibe email marketer, a vibe, you know, it just, it goes through the list now. Unfortunately, it does sound like too, as AI develops that list of skills is growing for each person. And I think that can be really daunting. Adam Riback (10:34.83) think it's helpful too, but it's like, it's just, it's a tool, you know, you have to use it like a professional would use that tool. It's not like something you can just, you know, like any person can just like, Hey, how do I SEO optimize this blog that I wrote? And it's like, you know, your AI is critiquing your AI at this point. And it's like, you do need some sort of technical, you know, background or understanding to be like, all right, I need my H3s to do this. I need these links to be here. I want to drop anchor here. I want this to go to this. Like, you know, it, there is an art Connor (10:43.348) Mm-hmm. Adam Riback (11:04.923) to it and there's also a science and so you're kind of like in between those two areas constantly trying to figure out which one's the best but you you don't want like one you know I guess it just what I think what it does is probably just makes everybody feel like they're an expert in that field because they read you know like one blog on like hey how do I do you know SEO and it's like I have 15 years of experience doing SEO I could tell you that it's not simple and it's difficult to do you know like I want to keep this one keyword term at number one on Google it's like you All right. Like how much time and money do you have? And you know, like how often are we updating this thing? You know, there's like a lot of things to think about, you know, it's not just like, Hey, you know, put vending coin in machine and get out, you know, number one ranking on Google. I've never even worked with an agency that's like, yeah, we can guarantee you to get number one rankings on Google. And I probably wouldn't work with one that said that they could cause like, I've been a number one for like a few different terms in my career on, Google. And it's like, I know how hard it is to upkeep those like you're talking about updates on a bi-weekly basis you're talking about like content updates you know product updates you're talking about you know all these different things to ensure that you know you are continuing to make Google happy with the with the work that you're doing and now it's you know trying to make AI happy so you know optimizing for that Connor (12:22.462) Yeah. I mean, I love that answer. I feel like people tend to forget that AI right now is really just the world's dumbest hardworking assistant. you know, like it's not going to be in any way a source of authority for anything. And I agree with you too. I have a friend who works in a, also works in the agency life. And he's come across a few instances lately where doing UX design work that he'll send it off to a client and the client will run it through chat GPT to get feedback on. how to change the design. And it's so nonsensical that he has to kind of come through. It's extra work now for him, but it feels like simpler work for the other person. it's definitely interesting the complications that it's creating. But I agree with you. I think it's something that needs to be supportive of creativity and innovation, but it shouldn't replace it. And I think that's where that line is for a lot of people right now is trying to figure out how to do that. Adam Riback (13:18.572) And I think it's similar to data. Like you can have some but that something analyze data constantly. But the insights that you get from it, like almost always need to be done by a human. Like almost always, because, you know, the answer you're going to get is going to be could be different depending on which data set you're looking at and like which percentage you're looking into here or there, wherever. It's like it's never just like a linear like you do this and get X, Y, Z. It just doesn't work like that. Like you have to have a human analyzing that data. Otherwise, your data is basically just useless. Connor (13:24.202) Mm-hmm. Connor (13:28.535) my god, yes. Connor (13:47.764) Yeah, I completely agree. We've worked with some research in the past before where it's like if there's, mean, it's just that personal touch, that element of humanity that kind of brings together those insights. So I love that sentiment. think that's very, very true. Justin Aronstein (14:07.278) So what's your day-to-day look like? I know you're spread thin, small team, working with agencies. What's that look like? Adam Riback (14:16.256) It's a lot of like, it's a balance between like teaching from an education standpoint and then also like doing so I'm doing a lot. I'm educating a lot and then I'm planning a lot. And so like, I have to be between those three things pretty much every day. I don't, there's not like an exact recipe I have for it. think every day is a little different depending on like, which project needs the most juice right now. I think that I, you know, it's hard to determine that all the time because there's so many competing interests. But I would say that, you know, no matter what as a marketer, you know, your job is to prioritize these things based on what you think the impact is. And also like to get everybody on the same page as to like what the impact is. So it's not just like, you know, answering emails or, you know, checking boxes on certain projects. It's like, what can I do today that I was going to make the biggest impact in the future? and like figuring out what that is. if I can spend, you know, at least 50 % or more, like I said, my perfect ratio is 70%. Then I feel like I did a good job during the day, but my every day looks different. You know, it's like some days it's triage, some day it's firefighting, some days it's, you know, it's all strategic. Some days it's, you know, just doing one thing that, you know, you need to like, you know, teach somebody on or, you know, like educate about like, hey, look, you know, if we did this, we could get this. I know you guys have been interested in that in the past. kind of branch this out a little bit more and help you guys understand what other things could be done here because you're in ideation constantly, right? You're thinking of ideas for your business all the time and you're trying to figure out, hey, can this work? Where do I fit this in? And trying to prioritize that is pretty much my everyday. So, it's kind of a vague answer maybe in some ways, but it's real to life, I guess. Justin Aronstein (15:57.252) Totally. There's two things I really want to touch on here. The last part you just said on the ideation, you're constantly ideating. And I know it's amorphous and it's different for everyone. But what's that look like for you and how do you find like, I'm sure you're always looking for that thing that's going to not double revenue, but increase revenue by 50%. That thing that's bigger than everything else that takes it off the charts. How do you find that? Where do you get that piece of inspiration from? Adam Riback (16:00.802) Yeah. Adam Riback (16:26.648) think part of it, you either just like innately learn over time and like that's a, it's not a great answer either. But I would say the second part of it is testing a lot. And like if you're testing like miniature things that work and you're like, Hey, is it, is there a possibility that like we haven't really done enough marketing on this product category or not done enough on this or that or the other, you know, product or specifically or type of product or, know, how, what have we done in the past that's worked and hasn't worked or what's working right now that we could like blow out to do more. So like you look at specific advertising campaigns, for example, we just did like a test on one where it was like we want to test some creative, use a small budget, see if we can get it to be in a place where it's providing better quality content or even like return on ad spend than our previous ones that we had like working for it and kind of more of a. Performance max campaign on Google and so we did it like a basically a an a b test this one was with a different type of shopping campaign and it it did about three times better with a smaller budget than the performance max campaign did with having more creative and so we were like, alright Let's let's try this with another category and so we're in the process of testing it with four other types of categories and it's like if you're not doing that like testing on a regular basis of figuring out which ideas of yours are good and which ideas of yours are better You know, it's like you're never really going to get to a place where you're ahead of where you need to be because you'll always be working in arrears. And so whether that's even like product development, you just have to figure out like, hey, man, like we started this product out like six months ago and it's crushing it. Can we add more stuff like this? What's the plan for, you know, in 2026, 2027 on product development and like, can we build it? And so like, if you're not asking that question today, it won't be done by 2026. And it's like, all right. So like, it's going to take a minute to create, especially working with things that are like actual seat products like consumer packaged goods for like food and beverage. Like if you're not doing ideation now, you'll never get to a place where you're like, we feel good about this in 2026. You're just not. So you have to be testing stuff constantly, looking into the data constantly and saying, what have we not done? What could we add? Connor (18:37.226) Do you know about how many tests y'all are running on average at a given time? Adam Riback (18:41.55) for ads or for product development, because I can give you both. Connor (18:45.704) I would say product development is my initial question, but I am interested in ads too. Adam Riback (18:49.87) product developments weekly. Like I can't talk about like every single thing that we do also take too much time, but also like, you know, some of these are, you know, for other customers. So I can't break into all the details there, but I would say like we're testing whole lines of products where you'll have people who have been certified by our company to do testing because they can point out the ingredients within each product to say this has this or this, this has like a umami flavor to it. Let's, let's talk about that. Is that something that Connor (18:51.955) Okay. Adam Riback (19:19.824) Kids would like, you you're asking all these questions, you know, like you're trying to figure out like, hey, you know, it's not just like a, you know, a one and done process, you know, we're building stuff for companies that you know of in every, you know, in every grocery chain in America. And a lot of the stuff that they get is from us, like we're doing the R and D on it, we're testing it out, like we're using internal sources, like we are really trying our best to like. just make it as, as you know, the best products we possibly can for all of the consumers we possibly can. And it's an impossible like task, but at the same time, like I couldn't tell you that I feel like we're crushing it because like we're adding so many different, you know, writing so many different lines, there's gonna be different flavors, so many different types of things. And we have like this entire R and D process that I think most people just don't know about PS seasoning. So it's like, I wish I could tell everybody because it's like, man, if you guys only knew just how much work goes into this. And then on top of that, the marketing on the other side is like, Hey, try this. could probably mention we just launched one of our sauces called Notorious PIG, which is a barbecue sauce. It's a little sweet and savory. Yeah, it's really good. And we actually have another launch coming up next week called Mugshot, which is a barbecue, sorry. It is a root beer barbecue sauce. It is incredible. Connor (20:21.524) you Justin Aronstein (20:21.964) I saw that on your site, huh. Connor (20:35.134) Nice. Adam Riback (20:35.414) And so it's just things like that that you're just like, man, I can't wait to do the marketing for this because like just some of the sizzle reels we've done and like the flavors that are in the product. You're like, man, once people, we know that once people get this in their hands, they're going to love it. And I think that's like the joy of doing any marketing at all is just being like, man, do people really enjoy this or not? And if they do, like it just makes the experience so much more worthwhile. And I think like working in CPG, for example, is like you get to see where people use your product constantly. And then even working with like influencers, for example, like you can see literally everything they post about your product and all the cool stuff that you know they're building and the types of stuff that they're making out of it and it's like man I wish we could do that every day because there's like you know hundreds of new recipes coming out for like a barbecue Sauce that's like root beer flavored. I mean that I don't know if I've ever seen one like that before but we have like such cool stuff like Churro dust is a new rub. We came out with it is awesome I use it last weekend, but I mean it's not like anyone wants to see videos of me barbecuing at my house Just like hey cool. Look what I made You know, it's like it's like they really want to see it from people who are you really good at making that stuff and so like I wouldn't consider myself one of those people and so You know for me, that's like I actually get the joy for my for my job just seeing what other people make out of it and like Connor (21:38.602) You Adam Riback (21:51.246) enjoying the products that we have. like from an R &D perspective, like we're trying to make the next iteration of that and make people aware of like these amazing products that our company just keeps churning out all the time. And so it's a great opportunity to like really hone in your marketing skills, but at the same time, like find growth in products that may have not worked previously for you or types of things you've never done before. So that's how I would explain that. Long story long. Connor (22:15.498) Yeah. Well, one of the things you touched on there, I think is really interesting is it's about getting feedback from the user base. And whether that's through your product testing or whatever, it sounds like you are using that information, that data to inform a lot of the decisions, if not all the decisions that you're making. And I feel like we've seen in the past that that's something that I wouldn't say a lot, but I don't know where I can put that line at. But a majority of e-commerce directors don't do that. They don't get, I wouldn't say into the trenches, but you know, they don't get into the grill with their customers and just get that feedback and learn how they're thinking and what their, you know, their mental models are around these products. And sounds like that's something that you're doing, which I applaud. Adam Riback (23:02.872) Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's like, you know, it's what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, you know, when he talked about Sherlock Holmes, you cannot build big bricks without clay. And like when you're talking about data, it's like, like I mentioned earlier, like if you're not doing something with it, then it's not actionable and it's not useful. You just have data. It's like, that's not great. You have to use what you have. And especially like when you have a consumer product, you have to think of the product as a consumer would like, why would they be interested in buying this? Why would they go out of their way? Because there's so many competitors out there for every product like you're like just as like a flavor palette. Like you got I think you guys both live in Austin, right? Justin Aronstein (23:41.538) Yeah! Adam Riback (23:42.22) You guys have some of the best food in the United States. Like you have some amazing restaurants there. You amazing flavors. you guys, your palates change and it's more unique to you. And so like, as you kind of continually get this personalized experience of flavors that are like Texas based or barbecue based, know, it's like your guys has changed. You guys is a, your tastes change and like, you're like, what if I could find something like that online? Like, what if I could get this? And it's like, yeah, well, there's now a niche for almost every single thing you could possibly imagine. It's just going to keep getting, I don't know if I can use the word niche-ier, but it's going to continue to grow. Connor (24:04.266) Mm-hmm. Adam Riback (24:12.234) in the niche. So it's like, so you know, it's like, all right, can I, can we build more products for that? Can you know, what do people like and what do they don't like about the product? Is it too sweet? Is it too sour? Is it too whatever? You you got to figure that out and get the feedback and be like, cool, this is what we should build going forward. Like, and if you're not doing that as a CPG marketer, like it'd be like not asking somebody about like, hey, how do you clean your kitchen and you sell kitchen cleaning products? Like. If it doesn't work for them, why would they use it again? You know, it's like that's not gonna work out longterm and like, you know, you just have to think about your customer. Justin Aronstein (24:37.319) Hehehehehe Connor (24:42.322) Yeah, that's true. You'd be surprised how many people we see not doing that. And instead, I think just following trends that they see other people doing, know, just best example is they just see other competitors doing things and without taking the time to research their own user base or understand what is specific and unique about their product, they just copy and paste a lot of those things, whether it's on the site itself or on their ads or whatever. So I think that's something that's really important. missing, I think, from what we've seen with other e-commerce directors. So that's very important to talk to the users, get that feedback. Justin Aronstein (25:24.128) So now I want to look back at your career just quickly. How did you get started in e-commerce and what were a couple of the critical points? No one went to school for this. I know you didn't go to school for this. how did you get to where you are? Adam Riback (25:36.182) Yeah. I had a job working in a shipping out for a company called plumberstock.com and they sold like various DIY products for plumbing supplies. I worked in their shipping department. I just shipped things out. There's like signs like live laugh love and like also like shower heads and tub spouts and things like that. There was a there was this warehouse across the street that nobody wanted to go to do shipping in because the products were stacked like 12 to a shelf and you'd like, you had no idea how many products were on that shelf. It took like 20 to 30 minutes to pick back and ship that product, even if it was like, you know, this big. And so you're like, you got this tiny product takes like an hour, you know, 30 minutes to an hour to find, and then you got to put it in a box across the street. Like what a waste of your day. If you could only find, you know, like 16 products per day in that warehouse, like it's not great. So actually I restructured the warehouse and started putting those products on, you know, Amazon and eBay. We started selling a ton of them. I think we went from like, 2k per month to 60k in probably three months and it was like I remember the day when you know our CEO came in he looked at our warehouse that I had like reorganized and he was like We need more product in here and I was like, yeah Yeah, we could you use some more product and so he sent over like I think it was 20 trucks which is like somewhere around like 500 pallets and we just filled that place to the brim and I had like stuff like staged out in the middle of the street Justin Aronstein (26:52.73) You Justin Aronstein (26:59.638) Wow. Adam Riback (27:04.59) trying to bring it into the warehouse, because we were not prepared for one day, just getting 20 trucks to show up. And now that wasn't great, like planning on our end, but I started selling more and more stuff. We started really turning that into a business. then I asked for a raise, didn't get one, moved on to, I moved to Dallas and I found a job, think within a week. Got a job there, turned that business from zero to $25 million in the electronic cigarette business. And then, know, from there, kind of like my origin story began where it's like, Hey, I build companies that have growth. so from there, I've helped build other startups like zero to 28, six to 14, 11 to 40 or 11 to 50 million. Like I've been part of some really awesome companies and some really awesome things. And I kind of just like started working at a shipping department because I didn't have my bachelor's degree. And once I got it, you know, I was still just, you know, selling selling product out of a warehouse that nobody used. figuring out how to manage stuff on Amazon and eBay and just kind of fell into it and kept going from there. Justin Aronstein (28:07.162) Are there any patterns that you've seen in those companies? Every company is different, every customer is different, every need, every... the market's different. There's so many things that are different, but it sounds like you've done this a couple times. Maybe there's some patterns that you've seen along the way? Adam Riback (28:23.404) Yeah, know this is going to sound really arrogant. So just take this with a grain of salt. like, there's not a lot of businesses that fully understand e-commerce unless they are an e-commerce only business. And I think that's a really tough distinguishing factor for any business that you work with. Like what's their level of expertise? What do they know? What do they not know? And I think going into any business, like your job as a marketer is to kind of understand their level and make sure that you meet them at that level so that you can provide the context needed to like, you know, roll out the strategies that you have in mind or the ideations with product development or whatever it may be. And I think that's probably the most recognizable pattern I've seen also, you know, You know, usually is it's like a it's a portion of luck that grows every company and it's not like it's not something that's trackable It's not like I set out to grow this company by 80 billion dollars and I walked along my process that I built in my giant document and I just I we did it we made 80 billion dollars and we're the best company ever like I've never seen somebody like start out at a point where they're like here's my strategy and from soup to nuts from like beginning to end we're like we followed it exactly and then this amazing thing happened and we got all the results we wanted Like it just never happens like that. And those are like the two patterns is like it's unpredictable. And then also like, you know, you have to figure out what level of understanding a business has about its own business when it comes to e-commerce. Some like some have high understanding and some have like low understanding and they really kind of want to figure those channels out. So that's why they're hiring you to figure that out. So or help them understand it. Justin Aronstein (29:54.18) Totally, and it sounds like as you start understanding it, part of, and you talked about this beginning of teaching, and I assume it's not just teaching your employees, the agencies, a lot of it's probably teaching up or teaching sideways. Adam Riback (30:09.518) 100%. I mean, it's like if you say you ran a B2B business for your entire life and then some guy comes in or, you know, person comes in and is like, hey, you know, I can help you get $20 million this year because you guys are not on Amazon or you have any e-commerce, you have nothing on e-commerce and like people want to buy your stuff directly, but they have to go through these like weird sellers that they're not familiar with. Like what if you just sold it direct and they're like, are margins better and you're like, you bet they are. And it's like, you start going through all these things and you're like, it's actually a lot easier to do this than it is something else. Like those people are not, they're not on the same level as you are when it comes in. They just understand that you tell them that you can make a bunch of money. They take a shot at like figuring out how to do this. And then once you do the thing that they ask you to do, it's like, man, you know. I guess this guy is a genius or like what else can he do or like let's build a team around them or and it's like that's usually like the kind of like the general feeling I've gotten most places that I've started at like to give you like a quick example. I met with the CEO two months after being at a like a 700 million dollar company and he said hey, know what tell me about advertising and I was like well right now every dollar you give me I make $12. And he took like a seat back. He had like, like take a step back for a minute. And he's like, wait a minute. He's like, you're telling me that every dollar I give you, you turn into $12. And I was like, yeah. And he goes, why aren't we spending like infinitely? Like, why is there no amount of money that we would stop spending until we got to the number that we were all happy with? And I was like, that's what I'm having this meeting with you for. It's like, I want to get a larger budget. Like, I'm just trying to tell you that like, if we did that, we would, you know, we would grow. And so the funny thing was, Justin Aronstein (31:44.028) Hehehehehe Adam Riback (31:50.122) is we spent, I think we started out with a budget of like $120,000 a year. We eventually, within two years, turned that budget into three, three, three and a half million dollars. And our sales were still at a nine ROAS after two years. So it's like. Justin Aronstein (32:01.306) Mm-hmm. Justin Aronstein (32:05.059) That's incredible. Adam Riback (32:06.112) We went from 12 ROAS to nine and a half, like nine. And the funniest thing about it was is like, you know, we never even stopped spending. Like we just kept spending at the level that we knew that we could to reach that nine. Like if he was OK with going lower, we would have just kept going lower. And so like it's one of those things where if you create twenty seven million dollars in sales from advertising alone, you're just like. Justin Aronstein (32:19.598) Hmm. Adam Riback (32:27.382) man that seems like a lot of money, like more money than I'll ever see in my entire life doing this job myself. But at the same time, he became absolutely, he's like, e-commerce is a pillar of our business now. And when I first got there, also I had another director tell me that they didn't think I should be hired because they didn't think that e-commerce was where the business was going. And I probably had like three or four individuals tell me that, like to my face, in meetings, like, I don't really think we need to focus on e-commerce, we don't really need to do any of this. And I'm like, well $40 million in growth late, Justin Aronstein (32:30.906) Hehehehehe Justin Aronstein (32:47.343) Yeah. Justin Aronstein (32:54.916) Yeah. Adam Riback (32:57.416) You know, maybe you change your mind and sometimes yes, and then sometimes no, know, like sometimes, know to them the money isn't worth it for all the complication that it adds within the wording process or the the budget that we spend and so, know, it just depends but every organization is different my mentor once told me like if you've seen one business you've seen one business and that is a hundred percent accurate Justin Aronstein (33:07.592) totally. Totally. Justin Aronstein (33:16.666) I love that. So, you've had some success. I love your success. Celebrate it. I want to hear about your failure though. I think that's more interesting. What's a time that something didn't work and how have you used that? How have you harnessed that? Adam Riback (33:24.696) Thank you. Adam Riback (33:34.434) think things don't work out all the time. I think that if you're not failing, like if you're not failing, you're not trying. so like failure is a huge part of my own story as well. Like sometimes you can be so successful that it drives you nuts and it also drives the people around you nuts. so that's, that's like one of the failures that I've gone through personally is like, Hey, look, like I'm driven to, to, to continue getting to our goals that we have. And like, you know, sometimes that burns people out. Like sometimes I didn't handle those situations great. I've learned a lot about leadership since then, but at the same time, you talk about, when even looking at the example with the CEO that I just mentioned where I was like, hey, this could do this, he could have had the opposite response too. And I've had situations where that's occurred, like, hey, I'd like more money to do this. And it's like, no, we don't really want to increase your budget. And you're like, but the return is so high. Don't you guys want money? Are you allergic to it? And they're like, no, we just don't really care about this as much as you do. And it's like, man, that's such a stark contrast from some businesses, because sometimes people care only about dollars, or they only care about performance, and other places they don't do that. And so it's like you're kind of stuck in between this again, you're in an educational role where it's like, I really hope people understand what it is I'm advocating for and talking about, but at the same time, as I mentioned with another previous position, it's like, not everybody's gonna be stack hands in agreement with you, even if it's like, hey, we grew by $40 million. It's like, not everybody cares. Connor (34:35.666) You Adam Riback (35:02.256) It's like, it seems like insane to say that because like if I said like Justin and Connor, you guys have $40 million, how happy are you guys? Like I am ecstatic. Like that would make me so thrilled, right? But. Justin Aronstein (35:12.058) Over the moon Adam Riback (35:14.712) Not everybody feels that way. Not everything's about money and not everything's about, you know, growth. And so like, even if you're trying to get better as a marketer, and even if you run into these things, you know, it's not it's not like you do this, you do X result and get Y and never happens like that. And I think it's like part of the failures of why that happens if he's like, OK, I have to go back through and. Justin Aronstein (35:28.89) Never. Adam Riback (35:33.718) search my feelings through it, like Anakin Skywalker or something, like, Why isn't this going well? I feel like it's going really well. And it's like, no, they don't care about that one thing that you care about. And you're like, okay. Connor (35:37.514) Hahaha Adam Riback (35:46.862) why and you're like, it's like, you know, it's just not the main thing. You know, they got all so many other things going on, logistics, supply chain, product development, all these, they have a million other problems to deal with. And I think as like a CEO, you know, like that's something that you probably have so many things to deal with that like maybe e-commerce or like one sales channel to you is like so minuscule in comparison. And I think that's. You know, it's something that we have to deal with as marketers, but at the same time, you know, it's like we have to temper our expectations too. Like, did you solve this? Did you figure out a way to get around it? Or did you communicate this better this time? And I think each time it's his own journey. Like I said, if you've seen one, you've seen one. Like nothing's the same. Nothing's, you know, the always going to be one way or another. And so it's, it's about you being adaptable and adjusting to those things. Cause it's never, it's never the same every time. Justin Aronstein (36:32.355) Totally. So I want to get into the checkout portion of this podcast. And it sounds like from your career, you're really good at growing companies and effectively growing companies. So my question to you is like, when you're starting a new role or you're kind of starting to look at a business, what parameters do you need? What information do you look for to figure out where your levers are going to be? Adam Riback (36:59.022) This might be a dumb answer, but this is what I do. I try to focus on margin first I try to understand like what margins or retail margin yet that somebody gets for a business. And it's like, okay, if I had to make the same margin on Amazon or a third party platform, then I need to adjust for this. I need to make sure that, you know, we're, we're catching capturing all the, you know, the marketing costs, you know, what's my advertising cost of sale. It's my ACOS and then factor in tacos. And you're trying to factor in like all the, metrics that you know, that work like your end. If you said like, Hey, let's just grow this business. I just need my NCAC to be lower. need my lifetime value to be higher. Justin Aronstein (37:06.87) Love it. Love it. Adam Riback (37:35.712) And I need my e-commerce conversion rate to be, you know, higher as well. If I just had those three things, I mean, simple, we just make money and print it. You know, it's like, yeah, but it's like, if you don't know where your guard, your guardrails are like, hey, you know, we really only have like 20 % to spend on this or 15 % to spend on this. And it's like, you're hampered by this one margin. It really changes your entire strategy. Cause you're like, I need, you know, 15 % more out of my organic or I need 30 % more out of email. And so in order to do that, I have to do X, Y, and Z things, which goes into your strategy. And so I think like, Justin Aronstein (37:41.786) Totally. Adam Riback (38:06.096) when you're starting out with a business, like you really need to know kind of what your guardrails are on. And I think the only way to do that is kind of knowing like, where does each product margin start? So you can kind of factor that into like, how do we sell this category? Or maybe we can't sell this category. Maybe it's like an unattainable margin we're trying to reach, you know, and what's everybody happy with? If you knew, if you know like those three things going in, I feel like you have a pretty good idea of like where you can go from a marketing strategy. Justin Aronstein (38:08.238) Mm-mm. Justin Aronstein (38:30.714) I love it and I'm gonna put it really succinctly, understand the economics of your business. Adam Riback (38:37.398) Yeah. You did it way better than me. I wish I could have explained that better because that exactly understand unit economics and then you're pretty good to go. Justin Aronstein (38:42.842) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And anytime I'm trying to understand a business, that's the first thing that I want to know. What are the UNEI economics? How do you make money? And what is the actual amount of money you make? Let's get the brass stacks. And it's amazing how many e-commerce leaders don't understand that at a really finite level. Adam Riback (39:07.128) think if you have ever reported out to a board or any like private equity group and I have, that's like pretty much all they care about. Like when we talk about performance from a CEO or performance from like an SVP or CMO or whatever, like those things are all different, but board and like VC and PE, all of those are the same. Like they're just like, what are my unit economics? What am I making? What am I losing? What does my P &L tell me? And if you've managed like a... I've managed a $50 million P &L and I can tell you like the only things that they care about is like, why are we losing money on this one product type or category or this one thing? And you're like, let me dig into that, but we shouldn't be losing money. And it's like, oh, well, you know, like for instance, we had a, we sold a trash can once. I know this sounds like super simple, but it was like a 55 gallon trash can. It's massive. It's like what businesses use for like landscaping or like lawn mowing or like that's where they put all their trimmings or. Justin Aronstein (39:42.606) Mmm. Adam Riback (39:59.522) you know, that, you know, like for businesses that have warehouses, that's where they put boxes or things like that or whatever, right? It's just for like industrial size trash cans. But the funny thing is, is that it costs so much to ship those. No one was tracking it. And it was like, well, this turns out to be like an $18,000 loss if we just sell this product. Why are we still selling it? And I'm like, yeah, we shouldn't be like, and I was the that did the math on this. So I'm telling you, I think we should discontinue selling this online. Like just, shouldn't do it. It doesn't make any sense. And they're like, okay, yeah, do that today. And you're like, All let me scrub all the work that I have, scrub all the ads, scrub all the emails, scrub all the, know, like scrub my entire marketing, you know, strategy on this to like, you know, start anew. And it's like, let's find something else to promote. And it's tough because, you know, if you're managing, you know, 40,000 SKUs, you know, like which ones do you push, which ones do you not? And the funny thing is, is the margin will usually tell you the answer to VC and to PE firms. They're just like, well, this is a 92 % margin. Like, why aren't we selling nothing but this product? And you're like, Justin Aronstein (40:28.664) Mm-hmm. Justin Aronstein (40:36.516) Mm-hmm. Adam Riback (40:56.182) Yeah, we should do that. Yeah, no, we should. But I mean, like you tell me like Justin Aronstein (40:59.106) you Adam Riback (40:59.942) I mean, is the market big enough for this? And then you'll get into like TAM and try to figure out like, is this market big enough? And like some, you know, chat GPT will tell them like, it's $80 billion. And you're like, great. So $80 billion in the cut market. Let's see if I can hit this, you know, like thread the needle here just right so that I'm at the right cost, right margin, right everything. And, know, you'd be able to sell this thing like as much as possible, you know. And so I think I think it's about like figuring out what that like, you know, what that math equation looks like, but also understanding like, hey, this is what people want, depending on what situation they're in. Justin Aronstein (41:04.307) huh. Justin Aronstein (41:12.442) You Justin Aronstein (41:30.426) Totally, totally. I'm pretty convinced that the only thing that you learn at MBA is unit economics and how to read a P &L. It's $60,000 to understand unit economics. But that's my own personal opinion. So kind of last question here, where do you see e-commerce going in the next 12 months for you, for the market as a whole? Where's the focus? Where's growth going to come? Adam Riback (41:44.439) No doubt. Adam Riback (42:01.998) think we're living in a really odd time because like you're getting pushed like I mentioned like 150 plus emails in the last like four weeks is like you're getting a lot of people saying they can do a lot of different things and I would also just like add to that equation to be like okay Connor (42:14.313) one. Adam Riback (42:17.526) Where is e-commerce going? And I think it's a lot of it is like building the right structure model for whatever your business is, whether you want like a director of growth marketing or performance marketing or e-commerce or whatever it may be. Like, do you need someone at the helm that understands strategy? And do you also need like... assets where it comes like, you know, to I do I just hire a marketing agency to do this or, know, who can do what, what makes sense? How, you know, how far into the future do I need to have like this strategized or, you know, I think it's like building the right teams. And I think that's like one of the toughest things to do is to figure out like what your business needs are. And also like with the advent of AI, like everybody is pushing, like we have the platform that works, like it's the only one that does the thing. And like it automatically makes meta ads for you or automatically does this on TikTok. And you're like, Okay, so I don't have to touch this at all. It just does everything for me. And they're like, yes. And then you realize that like actually, no, like you like have to go back in and, you know, set up like the, you know, the strategy for it. Like I, if it's, if you're at X-Row as then don't do this anymore. Like try to stay within X budget here. I've used a lot of those types of platforms for like MarTech like on, on Amazon. And I can tell you that like, whether you're using like Helium 10, PacView or Sky. You know, it's like there's no one silver bullet solution and I think everybody keeps trying to sell you on that So it's just like trying to figure out like what you want your martech stack to be like what you want your business to grow at like what categories are you choosing and then like Making sure that like you have the right team to support you if you're the person that is in that strategy spot or you know, like how do I explain up, know what we need to do here what what should the budget look like because I don't think people are building marketing budgets based off of sales anymore. They're not just like, 15 % or 10 % of whatever we make goes to marketing. It's like. Adam Riback (44:03.52) I have not seen that happen in a decade. And it's like, as a marketing person in e-commerce, it's like, what is my budget? What do I get to work with? What are my, again, what are my guardrails? What can I do? What can I do? And so, kind of just figuring out that stuff, I think, like, it's not like, though, that's what's coming next in e-commerce, because everyone's gonna be like, it's personalization, it's AI. And those people are right. There's probably a lot of... There's a lot of things you could do there too, but I think the biggest piece is figuring out what works for your business. And I think that that's tough for everybody right now, because there's just so many agencies, so many people with so many specialized skills towards this, that, or the other thing. It's like, who do I go for for help? And maybe they use a business that you guys know about or a friend or whatever it is. it's like, maybe it's a cold email you sent out, probably not, but it could be. it's like, how do you decide what those things are look like for you? Justin Aronstein (44:54.778) Totally, I would love to record the podcast of how to build a marketing budget for e-commerce with you because God is that a hard subject and everyone's doing it blindly and they're mostly just inheriting what someone did before them which they just inherited from what someone did before them so it's a real problem. Adam Riback (45:01.816) You Yeah. Adam Riback (45:12.386) Have you ever, have you guys ever noticed that like, there's not a lot of people at e-commerce who like sharing like what their strategies are or like what their budgets are or like how, it gets all very cagey, like you don't want to tell anybody too much, you don't want them to use anything against you, but also like, you want people to be like, well that's a dumb strategy and it's like, I've been to. a lot of conferences where people just walk up and be like, our case study in 2020 says that this happened. It's like, that data is five years old at this point. Like, that's awesome. But like, I don't know what's actionable about it. And I'm trying to figure out like how I can use your guys' strategy. That's why I came here. And it's like, I don't know, dude, is that something you guys notice? It's like, why are people so cagey about talking about their own strategies? Like... Connor (45:53.778) all the time. Yeah, I mean it. Justin Aronstein (45:54.138) I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Yeah, I think if I asked you, like, what is your strategy, how specifically you built your budget, I think just like in this podcast, you'd be like, well, I can't share that because corporate doesn't really want us to share that so competitors get to like, because I would actually love to ask that question. Like, that's a question that I like, we don't ask because we're like, well, we want to ask questions people Adam Riback (45:56.513) Sure. Tell me. Adam Riback (46:13.271) Okay, fair enough. Justin Aronstein (46:23.898) can share openly, right? But that is the right question to ask for us. I would love to know how you build your budget, how you build your strategy, where you're investing, why you're investing in that. it's, think, corporate's like, well, we can't tell our competitors what we're doing, even though it's useless for them. But that's how companies work. Adam Riback (46:46.35) I think the reason that it's useless is it's not replicatable. Like you can't just go in and be like, well, what do they do to get to this number? And it's like, I mean, just explaining how you got there and take like, you know, quantum mechanic physics to figure out like why everybody's on the same page for that one specific number that everyone loves. And I think that's like the hardest part is like, yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe it is just like, it's not, it's an unanswerable question for us, but. You know, at the same time, like you really want to just know like, hey, look, like what strategies are you using? Like, you know, we do this one where it does this, this and this, or we product test on X and then come back on, you know, meta and then try this out. And it's like, I don't think that any of those, like most of the ones that people talk about are ones like I would almost never implement. And I think it's like, really, they're just giving you like the thing that's like, it sounds great, but if you actually did it, you'd be like. Justin Aronstein (47:30.255) Yeah. Adam Riback (47:36.072) I don't know how this is helpful like because it's like they're not giving you the piece of it like though actually what this told us this and that's what we that's the data that we took away that says like we should we should follow x strategy and I think that's like maybe it's like you're giving like somebody an idea but it's not like the full the full process of how they got there so Justin Aronstein (47:37.882) You Justin Aronstein (47:53.338) I think that's right. I want to come back in a few weeks and record the podcast where we break down your strategy if you're willing to do that. Adam Riback (48:03.145) We'll see, we'll see. I I'll to just make sure that no one would be upset for me doing that, I guess. And maybe this is just going towards the point that you just made. Not everybody's okay with you sharing that. So maybe it's one of those situations. Connor (48:08.522) You Justin Aronstein (48:15.29) But if you are okay, I would love that podcast business. It is a real problem. It is a real problem is is my point Yeah Totally Totally awesome. Well, I really appreciate your time. This was awesome great insights. This is a lot of fun So thank you so much Adam. Where can people find you? LinkedIn where else are you? Connor (48:19.37) Yeah. Adam Riback (48:19.618) has a... And as a person, I would be happy to, but as a company, you know, have to like make sure that everybody's interests are there. So I think, I think that's, that's probably the most important thing. Connor (48:31.39) Yeah. Adam Riback (48:44.654) Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, guess. I've been on there for a long time, but also if there's anybody that has any questions or wants to reach out for whatever reason, just hit me up. I'm a pretty open person when it comes to most stuff, but obviously some strategy has to stay in house, I guess. But besides that, let me know what your thoughts and comments are, and I'll do my best to get all those. Justin Aronstein (48:59.553) Hahaha Justin Aronstein (49:07.606) Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Adam. Really appreciate your time. Don't just close this window because it takes a second to upload. So I just want to... Adam Riback (49:11.488) Thank you guys.