Nathan Frater
Field notes on e-commerce, email and growth
Offers & pricing
Run Black Friday as two sales, not one
Split Black Friday into two phases. First, an early-access sale for your email and SMS list only, in early November, with its own offer. Then the public sale, with ads, automatic discounts and the whole site behind it. You get two things to talk about, cheaper attention, and the people most likely to buy get rewarded first.
Website & CRO
Is A/B testing worth it for a small online store?
Not until you have serious traffic. If only a thousand or so people see a page each month, a split test can't tell you anything you can trust. You'll get better results from applying proven conversion principles, writing great copy and improving one page at a time.
Offers & pricing
How do you announce a price increase without losing loyal customers?
Tell them straight, in a plain message from the founder, with a hard date and a short reason. Pair the rise with something that's got better, and give loyal customers a way to keep paying today's price, like subscribing or stocking up before the date. Done this way, customers often thank you for it.
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Email & retention ›
Your email list is the only marketing asset you truly own
Any platform you market on can shut you down overnight, including your ad accounts, your social channels and even your store and email software. What you own is your customers' email addresses and phone numbers, with a record that they opted in. So run every channel into one list, export it every month, and own your domain.
Can your email open rate be too high?
How do you get more product reviews with photos and videos?
Website & CRO ›
Why is my e-commerce conversion rate so low?
If your site is decent, loads fast and still converts at around 1%, the problem is usually the traffic, not the website. Fixing site issues might get you a 20 to 30% lift. Putting the right creative in front of the right people does far more, so check who you're attracting before you pay for a redesign.
Why did my Shopify conversion rate suddenly drop?
What should be on a product page?
Growth strategy ›
How would you grow your business if you couldn't run ads?
Put the money and the hours you spend on ads into a channel you own. For most founders that means showing up on camera every day with organic content, and testing it properly before it ever touches your main feed. Ads are a great accelerator, but a business that can only grow through one platform's ad account is fragile.
Base your marketing budget on the revenue you want, not the revenue you have
You can build a million-dollar store with one product
I run Backbone, an e-commerce marketing agency in Auckland, and write up what's working for the stores we look after.
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