In this new episode of the Social PR Podcast, host Lisa Buyer sits down with Jordan West, agency owner and podcast host of Secrets to Scaling your E-Commerce Brand. Jordan is the CEO of Mindful Marketing, a marketing agency focused on e-commerce businesses. He also co-founded an apparel brand, Little and Lively, with his wife. His agency now employs thirteen people and is all about strategy for six to 8-figures companies. The goal is to get high returns on ad spend while trying out new initiatives, which he gets to do on his clothing business.

One of the little-known strategies used by Jordan to promote e-commerce businesses is using Facebook VIP groups. Fans of a brand will join the group and will be notified when a new product launch is happening. Then, the company shuts down its website and locks it with a password only given to VIPs, who have exclusive access to the new collection. Even with strategies like this one, Jordan is all about authenticity, not fake scarcity.

When asked what Facebook for e-commerce trends look like, Jordan explained that October was a bloodbath. According to him, return on ad spends tanked because of the elections. However, he believes things will go back to normal soon, with ad prices going down although Facebook ads will never be as cheap as they were back in March.

At the end of the day, were sales up? If the answer is ‘yes’, your paid campaigns are working. Jordan is all about performance marketing. In short, he is getting paid to perform. While results are a great way to get new clients, he also uses directories such as Clutch and Digital Agency Network to promote his agency. Jordan also recommends having your own podcast and being a guest on other podcasts to raise visibility.

With results being so important, many clients tend to use last-click attribution as an important metric. Jordan vehemently discourages that. Attribution is attributing marketing efforts to a sale, which is a good thing. However, last-click attribution only looks at what the last click was. The issue with that, says Jordan, is that it ignores the effects an ad or media mentions can have in the long term. To him, the best way to understand how effective ads are is to make customers fill out a post-purchase survey.

Jordan West only works from 9 am to 2 pm. Yes, you heard that right. And he takes an hour lunch break! He explains that he gets more done since he switched to that schedule. Digital detox is also important to Jordan. He always gets rid of his phone when spending time with his family and even asks others to do the same. We sho...