The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: I explain why you’re missing out on a huge opportunity by not leveraging a solution like Malomo to regain control of your brand’s transactional journey with custom transactional messaging and order tracking pages that are personalized to each customer.

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Back office functions in a start-up and the not-so-glamorous sides of entrepreneurship.

• The D2Z Podcast: In this week’s episode, I sat down with David Conforti, Co-Founder and CEO of Varfaj, a Miami-based Shopify Plus agency.

• App Updates & Highlights: TikTok Shop’s Full Launch in the US, Inveterate Tiered Memberships, and Shopify App Store Ads

• Upcoming Events: LA 10/2-10/6 for the Shopify Enterprise Partner Summit and Cleveland 10/8-10/11 for the Forbes 30under30 Summit.

Also, you can now easily share this newsletter with a friend! As you refer, you earn:

• 3 Referrals: A Free Tech Stack Audit

• 5 Referrals: A Free Website Audit

• 10 Referrals: A Free 30-minute Consulting Session

Let’s Chat D2C - The Transactional Experience

Many brands still use Shopify’s standard system notification emails and tracking pages for their transactional. I’m here to explain why you’re missing out on a huge opportunity by not leveraging a solution like Malomo to regain control of your brand’s transactional journey with custom transactional messaging and order tracking pages that are personalized to each customer.

The Stats - Transactional Emails and Texts & Tracking Page

Transactional emails and texts have significantly higher engagement rates than your standard marketing emails and texts. Why? For starters, it doesn’t matter whether the customer has opted into email or SMS marketing; since the communications are transactional, everyone receives them regardless of opt-in status.

Also, these messages' open and click rates are significantly higher than on standard marketing communications. Average open rates vary from 40-80%, and click rates are between 8-20%, whereas marketing emails typically range from 15-25% and 1-5%, respectively. Why? Transactional communications are extremely relevant and necessary for a customer who is already engaged—after all, they literally just bought!

In terms of the tracking page, customers will, on average, check their order tracking page 4.6 times per order. This typically makes up 10-20% of our client’s website traffic. Framed in another light, if you are not leveraging custom order tracking pages, you are missing out on potential monetization opportunities with 10-20% of your site traffic, site traffic that is highly engaged with your brand as they are already customers.

Retake Control of the Transactional Journey

So, we’ve established how much opportunity there is in the transactional journey, so what should you now? Here’s my step-by-step playbook I implement with any brand I work with:

• Download Malomo

• Build your transactional emails and texts in Klaviyo or Attentive

  • Flows

    • Order Confirmation

    • Shipping Label Created

    • Order Shipped (In Transit)

    • Order Out for Delivery

    • Order Delivered

    • There are also some exception emails like “order returned to sender,” “order canceled,” etc., that you can build.

• Create a custom order tracking page: As shown in the example above, you’ll want to create a tracking page that shows order status, but this is your opportunity to promote many of the following:

  • Subscription Program

  • Referral Program

  • Cross-sells

  • Community Engagement (i.e., Follow on IG)

  • Email/SMS opt-in

  • Product Education

  • Blog Content

  • About the Company

Advanced Personalization of the Transactional Journey

So, now that you have your custom transactional messages and order tracking page, what else can you do? You can create endless variations of each of these to tailor the messaging and what you’re promoting to each customer. For example, you can create separate transactional experiences for the following groups:

• One-shot vs Subscription Customers

• Customers opted into SMS marketing vs. not opted into SMS marketing

• Customers enrolled in the loyalty program vs. not enrolled

For one-shot customers, I would promote the subscription program heavily on the tracking page, but for subscription customers, I would promote the referral program heavily, as well as reinforce the value props of the subscription program and all the benefits they are getting by remaining a subscriber.

What I’m Thinking About This Week - Back Office Functions in a Startup

After my podcast episode this past week, I started thinking about all of the not-so-glamorous aspects of entrepreneurship. Aside from the late nights and stress, a significant number of back-office functions don’t get any attention in the idealized version of starting and running your own business. I compiled a list of the top back office functions you’ll need to start and run a thriving business:

Finance & Accounting

You need to have a strong handle on your cash position as a startup. This includes:

• Bookkeeping

• Financial reporting

• Accounts payable (AP) and Accounts receivable (AR)

• Payroll

• Tax planning and compliance

Human Resources

Not only does your business need employees to grow, but they need to be set up for success:

• Recruitment

• Training and development

• Benefits administration

• Employee culture initiatives

• Compliance with labor laws and regulations

Information Technology

• Technical support

• Software management

• Hardware management

• Data backup and recovery

• Cybersecurity

Legal

• Contract management

• Compliance

• IP management

• Risk management

Inventory Management and Supply Chain & Logistics

If you’re a business that involves product production and distribution, you have a whole set of additional requirements!

• Stock management

• Order processing

• Supplier management

• Vendor management

• Returns and exchanges

• Transportation

• Quality assurance

Wearing Multiple Hats

As a startup, you will have to do most of these things by yourself to start, hire external contractors, or figure it out as you go with Google and YouTube. In some cases, you might not have some of these functions at all as you move full speed ahead in trying to grow your business (for example, at Electriq, when we first started, every team member just used their own laptop, and we did not have a benefits package).

It’s important to acknowledge at least your gaps and have clear communication and transparency with your team about if/when some of these things will be coming.

This Week’s The D2Z Podcast

#76 – Innovations in Growth and Cash Flow Management with a Fellow First-time Founder

🎧 Listen Now 🎧

In this week’s episode, I sat down with David Conforti, Co-Founder and CEO of Varfaj, a Shopify Plus agency. This one dove deeply into the not-glamorous side of the entrepreneurial journey and some of the mistakes we’ve both made along the way. Specifically, we explored the following:

💰 We trace Varfaj's journey from its inception at NYU to its present-day management of large-scale projects on the Shopify Plus platform

📲 We also highlight the stark digital divide between small businesses and legacy enterprises and discuss how this gap can be bridged using the right balance of compliance and innovation.

😎 The shift from a traditional hierarchical structure to a more fluid pod structure, the necessary blend of senior and junior talent, and possible pitfalls in the hiring process are all discussed in detail.

🚀 Finally, we dive into the world of working capital.

App Highlights - TikTok Shop, Inveterate Tiered Memberships, and Shopify App Store Ads

TikTok Shop

The full launch of TikTok Shop in the US is here! Some of the key features include:

• Shoppable Videos: Add your products directly to your short videos, allowing consumers to shop from content in their feeds.

• LIVE Shopping: Engage with your audience in real-time and allow consumers to learn, ask questions, and shop directly from your pinned products.

• Product Showcase: Showcase your full product catalog and allow customers to browse and shop directly from your store page.

Inveterate Tiered Memberships

Inveterate has launched tiered memberships to allow merchants to create different price points, billing frequencies, and configure benefits by tier.

Shopify App Store Ads

You can now create ads to help merchants discover your apps in the Shopify App Store. Ads will be placed on the home page in the Sponsored Apps section. Just like search ads, the homepage ads operate on a CPC basis. Soon, this will also expand to category pages across the Shopify App Store.

Upcoming Events

October Schedule

LA 10/2-10/6 for the Shopify Enterprise Partner Summit and Cleveland 10/8-10/11 for the Forbes 30under30 Summit.

Share the Newsletter with a Friend!