It's Not Digital, It's Just Retail with Freedom's Paula Mitchell | #624

How to Make Your Email Flows Do the Selling | #647

Most email teams pour their week into campaigns. The Tuesday send, the launch, the sale out the door by Thursday. Meanwhile their flows quietly out-earn all of it in the background, and almost nobody goes back to optimise them. That's the beauty and the drawback of flows. Once they're built they run on their own, making money while you sleep, which is exactly why they get left alone. A tiny change to a flow can move a big number, and that's the skill this Playbook is about: not a better campaign, but going back and optimising the automations around how your category actually buys. We got into it with three of the best Klaviyo practitioners in the country on one panel at K:SYD event: Lachi Agnew, Head of Technology at July, Hani Rifai, Chief Digital Officer at Step One, and Alice Michael, who runs ecommerce and operations across Sportscraft, SABA and JAG at APG & Co. At July alone, flows drive close to half of all email revenue. In this playbook, we cover three things ecommerce operators need to know about making their flows do the selling: * Split your revenue into campaigns versus flows and find your biggest earners, because the highest-value flow is usually one you already built * Shape your flows around your category's buying rhythm and how people actually decide, not the standard flow library * Build the flow almost nobody builds, the first to second purchase, and lead with help instead of another discount Connect with Lachi Agnew [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lachlan-agnew/] | Hani Rifai [https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanirifai/] | Alice Michael [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-michael/] Explore July [https://july.com/au/] | Step One [https://stepone.life/] | APG & Co [https://www.apgandco.com/] Subscribe to the Add To Cart newsletter [https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe]  SMS us to Suggest a Guest [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521371/fan_mail/new] Connect with Nathan Bush [https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush] Join the Add To Cart Community  [https://community.addtocart.com.au/]

How Bared Turns Trusted Data Into Decisions and Action | Triple Whale | #646

Fourteen years ago, Angus Growney [https://au.linkedin.com/in/angus-growney-1b901159] realised he could game his own attribution model. He's spent every year since chasing numbers he can actually trust. That hunt is what brought Angus Growney to Bared [https://baredfootwear.com/], the podiatrist-founded Melbourne footwear brand where he leads performance marketing across a business that now does roughly 70% of its trade online and is expanding into the US and New Zealand. Alongside him is Zach Rego [https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachrego], Chief Revenue Officer at Triple Whale [https://www.triplewhale.com/], who joined in 2022 as it launched the first-party pixel built to stitch conflicting platform numbers into one customer journey. Zach now calls Triple Whale the AI operating system for ecommerce, with more than 60,000 brands on it. Nathan recently onboarded Triple Whale for a client himself, so he brings his own reactions to the platform along the way. This isn't a story about finally cracking attribution. It's about what happens once you trust your data, when the work shifts from understanding the numbers, to making the decisions, to letting AI take the action. Today, we're discussing: * Why trusting the data is harder than building the report, and the three months Bared spent in the warehouse before switching Triple Whale on. * How Angus runs Australia, the US and New Zealand off one collated view, and the numbers he makes decisions on each week. * What Triple Whale's first-party pixel and Moby actually do, explained plainly by Zach Rego. Inside True Classic running its entire Meta budget through Moby with no human in the loop, guided by a ten-page rules file. * The PMax debate an AI settled, and why taking the opinion out of the room led to the right call.Where to draw the line on AI autonomy: Copilot, Autopilot and guardrails, and what to automate versus keep human. Connect with Zach Rego [https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachrego/] | Angus Growney [https://www.linkedin.com/in/angus-growney-1b901159/] | Explore Triple Whale [https://triplewhale.com] | Bared [https://baredfootwear.com] Subscribe to the Add To Cart newsletter [https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe]  SMS us to Suggest a Guest [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521371/fan_mail/new] Connect with Nathan Bush [https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush] Join the Add To Cart Community  [https://community.addtocart.com.au/]

Why Converse Lets Creators Break Its Own Brand Rules with Dave Dullens | #645

Dave Dullens [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-dullens-20005655/] has spent 20 years keeping brands like that relevant. He's Head of Brand and Consumer at Conquest Sports [https://www.converse.com.au/], the 45-year Converse licensee for Australia and New Zealand, and his whole career has run through iconic footwear: Converse, Vans, Timberland, Dr. Martens. This isn't a creative-tactics episode, it's a masterclass in keeping an iconic brand relevant across generations. In this episode, Dave sits down with Nathan Bush to make the case for brand in a business obsessed with conversion. We get into why the algorithm understands conversion but not your brand priorities, so some messages need their own budget to find an audience. We unpack his layered creator pyramid, from nano and micro fans through to global ambassadors, and why leaning into what a creator already does well beats handing them a rigid brief.  And Dave explains what it actually takes to let go of brand control, including the dirty-sneaker video that broke all of Converse's rules and still drove sales. Plus why he thinks physical and offline is the next real resurgence, and how to measure brand so the finance team stops treating it as fluff. Brands and tools mentioned: Converse, Conquest Sports, Vans, Timberland, Dr. Martens, Nike, Jordan, Hurley, Tracksuit, Meta, TikTok, Reddit, Patten In this episode: * Why the algorithm optimises for conversion, not brand, so some messages need carved-out budget to reach new audiences * How to build a layered creator program and brief creators to their strengths instead of scripting them * How to measure brand with tracking and research so it earns budget in a numbers-driven business Connect with Dave Dullens [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-dullens-20005655/] Explore Converse [https://www.converse.com.au/] Subscribe to the Add To Cart newsletter [https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe]  SMS us to Suggest a Guest [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521371/fan_mail/new] Connect with Nathan Bush [https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush] Join the Add To Cart Community  [https://community.addtocart.com.au/]

How to Get More From the Tools You Already Pay For | #644

Ecommerce has never had more tools, and it's never been less clear which one is doing what. Every new AI tool that lands overlaps with three you already run, and half of them get absorbed into something else within months. So when something in the business isn't working, the instinct is to go and buy the next thing that'll fix it. But the problem usually isn't the tools. Most operators are running a fraction of what they already pay for, and the platforms they do have aren't talking to each other. A platform you use half of, sitting in a stack that doesn't share its data, is the most expensive software you own. The brands getting this right do three things differently. In this playbook, based on a conversation with Ed Hallen, co-founder of Klaviyo, we cover three things ecommerce operators need to know about getting more from the tools they already pay for: * Put your tech budget where the money is actually made, not spread thin across the fringes * Chase the connections rather than the next tool, because the value lives in your data moving between platforms * Run your integrations at two speeds. Switch on the easy wins today and resource the deep work like the project it is Connect with Ed Hallen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/edhallen/] Explore Klaviyo [https://www.klaviyo.com/au/] Subscribe to the Add To Cart newsletter [https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe]  SMS us to Suggest a Guest [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521371/fan_mail/new] Connect with Nathan Bush [https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush] Join the Add To Cart Community  [https://community.addtocart.com.au/]

The Shopify App Store Is Not Dead. Martin Cox on What Has Changed | #643

Martin Cox walked away from agency life two months ago. No business plan. Four Shopify apps with animal mascots. A clear view of where the ecosystem is heading. If you've been in the Australian Shopify scene for any length of time, you've heard Martin's name. He's the guy people mean when they say "we should just ask Martin." After more than a decade agency-side, he's now co-founder of Native App Co [https://apps.nativeappco.com], a Melbourne studio building a small family of focused Shopify apps that don't feel like apps. He also co-hosts The Shopify App Show [https://au.linkedin.com/in/martincox100], so he sees the ecosystem from both inside the build and across the platform. Nathan sat down with Martin to dig into what's actually changing for merchants in the AI era: why store credit is the promotional lever most operators are sleeping on, why product data is the new SEO, and what the global Shopify catalogue means for how stores get found from here. Today, we're discussing: * Why an app's real job in 2026 is to put guardrails around AI, not just add features [05:00] * How store credit beats discount codes for spreading acquisition cost across two baskets [17:30] * The musky tobacco t-shirt rule for product data in the age of AI search [32:00] * Why Shopify Flow integration is the single strongest quality signal when evaluating an app [44:30] * Where the global catalogue could take Shopify and what merchants should do about it now [35:30] * Martin's easy in, easy out framework for choosing apps that won't burn you [44:00] Use the code ADDTOCART for three months free on any Native App Co app: nativeappco.com/addtocart [https://nativeappco.com/addtocart] Connect with Martin Cox [https://au.linkedin.com/in/martincox100] | Explore Native App Co [https://apps.nativeappco.com] | Listen to The Shopify App Show [https://au.linkedin.com/in/martincox100] Subscribe to the Add To Cart newsletter [https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe]  SMS us to Suggest a Guest [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521371/fan_mail/new] Connect with Nathan Bush [https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush] Join the Add To Cart Community  [https://community.addtocart.com.au/]