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Sitting in an oceanfront office in La Jolla, California are Griffin Thall and Pual Goodman – co-owners and founders of Pura Vida Bracelets. What started as a five-week graduation trip to Costa Rica ended up turning into a million-dollar business venture. During their trip, they came across Jorge and Joaquin, two homeless bracelet artisans whose craft seemed to spark an interest in Goodman and Thall. They both liked the message that the bracelets embodied, so they asked Jorge and Joaquin to make 400 bracelets for them to bring back to the United States. They sold out in a matter of days, and the bracelets spread like wildfire across the country. Today, they have donated over $666,721 to date and have provided jobs for over 100 Costa Ricans.

Thall sat down to give us an inside look into the world of Pura Vida, and to talk about their incredible journey over the years.

Q: How has social entrepreneurship shaped Pura Vida?

GT: I would say it’s like the main part of our...

Starting an online store begins with filling a need and building credibility, but the factors that go into making your ecommerce store a smashing success don’t stop there. While the barriers for setting up an online store are low, the majority of people starting an ecommerce business fail largely due to mistakes that seem obvious in hindsight — such as overestimating profits or trying to be too many things to customers from the onset. But there are many more mishaps new store owners experience.

To enhance your shot at success, look to avoid these 10 common mistakes when starting your ecommerce store.

1. Not having a plan of attack.

You don’t need to have a formal business plan — but you still need a plan. Most entrepreneurs regard the business plan as homework they don’t want to do. While it is true that the big-format 20-page business plan is growing obsolete, you do need to know who and where your core customers are, what you are selling and what...

Chase Fisher & Blake Jensen are the founders of San Diego based Blenders Eyewear,  a rapidly growing seven figure ecommerce brand. Blenders makes most of their revenue through influencer marketing, by working with Instagram influencers they meet through local meet ups. How do they do it? Here is a quick breakdown on how their influencer outreach process works.

Q: For a new ecommerce store would you say that Instagram is the best platform to go to build a following and then see if your product interests the public?

Yes, absolutely. Instagram is for sure the number one platform that most people hear about us most. It’s the first touch point that most of our customers see or hear about us and stuff like that. If we were to do it over again, we would definitely start Instagram first and do Facebook advertising as well. Instagram is such an important tool for us because it’s a visual learning platform. Our product is very cool and it’s very photogenic and...

The user-generated feed of dog photos has become a hashtag and, in a way, an online movement. The couple behind ‘Dogs of Instagram’ started it as a pet project and now have four million followers and a very successful ecommerce business.

The founders used a formula they don’t teach in business school:

1. Start an Instagram account about something you love

2. Lovingly build a community around that shared passion and watch the numbers grow

3. Translate that community into a growing media & a retail business beloved by customers

Oh, and along the way, find the love of your life. This is the story of Dogs of Instagram, an immensely popular Instagram account, and Lucy & Co, the business that grew out of it.

When husband-and-wife duo Ahmed El Shourbagy and Ashley Paguyo El Shourbagy met in July 2011, Ahmed had been posting photos to his new Instagram account, @dogsofinstagram, for a week and a half. Ahmed had an interest in social media and an itch to do...

Are you spending money on Facebook advertising this holiday season? If not you should be.

Yes, it is more expensive this time of year, but while advertising costs are double conversion rates and returns on adspend are 3X-5X if you are executing your marketing efforts effectively. There is no other time of the year that customers are holding their credit card in one hand and actively shopping online with the other. 

That being said, advertising during the holidays is expensive so you  need to be properly prepared to dive in the dangerous murky waters. Ecommerce stores implementing and utilizing a well planned out advertising strategy often see 3X-5X return on ad spend for a reason.

You see, being successful with Facebook advertising is not about the amount of money that you spend. It is about "how" you spend the amount of money that you have and then compounding on top of that success. 

Facebook has a limited amount of ad inventory space, so the price you pay for...

Small changes can make a big difference. 

With more businesses and advertisers coming to Facebook with money to spend there is more and more pressure created in the ecosystem. However there are ways for your business to stand out with simple tricks that will make your ads perform better.

Use Eye Catching Images 

Success in Facebook advertising rely's heavily on the creative of the ad. What does this mean? Well, a large portion of what you are seeing on a Facebook ad is dominated by an image of some sort, about 80%. This is the reason why you should be using images that capture the attention of your audience, not only should they be eye-catching, but they should also be relevant to whatever the ad is advertising. Whether it is a product or a service that is being served to your audience, always make sure that the image is relevant, high-quality and sticky.

Write Compelling Copy That Is Hard To Ignore

Many ecommerce advertisers overlook the importance of testing...

There are hundreds of moving parts to a successful Facebook ad campaign.

Targeting is arguably the most important of them all.

When it comes to setting the Targeting up, one small mistake can turn an otherwise successful ad campaign into an expensive lesson on what not to do.

Everyone focuses on the interest targeting options and the power of Custom Audiences & Lookalike Audiences, but forget to mention conversion optimization and ad delivery optimization.

You know, the options you quickly skim over as you’re configuring your ad set. Did you know that Facebook doesn’t just show your ads to everyone in your target audience. It actually shows them to only a small segment of your target audience. Your conversion optimization settings tell Facebook which segment of your audience to show ads to.

Understanding and getting these settings right will lower your ad costs, so why do so many ecommerce advertisers skim over them and leave it to...

Your ad copy is not necessarily the first thing people see, but it will determine whether or not the user will read more, and eventually follow your call to action.

Writing great copy is not easy, but it also doesn’t have to be like pulling teeth either.  Writing engaging copy for Facebook ads is a skill that not everyone has, but one that everyone can obtain with a little research, and practice.

Pro Tip: Remember that people scroll through Facebook quickly, so lead with your most important message.

Facebook offers a variety of different ad formats, with different specifications for each. Stick to the important information and pay attention to the character count limit for each format. 

Get the good stuff in before the text is truncated and if you have a specific action you want; be sure to make that part of the ad. For example, Visit our store, Call for a free quote, Check out our website, etc.

Start by considering your tone of voice, which should be a reflection...

When is the best time to launch a new Facebook Ad?

As a best practice, right after midnight for the time zone the Facebook ad account is on. This will allow the ad set to pace evenly throughout the day.

Is there a more efficient way to launch and hit the ground running? 

If you want to give each of your ad sets the best chance possible of succeeding, getting off on the right foot by selecting the start time will do just that. 

Facebook has an ad scheduling feature located inside Ad Manager at the ad set level that will let you set the delivery start time on your ad sets. You have the ability to also set a begin and end date, and choose the specific hours of delivery.

For most advertisers the highest performing subset of their audience is not online between Midnight - 4:00am. Try starting your ad sets at 4:00am, 5:00am or even 6:00am as opposed to the more common practice start time of midnight.

There is an advantage to launching your ad sets early in the morning hours....

Close your eyes and imagine how you engage with Facebook. How often do you actually click on ads or content on your news feed that is not from your friends and family?

Did you know that only 8% of internet users account for 85% of clicks on display ads. That means roughly 90% of people are seeing and consuming the content but not clicking. Facebook is about the same.

Only 10% of the entire Facebook audience is what Facebook would define as “clicky.” That's right. This means that only 10% of the entire Facebook active user population is likely to click on or physically engage with the posts that ecommerce stores ( or others ) publish. 

Think about that. 90% of the people on Facebook are not going to click on your branded content. That may seem like it sucks, but… it doesn’t. 

It doesn’t mean that this group of 90% are not interested in your product post or buying/using your products. They are just engaging with it in a different...