Episode 252: Creative Shifts, Community, and the Realities of Modern E-Commerce with Kurt Elster

Hey star marketers, welcome back to the show. I'm Anthony, creative producer here as our marketer. And today's episode was recorded live on the floor at SmartMarketer Live in Denver, where our content coordinators, Act&P, are caught up with longtime friend of the brand and Shopify expert Kurt Elster. Kurt is the host of the unofficial Shopify podcast, a developer and a strategist whose worked with brands like Tactical Baby Gear and John Boy Media. In this conversation, he's talking about what keeps him motivated after 15+ years in e-commerce, the power of showing up in person, and why enabling entrepreneurship has become his North Star. They talk about what today's meta algorithm demands from creative, how Shopify stacks up against Amazon. And one conversion mistake, Kurt sees it again and again across brands of every size. Let's get into it. But first, here's a quick message from our founder Ezra Firestone about a tool we use, Omnisend. Hey, Ezra here with a quick note, you may not know this, but I just bought a new company. And you know what the very first thing I did was get them set up on Omnisend. I migrated them to Omnisend. That's how much I trust that platform to drive e-mail and SMS performance. And you know, it's like Omnisend isn't as well-known as some of the other brands out there, but I really believe in what they're doing. Not just the product, but the people behind it. Their support team is next level. And the platform gives my brands everything they need to drive real growth. So if you haven't heard about Omnisend for e-mail and SMS, I think you're really going to love them when it comes to comparing them to other things out there, check them out. They're offering a special deal to smart marketer subscribers. So you can go to smartmarketer.com/omnisend. That's o-m-n-i-s-e-n-d. Smartmarketer.com/omnisend. And you can use the coupon code Smart to get 50% off your first three months. I don't think you're going to find a better platform that's going to help you get set up and integrated and optimized. So go check them out. Use the coupon code Smart for 50% off your first three months. Thanks for listening. What can you do to help people along that are in the similar space? The thing I hang my hat on is two words. Enable entrepreneurship. That's where the purchase decision happens, because people will buy for people that look like that. You're holding up the mirror. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Smartmarker podcast. It's the contact coordinator, Zach Danker here. As you can see, we are wrapping up Smartmarker alive here in Denver, Colorado. And we are here with the one and the only Kurt Elster. Kurt, what do you think about the event so far? Well, at the end, how do you think about the event? Well, we're at the end and you know what I really enjoyed it. I gained a bunch of perspective on meta ads advertising. It's not something I do in my everyday, but it's something I'm adjacent to. And so like that content was really helpful to me for perspective and for being able to advise clients on strategy. And then today, just like a wealth of different skills represented, including hiring. I'm like, I didn't think I needed this. And then I ended up taking pictures. Right. You never know what you'll end up finding and you don't know what you need till you find it. But like today, man, if book ended so nicely, we started the day, Nick Shackleford, Shaq. You know, I love him on Twitter, getting to hear him speak lives, always fun. And then like really, really powerful stuff. And then ending with my friend, B Brody, from Techtville Babygir, who like, I didn't even know half his backstory. And so here in here was a lot of fun. Yeah. So obviously you've been around SmartMarketer for a while. You've been in some of the courses, a lot of our blog content for anybody who's just now tuning in for SmartMarketer, just now seeing you for the first time. Just give them a little bit of background in your career and also kind of how your career has crossed past with SmartMarketer and Ezra along the way. You know, I've been working on Shopify for over a decade now. And as part of that, I started the unofficial Shopify podcast. It's got millions of downloads. And that's, you know, you end up with being a content creator and influencer, especially on D to C Twitter. You know, you end up with these pair of social relationships. And Ezra is one of them. You know, like, and I seen him. I'm like, man, I'm like, what's up with this dude? I'm like, is he for real? I was skeptical. And then I met him in person. I've been to his house. I'm like, Oh, no, that's really him. He am 100% authentic. But no, I invited him to talk on my podcast about Black Friday. And he like laid out the strategy and, you know, ended up being a fan favorite, of course. And that's how we met. And then I, you know, I ended up doing work for him on Boom, you know, with some of his other brands got to make courses for SmartMarketer. You know, but the fun is like that team that SmartMarketer team, the people, always fun to hang out with, you know, always cool to fly out and hang out. Definitely. That's funny that you said that because one of my roles as I do, kind of discovery calls for people who are looking for what course would fit their needs the best. Usually, along the way, I recommend either SmartPay Traffic if they're really willing to dive into Facebook or I recommend Smart Ecommerce if they need it all. And so I feel like most of the more often than not, I'm scrolling down the Smart Ecommerce landing page, going through the instructions. And I'm like, and this is Kurt Elster, and he is the unofficial Shopify podcast, everything Shopify he knows. So he makes sure that you're a product page. I feel like I pitch you more than I even pitch the rest of the SmartMarketer content on the course. But I'm like, this guy knows what he's talking about. We went so hard on product detail page, pdp. But that's like, that's where the purchase decision happens. You know, like, it may take a few days, you know, a few emails for them to click by. But when they clicked at the cart, that's when they're like, I want this. They raised their hand. And so that pdp, I think, is so important. And like, we focused on that so much in the course, that really became the value dive into some of the content that was covered here. What would be the, like, number one strategy or takeaway from any of the round tables that you were a part of? Oh, the round table. Well, I hosted a round table, hosted two of them. And it was interesting to hear, like, how many successful Amazon sellers desperately want to bolt Shopify onto that business to reduce reliance on Amazon? You know, it's like, you know, they validate and scale the business on Amazon and then immediately become terrified of it. You know, it's like, yeah, it's great. But also, like, let's, let's hedge our bets. And so it was interesting. Like, I ended up with a table. It felt like of people all in that position. You know, and they're like, it's this new beast where they're trying to scale on Shopify and, you know, kind of learning that in addition to Amazon, as opposed to the way around. Like, I normally have people who are successful at Shopify. And they're like, Hey, we're going to add Amazon as a channel. Throw it on at the end. Yeah. And so interesting to hear that. A lot of the advantage of smart marketers, the community is the networking. And like, e-commerce is a lonely business, right? Like, a lot of it is you're working from home and your pajamas with that sounds cool. But like, you know, by month, month 12, you're like, man, I would really like to talk to another human. Absolutely. In person. And so, you know, a lot of that round table was just like people in similar positions, getting to talk to other people who, like, truly get it and sympathize. Right. And there was a catharsis in that. And I was like, wow, that's, like, for them, a lot of that value was just like having someone else go, we I hear that. I see you. That's how I felt with my table for social media, because I've run the social media in my content coordinator role. So I had a few of them that I could tell were like, they were just a social media manager. They weren't looking to run the socials for their own business and being able to relate to them and be like, listen, I promise followers, it's a nice metric to look at. It's shiny. It's such a vanity metric anymore. It's not nearly as important as anything else with how the algorithm works now. So I'm sure you're getting pressure from whoever's above you about how to increase that. Just know. And if you have to say that you learn this at the event, that is not where your focus needs to be. And that's not where the success for you are as a company is going to be at. It's nice to look at, but don't make that be the end all. It's just like the row as shooting for a eight row as. And then you just cut your spin so far that you're not capitalizing. Oh, anything you could, you know, what's funny? The other thing I didn't realize, the amount of creative content that the meta algorithm demands today, especially with the new and drama to update. Like I knew you always went back to creative would be like the cornerstone of success with ads, but just the level of output, you know, to make it work. Or like even if you have a successful ad, now you eventually you max out the avatar. And so like now what do you do? And then really pull my mind to hear that diversity and ad creative often meant literally like different looking people because people will buy for people that look like that. And so, you know, these founder led brands unintentionally attract people who look like that. And, you know, no fault of their own. So it's like, hey, if you've got to say that works here, maybe try that again, but with someone who doesn't look like you. That's funny, because that's another thing that we talked about a lot in our roundtable. And I was like, you know, just like you said, people want to buy from people that look like them. And it's easy to get in kind of that echo chamber of you're usually in a community of people that are very similar to you. So sometimes it's hard to find the people that can branch and reach a different audience, but it's well worth it in multiple ways to put in the effort to do that. And to be clear, I don't think it's anything anyone intentionally does. I think it's just like it's the nature of human. Yes, absolutely. What do you think is one of the big mistakes that you've seen, maybe from a lot of business owners here or just in general that you've seen pretty often. It's a frequent mistake that can be eliminated pretty quickly or easily. All right, I'm going to give you the easy answer and like the hard to swallow answer. The easy answer is there are always like little issues on your site that you have quickly forgotten about, but they just add up to a like not polished experience for the customer. And that's kind of the stuff that eats into a conversion funnel. And number one is going to be forgot to style the checkout and Shopify. It's like, man, that's where they're putting their credit card details. And it's just like Helvetica store name. You can upload your logo. You can set your branding colors at typography. You can make it look like your brand. I have seen every size of website skip that. It takes like when I have to set that. It's like five minutes that I'm done, right? Like, man, just do it. That's the easy one. The hard one, I think that I learned talking to people, especially you get a few drinks in them at the after party. Right. And a lot of these businesses, it takes time to get up to speed to figure it out and then to like get to a place where you acquire customers profitably through ads. And to get there to develop the product, to be able to develop the creative and get the ad spend to figure it out, they took out loans. And so you hear all these success stories online. And he's really successful business. Not one of them is going to tell you about their debt. And now they got a service that debt. And it's like, you're running this marathon, but now you got weights on. And I just think it's important to recognize like when you're comparing yourself to the highlight real social media, they're not telling you everything, right? And that's part of it. I feel like that with business and even just life in general, I feel like credit card debt is just as prevalent as like the business loans. Like you said, it's hard because you see people taking these trips, living as lavish lifestyle. And yeah, I mean, you never know where it's coming from. If it's just weighing themselves down further and further to keep up that image or not. But the easy solution, I like that. So I'm going to go back to that one. And that's actually super actionable. And probably the most different mistake that has been brought up in any of these interviews so far. So that's really cool. And I appreciate you bringing that to light, which makes sense that you're the one that thinks of that for sure. Yeah, it's just like this common mistake. And it's funny because like, you'll see like, you know, a huge brand like Mattel, like in that day specifically, but like that level of brand, I've seen them do it, you know, and mom and pop still like everybody at some point, it's like, Oh, yeah, I should still the trick out. I was going to give you a second to brag on yourself. So brag on you, your podcast, anything you want to tell us about a recent win or just a big success that you all have had. All right, am I lucky? Are you a baseball fan? Uh, I don't keep, I don't keep up. I'm decent. You ever listen to John Boy? I know who they are. Okay. Yeah. I believe they are actually smart marketer students. Oh, really? I think they are pretty sure that I've seen that email in one of our orders. It might be described Patrick. Yeah, John Boy Media is this big podcast network around baseball. They had a merch store and we got lucky, you know, new a guy, new a guy and we got to build a custom theme for their merch store. What's so cool about it? It doesn't run any apps. So it is crazy fast. Oh, so that's fun. And then we do a cool trick where we have totally different branded templates, but in one store. And so it like changes. If you're looking at a merch store from a different show that they have, it could change the look entirely. And I just thought that was the neatest thing. Yeah, that's awesome. You know, like a little bit of creative customization, but now that we know how to do it, it's not that hard. I would assume they have different shows for the different teams. Or no, they do, uh, like warehouse games. They do like their own goofy series. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. We got ice, uh, John Boy Media. Like there's a couple of different. Right. And then Slashline. They do like three or four different styles of brand apparel. And then like the different shows get categorized into those. But yet, no, we got to design and develop a custom theme that their store runs. And that recent win, it's exciting. And then you kind of mentioned this earlier talking about, you know, the entrepreneur life being able to just work from home, stay in the PJs all day. And it sounds nice at first. What's something that really like motivates you and keep you going day and day out when a lot of the stuff that we do is so abstract, you can never really get the feeling of accomplishment of like building something. It's such a good point. Yeah. In with digital work, you, there's no, there's nothing you finished. Right. Like there's a sense of completion. If I build a Lego set, because I could pick it up and show it to you with digital work. Yeah, there's nothing there. There is no physical output. The thing I hang my hat on is two words, a naval entrepreneurship. If I can do that with my content, with my efforts, speaking, or the work, then I'm happy. Right. And then like the other thing I want to do is just maintain independence. When I was a kid, I saw my dad get laid off and he struggled to work after that. And he used to say like, man, if you work, if you're your own boss, you can't get fired. And it stuck with me. Like I from then on, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And so I just always try to maintain that independence. And so it's like, yeah, you know, like there's, there are things that aren't great about being an entrepreneur. Like that loneliness or you being in charge of everything. Right. There's a lot of stress that comes with that. But then, you know, having that total independence, that freedom of choice, that's empowering. Like that feels good. Uh, it's like knowing that you have that. I mean, sometimes that's enough for me, knowing that you're helping people in the process, and then gaining your own independence. Wow, that's quite the flywheel that really motivates. You know, and ultimately, like if you were going to make a granular, when I open my in, there's some days where I don't have anything scheduled to open my inbox. And it's just like, here's a series of problems to solve. And it's fun to fence like creative solutions with automation, marketing automation, uh, Shopify theme liquid. And when you figure out something fancy, it's a lot of fun. And then you get to get like, if you have an audience, you go share that, that's content. It works. Yeah, that's, I feel like the enable entrepreneurship is really similar to our model of serving the world on selfishly and profit. And we have been asking everybody, what does that kind of mindset mean to you as somebody connected to the community? And how do you kind of see that? You already kind of touched on and mirror that within your own lifestyle and your own business. Well, yeah, I mean, it is that enabling that entrepreneurship. It's just always going back to that core. You know, what can you do to help people along that are in the similar space? Like I have just this this domain expert authority knowledge about Shopify and running an online store. So anytime I find something that is interesting, helpful. I turn around synthesize that into like, all right, what is my understanding of this? Post that as content. And then I get that, you know, you get the dopamine hit like the notification. And so and so liked it. It got retweeted and replies. Then like that starts that conversation that helps kind of repair the that lack of like physical connection with being, you know, having a small business that you own. I know I still love it. I've been doing this over 15 years. And like I'm still in love with it. That's incredible, isn't it? You think I'd burn out by now? Yeah, I feel like that's really what a lot of people hope for in their life is they don't know what they want to do. They just know that they want to enjoy what they do. So being able to do the same thing for 15 years, obviously, he comes changed so much, but it's still. That's what keeps it interesting. It's like the challenge of the whole thing. It's always evolving. But it's funny, Mitchell, like not knowing what you want to do. Like I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Then I started an e-commerce platform. And I joined a local chamber of commerce. And I knew I wanted to be a pillar of my community. I didn't know what that meant. But I knew I wanted it. And then we found this thing called Shopify. And we hitched our cart, you know, to the right horse at the right time. There's that luck aspect to this. It's like, yeah, I'm successful. But it's because I found Shopify and doubled down at the right time. And so I got lucky there. There's a little bit of that luck. And then from there, it's like, all right, now I've got a platform. You know, now I have a mission, now I have a thing. And I just applied what felt right. And it was that like be a community leader. So you can't go negative on content and try and help entrepreneurs. And then Shopify is this entrepreneurial platform and it all just worked. Well, I appreciate your time, Kurt. I don't want to take up the whole welcome party for you, but thanks so much for sitting down with me. Everybody, thanks for watching. Make sure you like, comment, subscribe, YouTube on the podcast. Leave us a review. And thanks so much. And see you all in the next video. Before we wrap today's episode, a quick announcement. Our smart marketer Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale is officially live. You can save up to 60% site wide, including our newest launches, paid traffic live and the AI marketing hub blueprint. Every purchase comes to two free bonus gifts. And we're donating 10% of all revenue from this sale to two nonprofits we believe in. And if you're joining us in person, smart marketer live, 2026 in Denver is 50% off as well. Just a reminder, this sale ends on December 4th, 2025 with no extensions. Grab your deal at smartmarketer.com/bfcm-2025 that URL again is smartmarketer.com/bfcm-2025. All right, let's roll the outro. Thank you so much for listening to the smart marketer podcast. If you enjoyed what we shared today, please help us by subscribing to the show. Not only will you be notified when we have new content, it also helps get the show out to many more people. We appreciate you and thank you so much for listening. [Music]