Bonjour Millionaire, 

Every brand and every agency is different. I hate to speak in generalizations so instead I'll speak in stories.

Years and years ago I was working with a dev agency in Europe and there was a bug that needed to be fixed. Urgently. I sent an @channel message to slack and it was Friday 3pm their time. 

Do you know what they sent back? A selfie of them in the office cheersing champagne. I think they were having a party of some sorts. Actually, I'm sure they were haha.

It wasn't my call to make and they weren't fired but the bug definitely sat on the site until Monday. I'm still mad thinking about it.

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ON THIS EPISODE OF GO-TO-MILLIONS 

State of Ecommerce, Vol. 5

Below you'll find my full 5-part State of the Industry. We're on week 5. 

Closing time.

State of Ecommerce
 

Vol 1. Pressure of AI/ unrealized dreams here / rash decisions  

Vol 2. Keeping up with the Joneses / copying everyone / saying nothing 

Vol 3. Creative as the targeting / media buyers no longer have the reigns  🙁 

Vol 4.Tariffs are bad but not as bad as the mass panic let’s be honest people used it as an excuse to fire good people to make more $ omg who said that

Vol 5. Agencies do not get it. I can confirm as someone now on the inside. 

Vol. 5 Agencies do not get it and why should they

I'd like to start this piece with my credentials to speak on the subject. I worked brand-side for my entire career until 2021. 

Then in 2021 I started working at an agency that grew from 4 people to 50 people. Every team and every person reported to me. 

Then in 2025 I went back brand-side and now lead a small internal team and have a small agency roster.

--------

Performance is the entire name of the game. In every role. Not effort, not hardwork, but outcome. That's obvious but when I say outcome here I mean outcome of the work that you produce.

And there comes the breakdown in incentives. 

Not outcome in you as a person producing revenue for your agency. I'm talking you as a person fulfilling on the promise that your agency made to support your client in their goals. To help that brand to grow.

And so, every bigger agency that wants to work without a performance incentive is immediately alarming to me. Because that bigger agency has process and timesheets and bureaucracy that distracts from the work itself.

In choosing your agency, if that agency has more than let's say 20 people, you should run if there's no performance bonus that your agency insists on. Because if they don't insist on sharing in the upside, they won't care as much as you want them to. 

Life on the inside

When I wake up in the middle of the night and I check the time and it's after 3am ET I get excited because our store is set on PST so I can then quickly see on my Shopify app how the full day went. 

That is life on the inside. To me at least. I enjoy it and it's invigorating to care so much about 1 brand. 

Every brand and every agency is different but buyer beware on both sides.

Agencies should be super scared of a brand in decline trying to bring you on to fix their life under a narrow scope. Don't touch that. 

Brands should be super scared of any big agency that speaks in deliverables and asset count and maximum number of meetings allowed per week. Brands should be untrusting of any big agency who doesn't want to share in the upside. Because if they don't want a cut of the upside, perhaps they don't believe there's upside to be had for that brand and it's a ride the wave 'til they churn scope. 

When agencies share in the upside OF THE RESULTS OF THE WORK THAT IS PRODUCED, and when the people at the agencies that work your account are bonused and compensated like that, too, they'll have the Shopify app on their phones. 😉 

SEE YOU THURSDAY!

Yours,

Ari 

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