Hey, thanks for tuning in to another Partner Interview at EcomBalance. At EcomBalance, we’re all about creating win-win partnerships where we are able to grow with other companies in the eCommerce space.
In this exclusive interview, we interview Andrew Maffetone from BlueTuskr, Andrew Maffettone is a marketing-focused entrepreneur. With 15+ years of experience in multiple industries, he’s developed his own approach to marketing many different types of brands with a large inbound content strategy tied together with robust marketing automation. He prides himself on being able to keep acquisition costs down and build an impressive brand reputation by implementing a large-quality content approach into a well-oiled marketing machine.
He started his first business at 17 that focused on marketing for the music industry that later pivoted into a boutique marketing agency for local businesses. He then developed a marketing agency that specialized in the e-commerce industry which he scaled to 7-figures in the first two years which led to a quick acquisition. He is now at it again as the Founder/CEO of BlueTuskr, a full-service marketing agency for e-commerce sellers that helps brands expand their reach through robust digital strategies, targeted media-buying, and data-driven analysis as well as the host of The E-comm Show podcast.
Andrew aims to provide value and help other marketers and e-commerce sellers keep from learning the hard lessons he’s learned over the years.
We hope that you enjoy the interview and that it brings value to you as an eCommerce business owner.
Connor: Hey Andrew, thanks for taking the time to chat with us here. We love getting to know our partners better so that our community can benefit from what our partners are offering and doing in the industry. To get started, can you give us a high level overview of BlueTuskr and how it got started?
Andrew: You got it. We’re a full-service digital marketing company for e-commerce sellers. We basically act as an outsourced fractional marketing department. I started it because years ago when I was in-house at an 8-figure e-commerce business, working with multiple agencies and contractors and trying to get them to all work together was a nightmare and I could never find one place where everyone communicated with each other.
Then, I started an agency with a partner of mine where we were pretty focused on Amazon and I realized all of the potential of off-Amazon marketing to help an Amaozn business…and BlueTuskr was born!
Connor: That’s awesome! Can you dive a bit more into how you help online brands accelerate their growth? I’m sure our audience would love to know exactly what problems you could solve for them.
Andrew: That depends on the brand really. We work with sellers that aren’t on Amazon and we act as their marketing department. We’re basically a full marketing team for the cost of one employee. Then we have some very large Amazon sellers who struggle off-Amazon so we help them develop omnichannel strategies that not only help them diversify more but also improve their Amazon businesses.
Connor: Jumping off of that…if there was one problem you’d say that BlueTuskr solves best for your clients, what would it be? Why?
Andrew: The most obvious would be resources. I always found working with multiple agencies and contractors to be such a pain because they didn’t communicate with each other, so if the right-hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, things wouldn’t go well. So by having everyone in the same place, we all communicate with each other so every department knows what the other is doing which allows us to pivot easier and keep a cohesive strategy in place.
Connor: As the company continues to grow over the next year, what are your plans for expansion? Any new products or offerings or enhancements to your current products?
Andrew: The big thing we’re missing right now is a studio. I’m looking into either partnerships or acquisitions of studios where we can help make photo or video content for social media, product imagery, etc. Having the ability to create the rawcontent would be great and allow us to move a lot faster for our clients.
Connor: And how specifically would you say that BlueTuskr and your team is different from other similar businesses in the E-commerce marketing industry?
Andrew: We’re a one-stop shop. Now, I always caveat that with, this is not a team of generalists. I’ve worked with generalist agencies before and they’re horrible. We are basically an agency with several agencies in it.
Our department managers are all masters of their craft. Our Amazon Advertising department only does Amazon Ads, nothing else. Our SEO department only does SEO. Our social media department only does social, etc.
Connor: What made you decide to get involved in the digital marketing space? What’s your starting eCommerce story? From what we’ve found, a lot of business owners e-commerce marketing space have fun stories of how they first started…
Andrew: My first job was actually in e-commerce digital marketing a little over 15 years ago. My dad actually bought a small company that sold car suspension stuff and he brought it online. He was actually one of the first businesses to be offered to sell on Amazon that didn’t sell books…and he turned it down.
It’s my favorite thing to make fun of him for! But then shortly after that I was actually a drummer in a band and my job was to help promote us and that’s where I learned a lot of the growth hacks.
Connor: Love it! Talking more about the marketing industry, where do you see it going in the next 1-2 years? Any unique predictions that you could share?
Andrew: AI is about to get crazy. ChatGPT is pretty impressive and is definitely going to help speed things up. But all-in-all, since the iOS change, I see digital marketing getting a lot more like traditional marketing.
Not everything is going to be as trackable as it once was. It’s going to all come down to spreading the message and connecting with your customers. Gone are the days of tying an ROI to every single thing that you do.
Connor: Giving you an open mic for a minute, what is something you’d want the EcomBalance audience to hear?
Andrew: Diversify! Years ago, I was in-house at an 8-figure business that was about 90% Amazon. We changed the credit card they had on file because it had expired…Amazon thought it was fraud or something and suspended our account for two weeks during Q4, I thought I was out of a job.
Don’t underestimate the power of off-Amazon marketing, it will most likely save your ass one day and it will definitely give your business a much higher valuation when you go to sell.
Connor: Changing gears a little bit…When it comes to bookkeeping and accounting, what do you think the biggest pain points for business owners are? Feel free to speak from personal experience as well.
Andrew: Knowing your numbers. While that might sound obvious, it never ceases to amaze me the people I work with who don’t really know their numbers. I’ve worked with a few sellers in the past where we mapped out an entire marketing plan set our target KPIs and started hitting them within a matter of I think it was a little over 2 months and then all of a sudden they realized they were bleeding because they didn’t know their numbers.
I think a really good bookkeeper can be a game-changer for any business.
Connor: As we close this out, I just have one more question. Where is the best place to find and follow you and the company online? Also, if you have one, is there any special offer that you’ll be offering to the community today?
Andrew: BlueTuskr.com. I know it’s obvious, but we’re constantly publishing new content on there, our The E-comm Show podcast is on there, it’s all there!
Happy to give something away! On our website, we’re selling 10 different marketing reports that we use for all of our e-commerce sellers to truly understand their marketing. I think we have it listed for $250 right now, have your community email me at [email protected] and I’ll give it them for free.
