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Chain Pod

Chain Social

The marketing podcast that gives you an unfair advantage.

The Chain Pod is hosted by the team behind Australia's leading all-female agency, Chain Social.

Built for business owners and marketers who want what's working, not what's trending.

Presented by CEO, Shelby Van Zwol and Digital Director, Adele Elliott, every episode is education-driven and packed with tangible takeaways - going deep with platform experts, brand founders, and industry leaders on the wins worth stealing and the misses worth learning from.

These are the most honest marketing conversations happening in this country, and the missing link in your strategy.

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  • 11 episodes
  • fortnightly
  • Avg 35 min
  • English

Episodes 11

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  • September 19 · 21 min

    Don't Get Discovered in November: Your BFCM Runway, Month by Month

    If your Black Friday strategy starts in November, you're already behind. Adele breaks down the runway that actually decides your sale. September is for testing creative motivators, targeting, campaign types and bidding strategies. October is for building a high-quality audience while shoppers hold out, and November is your Super Bowl, where you stop testing and scale. We get into why you need to relax your efficiencies across September and October, why your conversion rate will dip in October and why that's normal, and swapping purchase objectives for add to cart to get up to four times the traffic for the same budget. Adele also shares her biggest BFCM tip: launching VIP early access to your email list before going out on Meta, so you're not paying for customers who would have bought anyway. Plus reminder ads, keeping your BAU campaigns simmering, and how we scale with a cost per result bid strategy (not one for beginners). Next up: Black Friday creative. Start early, or pay for it later. 💌: Links & resources 🔗 Want this taught properly, in a room, with your own account open? Final Meta Masterclass of the year is almost sold out for Brisbane: ⁠JOIN HERE⁠ https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/1989065789320?aff=oddtdtcreator Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: www.chainsocial.com.au Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

  • September 12 · 24 min

    Share of Wallet: Building a BFCM Offer Worth Holding Out For

    Episode ten and we're going straight to the thing that decides your November — the offer. Adele spitfires every offer type we've seen work (and flop) across our client base: sitewide percentages, gift with purchase, spend and save, BOGO, the hidden collection play, and why free shipping alone will get you unsubscribed. We get into share of wallet and why shoppers pre-plan their November spend, whether it's even worth partaking if you can't beat 10%, auto-applied discounts vs codes, using subscriptions to rescue an expensive November CPA, and the tip we run for every client — testing your offer on a small Klaviyo segment in October so you're not guessing on Black Friday. First of four from the Meta Marketing Summit run. Keep your offer simple, or lose. 💌: Links & resources 🔗 Want this taught properly, in a room, with your own account open? Final Meta Masterclass of the year is almost sold out for Brisbane: ⁠JOIN HERE⁠ Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: ⁠⁠www.chainsocial.com.au⁠⁠ Training: ⁠⁠www.chainacademy.com.au

  • August 29 · 22 min

    Creative Velocity: What to Load Into Meta Before Peak Season

    So with peak season coming, Adele's in the hot seat for a mini episode. We reveal the winning creative on Meta, how many new ads you actually need each week, the 70/20/20 split and how to preheat creative so you're not gambling in your purchase campaigns come Black Friday. Short, sharp and straight into the nitty gritty so you can be prepared for a record-breaking BFCM this year. 💌: Links & resources 🔗 The Motion creative benchmark report — the table we referenced, broken down by industry and spend, with how many new creatives you should be testing each week: DOWNLOAD 🔗 Want this taught properly, in a room, with your own account open? Final Meta Masterclass of the year is almost sold out for Brisbane: JOIN HERE Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: ⁠www.chainsocial.com.au⁠ Training: ⁠www.chainacademy.com.au

  • August 24 · 45 min

    BFCM Won't Fix Your Cash Flow: Money Talk with Steff Anderson

    We sat down with Steff Anderson of Pinnacle Road, Chain Social's accountant of ten years, and the woman we send our clients to when they need someone realistic in the room. 🤎 This one's for every e-comm founder heading into BFCM on vibes. Steff joins Shelby and Adele to pull apart the numbers behind the biggest sales period of the year. What your margin actually needs to be before you can discount, why in-platform ROAS isn't telling you the truth and the bills that land in your inbox long after the sale ends. Warning: you may want a spreadsheet open. In this episode: 💸 Why MER beats in-platform ROAS as a measure of business health 💸 The 80% margin benchmark, why it's near impossible to move once you've set your RRP, and what wholesale really takes 💸 Where shipping actually sits in your numbers (and why minimum spend thresholds are non-negotiable on lower-priced products) 💸 The case for treating ad spend as a fixed cost, not a variable one 💸 Steff's red flag: never let 50% of every dollar go out the door on ads in your first six months 💸 Why 70% margins and 40% off sitewide don't mix and what a discount does to your perceived value forever 💸 If you can't go big at BFCM, don't go. The birthday sale and January alternatives our clients run instead 💸 The post-BFCM bill nobody forecasts: BAS, quarterly GST landing end of Feb, replenishment stock, returns, peak pick-and-pack, packaging 💸 Why Steff would talk you out of a Shopify loan almost every time 💸 Cash flow buckets, 12–16 week forecasting, and why conservative always wins 💸 What Steff's most successful e-comm clients have in common 💸 How to tell if your accountant actually understands e-comm and the first question to ask them Plus: build awareness in September and October so you're not being discovered for the first time on November 1st, and the very real difference between a healthy P&L and cash in the bank. Links 🔗 Steff's BFCM profit impact calculator https://pinnacleroad.com.au/free-bfcm-margin-worksheet/ 🔗 Pinnacle Road — pinnacleroad.com.au Steff is Melbourne-based and works with brands Australia-wide. One-off financial health checks available. Loved this episode? Send it to the founder friend who's about to go 40% off sitewide 🤎 Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: www.chainsocial.com.au Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

  • August 15 · 51 min

    Ep. 7 BFCM Starts in August: Email Tips For Your Biggest Peak Season

    This week, Adele is joined by Amelia (aka Mims) Chain's Email & CRM weapon and the woman behind the email ecosystems doing 30%+ of revenue for our clients. She's across flows, segmentation, deliverability, loyalty, the lot. And she's here to kick off our BFCM series. Because here's the thing: no one is discovering your brand in November. It's too loud, it's too expensive and every other brand is shouting at the same inbox. The customers who buy from you during BFCM are the ones you nurture between now and then - which makes August, September and October crunch time. In this episode: 💌 The health check every ecom brand should be running right now 💌 The flows most brands never build (and the revenue sitting in them) 💌 Send time tips 💌 The case for hype and the one segment that saves your inbox 💌 Adele's non-negotiable rule for lead gen :eyes: 💌 How to avoid the December hangover Plus we reveal high-converting subject lines you can steal and the Win Your Cart tactic that works for our clients year, after year. Open your notes app. You're going to want to lock in for this one. Links & mentions 🔗 ✨ Email Marketing Masterclass with Amelia and Adele 28 September, Mornington HQ. Small, intimate and in our stunning new space. JOIN WAITLIST HERE ✨ The Email Subject Line Swipe File - 200 Subject Lines you can steal immediately DOWNLOAD HERE Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: www.chainsocial.com.au Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

  • August 8 · 25 min

    Ep. 6 The Meta Cheat Sheet for Startups with Aimee Smart

    Adele has pulled in the one person who knows her brain better than anyone: Chain's Digital Team Lead, Aimee Smart. Eight years working side by side and still on the tools for six clients. If you want to know what's actually working in real Meta accounts right now, this is your girl. We unpack what Aimee is seeing convert this week, plus a full launch strategy for a hypothetical ecomm startup with 3k a month to play with. The Meta Cheat Sheet: 📣 Only running purchase campaigns is the biggest mistake in most accounts (most expensive objective, almost guaranteed to hit the ceiling). 📣 Cold add to cart: a quarter of the price of purchase. Exclude everything, switch to manual targeting, watch it feed your ASC. 📣 The jetlag idea that worked: retargeting optimised for add to cart, not purchase. Your ROAS will thank us later. 📣 Creative is more than 50% of the result. Partnership ads taking up 20–30% of your account, and founder content is non-negotiable (one client tripled her business). 📣 Meta AI enhancements: relevant comments IN, enhanced CTA love-hate (it once added a 33% off offer nobody approved). 📣 Pre-launch is lead gen, not sales. Skip the win comp, build a waitlist, use conditional filtering. 📣 Post-launch go full funnel: View Content as a sales campaign, never traffic. 📣 Catalogue ads: IN for fashion and homewares, OUT for cold skincare audiences. Nobody's buying a photo of a moisturiser tub. 📣 TikTok for cheap CPMs and discoverability, Meta to retarget. That's when both start working together. ✨ Got a Meta SOS? Adele takes questions on Instagram (@adswithadele). Prefer to learn Meta Ads in-person? Join us for our FINAL Meta Ads Masterclass of 2026 in Brisbane this September. Secure your seat 🎟️ HERE.

  • July 25 · 50 min

    Ep 5. How Nala Built A Content System To Successfully Scale On Meta

    Adele is joined in the studio by Phil De Winter, co-founder of Aussie intimates brand Nala. Together, they unpack how Nala scaled from $3k a month on Meta to a multi-million dollar e-commerce powerhouse, built an unstoppable in-house content machine, and navigated the wild ups and downs of performance marketing. If you're looking to scale an e-commerce brand on Meta without burning through cash or putting all your eggs in one basket, this is your blueprint. Plus the night Meta glitched and spent $20k in an hour, why Meta still holds brands by the balls over TikTok, and how consumer economic sentiment impacts your CPMs. RESOURCES 🔗 Follow Adele on Instagram: @adswithadele - tips, plus "SOS Sundays" for your questions. Check out Nala at wearnala.com or @wear_nala and discover your boobs new besties Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: https://www.chainsocial.com.au Training: https://www.chainacademy.com.au

  • July 11 · 22 min

    Ep 4. Meta Ads What's In / What's Out Right Now - Rapid Fire with Adele Elliott

    Adele is in the hot seat. Shelby fires off the Meta tactics brands are still clinging to, and Adele calls each one IN or OUT for 2026, with the why behind every verdict. No digressing, straight into the good stuff. If you run Meta ads (or pay someone who does), this is your cheat sheet for what is actually working right now. The scorecard: 💌 Hundreds of campaigns: OUT - consolidate. One purchase campaign, assets split with a strategy. 💌 Ad sets per product: IN when price points and audiences genuinely differ. 💌 Advantage+ catalogue shopping: IN, and huge for 2026. 💌 Traffic campaigns: OUT - too bot-heavy. Swap to a sales campaign optimised for View Content. 💌 Lookalike audiences: mostly OUT - Advantage+ already finds your buyers. Keep them for niche segments. 💌 Campaign vs ad set budget: depends how much control you need. 💌 Harsh exclusions on purchase campaigns: OUT - you are paying purchase prices to find cold traffic. 💌 Only running purchase campaigns: OUT - you will hit a scaling ceiling. 💌 Persona targeting: IN - talk to everyone and you talk to no one. Plus the netball-team theory of creative, and the jewellery brand that tripled ROAS by sharpening its angles. ✨ 📣 Got a Meta SOS? Adele takes questions on Instagram (@adswithadele). 00:00 Adele in the hot seat: Meta In or Out 00:40 Hundreds of campaigns: OUT (consolidate) 02:40 Ad sets per product: IN (when it makes sense) 03:25 Advantage+ catalogue shopping: IN 04:00 Traffic campaigns: OUT (and what to run instead) 05:50 Lookalike audiences: mostly OUT 07:40 Campaign vs ad set budget: it depends 09:05 Harsh exclusions on purchase campaigns: OUT 11:25 The netball-team theory of creative 13:15 Only running purchase campaigns: OUT 16:25 How to actually scale beyond purchase 17:10 Persona targeting: IN 18:15 Case study: tripling ROAS with sharper angles 20:20 Wrap up + where to find Adele RESOURCES 🔗 Follow Adele on Instagram: @adswithadele - tips, plus "SOS Sundays" for your questions. Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: https://www.chainsocial.com.au Training: https://www.chainacademy.com.au

  • June 28 · 51 min

    Ep 3. AI Decoded for Brands & Marketers, Without the Overwhelm with Daniela Valencia

    Our very first guest, and who better than an AI consultant? Shelby and Adele sit down with Daniela Valencia to make AI feel less overwhelming and a lot more useful for marketers, agencies and brand founders. The big reframe: AI is not here to replace your team, it is here to enhance it. Speed up the admin, surface the data insights, and free your humans to do the thinking only humans can do. We get properly tangible: where to actually start, why Claude is our pick for agencies and founders, building your "business OS", turning your process into a reusable skill, and the day-to-day use cases saving us hours every week. 💌 Start by brain-dumping your role and business into Claude so it has real context. 💌 MD (markdown) files are the universal language for AI tools, and lighter on tokens. 💌 Decide what should stay human (selling, your brand soul) before you automate anything. 💌 Get on top of AI now, or risk being out-paced by an AI-native marketer. 💌 Agentic commerce is coming - up to 70% of ecomm traffic could be AI agents by 2027. 💌 Make your site AI-ready: clean product data, a crawlable site, and an llms.txt file. Performance meets aesthetics, even in the age of AI. ✨ 00:00 Welcome back + our first ever guest 01:30 Why AI, why now 03:30 Meet Daniela Valencia, AI consultant 06:30 Feeling overwhelmed? Where to actually start 07:10 Why Claude for agencies and founders 08:30 Build your "business OS" and dump your context 09:30 Voice tools and recording calls (the legal bit) 11:50 Skills: turn your process into a reusable tool 13:10 MD files, your universal AI language 17:50 Critical thinking and the AI-native marketer 21:00 Bring your own AI agent: the new IP question 26:40 Team vs personal accounts 30:50 Use case: your weekly platform brief, straight to Slack 32:30 Email superpowers: sentiment + finding old threads 36:10 Tokens, the AI race and IPO hype 40:20 Staying safe: never hand over card or private details 41:15 Agentic commerce: 50-70% of purchases by 2027 44:45 Get AI-ready: crawlable sites and llms.txt 47:45 AI visibility + the blog/SEO resurgence 50:20 Part two: our live AI Masterclass 52:15 Where to find Daniela RESOURCES 🔗 AI Masterclass with Daniela - Melbourne, tickets below. Code CHAINPOD15 for 15% off. https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/ai-for-ecommerce-the-masterclass-tickets-1992404943821 🔗 Find Daniela on Instagram: @danielavalencia.ai 🔗 Tools mentioned: Claude desktop app, Gemini, Wispr Flow, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok. Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: www.chainsocial.com.au Training: www.chainacademy.com.au

  • June 26 · 30 min

    Ep 2. The Conversion Equation Every E-Com Brand Needs Before Spending on Ads with Shelby Van Zwol

    You can't advertise your way out of weak foundations. Period. In this (not-so-short) episode, Shelby and Adele get into the nitty gritty of what every e-commerce brand needs BEFORE you pour budget into paid. It all comes down to one equation: Revenue = Average Order Value × Conversion Rate × Traffic. Nail those three numbers and you can reverse-engineer almost any revenue goal. We unpack each one - why your product page (not your home page) does the heavy lifting, the website rebuild that took one skincare brand from a 1.5% to a 5.5% conversion rate, why not all traffic is created equal, and how AOV and margin quietly make or break your ads. 💌 Foundations before ad spend - "ads don't work for me" almost always means something upstream is broken. 💌 Your product page is the hero, and it has to be built for mobile. 💌 A 0.5% lift in conversion is game-changing revenue. 💌 Watch your AOV & margin - a $15–$100 basket is brutal for paid. 💌 Free shipping converts (~70% of Aussie shoppers abandon over shipping). 💌 Performance AND aesthetics - we'll never run an ugly ad. ✨ Your homework: work out your conversion rate, AOV and traffic. Times them together for your monthly revenue - then you'll know exactly which lever to pull first. 📣 Want our free CRO checklist + budget calculator? DM us "CONVERSION" on Instagram @chainpod. 00:00 - Welcome back to Chain Pod 🤎 01:50 - You can't advertise on weak foundations 03:15 - The equation: AOV × Conversion Rate × Traffic 05:35 - Conversion rate, explained 06:01 - Your website is a transactional pathway, not just a pretty face 06:40 - Quick wins: announcement banner, above-the-fold, CTAs 07:51 - Stop designing for desktop - shop on mobile 08:12 - Why the product page beats the home page 09:04 - Case study: a skincare site from 1.5% → 5.5% 13:54 - Test slow: change 1–2 things at a time 14:30 - Traffic quality vs quantity (& the 16 touchpoints Aussies need) 15:35 - Benchmark by category: $800 LED mask vs $60 replenishable 18:00 - Bot traffic & moving away from landing page views 19:30- Prediction: AI shopping agents & the checkout as the new product page 24:30 - Reverse-engineering your revenue goal 25:45 - AOV & margin: why a small basket hurts on paid 26:50 - Free shipping & the $9.95 that loses the sale 29:15 - Why we'll never run an ugly ad 30:09 - Wrap up + your homework RESOURCES 🔗 Free CRO checklist/spreadsheet - DM "CONVERSION" over at @chainpod 🔗 Budget calculator - coming in a future episode. 🔗 Reverse-engineer your revenue with AI - tell Claude your goal, conversion rate, AOV & traffic, and ask which lever to pull first. Coming up on Episode 3: a full AI deep dive for marketers! Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: https://chainsocial.com.au Web: http://www.chainacademy.com.au/ podscan_i9UIZSjOjKyrZBXm57IetTwiGvHxnj5l

  • May 29 · 45 min

    The Pilot: Meet Shelby, Adele and Your New Unfair Advantage

    Welcome to the very first episode of the Chain Social podcast! We are kicking off the series by stripping back the glossy facade of digital marketing and giving you an honest look at who we are, how we got here, and why we’re finally launching this show. In this pilot episode, hosts Shelby Van Zwol (Founder & Director) and Adele Elliott (Digital Director) share their unconventional career journeys, the reality of building a fully female-founded, non-toxic agency, and why most startup brands fail before they even get off the ground. We're not here to give you generic "inspiration"- we’re here to give you the exact, data-backed strategies moving the needle right now. Episode Timestamps 00:00 – Why another marketing podcast? Cutting through the noise to deliver real value. 01:12 – Meet the hosts: Adele’s journey from big agency land to L'Oréal, Retail Zoo, and landing her dream gig at Chain Social. 02:57 – Shelby’s story: Selling sand sculpting events, getting fired from retail jobs, and building Chain Social from a 23-year-old’s side hustle into a decade-long powerhouse. 07:27 – The reality of agency land: Being an early adopter, standing out in an unregulated market of 9,000+ agencies, and Preferred Partnership with Meta. 11:12 – The Chain Social ethos: Managing 23 brilliant women with zero corporate toxicity, and leaning heavily into the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle niche. 18:04 – Our Podcast Mission: One non-negotiable piece of tangible advice per episode, and making Meta and TikTok a lot less scary. 21:14 – Legendary client parties, flying in Peking Duk, and building a community-led show. 28:00 – The Quick-Fire Deep Dive: The biggest mistakes startups make (hint: it's product bias and blowing your budget too early). 33:39 – How to properly test product-market fit without burning $300k on stock. 36:50 – The Ultimate Controversy: Why you probably shouldn't hire an agency yet, and when your brand is actually ready to scale. 41:22 – Pros and cons of Agency vs. In-house marketing (and why the "Jack of all trades" employee is a myth). 44:56 – Outro & how to get in touch with us via our Meta-backed handles. Key Takeaways From This Episode 1. Ditch the Product Bias Don't ask your mum and friends to praise your idea. Ask them to pick it apart. If your only unique selling points (USPs) are "aesthetic packaging" and being "vegan," you aren't ready for a saturated market. 2. The 95% Budget Trap Getting a product ready for market is 95% of the battle, but too many founders spend 95% of their capital just getting to the starting line. Save your money for creating brand demand and attention - Meta ads aren't a magic tap you can just turn on with zero baseline brand awareness. 3. Don't Hire an Agency Yet! If you aren't turning over $30k to $50k a month, keep the cash in your business and learn the platforms yourself. You need a proven product and proof of concept before an agency can effectively scale you into the multi-millions. Connect With Us: Instagram: @chainsocial Instagram: @chainpod Web: https://chainsocial.com.au Web: http://www.chainacademy.com.au/

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