Off the Record Ecommerce

One Shopify store we work with had more than 65% of its traffic coming from bots, and it's a growing problem that skews analytics, burns through app credits, and can even lead to a cloned copy of your store. Leighton Taylor and Dave Tanguay break down how they fight Shopify bot traffic with Cloudflare O2O, AI-written security rules, and ongoing monitoring for clone sites.
Links Mentioned
Blockify Fraud Filter & Blocker (Shopify app): https://apps.shopify.com/blockify
Boxify (shipping rate calculator for Shopify): https://apps.shopify.com/boxify
Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/
Cloudflare O2O for Shopify (setup guide): https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-for-platforms/cloudflare-for-saas/saas-customers/provider-guides/shopify/
Recon Brand & Clone Protection: https://recon.bot/
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/LOlLfAohPUM
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:34 Meet Dave Tanguay
1:40 Bots From Singapore and China
2:26 What Bot Traffic Costs You
4:13 Cloned Stores and Missing Orders
5:01 Why Blocking Countries Stopped Working
5:46 Switching to Cloudflare's Free Plan
6:58 What Cloudflare O2O Is
8:25 Blockify vs. Cloudflare in Plain English
10:30 Challenging Every Checkout
11:30 An Arms Race With Bots
12:55 Letting Good Bots Through
14:09 Moving Your DNS to Cloudflare
16:00 Why Not to DIY Your DNS
17:37 Doesn't Shopify Already Use Cloudflare?
19:07 Using AI to Write the Rules
22:47 How We Spotted a Clone Site
25:15 Tools That Watch for Clones
27:52 Signs You Have a Bot Problem
28:17 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Some Shopify food, beverage, and CPG brands are making $20,000 to $30,000 a month from their recipe pages alone. Patrick Bollenbach, founder of Recipe Kit, joins Leighton and Patrick Rice to break down recipe SEO on Shopify and how his new app Recon catches the scammers cloning Shopify stores.
Links Mentioned
Recipe Kit: https://recipekit.com/
Recon Brand & Clone Protection: https://recon.bot/
Judge.me: https://judge.me/
Shopify's copyright infringement reporting form: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/compliance/intellectual-property/copyright-policy
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/PLACtwQSaOY
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:39 How Patrick Got Into Shopify
2:36 His First App Got Declined
3:45 What Recipe Kit Does
5:09 Getting Out of Service Work
8:13 Who Actually Uses Recipes
9:40 A Look at the Recipe SERP
10:36 Structured Data and Star Ratings
13:53 Where AI Fits In
17:36 Skip the Grandma Story
20:12 The Ad Problem on Recipe Blogs
23:32 Bare Recipe Cards Ranking First
24:09 Tracking Revenue From Recipes
26:05 Images Are the Big Mistake
29:25 Pinterest Is Underrated
32:33 Better Blog Comments and UGC
35:15 Recon and Store Cloning
37:02 How to Stop a Clone
41:08 Filing a DMCA Takedown
45:58 AI Slop Clones in the App Store
48:48 Product Is No Longer the Moat
52:06 Why Human Teams Still Win
52:54 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick Rice: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton Taylor: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

What is a good Shopify conversion rate? It depends on your traffic mix, your industry, and your price point far more than on any benchmark you will find online. In this episode we break down the three step funnel from add to cart, to reaching checkout, to a completed purchase, plus the drop off numbers that show you where a store is actually losing sales.
Links Mentioned
Baymard Institute (free ecommerce UX articles and research): https://baymard.com
Blockify (block bot traffic by country or IP): https://apps.shopify.com/blockify
Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com
Leighton's Shopify CRO audit checklist: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZV21GWwNNMWmnsU__hlw9Y-QVMNFY02qjrIjeeofGY8/edit?usp=sharing
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/X1Ea1du9vbo
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:20 The Ecommerce Growth Equation
3:06 How Conversion Rate and AOV Compound
4:45 Why Conversion Rate Is a Weird Number
6:34 Conversion Rate Is Always Relative
8:12 How Bots Skew Your Data
10:04 Blocking Bot Traffic
11:39 Cloudflare and Shopify
14:20 Do Bots Actually Hurt Sales?
15:19 The Hidden Cost of Bot Traffic
17:57 Themes, Navigation, and Basics
18:44 Baymard as a CRO Resource
20:24 The 100 Point Audit Checklist
23:11 Mobile Menus and Shop All Links
27:36 Free Shipping Bars and AOV
28:51 The Three Step Funnel Benchmark
31:01 Diagnosing Where Sales Leak
32:14 Improving Add to Cart Rate
33:31 When to A/B Test
35:40 How Much Data You Need
39:06 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Patrick Rice started a Minecraft YouTube channel at 13 and made his first $3,000 online before he had ever heard of SEO. He walks Leighton through the whole path to running a Shopify SEO and Google Ads agency, including the client he lost to a migration that went sideways and the point where managing everything himself turned into a ceiling.
Links Mentioned
E&R Business Consulting (Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, Patrick's business coach): https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
Patrick's old Minecraft video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq51xW8pYqg
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/9bTCzlZG3zI
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:23 The Minecraft YouTube channel
3:35 Accidental link building
4:30 First SEO job at 18
7:27 How PRC started
9:15 Going independent too early
10:31 Four years as a freelancer
13:28 Knowing your agency numbers
15:38 Getting into Shopify SEO
17:06 The migration that cost a client
19:17 The cold email that landed
22:41 Referrals and LinkedIn
25:02 LinkedIn is saturated now
26:48 Hitting the growth ceiling
29:58 Ownership versus tasks
33:40 The hire who quit in 4 days
35:52 How much to document
38:30 Where AI fits now
40:17 Ads first, then SEO
41:45 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Leighton started his first ecommerce business on Etsy while teaching English in China, then found Shopify in 2012 and turned freelance work into Envision. He ran the Shopify agency from Mexico, Ecuador, and Southeast Asia, then sold the house in 2020 and spent five and a half years working from a sailboat.
Patrick and Leighton dig into all of it, plus the hiring mistakes, QA systems, and priority questions that came with growing a Shopify agency remotely.
Links Mentioned
Tropical MBA Podcast: https://tropicalmba.com/
Dynamite Circle: https://dynamitecircle.com/
Upwork (formerly oDesk): https://www.upwork.com/
Notion: https://www.notion.com/
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060833459
Leighton's weekly planning questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pIWzT0jesjhDvOLUpdMlLrD8lhgCEbrj31cl9jv1B_g/edit?usp=sharing
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/jCofHzKUavQ
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:48 Two Years Teaching in China
1:26 Wedding Invitations on Etsy
4:29 Discovering Shopify in 2012
6:13 Landing First Clients on Upwork
7:47 Why the Name Envision
9:32 Going Nomad: Mexico to Asia
12:00 Hiring Contractors and Scaling Pain
15:10 Documenting Systems and QA
20:47 Perfectionism or High Standards?
21:47 The Highest Leverage Task
24:27 The Monday Planning Ritual
28:46 Client Unit Economics and NCCM3
31:17 Becoming a Business Advisor
35:09 From Nursing School to a Sailboat
36:33 A Home Base in Florida
38:06 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

LTV, or customer lifetime value, tells you what a customer is really worth to your Shopify store, and it decides how much you can afford to spend acquiring the next one. Leighton and Patrick break down how to measure LTV using cohorts and time windows, why contribution margin matters more than gross revenue, and the levers that actually move it: post-purchase email and SMS flows, subscriptions, loyalty points, retargeting, and AOV.
Links Mentioned
Lifetimely (LTV and profit analytics for Shopify): https://apps.shopify.com/lifetimely-lifetime-value-and-profit-analytics
Peel (retention and cohort analytics): https://www.peelinsights.com/
Triple Whale (ecommerce attribution and analytics): https://www.triplewhale.com/
Klaviyo (email and SMS marketing): https://www.klaviyo.com/
Smile.io (loyalty and rewards for Shopify): https://smile.io/
Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:06 What LTV Actually Means
3:06 Why Repeat Buyers Cost Less
5:26 The LTV to CAC Ratio
6:37 Nobody Knows Their Contribution Margin
8:09 Slicing Customers Into Cohorts
10:24 Shopify Analytics and Sidekick
11:07 Apps for Cohort Analysis
12:17 Cash Flow and Time-Based LTV
13:38 Why "Lifetime" Is Misleading
18:23 Retention Marketing: Email and SMS
19:26 The Post-Purchase Flow
20:11 Consumables and Subscriptions
20:45 Helping Customers Reach Their Goal
21:47 Building a Customer Persona
22:45 The Creatine Example
24:59 Retargeting Past Customers
26:59 When to Pitch a Subscription
29:09 The \$1 Olive Oil Club
32:12 Loyalty and Rewards Programs
34:29 How AOV Feeds LTV
35:26 Where LTV, AOV, and CR Meet
38:41 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Agentic commerce is generating a lot of hype, but very few people are actually buying inside AI tools yet. Leighton and Patrick break down where AI really fits in ecommerce today, and the practical Shopify setup work every store owner should be doing right now.
Links Mentioned
Shopify Knowledge Base app: https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-knowledge-base
Shopify Inbox: https://apps.shopify.com/inbox
Gorgias: https://www.gorgias.com/
Profound: https://www.tryprofound.com/
Peec AI: https://peec.ai/
Local Dominator: https://localdominator.co/
Common Crawl: https://commoncrawl.org/
Patrick's Free AI Visibility Audit: https://patrickriceco.com/ai
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/7uZR93yiX3Y
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:56 Hype vs. reality right now
3:54 Why niche brands are winning
6:39 The AI attribution problem
8:10 Tracking your AI visibility
11:47 Where to actually start
12:36 The Shopify agentic channel
13:20 Shopify Knowledge Base app
15:21 Where your product data goes
19:01 Writing product data for AI
21:52 Declarative copy vs. brand voice
26:16 Storefront agents and Gorgias
30:00 What Common Crawl is
32:38 What to do before BFCM
33:36 Free AI visibility audit
34:30 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Everyone wants to increase their AOV (Average Order Value), but it's not always clear how. Leighton and Patrick break down what actually moves AOV in the right direction: free shipping thresholds with dynamic progress bars, relevant cart cross-sells, frequently bought together widgets, build-your-own bundles, and post-purchase upsells, plus the two cross-sell mistakes that cost stores trust and revenue.
Links Mentioned
Rebuy (Smart Cart, cross-sells, and A/B testing): https://www.rebuyengine.com/
Baymard Institute (cart and checkout UX research): https://baymard.com/
Monster Cart Upsell (Shopify app): https://apps.shopify.com/monster-upsells
Checkout Blocks (Shopify's checkout customization app): https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/checkout-settings/checkout-blocks
Watch This Episode on YouTube
https://youtu.be/oJQgzmeDnSg
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:33 Is AOV Advice Overhyped?
1:44 What AOV Actually Means
2:14 How AOV Compounds With Conversion Rate
3:48 Margins and Knowing Your Numbers
4:39 Free Shipping Threshold Messaging
6:02 Static Message vs Dynamic Progress Bar
7:09 Cart Cross-Sells and Two Big Mistakes
10:30 Lessons From Retail Checkout Aisles
11:33 Limits of Shopify's Recommendations
12:17 Frequently Bought Together Widgets
13:43 Recommending Items to Hit Free Shipping
16:07 Testing With Rebuy's Smart Cart
19:46 Build-Your-Own Bundles
21:07 Tailoring Tactics to Your Industry
22:29 Checkout and Post-Purchase Upsells
26:13 How Much You Can Realistically Upsell
27:12 Recap: The Quickest AOV Wins
28:02 A/B Testing and Collection Design
30:15 Starter Kits and Gift Bundles
30:51 Gift Wrap and Personalization
32:16 Content That Drives Bundle Sales
33:01 Subscriptions as an AOV Play
34:01 AOV, LTV, and What's Next
35:04 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Many Shopify sellers have no idea whether their Google Ads are actually making money. Patrick Rice breaks down the numbers that tell you the truth, why a 10x ROAS can still lose you money, and how to know your ad manager is doing a good job even if you never open the dashboard yourself.
Links Mentioned
Google Ads Search Terms Report (Campaigns > Insights and reports > Search terms): https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2472708
Shopify Marketing Performance & Attribution Reports (new vs. returning customers): https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/analyze-marketing/marketing-performance
Google AI Max for Search campaigns: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/15910187
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:24 How to Hire an Ads Person
3:30 Start With the Search Terms Report
4:53 The Brand Keyword Trap
7:06 Should You Bid on Your Brand?
10:24 What Owners Should Monitor
13:35 Why ROAS Can Deceive You
15:47 Break-Even ROAS Explained
17:09 Why Chasing 10x ROAS Backfires
19:23 New vs. Returning Customers
20:41 Shopify's Attribution Advantage
23:58 PMax, Shopping, and Search
27:03 How PMax and Shopping Interact
28:20 What's Changed Recently
29:26 Testing Google's AI Max
30:39 Consolidation Beats Segmentation
31:41 A 10x Turnaround Story
35:09 Pilot Budgets and Structure
39:15 Site Optimization and CRO
40:19 The 90s Website Story
44:12 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work with Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Shopify keeps telling you a new theme version is available, but should you actually update? Leighton and Patrick break down when to update your Shopify theme, when to switch to a new one, and when leaving it alone is the smarter (and cheaper) move.
Links Mentioned
Shopify Theme Store: https://themes.shopify.com
Ilana's JSON-LD for SEO (structured data app): https://apps.shopify.com/json-ld-for-seo
Theme Updater & Backups by Out of the Sandbox: https://apps.shopify.com/theme-updater-by-out-of-the-sandbox
Google PageSpeed Insights: https://pagespeed.web.dev
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:29 Adjust or start over?
2:21 Two real client examples
3:59 Cost, effort & maintainability
6:31 Where store owners should start
10:29 Custom work traps
11:58 Speed & SEO surprises
13:52 Protecting your nav & links
16:42 What if your traffic tanks?
19:21 The cost of playing it safe
20:25 How to approach the decision
21:51 The Online Store 2.0 cutoff
24:03 Finding the right theme
27:22 Testing before you commit
29:59 To update or not to update?
33:18 Wrapping Up
Book a Call
Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast
Work With Us
Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io
You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.