Formtoro.com - Zero Party Data Ecommerce Strategy

I run a software company called Formtoro which is purpose built to collect and analyze customer data in combination with ad and sales data for ecommerce brands.

I also run marketing and strategy for Krakatoa Underwear, a mid-7 figure ecommerce Direct to Consumer high end men’s underwear company.

Prior to Formtoro and Krakatoa Underwear I ran marketing and customer support for LIFX leading to acquisition.

I’ve been involved in marketing for 20+ years.

My motto is work smarter, not harder, and let data lead.

Always up for a chat about the industry: calendly.com/jonivanco

I've open sourced my entire strategy at ecomwithjon.com

I love zero party data and data analytics and a good debate around them.

🏌🏼‍♂️Jon Ivanco

Popup Opt-in rates are a scam.

On one side you're just giving away margin to get an email that you'd get anyway when someone converted.

On the other if you are collecting a data point you don't have enough time to use it on the person that provides it because those that check out due so in less than 12 hours.

I'm going to say it, it's a KPI that I've gamed a lot.

This doesn't even take into account all the same existing customers that are just signing up under different emails...

Or my favorite the Apple ones that hide their emails every time.

An email list is only as good as the amount of people that sign up and convert and that happens as a result of the messaging that drove the traffic.

So here's the flip, use this interaction to build a statistical model around what messaging you should be using on people that converts the highest.

That's where the real magic comes from, else you're chasing vanity metrics that don't mean anything.

🏂Jon Ivanco

Marketing Automation via Intelligent Data Layers

Last night I figured out something that had been bothering me for years around popups. 

It’s manual now and we’ll start testing this week. 

But it’s an evolution of getting data from every first time purchaser that uses a generic coupon code. 

It’s pretty cool. 

This solves one of the biggest trade offs with discounting on first orders and silent profit leaks. 

Yes I’m posting again because I’m back to building systems that solve overlooked problems. 

Clean the data. 
Put it into content systems. 
Automate marketing. 

I spend a lot of time questioning systems and building work arounds before we consider how to implement them seamlessly behind the scenes. 

This is going to be a big update. 

Small change. Huge impact. 

No one is doing it. Guaranteed.

An eCommerce consultant sharing my learnings

Entrepreneur working on ecommerce for small & medium sized companies that want to increase revenue & productivity quickly via digital transformation & growth hacks

Shan Abdul Salam

In 2017, I won USD 25K at a startup challenge conducted by VISA.

It looked like a big milestone.

Competing against 1000s of startups across the MENA region and coming first.

That is what you will see from this image.

But here’s what was actually happening at that time:

- I had taken a 50% pay cut, even though I could earn 4x more in a job.

- I was waiting for a bridge round while the next funding round was uncertain.

- I was genuinely afraid I might lose everything I had built.

- My mental health was deteriorating, and I wasn’t telling anyone.

- I was thinking about covering payroll with the prize money.

Winning the award didn’t remove the pressure.

Only founders understand this reality.

Today, I am well past that phase. I am in a much better place.

But I still remember how it felt.

So if you know a founder, don’t just congratulate them.

Ask them, “Are you okay?”

And if you’re a founder reading this, stay strong.

Speak to other founders when it gets tough. They are often the only ones who truly understand what you are going through.

Helping you to sell online - eCom community | Accelerator | 1 on 1 mentoring | Online courses | Shopify apps for Quick Commerce

The best thing we can teach kids?

How to handle boredom.

Today, the moment a child says, “I’m bored,” we hand them a screen.

But boredom is not a problem.
It’s a starting point.

When kids are bored, they start thinking.
They create games.
They build random things.
They imagine stories.

That’s where creativity begins.

If every free minute is filled with stimulation, they never learn to sit with their own thoughts.

And later in life, that becomes difficult.

Because adults who can’t handle boredom:

Struggle with focus.
Need constant distraction.
Avoid deep work.

We say we want creative, independent kids.

Maybe the real upgrade isn’t adding more activities.

It’s allowing more empty time.

Lesson: Boredom builds imagination.

Childhood doesn’t need to be fully scheduled to be meaningful.

Money!! How does The eCom Show even make revenue?

How are you guys sustaining??

People in my network won't stop asking me this.

So here's the honest breakdown.

We have 6 revenue channels running right now:

1- Community Memberships
2- YouTube Revenue
3- Podcast Sponsorships
4- Affiliate Partnerships
5- Courses
6- eCom accelerator

Most people hear "podcast" and think:
"Cool. So you make money from... vibes?"
Not exactly.

The real insight?
One product. Six revenue streams.

Each one holds the others up when things get slow.

Sponsorships quiet down? Courses pick up.

YouTube dips? Community memberships carry.

Affiliates underperform? A sponsorship deal lands.

It's not luck. It's architecture.

The mistake most creators make is building a business on a single income stream from a single product.

The smarter play is to build multiple doors into the same house.

That's what The eCom Show taught us.

And honestly? It's the model I'd recommend to anyone building in public today.

Stop wasting money on big influencers.

Most brands think bigger following = better results.

Not true.

If you care about sales, not just views, micro-influencers win every time.

Here’s what actually matters when choosing them:

• Audience relevance over follower count.
10K niche followers who trust them > 500K random followers.

• Engagement quality over vanity metrics.
Check the comments. Are people asking questions, or just dropping emojis?

• Content consistency.
Do they regularly talk about your category? Or will your brand look forced on their feed?

• Past brand integrations.
Scroll back. Do their collaborations feel natural or scripted?

• Audience geography.
If you sell in Kerala, 70% US followers won’t help you.

Micro-influencers work because:

They reply to DMs.
Their audience trusts them.
Recommendations feel personal.

Pro tip: Don’t just “send product and pray.”

Brief them clearly. Give creative freedom. 
Track with unique codes or links. 
Measure engagement, not just views.

And one more thing: run ads on their content.

The real power isn’t influencer marketing alone. 
It’s influencer content + paid amplification.

Choose creators who influence decisions, not just impressions.

Care n Cure Group got 5 orders on Day 1 because we solved the right problem.

(This is a mistake most businesses make.)

A business only ever has 1 of 2 problems:

1- Not enough traffic.
2- Not enough conversion.

Care n Cure didn’t have a traffic problem.

Their group website already had 100+ daily visitors because of strong brand presence.

But they weren’t converting that traffic.

Here’s the truth: even if we built something complex, it wouldn’t matter if we didn’t fix the real bottleneck.

So what did we do?

Step 1: Installed Google Analytics l to see the actual data.

Step 2: Added a simple WhatsApp button.

That’s it.

1st order.
2nd order.
3rd order.

5 orders on Day 1.

Care n Cure Group is the 3rd largest pharmacy chain in Qatar.

Once we fixed the real problem, results followed immediately.

But it took the right lens to see it.
That’s what consultants or agencies do.

Now go try this on your dad’s established business too. Send me the gift later 😉

In Dec’23, I hit my limit.

I had been creating short-form content for eCom entrepreneurs since Aug’23. By December, I was exhausted. Everyone wanted help. Everyone had questions. And I simply didn’t have the time to respond to each one.

I kept feeling frustrated… like I wasn’t doing enough.

Then I noticed something.

Most of them had the same concerns, just phrased differently.

Whenever I face a situation like that, I believe there are 2 options:

1- Keep replying one by one.
 Stay stuck in DMs.
 Try to solve the same problem 50 different times.

👆 That feels productive. But it’s draining. And it doesn’t scale.

So the 2nd approach:

2- Build once. Help many.

That’s when the idea hit me.
“Why not upload on YouTube?”

And that’s how The eCom Show was born.

We released 100+ episodes with experts we knew.
We built a community.
We hosted offline meetups for members to network.
We helped generate millions in revenue for members.

Before we even realised it…

We had created one of the best regional eCom communities.

Sometimes the breakthrough isn’t working harder.

It’s building smarter.

All growth starts with one decision.

Start.

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I spent 14 days in COVID quarantine.

Alone. Frightened.

The Care n Cure Group eCom project was in full swing, and no one really understood what COVID was back in Nov 2020.

For the first two days, I just lay on the bed expecting the worst.

Then on Day 3, something hit me:

If I die here, let me go out building something meaningful.

So I decided to go all in.

The secret?

Focus.

• Learned everything I could about Shopify.
• Rebuilt the UI with a better theme.
• Tested every app I could find on the Shopify App Store.
• Coordinated operations over the phone.
• Worked every single day from that quarantine room.

Somewhere in that chaos, I found clarity.

And that clarity shaped the path I’m living today.

Sometimes it takes a life-threatening moment to bring you back on track.

In 2026, the DTC brands winning aren't the ones with the best products.

They're the ones with the strongest CONTENT ENGINES.

Because growth doesn't start with a purchase anymore.

It starts with attention.

The smartest brands know one sequence:
Attention → Trust → Purchase.

And they never skip steps.

First, attention. Not ads. Stories, insights, education, and entertainment content that make people stop scrolling.

Then trust. Show up consistently, and credibility builds. People remember you before they ever consider buying.

Only then does the purchase happen.

Most brands start at step three.

They push ads to people who've never heard of them. Conversions don't come. They blame the product. They blame the platform.

The real problem?

You can't ask for a purchase before you've earned attention and trust.

One eCommerce growth hack from our latest podcast blew my mind.

Most eCommerce sellers fail because they overbuy inventory.

Jobin Ponnattil cracked a smarter way.

Before scaling any product they test it with just ONE unit.

Here is the process.

Step 1
Buy one piece from the market even at retail price.

Step 2
Take professional photos.

Step 3
List it online and test demand.

Step 4
If orders come in consistently then approach the manufacturer and negotiate bulk pricing.

If it does not sell they drop the product.

Maximum loss.

One or two products.

This is the opposite of how many stores operate.

Offline retail needs large inventory before testing demand.

But eCommerce allows you to validate demand before investing.

Sometimes the smartest ecommerce strategy is simply testing faster than everyone else.

The traction mistake that kills good founders.

They wait for traction to happen to them.

They build. They launch. They watch the dashboard.

They call it "testing the market."

It's not. It's hiding with extra steps.

Real traction is manufactured manually before it's ever systematic.

Airbnb photographed apartments themselves.
Doordash delivered orders personally.
Stripe manually onboarded every early merchant.

None of it scaled. All of it mattered.

Because manual traction teaches you something no dashboard can why someone said yes. The exact words they used. The hesitation before they pulled out the card.

That's the data that shapes everything after.

Founders who wait for organic traction are writing a story where the market has to do all the work.

The founders we bet on? They go get the first 10 by hand, dirty, personally and come back knowing exactly what they learned.

Then we talk about scale.

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The Battle

🏌🏼‍♂️Jon Ivanco

Shan Abdul Salam

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The Battle

🏌🏼‍♂️Jon Ivanco

Shan Abdul Salam

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Engagements

Likes

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