Growing ecommerce businesses through CRO, UX research, and data analytics.

We're a conversion rate optimization agency for eCommerce brands looking to grow to the next level, but know they need to a better job converting traffic. 

We talk to your potential customers, find out why they're not buying, and fix those issues through a/b testing, personalization, and data-informed UX/UI design.

We help you grow by leveraging: 
-> Full-website conversion optimization
-> Landing page optimization
-> Personalization and segmentation
-> Conversion-focused web design
-> User experience research
-> Website analytics and reporting

We’ve worked with brands you know, like JensonUSA, Osprey, PENN Fishing, and The Shade Store. We’re also fired up about helping growing brands reach the next level. Some brands we've helped make this jump include Hydro Flask, Made In, Mizzen and Main, and Peak Design.

Brian Schmitt

Founder & CEO surge.agency l Founder Nord Media | Growth Marketing for 6-9 figure eCommerce brands. Sharing things I learn along the way.

A little more about me for all of my current & soon to be followers 🤝

This is where I impress you right!? First off - thank you for visiting my profile, following me and joining me through this wild experience while I try to figure shit out.

It’s absolutely crazy to me how many different people have followed me over the last year and have engaged with my content + reached out to build friendships. I love connecting with new people and learning their stories.

You may not know me officially yet but – maybe you’ve seen me around or you heard about me.
So now… a little more about me 🤷‍♂️

👋 I’m Kody - a barely “C” student who struggled throughout high-school and college but managed to scrape by after 6 long years in college. I could never figure out what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be when I grew up (still haven’t lol).

I stumbled into the realm of marketing around 8 or 9 years ago and have been figuring out what I like and what I’m good at. I’ve worked as a marketing specialist, retention manager, growth marketer, growth manager, head of growth and now agency / brand owner.

During my “free” time I enjoy going to the movies, playing video games or hanging with my wife (Ali) & dog (Goose).

A little about my career and my accomplishments 👇

Years 1 & 2: Marketing specialist (Very basic stuff)

Years 3 & 4: Retention Manager - Generated over $400M in email revenue and ran a team of 30 🤯

Years 4 & 5: Growth Marketer / Growth Manager (Directly Managed $15M in ad-spend and grew 2 brands roughly 400% year over year)

Year 6 → Now: Head of Growth → Agency Owner → Brand Owner (Have in total directly managed over $200M in ad-spend, generated $650M+ in email revenue and have grown 7 brands into 9 figures, 17 into 8 figures)

+ many more into 6/7 figures annually. Was all of this where I thought I would be? Absolutely not… not even close lol… I always say I was able to combine a lot of luck with a lot of hard work and work ethic to achieve the results you see today.

So why am I sharing so much now? I’ve come to enjoy sharing my learnings and helping others who want to grow their business, start a brand, agency or improve their career.

Back in October 2023 I decided to start focusing on building a personal brand on Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram and in January 2024 this all compounded and built Nord Media.

Subscribe here 👉  http://nordmedia.com/newsletter

Kody N.

Marketing rule no one wants to hear:

The easier you make it to say “yes,” the faster you grow.

That means:
• Fewer clicks
• Fewer barriers
• Fewer decisions
Customers want clarity.

If they have to think too hard, they bounce.

Kody Nordquist

Founder of Nord Media | Performance Marketing Agency for 7 & 8-figure eCom brands

If you want to instantly improve your marketing, stop saying:
“I want people to see this.”

Start saying:
“I want people to feel this.”

Marketing, sales, and growth are emotional.

Once you get that, the copy writes itself.

Every marketer wants a breakthrough.

Here’s what they usually need instead:

• To tighten the copy
• To sharpen the CTA
• To simplify the funnel
• To remove the distractions
• To say what they really mean

You need to stop overcomplicating what should be obvious.

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Social Media Marketing Certification Course

Content Marketing

Email Marketing

Inbound Marketing

Digital Marketing 

HubSpot Marketing Software

Growth Marketing Agency for 7 & 8-figure eCom brands. Focused on driving profitable growth at scale with proven systems and strategies. Currently managing $5M+ in monthly ad-spend for brands.

Nord Media is a growth agency that helps 7-9 figure eCom brands scale.

Founder & Head of Growth

Fuel Your Brand with Ready-to-Launch Creative Templates.

Partner (Acquired)

Surge Marketing is a full-service Growth Marketing Agency.

Founder (Acquired)

Key Responsibilities:

Campaign Strategy and Execution: Develop and execute paid media strategies to drive brand awareness, customer acquisition, and retention. Utilize data-driven insights to optimize campaigns and maximize ROI.

Channel Management: Oversee advertising campaigns across platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and other relevant channels. Monitor performance and adjust strategies to meet objectives.

Budget Management: Manage advertising budgets effectively to achieve desired outcomes while maintaining cost-efficiency. Track and report on campaign performance, providing insights for continuous improvement.

Audience Targeting: Utilize advanced targeting capabilities to reach relevant audiences and drive engagement. Implement A/B testing strategies to optimize ad creative, messaging, and targeting parameters.

Partnership Collaboration: Collaborate with internal teams and external partners to align paid media efforts with overall marketing initiatives. Coordinate with creative teams to develop compelling ad content that resonates with our target audience.

Performance Analysis and Reporting: Analyze campaign performance metrics, including CTR, CPA, ROAS, and conversion rates. Generate regular reports to communicate insights and make data-driven recommendations for future campaigns.

Achievements:

Increased year over year subscription growth by 400%.
Improved campaign efficiency through rigorous A/B testing and optimization strategies, leading to a 65% reduction in cost per acquisition.
Implemented geo-targeting tactics that resulted in business developmental learnings that drove incremental lift in key states for growth and new business avenues.

Paid Media Manager

Effectively manage ($5M+ Annual) Digital Advertising budget across multiple paid media and SEM channels
Drive an effective ROAS and MER to enable rapid business growth while maintaining profitability
Grow business revenue by 120% YoY while also increasing profitability
Developed daily/quarterly metric growth reporting standards, rolling up directly to CEO 
Created brand strategy advertising tactics and deployment 
Develop and implement Digital Advertising campaigns to increase brand awareness, website traffic and drive sales
Lead content team to develop, test and improve content structure and funnels to guide customers from acquisition to conversion
Implement Lean Management and standards of work for self and teams to improve efficiency
Develop Email and SMS marketing efforts and scaled program 3000-->50,000 active subscribers in first 3 months
Improve Email & SMS marketing strategy and create unique subscriber growth and experiences
Develop a customer data-driven marketing funnel across all digital marketing avenues
Develop story-driven marketing campaigns to convey the brand and values effectively
Track and measure the performance of all digital marketing channels and propose optimization initiatives to maximize marketing ROAS
Create new marketing channels to test creative and adaptive marketing techniques

Director of Growth

Grew Enthusiast Enterprises Communications division from 3 people with $12.8M in annual revenue to 19 people and nearly $120M in annual revenue.
Oversaw the Email Strategy, SMS Marketing, Social Media, Marketing Automation & Copywriting teams with a growth expectation of 50% Y/Y.
Developed a calendar of content for all channels focused on product development and growth.
Oversaw the creation and distribution of campaign strategy aimed at promoting various sales and branding initiatives for the organization.
Created a strong insight customer use and feedback of products via NPS surveys and post-purchase follow-up.
Developed strategic planning between Social Media, Digital Advertising, Graphic Design and Communications to unify our brand messaging and improve customer perception of our brand & products.
Integrated product marketing strategies and created optimized marketing initiatives with integrated A/B testing and relevant KPI tracking.  
Improved the customer life cycle and retention by providing value to the customer through unique content and closing all gaps where a customer may become lost during their purchase process.
Created and managed revenue targets and budget expenses to ensure profitability growth.

Growth Marketing Manager

Developed digital marketing strategy by studying economic indicators, tracking changes in supply and demand, identifying customers and their current and future needs, and monitoring the competition.
Planned and executed on all web, SEO/SEM, database marketing, email, SMS, social media, and display advertising campaigns.
Developed and maintained a social media presence in Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. 
Identified short-term and long-range issues that must be addressed and developed a plan of action around these.
Measured and report performance of all digital marketing campaigns and assesses against goals (ROI and KPIs).
Optimized performance of campaigns and initiatives by utilizing analytical toolkits to identify underperforming areas.
Developed A/B test structure to optimize flow and conversion of the customer journey.
Collaborates with internal teams & external to enhance LTV of customers and identify gaps on a customer's lifecycle
Utilizes strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels and customer touch points.
Identified critical conversion points and drop off points and optimizes user funnels.

This “stack” is missing a crucial step. We’re all talking about how useful AI tools are for scaling production, but you still need a solid, human strategy and a creative team to execute core ideas.

The biggest thing you want to avoid is losing the ability to connect with people. 

People want to buy from people. AI can help you move faster, but it can’t replace the human connection that actually converts.

Sell value instead of a product or service.

What value can you provide someone? If it’s greater than your cost - it’s easy to sell.

If not — improve your value to match the rate you want to charge.

More brands need to fundamentally understand that Meta ads and CPMs are going to get more expensive every year. CPMs across our portfolio went up an average of 22% year over year.

Unless you're drastically improving your margins every year you need to find ways to make improvements outside of that.

AOV / LTV / Retention / Profit per visitor / CVR

You need to convert more people for less and have those people stay long-term. 

Brands who are simply trying to replicate the success they've have will end up falling behind and likely go out of business slowly over time.

Most ecom brands think profit shows up after revenue.

Scale first, fix margins later, and clean it up “once we’re bigger.”

That mindset is why so many brands grow and still feel broke.

Revenue-first thinking feels productive, but it’s also how you build a business that looks successful on paper and struggles in reality.​

Why Profit Gets Ignored

Revenue is loud.

It’s easy to track, easy to celebrate, and easy to post about.

Profit is quieter.

It hides inside decisions most founders never slow down to examine.

That’s why so many brands chase topline growth while margins quietly erode underneath them.

This happens when growth is treated as a goal instead of a system.

The Core Truth Most People Miss

Profit isn’t something you hope for at scale. It’s something you engineer upstream.

If profit only appears when ads are cheap, Q4 hits, or a platform algorithm smiles on you, the business isn’t stable, it’s lucky.

The best in the game design margins intentionally.

Revenue vs. Profit

Revenue answers one question: “How much did we sell?”

Profit answers a harder one: “How much did we keep after every decision we made?”

Those decisions compound daily.

Offer structure, traffic mix, fulfillment choices, creative strategy, and retention design must all be considered.

None of these live inside a revenue number, but all of them determine profit.

The eCom Profit Equation (Simplified)

At a high level, profit is driven by three forces working together:

• How efficiently you acquire customers.

• How much value each customer generates.

• How much friction exists between sale and fulfillment.

Most brands only optimize the first one, that’s the mistake.

Where Profit Is Actually Won or Lost

Profit collapses because marginal decisions stack up unnoticed.

• Returns quietly increase.

• Shipping costs creep higher

• Discounts become permanent

• Creative costs rise without corresponding lift.

• Paid traffic replaces organic and owned channels.

None of these kill a business alone, but unfortunately, together, they drain it.

The Margin Levers Most Brands Ignore

The biggest profit levers are unsexy and operational.

They’re often ignored because they don’t feel like “growth.”

Things like tightening offer structure so discounts don’t become the default.

• Designing bundles that increase AOV without increasing fulfillment cost.

• Auditing shipping zones and packaging decisions that quietly eat margin.

• Using post-purchase flows to raise LTV instead of spending more on acquisition.

Small changes here compound faster than chasing more traffic.

Final Thought

Revenue is a scoreboard, profit is the game.

If profit only shows up when everything goes right, the business is fragile.

Engineer margins deliberately, design profit upstream, and let revenue follow a system that actually holds.

That’s how real ecom businesses last.

One of the best funnels we’re using to find winning creatives in is posting daily content 2-4 times a day.

Anything that is marginally good performance wise is being boosted for organic growth and also being ran as an ad.

Brands are growing their follower count (social proof) and the ads have a much higher hit rate on paid (15-18% on average).

Highly suggest you check this out if you have any type of content needs and/or any backfilled content log.

Seems like such an easy way to bring new life to existing creative and find perfect fit for that perfect ad you’ve been trying to make.

Founder at Videowise — The Video Commerce Powerhouse. Helping 4,000+ brands & retailers increase conversion rates by up to 35% and turn video into real revenue. Reputation-first mindset, proven by customer results.

Creative & growth teams are still scrubbing through hours of video to find the right moments.

The hook.
The product shot.
The one line that actually converts.
That’s not creative work.
That’s wasted time.

Today, we’re launching Videowise Clips.

Clips uses AI to understand every frame of your videos and automatically turn videos into structured, ready-to-use clips - instantly, at scale, with human-level precision.

No video duration limit.
No timelines.
No exports.
No folders.

What actually changes 👇
- Videos are automatically split into real moments: hooks, product shots, testimonials, CTAs, custom defined for your business.
- Every clip is intelligently labeled and organized however you configure our AI.
- You use natural language search your entire video library to find anything in just seconds.

The impact:
→ ~80% less manual video work
→ 10× faster clip creation
→ Creative output without creative burnout

This isn’t about editing faster.

It’s about structuring creative output at AI scale so video is usable, searchable, and activation-ready across ads, PDPs, email, and social.

With Clips, shoppable video, live shopping, creator network and AI-powered intelligence, Videowise is becoming the video commerce powerhouse.

👇 Giveaway + free access

Comment "VIDEOWISE" for:

→ A 30-day free trial of Videowise Clips
+ A chance to win a pair of AirPods Max 🎧
(You’ll need new headphones anyway - while Clips does the work for you.) 😎 

Repost with your own take - support from this community genuinely means a lot to me 🤍

Your number 1 job when running ads, sending emails, posting on social is to drive a click.

It’s not to sell your product or service.

It’s simply get them to click.

Let your landing page sell your product…

To many brands try to hard to sell right away that they lose the click.

People can’t buy if they don’t click.

Focus on what matters.

Almost all successful entrepreneurs I know have found their outlet.

For some people it’s cars, for others it’s TV, some is golfing, some is working out, others surfing etc…

It doesn’t matter what your outlet is - just that you can disconnect and find enjoyment in it.

My outlets are video games and lifting weights. It’s what I can do to remove myself from the stress of entrepreneurship for a brief time period.

You need some sort of outlet to be able to manage to stress of doing the hard work that’s required to be successful.

Most agency owners think success comes from better strategy or better execution.

It doesn’t.

99% of running a great agency is managing people and expectations.

Almost every agency can do the work. That’s table stakes.

What separates the ones that last is how well they handle humans, how they hire, grow, retain talent, and how clearly they communicate with clients.

The most important conversations usually aren’t about performance dashboards or weekly metrics.

They’re about context. Trust. Alignment.

Clients aren’t just numbers on a report. These businesses support families, both theirs and their employees’. When you forget that, relationships break fast.

Being a good agency operator is really about being a good person.

If client retention is a problem, that’s where I’d start looking.

This was a challenge that agency owners were battling before Whop implemented their dispute fighter. 

You would:
- Close a $3K/month retainer with a new client.
- Get ghosted by the client after 45 days.
- Then get a dispute for the charge. 

Suddenly you're out the full $3,000, a $25+ chargeback fee, AND the ding on your processor reputation.

It’s great that platforms are doing this now, but it’s shocking how few agencies had their own infrastructure in place to fight this. They would just accept the loss and keep selling. 

If you want to sell sustainably, your dispute systems are every bit as important as your sales and client acquisition.

graphical user interface, application, email

Most brands treat “brand” like decoration.

Colors, fonts, or a silly mood board someone approved once and never revisited.

Then they wonder why performance gets more expensive every quarter.

This happens when brand is viewed as aesthetic instead of infrastructure.​

The Real Problem

When CAC rises, most founders look for tactical fixes.

New ads, angles, audiences, and platforms.

What they rarely look at is trust, and trust is the invisible variable inside every performance metric you care about.

The Core Truth

Brand is not a nice-to-have, it’s a performance lever.

It determines how much friction exists before a customer clicks, buys, returns, or comes back again.

Strong brand lowers CAC because people hesitate less, and it raises LTV because people stay longer.

Why Performance Suffers Without Brand

When a brand is weak, ads have to do all the work.

They must convince, reassure, and overcome doubt in seconds.

That’s expensive.

When a brand is strong, ads don’t persuade as hard. They remind, reinforce, and validate something the customer already feels.

This is why two brands can run similar offers to similar audiences and see wildly different results.

One is selling, the other is confirming.

Trust Is the Multiplier

Trust compresses decision time.

Customers don’t need to re-evaluate you every time they see an ad or email, they already know what you stand for and what to expect.

That compression shows up everywhere.

Higher CTR, conversion rate, and lower refund rates.

Best of all: there’s better repeat purchase behavior, all without increasing spend.

Where Most Brands Get “Brand” Wrong

They over-index on visuals and under-index on what’s most important.

Brand is how consistently you behave.

What do customers see before they buy? What happens immediately after? How do you communicate when nothing is being sold?

These moments matter significantly more than logos.

Brand as a System Rather than a Layer

Growth operators think about brand the same way they think about funnels or retention: as a system with inputs and outputs.

• Inputs are: messaging, proof, clarity, consistency.

• Outputs are the effects: CAC, LTV, conversion efficiency.

When brand is treated as a system, performance becomes easier to scale.

The One Thing You Can Strengthen Immediately

If you want a fast win, start here: clarity.

Most brands lose trust not because they look bad, but because they’re unclear in their positioning, outcomes, and differentiation

This makes it so that when customers don’t instantly understand who you’re for and why you’re different, they default to skepticism.

Clarity reduces skepticism faster than polish ever will.

What Clarity Actually Looks Like

Clear brands say less, better.

They repeat the same core message across ads, emails, site copy, and post-purchase communication.

They don’t rotate identities every quarter or chase trends at the expense of coherence.

That repetition builds familiarity.

Everyone’s buzzing about it, but all this Moltbot business (previously known as ClawdBot) is WAY overhyped. 

Social concerns aside, we’ve been rushing to automate everything recently, and I’m watching brands and businesses automate themselves straight into irrelevance because of it.

You can automate:
→ Reporting & dashboards
→ Bid adjustments within set parameters
→ Basic customer service FAQs
→ Inventory alerts & reordering
→ Email sequences (once proven)

But you can’t expect to truly automate:
→ Creative strategy decisions
→ Client relationships & communication
→ New campaign launches
→ Offer positioning
→ Anything requiring context you can't codify

The "automate everything" crowd has completely lost sight of how much value there is in real connection. Do you really expect to make an automated “task” out of connecting with other human beings?

AI automation is an essential tool for workflow in the modern world, but it can’t build and nurture the real relationships that are going to make your business skyrocket. 

Automate the busywork, but protect the connections.

graphical user interface, text, application

Biggest shift we've seen from an creative perspective over the last 6 months is a shift from volume --> unique concept identity.

Previous volume would carry 90% of accounts into positive growth performance.

But something changed in August / September and slowly we've been seeing a shift towards volume but with net new concept. Iterations really don't matter much anymore.

Put a stronger focus / emphasis into unique creative concepts / angles and less focus on iterations + volume.

It can take for this approach to dynamically adjust in your creative flow - but once it does it's incredibly powerful at creating profitable growth.

I've had 1 slot open for a Nord Media sponsorship opportunity in February.

If you want to get your SaaS / Agency in front of 100,000 marketers, founders, Shopify operators etc...

Shoot me a DM - let’s chat.

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Brian Schmitt

Kody N.

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The Battle

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Kody N.

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Engagements

Likes

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