Silvia Myers is co-founder of Traffic Ninjas, teaching product makers and brand builders how to sell their incredible products online without having to discount or spend their hard-earned cash on things that don’t work. Together with her husband and co-founder, Kristen, Traffic Ninjas equip eCommerce stores with an underground Ninja method specifically designed for small business owners, teaching them how to be profitable and sustainable and actually earn an income from selling their products.
The Traffic Ninjas community has grown from Sydney, Australia to 35+ countries around the world with small business owners achieving amazing results.
Silvia Myers, Founder, Entrepreneur & Mentor
The name Traffic Ninjas suggests that there might be some battling history; tell me more about that?
Yes, I very much consider myself a Ninja and specifically a Traffic Ninja.
The thing is that when I started my online business many years ago, I believed I had to learn everything about digital marketing.
The social media ads, all the tricks on Facebook, Instagram and now even TikTok, how to do Google ads, how to do email marketing, SEO optimisation and so on…
And I was like, “How on earth am I going to learn it all” especially as a small business owner flying solo. But I thought that that’s what you had to do in eCommerce and online marketing, so I modelled all the big brands and worked crazy hard.
Until I completely burnt out, spent all my money and was in a huge amount of debt.
I mean don’t get me wrong, there was also success in there in between, but it just wasn’t “IT” and I worked crazy hard. It definitely wasn’t sustainable, and it was taking way more from me than it was giving me back.
And I wasn’t alone. There were thousands or millions like me who started an online business to be free and instead got trapped in hard work and debt. And no one was doing anything to figure this out.
So I started to map out where I succeeded in my life and I realised that, “hang on,” actually all of my success in my life came from going against the stream. It definitely DID NOT come from doing what the masses did.
Just like the Ninja Turtles – they lived in the sewer and were little known and underground and yet they were winning a battle after battle.
And I looked back at my life and realised that that’s EXACTLY how I achieved success in my life. Never through the mainstream stuff but always through going against the stream, turning up in places where no one expected me to turn up.
Coming from a simple background in a country that was “behind the iron curtain” at the time, I certainly didn’t have that many options when I first started.
But using this Ninja method, I managed to get myself through an international world-class university and get a fully paid scholarship. Not because I was super smart or special. But because I always turned up at places no one expected me to be.
And once I realised how to use this very same attitude in eCommerce, things finally started to change. For the better, of course.
It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually, my husband and I came up with the Traffic Ninja method specifically designed for small business owners who have an online store (for example a Shopify or WooCommerce store) and their resources are limited.
So In What Way Is What The Traffic Ninjas Teach Unique From Other eCommerce Coaching Brands?
That’s a great question. Well first, we don’t promise millions overnight and don’t work with people who sell junk, that no one needs, at a discount.
All of our customers stand by their products and they are smart experienced individuals. We purely help them achieve success with their store more simply, in less time, with fewer resources.
Of course, everything we teach is based on our signature underground Traffic Ninja method that’s specifically designed to help small business owners get more sales and grow their stores without the overwhelm.
It helps them to go against the stream, turn up at places no one expects them to be and turn their biggest perceived disadvantage (being small and not having many resources) into their biggest advantage so that their ideal customers are ready to buy all they’ve got.
So how do you know you’re using the right strategy to grow your eCommerce store?
Well, that’s a great question. In short, if you find it really difficult to attract your ideal customer, you spend hours, weeks and months trying to grow your business and you continuously feel like you’re pushing uphill, then you’re definitely not using the right strategy.
But if in turn, you find it really easy to cut through the ‘marketing noise’ and are clear on how to grow your store without having to spend thousands of dollars on social media ads then you definitely have the right strategy.
The thing we need to remember is that eCommerce is a $5.4 trillion industry and there’s plenty of space for all online stores regardless of how boutique, niche or unknown they are.
It’s just that a new store opens every thirty seconds, big brands have driven the cost of social media ads by almost tenfold and the average consumer attention span is less than nine seconds. Which by the way is less than a goldfish.
So whilst there’s plenty of space for everyone, online stores and particularly the ones that are in the small business category, really have to pay attention to what strategy they’re using to ensure that the process is not just sustainable (which also includes the ability to earn an actual income from their business) but that they also get to enjoy it. Because speaking from my own entrepreneurial experience, nothing is worse than not earning money for something you don’t enjoy doing.
Ok, so I have an eCommerce store that needs more traffic and conversions, where do I begin?
Well, the first thing you need to understand about eCommerce traffic is that it’s actually people that we’re talking about. Real humans with interests and it’s their attention that we’re competing for.
Therefore, what you’ve got to figure out is who is your ideal customer, what they pay attention to, and where they hang out. Because frankly, the days of cheap, broad social media targeting are over.
Unfortunately, what most Shopify and WooCommerce founders do, is that they try to be present on all platforms at once, without being specific about who their ideal customer is. This leads to them putting in a crazy amount of effort, and not getting anything back in return.
Because trying to do Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, YouTube, and everything else, is just going to lead to spreading your resources way too thin. What you want to do instead, is just really laser focus on your ideal customer, what they pay attention to and where they hang out on online – and focus on that traffic platform first.
What is your big goal? What do the Traffic Ninjas have in store for us?
Well, we’ve been very fortunate to help over five hundred online stores in over 35 countries achieve great results but our big goal is to grow the number of success stories to 10,000.
We believe that genuine eCommerce store entrepreneurs who are passionate about their brand don’t just deserve to have more prosperous businesses, but we also believe that consumers are better off when they have multiple boutique options to choose from.
We are against an environment where a small number of big players dominate the market and dictate what’s available and under what conditions. So in this way, reaching the 10,000 success stories is a way for us to help the world become a better, fairer place.
And Finally, What’s The Best Way To Learn More About Traffic Ninjas Or The Underground Method That You Use?
We’ve got plenty of free resources teaching how to get highly converting traffic to your online store and convert it into an actual income. The easiest way to learn more is to watch one of our masterclasses or visit our YouTube channel where we also share plenty of useful resources.
