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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Ep. 7 BFCM Starts in August: Email Tips For Your Biggest Peak Season
Saturday, August 15, 2026 • Duration 51:20
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
Ep. 6 The Meta Cheat Sheet for Startups with Aimee Smart
Saturday, August 8, 2026 • Duration 25:41
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.
Ep 5. How Nala Built A Content System To Successfully Scale On Meta
Saturday, July 25, 2026 • Duration 50:49
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
Ep 4. Meta Ads What's In / What's Out Right Now - Rapid Fire with Adele Elliott
Saturday, July 11, 2026 • Duration 22:19
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
Ep 3. AI Decoded for Brands & Marketers, Without the Overwhelm with Daniela Valencia
Sunday, June 28, 2026 • Duration 51:37
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
Ep 2. The Conversion Equation Every E-Com Brand Needs Before Spending on Ads with Shelby Van Zwol
Friday, June 26, 2026 • Duration 30:25
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/
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The Pilot: Meet Shelby, Adele and Your New Unfair Advantage
Friday, May 29, 2026 • Duration 45:59
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/
