From selling socks door-to-door in high school, launching the 4th fastest growing retail company in the US (inc500) out of his college dorm room, to most recently co-founding the fastest growing (CBJ50) SaaS marketing platform, Ledford has gained a rare, well-rounded set of industry experience. Combining 2 years of keeping people's feet warm, 8 years as a B2C leader, and 5 years as a B2B leader, he's now a recognized expert among the Digital & Performance Marketing community. 

Ledford first established himself in the eCommerce world during his college years at North Carolina’s Appalachian State University. He and his roommate, now AddShoppers Co-Founder Jon West, created and bootstrapped a niche online retailer into the fourth fastest growing retailer in the country, as recognized by Inc 500 in 2011. Now, as AddShoppers’ Chief Strategy Officer, he uses his innate creativity and progressive thinking to steer the AddShoppers team through the ever evolving eCommerce industry landscape.

Multi-touch Attribution in the age of cross-device shopping

More consumer devices & more consumer touch points are now required to drive a transaction online.   This has lead to marketers inability to measure what interactions successfully lead to a transaction and how much credit (aka attribute) to give to each channel.  This can be solved.

The Commerce Marketers role is being replaced by machines - are you ready?

The role of the commerce marketer is going to be replaced by artificial intelligence and changing consumer behaviors before 2020.  Most digital marketers today are responsible for content generation + measurement + optimization.  No one enjoys logging into dashboards and figuring out how to optimize things.  The future marketer (mashup of CIO/CMO) will leverage AI to distribute, optimize, and analyze their brand message + story.  Said another way, you'll just need to tell a bot what you want to happen, instead of your intern/marketing coordinator/agency/etc.

Your Mobile Marketing is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

The most important screens are now the small ones. Mobile sales have more than doubled from 2013 to 2016 and mobile now accounts for 50% of all eCommerce traffic in 2016. Investing in mobile now will help you succeed tomorrow but it requires a change in mindset.

Mobile eCommerce + Social Commerce + Customer Engagement = A Better UX

What do mobile eCommerce, social commerce, and customer engagement have in common? When optimized correctly, they provide a better eCommerce user experience. 2016 eCommerce statistics have shown marketers how important a focus on each of these areas is lifting conversion rates, average order value (AOV), and average revenue per visitor (ARPV). Learn how to optimize in these areas in 2017.

April 27, 2016

Dig South interactive festival

Panelist for "THE NEXT PHASE OF DIGITAL ADVERTISING: Ad Blockers, Content Marketing, Advertorials and What the Data is Telling Us" segment.

Mar. 16, 2016

bronto summit

Solo session titled "5 Strategies to Boost Mobile Conversions", detailing how to boost conversion rates on mobile devices through micro-moments and secondary conversions.

Dec. 29, 2015

2x Ecommerce podcast

Guest speaker on episode 56 (track 32) of Kunle Campbell's eCommerce podcast show. Ledford's topic surrounds "Turning Customers to Advocates and Influencers (using Social media referral marketing)."

Mar. 2, 2015

bronto summit

Ledford took the stage at Bronto's 2015 Summit to discuss the topic "Selling More with Social - Seriously."

Dec. 12, 2013

Digital Marketing Technologies

Ledford's session, "Go from likes and pins to orders and customers" honed in on tips for turning social into a marketing channel that could drive revenue and sales for eCommerce business.

Nov. 19, 2011

NC governor's entrepreneurship summit

Ledford spoke at the North Carolina Entrepreneurship Summit during his days serving as 3tailer's CEO.