Daniel Peleg’s Post

DTC brands, it's go time. Our Ultimate BFCM Checklist is here and it's non-negotiable for success! 🚨 But first, here's your roadmap to BFCM 2024 domination: TODAY: - Choose impactful, easy-to-communicate promotions - Plan standout Black Friday collections OCTOBER: - Build your BFCM content calendar - Strategically plan campaign dates - Set early access, start/end dates - Create daily content highlights LATE OCTOBER/EARLY NOVEMBER: - Ready all content for BFCM and Christmas campaigns - Set up customer segments and exclusions in your ESP NOVEMBER: - Run thorough QA - Schedule campaigns - Activate or deactivate flows and lead magnets What stage are you at in your BFCM prep? Let's optimize your strategy together. 👉 Comment "BFCM", like, and follow me to receive our Ultimate BFCM Checklist. The brands that win BFCM are the ones executing NOW.

DTC brands will waste $10000’s this BFCM. On one channel. SMS. The way most brands look at it is inherently wrong. “It’s a promotional period so let’s send it to EVERY SMS subscriber.” Maximise revenue earning potential, right? Wrong. Look at the engagement data for your SMS subs. A large % will have never clicked on a message. A large % will have signed up months ago & never purchased. The incremental lift from including everyone in your SMS sends is likely small. For the most part, you’ll just be spending boatloads more, for a measly ROI. Be smart with your SMS segmentation. And save yourself a few quid in the process.

You’re lying to yourself if you think throwing up a standard A/B test on your pop-up and Welcome Series flows are “optimizing” them. It’s not. I’ve talked to hundreds of DTC brands over the past couple of years, and the amount of them that haven’t even considered putting actual resources behind testing them baffles me. Time and time again, I’d hear “Oh yeah I’ll get back to it. It’s on my to do list”. I don’t get it. These levers can drive as little as 15% to as much as 50% of your brand’s revenue. Plus, it isn’t even a huge lift. There are so many tools that can track and report different tests’ efficacies for you. There’s really no excuse. I just want to see DTC brands win. That’s all. What else do you feel DTC brands neglect?

The biggest mistake DTC brands make when trying to grow: They run ads for all of their products. Your aim shouldn't be to have a low CAC across your entire assortment. Your aim should be to have a healthy CAC while only advertising products that: 1, Drive repeat purchases. 2. Make customers want to try more products from you. 3. Make customers want to share your product with their friends. Once you look at your data and realize that not every product in your assortment can do these things, Growth becomes easy.

I studied the worst DTC brands I know and put together 5 massive red flags 🚩 (If you have one of these, this may be your sign to do something about it) 1. They think if the ads don’t perform, it’s always because of the ads You need to be able to understand the customer journey from the beginning to end From the point they see your ad all the way until they purchase and re-purchase Break the journey into segments, and then optimize Ad -> Landing page -> ATC -> Initiate Checkout -> Purchase -> Upsell 1 -> Upsell 2 -> Email & SMS Make people want to go through each stage 2. They don’t think from a team perspective Great brands have great teams Whenever they are thinking of implementing a strategy They think “How will this affect our team, and do I need to bring someone in with more expertise in this field” Don’t under-resource. It’ll come back to bite you 3. Low AOV 82% of people that buy from you once will never ever buy from you again The best brands have mastered the act of getting people to pay more per purchase They get the most juice they can 4. Low LTV Businesses that have low LTV are always in stress mode They are at the mercy to the performance of their ads If they don’t spend money on ads for a month Their business goes belly-up Figure out how to get people to keep coming back 5. Not enough testing If you are only testing 1-2 concepts you are missing huge gains The more you test The more you know what works The more you can create what works The more you can scale. Simple. Look at your brand and, without emotion, ask yourself if you are really doing everything you can to avoid these 5 red flags If you aren’t, then what is the reason? Is the reason you just named valid? Or is there a creative solution to it? Solve problems and grow Keep moving forward!

🚨 DTC brands, beware! 🪤 Long-term heavy discounting might feel like a quick win, but the real cost? It’s steep. 😱 Here’s why: 1️⃣ Devalues Your Product Constant discounts?  Your product loses its worth.  Why pay full price when there’s always a sale? 2️⃣ Creates Discount Junkies Train customers to wait for deals, and they will.  Full-price purchases?  Forget about it. 3️⃣ Engagement Turns to Unsubscribes Bombard with discounts… … and watch those unsubscribes roll in.  Discount fatigue is real. 4️⃣ Builds Transactional Relationships Heavy discounts = purely transactional.  Where’s the loyalty in that? The fix? Shift to building true value: - Focus on brand loyalty. - Offer more than just price cuts. - Engage meaningfully. Don’t let discounts define your brand. 📣 Build relationships, not just sales! 📣

The DTC market is getting more and more crowded these days. The only way to make your company stand out is a strong brand –which starts with an unbeatable USP. 🟢 ↓ ↓ ↓ A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is what makes your product or service – well, your product and service. It answers the big question: "How are you unique from your competitors?" Once you define your USP, everything else about your brand flows from this. 🔵 — To be clear for a second: brand loyalty is still definitely a thing (although it’s in decline.) But branding is about more than just loyalty. It’s about instantly communicating values and feelings. When you think of Pepsi, what comes to mind? Many immediately associate the branding with the feeling of cool and refreshing. When you think of Apple, you may immediately think of incredible product design. The true value of a clearly defined USP is that your customers create mental shortcuts between who you are and what you stand for. That makes everything about marketing easier because you aren’t constantly re-pitching yourself to prospects. And for that, you need to own your USP. 🟡 — So what makes you stand out? You can’t communicate your USP to customers until you’re clear on it yourself. Here’s how to clarify and communicate your USP. 🔴 #ecommerce #b2bmarketing #branding #strategy

I have audited 5 multiple 8 & 9 figure DTC brands in the past month and this is the most common problem I’ve found hands down. Lack of understanding of the core KPIs that will actually drive their growth. There are still so many brands that blindly follow ROAS as a primary KPI and expect growth. The worst part is when I ask them how they set their target ROAS and they can’t even give me a straight answer. ROAS simply put is only the short term impact of your advertising dollars on consumers who are currently in-market to buy. If you want to focus on growth you need to identify valuable cohorts of customers with the highest raw 60 or 90 day total contribution margin. Depending on the purchasing frequency then you might need to look at a longer period of time. I would also recommend adding in a small buffer on this number to account for variance. If you don’t know what contribution margin is it’s just your LTV with all COGs and variable costs deducted. These are the customers that will produce the most profitable cash flow for your business. Why is this KPI so important? It allows you to look beyond ROAS and understand the true value of your customers so that you can make more strategic decisions in order to acquire & retain them. ROAS only tells you the value of a transaction and the impact of your ad dollars on immediate cash flow. This is a flawed way to look at your numbers if you’re trying to grow. Don’t be this type of brand.

I see too many DTC brands capping their growth because they’re not using cost controls. Let me explain. We talk about the cost control/cost cap structure at Kynship: → Performance is the constant variable → Campaigns only spend when they’re performing → Paid media, then, can only be ROI-positive with cost controls While this is true, it’s a bit of a limited mindset, focused on avoiding risk. “You won’t waste money” is a great reason to use cost controls, but an arguably better reason? “You’re missing the best opportunities to grow.” With a highest volume structure, you’re spending X dollars per day. With a cost control structure, spend fluctuates day to day. → On any given Saturday, for example, you could spend $500 in a highest volume structure and have a ROAS of 0.87x. Not awful, but not profitable either. In a cost control structure, your campaign wouldn’t use budget if your ROAS/CPA target wasn’t profitable. → Now, let’s say the next Tuesday, you’re getting a ROAS of 1.7x. In a highest volume structure, you’d still only spend $500 (despite having a profitable return). But with cost controls, your campaign would pour spend on while the ROAS was higher. It doesn’t much to see how cost controls open up the funnel for growth. But if you’re not using them, you’re limiting spend on your highest return days, while forcing spend on your lowest return days. Cost controls > highest volume. For more practical strategies to help you cut CAC and drive sustainable growth, subscribe to our weekly newsletter (I’ll drop it in the comments below)

Unless your DTC brand is allergic to profit, you need to check this out. I can talk all day about the downsides of couponing and the benefits of CashBack, but nothing will illustrate the point better than the pictured example. On $100K in sales, a brand running a 20% CashBack offer will net $14K more (on average) than if they ran a 20% off coupon code. If that doesn’t make you want to test drive CashBack, I don’t know what will.