When was the last time anyone questioned the financial outcomes of retention marketing activities?

Going by the logic:

Every action you take must have a future expectation of results...

Nothing should be left to best practices or "experience".

This is the baseline of all good marketing.

And no one should ever settle for less.

Yet this is pretty typical for many agencies...

Trust-me-I'm-an-expert "strategy".

Nurturing customers, meeting the customer where they're at in the journey, personalisation.

Makes sense in theory, but what’s the incremental lift?

Is it the most efficient use of your limited resources?

At the 7-figure mark, trying to break 8-figures, this is an ever more crucial time.

That's what CTC's Global Accelerator Program solves for.

1. Better alignment with traditionally siloed growth <> retention teams.
2. Better agility to support a very dynamic marketing calendar.
3. Better analysis of activities that impact your P&L.

Together with Growth Strategists, Retention Strategists make this work.

At CTC, we always sign our names on the bottom line.

Because we know that’s what it really means to win.

If this speaks to you, let's chat and see if we'll be a good fit for each other.

Josh Tay

Some good stuff from this month.

Because everyone still asks to see designs. So here we go :)

Director of Retention, Common Thread Collective | Building the world’s strongest retention program for 7 & 8 figure DTC brands

Just because you sell skincare, doesn't mean you need to only talk about skincare.

In this example, we tested running traffic to 2 quizzes.

Quiz 1: Which smoothie matches your personality
Quiz 2: Which beauty routine is right for you

We didn't expect the smoothie version to outperform by so much.

Most people would've stopped just after creating a quiz.

Or maybe compared quiz AOV/LTV vs non-quiz takers.

But we thought this would be a worth-while test.

Lesson: Think about your customers' lifestyle. 

And alternatives (not complementry) for your product. 

Weave them together.

Now this is a fascinating insight that our retention team passed to the growth team.

Client industry: Apparel

And we found that customers who bought designs with dogs had much higher LTV than those who didn't.

What brand will be doing:

- Add new filter for dogs for easier nav
- Test new designs with dogs

What we'll be doing:

- Dedicated dog ads
- Find more of such niches

How much time is your team investing into drawing insights?
Is your team reporting on metrics or taking action?
Are you asking the right questions?

Giving discounts in your flows to increase AOV?

What criteria do you have to determine who receives a discount?

Everyone?
Non-customers only?
Discount with threshold? But which amount?

To answer that, you'll need to look at your AOV histogram.

1. If you based it off AVERAGE order value, you might be pretty off

- Averages lie
- If we had set it at the mean, there'd be a very big chunk of people who wouldn't have moved
- Purely because their cart value might've been too far (see how far mode is from mean)
- Mean is getting pulled up by select customers who spend enornmous amounts
- Question is, where are most of your customers?

2. Look at MODAL order value for help

- Your objective is to move people one bucket up
- Moving the bulk of customers up will translate to higher AOV by default
- It's the same for how you'd create free shipping thresholds or free gift with thresholds in your gamified cart drawers.

There's math to most of these things.

Only do things when it makes sense for the business.

You might win on revenue, but at what cost?

(Long post ahead!)

Today I want to breakdown a real post-mortem of a recent play we did for women’s headwear brand.

And exactly how we still hit the forecast while mitigating downside risk. 

Context:
Client wants to repeat last year’s promo mechanics and marketing calendar.

Expectation:
Client looking for 1.5x rev growth with 20% higher CM.

So unfortunately, that means getting more out of email and sms channels

Problem:
Based on projections following last year’s cadence, we weren’t likely to hit target revenue desired by client.

Constraint:
At the end of the day, it’s the client’s business, and we’re here to deliver results. So it’s our job to best solve for it.

Is this sustainable? 

Nope. But it’s the best stop-gap measure before we have a conversation on expectations, while still delivering on performance to prove we can.

👀 Observation of historical:

Every major promo (BFCM, Mother's Day, Labor Day, Independence Day) did generate more revenue YoY. 

Revenue up 87%, but they had to send to 133% more people to get there. 

At some point, we’ve just been adding subscribers who don't convert into the campaign mix…

Dragging down the economics of the entire channel.


🧠 Insight 1:
RPR declined every single time—ranging from -7% to -42%. 

What was happening is that they were running the same plays to bigger lists and getting diminishing returns per subscriber.

It was reusing the same promo mechanics promo on promo, because “it worked”.

And expanding audiences toe extract more revenue.

What was “working” was going to crash real soon.


🧠 Insight 2:

The correlation between campaign frequency and RPR was actually positive (+0.25).

More campaigns in a month didn’t tank performance. 

What does correlate with declining performance though, was list size growth:

Early period: 56K avg recipients/campaign → $0.0326 RPR
Late period: 126K avg recipients/campaign → $0.0261 RPR

As the send sizes expanded 2-3x, engagement metrics collapsed.


🔬Analysis:

Most would think we have a list fatigue problem.

Initial thought is to reduce sends.

But we actually don’t have a demand elasticity problem.

We are just dealing with the law of shitty cohorts.


👎 The wrong things to do:

1. Expand audiences to get more impressions.
(This will trigger law of shitty cohorts)

2. Reduce send volume
(This wouldn’t allow us to hit rev targets)


👍 What to do:

1. Increase send volume to tighter engagement segments since list has been proven to be able to handle.

2. Product promos only to go out to product-interest segments.

This is why we never skip forecasts.

The forecast allows us to gap-find and it’s based on the exercise of rigorous forecasting that we uncover these insights that we’d otherwise have missed out on, which might have resulted in incorrect execution.

When creating any post-purchase upsells/cross-sells, always rely on your product journey map.

The common way:

Person adds sample > They buy regular next

Data might show otherwise.

In this case, person goes straight into bundle.

Even for singles, they seem to not replenish the same product.

Instead, they gravitate towards bundles, and stay on bundle orders.

This could drastically change the way you push for repurchases.

Interestingly, this mystery item was the fourth most purchased item.

This item's added to the cart drawer as a default upsell on every product.

Avg item price: $35
Mystery item: $15

Objective: How can we liquidate slow/dead inventory faster?

Go-forward questions:

1. Should we create a mystery bundle option too?
2. Can we create "mystery gift" as a front-end offer?

These will all be tests to be conducted.

Ask the right questions...

... Come up with the right hypotheses

... Test the right things

... Take the right actions


Client niche: Accessories

Klaviyo audits alone are insufficient to determine what to do for your retention program.

How should you prioritise activities?

Of the flows recommended, what will the content/angle be?

It's one of the reasons why we look through everything.

Based on this finding, we're:

- Doubling down on resources for refer-and-earn program
- Creating multi-bundles and quantity break discounts
- Include more creative for influencers in pre-purchase flows

(we found that most people who said instagram, youtube, tiktok, also meant influencers and creators)

To do a sanity check, we looked at codes redeemed and saw that most first time customer codes redeemed were from affiliates.

Sometimes things like these we're overthinking.

But we're actually seeing higher lead:conversion efficiency across the board in the last 90 days vs previous period.

So we know that's working.

---
Client niche: Fitness equipment

4 mistakes I made when first forecasting email revenue and how you can avoid it too.

I wish we could figure this out faster too.

But the retention scape in this aspect is still in its infancy.

We're doing our best to fail faster.

To come to a clearer truth.

Here's 4 things I got wrong and how we're solving for it now:

1. Not taking monthly volume into account (rev degradation)

❌  As we increase campaign volume, unsubs might increase and RPR might decrease.

What should've been done was to create a weighted average of RPR based on volume of sends per week over time, split by promo vs non-promo

---

2. Not taking post-promo revenue dips into account

❌ From the last promo sent, you need to determine the "cooldown period" before demand picks back up again.
---

3. Not taking last-year-same-period's email volume into account

❌ For the sake of simplicity, I naively assumed last year's RPR to be same as this year's. 

I just applied a seasonality factor on top with a YoY growth factor.

But the diminishing returns from higher volume played a bigger role than I anticipated.
---

4. Not discounting active subscriptions in email campaigns

❌ If you send a general educational campaign to your engaged list with active subscribers in there...

You'd have been inaccurately attributing revenue.
---

Now we're factoring all that and building it into our forecasting algorithm.

And fully automating this to eliminate human error.

Humans are terrible at extrapolating data.

Worse if we need to incorporate several other aspects.

Tech enablement is the future of marketing.

Built upon solid reasoning, 
asking the right questions, 
with an endless desire to improve, 
and relentlessness to follow-through on the outcomes we promise on

Your cart drawers, checkout upsell, post-purchase upsell funnel will bump your LTV up more than a bounce-back post-purchase email will.

On these pages, you have 100% open rates.

With the highest purchase intent.

Take advantage of it.

Different products in cart might need different upsells based on:

- LTV growth by product
- Total LTV by product (including AOV)
- Balance with product demand (volume)
- Product journey
- Frequently bought together

Then once you have your various funnels/upsells in place, there should be monthly measurement to identify what needs improvement.

How equipped are you and/or your retention team right now to execute this?

Reviews immensely help reduce friction to the purchase.

People look at the number of reviews to know if this brand/product is trustworthy.

It makes sense to build your review war chest.

In post-purchase surveys, we've asked specifically about reviews.

Question 1: "What made you choose to shop with us?"

Options: "Reviews", "Referrals from friends", "Video tutorials", "Others"

Of those who selected Reviews, we had a logic to ask the next question...

Question 2: "How did the reviews help you make a decision today?"

Options: "Other customers' stories", "Photos/Videos of products in use", "Number of reviews vs other brands"

And we saw high photo/video review responses.

This isn't a theory propogated by review apps.

We personally tested this.

That's how we know what to do.
(Always be skeptical and own your own data. Everyone on the internet lies. Maybe I'm lying too)

But if you're too lazy to test, here's what you can do to set up.

1. Go to your review app
2. Create coupon tiers
3. Customise review request emails to let customers know about the added incentive
4. Set an expiry on the discount
5. Send reminders to customers who left respective reviews, to claim their discount

Optional:
A/B test with Intelligems or a similar tool, with and without reviews on your PDP.

Or with the number of reviews stars right above your product name.

And see how that affects conversion rate.

Who said retention was only emails and sms?

Is your retention person supporting you with these?

Always nice to know we're pacing on target, within <10% delta.

We still have big moments we're expecting towards end of month.

Tracking performance this way takes away guesswork.

The worst thing an agency can do is to come up with excuses to justify underperformance.

Over and over again.

When all that was needed was accountability.

We're now more than 90 days past BFCM.

You know what that means?

Time to reactivate your black friday shoppers who are unengaged on digital.

Looking at your repurchase windows, you'll see that majority of LTV lift for new customers happen within first 90 days. 

(typically)

If you're a brand with replenishable products...

Or you sell things with high novelty/"new drop" factors...

This is definitely something you'll want to get in on.

Relook at past year's data and you'll also find this:

Your black friday buyers are a lot more sensitive than other promo period shoppers/evergreen.

(I've had a post with some of this data before if you wanna check that out.)

So if we're nearing the end of the highest probablity curve of repurchase and they're still not coming back...

Much less engaging...

You'll want to do something about that.

1. Offer
Again, we know holiday shoppers typically only buy with discounts

2. New channel
If they're not engaging on email, sms, try new mode of communication

And this is the perfect time to start.

+ you only have a very short window to execute.

You'll want to run your winbacks for this group of customers before the next major sale.

Which for most US brands, is going to be Memorial Day and 4th July Sales.

If you start right now, you'll need a couple of days to get post cards delivered to doorsteps.

Then, people don't take action immediately.

Postcards might sit on their desks or coffee tables for a while.

That's why we wait out with a 60-day maturity period.

🚨 IMPORTANT:
You don't want your winback offer clashing with your site offer.

Because now that just muddies data and the offers cannibalise each other.

Timeline:
Now > 14 Mar = Plan your campaign, offers, creative, segments
15 Mar > 20-ish Mar = Delivery
20 Mar > 20 May = 60-Day Maturity Period

Just in time for memorial day promo launch date.

And you can do your usual holdouts.

But this is a crucial time to strike.

If you want to run a proper winback campaign, do it once, do it right.

Have an Amazon store that gets more traction than your .com?

Consider an exit intent popup redirecting traffic there.

Targeting:
- triggered on PDPs only
- $0 cart value
- stayed more than 15sec
- or scrolled more than 50%

Create specific popups for each key product, with relevant redirects.

Instead of wasting that visit, send them to somewhere you know people are actively converting on.

We're doing this with a home improvement brand that sells DIY light kits right now.

If people want to shop on amazon, we can't force them not to.

Return rates on amazon for this brand aren't crazy high.

So this will be our interim solution before the growth team solves for the conversion issue.

There's no one way to use popups.

Everything is just a tool.

What matters is how you use it to benefit your business.

No fluffy customer journey theory.

Just real stuff that you can implement right now.

And all the data points you need.

Feel free to take this and run with it.

Client niche: F&B, subscription

How to overcome weak subscription program take-up rate

Are you levergaging Web Push notifications?

- Welcome
- Browse abandons
- Cart abandons

If you find your lead:conversion rate on these email/sms flows are weak, it might make sense to have another channel to support.

At the end of the day, it's about impressions.

So where do your customers hang out, that you also be on?

Show up there and drive them back to site.

Then track lead:conversion efficiency

The way you structure a tiered loyalty program must take psychological triggers in mind + factor in unit economics.

Weak participation rate = Poor incremental revenue

= unnecessary complexity 

= useless extra cost to run the program

Three post-purchase micro surveys conducted across three different brands.

All had one same option:

"When there's a sale on"

In all instances, that came up as the highest volume response.

This is probably the reality for most ecommerce brands.

People are most likely to shop when there's a sale or a discount.

Knowing this, it's ever more important to bake the discounts already into the price of your product.

So that you can afford to "discount" when necessary.

Without having a really strong, notable brand, is it really possible to never go on sale, and still maximise your growth potential both on new and returning rev?

What do you think?

"Multi-month" cohorts almost always will have higher LTV than monthly subscription cohorts.

More specifically, I’m talking about cumulative LTV.

Which is at the end the most important thing to the business. 

That $ value.

So this is definitely something every subscription brand should be testing.

In this example, brand sells soaps.

- One-time orders
- 15% monthly subscribe and save
- 19% for double pack bundle
- 23% for triple pack bundle

Your CAC might be higher on these multi-packs.

Largely also due to much higher AOV.

But not only is cumulative LTV higher, margin LTV per customer beats monthly subs hands down.

Essentially you’ve collected ltv upfront. 

Which is great. 

You don’t have to worry about churn as much. 
CAC payback’s shorter. 
So is your cash conversion cycle.

Definitely a test worth trying.

LTV comes in many forms.

Do what's right for your financial outcome.

“Bundles increase AOV”

Logically, that should translate to higher LTV.

So many people default to bundles, which might not always work.

In this case, I’m specifically talking about pre-set bundles, which is the most common way of bundling. 

Sometimes customers just want to pick out exactly what they want.

Forcing a bundle may actually end up reducing conversions.

Ideas like:
Hero product with slow movers
Hero with high LTV product to push profit
Hero with accessories that go well together

These are valid pairings.

But again, we’re assuming people want the next product we’re recommending.

What you want to sell might not be what customers want to buy.

There are two ways to go about this.

Product journey + frequently bought together analyses

Which I’ve talked about before in previous posts.

Let people choose on their own

Aka Build Your Own Bundle.

This works especially well (and much easier to implement) for brands with similar AOV products in the catalogue.

And you can gamify this with the typical tiered discounts with threshold.

I’ve seen bundle take up rate go up to 20% with dedicated BYOB pages in the nav bar.

Example 1 
We have a client selling canned tea. They have 12 flavours. Instead of forcing 6 packs of single varieties then force customers to buy multiple carton to try different flavours, you select your own quantity of flavours for each 6-pack.

Structured like a quiz

Step 1: Select how many cartons you want
Step 2: Carton 1 - Which flavours do you want
Step 3: Repeat for however many cartons selected
Step 4: Would you like to add another carton for X% off? (Progress bar of discount at top of page to)

If AOV varies widely, adopt a similar strategy as how you’d buy a computer.

Base product
+ one add on from category 1 at $X
+ one add on from category 2 at $Y
+ one add on from category 3 at $Z

Each of these are optional.

Example 2
Another client selling sofas. That’s base product. Category 1 are removable spill proof covers. Category 2 are pillow sets. Category 3 is a 2-year warranty.

In our frequently bought together widget below, we still have opportunity to cross-sell sofa extenders and poufs.

Now you give customers lots more flexibility while maintaining some level of control of options.

Founder - Customers Who Click | CRO for eCom brands - turning traffic into customers using "The U.A.M Method"

Most DTC brands want to scale their paid media. But few focus enough on converting that traffic.  

Customer acquisition costs are rising, and while brands invest heavily in driving traffic, too many are wasting thousands of dollars sending traffic to friction-heavy, confusing websites with poor user experiences.  

The brands that win are not just the ones with the best ads. 

They are the ones that ensure every click leads to a seamless, high-converting customer journey from the first visit through to repeat purchases.  

Yet, many brands still rely on best practices, gut instinct, or copying competitors instead of using real customer insights to optimise their websites and landing pages.  

This is where CRO comes in.  

Through data-driven research, behavioural psychology, and rigorous testing, we help brands remove friction, increase conversion rates, and maximise revenue from their paid traffic.  

Giving them room to scale comfortably, and profitably.

At Customers Who Click, we specialise in turning more visitors into buyers, helping ambitious e-commerce brands scale profitably and sustainably.  

We’ve helped businesses see real improvements, like:

🚀 MOD Lighting added $3,300,000 in additional annual revenue.
🚀 Ozarke saw an increase in Revenue Per User of 37.8%.
🚀 Groove increased conversion by 53% and AOV by 23% in 6 months.
🚀 D.Louise added $372,000 in revenue from their existing traffic.
🚀 neat. Doubled AOV and increased revenue by 102.3% with bespoke landing pages.

If you want to get the most from your paid media and scale efficiently, let’s talk.  

👉 Book a free conversion discovery session at www.customerswhoclick.com/apply

Or, if you’re not quite ready, follow along as I share practical tips and insights on optimising your website’s performance.

Will Laurenson

Customers Who Click is growing.

So I’m hiring a CRO Strategist.

Contract / freelance. Fully remote.

Open to different levels of but you must have real DTC / ecommerce experience.

I’m looking for someone who can:

- Lead client CRO strategy
- Run meaningful A/B tests
- Conduct real customer research
- Use behavioural analytics properly
- Turn insights into structured roadmaps

This isn’t a button-colour role.

You’ll take ownership.

You’ll challenge assumptions.

You’ll think commercially, revenue over vanity metrics.

If you understand ecommerce deeply and enjoy figuring out why customers buy (or don’t), we should talk.

Connect & DM me.

CV, portfolio, case studies, Loom - send whatever shows how you think.

Over 1,000 DTC brands downloaded our last ecommerce playbook.

So we decided to go bigger this year.

If you're running a DTC brand in 2026, this might be the most useful resource you read this year.

Together with some of the smartest operators in ecommerce, we created:

👉 How to Move the Needle in 2026

A collection of 18 real strategies brands are using right now to drive growth.

No theory.
No recycled advice.
Just practical changes that actually impact revenue.

Inside the playbook you'll see how brands are:

- Increasing revenue per visitor by +21% without driving more traffic

- Generating $32,835 in extra monthly profit from a simple shipping test

- Increasing abandoned flow revenue by 40% without changing email templates

- Improving conversion rate by 28% after fixing product discovery

- Cutting ad spend by 50% while maintaining growth

and many more...

Huge thanks to the partners who shared their insights:

Quickfire - Shopify Premier Partner, Rebuy Engine, Intelligems, Soar With Us, Octane AI, Zigpoll, Leaf Signal, Videowise, Nosto, Flare - Scheduled Delivery, Sweet Analytics, KnoCommerce, Order Editing, Littledata, PostPilot, Growthub

If you want the playbook

1. Like this post
2. Comment "PLAYBOOK"
3. Share this post to skip the queue

And I'll DM you the link.

$50m+ Generated for DTC Brands With CRO | Host of Customers Who Click 🎙️ (500,000+ downloads)

If your brand can’t clearly answer what it stands for, you don’t have a growth problem.

You have a trust problem.

This week on the podcast, I sat down with James Connell, CEO of LOULOU LOLLIPOP - a Vancouver-based baby lifestyle brand and certified B Corp - and we unpacked what “brand” actually means when the stakes are high.

And in baby, the stakes are very high.

One line from James stuck with me: “Good product is table stakes.”

That’s it. That’s the shift.

We talked about how brand isn’t colours and fonts. It’s storytelling. It’s trust.

It’s what you stand for when a parent is choosing something for their child.

Some of the parts I found most interesting:

– Why service, packaging, and fulfilment should be treated as part of the product

 – The idea that every touchpoint (including customer service) is something the customer has already paid for

 – Winning the “baby shower moment” and entering a family’s life from day one

 – Why creativity thrives when profitability is the constraint

 – And why execution beats perfection every time

We also got into B Corp values, hiring for lived culture (not brand docs that sit in a drive), distributor governance, and how AI could actually make online shopping feel more human again.

If you’re building a consumer brand and thinking beyond short-term conversion tactics, this conversation is worth your time.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think - link in the comments

undefined undefined

Newsletter Sign Up

CEO Loulou Lollipop | Global Omnichannel Strategy | Brand Building | Awarded Canadian Marketer of the Year |

LOULOU LOLLIPOP

Your CRO team might be making your numbers look better…

While quietly making your business worse.

I see this constantly with 7–9 figure DTC brands.

Conversion rate goes up.
Everyone celebrates.
Board decks look healthy.

Three months later?

Revenue is flat.
Margin is tighter.
Paid media feels “harder” to scale.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

You can increase conversion rate while reducing revenue quality.

Example:

CVR: 2% → 2.4%
AOV: $120 → $95

That looks like progress.

It isn’t.

Because revenue per session just dropped.

And revenue per session is what actually compounds.

RPS = CVR × AOV

It forces commercial honesty.

If your team pushes heavy discounts to lift conversion, RPS exposes it.

If merchandising shifts focus to lower-priced SKUs, RPS shows it.

If cheaper traffic converts but spends less, RPS makes that trade-off visible.

Conversion rate answers: “Did they buy?”

Revenue per session answers: “Did this meaningfully grow the business?”

At scale, that distinction matters more than almost anything else in CRO.

I’m not anti-CVR.

It’s a useful diagnostic.

But if it’s your north star, your team will optimise for the easiest lever, not the most valuable one.

And what gets measured gets manipulated.

If you’re a founder or CMO, check your dashboards.

What’s headline metric #1?

If it’s conversion rate, you might be celebrating the wrong wins.

—

If you want practical CRO breakdowns like this, join 5,000+ DTC founders and marketers getting my twice-weekly newsletter.

No fluff.

No vanity tactics.

Just commercially grounded strategies that actually move revenue.

Link in the comments to subscribe

Want to unlock an extra 10% from your website?

Most 7–9 figure brands don’t have a traffic problem.

They have a funnel problem.

Before you brief another test, redesign a PDP, or blame your paid media team…

Look at this:

Sessions → Product Views (~65%)

Product Views → Add to Cart (~12%)

Add to Cart → Start Checkout (~45%)

Start Checkout → Complete Purchase (~55%)

These aren’t perfect benchmarks.

They’re directional sanity checks from working with high-revenue DTC brands.

Now here’s the strategic bit most teams skip:

Don’t optimise everything.

Find your biggest gap vs benchmark.

Start there.

If you’re converting 8% add-to-cart instead of 12%

→ That’s not a checkout issue.
→ That’s positioning, PDP clarity, offer strength, or intent mismatch.

If you’re only getting 30% checkout completion instead of 55%

→ That’s friction.
→ Trust gaps.
→ Payment UX.
→ Delivery anxiety.

Your funnel usually isn’t broken.

One step is.

And that step is where your next 10–20% revenue lift is hiding.

Senior teams scale faster because they prioritise bottlenecks, not ideas.

Go check your numbers before you plan your next test.

Want access to our Looker Studio Funnel Report? 

Comment FUNNEL below and I'll send it over 

(Must be 1st connection)

AOV is a terrible number to set your free shipping threshold with.

Look at the table below.

Most brands anchor their threshold to average order value.

But AOV is usually the mean.

And the mean lies.

Because it gets dragged up by:

- High-value customers
- Bulk purchases
- Seasonal spikes

So you end up setting a £100 threshold...

...based on an £83 mean AOV…

…when the most common order value is £44.

That’s not a lever.

That’s wishful thinking.

The modal value tells you what customers typically spend.

The mean tells you what happens once outliers get involved.

They are not the same thing.

But this doesn’t mean:

“Drop your threshold immediately.”

That’s too simplistic.

The real analysis happens here:

- Of carts below the threshold, how far below are they?
- Of carts above it, how far above are they?
- How many are actually close enough to be influenced?

On a call last week we found:

- Only 8% of abandoned carts were within £10 of the threshold
- Most carts above the threshold were massively above
- Most carts below it were massively below

So lowering it slightly wouldn’t suddenly “give away” shipping to everyone.

But lowering it slightly and improving upsells?

That turns it into a behavioural lever.

Free shipping shouldn’t be set on a whim.

It should be used strategically to change behaviour.

Do you know your modal order value?

Or are you setting thresholds off an average that hides whats really going on?

---
Follow me and hit the 🔔 on my profile for daily CRO tips to help DTC brands grow profitably.

You can also join our newsletter via the link in the comments and get weekly CRO deep dives straight to your inbox.

No alternative text description for this image

“We went from 400 assets a year…to 400 a month.”

That line alone stopped me mid-conversation.

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Katherine Cousins, CEO of QUAY  and honestly, it’s one of those conversations that makes you rethink how fast this space is moving.

Katherine spent nearly 20 years in footwear (Timberland, Wolverine Worldwide) before stepping into Quay and helping evolve it from a social-first sunglasses brand into a serious multi-channel eyewear business.

But what stood out wasn’t just the growth, it was how they’re navigating it.

A few things we got into:

- How their “summer of AI” led to content that’s genuinely indistinguishable from traditional production

- Why they’ve scaled from 400 assets per year to 400 per month (and what breaks if you don’t adapt)

- The reality that 80% of customers still want to buy glasses in-store - despite everything we say about ecom

What I liked most is how balanced Katherine’s thinking is.

Yes, they’re pushing hard on AI and speed.

But she’s very clear: brand integrity comes first, and just because you can use something (like avatars), doesn’t mean you should - at least not yet.

If you’re working in ecom, growth, or even just trying to keep up with how messy this landscape is getting…this episode will give you a much clearer lens on what actually matters right now.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think, especially on the AI vs brand trade-off.

P.S. Are you increasing content volume right now, or trying to be more selective? Curious what people are prioritising right now?

Most DTC brands don’t have a scaling problem.

They have a subscription, creative, and attention problem.

Just recorded a really interesting episode with Jim Phillips, co-founder of Graymatter - a mental performance supplement brand built around nootropics and cognitive optimisation.

What stood out straight away is that this isn’t a “we spotted a trend and jumped on it” story.

Jim built the company off the back of his own experience struggling with startup pressure, diving deep into neuroscience, and trying to literally make himself think better.

A few parts of the conversation that stuck with me:

They’re running a 94% subscription take rate…and are happy to lose money on the first purchase to maximise LTV

AI is already handling parts of their operations, and he’s convinced most “button-pushing” marketing roles will disappear

Their biggest growth lever right now? 

Not media buying…content iteration and creative testing at scale.

We also got into the stuff most people don’t talk about:

→ Why having data gave him an unfair advantage when launching

→ How they’re thinking about new channels like Amazon, TikTok Shop, and affiliates

→ And how a serious health scare completely reshaped his motivation as a founder

If you’re working in DTC, there’s a lot in here about where the space is actually heading, especially around acquisition, retention, and how AI fits into it all.

Worth a listen if you’re trying to scale profitably rather than just chase growth.

Let me know what you think if you give it a listen - link in the comments 👇

Conversion Rate ↑ 20%.
Revenue ↓ 8.8%.

Look at the table below.

Nothing is broken.

Sessions are flat.
Orders are up.
Conversion rate improved.

On paper, this looks like a win.

It isn’t.

and this exact pattern shows up more often than most teams realise.

Here’s what happened:

- Conversion rate increased from 2.0% to 2.4%
- Orders increased by 20%
- AOV dropped from £50 to £38

Revenue fell.

Revenue per session fell.

And that’s the number that actually matters.

This is why we don’t optimise just for conversion rate.

Conversion rate moves because of:

- Traffic mix
- Discounting
- Campaign strategy

You can “improve” it by:

- Pushing heavier discounts
- Reducing prices
- Shifting acquisition channels

None of which guarantee better commercial performance.

Revenue per session forces a better question:

Are we extracting more value from the traffic we already have?

It captures:

- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Traffic quality

In one number.

If you’re a Head of Ecommerce, ask yourself:

Are you reporting a metric that’s easy to celebrate...

Or one that reflects the P&L?

If you’re a founder:

Would you rather see conversion up...

Or profit up?

They are not the same thing.

---
Follow me and hit the 🔔 on my profile for daily CRO tips to help DTC brands grow profitably.

You can also join our newsletter via the link in the comments and get weekly CRO deep dives straight to your inbox.

“You might just be throwing money into a vacuum.”

That’s how Josh Roberts described paid media in 2025.

And honestly…he’s not wrong.

In the latest episode of the podcast, I sat down with Josh Roberts, co-founder of Very Special Games - the team behind Ransom Notes and a range of hugely successful tabletop games.

What makes their story interesting is how they’re scaling across DTC and retail at the same time.

Roughly 75% of their revenue comes from DTC, with the rest coming from retailers like Walmart, Target, and Barnes & Noble.

But once retail enters the picture, the data gets messy fast.

A few things from this conversation that really stuck with me:

- Why Meta ads are still their strongest acquisition channel, even though they’re far less predictable than they used to be

- How selling through retail forces you to build a much more sophisticated data stack just to understand if your marketing works

- Why TikTok performs far better organically than through paid media for their category

- And a fascinating point about the tabletop industry: brand loyalty is surprisingly weak - the logo on the box barely matters

We also got into the economics of licensing big IP (Star Wars, Futurama, etc.), why most tabletop games shouldn’t become apps, and how Josh is thinking about designing games that help kids with autism engage socially without feeling like therapy.

Really thoughtful conversation about the trade-offs between creativity, growth, and data.

If you work in DTC, paid media, or product-led brands, you’ll probably recognise a lot of the challenges Josh talks about.

🎧 Episode 291 is live now.

Give it a listen here: https://lnkd.in/ememaXYT

Most brands say they care about the customer journey.

Very few actually obsess over it.

In the latest episode of the podcast, I sat down with Michael G. Callahan , Global SVP & GM of Luminex Home Décor & Fragrance – PartyLite - a 53-year-old brand that’s gone from direct sales heritage to a digital-first DTC business operating across North America and Europe.

What stood out straight away was Michael’s mindset.

He told me:

“What I obsess about every single day is the consumer journey.”

And they take that seriously.

A few things we unpacked in this conversation:

- Why his team pressure tests their website daily, and even asks job candidates to buy a product during interviews

- How they’re experimenting with TikTok campaigns that don’t show the product at all

- Why their biggest growth lever right now isn’t acquisition…it’s loyalty and retention

- And the uncomfortable truth that your website will never be perfect, and that’s fine

We also got into some really interesting discussions around:

- Using AI for localisation without losing brand nuance
- Selling a premium product in a market full of £5 alternatives
- Why storytelling often beats product-led marketing in social

If you work in ecommerce, growth, or customer experience, there are a lot of practical insights in this one.

Michael was incredibly open about what’s working, what isn’t, and what they’re still figuring out.

Definitely worth a listen.

🎧 Listen to the episode via link in the comments

- - -

This episode is sponsored by the amazing Gavin Hewitson of In-box and his amazing Free Email Marketing Community on Skool - Get access FREE via the link in the comments

The agency matured.

The website hadn’t.

So we rebuilt it.

Over the last few years, our thinking has evolved a lot.

The strategy is deeper.
The testing is sharper.
he conversations with brands are more commercial.

But the old site didn’t reflect that.

It didn’t properly show:

- How we approach Customer Revenue Optimisation
- The strategic depth behind our experiments
- The standard of brands we work with
- Where we’re taking Customers Who Click next

Now it does.

The case studies are clearer.
The positioning is tighter.
The thinking is better represented.

And this is just the foundation.

We’ll be rolling out:

- A proper home for the podcast
- Detailed blog breakdowns
- More long-form insight into how we think about profitable growth

If you’re running a 7–9 figure DTC brand and scaling paid media feels harder than it should…

Start with the website.

It’ll give you a clear sense of how we approach growth.

Link in the comments...

You’re ignoring one of your highest-converting customers.

Not your competitors.
Not a new channel.
Your own customers.

I realised how big this was when I recorded my latest episode with Nick Kennedy, co-founder of Giftnote for Shopify.

Nick shared something that genuinely surprised me:

A gift customer converts 3x higher than a normal customer, and gift orders have ~30% higher AOV.

And yet…most brands have no idea who the recipient even is.

Traditionally, once a gift is sent, that’s it.

No visibility. 
No follow-up. 
No relationship.

As I said in the episode, the default mindset is:

“Well, they’re not our customers.”

But they absolutely could be.

We also dug into:

- Why gifting volume doubles in November…and doubles again in December

- Why around 12% of orders across brands are gifts

- How transactional messaging can stay GDPR-compliant

- Practical ways to make gifting an always-on strategy (not something you hide in January)

The big takeaway?

Gifting isn’t a seasonal UX add-on.

It’s a revenue lever hiding in plain sight.

If you’re running a DTC brand (or advising one), this is worth your time.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think.

Link in the comments 👇

Most Shopify advice is recycled.

Same playbooks. Same screenshots. Same “10x” nonsense.

This won’t be.

On Feb 25th (7pm CET / 1pm EST), 15 DTC experts get 5 minutes each to share one proven DTC hack.

No decks full of theory.
No 45-minute ramble.
Just what’s actually working.

I’ll be breaking down:

- The navigation change that lifted mobile revenue by 41.5%.

Simple fix.
Measurable impact.
No gimmicks.

Joining me:

🎯Phil Rees
Lada Khazanov
Phil Byrne
Jochen Hildebrandt 
Burak Yolga
Ernesto Barrientos 
Erin Watt
Anthony Morgan
Arni Gali "Arnius Galinskas"
AJ Saunders
Dušan Popović
Pasha Knish
Chase Coleman
Geoffrey Hurth

Hosted by Nick Penev.

If you run a DTC brand, manage growth, or care about improving unit economics - this is worth the 75 minutes.

👉 Grab your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eqCr7Kg2

Looking to sell or scale your 3PL? Get in touch ..

E-commerce Recruitment Expert | Amazon & DTC |Remote teams from Eastern Europe & LATAM | Junior to C-level

Commission Based PPC Advertising Pro. Digital Entrepreneur. Founder of Positive Sparks, Digification & The Digital Sparks Podcast

CEO at @Simpi | Transforming product experiences by creating intuitive instructions, enhancing customer satisfaction

Co-Founder & CEO @ Forceget Supply Chain Logistics

E-Commerce - Amazon Private Brands - Sales

Sr. Tech Partner Manager @ Triple Whale 🐳

Founder & CEO Enavi | We elevate the performance of 8 & 9 Figure Shopify Stores | Pioneering Human-Obsessed CRO

🏅 CXL Certified Conversion Rate Optimization & Digital Psychology Specialist (CRO) 💡 CRO Audits (UI UX, Heuristics) 🎯 Done-for-you A/B Testing 🛒 Landing Pages 📈 32.3x ROI per Test 📊 400+ AB Tests ⚡Ex Pulsetto

Your Next 250k Funding Raised Within 9 Months | Growth Advisor for D2C brands | NED

CEO @Byteout | Helping Amazon sellers go DTC | E-commerce & Shopify nerd 🎓

Helping brands level up on Amazon 🏆 Scaling FBA revenue with custom-tailored growth formulas

Growing Brands Through Content | Founder, Social Playbook | 180K+ Creator

Scaling Health/Beauty DTC Brands w/ Winning Creatives | $100M+ in Ad Spend | Ex-Aston Martin, Tinder, LVMH, Accor, Renault ◉ DM me and let’s chat

🚀 Co-founder @ XTREME POWER brands 🔥 eCom Hot Sauce and 10x5 Hack Series 🤝 Partnerships Advisor @ hellotax and 100+ Companies in the eCom Space 🎙Webinar Host 🏠 Fully Remote since 2010! Long before it was cool 😎

“You’re not doing your job unless you’re pissing off some percentage of people.”

That’s what Eric Bandholz said to me on the podcast this week.

And honestly…he’s probably right.

Eric is the founder of Beardbrand - 13+ years in, navigating a category that’s no longer growing

Search demand for beard care? Flat to down.
Competition? Higher than ever.

They’ve had three consecutive years in the red.

So this wasn’t a “how we 10x’d” episode.

It was a real conversation about:

- What happens when your category matures

- Why top-of-funnel gets exponentially harder

- The difference between a hook and clickbait

- Why brands that try to offend no one become completely forgettable

- Repositioning Beardbrand as a fragrance house disguised as a beard care company

- Selling out limited editions while traffic declines

The part that stuck with me most?

The idea that modern marketing almost requires a point of view strong enough to repel some people.

Because if everyone nods politely…no one remembers you.

Give it a listen, link in the comments

You can only optimise one for the next 90 days

- Conversion Rate
- Average Order Value
- Revenue Per Session

Which are you choosing?

Let us know why in the comments

You can only optimise one for the next 90 days:

They removed 70–80% of their team’s workload.

By answering seven questions.

This week I sat down with Simon Jablon, Creative Director and owner of Linda Farrow - the luxury eyewear brand he rebuilt from zero into a globally distributed business operating in around 100 countries.

What we unpacked wasn’t theory.

It was this:

Most teams are drowning in work that shouldn’t exist.

We talked about:

 – Why being busy isn’t the same as moving the needle
 – How comfortable tasks quietly replace meaningful ones
 – Why B2B customers often get treated like admin
 – And how simplifying just seven recurring questions removed up to 80% of internal workload

One line that stuck with me:

“I employ people to talk to other people, not service the master that is admin.”

If you run a brand, lead a team, or feel like you’re constantly firefighting… this one will probably hit.

🎧 Link’s in the comments.

P.S. What’s one recurring task in your business that probably shouldn’t exist anymore?

Founder/CEO Linda Farrow

Linda Farrow

“Everybody in ecommerce is doing the easy lift.”

Buy Meta ads.
Buy Google ads.
Scale until it gets expensive.

But what happens when that stops working?

That’s what I unpacked this week with Barclay Saul, CEO and co-founder of Kyrgies.

Kyrgies is built around a single product - felt slippers made in Kyrgyzstan - and a very deliberate decision not to chase trends or commoditised categories.


Barclay didn’t even start in ecommerce. He was a music teacher before building the brand. But his background around factories and garment production gave him a deep respect for quality control and long-term thinking .

In this episode we got into:

- Why they’ve significantly dialled back Meta spend
- Why word of mouth has always been their strongest channel
- The decision to pull the plug on Amazon entirely
- How ranked-choice customer surveys shape product decisions
- When customer research works…and when gut instinct matters more

And a fascinating scientific study showing their vegetable-tanned leather soles actively kill bacteria in the home

What I liked most about this conversation is that it wasn’t theory.

It was about making uncomfortable decisions:

- Reducing dependency on paid.
- Building wholesale relationships.
- Running trunk shows.
- Expanding internationally.

Growing in ways that require more effort, but build more resilience.

If you’re feeling the pressure from rising ad costs, or you’re too reliant on one acquisition channel, this one’s worth your time.

Have a listen and let me know your biggest takeaway.

Link in the comments

This has got to be the most generic, bland pitch email I have ever received...and they still managed to disqualify their guest 😂 

Tip for pitching to podcasts:

1. Give me a 2 sentence intro about you or the guest you're pitching.

2. Give me 3-5 bullet points about why you're a fit for the show

Thats it. 

That's all I need.

I don't need an essay, i dont need some 500 word cover letter.

Just give me a few short lines that make me say "yeah great, sounds like a fit, lets chat!"

If you're interested in coming on Customers Who Click - Drop me a DM, we're always open to new guests.

Just be someone who is involved in ecommerce/DTC and we'll get along just fine.

taplio

The Battle

Josh Tay

Will Laurenson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJosh Tay's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreWill Laurenson's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Josh Tay

Will Laurenson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Josh Tay's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreWill Laurenson's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJosh Tay's LinkedIn Performance