BEST AD CREATIVE FOR SCALE

Forget UGC, static ads, studio shoots, sticky note ads…

DTC brands worry so much about formats, they end up killing their “scalability”.

Instead, here’s how to use psychology to target your biggest, UNTAPPED source of customers. I’m a firm believer in Ogilvy’s “WHAT you say matters more than HOW you say it” advice.

Because if your strategy is to throw 1,000 ads into your ad account with every format under the sun, you will still end up talking to people in the same stage of the buying journey.

You’re 1 ad away from being sued by the FTC.

Tons of DTC brands right now, including some popular DTC Twitter brands, are marketing with *illegal* claims.

The solution?

Compliant copywriting.

Here’s how to sell more WITHOUT getting wrecked by a lawsuit 🧵 It all comes down to “UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS”

Basically, you can’t promise anything that can’t be backed up with evidence and proven in court.

Sounds obvious, but it’s more complicated than it sounds.

Here are 4 examples of common unsubstantiated claims:

Zuma Juice is a DTC greens brand owned by Russell Brunson.

Yes, the same Russell Brunson who owns Clickfunnels and one of the OG internet marketers famous for his aggressive DR.

In this thread, I'm going to breakdown his landing page.

The good and the bad.

Let's start 🧵 HEADLINE:

Zuma Juice uses a solution-aware headline highlighting the product's 3 main benefits.

With that said, the emphasis is on speed + simplicity.

"1 pack... in seconds!"

It's a classic marketplace sophistication lvl 2 headline.

Bold...

But I think a bit immature.

BILLION DOLLAR BUNDLES

Bundles are the secret to 1st purchase profitability for a lot of brands.

But most brands sell bundles the wrong way and it’s killing their growth.

Here’s how to boost your AOV and conversion rate with one small “twist” 🧵 The problem:

Bundles are usually sold as a “box of stuff”

EX: A bundle of 3 socks is usually sold as 3 socks (i.e 3 separate ideas).

However, the best performing ads focus on ONE simple idea.

DTC landing pages should convert at 3%-5% on cold traffic.

Anything less and you’re leaving tons of money on the table.

Here’s how to craft a high converting landing page using the “OCP” framework (aka the sales argument framework used by the world’s best DR copywriters): First, let's talk about sales arguments.

Pretend you're a lawyer.

Your client is your product. Your job is to convince all 12 jurors (i.e the market) that your product is as great as you claim, beyond a reasonable doubt.

More emails = more money.

In my experience, 7-8 figure brands should send AT LEAST 12 emails/month.

However, if you have 10+ SKUs, I recommend sending 20+ emails per month.

Here’s how to do that daily without pissing off subscribers 🧵 Grade your subscribers based on engagement.

Instead of sending a daily email to everyone, send more emails to people who are more engaged and less emails to those who are less engaged.

Why?

Because engaged subscribers will be okay with more emails vs less engaged subs.

The 90 Day Ecommerce Copywriting Challenge:

6 years ago, I came up with a copywriting challenge designed to turn ANYONE from a newbie to an expert copywriter in 90 days.

It’s VERY simple, but NOT easy.

Here’s the challenge, modified for ecommerce copywriting 🧵 1/ READING LIST

Read these 4 books. One per week for 12 weeks. Every book gets read 3X each.

- The Adweek Copywriting Handbook
- Breakthrough Advertising
- Great Leads
- Ogilvy on Advertising

You *CAN* read more books, but don’t (yet). Memorize these. You’ll be WAY better off.

As an agency owner, I talk to 7-8 figure DTC founders every week.

During our calls, I get these founders to “spill the beans” and reveal exactly how they built these 7-8 figure brands from scratch.

Here are the top 7 secrets I’ve learned: 1/ Hero Product W/ Product-Market Fit

Almost every successful 7-8 figure DTC brand is riding the wave off of 1 successful product.

It’s not always the first product they launch, but they do start selling it very early on.

Once they find it, they build the business around it.

Listicles CONVERT 🤑

Listicles that get customers to switch from your competitors products to your products convert even better.

Most DTC brands mess it up though.

Here’s how to get it right, step-by-step 🧵 Contrast.

That’s the secret behind a listicle that gets customers to switch from competitor’s products to your products.

Product A = X feature, but it sucks

Product B (our product) = Y feature and its awesome

Problem?

Most DTC marketers half ass this.

Hot Take: 90% of email marketing tactics are BS.

A quick Google search will give you 100+ tactics ranging from segmenting emails to split-testing for opens.

IGNORE. IT.ALL.

There are only a FEW retention strategies responsible for today's most profitable ecommerce brands 👇 1/ Build a BIG list of HIGH-INTENT subscribers

A list of 100k subscribers will drive more revenue than a list of 10k subscribers.

Even better...

A list of 100k customers will drive more revenue than a list of 100k popup subscribers.

You want to be the one with 100k customers

I created a NEW category of CBD products:

"Hand Pressed Hemp"

This was for a client who was tired of having to offer huge discounts just to compete. So they hired me to reposition them as a premium priced, one-of-a-kind brand.

Heres how I helped them find that new category 👇 This CBD brand had everything you could want in a sales pitch:

- The founder literally engineered a better hemp plant (patented!)

- Their products literally had MORE of the CBD in it

- They had the most 3rd party certifications.

..and more.

We're talking a goldmine of PROOF.

The top 5 MISSING flows I see in most email audits 👇 1/ Site Abandonment Flow

This flow goes to "active on site" subscribers who have not bought.

It's a very top of funnel flow, which means the recipient per user is relatively low... BUT, so many people receive it, that it's still one of the most profitable flows to send.

The avg person gets 121 emails per day.

It's impossible for your subscriber to read ALL of them.

So how do you get your DTC brand to stand out in a sea of emails?

By exploiting the "mental shortcuts" subscribers use to quickly filter those emails.

I call it Inbox Behavior 👇 There is no such thing as short attention spans, only better filtering.

However, the way people filter their email inboxes is different.

It has nothing to do with clever subject lines.

It's all about relevance, timing, and awareness instead.

Here are the biggest factors:

The secret to ecommerce LTV?

2nd order take rate.

Aka the percentage of 1X customers who buy a 2nd time.

Here's why and how to improve it 👇 Every step of the funnel has a drop off.

Impression => visitor => opt-in impression => subscriber => email => email CTR => PDP CRV...etc

Some drop offs are more important than others.

Other drop offs are bigger than others.

So question is... is there a drop off that is both?

BEHIND THE BRAND => Me 🙂

I've realized that I don't talk about my pre-ecommerce life often.

So if you ever wanted to know my "origin story" and what I've been doing in digital marketing for over 13 years, here you go.

Fair warning, it's a LONG thread lol 👇 According to my parents, I've always been into business.

EX:When I was in kindergarten, I persuaded another kid to trade me 12 of his holographic Pokemon cards for my 1 caterpie by telling him Ash caught him in the last episode of Pokemon.

Also, I tried to sell ripped pants lol

The landing page I'll be sending paid ads too 😍

One of them, anyway!

With that said, would love some CRO feedback before I start working on the one for all 5 candles.

This first image here is the header. My favorite part! 2nd section.

Immediately follow up the header with the candle and testimonial.

I also figured the best way to get as much product info in as possible while still differentiating vs other brands was to use a table.

$190,000

That's how much we helped a 7 figure jewelry brand by updating JUST their flows in the 2nd half of 2022.

Best of all, because they're flows, it'll drive another 6 figures in 2023.

Here's how we did it 👇 #1: Plugged in site abandonment flow

This brand had most of their flows up, but like most brands, they didn't have a site abandonment flow.

So we installed it.

3 emails and a few months later, it's now their 5th best performing flow and drove over $20k+ ALONE last year.

👁️The Anatomy Of A High Converting Ecommerce Email 👁️

Revenue From Klaviyo: $500,000

Wish that was your DTC brand driving that much email revenue? 👆

Then you need emails that convert.

This is the exact step-by-step system my agency uses to make them 👇 1/ Segment

We always start with "who" are we sending emails too:

Big difference if we're going to send a campaign vs flow.

Big difference if we're sending to 1X buyers vs 2X buyers.

Big difference if we're sending to a sunset flow vs highly engaged audience.

Abandonment flows are some of the highest ROI flows in ecommerce.

So when clients hire my agency to fix their flows, the first thing we look at is how to improve abandonment flow revenue.

Here is how we do that 👇 Step #1: Product-Specific Emails

Almost always, we see brands use "one-size-fits-all" abandonment flows.

When we see this, we immediately set up flows specific to their top 3 products OR top 3 collections. Everyone else gets the generic flow.

Email campaigns will lead to your most profitable days in DTC.

However, based on my team's experience helping 7-8 figure brands, there are 5 common mistakes that are costing you 6-7 figures in yearly revenue.

Here's what they are and how to fix them! 👇 Mistake #1: Relying on creative to drive revenue

Most DTC brands think they can boost revenue just by sending "better" emails.

This is partially true if your email creative currently sucks.

However, email creative is not ad creative. There are no homeruns. Just consistency.

How to come up with ENDLESS ecommerce email ideas that SELL 👇 TACTIC #1: The 5 Senses

Send emails demonstrating your product using your 5 senses. One email, one sense.

EX: Chocolate

Touch: Weight in ounces
Sight: Luxurious packaging
Hearing: The "snap"
Smell: Unique aroma
Taste: Tastes fruity!