Alex
@heyitsalexP
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Helping eCom brands scale past 7 figures with BS-free marketing advice:
Joined November 2010
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@karine_hsu
This is too literal. Making a heel look like a sneaker is not solving the issues that cause the discomfort.
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About to drop my hottest take yet:
I don't understand big stadium pop concerts.
You pay thousands of dollars to essentially watch the artist lip synching on TV?
I see lots of these posts on my IG stories and like...you are so far away. You are watching a TV show.
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These aren't digital marketing strategies, they're channels
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
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I'm 2.5k words into what is going to be a 5k+ word post on how to run Facebook ads for FASHION brands.
All the strategic + tactical considerations specific to brands w/a big assortment that turns over 4x+ per year.
Like this tweet & I'll DM you a link directly when I'm done.
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Santa Claus collects data on:
-location
-bad or good
-when you sleep
-for people under 13
And we’re worried about third party cookies?!?
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New baby just dropped.
Chloe Greifeld was born early this morning. Everyone is doing well.
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Lots of "Director of Performance Marketing" jobs out there where the unspoken JD is "make Facebook work like it used to!"
You should avoid these roles.
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🚨 Rant Incoming 🚨
Why do fashion brands always do this?
Them: We're not growing
Me: You need to acquire new customers to grow
Them: Ok, why isn't that happening
Me: You're not running any focused acquisition marketing
Them: But we're doing PR and have Google Ads branded
Me: I
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"Should I hire an agency to run my performance marketing?"
$0-5M: no, DIY
$5-25M: agency
$25-100M: transition to in-house
$100M+: agency + freelancers + in-house
Sharing the reasoning behind this rec in Sunday's newsletter...
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IMO there is a lot of money to be made in the next 5-10 years helping eCom brands think less like digital marketers and more like strong operators.
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The golden rule of digital marketing:
Just Because You See It, Doesn’t Mean It’s Working
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A comprehensive checklist ✅✅✅
of all the reasons your Facebook ads stopped working:
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This is a pretty accurate depiction of the core engaged Facebook/IG user
i.e. the person who clicks on ads and converts off them
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If you want to get rich, help people lean in to their default behavior.
If you want to go broke, try to convince people to change their default behavior.
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The average person working in marketing:
Zero intellectual curiosity
Lives for vendor dinners & Amazon gift cards
Only interested in tactical "growth hacks"
If you're working to understand your business on a deeper level, you're ahead of 90% of the pack.
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If you have ever managed or worked on an ecom business at the $1-5M revenue level, what is one process, tactic, hire or (gulp) app you wish you did sooner?
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Retention is not "the new acquisition".
Focusing on retention cannot make up for an inability to acquire new customers profitably.
I outlined the math behind this here:
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@AdamSinger
It's hard to ask someone who is completely self-supporting (or who is supporting family instead of vv) to make this tradeoff.
It's the first domino that leads to "marketers live in a bubble" syndrome.
Not saying entry level marketers deserve $200k/year
But an industry that
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10 of my most controversial takes on email marketing:
1. Offering a first purchase discount is fine. BUT you need to email prospects 3-4x in the first 48 hours post-optin to maximize the utility.
2. Too many folks measuring popup optin rates, not enough folks measuring optin ->
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Feels like a key to success with Meta ads is having the courage to do nothing.
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Why is eCommerce so hard? Wins don't build momentum like they used to.
Marketing channel arbitrage is quickly discovered and competed away.
Products may go viral, but the customers you acquire don't stick around.
To grow, you need a steady pipeline of fresh wins.
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I'm usually 1000% against this...
...but it's Friday so what the hell?
Here is a 🧵 of 7 things you can do today to unlock some incremental growth for your eCom brand.
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My goal when I became a free agent in 2022:
Beat my salary as an FTE
Do it working <40 hours per week
Get control over my time
Don't work with jerks
In 2023 I accomplished all of the above.
Couldn't have done it without you all, I am incredibly grateful.
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Ads that have run for a week with zero conversions usually give me one conversion a few hours after I shut them off, as a little fu on the way out the door.
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Hate to be a doom-poster but...
...it gets even more expensive to acquire customers in a recession.
Tweaking your ad campaign settings or installing another Shopify app are not going to fix that.
A 🧵 on what you should focus on instead:
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I have a ~personal announcement~
Yesterday was my last day at Tapestry.
I'm taking on consulting projects for the next 6-12 months.
My DMs are open. If you like what I share here, we should work together.
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Real talk: retention marketing actually DESTROYS value for many brands.
Here's how to do retention right at $1M, $10M, $25M in revenue and beyond.
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10 brand positioning frameworks:
1. White space: we're meeting a need that no one else is meeting
2. Oppositional: category conventions demand that brands do X, but we think that is wrong
3. Reframing: category leaders compete on attribute A, but we're focusing on attribute Z
4.
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Want to connect with your customers? Stop selling and start storytelling.
Here is a thread of product storytelling tactics you can use in ads, emails, landing pages, etc. with real world examples.
It's not an exhaustive list, so reply with any I missed.
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HOW TO WRECK YOUR ECOM BUSINESS - a thread
5 ways to absolutely decimate your sales and long term viability in under five years.
Learn from (surprisingly common) mistakes I've observed so you don't repeat them.
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The more brands I work with, the more I think "acquisition vs retention" is the wrong way to approach growth.
You need to acquire with retention in mind.
And you need to build retention strategies based on 1st purchase/acquisition context.
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Who are female speakers you really like, and why?
Could be authors, TED talk-ers, artists, executives...really anyone.
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When I visit a site and immediately get hit with "spin to win" I know that brand is down bad...
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On average:
Men are harder to convert, easier to retain.
Women are easier to convert, harder to retain.
This is literally about eCom, don't read into it.
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I've been doing some Facebook Ads audits for clients. There are still "Facebook experts" out there advocating for traffic campaigns. Wild!
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I have audited >50 Meta accounts since I started consulting more than 2 years ago.
Here is a list of common problems or "growth busters" that I've encountered:
Budgeting & KPIs:
→ Campaign budgets are all lower than the brand's AOV
→ Brand is trying to scale with a ROAS
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The more time I spend in this space, the more I realize that two things are true:
1. Sustainable growth requires skills that are time-intensive to acquire and expensive to outsource.
2. Many are in denial of the first point, so they're always on the hunt for "one weird trick".
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5 stats that should make you very, very nervous if you're building a brand or running an eCom business:
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Some things in ecom lane that are diversions at best, scams at worst:
Retention agencies who set up a bunch of flows and then use Klaviyo 30 day attribution to prove “massive added value”.
Martech vendors who grade their own homework and strongly discourage holdout testing.
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A harsh truth most marketers will never admit:
Most retention marketing actually LOSES money.
Here's a thread 🧵 that explains why, and what you can do about it.
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Many of today's biggest, most well-known brands were built without "data driven marketing".
If you want to build something big or break past plateaus you have to abandon the idea that everything can or should be precisely measured.
Take some risks.
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Here is the big announcement: I'm launching another newsletter!
It's the first DTC growth newsletter written just for fashion brands!
Finally: tactical DTC growth advice that actually works for you. Because fashion really is different.
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About to write the most triggering thread in DTC Twitter history.
Some brands should not "just go broad" on Facebook.
In fact, some brands CANNOT "just go broad" profitably.
Before you chop my head off, here is my justification...
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Brand books can be a massive value-add but most brand books I see are outdated.
In 100% of brand books I've seen L5Y:
- Pantone codes
- A one page brand statement
- Photo art direction guidelines
- "Don't rotate the logo!"
In ~50% of brand books I've seen:
- Brand voice
I think way more brands should put together 40 page decks explaining their brand vision and design direction.
It forces clear thinking, and aligns creative partners.
I see way more brands struggle with this than brands overdoing it.
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Your only job as a marketer is to create demand for your brand that wouldn't have existed without marketing.
Everything else you hear about marketing is a variation of this theme (or complete bs).
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A few inescapable truths about retention in eCom:
New customer churn will be high.
Email & SMS can't fix acquisition issues.
Your category, merchandising & positioning matter much more than your flows, subject lines & send times.
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Simple method for managing ad spend profitably:
1. Track total spend by channel daily
2. Track total new & returning customer orders & sales daily
3. Track CAC (total spend/total new customers) divided by AOV (new customer sales/new customers)
4. Track your rolling 7 day average
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A lot of venture-backed DTC brands think that enterprise org charts lead to enterprise profits.
And that's why a lot of venture-backed DTC brands are unprofitable.
Your Assistant Senior VP of Integrated Marketing isn't going to make you profitable.
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I asked my husband to come up with a marketing hot take for Twitter, here is what he came up with:
"People already know what they want, you just have to uncover it."
Thoughts?
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Me, telling fashion brands that 50-60% of their Meta ads dollars should be promoting core products & best sellers.
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KPIs can only get you so far. Example:
Want to increase your conversion rate? Turn off your paid acquisition campaigns.
You'll improve your KPI, but the overall business will suffer.
See what I mean?
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“More fiction has been written in Excel than in Word.” - @ some business guy
(few understand this)
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How to increase your average customer LTV:
1. Acquire wealthier customers
2. Improve your product
3. Expand your assortment
.
.
.
.
500. Optimize your email flows
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What is brand storytelling?
For a 101, compare these two "About" page headlines.
Both utilize storytelling. One is product-focused, the other is brand-focused.
Product focus can be powerful, but limits the scope of your assortment as your brand grows.
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Unpopular opinion:
Brands doing <~$75M/year should hire as few US-based junior employees as possible.
Junior/entry level roles are the silent chaos agent of many brands.
And that's not because juniors (or Gen Z) are inherently "bad" in some way. It's because brands don't take
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There isn't a Meta "media buying secret" that $30k/day brands know and you don't.
The secret to scale sits outside your ad account OR in your creative strategy in 90% of cases.
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If you want to improve retention rates by 10%, change your email strategy.
If you want to improve retention rates by 90%, change the product.
Product is one of the "4 P's" for a reason...
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I have managed retention marketing for Fortune 500 companies, private equity-owned brands and bootstrapped indies.
Drop your
#retention
q's below and I will do my best to answer.
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I stopped offering sponsorship of the No Best Practices newsletter. Here's why:
I can't give most sponsors what they're looking for without degrading my "brand reputation".
A lot of folks want me to pretend I've used the product successfully, or they want me to hype it on
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Are Facebook Ads your
#1
source of customer acquisition? Are you bootstrapped?
Save yourself a world of hurt & remove these brands from your marketing swipe files:
❌ Brands w/25+ retail stores
❌ Brands 10+ years old
❌ Brands w/a celeb founder
❌ VC backed brands
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@DLVermeer
most ̶G̶e̶n̶ ̶Z̶ consumers don't even know what quality fashion looks & feels like
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Sad update today:
Corny’s autoimmune disease progressed rapidly despite multiple attempts to stabilize him, and he passed away last night.
We always called him “the mayor” because he got smiles and attention wherever he went.
I am really sad :(
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Tweet for the writers on my feed:
A SaaS company is looking for someone to write 4-8 posts/month for their company blog.
Topics: Fulfillment, post-purchase experience, retention tactics, loyalty, etc.
Reply if you're interested and I'll forward them your info.
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The content you think people want to see on Facebook/Insta vs the content they actually want to see.
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Eras Of Facebook Ads, A TL;DR:
2007-2012: dark ages
2012-2017: free money
2017-2020: increasing competition, but FB data could still make up for weak creative
2020-2021: the "Covid bump" (macro low CACs)
2021-today: you need to actually know something about marketing to profit
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When you're hired by a small company, you're often being hired to produce a result.
When you're hired by a big, publicly traded company, you're often hired to play a role.
If you want to grow in your career, you have to know the difference.
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Promotions are a bad customer acquisition tactic because...
People who purchased your product for $25 probably can't afford it at $50.
So promo shoppers will only shop again when you run the promo again. You're building something misaligned with your core business.
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Retention marketing is full of a lot of very buzzy, very poorly defined terms.
"Loyalty", "community" and "engagement" come to mind.
Unfortunately, that makes loyalty marketing a hotbed of misinformation, misdirection and outright scamming.
I've had founders DM me, wondering
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Why the agency/client relationship can be so contentious, in a nutshell:
Agencies market themselves as a bespoke service and try to deliver a productized service to cut costs.
Clients are looking for bespoke service at productized service prices.
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Harsh truth about customer loyalty programs:
- Your loyal audience is smaller than you think
- They're already highly engaged, so driving incremental lift is harder than you think
- A points program won't make casual customers more loyal
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Running Meta ads with a conversion objective = harvesting in-market demand.
If this is your only growth strategy, you are captive to the macro environment.
Working on smart brand building outside of Meta & diversify your TOF = much less painful to grow.
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My own father sent a spam complaint on today's newsletter send. Gutted.
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Your Facebook ad spend is probably NOT as profitable as you think.
Here's why, and what you can do about it.
(pic will make more sense in a minute...)
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My husband & I want to read the same book (kind of like a mini book club).
He likes non-fiction (business, historical biographies, etc.)
I will read almost anything that is well written with strong narrative momentum.
Any recommendations?
(If you say Sapiens I will block u)
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I regret to inform you all that mouth taping actually does make you sleep better.
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For most brands, your highest leverage retention opportunity is moving more new customers to a second purchase.
Why? This is where most of your churn happens.
But most retention marketing focuses on customers who are already loyal (this happens between purchase 3-5 for most
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Something I've been noticing re: Meta ads:
45-64 age group loves feed-friendly formats, timeless products, QVC-style video
25-34 age group loves vertical video, trendy products, TikTok aesthetic/creative conventions
(this is more useful if you have a broad product catalog)
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I’m looking for some female UGC creators for a health-focused CPG brand.
If you’re interested, reply with a link to your portfolio.
I’ll DM you if you’re a good fit.
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If you want to grow 10%+ per year, you need to focus on $20,000 decisions, not $20 decisions.
When it comes to ads, testing minor creative tweaks = $20 decisions.
What audience you're speaking to, their pain points & how you articulate them = $20,000 decisions.
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@AdamSinger
Not supporting their own family, but helping out mom or dad who lost their job or has tenuous part-time or under the table employment. Helping cover expenses for siblings who are still minors, etc.
If you've never encountered this, you don't know anyone in the bottom 3rd of the
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If you bury a cow's skull facing east under the light of the full moon, your FB ads will achieve a ROAS of 5.
🗨️261 ♻️1,390 ❤️9,774
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Here’s a spicy take:
For consumer goods brands, If "breaking even" requires you to look at an LTV window longer than 6 months, you're wasting your time.
If you're a marketer, focus on maxing LTV in the first 90 days. Then 6 months. Anything else = "nice to have".
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McKinsey, Bain & BGC pay undergrads six figures a year and teach them how to think for two years.
You're offering $65k for someone with 3 years' experience who knows Klaviyo, Meta ads and can "strategically manage priorities".
Who do you think is going to win?
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Recently got a client over the $5k/day benchmark for Meta spend.
My formula for ads that scale:
Right product + Right creative + Right inventory
Right product:
👉 Pick a price point and category with a lot of in-market demand. Without this, almost impossible to scale
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Most of what is considered "common knowledge" in digital marketing was developed by martech vendors between 2010 - 2015. (think: Google Analytics)
So most of what we know about digital marketing leads us down the path of purchasing more martech.
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You see a lot of post purchase surveys asking “where did you hear about us?” but never “how many drinks did you have before placing this order?”
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"We got this brand's email revenue from 10% of total to 40%!"
Ok great. Did you make total revenue go up?
Anyone can turn on an abandoned cart campaign and cannibalize existing revenue. It's not ~magic~
(Brand owners, beware of this stuff. It's not a value add.)
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Thinking about starting a brand this year?
First time founder with limited resources?
Instead of jumping right to Meta & Google, why don't you...
Try to close 100 sales in person first.
Why do this? 3 reasons:
1. Fewer variable costs vs Shopify + Meta/Google.
2. The "cost of
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5 reasons that $1M/yr eCom businesses struggle to make it to $5M/yr:
1. Can't best your banger
You have one "banger ad" in Meta. You try new hooks. You try statics vs video. You try everything you read on Twitter...and nothing beats it.
Usually this happens because the brand
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For everyone waiting on this...apparently you can only send like 50 DMs per day.
Here is a direct link to the post:
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A few months ago I worked on a retention strategy deep dive with
@codyplof
and
@eliweisss
for
@jonesroadbeauty
How do you make an exceptional brand even better?
I'm sharing 3 lessons we learned in this Sunday's newsletter:
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A harsh truth many marketers will never admit:
Many marketers are more interested in advancing their careers than advancing the profitable growth of your business.
These marketers love tactics that are complex, with results that are easy to misrepresent.
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The key to scaling a luxury brand:
Create the perception that your average AOV is $2,500...
...while it's actually <$250.
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I find it a bit frustrating that software dominates the conversation in eCom - both DTC & traditional.
A successful business can't be distilled down to a list of apps, as much as we want that to be true.
You need to do the work.
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If this tweet gets 100 likes I'll post the following question on LinkedIn:
"If you were a tree, what tree would you be?"
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Most marketing orgs suck at annual planning.
Why? Because the objective is not defined well enough to serve as a foundation for a real strategy.
"Make sales go up 20% YoY" is not an objective, it's a KPI.
So marketing plans become a hit list of tactics sourced from Twitter...
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