eCommerce Growth Saga: Scaling an eCom 0-7 Figures (Our Strategies, Lessons Learned, and More)
Hey Hackers!
Recently finished up a super in-depth case study/growth-saga of scaling a brand new eCommerce product from scratch 0-7 figures in 7 months.
Wondering what's the one main thing that will scale your store to 6-7 figures?
Your creatives.
That’s the main takeaway we learned when scaling a brand new protein coffee product from 0 to 7 figures in 7 months.
Here are some other main highlights you guys might find relevant from the article:
Defining the audience is essential - We used a quick post-purchase survey (answer 1 question - gain $1 refund) to find out our audience's biggest pain points and focused on that heavily in our ads. In this case it was weight management (51%) and morning breakfast (27%)
Testing the creatives - Our tests ran for a day and a half. We used our creatives tests as indicators, with the strongest indicators being purchases, initial checkouts, add-to-carts, cost-per-landing-page-view.
Boosting the conversion rate - Learned ~90% traffic was mobile. Optimized for that (in terms of design, copy, UI, etc.) and boosted conversion rate from 2.05% to 2.52%
Email campaigns - Ran a 3-day flash sale campaign and an email blast focused on advertorials (blog posts) with a 'Buy Now' CTA at the end of them.
Top-performing creative angles - Benefits-without-the-sacrifice, testimonials, how-to demonstration (educational + entertaining), five-day vlog, GIFs (yes, GIFs. Super simple but worked surprisingly well).
For the landing page breakdown, live examples, ad analysis, how to scale your creatives start to finish, and more - check out the full article!
https://sugatan.io/ecommerce-growth-saga-scaling-7-figures-pt1/
So just to be clear - ads are what made the difference?
It’s kind of interesting because it seems like there’s been a movement away from ads in e-commerce because it’s not a sustainable acquisition strategy but maybe that view is a bit more nuanced?
What was the total P&L on this store?
Ads, conversion rate, site design/interface, and more. It's all part of the bigger eCommerce ecosystem.
Obviously there's a lot to consider here, especially your cost per ads. For example, if your site landing page conversion rate is high, then you'll probably be fine with a higher cost-per-landing-page-view as your site will handle converting the site traffic better.
I haven't actually heard about the movement away from ads - but I might be biased because I'm in a lot of ads/marketing groups. Obviously you should focus on other channels too (social media, content, SEO, etc.) but I haven't heard much about the movement away from ads. Would love to hear more info on this though if you have any relevant sources/articles.
As per the stakeholder's request, we couldn't reveal some info in this case study. But there's some more info (not mentioned in the article) you might relevant here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7lD6DlQZzI
I’m not to up on trends in e-commerce ads so I could be way off and maybe my statement was too broad. Just this idea that too many B2C companies spend a ton on CAC and don’t have the underlying margins to support it. They are using fundraising to support the model in the near term but in the long term it collapses on itself. My sentiment might even be a little dated at this point.
Your use case is a great example. They got to 7 figures but what is the margin and the spend to get there and is it sustainable. The answer might very well be yes but it’s hard to really dig in without the numbers (Which for very reasonable reasons, you can’t share).
Hmm, fair enough, I see your point.
I suppose with CAC and ad cost - it really depends on your budget and if you're breaking even (which was our approach with testing ads). Because once you do find the winning combination(s) you just throw more money at it to scale quickly. And then I feel like you can take this approach all the way to long-term, without collapsing and burning out on testing. Of course, having a dedicated media/ad buying team who know what they're doing is a huge help hehe! :)
But I do understand your point too. I imagine there's a ton of DTC brands out there who burned their ad budget with testing / not knowing what they're doing.
Thanks for the write up. What’s a creative?
Hey! Glad you liked it. Creatives are basically another word for ads (images, videos, audio, etc.) with a certain angle to them. E.g. in this case, one creative angle we came up with was 'competitor comparison' (which is what it sounds like) and then tested a bunch of different ads within that format (different copy/video footage, etc.). Hope that makes sense. :)