Friday, January 6, 2023
Fiddlesticks is right, it takes some adjusting… Maybe by Q2 it’ll be down pat.
In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇
📦 The importance of testing offers, messaging, and creative
📦 How the super early bird (you) gets the best worm
📦 What’s next for RUX in 2023?
📦 Made-to-order clothing, natural and organic skincare, and gut health powder
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
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Welcome to part four of Campaign Confidential – Where DTC opens the campaign case files of a real business using Pilothouse’s Pilot Program – the service that helps brands who aren’t meeting the typical agency criteria to scale affordably. 🤑
In part three, we tagged along for RUX’s journey up to Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BF/CM). We shared metrics from their pre-Pilothouse days, early access sales, to the big sales days themselves.
Warning: We’re going to gush about the pre-sale lead generation lists again, but first, let’s check out how far we’ve come to determine the outlook for 2023 and beyond!
LFG! 👇
🛍 BF/CM results
RUX’s first Black Friday ever was a massive, ginormous, colossal success!
RUX broke records across the months and days leading up to the BF/CM season – in fact, it was their highest-grossing period ever. The team wasn’t sure what to expect from RUX’s first BF/CM, but it’s safe to say victory bells were ringing.
Crushing their first BF/CM was no stroke of luck. The Pilothouse Pilot Program team spent months leading up to the launch testing different sale offers, messaging, and creative to understand what worked best for RUX and their audience. 🧪🥼
Additionally, testing different interests and lookalike audiences (LaL) before Black Friday provided definitive audiences to target with sales messaging.
Account averages: 6 months leading up to BF/CM
ROAS (Return on ad spend): 2.64
AOV (Average order value): $318.20
CPA (Cost per acquisition): $120.62
Account averages: BF/CM Period Nov. 22–28
ROAS: 6.47
AOV: $398.70
CPA: $61.65
So what worked and what didn’t? Keep scrollin’ to find out! 👇
The Super Early Bird Gets The Best Worm
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🤔 What worked best? Lead generation lists and simple sales copy.
💪 Lead gen lists
We previously saw how the Pilothouse Pilot Program Team built and sent messaging to their lead generation list retargeting 600+ users with a presale offer.
This list alone gave RUX a $10 CPA (cost-per-acquisition) and a 35 ROAS which is nothing short of amazing.
Remember to build and brew your lists ahead of your big sales days to have the chance to test offers and ensure you’re maximizing the outputs of your creative efforts.
🔤 Simple sales messaging
In previous sales, the Pilothouse team tested offers on the actual creative (image, video) against putting the offer in the copy. The version that included the offer in the ad copy yielded cleaner images with less text.
Simple messaging was paired with the top-performing static images. This means that the best image and color combos from previous tests during the best sale campaigns were changed to have a one-day click view attribution.
In our case, Meta would target those who are more likely to see the ad and make a purchase within the same day. If your sale period is short, it’s worth testing this out compared to the 7-day click, 1-day view. 👌
The team also built a new optimized landing page for RUX, which was the clear winner when compared from a purchase perspective.
🤕 What didn’t work
The retargeting catalog sale campaign still did well, just not as great as the other sale campaigns. The “last chance” messaging didn’t land, but that’s okay!
As it turns out, RUX’s audience made fewer purchases through creatives that displayed “last chance” messaging on them compared to the original sale campaigns launched in the BF/CM period.
It just goes to show how important it is to know your audience before you start planning your copy and CTAs to truly connect with them.
It’s hard to deny the appeal of “last chance” messaging, but this proves that it doesn’t always work.
If there’s one thing the Pilot Program wants to drive home, it’s that testing is the key to success. Testing ensures that a brand doesn’t invest heavily in a strategy that simply doesn’t work for their audience.
🏆 The 2023 strategy
Last January, RUX ran presales for their products on Meta so we don’t have a realistic comparison of the platform’s performance. The positive is that RUX has huge plans to grow in 2023. We’re talking about literally doubling revenue!
RUX doesn’t run promos often other than the Q4 testing, so growth will be heavily dependent on how the new product launches land in Q1 and Q2 of 2023.
These launches won’t revolve around a sale, but we still have strong data from Q4 2022 to help them succeed.
For example, during Black Friday, Rux’s success in building a strong lead generation list and fulfilling giveaways through both paid and organic efforts was on full display. Remember that record-breaking revenue day during the presale when only 600 people were targeted? Yeah, us too.
The Pilothouse Pilot Program team will continue to test new creatives while iterating on what worked best for RUX overall in 2022 to aid in the success of these launches.
📖 A new story to tell
RUX doubled their user generated content (UGC) Storyteller program from 10 to 20 Storytellers in the new year. UGC is a fabulous way for scrollers to connect with your brand, and with Pilothouse’s success thus far, they are eager to increase the amount of accessible UGC.
RUX will also test new landing pages based on the winning version created by the Pilot Program. Another tally for the value proposition of testing. ✅
Landing a specific creative strategy isn’t easy, but it is possible. Having artists and designers carefully iterate and generate new ideas is the key. Don’t be afraid to take some risks and turn the dial up to 11.
You can roll it back if it doesn’t work, but the hard truth is that you won’t know unless you try.
➡️ So it goes…
That concludes our Campaign Confidential series with RUX. These deep dives are always able to shed some much-needed light on what it takes to thrive in the face of minor setbacks. That‘s the goal of the Pilothouse’s Pilot Program, after all!
It’s onward and upwards for RUX and Pilothouse’s Pilot Program for 2023! 🚀
Brands
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🪞 Chidoriya World: With experiences unlike any other, Chidoriya World recontextualizes beauty and skincare with inspiration from the Geisha to provide 100% natural and organic products for your daily routine.
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🥤 Sansorium - Fiona Hepher: Sipping Sober with a 30% Return Customer Rate.
❤️ Rootd - Ania Wysocka: Helping a Million Users in the Age of Anxiety.
💰 Mike Fata: CPG Lessons From Scaling Hemp Hearts + A Trifecta of 9 Figure Exits!
📕 Hero Cosmetics - Ju Rhyu: Reversing the DTC Playbook and the $630MM Hero CPG Needs.
💵 EcomCFO.co - Sam Hill: Make Your Finances Anti-Fragile.
💡 Listen to the Biggest Marketing News Stories Today.
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DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Michael Venditti. Edited by Claire Beveridge and Eric Dyck.
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