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DTC (fashion) Decoded

Most of the eCom and digital marketing advice published online is not written for fashion brands. It's about time we changed that. Subscribe for two free issues per month, featuring tactical guides, tutorials and case studies from real brands.

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🔥 5 More Brands With Killer Meta Ads: Footwear Edition

Meta Ads Creative Roundup: 5 Footwear Brands With Killer Meta Ads Footwear is a fashion category that is close to my heart–my first eCom marketing role was with Donald Pliner, a footwear brand, and some of my biggest consulting clients (Larroude, Johnston & Murphy) have also been footwear brands. Before we get into it, I want to thank this week's sponsor: Layers. Layers is the first AI search & merchandising tool built exclusively for Shopify Plus. Faster, smarter, and more modular than the...

The 3 Types Of Products & How To Market Them On Meta–The Secret Mechanism That Helps Brands Scale When brands spend thousands of dollars testing hundreds of Meta Ads iterations, only to come out with zero winners, it’s often because they fail to ask one simple question: What type of product are you selling? There are three product types, and these types determine which marketing messages and Meta Ads formats that will convert buyers successfully. Some products can be hybrids of more than one...

How Men's Apparel Brands Are Scaling To 9 Figures Using This Unique Brand Positioning Strategy This one’s for the boys (and men). A lot of my brand positioning material and case studies have been focused on brands that target women. But in this issue I wanted to highlight a positioning strategy that has yielded some of the fastest scaling men’s brands on the market. I call this positioning “the bro niche lifestyle brand”. Before we get into it, I want to thank this week’s sponsor: WorkMagic...

How To Reach "Middle Of Funnel" (MOF) Audiences On Meta This issue of the newsletter is dedicated to the question “what do I do if I’ve maxed out on “See It, Like It, Buy It (SILIBI) strategies on Meta?” When brands come to me with this concern, there are typically one of three paths forward: They haven’t actually maxed out on SILIBI They need to expand their messaging to reach “middle of funnel” (MOF) audiences They need to start building demand outside of Meta First thing's first, you...

Building Awareness Without Breaking The Bank: Scaling YouTube, AppLovin & Connected TV In next week's members-only issue I'm going to share creative strategies for reaching “middle of funnel” (MOF) audiences. That's the "what". This week, we’re going to discuss the "how": building a qualified, profitable MOF audiences on channels outside of Meta. Before we get into it, I want to thank this week’s sponsor: WorkMagic is a comprehensive measurement and experimentation platform that combines the...

Meta Creative Testing In 2025: Latest Scaling Tactics & How To Use AI Last week we spoke with Kamal Razzak about the most common reasons why fashion brands plateau at $5M/year in sales. This week we’re going to talk about the best way to approach Meta Ads creative testing in 2025, and how to use AI to accelerate the process. Kamal runs a media buying and creative agency that specializes in scaling up creative output for fashion brands using AI tools. He’s worked with brands like...

Why Fashion Brands Plateau At $5M/Year In Sales (And How To Break Through) This issue is part of a new series I’m doing where I bring in outside subject matter experts who specialize in working with fashion brands. A few weeks ago we covered Pinterest Ads. This week I’m speaking with Kamal Razzak, who runs a media buying and creative agency that helps fashion brands scale through smart, high volume creative testing. Kamal dropped so much knowledge that I had to make this a two-parter. In this...

Fashion Industry Secrets #1: Is eCom A Niche Market? + Male vs Female Buying Behavior Welcome to a new series: Industry Secrets. This is where I share nuances of the eCommerce and retail industries that are specific to fashion. Typically, you won’t discover these secrets until you’ve been in the industry for years or made a few costly mistakes as a founder. In this first edition, we’re kicking off with two secrets: Secret #1: Fashion eCommerce Is A Niche Market If you get access to NPD (now...

DTC Growth Summit Recap: 9 Proven Growth Tactics You Can Implement Today For CRO, Email & Meta Ads I was fortunate to get an invite to the first annual DTC Growth Summit, a new conference organized by Johnny Hickey of PerfectWhiteTee fame. I love smaller conferences and meetups. When you attend big eCom and marketing conferences you (an in-house marketer) are often the product. Every talk is thinly veiled vendor sponcon, and then you walk through the hall of cold-pitching from yet more...

How To Plan Your Inventory Buy When Production Lead Times Are Three Months Or More A few DTC (fashion) Decoded readers have written to me, asking for advice on how to handle inventory planning for long lead times. That’s the topic I’m going to cover today: how to maximize your return on inventory investment when your brand’s end-to-end product development process takes at least six months, and it takes three to six months to reorder an established style. This isn’t a unique situation. When I...