5 More Brands With Swipe-Worthy Meta Ads: Mens Edition In my first “5 brands to watch” newsletter I focused on women’s brands. I got a few requests to do a men’s edition of this concept, so here it is! A lot of mens brands are more focused on fit and functionality, so there is more “traditional DTC storytelling” going on in these ads. I think that all brands can learn from this; even fashion-driven brands should build mythology around a few of their products. First, I want to thank this...
9 days ago • 3 min read
Everything I've Learned About Markdowns & Promos From A Decade+ In The Fashion Industry We’re a few weeks out from Black Friday/Cyber Monday–a perfect time for me to share what I’ve learned about markdowns and promotions from more than a decade in the fashion industry. Keep these frameworks and tactics in mind as you plan next year’s promo calendar and inventory buy. The Purpose Of Discounts The purpose of running discounts and promotions is to motivate consumers to do something they would...
16 days ago • 6 min read
It Seems Like Every Brand Offers At Least 10% Off For Email Opt-In–Should You? If you visit an eCommerce site, odds are good that you’ll be hit with an email opt-in popup almost immediately. Most popups will offer you a discount between 10-25% off your first purchase…if you opt into email. This has been going on for so long that many brands do it reflexively. “If we don’t do it, we’ll get beat out by the competition” is the thought. But is that true? No. Does that mean you should stop running...
23 days ago • 8 min read
Jenni Kayne Case Study: The 5 Types Of Products You Need To Grow Your Brand With Meta Ads Jenni Kayne built a nine-figure brand with a combination of smart merchandising and the strategic use of direct marketing. When your customer acquisition channels and your product development pipeline are in sync, great things can happen. I’m going to use Jenni Kayne to help illustrate my 5-part framework for building out a product assortment when Meta is your top source of new customers. Here are the 5...
30 days ago • 5 min read
The Most Successful Fashion Brands Pass Through These 3 Growth Stages Wanted to expand on my LinkedIn post. I think this framework will help a lot of fashion brands who are wondering “why am I not growing”? But first, I want to thank this week's sponsor: Inventory Planner by Sage. If you're still doing planning in a spreadsheet, you're leaving money on the table. Inventory Planner's software is informed by decades of retail expertise to help you maximize the ROI of your product assortment. To...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Google Ads 102: Advanced Scaling Tactics A few weeks ago I shared the “first principles” of running Google Ads as an incremental sales channel, along with a basic campaign setup I recommend for fashion brands. This week I’m going to share some tactics for optimizing and building on that basic setup. Most of these tactics require some spend/data to execute. First: A Revision In the original Google post I recommended this core setup: an acquisition PMax, a retention PMax and a text search...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
High Sport Case Study: Ditching "Best Practices" To Transform $860 Pants Into A Must-Have Item A few weeks ago I shared my POV on why fashion brands should NOT pursue the luxury strategy. In this issue, I’m going to share an exception that proves the rule. High Sport is a brand that seems to have come out of nowhere, taking the shopping recs newsletter-verse by storm with their $860 knit pants. That’s right: $860. Knit pants. Before we get into it, I want to thank this week's sponsor:...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Wholesale 101: How To Make It A Profitable Channel For Your Brand Wholesale is one of the topics I’ve changed my mind on in the past five years. I used to be against it entirely. Now I think it can be used strategically to contribute to overall brand growth. There are three good reasons for a brand to expand into the wholesale channel: The brand has proven PMF in the eCom channel and wants to use wholesale to bolster brand awareness and credibility. The brand is targeting a niche audience/the...
about 2 months ago • 10 min read
Don't Let This Be You: How Fashion Brands Abuse The Luxury Strategy I have a feeling this is going to upset a lot of folks reading right now. But this is a recurring issue that has sabotaged too many promising brands. It’s rare to see so much potential burned to the ground for so little payoff. So let’s talk about the Luxury Strategy, and how soooo many fashion brands abuse it. Before we get into it, I want to thank this week's sponsor: Segments Analytics. Segments Analytics integrates with...
2 months ago • 5 min read