Holiday Funnel Hacking

Twitter might call this ~funnel hacking~. 
In reality, there’s no better way to study a brand, or a business, than to behave like a customer. 

With that, let’s funnel hack our little hearts out! Jones Road Beauty, you’re up!

CONTEXT

We’re going to focus on Jones Road Beauty because I think they handle the first half of November incredibly well. This is a pattern for them. I’m picking up what they are putting down. And, so should you.

One note. This holiday, Jones Road launched 5 new kits. At midnight, on a Thursday in November (November 9th, to note), Jones Road not only fueled their entire funnel, but they also protected their AOV.

When you launch KITS, you guarantee order value. When you kit products that have never been paired, you redefine a category you already play in. 

When you make a best selling product category (brushes) MINI, and then you KIT those minis, you have struck Holiday magic. 

Mind you, Jones Road launched 5 kits total. I care about the mini brush kit. That’s the one I’m buying. I’m sure there’s a customer out there that bought all 5 kits. I’m sure there’s a customer out there that doesn’t want the brushes, but wants the eyeshadow kit. 

You see, dear millionaire, I’ve been asking them to kit their brushes for a long time. I’ve also wanted these brushes for a long time.

Exhibit A (me asking the CMO of Jones Road Beauty why they don’t kit brushes – November 2022):

Exhibit B (an old Go-to-Millions, where I shared my holiday wish list for 2022 and on row 7 you see I asked my husband to get me almost every single one of Jones Road’s brushes (the individuals, because no kits). 

STEP 1

I’ve set the stage. Now, let’s begin. 

Search for the brand on Google.

*you’re about to get set yourself up to get hit with a bunch of the brand’s ads – this is what we’re going for! You can also always stalk a brand’s ads via TikTok’s Creative Center and check out their ads via  Facebook Ads Library – free and shows you not only what creative is out and about – but where that creative leads (landing pages, collections, PDP, you name it).  

Jones Road Beauty is running paid search. They control everything above the fold, and all looks well. Except, I can’t tell AT ALL that there’s a holiday shop / drop / new launch in play. I’d change that.

Let me show you what they should think about doing instead. 

Current: No branded search that mentions HOLIDAY. 

Instead: Recommending Jones Road tests updating to include HOLIDAY front and center on paid search, exactly how SKIMS plays it (SKIMS launched their holiday shop at the same time as Jones Road did, but SKIMS points to HOLIDAY, Jones Road doesn’t). 

STEP 2

Look at the brand’s ad library (Meta).

Jones Road FUCKING CRUSHES IT ON META. Always. They launched a bunch of great HOLIDAY creative to push those 5 kits (the ones that just dropped). Here are my favorite ads of the bunch – I’ll focus specifically on those mini brushes (study these! <3): 

Notice how it’s literally the same creative. The same left-aligned text overlay. The magic is in the variations: 

1️⃣. Emphasizes the word mini. Includes the HOLIDAY EXCLUSIVE callout. 

2️⃣. Emphasizes the word gift (in pink). Mentions the word HOLIDAY twice. 

3️⃣. Emphasizes the word gift (in pink). Mentions the word HOLIDAY twice. Mentions the word travelers – because this is a mini travel kit. 

This is a 5 second effort in Figma. I’m horrible at Figma. I could make these. These are gonna RIP!!!! Because the product is center stage, they’re saying all of the right words, they’ve made it exclusive, and they’ve made iterations. BRAVO!

STEP 3

Click through to the brand’s website.

The Mini Brush Kit PDP is great – it is straight to the point, lead by imagery, and has all of the right copy:

If I had just clicked an ad where the creative said: “For Holiday Travelers”, and then I ended up here, where it says, “Travel Easy”… I’d be at ease. This is consistent. Great! 

STEP 4

Look at STUDY the homepage, and holiday shop

There’s a lot I love about this website. I loveeee the tag on the Holiday collection that notes which products are specifically Holiday drop exclusives: 

And yet, there are a few things I think they should change.

The Mini Brush Kit is a part of the Holiday shop (collection). 

HOWEVER, The Mini Brush Kit isn’t added to the Tools collection that sits on site year-round. I think this is a miss, because if I landed on the site via a different ad (one that wasn’t for The Mini Brush Kit, specifically), I’d have a hard time finding it unless I hit homepage or chose the Holiday collection from the mega-nav. 

The Mini Brush Kit is a tool – so it should exist in multiple collections (Holiday, Kits, but also Tools). 

The Holiday Shop collection is cute! But, it’s not especially seasonal. As in, the creative doesn’t lean into winter/ doesn’t specifically scream holiday. I think that launching Holiday in the first half of November is the right time. It is, however, a little earlier than when the holidays actually begin.

So, I make up for this on the creative – and I set the tone of Holiday at every turn. We are going for cozy. We are going for winter. We are going for the holidays have already started – shop now.

This card on the Holiday collection states the cut off date a little bit too early, in my opinion. When on November 12th we advertise that this will be available until December 31st, we remove urgency. Yes, it says while supplies last, but I think it’d be stronger to start out with this card just saying:

Holiday Kits and More Are Here 

SHOP THROUGH 12/31 OR WHILE THEY LAST 

SHOP THE HOLIDAY EXCLUSIVES NOW, WHILE THEY LAST 

STEP 5

‍♀️ Time to shop (our specialty!) ‍♀️

We’ve added to cart! We’re checking out the cart on mobile and desktop, right? RIGHT! The goal of funnel hacking is to learn so much that by the time you checkout, you can justify any purchase in the name of honing your skillset. 

That’s what I do, anyways.

I CANNOT WAIT FOR MY MINI BRUSHES! Jones Road Beauty, well done and you’ve got a fan in me. 

P.S. I spontaneously got the sharpener too because I got to the cart and didn’t hit the free shipping threshold, so naturally I added the sharpener, then still didn’t hit it, so gave up on hitting it and just ended up with the sharpener too. WHY AM I LIKE THIS!!!!! ‍♀️