Happy Sunday!

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re having an amazing Sunday or Monday, and had a relaxing weekend. Today’s newsletter is all about brands going into their launch phase, but a lot of this can also work for the launch of new products or collections, too. Let’s get into it!

Vendor of the Week

Impact.com — the leading partnership management platform for affiliates and influencers.

Remember, a couple of months ago, I was asking everyone to submit a survey about how they’re approaching influencer and affiliate marketing? Well, the results are in!

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This report comprises over 500 detailed submissions. Get the results on this link!

Limited Supply

This past week on Limited Supply, I spoke with Jared Brody, the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Resident Home and Ashley Furniture, about what he’s excited to test, what’s working, how his team is structured, and more. One of the biggest topics was all about AppLovin (from $0 to 7-figures).

Big news! AppLovin will be taking on new advertisers starting October 1st, but access is only available with a referral code. To get one, submit your information on this form! You’ll get $5k in ad credits to match your first $5k in spend.

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Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Just search “Limited Supply” wherever you listen!

What to Nail for a Successful Brand Launch

Having been a part of so many brands launching over the years, some that have done extremely well, and some, too, that spiked and then flopped, there are a handful of things I’ve seen that can help make or break a launch. Today’s email is a compilation of 20 tips I see brand owners fail to take care of before launch, and it inevitably hurts their metrics out the gate.

If there’s anything you think should also be on the list, reply to this email and add it in! Let’s get into it.

Set up all ad accounts and tracking. With how ad platforms work today, the more data you feed IN to the platform, the more you can get OUT of them. The more traffic you're tagging with the Meta pixel, the more events you're able to relay back to the system, the more emails you can capture and feed into the platform... the better your ads perform. If you launch without having the proper pixel setup across your website, you're missing out on training data for your ad account. When you run traffic, use proper UTM parameters to tag the ad format, the creative, the audience you're targeting, etc. All of this allows you to slice and dice cohort data 6 months post-launch. Treat your ad account like a muscle... if you don’t exercise it with real signals, it won’t be strong enough when you need it.
Set up review collection/request flows. One of the biggest conversion drivers on a website is social proof from real customers who've tried the products and share their experiences. In order to maximize this, you need to set up an aggressive review-collection email flow. Don't just use the 1 email that comes standard in your reviews app, set up a 5-7 email sequence pushing for review collection with different messaging. A nudge a week after delivery, a personal follow‑up from the founder, maybe a “show us how you use it” request. The more social proof you generate early, the more future customers see that other people actually love the thing you’re selling.
Create an affiliate strategy and enable it. You should have a general affiliate tech setup (like Social Snowball) so you can onboard affiliates or creators who want to promote your product. You should also integrate with Skimlinks, so internet publishers can tag your products and earn commission. Build relationships with writers who cover your category, and send them a preview of your offer. Make it easy for someone else to tell your story. Set up your TikTok Shop affiliate program to seed products to, and invite creators to join your program and earn commission. Anywhere you can enable people to help you sell more units, that still all transact through your Shopify store, should be enabled.
Set up TikTok shop before launch. Too many people wait until after launch to get set up on TikTok Shop — go live beforehand. Generally, it takes under a week to be live on the platform; however, certain categories (i.e., supplements) can take up to a month to get set up. You want to be set up pre-launch, so you can generate sales on day 1, building social proof in the platform. For TikTok Shop inspiration, check out brands like MediCube, NeuroGum, or Salud. The more built-up proof you have on your TikTok Shop (units sold, reviews, positive feedback, etc.), the more affiliates want to work with you, buy the product, post about it, etc. Plus, any videos that take off, you can reach out and license the content to run as an ad.
Launch with proper bundling. One of the best, easiest, most reliable, and psychologically-friendly ways to increase AOV on your site is to create merchandised bundles. Whether it’s a Best Sellers bundle, a “Founders Favorite” bundle, the NYC Apartment bundle (yes, we actually did that), or the Thanksgiving Flavors bundle, people love it when you help them make decisions. Show them why it’s a good bundle (reviews, discounted pricing, gift with purchase, opportunity to try more of what you love, etc), and make it easy to purchase. You’ll move more units and plant the seed for future repeat purchases.
Use a modified/custom slide-out cart. Don’t launch and use the generic Shopify slide-out cart — it looks so lazy, new customers will question whether you’re even a legit merchant. Instead, build a custom cart that incorporates cross-sells, upsells, one-time-order-to-subscription options, an opportunity to add the discount code in the slide-out cart itself, being able to see the total, and adding social proof (written reviews, review count/avg star ratings, publisher quotes, etc.). My personal recommendation would be Rebuy’s slide-out cart (tell them you want the Sharma discount, if you choose it).
Set up your email/SMS flows. Another common pre-launch mistake is not investing in REALLY GOOD email design and flow setup prior to launch. It’s commonly viewed as something to cross off a list, but when you don’t invest time/strategy/design resources/good copy into your email flows, they go stale quickly and don’t help your acquisition channels be the best they can be. The more you can convert your site visitors, the higher your MER (media efficiency ratio, aka total spend:total revenue) will be.
Don’t forget to launch a great first-party data capture pop-up. Commonly called the “email pop-up”, you want to have a good one. I recommend using a tool like Alia, or follow the same format. Ask visitors a single question that helps you tag them (“What’s your biggest skin concern?”), collect their email, then their phone number. Route them into a welcome flow that speaks directly to that concern. Now you have permission to market on two channels and context to personalize your messaging.
Configure customer-friendly shipping rules. One of the biggest reasons people abandon websites is because they realize they have to pay for shipping, and everyone feels entitled to free shipping (thank you, Amazon). As a result, you need to configure shipping rules to be new-site-visitor-friendly. If you don’t want to promise free shipping to everyone, set a realistic threshold to qualify for free shipping. If you do it right, you can raise your overall AOV too. Make it easy across the website experience to know how far someone is from hitting that threshold, too. Secondly, optimize your shipping names to include messaging like “Standard Shipping — ships within 24 hours” or “Express VIP Shipping — ships today”. These have nothing to do with your 3PL; it just looks good to consumers and helps the conversion rate.
Collect social proof from multiple sources. In my GLP‑1 landing page breakdown newsletter, I shared how RemedyMeds filled the above‑the‑fold with numbers (prescriptions filled, Trustpilot reviews, patient counts). This isn’t an accident. It’s intentional social proof. At launch, pull quotes from press previews, seed product with creators and micro‑influencers, capture UGC on TikTok, and sprinkle those trust signals everywhere: on your homepage, product pages, emails and even in your ads.
Build an easy-to-use subscription portal. Don’t limit your subscription portal to be what comes from your SaaS tool out of the box. Instead, make sure it’s easy to use, easy to login to, easy to add/try new products/samples, easy to cancel, easy to waive a shipment, etc. Making this challenging doesn’t retain LTV; it just lowers what consumers think of your brand and adds to your customer service inbox. You can build a strong cancellation flow, to try and save as many churning subscribers, but don’t make it impossible to cancel — it’s illegal in some states.
Write page-specific FAQs. First off, make sure your site includes FAQs — they are a huge saver of site abandonment. A large % of people leaving your site want to get more information. Figure out what they want to know, and answer it on the page they’re on. I recommend taking it a step further and making FAQs more specific to the page a user is on. For example, the homepage FAQs may focus on the brand, the quality of ingredients, why to trust the brand, etc. Whereas a PDP may focus its FAQs on the specific product. On a collections page, you can focus on more narrow, but not product-specific questions. Make it easy for people to get answers in fewer clicks.
Create and highlight a risk-reversal guarantee. Before my mom buys anything, she checks the return policy. Turns out, everyone wants to know they are taken care of if they don’t like their purchase for whatever reason — it’s why Costco does so well with introducing new products; everyone knows they can return it 6 months later if they don’t end up liking that new toaster or pair of pants. My favorite example of this is Magic Spoon’s 100% happiness guarantee. For up to 6 months after your first purchase, you can get a refund (though the fine print doesn’t cover your subsequent purchases). Display this messaging near any place you’re pushing a customer down the funnel (near your add-to-cart button, in the cart, in the checkout, site/cart abandonment emails).
Don’t forget to be fully compliant. The basics you need to cover are: GDPR (even if you don’t sell in Europe), CCPA, ADA (I recommend working with Nick to stay compliant and avoid demand letters), CAN-SPAM (usually handled by your ESP), TCPA (depends on your provider, Postscript for example handles this for you), and any state specific privacy laws (Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah are all rolling out their own). In addition, make sure your promotions all have disclaimers and terms highlighting what is included and what isn’t, along with start and stop dates and times. Put “Privacy Policy,” “Terms of Service,” “Accessibility Statement,” and “Do Not Sell My Data” links in your footer. Only get email/SMS consent with explicit opt-ins. Add a cookie banner to accept/decline/manage.
Launch with a proper organic social strategy. Don’t just launch and hope others will talk about your brand, people will post on your behalf or traffic will magically appear. You need to create a world of buzz, and the easiest way to do that is with organic social channels. Tap into platforms that offer free reach (for good content), like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Coordinate with influencers/creators to post on launch day. Leverage collab posts with large pages. Organize highlights and stories on your profile to provide all the answers someone might have while learning about your brand.
Shoot and use high-quality content. Do not treat product photography and video like another checklist item that needs to get done. Good photography and video can make a templated Shopify site feel like a $100M brand from the get-go. Check out Cadence’s website to see how good content makes a website feel like a billion dollars.
Fill your PDP white space. Don’t leave large sections of white space on your PDPs. Even your product imagery shouldn’t have whitespace in it. Fill it with illustrative benefits.
Enable a basic attribution setup. You don’t need to use a fancy attribution tool, but make sure you are tagging all your traffic (paid, organic social, email, SMS, influencers, affiliates) with proper UTM parameters. Enable a post-purchase survey tool to see where your customers are coming from, and what got them to buy.
Setup your product catalog feed. The standard way a product catalog is pulled into ad platforms and Google Shopping is from the title, descriptions, and imagery in Shopify. My recommendation would be to use a feed management tool like Marpipe to manage all product information (title, description, price, sales, reviews, etc), segment your feed based on profit margin per product, and enhance your catalog feed creative (so it’s not just white backgrounds).
Have a developer on standby. Definitely at launch and for the first 72 hours, but after that, it’s worth it to have a developer who’s familiar with your website on-call. Whether it’s ad-hoc-based pricing or you lock in a set number of hours per month for site updates, don’t wait until you need a developer to find a developer. If you have a beautiful site, you might also pair this with a UX/UI designer.

What else would you add to this list? Reply with your addition and I’ll include it on the next newsletter!

That's all for this week

Today’s newsletter was a really fun one to write. As I wrote it, I was getting flashbacks to all the brands I’ve been a part of launching over the last few years. The brands that were extremely disciplined at launch (including doing all the things I mentioned in this email) are the ones that are doing well today. Those who didn’t take 10 out of 10 things seriously are either struggling and treading water, or they died off. Spend the time and resources to do 10 out of 10 things correctly — anything you don’t do right is what your competitor will sniff out, and do better than you.

It’s Sunday night, so I hope you’re planning to get 9 hours of sleep going into the new week. The sprint to complete everything for Q4 is well underway, so be sure to balance the stressful days with something to clear your mind.

Have a great upcoming week, I’ll see you next Sunday!

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