Happy Sunday!

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re feeling relaxed, hydrated and you’re ready to dive into another newsletter. The sun is finally setting a little earlier, fall is creeping in, and that only means one thing for those of us in DTC: Q4 is right around the corner.

Over the last couple of weeks my inbox has been flooded with founders and marketers asking the same thing, “Do you have a checklist I can hand off to my team so we’re ready for the holidays?” Well, yes and no. There’s a number of things I’ve been sharing with brands as we get ready for Q4, but I hadn’t compiled it in one spot. So for today’s newsletter, I put it all together. But, before we get into it…

Snapchat Ads — the performance channel people are sleeping on.

Snap just dropped the Snapchat Generation Report and it’s a must-read for Q4. Gen Z + Millennials control $5T+ in spending power, make purchase decisions fast, and drive trends. And Snapchat is where they actually hang out with friends and creators — less ad clutter, more trust, bigger impact.

Snapchatters aren’t just browsing, they’re buying: they’re 34% more likely to purchase from a Snap Ad vs other platforms, and they amplify those purchases by sharing them with friends. With new features like Sponsored Snaps (Sponsored Snaps that get opened drive 2x higher conversions per full-screen ad view!),

Snapchat gives you the opportunity to capture incremental audiences that aren’t on TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook daily.

If you’re serious about winning this holiday season, start with the data: Download the report here.

This past week on Limited Supply I spoke with Aaron Nosbich, the founder of BREZ, about what he is doing for Q4 this year. The promotions, the messaging, what AOV target, what ads he’s running, and what did well or did poorly last year.

Aaron wasn’t afraid to answer anything, so this conversation sounds like you’re listening into a hang session with us. Listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

Price and offer strategy matters. Your offer (discount, gift with purchase, buy‑one‑get‑one, free shipping, etc.) is what gets shoppers over the finish line on your website. Test different pricing frameworks. Amortise high‑ticket items (“$2 per day”) or call out “less than $1 per serving” for consumables (if the servings to $ math makes sense). Use risk reversals (60‑day money‑back guarantee) to remove objections. These should be displayed multiple times throughout your landing pages and PDPs.

Above‑the‑fold real estate is like prime Soho storefront. Every landing page and home page should have a clear hero image showing the product in action, a headline that sells the benefit and earns the scroll, and supportive evidence such as badges, bullets or a short sub‑headline. Think about pulling someone in from the street and convincing them to step through the door. It’s on you to make this entirely exciting and makes someone curious enough to keep going.

Aggressive merchandising. In the hero or shop section, make the offer obvious. Use strikethrough pricing, graphic overlay call‑outs (“20 % OFF”) or CTA buttons like “Save 20 % & Add to Cart”. Highlight cost‑per‑use and benefits right next to the add‑to‑cart button. Add micro‑trust elements such as “In stock, ships within 1–2 days,” “6,000+ sold,” or “600 ordered in the last 30 days”. Simplify variant selectors to no more than two decisions (ideally, size + color).

Write for mobile first. You’re reading this thinking, “Obviously.” But most sites aren’t written for mobile, even if they are designed for mobile. Over 80 % of traffic comes from mobile devices. Keep paragraphs short, use punchy, benefit‑focused copy and vary text sizes for hierarchy. Always design pages mobile‑first and adapt to desktop later. If you can use bullet lists instead of paragraphs. Use icons (ideally animated ones) to demonstrate benefits.

Use benefits and angles, not just value propositions. Customers don’t care that your product is “low calorie” or “patented”; they care that it’s the perfect after‑school snack or solves bloating. Derive copy from what customers say when they unbox, use and describe the product.

Leverage high‑quality social proof. Short‑form video testimonials, customer UGC and iMessage screenshots beat traditional press quotes because they feel genuine. For older audiences use outlets like NYT or Good Morning America; for younger audiences use NYLON or PopSugar. Often times you’ll notice that social proof does really well across the website, it’s worth even designing a few sections that you can put on every single page of your site.

Focus on ADA compliance. Dozens of brands have been hit with frivolous lawsuits over missing alt text, poor colour contrast, lack of keyboard navigation, missing form labels or non‑captioned videos. Audit your site against WCAG guidelines, test manually and with tools, and consult legal counsel to avoid headaches. If you want to be very advanced with ADA compliance, have Nick Pujji’s team run a quarterly audit using all the tools the ambulance-chasing attorneys use to find you, so they have the evidence ready. He handles the most cases in the country for ADA (and was my neighbor growing up!).

Optimise every module on landing pages. When driving traffic from influencer or publisher links, send users to a dedicated landing page and include sections that answer five questions:

1. What are you, the brand, selling?
2. Why should I, the consumer, care?
3. How fast can I get it if I order today?
4. How will it make my life better?
5. How does it compare to other options in the market?

Once you have answers to those five questions, you want to sprinkle those answers throughout the page itself. Make sure you don’t forget to include on all sale or promotional pages:

• Hero section that aligns with the creative (include the influencer’s photo if applicable) and states the problem and solution.
• Social proof sections featuring relevant reviews or UGC in the same format as the traffic source (e.g. embedded TikTok if coming from TikTok).
• Shop section that merchandises the product featured by the influencer; use bundles or introductory offers to raise AOV. Highlight benefits next to add‑to‑cart, show review stars and include guarantees and value per serving.
• Comparison chart to give shoppers a reference point.
• Product details, FAQ and “What’s in the box” to answer every possible objection.
  • This modular approach drives 9–10 %+ conversion rates compared with sending traffic to a generic home page.

Activate the middle of the funnel. Between your ads and the checkout lives the research zone for consumers. This includes Google reviews, TikTok searches, Reddit threads and people texting their friends for their opinion. Strengthen this zone by encouraging reviews and UGC across channels, running advertorials and third‑party listicles, building browse‑recovery and educational email flows, retargeting with segment‑specific ads that address objections, offering try‑before‑you‑buy kits (like Snif) and investing in community monitoring/engagement. Measure MoF health through branded search volume, review sentiment, engagement metrics and post‑purchase surveys. This is hard to quantify with a direct ROI, which is why most brands don’t do much here, but if you look at the best brands today, their middle-funnel is really dense.

Lean into creator and affiliate partnerships. Partnership ads (formerly “Whitelisting”) let you run ads through a creator’s account. They typically deliver 20–30 % lower CPAs and higher CTRs than ads coming from the brand’s own pages, saying the brand sells the best stuff! To maximize efficiencies with creator partnerships, build modular landing pages and unique URLs for each creator. As much as possible, use personalized codes and track performance using UTM parameters, wrapped in vanity URLs.

Use short-form, organic platforms as a testing ground. Test hooks and angles organically on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube Shorts; scale only the content that drives shares and comments. Hiring a full‑time creator for daily posts can yield millions of impressions per month. Whatever works well, you can scale it up using paid ads.

Treat your welcome flow like a date. Introduce yourself with warmth, then explain why your product is better, show it off, bring the social proof, give a last‑chance offer and, if trust is still lacking, direct them to retail partners. Keep messages personalised (use the recipient’s name) and send them promptly after signup or purchase. The more personal you can make this message, based on browsing/user history, the better it will perform. Given brands are aggressively remarketing during Q4, I would recommend turning up the heat/aggressiveness on these flows.

Send more emails than you think during big promotions. For Black Friday the average brand sent 11 emails, but 15 to 20 emails across the weekend drives meaningful revenue lifts. Send an announcement at 12:01 AM, reminders during the day, segmented blasts to non‑openers, texts with exclusive offers, inventory warnings, founder‑authored messages and last‑chance notices. Always state the offer in the subject line and use segments and exclusions after the first few sends.

Bundles beat deep discounts. Building bundles increases AOV and offers customers variety. Use merchandised bundles and build‑your‑own‑bundle pages with cross‑sells/upsells and relevant product education. More than anything, well-merchandised bundles make shopping easier for your site visitors.

Credit‑back offers > percent‑off discounts. During holiday promotions offer cash back or store credit on future purchases instead of straight discounts, or run gift card promotions; these campaigns drive repeat purchases and urgency (great for Q4). 

Urgency and scarcity drive action. Use countdown timers, low‑stock notices and “6,734 bought in the last 24 hours” messages. Schedule flash sales, mystery boxes and golden‑ticket promotions to keep excitement high.

[Not for everyone] Segment and personalize. For Q4, build different offers for VIP customers, lapsed customers and new subscribers; send early access to loyalists; gate secret sale pages with email/SMS capture; and use quizzes or wheel‑spins to collect data. Make sure your site auto‑applies discount codes so customers don’t have to think. If you have the resources, a lucrative sale setup makes the sales more exciting. Rare Beauty and SET Active both had amazing examples of this last Q4.

Think beyond price. Offer gifts with purchase, create limited‑edition bundles, partner with charities (match donations), and run point multipliers for loyalty members. If you haven’t tried the charity promotion, offering 20% of net revenue to a charity does just as strong as giving consumers a 20% off code to shop.

Make policies clear. Guarantee statements, return windows, shipping timelines and financing options should be spelled out near the add‑to‑cart button. Include a simple FAQ section on ALL landing pages to prevent users from leaving to search for answers.

Treat every visitor like Kim Kardashian on the red carpet. Anticipate questions and provide answers before they’re asked: unboxing videos, what’s in the box, cost per use, shipping timelines, return policies and trust badges. A visitor should never have to leave the page to find information. Whether it’s on a landing page making sure there is enough information, or on the Instagram account putting information out through profile highlights, make it easy for people to get educated.

The DTC world evolves at lightning speed, but the core of conversion rate optimisation hasn’t changed: deeply understand your customer’s journey, remove friction at every step and build trust through clarity and proof.

It’s Sunday night, so I hope you’re planning to get a full 9 hours of sleep going into the new week. Make sure you take care of yourself. Go for walks. Do things that make you laugh. Phone an old friend. Stay sane during the madness of Q4 that begins this week. 

I’ll see you next Sunday. Have an amazing upcoming week!

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