August 26, 2025 • 37 mins
Trevor Crump and his co-host Mark Goldhardt dive into the critical importance of customer retention for e-commerce brands. They explore why cohort data and email performance have declined since 2021, and how this impacts overall business success. The hosts offer unconventional insights on increasing customer lifetime value, including sending more frequent emails, building community, and staying top-of-mind. They challenge the notion that high ROAS is always best, arguing that brands focused on retention can afford lower acquisition costs and ultimately win in the long run.
Follow Trevor Crump on Instagram and TikTok @thetrevorcrump for more marketing insights and to connect directly with the host.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stay top of mind.
Don't settle with the fact thatsomeone made a first purchase.
That's when you should thinkthe game actually starts Like
okay, now we have to lock in andmake sure they buy again in the
next X amount of time.
That's the goal.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer Podcast.
With me, as always, is MarkGoldhart, my co-host.
Mark, how are you doing thisTuesday morning?
Doing well, good, doing well,good, doing well.
Summer is officially over.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It is At least from a kid's perspective.
Yeah, no, this is the last week.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Like the actual.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, there's a monsoon coming through, so
temperatures are going to dropnext week Seriously and then
they're not going to come backup, I bet.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Really.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
We're going to see.
We're going to see like the 80s.
And then it's probably going tobe 80s from here on out, lower
80s and then 70s soon after, andthen 60s it's a good time 30s.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's a really good time.
I'm excited Speaking of summerending, summer's ending yeah, we
didn't record last week?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No, we didn't, I was in Yellowstone.
Yeah, you were gone Summer'sending yeah, we didn't record
last week.
No, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I was in Yellowstone.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, you were gone.
We'll pass over the videos.
Our grizzly bears yeah, I'msure everyone wants to see it.
We saw five grizzly bears thatis pretty crazy, one black bear
by a bighorn sheep, a female.
They're just roaming around Aewe.
I think they still call themewes.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Female sheep.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh, okay, you saw some bison.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, we saw the quintessential things like the
bison and the elk.
What?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
about birds Caught some big old bugs.
What about some like there?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
was a salmon fly hatch going on.
So there's some big old.
I mean, they're like that big,oh cool.
Found the river, pulled outsome rocks, found some stone
flies.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What about, like eagles?
You seen eagles?
No, really.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
No eagles this time.
Usually you do, but a lot ofosprey, oh cool, which are cool.
Yeah, awesome diving downcatching some stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But yeah, it was great end of summer trip for us
last week.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
We won't record now, we should every week yeah, we
should, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
But end of summer means your store might be up or
down right now probably feelinga little volatile, but it should
be smoothing out into In thenext couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, Because you've gotten people like, for example,
my kids just went back toschool, my nieces and nephews go
back to school this week, yeah,and then I was just talking to
some people and they go backnext week.
So we're kind of in this stageof where it's still kind of back
to school-ish season, if youhave anything like that, that
works.
But hopefully over the nextcouple weeks you're going to
(02:50):
start to see some improvementsbecause you're going to have
people who are going to be moreregularly on their phones.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And not just with.
You're underneath a bind,though.
You're in between a rock and ahard spot.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Explain.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So if you're a store owner, this is what's happening.
You have buying, behavior isgoing to normalize and people
get excited because you get backto school, and then you have
Labor Day and then you have hey,I need stuff for winter, but
then you have oh wait, black.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Friday is coming.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
And so then you're going to hit October and feel
like, oh no, everything'sbreaking again.
But it's just.
There are seasonal trends thatyou just have to be aware of.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Totally and remember that.
You know, I think, thateverybody gets so focused.
This is a common thing we'reseeing as we're onboarding new
clients and talking to newpeople all the time.
There are still people who areso ingrained in I have to have a
certain amount of ROAS.
My ROAS, or my efficiencymetrics, must be X or else it
(03:57):
doesn't work out.
But you need to look at thebigger picture and not just look
at things by week and by month,but start to look at things by
quarter, you know, start to lookat things by year.
Um, there are plenty of brandsthat we work with that might
break even or even lose moneymonth to month, but once a month
(04:19):
, once a quarter, they have areally big launch or a really
big sale or something huge thatthat just crushes and it makes
up for any lack of profitabilitythey had in the prior month or
prior two months.
You know and not saying thatthat's how we work with all
clients, but there's just somescenarios in which it doesn't.
You shouldn't slow down justbecause things get less
(04:43):
efficient.
Meaning, if we're definingcohorts by people who buy within
the same month, right, that's aspecific cohort and we're going
to talk more about this on thepodcast, but we've found that
October cohorts oftentimes forbrands become the best cohort or
best returning customers forNovember during Black Friday
(05:08):
yeah, they do, right.
So a lot of people get scaredbecause your CPA conversion
rates dip and CPAs increase inOctober, and so people stop
spending money and they stopacquiring customers and then
they get less returning customerrevenue.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
They do Don't get scared, so look at your data,
your data will tell you.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Understand there's times and seasons for everything
.
And just know that we're aboutto be in a good.
You know, September oftentimesis a good one because you got
Labor Day, like you said, andback to school.
Yeah, but it might changeshortly after.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But cohort data is an important piece to the puzzle
of how people approachacquisition.
I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah.
So definition of a cohort is,yeah, a group of people.
You know when we're talking onShopify or you know your
e-commerce store, a group ofpeople that have bought within a
certain time frame.
So it's either you have monthcohorts, you can have quarterly
cohorts, you can have daily,weekly, whatever right, but it's
(06:11):
usually going to be by a monthoff.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
At least, that's the metric shop if I will give you
yeah, that's the metric by month.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, um, for the layman, for the layman, and then
in that cohort it's going toshow you, it's generally going
to be laid out as it's generallygoing to be laid out, as the
cohort is going to be the left,the y-axis and then the x-axis
is going to be the time that haspassed from that cohort.
So zero means same month, oneis the next month, two is two
(06:40):
months later.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
eleven, twelve.
We'll even give you a graphhere.
What you'll see is you'll seethe month, you'll see a total
amount of revenue.
You'll see or percentage, likecause you can do a retention
rate or just revenue revenuewhatever.
Then the next call will be howmuch new customer, for example,
revenue was made that month Yep.
(07:03):
Then you have column zero.
For example, revenue was madethat month.
Then you have column zero, zeromonth.
One month, two month, threemonth, and so what that means is
, of all the people who boughtat once in that month, this is
how many in month zero came backand spent.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Or how much more money from that cohort.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You can change the metric, yeah so you might have
like $100,000 here and then$10,000.
And then $10,000.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And then $6,000 in month one, or you might have
your retention rate, which wouldbe 3% to 20%, bought within
that time frame to the next, tothe next, to the next.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We'll put a little.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So the reason why it's an important metric is
because we all know thatlifetime value is going to be
heavily dictated upon purchasingbehavior within 90 days.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
And even more so within 30 and 60 days.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Do you want to give the stat Depending on AOV?
Do you want to give that statLike why it's so important?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
in those first times timeframes.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Well, if somebody doesn't come back and buy within
60 to 90 days period it'susually, your ltv is going to
drop by like 80 yeah, within theyear yes and on the flip side,
it's like if they come back andbuy for a second time, yeah,
their lifetime value will doublein that same year compared to
(08:25):
if they don't.
It'll take five years for themto reach that, or something like
that.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's a crazy metric so, yeah, month zero one and two
are way more important than Ithink most people are paying
attention to.
So we talk about acquisition alot and, yes, acquisition is
going to be the gasoline in theengine, but you have to be
checking your oil and thatretention is going to be the oil
(08:50):
of your engine.
You got to make sure that it'sactually lubricated and working
well.
Yeah, right, that you'regetting the rotation that you
need out of the fuel that you'reyou're putting into the engine,
and what we have noticed is,across quite a few stores, your
month zero one and two cohortshave gone down dramatically
(09:14):
Since, since 2021.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
There have been changes within deliverability
and iOS has changed email.
So there's things going on inthe email world, for sure, that
you might be aware of or you areaware of, but it's a big
problem that people need toaddress because if you just
solve that your acquisition youwould feel a lot better about
(09:40):
your acquisition.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Because your acquisition is making you feel a
certain way, but if you're notgetting people to come back,
especially that short time frame.
Because I mean there's somebrands that had we've looked at
some reports and it's like theyhad a 10 to 15% month zero
turnover.
So within the same month, ifthey bought in June, 15% of
(10:06):
people were buying again in June.
And that's dropped down to like5%.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, a lot of it's been cut in half or more, and
you're thinking what is going on, right?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So we've been doing digging, we're not going to give
away all our secrets.
I hope you put a little clip ofFrodo saying, yeah, you can
keep your secrets then all right, then keep your secrets.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
But we, we do want to help, at least guide you guys
in the right direction yeah, soyou mentioned a couple reasons
like should we, let's let's tryto address some of the whys?
yeah, so we we've seen thatthere's some kind of
deliverability thing going on,like it appears that email isn't
(10:52):
quite reaching the same amountof people yeah, for some for
some accounts, or it's notgetting delivered or if people
aren't paying attention to theiremail in the same way that they
used to yes, I was gonna sayyou got deliverability plus,
you've got just like attentionmaybe an email fatigue.
Yeah, like everyone's getting amillion emails, yeah I think
right now, like if I look at myphone, look at your phone too.
(11:14):
Like what does your app say?
How many emails do you haveunopened emails?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
unopened emails.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, like do you have the little like icon oh,
I'll tell you, I'm gonna bet youthat mine is over yours.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Really.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay, what's yours?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
$28,920 $28,000?
$28,000.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Wow, it's hiding some of mine, but yeah, mine says
$2,200, oh $24,096.
Uh, it's hiding some of mine,but yeah, mine.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Mine says 2200, oh 24,096 now, to be fair, I don't
use my personal email very muchfor this reason.
Right, it's because it's justlike it's overly fatigue, like
the.
The idea of going into that andlike dealing with that just
makes me sick yeah, you, youknow, so Makes you nauseous, you
(12:09):
know, and I also have 94 underanswer texts Like that's
actually kind of crazy too.
Well, all mail.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So there's communication fatigue.
I do.
I do declare email bankruptcy,like twice a year, though.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, meaning what?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I just delete everything.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Oh yeah, I I should do that, but there's not like an
easy way to do it.
Somebody's been talking aboutlike ai agents that will do this
for you.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I just declare it and just delete it.
Yeah, say sorry if you want tohopefully there's nothing
important here, so okay, so backto it.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You've got email fatigue.
Why do you have email fatigue?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Well, everybody's emailing, but the email has
become the house mailbox.
You're just expecting a certainlevel of spam Totally.
It just kind of is what it is.
But I mean, I don't know if thebehavior has changed that much
over five years.
Maybe it has.
But there's also somedeliverability things going on
with, like email providers.
It appears that, um, that mightbe going on, but the big, the
(13:15):
big thing is I just think peopledon't send enough emails, like
you.
People just are notcommunicating enough with their
customer.
I think that's really totallylike that's and that's the only
thing you can change in some ofthese situations well, yeah, and
a lot of people are thinking tothemselves, um, like, like.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
So a lot of people hear this like oh well, if
everyone's overdoing it, doesemail even work.
Should I even do it?
Means, you should do it moreyeah, it means you should do it
more.
Yeah, right because, like,because you're trying to catch
them.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, like a good chance.
Your email is just gettingbelow seven other emails.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, it's an at-bats game.
Yes, it is totally an at-batsgame.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And all the DTC darlings that you guys hear
about online.
We have tracked their emailsthey are sending.
If you're listening to thispodcast, you are probably behind
them by 90%.
They are probably out sendingyou 10 to 1.
Totally, especially within thefirst 7 days of sign up and then
(14:13):
after purchase.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Those first 10 days are crazy, the brands that are
crushing it.
Those first 10 days are nuts 1to 3 emails a day and you might
say I don't want to scare themoff.
I think people used to getscared off, but people's
intentions aren't like.
I don't want to scare them off.
I think people used to getscared off, but people's
intentions aren't like.
I'm unsubscribing from thesepeople and guess what?
If they're unsubscribing,that's totally fine.
In fact, that's going to saveyou money down the long run.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, you don't want people.
You don't even want to beemailing people if they're not
going to buy right.
So the point is A a look at yourcohort data.
Try to figure out if there is acorrelation with your cohort
data and performance I guaranteethere is and look at your email
performance over time, like,are you a brand and there's a
(15:00):
good chance you are that you'rethinking, hey, maybe performance
has gone down.
Or, you know, if maybe you'relooking at a blended metric,
maybe you're looking at what Imean, I don't know what your
performance metrics that you'relooking at, we look at ours that
we deem are the best.
But if you're, if yourperformance is going down, it's
probably a combination of yes,there's acquisition problems,
(15:21):
probably, but there's probably abigger thing that's going
unknown and unseen in yourcohorts.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And a quick, a quick way to look at this is just look
at, like, compare the last forthe last five years, what your
annual clicks are from emailLike.
That's a really easy way tojust look at it.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
You can look at a third party like Google or even
Shopify, will show you.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Klaviyo will show you too, you know or whatever email
provider.
Just say what were my clicks in2021, 2022, 2023, 2024?
And now you might have grownfrom those times.
So you'll have to look at thatin relation to sessions as well.
So look at like overallsessions.
So, for example, if you had100,000 sessions in 2021 and you
had, you know, 50,000 clicks orwhatever you know from an email
(16:14):
, you can also look at theratios too.
But if you're going down, youdon't even need to look at the
ratios as much.
Right, if you're going downhillyou went 100,000 to 90,000, to
80,000, to 60,000, you can juststart to see like well, what is
my ratio on email?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, like why and why is it going down?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, email and SMS, by the way.
And then I think the otherthing that's important to note
as to why these cohorts arelower and dipping is like.
I think we've also seen amassive decrease in reach,
organically, for a lot of brands.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We're organically um for a lot of brands we're for
sure seeing such a big, such abig decrease in reach
organically.
If you are a brand, you havefelt your brand's reach go down
organically and that's a factyeah, and that helps.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Obviously, reach is good for acquisition, but like
also just being top of mind foryour current customers as well.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
well, for example, let's go back to the
chronological feed of 2016.
If you're a brand and you'relaunching a new product, you
could count on your feedreaching your audience and
letting them know you have a newproduct, and you could count on
your emails reaching youraudience, or vice versa, right,
(17:22):
they saw it on their feed andthen they see their email and
then they come to site, so thatyou had this natural flywheel,
organic effect of reaching youraudience very directly and very
quickly yeah that you are, youdon't have anymore.
Sure, like you post that youhave a new release, like you're
not necessarily reaching totallyyour audience in the way you
(17:43):
used to be, yep.
So like you said, the organicpiece, that we're not saying,
that yeah, the acquisition sidefor sure, but if you're not
reaching people about a newrelease or whatever, the sale or
whatever, or new content that'sjust fun and engaging.
Then those retention rates godown right.
They don't know about it.
So we have to reframe goingforward with marketing and, yes,
(18:10):
we're biased, we have an agency, but you're, you're gonna have
to.
Everyone has to rethink of howyou get the attention of not
only prospects but of yourcustomers.
Again, you do need to focus onacquisition and what your actual
new customer returns are andyour profits.
But within that 60-day, 90-dayperiod, whatever it is, you'll
(18:34):
have to determine that in yourdata.
You're going to have to startmaking some decisions that might
hurt you as a store owner or asa marketer, but you're going to
have to start thinking aboutwhat happens to my retention
rate if we test A, B or C.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
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Well, I have a third thing Iwant to bring up as to why it's
it's hurting, so I'll bring thatup.
But I also want to just bringup this analogy.
It's it's it's a very similarsituation is like if you are in
the dating market and I have notbeen in the dating market for
(19:53):
16 years, so things may havechanged, but if you're in the
dating market and you go on adate with you know somebody and
you really like her or him, doyou wait 30 days?
Speaker 1 (20:07):
some do.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, it's called the game but, but it probably never
wins.
All playing the game, right,but it but, but like if you, but
if it's 30 days, that's notgoing to win.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Oh, you can't text them too soon.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, sure, you might wait a day or two if you want
to play the game, right To notbe overly enthusiastic, but
you're going to have to makecontact with that person in a
meaningful way within a shorteramount of time, absolutely Right
Now.
The third reason why I think.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But playing the game, yeah.
I don't think playing the gameworks for anybody In the long
run.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
No For the most part.
Yeah For long-term healthyrelationships.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, I guess it depends on what your goal is.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
You're just trying to psychologically manipulate
people, yeah, but guess what?
We're talking about stores andpeople and, like you're not in a
relationship and like you're,it's just about being top of
mind.
It's that simple.
We don't have to even turn thisinto something, it's not.
It's same thing that we talkedabout with Sydney Sweeney.
What is she doing for thesebrands is she is making all of
(21:12):
them top of mind, because she istop of mind Totally.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That was going to be my third thing.
That was going to be my thirdthing is, like, I think the
other thing that's helped that'shurting brands.
So, if you look at 2021 versus2025, one huge factor that we
haven't discussed but we talkabout all the time on the
podcast is that it's never beeneasier to start a business.
So in 2021, you had sure youhad competition, but competition
, but your everyone'scompetition has grown 10x.
(21:37):
I think you go back to 2018,but yeah, totally, yeah, right,
everyone's competition growsevery single year, and which
goes back to the top of mind.
So, like, everybody's got anidea, how did american eagle
become top of mind?
They did something differentand they were top of mind, right
, right.
So not only did they takecindweeney, who was top of mind,
but they took a controversialtopic.
That just differentiated themfrom other people as well, well,
(21:59):
it wasn't even.
Well.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It turned controversial Totally.
It would have been viral nomatter what, because it's.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Sidney Sweeney.
Again, we're talking about yes.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
She's a voluptuous.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
They just did something different, right?
They were showing her off andshe likes to show off, so brands
that are doing things in adifferent way is also a very big
win when it comes to standingout.
You just have to do thingsdifferent.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yes and be top of mind.
And top of mind is repetition.
Yeah, right, like how manytimes?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
One of the ways to be top of mind is repetition right
.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
In fact, I would say that's the most scientific way
of standing out is repetition.
If you see something multipletimes, you're psychologically,
scientifically, it starts beingassociated in that person's mind
as truth.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
However, you want to define that word truth in that
person's mind as truth For sure.
However, you want to definethat word truth.
So the best way to stand outyes is oh, I saw that red beamer
.
Oh, I saw that red beamer.
Oh, I saw that red beamer, yeah, yeah.
Why am I seeing red BMWs?
Have you ever gone through aday and you start noticing
something pop up five differenttimes Totally?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Oh, now I'm thinking about like, yeah, tesla did this
really good.
Right.
Like Tesla went from like onlythe rich and famous oh, that's a
cool car.
That's a cool car.
And now it's such a common carbecause it was just everywhere,
so people started to believelike, oh, this is a good car,
this is something I need, thisoh, it's reliable.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Like I'm going to the , I'm going to invest my money
into it because I'm going to,I'm going to invest my money
into it.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Because I'm going to save, I'm going to do-do-do yes.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
In fact it's such a common car.
The social factor here, rightis like repetition, like you can
cut through the repetition totruth with like social proof,
right.
So using other people's voicesand having validation around it.
But at the end of the day, thebest way to repetition well, it
is repetition, but it cutsthrough the, the idea that, like
(24:03):
hey, I now trustworthiness.
I now believe that this is atrustworthy car, like Tesla,
cause I've seen it so much, soit must be good if so many
people are getting it totallylike that happens over time.
But you can cut through thatwith ads.
But with the repetition part is, the more someone sees you, the
more top of mind you are.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And this is why product seeding is also a really
cool thing too.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yes, I know a lot of people are kind of over it.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But it's like once again, like how did Comfort, the
Swe sweatpants and sweatercompany, become a $300 million
company?
It's because every singleperson on Tik TOK.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Oh, it must be a good company.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I've never experienced sweatpants like them
before.
I must.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I must think you know .
And so I think sometimes withmarketing guys, I the lesson
here, with cohorts and juststaying top of mind and getting
people to come back, is, I thinkwe sometimes, as marketers and
businesses, try to outthink.
First, principles and the nameof the game of marketing and it
always has been and always willbe is top of mind, and that
(25:09):
involves repetition.
So, yeah, yes, that that's partof the acquisition side, but
then the retention side too.
Like they bought your product,you are now top of mind.
You now have an opportunity tonot just be a product they
bought and forgot about, but bea brand that is embedded into
their lifestyle for sure, andoftentimes after selling them
(25:31):
and they, they spent their.
That's the most powerful votein America, right?
Is they spent money on yourthing?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And now you're just going to like, let them hang out
, like, oh, I don't want to talkto them, like, uh, totally,
maybe they're busy.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Uh, we'll give them till nextweek.
Yeah, it's like just, theydon't have to open an email,
guys.
Yeah, you're not calling them,they don't have to open a text.
100% Follow up with them, betop of mind and then and offer
(26:04):
them stuff.
Yeah, offer them upsells.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Treat them like the people who just supported you.
Yes, you know like.
Treat them well.
You know it's like there's nota single restaurant nowadays
that you go to that doesn't havesome sort of.
Oh, you've shopped with us fourtimes, you get a free drink in
fact, there's a great example.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I want to bring this up.
There's a good argument to bemade that you should people
always look at discounts as away to get new customers.
There's actually great evidence, depending on your brand, um
that you should probably notever give a new customer a
discount totally but the deeperthe discount the deeper the
(26:47):
discount for new customers theworst type of customers they
tend to be totally they're notgoing to come back very often.
They're not going to have highlifetime values.
They're discount shoppers, yeah.
And if you are a discount brand, whatever but most of you
probably aren't yeah, but you'rereturning customers.
You've already made animpression on them.
Now you could get to make themfeel special by curating an
(27:10):
offer for them, totally.
So, going back to what you said, like hey, I go to whatever I
get a free drink after 10 times,yeah, oh, that makes me feel
special, like I'm not reallydoing it to get that free drink,
totally no, no no.
Yeah, I'm not going to buy 10drinks to get one drink Right.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
But that's fun, but that is something that keeps me
like that's a thought for sure.
Yeah, you know, like if I'mlisten, I have like Mark will
laugh, but there's like you knowfive, you know maybe three or
four restaurants we eat at andbut there's one specific that I
will always pick If no one hasan opinion.
Yeah, I'm always going to pickone restaurant and part of that
(27:50):
is because of that.
Like they just like one.
I love the food and it'shealthier.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's cleaner.
But then it's like these guysare constantly giving me $10 off
.
Oh nice, yeah, you know, andit's like if I'm gonna pick the,
if I like, four things the same, but these people treat me a
little better.
Who am I going with thesepeople?
Now?
The office gets more sick ofthe food than I do, but it's a
(28:17):
different story.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's fine though.
Yeah, it's good, yeah, but towrap this up, the last thing
that I think brands and thisone's so hard, and we know it's
hard and I'm sure a lot of youhave tried this.
But the community side rightknow it's hard and I'm sure a
lot of you have tried this, butthe community side right, there
are Facebook groups thatliterally buoy brands through,
(28:41):
oh my gosh the year, oh myespecially the hard times and
it's because it's direct andthere's people engaged in the
community.
And no, it's not.
I don't know.
People are gonna say it's nottechnically owned like an email
or whatever, but it's.
It's more of an owned audienceand you're gonna get to them a
lot sooner and a lot fasterbecause of the notification
(29:03):
within the groups.
Uh, we see some brandstinkering around with like
discords, so be thinking aboutyour own media.
I.
If email isn't reaching peoplein the same way, is there a
place that you can get your mostloyal customers to make sure
that they see your product andalso use them as propulsion to
(29:26):
reach other people?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, yeah, I know you might think it's silly, like
why would anybody want tocreate a community around?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Chapstick.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, but Burt's Bees had a oh yeah dude rabid base.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, it's just interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Some people just like need to be attached to
something and they're passionateabout it and they become your
most loyal, successful, highestrevenue profitability generating
people.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yes, they do.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And I think a lot of people overlook the community,
and we know it's hard, totally.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I'm sure a lot of people are rolling their eyes.
Build a community, yeah, hardersaid than done.
Or harder done than said,easier said than done.
Easier said than done, yeah,but or harder done than said,
easier said than done, easiersaid than done, yeah, oh, I'm
dyslexic, um, but yes, do that.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Think about it yeah, and also remember just like I
want to end on this note also alot of changes you make in
something that people don't like.
Going back to email Sometimes,if you make changes on email and
you stop the outreach I knowemail is oftentimes meant for
retention, but there are a lotof people who subscribe who have
(30:49):
never bought from you that youremail impacts net new
acquisition as well.
And impacts it way more than youwould, so much more than you
think we've run into a couplepeople this year who it has it
tanked their overall acquisition, where their first order offer.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Email wasn't sending or yes they changed to pop up or
totally there's little detailsthat can impact your brand.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
So remember, yeah, it impacts acquisition too.
It's not just like paid adsthat drive everything.
Oftentimes paid ads mightintroduce, but the email might
be the thing that converts.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
So look at those metrics.
There are great email peopleout there that do great work
Totally.
Check your metrics.
Check your metrics, check yourcohort, see what's going on,
because a lot of you might beable to fix and be on the right
path just from fixing that aloneyeah.
(31:47):
Like you might be thinking abouthey, my agency or hey, this guy
or my marketing guy isn't doinga good job and unfortunately
for them, or the marketing guyor your internal team, their
performance is dictatedoftentimes by this month zero
month, one Totally Retentionrate, and that might be down 30,
(32:08):
40, 50 percent remember we hada cody wittek on the podcast,
yeah, a couple months ago, sohe's been on the podcast a
couple times.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
He's also another agency owner.
Yeah, we need to bring him back.
It was such a good episode.
Um, I like cody, but anyways,he said something on the podcast
that I know we've said before,but he just came out and bluntly
said it, which was like thelower my ROAS can be, the better
the brand is.
Right, everyone's wanting ahigh ROAS and he was saying this
(32:37):
as like a.
Well, if I'm you knowcompetitor A and competitor B.
If competitor A is focused on athree, ro B, if competitor a Is
focused on a three row as andcompetitor B is Focused on a one
, which one's gonna win, well,the one's always gonna.
One's Gonna win, right, and sowhy Can competitor be?
If it's same product, same AOV,why can competitor B be More
(33:00):
focused on a one versus a threeover here?
It's because this person hasSomebody who's coming back and
buying more frequently or atleast they understand there's an
operational side to it.
Yeah yeah, but let's just, let'sjust take the the retention
side into this, versus likethey've got their opex dialed
it's because they're they'refocused on making profit on
round two yeah, they understandhow to get this person to come
back x amount of times.
(33:21):
And so what?
Because of that, they are ableto scale so much more on the net
new acquisition, which willthen come back X amount of times
.
And so, because of that, theyare able to scale so much more
on the net new acquisition,which will then come back and
help them win in the long run.
You know what I mean.
And so retention has theability to chase almost a
(33:42):
zero-sum game on the acquisitionside.
You know the race to the bottom, I guess I would say, and maybe
not the zero-sum.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Well, a race to the bottom, not in the sense of the
value of the product, but just arace where, like the lower you
can go, Cost to acquire, doesn't?
Yeah, and this is just how anauction works.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
If you can afford to pay more, and this is also
marketing 101, if you can affordto pay more for a customer,
you're often going to winTotally.
Now, yes, that's a dangerousgame.
You can go out of businessdoing that.
Yep, you don't have again theright retention and the right
game plan.
So we're not saying just go outthere and lose a bunch of money
on your first customer.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, you've got to understand your cash flow and
your profitability and yourproducts that are.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
You have to be first time profitable, right 100.
But yeah, lesson number one isif you're top of mind, you're
gonna win, and being top of mindoften means you're willing to
pay more for a customer becauseyou're gonna be top of mind pay
more in time and money.
Yes, yeah, time meaning I'msending eight emails out a week
(34:45):
versus two now, once you acquirethat customer with the
retention rate going back tothat, I just want to say stay
top of mind.
You were through top of mind.
If you're top of mind enough toget them to buy, stay top of
mind and see what happens.
Don't settle with the fact thatsomeone made a first purchase
for sure, like that's when.
That's when you should thinkthe game actually starts.
Totally, totally, like okay,now we have to lock in and make
(35:10):
sure they buy again in the next,yeah, x amount of time, like
that's the goal a thousandpercent not the first time.
It's gonna come back again whatis it?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I can't remember.
It's like if you can increaseyour retention rate by like five
percent, it increases your likerevenue by 25, or something
like it.
There's these yeah, because youretention yeah yeah, yeah, like
you could just do that aloneand revenues increases by 25%
because it starts compounding.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, with those cohorts, it might even be more
than that.
I can't remember what thenumbers are, so yes, do that
everybody if nothing elsechanges.
Right like you already gotthese people in your freaking
funnel what the numbers are.
So, yes, do that everybody, ifnothing else changes.
Right Like you already gotthese people in your freaking
funnel, they already bought.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, it doesn't cost you anymore.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Maybe a discount.
It might cost you more, butit's worth it.
It's going to cost you a lotless to get them to buy a second
time.
Yeah, and it's going to costyou to get someone to buy a
first time?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, and it's going to cost you to get someone to
buy a first time?
Yeah, like four and a halftimes less or something Like.
The numbers are weird.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
They're crazy.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Way less Retention.
Retention Focus on it more.
I know acquisition is great,but also create better products
too.
I know we didn't really talkabout that, but obviously better
products than everyone else.
Yeah, if your products suck,then sorry, your retention's
going to suck too, so you got tohave, yeah, baseline.
You have to have a good productRight.
You can't have something crappythat's going to fall apart or
(36:31):
break or be hard to use orwhatever it might be.
Okay, awesome, all right,everybody.
Thank you so much and we willsee you guys next week.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unstoppable Marketer
podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from you,because we always want to make
(36:52):
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.
I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you, and we will see younext week.
Stay top of mind.
Don't settle with the fact thatsomeone made a first purchase.
That's when you should thinkthe game actually starts Like
okay, now we have to lock in andmake sure they buy again in the
next X amount of time.
That's the goal.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer Podcast.
With me, as always, is MarkGoldhart, my co-host.
Mark, how are you doing thisTuesday morning?
Doing well, good, doing well,good, doing well.
Summer is officially over.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It is At least from a kid's perspective.
Yeah, no, this is the last week.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Like the actual.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, there's a monsoon coming through, so
temperatures are going to dropnext week Seriously and then
they're not going to come backup, I bet.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Really.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
We're going to see.
We're going to see like the 80s.
And then it's probably going tobe 80s from here on out, lower
80s and then 70s soon after, andthen 60s it's a good time 30s.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It's a really good time.
I'm excited Speaking of summerending, summer's ending yeah, we
didn't record last week?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No, we didn't, I was in Yellowstone.
Yeah, you were gone Summer'sending yeah, we didn't record
last week.
No, we didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I was in Yellowstone.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, you were gone.
We'll pass over the videos.
Our grizzly bears yeah, I'msure everyone wants to see it.
We saw five grizzly bears thatis pretty crazy, one black bear
by a bighorn sheep, a female.
They're just roaming around Aewe.
I think they still call themewes.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Female sheep.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh, okay, you saw some bison.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, we saw the quintessential things like the
bison and the elk.
What?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
about birds Caught some big old bugs.
What about some like there?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
was a salmon fly hatch going on.
So there's some big old.
I mean, they're like that big,oh cool.
Found the river, pulled outsome rocks, found some stone
flies.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What about, like eagles?
You seen eagles?
No, really.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
No eagles this time.
Usually you do, but a lot ofosprey, oh cool, which are cool.
Yeah, awesome diving downcatching some stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But yeah, it was great end of summer trip for us
last week.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
We won't record now, we should every week yeah, we
should, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
But end of summer means your store might be up or
down right now probably feelinga little volatile, but it should
be smoothing out into In thenext couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, Because you've gotten people like, for example,
my kids just went back toschool, my nieces and nephews go
back to school this week, yeah,and then I was just talking to
some people and they go backnext week.
So we're kind of in this stageof where it's still kind of back
to school-ish season, if youhave anything like that, that
works.
But hopefully over the nextcouple weeks you're going to
(02:50):
start to see some improvementsbecause you're going to have
people who are going to be moreregularly on their phones.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And not just with.
You're underneath a bind,though.
You're in between a rock and ahard spot.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Explain.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So if you're a store owner, this is what's happening.
You have buying, behavior isgoing to normalize and people
get excited because you get backto school, and then you have
Labor Day and then you have hey,I need stuff for winter, but
then you have oh wait, black.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Friday is coming.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
And so then you're going to hit October and feel
like, oh no, everything'sbreaking again.
But it's just.
There are seasonal trends thatyou just have to be aware of.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Totally and remember that.
You know, I think, thateverybody gets so focused.
This is a common thing we'reseeing as we're onboarding new
clients and talking to newpeople all the time.
There are still people who areso ingrained in I have to have a
certain amount of ROAS.
My ROAS, or my efficiencymetrics, must be X or else it
(03:57):
doesn't work out.
But you need to look at thebigger picture and not just look
at things by week and by month,but start to look at things by
quarter, you know, start to lookat things by year.
Um, there are plenty of brandsthat we work with that might
break even or even lose moneymonth to month, but once a month
(04:19):
, once a quarter, they have areally big launch or a really
big sale or something huge thatthat just crushes and it makes
up for any lack of profitabilitythey had in the prior month or
prior two months.
You know and not saying thatthat's how we work with all
clients, but there's just somescenarios in which it doesn't.
You shouldn't slow down justbecause things get less
(04:43):
efficient.
Meaning, if we're definingcohorts by people who buy within
the same month, right, that's aspecific cohort and we're going
to talk more about this on thepodcast, but we've found that
October cohorts oftentimes forbrands become the best cohort or
best returning customers forNovember during Black Friday
(05:08):
yeah, they do, right.
So a lot of people get scaredbecause your CPA conversion
rates dip and CPAs increase inOctober, and so people stop
spending money and they stopacquiring customers and then
they get less returning customerrevenue.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
They do Don't get scared, so look at your data,
your data will tell you.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Understand there's times and seasons for everything
.
And just know that we're aboutto be in a good.
You know, September oftentimesis a good one because you got
Labor Day, like you said, andback to school.
Yeah, but it might changeshortly after.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But cohort data is an important piece to the puzzle
of how people approachacquisition.
I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah.
So definition of a cohort is,yeah, a group of people.
You know when we're talking onShopify or you know your
e-commerce store, a group ofpeople that have bought within a
certain time frame.
So it's either you have monthcohorts, you can have quarterly
cohorts, you can have daily,weekly, whatever right, but it's
(06:11):
usually going to be by a monthoff.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
At least, that's the metric shop if I will give you
yeah, that's the metric by month.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, um, for the layman, for the layman, and then
in that cohort it's going toshow you, it's generally going
to be laid out as it's generallygoing to be laid out, as the
cohort is going to be the left,the y-axis and then the x-axis
is going to be the time that haspassed from that cohort.
So zero means same month, oneis the next month, two is two
(06:40):
months later.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
eleven, twelve.
We'll even give you a graphhere.
What you'll see is you'll seethe month, you'll see a total
amount of revenue.
You'll see or percentage, likecause you can do a retention
rate or just revenue revenuewhatever.
Then the next call will be howmuch new customer, for example,
revenue was made that month Yep.
(07:03):
Then you have column zero.
For example, revenue was madethat month.
Then you have column zero, zeromonth.
One month, two month, threemonth, and so what that means is
, of all the people who boughtat once in that month, this is
how many in month zero came backand spent.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Or how much more money from that cohort.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You can change the metric, yeah so you might have
like $100,000 here and then$10,000.
And then $10,000.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
And then $6,000 in month one, or you might have
your retention rate, which wouldbe 3% to 20%, bought within
that time frame to the next, tothe next, to the next.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We'll put a little.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So the reason why it's an important metric is
because we all know thatlifetime value is going to be
heavily dictated upon purchasingbehavior within 90 days.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
And even more so within 30 and 60 days.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Do you want to give the stat Depending on AOV?
Do you want to give that statLike why it's so important?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
in those first times timeframes.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Well, if somebody doesn't come back and buy within
60 to 90 days period it'susually, your ltv is going to
drop by like 80 yeah, within theyear yes and on the flip side,
it's like if they come back andbuy for a second time, yeah,
their lifetime value will doublein that same year compared to
(08:25):
if they don't.
It'll take five years for themto reach that, or something like
that.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's a crazy metric so, yeah, month zero one and two
are way more important than Ithink most people are paying
attention to.
So we talk about acquisition alot and, yes, acquisition is
going to be the gasoline in theengine, but you have to be
checking your oil and thatretention is going to be the oil
(08:50):
of your engine.
You got to make sure that it'sactually lubricated and working
well.
Yeah, right, that you'regetting the rotation that you
need out of the fuel that you'reyou're putting into the engine,
and what we have noticed is,across quite a few stores, your
month zero one and two cohortshave gone down dramatically
(09:14):
Since, since 2021.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
There have been changes within deliverability
and iOS has changed email.
So there's things going on inthe email world, for sure, that
you might be aware of or you areaware of, but it's a big
problem that people need toaddress because if you just
solve that your acquisition youwould feel a lot better about
(09:40):
your acquisition.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Because your acquisition is making you feel a
certain way, but if you're notgetting people to come back,
especially that short time frame.
Because I mean there's somebrands that had we've looked at
some reports and it's like theyhad a 10 to 15% month zero
turnover.
So within the same month, ifthey bought in June, 15% of
(10:06):
people were buying again in June.
And that's dropped down to like5%.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, a lot of it's been cut in half or more, and
you're thinking what is going on, right?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So we've been doing digging, we're not going to give
away all our secrets.
I hope you put a little clip ofFrodo saying, yeah, you can
keep your secrets then all right, then keep your secrets.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
But we, we do want to help, at least guide you guys
in the right direction yeah, soyou mentioned a couple reasons
like should we, let's let's tryto address some of the whys?
yeah, so we we've seen thatthere's some kind of
deliverability thing going on,like it appears that email isn't
(10:52):
quite reaching the same amountof people yeah, for some for
some accounts, or it's notgetting delivered or if people
aren't paying attention to theiremail in the same way that they
used to yes, I was gonna sayyou got deliverability plus,
you've got just like attentionmaybe an email fatigue.
Yeah, like everyone's getting amillion emails, yeah I think
right now, like if I look at myphone, look at your phone too.
(11:14):
Like what does your app say?
How many emails do you haveunopened emails?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
unopened emails.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah, like do you have the little like icon oh,
I'll tell you, I'm gonna bet youthat mine is over yours.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Really.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Okay, what's yours?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
$28,920 $28,000?
$28,000.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Wow, it's hiding some of mine, but yeah, mine says
$2,200, oh $24,096.
Uh, it's hiding some of mine,but yeah, mine.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Mine says 2200, oh 24,096 now, to be fair, I don't
use my personal email very muchfor this reason.
Right, it's because it's justlike it's overly fatigue, like
the.
The idea of going into that andlike dealing with that just
makes me sick yeah, you, youknow, so Makes you nauseous, you
(12:09):
know, and I also have 94 underanswer texts Like that's
actually kind of crazy too.
Well, all mail.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So there's communication fatigue.
I do.
I do declare email bankruptcy,like twice a year, though.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, meaning what?
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I just delete everything.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Oh yeah, I I should do that, but there's not like an
easy way to do it.
Somebody's been talking aboutlike ai agents that will do this
for you.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I just declare it and just delete it.
Yeah, say sorry if you want tohopefully there's nothing
important here, so okay, so backto it.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You've got email fatigue.
Why do you have email fatigue?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Well, everybody's emailing, but the email has
become the house mailbox.
You're just expecting a certainlevel of spam Totally.
It just kind of is what it is.
But I mean, I don't know if thebehavior has changed that much
over five years.
Maybe it has.
But there's also somedeliverability things going on
with, like email providers.
It appears that, um, that mightbe going on, but the big, the
(13:15):
big thing is I just think peopledon't send enough emails, like
you.
People just are notcommunicating enough with their
customer.
I think that's really totallylike that's and that's the only
thing you can change in some ofthese situations well, yeah, and
a lot of people are thinking tothemselves, um, like, like.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
So a lot of people hear this like oh well, if
everyone's overdoing it, doesemail even work.
Should I even do it?
Means, you should do it moreyeah, it means you should do it
more.
Yeah, right because, like,because you're trying to catch
them.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, like a good chance.
Your email is just gettingbelow seven other emails.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, it's an at-bats game.
Yes, it is totally an at-batsgame.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And all the DTC darlings that you guys hear
about online.
We have tracked their emailsthey are sending.
If you're listening to thispodcast, you are probably behind
them by 90%.
They are probably out sendingyou 10 to 1.
Totally, especially within thefirst 7 days of sign up and then
(14:13):
after purchase.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Those first 10 days are crazy, the brands that are
crushing it.
Those first 10 days are nuts 1to 3 emails a day and you might
say I don't want to scare themoff.
I think people used to getscared off, but people's
intentions aren't like.
I don't want to scare them off.
I think people used to getscared off, but people's
intentions aren't like.
I'm unsubscribing from thesepeople and guess what?
If they're unsubscribing,that's totally fine.
In fact, that's going to saveyou money down the long run.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, you don't want people.
You don't even want to beemailing people if they're not
going to buy right.
So the point is A a look at yourcohort data.
Try to figure out if there is acorrelation with your cohort
data and performance I guaranteethere is and look at your email
performance over time, like,are you a brand and there's a
(15:00):
good chance you are that you'rethinking, hey, maybe performance
has gone down.
Or, you know, if maybe you'relooking at a blended metric,
maybe you're looking at what Imean, I don't know what your
performance metrics that you'relooking at, we look at ours that
we deem are the best.
But if you're, if yourperformance is going down, it's
probably a combination of yes,there's acquisition problems,
(15:21):
probably, but there's probably abigger thing that's going
unknown and unseen in yourcohorts.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And a quick, a quick way to look at this is just look
at, like, compare the last forthe last five years, what your
annual clicks are from emailLike.
That's a really easy way tojust look at it.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
You can look at a third party like Google or even
Shopify, will show you.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Klaviyo will show you too, you know or whatever email
provider.
Just say what were my clicks in2021, 2022, 2023, 2024?
And now you might have grownfrom those times.
So you'll have to look at thatin relation to sessions as well.
So look at like overallsessions.
So, for example, if you had100,000 sessions in 2021 and you
had, you know, 50,000 clicks orwhatever you know from an email
(16:14):
, you can also look at theratios too.
But if you're going down, youdon't even need to look at the
ratios as much.
Right, if you're going downhillyou went 100,000 to 90,000, to
80,000, to 60,000, you can juststart to see like well, what is
my ratio on email?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, like why and why is it going down?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, email and SMS, by the way.
And then I think the otherthing that's important to note
as to why these cohorts arelower and dipping is like.
I think we've also seen amassive decrease in reach,
organically, for a lot of brands.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
We're organically um for a lot of brands we're for
sure seeing such a big, such abig decrease in reach
organically.
If you are a brand, you havefelt your brand's reach go down
organically and that's a factyeah, and that helps.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Obviously, reach is good for acquisition, but like
also just being top of mind foryour current customers as well.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
well, for example, let's go back to the
chronological feed of 2016.
If you're a brand and you'relaunching a new product, you
could count on your feedreaching your audience and
letting them know you have a newproduct, and you could count on
your emails reaching youraudience, or vice versa, right,
(17:22):
they saw it on their feed andthen they see their email and
then they come to site, so thatyou had this natural flywheel,
organic effect of reaching youraudience very directly and very
quickly yeah that you are, youdon't have anymore.
Sure, like you post that youhave a new release, like you're
not necessarily reaching totallyyour audience in the way you
(17:43):
used to be, yep.
So like you said, the organicpiece, that we're not saying,
that yeah, the acquisition sidefor sure, but if you're not
reaching people about a newrelease or whatever, the sale or
whatever, or new content that'sjust fun and engaging.
Then those retention rates godown right.
They don't know about it.
So we have to reframe goingforward with marketing and, yes,
(18:10):
we're biased, we have an agency, but you're, you're gonna have
to.
Everyone has to rethink of howyou get the attention of not
only prospects but of yourcustomers.
Again, you do need to focus onacquisition and what your actual
new customer returns are andyour profits.
But within that 60-day, 90-dayperiod, whatever it is, you'll
(18:34):
have to determine that in yourdata.
You're going to have to startmaking some decisions that might
hurt you as a store owner or asa marketer, but you're going to
have to start thinking aboutwhat happens to my retention
rate if we test A, B or C.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
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Well, I have a third thing Iwant to bring up as to why it's
it's hurting, so I'll bring thatup.
But I also want to just bringup this analogy.
It's it's it's a very similarsituation is like if you are in
the dating market and I have notbeen in the dating market for
(19:53):
16 years, so things may havechanged, but if you're in the
dating market and you go on adate with you know somebody and
you really like her or him, doyou wait 30 days?
Speaker 1 (20:07):
some do.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, it's called the game but, but it probably never
wins.
All playing the game, right,but it but, but like if you, but
if it's 30 days, that's notgoing to win.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Oh, you can't text them too soon.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, sure, you might wait a day or two if you want
to play the game, right To notbe overly enthusiastic, but
you're going to have to makecontact with that person in a
meaningful way within a shorteramount of time, absolutely Right
Now.
The third reason why I think.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But playing the game, yeah.
I don't think playing the gameworks for anybody In the long
run.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
No For the most part.
Yeah For long-term healthyrelationships.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, I guess it depends on what your goal is.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
You're just trying to psychologically manipulate
people, yeah, but guess what?
We're talking about stores andpeople and, like you're not in a
relationship and like you're,it's just about being top of
mind.
It's that simple.
We don't have to even turn thisinto something, it's not.
It's same thing that we talkedabout with Sydney Sweeney.
What is she doing for thesebrands is she is making all of
(21:12):
them top of mind, because she istop of mind Totally.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That was going to be my third thing.
That was going to be my thirdthing is, like, I think the
other thing that's helped that'shurting brands.
So, if you look at 2021 versus2025, one huge factor that we
haven't discussed but we talkabout all the time on the
podcast is that it's never beeneasier to start a business.
So in 2021, you had sure youhad competition, but competition
, but your everyone'scompetition has grown 10x.
(21:37):
I think you go back to 2018,but yeah, totally, yeah, right,
everyone's competition growsevery single year, and which
goes back to the top of mind.
So, like, everybody's got anidea, how did american eagle
become top of mind?
They did something differentand they were top of mind, right
, right.
So not only did they takecindweeney, who was top of mind,
but they took a controversialtopic.
That just differentiated themfrom other people as well, well,
(21:59):
it wasn't even.
Well.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It turned controversial Totally.
It would have been viral nomatter what, because it's.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Sidney Sweeney.
Again, we're talking about yes.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
She's a voluptuous.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
They just did something different, right?
They were showing her off andshe likes to show off, so brands
that are doing things in adifferent way is also a very big
win when it comes to standingout.
You just have to do thingsdifferent.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yes and be top of mind.
And top of mind is repetition.
Yeah, right, like how manytimes?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
One of the ways to be top of mind is repetition right
.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
In fact, I would say that's the most scientific way
of standing out is repetition.
If you see something multipletimes, you're psychologically,
scientifically, it starts beingassociated in that person's mind
as truth.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
However, you want to define that word truth in that
person's mind as truth For sure.
However, you want to definethat word truth.
So the best way to stand outyes is oh, I saw that red beamer
.
Oh, I saw that red beamer.
Oh, I saw that red beamer, yeah, yeah.
Why am I seeing red BMWs?
Have you ever gone through aday and you start noticing
something pop up five differenttimes Totally?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Oh, now I'm thinking about like, yeah, tesla did this
really good.
Right.
Like Tesla went from like onlythe rich and famous oh, that's a
cool car.
That's a cool car.
And now it's such a common carbecause it was just everywhere,
so people started to believelike, oh, this is a good car,
this is something I need, thisoh, it's reliable.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Like I'm going to the , I'm going to invest my money
into it because I'm going to,I'm going to invest my money
into it.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Because I'm going to save, I'm going to do-do-do yes.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
In fact it's such a common car.
The social factor here, rightis like repetition, like you can
cut through the repetition totruth with like social proof,
right.
So using other people's voicesand having validation around it.
But at the end of the day, thebest way to repetition well, it
is repetition, but it cutsthrough the, the idea that, like
(24:03):
hey, I now trustworthiness.
I now believe that this is atrustworthy car, like Tesla,
cause I've seen it so much, soit must be good if so many
people are getting it totallylike that happens over time.
But you can cut through thatwith ads.
But with the repetition part is, the more someone sees you, the
more top of mind you are.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And this is why product seeding is also a really
cool thing too.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yes, I know a lot of people are kind of over it.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But it's like once again, like how did Comfort, the
Swe sweatpants and sweatercompany, become a $300 million
company?
It's because every singleperson on Tik TOK.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Oh, it must be a good company.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I've never experienced sweatpants like them
before.
I must.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I must think you know .
And so I think sometimes withmarketing guys, I the lesson
here, with cohorts and juststaying top of mind and getting
people to come back, is, I thinkwe sometimes, as marketers and
businesses, try to outthink.
First, principles and the nameof the game of marketing and it
always has been and always willbe is top of mind, and that
(25:09):
involves repetition.
So, yeah, yes, that that's partof the acquisition side, but
then the retention side too.
Like they bought your product,you are now top of mind.
You now have an opportunity tonot just be a product they
bought and forgot about, but bea brand that is embedded into
their lifestyle for sure, andoftentimes after selling them
(25:31):
and they, they spent their.
That's the most powerful votein America, right?
Is they spent money on yourthing?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And now you're just going to like, let them hang out
, like, oh, I don't want to talkto them, like, uh, totally,
maybe they're busy.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Uh, we'll give them till nextweek.
Yeah, it's like just, theydon't have to open an email,
guys.
Yeah, you're not calling them,they don't have to open a text.
100% Follow up with them, betop of mind and then and offer
(26:04):
them stuff.
Yeah, offer them upsells.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Treat them like the people who just supported you.
Yes, you know like.
Treat them well.
You know it's like there's nota single restaurant nowadays
that you go to that doesn't havesome sort of.
Oh, you've shopped with us fourtimes, you get a free drink in
fact, there's a great example.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I want to bring this up.
There's a good argument to bemade that you should people
always look at discounts as away to get new customers.
There's actually great evidence, depending on your brand, um
that you should probably notever give a new customer a
discount totally but the deeperthe discount the deeper the
(26:47):
discount for new customers theworst type of customers they
tend to be totally they're notgoing to come back very often.
They're not going to have highlifetime values.
They're discount shoppers, yeah.
And if you are a discount brand, whatever but most of you
probably aren't yeah, but you'rereturning customers.
You've already made animpression on them.
Now you could get to make themfeel special by curating an
(27:10):
offer for them, totally.
So, going back to what you said, like hey, I go to whatever I
get a free drink after 10 times,yeah, oh, that makes me feel
special, like I'm not reallydoing it to get that free drink,
totally no, no no.
Yeah, I'm not going to buy 10drinks to get one drink Right.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
But that's fun, but that is something that keeps me
like that's a thought for sure.
Yeah, you know, like if I'mlisten, I have like Mark will
laugh, but there's like you knowfive, you know maybe three or
four restaurants we eat at andbut there's one specific that I
will always pick If no one hasan opinion.
Yeah, I'm always going to pickone restaurant and part of that
(27:50):
is because of that.
Like they just like one.
I love the food and it'shealthier.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's cleaner.
But then it's like these guysare constantly giving me $10 off
.
Oh nice, yeah, you know, andit's like if I'm gonna pick the,
if I like, four things the same, but these people treat me a
little better.
Who am I going with thesepeople?
Now?
The office gets more sick ofthe food than I do, but it's a
(28:17):
different story.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's fine though.
Yeah, it's good, yeah, but towrap this up, the last thing
that I think brands and thisone's so hard, and we know it's
hard and I'm sure a lot of youhave tried this.
But the community side rightknow it's hard and I'm sure a
lot of you have tried this, butthe community side right, there
are Facebook groups thatliterally buoy brands through,
(28:41):
oh my gosh the year, oh myespecially the hard times and
it's because it's direct andthere's people engaged in the
community.
And no, it's not.
I don't know.
People are gonna say it's nottechnically owned like an email
or whatever, but it's.
It's more of an owned audienceand you're gonna get to them a
lot sooner and a lot fasterbecause of the notification
(29:03):
within the groups.
Uh, we see some brandstinkering around with like
discords, so be thinking aboutyour own media.
I.
If email isn't reaching peoplein the same way, is there a
place that you can get your mostloyal customers to make sure
that they see your product andalso use them as propulsion to
(29:26):
reach other people?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, yeah, I know you might think it's silly, like
why would anybody want tocreate a community around?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Chapstick.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, but Burt's Bees had a oh yeah dude rabid base.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, it's just interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Some people just like need to be attached to
something and they're passionateabout it and they become your
most loyal, successful, highestrevenue profitability generating
people.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yes, they do.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And I think a lot of people overlook the community,
and we know it's hard, totally.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
I'm sure a lot of people are rolling their eyes.
Build a community, yeah, hardersaid than done.
Or harder done than said,easier said than done.
Easier said than done, yeah,but or harder done than said,
easier said than done, easiersaid than done, yeah, oh, I'm
dyslexic, um, but yes, do that.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Think about it yeah, and also remember just like I
want to end on this note also alot of changes you make in
something that people don't like.
Going back to email Sometimes,if you make changes on email and
you stop the outreach I knowemail is oftentimes meant for
retention, but there are a lotof people who subscribe who have
(30:49):
never bought from you that youremail impacts net new
acquisition as well.
And impacts it way more than youwould, so much more than you
think we've run into a couplepeople this year who it has it
tanked their overall acquisition, where their first order offer.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Email wasn't sending or yes they changed to pop up or
totally there's little detailsthat can impact your brand.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
So remember, yeah, it impacts acquisition too.
It's not just like paid adsthat drive everything.
Oftentimes paid ads mightintroduce, but the email might
be the thing that converts.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
So look at those metrics.
There are great email peopleout there that do great work
Totally.
Check your metrics.
Check your metrics, check yourcohort, see what's going on,
because a lot of you might beable to fix and be on the right
path just from fixing that aloneyeah.
(31:47):
Like you might be thinking abouthey, my agency or hey, this guy
or my marketing guy isn't doinga good job and unfortunately
for them, or the marketing guyor your internal team, their
performance is dictatedoftentimes by this month zero
month, one Totally Retentionrate, and that might be down 30,
(32:08):
40, 50 percent remember we hada cody wittek on the podcast,
yeah, a couple months ago, sohe's been on the podcast a
couple times.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
He's also another agency owner.
Yeah, we need to bring him back.
It was such a good episode.
Um, I like cody, but anyways,he said something on the podcast
that I know we've said before,but he just came out and bluntly
said it, which was like thelower my ROAS can be, the better
the brand is.
Right, everyone's wanting ahigh ROAS and he was saying this
(32:37):
as like a.
Well, if I'm you knowcompetitor A and competitor B.
If competitor A is focused on athree, ro B, if competitor a Is
focused on a three row as andcompetitor B is Focused on a one
, which one's gonna win, well,the one's always gonna.
One's Gonna win, right, and sowhy Can competitor be?
If it's same product, same AOV,why can competitor B be More
(33:00):
focused on a one versus a threeover here?
It's because this person hasSomebody who's coming back and
buying more frequently or atleast they understand there's an
operational side to it.
Yeah yeah, but let's just, let'sjust take the the retention
side into this, versus likethey've got their opex dialed
it's because they're they'refocused on making profit on
round two yeah, they understandhow to get this person to come
back x amount of times.
(33:21):
And so what?
Because of that, they are ableto scale so much more on the net
new acquisition, which willthen come back X amount of times
.
And so, because of that, theyare able to scale so much more
on the net new acquisition,which will then come back and
help them win in the long run.
You know what I mean.
And so retention has theability to chase almost a
(33:42):
zero-sum game on the acquisitionside.
You know the race to the bottom, I guess I would say, and maybe
not the zero-sum.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Well, a race to the bottom, not in the sense of the
value of the product, but just arace where, like the lower you
can go, Cost to acquire, doesn't?
Yeah, and this is just how anauction works.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
If you can afford to pay more, and this is also
marketing 101, if you can affordto pay more for a customer,
you're often going to winTotally.
Now, yes, that's a dangerousgame.
You can go out of businessdoing that.
Yep, you don't have again theright retention and the right
game plan.
So we're not saying just go outthere and lose a bunch of money
on your first customer.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, you've got to understand your cash flow and
your profitability and yourproducts that are.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
You have to be first time profitable, right 100.
But yeah, lesson number one isif you're top of mind, you're
gonna win, and being top of mindoften means you're willing to
pay more for a customer becauseyou're gonna be top of mind pay
more in time and money.
Yes, yeah, time meaning I'msending eight emails out a week
(34:45):
versus two now, once you acquirethat customer with the
retention rate going back tothat, I just want to say stay
top of mind.
You were through top of mind.
If you're top of mind enough toget them to buy, stay top of
mind and see what happens.
Don't settle with the fact thatsomeone made a first purchase
for sure, like that's when.
That's when you should thinkthe game actually starts.
Totally, totally, like okay,now we have to lock in and make
(35:10):
sure they buy again in the next,yeah, x amount of time, like
that's the goal a thousandpercent not the first time.
It's gonna come back again whatis it?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I can't remember.
It's like if you can increaseyour retention rate by like five
percent, it increases your likerevenue by 25, or something
like it.
There's these yeah, because youretention yeah yeah, yeah, like
you could just do that aloneand revenues increases by 25%
because it starts compounding.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, with those cohorts, it might even be more
than that.
I can't remember what thenumbers are, so yes, do that
everybody if nothing elsechanges.
Right like you already gotthese people in your freaking
funnel what the numbers are.
So, yes, do that everybody, ifnothing else changes.
Right Like you already gotthese people in your freaking
funnel, they already bought.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, it doesn't cost you anymore.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Maybe a discount.
It might cost you more, butit's worth it.
It's going to cost you a lotless to get them to buy a second
time.
Yeah, and it's going to costyou to get someone to buy a
first time?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah, and it's going to cost you to get someone to
buy a first time?
Yeah, like four and a halftimes less or something Like.
The numbers are weird.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
They're crazy.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Way less Retention.
Retention Focus on it more.
I know acquisition is great,but also create better products
too.
I know we didn't really talkabout that, but obviously better
products than everyone else.
Yeah, if your products suck,then sorry, your retention's
going to suck too, so you got tohave, yeah, baseline.
You have to have a good productRight.
You can't have something crappythat's going to fall apart or
(36:31):
break or be hard to use orwhatever it might be.
Okay, awesome, all right,everybody.
Thank you so much and we willsee you guys next week.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unstoppable Marketer
podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from you,because we always want to make
(36:52):
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.
I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you, and we will see younext week.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com