3 Mistakes To Avoid in Q4 (That Cost These 8-figure Brands a Lot of Money)

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We strive to deliver the latest growth marketing news and trends in the DTC space straight to your inbox every Wednesday.

Topics we’ll cover today:

💠 3 Mistakes To Avoid in Q4 (That Cost These 8-figure Brands a Lot of Money)
💠 Google Ads To Phase Out Enhanced CPC Bidding Strategy
💠 Reinventing Gym Bags for Top Athletes

3 Mistakes To Avoid in Q4 (That Cost These 8-figure Brands a Lot of Money)

Planning Q4 is no easy task.

The last few years were different, unprecedented, and kind of unstable, to say the least.

I'm not talking only about customer acquisition & retention strategies.

I'm talking about things like the socioeconomic context...

Supply chain...

And everything else that happens behind the scenes for the end customer.

I'm writing this section because these mistakes were made by 8-figure brands.

They are well-established...

They have experience...

They know what they're doing...

And still, this happened.

So I just want you to be aware of this, so it doesn't happen to you too.

Let's go through each of them:

Mistake #1:

This is a fast-fashion brand.

They produce between 100 and 200 products every.single.week. 🤯

Taking into consideration how they did during Q4 in previous years, and their goals for this one, we proposed a plan.

They typically do very well in October and November, and then sales go down in December.

So we planned the budget for the ad spend accordingly.

Q4 started...
October was great ✅
November was way better than they expected ✅

And when they saw that, they wanted more.

Even though we suggested sticking to the plan and scaling down...

...they wanted to keep the same budget, expecting a similar influx of sales.

What happened?

As you can imagine, sales matched our planned expectations (which were significantly lower than in November).

...even though they spent way more than we had planned. 😱

The consequence?

This company had a really hard time recovering from that hit.

It took them almost the entire Q1 to recover.

So, the lesson here is:

👉 PLAN AHEAD
👉 Don't get ambitious if you cannot back it up with data
👉 And if you do get ambitious, measure and scale down ASAP as if you see it's not working

Mistake #2:

This is a company that sells only one product: belts.

They do great, but last Q4 they suffered a lot.

What happened?

They didn't properly plan the inventory for the holiday season...

...and they ran out too early! 🤦‍♂️

As you can imagine, they learned the lesson, and they started to better forecast the inventory.

Mistake #3:

As we all know, on Black Friday:

Some brands have big discounts...

Others do bundles or limited editions of their products...

But some others, like this apparel brand, used it with the ONLY goal of clearing old inventory.

Although there's nothing wrong with promoting products from previous collections...

...it's not the best use of this peak time if you only do that.

Why?

Well, in many cases, it's the first impression they get from your brand.

So, you'd want to promote great deals, with great products.

And if they are already customers, I guess many people would be disappointed by seeing there's no new product included in the deals.

Now you know these 3 mistakes these brands made, make sure to keep them in mind for this Q4.

--

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Google Ads To Phase Out Enhanced CPC Bidding Strategy

Starting October 2024, new Search and Display ad campaigns will no longer be able to select eCPC (Enhanced CPC) as a bidding strategy.

However, existing eCPC campaigns will continue working normally until March 2025.

From that date, all remaining Search and Display ad campaigns using eCPC will be automatically migrated to manual CPC bidding.

Google introduced eCPC back in 2010 as a Smart Bidding strategy to optimize bids based on conversion likelihood.

However, newer machine learning options like Maximize Conversions (with optional target CPA) and Maximize Conversion Value (with optional target ROAS) offer more automated tools to improve performance.

Google's shift to more advanced automated bidding strategies indicates a greater reliance on machine learning and the possible introduction of more automated bidding strategies.

--

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Reinventing Gym Bags for Top Athletes

This founder has exited a SaaS and a services company.

Now, he's reinventing the gym bag at Haven Athletic.

In this episode of The DTC Insider podcast, Caleb Ulffers shares his approach to leveraging athletes and influencers and their acquisition strategies, among other interesting topics we discussed.

Tune in!

We discussed:

👉 The Process of Reinventing the Gym Bag
👉 Exiting a SaaS and a Services Company
👉 Entrepreneurial Insights
👉 Creating companies from “crazy ideas” and what the next one could be
👉 The process of figuring out how to design the bag
👉 Leveraging athletes and influencers for promotion
👉 Acquisition Strategies
👉 Why Retention is not a primary focus for them
👉 What’s Next for Haven Athletic

🎧 Tune in >

More episodes our listeners love:

💎 IQBAR’s Journey to 10,000 Locations And $50 Million with Will Nitze

💎 The Secret Sauce Behind BattlBox's Success with John Roman

💎 Supplement Brand Bootstrapped $10,000 and Built It Into Sales of $30 Million in Three Years with Ronak Shah

💎 Unlocking 9-Figure Growth: The Blueprint That Transformed Two Brands with Brett Swensen

💎 Navigating Growth Beyond Your Niche with Podium Nutrition’s CMO

Also Happening in the DTC space:

📰 Full-Cost Pricing Explained: How to Price Your Products for Profit
📰 YouTube Adds Website Visits Goal for Promotions
📰 TikTok Shop Mastery: 3 Tips To Advertise For Business Growth

Work for a DTC Brand?

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At BSR Digital, we have over 10 years of experience doing that, and that’s the main reason our clients see anywhere from 36% to 77% increase in revenue and profit within the first 6 months of working with us.

If you're ready to shake things up and turbocharge your growth, let's chat!

Book a discovery call with us, and let's brainstorm some game-changing ideas together.

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