Thoughts on customers, growth and the commercial questions worth asking
This is where I share things I find interesting about customers, growth and eCommerce: what’s driving performance, why customers behave the way they do, what might be hiding in the data and the questions worth asking along the way. I also share examples of great customer journeys and marketing I’ve come across – and how you can apply the learnings to your business.
You’re aiming for £10m. Where is the growth actually going to come from?
A target like £5m or £10m is wonderfully simple. The route to it often isn't. Say you're currently at £6m and want to reach £10m. Where's the £4m going to come from? It'll likely be a combination of these, as a starting point... more new customers, better retention of...
Sometimes the numbers tell you what. They don’t always tell you why.
I'm of course a big believer in using data to understand a business, but there are questions it can't answer on its own. Say customers who order samples are considerably more likely to buy. That's great - but why? Maybe it's that receiving the sample builds their...
Your highest-ROAS channel might not be your best channel
Imagine you've got two acquisition channels. Channel A (let's say, TikTok ads, as an example) has a ROAS of 8. Channel B (let's say, Meta ads) has a ROAS of 3. Which gets the extra budget? On that information alone, probably TikTok. Now imagine that six months later,...
The answer isn’t always in the data
Sometimes you can analyse customer data beautifully and still be missing the thing that matters, because businesses aren't just numbers. A conversion change might coincide with a website change. A drop in repeat purchase might relate to a product issue. Customers in...
Revenue is growing. Is profit coming with it?
Growing revenue feels great. The first £1m, then £3m to £4m then up to and beyond £10m. More customers. More orders. More scale. But growth brings costs with it too. Product costs rise. Fulfilment gets more expensive. Payroll increases. Acquisition costs change....
What happens after the first order?
There's understandably a lot of attention paid to the first order a customer places. Which ad brought them in? Which channel? Which product? How much did it cost to acquire them, and what was the ROAS? Blended, or in platform? All useful questions. But I'm often more...
Growth doesn’t have to come from one big idea
When there's an ambitious growth target, it's tempting to look for the big thing. The new market. The new channel. The increased marketing spend. The big product launch. Sometimes there genuinely is one enormous opportunity. More often though, growth comes from...
A falling conversion rate isn’t an answer
Conversion has fallen. That's useful to know. But it doesn't tell us what to do. Because “conversion is down” can describe all sorts of different things. Perhaps the mix of traffic has changed. Perhaps mobile conversion has moved but desktop hasn't. Perhaps...
The product that’s selling brilliantly might be causing a problem somewhere else
Imagine one of your products is flying. Lots of first orders. Great conversion. Customers clearly like it. You'd understandably want to sell more of it. But I'd want to know what happens afterwards first. Because products don't just bring in orders. They can influence...
“We love looking at the data.”
I've had versions of this conversation with lots of people. “Ooh, look how many of these we've sold.” “This customer's ordered 40 times!” “That new product is flying.” “We've suddenly got loads of customers from Manchester.” “Our top three products are always these...
