Jordan West

E-Com Investor & Podcast Host | Multiple Exits| Avid Golfer, Biker + Hiker | Dad Of 3 | CEO + CMO | Mastermind Host

My Journey 
When I was 23 I decided to buy a Taco Del Mar restaurant... I knew I had made a huge mistake at 2pm the first day when only 3 customers had walked in... (and two of them were my parents haha) 
For 5 years I worked hard to grow sales every way I could think of and in the end, tripled our revenue which still didn't seem to matter on the profit side. (I lost a lot of money 💰)

The one thing that I seemed to be the best at in the restaurant endeavor was marketing and getting people in the door. 

Fast forward to 2014 when my wonderful wife Carmen (definitely my better half) started a modest baby clothing line and was selling at craft markets. 

I asked if I could test running a few ads on Facebook... and the rest is history. I learned every up-and-coming strategy and tactic and helped grow the small start-up to a multi-million dollar company and still growing!

Since then we have acquired multiple DTC brands and have built an agency (upGrowth Commerce) to service our brands as well as others who are in a similar situation to us!

In 2019 we started the podcast "secrets to scaling your e-commerce brand" which is now in the top 50 business/marketing podcasts in multiple countries including Canada and the United States.

I love connecting with people, so please connect. (I do have a no a**holes policy though, so don't connect if that's you.) 

I talk all about scaling businesses using paid ads on “Secrets To Scaling Your E-Commerce Brand”.

Chief Executive Officer

I made this post a few months ago... and this HAS CHANGED MY LIFE. 
I have an airport hack for ALL OF YOU! (that may just change your life) 

Lately... at the airport I've been doing something kind of weird. 

You probably wouldn't peg me for this kind of person but here it is. 

I've been...

1. Putting my phone in my pocket 
2. Not having airpods in. 
3. Talking to whoever is around me that looks interesting and doesn't have their head buried in their phone. 

And HERE'S the WILD THING! 

Today alone I made 2 insane connections... 

the first was a nice couple that was sitting beside me in the emergency exit row. 

They turned out to own (with another group) a bunch of motel properties that I had been eyeing for a MASSIVE RESORT that i think could be an insanely huge attraction for the city I live in. I had been thinking about it for a while and it's crazy that they just happened to be beside me on a random flight. Many more other connections too... but I digress. 

The second was a random guy who runs point for one of the largest inference chip companies in the world helping put in data centres... 

Well I just happen to have a local data centre deal that I've been dreaming up for my town. 

The first convo actualy helped steer me in a totally different LIFE direction than I was thinking about for the next 5-10 years TBH (not exaggerating) 

So... the lesson. 

Get off your effing phone 
Talk to people. 
The universe/god/life wants to give you good things... but you won't get them staring at your phone or sitting in your office. 

they are out there! 
Anyone else ever have moments like these?

I AM HIRING NA-BASED SOCIAL COMMERCE STRATEGISTS AT Social Commerce Club! 
We are opening two pods a month right now and not slowing down any time soon. 

If you have TikTok shop experience and/or can learn fast and consider yourself a fast learner and have DTC experience, PLEASE DM ME! 

Our core values 

Low ego learners 
High agency executers
Move with competitive speed 

If this sounds like you... 
DM ME 
We're on a rocketship.

Our culture is amazing. 
Our people are amazing. 
Come join us! (or if you know anyone let me know!)

Most brands still think TikTok Shop and Amazon are competing channels...

They're not.

Heres what we're seeing at SCC 👇

TikTok content goes viral → product gets discovered by Hundreds of THOUSANDS of new buyers

Those buyers go to Amazon to "check reviews" before they buy then some buy on amazon.

Amazon ranking jumps because of the search volume spike and search, find, buy. (the holy grail of Amazon rankings)

Higher Amazon ranking = more organic Amazon sales

More Amazon sales = more budget to put back into TikTok creators

Round and round it goes...

The brands that figured this out are printing. 

The ones treating each channel separately are leaving MASSIVE money on the table 💰

HIRING AT Social Commerce Club (sales people!) 
WE ARE HIRING NA Based sales people who can be up and running within 2 weeks! (yes FAST!)

If you have TikTok shop experience and/or can learn fast and consider yourself a fast learner and have DTC experience, PLEASE DM ME! 

Our core values 

Low ego learners 
High agency executers
Move with competitive speed 

If this sounds like you... 
DM ME 
We're on a rocketship.

Our culture is amazing. 
Our people are amazing. 
Come join us! (or if you know anyone let me know!)

I had our TikTok Shop OS mastermind call yesterday and I'm genuinely blown away. 👇 

The people in this group are operating at a level I don't see anywhere else. 🤩 

Yesterday someone broke down their entire process for going viral every single day on TikTok - the research, the system, the execution. 

It was one of the best breakdowns I've ever heard. The kind of stuff you don't find in a course.

I will legit amke an SOP just from hearing what she had to say.

That's what this group is. Real operators sharing what's actually working right now.

If you're serious about scaling on TikTok Shop in 2026, applications are open.

here's the link to apply (serious operators only) 

https://lnkd.in/gmBiHerZ

🔥 close to 100M of revenue driven on TikTok Shop and we’ve noticed one correlation that is staggering 

At scale 
32 views = $1 of on platform sales 
Plus halo 

Our mission is to drive 1b of social commerce revenue for brands in 2026
That’s a LOT of video views! 💰💰🙌🏻

Anyone else seeing a similar correlation?

Another day... another screenshot win for the team at SCC (this is why we're platinum at TT)

TikTok Shop
Still the most underrated  TOFchannel opportunity for brands in 2026 

Lower CAC on all other channels
Massive HALO 
WINNING

AMA

Every other TTS agency we talk in 2026 to is set up like this… 

1 strategist 
1 VA 
6-8 clients 
Job? 
Don’t get fired 
Results 💸
Cost 💰

Social Commerce Club 👇 

1 senior strategist 
1 associate TTS strategist (level of everyone else’s senior strat) 
1 full time sampler + creator recruiter 
1 community manager 
1 ops/compliance specialist 
1 media buyer 
1 designer 
Job? 
Scale massive accounts as a Tiktok shop platinum partner 🔥

Results? 
Huge scale for our brands 💰💰💰💰
Cost 💰💰💰

Just sayin…

Something interesting that we are starting to see on TikTok shop... It's something that you would only see or notice if you've been in the e-commerce space long enough! 👇👇

Here’s what I’m seeing!! 

At the beginning of scaling on TikTok shop, it seemed as though there was some sort of upper limit that you would hit where you couldn't scale beyond that. You could have super high return on ad spend, but essentially you wouldn't be able to scale beyond a certain point and start to get some of those really big economies of scale that you can see on Meta 

What I’m seeing now is the maturity of the channel and how fast this maturity is coming about! 

Way faster than meta. 

But... this all comes with one big thing that happens on every amazing platform, and that is competition! We have seen what that looks like!

The amount of enterprise brands that are coming to us at Social Commerce Club is staggering! 

Why? 

Because we have to be one of the only platinum partners in North America!

Big brands are flocking over because when you can spend $30,000 to $50,000 a day profitably with a massive halo on two other channels and top of all things get really, really interesting!

I'm very interested to see what the next year is going to look like in the space. 

Everything is changing so fast. What do you think?

Every person that has any sense of the brand and ecommerce market knows this one thing... 

TikTok shop and social commerce is the next HUGE TOF growth lever. 

It's the awareness machine. 
The content machine 
The revenue machine 
The R & D machine 
The customer feedback machine. 

EVERYTHING 

This is why brands need to look at it compeltely differently. 
It will take a paradigm shift from the classic "meta ads" world you've been used to. 

Questions?

Biggest mistake brands are making in 2026 on TikTok Shop

Tiktok Shop being in your marketplace division. 

Why? 
Marketplaces are inherintly demand capture 

TikTok Shop is demand gen. 
Treat it close to DTC + performance, not PPC 

The brands that get this perform WAYYYY better. 

It matters how you look at the channel. 

Paradigms matter.

How TikTok Shop feeds your other sales channels in 2026. 👇 (it's not what you think)
It's super obvious to me that TikTok Shop is going to be the absolute breakout channel of 2026 for a lot of brands! but...

At the end of the day, the brands that we work with care about one thing and one thing only: profitability on all channels combined and how they all work together.

I'm constantly surprised at the amount of new agencies that have popped up who don't realize the hundreds of millions of dollars that most brands are doing on other channels already, and that TikTok Shop is the ultimate top-of-funnel awareness channel that yes, can make money, but also drives to these other channels. 

I've talked constantly over the last couple of years about the halo effect that we see from TikTok shop over to Amazon. 

But let me tell you a little bit more. 

For us, it's not just the actual sales halo that we are seeing. 

What is even more interesting is the massive amount of content Halo that we are seeing. The biggest issue that we saw early on was that we needed to capture all of that content and be able to deploy it easily over on Meta. That's where our friends at Refunnel came in. T

hey were able to help us do that across the agency at scale, and it has definitely been a game changer. If you are not capturing that content and repurposing it over on Meta at scale, you are playing on hard mode this year! 

This is why I'm obsessed with the idea of unified commerce at Social Commerce Club, even when people have said, "Don't you guys just do TikTok shop...?" 

No! We came from the DTC world. I

t's what we know, and we believe that it all works incredibly well together. And then we also love to use Amazon as the final product capture in the whole omni-channel strategy! 

If you have no idea how all of this works together or how to launch, and your brand does over $10M a year on other channels, send me a DM or get ahold of my team at Social Commerce Club! 

This is what we think about every day.

We spend multiple 7 figures on GMV max every month!
Here's the GMV Max playbook as of today on TikTok Shop...

FIRST!!! Most brands are still overcomplicating it.

The ones winning usually do a few simple things really well

1. Keep the campaign structure simple

-Run one consolidated GMV Max campaign
-Don’t split budget across a bunch of “smart” campaigns
-TikTok rewards signal density... not account complexity

2. Narrow the product focus

-Give the campaign a clean lane
-Don’t dump in a random mix of SKUs
-A focused set like new arrivals gives the algorithm better inputs

3. Stop treating this like a media buying problem

-GMV Max is heavily influenced by content volume
-The more relevant creator content a product has, the easier it is for TikTok to scale it
-Better content inputs usually matter more than fancy account structure

4. Use target ROI as your main lever

-If performance is beating target, raise the ROI goal
-Force more efficiency before just spending harder
-This is one of the few real optimization levers that actually matters

5. Use the grace period strategically

-Don’t rush to force all the spend in the main campaign window
-If you can hit targets efficiently early, you create flexibility later
-The extra runway can help you scale cleaner

6. Build around content momentum

-TikTok will naturally push the products with the strongest content ecosystem
-More creators, more relevant videos, more proof
-That’s what gives the machine something to optimize against

That’s really the playbook right now!!!!

Less segmentation
Less manual control
Less account hacking

More focused inputs
More creator content
More trust in the algorithm

GMV Max is rewarding brands that simplify the structure... (and us at Social Commerce Club lol)

ABOVE ALL... stregthen your content engine - let the robot do the rest!

Most enterprise brands think TikTok Shop is a demand capture channel.
They're wrong!! (let me tell you the stats why)

After 2+ years all-in on TikTok Shop for enterprise brands, we've seen the opposite at Social Commerce Club

TikTok Shop is the ultimate demand gen engine!!

creating halo effects that boost sales everywhere else.

Key stats brands miss across our data sets

Viral campaigns drive 33%+ uplift in Amazon sales from halo alone (branded search spikes, traffic explodes, velocity up: no links needed). 

A TikTok Shop sale is worth 3x a DTC sale in ecosystem impact. 

62% of TikTok's incremental impact occurs on Amazon. 

According to a recent forbes study... coordinating with Amazon drives 40% YoY new customer growth (we have seen this at SCC)

What we've seen... 

TikTok Shop creates net-new demand via discovery, creators, virality: halo spills to Amazon, DTC, retail.

Don't treat it like an Amazon clone or any marketplace - it's much closer to DTC

“Our customers aren’t on TikTok.”
What they mean… 👇 

“I personally haven’t seen them there… so the app must be for kids.”

Reality?

You’re confusing your For You Page with reality.

TikTok isn’t “just kids.”

It’s literally an algorithm.

And the fastest-growing segments are adult buyers…

Here’s the data that makes the objection fall apart:
About 1 in 3 U.S. adults use TikTok.

Even more important…
40% of ages 30–49 are on it.
26% of ages 50–64 are on it.

Also…

The adult base grew FAST.

Now the part most founders miss:

You don’t “see” buyers on TikTok because buyers + adults are quiet.

About half of U.S. adult TikTok users have never posted a video…

They’re consumers, not creators.

They scroll.
And discovery > intent…

People buy what they didn’t wake up planning to buy.

Globally (TikTok ad planning data, Jan 2026), the ad audience breakdown looks like:

25–34: 35.3%
35–44: 16.4%
45–54: 9.2%
55+: 8.4%
25–44 is literally the “action” age band.

Even better…
An Edison Research survey (Oct 2025) found TikTok users 25–44 lead all age groups in taking action after ads:

54% seek more info
47% make purchases

And if you still think it’s “teen money”…

TikTok Shop did $15.82B in U.S. sales in 2025 (EMARKETER).

Your customers are on TikTok.
You just don’t see them yet.

Want our SCC systems but don't want to commit to a retainer? 

Ok... here you go! 
The TikTok Shop OS 
in 30 days we install our systems for scale. 
And you grow. (with or without us) 

Apply here  

https://lnkd.in/gp3Trhxv

When I owned my brands... I despised influencer marketing!! Why?? 
Because it always felt like gambling! (don't worry i found a fix) 👇 

One big creator deal. $10k. Hope it converts.

It doesn't. 10K wasted. 

I figured something out though... 

Here's the model that actually prints 💰

Product seeding → affiliate conversion → retainer investment

Here's how it works 👇

Seed 50-100 micro creators with your product
No upfront fees. Just product cost.

Track who actually converts!

You can do this all with an army of spreadsheets... 

or you can use SARAL - The Influencer OS's performance dashboard that shows you exactly who's driving sales, not just views 

Double down on the ones that work

Affiliate → retainer. Now you're paying ONLY for proven performance

Repeat. Scale. Compound.
Your best creators become long-term brand partners

This is exactly what I preach with TikTok Shop! 

Most brands skip steps 1 and 2.
They go straight to expensive retainers with unproven creators.

SARAL - The Influencer OS is the operational engine behind this whole system.

Inbox keeps your creator outreach organized
Performance dashboard shows you who's actually selling
SIA (their AI) manages relationships so nothing falls through the cracks

I've been advising the SARAL team and helping them build this for brands over the last year.

The brands printing with influencers right now(off TikTok Shop)?  They're running this playbook.

Go check them out at 

https://lnkd.in/gYXKru7y

#saralpartner

Hottest 2026 take in e-commerce (brand world) 👇👇


In the next five years we will be talking about social commerce, including Tiktok shop, but not limited to Tiktok shop, as the central driving factor for the top of funnel of almost every brand on the planet! 

I saw this coming two years ago, which is why I went all in. 

We are still so incredibly early.

Brands have no idea. 

The big enterprise brands that are coming to us still don't understand what it is doing in the funnel, the insane amount of halo that it is creating on every single other channel. 

The thing is... every other channel will start to understand how they can build it out for themselves.

You think that Meta is done testing this? Absolutely not! 

They are going to be losing a tonne of market share until they figure this out. 

You think Amazon won't figure something out? 

You think there won't be a new competitor in the space?

The problem is, you need to build the muscles now in your organisation. 

You need to not waste time working with agencies who don't get it. 

You cannot hand this off to your Meta agency; they just don't understand! 

This might be the most pivotal and important time for brands of the next five to ten years. 

Agree? Disagree?

Booked shoptalk 🙌🏻
But… 

Decided not get tix this year. 
All I want is to talk to interesting people this year (maybe a SAAS partner or two, maybe a cool brand or two) 

Who’s going and wants to hang with Parker Kump and I? 

Dm me 🙌🏻

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K all (brand owners) - I have an ask... (and a give) THIS IS CRAZY POST BE WARNED lol
When I was a multi-brand owner, I would get invited to talk at events and podcasts etc ALL THE TIME. 

I would argue as a large agency owner I HAVE WAYYYYYY more to talk about now and a way bigger view on commerce in general... (we are aiming to drive 1 billion in social commerce revenue this year after all) 

but... most events make agency owners pay BIG MONEY to keynote (also WTF??) 

So here's my thought... 

I am a REALLY good advisor 
had 5 of my advisory clients exit last year
every consumer brand I worked with grew at least 2X profitably. 

So... here's my thought
LET ME GET BACK IN THE BRAND GAME HAHAH 

I will advise your brand
Take a small amount of equity only if we grow 
Will be public facing and one of the faces of the brand online 

Here's what the brand needs to have 

1. Minimum 5 Mill sales (be at PMF) 
2. Wants to grow huge 
3. has appetite for Tiktok shop 
4. Wants someone to be the face 
5. No supplements sorry 

If that's you... DM me and we can chat

What do I get out of it? 

1. I get to speak at more events as a brand owner. 
2. I get to see growth of a brand again as an owner. 

I know... crazy idea right? 
But I know there is someone out there right now looking for help JUST LIKE THIS and we could create a win-win! 

DMs open!

Founder - Customers Who Click | CRO for eCom brands - turning traffic into customers using "The U.A.M Method"

Most DTC brands want to scale their paid media. But few focus enough on converting that traffic.  

Customer acquisition costs are rising, and while brands invest heavily in driving traffic, too many are wasting thousands of dollars sending traffic to friction-heavy, confusing websites with poor user experiences.  

The brands that win are not just the ones with the best ads. 

They are the ones that ensure every click leads to a seamless, high-converting customer journey from the first visit through to repeat purchases.  

Yet, many brands still rely on best practices, gut instinct, or copying competitors instead of using real customer insights to optimise their websites and landing pages.  

This is where CRO comes in.  

Through data-driven research, behavioural psychology, and rigorous testing, we help brands remove friction, increase conversion rates, and maximise revenue from their paid traffic.  

Giving them room to scale comfortably, and profitably.

At Customers Who Click, we specialise in turning more visitors into buyers, helping ambitious e-commerce brands scale profitably and sustainably.  

We’ve helped businesses see real improvements, like:

🚀 MOD Lighting added $3,300,000 in additional annual revenue.
🚀 Ozarke saw an increase in Revenue Per User of 37.8%.
🚀 Groove increased conversion by 53% and AOV by 23% in 6 months.
🚀 D.Louise added $372,000 in revenue from their existing traffic.
🚀 neat. Doubled AOV and increased revenue by 102.3% with bespoke landing pages.

If you want to get the most from your paid media and scale efficiently, let’s talk.  

👉 Book a free conversion discovery session at www.customerswhoclick.com/apply

Or, if you’re not quite ready, follow along as I share practical tips and insights on optimising your website’s performance.

Will Laurenson

Customers Who Click is growing.

So I’m hiring a CRO Strategist.

Contract / freelance. Fully remote.

Open to different levels of but you must have real DTC / ecommerce experience.

I’m looking for someone who can:

- Lead client CRO strategy
- Run meaningful A/B tests
- Conduct real customer research
- Use behavioural analytics properly
- Turn insights into structured roadmaps

This isn’t a button-colour role.

You’ll take ownership.

You’ll challenge assumptions.

You’ll think commercially, revenue over vanity metrics.

If you understand ecommerce deeply and enjoy figuring out why customers buy (or don’t), we should talk.

Connect & DM me.

CV, portfolio, case studies, Loom - send whatever shows how you think.

Over 1,000 DTC brands downloaded our last ecommerce playbook.

So we decided to go bigger this year.

If you're running a DTC brand in 2026, this might be the most useful resource you read this year.

Together with some of the smartest operators in ecommerce, we created:

👉 How to Move the Needle in 2026

A collection of 18 real strategies brands are using right now to drive growth.

No theory.
No recycled advice.
Just practical changes that actually impact revenue.

Inside the playbook you'll see how brands are:

- Increasing revenue per visitor by +21% without driving more traffic

- Generating $32,835 in extra monthly profit from a simple shipping test

- Increasing abandoned flow revenue by 40% without changing email templates

- Improving conversion rate by 28% after fixing product discovery

- Cutting ad spend by 50% while maintaining growth

and many more...

Huge thanks to the partners who shared their insights:

Quickfire - Shopify Premier Partner, Rebuy Engine, Intelligems, Soar With Us, Octane AI, Zigpoll, Leaf Signal, Videowise, Nosto, Flare - Scheduled Delivery, Sweet Analytics, KnoCommerce, Order Editing, Littledata, PostPilot, Growthub

If you want the playbook

1. Like this post
2. Comment "PLAYBOOK"
3. Share this post to skip the queue

And I'll DM you the link.

$50m+ Generated for DTC Brands With CRO | Host of Customers Who Click 🎙️ (500,000+ downloads)

If your brand can’t clearly answer what it stands for, you don’t have a growth problem.

You have a trust problem.

This week on the podcast, I sat down with James Connell, CEO of LOULOU LOLLIPOP - a Vancouver-based baby lifestyle brand and certified B Corp - and we unpacked what “brand” actually means when the stakes are high.

And in baby, the stakes are very high.

One line from James stuck with me: “Good product is table stakes.”

That’s it. That’s the shift.

We talked about how brand isn’t colours and fonts. It’s storytelling. It’s trust.

It’s what you stand for when a parent is choosing something for their child.

Some of the parts I found most interesting:

– Why service, packaging, and fulfilment should be treated as part of the product

 – The idea that every touchpoint (including customer service) is something the customer has already paid for

 – Winning the “baby shower moment” and entering a family’s life from day one

 – Why creativity thrives when profitability is the constraint

 – And why execution beats perfection every time

We also got into B Corp values, hiring for lived culture (not brand docs that sit in a drive), distributor governance, and how AI could actually make online shopping feel more human again.

If you’re building a consumer brand and thinking beyond short-term conversion tactics, this conversation is worth your time.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think - link in the comments

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CEO Loulou Lollipop | Global Omnichannel Strategy | Brand Building | Awarded Canadian Marketer of the Year |

LOULOU LOLLIPOP

Your CRO team might be making your numbers look better…

While quietly making your business worse.

I see this constantly with 7–9 figure DTC brands.

Conversion rate goes up.
Everyone celebrates.
Board decks look healthy.

Three months later?

Revenue is flat.
Margin is tighter.
Paid media feels “harder” to scale.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

You can increase conversion rate while reducing revenue quality.

Example:

CVR: 2% → 2.4%
AOV: $120 → $95

That looks like progress.

It isn’t.

Because revenue per session just dropped.

And revenue per session is what actually compounds.

RPS = CVR × AOV

It forces commercial honesty.

If your team pushes heavy discounts to lift conversion, RPS exposes it.

If merchandising shifts focus to lower-priced SKUs, RPS shows it.

If cheaper traffic converts but spends less, RPS makes that trade-off visible.

Conversion rate answers: “Did they buy?”

Revenue per session answers: “Did this meaningfully grow the business?”

At scale, that distinction matters more than almost anything else in CRO.

I’m not anti-CVR.

It’s a useful diagnostic.

But if it’s your north star, your team will optimise for the easiest lever, not the most valuable one.

And what gets measured gets manipulated.

If you’re a founder or CMO, check your dashboards.

What’s headline metric #1?

If it’s conversion rate, you might be celebrating the wrong wins.

—

If you want practical CRO breakdowns like this, join 5,000+ DTC founders and marketers getting my twice-weekly newsletter.

No fluff.

No vanity tactics.

Just commercially grounded strategies that actually move revenue.

Link in the comments to subscribe

Want to unlock an extra 10% from your website?

Most 7–9 figure brands don’t have a traffic problem.

They have a funnel problem.

Before you brief another test, redesign a PDP, or blame your paid media team…

Look at this:

Sessions → Product Views (~65%)

Product Views → Add to Cart (~12%)

Add to Cart → Start Checkout (~45%)

Start Checkout → Complete Purchase (~55%)

These aren’t perfect benchmarks.

They’re directional sanity checks from working with high-revenue DTC brands.

Now here’s the strategic bit most teams skip:

Don’t optimise everything.

Find your biggest gap vs benchmark.

Start there.

If you’re converting 8% add-to-cart instead of 12%

→ That’s not a checkout issue.
→ That’s positioning, PDP clarity, offer strength, or intent mismatch.

If you’re only getting 30% checkout completion instead of 55%

→ That’s friction.
→ Trust gaps.
→ Payment UX.
→ Delivery anxiety.

Your funnel usually isn’t broken.

One step is.

And that step is where your next 10–20% revenue lift is hiding.

Senior teams scale faster because they prioritise bottlenecks, not ideas.

Go check your numbers before you plan your next test.

Want access to our Looker Studio Funnel Report? 

Comment FUNNEL below and I'll send it over 

(Must be 1st connection)

AOV is a terrible number to set your free shipping threshold with.

Look at the table below.

Most brands anchor their threshold to average order value.

But AOV is usually the mean.

And the mean lies.

Because it gets dragged up by:

- High-value customers
- Bulk purchases
- Seasonal spikes

So you end up setting a £100 threshold...

...based on an £83 mean AOV…

…when the most common order value is £44.

That’s not a lever.

That’s wishful thinking.

The modal value tells you what customers typically spend.

The mean tells you what happens once outliers get involved.

They are not the same thing.

But this doesn’t mean:

“Drop your threshold immediately.”

That’s too simplistic.

The real analysis happens here:

- Of carts below the threshold, how far below are they?
- Of carts above it, how far above are they?
- How many are actually close enough to be influenced?

On a call last week we found:

- Only 8% of abandoned carts were within £10 of the threshold
- Most carts above the threshold were massively above
- Most carts below it were massively below

So lowering it slightly wouldn’t suddenly “give away” shipping to everyone.

But lowering it slightly and improving upsells?

That turns it into a behavioural lever.

Free shipping shouldn’t be set on a whim.

It should be used strategically to change behaviour.

Do you know your modal order value?

Or are you setting thresholds off an average that hides whats really going on?

---
Follow me and hit the 🔔 on my profile for daily CRO tips to help DTC brands grow profitably.

You can also join our newsletter via the link in the comments and get weekly CRO deep dives straight to your inbox.

“We went from 400 assets a year…to 400 a month.”

That line alone stopped me mid-conversation.

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Katherine Cousins, CEO of QUAY  and honestly, it’s one of those conversations that makes you rethink how fast this space is moving.

Katherine spent nearly 20 years in footwear (Timberland, Wolverine Worldwide) before stepping into Quay and helping evolve it from a social-first sunglasses brand into a serious multi-channel eyewear business.

But what stood out wasn’t just the growth, it was how they’re navigating it.

A few things we got into:

- How their “summer of AI” led to content that’s genuinely indistinguishable from traditional production

- Why they’ve scaled from 400 assets per year to 400 per month (and what breaks if you don’t adapt)

- The reality that 80% of customers still want to buy glasses in-store - despite everything we say about ecom

What I liked most is how balanced Katherine’s thinking is.

Yes, they’re pushing hard on AI and speed.

But she’s very clear: brand integrity comes first, and just because you can use something (like avatars), doesn’t mean you should - at least not yet.

If you’re working in ecom, growth, or even just trying to keep up with how messy this landscape is getting…this episode will give you a much clearer lens on what actually matters right now.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think, especially on the AI vs brand trade-off.

P.S. Are you increasing content volume right now, or trying to be more selective? Curious what people are prioritising right now?

Conversion Rate ↑ 20%.
Revenue ↓ 8.8%.

Look at the table below.

Nothing is broken.

Sessions are flat.
Orders are up.
Conversion rate improved.

On paper, this looks like a win.

It isn’t.

and this exact pattern shows up more often than most teams realise.

Here’s what happened:

- Conversion rate increased from 2.0% to 2.4%
- Orders increased by 20%
- AOV dropped from £50 to £38

Revenue fell.

Revenue per session fell.

And that’s the number that actually matters.

This is why we don’t optimise just for conversion rate.

Conversion rate moves because of:

- Traffic mix
- Discounting
- Campaign strategy

You can “improve” it by:

- Pushing heavier discounts
- Reducing prices
- Shifting acquisition channels

None of which guarantee better commercial performance.

Revenue per session forces a better question:

Are we extracting more value from the traffic we already have?

It captures:

- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Traffic quality

In one number.

If you’re a Head of Ecommerce, ask yourself:

Are you reporting a metric that’s easy to celebrate...

Or one that reflects the P&L?

If you’re a founder:

Would you rather see conversion up...

Or profit up?

They are not the same thing.

---
Follow me and hit the 🔔 on my profile for daily CRO tips to help DTC brands grow profitably.

You can also join our newsletter via the link in the comments and get weekly CRO deep dives straight to your inbox.

“You might just be throwing money into a vacuum.”

That’s how Josh Roberts described paid media in 2025.

And honestly…he’s not wrong.

In the latest episode of the podcast, I sat down with Josh Roberts, co-founder of Very Special Games - the team behind Ransom Notes and a range of hugely successful tabletop games.

What makes their story interesting is how they’re scaling across DTC and retail at the same time.

Roughly 75% of their revenue comes from DTC, with the rest coming from retailers like Walmart, Target, and Barnes & Noble.

But once retail enters the picture, the data gets messy fast.

A few things from this conversation that really stuck with me:

- Why Meta ads are still their strongest acquisition channel, even though they’re far less predictable than they used to be

- How selling through retail forces you to build a much more sophisticated data stack just to understand if your marketing works

- Why TikTok performs far better organically than through paid media for their category

- And a fascinating point about the tabletop industry: brand loyalty is surprisingly weak - the logo on the box barely matters

We also got into the economics of licensing big IP (Star Wars, Futurama, etc.), why most tabletop games shouldn’t become apps, and how Josh is thinking about designing games that help kids with autism engage socially without feeling like therapy.

Really thoughtful conversation about the trade-offs between creativity, growth, and data.

If you work in DTC, paid media, or product-led brands, you’ll probably recognise a lot of the challenges Josh talks about.

🎧 Episode 291 is live now.

Give it a listen here: https://lnkd.in/ememaXYT

Most brands say they care about the customer journey.

Very few actually obsess over it.

In the latest episode of the podcast, I sat down with Michael G. Callahan , Global SVP & GM of Luminex Home Décor & Fragrance – PartyLite - a 53-year-old brand that’s gone from direct sales heritage to a digital-first DTC business operating across North America and Europe.

What stood out straight away was Michael’s mindset.

He told me:

“What I obsess about every single day is the consumer journey.”

And they take that seriously.

A few things we unpacked in this conversation:

- Why his team pressure tests their website daily, and even asks job candidates to buy a product during interviews

- How they’re experimenting with TikTok campaigns that don’t show the product at all

- Why their biggest growth lever right now isn’t acquisition…it’s loyalty and retention

- And the uncomfortable truth that your website will never be perfect, and that’s fine

We also got into some really interesting discussions around:

- Using AI for localisation without losing brand nuance
- Selling a premium product in a market full of £5 alternatives
- Why storytelling often beats product-led marketing in social

If you work in ecommerce, growth, or customer experience, there are a lot of practical insights in this one.

Michael was incredibly open about what’s working, what isn’t, and what they’re still figuring out.

Definitely worth a listen.

🎧 Listen to the episode via link in the comments

- - -

This episode is sponsored by the amazing Gavin Hewitson of In-box and his amazing Free Email Marketing Community on Skool - Get access FREE via the link in the comments

The agency matured.

The website hadn’t.

So we rebuilt it.

Over the last few years, our thinking has evolved a lot.

The strategy is deeper.
The testing is sharper.
he conversations with brands are more commercial.

But the old site didn’t reflect that.

It didn’t properly show:

- How we approach Customer Revenue Optimisation
- The strategic depth behind our experiments
- The standard of brands we work with
- Where we’re taking Customers Who Click next

Now it does.

The case studies are clearer.
The positioning is tighter.
The thinking is better represented.

And this is just the foundation.

We’ll be rolling out:

- A proper home for the podcast
- Detailed blog breakdowns
- More long-form insight into how we think about profitable growth

If you’re running a 7–9 figure DTC brand and scaling paid media feels harder than it should…

Start with the website.

It’ll give you a clear sense of how we approach growth.

Link in the comments...

You’re ignoring one of your highest-converting customers.

Not your competitors.
Not a new channel.
Your own customers.

I realised how big this was when I recorded my latest episode with Nick Kennedy, co-founder of Giftnote for Shopify.

Nick shared something that genuinely surprised me:

A gift customer converts 3x higher than a normal customer, and gift orders have ~30% higher AOV.

And yet…most brands have no idea who the recipient even is.

Traditionally, once a gift is sent, that’s it.

No visibility. 
No follow-up. 
No relationship.

As I said in the episode, the default mindset is:

“Well, they’re not our customers.”

But they absolutely could be.

We also dug into:

- Why gifting volume doubles in November…and doubles again in December

- Why around 12% of orders across brands are gifts

- How transactional messaging can stay GDPR-compliant

- Practical ways to make gifting an always-on strategy (not something you hide in January)

The big takeaway?

Gifting isn’t a seasonal UX add-on.

It’s a revenue lever hiding in plain sight.

If you’re running a DTC brand (or advising one), this is worth your time.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think.

Link in the comments 👇

Most DTC brands don’t have a scaling problem.

They have a subscription, creative, and attention problem.

Just recorded a really interesting episode with Jim Phillips, co-founder of Graymatter - a mental performance supplement brand built around nootropics and cognitive optimisation.

What stood out straight away is that this isn’t a “we spotted a trend and jumped on it” story.

Jim built the company off the back of his own experience struggling with startup pressure, diving deep into neuroscience, and trying to literally make himself think better.

A few parts of the conversation that stuck with me:

They’re running a 94% subscription take rate…and are happy to lose money on the first purchase to maximise LTV

AI is already handling parts of their operations, and he’s convinced most “button-pushing” marketing roles will disappear

Their biggest growth lever right now? 

Not media buying…content iteration and creative testing at scale.

We also got into the stuff most people don’t talk about:

→ Why having data gave him an unfair advantage when launching

→ How they’re thinking about new channels like Amazon, TikTok Shop, and affiliates

→ And how a serious health scare completely reshaped his motivation as a founder

If you’re working in DTC, there’s a lot in here about where the space is actually heading, especially around acquisition, retention, and how AI fits into it all.

Worth a listen if you’re trying to scale profitably rather than just chase growth.

Let me know what you think if you give it a listen - link in the comments 👇

Most Shopify advice is recycled.

Same playbooks. Same screenshots. Same “10x” nonsense.

This won’t be.

On Feb 25th (7pm CET / 1pm EST), 15 DTC experts get 5 minutes each to share one proven DTC hack.

No decks full of theory.
No 45-minute ramble.
Just what’s actually working.

I’ll be breaking down:

- The navigation change that lifted mobile revenue by 41.5%.

Simple fix.
Measurable impact.
No gimmicks.

Joining me:

🎯Phil Rees
Lada Khazanov
Phil Byrne
Jochen Hildebrandt 
Burak Yolga
Ernesto Barrientos 
Erin Watt
Anthony Morgan
Arni Gali "Arnius Galinskas"
AJ Saunders
Dušan Popović
Pasha Knish
Chase Coleman
Geoffrey Hurth

Hosted by Nick Penev.

If you run a DTC brand, manage growth, or care about improving unit economics - this is worth the 75 minutes.

👉 Grab your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eqCr7Kg2

Looking to sell or scale your 3PL? Get in touch ..

E-commerce Recruitment Expert | Amazon & DTC |Remote teams from Eastern Europe & LATAM | Junior to C-level

Commission Based PPC Advertising Pro. Digital Entrepreneur. Founder of Positive Sparks, Digification & The Digital Sparks Podcast

CEO at @Simpi | Transforming product experiences by creating intuitive instructions, enhancing customer satisfaction

Co-Founder & CEO @ Forceget Supply Chain Logistics

E-Commerce - Amazon Private Brands - Sales

Sr. Tech Partner Manager @ Triple Whale 🐳

Founder & CEO Enavi | We elevate the performance of 8 & 9 Figure Shopify Stores | Pioneering Human-Obsessed CRO

🏅 CXL Certified Conversion Rate Optimization & Digital Psychology Specialist (CRO) 💡 CRO Audits (UI UX, Heuristics) 🎯 Done-for-you A/B Testing 🛒 Landing Pages 📈 32.3x ROI per Test 📊 400+ AB Tests ⚡Ex Pulsetto

Your Next 250k Funding Raised Within 9 Months | Growth Advisor for D2C brands | NED

CEO @Byteout | Helping Amazon sellers go DTC | E-commerce & Shopify nerd 🎓

Helping brands level up on Amazon 🏆 Scaling FBA revenue with custom-tailored growth formulas

Growing Brands Through Content | Founder, Social Playbook | 180K+ Creator

Scaling Health/Beauty DTC Brands w/ Winning Creatives | $100M+ in Ad Spend | Ex-Aston Martin, Tinder, LVMH, Accor, Renault ◉ DM me and let’s chat

🚀 Co-founder @ XTREME POWER brands 🔥 eCom Hot Sauce and 10x5 Hack Series 🤝 Partnerships Advisor @ hellotax and 100+ Companies in the eCom Space 🎙Webinar Host 🏠 Fully Remote since 2010! Long before it was cool 😎

“You’re not doing your job unless you’re pissing off some percentage of people.”

That’s what Eric Bandholz said to me on the podcast this week.

And honestly…he’s probably right.

Eric is the founder of Beardbrand - 13+ years in, navigating a category that’s no longer growing

Search demand for beard care? Flat to down.
Competition? Higher than ever.

They’ve had three consecutive years in the red.

So this wasn’t a “how we 10x’d” episode.

It was a real conversation about:

- What happens when your category matures

- Why top-of-funnel gets exponentially harder

- The difference between a hook and clickbait

- Why brands that try to offend no one become completely forgettable

- Repositioning Beardbrand as a fragrance house disguised as a beard care company

- Selling out limited editions while traffic declines

The part that stuck with me most?

The idea that modern marketing almost requires a point of view strong enough to repel some people.

Because if everyone nods politely…no one remembers you.

Give it a listen, link in the comments

You can only optimise one for the next 90 days

- Conversion Rate
- Average Order Value
- Revenue Per Session

Which are you choosing?

Let us know why in the comments

You can only optimise one for the next 90 days:

They removed 70–80% of their team’s workload.

By answering seven questions.

This week I sat down with Simon Jablon, Creative Director and owner of Linda Farrow - the luxury eyewear brand he rebuilt from zero into a globally distributed business operating in around 100 countries.

What we unpacked wasn’t theory.

It was this:

Most teams are drowning in work that shouldn’t exist.

We talked about:

 – Why being busy isn’t the same as moving the needle
 – How comfortable tasks quietly replace meaningful ones
 – Why B2B customers often get treated like admin
 – And how simplifying just seven recurring questions removed up to 80% of internal workload

One line that stuck with me:

“I employ people to talk to other people, not service the master that is admin.”

If you run a brand, lead a team, or feel like you’re constantly firefighting… this one will probably hit.

🎧 Link’s in the comments.

P.S. What’s one recurring task in your business that probably shouldn’t exist anymore?

Founder/CEO Linda Farrow

Linda Farrow

“Everybody in ecommerce is doing the easy lift.”

Buy Meta ads.
Buy Google ads.
Scale until it gets expensive.

But what happens when that stops working?

That’s what I unpacked this week with Barclay Saul, CEO and co-founder of Kyrgies.

Kyrgies is built around a single product - felt slippers made in Kyrgyzstan - and a very deliberate decision not to chase trends or commoditised categories.


Barclay didn’t even start in ecommerce. He was a music teacher before building the brand. But his background around factories and garment production gave him a deep respect for quality control and long-term thinking .

In this episode we got into:

- Why they’ve significantly dialled back Meta spend
- Why word of mouth has always been their strongest channel
- The decision to pull the plug on Amazon entirely
- How ranked-choice customer surveys shape product decisions
- When customer research works…and when gut instinct matters more

And a fascinating scientific study showing their vegetable-tanned leather soles actively kill bacteria in the home

What I liked most about this conversation is that it wasn’t theory.

It was about making uncomfortable decisions:

- Reducing dependency on paid.
- Building wholesale relationships.
- Running trunk shows.
- Expanding internationally.

Growing in ways that require more effort, but build more resilience.

If you’re feeling the pressure from rising ad costs, or you’re too reliant on one acquisition channel, this one’s worth your time.

Have a listen and let me know your biggest takeaway.

Link in the comments

This has got to be the most generic, bland pitch email I have ever received...and they still managed to disqualify their guest 😂 

Tip for pitching to podcasts:

1. Give me a 2 sentence intro about you or the guest you're pitching.

2. Give me 3-5 bullet points about why you're a fit for the show

Thats it. 

That's all I need.

I don't need an essay, i dont need some 500 word cover letter.

Just give me a few short lines that make me say "yeah great, sounds like a fit, lets chat!"

If you're interested in coming on Customers Who Click - Drop me a DM, we're always open to new guests.

Just be someone who is involved in ecommerce/DTC and we'll get along just fine.

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jordan West's LinkedIn Performance

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