2024 is a WRAP 🤯

Not sure if I’m just getting old or time is passing by faster than ever. Another year in the books.

I think 2024 serves as the year the DTC industry broke out of its funk & slumber from the 2 prior years (‘22-’23). DTC had been mired with hesitancy, fear, and penny-pinching ever since interest rates skyrocketed in 2022 and remained high until the Fed began its rate cutting expedition in 2024.

Concerns over fundraising, M&A, and profitability had paralyzed the industry to the point where it felt like brands were in a vegetative state. Brands had significant fear over taking any risk or investing in anything that did not have a clear immediate ROI. This is not the environment that anyone gets excited by.

2H 2024 felt like brands started gaining more confidence, began willing to take more risks, and were starting to feel eager over growing top line, not just bottom line.

I will review my 25 × 2025 Ecommerce Predictions below, but to summarize ‘25 in ONE WORD, here it is: FUN.

Before we get into ‘25 topics below, some updates since we last connected:

• Hiya (one of Avenue Z’s longstanding clients & a brand that I’m a founding member of) has sold majority share at $260M valuation. MORE HERE.

  • Amazing feeling to lead performance marketing for a brand from $0 to 9 figures in annual revenue in just a few years from inception. Grateful to be part of this.

• Trump asks Supreme Court for pause/delay the Jan 19 “TikTok Ban” deadline

• TikTok Shop surpasses Sephora and Shein in total sales.

• Health & Wellness on Meta- If you were “categorized” by Meta as impacted, you have less than a month until D-Day. If you need help overcoming this, reach out to me immediately, time is ticking. We’re helping plenty of brands work through this.

1. My 25 Predictions for Ecommerce in 2025

1. Meta remains king (spend, performance, NC acq)

2. Biggest share of wallet gainer: AppLovin

3. AppLovin performance remains steady DESPITE rise in auction competition (offset by algo/feature strengthening)

4. Explosion of new, viable performance channels for DTC brands.. more than ever before.

👀 Chase Media Solutions, Shop Cash, Nift, Unity/Liftoff

5. Further washing out/devaluing of the "button clicking" channel marketer. This is commoditized.

More emphasis on "comprehensive marketer" which straddles all channels, requires expertise/understanding of each level of funnel & data/tech/creative.

6. Shop Cash begins to drive meaningful scale for adopters.

7. Meta prioritizes VALUE & 1P data sharing to strengthen performance. Sharing info back to Meta that it doesn't already have becomes the norm to make algo smarter.

8. Snapchat resurgence: once again seen as a viable, yet scale-limited, performance channel.

9. Snap launches native checkout on "Snap Stores" & goes after TikTok Shop.

10. Meta reprioritizes social commerce & adds the "Shop" tab back to IG.

11. Influencer/Affiliate/Seeding programs & strategies converge.

12. Meta's Health & Wellness data policy update is more a cat & mouse game than death sentence to impacted brands. HMU if you need help here ASAP.

13. AI-driven activation of 1P data like never before. We'll see dynamic, hyper-personalized websites/LPs based on a user's audience segment/history w/ the brand/traffic source etc.

14. AI UGC is actually usable. Lots of policy/governance will arise from it to ensure FTC compliance.

15. AI agents will be deployed by brands to help increase AOV & LTV, shorten time to next purchase, and achieve other brand objectives of their choosing.

16. DTC data nerds become as valuable as (if not more than) the marketer.

17. Influence for Equity. Top brands bring on influencers as equity partners at scale that will vest based on deliverables and performance.

18. Trump rescues TikTok & does NOT have to be sold to a US company. Trump brokers a deal that allows ByteDance to retain control but only if XYZ conditions are met, all of which are highly favorable to the US.

19. Consumer sentiment/confidence returns to 2021 highs.

20. Brands have a return to growth mindset. Top & bottom line matter equally. If it means sacrificing/risking bottom for top line, that is OK.

21. Consolidation in the tech & agency spaces.

22. Top of funnel/brand budgets skew more towards IRL events & activations to get in front of their desired demos.

23. Brands figure out how to measure IRL data & activate it digitally.

24. Large institutions seeking revenue growth will activate their audiences & 1P data more readily to DTC brands.

25. Brands prioritize enriching 1P data w/ customer social media handles (arguably more important than email/sms!)

BONUS PREDICTION
📈 BIGGEST gainer stock (ecom sector): $APP
not financial advice

2. One of the BIGGEST Issues on Meta that not enough people talk about.

Simple illustration highlighting one of THE biggest issues on Meta that isn't talked about enough: 👥 AUDIENCE SEGMENTS

Recently audited this account that was struggling w/ new customer acquisition & quickly uncovered this.

First- 80% of their spend was going to ASC (too high). But they did set 0% cap on existing customers- so that was done properly.

BUT- the data just didn't make sense. Take a look at the image above... top image is Meta, bottom image is Triple Whale.

Only 8% of spend was going to "Existing Customers" according to Meta. BUT- according to Triple Whale, 43% of their Meta purchases were existing customers (only 57% NC).

Two things are at play here that caused this issue:

1. Proper audience segment definitions: this brand didn’t define their existing customers audience segment ideally. They had a pixel purchase audience (180D) and a static customer list export. Both are faulty. Pixel audience only goes back 180D and is riddled with incomplete data that yields low match rates. Static customer list export is static. Have fun re-uploading this daily/weekly. The ideal solution is enhancing this with Shopify Audience’s “existing customer” audience. The less ideal (but still better than what this account had) solution would be to use Klaviyo Audiences as the dynamic existing customer audience.

2. Complete (& dynamic) 1P data that is usable by Meta to match existing customers to FB/IG users. This brand had an extremely low purchase event match quality score (EMQ score) which means the events were not ideally matched to users on the platform. This will immediately shrink your “existing customer” audience.

Since this brand inadequately matched their “existing customers” to Meta users, much of their budget was going to existing customers, but Meta thought these users were new prospects!

This is probably the most common issue I still run into on most brands. The foundational pieces are just not being addressed which causes much bigger issues.

If you need help assessing the state of your Meta ad account, reach out.

3. 2025 Ecommerce Planning Guide - Thx Particl

Planning for 2025 is front and center. Brands that continue to grow have mastered the art of merchandising:

• Product price increases

• When & how much to discount products

• New product launches

• Marketing calendar optimization

Particl just dropped an essential 2025 planning guide that covers all of this. The report aggregates data from the top 5k brands under $100M/yr in revenue.

As we enter Q1, "new year, new you" personal care brands will see conversion rates skyrocket. In the past year, products in this category have seen ~25% price increases.

If your products are in personal care and you haven't increased prices, this is something to consider. Taking advantage of macro trends to optimize your business is critical.

Prices on DTC products at large have increased 18% over the past 12 months. Brands often spend 100% of their energy optimizing CAC. But what if you maintained CAC and were able to improve ROAS & profitability through higher AOV? 🤔

Outside of price increases, you can optimize your brand by strategic product launches and mastering when/how much to discount your sitewide sales.

It's inevitable: consumers will compare your brand to your competitors. In order to win, you need to have a feel for what the industry is up to.

Finalize 2025 planning w/ Particl's guide that tackles these burning questions:

• Should I raise prices in 2025?

• Should I launch new products in 2025?

• How often should I run site-wide sales?

• How deep should I discount?

• Which holidays should I prioritize?

👉 Get your FREE 2025 Ecommerce Planning Guide Here! 👈

To TANK, Or NOT To Tank? - that is the question

In honor of my despicable New York Giants, I needed to surface this topic.

If you weren’t aware, the Giants were in pole position to earn the #1 pick in the NFL draft with 2 games remaining.

This is something NFL teams face every year. Most get it right.

Teams in this position have 2 options: play to win or play to get the #1 pick (by way of losing).

At this stage of the season when you’re fully eliminated, winning is at odds with the franchise’s future. If you win meaningless games, you get a worse draft pick and end up with inferior talent (most of the time).

Teams should never THROW games. But wouldn’t it make more sense to shutdown your best players (to avoid injury for next year)? They could easily get hit with serious injuries that could knock them out for all of next season. By putting your best players on ice, you allow your younger players to get some playing time to see what you have and to get them more experience. And it allows you to gracefully NOT win games that will jeopardize your future.

But the Giants claim that winning this meaningless game was good for setting a winning culture. Yet, they dropped from #1 pick to pick #4. And if they win their last game (another meaningless game) they can drop all the way to pick #9. I just know they’re going to do this exact thing.

So am I crazy?

Or do you support the tank?

What I’m Listening to 🎧

Beats of the Week: Keinemusik Radio Show by Rampa (Christmas Eve Mix)

Rampa (1 of the Keinemusik guys) was one of the big winners of 2024. He along w/ the rest of his crew have turned into worldwide phenoms, commanding the biggest ticket in all of house music around the world. For good reason. Melodic, vibey, and feel good music. He put out a mix on Christmas Eve..truly a man of the people. Give it a listen below👇

I welcome all feedback. Good, bad, everything in between.

Hit reply, and let’s hear it! 👂

📧 Share your thoughts or what you want me to cover next!