DTC brands spend up to 90% of their marketing budget attracting new customers. This places significant pressure on every onsite feature and test (between time spent, money invested, and, if the test goes astray, opportunities lost).

So, how can you ensure you invest in the right tests? Steal the strategies top brands already rely on.

If several brands pull from the same playbook, chances are that they each have data proving it works. As a result, these strategies tend to be safer bets with bigger payoffs.

To get you started, Solve cross-examined Summersalt and Vessi to identify seven on-site tests every eCommerce fashion brand should try. 

(To check if these tests work in other verticals, we turned to luxury luggage brand TUMI. And spoiler: Any brand can leverage this playbook.)

Let’s dive in.

Strategy 1: Increase engagement with a rich dropdown menu 

Historically, eCommerce dropdown menus featured a list of product categories (think: “tops”), maybe a list of product lines within each category (“t-shirts”), and that’s it. But increasingly, brands are adding rich content and timely offers to their dropdown menu, boosting clicks and conversions.

For example, TUMI’s header menu goes beyond naming product categories (“Luggage”) to offer specific use cases (“Gifts”).

The luxury luggage brand then uses the dropdown menu to hone in on specific gifting situations with subcategories like “For Him,” “For Her,” and “Under $300.”

Each use case is paired with an image and placed above the plain-text “Shop All” button. 

Not only does this draw the shopper’s eye, but it:

1. Encourages the conversion by better matching the visitor’s intent (i.e., “I am shopping for this specific person, and this is my budget.”).
   
2. Sends users to pre-filtered product pages, trimming the number of results shown and, as a result, reducing the risk of customers bouncing due to overwhelm.
   
3. Collects better data on who’s visiting their site, what they’re looking for, and why. Using a tool like Solve, TUMI can then leverage these insights to further optimize their website and marketing strategy for conversions.

Strategy 2: Leverage shopping cart and checkout for cross-sells

Upsells are the eCommerce equivalent of “Do you want fries with that?” and they are incredibly effective at increasing average order value (AOV). In fact, Amazon reports that 35% of its profits come from upsells and cross-sells.

The ideal place to push a cross-sell? In your customer’s carts. That’s because you already have: 

• Proof that the site visitor intends to convert
• Data on which products they’re interested in

Let’s look at how Vessi does this. Once a customer adds an item to their cart, the waterproof shoe brand adds a badge to the cart icon in the header, indicating how many things are in the cart. 

If the shopper clicks on their cart icon, a preview of what’s in their cart pops out. The customer, however, stays where they are on the site – making this preview less disruptive to the ongoing shopping experience. 

To take full advantage of this pop-out cart, Vessi showcases an additional, low-cost product the shopper “may also like” next to the items the customer has already added to their cart. This makes it easy for the customer to imagine the larger purchase and convenient to add the cross-sell item. A 20% discount further entices the shopper to take the prompted action. 

Strategy 3: Make your welcome offer stick around (literally) 

Welcome offers (think: take 10% off your first purchase) have become the status quo for DTC brands. The trouble is most brands hit customers with this discount as soon as they land on their website. As a result, most shoppers immediately close the popup out of habit. 

Once a customer starts browsing, they might find an item they really like. That’s when the offer becomes necessary. But if that popup never, well, pops back up, the chances of that new customer abandoning their cart skyrockets. Why? Because without the discount, the items become less desirable.

To solve this, leading DTC brands like Vessi and Summersalt make their welcome offer sticky:

• Extending the offer throughout the customer’s journey, so they can recall and leverage it whenever they hit a conversion point
• Making it more likely that shopper will place an order (roughly 66% of consumers will make a purchase they weren’t originally planning if they have a coupon)

Tip: If you’re worried about overwhelming every page with a sticky welcome offer and, say, a chatbot, run an A/B test to see if the conversion lift justifies a bit more on-page clutter.

Strategy 4: Differentiate your brand with value prop-focused messaging

We know this might sound like eCom 101, but every marketing strategy – and, ultimately, your brand’s success – hangs on consistent messaging. In fact, Forbes reports that uniform messaging across sales channels increases revenue by up to 23%. If that messaging highlights your differentiator or value proposition, even better.  

Take Summersalt, for example. While most swim brands focus their messaging around feeling comfortable or sexy, the travelwear brand gets to the root of these insecurities: limited sizing means most swimwear doesn’t fit right. Summersalt, by comparison, is size agnostic.

People who search for “Summersalt” are met with a meta description highlighting that the brand offers sizes ranging from 0 to 24. On their About page, the team shares: “We took over 1.5 million body measurements from 10,000 women to inform the Summersalt fit.” (These soundbites are then shared over and over across social media, paid ads, product pages, etc.)

Tip: Before you go all-in on one marketing message, use a tool like Klaviyo to A/B test copy variations and see what resonates best with your target customers. This’ll save you time and money, while gathering the data you need to maximize conversions. 

Strategy 5: Incentivize word-of-mouth referrals

Word-of-mouth referrals drive ~13% of all sales (equal to $6T in global spending). This type of referral also secures 5x more sales than paid ads, at significantly lower CAC.

But how do you get someone to actually give a word-of-mouth referral? You make it worth their while.

For instance, Vessi displays a second popup to existing customers: Get $20 off your next purchase when you refer a friend. They also give the referred person the same deal. 

But there are three strings attached: 

1. Each person must spend $100+ to use the offer, driving up Vessi’s average order value and protecting the brand’s profit margins. 
2. The referrer must be a current customer, so new customers can’t use it to secure a better deal (Vessi’s standard welcome offer is a free pair of $18 socks, for reference).
3. The referred must be a new customer, ensuring the offer actually grows Vessi’s customer base.

Here’s why this is so effective: Assuming the refer a friend popup’s conversion rate is similar to  that of your welcome popup, this strategy doubles the number of emails you’re capturing and customers you’re reaching. It’s no longer just the site visitor you’re engaging with, but their friend, too.

Strategy 6: Boost conversions by turning your brand into a lifestyle

Running a branded lifestyle blog can increase your brand’s conversion rates by 600% and is 62% less costly than other marketing methods. Not to mention that 78% of customers prefer learning about a company through articles rather than ads.

Just look at The Forecast, Summersalt’s lifestyle blog. Of course, the blog introduces people to the Summersalt brand. But by covering all things summer, it offers value beyond just promoting products, builds brand awareness, and ultimately increases loyalty – all of which are good for a brand’s bottom line.

Beyond building Summersalt’s community, The Forecast also: 

• Opens new partnership opportunities. For example, the blog often shares interviews with influencers and public figures who happen to be wearing Summersalt. While not overtly branded, this simple, accessible content tastefully links back to the brand. 
• Educates customers on how the brand fits into their everyday routine – without explicitly selling them on a product. (Case-in-point: How Summersalt passively showcases dozens of products in their layering and airport tips articles.)
• Encourages customers to imagine the brand as part of their ideal lifestyle (“Imagine me, but in Aruba, in that Summersalt bathing suit like Ciara Johnson“). 
• Grow your email list faster. With a lower barrier of entry, a free-to-read blog tends to capture more email signups than a welcome offer – which typically requires a purchase to justify the signup. (Summersalt actually gates blog content after the third article until the reader signs up for email.)
• Collect more first-party data. Using blog tags, Summersalt can segment leads and customers based on the articles (and, by extension, the products) they engage with and make data-backed decisions on which product lines to invest next. (Psst: Solve can help you do this.)

Strategy 7: Marry online and offline sales with zero-party data

Most brands gather zero-party data during their online checkout flow, using tools like KnoCommerce. If a customer shops in-store, the cashier might ask for an email, but it’s significantly less likely the customer will share that information. This makes it significantly harder to track customer activity across channels. 

So, how do you close the loop between online and offline sales? TUMI does this by prompting customers to register their purchases (customers can easily do this from TUMI’s footer). 

By doing so, customers unlock high-value benefits like product personalization, insurance on investment pieces, and repairs.

Meanwhile, the TUMI team gets a more comprehensive record of each customer’s lifecycle. (For instance, they might find out that customer X, who shops online, and customer Y, who shops in-store, are the same person.)

Get the data to back up your brand’s strategies

Stealing strategies is a great starting point, but to drive long-term value, you’ll need data to measure the results. That’s where Solve can help.

Trusted by top brands like D.S. & DURGA, Ramy Brook, and Crown Affair, Solve’s eCommerce data engine: 

• Unifies all your brand’s data into one centralized source of truth
• Accurately distills large datasets into unbiased reports
• Identifies clear growth levers you can pull to increase revenue 

But no need to take our word for it – book a demo to see how Solve can drive measurable growth for your brand.