In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast, host Josh Hadley shares his strategic framework for approaching major sales events like Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Rather than chasing short-term profits, Josh advocates using these events for customer acquisition through aggressive discounts on front-end products. Using Athletic Greens (AG1) as a prime example, he illustrates how maintaining a cohesive brand promise drives long-term success. Josh also emphasizes the importance of the 3:1 lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio as the key metric for sustainable e-commerce growth.

Bullet Points:

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Approaching Major Sales Events
The host discusses different strategies for sales events like Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday for e-commerce brands.

00:00:52 Introduction to the Host
Josh Hadley introduces himself, his e-commerce experience, and the focus of the podcast on building a true brand.

00:01:48 Defining a Real Brand
A real brand sells a promise to a customer, not just products. The host uses Athletic Greens (AG1) as an example.

00:02:52 AG1’s Brand Promise Strategy
How AG1 uses a starter kit to introduce customers to their brand promise of convenient health and wellness.

00:03:54 Prime Day as Customer Acquisition
The primary goal of Prime Day should be front-end customer acquisition, not short-term profitability, to build an ecosystem.

00:05:57 The Importance of Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Focusing on the long-term LTV of a customer and the 3-to-1 CAC to LTV ratio for sustainable scaling.

00:07:51 AG1’s Customer Onboarding
AG1’s starter kit includes materials to onboard customers into their ecosystem and encourage repeat purchases, building long-term trust.

00:09:04 Long-Term Brand Building vs. Short-Term Tactics
The best brands focus on a 3-5 year time horizon, building trust through repetition and delivering on their promise.

00:11:06 Creating a Cohesive Brand Ecosystem
Brands should have a lead offer that introduces customers to an entire ecosystem of products delivering on a single promise.

00:13:22 The Two-Pronged Strategy for Sales Events
Use aggressive discounts on acquisition products to attract new customers and use the event for liquidating excess inventory.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites
“AG1 (Athletic Greens)“: “00:01:48”
“Expandify“: “00:07:00”

General Concepts
“Lifetime Value (LTV) Ratio”: “00:05:57”

Recommendations
“Front End Acquisition Offers”: “00:13:22”
“Liquidation Offers”: “00:13:22”

Transcript:

Josh Hadley 00:00:00  One of the biggest topics that’s always up for debate this time of year is, hey, how should I approach Prime Day? Should I be aggressive giving out a bunch of discounts? Should I turn off my PPC campaigns and just maximize profitability? Should I actually increase my prices and not decrease them? So I just ride the high of all the traffic that’s going to Amazon? Well, today I’m going to be diving into how I’m going to be approaching Prime Day moving forward. And this also includes Black Friday, Cyber Monday as well. Welcome to the Econ Breakthrough podcast I’m Josh Hadley. I’ve scaled my own ecommerce brand from 0 to 8 figures, and I’m actively building towards nine figures in sales. This podcast is where I document that journey and share the systems, the strategies, and the lessons learned in real time so that you can learn what actually matters and scale your own business. Who am I? My name is Josh Hadley. First and foremost, I’m a man of faith. I’m a husband to a beautiful wife and the father of four children.

Josh Hadley 00:00:52  I’ve been selling in the e-commerce space for over a decade, doing over $20 million in annual revenue, doing multi-millionaire on other sales channels such as Amazon, TikTok, Shop and Shopify, and also the host of the number one e-commerce podcast for business strategy. And that is Ecomm breakthrough. Today, I want to share with you our mindset of how we’re approaching Prime Days moving forward. This also includes how we’re going to be approaching, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and what some of the best brands out there in the e-commerce space are doing. I think that this is game changing because this kind of piggybacks off of what I’ve talked about in the past, which is, are you actually building a true brand, or are you just trying to sell products on Amazon, or are you just a product brand that’s just slapping their brand name on a bunch of different random products that don’t have a whole lot of cohesion? If that’s the case, you probably don’t want to listen to the rest of this podcast episode because it’s not going to be relevant for you.

Josh Hadley 00:01:48  This is going to be for those sellers that are actually trying to build a real brand. And what does a real brand mean? It means you’re not just selling products, it means you’re selling a promise to a customer, and then you’re actually able to deliver on that promise to a customer. Now, one of the best examples that I want to dive into is aji one. And aji one does an excellent job of this on Amazon because they know exactly who they are as a brand. You don’t just see Aegon all of a sudden coming out with, hey, now they’re selling socks. Aegon supplements is not coming out with, you know, iPad covers or cell phone cases or anything like that. They’re not an opportunistic, you know, product business. Instead, they are actually a brand trying to serve a very specific target market and customer delivering on the promise of, hey, if you come to us, we will provide you with the fastest, easiest way to get all of your vitamins and minerals in a very efficient way so that you are living your best life, that you are living, you know, in an optimal health environment.

Josh Hadley 00:02:52  Okay. That’s their brand promise. Now, are they actually able to deliver on this promise. And so ultimately, I share with you this example because this is what’s going to be kind of set the foundation for why you’re going to execute prime days and all of the big deal days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday in a new framework. So with AG one, one of the things that they do knowing their brand promise is how do I introduce people to our products to let them know, hey, they’re tasty, they’re easy, they’re convenient, and hopefully you feel better while you use these. That’s their brand promise. Okay, so how do they do that? Well, they have a seven day starter kit that they sell on Amazon. Now. They also sell some of their other SKUs on Amazon as well. But one of their key things and I just pulled it up. They’re doing over 2000 units a month just on their one supplement, which is their kind of their seven day starter kit. Okay, so those of you that are looking at my screen right now, if you’re listening to this, make sure you come check this episode out on YouTube where I’m actually sharing my screen on Amazon.

Josh Hadley 00:03:54  You can see again Athletic Green’s seven day starter kit. On Amazon, you can see that they’ve sold over 2000 units in the past month. But here is one of the most important things that you need to understand. Aegon is trying to use this not necessarily to make all of the profit in their business, but to introduce the customer to their brand promise and how they can deliver on that promise to a consumer so that that consumer will come back and buy time and time and time again. Because let’s cut to the chase here. At the end of the day, the way a brand should be approaching Prime Day is front end customer acquisition. What has been proven time and time again, not only from our own data, but from other reports that I’ve read. And you can go read this. Expand. If I put out a recent blog post about this as well, which is Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday, Cyber Monday tend to be one of the best customer acquisition days ever. It’s less about the profitability and it’s more about that front end acquisition, and it’s getting customers into your ecosystem.

Josh Hadley 00:04:59  And so all of the noise that you hear in the mastermind groups, the Facebook groups and the other podcasts that are talking about, oh, that this is how I maximized for profitability. This is how I turn off my ads or turn on my ads. This is my strategy for jacking up my prices. At the end of the day, it’s none of those kind of like gimmicks to just like, bring short term profit into the business. The best brands that are executing well on Prime Day are offering discounts to get people into their ecosystem, to experience whatever that brand promise is, and then delivering on that brand promise in the hopes of being able to establish trust and credibility, that that customer will come back and return and repeat buy from them. Now, if you’re selling on Amazon and you have a subscribe and save option, and if you’re a supplement brand like Prime Day, should be a no brainer for you to be like leading with your best offer for like, subscribe and save. Because if you can get people to just subscribe and save for the first time and then you have a really good product that actually delivers on a brand promise.

Josh Hadley 00:05:57  Like that customer is going to stay. And I think the latest metrics are like, people will stay on subscription for like 3 or 4 turns, okay. So don’t just look at this in terms of like, hey, what was my profitability on Prime Day itself? You need to be looking at the lifetime value of that customer. And that’s one of the most important, like fundamental shifts that I think e-commerce business owners need to experience, which is e-commerce. Being able to scale an e-commerce brand is going to require a 3 to 1 CAK ratio. That means whatever I acquire a customer for, let’s say it costs you $100 to acquire a customer. You want the lifetime value and not just gross revenue. You want gross margin, which means after the cost of fulfillment and after the cost of the product, you want that lifetime value of that customer to be at $300 or more. If you’ve done that, you are now effectively able to scale to the moon because you’ve got this 3 to 1 ratio. So that’s when you double down, you quadruple down, you ten x your ad spend.

Josh Hadley 00:07:00  If you’re able to continue to hit that 3 to 1 to LTV ratio. So again, if I if it sounds like I’m speaking French to you and you’re like, what is like I’m not even tracking lifetime value of a customer, how do I even do that? If you’re on Amazon, expand ify is a great solution to be able to help you identify what your true LTV is from customers, specifically on Amazon. But if you’re a Shopify seller, like you should know this like the back of your hand, because everything in the e-commerce space is all about the back to the LTV ratio. That’s the number one, kind of like golden metric that you should be striving for in everything that you’re doing. So how does that work? And how are the best brands using Prime Day and utilizing Black Friday, Cyber Monday to their benefit, not worrying about profit. So let’s come back here to AG one. Okay, so with AG one they are going to lead out with this offer of hey here’s your seven day starter kit.

Josh Hadley 00:07:51  Now take a look at what they’re including on their main image. Get ready for your next step in your health journey. So again they’re talking about here’s our brand promise. We want to help you live a healthier life. And then take a look at some of their accessory or secondary images that they have here. They’re actually including a physical little paper pamphlet that is, you know, we’re going to help you track your progress on your goals with a weekly habit journal to help you become a health, the healthier version of you. Okay. Now take a look at this top right corner of this little pamphlet that they’re they’re serving up to their audience. Drink one here for more advice and to become a member. So what do you think they’re doing? They are leading with this seven day kind of like trial as just a fantastic way to get people into their ecosystem. And so that’s been the biggest mindset shift for us is how do we utilize Prime Day to be able to get customers into our like? Just acquire customers either on subscribe and save, or to get them familiar enough with the brand and trusting the brand enough that they’re going to want to come back and buy this time and time again.

Josh Hadley 00:09:04  Now here’s the here’s the good news and the bad news. The bad news is this is not a short term gimmicky. Hey, when I when I kill it on Prime Day, you know, next week my revenues are just going to be absolutely crushing it. Now, it could be you could get a bunch of subscribers and things like that, but that’s not what the best brands do. Do you know what the best brands do? They’re not looking at the one week time horizon. They’re not looking at the one month time horizon. They’re not even looking at the one year time horizon. The best brands are looking at the time horizon over the course of 3 to 5 years with a customer, because they want to be able to establish trust over the course of years. And that’s how brands become well known and well loved is because consumers are able to come back and experience that brand promise and experience that trust with a brand over the course of years, not just a one off experience. Brand sells a promise that comes from repetition, and that’s what a brand is.

Josh Hadley 00:10:04  It’s whenever a customer has experience or touch with your brands, they experience the same thing over and over again. Which means guess what? A lot of the kind of the dirty tactics and the hacks that you see in the e-com space, whether it be exploiting a Facebook ad with a specific marketing angle, or maybe it’s exploiting an Amazon loophole for a temporary benefit, or gain it short lived. And if you ever in that time, like specifically, if you’re trying to run like a meta ad and you’re promising X, Y, and Z and your product actually doesn’t really fulfill X, Y, or Z, and ultimately, when that that customer receives that product, they’re either a very disappointed or b it doesn’t live up to the brand promise. Like if either of those things are happening, guess what? Your trust is, is basically being flushed down the toilet at this point and being able to kind of like rebuild that trust is ten times harder. And so, yes, is there an opportunity? There’s a lot of dropshippers out there where, yeah, you don’t worry about the brand.

Josh Hadley 00:11:06  You’re just like trying to make a quick buck. And if that’s you and that’s your business model, that’s great. But again, I’m talking to the people that are trying to build lasting brands that are making a positive impact in the world. And if that’s you, what you need to be thinking about when you’re approaching Prime Day is what is a lead offer that I can sell that will introduce people to my entire ecosystem of products. Because if you’re selling a brand, your ecosystem of products should all be delivering on that single brand promise. AG one does not just sell one supplement, they sell multiple supplements. And it’s all for trying to deliver on one brand promise, which is, hey, we’re going to help you become the healthier version of yourself. And we’re going to do that through giving you easier access to vitamins, minerals that will help you feel like you’re your healthier self. Okay, so likewise, take that to your own brand, your own products that you might be selling today. And if you don’t have a cohesive brand message that you can build around, that’s where you start, because you need to be able to say, hey, this is going to be my best front end acquisition offer to get people to know, my know, like, and love my brand.

Josh Hadley 00:12:14  And then you need to then be thinking through what’s the next product that this customer is going to need in their customer journey, that I can serve them around that same brand promise. And that’s how that’s how these big brands get built. It’s not because they funnel hack their way through being able to massively scale on Facebook or on Amazon with selling it just a bunch of different random products. It’s the fact that customers are coming back over and over again to repurchase and rebuy from that brand because they trust them. That is ultimately how an e-commerce business compounds year after year after year, because every year that goes by, you’re building more and more brand trust with customers, assuming you’re actually delivering on a specific promise that a customer has. So coming back to that, here’s our overall strategy for Prime days moving forward. In any big sales promotions, there are two things I have acquisition SKUs that are basically our products that introduce customers to our full suite of products, and our full kind of ecosystem of helping customers in their customer journey.

Josh Hadley 00:13:22  That’s number one. I’m going to be aggressive with my discounts for those products, because for me, this is just about introducing them to the brand and then being able to upsell them into other future products that they’re going to need because I know the customer journey that they’re on. Then secondly, Prime Day is Black Friday. Cyber Monday become tentpole events for liquidation offers becomes one of the best ways. Maybe it’s something that we’ve overstocked ourselves on. Maybe it’s a product launch that flopped. This is one of the best days and times to get rid of excess products. So that’s my overall recommendation for you as business owners. If you have a brand, make sure that you approach Prime Day with either one of two things you’re leading with your front end acquisition offers in very aggressive and deep discounts. Or number two, and you can run these simultaneously. You’re seeing this as a liquidation event to get turned cash or trash. Basically you’re tied up inventory. Turn that back into cash. That’s the framework that I’m using for all tentpole Amazon deal days and things like that, so that our brand is able to attract more customers and obtain and really get more compounding by introducing customers to the actual brand, delivering on that promise and moving forward.

Josh Hadley 00:14:37  I hope that helps set your mind up for the next Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the next Prime Day that you’ll be executing.