How to Craft Your Winning DTC Offer

Hey I’m Harry, and this is CRO 1 2 3 where each week I break down:

👉 1 Winning A/B test that added 5 figures

👉 2 Incredible e-commerce funnels

👉 3 Actionable Tips based on over 1,000 A/B tests our team has run whilst building 8-figure e-commerce stores

Today's topic is OFFERS. It's not just about what you're selling, but how you're selling it. Think about bundles, gifts, and deals.

A killer offer will boost both sales and average order value.

In fact I’d go as far as to say testing and improving your offer is one of the biggest levers you have to increase your conversion rate, AOV, and profit.

Your store's perfect offer might still be out there. I hope this post gives you some inspiration to find it.

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Let’s get into it!

1 Winning A/B Test 🧪: Gift with Purchase Offer

The Test:

Our clothing brand client had a very popular product that sold extremely well.

The problem was that most customers only bought that one item and didn't look at the other products in the store.

To solve this we gamified the offer in the cart to incentivize customers to browse more, and spend more so they could reach the threshold, and receive a great free gift.

Here’s how the test looked:

Original Cart:

1. Free shipping at $70

New and Improved Cart:

1. Free shipping at $70

2. Free gift at $120

Here's a snapshot of the results:

As you can see it’s driving a $53,402 increase in monthly revenue.

But by not just increasing AOV - the new and improved offer even increases site conversion rate by making the whole deal more appealing.

This means customers browse more, get excited by their larger order and the gift they’re receiving, and are therefore more likely to make a purchase than before.

That’s the power of a strong offer.

A few details to note about the UI here:

1. A sticky element showing the gift as locked works as a "carrot on a stick", enticing users toward the $120 unlock threshold.

2. The true value of the product is shown but crossed out and replaced by a FREE tag.

3. Using a color selector gives users a choice over their gift.

2 Incredible e-Commerce Offers 👨‍💻

I. Hint Water

Hint Water has implemented a powerful new customer offer that provides an irresistible deal to attract new buyers. Here's how it works:

The Offer: Nearly 50% off on flavored water for new customers.

The Catch: To maintain profitability, the offer is integrated into a bundle builder. Customers must purchase a minimum of three units to qualify for the discount.

Essentially it’s a buy 3 get 1.5 free offer (but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue).

And the bundle builder format is engaging and playful, clearly outlining what customers need to do to access the discount.

It’s a giant carrot on a stick to provide ‘no-brainer’ offer to interested customers, as well as keeping their AOV high enough to presumably break even.

Check it out here:

​II. Primal Harvest

Take a look at the above image. This is a way more traditional and simple offer. In short, you’re giving people ever increasing discount to buy more.

But I want to break it down for you because it’s something almost any store can learn from (especially if you’re product is consumable).

Here’s a common scenario of a store without an offer like this:

Let’s say you’re selling a single unit at $29.95

You pay $20 to Meta to acquire the customer ($9.95 profit left).

Then you have COGS of $7 ($2.95 profit left)

You pay $6 to ship the item (-$3.05 profit left)

You’re already in the red on that order. So what do we do?

We use a cognitive bias that all humans are prone to, in order to make that single bottle offer look like a comparatively bad deal.

Here’s how:

The Decoy Effect

The decoy effect nudges customers towards a preferred option by introducing a less attractive option.

In this offer, the 1 Month Supply at $29.95 is the decoy.

It makes the 3 Month Supply at $25.95 each and the 6 Month Supply at $23.95 each look more appealing.

• 1 Month Supply (Decoy): $29.95 per bottle.

• 3 Month Supply (13% off): $25.95 per bottle, saving $4 per bottle.

• 6 Month Supply (20% off): $23.95 per bottle, saving $6 per bottle.

The higher price of the 1 Month Supply steers customers to choose the better-valued 3 or 6 Month Supply, leveraging the decoy effect to boost sales.

But more importantly, the average number of bottles purchased will usually sit at around 2-3 bottles.

So instead of having to fight to be profitable on a single bottle order, you’re basing your profitability on 2.5 bottle average order quantity.

Suddenly, you’re much more profitable.

Check it out here:

3 Learnings from 1,000+ eCommerce experiments 🔬

Ok - quick fire round. Here are three powerful conversion boosting tactics that you can employ on your store today:

I. Use real world scenarios to improve AOV

II. The first thing to do when customizing your checkout

​III. How to write a simple but effective homepage headline

Want to chat about how we can help you scale your brand? Our team handles full-service CRO for brands like Jambys, Happy Mammoth, Laundry Sauce, and many more. If you’re running an 8 or 9-figure brand that could use a lift in website performance, we want to chat with you.

That’s everything for this edition. I hope it inspired you to look at your offer through a new lens and come up with a few tests to run.

If you know someone else in the DTC space who you think would be interested in tactical CRO advice then go ahead and forward them this email.

Until next time,

Harry Molyneux
​Founder of CRO Agency, DTC Pages​
Operator of Secret DTC Brand

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