Entry Points That Beat Cold Ads

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🧪 Entry Points That Beat Cold Ads: Cut acquisition costs with trial-friendly SKUs

Most DTC brands fight for the sale of a core product on the first touch, even though it’s the highest-friction ask. The Entry Point Experiment Lab flips the model: 

lead with unconventional, curiosity-driven product formats that are cheaper to try, easier to share, and faster to repeat. Once a customer says yes to something, it becomes exponentially easier to get them to say yes to everything.

The 4-Part Lab Framework

1. Select Your Entry Points

Choose formats that lower commitment but still deliver a product experience:

• Bundle-First: Anchor around a theme, not a single SKU.
• Mystery Box: Gamifies the purchase, triggers curiosity dopamine.
• Sample Kit: High-LTV gateway for beauty, food, beverage.

Pull SKU options from cohort retention data, the entry point must lead into a proven upsell path.

2. Build the Upgrade Path

An entry point without a next step is just a one-off sale. Before launch, map the exact post-purchase journey: email/SMS automation, bundle upsells, subscriber offers. Trigger the first upgrade offer within 3–5 days while the product is top-of-mind.

3. Orchestrate Multi-Platform Seeding

Launch each entry point with native content across multiple channels, tailored for their cultural context. TikTok is the curiosity ignition layer, unboxings, POV reveals, “what’s inside” teases, built to drive organic shares. These creatives can then be adapted for paid campaigns on other platforms to scale proven formats. 

P.S. Right now, TikTok is offering $200 in ad credit for brands that spend $200 on TikTok Ads, making it a cost-neutral way to fuel your first test cycle.

4. Run the Iteration Loop

The Lab runs in 4–6 week sprints:

• Test 3–4 entry points in parallel.
• Measure cost-to-first-purchase, upgrade rate, and 60-day LTV.
• Kill bottom quartile performers, scale the top quartile, and feed learnings into the next sprint.

Over time, the Lab builds a proprietary library of “entry point winners” that beat cold-offer CAC by 25–50%.

Risk & Failure Safeguards

Maintain over 50% blended margin across the entry point and upsell chain to ensure the economics work at scale without eroding profitability. Keep a 15–20% inventory surplus for top-performing offers to avoid stockouts during active campaigns. 

Rotate creative angles every 30 days, even for winning formats, to prevent offer fatigue and sustain engagement. Deduplicate audiences between sprints so performance data remains clean and unaffected by repeat testers.

The Compounding Effect

A top-tier beauty brand applying this system achieved 38% lower CAC compared to core product cold ads, with 62% of customers upgrading within 14 days and a 2.2× LTV over 90 days. After three sprints, these entry points brought in 44% of all new customers while driving 61% of total revenue.

The takeaway: The Entry Point Experiment Lab doesn’t just optimize offers, it weaponizes curiosity, lowers CAC, and builds a compounding growth engine.

 TikTok makes the experiments feel alive in the market, but the system works anywhere. Run it as an ongoing program, and you’ll never be stuck selling cold again.

Together with Shipfusion

😰 Is Your Fulfillment Experience Chasing Customers Away?

Most DTC brands don't realize where they're losing repeat customers: after the sale.

To find out what great post-purchase CX actually looks like, Shipfusion placed orders with 30+ deodorant brands and dissected the entire experience.

The result? A detailed playbook for optimizing your fulfillment, CX, and retention strategy.

Inside, you'll learn:

👉 How referral inserts can boost customer acquisition by up to 20%
👉 How surprise freebies can raise repeat purchase likelihood by 27%
👉 How branded tracking pages keep customers engaged until delivery

It’s not just about deodorant. It’s about fixing the invisible friction that’s hurting LTV across every DTC category. Whether you're selling skincare, supplements, or pet care, this is the audit you can’t skip.

Download the report and turn post-purchase into your most profitable channel.

🚀  Reel of the Day

What Works:

1. Premium Lifestyle Positioning - Sassy Woof frames pet gear as a fashion category, using curated colors, closet organization, and matching sets to elevate perceived value. This creates pricing power and aspirational pull for pet owners who want to “dress” their dogs like themselves.

2. Creator-Led Authenticity - Partnering with a creator who owns multiple dogs makes the content feel authentic and aspirational at the same time. The energy and natural interaction between the dogs and owner communicates trust and product reliability. 

3. Relatable Personality Infusion - Humorous moments like the “Like my hat?” shot inject personality and turn pets into relatable characters. These micro-moments are highly shareable, increasing organic spread without heavy ad spend. It’s subtle brand building that deepens community engagement.

Broader Insights:

Instagram’s current push for authentic, story-led Reels plays right into this format. The voiceover approach and unfiltered day-in-the-life clips differentiate it from overly polished, music-synced brand videos. This makes the content algorithm-friendly while also boosting organic shareability.

Creative Moves to Make Your Own

• Make the viewer feel like they’re part of your morning by narrating in a warm, first-person voice.
• Structure the reel like a full journey so the payoff at the end feels earned.
• Introduce the product at the very start so it feels like the anchor of the day’s story.

Thanks for reading this edition! Keep pushing boundaries, testing ideas, and staying inspired. See you in the next edition with more ways to ignite your marketing success. 🥰