What is working in DTC right now

There are a lot of sales pitches on what drives ROI. What is actually worth it? Here is what is working on Bala.

Reflecting on the past year… there is a lot that has evolved in DTC this year and it’s changing at a rapid pace. There are a lot of tools, apps, services and it’s hard to know what really works. What should we be spending our money on? What has a good ROI? How many Shopify apps is too many? PS I’ll do a separate post about the Shopify apps we use.

High level, here is what has worked for Bala lately…

1. Meta - we took a break from Meta for 6 months this year (I’ll talk more about that later) but right now it’s WORKING. Our CAC was unbelievably low over BFCM and holidays (~$10). Previously, before we took a break our CAC was more like $37.

2. Google ads - goes without saying for most brands but we will always be spending on Google ads. Our CPA varies from $15-28 right now.

3. Organic social - gotta do it. Daily.

4. TikTokShop - we finally launched on TTS in May and frankly, were a little late to the game but it’s crushing it. HMU if you want a good agency recommendation. We have a great one.

5. Affiliate - we probably have about 1K affiliates in our program and they continue to perform well for us. Highly recommend TikTok affiliate as well. Great way to get content from creators. For regular affiliate we use Grin but we are about to switch to ShopMy.

6. Gifting - we have ongoing gifting campaigns where we are actively gifting influencers. We run these campaigns through Grin currently or if influencers reach out we gift them if they are of a certain follower count or we really like their content.

7. Special offers - we are not a sale heavy brand in fact, I rarely approve a sale. BUT what does work is special offers. We just did Baladays offers where each week we introduced a new value add to purchasing on the site (example: free pilates socks one week, or 20% off beams the next). This worked well and kept customers engaged, wondering what would come next.

8. Email - we send about 2 emails a week and use analytics to pivot our strategies. Sometimes we are telling a story or talking about a launch… sometimes it is more sales driven. Here is a recent email we sent about Bala wrapped for the year. This one is content heavy but gives you an idea for the type of emails we send.

We use an amazing marketing agency to manage most of this for us. Hit me up if you want an intro.

Favorite things RN

I was looking for the cutest / comfiest PJ set to lounge in at the hospital when I deliver my third baby (due in a few weeks) and stumbled across Piyama. They are having a boxing day sale. I got these 2 new sets:

1. Peta Sleep Set - Long - Twill - Romantic Floral

2. Elsie Sleep Set - Cotton - Floret

3. MDLO x Sezane Blazer - perfect for the holiday season. MDLO’s whole collaboration with Sezane is beautiful.

Reading / Doing

• Going to Idyllwild for the next week to relax and enjoy the change of scenery (2 hrs from LA).

• The Ride of a Lifetime by CEO of Disney, Robert Iger

Thanks for reading and lmk what you want to hear more of! xx