Over 600,000 Shopify merchants use the native Meta integration. It's convenient and easy to set up, and the implication is that you're maximizing data sharing.

But, as Disruptive Digital reports, this “solution” is likely hurting ad performance.

Shopify doesn't provide all the data it actually has available for Facebook to use in its ad optimizations.

Specifically, Shopify's Conversion API (CAPI) either doesn't pass along, or severely limits, two crucial parameters: click ID and browser ID.

• Without click ID and browser ID, Facebook might only see a purchase that happens in the same browser session as the click. Trackable purchase paths are severely limited.
• With click ID and browser ID, Facebook can track someone who, for example, adds to cart the same day as a click, then uses a different browser to check out a week later. Purchase paths are more robust, leading to greater overall account performance.

Facebook recommends 50+ conversions per ad set per week to optimize performance. Every unused data point can hurt your ROAS.

Disruptive Digital (and many Shopify brands) have reported serious performance improvements after migrating away from the integration:

Three alternative solutions to consider:

• CAPI Gateway implementation
• Direct integration
• 3rd-party partner (recommended). Popsixle or Elevar are reputable choices.

To get customers to spend more, try sending handwritten thank-you notes with their orders. 

In one experiment, a beauty company sent thank-you notes to 1,232 customers and tracked their future spending. Here’s what they found:

• People who didn’t receive a note spent $25.97 later on.
• People who received a typed note spent slightly more—$29.74.
• People who received an original handwritten note or photocopy of one spent $52.07.

What explains these results?

DTC companies prioritizing growth can often come across as transactional. A handwritten note—or even a photocopy of one—shows warmth and consideration. Since we feel closer to a brand with these qualities, we’re more compelled to buy from it again.

Consider testing handwritten thank-you notes to improve your customer lifetime value. Try personalizing the message with a first name. If you're at an early-stage company, you can write them yourself or hire someone from TaskRabbit. If you’re scaling, you can use a dedicated service like Handwrytten.

This finding isn't just for ecom. It might work well for service-based businesses like hotels and restaurants. Even if you run a SaaS company or sell digital products, you can send a handwritten thank you to the billing address on file.

If you’re running PPC ads on Amazon, it’s not always clear how much you should be spending on them.

Here are some numbers that can serve as benchmarks:

• A useful framework from Ad Badger: Your Amazon ad budget should be about 10% of your total Amazon revenue. So if you’re doing $100,000 a month in Amazon sales, you would budget around $10,000/month for ads.
• The average daily spend for Amazon sellers is $268.21. That’s high for new advertisers.
• Aim to spend enough to get at least 100 clicks a month on each of your keywords. A common issue with Amazon ad campaigns is having too many keywords for what’s budgeted. The result is that most keywords—sometimes around 90%—don’t get enough clicks, which means insufficient data for the bidding process.

To optimize bids, use the Inch Up Method: Keep initial bids low while you’re gathering information about how keywords perform, then gradually increase bids as you learn which keywords get clicks and conversions. So you might bid 10¢ on Day 1, 20¢ on Day 2, etc. 

You can also use the target bid formula:

Target bid = (average order value x conversion rate) / (1/target ACOS).

If your average order value is $12, your conversion rate is 10%, and your target ACOS is 30% (about the average for sponsored product ads on Amazon), your target bid would be (12 x .1) / (1 / .3): 36¢.

Ad Badger has created a bid calculator you can use to find your target bid.

Do you use tiered pricing? 

Here are 3 steps you can take to make your higher-tier package more appealing:

1. Create a clear hierarchy between tiers. Customers subconsciously want a recommendation. You can use design choices to suggest a tier for them.
2. Make your higher-tier incentive more valuable—if possible, consider using a larger discount for your higher-tier offer.
3. Use descriptive tier names to set expectations and communicate the value on offer. “The complete package” feels more enticing and comprehensive than “the essentials.”

Pair this with “four pricing psychology tactics to increase conversion” from newsletter #070.

People naturally prefer rhymes.

In multiple studies, we rate rhymes as likable, memorable, and trustworthy. Researchers hypothesize that because rhymes are easier to process, we’re more likely to remember and believe them.

That’s why rhyming has historically been so successful in advertising.

Think Bounty’s “quicker picker upper” or Liberty Mutual’s mascot, the LiMu emu.

But rhyming’s not just for creating catchy slogans. You can use rhyming to trigger action in your ads, subject lines, CTAs, headlines, and landing page copy.

Some examples:

• Zapier makes you happier (from Zapier's homepage and social media)
• Integrate, Automate, Innovate (also from Zapier)
• Be kind to your mind (from Headspace's homepage)
• No skimpin' on the chicken! (from HelloFresh's homepage)
• CrapWrap (the name of Firebox's gift-wrapping service)

If you see an opportunity to get creative and rhyming fits your brand voice, consider testing it out.

Case studies and testimonials are B2B conversion gold.

Now, more than ever, B2B buyers are relying on the opinions and expertise of peers to make purchase decisions.

But customers don’t always jump at requests for case studies and testimonials. Not because they’re unsatisfied or unwilling—they just have other priorities.

To get more and better case studies (and prevent ghosting), try these tactics:

• Tell customers that inaction translates into approval. For instance: "We'll send a draft of the case study for approval once it's ready. From there, you'll have [time frame] to review. we’ll follow up and if we don't hear back by [date], we'll take that as your approval.” Bold, but it works.
• Highlight the promotional benefits. If your company has an audience, present the case study as a way for customers to get in front of more people. Example: "If you’re down, we’ll promote the final piece through our channels—you’ll reach [# of people].”
• Framing helps here. You can pitch this as a “customer spotlight.” Mention you’re looking for their take on industry topics and how your company has helped them on their mission.
• Offer something in return. Offer a discount or exclusive access to product upgrades. Or offer any assets used to produce your case study, like any recordings or graphics your team creates.

Marketers often argue about whether it’s better to send ad traffic to product detail pages (PDPs) or dedicated sales pages.

The answer?

It depends. Here are three factors that’ll help you make a decision:

• Ad format. Text-based search ads capture demand while visual formats like Facebook and Instagram create it.
• Your product and industry. Some products, like jewelry and apparel, are self-explanatory—PDPs usually perform well. Innovative products often need more explanation, which sales pages provide.
• User intent. People at the top of the marketing funnel need more information (dedicated landing page) than people at the bottom (product page).

An example:

Ritual sells multivitamins for women. They run ads on Facebook/IG as well as Google search. Using Ahrefs and Facebook’s Ad Library, you can see how the ads’ destination pages differ.

• Facebook ads → dedicated landing pages and homepage
• Search ads → homepage, PDPs, product collections

Why the difference?

If people are Googling high-intent keywords like “best womens vitamin,” it makes sense to send them to a PDP. But on Facebook, where people aren’t scrolling with the intention of buying vitamins, a dedicated landing page helps get new prospects into the funnel.

Use ad format, product, and intent to create a hypothesis of where to send your ad traffic. Then test it.

One of the biggest mistakes we see startups make when it comes to storytelling:

Starting stories at the beginning.

Entrepreneur Andy Smith even calls this one of the “seven deadly sins of startup storytelling.”

Instead, start where it gets interesting. Here’s a great graphic from Wes Kao illustrating the point:

Smith argues that an interesting story arc matters much more than chronology.

“…the stuff you need to hook people doesn't tend to happen early on. Events need to build, one after the other, emotionally rather than sequentially.”

This applies to any form of storytelling, from your about page to video ads to blog articles. Cut the exposition. Get right to what’s exciting or resonant.

A marketing example: The first line of this gut-punch of a video: “There’s a Rang-tan in my bedroom, and I don’t know what to do.”

How do you know where to start? Smith recommends a classic plotting technique you’ve probably seen in a movie: Write your story elements on Post-It notes, then move them around to find your opening. If it’s sensory and intriguing, it’s probably a solid starting point.

Marketers usually use the term "friction" to refer to obstacles that prevent people from converting. Most marketing advice says to reduce friction as much as possible. 

But not all friction is bad.

Sometimes friction does the opposite of what you're told. It can actually drive purchases and keep users engaged.

Here's our friction framework:

Align your product friction with your business model friction.

• Low product friction = easy to sign up for and get started in
• Low business model friction = low price, simple pricing structure

The higher one is, the higher the other should be. Some examples:

• Instagram: easy to sign up for and free to use
• Spotify: easy to start, low subscription fee
• Semrush and HubSpot: more complicated pricing matches more complicated products
• Palantir: highly complex (and pricy) solutions built for enterprise

Quick list of "good" types of friction:

• Personalization (e.g., Canva asking what you'll be using Canva for during onboarding)
• Cross-selling / upselling near checkout
• Helpful tooltips or a short product tour
• Major announcements, like Headspace's recent popup introducing a UI upgrade (but keep them short)

And bad friction:

• Requiring a credit card for signup
• Prompting users to get push notifications early on
• Requiring account creation to check out

We wrote a thread on friction—check it out on Twitter here.

There are many ways to tell if a backlink opportunity is "good" or not: domain authority, domain rating, Moz Spam Score, and more.

The trouble is, none of those individual metrics tells the full story.

Take domain rating (DR). Link builders will typically check a site's DR to gauge whether a guest post link is worth building. A high DR (60+) tells you a website is checking many of the right boxes—you just don't know which ones.

To find out, you'd have to drill into additional data points. And that takes time.

Israel Gaudette created a simple formula to quickly evaluate link placements. And you don't need to check 20 metrics—you just need one: traffic authority (TA).

TA uses a domain's traffic as the main data to gauge its authority.

To measure it:

• Take the domain's organic traffic and divide it by the number of organic keywords.
• Then use these benchmarks to evaluate link placements:

Although no SEO metric is perfect, TA provides a quick, reliable read on link targets.

You can calculate TA yourself (organic traffic / organic keywords). Or better yet, use this handy traffic authority checker. It factors in extra metrics like DR, backlink data, organic keywords, and traffic to give you a snapshot of real “authority.”

Content creator Steph Smith used a clever tiered pricing tactic for her ebook launch:

She raised prices as more copies sold.

Starting with a price of $10, she raised the price $5 for every 30 books sold.

• $15 after the first 30 purchases
• $20 after 60, and so on
• She eventually allowed more purchases at each tier between price raises

To date, she’s sold 3,400 copies for more than $130k.

This tactic works because it leverages two principles of buyer psychology:

• Urgency: People are motivated to buy quickly to avoid paying after a price increase.
• Social proof: The book’s rising price signals the number of customers who have bought it, proving its value.

Of course, not all companies can test this strategy. But this could work well for companies selling courses, agencies selling expertise in the form of coaching sessions, or other companies that sell digital products.

If you use this strategy, your price shouldn’t increase indefinitely—it’ll eventually reach a peak where the cost outweighs customers’ interest. Find the point just before sales taper off, then use it as the standard price.

Here’s what a good welcome email can do:

• Introduce/build your brand.
• Set expectations.
• Ask for replies and engage in dialogue.

Replies send a positive signal to Google, so they’ll deliver more of your emails to inboxes instead of spam folders.

See the full-resolution image on Twitter here.

If people can’t FEEL the problem your startup solves, they won’t buy.

Here’s how Muzzle uses their homepage to visualize the problem:

• Shows embarrassing notifications
• Makes them outrageously vulgar
• Points out how Muzzle puts an end to unwanted notifications during Zoom calls

See the full resolution image on Twitter here.

Startups that stand out are those that get creative.

Here's an example:

Brooklinen "leaked" a time-bound discount and had one of their best days of the year.

Winning startups experiment not only with copy and creative, but also with their framing.

See the full resolution image on Twitter here.

Keys to a great landing page:

• Put your key value prop front and center.
• Handle the most obvious objection upfront.
• Use negative space to direct people’s eyes to your header.

When you create a compelling, frictionless landing page, more people click and convert.

See the full resolution image on Twitter here.

One way to poach future customers from competitors:

• Create landing pages that compare you against them.
• Address customers' biggest objections.
• Show your product in action.

Then, when people search for you versus your competitors, you'll show up on the Google results page.

See the full resolution image on Twitter here.