Cheat Sheet: How DTC brands can increase ROAS

0.5x to 2.3x (and more) - Here I will tell you a simple recipe to make this happen. Read on...

ROAS is primarily, Sales/Revenue (post-tax). This does not include things like Cost of Fulfilment + Packaging + Returns + Discounts + Platform Cost (Tech: Shopify + Apps + Commissions) + Agency Commissions / Retainers + Team Costs + Creative Asset Costs. Feel free to add those - my principles remain true irrespective.

We will focus on how to increase rev. from sales at scale.

First-principles need to be right.

1. Get your brand strategy in place - It is lazy to run ads on Facebook - get your narrative in place. If you can generate traffic through a set of tactical brand measures you are in a better place. They will get you stronger ROAS.
2. Make your products look distinct - design for differentiation even within your own storefront. No one will squint to make out subtle differences. Product designed for coherence yet packed with visual signifiers is critical. Difficult to get right, but try.
3. Fix your product pages - get the buttons on top of the fold. Indicate price advantages clearly. Indicate loyalty pts. earning where possible. Have a sticky menu on mobile. Is the product shareable? Many people share the product link before they buy things - make sure the snippets + headers are perfect when someone shares over Whatsapp + social channels. Do the product pages have reviews, ratings, testimonials?
4. Get customer service front and centre - People have queries during their purchase journey. Make it easy for them to ask for help. Deploy a live chatbot - Tidio, Verloop, Haptik etc. works well. Make sure FAQs are updated. Keep a Whatsapp chat option open. Please mention working hours else you will get swamped.
5. Fix your AOV - Make product bundles, value packs, subscriptions. Increasing AOV should give a boost in ROI + stock movement. When AOV goes up, nurture the same cohort to buy the lower value items via retention marketing cross-sell.
6. Focus on retention marketing - 40% of your active base coming back M-o-M is a far healthier sign of a successful business than acquiring 20% more audience every month through rampant marketing. Check your W4, W8, W12 cohorts and see where you can optimise + what campaigns led to an increase in stickiness
7. Remove COD for lower-order items - controversial but works well. Also lowers RTO. Also, incentivise people to pay upfront by giving a slight advantage. This can be done by sending an email post a COD purchase to convert to a pre-paid and get 10% discount on the bill.
8. Increase conversions - find friction points - check heatmaps + user drop-off pts - where are you losing the maximum number of people --> HP to PDP to ATC to Checkout. Optimise that part of the funnel. Why are you losing people?

Obsess over optimisation

• Page / App load time and responsiveness - optimise your images, server and cache. Make sure your site is optimised specifically for mobile + tablet views - don't just depend on a mobile version of your banners.
• Click-throughs, Buttons + CTAs - This is critical. Check for actions buttons. Make sure CTAs are above the fold. Ensure that buttons are buttons and not lost in translation. Optimise the design for dark mode. I find using social button forms - things are people are used to on FB, IG etc. as CTAs are the best. It's muscle memory.
• Keyword Relevance - ads --> landing pages should be coherent. I don't think you can get away with this - yet a lot of people try. Ads <>Landing Pages need coherence and logic flow of information. Please don't use clickbaity advertising and expect conversions.
• Above the Fold Content - I see a lot of brands getting this insanely wrong. A DTC brand is all about the first few signifiers - Here is my pecking order. Title > Description (bullets)>Price Cut (Discount)>Rating (in stars)>Units> Add to Cart + Buy Now (depending on your journey - you will make one button more prominent than the other.)
• Checkout journey - So you got someone all the way to the checkout and then they just abandon you like they never cared. It happens, but it is fairly avoidable. It happens when you actually need to go through with a transaction. It is this part of our brand that rationalises a decision. The opportunity is in not enabling the brain to rationalise beyond a point and push enough stimulus that it just rides through in adrenaline and dopamine. I suggest a set of offer coupons, fast-checkout prompts, FOMO tickers and cash-back + pay later options to make the deal sweet. Also a timer for checkout that gives people an extra discount if they checkout in 20 seconds is a feature worth trying. Ensure that applying coupons + redemption of loyalty points etc. is easy to do. Try to give SSO login where possible. No silly popups and spammy banners.
• Seamless Post-purchase communication + Order Tracking: Make sure your WMS + Order Processing Backend + Logistics Aggregator are in sync. Timely emails with order tracking lead to heightened delight + lowering of RTOs. Over-communication is better than no communication.
• Search engine - Look beyond your own site for optimisation. Of course, get your on-page sorted, images tags, alt. + meta tags in place, internal links in order and ensure that you have enough blogs that are indexed - but super important to also focus on getting videos on youtube and articles on some publisher platforms - these get super well indexed and lead to organic traffic via backlinks if done well. We will not go into this too much but it does have a significant impact on CTRs to the site + brand authority.

Make Media and tools work better

• Sharpen your targeting - basis interest, time of day, geography, gender (if applicable), engagement, behaviour and usage of other ecosystems of apps. Targeting specific handsets, broad interests etc. are also okay if you want to focus on reach - but the more important commerce conversions come from adding sharper audience to the top of the funnel and optimising it through the middle.
• Campaigns take time to learn - don't try to hack that format by dumping more ads to the same cohort. That is like pushing on the pedal while in slow traffic. You will only cause damage. 
• Don't have an extremely disjointed ad design language - ads are also a part of your brand identity. Try to experiment within a certain tone and style. Innovate with the form and style. Use videos and gifs.
• Get your communication right - Have different comms for different cohorts. A/B Test with multivariate ad groups. Try varying combinations of language + syntax + order of lines. Split audience comms by gender, time of day etc.
• Try new networks and platforms - It is ideal to try emerging platforms like TikTok (great for reach, still suspect for commerce but early adoption might help), Meesho, SimSim, BulBul, Sheroes, Smytten, Pinterest to increase reach, relevance and also reduce ACOS. You will need to plan your SKUs accordingly, but it's a small complexity for a larger benefit.
• Be data-savvy - Slice your customer data into sharper audiences. It doesn't work with small data sets / redundant (read, old and abused) cohorts, but if you run an awareness campaign and get traffic through that - use it to churn LALs and remarket it judiciously. Don't go crazy in terms of frequency of impressions. I have found 3-4 to be an ideal repeat number from a frequency<>recency aspect. Check attributions over 28 days.
• Deploy email more effectively - I have maintained this - the ESP isn't more important than the science of deploying it. Make sure you have your domain authority sorted. Don't bulk email your entire audience list. Split it into smaller subgroups using tags, and send the email in tranches. Most importantly, don't load it with images + graphics. Optimise for the mobile. Don't do onto your fellow humans what you wouldn't want to be done to yourself. Don't spam.
• Automate - Once you have mapped the user journey, make sure your communication triggers are in-place and automate emails, push-notifications and SMS through platforms like WebEngage, Clevertap etc. This also helps with the conversion + retention + upsell funnel. This, however, needs time and bandwidth from the internal team so I would suggest this be a stage 2 for most brands.

There is a lot more that can be done - but if you follow what I have mentioned above - a lot of your immediate needs should be met. If you found this article useful, then make sure to share and like it. Also, follow me on Twitter - (www.twitter.com/samriddhd). See you around!