S16 E4: 7 Strategies Behind Today’s Fastest Growing Brands

21:49Nik:your data integration, you can still do that from a quiz standpoint, or you know, some level of a pre-lander across your funnel. Now, if you're a HIMS or a ROE, you're whitelisted by Meta in the health and wellness program. And there is ways, there are ways, I should say, to do that. And a lot of brands do do that, but not everybody can do that. And so that's why a lot of these brands tend to run quiz-gated intent funnels. Time for the retention tip of the week brought to you by Instant. If you run an apparel brand, here's something most people get wrong. You treat returns like a cost center, but your returns flow is actually one of your highest leverage retention touch points.

22:32Nik:Think about it. A customer just returned something. That doesn't mean that they don't like your brand. It usually means the fit was off or the color wasn't right. So what do the best apparel brands do? They build a post-return email flow that does three things. One, acknowledge the return with zero friction. Two, immediately recommend the right alternative based on what was returned. And maybe the reason, maybe it's a different colorway, a different size, a different silhouette. And number three, include a small incentive to come back within 10 days. Brands that nail their conversions flow for returns, they see 30 to 40 % of their returners convert into repeat purchasers.

23:06Nik:The ones that don't, those customers are gone. Their return was their last interaction with you and it was a bad one. If you need help building smart post-purchase and post return flows, Instant makes it super easy. Their AI powered retention engine generates personalized emails for every shopper automatically. Check them out at instant.one slash Sharma. The second one is a founder or origin UGC. You see this a lot with companies like a Ritual or IMAID. It's basically like, you know, or even Garun's I've seen recently, but the founder gets involved or there's some level of UGC that kind of makes it feel like they're coming from the starting point.

23:43Nik:But those funnels work, extremely well. The next one you'll see from places like Momentus or David Protein are more doctor level endorsements. And the entire funnel is that. So the ads are, you know, a photo of that guy or girl who are, you know, making the endorsement. It goes to a landing page. It's got that person's favorite bundle or that person's favorite flavors or that person's recommended stack. It's completely layered with social proof and whatnot. And, you know, essentially gets you to want to try it because that person is recommending that it's a good idea. The next one is what I call like, either just competitor comparisons or comparicles, but which is like a listicle, but you're comparing things.

24:30Nik:But you know, you'll see things like, for example, Grooms versus AG1, or Huel versus MyProtein, or, you know, name any two kind of category leaders or competitors, and basically going against each other to show which one's the best. These work really well because a lot of times meta is finding people who have some level of intent within the product category or within the problem you're solving, the solution you're offering. And they've probably heard about, maybe they've heard about AG1, but they haven't heard about, you know, your greens powder. Or maybe they've heard about Huel, but they haven't heard about your smoothie brand.

25:06Nik:And so what this does is it sort of opens the door a little bit to say, hey, you haven't heard of us, but you've heard of the other ones. let us show you why ours can be better for you. And those funnels work extremely well. Even when I think about advertorials, which we'll talk about in one second here, advertorials that do comparisons between brands work extremely well. If you look at the ads library for, well, first of all, if you find good advertorials coming from Facebook pages, you should go check out their ads library in Facebook ads library because you'll see, you know, what our majority of their creatives look like and that's essentially what's working well.

25:49But you'll also just realize that like, for example, if you go to MSA's Facebook ad library, you'll see that so many of their ads are the brand versus brand because they do super, super well. You might piss off a competitor and they'll for sure see it because if you're using their name, they're probably gonna for sure see it at some point. But they do work really well.

26:13Nik:Um, next one, number five out of 10, we're going through these a little quickly. So, you know, feel free to message me or email me, DM me if you've got questions on these or want to see more examples. Uh, but number five is problem agitation and then solution UGC. So brands like, uh, love wellness do this really well. Lemmy does this really well. Um, essentially you've got UGC that clearly states the problem. That's kind of your, like, you know, extending your arm out to somebody who's scrolling, right? You're not just being like, hey, this is the best product and this is why and blah, blah, blah.

26:47Nik:You're saying, hey, I've got this problem. Do you have this problem too? Right? Gets you to stop scrolling. You sort of show that you have a shared understanding of the problem. That's you talk about the agitations, what bothers you, what, what, you know, why it hasn't been solved, whatever. And then you show the solution. And it's kind of like the, if you sale, right? In sales, person to person sales, right? You try to establish some level of common ground. You try to understand what's wrong, what the problem is, and then you sort of show them the solution. That's essentially what we're doing here.

27:22Nik:Problem, agitation, solution. And these are amazing funnels to run. The next one is an ingredient led mechanism visual. So companies like Thorne, like Element, like Armra, even brands that you see like Array, where they They basically buy other companies' branded ingredients that have the studies done and then leverage those studies as they're marketing. Those types of companies do really well with this funnel, which is the ingredient-led mechanism visual. So what can you do to essentially illustrate the ingredients and what those ingredients are doing? The next one is very similar. It's kind of the stat-led editorial.

28:02Nik:Or sorry, I'm going to go back one real quick, which is the advertorial native strategy. strategy. And so these are essentially advertorials, editorial pieces of content that feel very much like stories people could relate to. So, you know, I remember one of the best ones that we ever did ever back in the day was it was like seven reasons why home chefs can't stop cooking with Carraway Home or Carraway Cookware. And that exact headline formula is now used basically across a ton of different brands. But that sort of approach of like, hey, hey, this is an editorial piece of content. You might be on the toilet scrolling Instagram.

28:42Nik:You might be taking a piss scrolling Instagram. You might be at the gym on a treadmill scrolling Instagram. People just want to be entertained when they're on social. And these advertorials do a phenomenal job of that because you're not leading with, hey, come try bulletproof coffee, right? You're saying, you might be talking about the fact that when you wake up, you don't feel as alert or when you wake up, you've got morning fog and that becomes your lead in to basically, that becomes, if somebody clicks that and wants to read about morning fog, that is your permission to then introduce good Anya electrolytes, right?

29:19So advertorials do really well.

29:22Nik:I know for a fact in supplements, vitamins, telemedicine, telemedicine across the board, advertorials are generally making up anywhere from 15 to 40 % of ad spend. And the reason they do that is because they're so good at helping you find new audiences, right? Somebody who is just the average person may be like, well, I don't need good on you electrolytes. But the average person might go and read about morning fog and how morning fog can be directly tied to not being properly hydrated the night before or throughout the night. And, you know, when you when you do sleep, you sweat. So you kind of deplete yourself of hydration.

30:01Nik:Now somebody might be like, wait a second, why wouldn't I take good on you electrolytes, right? The next one, number eight, is kind of a parallel to that, which is stat-led editorials. So companies like a Seed or a Thorn or a Legion, like you see these brands do this where they've got real clinical studies, clinical trials, clinical data, and their editorial content is all kind of stat-led. Those work really well too. And then the last two, which are, you know, I would say not as impactful, for example, as like an advertorial. One is a creator video, creator-led video with a promo code. These are usually just more lower funnel.

30:43Nik:And the idea is more psychological here, like, oh, this creator is also talking about the brand that I've been seeing and interacting with or getting to learn the past few weeks. Well, it must be a brand we're trusting if all these different people are talking about it. And because it comes with a promo code, you know, it's more likely to be lower funnel and they're more likely to convert. I remember doing this strategy back in 2017. I would have like 25 different creator pages running retargeting ads. And the entire idea was to get people to think like, holy shit, this brand is being talked about by everybody.

31:19Nik:I have to try it. And it works. And then the last one is basically like a meme strategy. So I don't see this being used a crazy amount, but there are brands that are basically using memes as their ads and it does work for sure because otherwise they wouldn't continue to be doing it. But of course, it's not going to be as effective as maybe, you know, a doctor led endorsement or, you know, figuring out like an advertorial strategy that works really well. Now, the biggest piece here is making sure that your ad matches the landing page. This, this ad to landing page congruency has been entirely enabled and accelerated in the last two, two months, definitely in the last, you know, four to eight weeks because of generative AI.

32:17Nik:Now, whether you're using Claude Code, you're using Codex, you're using Manus, whatever you may be using, you might be like me and I have four different open claw computers behind me, each with five to 10 agents on it. whatever you're using as your mechanism to do it, the add to landing page congruency is a huge thing that you got to focus on. You cannot have mismatching funnels because Meta doesn't like that. And to be honest, if you do that, sure you can. It's not going to say you can't do it, but you're just going to end up paying more. So I don't know why you would do that. You know, you want to make sure that the experience feels congruent.

33:03Nik:If you've got a doctor talking about why this powder brand is really good for women going through menopause, you want to go to a landing page or an advertorial page that talks about menopause and the issues and then introduces the product and how this product can help, right? So all that said, this congruency has to be really good. Now, when it comes to the product pages, one of the things I've had a lot of fun going through is product page carousels, like the image carousels, and what is in every single carousel slot. So most brands have, actually every brand I looked at had a minimum of five images.

33:46Nik:But, you know, if you can have eight to 10, that's better. You know, usually like what I've seen from a heat map standpoint is people might get through the first five or six. but eight to 10, it's fine to have it because if they're invested in the first five to six, they'll keep scrolling. And what you wanna do is, kind of the best in class formula right now is your shot number one is like your hero product image, usually with some overlay of text and some icons. Number two might be a lifestyle shot. It might be some celebrity pouring the product. It might be somebody holding the product. It might be a UGC creator mixing in the electrolytes into the water.

34:25Nik:The third one is basically an ingredient or benefit infographic. So, you know, whether it's like, these are all the ingredients, these are the eight ingredients we have, these are the nine benefits you get, almost like a little mini listicle to some degree with the benefits. The next one might be like a how it works visual. So, you know, do you scoop, shake, drink? Do you open, take, feel it by week two? And usually here you can also add kind of something like what you can expect in, you know, within three days, you can expect this within 10 days, you can expect this by day 30, you can expect this.

35:02Nik:So again, you're sort of getting ahead of somebody being like, hey, this doesn't work, because you're again, explaining it. And then the last piece is usually some sort of like proof or credentialing card. So whether it's a quote from a doctor, whether it's a, you know, IMA, it's got like Mayo Clinic logo, because they have doctors from Mayo Clinic on their board. You know, you might have an NSF certified logo or badge, you might have a clinical trial result. But whatever it may be, you're sort of coming in with some real credentials that are third party and not created by your own brand. If you've got some more shots, you might have like a welcome kit flat lay, you might do a competitor comparison chart, you might do a founder shot with a quote as to why they started it.

35:47Nik:You might screenshot a few different Okendo reviews and overlay it on top of a collage of some photos. It might be a UGC video. It might be another infographic. But essentially what you want to do is really like think of your product carousel as a landing page. And I've talked about this a lot before as it relates to TikTok shop. You know, if you look at Jolie or NeuroGum or MediCube or, you know, any of these brands that are just crushing on TikTok shop, majority of them use their image carousel as the landing page. Think of it as just different sections of a landing page. And if we know for a fact, which we do, because we have the data and I've seen it and you've seen it probably, that most people don't scroll that far deep on your product page or your landing page, then you should for sure rush all the information up top in the image carousel.

36:41Nik:And it's not like you're basically just hard selling, you're essentially all the things I just listed out, whether it's the how it works, or the credentialing card or the infographics or the lifestyle shots. These are just kind of soft sell things and things that are giving them more information, right? Going back to that same concept before of educating people, not trying to just get them to convert. And then the other stuff that you want to make sure you've got above the fold, you know, review count and star rating next to the product title. It's crazy how many people don't have this. But that is one of the first things people look for.

37:12Nik:A supplement panel or nutritional panel, which basically shows you what all is in there, what are the ingredients at what dosages and all of that. And if you can, and you have dosages that that rival clinical trials, or, you know, for example, let's say I'm just making this up, let's say you've got 200 milligrams of X, right? But you know that 180 milligrams of X is the clinical dosage to wake up with less brain fog. Then you can call out next to 200 milligrams. You call out in parentheses, you know, clinical dosage for X, which again, just makes your product like better and more marketable and all of those things.

37:51Nik:So again, review count, a star rating next to the product title, expert endorsement above the fold. I'm always a fan of doing this above the fold. buy box default being subscription, but also making it very clear what you get in the subscription and what you don't get in the subscription. So if you were to go buy one time versus a subscription, like what are you missing out on? The subscription price framed per day. So having something that shows like less than$2 a day is better than just showing it's$55 a month. And your idea is to basically make it easier for somebody to contemplate or understand or comprehend that for less than basically a cup of coffee a day, I can get all these benefits, right?

38:35Nik:That's kind of like the girl math you want to impose on your customer and basically kind of show them that angle. The strikethrough, obviously, from one time to subscribe, that's a given. Trust bar below your buy box. So is there a third-party tested? Is there a money-back guarantee? Is there no artificial colors? Is there whatever it may be? You want to have some level of trust, social proof. And again, third-party stuff here is way better than first-party stuff where you're just kind of saying that it's the best. Quantity and variant selector, depending on what you're selling. If you're selling like an IM8 starter pack, you're probably not going to have a quantity selector because it's kind of weird.

39:13Nik:Most people are probably buying one or they're buying the couple set. Or maybe you're like Grooms. Grooms has an option for a couple and a single person. So you can choose if you want to get it for you and your partner. And then the last one is the risk reversal line. So 30-day money-back guarantee. You know, I've talked about Magic Spoon has their happiness guarantee and all of that good stuff. But those are kind of the things you want to make sure you've got above the fold. And then below the fold, some of the things that I see the best brands do, they've got 10 kind of things they call out for sure.

39:45Nik:One is the who is this for, right? So if you're a woman in her 30s dealing with brain fog in the afternoon, this is for you. I used to call this the why section, like why brand question mark, and essentially just dumb it down and explain it to somebody like they're 10 years old because people often make that too hard to understand or too hard to find or too hard to figure out. The second one is the problem. So again, kind of tugging on that agitation, right? The 77 % of Americans take supplement, but 90 % remain deficient. That's why the absorption company is the best one for you, right? Like explaining the problem and the solution in one or two sentences.

40:24The next one is how does the problem solve it? So plain English of how does our problem,

40:29Nik:how does our product do a better job than what else is on the market? The next one is ingredient breakdown with dosage and citation. Number five, clinical trial modules. Ideally, you've got clinical trials. If you don't, maybe you bought ingredients that have it. And if not, then maybe you have ingredient dosages of other clinical trials you can leverage in. Number six, comparison chart. This is easy to understand. Number seven is a timeline to results. This is one that so many brands don't do and it causes the returns to go up or complaints to go up because people may not feel anything right away.

41:05It's kind of rare in supplements that you actually like feel something. You know, a supplement might have like B12

41:12Nik:or cayenne pepper, which you might feel right away and like that helps. But for most supplements, you kind of, they work over time, right? It's not like you're taking a prescription. So it might take like two weeks for you to start feeling the effects. And that's where this timeline to results really plays in. Another layer of social proof. So whether it's, you know, reviews, whether it's UGC videos. Second to last is FAQs with real objections. So not your standard FAQ, but real questions that your customers are going in and asking. And then the last one is basically your final CTA with some level of guarantee.

41:46Nik:to you. Now, if you don't know where to start, all those 10 sections I just mentioned, you should have them all. There might be one or two that you can't, like if you don't have clinical trials or actually that should be the only one you probably don't have. The rest you should have. And then the last thing I would say when it comes to the PDP, which might have to be the last section of this episode here, which is crazy. We only got through section one. But the last section here is, or the last piece of advice here is design everything mobile first and design it in a way where you think people don't want to interact with you.

42:24And what does that mean? Well, don't put any bullshit on your page. Don't let yourself focus on fluff.

42:32Nik:Design for mobile first, make extremely good use of the real estate. You know, check out some of the brand sites I've mentioned or any of the sites that my team at Sharma Brands has designed before. And you'll see what I mean by making perfect use of the mobile real estate. What does that mean? 70 to 85 % of your traffic is gonna be mobile. So if you design for desktop and then cramp it to mobile, it's gonna feel cramped. You wanna make sure you've got horizontal swipe with dot indicators. You wanna make sure you've got sticky add to cart buttons. You wanna make sure you've got a cart that knows how to upsell.

43:10Nik:You wanna make sure that, you know, the right things are collapsed and, you know, the one right thing is expanded. You wanna make sure that your UGC videos, when you hit play on the PDP, it doesn't open into a full screen video in the native Apple player. You know, it plays nicely within there. You wanna make sure that, you know, your photos are loading with good file names, good alt text to the photo, and then also that they're super efficient in terms of file size. But if you're not building mobile first, which I know it sounds crazy because it's 2026 and everybody's been saying mobile first since 2017, I remember was the first time the CEO of Laundry Service sent out a Slack message.

43:51Nik:And it was a shocking thing to think like everything needs to be mobile first. If you're not doing mobile first, you've already lost. And I don't know what else to say to you. Okay, listen, this coming weekend is gonna be a newsletter of everything, all 40 pages of notes I have. So if you want that newsletter and you want the, I'm gonna try to build like a deck or some level of an interactive site that has everything with screenshots and examples, then make sure you're signed up for the newsletter. It's just nik.co slash email. Sign up there. I'll make sure you're on the list for Sunday and that you get a copy of this.

44:29Nik:And if today's episode was helpful, like if you like how deep I'm diving in and breaking down some of this stuff, then shoot me a DM on Twitter or leave a review on Apple and tell me that you want more of this. I've got, you know, we went through one, we basically went through section one and I've got 12 full sections here. I'm going to also bring on one of the guys who's a good friend of mine who helped build a lot of these subscription programs and still today continues to operate them behind the scenes so we can just talk all things subscription. So if either of those things sound interesting, let me know.

45:04Nik:either with the review, DM me on Twitter, shoot me a mention on Twitter. And yeah, I hope today's episode was helpful and fun. Be on the lookout for this weekend's newsletter. And if you've got any other questions, just shoot me an email or shoot me a DM and I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next time to cut through the noise on CPG, retail, and e-commerce. If you enjoyed this episode, why not share it with a friend? And be sure to subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss the next one.

45:38Thank you.