That Time Bad Reviews Actually Helped Our Business
Business is such an adventure...
Deacon here with a story that's been keeping me up at night (in a good way).
Remember how I mentioned we were seeing solid growth on Amazon? Well, things got interesting when our reviews dropped from 4.5 to 4 stars. Most brands would see this as a disaster - and trust me, watching our customer acquisition costs jump from $13 to $36 overnight wasn't fun.
But here's where it gets fascinating...
Instead of panicking, we got curious. Travis suggested a simple price test - dropping from $40 to $30. My accountant brain started spinning numbers, but then I channeled my inner Travis…
"Let's just try it and see what happens."
The results surprised us. Revenue stayed about the same. Profit barely moved. But our customer acquisition costs? They plummeted back down to $16-19, even with the lower review rating.
But the real gold came from an accidental discovery. We were running some basic Facebook ads (just $30/day) when Travis noticed something in our Amazon data: Our branded searches ("Dr. Barry's") had skyrocketed, becoming our top-performing campaign - outranking even generic terms like "acid reflux."
Think about that for a second. If we'd been obsessing over Facebook ad metrics in isolation, we would have missed this entirely. People were seeing our ads on Facebook, not buying immediately, but then going to Amazon later to search for us directly.
It's like that old saying about half your marketing budget being wasted but not knowing which half. Only now, it's more like "half your marketing is working better than you think, but good luck proving it."
Want to hear the full story of how this played out? Check out Episode 15 of the We Bought a Brand podcast. Travis and I break down the exact numbers and share what we're doing next.
Until next time,
Deacon
P.S. None of these discoveries would have happened without our team's expertise in marketing and operations. If you're sitting on a brand with great products but struggling with marketing or operations efficiency, reply to this email. We might be able to help.