No time to waste!
Because this barely fit into a single email …
🤯 Cody Plofker reveals and reviews Jones Road Beauty’s 30+ tool & vendor stack
📊 Connor Rolain shows you how to make analytical ad decisions (3 questions)
🗞️ Top-five stories from this week’s treading news with links and summaries
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Connor Rolain
Head of Growth, HexClad
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Three questions form the backbone of our media-buying here at HexClad.
What ads are …
- Driving the best performance?
- Hitting performance benchmarks?
- Improving our ad performance overall?
The first two are relatively easy to answer until you hit the scale at which we spend.
Number three is hard at any level.
Why? Because the key is finding specific creatives that perform marginally better than relative control metrics.
Our Gordon Ramsay sweepstakes is a perfect example of all three.
So, I made a behind-the-scenes screen recording of how I set up + analyze creative performance.
Besides just being a cool campaign, the sweepstakes ads are optimized for lead generation and direct response.
That’s part of what makes validating them so tricky.
It’s also what makes them so helpful as a real use case for why we depend on Motion for creative insights — especially its Comparative Analysis and Top Ads reports.
Together, let’s go behind the scenes!
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Cody Plofker
CMO, Jones Road Beauty
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Editor’s Note: This is the second of five technology + vendor stacks — one for each of the Operators’ brands. Once complete, we’ll compile them into a single database.
No recommendation has paid for placement.
However, sponsors of the podcast and companies with whom Cody has a vested interest have been marked 🤝
For Jones Road Beauty, we’re always testing and innovating. We want the best of the best. I know way too much about DTC and ecommerce SaaS. You can bet …
If it’s good enough for us, it’s likely good enough for you. Of course, not all of these will apply to all sizes.
So, I’ve ranked them by my Cody Score — 5 stars to 2 stars, in groups — and the amount of Annual GMV (online sales) for when I recommend adding them.
I’m also incredibly critical, so if I give anything here a 4 or higher, they’re an amazing partner!
5-Star ☆☆☆☆☆ Partners
SMS: Postscript 🤝
Annual GMV: <$1 million
Love the Postscript Team! Postscript only does SMS, and they do it amazingly well. Good prices, great support, and best-in-class software — especially for revenue generation.
We also do SMS Sales; very positive incremental margin lift. The AI stuff is cool and effective. I’m pumped about its new pop-ups. Plus, they aren’t known for holding onto your lists.
Customer Service: Richpanel 🤝
Annual GMV: <$1 million
Recently switched. Great pricing + support. I’ve been impressed with its UX. Since taking advantage of automations, we’ve reduced our first response time and number of tickets.
It’s much less than legacy software. I also love how they’re thinking about AI. Highly recommend.
Creative Analytics: Motion 🤝
Annual GMV: <$1 million
Probably the first tool I’d bring on if we had to start all over. Creative is the engine of a DTC brand, and Motion is the oil. It’s the best way to know how your creative is doing in one place and in a way that makes it easy to show your creative folks.
I don’t know a single creative strategist not using Motion.
Financial Planning & Analysis: Iris
Annual GMV: $10 million
Love it. Real-time contribution margin hooked up to our ERP. One of my big goals this year was to merge finance and marketing as much as possible. Iris has been instrumental in doing so.
Over time, we will do all of our FP&A in Iris like scenario planning, recruitment budget tracking, etc. In our DTC world, speed is everything, and traditional finance moves at a snail’s pace. Iris is helping to modernize FP&A for digitally native workflows.
Platform: Shopify Plus
Annual GMV: $10 million
We’re all in on Shopify; the only question is when to use Plus. For JRB, it’s math. That’s why we put together a dead-simple Sheet calculator. Plus’ card rates start at 2.15% vs Advanced’s 2.5%.
Get an actual quote and — when the reduced card rate covers the increase in Plus’ monthly base — do it.
Attribution: Northbeam 🤝
Annual GMV: $10 million
Yes, the best multi-touch attribution (MTA) on the market. Tracks millions in spend for us.
You can compare channels using consistent methodology, identify new vs returning, use APEX to feed Meta optimization, and understand revenue lift over time from paid social.
Incrementality Testing: Haus 🤝
Annual GMV: $10 million
For our size, this is one of my favorite tools. We spend a lot and need upper-funnel strategies to grow that can’t be measured with clicks. Haus has helped us measure + validate things like YouTube, upper-funnel Meta campaigns, and more.
Is it worth the money? Well, we no longer run brand search on Google because we found zero incrementality and were spending six figures a month.
We now pocket that money. So yes, it’s worth it.
Site Speed: Nostra
Annual GMV: $10 million
When you spend a lot, every second counts. Nostra has significantly improved our website speed. The result? An 8% lift in conversion rate. That is pretty wild if you ask me, and they do all the work. No brainer.
Checkout & Shipping: PDQ
Annual GMV: $10 million
Pretty Damn Quick (PDQ) lets us offer Amazon-like shipping options in checkout and much more. We test a ton with PDQ and have increased profit per checkout by a few dollars, which really adds up over time. We’ve just started using tracking pages to save money by consolidating.
Influencer (Agency): Gatemaker
Annual GMV: $50 million
Most knowledgeable influencer people I know. Agencies get a bad rep. But these guys are amazing. I’m pretty sure they don’t have room for more clients, and they already work with nearly every top beauty brand.
If you ever get a chance to learn from Ashton Wall, listen closely. We had her on the podcast — one of our top episodes.
4-Star ☆☆☆☆ Partners
Ad Creative (Agency): Odyssey
Annual GMV: <$1 million
UGC-style ad creative. Solid team and have scaled a bunch of their ads. They get DTC, and the founder is very involved. You’ll get more attention than one of the big shops.
Email: Klaviyo
Annual GMV: <$1 million
Klaviyo is probably the best ROI we have. I don’t get it when people knock the pricing; it’s a conservative 20x on last click. Deliverability is far too important to try to save money here. There’s a reason almost everyone uses it.
Landing Pages: Replo
Annual GMV: $1 million
Stupid good. All of our landing pages run through it. Built for Shopify, so it integrates really well, and you don’t have to mess with any subdomains that can cause issues.
You can create dedicated landers, push sections to Shopify, add them to any page, and then test in Intelligems.
Testing: Intelligems
Annual GMV: $1 million
Great product that makes testing easy. You’re actually able to do a lot of no-code testing, which is awesome and helps speed things up. More brands should be doing price testing. Intelligems is the only way to do that, from what I know.
Upsells: AfterSell
Annual GMV: $1 million
Cheaper than Rebuy because it doesn’t charge a variable fee. And it’s a great team. You can get post-purchase upsells, in-checkout blocks, and network offers in one tool with a capped pricing model.
Quiz: Octane AI
Annual GMV: $1 million
We drive seven figures of spend every month through our quizzes. Sure you could build this yourself, but that would need a lot of custom dev, and Octane makes it easy. My only feedback is that the results pages could be better.
Overall, it’s solid and good enough for our scale. Quiz funnels have been our most effective funnels.
Post-Purchase Survey: KNO
Annual GMV: $1 million
I love Jeremiah Prummer (founder) and the team. It’s the poor man’s mixed-media modeling (MMM). Everyone should have a post-purchase survey; they’re valuable to help measure upper funnel channels if you aren’t ready for Northbeam or Haus.
Reviews: Junip
Annual GMV: $1 million
It’s a pretty commoditized offering. What you want is good pricing + lots of integrations. Junip meets that. Like the team.
3PL (Europe & US): Shipbob
Annual GMV: $1 million
The team has gone above and beyond to help us get through 800 extra orders for our EU launch, even flying in people from the UK and hiring new people.
Whether it’s good or bad news, great communication — something I always look for in a partner.
We’ll likely expand to them in the US, so that should tell you. If they can handle our volume, they can handle yours. Like how their tech is modern and built for Shopify, unlike many clunky and outdated warehouses.
Serverside Tracking: Blotout
Annual GMV: $50 million
You need a CAPI provider. Shopify’s CAPI is not very good past seven figures. We make way more on Blotout abandonment flows than Klaviyo, so it’s well worth it.
Direct Mail: PostPilot
Annual GMV: $50 million
Great team; goes above and beyond. Be sure to run a holdout. Highly recommend if you’re looking to get into direct mail.
Merchant of Record (EU): Global E
Annual GMV: $50 million
Our merchant of record for all EU. Does site localization, too. It’s big and works with almost all the other big Shopify brands selling internationally. We wouldn’t be able to sell into ~20 markets without them without adding any headcount.
Influencer: Tribe Dynamics
Annual GMV: $50 million
There’s a reason every beauty brand uses it. Saves all earned media mentions on social and gives them an Earned Media Value number, which should be your main KPI for organic seeding programs. Not cheap and only worth it if you want to grow this channel and do it organically.
3-Star ☆☆☆ Partners
Chargebacks: Chargeflow
Annual GMV: <$1 million
Should probably optimize; it’s saved us some money.
Package Tracking: Wonderment
Annual GMV: $1 million
Switching to PDQ. I like them but don’t want to pay extra.
Cookies: Consentmo
Annual GMV: $1 million
Needed for EU and UK; does what it’s supposed to.
Returns & Exchanges: Loop
Annual GMV: $10 million
Hate how much we pay some months. Otherwise, no complaints.
Data Warehouse: Daasity
Annual GMV: $50 million
Like, don’t love. Buggy but gets the job done, for now.
Fraud: Kount
Annual GMV: $50 million
In a trial; getting slammed with resellers, so have to fight back.
Retail Analytics: Retail Next
Annual GMV: $50 million
Traffic and conversion rate per store. Cool for data nerds.
TV Ad Buying: Tatari
Annual GMV: $50 million
We buy our TV ads through it. No experience with others.
2-Star ☆☆ Partners
ERP: NetSuite
Annual GMV: $50 million
Our most expensive piece of software and very much an “eh” product — frustrating combination, but switching is really hard. Instead, I would give Fulfil a serious look; that’s what I wish we would have done and will do as soon as possible.
Affiliate: Shareasale
Annual GMV: $10 million
Trash, but they’re getting rid of it. We’ll move to Impact.
Questions about any of the tools or agencies?
Hit reply! We’ll do a Q&A newsletter or make sure they get covered on the next MOperators Hotline episode …
MOperators Hotline! Pre-Black Friday Targets, Marketing Spend, Moving from Amazon to DTC & More
In Conversation With the Candy King, Isaac Medeiros
This week’s top-five trending news stories, curated by the editor of CPG Wire
1. Butterfly Buys Luxury Wine Firm For Nearly $2B: Food Dive
LA-based private equity firm Butterfly has acquired The Duckhorn Portfolio for $1.95B in cash. Since 1976, Duckhorn has produced premium wines under labels like Calera, Decoy, and Duckhorn Vineyards.
This deal is surprising for a few reasons: private equity typically avoids the wine + spirits space, and wine sales have been declining across the globe.
2. Moose Knuckles Secures Investment from Bosideng: FinSMEs
Moose Knuckles, a luxury outerwear brand from Canada, landed a strategic investment from Bosideng and its existing investors. Bosideng, a publicly traded apparel manufacturer and brand owner from China, will help Moose Knuckles become a global player in the luxury outerwear space.
3. Open Water Refreshes Its Packaging: Twitter (X)
Sustainable bottled water brand Open Water unveiled a sleek packaging refresh. The refresh was done in-house. Open Water recently launched chainwide at Chipotle and became the official water of the LA Clippers.
4. Unilever Divests Russia Division For €520M: The Guardian
Unilever is officially selling its Russia division. The buyer is Arnest Group, which has been acquiring assets from the likes of Ball Corp and Heineken at steep discounts. Transaction includes four manufacturing facilities along with Unilever’s Belarus business.
5. The Jackfruit Company Raises $5M: AgFunder News
The Jackfruit Company — a jackfruit-based meat alternatives purveyor and Jack & Annie’s owner — raised $5M in a Series B extension round. Existing investors Creadev, InvestEco, and Grosvenor Food & AgTech co-led the round.
Until next time,
Aaron Orendorff (Executive Editor)
PS: Special thanks to Motion for backing us as a sponsor even before day one.