Forget generalities.
Today, Ridge’s CMO pulls back the curtain on how a +$100M brand plans for growth.
From go-to-market lessons to top-of-funnel content, paid efficiency, expansion, and more.
Plus, that’s not all …
🤑 Cody Plofker with how to create a new revenue stream
🚀 Connor MacDonald on GTM x 5 (2025) growth strategies
📊 Three resources on valuations, creative trends & CRO
Along with this week’s trending headlines in consumer news + executive summaries.
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Cody Plofker
Jones Road Beauty, CEO
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Google is to search. Meta is to social. AfterSell’s Network Offers is to ecommerce.
You optimize every part of the transaction journey to drive more revenue with upsells.
However, most brands are leaving thousands in profit on the table each month by stopping at the confirmation page. AfterSell has changed that with its proprietary Network Offers feature.
Here’s how it works …
- Show premium offers from brands like Disney+ and HelloFresh on your order confirmation page
- Earn $0.20 to $0.40 in profit each and every time a customer clicks “Yes, please!” on an offer
- Leverage machine learning to personalize for each customer from 100s of reputable advertisers
We’ve seen incredible results at Jones Road Beauty.
AfterSell customers generate:
- $20k-$30k in pure profit for every 100k orders
- 16% average engagement rate across all units
- New revenue stream without disrupting checkout
Unlock the hidden potential of your confirmation page with AfterSell.
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Connor MacDonald
CMO, Ridge
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Editor’s Note: This is the sixth in a series centered on two questions we put to each of the Operators.
What’s your biggest lesson from 2024? And your biggest strategy for the year ahead?
2024: More Strategic GTM
At Ridge, 2024 was our first year running a fully ramped product + category development system, which meant our go-to-market (GTM) board was more packed than ever.
We managed 112 GTM items:
- 47 product launches
- Spanning hundreds of SKUs
- Eleven “Tier 1” campaigns
- Dozens of smaller moments
That’s a huge leap from 2021, when we probably introduced fewer than ten new SKUs.
The benefit of moving at such a rapid pace — sometimes launching twice a week — was that it pushed us to refine our processes. We built a strong muscle for handling comprehensive launches at high volume.
In fact, we did our best work at our highest volume with fewer people year-over-year.
Unfortunately, not every GTM item delivered results that justified the energy and resources we spent on it.
Since our team’s time is finite, scaling up new launches meant trading off against foundational efforts, like ongoing email flow testing and evergreen content development.
This raises an important question …
How do we identify the most impactful items to bring to market while still supporting the core of our business and servicing everything that has to go live?
For me, the answer lies in being more strategic about where and how we invest our efforts.
Not every initiative can get a full-court press right from the start.
Heading into 2025, I plan to be more selective about which GTM items receive the biggest and most significant pushes.
This will protect bandwidth for always-on improvements that keep the business running smoothly. If an underserved launch outperforms, we can circle back and reinvest.
We’ll drive more impact without overextending our team by zeroing in on the most promising initiatives while maintaining a healthier balance between new campaigns and ongoing optimizations.
The goal? Move the needle in the areas that matter most and build upon the strong foundation we’ve created.
2025: Just One? Here, I’ll Give You 5
- Top-of-funnel channels + content
- Efficiency across paid channels
- Products, distribution, and demos
- Offer *clarity* through testing
- Personalizing onsite for retention
1️⃣ Investing in top-of-funnel channels and content
We’ve ebbed and flowed between channel diversity, and I think 2025 will bring a lot of newness — we need to ensure we’re feeding the funnel and reaching net-new audiences.
This, obviously, comes with investment and experimentation in new content types.
What is the longer-form, horizontal content for MKBHD that’ll work on Hulu? Or the 15-second TV spot for Yellowstone reruns? Or the podcast ad read that helps scale the channel?
These are the types of questions we’ll be asking and (hopefully) answering in 2025.
Notably, these efforts should additionally help fuel sell-through across our quickly-growing wholesale business.
2️⃣ Reducing inefficiencies across paid digital channels
While my goal is to continue growing spend, the biggest bottom-line driver will be reducing inefficient ad dollars and reallocating that budget to other channels.
We’ll do this through …
- Incrementality testing with Haus: How are we continuing to get the best, real-time, and cleanest data around the incremental impact of our channels?
- Account structures & bidding strategies: How are we media buying to generate incremental impact while reducing the risk of inefficiency?
- High accountability for weekly goals: How are we measuring, analyzing, and rebalancing budgets based on recent performance more frequently?
3️⃣ Expanding products, distribution & demographics
As Sean’s shared, 2024 gave us our lowest growth rate since 2020. The data tells an interesting story. Our ring business? 8 figures. Travel? 8 figures. Wholesale channel? Another 8. Dollar growth and profit? Also, 8 and 8 figures.
Here’s where we see expansion opportunity.
Products. Wallets currently drive 60% of revenue; by the end of 2025, that number drops below 50%. Not from any slowdown but from the momentum across newer categories.
Distribution. We’re focused on growing three: Amazon, wholesale, and international Shopify. Each opens up fresh avenues for brand discovery and new customers.
Demographics. Women becoming Ridge consumers rather than Ridge customers — i.e., buying and using wallets for themselves, not just as gifts. That has to change. So it will.
4️⃣ Testing & experimenting with offer clarity
On top of reaching new people with new channels and keeping paid social as incremental + efficient as possible …
We want to continue unlocking value by increasing profit per site visitor via offer experimentation.
How? Clarity of value.
I am not convinced we necessarily need new offers; we don’t need to be more promotion-oriented or discount-heavy.
What we can do is dramatically improve how offers are implemented — making the value customers receive more obvious, more understandable, and more compelling.
5️⃣ Personalizing onsite for retention campaigns
Once we’ve acquired all these new customers with a diversified marketing mix driving highly profitable incremental results (I’m beginning to manifest) …
The last question is, “How are we maximizing value?”
And the answer … signed-in shopping.
The crux will be more customers creating accounts, logging in, and then using that data as the beachhead for onsite personalization to make sure offers are clear and compelling.
Markets, Conferences, Growth & Optimism
Creative Testing Quality Vs Quantity: Does Chasing Volume Lead to Success?
Consumer M&A Database & Valuation Calculator
Drew Fallon — former CFO at DTC heavyweight Mad Rabbit and founder of Iris (an ecommerce-first financial platform) — released an exhaustive database on 2023–2024 M&As.
Even better, he’s letting us send you the Sheet, calculator, and Loom. But don’t share that link; it’s a paid resource 🤫
2025 Creative Trends Report + “Lightning” Event
Friends of the podcast Motion are dropping an incredible two-for-one. First, a gorgeously tactical trends report based on over $100M in ad spend and 500 media buyers. Second, a live event later this week with a who’s who of creative hitters.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About CRO
Not for the faint of (content) heart. This guide + download comes straight from our own executive editor, Aaron Orendorff. Over 5.5k words, 15 strategies, countless examples, and a 45-point checklist in both PDF and Google Doc format.
Curated by the editor of CPG Wire, this week’s five biggest consumer-news headlines.
1. Gloss Ventures Grabs $15M: Global Cosmetics News
Gloss Ventures, the incubator and holding company behind SACHEU Beauty and Glossmetics, secured $15M in growth funding from Peterson Partners, a Salt Lake City-based investment firm. SACHEU Beauty, which launched in 2021, generated more than $40M in revenue in 2024. Peterson Partners previously invested in consumer brands like Bonobos, Cotopaxi, and Madison Reed.
2. Unilever Shells Out Over $340M for Indian Beauty Brand: TechCrunch
Unilever’s India division has acquired skincare brand Minimalist for around $342M. The company was co-founded by Mohit Yadav and Rahul Yadav in 2020. Unilever has been busy building its portfolio of tomorrow in India. Recent investments in the market include What’s Up Wellness and SkinInspired; recent acquisitions, OZiva and Wellbeing Nutrition.
3. Slice Soda Returns After 15 Years: All Recipes
Iconic 80s soda brand Slice officially returned to market after being discontinued in the late 2000s. Suja Life acquired Slice’s IP in May 2024 and repositioned the brand as a healthy soda alternative with “Gusty Blend” — prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics. Slice is available now at select Costco, Target, H-E-B, and Albertsons stores.
4. SKKY Partners Bets on 111SKIN: PR Newswire
SKKY Partners, the consumer-focused private equity firm co-founded by Kim Kardashian and Jay Sammons, acquired a significant minority stake in 111SKIN, a luxury skincare brand that launched in 2012. The founders of 111SKIN — Eva and Dr. Yannis Alexandrides — will retain majority ownership and continue to lead the company. SKKY Partners purchased a majority stake in premium hot sauce brand TRUFF in 2023.
5. Feastables and RXBAR Alums Tease New Brand: Instagram
Jared Smith and Peter Rahal (the co-founders of RXBAR) and Tom Melcher (former COO of Feastables) are launching a better-for-you candy brand called Hormbles Chormbles. Their debut product is a chocolate bar that contains 10g of protein, 0g of sugar, and only 100 calories. They’re running a giveaway right now … so the launch seems imminent.
We’ve got two more 2024 → 2025 breakdowns …
Next week, HexClad’s president, Jason Panzer, with an epic top-ten list — “Panzerisms” from top to bottom.
Then, Portland Leather Goods’ CEO, Curtis Matsko; a fan favorite from the podcast + borderline LinkedIn famous!
Want to share your own biggest lesson and strategy?
I’d love to hear it. More importantly, so would the rest of our readers. Hit reply and let me know.
As always, Operators only.
With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff 🤓 Executive Editor
PS (Disclaimer): Special thanks to AfterSell for sponsoring this week’s newsletter.