Happy Sunday! I hope you woke up today feeling extremely rested, relaxed and hydrated. At this point in your day, you should be sitting on a couch, iPhone in hand, feet up, with a glass of the finest water on planet earth (for me, that's Saratoga Springs still water). Today, I'm gonna help you figure out how to answer the question: What's the up-sell conversion rate of a customer who comes in from a static studio ad versus a static lifestyle ad?

But before we get into that — promise me one thing. If you find today's newsletter valuable, please tell a friend, colleague, or someone you want to succeed to subscribe to my newsletter. It's completely free, it keeps me motivated to spend 4-5 hours writing these emails, and there's no downside to getting them. The link is simple — nik.co/email — and please know I appreciate you so much 😊

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If you haven't heard the podcast yet, I highly recommend checking it out on Spotify or Apple podcasts!

Let’s get into today’s email…

Alright, now time for today's email. It's a long one, so stick with me. I promise the very end will feel like a nice bow coming together on top of the gift. It's all about customer cohorts.

Cohort tracking/analysis/mapping/reporting is something that isn't talked about enough — across most industries, not just eCommerce, retail, and DTC. I would bet money that most online courses/schools, live music show promoters (the companies that own venues or festivals like Coachella), SaaS companies, and even creators don't do enough of this "thing".

So what is cohort analysis? It's the ability to understand performance based on specific cohorts of users or customers. For example, an easy cohort analysis is understanding how long a Long Wknd subscriber keeps their Hair Duo subscription active.

A more complex cohort analysis would be to understand WHY a subset of Long Wknd subscribers have a higher LTV than others and find ways to replicate that behavior — effectively being able to predict LTV on customers prior to spending acquisition dollars. Let's get deeper into it.

This past week, I got on the phone with David Perell (if you don't know David, follow him on Twitter for the most insightful content). David wanted to talk through how to better understand his marketing activities for Write of Passage (WoP) at a deeper level — understanding what their best customers or subscribers have in common, and how to avoid spending money marketing to the wrong people.

It got me thinking — most brands don't do enough of this with their customer data. Right now, brands collect customer data across so many platforms (Shopify, Klaviyo, reviews, subscription, ad platforms, customer service, payment processors, etc.), but it's rarely ever analyzed past the generic dashboard that most companies have available when you open the app.

Just like a brand will never say, "We are the second-best shampoo on the market", none of these platforms that you use will ever tell you to go look at your data in different ways to understand the full picture. I mean, if you had a software company, yourself, you'd also want your customer to feel like just opening your dashboard is the single source of truth they should rely on. The problem with that is it's never good at telling the FULL story.

When I worked at Hint, I was fortunate to have an analyst who could answer any question I asked. Some of these were:

  • What Facebook ad creative drove the highest subscriber LTV during Black Friday last year?
  • Which sponsored newsletter traffic built the best audience on our site to build a high-converting 1% lookalike for paid media?
  • What was our newsletter opt-in rate for site visitors who came to the site through different influencers who used a swipe up on IG stories?

The questions were very random — sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes to get leverage in an upcoming partnership, but mostly for us to understand what works and what doesn't work, using data. 

At the time in 2017, we didn't have Shopify Plus (I know... I know), so we were forced to constantly download reports and use them for understanding what was going on. In fact, the daily report we used to make in Tableau is what inspired my initial thought for Tydo's Report Card product — an easy way for marketers and founders to understand WTF is going on!

A fortunate result of this unfortunate ancient technology situation in 2017, as we were forced to leverage our own first-party data and implement tracking and tagging capabilities to work smarter.

From my learnings and experience, these are 7 things I would start doing right now as a brand, an artist, a creator, a retailer, or any kind of marketer:

1. Use UTM parameters properly.

You've most likely heard of the term "UTM parameters" before. Turns out, it stands for "Urchin tracking module", which was originally created by Brett and Jack in San Diego at their company Urchin. They later got acquired by Google for ~$30M and their company became Google Analytics.

So, why should you use these UTM parameters with your URLs? Simply put - it allows you to tag your traffic on the way in.

With ad platforms, you can do that dynamically (for example, Meta allows you to insert the name of the creative files dynamically in the links that land on your website), and for everything else, you can use a UTM builder tool — here is Google's UTM Builder.

Using UTMs allows you to properly understand segments of traffic based on any parameter you set. In 6 months, you can see the LTV of customers who came in through an Instagram ad with a static image of a studio shot vs a lifestyle shot.

Even when you run influencer campaigns, put links in your bio for social channels, give a media company a URL for your site, etc. add UTM parameters!

If you need to get upset to get motivated, then here's something you should also know — the ad platforms already use their own version of UTMs when you click a link. They have the word "clid" somewhere in the URL of the ad you click — try it next time you click a Google or Meta ad, and you'll see it at the end of the URL. "Clid" stands for Click Identifier — Facebook's is tagged fbclid; Google's is tagged as gclid, gclsrc, wbraid or gbraid; Microsoft/Bing is tagged as msclkid. They're already doing it and making their own systems better — why aren't you?!

2. Use Vanity URLs.

So it turns out, putting a long UTM-tagged URL in your Instagram bio isn't that sexy. Who wants to click a beautiful brand and then see: https://longwknd.com/products/green-routine?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_campaign=link-in-bio&utm_id=v3a

The answer is no one.

So how do we make it sexy? There are 2 ways to do it:

The first way to do it is to use your CMS's redirect tool. Shopify, Webflow, Sanity, etc all have it. This allows you to use your main site domain, and instead use longwknd.com/welcome. When you click that, you'll see it redirects to the longer URL above.

The second way is to use a short URL tool. Does the name Bitly ring a bell? It's similar to that, but much cleaner. My go-to is Rebrandly — it's free, has basic analytics, and is easy to use and set up. I've been using vanity URLs for about 9 years now, and they look 10x cleaner + more trustworthy. This tweet is a great example where I drove traffic to David's website but got to own the URL branding. Nerdy? Sure. Smart? 100%.

Vanity URLs should be used anytime you have to put a URL out in public. Whether it's for influencers to put behind IG link stickers or to display a URL on a billboard that people remember, you should use vanity URLs that also have the UTM parameters behind them.

3. Tag customers in Shopify.

This is similar to zero-party data. You need to be able to tag customers for any actions you think might have an impact on their LTV or behavior as a customer.

Did a customer use a discount code on any purchase? Tag it. Did they use a discount on their first purchase? Tag it. Did they come in on a properly merchandised new customer offer or did they come and buy something on their own? Either way, tag it. Did they contact customer service? Tag it with how often. Did they use PayPal versus a credit card? Tag it. 

Think about all the spots in a customer's journey that you want to see down the line. It'll help you visualize patterns and make smarter decisions in the future.

The data is all there — you just need to set up a way to tag this better. And if someone wants to make an app that does ALL of this with a customer tagging marketplace, let me know where to write the first check!

4. Use the right data-ingestion software.

I couldn't think of a perfect word for this, so let me explain. Right now, most people use analytics pixels to pick up on customer data or actions taken on a site. That doesn't cut it anymore.

You should be using something like Segment or Elevar, both of which leverage server-side data recording and reporting back to the relevant software in your tech stack.

5. Use better data visualization tools.

Like I mentioned earlier, the basic analytics dashboards within each software company are pretty meh, at best. Sure, you can get access to data quickly, and it's mostly accurate, but you won't get true deep-level data to answer the questions I've listed at the beginning of this email.

Some great options to look through that I've used before: Domo, Tydo, Tableau, and Lookr. 

All these data visualization softwares are used across the best companies in the world — it comes down to personal preference.

6. Work toward building this into an automated report.

Everything I've mentioned above, in addition to what you'll identify you need to see as a founder, a marketer, or as an organization should live inside a big master report. In a perfect world, this is a report that updates dynamically, on a daily basis, pulling updated data from multiple software/sources.

To put something like this together, you need to streamline the way that you ingest data as a brand, ensuring you stay 100% strict on the tracking side, as well as minimizing the data loss (which really happens by forcing customers to jump across different CMS platforms). 

The end goal of this would be a master report to answer any of these questions with ease, and something, where your work is required, is really to help answer new questions, not re-answer questions you've answered in the past.

Wow, okay. On to some fun stuff... 

Vendor of the Week:

ReBuy — The Shopify app that is too good to be true at less than $5 per month

Alright, if you've ever wondered how most Shopify sites handle upsells, cross-sells, and use a better cart on their website, I have the answer for you. 

Let me also preface by saying, we use this product with our own clients, and on LongWknd.com as well (plus, I would never put anything in this email that isn't tried and true, and something I truly recommend). 

But the app that powers all these functions, and more, is called ReBuy. They call it a personalization engine, I call it drugs for any eCommerce store owner.

Here are my favorite applications for using ReBuy on a Shopify store (keep in mind, there are lots of other ways to use this app, too):

  • In-cart product upsells
  • In-cart subscription upsells from one-time orders
  • Pop-up for cross-selling or up-selling after adding an item to the cart
  • Smart cart with gamification toward free shipping to help AOV
  • Post-purchase order up-sell to the same order

The app is a simple Shopify app you install, and the configuration is straightforward, too. I'm not a developer by any means (I'm one of the few, the not-proud, Indians who can't code), but it's fairly easy for me to jump around and get ReBuy installed + looking great on a site. 

The pricing is straightforward, too — $4.49/month + 9 cents per order. If you have a $40 AOV, 9 cents to add to your AOV is nothing!

Also, if you use Shopify Plus, you can also use dynamic discounting!

So, how can you get started? Couple options:

  1. You can install the app directly on Shopify, and start playing with it right away. They have phenomenal support and technical support to help you make sure the app works for you.
  2. You can request a demo of the app, to really see how the app can work hard for you.

Either way, you can check out the ReBuy site and learn more about ReBuy as well.

This is the #1 app recommendation we always have in our tech stack recommendations — it's such a no-brainer to add.

Learn more about ReBuy on their website!

Jobs of the Week:


If you're looking to hire, you can post on my jobs board, or check out MarketerHire to hire contracted talent.

Question of the Week:

What is your favorite type of water to drink?

I'm a Saratoga Springs kinda guy, or an Essentia guy if that's not available. What about you? Your water choice says a lot 😉.

Brand of the Week:

Long Wknd — A personal care brand without the harmful ingredients you're currently using

Have you ever heard the term "Parabens" before? Probably!

Parabens can disrupt hormones in the body and harm fertility and reproductive organs, affect birth outcomes, and increase the risk of cancer. All things you definitely do NOT want to happen, I'd assume.

Enter Long Wknd! Long Wknd is a plastic-free personal care brand, but we're not here to be your crunchy granola, plastic-free, Vegan friend in the house. 

Instead, we want to make badass products that use clean ingredients (you deserve to have the best) the new standard. Today we have body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant (our top-rated product), but in the future Long Wknd will slowly take over your home.

Get in on Long Wknd today before it's mainstream, and use code SHARMA15 at checkout for 15% off!

Stand up for your own right to a high-quality personal care routine with Long Wknd!

That's all for this week

I hope today's email was helpful and will drive you to do a better job analyzing your orders in the future. I'll talk through some of this on an upcoming Limited Supply episode, as well, and get some commentary from Moiz.

Get those 9 hours of sleep tonight, stay hydrated (seriously), and have the best upcoming week of your life!

I'll see you in a week 😊