Happy Sunday!

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re sitting comfortably, you have a beverage in your hand, and you’re launching new products this year. If you’re looking for a strategic partner or growth marketing agency to maximize your launches, fill out this form and let’s talk!

Today’s newsletter is a resource you can use in the future to make sure you don’t miss anything on your product launch checklist. But before we get to that…

Vendor of the Week

impact.com — The leading affiliate platform now has built-in incrementality measurement.

It’s 2025, and most people are still running affiliate and creator programs without proper measurement and attribution periods with their campaigns. With a channel like Paid Search or Paid Social, you can start and stop the campaigns for measurement, but with affiliate, you can’t... yet!

impact.com released its Incrementality Playbook for affiliate marketing, which covers affiliate partnerships, creator partnerships, and customer referrals—three things the impact.com platform does well.

I found the suggestions on paying affiliates/creators based on bounties vs %’s the most interesting in this deck.

Get it for free — you don’t even have to download the file, it just opens in your browser. Grab a free copy of the report on this special link!

The 2025 Product Launch Checklist

If there’s one thing we do well at Sharma Brands, it’s new brand launches, like POV Beauty last week, or new product launches for brands already scaling. When you’re scaling a brand, one of the heaviest levers for driving existing-customer revenue is launching a new product. Your existing audience floods your first-day sales numbers, and for the hundreds or thousands who have been on the fence or want to make a purchase, a new product can likely get them over the fence.

When it comes to the actual crunch time of a product launch, it’s pure chaos. You have to ensure that everything from the product setup and tagging to the review emails to updated catalog ads is ready to go. It’s full of never-ending tasks, and one thing always gets forgotten. 

Since 2017, I’ve kept a checklist in my iPhone Notes app of what to check off during a product launch. I encourage you to take this newsletter, turn it into a Notion or Asana checklist (wherever you manage your “to-do list”), and use it for the next launch. If I missed something here that you would add, reply to this email with it, and I’ll add it to the final list.

Backend Site Setup

  • Product created in backend (SKU, inventory, variants)
  • Tagged and categorized correctly
  • SEO metadata: title, description, alt text, share image (for iMessage/DMs)
  • Clean and logical URL slug (optional: vanity URLs)
  • Pricing and discount logic/scripts (bundles, promos)
  • Product page site speed, especially mobile

Website (front-end)

Homepage

Above the fold hero section

Notification/promo bar language

Email/SMS pop-up offer updated with new product

PDP updates:

Product images (studio and lifestyle)

Product video or demo (bonus: UGC/unboxing)

Feature and benefit iconography/animations

Reviews (speaking to benefits)

Ingredients, materials, certifications (above the fold)

Collection page merchandising to put new product in slot 1

Product appears in site search (bonus: as a suggestion before typing)

Cross-sell and upsell logic implemented (bonus: post-purchase upsell logic updated)

Apps / Technology / Integrations

  • Reviews app configured for new product(s) — updated messaging or incentives
  • Subscription logic setup (if applicable)
  • For example, if you’re selling chocolate colostrum and someone tries to cancel, you can now add a step to downgrade to just the unflavored colostrum vs cancelling the whole thing.
  • Pop-up updated to promote new product (with offer)
  • Post-purchase upsell flow created & configured
  • Klaviyo flows and tracking are updated/integrated
  • Loyalty/rewards app updated

Email & SNS

  • Segment lists: VIPs, past buyers, waitlist, high LTV customers, etc
  • Pre-launch teaser (2 emails)
  • Launch announcement (with resend to non-openers)
  • Post-purchase product education
  • Welcome series updated
  • Teaser messages
  • Launch-day blast
  • Early access or exclusive drop for VIPs or SMS subscribers

Organic Social

  • Teaser content posted (countdown, behind-the-scenes)
  • Launch-day creative (collab posts, stories, product education, founder content, etc.)
  • Influencer and creator seeding coordinated
  • Spark Ads permissions secured (TikTok)
  • IG and TikTok bios updated with product link
  • Launch content pinned to profiles
  • Affiliate links or codes distributed
  • Add product to TikTok Shop and Meta Shop

Paid Ads

Ad creative:

Static ads

Video ads (quick cut, educational, etc.)

Unboxing content

UGC-style testimonials

Founder intro videos

Destination URLs:

PDPs (with code auto applied, if applicable)

Collection page

Advertorials

Listicles

Retargeting audiences updated

Update catalog ad creative

Pixel and PDP event tracking confirmed

Misc

Update packaging inserts

Amazon or other channels synced if applicable

Customer support team prepped with FAQs and macros

Press kit or site newsroom updated

What else would you add to this?

That's all for this week

I hope this checklist helps you maximize your revenue on your next launch. When you spend weeks, months, or even years developing new products and don’t have a good plan to get the word out, or invest enough time in putting that plan together, your product will help everyone it can.

It’s Sunday night, so I hope you get 9 hours of sleep tonight and have a fantastic upcoming week. I am working on a deep dive with my thoughts on the tariffs and everything adjacent, and I look forward to publishing that soon.

See you next Sunday!