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The Unstoppable Marketer®
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt bring you quick marketing and entrepreneurial tips, tricks, and trends for DTC business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. These are lessons they've learned through the years of being right in the thick of scaling dozens of businesses. Whether you have an established business looking to grow, just starting your business journey, or trying to become a digital marketer, this marketing podcast will not let you down.
The Unstoppable Marketer®
Ep. 157 Your Customers Aren’t Coming Back (Here’s What to Do)
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Are your customers actually coming back after their first purchase? In this episode of The Unstoppable Marketer®, Mark Goldhart and Trevor Crump break down why customer retention and brand loyalty are getting harder for DTC brands—from declining organic reach and crowded email inboxes to rising acquisition costs and changing consumer behavior. More importantly, they explain what brands can do about it: increase AOV while customers are buying, rethink retargeting, maximize high-attention touchpoints like checkout and order confirmations, and create offers that give customers a compelling reason to buy again. The big takeaway? Stop assuming customers will come back later and start maximizing the moments when you know you have their attention.
Connect with The Unstoppable Marketer® on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube @unstoppablemarketerpodcast, and let us know how you’re telling your brand story this year!
00:00 — Is Brand Loyalty Dying?
03:23 — Why Retention Is Harder
06:24 — Email Reach Is Collapsing
09:14 — Are Customers Still Loyal?
15:00 — Stop Waiting for Repeat Buyers
20:23 — Maximize Customer Attention
Amazon Quality And Brand Trust
MarkI'll say it out loud. I hate Amazon products. They always suck.
TrevorI don't really buy anything on Amazon.
MarkAnytime I've done an Amazon product, it sucks. It's just garbage. What I'm saying is, like, it could be a brand on Amazon or like, you know, whatever. But ultimately, it's gone up. The quality has gone up. I'm just saying, like, is it as high? I'm I doubt that.
TrevorFor example, my wife is a brand loyalist.
MarkOr who you would have thought would be one.
TrevorShe, yeah, she 100% is for certain things. She very much is. When it comes to apparel, she wants to wear the stuff she wants to wear. And as over the last six months, I've watched her buy like some of her tops on Amazon. And I confronted her about it the other day, and I was like, I've never seen you do this.
Minivan Life And Consumer Perception
TrevorYo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me as always is my co-host Mark Goldhart. Mark Goldhart, how are you? Good. Well, it's been an interesting week this week in the marketing landscape. We have had some like really we've had some really interesting conversations. We're just jumping into it right now because neither of us there was no small banter. You didn't have a fishing story or anything.
MarkNo, I guess I uh I completed my metamorphosis into a level five dad, I guess.
TrevorOh yeah, that's right. You got a a a minivan. Got a van. Congratulations. So far, vans are awesome. I've always thought many.
MarkDon't know why they get so much hate.
TrevorProbably because people don't think they look good from the outside.
MarkI think it's because people are insecure.
TrevorI don't know.
MarkOf course that's the reason. People don't want to be seen in a minivan because it implies, you know, that you're just a parent or yeah, like you're just in that phase of life. It's not cool.
TrevorSee, I just think it's because it's not a cool looking car.
MarkI mean they're not cool looking. They're not that bad though. They're bot a lot better than they used to be.
TrevorI think that the exterior, the interior, and benefits outweigh the ugliness of the exterior.
MarkYeah, they're awesome.
TrevorI've never had a problem with it. My wife does not like them, so we never had the joy of a van. But I would have loved one. It's we're out of that stage now. We don't know.
MarkAnd phenomenal. Yeah. I'm stoked. No more opening doors and parking lots with kids.
TrevorNow you're gonna be one of the parents that leaves their garage open and all your doors will be open because you'll forget that they just kind of open when the kids open and that nobody shuts them. Everybody in my neighborhood they're like Probably, yeah. Kids, the the side doors are always wide open. Probably no one's ever shutting it. I can't tell you how many times I've walked past like a neighbor's house and just like gone up and pressed the button to shut their own doors.
MarkIt's a utility vehicle.
TrevorYeah. I think it's great. And I'm happy for you. Congratulations.
Mark36 miles per gallon. It's incredible. Yeah. That's the
Brand Loyalty Meets A Tough Economy
Markonly news.
TrevorWell, what I was saying was we've we've had like a ton of conversations right now about two different things. Number one, we've had conversations around like brand affinity, loyalty to a brand. Number one. And also we've had a lot of conversations around retention. And we realize we don't really talk a lot about those things. A lot of times we talk more about things around acquisition and brand building, but like is anybody winning right now with brand loyalty? And is anybody winning right now with retention? Do those things how intertwined are those things?
MarkYeah, that's a good question. People aren't spending the way they used to.
TrevorAnd by the way, he brings up Walmart because that's generally how people can base how spending habits are going to be that quarter, that year. Yeah. When Walmart misses it, that means spending is down.
MarkYeah, there's other there's other metrics showing that just like your middle America is spending less and less, and the only thing that's making up the difference is high high spenders. So there's there's macro elements at play that I think if you're in e-commerce, you have to be honest with yourself about. Doesn't mean you can't win. It doesn't mean you can't do things. Like it's not just to sit around and be like, well, we can't do anything, but just recognize it's harder than ever. It's not a good time right now for for selling. Email and SMS are reaching less and less people.
TrevorYeah.
MarkSo retention efforts are made even more hard, like difficult because once you acquire someone, you're usually banking on being able to get them to come back or something, depending on what your brand strategy is. So if you're a subscription, that should be happening automatically, which is why some of the brands that are excelling this year that that we help and we know of are subscription based.
TrevorYes.
MarkBecause the CAC rise doesn't impact them as much. So for an example, if if your CAC goes up 40% and you're a subscription brand, well then your cash flow positive a little like 15 days later.
TrevorYeah. Yeah. Your payback period goes from a 1.2 to a 1.9 or something like that. Yeah. 1.9 months, that is.
MarkSo you're still raking in money.
TrevorJust a little bit slower.
MarkJust a little bit slower. Which I'm not saying isn't impactful, but I'm saying like not gonna freak anyone out. Right. In the like it you're something you want to fix, but not a big deal in the short term. But if you are a hard goods company and your CAC goes up and you don't have a high returning rate, well, things get really hard really fast because you're you don't have this returning custom rate coming back and buying. You don't have this expectation of a new customer that you're acquiring with a CAC that's gone up to come back and buy within 30 or 60 days. Yeah. If you don't maintain loyalty and retention efforts are a part of that. So it's brand affinity is part of that, the the the overall experience and how loyal people are to your brand. Um, but also can you get a hold of them again?
TrevorYeah.
MarkAnd we have seen in every account that we have audited, we have seen traffic going down from platforms like SMS and email. Now we do have a SMS email specialist who has helped some brands fix this that we're we'll have on the podcast.
TrevorYeah. But it's harder and harder. I mean, I have a stat right
Email And SMS Get Harder To Reach
Trevorhere.
MarkBut she'll she'll be the first to say like things have gotten harder because of the promotion folders, because of the new, you know, DMARC record standards from Gmail, um, and costs on top of that have gone up from SMS providers. So it costs more to send SMS and send emails.
TrevorYeah, I mean the stat is that 92, like 91% of all e-commerce emails sent get put to the promotions folder. So only 9% make it out. Well, there they say that uh 9% are making it in other places, only 2.7 to 4.4 make it in the primary placement.
MarkOkay, so sometimes they go to updates, yeah, promotions.
TrevorSo yeah, I mean like you it is significantly harder. It's so you've got you've got the promotions folder. You've got the fact that uh competition has is just skyrocketing in every category. So not only are things going to the promotion folder, but uh everyone is sending uh email after email after email after email. So your inbox looks significantly full more full. So the promotions folder isn't anything new.
unknownNo.
TrevorI used to look at the promotions folder probably two years ago.
MarkWow.
TrevorEvery now and then I'd look in there and just be like, did I miss something? Like, did I miss a cool offer? Did I miss something? Now I never open it. I mean, I do I do it for marketing purposes, you know, like as I'm I'm just looking at from a research as a marketer, I'm looking at it.
MarkI don't think I have actually ever opened it.
TrevorI've searched in my email for something found stuff that were that was probably in there or might have been in there.
MarkIt doesn't tell you if it was or not, but I've never opened up the promotions folder.
TrevorSo you've got excess just noise.
MarkYou're not like actively opening it every day.
TrevorHer answer is no.
MarkWhat about you? What's your name?
TrevorDo you look at your promotions folder? Never. So 92% of your efforts are wasted, right? And that's it's actually significantly more than that, probably, because the the eight percent that are going through are probably people who are doing it the right way, have figured out cracked codes on how to get in there.
MarkUm we know that And your organic posts aren't reaching your return or something.
TrevorThat that's what I was gonna say. So I have a uh I'll send you so we can hopefully show this. I have a graph that shows this in 2016, 16% of your audience would see your posts. Okay. As of 2025, it's only 1.2%. 2026, which means at that staggering decline year over year, because it is a like net it's never it's very much a curved down like this.
MarkIt's not like a what it basically means is you would have had to 10x your audience follower account in order to even have what you had back in 2016.
TrevorI would imagine it's more like 0.7% of your audience sees your posts.
MarkYeah.
Are Shoppers Still Brand Loyal
TrevorAnd so you have everything against you. And then here's another thing that I think is important, I was which was a question like do are people brand loyalists anymore? You know?
MarkIt's a big question. I I said this to a if you know, again, we just said Walmart missed missed their mark for sales. So is that an indication that just people aren't spending? There's plenty of evidence that people aren't, and we'll cite that stuff in the in the post edit.
TrevorBut but also, for example, my wife is a brand loyalist.
MarkOr who you would have thought would be one.
TrevorShe yeah, she a hundred percent is. She's the you know, and I'm like for certain things, she very much is. For if we're buying furniture, she's gonna be the person that's gonna find the dupes. Like, I don't need to spend eight thousand dollars on a couch and but but when it comes to apparel, she wants to wear the stuff she wants to wear. And as over the last six months, I've watched her buy like some of her tops on Amazon, and I confronted her about it the other day, and I was like, I've never seen you do this. Like, I don't have a problem with it because it's cheaper. And she just said, like, everyone is getting as good, if not better. Like, some of my products I buy here on Amazon are such better quality than something that I buy at Free People or at Anthropology, some of these brands, you know, or at Nordstrom. So I think you also have what was now known as the copycat slop that's actually coming out and being like, we're better.
MarkLike this is we're like Is it better though, or is it just the for the price?
TrevorShe says the quality feels better.
MarkOkay. You know? I'm s I'm suspicious.
TrevorAnd may maybe, maybe maybe it's not.
MarkI'm just saying, like there maybe her perception is that it's I mean, yeah, it could be the quality is increased enough that based off of the price that it it's worth it.
TrevorI I mean I will say this though.
MarkLike when I doubt it's as high, but it's obviously not as low as it used to be.
TrevorWell, listen, when we when we launched Asher Golf, w we went to Indonesia because that's where you get what's called cabretta leather. There's only two places in the world you can get cabretta leather. It's Pakistan and it's Indonesia. Maybe you can in other places. And we what is it, like a goat or something? Sheep.
MarkOkay.
TrevorAnd Titalist, the titleist cabretta leather glove is the standard golf glove in golf. It is the premier best golf glove out there. If you ask any golf purist, they will say that.
MarkOkay.
TrevorWe found the titleist factory because we said we want it to have the same quality. And when we were talking to the titleist factory, they were showing us, like, hey, here's the tannery, here's all the titleist gloves right here. And they had them in like uh levels of grade quality. And there was a grade quality higher than the quality that Titalist was buying from. And we we asked them, we said, wait, we thought Titalist had the best quality golf glove. And they're like, they do on the market, but this right here is the best, this is the best Cabreto leather sheep, you know. And they don't do it. And then we said, why? And they're like, oh, well, it's 10 cents more per square, you know, whatever the the pricing was. So so for example, like we used to make golf gloves for four dollars and we would sell them for $25, and and at the time, uh uh Titalus would make them for probably three dollars because they had a lower quality, plus they were getting it in significantly better, higher quantities, so they're significantly cheaper. So we entered the market, and our marketing message was we took everything that Titalus thought was too expensive and too good.
MarkSo the point I'm trying to make is No, I I get your point, but there's a big difference between starting a DFC brand where you can up the quality and an Amazon brand where your margins are so shot, it's gonna be hard to up the quality.
TrevorYeah, yeah. Fair, fair enough.
MarkBut when you're doing it at mass, well, what I'm saying is like I doubt it's as good. I really do. Everything I have bought from Amazon. In fact, I'll say it out loud. I hate Amazon products. They always suck.
TrevorI don't really buy anything on Amazon outside of like anytime I've done an Amazon product, it sucks.
MarkStuff I just need on repeat. It's just garbage.
TrevorI bought some belts on Amazon the other day and I was.
MarkSo what I'm saying is like it could be a brand on Amazon or like, you know, whatever, but ultimately The point I'm trying to make is I think that people's affinity towards branding it's gone up. The quality has gone up. I'm just saying, like, is it as sure high? I'm I doubt that.
TrevorWe got off on a tangent there.
MarkYeah.
TrevorThe point is she's not as loyal as she once was, and I think she's a very typical female consumer.
MarkWell, how much does the economy play into that?
TrevorI mean, we're doing okay.
MarkI know you're doing okay, but we're not conscious. You're doing okay, but your grocery bills have gone up. Sure. Like everything's gone up. Yeah.
TrevorSo yeah, that that's probably definitely a play to it. People are like, okay, I used to.
MarkSo for the main purchaser of a household, is it like, I don't want to spend like I think it's fair enough. So yeah. That's what I'm curious.
TrevorI I think that plays into it. I think that is there something to brand uh loyalty that's dying. I think that there's something that plays into it is the fact that it's harder for you to get in touch with a a consumer. So the question is, what do you do as a brand?
Maximize AOV While They Buy
MarkCry.
TrevorYou don't have a subscription business. Let's say you don't have a subscription business.
MarkJust cry about it. But seriously, what are you doing? Well, there's really only one thing you can do.
TrevorParty?
MarkWell, it's better to have a bird in hand than two in the bush. Can I say by it?
TrevorCan I interpret what you mean by that?
MarkWell, I'll interpret it. Okay. It means you cannot control the outcomes of future events. Yes. The only thing you can control is maximizing the outcome that is available.
TrevorYes.
MarkUm. Which most brands are not doing. So if you have the the easiest time to get someone to say yes is when they've already said yes.
TrevorYes.
MarkSo what are you doing when someone's actually buying their product to increase the value?
TrevorHow are you maximizing the share of wallet?
MarkIn in the time frame that you know you can actually do it.
TrevorYes.
MarkNot the supposed I can bank on this person coming back in thirty 30 days or 60 days or 90 days. Yeah. And yes, there's going to be those people, but clearly, like we are seeing a degradation of velocity of repeat purchasers for a lot of brands that used to have very strong turning customer rates at 30, 60, 90 days, where right now it's getting harder. Now, what can you what can you do outside of that? So number one is okay, if somebody's saying yes to your product, then how do you maximize and increase AOV by 25%? That's a lofty goal, but how do you do it? Because if somebody's willing to spend 150, my bet is that if it's enticing enough, they'll spend 200. And if somebody's willing to spend 200 at the beginning, or 80, they're probably willing to spend 100. How do you how do you bump it up to give them value? Yes, there's gonna be offers and discounts, but it's not the same as throwing out offers and discounts out in the wild. Make sense? So number one is how do you increase AOBs and have enticing offers and bundles and assortments, whatever.
Retarget Existing Customers The Right Way
MarkNumber two is guess what? You're gonna have to retarget your customers. In the past, like it was a little more like, hey, we only do acquisition. I know people have argued about this online. I think there's a time and place, like, especially if you have like a consumable, if you have apparel, I don't think you do customer exclusions in other brands. I think it made more sense. But now, how do you get in front of those people? But without having the algorithm get so stuck on them that that's all they're doing is showing the same people the same thing over and over and over again.
TrevorYeah.
MarkSo you got to get creative. Like, what are you doing in your media biasing strategy to think about retargeting? What are the offers? What is what is the messaging? How do you get people in curated audiences to retarget them with specific products that you know they're more most likely to purchase again based off of what they got?
TrevorYeah.
MarkBut that's that's it. And and also play around with stuff. Like we're we're playing around stuff in our agency and seeing some awesome results with using uh optimizations differently than you would think with retargeting. Yeah. So, yes, like if you're a brand and and you're still telling your media buyers like exclude existing customers, you're probably gonna have to rethink that. But also don't let your media team get away with not showing you how that existing customer is getting spent on. If it's incrementally working and yeah, like don't just it's not just a it shouldn't just be a black box with no like make sure the the advertiser settings are set and the audience settings are set in meta so you can track it and you can observe it in Google so we can understand, hey, what are we doing? Is it impacting it? Because we've we've run plenty of tests, like it does matter, like it does help. Like if you want to increase existing customers, you do like advertising to them helps a lot.
TrevorYeah.
MarkUm but it does have a diminishing return really quickly. Sure. So you you have to monitor it very carefully.
TrevorBut and especially if you're not acquiring two, right?
MarkBut long story short is yeah, guess what? Like you're not gonna get a hold of them the same way you used to. The other thing that I there are ways around it, like we said, we'll have a special guest.
TrevorYeah.
MarkTalk about what she's doing to help
Sponsor Message BFF Creative
Markbrands.
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Post Purchase Touchpoints That Still Work
Trevorperson, right? Those are things you know. You now you don't know if they're gonna buy again, but at least you know you're gonna get in front of them and you can optimize towards that. Right? So those are two optimizations you make. There are other things, and once again, you can't bank on these things, but think about the touch point where you do have their attention. So touch points you know where you have attention is in the packaging.
MarkWell, before that.
TrevorNo, I'm talking about after someone's bought.
MarkOkay.
TrevorIn this case. But we can talk more about it.
MarkBut I think I think you start with the full you have their full attention touch points.
TrevorTotally. I know, I know, right?
MarkJust outline it for the audience.
TrevorYeah, okay, yeah. So yeah, for you first start with maximize when you have got them.
MarkWhich is the checkout.
TrevorYep, when they're purchasing, when they're when they're adding to their cards, order confirmation, when they're checking out, okay. The second place, oh, I see kind of where you're going out of this. So order confirmation page. Um, that's a there's a there's a place for everyone looks at that. Order confirmation email, everyone looks at that.
MarkIt's probably one of the few emails that people look for.
TrevorShipping confirmation emails out for delivery, like these are all places and touch points. And yes, I totally get it. They haven't received your product yet. So, like if you're giving them offers. To come back and buy again, but under the same breath, like you still like you still might get people who are gonna do it, like, oh wow, they're offering me buy one, get one free here if I do.
MarkAnd also a lot of these assumptions, like, look, we are not a retention agency. So I'm I want to make sure everyone knows that. However, a lot of these things that people say are just assumptions that were baked into results from years ago. So I would love to hear, you know, in our in one of our podcasts or one of our guests, like, let us know. Have you tested these things out? Totally. The assumption was always oh, you can't offer people with the shipping confirmation because they don't want to be offered. But we've seen some doing weird things like that.
TrevorWe used to do it in the Wild Wild West days when we were on the brand side. Yeah. Like we used to put a 20% offer when somebody would take a survey, and we saw those coupon codes used like crazy.
unknownRight?
MarkAlmost within like a day or two before they got their product.
TrevorAnd that was a generally a one-time purchase, you know, one to like one and a half time purchase company that we were doing that with. So so I'm just saying, like order confirmation page, email, shipping confirmation, all that kind of stuff. Because once you're out of that flow and you've received your product, you're you're not likely seeing the emails from those people. So then the next place is going to be in the package. Right? Like, what are you what what curated experience and offer or education are you giving that person in platform in package? I think is extremely important. I think that most people aren't doing a lot with it. And once again, if you're talking about offers, make it make it so that they'd be crazy not to do it. Right? If you're already acquiring customers for let's say your AOV is $100 and you're acquiring people for $50 to $60, you're already 50-60% in the hole. So, like, why wouldn't you be willing on the next one to offer somebody what looks like to them maybe they're getting a value of a hundred dollars on a product when it costs you only 20 bucks?
MarkWhile you have their attention. While you have their attention, I think that's the emphasis.
TrevorYeah, and then guess what? When they buy it again, do the same thing. Okay. The other thing, and this is one thing that I think is a really underutilized offer.
Delayed Gift Cards And Smart Incentives
TrevorI know we haven't done it a ton, but I just it I just remembered it because I said free people, my wife's a free people shopper. Free people does this brilliant promotion every year that they say if you spend a hundred and fifty dollars or two hundred dollars, they give you a fifty dollar gift card, but it comes thirty days later.
MarkYeah, so the cash that the gift card reward uh we'll talk about that strategy. There's some good data about it. Yeah.
TrevorI have fifty bucks in cash, and my wife is always pumped. And what happens is she buys over Black Friday, and then there's fifty dollars over her like buying season for holiday too.
MarkMm-hmm.
TrevorAnd then she'll always go in and she and if you're a free people shopper, you can't buy anything for 50 bucks there. Right? So you're always gonna buy something that was $150 or $120, but you're like, oh, I just got 30% off because I I have a fifty dollar gift card. So I think that's a brilliant one that you can use over and over again.
MarkYeah, take care of your customers and try to take care of them immediately to maximize them to and incentivize them to purchase more with you. Because I don't think you can wait around and just expect people to come back.
TrevorIt's just not happening.
MarkBut we do have to go.
TrevorYeah, it's it's not happening. Buyers are changing, demand is or not demand, um supply is very excessive right now. So demand uh to see what's going on in my emails is significantly less. I'm not seeing my brand's posts unless they're just crushing it.
MarkSo you do all that work, you get in front of them, they say yes to you.
TrevorOur point is when you have them, maximize them.
MarkIf they've already said yes, you're not gonna lose them by presenting them more options. Sure. Totally. And I think that's what everyone's scared about. Like, well, I don't want to be too salesy. It's like well, get over it. You're trying to sell things as a company. You want to be as salesy as possible. Like, not to the point where you're used car salesman, but yeah, no offense. There's great use car salesman. I don't know why we always say that. Yeah, I think it was maybe an old stereotype. I like car salesmen.
TrevorOld stereotype.
MarkBut people want to be sold to people want to know why it's worth it.
TrevorYeah.
MarkSo give them a reason. So don't cry about it. There's things to do.
TrevorAll right.
Final Takeaways And Listener CTA
TrevorThank you, everybody. See you next week.
MarkCiao.
TrevorThank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. If there's a brand campaign, strategy, or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at the Trevor Crump on Instagram or TikTok or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and for sure go leave us a review to let us know that we're doing a good job. We will see you guys next time.