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☀️ In this issue: locking in your creative testing while everybody else is at the beach. Or maybe you're also at the beach. Perhaps with piña colada in hand. But still, you're locked in! Here's some strategic advice for summertime. 

Late July slump?

It’s that time of year again. These are the dog days of ecommerce.

Your Meta conversion rates are down. Your new customer traffic is flat. Revenue growth is slowing. What’s going on? I’ll tell you. 

Your ads are serving to people eating lobster rolls in Montauk right now. (We recommend Lunch for lobster rolls, by the way.) People aren’t buying your stuff. They’re on vacation. 

Welcome to the dog days of ecommerce summer. Good marketers know that right after the last tentpole of H1, usually Prime Day, there’s a seasonal cooling in the ecommerce market right as the weather gets hot. 

(Most brands follow this trend. They pull back spend through this time, which results in the relief in the market shown by all the green arrows above.)

People aren’t shopping online right now. They’re buying sunblock, beach chairs, hotels: summer-focused “need-state” products. Unless you’re Vacation (one of my favorite brands of all time) mid-July to late August is a tough time for sales.

And that’s exactly why this is the best time to test.

Right now, consumers aren’t impulse buying. They’re traveling. They aren’t upgrading their wardrobes, kitchenware, anything like that. They’re getting sunburned, and for the most part, they aren’t shopping online. 

They especially aren’t shopping for products that rely on seasonal spikes or gifting, which is most products, to be honest. 

But that’s the point. When purchase intent is low, signal quality goes up. This is the ultimate crucible for your campaigns.

Any ad that works right now is actually working. This is the time you need to be testing EVERYTHING in preparation for your Q4 rush. 

That thumbstopper that drives clicks in this season? It’s a weapon for Q4. The landing page that converts now? That’s a stud for Q4. The hook that somehow pulls someone’s attention while they’re sitting poolside? That’s your Black Friday cold open.

So what should you test right now? 

As we reckon with advertising in the attention economy, I’ve tried to go back to basics. Staying away from tactics and instead thinking about strategy. 

To that end, I’ve been studying Steve Jobs, one of the greatest marketers of all time.

Here’s what he might say you should do (in my humble opinion):

Focus on what matters

Don’t get distracted by noise, vanity metrics, pointless year-over-year comparisons. Focus on the core thing that moves your business: profitable new customer acquisition. 

Cut the fluff. Strip your message down to its most potent form. Test the absolute hell out of it. Don’t worry about last year, worry about right now. 2025 isn’t 2024. 

What is the #1 thing that drives your new customer acquisition right now, and how can you double it?

You might end up finding scale even in this low-buying-intent season. 

Make things simple

Your ads need to communicate value in the first 1.5 seconds. No cleverness. No ambiguity. No paragraph-length overlays. Show me what this does, why I need it, and why now.

I use something called the “sports bar” rule: if somebody is in a bar watching a ball game, are they going to see your ad on the TV, be actually compelled to watch it, and understand your value prop, even without audio? If so, you’ve nailed it. 

Obsess over the product

Jobs didn’t just market well, he made sure Apple’s products could survive scrutiny. That same scrutiny exists in your comments, your reviews, your unboxings. If you’re testing creative this summer, make sure your product experience backs it up.

To be honest, you can’t do half the stuff in this list if your product is half-baked. If your product is ambiguous, lacks a clear vision, and doesn’t communicate your values, you might need to go back to the drawing board. 

To stay focused, say no

You don’t need 37 creative variations right now. You need 3 bangers. Say no to low-leverage edits, recycled hooks, and brand-safe templates. Be weird. Be bold. Be memorable.

Moving a pixel three centimeters isn’t a creative test. Take huge leaps and bounds, and don’t try to do everything at once. Keep your experiments as diverse as possible instead of trying to squeeze another hundredth of performance out of your champion ad. 

And don’t sweat your visual brand identity. Brand isn’t your color palette or your font - it’s your values. To reach new audiences, you need to speak like them. That means shifting your visual identity in ad creative to create connection across the algorithm.

Look at Red Bull: they have their cutesy animations to win the office crowd, and extreme sports sponsorships to win their outdoors folks. And they’re unconcerned with that dissonance. They're concerned with big swings that communicate values, and you should be too. 

Embody your customer

Think about where they are right now. Scrolling Instagram on the train. Lying in bed on a hotel Wi-Fi. Standing in line for a lobster roll. If your ad creative doesn't meet them where they are, you’ve already lost.

One of my favorite books is The Context Marketing Revolution by Mathew Sweezy. This one flew under the radar. But so many people think of ad platforms as just money machines instead of ways to reach real humans at scale. This book will remind you that you’re advertising to people, not spreadsheets. 

Go forth a conqueror 

This summer is not the time to scale. This is the time to learn.

If you don’t know which creative themes are resonating, which hooks pull attention, which offers spark curiosity, you’re going to be flat-footed heading into the fall.

These are the dog days of ecommerce. Get your experimentation plan locked in while your competition’s on the beach.

So book a demo already. 

📖 A report on how brands are balancing performance versus brand marketing.
Also within: CMOs complaining that measurement is their biggest problem. Is it yours too?

🎨 Instagram released a report on how to use their new Creator Marketplace.
It's actually pretty helpful. 

🚨 JOB: Stanley 1913 // Sr. Manager, Performance Media // Seattle or Chicago:
help an iconic brand continue to win hearts - and customers. 

📦 Temu is back on Meta. We'll be tracking the impact of their billions in ad spend on the market. Perhaps not much - they don't make up that much of Meta's revenue.

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