Industries — E-Commerce & Dtc Brands
Cheapest ways to get more customers for e-commerce & dtc brands
The cheapest way for a e-commerce brand to get more customers is almost always to stop losing the ones it already earns — retention and referral cost a fraction of acquisition and are usually unmanaged.
8 min read · Reviewed by both partners
Everything below is ordered by cost per additional customer, cheapest first. None of the first three require a media budget.
That order is not a preference. In this category brands renting every visitor from two ad platforms, with contribution margin deciding survival which means the leaks are worth more than the taps.
Step by step
Ask every existing customer for a referral, systematically
Not a campaign — a habit with a trigger and an owner. Most e-commerce brand operators get referrals accidentally and have never counted them by source.
Reactivate the people who already bought once
A lapsed customer is the warmest list available and the cheapest to reach. Almost nobody in this category works it deliberately.
Complete and maintain the local business profile
Free, immediate, and roughly half-finished at most competitors. Every field, real photos, accurate hours, correct primary category.
Build a review habit rather than a review campaign
Ask everyone, every time, without incentives. Depth and recency both count, and a steady trickle beats a burst after a good month.
Then, and only then, buy attention
Once the model holds and the free channels are running, paid demand is worth funding — usually starting with an owned search-and-content engine that reduces paid dependence.
Common mistakes
Discounting to fill the gap
A discount buys volume once and trains the buyer to wait. For a e-commerce brand it also resets the price expectation for everyone they tell.
Measuring cost per lead instead of cost per customer
Cheap leads that never convert are the most expensive marketing there is, and they look excellent on a dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cheapest ways to get more customers for e-commerce & dtc brands?
Everything below is ordered by cost per additional customer, cheapest first. None of the first three require a media budget.
Where does this fit in the Growth Scaling Method, and what should a business owner do next?
It sits under E-Commerce & Dtc Brands in the Growth Scaling Method. The next step for an owner is the $1,500 Assessment, which reads your own numbers against everything described above.
How much should we budget?
Budget $4,500 to find out what to build. Budget from $5,000 a month only if the Plan says a recurring engine is warranted — sometimes it says the opposite.
Who will we actually be talking to?
Both partners, on every engagement. That is the structural reason the firm stays small and the reason the engagement list is short.
References
- www.federalreserve.gov — primary source
- www.bls.gov — primary source
- www.uspto.gov — primary source
Start with the free ones
Most e-commerce brand operators are one system away from the growth they are currently trying to buy.
Growth-Scaling is a marketing and business-scaling firm. It is not a licensed practitioner in any client vertical and does not provide medical, legal, financial, or contracting services; all industry content on this site is marketing and growth guidance for owners in those fields. Figures describing past engagements refer to specific businesses under specific conditions and are not a prediction of any future result. No outcome is promised.
Written by Steven Lockhart, reviewed by David Mitroff, Ph.D. Figures and regulatory details reflect the cited public sources; requirements vary by state and situation. Growth-Scaling is a marketing and business-scaling firm, not a licensed practitioner in any client vertical.