🔍 How HexClad Became The Rolls-Royce Of Pans

Waddup. Brian here. A few months ago when you joined Marketing Examined, you also opted-in to receive DTC Examined. 

Here’s the one-liner: HBR-like case studies for DTC.

Today’s issue dives into a best-in-class cookware brand. Described as the “Rolls-Royce” of pans, HexClad has built a massive business through efficient tactical execution paired with strong branding and positioning.

You’ll learn how they:

• Leveraged High AOV to unlock sales

• Approach testing

• Create funnels for each offer

Why don't I attempt TikTok dances? I’m just not built for that. That's what influencers are for. They know what and how to create for their audience. 

And the right influencer. With the proper brief. Can intro your brand to their following in a way that really works. 

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- Automatically track sales and ROI

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HexClad is a 9-figure revenue cookware brand. That… is a lot of money.

For any celebrity-endorsed brand, $100m+ revenue is almost expected. But, in reality, most brands with recognizable faces end up floundering. It can act more as a crutch than a propeller.

So, when you find a company that combines a prominent spokesperson with relentless execution - it's time to pay attention. Thankfully for us, I happen to know HexClad’s Head of Growth, (@ecom_con on Twitter) who was open to answering some questions. 

After our chat, I distilled HexClad’s DTC success into 3 big ideas:

Every brand that relies on performance marketing has a specific mix of CPMs, CPCs, and CPAs to maintain profitability.

When you have a higher per-order revenue number, you have more money to spend to acquire that customer.

Their best-performing first-order SKU (the 13pc set) comes in at $699. It’s why they doubled down on paid social and achieved this level of success.

First-order profitability is key to a healthy DTC business. 

How To Boost AOV:

Bundling your top performers or complimentary products, “[x] $ to unlock free shipping” or alternatively, to “[x] $ to unlock free gift”. Product or even package insurance is another way to incrementally drive more profit per order.

Gordon Ramsay refers to HexClad as the “rolls-royce” of pans. Pretty high praise - but after testing his endorsement vs. a press quote, the press quote ultimately converted better. 

Because the barrier between failing marketing and profitable marketing is testing.

HexClad has 3-5 CRO tests running at any given time. Testing small changes like making product description copy larger vs. smaller to bigger tests like ad narratives.

But, all of these tests incrementally move the needle. And important so you get apples-to-apples results. Instead of conducting experiments that don’t have proper control variables, because you end up scaling without context.

How To Test Effectively:

Always isolate a control variable and testing variable. My favorite Shopify app to test is called Theme Scientist - you can change price, product description, button colors, and all within Shopify’s native theme editor.

Bundling isn’t the only way to boost AOV and conversion. Perceived value and psychological principles also influence a purchase decision. And help people believe they’re getting a good deal. That involves way more than price.

HexClad offers all the usual satisfaction guarantees you’d expect but also gives its customers confidence about its product quality through post-purchase flows. And you’re always one click away from getting specific instructions on how to maintain your cookware. 

Another unlock for HexClad was constructing entire funnels around one offer. Understanding their best-performing first-order products was the first step. Then, structuring top-of-funnel ads to highlight those products’ features. Once they’ve earned the customer's attention, the landing page delivers on that offer + answers common objections they might have. This happens on a per-product basis, but also at a partnership level. After collaborating with Hell’s Kitchen last year, they ran a co-branded funnel with both ads and LPs to significantly drive their CPA down. When you have a recognizable brand - use it.

How To Optimize Your Offer:

Build trust through the conversion process, reassure with email marketing, and money-back guarantees, and inject psychology like FOMO or social proof into your product page.

“Organic placement on TV shows. We are the featured cookware products on both Hell's Kitchen and Next Level Chef. If you look at our post-purchase survey, TV Show is our third biggest discovery channel. We're going to continue pursuing this channel and linear/connected TV so we're being both seen on show and in commercials.”

HexClad executed brilliantly at every level. An elite product. Perfect celebrity endorser. Phenomenal unit economics. YET! It still all boils down to testing and earning the sale.

In 2013, if you said I could predict the ROI from an influencer campaign - I would’ve thought you were a part of the team behind Fyre Festival.

10 years later, I have no doubt.

Why? InsightIQ.

InsightIQ helps you find influencer partners that fit your brand, launch successful partnerships, and track their performance accurately.

Here’s how:

• Discover ideal influencers for your brand among 250M+ profiles on Instagram, TikTok,  and YouTube, with 50+ advanced filters tailored to your specific niche.

• Gauge the genuine audience perception and purchase intent an influencer is able to drive from their campaigns.

• Effortlessly track sales driven by your IM campaigns, analyze content performance, and optimize for best ROAS.

• Don’t run every ad through your brand’s page. Instead, create the publisher version of your brand, publish five existing blog posts, and run this playbook.

• DTC brands are starting to scale out of home advertising. Why? Here yah go.

• Out with the old Meta Power five tactics and in with the new power five tactics you need to pay attention to. From someone who sees over 9 figures in ad spend each month.

• This Facebook community drives 15-20% of daily revenue. For a brand doing 8-figures in revenue, that’s a wild number.

• The playbook for influencer seeding and building an in-house influencer program

I hope this case study is a reminder to everyone about how important the learnings can be.

Like this email? Forward to a friend! We’ll tactically break down elite DTC brands every week and hope to raise the overall level of marketing in the industry by doing so.

Catch y’all next week ✌🏻

Brian