Under The Hood: Carolina from Baboon to the Moon
What’s growth looked like from Day 1.
We’re having more opportunities to bring these “what ifs'' to life. We’re collaborating with cool artists and releasing new colors, like lavender, that customers have been asking for.
We’re expanding into retail spaces including Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters, and we’re testing new channels. I think our brand team does a great job of maintaining that “one-to-one” relationship with customers. It’s always a real person behind the brand.
Does your social team leverage any tools to prioritise responses?
Our team uses Gorgias for all things CX related. But frankly, the organic social team is just so on point and on top of it. They know the accounts that are commenting on our posts, the accounts that comment first, and they reach out to the people behind these accounts to show some extra love and keep them engaged!
How do you build the LTV of your customer?
Our classic bag is a big travel duffel, so when you own one of these, you don’t necessarily need to own more. As a marketer, that's a difficult challenge, but there are cross-sell and upsell opportunities. For example, we’ll suggest purchasing a matching day bag or pouch. We’re also always releasing new colours and prints, so customers will come back to purchase the same bag in a different colour. Additionally, we’ve built out SMS and email touchpoints for repeat customers to let them know how much we value them and that we’re happy to recommend more products to help them build out their collection!
Tell us about your paid media.
We're seeing a lot of success with personalised videos modelled after TikTok and reel style content. Our TikTok performs well, and people who are familiar with the brand will often reference Sarah, our content creator who is the face of our brand team. The videos that perform the best are ones that feel authentic and are not overproduced. You’ll actually see the brand team working in the office together and collaborating.
Ultimately, we’ve taken these learning from TikTok and applied them to new paid media channels like Twitter. We’re still in our beta-phase with Twitter, so I don’t have concrete updates yet! But I’m interested in Twitter’s broad targeting and excited to see how it performs.
Does TikTok lead to direct conversions?
I have seen some last click from our organic TikTok, but Tiktok is a really great top-of-funnel discovery tool. Also when we post TikTok videos about new brand collabs or launches, there tends to be an increase in search.
What TikTok video drove the most search to Baboon to the Moon’s website?
In recent months, this cheeky tutorial has been a top performer, and content in this style has continued to follow the same trend.
How have the tech and privacy updates impacted you?
We've changed both our website build and the way we think about attribution by referring back to last click, using lift models in Meta, creating post purchase surveys, moving to a conversion API, rethinking all of our pixels, and constantly iterating on our website.
I think we’ll need to blend our attribution models to get the most accurate read of our data
and channel landscape.
Talk to us about email. How do you drive email sign ups?
Baboon to The Moon is not a discount heavy brand, but we use a lot of on-site pop ups to capture emails. Our pop ups will rarely have a discount CTA, so we look for other ways to add value so people input their email address. I'm constantly iterating on our pop ups and testing out new designs, colours, sizes, and copy. One of the pop ups that performs the best has a “Free Bag” CTA. At the first of the month, we’ll launch a raffle to win a free Go Bag or free Go Bag set. That incentive has worked really well in getting email signups, and it's something that a lot of people are coming to site for and are excited about. Another one that does well is an “Early Access” CTA. When we’re launching a new product or colour, we’ll occasionally offer early access, and we really do give early access. Once people sign up for any of these offers, it’s so important for the brand to follow through because it builds trust and keeps the customer engaged. Beyond pop ups, we’ll also grow our email list through swipe up stories and SMS.
What email had the highest click rate?
Anytime we send a highly segmented message, the click rate is super high. For example, if we know someone wants a specific colour but it’s out of stock, we’ll send them an email that says, “Hey, we know you wanted x and it still isn’t in stock, but Y is really similar and we think you’d love it!” We’ll also create a segment of folks who have purchased a very specific SKU and send these very personal, one-off emails to suggest other items they may like. I find that these emails have the highest engagement rate and a great open, click, and conversion rate.
Any surprising customer segments?
Our main audience is Gen Z, but the most surprising audience I found around Q4 was grandparents purchasing specifically for their grandchildren in their late teens or early 20s. Oftentimes they’ll end up buying a bag for themselves to take on trips. I love seeing these intergenerational customer success stories!
What’s your tech stack?
Klaviyo - email
Attentive - SMS and list growth
Google (analytics, tag manager, merchant manager) - analytics and beyond
TripleWhale - analytics
Gorgias - Customer Support
Dropbox - content management
Notion - organization and project management
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