💸 How We Increase AOV Without Spending a Dollar More on Ads

The Problem‼️

Most eCom brands think the only way to grow is:

“Let’s increase ad spend.”

But that’s not always the answer.

We recently helped a DTC bedding brand lift their average order value (AOV) by over 20% — without increasing their ad budget by a dollar.

No new products.
No creative refresh.
No gimmicks.

Just pure strategy.

🧠 Step 1: Identify the Real Growth Lever

When we reviewed the brand’s Shopify data, something jumped out:

📉 Some days, AOV was under $250.
📈 Other days, it was north of $350.

Same products.
Same customers.
Same ads.

So what changed?

Turns out it wasn’t the media mix or inventory levels. It was what and how much customers were buying. We knew if we could increase the cart size to an average of 1.7 items, we'd be consistently above the $350 mark - so we strategized multiple avenues of growing the cart with on-site experiences.

🧰 Step 2: Implement 4 Simple Plays to Lift AOV

Once we knew the bottleneck was cart size, here’s what we did to increase it:

1. Feature High-AOV Bundles

The brand had bundles — like blankets + sheets — but they were hard to find and rarely promoted.

Solution:
Create dedicated product pages.
Make them shoppable.
Start featuring them in paid + email campaigns.

💡 Pro tip: Start with your top-performing product and bundle around it.

2. Add Post-Purchase Upsells

Most stores stop optimizing once the order is placed. We don’t.

We implemented:
Post-purchase upsells via apps like Bold Upsells, Zipify OCU or Rebuy.

👉 Buy a duvet cover? Offer $100 off the matching insert.
👉 Buy a pillow? Offer a pillowcase before they hit the thank-you page.

Why it works:

• No additional ad spend
• Customer is already in buying mode
• High-margin add-ons boost AOV immediately

3. Incentivize Tiers With Free Gifts

We introduced tier-based “Evergreen offers” to lift cart value without discounting core products.

Examples:

• Spend $350 → Get free dryer balls
• Spend $1,500 → Get a premium pillow

These gifts cost little but add huge perceived value.

4. Use Logic-Driven Cross-Sells

Set up rules to offer the right add-on based on what was just purchased.

• Pillowcase? Offer pillow.
• Duvet insert? Offer matching cover.
• Queen sheet set? Suggest a second colorway.

Most brands treat cross-sells like an afterthought. Big mistake.

When done right, they can add 20-30% in order value — without cannibalizing the original sale.

🔁 Step 3: Test, Track, Repeat

We didn’t launch all this at once.

Each change was rolled out, tracked separately, and monitored daily.

What we measured:

• Which bundles had the best take rate
• Which upsells had the lowest refund rate
• What incentives triggered the biggest cart increases

Then we adjusted from there.

✏️ Key Takeaway

You don’t always need a bigger budget.

Sometimes, you just need a better system.

Here’s our formula:

Better offer strategy → Higher AOV → More profit → Same or lower CAC

Want Us to Build This Into Your Store?

If you run an eCommerce brand doing $2M+ and want to scale without spending more on ads, this is what we do all day.

We’ll audit your current AOV mechanics and show you where money is being left on the table.

🎯 More profit per customer
📈 Higher AOV
📦 Better customer experience

Contact us today to increase your AOV without spending a penny more on ads!

Let's Talk

‍