Katrina Adams
There are so many brands, I go to their website and I'm like, “I don't even know how to purchase this. This is confusing. There's all these different subscriptions. I'm overwhelmed. I don't know which one. It's just like, “Make it simple.”
Chase Clymer
Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow and scale an online business today.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today, I'm welcoming the show Katrina Adams. She is the Director of Growth at Timeline Longevity, focusing on new customer acquisition across paid media, creative and CRO. She's helped scale the business to nearly 9 figures by constantly testing, iterating and finding out what actually drives conversion, not just traffic. Katrina, welcome to the show.
Katrina Adams
Thanks for having me, Chase.
Chase Clymer
I'm excited to chat. So first of all, just for the folks that don't know, could you quickly let us... What are the types of products you are helping bring to market over there?
Katrina Adams
Yeah. So Timeline is a longevity company. So at the core, we're a supplement, an oral supplement company. We have gummies, soft gels, and powder. And that's our main product. Then we have our secondary product line, which is our skincare line. And that is a topical full lineup of products. We have serums, eye cream, and exfoliators. And I think potentially more to come in the future. At the forefront, I would say we're supplements and then secondary skin.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, where does your story with Timeline start? Take me back. Maybe it starts a little bit before that with your career. I don't know.
Katrina Adams
Yeah. So I became aware of Timeline back in the end of 2022 and started there in, I'm sorry, 2023 and to 2024. It started there at the beginning of 2024. [I was] brought in really to scale their business, D2C in the United States at the core of the Swiss space company with 15 plus years of research at the time. So taking that and scaling it to D2C, making that accessible to the consumer.
And so I was brought in just to scale the paid program across the Meta, TikTok, Google of the world. And previous to that, I was at SEED, which is another supplement category in the probiotic space. [It was] very similar in the sense that science is at the forefront. And so I had deep experience in understanding how that differentiates from other supplement categories. And how to translate that to the consumer.
Previously I was in beauty and before that I was actually in a totally different category. [I was] in media and click based conversions, really the arbitrage market before that. So I've pretty much tried every paid media category from the ground up. From a media buyer all the way up to where I'm at today as a director.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. And so yeah, I guess I would love to learn a bit more about what the day-to-day look like for a director of growth? What teams are you interacting with? If there are KPIs that you care most about? How are you surfacing your best for the brand?
Katrina Adams
Yeah. So at the forefront, we're a subscription-based company. We do have options for one-time purchase but the highest converting value would be for us to have a CAC-to-LTV ratio that makes sense for a long-term consumer. Because at the core of our product is using it for a while to see results. And so that's at the forefront there.
New customer acquisition is kind of the name of the game. So every day I'm thinking about how many new customers we're bringing in, how efficient we are, are they subscription, are they one time. And really leading into that whole customer journey from the first time they hear about us all the way to when they convert and then hand over to the retention team.
So my core focus is just really making sure I'm pulling those levers back and forth. Making sure that those CAC numbers are below our goals, and then keeping in mind what the LTV is. So it's a little bit different channel by channel, but that's the ins and outs of it.
The deep, behind the curtain, is really focused on creative optimization, the CRO experience. So [the] website is a huge lever for us. You might have an amazing, beautiful ad, but if the landing page doesn't continue to tell the story, you kind of lose that conversion there. So really just finding out where it is that people drop off. Where it is that we can optimize that conversion and optimise the journey throughout the time that they're with us.
Chase Clymer
Now, if it was a developer, are you getting much into the code anymore? Or is it more that you're empowering the team? You're helping make decisions, you're helping troubleshoot, and you're relying on the smart team members to execute on these things and you're there just playing quarterback?
Katrina Adams
Yeah, I think it's probably that. So I really am focused on optimizing the team, keeping strategy at the forefront, making sure that each individual contributor understands their role. But then how does that impact the rest of the team? And then I would say I basically represent my team as a new customer acquisition to the rest of the organization.
So I'm in a lot of planning calls, strategy calls, and then leadership calls with those higher levels, C-levels. Making sure that all that's translated to the board.
Chase Clymer
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With that in mind, I guess, you gave me some amazing questions to ask you, by the way. A little behind the scenes look for everybody. Obviously, you've got a lot of experience over the years. And if you were branching out consulting, or maybe you move on to a new position in the near future or whatever. If you were looking at a brand for the first time, what are the fastest ways you can tell where growth is going to be left on the table?
Katrina Adams
Yeah, so I would say most growth problems aren't just channel problems, they're alignment problems. So I look for that alignment across the customer journey first. I will say most brands don't necessarily have a traffic problem. It's where that journey disconnects. So for instance, for us paid new acquisition, as far as from the ad standpoint, looked really great.
But we were noticing that our new customer numbers were dropping and holistically as a brand unit. Our new customer CAC was higher than desired. So [you] really had to look at that full journey from end to end and really unpack where that disconnect was happening. And so for us, the storytelling on the landing page was where that disconnect was happening.
So we might be talking about something like strength. And it's really resonating from the ad standpoint, but then the conversion doesn't happen on the landing page because the story is completely disconnected from what that landing page should experience.
Chase Clymer
Like sounding more generic.
Katrina Adams
Yes, exactly. Or PDP-focused, right? So just shopping. And you have to think of the consumer as one person, not the piece of the funnel. So they might have really resonated with that ad. But there's more to that story than what's just on that ad. So really making sure you're not mismatching the messaging from end to end.
Really, it's just that alignment across the funnel. And then I think the other thing to really look at, because you're a whole brand with many different numbers, and everything drives CAC and retention, right? So looking at retention and how does that play into your new customer numbers, because it actually does affect it.
We also find that linking our email experience to the new customer acquisition experience is super important. So you might not get that conversion right away, but you can capture that lead. And you can market them on email. And that is actually the tie that for us lifts all boats. So if I was talking to a brand, Net New and I came in. I would look at all of those different lovers across the funnel end to end.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. I was just consulting with a brand last week and they did not have a welcome series for subscribers because they didn't want to email too much. And they were only emailing once a month and they're doing millions of dollars. And I was like, “You guys are sitting on growth here. Just go do this.” And some of those old habits die hard. And you have to help people understand. It's like, if they like your product, they want to get an email from you.
But yeah, I couldn't agree more. That connection, your main goal with an ad is a purchase. That's what everybody wants. But if your second goal should likely be a piece of identifying information, either a phone number or an email. That should be an alternative KPI to call something a win.
Because yeah, if they don't buy out the first one, maybe they get hit with two or three of your drip welcome series. And they're like, “You know what? This is for me.” And then they do convert from it. And so I think it sounds so obvious to you and I, but I think we have to spell it out sometimes for folks.
Katrina Adams
Yeah. And I think bringing in you as an individual and your experience is sometimes helpful. But oftentimes different than what the consumer feels. So I think I resonate with the feeling of sometimes you're spammed by email. But we have to realize that individuals can make the decisions for themselves and we have to basically give them all the options. And like you said, not leave money on the table.
Yeah. And it's also if somebody is going to get annoyed by an email from you, were they ever going to be a customer in the first place? I don't think I've ever gotten an email from a company that I was interested in buying from and be like, “This is the last straw!” And then I never buy from them. That's not a real situation.
Katrina Adams
Right. Exactly. No, you're totally right.
Chase Clymer
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Okay. So I know there's a lot of listeners out there that are just hitting that threshold. They're finally getting over a million dollars a year. They're like, “I've done it. This big thing is done.” And now they're starting to get into a more ICP-focused funnel-type strategy where they're branching out a little bit beyond the PDP. They're doing landing pages, stuff like that.
Obviously, at the timeline scale, you probably have a bunch of different funnels and a bunch of different things going on. If this was my first, [like] “We're gonna branch out. We're gonna stop sending traffic only to the PDP for our flagship product. What is the one step up? I don't want to go 20.” What is the next best thing we can start doing?
Katrina Adams
Yeah. I think the next best thing is leaning into whatever that benefit is of your product. So I think the whole reason you're offering that as a consumer-based product in the first place is the benefits that the customer will receive. So leading with that first. So for us, one of our clinical studies, one of the most scientific claims that we have is strength. And how you can actually retain and build strength with our product without changing your current exercise routine.
So you don't have to continue to lift more and more to see benefits. And so that is where actually we are taking the step to lead first. So building a page, answering all the questions someone would have about that. I think of this sort of like a stair to step approach. So they see a strength ad. Maybe it's someone flexing. There's a couple benefits, maybe a percentage here and there, and makes them click. They click, they go to the page.
And then we have a hero, what's in that hero? What do we want to answer next? So for us we're the number one longevity doctor recommended supplement. So we could put that there. Maybe we pull in another percentage, another claim, a strong call to action. And then below that, you want to build that story.
So bringing in more information behind the study. Linking benefits to real people. So UGC reviews, and you want to steer step that as you go down the page. So if someone hasn't clicked and then bought now, what else do they need to know? So you kind of just go back and forth, right? Okay, so if they still haven't purchased it, then what? And that's how we build the page.
I like to reference some of those like best in class supplement brands, like Grüns who just got acquired. That's how they do this, right? They lead with their strong benefit claim, and then they build the story on the landing page. And it might seem overwhelming. Like we just talked about an email. People say, “Well, that's too much information for someone.”
That's actually not true. I think it's really important to give the consumer the most information possible so that they can make an informed decision, especially on something like a supplement.
Chase Clymer
Exactly. People don't buy because of fear, uncertainty and doubt. And so your job as a marketer, as sales. Whatever you want to bucket your job under, is that product page or that landing page needs to answer any question that might create fear, uncertainty and doubt. That that product will solve the problem for that consumer.
And the people that are bouncing, we're never going to buy in the first place. But the people that are on that page for two and half minutes, they're going to buy. Or you haven't answered whatever that last lingering question is just yet.
Katrina Adams
Exactly. Yeah. And so that's really like the crux of what we do with landing page experiences. So we're going to do that with another type of benefit, right? We're going to think about the consumer that thinks long-term, longevity-focused. What is that? How does our product fix the problem that they have? And so meeting that consumer where they are.
There's different types of personas. So each one is a little more differentiated. But there's also a crossover. So I think it's also important to build a wireframe of what a page should have. And then you can duplicate that over and over and over. You don't have to continually reinvent the wheel. I think a lot of people in our world overthink a very simple consumer issue where they can simplify and duplicate it.
Chase Clymer
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That's something we often do for brands as we come in. We go, “We're gonna rebuild the landing page template. We're gonna get off like a WYSIWYG builder. We're gonna use Shopify sections. So our split testing is right there in the theme. It's super easy to do.” And yeah, it's not a generic template. It's 80-20 everybody.
We tackle the first, biggest, strongest benefit. This is the ICP. 80 % of sales is this thing. We build that out. But everything is modular, we’re using sections everywhere and metafield. So it's like, alright, “We can clone this landing page. Now we're not talking about strength.
Now we're talking about longevity. Let's change those benefits and that copy on that page.” And then if you're using some cool tools, you can in real time test headlines and stuff like that. But yeah, that's how it's done.
Katrina Adams
Yeah. No need to over complicate a very simple pack. No, I think it's totally true. It's to build each section and then duplicate that across the user journey.
Chase Clymer
I think people get really caught up in design often. But it's like, let's be real. You're not Apple. And I can tell you right now, I have seen the ugliest websites do tens of millions of dollars a year.
Katrina Adams
Oh, yeah.
Chase Clymer
Right? It's like, design only makes things a little bit better. But if your product solves a problem for the customer, they will buy regardless.
Katrina Adams
Absolutely. And making it easy for them to. I think another thing that we haven't talked about when it comes to this experience is the ease of converting.
Chase Clymer
Yeah.
Katrina Adams
There are so many brands. I go to their website and I'm like, “I don't even know how to purchase this. This is confusing. There's all these different subscriptions. I'm overwhelmed. I don't know which one.” Just make it simple. This one and this one and these are two... Subscription-based. And maybe the two-month, maybe your four-month plan or your one or your two.
But that's it. You don't need to overcomplicate it. You make it simple for someone to convert and then you upsell them in the cart.
Chase Clymer
We do a lot of buy box reconfiguring for folks. You have to make it simple but also you have to make sure that the messaging is consistent. The default units that all these subscription apps come with. How it says it in the cart or in the checkout, sometimes doesn't match what it is you're actually selling them. Or the frequency or the timeline of what you're selling them.
If you're overlooking that, [let’s say] “I want to buy from you and I buy this product, it's a 3-month subscription, but in the cart, it says 90 days.” Okay, well, those are close enough. But it needs to be exactly the same. So I have no questions about the amount of stuff I'm buying.
Katrina Adams
Exactly. Because personally, as a consumer, if I have a bunch of questions, I'm not buying that product. Exactly. Or it's going to take more to convince me.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Alright, we were talking a lot about on-page experience, landing page, blah, blah, blah. How do I get to a landing page? Paid media usually, right? Unless you are just great at creating organic traffic. But it's usually going to be a paid acquisition. How is that working in the year 2026? What mistakes are people making?
Katrina Adams
Yeah. I can think of so many at the top of my head. But I think brands are trying to media-buy their way out of weak positioning. So I think that's number one. Right? I know I hate to say it but it's true.
Chase Clymer
My buddy has worked at a lot of really nice agencies with a lot of really nice brands. And he told me something last year that really stuck with me. I was like, “How's things? How's work?” He's like, “Oh, it's a lot of brands trying to spend money to find product market fit.” And I was like, “That sounds awful.”
Katrina Adams
Yeah. And it's such a waste of time. I think if you don't already know what your position is, what your benefits are, and what converts, then how are you going to build ads? I think that's first and foremost. So obviously, creative matters a lot. But we just talked about that. You can have a beautiful ad and you're not really sure exactly what this product is.
I've had many ads that I've seen where I'm like, “It's unclear to me what this is.” So I think that's number one. Making sure that you have your North Star. What is it that your brand stands for? So that's number one. Then it's how do you [go] back to benefits? Leading with those benefits and the strong claims behind them.
So most of our ads are claimed based and then they're backed up with real results or real studies to back those claims up. So I think that's number one. The other thing is that people make the mistake of audience-led rather than creative-led. If that makes sense. If you're in a meta-algorithm, you realize that your creative actually finds your audience, not the other way around.
So you are finding those net new audience pools with what's in your creative. So I just talked about strength. We build personas off of strength. So let's just talk about the number one consumer is a woman who is over the age of 35. And if she's thinking about strength, what does that look like? And how do we go and find her?
So then that is number one when we're coming up with these ad ideas. And that doesn't mean that a woman has to be in your ad. It just means that whatever claim that you have needs to speak to her to stop her in the feed. So there's different ways of thinking about that. You can do UGC, you can have a whitelisted ad, you could have a static ad, you can do a carousel. But I think the whole basis behind it is the same.
And so that's another thing that I see brands make often. That mistake of assuming they already know their audience and then building creatives off of that.
Chase Clymer
And even before that, when they don't know who it is. And they're just shotgun blasting, we're just trying stuff and whatever resonates, we're going to double down there. That is a scrappy startup way to do things. I guess if you're really, really just getting started. But at a certain scale and spin, it's like you should already know what a lot of these answers are. And what the type of creative should be that will resonate.
You can always try new stuff and take moon shots. But if you're still going into it with a blank brief, it's like we should rethink stuff.
Katrina Adams
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, brand by brand, obviously it depends. But I think when you're talking about ads that convert, it's not just about being clicky. It's also about going back to that full customer story. What type of customer do you want? And does this ad achieve that?
I also think brands pivot too quickly. They might, like we just talked about, might say, “Okay, well, strength seems to be working.” So they lean really far in that direction, right? Everything's strength led. And then maybe that viral moment scotch. And then they're like, “What do we have?” So I think always knowing, having multiple balls in the air of knowing what you can try.
Obviously, you have your North Star, but you also need to have some secondary claims as well. And making sure that you're diversifying there and not just taking one viral ad and duplicating it a million times with a slight tweak of copy. It's more than that, especially with the new algorithms that we're working with today.
Chase Clymer
Hey everybody, just a quick reminder. Please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week. So don't miss out. Now back to the interview.
Yeah, don't put all your eggs in one basket. I just interviewed last week, Jacques from Raindrop Agency, who actually helped grow Grüns. And he was saying, “One of my biggest fears when I'm starting to talk to brands is seeing that they only have one channel. They only do meta.” And he's like, “You guys are so far behind. Go build something else.” You know what they say? Don't build your house on borrowed land or whatever.
It's like, if Meta is the only reason you're a business and Meta's algorithm changes and you can't figure it out, you don't have business anymore. So it's like you got to make sure. That’s okay, Meta works. That's great. Maybe go try TikTok or your own retention. It'd be what I'd really do. It's like you need to make sure that you have a couple different channels. So if something really catastrophic happens, you're still going to be around.
Katrina Adams
Absolutely. I mean, each channel has its nuances as well in different audience pools. I think one of my favorites is YouTube because they're just such a totally different audience than we've ever experienced before.
Chase Clymer
That's exactly what Jacques said. He was like, “YouTube is awesome. It's so underutilized. There's great stuff.” Well, I guess now the secret's out. Everyone's gonna know because of this podcast and we talked about it twice. You can start advertising there.
Katrina Adams
Yeah. If you're listening to this, try YouTube ads. No, I think that there's a lot of options for testing. Obviously, most brands are going to have to lean heavy into Meta. But I often recommend that brands that are getting started, obviously lean into Meta. But also try those same ideas that you have in other channels. There's no reason to try to tailor each type of ad to the channel from the get. You can try it on a different channel. And then you can tweak it from there.
I think a lot of bandwidth constraints make it so that people like you and me are afraid to test other channels. Because we're like, “Well, I only have two designers, right? Or two creative focused people on my team who can create this for me. And so if I also then add in another channel, what does that do for my bandwidth?” So I'm going to lean in here. And I think that they're shooting themselves in the foot in that instance.
Speaking of TikTok though, when we were talking about you just mentioned TikTok. That is one that I think brands sleep on because they're afraid of how, what's the word? It's very niche, right? Like it's the certain type of person they think goes there and purchases products there. But the truth is that more and more consumers are moving towards TikTok. And they go there for ideas, they go there for recipes. They’re really using it for a one-size-fits-all.
And so that's a perfect opportunity for you to insert yourself into their experience on that platform. And you'd be surprised how much it's grown and how it's actually moving more towards older audiences than it was in the past. So I think another thing is to not make those assumptions about a channel before you try it.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, Katrina, you've shared so much amazing stuff with me today. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you think would resonate with our audience?
Katrina Adams
I think maybe the levers within creative potentially. I think there are a lot of different levers. There's obviously different ones for video versus static ads. And I mentioned, obviously, the North Star of CAC to LTV. But there's also more information within your creative that we can get into the nuances there. Which would be obviously like your click through rates, your thumb stop rates, things like that that are also super important.
So I would just say when it comes to that, use those to help diversify your creative, [to] help you iterate on your creative. Rather than those being your metrics that you make like large strategy changes towards. So it's gonna be more towards channel level or the changes we make on video placement.
Where in the video do we mention product or benefit? Where do we drop a hook? That kind of thing rather than it being a high-level strategy, which is going to be more of that CAC-LTV ratio.
Chase Clymer
Gotcha. Absolutely. It's been so long since I've been in the creative game. I couldn't even tell you how to post an ad on any of these channels, which I am glad to. I like that we niche down. I like that we're really good at what we do. But it is so much fun to learn more and more about how these things are still working. And it's funny enough and how it's all still the same, oddly. It's just now that the AI is a little bit better.
Katrina Adams
Right. Exactly. I know. I think media buyers will have their hot take. Right? Right now, there's this hot take that you don't want to turn off a dying ad. I think the media buyers of old would probably roll over in their graves if they heard that. But yeah, I think right now the media buyers that are buying ads are more holistically thinking about account level.
Rather than in the weed stuff that [us] who have been in this field for a while are probably like, “What? I don't understand that. I spent hours looking at ad level data.” But I think holistically, high level strategy is where I live. And so I like to educate myself on what my team members are using to move the needle.
But I think a lot of times, people like me, leaders of teams, try to get in the weeds and they lose sight of the forest from the trees, right? The holistic journey and why that's so important.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. No, that makes complete sense. Now if I'm listening to this podcast and I'm like, you know what, these supplements sound pretty cool. Where should I go to check them out?
Katrina Adams
Yeah. Pretty easy. Just timeline.com. And you'll see both our skin and our supplements on that website.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Katrina, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all those amazing insights.
Katrina Adams
Well, thanks for having me.
