This Pet Brand Is About to Triple Their LTV
Here's how you can do the same...
Team,
How are we already in July? Time flies when you're having fun. I guess?
Wife started residency this week, Noah starts summer camp soon, and somehow baby Ari is already 3 months old???
Before we jump in, here are a few things I've been enjoying lately, in no particular order:
Flip app is still almost always at least 30% off, on top of the free gifts. I recently snagged some Kinfield SPF, Fré Skincare, candles, sage, palo santo, and yes, Snail moisturizer (?!).
The new Sapphire Reserve is kind of insane? I’m still stuck with the Amex Platinum, but with no lounge at EWR and every Amex Lounge a war zone, I’m rethinking. 100k + $500 in travel credits, plus a whole coupon book of perks: $300 travel, $300 dining, $300 DoorDash, Apple TV, Lyft credits, and more.
On my mission to shift from dad to daddy, I’ve been leaning into knits and polos. Finally pulled the trigger on some Percival goodies. Royal Mail is taking their merry time, but I am excited for this haul.
Ok, enough dilly-dallying. Let's get into it.
This week, I had a very early morning MentorPass call with a UK-based pet supplement brand. They've had some real wins and a few big questions. That one hour turned into one of the most productive calls I've had in a while.
We learned a ton, found some surprising breakthroughs, and carved out a plan to potentially triple (!) their LTV.
I want to walk you through all of it. Honestly, this might be the most practical, tactical newsletter I've ever written.
Let’s do it.
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The What:
A UK-based pet supplement brand that’s scaling fast. They’re in the health and wellness space for pets, and have carved out a solid niche with one hero product that’s doing most of the heavy lifting.
Here’s the TLDR:
Subscription-first (~70%)
One hero SKU is driving the majority of revenue
Single unit is $25, but they really nailed upselling and bundling
AOV around $80–90 thanks to bulk buys and smart bundling
Profitable on the first order
Paid, influencer, and affiliate channels are all in play
BTW, the influencer engine is no joke, and honestly, more brands should be paying attention. I’ve spoken to two in the past few months, one doing over $500M, the other $60M and growing 70% year over year, all off the back of TikTok Shop and influencer-heavy strategies.
Point is, this brand isn’t flailing. They’ve got growth, retention, and AOV working in their favor. But when you zoom in, things start to get more complicated.
The Problem
AOV is strong. Acquisition is humming. Influencer is working better than most. Reviews are great. The product delivers.
But LTV isn’t where it needs to be.
It’s not terrible, just stuck. Hovering slightly below 2x AOV. That’s not a comfortable place for a subscription-led brand.
The team didn’t have a clear answer at the start of our convo. It’s not a product issue. The need is real. Feedback is positive. Customers seem happy. But something isn’t clicking after that first purchase.
They recently moved to a new subscription platform, so the data is messy and hard to trust. Lifetimely is running cohort tracking, but the numbers are a bit scattered, and the story isn’t adding up cleanly.
In short: a fast-growing brand with a solid product, smart bundling, strong acquisition, creative, impressive AOV, and real momentum. But LTV remains a mystery.
That’s where we spent the rest of the call digging in.
The Guidance
The more we dug in, the clearer it became: customers see this product as a one-time fix. The brand sees it as a preventative measure. That gap explains everything.
People love the idea of buying a three-month supply and stashing it away until the problem pops up again. They think they’re set for a year or two. So they buy once, maybe twice. That’s it.
From the brand’s side, it’s obvious why this should be part of a regular routine. But that idea hasn’t made it to the customer. At least not yet.
This mismatch isn’t unique. We had this exact issue at OLIPOP in 2021. We grew subscriptions fast, went from a few hundred to over 10,000 in a few months, but we kept seeing churn and skips/pauses.
In customer interviews, the pattern came through: people loved OLIPOP, but they saw it as a treat. A once-a-week indulgence. We thought we were a Coke competitor. They thought we were a sparkling occasion drink.
To close the gap, we did two things.
First, we built new usage occasions. OLIPOP with pizza. OLIPOP with burgers. OLIPOP mocktails. OLIPOP as the pocket of peace after the kids finally crash (this one is still me 3x a week). All of it helped shift perception from treat to staple.
Second, we embedded the benefits of regular use into everything. What changes when you drink OLIPOP a few times a week for a few months? What improves over a year?
That became the heart of the subscription messaging. We built out full nurture email/SMS flows explaining this.
Both playbooks matter, but for this pet brand, #2 is key.
You can’t rely on the customer to infer the use case from the product name or default habits. It has to be baked in. In the copy. In the PDP. In the influencer briefs. Everywhere.
They should probably also consider changing the product name or adding “preventative” to it. Or at the very least, making the long-term value clear up front.
Because if customers think it’s a one-time fix, they’ll buy once and feel done. You can’t fix that post-purchase. That has to be addressed before the first order even goes in.
Retention starts before the first purchase. The best operators know this. The best brands build for it.
That’s it for this week!
Any topics you'd like to see me cover in the future?
Just shoot me a DM or an email!
Cheers,
Eli 💛
P.S. If you want to figure out how to get your brand to rank high in LLMs and show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, and more… check this out.
