Echelon: 1,800% BFCM Growth, a 24-Hour Sellout, and the D2C Engine Behind It All

Before Echelon could grow at scale, the site had to work harder. Product differentiation was unclear, navigation was fragmented, and key content wasn’t reaching customers at the right moments in their journey. We rebuilt the experience from the ground up.

Homepage Redesign

The homepage got a full rebuild. We brought the most important content above the fold, installed a consistent hero banner CTA, and gave visitors a clear path forward instead of making them figure it out. We layered in user-generated content alongside product information so new visitors could see exactly which product fit their lifestyle and make that call without having to dig around. Faster decisions, more purchases, less drop-off.

Collection Page Redesign

The old collection pages made it genuinely hard to tell Echelon’s products apart. We fixed that by introducing product tags that clearly call out caffeine differences so customers can compare at a glance instead of clicking into five separate product pages. We added category thumbnails for easier navigation, surfaced the right product information inline, and made it possible to add directly to cart from the collection page itself. No extra clicks, no friction, just a shorter path from “I want this” to “It’s in my cart.”

Navigation and Cart Updates

When the new Performance Energy line launched, we updated the site structure to accommodate it cleanly: new navigation, refreshed announcement bar, and the tiered cart bar brought back directly inside the shopping cart. These updates hit immediately: 158% revenue growth, 32% increase in reach-checkout rate, and 15% increase in completed checkout rate compared to the period before.

A follow-up round of optimizations, including a Best Sellers section on the homepage and an updated Performance Energy nav link, delivered 24% ATC growth, 26% checkout growth, 24% completed checkout growth, and a 16% conversion rate lift.

The mission was clear. Echelon was debuting their new “Killer Apple” flavor at the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, promoted by the popular Unsubscribe Podcast. This meant a huge, but temporary, wave of traffic was coming. The website had to perform flawlessly under pressure and turn a weekend of hype into a month of record sales.

Our Strategy: A Two-Part Attack

We deployed a two-part strategy designed to maximize the initial sales rush and then convert those new visitors into long-term fans.

Part 1: The Irresistible Offer

To ensure a strong start, we implemented a $5 trial pack add-on. This smart upsell gave new customers an easy chance to sample four of Echelon’s bestsellers. Placed strategically across the site, this offer was a key part of the 24-hour sellout and significantly boosted the average order value.

Part 2: The Advanced Acquisition Engine

To turn new visitors into loyal customers, we built a sophisticated customer acquisition engine. This was a smart user journey engineered to maximize engagement.

The system started with an intriguing teaser to capture attention, then presented a branded tiered offer: 10% off for an email, and a better 15% off if the user also provided their SMS number. The core of the strategy was the split welcome flow we built behind the scenes.

This advanced automation delivered a unique journey to each new subscriber, customizing the welcome messages based on the data they provided. The engine performed beautifully, hitting an impressive 6% submission rate, well above industry benchmarks, and creating an entirely new growth channel for the brand.

The Takeaway

This project was about capitalizing on a key moment. By combining a smart offer with advanced automation, we delivered more than just a sold-out product. We created a huge increase in revenue and armed Echelon with a powerful system to fuel their future growth. We didn’t just clear a high bar. We set a new one.

Not every drop needs a discount. Some just need the right door policy.

Echelon’s Goth Girl Spit and Double Tap flavors were launched behind a gate. Subscribers got in first. The public got in after. The mechanic rewarded the most loyal fans and created urgency for everyone watching from outside the velvet rope.

The Subscriber Gate

The first phase was exclusively for active Echelon subscribers through Skio. If you were subscribed, you could buy. If you weren’t, you couldn’t — full stop. We used Skio subscription data to verify status at checkout, so the gate wasn’t just marketing language. 

Public Launch + Lead Capture

Here’s where it got smart. Rather than keeping Goth Girl Spit and Double Tap locked away entirely, we made it visible to everyone but not yet purchasable for non-subscribers. For anyone who landed on the page and couldn’t check out, we added a form to capture their email and notify them the moment it opened to the public. Scarcity built desire. The waitlist built leads.

When the public window opened, those captured emails became a warm, pre-qualified audience ready to buy, not cold traffic seeing the product for the first time.

The Result

The landing page for Goth Girl Spit converted at 20.76% with a 4.76% increase in AOV. The Double Tap gated launch boosted AOV 1.96%, with a conversion rate of 13.01% on the landing page the first day it went public. When you put the right product in front of the right people at the right moment, and make everyone else want it even more in the process, the numbers take care of themselves.

How a Buy-2-Get-1-Free BFCM Campaign Drove 1,800% Revenue Growth and a 66% Conversion Rate Increase

Echelon’s BFCM strategy was built around a single, compelling offer: buy 2 cases, get 1 free plus free shipping. We executed a strong promotional push across the full weekend.

The BFCM results weren’t an anomaly, they were the payoff of months of infrastructure work. A better site, a more engaged subscriber base, and a more effective marketing engine all converged at the highest-traffic moment of the year.

Email and SMS Marketing: Building a Revenue Channel That Converts

With the acquisition engine generating subscribers and the site converting them, the focus turned to making the owned channel a reliable, independent revenue driver.

We built out Echelon’s full email and SMS program, including automated flows for acquisition and retention, and a consistent campaign calendar around product restocks, new product announcements, and brand collaborations. The SMS infrastructure, in particular, became a standout performer almost immediately, generating approximately 49% of total flow revenue.

SMS wasn’t just incremental. It became a core revenue channel.

By March 2026, the email and SMS program was delivering 58% revenue growth from flows and a 20% increase in click rate from flows month over month.

The Impact

When we came on board, Echelon had everything a brand needs to win — a great product, a passionate community, and real momentum. What they didn’t have was the infrastructure to turn all of that into predictable, compounding revenue.

That’s what we built. A site rebuilt from the ground up to convert the traffic they were already getting. An acquisition engine that turned event spikes into lasting subscriber growth. An email and SMS program that made their owned channel a serious revenue driver instead of an afterthought. And a launch playbook — tested across multiple drops — that gives every new product the best possible chance to sell out.

The numbers across every metric moved significantly. But more importantly, Echelon now has systems that keep working whether or not there’s a big campaign on the calendar. The fans were already there. We just built something worthy of them.