Louisa Guise's Blog

All About Audiobooks

Image copyright Andy Gibson. Used with his kind permission.

When I told people I was going to publish my book How to Leave a Group Chat, people asked me if I was going to release it as an audiobook.

It seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t particularly want to read it myself. Having done some smaller narrations already, I knew that this could be tedious. I didn’t have time with all the marketing I needed to do to promote the book, and finding a narrator would just be an expense, plus I envisioned even more editing for me as I would need to check if said narrator would do the job correctly.

I had no desire to sit there for hours and read my entire book out loud.

I did have a brief look on Fiverr and Upwork, but the cheap narrators were all AI. The good ones cost money. I didn’t want to give my hard-won work to AI, and besides, this was the beginning of Chat GPT. Why would I pay someone to arrange an AI narration for my work, when that was easy enough to do myself.

I parked the idea…for a year! But I didn’t forget about it.

Then, after I couldn’t find a single reason on YouTube or the internet at large NOT to record an audiobook version of How to Leave a Group Chat, a couple of months ago I jumped right in and just went for it.

I decided to record the audiobook myself and I was right, it was tedious and a right slog. I made mistakes and had to rerecord sections over and over again! My brain throbbed, my throat dried out, but it came together! I got through the chapters faster than I thought, pushing sometimes for two in a row. Taking breaks to YouTube, to snack, make another drink, answer nature’s call or walk around the garden for no reason.

I focused on reading each single word so hard and getting it right, my brain had no capacity to understand what I was reading or even understand the meaning of anything.

But it came together!

As I ticked off each chapter and watched the audiobook of How to Leave a Group Chat come together the tedium and the slog passed, the satisfaction turned into a buzz and all felt totally worth it. It was a stressful week, so saying those words out loud and giving my lungs a workout felt good.

What equipment did I use to record the audiobook of How to Leave a Group Chat?

I didn’t use any fancy equipment. The microphone on my laptop mutes a lot of background noise, even though in the beginning I was paranoid about planes flying overhead, neighbours being loud in their gardens (it was a very hot week) and even the crack of pages turning.

I used Adobe Audition to record and Premiere Pro for editing. Audacity and Openshot would work just as well.

How did I record the audiobook of How to Leave a Group Chat?

I sat in front of my computer over a couple of weeks and just read it out loud word for word as my computer recorded me.

After doing some quality checking, the next step was to go through every recording and edit it, cutting any mistakes or excessively long pauses and rerecording any bits that were incorrect or didn’t sound right.

It was hard to get the sound just right sometimes, to make it sound like the section flowed all along.

Then I added music

Pixabay has a catalogue of music from talented musicians who are happy for their tracks to be used for free in exchange for credit, and maybe a donation, so it’s worth checking out if you are recording your own audiobook.

I found a fantastic free track on pixabay.com which I could sample for the intro and extro music. It’s called Future Design and was created by a talented Ukrainian music producer, composer and sound designer penguinmusic. I felt it fitted my book perfectly – it’s gentle, slightly techie-sounding and perfect for the part.

I added the track to the beginning and ending of each recorded track in Premire Pro. Yes, I could have done it in Audition, but I prefer the Premiere Pro layout – plus it’ll be easier to add graphics for the audiobook sample later.

How did I get the How to Leave a Group Chat audiobook published?

I did some research. The big publishers have an audiobook arm, but as far as I could tell this was for their existing authors. The big players are ACX, owned by Amazon, and InAudio, which launched just over a week ago – before then it was Spotify’s Findaway voices. ACX will try and gain exclusive rights by offering you a higher royalty, but this isn’t recommendable because on the web to get your audiobook into people’s ears you want to be on as many sites as possible. After checking out terms, and which sites could get hold of my book, I went with InAudio – which will get me on Audible for the same rate anyway.

After signing up I filled in their online form, which consists of:

Metadata (all the deets basically!) – you can add some supplementary material here, which is good because I have a list of References which nobody wants to hear read out loud.

Distribution – you get 34 sites, which is probably enough including Audible, Spotify and Apple music.

Audio files – save as mp3s and you should be good.

InAudio asks for opening credits, front matter (e.g., title page, preface etc.,), Body matter (aka your chapters), back matter (e.g., bibliography), end credits and a retail sample (1-5 mins of the best bit of your book).

InAudio has approved How to Leave a Group Chat for publication, and as it begins to be released by the various audiobook sites, starting with libro.fm, wish me luck and, if you are listening on the go, please respect others and wear headphones!

How to Leave a Group Chat audiobook

Louisa Guise is a Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and the author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about communication and smartphones which will shortly be available as an audiobook too. Subscribe to All About Digital Marketing for more gems like this.

Five things working at Claire's Accessories taught me about marketing and business

Claire’s Accessories has made headlines recently as the company is reportedly filing for bankruptcy. Working as a Sales Assistant on their shop floor (and out back in the stock cupboard) was one of my first jobs when I was 17, and I’ve often thought of those early days and the many lessons that I have learnt during that time. Here are some of my first lessons in the world of business.

Lesson 1: How to make a CV

When I was 17, I wanted to make some money. I was getting a bit too old for pocket money, and I realised that the working world was beckoning and I’d need to jump on the conveyor belt to start my career. So, as you did in the early 2000’s, you created a CV, printed 50 copies and walked around Town handing them out to every establishment.

Creating my first CV involved a bit of internet research, and some direction from my parents. Although at 17 my list of achievements wasn’t as great as it is today, Claire’s were quick to offer me an interview, and a job – so I did something right.

Lesson 2: The power of suggestive selling

At our till we had lots of small items which we’d offer to the customers. I didn’t think that just suggesting that someone should add a circular calculator or sparkly pen to their purchase would actually work, but it did! I remember that we had an offer whereby they could have 5 items for £5, and because it sounded like a brilliant deal to the customers, they commonly spent money that they didn’t intend to spend, on items that they didn’t intend to purchase.

The baskets were also a form of suggestive selling. They were larger than they needed to be, so that there was plenty of room to covertly suggest to customers that they should buy more, because a basket without much in it looks like it needs topping up.

Lesson 3: The importance of cultural adaptation

Claire’s Accessories is an American company, and some of the key things that we were trained to do as part of our job were not a cultural fit for Wales, or Britain as a whole. I had to stand at the front and hand out circular, mesh baskets to customers, not only that, but I had to talk to customers as they entered the shop and OFFER them a basket. With enthusiasm and a smile too!

The last thing British people want when they walk into a shop is to be noticed, and American-style smiles and small talk is NOT how we interact with each other here. Some people would RUN in through the door as quickly as possible to avoid me, others would look very confused and ask “Why would I want a basket?” (aka “Why are you interacting with me in such a strange way?”). My favourite was a teenage girl who came in with Grandma, trying to be as small as possible, she gave me a mumbled “No thank you!” before Grandma snatched the basket out of my hand and held it in the air like Simba, loudly proclaiming “Of course you do Debbie! EVERYBODY needs a BASKET!”.

I can’t say that handing out baskets in a very American way did affect the business (my Claire’s store was profitable), but I noticed that this approach wasn’t appreciated by customers and I felt out of place acting that way. It’s made me more mindful of other cultures and how my work could be perceived by them.

Cultural adaptation doesn’t even only apply to different countries. I have worked in businesses where there are many differences even between different groups of colleagues e.g., between colleagues in an office and colleagues in a warehouse, or in the case of Claire’s colleagues on the shop floor and colleagues in the office, and have learnt that understanding and catering for different needs, as well as accommodating as Temple Grandin puts it “all kinds of minds” is how to build bonds between colleagues and be successful in business. Although most of my working life has been spent in offices, I have the upmost respect for those who work on the ground.

Lesson 4: How to pierce ears

Piercing ears at Claire’s Accessories was one of my favourite duties. We practised on each other, and although the new colleague was usually nervous, everyone else knew that the job wasn’t that complicated and a free piercing was one of the perks. It had to be done. I couldn’t reassure someone how an ear piercing felt if I hadn’t had it done myself - as some customers did point out when I first started working there.

By learning how to piece ears at Claire’s Accessories I didn’t just learn how to put earrings through your ears: how to disinfect the ear, mark the dots in the correct position to get the studs level and how to compose the two different piercing guns. I learnt to take the lead. This means learning how to command a session: how to make small talk and how to capture the attention of the customer as we read them an A4 page of health and safety information that they didn’t really want to hear. I learnt about how to be sensitive and encouraging, how to deal with difficult people and how to look after customers including administering first aid when someone fainted – which of the few people that this happened to, was almost never the person having their ears pierced but usually the mum accompanying them.

I also learnt when to quit, because sometimes the ear piercing process couldn’t be completed. Some people changed their mind during the process, and some were too young to understand what was happening. Even if a customer was left disappointed, I could help them understand why we couldn’t do this this time, and reassure them that there would be opportunities to try again.

clairesstores A post shared by @clairesstoresLesson 5: Merchandising

Stock was categorised, with similar items placed together. We’d put jewellery together that could make a set – easy for the customer, and easy for us to suggestively sell. We’d rotate items according to the time of year, what was popular, the selection that we had from head office and just to keep the shop looking fresh. Anything at eye level was strategically positioned. And items that we needed to shift – these were either added to the very generous 10 for £1 sale, or packaged up into opaque goodie bags which were themselves a huge hit.

The ear piercing station was also arranged strategically. At Claire’s Accessories we pierced ears in the window so that others would see and they would be encouraged to also get theirs done too, and we could do this because the “gun” that we used did a very clean and quick piercing.

This might all sound like physical lessons, but it’d start with a diagram and these physical methods of merchandising have also translated to the internet – if you are after men’s underwear, you know it’ll be together on one page and not dotted throughout a website across pages that are irrelevant to the product.

What lessons have you learned from your early jobs? Comment below.

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Sending my best wishes to anyone who is affected by what is happening at Claire’s Accessories at this difficult time and hoping that you’ll find new opportunities soon.

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Louisa Guise is a Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and the author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about communication and smartphones which will shortly be available as an audiobook too. Subscribe to All About Digital Marketing for more gems like this.

Disclaimer: I worked at Claire’s Accessories 2004 - 2006. This is based on my own personal experience of working there back in the day, it isn’t everyones’ experience and I am sure a lot has changed since then.

The problem with website contact forms

When I built my website louisaguiseauthor.com, I added a contact form on my Message Me page, even though when I browse other websites the contact forms annoy me. Why did I do this? Well, a website contact form looked professional and provided something to fill the page. A couple of years later and bye bye website contact form.

So, why the change of heart? Why did I remove my contact form from my website?

Well, one reason is that having the website contact form led to hundreds of spam messages! Messages that I wasn’t even being alerted to, and I was wasting time deleting. A very tiny proportion of the messages were genuine and actually for me. And this isn’t unique to me, website contract forms are notorious for bringing in the spam.

If I wanted the form to actually alert me to any messages, I’d have to pay even more to upgrade the Wordpress Add On, and why pay when I already have an email address?

Website contact forms can be useful if you want to guide the user to provide certain details, but I don’t, so this use for me is redundant.

It’s 2025, and there are lots of ways to contact me. I’d prefer email for formal communication, but written the right way there’s Twitter, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. I can give site visitors more options to get in touch with me AND gain some new followers at the same time.

Contact forms can be an extra chore for the user. It’s easier to copy and paste an email address, into an email that you might already have written and can just resend, then it is to fill out a form.

Sending an email also gives you a paper trail. Most contact forms offer no record of the message sent and you’re relying on the user to get back to you.

What do you think? Do you like or hate website contact forms? Is there one on your website? Comment below, or get in touch.

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Louisa Guise is a Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and the author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about communication and smartphones which will shortly be available as an audiobook too. Subscribe to All About Digital Marketing for more gems like this.

my local marketer - one year on

About a year ago I was honoured to be the first ever guest on a new podcast called my local marketer. It’s hosted by a friend of mine, Maria Lloyd who also lives in Reading. Her new podcast is all about local advertising - to highlight the stellar businesses and organisations in our area, provide local marketing opportunities and create engaging content. I was excited for Maria, but also wondered how far she could fly if she exclusively stuck to our local stars. Turns out there was nothing to wonder, she flew! Our episode is number 55, and there are 52 weeks in a year! Maria has recorded podcasts with our favourite local bookshop Fourbears Books, local charities, local businesses, people who run community groups and everyone who is doing something awesome in the Reading and Caversham area.

So our episode - we reflected on the journey that I have taken since publishing my book about smartphone use called How to Leave a Group Chat, and how I have gone about marketing it. As I mention in the my local marketer podcast, most authors are not marketers. I am, and it’s still one of the greatest challenges that I have ever faced career-wise as I had to prove myself and muddle my way through a very new territory at the same time.

Listen to our podcast

Maria does have her own Marketing business as well, so if you’re after some marketing advice don’t hesitate to get in touch with her for a free consultation.

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All about Digital Marketing is brought to you by Louisa Guise, a Communications Professional and author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about you and your smartphone. Subscribe for free to receive more gems like this..

All About Accessible PowerPoint Documents

Does anyone remember what this is? Image by Smashicons from flaticon.com.

I used to work for the British Civil Service, and they are hot on accessibility. You might think that the dot gov pages (as we call them) are boring and simple, and you’d be right. But the reason for this is so that as many people can easily navigate them as possible, whether they are blind, have a learning disability or another issue which might present a disadvantage when browsing the web.

I’ve found an old presentation I did many moons ago which goes through how to set up an accessible PowerPoint document. As it’s from 2020 some features are better now, but principly PowerPoint hasn’t changed too much. It’s important to remember that PowerPoint was designed to replace the overhead projector - and the overhead projector is a tool which is designed to be looked at by lots of people at once. If you were young, or a little older, in the 80s and 90s you might remember this (we’re talking pre-digital projector). Because PowerPoint can create things that are more advanced than your average overhead projector, people often forget this and think that PowerPoint equals design software. It doesn’t - but that is a tale for another blog.

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All about Digital Marketing is brought to you by Louisa Guise, a Communications Professional and author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about you and your smartphone. Subscribe for free to receive more gems like this.

Trying Not to Throw Money at Everything While Book Marketing

Author Amanda Nicholson reading her book. Photo provided by Amanda Nicholson.

This week on the All About Digital Marketing blog I am delighted to be learning even more about book marketing from indie author Amanda Nicholson from Manchester. In this insightful interview Amanda talks about what she writes, and also some of the creative ways that she has marketed her books.

Hello, could you introduce yourself?

Hi, I’m Amanda Nicholson. I began writing and publishing books in 2014, then stumbled into copywriting in 2019, but I’ve always seen myself as an author first, with copywriting (sometimes) paying the bills. Other than writing I enjoy podcasts (both hosting and listening), listening to country music, reading and spending time with my niece and nephew.

What do you write?

My first novel, While I Was Gone, was a women’s fiction book. Despite being a big fan of horror and enjoying writing and reading the genre, I thought women’s fiction was what I should be writing, and I had an idea for a story based on a theory that my mum had. She thought that some children who are abducted are actually sold to wealthy people who can’t have children of their own. So, I wondered what would happen if my character (Kayla) was abducted as a child, then reunited with her biological parents after 15 years of believing that the people who raised her were her real parents. Even though this wasn’t my preferred genre, I felt connected to the main character and her family who all had their own struggles and adjustments to make when Kayla returned home.

I ended up writing a sequel and the first book was originally self-published, then taken on by a small publisher. My first experience of having a publisher take on my novel wasn’t the best one. So, I eventually self-published it again under the name Aleesha Black and retitled it Lost and Found. This was because my publisher didn’t pay me and the other authors royalties, then when I tried to warn others, he stalked me on Amazon and Goodreads leaving bad reviews and I couldn’t get either site to remove them.

I went on to write and publish a trilogy of fantasy novellas about witches that later became one novel called Hope and Magic, wrote a novella and full-length novel about zombies, a YA fantasy trilogy, paranormal crime, and a feminist crime novel, as well as a few dozen shorter books and poetry collections. The first of my YA fantasy novels was taken on by another small publisher. Again, it didn’t work out and I self-published it under my maiden name of Amanda Steel.

How do you promote yourself and your books?

How I marketed these changed over time. At first, I was completely clueless and only shared information about my books on social media. Occasionally I read some of my book at a few spoken word nights or to friends. However, my experiences with the small publishers, as well as seeing what other authors did, learning wherever I could, and good old trial and error helped me improve how I marketed my books.

Was there a way to try to market your books that particularly worked to improve your sales?

I found that using Draft2Digital for distribution, which is an online platform that authors can use to self-publish their books in eBook and paperback gave readers more options than if I limited myself on Amazon.

Getting bookmarks printed is also helpful, and something that I would recommend to other authors. I put them on chairs at spoken word nights, with the host’s permission of course. I also hand them out in person if someone seems interested but doesn’t want to buy a copy right there and then. I’ve left some in public places like libraries and in an art gallery. One sneakier thing I’ve do is when I donate similar books to the free book stand at my local supermarket, I sneak one of my bookmarks inside. If the reader likes that book, they may also enjoy mine.

Was there something you tried that didn’t work for you?

There are so many ways to market books, and if I’m not careful, I could spend thousands without knowing whether I will get that money back. So, I try to keep costs down. I nearly always get my cover printed on a t-shirt because it’s a good conversation starter and a reminder to others that I have a book out. I might feel like I’m constantly talking about it, but people have other things going on in their lives and my book won’t be their biggest priority.

I read somewhere that people need to see (or hear about) your book around 8 times before they think about buying it, so it makes sense to do that in as many different ways as possible. However, it’s not like the book-selling version of the Candy Man. Simply saying your book title a set number of times will not make readers magically appear and buy the book.

Another cost-effective way I market my books is with an online launch. This makes it easier for people to attend, and I live-stream from Zoom onto my chosen social media platform then share the video everywhere afterwards. There are no travel costs for me or my attendees, and I can link to the book online if they want to buy it. This reduces the cost of ordering enough copies but possibly not selling them all. I’ve seen people buy 100 copies of their own book, then only sell 10, and had this happen to me on a smaller scale before. It’s a quick way to lose money and gain expensive doorstoppers. Unless you have a large following and are almost sure that many of them will buy your book, I wouldn’t recommend buying more than 10 copies at a time, then purchasing more if and when these sell out.

I don’t have an in-person launch because that costs money for books that aren’t guaranteed to sell, and I don’t have a large enough following to fill a venue. Instead, I read extracts at the spoken word night I co-run. Many of the regulars there know my dark sense of humour and have either bought my book or shown an interest in it. I will branch out to several others while promoting my book. Finding the right audience is important. For example, my latest novel, Death to All Men is a feminist crime fiction book about women who kill bad men. So, I’ll have a better reaction from a mostly female audience than I will from a mostly male audience. So, I recently went to a feminist spoken word night to read an extract. This doesn’t mean I’ll sell books directly from this, but it’s one more way to make people aware of my book and might lead to a sale later when they come across it again.

I found that paid ads mostly didn’t work for me. Maybe I didn’t spend enough, but I was already paying a lot more per click, than I would if those clicks turned to sales, and most never did. I say they mostly didn’t work because I flunked it with my first attempt and made a profit of around £250. After that, Amazon, Facebook, Bookbub, Twitter and The Fussy Librarian all lost me more money than they made. They also didn’t bring in enough sales for further books in the series or other standalone books to justify how much money I had spent. I still do some of these to get the book out there, but try not to spend too much as I know I won’t get it back.

Instead, I prefer to look for opportunities online. For example, by searching #journorequest on X (formerly Twitter), I’ve had several interviews/features written about me and my book, and have been quoted on various topics, which isn’t a direct advertisement for my book, but gets my name out there. This includes an article that Books By Women published on how I get my ideas, and an interview with an interview with 5 Things To Do Today.

What is the hardest part of being an author for you?

The hardest part of being an author, for me, can be knowing that other books that are similar to mine are doing so much better, but just not having the same reach or opportunities as those authors. It can be incredibly frustrating, but I can only be me and I can only do my best. I love writing and will always do it in some form or another, but eventually, I will stop writing novels and switch to shorter fiction or non-fiction.

Do you have a current writing project? What is it?

I’m currently working on two Substack pages, one teaching other authors everything I’ve learned over the last 11 years and another talking about autism. I don’t claim to be an expert in either of these, but I think it’s important to share experiences. I see it as a jigsaw puzzle where I have some of the pieces and can help to make the puzzle a little more complete, but I can’t fully complete it for you.

In my fiction writing, I have a romance novella out in time for Christmas 2025, written under a pen name. I’m also re-editing Ghost of Me which is about a woman trying to solve her own murder. It originally came out during lockdown, and I didn’t get to market it as much in person as I wanted to. And I’m writing a novel called Killing Tommy while plotting another that features a side character from this book.

Where can readers discover more about you and your work?

My brain is chaotic and I’m always doing something, or lots of somethings. Some of the best places to find me are on Facebook or Substack: nowriteway or iamnotcalm, or you can listen to my podcast on Spotify.

Thank you Amanda for sharing your Book Marketing tips with All About Digital Marketing. If you are an author, or a marketer, business or have a marketing-related skill that could help others, get in touch via louisaguiseauthor@gmail.com or comment below.

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All about Digital Marketing is brought to you by Louisa Guise, a Communications Professional and author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about you and your smartphone. Subscribe for free to receive more gems like this.

All About Email Signatures

When you’re working within the realm of marketing and communications, you have to think of every tiny detail. And there’s one thing that can easily be overlooked, or fall out of line. The email signature.

Why it’s important for companies to have standardised email signatures

The email signature is easy to understand for customers and colleagues - if numbers are out of place, or there’s random information in some signatures but not others, this can be confusing.

It is part of your brand - having a consistent email signature with the correct branding unifys a company and makes it very clear who everyone works for.

Having a uniform email signature is a sign of a respectable, professional company.

To avoid any trouble - if colleagues write whatever they want on an email signature and it’s being sent from a company email address, this could potentially lend a company in trouble, especially if the colleague writes any personal opinions which others could take offense to.

A standardised email signature can also help recipients recognise that an email from a company is legitimate and not spam.

A well-crafted email signature featuring the right information and links can also save time for both you and your recipients, because you can provide information that recipients might need upfront without them having to ask for it.

What you should capture in an email signature

There is no rulebook mandating what must be on a company email signature, but things that you should include should be:

Name of sender

Sender’s job title

Contact telephone number and email

Company address (for certain purposes some companies might not want to include this)

Links to your company website and social channels

Company logo

What is also useful to have on an email signature

Your working days and hours - especially if you work part time. This is useful so that anyone who sends you an email knows when they can reasonably expect a reply, and it may save them from chasing (which also means fewer emails in your inbox).

A disclaimer if you usually reply to emails outside normal working hours. It’s become common on email signatures to see a statement along the lines of:

“I may reply to emails when it suits me outside of normal working hours, there is no expectation for you to do the same.”

This statement takes pressure off anyone who may feel compelled to reply to emails straight away.

A request to connect on a social platform such as LinkedIn - why not! It’s friendly and can help your social presence. Speaking of which, let’s connect.

A message about something the company needs actioned, or something the company is supporting, such as “Did you get your P60 this month? Check your tax code is correct” or a logo for Pride Month. If you are going to put such a message in email signatures, ensure that all of them across the company are updated at the same time.

Customer advert - you might want to raise the profile of a product or service you are offering and placing it in an email signature can increase exposure for this.

Legal text - many company email signatures might have some legal text referring to the contents of the email, confidentiality, who can see the email etc. For anything legal consult your solicitor or legal team.

A graphic - email signatures don’t have to be boring. Just ensure that the graphic contains ALT-text describing what it is so that everyone can understand it.

Pronouns - it has become popular in recent years to add your pronouns to your email signature. This can help signal to others that you and your business are open-minded and accepting, it can also help others who might not be familiar with your name know how to address you.

Calendar link booking - if your business has a site or a system where people can book appointments with you, this can also be very useful for recipients who might be able to secure some of your time without a lot of back and forth.

I hope after reading this week’s blog you’ll take some time to review your own email signature and hopefully have some inspiriation to make it even better. What do you include in your email signature? Did I miss anything? Comment below.

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Louisa Guise is a Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and the author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about communication and smartphones. Subscribe to All About Digital Marketing for more gems like this.

The Most Overlooked Metric in Paid Ads (That Fixes Everything)

Photo by Shutter Speed on Unsplash

Happy Monday! This week on the All About Digital Marketing blog we have an article from Dario Markovic, Growth Strategist, Digital Marketing Coach and CEO of NMM Media, a leading eCommerce brand specializing in luxury accessories. With a background in digital marketing and SEO, Dario helps DTC brands grow through performance-focused strategies and systems. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, playing guitar, traveling with his family, and taking care of a growing collection of rare tropical plants.

Over to Dario…

Most ecommerce and Direct to Consumer (DTC) paid ad conversions land squarely on Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and cost per click (CPC). Everyone’s obsessed with these metrics and as a result running endless creative tests, tweaking audiences, and chasing the next shiny targeting hack.

But here’s the brutal truth: most of these brands are missing the metric that moves the needle on long-term profitability.

Let’s talk about the most overlooked metric in paid ads: Blended customer acquisition costs versus average order value across lifetime value segments.

Why Return on Ad Spend and Cost Per Click Don’t Tell the Full Story

Return on ad spend is a great efficiency metric, but it’s just a snapshot. It tells you how much revenue your ads drove but not whether you’re building a profitable business. The cost per click is even more myopic—it’s just about clicks, not customers or cash.

Both ignore the real question: are you paying less to acquire a customer than they’re worth over time?

Most brands optimize for short-term wins, ignoring the lifetime value of their customers. They celebrate a 3:1 return on ad spend while bleeding money on repeat purchases because their blended customer acquisition costs are out of whack with their average order value (average order value) and lifetime value (lifetime order value).

The Core Ratio: Blended Customer Acquisition Costs vs. Average Order Value Across Lifetime Value Segments

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: the real magic happens when you look at your blended customer acquisition cost compared to your average order value and lifetime value—segmented by customer cohorts.

● Blended customer acquisition cost: The average cost to acquire a customer, including all marketing channels and overhead.

● Average order value: The average order value per transaction.

● Lifetime value segments: Grouping customers by their predicted lifetime value (e.g., first-time buyers, repeat buyers, subscription customers).

Most brands look at customer acquisition cost and average order value in aggregate, but this hides the truth. Some customer segments are goldmines (high lifetime order value, low customer acquisition cost), while others are money pits (low lifetime order value, high customer acquisition cost).

By segmenting, you see which audiences actually drive profit—and which are just vanity metrics.

Graphic credit Dario MarkovicThe Hard Numbers: Why Most Ecommerce Brands Are Missing the Point

If you’re running paid ads, you’ve probably heard this advice a thousand times: “Optimize for return on ad spend!” But the data tells a different story—one where focusing on blended customer acquisition cost, average order value, and lifetime order value by segment is what actually moves the needle on profitability.

Blended customer acquisition cost: The Real Cost of Growth

● Blended customer acquisition cost Defined: Blended customer acquisition cost (customer acquisition cost) is the average cost to acquire a new customer across all channels, including marketing, advertising, and sales efforts.

● Industry Example: Consider a fashion ecommerce brand spending $50,000 on marketing and sales in a month, acquiring 1,000 customers. Their blended customer acquisition cost is $50 per customer.

● Trends: Over the past five years, customer acquisition cost has increased by 50% across many e-commerce sectors, making efficiency more critical than ever.

● Impact: If your blended customer acquisition cost is higher than your average order value (average order value), you’re losing money on each first purchase—unless you have a strong repeat purchase rate.

Average Order Value: The Hidden Lever

● Average order value: average order value is the average amount customers spend per order.

● Current Benchmarks: In 2025, the global ecommerce average order value is about $127.43, with regional and industry variation. Home and furniture brands see average order values as high as $256, while the Americas average $108.

● Growth: average order value has risen by 31% in the past year, driven by inflation and changing shopping habits.

● Strategic Value: Increasing average order value by just 10% can dramatically improve margins and offset rising customer acquisition cost.

Graphic credit Dario MarkovicLifetime Value: The Profit Multiplier

● Lifetime order value: Customer lifetime value (lifetime order value) is the total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with your brand.

● Industry Insights: The cost of acquiring a new customer is five times higher than retaining an existing one.

● Retention Impact: A 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25% to 95%.

● Lifetime order value: customer acquisition cost Ratio: The ideal lifetime order value: customer acquisition cost ratio is at least 3:1—meaning you should be getting back $3 for every $1 spent on acquisition.

● Segmentation: Not all customers are created equal. For example, a fitness apparel brand found that customers buying running shoes had a 60% higher lifetime order value than those buying gym accessories.

The return on ad spend trap and scaling reality

● Return on ad spend vs. Scaling: When you scale ad spend, return on ad spend often drops as you reach less-efficient audiences. Doubling ad spend can see return on ad spend fall from 10x to 6x or 7x, with customer acquisition cost rising in tandem.

● Profitability vs. Growth: Brands must choose between maximizing short-term return on ad spend and pursuing aggressive growth—trying to do both often leads to inefficiency and wasted spend.

Putting It All Together: The 3-Metric Dashboard

Here’s how the numbers stack up for a typical 7-figure DTC brand:

A table showing the Blended Customer Acquisition Costs, Average Order Values and Lifetime Order Values of First-time buyers, Repeat buyers and Subscribers.

Note: Repeat buyers and subscribers may have a higher blended customer acquisition cost if you invest in retention marketing, but their higher lifetime order value more than compensates.

● Key Insight: If you only look at blended customer acquisition cost and average order value for first-time buyers, you might think you’re breaking even or losing money. But when you segment by lifetime order value, repeat buyers and subscribers are the real profit drivers.

● Actionable Stat: Brands that focus on increasing lifetime order value and segmenting their marketing can scale revenue by 40% or more without increasing ad spend, simply by shifting budget to higher-lifetime order value audiences.

Graphic credit Dario MarkovicHow We Audit Ad Accounts (and Fix Everything)

When we audit a paid ad account, we start by slicing the data three ways:

Blended customer acquisition cost: Total ad spend / total new customers.

average order value by Segment: What’s the average order value for first-time buyers, repeat buyers, and subscription customers?

lifetime order value by Segment: What’s the predicted lifetime value for each group?

Here’s a real, anonymized example from a 7-figure direct to consumer (DTC) brand we worked with last year:

● Initial State: Blended customer acquisition cost was $45. average order value was $60. lifetime order value (first-time buyers) was $120. Repeat buyers had an lifetime order value of $400.

● Problem: The brand was spending $45 to acquire a customer who would, on average, spend $60 on their first order. But most of their profit came from repeat buyers and subscribers.

● Fix: We shifted ad spend toward audiences that converted to repeat buyers and subscribers, even if it meant a higher initial customer acquisition cost. We also optimized for average order value by bundling and cross-selling at checkout.

● Result: Within 3 months, the brand scaled revenue by 40% without increasing ad spend. Their blended customer acquisition cost rose to $50, but average order value and lifetime order value skyrocketed because more customers became repeat buyers and subscribers.

The 3-Metric Dashboard You Can Implement This Week

You don’t need to be a spreadsheet junkie. Here’s the simple dashboard every marketer should track:

A table showing the the Blended customer acquisition cost, Average order value by Segment and Lifetime order value, how each can be calculated and why these metrics matter.

Track the Blended customer acquisition cost, Average Order Value by Segment and Lifetime Order Value by Segment weekly. If your blended customer acquisition cost is creeping above your average order value for any segment, you’re in trouble. If your lifetime order value is 3x or more your customer acquisition cost for repeat buyers, double down on those audiences.

The Takeaway

Return on ad spend and CPC are table stakes. The real game is in blended customer acquisition cost vs. average order value across lifetime order value segments. Segment your data, track these three metrics, and you’ll see where your marketing math is broken—and how to fix it without drowning in spreadsheets.

This approach separates the brands that scale profitably from the ones that just burn cash. Stop chasing clicks. Start chasing customers that matter.

Thank you Dario! If you would also like to share your marketing wisdom right here on the All About Digital Marketing blog - and get some free publicity in the process, comment below or get in touch via louisaguiseauthor@gmail.com.

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Publishing a book - what I learnt

Next Saturday 28th June marks one year since I realised the lifelong dream of publishing a book. How to Leave a Group Chat is a popular psychology book which steers you towards the ultimate goal of leaving the group chats on your smartphone that don’t serve you, helps you understand how and why you engage with this medium and how we got to the situation we are in and also prompt you to use your smartphone less. It was published by the Book Guild on the 28th June 2024 (although Amazon made up its own publication date).

This was my lifelong dream realised, but publishing a book was only the beginning. As a Marketer I knew that promoting my book was going to be tough. Instead of walking into a company with a name and a base, I had to get people to care about How to Leave a Group Chat and even about me. But I didn’t know that the odds would be stacked against me or just how hard I’d have to push to open doors and keep them ajar.

Here are some of the things that I have learnt during a year after book publishing.

1. It’s best to have a publisher

I published How to Leave a Group Chat under a hybrid contract, which, considering the efforts and costs you have to go to to produce a book, was a good option. I have also since learnt that libraries (in the UK at least) largely do not accept any self-published books (which makes sense because there is no official quality control).

2. Publishers are not marketers

As part of my hybrid book publishing deal, I paid half of the total costs. I also opted in for 6 weeks of marketing from my publisher, assuming they’d have contacts and be able to do get some good PR opportunities during that time. For a considerable sum, the only promotional opportunity I received via my publisher was a radio interview. Solo, I have managed to achieve much more including features on and in BBC Radio, Australian News, podcasts, blogs, Newscorp news sites, Metro, Marie Claire, as well as appearances at literary festivals, libraries and bookshops. I’d recommend that unless your publisher or their marketing team can produce a detailed marketing plan upfront, it’s not worth marketing through them and instead spending the money on your own paid advertising or planning a campaign with a marketing agency.

See my talk on Book Marketing to learn more.

3. Start by targeting your county’s biggest bookshop chain

Some authors will disagree with me here, swearing by the independent books. And absolutely, nothing beats a small, independent bookshop. But for your published book to sell, it needs to be seen, and for that, it needs to be in the shop. If your friends, family and colleagues ask where they can buy your book, direct them to your biggest bookshop chain, which in my case is Waterstones. The big players need to see that there is demand for your book if their book buyers are prepared to purchase your book, and demand will be created for your book if customers know that it exists. I made the mistake of agreeing to people that they could buy my book from Amazon, instead of pushing them towards Waterstones which I think would have made much more of a difference to my sales, and potentially have led to bigger opportunities.

4. Ask libraries to stock your book

In my experience libraries have been some of the most helpful and accommodating institutions since publishing my book. Ensure that they realise that you are published through a publisher if you are, and that you are on the system which they use to purchase books – which in the UK is Askews and Holts. Most of the library groups (in the UK, most libraries come under the council where they are located, rather than being run individually) that I contacted replied saying that they would forward my details onto their book buyers for consideration, and as libraries might order multiple copies of your book, it is definitely worth spending the hours emailing them. As you are getting in touch, work out which libraries you wouldn’t mind travelling to and offer to do a book talk as well.

5. You don’t have to agree to everything

I have had a few co-promotional opportunities that have turned into something larger, where a small bit of PR has turned into me suddenly being included in someone else’s big project. Agreeing to one small interview or app feature is one thing, something larger like being included in a book can potentially generate a lot of profit for the other party, however much they might tell you that being involved in their publication can get you a lot of exposure so it’s great for you, yadda yadda.

If you are happy to be part of such a project of course that is up to you, but I’ll recommend that at this point you request a contract and fair compensation (have a look at the country in question’s author’s society to find out what is fair or talk to a legal expert) and decide where to go from there. Just because you are the new kid on the block doesn’t mean that you have to agree to everything that other people ask of you.

6. You will have to put yourself out there once you have published a book – if you want to sell any books

Times have changed in the world of book publishing. Whereas a smaller pool of authors had the support and security of being on a conveyer belt of published book direct to bookshops and libraries where they would capture the consumers, maybe with a few media reviews thrown in if they were lucky, now a much larger pool of authors, and celebrities (most of whom don’t write their own books), are overcrowding the space and AI-generated books are throwing up new challenges.

You’ll have to compete across many spheres and this means that you will have to get out there and promote your book personally, even though as authors this is exactly what we dread doing. Also be aware that even when you are lucky enough to be on the bill at an event, you are not at the top of the list. I’ve lost session time and sales at an event because the author before me was allowed to overrun, and as a result people were leaving for their next event before I had finished my talk.

7. Payment where payment is due

In my experience literary festivals pay fees, libraries do not (although I have heard of authors receiving fees for library appearances – if you have experienced this comment below). As the new author you are unlikely to be the star of the show at the literary festival, but don’t be afraid to ask for a fee and/or some help to cover the cost of transport. I always request that the organisers compensate me fairly – there’s no reason why they shouldn’t.

8. Journalism is uncertain

I’ve rushed home from the gym or blocked out time on my Saturday to take part in interviews with journalists for magazine and newspaper features only to find that in the end they never materialised or that they took months to get published. The nature of the journalism is such that journos are always chasing the next story, and if your story isn’t big enough, they might run with the next big thing that comes along. All you can do is persevere and hope for the best. Also be vigilant – I haven’t been given the head’s up very often as to when articles featuring me would be published and often haven’t been given a draft to proof ahead of publication either. Don’t be afraid to ask for those things and to chase.

9. It is very hard to get people to review your book

It’s not just me; I see this all the time on social media and message boards. Trying to incentivise people with competitions and getting people to read the book early can help, but even then, many authors are really pulling at teeth to get their published book reviewed. If you are one of the people who has read How to Leave a Group Chat, please, please leave me a review. If you have successfully managed to get readers to review your book, please comment below so that we can all find out how you did it.

What have you learnt since publishing a book? Comment below. If you want to know more about how I published How to Leave a Group Chat in the first place, I wrote a blog about that.

How to Leave a Group Chat is available from all good bookshops, if you really want to support me, please order it from Waterstones.

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I went to a business networking breakfast

Sometimes to improve your digital marketing, you have to work in the real world. And when The Telegraph, one of the world’s biggest newspapers, advertised a business networking breakfast that they were hosting at their offices with HR company MHR, I just had to sign up. Day to day I do Internal Communications in a changing world, keeping very diverse groups of colleagues connected, so I felt it was important to attend a business networking event to help me to understand how things were likely to change, and how I could stay ahead of the game.

Even though I’m not a fan of early mornings, I was pretty buzzed to see the huge 111s pressed against the grey façade of the Telegraph’s office. I was sent to the dining room by some stern faced yet very friendly chaperones who looked like something out of Men In Black. There was a spread of tasty sandwiches, punnets of fruit that definitely provided two of my five a day, and some yoghurt compotes which I missed because I got into the flow of networking and conversation, adding a coffee to my plate. I rarely drink coffee, but I figured I had to check if the Telegraph had good coffee – someone might ask later. And yes, they did provide good coffee.

We were escorted into a chunky lift that was a squeeze with so many delagtes inside it, despite the size and into a small roof set up with linear chairs, a free cotton shopping bag on every seat, containing a newspaper of course. I rested my teacup on the floor (you didn’t think I only had a coffee, did you?) under the seat in front of me and the talk began.

Different perspectives, different lived experiences

The panel (Tom Cheesewright, Dara Douglas, Duro Oye and Sophie Howe, André de Waal) took us back through time to the early days of work, when status and money was the most important thing to the workforce. This has changed. The younger workforce, Gen Z, have a very different outlook on life.

The older workforce had free or much cheaper education and they reached major milestones like being able to afford to buy a house and settle down at least a decade earlier than their younger counterparts. Much of the younger workforce are still renting, experiencing financial insecurity and can’t yet see a point in time when their circumstances will change. Gen Z’s priorities and perspectives are different. Being forced to return to the office 2, 3, 4 or any number of days a week is abnormal to them, as many began their working life remotely – and it worked. They value a work/life balance highly and place a higher importance on wellbeing, equality and the climate crisis as the default. The climate anxiety that many of the younger members of our working population are feeling is something that isn’t shared by their older colleagues, and they probably don’t understand it either.

Often people love their job but hate their work

If employees feel that their job isn’t working for them, they often take the easy option and leave rather than speak up to let you know that something is wrong. Leaving for new opportunities is also the easiest way to progress and secure good pay rises. Bad management and stagnant company cultures are two very strong reasons for high turnovers, and what’s the point of speaking up if you don’t think that anything will change?

For the younger workforce, it’s very important to feel heard and that the work you are doing is contributing to the company’s success. One solution that the panel championed was Reverse Mentoring. Mentoring traditionally is when more senior members of staff take junior members of staff under their wing and guide them, which is absolutely valuable. But it’s important to learn from junior members of staff too. Younger employees are largely self-taught and tech-savvy. They also have very different ideas about how the workplace should be. It’s important for senior employees and managers to learn from them and to take their perspectives and ideas seriously, to ensure not only that younger colleagues are happy and retained, but also to help keep businesses modern, future-proof and thriving.

Mentoring has its limits (aka one person can only mentor so many people at a time, usually one), but even if you’re not being mentored by a younger member of staff, it would still do all senior leaders good to engage with junior members of staff regularly in order to learn about their different ideas and perspectives. Healthy businesses are those businesses that can adapt to change.

Gen Z are also a generation who are comfortable trying and failing, and it makes good business sense to provide safe spaces where they can do this. Practicing this fosters collaboration and in the long term can conjure up great ideas, or even safeguard a business from rolling out things that won’t work.

Technology and AI

Technology is evolving at a rapid rate, and AI is here to stay. The panel said that the best way to implement AI is to plan first how your business will use it and then roll it out carefully to facilitate and support specific goals.

The suggestion was to let AI handle the more mundane, day-to-day tasks, freeing up time for colleagues to do the harder, more important work. They predicted that ultimately AI could mean that we work less and in the end have more free time to do the things that society needs us to do, such as caring for others, and allowing us more time to relax and recharge, avoiding burnout. AI is still relatively new, so whether it will benefit us in this way, we’ll have to wait and see. Whether we’ll be sensible enough to use it wisely is another thing.

Thank you to The Telegraph and MHR for having me, I had a great business networking event with you in London. If you enjoyed this little nugget, why not hit the subscribe button below for more gems like this.

Louisa Guise is a Digital Marketing and Communications Professional and the author of How to Leave a Group Chat, a book about communication and smartphones. Subscribe to All About Digital Marketing for more gems like this.

All photos in this article copyright Louisa Guise.

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