- Digital Chapter
- Posts
- Ridge Wallet's Strategy to Reduce Customer Acquisition Costs
Ridge Wallet's Strategy to Reduce Customer Acquisition Costs
Reducing CAC, Using YouTube Creators and Diversifying Ad Channels

Thanks for reading every week. It’s so good to see how quickly the newsletter is growing!
I’m constantly tweaking things to make it a valuable and practical read for you. I’ve added a short poll at the end of this newsletter where you can vote on how you felt about reading today’s edition, I would appreciate it if you could chuck in your vote 🙂 - Dev
FEATURE CASE STUDY
The Ridge

Two Kickstarters, nine years, and over two million wallets later, Ridge surpassed the $100M mark in 2023 and has shown no sign of slowing down with international expansions on the horizon.
This is what I’ll be unpacking in today’s edition:
YouTube-led influencer strategy that drove $50m from nothing
How they make their customer acquisition cost (CAC) sustainable
Importance of diversifying ad channels
Optimising the customer journey through specific A/B tests
Context: The Ridge was founded in 2013 by a father-son duo, Daniel and Paul Kane. The company initially launched its flagship product, the Ridge Wallet, through a Kickstarter campaign in 2014. On the back of a successful launch, they gained significant popularity and achieved product market fit. Ridge is renowned for its sleek, minimalist wallets crafted from premium materials like aluminium and carbon fibre, designed to protect your cards and cash while providing RFID protection. These compact wallets can hold up to 12 cards, standing out in a crowded market with simple yet essential solutions for modern living. Ridge's innovative spirit extends beyond wallets, with a growing range of backpacks, rings, and enhancements to their signature products.
Growth Strategy TLDR: Unlocked new audiences with YouTube creators, diversified their paid ads funnel away from just Meta and Google ads, and optimised their conversion rate.
CUSTOMER ACQUISITION
YouTube-Led Influencer Strategy
As of 2023, Ridge has sponsored 5,000 YouTube (YT) creators and it has proven to be incredibly successful for them, having attracted over 544 million views in total and making $60m+ from their approach.
They get confidence from YouTube because of two reasons:
YouTube has a higher value in impressions served vs other channels, with super engaged audiences who are genuinely fans of the creators they follow.
Everyone watching a video is intentionally choosing to spend on the platform by carving out dedicated time from their day to do so. The average time a user spends on YouTube is 48 minutes.
Two tactics that’s worked well for them on this channel are:
Integrated Sponsored Videos: Ridge sponsors influencer videos, where ads are placed within videos across various topics and channels. They don’t stick to a niche and are channel agnostic, meaning they will work with anyone who has a two-thirds English-speaking audience and 50% men. In a month they would reach out to over 1,000+ creators, close 200-300 deals and start with a 3-5 video test campaigns. If a creator drives a positive return, then they would take things to the next stage by offering them a larger 10-15 video deal.
Standalone Videos: Creators use sponsored standalone videos to promote the brand and product by discussing the wallet's features and showcasing it visually. It’s a valuable strategy for Ridge, enhancing SEO and providing social proof for potential customers researching the brand before making a purchase. With approximately 10 new videos sponsored daily, this consistent stream of content fosters credibility, prompting prospects to confidently make purchases without hesitation by trusting the brand.
ATTRIBUTION & ROI
Making New Customer Acquisition Cost Sustainable
Like most DTC brands, the rising cost of paid advertising has been a huge challenge for Ridge to overcome. They’ve always had an unsustainable customer acquisition cost (CAC), so their focus has been to find a way to reduce this at the top of the funnel as they needed to gather a deeper understanding of what was working to drive new customer purchases.
The first thing they did was to stop relying on in-platform insights from Facebook and Google ads. They found all ad channels were overstating their own performance metrics and there was a tonne of discrepancy in their report, making it hard to pinpoint exactly what was making the greatest impact on sales.
This is what they did to lower their CAC by 37%:
1. Ridge implemented an analytics tool like Northbeam, enabling them to organise data in a way that made sense for their business and set the stage for success.
2. By categorising data into relevant buckets, Ridge gained deeper insights into their customer journey, audience groups, and media spend, paving the way for informed decisions and growth.
3. The tool allowed Ridge to label their landing pages, helping them understand which ad concepts were effective and resonating with their audience. Typically, most brands would measure based on targeting or the platform that sent the traffic but this method gives an unbiased view into the interests of their potential customers. Tweaking this part helped them identify ads they could pause and cherry-pick what to spend more on.
4. By understanding nuances of their customer’s entry point in the sales funnel, Ridge made better performance decisions by having all channels reporting into one place, both at a high level and a granular view.
PAID MEDIA
Diversifying Ad Channels, Being First Movers

Facebook’s golden years didn’t last forever, and Ridge succeeded because they saw it coming, diversifying their budget across multiple ad channels as quickly as they could.
Growth Strategy TLDR: Assume that channels will break eventually. Always look to diversify as quickly as possible so you’re not overly reliant on one ad channel.
Snapchat is a notable example of this. They saw an opportunity to tap into a new audience group and be somewhere with lower competition. When most DTC brands were going harder on platforms like Meta, Ridge was testing platforms like Snapchat, where the success of their campaign gained a feature in Snapchat’s earnings report.
Their Snapchat playbook looked like this:
Used the Snap Pixel to track Snapchatters' purchase journey
Measured Snapchat-driven conversions across devices to determine what was working
Real-time creation of custom audiences based on purchases
High-intent audiences for cross-selling and lookalike audience creation
Successful campaigns underpinned by lookalike audiences
Static creative outperformed other types
Snap Publisher is used for quick production of ad variation to test faster without investing in additional resources
Lookalike audiences helped cut the CPA by 55%, allowing Ridge to achieve an overall CPA at least 20% lower than what they were experiencing on other platforms.
Other paid activity: In addition to influencer marketing and Snapchat, they also use YouTube Pre-Roll ads, experiment with Google Display, Taboola, and Criteo for display advertising and still spend north of over $1m+ on Meta ads.
CONVERSION RATE OPTIMISATION
Getting More From Conversions From Existing Traffic

Rather than just pumping ad spend into their paid channels, they made sure their customer experience and buying process were airtight through A/B tests.
What they found was that new shoppers needed more tailored information like understanding the features and benefits of the Ridge wallet rather than going through extra info.
To remove this friction and improve the shopping process, they implemented the following and increased their conversions from top-of-funnel traffic by 15%:
Made sure they provided relevant content and landing page experience that was tailored to users based on their stage in the customer journey
Set up templated landing pages to build faster and tailor content based on specific experiments.
Added a third banner and CTA on the homepage for everyone to see how the wallet worked
Once the customer clicks on that call to action, they are directed to the second page in the funnel, which educates the customer on the product before pushing them to a product page.
WRAP UP
TL;DR
Used YouTube to scale TOF: As of 2023, Ridge's YouTube sponsorship strategy with 5,000 creators has netted over $60 million and 544 million views. Key tactics include integrated and standalone videos, capitalizing on YouTube's engaged audience.
Improved attribution: To reduce customer acquisition costs, they use analytics tools like Northbeam for attribution, diversified ad channels early, and focused on conversion rate optimization, resulting in a 37% CAC reduction.
Diversified ad channels (Snapchat Example): Snapchat's playbook includes using the Snap Pixel to tap into high-converting cohorts like lookalike audiences. They spend over $1 million on Meta ads and experiment with Google Display and Taboola. Conversion rate optimization efforts include tailored landing pages and enhanced product education, boosting conversions by 15%.
TREND SPOTLIGHT
Consumers are warming up to purchasing products through social apps

Initially, in May 2022, only 12% of consumers preferred buying products through social media apps like Instagram Shop or Facebook Marketplace. However, in a short span of three months, the number of social media users comfortable with purchasing on these platforms has surged to 41%!
Why this matters: Customers want convenience and these platforms are giving it to them. Brands need to be prepared to diversify their sales channel in addition to selling on their website and/or apps. To win on social, brands typically lean on creating engaging content that can influence consumers to shop directly on these social platforms.
Reply