A product drop sells out or sits there depending on the weeks before it. Build an audience before launch, put budget behind the people who already care on the day, then use the launch to find new customers. Here is the plan.
Stage 1: build the audience (two to three weeks before).
The people most likely to buy on launch day are the ones who already know about it. This stage creates them.
- Tease the drop. Run short videos of the product, the making of it, or the people wearing it. No price and no buy button yet.
- Open a waitlist or early-access list. Offer first access in exchange for an email address. It gives you a list to email on the day and an audience to advertise to.
- Grow your warm audiences. Everyone who watches the teaser videos, visits the page or joins the list can be retargeted on launch day.
- Line up search. If people will search for the collection by name, have search ads ready for that name before anyone types it.
Stage 2: launch day and launch week.
- Warm audiences first. Your waitlist, your past customers and the people who watched the teasers will convert fastest. Make sure they see the launch ad on day one.
- Reach new people at the same time. Run your strongest launch creative to broad audiences alongside the retargeting.
- Have budget ready. Sales come quickly in the first days of a drop. A campaign that runs out of money by lunchtime misses them.
- Check stock daily. Pause ads for sizes and colours that have sold out, or switch them to a waitlist.
Stage 3: sell through (the weeks after).
Most drops do not sell out in a day. The weeks after launch are where the rest of the stock goes.
- Switch from "new" to proof. Customer photos, reviews and "back in stock" work better than launch messaging once the drop is a week old.
- Retarget the people who looked. Visitors who viewed the product and left are the cheapest sales you will get.
- Keep search on. Interest you created on social shows up later as searches for the collection and the brand.
Do not rebuild your campaigns for every drop.
It is tempting to launch a fresh campaign for each drop. On Meta, that usually costs you.
Each new campaign starts in the learning phase, and a short drop rarely runs long enough for it to settle. Our guide to Facebook ad budgets explains the learning phase in more detail.
Keep a steady set of campaigns running all year, and refresh the creative inside them for each drop. The campaigns keep what they have learned. Only the ads change.
What this looks like in practice.
| Brand | What we did | Result |
|---|---|---|
| WXM Clothing | Google and Meta planned around the SS24 collection launch, 1 May to 10 June 2024 | 13.08× ROAS, £16,095 revenue from £1,230 of spend |
| NINEYARD | Every campaign aligned with monthly drops and the content going live on social | Monthly sales grew from €20,000 to an average of more than €50,000 |
| Quadrant | Ads for every merchandise and collaboration drop | 10.02× ROAS on Google from 25 September to 31 December 2023, and average order value up 23% |
| LN4 | Sales pushed around each Grand Prix, with content keeping interest up between races | 13.12× ROAS on Meta across the last three quarters of 2024 |
The common thread is timing. Each brand's ads were planned around its own calendar of launches and moments, not run as an always-on campaign that ignored them.
LN4 also shows how to use a range. Its products let us build a path from lower-priced items such as t-shirts up to higher-ticket ones such as replica helmets.
Your product drop checklist.
- Teaser content live two to three weeks before launch
- Waitlist or early-access list open
- Warm audiences ready to retarget on the day
- Search ads ready for the collection name
- Launch creative in vertical, tall and square shapes
- Budget ready for the first days
- Stock checked every morning
- Proof and reviews ready for the sell-through weeks
Common questions.
How far ahead should I start advertising a product drop? Start teasing two to three weeks before launch. That is long enough to build an audience without people losing interest.
Should I advertise a drop on Meta or Google? Both, doing different jobs. Meta builds the interest before launch. Google catches the searches that interest creates.
What if my drop sells out on day one? Switch the ads to a waitlist for the restock. Then you know how much demand to plan for next time.