Down the Ecom rabbit hole 🐇 🕳️ (Breakthrough Advertising)

Hey, Michael from AdSumo Digital here.

I've been down a rabbit hole lately.

The kind where you start reading one thing, and three weeks later you've got 47 browser tabs open, a FAT Google Doc (with tabs), and a completely different understanding of how marketing and consumerism actually works.

I've been studying what separates brands doing $100K/month from brands doing $10M/month, not just the strategies, but the underlying psychology that makes scaling almost guaranteed.

And it all came from a $150 book. (Or the free PDF I found of it….allegedly)

Why I'm Telling You This

Look, the agency is crushing it right now.

Last 30 days across all our clients brands:

• $8.94M in total revenue

• $3.13M attributed to our email/SMS systems (35% of all revenue)

• 90,789 new email subscribers generated

One brand we're working with on ad creatives and management? Scaled from $75K to $773K in 30 days. (thank you Q4)

But watching that kind of scale happen made me realize something:

There's a layer deeper than just “strategy”. Deeper than "test this creative" or "optimize that flow" and most brands are missing it completely.

It's the psychology of desire itself. And once you not only understand it but intentionally use it in your marketing, everything else about scaling makes more sense.

The $150 Book That Changed Everything

"Breakthrough Advertising" by Eugene Schwartz.

If you've been in marketing for a while, you've probably heard of it. Maybe you even own it. But have you actually read it?

Here's what I was reading the other day:

You cannot create desire. You can only channel it.

What That Actually Means

Most brands approach marketing backwards.

They think: "How do I convince people to want my product?"

Wrong question.

The right question: "What do people already desperately want, and how do I position my product as the solution?"

This isn't semantic. This is the difference between fighting an uphill battle and surf scaling a wave.

The Force Behind Every Ad (And Every Email)

Here's what I've realized after watching brands scale (and stall):

Desire is everything.

You can have the best creative, the perfect offer, the most optimized funnel but if you're not tapping into what people actually want, none of it matters.

Think about it like this: Your marketing is trying to move people from point A to point B.

When you're aligned with a strong desire, it's like running downhill. Everything moves faster. People convert quicker. They're less price-sensitive. Your ads just... work.

When you're fighting weak desire, it's like pushing a boulder uphill. You can do it, but it's exhausting. You burn budget. You need perfect execution just to get mediocre results.

Same product. Same offer. Different desire = completely different outcome.

We saw this play out last month. Generated $2.30M in flow revenue across our clients.

The flows that crushed? They weren't necessarily the prettiest or the most clever.

They were the ones speaking to the desires people were already feeling intensely.

Why I'm Going So Deep On This

Part of the reason I'm diving so deep into this is because I'm launching a subscription brand soon.

I figured I'd document the process publicly on YouTube, Instagram, all that. (Keeping the brand name private obviously, but the strategy and results will be out there.)

What I'm Building (And Why You Should Care)

As I've been learning more about scaling Ecom brands for this launch, I've been putting together something I wish I had when I started:

A complete internal training program on how to scale an e-commerce brand from $0 to 8 figures.

Not just email marketing. The whole system:

• Market psychology and desire identification

• Ad creative strategy that leans into real desire

• Product page optimization that converts cold traffic

• Offer construction that doesn't kill margins

• Backend retention systems that fund aggressive growth

This is for our current team and future team members. But the concepts? They apply to any brand.

this isn't to say that I've scaled an e-commerce brand to 8-figures by myself. But I've been inside of enough accounts, I've talked to enough founders, and have spent countless days and nights learning as much as I can about e-commerce brands.

In about a month and a half, two months ago, decided to expand our service to ad creatives and media buying for a couple clients. One of the brands that we're started working with for ad management had scaled from $75,000/month to $773k in the last 30 days. Our ads are amongst their top spenders with very, very profitable ROAS

And this is everything that I have learned along the way as far as overall scaling principles that I've learned from experience, talking to brands who've experienced things that I haven't yet at different scales, as well as programs that I've paid thousands of dollars for.

The Desire Framework (What I've Been Learning)

Here's one of the core concepts I've been relearning about:

Every desire in the market comes from one of two sources:

Permanent Forces create stable, recurring desires:

• Mass instincts (health, attractiveness, security)

• Technological problems (ongoing issues people face)

These never go away. You can build long-term businesses around them.

Forces of Change create emerging desires:

• Style trends (what becomes fashionable)

• Mass education (society learns something new)

• Cultural shifts (what we value changes)

These create new markets seemingly overnight.

Example: Social media created a desire to look "Instagram-worthy." That didn't exist 20 years ago. Now it drives billions in beauty, fashion, and experience purchases.

The Two Types of Desire

Permanent Desires never leave the market:

• Health

• Wealth

• Relationships

Every human wants to be healthy, have money, and connect with others.

The iPhone taps into all three simultaneously:

• Health? Fitness tracking, health monitoring

• Wealth? Networking, productivity, making money

• Relationships? Connection, communication, social status

This is why Apple became a trillion-dollar company.

Trending Desires come and go:

• Crypto in 2021

• AI right now

• Valentine's Day every February

These spike hard and fast, then fade.

The strategic takeaway: Permanent desires give you long-term scale. Trending desires give you short-term gains. Both are valuable if you understand which you're working with.

What Determines Desire Strength

Three dimensions matter when evaluating desire power:

1. Urgency
How desperately do people want relief? Minor preference or burning need?

The more urgent, the faster people buy and the less price-sensitive they become.

2. Staying Power
Does the desire renew continuously or fade after one purchase?

Desires for food, health, relationships renew constantly. Desires for specific gadgets fade quickly.

3. Scope
How many people share this desire? 10,000 or 10 million?

The broader the scope, the bigger your potential market.

The Fitness Example (Desire Hierarchy)

Let's look at fitness to understand desire strength:

"Toned calves" - Tiny desire. Maybe a few thousand people care specifically about calf definition.

"Gain more muscle" - Bigger. Tens of thousands want this.

"Get a six pack" - Bigger still. Hundreds of thousands want visible abs.

"Have a healthy physique" - Strongest. Millions want to look and feel healthy.

The product might be the same. A workout program could deliver all four outcomes.

But the desire you speak to in your marketing determines your ceiling.

Go after toned calves? You cap yourself at a tiny market.
Go after healthy physique? You can scale.

How This Applies to Email Marketing

Everything I'm learning about desire applies directly to the retention systems we build:

Welcome flows: Which desire are you speaking to in email 1 vs email 5?

Campaign strategy: Are you tapping into permanent desires or riding trending ones?

Segmentation: Are you routing different desires to different customer types?

Product positioning: Are you selling physical components or functional outcomes?

Most brands talk about their product features (physical components) instead of the transformation (functional outcome).

You don't buy a hair dryer because you love ionic technology.
You buy smooth, shiny, celebrity-style hair and the confidence that comes with it.

Lead with transformation. Back it up with technology.

The Real-World Application

When we generated $828K in campaign revenue last month, the campaigns that crushed weren't the ones with the best subject lines.

They were the ones that identified the strongest desire in the market and channeled it onto the product.

Same list. Same products. Different desire angle = 3-5x better performance.

This is why we're so obsessed with brand archetypes and customer psychology. It's not about being clever. It's about understanding what people actually want and speaking to that.

What I'm Testing Right Now

As I prepare for this subscription launch, I'm applying everything:

Step 1: Spot the desire (what do people already desperately want?)
Step 2: Categorize it (physical, material, or emotional?)
Step 3: Evaluate its potential (urgency, staying power, scope)
Step 4: Channel it onto the product (connect desire to outcome)
Step 5: Test and refine (let the market tell me what resonates)

I'll be documenting all of this publicly. The tests, the results, the pivots.

this newsletter is going to be the primary channel that I share this information.

Why I'm Sharing This With You

Because if you're running an e-commerce brand, this matters.

Your email marketing is only as good as the desires you're speaking to.

Your ads only work if they tap into real market desire.

Your product pages only convert if they connect desire to outcome.

You can't create desire. You can only channel it.

And the brands that understand this will dominate the next 5 years while others fight over tactics.

The Book Recommendation

Get "Breakthrough Advertising" by Eugene Schwartz.

Yes, it's $150 on Amazon. Yes, that's expensive for a book.

Yes, it's worth it. It's also worth it to find the free version and read it faster

This book will 3x your understanding of marketing psychology. It's not an easy read. You'll need to go through it multiple times.

But if it helps you identify even one stronger desire for your brand, you'll make that back 100x over.

Read it after you have some marketing foundation. Then read it again six months later. You'll catch things you missed.

What's Next

I'm going to keep sharing what I'm learning as I build this subscription brand.

The psychology. The strategy. The execution. The results (good and bad).

If you want to follow along, stay subscribed. This is going to be a wild ride.

P.S. What desire is your brand actually tapping into? Hit reply and let me know. I'm curious if you're speaking to permanent desires or trending ones.

And if you haven't read Breakthrough Advertising yet, seriously - get it. It's the foundation everything else is built on.

Best,
Michael

PS - If you run an Ecom brand and want to have a 15 minute strategy session with me, book a call here »

Today’s Helpful Links

• $20M Worth of Email Marketing Advice in 12 Minutes

• Client Interview: From $0 to $265,000 in Email Generated Sales [Klaviyo Email Marketing]

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