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What if your “ideal customer” would pay 40% more?

One test proved it. Here's how to find your ceiling, too.

Author

Kody Nordquist
July 06, 2025

Welcome back to the 127th edition of Nord Media

​​Fun fact:

73% of DTC brands are underpriced by at least 15%.

Not because of bad branding or because their customers can’t afford more…

But because they’ve never actually tested their pricing.

Pricing decisions usually happen once at launch.

After that, it’s set in stone, even as the product improves, the positioning matures, and customers change.

That’d be like writing your ad copy in 2020 and never updating it again.

Crazy, right?

Yet brands do it every day with the one variable that affects both conversion and profitability.

So in this email, we’re breaking down:

• Why pricing is your most overlooked growth lever
• A framework to test pricing safely without hurting conversion
• How smart brands are segmenting pricing by shopper type

Let’s dive in 👇

One of the brands we work with recently ran a simple test using Intelligems.

No extra spend. Just a smarter offer setup.

The result:

A massive lift across the board in conversion rate, revenue per visitor, and overall profit.

It’s still early, but the signal is strong.

This change alone could reshape how they approach their entire funnel.

Because once you earn the click, the offer is everything.

Most brands are flying blind. Pricing, shipping, and incentives are the biggest levers you have, but they rarely get tested properly, if at all

That’s where Intelligems comes in.

It gives you the power to experiment with:

  • Product pricing and tiered discounts

  • Shipping thresholds and rate structures

  • PDP layouts, landing pages, and copy

  • Personalized offers by audience segment

It’s fast to launch, easy to analyze, and built to drive profit, not just clicks.

We’ve seen brands unlock serious gains by changing one thing: the offer.

Start testing what actually moves the needle with Intelligems.

You can have great ads, beautiful creative, and smooth ops, but if your product is underpriced, your growth will stall.

Pricing affects:

  • Gross margin (more than any other lever)

  • Perceived value (shoppers often trust higher prices)

  • Cash flow runway (higher price = faster ROI on CAC)

Yet most brands never touch it. 

Why?

They’re afraid raising prices will kill conversion.

But the goal isn't to blindly raise prices across the board.

It’s to test your way into pricing that better reflects your product’s real value.

Start by reframing your pricing from “What will people pay?” to:

“What kind of buyer is this really built for, and how much is it worth to them?”

This mindset unlocks a higher tier of customers and makes your business more resilient.

How to safely test pricing without hurting your conversion rate

You wouldn’t send the same offer to a cold TikTok user and a warm email subscriber.

So why give them the same price?

Smart brands are testing pricing across key dimensions like:

  • Geography: Are shoppers in NYC or SF more price-tolerant than in smaller cities?

  • Traffic source: A click from Google Shopping usually converts differently than one from a social ad, so test accordingly.

  • Customer type: New customers may need more incentives. Repeat customers often don’t need a discount at all.

The key to testing safely is controlled experimentation:

  • Use a split-testing tool that randomizes prices in real time for different cohorts.

  • Monitor not just conversion rate, but margin per session. That’s your true KPI.

  • Run tests long enough to account for daily volatility, ideally across a few thousand sessions per variant.

One brand recently discovered that their “premium” customers had zero resistance to a 40% price increase when the product was positioned correctly.

That kind of lift in revenue and margin can outperform almost any paid media tweak.

Reframe the offer

Pricing is never just about the number.

It’s about how the customer feels about what they’re buying.

Which means raising the price needs to be paired with a better story.

Here’s what top brands do before increasing prices:

  • Revamp PDP copy: Highlight transformation, not features. Make the customer feel the value.

  • Use UGC and reviews: Show social proof from buyers who felt it was “worth every penny.”

  • Level up creative: If your site screams discount brand, a price hike will feel off.

  • Stack value: Bonuses, bundles, or guarantees help justify a higher price without justifying it directly.

Think of price as part of your positioning. If the product looks, sounds, and feels premium, your price becomes the anchor for that perception.

Otherwise, you risk the worst of both worlds of higher prices and lower trust.

Final Thoughts

Brands spend upwards of months optimizing for lower CAC when in reality, unlocking better pricing could drive a faster path to profitability.

Gouging your customers shouldn’t be the goal.
You want to align your price with the actual value you deliver.

Small tests. Big insights.

That’s how you turn pricing from a static decision into a growth engine.

Want growth that looks like this👇?

HOW??

We Use Strategies and Systems that Produce Consistent Results.

We currently work with a small handful of brands from early-stage DTC startups to global brands scale smarter, grow faster and get profitable. Whether your goal rapid growth, consistency at scale or just to be profitable again, we've built systems and strategies to achieve that for hundreds of brands over the years.

The results? You get reliable and consistent growth without sacrificing your profitability.

Sound interesting and worth a conversation?
» Let’s Chat «

Want to learn more? Connect with me on social 👇
LinkedIn • Instagram • Twitter 

Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.

Sincerely,
Kody

Disclaimer: Special thanks to Intelligems for sponsoring today’s newsletter.