Advertising a fashion brand on a drop calendar.

What a drop calendar does to an ad account

An always on fashion brand can test a campaign for three weeks and let creative settle. A brand that drops every week cannot. Each week the account has to introduce new product to an audience that is waiting, make the release bigger than the last, and do it without going stale or letting the previous drop's stock sit. Streetwear and limited release brands have the same problem at a slower cadence and with more intensity per drop.

We have run accounts that release a new collection every single week, for years at a time and at seven figures a month. Everything below was learned there, and it applies at any size.

The two layer account

Layer one: always on

Consolidated prospecting on broad audiences, carrying the brand story and the bestsellers that are always in stock. This is the foundation. It runs every day of the year, it is where the account's learning lives, and it means the brand never depends on a single drop performing. On a weekly cadence it is typically the larger share of spend across the month.

Layer two: the drop

A campaign that goes live with the release, using creative for the new pieces, into an audience the account already knows. For the first three to four days it takes a larger share of the budget, and then as the drop settles into the catalogue the budget shifts back to always on. On the next release the layer is refreshed rather than rebuilt.

Creative as a process

A drop calendar means creative production cannot be a monthly project. It has to be a weekly process, run with the brand's own team: the new pieces shot, edited and written in the brand's voice and out before the release, every week. We build that process with the brand, we set the cadence and the formats, and we test hooks and formats inside the drop layer so the always on creative keeps improving as a side effect. The formats are in ad creative that reads as brand first.

The drop email

A brand that releases on a calendar has the best possible reason to email, and the drop email is usually the most anticipated message the brand sends. The sequence is a preview to the most engaged segment before the release, the announcement to the full list at release time, and a follow up a few days later for the pieces that remain. SMS for the release itself, to the segment that opted in for it. For limited releases, a back in stock and register interest flow before the drop turns the waiting into a list. The full setup is in Klaviyo for fashion brands.

Stock and the first three days

Most of a drop's revenue comes in the first three days, and the most common failure is the bestseller selling out on the first night while the ads keep running. Stock is planned against the expected first three days using the previous drops as the guide, the ads are switched by piece as sizes run low, and the remaining pieces get their own creative in the follow up rather than being left to the catalogue.

Limited and streetwear releases

The same structure with the intensity turned up. The always on layer carries the brand between drops, the register interest flow builds the list, the drop layer goes live at the release minute with a small number of very strong creatives, and the release is usually over in hours rather than days. The account is judged on the month rather than on the drop, because a drop that sells out in an hour on a small ad budget can look like a low ROAS week while being the best week of the year.

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