Dose #174: Why Your Customers Really Buy Subscriptions

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

This week we borrow knowledge from the incomparable Sarah Levinger to learn the real reason behind why people buy subscriptions. We dive into how you can test that why through ads, why you should be observing your customers using your product, and how you still need to remind people to use your product.

This week’s dose is also a full interview with Sarah Levinger, the founder of Tether and one of the best minds in the marketing business. Listen in on your favorite platform:

Less than 1% of eCom brands ever reach 9 figures in sales. I'm going to share their secrets so you can unlock massive scale.

No Best Practices shares the consumer psychology, direct response marketing, and brand positioning frameworks that will help your ads scale, your emails convert, and your brand beat out the competition. No Best Practices = performance marketing from first principles.

Link: http://nobestpractices.co/newsletter/

🎯 The Real Reason People Buy

It’s easy to think you know why people buy your product. After all, you made the thing, you market it, and people keep buying it. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned - especially after this week’s conversation - it’s that most of us are solving the wrong problems. That disconnect shows up in our acquisition costs, our retention rates, and our creative strategy.

This week I sat down with Sarah Levenger, founder of Tether and one of the sharpest minds in behavioral marketing. I walked away with a better understanding of how to decode buyer behavior without relying on gut instinct or bland survey logic.

Before we dig in, however, I want to call out an incredible resource for ecommerce brands trying to reach that elusive 9-figure mark (or simply break past their current growth plateau): No Best Practices.

No Best Practices shares the consumer psychology, direct response marketing, and brand positioning frameworks that will help your ads scale, your emails convert, and your brand beat out the competition. No Best Practices = performance marketing from first principles. Subscribe to the newsletter here: http://nobestpractices.co/newsletter/

Now, let’s dive into the three big takeaways for understanding why your subscribers are buying:

1. Most brands are testing angles. The best ones are testing behavior.

When ad accounts underperform, the default answer is often “try more angles.” But if you’re only testing messaging variations on the same idea, you’re just playing volume roulette. What works better - and scales faster - is testing entirely different behaviors.

For example, with non-alcoholic beverages, people may say they’re buying for health reasons. But dig deeper and you’ll often find something more emotional: they want to feel normal at a party without drinking alcohol. That’s not a health play. That’s a social acceptance play.

Sarah’s advice? Run precision-first creative tests that explore different behavioral patterns, like identity, emotion, and habits, then figure out which one has staying power.

2. If you’re not watching your customers use the product, you’re missing the best research you’ll ever get.

You can survey people all day, but people don’t buy based on logic. They buy based on emotion, convenience, and habits, and then rationalize it later. That’s why watching your customer interact with the product is so powerful.

Sarah described a simple but underused tactic: ask your customers to record themselves using your product in real life. Where do they store it? When do they use it? What’s their routine? That context gives you way more clarity on where your retention messaging should go.

I’ve seen this work myself. One of our clients sells an endurance supplement. People use it on long runs, but barely touch it for daily training. We’ve been thinking about ways to prompt that lighter use case. After this conversation, I’m more convinced than ever: we need to stop telling them how to use it - and start anchoring it to something they already do.

3. Retention starts with a prompt, not a product.

If you’re wondering why your churn is high, start by asking: is the problem motivation, ability, or the lack of a prompt?

BJ Fogg’s behavioral model makes this clear. Even if someone wants to use your product (motivation) and knows how (ability), they still need to be reminded at the right moment (prompt). Miss the prompt, and the whole behavior falls apart.

A great product sitting in a drawer doesn’t retain. A great product next to a water bottle on a gym counter might.

That’s why product placement, habit-based emails, and even shipping box inserts matter more than we think. If your supplement is supposed to be taken before workouts, your retention campaign should show it living next to a pair of running shoes—not in a pile of pantry clutter.

If your ads, emails, and offers aren’t sticking the way they should, it’s probably not the copy. It’s the psychology behind it. And the good news? The data is already out there—you just need to start looking in the right places.

Until next Tuesday, that’s your Subscription Prescription. 💊

 - Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc