22 ways to add 20% to your revenue in 2026

Every ecommerce brand is heading into 2026 thinking about growth.

If you weren’t, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.

The common problem with goals, new year’s resolutions and other grand plans isn’t ambition. It’s execution.

Most growth goals fall apart because there’s a gap between where you want to go and what you’re actually going to do this week to get there.

I’ve seen this in my own business more times than I can count. Big plans, fuzzy steps.

What consistently works is deconstructing the goal, working backwards, and turning your aspirations into a clear plan you can execute.

Deconstructing the Goal

In reality, winning in ecommerce just comes down to some pretty boring math.

Revenue increases when you improve one (or more) of these core metrics:

• Conversion rate

• Average order value

• Purchase frequency

• Number of customers

So if your goal is to increase your revenue in 2026 (as I imagine it is for 99.999% of brands), the best way to achieve it is to think about improving these inputs rather than chasing a large, abstract number.

Instead of asking “how can I add $1M in new revenue this year”, ask yourself “how can I increase AOV 10%” or “how can I increase average purchase frequency”.

The List: 22 Practical Revenue Levers to Pull This Year

Let’s say your goal is to add 20% in revenue this year. That’s a manageable goal - but it’s also a worthwhile growth target, which would put your brand above the average growth rate for ecommerce.

You probably won’t get all your growth from just one thing - and not every idea will make sense from your brand.

But almost every brand has 5-10 growth levers from the list below, which will add up to a meaningful addition to your bottom line this year.

1. Reduce friction across the buying journey (especially on mobile)

Most ecommerce sites convert less than 4% of visitors overall; and closer to 1-2% on mobile.

That means the vast majority of people who land on your site leave without buying, which is a huge opportunity.

Small improvements that make it easier to browse, decide, and check out can add 1-2 percentage points to conversion rate, which compounds quickly at scale.

2. Personalization

Most stores still show the same experience to everyone, whether it’s a first-time visitor or a repeat customer.

With AI, it’s becoming easier than ever to personalize your site experience for each visitor - and that usually shows up as a meaningful lift in conversion rate.

3. Build quizzes or guided selling tools

Quizzes and guided selling tools are a powerful way to reduce indecision and increase conversions.

They also tend to push customers toward higher-value purchases. I’m surprised more brands aren’t using tools like these.

4. Test and optimize different entry points

What products, what experience do you serve to someone as the first thing they see from your brand (or your website)?

I wrote about this in a post last year. For brands in a unique category, like Athletic Brewing, it’s crucial. But the concept can apply to any type of brand.

Test and find the right products to show first-time visitors (and as a bonus, personalize this based on different channels and segments).

5. Optimize abandoned cart and browse recovery sequences

The biggest (and easiest to fix) revenue leak is abandoned carts.

They’re high-intent customers, often just a small objection (or a bad memory) away from converting. You’re probably reaching out to abandoned carts already, but there’s almost certainly some meat on the bone here - better timing, better objection handling, new channels (push notifications).

6. Build, test and refine product bundles

Bundles are one of the simplest ways to increase revenue without acquiring more customers.

Starter kits, refills, or problem-solution bundles make it easier to buy and increase order size at the same time.

Think about whether there are any logical bundles you can create, and test different combinations to find what resonates with your customers.

7. Improve your post-purchase upsells

The moment after checkout is when trust is highest. And most brands barely use it.

One-click post-purchase offers can add incremental revenue without adding friction to the buying decision. Done well, this is “found money” that doesn’t affect conversion rate.

8. Reduce out-of-stocks

Out-of-stocks don’t just lose sales; they waste demand you already paid to acquire - and erode trust.

If you routinely have products out of stock, put time into improving inventory management and cutting these down. You’ll lose less business to your competitors.

9. Optimize the customer onboarding experience

Start thinking of your brand like a software business.

In SaaS, onboarding is everything. The business lives and dies by how well you educate your customer on how to get value from your product.

The same can apply to ecommerce. Your goal is not just to pry the customer’s money away from them, but to help them get real value from the product - so they leave good reviews, tell friends, and come back to buy again.

10. Send more emails

Most brands don’t send too many emails. They send too few.

It’s getting harder and harder to break through and be seen in the inbox. That just means you need to show up more.

Email is cheap, scalable, and still one of the highest-ROI channels in ecommerce. Your fear of “emailing too much” is almost always overblown.

11. Run more promotions

Create excitement. Create hype. Come up with more excuses to run promos - your brand will be more memorable, and you’ll build a stronger, more loyal customer base.

12. Launch a VIP list for your best customers

Your top 10-20% of buyers drive a disproportionate share of revenue. You should want to nurture and prioritize this group.

Early access, private drops, or special pricing can significantly increase purchase frequency from this group.

13. Launch a membership program

Here’s something more brands should experiment with: launching a paid membership.

Think Costco or Amazon Prime. Customers pay monthly or yearly in exchange for perks like discounts, free shipping, early access, or exclusive products.

Country Life Natural Foods does this well (Isaac talked about it on our podcast).

Probably not the kind of thing that makes sense for a footwear brand.

But it’s great for consumables like food & bev, supplements, beauty. It’s a big-time retention-booster, plus recurring revenue from the membership itself.

14. Launch subscriptions (if your product allows for it)

Another year, and recurring subscriptions are still the most powerful kind of business model for ecommerce (for anything, really).

And sure, this might not work for your brand. But if you can make them work, subscriptions make it feel like you’re playing the game on easy mode.

Learn more about how to do subscriptions the right way in this post, inspired from our chat with John Roman, CEO of BattlBox.

15. Launch a mobile app

Apps are the strongest retention tool there is.

Apps aren’t for every customer. But for your best customers, they’re incredibly powerful.

Higher conversion rates. Higher AOV. Higher purchase frequency. Higher LTV. The revenue impact from apps is clear, across all industries - fashion to beauty to F&B.

A mobile app keeps your top customers closer to your brand, and shopping more often as a result.

MobiLoud makes it realistic for any brand to launch their own app. If your site is mobile-friendly, it can be an app, and you could potentially add that 20% extra to your bottom line just through the incremental lift from app itself.

16. Drive app installs with exclusive perks and promos

The more users you get to download your app, the bigger the lift.

Use it as your VIP list. Offer exclusive perks for app users - you’ll see a meaningful uptick in downloads, and these customers will deliver more long-term revenue as a result.

17. Send more push notifications

Push notifications are one of the most underused owned channels in ecommerce. They’re instant, hard to ignore, and perfect for drops, restocks, and time-sensitive offers.

Yet too many brands launch an app, but don’t use push enough. Get serious about push, and it’ll reward you.

18. Post more on organic social

Organic social has been written off, its obituary written and published many times. But it can work - and if you make it work, there’s massive upside.

Could be Instagram, TikTok, YouTube - wherever you can drum up engagement with your customers.

You don’t need perfection - start by just posting more. Post customer testimonials, unboxing videos, memes… whatever.

19. Launch new products

This is the most obvious lever - but it works.

New products give existing customers a reason to come back and spend again, and more ways to bring new customers into your brand.

20. Expand into new channels

Another way of looking at expansion: more surface area, wider reach.

Retail, wholesale, direct mail, marketplaces… see what makes sense for your brand and the resources you’re playing with.

21. Expand internationally

The biggest opportunity for many brands is overseas. Think about whether you can expand into new markets, tap into new countries - a great way to diversify, as well as reaching new buyers.

22. Optimize your store for AI-driven discovery and agentic commerce

AI is coming. The only question is, how fast.

At some point, your customers are going to be buying through ChatGPT, possibly even using agents to buy for them.

This means thinking about how your products, content, and data are structured - so AI tools can understand, recommend, and even purchase on your customers’ behalf.

The brands that adapt first to this will have a major edge.

Wrapping Up

Growing your business by 20% rarely comes from one big swing.

It’s usually a handful of small wins that stack on top of each other.

Look through the list above. Pick the 3–5 levers that make the most sense for your brand, and execute consistently.

Once growth becomes a system, not a hope, those once-daunting goals start to feel very achievable.

Start owning your audience

If you don’t want to rely on a thousand algorithms to stay in front of your buyers, you need a mobile app.

It’s a direct connection to your best customer. And finally lets you own the relationship (no middlemen controlling your reach — no more being forgotten).

MobiLoud turns your existing site into an app, with no rebuilding, nearly no work to maintain, and full feature parity with your website.

Click here to get a free preview of your app

Quick Hits

Just one quick hit for you this week. It’s a short story on AI’s impact on the business world.

That’s all for now.

I’ll be back in touch next week, with more on how successful brands are doing CX and retention right.

If there’s any topic you’d like to see us dive into, for either the newsletter or the podcast, just shoot me a message here.

Until next time,

Pietro and The Retention Edge Team

PS: want to boost retention, revenue and profitability? If so, launching your own app could be the best move you make this year.

See how: go to our website to get a preview of your app for free, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn to talk about it.