The spend portfolio playbook: How cutting branded bids and A/B testing emails boosted revenue

Nate Hewett (performance marketing) and Di Lyngholm (CRM/retention) at HalloweenCostumes.com challenged conventional wisdom about branded search bidding and retention email strategy, operating in an extreme seasonal environment where 85% of annual revenue concentrates in six weeks. After tariff-driven margin compression forced efficiency gains, Nate implemented an uncontested bid walk-down upon finding impression share above 95% with non-basement CPCs, while Di built a profitability-focused retention journey selecting lower-converting but higher-margin coupon variants. Their shared philosophy treats settled organizational practices as testable hypotheses rather than permanent fixtures.