SULT launched in April 2025 with two friends, no investors and a waitlist of over 6,000 people. Within a year it was in around 150 Boots stores across the UK and had sold over a million sachets.
This breakdown covers how they built the brand before the product existed, the ads they run to each type of buyer, the landing page and product page that sell the subscription, and the free gifts that keep subscribers going. It finishes with what we'd change, and the parts of the strategy you can copy at any size.
SULT doesn't have a loyalty program. They've built retention a different way, through their subscription, and that's a big part of what follows.
Kris is the co-founder of Mage Loyalty. I spend most days talking to merchants, and making sure our customers get real results. If you run a Shopify store or Agency we should chat!
The story
Two founders and a gap in the market
SULT has two founders, Henry Porpora and Milly Goldsmith. Milly was a fitness creator with close to a million followers before SULT started. Henry worked at Puresport, a large UK supplement brand. They met on Hinge, and rather than date, they decided to start SULT together.
The problem they're solving is that every electrolyte brand on the market was made for runners and athletes. There was nothing for the general market: people working a 9 to 5 who want to stay hydrated, but aren't pro or elite athletes, or even interested in fitness at all. In SULT's words, it's made for people who keep fit but still go out on a Friday.
The brand was fully self-funded, with no investment at all, and built a waitlist of over 6,000 people before launch.
From set-up to 150 Boots stores
The company was set up in September 2024. The first launch came in April 2025, and they sold out of all their launch stock. They had clearly built a strong following before they launched a single product.
Within the same year they secured collabs with Candy Kittens and Lovehoney, two big brands. November 2025 was their first Black Friday, where they launched a variety pack. By April 2026 they were in around 150 Boots stores, and in 2026 they've added bottles, the Tinny and passed a million sachets sold.
Not many companies grow that fast, and the reason starts before launch day.
- Sep 2024Company set up
- Apr 2025Launch, first stock sells out
- 2025Collabs with Candy Kittens and Lovehoney
- Nov 2025First Black Friday and a variety pack
- By Apr 2026About 150 Boots stores
- 2026Bottles, the Tinny and 1M+ sachets sold
They built the brand before the product existed
The key to SULT's launch is that they were building the brand before the product existed. On TikTok they ran a series on building the brand, from January 2025 right up to launch day in April. Their bio still reads "POV: 2 friends building a hydration brand".
It starts with their first shoot, on a £50 budget, with a simple setup where they seem to be doing most of the work themselves. That post got 54.7K views. Just under a month later they posted episode one of building SULT, and it nearly doubled that, at 82.2K views. They were already capturing people who were interested in the journey.
From there it became a series: episodes on how it was going, what they were doing and how they were getting there, right up to a founders' POV of launch day. They shared finding manufacturers, visiting the manufacturer, taste tests, preparing the packaging, even printing it. Followers voted on flavours and packaging along the way, and SULT says 60% of the brand came from those votes.
- 27 Jan · 54.7K viewsWe had a £50 budget to do our first SULT shoot (which we used on our Ubers)
- 18 Feb · 82.2K viewsEp 1 of building the biggest electrolyte brand… pls help us decide what box
- 25 Feb · 59.7K viewsEp 2 of building SULT: making an electrolyte taste sexy
- Ep 3 · launch dayFounders POV of building SULT
Building in public like this does two jobs. It attracts people interested in ecommerce, who start talking about the brand. And it captures an audience who want to try the product and feel like they're part of the journey.
All the way through, SULT kept one message: this isn't just for athletes. It's for the standard person, for all walks of life, not only people who are training. Most of their samples went to coffee shops rather than gyms, so they reached that everyday audience.
Henry puts it simply: "There's no IP for electrolytes. It's the brand you can't copy."
How to copy it
You don't need a founder with a big following to start. Share the journey from day one: suppliers, samples, packaging, the things that go wrong. Ask your audience to vote on real decisions, so they feel they own part of the brand before they've bought anything.
Borrowing trust from a doctor
SULT also worked with an NHS surgeon, Dr Karan Rajan, for educational and medical verification, and made content with him. So they weren't only talking about hydration and the benefits of the product. They were backing it up with a real, licensed medical doctor.
That builds trust fast, which matters most for a new brand. If you're launching in health, whether that's electrolytes, hydration or vitamins, you don't have much trust yet. You don't have certifications, you probably can't afford all the lab testing, and it's very hard to get proof that backs up your claims.
By partnering with a doctor who already had a strong, trusted name, they leapt over most of that process and tied that trust into their messaging. It works especially well when you don't yet have testimonials, high-profile athletes or other trusted people using your product.
The product
One hero product and a lot of accessories
SULT keeps a very small range. Everything is built around the hero product, the electrolyte sachet, in just three flavours. Around it sit the accessories, like bottles and a carry tin, which they use carefully as upsells. Peach Citrus is the best seller, then Watermelon Berry and Mango Tropical.
This works because most brands build their following on one hero product before they introduce more, then remarket the new products to their existing customers. It's much easier to win with one product first, especially with no funding, because adding new products is expensive, and if they don't sell it's very costly.
The accessories also have a second job: they're the gifts that keep subscribers going, which we cover in Part 4.
The same sachet, sold six ways
On the site, the whole range is the same electrolyte sachet, packaged in different ways.
The variety pack is a great introductory product. It gets you trying all three flavours, so you find the one you like before you commit to a box. Then there's a box of a single flavour, which is most likely what people buy once they've found their favourite. And there's the Sulty bundle, their highest-value product. Around those sit the bottles, in different sizes and colours, including a bigger bottle and a squeezy one.
The product doesn't change, but the way they serve it to different people does. That's how they build out a product line and reach different audiences with one hero product.
- SULT Electrolytes£31 for 26 sachets
- Variety pack£19.99 for 15
- Trial 6-pack£9.99
- Sulty bundle£83.70 £108
- Biggie bottle£20
- The Tinny£7.99
- Squeezy bottle£11.99
How to copy it
Before you add a new product, ask whether a new way of packaging your hero product would do the same job: a trial size, a variety pack, a multi-pack, a bundle with an accessory. Each one reaches a different buyer without a new formula, new stock risk or a new supplier.
The ads
A full funnel built on angles
In the Meta Ad Library, SULT's ads are grouped around the different benefits of the product and the founder story, each aimed at a different interest. There's skin, for health-conscious people who want better skin. There's busy days, for the typical office worker. There's training. There's founders and fans, with stories from the founders and from customers. And lower down the funnel, there are ads showing the price, the saving and the product itself.
Skin: hydration sold as beauty
The skin ads position a hydration product as a beauty product. The core idea is improving dry skin through hydration, because electrolytes are, at the end of the day, a hydration product.
The first static opens with a customer testimonial, which builds trust straight away: "I couldn't believe how healthy my skin felt after trying SULT." Then "the secret super power when it comes to skin health", a "Hydrate your skin" button, and more trust with 4.9 stars from 302 reviews. It's likely used as a retargeting ad, and it ran for 272 days in total.
272 days liveStaticElectrolytes for radiant skin
188 days liveStaticSkin feeling drier lately?- 215 days liveVideoClear skin starts within
- 250 days liveVideo70% of the UK is dehydrated
The second is a founder post. The woman from their videos is now in the marketing, so even if you don't know the brand, you might know her as an influencer. It opens with a question, "Dry skin?", then "Hydrate your skin cells with electrolytes", over a photo of near-perfect skin. It ran for 188 days with the caption "Skin feeling drier lately?"
That's a classic way to structure a single-image ad: the problem (dry skin), the solution (hydrate your skin with electrolytes), and your product as the solution.
The funnel probably looks something like this. A customer sees a video ad from SULT, the founder videos building the brand, then UGC of customers using it. Then they're served testimonials, then an ad about their problem, whether that's dry skin or feeling dehydrated after training. The videos build familiarity with the founders, the product and the logo. The problem, solution and testimonial ads sell at the bottom of the funnel.
Video ads: one script, a different buyer each time
"A to-do list that doesn't end" (154 days)
"I have a to-do list that doesn't end. A calendar that's already full, and a brain that needs to keep up with all of it. SULT is the supplement brand that actually keeps up with that. Better focus, sharper thinking, steady energy."
There's a clear hook at the start. Then you see her in a meeting and working, so it's aimed straight at the busy 9 to 5 office worker who's stuck between meetings and not hydrating. SULT comes in as the solution. You also see her on a train, which is relatable for anyone commuting, and ties the product into their day: the commute in, the commute home. That fits a busy London lifestyle especially well, with long commutes and full days of meetings.
Then she sells the clear, immediate benefit: better focus, sharper thinking, steady energy. Problem, solution, then the benefits.
"I do my best work in short windows" (142 days)
"I do my best work in short windows. The problem is showing up to those windows ready, as in not scattered, not running on empty. SULT is the supplement brand that actually keeps up with that. Cleaner focus, sharp output, and no crash."
The tone, voice, delivery and clips are almost identical to the first ad. What changes is the scene. It starts with the work aesthetic, then cuts to her in workout gear. Now it's targeting the office worker who works all day, needs the focus, then goes to the gym or a pilates class after work and wants to stay hydrated throughout. It ends with the commute and then a gym.
- 154 days liveVideoA to-do list that doesn't end
- 142 days liveVideoI do my best work in short windows
- 142 days liveVideoGroggy, puffy-faced, feel hungover
"Groggy, puffy-faced, feel hungover" (142 days)
This one targets someone who's been on a night out and is hungover, with the classic symptoms: groggy and puffy-faced. The common advice after a hangover is to drink water, and that's the objection to the ad: why buy SULT when I can drink water from the tap for free?
She takes that common solution and answers it. If you only drink water, you're not absorbing all the minerals, so you're not rehydrating as well as you could be. So the ad doesn't just say "I'm hungover, drink SULT". It says "I'm hungover, drink SULT, don't just drink water", and handles the objection in the same ad.
"A runner tests it on a 14k" (277 days)
This is a UGC or influencer ad, content not made by the founders. The creator is clearly in the fitness niche and is about to do a 14k run, so the targeting has shifted completely to people interested in health and wellness. We can't see the exact targeting, but SULT is likely using a lot of interest-based targeting on each set of ads to reach the right audience.
She wants to put SULT to the test. You see the product, the branding and the packaging, and when she tries it she confirms it doesn't taste salty. It actually tastes good. That breaks the biggest objection to electrolyte sachets: they're often extremely salty or just don't taste good. The ad copy is a real five-star review.
"One glass instead of three" (226 days)
"Instead of having three glasses of water, I can probably just have one glass of SULT and be hydrated." Seven seconds long, very low effort, and very relatable. Not every ad needs high production. It leans educational, and she's in sportswear, which may make it relatable to the fitness niche too.
It sells the product as more hydrating than water, and it solves a problem people hear about all the time: you're not drinking enough water, you need X bottles or X litres a day. A good problem-and-solution ad.
- 277 days liveVideoA runner tests it on a 14k
- 147 days liveVideoFuel your day, not just hydrate
- 226 days liveVideoOne glass instead of three
The same script also runs on different creators, and one offer often runs as a static, a creator video and a founder video at the same time.
One product, every avatar
One of the core angles SULT goes for is reaching different avatars with different ways to use the same product. If you're building a brand, think about every avatar who could use yours.
Say you sell vitamins. You could aim your hero vitamin, or your best seller, at different categories. Could you target maternity? People trying to stay healthy at the office? Athletes who want to recover and build muscle faster? Once you have the avatars, look at Meta's ad targeting categories to work out how to reach those interests, and build different ad formats around each one.
A lot of brands also build dedicated landing pages for those interests: one for fitness enthusiasts, one for office workers, with the benefits and the product page tailored to each avatar.
Founders, fans and the big brands
"Better ingredients than the big brands" ran for 146 days. The founders introduce themselves and say SULT is one of the UK's highest-rated electrolyte brands. Everyone says they're the highest rated, so the ad backs it up straight away by popping up their Shopify reviews on screen.
Then it handles the core objection: SULT not only tastes insane, but has better ingredients than the others out there, with zero fillers and all natural colours. The first concern for anyone who has already tried an electrolyte brand is whether it tastes good, because they might not have liked the flavour. The ad confirms they've focused on flavour, sells the benefits, and drops the link straight to the product.
Everyone likes to challenge the big brand. Everyone likes to go against the grain and support the underdog.
"Wait, we're doing an ad?" (145 days) and "Are you the SULT guy?" (140+ days) have the founders acting out scenes: no sugar, natural flavour, nothing nasty. By this point everybody knows these two are the founders, and the goal is to play to people already invested in the brand. These ads work best on the community they've already built. They play brother and sister in their videos for laughs. They're not related.
- 146 days liveVideoBetter ingredients than the big brands
- 145 days liveVideoWait, we're doing an ad?
- 140+ days liveVideoAre you the SULT guy?
Statics that close, and when they spend
The box and the price
The image ads are plain statics that sell the product. "1 drink, full body benefits" shows exactly what's inside and breaks down each ingredient's benefit: pink Himalayan salt, potassium, magnesium, calcium and more. If you've already seen their content about how SULT is great for you, or for runners and athletes, but you're not sold yet, it reinforces the benefits and shows how the ingredients deliver them.
"Better skin from £1 per serving" handles the price objection by showing what the product costs per use. Less than £1 per serving is arguably less than a bottle of water. If you're an office worker buying a Coca-Cola, a Red Bull or a Monster, you're making a healthy swap that costs you less. It also shows a free bottle on your second order.
153 days liveStatic1 drink, full body benefits
140+ days liveStaticBetter skin from £1 per serving
187 days liveStaticVariety pack UGC
Black Friday
Their first Black Friday ran a VIP sign-up list in the run-up (341 days live): new boxes, new flavours, new office, sign up now. That's a good ad for existing, engaged subscribers, because new flavours, products and packaging are always exciting for engaged customers. It's probably not the best ad for a cold audience.
That's how the content strategy works overall: build a large organic following, then remarket to that community with paid ads. This kind of ad works best on people already engaged with the story.
Then came the hard offer, a static: "Black Friday is officially here! So is our brand new flavour", save 33% on SULTY hydration, buy two, get one free (174 days). It upsells you to try the new flavour: buy two, and the third, maybe the new flavour, is free.
When you click through on most of these ads, they go straight to the product page, often with the subscription already ticked. They're selling subscriptions, not one-time purchases, to keep people buying on a repeatable framework.
- 341 days liveVideoSign up to our first Black Friday ever
174 days liveStaticBuy 2, get 1 free
How many ads they run
SULT's live ads peaked at 90 in Black Friday week 2025, and they've run 783 ads in total since launch. Some of those will be the same content used in different ways, so it isn't 783 unique ads, but they're clearly testing a lot of angles. They scale up and down fast, likely trying new creatives, killing the ones that don't work and bringing in new ones.
Until April they mostly ran dynamic creative ads, where Meta mixes the images and text. Since mid-April it's been single images and videos: the classic funnel, where video presents the product, explains it and shows someone using it, and the static image goes for the close. A very traditional ecommerce ad flow.
The £5.50 trial pack ad
This founder-led sales ad sells a trial pack to bring new customers into the product. It ran for 116 days, with Henry selling to camera in 29 seconds.
- 0:00Hook“Someone who works out, keeps fit and healthy, goes on a couple runs every week but also enjoys a few beers...”
- 0:04Who it's for“SULT is for you, we're a UK electrolyte brand.”
- 0:09What it does“We replenish minerals lost on one too many drinks, 5k, 10k runs.”
- 0:13Urgency“Exclusive offer ending in a couple days.”
- 0:16The offer“Brand new six-pack, two of each flavour, £5.50 including shipping.”
- 0:24Risk reversal“We are actually losing money on every order, but that's how confident I am...”
- 0:27Call to action“...that you will love our brand. Go get it.”
In the first three seconds the hook identifies the ideal customer. If you fit the profile, you engage. If you don't, you swipe away. Calling out exactly who an ad is for means you don't waste clicks on people outside your ICP, which is great for customer acquisition costs, because you're only reaching people interested in the product.
He leads straight into the solution, a UK electrolyte brand, which is likely UK-targeted, and it's clear the ad has two ICPs: someone who's had one too many drinks after work, and someone doing 5k or 10k runs. Not a marathon. This isn't for ultra athletes. It's for the casual runner doing the odd 5k who also works and has a drink.
Then it builds urgency with an exclusive offer that's about to end, so you want to buy right now. The offer is a brand new six-pack, two of each flavour, for £5.50 including shipping. That's a low entry point, it's shipped, and you try every flavour. He even says they're losing money on every order, and at that price they probably are.
The offer is the strongest part. To make an offer this strong profitable, they need to make the money back on the second purchase, or hope you upsell yourself into an accessory on the site. They're clearly confident they can capture a repeat purchase. With urgency around an offer that good, you almost feel silly not buying, especially if you've seen the brand around and been thinking about trying it.
Once you've bought, you'll hopefully sign up to the newsletter and hand over your email and phone number for SMS, so they can remarket to you and catch the second purchase. As long as enough people come back for a second order, they can afford to subsidise the orders that don't.
How to copy it
Run something like this as part of a wider content strategy, when you have an engaged audience you can remarket to. It's built to catch people who have been sitting on the fence. Just know that it leaves you with a £5.50 one-off order with no subscription attached. Turning that buyer into a subscriber has to happen after the box arrives, which is why the retention side matters so much.
The funnel
Three clicks from ad to checkout
The static ads act as the bottom of the funnel. The videos build trust, put the founders on camera and put a face to the brand. The statics close the deal.
The current set is three statics, live since 17 October, all going to the same summer offer page. "Get your hydration sorted. 32 sachets. Zero sugar. Save 51%. Try SULT today, risk-free!" No story. Just the price, the saving and an Order Now button. The SULT hydration bundle shows the full price crossed out next to the offer price: the 26-pack box, plus a variety pack and a squeezy bottle free, £53 down to £26. It leads with the hero product and the flavours.
You get one full box of a single flavour, but the variety pack lets you try the rest of the range too. That's a clever way to upsell people into a subscription for a different flavour. The same offer runs in several formats, all pointing at one dedicated landing page built around it.
Live since 17 OctStaticSULT Hydration Bundle £53 £26
Live since 17 OctStatic26 sachets for £26, just £1 per serving, + free bottle worth £15 and variety pack worth £9.99
Live since 17 OctStaticSulty Starter Pack £53 £26, save 51%
The landing page, section by section
The page opens with the hero and a large CTA, then builds trust with 508 verified reviews and customer images.
"When do I SULT?" tells you who it's for and when to take it: hangover recovery, more energy and less fatigue, skin health, exercise and recovery.
"Two friends on a mission" pushes the founders' faces hard, because they're always on camera. If you've seen Milly and Henry before, it closes the trust loop. If you've watched them build the brand, in the factory and doing taste tests, and now you're on their landing page, you trust it immediately and have no concern buying.
"Formulated in London, made in Britain" targets the UK market with a product made in your home country, under the highest production standards, reinforcing quality.
Then a comparison table shows SULT against the competition, Liquid I.V. and Humantra, on price per serving, sugar, carbs, total electrolytes and origin. You might already be buying one of them, and the table explains how SULT is different.
Then the offer from the ad. You choose your flavour and see everything included. One of the main issues with electrolyte brands is that you commit to a big box, 26 sachets here, without knowing which flavour you'll like. If you buy a £26 box of peach and don't like it, the variety pack means you still find your favourite. That's likely huge for repeat purchase. If the offer was just one flavour, customers would worry about choosing wrong, and someone who didn't like their flavour might never come back, assuming they wouldn't like any of them.
The squeezy bottle, which you see in all their videos, is thrown in free. "Try it risk free" takes you straight to checkout. There's no cart, and that's great for conversion rates. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee, and the page closes with testimonials, reviews and lots of UGC images.
Three clicks
You're served the static ad, and that's your first click. You land on the summer offer page and hit "Get offer", your second. "Try it risk free" is your third, and you're on the checkout. From seeing the ad to buying, you're three clicks away, with no friction anywhere. They've even removed add to cart. They're not trying to sell anything except the offer you were shown: no cart, no upsells, nothing else. It's hyper-relevant to the ad.
- Static adShows the offerClick 1
- Summer offer page“Get offer”Click 2
- “Try it risk free”No cartClick 3
- CheckoutPay
In our opinion this is a 10 out of 10 flow, and something you can copy.
How to copy it
If you're building ads around a specific offer, build it exactly like this. Show the offer clearly in the ad, so the customer knows what they're getting. One click takes them to a custom landing page. Break the page into sections: CTA for the offer, the competition, how it works, benefits, proof, then one click to buy. You'll be ahead of 99% of brands.
A product page that defaults to subscription
SULT's offer is heavily focused on selling subscriptions. On the product page for their hero product, SULT Electrolytes, you're defaulted to the subscription option, and told why straight away: save £8.99.
Buy once is £31 for 26 sachets, plus £3.99 delivery. Subscribing is £26 every four weeks, about £1 a day, with free delivery and gifts worth £50+. The £8.99 saving is the £5 off plus the £3.99 delivery. Every option shows its saving in pounds.
- 1 packSave £8.99
- 3 packsSave £18.99
- 6 packsSave £33.99Best value
Here's an interesting detail. On subscription, you're set to one pack. Click buy once and it immediately switches you to three packs. They lead with the subscription as most popular, but for the customer who isn't going to subscribe, defaulting to three packs is a smart way to increase AOV and cart size.
The pack options push you to subscribe with as many packs as possible: one pack saves £8.99, three packs save £18.99, six packs, best value, save £33.99. Then the bundle builder lets you choose flavours.
What we like is how enticing the flavours are. It doesn't just list Watermelon Berry, Peach Citrus and Mango Tropical as names. You'd still be able to add each one, but it wouldn't look as appealing, and you wouldn't feel the same urge to click. Instead each flavour has a great image: the watermelon is covered in water and looks hydrating just to look at. It hits that dopamine feeling. And if you're only selecting one flavour, you feel like you're missing out on the other two, so you want to add at least one of each. The three-pack might well be the most popular option for first-time buyers.
Further down, the subscription is reinforced: best seller, the saving over buying once, and "easily pause, cancel or adjust at any time", so nobody worries about being tied in. There are free gifts worth over £50, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and free UK delivery on every order. Everyone loves free delivery, and these perks only appear on the subscription, not on buy once. Most of the value is clearly in the subscription. The default frequency is every four weeks, which is very reasonable.
Five free gifts on renewal
This is where retention gets interesting. Subscribers get five free gifts, awarded on renewal, and the page shows what each one is worth. On your second delivery you get the SULT bottle. On your third, the SULT Tinny, a storage tin. On your fourth, £5 credit. All subscribers get exclusive events and collections, which helps build community. And on your sixth delivery, £10 credit.
- £261st deliveryFirst box£26, ships free
- 2nd deliveryFree bottleworth £15
- 3rd deliveryFree Tinnyworth £7.99
- £54th delivery£5 store credit
- 5th delivery
- £106th delivery£10 store credit
It's a very good way to improve retention and encourage repeat purchases. A gift gets used once, but credit brings people back to spend it. And it's built to get subscribers through the first six months.
Where it falls short
This is something we'd structure differently. By only rewarding subscription purchases, you lock one-time buyers out of these benefits. Switch to buy once and they disappear: you still get the free bottle, but not the credit, the exclusive events or the chance to earn the Tinny on your third delivery.
Not every customer is a subscription buyer. Some prefer to buy once, as and when they feel like it, because that fits how they use the product. Some buy in bulk, 10 or 20 packs in one go so they're set for the year. Lock rewards to subscribers and those buyers never get rewarded. The retention strategy ends up retaining subscribers rather than your entire customer base.
We'd move these rewards into a points-based loyalty program, based on what a customer spends. You can still time the rewards the same way. Look at your AOV and your points earning rate, and set the free gift at the number of points a customer has around their third order. Tie your earning and redemption rates to your AOV, so on the third order there are enough points to redeem a SULT Tinny, whether they're a subscriber or a one-time buyer.
It also makes customers feel they're building a balance with the brand that they can redeem how they like, without locking anyone out. Otherwise, the rewards are fun, and the exclusive events and collections are great for community building. SULT clearly knows how to build a community. The product page and upsell strategy are fantastic. The only thing we'd change is how the rewards are surfaced.
The cart and the checkout
Adding one of each flavour as a one-time buyer, you get a free bottle, so it looks like you need three packs for it. We'd surface that before it happens, with something like "add a minimum of three packs to get a free bottle", visible at all times, so it upsells you to three packs rather than appearing after you've done it.
In the cart there's a discount saving, buy three and get 10%, and the bottle is added automatically. There's an immediate upsell to subscription, "switch to subscription and save", repeated for each flavour. There's also an offers tab, marked with a red dot, which again pushes subscriptions, what you'd save and the benefits.
With three packs as a one-time purchase, checkout showed free shipping, even though the cart pushed the subscription with free delivery as a benefit and didn't mention that this order already qualified. With just one box, shipping was £3.99. Switch that to a subscription and there's an immediate £5 saving, an offer to add another flavour at £24.80, cheaper than the £26 flavour already in the cart, and free shipping, with a recurring total of £26 every four weeks.
The benefits of subscribing are built into every step. They're very focused on repeat purchase, which makes sense, especially when some of their offers lose money up front and they need to make that value back on later orders.
Make customers redeem their own credit
We couldn't verify whether the subscription credit applies automatically. In our own data, credit works better when the customer applies it themselves. If you auto-apply it, the customer starts to expect it and anticipate the discount. If they're awarded credit and then go and apply it, they get the dopamine of having earned something and redeeming it.
So if you award store credit or a discount on renewal, make the customer redeem it, and surface it in their account. That way they go in, see the reward they've earned, and apply it to their order. They get the feeling of using what they've earned.
Free shipping you earn
SULT probably has a very efficient delivery flow. The sachet boxes are small, so they can likely absorb the cost of free delivery. Not every brand can, especially with large or heavy products. Instead, you can automatically upgrade customers to free shipping based on their lifetime value. Rather than offering free shipping to every subscriber, some brands offer it once a customer has spent a certain amount, when it becomes logical to subsidise it.
What we'd change
Reward spend, not just subscriptions
At the moment every gift goes to subscribers only. We'd move the free product and the store credit into a points system, so everyone is a winner. Someone who buys a £31 box every month spends £372 a year and gets no gifts, purely because they didn't subscribe. They should absolutely be rewarded too.
Subscribers still earn on every delivery, so they lose nothing. SULT has all the data on their brand, so there may be a solid reason they haven't done this.
Keep rewarding past month six
Once a subscriber hits their sixth delivery, they've had every free gift the brand offers. This is another place points work better, because customers keep earning: more store credit, or new things introduced to the brand, like smaller accessories, keychains, badges, sticker packs, or different colours and types of bottle.
Keep rewarding customers after their sixth delivery, so they always have a reason to come back. With the current setup, a customer might reach their sixth delivery, know about the gifts, and feel there's nothing left to earn, which leaves less reason to stay subscribed, unless the rewards repeat. We don't think they do, and if they did, customers would end up with a ridiculous number of SULT bottles. It comes back to the first point: points-based rewards give you far more flexibility than renewal-based ones.
Give the community a referral programme
We were very surprised not to find a referral programme. SULT has a hyper-engaged community that loves the founder story and the brand, but no way for customers to refer their friends, at least not that we could find.
Take the office. The packaging is exciting and the high-contrast colours stand out, so if SULT is on your desk, your colleagues will ask what it is, whether it's nice, and whether they should try it. You might even give them a sachet. With a referral programme, you can tell your team you can refer them: they get a discount they can't get anywhere else, which gives them a reason to buy now, and you get a reward for it, because you love the brand and can try a new flavour or a different coloured bottle.
If SULT doesn't want fixed discounts and money off, they could reward with points, and let those points unlock exclusive community events or a meet and greet. One brand we work with, Love Sweat Fitness, is a fitness influencer brand. Their highest-earning VIP members can save enough points to redeem a one-on-one workout with the founder. Something like that would work really well for SULT: a factory tour, a meet and greet at their office, or a day with the founders, to get people chasing points, referring friends and buying more.
Bring trial pack and Boots buyers back online
Next, we'd focus on bringing trial pack buyers and people who buy in Boots back to shop on the online store.
For in-store purchases, put a QR code in the box that goes straight to the SULT website. It reaches buyers who don't know about the website, subscribing or the offers, and gets them buying direct, while they can still buy from retail partners on the go. Once they're on the site, you capture their email and SMS, which gives you plenty of ways to market to them, and you can give them points just for signing up.
For trial pack buyers, earning back a little credit to spend on their next order gives a further reason to make that second purchase. It's hard to give much back on a trial pack, but even 5%, which here is literally about 25p, can make a difference, because the customer feels they've started a balance with the store.
The QR code in the retail box is the key one, because it drives direct purchases and gets you the customer's data. If someone buys SULT in Boots, you have no idea who they are, no email, and no way to remarket to them. They might only buy once because it was convenient, without knowing the website or the founder story. A QR code that takes them to your site, shows them the loyalty program, introduces the founders and shows they can refer friends makes them feel part of the brand and builds far more engagement.
Tell real-life stories in the ads
Finally, based on what they're running in the Meta Ad Library, we'd lean harder on real-life use cases, with three storylines.
An office worker on a busy 9 to 5: taking SULT on the train, drinking it at work, on the way home, and in the evening to stay hydrated through the night.
A DJ working late nights in a club, around alcohol, drinking SULT through the shift and waking up the next morning feeling completely refreshed, without the dehydration. That relates to night shift workers, people who party, and anyone working where alcohol is consumed heavily.
And fitness, which SULT already focuses on: more people taking it for running, before, after or even during a run, and casual gym-goers who don't drink enough water and need to stay hydrated to recover and build muscle faster.
Individual creators in each niche could build out those storylines, showing how SULT fits into their day. They already test angles for skin and tired office workers, mostly as a creator talking to camera. These would turn those into short stories. These are just ideas from the outside: SULT has data we don't.
What you can steal
Five things you can copy at any size
SULT is a relatively new brand, about 18 months old, and a lot of what they did cost nothing to set up. You can copy much of it without a huge budget.
Put a reward on the second delivery, not just the first
On SULT's subscription, the free bottle comes on the second delivery. Rewarding the second purchase straight away is an easy way to encourage repeat purchase and lift your repeat purchase rate.
Use merch you already sell as the reward
The bottle is relatively cheap for SULT to give away, but the logo on it is big and visible. When the customer is out with it on the train, or it's on their desk at the office, it's free marketing, generating impressions from everyone around them. If you have low-cost merch, like stickers, key rings, T-shirts or a bottle you can sell, give it as a reward. It puts your brand in front of people without costing you much.
Give store credit so people come back to spend it
Give customers a reason to come back. Every time they buy, give them a balance they can only spend with you, whether that's points or store credit, so they're rewarded for repeat purchases.
It's great for remarketing too. Build Meta ad audiences of customers with more than a set amount of store credit, and serve them an ad like "You've got £5 waiting in your account, go and spend it". Or set up segmented Klaviyo flows that email customers with an unused credit balance and encourage them to make a purchase. It's a valuable tool for remarketing to your customers.
Link ads to hyper-relevant pages
SULT links ads to the product page with the subscription ticked. You don't need to tick the subscription, and you can do this without being a subscription brand. Take it a step further and send each ad to a hyper-relevant landing page, like SULT's summer offer page. If you have a specific offer, a hero product or a bundle, build a page exclusively around it.
What SULT does well is keep you three clicks from checkout: click the ad, click the CTA that takes you to the product, hit "get the bundle", and pay. Send customers to a frictionless page that doesn't overwhelm them, especially new customers. If you're targeting a cold audience that hasn't bought yet, explain the product clearly, make it simple to buy, and don't try to upsell too much on the first purchase. A pre-built bundle with a high enough price and enough products can introduce them to your brand on its own. And if you sell subscriptions, link straight to the product page with subscription as the default, but make sure there's a clear reason why subscribing is better.
Let customers vote on what you make next
When SULT launched, they let customers vote on the flavours they wanted. They built a hyper-engaged community that felt it had some control over the brand. Run surveys and ask customers what flavours they want and where they want the brand to go next. Build a community and focus your content around their responses.
You can even hold community meetups and vote in public, and capture it as content. Bring everyone to a run club, and at the end, everyone votes on where the brand goes next. Tally it up, announce it, and film the whole thing. It makes already engaged people feel they have real influence over the brand, it's exciting to watch, and it brings the community closer together.
What you probably can't copy
This doesn't happen overnight. One of SULT's founders started with close to a million followers, and having two founders people actually want to watch, early in electrolytes for normal people, is hard to replicate. But that doesn't mean you can't do the same. You have a story and a journey too. If you're running a brand, you can build an engaged audience and a following by sharing everything you're doing and letting people get involved directly.
All of the data here is what was publicly available. Some parts of the strategy we can't confirm, like exactly how SULT targets its ads and how everything fits together, but we can break down most of what they're doing and get a good idea of how they're targeting interests.
