Women in Promo: Ally Delgado on Building Merchology and Raising the Bar for Branded Merch
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Launching Merchology with her family and scaling the branded merch company into a global business, Ally Delgado shares lessons on adaptability, responsible merch, and supporting the next generation of women in promo.
From earning her master’s degree in marketing from Harvard Business School to taking on roles in the corporate world, Ally Delgado’s journey to co-founding Merchology helped shape the way she built the company.
Founded in 2014 alongside her brother and father, Merchology specializes in custom company merchandise. From branded apparel and uniforms to corporate gifts and promotional items, the promotional products decorator has merch down to a science.
“In the beginning, I was helping build the company while balancing my corporate role, but the business started gaining traction quickly, and it became clear that this could be something much bigger than we originally imagined,” Delgado shares. “I was early in my career and realized it was the perfect time to take that entrepreneurial risk. The chance to build a company alongside my brother and dad felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
She took the leap, and while it came with plenty of risk, she wasn’t in complete uncharted territory. Consulting and her time at Harvard Business School taught her to break down complex problems, analyze opportunities, and understand the ROI behind decisions, she says.
During her time in brand management, she fell in love with brand building and storytelling, working with brands like Nature Valley and Hamburger Helper. It gave her a look inside the brand-employee and brand-customer relationship and the emotion tied to it. She also experienced firsthand how broken the system was for buying merch as a marketer.
When Merchology launched, she brought those learning experiences with her. Branded merch became more than just products. She saw them as a company’s brand story that creates connection.
How Merchology Scaled Its Branded Merch Business
Advice for Women Early in Their Careers
“Get curious about the business beyond your own role.”
Have conversations with leaders beyond your direct manager, across the organization, and witthin the industry. Seek to understand how the business makes money, how it operates, and the metrics that drive decisions.
“Competence builds confidence, and the more you understand the bigger picture, the more impact you can have as a leader,” she encourages others. “When it comes to stepping into leadership, many women wait until they feel completely ready. But if you wait for that moment, it may never come. Say yes, step into the role, and trust that you will grow into it. Confidence often follows experience, not the other way around.”
Twelve years later, Merchology has grown to tens of millions in revenue and serves more than 60,000 companies worldwide. Delgado says adaptability was critical to that growth and remains one of its core values.
“As an entrepreneur, you have to constantly scan the industry and the broader macro environment to understand where the opportunity is and where your business can uniquely win,” she explains. “Once you see that opportunity, you have to move quickly and act decisively. But at the same time, you can’t become complacent. Markets, customer needs, and technology evolve quickly, so you must keep your antenna up and continually reassess whether your business model is still aligned with where the market is going.”
What drove the company’s growth in its first six years is very different from what drives its growth today, she explains, and that will continue to evolve. Early growth came from a strong digital marketing engine that drove traffic to its e-commerce site and by bringing retail brands into the corporate market.
“We were anti-low-quality products that would end up in landfills,” she says. “Combining the world-class brands we brought to the market with our digital marketing engine drove astronomical growth in the early years. We represented countless brands in the corporate channel as either their first or one of their early distributor partners, including Under Armour, YETI, Travis Mathew, Carhartt, Patagonia, and Richardson. We humbly earned the opportunity to show these companies that this channel is a great marketing and awareness-building opportunity and would be purely incremental volume to their B2C business.”
The second phase of its growth came post-COVID. With the pandemic came fears around business continuity. Events and travel were put on hold, and website traffic took a nosedive, Delgado shares.
So came the next focus: evolving. This time, Merchology focused on building relationships and capacity, shifting from a purely e-commerce model to deeper customer relationships, sales investment, and expanded decoration and fulfillment.
“We had to start calling our customers to deepen those relationships because the orders were not coming as easily,” she shares. “Their insights during this time were critical because we learned about their evolving needs.”
That included drop shipping, company stores, and additional products beyond its core of embroidered apparel and drinkware.
“We’ve now evolved into more of a hybrid player in this market,” she explains. “E-commerce remains a big part of our business, and we’re leveraging our strong foundation and twelve years of experience to continue to serve customers that want that online-only experience. However, we have now significantly expanded our sales capabilities and technology solutions to serve larger enterprise customers who may need a more service-driven partner. The two complement each other well and provide a healthy balance for the business.”
Merchology's Minnesota and Pennsylvania production facilities. | Credit: Merchology
A Responsible Approach to Branded Merch
Sustainability is a major focus at Merchology, and Delgado says Patagonia inspired the company’s own carbon-neutral brand.
“They showed us you can build a great brand while also doing the right thing for people and the planet,” she says. “We told them we wanted to start our own sustainability brand since we didn’t see enough of what they were doing in the corporate marketplace. They were extremely supportive and helpful to us in that journey.”
Delgado saw firsthand how many low-quality promotional items end up unworn or in landfills, so she did something about it.
“We wanted to introduce something new that truly had a lower environmental footprint while also being desirable for the end user,” Delgado says. “Besides Patagonia, there wasn’t much in the way of sustainable product in our industry back in 2019 when we came out with Zusa.”
As the company’s sustainability focus has grown, so has its perspective. Delgado says Merchology prefers the term “responsible,” one of its five core values, which more closely aligns with its goals.
"As a business and as leaders, we aim to make responsible choices — choices that are mutually good for the planet, our people, our communities, our bottom line,” she continues. “Innovation and cost structures have shifted where those perspectives (business realities versus doing what's best for the planet and people) are not at odds with one another. We are an EcoVadis certified company, and their assessment helps us measure the collective impact of our business on the planet. It’s not just what we sell or the money we donate, but how our decisions, partnerships, and operations contribute to long-term positive impact.”
As Merchology has evolved, purposeful products have been the throughline since day one. What has changed, Delgado says, is the mindset that high-quality branded merch must be expensive. It doesn't have to be.
“We’ve drastically expanded our assortment to represent products in more categories, such as hard goods, and price points,” she adds. “Quality and usefulness are still non-negotiables for us, and we have a hands-on product strategy team who takes its product recommendations very seriously. They stay on top of the latest trends, but they have a filter for longevity as well.”
Some of Merchology's work for brands like Capital One, Caribou Coffee, Lucas Oil, Ping, and Nature Valley includes embroidered products, MerchBoxes, private labeling, and its responsibly made Zusa product line. | Credit: Merchology
Leadership Lessons and Representation
As a woman leading a fast-growing company, Delgado says a few leadership lessons have shaped her approach. First and foremost, she has a team-first mindset.
“The quality of the work you put out ultimately comes down to the buy-in and care of the people around you every single day,” she says. “I’m someone who really loves connecting with people and building relationships, so as the company has grown, one of the adjustments has been realizing that I can’t personally touch every employee’s experience the way I could in the early days.”
This leads to the lesson she’s learned on developing and hiring strong leaders. It’s about trusting her employees to carry forward the vision and culture she wants to create, and throughout the years, she’s learned that people-pleasing and leadership don’t mix well.
“I’m a very empathetic person, but sometimes the hardest decisions are the right ones for the long-term health of the company,” she shares. “Constant growth and change aren’t easy, and it’s not for everyone, so I try not to get paralyzed by trying to be perfect — just care deeply about people and make the best decisions you can with the information you have.
That work earned Delgado recognition as a 40 Under 40 Honoree by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. For her, the honor reflects the people she so humbly talks about – the ones who supported, challenged, and worked alongside her through her career.
“Any progress I’ve made has truly been a team effort,” she says. “Now that I’ve reached 40, it’s funny, I actually feel like I’m just getting started. The recognition is meaningful, but it also motivates me to keep learning, building, and contributing in ways that create lasting impact.”
Reflecting during Women’s History Month, Delgado says many opportunities today exist because of “the progress driven by the women who came before us.” She emphasizes the responsibility of women in leadership to sustain that momentum for the next generation.
“That means showing up as strong leaders, intentionally identifying and developing talented women, and creating pathways for others to rise,” she says. “Representation matters. People need to see it to believe it. At Merchology, that’s something we take seriously. Sixty-four percent of our 245 employees are women, and 58% of our management roles are held by women. When you step into leadership, you’re not just doing it for yourself; you’re expanding what others believe is possible. Step into the opportunity and be generous about bringing others along with you.”