The other day we received one of the greatest reviews in DTC history.
Check it out 👇
The entire DTC team had a good laugh, but it got us thinking. What do readers REALLY think of the newsletter?
So here’s the plan:
Reply to this email with your wildest and craziest review of the DTC Newsletter and we’ll feature the funniest ones. :)
If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Tushy, Noom, Marquis, Hint, Dr. Brandt, L'Oréal, and Bulletproof. ✨
In this newsletter you’ll find:
✅ Using naming conventions in your Facebook ads.
🤑 How to boost your SEO game.
📫 Increasing email open rates with Chase Dimond.
🎥 A copy-free ad we’re loving.
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, subscribe so you never miss out. And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
NEWS: Facebook is slowly rolling out their new naming convention template builder which finally allows your expert teams to enforce consistency across all your campaigns.
Many buyers already use their own naming conventions.
But, Facebook has been slowly rolling out dynamic naming template changes to Ads Manager; now once you’ve saved a name template, you can apply it when you create a new campaign, ad set, or ad.
🚨NOTE: The update is only rolling out gradually, so there’s a chance not every ad account will have it.
These naming conventions can be applied automatically if you choose.
For example, your campaign objective can be dynamically filled in and updated.
Ensure the changes you make to campaigns, ad sets, or ads are reflected in their names without manually updating them.
Using a standardized naming convention makes setting up rules easier.
For example, if you name a campaign as "TOF," you can set up an optimization rule for campaigns with the name "TOF" so that rule will only apply to that naming convention element.
Create an abbreviated summary of your campaign, ad set, or ad settings, which is easy to see from the reporting table.
Build custom fields to include a list of options.
Example: ad format - [PIC], [VID], [CAROUSEL]
Example: audience targeting - [OPEN], [TIER1], [NA]
Campaigns: [FunnelStage_Objective_Destination_Date_Notes]
Example: TOFU_Leads_LeadGen_Aug20_ContentGiveaway
[Content_AudienceType_Location_Date_Note_Objective]
Example: ShortformAds_1%LALs_Canada_Aug20_Scarcity/Angle_Leads
[CreativeType_CopyType_Date]
Example: UGCVideos_ScarcityAngleSF_Aug20
Ordergroove – the leader in subscription commerce – is here to make sure your one-time shoppers become life-long loyalists with their new on-demand webinar: How to Turn One-Time Transactions into Long-Lasting Relationships.
With competition on the rise and acquisition costs skyrocketing, customer loyalty is now a requirement for success. In fact, it’s 5-25x more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer.
👉 To help merchants understand how to flip the funnel and focus on driving customer retention, Ordergroove asked CBDistillery and Hawaii Volcanic Beverages to share how they launched successful subscription programs and what they do to create VIP experiences.
In the on-demand webinar, you'll learn:
🤔 Don’t have a subscription program yet? Not happy with your existing subscription provider? Get in touch with Ordergroove's subscription experts here.
Alexa, how do I up my SEO game?
Ok, so, Alexa can’t tell you how to boost your specific website’s SEO (she’s an AI bot, not an SEO consultant).
But, the answers Alexa gives are examples of AI activated SEO in action!
The term AI covers a host of different technologies including machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), and other similar technologies.
Artificial Intelligence is quickly becoming an indispensable tool to put a business above its competitors through data gathering, analysis, and automation.
Search tools, like the almighty Google, have been using AI (i.e. RackBrain and BERT) for years to optimize results on its search platform.
SEO (like your business) always keeps the end user in mind.
Meaning, when search engines look through sites to rank them, these search engines are tailored to find parts of a site that indicate a strong user experience, including a website’s UX and content quality.
The fundamental question to ask yourself –does your website answer the questions your user has been searching for?
AI tools help in SEO by finding ways to boost each component of your website to give your consumers what they want.
Just like Rachel’s hair in Friends, SEO is ever changing. For each new SEO trend, there’s an AI to suggest ways to optimize your ranking.
AI tools can help identify relevant and related keywords, provide information on user intent, and give key insights about your users so you can create content tailored to your audience’s needs.
These answers can be personalized for different stages of your user funnel.
🚨 Tools like Semrush’s SEO Content Template Tool suggest related keywords to use in your content, backlinks, and recommended text length based on keywords you’d like to rank for. 🚨
You can also use AI tools to find keywords and queries that your users are searching for, and that your competitors rank in, to further tailor your site.
Once you’ve identified these keywords and frequently searched questions, create content clusters that your users are already searching for.
Repurposing and updating older content is key during this stage!
Increasing the amount of personalization on your platform will increase time spent on your website, and increase conversions (duhh!)
By using tools like Market Brew, you can determine user intent, predict user preferences, and tailor your site to match those preferences.
Use AI tools to find out users’ previous searches, predict what they’re intent is, and tailor your content to those needs.
User personalization is especially important with improved predictive search such as Google Discover where users are automatically suggested search inputs based on their previous searches.
The better your content matches these search inputs, the more likely your site will rank in the results.
With the amount of data available these days, it’s becoming even more exhausting to collect, organize, and analyse data manually.
AI tools like Alli AI help reduce the manual labor associated with conducting website audits, fix duplicate content, and other technical SEO needs and so you can focus instead on determining optimizing content relevant to your users.
Curious to learn more about SEO? Reply to this email and let us know!
More > less.
More buying power. More time to pay. More data. More growth.
Their team spent years building Snap’s ad platform.
Now, they’ve launched Trust to help your DTC business grow smarter.
Right now, they’re extending a special offer to the DTC Newsletter community: 60-day payment terms for your first statement period AND a $500 credit after you spend $25K during that period.
Grow your business in good company with Trust.
👉 Apply now.
This week on the pod, we chatted with one of the best in email marketing, Chase Dimond (yep, it’s 💎 without the "A").
Chase has gained over $75M in attributable email revenue for his clients.
This episode is a goldmine for all things email. Get ready to listen, learn, and take ferocious notes.
Chase breaks down brands into four categories based on annual revenue.
This helps him determine which flows and campaigns he should build and optimize for each brand.
For example, Category 1 brands ($0-100K in annual revenue) should have the following emails:
Welcome Series (non-buyers)
Abandon Checkout (NOT the same as Abandon Cart!)
Post Purchase (first-time buyers)
At least 1 per week (Product launches, holidays, social proof, events, etc.)
The other 3 categories are broken down in detail in the podcast. Srsly, grab the notepad!
"The true north star metric here is focusing on people that have clicked on your email, people that have replied, people that are active on your website, and people that are placing orders.
That’s gonna be the new norm. How do you get people to engage, outside of just opening?"
In addition to optimizing for CTR, Chase is focusing on email deliverability and rendering.
For testing email deliverability, try the free tools Gmass.co/inbox and Mailgenius.
A minor goof ended up increasing Chase’s open rate, and now he does it for all his emails.
He accidentally put his email in the "From" field. 🙊
But it worked!
Why?
In other words, sometimes you just need to shake things up to see results!
More people are shopping online than ever before.
Which means shipping times for BFCM this year will probably be longer than ever. 😭
What should DTC brands do? Focus on fulfillment… starting now!
👉 To hear more from Chase about crushing email marketing in 2021, listen to the full pod here!
We’re loving this copy-free video ad from Uniqlo!
The product pops off the minimal background while showing how compact and easy it is to stow or travel.
The quick and smooth cuts make it super appealing to the eye. We’ve watched this video at least a hundred times. 😬
The only thing we’d suggest is testing an outdoor background for even more pop! 🌏
👆 Instagram is removing swipe-up links for stories, replacing the function with link stickers.
✅ How QSR loyalty programs stack up in 2021.
⚖️ As Facebook pushes a replacement for its increasingly weak tracker, advertisers weigh privacy risk and reward.
🏬 With new retail spaces on the way, can Amazon save department stores?
🎥 Facebook brings reels to its main app as it seeks to capitalize on the short-form video trend.
🤑 What is Instagram Creator Studio? [+ how marketers can use it].
💰 How Discord aids brands' quest to engage fans around 'emergent culture.’
✅ How to boost your SEO with Third-Party Reviews.
📈 Google Ads adds more Custom Columns for reporting.
📫 Chase Dimond on iOS 15 changes and this one simple hack to raise your email open rates by 20%.
📈 Geeking out on growth with Little Spoon's Simon Wool.
🤯 Slashing customer acquisition costs with Nik Sharma.
👩💻 Marea Wellness scales menstrual health organically on TikTok and Reddit with Monica Grohne.
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Thomas Schreiber, Annie Wang, Kelsey Hess, and Rebecca Knight.
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.
NEED MORE DTC?
🔊 Podcast.
✍️ Blog and past newsletters.
🚀 Advertise in DTC Newsletter.
📥 Work for The DTC Newsletter: Send an email to Thomas, thomas@directtoconsumer.co, if you’re interested in writing or working on our social media team!
DTC 2021. All Rights Reserved.
DTC is fueled by Pilothouse company registered in Victoria, BC, Canada.