DTC874: MiLa Checkout Trick, Post-Click Metrics, and AI Mode Ads

Good morning, 

Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:

🔥 MìLà’s Clever Conversion Trick
Get customers to checkout faster. 

🔢 A Journey Metrics Crash Course
Post-click metrics to benchmark your funnel. 

🚨 Daily Tariff Update
Trump threatens to raise tariffs on this country.

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: The Beauty Chef, Podqi, and Kasmiri. 👋

🤖 Haaaaaave You Met SIA?

Think influencer marketing takes too much time? You need to meet SIA.

Unlike generic AI tools, SARAL’s Influencer Assistant (SIA) was trained on thousands of real influencer marketing conversations.

SIA understands the nuances of influencer relationships, knows how to negotiate without being pushy, and writes outreach that sounds just like you.

Sounds ideal right? There’s more! 🎉

SIA can cover everything influencer marketing that’s eating away at your time. Think things like:

• Authentic influencer outreach ✅
• Follow-up sequences ✅
• Analysis of your best partnerships to find similar influencers who fit your brand ✅

So, what does SIA in your life give you? More partnerships per month, zero missed follow-ups, and a calendar finally free for the strategic work you’ve been pushing aside.

Want to see how SIA can help you start or scale your influencer marketing program? 👇

[Screenshot via MìLà’s website]

💰 How MìLà Captures More Sales at Checkout

Want to get your customers to check out faster?

Take a page out of MìLà’s playbook.

The frozen dumpling brand has been on a growth tear, with monthly sales surpassing $820K.

Part of that success comes down to smart, conversion-boosting UX decisions.

One of their standout CRO tactics happens at a critical moment: the slide-out cart.

What MìLà gets right:

As soon as a customer adds a product to their cart, MìLà doesn’t just sit back and hope they check out.

Instead, they apply subtle but effective urgency nudges, right in the slide-out experience.

Here’s what’s working:

✅ Urgency messaging front and center

MìLà adds a green callout box with this message:

“An item in your cart is in high demand. Order now to reserve your delivery. Your cart is reserved for X minutes.”

This primes the customer to act fast, suggesting the product may sell out and that the clock is ticking. ⏰

✅ Countdown timer

The visual countdown adds pressure to complete the purchase quickly, making it feel more like a limited-time opportunity than an open-ended shopping decision.

Why this tactic drives results:

Urgency and scarcity are two proven psychological triggers in ecommerce.

By adding these you help reduce decision paralysis, create FOMO (fear of missing out) and give customers a clear reason to act now, not later.

MìLà smartly places this urgency messaging before the customer even reaches the full checkout page, intervening at a moment when most brands do nothing.

The takeaway?

In a cluttered DTC landscape, urgency done well isn’t pushy, it’s persuasive.

MìLà proves that small, thoughtful CRO tweaks can add up to big results.

Test it out and see if it helps move the needle!

Test when to reveal price in the customer journey using multivariate testing. 

Try showing it:

✅ In the ad
✅ At the top of the landing page
✅ At the bottom of the landing page
✅ At checkout

Track click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR) across variants. 

Timing can significantly impact perceived value and conversion. 

Use results to find your ideal reveal point!

🤔 Want to Know Why This Million-Member Loyalty Program Got Shut Down?

Yotpo’s podcast, The Loyalists, returns with another spotlight on how industry leaders actually build brand loyalty.

In episode three, Shut Downs, Subscriptions & the Soul of Loyalty, learn why David Baker, Chief Digital Officer at Beekman 1802, boldly sunset a million-member loyalty program at L'Oréal Paris.

His reason? It simply didn’t work.

In the candid conversation with host Adam Long, Baker shares:

• How to identify ineffective loyalty programs 
• Why product experience trumps everything
• How Beekman 1802 builds human-centered loyalty through compliments, community, and trust rather than traditional points and perks

If you’re rethinking loyalty strategy beyond transactional rewards, this episode is full of essential insights.

Save the link for later or…

🤖 ChatGPT Poised To Hit 700 Million Weekly Users

OpenAI shares ChatGPT is about to hit a new milestone: 700 million active users, with usage growing 4x YoY. 😲

The company now has 5 million paying business users as the public increasingly adopts AI tools for everyday use.

📦 Your Daily Tariff Check-In

Whether it’s a minor tweak or a major shift, we’ll keep you posted on the latest tariff changes—so you’re always in the know. 

August 6, 2025 update:

• Trump Raise Tariffs on India
  
  • Trump has issued an executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff on India over its purchases of Russian oil.
    
  • This will take effect on August 27 and will raise the total tariff on Indian imports to the United States to 50%, among the highest rates imposed by the U.S.
    
  • India's foreign ministry called this executive order "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable."

🎧 7 Post-Click Metrics to Benchmark Your Funnel: Journey Metrics Crash Course 

Need to know whether your funnel’s working? 

In this TWBERP episode, Jordan from Pilothouse shares the exact system he used to audit 100+ ecommerce sites in just two days.

It’s a crash course in post-click performance: the 7 key metrics that tell you if your site is converting, retaining revenue, and setting you up for repeat purchases.

In this episode, learn how to:

• The Power of Post-Click Metrics: Jordan shares his method for quickly assessing client accounts using just a few metrics to understand the overall health of a site.
  
  "In just a handful of metrics, you can understand how your site is performing and where it’s going wrong."
  
  
• Breaking Down Cart Add & Conversion Rates: Jordan explains how the relationship between these two metrics can help optimize revenue generation.
  
  "If you push customers directly to checkout, you might get higher conversions but lower AOV. The key is finding the right balance."
  
  
• The Role of Discount and Return Rates: Keep an eye on your discount rate, return rate, and completion rate to ensure you're not giving away too much profit while retaining customer loyalty.
  
  "A discount rate of around 11% is pretty standard, but it’s crucial to understand how that impacts your overall revenue."
  

 👉 Listen to the full episode with Jordan here.

🏃‍➡️ Still chasing DMs, manually tracking ROI, paying too much for tools? Endlss does it all for $0. Del Campo scaled to 85 creators with zero spend. Claim 100 free influencers. *

📥 Got a B2B Biz? 

Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 150k brand leaders and founders this year. Talk to our team to learn more.

Have you heard our latest podcasts?

• 🐶 Plufl’s TikTok Strategy, Tariff Setback, and Product Pivot
• 💡 AKNF 530: Copy Pilothouse’s Creative System for Q4 Scale
• 🦸 Ad-venturous 12: Predict Relevance To Create Resonance 
• 🎨 TWBERP 43: Campaign Emails That Inspire, Not Blend In 
• 🍷 Maker Wine’s Strategy: How The Canned Wine Brand Grew
• 📸 Ad-venturous 11: UGC v.s. CGC, v.s. EGC 

Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.

Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.