DTC902: Apps for BFCM, TikTok Symphony, and Dead Internet Theory

Good morning,

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

🤖 TikTok Symphony, Explained → AI tools to scale and optimize.

🚨 Daily Tariff Update → Trade tensions rise between the U.S. and Brazil.

📱 iOS 26 Privacy Update → Tracking gets tougher.

💰 Apps To Install Before BFCM → Supercharge your tech stack!

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: FitBiomics, MuscleFood, and Glitter Globe Getaways. 👋

🤯 Guessing Your Way Through Marketing Is Wasting Everyone’s Time. Copy The Rag Company—Call In The Experts And Get Strategy That Actually Works

😵‍💫 Tired of trying to guess the next best marketing move? Frustrated by stagnant growth? Ready for a real solution?

That’s where The Rag Company was at—and then they called in Pilothouse. 🚀

The results?

• 👉 They’re sending 500% more emails than before, and their open rate, click-through rate and conversion rates are all up. 📈
• 👉 On Meta, they’ve seen new customer acquisition grow by over 100% year over year.

They’ve gone from: “It felt like we were shooting in the dark… It always felt like we were guessing." 😣

To: "It’s easy to perform exceptionally well in these channels because I’ve got this group of subject matter experts behind me making it easy to go to market."

Ready to stop guessing?

🎧 Five Creative Ways to Use TikTok Symphony

TikTok Ban Update: ICYMI, the U.S. and China have worked out a tentative 'framework' deal, and President Trump will speak with China's leader Xi Jinping on Friday to finalize the deal.

If you’re running TikTok ads or even just selling on TikTok Shop, you need to stay up to date with TikTok Symphony.

In this week’s All Killer No Filler episode, Debbie from the Pilothouse TikTok team breaks down how they’re using Symphony’s full suite of AI tools to scale creative, streamline workflows, and turn affiliate chaos into a revenue engine.

Here are five ways you can leverage Symphony:

1. Use Symphony Assistant to Build a Creative Strategy in Minutes. Symphony isn’t just an ad generator. It’s a research tool. Use it to surface TikTok trends in your niche, identify popular hooks, and discover high-performing creator formats.

2. Auto-Generate TikTok Ads (That Don’t Suck). Symphony Creative Studio offers tools that let you turn text into videos, images into video, and even photos into demo videos using digital avatars.

3. Write Better Briefs, Faster. Briefing creators is time-consuming and usually under-informed. Symphony gives you sample scripts, proven angles, and hook suggestions. Use Symphony as your internal content strategist, especially when briefing TikTok Shop affiliates.

4. Get Smart With Affiliates. Pilothouse uses Symphony and TikTok Shop data to identify L3-level creators (those driving $25–50K+ in monthly GMV) and engage them like sales reps. You can’t just chase viral moments. Affiliate content gives you consistency, especially when those affiliates already know how to convert on Shop.

5. Fix Your Tracking, Fix Your CPAs. Don’t let broken infrastructure ruin your performance. Debbie shares how she fixed a struggling account’s $300+ CPAs by… just resetting the pixel.

👉 Listen to the full episode with Debbie here.

🚨 70% of Gifted Products Never Generate A Single Post. Here’s What Actually Works

Without structure, gifting quickly drains time and budget, leaving marketers managing creators instead of driving growth. 😵‍💫

👏 Skeepers’ new report, Gifted Reviews: A Data-Driven Guide to Smarter Gifting, reveals the numbers behind today’s gifting landscape and shows how structured, AI-powered campaigns are changing the game. 📊

Inside you’ll learn:

• 🎁 Why smart gifting slashes campaign time from 2–12 weeks down to 2–3 days
• 📈 How UGC-rich campaigns can boost conversions by 161%
• 💝 Case studies from Beautyblender, Drybar & more

Ready to actually get results you’re after?

Stop working harder. Start working smarter. 👈

📦 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.

September 15, 2025 update:

• Brazil Pushes Back Hard on 50% U.S. Tariff
  
  • Brazilian President Lula criticized the U.S.’s recent 50% tariff on Brazilian imports, calling the move "not only misguided but illogical."
    
  • Lula emphasized Brazil remains open to negotiating but warned Trump that "Brazil's democracy and sovereignty are not on the table."

📱 iOS 26: What Marketers Need to Know

Apple has just dropped iOS 26, bringing another round of privacy updates that will change how marketers track and measure performance.

The key shifts:

• Click-ID stripping: Apple’s Link Tracking Protection removes click IDs (like gclid, fbclid) in Mail, Messages, and Safari’s Private Browsing. Early reports suggested broader Safari restrictions, but most testing shows click IDs still survive in normal browsing by default. UTMs appear to continue passing through in standard sessions.
• Fingerprinting protections strengthen: New restrictions on device/browser signals (APIs), noise injection, and limits on script-based tracking make some fingerprinting methods less reliable.
• Attribution is getting fuzzier: With identifiers stripped in some contexts and fingerprinting restricted, expect more conversions that are harder to trace, though not the kind of disruption we saw with iOS 14.

What to do:

• Double down on first-party data and server-side tracking.
• Use aggregated or modeled measurement instead of relying on last-click.
• Reset expectations: reporting will have more gaps, so plan for resilience and test ideas.

👉 Bottom line: iOS 26 continues Apple’s privacy trajectory. Expect more gaps in tracking and build strategies that do not rely on any single signal.

Note: Apple’s privacy features may continue to evolve as iOS 26 rolls out, so expect some details to shift with future updates.

💰 Protect Margins and Prevent Fraud With These Black Friday Apps

The holiday season can make or break your year.

With more traffic, higher order volumes, and tighter timelines, ecommerce brands face both massive revenue opportunities and increased risks (think: leaked discount codes, fraud, and overwhelmed support teams).

Here are four Black Friday apps you can test now to maximize revenue and safeguard operations before the Q4 rush:

1️⃣ Veeper

Discount codes leaking onto coupon sites can tank margins fast. Veeper alerts you when codes show up on sites like Honey, RetailMeNot, or Coupert and blocks them at checkout.

• Integrates with affiliate + influencer apps to keep exclusive codes truly exclusive
• Dashboard tracks coupon usage and leaks in real time

Uses AI to auto-apply the smallest discount needed to convert each customer

2️⃣ NoFraud

Fraud spikes during peak shopping events. NoFraud uses AI + expert analyst reviews to flag and block high-risk orders before they ship. That means fewer chargebacks, less wasted inventory, and more peace of mind.

3️⃣ Order Editing

High-volume days = more customer errors at checkout. Order Editing gives shoppers a window to fix mistakes post-purchase, easing pressure on support teams and preventing costly cancellations.

4️⃣ ShoppingGives

Perfect for post-BFCM momentum, especially on Giving Tuesday. This app lets customers shop while supporting causes they care about: boosting conversions and loyalty through values-driven purchases.

The takeaway?

Q4 is your biggest revenue window of the year, but also your most vulnerable.

Consider testing some apps to protect margins, prevent fraud, and create smoother customer experiences before the Black Friday rush hits.

🤝 The new age of customer loyalty is here! Are you ready? Yotpo just launched smarter reviews, advanced loyalty, AI-powered insights, and more. Check it out here. *

🔎 Customers are discovering brands using AI. Can they find you? Brands like Ollie, Gruns, Latico Leather, and Motion trust Athena to increase brand visibility and awareness in AI Search. Get your free audit here. *

📥 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?

• 🎨 Ad-venturous 19: Creative Diversity Wins Q4
• 💰 TWBERP 50: Email Like A Billion Dollar Brand Part 1
• 🧠 Master The First Second: Hook Attention in Meta Ads
• 🎃 AKNF 540: Using Seasonal Ads Like Halloween as Q4 Prep

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.