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Good morning,
Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:
🌶️ Rare Beauty’s Spicy Pop-Up
A breakdown of their sign-up incentive.
🍬 Rotten’s Candy Growth Play
Expanding into retailers and growing pains.
🤖 Win With Better Creative
Shackleford shares his 15-second framework.
You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Wondercide, Motto Mortgage, and SMYTHE. 👋
🏄 Millions Of Shoppers Turn To Walmart.Com Every Summer For Travel Must-Haves, Outdoor Essentials And Seasonal Gear
🍳 NexGrill, an outdoor cooking and heating brand, joined Walmart Marketplace in 2022.
With access to millions of customers, zero monthly fees, and powerful ecommerce tools, they grew from a small startup to a global brand in just two years. 📈
Today, they’re a Pro Seller with nearly triple the SKUs and a 200% YOY revenue increase. 💥
👉 Now’s your chance to follow their lead, and as a new seller you’re eligible to save up to $75,000 in New-Seller Savings, Walmart’s incentive program going on now.
It’s their biggest offer ever and includes:
Don’t wait—New Seller Savings runs through January 31, 2026, but the sooner you start, the more you can save. 💸
*Conditions apply.
* sponsored
💰 Rare Beauty’s Spicy Offer
Looking to grow your list size ahead of Q4? We’ll be analyzing some email pop-ups the next few weeks and share what’s working and what could use a tune-up.
This week, we’re looking at how Rare Beauty’s email pop-up uses a collab-driven hook to grab the attention of beauty shoppers.
Leading with “NEW | LIMITED EDITION RARE BEAUTY X TAJÍN®” is smart. It taps into exclusivity, urgency, and cultural buzz.
What else works well:
✅ Solid Incentive: While 10% off a $40+ purchase isn’t a huge discount, when paired with ‘limited edition’ messaging, it feels like a step above most offers.
✅ Personalization Element: Rare Beauty also asks for the subscriber’s birthday in the sign-up form.
👉 This allows the brand to run birthday automation campaigns and gets the visitor excited to sign up since there is potential to receive a birthday perk later on.
✅ Strong Visuals: The sleek visual here is very strong and on-brand!
Rare Beauty shows off one of their best-selling blush products along with a limited edition Tajín lip gloss inspired by the famous Mexican seasoning.
It looks polished and promotes newness, which is exciting to customers.
Here are some subtle tweaks that could increase conversions:
❗ Room to improve CTA messaging: The CTA button feels generic. Rare Beauty could test options like:
❗ Birthday Friction: While the birthday perk can help with personalization, it may also cause friction for some.
A better flow could involve asking for an email first, before making the birthday request in a welcome flow, or making it optional in the pop-up.
❗ Lacks Urgency: Although the pop-up mentions limited edition items, adding a time cue would create more urgency.
👉 Rare Beauty’s pop-up looks gorgeous and fits the brand aesthetic, but it leans too heavily on discounts when the real value prop is exclusivity and community.
With some tweaks, it could build a stronger, stickier list before Black Friday.
👀 See How The Perfume Spot Went From Small Storefront To Ecommerce Juggernaut
👉 When The Perfume Spot started it was just a small store on Staten Island. Now, they’re an ecommerce juggernaut with a team of 25 people and 8 figures in sales each year. 💥
How?
👏 In part by selling on Walmart Marketplace.
With Walmart Marketplace, The Perfume Spot was able to instantly reach millions of shoppers, access powerful tools for scale, and sell on a platform invested in their success. 📈
🏆 Could you be the next Walmart success story? Sign up today to see. It just takes a few minutes to get started.
* sponsored
🎧 Rotten’s Retail Expansion: Seeding Strategy, Brand IP, and Standing Out at Checkout
In this episode of the DTC Podcast, Eric reunites with Michael Fisher, the founder of Rotten to discuss how the better-for-you candy brand has scaled from a single product to launching into national retail partners like Safeway, Sprouts, and Zumiez.
We discuss Rotten’s playbook for retail expansion, and dive into why preserving product quality and sampling are essential for growth.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
“Getting on shelf is the easy part, getting off shelf is the hard part.”
“We prioritize candy first, fun brand second, better-for-you third.”
“So many of our customers had never bought better-for-you candy before. That means we’re incremental to the category, not just stealing share.”
👉 Listen to the full episode with Michael here.
We came across a tweet from Nick Shackleford, partner at BRĒZ, and wanted to share his thoughts on how creative is the new targeting.
Here’s what Nick shared:
Meta’s AI reads every pixel of your ads — setting, people, music, even colors — and decides who sees it.
The algorithm is smarter than your media buyer, so the only way to win is with better creative.
The 15-second framework:
👉 Rearrange based on performance and tag each element clearly so Meta knows what it’s serving.
Brands winning now:
Who’s your favorite follow on social media? Reply to this email and let us know!
🔥 NexGrill, an outdoor cooking and heating brand, joined Walmart Marketplace in 2022. With access to millions of customers, zero monthly fees, and powerful ecommerce tools, they grew from a small startup to a global brand in just two years. Join now. *
* sponsored
🍺 Sept 28: Drink A Beer Day, Save Your Photos Day, Poke Day
💗 Sept 29: National Coffee Day, World Heart Day, Silent Movie Day
🫒 Sept 30: Pet Tricks Day, Mud Pack Day, Extra Virgin Olive Oil Day
🎶 Oct 1: Music Day, Black Dog Day, World Vegetarian Day, Pumpkin Spice Day
🥬 Oct 2: Kale Day, Pumpkin Seed Day, Walk To School Day
💅 Oct 3: Mean Girls Day, Techies Day, Boyfriend Day
😀 Oct 4: Improve Your Office Day, Cinnamon Bun Day, World Smile Day
Have you heard our latest podcasts?
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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.
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