DTC956: Instagram Updates, Black Friday Madness and Show Savings

Good morning,

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

• 🛠️ Beat The Instagram Algo: Four Updates To Up Your Content
• 🚀 Recapping Black Friday Madness (+ Early Trend Insights)
• 🛒 Not Doing This Could Raise Your Cart Abandonment Rate

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: No Worries Cleaning, Toweltique, and MenoWell. 👋

‍🚨 AI-Native Retail Is Here, And It’s Changing Everything.

2026 marks the first true year of AI-native retail, where discovery, checkout, pricing, and returns are shaped by intelligent agents, not traditional funnels. 🤖

At the same time, tariffs, global complexity, tightening return economics, and shifting consumer behavior are reconstructing the operational backbone of commerce. 🫨

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be. 😌

⚡ Swap’s 2026 Commerce Report distills how brands can stay visible, profitable, and adaptable in this new environment and why unified, AI-powered infrastructure will define the next era of retail.

Discover:

• 👉 Where you need AI working for you if you don’t want to fall behind
• 👉 What segments are the fastest-growing
• 👉 How to use data to keep you competitive
• 👉 How Agentic commerce is about to dominate, and how to prepare for it

And more…

You can’t afford to miss this if you want to scale in 2026. 📈

‍🛠️ Four Instagram Updates You Might Have Missed

If you want to stay ahead of the Instagram algorithm in 2026, you can’t rely on content habits from three months ago.

Pilothouse shares that the brands that adapt the fastest will win engagement and reach.

Here are four updates most brands haven’t fully adopted yet, but should.

1. Carousels Are Surging

Reels dominated most of 2025, but Carousel posts are now getting priority in the feed.

👉 Start by taking your top-performing Reels and converting them into multi-frame Carousels. You’ll often see them take off a second time.

2. AI-Assisted Captions

Instagram’s new AI captioning helps speed up writing and improve accessibility.

👉 Use it to scale output, polish tone, and save time without sacrificing quality.

3. In-App Story Scheduling

You no longer need third-party tools to plan Stories.

👉 Batch content directly in Instagram and schedule it for the days you want (this will come in especially during the holiday season, when you need to post but also get your own holiday shopping done!)

4. Auto-Dubbing for Reels

Instagram can now automatically dub your voice into multiple languages while keeping your tone.

It instantly expands your content beyond your native language and is massively underused.

👉 Turn this feature on for every Reel and start reaching a global audience with zero extra effort.

The takeaway?

Remember, Instagram rewards early adopters.

Tweak your content strategy to include carousels.

Use AI tools to speed up production, schedule proactively, and enable auto-dubbing to expand distribution.

The more quickly you integrate platform changes, the more the algorithm works in your favor.

‍🧬 Here’s How Your Brand Needs To Evolve In 2026 To Thrive

To win in 2026, brands must become AI-native, globally ready, and operationally unified. 💥

It’s a tall order… but you don’t have to do it alone.

🤝 Swap provides the infrastructure to make that transformation possible, connecting catalog, returns, tax, and global operations into one platform built for the next era of retail.

Their new 2026 Commerce Report breaks down what’s coming and how to thrive, not just survive. Discover how to harness the power behind the changes and make it work for you. ⚡

🌎 The world is moving faster than ever, with AI leading the charge… but with change comes opportunity.

Don’t miss it.

‍🎧 BFCM Recap: 3 Winning Moves To Use in Q4

Jocelyn from Pilothouse stopped by the All Killer No Filler pod and shared how she approached Black Friday so clients could scale efficiently and avoid wasted ad spend.

She shared how her team counteracted CPMs doubling as well as a simple hack to make your creatives pop.

Use these tips to keep the momentum going in Q4.

In this episode, we dive into:

• How almost all top BFCM creatives have this in common
• Why evergreen needs to be in your Q4 creative mix
• A simple Canva trick to refresh high-cost ads fast
• How Pilothouse pushes Meta’s algorithm before it catches trend shifts

▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube here.

🎧 Or click here to listen on Spotify.

Most stores run promos but forget to show savings in the cart.

A major conversion leak.

When discounts disappear from view, shoppers lose the value anchor and are more likely to abandon.

Adding simple messaging like ‘You saved $12’ reinforces the deal and keeps buyers moving forward.

‍👏 Shopify Reports Record-Breaking Black Friday Sales

Shopify reports merchants made a record-breaking $6.2 billion in sales on Black Friday, up 25% YoY.

At one point, the ecommerce platform recorded $5.1 million in sales per minute! 🤯

One analyst predicts that records will also have been broken on Cyber Monday.

Learn more here.

‍🗓️ 2026 is almost here. New year, new trends, new strategy for your team. Discover the six trends reshaping retail—from AI-native discovery to global complexity and rising return costs. Grab the trends for free now. *

‍📥 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.

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.