DTC983: Customer Touchpoints, Persona-Driven Angles, and Saved Carts

Good morning,

Here’s what’s in today’s DTC:

• 🧠 How Customer Touchpoints Have Evolved
• 💡 Develop Ad Angles Using The Proven ‘Try-Angle’ Method
• 🛒 One Simple Way to Lower Your Abandon Cart Rate

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Primo Brands and Echo USA. 👋

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‍💰 Your Customers Aren’t Just Searching. They’re Buying Inside a Multitouchpoint Bubble

Are you optimizing for a buying journey that no longer exists?

Pilothouse is seeing something shift in how people actually buy.

People aren’t just typing a few keywords into Google, clicking blue links, and buying on your homepage anymore.

Instead, they’re making quick decisions across a web of touchpoints, most of which live outside your site and traditional attribution.

Today’s purchase journey looks more like a validation loop than a funnel.

A customer might first hear about a product on TikTok, see it styled on LTK, validate opinions in a Reddit thread, ask ChatGPT for alternatives or price comparisons, and then buy.

In many cases, they never visit your website until the final click, if at all.

That entire decision happens inside what we can think of as a multitouchpoint bubble: a mix of third-party signals shaping trust, credibility, and intent.

Why this matters:

Customers are way more aware of marketing than they used to be.

Polished testimonials, SEO-stuffed blogs, and overly scripted influencer ads are no longer trusted by default.

Instead, buyers are looking for authentic validation:

• Real people
• Real opinions
• Real conversations (where brands don’t fully control the narrative)

Brands that only focus on search rankings or on-site conversion are missing where trust is actually built. That’s why scale feels harder to unlock.

How to Build a Stronger “Bubble” Around Your Brand

1. Prioritize ambassadors over one-off creators

Your best collaborators are often already customers. Look at repeat purchasers, organic tags, and people who talk about your product without being paid.

Long-term advocates create credibility that ads can’t replicate.

2. Pay attention to Reddit and community conversations

Reddit threads often surface the most honest feedback, good and bad.

Use these insights to identify confusion, objections, or missing education.

3. Shift from SEO to answer optimization

Traditional SEO alone isn’t enough.

Brands should think about AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and how their products show up in AI-powered answers and recommendations.

4. Don’t sanitize your reviews

Wiping out every negative review signals inauthenticity.

Respond publicly, address the issue, and show how you make things right. Trust is built through transparency, not perfection.

5. Get comfortable with correlation, not perfect attribution

You won’t be able to track every influence that leads to a purchase, and that’s okay.

Many of the strongest brands invest in the bubble knowing that impact shows up as overall lift, not clean channel-level causation.

The takeaway?

Audit where your brand shows up when you’re not controlling the message.

Search your product on Reddit, TikTok, Amazon, and even ChatGPT.

Ask: What story is being told when we’re not in the room?

Then invest deliberately in feeding those touchpoints: creators, conversations, education, and transparency, even if they don’t map cleanly to last-click attribution.

Being validated in conversations is now more powerful than simply being visible in search.

The sooner brands adapt to that reality, the faster sustainable growth follows.

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(1) Walmart first-party data, 6/20/2025.

(2) Walmart first-party data, 2/1/2025–5/30/2025.

‍🎧 The Angle Audit: How To Break Out Of The $5M “Vibes Plateau”

Aves breaks down one of the most overlooked but powerful tools in performance marketing: ad angles.

Too many DTC brands grow to mid-seven figures on aesthetics and vibes, only to stall when they lack durable, persona-driven angles that work across channels and funnels.

In Avery’s words:

👉 An angle = how you position your product to make someone care.

It can be driven by one of two things:

• Feature-driven → the mug keeps your coffee hot
• Benefit-driven → the mug signals belonging

Both matter. The key is matching the angle to the persona and where they are in the funnel.

Avery’s Triangle Framework breaks an angle into three layers:

1️⃣ Top Layer: Universal Relevance

• Everyone can relate.
• Example: “Cold coffee is a disappointment.”
• Works best for broad, top-of-funnel ads.

2️⃣ Middle Layer: Curiosity + Understanding

• People inside the fold understand and outsiders are curious.
• Example: “Our mug keeps your coffee hot all morning at the office.”
• Ideal for mid-funnel performance creative.

3️⃣ Bottom Layer: Insider Engagement

• Content that resonates with your community.
• Example: pairing the mug with cultural signals (Rhode lip balm, TikTok humor).
• Best for: organic channels, retention, and community building.

▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube.

🎧 Or listen here on Spotify.

CRO expert Harry Molyneux shows how a simple tweak can lift conversion rates.

It removes friction, reminds them what they were already close to buying, and makes it easier to resume checkout instead of starting over.

When paired with light incentives like an exit-intent offer or free shipping threshold, this can create a steady lift in conversions.

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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.