Good morning DTC brethren and sistern (apparently that's a word). Today's headlines: a scam targeting our sistern company Pilothouse and others on LinkedIn. Funnily enough, I got hit too - a scammer checked out with $2,000+ of haute couture from SSENSE on my card. Morals aside, their taste is impeccable. Speaking of impeccable taste, today's brand breakdown digs into the email flows of Fly By Jing Chili Crisp. For that and all the news fit to print, read on…
💸 Your overperforming Google campaigns are getting “fixed” on August 17
If your budget-limited campaigns have been crushing your ROAS goals, enjoy it while it lasts. Starting August 17, a new Google Ads update will force Smart Bidding to track much closer to your set targets.
If you set a $50 Target CPA but Google was delivering $35, the algorithm will stop being "over-efficient" and drift toward $50.
If you just read that and thought, “why wouldn’t I just change my target CPA to $35…?” I want you to know, same.
Google says budgets won’t auto increase and claims this makes scaling more predictable.
Pull up every budget limited campaign this week, compare current performance to your set target, and lower the target before the 17th if you want to hold onto today's numbers.
🛍️ Amazon just turned Alexa into a checkout button
Amazon showed off Alexa+ Agentic Ads at Cannes back in June, and it's live in beta on Echo Show now.
Ask Alexa for a product rec and it can suggest a specific brand (Papa Johns was the launch partner) and complete the purchase inside the conversation without ever visiting a site or checkout page. Seems dangerous if you’ve got tech savvy kids around.
Amazon's ad business pulled in $17.24 billion last quarter alone, and this is the next surface for that machine - an assistant that can recommend and sell in the same breath.
Right now it's limited to a handful of launch partners on Echo Show only, but if you want to start thinking about this, start by cleaning up your product feed and testing how your listings sound out loud. Voice search rewards clear, conversational product names over keyword-stuffed ones, and brands who’ve already got the groundwork done will have a head start whenever Amazon opens this up further.
❗ A fake JW PEI deal almost cost an agency a malware infection (they tried to get us too)
Someone at our agency, Pilothouse, spotted this post on LinkedIn and shared it with me. Basically, the agency owner got an email from someone impersonating JW PEI's sales and marketing director about a $40K/month Meta, Google, and TikTok brief. They’d actually already built three strategy docs before the scam sender sent a password-protected zip file containing a .scr file disguised as a PDF.
A couple of red flags. The imposter's domain was jwpei-global.com, not the real jwpei.com. The outreach landed on a Saturday during July 4th week. And the sender's business card listed two different domains.
We checked in our internal leads channel and actually had this one submitted to us too, so it’s not just a weird one off. Jeff, my co-founder, mentioned that members in his Agency forum group have been seeing a surge in RFP volume lately because AI is actively recommending brands run agency reviews. More volume means more noise to hide in.
Check the domain before you build three strategy documents for someone. And remember, if it feels too good to be true, it probably is…
We’ve sent this one to our IT team to look into - I'll report back if we find anything worth knowing.
🤖 OpenAI's newest models are finally out from under government review
I just went and checked and I don’t have this in my account yet, but the restrictions on OpenAI's GPT-5.6 have been lifted. After two weeks of government evaluation, Sol, Terra, and Luna are available to the public alongside a new real-time voice model.
Terra matches GPT-5.5 for half the cost and Luna undercuts that further, so if pricing was holding you back from swapping tools in your content or ops stack, there's now a cheaper, capable option on the table.
Anthropic went through the same restriction and release cycle with Claude weeks earlier, so expect more frontier models to ship with a government review step built in going forward.
🌶️ Fly By Jing’s Strong Brand Energy and Flow Potential
Fly By Jing’s packaging is distinctive, the photography is mouthwatering (could go for some chili crisp right now), and the copy has the same bold personality.
Every email that landed in our inbox from them feels like an extension of the website.
The design, storytelling, and positioning are all on point. We forwarded these over to the team at Pilothouse and asked them to take a look and give any suggestions they might have. Don’t be shy, steal em for your brand if you want.
Here’s what they said:
🥢 The Welcome Flow
Suggestion: Add product blocks to create additional purchase opportunities
Visually, the welcome flow is packed with personality. The animated product GIFs are a standout feature that showcase multiple products without overwhelming the layout.
Pilothouse recommends testing traditional product blocks alongside the GIFs. Product blocks often create a more direct path to purchase and avoid any potential loading issues on older devices.
Suggestion: Surface offers earlier in the Welcome Flow
The biggest opportunity across the series is raising offer visibility. The discount exists but it's almost secondary to the storytelling, and a lot of people signed up for that code, so make it easier to find.
Moving the code higher in the email (either as a header element or directly beneath the hero) would make it easier for customers to act quicker.
Since Welcome Flows are typically a one-time experience, a dynamic coupon isn't always necessary. A static, brand-aligned code can create a more cohesive customer experience, reduce friction during checkout, and simplify flow management without introducing meaningful abuse risk.
Suggestion: Personalize content using signup quiz responses
The signup form asks customers about their flavor preferences, but that information does not appear to influence the Welcome experience. Swapping the featured product based on quiz responses would increase flow relevance.
Suggestion: Shorten the gaps between welcome emails
The timing between emails feels a bit stretched. With one email waiting five days and another arriving three days later, Fly By Jing risks losing momentum.
Testing a tighter cadence (closer to the industry standard two-day spacing) could help keep the brand top of mind while purchase intent is still high.
🛒 The Abandon Cart Flow
Suggestion: Expand Abandon Cart beyond a single reminder
This email is visually strong. It features the product prominently and showcases reviews to reinforce trust.
The timing is also close to best practices - we got it about 30 minutes after abandoning.
However, this is the only abandonment email we got, no follow-up to nudge again. For a brand this giftable with a catalog this strong, stopping after a single abandon cart reminder leaves significant revenue on the table.
Customers abandon carts for dozens of reasons: distractions, timing, comparison shopping, or simply forgetting. One reminder is rarely enough to capture all those shoppers.
A second and third touchpoint creates more opportunities to recover those high-intent visitors. A follow-up focused on social proof, bestsellers, or product education would fit naturally within the brand's established voice.
Suggestion: Introduce a prospect-only funnel flusher for non-buyers
A final funnel flusher email for non-purchasers could introduce a small incentive and help convert customers who need one last push.
Conclusion
Fly By Jing is one of those brands where the vibe is completely dialed in and the emails actually prove it. The mechanical stuff, timing, offer placement, a second abandon cart email, using the quiz data, that's just money sitting there. Easy wins for a brand that's already done the hard part.
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