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Good morning,
OpenAI’s former co-founder and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, announced on X that he’s starting his own AI company, Safe Superintelligence Inc.
The startup’s mission addresses many people’s fears about the mishandling of AI technology by prioritizing safety over commercial gain.
Although Musk was quick to tweet out: “Any given AI startup is doomed to become the opposite of its name.”
Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:
💡 How the search landscape has been disrupted with new AI answer engines like Perplexity.
🧹 Learn how AI will transform how brands use SaaS tools.
🔍 Why following a consistent Meta Ads naming convention is so important.
🤝 And…three reasons why you need to start building a community now.
You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Busted Halo, Sobrietea, and Ghia. 👋
🧻 DUDE Wipes Cleaned Out The Competition
Watch the team behind DUDE Wipes share how they scaled their personal care brand with Walmart Marketplace and Walmart Fulfillment Services. 📈
“[Walmart is] the largest retailer in the world but they really have a love and a feel for small businesses. They know what we need to do to be successful with the customers...” — Sean Riley, Founder and CEO, DUDE Wipes
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🔧 Why Perplexity AI Is Getting So Much Hype
After the rocky rollout of Google’s AI Overviews, users are looking for alternatives to search.
One solution that’s getting significant buzz is Perplexity.
The platform emphasizes that they provide answers you can trust, which is a direct jab at AI Overviews for spreading misinformation.
But before we get into that, here’s some stats to know:
Here’s how Perplexity works 👇
Users can type a query or statement into their search bar via desktop or the Perplexity app.
Then, the platform combs through the internet and finds 15+ highest-quality sources to craft a detailed answer within seconds.
Unlike other AI search engines, Perplexity has real-time access to the web, so these sources are up to date.
Perplexity also provides a list of related topics and follow-up questions for those needing prompting guidance to learn more about your chosen subject.
Perplexity founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas said in an interview, “Perplexity has been revolutionary since Day 1 since we always cite our sources, and this provides referral traffic to original websites, unlike other AI chatbots.”
This makes it easier for users to verify information and ensure it’s accurate and not fake news. ✅
For brands, getting cited by Perplexity gives your site more credibility and potentially more traffic as users click through to see the original source of information.
Brands that have invested heavily in content marketing through a blog or educational hub on their site will benefit greatly.
The takeaway?
Users are growing frustrated with Google’s changes to search and AI Overviews displaying incorrect answers sourced from Reddit forums.
Other AI search competitors like Perplexity will grab more attention by winning over customer trust with vetted content.
Brands that are cited by Perplexity could potentially see an increase in referral traffic, which could help with search rankings.
Have you used an AI search engine?
If you select the third option, reply back to the newsletter and let us know which ones you enjoy using the most so far!
🗑️ 📣 TRASH TALK — Toss Your Outdated SMS Strategies In The Garbage
Mark your calendars because Yotpo’s declaring a National SMS Waste Day.
Why? 🤔 To help you clean up garbage SMS strategies.
On July 23rd, join Jeremy Horowitz, Managing Partner at Let’s Buy a Biz, Gabe Goldstein, GM, SMS at Yotpo, and Hilary Castleman, CRM Manager at Princess Polly, as they share how to take inefficient SMS tactics to the curb and increase ROI.
*Sponsored
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🔥 Why You Should Be Consistent With Your Ad Naming Convention
Spicing up your ad naming conventions can help you better understand what is and isn’t working in your account based on creative angles, copy angles, products, and collections.
If you’re running ads on Meta, the Pilothouse team has a hot tip to help you get granular with the data.
Here’s an example of an ad naming convention:
By being consistent and using this type of structure over time, you can create different breakdowns, like the copy angle breakdown below. Learn more about how to create custom breakdowns here.
In this account, the Pilothouse team has heavily scaled the limited edition and offer-focused copy angles.
💡 There is also room to expand with more back-in-stock copy in ads since the ROAS is 11% higher than the account average.
The Pilothouse Meta team also gets granular with creative by always including specific tags for images, videos, CGC content, and branded vs. unbranded content.
Understanding what’s working at the account level can save you money as you continue to test.
💡 Has AI Triggered a "Generational Cull" of Software Vendors? Wunderkind’s Richard Jones on the Outcome-Based Future of SaaS
This week on the DTC Podcast, we had the chance to chat with Wunderkind’s Chief Revenue Officer, Richard Jones.
This episode highlights the shifting landscape of SaaS in ecommerce and outlines a big shift we can expect to see coming down the pipeline… 👀
What shift? How AI will transition SaaS from human-centered workflows to outcome-based services.
You’ll hear about:
If you're an ecom brand aiming to scale efficiently and stay ahead of the curve (who isn’t? 🤷), you’re going to want to ensure you’re up to speed with how AI is evolving in our industry.
With nearly 30 years in the SaaS space, Richard’s insights are invaluable for anyone looking to understand the next big wave in technology.
To keep learning you can…
OR
🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE
Community building is worth the investment! It’s critical to finding loyal customers who will purchase time and time again and provide you with helpful feedback.
⚡ QUICK HITS
🫢 Some UGC is actually “Actor”-Generated Content. Learn how to spot the difference and how you can get truly authentic UGC that converts. Grab a free copy of SARAL's guide. *
💸 MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
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Have you heard our latest podcasts?
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.
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