DTC1174: TikTok Shopping, Holiday Creative & AI Slop

Good morning.

Let’s just take the average and call it a day. Okay? Okay.

Here’s what’s in today’s send:

• 🛍️ TikTok is building a Shopping Assistant
• 🎄 Two holiday creative formats to steal
• ⏰ How long to give a new marketing channel
• 💣 The rise of AI “slop grenades”
• And more…

😰 You’re about to find out whether shoppers respond the way you expected

The waiting period before BFCM is uncomfortable.

Your discount strategy is mostly set, the biggest sales days haven’t happened yet, and your own preliminary results and historical data can only tell you so much.

DTC and Smile.io asked 575+ ecommerce operators what they’re doing and 700+ consumers what they expect. Read it now, while you still have time to do something with the answers.

A few findings:

• 47% of consumers say 20% to 25% is enough to try an unfamiliar brand
• 48% of brands worry their discounts are going to customers who would’ve purchased anyway
• 36% of consumers who make a discounted first purchase return mainly when another discount appears

Use Beyond the Discount to check your Q4 assumptions before BFCM puts them to the test.

See what brands and shoppers said

🛍️ TikTok’s Shopping Assistant could help shoppers choose

TikTok is developing a conversational Shopping Assistant to answer questions about products, sizing, shipping, and availability within the app.

For brands, that could help shoppers work through the questions holding up a purchase. TikTok is also building Buy Direct, an in-app checkout solution, with partners including Shopify and Stripe.

TikTok hasn’t specified a broad rollout date for these shopping tools.

Other updates include Smart+ automation for search keywords and creative, a unified creative approval workflow, and an upcoming GMV Max update that factors in affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees.

🖼️ ChatGPT’s next ad placement is picture-perfect

OpenAI plans to test visual ads alongside ChatGPT’s image generation experience later this month.

The US test will start with a limited group of advertisers. Sponsored images will remain separate from generated content, and OpenAI says ads will not influence ChatGPT’s answers.

For brands, it introduces another way to show products visually within ChatGPT. The question is whether people creating images are also ready to shop.

Worth watching as a potential creative testing opportunity once access expands.

📱 Instagram tests putting Reels first

Radu Oncescu highlighted an Instagram test that puts Reels and Stories directly on Home. The traditional feed sits one swipe away, and Reels play with sound on by default.

The experience is optional, and users in the test can switch back through Settings.

The move builds on existing viewing habits: Meta previously reported that Reels account for 50% of time spent on Instagram.

For brands, it’s another reason to test strong opening visuals and spoken hooks, while keeping captions readable for viewers watching without sound.

🎄 Holiday creative ideas for Q4 launches

Q4 is here, and holiday creative is already showing up in feeds.

Limited-edition drops and advent calendars come with different creative challenges. A seasonal product needs to feel new while still benefiting from what customers already know and like. An advent calendar has to create enough curiosity to sell without revealing every surprise.

Here’s how r.e.m. beauty and Anthropologie are approaching each, plus a few ideas to borrow for your own holiday creative.

Holiday Limited-Edition Product

r.e.m. beauty gives its limited-edition glossy balm set a dedicated ad, keeping the message focused on the seasonal launch rather than the broader holiday range.

How to make this work:

• Lead with what customers already love. Start with the existing product’s popularity, then explain what’s new. Here, it’s three limited-edition shades with holiday-inspired scents.
• Make the headline clear to cold audiences. “Gloss gets a holiday encore” assumes some familiarity with the product. A version like “Our best-selling glossy balm, now in three limited-edition shades” tells a new shopper exactly what changed.
• Show the product and the result. The ad shows the packaging in hand alongside the gloss on the model’s lips, so shoppers can see both what they’re buying and how it looks.
• Keep the brand visible. The r.e.m. beauty logo stays prominent, while the “by Ariana Grande” line keeps the founder connection attached to the product.

Holiday Advent Calendar

Anthropologie’s beauty advent calendar includes recognizable brands such as Boy Smells, Salt & Stone, and Living Proof.

The creative challenge is deciding how much to reveal. Show too little and shoppers may not understand the value. Show everything and some of the surprise disappears.

If your advent calendar features your own products:

• Feature a best-seller. Build the photography and messaging around one recognizable product included in the calendar.
• Make the value obvious. Test messaging such as “$400 worth of products for $250,” especially in retention and retargeting campaigns.

If your calendar features other brands, like Anthropologie’s:

• Make curation the hook. Position your brand as the one choosing the assortment, and lead with products or brands your audience already responds to.
• Sell the experience. Show the moments the calendar fits into. For beauty, that could mean holiday parties, gifting, or getting ready throughout December.
• Reveal one standout item. Test showing one recognizable product alongside the total value while keeping the rest for the unboxing.

For any advent calendar:

• Test preorders. Start one or two weeks before launch and include a clear expected shipping date.

⏰ How long should you give a new channel?

This is episode four of Harness the Halo, our new six-part series on marketing measurement.

Some of Carve Designs’ strongest marketing plays took months to prove themselves.

TikTok took roughly six months to build momentum. Whitelisted creative took even longer before becoming a top performer. Connected TV started as a 60-day test with a $20K-per-month budget and grew into an important part of the brand’s mix.

Hannah Fleming, who runs performance marketing at Carve Designs, shares how the team decides when an underperforming channel needs more time and when it’s time to move those dollars elsewhere.

Jesse Math, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Keen, breaks down why the answer can’t always come from platform ROAS. A channel may influence sales elsewhere, create value over a longer time horizon, or appear successful while taking credit for customers who would have purchased anyway.

They also dig into Carve’s decade-long direct mail program, diminishing returns, and how to determine where your next marketing dollar can have the greatest impact.

▶️ Watch here | 🎧 Listen on Spotify

🎧 Is your marketing team shipping “slop grenades”?

AI has made it easier than ever to produce more creative. It’s also made it easier to produce a lot of mediocre creative very quickly.

On the latest DTC podcast episode, brand strategist Eugene Healey describes a workflow where someone creates something with AI, another person uses AI to review it, and the output moves through the organization with very little human judgment.

The result? Slop grenades.

That’s a problem when brands are expected to ship more creative across more channels, while media remains expensive.

Eugene sees AI as useful for pattern recognition and accumulated brand knowledge, but argues that teams still need human discernment to decide whether creative feels right, is genuinely compelling, and adds meaningful variety.

▶️ Watch here | 🎧 Listen on Spotify

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