Four Key Insights from DTC’s First Meetup

[DTC]( DTC Event recap On May 12, DTC held its first ever Real Live Meetup in Vancouver, BC. If you couldn’t make it and are feeling FOMO, read on for a summary of the biggest insights from the panel and event which include: the return of Brick and Mortar, bouncing back from the iOS 14.5 bomb, and why everyone is going broad (and why Black Crow AI says you shouldn’t). Insight #1: The DTC world is ready for in-person events We wanted to test the hypothesis that the DTC world was salivating to get back in rooms together, sharing information, making connections, and catching up. One look at the smiling faces in these photos and we can confirm, the world is ready to meet in person. If you agree, reply back to this email and let us know where we should plan the next one. We packed in over one hundred Vancouver DTC brand owners and marketers with standing room only, delivered a high-quality panel and Q&A with some of the west coast’s most interesting companies in our space. We start with a panel featuring 5 brands from across the DTC spectrum – each with their own unique perspective, including Duer, Monos, Tru Earth, Blume, and Black Crow AI. Our first question to all panellists was about what’s working best in their business right now. Insight #2: Brick and mortar, a major priority Duer’s Calvin Roex, (later referred to as Mr. Duer) dove in with his praise for traditional brick and mortar retail channels that he’s seeing come roaring back into his distribution mix. Consumers are excited to go back into the store and really touch and feel products which is a major shift from the pandemic where eCom brands saw a massive gold rush of online sales. For Ryan McKenzie from Tru Earth, a CPG brand, retail is a no-brainer. He asked the room how many of us buy detergent online and no hands went up. You’ve gotta be where your customers expect you to be, right? Bunny Ghatrora from Blume chimed in with her approach, which was 100% all in on DTC pre- and mid-pandemic, but has switched to a more omnichannel approach in 2022. Bunny followed up with a great tip about the impact of geo-targeted digital ads that reference their mains stores. When Blume deploys these ads, it may take a while to see the results, but they note a direct link to increased store sales. Blume shared that they will go hard on ads in certain geo locations as well as ads that reference their main stores. And while it takes some time to see the results, they have seen a direct link in increased ad spend and increased in store sales. Sponsor Paid marketing performance–turbocharged Thanks to iOS14 –your brand has been separated from its most profitable audiences. No need to panic... [Black Crow AI]( can help you get back that pre-iOS 14.5 performance, cut down on your CAC, and [boost ROAS by 30% or more.]( [Through the power of machine learning, Black Crow AI]( utilizes their plug-and-play machine-learning technology measures - in real-time - every visitor's likelihood to buy to build predictive audiences for retargeting and prospecting. In short, Black Crow can significantly boost ROAS by helping you specifically target people who will actually want to buy from you. In short, Black Crow AI means you can once again laser target your best potential customers. Top DTC brands like – Magic Spoon, Bearaby, Cotopaxi and Liquid IV have been using Black Crow to transform the profitability of their marketing. Don't let the data loss get in between you and your ROAS. 🚀 [Click here to reclaim your most profitable audiences.]( DTC Event recap Insight #3: REAL data is the new oil (refined, not crude) The topic on everyone’s brain was of course the impact of iOS 14.5, so the panel got pretty lively when we brought it up. When we discussed data fidelity, Roxanne Tan from Monos explained that she now only uses ad platform data as proxy data. She said it's great for day-to-day on a micro level, but it is no longer effective to see if the channel is successful. Roxanne also suggests running Meta’s [Conversion Lift]( studies at the account or campaign level on a monthly basis, so you can audit the true conversion impact your ads are driving. DTC recommends going old school and using UTMs wherever possible to track everything – as we’ve seen a HUGE lift in the effectiveness of our Facebook Ads when we started using only UTM data for everything, down to what videos and headlines drove the conversions. We’re not sure if platform data should even be a proxy for creative success. Insight #4: Everyone’s going broad, but should you? When we asked about broad vs. narrowed targeting on platforms like Facebook, things got really spicy. After Calvin mentioned that a game-changer for him this year was massively broadening their targeting on paid social, all panellists agreed. We discussed how it’s become the creative’s job to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to filtering in the right kind of person to your funnel, which is why creative production is such a heavy topic for brands these days. This is where Richard Harris from [Black Crow AI](stepped in with some counter-programming, stating that of course, Facebook wants you to go broad because that’s the way they make the most money. “It’s Facebook’s ideal to keep DTC brands just hovering around minimum profitability with their noses just out of the water. You should be targeting more of the users most likely to convert, and targeting less of the people who won’t.” [Black Crow AI,]( whose mission is to give mid-market DTC brands the machine-learning power used by the megacorps, plugs into your site with one click, watches your users, and after a few weeks of data analysis, it can start predicting the LTV of your customers before they buy. What this allows you to do, is be pickier with who you target and retarget, letting you to be more frugal and targeted with your ad budgets. According to Richard, this helps you acquire 25% more customers at the same costs you’re spending now. [Broad is great, but we’ll take 25% more customers any time pls.]( The panel lasted about twice as long as we planned, with lots of great questions from the audience. The full panel is available [here in audio]( if you want to check it out. This was followed by a special presentation from Andrea and TikTok. A good 40% of the panel was just us gushing over TikTok, so she started things by feigning shyness, “everyone’s talking about us…” What followed was a killer presentation, directly from TikTok, explaining how advertisers should approach the platform, and dropping tonnes of actionable creative tips along the way. Stay tuned for an upcoming podcast where we’re authorized to release this talk in full. The rest of the evening was drinks and appies, amazing conversations, and building connections. Honestly, it couldn’t have gone better and we can’t wait to do it again. As mentioned above, reply to this email and let us know where our next one should be! - The DTC Team [Fueled by Pilothouse] [Share]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [LinkedIn]( [Advertise with DTC]( | [Work With Pilothouse]( At Direct to Consumer, we are strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a safe & high-quality online experience for all visitors. 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