📦 - Move Over Valentines Day, It’s Parallelogram Season

DTC 296 - Top CRO tactics, Shopify updates, creative trends [DTC]( Banter Wednesday, February 15, 2023 If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from DoorDash, Molson Coors, AdoreEyes, and Scout Bags. In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇 📦 Kuru Footwear’s turnaround playbook: Sean McGinnis on the CRO tactics that doubled revenue (C-Suite Mentor Preview) 📦 Reaping the rewards from creator campaigns 📦 What’s new in Shopify for 2023 📦 How to launch an app for your brand in two weeks 📦 The trends that topped the 2022 creative charts Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎 👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, [subscribe,]( so you never miss out. Podcast 🎧 On today’s episode of the DTC pod, we're in for a treat as we catch up with the one and only Sean McGinnis from Kuru Footwear… and let us tell you, this guy knows his stuff when it comes to CRO. Sean walks us through the tactics that took Kuru's CRO from good to great and gives us a sneak peek of what he'll be sharing at the C-Suite Las Vegas conference coming up in March. So, grab a pen and paper and get ready to take some notes because you won't want to miss Sean's expert tips on boosting your website's conversion rate and growing your business. ‍The takeaways 👇 📈 Climbing conversions Sean's approach to boosting Kuru's conversion rates was to keep things simple and focus on the basics. On the pod, he talks about a few of the tactics he began to implement: - Improving the font color and contrast on the website for easier reading - Increasing the font size on the collection page - Showing all main color variants for the shoes on the collection page to reduce clicks - Replacing color swatches with full-size miniature versions of shoes on the product page - Adding a persistent "Free Shipping, Free Exchanges" bar at the top of the website to highlight shipping policy “Simple changes can lead to big results,” says Sean. Thanks to these tactics, Kuru saw a 95% increase in conversion rates over just two years. 🤯 👀 Mentor sneak peak At C-Suite, we're all about bringing you the best of the best when it comes to mentors and speakers. 🤝 Our goal is to make sure that every single person who takes the stage will give you a comprehensive, actionable plan for success. We want you to leave the conference feeling like you can plug and play these tactics into your business and start seeing results immediately. And that's exactly what Sean's going to deliver. Join us on [March 23-24 in Las Vegas]( when Sean dives deep into his 7-figure affiliate program strategy, which could be a game changer for DTC brands. 💸 This is a strategy that's been tested and perfected, and Sean is going to share all the details so that you can start saving thousands of dollars on misspent affiliate fees. This is one presentation you won't want to miss! 👉 Listen to the full episode with Sean McGinnis [here!]( Not got your ticket to the DTC event of the year in Sin City yet? Join us at C-Suite Mastermind to hear from Sean, plus many more DTC leaders driving serious revenue. Oh, and you can save $500 if you register before March 10th, so [grab your ticket today!]( 🎰🤑 Sponsor The 3 steps to influencer marketing success Influencer marketing. It’s one of the most effective and believable marketing strategies out there… ~But, it can be incredibly challenging to get right!~ A successful campaign can have a TON of moving parts. Many of which can be confusing or challenging for marketers. How do you find the right creator? What's the best way to write a proposal? How much should it cost? How do I cultivate positive influencer relationships? Let's break it down into three easy steps. ✅ > Step 1: [Watch this and learn.]( > Step 2: Start crafting unbeatable creator campaigns. > Step 3: Reap the rewards. 🚀 In Step 1, you’ll get the answers to your burning questions and the top 5 insider tips from DTC Visionaries and experts at LTK, Tecovas, and Revolution Rose. Steps 2 & 3 are up to you. 😉 👉 Begin your three steps to influencer marketing success. [Watch the on-demand webinar now!]( Shopify Updates, Get Your Updates! 👜 Shopify Editions Winter ‘23 Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably encountered a Shopify store in one way or another. After all, Shopify supports DTC merchants all over the world! 🌍 In their latest update, [Editions | Winter‘23](, merchants were introduced to 100+ changes to simplify everything from marketing to staff management. Don’t have time to sort through them all? No worries! We’ve handled the busy work and outlined five of the most important updates to fuel your marketing strategy with your Shopify-powered store: 👇 - Marketing Insights - Automations - Markets Updates - Shopify Magic - Shop App Lead Gen 🔎 Marketing Insights and Tools These words are music to our ears: Accuracy, Insight, Actionability. As the new pillars of [Shopify’s Marketing Insights,]( merchants are given access to more valuable data with ease to make those KPIs (key performance indicators) far less daunting. Shopify even shouts out the “data nerds” (that’s us!) with highly detailed attribution reports for every customer’s journey on your site. You can even break down channel performance to see where your audience is and how they interact with your brand. 🔃 Marketing Automations Have a case of writer’s block for your abandoned cart or follow-up emails? Perhaps you just forgot to send cart information to a high value order last week, and you’ve been scolding yourself ever since. It happens all the time, and the devs at Shopify know it. 👀 Merchants now have access to more templates than ever to automate product recommendations, abandoned cart flows, and more to turn browsers into customers. 🛒 It’s so important to make the most of every second spent on your site, so Shopify now gathers data throughout the user journey so you can sit back and know that automations have your back. [Check out their help page here to set up your automations!]( 🌍 Shopify Markets If you’re ready to take your brand international, Shopify Markets keeps your areas of operation in check. [Shopify Markets]( is fairly new, but since Editions | Winter ‘23, sweeping changes have made the selling and marketing experience more intuitive than ever. Instead of only having one regional tax and conversion rate per market, you can now designate specific products to sell in that market, boosting conversion and enhancing your customer’s experience. ✨ Additionally, those marketing insights we mentioned earlier are available in Shopify Markets, so you never miss an opportunity to convert, upsell, or retarget. Markets even keep you out of hot water when selling products known to be heavily regulated. For the big players, [Markets Pro]( offers even more tools to cater for customer experience. 🤖 Shopify Magic Product descriptions are tedious to create if you have a massive inventory. [Shopify Magic]( allows merchants to type a few keywords about their product and AI will generate a product description. This is game-changing for your SEO strategy if you have products listed for sale without a description. As the name suggests, it looks pretty magical in action and it even has a fancy little animation! You should see this one in your Shopify admin soon if it’s not already there. 📱 The Shop App This one is more for customers than merchants, but as a marketer, you’ll be seeing the results! [The Shop App]( creates a single profile that customers can use to sign into their favorite Shopify-powered store. Shop saves your ID and payment information making checkout, order tracking, and store discovery a few steps shorter. Shopify [details plans]( to add a one-page checkout experience and customized discounts for high-value shoppers in the app. These updates [should produce a whopping 8% increase]( in conversion for a merchant’s Shop audience! 💰 👀 Read all about it! Don’t sleep on these updates if you have a Shopify client or are a merchant yourself! Check out the [full blog post]( for a detailed breakdown of everything listed here and more. Then, pick out a few features to build on. This will keep your brand at the top of its game no matter where you sell. Do you have a favorite Shopify feature or platform hack? We always love hearing about your tips and tricks, so let us know what makes your store special! Sponsor Trying to do more with less in 2023? You need to hyperfocus on one thing. 🎯 Retention. We'll say it again for those in the back. Retention saves money. 📢 The BEST way to scale retention? [Elevate your customer's shopping experience]( with a mobile app and eye-catching push notifications. Why? App users are proven to be more die-hard fans leading to higher conversion rates and more revenue per session. 🚀 The EASIEST path to this? - Tapcart It only takes two weeks to launch an app for your brand with Tapcart so you can: - Build and grow revenue - Save on retargeting ads - Reach customers directly on their phones - Create and manage a killer mobile app The stats speak for themself. Fashion brand, Princess Polly, is a Tapcart power user and their Return on App Spend is 414.13x and the app retention rate is 98.5%. No, that wasn't a typo! 👉 [Start doing more with less. Start with Tapcart.]( Creative Once upon a time, brands used to be able to run one killer creative and rake in the moolah. As times have changed and creative has come to the forefront, for most brands, that approach is no longer an option. 🙁 In 2022, the Pilothouse creative team made over 26,000 unique pieces of content to help propel their clients to peak performance. Last week on [All Killer, No Filler, the team shared some must-know action items for]( [2023.]( Let’s dive in: 🧪 Contrast testing Don’t run a ton of creative just to say you’re running a ton of creative. Ensure to set up tests, specifically contrast tests, to understand what your audience responds to. According to the team at Pilothouse, the most profitable ad accounts (on Meta) were the ones that rapidly tested new content and found winning angles/styles. On average, accounts that launched 10-20 contrast tests per month experienced the biggest returns. Not sure how to run one for your brand? Here’s what you need to know: - A contrast test is a test that allows brands to isolate key variables to know what messaging, colors, ad copy, image style, etc. is most attractive to their audience. - Variables in a contrast test should be small and controlled to best understand what changes are causing what impact. - Only change one variable at a time! Changing multiple causes confusion about what swaps are working. Need an example? 👀 A DTC brand selling running shoes could test two creatives with the same headline, ad copy, product image, etc. If their contrast test focused on the background color, they would simply keep all variables of the ad the same with one blue and one gray background. After a set timeframe, the brand would then be able to see how the variable impacts conversion rate and use the learning to fuel future creative decisions. 🚀 🟩 Greenscreen Looking for a quick way to increase the impact of your top-of-funnel creator content? It’s time to break out the green screen. 💚 Scrollers see so many ads (and video content in general) day in and day out, so making sure your ad doesn’t scream that it’s an ad is more important now than ever. Using a green screen allows you to: - Have a creator speaking with the audience able to see them. - Show off the product with either still or video content in the background. - Bypass ad indicators for scrollers. As brands become more willing to adapt to the idea of scrappy content, you’re going to see more and more greenscreen in your feed. It’s cheap and easy for both brands and creators, so get on it! ✅ ✨ Conclusion Always remember that although yes you should be moving fast, velocity should balance speed and quality. Work at a pace that’s achievable for your brand and helps you understand and implement your learnings, angles, and best formats. Need a hand in with your angles? Check out the [free Pilothouse swipe file!]( 🔥 How are you propelling your ad creative in 2023? Respond to this email and let us know! Quick Hits 🔎 [Google search chief warns]( of ‘fictitious’ answers. 🤖 [AI-powered Bing]( rolls out. 🛑 [Internet Explorer]( support ended yesterday. 📉 [Twilio]( plans layoffs for 17% of its staff. 🙅‍♀️ [The rise]( of ‘deinfluencers’ SHARE DTC NEWSLETTER 🔥 NEW REFERRAL PROGRAM HAS OFFICIALLY DROPPED 🔥 Want to level up the marketing skills of your teammates and employees? Just grab your referral link below and you’ll earn points toward cool gear for every new subscriber you bring to the DTC fam. Here’s your unique referral link: [( [Share via facebook]( [Share via twitter]( [Share via whatsapp]( [Share via email](mailto:?subject=Check%20this%20out&body=%F0%9F%94%A5%20Signed%20up%20to%20this%20newsletter%20a%20couple%20of%20weeks%20ago%20and%20it's%20amazing%20for%20DTC%20marketers%20like%20you!+https%3A%2F%2Fsparklp.co%2F47c676d0%2F%3Futm_source%3Demail) [See how many referrals you have!]( Referal program is subject to [DTC Terms & Conditions.]( 🔊 Have you heard our latest podcasts? 🧑‍🦲 [iRestore]( Hair Growth System: Kevin Chen - The True Impact of Costco. ⚔️ [Mini Katana](: Karly McFarland on $100M in Email Sales and Why She Sold Her Agency and Turned to the Brand Side (C-Suite Mentor Preview). 🤑 [The Oodie]( - Davie Fogarty: Lessons From a Fast $400M. 💸 [Andrew Wilkinson]( at C-Suite in Victoria: Bootstrapping vs. VC vs. PE vs. Angel. 😎 [Pretty Boy]( - Ben Feys and Kevin Niehoff: Nailing your Brand Identity and Balling on a Budget. 💡 Listen to the [Biggest Marketing News]( Stories Today. Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) DTC Newsletter is written by [Rebecca Knight](, [Kate Gullett](, and Michael Venditti. Edited by [Claire Beveridge]( and Eric Dyck. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. NEED MORE DTC? 🚀 [Advertise]( in DTC Newsletter. 💰Check out our course on [Facebook and Instagram]( ads! Rate Us [Rate Us]( [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. We understand that you care about how the information you provide to us is used and shared. We have developed a Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies regarding collecting, using, and disclosing information we receive from our Website users. Federal Filing operates the Website. Our Privacy Policy, along with our Terms & Conditions, governs your use of this site. By using directtoconsumer.co or accepting the Terms of Use (via opt-in, checkbox, pop-up, or clicking an email link confirming the same), you agree to be bound by our Terms & Conditions and our Privacy Policy. Suppose you have provided personal, billing, or other voluntarily provided information. In that case, you may access, review, and make changes to it via instructions found on the Website or by emailing us at team@directtoconsumer.co. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the "unsubscribe" link located at the bottom of any marketing email. Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers cannot opt-out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases (for example, if we have a legal obligation to keep it for specific timeframes). If you have any questions, reply to this email or visit our Website to view our official policies. [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe]( Pilothouse, 1011 Government St., V8W 1X6, Victoria, BC V8W 1X6, Canada