📦 - Spring Clean Your Website

DTC 519 - Website Refresh, Q2 Holidays, and Common Ad Account Mistakes Thursday, March 21, 2024 Ahhh yes, a perfect solution for LITERALLY NOBODY. Good morning, Have you noticed that Meta has launched a discount code feature that’s causing headaches for advertisers? New ads created have a feature called highlight your promo codes auto-checked on and some people have stated that old codes are being pulled that may not work with your promoted products. A reminder to review your next batch of Meta Ads before you hit publish! Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC: - It’s time to ‘refresh’ your website for spring by making these simple tweaks. - Important holiday shopping dates to note for Q2 planning. - And…the five most common mistakes in ad accounts. You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Go To Skincare, Yoni Health, and Rocket Food. 👋 AMAZON 🍄 Four Sigmatic Is The #2 Best-Selling Ground Coffee on Amazon… Here’s How They Did It * The moment all brands dread… plateau. When Four Sigmatic’s spend and scale started flattening, they knew they [needed to make a change](. Thus, Four Sigmatic and Pilothouse came together to [give their Amazon game a serious boost](, focusing specifically on Pay-Per-Click spend. SEO and CRO strategic alignment first led to the revamp of product photos, descriptions, and A+ content. To zero in on the middle and bottom of funnel, Pilothouse (1) utilized sponsored product ads to reach customers, and (2) did product line segmentation to target and retarget different customer groups. 870+ campaigns with bids managed daily has yielded Four Sigmatic: - ROAS 25% greater than the client’s target ✅ - A 115% increase in monthly gross profit ✅ - An 83% increase in monthly shipped revenue (at 7-figure/month levels) ✅ - A 99% increase in YoY active subscribers ✅ 🛑 Stop ignoring Amazon as a scale channel. [Book Your Exploratory Call]( WEBSITE UPDATES ☀️ How To Refresh Your Website for Spring It’s the first day of spring which means it’s time for some housekeeping! As we transition into a new season, this is a great opportunity to make updates to your website. it never hurts to ‘refresh’ your website especially if hyperlinks, key information, or product images appear out of date. Plus…updating your site can help grow organic traffic over time since customers love newness and are more likely to return if there’s fresh graphics, copy, and promotions. Now let’s get started! Do a walk-through of your website (on desktop and mobile) and see if there are any elements or pages that need to be deleted or ‘refreshed’ so information feels current and up-to-date. Here’s a handy checklist of what to look out for: - Homepage: Your homepage is your first impression for a lot of customers. Use this space to add some spring-like imagery or messaging. - Sustainable clothing brand [NAADAM]( takes advantage of their homepage to feature a photo that’s evocative of springtime with bold text that emphasizes the ‘refresh’ angle. 🚲 [NAADAM refreshes website with spring image and copy] - Brand Story: Whether this is called your About page or your Mission, make sure all the key facts and stats about your brand and your milestones are up to date so it’s easier for customers and media to follow your story. - Main Navigation: Ask yourself, do tabs need to be rearranged or do you need to add a new spring collection now that spring has arrived? - Product Images and Info: Take a look at your individual product pages and collection pages to see if any images or videos still have your old product packaging. You can do the same with product names so everything is aligned (and there’s no room for confusion about why your hero product goes by a different name on some webpages). - Social Media Icons: Added a new social media channel to the mix? Make sure all your icons are updated and with the correct link so you can grow your following on other platforms. While you’re at it… ✅ Do some testing! Make sure all hyperlinks are working correctly so customers have a positive user navigation experience and can flow throughout the site with ease. Fixing broken links can also help lower your bounceback rate and raise page views per session. These small and simple changes are great ways to transition your website to spring. KEY Q2 HOLIDAYS 🌸 Time To Mark Your Calendars! And just like that, the 2024 Q1 season comes to an end. ✨ This means it’s time to mark your calendar for key dates throughout Q2 and start prepping for the next quarter. The [Pilothouse team]( is busy planning strategies for their clients for Q2 and recommends considering marking these key dates as a starting point: - April 1 - April Fool’s Day - April 22 - Earth Day - May 5 - Cinco de Mayo - May 12 - Mother’s Day - May 27 - Memorial Day - June 16 - Father’s Day - June 19 - Juneteenth - June 21 - First Day of Summer Q2 Planning Tips: - Flash sales: April Fool’s, Earth Day and Cinco de Mayo are great seasonal moments for running flash sales or limited time offers for email and SMS subscribers. - Gifting angle: If you sell a gifting product, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be prime time for scaling up with a longer promo period! Promo periods throughout Q2 and Q3 are also prime time for testing offers and ad creative in preparation for Q4. Start testing soon! The Pilothouse team highly recommends starting offer testing as early as Q2 to find that winning offer to scale into for Q4 promo periods. For example, you may want to test a tiered offer vs a flat % off offer. Mother’s Day or Father’s Day are the perfect time to test, get data back and iterate. This also gives you plenty of time to run promo creative tests in advance of peak season in Q4. 👍 ⚡ QUICK HITS 🌱 Learn growth strategies from brands like Fishwife, The Sill, and Uncommon Goods. From Shopify integrations to tips for growing brand awareness on social media. [Get the FREE guide curated by ecommerce experts](. * 🤳 UGC content creation doesn’t have to be difficult. Get access to a library of 250,000+ video clips you can leverage to create your next hit ads. [Try Sleepless today](. * 🧠 There’s a smarter way to do media mix modeling. Northbeam's MMM+ delivers media mix modeling that’s accurate, accessible, and actionable. [Get your hands on a free demo](. * 🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE Are you making these mistakes? If so, it’s time to freshen up your ad account with new creatives and manage your spend. Can't view the image? [Click here]( 📰 NEWS - Worldwide ecommerce sales [are forecasted to reach $6 trillion]( this year and make up 20% of total retail sales. - Bolt and Checkout.com [partner up to improve the ecommerce checkout experience](. - Snapchat [plans to launch new ad formats in two popular features]( Spotlight and OpenAI-powered chatbot My AI. - Bubly [expands its product line up with the launch of Bubly Burst](, a sparkling water beverage with zero added sugar on March 25th. SPONSOR DTC 📥 Got a B2B Biz? Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 160k brand leaders and founders this year. [Talk to our team to learn more](. Have you heard our latest podcasts? - 💰 Rick Cadotte on [Four Sigmatic’s TOFU strategy after Meta challenges]( - 🍪 [AKNF 387](: How to extend the life of your cookies - 🪑 Dayne Rusch on [Vyper Industrial’s Eight Figure Shop Chair Journey]( - 📹 [AKNF 385:]( Why 3-5 second ads are crushing it on Meta - 💪 Dan Crosby on [BioSteel and Revitalizing a Hydration Empire]( - ✍️ [AKNF 383:]( Meta State of The Union 2024 Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) DTC Newsletter is written by [Rebecca Knight]( and [Frances Du](. Edited by [Eric Dyck](. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. NEED MORE DTC? 🚀 [Advertise]( in DTC Newsletter. Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content. [Direct To Consumer]( Pilothouse, 1011 Government St., Victoria, BC V8W 1X6, Canada [Advertise with DTC]( | [Work With Pilothouse]( [Unsubscribe](