📦 - The Cowboy Carter Effect 🐝

DTC 530 - Custom Amazon Store Journey, The Cowboy Carter Effect, and Sneaky Deals Friday, April 5, 2024 Same feeling when you put out a new creative and it FLOPS. 🥲 Good morning, ICYMI you can now use ChatGPT without creating an account. OpenAI aims to roll this out gradually to make “AI accessible to anyone curious about its capabilities.” However, this version will have some limitations. Users won’t be able to share or save their chat history. Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC: - How Selkirk Sport built a custom Amazon store journey to increase conversions. - How these three DTC brands are leveraging Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album buzz on social media. - And… why you shouldn’t hit pause on that BFCM ad. You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: eyebobs, The Drake, and Heatseeker AI. 👋 AMAZON 🏅 Selkirk Sport’s Custom Amazon Store Journey An Amazon Store is a great way to showcase your brand and guide customers towards their desired purchase. The Pilothouse Amazon team worked with pickleball brand [Selkirk Sport]( to create a custom Amazon Store journey that improves user experience and raises conversion rates. The problem? On Amazon, customers search for generic terms (e.g. “pickleball paddle”) making it difficult to decide which tier of paddles to direct this traffic and resulting in inefficient spend. The team needed to create a way to guide customers toward the correct pickleball paddle for them based on their skill level and play style (especially when bidding on more generic pickleball paddle-related terms). The solution? A custom Amazon Store journey that helps customers feel educated and empowered to make a purchasing decision. Here’s how they did it: 👇 When customers watch a sponsored brand ad and click through, they land on [this page]( featuring these tiles: This page makes it easy for customers to find the right product by breaking up Selkirk’s products by skill level and including short descriptions with additional details. Each following page speaks to the specific customer base that clicked. Let's take a closer look at Advanced, for example. Once you click on the Advanced section, customers will land on [this informative page](. This page is packed with detailed paddle specs for each product. Why? Because customers in this demographic are experienced players and want all the nitty gritty details. In contrast, [the Beginner page]( is much simpler and more product-focused. They also added these two tiles at the bottom of the Beginner page. - Upsell customers who identify as beginners: These plant the seed for customers to upsell themselves and explore a higher-end product. - Provides competition info: For customers interested in competing in tournaments, they've created a specific collection of USAPA-approved paddles. Why this format works so well: These shoppable tiles keep customers engaged rather than pushing customers to product pages. [The Pilothouse Amazon team]( can control the customer journey in the store and prevent customers from returning to the main search page to see competitor offerings. By creating this easy-to-navigate flow within Selkirk Sport’s Amazon Store, Pilothouse can send generic pickleball traffic to the initial page, and let the customer choose their own journey. If customers search for specific keywords that indicate their player skill level (e.g. “Carbon fiber pickleball paddles”), Pilothouse can direct to the appropriate page (Advanced in this example). Getting creative with your Amazon Store pages can increase sponsored brand performance and allow you to scale more aggressively into keywords. WHAT’S TRENDING 🐝 Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Effect on Social Media With the release of Beyoncé’s much-anticipated album Cowboy Carter, brands are getting in on the fun by posting clever references on social media as an engagement tactic. As the most streamed album on Spotify in a single day this year, it’s clear that many people are listening attentively and unpacking Beyoncé’s country-inspired offering. So, now is the perfect time to celebrate the singer’s cultural impact with timely social media content! Here are three brands who are riding the Cowboy Carter momentum: [Levi’s]( modified their brand name to celebrate Act II. Last week, the apparel brand cheekily changed [its Instagram bio pic and name to Levii’s]( to match one of the track listings called, Levii’s Jeans. Their bio reads ‘FKA Levi’s’ (Formerly Known As) accompanied by the bee emoji, a nod to Beyoncé’s fan base BeyHive. 🐝 [Cécred]( gave their hair care products a country makeover Beyoncé’s new hair care line Cécred cross-promoted the album release with this carousel image of products wearing her signature white cowboy hat. The brand also uses the popular hashtag #CowboyCarter, so their post meets its target audience. [Olipop]( recreated the iconic album cover Gut-friendly drink brand Olipop recreated the Cowboy Carter album cover and made one of their most popular drink flavors, Vintage Cola, the star of the show. The takeaway? This type of social content is a great way to show that your brand is on top of pop culture trends. It’s also bound to drive lots of engagement! 🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE Who says you can only run Black Friday ads in Q4? Ash shares that his BFCM ads are still performing well into Q2. If it works, don’t hit pause. Can't view the image? [Click here]( 📰 NEWS - Suno’s AI music app is already [dubbed the ‘ChatGPT of music,’ but does it train on copyrighted tracks?]( - Meta [plans to launch an updated vertical view video player in a few weeks.]( - Paid ChatGPT users can now [modify DALL-E images with conversational text prompts](. 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? - 🔍 Neil Patel on [AI’s Impact on Marketing and Future Trends]( - 🎵 [AKNF 391](: Strategies for Brands and Creators to Maximize TikTok Engagement - 🧔🏻 Anthony Mink on [Live Bearded’s EOS and Disrupting Legacy Capitalism]( - 🔑 [AKNF 389:]( Unlocking SEO Success in 2024 - 💰 Rick Cadotte on [Four Sigmatic’s TOFU strategy after Meta challenges]( - 🍪 [AKNF 387](: How to extend the life of your cookies 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](. 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](