📦 - A Can Of Do’s and Don’ts

DTC 641 - Merchant Center Updates, Labor Day Results, and OLIPOP’s A Can of Do campaign Monday, September 9, 2024 Good morning, OpenAI’s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI company Safe Superintelligence just raised a mind-boggling $1 billion in cash. Their mission? To develop safe AI systems that ‘far surpass human capabilities.’ Keep scrolling down to see more major moves in our Mergers and Acquisitions section. Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC: ⚒️ Google Merchant Center’s new tools help brands tap into shopping trends faster and makes building custom reports a breeze. 💰 We share Labor Day campaign insights and what these learnings mean for Q4 campaigns. ⛰️ And…OLIPOP’s clever ‘A Can of Do’ ad takes a shot at Mountain Dew. You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: [Fly London](, [Knude Society](, and [Map Gears](. 👋 FREE RESOURCE ✋ STOP - Use This To Get Back on Track With BFCM Prep The countdown to Black Friday/Cyber Monday is on. ⏱️ How confident are you that you’re on track? If you’re not actively making every day count or don’t know HOW to make every day count, you’ll be glad you read this. 👇 [Klaviyo’s BFCM calendar]( is a FREE resource designed to help you strategically plan your campaigns, track key dates, and ensure your promotions hit the mark. 🎯 If you’re not planning your strategy and tracking your progress, you won’t be maximizing the growth opportunity through the busy season rush. Stay organized, build momentum, and stay ahead of the competition. 🏆 [Check Out The Calendar Here]( *Sponsored PLATFORM UPDATE 🔧 ICYMI Google Merchant Center Made Three Big Updates We are less than four months away from Christmas, and Google has made three exciting updates to Google Merchant Center to help ecommerce businesses with their holiday marketing push. 1️⃣ Product Trend Insights report Google has added a handy chart that shows how shopping and purchasing trends are evolving online. This screenshot shows how apparel items are gaining or decreasing in popularity so online retailers can plan their marketing and ad strategy accordingly. Google says these changes will make it easier for brands to “jump on viral moments, make better-informed inventory decisions, and ensure your product descriptions use the same terms shoppers are.” They even provide a use case: Say you’re a specialty denim retailer considering putting away surplus inventory of knee-length denim shorts. New trend insights in Merchant Center might show you that the product category “denim Bermuda shorts” is trending, but people are actually using the words “long denim jorts” to find them. What this means: Keep an eye out for this so you can add these specific keywords to your product descriptions or blog content. Here are all the recent updates you might have missed: 2️⃣ AI Summaries Merchant Center is also adding cool features like these AI-powered insight summaries at the top of the Analytics tab that provide you with product insights and key trends. What this means: These AI summaries will give you an overview of which product categories are gaining traction and actionable next steps for campaign success. 3️⃣ Add conversational queries to reporting Now, you can type conversational prompts to generate reports in Merchant Center. Leverage this AI tool to compile and analyze information for you and save time! What this means: No more need to manually build out custom reports. Google plans to roll out all of these updates globally in the upcoming weeks, so if you don’t see it in your account just yet, keep checking! Which update are you the most excited for? Reply back to the newsletter and let us know! INFLUENCER CONTENT 🗣️ Wondering How Top Brands Get Endless Influencer Shoutouts? How are top brands like Obvi, Tabs Chocolate, and Surreal beating ad costs? Influencer-generated content from SARAL. It’s real, it’s versatile, and it connects with the right audience. In short, it works. But getting content consistently is a pain, right? Not for brands using SARAL. They're getting [5x more influencer content]( and saving hours of manual work. Here's their playbook: - 💁 ♀️ Find niche influencers aligning with your brand - 📬 Send personalized emails at scale (with automated follow-ups) - 📦 Ship products right from your Shopify store - 🤳 Influencers post about you, generating endless streams of content - 📊 Track everything - posts, sales, traffic, ROAS Do all this without switching tabs or buying different tools. Effective, efficient, easy. Hop on a [free personalized tour now](. Plus, the customer happiness team gives you VIP treatment, no matter your plan. [Start Your 7-Day Free Trial]( *Sponsored CAMPAIGN INSIGHTS 💰 A Record-Breaking Labor Day and Learnings The Pilothouse team saw record-breaking Labor Day sales last weekend. Here's a quick summary of some highlights: - 247% YoY Growth in sales compared to last year's Labor Day - An uptick in average order value by 26% With the increase in price sensitivity over the last year, the success from this year's Labor Day helped predict major growth signals coming in Q4 and BFCM. And these results show that consumers are waiting now more than ever to buy at the right time and for the right price. So make use of that insight and capitalize on micro-holidays leading up to BFCM. Each holiday is a window to YoY growth and a chance to plant seeds of high-performing content for the greatest results during Black Friday. Here are a few upcoming micro-holidays and opportunities you can take advantage of: - Labor Day Extended Sale - End of Summer/Start of Fall Offers - Halloween - Or any holiday/celebration relevant to your brand! For creatives, here are three trends [the Pilothouse team]( is seeing when it comes to top-performing ads. 1️⃣ Black background: Products with a solid black background color and urgency copy. 2️⃣ The warehouse box shot: Showing off loads of products and boxes with some copy overlay. 3️⃣ Repeat background text: Put the product shot front and center with simple urgency copy in the background. 🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE OLIPOP is promoting their new flavor, Ridge Rush, and as part of their campaign, they are taking a swipe at the well-known soda brand Mountain Dew. The cheeky tagline ‘A Can of Do’ and mountain-themed packaging positions OLIPOP as the healthier alternative as it tries to win over younger consumers. Can't view the image? [Click here]( 💸 MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS - The AI start-up Safe Superintelligence [has raised $1 billion with a $5 billion valuation](. - Shift4 Payments [acquires gift card company Givex for $148 million](. - Creatine company Create Wellness [raises $5 million in a funding round led by Unilever Ventures](. 📰 NEWS - Snapchat [introduces new ad features like Sponsored Snaps](. - Tadao Nagasaki, CEO of OpenAI Japan [revealed ChatGPT-Next will be 100x more powerful than ChatGPT-4](. - Celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin [partners with Vital Proteins on a new Hair Complex product](. - Stanley [drops a new Pumpkin Spice drinkware collection](. 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? - 🐶 Ollie on [The Role of Brand in Scaling a Pet Food Company]( - 🦆 [AKNF 435:]( Stocking the Pond and Planning for Q4 - 👟 How VKTRY Gear [Achieved 240% Growth with Niche Marketing]( - 🆚 [AKNF 433:]( All In on Amazon v.s. Diversified DTC - 🌪️ Cherene Aubert on [Using the Tornado Effect to Scale ILIA Beauty]( - 💡 [AKNF 431:]( Develop Your Own Data-Backed Creative Strategy 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](