📦 Poke The Bear

DTC 161 - Pro-active media buying in a post-apocalyptic iOS14.5 world [DTC]( Banter Wednesday, April 6, 2022 Will Elon’s buying a 9.2% stake in Twitter make it a more effective public square? We’re just wondering if he can help make their ad platform relevant. If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Bearded Colonel, P.F. Candle Co., Sistaco, and Function of Beauty. 🛀 Maybe Elon could buy Apple, and get them to reinstate email tracking. Until then, don't forget to [click something]( to let us know you're with us. In this newsletter you’ll find: 👇 📦 100M TikTok views and why every CPG brand should slap the marshmallow with TheMarshmallow.co's Joel Twyman 📦 Tackling abandoned carts before, during, and after they happen with Adroll 📦 Poking the bear - Pro-active media buying in iOS 14.5 world 📦 Affordable TikTok UGC with Insense Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎 👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, [subscribe]( so you never miss out. Facebook Navigating Facebook data post-iOS14 🤔 The media buyer’s dilemma In the wake of iOS14.5, relying solely on Ads Manager as a central source of truth for your media buying is a dicey play. Beyond the discrepancies we reported on in Monday’s issue, Meta’s conversion modeling is delayed in real-time, meaning it can be difficult for media buyers to make confident day-to-day decisions about optimizing and scaling campaigns. ❤️‍🩹 Trust issues As someone who uses Meta as an ad platform, you must recognize that you no longer can trust platform-specific data alone without referencing additional “sources of truth,” specifically Shopify and Google Analytics. Of course, your Ads Manager dashboard can still give you a decent sense of what ads are working, and for some stores the discrepancy between what Meta reports, and what Shopify reports is small. However, many stores are seeing a 20-50% drop in conversions due to underreporting. More importantly, they’re witnessing a significant reduction in prospecting conversions from the top of their funnel. Because you can’t always rely on data based on past behavior, it’s important to plan a more active approach to your media buying. 🐻 Poke the bear, then pin it They say not to poke the bear, but those people have never had to figure out paid social. Rather than reading campaign data on Ads Manager and reacting with changes, we’re using a more active approach, which we call “poking the bear.” In this analogy, the bear is Meta’s ads algorithm, and by poking it with a targeted spend, and then using Shopify and Google Analytics as your “sources of truth” to pinpoint where to increase your ad spend to see the most real lift. 👇 Confused? Let's break this down… This concept of active performance media buying can be applied across campaigns, creatives, geo, and more, but essentially it boils down to: The poke: Think of each poke as an ad spend with an isolated hypothesis. You can poke to test any variable, creative, or campaign configuration. The golden range for the 'poke' is between 5-15% based on the store's confidence in the revenue they plan to receive from the ads' return. The step back: Assess the results: first look at Shopify to see the revenue truth. From there you can compare to Google Analytics to get more granularity about your campaign, via the UTM codes you’re using on all your links. With this data, you can process the trend lines caused by your campaigns. The pin: When you isolate a winner using your source of truth and see your spend’s incremental impact on your Shopify results. You go in for the pin and get more aggressive with your ad spend (or as Pilothouse called it in last [week’s podcast](“slam spend.”) 🥜 Poke the bear strategy TL/DR - Look at eROAS, which consists of ad spend vs. Shopify revenue - Lean into Google Analytics UTM data to look at certain trendlines to form decisions. - If things look fine and dandy, poke the bear harder and increase your ad-spend - If things aren’t looking so great, pull back and step away from the bear, evaluate the available signals, and restructure your next poke In the coming weeks, we’ll be writing more on best practices for post iOS14.5 optimizing on meta, including the amazing world of third-party tracking. If you're interested in learning how not to be Leo DiCaprio from The Revenant, check out the [All Killer No Filler podcast]( with the [Pilothouse Facebook]( team. 🚨 Sponsor Stop abandoned carts Each year, DTC brands lose a jaw-dropping $18 billion in revenue due to abandoned carts, and it's a massive headache for Shopify merchants. Good news is, it does not need to be accepted as a cost of doing business! [AdRoll]( is partnering with Yotpo and Cohley to bring an amazing webinar to life: "Abandoned Carts For Shopify Merchants: Tackling Them Before, During & After They Happen." Tune in on Tuesday, April 19. 10:00 a.m PDT / 1:00 p.m EDT. During the webinar you will learn: - The top abandoned cart prevention and recovery strategies for your Shopify store. - Exclusive tips, insights, and case studies from eCommerce marketing leaders (AdRoll, Yotpo & Cohley). - Insights on Shopify integrations and tools help win back lost customers. 👉 [Sign up for the webinar here!]( Podcast 🎧 On the pod this week, we got all soft and gooey with Joel Twyman, Co-founder of [The Marshmallow Co]( . The Marshmallow Co. is an Australia-based business that crafts delectably fluffy, handmade gourmet marshmallows that melt in your mouth. 😋 In this episode, we learned how Joel exploded his small business with organic TikTok, how he went viral after just three videos, and all his sticky insights for making TikTok work for you. ‍The Takeaways: 👇 🤳 TikTok success secrets: When starting on TikTok, Joel made a plan to post three videos. The first two bombed. The third, however, went totally viral. 🚀 So what was the secret sauce in that third winner? It simply showed the process of Joel making and packaging their products. “I think the combination of [the video] being a bit educational and showing how we make [the product], putting the voiceover and telling a story, that combination worked pretty well for us… [I recommend] showing your product, but also putting a bit of personality behind it and showing that you’re a small business. I think the people come for the interesting product, but they stay for the personality or the people behind it. They want to feel part of something.” Well, it must work. The Marshmallow Co. now has millions of views on its TikTok profile. 📣 CPG brands take note, this is your clarion call to start making content showing “how the sausage is made” on TikTok! Since then, Joel has maintained steady growth on the channel, which has become a huge driver of sales of their business. He’s also implemented a few other success secrets: - Goes live on TikTok regularly - Brings in his team to help create content - “Engages the haters” in the comments (witty responses, memes) Final words of wisdom from Joel if you’re looking to crush on TikTok: “Watch a lot of TikTok… You’ll see the style of videos because you don’t want to make a YouTube or Facebook-style video on TikTok because it’s completely different… Follow creators in your niche and watch their videos. Then you can just take inspiration from that and use your own team to make similar videos…and you’ll find your own voice.” 🎁 Giveaway contests as ads: Now, they’re not only about ‘the Tok.’ The Marshmallow Co. has also seen success running ads to giveaway competitions on IG and FB (usually for seasonal product launches). This not only builds brand awareness but also allows them to grow a “shortlist” of people that are interested in that product. “People who aren’t interested in marshmallows won’t enter in a competition to win marshmallows…so we’ve already got a warm list there.” After the competition, he’ll then send a series of emails to that list welcoming them to the business and giving them a discount to try their products. 👏 💰 What Joel would do with an extra $50K: Joel would split it between growth and product development. He’d spend some on creating more content, potentially to grow their YouTube channel. And then he’d invest the rest in product dev to improve their product’s existing shelf life and create products suitable for other diets, like Vegans. 👉 Listen to the full pod with Joel [here]( ! Sponsor Strike gold with TikTok UGC content When it comes to UGC and other marketing campaigns, TikTok is an absolute gold mine. ⛏ The eCommerce aggregator, [Thrasio]( has partnered with many affordable TikTok Creators to source a volume of user-generated content (UGC) to promote their Amazon products. The combination of organic posting and Spark Ads skyrocketed their success, as Gen-Z is a very underutilized demographic in that space. With a budget of 8,000$, Thrasio managed to: 🔥 Receive 200+ pieces of new TikTok content 🔥 Achieve a faster content creation process 🔥 Create more authentic and relatable content 🔥 Partner with TikTok creators to run Spark Ads 🔥 Organically post a constant flow of new content Thrasio optimized their #founditonamazon campaign in just two months and roped in over 3 million views. If you’re interested in learning more, check the link below! 👉 [View the full case study here.]( Quick Hits 💻 Want to add a product quiz to your eCommerce site, but don't know where to start? Start with [Digioh.]( * ♻️ [Google]( has added a new recycling attribute that maximizes business discoverability by raising interest in businesses' recycled programs. 📈 Elon Musk purchased 9.2% of [Twitter](. Elon was driven by complaints about the app's approach to free speech. 👯‍♂️ [Twitter]( is currently testing a ‘Collabs’ feature, which will allow users to co-author tweets with certain brands. 🎸[Spotify]( is now testing a new feature that will allow creators to promote popular user-created playlists. 🔎 [Twitter]( is testing a new feature allowing brands to release ‘Interactive Text Ads’, which will enable advertisers to connect landing pages to chosen words. *Sponsored SHARE DTC NEWSLETTER Looking to upgrade your WFH lifestyle? 👊 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!]( 🔊 Have you heard our latest podcasts? 🍭 100 Million TikTok Views Slapping the Marshmallow with [TheMarshmallow.co's]( Joel Twyman. 👀 If You Shelve It, Will They Come? With Fractional CMO [Bryan Holladay](. 🏋️‍♂️ Why Personalization Might be the Biggest Opportunity in DTC with Eric Ji Sun Wu, Cofounder of [Gainful.]( 💄The Fast Road to 8 Figures with [Jones Road Beauty's]( Cody Plofker. Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight, [Jordan Gillis](, and [Kelsey Hess](. Edited by [Claire Beveridge]( and Eric Dyck. 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