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DTC 235 - How TikTok Display Cards can slash your conversion costs [DTC]( Banter Monday, September 26, 2022 Spot the error 👀 It happens to the best of us. In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇 📦 Shipping containers cost HOW MUCH?! 📦 Half your conversion costs on TikTok with Display Cards 📦 Use one-click technology to group your potential customers into profiles based on their likelihood to buy with Black Crow AI 📦 The top five Google Search Console reports to keep your eyes on for SEO success 📦 Drive growth through a deeper understanding of customer behavior with Peelinsights Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎 👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, [subscribe,]( so you never miss out. Amazon Wanting to get started on Amazon or scale your brand but feeling held back by extortionate shipping costs? 📦 Today is your special day. Check out a hot tip we pulled from a [Pilothouse]( Slack channel: TikTok Looking To Half Your Conversion Costs on TikTok? Nobody wants to pay more to have customers convert… The goal is to pay as little as possible to gain sales, build your list, and (hopefully) create loyal customers and repeat purchasers. ✅ We’ve got the inside scoop that Display Cards are the new interactive element to take your TikTok ads to the next level. Display cards, unlike interactive stickers:👇 - Offer more customizability - Have a delayed trigger to avoid scaring off viewers trained to swipe away from ads - Look far more branded and natural You can use TikTok Display Cards to show off sales, flash those discount codes, and inform scrollers about promotions. To set up Display Cards, navigate to the interactive elements tab in the TikTok ad creation menu. You’ll find three customizable presets and the option to upload your own custom card! Don’t worry. We won’t lead you astray. [The Pilothouse TikTok team]( have been testing and are sharing their results with you. They tested Display Cards on a client account, and here’s what they found: 💰 After 12k in ad spend, the TikTok experts found that the winning Display Card ads drove conversions at HALF the CPA (cost per acquisition) of the account average. If you have content that’s winning and you’re looking to iterate, try Display Cards. 🚨 Recommendation: The team recommends split testing all three preset cards against different winning creatives. They found the first worked best, but it doesn’t hurt to test and even try making your own custom cards! Sponsor So, iOS 14.5 and your holiday ad campaign walk into a bar… iOS 14.5 says, “I’d like to put a damper on all ad campaign performance.” 😔 Annoyed, your holiday campaign says, “I need to tighten my budget this holiday season and only target the customers who want to buy.” The bartender says, “move over iOS 14.5, and make room for BlackCrow AI.” Okay, this joke doesn’t have a punchline, but it does point out the best solution to all your holiday ad campaign woes — [BlackCrow AI.]( Black Crow AI uses one-click technology to group your potential customers into profiles based on their likelihood to buy (low, medium, and high). You can then turn the profiles of those highly likely to purchase into tangible lists to target in your marketing campaigns. Over 150 DTC brands including SKIMS, Liquid IV, Magic Spoon, and Alleyoop, have already turned to BlackCrow AI to increase their ad performance & ROAS—even with tight budgets, and you can too. 👉 [Click to get the best gift this holiday season—a 30-day BlackCrow AI free trial.]( SEO Top Five Google Search Console Reports for SEO [Google Search Console (GSC)]( is the leading search engine's free tool built specifically to help optimize websites. If you’re a brand looking to check out your true Google Search performance, GSC is the ultimate arbiter. 💪 It’s worth nothing that there are solutions like [Ahrefs](, [SEMRush](, [Moz Pro](, and many tools to help SEO professionals achieve their goals. Nonetheless, Google Search Console remains one of the best and most effective options, including no less than five stand-out reports for SEO. Let’s take a look at ‘em:👇 🍎 The Core Web Vitals Report Put simply, Google wants website owners to understand which performance factors contribute to a good user experience. Google does this because each time the company presents a link in the SERP, they essentially endorse said link and tell the searcher that this page has the right information that relates to their search query. 👍 However, if the information presented is hard to access because of slow loading pages or similar problems, both Google Search and the page in question take a reputation hit. To help SEO practitioners gauge their optimization efforts, Google created [Web Vitals]( that lists site performance factors responsible for a good user experience. Core Web Vitals are a subset of Web Vitals (confusing, we know!) and take into account what’s present on every website. It’s these factors that are known to impact rankings on Google Search. The Core Web Vitals explained: 👇 - Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). This measures perceived page loading speed based on elements a user can see. - First Input Delay (FID). This measures interactivity by tracking delays in event processing. - Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). This measures visible stability in the page as it loads. In GSC’s Page Experience > Core Web Vitals report, search optimizers will find details about which pages are meeting the Core Web Vitals standards and which ones aren’t, and this information is separated by device type, i.e., desktop or mobile. Drill down in the report to find issues, like CLS taking longer than 2.5 seconds and the pages impacted, which you’ll then need to fix. 🛠This report can become a working list shared across your SEO team. Get these Core Web Vitals in line and watch pages rise on Google's search engine results pages (SERPs). 📈 🤖 The Coverage Report Found at Index > Coverage in Google Search Console, this report helps SEO professionals identify which pages Google's search bot has crawled and indexed, exposing any problems which may have occurred during that process. Errors Items listed as errors on this report are problems that prevent pages from being indexed, meaning no one can find them on Google Search, even though Google did crawl the page. With errors, a minor fix could lead to a lot more site traffic. 🧑‍🔧 Valid with Warnings This report will also identify pages that are "Valid with Warnings." A common example is a good page that your robots.txt file is blocking. Google Search Console flags the page because it’s unsure if this is intentional. ⛳️ These valid with warnings pages may or may not appear on Google, and can typically be fixed with just a little work. Excluded Finally, there is a list of "Excluded" pages that are not indexed. Here are pages Google believes you intentionally don't want included. Keep scrollin’ for three more reports to keep your eyes on for SEO success. ✅ Sponsor ‘Tis The Season for Acquisition Retention Congratulations! BFCM is going to bring you a TON of new customers. That’s awesome! But, everyone knows customer retention is the best way to build sustainable growth through customer loyalty. 😉 That’s where [Peel's latest retention solution, Audiences,]( helps DTC brands. They change BFCM being a one-time sales event to being a huge opportunity for DTC brands to drive long-term value and growth. On average, customers who use Audiences are seeing a +30% increase in revenue generated across each Audience they build. Plus, they’re using Audiences to run hyper-targeted marketing (SMS & email) experiments via Klaviyo and Attentive to nurture deeper customer relationships. Join amazing DTC brands like Jones Road, Ministry of Supply, and Kitsch that use Peel to drive growth through a deeper understanding of their customer behavior. 👉 [Start your free trial and get 20% off your first 3 months.]( SEO – Part 2 🤔 The Top Queries Report Nestled in Search Console's Performance on Search results section is what SEO practitioners call the top queries report. There is an HTML version of this report available, but many SEO professionals export it using the export link in the upper right corner of the report's main page. The resulting spreadsheet will list a website's top search queries (the specific phrases users typed into Google Search) and complete click, impression, and position information for the specified period. At the most obvious level, this report shows which search queries drive the most site traffic. But it will also help to identify SEO opportunities, including: 👇 - Identifying long-tail key phrases for additional optimization, - Locating search queries with poor click-through rates, - Tracking position for long-tail key phrases. To make this clear, consider the second bullet point above. Here an SEO pro might look for search queries with lots of impressions but a relatively low click-through rate. 🖱 These search queries represent an opportunity to get more traffic since they are already getting impressions. So minor changes to the content, page title, or even meta description could result in many more site visits. 🔝 The Top Pages Report Located right next to the Queries tab in Search Console's Performance on Search results section is the top pages report. Similar in purpose to the Top Queries Report, this information helps identify the leading pages on your website. 🏆 This is a good way to find potential topics for expansion or potential weaknesses in page types. Are blog posts generating more traffic than product pages? Are frequently asked questions getting loads of traffic? Are there pages missing that should be earning more visits? 🔗 The Links Report If you want to know which pages have the most inbound links and which domains are linking to them, you will want Google Search Console's Links report. The report includes data for both internal and external links. ✍️ In the former case, the tool can be used to ensure topic clusters and similar linking strategies are being properly employed. While the later case can be used to identify new outreach opportunities or, conversely, pages to disavow. ✨ Conclusion: Utilize the SEO tools on the market to help drive traffic to your pages! Your brand works hard on your content, make sure you’re taking all necessary steps to get it the eyes it deserves! 👀 Quick Hits ♻️ [Facebook](: Understand how marketers are adapting to changes in the evolving ads ecosystem. 👀 [Survey](: Google is most trusted tech platform for news, TikTok the least. 🎞 How to feature a [TikToker]( in an ad, starring Khaby Lame. 👨‍🔬 Looking at [320 pitch decks](, here’s what science tells us works best. 👎 [TikTok]( is releasing its comment dislike button to all users worldwide. 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!]( 🔊 Have you heard our latest podcasts? 👟 Retail Giant Steve Madden on Retention at Scale with Hannah Sinclair and [Bluecore's]( Sarah Cascone. 💄 Growth vs. Customer Experience: Cody Plofker and Eli Weiss from [Jones Road Beauty]( Weigh In. 🕺 [Disco's]( Benjamin Smith on Nailing Your Product Market Fit With Creative, Offer, and Landing Page. 🆕 Overcoming the New Normal With a Content Creator Network, [Crossrope's Srjdan Popovic]( Returns! 🌸 How [True Botanicals]( Became the Fastest Growing Luxury Beauty Brand with Tresl Segments. Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) DTC Newsletter is written by [Rebecca Knight](, and [Jordan Gillis](. 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! 📥 Work for The DTC Newsletter: Send an email to Rebecca, rebecca@directtoconsumer.co, if you’re interested in writing for us! 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. 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