📦 - TikTok's Creative Cards: Supercharge Your Content Creation

Branded Payments, TikTok Ads, Spending Trends, BFCM Recap, Educational UGC As Content Wednesday, November 29, 2023 Good morning! Now that the BFCM dust has settled, let’s take a look at what happened this past weekend. - Whoa, Cyber Monday was way bigger than expected. Adobe Analytics reports $12.4B in sales, (the highest ever in spending) fueled by new platforms like Temu and Shein and more flexible payment options like buy-now-pay-later 💰 - Learn how TikTok’s new Creative Cards feature can help your business write ad copy like a pro (more on this story below) - In this episode of pod, we talk about why Santevia is at the top of the water filtration and mineralization game and their go-to-market strategy. 💧 Let’s dive in: 👇 BRANDED PAYMENTS 🖼️ Picture this: You're dreaming of an RH Cloud Couch. All your friends are buying dupes, but … brand, baby. You want the real thing. * Only problem: the real thing is even more expensive than you thought. Lucky for you, RH offers a credit card and membership program that 1) drops the price by 20% and 2) makes it easier to not drain your bank account on a single piece of furniture. They removed every objection. So, you pull the trigger. So, question for you: if this is at all relatable, how many people are doing this on your site, with your brand? The solution: Do what RH does and give your customers a line of credit. [Tandym]( is the branded payment provider for modern brands, letting your customers open a branded payment method—credit or debit—in just a few clicks. Your customers get: Accelerated rewards and additional credit. ✅ Your brand gets: Reduced processing fees, higher average order values, and higher purchase frequency. ✅ It’s a win-win. [Try Tandym Today]( TIKTOK ADS 🎭 Creative cards helps business owner easily create content Small businesses on TikTok can now easily create strong content for the holidays. By exploring [their new feature Creative Cards](, any business owner can use these tips and tricks to stand out when creating organic content or ad campaigns. Shuffle the stat-filled deck of cards to see prompts and examples on how to kick start your content production. These virtual cards are divided up into five main categories: - Holiday: Learn how to create an engaging holiday ad campaign and put your products front and center. - Community: Understand how to engage with your audience and generate high engagement in your content. - Edutainment: Tips on how to share lessons learned and demo products without being overly salesy. - Creator Tools: Get to know all the tools and features within the app like green screen ideas and TikTok Effects. - Storytelling: The word of the year is ‘authenticity’ for a reason. Open up about your business journey, challenges, and why you decided to create your product or service. 👀 Eye-popping stat: 50% of TikTok users utilize the FYP page for holiday and shopping event content so don’t miss out on this opportunity. Let us know if you’ve used this new feature to get your creative juices flowing. SPENDING TRENDS 🗓️ Consumer Spending Outlook to Help You Plan For The Year Ahead* Do you want to understand how consumers are adjusting their purchasing habits and how you can update your strategy to reach today’s audiences more effectively? Simple, just read Klaviyo’s 2023 consumer spending report! 👏 The report reveals: - Current vs. future spending plans and budget allocation - Top spend categories by generation - Attitude toward luxury spending and (and what's driving "the lipstick effect") BFCM may be over, but the best customers shop with you for life. ❤️ [Get Klaviyo's report]( to learn more about the latest spending trends and how to optimize your marketing to drive more purchases through 2024 and beyond. [Click To Download]( BFCM RECAP 🏆 Pilothouse’s POV on strong BFCM numbers BFCM was a wild ride for ecommerce businesses and spending was way up from last year (love to see it!). Here’s a peek at the stats from Shopify and Amazon: - Total worldwide sales from Shopify merchants were $4.1B (up by 22%) 🌏 - Peak sales per minute on Shopify hit $4.2M (up by 20%) - The average order value on Shopify was $110.71 (up by 5.6% or $7) - Amazon shoppers spent $9.8 billion in the US (up by 7.5%) We thought we’d check in with our sister company, [Pilothouse]( to see if they were seeing similar upward trending results. Here’s what they had to say: 👇 📈 Most of clients beat their targets across all product categories including apparel, sporting goods, and cookware. - ~85% of our clients beat last year - ~30% of our clients doubled their stats from 2022 - ~15% of our clients had single-day sales of over $300K 🖊️ Key BFCM Insights: - Data is King: Collecting and segmenting email data leading up to BFCM helped maximize conversions. New customers were shown big offers to keep them in the pipeline. - Buyers were slower to add to cart: The build-up to purchase took a lot longer than usual, with shoppers likely comparing products across multiple sites but ultimately still making a purchase. - Many shoppers were buying holiday gifts: More people took advantage of Black Friday promotions to grab their Christmas gifts or daily necessities than in the past. What this means: Either purchase intent has potentially stabilized or consumers are looking to save big before the end of year. We hope your Black Friday went well and wish you all the best through the holiday sales season. Onwards and upwards! 🚀 🚨 How did your Black Friday/Cyber Monday Go? Vote below! - [Meh]( - [Pretty good]( - [Smashed it]( SPONSOR DTC 📥 Promote your product to 160,000 digital marketing professionals DTC Newsletter + Podcast reaches a highly qualified audience of Shopify merchants, eCommerce founders, and digital marketers. [Talk to our team to learn more](. PODCAST 🎧 How educational UGC is an important element in your content machine 🎧 On this unfiltered episode of DTC, we speak with water expert Matthew Gohl, the Director of Marketing and Sales from [Santevia Water System](. Since 2008, Santevia has manufactured and distributed water filtration and water mineralization products. They offer the best alkaline filter pitchers and bottles on the market that take out contaminants and then add all those healthy minerals back into the water to invigorate your body. We’ll discuss the importance of quality H2O, Santevia’s go-to-market strategy for DTC, and the importance of influencer marketing when it comes to creating great content. The refreshing story 👇 ✨ Perfect timing to go DTC ✨ Matthew notes that making the switch to Shopify right before COVID hit was lucky timing. The newly branded website was all set up and ready to take in orders during a time when people were more concerned with their health and well-being. In 2021, partnering with Pilothouse helped accelerate the business even further. 🔥 How Santevia was able to grow so fast on DTC (to the point where it’s eclipsed their retail revenue). - They went omnichannel: selling on Amazon bought more in more sales with the bath filter being the star product - Matthew shares: “Amazon is a fantastic brand awareness tool since so many people are searching for products there.” - Customer feedback loop: Through yearly surveys, they discovered their customer base was getting younger and so did their pain points - Based on these learnings they were able to change their value proposition and put it front and center on the homepage with an eye-catching video - Leveraged Shopify Audiences tool: Helps you find lookalike audiences driven by your customer purchasers to find new customers. ✨ Mom Influencers can be conversion machines ✨ Matthew discusses that working with TikTok influencers with a trusted audience can be a game changer. If a product requires a lot of education it can be difficult to get the message across to individuals. But influencers can internalize your message, align themselves with your brand and speak passionately about the product including the taste. - Work with influencers who connect with your brand’s mission - Allow them to speak authentically about the product. Matthew states tapping into mom influencers and those in the lifestyle space really paid off. 💡 Matthew’s advice on working with quality influencers: “After a campaign, look over your metrics and continue to work with those who convert well. We usually start with 20 influencers and then pick two of our top performers to work with again.” 👉 Listen to the full episode with Matthew Gohl [here](. ⚡ QUICK HITS 👀 What separates a subscription program that customers love from a nonstop churn-driving machine? One word. Data. [Get the 2023 Benchmark report for subscription KPIs](.* 🎉 Shopify has a spectacular BFCM weekend. [Its merchants recorded over $9.3 billion in sales (a new record)]( and over 61 million consumers shopped Shopify powered stores. 📈 Exceed your Q1 acquisition goals. Acquire incremental customers and generate thousands of sales per month at or below your target CPA with Nift.[Connect with a rep about Q1 testing plans today](.* ⏰ TikTok users are loving long-form content. [The app claims users spend half of their time watching longer videos]( and users who upload longer videos can grow their following 5x as fast. 🍪 Google is getting ready to phase out 1% of third party cookies in early 2024. Third party cookies will be replaced with Privacy Sandbox technology which will make it [harder for advertisers to target their customers](. 📦 Amazon surpasses UPS to become the largest delivery service in the U.S. The ecommerce giant is forecasted to deliver [5.9 billion packages before the end of the year](. 👀 BANTER Us scrambling to read every piece of DTC related news, platform updates, and DTC musings everyday. 😅 Have you heard our latest podcasts? - 3️⃣ [AKNF 356](: The Three Stages of TikTok Ad Mastery With Spencer from Pilothouse - 📽️ [Short Form Video or Die]( with Colin Landforce. - 💄 [AKNF 354](: EXTREME Email Makeover with Retention Director Jordan Gordon: banger includes, stinker excludes for maximum revenue and deliverability this Q4 - 🤝 [What Leading DTC Subscription Brands All Have in Common]( w/ Anatta + Recharge - 🤑 [CRO to Sell More Stuff]( with Nik Sharma and Brett Turner. Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) Got an awesome DTC brand story to tell? Calling all brand-side founders and team leaders! Fancy joining us on the DTC Podcast as a guest? [Tap the link to toss in your application](. DTC Newsletter is written by [Rebecca Knight](, [Frances Du](, and [Michael Venditti](. 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]( [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](