📦 - Roast Em’, Melt Em’, Toast Em’ Over The Fire

DTC 500 - IT’S HALF A MILLENIUM - LET’S GO Friday, February 23, 2024 WELCOME TO DTC NEWSLETTER NUMBER 5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣!! 🎉 I’ll spare you the sappy breakdown of our total word count (hint: it’s a lot) and instead share some things about DTC you may not know: - We’re a team of 16 with our homebase in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. 🇨🇦 - We track data just like your brands do (re: CPA, CLTV, CTR) but we realized our spreadsheets were missing something… More on this later. - The ecommerce industry is moving SO FAST that we literally never struggle to find new things to talk about. - We’ve got a whole lot of things planned for this year that we think you’ll love. So, what are we tackling next? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. 😏 XOXO, DTC Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC: - Our top 5 spreadsheet-worthy Marshmallow Moments - The top 5 (are you seeing a trend here 👀) most listened to DTC podcasts of all time - Your, our dear DTC readers’, top 5 most engaged with tips and tricks we’ve shared over the years You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Showpo, Good Change, and Wit & Wick Candles. 👋 PERSONALIZATION 🤗 Create Personalized Journeys to Delight Your Customers * Every brand wants to communicate more efficiently with their customers. And in 2024, customers expect smarter digital relationships with brands. [Klaviyo makes it easy]( for B2C businesses to transform all their data into more valuable customer experiences across every touchpoint — from email and SMS to the web and reviews. Businesses like ColourPop get it – Data is the new gold. "The data lives in Klaviyo… It's a gold mine" — Amanda Lopez, VP of Ecommerce, ColourPop Cosmetics Not all platforms are built to power smarter digital relationships, so if yours isn't... [Get Started with Klaviyo]( MARSHMALLOW MOMENTS 👀 Now This (THIS!!) Was Our Missing Piece Of The Data Puzzle Remember earlier when I mentioned that we were missing something in our spreadsheets? 🤔 We had the numbers, the quantifiable data that helped us make decisions, and that was good, but something just wasn’t right… We didn’t have a way to quantify the tangible impact of the content we produce on the daily. The moments where readers (like you!!) reached out saying, “thanks, this really helped my brand achieve xyz!” Those moments make us feel all the warm and fuzzies, but we weren’t tracking them. Here’s a fun inside DTC fact, we LOVE to give things names (think: ‘Operation + quirky name for whatever we’re tackling at the time’). SO, it was only fair this project got a fun name too. Where we landed? Marshmallow Moments. 🤔 We’re pretty sure you’re wondering, why marshmallows? In March of 2022, a DTC subscriber, [Joel from The Marshmallow Co.](, shared a huge win. Inspired by our TikTok tips from the DTC Podcast, they skyrocketed from 20k views and <1k followers to a whopping 1.2M followers and 21M+ likes. If you create content, heck even just post on socials, you know that sometimes it can feel a bit like screaming into the void. Do people even care? Is anyone even reading what I’m writing or sharing?! Marshmallow Moments, inspired by Joel’s win, became our new benchmark to measure what we weren’t previously. Since coining the term, we’ve started seeing them everywhere (we even added a little marshmallow emoji in our Slack 😌). Here’s our top 5 oh-so-sticky Marshmallow Moments: 1️⃣ We’d be remiss if we didn’t put Joel's TikTok win, the namesake of our metric, at number one. 2️⃣ A while ago, we had a reader reach out to us. She didn’t fit our regular demographic but she definitely fit our psychographics. The strong willed ecommerce mindset of 9 year old Lily inspired us all with her booming [candle business](. She joined us for an episode of the DTC Podcast and we all got a serious case of the ‘awwwws 🥹’ when we got to chat with our youngest-known reader. 3️⃣ Next up we have Charles, a student of one of our [DTC Education courses](. After completing the course he emailed saying he was hoping to make a zillion but only made ~$20 million using the framework and step-by-step instructions. Not bad Charles, not bad. Anyone out there have him beat?! 😂 These last two come from our most recent subscriber survey: 4️⃣ A Marketing Manager from a $10M+ brand said DTC, “Provided the basis for our new email strategy, social media strategy and the regular updates ensure we’re not only aware of but ready for industry trends and changes.” 5️⃣ A Marketing Director from a $10-50M brand shared that DTC, “truly made a difference. I got a promotion for what I learned in this newsletter.” Now I get it, it may sound like we’re tooting our own horn (okay so what if we are a little, it’s DTC 500, cut us some slack 😂), but we’re sharing these for a reason. We’ve sent out 500 newsletters and we have no plan of slowing down. 🤟 If you have a marshmallow moment to share from any content we put out, send them our way so we can celebrate with you! Cheers to 500 more and toasty marshmallows roasting by the fire. 😌 🔥 PODCASTS 🎧 The Top 5 Most Listened To Episodes EVER Now this one was shocking to us, but in our recent survey, a few of you answered that you didn’t know we had a podcast! 🫨 We’re 381 episodes in, so if you weren’t aware you’ve got some catching up to do. We pulled together a list of our top 5 most listened to podcasts EVER. Here’s our ask, if you’re an infrequent listener or haven’t listened before, check these ones out to start integrating DTC into your routine. Our episodes make for a lovely car ride companion, grocery store headphones-in way to avoid the outside world, or backing track to your workday. Without further ado, the top 5: 👏 1️⃣ The Oodie’s Davie Fogarty: Lessons from a fast $400M – [Listen here.]( 2️⃣ Slashing Customer Acquisition Costs with Nik Sharma – [Listen here.]( 3️⃣ Meta and True Classic: Zero to 9 Figures in Two Years, Powered by Meta Advertising (and Advantage Plus Shopping Campaigns) – [Listen here.]( 4️⃣ Growth vs. Customer Experience: Cody Plofker and Eli Weiss from Jones Road Beauty Weigh In – [Listen here.]( 5️⃣ Ridge Wallet CEO Sean Frank's Hot Takes After $100 Million+ In Sales – [Listen here.]( A personal note from the mind of Eric (DTC co-founder and podcast host): The fact that it’s my job to curiously connect two to three times a week with entrepreneurs and marketers at the top of their game, on fire about their work and their mission – is pretty incredible. I want to send a big thank you to anyone who’s listened to the DTC Podcast. I would also like to extend my offer that I gave on Monday’s Outway Socks podcast: give us a 5 star review on your listening platform, then email me eric@directtoconsumer.co and I’ll send you a pair of DTC socks. If you haven’t listened to the podcast yet, I hope you give it a spin. Every episode has at least a few nuggets of inspiration and insight to help you on your journey, to have a great career, or build a great brand. If there’s something you’d like to see change about the podcast, I’m always open to feedback so don’t be afraid to drop me a line and speak your mind. TIPS AND TRICKS 🧑 🍳 If You’re Wondering How We’re Always Cooking Up Insights, Read This We do our very best to give you an actionable insight in every. single. newsletter. Something that will actually move the needle in your accounts. Here’s our trick, we’re [sister companies with Pilothouse](, a 180 person agency. When they test something or win on an account, they share it with us and we share it with you! While we wish we could highlight all 499 tips and tricks, we very much doubt you’d make it through the entire email novel. 😂 Here’s 5 standouts from over the years: 1️⃣ The golden triangle - [read here](. 2️⃣ How to check the accuracy of your Meta pixel - [read here](. 3️⃣ Unlocking Amazon success — Maximizing your bids for profit - [read here](. 4️⃣ Creative Corner - [read here](. 5️⃣ How to calculate and implement a free shipping threshold on Shopify - [read here](. We understand our bias here, but we can vouch wholeheartedly for the entire Pilothouse team. If you need help scaling on Meta, Amazon, Google, YouTube, TikTok, Email/SMS and/or need a hand with CRO or creative content, [reach out and tell them DTC sent you](. 🤝 🧰 THE TOOLKIT 🙅 You don't need a hundred support agents to run a 7-figure DTC brand. Use AI to cut your support costs in half, [join 2000+ brands using Richpanel’s AI helpdesk.]( * 👀 Want to make your own custom emojis? [Turn your text-prompt into an emoji image]( to spice up your workplace Slack or use in your ad creatives. Send us your emojis! 📰 NEWS - Google Ads ‘pushes’ Performance Max with a new [call to action](. - Chrome gets a [built-in AI writing tool]( powered by Gemini. - [TikTok faces EU investigation]( over content rules, ad transparency, and addictive design. - Pinterest debuts its [shoppable first streaming show](: ‘Deliciously entertaining’. 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](. Have you heard our latest podcasts? - 🧦 Streamlining Success – Outway's Taylor Fraser on [Simplifying to Scale Ecommerce]( - 👀 [AKNF 379:]( TikTok Shop Affiliates: The Time Is Now - 🔗 Ezra Firestone on [Proactive SEO and Brand Acquisitions]( - 📈 [AKNF 377:]( Spilling our Performance Max Google Ad Secrets - ⭐ Niclas Bornling on [the Art of Brand Storytelling]( 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](. 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]( [Unsubscribe](