The DTC Times · Aug 2024
Issue 26
Read this partWhat to do during a recession: the Ford and Chevy story.
What to do during a recession
As you may or may not know, there is talk of an imminent recession in the US. Warren Buffett has sold a significant portion of his stocks, unemployment is up and other indexes like Japan’s Nikkei are dropping in response to fears of a recession.
But if you’re worried this will affect your DTC business, Stefan Georgi has some advice for you. Just “ignore it and keep operating your biz as normal”.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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The DTC Times · Jun 2024
Issue 20, Here come the deepfakes
Read this partTikTok deepfakes and user-generated content.
Yay deepfakes (boo, actually)
TikTok is enabling the use of deepfakes. Brands will be able to buy ads featuring AI imitations of generic people, OR OF SPECIFIC CREATORS. It’s happening, folks.
They claim it’s to accelerate content production and help brands access different language bases more easily. Which deepfakes totally do, no debate there, but once the floodgates open, they will be hard to close.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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The DTC Times · Jun 2024
Issue 19
Read this partWhether you should even worry about incrementality, and the loyalty-program trap.
Should You Even be Worrying About Incrementality?
With all this talk about incrementality-based advertising, we thought we’d finish with a look at when and why you should even worry about the metric.
Olivia Kory is building Haus.io, where they help to automate marketing incrementality testing. She explains that it only makes sense to hire Haus when your business can’t untangle which of its channels is driving growth.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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The DTC Times · Apr 2024
Issue 12, Rock the boat
Read this partThe TikTok ban, and what it means for DTC brands.
TikTok Banned(?)
The US Senate just passed a bill forcing TikTok to sell ownership or face a ban due to the risk that it’s a propaganda tool for the Chinese government. Here are some of the key details of how we got to this point:
ByteDance, the startup behind TikTok, is likely to challenge the US decision in court. Their chief defense: First Amendment rights.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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The DTC Times · Jun 2024
Issue 17
Read this partThe Google leak and Rand Fishkin.
The Google Leak
The man above is Rand Fishkin, the co-founder of sparktoro.com and snackbarstudio.com, and an SEO expert who’s been battling Google for some time.
Battling over what? Over what Google’s algorithm tracks, and how it decides what ranks.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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The DTC Times · Mar 2024
Issue 4, Headwinds and Tailwinds
Read this partHow the pandemic changed everything for outdoor DTC, with 7.1 million new participants in 2020 and the brands that became giants overnight.
What goes up…
Unprecedented demand, plus a generous investment era (ZIRP) encouraged aggressive expansion by these booming companies. They pulled 5+ years of demand forward over the course of about 24 months, demolishing expectations and drastically skewing inventory projections.
Like a snake trying to swallow an elephant, the big bump in inventory got stuck due to supply chain disruptions.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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The DTC Times · Mar 2024
Issue 3, Breaking news
Read this partAmazon fees, the Meta outage and Klaviyo.
New Amazon Fees
Amazon recently introduced new fees for seller inventory management in its warehouses.
What does this mean in practice? It gets complicated. Inbound placement fees charge you for sending all of your inventory to one warehouse. Split your package between 4+ warehouses and the fee goes away. But now you’re paying more for shipping.
From The DTC Times, which is bylined to the newsletter. I wrote it.
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