Monday, March 6, 2023
Zone outers unite!
In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇
📦 Merging the physical and digital worlds with augmented reality
📦 Insight into how some of the top DTC brands are scaling organic social
📦 How experimenting with hooks can increase your performance metrics
📦 Get the most accurate ad attribution money can buy
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, subscribe, so you never miss out.
Augmented Reality
AR Shopping: Merging the Physical and Digital Worlds
In today’s competitive ecommerce environment, every brand is looking for a leg up on content.
While many are investing heavily in TikTok, user-generated content (UGC), and podcast placements, few have experimented with one of the most promising up-and-coming content mediums: augmented reality (AR).
Augmented reality is a technology that superimposes digital content onto a user's view of the real world. 👀
When a user points their smartphone at an object, built-in AR software uses a combination of depth tracking and computer vision to follow the user's movements and adjust the digital content accordingly. This ability to seamlessly blend digital and physical environments provides immersion and interactivity that is impossible with traditional 2D media.
Since first gaining mainstream recognition through the widespread phenomenon of Pokémon Go, the perception of AR has quickly shifted from a novelty to groundbreaking technology that will fundamentally change how we interact with the world around us. 🌎
AR shopping is a big part of that future.
🧐 What is AR shopping?
Augmented reality shopping, or AR shopping, uses augmented reality to enhance the buying journey through engaging and immersive touchpoints, like:
The demand is staggering.
According to a 2019 Global Google Consumer AR Survey, over two-thirds of people are interested in getting help from AR when shopping, and a separate survey from Snapchat estimates that 75% of the global population, and all smartphone users, will be using AR by 2025. 🛍️
By helping shoppers make better purchasing decisions, these experiences drive engagement, decrease return rates, and seriously improve conversions. According to Shopify’s internal data, merchants who added 3D content to their stores reported a 94% conversion lift.
👁 Virtual showrooms
Virtual showrooms allow customers to visualize how products look in a physical space. This is particularly effective for larger, high-ticket items like furniture or cars, letting shoppers remotely explore the products in 3D from every inch and angle.
Companies like Amazon and Ikea have already rolled out this technology, letting customers buy couches from their couches. Pretty darn cool!
👗 Virtual try-on
Whereas a virtual showroom uses a phone’s back camera to pan a full view of a physical space, virtual try-on taps into a device’s selfie camera to let customers get a feel for the look and fit of apparel and cosmetic products. 🤳
Over the last few years, brands like Ray-Ban, FARFETCH, and Dior have experimented with virtual try-on natively on-site and through shoppable filters on social apps like Snapchat and Instagram.
In January 2022, Ulta Beauty released shoppable AR filters on Snapchat, allowing audiences to test and take photos wearing various makeup looks. From there, users can share their photos with friends on Snapchat and purchase the items directly in the app. According to platform data, users engage with its AR features more than six billion times a day.
Brand awareness aside, these filters act as an ingenious marketing lever, driving more revenue and collecting valuable customer insights. Along with each shoppable filter, Ulta provides customers with SKU-specific product details and real-time inventory updates.
Unfortunately, creating AR try-on experiences is still no easy task and generally requires some combination of technical or 3D skills. But that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing.
Recognizing the opportunity at hand, both ecommerce companies and social apps alike are investing heavily in AR creation tools in an effort to bring AR shopping into the mainstream.
Keep on scrollin’ for more on AR! 👇
It's Time to Rethink Your Organic Social Strategy
Brands like Native, Super Coffee, Love Wellness, immi, and KRAVE Jerky are crushing organic social thanks to an endless library of fresh content and an active micro-influencer community. All thanks to minisocial.
Here's some insight into how some of the top DTC brands are scaling organic social -
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AR Shopping: Merging the Physical and Digital Worlds
🏪 Shopify AR
Shopify store owners, take note. Using Shopify AR, ecommerce owners can incorporate 3D models to create unique and engaging AR experiences across all store pages. Teams without the design or technical know-how can hire a Shopify expert 3D designer directly through the app.
👻 Snap AR
Deeply committed to educating retailers of all sizes on the benefits of AR, Snap is now allowing all brands to integrate Snap’s AR try-on technology within their own mobile apps and websites, along with its Camera Kit for AR Shopping.
In addition to creating catalog-powered shopping lenses that’ll live natively on retailers' product pages, brands will also gain access to a new AR Image Processing technology, making building augmented reality shopping experiences easier and faster. 💨
Through a web interface, brands can select their product SKUs, upload a 2D photo, and seamlessly turn them into Shopping Lenses.
All users can tap into the free Snap AR Lens Studio to create an AR lens from scratch or test one of the many templates. MetaSpark offers the same features for Facebook and Instagram Stories.
✨ TL;DR
Have you shopped with AR? What do you think? If you're a store owner, are you considering adding any AR product experiences?
Why? Why not? Reply to this email and let us know!
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Hook, Line, and Sinker
In the world of TikTok marketing, it's not enough to simply dangle your bait and hope for the best. You need to give those viewers a reason to chomp down on your content and reel in some serious sales.
That's where hooks come in. 🎣 These are the tasty morsels of your video that grab attention and keep viewers hooked (pun intended).
It could be:
Whatever it is, it should be something that makes your audience sit up and take notice. 👀
By experimenting with different hooks in your videos, you can find the ones that resonate with your audience and skyrocket engagement and conversion rates.
If you need proof that hooks really work, take a look at the Pilothouse TikTok team's recent experiment.
The team tested two videos with different hooks with the goal of increasing average order value. The winning hook led with self-deprecating humor and followed up by emphasizing the product's price and quality.
The results?
A tip from the Pilothouse team, if you’re not testing hooks in your video ads to increase your performance metrics, you should be!
Quick Hits
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🐥 Twitter Blue expands to more than 20 countries. This confirms the program is now available in 35 countries after first being launched in December for $8USD per month.
🇨🇦 Canada bans TikTok on government devices to ensure the security of users’ information. TikTok now requests a mutual goal to ensure that public figures can retain their following on the platform.
🔎 Google addresses malware hidden in ad content. Use these tips to ensure that your downloads are secure.
📝 LinkedIn expands their profile customization tools to allow further scheduling options, newsletter subscription buttons, and improved discovery.
🪟 Microsoft unveiled Kosmos-1, a new AI model that can analyze visual data. This is one of the larger steps towards achieving a widely available general AI model.
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DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight, Randy Ginsburg, and Michael Venditti. Edited by Claire Beveridge and Eric Dyck.
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