DTC743: Amazon's New Ad Targeting Tool Brand+

Good morning,

Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:

⚡ Create an ad in just four clicks. Amazon releases Brand+, a new AI-powered ad targeting tool that lets advertisers easily create impactful ads.
🤔 Should your brand invest in Google Ads, Meta, or Amazon? Pilothouse shares tips on how to pick the right platform so your business can unlock greater growth.
💸 And if your site offers free shipping… make sure to add this feature to your checkout page to increase conversions.

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Nordace, Astute Branding, and Adayo Style. 👋

👏 Are You 100% Sure of Your Strategy for 2025?‍

2025 isn’t for guesswork—it’s for knowing what works.

‍Omnisend analyzed 24 billion emails, 230 million SMS messages, and 413 million push notifications sent in 2024.

📊 That’s a lot of data. Want to know what they found out?

Here’s the scoop:

• ✉️ Email shines: Open rates rose +6% YoY to 26.6%, as consumers embrace email over noisy social ads.
• 💬 SMS surges: 31% more sent YoY, generating $25M in US sales.
• 🤖 Automation wins: 2% of emails drove 37% of orders.
• 👠 Fashion flops: Lowest click-to-open rates of any industry.

See how 2024 reshaped the game—and what’s hot for 2025.Take out the guesswork, get the facts and get ahead. Ready to find out more?

⚡ Amazon’s Brand+ Tool Now Available To All Advertisers

Amazon Ads is launching a new AI-optimized ad targeting tool called Brand+ on Amazon DSP.

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What’s Brand+?

This new ad targeting tool analyzes trillions of signals across Amazon’s shopping, browsing, and streaming services and then optimizes ad buys across streaming TV and online videos.

Brands can then run brand awareness campaigns and video ads across Amazon’s properties.

Marketers can deliver video ads via Prime Video and Twitch, as well as video publishers like Buzzfeed, Fox Corporation, and Dotdash Meredith.

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The most impressive part?

This data-powered offering can identify customers who are predicted to be in the market for a brand’s product or service within the next three months.

Kelly MacLean, VP of Amazon DSP, shares that “advertisers can apply AI-optimized automation to purchase TV advertising that reaches unique audiences of customers most likely to buy their products or services.”

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Why this is important:

Brand+ can help optimize ad budgets and help businesses reach unique audiences most likely to buy their products and services.

This tool turns brand awareness into a strategic driver of conversions.

🤖 The Global AI Race Is On!

After DeepSeek shook up the AI industry and sent U.S. stocks tumbling last week, more players have entered the arena at a dizzying pace.

Alibaba also released an AI model called Qwen 2.5-Max and claims it surpasses DeepSeek on several major benchmarks, sending its stock soaring.

If your head is spinning, make sure to follow us on Instagram to get all caught up on these AI developments.

🤔 Why Are You Still Doing Things The Hard Way? Simplify Tax Compliance and Drive Omnichannel Ecommerce Success

📈 Ecommerce is expected to hit $8 trillion by 2028, but tax complexities are growing too.

Managing global tax compliance for a seamless omnichannel experience requires embracing automation. 🤖

Avalara’s new whitepaper, Mastering Global Tax Compliance for Shopify, offers key insights on omnichannel strategies and navigating tax challenges.

Discover:

• Strategies for managing unique tax rules and economic nexus obligations
• How Avalara and Shopify solve the complexities of global and cross-border sales
• Real-life success stories from businesses thriving with automated tax compliance

Make things easier on yourself. Turn tax compliance into a competitive advantage for global success. 🌎

🔧 Choose The Right Platform, Unlock Greater Growth

Which platform is right for you? 🤔

Most brands have the misconception that they need to be spending or have an organic presence on all social platforms to scale.

However, less can be more...

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Focusing time and energy on fewer platforms can drive greater growth than trying to spread yourself too thin across many channels.

Pilothouse suggests narrowing down which platforms make the most sense from where your brand is at and what your product market fit looks like.

Here is a quick hit list to determine which platforms you might consider investing in for growth and which might be right for your brand.

💡 Generally, we see these guidelines work best for DTC brands looking to grow.

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1️⃣ Google: SEO is a must. You want people to be able to find you organically when looking for topics and product categories that your brand falls under.

For paid and branded search, Google usually works best when a brand has a decent level of brand awareness and brand recognition from either organic growth, Meta top-of-funnel (TOF) ads.

Or if the product category is less competitive and it's earlier to capture new audiences from keyword bids.

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2️⃣ Meta: This is usually a brand gateway to paid advertising.

Historically, it's the cheapest platform for acquiring new customers and investing in TOF efforts.

It also allows specific targeting and rapid testing, which other platforms aren't savvy at.

Meta learnings can often feed into pointed overall brand building and set directions for other platforms.

However, if there is no historic spend and the website is training a cold pixel, this process can take 3-6 months of upfront investment to warm and train the pixel to your audiences to be profitable.

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3️⃣ Amazon: Similar to Google, where you are sponsoring display ads and capturing a user based on search.

However, unlike Google, Amazon users are ready to buy when they enter the platform, so purchase intent is higher.

It is a matter of standing out against other products, brands, and storefront pages.

Product categories that tend to do well on Amazon are ones that consumers would go to a department store to get, but they want the ease of online shopping and free shipping.

If the product is complex and requires lots of education to where users aren’t searching said product category, then it's probably not the platform for you until the brand has educated and created brand awareness, where users are searching specifically for that brand on Amazon.

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4️⃣ TikTok: This is a demanding platform. TikTok requires mass amounts of content to feed the algorithm and find a piece of content that scales.

This platform is usually best for low AOV and low consideration period products for brands that don’t have brand recognition yet.

If a brand has a product market fit for the demographic found on TikTok, we suggest feeding the platform organically and getting set up in TikTok Shops.

Knowing what platform works best for you is the key to unlocking growth.

🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE

We all know offering free shipping can have a huge impact on your conversions.

However, doing this can make your conversions go even higher.

Show how free shipping has been marked down during the checkout phase to get customers to buy and decrease your abandon cart rate.

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💸 MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

• Startup Clutch Security raises $20 million for its non-human security ID platform.
• SoftBank is in talks to invest $25 billion into OpenAI.

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⚡ QUICK HITS

😰 Struggling to demonstrate marketing ROI? Accurately report revenue impact with Keen’s AI-powered MMM platform. Transform scattered metrics across platforms and know which investments yield results. Get a demo here. *

📥 Got a B2B Biz?

Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 150k brand leaders and founders this year. Talk to our team to learn more.‍

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Have you heard our latest podcasts?

• ❌ TWBERP 18: ZeroBounce’s Austin Helm on Email Spam Traps
• 🔧 Shopify Optimization Strategies Every DTC Founder Should Know
• 📈 AKNF 476: How to Leverage Google PMax for Demand Capture
• ⚡ TWBERP 17: Scaling DTC Brands with Social Commerce
• 🥤 The Anatomy of BRĒZ: the World’s Fastest Growing Bev Brand
• 🔧 AKNF 474: The Future of Shopify Optimization with Warp Drive

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Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

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‍DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.

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‍Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.