DTC777: How To Build A Custom GPT for CRO

Good morning,

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

🤖 Build Better Landing Pages
Use a custom GPT for better CRO.

❗ Wild Website Breakdown  
How they win first-time and repeat buyers.

💡 Crafting Relatable Ads
Easy hack to create ads that resonate.

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You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Goodwin Nutrition, Smyths Toys, and Coco Chocolatier. 👋

🛑 You Can’t Miss These Standout Tactics To Dominate 2025

Ready for something precioussss? ✨

This is one webinar to rule them all, and it’s got your name written all over it. 🔥

So sit back, press play, and get ready for:

1️⃣ The state of ecommerce. A brutally honest review of 2024 trends and numbers, served up by Greg Zakowicz.

2️⃣ The 2025 playbook. Tactics that actually work, myths we’re ready to bust, and fresh insights from Jimmy Kim and Chase Dimond.

3️⃣ Plus! How a clever social media and email combo brought in $380,000 in just 10 minutes — Bernard Meyer won’t bring you any magic tricks, just a really smart strategy.

“Even this single webinar can change the course of the future.”
–Galadriel, probably, if she was in ecommerce. 🧝‍♀️

(Or, bookmark it to watch on your lunch break!)

‍🚀 Three Steps To Building a Custom GPT and Better Landing Pages

You know that moment when you think you’ve nailed a landing page… only to check the numbers and realize it’s flopping harder than a fish out of water?

Yeah, we’ve all been there.

The truth is, thinking through a landing page is HARD.

Even the best marketers can spend hours (or days) obsessing over headlines, CTAs, and layouts—only to end up with a page that doesn’t convert. 📉

But what if there was a way to iterate faster and smarter? 🤔

Enter: Custom GPTs for CRO (conversion rate optimization).

Pilothouse has been using a custom GPT trained on their brands to optimize landing pages super efficiently—and have seen impressive results.

For one client, their subscription-focused landing page saw a 172% increase in new subscribers in just one quarter.

Instead of spending weeks agonizing over tweaks, we had a winning version in days.

And the thing is: you can do it too.

Here’s how you can build a custom GPT to optimize your landing page:

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Step 1: Train Your GPT on Your Brand

Before you start, make sure your Custom GPT knows:

✅ Your brand’s tone of voice and messaging guidelines.
✅ Product details and key selling points.
✅ Customer testimonials and reviews.
✅ Your best-performing pages and past tests.

💡 If you don’t have a Custom GPT yet, here’s a guide to building one.

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Step 2: Audit Your Landing Page with GPT

Start a conversation with your Custom GPT and ask questions like:
“How can I improve my subscription sign-ups?”

📸 Take a screenshot of each section of your existing page and upload it.

💡 Let the GPT analyze & suggest improvements.

No page? No problem. If you don’t have a landing page yet, find a competitor’s page you admire, screenshot it, and ask your GPT:

👉 “How can I make a better version of this for my brand?”

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Step 3: Test & Iterate—Fast

Take GPT’s suggestions and tweak your page in your page builder.

Screenshot the updated section and ask GPT for feedback again.

🔄 Repeat for each section until the page feels dialed in.

This method removes the guesswork and speeds up the process—helping you land on a high-converting page faster than ever.

This approach saves time, removes friction, and makes CRO a lot less painful.

Plus, you’ll get more iterations done—faster.

Because at the end of the day, the quicker you test, the faster you find a winner. 🏆

💸 Temu vs. Amazon: Who’s Winning The Price War?

When it comes to online shopping, two names dominate the battlefield—Temu and Amazon.

🔍 But what really sets them apart? Omnisend dug into the data, analyzing product listings, pricing tactics, and consumer trust on both platforms.

👀 Here’s a glimpse of what they found:

• Temu undercuts Amazon on price: Close product matches are, on average, 40% cheaper.
• Product overlap is huge: 77% of Amazon-listed products have close equivalents on Temu.
• Brand imitation raises red flags: From blurred logos to copycat packaging, Temu products often mimic well-known brands.
• Trust gap is real: Amazon’s review system is robust (50,000 reviews per product on average), while Temu trails behind with just 1,500, plus signs of potential review manipulation.

So, who’s really winning — and at what cost?

👉 Get the full breakdown in Omnisend’s latest research.

🔎 Are Amazon Layoffs Coming?

Amazon is planning to get rid of 14,000 managerial positions by early 2025 in an effort to cut costs.

The move will save the ecommerce giant between $2.1 billion and $3.6 billion annually.

More on this story below in our News section.

💡 Wild’s Smart Conversion Tactics

Wild is one of the fastest-growing personal hygiene brands on the market.

Its unique product offering? A premium deodorant that is plastic-free, refillable, and biodegradable.

In just 18 months, Wild sold over 20M worth of products. 😮

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How did they do it? Let’s look at their site for answers.

Attract first-time customers with offers: At the top left corner of their homepage, there is a prominent 'View Offers' button.

The yellow button pops off the screen. When clicked, a sidebar menu shows a range of available offers.

💡 Adding this CTA above the fold makes it impossible to miss. Generous incentives motivate visitors to move from browsing to buying.

PDP pages target new and repeat customers. Shoppers can purchase a case and refill (if they are repeat customers) or purchase those items individually.

Creates engaging experiences: There are multiple ways for customers to personalize their case or deodorant scent on the same page.

While Wild’s deodorant is priced higher than others on the market, this personalized shopping experience makes it truly feel like a premium product and makes the price tag more justifiable.

And lastly, check out what Wild did here to increase their subscriber rate.

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Right above this section, they added this helpful callout (utilizing yellow again to make the message pop): ‘Most customers add 3 refills. One per month.’
This helps customers understand which subscription frequency others are choosing (which happens to be the most frequent option) and helps Wild win more revenue through subscriptions.

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The takeaway?

Wild’s design choices do a fantastic job of strategically using bold colors to get more eyes on important messaging, incentivizing customers to buy or subscribe.

💸 MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

• Shopify acquires AI search startup Vantage Discovery for an undisclosed amount.
• Nirvana secures $80 million at a $830 million valuation for AI insurance.
• Grove Collaborative acquires wellness brand 8Greens.

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⚡ QUICK HITS

👀 Checking out Omnisend, huh? They see you too. And they know exactly how to up your sales game. Brands using Omnisend on average make $68 for every $1 spent. Try it out. *

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📰 NEWS

• Amazon plans on laying off 14,000 workers in early 2025 to cut costs.
• OpenAI expands AI capabilities with new audio models for voice agents.
• Edible Arrangements’ parent company launches a site for cannabis products called Edibles.com.

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🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE

How do you make sure your ad resonates with customers?

Easy. Look through forums like Reddit to uncover pain points and insights to shape your ads.

Use this language in your ads so your audience feels seen.

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📅 EVENTS

Google Cloud Next 25 - Google Cloud Next '25 is a large-scale event showcasing Google Cloud's latest technologies and solutions. Attendees can expect to learn about advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics.

🗓️ Apr 9-11, 📍 Las Vegas, NV 💰 Free - $2,099

AI Expo - AI Expo is a series of events focused on artificial intelligence and its applications across various industries. The event includes presentations, workshops, and demonstrations showcasing practical AI applications.

🗓️ Apr 18, 📍 Austin, TX 💰 $29

📥 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 25: The Role of Email in Branding and Retention
• 🥤 How Simple Modern Scaled To $1B Without Relying on Paid Ads
• ⚡ AKNF 490: How Meta’s Advantage+ Update Impact Advertisers
• 🤖 TWBERP 24: Solving the Attribution Puzzle with Triple Whale
• 👋 Salty Britches Organic Growth Playbook: Path to 500+ Retailers
• 😃 AKNF 488: How Founder Led Content Can Lower CAC

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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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