🚨 In today’s newsletter 🚨

• A big BFCM shopper survey

• Why you should expect customers to contact you on social

• TikTok is now a hot shopping tool

Let’s get into it👇

#1 - 🎄 Holiday shopper trends to know

📰 TL;DR - Shopify has released the results of a survey looking at shopper behaviors and attitudes for this holiday season. They’ve arranged the takeaways into seven categories, but here are some highlights:

• 69% said AI will make it easier to discover new products and brands and people with higher salaries were more likely to say this.

• 39% said they’re more likely to buy from brands that use tech like AR, VR, and immersive experiences.

• People are looking more for small, practical purchases than splashy buys.

• 72% said they’re more likely to shop during BFCM to stretch their money further.

• Social shopping is the new norm.

💡 Insight - As a heads up, Shopify is of course using this release to plug their own tools, but they also make a great point in the AI section. We often think about AI — specifically generative AI — as a tool that will make our own jobs as e-commerce founders and workers easier. And that’s true! But on the customer side, they’re eager for AI too. That means using tools that can do things like enhance search or even recommend (or create!) personalized products. The other takeaway I want to highlight is that consumers want to know about BFCM deals early, so don’t be shy, start promoting those deals now.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 🔥 Street Interview Ads

What the team at AdTok have been working on with their specialist team of creators is about to take ad creatives to a whole new level.

Enter, the street interview ad format, you may have seen these videos going viral, classic example: Guy approaches other guy driving lambo, “hey, what do you do?” Ring a bell? Now imagine that format, with your customer being mock ‘interviewed’ on the problems they have that your product will solve.

This comes across as authentic, and engaging and these ads have the highest thumb stops in ad accounts. AdTok is now rolling this format out to 10 brands this month.

➡️ If you’re looking to innovate on the same old boring, roas dumping creatives then click here and apply to work with them.

📣 If you want to reach our audience of 10,000+ DTC store owners, email [email protected] or set up call here 

#3 - 💬 You will be contacted on social media

📰 TL;DR - A new survey shows that customers will be very happy to get in touch with you via social media this holiday season. In it, 74% said they’re likely to reach out to a brand over social media during the holidays. As well, 70% said they’d do it via direct message and 63% said they’re more likely to reach out this way during the holidays than at other times of the year. The top platform for reaching out is Facebook (69%), followed by Instagram (65%), and TikTok (41%). And don’t skip the comments — 43% said that’s where they’d reach out. Most of those messages will be asking questions about products.

💡 Insight - It’s not a question of if customers will contact you via social, but when. So be ready! If you’re lucky, you have a social media manager keeping tabs, but that’s just not the reality for plenty of us. Some solutions include using a social media management tool that can pull all your messages into one place. Even better is a help desk tool that pulls not only from social, but from your chat and email, too. Either way, don’t let these messages slip by — it could mean a lost sale.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

⛓️ BACKLINKS - This piece breaks down the most common e-commerce backlink types and how they’re used.

💄 CLEAN BEAUTY - Glossy took a deep dive into clean beauty, including consumer demand from Gen Z and calls for regulation.

🧶 ETSY - Etsy is expanding its Payments program to more counties, just in time for the holiday season.

💃🏽 TIKTOK - Check out the latest updates from TikTok, including new attribution analytics.

🍼 CELEBS - This celeb-founded baby brand is filing for bankruptcy.

#5 - 🛍️ TikTok is a holiday shopping destination

📰 TL;DR - With TikTok Shop in full swing, expect the platform to be a primary shopping destination for many consumers. According to this survey, 53% of people ages 18 to 29 will use TikTok for holiday shopping, and 25% will use it to find specific gifts. In all, 36% plan to use it, and, very interestingly, older shoppers are more likely to purchase directly from TikTok Shop. There are also some insights here about holiday shopping budgets, shipping preferences, and how long people are willing to wait for an order if it means free shipping.

💡 Insight - What’s interesting here is that people (particularly young people) are going to use TikTok to find gifts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll complete the purchase on TikTok. That means that even if you’re not on TikTok Shop, TikTok is still an incredibly valuable marketing tool, especially if your target audience skews young. This really makes sense with what we know about how Gen Z now uses TikTok like a search engine, so don’t forget to practice good TikTok SEO too!

➡️ You can read the article here...