You are giving up 15%+ of your web traffic

Welcome to this issue of The DTC Insider newsletter. ??

We'll send you weekly emails, every Wednesday, trying our best to deliver great value to your inbox.

In this newsletter, you'll find:

?? Why You Will Love Shopify Sidekick

?? 3-step Framework To Fix Your Ad Campaigns

?? E-commerce Order Tracking: Your Brand’s Secret Weapon

?? Why Having A Clear Mission Helps Create A Successful Brand

Why You Will Love Shopify Sidekick

At their recent conference, Shopify announced Sidekick.

In simple words, it's like ChatGPT, but for e-commerce merchants.

This will help brands with tasks like:

Creating discount codes:

Analyzing the performance:

In a demo video tweeted by Shopify co-founder and CEO, Tobi Lütke, a few weeks ago, Sidekick is shown answering a series of questions from a snowsports supply merchant.

He asked why sales dipped from March to July, and Sidekick responded that it was probably due to minimal snow. ??

Serving a chart showing sales volumes month-by-month.

Finding relevant information:

Such as the top-selling products, as shown in the example below.

Modifying shop designs:

Including adding product collections and suggesting themes and copy for a hero banner.

These are only some of Sidekick’s features.

We’re definitely living exciting times!

Things are changing fast, and we all need to adapt to leverage these tools and keep improving.

3-step Framework To Fix Your Ad Campaigns

Whenever performance decreases, we need to find the reason ASAP to know where to fix things.

The thing is, many times we assume we found the problem...

...but we end up fixing the wrong thing.

And there's nothing worse than fixing the wrong thing. Right?

It will only cause more issues.

That's why we have a simple 2-question system we ask every media buyer in our agency to answer in these cases:

1. "Where's the problem?"
2. "How did you realize it?"

These are simple, yet powerful questions.

How does this help?

The first question will answer where they think the problem is, obviously.

But, believe it or not, this question is not enough.

Why? We'll get there in a minute.

By asking "how did you realize it?", we're asking them to tell us what made them realize the problem was where they said it was.

Makes sense?

For example: I've heard things like "there's an issue with the pixel".

And when I asked them how they realized it, they were trying to find the evidence, and it turned out it wasn't the issue.

Now, although answering the second question is key for this to work properly, answering the first one ("Where's the problem?") is no easy task.

And without a process, media buyers could spend hours...

...when they could actually save all that time by following this 3-step framework.

Want to know how this process works?

Read the full article here .

E-commerce Order Tracking: Your Brand’s Secret Weapon

In this section of today's newsletter, we’ll delve into common order-tracking challenges and tactical ideas you can implement today to enhance one of the most engaging moments in your customer journey.?

Challenge #1: 84% of consumers won’t return to a brand after just one bad delivery experience

If you’re like most brands, you spend a ton of time making sure that everything up to the moment a customer buys is perfect.?

From ads to your online storefront to landing pages to your cart, everything is branded and personalized as much as possible.?

Everything pre-purchase is constantly being tested and you have key metrics you keep an eye on to ensure you can quickly adjust anything that doesn’t seem to be performing well.?

But as soon as a customer buys, all of that goes out the window.?

Brands on Shopify send a generic email from Shopify’s platform that has no branding, no personalization, and oftentimes confusing language.?

Then when a customer clicks to track their package, they go to a carrier’s site (think UPS or FedEx, for example) where it’s more of the same.?

Shopify merchants are churning far too many customers because of something as simple as taking back control of their tracking experience.?

Challenge #2: Order tracking emails are often your most engaged messages

Think about it - when you get an email saying there is an update to an order you placed online, how often do you click it??

If you’re like most people, it’s somewhere between 60-90% of the time.?

Can you say your marketing emails are getting that level of attention??

And yet, most brands are still sending those generic order update emails out of Shopify.

Here’s what you can do today:?

• Turn off your post-purchase emails in Shopify
• Leverage a tool like Malomo to move those emails over to Klaviyo (or whatever ESP/SMS platform you’re using)
• Use a tool like Malomo’s pre-built email templates and flows to get your order update emails active within your ESP in a day
• Brand your templates to your liking and add any additional content beyond tracking information that you’d like (just be careful not to make these transactional emails too “salesy”)
• Publish the flows!?

Not only does this help provide a branded experience, but you can also communicate any issues with orders throughout the shipping experience.?

For example, you can automatically and proactively notify customers if an order is stalled in fulfillment.?

Just like that, you’ve taken back control of your most engaged email/SMS sends at an anxious time in the customer journey.?

Challenge #3: Most brands are giving up 15%+ of their web traffic to carriers

That’s right: 15%+ of the average ecommerce brand’s website traffic goes to the order tracking page.?

So if you’re sending your customers to UPS or FedEx for tracking, you’re just giving away 15%+ of your traffic.

Put another way, customers track their order 4.6x on average.?

That is nearly 5 brand impressions you are missing out on by sending those highly engaged customers to your carrier.?

Here’s what you can do today:?

• Leverage a tool like Malomo to create a tracking page directly within your Shopify theme
• Malomo will provide all the tracking data you need to keep customers up to date?
• Update the page with anything else you want to highlight while customers are super engaged with your brand (think cross-sells, subscription program signups, UGC, etc.)
• Replace the link in your order tracking emails to your new branded tracking page

Just like that, you’ve recaptured 15%+ of your web traffic and now you are driving additional LTV rather than risking churn!

Readers of this newsletter are eligible for a 30% discount on Malomo !

Just tell them BSR Digital sent you. ??

Why Having A Clear Mission Helps Create A Successful Brand

If you're wondering how a clear mission benefits a brand, listen to this episode of The DTC Insider podcast.

We sit down with Nathan Hodge, the CEO of Raaka Chocolate, to uncover the fascinating journey behind the brand.

Nathan shares his motivations for starting Raaka Chocolate and how having a clear mission has been pivotal in their success.

In this episode of?The DTC Insider ?podcast, we discussed:

?? The Birth of Raaka Chocolate

?? The Power of a Clear Mission

?? First-Party Data: Unveiling Insights

?? Fostering Customer Loyalty

?? Multi-Channel Product Strategy

?? Tune in to our latest episode: https://thedtcinsider.com/