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In today’s newsletter,
How brands are hitting page 1 on Amazon in 60 days
The right way to use TikTok search ad keywords
The best time to post on each platform
Attio - the AI CRM for modern businesses.
While You Were Building
1.Estée Lauder and Puig walk away
2.Shopify customer sign-in page is now editable
3.Authentic Brands buys Lee for $1B
AI Launch Codes: How AI Turned Live Competitor Ads Into a 90-Day Creative Testing Plan
This issue takes 2 minutes to read.
Check out our DTC tool stack here
Let’s dive into it👇
Influencer Marketing
How brands are hitting page 1 on Amazon in 60 days
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Conversion
The right way to use TikTok search ad keywords
Most people setting up TikTok search ads start with exact match keywords. Feels logical — tighter targeting, higher intent.
TikTok actually recommends the opposite.
When you first launch a search campaign, TikTok suggests using broad match to give the algorithm room to learn which searches actually convert. Once you're out of the learning phase, you narrow down to phrase match or exact match.
Think of it as two phases:
Phase 1: Broad match. Let TikTok's algorithm find who's converting. You're buying data, not sales yet. TikTok recommends hitting 50 conversions within a seven-day period before tightening your match types.
Phase 2: Exact and phrase match Now you know which searches are converting.
Exact match shows your ad only when someone searches your keyword or very close variations— "snake plant" only shows for "snake plant."
Phrase match shows your ad when your keyword appears somewhere in the search query— "snake plant" also shows for "where to buy snake plant."
Use these to double down on what's already working.
Most brands never make it to phase 2. They either stay on broad forever or switch to exact too early before the algorithm has enough data to work with.
Action Summary:
Launch your TikTok search campaign on broad match
Run it until you hit 50 conversions in a 7-day window
Check which search terms converted and add the top ones as exact or phrase match keywords
Switch those keywords over and let phase 2 run
Meta
The best time to post on each platform
There is no universal best time to post. Facebook users scroll in the morning. TikTok users watch at night. LinkedIn is a workday app.
Posting on all of them at the same time means you're optimizing for none of them.
Buffer's 2026 State of Social Media Engagement report analyzed over 52 million posts across Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and X.
Their data scientist pulled the time slots with the highest median engagement on each platform. Here's what they found:
Platform | Best Time |
|---|---|
8am–12pm, weekdays | |
9am and 6pm, weekdays | |
3pm–6pm, Wed–Sun | |
TikTok | 6pm–11pm daily, plus weekend mornings |
YouTube Shorts | 4pm–7pm, Fri–Sat |
YouTube long-form | 6pm–10pm, Sun–Tue |
X / Threads | 7am–11am, weekdays |
All times are local — no conversion needed wherever you are.
One thing that holds across every platform except TikTok: weekends underperform. If you're posting Saturday content expecting Monday-level reach, you're not getting it.
Action Summary:
Pick the two or three platforms you're actually active on
Update your posting schedule to match the times above for each one
Run it for two weeks and check if reach or engagement moves
Adjust from there based on your own data, not just the averages
Credit: Buffer
Attio - the AI CRM for modern businesses.
Attio is the AI CRM that keeps you ten steps ahead.
Ask Attio anything. Where should I focus? What deals are at risk? Search, update, and create across your customer data.
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While You Were Building
1.Estée Lauder and Puig walk away
Months of merger talks fell apart, reportedly after Charlotte Tilbury renegotiated her contract. The biggest beauty mega-deal of the year is now off the table.
via Business of Fashion • Read more
2.Shopify customer sign-in page is now editable
Stores get a two-column layout with a customizable background image, editable directly in the checkout and accounts editor. Brand expression now reaches the login screen.
via Shopify Changelog • Read more
3.Authentic Brands buys Lee for $1B
Kontoor sold the denim label to ABG, the IP roll-up vehicle targeting $100 billion in annual retail sales. Another heritage apparel brand exits operator hands.
via Retail Dive • Read more
How AI Turned Live Competitor Ads Into a 90-Day Creative Testing Plan
If You Run Ads, You're Already Using Ads Library.
Meta Ads Library is free. It's right there. Every DTC operator opens it 10 times a day to spy on what competitors are running.
You're collecting screenshots and building decks by hand. Same as everyone else.
Foreplay Fixes All Of That
Foreplay is a paid ad intelligence tool. It scrapes Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube, then structures the data so it's actually usable:
Full ad transcripts (every word said on camera, timestamped)
Filter by longest-running so you study proven winners, not new tests still spending into the void
Brand discovery by domain or niche (find competitors you didn't know existed)
Creative velocity analytics (how fast each competitor tests, what format mix they push)
Boards and swipe files so winning ads from your category live in one place
But That's Not Even the Best Part
Everything I just listed is Foreplay as a SaaS tool. Useful. Not transformative.
The real unlock happens when you connect the Foreplay MCP to Claude or ChatGPT.
Your AI stops generating ad copy from a generic prompt. It reads the actual transcripts of your competitors' highest-performing ads, identifies the patterns, and builds strategy on top of live data.
I gave AI one DTC brand: IM8.
But I didn’t ask it to guess.
I connected it to foreplay so it can pull competitor ad creatives, captions, and video transcripts.
Then AI analyzed the entire category.
A few minutes later, it gave me:
5 active competitors
The ads they were currently running
The hooks they kept repeating
The captions and claims showing up across brands
The offers being used to convert cold traffic
The creative patterns likely driving spend
A 90-day creative testing plan for the brand
The workflow started with competitor discovery.
Then it pulled the actual ads those brands were running and found 7 patterns that repeat across all the brands.
Next, it broke down what each brand is doing different in their ads.
It then created a complete advertising plan for IM8
You can see my entire chat here - https://claude.ai/share/ea3e3fd3-d410-48e3-9c1f-a073a7b12507
What makes this work is the live data feed. AI isn't guessing from its training. It's reading the actual transcripts of the actual ads your competitors are running this week.
What you just read is the output.
The setup is what makes it repeatable for any brand in any category.
This setup also enables you to pull the live ads of any of your competitors to draw inspiration from before creating your own ads.
The prompt, the MCP setup, and the full workflow are below for AI Launch Codes subscribers.
The Setup
Step 1 - Create a Foreplay Account
Step 2 - Connect Foreply MCP to Claude / ChaGpt
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