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Good morning!
When customers buy through retailers or marketplaces, the sale is yours. The relationship usually is not. Let me show you how to fix that.
Today:
We break down how Magic Spoon solved that at Kroger. We also show you Meta’s new Reply-to-Keyword ads, cover the latest ecommerce news and share one daily rep that could teach you more than another hour inside your dashboard.
Today’s Deep Dive
How Magic Spoon Turns Third-Party Buyers Into Direct Customers
When someone buys your product through a retailer, they remain anonymous to you.
The retailer knows who they are. You do not.
Magic Spoon found a way around that.
Magic Spoon offered a free Treat for your phone number
Buy two Magic Spoon Protein Treats at Kroger. Send them the receipt. Magic Spoon refunds the cost of one through Venmo or PayPal.
Here is how the mechanic worked.
Magic Spoon ran a Meta ad promoting the offer.
The ad took shoppers to a dedicated rebate page.
To claim the refund, shoppers had to:
Enter their phone number.
Buy two Protein Treats at Kroger.
Text a photo of their receipt.
Receive reimbursement for one.
As you can see, the ad ran for 560 days.
Brands do not keep paying to run the same campaign for that long unless it is doing its job.
Customers need a reason to identify themselves
The customer shared their phone number because the reward was immediate and clear.
Buy two Treats. Get the cost of one back.
Other brands create the same exchange through:
Product warranties and registrations
Loyalty rewards and rebate claims
And tutorials or support available after registration
A QR code alone gives customers no reason to act.
The incentive does.
Build the capture loop around your channel
The mechanic is simple:
Third-party purchase → incentive → data capture → verified customer → direct relationship
But every retailer and marketplace has different rules.
Amazon restricts sellers from using its customer data for marketing or directing buyers away from Amazon. Check the rules of each channel before building your campaign.
Build your first-party data loop
Action Summary:
Identify where customers buy without sharing their information.
Choose an incentive valuable enough to claim.
Build a page that captures consent and verifies the purchase.
Check the retailer’s rules before launching.
Presented by Roku
Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads
Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:
After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.
The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.
“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”
Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.
The How-To
How to Run Reply-to-Keyword Ads
You know those Instagram posts that say:
“Comment GUIDE and I’ll DM it to you.”
Meta is now testing the same mechanic inside Ads Manager.
You can choose up to five keywords or phrases.
When someone comments with one of them, Meta automatically sends a private message containing a link, email address or phone number.
Here is what it looks like
How to set it up:
Engagement Campaign
→ Ad Set
→ New Engagement Ad
→ Reply to Keywords
Credit: Jon Loomer & MD Naiem Bin Taslim
While You Were Building
In the Headlines
Amazon accused of secretly inflating ad prices
The FTC and 22 states allege Amazon added hidden surcharges to its ad auctions and overcharged more than 1.2 million advertisers. Amazon denies the claims. Read more
Google begins moving Search campaigns into AI Max
Search campaigns using automatically created assets will begin upgrading to AI Max this month. Check your settings before Google changes how your ads, targeting and landing pages are selected. Read more
TikTok Shop LIVE sales grew 55%
TikTok says LIVE Shopping is gaining momentum across sneakers, streetwear and collectibles. One UK seller generated more than £100,000 in its first three-and-a-half weeks. Read more
On Socials
Sean nails it: the brands that can afford to keep acquiring customers are the ones that earn more from them after the first sale.
Ideas Worth Stealing
Disguise your ad as a recommendation
It reads like a testimonial, not marketing fluff.
Credit: Viktor
📞 Daily Growth Rep: Call One Customer
Choose one customer who has purchased from you more than once.
Ask them:
What made you buy the first time?
What nearly stopped you?
Why did you come back?
Record their exact words.
Use the answers in your ads, emails and product pages.
One honest customer conversation can improve every part of your marketing.
In Case You Missed It
🎙️ Scaling home fragrance the right way
Luke Bream, founder of Valentte, took his business from around £10,000 a year to a run rate near $50 million.
He joined the DTC Daily podcast to explain why most brands think they have an ads problem when they actually have a business model problem.
He covers building an offer customers can't refuse, testing offer names for free using Meta spend as the signal, and sending traffic to a dedicated landing page instead of the product page.
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