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Good morning!
In today’s newsletter,
The future of shopping? AI + Actual Humans.
Your North Star needs a map
The decision founders skip before every hard call
Marketing that moves itself
This issue takes 2 minutes to read.
Let’s dive into it👇
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The Future of Shopping? AI + Actual Humans.
AI has changed how consumers shop, but people still drive decisions. Levanta’s research shows affiliate and creator content continues to influence conversions, plus it now shapes the product recommendations AI delivers. Affiliate marketing isn’t being replaced by AI, it’s being amplified.
Tik Tok Show
1. How to read your Tiktok shop “low conversion rate”
On TikTok Shop, your numbers will lie to you if you read them the same way you read Amazon or Shopify.
Look at this example from Vitalii (TikTok Strategist):
Page views up 240 percent
GMV up 152 percent
Conversion rate down 30 percent
CVR sitting at 1.33 percent while the category sits at 7 percent
Founders would usually see this and think something is broken, but It is not.
This is what TikTok Shop does the moment your affiliate engine starts working:
it floods your page with cold viewers
most of them are not ready to buy
volume grows way faster than intent
GMV grows anyway because the top of funnel exploded
So the question is not “why is my CVR low?”
The question is:
Is the traffic that’s coming in the right kind of traffic?
Here is a simple way to read your TikTok Shop funnel:
1. If page views grow faster than GMV → you’re in discovery mode.
This is normal. This is what you want early on.
2. If GMV grows faster than conversion rate → your reach is outpacing your readiness.
Also normal.
Fixing this is a second-phase project.
3. If conversion rate drops but repeat viewers increase → your audience is warming.
This is what you should track, not the CVR itself.
4. If your CVR is far below category but your GMV is far above category → you’re winning the only metric that matters right now.
(Which is exactly what the screenshot proves.)
Here’s the tactical part a lot of the brands miss:
TikTok Shop’s early game is traffic quality, not traffic conversion. Once the right people keep coming back, THEN you fix conversion.
You can only optimise what the algorithm stabilises. And that only happens after affiliates and creators have brought you enough signal.
So the correct workflow is:
build reach
stabilise the audience
THEN optimise conversion
Doing it backwards is why most brands think TikTok Shop “doesn’t convert.”
Credit: Vitalii Khizhniak – TikTok Shop and marketplace strategist
North Star
2. Your North Star Needs A Map
A single North Star metric sounds clean on paper.
In reality, teams see the number move and still have no idea why.
Monish, a growth lead at Gemini, explains it well:
The North Star is the destination.
The metric tree is the map that tells every team what to work on.
Here is the simple version:
Start with your North Star at the top
Example for a DTC brand:
repeat purchase rate in 90 days
Break it into the big branches that move it
acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, etc.
Under each branch, list the signals you can actually influence
acquisition → email sign up rate, first order CVR
activation → time to first order, % of customers who use the product correctly
retention → on time delivery, CSAT after first order, refill reminders opened
Now when the North Star drops, you do not argue about opinions.
You look at the tree and see which branch moved.
if repeat rate is flat but CSAT fell, you know it is a fulfilment or product issue
if traffic grew but sign ups did not, you know it is a top of funnel issue
if opens are fine but repeat orders are not, you know the offer is weak
Credit: MixPanel
The North Star keeps everyone aiming at the same outcome.
The metric tree tells each team exactly which part of the system they own.
Credit: Monish, Growth lead at Gemini
Decisions That Matter
3. The decision founders skip before every hard call
Founders often delay decisions because the downside feels huge.
But most of that fear comes from the imagined worst case, not the real one.
2 years ago, I had one of my mentors suggest me a simple framework before making any tough call: Write down the actual worst case if you’re wrong.
Most of the time, the true downside is smaller than the fear.
A hire you can part ways with
A project you can stop
A direction you can adjust
A spend you can recover from
What’s that one hard decision you’ve been pushing away that’s super important?
Write it down on a paper today (clarity).
Seeing the real downside on a paper shrinks the fear enough for you to move.
The decision may not get easier, but they get clearer when the threat is no longer imaginary.
-Ibrahim
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Marketing That Moves Itself
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Have questions or feedback? You can write to [email protected]