With the end of the third-party cookie in sight and Apple’s iOS 14.5 privacy updates already in full effect, brands are scrambling to find new and innovative ways to reach customers and measure the performance of their advertising dollars. 

For direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, there’s never been a time with more opportunity — or more challenges. D2C sales in the United States have more than tripled over the past six years, and are on track to surpass $212 billion by 2024. But, with so much opportunity to be had, young, digitally-native brands are up against increasingly stiff competition — not only amongst themselves, but also with large, established brands that are moving into the space and gobbling up more than their fair share of growth. 

In such a landscape, there’s nothing more critical to a brand’s success than visibility — getting their brand’s products in front of the right eyeballs, in the right place, at the right time; and knowing whether or not they’re succeeding. That’s a big part of why, for D2C brands — whose number one customer acquisition channel has been social media for some time — the weakening of the walled gardens’ targeted advertising platforms has been especially challenging. 
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Costs rise, ROIs slide inside social media’s walled gardens 

At the same time that the effectiveness of targeted advertising is sinking, increased competition has caused the cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) on social platforms like Facebook and Snapchat to rise dramatically. In July of last year, Google and Youtube’s CPMs rose by 108%, Facebook’s rose by 89%, TikTok’s increased by 92%, and limping in with the “smallest” bump in ad costs was Snapchat at 64%. 

As a result of all this, D2C brands are now facing a perfect storm of skyrocketing customer acquisition costs (CAC), without being able to discern where their investments drive the greatest returns. Because performance data isn’t shared in a uniform way across these disparate platforms, brands are left flying blind — potentially investing heavily in certain channels that don’t actually yield valuable customers. 

Combine all this with the fact that next-generation consumers — who serve as society’s primary tastemakers — are losing interest in social media platforms, and one can’t help but wonder, what’s a young D2C brand to do? 

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Platforms like Firework introduce a new commerce model

Thankfully, innovative companies like Firework are developing tools and technologies to help D2C brands overcome these challenges; enabling brands to engage with customers outside of social media’s walled gardens, with video, the format of choice for the digital age. With Firework, brands can host livestreams and short-form, shoppable videos directly on their owned and operated web properties — bringing cutting-edge, immersive video experiences like those on Twitch and TikTok directly to brands’ own websites. 

Whenever talking about social media in the context of eCommerce, it’s important to point out that over 96% of online sales in the U.S. still happen on the open web (i.e. not in social media’s walled gardens). That’s a big part of what makes Firework so powerful — they bring next-generation video commerce capabilities to the place where customers are actually primed to transact. 

With CAC on the rise, one of the most important things a brand can do to offset those upfront costs is to increase the lifetime value of their customers (CLTV). With Firework, brands can get the immediate revenue lift they need, plus access to increasingly precious customer insights.

By Implementing livestreaming and short-form, shoppable videos, Firework customers have reported double digit lifts in conversion rates, with significant increases in ROI to boot. And in addition to the near-term revenue boost, when video commerce happens on a brand’s own website, they benefit from all of the first-party customer data that can help to inform better business decisions in the future.

Firework + OutPoint boost visibility so brands can strategically scale their video commerce mix

That’s where OutPoint comes in. With our automated media mix modeling capabilities, OutPoint gives brands invaluable insights into performance marketing performance, precisely when they need it the most. 

As user-level tracking diminishes due to consumer privacy concerns, media mix modeling provides a solution to the new measurement challenges marketers face. Media mix modeling enables accurate and robust ROI analysis without leveraging user-level data, tracking personal information, or otherwise encroaching on consumer privacy. 

OutPoint's revenue lift modeling makes it easy to understand the total economic impact of all advertising channels, including insight into specific spend recommendations, the ability to scale paid media efficiently across channels, and measurement capabilities including organic lift and return for online and offline channels like influencers and connected tv.

Although there’s no shortage of challenges ahead, Firework and OutPoint can help your D2C brand drive down CAC, lift CLTV, and thrive in spite of today’s ever-changing privacy landscape. Speak with OutPoint today to learn how Outpoint and Firework can help you engage customers and gain insights into your video commerce initiatives.