Everything You Should Know About Tariffs

Welcome to issue #100 of The DTC Insider newsletter! 🎉 

What a journey! I started this newsletter in April 2023 to share all the growth marketing news & trends in the DTC space I learn through my agency and podcast. And I've been doing that every single week since then.

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, thank you! It'd mean the world to me if you could leave a review by replying to this email.

Let's dive in!

Topics we'll cover today:

💠 5 New Meta Ads Updates
💠 Everything You Should Know About Tariffs
💠 Customer-Centric Strategies for E-Commerce Success

5 New Meta Ads Updates

By Bram Van der Allen

📝 Meta may now suggest primary text variations generated by AI that are optimized for performance on different ad placements. At the ad level, you may now see suggested/optimized text for both the Instagram Feed and Facebook Feed.

💬 You can now enable the 'Chat with leads from instant form' feature when you create a lead ad with Instant Form in Meta Ads Manager. After a lead submits your form and agrees to receive messages from your business, a chat will start in Messenger that also includes your lead's contact information.

🤝 Meta added a new Advantage+ creative enhancement called 'Dynamic partnership ads'. When you enable this option, Meta may include active, top-performing partnership ads from your other campaigns in a collection with items from your catalog.

📊 When you have connected Google Analytics in Meta Events Manager, you may now monitor the 'Connection Quality' in Events Manager. If the connection quality indicator is showing 'low', you can hover for more details. To check the connection quality, navigate to Events Manager, click 'Partner Integrations' and click 'Google Analytics'.

🔦 'Brand highlights' info labels allow you to show a number range of interactions (ad views, website visits, recent purchases) from your website on your Facebook and Instagram ad.

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Want to Make 2025 Your Brand’s Best Year Yet?

In 2024, we audited over 120 brands, and we found that many of them have been stuck in a revenue plateau for 2, and even 3 years.

So, the question is: will you stay in the same place for yet another year, or will you draw a line in the sand and start a new chapter for your brand?

At BSR Digital, we have just 1 spot left for brands that want to unlock the next level of growth.

Will you be one of them?

Everything You Should Know About Tariffs

On March 4, 2025, Trump's tariffs officially took effect, bringing significant changes for e-commerce brands.

A 10% tariff now applies to all Chinese imports, while goods from Mexico and Canada are facing a 25% tariff.

Additionally, the de minimis exemption, which allowed duty-free imports under $800, has been suspended for Chinese parcels. This move directly impacts platforms like Shein and Temu, making it more expensive for them to sell to US consumers and potentially disrupting their supply chains.

For US e-commerce brands, this means higher import costs, tighter margins, and difficult pricing decisions. Many brands that rely on Chinese manufacturers will see their cost of goods rise immediately.

The natural reaction would be to pass those costs onto consumers, but with demand already strained by economic uncertainty, higher prices could hurt sales. Retailers like Target are already warning of profit pressures, particularly in categories like produce and consumer goods.

This is more than just a tariff hike...it’s a market disruption.

Brands that rely on cheap overseas manufacturing will feel the squeeze.

Those who fail to adapt could see profitability decline, while others will use this as an opportunity to diversify their supply chains. Some brands may look toward domestic manufacturing or nearshoring to Mexico and Latin America, though those options come with their own challenges.

The reality is that tariffs force businesses to rethink their strategies. The winners in this new environment will be the brands that move quickly, test alternative sourcing options, and find creative ways to maintain profitability without alienating customers.

Those who fail to adjust will struggle to compete in a marketplace where costs are rising, and consumers have more choices than ever.

How will your brand adapt?

Customer-Centric Strategies for E-Commerce Success

Customer-centric brands aren’t a fad.

They’re a must to succeed in 2025.

If you don’t:

⤷ Sell a great product

⤷ Ask your customers for feedback

⤷ Market using your customers’ language

Then…what are you doing? 🤷‍♂️

In this episode of The DTC Insider podcast, Kevin Niehoff and Benjamin Feys, founders of PrettyBoy, break down their approach to delivering an exceptional customer experience from A to Z.

Tune in👇

We discussed:

👉 Turning a personal challenge into a successful business.
👉 Financial literacy as a foundation for growth.
👉 Adaptability in navigating the e-commerce landscape.
👉 The role of customer feedback in product development.
👉 Differentiating through lifestyle branding.
👉 Aligning operations with marketing for business success.
👉 Strengthening brand loyalty through community engagement.
👉 The impact of brand identity on standing out in the market.
👉 Creating memorable customer experiences to drive retention.
👉 Balancing focus and experimentation across marketing channels.

Tune in:

📺 YouTube
🎧 Apple
🎙️ Spotify
🌐 Website

More episodes our listeners love:

💎 Bootstrapping a $100M E-Commerce Empire with Bear Handlon
💎 Unlocking New Revenue Streams in 2025 with Neal Goyal
💎 The Secret Sauce Behind BattlBox's Success with John Roman
💎 IQBAR’s Journey to 10,000 Locations And $50 Million with Will Nitze
💎 Supplement Brand Bootstrapped $10,000 and Built It Into Sales of $30 Million in Three Years with Ronak Shah

Also Happening in the DTC space

📰 Google’s VP of Ads and Commerce Outlines 2025 Priorities
📰 Advertisers and Wall Street are high on AppLovin. Not all are sold
📰 More brands are testing package inserts as a cheaper customer acquisition tactic

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