The PR Playbook from DTC Companies' Favorite Agency

0:00In my perspective, if you have a product that can be talked about in publications, if you're not on an affiliate platform, you're completely losing out on maximizing all the press press press press. for the brand.

0:43and even started her own publication. Lauren's companies have helped some of the biggest DTC clients double or triple their press placements and unlock new revenue streams across the board. She's here today to share how an effective press strategy can affect your company's bottom line. Hey, Lauren, welcome to the show. Thank you. Prior to Dream Day, you were at the founding team at Ritual. So you've been around PR for a while now. When you take a look at the sort of traditional PR agency landscape. Where do you think these PR agencies are coming up short? Yeah, it's really interesting just going back to, you know, my time at Ritual, I worked with all the top PR agencies across the US.

1:25And just like you said, I found that they were coming up short in a lot of different ways. While they may have gotten us really good press, I didn't feel like they were evolving with the way that publishers were evolving and that publishers are interested in surfacing brands and products that organically and authentically resonate with their audience, but also brands and products that can help make them money. And as you probably already know, commerce is a growing part of publishers revenue. So I saw that basically without them doing any affiliate marketing, they weren't really helping publishers size up the business opportunity for partnering with the brand and meeting publishers where they're at.

2:07Additionally, brands typically have to hire a PR agency and an affiliate agency. And a lot of times those two end up actually competing with each other, saying that they got whatever hit. But the two are truly synergistic. But what I saw was that it was very bifurcated and one hand was not talking to the other. Okay, so for those that aren't familiar, can we just level set for a moment? So what is the difference between affiliate marketing, an affiliate agency, an affiliate program, and an affiliate network? What are the differences here? Yeah, great question. So affiliate marketing is essentially when you're working with different partners, could be at any point in the funnel.

2:46We refer to top-of-funnel partners, referring to top-tier publications. Mid-funnel are more like your bloggers and influencers. sub affiliate networks like skim links or like to know it or shop style. And then bottom of funnel partners are partners that are either loyalty partners or coupon partners, whether that's like Rakuten or Honey. And then we do some card linked offers as well, like American Express or platinum card holders or Capital One. And so basically affiliate marketing is just having other people talking about your products and getting compensated for talking about those products through a commission.

3:22So I would say probably 95 % of publications that are recommending products, for example, are getting a commission on the back end anytime a consumer is purchasing that product. Yeah, I think the differences are interesting between sort of classic affiliate marketing, you really hit on it, like the affiliate program part of it, the affiliate network, you know, you mentioned Rakuten, there's also ShareAcele and a few others. Yeah. So I think listeners just want to distinguish between the differences here and those that are thinking about affiliate marketing for the first time, how should they be thinking about it?

3:56Yeah. On the platform side, there's a lot of different platforms, whether that's like ShareASale or Pepper Jam or Impact. It really depends on kind of the size of your program in terms of the different platforms that we recommend. Typically under$150 ,000 in affiliate revenue per month, we recommend ShareASale. It's pretty straightforward and very user-friendly. But when you start getting more revenue coming through the affiliate program, we recommend something more like Impact, which has much better tracking and attribution. You You can set up custom conversion lines, meaning that, let's say, Vogue refers the traffic, but Honey is the last click to convert.

4:33You can set up commission structures where Vogue might get 80 % of the commission and Honey gets 20%. So, yeah, in terms of where to start, being on a platform first and foremost, I think is one of the most important things. In my perspective, if you have a product that, you know, can be talked about in publications, if you're not on an affiliate platform, you are completely losing out on really maximizing all the press opportunities for the brand. Again, because publishers care about, you know, recommending brands and products that are going to authentically resonate with their audience. But they also care about making money.

5:11So and generating, you know, that affiliate commission and revenue for their business. So a lot of times, let's say that there's, you know, four different olive oil companies, publishers might say, OK, these authentically are really cool. And that's why we want to talk about them. But also here's what their commission rate is and here's what their EPC is and here's what their AOV is. And they'll look at all these different metrics and kind of decide, you know, which olive oil company, for example, should be included. And you can decide as a brand what your call to action would be. So my understanding is you can pay on a cost per sale, but there's also cost per lead campaigns.

5:48There's cost per impression campaigns. There's sort of a lot of variability or optionality here. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, that's correct. I would say in kind of the type of work that we do, we're typically working on a CPA basis. so um you know for a subscription vitamin company for example you may be able to flex up to like 75 or 100 of the first month sale because the brand knows that they're going to be able to make that back up on the ltv but typically the kind of you know revenue structure is that you are paying anywhere between 10 and 15 to top tier publishers sometimes you can flex up even to 20 percent per sale.

6:29And then, you know, the publisher is getting a commission of that product. And so typically it's CPA. There's some instances where we'll run CPC campaigns with publications where, for example, it'll be for$10 ,000, you get 10 ,000 clicks. And that publication is then responsible for driving, you know, as much views and clicks to the content that they're creating, whether that's through banner ads or newsletters or dedicated editorial. So you guys have like kind of a modern PR play, I would say, that's more centered around performance versus sort of classic PR that is retainer based. Is that the main difference here in terms of your value prop?

7:10Yeah, we actually operate like a traditional PR agency. The way that I describe us is we are a full service PR agency and full funnel affiliate marketing agency, all as part of one synergistic strategy. So with us, you would get everything that you would get from a traditional PR agency. However, our publicists are much more focused and versed and trained in understanding, not pitching into a black hole and really using the data that affiliate provides to say, okay, these are the top five publications that performed best for this brand in the past. And these are going to be the ones that we're gonna go really hard after this quarter in whatever way we can to try to find press that not only drives awareness that traditional press would, but can also have the opportunity to drive performance through the affiliate channel.

7:59And it's not a one size fits all. And you've got an incredible roster of clients. Many of them are on Shopify, actually. Yes. Brightland, Olive Oil, Fly By Jing, Quintz and others. On the client side, what do you look for? What makes for a good client? Yeah, such a great question. We really work with a lot of what we call category defining brands, where when you think of, you know, the DTC olive oil category, you might think of Brightland first, hopefully. They're really innovators in this space. So we work with a lot of really mission driven brands, founder led brands, brands that, you know, are constantly doing interesting things.

8:34Candidly, that makes our life so much easier when internally you have really interesting, you know, marketing campaigns or partnerships or collaborations. And then I think it should be stated that it's also important for the brand to have a product that when it gets into the editor's hands or into an influencer's hands or into whatever partner's hands, that it's going to sell itself and that they're going to like it. So we also try to work with products that we ourselves use and love every single day. You know, I drank my Clever Matcha this morning. I used my Brightland olive oil. I wear quince clothes.

9:09Like they're ones that our entire team is really like invested and bought into the mission of. And I think that passion really translates not only internally in our internal communications and to our communications with our clients, but also to editors and all of the partners that our team is working with. Yeah, and I feel like you're almost doing half of the work for them. You know, as you mentioned, you're sussing out these clients at the beginning. So you talk about things like being mission-driven, being founder-led, having a story behind it. Ultimately, publishers want to publish a good story, something that's going to attract a lot of eyeballs.

9:46So if you can do that heavy lifting up front, I would imagine they're going to love you, right? Yes, absolutely. Our VP always says our job is to make editors' lives as easy as possible. And so to that point, I think that, yeah, we try to work with clients that we know are going to authentically resonate with publishers and that editors are going to care about. We're students of like the media landscape and what editors and publications are talking about. So we've kind of carved out this niche with what I would say is like these D to C first, you know, buzzy, again, category defining products and brands that have an amazing story to talk about, which, like I said, we're not scared of a challenge, but it does make our life a lot easier.

10:30How do you view social media platforms as it relates to what you do? So these platforms themselves are becoming a kind of PR marketplace for a lot of brands to amplify their reach. And so a lot of them will sort of bypass PR, sort of bypassing PR in quotes here, and publish directly on TikTok or on Facebook or Instagram or what have you. Are these platforms complementary to the PR space at this point? Are they competition? How do you see it? Yeah, I think very much complementary to the PR space. And our team will do a lot of influencer seeding and, again, getting the product into the right people's hands.

11:06And our team will, you know, clip Instagram stories or posts, which kind of qualify as press in their own right, when it's the right person sharing to their audience about a product. So I think if anything, Instagram and TikTok have kind of like broadened the additional surfaces, I guess, that PR can live on. And then definitely on the affiliate space, there's also a lot of overlap in that you can have Instagram influencers sharing their affiliate links. So that could be like a share a sale link, more often it's a sub affiliate network that's kind of more tailored towards Instagram, something like a like to know it or a shop style link where they're sharing those affiliate links within their stories or within their bio.

11:45And, you know, we're seeing then those commissions come through on the affiliate platform side or on the brand side. And then TikTok shop is definitely an area that's really exploding. And our agency has tried to really meet that need with starting to kind of help clients get set up on the shop, but it's kind of opening up an entirely new affiliate network because that runs completely on TikTok shop and not on, you know, share a sale or impact, which I think actually leads into a broader thing that I've just noticed over the last four years is kind of like the bifurcation of affiliate and DTC at large, maybe even a larger conversation where when I first started Dream Day five years ago, like we were exclusively working with direct to consumer brands.

12:30Now there's no direct to consumer brands, really. Everyone is trying to be omni-channel and everyone is trying to be in, you know, Ulta and Nordstrom and Walmart and Target and Amazon. And that has actually led to a lot of challenges with affiliate marketing, because the way that brands find the attribution is the most simplest way. Let's use Brightland as an example. Vogue talks about Brightland. Consumer comes to the website and purchases That attribution is tracked through share a sale, let's say. And, you know, we can prove the value of our work very easily when we get that attribution. But if Brightland is in Erwan or Sprouts or Target or where have you, and they might read about that article online, then they're walking into their store and actually buying it.

13:18There's no affiliate attribution that's taking place. Or if they're on Amazon, that's also another challenge. There's a new company called Levante that's trying to solve for this a bit. But when publishers are more incentivized to direct to Amazon than they are to the brand's PDP or to the brand's website, it's a huge challenge. And sometimes publishers will receive nine to ten times the amount of commission they would because they get commission on the entire basket purchase. If you're like, oh, I also need diapers and paper towels in addition to this olive oil or whatever it is. So the publishers are making a lot more by sending traffic to Amazon, but the attribution is lost through the affiliate platform.

14:00So there's a lot of really interesting challenges that have come from kind of there being, you know, a lot of different surfaces for people to promote products on. In addition to the nuance around actually owning the customer data, you know, going direct to customer via Shopify sale or something like that. Yeah. Or selling your product on a third-party marketplace like Amazon, where after that first sale, obviously Amazon owns the customer, they own the customer data a lot different in terms of remarketing. Totally. I do want to ask you about some big press opportunities for startup brands. Yeah.

14:34So a lot of listeners are thinking about, you know, some quick hacks to generating free PR that actually drives ROI. I don't know if this goes against the grain here, but I would love your opinion if you were in the startup seat. How could you find some free PR? Yeah, I would say there's no free PR. You have to work for it. Right. Right. But, you know, I think that, like I said earlier in the show, when brands are doing interesting things, it's a great way to generate buzz. It doesn't mean that you have to launch a new product, you know, every quarter. That helps. It's always helpful to have something newsworthy to talk about.

15:13But I think, you know, doing really interesting collaborations or partnerships or campaigns or just talking about the why behind different decisions made throughout your founder journey even. I think part of our question as publicists is asking the right questions and really asking the why to really dig, you know, deeper and find kind of those nuggets that press are going to be excited about. because a lot of readers are interested in learning, you know, deeper. Why was this company founded? You know, why is this product better than the rest? What was the entrepreneurial journey? What challenges did they have to overcome?

15:54What did it take for them to get to this point? Like, what are their growth metrics? A good example is actually Fly by Jing. They had an amazing dumpling launch and numbers really grabbed readers' attention. So after three months of their dumpling launch, we went back to Jing and her team and we said, if you were to count up every single dumpling that has been sold in these bags, because we didn't want to say how many bags necessarily have been sold. We didn't want to really say how much revenue has been generated. But what's something else we can talk about that's interesting and free PR? How many dumplings?

16:30And it was over a million dumplings. So that was just amazing. And we went to press with that stat. And of course, like the media kind of ate it up and we got tons of stories that said, you know, Flabby Jing sold over a million dumplings in their first three months.

16:49I think it's about just getting creative. The three main takeaways, I would say, are one, metrics. Two, like interesting founder story. And three, just like how are you culturally relevant? making sure that you are reading all of the different publications that you would want to be in and making sure that you're kind of playing into what's going on culturally and any of those hooks that can really help you break through the noise. Yeah, and all that makes for a good story. So you're sort of doubling down on what you've already said. Thank you so much for that. Fly by Jing actually was a guest on Shopify Masters a little while back.

17:28So I encourage listeners to check out that episode. I'm chatting with Lauren Kleiman, founder of Dream Day and The Quality Edit. We'll get into The Quality Edit in just a second. First, I'd like to take a moment to thank you listeners for tuning into the show today. If you haven't already, please make sure to subscribe to Shopify Masters wherever you get your audio. Leave us a review and feedback for the show. We certainly appreciate it. Hey, Ishwang. I just wanted to pop in and share some exciting news with you. Our podcast, Shopify Masters, just got nominated for a Shorty Award in the Best Branded Podcast category.

18:08We are so honored and would love your support. You can vote for us every single day until the end of April. Visit shortyawards.com. That's S-H-O-R-T-Y awards.com. Or check out the link in our description to vote. Thank you so much. so lauren how did quality edit get started what's the origin story yeah so quality edit actually started um as a side hustle my co-founder and i as i mentioned were at ritual together i was founding team and vp of marketing and she was heading all of our growth and took us from zero dollars in spend to hundreds of million and we essentially found that there were several strategies that really helped Ritual find scale and efficiency on paid social.

19:00And many of them had to do with third-party credibility and validation. In other words, how can you bring a customer in that kind of already has education and validation before they've ever landed on your site? And we worked with all the top publications in the space. We found that many of them were kind of very old school and didn't really know how to create performance marketing partnerships that would actually back out for brands. So long story short, we decided to start this side hustle and really build a new kind of publication and agency ourselves. So we are an organic publication, the qualityedit.com, and have built over the last four years really high trust rating with our audience.

19:40But we also built essentially a performance agency out of the publication. We've coined this term called performance publishing, which essentially helps brands arbitrage success on paid social by combining all of the things that we saw work at ritual. So third-party validation, high-quality editorial, landing page development, ad creative, influencer casting and management, and paid social media management and strategy. So we built this agency out of a publication. And I think kind of this approach combines the best of storytelling with performance, where if you work with a traditional performance marketing agency, a lot of times that can actually hurt the brand equity.

20:24But with our model of performance publishing, we actually help the brand build that brand equity while being very KPI focused and ROI focused and driving new customer acquisitions. So after a year of it being a side hustle, doubled down on building the quality edit. So now I'm the co-founder of the quality edit and the founder of Dream Day. I run two different agencies. And yeah, over there, we've driven over$50 million in incremental revenue for our clients. And I think in a lot of ways, I feel like we've kind of cracked something really interesting around the future of publishing. When you say that previously publishing agencies or PR agencies would affect brand equity, how would that happen?

21:06What do you mean by that? Yeah, a lot of times performance agencies are just thinking about performance for performance's sake. So a lot of times they might be, you know, creating creative or ad assets that actually are a detriment to the overall brand equity, not in line with, you know, what a creative director maybe would approve. And so there's always going to be that fine balance of creative versus performance. But I think what we've cracked at the quality of it is kind of the sweet spot of both, where we have an in-house creator roster, over 50 different creators that are really trained in performance and are driving kind of that native UGC creator -led kind of feel to our creative.

21:48That can be really thumb-stopping and compelling, but is really elevating the brand rather than hurting it. You mentioned these elements around sort of trust. So consumer validation, reputation, reliability. Beforehand, where do you think the gap was in the market? Like how are consumers seeking out their brands? And what were some of the publications that they'd be reading reviews on or what have you, whereby, you know, trust started to erode over time? And so what is the gap that you saw in the market? Yeah, great question. So we actually conducted a reader survey last year that showed that 90 % of our audience trusts our recommendations.

22:34So that's really high for kind of the standard across the publishing ecosystem. I've seen even other, you know, top tier publications that have maybe like an 80 % trust rating. We obviously have a smaller audience, but I feel like it's a small and mighty one. And we've kind of been able to build this cult following. I think the main takeaway was just after I left Ritual, I was getting sent so many cool brands and innovative products. And I felt like a lot of the traditional publications weren't covering them. They were like, you know, maybe too small or not interesting to them, but they were really interesting to me.

23:10And so that was kind of my biggest takeaway was just I wasn't personally reading any of the traditional publications. They didn't really like resonate with me. There's a few that like I used to read, like, you know, Man Repeller or Into the Gloss for recommendations. But I just didn't feel and again, this was four years ago, I just didn't feel that there was like a publication that was dedicated to covering kind of the newest and coolest products that I was interested in, you know, reading about and trying myself. What's the biggest challenge that you face when it comes to growing both Dream Day and the quality at it.

23:47Do you find it difficult to split time between the two? Yes, incredibly. I'm also a mom. I have two young children. I have a daughter who's four and a son who's six. So I find that, you know, becoming a parent has made me incredibly efficient. And it is still a challenge, though. I think I try to have, you know, dedicated days for both companies for different meetings. But I would say hiring is kind of the most important part. I've been really lucky on the quality edit side to be able to lean on my co-founders and the amazing team that we've built. And on the Dream Day side, I have a chief of staff and a VP and a lot of other senior team members that I can really rely on and trust and delegate things to.

24:36And I just help make sure that the ship is continue to steer in the right direction. But it's not easy. I think my life would be a lot easier if I only had one agency. But it's fun. Every day I'm having a lot of fun. So that's what matters. That is super important. You're big on company culture. You've talked about this on a bunch of other podcasts. You've personally burned out a couple of times. Yes. And interestingly, you've got a new work perk that you just announced at your company retreat last week. Is this related to your own personal experience? Yeah, definitely related to my own experience.

25:11It's interesting. I feel like as I've grown up and matured as a person, as a founder, I'm 34 years old now. I feel like the company has grown up, obviously, as well, too. And a lot of things that I've gone through, I've thought about how do I take that and transcend it into building the best culture that I can. I think on both companies, we've built incredibly close cultures. and we were just at our offsite, our all team offsite for Dream Day last week in Austin. And so many of my team members were like, this is not normal. Like the culture that we've built is something that is really special.

25:52Everyone is like very tight knit, very close friends. And, you know, we're over 20 people now. So I think that becomes harder and harder to do as you, you know, really scale. But one thing is I've always been blessed to work with founders and companies that put culture first. I have said this before, but I've never really had a bad job, which I feel very lucky to be able to say. But I feel like I learned my entire career firsthand from some of the best founders, Kat at Ritual, Walter Driver at Scopely, what it means to build a really impactful culture in a place that people really want to work.