Happy Monday!

I hope your weekend was spent in the sun, on a boat, or on your couch with your feet up, AC blasting, and with a mojito in-hand. We’re writing this to you from Austin, where the high today is (only!) 91 degrees – a very moderate temperature for this time of year (seriously).

Lots of DTC news to cover this week:

Hanes sells Champion: Authentic Brand Groups – with a portfolio consisting of massive brands like Forever 21, Lucky Brand, and Sperry – is purchasing Champion from Hanes in a $1.2 billion dollar deal. Champion, in recent years, differentiated itself from competitors amongst Gen Z audiences via innovative influencer marketing campaigns like “Champion Creators Program”. Read more here.

Google deprioritizes affiliate content in SEO: Weeks after reprimanding coupon sites in SEO rankings, users have begun noticing affiliate content – think blogs like “10 best pairs of jeans this summer” – being replaced by brand listings for generic searches like “women’s jeans”. Read more below.

Amazon’s “Buy with Prime” reports mixed results: 1.5 years after launching, many users of Amazon’s “Buy with Prime” functionality for DTC eComm websites, report disappointing sales results.

Instagram tests unskippable ads: After years of delicately balancing user experience with brand ad performance, Meta is once again pushing the boundaries by testing unskippable videos ads on Instagram. These types of ads are generally considered extremely annoying for users – so it’ll be interesting how this plays out for Instagram.

(Another) Study shows young consumers use social for discovery: A recent Forbes Advisor study found that young consumers went to Google 25% less to search for new products then Gen X consumers. Read the full report here.

Enjoy the rest of this week’s content – cheers!

Al & Alexa

🗞️ Industry News by Al

Google vs. Product Review Sites & Affiliates

SEO expert Lily Ray recently shared bad news for affiliate & product review sites. Reliable affiliate/review sites, like The Wirecutter, have lost several Google positions over the last week.

The update allegedly impacts commercial keywords that make use of “best” — like “best women’s tennis shoes”. Historically, search results would have populated many high quality review blogs. However, Lily Rae’s research has found that in every case, these blogs were replaced by the product/category pages on eCommerce sites, most commonly Amazon.

The below example from Lily Rae shows the update with a real example. Red = the affiliate/review site and Green = eCommerce site.

This massive blow to traditional affiliate marketing is yet another important reason as to why brands need to continue investing in social creator-affiliate programs to de-risk its reliance on Google’s SEO.

🛍️ Brand of the Week by Alexa

If you live in Austin, have watched the Bachelor franchise, or frequent TikTok, you probably have heard of the brand Waterboy. Waterboy was founded by Bachelor alum Connor Saeli and his partner Mike Xhaxho to change the hydration industry by creating a hydration electrolyte drink mix for weekend and workout recoveries. Waterboy caught our eyes this week because they’re currently running a customer giveaway where customers can participate in 6 different challenges for a chance to win a trip to Cabo with the brand. A few reasons why this specific brand and giveaway is intriguing to me:

1. Waterboy’s newest Social Media Manager is Jenna Palek, a popular creator on TikTok in her own right who has grown Waterboy’s TikTok following by 56K within the first few weeks of joining their team. She leveraged her personal social media channels to tease the customer giveaway and share behind-the-scenes insights on how such events get approved by the Waterboy team, generating tons of buzz before the giveaway was officially announced. This strategy reflects a growing trend among other D2C brands, who are increasingly hiring influencers to manage their social accounts and attract new audiences.

2. They are emphasizing that this brand trip is exclusively for customers, NOT influencers. This reflects a growing trend in the industry, as Gen Z increasingly prefers to see brands reward their loyal customers with free trips and products rather than giving these perks to influencers.

3. Who wouldn’t want to go to Cabo?

You can check out how to enter their giveaway here. If you win, choose me as your plus 1 😉

📺 Content of the Week by Alexa

In case you’re still not sure what we do here at LoudCrowd, no worries – we got you.

My colleague Al created our newly released video on our website, giving you an overview of what we do. The TLDR: We specialize in seamlessly integrating into your affiliate, marketing, and eComm tech stack, powering Creator Storefronts to provide your influencers and affiliates with native, high-performing pages on your eComm platform.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

👑 LoudCrowd Updates

Gen Z has been the driving force of a lot of consumer changes as of the last few years. Recently, they have determined that:

Discovering products via creators – IN.

Discovering products via different product categories – OUT.

Because of this, the LoudCrowd team has created the Influencer List Page (ILP). Our ILP can replace your Product List Page to give your consumers the opportunity to shop through influencer favorites, directly on your homepage or navigation. The native ILP can fit seamlessly into your website, and even link to your Creator Storefronts (powered by LoudCrowd of course).

Still skeptical? This LinkedIn creator called out ASOS for not having this functionality, and explains why it’s so important perfectly. Check out the original post here.

If you’re ready to see your affiliate conversion rates increa