Exits, Fees, Lies, and AI Shopping

THIS WEEK'S HEADLINES:

• Yotpo shuts down email & SMS division, refocuses on reviews and loyalty
• Texas introduces $10,200 SMS compliance requirement starting September 2025
• Ty Haney returns to Outdoor Voices with integrated brand ecosystem strategy
• Shopify's strong Q2 earnings report + enterprise wins continue
• Meta incrementality study reveals Advantage+ campaigns over-report performance by 12%
• Shopify launches agentic commerce tools enabling full AI shopping transactions
• Common Thread Collective secures strategic partnership with Acacia Group

While you were optimizing conversion rates and managing Q3 budgets, the ecommerce world kept moving. Here's everything you might have missed from the trenches this week.

PLATFORM NEWS

Yotpo Exits Email & SMS Market

Yotpo announced they're shuttering their email and SMS offering in several online posts that were brutally honest about the difficult decision.

The company framed the decision around focus rather than failure: This represents a significant strategic reversal for a platform that had positioned itself as a comprehensive marketing solution.

For current Yotpo email and SMS users, the company is providing transition support, though specific timelines weren't detailed. Brands should begin evaluating replacement solutions immediately.

The move refocuses Yotpo on their core strengths: reviews and loyalty programs.

COMPLIANCE

Texas SMS Compliance Gets Expensive

New Texas Business and Commerce Code updates could fundamentally change SMS marketing economics across the industry. Starting September 1, 2025, businesses sending marketing texts to Texas residents - or operating from Texas while sending SMS marketing - must register with the Texas Secretary of State.

Here's the financial breakdown: $200 application fee plus a mandatory $10,000 security deposit. The registration must be renewed annually. The security deposit can be structured three ways: a surety bond (you pay annual premiums rather than fronting the full amount), an irrevocable letter of credit, or certificates of deposit meeting specific state requirements.

For most D2C brands, the surety bond option makes the most financial sense - annual premiums typically range from $100-500 instead of tying up $10,000 in capital.

Key exemptions include publicly traded companies, 501(c)(3) organizations, food sales companies, retail sellers with physical locations (if operated under same name for two years), and businesses contacting current customers (with two-year name consistency requirement).

Klaviyo's guidance acknowledges uncertainty around enforcement and practical implementation. Key questions remain unanswered about tracking out-of-state businesses and proving customer relationships.

Read Klaviyo's detailed compliance guide

BRAND NEWS

Ty Haney Returns to Outdoor Voices

Former Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney is officially returning to guide the brand's future direction after a four-year absence following her departure in 2020. But this isn't just a nostalgic comeback story - it's a strategic business ecosystem play.

Haney has built what she calls a "movement trifecta" - three interconnected brands serving the recreation and wellness space:

Outdoor Voices remains the apparel anchor, focused on "Doing Things" and recreational movement.

Joggy is her organic energy drink brand positioning itself as clean fuel for active lifestyles.

TYB (Try Your Best) is her community rewards platform powering loyalty programs for Rare Beauty, Crocs, Saie, and Set Active.

The integration strategy is sophisticated. OV launched its community directly on the TYB platform, creating immediate access to superfans. The new OV collection features signature "Joggy Green" colorways, and Joggy products will be sold through outdoorvoices.com.

See the full collection preview

EARNINGS

Shopify Exceeds Earnings + Enterprise Momentum Continues

Shopify's Q2 earnings revealed continued enterprise migration momentum that signals a fundamental shift in how large retailers evaluate ecommerce platforms.

This enterprise adoption validates key trends: speed to market beats customization complexity, ecosystem integration trumps built-in features, operational reliability matters more than feature quantity, and total cost of ownership favors simplicity.

For D2C brands, this means continued platform investment in capabilities, enterprise features trickling down to standard plans, better ecosystem partners, and improved infrastructure stability.

PARTNERSHIPS

CTC Secures Strategic Partnership with Acacia

Common Thread Collective announced a strategic partnership with The Acacia Group that represents growth acceleration rather than an exit strategy. The move caps a 12-year journey from humble beginnings to becoming one of the most respected performance marketing agencies in ecommerce.

CTC’s CEO, Taylor Holiday, sat down with Andrew Faris to discuss the journey up to this point in transparent detail… and DTC Twitter appeared to take a liking to the conversation.

Read More About It Here

SPONSOR

How to Monetize Post-Purchase Like a 7-Figure Brand

Smart DTC brands aren’t just optimizing ads and landing pages ahead of BFCM — they’re turning their post-purchase funnel into a high-margin profit center.

Join Aftersell for a live tactical session with Nizar, CEO of SimpliScaled:

“The Yes Ladder: How to Stack Post-Purchase Conversions”
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You’ll learn the 6-step funnel strategy top Shopify brands are using to drive $200K/month at 82% margin — without increasing ad spend.

🎁 Bonus: All registrants get early access to The Yes Ladder playbook.

Click Here To Sign Up

DATA & INSIGHTS

DTC Index Reveals Complex Market Dynamics

The latest data reveals encouraging but complex market signals that suggest the DTC space may be stabilizing after a challenging start to 2025.

Revenue is up 5.47% YoY over the last 28 days, with new customer revenue growing 2.92% - a significant improvement from Q1's -1.50% decline. Growth came at slightly lower efficiency (aMER down -3.76% YoY) but substantially better than year-to-date aMER decline of -9.60%.

Most importantly, growth occurred with reduced discounting. Discount percentage was 10.06% vs 9.58% last year - up only 4.98% YoY, contrasting sharply with year-to-date discounting increases of 11.17%.

Consumer sentiment indicators support genuine recovery, with future purchase sentiment recovering from record lows to track closer to historical norms.

Access the full DTC Index dashboard

TECHNOLOGY

Agentic Commerce Arrives

Shopify announced a comprehensive suite of tools enabling AI agents to execute complete shopping transactions, marking the arrival of true "agentic commerce."

Three integrated tools make AI-powered shopping practical:

The Shopify Catalog enables AI agents to search hundreds of millions of products with real-time inventory and localized pricing.
Universal Cart holds items from multiple stores, allowing agents to manage complex shopping tasks across conversations.

Checkout Kit loads merchant-specific checkout experiences while maintaining AI agent branding.

For DTC brands, this creates optimization requirements around AI-readable product data, shifts customer relationships to brand-to-AI-agent-to-consumer dynamics, and provides competitive advantages for early adopters.

Traditional SEO evolves into "AEO" (AI Engine Optimization) where machine-readable data becomes crucial for discoverability.

See more details here

RESEARCH

Meta Incrementality Insights via Haus

Haus published a comprehensive analysis of Meta's advertising performance based on 640 incrementality experiments, providing the most detailed look yet at how Meta's AI-driven tools actually perform versus traditional campaign management.

Meta drove average 19% lift to brands' primary KPIs and holds 77 of the top 100 highest-lift experiments on Haus.

However, despite 2.4% higher platform-reported ROAS, 58% of brands saw higher incremental ROAS on manual campaigns than Advantage+.

Advantage+ drove 12% lower DTC incremental ROAS at 18% lower daily spend, suggesting its intent identification model works "too well" - capturing demand that would convert organically rather than creating new demand.

Key insight: Brands splitting budget 50/50 between Advantage+ and manual campaigns saw 18% drop in incremental ROAS versus concentrating spend on better-performing campaign types.

See all the details here

COLLABORATIONS

Strategic Partnerships & News

Bala x Spanx Collaboration

Bala and Spanx launched a limited-edition collaboration combining weighted accessories with compression expertise. The capsule includes Bala Bands with "SPANXeffect levels," 2lb Bala Bangles, No-Slip High Socks, and The Wavy Mat in coordinated Plum Berry and Orchid Ash colorways.

Rather than targeting high-intensity workouts, the collection focuses on low-impact movement and everyday use, launching August 5th at both brand websites.

Youthforia Closes Its Doors

Youthforia announced permanent closure after controversy over their Date Night foundation launch.

Beauty influencers criticized the darkest shade for poor blending properties, highlighting fundamental product development issues.

The closure reflects growing consolidation pressure in the beauty space as viral TikTok moments prove insufficient for long-term success without operational excellence or strategic retail partnerships.

Read the ABC News coverage

ADVERTISING

Reddit Expands Advertising Integration

Reddit launched campaign import functionality from Meta, allowing advertisers to directly transfer campaign structures and creative assets between platforms.

The integration supports awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, and app promotion objectives, with location and gender targeting importing directly.

However, platform differences require understanding Reddit's community-driven environment versus Meta's feed-based advertising.

The import feature works best as a starting point rather than complete solution, as successful Reddit campaigns typically require platform-specific optimization based on community engagement patterns.

Try Reddit's campaign import tool

INDUSTRY RESOURCES

The DTC Hotline Podcast Launch

Common Thread Collective announced a new podcast, offering direct access to ecommerce expertise through an interactive call-in format.

The new show creates shared learning opportunities as common challenges and solutions are discussed publicly. This collective problem-solving approach builds industry knowledge more effectively than isolated consulting conversations.

We’re guessing they’ll deliver on value (and have some tricks up their sleeves), but TBD if the nostalgic format will be the escape listeners are looking for…

Listen to episode 1 (or submit questions here)

Key Insights

LOOKING AHEAD: INDUSTRY TRAJECTORY

The ecommerce landscape continues evolving rapidly across multiple dimensions - technology adoption, regulatory compliance, consumer behavior, and competitive dynamics.

Several key themes emerge from this week's developments:

Specialization Over Integration: From Yotpo's email exit to Reddit's ad integration, the trend favors best-in-class solutions. Brands benefit from choosing specialized tools rather than settling for adequate all-in-one solutions.

Measurement Sophistication: The Meta incrementality research reinforces the importance of moving beyond last-click attribution toward more nuanced measurement frameworks. Competitive advantage increasingly comes from understanding true business impact rather than optimizing correlation-based metrics.

Regulatory Complexity: The Texas SMS compliance requirements preview a future where digital marketing faces increasing regulatory scrutiny. Brands must build compliance considerations into their growth strategies rather than treating them as afterthoughts.

Community-Driven Commerce: From Ty Haney's OV return to the DTC Hotline launch, successful brands are prioritizing direct community relationships over platform-mediated interactions. This shift requires different marketing approaches and measurement frameworks.

AI Integration: Agentic commerce represents the beginning of fundamental changes in consumer behavior and brand interactions. Early preparation for AI-mediated transactions will provide competitive advantages as adoption accelerates.

The complexity of modern ecommerce requires continuous learning and adaptation. The brands thriving in this environment are those treating change as opportunity rather than threat.

Successful brands will be those adapting quickly while maintaining focus on fundamental growth drivers: customer acquisition efficiency, retention optimization, and operational excellence.

The next 12 months will separate the prepared from the scrambling.