In partnership with

☕ ESPRESSO SHOT

Morning, gap-hunters.

While you were shipping since Thursday, checkout moved, wallets multiplied, and the macro clock started ticking again. Treat payments like growth, not plumbing. No fluff, just what changed and what to do now.

GAP OF THE WEEK: “Creator Ads That Actually Convert”

The hole:
Brands spray influencer posts across channels, then wonder why the paid version underperforms. Most teams boost creator content like a banner, not like native media.

The wedge:
License the creator’s best-performing post and run it through their handle with platform-native formats. Think Meta Partnership Ads, TikTok Spark Ads, and YouTube Shopping tags so the ad keeps all the social proof, comments, and momentum that made it work in the first place.

Why now:

• CPMs are volatile and fresh creative burns out fast. Borrowing a creator’s native voice and audience trust stretches your creative shelf life.

• Platforms keep rewarding “looks organic” units. Creator-handle delivery beats brand-handle delivery on thumb-stop and watch time.

• Newer shopping features make creator posts shoppable without forcing a hard handoff to your site.

Exit vision (30-day plan):

1. Find the winners: pull 10 creator posts with the best saves, shares, and watch time.

2. License and wire: get usage rights, add whitelisting access, set a capped CPA.

3. Run native, not generic: deploy as Partnership Ads or Spark Ads from the creator handle, not yours.

4. Tight offers only: ship 3-SKU bundles or a single hero product with fast landing pages.

5. Score what matters: report on thumb-stop, hold rate, add-to-cart, first-order CPA, repeat rate. Kill weak units fast and rotate new creators monthly.

1st SPOTLIGHT: Payoneer x Stripe Checkout

What happened: Payoneer is expanding its Online Checkout by partnering with Stripe, rolling out more wallets and BNPL options for cross-border DTC merchants (launching in APAC first). (Finovate)

Why it matters: If you sell internationally, wallet preference wins the sale. APAC buyers often pick local wallets or BNPL over cards, so adding those rails can lift conversion without more ad spend. Start with your top two countries by revenue and match their native methods.

2nd SPOTLIGHT: Creator-Handle Ads, The Right Way

Meta’s Partnership Ads doc spells out how to run ads from a partner’s handle with proper permissions and attribution. Pair that with TikTok’s Spark Ads to re-use organic posts as paid units without losing comments or momentum. If you have been “boosting” influencer posts from your brand account, this is the upgrade that fixes performance without new tools.

Why it matters:
Native voice plus social proof beats polished brand creative in feed environments. Lock your rights, tag your products where supported, and measure creator-handle delivery against your house creative for the next four weeks.

WEEK IN 3 TWEETS

1) When in tech, life becomes a wreck..

2) The world still has some good people on it…

3) Your LinkedIn feed be like…

🤯 STAT OF THE DAY

85 percent: Market-implied odds of a 25 bps Fed rate cut in September as of this week. If you are planning Q4 inventory or ad buys, watch Friday’s Jackson Hole signals. (Business Insider)

TURBO HEADLINES (last 4 days, worth a skim)

• TikTok Shop’s global push continues (Japan expansion faces cultural and logistics friction, but momentum stays strong). Use live for impulse, site for higher AOV. (Financial Times)

• Reddit’s Q2 strength still holding (revenue up 78 percent year over year to 500 million; ad revenue up 84 percent). Community is the pre-cart funnel, not just PR. (investor.redditinc.com, WARC)

• Wall Street is waiting on the Fed and retail earnings (Powell at Jackson Hole plus big-box results will set the tone for September budgets). Stay flexible on spend. (Reuters, Los Angeles Times)

• YouTube widens Shopping affiliate access through agency partners across nine countries. If your niche lives on YouTube, this is the least painful path to shoppable video at scale.

⏭ CLOSING LOOP

Publishing Tuesday and Thursday.
Forward this to the teammate still letting Instagram hold the cash register. If you want a quick checkout audit checklist, say the word.

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