D2C Diaries

Loukas Hambi and Olly Hudson
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Join Olly Hudson and Loukas Hambi in a laid-back yet insightful podcast, where we dive into the heart of D2C and e-commerce. With a combined experience of managing over £150 million in ad spend across Meta and TikTok and helping scale over 200 brands, we bring you a digestible blend of performance, operational, and creative wisdom.

  1. 8h ago

    The Playbook That Took Loop Earplugs From $100M to $250M With CMO Rob Weston

    Loop Earplugs got to 100 million a year on Meta ads. The first thing their new CMO wrote down was that the business was wildly overreliant on it. Rob Weston is Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer at Loop Earplugs, three years in, with Unilever, McKinsey, John Lewis, M&S and Samsung behind him. He joined at around 100 million a year. This year the business is on track for 240 to 250. He spent those three years arguing for slower growth than his own CEO and CFO wanted. We got into everything. - A TV test run on a seven day attribution window. Set up to fail. - 10% of budget carved out of performance, planned as an insurance bet. - Leading indicators over breakeven ROAS: traffic, attributed brand search, brand lift. - Brand partnerships instead of TV. Tomorrowland, Coachella, Swarovski, Harry Styles, McLaren, Paris Hilton. - Minimum fee, then revenue share. Break even on units, everything after is a bonus. - A buyer spotted the product at Coachella. That retail listing paid back five times over. - The partnership he turned down: a football stadium isn't loud enough. - "I'm a buyer of the creator economy" — and the part he still can't measure. - 110dB at the O2 with his daughter, and the message he won't lead with. This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard. If you're spending serious money on daily business expenses and getting nothing back on it right now, this dedicated offer gets you 2% Cashback for year 1 on Ads, SaaS, Travel and other everyday business expenses. Uncapped. Sign up for free and use the code SWU2K26 to unlock your cashback: https://incard.co?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod Get the full Loop Earplugs Funnel Breakdown here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0zvPj_0 🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wjzrY0 Follow Rob LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robweston1/ 00:00 100 million to 250 million in three years 04:56 The radically honest business case 12:18 There's an ad for everybody 15:03 The four pillars, and the retail team 17:51 The TV test set up to fail 19:35 Where YouTube ads showed signs of life 23:35 Stretching the seven day attribution window 26:36 Carving 10% out for experimentation 29:49 Why CEOs don't trust CMOs 33:41 The machine said do the opposite 35:17 The Cadbury purple problem 40:33 Chasing the apex predators 45:08 Minimum fee, then revenue share 50:29 The partnership he turned down 58:11 110dB at the O2 1:00:43 A buyer of the creator economy 1:06:02 Why physical retail still matters 1:08:11 What he'd tell any DTC brand Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://shorturl.at/TRI8B / https://x.com/LoukasHambi Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/ Follow D2C Diaries: https://www.tiktok.com/@d2c.diaries / https://www.instagram.com/d2c_diaries/

  2. 3d ago

    The Black Friday Trap Most Ecommerce Brands Fall Into | Roundtable Edition

    Most brands walk into November with a discount and a hope. Six weeks out, that pattern is already forming. For the first-ever D2C Diaries panel, three operators take Black Friday apart: Laurence Booth from Internos Advisory, Frederica Watson from Revive Collagen and Nick Kane from Magic AI. What the episode focuses on is offer, media, creative, and the unpublished part: what operators actually do when day one lands 40% under forecast. Disagreement is the point. The panel does not agree that peak is a straight revenue win. One guest makes the case that the same revenue would have landed without Black Friday at all. Inside the episode: - Why BFCM becomes a trap for wellness and subscription brands, and what discounting really costs inside a repeat-purchase model - Offer architecture: what separates offers that scale from offers that burn margin, and why complexity kills most of them - Timing: when promotion should start, and whether an early launch avoids the CPM peak or discounts full-price demand - Creative and media: why the strongest Black Friday ad is often already live, Meta's incremental reach problem, and why partnership ads deserve closer to 30% of spend than 5% - Demand shift at peak, the £1,000 gift signal, and the Friday-morning fallback plan: what to change, what to leave alone This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard. If you're spending serious money on daily business expenses and getting nothing back on it right now, this dedicated offer gets you 2% Cashback for year 1 on Ads, SaaS, Travel and other everyday business expenses. Uncapped. Sign up for free and use the code SWU2K26 to unlock your cashback: https://www.incard.com/?fpr=soarwithu... 0:00 The True Cost of Complexity 0:32 Quality Over Quantity in Ad Creative 1:08 Meet the Panel: Scaling Consumer Brands 4:06 Preparing for the Peak Season 7:40 Volatility and Market Shifts 14:05 The New Reach Challenge 24:27 Defining Your Peak Objectives 36:11 Learning from Past Mistakes 53:40 The Future of Creative Strategy 1:49:16 What to Do When You Miss Targets Follow our guests: Laurence Booth-Clibborn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurence-booth-clibborn/  Frederica Watson- https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederica-watson-a21bb4a4/ Nick Kane - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kane-4b9a73102/ Hosted by Olly Hudson and Loukas Hambi - operators behind £200M+ in Meta, TikTok and Google spend across 250+ brands. D2C Diaries is a weekly podcast breaking down D2C growth, performance marketing and brand scaling. 🚨🚀 If you’re a brand spending £100K/month, we’ll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wjzrY0 Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://shorturl.at/TRI8B / https://x.com/LoukasHambi Follow D2C Diaries: https://www.tiktok.com/@d2c.diaries / https://www.instagram.com/d2c_diaries/

  3. Oct 5

    What £32M in Ad Spend Taught Us About Black Friday | Offers, Creative & LPs BFCM 2026

    We managed over £32M in ad spend in November last year. This episode breaks down everything we learned what you need to prep now to hit the ground running going into Q4.  We cover how to phase Q4 so October builds the audience you'll sell to in November, how to build offers around your margins and show the value clearly, what last year's creative audit showed about statics, urgency and reskinned winners, and why landing pages could be your quickest win. If you're planning peak for a DTC brand on Meta, this is your October prep list. This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard. If you're spending serious money on daily business expenses and getting nothing back on it right now, this dedicated offer gets you 2% Cashback for year 1 on Ads, SaaS, Travel and other everyday business expenses. Uncapped. Sign up for free and use the code SWU2K26 to unlock your cashback: https://www.incard.com/?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod Get our BF/CM playbook for free here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yS4M30 06:05 Why creative can't be left late 09:06 October: build the audience before CPMs rise 15:22 Are brand awareness campaigns worth it? 18:06 November: from warm-up to peak week 20:10 Offer is more than a discount 28:12 Auditing last year's Black Friday creative 43:14 Setting strategy: swing types and funnel splits 51:47 What worked: high prod, factory UGC and satire 1:04:16 Statics that convert and daily iteration 1:07:33 Landing pages, post-click and gamification Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Loukas: https://shorturl.at/TRI8B / https://x.com/LoukasHambi Follow D2C Diaries: https://www.tiktok.com/@d2c.diaries / https://www.instagram.com/d2c_diaries/

  4. Sep 28

    He Took ironSource to $11B. Here’s His $180M AI System for Scaling DTC| Omer Kaplan, Zyg

    Before you spend more on ads, find out what's really capping your growth. Apply for a Growth Compass to unlock strategic clarity: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yFr2w0 Omer Kaplan, co-founder of ironSource, joins Loukas to share how he's bringing the data and prediction playbook from mobile games into DTC, building agentic infrastructure to handle the work Shopify still leaves founders to do themselves. We cover predicting LTV, the margins you need before scaling, defensibility, inventory, fundraising, when to go all in, and why the best founders stay hands-on, so if you're building a consumer brand for an agentic world, this one's for you. Check out Zyg: https://www.zyg.com Timestamps: Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loukas-hambi-388067152/ Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/

  5. Sep 22

    What Will It Take To Win Peak 2026 - Soar x Fospha

    🚀 Claim 1 of 5 Spots: 6 Months Fospha + Free Audit: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yvPGP0 It's crunch time. With BFCM just weeks out, Olly from Soar joins Fospha to break down what "ready for peak" actually looks like: the creative volume and diversity brands need, why the top 25% of performers run more campaigns in BAU than at peak itself, and how automation like Advantage+ and Smart+ is shifting the game back onto creative and offer quality. They cover forecasting creative output before Q4, scaling volume without losing intention, why upper-funnel spend keeps brands out of a reach hole, and the TikTok Shop halo effect most are underestimating. If you run paid media or creative strategy for a DTC brand, this is worth the watch. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:19 Introducing Phosphor and Soar 03:48 What "ready for peak" actually means 06:22 Forecasting creative volume for Q4 09:29 Building intentional creative diversity 12:58 Catching up when you're behind on volume 16:52 Peak Playbook data: preparation beats aggression 20:17 Full-funnel investment and the reach problem 23:33 Automation and the new creative requirements 28:06 Peak mistakes, and when to scale or pull back 30:41 Proving upper-funnel spend, and the TikTok Shop halo 36:08 Q&A: fatigue, measurement blind spots and iteration loops Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loukas-hambi-388067152/ Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/

  6. Sep 14

    Creative Research 101 | The Hidden System Behind Ads That Scale

    🚨🚀 Get your growth compass score: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0yhtSG0 Loukas and Olly go back to basics on creative research: the five-factor scoring system that finds your real binding constraint before you open a single tab, and the audience, competitor and social research techniques that get you there. If you run creative strategy for a DTC brand or agency and want a sharper process for finding what to test next, this is your refresher on the fundamentals. AI Prompt: https://soarwithus.notion.site/Indirect-Competitor-Discovery-Prompt-3d711884e3c9802d843ff7eb108045c6 Growth Compass "cheat sheet": https://www.notion.so/soarwithus/How-8-and-9-figure-D2C-brands-scale-spend-profitably-A-Complete-Framework-35711884e3c98073b830d1cbe90c2224?source=copy_link Timestamps: This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard. If you're spending serious money on daily business expenses and getting nothing back on it right now, this dedicated offer gets you 2% Cashback for year 1 on Ads, SaaS, Travel and other everyday business expenses. Uncapped. Sign up for free and use the code SWU2K26 to unlock your cashback: https://www.incard.com/?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loukas-hambi-388067152/ Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/

  7. Sep 7

    From Complete Burnout To A £40M Category Leader! Mark Scott | The Leader Mindset

    🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://www.soarwithus.co/d2c-diaries-get-in-touch?utm_campaign=191661253-D2C%20Diaries&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=d2c_diaries&utm_content=ep_88 Mark Scott built Bella & Duke into one of the UK's biggest raw pet food brands - £40M+ revenue, 140+ employees, profitable since early on - then deliberately stepped down as CEO at £30M to get out of his own way. He breaks down how community (not audience) drove Bella & Duke's growth, why referral rate is the only way to beat the "death curve" on rising CAC, and the signals that tell a founder they've become the bottleneck. Plus: delegating KPIs not tasks, hiring people who aren't like you, and why he now spends his time doing breathwork instead of chasing another exit. Timestamps: 02:58 Chopping a tree, and finding raw dog food 07:51 Community vs audience, and why authenticity is uncomfortable 11:03 A clear mission makes every decision easy 17:34 Be more like a duck: expecting failure and letting it go 20:07 Redefining the category and getting raw into retail 22:31 The death curve and why referral rate is everything 29:02 From pet food to full pet wellness 39:32 Stepping down as CEO at £30m 41:15 Are you the bottleneck? Signals to watch for 46:18 Hiring people better than you, and delegating accountability 49:55 Building a business vs building yourself a job 51:24 Torus Tree, 9D breathwork and leading from the heart 57:35 The real goal: energy, not money Torus Tree: https://www.torustree.com/ Follow Mark Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markscottperth/ This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard. If you're spending serious money on daily business expenses and getting nothing back on it right now, this dedicated offer gets you 2% Cashback for year 1 on Ads, SaaS, Travel and other everyday business expenses. Uncapped. Sign up for free and use the code SWU2K26 to unlock your cashback: https://www.incard.com/?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loukas-hambi-388067152/ Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/

  8. Sep 1

    Meta Creative Strategy | Building Banger Yapper Ads That ACTUALLY Convert

    🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://www.soarwithus.co/d2c-diaries-get-in-touch?utm_campaign=191661253-D2C%20Diaries&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=d2c_diaries&utm_content=ep_87 Yapper ads have taken over Meta and TikTok this year, and the best ones are almost impossible for AI to write. We break down what actually makes the format work: the "Oracle" who introduces the product, mining Reddit for real stories instead of AI slop, building curiosity loops that pay off, and turning a winning script into native ad copy, all for anyone writing or briefing DTC creative right now. Creative Intelligence Report: We've helped 250+ DTC brands generate £600M+ by fixing the thing most teams get wrong: creative. In 4 weeks, our Creative Intelligence Report audits your ad accoun to find exactly where your creative is leaking money, and hands you a 180-day roadmap to fix it. No guesswork, just real customer research and a plan you can action. Apply for your Creative Intelligence Report here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xZP9d0 Resources: "Yapper" Ads Database: https://www.soarwithus.co/newsletter/yapper-ads-database Watch Harry Delme on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zCLVmZCoQQ&t=2s Follow Harry: https://x.com/harrydelmege_ Timestamps: Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston Follow Loukas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loukas-hambi-388067152/ Follow Liam: https:https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/

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About

Join Olly Hudson and Loukas Hambi in a laid-back yet insightful podcast, where we dive into the heart of D2C and e-commerce. With a combined experience of managing over £150 million in ad spend across Meta and TikTok and helping scale over 200 brands, we bring you a digestible blend of performance, operational, and creative wisdom.

Information

  • Creator
    Loukas Hambi and Olly Hudson
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    91
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 D2C Diaries
  • Show Website
    D2C Diaries

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