DTC Podcast

DTC Newsletter and Podcast
  • 4.5 (36)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Daily

Weekly discussions between disruptive direct to consumer ecommerce brands and our amazing team about marketing, funnels, and everything scaling related. Subscribe to our newsletter for highlights and step by step tactical insights 👉🏻 📦 directtoconsumer.co

  1. 1d ago

    Ep 636: Inside Kiyoko Beauty's Organic Content Machine: 15 Videos a Day, Sub-$1 CPMs, 8 Figures in Sales

    https://directtoconsumer.typeform.com/DTC-Brand?utm_source=podcast-636&utm_medium=podcast Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Fifteen videos in a shoot day. A writer's room where creators cross-edit each other's scripts. Hair, makeup, and wardrobe walkthroughs before anyone hits record. This is what organic content looks like at Kiyoko Beauty (kiyoko.ca), the curated Asian beauty retailer that hit 8 figures in 5 years, bootstrapped, while all three co-founders kept their full-time jobs. Gillian Liu walks through the whole machine, from a part-time student's 3M-view TikTok to a production calendar planned a month out. If you run content, growth, or a retail business on thin margins, this episode is worth a notebook. What's inside: The full production process: concepts and formats planned a month ahead, scripting against a reference hook library, a writer's room because "sometimes you're in it too much by yourself," script read-throughs with talent, then batch shoot days. "It's not vibes at all."Her comparison for why the pros post consistently: comedians who have joke-writing down to a science.The hiring filter for content roles: "What's your screen time? Show me." Her most recent hire clocks 8 hours a day. Gillian's reaction: "That's it?"Where it started: a student with 1,000 followers, found via Instagram DM, told to post three times a week with no direction. Three months in, one video hit 3M views on a niche product only Kiyoko carried, and site sessions 10x'd overnight.Platform roles: TikTok reaches strangers, Instagram converts them through stories and community, YouTube Shorts reposts overperform, and Red Note gets Gillian recognized on the street by the Chinese Canadian community.The math forcing all of this: retailer margins. A Meta top-of-funnel ad runs ~$10 CPM; organic works out to under a dollar. Paid has been bottom-of-funnel Google only for five years.The curation model itself: pay brand premium on COGS, then harvest demand created by other people's marketing budgets.Merchandising by data: Amazon US/Canada volume, Korea's top sellers, brand heads-ups on strategic SKUs, and Shopify's "search queries with no results" report.Brands as partners: one runs a 50/50 ad split with Kiyoko, others commission content monthly and pay in inventory value.The early jank: a $2,000 first order, a free Shopify theme, shipping from a co-founder's basement, and buying out-of-stock items from the Asian grocery store down the street.Why three co-founders kept their 9 to 5s (cash flow first, risk second), plus two warehouse moves in five months and the new California fulfillment center. Who this is for: content leads and founders doing organic at scale, and any operator whose margins can't support paid top of funnel. What to steal: her writer's room. Have creators cross-edit each other's scripts before anything gets shot. Visit the brand: kiyoko.ca Timestamps: 00:00 Building an Eight-Figure Brand While Working Full-Time 06:10 The Organic Content Strategy That Changed Everything 10:02 How Kiyoko Produces Viral Content at Scale 17:07 Merchandising and Choosing Winning Products 28:03 Why Organic Beats Paid for Customer Acquisition Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouse Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Ep 636: Inside Kiyoko Beauty's Organic Content Machine: 15 Videos a Day, Sub-$1 CPMs, 8 Figures in Sales

  2. 4d ago

    Ep 635: "Sit With the Panic": Meta Volatility, Pausing Ads, and AI Cognitive Debt with Pilothouse (After Hours)

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup pilothouse.co Meta has been up and down since the outage a few weeks back, and the timeline is full of advertisers feeling it. So Eric pulled three of Pilothouse's most senior people onto the after-hours couch: Abby and Aves from the creative and strategy side, and Taylor from the Meta side, for a live conversation about what to do when the platform wobbles. If you buy media on Meta, or you're a founder whose revenue leans on it, this is the difference between a bad two weeks and a bad quarter. What you get: The tactical spin cycle. Performance dips, panic sets in, and buyers ship 15 more ads built off the ones already dying. That amplifies poor delivery and raises CPMs. "Amplification of what's not working is never the route forward."The full list of panic moves to skip: un-strategic ad volume, rushed channel expansion, rescue promos that train customers (and Meta) to expect discounts, account rebuilds, the "fresh pixel" request, and firing your agency.The diagnosis question: Meta crumbled, so what part of the business fell through? No new customers points one direction. No conversions points at email and retention first. The gap picks the channel.Stocking the pond. Why every brand should already know its next channel, and how to tell a reach problem (Pinterest) from a conversion problem (TikTok Shop) before you spend a dollar.The iOS 14.5 precedent: partial blindness, no drastic changes, better measurement on the other side.Pausing ads without tanking the account. Fractional touchpoints, checking median customer-journey length in your MTA before making the swing, and why Meta usually has a reason for pushing spend where it does.Creative is the targeting. Millennial moms who look identical on paper but speak completely different visual languages by region. Butter yellow instead of white. A luxury brand that sells milestone moments instead of USPs."This is an ad and it's so stupid." Why absurdist, self-aware ads are out-earning earnest millennial branding with marketing-aware customers.Where AI belongs (reporting, automation, surfacing phrases from your own data) and where it doesn't (creative direction, insights, your next steps). Plus the term for what happens when you outsource the thinking: cognitive debt. Who this is for: media buyers, creative strategists, and founders running meaningful spend on Meta right now. What to steal: the diagnosis question, the pause-decision checklist, and the competitor-review mining tactic for finding customer language. Timestamps: 00:00 Meta Volatility and Common Mistakes 08:56 Building a More Resilient Growth Strategy 17:45 Should You Pause Underperforming Ads? 21:53 How to Research Customers Better with AI 35:40 AI, Creative Strategy & Content Volume Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://www.pilothouse.co/?utm_source=AKNF635 Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Ep 635: "Sit With the Panic": Meta Volatility, Pausing Ads, and AI Cognitive Debt with Pilothouse (After Hours)

  3. Aug 3

    Ep 634: 10,000 Orders in 6 Months Selling Protein Couscous: Bar Bruhis on Launching Boostcous

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Bar Bruhis spent ten years building SaaS for Shopify brands. He helped start one of the first email capture tools in 2015, then co-founded KnoCommerce, the post-purchase survey tool 6,500 brands use. In December he finally took his own leap: Boostcous (boostcous.com), the first protein couscous. Six months later he's about to cross 10,000 orders, bootstrapped, with a team of two. Try it: boostcous.com. The tagline says it all: "Finally a carb that pulls its weight." (An AI copywriting agent wrote that. More on this below.) If you're sitting on a product idea you haven't launched, or you're a CPG founder trying to turn DTC numbers into retail meetings, this episode is the working playbook. What's inside: Why couscous: protein pasta has Banza, Brami, and Goodles. Couscous had nobody. Chickpea, lentil, and pea flour, gluten free, protein and fiber naturally derived from the legumes themselves.The launch: a front-page story in the local Carbondale paper and free pickup from his garage. The first 400 to 500 orders were handed over face to face, and he asked every customer why they bought.First-order profitable on Meta with a product almost nobody has ever bought online. "That doesn't really happen" in CPG.The KnoCommerce lessons applied to his own brand: "what almost prevented you from buying today" for CRO, and "which retail stores would you like to see Boostcous in" as ammo for buyer meetings. The pitch: in the last 30 days, this many of our customers asked for your store by name.The first one-star review, after 155 five-stars. He emailed her, got on a call, learned she was cooking it wrong, and updated the packaging. She rewrote the review herself as a five-star essay.Where AI actually helps a two-person brand (product seeding draft orders, static ads, most of the website photos, sell sheets built from survey and review data) and his warning: "we swung the pendulum a little too far at first." Calling customers stays human.Expo West on a $0 badge. He got the ticket by pitching his podcast, and the Gelson's deal came from walking the floor.His read on the protein trend: protein soda and protein sprinkles exist now. Naturally derived protein in foods you already eat is the part that lasts. Who this is for: founders sitting on a long-gestating idea, CPG operators heading into retail, and SaaS people wondering what their skills are worth on the brand side. What to steal: add two questions to your post-purchase survey today. "What almost prevented you from buying?" fixes your site. "Which retail stores would you like to see us in?" fills your retail pipeline with proof buyers can't ignore. Try Boostcous: boostcous.com Timestamps: 00:00 Building a First-Order Profitable CPG Brand 07:24 Launch Strategy That Validated Product-Market Fit 11:50 Using Post-Purchase Surveys to Drive Growth 18:08 Turning DTC Success Into Retail Expansion 31:12 Advice for Launching Your First Ecommerce Brand Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouse Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Ep 634: 10,000 Orders in 6 Months Selling Protein Couscous: Bar Bruhis on Launching Boostcous

  4. Jul 31

    Ep 633: Why Your Winning Meta Ad Dies in 8 Days, and What to Test Instead

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Liam Robinson and Nate Vankoughnet were two of Pilothouse's first employees and spent years scaling some of its biggest accounts on Meta. Now they've spun out Marlbank Digital (website coming soon), a Meta-only agency built for the brands Pilothouse moved past as it went upmarket: pre-launch up to $100K/month. Want them in your ad account? Email nate@marlbank.co or liam@marlbank.co. No website yet. They've been busy in client accounts. If you're a founder running your own Meta ads, or the one marketer at a brand doing under $100K a month, this episode is a working session on why your account structure is probably answering the wrong question. What's inside: The Meta hierarchy of needs: unit economics at the base ("you'd be surprised how many people need a 3.5 ROAS to barely break even"), marketing strategy in the middle, creative at the top. Most brands skip the middle.Circumstance testing, their replacement for jumping straight to creative: articulate your product's real distinction, find the cultural currents it's relevant to, then map the specific moments it fits into someone's life. Each moment becomes a campaign.A full anonymized case study: the ceramic to-go cup brand that couldn't scale on pretty product shots or the eco angle, and unlocked the account with one question: "Would you use a metal mug at home?" Selling an upgrade to existing to-go cup users beat converting the single-use crowd, and the commute became the winning niche.What this looks like in the account: open audiences, existing customers excluded, CBO single ad set, 4 to 6 ads per set, creative held constant so circumstance is the variable.Why one ad usually takes 80% of an ad set's spend, and how to structure launches around that.The four foundations they ask for before a brand spends a dollar: a decent website, email flows, some social presence, and Meta.Plus the origin story: the agency is named after the small Ontario town where they spent a summer hand-building tree stands for a bow-hunting brand. Who this is for: ecom founders and marketers between pre-launch and $100K/month, and anyone whose Meta account is a graveyard of creative tests that never compounded. What to steal: before your next creative batch, write down your product's distinctions, then list every circumstance where it slots into a customer's day. Test those against each other first. Work with Liam and Nate: nate@marlbank.co / liam@marlbank.co | marlbank.co Timestamps: 00:00 Why Meta Marketing Has Changed 02:01 The Story Behind Marlbank Digital 08:14 Why Foundational Marketing Beats Meta Tactics 13:15 The Ceramic Cup Case Study 20:10 How to Structure Circumstance Testing on Meta Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://www.pilothouse.co/?utm_source=AKNF633 Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Ep 633: Why Your Winning Meta Ad Dies in 8 Days, and What to Test Instead

  5. Jul 27

    Ep 632: SheFit on TikTok Shop's Hidden Costs and Why Your New Customer Numbers Are Wrong

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Melissa Dusendang ran a summer contract at SheFit to "manage the chaos" for one marketing director. She never left. Years later she runs ecommerce and operations, and her actual job is stopping the company from lying to itself with its own data. If you own the P&L, the dashboard, or the customer experience, this one is for you. Melissa sits in the finance meeting thinking about how a tax decision hits checkout, and in the marketing meeting thinking about which numbers are secretly inflated. She calls it being a puzzle person. Eric calls her a silo obliterator. Why TikTok Shop can quietly wreck your new-versus-returning customer math. Masked and missing emails on marketplace orders mean Shopify can count repeat buyers as new, so "we 2x'd new customers" can really mean you gave existing customers a discount.The attribution question to ask before anyone reports a ROAS or MER number, so two teams aren't arguing about goals while measuring different things.How SheFit found its best-selling ad hooks inside customer reviews and comments, and why phrases like "my boobs don't move" outperform copy the team writes.The Emerge Sports Bra story: how customer comments drove a custom-strap design (skinny straps on smaller sizes, wider straps on larger sizes) that sold out on launch.Why real women feeling the "aha moment" when they lift the straps is SheFit's top new-customer acquisition move, run through micro-influencers and ambassadors instead of a gym-only ad.Her honest read on TikTok Shop: better customer control than Amazon, but a margin eroder that can turn a premium brand into a "always on sale" brand. Who this is for: Ecommerce and ops leaders, founders wearing five hats, CX and community managers, and anyone trying to get finance, marketing, and product to agree on what the numbers mean. What to steal: Pull your own review and comment language and use it as ad copy verbatim. Before your next growth review, write down which attribution model each number is using. And check whether your marketplace orders are inflating your new-customer count. Timestamps: 0:00 Why TikTok Shop metrics can be misleading 5:18 Breaking down silos across ecommerce teams 10:01 Why customer language beats marketing copy 15:09 Building products from customer feedback 23:21 Using AI and social listening for better decisions Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouse Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Ep 632: SheFit on TikTok Shop's Hidden Costs and Why Your New Customer Numbers Are Wrong

  6. Jul 24

    Ep 631: Cracking Profitable, Incremental Scale on Applovin with Pilothouse

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup AppLovin just opened to everyone, and most DTC operators still do not know how it actually works. Jacob runs Meta at Pilothouse, which has spent on AppLovin for nearly two years, back when it was invite only. He breaks down what he sees in real client accounts: the product price points that work, the creative volume it takes to scale, and the end card, a full-screen animated step between the ad and the product page that has no equivalent on Meta. What you get: The $50 rule. Why products in the $30 to $150 range win, why below $20 gets tough on margin, and why $1,000 products are a bad fit for someone mid-game.The end card. What it is, why it acts like a second landing page, and the basketball-into-the-hoop trick for matching the ad to the app.Creative volume. Start with about 10 videos, add 10 to 20 a week, and what the ramp looks like at $50k/day.First-hour buying. Around 80% of purchases land in the first hour, and the other 20% almost always convert on a different video.The learning phase. Why you confirm tracking, then leave it alone for a week, sometimes two. Who this is for: DTC operators and media buyers weighing AppLovin as a third channel next to Meta and Google. What to steal: the creative-volume cadence, the end-card structure, and the measurement discipline to prove new-customer CPA instead of trusting platform ROAS. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:00 AppLovin vs Meta Performance 05:20 Best Products & Creative Strategy 11:10 Measuring Incrementality & New Customers 17:10 Scaling with Creative Volume 23:00 Halo Effect & Campaign Best Practices Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://www.pilothouse.co/?utm_source=AKNF631 Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Ep 631: Cracking Profitable, Incremental Scale on Applovin with Pilothouse

  7. Jul 22

    Bonus: How One Brand Recovered $1.5M in Amazon Sales From Unauthorized Sellers

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Most brands treat unauthorized sellers and copycats as a cost of doing business. Mario Simonyan treats them as your biggest untapped revenue source. Mario is a former Amazon seller turned brand protection attorney. He started selling kitchenware and artificial turf doormats out of his driveway during law school, got ripped off, and discovered that not a single attorney he called understood how marketplaces actually work. So he built the firm he wished he'd had. In this episode he breaks down how one eight-figure fitness brand walked away from 1.5M a year on Amazon after attorneys and enforcement agencies failed them, and how his team got them back to 95% control of their listings. He explains why cease and desist letters get burned in people's fireplaces, why sellers fear account suspension far more than lawsuits, and the three-pillar approach his firm uses to get marketplaces to do the enforcing. He also goes into the dark side: the seller who allegedly flew a duffel bag of cash to Costa Rica to bribe an Amazon employee, the competitor who planted the word cocaine in a rival's backend keywords to trigger an automatic ban, and the copycat running a cloned website doing a million dollars a month off someone else's brand. Request a 100% free, custom Brand Audit Report from ESQgo here: https://esqgo.submitrequests.com/brand-audit-report?utm_source=dtc_newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter_sponsorship What you'll learn: Why 15 to 25% of your revenue may be leaking to sellers you've never heard ofThe trademark material difference argument that removes sellers moving genuine productThe three pillars: IP, marketplace policy, and regulatory compliance, and why using only one is why most enforcement failsWhy an unauthorized seller priced higher than you is still an emergencyHow brand protection raises your multiple when you sell the business Who this is for: Brand owners and operators doing 5M or more who sell on Amazon, Walmart, or any marketplace with a shared buy box. What to steal: The 500% ROI framing, the material difference memorandum, and the free brand audit at esqgo.com to see what you're actually losing. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:53 How unauthorized sellers steal 15–25% of revenue 4:09 The Amazon strategy that actually removes unauthorized sellers 11:56 Why brand protection is a revenue driver, not a cost 17:47 The 3-pillar framework for Amazon brand protection 31:02 How to find marketplace revenue leakage Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouse Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

    Bonus: How One Brand Recovered $1.5M in Amazon Sales From Unauthorized Sellers

  8. Jul 20

    Ep 630: "The Best Ads Say Nothing" | Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone

    Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Ari Murray runs DTC, Amazon and customer experience at Salt & Stone. She came from Sharma Brands, and before that worked on influencer and celebrity brands including a Kardashian line and Halsey's beauty brand. She started as a customer service agent. In this episode she breaks down why the old brand-versus-performance argument is collapsing. Customers now shop with a chatbot in the loop. Those bots read your reviews, your Reddit threads, and your actual customer experience. You cannot hack that, which means product quality and brand protection have become growth levers. She also gets specific on creative: what "socially native" really means, why she is chasing ads that don't look like ads, and the protein powder ad where the product is the seventh ingredient in someone's recipe. For: DTC founders, growth leads, creative strategists, retention and CRO teams, brand marketers. In this episode: Why she left the agency side for Salt & StoneWhy Salt & Stone has never acted like a deodorant brandAI visibility, Reddit indexing, and why you can't hide from real customer feedbackThe collapse of the middle of the funnel in agentic shoppingWhy she doesn't feel a desperate need to move spend out of MetaHow they actually measure incrementality (holdouts, Status, Northbeam, Triple Whale, hunting for an MMM)Socially native creative, and why splitting a hook five ways is played outWhy a brand with boundaries makes better adsWhat makes a brand feel cheapWhat makes a brand deserve to be iconic Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouse Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletter

    Ep 630: "The Best Ads Say Nothing" | Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone
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About

Weekly discussions between disruptive direct to consumer ecommerce brands and our amazing team about marketing, funnels, and everything scaling related. Subscribe to our newsletter for highlights and step by step tactical insights 👉🏻 📦 directtoconsumer.co

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  • Creator
    DTC Newsletter and Podcast
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    766
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 352487
  • Show Website
    DTC Podcast

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