The DTC Podcast

How should DTC brands use AI for growth strategy? Rafael Gi and Duncan Ferguson of Pilothouse use Claude to diagnose why a brand stopped growing, then make the call themselves.

Raf is head of strategic growth at Pilothouse and runs the audits behind new client pitches, five to twelve of them every two weeks at peak. Duncan leads strategy on the delivery side and builds the systems the team operates. They walk through how a nine-figure brand's growth flatlined, why one client's AOV fell from $40 to $32, a regional market maturity model that took two weeks instead of six months, and what happened when Duncan ran Pilothouse's strategy process in Claude without his own inputs.

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WHAT YOU WILL SOLVE
Your growth flatlined and nothing changed. A brand that had just hit nine figures came to Pilothouse with no idea why growth stopped. Raf found 70% of its media going into three markets. Meta kept spending where the brand already had customers, and there were no new ones left to reach there.
You want AI to find the problem for you. Raf pulls eight to fifteen reports across platforms, then forms a hunch from experience. A frequency of 140 in one area usually means overinvestment, so he asks his knowledge base to validate it or prove him wrong.
Your AOV dropped and you can't see why. One client's AOV fell from about $40 to $32 after it launched a $20 product. Without budgets set by product, Meta spends toward the cheaper item because it moves more volume. Raf confirms it by pulling the spend split between the two products over time.
Your AI setup breaks between teams. If sales and delivery each define a client's "goal" differently, the agent pulls the wrong section of the wrong document. Pilothouse aligns object definitions and the naming of files, folders, agents and skills across departments, and Raf and Duncan share skill files to keep context in sync.
Your audit is too long for anyone to act on. Pilothouse's CEO calls it Claude food and human food. Claude gets the raw data, and the strategist's job is turning a hundred-page output into a ten, five or one-page version a client can absorb and act on.
A data project needs a data scientist and six months. Raf built a regional market maturity model for a nine-figure brand in four workshops over two weeks, doing the processing in Claude on a 178-megabyte dataset. The numbers went through the brand's CFO.
You're wondering whether AI can run strategy on its own. Duncan turned Pilothouse's scaling growth system into a set of Claude skills, then ran it with his own inputs removed. It didn't reach the same conclusions, and it made persuasive arguments that were technically wrong.
Your strategy dies after the handoff. Duncan calls it seagull strategy: the plan ships, hits reality, and the strategist isn't there to see the results. Pilothouse strategists stay to operate the systems, down to finding a JavaScript snippet in a Shopify backend that was distorting how AOV registered.
Customer research costs too much. Raf uses AI for semantic mapping, grouping the words people use when they react to a product, work that used to mean an expensive focus group and people coding transcripts by hand.

ABOUT THE GUESTS
Rafael Gi is head of strategic growth at Pilothouse. Duncan Ferguson leads strategy at Pilothouse. https://pilothouse.co

STAY CONNECTED
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TIMESTAMPS
02:30 How AI is transforming marketing strategy
08:00 Building connected AI workflows across teams
13:00 Using AI to identify ecommerce growth bottlenecks
20:00 Why human judgment still matters in AI strategy
28:00 The challenges of scaling AI automation

What ROAS should a DTC brand target when it sells a high-priced product? Dayne Rusch, co-founder and CEO of Vyper Industrial, used to demand a 5 ROAS on the first order and now calls that target stupid. Vyper sets a new customer CAC goal, checks it every day and keeps scaling while it holds.

Vyper makes premium shop chairs, carts and creepers in Wisconsin, with its flagship chair at $625, and calls itself the Yeti of the garage. Two and a half years after his first visit, Dayne is back with a new 65,000 square foot facility, a new CRO and performance team, and a plan to spend 2027 on brand: national TV, collaborations with Ford, an event that drew more than 5,000 people and a full-time human calling abandoned carts.

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WHAT YOU WILL SOLVE
You set a high first-order ROAS target and growth stalled. Dayne says chasing a 5 ROAS suffocated Vyper's growth and didn't bring in enough revenue to cover operating costs. The target now is a new customer CAC, checked daily, and when Vyper is under it during the holidays, they spend more.
Your product is too expensive for subscription-style LTV math. Vyper is profitable on the first purchase. Its ideal customer buys one chair to test the quality, then comes back for four more. Others come back for accessories that run $200.
You keep testing new channels. Dayne puts the budget into the three he knows work, TV, Meta and email, and says $100K on an unproven app can get you nothing.
Your TV ads sell too hard. Vyper is moving from problem-and-solution spots to brand spots built on collaborations with Ford, Hendrick Motorsports and Realtree, because a partner everyone recognizes lends credibility.
Your site is cluttered with what you think customers want. Vyper rebuilt its pages from reviews, forums and on-site questions about what nearly stopped people from buying. Dayne's LinkedIn post put the lift at 37% on mobile and 67% on desktop with sessions flat.
You want to use AI without sounding like everyone else. Vyper's team uses Claude to cut a two to three hour image task to 15 minutes and to spark design ideas, but keeps the copy human. After a trial of AI replies to abandoned cart texts, Vyper hired a full-time person to call and text abandoned carts.
You can't justify an event on ROI. Vyperfest drew more than 5,000 people. Dayne counts local brand, hiring and team morale as the return, and a second one is planned for next September.
You can't measure brand spend. Dayne watches branded search, organic and direct traffic, and whether new customer cost is falling. He doesn't trust post-purchase surveys on their own.
You are running the same Black Friday as last year. Vyper gives every sale period its own brand look across ads, email and site, splits discounts into blocks and brings back limited editions for one weekend.
Your giveaway prize is eating the budget. Vyper swapped six-figure trucks for a UTV that costs it $20,000, with free email entry to build the list before Black Friday.

ABOUT THE GUEST
Dayne Rusch is co-founder and CEO of Vyper Industrial, which he runs with his brother Dylan. https://vyperindustrial.com

STAY CONNECTED
DTC Newsletter, daily ecommerce marketing and ecommerce growth tactics: https://directtoconsumer.co
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@dtcnewsletter
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/directtoconsumer

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Building Vyper into a premium automotive brand
05:00 How Vyper increased website conversions
12:00 Why Vyper is investing heavily in TV
21:00 Using AI without losing brand authenticity
30:00 Vyper’s Black Friday strategy

Should DTC brands cut ad spend after Cyber Monday? Jacob says no. Black Friday customers often come back to buy gifts, the big retailers pull back so CPMs tend to dip, and the first two weeks of December can outperform the end of November.

On the third DTC Rundown, Eric Dyck is joined by Jacob and Abby from the social team at Pilothouse. Each topic runs on a timer. They start with rising Meta CPMs and the product browsing default Meta switched on this week, then get into whether the offer or the creative matters more on Black Friday, what a late Thanksgiving means for your sale, why December still pays, and whether a founder should fire their agency two weeks before Black Friday.

Get an audit from Pilothouse: https://pilothouse.co

WHAT YOU WILL SOLVE
Your Meta costs keep climbing. Meta CPMs are running higher than last year, with Q4 and the US midterms both pushing prices up. Brands that fed the pixel with cold traffic earlier in the year are the ones seeing it pay off now.
Meta just put a shopping page between your ad and your site. Jacob explains why Pilothouse will test product browsing before opting out, including what opting out could do to your opportunity score.
You can't decide between the offer and the creative. Abby keeps the offer front and center in every Black Friday ad and wins on how she says it. One cookware brand in her portfolio saw CPMs go down this year after a flood of new video content.
You run the same ads to everyone. Jacob hammers the offer to retargeting audiences and leads with variety and messaging for cold traffic, then narrows to what works three or four days into the sale.
Thanksgiving is late and your window is short. Launch early to mid November, then stack an extra 5% or add countdown timers if the promo starts to fizzle.
Your ads say 20% off and the sale is pacing behind. Abby leaves the creative alone and lets shoppers find 25% on the site, a happy surprise that helps them pull the trigger.
Your discount isn't deep enough. A jewellery brand moved from 30% off sitewide to "up to 50%" by adding more products to its clearance section.
You plan to pull back on December 2nd. Keep your Black Friday ads running through Cyber Week, have gifting ready to go, and push until your shipping cutoff.
Your gifting ads launch with no learnings. Abby launches evergreen gifting ads during Black Friday so they already have data when the sale ends.
Your shipping cutoff has passed. Gift cards, discounted gift cards and expedited shipping keep the last days of December selling.
Your brand doesn't fit gifting. Use a self-gifting angle: you did your holiday shopping, now it's your turn.
You're not planning Q5. Health brands can ride new year resolutions, and jewelry brands should build their Valentine's Day creative before January ends.
You skipped top of funnel in October. Abby explains how she fills the funnel in October with brand-building video, then drains it in November with heavy Black Friday messaging.
Your founder wants to fire the agency on November 15th. Jacob would ride it out unless the agency has checked out, and Abby lists the red flags that make switching worth the risk.

ABOUT THE GUESTS
Jacob and Abby work on the social team at Pilothouse, a performance marketing agency for DTC brands. https://pilothouse.co

STAY CONNECTED
DTC Newsletter, daily ecommerce marketing and ecommerce growth tactics: https://directtoconsumer.co
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@dtcnewsletter
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/directtoconsumer
Want to be on the Rundown? Email eric@directtoconsumer.co

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Black Friday creative strategy
03:00 Rising Meta CPMs
07:00 BFCM offers vs. creative
18:00 Why you should keep spending after Cyber Monday
30:00 When to fire your marketing agency

Should a DTC brand cut its marketing budget for 2027? Greg Dolan, CEO of Keen Decision Systems, says cutting is the biggest mistake he expects to see, because a brand that goes dark pays more to get back to where it was.

Greg co-founded Keen 16 years ago after a decade as a CPG brand marketer, waiting six to eight months for a marketing mix PowerPoint that didn't help with the next decision. Keen's database now covers 450 brands and $48 billion in media spend. In the final episode of Harness the Halo, he explains how the loop of measuring, planning, buying and reconciling works, why he thinks a brand of any size should invest in top of funnel, and why he would never hand the marketing budget back to the CFO.

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WHAT YOU WILL SOLVE
Tariffs are squeezing your margin and marketing looks like the easy cut. Greg's advice is to cut non-working dollars first and keep the lights on, because coming back from dark costs more than staying in market.
You've been told to wait on brand marketing until you're bigger. Greg disagrees. He says top of funnel spend acts as cover fire that makes your middle and bottom of funnel more effective, and that a brand living on bottom of funnel spend pays more for the same result over time.
You're scaling inside one platform. Greg's data favors spreading spend across channels that reinforce each other, like Meta and Amazon, and judging each one on what the next dollar returns in profit.
Someone told you a channel doesn't work. Greg calls blanket channel verdicts a broad generalization. What matters is the brand's objective, where its customer is, whether you can buy the channel efficiently, and when you spend.
You're relying on Google's or Meta's free marketing mix model. Greg calls them myopic, says they grade their own homework, and says they need a data science team and constant experiments to calibrate.
Your business is seasonal and your budget piles into the peak. Greg's biggest client bet was a century-old seasonal brand that spent less during its peak season and more around it, and grew top line and profit.
Your CFO only looks at CAC. Greg would show the CFO the net present value of marketing, so it gets judged as an investment the way any other capital spend is.
Nobody agrees who owns the marketing budget. Greg says the CMO should, as long as the CMO learns the CFO's language and is held to profit.
You plan once a year. Keen starts from two years of data, updates the model as new data arrives, produces a week-by-week buying plan, and checks actuals against the forecast.
You blame creative when results swing. Greg says only great creative shows up as a big effect in the model, and that where and when you spend usually matters more than people think creative does.

ABOUT THE GUEST
Greg Dolan is co-founder and CEO of Keen Decision Systems, the marketing mix modeling, planning and forecasting platform. https://keends.com

HARNESS THE HALO
Harness the Halo is a six-part series from DTC and Keen about the spend that doesn't pay you back the same day, and the measurement that gives you room to make it. This is the final episode.

STAY CONNECTED
DTC Newsletter, daily ecommerce marketing and ecommerce growth tactics: https://directtoconsumer.co
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@dtcnewsletter
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/directtoconsumer

SPONSOR
Harness the Halo is presented by Keen Decision Systems. Keen measures the incremental impact of every channel on sales, revenue and profit, and forecasts how a channel will perform before you spend in it. https://keends.com

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 AI-powered marketing measurement
06:00 Using AI to optimize marketing spend
09:00 Why top-of-funnel investment matters
19:00 Marketing budgets during economic pressure
26:00 The future of autonomous media buying

What do investors look for in a DTC brand before they fund it?

Norwest partner Lisa Wu, an early investor in Jet, Ritual, and Remedy, walks through the 10 attributes her team uses to spot a breakout consumer brand. She covers why a well-built consumer brand should only need one or two rounds of capital, why replenishment categories need gross margins north of 60%, and why supplements and personal care can sell for five times revenue while apparel can trade at one times. If you run a $5M to $50M brand, use her list as a scorecard and mark yourself green, yellow, or red on each attribute.

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Key takeaways:
- Know which of the 10 attributes your brand is weak on before you raise, so you fix the reds instead of pitching around them.
- Avoid funding a consumer brand like a tech company. Too much capital at rising valuations buys mercenary customers and forces you to chase targets your unit economics can't support.
- Be first-ish instead of first. The later mattress-in-a-box brands drafted off the category education the early, venture-funded players paid for.
- Build clinical proof into the brand from day one. Science washing (adding a dermatologist, a survey, and a claim once you notice the trend) is something customers can sense.
- Cut acquisition costs with a distribution advantage others haven't found yet, like a trusted clinical voice whose audience includes other creators who look up to them.
- Make paid acquisition work by pairing it with strong retention. Natural replenishment categories let lifetime value cover what you spend to acquire.
- Price for the premiumization of mass, and keep investing in brand, because a cheaper competitor is always coming.
- Protect gross margin early so wholesale and retail stay open without a reformulation later.
- Choose a category acquirers want to buy. A $100M brand at five times revenue sells for $500M. At one times, it sells for $100M.
- Win with one product first, then expand into adjacent products where the customer already trusts you.

About the guest:
Lisa Wu is a partner on the venture team at Norwest, where she has invested in consumer brands for more than a decade. Her investments include Ritual, Remedy, and Jet, which was acquired by Walmart. Norwest runs venture and growth equity on one platform, so it can back founders from seed through profitable scale. Reach Lisa at lw@nvp.com.
https://norwest.com

Stay connected:
The DTC Newsletter: https://directtoconsumer.co
Want to be a guest? Email eric@directtoconsumer.co

Timestamps:
02:10 Why Health and Wellness Is Booming
08:45 How Ritual Built Consumer Trust
14:05 10 Attributes of Breakout Consumer Brands
24:05 Building a Distribution Advantage
40:55 Consumer Trends Investors Are Watching