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Eric sits down with Dougie, Pilothouse's Google Lead, to dig into why content targeting—specifically with YouTube Select—is outperforming audience-based targeting, even at premium CPMs. If you’ve been running low-cost YouTube campaigns with underwhelming results, this is the mindset shift you need.

For DTC brands tired of wasting money on passive YouTube impressions.

• What YouTube Select actually is (and why it matters for performance)
• How to think about placements vs. audiences
• Why content congruence improves funnel performance
• Scaling tips: what kind of brands can go big with Select
• How to build creatives that match the content being watched

Who this is for: Brands spending serious dollars on YouTube, or considering a shift from Meta to a broader channel mix.

What to steal:

• Align creative to content before launch
• Use Google reps to identify top indexed channels by persona
• Treat YouTube Select like TV: flight-based, not daily budget-driven

Timestamps

00:00 Content vs interest targeting

02:01 Why content alignment converts

04:02 YouTube Select explained

06:02 Why low quality inventory fails

08:04 How content based creative works

10:03 Google and YouTube strategy shift

12:02 Aligning creative to placements

14:02 Meta and Google funnel synergy

16:01 Scaling with YouTube Select

Hashtags

#YouTubeSelect #GoogleAds #ContentTargeting #MediaBuying #DigitalAdvertising #PerformanceMarketing #BrandStrategy #YouTubeAds #PaidMedia #MarketingPodcast #DTCMarketing #AdStrategy #AudienceTargeting #CreativeStrategy #Pilothouse

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Albert Chow built Silk & Snow in the shadow of the DTC mattress wars—but instead of racing to burn VC cash, he played the long game. Today, Silk & Snow has grown into a full home brand with 10 retail stores, a thriving Canadian customer base, and a strong U.S. expansion roadmap.

For DTC founders scaling from $5M to $50M...

• Why they skipped the mattress arms race and leaned into vertical integration
• How bundling less (and planting trees instead) saved $1.3M
• What they learned scaling from 1 to 10 retail stores in a year
• The metrics they track now that ROAS is irrelevant
• Why launching a sofa was more about customer affinity than furniture

Who this is for: Operators scaling past one SKU or one channel—and looking for a sustainable path to growth.

What to steal:

• Bundling with purpose (optional tree planting vs. free stuff)
• Bottom-up brand building: low-funnel mastery first
• How to use DTC data to drive brick-and-mortar strategy

Timestamps

00:00 Organic growth and surviving the DTC mattress crash

02:00 Entering the crowded mattress market in 2017

04:00 Why Silk and Snow became a full home brand

06:00 Factory-first supply chain and Canadian manufacturing

08:00 Launching with Kickstarter and early traction

10:00 The 2019 DTC apocalypse and sustainable growth

12:00 Expanding beyond mattresses into sleep accessories

14:00 Functional vs aspirational buying in home goods

16:00 Becoming a multi-channel retailer

18:00 Using customer data to choose store locations

20:00 Canada vs US growth strategy

22:00 Building brand from the bottom of the funnel

24:00 Replacing bundles with tree planting

26:00 Performance marketing roots and early Google

28:00 Shifting into awareness and brand media

30:00 Why ROAS isn’t the real growth signal

32:00 Retail partnerships and staying DTC

34:00 Black Friday for big-ticket home products

36:00 Fulfillment, returns, and sustainability

38:00 Repeat customers and long-term LTV

40:00 Sleep Country acquisition and retail scale

42:00 Vancouver store and physical retail strategy

Hashtags

#DTC #EcommercePodcast #SilkAndSnow #AlbertChow #DTCBrands #HomeGoods #MattressIndustry #BrandBuilding #RetailStrategy #DirectToConsumer #EcommerceGrowth #StartupPodcast #FounderStory #CanadianBrands #PerformanceMarketing #Omnichannel #RetailExpansion #DTCpodcast

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🎧 Listen now: https://www.pilothouse.co/

This week on the DTC Podcast, we’re re-airing a must-listen from our sister podcast Adventurous, hosted by Avery Valerio.

Avery’s diving deep into one of the most overlooked levers in DTC growth: angles — the emotional and strategic hooks that turn browsers into buyers. If you’ve been leaning on “vibes” and lifestyle content to carry your creative… this is your wake-up call.

For creative strategists, performance marketers, and founders stuck at the “vibes plateau.”

🧠 Tactical takeaways:

• Why most brands stall at $3–5M without real angle development
• How to build angles that scale across top and bottom funnel
• The difference between product features and product benefits — and why that matters
• Why “vibe-first” brands eventually need strategy to survive
• How Avery maps personas to angles using a tool she built (linked on her LinkedIn/TikTok)

👀 Who this is for:

Creative leads, ad buyers, or anyone building brand strategy from the ground up.

💡 What to steal:

• The "steak vs. sizzle" framework for angle testing
• A mindset shift: Treat angles like campaign assets, not just captions
• How to tell when you’re out of angles — and how to fix it fast

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro to Ad-venturous Angles

02:00 Why most DTC brands stall on vibes

04:00 The need for real creative strategy

06:00 What an angle really is

08:00 Features vs benefits in ad angles

10:00 The Got Milk example

12:00 How angles create emotional connection

14:00 The upside-down triangle framework

16:00 Why modern angles must be agile

18:00 Using research and reviews to build angles

20:00 Personas and segmentation for scale

22:00 The three layers of the triangle

24:00 Top of funnel angle development

26:00 Middle of funnel curiosity

28:00 Bottom of funnel community content

30:00 Why angles must work everywhere

32:00 Testing and iterating angles

34:00 Final takeaways on creative strategy

Hashtags:

#DTCMarketing #AdCreative #MarketingAngles #PerformanceCreative #EcommerceMarketing #BrandStrategy #CreativeTesting #FunnelMarketing #DigitalAdvertising #ContentStrategy #Pilothouse #DTCNewsletter #AdVenturousPodcast #MarketingPodcast

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Daniel Rotman built Pretty Litter into a $300M+ revenue juggernaut by doing something most founders won’t: going all-in on an unsexy product. In this episode, he breaks down how a single innovation in kitty litter unlocked a billion-dollar outcome—with just $1M raised and a 12-person team.

For DTC founders scaling from 7 to 9 figures...

• How to win in overlooked categories (and why sexy products attract deadly competition)
• Why kitty litter was the perfect subscription product
• The secret to high-margin DTC logistics (and how silica unlocked DTC viability)
• Daniel’s media buying strategy in year 1 that drove $750K solo
• How Pretty Litter used smart ops, lean hiring, and brand positioning to build a moat

Who this is for: Founders, growth leads, and marketers looking to scale profitably and avoid the DTC hype traps

What to steal:

• The underdog category playbook
• Retention-driven brand building
• The ops strategy behind $300M revenue and 12 employees

#DTCGrowth #SubscriptionBusiness #RetentionMarketing #BootstrapStartup #EcommerceStrategy #ConsumerBrands #FoundersJourney #LeanStartup #ProductInnovation #BrandBuilding #UnsexyProducts #ScalingUp #StartupExit #PetCareIndustry #MarketingTactics

00:00 – Introduction: The Power of Unsexy Products

04:41 – The Loss That Sparked Pretty Litter

16:41 – The Health Monitoring Breakthrough

20:25 – From Idea to Launch in 6 Months

23:44 – $750K Year One, Solo Founder

25:33 – Why Daniel Said No to VC

30:20 – Year-by-Year Revenue Growth to $300M+

36:00 – How Unsexy Built a Moat and Killed the Copycats

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Most brands obsess over ads and ignore the moment that matters most: where the click lands.

In this episode, Jordan Gordon and Pilothouse strategist Taylor Cain break down how to decide whether traffic should go to your homepage, a PDP, a collection, or a dedicated landing page—plus how to diagnose when conversion rate issues aren’t about your ad at all.

You’ll learn:

• When a landing page outperforms your homepage (and when it doesn’t)
• How consideration level, pricing, and message clarity determine the ideal click-through path
• Why “anchoring” and UX sequencing can dramatically change conversion rates
• How testing new PDP structures (including delaying price) can increase results
• How to build fast, scrappy landing pages that plug cleanly into Shopify
• What heatmaps, scroll behavior, and section-level engagement reveal about friction
• Why iteration beats theory — and how to develop a testing mindset that actually finds signal

#EmailMarketing #RetentionMarketing #CRO #LandingPages #EcommerceStrategy #DTCMarketing #ShopifyBrands

00:00 — Introduction

01:00 — When a Landing Page Beats Your Homepage

03:00 — How Disrupted Traffic Changes Your Funnel

06:00 — Rising Prices, Rising Consideration

10:00 — PDP vs Landing Page: Which One Converts Better?

14:00 — Why Testing Beats Theory Every Time

20:00 — The Underrated Power of Email Capture on Landers

29:00 — Inside a High-Performing Landing Page Build

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On this episode of the DTC Podcast, Eric sits down with Dean Krowitz, Co-Founder of Blend‑AI, to unpack what happens when you stop managing channels in silos and start automating your entire media mix. If Meta’s efficiency is dropping and your cross-channel budget is vibes-based… this is your fix.

Learn More about Blend AI: blend-ai.com

What You’ll Learn:

• Why composite funnels matter more than platform-specific attribution
• How Blend automates budget shifts based on live conversion data
• Why humans shouldn’t manage five channels manually anymore
• What most brands get wrong with creative distribution
• How underused channels (like Microsoft) quietly drive results
• How to launch campaigns in October — not November — for peak BFCM gains
• Sync audiences across channels to reduce over-saturation
• Analyze top, middle, and bottom funnel cross-platform, not in silos

If you’re a media buyer, growth lead, or a DTC founder trying to scale performance without losing your mind, this episode is your new best friend.

Hashtags:

#ecommerce #dtc #mediabuying #performancemarketing #paidmedia #digitalmarketing #aimarketing #martech #adtech #marketingautomation #omnichannel #fullfunnel #growthmarketing #customeracquisition #conversionrateoptimization #cro #marketingmix #crosschannel #attribution #metaads #googleads #tiktokads #youtubeads #shopify #ecommercegrowth #d2cpodcast

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction. Why overspending on one channel kills growth

04:22 – The “who, what, where” framework behind Blend’s composite funnel

10:00 – How AI launches full-funnel ads across every major platform

15:18 – Why Microsoft Ads is the most ignored growth channel

21:40 – Why Meta’s algorithm starves most of your creative

29:15 – How one brand tripled revenue with 20% less ad spend

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When Amy joined Wildfang, she was running a storefront in Portland. 10 years later, she’s the President of a vertically-integrated DTC brand pulling $200 AOVs, 25% of revenue from extended sizing, and partnerships that drive CAC down by 50%.

She also made a major paid media pivot — bringing on Pilothouse to reset their entire growth engine.

For DTC founders scaling from $5–50M who are thinking about verticalization, performance marketing, or brand-led growth.

🔍 Inside this episode:

• How going vertical changed everything — from cashflow to creative
• Why extended sizing drives 25% of Wildfang’s revenue (and what it took to get there)
• The “90/10” Meta strategy that crushed Black Friday with Pilothouse
• The ROI of Debbie Harry and Taco Bell collabs (hint: it wasn’t just vibes)
• How to restructure ops, finance, and paid when profitability becomes the priority

👀 Who this is for:

• Brand founders, VP Growths, operators, and marketers building modern DTC brands

💥 What to steal:

• Pilothouse’s ad architecture playbook: reuse, reframe, retest
• A partnership model that blends licensing, NIL, and white-labeling
• How to spot “overthink” in your performance strategy — and simplify for scale

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In this BFCM 2025 breakdown, Eric chats with Pilothouse's Head of Ecom Grayson Rudzki and Lead Strategist Abby to unpack what actually worked, what flopped, and how smarter strategy beat brute-force ad spend.

For DTC marketers running paid, creative, or lifecycle retention

• How Pilothouse beat Meta's creative fatigue warnings
• What "targeting with creative" really means in 2025
• Why retention—not acquisition—won this year
• Tactics for using AI without generating slop
• Real BFCM ads that moved the needle (with examples)

Who this is for: Founders, brand-side marketers, and media buyers looking to de-risk spend and boost lifetime value

What to steal:

• The "persona-led Christmas card ad" concept that crushed
• How to diversify creative for open targeting without burning out
• Simple Rebuy tweaks that doubled items per order

Timestamps

00:00 AI reshaping BFCM strategy and creative testing

02:00 Record BFCM performance numbers and key takeaways

04:00 Why retention, baseline revenue, and loyalty mattered most

06:00 Real examples of AI workflows that saved teams time

08:00 Outdated playbooks vs the need for real strategists

10:00 Meta Andromeda, creative fatigue, and targeting with creative

12:00 Persona-driven creative example that drove conversions

14:00 Humor, culture, and relevance in winning ad creative

16:00 Diversified creative performance and lowered CPMs

18:00 The new state of UGC and authenticity on Meta

20:00 Post-click strategy, bundles, and conversion wins

22:00 2026 resolutions: intuition, creativity, and human strategy

24:00 Hero apps of the year: Rebuy, Triple Whale, and results

Hashtags

#BFCM #Ecommerce #EcommerceMarketing #DTC #MetaAds #FacebookAds #PerformanceMarketing #AIinMarketing #BlackFriday #CyberMonday #MarketingStrategy #CreativeStrategy #AdBuying #TripleWhale #Rebuy

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