
DTC Podcast
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
Latest episodes

Apr 4, 2022 • 42min
Ep 190: 100 Million TikTok Views Slapping the Marshmallow with TheMarshmallow.co's Joel Twyman
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Hello and welcome to the DTC Podcast, I’m Eric Dyck. Today we’re getting all soft and gooey with Joel Twyman, co-founder of TheMarshmallow.co
Having experienced moderate growth in Australia throughout 2020 and 2021, Joel started dabbling with TikTok organic posts in late 2021. It took him three videos to go viral for the first time and have to date gathered over 100million video views on their content, and grown over 2000% in sales.
https://themarshmallow.co
CPG brands take note, this is your clarion call to start making content, showing how the sausage is made
Listen to this podcast to hear the whole sticky story including:
The exact TikTok formats driving millions of views and thousands of sales
How to get over 100K viewers on your lives
How to turn trolls into gold
Why every CPG brand should experiment with slapping the marshmallow
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Apr 1, 2022 • 24min
Ep 189: AKNF - Are you still using Facebook's On Platform Metrics? (and when to SLAM SPEND)
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Hello and welcome to All Killer No Filler. Today's episode topic came from Pilothouse senior media buyer Grayson's observation that many advertisers in the space are still using Facebook Ads on platform metrics as their primary source of truth.
Work with us https://pilothouse.co
This podcast covers:
Why so many advertisers lean heavily on FB's on platform metrics
What to use instead
Why it still takes a human, and at least 5 tabs to have a clean sense of what's happing
How to Geo-Test your on-platform results
What third party tracking software tools we've tested and what the results are.
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Mar 28, 2022 • 1h 2min
Ep 188: If You Shelve It, Will They Come? With fractional CMO Bryan Holladay
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Hello and welcome to DTC Podcast, I’m Eric Dyck. Today’s podcast is with Bryan Holladay, who is a fractional CMO for three different home goods and apparel companies. Bryan is a long time performance marketer with a skill set on paid social that makes him dangerous, and a strategic mind for the broader picture that really sets him apart.
Today we dive in on:
What the day to day of a fractional CMO looks like and exactly how he integrates with the brands he works with
The biggest impacts he’s had with each of his brands
The biggest sea changes Bryan’s seen in the DTC Space since 2019 and what he’s done to keep his brands’ head above water.
The risks of retail and marketplaces, and why the adage, if you shelve it, they will come couldn’t be further from the truth.
Why Facebook and Instagram are still your best bet in paid social media marketing
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Mar 25, 2022 • 25min
Ep 187: AKNF - Drink Marquis drives 3x velocity on Amazon with a rebrand, and Pilothouse Amazon
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Today's All Killer No Filler podcast features Zach Volpo, Director of Marketing for Marquis (https://drinkmarquis.com), and Rob + Takai from Pilothouse Amazon.
You'll hear:
Zach's biggest learnings, and headaches when it comes to scaling a beverage
How BOGO gets us the velocity we crave
The benefits of the rebrand to the Amazon ecosystem
Why responsible caffeination is sweeping the nation
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Mar 21, 2022 • 41min
Ep 186: Why Personalization Might Be The Biggest Opportunity in DTC with Eric Ji Sun Wu, Co-Founder of Gainful
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Hello and welcome to the DTC Podcast.
Today we’re making gains with Eric Ji Sun Wu, CEO and Co-founder of Gainful, a fully personalized health and supplementation company, currently disrupting the $20 BN global protein powder market.
https://gainful.com
This podcast is a deep dive into the true meaning of personalization when it comes to both product and marketing.
You’ll hear:
Why you can only buy Gainful by taking their quiz
what most brands get wrong about personalization
The quiz that launched a million dynamic messages
The true value of a Y-Combinator Experience
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Mar 18, 2022 • 23min
Ep 185: AKNF - Efficient Amazon Ads Spend Through Deep Segmentation with Clifford and Rob from Pilothouse's Amazon squad
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Rob and Clifford from Pilothouse recently attended a large Amazon vendor show, and the word everyone kept bringing up was efficiency. Everyone's looking for their Amazon Ad Spend to be more efficient.
This podcast explains how to achieve Amazon Ads efficiency this through deep product listing segmentation:
Work with Pilothouse Amazon ➝ https://pilothouse.co
As Clifford details:
Recently we've been REALLY segmenting keywords hard - we used to mention this as something to do for Sponsored Brand, but we're leaning into it for Sponsored Products as well. I'll lean into the classic example. Let's say we're Nike - selling a new, red and white basketball shoe.Our approach a year ago for sponsored products would have been something along the lines of:
Build a generic keyword campaign ('basketball shoes')
Build a competitor keyword campaign ('adidas basketball shoes')
Build a competitor ASIN campaign
Build a branded keyword campaign
Build a branded asin campaign
If there was some obvious segmentation we may do some ad groups within those campaigns. But we've now evolved that strategy to segment... everything. Instead of a branded keyword campaign - we'd have:
Branded generic keywords ("Nike")
Branded generic shoe keywords ("Nike shoes")
Branded Nike basketball shoe keywords ("Nike basketball shoes")
Branded Nike high-top shoe keywords ("Nike high-tops")
Branded Nike Color keywords ("Red Nikes")
Branded Nike Material keywords ("Polymer Rubber Nikes")
So then the next question is... why? Why put in all this effort and time to segment them?
1st is efficiency - customers shopping for "Nike" aren't as interested in these shoes as a customer shopping for "Nike basketball shoes" - so we'll likely have different efficiency targets for these campaigns, and, thus, move bids differently depending on that.
2nd is for general brand knowledge/data cleanliness - it would be a pain to look inside different campaigns and pull out what keywords are performing and whatnot. This way, it can be seen at a glance really quickly.
3rd is something we came to learn over time - that campaigns with too many keywords, just seem not to perform as well (roughly 50-60+), so limiting it seems to help with delivery. There's a few more reasons, like difference is placement percentages, different negative keywords, etc.
So - that's just the branded keywords - we'd do similar segmentation for all the generic keywords, competitor keywords, competitor ASINs, etc.
And we'd build that entire suite of campaigns out for each individual product - and also for each ad type (Sponsored Product, Sponsored Brand to Store, Sponsored Brand Video, and Sponsored Display)
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Mar 14, 2022 • 41min
Ep 184: The Fast Road to 8 Figures with Jones Road Beauty's Cody Plofker
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Hello and welcome to the DTC Podcast, I’m Eric Dyck. Today we’re throwing down with Director of Ecommerce for Jones Road Beauty, Cody Plofker.
https://jonesroadbeauty.com/
When makeup icon Bobbi Brown sold namesake cosmetic company to Este Lauder she quickly realized she didn’t want to work for a billion dollar conglomerate.
Soon after she started Jones Road Beauty with the idea that less is more, capitalizing on more naturalistic trends in beauty. She quickly brought on Cody, who happens to be her son, and he’s helped drive incredible 8 figure growth in just over two years.
This one is just filled with value…you’ll hear:
Cody’s pivot from physical therapist to online marketer and what it’s like to work for your celebrity mom
Why people are STILL underestimating the TikTok organic opportunity and
Exactly how Jones Road Beaty went Viral Attacking the trend of contouring
How TikTok compares to Facebook Ads at massive scale, and what creatives work where
How Cody structures is Facebook Ads campaigns for maximum simplicity
How to make a killer quiz, and exactly what to do with that Zero party data after
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Mar 11, 2022 • 24min
Ep 183: AKNF - Doubling TikTok Ad Spend With The TikTok Creative Flywheel
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Join Eric as he chats with Spencer and Nikita from Pilothouse about the process they're using to scale clients on TikTok Ads.
TikTok has announced their plans to double their TikTok ads business in 2022, so let's focus on what Pilothouse is doing to help them hit this goal 😀
Listen to the podcast for full details, but here in all it's glory is the TikTok Creative Flywheel that Pilothouse is using to improve on Black Friday numbers for one skin care brand:
Planning --> Sourcing --> Testing --> Iterating --> Scaling --> Sourcing.
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Mar 7, 2022 • 49min
Ep 182: Molly Garraway on Growing a CX Team to 100, and Then Starting from Scratch with LoveSeen
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Hello and welcome to the DTC Podcast, I’m Eric Dyck today we present a true story about fake eyelashes with Molly Garraway, Head of Customer Experience at LoveSeen, lashes for those looking for a more naturalistic flare.
https://loveseen.com
Molly is a CX Bawse with four years experience leading the CX team at The Farmer’s Dog and Growing it to over 100. With LoveSeen, Molly’s back in the trenches and building out a CX team and strategy from square one, and wearing all the hats.
In this podcast you'll hear:
How Jenna Lyons (Former president and CD of J Crew) inspired Molly to take a leap of faith to join LoveSeen
Why her first step in CX was starting conversations with their best customers
The biggest mistakes Molly sees brands make in the world of CX
Why every post purchase flow needs a founder story
And Lots more
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Mar 4, 2022 • 26min
Ep 181: AKNF - Bump Your Email Revenue 10% This Month with Jordan Gordon, Head of Email at Pilothouse
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Bump Your Email Revenue 10% This Month with Jordan Gordon, Head of Email at Pilothouse
Today's All Killer No Filler Podcast with Pilothouse is all about simple tactical things you do to increase your revenue from email asap. Just employ the learnings from any of these discussions, and you should see a noticeable boost.
Work with Jordan ➝ https://pilothouse.co
You'll hear:
No more blanket coupons, segment your audience for less discounts and more revenue
The Three Best Kinds of Revenue Driving Emails, and wherein the customer life cycle to use each
The Scientific way to figure out the age-old question "How to know how many emails are too many?"
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