Steve P. Young

SendX, an ESP, ditched legacy email sending tools and now has a 95-98% delivery rate with 300M+ emails per month. What’s powering this ESP now?   → It's SendPost. SendPost gives ESPs real-time visibility into every IP, domain, and sub-account with live email-provider response data and AI-driven deliverability health alerts. The results that SendX got after switching to SendPost can make any ESP jealous: ✨ Email delivery rate jumped from ~60% to over 95% (even in crypto, gaming, and affiliate!)  ✨ Warmup success rate improved from ~50% → 90–95%. ✨The same 5-person deliverability team now manages 20–30X more volume. If you want to try SendPost but are worried that it'll need more budget or take days to integrate, let me tell you that for SendX… ✨ Infra costs went down by 3X. ✨ Integration took <2 days, and full rollout happened in a week These results were possible because SendPost is built by people who actually run an ESP. We got tired of black-box analytics, no control over the speed of sending emails, and long delays in resolving any email delivery issues. We needed real control. Real visibility. Real accountability. So we built the infrastructure we wished existed. Here’s what makes it different 👇 ✅ SMTP-level analytics for every domain, subaccount, and IP. ✅ Auto IP & domain warmups that actually finish successfully. ✅ Granular ability to adjust mail queues and throttle sends per sub-account for optimal deliverability ✅ Deliverability alerts before something breaks. ✅ API-first design with Slack integration and webhooks that your ops team will love. …and so much more. SendPost isn’t for everyone. It’s for ESPs that are done playing blindfolded and ready to own their email delivery. 👉 Read the full before-and-after story behind SendX’s jump to 95–98% delivery: https://lnkd.in/gYK-AXDC

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There is a lot of broken testing happening in DTC.   As much as I love A/B testing, most setups are flawed.   And bad testing has a huge decision problem.   There are teams who;   ❌ test too many variables simultaneously, ❌ stop tests early when they see "winning" results, ❌ ignore external factors affecting performance, ❌ implement changes without proper significance.   So next time you're analyzing test results, feeling confident...   and wondering why your "winners" don't scale consistently.   Remember, statistical rigor beats gut feeling.   Not everyone's testing methodology produces reliable insights...   Or even actionable results.

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Retention teams are quietly impacting acquisition at the best DTC brands. Walk through the actual work happening inside a top 50 DTC brand right now and you'll see retention marketers making decisions about pop-up logic, opt-in software, landing page offers, and traffic-source targeting. That used to be exclusively growth's or paid's job. It's changing because the math changed. The brands that figured out retention could subsidize acquisition costs started winning more in paid channels. Not because their ads got better but because their post-click infrastructure got better. So now everyone wants that. And a lot of the people who know how to build it sit in retention.

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Agencies are crushing it with Claude Code: Small agency owner. 34 active vendor and client contracts in a Google Drive folder. No idea which ones auto-renewed, which had rate escalation clauses, or which were expiring in the next 90 days. He opened Claude Code. Said: "Read every contract in this folder. Build me a spreadsheet with key dates, renewal terms, termination notice periods, and anything that costs me money if I miss it." Went to pick up his kid from school. Came back to a CSV with every contract parsed. Renewal dates, notice windows, rate increase triggers, liability caps. Color-coded by urgency. Three contracts were auto-renewing within 30 days. One had a 60-day termination notice window that had already passed. He was locked in for another year on a tool he'd stopped using. It also flagged two contracts with conflicting non-compete language that could cause problems if he took on a new client in the same vertical. He didn't ask about that. No paralegal. No contract management SaaS. One sentence while he drove to school. He cancelled the unused tool before the next renewal and saved $14K.

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The $10M → $50M revenue jump is where most DTC brands fail. About 73% don’t make it. Why? Two things hit at the same time: ***First, customer acquisition costs rise faster than revenue*** What works at $5–10M starts breaking at $20–30M. If you’re not a sharply differentiated or niche product, DTC becomes structurally weak. You’re operating in crowded, substitutable categories, and consumers aren’t actively looking for you. They shop where discovery already exists—Amazon, Target, Walmart—because that’s where comparison is easy. The result is low direct traffic, heavy dependence on paid media, and weak repeat behavior unless you can lock people into subscriptions. ***Second, operational complexity quietly explodes*** DTC isn’t just ads and a storefront. It’s constant website development, fulfillment and returns, custom packaging, customer support, logistics, and a growing tech stack—CRM, CDP, attribution tools, email, SMS, and more. Each layer adds cost and friction. Brands try to offset this with subscriptions or loyalty programs, but very few make it work at scale. Many drift into what I call “zombie brands”—still operating, but without a clear path to meaningful growth—or they exit through acquisitions (Bonobos' acquisition by Walmart - an example). We’ve seen others pivot hard to retail as well. Allbirds closed 10–15 stores and refocused on profitable channels. Outdoor Voices shut all stores and eventually sold. Casper went public below expectations and was sold to private equity within two years. Brandless and Haus couldn’t sustain rising CAC while operating costs rose. Most recently, The Honest Company stepped back from DTC to focus on more profitable retail channels. This isn’t about DTC dying. It’s about easy money disappearing. The industry has moved from VC-funded growth at all costs to a world that demands profitability, margin discipline, and honest channel strategy. Today, DTC works best as a supporting channel. It’s valuable for launches, customer data, and brand control. But treating it as the primary revenue engine across mass categories is risky. The brands that survive the $10M to $50M jump are the ones that accept that reality early and build around it. #dtc #vcfunding #brandbuilding #retailchannels

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I was chatting with my partner Jackson Blackledge about the moves 7-8 figure DTC brands should be making to crush this BFCM. The same team that’s pulled in $195M+ in Q4 revenue for 100+ brands had some solid advice about Google ads: 1. Optimize, don’t rebuild Layer BFCM messaging on top of what’s already working instead of starting fresh campaigns. 2. Front-load budget so Google can fully participate in the surge of traffic without choking your ROAS. When BFCM hits, search volume explodes. If your daily budgets are tight, Google can’t spend enough early in the day to enter auctions, learn, or scale. So your ads either don’t show, show late, or lose to competitors with bigger budgets. 3. Optimize Merchant Center Promotions, discounts, and shipping details need to be spot-on for your ads to perform. Those tiny offer badges can make a huge difference in who actually clicks your ads. During BFCM, competition spikes. People search “Black Friday [product]”, and if your titles, promotions, or discounts aren’t updated in GMC, you lose clicks to competitors. 4. Use time-based creative Schedule your search and Performance Max assets to match the customer journey: early-bird, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and last-chance messaging. 5. Warm up and retarget Build audiences early and hit them post-BFCM with short, targeted video ads to turn traffic into profit. All of this helps you win attention during BFCM. But attention only matters if you can hold onto it. The brands that crush Q4 make sure traffic sticks around with smart retention and lifecycle moves, turning clicks into loyal customers. To actually make sure your Google Ads account is ready for Q4, ask yourself these five questions: Q#1. Should you launch new campaigns for BFCM or optimize what’s already running? Q#2. Are your budgets and bids set to protect ROAS during high-volume spikes? Q#3. Are your Merchant Center promotions fully optimized to capture clicks? Q#4. Is your search ad copy scheduled and adapted for each stage of BFCM? Q#5. Do you have retargeting audiences ready to convert warm traffic post-BFCM? Here’s the breakdown from Echelonn on all five questions: https://lnkd.in/gS2xcVcu

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DTC CRO Disasters: An upsell in the cart can boost your AOV, but if it's confusing, it can kill the entire sale. If your cart drawer is cluttered or makes the customer unsure of what they've added, they won't just ignore the upsell—they'll abandon the cart. To upsell effectively, focus on clarity and simplicity: 1. Make it clear what's in the cart versus what's a suggestion. 2. Use a one-click add button. Avoid forcing customers to a new page or requiring them to choose variants. The top priority of your cart drawer is to confirm what's in the cart—so ensure you do that. Is your cart drawer helping customers spend more, or just encouraging them to leave?

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Most DTC brands treat email like a megaphone. The ones with insane retention? They use it like a guide. They don't just send campaigns. They map out the entire customer journey and build flows that remove friction before it happens. Here's the exact framework we use: 1. The "why should I care?" moment Your Welcome Flow shouldn't pitch features. It should connect with the problem your customer is trying to solve. Meet them where the need starts. 2. The "I'm not sure yet" moment People don't need another discount in their Browse Abandon. They need answers. Address the objection they haven't said out loud yet. 3. The "now what?" moment This is where most brands drop the ball. Your post-purchase flow should help them actually use what they bought, get a quick win, and feel excited to come back. Don't let them forget about you. 4. The "I'm all in" moment Your best customers don't need points programs. They need to feel seen. Make buying again feel like the obvious next step, not a sales tactic. When you stop shouting and start guiding, retention becomes automatic. Want to scale profitably in 2025? Start here: Map the journey → Build the flows → Let campaigns amplify what's already working. You can book a call down below to get an free audit of your brand - https://lnkd.in/gbPiW4r6

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After editing thousands of videos for DTC brands across the US, CA, and AU, I realized something:⁣ ⁣ Most brands don’t need a better video editor.⁣ ⁣ They need a video marketer.⁣ ⁣ Here’s the difference.⁣ ⁣ A video editor focuses on:⁣ - Transitions⁣ - Aesthetics⁣ - Clean delivery⁣ ⁣ A video marketer focuses on:⁣ - Hook strength⁣ - Message clarity⁣ - Audience psychology⁣ - Conversion⁣ ⁣ The market is full of "beautiful" ads.⁣ ⁣ But pretty doesn’t pay.⁣ ⁣ Performance does.⁣ ⁣ That’s why some brands scale…⁣ and others stay stuck despite having good-looking creatives.⁣ ⁣ If you’re hiring editors, stop asking:⁣ "How can we make this look better?"⁣ ⁣ Start asking:⁣ "How will this perform?"⁣ ⁣ That shift changes everything.⁣ ⁣ If you want performance-first creatives on your team, let’s talk.⁣ ⁣ Thank you for your attention.⁣ ⁣ — GLD, Your Video Marketer⁣

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We audit ~10 DTC ad accounts per month. And my God… what some of these “top” agencies are doing is painful to watch. Not small mistakes. Foundational mistakes. Here are 7 things we’ve seen just in the last 60 days: 1. Scaling budgets while blended MER is declining (Spending more into a deteriorating system) 2. “Winning” weeks where spend stays flat (Hot creative… no capital allocation shift) 3. No creative scoring framework (Dozens of ads live, no idea what actually drives contribution margin) 4. Campaign structures that fight Meta’s learning system (Over-segmentation, constant resets, fragmented data) 5. Zero incremental lift thinking (Obsessed with in-platform ROAS, blind to blended) 6. No budget reallocation cadence (Money not aggressively shifted toward proven angles) 7. No clear POV on contribution margin targets (Optimizing for vanity metrics instead of real business outcomes) What’s wild isn’t that these issues exist. It’s that they’re happening inside accounts spending $300k–$1M+ per month. Paid media is not about pushing buttons. It’s capital allocation + creative intelligence + financial discipline. If your agency isn’t talking about blended, incrementality, and contribution margin weekly… You don’t have a growth partner. You have a media buyer. && they're lighting your cash on fire (Like Elmo) below.

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