The holidays are over.

The inbox is full again. Dashboards are back on. And whatever didn’t magically fix itself in December is still waiting for you in January. 😅

This is the week where most teams talk about “getting back into it”.
But Q1 doesn’t wait for momentum.

If something needs to change this year, it won’t happen by default. It happens because you make deliberate decisions early, before habits, budgets, and calendars lock in.

January isn’t about inspiration. It’s about reset mode.

Clarifying what actually matters. Cutting through noise. And getting to work on the things that move the business forward before the year starts moving without you.

Let’s get into it.

Topics we'll cover today:
💠 Why Nobody Likes Agencies
💠 5 Prompts to Pressure-Test Your Q1 Plan
💠 2025 Top-Listened Podcast Episode
💠 Latest news in the DTC space

This right here is why so many founders stop trusting marketing agencies

The other day, I was on a discovery call with the founder of a 25-year-old brand, built through wholesale, with a strong product and a solid business.

And I couldn’t believe what he told me. 😕

For context, I started my agency in 2013. I’m not saying everyone loved agencies back then, but founders didn’t carry this underlying resentment either. Fast forward to 2026, and whenever someone asks me what I do for a living, I almost whisper the word “agency”, as if I should feel ashamed of it. That alone should tell you something is deeply broken in this industry. Many companies now go out of their way to say they’re not agencies. Others rebrand as “growth partners.” Some even position themselves as anti-agencies.

Imagine being an insurance broker and feeling something horrible in your stomach every time you say what you do for a living.

Back to the story.

This 25-year-old brand, built through wholesale, decided to go DTC in 2024. Like many founders would, they hired a big growth agency to help them scale this new channel.

What happened next made my face go blue.

They were promised $800K in annual DTC revenue, but they ended up doing about $200K.

The worst part?

The agency had them spending between $30K and $50K per month on paid ads.

Read that again.

That’s between $360K and $600K in ad spend over 12 months to generate $200K in revenue!!!

This isn’t a case of “bad ads” or a couple of wrong decisions inside an ad account. This is what happens when spend is treated as progress, and confidence is sold without context.

DTC isn’t a channel you simply “turn on”. Especially not for legacy, wholesale-first brands. It’s a completely different operating system, with:
→ Different data
→ Different margins
→ Different expectations
→ Different customer journey 

If you skip that work, paid media doesn’t fix the problem...it just accelerates the damage.

I don’t blame founders for losing trust. When this is the experience, how could they not?

But this shouldn’t still be happening in 2026.

If you’re a wholesale-first brand thinking about launching or scaling DTC today, here’s the uncomfortable truth: you don’t start with ads. You start with readiness.

Before spending a single dollar on paid media, you need clarity on what role DTC actually plays in your business, whether your pricing and margins support it, how your customer journey works without wholesale training wheels, and what has to be true operationally for scale to even make sense.

Ads don’t create strategy. They expose the lack of it.

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Follow me on LinkedIn for more growth marketing content in the e-commerce space.

The DTC Insider (newsletter + podcast) reaches a highly qualified audience of DTC founders, directors, and marketers. Learn more about the sponsorship opportunities we offer for your business.

These days, there's a lot of data for brands to work with.

However, nobody needs more dashboards...they need insights.

If you’re on Shopify, you’re sitting on a lot more insight than most teams realize.

Timing.
Patterns.
Drop-offs.
Order history.
Customer behavior.
Product performance.

I'd date to say that most Q1 plans ignore many of these and default to tactics instead.

To make it easier for you, I came up with 5 high-leverage prompts you can use with Shopify Sidekick (its AI assistant) to better plan Q1.

What this does: Forces clarity on what is actually limiting growth before you plan anything else.

Prompt: “Analyze my last 90 days of store data and identify the top 3 constraints limiting revenue growth (traffic, conversion, AOV, retention, inventory, or operations). Rank them by estimated revenue impact and recommend which one to prioritize in Q1.”

Why it matters: Most Q1 plans fail because teams optimize ideas instead of constraints. If you don’t identify the bottleneck, everything downstream is guesswork.

What this does: Helps you choose who you’re really optimizing for this quarter.

Prompt: “Segment my customers by recency, frequency, and monetary value. Identify which segment offers the highest incremental revenue opportunity in Q1 and suggest 3 initiatives tailored specifically to that segment.”

Why it matters: Segmenting your customers will allow you to send a tailored message to each of them, aligned with their past behavior.

What this does: Pressure-tests what you’re actually planning to sell in Q1.

Prompt: “Review my top products and collections from the last 6 months. Recommend a Q1 merchandising strategy including hero products, bundles, or promotions that maximize revenue without relying on heavy discounting.”

Why it matters: Most brands default to promos in Q1. This reframes the quarter as an offer optimization problem, not a discounting problem.

What this does: Stabilizes revenue before you push acquisition harder.

Prompt: “Analyze repeat purchase behavior and identify where customers drop off after their first or second order. Propose 3 retention initiatives I should prioritize in Q1 to stabilize cash flow and increase LTV.”

Why it matters: Q1 volatility kills momentum. Retention is the fastest way to protect cash flow while acquisition costs fluctuate.

What this does: Turns strategy into something the team can actually execute.

Prompt: “Based on my store data and recommendations above, outline a 90-day Q1 execution plan broken down by month. Include key initiatives, success metrics, and which tasks can be automated using Shopify Flow or Sidekick.”

Why it matters: Most plans don’t fail on strategy. They fail in execution. If it doesn’t translate into workflows, it won’t happen.

If you can’t clearly articulate what’s holding the business back going into Q1, no amount of execution will fix it. Helping founders diagnose constraints and build a focused 90-day plan around them is the work we do. 

If that's you, book a call with me, no strings attached.

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Follow me on LinkedIn for more growth marketing content in the e-commerce space.

2026 is here, and Season 6 is around the corner! I’m recording great episodes with AMAZING people.

In the meantime, I wanted to share an episode I really enjoyed in 2025, and I think many of you will too.

It’s the one with BRĒZ. It’s THE fastest-growing cannabis beverage in the market.

They build in public, so there’s a lot you’ll learn from its founder, Aaron Nosbisch.

Check it out 👇 

🎧 Tune in

If you found this interesting, please leave us a review. It’d mean the world to me.

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📰 Your 2026 Holiday Marketing Calendar [read more]

Brian Roisentul is the founder & CEO of BSR Digital, a growth marketing agency he started in 2013 to help e-commerce brands unlock hidden revenue by identifying misalignments between their marketing and customer behavior. He is also the host of The DTC Insider podcast, where he interviews thought leaders, founders, and directors in the e-commerce space.

Want to talk shop?
If your brand is doing at least 7 figures, apply here to get featured (for free) on The DTC Insider podcast and my team will get in touch.

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The DTC Insider (newsletter + podcast) reaches a highly qualified audience of DTC founders, directors, and marketers. Learn more about the sponsorship opportunities we offer for your business. If you’d like to become a sponsor, apply here.