January has a funny way of revealing things.

Plans look solid.
Tons of great ideas.
Yet results don’t always follow.

After more than a decade working with e-commerce brands, I’ve learned that missed targets usually come from betting on ideas that sound smart, feel logical, and are widely accepted, but don’t deliver the outcomes brands expect.

Today, I’m breaking down some of the most common growth ideas I’ve seen quietly miss the mark, and why they keep showing up year after year.

Let’s get into it.

Topics we'll cover today:

💠 Great Growth Ideas. Bad Outcomes.
💠 Meta Updates Its Creator Marketplace
💠 Latest news in the DTC space

If you’re looking at January results and feeling a bit uneasy, you’re not alone.

I’ve been working in e-commerce for over a decade, across different markets, different sizes, and different stages. And I’ve seen the same mistakes repeat themselves over and over again.

Sometimes, certain “growth ideas” sound right, feel safe, and are widely accepted.
But they don’t work in practice.

So I’m writing this to save you time.

Below are some of the most common growth myths I’ve seen cause brands to miss their targets, so you can spot them early and avoid falling into the same traps.

I’ve seen brands test hundreds of ads, spend seven figures, and still feel stuck.

Using whitelisting, UGC, multiple formats, hooks, angles, and everything else in the "advertising playbook".

But volume doesn’t fix unclear messaging, weak offers, poor timing, or a broken customer journey.

More ads don’t solve those problems. They just make them more obvious.

Discounts are tempting when results slow down.

And yes, they work. At least in the short term.

But over time, I’ve seen brands train customers to wait, compress margins, and hurt retention without noticing it right away.

Promotions aren’t a growth strategy. They’re a temporary lever. Unless you use them strategically, but only a few truly master this.

This one is extremely common.

When goals aren’t being hit, all the pressure gets pushed onto paid ads.

Revenue is behind? Push Meta harder.
Quarter not looking great? Increase spend.

I'll be blunt: in January we were over the target goals for paid ad channels and still didn't accomplish the business goals.

Ads are essential, but they're just not everything.

What problem does this create? Ads end up carrying responsibilities they were never meant to carry.

Paid ads don’t fix offer issues, positioning issues, website friction, or retention problems.
Ads amplify what already exists. They don’t create demand from scratch.

When everything depends on paid ads, it usually means the rest of the system needs attention.

I’ve seen brands invest heavily in tracking.

More dashboards. More reports. More models.

Still the same confusion.

Tools are helpful. But they don’t replace thinking.

No attribution setup will tell you what to say, what to sell, or when to push.

Clarity doesn’t come from tools alone. It comes from making decisions.

This one is subtle, and dangerous.

Same offers. Same playbooks. Same assumptions.

But the market changed. Customers changed. Competition changed.

What worked before isn’t a strategy. It’s context.
And context expires faster than most brands realize. 

As I said above, I’m sharing all this because I’ve seen how much time, money, and energy these myths can quietly waste. And if you can spot them early in the year, you give yourself a real advantage. 

If this sounds familiar and you want help pressure-testing your growth plan for 2026, this is exactly the kind of work I do with brands inside my 30-day Revenue Efficiency Review.

We map your customer journey end to end, identify where momentum is leaking, and turn that into a clear 90-day roadmap, so growth doesn’t depend on “hoping something hits”.

If you want to explore whether it makes sense for your brand, you can book a short intro call here.

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

In 2025, we audited over 90 brands, and we found that many of them have been stuck in a revenue plateau for 2, and even 3 years.

So, the question is: will you stay in the same place for yet another year, or will you draw a line in the sand and start a new chapter for your brand?

At BSR, my agency, we’re offering just 2 spots for brands that want to unlock the next level of growth.

Will you be one of them?

Meta has announced a set of updates to its Creator Marketplace, the tool that enables brands to discover and work with creators on paid partnership ad campaigns.

Here’s what’s new.

First, Meta is expanding Creator Marketplace access globally. Until now, the tool was limited to 19 countries. With this update, businesses worldwide can now access it.

The most notable changes are around creator recommendations.

Meta says businesses will now see creator recommendation rails that highlight:

According to Meta, this is designed to help brands identify creators who are more likely to accept partnership requests and already show some level of affinity with their products. 

In addition to this, Meta has introduced a new “Similar Creators” search. Brands can now search for creators similar to a specific creator or IG handle, as well as receive recommendations based on top-performing previous partnerships.

Meta says this should help brands reuse signals from successful collaborations and streamline the creator discovery process.

Another addition is expanded performance-based recommendations. Creator Marketplace will now surface creators who:

Creator profiles will also include a new ad performance indicator badge, highlighting creators that Meta predicts are more likely to perform well in partnership ad campaigns.

Overall, the update is focused on improving discovery, evaluation, and decision-making for partnership ad campaigns, while also expanding access to the tool globally.

Thoughts? Have you used it already?

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

Season 6 will be released THIS WEEK! 🎉

In the meantime, I wanted to share another episode I’ve really enjoyed, and I think many of you will too.

It’s the episode with Lemonade Doll’s founder, Lemon Fuller.

Lemonade Dolls is the fastest-growing lingerie brand in the UK, and the first to invent the size H bralette.

Check it out 👇 

🎧 Tune in

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

📰 TikTok Shares Insight into Effective Ad Measurement Approaches [read more]
📰 OpenAI Asks ChatGPT Advertisers for $200K in Commitments [read more]
📰 Valentine’s Day spending expected to set record [read more]

Brian Roisentul is the founder & CEO of BSR, 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.

Need help to grow your online sales?
Book a call with me and let’s explore how my team and I at BSR can help you.

Promote your Business to 11,000+ People in the DTC 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. If you’d like to become a sponsor, apply here.