January always starts with good intentions. 

New plans.
New targets.
New decks and docs that make everything feel clear again. 

But a few weeks in, reality kicks back in.

Daily decisions start drifting.
Old habits sneak back.

And the plan quietly becomes something you “check in on” instead of something that actually drives how the business operates. 

That’s not a motivation problem.
It’s an execution problem. 

In this issue, I want to break down why planning so often fails, even when the strategy is solid, and what you can do right now to get your Q1 plan out of a Google Doc and into real decisions.

Let’s get into it.

Topics we'll cover today:
💠 Is Your Q1 Plan Already Slipping?
💠 What Brands Need To Unlock Growth
💠 Latest news in the DTC space

Planning can be one of the most rewarding actions.

Yet, it often becomes one of the most frustrating ones.

Why?

Because plans tend to fail.

In my experience, that usually happens for one of two reasons:

Let’s break both down and, more importantly, talk about how to fix them.

I think we’ve all been there. We get emotional and turn our desires into goals.

But that’s the problem…desires ARE NOT goals.

For most brands, a “goal” looks like this: “We want to grow 100% YoY”.

Okay...how?

No clear answer.
More budget? Not really.
Different actions than last year? Usually not.

That’s why this approach tends to fail. 

How to fix it:

There are two ways to approach more realistic goal-setting:

The first thing we do at BSR (my agency) before putting together a plan is looking at past periods.

If we’re planning January 2026, great.

Let’s look at January from the last 2 to 3 years.

We analyze things like:

The goal is to find patterns…

What worked consistently.
What didn’t.
And what should clearly be avoided.

For example, one client wanted to replicate their success from January 2023 and 2024. That didn’t happen in 2025.

When we dug into the data, the reason became clear.

In both 2023 and 2024, there was a 1-week revenue spike driven by a very specific commercial action. The rest of the month looked fairly normal.

So it wasn’t that those months were “great”.

It was that one action carried the result.

Without it, all 3 Januaries would have ended up looking pretty similar from a revenue standpoint.

That brings us to the second part: new actions.

This part matters more than most teams expect.

What got you here won’t take you there. Remember?

If the goal is to reach a new level, it’s very likely that something new needs to be introduced. What that looks like depends on the brand, but standing still rarely leads to different outcomes.

Let me put it this way.

We’re already well into January, and most brands have planned Q1.

The deck is done.
There’s a Google Doc somewhere.
Everyone felt good about it for a week.

Now be honest.

Has anything really changed since then?

For a lot of teams, it hasn’t.

Same meetings.
Same conversations.
Same priorities slowly creeping back in.

The plan exists, but day-to-day decisions still look a lot like last year.

Planning feels good.
Execution is where things get uncomfortable.

Why?

Because execution forces tradeoffs. It forces you to slow some things down. It forces you to say no to ideas that sound good but don’t actually move the business.

That’s usually where things stall.

Not because the strategy was bad.
But because nothing about how the team operates really changed. 

How to fix this:

Here’s my advice if you want to course-correct now, not in March.

1. Cut the nice-to-haves (the 80/20 rule).

Open your Q1 plan and ask a simple question:

What were the one or two real problems this plan was supposed to solve?

If you’re staring at a long list of initiatives, that’s already your answer.

Too many priorities usually means none of them are real.

Take a pen and cross things out.

Anything that doesn’t clearly help solve those one or two problems in the next couple of months should go.

In the earlier example, that brand didn’t need more “tests", they needed to replicate the specific commercial action that actually drove results in past Januaries.

2. Turn the plan into short-term decisions.

Most plans fail because they never affect what happens next week.

For each priority, ask:

What are we actively choosing not to do in the next two weeks because of this?

What should look different by mid-February if this is actually working?

If you can’t answer those, the plan is still theoretical.
And theory doesn’t survive busy weeks. 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, from working with and interviewing great brands, it’s this:

The teams that get more out of Q1 aren’t doing anything magical.

They’re just accountable.
They stick to the plan they created.
And they iterate when reality gives them new information.

If you want help getting back on track, let’s talk.

I’m offering a free 45-min strategy session to help bring clarity to your Q1 plan.

The only catch?
I’m doing this for the first five brands that book a call.

👉 Book your strategy session here.

--
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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.

This is a great complement to the section above. Hope it’s helpful! 

Everyone talks about "Andromeda", but that won't help you reach the next level of growth.

A few years ago, looking at the in-platform metrics (ie. Meta/Google Ads) was enough.

Those days are over.

Back then, on the Ads Manager, we saw a very good picture of what was going on for a brand:

The problem?

Many brands are currently trying to grow while operating almost exactly that way.

And I say "almost" because now they add an attribution tool and a thousand creatives.

Problem solved? Not really.

To keep growing, brands need to start paying attention to what's happening off-platform.

The thing is, there's a lot to look at and it's very easy to get lost and confused.

That's why I put together this framework. To help you understand what to focus on to unlock the next level of growth for your brand.

Let's go through the framework!

It's divided into 4 phases:

Conduct a comprehensive audit of the entire customer journey, including off-platform touchpoints, to uncover hidden bottlenecks and stagnation points.

Key Activities:

⤷ Map the customer journey from initial touch to repeat purchase (using tools like Lifetimely)

⤷ Evaluate existing strategies to pinpoint gaps and inefficiencies

⤷ Analyze sales data to identify low and high sales peaks 

Here's an example of a simple customer journey map we did for a client:

Identify untapped opportunities both within and outside the usual ad/email channels.

Key Activities:

⤷ Highlight opportunities for offer optimization and customer retention improvements

⤷ Look at seasonality or cyclical trends that may signal hidden revenue windows

⤷ Gather qualitative insights from customer feedback and competitive analysis

Develop a tailored growth strategy that includes both a 12-month strategic plan and tactical 90-day roadmaps to keep the initiative laser-focused.

Key Activities:

⤷ Craft a 12-month action plan aligning on- and off-platform initiatives

⤷ Break this down into focused 90-day roadmaps that target specific growth areas

⤷ Define KPIs that matter off-platform (ie. customer journey friction points, time between orders)

Implement the roadmap while continuously monitoring performance and making agile adjustments.

Key Activities:

⤷ Roll out initiatives across ad/email platforms and off-platform touchpoints

⤷ Use regular check-ins and analytics to refine tactics and measure improvements

⤷ Iterate the process to ensure sustained growth and long-term strategic alignment

It's a lot, I know.

But TBH, it's what it takes to achieve the next level of growth for most brands I know.

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

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 episode with Lion Pose’s founder, Madhu Punjabi.

Before building a skincare brand that landed in Sephora (before even creating a single product), Madhu held key roles at Google, Pinterest, and Meta, experiences that shaped how she builds today.

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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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.

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