Ready for Q4?

Your weekly dose of growth marketing news & tactics for DTC brands.

Author

Brian Roisentul
September 24, 2025

In partnership with

Welcome to this issue of The DTC Insider newsletter. 👋

I’m back from vacation and super excited about this week’s newsletter!

If you enjoy reading it, it'd mean the world to me if you could leave a review here.

Let's dive in!

Topics we'll cover today:
💠 Ready for Q4?
💠 Your Future Customer Isn’t a Person
💠 The Lessons Behind Scaling, Exiting, and Rebuilding GoSili

Ready for Q4?

We’re about to hit Q4, the busiest season of the year for e-commerce brands.

And here’s the mistake I see over and over:
→ Brands double down on ad spend.
→ Push endless promos through email.
→ Launch “holiday campaigns” on autopilot.

But they never stop to ask:

“Is our marketing actually aligned with how our customers buy?”

Because if it’s not, you’re setting yourself up to burn cash.

Think about it:
👉 Are one-time buyers not coming back because your emails miss the mark?
👉 Do your VIPs feel recognized, or just blasted with the same offers as everyone else?
👉 Are you speaking to gift-givers if that’s a big chunk of your audience?
👉 Do your ads reflect how people actually shop your category?

If the answer is “not sure,” you’re heading into Q4 with blind spots.

And during the busiest time of the year, blind spots = missed revenue.

That’s exactly why I created the Revenue Gap Analysis Guide.

It helps you uncover where your marketing and your customers’ behavior are out of sync, so you can fix it before the holiday rush.

So when Q4 hits, you’re not just louder.

You’re smarter.

👉️ Read the guide here 

--
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That’s exactly what we do inside our Journey Overlay Snapshot.

We overlay your customer purchase behavior with all your marketing touchpoints (ads, email flows, offers, website) to uncover revenue you’re currently leaving on the table.

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Your Future Customer Isn’t a Person

Taylor Holiday (CTC’s CEO) shared something this week that hit me hard:

Google just launched AP2, a protocol for agent-driven purchases.

Translation: your future buyer might not be a human scrolling Instagram.

It’ll be their AI agent parsing structured data feeds.

Think about what that means for your brand:

  1. Your product pages aren’t for people anymore.
    Lifestyle photos won’t matter to an agent. Structured data will.

  2. Price pressure gets brutal.
    Agents will auto-compare. If you’re not competitive, you disappear.

  3. Persuasion takes a back seat.

    Agents evaluate criteria, not vibes. If your backend isn’t ready, you’re skipped.

  4. Retention is rewritten.

    Agents will manage reorders, returns, and swaps. One bad experience? You’re instantly replaced.

  5. Early adopters will steal share.

    Most brands aren’t even thinking about “agentic commerce.” Those who adapt now will own the future.

Here’s my take:

This isn’t just a tech update...it’s a wake-up call.

For years, I’ve been telling you that brands need to align their marketing with customer behavior.

This is the next evolution of that.

Because whether it’s a human or an agent buying, the principle is the same:

If you don’t understand how your customers actually shop, and your systems don’t reflect that… you’re invisible.

That’s where my framework C.A.T. (Collect → Analyze → Take action) comes in. 

Let's walk through C.A.T.:

Collect

The first step is setting up systems to collect this kind of data:
→ Post-purchase surveys
→ Other types of surveys
→ Reviews (yours and your competitors') 

Wondering what questions to ask, I'll first tell you something:

❌ DO NOT treat post-purchase surveys as a replacement of your attribution tools.
✅ Instead, use them to gather meaningful behavioral insights.

Here are some powerful questions:

What made you decide to buy today?
Did you buy this product for yourself or someone else?
What almost stopped you from completing your purchase?
What problem were you hoping to solve with this purchase?
What does a “great experience” with this product look like for you?
How confident did you feel selecting the right product for your needs?
How would you describe yourself in 1–2 sentences (lifestyle, values, interests)?
How do you plan to use the product? (e.g., for work, travel, gifting, everyday use)
What other options (brands, products, solutions) did you consider before choosing us?
How do you typically shop for [product category] (impulsively, research-heavy, recurring need, etc.)? 

Choose the ones most relevant to your brand.

Your turn:
→ Set up your post-purchase survey.
→ Craft relevant questions. 

Analyze

These days, you're one prompt away from everything...

Here's what I've recently done for a brand:

I showed them that over 72% of purchases were gifts.
And half of those were for close family members.

The shocking part?
They had no idea. 🤯 

So, as you can imagine, their marketing didn't speak to gift-givers at all.

This is just one of many insights that you could get by analyzing your data.

In fact, Obvi's CMO (a wildly successful 8-figure brand), posted that their best-performing ad used a phrase they got directly from their community, something their team had never thought about.

Here's a fragment of his LinkedIn post:

Your turn:
→ Export your reviews and survey responses.
→ Upload them to ChatGPT.
→ Use smart prompts to uncover insights. 

Take action

Having these insights already puts you ahead of most brands.
But if you don't act on it, nothing changes.

Depending on what you uncover, you might improve:
→ Offers
→ Messaging on the website
→ Ads
→ Email/SMS
→ Brand collabs
→ Influencer campaigns
→ Product development

...and more.

Your turn:
→ Identify the most impactful insights.
→ Pick 3 to act on.
→ Improve accordingly.
→ Repeat regularly.

Was this helpful?

I know, I know...

If you're thinking: "Brian, love this...but I just don't have the bandwidth."

No worries, just don't ignore it.
Find someone that can help you with this. It's THAT important. 

Want to do it with us?

We can run a complimentary analysis and show you 3 high-impact opportunities hiding in your customer data.

Just book a call with me to learn more about your brand.

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Promote your Business to 11,000+ People in the DTC Space

Only 1 spot left for Q4!

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.

The Lessons Behind Scaling, Exiting, and Rebuilding GoSili

Every founder dreams of:
✔️ Getting into Target
✔️ Landing the big exit 

Stacey Feeley did both.

But here’s the twist:
➡️ Target wasn’t what she imagined
➡️ She sold her company…then bought it back 

On this week’s The DTC Insider, Stacey Feeley (co-founder of GoSili) shares the full story of building a mission-driven brand, learning hard retail lessons, and why she’s now focused on recycling silicone and closing the loop. 

Check it out 👇

We discussed:
👉 Founding GoSili to create safe, plastic-free products for kids
👉 Early days: inventing silicone sleeves and DIY drop tests
👉 Breaking into mass distribution after Canada’s plastic ban
👉 Customer acquisition before e-commerce and social media
👉 Lessons from trade shows and retail partnerships
👉 The Target dream and why it didn’t meet expectations
👉 Selling the company to Evenflo and the challenges that followed
👉 Buying back the company and rebuilding from the ground up
👉 Launching recycling initiatives for silicone products
👉 Expanding into new markets like hospitality with the DRYNK line

Tune in:
📺 YouTube
🎙️ Spotify
🍏 Apple
🌎 Website

More episodes our listeners love: 

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About The Writer

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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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.