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Topics we'll cover today:
💠 The $2.5M Question This Founder Skipped Before Hiring
💠 OpenAI Is Testing Sponsored Agents Inside ChatGPT Ads
💠 Latest news in the DTC space

Last week, I spent over an hour on the phone with a founder in the CPG space.

His business is doing around $2.5M in revenue.

His goal?

Get to $5M.

He also wants to scale Meta spend by roughly 20% every month to help get there.

So I asked what felt like the most natural question:

What's the plan?

As we kept talking, he mentioned that his first marketing hire would likely be a Creative Director.

That caught my attention.

Not because I think hiring a Creative Director is a bad idea.

But for a brand with no internal marketing team yet, I hadn't expected that to be the first seat he wanted to fill.

So I asked him why.

He explained that he wanted this person to help build out their creator and influencer program.

That sounds reasonable.

But as we started unpacking what that actually involved, something became clear:

He hadn't realized how many moving parts were behind "creator outreach," especially with a marketing team of one.

It wasn't just finding creators and sending a few emails.

It meant:

And that wasn't all.

He also wanted this person to write copy.

And act as the Creative Director.

The more we talked, the more I started thinking about the order of operations.

Because the issue wasn't whether a Creative Director could eventually be a great hire.

Maybe it will be.

The bigger question was:

What actually needs to happen to get this business from $2.5M to $5M?

Because once you answer that, the hiring decisions become much easier.

If I were in his shoes, I'd approach growth in this order:

First, I'd build a 90-day marketing calendar around the $5M goal.

What needs to happen in the next quarter to move the business closer to that number?

Which initiatives actually matter?

Which ones can wait?

Then I'd identify the main bottlenecks.

In his case, retention was already in a good place.

The bigger constraint was customer acquisition.

They were spending around $20K/month on Meta and struggling to scale beyond that level.

So I'd focus a lot of attention there.

Why can't the account absorb more budget?

Is the issue creative volume?
Creative variety?
Offer?
Landing pages?
Product economics?
Campaign structure?
A combination of several things?

That's the work I'd want to do before assuming that adding a senior full-time hire will solve the growth problem.

Then I'd look at creator marketing.

If that's one of the channels I want to build, great.

But I wouldn't immediately hire one person and expect them to own the entire machine.

I'd break the process into its different components.

Some of the operational work can be systemized or delegated:

There are plenty of creator marketplaces available, and a lot of that work can be handled by a VA or another lower-cost resource.

Then I'd reserve more experienced talent for the work that actually requires it:

And only after doing all of that would I decide what the first full-time marketing hire should be.

Maybe it is a Creative Director.

Maybe it's a Growth Marketer.

Maybe it's someone focused on partnerships or creators.

Maybe it's something else entirely.

The point here isn't that this founder shouldn't hire a Creative Director.

He might.

And it might end up being exactly the right hire.

But I think there's a step that should come first:

Define how you're going from $2.5M to $5M.

Then identify the bottlenecks.

Then decide which people you need to solve them.

Because a hiring plan shouldn't replace a growth plan.

If you're in a similar position and know you want to grow, but you're not sure what to fix first or where the biggest opportunities are, let's talk.

That's exactly what the Revenue Leak Check is for.

We'll look at what's currently holding back growth, where you're leaking revenue, and what I'd prioritize next to grow more efficiently.

👉 Book a Revenue Leak Check

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

Before you go: I posted about Shop Pay going live inside Meta's Muse over in the community (Harley Finkelstein dropped this on LinkedIn before most people caught it). That's the kind of thing I share there first, before it's ever in the newsletter.

👉 Join the conversation

A few years ago, I started talking about the rise of conversational commerce. Back then, it didn't have a lot of practical meaning, but that's quickly changing in 2026.

OpenAI is testing a new ad format that could make ChatGPT Ads way more interactive.

They're called Sponsored Agents.

What are they?

Instead of clicking an ad and immediately leaving ChatGPT, people can open a conversation with an AI representative of the business directly from the ad.

Then they can ask questions about the company's products or services.

Think about what that could mean for e-commerce.

Someone sees your ad and asks:

"Which product is best for sensitive skin?"
"What's the difference between these two models?"
"Does this come in my size?"
"Which one would you recommend for a beginner?"
"How long does shipping take?"

Instead of making that person find the answer themselves, your Sponsored Agent could help them during the consideration process.

That's what makes this interesting to me.

Most ads are basically a bridge.

You see the message.

You click.

Then the website needs to take over.

Sponsored Agents could add another layer in between, where customers can get their questions answered before deciding what to do next.

For brands with products that require more education, have multiple options, or generate a lot of pre-purchase questions, I can see this becoming particularly useful.

Can you create one today?

Probably not.

OpenAI says Sponsored Agents are currently available only to selected advertisers as part of a limited alpha test.

And there's currently no way to apply for early access either.

OpenAI says they'll share more information about availability and participation once they're ready to expand access.

So, no public release date yet.

But if this rolls out more broadly, ChatGPT Ads could start looking less like traditional advertising, and more like putting a sales assistant directly inside the ad.

📰 Meta Opens Early Access To Advanced Muse Features [read more]
📰 LinkedIn Tests Advanced Creator Discovery To Power Brand Campaigns [read more]
📰 Best Buy to launch a storefront on TikTok Shop in October [read more]

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

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.

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