Welcome back!
As I always say, the best growth opportunities usually aren't hiding in your Ads Manager.
Sometimes they're hiding in the way you think about your business.
So today, I wanted to share two things I think are worth your attention.
Also, our podcast is back with new episodes! You can check out the latest one below.
Let's dive in.
Topics we'll cover today:
💠 What’s Blocking Your Q3 Growth (and How to Fix It)
💠 TikTok Just Launched Agentic Hub
💠 The Biggest Lessons From a 3x Founder PODCAST
💠 Latest news in the DTC space
What’s Blocking Your Q3 Growth (and How to Fix It)
We’re halfway through the year, and some brands are ramping up. Others? Still stuck.
And it’s not because they don’t have good products, ads, or emails.
More often than not, it’s because those things are misaligned with the customer journey.
We just dropped a Notion guide breaking down real examples from 7 and 8 figure brands, including:
✅ What they thought was working (but was actually hurting growth)
✅ The key areas that were killing performance behind the scenes
✅ A simple framework to help you diagnose this in your own business
If you’re feeling stuck going into Q3, or just want a smarter way to plan your next 90 days, this will help.
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Feel like your growth marketing strategies aren’t working?
Let’s talk, and we'll help you identify the key reasons and the three most important actions to turn things around.
📖 If AI Commerce Is On Your Radar...
Shopify's latest Spring Edition makes one thing clear:
AI is becoming another place where products get discovered.
If you'd like to start experimenting with ChatGPT Ads, I put together a short guide covering the setup process, product feeds, and everything you need to get started.
You can access it here.
Q3 is Here! Is Your Brand Ready?
Over the past few months, we've audited more than 50 7- and 8-figure brands.
Most weren't struggling to grow.
They were struggling to grow efficiently.
Revenue was there.
Profit wasn't.
And the same patterns kept showing up:
Rising CAC with no structural changes
Leaky customer journeys
Offers that stopped converting at scale
Acquisition and retention operating independently
Teams focused on tactics instead of priorities
The problem?
Many brands enter Q3 thinking they need more traffic, more campaigns, or more creative.
What they actually need is a stronger foundation.
Because once Q4 arrives, there's very little time to fix what's broken.
The brands that perform best during the second half of the year typically start preparing months before BFCM.
They identify the bottlenecks.
They fix the leaks.
And they build a clear plan for growth.
At BSR, we help brands uncover where revenue and profit are leaking across ads, email, offers, and the customer journey, then build a practical roadmap for the next 90 days.
If you're planning to make a strong push in Q3 and Q4, now is the time to get the foundation right.
TikTok Just Launched Agentic Hub
Every major ad platform seems to have an AI announcement lately.
This week's came from TikTok.
They just launched Agentic Hub, a marketplace where advertisers can discover AI Skills, built by both TikTok and third-party partners, that help automate common advertising tasks.
Some of the AI Skills available today can already help you:
Launch and manage campaigns.
Generate ad creatives.
Analyze campaign performance.
Surface audience insights.
Manage product catalogs.
Recommend campaign optimizations.
Turn insights into actions, instead of just reports.
What's interesting is that TikTok isn't trying to build every AI capability themselves.
Instead, they're creating an ecosystem where companies like HubSpot, Wix, Adobe, Triple Whale, Smartly, and others can publish specialized AI Skills for advertisers. As that ecosystem grows, marketers will have access to more AI-powered workflows without leaving TikTok Ads Manager.
To me, this isn't about replacing marketers.
It's about giving marketers leverage.
Less time building campaigns, exporting reports, or digging through dashboards.
More time thinking about strategy, creative, offers, and growth.
And judging by what we've seen recently from ChatGPT, Google, Shopify, and now TikTok, this is clearly where the industry is heading.
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Follow me on LinkedIn for more growth marketing content in the e-commerce space.
The Biggest Lessons From a 3x Founder
This founder has built brands in 2012, 2019, and 2025.
His verdict?
Building a DTC brand has never been harder.
Not because founders are worse.
Because the rules keep changing.
Organic reach disappeared.
CAC kept climbing.
Attribution got messier.
Amazon became even more dominant.
So what still works?
In this episode of The DTC Insider, I sat down with Josh Sprague, founder of Orange Mud, Seven Clay, and Anvil & Acre.
One thing I really liked is that he doesn't talk in theory.
He's spent millions on his own ad accounts.
Made plenty of mistakes.
And still keeps testing.
Lots of practical lessons in this one.
Tune in. 👇
🎙 Tune in
Latest News in the DTC Space
📰 OpenAI Started Rolling Out Conversion Ad Campaigns [read more]
📰 Meta Reveals Best Practices for AI Ads [read more]
📰 Image & Video Ads Coming To ChatGPT? [read more]
What did you think of today's newsletter?
If you found this interesting, please leave us a review. It’d mean the world to me.
About The Writer
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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