Hey Cowboys,
Happy Tuesday! How’s your week going? We’re live now chatting everything DTC and ecomm.
Today’s lineup 👇 and stories.
Today’s Squad: The Full Growth Stack
Today's crew runs the whole DTC playbook. Josh scaled Hollow Socks $8M→$47M on Meta, TJ's building The Outgoing Co. retention-first, Amit's rebuilding support with AI at Richpanel, and Derek's mapping how billions move onchain at American Spend.
TJ Bongiorno, Founder at The Outgoing Co.
Derek Brown, Founder & CEO at American Spend
Joshua Haskins, CEO at Hollow Socks
Amit RG, CEO at Richpanel
Can You Build a $100M Brand with $0 Paid Marketing?
New women's supplement brand Plainspeak is skipping the Meta playbook entirely and putting its whole marketing budget into mailing free samples to people's mailboxes.
The mechanic: DM the brand your address on Instagram → get a free single-serve sachet of Strength Water (its 15g-protein + creatine hero product) in the mail
The math: ~$1 to mail a sachet vs. today's paid-media CAC; ~80% arrive, and they're sending 100+ a day
The bet: real women telling other women it works (not influencers or ad spend)
Building community: they've also spun up an invite-only Facebook group as a wellness community
Their subscription conversion is "incredibly high" and ahead of plan, enough that the founder's asking whether you can build a $100M brand with zero traditional marketing.
Takeaway for operators: as paid CACs climb, getting product physically into hands can be the cheaper, stickier acquisition channel.
More Ecomm Top Stories: Spiderman, Taco Bell, and “Claude Code for Meta Ads”
Spider-Man Ads in BMW Cars
BMW ran a Spider-Man: Brand New Day promo that pops a banner on the dashboard when you start a BMW, opening into a full-screen animation with music and lighting effects across 70+ markets. Owners are furious because BMW's own exec called the dashboard "a private space" back in 2023 and said they'd never sell it for ads.
Taco Bell's PR Plan: $1 Mexican Pizzas
After a cyclospora outbreak tied to Taylor Farms lettuce tanked foot traffic ~31% on July 17, Taco Bell fired back with a one-day $1 Mexican Pizza deal on July 28 (normally ~$5.69) plus other lettuce-free promos. It's a gratitude-and-value play to rebuild trust.
“Claude Code for Meta Ads”
Arcads AI just raised $16M and launched "Mark," an AI that builds and runs your Meta ads end to end. It cranks out UGC, motion graphics, and localized campaigns from your own brand assets, and 10,000 marketing teams are already using it.
Analyze Competitor Marketing with Trendtrack
Ecomm Cowboy is the go-to live show for ecommerce operators, breaking down the latest DTC, retail, and AI news while interviewing the founders and executives building today's fastest-growing brands.
We’re live every Monday to Friday at 12PM CT.
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Made Possible By:
Seguno - the Shopify-native marketing suite for brands that run it themselves.
Insense - The all-in-one UGC and influencer marketing platform.
Postscript - Make more money from every SMS message.
Proxima - Use real conversion data to power your creative briefs.
Northbeam - Measure the “unmeasurable,” make your marketing profitable.
Rokt Aftersell - More profit from the orders you’re already getting.
Universal Ads - TV ads that deliver for performance marketers.
Richpanel - The AI helpdesk that saves you headaches (and money).
SATHI - Affiliate attribution beyond last-click commissions.
Slash - A better business banking platform.
Trendtrack - Track competitors' winning marketing strategies daily.
Tie - The internet’s #1 shopper ID platform.
See you on the stream,
Ecomm Cowboy Team