Happy Tuesday.

We’re live on X and YouTube — let’s ride!

Lesson in CX: Landon Donovan & United Airlines - A brutal United flight — delayed, diverted, reboarded, then scrapped at 3am when the pilot timed out — turned into a viral pile-on after the airline gave its standard "DM us your confirmation number" reply. Passengers refused to take it private, demanding a public apology and reimbursement instead, and the exchange racked up over 12 million views, a live case study in how the move-it-to-DMs script now reads as dodging accountability.

America's Most Trusted Brands - Dawn dish soap topped Morning Consult's Most Trusted Brands list for the second straight year, edging out Band-Aid as consumers gravitate toward reliable household staples over flashy newcomers. Analysts tie the back-to-basics shift directly to AI fatigue. Even as Google's Gemini posted one of the year's biggest trust gains, tech brands as a category are still fighting a real trust deficit.

EA Launches Its First Ad Platform - EA is rolling out its first-ever ad platform, letting brands buy the stadium boards and scoreboards inside FC, Madden, and College Football as targeted media. The pitch to advertisers: it's TV-style attention without the second-screen distraction, since players are locked into the game, turning EA's massive sports franchises into premium, measurable ad inventory.

By Colin Dougherty

A growing CAC is typically viewed by entrepreneurs as a defect that can be fixed by dismissing their ad man.

Arthur Falcone (Founder & CEO, Tandem Growth) began purchasing media 25 years ago. Before he ever tackles a stalled ad account, he asks, "Have you already done the low-hanging fruit?" of landing pages, whitelisting, fresh creative, and new audiences.

Your CAC is your reality if you've tried everything and it still doesn't move.

It won't alter if you go to a different Facebook agency. The math is the math.

So the real work moves off the ad account entirely. It moves to retention. Are you cutting churn? Are you pushing your subscription program as hard as you push acquisition? Out of 300 SKUs, do you actually know which five bring in new customers, and whether people come back for them?

That's where the margin lives now.

A Meta specialist who gives you this answer is basically turning down your money. They're admitting they can't beat the last guy, and that your problem is other levers in the business they do not control.

Put an end to your search for the ad partner that can magically cut your CAC in half. Instead, focus on establishing a business that can afford “natural CAC” in the new online reality of 2026.

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See you live,
Ecomm Cowboy Team