DTC907: Meta Conditional Formatting, Google Ad Tips, and Future Customer

Good morning,

Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:

👀 Meta’s New Reporting Feature
Visualize ad data and axe under-performers.  

😱 Google Ads Stopped Scaling?
Here’s why and solutions.

🤖 Is The Future Customer AI?
How buying habits will evolve.

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Shine Wellness, Fitbiomics, and ASUS. 👋

📊 How Ready Are You for Black Friday / Cyber Monday?

Operators are making moves, and we’re benchmarking every step.

Take DTC’s quick BFCM Pulse Check Survey to share how you’re prepping budgets, channels, offers, and creative velocity.

Your responses will help shape the DTC BFCM Pulse Check Report. Once it’s live, you’ll get full access to benchmarks like:

👉 Where spend is flowing
👉 How aggressive discounts are getting
👉 What tactics top operators are betting on

5 minutes. 13 questions. Hard data, sharp insights, and a chance to win a $1,000 Amazon gift card. *

Note: Survey results may be used in DTC editorial and advertorial content. Personal info won’t be shared.

👀 New Tool To Spot Performance Changes Quickly

Are you running ads on Meta?

You’ll want to check out this new reporting feature inside Ads Manager.

Pilothouse shares that conditional formatting, once only available in custom reports, is now built directly into Ads Manager, making it much easier for media buyers and strategists to spot performance shifts quickly and take action.

How to Set Up Conditional Formatting for ROAS:

1️⃣ Open Ads Manager → Click on Columns → Select Conditional Formatting.

2️⃣ A panel will open on the right side of your screen. Click + Create Rule.

3️⃣ Choose your metric (e.g., Purchase ROAS, ad spend, CPM, CTR, cost per result, etc.) and define your rule.

For this example, we’ll use Purchase ROAS as the metric to customize and include all events (website and Meta purchases). The goal? To hit a minimum 3.0 ROAS.

4️⃣ Save the rule. To add more, click + Create Rule again (e.g., set up 3 rules for multiple performance thresholds).

Reload Ads Manager to apply the formatting and see your visualized metrics.

Now, instead of scanning endless rows of numbers, you’ll have color-coded signals guiding you to what needs attention first.

Q4 is all about speed and efficiency.

This feature lets your team instantly see what’s working and what’s not, so you can shift budget faster, catch underperforming campaigns before they waste spend, and double down on proven winners.

🎧  When Google Ads Stop Scaling with Dougie from Pilothouse

In this episode of the DTC Podcast, Dougie, head of the Google team at Pilothouse, breaks down why so many brands hit a wall with Google Ads and what to do next.

If you’ve ever increased your budget or lowered your ROAS target and still couldn’t scale, this episode explains why.

Dougie shares tactical insights for identifying impression share ceilings, aligning your ad campaigns with high-performing products, and unlocking new growth through content-led demand creation.

In this episode, we dive into:

The Google Ads Scaling Wall: Why impression share ceilings limit growth, and why increased budgets don’t help when your core audience is already saturated.

Demand Generation is the Next Frontier: Dougie shares how a brand generated more search demand through upper-funnel content.

Fixing Product Distribution Misalignment: Why many brands fail to push their hero SKUs, and how to restructure campaigns to better support new customer acquisition.

The Problem With Dropping Targets: Why lowering ROAS goals without expanding your reach often just leads to inflated bids with no incremental lift.

PMAX vs. Shopping: When standard shopping campaigns outperform PMAX for new customer acquisition and how to use each strategically.

“If you're hitting 100% impression share, there's no more room to grow inside Google. You need to go upstream and create more demand.”

👉 Listen to the full episode with Dougie here.

Taylor Holiday shares how the buyer of tomorrow won’t be scrolling on Instagram.

Instead, it’ll be an API making decisions.

With Google’s AP2 protocol, agents will parse data feeds, auto-compare prices, and decide if your brand qualifies.

That means PDPs must be structured for machines, not people; eligibility and clean data will matter more than persuasion.

Start future-proofing now. Clean up product feeds, tighten metadata, and ensure pricing, returns, and reorders are system-ready.

Early adopters will win when agent-driven commerce scales.

📥 Got a B2B Biz?

Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 150k brand leaders and founders this year. Talk to our team to learn more.

Have you heard our latest podcasts?

• 💡 Ad-venturous 20: Creative Workflow Hacks
• 💰 TWBERP 50: Email Like A Billion Dollar Brand Part 1
• 🧠 Master The First Second: Hook Attention in Meta Ads
• 🎃 AKNF 540: Using Seasonal Ads Like Halloween as Q4 Prep
• ✨ Ad-venturous 18: Taste v.s. Discernment Around Creative and AI
• 📥 TWBERP 49: American Eagle v.s. Everlane Part 2

Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.

Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.