DTC932: Strategy, Evergreen Creatives, Outway’s Growth, YETI Baseball, and more…

Good morning,

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

• 🛞 Are You Confident In Your Strategy?
• 🧦 Outway’s Explosive 8-Figure Growth
• 🤖 OpenAI Develops AI Music Tool
• 👀 AI Ad Generation for Creative Variation
• 🏆 A Winning Meta Ad Combo
• ⚾ Yeti’s World Series Ad

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: No Days Wasted, Koi Footwear, and The Boreal Pantry. 👋

‍🛞 Growth Doesn’t Start With Tactics. It Starts With Strategy.

Brands are moving faster than ever, adding channels, launching campaigns, and testing tactics. But growth isn’t stalling from a lack of effort. It’s stalling because there’s no system.

• A goal is not a strategy.
• A channel test is not a system.
• More parts ≠ more performance.

You can keep adding new “solutions,” but if they don’t connect and amplify each other, you’re just building a heavier car, not a faster one.

Pilothouse is the bridge. We interpret your intent, translate it into clear workflows and execution, and build a growth system where strategy, creative, and media multiply each other’s impact.

Brands that win aren’t doing the most. They’re doing the right things within one interconnected strategy.

You have the vision. Pilothouse builds the system to reach it. 👇

‍🎧 How Outway Got Back to Profitable 8-Figure Growth

Rob Fraser, founder & CEO of Outway, returns to the show and shares how his performance-sock brand rebounded from flat growth to a profitable 8-figure business.

Rob shares how the company grew 40% YoY last year through channel expansion, smarter logistics, and a renewed focus on building community.

In this episode, we dive into:

• Expanding to channels like Amazon
• Unlocking faster fulfillment with this cross-border strategy
• Improving margins to scale profitably

▶️ Watch the full episode on YouTube here.

🎧 Or click here to listen on Spotify.

‍OpenAI Develops Music Generation Tool

OpenAI is reportedly working on a new AI tool that can generate music based on text and audio prompts.

The project is being developed in collaboration with Juilliard students who are creating training data by annotating music scores.

👉 Learn more here.

‍👀 ​​Triple Your ROAS with AI-Powered Ad Creation. Get 1000 Free Ads From Cuttable To Get You Started

📈 Cuttable users have seen their ROAS triple from generating batches of new ads out of old assets.

AI ad generation is the ultimate solve for feeding the new Meta algorithm’s hunger for creative variation. 🍴

✨ Cuttable’s approach to winning ad variation is as easy as 1,2,3:

1. Message Variation: Speak to every customer need your brand solves.
2. Format Variation: Nail top performers like native, benefit-led and product ads.
3. Visual Variation: Experiment with images, videos, layouts, audio, and animations.

Stop creative fatigue before it starts.

‍🏆 Evergreen Creative + Sale Ad Copy = A Winning Duo

If you have a top-performing evergreen ad, here’s why you shouldn’t shelve it during sale season.

The Pilothouse Meta team found that pairing winning evergreen creative with sale-specific ad copy is a winning tactic.

During recent Labor Day tests, this simple combo drove major results:

• The top-spending ad (evergreen asset paired with sale copy) performed stronger than the average ROAS on the account.
• ROAS was 8.3% higher on the evergreen + sale copy ad compared to all sale ads.
• CPA was 10.4% lower.
• Scaling evergreen campaigns alongside sale campaigns led to a 16.7% ROAS lift during Labor Day weekend.

The takeaway?

Evergreen creative is an important piece of the puzzle and is a low lift tweak that can drive big results without reinventing your creative wheel as we head into BFCM.

‍Analyzing YETI’s ‘Survive Extra Innings’ Ad

YETI’s “Survive Extra Innings” campaign rides the World Series hype by centering its story around the Toronto Blue Jays’ historic run. It’s a smart play in contextual marketing, tying a timeless value prop (temperature retention) to a cultural moment without feeling forced.

What Else Works:

• Cultural Timing: The ad taps into the excitement of Blue Jays fans eager for their first World Series win in 32 years.
• Visual Relevance: Using team colors and logos transforms a standard tumbler into a symbol of team pride and belonging.
• Simple, Smart Copy: The line “Cold from first pitch to final sip” perfectly connects the product benefit to the game-day tension fans feel.

The takeaway? Link your product’s core benefit to a cultural moment, and you’ll earn attention that feels organic, not opportunistic.

Which team are you rooting for? Cast your vote! 👇

Toronto Blue Jays

Los Angeles Dodgers

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‍📥 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.

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.