DTC1053: Media Buyer To Do List, Why Most Brands Fail At YouTube, Tariff Refund Update

Good morning,

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

1️⃣ Five ways to optimize your ad account and scale further
2️⃣ Why most brands fail at YouTube and the right way to approach the channel
3️⃣ Tariff refund update

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Ripley Wines, Sparrow Blue, and Byré. 👋

‍🧠 Peek The Ad Comment Section and Study Competitor Playbooks  

Strong Meta performance is so much more than just creative launches and optimizations.

It’s important to look outside of Ads Manager and apply learnings to your account.

A consistent weekly review can help propel your brand into new territory.

The Pilothouse team recommends taking a couple of hours each week to run through this checklist to keep accounts healthy and scalable.

1️⃣ Review ad comments: Sort based on ads that have had the most comments for the last week, and read through what Facebook users are saying on your ads. This can help identify recurring objections and sentiment shifts, and lead to inspo for new ads.

​Comment feedback is often the fastest signal for creative, ad copy, and post-click gaps, and can be a huge help in getting ahead.

This is an example of a comment the team saw this week when reviewing comments. This could easily be overlaid on a static image of a product to layer on social proof.

2️⃣ Review competitors' ads and websites: Check Meta’s Ad Library weekly for key competitors to stay on top of what messaging, formats, and offers are being tested.

Sort by impressions and most recent to have an understanding of what’s delivering most for a competitor vs what they’ve launched most recently:

3️⃣ Check Events Manager: Scan Events Manager to ensure tracking is working correctly for key events and review for any opportunities to improve event quality.

Low event match quality or seeing a higher number of purchase events vs pageview events would signal that something is off with tracking and should be looked into further.

4️⃣ Test events: Run quick tests on key funnel events like Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, and Purchase to confirm they’re firing correctly, especially after site updates or checkout changes.

5️⃣ Check for changes in delivery: Monitor how Meta is delivering ads week over week, not just performance results, by reviewing breakdowns in platform.

The Pilothouse team recommends looking at these:

• Age
• Gender
• Platform
• Placement
• Audience segment

Demographics can help you understand who your target personas are and support next steps for creative.

Platform and placement breakdowns can help guide which types of creative to make. For example, if your ads deliver more heavily on reels, you might want to look into creating newer creator content to launch.

The audience segment breakdown can help determine how much is being spent at each funnel level.

TLDR: Review these weekly: Ad comments, competitors' ads and websites, events manager, test events, delivery changes.

‍Why Most Brands Fail at YouTube (And How To Fix It in 60 Days)

Most brands test YouTube, don’t see conversions, and shut it off.

The problem isn’t the channel. It’s how they’re measuring it.

Dougie from Pilothouse breaks down how YouTube actually drives growth for DTC brands, and why cost per brand search is one of the most useful signals to track early.

What we cover:

• Why you need to track brand search before and after launching YouTube
• Why conversions lag on YouTube and what to do about it
• The critical 4-week window to judge early performance
• Common targeting mistakes that kill campaigns

▶️ Watch on YouTube | 🎧 Listen on Spotify

‍‼️ Businesses Can Now Apply for Tariff Refunds

The Trump administration has begun to process refunds after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs as unconstitutional and ordered customs officials to refund more than $160B.

Importers can now apply for refunds via the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) portal.

Successful applicants can expect refunds within 60 to 90 days.

Learn more →

‍🤑 Selling on Walmart Marketplace is one of this year's smartest investments. New Seller Savings 2026 is happening now. Sign up to unlock up to $75K in New Seller Savings to build your business on Walmart Marketplace.* Conditions apply.

✅ Get conversion tracking right. Google tests a new ‘set up in Tag Manager’ option in its conversion setup flow to reduce implementation errors. Read more →

💰 Zenskar receives $15M funding. The billing and revenue platform will use the funds to expand its agentic capabilities. Read more →

‍📥 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.

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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.