I've audited a couple hundred ad accounts. The most common problem I find has nothing to do with Meta.

Google is almost always the single biggest structural mess in a DTC brand's marketing stack. The waste is real — I've seen brands burning $12,000 to $14,000 a month on brand spend alone for clicks they were going to get for free — but the bigger problem is the growth sitting locked behind an account that can't see straight.

In this solo episode, I walk through the six issues I find in nearly every Google account I audit: branded search bleeding across campaigns, paying to reacquire customers you already own, non-brand campaigns stealing volume from each other, PMax taking credit for conversions it didn't earn, unused audience infrastructure, and broken conversion tracking that starves a channel that's actually working.

Then I lay out the nine-step fix list, including the one move almost nobody is making that has the highest new customer rate of anything I've seen on Google.

Subscribe for more conversations on DTC strategy, paid media, and what it really takes to build a brand past eight figures.

Grow your bottom line: https://www.kynship.co/

Key Takeaways:

00:00 Why Most Google Accounts Can't Answer the Most Basic Question

01:22 Demand Generation vs. Demand Capture: The One Idea That Changes Everything

03:10 The 80/20 Meta to Google Rule of Thumb

03:55 Stop Adding Channels. Master the Capture Layer You Already Have.

05:30 Why Your Account Is Flying Blind on New vs. Returning Customers

08:05 Issue 1: Branded Search Bleeding Across Campaigns

09:20 Issue 2: Paying to Reacquire Customers You Already Own

10:30 Issue 3: Non-Brand Whack-a-Mole

11:15 Issue 4: PMax Over-Reliance

13:00 Issue 5: No Audience Infrastructure

14:10 Issue 6: Broken Conversion Tracking

15:05 How to Rebuild Your Google Account From Scratch

20:10 The Real Cost of a Broken Google Account

Additional Resources:

Featured Guest KC Holliday — Co-Founder, Qalo https://www.kcholiday.com/

Follow us on X:

👉 Cody: https://x.com/Cody_Wittick

👉 Taylor: https://x.com/TaylorLagace

The Bottom Line is your go-to podcast for honest ecommerce conversations on profitable growth strategies. Join Cody Wittick and Taylor Lagace, Co-Founders of Kynship, as they dive into the challenges and strategies for growing ecommerce brands to 8-9 figures. They share insights on overcoming ad creative challenges, managing cost caps, scaling Meta ads, unit economics and forecasting, and expanding influencer marketing programs.

Their expertise in performance marketing is not just theoretical; with a track record of launching successful campaigns for major brands (M&Ms, Purdy & Figg, Supergut, & AnimalHouse Fitness, to name a few) and generating over $350M in revenue, they offer practical, actionable advice.

So, if you're looking to improve your marketing strategies, boost profitability, or scale your ecommerce brand, this podcast draws on experience from industry leaders and founders just like you.

🎧 Follow the podcast on your favorite app, so you never miss an episode: https://pod.link/1631630533

KC Holiday sold Qalo at 30. What came next surprised him more than building it did.

He moved to Australia, worked in venture capital, came back, and spent two and a half years coaching ecommerce founders at Daily Mentor. Almost 1,700 sessions in, one pattern kept showing up across every brand he worked with: the founder is the ceiling of the business.

In this episode, KC and Cody cover the grief that hits after an exit, why going from founder to employee was one of his most eye-opening experiences, and the difference between founders who grow past the plateau and the ones who stay stuck.

He also gets honest about whether he'd start an ecommerce brand today, who is actually making money in the industry, and what the middle class of ecommerce looks like right now.

Subscribe for more conversations on DTC strategy, eCommerce growth, and what it really takes to build a brand past eight figures.

Grow your bottom line: https://www.kynship.co/

00:00 Introducing KC Holiday, Co-Founder of Qalo

02:36 The Grief Nobody Talks About After Selling

06:50 From Founder to Employee: What KC Learned

09:20 How Onboarding Determines If Someone Succeeds

12:22 Hiring Is Inventory Management

14:02 What KC Actually Looks for in a Hire

19:22 When People Show You Who They Are, Trust Them

20:38 Agencies vs. Internal Hires

26:52 The Founder Is the Ceiling of the Business

29:18 Why Being Around Bigger Founders Changes Everything

33:22 Energy Management Over Identity Management

35:36 Would KC Start an Ecommerce Brand Today?

40:30 Who Is Actually Making Money in Ecommerce

43:00 The Middle Class of Ecommerce

Additional Resources:

Featured Guest KC Holliday — Co-Founder, Qalo https://www.kcholiday.com/

Follow us on X:

👉 Cody: https://x.com/Cody_Wittick

👉 Taylor: https://x.com/TaylorLagace

The Bottom Line is your go-to podcast for honest ecommerce conversations on profitable growth strategies. Join Cody Wittick and Taylor Lagace, Co-Founders of Kynship, as they dive into the challenges and strategies for growing ecommerce brands to 8-9 figures. They share insights on overcoming ad creative challenges, managing cost caps, scaling Meta ads, unit economics and forecasting, and expanding influencer marketing programs.

Their expertise in performance marketing is not just theoretical; with a track record of launching successful campaigns for major brands (M&Ms, Purdy & Figg, Supergut, & AnimalHouse Fitness, to name a few) and generating over $350M in revenue, they offer practical, actionable advice.

So, if you're looking to improve your marketing strategies, boost profitability, or scale your ecommerce brand, this podcast draws on experience from industry leaders and founders just like you.

🎧 Follow the podcast on your favorite app, so you never miss an episode: https://pod.link/1631630533

#TheBottomLine #DTCpodcast #ecommercegrowth #WildBird #targetretail

Nate Gunn spent nearly a decade building Wild Bird before it finally broke through. In this episode, Cody sits down with the co-founder and CEO to talk about what actually turned the business around — a full product pivot during COVID, two years of selling out on pre-orders, and the financial clarity that came from bringing in the right partners at the right time.

Nate shares the three things that took Wild Bird from low seven figures to landing all 1,800 Target doors: getting honest about the product mix, investing in financial structure, and expanding into every channel where their customers actually shop.

If you run a DTC brand and you have ever wondered whether the plateau you are in is a product problem, a marketing problem, or just a timing problem, this episode is worth your full attention.

Subscribe for more conversations on DTC strategy, eCommerce marketing, paid media, and LTV optimization.

👉 Grow your bottom line: https://www.kynship.co/

Tune in now.

#TheBottomLine #DTCpodcast #ecommercegrowth #WildBird #targetretail

Key Takeaways:

00:00 Meet Nate Gunn, Co-Founder of Wild Bird

01:28 Wild Bird's Two Existential Crisis Moments

03:10 Considering Selling the Business

05:08 Running Lean With Real Ownership

06:40 Landing All 1,800 Target Doors

13:28 The Full Pivot: Killing the Old Product Line

18:02 Bringing in Fractional Partners for Financial Clarity

21:50 The Loneliness of Running a Brand

25:30 Why Founder Networks Matter

33:00 How Wild Bird Chose the Right Agency

40:50 The 3 Things That Turned Wild Bird Around

44:30 Solving Patterns, Not One-Off Problems

Additional Resources:

Featured Guest

Nate Gunn, Co-Founder & CEO. WildBird https://wildbird.co

Follow us on X:

👉 Cody: https://x.com/Cody_Wittick

👉 Taylor: https://x.com/TaylorLagace

The Bottom Line is your go-to podcast for honest ecommerce conversations on profitable growth strategies. Join Cody Wittick and Taylor Lagace, Co-Founders of Kynship, as they dive into the challenges and strategies for growing ecommerce brands to 8-9 figures. They share insights on overcoming ad creative challenges, managing cost caps, scaling Meta ads, unit economics and forecasting, and expanding influencer marketing programs.

Their expertise in performance marketing is not just theoretical; with a track record of launching successful campaigns for major brands (M&Ms, Purdy & Figg, Supergut, & AnimalHouse Fitness, to name a few) and generating over $350M in revenue, they offer practical, actionable advice.

So, if you're looking to improve your marketing strategies, boost profitability, or scale your ecommerce brand, this podcast draws on experience from industry leaders and founders just like you.

🎧 Follow the podcast on your favorite app, so you never miss an episode: https://pod.link/1631630533