Hey everyone,

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

Today, we're diving into a topic that every DTC brand eventually faces: working with a growth marketing agency.

Here's the truth – at some point in your journey, you'll probably work with an agency. And chances are, you'll kiss a few frogs before finding your prince.

We've been there. Finding the right agency partner is HARD. 

The cost of choosing wrong is wasted budgets, missed growth opportunities, and that sinking feeling when you realize you've spent six months getting nowhere.

On a recent episode of the Chew On This podcast, we sat down with the founders of DigiCom, a growth agency that's built differently.

The conversation was packed with insights on what to look for in an agency, what growth strategies actually work in 2025, and how to build a relationship that drives real results.

On the Menu:

• The Agency Red Flags (That No One Talks About)

• What Actually Drives Growth in 2025

• The Multi-Channel Playbook 

• BONUS - How to Set Up Your Agency Relationship For Success

Check out the whole conversation with Hemant, Danielle, and Mike here:

Or find us on 🎧

• Youtube

• Spotify

• Apple

🚨 Reminder: Ash is joining Hemant, Danielle, and Mike from DigiCom for a free fireside strategy session tomorrow (March 13th). 

Find out what common growth barriers prevent so many brands from scaling their spend and the tactics that will help you smash through your growth ceiling.

Get your free seat here. 👈 

The Agency Red Flags (That No One Talks About)

Let's be honest – there's a reason most brands have agency trust issues.

"I can't work with an agency. They’re expensive and just don't do great work," is something we hear from founders all the time. 

The reality is that many agencies have a “churn-and-burn” model. Sign a client, work with them for 3 months, lose them, repeat.

This creates a vicious cycle where brands jump from agency to agency, never giving any relationship enough time to build momentum.

🚩 So what are the red flags that tell you you're dealing with the wrong agency? 🚩

1. The "Quick Win" Promise

If an agency tells you they can “3x your ROAS in the first 30 days” without understanding your business model, margins, or customer behavior – run.

Real growth takes time. Testing takes time. Finding the right creative angles takes time.

2. No Talk About Margins

Great agencies spend time understanding your break-even margins and breaking down your P&L before making recommendations. 

Mediocre agencies just take your budget and start spending.

Without understanding your unit economics and profitability goals, an agency is just buring your budget blindly.

3. Junior Staff Running Your Account

Many agencies use a bait-and-switch approach – senior team members pitch you, but junior staff actually run your campaigns.

Your growth partner should have senior strategists actually directing your campaigns, with junior team members in support roles like data collection and reporting – not making critical decisions about your ad spend.

4. No Creative Strategy

When I asked what brands are missing most often, the answer was unanimous: CREATIVE.

With Meta Advantage+ and other automated systems handling much of the media buying, it's your creative and messaging that actually drive performance.

If your agency isn't focused heavily on creative testing and optimization, you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

What Actually Drives Growth in 2025 🚀

We’ve said it before in this space, but…the landscape has shifted dramatically in the past few years. What worked in 2021 (or even 2023) likely isn't working now.

Here's what's actually driving growth in 2025, according to the DigiCom team:

1. The Content Volume Game

"Creative is very much a volume game now. You need to be able to pump out content consistently. This is not pre-2020 where you could run the same creative for months and keep seeing results."

But it's not just about creating MORE content – it's about creating SMARTER content.

2. The Creative Data Approach - The Ads Bible 📖 

One of the most tactical insights from our conversation was a systematic approach to creative analysis that was described as an "add bible".

When working with a large volume of creative, smart marketers tag each asset with multiple attributes - the background color, product positioning, whether there's a person in the shot, the type of hook used, and so on. 

This creates a comprehensive database of creative elements.

The team at Digicom does this. Then they analyze performance across these attributes to find patterns: "Ads with blue backgrounds perform better than white backgrounds" or "Having the product on the left side with a person on the right side gives a better conversion rate."

This methodical approach transforms creative from a guessing game to a data-driven strategy. 

It's the difference between "this feels right" and "we know this works."

3. Conversion Rate Focus

One of the most valuable insights from our discussion: "You can drive all the traffic in the world to your website, and if it doesn't convert, it's not really meaningful at all."

Many brands obsess over ad metrics while neglecting their website experience. 

We discussed a perfect example of how small CRO changes can drive massive results for a pet brand: 

Heat mapping revealed that users were constantly zooming in on ingredients (which were hidden in the product description). By simply moving ingredients into the product thumbnail carousel, they saw monumental conversion rate improvements.

That's the power of qualitative insights combined with quantitative data.

The Multi-Channel Playbook That's Working Now

Brands seeing the strongest growth in 2024-2025 aren't just pumping more money into Facebook. They're taking a strategic approach to multiple channels that work together to drive total business growth:

1. The Google Opportunity

Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns are becoming major growth drivers for brands that know how to use them.

"Testing more into demand gen, which includes Gmail, Discovery, and YouTube" is crucial. "It's another black box Google's giving us, but there's huge opportunity to scale there."

🔑 The key is understanding how to optimize these campaigns by using scripts to reveal placement spending and breaking campaigns out by product type or margin profile.

2. Advertorial Content

Advertorial content (sponsored, editorial-style content) is making a massive comeback.

This approach works exceptionally well, especially for targeting audiences over 30 who prefer more in-depth information before purchasing.

If your product requires education, has a higher price point, or needs more explaining than a standard ad allows, advertorial content should be in your mix.

3. The Alternative Channel Strategy

For brands ready to diversify beyond Meta and Google, platforms like Outbrain and Taboola are delivering surprising results:

"For any brand considering these platforms, you need to spend $10-15K to figure out if you can get these channels to work," Hemant noted. 

"The first 2-3 weeks are always painful because their algorithms are nothing like Meta's. But once you find the publishers, creative, messaging, and placement that work, you can scale to 20-30K a day on specific placements."

The trick is finding the exact configuration that works for your brand – then doubling down aggressively.

BONUS - How to Set Up Your Agency Relationship For Success

If you're considering working with an agency (or trying to fix a struggling relationship), here's what to do:

1. Prioritize Transparency 🔎

The best agencies open the curtain and show you exactly how they work. 

Look for partners who do comprehensive audits before taking you on as a client – analyzing your funnel, pixel setup, page scores, creative, copy, and landing pages.

This level of upfront work shows they're interested in a partnership, not just adding another client to their roster.

2. Understand Your Numbers First 📊

Before you can expect an agency to deliver results, you need to know your break-even CPA, acceptable CAC, and target margins.

This might sound obvious, but there are countless brands generating millions in revenue who don't truly understand their profitability metrics.

Without this critical foundation, you'll never know if your agency is actually delivering value.

3. Ask the Hard Questions 💬

"Ask questions to your agency. Even if you don't exactly understand the campaign structure they have or the reasoning behind things."

Some key questions to ask: ⁇

• “Who specifically will be working on my account day-to-day?”

• “How do you approach creative testing and development?”

• “What's your process for tracking and attributing results?”

• “How do you ensure we're not just driving vanity metrics but actual business growth?”

4. Align on the Full-Funnel View

The most successful agency relationships look beyond platform metrics to total business impact.

The best partners understand how your social platforms drive traffic to search, and how both contribute to overall brand awareness and growth across all channels.

When your agency understands how different channels work together to drive total business growth – not just individual platform metrics – you're set up for sustainable success.