Advertise on podcast: The Brand Building Podcast

Most brands think they know their customer. Usually it’s a persona deck someone made 18 months ago. In this episode, I sit down with Bryan Starck, founder of Customer Conversations, to talk about how AI voice agents now interview hundreds of customers every month and turn those conversations into ad creative, email angles, CRO tests and retention wins. 🔍 Get your free Retention Scan: https://retention-lab.com/retention-scan 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02 🎙️ Learn more about Customer Conversations: https://customerconversations.co Bryan and I met working on the same brand years ago. Since then he’s built 100 Celsius into a subscription growth consultancy and launched Customer Conversations, which runs AI-powered customer interviews at scale for ecommerce brands. In this episode: – How email marketing has changed in 10+ years, from beautiful creative to CRM strategy – Bryan’s path from enterprise martech sales to starting his own agency – How a custom AI voice agent interviews new customers, VIPs and churned subscribers 24/7, triggered from Klaviyo – Why surveys, reviews and cancel flows only give surface-level feedback – Why customers who won’t type two sentences will talk for 15 minutes – Using AI to have the hard conversations with churned subscribers your team avoids – The daily insight feed that powers ad creative, email campaigns and CRO tests – Why your customer persona is probably wrong – Our review-mining process in Claude that builds 7 customer avatars – How AI calls caught a bad product batch within a week – What AI customer interviews cost compared to traditional focus groups – Turning customer calls into ads and testimonials, with consent – Q4 for subscription brands: why reskinning your evergreen offer often beats a brand-new BFCM promo – Why your competitor is every brand on the internet, and why Q1 is the real opportunity AI without a human touch is just efficiency. Used right, it creates more real conversations with your customers than you’ve ever been able to have.

Everyone online says video editors are cooked. In this episode, I sit down with Marin and Mario, the in-house editing team behind every Bread Loaf video, podcast and ad, to talk about how we actually use AI every day and why it still can’t replace a great editor. 🔍 Get your free Retention Scan: https://retention-lab.com/retention-scan 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02 In this episode: – How Marin and Mario got into video editing: from choosing a laptop over prom to landing a first Upwork job in one week – Why every B2B company should be investing in video right now – How AI changed our workflow, from working only with client footage to creating anything we can imagine – The AI “Super 8” Venice Beach ads that replaced a six-figure photoshoot and became our client’s top-performing ads for months – The AI tools our editors use daily: Unit, Seedance 2.5, Claude, ChatGPT and ElevenLabs – Why “editors are cooked” is just a viral hook, and why Figma grew 45% even after Claude Design launched – Building our first AI spokesperson, Ellery Marsh, and why we’re telling everyone she’s AI – Why marketing content is becoming vanilla, and why originality and entertainment win next – Why good B-roll and storytelling still make or break a video The bottom line: AI without a human operator produces vanilla content. With the right editor behind it, it’s the biggest creative unlock we’ve ever had.

Most win-back campaigns start the same way: “We miss you, here’s 20% off.” When the customer doesn’t respond, the coupon gets bigger. That can work, but you’re training your customers that if they ignore you long enough, you’ll lower the price. 🔍 Get your free Retention Scan: https://retention-lab.com/retention-scan 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02 In this episode, I break down the 3 win-back plays we’re building right now that don’t start with a discount. They start with one question: what should this customer logically buy next? – Play 1: Turn your win-back into education. How a specialty outdoor brand uses the founder’s how-to content to sell the consumable every customer eventually needs – Play 2: The “bought A but never bought B” segment. How a travel gear brand targeted past buyers who never purchased the companion accessory: one audience, one product, one job – Play 3: One product, one reason to care. Why focused campaigns beat emails that try to be a homepage – The exercise to steal: map your top 5 first-purchase products to their logical second purchase, and build 5 new cross-sell campaigns from your own data – When a discount actually makes sense: 180+ days lapsed, strong margins, inventory reasons The discount should be the lever, not the strategy. Your best win-back campaign might not need a coupon at all. It might just need the right product.

Grab your Klaviyo login and audit your account with me. These are the 7 leaks we keep finding when we audit established ecommerce brands doing $5M+ a year. These aren’t beginner accounts: they’re real companies with real teams and agencies. Some of these problems are embarrassingly simple, which is exactly why they survive for years. In this episode: – UTM tracking turned off, and why your attribution is lying to you – Email footer, compliance and unsubscribe hygiene – Image-only emails that say nothing when images are blocked – The “welcome flow from hell”: 15 emails with 7-day gaps – Smart Sending quietly breaking your lifecycle flows – Emails so long that Gmail clips them, footer and all – Dark mode and mobile QA: what your customer actually sees – Bonus: site abandonment, low-review escalation, back in stock, sunset flows, and “email zero” At the end, I give you a simple way to score your own account. None of these leaks looks catastrophic on its own, but together they’re 10 small leaks draining one big bucket. Sometimes the expensive problems are just seven boring things nobody checked. Want us to audit your account for you? ✅ Elevate your brand’s Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Book your free Retention Scan: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

In this episode, I go through the whole playbook section by section. I cover what’s worth copying, where I disagree, and how I’d turn it into a real Q4 plan for brands doing $5M+ a year. Spending more and making more ads is not a strategy. What I cover: – Why your BFCM campaigns should be live in October, not Thanksgiving week – ROAS vs. CPP: which campaign goal fits your offer, and why holiday bundles change the answer – Day 0 vs. Day 7 conversion windows, and how to match them to your customer’s buying cycle – Universal vs. Prospecting vs. Discovery: what each audience strategy is actually accountable for – How much budget to start with and how to scale without wrecking your margins – Dynamic Catalogs, Interactive Pages, and why 81% of AppLovin’s top-spending video ads run longer than 30 seconds – How much creative the top 5% of advertisers upload every week, and why you shouldn’t copy it blindly – The five shopper phases from Cyber Monday to New Year’s, and what to change in each My biggest takeaway: don’t manage Q4 as six separate platform dashboards. Manage it as one business. Want help planning your Q4? ✅ Elevate your brand’s Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

Most brands focus on what they send. Orita focuses on when — and the results speak for themselves. Daniel Brady, co-founder and co-CEO of Orita, joins me to break down how their ML platform models customer behavior to predict the exact moment someone is ready to buy. From win-back flows delivering 5-10X performance to a BFCM Scenario Planner built for Black Friday prep — this one is packed. Topics covered: – Why “last 90 days active” segmentation is leaving money on the table – Causal modeling vs. propensity scoring — what actually works – Win-back flows that improved 5-10X with zero content changes – BFCM email strategy and how to use Orita’s Scenario Planner – The $7M raise and what’s next for cross-channel retention If you want us to analyze your brand’s retention strategy: ✅ https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

Last Black Friday, a brand we work with had someone up until 3:00 AM fixing a broken promotion. Spend threshold. Free gift. Sounds simple. Wasn’t. This happens every year. Brands sit in a conference room, invent the world’s most clever Black Friday offer — and forget there’s an actual ecommerce store that has to execute it. In this episode, I break down the BFCM framework Bread Loaf uses with clients: the 3-second offer test, why one hero offer beats twelve competing discounts, VIP early access done right, developer sign-off before anything goes live, and the four-point checklist every brand needs before the holiday calendar locks in. Your marketing can be exciting. Your checkout should be boring. That’s the goal. ✅ Elevate your brand’s Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

f your customers can predict your next sale before you announce it, you’ve got a problem. Most brands default to percent off because it’s easy — but flat discounts do nothing to change buying behavior. They just make the thing customers already wanted cheaper. In this episode, I break down the offer ladder Bread Loaf uses with clients: why BOGOs and bundles outperform percent off, how to build hot campaigns so you’re never starting from a blank doc when revenue dips, what run rate is and how to use it, and how to properly segment win-back audiences so you’re not sending the same coupon to everyone. Before your next promotion, ask yourself: am I giving the customer a reason to change their behavior — or am I just lowering the price? ✅ Elevate your brand’s Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

After a tough onboarding, we put everything into turning this client’s account around—and tripled their lead volume. When their contract ended, they decided to move on. Then they tried to hire the person leading their account directly. In this episode of the Brand Building Podcast, I share what happened, how my team member handled it, and why we’re still giving that client a professional handoff. We’re talking about loyalty, taking responsibility when your team falls short, and why better performance doesn’t always repair a damaged client relationship. Your reputation comes from how you act when things get uncomfortable. This experience was a reminder of the kind of business—and team—I want to build.

Most brands lose the customer the moment they file a return. Redo is built to change that. In this episode, I sit down with Taggart Kruger from Redo to break down how they've built the only end-to-end returns solution in ecommerce — from checkout protection and AI-powered exchange agents to a 120,000 sq ft warehouse that physically processes, grades, and liquidates returned inventory. What's covered: → How Checkout Plus makes returns completely free for brands → How the AI exchange agent drives store credit and repeat purchases over refunds → What grading, refurbishment, and liquidation look like at scale → Why bot and agent traffic is already at 60% of ecommerce visits → How Redo's Commerce Agent protects brand margins in an agentic shopping world Already working with brands from $5M to Tailormade — this is one to listen to if you're serious about cleaning up your operations. ✅ Elevate your brand's Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

Before you touch subject lines, creative, or your offer — check your email authentication. In this episode, Mark walks through the free 60-second deliverability check every Klaviyo brand should run: SPF, DKIM, DMARC via MX Toolbox, and your sending reputation in Google Postmaster. You'll hear two real client results: → Wavy: Klaviyo deliverability score up 11 points after fixing authentication → Tallman Shoes: up 16 points, Google Postmaster spam rate below 0.03% Plus the counterintuitive sending strategy that actually recovers deliverability — and why emailing more people when your reputation is down makes everything worse. Creativity is downstream from deliverability. The best email in the world sitting in a spam folder is worth $0. Want a full audit of your retention system? Learn how Bread Loaf's complimentary retention scan works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MUGArf4M18 ✅ Elevate your brand's Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

The most sophisticated Klaviyo account we've audited  recently was also one of the leakiest. Not because they weren't doing enough. Because they were doing too much. Flows everywhere. Filters everywhere.  Exclusions everywhere. Years of logic stacked  on top of more logic — and nobody willing  to delete anything because nobody wants  to be the person that breaks the account. We found 46 things that needed attention. Most of the fixes were subtraction, not addition. In this episode of the Brand Building Podcast,  I'm breaking down the spaghetti flow problem  that hits every mature brand, why exclusions  are the silent killers nobody looks at,  why stacking email and SMS in one flow costs  you money, and the kill list exercise every  retention team should run quarterly. Good systems get simpler over time. Bad systems accumulate barnacles. → Want us to run this same audit on your account? Watch this first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MUGArf4M18 🌐 breadloaf.co 📋 Free Retention Scan: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7 📅 Book a Call: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off

We audited a Klaviyo account and found 16,000 people  actively browsing, adding to cart, visiting the site — who couldn't receive a single marketing email. Not because they unsubscribed. Not because they  complained. The brand had manually suppressed them  by following what's considered a best practice:  cleaning the list. In this episode of the Brand Building Podcast,  I'm breaking down why suppression becomes a revenue  leak most brands never find, what we discovered  inside 153,000 suppressed profiles, how to check  your own Klaviyo account right now, and the right  process to bring people back without destroying  deliverability. The revenue leak isn't always the email you're  sending. Sometimes it's the thousands of people  you're accidentally not sending anything to. → Want us to look inside your account? Watch this first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MUGArf4M18 — Connect with Me: 🌐 breadloaf.co 📋 Free Retention Scan: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7 📅 Book a Call: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off

Most people think email marketing started with Klaviyo. Mine started at a winery in Paso Robles in 2011. In this episode of the Brand Building Podcast, I'm taking  you back to where it all began — how I taught myself email  marketing running a wine e-commerce startup, moonlighting  it while working at top Southern California agencies, and  eventually running $15M/year Toyota lead gen programs  through event marketing at NASCAR, Bass Pro Shops, and  Stagecoach. From there: Director of Ops at Stealth Venture Labs,  founding Bread Loaf in 2016, and generating over $1 billion  in attributed revenue for our clients through retention and  lifecycle marketing alone. No overnight success. No shortcuts. Just 15 years of figuring it out — before anyone was  calling it retention marketing. 📋 Free Retention Audit: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7 📅 Book a Call: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off

Most ecommerce brands doing $5M to $100M  have the same blind spot. They're spending real money on paid  acquisition. New customers are coming in. But once they're on the list — nobody  really knows what's happening to them. Old automation. A list with hundreds of  thousands of profiles nobody has looked  inside in years. Monthly reports with  open rates that never tell you if you're  actually leaving money on the table. In this episode I'm breaking down the four  things we find broken in almost every  Klaviyo account we audit — and what a  real retention program actually looks like  when it's working correctly. Plus — how to get a free 28-point  Retention Scan from our team at Bread Loaf.  No pitch. No obligation. Just a real audit. ✅ Elevate your brand's Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com 🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02