
Advertise on podcast: The World's Best Email and Retention Podcast
Rating
5from
This podcast has
111 episodes
Language
EnglishPublisher
The DTC Podcast NetworkExplicit
No
Date created
2024/10/08
Latest episode
2026/10/27
Average duration
29 min.
Release period
7 days
Description
Welcome to The World's Best Email and Retention Podcast, or as we've been calling it, TWBERP. Dive into weekly episodes designed to help new and seasoned email and retention marketers make the most out of their email program. Get educated, get inspired, and get your notebook ready because you've got some work to do. Hosted by Pilothouse's Jordan Gordon on the DTC Podcast Network.
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Check latest episodes from The World's Best Email and Retention Podcast podcast
Ep 110: Black Friday Email Marketing: Your Pre-Send Checklist
2026/10/27
Plan your Black Friday email marketing with a checklist covering automated flows, discount codes, segmentation, and send frequency. Pilothouse’s Jordan Gordon explains how to prepare your BFCM campaigns, expand your sending audience, and keep your main offer visible throughout the sale.
Jordan also shares his analysis of Black Friday buyer behavior. The most common purchase path he found involved opening one email before ordering. He explains how that finding shapes email design, offer repetition, and the timing of your sale.
Topics covered:
Updating welcome emails, abandoned cart flows, pop-ups, and sale banners
Testing discount codes before campaigns go live
Planning subject line tests
Expanding segments using purchase history, clicks, and site visits
Choosing how many emails to send on Black Friday
Narrowing your audience across multiple daily sends
Estimating revenue using revenue per email sent
Comparing SMS costs with paid retargeting
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:23 Three priorities for Black Friday email preparation
02:50 Update automated flows and welcome offers
03:47 Countdown timers and sale pages
05:16 Test discount codes and adjust abandonment emails
06:40 Update pop-ups and review list suppressions
11:02 Build your subject line testing plan
13:55 Plan your Black Friday sending volume
15:52 Separate buyers and prospects
17:21 Expand segments using purchases, clicks, and visits
20:12 How many emails to send on Black Friday
21:40 Narrow your audience across multiple sends
25:05 Estimate Black Friday email revenue
26:01 Plan SMS segments and compare costs
26:54 Research: when to start your Black Friday sale
29:44 Research: how many emails buyers open
33:08 Build each email around your core offer
The World’s Best Email & Retention Podcast is part of the DTC Podcast Network and features insights from the Pilothouse email and customer retention team.
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 109: More Segmentation Research from Pilothouse's Email & Retention Lead
2026/10/20
Which email segmentation signals bring in more revenue? Jordan Gordon shares Pilothouse’s latest research on purchase history, Apple Privacy Opens, true opens, clicks, and bot activity.
Expanding the buyer window produced the strongest revenue gain with a small engagement hit. Extending the true-open window added almost no revenue and dragged down engagement.
Inside this episode of the World’s Best Email & Retention Podcast:
How to test segment changes against your core mailable listThe revenue and engagement tradeoffs of Apple Privacy OpensWhy buyers and prospects need separate segmentsWhat recent site visitors reveal about campaign revenueHow evergreen flows can take on more of your campaign schedule
In the analysis Jordan shares, 75% of campaign revenue came from subscribers who had visited the site within 90 days. He explains what that means for your flows and segmentation windows.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and episode preview
01:22 More segmentation research
01:52 AI segmentation tools and campaign coverage
05:38 Deliverability on large, established lists
09:01 The engagement signals tested
10:01 Testing changes against your mailable list
11:28 Purchase history: more revenue, small engagement hit
12:24 Apple Privacy Opens: revenue and engagement tradeoffs
16:15 Expanding your buyer window
17:11 Separating buyers and prospects
17:41 True opens: almost no added revenue
20:03 What happens when you expand the click window
21:04 Bot clicks and campaign performance
22:09 Recent site visitors drove 75% of campaign revenue
22:31 Moving more campaign content into flows
23:27 Including visitors who haven’t clicked an email
24:42 Keeping site-activity windows tight
25:12 Non-clicking visitors drove roughly 20% of campaign revenue
26:09 Closing thoughts
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 108: I Got Marketed To
2026/10/13
A conversation about his son’s Hot Wheels sent Jordan down a Formula 1 rabbit hole.
A Walmart purchase, Red Bull videos, and a Google search eventually led him to create an F1 account and download the app.
In this episode of the World’s Best Email and Retention Podcast, Jordan traces the touchpoints that pulled him in and the opportunities to turn that interest into paid streaming. He covers word of mouth that your attribution tools miss, content that builds interest across channels, and a voting experience that captures email addresses without a discount.
Plus, a look at F1’s app onboarding: push notification permissions, tracking consent, and clear controls that let users change their preferences.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Email and CRO for ecommerce revenue00:29 Episode preview01:23 How Jordan got marketed to02:20 Understanding the customer persona06:13 The Hot Wheels conversation that started it06:42 Word of mouth your attribution tools miss08:36 Turning a recommendation into a Walmart purchase10:02 Red Bull videos and the YouTube rabbit hole11:30 Exploring F1’s business model13:49 Google search and the F1 website14:46 The path toward paid streaming15:38 Capturing leads without a discount17:08 App downloads and push notifications18:04 Walking through F1’s app onboarding19:30 Permission controls and subscription retention21:20 Final thoughts
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 107: 4 Digital Asset Reframes
2026/10/06
How much campaign content are you rebuilding every week? And how many steps do shoppers take before they can buy?
Jordan Gordon walks through four digital asset reframes that change how your emails and site pages work together:
• Email campaigns as homepages, with a fresh feature up top and reusable sections below
• Homepages that combine discovery, product details, and purchasing
• Collection pages with useful blog and video content beneath the products
• PDPs that introduce your brand to shoppers landing there for the first time
Using examples from Anthropologie and Grüns, Jordan explains how these changes can reduce campaign production work and shorten the path to checkout.
For help with email, retention, and CRO, visit https://www.pilothouse.co and ask to speak with Jordan.
00:00 Driving revenue through email and CRO
00:29 Episode preview
01:23 Four digital assets to rethink
02:20 The problems with campaigns, homepages, collections, and PDPs
04:43 Reframe 1: Treat email campaigns like homepages
08:06 Anthropologie’s reusable email sections
09:05 Reframe 2: Combine homepage, collection, and PDP
09:35 Grüns’ homepage breakdown
11:03 Reframe 3: Treat collection pages like content pages
13:00 Reframe 4: Treat PDPs like homepages
13:56 How the reframes change your customer journey
17:17 Closing thoughts
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 106: Retargeting Done Right: Boost Revenue with Post-Purchase (Replay)
2026/09/29
From the archive: Jordan Gordon breaks down how to use the first purchase to encourage a second one.
He walks through a post-purchase flow that starts with a relevant cross-sell, then introduces a broader offer that can also appear in paid ads and package inserts. The examples cover how to choose a product to feature, set an order minimum, and coordinate the offer across channels.
The episode was recorded earlier in the show’s run. Some platform setup details have changed since then, so check your current tracking and audience setup before applying the tactics.
In this episode:
• Specific cross-sell offers and broader order-value offers
• Why Jordan recommends introducing a different product category
• How email, paid ads, and package inserts can support the same offer
• What to consider when using a shared coupon code across channels
00:00 Why the second purchase matters
02:24 Where email revenue comes from
07:09 Four ways to grow email revenue
11:31 Building a post-purchase flow
12:57 Specific vs. broad offers
16:27 Cross-selling into another product category
18:26 Adding an accessories offer
19:25 Setting a minimum-spend offer
21:51 Coupon codes across channels
22:20 Bringing paid ads into the campaign
24:19 Adding an offer to the package
26:18 Recap
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 105: How Four Brands Solve Problems With Their Emails and Websites
2026/09/22
Four brands. Four different ecommerce problems. Four ways email and website design can help solve them.
In this visual episode, Jordan breaks down how Lack of Color, Devon + Lang, DÔEN, and Netrition shape their emails, product pages, and category pages around the way customers actually shop.
You’ll see how:
Lack of Color uses large product grids to help shoppers find a highly personal style Devon + Lang treats its PDP as a shoppable homepage DÔEN reinforces exclusivity through editorial category pages and sold-out products Netrition organizes a massive catalog by product type, dietary goal, and discovery content
Jordan also covers mobile email layouts, dark mode issues, PDP fold-one essentials, click-flow testing, product galleries, size guides, and dynamic email sections.
This is a visual episode, so open the video for the full email and website walkthrough.
Want help generating more revenue from your existing traffic and customer base? Visit Pilothouse and ask to speak with the Email and Retention team.
Key Timestamps
00:00 How email and CRO unlock revenue from existing traffic
01:23 Four brands and four ecommerce challenges
02:50 Lack of Color’s product-heavy email strategy
07:09 What its product page leaves unclear
08:36 Devon + Lang’s shoppable-homepage PDP
12:31 Bundles, size guides, video, and product comparisons
15:00 How DÔEN sells high-priced apparel online
16:28 Why its email sends shoppers to a category page
18:53 Building an editorial category-page experience
22:39 Why DÔEN keeps sold-out products visible
24:36 How Netrition organizes a massive food catalog
28:30 Using discovery content, recommendations, and education
30:26 Shopping by category and dietary goal
31:52 Final takeaways
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 104: The 12-Point Klaviyo Inspection
2026/09/15
How healthy is your Klaviyo account?
Jordan Gordon walks through the 12-point inspection he uses to assess Klaviyo accounts in 10 to 15 minutes. The inspection covers revenue, clicks, audience growth, campaign frequency, send volume, and flows, with a second check for every metric that can be distorted by attribution settings, privacy opens, or bot clicks.
You’ll learn how to:
• Compare Shopify revenue growth with Klaviyo revenue growth
• Check whether Klaviyo’s attributed revenue is trustworthy
• Compare Shopify sessions with unique email and SMS clicks
• use Gmail performance to spot reporting or inboxing problems
• Measure list growth without Apple Privacy Opens inflating the audience
• Audit campaign frequency, headlines, and design quality
• Evaluate your campaign-to-flow revenue split
• Use your first welcome email as an account-wide health check
Need help generating more revenue from your existing traffic and customers? Visit
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Why email and CRO are the fastest revenue opportunities
00:29 The 12-point Klaviyo inspection
01:24 Introduction
02:23 How the inspection works
02:52 Revenue growth and attribution settings
05:49 Unique clicks and Shopify sessions
07:45 Checking Gmail performance
11:11 Measuring list and audience health
14:05 Forms, subscribers, and unsubscribes
16:02 Campaign frequency and creative quality
18:01 Send volume and campaign open rates
20:24 Flow revenue and welcome email health
21:54 The complete 12-point recap
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 103: Should DTC Brands Wait Until $10M to Run Paid Ads? | From the Trenches: Real Problems, Real Solutions
2026/09/08
Should DTC brands really avoid paid ads until they hit $5M to $10M in revenue?
A viral Cody Sanchez take sparked that debate, so Eric Dyck sits down with Pilothouse’s Jordan and Raf for the first edition of The DTC Rundown: a rapid-fire breakdown of the arguments, strategies, and problems DTC operators are talking about right now.
They dig into when paid acquisition actually makes sense, why brands can end up spending money advertising to customers who were already going to buy, and why healthier growth can sometimes make your marketing metrics look worse.
They also break down what changes as brands move past the early growth stage, including the shift from capturing existing demand to creating new demand, balancing evergreen marketing with bigger campaign moments, and keeping Meta and Klaviyo audience signals clean enough to know whether you’re actually acquiring new customers.
Plus, two real examples from the trenches show what happens when a website is designed around existing customers, an acquisition funnel creates too much friction, and a brand keeps using the same playbook long after the market around it has changed.
Key timestamps:
00:00 Why email and CRO can unlock revenue without more ad spend
02:21 Should brands really avoid paid ads until $5M–$10M?
10:09 The hidden ad spend wasted on existing customers
12:02 Evergreen vs. campaigns as brands scale
20:06 Why clean audience definitions matter on Meta
23:23 What slowing growth actually looks like inside the numbers
31:04 When your website is built for existing customers
38:41 The conversion funnel mistake costing one brand sales
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 102: 0.25% CTR and Not in Spam: What Do You Fix Next?
2026/09/01
What do you fix when your email program has a 0.25% click-through rate and deliverability isn’t the problem?
This week, Jordan breaks down a pattern he sees across larger DTC brands: daily campaigns, oversized automated flow systems, low engagement, and plenty of attributed revenue that makes the program look healthier than it really is.
He walks through how to find your real click-through rate, strip out bot activity, identify which flow messages are actually generating revenue, and figure out where relevance can still create meaningful lift. Jordan also explains why attributed revenue rewards brands for sending more email, even when those sends may have little incremental impact.
Then he gets into the fix: build a true control group, simplify bloated flow systems, concentrate automated messaging around high-intent windows, reduce broad campaign frequency, and measure whether email is actually increasing customer spend across channels.
Key Timestamps:
01:23 The 0.25% CTR problem
03:20 How to find your real click-through rate
05:13 The 80/20 test for bloated flow systems
07:09 How to rule out deliverability as the problem
09:33 Finding the audience where relevance matters most
13:24 Why attributed revenue rewards sending more email
15:51 Building a control group to measure incremental lift
20:10 How to simplify flows and reduce campaign volume
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 101: How to Know When You’re Marketing to the Wrong Customers
2026/08/25
The customers that got your brand to its current size may not be the customers who take it to the next stage of growth.
This week, Jordan is joined by Pilothouse’s Rafael Gi to break down a pattern they’re seeing across brands at very different stages: the customer base, acquisition strategy, and messaging that once worked can eventually become a ceiling.
They walk through three real brand scenarios, including a skincare company where 80% of free-sample buyers never purchased again, a sports brand that had outgrown its parent-focused positioning, and a sunglasses brand seeing its higher-AOV customer segment grow while its traditional core market declined.
Jordan and Raf discuss how to spot these shifts early, what your new-to-repeat customer mix can tell you, why revenue per email sent matters, how acquisition platforms get trained on the customers you attract, and how to realign your ads, website, and retention strategy around the customers with the most future value.
In this episode:
How to tell when you’re marketing to the wrong customersWhy growing brands can outgrow their original customer segmentThe danger of training Meta and Google to find discount buyersWhy 80% of one brand’s free-sample customers never purchased againHow to analyze new vs. repeat customer cohortsRevenue per email sent as an early warning signalMatching PDP messaging to the audience landing thereHow to shift toward a more valuable customer segment without losing your existing base
01:22 Why your current customers may be holding back your next stage of growth
03:39 Three brands facing the same customer-segment problem
08:00 How to tell when you’re marketing to the wrong people
09:29 Using Shopify cohorts to diagnose customer quality
10:27 Revenue per email sent as an early warning signal
11:52 When your PDP is speaking to the wrong customer
16:39 How discount acquisition can train Meta and Google on the wrong buyers
20:57 When a higher-value customer segment starts replacing your core market
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 100: 100% in Gmail Spam: How We’re Rewarming This Email Account
2026/08/18
Jordan is in the middle of rewarming an email account that Gmail was sending straight to spam, so this week he’s taking you inside the process.
He breaks down what damaged the account’s sending reputation, the engagement segments he’s using to rebuild it, why static send size matters during a rewarm, and how he’s using Gmail-specific data, GlockApps, and Postmaster Tools to tell when it’s safe to scale back up.
Jordan also explains why your reported email revenue may be inflated by Apple Privacy Opens, why list size is one of the most misleading metrics in email, and what brands should watch before a struggling program gets this far.
In this episode:
The email trilemma: traffic, inboxing, and list growthWhat 100% Gmail spam actually meansThe segments Jordan uses during a rewarmWhy engaged senders should ramp volume slowlyThe problem with Apple Privacy Opens and email attributionWhy prospect-only campaigns can hurt engagementHow to use Google Postmaster Tools during recoveryWhen to start expanding your audience again
If your email performance looks healthy on paper while clicks and inbox placement tell a different story, this episode shows you where to look.
01:24 Why this email account needs a rewarm
02:22 The email trilemma: traffic, inboxing, and list growth
05:13 Inside an account hitting 100% Gmail spam
08:08 How Apple Privacy Opens can inflate email revenue
11:05 The exact segments Jordan uses to rewarm an account
14:02 Why static send size matters during a rewarm
20:54 GlockApps, Gmail segments, and Google Postmaster Tools
24:12 Using high-engagement promos to rebuild sending reputation
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 99: Jordan's new favourite email program PLUS a mistake you can avoid
2026/08/11
Jordan has a new favourite email program, and it breaks a lot of the rules marketers usually follow.
In this episode of The World’s Best Email and Retention Podcast, Jordan breaks down Dôen’s email program, from its layered photo grids and behind-the-scenes creative to tiny copy, cursive fonts, and understated CTAs.
The program assumes its audience actually wants to spend time with the brand. That matters when your emails are competing inside a promotions tab packed with dozens of other brands.
Jordan also catches one mistake in Dôen’s otherwise excellent program: two different abandonment emails landing within four minutes of each other. He explains why overlapping cart, checkout, site abandonment, and third-party identification flows can cause this, plus the waterfall exclusions he uses to prevent it.
What you’ll learn:
Why Dôen has become Jordan’s new favourite email programHow behind-the-scenes content helps pull customers deeper into a brand’s worldWhy intentional creative can make subscribers actively look for your emailsHow to use photo grids, GIFs, location shoots, and community contentThe abandonment-flow mistake Jordan found in his own inboxHow to structure exclusions across checkout, cart, site abandonment, and third-party triggersWhy winning an individual CRO test can still degrade the overall brand experienceHow email design, copy, CTAs, and creative work together as one system
00:00 – Why email + CRO are the fastest path to more ecommerce revenue
01:25 – Jordan’s new favourite email program: Dôen
04:15 – Why Dôen designs for an intentional reader
08:01 – The behind-the-scenes email that immediately got Jordan to open
09:00 – How to stand out in a completely stuffed Promotions tab
12:52 – Jordan finds a mistake
15:49 – The abandonment flow waterfall that prevents duplicate emails
17:17 – Why a “winning” CRO test can slowly degrade your brand
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 98: 11 Email Marketing Mistakes Brands Keep Making
2026/08/04
After auditing hundreds of email programs, Jordan Gordon has seen the same mistakes show up again and again.
In this episode of The World’s Best Email & Retention Podcast, Jordan runs through 11 common problems that make retention programs harder to manage and less effective, from creating endless Klaviyo segments and bloated flows to mixing too many goals into one post-purchase journey.
He also gets into why non-opener resends can hurt your sending reputation, where your best offer should appear in an email, what brands miss when testing dark mode, and why producing more campaigns can leave you with thinner creative.
Then he moves beyond the inbox with two CRO mistakes he sees constantly: underdeveloped top product pages and homepages that have accumulated too many competing ideas.
What you’ll learn:
Why you probably have too many Klaviyo segmentsHow bloated flows create dead weight in your retention programWhy each automation should have one clear conversion goalWho you should ask for reviews and UGCWhy non-opener double taps can hurt deliverabilityWhere your strongest offer should appearWhy every brand should be checking emails in dark modeHow too much campaign volume can weaken your creativeWhat your highest-traffic PDP needs above the foldHow to clean up an overloaded homepage
00:00 – How Email + CRO Drive More Revenue
01:22 – The Email Mistakes Jordan Sees Every Day
03:19 – Why Too Many Flows Become Dead Weight
06:16 – UGC, Reviews & Post-Purchase Mistakes
10:07 – Give Every Automation One Clear Goal
13:29 – Offers, Non-Opener Resends & Dark Mode
16:22 – When Too Much Email Content Hurts Performance
22:13 – PDP & Homepage CRO Mistakes
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 97: The Perfect Pop-Up: Timing, Targeting, and the Right Offer
2026/07/28
In this episode of The World’s Best Email and Retention Podcast, Jordan Gordon sits down with Alia founder Shaan Arora to break down what makes a high-converting pop-up work.
Shaan shares how Alia grew from a college project to $8 million in revenue before being acquired by Dotdigital for $60 million. He also explains how the company uses behavioral data to personalize pop-ups based on the shopper, timing, creative, and offer.
They get into the role of data as a competitive advantage, how AI is changing software development, and why strong e-commerce brands continue testing even after they find a winning variation.
What you’ll learn:
How Alia grew from two early customers to a $60 million acquisitionThe four elements behind a “perfect pop-up”How timing, traffic source, and customer history affect conversionWhy blanket discounts can quietly reduce marginHow customer data creates an advantage that competitors cannot quickly copyWhy Alia continues focusing on pop-ups as a core productHow continuous A/B testing compounds conversion gainsWhy flexible software contracts can make experimentation easier
00:41 What makes a “perfect pop-up”
01:48 Alia’s $60 million acquisition
03:13 From college project to $8 million in revenue
08:54 AI, software development, and defensible SaaS moats
12:38 Personalizing the customer, timing, creative, and offer
18:48 Why strong brands never stop testing
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
Ep 96: The Future of Ecommerce Websites: AI Storefronts Built for Every Ad
2026/07/21
In this episode of The World’s Best Email and Retention Podcast, Jordan Gordon sits down with Black Crow co-founder Shazad Khan to explore how AI could reshape the ecommerce website.
As ad creative, search queries, and retention messages become more personalized, most shoppers still land on the same static product or collection page. Black Crow Storefronts is built to carry the context of each ad through the full post-click experience, creating tailored landing pages, product flows, carts, and upsells for each audience and campaign.
Jordan and Shazad break down how AI storefronts work, where they fit into a brand’s marketing stack, and how creative teams, media buyers, and agencies may use them to improve conversion after the click.
What you’ll learn:
How AI is changing the role of the ecommerce websiteWhy every ad could eventually lead to a unique storefrontHow Black Crow builds dynamic experiences from landing page to checkoutWhy post-click relevance can improve conversion and ROASWhich brands are ready to use AI storefrontsHow Black Crow supports email list growth and abandonment recoveryHow AI could change the responsibilities of media buyers and creative teams
00:00 How to drive more revenue without increasing ad spend
02:50 What will an ecommerce website look like in 10 years?
04:47 The personalization gap after someone clicks an ad
10:06 Inside Black Crow Storefronts
12:30 How AI builds a unique storefront for every ad
17:48 Controlling which products and audiences AI prioritizes
23:08 How AI changes creative and media buying roles
30:24 Black Crow’s AI tools for email and retention
Work with Pilothouse: https://www.pilothouse.co/get-in-touch?utm_source=dtc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=e&rPodcast
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DTCPodcast
Subscribe to DTC: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/
Listen to DTC Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dtcpodcast
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