🔎 Unlocking Customer Gold: The Deep Research Method for Scaling Ads

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 In today’s newsletter 

• The 5-Day Research Sprint: Insights That Will Scale Your Brand

• Stop coupon leaks, increase margin

• 23 Email Marketing Best Practices That Drive Results in 2025

• Your Ad Account Isn’t Scaling? Here’s Why..

• Get Your Team Booked on 3.8 Million Podcasts Automatically

• Latest News: The State of Product Discovery in Digital Commerce 2025 & more…

  Let's Dive Into It! 👇

Most DTC founders jump straight into running ads without truly understanding what makes their product sell. That’s why so many struggle to scale.

How to overcome this?

Deep Research.

Over the next five days, let’s dive into a research-driven approach to scaling—not fluff, but actionable insights you can implement in the next 5 days to create better ads that hit home runs.

Let’s start with customer reviews—the goldmine of insights hiding in plain sight.

Most DTC founders underestimate the power of customer reviews. 

Yet, they hold the clearest insights into what makes people buy and why they hesitate.

But scanning hundreds of reviews manually? That’s inefficient. 

Here’s a structured way to extract real, usable insights in under an hour.

Step 1: Collect Reviews from All Possible Sources

• Your Website

• Amazon (for your brand and competitors)

• Google Reviews

• Facebook, Reddit, YouTube Comments

Bonus: If your product is new, analyze competitor reviews to understand broader market pain points.

Step 2: Identify Patterns in Customer Feedback

Manually going through reviews is time-consuming. Instead, use ChatGPT to organize insights efficiently.

📌 Prompt for ChatGPT:
"Here are 100 customer reviews for [your product]. Categorize them into: (1) Common praise, (2) Common complaints, (3) Specific objections, and (4) Emotional triggers that influenced purchases."

This will instantly highlight the top reasons people buy or hesitate.

Step 3: Build Your Problem-Solution-Desire Matrix

Now that you have raw insights, structure them into three core messaging buckets:

• Problems → What recurring frustrations do customers express?

• Solutions → How does your product directly solve these?

• Desires → What emotional end state are they hoping to achieve?

📌 Example for a Skincare Brand:

• Problem: “My moisturizer feels heavy and clogs my pores.”

• Solution: “Our lightweight gel formula absorbs instantly without residue.”

• Desire: “I want hydrated, breathable skin that feels fresh all day.”

Step 4: Insights to First Draft:

Take your problem-solution-desire insights and craft a compelling 30-second pitch:

"Tired of moisturizers that feel greasy and suffocating? Our lightweight gel hydrates without clogging pores, giving you fresh, breathable skin—so you stay comfortable all day."

This isn’t your final messaging.

We’ll get back to refining this on day-4.

Meanwhile, note this down somewhere & get back to it with a fresh mind later. You’ll be rewriting it in a much better way.

Coming Up Next: Tomorrow, we’ll break down competitor research—how to analyze their ads, positioning, and weaknesses to gain an unfair advantage.

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Email marketing remains a powerhouse in e-commerce, delivering exceptional returns on investment. Studies indicate that for every dollar spent, businesses can expect a return ranging from $36 to $42.

Yet, despite its potential, many e-commerce brands underutilize this channel.

I recently came across an insightful article by OptiMonk titled "23 Email Marketing Best Practices That Drive Results in 2025" that offers a comprehensive guide to enhancing your email marketing efforts. I found the strategies discussed particularly valuable and believe they can significantly impact your campaigns.

Here are three actionable takeaways from the article:

1. Establish Realistic and SMART Goals

Setting Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound objectives provides clear direction for your email campaigns. Whether aiming to boost open rates, click-through rates, or overall engagement, well-defined goals are crucial for measuring success.

2. Utilize Lead Magnets to Build Your List

Offering valuable incentives, such as exclusive discounts or informative resources, in exchange for email sign-ups is an effective way to grow your subscriber base. This approach attracts subscribers genuinely interested in your offerings, fostering a quality email list.

3. Send Re-Engagement Campaigns to Inactive Subscribers

Targeting inactive subscribers with special offers or surveys can rekindle their interest and reduce list decay. Re-engagement campaigns help maintain a healthy and active subscriber base, ensuring your emails reach those most likely to convert.

Implementing these strategies can lead to measurable improvements in your email marketing performance. For a comprehensive guide,

Explore all 23 best practices in the full article here.

Your Ad Account Isn’t Scaling? Here’s Why..

Most brands get stuck in one of two extremes:

1. Too cautious – They obsess over ROAS and refuse to invest in prospecting.

2. Too aggressive – They throw budget at reach campaigns without a clear path to conversions.

The best ad strategy comes from combining multiple approaches effectively:

• Use reach campaigns to warm up new audiences, but don’t expect them to convert immediately

• Let lowest cost conversion campaigns do the heavy lifting on purchases

• Use cost caps strategically—not as a safety net, but as a way to capitalize on high-value conversions

This isn’t about hacking the algorithm. It’s about understanding how people actually buy. But that said, what works for 1 brand may not always work for another, so you gotta test it for yourself and find out what combination works best for your brand.

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📰IN THE NEWS

👉The State of Product Discovery in Digital Commerce 2025

The 2025 report on product discovery in digital commerce highlights how AI, especially generative AI, is transforming online shopping experiences. Retailers like Harvey Nichols and Mainline Menswear are using AI to improve search, recommendations, and personalization. Optimizing product discovery can boost customer satisfaction, conversions, and international growth. Staying ahead of these trends ensures ecommerce brands remain competitive.

👉Pinterest Plans to Roll Out More Transparent AI Labeling on Posts

Pinterest is introducing labels for AI-generated content to enhance transparency and help users distinguish between real and AI-created visuals. The platform is also urging creators and partners to disclose AI usage in their uploads.  Using AI-generated visuals, proper labeling will be essential for credibility. As AI content floods social platforms, clear identification can build trust with audiences and prevent misinformation.

Have any questions that you need help with?

Ask here - look out for Friday’s issue where Ibrahim will answer them.