DTC Podcast Ep 559: How Nate Lagos Quadrupled Original Grain’s Growth Using Persona-Based CRO

Guest: Nate Lagos, CMO of Adapt Naturals (Formerly of Original Grain)
Host: DTC Newsletter and Podcast
Release Date: November 10, 2025

Overview

This episode delves into the marketing playbook of Nate Lagos, whose persona-driven conversion rate optimization (CRO) and offer innovation fueled Original Grain’s explosive growth. Nate shares tactical lessons from quadrupling Original Grain’s size in under four years, discusses the transition from single-purchase to subscription ecommerce (as CMO of Adapt Naturals), and offers practical advice on campaign structure, creative production, team leadership, and remote work.

Key Discussion Points

1. Nate’s DTC Journey & Early Lessons

• Background: Born 1996, outside Boston. Played collegiate baseball in South Carolina, majored in baseball, minored in marketing. Started freelance digital marketing while still a student.
  • "Majored in baseball, but minored in marketing." — Nate [01:41]
• Early Career: Grew skills doing organic and paid social, joined ecom brands Dugout Mugs and Original Grain. Both brands offered giftable, wood-based products that performed well during major holidays.
  • "Crushed around the holidays of Christmas and Father's Day and Valentine's Day." — Nate [02:29]

2. Explosive Growth at Original Grain

• Nate joined Original Grain in its seventh/eighth year, helping drive a quadrupling in business size over four years.
• Key Growth Drivers:
  • Product differentiation: Wood-inlaid watches.
  • Improved creative quality: "We ended up quadrupling in size from my first year there to my fourth..."
  • Persona-based messaging: "We realized there were actually sub personas within each group..." [07:00]
  • Strategic partnerships: e.g. Jack Daniels.

3. Persona-Based Marketing: The Heart of OG’s Strategy

• Original Grain’s customer base split into rugged, self-gifting men and women buying gifts. Each group required dramatically different messaging and creative.
  • "For 10 months a year, we need to market to the guys. And then for two months a year, we got to really market to their women." — Nate [05:45]
• Further segmentation within personas (accomplishment, milestone, or self-care for men).
• Focused research, including reading reviews and customer analysis, led to hyper-targeted landing pages and ad campaigns.
  • "Someone is seeing... accomplishment-focused ads, they are going to a male accomplishment focused LP." — Nate [08:31]

4. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Nate’s Super Lever

• Realized traffic and spend increased, but revenue gains lagged—forcing a deeper dive into CRO.
  • "We had spent, like, 100% more money on ads... but revenue is only up like 50%. Something went wrong here." — Nate [09:29]
• Discovered split testing via IntelliGems; quickly became core to Nate's approach.
  • Price, messaging, and offer tests yielded small wins (10% uplift in conversion) that yielded broad business impact.
  • "Getting a win on the homepage... wasn’t just going to make one ad work better. It was going to make the business work better." — Nate [10:44]

5. Creative Production: Quality vs Quantity

• Discussion of Charlie Titchener vs. Jordan Maynard ‘creative volume’ debate.
  • Nate’s take: Quality trumps volume—make great creative that addresses real pain points and motivations.
  • "Setting a quantity goal is wrong for anything in life." — Nate [12:25]
  • OG scaled from 4 great ads a week to 40, but only when resources and quality allowed.
• The value of systematically uncovering why people purchase—beyond product features.
  • "I stopped looking at other watch companies as our only competitors. When I’m selling to gifters, I'm competing against any gift for guys..." — Nate [14:48]

6. The “Better Than Black Friday” Offer

• Best offer at OG: Pre-Black Friday sale (Nov 1–Thanksgiving), regular Black Friday discount plus $50 future-use gift card.
  • "That got way more people to buy before BFCM... buyers had 30% higher LTV than any other customer cohort..." — Nate [00:00, 18:28]
  • "A ton of people acquired on that deal came back for the following Valentine’s Day or Father’s Day." — Nate [00:00, 18:28]
• An outstanding offer drives both acquisition and retention.

7. Transitioning to Consumables: New CMO Role at Adapt Naturals

• Moving to CMO role at Adapt Naturals (supplements).
• Mindset shift: Subscriptions and high lifetime value become the growth engine. Testing, CRO, and persona-driven messaging remain pillars.
  • "What changes is how we model and forecast and plan for growth. Because we can obviously bake in some predicted LTV..." — Nate [16:57]
• Bundling and AOV: Will test higher-priced offers and premium bundles, “Giving rich customers a chance to give you more money.”
  • "We didn’t develop any new products, we just bundled them together... Give them the chance to give you more money." — Nate [20:54]

8. Team Leadership & Remote Work Philosophy

• Advocates for remote work; productivity depends on alignment, communication, and hiring self-starters— not physical presence.
• "If you want me to drive somewhere every day at 8:00am... that’s gonna cost you." — Nate [24:50]
• Tools: Slack, Asana, Twist, Notion. Focus on asynchronous efficiency, minimal meetings, and clear business goals.

9. The Marketer’s Conspiracy Mindset

• Marketers are “pattern recognizers”—naturally drawn to seeing unseen connections, leading to a penchant for theories (and sometimes conspiracies).
  • "Because I think we recognize patterns." — Nate [27:23]
• Marketing is about manufacturing and communicating new truths.

10. Copywriting Rituals & Creative Process

• Two creative modes: Analytical (morning, data-driven) and Intuitive (evening, relaxed, whiskey by the fire).
  • "Probably 70% super analytical and responsible. 30%...whiskey." — Nate [29:04]
• Surprise: Nate spends much time on psychology research and review analysis; it’s not all “creative inspiration.”

11. Advice to Marketers: The One-Message Billboard

• Focus on one thing and do it really well, consistently.
  • "Do one thing remarkably well over and over and over again." — Nate [31:15]
• Avoid chasing tactics or shiny objects; breakthrough comes from depth, not breadth.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We ended up quadrupling in size from my first year there to my fourth.” [03:03]
• “Getting a win on our homepage... it was going to make the business work better.” [10:44]
• “Setting a quantity goal is wrong for anything in life.” [12:25]
• “I stopped looking at other watch companies as our only competitors... I’m competing against any gift for guys.” [14:48]
• “Rich people are going to come to your website and shop. Give them the chance to give you more money.” [20:54]
• “If you want me to drive somewhere every day at 8:00am, no, that’s, that's gonna cost you.” [24:50]
• “Do one thing remarkably well over and over and over again.” [31:15]

Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:40 — OG’s best-ever offer and its impact on pre-BFCM sales/LTV.
• 01:41–03:00 — Nate’s marketing origin and early ecom career.
• 04:09–08:08 — Persona-based marketing at Original Grain.
• 09:29–11:40 — Discovering CRO as a growth super-lever.
• 12:25–14:48 — Creative debate: volume vs. quality; finding the real why customers buy.
• 18:24–19:57 — Deep dive into the “Better Than Black Friday” offer and its long-term impact.
• 20:08–22:44 — Bundling strategy and maximizing AOV + premium offers.
• 24:24–27:17 — Remote work, leadership philosophy, and team dynamics.
• 27:17–28:44 — Marketers as pattern recognizers and the “conspiracy” connection.
• 29:04–30:07 — Copywriting rituals and the mix of analytical and inspired processes.
• 31:15–32:07 — Nate’s “one message on a billboard” for all marketers.

Final Thoughts

Nate’s episode offers a masterclass in persona-driven CRO, the power of signature offers, and grounded advice for scaling DTC brands. His focus on deep customer understanding, offer strategy, and executional excellence is paired with a strong belief in remote teamwork and doing fewer things—but doing them to the absolute max.

Actionable takeaway:
Don’t split your focus—master your channel or tactic, speak directly to uncovered customer motivations, and relentlessly optimize offers and landing pages for every persona.

Follow Nate Lagos for more tactical insights.
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