Marketing Operators Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Our DTC 2026 Predictions & What 2025 Got Right and Wrong
Hosts: Connor MacDonald & Cody Plofker
Date: January 13, 2026

Episode Overview

In this special predictions episode—a now-annual tradition—Connor and Cody dive into what 2026 will look like for DTC and eCommerce marketers, reflecting on what their 2025 predictions got right and wrong. They hold themselves accountable for misses, take well-earned victory laps, and dissect upcoming trends, channel shifts, AI creative advancements, and evolving tech and operational strategies. Expect candid, in-depth insights, highlighted by memorable quotes and actionable predictions on major platforms like Meta, AppLovin, X, and affiliate, creative, and operational innovation.

Key Discussions & Insights

1. The Importance of Accountability with Predictions

• Theme: Real talk on industry predictions—call your own misses, don’t only cherry-pick the wins.
  • Quote: “If you make them, you have to hold yourself accountable. It kills me when people are like doing their predictions and then obviously like cherry pick what’s right.”
    —Connor [00:04]
• Both hosts revisit 2025 predictions, grading themselves openly (Connor: 8/15 correct), sharing why being transparent about forecasts (and errors) provides much more value.

2. Meta’s Move Toward New Customer Acquisition

• Prediction: Meta will double down on helping brands acquire new—not just returning—customers, responding to advertiser feedback about incrementality and exclusions.
  • Quote: “Meta has heard a lot of the feedback. It knows it's too good at finding people ready to buy...we always constantly need to be acquiring new customers to grow.”
    —Connor [09:59]
  • Quote: “Having control over the dimension of spending money on new versus returning customers makes total sense.”
    —Cody [12:50]
• Brands now need greater control and segmentation between new and existing customers for profitable, sustainable growth.
• Expect new tools (in beta or alpha) from Meta focusing on exclusions, incremental attribution, and advanced bidding.

3. Organic Social: The New/Old Frontier

• Prediction: DTC brands, especially those that once thrived on paid, will finally get serious about organic and algorithmically-driven social content (with a performance mindset).
  • Quote: “Growth teams should own some organic social because it's much more similar to that now...It's no longer, ‘oh, I'm just going to put pretty stuff up.’”
    —Connor [15:14]
  • Quote: “Really good brands are crushing organic social. None of this stuff is new...we probably spent so little of [our $50M in 2025 marketing] on social. I do think if done correctly...should be really important.”
    —Connor [14:39]
• The shift is from ‘pretty posts’ to targeted, measured, and scalable content engines feeding both organic and paid, inspired by newer brands excelling in this arena.

4. The Rise of Brand Awareness as a Quantified Metric

• Insight: Brands will invest more in measuring and optimizing for awareness—viewing past and current spend as an “asset” boosting future sales.
  • Quote: “The dollars that you've spent should be thought of as like an asset on your balance sheet. I'd rather have spent $50 million in marketing previously than $0.”
    —Cody [17:56]
  • Quote: “We begin thinking about [analytics infrastructure] differently...awareness and consideration is a leading indicator before sales.”
    —Connor [20:48]
• More sophisticated brand tracking (e.g., via Tracksuit) will link awareness lift to future revenue, even if attribution is less direct.
• Brand dollars may eventually be “capitalized” conceptually, just like store buildouts.

5. Dynamic Pricing and Pre-Order Strategies (Comfort Model)

• Prediction: Dynamic pricing and “convenience tiers” (e.g., pre-order discounts for slow delivery) become the norm, with inspiration from brands like Comfort.
  • Quote: “Dynamic pricing becomes table stakes...the death of MSRP.”
    —Cody quoting Taylor’s prediction [25:00]
  • Quote: “Especially like apparel is not a great...cash flow business in general...I would not have been able to do what they've [Comfort] done without the preorder component.”
    —Connor [27:27]
• Pre-orders, inventory-optimized discounts, and geographic pricing are underutilized levers most DTC brands can implement for cash flow and margin improvement.

6. Affiliate & Dropshipping: Shedding the Stigma, Getting Smarter

• Prediction: These models receive a “glow up”—without the gray-hat baggage. New platforms and Shopify (via ShopMy or Collective) will enable cross-brand upsell, affiliate, and dropship opportunities.
  • Quote: “Affiliate is just variable [CAC]. You only pay when you acquire a customer. Like as long as it's incremental, what brands wouldn’t rather have that?”
    —Connor [32:53]
  • Quote: “Everything ends up making its way back onto the table...over the course of time, with all the headwinds that you face.”
    —Cody [34:10]
• Example: Post-purchase upsells, drop shipping between D2C stores, and the re-normalization of “formerly scammy” tactics, now driven by necessity and transparency.

7. Channel Shifts: AppLovin, X, and the Universal Feed Dream

• Prediction: AppLovin cements itself as a major platform, likely 5-10% of performance budget (with unique, non-skippable ad units; tailored creative necessary). X emerges as a “real” ad channel.
  • Quote: “If an ad platform’s getting 5% of total budget share, that’s big...if they can be 7 to 8%, 10% feels high.”
    —Cody [39:55]
  • Quote: “Where the money goes...there’s opportunity...if it goes from 5 to 10% year over year share, significant opportunity there because creative is as important on AppLovin as it is on Meta.”
    —Connor [44:53]
• Rise of specialized agencies for AppLovin-specific creative and media buying expected.
• Taylor Holiday’s “universal feed” concept discussed—potential for consolidated buying platforms; likely limited by each tech giant’s walled-garden incentives.

8. Creative Signal Engineering & Non-Purchase Event Optimization

• Prediction: Brands increasingly optimize for higher-intent, non-purchase events (ex: “View Content” or custom engaged actions), with SaaS solutions building smarter “signals” beyond simple conversions.
  • Quote: “I’d love to say...we’re going to use all these different data points, all these different site behaviors, we’re going to identify when someone becomes an interested user...then we're sending that signal back to Meta.”
    —Cody [52:52]
• Expect “smart pixels” or similar tech to identify and optimize for behaviors that best predict future revenue or high LTV, not just purchases.

9. AI Content: From Hype to Reality—Big Impact, New Problems

• Prediction: 2026 will see massive creative output driven by AI, especially statics and (soon) video—impossible to distinguish from human-generated. “Scorched earth on volume.”
  • Quote: “AI Creative: statics are easy...video is getting close...it’s at the volume where we can get 100 a day. Literally our limiter now is literally uploading.”
    —Connor [67:52]
  • Quote: “Adam Mosseri...saying AI video is getting so good that...it’s going to really change how people perceive content. And it’s going to make people really not trust things.”
    —Connor [70:39]
• Brands will need new strategies for authenticity and trust, e.g., IRL, livestreams, lo-fi BTS, as consumers may start to distrust even creators due to deepfakes.

10. The Data Layer & Operational Moat

• Insight: A brand's operational sophistication now depends on uniting fragmented data (marketing, inventory, finance, creative) in master data tables or “data warehouse” solutions, with agencies and SaaS like Saras leading.
  • Quote: “The underlying data rails of the most important piece of information...complete fragmented mess...”
    —Cody quoting Taylor [55:59]
• Not everyone agrees it's the ‘core problem’ for all brands—profitable customer acquisition still rules—but the operational underpinnings are essential for scale.

11. AI Infrastructure Over Tools

• Prediction: The value will come from documentation, structured datasets, and portable knowledge, not from a proliferation of single-use AI tools.
  • Quote: “Brands realize the key to unlocking AI...is not through one-off tools but with infrastructure and documentation.”
    —Cody [76:46]
• Brands will consolidate datasets and processes so any model (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) can plug in at will, with agencies and vendors supporting OS-like solutions built for marketing workflows.

12. Market Outlook for 2026

• Sentiment: Cautiously optimistic—bullish signals abound, inflation manageable, GDP growth up, but volatility and political headwinds remain.
  • Quote: “I think the hardest times are behind us. I think 2024, 2025 [were] the hardest times. And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I think it gets significantly better. Rates will come down, consumer confidence will go up.”
    —Connor [88:10]

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Accountability:
  “If you make them, you have to hold yourself accountable.” – Connor [00:04]

• On Meta and Customer Acquisition:
  “Meta has heard a lot of the feedback and knows it’s too good at finding people ready to buy.” — Connor [09:59]

• On Organic Social Shift:
  “Growth teams should own some organic social because it's much more similar to that now.” — Connor [15:14]

• On Data as an Asset:
  “The dollars that you've spent should be thought of as like an asset on your balance sheet.” — Cody [17:56]

• On Dynamic Pricing:
  “Dynamic pricing becomes table stakes. The death of msrp.” — Cody (via Taylor prediction) [25:00]

• On Affiliate/Drop Shipping’s Comeback:
  “Affiliate is just variable. You only pay when you acquire a customer. As long as it's incremental, what brands wouldn't rather have that?” — Connor [32:53]

• On AI Creative Volume:
  “We can get 100 ads uploaded to our ad account every single day.” — Connor [69:09]

• On the Coming Age of AI Video:
  “AI video. It's getting so good that...it's going to really change how people perceive content...you just can't tell.” – Connor [70:39]

• On 2026 Market Optimism:
  “I think the hardest times are behind us...Rates will come down, consumer confidence will go up.” — Connor [88:10]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 2025 Predictions Recap & Lessons: [04:52–07:18]
• Meta’s 2026 Focus & Nuance of Incrementality: [09:59–14:12]
• Organic Social: Growth Team’s New Domain: [14:30–17:43]
• Brand as Asset: Quantifying Awareness: [17:56–24:56]
• Dynamic Pricing & Pre-ordering (Comfort case): [25:00–29:48]
• Affiliate & Dropshipping 2.0: [30:04–35:59]
• AppLovin, X, and Universal Feed Predictions: [39:55–49:48]
• Creative Signal Engineering: [52:52–55:53]
• AI Creative Workflows—Volume & Authenticity: [67:52–74:51]
• Operational Data Unification: [55:59–61:39]
• AI Infrastructure vs. One-off Tools: [76:46–81:39]
• 2026 Economic & Consumer Outlook: [85:50–88:32]

Closing Thoughts

This episode doesn't just forecast—it diagnoses, debates, and deconstructs the real operational and channel challenges for DTC marketers in 2026. Connor and Cody’s predictions focus on increased sophistication: smarter channels, data-driven awareness, tech-powered creative, and the resurrection of direct marketing tools reborn for modern commerce. Their annual tradition continues to serve as a candid, practical blueprint for what’s next in the world of ecommerce brand building.