Subscription Prescription | Weekly Doses to Boost Ecommerce Revenue

Your subscription program isn't shrinking, but it isn't growing either. You're acquiring exactly as many subscribers as you're losing each month. That's the growth ceiling, and it's one of the most dangerous places a subscription brand can be. In this episode, I break down why subscription programs hit this equilibrium point and which lever to pull first to break through it (hint: it's probably no...

Black Friday is months away - and that's exactly why you should be working on your subscription strategy right now. In this episode, I walk through the three things subscription brands should be doing this summer to set themselves up for their biggest sales period of the year. What we cover: Why blanket discounts box you into a corner during BFCM How to mine your subscription data for high-LTV pro...

Most subscription brands avoid SMS because they're afraid it'll remind people to cancel. That fear is costing them long-term LTV. In this episode, I break down why SMS is one of the most underused tools in the subscriber journey, and how to use it the right way. What we cover: Why fear of SMS is really just loss aversion in disguise How SMS drives product adoption in the critical first month Using...

Most subscription brands are setting a ROAS target and calling it a strategy. Trevor Crump, co-founder of Bestie Media, breaks down why that's leaving serious growth on the table - and what to do instead. What we cover: Why ROAS constraints strangle your Meta spend before you ever hit your ceiling How to calculate what a subscriber is actually worth - and use that to make buying decisions Lead vs....

Grüns just got acquired by Unilever - and there are real lessons here for every subscription brand paying attention. In this episode, I break down the three things Grüns did exceptionally well that set them up for an exit like this. What we cover: How Grüns used a 3:1 LTV to CAC ratio to grow profitably at every stage Why product obsession is still the most underrated retention strategy How retail...

Josh Tay has spent years in retention at Common Thread Co., No Limit Email, and now as VP of Strategy at Chronos Agency — and his take on email might surprise you. What we cover: Why email is a secondary channel, not the starting point for subscription growth The three real levers that move the needle: front-end offers, retention, and upsells How to think about causation vs. correlation when brand...

AI is changing how customers find products — and most subscription brands aren't ready for it. In this episode, I break down how AI search actually works and what simple steps you can take right now to make sure your brand shows up. What we cover: Why AI search is different from traditional personalization (and why that matters) How AI uses context to surface products — and what that means for you...

Most subscription brands are losing revenue to failed payments - not because customers don't want to pay, but because they're being sent to the wrong place to fix it. In this episode, I break down how payment processing actually works, what your processor health score means, and how to build a dunning strategy that actually recovers payments. What we cover: How tokenization and payment processing...

Amazon has real advantages - trust, convenience, price, and discoverability. But that doesn't mean your Shopify store can't win. In this episode, I break down exactly why Amazon pulls subscribers away from DTC brands and what you can do to fight back. What we cover: The 4 reasons customers choose Amazon over your site Why discounting alone won't beat them How to build an offer that's impossible to...

AI is changing how people discover products online. And if your subscription offer isn't structured correctly, AI agents will skip right past it. In this episode, I sit down with my business partner David Bradley (and the founder of QPilot, Autoship Cloud, and Nextime) to break down how agentic commerce actually works, why subscription products need to be optimized differently than one-time purcha...

Most subscription brands invest heavily in getting the first order. Then they go silent. That gap between purchase and second shipment is where you lose subscribers, and most brands don't even realize it's happening. In this episode, I break down why post-purchase communication is the most overlooked lever in subscription retention and what to do about it. What we cover: • Why the window between o...

SpaceGoods does 80% of their business on subscription and their #1 churn reason is cost. So they tested making the subscription 25% cheaper. It didn't move the needle at all. In this episode, I sit down with Bea Le Coultre, Retention & CRM Manager at SpaceGoods, to talk about what actually drives subscription retention. We cover how they coach customers through their first two weeks, why match...

Most email agencies spread out your subscriber onboarding emails to avoid "over-sending." I think that's backwards. In this episode, I break down the email and SMS strategy that actually drives retention for subscription brands. What we cover: • Why you should send more emails in the first few days, not fewer • The onboarding window most brands completely waste • How to turn your billing reminder...

Jade Moffett from Dirtea joins the show to break down how they use education-first onboarding, segmented winback flows, and direct mail to retain and re-engage subscribers. We dig into why they wait to cross-sell, how their CX team shapes retention messaging, and the 200% lift they saw from Paper Run. What we cover: • Why education-first onboarding drives long-term retention • Segmenting winback f...

In this episode, I break down the three psychological triggers that keep subscribers from hitting the cancel button, and how you can use them to reduce churn. What we cover: • How reducing friction and anxiety prevents cancellation impulses • Why identity reinforcement makes subscribers feel like they belong • The role of habit formation in building long-term commitment • Practical ways to apply t...

Free trials are everywhere in DTC, but most brands struggle with what matters most: turning trials into full-price buyers and subscribers. In this episode of Subscription Prescription, I’m joined by Jose Vigo, founder of Healthy Metal, a magnesium sleep brand built around sachets and a “try it first” acquisition strategy. We unpack how a shipping-only trial can work, what drives conversion after t...

If I only had a couple of days to improve a subscription program, this is exactly where I would start. In this episode of Subscription Prescription, I walk through a mini subscription workshop focused on fast, high-impact fixes. These are practical changes you can make quickly to increase subscription opt-in, reduce churn, and improve retention without rebuilding your entire stack. We cover: Why d...

Claims are one of the fastest ways subscription brands grow and one of the fastest ways they get into trouble. In this episode of Subscription Prescription, Natascia Taken walks us through the do's and don'ts of claims. We talk about the legal reality behind the claims brands make across product pages, ads, emails, testimonials, and influencer content. This is an area most founders and operators t...

In this episode of Subscription Prescription, I break down a question that comes up constantly when auditing subscription brands. Most teams instinctively focus on retention, trying to squeeze incremental gains out of month-to-month renewal rates. But what if the biggest lever is actually before the first order ever happens? Using a simple, real-world math example, I walk through: Why cutting chur...

In this episode of Subscription Prescription, I’m joined by Hattie Gilpin, Director of Operations at Wellbel (a hair, skin, and nail supplement brand that’s ~87% subscription) and a founder of HAM, a new analytics platform built for subscription operators. We dig into the real problems subscription brands face when their data is split across tools (or disappears after platform migrations), and how...

In this solo episode of Subscription Prescription, I dig into one of the biggest headaches in DTC subscriptions: offer strategy. Should you run a discount, add a gift, or push a limited-time promotion? I break down the good, bad, and overlooked strategies behind each of these tools—and how they impact your conversion, margin, and long-term retention. We’ll cover: When discounts work—and when they...

Most brands think CRO = button colors and checkout tweaks. It’s not. In this episode of Subscription Prescription, I’m joined by Anthony Morgan (CEO & Founder of Enavi) to break down what real conversion rate optimization looks like for ecommerce subscription brands and where the biggest wins actually hide (hint: it’s usually not checkout). We cover how growing brands diagnose funnel bottlenec...

Wishing you and your team the best end to 2025 you can have. We're off until January. See you soon! For more info, visit https://thesubscriptiondoc.com

In this special roundtable edition of Subscription Prescription, I sat down with three of the sharpest minds in the DTC subscription space: 👉 Bryan Starck – Founder of 100 Degree Celsius 👉 Jordan Narducci – Founder of DTCPG 👉 Andriy Rudnyk – Founder of Good Subscription Agency Together, we unpacked what’s really broken in subscription software and strategy - and what is changing in 2026. 💥 Top...

Most brands think they have a subscription business. The truth is, most of them just have a product with a subscribe button. In this episode of Subscription Prescription, I break down the real reason subscriptions succeed or fail and what you should be evaluating before you decide to push a subscription-first model. We cover: Why subscriptions are only one way to drive repeat revenue How customer...