A DTC marketing agency that starts before the ad account.
Underboss Media is a DTC marketing agency for direct to consumer brands that want demand they own. It builds short-form video formats on the brand's own Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts, puts paid budget only behind the pieces that already worked for free, and writes the playbook the brand's team runs. Across portfolio engagements, average CAC fell 35%.
Want to see what your brand could be making for free before the next ad invoice lands?
We work with consumer brands only. The engine is short-form video on your own accounts, judged on whether more people search your brand by name. Paid goes behind the winners, on your ad account. Everything is written into a playbook and your team is trained to run it across twelve months, month to month. It begins with a free written teardown of your store and channels, sent in three days, with no call.
Show me what you would doFour habits that keep a DTC brand renting its customers.
A direct to consumer brand was meant to own the relationship with the buyer. Then the marketing got handed to an ad account, and the relationship went back to a platform. None of the four habits below is a mistake on its own. Together they are why the same revenue costs more to reach every year.
“An ad reaches someone who was not looking for you. A format on your own channel builds the people who come looking.”
Two things with your brand's name on them.
Both are yours from the first week, and both stay if we part ways.
The Engine
Repeatable video formats built around your product and published on your own Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. A format earns its place when it lifts searches for your brand name, and it is dropped when it does not. Creators and UGC are booked into those formats against a written brief, and paid budget follows the pieces that already proved themselves.
The Playbook
A written record of the engine as it is built: how a product angle is chosen, how a piece is shot and edited, what the opening seconds must do, and the rule for retiring a format. Someone on your side takes on more of it every month, until the brand runs its own marketing without an outside team.
What changed for consumer brands. The names stay private.
The number a DTC brand should ask any agency for is what happened after the first order. On one direct to consumer brand, the second-purchase rate rose 50% and the third-purchase rate rose 40%. Across portfolio engagements, the average cost of acquiring a customer fell 35%, and the 2025 portfolio ran at $0 paid ad spend. Clients have stayed 14 months or more on average. The names are withheld under NDA, and none of these figures are rounded up.
“I put my name on the repeat-purchase and CAC figures on this page. The teardown I send you carries the same name, and if your margins or your category mean an organic engine will not pay back, it will say that in the first paragraph.”
Verify on LinkedIn →Live in month one. Run by your team by month twelve.
- Month 1
Formats live on your channels
We pick the product angles worth testing, shoot the first formats and publish them on your accounts. The weekly baseline for branded search is recorded before the first post, so later results are measured and not argued about.
Output: First formats published, baseline recorded
- Months 2 to 9
Keep, kill, and put paid behind the winners
Each format is kept or retired on branded search and on what a customer costs. Proven pieces get paid budget on your ad account. The person you chose takes over more of the weekly work while we review it.
Output: Winners funded, playbook growing
- Months 10 to 12
Your team holds the controls
Your team plans, shoots and publishes. We read the numbers and step in only when asked. The year is finished when the engine produces without us.
Output: Engine run in house
A typical DTC marketing agency vs an engine you own
Updated November 2026- Where the work starts
A typical DTC agencyIn the ad account.
You, with usOn your own channels, then paid behind what worked.
- The number in the report
A typical DTC agencyReturn on ad spend, first order only.
You, with usBranded search, customer cost and repeat purchase.
- Who holds the creative
A typical DTC agencyThe agency's library.
You, with usYour accounts and your drive, from week one.
- If you stop
A typical DTC agencyThe customers stop with the spend.
You, with usThe formats keep running and your team knows how.
| Dimension | A typical DTC agency | You, with us |
|---|---|---|
| Where the work starts | In the ad account. | On your own channels, then paid behind what worked. |
| The number in the report | Return on ad spend, first order only. | Branded search, customer cost and repeat purchase. |
| Who holds the creative | The agency's library. | Your accounts and your drive, from week one. |
| If you stop | The customers stop with the spend. | The formats keep running and your team knows how. |
Before you ask.
The names overlap, and most agencies use both. Here the difference is only where you want to start reading. This page explains what a DTC marketing agency should leave a brand with. The four-move method the engine runs on is written out on the DTC growth page, and you can run it without us.
Paid is part of the work, but it comes second. We put budget behind videos that already performed for free, on your own ad account. We do not manage paid search or run an ad account as a standalone service, and the teardown will say so if that is what your brand needs.
In month one we name a single KPI we control, usually branded search. If the KPI we name is not climbing by month six, the next month is free.
Brands that sell to people, own their store and have a product someone can show on camera. Very low margins or a product nobody would film are the usual reasons it is not a fit, and the teardown says so plainly when that is the case.
No. The work is the organic video engine, paid behind its winners, and the playbook. If email, search or the storefront is the bigger leak, the teardown names it and tells you what kind of specialist to hire.
Most charge a monthly retainer or a share of ad spend, which rewards spending more. We quote one twelve-month build, billed month to month, after the teardown and only if there is a fit. No price is published on the site.
Nothing. Send a link to the store and to the channels you run. Three days later you get a written read on what brings customers today and what we would build first. There is no call, and the document is yours either way.
- Organic social media growth strategies: accounts and demand you own →Organic social media growth strategies that build accounts and demand you own, not reach that resets. The moves, the metric, and a 50M+ view receipt at $0 paid.
- How startups get distribution without an ad budget →How startups get distribution without an ad budget: channels that build on themselves, the metric that proves it, and 50M+ organic views in 5 months at $0 paid.
- How to reduce customer acquisition cost and keep growing →How to reduce customer acquisition cost when ad prices keep rising: 4 levers in order of how long they last. Across our portfolio, CAC fell 35% on average.
Organic growth, or the next month is free.
We name one KPI we control for your company in your first month. If the KPI we name is not climbing by month six, the next month is free.
One KPI, named in month one.Picked for your company once there is a baseline and written into the contract, so there is one number to hold us to.
You read it off your own numbers.Your analytics and the platforms' own reporting. Nothing of ours in the middle.
Send the store. Get the plan in three days.
One link to the store and one to your channels. You get back, in writing, what is working today and the first formats we would build. It is free, and it is yours to use with us or without us.
Two minutes. No call. No numbers.