💰How to Win Ecom In 2026

Hey hey!

I’m not a doctor, but I’m going to formally diagnose you… 

You have Chronic Attribution Anxiety. Not every dollar is made 1:1, so I made this newsletter to help you win and solve your diagnosis AND make you win in 2026. (btw it’s not about attribution platforms, quite the opposite)

I’ve been debating where all of “commerce” is headed over the next 12–24 months, and it’s finally clear:

You need to double down on acquiring customers that don’t come with a cost every single sale. This is not just “organic socials”. I see “organic” as any effort that gets you more customers without paying per sale.

Winning brands compound learnings, not just revenue. That’s why I love organic so much. That’s the key to winning 2026, and not in a fluffy way. Give me 2 minutes, I’ll show you. 

The 4 channels below teach you something, distribute the learning, and generate high-profit cash:

1. Email/SMS is still King

I don’t need to dive much into this one, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. In my book, I dedicated almost an entire chapter to understanding your customers. 

If you want your email to absolutely CRUSH in 2026 you need to know more about them, how to talk to them, what they like, etc. If I asked you your customers psych’ psychographics, could you really answer that?

If not, you shouldn’t do any marketing until you know the answer. Your email will pretty much suck if you’ve never even surveyed your customers at least once. 

🌶️ Hot take: I would fire your email (or ad) agency if they’ve never ran a customer feedback survey for you. Sorry to my agency friends, get on it.

Side note… I still don’t understand why you brands don’t do email swaps with similar companies!!! It’s literally free money lol

2. CRO (Yes, your website is “Organic”)

I see your website as an organic channel because once the work is done, there’s no incremental cost per customer. Every paid click becomes more valuable. Every email converts better. Every organic visit is worth more.

I run Heatmap.com, and I see billions of sessions across thousands of Ecommerce sites. One thing is painfully accurate: the top 5–10% of customers by revenue are the ones making changes to their website, constantly.

Not monthly… every week they have something new lol 

In Billion Dollar Websites, I laid out why “CRO = split testing” is wrong… 

CRO is understanding your customers, improving copywriting, landing pages, clearer value props, etc. No brand is “too small” to work on optimizing their website. So:

If you’re not running ads to listicles or advertorials, go do it ASAP. Use a no-code landing page builder, it’s your highest impact, medium-lift ROI.

Most of this is free, or close to it, especially with AI. You don’t need massive budgets to iterate on copy, layouts, or ideas anymore. Run the Billion Dollar Data Funnel and just… do what your customers say. It’s truly that simple.

3. Organic Social (Especially Reddit) Is a WEAPON

Everyone feels like running your own social media channels is a “chore” or “fixed cost you don’t want” but it’s stupid-high ROI in other ways. Barry Hott talks about it a lot, getting comments on your ads on Meta/IG is mission-critical for trust. A lot of people click through to your page… if it’s a ghost town, they’ll continue doomscrolling! Now:

Organic social is about reach, awareness, and brand memory. If someone sees your brand in a Reddit thread or a TikTok video, they might not click immediately. They might not buy that day. This is why I diagnosed you with Chronic Attribution Anxiety.

The two channels I see Ecom brands winning on are Reddit and TikTok. 

TikTok accounts with zero followers posting their first video and hitting a million views. For TT and IG, you may have heard of “clipping” and having hundreds to thousands of accounts posting your content… you pay by CPM, and results are bonkers… 

There are some scammy platforms out there (you probably know who I’m talking about) and PLEASE DO NOT USE THEM. I send my clients to Zagged. Troy is a good friend of mine, but his results are even better. #unsponsored

Reddit is a GOLD MINE. 

First, try Reddit ads. I’ve recommended a few brands spending something nominal like $25-50/day on Reddit retargeting ads only. Not prospecting, just a bit of those extra touches. Snapchat too, just sprinkle a couple of bucks a day. It’s so profitable.

Second, it’s stupidly valuable for intel. “Reddit Ask” is their AI feature where you can ask about your brand, topics, and what a ton of people are saying. You can use this to audit your brand, your industry, all the way to products you can create that don’t exist in the market.

Third, assemble your Reddit Army. 

You have to be suuuuuper careful. Mods of these subreddits are looking out for self-promo and marketers. If you write “What is your favorite blender?” it’ll likely get auto-deleted.

Two ways you can go about it:
1, Send in a proper social media pro, make your own subreddit (not your company name, but general to your niche), and treat it like a Facebook group
2, find (or hire) an army of people to be part of conversations on Reddit

Reddit is one of those channels where you truly an army. I’ve got some brands that have been ripping Reddit marketing for years, and every one of them is recommended AI… which transitions to my last channel here: 

4. AI SEO (AEO/GEO)… NOW!!!

Whoever said “SEO is dead” is a fucking idiot. I’m CURRENTLY making bank on Ecommerce and SaaS companies (that I own) through SEO. Not 4 years ago, like… I’m getting clicks and customers while you read this email. 

This one is urgent:

Go to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity and ask:
“What’s the best product for [your category]?”

If your brand doesn’t show up, think about how much money you’re losing… now and especially in the future.

With the OpenAI + Shopify integration coming, this matters a lot. Shopify’s own customer support reps are emailing their top customers about how/if they show up in AI. That’s not hype. That’s a signal.

Google still does ~700 billion searches per month and chatGPT is a few billion. SEO alone can drive insane revenue, which never changed. You should be investing in SEO… but SEO & GEO (ranking on LLMs) are kinda the same thing now.

If you don’t rank organically on Google, it’s very hard to rank in LLMs. Ranking in AI requires more than just on-site content.

THE TOP INFLUENCE ON LLMs IS REDDIT. This was a study done by Neil Patel for B2B SaaS. It’s not much different for DTC.

The top ways I’m seeing brands crush all 4 major LLMs:

1. Get included in listicles (“top products for X” articles)
2. Smash reddit
3. Aggressive SEO tactics
4. Impeccable on-site technicals
5. Site speed (bots are only so fast)

If you start working on this now, you’ll be a generational brand in 1-2 years.

If you ignore it? You’ll be one of the marketers who thrived 2015-2025… 

ALL THIS TO SAY…

Paid ads and email aren’t going away, but if those are the only two levers you pull? Ouch.

Organic channels lower CAC. They raise brand trust. They make every other channel work better. That’s how you’ll win in 2026.

If you want intros to anyone who’s an absolute beast in CRO, Clipping/Reddit, or AI SEO, just reply to this email with what you need.

Also, email me if this was useful, want to get better for you :) 

Until next week!

~Dylan Ander