Ecommerce Playbook: Numbers, Struggles & Growth Stop Guessing Your Ecommerce Budget
Feb 10, 2026
Luke Austin, VP of e-commerce strategy who advises DTC brands on media and modeling, walks through three practical models. He explains the Spending Power Model for budget caps. He outlines the Creative Demand Plan to size ad output. He presents an Incrementality Roadmap to prioritize channel tests and reduce uncertainty.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Toddler Germ Cycle Opening
- Luke Austin shared a personal parenting anecdote about his toddler bringing new colds home each week.
- He used it to open the conversation and lighten the episode's start.
Three Questions That Drive Budgeting
- The three core questions for CMOs are total budget, creative volume, and true channel contribution.
- Luke Austin and Richard Gaffin built three models to answer these precisely for 8-figure brands.
Choose An Objective Then Reallocate Spend
- Use the Spending Power Model to pick an objective: max contribution margin, max new-customer revenue, or max lifetime CM.
- Then reinvest any unallocated spend into growth levers (creative, channels, email) to improve spending power.