The team made the trip up to Leeds last week for Digital Clubhouse. A thoughtful room of brands and agencies talking through the realities behind e-commerce growth. From the importance of clean data, to margins, measurement, and the constant pressure to think beyond the usual playbook. Plenty of honest conversation about what it takes to grow right now. If you're having similar conversations about expanding your performance marketing mix - including channels like TikTok or Microsoft Ads - feel free to get in touch with our team. We'd love to chat.
😎 Last week was a belter!! 🚨 First off, we're well over HALFWAY for March tickets already, so hurry up: 🎟️ https://lnkd.in/eXgeq87Z We kicked off Digital Clubhouse 2026! And honestly… every time we run this thing the room gets sharper and a LOT more packed! Not just because Feb sold out, but because the conversations keep levelling up each time. Pressure is on month by month now. We opened with the three of us Alan Pilkington 🍀 Mat O'Connor & Yours truly 🦁, setting the tone before jumping into the first session. Fran Gresswell (Riviera Iced Tea) shared the reality of building a challenger brand. Not the glossy version. At one point a £12k manufacturing disaster nearly wiped the business out. She even turned down Tesco in year one to protect margin… (BRAVE 🦁) while others were proudly saying they were “in Tesco” but losing money on every PO. That’s playing the long game and I love this story. Then Anil Patel (Moda in Pelle) & Ethan Burnett (Salesfire) and got into the weeds on data, AI and performance. One simple identity-matching solution drove a 30–40% uplift in email flows and £500k+ incremental revenue. But the real message was about AI… yep that old chestnut, but it’s only as good as the data feeding it, basically if the data’s a mess, the AI will be too. Next up Rowan Turnbull (Lakeland Leather). What resonated was that he made a point I loved: modern ecommerce leaders need bias to action. If you’re unsure… do it. If it goes wrong… learn fast. He also called out something we don’t say enough: ROAS and even conversion rate can become vanity metrics. The real signal? Revenue per user and unit economics. Then we wrapped with the panel and the punchline: 🥷 “The Silent Killers of Ecom in 2026.” We had the pleasure of helicopering in our very good friend Adam Pearce - CRO for Shopify Brands for this one A few themes kept coming back which we can't ignore: ❌ Chasing ROAS instead of profit ❌ The discount treadmill quietly destroying margin ❌ Ignoring the “boring” stuff like stock, processes and post-purchase CX ❌ Agencies and brands needing to cut the nonsense and align on profitability ❌ AI working best as a second brain, not a replacement Every time we run Digital Clubhouse the bar gets higher. That’s not an accident. Ps, William Phillips & Jessica O’Connor, without u guys we would be a bit fragmented to say the least!!!!!! And our wonderful sponsors... Octane AI GoKwik Opteo TrackBee Brightpearl by Sage Diginius Salesfire Mollie ThePlaceToBe Shoutout to faces new, old and ones who attend frequently... Sophie Cross Tash Jones Cas Majid Ian Rabbidge Simon Small Jonathan Maddams Chris Longfellow Nicholas Taylor Tom Belt Karen Hardie Gina Buckle Gemma Edwards Romey Norton Tim Woollias Kelvin Travers Lisa Shepherd Gary Cheers Andrew Ash (ran out of taggin....) #DigitalClubhouse #ecommerceevents #communityfirst #braveagency #leeds #dtc #agencylife #networkingbutnotawkward