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How We Work

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Diagnostic First

Every DAS engagement begins with the Margin Diagnostic. The diagnostic is not a free discovery call. It is a paid, two-week analysis ($5,000, credited toward the retainer) that produces a customer file breakdown, a margin leak identification, and a 90-day recovery roadmap. It is board-ready on delivery. The reason every engagement starts here: strategy built on assumptions about a customer file is not strategy. It is a guess dressed up in slide decks. The diagnostic replaces the assumptions with analysis. The retainer that follows is built on what the data actually shows — not what the previous agency’s reports said, not what the brand has been telling itself, not what the CMO inherited. Brands that skip the diagnostic and go straight to a retainer invariably spend the first 60 days building the understanding the diagnostic would have provided on day one. It is slower and more expensive than doing the work upfront. See the Margin Diagnostic →

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Retainer Only

DAS does not do project work. DAS does not do strategy-only engagements. DAS does not offer audits that result in a deck handed to an internal team to implement. The reason: customer intelligence compounds. The value of understanding a customer file increases over time as more data accumulates, more decisions are made with that understanding, and more of the compounding mechanics kick in. A project has a start date and an end date. The intelligence work does not — it gets more valuable the longer it runs. The retainer model also means DAS has skin in the results. The agency’s reputation and client count are both determined by whether the work compounds. A project engagement does not create that accountability.

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Senior-Led

The people who are in the pitch are the people who run the account. No bait-and-switch, no handoff to junior teams after the contract is signed. DAS operates with a small senior team — 5 people. That team count limits the number of retainer clients DAS can hold (12–15 per year) and determines the quality of the work. The constraint is the feature. At larger agencies, a team pitched by senior leadership is executed by people who have been at the firm for 18 months. The senior leadership involvement is the acquisition strategy, not the operating model. At DAS, the senior team is the operating model. There is no leverage structure that would make sense otherwise.

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Systems Inside Client Infrastructure

Every deliverable DAS produces lives inside the client’s own tools — Klaviyo, Shopify, and whatever reporting layer the client uses. Not in a proprietary DAS dashboard. Not in an external platform that the client pays a subscription to. Inside the client’s own accounts. This is a deliberate model choice. When an agency builds reporting in a proprietary dashboard, the client is dependent on the agency to read it. When the engagement ends, the dashboard goes away and the client has nothing. The institutional knowledge that was supposedly being transferred was actually being held hostage. DAS builds the segmentation architecture in Klaviyo. The reporting frameworks run in the client’s own Google Sheets, Looker, or native Shopify analytics. The audience structures live in the client’s Meta and Google ad accounts. The analysis is documented in shared Notion or Google Drive workspaces. When the DAS engagement ends — whether that is in two years or five — the systems stay. The client owns the intelligence infrastructure. That is the point.

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What a Retainer Engagement Looks Like

Month 1–2 (Foundation): Following the Margin Diagnostic, DAS builds the intelligence foundation: RFM segmentation architecture in Klaviyo, cohort LTV model in the client’s Shopify data, contribution margin framework by channel and SKU. This phase produces the baseline that everything downstream references. Month 3–6 (Activation): Creative strategy, media plan, and email segmentation are restructured around the intelligence findings. Champion retention sequences are built. At-risk intervention flows are deployed. Media audiences are rebuilt from the customer file. The reporting framework that tracks what the CFO cares about is live. Month 7+ (Compounding): The work compounds. Each campaign informs the next brief. The customer file becomes richer. The cohort data grows. The decisions get smarter. This is the phase where the 4.5-year average engagement becomes legible — the work in year three is better than the work in year one because of everything that has been learned and built between them.

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What DAS Does Not Do

Marketing technology consulting. DAS uses the technology the client already has. If the client needs to evaluate or implement a new MarTech stack, there are better partners for that specific work. Brand development or identity work. DAS builds creative and content strategy downstream of an existing brand identity. Brand strategy and visual identity are not in scope. Wholesale and retail channel strategy. DAS focuses on owned channels — email, SMS, paid digital, and DTC. Wholesale and retail channel management requires different expertise. Social media management. Content creation for organic social channels is not a DAS service. The content strategy that informs owned channel creative is — but day-to-day social execution is not.