PetCultures Founder: AI Traffic Converts 3x Better Than Ads
Santiago Gelvez started PetCultures after his dog got sick and he couldn’t find effective supplements. He shares hard-won lessons on lean manufacturing, treating Amazon as a billboard for DTC profit, and why AI search traffic converts three times better than ads. This interview cuts through supplement noise with real tactics for pet brands.
In this edition of the Ecommerce Authority Playbooks series, we dive into how
PetCultures grows, retains customers, and prepares for the future of search in 2025 and beyond.
The interview
1. What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?
santiago gelvez: It wasn’t a business decision; it was a rescue mission. My dog got sick, and looking for a solution felt like staring at a blank wall—I just couldn’t find anything that worked. So, I had to build the door myself.
2. Since launch, what have been the 1–2 real turning points for your brand-specific decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability-and what did you learn from them?
santiago gelvez: Realizing that profit is baked in at the factory, not the checkout counter. Everyone thinks you make money when you sell, but you actually make money when you buy. If you don’t keep your manufacturing costs lean, you’re just running on a treadmill. And finding that “price cliff”—the exact point where customers bite—is just constant experimenting, like tuning a radio until the static disappears.
3. Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now (for example SEO, paid social, email, marketplaces, influencers), and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?
santiago gelvez: The supplement game is a noisy room; it takes a lot of talking to educate a customer. Amazon is the beast we have to feed right now because the customers there have already done their homework—they are bottom-of-the-funnel ready. But Amazon is really just a billboard that pays you small change; it drives volume and eyes, not real profit. The actual meat on the bone comes from our DTC and retail channels.
4. How are you thinking about search in 2025 – Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What, if anything, have you changed in your content or site to stay visible as AI search grows?
santiago gelvez: You have to teach the robots how to read your site. Optimizing for LLMs is the new SEO. And the difference is night and day: traffic from an AI search is like someone walking into your store with their wallet out, whereas ad traffic is just someone glancing at the window display. We see AI traffic converting 3x better, so that’s where we are planting the flag.
5. What do you do to turn first‑time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well for you?
santiago gelvez: Selling supplements isn’t like selling screwdrivers; you don’t just grab one because you have a loose hinge. It’s a courtship, not a quick transaction. We use social media to wave the flag, and while we pray they land on our site, they often run to Amazon because it feels safer. But Subscribe & Save is the heartbeat of this business. We offer a steep discount to get them to take the first bite, and that recurring habit is what actually builds our LTV.
6. If you had to write a short playbook for an ecommerce founder one stage behind you, what would you double down on over the next 12 months – and what would you stop doing entirely?
santiago gelvez: Stop writing blank checks to influencers. Paying flat fees without tracking is like throwing coins into a fountain and wishing for sales. There are too many voices out there now. Start making them eat what they kill. Switch to pay-for-performance or commission models. Your ROI will thank you.
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