Building Ads with Barry

Struggling to create high-converting ads that scale? Ad account begging for fresh creative, but don’t know where to start? Confused and misguided by tons of info on making good ads? People hate ads. In my live course, I’ll share the exact system I use to create ads people don’t hate. Join me and 100+ marketers to learn how.

Founder & Chief Ad Nerd

Hott Growth

Helping launch new businesses and grow established brands through modern advertising practices, relevant creative, and frictionless landing pages and CRO.

I'm available for projects, consulting, advising, or on a monthly retainer as a fractional CMO/VP, Growth.

Growth & Performance Marketing Consultant

Adcrate

Advisor

Rotten

Head of Growth

Harry's, Inc.

Performance Creative Strategy and Ad Consultant

The Perfect Jean

Growth Marketing Consultant

BeeRoll

Lone River Beverage Company

Consultant - Paid Social

Acquired by Diageo March 2021

Launched Lone River Ranch Water Hard Seltzer ads on Facebook, applying a DTC approach to CPG advertising.

Jump 450 Media

Clients: EA Sports, Nuts.com, MoneyLion, Spartan Race, Freedom Grooming

Growth Lead & Acquisition Manager

Thesis

Clients: Lumin, Hubble, Cerebral, Athletic Greens, Mirror, Mockingbird, Nuts.com, Urbanstems, Keeps, Feather, Olive & June, Wandering Bear, Glamsquad
● Guided high-level strategy for clients and executional excellence for the Growth team, representing over $6 million per month in paid social and search
● Led cross-functional creation and iteration of ad creative and landing page design to increase conversions by aligning internal CRO, media, and creative teams with external creators, client leadership, and platform partners.
● Forecasted team revenue and minimized expenses to maintain profitability and increase EBITDA
● Initiated and standardized processes for client and employee onboarding, retention, and ongoing improvement

VP, Growth

Clients: Lumin, Misen, Hawthorne, Baboon To The Moon, Glamsquad, Skylar, Clorox
● Strategize, implement, and optimize aggressive conversion-focused ad campaigns and creative for DTC startup clients
● Pioneer cross-functional policies, processes, and best practices across client services, CRO, and creative teams
● Establish high-trust, transparent partnerships with new clients to facilitate long term successful growth

Director of Growth

I've been buying and overseeing ads on Facebook since 2008. I have personally implemented, optimized, and managed monthly spends in the range of $1-5 million and cumulatively I have managed and overseen more than $600 million on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn for brands like AT&T, Toyota, Microsoft, Kraft, LG, Spotify, Hyatt, and many more. I'm comfortable with all objectives and buying types on these platforms, with expertise in branding as well as direct response.

In the last few years, I've been focused on helping grow DTC/startup brands like Hubble, Keeps, Nuts.com, Urbanstems, MoneyLion, Lumin, Cerebral, Wandering Bear Coffee, Flock Chicken Chips, Mirror, Athletic Greens, Spartan, and more.

In early 2020, I helped launch Lone River Ranch Water, and we were acquired by Diageo in 2021.

All three companies I worked for in 2021 were acquired: Lone River, Thesis, and Jump450.

Barry Hott

Do not trust screenshots anymore!

Nano Banana Pro can edit them with ease can be used to deceive.

Growing businesses with ugly ads, streamlined execution, and deep consumer empathy.

There's never been a worse time to say “that’s not my job” or “we’ve always done things this way.”

There's never been a better time to be a scrappy problem solver.

AI is multiplying the impact of people who take ownership, experiment quickly, build systems, and stay curious.

The people rising are the ones who run toward problems, learn without ego, and use AI to amplify their output and their team’s.

The people falling are the ones clinging to job descriptions, perfectionism, old hierarchy, memorized expertise, or protecting their ego.

The winners are scrappy problem solvers.

The losers are anyone still waiting to be told what to do.

Obvi

Chief Marketing Officer

Junglee Inc.

AfterSell by Rokt

Ambassador

PrettyDamnQuick

GrapevineAI

Elevar

Gorgias

Proxima

Ghost3Media

Co-Founder

Mohawk Group, Inc.

Senior Marketing Analyst

CMO and Co-Founder at Obvi

Ashvin Melwani

You don’t need 17 campaigns, 10 audiences, or complex structures to scale on Meta.

Nick Theriot manages $1M+ per month in ad spend with one of the cleanest setups I’ve ever seen.

On Ep 2 of Ad Spend, he walked me through his 7-part system for scaling brands and creating “purple cow” ad creative that actually stops the scroll.

Nick isn’t a theory guy. He’s in the accounts, operating. His agency has driven $100M+ in revenue for clients.

Here’s what we covered:
 ✅ CBO vs ABO
 ✅ Scaling creative testing
 ✅ Campaign cleanup
 ✅ Building Purple Cow ads

Nick’s top insights 👇

1. Keep your account structure clean.
 Nick runs 1 CBO campaign per product type, per country, per gender. 

No separate testing and scaling campaigns. No confusion. Just clarity.

2. Don’t overthink exclusions.
He tested excluding site visitors and past purchasers, but found Meta spent the same way.

That’s why he focuses on creating ads that speak to bigger audiences. Your creative is your targeting lever.

3. Stick to a creative cadence.
Nick launches 3–6 new ad sets every week. Always on the same day.

Each ad set = 1 concept based on a single hook. Consistency gives your pipeline clarity.

4. Never move “winners” to a main ad set.
 If it’s working inside your test campaign, then leave it. Scale it in place.

Meta doesn’t care about your naming conventions and account structure. Just let it cook.

5. Don’t just rely on creative quantity.
Nick defines a quality ad test as “a specific angle, targeting a real pain point, with messaging no one else is using.”

The better your customer research, the better quality ads you make, the fewer you have to churn out.

6. Purple cows win.
 Want to really stand out? Try one of these:
 → Beat your competition on ad production quality
 → Go after a sub-identity they’re ignoring
 → Make a bigger (but true) claim

7. Don’t just optimize your ad creative
Too many brands stop at the ad. Nick pushes further: test a new landing page.

The creative got you the click. Now improve conversion. 

My biggest takeaways from Nick:
 → Clean structure scales better
 → Creative diversity fuels Meta’s algorithm
 → Quality ads come from knowing your customer deeply
 → Winning ads are just the beginning.

Every CRO test I run at Obvi makes me nervous.

New landing page layout = Could tank conversion rate. Different hero image = Might hurt engagement. Adjust the pricing display = Could hurt profit per visitor.

Your hypothesis might be wrong. And you won't know until you've already lost money.

But this new add-on we’re testing is different. It's the rare CRO move with zero downside risk.

We just implemented ROKT Pay+, a new product from Aftersell by Rokt.  

It’s super simple. 

When customers hit your payment page, they see a banner offering cashback or rewards for selecting Apple Pay or PayPal.

Apple and PayPal then pay YOU when customers choose their wallet.

That's it. No behavior change required. No new friction added.

Your customers were already using these payment methods. Now you just get paid when they use them. Bonus: Apple Pay and PayPal come with payment processing fees anyway. ROKT Pay+ helps offset those costs.

Here’s why this is literally no-risk → 

-Already extensively A/B tested by Aftersell

-Zero negative impact on conversion (some brands see lift)

-Integrates natively with your existing checkout

-Banner designed to match your site's look and feel

-Customers already trust Apple Pay and PayPal

Aftersell is reporting ~$20-25 cents added per order from early launches.

We've been running Rokt Thanks awhile, and it adds $10k/month to our bottom line. That’s $120k+/year in pure profit.  

So when they told us about Pay+, it was an easy yes.

Look, I test landing pages weekly. I test new offers constantly. I'm always looking for ways to improve profit per session.

But those tests come with risk. This doesn't.

This is the closest thing I've found to free money in DTC:

-No operational lift

-No conversion risk (extensively tested)

-No new products to manage

-Premium brand association

We just started testing this, so I'll share our Obvi numbers once we have enough data.

But if you're running CRO tests and want something with actual upside and zero downside, this is worth looking at.

#ROKTpartner

CTV is either your next growth channel or your biggest budget black hole.

The difference comes down to one thing: whether you're buying real inventory or paying bots to watch your ads.

Here's the reality: Most CTV platforms operate like black boxes. Fragmented ID systems lose signal across devices. First-party data can't connect to reach controls. 

Your dashboard shows results, but you can't verify who actually watched.

Vibe.co just dropped their 2026 CTV Performance Playbook. It's not another "CTV is the future" think piece. It's a technical breakdown of what's broken and how to fix it.

What you'll get:

-How to retarget your existing customers and site visitors on streaming TV with the same precision as Meta

-How to use AI to test narrative, pacing, and offers at scale, then tie those tests directly to site sessions and purchases

-How over 20% of Vibe.co ads were AI-generated using Vibe Studio (and tips on best practices)

-Real incrementality data showing how brands achieve 55% lower CAC on CTV vs paid social

If you've been treating CTV like a brand awareness play because "it doesn't convert," this will change your perspective.

Click the link in the comments to get the full guide. 

#Vibepartner

The CPG world takes itself seriously, so we decided not to.

On January 12th, we are setting the stage for a live comedy event where comedians will be roasting some of the most notable CPG brands and their founders. This is the one night of the year you can swap the board meeting for pure, high-energy laughter.

Come grab a drink, relax, and make new connections while laughing with (and at) your industry peers!

CPG ROAST
When: January 12th, 2026 | 7-9 PM
Where: Caveat, Manhattan

Reserve your spot through the link in the comments!

This BFCM, we did something at Obvi that most brands ignore, and it added $4.38 per order to our AOV and another $6K in straight profit from our thank you page.

What did we do?

Post-purchase upsells. That's it.

We focused on the part of the funnel most brands ignore – right after a customer hits “Buy Now.”

This strategy worked because once a customer has already entered payment info, the friction is gone. 

They're in buying mode. You show them a relevant offer, they click once, and it's added to their order.

We use Aftersell by Rokt Post Purchase Upsell for this. 

The tool lets us test varying offers against different customer segments. Purchase history, cart value, and shipping method all factor into what offer they see.

The multivariate testing is what makes it work. We're not guessing. We're using the data to see which products, discounts, and layouts drive the most revenue.

Then, there’s the revenue we drove from our Thank You page. This one's pure profit with zero effort. 

With ROKT Thanks, our customers see hyper-targeted offers from premium brands like Disney+, HelloFresh, or Nike, and if they engage, we earn $0.30-0.50 per order.

No COGS. No inventory. No fulfillment. No customer service. That $6,000 over BFCM cost us nothing to earn.

Setup took 5 minutes. We control what categories appear. Competitors are blocked. And the AI personalizes offers based on 200 million+ transactions, so engagement rates hit 16% vs under 2% for typical banner ads.

If you're running paid traffic and not capturing post-purchase revenue, test it. The upside is real, the setup is fast, and the downside is basically zero.

#Aftersellpartner #ROKTpartner

🧠 Your Meta dashboard might show a 7X ROAS…but you could still be wasting 6 figs a month on non-incremental spend.

That’s exactly what happened to one of Marin Istvanic’s clients. Looked incredible in-platform, but a total mess in reality.

After one change, they saved $200K/month. But that’s just the start. 

Marin was my first guest on the new Ad Spend podcast, and he dropped 7 Meta insights that every buyer should steal going into 2025 👇

Here are the 7 insights that stuck with me:

1️⃣ View-through conversions are lying to you. 
 Like I said, Marin’s client had a 7X ROAS on paper. Then he checked attribution:
 → 80% of conversions were view-through
 → Switched to 7-day click only
 → Cut $200K in spend
 → Revenue stayed flat

Rule of thumb: If >30% of your conversions are view-through, audit it. Especially if you have strong organic demand.

Meta will happily take credit for sales it didn’t really drive.

2️⃣ Don’t wait to scale. Scale inside the test.
Most media buyers separate testing and scaling. Marin doesn’t.
If early signal look strong, he quickly increases budget within the testing ad set.

He move from $100 to $1k per day withing a week, before moving an ad to the scaling campaign.

3️⃣ ABO > CBO (if you’ve got a good hit rate.)
CBO often over-allocates spend to ads that get good engagement. But that doesn’t mean good conversion rates.

Marin still uses ABO to keep control:
 ✅ 1 concept per ad set
 ✅ Even budget across ideas
 ✅ No over-indexing on ads that drive “post likes”

Only use this if your test-to-winner hit rate is 30%+. Otherwise, CBO can still help to protect your budget.

4️⃣ One ASC per product.
Different AOVs = different CPA targets. So why would you run them all through the same cost cap?

Marin runs a separate ASC for each product.
 → Tailored cost caps
 → Cleaner optimization
 → No mixed signals

Most brands underperform here without realizing it.

5️⃣ Your offer is more important than your creative.
One of Marin’s brands had a 20% hit rate. To improve, they didn’t change the ads, just reframed the offer.

Hit rate jumped to 45%. Even old loser ads started working.

Sometimes the pitch (not the ad) is the issue.

6️⃣ If you don’t set exclusions, Meta won’t prospect.
 ASC will always optimize for the easiest conversion path. Meaning, warm traffic and BOFU conversions over prospecting.

Marin excludes:
 → 180d purchasers (Pixel + Klaviyo)
 → 180d site visitors
 → Warm traffic from influencer/affiliate channels

This forces Meta to go find new customers.

7️⃣ Launch your tests on Wednesdays.
 Why?
 → Weekend performance is better
 → Launching Monday = limited signal by mid-week

Marin’s cadence:

Wed: Launch
Fri: Check
Weekend: Let it run
Mon: Evaluate + scale

More runway = better data.

🧠 My biggest takeaways:
→ ROAS can lie if you trust view-through attribution
→ ABO gives speed + control if your hit rate is strong
→ ASC should match your AOVs
→ Offer > Creative
→ Clean setup → clean signal → scalable growth

Growth in 2026 comes down to one thing: getting more out of what you're already doing.

CPMs aren't coming down. Competition isn't slowing down. Which means the only real lever is optimization: using the customer feedback you're already collecting, tightening up underperforming flows, stacking 2% improvements until they compound into real growth.

That's what I'm covering December 9th at 11 AM ET along with some of the sharpest operators in DTC. Maestra.io is hosting this one-hour session where we're each breaking down the small wins that are actually moving the needle right now.

We're not talking theory here. Every tactic comes with real numbers from brands that have already run it. Battle-tested plays you can actually use.

I'll be walking through the exact AI prompts I use to turn customer data into high-performing creative. Plus you'll hear from:

→ Tamanna Bawa – Tech Partner Manager at Triple Whale (analytics platform trusted by 45,000+ brands)

→ Kyle Cannon – Marketing Manager at Furniture Fair (9-figure revenue, 13 stores + online, 20+ years in retail)

→ Jonathan Cairo – Head of Solutions & Integrations at CustomersAI (5 years in event data & identity tracking for Skims, Netflix, Adidas, Unilever)

→ Andrei Rebrov 🚀 – Co-founder at Finsi, ex-Scentbird (scaled to 500K paying subscribers)

5 speakers, 15 proven plays, 1 hour.

You'll walk away with something you can implement immediately. And if none of the tactics fit your brand, Maestra will audit your funnel and map three fixes for you.

Forget the typical webinar format. This one's cameras on, live questions, real conversation. The kind where someone drops a tactic and three other people immediately jump in with how they'd tweak it for their brand.

(Oh, and Maestra's sending everyone a $10 Starbucks card when you register. Might as well grab that coffee.)

This is one hour you don't want to miss if you're trying to break through your current growth ceiling.

See you there. 

Register using the link in comments 👇

2025 made acquisition 10x harder. That’s why we’re doubling down on getting more value from our existing traffic at Obvi.

Right now, every brand I know is spending more to acquire the same number of customers.

With CPMs climbing and competition ramping up, throwing more budget to ads isn’t going to change the bottom line.

But focusing on strategies that allow you to make the most of traffic you already have might. 

Your cart page, checkout flow, and confirmation page represent 100% of your buyer's journey. But if you treat them like cost centers (plain, functional), they’re completely wasted.

We decided to test this premise by partnering with Aftersell by Rokt by Aftersell to make the most of the bottom of the funnel. 

And the results have been insane: 

-We're now adding $7.50 to AOV through optimized post-purchase flows

-Our confirmation page generates $10K/month in pure profit from ROKT Thanks alone. That's $120K+/year we weren't capturing before

Aftersell just released a playbook breaking down the entire framework we've been testing. It tells you exactly how to turn these touchpoints into profit centers.

What's covered:

-The "Yes Ladder" framework for structuring post-purchase offers that convert (and how to test sequencing, pricing presentation, and product combinations)

-How to layer ROKT Thanks on your confirmation page for $0.30-0.50 per order in pure profit with zero operational lift

-Cart optimization tactics that add $4-7 to AOV before checkout even starts (sales motivator bars, strategic upsells, trust signals)

-The 4 emotions killing conversions in your checkout flow and how to address each one

-A/B testing methodology for compounding marginal gains across your entire funnel

If you're focused on acquisition while your checkout sits at default settings, this is definitely worth a read.

Click the link in the comments to get the playbook.

#AftersellPartner

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The Battle

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Ashvin Melwani

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