David Olusegun

Hi 👋🏿

I’m David. I’m driven by faith and committed to purpose. My work is simple: build and invest in consumer brands that make lives better and leave a positive legacy.

For over a decade, I’ve worked across CPG, entertainment, and media with global players.

I'm also privileged to advise founders and corporations on building products that truly serve people and I speak on faith, entrepreneurship and brand leadership with a focus on real-world impact and integrity.

Honoured to be recognised by Powerful Media, Music Week, KPMG Entrepreneur of the Year, HSBC x Black Business Week Top Entrepreneur and the UK’s Top 100 African Business Leaders, but the mission stays the same: help brands serve people, do good with excellence and integrity and honour God.

Reach My Team👇🏾

📧 Speaking & Commercial: adam@howtobeiconic.co
📧 Press Enquiries: press@howtobeiconic.co

Co-Founder & Co-CEO

CCV is a venture builder that partners with purpose-driven creators to launch global CPG brands. We are a creative-led team with strong end-to-end commercial expertise that provides the complete infrastructure to launch, build and scale these pioneering brands.

Our goal is to give our clients the opportunity to build something bigger than their personal brand, receive ownership rather than just another endorsement deal and leverage their following into a long-term future through building impactful businesses.

Our operating model is to work together with the creator as a co-founding team and enable them with the right infrastructure, tools, support, and capital. We love working with creators to change the world, one brand at a time. We believe it’s time we build businesses that shift the power paradigm to the hands of the creators. It’s what gets us up in the morning, it’s in our DNA and we are irretrievably obsessed with collective success by working with CCV you’ll be working with vested partners committed to global success!

Sometimes it’s hard to trust God, especially when things don’t seem to be going according to plan. 

This is me encouraging you to trust Jesus; He will guide you and set you on the right path. He has good plans for us, plans to give us hope and a future.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” — Proverbs 3:5

Building and Investing in Purpose-Driven Consumer Brands | Angel Investor | Keynote Speaker

This is your reminder that this year, God should come first.

Before the plans and before asking everyone else.
Start with God and let Him take the lead.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” — Matthew 6:33

God is good. Always.

Even when we don’t see the full picture, He is working things out for our good. 

As we step into a new month, this is your sign to trust Him and lean on Him. 
He knows where He’s leading you. 


“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
— Jeremiah 29:11

Welcome to February, everyone🤍

Take a moment to think about the fact that Jesus laid down His life knowing you and I might not ever choose Him. What a love.

That sacrifice is exactly why life can only be found in Him.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Have a blessed Sunday.

No matter how impossible the situation seems, remember this: with God, there are no limits. 
 
Mountains move, chains break, and the unseen becomes reality when His power is at work. 

Trust Him, lean on Him and watch the impossible become possible.

Have a blessed Sunday.

Unilever isn’t “testing” India anymore. They’re committing.

Quietly but decisively, Unilever is doubling down on India’s premium beauty market with science-led, clean, founder-driven businesses.

Their VC arm just followed on in Secret Alchemist, a clean fragrance brand they first backed last year. 

At the same time, they joined the Series A for SkinInspired, a science-first skincare brand they initially invested in back in 2024.

Unilever has been clear: beauty and personal care need to drive two-thirds of future revenue. And when you look at where they’re placing bets, two markets keep coming up: the US and India.

India, in particular, is being treated as a premium innovation engine, not just an emerging market.

Since 2023, Unilever has backed or acquired 8 Indian beauty businesses, heavily skewed toward skincare and haircare.

The headline move? The $342m acquisition of Minimalist, often called “India’s The Ordinary.”

The pattern is obvious:
✅ Clinical or science-backed positioning
✅ Clean, credible formulations
✅ Brands that scale digitally first, then retail
✅ Founders who understand modern consumers, not legacy playbooks

As Unilever’s CEO put it, building a future-fit portfolio means going all in on beauty, wellbeing, and growth markets.

This is what that actually looks like in practice. They’re buying the disruption early and in the markets that will define the next decade.

Is it time to stop calling Unilever a consumer goods company?

Unilever Indonesia just sold SariWangi  for $89.5 million (Rp1.5 trillion), a brand that has been a staple in Indonesian homes since the 1970s. 

Just last month, they offloaded their Ice Cream business (The Magnum Ice Cream Company, Ben & Jerry’s). 

This is also the last of Unilever’s traditional tea brands, after selling its global tea unit (ekaterra) in 2022, including LIPTON Teas and Infusions and PG Tips.

The move signals a clear shift toward high-margin Beauty and Wellbeing, leaving legacy commodity businesses behind. 

SariWangi may be iconic, but it only contributed ~2.7% of Unilever Indonesia’s revenue; a sign that focus now outweighs nostalgia.

The Strategy: From “Everything for Everyone” to “Powerhouse Specialisation.”

✅ Fame ≠ Future: Legacy brands are being cut if they don't hit "Power Brand" growth targets.

✅ Margin over Volume: They are exiting "commodity" categories (Tea/Ice Cream) to focus on high-margin Beauty, Wellness and Personal Care.

✅ The 30-Brand Rule: CEO Hein Schumacher is narrowing the global focus to 30 "Power Brands" that drive 75% of turnover.

The question: is this the bold move the market has been waiting for, or is it stripping away what made Unilever Unilever?

The $11B Strategy: How ŌURA Beat Apple and Fitbit Without Competing With Them

It’s easy to look at ŌURA now and call it a huge success. But, back in 2015, they were a tiny Finnish startup trying to break into a highly dominated space. 

On paper, they should’ve been crushed: a sleep-tracking ring sounded kind of weird back then.

Yet here we are: an $11 billion valuation and over $1 billion in revenue in 2025.

Oura’s rise is proof that a clear vision can change how an entire category thinks.

Here are the key takeaways for any founder trying to carve out a space in a crowded market:

 ✅ Don’t Outrun Giants. Redefine your Race.
Apple and Fitbit (now part of Google) were locked in an arms race over "activity tracking." Instead of trying to build a better step counter, Oura focused on recovery and readiness. They realised that while only 5% of people exercise daily, 100% of people sleep every night. 

If you can’t be the biggest player in an existing category, build a new one where you own the narrative.

✅ From Product to Symbol
ŌURA’s decision to build a ring wasn’t just an aesthetic choice; it was a strategic one. They built something footballers, elite athletes and celebrities proudly wear. By turning data into jewellery, they escaped price wars with plastic gadgets and became part of people’s identity. 

When your product signals who someone is, not just what it does, you earn the right to stay premium.

✅ Move from Product to Platform
Oura didn't stay a sleep tracker. They evolved into a health intelligence system. This is a huge lesson for any builder: Don’t just sell a one-off tool. Build something that gets smarter the more a person uses it. 

When your product becomes an essential part of someone’s daily decision-making, you’ve moved from a "nice-to-have" to a "must-have."

✅ Master the "Omnichannel" Pivot
For years, Oura was a darling of the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) world. But to hit the $1 billion mark, they knew they couldn't stay on their own website forever. They moved aggressively into Amazon, Target, and Best Buy.  

DTC is great for building a brand, but "Omnichannel" is how you scale to a billion. Go where your customers already are.


The big takeaway? The future won’t be built by brands trying to beat giants at their own game, but by those creating something new. 

When a brand knows who it is for and what it stands for, revenue becomes a result, not the goal.

It's January 2026, and I need you to get this through your skull: This year dies with you either being audacious or being forgotten. 

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened." - Matthew 7:7

You know what your problem is? You're knocking too softly.

Actually, scratch that. You're not even knocking. You're standing outside the door, practising your knock, wondering if it's the right time, the right door, the right knock. 

Meanwhile, someone with half your talent just kicked the door down and took what you've been "preparing" for.

There's no middle ground. There's no "strategic patience." There's no "right timing."  

Let me tell you about the day I stopped being a spiritual coward. I'm sitting in church, and the pastor reads that verse about knocking. 

But then he says something that messed me up: "Some of you are knocking like you're apologising for existing. God doesn't respond to whispers from people who should be roaring."

That same day, I went home and did five things that my "reasonable" self said would ruin me.

You can find this in my newsletter. Link in the comments 🔗

Happy to be featured in Entrepreneur UK where I share the lesson I learnt from spending 6 years learning CPG logistics the hard way.

Late-night calls about stranded inventory. Spreadsheets that stole my weekends. Retail relationships hanging by a thread because of delivery failures.

Nobody warns you about this part.

Everyone wants to talk about the sexy stuff:

→ The packaging design 
→ The influencer partnership 
→ The TikTok moment that goes viral 
→ The big retail meeting where the buyer says yes

But here's what I've learned scaling brands thousands of stores and across many continents:

Logistics isn't the backend of your business. It IS your business.

Get it right? You scale. Get it wrong? The best product in the world won't save you.

I've watched brands die with full warehouses. I've seen founders get their dream listing and then collapse under it. I've made mistakes that cost me months of momentum.

So I wrote everything down. The 6 things I wish someone had told me before I launched my first CPG brand:

1. Why your supply chain partners should be treated like co-founders
2. The lead time math that will either save you or sink you
3. How inventory killed more promising brands than bad products ever did
4. What actually matters when choosing a 3PL (hint: it's not price)
5. The mindset shift from firefighting to system-building
6. Why regional dominance beats national ambition every time

This isn't theory. This is scar tissue.

Full article in Entrepreneur UK 👇🏾

https://lnkd.in/eZb4ES-E

Thank you Patricia Cullen for the feature.

This might sting a little. No one owes you anything.

❌ No one owes you a repost.
❌ No one owes you a loan.
❌ No one owes you a handout.

Not your friends, not your family and not your partner.

YOU are responsible for your own breakthrough.

God has given you the tools, but He won’t do your push-ups for you.

He gave you the vision, now you provide the discipline.

He gave you the talent, now you provide the practice.

He gave you the opportunity, now you provide the courage to say "yes."

The "Handout Mentality" kills more dreams than failure ever will.

Because the moment your success depends on someone else's generosity, they control your limit.

Stop waiting for the perfect connection or the big break.

Pick up the tools you already have. Use the resources currently within your reach. Start where you are, with what you’ve got.

Stop looking for a hand up. Start putting your hands to work.

Your breakthrough is on the other side of your own effort.

This is your reminder to push yourself and open the doors in front of you.

The help you are waiting for will find you while you’re already working, not while you’re waiting.

Who is really funding the "Luxury Powerhouse"? Hint: It’s not just the banks.

The Saks Global Chapter 11 filing just pulled back the curtain on a staggering reality. 

Looking at the Top 30 unsecured creditors list, it’s clear that Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus weren't just struggling with a "luxury slowdown".

They were being floated by their own vendors and service providers.

The numbers are alarming:
➡️ The Brand Dependency
The "Who's Who" of luxury fashion is essentially acting as an interest-free bank for the retailer:
• CHANEL: $136 Million
• Kering (Gucci, Saint Laurent): $60 Million
• Capri Holdings Limited (Michael Kors/Jimmy Choo): $33 Million
• LVMH: $26 Million

➡️  The Hidden Cost of Operations
It’s not just about dresses and handbags. The filing reveals the massive "tax" of running a modern digital behemoth. 
Even in a cash crunch, the bills for tech and "strategy" didn't stop:
• PwC (Consulting/Audit): $31 Million
• Meta (Advertising): $12 Million
• Google (Search/Ads): $9.6 Million

When you owe CHANEL $136M and Google nearly $10M simultaneously, the "middleman" model is officially in crisis.

We are watching a permanent power shift. 

Luxury houses are no longer just "partners"; they are major stakeholders in whether this restructuring succeeds.

If they decide to stop shipping inventory to protect their own cash flow, the "turnaround" ends before it begins.

How Kourtney Kardashian Built a $30M Gummy Empire in 16 Months.

Lemme, her supplement brand, went from zero to $30 million in revenue in 16 months.

And here’s what makes it even more impressive: In November 2025 alone, they drove $13 million through TikTok Shop.

In January 2026, Lemme is in 2,000+ Walmart stores nationwide, growing 25% month-over-month. 

The brand has generated 53,000+ creator videos from 13,000+ affiliates who actually wanted to promote the products.

Lemme’s trajectory looks more like a VC-backed startup than a celebrity brand. And that’s exactly the point.

Let me show you what Kourtney Kardashian and her co-founder Simon Huck actually did:

✅ September 2022: Launch
- Three SKUs (gummy supplements)
- DTC + Erewhon (premium positioning)

✅ Month 6 (March 2023):
- Revenue: ~$5M (annualised)
- Expanded to Ulta Beauty, REVOLVE, & Amazon
- Still primarily DTC

✅ Month 12 (September 2023):
- Revenue: ~$20M (annualised)
- Entered Target nationwide
- 25% month-over-month growth rate established

✅ Month 16 (January 2024):
- Revenue: $30M+ total
- Growing 25% MoM consistently

Now, this is where most celebrity brands plateau or decline.

To read the full breakdown and analysis, check out my latest Creators Blueprint newsletter

Link in comments.

Kraft Heinz is splitting in two! Is the era of the "Mega-Conglomerate" officially dead?

Steve Cahillane, former CEO of Kellogg Company, just took the wheel as CEO this month. 

He led Kellogg’s through one of the packaged food industry’s biggest and most successful breakups (and the subsequent $36B sale of Kellanova to Mars).

Now, he is back to run the same play.
By H2 2026, the $26 billion giant will be gone. 

In its place? Two companies with two very different missions.

I call it separating the "Racers" from the "Anchors":

The Racers (Global Taste Elevation Co. ~$15.4B)
• Brands: Heinz, Philadelphia, Kraft Mac & Cheese.
• Mission: High-velocity growth, "Flavour Tech" innovation, and global expansion.

The Anchors (North American Grocery Co. ~$10.4B)
• Brands: OSCAR MAYER FOODS, Kraft Singles, Lunchables.
• Mission: Operational excellence and supply chain efficiency. The "Staples of the American Kitchen."

You can’t run a global condiments engine and a domestic meat/cheese business with the same playbook. 

They need different capital, different leadership, and different speeds.

My Prediction: We are seeing the birth of a new "CPG Blueprint." Kellanova did it. Unilever is doing it. Now Kraft Heinz.

Investors no longer want "The Biggest Company." They want the Most Focused.

Is focus the new scale for 2026? Or will these smaller entities just become easier targets for M&A?

The $32B Question: Why Kevin Hart Just Became a Shareholder in the Company That Owns Elvis, Ali, and Beckham.

Kevin Hart quietly did something that should make every creator, athlete and entertainer rethink how they’re building their business. 

He became a shareholder in Authentic Brands Group, a $32 billion empire that owns the rights to Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, David Beckham, Shaquille O’Neal, Reebok, Champion, and about 50 other iconic brands.

He signed a deal to license his name to ABG and became an owner in the ABG platform.

The structure:

➡️ Hart co-owns and co-manages the “Kevin Hart” brand
➡️ Hart becomes shareholder in ABG (undisclosed stake)
➡️ ABG’s platform: $32 billion in annual retail sales
➡️ ABG’s has 2k+ licensing partners across 150 countries
➡️ ABG’s portfolio: 50+ brands reaching nearly 1 billion followers

Kevin Hart was already winning with:

✅ 292 million social media followers globally
✅ $108 million earned in 2024 alone
✅ HARTBEAT Productions (content empire)
✅ Gran Coramino (tequila brand)
✅ Fabletics (fitness partnership)
✅ VITAHUSTLE (wellness brand)
✅ Hartfelt (premium dog food)
✅ Partnerships w/ Qatar Airways, Netflix, JPMorganChase, DraftKings Inc., Verizon, C4 

So the question you ask is, why would someone already this successful give up control of their name to a licensing company?

The answer reveals something important about how wealth gets built in 2026.

I unpacked it in my newsletter. Link in the comments. 🔗 ⬇️

Welcome to 2026: The Year Beyoncé Became a Billionaire 

The year where AI writes your emails, autonomous cars actually work, and oh yeah Beyoncé officially joined the billionaire club.

Not through a tech exit. Not through a SPAC. Not through crypto or NFTs or any of the other ways people accidentally became billionaires in the 2020s.

Through something far more impressive: Actually building a diversified empire brick by brick over 30 years.

According to Forbes’ latest calculations, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter’s net worth has officially crossed $1.1 billion as of January 2026, making her the first Black woman to achieve billionaire status primarily through music and entertainment ventures.

But here’s what makes this fascinating. Only about $300 million of that came from music.

The other $800 million? That came from Beyoncé treating her career like a business from day one.

Let me show you how a girl from Houston turned vocal cords and strategic genius into a ten-figure fortune and why her playbook might be more valuable than her discography.

Beyoncé’s $1.1 Billion Net Worth Breakdown (2026):

💰 Music & Touring: ~$300M
💰 Parkwood Entertainment: ~$250M
💰 Ivy Park x Adidas: ~$150M
💰 Real Estate Portfolio: ~$180M
💰 Investment Portfolio: ~$120M
💰 Art Collection: ~$100M

Get the full breakdown of how she built and scaled on my newsletter. Link in comments.

Ralph Lauren never went to fashion school, yet he built a $7 Billion empire. 

Ralph Lifshitz was a college dropout from a struggling family in the Bronx.

In his high school yearbook, under "Life Goal," he wrote just one word: Millionaire.

But the path was anything but a straight line.

In 1967, while working as a tie salesman, he pitched a line of wide, colourful ties.

His boss shut him down instantly: “The world isn’t ready for Ralph Lauren.”

He could have listened. He could have played it safe. 

Instead, he:
✅ Started working out of a single drawer in the Empire State Building.
✅ Hand-delivered his ties to small boutiques.
✅ Walked away from Bloomingdale's, his dream client, when they asked him to remove his label.

The result? Six months later, Bloomingdale's called him back. They didn’t just want his ties; they gave him his own shop.

Lifshitz realised something most founders miss: People don't buy products. They buy dreams.

He didn’t just sell a polo shirt; he sold the feeling of a summer in the Hamptons.
He didn’t sell a blazer; he sold the "Old Money" legacy.

Ralph’s story reminds us that vision, persistence, and courage can outweigh credentials. 

If you’re willing to chase your dream on your own terms, you can create a legacy that others said was impossible.

While the world worries about an economic slowdown, Africa is projected to grow by at least 4.3% in 2026.

We’re seeing a fundamental shift in the soul of Africa’s economy. 

The continent is finally moving from the "Era of Extraction" to the "Era of Execution."

The old math never added up:

Export raw cocoa for $3,000/ton and import Belgian or Swiss chocolate for $30,000/ton.

Export crude oil and buy back expensive petrol.

As of January 2026, the script is flipping.

1. Energy: The import paradox is ending. In Nigeria, the Dangote Refinery is already meeting nearly 40% of the country's petrol demand and exporting to other countries, including the US.

2. Value Creation: In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the cocoa industry is no longer just about harvests; it’s about processing. In 2025, Nigeria’s non-oil exports hit a record $6.1B, driven by finished goods, not just raw materials.

3. Trading within Africa: AfCFTA is finally doing the work. Countries like Kenya, Egypt, and Rwanda are moving industrial goods duty-free across borders. They’re no longer just feeding global supply chains; they’re building continental ones.

4. Local Production at Scale: Nigeria’s "774-Product Strategy" is a game changer. By identifying one exportable product in every single LGA, they are connecting local talent directly to a $3.4 trillion market.

For decades, Africa supplied the world. Now, Africa is supplying itself.

Goods are moving across borders and oceans. Value is staying on the continent, not leaking out of it.

Africa is building internal markets, regional supply chains, and economic muscle.

And for the first time in decades, the continent is finally in control of its own growth.

Africa Doesn’t Need More Fintechs. It Needs Better Infrastructure.

When most people hear “Invest in Africa,” what they really think of is real estate, fintechs and flashy startups.

But Africa is not one market. It is 54 regulatory systems and hundreds of micro-economies.

If I had £1M to deploy in 2026, I wouldn't chase the hype. 

I’d invest in the "Industrialized Rails", the quiet systems that fix the bottlenecks holding the continent back.

Here is the high-conviction roadmap:

✅ Agro-Processing & Value Addition ⇢ Africa produces 70% of the world's cocoa but retains <5% of the chocolate market's value.

The Play: Small-scale processing plants for cocoa, cashew, or grains to turn raw exports into finished goods.

✅ Energy as a Service (B2B) ⇢ National grids can't fuel industrial growth. Manufacturers aren't buying "green energy", they are buying uptime.

The Play: Reliable solar and storage for factories looking to escape diesel volatility and 24/7 power outages.

✅ Pharma Supply Chains ⇢ With the African Medicines Agency (AMA) taking off, the 80% import dependency is a massive opening.

The Play: Tech-enabled distribution hubs connecting local producers to fragmented pharmacies.

✅ Trade Logistics & Warehousing ⇢ Borders are opening, but storage is missing.

The Play: Cold storage and Grade-A warehouses along major trade routes and "dry ports."

✅ Foundational Digital Infrastructure ⇢ The world is building apps; smart money is building what powers them.

The Play: Data centers, fiber optics, and towers; the physical backbone of the digital economy.

My Take: The biggest opportunities are in building the assets the economy actually needs to function.

If you had £1M, which of these five would you back first?

I used to think market research meant decks, data rooms and dashboards. Then I heard a story about Bernard Arnault (CEO of LVMH).

He’s travelling in New York, gets chatting to a taxi driver, and asked if he knew who the president of France was at the time, but the driver replied "I've never heard of Georges Pompidou in my life, but I know what Christian Dior Couture is!"

..and that was the start of LVMH. On my trip to Nigeria I wanted to move through the city normally, talk to the drivers, speak to shop owners, listen to people who weren’t filtered through surveys or incentives, and understand how they actually think about brands, money and value.

So I asked uncomplicated questions, what do you buy again and again, what feels worth the money, what do you trust, what do you avoid, what feels overhyped but everywhere.

What came back wasn’t neat or scalable or easily turned into a slide, but it was honest, and in many ways far more useful than another report. Because people don’t speak in frameworks. They speak in habits, frustrations, shortcuts, pride and emotion, and those things rarely show up cleanly in data.

The reminder for me and maybe for other founders, investors and operators is that markets are human before they are mathematical. Data can tell you what happened, but it almost never tells you why, and the “why” is where brand, loyalty and long-term value are actually built.

If all you ever do is look at screens, you’ll optimise for numbers and miss the truth. 

Sometimes the real work is getting closer, listening longer, and being willing to hear things that don’t immediately fit your strategy.

Markets aren’t charts. They’re people. 

And people will always tell you more than a dashboard ever could, if you take the time to ask and actually listen.

Managing Partner @ Brick | Ads & Creative for 100+ DTC brands - $300m+ in sales | I write content about paid ads, performance creative & e-commerce

We scale 7 to 9-figure DTC brands using a creative-first, full-funnel approach that blends paid ads, landing pages, and performance-driven creative.

Brick isn’t a bloated agency juggling 50 clients. 

We’re a boutique team of senior strategists, creatives, and media buyers working closely with a small group of brands we genuinely believe in.

Everything we do is grounded in research, strategy, and execution. No juniors, no handoffs, no fluff.

We’ve driven over $400M in trackable revenue for some of the fastest-growing DTC brands. Our work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Social Media Examiner, and other leading publications. More importantly, 92% of the brands we work with hit all-time revenue highs in under 90 days.

If you're spending on ads but not seeing consistent growth, we can help. 

We focus on fixing the bottlenecks that are holding your brand back—whether it's creative fatigue, poor landing page performance, or inefficient account structure.

Message me “GROWTH” or check the link in my featured section to see how we work.

Toby W.

Struggling to scale Meta Ads?

If your ad account isn’t built for scale, efficiency breaks with spend.

After helping 250+ DTC brands scale profitably, we’ve documented the exact Meta Ads framework we use internally.

I’m giving it away for free.

Inside the guide, you’ll learn:

✅ How to structure Meta campaigns for predictable scale
✅ A repeatable creative testing system to find winners faster
✅ Where most ad accounts leak performance as spend increases
✅ How to scale while protecting ROAS & CPA

If you want your Meta account set up to scale, this is for you.

To get a copy:

• Connect with me
• Like this post
• Comment “META”

I’ll send it straight to your inbox.

I'm Toby, the data-nerd, dog-loving, Ex-apple, combat sports enthusiast, and foodie CEO of Brick Social. 

We help 8-figure DTC brands scale with paid ads. I'm passionate about Facebook Ads, DTC Growth, Google Advertising, Performance Creative, and Conversion Rate Optimisation. 

When I'm not helping clients grow, you can find me volunteering at my local dog shelter, exploring new cities, or tasting amazing food at new restaurants.

𝐃𝐓𝐂/𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐦 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫? 𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡.

I get it. You've been burned by other agencies, flooded with cold emails, and worried about poor communication or outsourcing to inexperienced talent. I'm here to change that. 

I take a holistic approach to growth by providing the attention and expertise you need to drive results. 

No overpromising, no underdelivering – just real growth.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡:

Patch Plants, Bougie Bakes, SHITI Coolers, Brooklyn Brew Shop, Moto 360, Kodak Smart Home, Paddywax Candles, PetFusion and many other awesome brands.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐈’𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝 𝐨𝐟:

-Generated $300,000,000+profitable revenue for clients
-Dozens of 5⭐️ reviews from our partners on Clutch.co
-Featured in industry publications talking about e-commerce growth 
-Client retention 1+Years 

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐦𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭.

As your go-to marketing professional, I’ll write here weekly about growth tips in e-commerce, paid ads, CRO, direct response creative, copywriting, and funnels. I'll also sprinkle in some personal stories that closely examine my internal world, adventures, and experiences. So hit the 🔔 to never miss a post! 

𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐄 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐄𝐎 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬:

-To achieve sustainable growth while building unshakeable foundations that last 

-To work with a partner who does all the heavy lifting so you won’t have to 

-To have a team of experts on your side that supports you through thigh & thin and has a ZERO BS and sugarcoating policy-

 I'm your guy.

If you’re interested to learn more:

👉🏻Dm me on Linkedin
👉🏻email me at: toby@bricksocial.co.uk
👉🏻apply to work with me here:  https://bricksocial.typeform.com/to/rnERXIke

Or simply follow my LinkedIn profile. 

Let's forge a strong connection and help your brand grow!

I help eCom brands scale past $25M/yr with Ads + Retention. $450M+ in revenue | Moto, Leica, Kodak, Drake + 200+ more.

Onkar Dikonda

Most fashion brands don’t have a media buying problem.
 
They have a creative volume problem.

9/10 brands we audit aren’t testing anywhere near enough variety to let Meta do its job.

If your current approach looks like this:

 • Re-running the same carousel until it dies
 • 1–2 “hero” concepts per collection
 • Creative testing based on gut feel, not structure

You’re capping scale - even if performance looks fine.

I’ve pulled together 100+ high-converting ad creatives used by top-performing fashion brands to unlock scale through volume + variety.

Want access?

Like + comment “Fashion” and DM me - I'll reply with the deck.

Toby Waller

Most beauty & wellness brands fail to scale because they:

🚫 Keep using the same ad angles
🚫 Don’t test enough different creative formats
🚫 Don't have a robust ideation process for new ideas

This swipe file fixes all of that...

100+ high-performing ad examples you need to test now for your beauty brand.

Want it? 

1: Like this post 
2. Comment ‘Beauty’
3. DM Me & I'll reply with the swipe file

Creative volume isn't your problem.

Most brands think they need 100 new ads per month.

What they actually need: 7-10 truly distinct creative angles.

We've catalogued 102 frameworks across every product category. 

The pattern is clear:

Winning accounts don't focus solely on volume.

They systematically test genuinely different approaches:

✅ Founder-led storytelling (not just "here's our story")
✅ Process/making-of content that builds product credibility
✅ Comparative positioning that reframes the category
✅ Lifestyle integration that shows the transformation
✅ UGC that addresses specific objections
✅ Interactive formats that stop the scroll

The difference between a $50K/month account and a $500K/month account isn't creative output.

It's creative diversity.

DM me if you want me and my team to dive into a deep audit across your creative and paid ads...

We'll show you where you're leaving growth on the table and how to break through your next revenue ceiling.

Creative Variety

We’re hiring a world-class Creative Strategist 🚀

This isn’t a junior role.

This role comes with real responsibility.

You’ll own creative ideation, testing, and iteration for some of the most recognisable DTC brands in the world - working directly with founders and senior operators to unlock scale.

We’re looking for the best of the best:

• Research-led, data-driven, and ruthless about what actually works
• Thinks in angles, insights, and systems - not random tests
• Wants to be deeply involved in brand growth, not hidden in delivery
• Hungry to level up inside a team that actively invests in your development

If you live and breathe performance creative, and want real ownership, this will be a fit.

Drop me a message, and I'll share the next steps 

{We must be connected}

We're scaling brands spending $100k+ per day on Meta.

The common thread?

Relentless optimisation of the boring, structural pieces that most teams overlook - the ones that compound into real scale.

Here are 5 we see time and time again:

1. Elite understanding of your economics

What we usually inherit:
 → Arbitrary CAC or ROAS targets
 → Blended metrics masking true new customer performance
 → Scale constrained by misunderstood payback and cash flow dynamics

What needs to be implemented:
 → True new customer CAC + contribution margin modelling
 → Payback period targets aligned to cash flow and inventory cycles
 → Scale decisions driven by unit economics - not surface-level ROAS

2. Rebuilding shallow creative portfolios

What we usually inherit:
 → Over-reliance on one format (usually UGC/testimonials)
 → Similar messaging dressed up as “new ads”
 → No creative built intentionally for placements

What we implement:
 → A balanced creative mix (UGC, product, educational, lifestyle, hi-res)
 → Hooks and angles mapped to buyer awareness stages
 → Placement-specific creative (Feed ≠ Stories ≠ Reels)

3. Be obsessive about learning from your customers

What we usually inherit:
 → Assumption that the current product range is “good enough”
 → Creative and offers forced to carry product gaps
 → No structured customer feedback loop into product strategy

What needs to be implemented:
 → Systematic customer insight mining (reviews, comments, support, surveys)
 → Clear feedback loops into product improvements and new SKUs
 → Product and offer expansion based on proven demand signals

4. Align ads to intent-specific landing experiences

What we usually inherit:
 → Everything sent to a generic PDP
 → Messaging disconnect between ad and page
 → One-size-fits-all post-click experience

What we implement:
 → Angle-matched landing pages
 → Problem-solution pages for pain-led ads
 → Comparison pages for competitor-aware traffic

5. AOV and offer architecture

What we usually inherit:
 → No structured upsell or cross-sell system
 → Discounts as the only lever

What we implement:
 → Bundles built from real purchase behaviour
 → In-cart and post-purchase upsell systems
 → Subscription and continuity offers where it makes sense

The uncomfortable truth:

Most brands don’t stall because their media buying isn't being micro-managed.

They stall because their unit economics, product strategy, creative system, and offer architecture aren’t built to support scale.

You can patch tactics for a while.

But eventually, structure becomes the ceiling.

If growth feels capped… It’s usually hiding in one of these.

Hiring: Senior Creative Strategist

We're looking for someone who can own creative strategy for our 7-9 figure DTC brands.

You need to be:

✅ A savage with direct response creative strategy who proactively hunts for pockets of opportunity.

✅ Insanely granular with analysis - figuring out exactly why things work and why they don't.

✅ 10/10 attention to detail. Nothing slips through the net.

✅ A good eye for design principles and basic design skills.

✅ Someone who grinds and wants to help our clients dominate.

You'll own creative ideation, testing, and iteration for brands doing 8-figure months.

Real responsibility. Real influence on outcomes.

Fair warning: This isn't just a 9-5. 

This is ownership, accountability, and relentless focus on results.

If you're systems-oriented, research-driven, and ready to prove you're one of the best creative strategists in the game - message me.

$20M in 90 days.
From ~$170K to ~$210K per day.

LinkedIn's character limit won't let me write everything we actually did for this brand...

So here's the bullet list version for ya'll:

→ Analyzed 18 months of support tickets, had leadership call 50+ customers, audited every creative. Found they'd been speaking to their smallest, noisiest audience while ignoring the segment doing most of the buying. 
Enthusiasts cared about specs. Most buyers just wanted something that worked. Complete messaging repositioning across every touchpoint.

→ Separated testing and scaling environments. Dedicated testing campaigns with 15-20% of budget to prove creative before it touched scaling budgets. Winners graduated to scaling campaigns optimized for scale, not learning.

→ Killed competing campaigns creating auction overlap. Consolidated to a few core campaigns with clear objectives. Account simplification unlocked efficiency improvements before we touched creative.

→ Shifted from polished brand content to raw founder UGC. iPhone videos with authentic storytelling outperformed $5K studio productions. 35% higher engagement, 28% lower CPA.

→ Leant into angular diversity, not volume for volume sake. When one angle fatigued, others kept performing because they reached different audiences.

→ Expanded to Canada, UK, Australia with localized creative and offer testing. Added 30% to total spend at maintained efficiency.

→ Tested offer structure over lazy discounting. BOGO frameworks, product bundles that increased AOV 23%, threshold offers. A $100 product with $20 of bonus items converts better than the same product at $80 while protecting margin.

→ Rebuilt landing pages as advertorials. Improved site speed (mobile 13→66, desktop 32→96) and implemented progressive disclosure for objection handling. Lifted CVR 18%.

→ Implemented systematic creative rotation. Monitored frequency caps, CTR degradation, and hook rate decay. Refreshed at the angle level, not the ad level.

→ Built feedback loops between creative performance and product messaging. What worked in ads informed email, SMS, and site copy. What converted on landing pages informed new creative angles.

→ Got global CVR to 2.8% (previous peak was 1.9%). The compounding effect of better traffic quality, aligned messaging, faster site speed, and smarter offer structure.

The result: $20M in 90 days. 
37% YoY growth.
Healthy unit economics.

We didn't chase breakthroughs. We stacked optimizations.

Better structure + authentic creative + smarter offers + post-click experience = better efficiency = more scale.

Most brands try to scale before they've built the foundation. 

They add budget to broken systems and wonder why performance degrades.

Research isn't sexy. Account audits aren't glamorous. 

But they're the difference between growth that scales and growth that stalls.

Our goal isn't a 100-client agency.

Far from it. 

It's to be the most effective partner for a small group of elite brands.

That's it.

I'm watching my team execute at a level I didn't think was possible. 

Media buyers, creative strategists, email team - all moving in lockstep.

Besides the metrics. Here's what really tells me we're onto something:

- Clients introducing us to their network unprompted 
- Clients asking if we need testimonials (not the other way around) 
- DMs from partners saying they've never seen returns like this

All three happened this week. 

From brands we only started with in Q4/Q1.

The compound effect when you align the right people around the right clients is absurd.

You found a winner. Congrats. 

Now what?

It wasn’t luck.
It was a signal.

Most brands miss this.

They scale creative without understanding why it worked.

They recycle winners instead of reverse-engineering them.

Here’s the 4-step system we use to scale Meta ad accounts from $50k to $500k/month:

✅ Review the top 20 ads
✅ Run a message + visual analysis
✅ Extract scroll-stopping hooks, angles & motifs
✅ Brief 5–10 net-new concepts to test

It’s simple. It’s scalable. And it compounds over time.

We recently used this exact process to help an apparel brand unlock their biggest month ever.

Reverse Engineer

Your best creative has 10X more juice left in it than you think. 

Here's how to extract it:

Video ads:

New hooks (change text overlay or reshoot opening 3 seconds)
Swap in different leads while keeping the rest identical
Same script, different creators
Change b-roll (especially powerful for AI VO ads)
Speed up/slow down pacing
Cut to core message or extend with more proof
Test different testimonials

Static ads:
Winning visual + new headlines
Winning headline + new visuals

For native-style ads: 
Use AI tools to swap the person/main subject across demographics

The key: 
Change one variable at a time.

This is how you get more from each creative winner.

Most brands see a winner and spend a week building something new from scratch.

The sophisticated approach treats iteration like a controlled experiment.

Every week, I audit accounts spending $100K > $1m/month+ on Meta.

They’re “testing aggressively.”

But here’s what that actually means in practice:

→ 5 UGC creators saying the same hook in different kitchens
→ 3 versions of the founder story with new B-roll
→ 4 testimonial cuts with the same message
→ 6 statics with one value prop in different colours

18 ads launched.
3 concepts tested.

This is the illusion of testing - tons of output, zero hypothesis diversity.

Takeaway: More ads don’t equal more insights. 
Without angle diversity, you’re just repeating yourself louder.

$20.1M in sales & 39% YoY growth. 
A huge part of that came from our Google Ads strategy. 
Here's the full breakdown ⤵

The foundational mistake most brands make:

They jump to tactics without understanding what they're optimizing for.

We spent weeks in research before acting:

✅ Multi-year search trends to map demand curves 
✅ Profitability mapping across every SKU 
✅ Competitor analysis on creative diversity and offers 
✅ Landing page audit to identify where traffic was dying

This research revealed the core problem:

Google's PMax algorithm was optimizing for volume, not profit.

Their consolidated campaigns funnelled 60%+ of budget into low-AOV purchases (£25-£40) while starving high-margin hero products (£150-£250).

Classic algorithm behaviour.

More conversions = better performance in Google's eyes.

Even if those conversions are killing your margins.

Here's what we did:

1. Product Segmentation by Profit Architecture

Split PMax into three distinct campaigns:
✅ High-AOV hero products (£150-£250) 
✅ High-margin seasonal bestsellers (40%+ margins) 
✅ Volume drivers (for retargeting and list building)

Each with separate budgets, creatives, and bidding.

Result: 45% lower CPA on high-AOV products.

2. The Full Seasonal Cycle (Not Just "Scale During Peak")

Most brands turn budgets up in November and call it seasonality strategy.

We ran a three-phase cycle:

Phase 1 - Pre-Season Momentum (October) Early-bird campaigns 30 days before peak demand. Locked in conversions before competition heated up.

Phase 2 - Aggressive Peak Scaling (Nov-Dec) Increased budgets 92% while holding 4X ROAS. This is the critical bit - most brands either under-scale (leave money on table) or over-scale (kill profitability).

Phase 3 - Post-Season Retargeting (Jan) Extended revenue cycle by converting browsers who didn't buy during peak. Captured an additional 15-20% of peak revenue.

3. PMax Creative Rotation

Test 3-4 new variants every 10-14 days 
Scale winners across all campaigns within 48 hours 
Kill underperformers after 7 days

4. Landing Page Segmentation by Intent

Generic product pages = generic conversion rates.

We built dedicated pages for: 
✅ Seasonal traffic (messaging tailored to "right now" demand) 
✅ High-AOV browsers (heavy social proof, urgency, risk reversal) 
✅ Returning visitors (bundle offers, loyalty messaging)

The bottom line:

Most brands have a scaling problem because they have a precision problem.

Google Ads will happily spend your budget.

It won't spend wisely unless you force constraints that align algorithm behavior with profit goals.

Segmentation isn't a tactic. It's a forcing function.

I've seen brands with 100+ active ads struggle to break $500K/month. And brands with 50 scale past $5M. 
The difference?

One is making more ads. The other is testing more angles.

Creative strategy isn't about volume. It's about angular diversity.

Here's what that means:

Most brands think they need "more creative." So they brief their team:

"Make 10 new ads this month."

What they get back: 
10 variations of the same concept. Different hooks, different B-roll, maybe different talent. 

But fundamentally the same psychological approach.

That's not 10 ads. That's one angle with 10 executions.

An angle is the core strategic premise. 

The "why should I care" that everything else hangs on.

"This product solves [specific pain point]" = one angle
"This product delivers [aspirational outcome]" = different angle
"This product works differently than [expected solution]" = different angle
"You're already doing [behavior], this makes it better" = different angle
"Everyone else is wrong about [belief]" = different angle

Each angle appeals to different psychology, performs in different audiences, and fatigues independently.

What I see working at scale:

The brands spending $500K+ monthly? 

They're running 8-12 distinct angles simultaneously. Each angle might have 2-3 executions, but the strategic diversity is in the angles, not the volume.

They're not asking "Can we make more content?"

They're asking "What angles haven't we tested?"

Pain point vs aspiration. Social proof vs founder story. Education vs entertainment. Problem-unaware vs solution-aware.

When one angle fatigues, the others keep performing because they're reaching fundamentally different audience psychology.

The brands stuck at $200K are making their 47th iteration of the same winning ad.

The brands at $3M are testing their 9th completely different approach.

Your creative production bottleneck isn't volume. 

It's your angle diversity.

You don't need 50 ads a month. 

You need 5 genuinely different angles, each executed 2-3 ways.

Stop counting ads. Start counting angles.

The real reason brands can't scale past $50k/day on Meta isn't what they think.

Most teams assume it's about:

> Testing more creatives
> Restructuring campaigns
> Switching between CBO and ABO
> Hiring a "better" media buyer

But when we run the diagnostic, the Meta account is rarely the issue.

Here's what we actually find:

Their CAC targets were set 18 months ago based on gut feel, not payback modelling. 

They're measuring blended ROAS when they should be isolating new customer acquisition costs. 

And they have no idea what their actual cash-to-cash cycle looks like - so they pull back on spend during high-CAC periods that would've been profitable if they'd just waited 60 days.

Their creative team is producing 5 new ads per week. Sounds decent - until you realise it's the same UGC format with slightly different hooks. 

There's nothing built for Reels. Nothing educational. Nothing high-production. 

The "diversity" is surface-level, and Meta's already exhausted the audience that responds to that singular approach.

They're sending all traffic - cold, warm, problem-aware, solution-aware - to the same generic product page. 

The ad promises a specific outcome, but the landing experience is a bland product description and an "Add to Cart" button. 

There's no bridge between intent and conversion, and they're bleeding 30-40% of their traffic because of it.

Their product catalogue hasn't evolved in two years. Customer support has hundreds of requests for specific variations, bundles, or adjacent products - but none of that intelligence is making it back to the product team. 

So creative and media are doing all the heavy lifting to compensate for gaps in the actual offering.

Their AOV strategy is "hope people buy two." No structured bundles based on real purchase behaviour. 

No post-purchase upsells. No subscription option, even though 40% of customers reorder within 90 days. 

They're leaving thousands per day on the table - money that could be funding higher CACs and more aggressive acquisition.

The breakthrough usually comes when they stop asking:

"How do we optimise the account?"

And start asking:

"What needs to be true about our business for this account to scale?"

Because Meta doesn't care about your tactics.

It cares whether your business can absorb expensive traffic, convert it efficiently, and monetise it profitably.

That's not a campaign structure problem.

That's a business architecture problem.

And no amount of creative testing will fix it.

Everyone’s seen IM8 broken down by now.

But most people are still missing what actually made it work.

After spending time properly dissecting their execution, it’s clear that a lot of the real leverage points are either misunderstood or completely glossed over.

What they built isn’t impressive because of the headline numbers.

It’s impressive because of how deliberately the system was designed.

A few things in particular are worth studying:

1. Their “Creator Army” is a production system, not an influencer play

IM8 didn’t rely on a handful of big names and hope for virality.

They built a distributed creator operation:

• 50–200+ micro-creators
• Hundreds to thousands of assets per month
• Centralised briefs + creative direction
• Licensing top performers for paid
• Small-budget testing at scale
• Scaling only what proves performance

Creators aren’t a channel.

They’re a manufacturing layer for paid media.

This is why they can sustain 3,000+ active creative variations without losing focus on one core offer.

Most brands bottleneck on creative.

IM8 engineered the bottleneck out of the system.

2. Offer depth, not product breadth

IM8 didn’t scale by launching more SKUs.

They did the opposite:

One core product.
No flavours.
One primary bundle.

Then they tested thousands of angles against the same offer.

Depth of offer > width of catalogue.

This is why they can run thousands of ads without fragmenting learnings or operational focus.

Most brands expand product lines to chase growth.

IM8 expanded message density around a single economic engine.

3. Funnel congruence is what unlocked 80% subscription conversion

Their subscription rate isn’t one clever trick.

It’s alignment across the entire funnel:

Defaults to subscription.
Pricing favours subscription.
Messaging frames transformation, not purchase.
Social proof validates the subscription choice.
Bonuses + guarantees remove risk.

Every element reinforces the same decision.

Most brands optimise pages in isolation.

IM8 optimised the system.

4. Their stubborn obsession with LTV is what makes everything else work

Subscription isn’t an add-on.

It is the business model.

That changes everything:

How aggressive they can be on CAC.
How much they can test.
How fast they can scale.

They’re not optimising for short-term ROAS.

They’re optimising for long-term economics.

That’s what gives them strategic freedom.

The bigger lesson:

IM8 didn’t win by being more aggressive.

They won by being more deliberate.

They removed complexity.

They built infrastructure for creative scale.

They aligned the entire funnel around lifetime value.

They let the algorithm handle targeting and focused humans on messaging.

Most brands are still trying to scale ads.

IM8 scaled a system.

That’s the difference.

This supplement brand was stuck selling to gym bros. 

We helped them hit $595k/month by talking to real people.

In early 2025, they came to us with solid traction in a niche audience, think high-protein macros, muscle recovery, bodybuilding lingo.

But our research showed something very different:

Their real growth potential wasn’t in gyms.

It was in busy, health-conscious women who wanted convenience, nutrition, and taste.

So we did what most agencies don’t:

We stopped guessing... and started listening.

🧠 Step 1: Deep Consumer Research (Not Just Surveys)

We went beyond surface-level insights:

✅ Poured through past survey data
✅ Analyzed 1000s of customer support tickets
✅ Reviewed post-purchase survey feedback via KnoCommerce
✅ Had the founders call customers to uncover why they really bought
✅ Cross-referenced with Google search data to understand intent

Insight: 60%+ of their customer base wasn’t fitness-focused... they were professionals, busy parents, women 30–50 who just wanted a quick, tasty, healthy option.

🧭 Step 2: Repositioning the Product Around Real-World Value

We rewrote the narrative from “macros & muscle recovery” to:

“Delicious, healthy breakfast in under 30 seconds”
“A filling, guilt-free way to start your day”
“Keeps cravings down. Keeps energy up.”

We rebuilt creative to match:

UGC + Reels from real customers, not influencers

Copy that focused on feelings (satiety, ease, flavor)

Lifestyle ads: women eating on-the-go, at work, with kids

The same product.

But it finally spoke to the people actually buying it.

🚀 Step 3: Creative x Media Buying Synergy

Most brands create ads in a vacuum.

We built a feedback loop between creative and media buying.

Here’s how:

Creative briefs were built using top-performing hooks and past winners

Weekly reviews to identify trends

Modular creative approach: Swappable hooks, offers, CTAs

Result?

35% higher engagement and 28% lower CPA with Reels vs. static.

📊 Step 4: Strategic Scaling, Not Spray & Pray

We scaled winners slowly: +20-30% budget every 2–3 days

Doubled down on ASC+ and segmented campaigns by persona

Recycled & refreshed past winners for retargeting

Built persona-specific landing pages aligned with the new messaging

We didn’t just “spend more.”

We created a scalable system.

🧪 Step 5: CRO & Offer Testing That Moved the Needle

Built new landing pages per persona (conversion uplift: +18%)

Simplified navigation + branding for first-time buyers

Introduced tiered discounts to increase AOV

Added post-purchase surveys to fuel future creative

Raised site speed scores from 13 → 66 (mobile)

💥 Results:
282% increase in monthly revenue YoY
$595k revenue 
34% increase in subscriptions
22% drop in CPA

If your brand has plateaued or you're only speaking to one version of your customer, you're leaving scale on the table.

Think your account is hitting a ceiling?

Here's how to tell if creative is actually the bottleneck👇🏼

Most brands blame Meta's algorithm, iOS, or audience saturation when performance plateaus.

But 90% of the time, the problem is creative infrastructure.

Here's a simple diagnostic you can run in 10 minutes:

Check #1: Pull your creative library

Count how many unique concepts you've tested in the last 90 days.

Not variations. Not hook swaps. Actual distinct concepts.

Compare to your monthly spend:

$10-30k/month → you need 7-10 concepts
$30-60k/month → you need 15-20 concepts
$60-100k/month → you need 20-30 concepts

If your number is 50% below these benchmarks, creative volume is your constraint.

Check #2: Look at your top 5 performing ads

How long have they been running?

If your best performers are 30+ days old and you don't have fresh winners graduating to replace them, you're one fatigue cycle away from a performance crash.

Healthy accounts have new winners graduating weekly. Stagnant accounts ride 2-3 ads until they die, then scramble.

Check #3: Calculate your hit rate

Total concepts tested ÷ concepts that scaled profitably = hit rate

If your hit rate is above 40%, you're not testing aggressively enough. 

You're playing it safe with concepts too similar to what's already working.

If your hit rate is below 15%, your creative strategy is broken. 

You're guessing, not testing hypotheses.

Sweet spot: 20-30% hit rate with high testing volume.

Check #4: Review your account structure

Are you testing new creative in the same campaigns where you're scaling winners?

If yes, you can't diagnose what's working. 

When performance drops, you don't know if:

Your winner fatigued
New tests are dragging down averages
Budget increases triggered learning phases
Testing and scaling need separate environments.

Check #5: Audit your production cadence

When was the last time you launched new creative?

If it's been more than 7 days, you don't have a production system, you have an ad hoc scramble.

Sustainable scale requires predictable creative flow. 

Weekly launches minimum at $30k+ spend.

What your answers mean:

If you failed 3+ of these checks, creative infrastructure is your bottleneck.

The fix isn't complicated, but it requires investment: 

→ Separate testing from scaling campaigns 
→ Build a weekly creative calendar 
→ Hire or contract production capacity that matches your spend 
→ Set clear kill criteria so bad creative dies fast 
→ Accept that 70-80% of tests will fail

The pattern I see constantly:

Brands scale spend from $15k to $60k without scaling creative production.

They wonder why they hit a ceiling at <$100k in spend.

It's not the market. It's that their creative engine can't support the volume their budget requires.

You can't deploy $2,000/day efficiently with 4 active creatives. The math doesn't work.

Run this diagnostic on your account right now.

If creative volume is your constraint, you know exactly what to fix.

The best-performing ad accounts? 

They build creative ideas using real customer data.

Here’s the exact framework we use to turn: 
– Reviews into messaging 
– Performance metrics into strategy 
– Competitor tracking into differentiation

No more random testing. 

No more “let’s just try this.” 

Just high-performing, data-backed creative.

In this carousel, I’ll show you how to: 

✅ Build a research-backed creative system 
✅ Extract gold from reviews + reputation 
✅ Track competitors without copying 
✅ Analyze creative performance properly

Swipe through the step-by-step framework 👇

Creative Ideation

Creative is your targeting mechanism. 

Audience selection has become largely irrelevant. 

Meta's ASC, Google's Performance Max, and TikTok's Smart+ all use creative assets as the primary signal for audience discovery. 

Manual targeting parameters have minimal impact on delivery. Most brands haven't rebuilt their production systems to match this shift. 

They're still optimizing for a model that no longer exists. 

The previous paradigm: 
Precision targeting, limited hero assets, long development cycles, targeting-led optimization. 

The current reality: 
Broad targeting, systematic testing infrastructure, rapid iteration, creative-led optimization. 

This creates a specific operational challenge: 

Brands need systems capable of 8-10 testable concepts weekly while maintaining strategic coherence. 

Our implementation framework: 

1. Strategic testing allocation - Structure your testing program to identify patterns, not just winners. 

Run creative against intentionally diverse audience segments within your broad targeting to understand which creative angles drive efficiency in which contexts. 

This reveals creative-audience fit patterns that inform production priorities. 

2. Systematic variation - Build a tagging taxonomy that tracks creative variables independently (hook type, problem framing, social proof format, CTA style). 

This lets you isolate which specific elements drive performance, not just which complete ads work. 

Most brands test whole ads and learn nothing transferable. 

3. Internal capability development - Train media buyers on basic design tools.

Use AI for headline variation at scale (20+ versions from each winning angle). 

This removes production bottlenecks from the testing pipeline. 

4. Offshore execution leverage - Deploy offshore talent for variation work, performance tagging, and competitive analysis. 

Reserve internal capacity for strategic decisions and creative direction. 

Results from a recent implementation: Beauty brand constrained by production capacity. 

30-day outcome: creative output increased from 20 to 60 monthly assets. 

The structural advantage belongs to mid-market brands ($25M-$250M annual). 

They can execute creative decisions without enterprise approval friction. 

The platforms have fundamentally changed the leverage points for paid acquisition. 

Brands that rebuild their creative systems accordingly will compound advantages over time.

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Toby W.

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taplio

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David Olusegun

Toby W.

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}David Olusegun's LinkedIn Performance

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