Joe Marston 🚀

Co-Founder

Scaling e-commerce brands to 7 and 8 figures 🚀 | LU Entrepreneur of The Year Award Winner | Founder of The Leading TikTok Marketing Agency and an Award Winning Full Service Ecom Growth Agency.

3x Agency Founder.

We scale brands to 7 and 8 figures with creative, paid traffic, retention and funnel optimisation.

In 2024, having a great product is one thing…

But scaling a brand to £10M is a another.

You need a simple roadmap for profitably attracting and converting customers, at scale.

Because when you get that right…

- You stand out from competitors in the market
- You build a community around your brand
- You acquire customers at will (profitably)
- You turn customers into raving fans 

Giving you complete control over your growth.

We help our clients do exactly that with our proven system that guarantees growth.

1. Initial diagnostic to identify bottlenecks in your business
2. Developing a bespoke growth strategy for your brand
3. Creative ideation and production 
4. Unique UGC collaborations
5. Targeted advertising (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat)
6. Email marketing 

And having generated over £100M+ in sales across 200+ brands, we’ve know the ecommerce game inside out.

🚀 Mystery Shirt In A Box grew from £5K to £2.6M in just one year with our help
🚀 The Essence Vault is hitting 7 figure months in its second year since launch
🚀 Vintage Threads tripled their revenue working with us with a 6x ROAS
🚀 AIRfreshh went from 0% to 52% of revenue from email in 2 months!
🚀 Bene Culture saw their revenue grow 6x in 6 months with our help
🚀 The Oodie generated £2M on TikTok alone in their first year
🚀 UN:IK’s first quarter of 2023 was up 88% on 2022
🚀Grew Liam and Co. 500% year on year

Don’t put up with unpredictable, unsustainable or underwhelming growth any more.

If you want to see how we could help scale your brand, send me a DM saying ‘SOAR’

If you're not ready yet, I post daily educational content to give you all the secrets.

Founder

E-commerce growth agency offering bespoke services to online businesses looking to increase their sales and scale their brand.

2026 is a new game entirely - so we’ve distilled what’s actually working for 8–9 figure DTC brands into one huge resource...

📖 THE 2026 D2C PLAYBOOK: The New Rules of Meta, TikTok, AI & Performance Creative

The scroll is now personal.

Every feed is a unique journey and most brands aren’t building for it.

In 2026, you’re not just running ads. You’re feeding machine learning systems with creative, copy, and context, at speed.

The brands winning are the ones who’ve built signal-rich creative systems and message frameworks that adapt to intent.

We’ve pulled together the exact strategies, formats, and frameworks we’re using right now.

- What’s working
- What’s out
- What’s next

Want the download?

→ Like this post
→ Comment “2026” and we’ll send it your way

Building DTC brands to 8 and 9 figures | Founder of Soar With Us & For You Advertising | Triple Whale's "Agency of The Year" Winner

For one last time, we’re releasing our most requested resource of 2025: a folder of the top-performing brand funnel breakdowns of the year.

Their full stack: Paid strategy > Organic > Landing pages > Google ads > Email > Offers

8 of the best brands of 2025.

Here’s who’s inside:
– rhode skin
– MESHKI
– Loop Earplugs
– ALO
– IM8 Health
– REFY
– BRĒZ
– WONDERSKIN

If you want the folder, you know what to do.

Like the post.
Drop “FUNNEL” below.
We’ll send it your way.

Make sure we're connected so I can DM you

TikTok Shop went from an “experiment” to a $15bn GMV channel in the US in under two years, while UK revenue grew 180% YoY.

The question isn’t whether it works anymore. It’s whether your brand is actually set up to capture it.

We’ve seen enough TikTok Shop launches now to spot a clear pattern:

- a strong first week
- inconsistent creator output
- messy LIVE execution
- offers that spike once, then fade
- no repeatable way to scale GMV

That gap is exactly what this resource is designed to close.

We’ve put together a practical, start-to-finish TikTok Shop guide for established e-commerce brands that want to treat the channel as a growth engine, not a side experiment.

It’s built for teams doing £5M+, where execution, structure, and control actually matter.

Inside the guide, we break down:

- How to set up TikTok Shop foundations that support scale (not short-term spikes)
- The LIVE structures and technical setup brands use to keep viewers engaged and buying
- How to choose hero products and offers that drive consistent GMV
- The affiliate playbook: recruiting, incentivising, and sustaining creator output
- How to use LIVE coupons and flash deals without eroding brand value
- What top-performing TikTok Shop content has in common (hooks, proof, CTAs)
- How to train hosts that can actually sell on camera
- The metrics that matter during LIVE — and what to do when performance drops
- How TikTok Shop can double as a creative engine for paid and organic growth

It’s a plug-and-play blueprint based on what’s working in real accounts right now.

If you’re responsible for growth, ecom, or creative, this guide is designed to save you months of trial and error.

Want it?
Like this post
Comment “tiktok shop” and I’ll send it your way
(Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you)

The most productive thing I did this week was stare at a wall for 30 minutes.

Dr Andrew Huberman explains that your ability to focus is driven by the inputs you received in the hours before you sit down to work.

If you scroll Twitter, watch YouTube, or listen to podcasts between work blocks, your brain is still processing that stimulation when you try to focus.

He calls it "dopamine residue."

The fix is simple: boring breaks.

No phone. No music. No input.

Just silence.

I tested it for 3 days. The clarity was immediate.

I now build 10-30 mins of nothing before any writing, strategy, or deep work.

It sounds lazy. It's the opposite.

The less stimulated your break, the sharper your next work block.

This is one of many systems that helped me scale past 8 figures before 28.

(Yes, that's me staring at a wall. I don't actually do this - I normally meditate or sit in silence away from my desk. But I did sit there for 4 minutes just to get this shot, which might be worse so you should give this a like for effort) 

Want the full list of protocols that I’ve tested to 3x my productivity? 

Comment "productivity" and I'll send you 10 protocols that actually moved the needle.

This is what it looks like when persona-led growth is baked into the product, not just the marketing.

Kind patches are selling solutions to 10+ highly specific problems and doing it through 3,000+ live ads at once.

Each product?
→ Positioned to a different pain point.

Each creative?
→ Tailored to a specific outcome.

Each angle?
→ Built for a defined persona.

We’re talking:
• “Sunday scaries” sleep anxiety
• “Skin and hair” glow-ups
• “On-the-go” energy boosts
• “Late-night scrolling” focus drops
• Even “support with weight goals” and “hormonal balance” for women

They’re building mini-funnels that slot into people’s lives. It’s why their paid system scales without fatiguing.

We just broke the funnel down.

Mapped the personas, analysed the creative, and pulled the patterns.

Want the full teardown?
Like this post
Drop “persona” below and I’ll send you the link
(Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you)

Meta just rebuilt the algorithm. And if you're uploading the same 6 statics… you're invisible.

In 2026, scale doesn’t come from more budget.

It comes from creative variety that matches algorithm complexity.

Here’s what’s powering Meta’s backend now:

🔹 Andromeda – learns preference patterns from creative complexity → +8% ad quality

🔹 GEM – ingests billions of data points to personalise delivery → +5% conversions on Reels

🔹 Lattice – connects outcomes across placements + formats → +6% in ad conversions

🔹 Sequence Learning – understands what happens before the click → +3% conversion lift

None of this matters if you're still uploading templated UGC with 3 hooks and a voiceover.

Meta’s system doesn’t need more content. It needs more context.

That means:
- Persona-led narratives, not just “creators”
- Varied format logic (statics, scripts, carousels, reviews)
- Diverse outcomes (AOV, pLTV, incrementality, not just ROAS)

We call this Soulmate Theory: The right creative, for the right user, at the right moment.

The algo can find the match. But only if you give it something worth matching with.

Our process in 2026:
- Creative trees by persona → not linear iterations
- Weekly contextual inputs to train the algo
- Measured by incremental reach and hit rate, not CTR

This is what makes every part of the system work harder.

So if your Meta performance is flat, it’s not fatigue. It’s signal starvation.

Your next growth unlock isn't more budget. It's creative intelligence.

“We could’ve raised at £100million. We didn’t and I’m glad” - Dan Murray🧠

🔥 Just dropped a monster episode with Dan, co-founder of Heights, one of the UK’s most trusted wellness brands (and a brand we’ve been proud to partner with on creative).

Dan gets brutally honest on:

- How insomnia, gut issues and startup burnout led to Heights
- Why he turned down a £100M valuation and raised at £60M instead
- The real impact of celebrity collabs (every one of them a paying customer first)
- How they broke through 2 years of flat growth to hit £25M
- Why he believes in building the best product in the category, not the trendiest
- And how “The Smart Supplement” became Vitals with messaging that finally converts

If you’re building through the mud, chasing profitable scale, or trying to unlock a better narrative for your brand…

This one’s a masterclass in founder clarity, creative strategy, and performance at scale.

🎧 Listen here: https://lnkd.in/eWii754p

We helped Mindful Chef lift conversions by 39% and reduce blended CPA by 26% in 90 days - while maintaining spend

Mindful Chef came to us on a mission to scale efficient new customer acquisition and modernise its paid channel strategy. We needed to ensure that rising platform competition didn’t translate into rising acquisition costs.

The brief was clear: refresh channel strategy, bring AI-assisted optimisation into the mix, and allow creative strategy to do more of the legwork.

‍
👉 Meta
On Meta, we moved from manually stacked interests to letting creative drive discovery, integrating Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) as the backbone of the strategy. A tightly run testing pipeline meant that each new concept had a fast path: validate in a dedicated test environment, then promote winners into core campaigns.

We layered in whitelisting to introduce fresh audiences and add trust signals, expanding reach while maintaining quality.


👉 Google
We streamlined Brand to remove cross-competition between Performance Max and Branded Search. Our bid strategy moved from target impression share to a Max Conversions test (versus manual CPC), unlocking volume and efficiency.

With stronger signal density established, we shifted to a focused target CPA approach, reducing acquisition costs on Google by 49% within the first 4 months of our partnership.


👉 Creative execution
Our first wave of creative translated Mindful Chef’s values into native-feel storytelling, mapped to key personas. We balanced high-production, “sceptic-to-convert” formats to tackle common objections around recipe boxes with UGC-led concepts that play into everyday tension points like back-to-school routine resets.

The result is a modular foundation spanning Problem-Aware to Product-Aware messaging, anchored in Mindful Chef’s USPs: health, convenience, and premium quality.

The Results:
✅ 67% META CONVERSIONS UP
✅ 26% BLENDED CPA DOWN
✅ 49% GOOGLE CPA DOWN

It feels like we're just getting started here, and we're incredibly excited at what's next for our partnership.

In under a year, IM8 Health crossed a $100M+ annualised run-rate and the underlying metrics actually improved as they grew.

With Danny Yeung making an appearance on the podcast this week, it felt like the right time to reshare our funnel breakdown to show what’s actually driving the numbers:

A few numbers worth paying attention to:

- $100M+ ARR pace in ~11 months
- 76% QoQ growth in the latest quarter
- 80%+ of first-time buyers convert to subscription
- $150 AOV, up materially post product expansion
- EBITDA losses now ~$2M per quarter, with breakeven in sight

We mapped IM8’s entire growth system end-to-end in a teardown a few months back, covering:

- Performance media across Meta + Google
- High-converting lander architecture
- Subscription-first funnel design
- Email + retention doing real revenue work
- Ambassador-led distribution
- Strong organic + owned community
- Bundled offers that lift AOV
- Clear, science-backed positioning (without killing brand)

If you want the full breakdown:

1️⃣ Like the post
2️⃣ Comment “IM8”
3️⃣ Make sure we’re connected so I can send it over

Here’s why most entrepreneurs never build anything that lasts:

They chase what’s easy, cheap, and fast, which means it’s easy to copy, and impossible to protect.

From day one at Soar, we asked ourselves:

“What would the best agency in the UK look like in 5 years and what do we need to do today to build that?”

At the time, it was just me and Olly.

Fewer than 5 staff.

No office.

No profit.

But that one mindset shift shaped everything.

We:
- Reinvested every penny instead of paying ourselves
- Hired top-tier people before we could “afford” them
- Built IP, frameworks, and internal systems from scratch
- Never cut corners, even when no one was watching

That’s what built the moat.

We weren’t trying to grow fast.

We were trying to become undeniable in one of the most competitive agency markets in the world.

And we’ve been scaling like that ever since.

Because while most people play the same game, we learned to play asymmetric warfare:

Win by doing what others can’t… or won’t.

If you’re building a DTC brand or service company, make decisions your future self will thank you for.

Short-term advantage is sugar. Moats take longer, but they’re the only way to win long-term.

I consumed 10+ hours of neuroscience-backed productivity content so you don't have to.

Here's the one thing that actually moved the needle:

Boring breaks.

Dr. Huberman explains that your focus isn't decided when you sit down to work. 
It's decided by what you consumed in the hours before.

He calls it "dopamine residue."

If you scroll Twitter, watch YouTube, or listen to podcasts between work blocks, your brain is still processing that stimulation when you try to focus.

The fix: No phone. No music. No input. Just silence before deep work.

I tested it for 7 days. The clarity was immediate.

This is 1 of 10 protocols I pulled from the research.

I put all 10 into a free PDF with step-by-step actions for each.

Comment "focus" and I'll send it to you.

In 2026, the most expensive mistake in paid media is making ads that look familiar.

If your ad account is full of:

– The same UGC setup
– The same pacing
– The same “hook → proof → CTA” flow

Meta doesn’t see 30 assets. It sees one idea, repeated. And that’s why scale stalls.

Because format and vehicle determine how Meta classifies your ads, not how many versions you upload.

Quick example (supplement brand):

UGC video
Creator talking to camera
“Nothing worked for my bloating until this”
Raw, selfie-style
Problem → Solution → Transformation

Static carousel
Clean, Reddit-style slides
“4 reasons your gut health is killing your energy”
Pain points, proof, soft product CTA

Same product.
Same promise.
Different format.
Different vehicle.

Which means:
– Different entity IDs
– Fresh reach
– New audiences unlocked

Format = the structure (UGC, static, high-prod, etc.)

Vehicle = the lens the story travels through (testimonial, expert, founder, education)

We recently changed just two things (format and vehicle) and Meta delivered the ad to a completely new audience overnight.

Nothing else moved.

If you want to win now, you need to mix formats and vehicles intentionally, not accidentally.

That’s how you unlock:
– New demand
– Better CPMs
– Scale that compounds instead of decays

Most brands don’t have a media problem.

They have a creative sameness problem.

We’ve audited hundreds of 8-9 figure ad accounts and the same problem shows up every single time.

Most DTC ad accounts we audit are built backwards are ignoring 3 key stages of the buyer journey:
- Problem unaware
- Problem aware
- Solution aware

All the budget is pointed at people who are already ready to buy.
- Offer overlays
- Product carousels
- Feature dumps
- “X% off today only”

And sure, it works, until it doesn’t.

You can’t scale if you only sell to people who already know you.

What we’re seeing in 7–8 figure audits:
- No context-setting
- No objection handling
- No storytelling or teaching
- No emotional runway

What to build instead:

You need creative that earns attention before it asks for action:
- Explainers: “Why most X don’t work”
- Sceptical UGC: “I didn’t think this would work because…”
- Founder POVs and breakdowns
- Category education or side-by-sides
- Hooks that sell the problem before the product

When you focus only on the most aware, you’re just pitching.
When you build for all 5 stages, you’re telling a story and scaling with depth.

The fastest way to kill Meta performance in 2026? Treat organic and paid as separate systems.

2026 is shaping up to be the year organic makes a comeback, not as a brand nice-to-have, but as an input into how Meta decides which paid ads deserve scale.

Meta’s GEM update (Meta’s new paid ads foundation model) quietly flips the question.

It’s not: “How do we make better ads?”

It’s: “How do we create better signals for paid delivery?”

GEM is Meta’s most advanced ads recommendation model, built at LLM scale to rank and sequence ads across Facebook and Instagram. Instead of judging ads in isolation, it evaluates entire user journeys and decides whether a brand’s creative is worth expanding to new people.

GEM is designed to make sense of:

- what people do over time (their sequence of actions, not just one click)
- the context of those actions (format, placement, device, surface)
- signals coming from across Meta’s ecosystem, not just Ads Manager

So if you’re still treating creative as “new angles” inside Ads Manager only, you’re training GEM (paid) with half the picture.

👉 The practical shift: organic shapes the interest signals GEM uses to decide whether your ads scale.

If people engage with your organic content (views, comments, saves, profile taps), you’re creating clearer interest patterns. GEM learns from those patterns when it decides:

- who to show your ads to next
- how aggressively to expand reach
- and whether your brand deserves cheaper, broader delivery

That’s why organic performance now compounds paid performance.

What to do this week

1. Run one creative strategy across paid + organic.
Same personas. Same objections. Same “why now?” triggers.
   
2. Build signal-saturated assets, not endless ad variations.
  Your goal isn’t 30 ads.
  Your goal is 5–10 distinct concepts that clearly signal who the product is for.
   
3. Make your creative org chart more important than your campaign structure.
   
  If you don’t have:
  - someone briefing
  - someone producing
  - someone tagging + learning
you’re not a performance team anymore. You’re just buying impressions.
  
The winners won’t be the best media buyers.

They’ll be the teams who can produce distinct, high-quality signals at speed across organic and paid and let GEM (paid) do what it’s designed to do.

Curious: are you still treating organic as a brand channel or are you using it as an acquisition input that determines whether paid can scale?

Olly Hudson unpacks the mechanics behind this shift, including GEM and UTIS, in a longer piece for anyone wanting the full picture https://lnkd.in/ej7TqbDF

Meta’s 2025 Andromeda update made one thing clear:

Creative and creator identity are now the targeting.

Meta isn’t relying on interests or lookalikes anymore. It’s matching ads to individual-level preferences in the moment.

Two implications matter:

1️⃣ Meta can support far more creative volume and match assets more precisely.

2️⃣ The brands that win are the ones engineering the strongest signals: relevance, engagement, and clean conversion journeys.

For brands spending multi-6 figures/month, growth rarely stalls because CPAs spike.

It stalls because first-time impression ratio (FTI) drifts down.

You spend more.
You hit the same people.
Top-of-funnel quietly dries up.

As a benchmark, we aim for 10–20% of impressions to be truly incremental each month.

So why do partnership ads win under Andromeda?

Across our accounts, partnership ads are taking a larger share of spend because they:

✅ Drive stronger engagement signals

✅ Feel more human and credible than brand-only ads

✅ Unlock new reach via identity, not just new angles

Same angle. Same format.

Run it through a creator, founder, or third-party identity and you open new pockets of reach without rebuilding the concept.

But, Partnership ads don’t fail at the ad level. They fail post-click.

If the landing page, pre-sell, or CRM doesn’t continue the same voice and story, the signal collapses.

Consistency is the multiplier.

If you’re scaling on Meta and not tracking FTI or incremental reach, you’re flying blind.

And if partnership ads aren’t a default part of your system yet, you'll get lost in the algorithm.

We tore up our entire creative process and rebuilt it for AI-first performance.

These 7 changes are now non-negotiable for scaling 8-figure brands.

2024–25 was about testing with AI.
2026 is about building with it.

Here’s what we’re shifting in our creative ops to scale real reach and win Meta’s AI game:

1. Creative diversity becomes non-negotiable
Meta’s new entity grouping system means if your ads look the same, they deliver the same. No matter how different the copy is.

💡70% of brands we audit are flooding their accounts with 100+ iterations...
But Meta sees them as 5 unique ads.

What we’re doing:
- Visual first, not copy first
- Distinct scenes, styles, formats
- Strategic volume > cosmetic tweaks

2. The AI Videographer becomes essential
We’ve added a Visual Prompt Engineer to every pod. A production multiplier.

🎯 Their remit:
- 10–30 ad variants per brief
- VO hooks, metaphors, transitions, environments
- Studio-level output without studio-level cost
It’s how we hit Meta’s volume bar without burning creative teams out.

3. AI = a second studio
We now run parallel briefs for human and AI production.
Same input, different output.

💡Where AI is outperforming:
- Product in environment
- Visual metaphors
- Explainers and low-prod demos
- Fast iterations on hooks + B-roll

4. Systems > tools
AI makes asset generation cheap.
So your edge isn’t generation, it’s organisation.

What we’re building:
✅ Centralised creative warehouse (transcribed, tagged, promptable)
✅ Context libraries for every format
✅ Performance data piped into feedback models
✅ Automated creative routing to avoid the graveyard problem

5. Feedback loops go automated
AI’s not just replacing creators, it’s coaching them.

We’re using tools that:
- Auto-critique sales calls and 1:1s
- Coach UGC creators on delivery
- QA edits before they hit the ad account
- Provide VO tone, clarity, and brevity suggestions in real-time

6. Video Gen hits mass market
Sora 2, Gemini V3.1, Nano Banana, Runway, they’re levelling up fast.

We’re already seeing:
- Seamless B-roll
- Abstract metaphors (balloons for stress, fire for urgency)
- “AI but not obvious” animations
- Scripted face swaps and founder clones

7. New workflows = new risks
Expect legal firewalls around:
- Creator likeness + consent
- Deepfake disclosures
- Brand safety for AI assets
- Authenticity disclaimers in ATL creative

We’re helping clients pre-empt with consent protocols, asset tagging, and workflow rules.

Bottom line for DTC brands in 2026

The brands that win will:
✅ Build an AI-native production function
✅ Invest in strategic visual diversity
✅ Systemise asset tagging, routing, and prompts
✅ Use AI for creation and performance coaching
✅ Blend AI + human storytelling at scale

The brands that lose will:
❌ Rely on text swaps and tired recuts
❌ Let GenAI files rot in Google Drive
❌ Skip strategic iteration
❌ Ignore how fast video is changing

I spent years thinking I had to figure everything out alone.

That’s what founders do, right?

Then I read Ray Dalio’s approach.

He didn’t build Bridgewater by being the smartest.
He built it by being the most willing to be wrong.

Here’s what he did differently:

He worked for what he wanted.
Not for what others wanted him to do.

He came up with independent opinions.
Then found the smartest people to destroy them.

He stress-tested everything.
Not to prove he was right.
To improve his odds of being right.

He stayed wary about overconfidence.
Because in markets, bad opinions cost everything.

He wrestled with his realities.
Reflected on consequences.
Learned and improved from the process.

Most founders confuse independence with isolation.

They think if they’re truly leading,
they should trust their gut and move alone.

But the best founders I know
don’t just think independently.

They think independently, then test brutally.

They create systems to challenge their own logic.
They seek out people who will prove them wrong.
They remain paranoid about blind spots.

Because you can do a huge amount of work
and still be wrong.

The market doesn’t care how hard you worked.

Independent thinking isn’t about being alone.
It’s about being right when everyone else is wrong.

And the only way to get there
is to test your assumptions with people
smart enough to prove you’re not.

Founder lesson:
Work for yourself.
Come up with independent opinions.
Stress-test them with people who will destroy them if they’re weak.
Be wary about being overconfident.
Reflect on consequences and constantly improve.

That’s how you win.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Q5 is the most important quarter (that isn’t a quarter) and this is how not to waste it.

Most brands go too seasonal or default to evergreen messaging that totally ignores how people actually feel post-Christmas.

The sharpest operators?

They lead with problem-aware creative that taps into the “reset” mindset and they build it to last beyond Q5 with smart hook variation.

- 50% goes to problem-aware + unaware top-of-funnel content
→ Tap into the “reset” mindset but build in hook variations so these ads outlive Q5.

- 20–30% goes to mid-funnel trust-builders
→ Objection handling. Social proof. Clear transformations. Especially important in health & wellness, where everyone’s shouting at once.

We break this all down in the 2026 Ecommerce Playbook: why now’s the best time to reach your hardest to reach customers and the biggest mistakes brands make post-Christmas.

Catch up now: https://lnkd.in/eTdgnNRH

$0 to $120M run rate in 11 months. The fastest-growing supplement brand in the world.

Backed by David Beckham.

Built on science.

IM8 Health is setting the pace for a new wave of consumer health brands, and Olly sat down with CEO Danny Yeung to unpack exactly how they’ve done it.

One of the sharpest operators we’ve ever spoken to.

Watch the full episode → https://lnkd.in/ewauU5yT

We couldn’t hire enough great creative strategists. So we built a system to create them.

🚨 We’re opening applications for the first ever UK Creative Strategist Incubator.

Not a junior role. Not a course.

This is a 9-month, Meta-backed, in-person training ground to fast-track high-curiosity talent into elite creative strategy role, inside one of the UK’s most advanced DTC growth teams.

Here’s why we built it:
– Most brands are hiring this role for the first time
– They don’t know what “great” looks like
– And the A-players are either locked into top agencies or demanding £90k+ salaries

We’ve trained 30+ strategists from scratch over the past 3 years.

Now we’re turning that process into a formal programme and opening it to the public for the first time.

📍 Based in our new London HQ
£100m+ in Meta ad spend in 2025 to learn from
Backed by Meta, including in-person sessions at Meta HQ
Real brands, real feedback loops, and a clear path to promotion

This is the MBA for performance creative

Only 5 spots.

Apply below if you're early in your career, obsessed with how creative drives revenue, and ready to put in the reps.

👉 https://lnkd.in/eHYYPFvy 

📺 Watch the episode where Olly and Loukas reveal all https://lnkd.in/ethEgsKj

Ciaran Finn

Helping DTC Brands Scale 5+ New Ad Creatives Every Week // $150M+ In Trackable eCom Sales // DM me CREATIVE and let’s chat

DTC Brands: Click the button in my featured section below 👇

Founder & CEO

Founder & CEO of an award-winning growth consulting and performance marketing agency for eCommerce brands.

We partner with growth-focussed eCommerce brands, taking a CMO-based approach to hitting revenue goals through paid advertising, performance creative and growth consulting.

Learn more here: bluefinnmedia.com

We produce 2000+ ad creatives every month.
 
 We wouldn’t be able to do it without this::
 
Every single video we produce goes through the same 17-point review process before it goes live.
 
This is our internal Editing Review Checklist.
 
It's the exact checklist our Performance Editors use daily to catch mistakes before they cost us money.
 
Here's what it covers:
 
→ Hook quality check - will it stop the scroll?
→ Pacing and cut frequency - keeping attention throughout
→ Text, transitions, and safe zone compliance
→ Audio - music fit, sound effects, engagement triggers
→ Visual dynamics - zoom, b-roll, split-screen opportunities
→ Storyline flow and end card accuracy
 
This process has taken us 3 years to build and refine.
 
It's why we catch 90% of issues before the first review - saving hours of back-and-forth and getting ads live faster.
 
And you can have it for free.
 
To get access:
 
1. Connect with me
2. Like this post and comment 'CHECKLIST' below
 
And I'll send the checklist straight over.
 
Ps. If you manage editors or review video ads yourself, this will save you hours every week ♻️

DTC Growth Expert // $700M+ In Trackable DTC Sales // Scaling 7-9 Figure DTC Brands

Your landing page & website determine your conversion rate.
 
And increasing your CVR will directly increase your ROAS.
 
That’s why we’ve compiled 100+ DTC landing pages that generate 9-figures in yearly revenue.
 
These are the exact landing pages driving revenue for brands like:
 
✅ Loop Earplugs
✅ Magic Spoon
✅ Athletic Greens
✅ Represent
✅ Obvi
✅ Harrys
✅ & many more
 
We’ve compiled 100+ of them into one resource so you can:
 
→ See exactly how the biggest brands structure their pages
→ Identify high-converting layouts you can model
→ Stop guessing what "good" looks like
→ Improve your CVR before spending another dollar on ads
 
This took weeks to put together.
 
But it’s had an exponential impact on our clients conversion rates
 
To get access:
 
1. Connect with me: Ciaran Finn
2. Comment 'PAGES' below 👇
 
And I'll send the full 100+ Landing Page Swipe File straight over.
 
—
 
Feel free to repost to help someone in your network improve their landing pages ♻️

Sometimes your ads aren’t the problem.
 
Your landing page is:
 
Most DTC brands obsess over increasing their ROAS.
 
What they fail to realize is that no amount of creative testing will fix a page that doesn't convert.
 
I've audited hundreds of ad accounts over the past 3 years.
 
Here’s the pattern I find with many brands:
 
→ Solid creative
→ Decent CTR
→ ROAS stuck below 2x
 
The bottleneck isn't the ads - It's the page.
 
Here's what separates a low CVR page from a landing page that prints money:
 
𝟭. 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆
 
Within 3 seconds, the visitor knows exactly what the product does and why it matters. No scrolling required.
 
𝟮. 𝗔𝗱-𝘁𝗼-𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
 
The promise in the ad matches the promise on the page.
 
𝟯. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳
 
Reviews and UGC placed where objections naturally arise - not buried in a testimonial section nobody reads.
 
𝟰. 𝗥𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗮𝗹
 
Every unnecessary click, scroll, or form field that doesn't lead directly to conversion gets cut.
 
The brands doing 9-figures treat their landing pages as sales conversations.
 
That’s why I've compiled 100+ high-performing landing pages from 9-figure DTC brands into a swipe file.
 
Connect with me and comment 'PAGES'
 
I'll send it over to you.

"What's the optimal split between Meta and Google?"
 
DTC founders ask me this question on a weekly basis.
 
It varies by brand and niche.
 
But across most accounts the split is consistent:
 
70% Meta, 30% Google
 
Here’s why:
 
𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.
 
It's top of funnel in the truest sense.
 
You're getting people who have no idea about your business to learn about it for the first time.
 
𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.
 
This is where people already know about your brand.
 
A few days later, that same customer searches your brand name on Google.
 
They click on your search ad.
 
Go straight to checkout.
 
And complete the purchase.
 
Looking at per-channel ROAS, Google will usually look better.
 
But Meta is what drove the discovery.
 
Google just captured the intent that Meta created.
 
If you only looked at Google's ROAS, you'd think it's a gold mine.
 
And you'd kill your Meta budget.
 
But then your Google performance would collapse.
 
Because there's no new demand being created.
 
The truth is all channels work together.
 
Start using your blended numbers and Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER):
 
→ MER for overall performance
→ aMER for new customer acquisition performance
 
Because this customer wasn't the first to be influenced by multiple channels.
 
And won't be the last.
 
So stop solely focusing on per-channel CPA or ROAS.
 
Make MER and blended metrics your focus in 2026.
 
Think macro, not micro.

Last year I gave my first Affiliate World speech with my business partner Evan Carroll 

Since then we've been invited to 2 more, with the next one being held in Dubai in a few weeks.

There's a pattern I see between memorable speeches and ones that bomb:

The best speeches focus on the audience first, then the information.

Keeping the audience engaged throughout your entire presentation should be your primary objective. 

The best speeches I see are:

• Informative
• Different
• Entertaining

Most speakers completely ignore the last 2 points.

I have a checklist to go over before I finalize any material I'm going to present on stage.

Here's what it consists of:

→ Lead with a story, not just stats
→ Use curiosity loops to keep the audience engaged
→ Prioritize speed (don't bore the audience)
→ Make high-level concepts easy to digest
→ Use the Rule of 3 (people remember 3 things max)
→ End with a specific action they can take today

Your first speech wont be the best.

But if you:

• Build a solid framework
• Aim to make an impact
• Put the audience first

People will remember you.

This 1 strategy can cut your CPA by 30-40%
 
But 95% of brands have no idea how to do it properly.
 
I'm giving away our internal Whitelisting Cheatsheet that we use with every client - completely FREE.
 
This is the exact step-by-step system we follow to launch whitelisted ads for 7 and 8-figure DTC brands, which has helped us reduce CPAs by an average of 35% across our client portfolio.
 
This cheatsheet includes everything:
 
✅ The 3 types of whitelisting (and when to use each one)
✅ Pros and cons of each whitelisting method
✅ The 8-step process to launch whitelisted ads
✅ Step-by-step Facebook Business Manager setup guide
 
We've spent the last 2 years perfecting this process across hundreds of creator partnerships.
 
This training is worth thousands to brands that implement it correctly.
 
Today, you can have it for 100% free.
 
To get access, all you need to do is:
 
1. Connect with me
2. Comment 'WHITELIST' below
 
And I'll send the Whitelisting Cheatsheet straight over (no email sign-up needed).

---

Feel free to repost to help someone in your network lower their CPA with whitelisting ♻️

3 ad creative shifts separating the brands scaling on Meta in 2026 from the ones stuck:
 
1. Platform-native creative
 
The highest-performing ads don't look like ads anymore.
 
Meta's algorithm rewards content that feels native to the feed with lower CPMs. We've seen costs drop significantly when creative mirrors the look and feel of organic content.
 
The best creative teams in 2026 are studying what's already working organically in their niche and reverse-engineering it for paid.
 
2. Format diversity over volume
 
Andromeda changed how Meta evaluates creative.
 
Minor variations like headline swaps & background color changes no longer move the needle. The algorithm groups visually similar ads together and limits their reach.
 
The accounts scaling are feeding the algorithm genuinely different formats:
 
→ Video
→ Statics
→ GIFs
→ Carousels
 
Each unlocks different placements and resonates with different buyer types. This isn't about producing more. It's about producing different.
 
3. Algorithmic creative optimization
 
The brands winning in 2026 are feeding Meta 15-20 diverse inputs and letting the system find the optimal combinations per user.
 
The media buyer's role has shifted.
 
Less time tweaking manual settings - more time on creative strategy, input quality, and week-over-week iteration.
 
To win in 2026:

study native content in your niche, prioritize genuine creative diversity, and trust the algorithm to optimize.
 
Get these three right and you're ahead of most brands still running the old playbook.

This is by far the easiest growth lever you can pull to scale profitably.
 
But most DTC brands completely ignore it.
 
I'm talking about increasing your Average Order Value.
 
Most brands either avoid it entirely or implement it so poorly it has zero impact on their bottom line.
 
They'll spend thousands testing new creative angles and restructuring campaigns.
 
But won't take 24 hours to implement bundling that could increase profitability overnight.
 
𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗔𝗢𝗩 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆:
 
1. Post-purchase upsells
2. Free shipping thresholds
3. Strategic bundling
 
If you're unsure how to make bundles that will convert for your brand:
 
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮
 
→ Use Triple Whale to see which products are frequently bought together
→ Identify natural product pairs and bundles customers are already creating
 
𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
 
→ Use product bundle apps to create dedicated bundles
→ Create a dedicated landing page for the bundle
→ Drive all Meta traffic to this landing page
 
𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲:
 
Humans take the path of least resistance.
 
If you have your bundle as the backup option, no one will go for it.
 
But if it's the primary option, they will buy it.
 
So make it easy for them to buy what you want them to buy.
 
Most brands obsess over creative testing and campaign structure.
 
But they're leaving money on the table by not optimizing what happens after the click.

This 1 lifestyle change has made me more money than anything else.
 
I grew up believing that hard work meant long hours.
 
That's why I prioritized working hours over everything else.
 
I needed to work a minimum of 12 hours a day to feel like I was giving it my all.
 
There was only one issue - I was averaging 5-6 hours of sleep per night.
 
I convinced myself it was necessary.
 
But I was just putting in more time doing less quality work.
 
Here's what changed:
 
Instead of prioritizing work - I started to prioritize sleep.
 
The more your business grows The bigger your organization gets The more your decisions count.
 
Your job as a CEO is to make good decisions consistently.
 
And you can't do that if you’re not getting the sleep you need.
 
That's why sleep is now the cornerstone of my daily routine.
 
Here's what it looks like:
 
→ I go to bed at the same time every single night
→ I have my last meal of the day 4 hours prior to bed
→ Blue-light glasses go on 4 hours before I sleep
→ Phone goes away 2 hours before bed
→ I read a paperback book to wind down - no screens
→ Bedroom stays at 19°C
 
To make sure I’m getting high quality sleep on a nightly basis, I track everything with an Oura ring.
 
My target: 9 hours in bed, minimum 8 hours of actual sleep.
 
The result:
 
→ Clearer thinking in strategy sessions
→ More patience with my team
→ Better decisions under pressure
→ No burnout by Thursday
 
Sleep isn't a luxury. It's the foundation everything else is built on.
 
If you're grinding on 5 hours and wondering why you feel stuck - start here.

The most productive thing I do each day takes 20 minutes:

And it happens after all the work is done.
 
Every evening, I spend 20 minutes preparing for the next day.
 
→ I review my calendar.
→ I identify my top 3 priorities
→ I write down exactly what I'll work on during my first deep work block.
 
By the time I sit down the next morning, there's zero thinking required.
 
No "what should I focus on today?" No scanning through emails to find direction.

No wasted mental energy deciding where to begin.

I just start.
 
This sounds simple. But most people do the opposite.
 
They wake up, check their inbox, and let other people's priorities hijack their day before it even starts.
 
Then they wonder why they're busy but not productive.
 
Here's what I've learned:
 
Mornings are for execution, not planning.

Your best mental energy shouldn't be spent figuring out what to do.
 
It should be spent doing the work that actually moves the needle.
 
So I front-load the thinking to the night before, when the stakes are lower and my mind can process without pressure.
 
20 minutes of planning the night before.

Hours of focused output the next day.
 
It’s a small habit that will compound your output like nothing else.

Last month I spoke with five 8-figure DTC brand owners that missed their BFCM targets.
 
After auditing their accounts these same patterns kept showing up:
 
𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗤𝟰 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲.
 
Black Friday doesn't fix broken ads. It amplifies them.
 
The brands that crushed it had their winning angles locked in by October.
 
They used November to scale what was already working.
 
Everyone else scrambled to "figure it out" while CPMs were at their peak.
 
𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺.
 
Many brands celebrated 4x platform ROAS while their bank accounts told a different story.
 
7-day click + 1-day view attribution in Q4 is a fantasy.
 
Winners were tracking MER, running post-purchase surveys, and making decisions based on actual cash collected.
 
𝟯. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗤𝟰 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗿.
 
The biggest wins came from brands that were already scaling profitably in September.
 
Q4 was jet fuel for their existing momentum.
 
𝟰. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱𝗻'𝘁 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘂𝗽.
 
Winning ads fatigue faster during peak season.
 
The brands hitting record numbers were launching new iterations weekly.
 
Most were too slow to make the right changes by the time their winners burned out.
 
If you underperformed in Q4, remember Q1 is the reset.
 
CPMs drop. Competition pulls back.
 
The window to build your foundation for 2026 is now.

3 extremely difficult lessons I had to learn as an agency owner:
 
𝟭. 𝗦𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝘆𝗲𝘀" 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 "𝗻𝗼" 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲.
 
When you're starting out, you take every client.
 
Every opportunity.
 
Every meeting.
 
I thought that's what it took to grow.
 
But growth without focus is just chaos.
 
The moment we started saying "no" to clients who weren't the right fit?
 
→ Our results got better
→ Our team got happier
→ Our reputation got stronger
 
The key is to do less, better.
 
𝟮. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲'𝘀 𝗰𝗲𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴.
 
This one hit the hardest.
 
Most agency owners start their business for the lifestyle
 
That’s why most agencies inevitably end up failing
 
I realized that every time I accepted "good enough" from myself
 
I was telling my team that "good enough" was acceptable.
 
You can't demand excellence from others while accepting mediocrity from yourself.
 
Your team will never consistently operate above the standard you set.
 
So set it high.
 
𝟯. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲.
 
Early on, I held onto team members way too long.
 
I thought: "If I just give them more time, more training, more support..."
 
But here's the truth:
 
Wrong fit = wrong fit
 
No amount of training will fix misalignment, and keeping the wrong people hurts everyone in the long run
 
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let someone go find where they belong.
 
What are some of the most difficult lesson you've had to learn in your career?

Most 8-figure brands will never hit 9-figures.
 
Here's why:
 
Every 8-figure DTC brand I consult with follows this pattern.
 
They have the budget, and the talent.
 
But they're missing these core principles:
 
𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀
 
Most brands obsess over minor account adjustments when creative is what drives performance.
 
Should be prioritizing creative quality above all else.
 
Test more creative formats, different angles, different concepts.
 
The brands that scale deeply understand creative diversity.
 
𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗹𝘆
 
Stop looking at Facebook attribution as gospel.
 
It's modeling most of your data anyway.
 
Look at:
 
→ Blended metrics across channels
→ Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER)

Use 3rd Party Attribution tools to make accurate decisions.
 
𝟯. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲
 
You don't need 10+ campaigns.
 
You need only 3 at most:
 
→ Creative testing (ABO)
→ Scaling (Advantage+ or CBO)
→ Retargeting (audience expansion OFF)
 
Consolidation = better algorithm learning = more scale.

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