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.

Some DTC brands are exiting at just 3x EBITDA. Others are hitting 12x. That’s a £90M difference on a £10M EBITDA business.

A few weeks ago, I co-hosted a private event in Dubai with Emmett Kilduff at The Fortia Group, one of the top M&A advisors in eCom.

Room full of 8-9 figure operators. 

One takeaway came up again and again:

The biggest exit premium isn’t from brand.
It’s from how early you start planning.

We broke down:
- Why DTC brands are leaving millions on the table at exit
- What actually moves your multiple (hint: it’s not your ROAS)
- The 8-part framework Fortia use to engineer $100M+ exits

It’s all in the deck. And I’m giving it away.

If you’re doing £10M+ and thinking ahead 12–36 months, this will save you millions.

Drop “EXIT” below and I’ll send it over.

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

We’ve stopped using ROAS and CPA as our north stars. Here’s why.

Since the Andromeda rollout, Meta’s algo is making delivery decisions before ROAS or CPA ever show up.

Which means:

→ If you’re still using CPA to spot winners, you’re already too late.
→ If you're scaling on ROAS alone, you're scaling old data.

We’ve rebuilt how we benchmark creative across every account and replaced the old north stars with these two:

1️⃣ CPMR: Cost Per 1,000 Reached Accounts

This tells us how efficiently we’re reaching net new people, not just blasting the same warm pool.

→ High CPMR = your creative looks repetitive, low-signal, or unengaging
→ Low CPMR = Meta sees your ad as scroll-stopping, high-signal, and worth delivering

We track this by:

→ The account level (trend over time)
→ Format level (UGC vs static vs story-style)
→ Persona level (motivator x demo)

2️⃣ New Visitor %

Cheap reach means nothing if it’s not fresh.

This tells us how well a creative is breaking out of its bubble and unlocking new demand.

→ High CTR but low New Visitor %? You're just retargeting your existing crowd.

→ Low CPMR + high New Visitor %? Signal to scale.

→ High CPMR + low New Visitor %? Scrap it. Meta’s not even trying with that asset.

This metric = your clearest look at creative incrementality.

We’ve now built both metrics into every client dashboard.

They're how we:
- Spot early winners
- Catch creative fatigue before performance tanks
- Scale without flying blind

Most brands won’t adapt fast enough. But Andromeda is live. And Meta’s already deprioritising ads that don’t play by the new rules.

You can build a business with anyone.
But you can only succeed for six years
and scale it to seven figures in profit
with someone you genuinely trust.

Everyone told us that being friends in business was a recipe for disaster.
Yet here we are.
Six years later.
Still good friends.
Still building.
Leading the agency game.
Multiple businesses together.
Nowhere near finished.

We’ve been friends since our early teens.
We failed twice before Soar.
We lived together for two years.
We learned each other’s strengths the hard way.

Then we moved to different cities.
And that’s where most Co-Founder friendships fade.
Not because of conflict.
Because every call becomes a work call.
And the friendship slowly disappears.

So we do the opposite.
We intentionally protect the relationship that built the business.

Olly flew out to Dubai last week.
No heavy agenda.
No rush.
Just space to reset properly.

Half work.
Half downtime.
One of the most productive weeks we’ve had all year.

We hosted a private Ecom roundtable with The Fortia Group.
Shared what we’re seeing in the market.
Answered questions.
Then kept the discussion going over dinner.

We organised a supplier for our new brand launch next year (more details on that soon).

We caught up with agency friends we’d only spoken to online.
Face-to-face made everything sharper and more actionable.

Random conversations turned into strategy.
Breaks turned into breakthroughs.
The quiet moments gave us clarity heading into 2026.

And the friendship got stronger again.
Which always makes the business stronger.

Founder lesson:
If you don’t protect the friendship,
you won’t protect the business.

Keep the relationship alive.
That’s how you survive long term.
And that’s where the real profit comes from.

Feeling overwhelmed with gratitude right now… 😄

This is our agency 2025 Black Friday social.

4 years ago this was a handful of people.

Now we have over 70 people in one room and that’s not even everyone…

So grateful for everyone who’s helped us on this journey

We audit 8-9 figure brands each week and we still see this one common mistake. 

👇THIS is the reason why your ad performance is tanking right now:

Your funnel is misaligned as you’re speaking “Product Aware” to a “Problem Aware” market.

So many brands try to scale on guesswork. They don’t know what their audience knows, so they can’t build creative that actually converts.

📉 Ads fatigue faster.
📉 CPA creeps up.
📉 New customer revenue stalls.

So we’ve built a fix: a Funnel Awareness Framework built around 5 levels of audience awareness—refined through 50+ accounts and decades of classic advertising theory.

Inside the playbook:

✅ The 5 audience awareness stages:
✅ Messaging strategies that actually match where your audience is
✅ Creative vehicles that cut through at each funnel stage
✅ Tactical breakdowns on how to rework your split to unlock scale

If you’re wondering:
- Why scale feels more expensive every month
- Why your top ads burn out in 7 days
- Why your funnel performance is stuck...

Start here.

Like this post
Comment “FUNNELS” and I’ll send over the resource.
(Make sure you’re following so I can DM you).

We’ve scaled 8 and 9-figure brands where one founder-led ad outperformed everything in the account and generated £2million in revenue.

When it’s raw, real, and structured right, founder content becomes a scaling lever, not a brand play.

But most brands get it wrong.

Either they overscript and kill authenticity… Or they throw up iPhone clips with no strategy.

So we built a framework that fixes that.

A simple cheat sheet that breaks down:

- The 9-part emotional arc behind every high-converting founder ad
- The exact storytelling structure that hooks, converts, and builds trust
- Plug-and-play hooks that stop the scroll
- Real examples from top-performing brands
- The best questions to ask to pull founder story gold

It’s punchy, practical, and built for scale.

If you're a founder (or you're running a brand where the founder *is* the story), this will help you turn your origin story into real revenue.

Like this post
Drop “founder” in the comments and I’ll send it over
(Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you).

Meta just launched the biggest creative update in years and most of you haven’t even realised.

We uploaded 20 new ads into an account. Meta grouped 15 of them as the same ad.

→ Same Entity ID
→ Same learnings
→ Zero new reach

Loukas just dropped a masterclass on how to avoid this penalty...

Here’s the biggest takeaways from the episode:

1. Meta now tracks ads using Entity ID
It doesn’t matter how many variations you upload.
If your visuals look similar (same text, same persona, same framing) Meta will group them.
That means one thing: creative similarity = performance decay.

2. Minor tweaks no longer count as iterations
Old method: change the headline, try a new voiceover, maybe shorten the clip.
New method: change the format, vehicle, and persona or don’t bother.
We now run fewer iterations per sprint, but each one is a bigger swing.

3. Visual change is the most important layer
Your first 3 seconds must be visually different.
→ A new creator in the same kitchen? Penalised.
→ Different script, same framing? Penalised.
→ Same product shot on marble with a new caption? Still penalised.

If Meta can’t visually tell the difference, it won’t give you a new Entity ID. And without that, your reach is throttled.

4. Iterate like this instead
We’ve replaced our iterative testing model with this stack:
→ Format: Static, UGC, high-prod, hybrid
→ Vehicle: Reddit native, podcast, founder VSL, testimonial
→ Persona: 40+ men, 50+ menopausal, Gen Z wellness, etc.
→ Hook angle: pain-point, fear, discovery, curiosity, etc.

Every winning message should now be run through 3 - 4 completely different vehicles, not just line edits.

5. Whitelisting becomes even more powerful
Each whitelisted ad uses a different Page = different Entity ID.
Which means Meta treats it as completely fresh.
Whitelisting now unlocks creative reach and performance diversity, not just social proof.

The takeaway? Your creative process needs to evolve.

→ More upfront persona research
→ More vehicle variety
→ Less lazy iteration
→ Higher volume of truly differentiated ads

Catch the ep here: https://lnkd.in/eZPN9sT7

some people wake up at 4am
run 30 miles
ice bath
no excuses

you see david goggins
and suddenly normal feels weak
average feels like failure

when i was younger
focus was impossible
discipline felt like a myth

I bounced between ideas
half finished everything
always distracted
always chasing the next hit of motivation

I thought success meant becoming extreme
superhuman
wired different

but the truth is quieter

you do not need perfect focus
you need daily progress
one small action
one hard choice
one uncomfortable task

not heroic
just consistent
today’s world makes it harder to stay steady
endless noise
constant comparison
highlight reels everywhere

so i stopped trying to be extraordinary overnight
and started trying to be better than yesterday

one focused hour
one hard email
one real workout
one honest decision

done daily
that stacks
that compounds
that changes everything

discipline is not a personality
it is a habit
repeated long enough
to transform into identity

clear lesson
you win by moving forward a little every day
not by trying to become goggins overnight

Last month, GMV jumped from £200 to £6,000/day in under a week.

And the biggest driver? A creative format we didn’t expect to work on TikTok at all. 

High-production, Meta-style assets.

Specifically, the founder answering FAQs direct to cam, layered with an AI voiceover. Originally built for Meta. 

We assumed it would feel too polished, too “ad-like” for TikTok.

But it’s now outperforming everything and driving 90%+ of total paid spend.

Yes, the brand’s also scaling through affiliates, which is bringing fresh eyes. But the real volume? It’s coming from these signal-rich, high-prod assets.

It’s made us rethink our assumptions around cross-platform creative.

What we thought would only work on Meta is now a top performer on TikTok.

We’re 100% testing this across more accounts.

What’s actually converting on Meta right now (Q4 trends from high-spend accounts):

If performance is flat heading into peak, it's probably not your product.

You're just not building for how Meta works today.

Here’s what’s cutting through right now:

1️⃣ Statics still scale

- Bold text, stat-led headlines and timelines are outperforming generic benefit copy.
- We’re seeing AI-style visuals + punchy copy drive scroll-stopping CPMs.
- Think: big numbers, human tone, ad that feels like a post.
- Native-feeling carousels work too, but only if you drop the polished brand voice.

2️⃣ Hooks > polish on HPs

- The best-performing hooks right now feel ripped from organic:
  "Here's what most brands get wrong..." or "Why I stopped doing X..."
- We’re leaning into founder/influencer POVs stitched into scripted flows.
- Objection-led HPs convert, especially “vs” style frameworks (us vs them, old vs new).

3️⃣ UGC is less about format, more about diversity

- The TikTok Shop-style raw look is working, but only when you mix creator POVs.
- Our top UGC ads use 4–5 creators hitting the same problem from different angles.
- Voiceless demo ads are creeping back into rotation too. Worth testing again.

In short:
→ Statics need specificity and visual edge
→ HPs win on story, not polish
→ UGC scales through multiple voices, not one creator

Can’t believe we’re sharing this for free…

This episode is INSANELY valuable.

Listen to how our MD went from employee number 1 to leading a company of 70+ in 6 years.

Shoutout to Matt Lewis 

Give it a watch on YouTube. D2C diaries

This is the difference between an £80k and £500k BFCM weekend👇
(And I’ve got the unlock most brands don’t even know exists).

Black Friday’s 4 weeks out.

Your CPA is down. AOV’s up. Ads are finally cracking.

Then Stripe delays a payout. Inventory’s tight.

And your biggest window of the year gets blocked, by cash.

We’ve seen it happen to 8-figure brands spending £250k+/month. Not because performance isn’t there. But because finance can’t move at the speed of growth.

Wayflyer gets it.

They’ve funded Wild, Cuts, True Classics, Dock & Bay, and 5,000+ others, so they never have to miss momentum.

💰 They’re giving ambitious DTC brands $25K in upfront capital for $1.8K total cost on the run up to BF/CM (that’s 1.2% per month over 6 months). No equity. No hidden fees. Just the fuel to move when it matters most.

Here’s what that unlocks:

✅ Scale your best creatives while they’re pumping
✅ Restock fast movers before they sell out
✅ Get approved in hours, Shopify, Amazon, whatever your stack

The brands that win BFCM don’t have the deepest pockets. They move fastest.

If your ads are landing, don’t let cashflow slow you down.

👉 Apply here and get $25k next week: https://lnkd.in/eJRUWJ-P

There’s a moment every founder hits where growth isn’t the problem - it’s everything underneath it.

You’ve scaled revenue. You’ve built a team. But everything else starts to crack.

That’s exactly where we were 18 months ago.

This week, we sat down with Matt Lewis, our Managing Director at Soar Group, to unpack how we rebuilt the *infrastructure* behind our agency as we scaled to 80+ people.

They talk through:

→ What changed operationally as we scaled to 80+ people
→ Over-focusing on revenue growth
→ How feedback loops were operationalised
→ The forecasting model Matt built
→ Using role-specific KPIs that ladder up to the P&L
→ Matt’s origin story as employee #1

Behind the scenes, Matt’s been one of the most important drivers of how we operate today.

If you’re building a team or running into growth pains, this one will land.

🎧 Catch the full episode here https://lnkd.in/eFkcg6b9

We 3x’d spend in 14 days, by adding one persona.

Most brands hit a wall, not because the product’s capped, but because the person they’re selling to is.

We see it every month:

– CTRs plateau
– Spend stalls
– Everyone’s panicking over hooks and formats

When the real unlock isn’t messaging. It’s who you’re talking to.

That was the case with a health brand we scaled recently.

They were stuck in a loop: iterating on the same 25–35 demo, same UGC styles, same offer.

Solid CPA, but volume was capped. Nothing new was scaling. So we stopped optimising and started diversifying.

We pulled Reddit threads, X searches, Google Trends.

One insight that stuck out: 30% of women going through menopause struggle with severe bloating and most “gut health” brands weren’t speaking to them at all.

We reframed everything around that one pain point:

– Built 3 new persona storyboards
– Validated the angle with live convo data
– Refreshed visuals + format for 45+ demos
– Decreased editing pace by 20–30%
– Layered in soft CTAs every 10s to build trust

Result? 3x spend in 14 days, with CPAs -18% vs BAU.

Meta rewards net-new impressions. That’s why “persona-first creative” is outperforming hook-first testing across most top-spending accounts.

Because every persona = a new pool of distribution, and a new window of scale.

And your best audience might not be who you built the brand for.

Want a deeper dive of this? Head to the podcast where the guys break it down further: https://lnkd.in/e8vS_2Xi

Over the last 3 years, my 2 agencies For You and Soar With Us have collectively managed £40million in ad spend and shipped over 20,000 creatives on TikTok alone.

This guide outlines our creative system that we’ve used to help 150 brands scale predictably and profitably.

We’ve laid out the exact 5-phase flywheel we use to operationalise creative for the most ambitious DTC brands:

1. Research – Trends, AI, reviews = clear direction
2. Strategy – Align creative to product economics
3. Execution – Modular assets built to scale
4. Testing – Isolate what moves the needle
5. Iteration – Build feedback loops that compound

🔄 TikTok isn’t an ad platform. It’s a creative ecosystem where content, commerce and community feed each other. And this guide will show you how.

Want the playbook?

Like this post
Comment “TIKTOK” and I’ll send it over
(Make sure you’re following so I can DM you).

We were too focused on growth, not out of stupidity but out of naivety.

This year we ran Soar With Us completely differently.

We stopped chasing volume.
We stopped hiring reactively.
We stopped pretending top-line growth meant success.

Here’s how we actually ran the business in 2025 and why it's been our most important year yet:

Forecasting became a strategic weapon.
No more gut-feel growth targets.
We built full-funnel forecasting across revenue, client mix, hiring, and profit targets, driven by a balance of commercial ambition and team capacity.
It's removed chaos and clarified decision-making across every department.

Culture got rebuilt from the inside out.
We didn't write values in a vacuum.
We ran a full-day offsite with the entire team to rewrite our mission, values, and behaviours, then operationalised them into hiring, reviews, and even client relationships.
Result? Better people, better work, better culture.

Client strategy > client volume.
We halved onboarding capacity and focused on deeper, higher-value partnerships.
That means fewer clients, more strategic impact, and significantly higher retention.
We’re finally seeing the compounding effects.

Feedback became a competitive advantage.
We built a culture of kind candour, rolled out 360 feedback across the company, and trained every manager on how to receive and close the loop on feedback.
It’s helped us level up faster than ever before.

Revenue came from within.
For too long, we were addicted to new business.
Now, 40%+ of our growth is from client expansion - cross-sells, up-sells, and moving partners through value tiers.
It’s lower friction, higher trust, and way more profitable.

Most people assume the next level of growth comes from more work, more ads, more hiring.

For us, it came from subtraction.
→ Less noise
→ Fewer distractions
→ Clearer intent

We’re ending 2025 leaner, smarter, and more strategic than ever before.
2026 is about scaling with that same clarity.

If you’re in agency leadership and you’re scaling fast, but feeling stretched thin, here’s the blueprint that helped us get here: https://lnkd.in/eFkcg6b9

We’ve scaled pet & homeware brands in markets with 100+ competitors.

Here’s what actually cuts through.
(and it’s not a better product)

→ “Us vs them” outperforms pain-led messaging
These categories don’t trigger visceral problems so instead of selling relief, we’re seeing brands scale by positioning their solution as the elevated choice.

→ Homeware scales when you stop talking about the product and start showing the life it upgrades
Think luxury, ease, or emotional enhancement of a space.
The goal is: “This makes my life feel better.”

→ Pet content is all about aspiration, not need.
The core motivator? “My pet deserves the best.”
Not health stats. Not price. Just pure emotional resonance.

→ Convenience is the untapped lever
Especially for homeware brands speaking to maternal or over-capacity personas. If it saves time, stress, or mental load, say that clearly. It works.

→ Don’t ignore the saturated market reality
There’s no shortage of pet food or homeware options.
What wins is category contrast. Your creative should say:
“We’re not like the rest and here’s why.”

If your pet or homeware brand is stuck explaining the product, zoom out.

Start showing what it means for the person using it.

Working in another niche and want a breakdown like this?

Drop me the category and I’ll tell you what’s converting right now.

Meta just made creative volume 10x harder and this (👇) is the only thing that makes it scalable.

Here’s where creative strategy is heading in 2026

1️⃣ Creative similarity penalties make AI non-negotiable
Meta now groups “similar” ads under one Entity ID.

→ Minor tweaks = same learnings
→ Visual sameness = limited reach
→ Iterations = wasted budget

Without AI, creative cost balloons trying to brute-force variation.
With AI, we’re getting 10x the output at 30–40% of the cost.

2️⃣ AI is solving the creative similarity problem
We’re seeing 70% of ad iterations get grouped under the same Entity ID. That’s a massive waste of output. Using AI helps us inject visual diversity at scale, without tripling post-prod costs.

→ Sora / VEO for visual metaphors and VO hooks
→ Nano for high-scale statics + brand visuals
→ Gemini to analyse video and guide variation strategy
→ Frame 4.0 to organise and deploy assets at scale

You wouldn’t ask an editor to shoot the ad. So why are your strategists still prompting raw?

3️⃣ Asset warehousing becomes your competitive edge
You can’t scale creative if you can’t find it.

We’re building a library of every product B-roll, VO hook, and visual format, tagged, labelled, and instantly promptable through Frame 4.0.

At the same time, we’re warehousing ad performance data, call logs, and internal learnings and feeding that into LLM workflows to automate creative direction.

The better your data layer, the smarter your AI outputs.

The takeaway:
→ Treat AI like a production department
→ Build creative systems that scale visual diversity
→ Train AI with real data
→ Give your strategists new tools, not new roles

🎙 Catch the full breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/eAwJAcMV

One of our best-performing ads came from a menopause stat we pulled off X and it unlocked over £40K in spend.

👇 This is how we got there and it’s the most overlooked step in creative strategy.

Everyone wants to jump straight into execution (more ads, new hooks, new creators), but if you skip the research phase, you’re not optimising.

Every signal you need already exists. You just have to extract it → interpret it → structure it.

We’re using a Grok + X stack to build creative angles from live audience sentiment.

In this case, the prompt surfaced a clinical study showing women going through menopause are 30% more likely to suffer from bloating.

Then it got interesting:

→ Pulled real Twitter convos around the pain point

→ Surfaced the emotional language people actually use

→ Mapped funnel stages (unaware → problem aware → solution aware)

→ Uncovered a totally untapped, high-intent angle

We built around it. New persona. New message. New positioning.

That ad crushed.

Once you understand the human drivers behind conversion (the objections, motivations, and phrases people actually use) you can build creative that just makes sense.

Want the prompt that unlocks different personas like the example in the image?

Like this post
Comment “GROK” and I’ll send it over
(make sure we're connected so I can DM you)

If you can help with hiring the BEST Creative Strategist talent please comment below.

A-players only. Must have experience with D2C.

Ciaran Finn

Your Glow Up

Managing Director at Your Glow Up, an award-winning DTC performance creative agency.

Lowering acquisition costs and scaling 8-9 figure DTC brands through performance ad creative.

Find out more at www.yourglowup.io.

Managing Director

Blue Finn Media

Founder & CEO of an award-winning 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

scale & send

The DTC eCommerce events company that your agency tells you not to worry about.

Kensington Media House

👉 Strategic Director at leading Retention Marketing Agency, Kensington Media House
👉 Regularly achieving 35%+ revenue driven through Email & SMS with no additional ad spend 
👉 Over $60 million generated with Email & SMS for clients across the US, UK, EU, & Asia

Strategic Director

Whilst at university, I founded and ran a lead generation business under the "Rank & Rent" model.

I created highly converting funnels for a specific business niche, focussing on the core pain points of their ideal customers. I'd then use SEO to begin driving traffic to my funnels and generating leads. 

From here I optimized in two ways:
1. Improved my SEO marketing to drive more traffic at a faster rate.
2. I increased the conversion rate of the funnels through landing page optimization and split-testing offers, angles, landers.

These leads were then tracked using call softwares and CRMs, and to monetize:
1. I sold leads on a cost-per-lead basis
2. Or I rented the entire funnel for a flat fee, allowing businesses to receive exclusivity on all leads that the funnels generated.

Despite having fun and learning a lot during this period, I realised I preferred the faster impact of paid advertising vs organic SEO. This led me to a career as a performance marketing consultant, and ultimately founding my next business, a performance marketing agency called Blue Finn Media.

Funnel Builder & SEO Expert

LeadX Ltd

After 2+ years working as an Account Manager part-time whilst at school, I'd finished school and was ready for a full-time role.
 
Within a few days of switching full-time as an Account Manager, I was offered to join the group's head office as a Talent Acquisition Executive, and within the first month I was promoted to the role of Talent Acquisition Consultant.

Here I was responsible for headhunting specific executive positions and strategic recruiting for team members across all departments, including organising 60+ person recruitment events and achieving company-wide recruitment and talent acquisition KPIs.

This was for all consumer brands under the LeadX Holding group, including digital marketing agencies such as Ropto, with 1000+ employees across the group.

This was a performance based role and my bonuses were tied to my team's performance, meaning I was regularly assisting and leading other team members to ensure we hit our bonuses as a team every month.

Talent Acquisition Consultant

Aged 16, I began working as an Outbound Sales Representative at LeadX.

Despite being part-time and still at school, I was quickly top of the team and was promoted to Account Manager.

My role was heavily commission based and involved lead management and sales on behalf of the company.

Account Manager

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've whitelisted 1500+ Meta ads in the past 6 months.
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
✅ Real examples from brands like Dr. Squatch and Mirror
✅ 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 Ciaran Finn
2. Comment 'WHITELIST' below
   
And I'll send the Whitelisting Cheatsheet straight over.

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

Ads that look organic and native to the platform are the best performing creatives in 2025.
 
But most brands only run ads from their own brand page.
 
Thats where whitelisting can be a complete game changer.
 
Whitelisting lets you run ads through creator profiles, third-party pages, or publisher accounts instead.
 
The result? Your ad shows up in someone's feed looking organic.
 
It bypasses ad blindness completely.
 
We've seen this single strategy reduce CPA by 30-40% for brands spending $100k+/month on Meta.
 
There are three main whitelisting strategies:
 
→ Influencer whitelisting — running ads through creator profiles. Most effective but requires partnerships.
 
→ Third-party page whitelisting — creating pages like "DTC Growth Hub" to run ads from. Easiest to set up.
 
→ Publisher whitelisting — building editorial-style pages with listicle landing pages. Most scalable long-term.
 
Each one works differently depending on your brand, offer, and creative style.
 
Hundreds of 8-figure DTC brands use influencer whitelisting to scale past seven figures.
 
The strategy isn't complex. But the setup process is where most brands get stuck.
 
That’s why we’ve put together our internal Whitelisting Cheatsheet that breaks down all 3 strategies, includes real brand examples, and shows the exact step-by-step process we use to launch whitelisted campaigns for our clients.
 
I’m giving it away for completely free today, so f you want it:
 
• connect with me (Ciaran Finn)
• comment 'WHITELIST' below.
 
I'll send it over to you in the DM’s

I audited 8 accounts spending $100k/month in October.
Here's the one mistake I saw in most of them:

They were scaling winners too aggressively.

Let me explain:

A brand hits a winner — 2.8x ROAS at $8k/day spend.

They get excited.

Double the budget overnight.

Two days later?

CPA jumps 60%. ROAS tanks to 1.4x.

What happened?

They exceeded the ad's saturation point.

Every winning ad has a ceiling — a maximum efficient spend threshold before performance collapses. 

Most brands don't know where that ceiling is.

So they scale blindly and burn through budget watching their "winner" turn into a loser.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝗶𝘁:

→ Increase budget by 20-30% every 48 hours (not overnight)
→ Monitor CPM and frequency daily during scale
→ When performance starts declining, pause the increase
→ Duplicate the creative with new hooks instead of pushing the original further

Smart brands scale horizontally (more winning ads) not vertically (forcing one ad to do everything).

We took one fashion brand from $300k/month to $800k/month in four months using this exact approach.

Controlled budget increases. Creative iteration. No aggressive scaling.

Most brands think scaling = more budget.

It doesn't.

Scaling = more winning ads at sustainable spend levels.

We kill 80% of our ads within 72 hours. The other 20%?

They become winning concepts that scale.

Here's the exact 4-stage framework we use to separate winners from losers in under a week:

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝟭: 𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗽

ABO campaign structure (not CBO).

One concept per ad set. 4-5 variations of each concept.

Broad targeting only.

Why ABO? Because we need clean data on each concept.

CBO pushes budget toward early winners before you have clean data.

ABO forces equal spend across all concepts so you can actually see what performs.

Budget per ad set: 3x your AOV minimum.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝟮: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟳𝟮-𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘄

Launch all concepts simultaneously.

Monitor two metrics only: CPA and ROAS.

Ignore soft metrics like hook rate and CTR at this stage.

They don't pay your bills.

After 72 hours (or when each ad spends 3x AOV), categorize:

→ Winner: CPA below target
→ Loser: CPA above target

Kill losers immediately.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝟯: 𝗥𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴

Duplicate winners into your scaling campaign.

But here's what most brands get wrong: they turn off the winning ad in the testing campaign.

Don't do this. That ad is making you money.

Instead, let it run in both campaigns.

Increase budget by 20-30% every 48 hours in the testing campaign.

Watch for saturation signals.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝟰: 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Most brands move on to the next batch of creative without understanding why ads won or lost.

We analyze every element:

→ The creator
→ The angle
→ The format (video vs static vs GIF)
→ The hook
→ The messaging

We document hypotheses on why each ad performed the way it did.

These learnings become the foundation for the next testing round.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁:

Every test produces data.

Every winner becomes a template.

Most brands treat testing like throwing spaghetti at a wall.

We treat it like a science experiment.

That's how you scale creative profitably.

2 years ago, I used worked 14-hour days and only hit 80% of my tasks.

Today, I work 8-9 hours and move faster than ever.

Here’s what changed:

I used to wake up and just react.

→ Emails at 7AM
→ Client call at 8AM
→ Deep work at 9AM
→ More emails at 10AM

By noon, I was mentally cooked.

By 5pm, I was a zombie.

I thought I was just "busy."

Turns out I was burning energy in the wrong order.

Here's what I do differently now:

I divide my day into 3 work blocks.

Each block has one purpose - and I never mix them.

𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝟭: 𝗗𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 (𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝟭-𝟯)

This work block starts right after I wake up when my brain is sharpest.

No meetings. No Slack. No emails.

Just coffee and the most important work that moves the business forward.

Anything related to: Strategy, Growth, Big decisions gets put into this bucket.

𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝟮: 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 & 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 (𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝟰-𝟳)

This is when I'm with my team.

Client calls. Internal strategy sessions. Problem-solving.

All the collaboration that requires my attention gets stacked here.

𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝟯: 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 & 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 (𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝟴-𝟵)

This is when I close the loop.

→ Review what got done today.
→ Identify what didn't get done and why.
→ Have a 1-on-1 with my business partner.
→ Plan tomorrow's priorities.

I never start a day without knowing exactly what needs to happen.

And I never end a day without knowing where we stand.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀:

Energy isn't constant throughout the day.

Your best thinking happens when you're fresh.

Your best collaboration happens when your mind is primed.

Your best planning happens when you can reflect.

Most people try to do all three at once, all day long.

That's why they're exhausted and unproductive.

Structure your day around your energy, not your to-do list.

You'll get more done and feel better doing it.

At 16, I trained twice a day chasing a career as a professional kickboxer.

Six days a week. For years.

I never made it pro.

But those years taught me everything I needed to build a 7-figure agency:

𝟭. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻

Punches hurt. Rejection hurts more.

But you can't become a great fighter if you flinch.

And you can't build a great business if you avoid rejection.

You’re going to get hit. You’re going to get rejected.

The best fighters & entrepreneurs know how to keep moving forward.

𝟮. 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹 𝗴𝗮𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁.

In the ring, your cardio either holds or it doesn't.

No amount of talent saves you when your body can’t keep up.

Business works the same way.

If you're not sleeping well, eating right, or moving your body—you'll burnout.

Treat yourself like a professional athlete - that’s how you outlast competitors.

𝟯. 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻

The best fighters don't just train. They study.

They watch their own fights.
Their competitors.
The legends.

Business is the same.

You can outwork people.

But if you're not constantly learning, someone smarter will outmaneuver you.

𝟰. 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝘀

Every fighter has a style.

They have strengths, and they have weaknesses.

The worst thing you can do is try to be good at everything.

Find what you're naturally better at. Then make it undeniable.

In business, I stopped trying to be everything to everyone.

I doubled down on what I did best and hired people better than me to fill the gaps.

That's when things scaled.

Looking back, I can confidently say fighting has taught me more than any business book ever could.

PS. Anyone else feel the same about their sport?

The best creative strategists in 2026 won't just make pretty ads.

They’ll think like CMOs.

Here's what that actually means:

Six years ago, creative strategists wrote briefs and came up with concepts.

That was the job.

Today, that same person will get outperformed by someone who understands unit economics.

The role evolved. But most people haven't adapted.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗠𝗢𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁:

They don't care if your hook is clever.

They care if it drives down CPA.

They don't care about your aesthetic.

They care if it moves MER.

They don't optimize for views or engagement.

They optimize for profit.

If you're making creative decisions based on what "looks good" instead of what the data says works, you're operating like it's 2019.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆:

They start every brief by analyzing the last 30 days of performance data.

→ Which angles drove the lowest CPA?
→ Which hooks had the highest conversion rate?
→ Which formats scaled past $10k/day spend?

They understand the brand's unit economics before pitching a single idea.

Most importantly, they translate customer research into creative strategy.

There’s a strategic “Why” behind every concept they plan.

They read through post-purchase surveys, customer reviews, competitor reviews, comments, and testimonials — extracting the exact pain points, objections, and language their customers use.

They know soft metrics inform iteration, but hard metrics determine winners.

Hook rate tells them where to improve. CPA tells them if it's worth improving.

𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲:

You don't need to become a media buyer.

You need to understand what makes creative profitable.

Ask your media buyer these three questions weekly:

→ Which ad angles are hitting target CPA?
→ What's the average CPA by creative format this month?
→ Which concepts are scaling past $5k/day?

Use those answers to inform your next creative brief.

And lead your creative strategy with performance insights baked in.

That's how you stay valuable in 2025.

This one lifestyle change has made me more money than anything else.
(It’s probably not what you think.)

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.

Black Friday is in 3 days.

But many brands are unsure about their ads…

I consult several DTC brands on their Meta strategy, and every year I see the same mistake.

BFCM is the most competitive window of the year.

CPMs spike, attention is scattered, and generic creative gets buried.

The brands that win Black Friday aren't spending more.

They're running creative specifically designed for BFCM buying psychology.

It's not too late to fix this.

That's why I'm giving away our Q4 Creative Strategy Cheatsheet today.

This is the exact playbook we use internally at Linear to prepare our clients for BFCM.

It includes everything:

✅ The 4 types of creative that outperform during BFCM
✅ Real examples of each creative type
✅ BFCM-specific hooks that convert holiday shoppers
✅ Offer stacking strategies for Black Friday
✅ Last-minute creative pivots you can make this week

Last BFCM, our clients generated multi-7 figures using this exact cheat sheet.

To get access, all you need to do is:

1. Connect with me
2. Comment 'Q4' below

And I'll send the Q4 Creative Strategy Cheatsheet straight over.
—
Feel free to repost if you find it valuable, to help someone else crush it this BFCM ♻️

Had 6 back-to-back BFCM calls with 8-figure brands 
 
Here's what I told all of them:
 
𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗥𝗢𝗔𝗦 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱.
 
With 20-30% discounts and spiking CPMs, your margins aren't what they were last week.
 
If you haven't re-run your unit economics with BFCM margins, you're about to scale into a loss without realizing it.
 
𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗘𝗥 𝘀𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆.
 
During BFCM, your returning customers flood back.

They were buying anyway - your email list did the work.
 
Blended MER will look incredible, but it's not reliable data.
 
The metric that actually matters is aMER - new customer acquisition efficiency.

That tells you if your ads are actually working, or just capturing demand that already existed.
 
𝗔𝗢𝗩 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗖𝗣𝗠𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗸𝗲.
 
CPMs will jump 40-60% by Friday morning. You can't control that.
 
What you can control: how much each customer spends.
 
Brands with strong AOV strategies (bundles, free shipping thresholds, post-purchase upsells) stay profitable at high CPMs.
 
𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗸-𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗖𝗣𝗔 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀.
 
Calculate this now: What's the maximum CPA you can afford at your BFCM margins and still make first-order profit?
 
Write it down - when your CPA crosses that line, you scale back.
 
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿.
 
The week after BFCM, CPMs crash 30-40%.

But buyer intent stays high - gift card redemptions, returns turning into exchanges, people spending holiday cash.
 
Smart brands hold 15-20% of their BFCM budget for this window.
 
We're now 48 hours out from BFCM - the prep is over.

Now it's just about staying disciplined.
 
Make sure to protect your margins.

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