Joe Marston 🚀

Co-Founder

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

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.

The 2026 D2C Playbook has been the most requested resource in my DMs. This is the last chance to grab it.

Here's the reality: every consumer now lives in their own algorithmic bubble.

Meta, Google, TikTok → all delivering hyper-personalised experiences based on micro-behaviours, emotional signals, and past engagement.

AI enables individual targeting at scale. But people are craving connection more than ever.

2026 belongs to brands that blend machine precision with human emotion.

That's what this playbook is built around. Specifically for 8 & 9-figure e-commerce brands looking to break through growth ceilings.

Inside:

→ Meta: Andromeda, GEM, account structures that actually work now

→ TikTok: Shop strategies, affiliate frameworks, what's driving 8-12% conversion rates

→ AI: Workflows we use internally to move faster without losing quality

→ Creative: Formats driving incremental growth (not just ROAS)

Want it?

Like this post + comment "2026" and I'll send it over.

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Thanks for the like! You can get the 4-step process for creating highly profitable UGC here:

https://www.notion.so/4-Step-Process-to-Create-High-Converting-UGC-87fc4bbb1ceb4802ae8da8efa3d24b87

Are you currently using UGC as part of your marketing strategy?



for-you-advertising

soar-with-us

launch-with-us

We've broken down the entire Meta funnel of a supplement brand that went from £1M/year to £1M/month. It's yours for free.

Ancient + Brave | B Corp hit £1M/month in late 2022. By 2023 they'd crossed £10M. 2024 they doubled to £20M. No VC. No Amazon dependency. 90% DTC. Profitable throughout.

But the numbers aren't the interesting part.

Most supplement brands compete on ingredients. Ancient + Brave compete on identity. Their entire creative system is built around one question: who is this person trying to become?

That means persona-segmented ads that speak to high-performance professionals and graceful agers in completely different languages. Clinical trials running in-feed. UGC, high-production, and partnership ads working together without ever compromising the premium aesthetic.

And it means feeding Meta's algorithm with the creative density and signal diversity it needs to scale, without racing to the bottom on price.

In the breakdown we cover:
How their persona-led creative system works at the ad level 
How they maintain brand premium while producing the volume Andromeda demands 
The role each creative format plays across the funnel 
Why this is the only sustainable way to scale a high-ticket wellness product on Meta

Like this post and comment "BRAVE" and I'll send it over.

Ancient + Brave | B Corp

JERMS is a gut health brand I've been watching closely. They're raising a £600k EIS round and the numbers are ridiculous:

→ 66% DTC repeat purchase rate
→ Average subscriber orders 7.7 times
→ 75% subscription revenue
→ 4.8/5 rating across thousands of customers

That's a product people genuinely love and keep buying.

They're already in Holland & Barrett, Selfridges, Wholefoods Wholesale, Planet Organic and Fenwick. National rollout across one of the UK's biggest retailers landing April 2026.

Plus partnerships with Soho House & Co, The Hoxton and Free People.

World's first probiotic+ energy blend you can add to hot drinks. Actually useful innovation.

JERMS is now opening a £600,000 EIS round, with £100,000 already closed.

With full national retail distribution, accelerating DTC and Amazon growth, and an upcoming SKU unlocking new distribution channels, 2026 is shaping up to be a breakout year.

If you’re an investor looking at high-growth, retail-ready wellness brands with exceptional retention and brand equity, this is one to watch.

Happy to connect interested investors directly with founder Louise Macnab and share the deck. DM me for more info.

We're giving away a free playbook we built with Insense on scaling creative in 2026. 🚨 Download here: https://lnkd.in/egHbttus

In the UGC 1.0 era, you were a content creator. In the UGC 2.0 era, you are a signal engineer.

To scale in 2026 across Meta and TikTok, you need a system that delivers three things:
- Strategic Volume: Enough creative to deliver to a range of micro-personas.
- Variation: A diverse range of researched personas to unlock new audience pockets.
- Velocity: The ability to turn funnel insights into fresh creative in days, not weeks.

Most brands have one of the three. Very few have all three running as a system.

We’re going to show you exactly how to move away from creator-led content and toward persona-led performance creative. We’ll break down the frameworks used to audit funnels, identify creative signals, and build a modular production engine that makes scaling inevitable.

Welcome to the era of UGC 2.0 - brought to you by Soar With Us and Insense | TikTok & Meta Partner.

Most brands think persona strategy means knowing their customer.

It doesn't. It means knowing which version of their customer they're speaking to, at which point in their journey, with which emotional driver.

We think about it in three layers.

Layer 1 is the macro persona. The broad type of person or state you're speaking to. The Stressed Mum, 30-45. This sits above everything and contains multiple distinct people beneath it.

Layer 2 is the micro persona. This is where creative strategy actually lives. Two people under the same macro can have completely different micro-drivers.

Under The Stressed Mum:

Persona 1.1 is Keeping Up Appearances. Trigger awareness. She doesn't know stress management is the solution yet. She thinks she just needs to try harder. Core fear: being seen as a bad mum who can't keep it together. The creative that converts her is peer-led social proof. A clinical ad does nothing.

Persona 1.2 is Irritable and Guilty. Exploration awareness. She knows she needs help but is overwhelmed by options. Core fear: her irritability is permanently damaging her relationship with her children. The creative that converts her is emotionally resonant and identity-led. Authority doesn't move her.

Persona 1.3 is Frazzled but Sceptical. Evaluation awareness. Actively researching, open only to evidence-based approaches. Core fear: complete burnout. The social proof ad that converts 1.1 makes her roll her eyes.

Same product. Same macro persona. Completely different brief.

Layer 3 is the creative vehicle. The format, creator type, tone, and visual execution that delivers each micro-persona's message as a distinct signal. Same insight, multiple vehicles, multiple net-new audiences for Andromeda to find.

This is the structure we use before we brief a single ad. At higher spends, ASC campaigns structured by persona give Andromeda the signal clarity to find genuinely incremental audiences without collapsing spend to a single winner.

Most accounts are running Layer 1 creative and wondering why incremental reach is declining.

The ceiling isn't Meta's. It's the persona layer.

Loukas Hambi maps this all out in this article: https://lnkd.in/eNEX4t6U

Our most requested masterclass yet…

Loukas has been building this micro persona system at Soar Group for the best part of a year. I've watched it change how our brands approach creative from the inside.

He's just put the whole thing on D2C Diaries. End to end. Live persona build, straight through to scripting.

The thing that doesn't get said enough in this space… most brands with a reach problem don't have a volume problem. They have a psychological diversity problem. Those aren't the same thing and the fix is completely different.

Worth an hour of any founder's time who's spending seriously on Meta https://lnkd.in/e5ZRujiW

$32k extra monthly profit. 50% lower ad spend. 28% higher conversion rates.

A few of the results inside the new "How to Move the Needle in 2026" playbook from Customers Who Click.

We partnered with them and a group of leading ecommerce operators to contribute to this one. 

Real brands, real numbers.

Inside you'll find examples of how operators are:

- Increasing revenue per visitor by 21% without driving more traffic
- Generating $32k+ extra monthly profit from a single shipping test
- Lifting abandoned flow revenue by 40% without touching email templates
- Improving conversion rate by 28% after fixing product discovery
- Cutting ad spend by 50% while maintaining growth

Solid work from the partners involved: Octane AI, PostPilot, Littledata, Rebuy Engine, Flare - Scheduled Delivery, Videowise, Growthub, Zigpoll, Intelligems, KnoCommerce, Soar With Us, Sweet Analytics, Leaf Signal, Nosto, Order Editing

Like this post and comment PLAYBOOK below and I'll send it over.

We ran a controlled test with Meta in Q4 which found Partnership Ads drove 54% more incremental conversions than BAU creative alone.

So we doubled down.

The mechanism is signal diversity. When you run from a creator's handle, you're not just getting their face in the ad. You're feeding Meta a completely different signal set; their community, their content context, the emotional associations their audience brings to every piece of content they consume.

That's a new creative entity. New audiences. Incremental reach you cannot generate from your own brand handle alone.

We tested creative volume in the same period too. 25 variants vs 5 variants. The higher volume cell drove 171 more purchases despite reaching 59,000 fewer people. 15% cheaper cost per conversion.

Both findings point to the same thing: Andromeda rewards signal diversity above almost everything else.

Most accounts we audit are sitting sub-10% partnership ad spend. Top disruptor brands are allocating 30-50%.

That gap is the opportunity.

If you're sitting sub-10% partnership ad spend and want to understand what closing that gap looks like for your account specifically, get in touch here: https://lnkd.in/eZmWY_gH

I don't know another M&A advisory firm as niche, as experienced, or as plugged into the e-commerce space as the The Fortia Group.

If you're building a DTC brand with an exit in mind at any point in the next few years, this is the episode to watch.

I met Paul Hanley and the team at their annual New York conference in 2024. 

Since then we've hosted events together in Dubai and collaborated on a lot of things,  all centred around helping DTC brands and agencies build toward an exit the right way.

I've been invited to speak at their annual NYC conference today, the biggest e-commerce acquirer event globally. Ahead of that we got Paul on the podcast to share what he knows with the audience here.

Full episode live now: https://lnkd.in/eymQzGr9

We’re sharing the full persona-led creative system we run across our client portfolio. For free.

Most DTC brands aren't losing on creative quality. They're losing on creative logic.

They're producing content without a system underneath it. No persona architecture. No brief structure tied to funnel position. No way to know which signals are actually working.

That's the gap we've spent the last six months closing, for ourselves and every brand we work with.

We've taken everything we know about persona-led creative, our own account data, our Meta partnership research, conversations with Maxime (Meta's Creative Strategist for Disruptor brands, who walked us through how Andromeda actually processes creative signals) and built it into one place.

The AI research stack we use to build personas from scratch. How we structure briefs. How we tier tests. How we read results and feed them back into the system.

The full engine, in the order you'd actually run it. Each step explains why it feeds the next.

If something resonates, every section links to the deeper resource behind it.

Like this post and comment PERSONA and we'll send it over.

We've spent the last few weeks building a process for AI UGC, here's how we did it..

The bottleneck right now is that every tool does something different well. So if you want a layered ad, you have to use multiple products. It's a lengthy list, but it works.

Here's the workflow we're using:
Claude writes the prompt. Feed it basic information, who the subject is, where they are, what they're saying, what device it should look like. It structures that into the exact format Sora 2 needs.

Sora 2 generates the hook. Up to 15 seconds of hyper-realistic UGC style footage. Good camera shake. Audio that sounds like it was actually shot on an iPhone.

ElevenLabs clones the voice from a 10 second clip. You then use that voice to record the rest of the script as a voiceover.

ChatGPT creates a JSON prompt to keep your subject consistent across scenes.

Nano Banana takes that JSON and recreates your subject in a new scene.

Kling brings the static image to life and turns it into B-roll.

The output: 10 hook variations of a concept that already exists. Different emotional states, different persona call outs, different messaging angles. For $1.

We're still early. But the direction is clear.

Full breakdown on the newest D2C Diaries episode. Comment PROMPT on the video and we'll send you the Claude template we use to build the Sora 2 prompts https://lnkd.in/erx3vVRp

These are strong references for building visually disruptive creative.

Instead of relying on copy to explain the problem, they externalise the emotion, the frustration, the tension, the lived experience behind it.

That’s what stops the scroll.

A visual that makes you feel the problem before you’ve read a single word.

In a feed where attention is earned in milliseconds, showing the emotion will always outperform describing it.

Definitely worth pulling inspiration from these.

We helped Nuovva scale their revenue 10x over the course of 180 days. Here's how..

We onboarded a cookware brand in August 2025. They had solid foundations on Amazon, but were starting from almost nothing on their DTC arm. That kind of blank canvas can be tricky, but luckily we had a strong brand and great product line to work with.

Six months later: 10x DTC revenue. Meta ROAS up 103% from September to January. Remarketing driving a 2.5x ROAS uplift over top-of-funnel activity alone. Google purchases up 110%.

Before a single ad went live, we built the data infrastructure. Conversion tracking configured between Shopify and Google Ads. Triple Whale onboarded for clean cross-channel attribution. Meta's Pixel, CAPI, and catalogues set up and verified. Reliable data flow from day one.

Creative was the primary performance lever. We leaned on our AI-assisted market research tool to gather insights on key pain points and purchase motivations, then built personas we knew would drive impact from the get-go. Affordability without compromise became the creative anchor. We built our messaging frameworks around that tension.

Early creative output leaned toward upper funnel to build a strong signal base. Then we scaled high-production, UGC, and static formats. Three angles proved to be consistent performance drivers across the funnel: savings and value framing, aspirational aesthetic messaging, and the versatility proposition of replacing your entire kitchen setup with a single pan.

On Meta, we launched a structured Creative Testing campaign that isolated individual creative variants and copy combinations to generate signal fast. Top performers were identified and pushed into a dedicated Scaling campaign within weeks. Two weeks after that, we opened remarketing.

We've taken them from 0 to 5 figures in spend in just a few months.

This data led foundation meant we could start using performance to guide every subsequent decision instead of assumptions.

If you want the same results for your brand, get in touch with the team at Soar Group https://lnkd.in/emtYbdgC

We audited 200 ads for an 8-figure brand last month. There were only 5 genuine entity IDs.

All that production budget. All that creative volume. Andromeda was reading it as 5 ads and serving them against the same audience pool on a loop.

Here's the mechanism: Meta's algorithm doesn't sort by content ID. It groups by entity ID, based on talent, environment, filming angle, and framing. 

Different creators, same location and message structure? Same entity. Same audience. Same ceiling.

Volume without structural diversity isn't creative testing. It's expensive repetition.

When we showed them this, the first question was "how do we fix it?" The answer isn't more ads. It's a different brief. One that specifies entity DNA, not just angle or hook.

The constraint at scale almost never lives in production rate. It lives in brief architecture.

We built our Creative Intelligence Report around this process.

In 4 weeks, we'll identify exactly where your creative is leaking money and hand you a roadmap on how to fix it using a persona-driven strategy that reduces CAC, beats creative fatigue, and scales spend profitably.

This isn't a production package. We're not delivering a folder of assets. It's the strategic layer that makes everything you produce work harder, whether that's in-house or through your existing agency.

If your CAC is rising despite producing more creative, if your ads are burning out faster than they used to, or if you suspect you're only reaching a fraction of your addressable market, that's exactly the gap this was built to close.

4 week sprint. 3 hours of your time. No retainer commitment.

Get in touch to find out more: https://lnkd.in/eFVdFvs4

We're giving away our Incremental Reach Guide, built for brands spending £10k–£150k/month on Meta who want to scale without recycling the same audience into the ground.

Here's the problem it solves:

Meta's AI is optimising your account into a saturation trap.

Andromeda. GEM. Lattice. Three systems working together to get better and better at finding people likely to convert.

Until "likely to convert" just means people who've already seen your ads 5+ times.

The algorithm isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do.

But without tracking incremental reach, you won't see it coming until your CPA is already up and your ROAS is already down.

Inside the guide:
↳ What incremental reach is and why FTI predicts CPA spikes 2–4 weeks out
↳ How Andromeda, GEM, and Lattice create saturation at scale 
↳ The warning signs your account has a reach problem right now 
↳ The 6-lever prioritisation framework to fix it 
↳ A weekly tracking dashboard to stay ahead of the curve

Want it?
Like this post
Drop "REACH" in the comments 
Make sure you're following and I'll send it straight over

Do this before you brief another ad concept.

Ask: who specifically is this for?

Not "busy professionals." 

The Busy Professional. Career-driven, time-poor, 32. 

What does she actually need to see to stop scrolling? What scenarios does she recognise? What format matches how she consumes content on a Tuesday evening?

That specificity is what soulmate theory is about. 

There is a perfect creative for every single user. The ad that converts her won't convert the sceptic two personas over. 

Same product. Completely different execution.

The brands winning on Meta right now aren't making more ads. They're making more intentional ones. Coverage across personas, angles, and vehicles, so the algorithm has something to actually match with.

Stop measuring output. Start measuring coverage.

Every week, we get asked the same question about creatives on Meta: 

"We've got five UGC videos. Same creator. Same location. Different scripts. Is that enough?"

It comes up so often I almost have a scripted answer.

But last week we asked it to Maxime Menant from Meta's Disruptors team. Someone who has seen this play out across the top brands on platform.

His answer: in most cases, no.

Script variation alone isn't generating entity differentiation. Visual context, creator identity, setting, persona. All of those factor into how Meta groups assets. A different script in the same scene with the same creator is largely the same creative in Meta's eyes.

The clients asking this question are usually the ones who've made a significant investment in creator content and are starting to wonder why it isn't moving the needle the way they expected.

The answer is almost never the creator. It's the lack of differentiation at a deeper level than most people realise is required.

If this sounds familiar, it's worth having a conversation about your creative infrastructure. Get in touch: https://lnkd.in/eQSriGWC

We're giving away the exact prompt we used to make this AI UGC video.

Getting Sora 2 to output hyper-realistic, consistent footage isn't just about the tool. The prompt has to be structured in a very specific way… character description, cinematography, camera motion, lighting, dialogue, audio, authenticity keywords. Get it wrong and the footage looks off. 

Get it right and everything downstream becomes easier.

We’re sharing the exact Claude template we use as step one of our AI UGC workflow. It takes a basic brief (who the subject is, where they are, what they're saying, what device it should look like, their accent) and structures all of that into the exact format Sora 2 needs automatically.

No prompt engineering. Just inputs.

It sits at the start of a full workflow that runs through Sora 2 for the hook, ElevenLabs for voice cloning, ChatGPT for subject consistency, Nano Banana for B-roll generation and Kling for animation. The whole thing is broken down in the latest D2C Diaries episode https://lnkd.in/erx3vVRp

But this prompt is the foundation. Without it, the rest of the workflow is harder than it needs to be.

If you're building in this space or testing AI UGC for your brand, this is worth having.

Like this post and comment "PROMPT" and I’ll send it over.

I saw this Rian Doris piece this week on position rotation. The premise: sitting isn't synonymous with working.

Your brain treats a static environment like a desert. It goes into conservation mode. Reduces focus. Caps your stamina. The moment you change position or place, it reads novelty as an oasis. Dopamine. Reset. Back into flow.

The protocol is simple. Stand 50% of the time. Walk 25%. Sit 25%. And rotate between three fixed work environments throughout the day. Not every ten minutes. Two or three times. Enough to reset perceived effort without destroying momentum.

I've been building my apartment here in Dubai with this in mind. Dedicated space, controlled environment, set up to actually support output. Not just aesthetically. Structurally.

It's not just about protecting time. It's about designing the physical conditions for your best work.

Most founders I know are optimising their calendars. Almost none are optimising the body doing the work.

Worth thinking about.

A patient walks in feeling tired. The doctor prescribes caffeine.

That's not medicine. That's a reflex.

This analogy came up in a training session with our growth strategists last week and I wanted to share it.

Good doctors diagnose before they prescribe. They don't reach for the nearest tool. They find the root cause first, then treat it.

Most performance marketing works like the bad doctor.

CPAs rising. Prescribe more creative. Growth plateauing. Increase budget. ROAS softening. Test new audiences. All action, no diagnosis. The assumption is always that the problem lives inside the ad account.

It usually doesn't.

In our experience across 250+ DTC brands, the constraint that's actually limiting growth is upstream of the ads more often than people expect. A landing page converting at half the rate it should be. An offer that only works for one type of customer. A product mix where the highest AOV SKU keeps selling out, pulling spend toward something that can't fulfill demand.

None of those are solved by creative iteration. Prescribing volume into a broken funnel is caffeine for fatigue. It keeps you moving. It doesn't fix anything.

The diagnostic has to come first. What is the single biggest factor limiting growth right now? What is that constraint worth in revenue if it's solved? Only then does the prescription make sense.

Effort without diagnosis is just expensive noise.

Founder | Premium & Luxury Brand Growth Specialists | Scale at the Intersection of Finance & Psychology

Scaling premium & luxury D2C brands at the intersection of AI Powered Advertising & Finance.

After working with 60+ luxury & premium brands we've developed a system to guide brands to their full potential.

Utilizing our psychology-based creative strategy and data science-founded financial forecasting, our partners to profitably grow from 7-8, and 8-9 figures.

As a performance-based partner, we act as shareholders rather than an agency.

Apply now, to partner with the best in premium & luxury brand growth.

odylicmedia.com

Peter Quadrel

The Most Important Metric is MISSING from Your Meta Ads Manager...

(It forecasts ROAS decline)

Net New Reach.

Here's how to calculate it,  and the exact warning signs to watch for...

The Net New Reach Calculation

Your Meta reach number inside a single reporting window tells you nothing about saturation. 

It shows unique people reached during that window. 

Not whether they're the same people you reached last month.

Here's the fix:

1. Pull account-level reach for Period A (e.g., July 1-31)

2. Pull account-level reach for Period B (e.g., August 1-31)

3. Set reporting window to span both Period A and Period B (July 1 - August 31)

4. Pull combined reach (Meta de-duplicates automatically)

5. Net New Reach = Combined Reach − Period A Reach

6. Net New Reach % = Net New Reach ÷ Period B Reach × 100

What you get: the actual percentage of spend finding people who've never seen your brand.

Healthy: 60%+ net new reach 
Warning: Declining week-over-week while spend holds flat 
Critical: Under 40% with frequency climbing past 3

Of course base your variance off of the account historical mean. 

Why This Predicts CPA Spikes

When your New Customer Reach Index falls, Meta's running out of addressable new people. 

It re-routes budget toward easier conversions people who already know your brand, who were buying anyway.

Those conversions still show up. 

ROAS looks fine for a few weeks.

But new customer acquisition is slowing.

You won't see it in CPA until the pipeline dries out.

By the time CPA spikes and NC ROAS craters, the problem started a month ago.

What to Do

The fix is never bid adjustments.

The problem is creative saturation and audience exhaustion. 

The algorithm learned your creative signals and found everyone who should respond in X period at Y efficiency. 

The Levers: 

1. New creative personas/angles

2. New partnership ads/parters

3. Tighten exclusions TOF (ie. exclude social engagers, web visitors, etc.)

4. TOF campaign objectives (Reach, visits, etc.)

5. New differentiated new customer offers

Done right, Net New Reach recovers in ~10 days. 

New visitor rate follows. 

CPA stabilizes before the spike materializes.

Start tracking for smoother results.

Founder of Odylic Media | New Customer Growth for Premium & Luxury Brands

NanoBanana 2 just made your static ad agency obsolete.

And I just open sourced the entire tool.

Drop your product page URL.

It pulls your logos, product images, fonts, colors, and brand voice automatically.

Builds a full brand guide for you.

Then generates ad creatives at scale using nearly 4,000 high-performing ad templates across 8 niches.

It dynamically matches the best templates to your brand and brief.

Here's what makes it different:

→ Instant resizing

Get any ad in 1x1, 4x5, 9x16 with one click. No regeneration. No broken text.

→ Highlight-to-edit

See an issue? Highlight the area and tell it what to fix.

→ Multiple brand profiles

Run different brands or segments from one tool.

→ Auto persona building from real customer reviews

→ Multiple QC loops on briefs and final assets

Catches AI-isms before you do.

→ Upload your own templates or use ours

Runs locally. 

Just needs your Claude and Google API keys.

This is the lite version of what we use internally.

You get the full finished tool AND the open source code to make it your own.

Creatives still design the system, this handles iteration and scale.

Want a copy to download?

1. Make sure we are connected
2. Like this post
3. Comment "AI" 

Will DM you the tool along with a tutorial shortly after.

The media buyer is nearly dead...

Meta just acquired Manus AI for $2B+ and started integrating it directly into Ads Manager this month.

It's the first AI with a native Meta Ads connection built into the platform.

Not a third party tool guessing off scraped best practices.

An AI agent trained on Meta's own internal documentation, processes, and back end data.

You can connect your Ads Manager natively through manus .im right now. 

They already have pre-built skills for campaign analysis, reporting, creative audits, all ready out of the box.

I tested it on one of our accounts using just the free model...

Asked for a net new reach and creative fatigue report.

It pulled reach vs impressions by campaign, frequency analysis across the funnel, creative fatigue flags with specific callouts, and action steps.

It correctly identified our mid and bottom funnel campaigns had high frequency and repeat impressions. 

Understood the funnel context and gave real strategic reads.

Most human media buyers would take hours to build that report. 

Manus did it in minutes.

This is the inflection point.

The media buyer role as we've known it for the past 15 years is over. 

It's been a slow burn with more automation than ever in the last 36 months. 

But Manus inside Ads Manager is where this goes exponential.

The humans toggling switches, adjusting budgets, pulling reports, managing bid strategies, that work is getting absorbed by AI faster than most people want to admit.

And honestly? Good.

Humans should be doing higher leverage work than flipping toggles all day.

The media buyers who survive this shift won't be buying media at all. 

They'll be full stack growth strategists. Owning creative strategy, understanding unit economics, building funnels, advising on product positioning, connecting paid to retention.

The ones who defined their career by what buttons they push inside Ads Manager are the ones who should be paying attention right now.

The role isn't disappearing, it's evolving into something unrecognizable. 

And the gap between people who see this coming and people who don't is about to get very wide very quickly.

Increase New Customer ROAS Overnight by Turning Your Top Statics into Video...

Reels and Stories are where the vast majority of new customers find brands on Meta.

Not the feed.

If your ad account is heavy on static creatives and light on video content, you're barely showing up in the highest-intent discovery placements.

The problem?

Most brands know they need more video. 

But they don't have the budget, the team, or the time to produce it.

The solution is way simpler than you think.

There are now AI tools that let you take your top-performing ad images and turn them into production-ready Reels and Story ads in a couple of clicks.

No editing required.

No production team.

No waiting weeks for deliverables.

Just take what's already working, transform it into video, and unlock the placements you've been missing.

The result?

More new customer reach, better discoverability and a lower CAC. 

All from creatives you already have.

I put together a free tutorial walking through exactly how to do this, including the specific tools and step-by-step process.

(It only takes a few minutes to setup)

How to gain access:

1. Like this post
2. Comment "Video"
3. Make sure we're connected | Peter Quadrel

This giveaway is only live for 72h.

This Overlooked Equation has Made Millions for D2C Brands on Meta Ads

(Most advertisers never analyze it)

CPMR = CPM x Frequency

Three metrics. 

One relationship. 

It tells you more about what's happening in your Meta account than any trifecta.

CPMR (Cost Per 1,000 Account Centers Reached) is the raw cost to show your ad to 1,000 unique people. 

The most foundational metric on the platform. 

What your audience actually costs before frequency inflates it.

CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions) is what everyone tracks, but it includes repeat views of the same person. 

It blends audience cost with saturation.

Frequency is how many times each unique person sees your ad. 

Your saturation signal.

When you look at an ad's CPMR and frequency together, you can see exactly where it sits in your funnel without any fancy attribution setup.

Low CPMR + low frequency = that ad is reaching broad, cheap audiences. 

Top of funnel. Prospecting. Finding new people.

High CPMR + high frequency = small, expensive audience seeing your ads over and over. 

Bottom of funnel. Retargeting. Repeat exposure.

The real power is watching these metrics move over time.

If your frequency starts creeping up across the account, Meta is running out of new people to show your ads to. 

You're saturating. 

This is where creative fatigue lives. 

New creative or expanded targeting is the fix, not higher budgets.

If your CPMR starts rising while frequency holds steady, your audience is getting more expensive. 

More competition, demand shifts, or you're reaching pricier segments. 

Different problem, different fix.

When you see sudden fluctuations, decompose before you react. 

Check in this order:

Platform: Facebook vs Instagram vs Audience Network. 

Spikes often come from one placement.

Country: If you're running international, cost swings frequently trace to one region.

Age group: Different demographics have wildly different CPMRs. 

A delivery shift toward an older cohort can spike costs with nothing actually wrong.

The brands scaling profitably on Meta in 2026 are the ones obsessing over net new reach. 

How many new people are actually seeing their ads for the first time.

CPMR is how you measure that. 

It's how you know if your account is growing or just getting louder to the same crowd.

Stop looking at CPM in isolation.

20 Meta Hot Takes Few Media Buyers Admit...

1. High CPMs are good 

2. Hook rate has minimal impact on revenue 

3. Incrementality is the only truth 

4. Broad targeting will always outperform over the long run 

5. You have to choose between predictable volume or predictable efficiency (control vs. lowest) 

6. 3rd party attribution in ‘21 was a scam 

7. You need 70%+ margins or a 2-3X 12 month LTV to really scale 

8. Statics are the most efficient way to test new angles 

9. The majority of metrics on the platform are useless 

10. Spend is the greatest indicator of performance

11. Audience exclusions are just suggestions

12. Incremental attribution > 7DC

13. Test on lowest scale on cost control

14. Offer strategy > creative strategy

15. Low production usually beats high prod. 

16. Organic feeds outperform ad libraries for inspo

17. Partnership ads are the best way to get net new reach

18. Creative volume is a vanity metric/agenda pushed by Big Creative

19. Increasing TAM is the solution to an endemic rise in CPAs

20. Make it a gummy subscription and you'll win

How to Structure a New Meta Ad Account in 2026 (Everything you need)

Most brands launch a new Meta ad account and immediately overcomplicate everything.

Custom events. 
Five campaigns. 
Third-party pixels. 
Retargeting from day one.

Then they wonder why their CPMs are insane and nothing converts.

The brands that scale fastest from zero all do the same thing. 

They keep it stupidly simple.

Here's the exact setup:

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 Standard pixel events + Meta CAPI. No third-party tools, no custom events. 

Verify events fire correctly, no duplication errors, full coverage. Keep it clean.

𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 

One campaign. One ad set. CBO. Highest Volume. Load it with diverse ads and let Meta distribute spend.

No bid caps. Meta needs to spend a little recklessly to learn. 

Watch your CPMs, cost per 1K accounts center reached, and frequency. 

Those are your guardrails.

𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮 

Meta needs ~50 conversions per week to stabilize. 

Nothing magic about exactly 50, but think of it as escape velocity.

Daily Budget = CPA x 7

If the math doesn't work, you'll sit in Learning Limited burning cash.

𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 

Run 7-day click + 1-day engage-through/view+ 1-day view-through. 

All three. 

You're maximizing signal. 

And you can still break results down by window for accuracy.

Meta recently moved likes, shares, and saves out of click attribution into engage-through. 

Make sure it's on if you see it (or view)!

𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 

Broad targeting with 1-5 suggested audiences. 

Suggestions give Meta data, they don't restrict reach. 

Meta can ignore them and it will.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗣𝗠 𝗔𝗱𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 

Every new account falls into a CPM pit.

Meta doesn't trust you yet.

Expect the first $10K to feel painful. 

Health-adjacent brands? $15-20K. 

Budget for it with real dollars.

The way out: serve Meta's platform. 

Strong video retention, real engagement, a trustworthy site. 

You serve Meta before you serve yourself at this stage.

𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝘅 

~50% Reels/ 30% statics/ 20% carousels

Up to half your Reels should be partnership ads. 

Double data (your page + creator's page) and disproportionate new account learning. 3-5 creators, negotiate rev-share deals to protect margin.

~70/30 native to produced. 

No retargeting yet. No Flex ads. No catalog ads unless you're a fashion brand.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗢𝘂𝘁 

Run this until ~50 conversions/week for multiple weeks with stable metrics. 

Weeks of consistency. 

Then build out.

The brands that follow this get through learning faster and build a data foundation that makes everything after it easier.

The brands that overcomplicate from day one spend months wondering why nothing works and are likely still stuck in the CPM pit to this day.

NEW: The 1st AI with a Native Meta Ads Integration Just Went Live

Meta quietly started rolling Manus AI into Ads Manager this month.

If you go to your All Tools section under Manage, you'll already see it sitting there.

But here's the part most people haven't seen:

You can go to Manus directly, connect your Meta Ads Manager through their native connectors, and start pulling insights immediately.

They already have pre-built Meta skills think pre-loaded instructions and workflows specifically for Meta ad analysis. 

This isn't some random third-party AI scraping your data and comparing it against generic "best practices" it found online.

This is becoming Meta's own AI agent. Being trained on Meta's documentation, Meta's internal processes, Meta's back-end data.

I tested it on one of our accounts using just the free light model (not even the Pro version).

Asked for a net new reach and creative fatigue report.

It came back with:

→ Reach vs. impressions charts broken down by campaign 
→ Frequency analysis across the full funnel 
→ Creative fatigue flags with specific callouts 
→ Action steps for each issue

It correctly identified that our mid and bottom-of-funnel campaigns had repeat impressions and high frequency which is exactly what you'd expect.

The analysis was legitimately sharp with a suite of charts.

 Not "here's a generic summary of your metrics" sharp. 

Actual strategic reads on what's working and what needs attention.

This will become a super useful tool for quick analysis and deep reporting:

- Account structure audits based on your actual brand and vertical
- 7-day and 30-day performance reports you can pull in minutes
- Creative fatigue and audience saturation analysis with real recommendations.

If you haven't explored what Manus can do with your Meta account yet, now's the time there's a pretty good free version.

Head to manus, connect your Ads Manager, and start asking questions.

We've been building out a library of high leverage prompts and skills for Manus's Meta integration.

If you want our top 10 prompts and reports, comment "report" or send me a DM.

Attribution is mostly fake.

Pre-iOS 14, we trusted platform numbers completely.

Meta reported 8x ROAS. Nobody asked questions.

Then iOS 14 hit and most found out "tracking" was largely modeled estimates with attribution windows generous enough to claim credit for purchases made in a different browser tab.

Triple Whale followed. 

Third-party tools promised the real numbers. 

They kind of delivered for about two years. 

Then Meta improved their own modeling and suddenly most brands were paying $1K+/month for a dashboard that confirmed what blended ROAS already showed.

Now incrementality is the move. 

And it has real problems nobody talks about.

Seasonal bias is brutal. 

A test run in November versus January gives you different results because underlying demand is different, not because your ads got better or worse.

Testing windows are too short for high-AOV products. 

If your customer thinks about a $1,000 purchase for six weeks, a three-week holdout test captures almost nothing useful.

And none of it touches referrals, repeat behavior, or long-term LTV.

The math also doesn't work below $1M/month in spend.

These platforms run $10K+/month. 

You end up paying more for the measurement than the insights are worth.

What I've seen actually matter: blended metrics, profit trends over time, and testing big structural changes rather than micro-optimizations.

A sharp operator with solid unit economics and basic profit tracking will outperform a brand running $120K/year in attribution software that's optimizing toward the wrong signal and not sending it to Meta.

You're running 200 ads but Meta only sees 20...

Here's why your creative volume strategy is failing.

Meta's Entity ID system groups "visually similar"  creatives behind the scenes.  

Even if they have completely different Creative IDs in your account.  

The Three IDs That Actually Matter

1. Ad ID: Basic identifier for each ad 
2. Creative ID: Assigned to each asset you upload 
3. Entity ID: The invisible grouping system  

Entity ID is where it gets interesting.  

All performance learnings are shared.  

All delivery is shared.  

All costs are impacted.  

What Meta Considers "The Same Creative":  

→ Identical visuals with different headlines on asset 
→ Same product in slightly different angles or lighting 
→ Same UGC creator across multiple videos with similar settings and intros  

Meta groups them as one Entity ID.  

What Actually Triggers a New Entity ID:  

Format changes: 
Static → Video → Carousel  

Context shifts: 
Flat lay → Model wearing → Lifestyle scene  

New talent: 
Different creator, voice, face  

This is why "creative is the new targeting" actually makes sense.  

Each unique Entity ID gets its own learning phase.  

Its own audience cohort.  

Meta won't show Entity IDs directly.  

It's "internal-only" according to their reps.  

But they're rolling out three metrics for indirect visibility:  

Creative Similarity → Best proxy for Entity ID overlap 
Creative Themes → How Meta categorizes your ads 
Creative Fatigue → When your audience is burned out  

But on the accounts these features have rolled out for, the data is not very good.

Hopefully Meta can actually provide some clear insights before Q4.

The Partnership Ad Account Structure NO ONE Talks About 

( 5 Steps ) 

Partnership ads are becoming more scalable than traditional campaigns for brands in 2026. 

We're seeing clients dedicate full-time team members to managing partnerships. 

Some brands are scaling entirely off creator collaborations.

The advantage is clear: 2x the data signals (creator account + brand account), more organic positioning that feels less salesy, and massive net new reach potential.

But everyone focuses on creator selection. 

Almost no one shares the actual account infrastructure that makes partnerships profitable.

Here's the setup after managing partnership campaigns across 7-8 figure brands:

1. Campaign Structure 

→ Single CBO campaign for all partnership ads 
→ Incremental attribution or 7-day click (either works) 
→ Each ad set = one creator relationship 
→ Time-limited creative? Separate ad set with scheduled end date 
→ Multiple timelines for same creator? Multiple ad sets 
→ Evergreen creator content? Dedicated ad set, no expiration

Lowest cost usually outperforms cost caps for partnerships. 

You can move winners to a scaling CBO with ROAS targets at 20% above goal, but most partnerships scale best in their original test campaign on lowest cost.

2. Audience Strategy 

If you want maximum net new reach (which you should): 
→ Exclude existing customers 
→ Exclude ATCs and middle funnel audiences 
→ Exclude website visitors 
→ Exclude Instagram and Facebook engagers 

3. Creative Settings

→ Dynamic identity: ON (let Meta choose brand vs. creator profile) 
→ Multi-advertiser ads: ON 
→ Advantage+ enhancements: Turn OFF most of them 
→ Only keep: copy organization, touch-ups, relevant comments 
→ Everything else off

4. The Scaling Exception 

If one evergreen ad set dominates budget allocation and chokes testing velocity, create a separate scaling CBO. 

Pause in the testing campaign once the scaling campaign exceeds performance.

It's less efficient than letting Meta choose, but sometimes Meta gets so confident in one ad that your budget is too small to give other partners a real shot.

5. Rights Management :

30-day usage rights work fine if you're getting better rates. 

Just extend the winners as needed. 

But lifetime usage rights are the long-term unlock for compounding value.

The 2026 Guide to Starting a New Meta Ad Account

(Everything you need to know)

What's inside:

- Exact attribution settings
- The CPM pit phenomenon 
- Account structure breakdown
- Creative strategy process
- Testing cadence
- Budget allocation across account
- Proper tracking setup 

Click below to read.

Most brands launch a new ad account and immediately overcomplicate everything. Third-party pixels. Custom events. First-party data layers. Retargeting

Open article: The 2026 New Meta Ad Account Setup Guide  by Peter Quadrel • 21 min read

I've Audited 50+ 8-figure Meta Ad Accounts in 2026 (Here's Why They're Stuck)

The 10 problems killing your new customer ROAS and efficiency:

1. Still on 7-day click attribution

If you're an established 8-figure brand, you should be on incremental. 

It aligns closer with actual revenue. 

Meta is building toward it as the default, stop waiting.

2. Fake creative diversity

Most brands scale into 5-6 ad formats and stop. Then wonder why new customer ROAS declines. 

You need 12-24 distinct formats paired with multiple sales arguments. If you can't name a dozen getting real spend, you have a problem.

3. 4 partnership ads is not a strategy

Brands scaling fast right now work with 20-40+ partners across different sub-personas. Not 4 creators with a couple videos each.

4. Zero upper funnel (reach, visits, views) campaigns

Your efficiency is bleeding and you're doing nothing to refill the top.

Run organic video content through an upper funnel campaign year round and at least 30 days before every major sales peak.

5. Naming conventions are a disaster

You should be able to answer these in 60 seconds: 

Top 3 spending personas? 
Best-performing angle per persona? 
Lowest-spending ad format? 

If you can't, you're flying blind on creative strategy. Detailed naming conventions with every relevant variable is essential for test measurement. 

6. No real marketing moments

Black Friday and Mother's Day isn't real marketing. It's following the basic calendar every other brand does. 

The brands winning create their own moments with real storytelling:

Customer stories, founder narratives, cause-driven campaigns with related offers.

Until you have unique stories worth listening to that are relevant to your audience; new impressions will be expensive. 

7. No year-round email/sms lead gen campaigns

Rare to see a dedicated email/SMS acquisition campaign running consistently. 

And if it exists, the offer is "10% off." Run a giveaway, bundle offer, or create incentives like extended returns, better warranties, even early sale access.

These turn your email/sms into a true acquisition channel.

8. Ghost town comments

Some buyers hit the comments before they watch the ad. 

If nobody's responding or building social proof there, you're leaving money on the table. Stir something up, have a comment section worth reading. 

9. Never boosting organic posts

Look at your last week of organic content. Boost the top 1-2 performers. Simple. 

There's an algorithmic advantage here and these usually create a lift in new reach/acquisition efficiency. 

10. Optimizing the wrong things

Notice I didn't mention ABO vs CBO, cost controls, etc. 

At 8 figures, most brands have the account structure setup well enough. 

The 9 problems above are where the gains live.

If your new customer efficiency has been declining, run through this list. 

You'll see a big improvement if you implement just 1-2 of these optimizations.

Meta optimizes for entire customer journeys now.  

Not individual ad performance, journey performance  

Your ads get sequenced intentionally to build conversion paths.  

Meta decides the order based on what converts over the full journey.  

The mistake:  Killing high-spend low-ROAS ads.  

That awareness ad eating budget? It's probably the first touch making your retargeting work.  

Spend distribution = Meta's confidence in an asset's importance to the journey.  

Your top 10-20% spending cohort IS your customer journey.  

Look at CPMR + Frequency + customer breakdown to identify funnel position.  

Map average touches to conversion.  

Most brands have no creative addressing mid-funnel objections.  

Pull support tickets.

Common questions = missing journey steps.  

Warranty concerns?   Sizing questions?   Comparison to competitors?  

If it's a question in support, it needs an ad.  

Think landing page, not ad  

Every potential concern needs addressable creative.

Every persona needs their own journey built.  

- Technical buyers need specs 
- Social buyers need proof 
- Value buyers need guarantees  

Going into Q2 stop optimizing for last-touch attribution.  

Start mapping journey cohorts and build creative that fills the gaps then let Meta sequence it.

This is the MOST Neglected Metric on Meta

(It's why so many brands hit a scale ceiling)

Brands come to us saying "our CPA is too high" or "ROAS won't budge." 

They assume it's a creative problem. 

Or a targeting problem. 

Even a CPM problem.

It's usually not...

Most brands I audit have passable fundamentals. 

The real bottleneck? Their AOV is too low to make the math work at scale.

And almost nobody sets goals around it.

Here's proof from one of our clients (a premium D2C brand):

We track a metric called New Customer Revenue per Mille (NCRPM). 

Simple formula: 1,000 × CVR × New Customer AOV.

Think of it like CPM but flipped. How much revenue you generate per 1,000 new visitors instead of how much you spend.

In 3 years:

AOV up 173%. 
CVR down 35%. 

Revenue per 1,000 new visitors? Up 77%.

The CVR decline didn't matter. 

The AOV gains more than offset it. 

Every year they made more money from the same traffic despite converting a fewer % of people.

The problem is brands never make this a priority.

They'll A/B test button colors and rebuild pages...

But they won't look at whether their average cart is fundamentally too small to support profitable acquisition at the CPMs their market demands and the scale they're pushing.

Ways to increase AOV without launching new products:

→ In-cart upsells and cross-sells 
→ Post-purchase one-click upsells 
→ Bundle pricing with a slight discount incentive 
→ Free shipping thresholds set just above current AOV 
→ Tiered discounts (spend $X, save Y%) 

The annual goal nobody sets:

Every year, your AOV should go up while keeping conversion rate flat. 

Or only declining to a degree where revenue and profit per order still increases.

If you're a 7-figure brand that hit a ceiling on Meta and you've been blaming your ads, go pull your new customer AOV right now.

Look at how it's trended YoY relative to your conversion rate.

Calculate your own NCRPM. 

You might find your real problem isn't in Ads Manager at all.

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