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

A-players only. Must have experience with D2C.

Vagabond Digital 

As the CEO of Vagabond Digital, a dynamic and fast-growing agency specialising in paid media and social strategies, I lead a highly ambitious team and collaborate with an extensive network of skilled freelancers. Together, we are dedicated to crafting innovative campaigns that seamlessly integrate direct response and brand building.

At Vagabond Digital, we excel in leveraging our expertise to create, develop, and optimise paid search and social initiatives for clients across diverse industries. Our primary goal is to generate tangible results by strategically positioning advertisements directly in front of our clients' desired audiences, driving sales and generating valuable leads for their businesses.

With a relentless focus on achieving exceptional outcomes, we combine data-driven insights with creative ingenuity to deliver compelling campaigns that captivate audiences, spark engagement, and ultimately drive conversions. Our unwavering commitment to staying at the forefront of industry trends and technologies ensures that our clients benefit from cutting-edge strategies that consistently exceed expectations.

If you're seeking a forward-thinking agency partner that possesses a deep understanding of paid media and social platforms, and a passion for driving business growth through innovative marketing techniques, please feel free to DM me.

CEO & Founder

PPC & Paid Social Freelancer

SQ Digital

After excelling in my previous role of PPC Consultant I was offered the role Head of PPC in which I was tasked with managing and growing the PPC department. I successfully hired, trained and grew the team to be one of the most effective within the company. By focusing on R&D combined with tried and tested methods we were able to exceed all targets and the hard work culminated in several industry awards. 

In tandem with managing the team I was integral to winning new business and nurturing the accounts once on board. I hosted several workshops with Google which garnered lots of positive feedback and led me to creating my very own PPC Agency.

Head of PPC

In this role I got to grips with the basics and advanced best practices in PPC marketing. Taking control of some key accounts I pushed myself to learn outside of work as much as I could about business and marketing so that I could look at problems from different angles in order to provide better solutions.

PPC Consultant 

In the past we used to advertise broad messages to broad audiences on billboards and newspaper spreads but now, thanks to the advent of PPC (pay-per-click) and social advertising, we’re able to advertise specific messages to specific audiences to achieve a much greater impact - which is where I come in. I put brands and businesses directly in front of their target audience with highly targeted paid advertising campaigns on platforms such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat in order to drive sales and leads.

About me:

I’m a super ambitious, motivated and dedicated business leader passionate about all things business and marketing. I get a kick out of problem solving, thinking outside the box, learning new things and creating value for businesses. I’m also an advocate for remote working, a healthier planet and a happy balance.

Whilst I have a knowledge and interest in all things marketing, I chose to specialise in PPC advertising because I see it as The Business End of Digital Marketing. So I founded Vagabond Digital to help businesses and brands put their products and services directly in front of their target audience. We use a combination of automation and brain power to successfully drive sales and leads into businesses of all sectors. We’re a little different in that we’re a remote business, which means we have neither office locations nor restrictions. This enables us to work with the most impressive talent around the globe, offer flexibility to our staff and improve communication channels - all the while delivering a premium service to our clients.

We offer flat rate fees, great value for money and a high level of expertise.

I’d love to hear from anyone interested in marketing, collaborating or growing their business. Drop me a message and we can arrange a virtual coffee chat - tj@vagabonddigital.co.uk

The books I recommend most often: 

Shoe Dog, Tools of Titans, Think and Grow Rich and for some fiction - East of Eden.

TJ Lee

I’m about to become a dad. And I’ll be honest - I’ve got no idea what happens to my head the day it happens.

Everyone keeps saying *“everything will change”*.

But they never say how.

Right now, I’m in this weird space between two lives:

→ Still working like a maniac.
→ Still chasing the next milestone.
→ Still focused on growing Vagabond.

But I know there’s something coming that will shake all of that. I just don’t know which way it will push me.

Will it give me perspective - make me slow down, enjoy life, realise none of this matters as much as I thought?

Or…

Will it light an even bigger fire, push me to build something bigger, stronger, so my kid never has to worry about anything?

Logistically, I’m already confused:

🕖 When do I work?
🏋🏼‍♂️ When do I train?
👶🏻 When do I switch off?

(Do founders even get to “switch off”?)

The only thing I *do* know:

I want to be present. I want to be a good dad.

And I still want to build something I’m proud of.

Figuring out how those two worlds collide…

That’s the part no one teaches you.

So, to the founders already in this phase - how did it change you?

Did you slow down?

Or did you double down?

I’m honestly curious.

Founder and Chief Vagabond at Vagabond Digital | Paid Media Expert | Growing the world’s best businesses inc. Allbeauty, Fragrance Direct and more

This has been one of the toughest years I’ve seen in agency life.

Not just for us - across the industry.

Budgets have tightened.
Decision-makers have slowed.
And more brands are pulling work in-house.

We felt it firsthand. Two of our biggest accounts moved their performance teams internally.

Great relationships. Strong results. Still gone.

And that’s the game nobody tells you about when you start an agency:

You can do a brilliant job… and still lose the client.

But here’s the truth I’ve made peace with:

Clients will come and go. Retention isn’t guaranteed.

But your resilience has to be.

Because while some doors close, new ones open - if you’re ready.

We’ve all lost clients before. We’ll lose them again.

But we’ll also win bigger ones.

That’s agency life.

Stay steady. Keep swinging.

Q4 is where it all turns.

As a founder, your job title changes every time your business does.

One year, you’re doing client work.
The next, you’re fixing finance issues.
Then suddenly - you’re the Head of Sales again.

Right now, that’s exactly where I am. After years of jumping between CEO tasks (partnerships, marketing, strategy)…

…I’ve gone all in on sales.

Why?

Because that’s what the business needs.

And here’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned from mentorship and experience:

Nobody will ever sell your business as well as you can. I even asked my board director recently whether I should hire a salesperson.

“Not yet. Clear everything *except sales off your plate.* Get a PA. Delegate ops. Let your team run delivery.”

“Your time is most valuable in front of prospects - not spreadsheets.”

He’s right.

A founder’s real superpower isn’t operations - it’s conviction.

You built the thing. You know the mission. You can sell the vision better than anyone.

So here’s where I’ve landed:

✅ Delegate admin
✅ Empower your senior team
✅ Step back from the ‘doing’

⚡ Double down on selling the business

Until you’ve hit serious scale - *you* are the best closer in your company.

The hardest part of running an agency? Not sales. Not clients. Hiring.

I’ve hired 30+ people, interviewed close to 100, and skimmed through thousands of CVs.

And still - it’s a gamble every time.

But over the years, I’ve boiled it down to four non-negotiables:

—

1️⃣ Work ethic

I don’t care how “talented” you are.

If you clock in mentally at 9:05 and check out at 4:55, it won’t work here. 

(Sorry, not sorry, if that’s not the right thing to say these days…)

—

2️⃣ Expertise (relative to level)

I don’t expect juniors to be experts. 

I do expect seniors to know their craft inside-out. Self-awareness matters.

—

3️⃣ Culture fit

No egos or passengers. 

You can be brilliant, but if you’re a nightmare to work with, you’re out.

—

4️⃣ Accountability

Mistakes aren’t the problem. Hiding them is. 

Own it, fix it, move forward.

—

Hiring isn’t about filling a seat.

It’s about betting on someone to move with you (not just work for you).

Founders: your criteria might differ, but if you’re not clear on what you value…

You’ll hire for speed, and pay for it later.

I studied scriptwriting. Delivered Chinese takeaways. Now I run a 30-person agency.

My career path wasn’t linear.

And that’s the point. 

Resilience isn’t about sticking to the plan, it’s about pushing forward *when the plan falls apart*.

Clients leave.
Cash gets tight.
Team dynamics change.

But you show up anyway.

The people who win are the ones who:

→ Keep moving
→ Stay focused
→ Block out the noise
→ Surround themselves with good people

Spielberg once said: Don’t blink.

That’s how I treat business.

Eyes forward. No panic. Keep building.

Don’t blink.

I’m not the best marketer at Vagabond.

And that’s exactly how it should be.

When I first started, clients bought into me.

My skills. My ideas. My ability to run ads and social. But if 5 years later, I was still the smartest marketer in the room?

We’d have a serious problem.

Because building an agency isn’t about clinging onto being “the best.” It’s about surrounding yourself with people who are better.

That means:
👉🏻 Creatives who think in ways I never could.
👉🏻 Paid media specialists who know the platforms inside out.
👉🏻 Social teams who are sharper, faster, and more up to date than I am.

My job now is not to be the best marketer. It’s to build the best team of marketers.

Scaling a business forces you to let go.

To stop trying to do it all.

To trade ego for growth.

If you want to grow, hire people better than you.

And get out of their way.

If you’re chasing euphoria every time you win in business… you’re setting yourself up to lose.

When I first started Vagabond, I used to get a huge buzz from every “win.”

A new client. A big campaign. A team hire.

But the problem is, if you get addicted to the highs… you’ll get crushed by the lows.

And business certainly has its lows.

Clients leave and cashflow gets tight. People quit. Results dry up.

If you’re defined by one side of the rollercoaster, you’ll get wrecked by the other.

That’s why I try to stay level.

I celebrate wins, of course. But I don’t let them define me.

And when the sh*t hits the fan, I don’t let that define me either.

Staying steady is how you stay resilient. It’s how you show up consistently.

It’s how you survive long enough to actually *build* something.

The highs and lows are just noise.

What matters is how you handle the middle.

Social content looks effortless. But behind every "casual" post is a machine most people never see.

Shot lists. 
Mood boards. 
Content calendars mapped weeks in advance. 
Last-minute pivots when something isn't working.
Coordination between creative teams, account managers, and clients. 
Multiple takes to get the "spontaneous" moment just right.
Countless revisions. 
More revisions. 

The brands that make it look easy have systems.

At Vagabond, we've built processes that handle the complexity so the final product feels natural.

Pre-production planning that accounts for every variable. Streamlined workflows that keep projects moving. Quality control that catches issues before they become problems.

The goal isn't to eliminate the work. It's to make the work invisible.

Because when social content truly connects, nobody should see the effort behind it.

The D2C playbook is broken.

For years, brands built entire businesses on cheap Facebook ads.

Those days are over.

CPMs have doubled on Meta and TikTok. Big brands flooded in, driving up competition and costs.
iOS 14 killed precise targeting. Lookalike audiences and retargeting became guesswork overnight.

Ad fatigue is real. Consumers scroll past, block ads, or just don't trust overly salesy content anymore.

This summer, we've worked with more D2C brands flipping the script entirely.

Instead of paid-first with organic as an afterthought, they're going organic-first with paid as support.

Authentic content that builds genuine connections. 
Community-led growth that creates actual brand loyalty.
User-generated content that doesn't feel like advertising. 

Of course, paid still works. But it's no longer the affordable growth lever it once was.

The brands getting ahead now treat organic social as essential infrastructure, not a nice extra.

They're building brand equity and long-term loyalty instead of chasing cheap clicks.

The D2C brands still betting everything on paid acquisition? 

Will get left behind.

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