Joel Williams

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to co-found and build Transact Media Group (TMG) alongside some true industry titans — and to partner with some of the biggest players in the market.

While everyone naturally chases the biggest deals and logos, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past 12 months is the power of going deep on strategic partnerships. I touch on a few of these in the podcast clip, but the reality is simple: without these people, our business wouldn’t be what it is today.

Doing strategic partnerships properly is one of the biggest hacks in business. 

You surround yourself with C-suite leaders and VPs at hungry, ambitious businesses. You test, you learn, and you build — and in the process, you become a far better all-round operator. I don’t need to name names; those people know who they are.

Feeling genuinely privileged to be building something truly game-changing for the market — and even more excited to show up every day and work on it.

We believe we’ve built a product for everyone.
Grow with us.

2026 already feels different. 

January was a sprint across tech and sales — and I’m proud to say we’re now trading globally. We finalised Canada over the weekend, which complements our US and Brazil algorithms across the Americas, nicely — a moment of real serendipity - as we head into our next growth chapter.

We’re now live in 27 markets:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UAE, KSA, UK and the US.

I also turned 29 in January, and I’ve never felt hungrier to push myself further before my 30th birthday. As someone who has never taken the easy route, I can safely say that this year will be the biggest yet. 

This is why 700+ advertisers have already registered for Transact Media Group (TMG) Business Manager. With 45+ integrations complete, it takes just three clicks to get started for outcome based marketing or data activations. 

Our mission is clear, we believe using historic transactional data will impact your future transactions and lead to enhanced business results. 

The problems we are solving for our brand & agency partners:
﻿
1. Improve campaign performance – Leveraging transactional data to optimise social and programmatic media campaigns.
2. Business outcome marketing – Running fixed cost-per-sale or outcome-based campaigns to acquire new or engage existing customers across display, video, connected TV, YouTube, and podcasts.
3. Measure real impact – Tracking how connected TV (CTV) marketing actually drives purchases, not just impressions.
4. Repurpose creative content – Working with content creators to turn Meta and TikTok content into high-performing programmatic ads, matched directly to transactional data sets.

I’m excited to welcome Mike and Debbie as we scale our North America go-to-market.

Huge thanks to the team - this show is only just getting started, I’m honoured to lead this business forward. 

Thank you for all your continued support.

Really appreciate Campaign UK for the coverage and for taking the time to tell the Transact Media Group (TMG) story.

2025 was a defining year for Transact Media Group — contributing to $50m+ GMV for partners, scaling our team significantly, and seeing 700+ brands commit to campaigns through TMG Business Manager. Most importantly, it validated our belief that performance marketing needs to be built around outcomes, not proxies.

As our Chairman Barry Cupples put it in the piece:
 “Outcome-based media isn’t a trend — it’s a correction. When incentives are aligned, growth follows.”

That philosophy underpins everything we’re building — from launching Programmatic and Google Shopping on a straight CPA basis, to expanding across Europe, APAC, the Middle East, and into the U.S. in 2026.

Thanks to our partners, clients, and the TMG team for the trust and collaboration. The focus now is on scaling responsibly and continuing to deliver real commercial results.

Read more below. Onwards 🚀

Open article: Transact Media Group Eyes 2026 U.S Expansion After Driving $50M GMV for Partners by campaignlive.co.uk

Transact Media Group Eyes 2026 U.S Expansion After Driving $50M GMV for Partners

Media. Data. Commerce. Connected By Transactions.

Tonight, I must start packing my suitcase for Affiliate Summit West, in Las Vegas.

📅 11th–14th January 2026 – Networking, exploring affiliate opportunities, and catching up with partners in tech and e-commerce.

After the summit, we’re heading to New York 🗽 to meet clients, agencies, and brands — showing how Transact Media Group (TMG) helps turn marketing into real business outcomes:

✨ Transact Signals – audience targeting powered our exclusive transaction-level data algorithm
 📺 Programmatic & CTV Activation – measurable campaign performance
 🛒 Consumer Platforms – generating demand and driving commerce

I’ll be traveling with my Co-Founder and good friend, Adam Wilmshurst, and we’re amazed — 55+ meetings booked next week! 

Can’t wait to connect, collaborate, and spark some exciting partnerships. The US is a very important market for us this year, building on a strong foundation laid last year.

🏴‍☠️ 🚀 🇺🇸

For those who know me, you’ll be aware of my passion for Wales and business — so I’m really excited to be taking to the stage with my good friend, Gareth Lewis!

On Thursday 19 February, as part of Wales Week / London, I’ll be hosting a thought-provoking lunchtime lecture at Transact Media Group (TMG) HQ, 100 Bishopsgate, in partnership with Vivid Financial Planning.

Why (Welsh) Businesses Need To Think Global

We’ll explore how data, marketing, and growth can become your core profit engine, including:

1. How data can unlock better decision-making and fuel profitable growth
2. Why marketing should be treated as a strategic growth engine, not a cost
3. What Welsh businesses need to do differently to compete on a global stage
4. Practical lessons from organisations successfully scaling beyond borders
5. This session is designed for founders, directors, and senior leaders looking to future-proof their business and maximise long-term value — whether you’re already operating internationally or preparing for the next stage of growth.

Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Format: Lunchtime lecture & discussion

Register below and join us for an engaging session on thinking bigger, growing smarter, and taking Welsh businesses global! - https://lnkd.in/ehrQrMtx

Thanks for the opportunity Mike Jordan & Dan Langford OBE.

https://lnkd.in/e2NkNAbz

Open article: Why (Welsh) Businesses Need To Think Global by walesweek.london

Why (Welsh) Businesses Need To Think Global

It was great to feature in this episode.

Happy New Year all.

View company: London School of DIGITAL BUSINESS

Marketing looks very different when results, not dashboards, are the scoreboard. In this GPIS episode, Sachin Parekh sits down with Joel Williams, Founder of Transact Media Group (TMG) Group, to unpack what happens when marketing is tied directly to real transactions, real revenue, and real accountability. 

Joel shares how he scaled fast by rejecting vanity metrics, betting on outcome-driven execution, and building systems where performance can actually be proven. 

It’s a sharp, no-nonsense conversation about incrementality, guaranteed results, and why the future of marketing belongs to those who are willing to be measured where it truly counts.

YouTube: https://lnkd.in/d2qBq3dT
YouTube Music: https://lnkd.in/dBg3kHxT
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/d5bNgdux

#GPISSeason2 #MarketingLeadership #PerformanceMarketing #RevenueDriven #OutcomeFirst #B2BMarketing #MarketingAccountability #RealResults #GrowthStrategy #LSDBUK

A big week in the US, spending time with some of the world’s largest brands and agencies.

We’re building deep, strategic partnerships that will significantly accelerate our growth in the market.

This week, it’s back to execution across our other regions — launching a truly company-changing deal and continuing to scale our new products.

We also had a lot of fun filming the below podcast with Tash Courtenay-Smith — check this out ..highlighting a snippet of some of that growth. More PR announcements are coming soon, along with our newly launched Transact Media Group (TMG) Business Manager.

I almost, can’t keep up with our own pace, but we keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Our mission is clear - using transactional-based data to drive meaningful business outcomes from media, not just surface-level metrics.

Striding onwards, Joel 🚀 

https://lnkd.in/e5TupqrH

Open video: Why Performance Marketing Is Being Rebuilt Around Transactions | Tash Insights on youtube.com

Why Performance Marketing Is Being Rebuilt Around Transactions | Tash Insights

A lovely way to wake up to a PR push about our offering in the Middle East this morning from the US.

Humbled by our next phase of growth.

Onwards 🚀 😎

Transact Media Group (TMG) and InMotion have launched Transact Data, a new off-the-shelf transactional insights product giving brands across the Middle East access to scalable, privacy-safe behavioural signals.

The product also includes off-the-shelf private marketplaces (PMPs), giving agencies fully packaged, commerce-driven private marketplace deals ready for immediate activation.

“Brands need real, actionable consumer signals — not guesswork,” said Joel Williams, CEO, TMG. “Transact Data delivers exactly that."

Read the full article here:
https://lnkd.in/g3fj49-N

Open article: TMG, InMotion bring off-the-shelf transactional signals to marketers with ‘Transact Data’ - Campaign Middle East by campaignme.com

TMG, InMotion bring off-the-shelf transactional signals to marketers with ‘Transact Data’ - Campaign Middle East

Founder, Tash Partners | Fractional Growth & CMO Leadership | Growth Infrastructure & Content Systems

A lot can happen in 12 months... just ask Joel Williams and Adam Wilmshurst.

Almost a year after we caught up in the podcast studio to chat about the start of Transact Media Group (TMG), we were back in the studio to reflect on a period that has seen TMG go from 10-15 early client wins to:

✅ Being active in 30+ territories
✅ Running campaigns across Europe, APAC, the Middle East and the Americas
✅ Partnering with some of the most sophisticated brands and agencies in the world – including Mastercard

I'm also explaining why the marketing funnel is no longer a funnel... it's a sieve (with thanks to my good friend Charles Denton for an outstanding metaphor!)

#tashinsights #dtcinsights #ecombrands #femalefounders #newsletter

If you’re free on Wednesday night, I’ll be speaking at empowHER In the Making: Build, Break & Rebuild at The Little Violet Door in London. Nicole Harv

Open article: What a difference a year makes... by Tash Courtenay-Smith • 9 min read

Joe Marston 🚀

Co-Founder

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

3x Agency Founder.

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

In 2024, having a great product is one thing…

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

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

Because when you get that right…

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

Giving you complete control over your growth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Founder

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

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

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

The scroll is now personal.

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

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

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

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

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

Want the download?

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

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

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

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

8 of the best brands of 2025.

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

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

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

Make sure we're connected so I can DM you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inside the guide, we break down:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He calls it "dopamine residue."

The fix is simple: boring breaks.

No phone. No music. No input.

Just silence.

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

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

It sounds lazy. It's the opposite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Each product?
→ Positioned to a different pain point.

Each creative?
→ Tailored to a specific outcome.

Each angle?
→ Built for a defined persona.

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

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

We just broke the funnel down.

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

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

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

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

It comes from creative variety that matches algorithm complexity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dan gets brutally honest on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

A few numbers worth paying attention to:

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

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

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

If you want the full breakdown:

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

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

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

From day one at Soar, we asked ourselves:

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

At the time, it was just me and Olly.

Fewer than 5 staff.

No office.

No profit.

But that one mindset shift shaped everything.

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

That’s what built the moat.

We weren’t trying to grow fast.

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

And we’ve been scaling like that ever since.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boring breaks.

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

He calls it "dopamine residue."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If your ad account is full of:

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

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

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

Quick example (supplement brand):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing else moved.

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

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

Most brands don’t have a media problem.

They have a creative sameness problem.

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

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

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

And sure, it works, until it doesn’t.

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

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

What to build instead:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GEM is designed to make sense of:

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

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

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

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

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

That’s why organic performance now compounds paid performance.

What to do this week

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

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

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

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

Meta’s 2025 Andromeda update made one thing clear:

Creative and creator identity are now the targeting.

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

Two implications matter:

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why do partnership ads win under Andromeda?

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

✅ Drive stronger engagement signals

✅ Feel more human and credible than brand-only ads

✅ Unlock new reach via identity, not just new angles

Same angle. Same format.

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

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

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

Consistency is the multiplier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottom line for DTC brands in 2026

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

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

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

That’s what founders do, right?

Then I read Ray Dalio’s approach.

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

Here’s what he did differently:

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

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

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

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

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

Most founders confuse independence with isolation.

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

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

They think independently, then test brutally.

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

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

The market doesn’t care how hard you worked.

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

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

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

That’s how you win.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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

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

The sharpest operators?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Backed by David Beckham.

Built on science.

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

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

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

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

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

Not a junior role. Not a course.

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

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

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

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

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

This is the MBA for performance creative

Only 5 spots.

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

👉 https://lnkd.in/eHYYPFvy 

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

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