Jure Knehtl

Founder/Growth CMO🚀 • Growth Advisor • 300M+ € Sales Generated in Europe • On a Mission to Scale Profitably

3x Founder | 2x CMO from 0 to 50M+ € in Europe | Now building my own eCommerce brand 🛠️

Hey, nice to meet you. I am Jure Knehtl (also called JK), driven by results, creativity, and being a distributor on the market.

In my career, I helped generate 300M+ € eCommerce revenue for my partners by developing a customized marketing mix to maximize the brandformance.

For the last 11+ years, I've been leveraging Meta ads, TikTok, Influencer marketing, scientific performance-oriented creatives, localization, and retention channels to help DTC brands grow.

Here are 3 of my biggest successes so far:
- Built the whole marketing department from scratch and reached an explosive growth of a bootstrapped eCommerce business from 0 to 50M € revenue in 4 years.
- Founded a Boutique DTC Performance agency WeScale, in 2020, that grew to 20+ team members and 5 Mio € revenue in 3 years.
- Hyper-Scaled a beauty brand from 0 to 100M € revenue in 3 years, profitability.
 
❤️ Growth, leadership & basketball.
🛠 Chasing the NEXT WIN.

Knowing that I have more to offer, I apply that same drive to work with established brands as well as brands looking to make that pro jump.

If you have a question or just want to exchange ideas - send me a message - I look forward to our conversation!

Want to get in touch about the potential collaboration, mentorship or a speaking gig?
Email me: jure.knehtl.digital@gmail.com

Chief Executive Officer

At WeScale DTC performance marketing agency, I am in charge of building an ecosystem and strategy to empower the growth of fast-growing DTC brands.

We built multiple 8-figure brands in Europe with the help of scientific creatives, behavior-driven media buying & advanced acquisition strategies.

WeScale performance 🚀 numbers:
• +152 Mio € revenue generated across all our clients
• +41 Mio € ad spend across Meta, TikTok & Google
• Scaled a business from 7 Mio to 25 Mio €
• 1.1 Mio € Revenue in 72 hours
• 27,000 products sold in 1 day

Click the links below and check our value posts 👀

Want to get in touch?
Email me: jure.knehtl@wescale.agency

Last week, I spoke to +60 startup founders about Meta ads.

We dived into:
- What works and what doesn't in 2026
- Creative process and strategy that brings profitable results
- Effective scaling in 2026 (beyond Ads Manager)
- How to plan and execute a GTM strategy on a new market and/or product
- Optimization beyond the ad metrics
- Practical success cases

I haven't done a speech in a while, but it was great to be back and share my knowledge with the audience. It always energizes me to push the event further and never stop growing, improving, and learning.

The founders were curious, asking practical questions and explaining their situations and challenges, which led to a great discussion at the end with Q&A.

My knowledge was shared, but remember:

"Knowledge is power only if you use it."

Thank you for organizing this great event SBC - Slovenian Business Club & special thanks to David Žalec for the invite!

Everyone thinks they know Meta ads. 

But the game has changed. 
It’s no longer about fancy hacks or secret settings. 

It’s about understanding the platform’s core mechanics and how to leverage them for sustainable growth. 

In 2026, it’s all about creative testing, data-driven decisions, and a deep understanding of your customer.

Will AI replace media buyers… or simply level up the role? 🚀

Meta just (quietly) changed the future of media buying.

Manus AI agents are now starting to appear directly inside Ads Manager.

Not another feature.

Not another automation toggle.

Actual AI that can:
• analyze campaign performance
• build reports from prompts
• suggest audiences
• recommend optimizations

Instead of digging through dashboards, you’ll simply ask for insights.

And this is only step one.

Meta’s long-term vision is clear: fully automated advertising.
Imagine this workflow:

1️⃣ Upload product image
2️⃣ Set budget
3️⃣ Choose objective

Meta’s AI then generates the ads, chooses targeting, distributes budget, and optimizes performance.

The human role becomes setting direction and interpreting results.

But here’s the important part most people miss:

Automation is replacing execution — not strategy.

AI can already handle:
• campaign setup
• targeting
• budget allocation
• reporting

But it still struggles with questions like:
• What offer should we lead with?
• What angle resonates with this audience?
• What creative psychology drives conversion?
• How do we maximize LTV?

And those questions are where the real value lives.
The best media buyers in the next 3–5 years won’t be Ads Manager operators.
They’ll be growth strategists who understand:
• customer psychology
• creative strategy
• funnels and retention
• business economics

Because brands don’t actually want someone to run ads.

They want someone who can grow the business.

9/10 times, when we launch whitelisting (partnership) ads on an account, they outperform everything else.

Different niches. Different budgets. Same outcome.

We combine:
- Different following sizes
- Different personas
- Content formats
- Copy angles

Been working especially well for acquiring new customers.

Not a hack — just how trust scales in paid media.

Use that insight however you want.

True ad creative winner is not defined by: 
 
- CTR 
- Hook rate 
- Hold rate 
- ATC rate 
- CPM 
 
Although these secondary metrics matter as well. 
 
True ad creative winner is defined by VOLUME 🏆 
 
This means: 
1) how much budget can you invest behind the creative 
2) how broad it can go with targeting and 
3) the number of purchases it generates 
 
... while still hitting the successful KPI 🚀 
 
Remember that.

Why do most brands implement CONTENT CREATORS into their content creation process for paid ads 🤔 
 
- Native to the platform 
- Social proof 
- Performance 
- Local language 
- Speed of creation 
- Investment efficiency 
- Great for ads + landing pages 
- Opportunity for Whitelisting 
- Creative diversity 
 
One of the key areas that help me scale 10+ brands above 8 figures and what I work on with my coaching clients. 
 
But what makes the difference? 
 
Just hiring a couple of creators won't be enough... 
 
You have to: 
1) Do the research 
2) Ideation 
3) Create strong briefs 
4) Provide feedback and examples 
5) Share the performance and potential upgrades across creators 
6) Build long-term partnerships

Most fast-scaling DTC brands are crushing it with their creators' programs - Don't stop - think outside the box!

Stop criticizing your leaders 🛑

If you have never led yourself, or your leader has:
- <10 years of experience
- 0 leadership coaching
- They have been put in the situation because they were excellent with execution and produced results.

Instead of talking behind their backs and addressing the work environment with others ...

Give them direct feedback and support them 🙏

IMPORTANT (!) Feedback goes both ways. You need to share and listen and not take things personally. That's often the most challenging part for all.

THE TRUTH:
It is HARD to be a young and inexperience leader

I did it myself:
a) Leading 30 people in the marketing department when I was only 26
b) Leading 32 people inside my growth agency at the age of 29 

But the reality check:
Was I the best leader? NO
Did I always make the right decisions? Big NO
Did I have a great leader in the past from whom I could learn? NO
Did I have a great mentor? NO
Did I have leadership experience? NO

But I tried my BEST every single day.

And many great things happened because of it 🙏❤️

Thanks to all the people in the team, business partners, and leadership for putting me in that position so I could grow and become the version of JK I am today.

So shoutout to all the young inexperience leaders out there who are trying their best 🙏❤️

Keep going 💪

And for the rest, support them, work with them, and give them feedback so you all can thrive 🚀

Performance marketing has changed, so should you:

1) ROAS ➪ NC (New customer's) ROAS
2) MER ➪ % of profitability, GM per order
3) Blended CPO ➪ NC CPA
4) Media buying hacks ➪ Creative strategy
5) Product pages ➪ Landing pages
6) Evergreen sitewide sales ➪ Bundles and special offers
7) Revenue ➪ New vs. returning customer's performance
8) Product you can sell through Facebook ➪ Upgraded with retention opportunities and reaching new customers

Which evolution is a MUST? Let's find the winner 🏆

Your ads aren’t converting for one of these three reasons: 

1. Your offer is weak. 
2. Your creative is boring. 
3. Your (creative) targeting is off. 

It’s that simple. 

Stop blaming the algorithm and start focusing on what you can control.

Don’t just translate your ads. Localize them. 

This means using local models, local language, and local cultural references. 

It’s a small change that can make a big difference.

THE PROCESS

You can start with the localization of your statics and combine them with localized AI voiceovers - I recommend using ElevenLabs for this.

With this, you will get the first signals about the:
1) Offer
2) Funnel
3) Personas
4) Angles

The next step should be to find local creators via a tool like Influee, a local agency, or by finding them directly.

Ask them for 1-3 videos first, with multiple hooks based on your performance and the local competitor’s winning ads 

+ include photos in the round as well, so you can leverage it across:
- Ads
- Organic
- Emails
- Website 

To showcase local faces and build trust.

The final step is to partner with them and run partnerships through them, share the creative performance findings, and scale the partnership program.

That's how you WIN 🏆

Most brands try to lower CAC by tweaking bids and budgets.

But that’s rarely where the real leverage is.

In my experience scaling e-commerce brands, new customer ROAS is mostly structural.

There are 4 levers that actually move CAC — and most brands are only using one or two of them.

1️⃣ Partnership & whitelisting ads (at scale)

When you run ads through creators whose audience already buys at your price point, you skip the entire trust-building phase.

Lower friction = lower CAC.

Each creator also unlocks a new micro-audience Meta couldn’t reach through your brand page alone.

And you’re feeding the algorithm more signals.

>>> Action point: Run ppartnership ads with bigger creators on your local market that already have your potential audience.


2️⃣ Different creative formats

 Meta doesn’t just read text.

 It reads visual patterns.

If you only run one type of creative, you’re forcing all buyers through one narrow door.

Different formats attract different buyers:
- Listicles
- Founder storytelling
- Lifestyle content
- Product breakdowns
- Problem/solution creatives

Each format opens a new audience pool.

>>> Action point: Make sure to introduce 1-3 creative formats on the bi-weekly basis 


3️⃣ Different personas

 Same creative.

 Different message.

A dad, a gym guy, and a 45-year-old executive buy the same product for completely different reasons.

The angle of the ad determines who Meta shows it to.

>>> Action point: Go beyond messaging - use creators, voiceovers, and adopted landing pages to the personas


4️⃣ Upper funnel exposure

 Reach campaigns don’t drive purchases directly.

But they pre-warm the market.

When someone has seen your brand 3–5 times before the conversion ad appears, your CAC drops dramatically.

>>> Action point: Run 5-15% of the total budget on campaigns that exclude buyers, visitors and engagers


These force Meta to actually hunt for new customers.
(But don’t assume Meta follows this perfectly.)

The real mechanism behind all 4 levers:
They expand your total addressable audience.

More qualified prospects → cheaper new customer acquisition.

If you’re only running:
 • broad campaigns
 • one creative format
 • one angle

You’re leaving a lot of efficiency on the table.

Curious how other brands structure their acquisition:

Which of these levers has had the biggest impact on your CAC?

Watch out for that frequency 🛑🙊 
 
I just finished one account audit, and I wanted to share an interesting finding with you. 
 
On the discovery call client complained that none of the new creative tests 
 
Although I am really not a fan of testing in creative testing in Adavntage+ (lack of control), I looked into it. 
 
Here is what I found: 
💡 Missing existing customer budget cap 
💩 frequency 9 in 3 days + a LOT of negative comments connected to the frequency of ads 
 
*Note: they are an early startup that had a customer database of 3K customers 
​ 
My suggestions: 
(1) Test in ABO 
(2) Exclude existing buyers (always) 
(3) Analyze audience segments breakdown 
(4) Use Advantage+ for scaling

Want to conquer Europe? 

Stop thinking ‘global’ and start thinking ‘glocal.’ 

This means adapting your products, marketing, and customer experience to the specific needs and nuances of each local market. 

It’s not easy, but it’s the only way to win.

The Top 3 Mistakes Brands Make When Entering a New Market

1. Assuming one size fits all. 
2. Ignoring cultural differences. 
3. Underestimating the competition. 

Avoid these common pitfalls and you’ll be well on your way to international success.

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

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

Evan Carroll

I’m urgently hiring a Head of Paid Media

(Need to find the right person within 2 weeks)

Linear is scaling fast in 2026 - and we need a world-class Head of Paid Media to help us get there.

This is a senior leadership role where you’ll oversee media buyers, creative strategists, editors, designers, and more.

Here’s who we’re looking for:

→ You have 7+ years of experience in performance marketing 
→ You have a world-class paid media skillset specifically in DTC eCommerce 
→ You have experience building and leading high-performing teams.
→ Can operate under tight deadlines and high-stress situations.
→ You’re willing to go above and beyond to get results for clients. 

The role is fully remote, but strictly EST hours. 

We've spent the last few years building one of the top DTC performance agencies in the world.  

Now we're building the team that takes us to the next level.

If this sounds like you or if you know someone who'd be a perfect fit -

• Connect with me Evan Carroll 
• Comment the word: ‘HIRE’

And I’ll send over the application.

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

Here's what no one tells you about creative testing:
 
Statics oftentimes outperform video - and sometimes it's not even close.
 
Everyone's obsessed with video creative - but unicorn 8-9 figure brands understand that the foundation for any successful campaign is high quality statics.
 
It's faster. It's cheaper. And it gives you creative diversity without putting a hole in your wallet.
 
I've put together a guide with 15+ bulletproof static frameworks used by brands like Obvi, Dr. Squatch, AG1, Eight Sleep, and True Classic.

These are the same concepts we use at Linear to produce high-performing statics for our clients.

Inside you'll get:

✅ 15+ proven static frameworks with real examples
✅ Visual breakdowns of each concept
✅ Design principles you can implement immediately

To get access, all you need to do is:

1. Connect with me Evan Carroll 
2. Comment 'STATIC' below

And I'll send it straight over.

🚨PS. When you 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁, I'll send over a bonus document including 9 of the best performing copywriting frameworks we use at Linear internally. 🚨

Combine this with the statics frameworks and watch results skyrocket week-over-week.

Most creative strategists obsess over hooks.

Very few creative strategists obsess over CTAs
 
The top 1% of creative strategists understand this one truth:

How you end your ad is just as important as how you start it.
 
A strong, well-placed end card can 2-3x your CTR on the same creative - without reshooting anything.
 
Top 8 & 9 figure DTC brands that are hitting consistent 1%+ CTRs all understand how to use end cards to their advantage.
 
The best part? You can make these in minutes and instantly improve performance.
 
At Linear, we have an internal library of over 10 proven structures we use across 2000+ new creatives monthly for our clients.
 
Inside you'll get:
 
✅ 10+ Creative End Card Templates
✅ Structure breakdowns for each type
✅ Visual examples from real high-performing ads
✅ When to use each template

We use this resource every single day to ensure our creatives consistently hit 1%+ CTR.
 
To get access:
 
1. Connect with me Evan Carroll 
2. Comment '𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗗' below
 
And I'll send the full End Card Template Library straight over (no email sign-up needed).
 
🚨 PS. If you repost this, we'll send you a bonus document with ad creative benchmarks for the highest impact metrics in your ad account 🚨

Combine this with the end card templates and watch your CTR skyrocket.

ChatGPT will define the next decade of DTC marketing.

(But 99% of brands have no idea how)

ChatGPT launched paid advertising on their platform a few days ago.

But CPMs are estimated to cost around $60 with a 6-figure minimum commitments.

That is not where you’ll see outsized returns.

The real opportunity is getting ChatGPT to recommend YOUR brand organically when 800 million weekly users ask for product recommendations.

We've spent the last few months working with Matt from Step Labs, to crack the code on AI-powered discovery.

And we finally have our ChatGPT Readiness Playbook for DTC Brands.

This is the exact framework we're using with 7-9 figure clients right now.
Inside you'll get:

✅ How to make your website ‘LLM-readable’ (so ChatGPT can actually recommend your products)
✅ Why users arriving from ChatGPT convert differently (and how to capture them)
✅ Ad creative principles for AI discovery (top creative frameworks that work best for AI driven traffic)
✅ Real case studies (brands seeing +47% sessions and +108% direct traffic from ChatGPT)
✅ Step-by-step action plan (so you can get ahead of 99% of competitors in your niche)

We could charge a fortune for this - but we’re sharing free access on LinkedIn for a limited time.

To get access:

1. Connect with me Evan Carroll 
2. Comment '𝗔𝗜' below

And I'll send the full playbook straight over.

🚨 PS. When you 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀, I'll also send you a full guide on how to make your own AI creative strategist - so you can produce and iterate on 100’s of winning ads per month. 🚨

The best creative strategists all have this 1 thing in common:

A deep understanding of media buying.

To be a decent creative strategist, you have to be good at strategizing, analyzing, research, ideation, and scripting.

But to be the best, a deep understanding of media buying is needed to properly read the data.

Not only does this make the creative strategist more data driven.

But it shortens the feedback loop between the creative and media buying teams, as everyone is speaking the same language.

So if you want to up skill your creative strategist wanting to up your skills, training them to have a foundational understanding of media buying is a great place to start.

Turned 28 last week.

Celebrated with some amazing people.

But I've been thinking about how far I've come more lately.

At 23, I had no clue what I was doing.

Starting an agency with $5K in the bank and zero personal money left.

Making decisions that probably should have buried me.

At 28, I run a team serving 7-9 figure brands.

But here's what nobody tells you about the journey: The pressure doesn't get lighter as you grow - It just changes shape.

Early on, the pressure was survival:

"Can I make payroll?"

"Will this work?"

"Am I completely delusional?"

Now it's different.

The pressure is about maintaining what you've built while pushing it further.

It's about knowing when to say no to good opportunities because they're not the 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 ones.

It's about making the pie big enough so that great people decide to join you on your journey.

I've learned more in these 5 years than I did in the previous 23.

And I'm sure I'll learn even more in the 5 that is to come.

Here's to 28.

If I had to give 1 piece of advice for growing on LinkedIn

It would be this:

Stop posting more.

I know people posting 2-3 times a day with zero strategy behind it.

They're optimizing for volume when they should be optimizing for outcome.

Here's the thing - LinkedIn isn't a numbers game. It's a clarity game.

Before you schedule another post, answer this:

What are you actually trying to achieve?

Is it more booked calls?
More impressions?
More followers?
Better network?

Every single post should serve that goal.

A real, measurable outcome that you’re working towards.

Once you have that, the strategy becomes obvious.

You test. You measure. You iterate.

That single shift will do more for your growth than any posting schedule ever will.

A weak CTA wastes every second of attention you earn.

→ You capture the audience in the hook
→ You sell the audience in the body
→ You close the audience in the CTA

Most creative strategists obsess over the first two.

Almost none obsess over the third. That's a problem.

We see it constantly when auditing accounts.

High hook rate. Strong hold rate. Low CTR.

The ad did its job - the end card didn't.

Here's what a strong end card actually does:

→ It mirrors the emotional promise from the hook
→ It restates the offer in one clear line
→ It gives a single, direct action

Restructuring your end cards can 2-3x CTR without a single reshoot.

At Linear, we have an internal library of over 10 proven structures we use across 2000+ new creatives monthly for our clients.

We use this resource every single day to ensure our creatives consistently hit 1%+ CTR.

To get access:

1. Connect with me Evan Carroll 
2. Comment '𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗗' below

And I'll send the full End Card Template Library straight over.

🚨 PS. If you repost this, we'll send you a bonus document with ad creative benchmarks for the highest impact metrics in your ad account 🚨

Combine this with the end card templates and watch your CTR skyrocket.

I rarely read business books anymore.

Not because they're not valuable.

But because you only need a handful to get the fundamentals covered.

At a certain point, the bottleneck isn't the business or your skillset.

It's the mindset of who’s running it.

And that's where most founders stop investing in themselves.

The real edge is in psychology and mindset.

Not the fluffy kind. The performance kind.

The books that rewire how you think, make decisions, and show up under pressure.

Every founder I know is optimising their marketing, their team, their systems.

Very few are optimising themselves.

That's where the next level is.

Your hook is 80% of your ad's success.
 
Get this wrong and nothing else matters.
 
After analyzing thousands of winning ads across 250+ DTC brands,
 
I've found that the best hooks do one of these 5 things:
 
𝟭. 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
 
→ "[Target audience], stop scrolling — this is your answer to [problem]"
→ "If you're a [target audience] that struggles with [problem], stop scrolling"
→ "Hey [target audience], you need to see this"
 
𝟮. 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺
 
→ "[Product] that feels illegal to know"
→ "I just made my life 10x easier with [product]"
→ "In [amount] weeks, you won't recognize yourself"
 
𝟯. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗮 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁
 
→ "[Strange visual of product or problem]"
→ "This'll sound weird but hear me out…"
→ "The weirdest product I just found on TikTok"
 
𝟰. 𝗔𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁
 
→ "I've hated my [problem] for 15 years"
→ "[Problem] making it hard to go anywhere?"
→ "Keep scrolling if you enjoy having [problem]"
 
𝟱. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆
 
→ "Why is everyone talking about [product]?"
→ "I keep seeing this [product] all over my feed so I had to try it" 
→ "Everyone keeps asking me about how I [desired outcome]"
 
The best hooks use one or more of these patterns in the first 3 seconds.
 
Not all ads with great hooks scale.
 
But all ads that scale have great hooks.
 
So we've compiled 470+ battle-tested hooks that use these exact patterns across every major DTC niche.
 
If you want access to the full database:
 
1. Connect with me Evan Carroll
2. Comment 'HOOKS' below
 
And I'll send it straight over.

---

🚨 PS. Repost this and I'll also send over our internal ad creative benchmarks so you can fully measure and optimize your hook rates, hold rates, and CTRs 🚨

ChatGPT just launched ads at $60 CPMs and a $200K minimum.

Ignore that completely.

Here's what smart DTC brands are doing instead.

They're getting ChatGPT to recommend their products organically.

No ad spend. No 6-figure commitments.

Just showing up when 800 million weekly users ask "what's the best [product] to buy?"

We've spent the last few months working with Matthew A. from Step Labs to crack the code on AI-powered product discovery.

And we finally have our ChatGPT Readiness Playbook for DTC Brands.

This is the exact framework we're using with 7-9 figure clients right now.

Inside you'll get:

✅ How to make your website 'LLM-readable' so ChatGPT can actually recommend your products
✅ Why visitors arriving from ChatGPT convert and how to capture them
✅ Real case studies from brands seeing +108% direct traffic from ChatGPT
✅ A step-by-step action plan to get ahead of 99% of competitors in your niche

I’ve collaborated with our CRO partner Matt from Step Labs to make this

And we’re sharing it here on LinkedIn for a limited time.
To get access, all you need to do is:

1. Connect with me Evan Carroll 
2. Comment 'AI' below

And I'll send the full playbook straight over.

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