Entrepreneur Building Business and Writing About the Process.

I help founders who are stuck.

Not stuck because they don't know enough. Stuck because they can't see what's actually working in their business.

I've spent years building companies, communities, and connections. But what I've learned is this: strategy without execution is just theory. And execution without perspective creates burnout.

What I do now:

Work with founders and leaders who are ready to:

- See their blind spots (the patterns they can't see themselves)
- Turn insights into action within 72 hours
- Bridge the gap between what they want and what's actually working

Think of me as your mirror—helping you see your path more clearly.

Three ways to work together:

- Clarity Session ($750) - 90-minute breakthrough on your biggest blocker
- Strategy Sprint ($4,500) - 30 days of strategy + implementation
- Transformation Partnership ($6,000/mo) - 6-month deep work on sustainable growth

Start here:

👉 Take the Founder's Blind Spot Finder (free, 5 min) → See what you're missing
👉 Ready to talk? DM me or book a Clarity Session
👉 Want weekly insights? Subscribe to Ground Control Newsletter (link in bio)

"The real ROI of human connection isn't measured in quarters. It's measured in years, in lives touched, in moments of breakthrough."

#leadership #transformation #clarity #growth #authenticity

Patrick Rife

TikTok and Meta ads for DTC Brands | Creative Strategist | UGC Producer|Founder of Tok-Vibes.com

Hi, I’m Oli!  a creative strategist who helps DTC brands turn scrolls into sales. I blend storytelling and data to build ads that not only grab attention but also drive growth. Here’s what I do best: I dig deep into your ad data and customer psychology to find out what truly makes your audience click. Then I craft fresh ad concepts (often leveraging UGC and AI content) grounded in those insights. The result = Campaigns that lower your CAC, boost ROAS, and scale your revenue sustainably. Over the past 5+ years, I’ve helped startups and global brands alike smash through growth plateaus:🔹 Scaled Loop Earplugs to exceed a $18M Q4 sales goal by 33%. (Yes, we overshot the target by a mile!)🔹 Drove 3.5X ROAS on $150K ad spend for a DTC accessory brand by reinventing their creative strategy (20% above benchmark performance)🔹 Cut CPA by 18% for a skincare client and found new customer angles that led 5 out of 50 test ads to drive 70% of their online revenue.I’m a founder, too... I launched an accessory brand with an innovative first product that I designed myself. I partner with you, founder-to-founder, treating your business like my own. If something isn’t working, I’ll tell you. If I spot an untapped opportunity, I’ll seize it. My approach in a nutshell: Test, learn, iterate. 📊 I run structured ad tests (thanks to my nerdy side that loves numbers) and then double down on the creatives that perform. No fluff, no ego.. just actionable insights and winning ads. And because I started as a content creator myself, I excel at producing ads that feel real and relatable (not like those stiff “agency” ads). On a personal note, I’m a bit of a nomad and nerd: I’ve lived on 3 continents, speak English &amp; French, and once grew a fitness Instagram to 15k followers just by talking about protein pancakes. 🥞 (Turns out, authentic content really does attract an audience...a lesson I carry into my ad strategies!). When I’m not optimizing campaigns, you can find me in a Reformer Pilates class and having lunch on a terrace with a friend.Ready to scale your DTC brand with ads that convert? Let’s chat. 😊 Send me a DM or book a call through my profile link, and let’s spark your next phase of growth.

Oli Cimet

We started cussing in our ads.
Performance went through the roof.

Here's why.

Client sells to blue collar guys. Construction workers, mechanics, tradesmen.

These dudes don't say "I'm quite dissatisfied with my current solution."

They say "this shit doesn't work."

So we stopped writing ads that sounded like a marketing team wrote them.

We wrote ads that sounded like their customers talk.
"Retire this shit."
"Rate: excellent. Because we're not f*cking around."

The client was nervous. "Can we really say that?"
I said let's test it.


Clean version: 1.6x ROAS.
Raw version: 3.2x ROAS.

Double the performance. Same product. Same offer. Just different words.


Your customer should watch your ad and think "this is for me" before they even see the product.
That only happens when the tone matches.
Match the mouth. Not the brand guidelines.

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QuickFrame Creator: Meta Platform Expert

QuickFrame Creator: TikTok Platform Expert

Certified Personal Trainer & Nutrition & Postnatal Coach

Visual communication -  Front End 

Back-End Web Developer

Fashion Styling and Editorial Certification

Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce

Meta & TikTok ads for DTC Beauty & Health brands | Performance Creative Strategist | Ecom | Startups to Fortune 500s

Tok-Vibes is a small creative strategy team that crafts ad campaigns rooted in psychology and boosts performance. 

I'm an expert in growing DTC businesses, but outside of work I've:

Lived on three different continents, built a holistic health brand, and became a Pilates reformer lover.

Creative Strategy Studio for 7-8 Figure DTC Brands | Performance Creative for Meta & TikTok | Creator of the Tok-Vibes Method™

McDonald's CEO called his own burger a "product" on camera.
Your customer can tell when you do the same thing in your ads.

Every time your ad says "our solution is this revolutionary ingredient" instead of just "This stuff ATE my morning routine. I'm not going back"

Every time your creator holds the product like a prop instead of something they actually use.

Every time your script sounds like a template instead of a person...

Your customer feels it. And they scroll.

The brands winning are the ones that feel the most real.

Not "our proprietary formula supports gut health."
More like "I stopped bloating in a week and I'm genuinely mad I didn't try this sooner."

One sounds like a brand. The other sounds like a person.

Your customer buys from people. Not logos.

Start talking about it like someone who actually uses it.

No alternative text description for this image

$310K in revenue.
$112K in ad spend.
Still not profitable.
And that was the plan.
Most founders see a revenue number and assume profit.

A skincare brand hit $310K/mo.

 From the outside, it looks like a massive win.

The reality: $112K in ad spend. Plus COGS, transaction fees, vendors, admin. The math barely breaks even.
On purpose.
Because the founders made a strategic decision: acquire as many subscription customers as possible at break-even before competitors catch up.

Short-term profit? Zero.

Long-term value? Thousands of recurring subscribers who pay every month without another dollar of ad spend.

This is a real strategy. But it's not the right strategy for everyone.

If your margins are thin, you can't afford to scale at break-even.

If you don't have subscription revenue, there's no "long game" to play.
If your product doesn't retain customers, you're just buying expensive one-time purchases.

Before you "scale aggressively," answer this:

What's the 6-month value of every customer you're acquiring?
If you don't know that number, you're not scaling.
You're gambling.
Know your CLTV before you crank your budget. That's the difference between aggressive growth and aggressive waste.

Day in the life of a creative strategist growing Tok-Vibes.
5:30am
Lemon water. supplements. 10 minutes of not thinking about ads. This is non-negotiable.
5:40am
Open every client's ad account. Check what happened. What scaled? What died? What's in learning phase? I flag anything that moved more than 15% in either direction.
6:00am
I log WHY.
I write down what I think happened. "CPA down 12% on women 35-44." "Body holds but CTA is weak..." "Founder vulnerability sells. The story earns enough trust.. Keep the founder as a recurring character across future ads..."

This log is the most valuable document in my business. Over time, patterns emerge that no dashboard shows you.

9:00am
Daily alignment with my strategist team. We call this the morning brainstorm.
Everyone shares what they're seeing across their accounts. What's winning. What's dying. What angles are popping off in one niche that we should test in another.
One strategist notices a before/after hook crushing it for a skincare client. Another one's seeing the same format flop for supplements. We talk about why. We riff on what to try instead.

This is where the best ideas come from. Not one brain. Multiple strategists cross-pollinating insights across brands every single morning.

9:30am
Brief writing block. This is deep work. No Slack. No calls.

Every brief has a strategic reason behind it. 

Each brief includes hooks, headline, script, on-screen text, CTA, shot list, and editor notes. 

editors shouldn't have to guess anything.

11:30am
Gym. I leave the laptop. My brain needs to not look at a screen for 2 hours. Some of my best ideas happen when I'm working out.

1:30pm
I scroll TikTok while drinking coffee... I scroll the burner accounts I created for each client.
I'm watching what the algorithm serves their audience. What sounds are trending. 
This looks like "she's just scrolling." It's the most valuable research I do all week.

2:30pm
Collaboration block. This is when I review edits from editors, send feedback, approve finals, and hop on quick calls with clients if needed.

3:00pm
Competitor and trend research. I check Atria for what's running in each client's space. I check ads.tiktok.com for top performers by category. I screenshot anything interesting and drop it into the team workspace.
This is where next week's briefs start forming.


5:00pm
Laptop closes. Done.


Not every day looks exactly like this. Some days are messier. Some clients need more. Some weeks are heavier on briefs, others on strategy calls.
But the structure stays the same:
Data first. Team alignment second. Briefs third. Research always. Log everything.

That's how we deliver briefs each week without ever guessing what to make next.

And that's what running a creative strategy studio actually looks like.
It's not glamorous. It's disciplined. And discipline is what scales brands.

You know that ad you pulled from Ad Library? Your customer saw it 3 weeks ago. From them.

A client came to me doing $120K/mo.

Solid product. Solid team. Ads were "working."

But growth was flat. Same revenue for 4 months straight.

I pulled their ad account. Then I pulled their top competitor's Ad Library.
Nearly identical.

Same hooks. 
Same script structure.
Same angles. 

Your customer already saw that ad. From them.

Same audience. Same feed. Same message. Different brand.

So when your ad shows up, it doesn't feel new. 
It feels like a rerun.

And people scroll past reruns.

We scrapped everything.

Went into Reddit threads, Amazon reviews, Reviews, Youtube,Tiktok

Found 4 pain points their competitor wasn't even talking about.

Built new concepts around those.

First month: 3 out of 4 outperformed anything they'd run in the last 6 months.

Because we said something different to an audience that was tired of hearing the same thing.

Your Ad Library isn't your strategy.
Your customer's unspoken problems are.

The brands spending $400K+/mo that keep scaling are the ones that treat creative like a production system

At $400K+/mo in ad spend, your #1 bottleneck isn't budget. It's creative.

The algorithm is hungry. You're feeding it the same 4 ads it already optimized for. It's chewing through your audience faster than you can refresh the content.
Then you blame "audience fatigue" or "platform changes."
It's not fatigue!!!!!

It's starvation. 

You starved the algorithm of new creative.

Here's the ratio that works at scale:
For every $100K/mo in spend, you need 8-12 new creatives per week.
Not random concepts. Strategic variations built from what's already working.
Break down your winners:

What hook stopped the scroll?
What visual held attention?
What angle drove the click?

Now rebuild each element with slight twists. 
same body different format 
Same hook but in a static
new creator
Same angle, new format....

The brands spending $400K+/mo that keep scaling are the ones that treat creative like a production system. 

Not a brainstorm session every other Tuesday.

Volume isn't the opposite of quality. It's how you FIND quality.

My highest-performing ad last month was built from 3 dead ads.

Here's the method:

Ad 1 died at 1.4x ROAS. But the hook had a 42% thumb-stop rate..
Ad 2 died at 1.2x ROAS. But the body story held people for 18 seconds. Great retention.
Ad 3 died at 0.9x ROAS. But the CTA had a 4.1% click-through. Way above average.

Each ad failed as a whole. But each had one part that worked.

So I stitched them together.

Hook from Ad 1 + Story from Ad 2 + CTA from Ad 3.

Result: 3.4x ROAS. Scaled to 5fig ad spend quick.

I call this the Frankenstein method.

Most brands look at ads as pass/fail. Winner or loser.

I look at ads as parts. Hook. Story. Proof. CTA.

A "failed" ad with a great hook isn't a failure. 

It's a hook you haven't paired with the right body yet.
Stop killing ads. Start harvesting them.

I heard a barista tell a customer yesterday:
"Sorry, we're out of oat milk. We've been out all week because I keep forgetting to tell my manager we need more."
The customer left.
That barista just showed me every founder's scaling problem in one sentence.
You know there's a problem.
You know how to fix it.
But you haven't systematized the fix.
In DTC terms:

You know your best ad is dying (the oat milk is running out)
You know you need new concepts (you need to reorder)
But you haven't built the system to flag it and act on it

Most brands don't fail because they don't know what to do.
They fail because they don't build the system that makes sure it gets done.

"Struggling with [problem]? Meet [product]."
You've seen this ad. So has everyone else. 400 times this week.
74% of new web content is now AI-generated. Every brand is using the same tools to write the same copy with the same hook-USP-CTA formula.
The internet is drowning in ads that sound like ads.
And your customer can smell it instantly.
They don't read your USP. They don't click your CTA. They scroll past anything that feels like a template.
What stops them?
Something that sounds like a person, not a brand.
Not "Are you tired of acne?"
More like "My dermatologist was shocked when..."
One is an ad. The other is a mirror.
Your customer stops for mirrors. Not billboards.
The dead internet killed copy that sounds like copy.
The brands still winning? They sound human.

Every Meta Ads tutorial teaches you to sell the problem.
That works for some industries. but it can kill your brand.

Nobody has a "pain point" about t-shirts for example.
Nobody googles "my current hoodie is ruining my life."

Fashion isn't a solution. It's an identity.

For these products, you need to stop testing pain points. Start testing identities.

Not "premium cotton, relaxed fit."

More like "this outfit ATE and I need everyone to know."

The fashion brands scaling past $100K/mo right now aren't pitching their clothes.

They're making you want to be the person wearing them.
That's the ad.

If you're stuck and wondering why the ads aren't adsing 

it's because some frameworks weren't built for you.

some needs its own playbook.

The "aspirational" ad strategy is dying.
Your customer doesn't want to see a dream.
They want to see themselves.

For years, the playbook was: show the perfect version of life. Make the customer want that. Sell the product as the bridge.

It's not working like it used to.

A skincare brand switched from aspirational content to educational, conversational content.

Instead of flawless models with perfect skin, they featured real people talking openly about their skin struggles.

Comments went from "nice ad" to actual conversations.

People tagged friends who had the same skin issues.

Shares doubled.

CPMs dropped because the algorithm rewards engagement.

Aspirational ads get watched. Conversational ads get shared.

And shared > watched. 

Every time.


Your customer doesn't need to be sold a dream. 

They need to feel understood.
Make ads that start conversations.
Not commercials.
The algorithm rewards the brands people actually talk about.

Stop testing "Women 25-45."
Start testing "Women who bought competitor X in the last 30 days."

Here's what happened when I tightened targeting for a skincare client:
Broad test: $180 CPA, 1.4x ROAS
Competitor purchaser test: $35 CPA, 3.1x ROAS
Why?
People who JUST bought a solution are still in "seeking" mode.
Either they're not satisfied yet, or they're comparison shopping, or they want to stack products.
They're warm. They have budget. They're in-market right now.
Your best customer isn't "interested in skincare."
It's "bought skincare in the last 60 days and is still searching."

I heard a story the other day about a founder who almost died.
Heart attack at 34. Woke up in the ICU thinking about all the things he never built.
A year later, he launched a business doing the thing he'd been "planning to do eventually."
Hit $500K revenue in year one.
Here's what he said changed:
"I stopped waiting for perfect. Perfect was killing me slower than the heart attack."
Before: spent 3 years researching, planning, perfecting the idea.
After: launched in 6 weeks with a landing page and a prayer.
The business he built in 6 weeks outperformed the one he'd spent 3 years planning.
Turns out the biggest risk isn't launching too early.
It's never launching at all.

You hired more people to move faster.
You just gave more people access to your mess.

There's a winning ad in your pipeline right now that won't go live this week.
Not because it's bad.

Because it's stuck between Notion, Slack, Asana, and a Google Drive folder nobody can find.

Brief in one tool. Feedback in another. Assets in a third. Approval in a fourth.

Every handoff is a delay. Every delay is a day you're not testing.

And every day you're not testing is a day your competitor is.

You don't have a talent problem. You have a system problem.

The fastest creative teams don't have the best people.

They have one system where everything lives.

Briefs. Scripts. Feedback. Assets. Status. All in one place.

Centralized = fast.
Fast = more tests.
More tests = more winners.
More winners = more revenue.

Before you hire another strategist, ask yourself:
Can everyone on your team find what they need in under 30 seconds?
If not...
 that's your bottleneck.

 Not your people.

Your best ad died after 12 days.
It wasn't a bad ad.
You just don't have a system to replace it.
At $500K+/mo, creative fatigue isn't an occasional problem.
It's a daily reality.
The algorithm burns through creative faster at scale because you're reaching more people faster. 

An ad that lasts 30 days at $5K/mo might last 10 days at $500K/mo.

If your response to fatigue is "we need to brainstorm new ideas"....you're already behind
By the time you brainstorm, brief, produce, and launch, you've lost 2-3 weeks of declining performance.

You should always have 2 weeks of creative in the pipeline AHEAD of what's running.

While this week's ads are live, next week's are in editing, and the week after is in scripting.

Log every creative in one place.

 Track what's working, what's fatiguing, what's dead. 

Not in your head. In a system your whole team can see.

When a winner starts declining, the replacement is already queued.
That's not creative genius. It's a production calendar.
The brands that scale past $500K/mo don't have better ideas.
They have better pipelines.

"F*** Meta Ads. I'm done."
I hear you.
But your competitors aren't done.
They're still in your customer's feed. 
Still testing. Still showing up.
And the customer you spent months warming up? 
They're about to buy from someone else.
Meta didn't break. It stopped rewarding lazy creative.
Same ad. Same format. Same angle for 6 months? 
The algorithm is bored. 
Your audience is bored.
The brands scaling right now are testing new angles weekly. 
Mixing formats. Making ads that feel like content.
Before you quit, ask yourself:
When's the last time you made something your customer would actually want to watch?
Don't quit the platform. 
Fix the creative.
The founders leaving right now are making it cheaper for the ones who stay.

Someone at a conference asked: "What's the ONE marketing skill that actually increased your income?"

The answers were all over the place. SEO. Copywriting. Paid ads. Analytics.

Here's what nobody said: creative strategy.

Most DTC founders think their growth problem is a media buying problem. 

Or a funnel problem. Or a "we need more content" problem.

It's almost never that.

It's that nobody on the team knows what to make and why.

You can have the best media buyer in the world. 

If the ads they're running say the wrong thing to the wrong person with the wrong angle..it doesn't matter. 

You'll scale spend and watch CPA climb.

Creative strategy is the skill that sits underneath everything else. 

It's the reason one ad does 4x ROAS and the next one flops with the same audience, same budget, same product.

It answers questions most teams skip entirely:

Who exactly are we talking to in this ad? 
What do they believe right now? 
What would make them stop scrolling?
 What emotion are we triggering? 
What objection are we handling before they even think of it?

Every brand I work with that's stuck at a revenue ceiling..the bottleneck is almost always here.

Not budget. Not platform. Not creative volume.
It's that nobody is doing the strategic thinking before the brief gets written.
The founders who figure this out scale faster with less spend. 

The ones who don't keep cycling through agencies wondering why nothing works.

Flight attendant told me during boarding:
"I check the same 6 things before every flight. Same order. Every time. Been doing it 20 years."
I asked: "What if you skip one?"
She looked at me like I was insane. "I don't. That's the point."
That's the difference between amateurs and pros.
Amateurs rely on motivation.
Pros rely on systems.
My pre-launch checklist for every ad concept:

Hook passes 3-second test?
Script passes customer language test?
CTA is friction-aware?
Brief includes shot list?
Editor has reference ads?
Tracking is live?

Same order. Every time.
I don't FEEL like checking. I just check.
That's why my win rate is 40% and not 5%.
Systems beat motivation every single time.

Your customer is scrolling "spring glow up" content right now.
Your ads still look like January.

Here's the problem with most creative teams:
They don't write briefs inspired from their customer's feed.

They haven't opened TikTok as a CONSUMER in weeks. 
They don't know what formats are getting pushed.
 They don't know what their audience is actually watching at 10pm on a Tuesday.
And then they wonder why the ads feel off...

Your customer's feed changes every season. Every month. Sometimes every week.

Right now it's spring break prep. Glow ups. Reset routines. Fresh starts energy.

If your ads aren't matching that, they feel stale. 
Not because the product changed. 
Because the MOMENT changed and your creative didn't.

 and it's not complicated. It just takes discipline.

1. Create a fresh Instagram account just for your brand.
Follow your brand + Follow 10-15 creators in the niche. 
Then just scroll.

Within 48 hours, the algorithm starts serving you exactly what your customer sees every day.

That's not your feed. That's THEIR feed.

The content the algorithm pushes to that account is literally a map of what your audience is consuming right now. 

The formats. The sounds. The hooks. The vibe. All of it.

If your creative team isn't doing this, they're guessing.

2. Check TikTok Creative Center weekly.
ads.tiktok.com shows you what's actually performing. Not what you THINK is trending, what's driving real engagement and spend.
Top ads by category. Trending hashtags. Winning formats.
This isn't optional research. This is the brief.

3. Use Atria
What are the brands in your space running RIGHT NOW? Not last quarter. This week.
What formats are they testing? 

This takes 30 minutes a week. And it gives you more strategic insight than a 2-hour brainstorm session ever will.

Your customer's feed is the most honest creative brief you'll ever get.
It tells you what they watch.
What they save.
What they share.
What makes them stop scrolling.
If your team isn't consuming what your audience consumes, they're making ads blind.
And if they ARE doing this and your ads still feel stale?
You need a better team.

Open article: TikTok for Business | Marketing & Advertising on TikTok by ads.tiktok.com

TikTok for Business | Marketing & Advertising on TikTok

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