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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inside:

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

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

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

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

Want it?

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

undefined undefined

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

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

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



for-you-advertising

soar-with-us

launch-with-us

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the numbers aren't the interesting part.

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

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

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

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

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

Ancient + Brave | B Corp

TikTok Shop’s sales will surpass $20 billion in 2026 and reach over $30 billion in 2028 and this database shows you the exact creatives driving this force.

These are real ads, from top brands, all in one place for you to replicate.

Inside the database, you’ll see:

- Real high-performing TikTok Shop ads across niches like Homeware, Fashion and Supplements
- The full creative framework behind each ad - hook, flow, proof, CTA, etc.
- Clear performance hypotheses explaining why the hook stops the scroll, what creates instant trust, why the ad holds attention and converts, etc.
- Shot-by-shot breakdowns
- Script prompts and visual direction
- The repeatable structures TikTok’s algorithm consistently rewards

This is the blueprint for building TikTok Shop ads in 2026.

Want it?
Like this post
Comment “TT DATABASE”

Make sure you send a connection request to Aileen Lapuz and she’ll send it over.

Soar With Us

Great turnout at the Agency Dinner in Dubai last week.

I don’t always get the chance to spend time with other agency founders, especially when you come back to Dubai after Christmas, heads-down and locked in. So it was genuinely refreshing to step out of work mode, get social, and be in a room with people who understand the realities of building and scaling agencies.

Thanks to Big Growth Group for hosting and for bringing together such a thoughtful group. It’s always valuable to share perspectives and connect with people who understand the realities of running an agency.

Shoutout to Romans Ivanovs, Kristina Radeva, Joey de Wit and Elyse de Wit for organising a great evening.

We're putting together more dinners for agency founders this year so comment “agency” and we will add you to the list!

Big Growth Group

You built a $1-5M agency business. We make it run without you (with systems and AI).

You built an agency business. We make it run without you. | COO @ Big Growth Group | Ex Fortune 500 Consultant

The CFO & Finance Team that actually pays for itself | We help 7 & 8 figure Agencies & Ecom Brands grow profits, not just revenue | agencfo.com | Ironman 7’26

Partner & COO at AgenCFO - Financial support & services for scaling, selling, and buying profitable businesses | Building our own portfolio along the way

Most brands think persona strategy means knowing their customer.

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

We think about it in three layers.

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

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

Under The Stressed Mum:

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

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

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

Same product. Same macro persona. Completely different brief.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So we doubled down.

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

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

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

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

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

That gap is the opportunity.

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

I'm not going to sugarcoat this one. Let’s start off with a rant.

The shift I'm about to break down isn't just going to kill agencies. It will kill every business unless you adapt.

If you run an agency and you haven't meaningfully integrated AI into your operations yet, you are running out of time. I’m talking, 6-12 months.

I've been consulting for agencies, brands and mentoring founders for a while now, and I'll be honest, what I'm seeing worries me. Most of them haven't built a single AI agent. Not one. They're still doing everything manually. Still hiring people for jobs AI can do in minutes.

Meanwhile, we've moved so fast at Soar that calling ourselves an "agency" feels unfair to us at this point. We have high-level developers. We have AI agents running parts of our workflow. We have custom tools that make us faster, cheaper and better than the competition. Meta literally told us we are the most AI-enabled agency in the UK doing what we do, and one of their top 25 strategic partners.

That didn't happen by accident. That happened because we went all in on AI before it was comfortable to do so.

There was one big announcement this week that should terrify every traditional agency owner but make the agile and innovative founder more excited than ever.

Y Combinator just dropped its Spring 2026 Request for Startups. If you don't know YC, they're the biggest startup accelerator in the world. Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox all came through there.

And for the first time in years, agencies are back on the list.

Basically, they said what we've been saying for years. Agencies are hard to scale because growth means more people. More people mean more cost. AI breaks that. You leverage AI to make your team more powerful. You remain the expert but just the AI enabled expert.

Agencies that get this right will operate with software margins. Scale without headcount.

That's literally what we've been building at Soar. Yes, we have added people and we are nearly at 100 employees, but we have added capacity and significantly increased our output and effectiveness by leveraging AI. We’d probably be at 130+ people without it.

The smartest investors in the world are now backing exactly what we've been doing and you should be doing this as well.

If you run an agency, this should have you pumped. Not stressed. The opportunity right now is mental.

If you’re scared by this, not adapting, and your business dies, then you only have yourself to blame.

What are you actually going to do about it? If your plan is 'we'll get to AI eventually,' I promise you, you won't. That's what everyone says before they get left behind.

If you can’t just “hire” developers then you NEED to carve out time to learn yourself or make sure someone from your team is doing so instead. 

If you're not doing that, you’re f*cked…

This is just one segment from my weekly newsletter. If you want more unfiltered opinions, I’ll be sending these weekly. I'll put the sign up link in the comments.

Joe Marston

The top-performing brands on Meta today are allocating 30–50% of spend to partnership ads because they consistently deliver lower CPAs and higher CTRs.

From Meta’s POV, partnership ads aren’t a separate channel or tactic. They’re a creative diversity lever.

Partnership ads don’t work because of creators. They work because of identity.

The algorithm isn’t asking: “Who is this creator?” It’s asking: “What new information does this ad introduce into the system?”

That’s why partnership ads unlock incremental reach when done properly and why they fall flat when brands just reskin the same message with a different face.

Same message + different creator ≠ new learning.
Different message + different identity = signal.

If your partnership ads are just:
• Brand script, creator delivery
• Same hook, new handle
• Volume without distinction

You’re not giving the system anything new to work with.

Partnership ads aren’t about borrowing audiences. They’re about teaching the algorithm something it didn’t know before.

That’s the shift most brands are still missing.

And it’s exactly what the system rewards:
– A new voice
– A new perspective
– A new way of telling the story

🤝 Introducing the Partnership Ads Guide, the ultimate resource for unlocking incremental reach. 

We’ve distilled everything you need to know into a simple, actionable guide with industry examples. 

Want it?
Like this post
Comment “partnership” and Aileen Lapuz will DM it to you (make sure to send her a connection request)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Fortia Group

Co-Founder & Managing Partner At The Fortia Group

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you're stuck on how to diversify creative, here’s the exact testing structure we use to unlock new Entity IDs and incremental reach.

Most brands think they’re testing. They’re not. They’re iterating inside the same creative cluster, which means Meta groups it under the same Entity ID, and you never actually expand reach.

When we rebuilt our testing process around Entity ID diversification, we unlocked:
- Scalable reach
- Lower CPMs
- Net-new audience pockets

Here’s the tactical framework. Think of creative as a hierarchy. The lower you go, the more impact it has on delivery.

When launching net-new, start at the bottom of the hierarchy, not the top.

That means:

Format shift first
Static → UGC
UGC → Founder VSL
Founder VSL → High-production explainer
If the visual language stays similar, Meta clusters it.

Vehicle shift second
Founder story
Green-screen breakdown
Testimonial
Listicle
Product demo
Different storytelling vehicle = different signal profile.

Persona shift third
Gen Z student
40+ mum
Gym bro
Corporate founder
Persona is a major unlock for incremental reach.

Only once those layers are distinct should you test:
Hooks
Problem-first
Pattern interrupt
Visual zoom
Unboxing

Messaging tweaks
Script refinements
CTA swaps
Offer framing

Why? Because copy changes alone rarely trigger a new Entity ID. And if Meta groups 70% of your “iterations” together, you’re just recycling the same audience pool.

When optimising winners:
Don’t tweak. Translate.

If a founder VSL wins:
 → Turn it into a third-party expert breakdown
 → Turn it into UGC with the same core message
 → Turn it into a high-production explainer

Same core angle. Different execution stack.

That’s how you preserve signal strength while expanding reach.

Build your system around that or expect your FTI to collapse and your CPAs to follow.

These are strong references for building visually disruptive creative.

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

That’s what stops the scroll.

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

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

Definitely worth pulling inspiration from these.

⚠️ Warning signs you need to look for if your account has a reach problem

Use this checklist to quickly diagnose whether incremental reach is your bottleneck:

(Incremental reach measures the percentage of your total impressions delivered to people seeing your ads for the first time in a given period).

[ ] CPAs rising despite stable creative performance

[ ] Frequency above 3-4 per week on core campaigns

[ ] Audience Reached Ratio in Delivery Insights exceeding 60%

[ ] First-Time Impression Ratio in Delivery Insights below 30%

[ ] Diminishing returns when increasing the budget on campaigns

[ ] New creatives fatigue faster than before

[ ] Conversion volume flat despite spend increases

[ ] Strong engagement rates but weak conversion rates (same people engaging repeatedly)

[ ] High percentage of ad account budget spent on engaged or existing customers

If 3+ boxes are checked: Incremental reach is likely your primary scaling bottleneck.

This is THE meta ads training you need to watch to scale your spend profitably in 2026.

This is how we’re scaling brands to 8-9 figures.

#metaads #ecommerce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We built our Creative Intelligence Report around this process.

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

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

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

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

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

Being busy is lazy.

It's what happens when you avoid deciding what actually matters.

Most people don't have a focus problem. They have a direction problem.

They work hard.

They get into flow.

They stay busy all day.

And still… the needle barely moves.

Because focus applied to the wrong work just accelerates failure.

Rian Doris calls this misallocated flow.

Deep concentration aimed at tasks with no causal link to the outcome you want.

That's why some founders:

– Redesign websites instead of closing deals

– Perfect decks instead of increasing lead volume

– Obsess over structure instead of revenue drivers

It feels productive.

It just isn't effective.

High performers operate differently.

Every decision runs through one filter, "What moves me closer to the outcome, fastest?"

Not:

– What feels important

– What looks impressive

– What I enjoy doing

But what actually changes the number. This is the difference between speed and velocity.

Speed = effort.

Velocity = effort + direction.

Flow gives you speed. Clarity gives you direction.

You need both.

A simple litmus test:

👉 If someone tapped you on the shoulder right now and asked "What is the single most goal-directed action you should be doing?"

Could you answer instantly? If not, that's the work.

Top performers aren't calm because they care less. They're calm because they care with precision. They know what to ignore. They know what to neglect. They know exactly where to apply their best energy.

Clarity compounds faster than effort ever will.

Want access to 10 other productivity protocols that 3xd my output? 
Follow me and comment "3x" below and I'll DM you.

Founder & CEO of FlowState.com

Meta came on the podcast and finally explained what’s actually happening inside the algorithm.

What came through loud and clear:

- Targeting isn’t the lever anymore
- Creative is the signal
- The system is interpreting meaning, not just formats
- Most brands are still optimising for a version of Meta that no longer exists

The better question to ask now is: “What does this creative teach the system?”

They cover:

– How Meta interprets creative at scale
– Why small iterations stop unlocking reach
– What actually earns attention in-feed
– Where brands are accidentally capping performance

No tactics-for-tactics’ sake. Just how the machine really sees your ads.

🎧 Episode is live: https://lnkd.in/e5h83-Fm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The same TikTok user makes two completely different buying decisions on DTC vs Shop.

1️⃣ The DTC journey (off-platform)

Discoverability → Product-level skepticism → Confidence → Conversion

When someone clicks through to your site, the doubt isn’t about TikTok. It’s about your product.

“Does this actually work?”

“Is this legit?”

“Is it worth the price?”

So your job is to move them from skeptical about the product to confident in the brand.

That’s where:

- Trust-rich UGC
- Social proof layering
- Clear objection handling
- Strong PDP experience

…actually matter.

DTC is where you build efficiency, LTV and brand equity. It’s not just a checkout page. It’s a trust engine.

2️⃣ The TikTok Shop journey (on-platform)

Discoverability → Platform-level skepticism → Hesitation → Novelty + Confidence → Conversion

Skepticism is at the platform-level. Creative wins or loses at the “hesitation” stage. 

If your content feels like an ad, you lose.

If it feels like ownership, like the creator genuinely uses and stands behind the product, you win.

What this means in practice

You can’t treat Shop as “cheaper DTC”. They’re different behavioural environments.

To win:

- Speak to both buyer psychologies intentionally.
- Train affiliates to show ownership, not read scripts.
- Separate your creative strategy for DTC vs Shop.
- Use DTC for margin control, trust-building and retention.
- Use Shop for incremental reach and scale, not just heavy discounting.
- Stay ecosystem fluent. One size fits no one.

The brands that get this right don’t just push content. They design creative around behaviour.

And in 2026, behaviour-first content is the edge. 

We’re opening a limited number of TikTok Shop Growth Roadmaps for brands ready to treat Shop as a growth channel, not a side experiment. Apply below and we’ll assess your structure, creative, and affiliate strategy: https://lnkd.in/eAp9JeJ6

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