Zachary Murray

Foreplay.co

Bootstrapping the fuck out of foreplay.co

Creative Director / Growth Design

Fanatical in working out and reading a book with chamomile tea and a scented candle.

My day usually starts with a run or a high-intensity workout, a cold shower and a 10-minute meditation session. After that, I dive into working at my agency D-DOUBLEU MEDIA.

We help 7-9 figure Ecommerce businesses scale through performance creatives and paid media.

Dennis W.

You're not a "performance marketer."

You're someone who learned a platform and stopped there.

Performance marketing is:
- Understanding unit economics well enough to make real decisions
- Knowing when to cut spend vs when the data isn't significant yet
- Building creative systems that produce winners, not hoping for them

If your entire value is "I know how to use Meta Ads Manager" — that's not a skill.

That's a tutorial anyone can watch in an afternoon.

The platforms want you to think the buttons are complicated.

They're not. The thinking is.

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Slashing acquisition costs via performance creatives and paid media for 7-9 figure Ecommerce brands.

Unpopular opinion:

Your best-performing ad will never be the one you "love."

It'll be the one that feels too simple. Too ugly. Too direct. Too uncomfortable.

Because good ads don't make the brand feel good.

Good ads make the customer feel seen.

Those are almost never the same thing.

The founder who picks ads based on what they'd personally click on is the founder who can't scale.

You are not your customer.

Your taste is irrelevant.

The data decides. Not your ego.

I get asked constantly:

"What's the ONE thing that moves the needle most?"

Honest answer: It's not one thing. It's a system.

Research → Brief → Create → Test → Learn → Iterate

Each step has a framework. Each framework has been refined across $50M+ in spend.

I packaged all of it into one toolkit.

6 interactive tools. 100+ frameworks. Used daily by our team.

Like & comment "SYSTEM" and I'll send details.

Dennis Willeboordse

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HIRING: Performance Creative Strategist

Not looking for someone who can follow a template.

Looking for someone who can break down why a template works — then build a better one.

Requirements:

→ You've personally concepted ads that drove $500K+ in revenue
→ You understand awareness levels deeply (not just "heard of them")
→ You can write a brief in 30 minutes that a team can execute without questions
→ You've worked in DTC — supplements, skincare, or consumer products
→ You spend time in the ad library weekly because you're genuinely curious

This isn't remote-and-disappear.

You'll be in the creative engine of an agency scaling 10+ brands simultaneously.

DM me "STRATEGIST" with a brief you're proud of.

The 60-second creative audit:

Pull up your last 5 ads. For each one, answer:

1. Does the first sentence call out a specific person? (Not "Hey guys")
2. Is there a curiosity gap in the first 3 seconds?
3. Does it address ONE awareness level clearly?
4. Is there proof from a real customer?
5. Is there a reason to act NOW?

If any ad scores less than 3 out of 5, that's your problem.

Not the algorithm. Not the CPMs. Not the audience.

The ad itself.

RT if you're going to actually do this audit today.

A brand came to us with "the algorithm hates us."

Their data told a different story:

- 3.2% CTR (solid)
- 0.8% landing page conversion (disaster)

The ad was working. The page wasn't.

We didn't touch the ads.

Changed the hero image from lifestyle to product-in-use. Added a specific result to the headline. Put reviews above the fold instead of buried at the bottom.

Same traffic. 2.4% conversion.

Their "algorithm problem" was a landing page problem they refused to see.

Most ad problems aren't ad problems.

The best creative I shipped this month took 3 hours to research and 20 minutes to write.

The worst one I shipped took 20 minutes to research and 3 hours to write.

The ratio matters more than the hours.

How we turned a "dead" product into a $300K/month seller:

Brand had a collagen supplement. "Tried everything." Ready to discontinue.

We didn't change the product. We changed who we talked to.

Old targeting: "Women 30-50 who want better skin."

New angle from review research: "Women who just went through menopause and feel like they're losing themselves."

That shift — from a demographic to an identity in crisis — changed everything.

The ad: A 45-second video. One woman. Talking about how she didn't recognize herself anymore. And how one change started to bring her back.

No fancy editing. No trending audio. No product shots until second 30.

$300K/month. Same product. Same price. Different story for a different stage of life.

Products don't die. Angles do.

I was wrong about UGC.

Used to think the format itself was magic. Find creator, ship product, get "authentic" content, profit.

Turns out UGC without strategy is just expensive mediocrity with a ring light.

What actually matters:

1. The brief — not the creator
2. The hook — not the aesthetic
3. The research — not the trending sound

The best UGC I've seen this quarter came from a founder talking into an iPhone with terrible lighting.

But the words were perfect because they came from real customer language.

Format is neutral. Strategy is everything.

The best ads don't sell products.
The best books don't sell information.
The best coaches don't sell advice.

They all sell transformation.

Before state → After state.

That's the only story that matters.

A brand came to us doing $200K/month at 1.8x ROAS.

Bleeding money. Panicking.

Their diagnosis: "We need better media buying."

Our diagnosis: Every ad talked about the product. Zero ads talked about the customer.

We pulled 100 reviews. Found one phrase that appeared 23 times:

"I was tired of feeling like the tired mom at pickup."

First ad with that exact hook: 4.1x ROAS at the same spend.

They didn't need better media buying.

They needed one sentence their customer had already written for them.

Unpopular opinion:

Your product photos are killing your conversion rate more than your ads.

The ad got them to click. That part worked.

Then they land on a page with:
- Hero image that looks like every competitor
- Lifestyle shot that doesn't show the product clearly
- Zero context for what they're actually buying

The click was expensive. The photo was lazy.

Fix the landing page before you blame the ad.

Every struggling brand has a story about why things aren't working.

Every scaling brand has a system for finding what does.

Stories explain. Systems solve.

Pick one.

Copying competitors is the fastest way to become invisible.

If your ad looks like everyone else's, it IS everyone else's.

Differentiation isn't optional. It's survival.

You're not "building in public."

You're posting screenshots of small wins hoping someone will think you're further along than you are.

Building in public is sharing:
- The failures that taught you something
- The decisions that could go either way
- The problems you haven't solved yet

Posting your Shopify dashboard when you hit $10K isn't building in public.

It's bragging with a hashtag.

Share the journey or don't. But don't pretend vanity metrics are vulnerability.

The lie about "testing creative":

Everyone says test more.

Nobody talks about what testing actually means.

Testing isn't:
- Launching 10 random ads and seeing what sticks
- Changing everything at once and hoping
- Running ads for 48 hours and drawing conclusions

Testing is:
- One variable isolated
- Clear hypothesis documented
- Learning extracted regardless of result

If you can't articulate what you learned from your last 5 tests, you weren't testing.

You were gambling with a content calendar.

This hook got 3.4% CTR:

"For people who hit snooze 4 times and still feel exhausted at 2pm."

Why it works:

→ "4 times" — specific number, not "multiple"
→ "people who" — identity-first framing
→ "still feel exhausted" — the frustration they live with
→ "2pm" — specific moment they recognize

Every word earns its place.

Generic version: "For tired people who want more energy."

Same message. Half the conversion.

The brands that scale aren't selling products.

They're selling the person the customer wants to become.

That's not marketing fluff.

That's the entire game.

Unpopular opinion:

You don't need more traffic.

You need to convert the traffic you already have.

Most brands are pouring water into a leaky bucket and wondering why it won't fill.

Fix the bucket first:
- Offer that actually compels action
- Landing page that doesn't confuse
- Objection handling before they bounce

Then turn on the traffic.

Scaling a 1% conversion rate just means paying more for the same leaky bucket.

The best creative strategists I've met have one thing in common.

They spend more time listening to customers than talking to their team.

The answers aren't in your Slack channel.

They're in your customer's words.

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Zachary Murray

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The Battle

Zachary Murray

Dennis W.

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dennis W.'s LinkedIn Performance

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