Folgen
-
In the words of Andrew Foxwell, "It's just the guys" and they framed this episode around one big shift: 2025 was the year of creative diversity and raw ad volume, and 2026 is the year that questions, "what is all this volume actually pointing at?" Call it a return to intentionality, and the part of the funnel many brands have been ignoring while chasing creative volume: the landing page.
Brad opens by reacting to a Twitter conversation where operators sounded burnt out on the volume game, then reframes the discussion around what you can improve outside of ad creative. The crew works through Cherene's "marketing tornado" idea: If the same person sees your brand 15+ different ways, and the job is consistency of message across all of them, then it's important to arm Meta with creative, landing pages, and offers so its AI (Andromeda) can deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
The heart of the episode is landing page strategy. Zach speed-runs the page-type hierarchy, then both hosts hammer funnel congruency, the ad-to-lander-to-PDP message match they admit was a big driver of their Feb/March scaling. Brad shares a beauty-brand example where simply turning a winning founder video's transcript into a congruent listicle scaled spend 60% month-over-month (twice) with zero new ads.
Key Takeaways Why ad-to-landing-page-to-PDP "funnel congruency" is the piece most operators are still leaving on the table in 2026. How one brand scaled spend 60% month-over-month (twice) with zero new ads. Why you need to stop hunting for the single "winning" landing page and instead run many congruent pages live at once. What it actually means to "sell one product 50 different ways," and why your angle TAM is more important than your category TAM. Why the volume game is finally dead, and what the 2026 shift from "make more" to "what is this volume pointing at" means for your testing budget. Why a "marketing tornado," is your best bet to keep message consistency when one buyer sees your brand 15+ different ways. When it actually pays to set different CPA/ROAS targets by funnel stage and product. Why a congruent landing page will lower your CPM, CPMR and earn you a "back tap" from the Meta auction. The order you should be building and testing your landing pages.
The short: stop hunting for the one winning page, run many congruent pages live at once, and let Meta allocate spend across them.
This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck Learn more about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com Learn more about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com -
Harry Delmege, co-founder of Roly Poly Digital, joins Scalability School for a tactical conversation about what actually separates an ad spending $500 a day from one spending $10K a day. Harry's agency, named by Andrew's daughter Nora, has rapidly become one of the most respected creative shops in DTC by pushing back on a lot of what the industry is currently selling: high-volume AI-generated workflows, format obsession, and the relentless push to do more without slowing down to do it well.
The conversation digs into Harry's creative philosophy, which he distills into three things he checks every ad against: promise, proof, and (workshopped live on the episode) puzzling (big thanks to Brad). They cover his preference for long-form "yapper" ads, why he insists on manual research over AI-assisted research, how he hires creative strategists from non-media-buying backgrounds, and why he thinks the closest thing to a real "hack" in the current environment is just relentlessly studying organic content and ripping off what's already working.
Harry also shares his real take on the volume-versus-quality debate, including a pointed observation that brand-side complaints about agency performance have spiked at exactly the same time the industry adopted AI and started preaching volume.
What actually separates an ad that spends $500 a day from one that spends $10k a day How AI-assisted creative research is actually hurting your hit rate What is a "yapper ad" and why are most agencies/ brands not running them? Why Harry believes a U-turn on creative volume is on the horizon Where true creative innovation actually comes from and is it what you actually need for success. Why "open loops" is the most misunderstood term in creative strategy This 1 thing is the entire secret of high-performing creative.
Key Takeaways
This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Harry Delmege, send him a DM at https://x.com/harrydelmege_
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn more about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com
Learn more about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
Fehlende Folgen?
-
Collin Slattery (Taikun Digital) joins Brad and Andrew for a no-fluff breakdown of why Google Ads breaks the brain of most DTC operators who cut their teeth on Meta. The core argument lands early and lands hard: your relationship with Google is structurally adversarial in a way your relationship with Meta isn't, because Google can't manufacture more search inventory the way Meta manufactures more feed inventory. The only lever they have to grow revenue is extracting more from advertisers, which means every default setting, every recommendation, and every "AI enhancement" is built to serve them first.
From that foundation, Collin walks through the operational stack that actually works: ruthlessly segmenting brand from non-brand across both search and shopping, building a real product feed instead of plugging Shopify into Merchant Center and calling it done, structuring shopping into heroes, sidekicks, villains, and zombies, and treating YouTube Shorts as the only YouTube placement worth touching unless you're running holdout tests. Along the way he drops a study Tyken ran across roughly $20M in spend showing that hidden search terms cost advertisers about $0.85 of efficiency per dollar spent, the case for YouTube being the single most incremental channel in digital (87% net-new traffic for one of his nine-figure clients, plus 34 million Americans reachable nowhere else), and a hard truth that Google scaling is brick-by-brick, never one banger creative away.
If you've ever wondered why your Google account "kind of works but never really scales," this is the episode that explains exactly why and exactly what to do about it.
How your "5x Google ROAS" is actually just brand search dragging a broken non-brand campaign across the finish line. How much of your Google spend is being skimmed by search terms Google won't let you see. Why your relationship with Google is fundamentally adversarial. How to reach 34 million potential customers that literally cannot be reached on Meta or TikTok. If you're not running holdout tests, 90% of your YouTube dollars are likely going to the wrong placement. The four shopping campaign buckets every brand over $1M should be using, and the one that is silently eating 80% of your budget. Could this one setting be making your entire Google account non-incremental without you knowing? Why Google scaling looks nothing like Meta scaling and what it actually means for your monthly growth curve. The $50/month tool that fixes the feed quality issue almost every Shopify brand is silently losing money on. When paying for brand search actually makes sense
Key Takeaways
This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Collin, send him a DM at https://x.com/CJSlattery or at: https://taikundigital.com/ To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/ Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com -
Marin Istvanic joins Scalability School for a deep tactical session on what it actually takes to scale e-commerce brands to nine figures with paid media on Meta. Marin is one of the most hands-on media buyers in the DTC space, managing upwards of 5 to 7 million dollars a month in ad spend across his agency clients and his own internal brand (and this episode reflects that).
The conversation launches right into the hard hitting questions with the debate around ABO versus CBO and when each actually makes sense. Marin's full whitelisting flywheel (300+ influencer profiles, authority pages, dark posts running through multiple handles in the same session), cost cap weekend scaling and what he calls the "gladiators arena" ad set, how he uses different attribution settings as a signal to Meta that a campaign is structurally different, and why he still manually picks every thumbnail across all his accounts. He also shares how he used AI to synthesize his full YouTube library into a 50-page media buying philosophy document and then how he fed his top-spending ads into a landing page template that outperformed the control by 10%.
Key Takeaways
ABO vs. CBO - is the debate actually settled, or does the right answer depend on something most people never measure? Is whitelisting dead - or are you just running it wrong? What does a "cost cap weekend scaling" actually look like in practice — and how to spend $25K on a Saturday without blowing up your CPA? How changing this window actually tells Meta this is a different campaign. Why Marin still manually picks every thumbnail - If the "hacks" everyone is chasing are mostly noise, this is what actually moves the needle at scale.This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Marin, send him a DM at https://x.com/IstvanicMarin
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
The Zach Stuck returns to Scalability School for one of the most packed episodes to date. Coming off a massive run of activity: selling his agency, Homestead to Verndale, co-founding MarsMen and closing a $27.5M Series A with L Catterton (ofcourse lets not forget becoming a new dad, too).
Zach walks through what actually happened, what it took, and what he'd do differently.The conversation covers three major arcs. First, the sale of Homestead: how it grew from Zach posting case studies on Twitter to an 85-person agency specializing in paid acquisition and email/SMS retention, why they decided to go to market when they did, and what the M&A process actually feels like when you're in the middle of it for the first time. Second, MarsMen: the origin story of the brand, the subscription-first bet that changed everything, and what it means to go from six figures a month to a nine-figure run rate by obsessing over every detail, from landing page, CRO tests, to cohort metrics. Third, the bigger picture: where agencies are headed as AI compresses margins, why surrounding yourself with people ahead of where you want to be is non-negotiable, and what it means to finally be doing the thing you always actually wanted to do.
What it actually feels like to sell your agency and what they never tell you before the deal closes Why media buying-only Agencies likely only have 18 months left to survive How Mars Men went from six figures to a $100M run rate in under 18 months (without raising a single dollar until it was already printing money) Knowing when the right time to raise money is for your brand (Hint: It's not when you need it the most) The one thing most agency owners never do that would make their business 10x more sellable Why Zach went from agency life to brand building and how it actually feels to be on the other side What happens when you hire for vibes and smarts over credentials
Key TakeawaysThis episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality , they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
Host Brad flies solo to walk through exactly how his team structures Meta creative testing across eight figures a year in ad spend. The episode is a tactical follow-up to a previous episode with Phil, prompted by a viral Twitter thread Brad posted on the same topic.
The core philosophy: stop trying to outthink Meta's algorithm on budget allocation. Instead, run a single CBO campaign per product or offer, treat ad sets as simple folders (not audience segments), and let Meta decide where the money goes. Brad backs this up with real ad account screenshots, shows why a higher-spending campaign with a lower ROAS can actually be healthier than it looks, and closes out with answers to the most common follow-up questions he received from the community.
Key Takeaways
Why Meta's algorithm is smarter than you at deciding which of your ads deserves more budget and what that means for how you should structure your campaigns. The single reason you need to stop creating more ad sets and start stacking all your ads in one. Your top-spending ad set has a lower ROAS than the one barely getting any spend, does that mean you're burning money, or is Meta showing you something you're missing? The truth behind what actually happens when you pull it into an ABO to force-test it. How do you build a creative testing system that generates consistent weekly output without needing a huge production budget or team. What "spend is a signal" actually means for your creatives and how you should decide when to turn an ad off (You might actually be turning them off too early) Is splitting your account into a testing campaign and a scaling campaign helping you, or just adding complexity that slows down Meta's learning? How new visitor percentage and frequency metrics should change the way you interpret your campaign's ROAS. The actual risk of running ads to two completely different customer personas inside the same ad set on broad targeting. How to tell when it's time to question your creative quality versus just staying patient with your launch cadence.This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality , they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
In this episode of Scalability School, Andrew Foxwell is joined by Sarah Levenger and special guest host Will Sartoris for a deep conversation on what separates average creative strategy from high-performing creative strategy in 2026.
The core theme is that winning creative is not just about producing more ads or testing more formats. It is about understanding people better. Sarah breaks down how the best creative strategists build repeatable systems for ideation, stay close to the customer experience, and work backward from business goals instead of defaulting to ad format first. From there, the episode gets tactical with a breakdown of behavioral-science principles like loss aversion, anchoring, framing effects, social proof, bandwagon effect, and System 1 vs. System 2 thinking.
The big takeaway is that most brands are still overusing urgency, surface-level psychology, and creative trend chasing. The better path is sharper positioning, better message framing, more respect for the customer, and creative diversity rooted in psychology, not just format.
Key takeaways Are the best creative strategists winning because they make better ads, or because they build better systems for ideas? Are you still choosing ad format first over business objective and customer type? Have you already burned through your early adopters without realizing your message needs to evolve? Are your ads accidentally disrespecting your potential customers? Should your brand be using supportive or guilt-based messaging to convert? Is plain old social proof losing power? Does your internal team believe the same thing about the brand that your customers do? Is AI helping your team think more clearly, or just helping you make more of the same content faster?This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality , they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To learn more about Sarah Levinger, you can follow her here: https://x.com/SarahLevinger
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
Andrew Foxwell (Foxwell Founders / Scalability School) sits down with Andrew Faris (AJF Growth / The Andrew Faris Podcast) for a joint co-release episode to break down the findings from the Foxwell Founders x Motion 2026 State of Agencies Report. A data-rich survey of hundreds of agency owners and in-house operators across 30 countries. The conversation covers AI's dual role as the #1 growth opportunity and the #1 threat for agencies, why only 11% of agencies have produced clear top-performing AI-generated ad winners, the reality behind agency margins (42% running net margins above 30% while many founders still struggle), why in-housing is the #1 reason agencies lose clients — and why it usually backfires — and the uncomfortable truth that many agency founders grow for ego rather than strategy.
Along the way, Faris offers a sharp framework on how brands should think about paying their agencies, and Foxwell shares candid coaching insights on what separates agencies that thrive from those that stall out.
Key Takeaways:
Why 26% of agencies say AI-powered services are their biggest growth opportunity — yet privately admit they're terrified of it? Is AI actually working for creatives or is just generating slop? (Only 11% of agencies have produced a clear top-performing AI-generated ad winner.) 42% of agencies report net margins above 30%. So why are so many agency founders telling Andrew Foxwell they're broke? Is in-housing the worst move most brands make? The gross margin range your agency should be sitting between. Are agency founders growing because they have a strategy or because they want to sit at the big [kid] agency table? When the average tenure of an in-house growth director might only be ~18 months, is there a fundamental misalignment between founders and the people they hire? If AI amplifies slop just as well as it amplifies great ideas, why do so many agencies think volume is the play? Should more brands be firing their CRO agency and building more with Claude Code?This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To learn more about Andrew Faris, The Andrew Faris Podcast and AJF Growth you can follow him on
X: https://x.com/andrewjfaris
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewfarispodcast
Email: [email protected]
Work With AJF Growth: https://ajfgrowth.com
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
In this episode of the Scalability School podcast, hosts Andrew Foxwell and Brad Ploch sit down with Reza, co-founder of Motion, for a deep dive into how AI is fundamentally reshaping the way DTC creative teams operate. Reza shares his perspective on the widening gap between data-driven media buyers and creative producers, and why the most valuable professionals in the space are the ones who can bridge both worlds.
The conversation covers the evolution of the creative strategist role from simple brief-writing to a full-stack function that blends paid social performance analysis, creative concepting, and now AI-powered agent workflows. Reza introduces a powerful mental model: every knowledge worker should think of themselves as an allocator of AI tokens, and the goal is to push agents to work for longer and longer stretches autonomously.
The episode also explores practical use cases for AI agents in creative strategy, including analyzing thousands of agent conversations using swarms of AI workers, iterating on top-performing ads using existing footage, and how Motion's AI agent (Runneth) is processing and categorizing every ad creative to surface actionable insights. Reza drops a provocative prediction: in the near future, the only job left will be allocating AI tokens, and if you're not building that muscle now, you're falling behind.
Our new "After Hours" segment dives into hooks as the DNA of creative performance, why brand teams are increasingly disconnected from the direct response engine that actually drives revenue, and how creative strategists are becoming the real mini-CMOs of DTC companies.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
What if your only job is being an allocator of AI tokens? Are you still thinking of AI as a chatbot instead of a workforce? Is your creative strategist actually a mini-CMO? Why hooks are the DNA of your entire creative system. Is your brand team holding back your direct response engine? What would you do if you had to spend $2,000 in AI credits this week? Can two minutes of footage actually produce 50 unique ads? Is this the year under-hyped AI products of 2025 actually work?This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To learn more about Rezza and Motion you can follow him on https://x.com/rezakhadjavi, https://x.com/motionapp_ or head to https://motionapp.com/
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
In this episode of Scalability School, host Andrew Foxwell is joined by Phil Kiel of Taikun Digital and co-host Brad Ploch to tackle the single most-asked question in the Foxwell Founders community: how do you actually test creative on Meta in 2026? The question was asked over 160 times in just 45 days, making it the undisputed #1 topic among media buyers and brand operators in the community.
The conversation digs into two distinct camps of creative testing, forced spend (ABO) versus letting ads earn spend (CBO) and unpacks the real-world pros, cons, and trade-offs of each. Phil, who runs accounts at significant scale, makes a compelling case for the CBO-first, content-centric approach, arguing that the role of Meta's algorithm is to allocate spend to the best creative, not for buyers to manually dictate it.
The episode also confronts the volume trap: the pressure media buyers feel to launch massive quantities of ads every month. Phil's take is refreshing and practical, 8 to 10 solid concepts per month (roughly 40–50 assets) is a solid starting point for most brands, built around strong creative briefs rather than raw volume. The hosts challenge the Twitter/X culture of flex-posting ad launch numbers, arguing the real metric that matters is creative quality and concept diversity.Key Takeaways:
Are you forcing spend into creative tests and accidentally funding your worst ads? Is the ad set structure in your Meta account actually doing anything, or is it just an expensive folder? How many new creative concepts should you be launching per month? CBO vs. ABO for creative testing: which one is actually right for your account right now? Why launching too many ads may be training your account to spend on losers. What does it actually mean to 'let ads earn spend' and how to know when a creative concept has really failed versus just not getting a fair shot. Why creative volume is the wrong metric to optimize and what you should be tracking instead. What's the difference between a creative concept and an ad asset? The one thing you should do today if you're a brand owner paralyzed by creative output pressure.This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To learn more about Phil Kiel and the Taikun Digital team you can follow him on X https://x.com/PhilKiel or head to https://www.taikundigital.com/
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
This episode is like a Meta scaling "early warning system" masterclass. Andrew, Brad, and guest Kurt Bullock break down why so many media buyers hit a plateau (even when ROAS looks "fine") and how to diagnose it before performance rolls over. The core idea: Understanding CPMR to give you a clearer view of whether you're actually expanding into new pockets of the market or just recycling the same people harder and harder.
They walk through how Meta's rolling reach report works, a sliding-window version that's more useful for ongoing decision-making, how to interpret overlap, and what to do when the numbers signal saturation (creative diversity, different angles/personas, bidding/exclusions tests, quiz-style funnels, etc.).Kurt also shares on the tool he's developed with the Foxwell Founders Community that automates these reports.
Key takeaways -
What's actually happing if your scaling spend while your rolling reach is flat. What comes next when ROAS looks stable… but your net new reach % is dropping The difference between rolling reach vs net new reach… and which one will predict your ad fatigue. How tracking this metric will help you spot when delivery is getting expensive due to audience fatigue. Are your "winning" campaigns winning because they're good… or because they're overlapping like crazy with what's already working? The overlap % is the "uh oh" zone of death for reaching Net New Customers How you might be leaning too hard on one motivator/angle and keeping Meta from finding new pockets even when launching fresh ads. Why whitelisting is known for lowering CPMR and unlocking different ad distribution. - Why testing with exclusions is still a good practice for your campaigns. If you had one report to tell you "you're fine today, but cooked next month," would you be running it weekly?To Get the Net New Reach Reporting Tool, head to https://tools.producedept.co/
This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to https://northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To learn more about Kurt Bullock, you can follow him on X https://x.com/KurtBullock
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
In this episode of Scalability School, Andrew and Brad are joined by Daniel Okon, CEO of ACTIV, a growing digital first agency that has also moved to incubating/growing multiple 7 figure brands in the health & wellness space, to decode Meta's "Andromeda" update. Andromeda has created a huge shift in the ad ecosystem where the algorithm (via systems like GEM and Lattice) now aggressively favor true creative diversity over simple iterations.
Daniel breaks down why old scaling methods like duplicating winners or making minor tweaks are yielding diminishing returns. Instead, he introduces a research heavy framework focused on identifying "sub-avatars" (specific customer behaviors or pain points, like "bloating after pizza") rather than broad demographics. The conversation covers the tactical "pull forward" method for extending winning angles into new formats, how to conduct manual research that AI can't replicate, and why your creator briefs should focus on trust and niche authority over brand aesthetics.
If you've been stumped by Andromeda, Daniel and the Scalability team do a great job sucinctly explaining the changes and what advertisers need to do to be successful on the platform once again.
Key Takeaways:
Is your ad account suffering because you're confusing "creative volume" with actual "creative diversity"?
Why Meta's new "GEM" system penalizes ads that look different but mean the same thing.
How most advertisers are capping their own scale by targeting broad demographics over specific "sub-avatars".
How the "Spray and Pray" testing method has all but ran out of ink and the "Exploration vs. Expansion" framework that is replacing it?
How a simple "Q&A" static image can easily outperform a high-production video ad in the new world of Andromeda.
This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To learn more about Daniel Okon and his team you can follow him on X https://x.com/thedanielokon or head to www.weareactiv.com
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com
-
This episode is a practical walk-through of forecasting for e-commerce growth, specifically how media buyers and operators should think about revenue targets, paid spend, CAC/ROAS degradation, contribution margin, fixed costs, and cash flow without building a fantasy plan that assumes everything stays perfectly flat.
Abir (outsourced CMO/operator for multiple e-comm brands) and owner of UpCounting.com breaks down a simple-but-real framework: start with the story in the historical data to build a forecast that's honest about constraints (marketing efficiency, supply/inventory, staffing, cash conversion cycle). Then, turn the forecast into an ongoing operating rhythm where you review monthly performance vs plan, diagnose why you landed where you did, and update assumptions instead of "hoping next month works."
A big theme: most brands hit a "terminal velocity" with their current offer/creative/channel mix. From there you either (1) increase the value you get from customers (LTV/retention, bundles, new products, adjacent audiences) or (2) improve business efficiency so you can reinvest profit to raise your ad spend ceiling—aka the "two machines" model: ads machine + ops/profit machine.
Key Takeaways:Using more than just "vibes" to justify perfomance when CAC stays flat while spend goes up.
How to forecast using your actual "terminal velocity" instead of your dream scenario.
The difference of forecasting from a revenue goal → spend/CAC → contribution margin, Vs. just backfilling numbers to match a target.
Knowing where your business actually breaks first (marketing efficiency, inventory, cash conversion cycle, headcount, or fixed costs)?
The fastest way to spot whether growth is coming from new customers vs returning customers and why this changes the whole model.
How to properly plan for CAC degradation when you begin to SCALE.
Why tracking this one metric can confirm if extra spend is actively hurting your brand.
Moving away from just looking at ROAS and moving on to a monthly system for forecast vs actual + "why did this happen?"
How to know you're investing cash in the right lever and helping raise your ceiling faster.
How to run the numbers to insure you're holding your internal team to an ROI standard and not just giving the team a free pass.
OpEx bloat (tools, subscriptions, extra layers of people) and how it is quietly eating your ability to reinvest in growth.
To connect with Abir, you can follow her on x at https://x.com/Abir_CFOofEcom or at https://go.upcounting.com/ To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/ -
This episode is a tactical breakdown of AppLovin as a scaled acquisition channel—what's actually different vs Meta, what you should change in creative + campaign structure, and how to think about incrementality + reporting so you don't judge it with the wrong yardstick.
Miranda Pettinger, Performance Marketing Manager at 365 Holdings explains how they onboarded to the platform when Meta was underperforming and AppLovin started popping off in buyer circles. They used a Triple Whale onboarding credit to test with low risk, and at the time it wasn't even self-serve (you had to Slack the rep for changes).
The short on "why AppLovin works" is AppLovin's rewarded inventory creates an opt-in attention trade ("watch this 30s ad, get coins"), which changes the psychology from "I'm annoyed by ads" to "I'm choosing to watch this." That makes the creative game feel closer to a 30-second TV spot: you've got time to explain, objection-handle, and sell in one sitting.
From there it turns into a playbook with these Keytakeaways:18:30 Bidding / structure: ROAS vs cost-per-purchase, why value doesn't work for some catalogs and how to structure campaigns
19:40 DPAs + catalog control: Why DPAs can help if you've got lots of variants and the importance of controlling what products show up.
25:50 Measurement reality: AppLovin tends to under-report purchases, especially at scale, so you want to validate with post-purchase survey, MER/traffic lift and/or a 3rd party data tool.
29:30 Incrementality / overlap: The Meta+AppLovin overlap and how Meta+Google overlap is likely way bigger.
33:55 Creative testing: unlike Meta where "testing vs scaling" can feel walled off, AppLovin can allow new winners to climb fast inside the same campaign, without dumping spend on junk.
38:30 End cards: offers matter a lot. How animation helps, and showing variants (colors/metal types) can lift clicks
To connect with Miranda, you can follow her on x at https://x.com/mirandpettinger
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
-
This episode is basically a tactical hands-on walkthrough for using AI in creative, without turning your ad account into generic "AI slop."
Will Sartourious, owner of Selfmade.co, an agency that focuses on AI personas and AI performance creatives, joins us to lead us through his AI creative process and the importance of AI adoption in the social creative space. He primarily lumps current AI creative usage into two buckets:
Type 1: "Clone this ad for me." Fast volume, but you drift into sameness.
Type 2: Use AI to do the thinking work (research, synthesis, structure), then let humans do the "mushy middle" that differentiates. He's big on building PAM clusters (Persona–Angle–Motivation) so strategists aren't winging it and you can see where your creative gaps are before you ship more ads.
From here we get into the nitty gritty of his current workflows:Static → GIF/video: why GIFs often beat statics in clean A/Bs, and how to generate animated variants fast.
Tool split: Will uses Claude for more "creative" thinking, but uses ChatGPT specifically because it reads on-ad copy more reliably critical when your prompt needs to include every word that appears on the creative.
Prompt iteration loop: generate → inspect output → feed output back in → ask for prompt correction (ex: "the copy disappears—fix it so it stays on screen").
Midjourney reality check: great for vibes/backdrops and motion experiments, but "sucks at product rendering," so you generate the scene and then swap in the real product using other tools.
We also dive into these Key takeawaysHow to find the missing creative angles in your account before spending another dollar.
Cut out the Middle man: How you can stop using stock photos entirely with AI, without the brand even noticing.
The fastest way to turn a winning static into a GIF without opening any editing software.
Why including every word of on-ad copy in the prompt matters more than being a "prompt genius".
Why this AI tool is a secret weapon for AI creativity (It's literally 10X better than ChatGPT).
The feedback-loop method to improve prompts without manually tweaking yourself into madness (we've all been here).
The 1 tip that will make your AI people look less "plastic" and more realistic (texture/pores/realism)
How Will used Sore to close a client live mid-call and how you can too.
Grab Will's notes and see the final products produced during the episode, here.This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at www.northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.
To connect with Will Sartorious, you can follow him on x at https://x.com/will_sartorius
or www.Selfmade.coTo connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
-
This bonus BFCM episode is a full debrief on what actually worked over Black Friday/Cyber Monday with real numbers, not theory. Zach Stuck comes out of paternity leave to break down his most recent Twitter "Beef" on why most Google agencies have their incentives completely misaligned (especially when they're charging % of spend on branded search). He also goes over how his team engineered a BFCM weekend that drove huge revenue without torching margin.
We walk through this offer that took hourly revenue from ~$50k to $142k and then again to $172k while still holding around 9x MER. We cover the exact structure of the offer, how it affected AOV, and why time-boxing the offer beat running a gift-with-purchase the entire weekend. You'll also hear how they built daily and hourly pacing models out of Shopify and ad platform data so they knew by midday whether they were ahead, behind, or needed to push harder.
From there, we get into the channel and creative side: how much budget actually went into BFCM-specific ads vs evergreen, the retention structure that printed 10x+ ROAS and the specific ad concepts that spent over Black Friday and held strong through Cyber Monday. We even talk about total amount of emails and sms messages that went out on Black Friday alone, and why the list didn't revolt.
If you're a media buyer or e-com operator looking to turn BFCM from "hope and vibes" into a repeatable system, this episode is basically the playbook you'd normally only get inside a private Slack group (like the Foxwell Founders Community).
Key Takeaways:
What actually happens when you time-box an offer to a single hour on Black Friday. How many emails and texts you can really send on Black Friday before you burn your list The importance of building a BFCM pacing sheet to know if you're behind and need to push. How much budget actually went into BFCM-specific creative vs evergreen ads. What a "creative diversity" roadmap for BFCM actually looks like in practice. How you can structure a Meta retention campaign that prints a 10x+ ROAS without lying to yourself (or clients) about incrementality. How to let creative do the targeting and still keep accounts manageable through the BFCM chaos The specific BFCM ad concepts that actually spent $90k+ and worked.To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
Learn more about Andromeda and GEM as Andrew breaks them down on the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. https://www.foxwelldigital.com/blog/the-new-meta-gem-era-how-andromeda-creative-diversification-amp-organic-signals-are-reshaping-performance-marketing
-
This episode is basically a masterclass in how media buyers and UGC creators should actually work together, not just pretend to. Courtney walks through her unique vantage point as both a media buyer and a creator: she runs strategy and ad buying for brands from that spend from $3k/month all the way up to $1MM/month in spend, leads the Foxwell Founders "small spenders" cohort, and also produces UGC herself. This dual role lets her see where brands and creators constantly miss each other.
They creative types that are currently working without overcomplicating things. Why your best-performing ad doesn't have a great hook rate, but is still printing money. Are you over paying creators for "usage rights" you don't actually need? What Courtney believes you should be paying creators for a piece of content. The 1 thing media buyers wished UGC creators understood about spend and why some creatives never leave the learning phase. How your creative brief might be the #1 thing killing authenticity and performance. How performance results could change by evaluating your creators on these two criteria over their logos and case studies. Why you shouldn't be asking creators to "go viral" and instead be building a system for consistent, high-quality, testable content. The amount of performance you are likely leaving on the table by chasing trends, and other no-nos when working with creators. Are you quietly over-indexing on marketing Twitter and case studies—and under-indexing on the nuance inside your own accounts?
Key Takeaways:This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.
To connect with Courtney Fritts, you can email her at [email protected]
or in one of the Foxwell Digital Communities: www.hivehausugc.com or FoxwellFounders.com
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
-
This episode dives deep into how much your tracking setup actually controls your Meta performance, and why most brands only pay attention to the pixel when things break.
Brett walks through his journey from old-school media buying into early Facebook ads and how that evolved into Tag Hero, a specialist shop focused purely on technical conversion tracking across Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. He explains why data quality is the real throttle on performance and how you can have the best creative in the account, but if Meta isn't getting clean signals, the algorithm just can't do its job.
Key Takeaways:How you can tell if your Shopify → Meta tracking setup is actually "good enough"… or silently leaking conversions.
If Meta says you're getting 8–13% more events with CAPI, are you actually set up to capture that lift—or just assuming you are.
The easiest way to verify your pixel and CAPI events are deduplicating correctly instead of double-counting purchases.
The Event Match Quality scores you should care about, and when a score is good vs a legit red flag
Why this one tracking perameter is arguably more valuable than email for optimization.
Why optimizing around a specific EMQ score might just be gaming a number that doesn't move revenue.
When Shopify's default Facebook Sales Channel App is the right call and when it might be time to graduate to Elevar/Blotout/EdgeTag-style stacks.
The incremental tracking upgrades that actually pay for themselves after you start spending 6 figures or more a month in ads.
The truth of what exactly happens when Meta flags you as 'Health & Wellness' brand and depricates your lower funnel.
How you can still win in health & wellness categories on Meta
The key steps to confidently rule out tracking as the culprit when your ads stop working so you're not re-building creative for a data problem? This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.
To connect with Brett Fish over at TagHero, you can DM him at https://x.com/brett_fish or head over to their site: https://taghero.io/ To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/ -
This episode of the Scalability School podcast tackles why traditional e-commerce dashboards often fail and outlines the precise financial and operational metrics required for driving profitable growth in 7- and 8-figure D2C brands.
The Andrew, Zach and Brad argue that dashboard failure stems from unclear metric definitions along with a failure to capture the full scope of business expenses. They advocate for moving beyond simple platform ROAS to focus on holistic metrics like Contribution Margin (CM) and/or Estimated Net Profit (by subtracting an estimate of OpEx).
A major theme that arose during this conversation was the critical need to separate New Customer (NC) metrics (like AMER and CAC) from blended metrics, as high blended performance can mask a dying new customer acquisition engine. They also stress that for non-subscription brands, LTV can sometimes be a misleading vanity metric that offers poor cash flow guidance. The episode concludes with a deep dive into using operational metrics like product sales breakdown and day-of-week sales efficiency to inform daily media buying decisions, introducing the key creative signal: Spend Velocity.
Key TakeawaysHow your blended MER target might actually be masking a New Customer Acquisition (NCA) disaster
Why dashboards can help ensure your entire team is looking at the same "Revenue" number
How to tell if you are wasting budget on the wrong days
How to accurately calculat true profitability before the month closes
Why this should be your key metric for predicting creative winners within 3 days
Why this 1 metric might be hurting your cash flow if you are a non-subscription businesses
This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
-
This week's Scalability School is a tactical one answering ALL of your BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) questions. Andrew, Zach & Brad cover how to pace and budget through the holiday surge, build offers that protect margin while lifting AOV, and line up Meta/Google + Email/SMS into a single MER-driven plan.
You'll hear pragmatic guidance on creative angles, inventory-aware campaigns (and what to do when you're light or heavy on stock), discount frameworks that don't nuke LTV, and practical measurement (MER, CPA, and "sanity check" rules). The guys wrap it up with channel sequencing (what runs when) and a concrete weekly timeline to execute without panic.
Key Takeaways:
How smart brands set BFCM budget and pacing so they don't blow spend too early. The offer types that actually move volume without wrecking margin. - How to properly adjust bids, caps, and campaign structure on Meta when auctions heat up. - The "MER guardrails" to keep things stable during BFCM (and when it's okay to see a dip). - Planning inventory-aware promos (overstock vs. thin stock) without confusing the customer. - The creative themes and formats that typically win BIG during BFCM - When to lean into Google (Shopping/Brand Search) vs. Meta for incremental volume. - How to measure success when attribution goes sideways. - What your backup plan should be if your first offer underperforms on Friday morning.This episode is sponsored by Northbeam, the marketing attribution platform that we love here at Scalability School. If you're ready to cut through the noise, stop guessing, and actually see which ads are driving your business, book a demo at northbeam.io/demo, and tell them Scalability School sent you. Join the club.
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected]
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/
- Mehr anzeigen
