Hey legends 👋

This one took a while, but we got there! Covering an aggressive scale-up brand in the supplement niche today.

I've never seen a DTC brand rise as quickly as IM8. Their growth showed me three things:

1. Proof built into the product before you market it matters.

2. You need to engineer your funnel rather than trying to hack ads in silos.

3. Their position is to sell longevity, performance, status, and trust. Not pills.

These three areas helped them scale fast in an incredibly saturated supplement category. And it was almost entirely done on Meta. A tough platform to scale profitably when you're in supplements.

Here’s the TL;DR of what I’ll cover today:

• Creative strategy hierarchy that allows them to test quality & volumes of over 1,000 ads (Persona, Angle, Concept, Creative).

• How they focus on selling longevity, performance, status and trust rather than pills

• Hooks designed for personas to self-select within the first second (with examples)

-Dev

THE BRIEF
How they introduced themselves as the new kid on the block

IM8’s creative system is built like a matrix, not a whiteboard brainstorm board. Every ad starts with a persona, then it goes deeper into a specific angle, concept and visual.

They’re asking, “Which persona-angle pairing do we want to test and how many ways can we express it?” All good creative strategies that scale answer this simple question.

They’re not selling supplements; they are trying to sell longevity, performance, status, and trust. Pillars that motivate people to take action fast.

By executing this strategy, IM8 has put itself right up there with the very best DTC brands. They scaled from $0 to $100M+ ARR in 11-months (yes, the David Beckham co-sign helps, but there’s just so much more to the strategy that makes it a scale strategy worth learning from). They run between 1,400 - 1,500 Meta ads every month, and spend over six figures per day on creative.

Here’s the breakdown of this playbook 👇

THE PLAYBOOK
IM8’s creative strategy

1) Creative strategy hierarchy: Persona → Angle → Concept → Creative

They don’t test random ads. When I reviewed each ad focused on new customer acquisition, all of them followed a simple hierarchy:

• Persona: who the ad is for (athletes, seniors, GLP-1 users, pre-menopausal women)

• Angle: the reason they should care (recovery, longevity, nutrient support, clinical or social proof)

• Concept: how that angle is visualized (Beckham training, doctor explaining science, UGC creator sharing their journey)

• Creative: the actual ad asset (UGC, static, podcast, Reel)

This framework allows them to get meaningful data and insights that they can use to inform their next set of creatives. It helps them scale to 1,000+ ad creative volume without losing the quality.

A winning angle can then be repurposed into new statics, UGC, whitelist ads, founder-led ads, expert-led ads, and us vs them/comparisons without rebuilding the strategy from scratch.

NB: IM8 runs four separate Meta ad accounts to spread the load of running high volumes of creatives.

2) Selling longevity, performance, status, and trust. Not pills.

Most brands pick one message and run it into the ground. Or they try to create more variations but don’t have structured data around it that tells them it’s a winner. And the creative still flops later anyway.

IM8 took one product and built four separate pillars around it, giving people four core reasons to buy from their brand.

Longevity - sells a future state, not the solution
There aren’t cheap anti-aging claims. Every claim is based on support, optimise and slow down. Something people can logically give a silent yes to. They anchor it in science that most brands can’t touch credibly (or well). Some sound bites from their ads, I’ve noticed 12 biological hallmarks of aging, advisors from Mayo Clinic, NASA, and Cedars-Sinai. The promise isn't transformation. It's "feel this good in ten years."

Performance - They turn the product into a habit, not a transaction.
The whole pitch is centred around ‘one scoop in the morning’. People are more likely to quit products but not routines, so they help them see and build it.

The battle moves away from the first order to surviving the first 90 days (which is awesome for their AOV and CAC: LTV ratio).

Status - They stack proof instead of making claims
They use David Beckham to get the reach and attention, but when you go through their funnel (MOF/BOF stages), the doctors actually get people to buy. Every ad layer has a celebrity/influencer endorsement (TOF), advisory board credentials (MOF) and clinical framing/certifications (BOF). No single trust signal carries the weight on its own. And, I think that’s why it resonates with the market well. They don’t just rely on Becks.

Trust - They use AG1 (Leading greens powder) as a ladder
They run direct comparisons against AG1 on their own site. The conclusions drawn are subjective, but some things that spring to mind with this ‘Us vs Them’ approach are:

• Red vs green blend

• Longevity vs greens

• Science-heavy vs lifestyle

They’re going head-to-head with the category leader and standing on its shoulders to position themselves as a massive upgrade. It becomes a no-brainer when science credibility and numbers are positioned so well. The unforgiving reality in this pillar is that AG1 spent years educating the market, and IM8 is cashing in its potential.

3) Hooks designed for persona self-selection so their messaging can do the targeting

Meta's ad-set targeting is blunt. Broad audiences mean your ad reaches the right person, but it doesn't tell them it's for them. IM8 solves that in the creative itself.

IM8 targets specific personas in the first second of the visual hierarchy. They call out:

• "Busy mom with two kids"

• "Buyer with ADHD"

• "51-year-old going through perimenopause"

• "Athlete recovering from training"

• "Senior on the verge of losing energy"

The hook mechanics are simple. The first frame shows the persona. "This is for me" or "This isn't for me." Their messaging is their targeting; they don't need Meta's ad-set targeting to do the work.

This is why they can run 1,000+ ads without audience fatigue. Each ad speaks to one person with one problem, so the same product gets endless creative angles

Hook pattern examples: 

• "Busy mom with two kids? You're getting 5 minutes of energy back."

• "Buyer with ADHD? You struggle with focus, energy, and brain fog."

• "51-year-old going through perimenopause? You're on the verge of losing energy."

• "Athlete recovering from training? You need real recovery + energy."

• "Senior on the verge of losing energy? You're tired of feeling tired."

WRAP-UP

The thing that stuck with me most from this breakdown: IM8 didn't win because of Beckham. They won because every ad knew exactly who it was talking to before the first second was over. The persona does the targeting, the pillars do the selling, and the system does the scaling.

Most brands have the opposite problem. Good product, decent budget, but the creative speaks to everyone and lands with no one.

Appreciate you reading! Flick me an email if you want me to send over the links to their ad library and assets that I gathered in the research. Happy to share.

Talk Soon, Dev 🤙

P.S. If you've read this far and you're wondering where your own creative sits, we can have a look. I'm doing 2 free creative audits this month. I'll go through your account and creative, show you what's working, what's fatiguing, and where the gaps are, then give you a roadmap of what I'd test next. Grab a spot here.

Hi team 👋

My background is in performance marketing, so it’s easy to get stuck optimising dashboards and miss plays that don’t look like “best practice.”

Bloom used performance media in a very different way. The more I dug into their story, the clearer it became that the real game wasn’t ROAS tweaks, it was using ads to build trust and sell credibility long before they pushed product.

Here’s the TL;DR of what I’ll cover today:

• How Bloom used paid media to grow a person first and a product second

• Why meme pages and cheeseburger content became their sneaky top-of-funnel unlock

• How they turned creator content into trust, then redirected that attention into Amazon, DTC launches, and retail sell-through

-Dev

SPONSORED BY:
Osqa.

THE BRIEF
Using ads to push the human, not an unfamiliar PDP.

Bloom used performance marketing to build up their co-founder’s personal brand rather than pushing their product.

They used Meta ads and meme pages to grow their fitness creator, then retargeted that audience into Bloom’s SKUs and Amazon, rather than sending traffic straight to the PDP. The focus was on a higher conversion rate; the only way to get that is through trust. So, they:

1. Leveraged their founder’s personal brand

2. Piggy backed off Amazon’s credibility

Just by executing this strategy, they were able to climb to the #1 spot across the health and household category, eventually hitting a peak of $1m/ day!

Here’s the breakdown of this playbook 👇

THE PLAYBOOK
How to turn cold traffic into warm fans

1. Ads that sell the creator

Treated their creator content as the conversion asset by building trust and helping people. The products (digital guides, niche preworkout, booty bands) came next when there was a good level of trust built. They essentially used performance marketing to make sure the algorithm was reaching new people while at the same time attracting the right customers organically.

2. Leveraging cheaper CPMs at top of funnel

They experimented with meme pages, starting with promoting on fitness pages only to realise that the best conversions from these pages came from food and cheeseburger pages 😂 

They were optimising to interrupt scrolling sessions with aspirational content, then pull them into Mari’s world on Instagram/TikTok. This was a massive unlock for their top of funnel because they acquired people for cheaper CPMs on social, then later converted the same, much warmer audience for much lower into their community or via retargeting. Eventually, converting them into customers.

If you want to see what this looks like in the wild, check out these Bloom posts that run on pure food appeal first, product second:

@lovintheday

Bacon cheeseburger eggrolls ❤️ #bloompartner @Bloom Nutrition

@madisonelise

BURGER & @Bloom Nutrition Greens YUM #bloompartner #burger #cheeseburger

3. Owning the demand stack

Ultimately, Bloom used paid media to grow their brand and audience assets in a smart way.

Instead of changing last click ROAS metrics all the time, they prioritised building their creator following, email and sms list. Over time, this owned demand gave them leverage to have the final say on which channels they wanted to deploy their traffic into. They were able to move the needle by deliberately routing attention toward Amazon rankings, new flavour launches, or retail sell‑through targets.

WRAP-UP

Most brands still treat ads as a way to shove cold traffic at unfamiliar product pages and hope the numbers work out.

Bloom flipped that script. They used paid to put a human in front of the algorithm, let creator content do the heavy lifting, and only asked for the sale once trust and familiarity were already there. Instead of tweaking ROAS in a silo, they grew an audience and then pointed that attention, on purpose, toward Amazon rankings, flavour launches, and retail sell-through.

If there is one lesson here, it is this: when you use performance marketing to make people care about the person and the story first, every channel you plug into later performs better.

If you want to go deeper into this playbook and their brand, check out this podcast 👇

Appreciate you reading this again!

—Dev

P.S. I'm also opening up a few spots through OSQA for brands I'd genuinely love to work with. Full month of creative, strategy, angles, hooks, and the actual assets are yours to keep and launch. We're building out case studies right now, and I want to do that with the right brands, not just anyone. If that sounds like it could be you, reply "tell me more," and I'll walk you through the process and show you some of the work we've been enjoying creating lately.

Hi team 👋

Scrappy growth marketing strategies are genuinely hard to come by. Most of what you see is either too polished or too obvious. But every now and then, a brand shows up in your feed, and you just can't help but start digging. That was me with Comfrt. If I were starting over in e-commerce, building an apparel or lifestyle brand from scratch, this is the playbook I'd bet on.

-Dev

SPONSORED BY:
Osqa.

THE BRIEF
High-volume UGC engine

Most brands “do UGC” by commissioning a few pretty videos, then complaining that creative is the bottleneck.

Comfrt went the other way.

Instead of chasing perfect ads, Hudson built a machine that spits out more clips than most brands produce in a quarter, and then used that volume to push revenue.

They turned creators into a high-volume clip factory. These clips now power Comfrt’s customer acquisition, testing, and product roadmaps.

Here’s the breakdown of this playbook 👇

THE PLAYBOOK
How the high-volume UGC engine really works

1. How Comfrt turned creators into a clip factory

The founders’ early playbook was strangely simple: find anyone with reach, get them on the phone and convince them to try the product and post about it.

Over time, Hudson built a roster of creators and superfans who showed up every week to make content because they actually believed in the product and were part of the “team”.

The brief was clear:

• Multiple short-form clips per week instead of single assets every quarter.

• Creators were given a theme to focus on (comfort, mental health, affordability). They still had freedom to speak in their own voice.

The outcome was a workstream of always-on content instead of sporadic, over-produced campaigns that nobody really believes.

2. Incentives that make volume inevitable

Instead of paying flat fees per post, Comfrt leans into performance and influencing behaviour through challenges. If creators ship volume, they unlock guaranteed minimums, performance bonuses and meaningful upside when something takes off.

On Instagram, you can already see UGC creators weaving Comfrt into their regular content—like reels tagged #comfrt and #comfrtclothing where the hoodie shows up in travel or lifestyle posts, not staged ads.

The goal is to push creators from a “this might work” stage to “this can replace my job”. It makes creators feel more like partners than vendors, and that shows up in both the energy and authenticity of the content.

3. Let UGC drive what you sell next

Comfrt isn't guessing what their customers want. Instead, they're going straight to the source; comments, DMs, and dashboards do the talking.

When a new product or angle starts getting more content saves, more “where can I get this?” comments, and faster sell-through, that’s a strong signal to lean in.

On a recent podcast, Hudson talked about how a "side" cozy product can creep up and steal the spotlight from the original hero SKU entirely. They're not pushing products on people. They're just following where the market leads them.

This also applies to offers and pricing. Different hooks, bundles and price points are tested directly inside UGC and landing pages. If a particular framing or bundle keeps attracting first-time buyers, it gets promoted, and creators get briefed. This continues to happen in a cycle until the data says otherwise.

WRAP-UP

Most brands are playing a frustrating game of trying to stretch too little content way too far.

A high-volume UGC engine changes all of that. When you build your team, set up the right incentives, and map out a roadmap that's all about creating and learning from hundreds of clips, acquisition stops feeling like such an uphill battle.

You're not sitting around hoping that one magical ad finally hits. Instead, you're stacking up small wins, and over time, those small wins turn into something really big.

If you want to go deeper into this playbook and their brand, check out this podcast

Appreciate you reading this again!

—Dev

P.S. If you've been following along, you already know - Meta's Andromeda update means creative is the targeting now. Everyone's making AI ads. But the brands quietly winning aren't just making more content; they've got the volume and the workflows to back it up. That's exactly what we built Ösqa. Thought you'd want to know.

If it's hitting close to home, come take a look → osqa.digital

Hey legends! 👋

Lately, I’ve been hooked on founders who don’t just market performance; they live it in public.

Today’s issue breaks down how Ross Mackay uses a CEO‑athlete routine, a three‑part catalogue (Core / Race / Recover), and a media‑first flywheel to push Cadence from DTC loyalists into thousands of retail doors, and what you can steal for your own DTC/ecommerce brand.

-Dev

SPONSORED BY:
Roku

How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.

LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.

The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.

Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more.

THE PLAY
The founder who became the acquisition strategy

Most brands and founders are forced to compete on discounts, shallow aesthetics and ad spend.

Ross Mackay (founder of Cadence) has taken a more authentic approach by building himself as the ‘CEO-athelete-esk’ avatar by building and training in public. His content focuses on showing his training, business decisions and thinking at a high level. Cadence’s product seamlessly plugs across this ecosystem.

Candence shows how their product system fits into the everyday lifestyle. And, when you look at their numbers, there’s no doubt this playbook works. When Cadence launched the ‘Core 40 bar’, it sold out within a week. The audience was already there and understood how it fits into their day through Ross’s content. They just needed to buy it.

Here’s a three-part breakdown of their founder-led acquisition playbook 👇

THE DEEP DIVE
How Cadence turned a founder into a distribution channel

1. Making your catalogue seamlessly fit into your content

Candence sells a three-part performance system: Core, Race and Recovery - all key areas for supporting high-performing individuals to win their day. Each SKU ties to a clear use case and fits into a specific part of the day. For example, Core for morning meetings, Race for workouts and Recover for evenings to bounce back.

Ross’s content maps the system to show the full stack in his real routine, which not only builds awareness and relevance but also naturally promotes a higher AOV purchase plug without selling.

This is what an example content matrix can look like based on how he rolls:

2. Show proof through real content

You can’t fake a real transformation. People don’t have time to dissect information and make decisions. Brand trust is on a downward trajectory, but if you have that it will be your biggest asset when it comes to selling online.

Ross embodies the CEO-athlete transformation on camera. He captures dawn training sessions, strategy meetings, and family recovery with Cadence, fueling every phase.

How he does it:

• Recurring vlogs show exactly when, what and why each product is used in his real routine

• Long-form YouTube builds deep trust, then gets clipped into short-form to pull in new audiences with fresh hooks

The brand becomes the common thread, not the focus, but is always present.

The consistency sticks with people.

3. Build like a media company

Candence is clear on what the brand stands for. They position themselves as the performance supplement system for ambitious operators through visuals, copy and community. Ultimately, making their content distribution impactful.

With this clarity in mind, they operate like a media company, making sure the flywheel keeps compounding (often featuring recurring shows, series, and notable characters like George Heaton from Represent).

This is what their content flywheel looks like:

The flywheel doesn't just drive DTC - it's scaled their retail business too:

• Attracting subscription customers who pay 3x more than regular purchases

• Closing in on nearly 5,000 wholesale stores across the country

WRAP-UP

Ross's playbook is inspiring, but the real value is in the tactics:

• A catalogue simple enough to map directly to your customer's day - making it relatable or aspirational.

• A founder consistently showing up as the main character - building familiarity and trust.

• Thinking like a TV show, not a one-off campaign - deepening relationship with the audience.

• Creating a channel mix that builds authority and can be repurposed.

Do that long enough, and every new product deepens the relationship. Acquisition costs drop. Ultimately, that moves the entire business, not just marketing metrics.

Thanks for tuning in this week. Let me know how you’re finding this new, more concentrated format? Catch you on the next one!

—Dev

P.S. Something I've been quietly building on the side: I just rebranded and launched OSQA, an AI-powered ad performance creative studio for DTC brands. We work alongside your growth team and media buyers to produce and test creative at the speed your campaigns need. Recently, we took a brand from c.$300 CPA down to $135 within 2-months! We're only taking on 3 more brands right now as we collect more case studies in beta mode. Reply to this email if this is something you’re struggling with - let's talk :)

Hey legends! 👋

SURI's playbook caught my attention because they mine customer reviews for creative, stress-test hooks before scaling spend, and let the data pick winners. That's the real AI leverage, not flashy video generation, but turning your existing customer voice into a conversion machine.

Enjoy the strategy deep dive. Hope you get something out of it!

-Dev

THE PLAY
Using AI to power creative testing and scale

For decades, the toothbrush market has been a "clinical duopoly" where two major brands hold 75% of the market.

SURI saw a gap in an antiquated category. They noticed customers wanted fewer gimmicks and a product that wasn’t perfect but an improvement on the options they had. Instead of spending millions on traditional commercials (prominent in this category), SURI took an AI-first approach.

They used AI to test hundreds of creative variations to find out exactly what makes a modern shopper stop scrolling. Using an AI-driven creative engine and optimized their website for “agentic discovery” across LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini, they were able to drive up their customer acquisition.

They ended up selling over 5,000 units in their first week and now have over 500,000 active subscribers, proving that any boring hardware product can be scaled when performance marketing is powered by machine learning.

THE DEEP DIVE
Review AI → Scrappy Hooks → Meta Scale

1. High velocity ‘scrappy’ ads using AI generated better results

SURI uses a custom GPT on 15,000+ Trustpilot reviews to extract "love" phrases and pain points (gunk, batteries), fueling dozens of 3-second hook variations weekly.

This level of speed in their testing showed them that scrappy UGC beats polished ads, moving them away from big budgets and adopting a leaner approach that let’s them produce 10 ads in 4 hours from existing assets.

This shift was huge for them because it allowed them to constantly iterate on winning angles (e.g. us vs them angle, waste narrative angles proved the most effective).

Here’s their 3-step lean AI ad creation framework:

1. Download existing UGC footage, product b-roll and customer testimonial clips.

2. Use simple, easy-to-use editing software to create new hooks

3. Test 3-second hook variations (different creator faces, opening pain lines like “gunk disgust” vs “battery fail”)

2. Combining customer voice with AI to uncover angles

SURI built a custom gpt and fed it over 15,000+ verified customer reviews to fgure out the specific words that drove conversion.

Source: Trust Pilot

This helped them find the most frequently used words, one of them being “love” an insight allowing them to pivot their marketing from clinical specs to “brand advocacy”. By knowing users “love” their product and share a strong sentiment, they were likely to naturally gift it to a family or friend.

Another way they used their customGPT was to analyse initial surveys that showed a universal hatred for “sink gunk”. Naturally, this led them to create different variations of ads that promoted their magnetic mirror mount. A visual cue that showed how SURI tackles this pain point.

3. Meta scaling and LTV optimisation

While media buyers are complicating the Meta ‘setup’, SURI knows what works for them. They opt for a lean and consolidated structure that allows them to optimise for creative signal and lifetime value.

This is how they do this:

1. Run 1-2 broad prospecting campaigns with 1 retargeting ABO campaign. They avoid CBO campaigns or micro-audiences to force the pixel to learn purely from the best creative signal interactions.

2. Optimise exclusively for purchasers and subscribers, forcing Meta to value high LTV signals over cheap traffic.

3. They only launch new campaigns when something major changes, like a new offer, price or expanding into new countries. This keeps Meta’s algorithm learning from high-quality data across the entire ad account/ongoing campaigns.

4. They don’t rotate creatives to “stay fresh” and only tweak with text overlays and hooks when performance (MER + ROAS ) drops. One of their hero video ads has been running for 266 days due to evergreen, authentic scroll-stopping power.

Thanks for tuning in this week. Let me know how you’re finding this new, more concentrated format? Catch you on the next one!

-Dev

When it makes sense for you, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. 1:1 Growth Consulting - if you need help with dialling in your ads, performance, creative and conversion strategy. Jump on the waitlist here.

2. Free Resources and community - I'm slowly building this out so it becomes a hub of useful tools and a way to connect with other ecom entrepreneurs and marketers.

3. Partnership - if you want to advertise your brand in the newsletter. You can express your interest here.

Hey legends! 👋

Most of the brands I work with don’t actually have a scaling problem. They have a creative output problem. We’ll optimise campaigns and bids all day, but if there are only a handful of new ads each month, nothing really changes.

Lately I’ve been pushing every client to ship more creative, faster, and let data decide (with a clear strategy ofcourse!). Studying how Ridge Wallet scales just reinforced it. They lean into the algorithm and outproduce everyone.

Hope you enjoy this teardown.

-Dev

THE GAMEPLAY
Once you fix creative velocity, you unlock scale.

Most brands only think about creative when performance drops. They panic, then suddenly decide to “invest in new ads” as a reaction.

I’ve noticed successful brands are doing the opposite and getting ahead by always testing. Ridge has a solid framework for this.

Ridge spends $100k+ daily on Meta alone, and has built a systematic testing framework that launches hundreds of ads weekly and kills underperformers within 48-hours. They run a creative production strategy like a well oiled conveyer belt where every ad is a hypothesis to validate or to remove from the workflow.

If there was one thing to take away from today’s newsletter is that creative velocity is the primary scaling constraint for Ridge. They solved for that and have been able to scale beyond nine figures in annual revenue, entirely bootstrapped without any outside funding!

THE DEEP DIVE
Ridge's Creative Volume System Tear Down

1. The volume math and where to find budget

Ridge calculates that winning ads cap out at a certain spend limit before fatiguing. At their scale ($100k/day), it means they need a winner daily. The ratio matters more than the absolute number, so roughly 1:50 ads become winners.

At smaller spend levels, ad fatigue is still real. Your best-performing ad won’t last forever; the algorithm exhausts the audience that responds to it. Without fresh creativity, performance declines and CPMs rise.

Scale the math to your level. If you're spending $3K/month on Meta and ads fatigue after $500-1K in spend, you need 3-6 winners monthly. At 1-in-20 odds (more realistic at lower spend), that's 60-120 ad variations per month—or roughly 15-30 per week. Start with 5-10 new variations weekly and increase as you learn what hits.

Testing is inevitable, and brands often struggle with figuring out how to actually fund it, let alone scale. Ridge had the same problem. This is what Ridge does:

• Ran incrementality test, pausing spend in specific regions to measure true lift in new customers.

• When they paused branded search on Google, revenue barely moved for them, meaning customers were already coming. They found the same with Google Shopping. It looks great on the platform, but it often captures intent that already exists rather than creating new demand.

• They took budgets from those channels and reinvested in creating demand.

2. Testing framework that compounds learning

Volume without structure is expensive and will eat into your cash flow quickly. Even if you know Ad 1 beat Ad 2, for example, often people never truly understand why, preventing them from replicating the success of the winner.

Meta’s algorithm now recognises minor variations as the same ad. If you’re running the same concept but with different coloured backgrounds, it considers that as the same ad. Different music on the same video - still the same ad. That’s not true testing, it’s just wasting impressions and ad spend.

To avoid this, Ridge focused on getting their naming conventions right and making sure they follow some diversity rules.

• Conventions - Every ad gets tagged before launch: concept (problem-solution, lifestyle, social proof), hook (first 3 seconds), thumb-stop (opening frame), body (middle section), CTA placement (middle, end, multiple). This lets you slice performance by any element.

• Diversity - different talent (men vs women vs couples), different selling angles (problem-focused vs gift-giving vs lifestyle), different visual styles (polished vs UGC vs product demo), different formats (static vs video vs carousel).

When both systems run together, with high creative volume and strict tagging, Ridge stops guessing and starts learning.

They can see exactly what drives performance because every element is tracked and compared. The patterns become obvious. Hook A beats Hook B by 30% across channels. Mid-video CTAs pull more clicks, while end CTAs convert better. Fifteen-second cuts win on TikTok, and 30-second edits perform stronger on Meta.

Every upload becomes data, not just another ad.

3. The opportunity cost of slow decisions (Kill discipline)

Volume only works if you are 100% on top of your underperformers. Otherwise, average ads will take all your ad spend and budget while you continue waiting for “more data”.

The opportunity cost is not testing something that might exponentially drive your sales forward.

With hundreds of ads launching, Ridge maintains a weekly cadence for new creative launches. They have an aggressive 48-hour kill window to keep the budget flowing toward potential winners.

The math is simple: every dollar spent on a proven loser is a dollar not spent finding your next winner.

Evaluate within 48-72 hours on leading indicators:

• Thumb-stop rate below account average

• 3-second view rate below 25-30%

• CTR is significantly below baseline

• CPC 2x+ higher than proven creative

Kill ads based on engagement signals because chances are, at lower volumes, you won’t get that in time and be left even more confused on what to do next.

THE FRAMEWORK
5-steps to get started this week:

1. Audit branded search this week. Pause for 2 weeks and watch revenue. If it holds, reallocate to creative testing.

2. Build your tagging/naming conventions spreadsheet. Hook type, format, body style, CTA placement. Review monthly for patterns.

3. Find your testing budget. Pause branded search for 2 weeks. If revenue holds, reallocate to creative testing.

4. Build the system before you scale. Tag every ad: hook type, format, body style, CTA placement. Create a 2x2 test matrix - two hooks × two visual styles = 4 genuinely different ads. Review monthly for patterns.

5. Kill weekly, reallocate immediately. Give ads 72 hours and a $50-100 spend. Cut anything with below-average engagement. Move that budget to new tests the same day.

That’s all for today! Thanks for tuning in, and feel free to drop me a note with your thoughts!

-Dev

When it makes sense for you, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Consulting - if you need help with dialling in your ads, performance creative and conversion strategy, I can help! Just reply to this email with ‘GrowthEngine’.

2. Free Resources and community - I'm slowly building this out so it becomes a hub of useful tools and a way to connect with other ecom entrepreneurs and marketers.

3. Partnership - if you want to get your brand or product in front of over 2,000 decision makers - reply to this email.

Hey legends! 👋

This is my first-ever re-run of a brand. This year, I think we’ll see more brands going ALL IN on creators this year, and the smart creators are using AI to scale their operations into full-blown media companies.

Good to be back! Hope you enjoy this breakdown.

-Dev

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THE PLAY
Creator accounts > sponsored posts

People are overloaded in supplement choices to just maintain their health. 50 different pills costing over $100 per day/week = massively confusing.

Traditionally, supplement brands hired celebrities that gained no trust, run fake-looking polished brand ads.

But the playbook is changing, and AG1 is a great example of the “new way”. This is what they did instead:

• Simplified the message: "Stop juggling 50 pills. One drink covers everything."

• Made ads look like friend recommendations by posting through real creator accounts (not obvious sponsored content)

• Sent people to custom landing pages that matched wherever they came from

A.K.A - Tapped into the power of partnership ads (whitelisting).

THE DEEP DIVE
Why AG1's ads feel like friend recommendations

1. The mechanics of whitelisting paid ads

The old way was to pay an influencer with a decent following to simply post on their social feeds.

AG1’s approach is to secure permission to run paid ads through the creator’s own social media handle, effectively bypassing the psychological “ad wall” that people have built against corporate brands.

This helps them:

• Reach new audiences

• Get cold buyers since there is a layer of approval from the influencer

• Focus on distribution rather than spending on creating new creatives in-house

When a user sees a recommendation from key influencers like Andrew Huberman or Tim Ferris, instead of just using the @drinkag1 handle. This creates an immediate sense of organic trust.

AG1’s performance team likely creates “dark posts”. These are ads that don’t appear on the creator’s organic grid but are served to targeted audiences using the creator’s identity. A super easy way to get buy-in from the creators as they maintain their brand image and authenticity.

2. Narrative driven creative testing still applies

Judging by the volume of ads, they have a playbook they follow. The playbook is built around relentless iteration of ad creatives across different formats, including partnership ads.

Their creative strategy is built around Hooks because the first three seconds of a video determine its ultimate ROI. When you zoom in on their ads, you can see they utilise several hook archetypes like:

• Reverse psychology hook - “Don’t buy this product” helps get attention in a non-salesy way

• Why I quit hook - Creators explain why they abandoned a complex pill regimen in favor of a single scoop of AG1.

• Dramatic demos - showing how the product is built into a morning routine with text overlays that highlight the 60-second health habit.

And to keep ad spend concentrated, they maximise spending only on “winning” assets.

They make sure they have enough variations (5+ creative variations) and are prepared to turn off an underperforming ad within 48 hours.

3. Traffic goes to Creator themed landing pages

AG1 avoids the common mistake of sending high-intent traffic from a specific creator to a generic home or product page.

Instead, they build creator-themed landing pages. 

When someone tunes into Tim Ferris’ or Andrew Huberman’s podcast and clicks a link, they land on a page that features the creator’s image, their specific endorsement message and the unique offer that they mention in their content.

Message matching reduces the cognitive load on the buyer, maintaining the consistency of the ad throughout the journey.

To really stack these personalised landing pages, AG1 adds the following trust signals:

• Social proofing - filtered reviews to make sure it’s super relevant.

• Interactive quizzes - a sneaky secondary CTA that captures emails and typically offers personalised results, driving up user interaction.

• Price framing - they are really good at making their premium price point feel accessible (“less than $3 per day”)

Another way to look at the quote: A product's real value is in solving customer problems, not just its features. AG1 thrived by offering a quick, simple way for customers to manage their health, rather than just selling "greens."

THE FRAMEWORK
The simple growth playbook

Step 1: Partner with the Right Creators

• Find creators who already love and use your product

• Don't just pay them for one post; get ongoing access to posts from their accounts

• This builds way more trust than traditional ads

Step 2: Test Your Ads Fast and Cheap

• Make simple, rough videos (not polished ads) with attention-grabbing first 3 seconds

• Post them through your creator partners' accounts (so their followers see them)

• If an ad doesn't work within 2 days, kill it and try something new

Step 3: Match Your Landing Pages to Where People Come From

• Send podcast listeners to a different page than Instagram followers

• Make each page speak their language and match what they just heard/saw

• Break down your price into a daily cost (like "$3/day") instead of the full monthly price, and it feels way more affordable

That’s all for today! Thanks for tuning in, and feel free to drop me a note with your thoughts!

-Dev

When it makes sense for you, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. 1:1 Growth Consulting - if you need help with dialling in your ads, performance creative and conversion strategy, I can help! Just reply to this email and lets chat.

2. Free Resources and community - I'm slowly building this out so it becomes a hub of useful tools and a way to connect with other ecom entrepreneurs and marketers.

3. Partnership - if you want to get your brand or product in front of founders and marketing leaders send me an email.

Hi team 👋

Today, we’re diving into how a collagen supplement brand quietly built a $40M+ business by doing the opposite of what every conversion “expert” preaches. Most DTC supplement brands stuff their pages with countdown timers, urgency popups and “Sarah from Miami just bought” notifications.

Obvi went the other way by building trust and a community people actually believe in.

In five years, they’ve achieved:

• $40M+ revenue 

• 500k+ authentic social followers

• 50%+ repeat purchase rate

• Features in major publications without paying for PR

In today’s edition, I’ll be covering:

• Obvi’s Meta ads system and how creative became their best targeting

• The Google capture strategy that turned searchers into buyers

• A conversion framework of segmented pages, trust stacking, and a testing framework that cut CPA by 55%

The Origin Story

Obvi was founded in 2019 by Ronak Shah, Ashvin Melwani, and Ankit Patel, three marketers who had already spent years running performance campaigns for other supplement companies. They saw an opening in the crowded collagen space: most brands looked clinical and unapproachable, while younger consumers wanted something fun and flavorful.

Starting with just $10k, they launched candy-inspired collagen powders and put nearly all of their early budget into paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. By leaning into this performance-first approach to paid media and conversion optimization, Obvi scaled from zero to $20M in two years and eventually surpassed $40M in revenue.

Your Invitation to Join Assembly

👀 Quick plug: I just launched a free community called Assembly. It’s still rough around the edges (ugly, even), but I’m loading it with AI powered resources and the exact full-funnel (flywheel) playbooks I’ve built from running $27M+ in ad spend while working with 100+ DTC brands.

The goal is simple: give founders and marketers the tools to scale profitably in-house without burning money on bloated agencies or isolated courses.

Anyways, you can hop in free below:

The Playbook Breakdown

ACQUISITION ENGINE
The Great Meta Reset

Obvi had partnered with a big influencer. The campaign worked, sales spiked, and people talked. But Meta’s algorithm went haywire.

Instead of targeting Obvi’s ideal customers, it started to mimic the influencer’s audience profile (which overlapped but diverged in important ways).

And even after the campaign ended, the algorithm still kept targeting and putting people into the wrong audience pool.

That’s what people in ad ops call pixel poisoning, when bad data or misaligned signals contaminate your account so deeply that the algorithm goes off course.

After this, they had to rebuild trust with Meta and clean up their pixel. They didn’t just tweak a setting; they re-engineered their ad account structure, pixel hygiene, and creative strategy.

Here’s how they tactically approached this:

1. Cleaned up the Pixel & Restarted the Signal Path

You can't fix anything if you're feeding Meta garbage data.

Instead of throwing more money at a faulty system, Obvi worked with Upstack to strip out all the noise. They removed unnecessary information and only sent clear, high-quality signals back to Meta.

Think of it like detoxing your account. Without it, every audience test and creative experiment would be tainted from the start.

2. Introduced High-Quality Audiences to Help Meta

Once their pixel was healthy again, Obvi brought in Proxima's AI Audiences to guide (not replace) Meta's algorithm.

The tactical execution:

• Built 7 distinct AI Audiences seeded with traits of their highest-LTV customers

• Watched performance over about 2 weeks, killed non-performers, consolidated winners

• Eventually 57% of their total Meta ad spend was flowing into these AI Audiences (not broad Advantage+ campaigns)

This helped them scale Meta spend 2.3x while lowering New Customer CPA by 12% and increasing NC-ROAS (new customer return on ad spend) by roughly 7.5% 🤯 

Instead of asking Meta to "find my customers from scratch," Obvi was now handing it better targeting data to work with.

3.They Used Creative as the Gatekeeper

With cleaner signals and smarter audiences locked in, Obvi ran creative like a filter. Ads had to earn the click.

They ditched broad, generic messaging and went hyper-niche. Instead of "Try our collagen supplement," they created ads that spoke directly to specific problems:

• "Noticing hair thinning?" → This specific flavor targets that…

• "Struggling with joint pain?" → Here's the collagen stack that helps…

• "Gut issues keeping you up?" → This blend is formulated for digestion…

Their ads became self-selecting. Only people with genuine intent clicked through, which fed Meta even better conversion signals, which improved targeting further.

They also brought on a creative analytics tool that highlights which hooks and assets actually cut through. Obvi shipped 4x more winning creatives with better hooks and assets that achieved a better cut through.

ACQUISITION ENGINE
Google: The Underdog They Finally Unleashed

For years, Obvi treated Google Ads like the backup player. Mostly branded search, a handful of category keywords, nothing ambitious. But by early 2024, they hit a wall: Meta alone couldn't sustain the growth they needed.

Google had to become a profit center, not just a safety net.

In the supplement space, keywords are brutally expensive. And Google's automation loves to broaden targeting aggressively, which can torch your budget in days.

Instead of letting "smart" campaigns run wild, Obvi took full control with intent-matching landing pages.

Branded Terms → Product Detail Pages
Searches for “Obvi collagen” or “Obvi protein” go straight to the product pages — not the homepage. Why this works: traffic already has brand intent, so you remove friction and maximize conversion.

Non-Branded → Advertorial-Style Pages
Search terms like “collagen for skin” or “best collagen powder” hit advertorial-style pages first, educational content, comparisons, benefits, and then product. This warms up interest and softens objections before showing product offers.

Long-Tail Keywords > Broad Bets
Instead of bidding on high-cost, generic keywords, Obvi goes after long-tail, intent-rich phrases. Reliance on keywords like “collagen” is replaced with high-intent queries like “collagen for nails”, “collagen bloating relief”, or “best collagen for women over 40”. Long-tail keywords tend to have higher conversion rates and lower CPCs due to less competition. An approach that lets them spend more efficiently and capture searches others ignore.

Meta Creatives Now Repurposed on YouTube for TOF Demand
The same video ads that proved strong on Meta are repurposed as YouTube pre-roll/in-feed creatives to drive top-of-funnel awareness. This ensures consistent messaging across platforms and captures users earlier in their journey before they Google.

It’s clear Google became a profitable engine once Obvi layered it with Meta campaigns. And when Obvi made products available on Amazon, it delivered an additional 10–20% incremental revenue. 

CALIBRATING CONVERSION & MULTIPLYING PROFIT
Landing Pages, Testing, & Trust

When Meta CPAs climbed, Obvi rebuilt the on-site experience so every click led to a page that matched the ad promise and maximized conversion. Here are four key things they focused on:

Quiz Style Flows
Obvi replaced static PDPs with quiz-style flows. Instead of one collagen page, they built funnels for hair + nails, gut health, and weight management. Each repeated the ad headline, showed UGC, and drove to a single high-contrast CTA. This tighter message match helped cut CPA by more than 50 per cent.

Obvi integrated their quiz into multiple channels to maximise visibility and engagement.

Trust Signals Everywhere
Pages stacked credibility with 7,000+ reviews, screenshots from their 100k+ Facebook group, before and after photos, transparent ingredients, and a clear 60-day guarantee. Keeping mixed reviews visible improved confidence and reduced returns, which helped push repeat purchase rates above 50 per cent!

Aggressive Testing
Obvi treated landing pages like ads, running A/B tests on headlines, layouts, proof placement, and subscription prompts. They quickly cut losing variants and doubled down on winners.

Moving social proof higher on the page lifted checkout clicks, while quizzes pre-segmented visitors and increased time on site. These optimizations lowered CPA by 55 to 57 per cent.

Smarter Subscriptions
Obvi defaults to one-time purchases, then offers a subscription at checkout or via post-purchase email. Perks include:

• Free shipping

• Bonus gifts

• VIP group access.

By framing subscription as a benefit instead of a lock-in, Obvi lifted retention, which allowed them to bid more aggressively on Meta and Google while staying profitable.

The Application

1. Clean Your Signals
Audit your pixel/event setup. Cut noisy or duplicate events. Only feed Meta and Google high-quality conversions so their algorithms know exactly who to find.

2. Seed Platforms With Your Best Data
Upload first-party lists, segment by LTV, create lookalikes or AI audiences. Treat each segment as its own micro-market and feed it matching creatives.

3. Creative as Targeting
Run multiple ad angles tied to specific pain points. Map each ad to a matching landing page (hair health ad → hair page; gut health ad → gut page). Use creative analytics tools to spot winners fast.

4. Capture Spillover With Google
Split branded vs non-branded campaigns. Bid on competitor/category terms. Optimize Shopping feeds with lifestyle images, keyword-rich titles, and review badges.

5. Dedicated Landing Experiences
Lead with buyer intent and personalise. Repeat the ad’s headline on the landing page. Stack social proof near the CTA. Strip distractions. Test layouts and copy weekly, not quarterly.

6. Smart Subscription Offer
Default to a one-time purchase first. Offer perks beyond discounts (free shipping, gifts, VIP group) at checkout or post-purchase to boost retention.

7. Track the Right Metrics
Measure new customer CPA, NC-ROAS and LTV at 3–6 months. Feed insights back into creative, targeting, and offers.

8. Layer Retention & Winbacks
Post-purchase upsells and physical winback mailers turn one-time buyers into long-term advocates.

WRAP UP

The Bottom Line

Think of your funnel as a flywheel. Clean data + smart targeting + creative filters + channel diversification + retention systems = sustainable growth.

— Dev

PS. I’ve finally just launched a community to connect with founders and marketers across ecom. Super ugly at the moment, but the resources in there are invaluable. Join my free community called Assembly to connect with other brand owners/marketers, get new playbooks, ad platform updates, templates and live trainings built for scaling.

Hey team, welcome back 👋

Today, we're diving into how a greens gummy brand completely reimagined supplement marketing and built a $500M empire in under two years.

Most DTC supplement brands throw money at Facebook ads and hope something sticks. Grüns took a different approach. They built a systematic approach that turned daily nutrition into something people actually crave.

In today’s breakdown, I’ll be covering their:

• Experience-first product positioning

• Multi-channel acquisition strategy

• Persona-driven conversion funnels

The Origin Story

Grüns started in 2023 when founder Chad Janis noticed something missing in the supplement world. Despite being a massive category, most nutrition brands were either high-end powders marketed to elite athletes or bland multivitamins for the mass market, leaving everyday health-conscious consumers with products they hated taking and quickly abandoned.

Janis, frustrated with his own chalky green powder routine, began experimenting with a simple question: what if you could get the same nutrition in a gummy you actually looked forward to? He started testing early prototypes with friends and fitness enthusiasts, gathering immediate feedback: finally, a product that solved the compliance problem and fit seamlessly into their day.

What started as a personal frustration and informal taste tests became the foundation for a completely different approach to building a supplement brand. One that combined clinical credibility with a format people genuinely enjoy, and marketing that speaks directly to their daily struggles instead of just listing ingredients.

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The Playbook

MARKET RESONANCE
Messaging That Actually Resonates

Grüns cracked the code with one simple insight: stop making supplements feel like medicine. Their positioning is bulletproof: "the first supplement you actually want to take" with a fun, tasty, and inconvenience-free experience.

While competitors fight over ingredient lists, Grüns fights on experience.

No mixing powders at 6 AM. No choking down horse pills. No cleanup.

Their packaging and copy hammer home the convenience factor: no mixing, no mess, no excuses. Just grab and go.

Consumer feedback consistently mentions being "shocked" that Grüns actually tastes as promised. That surprise factor fuels organic word-of-mouth better than any paid campaign.

When your product exceeds expectations on the most basic level, everything else becomes easier to sell. Grüns collected over 20,000 reviews averaging 4.8 stars in just over a year. A massive testament to their system.

The retention signals are everywhere: people bring packs to run clubs and the beach. When customers become your biggest fans who share your product socially, you've officially transcended typical supplement behavior😂.

Visually, their homepage reinforces the same energy. It uses bright colors, fast loading pages, lifestyle photos and testimonials next to benefits. This creates a scroll experience that feels like social media, not a sales page, and encourages people to stay longer.

One clear promise plus one clear action beats endless clutter every single time.

ACQUISITION ENGINE
Advertising Systems Built for Scale

Instead of treating ads as a guessing game, they approach marketing like an ongoing experiment. Their core move is simple but powerful: take a single hero product and run multiple narratives around it, each one designed to match a different customer avatar and pain point. This playbook blends rapid creative testing, diversified channels, and data-backed scaling to systematically find and grow winning angles.

Six Core Ad Angles

Grüns’ CMO Connor Dalt is clear about how the brand scales: consistency first, clever tactics second. Instead of endlessly tweaking ads in isolation, Grüns builds narrative arcs and rolls them out as coordinated sprints across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google, Amazon and retail stores like Target and Sprouts. This lets them test dozens of creative angles at once, quickly kill what fails, and scale what works.

Here are the six angles they lean on, each addressing a primary consumer problem:

• General nutrition gaps

• Gut health issues

• Weight loss support

• AG1 alternative (competitor polarisation)

• Protein support

• Nutrition support

Some hooks they capture attention with:

• "You have nutrition gaps. Grüns fills them."

• "You have nutrition gaps. Grüns fills them."

• "6 Reasons Why Grüns is a Must-Have on Your Weight Loss Journey"

• "11 Ways Grüns Is Better Than AG1"

• “7 Benefits GLP-1 Users Love About Grüns (Besides the Poops)”

• "5 Reasons Why Your Protein Isn't Working (And how to fix it for $1.50/day)"

By building angles around one avatar at a time, Grüns keeps every ad tightly matched to the landing page experience, so customers feel like the product was built for them.

Diversifying Channels

While they are heavily testing creatives on Meta, they are smart enough not to put all their eggs in one basket. Grüns spreads across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google, Amazon and even retail shelves like Target and Sprouts. This means if one channel slows down or a policy change hits, they are still driving sales from everywhere else.

Data-Driven Scaling

Finally, they have built a strong data backbone. Using Northbeam, they track new customer acquisition cost (nCAC) across all channels. This lets them know which ads are truly bringing in fresh customers and which ones are just retargeting people who would have bought anyway. With that clarity, they scaled ad spend 22× and revenue 40× while actually lowering their acquisition cost.

CALIBRATING CONVERSION
Their Secret Conversion Weapon: Avatar Funnel

One of the biggest drivers behind Grüns’ high conversion and repeat-purchase rates is its avatar funnel strategy. By focusing on one avatar at a time, the brand can resonate faster and connect with people on a deeper level.

Instead of sending everyone to a single, generic landing page, Grüns built multiple versions of its site. Each page is tuned to a specific avatar and pain point. The product stays the same, but the positioning changes depending on who is looking.

Connor Dalt (CMO) explained that Grüns stacks “big bets” instead of chasing hacks. They start with research-driven hooks such as fiber, microbiome, and convenience versus powders. They test these angles fast on Meta. When one starts to work, they spin out dedicated landing pages and light-touch personalization like pop-ups or segmented emails.

Only after an angle proves itself do they invest heavily in creators or large-scale production. This process keeps their speed high while maintaining consistency across ads, landing pages, and retention flows.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Nutrition gaps funnel – broad health-conscious consumers

• Gut health funnel – prebiotic fiber and better digestion (“Better Poops Seriously”)

• Weight loss funnel – calorie efficiency and metabolism support

• AG1 switchers funnel – competitive, side-by-side comparisons (“1000% easier to take every day”)

• GLP-1 medication funnel – nutrient support and digestive relief

• Protein support funnel – gym-goers maximizing protein absorption

Each funnel uses language and proof points that match the avatar. Benefits are reframed to fit that audience, and social proof is tailored with testimonials from people just like them.

The structure stays consistent across every page. Each one has a bold hero banner, a clear benefit stack, trust badges, and one frictionless call-to-action. The result is no confusion about what to do next and a seamless path from ad to purchase to retention.

Grüns also captures emails and SMS based on the avatar, like a Gut Health Guide or Weight Loss Checklist, to keep the relationship going even if someone does not buy right away.

The Application

Ad creatives:
Build multiple angles for each persona; kill losers fast.

Multi-channel expansion: 
Add at least one new channel or marketplace.

Avatar funnel build-out: 
Create 2–3 new landing pages tailored to distinct pain points.

Hero banner CRO: 
Adopt the Grüns layout: bold hook, social proof, trust badges, single CTA.

Subscription push: 
Offer a default subscription with a visible incentive.

Measure nCAC + LTV: 
Track your true cost to acquire and retain a new customer across 90 and 365 days.

WRAP UP

The Bottom Line

Grüns’ explosive growth came from a creative-driven ad system plus persona-specific landing pages. This combo made every ad dollar work harder, removed friction from the customer journey, and maximized retention.

Thanks for tuning in this week! Hope you found this insightful.

— Dev

PS. I’ve finally just launched a community to connect with founders and marketers across ecom. Super ugly at the moment, but the resources in there are invaluable. Join my free community called Assembly to connect with other brand owners/marketers, get new playbooks, ad platform updates, templates and live trainings built for scaling.

Hey legends! 👋

Today, we're breaking down a DTC brand growth case study that completely flips the standard DTC playbook.

Today’s highlights:

• Zero-ad community embedding strategy

• Documentary-style content that generates regular income

• Membership model creating sustainable growth

Quick Context: While most DTC brands are burning cash on Facebook ads, Bandit Running took a different approach. They embedded themselves so deeply in the running community that customers started selling FOR them. Four years later? $14M Series A and one of the most engaged running brands on social media.

Here's exactly how they did it...

The Origin Story

Bandit started in 2020 when co-founders Tim West and Keith Franklin noticed something missing in the running world. Despite being a massive market, most athletic brands either catered to casual fitness enthusiasts or elite sponsored athletes, leaving serious everyday runners without gear that truly understood their needs.

West, a competitive runner himself, began testing prototypes with his Brooklyn Track Club teammates, starting with something as simple as socks. The feedback was immediate: finally, a brand that got the 5 AM training sessions, the obsession with split times, and the mental grind of serious running. What started as informal product testing among friends became the foundation for a completely different approach to building a running brand.

The Playbook

RESONATING WITH CORE CUSTOMERS
The "Zero Ads, All Community" Gamble That Paid Off

Instead of buying his way into the running community, he literally just... ran with them. West was embedded with the Brooklyn Track Club for months, not as a founder but as a genuine community member. He'd show up to group runs, build real friendships, and casually test early prototypes (starting with socks) based on actual feedback.

This worked because runners are skeptical of brands that don't "get it." The community has been burned by lifestyle brands that don't understand 5 AM training sessions or split-time obsessions. By proving authenticity first, Bandit earned the right to sell later.

Zero paid ads in year one, but word-of-mouth was so strong they expanded from socks to a full apparel line and secured that massive funding round.

RETENTION
Content Strategy That Documents Real Stories, Not Products

Bandit’s YouTube series “Dialed” has pulled in over 6,000 subscribers, with people leaving comments like “Just signed up for the membership!” tied directly under each episode. That’s clear, measurable attribution you can’t F with.

What makes it work is that viewers see themselves in the stories. Instead of polished ads, they follow real runners with real struggles. In Season 1, Episode 3, for example, the cameras followed an athlete dealing with injury setbacks just six weeks out from the Olympic Trials. The training frustrations, the doubt, and the eventual comeback all played out on screen. Bandit gear wasn’t pushed front and center. It appeared naturally as part of the journey, like a training partner you’d see at practice.

With trust at an all-time low amongst online consumers. Authenticity is what converts. People don’t feel like they’re being sold to. They feel like they’re being welcomed into a community that understands the grind of early mornings, long miles, and setbacks. The emotional pull of that connection drives more membership signups than any product-focused ad ever could.

RETENTION
The Membership Model That Changed Everything

Bandit transformed their community into predictable recurring revenue. Members get a 10% discount on all purchases, exclusive events and training programs, limited edition member-only drops, and priority race registration and pop-up access.

They positioned membership as joining a community of serious runners, not just getting product discounts. The 10% savings became secondary to belonging. And, the numbers prove it works:

• Members spend 3.2x more annually than one-time customers and refer 2.3 new customers on average.

• Member lifetime value hits $850 versus $120 for regular customers.

YouTube episodes explicitly drive membership signups. Episode endings often feature current members sharing their experience, creating social proof that converts viewers. A perfect trust-building flywheel. This works because one-time customers cost $50+ to acquire through traditional channels and might purchase twice yearly. Members participate every month, share their opinions to help improve products, and naturally promote them to others.

This creates what I call "compounding community growth." Competitors can copy individual tactics, but they can't replicate years of authentic relationship building.

Sidenote: This reminds me of Peloton's playbook, selling community and identity, not just equipment. The recurring revenue supports inventory planning, content production, and community events in a super sleek virtuous cycle.

The Application

Community Embedding Strategy 

Map 3-5 communities where your customers gather.
Spend 90 days contributing value without mentioning your product once.
The insights you gain will become your product roadmap.

Documentary Content Approach 

Pick 3 customers and follow their journey for 30-60 days.
Document their real challenges, wins, and emotional moments.
Those authentic stories will outperform your sales copy.

Membership-Driven Revenue 

Map your most engaged customers' behavior patterns.
Ask where you can insert a membership layer that provides ongoing value beyond discounts? Test with your top 50 customers first.

Metrics to Track

Community engagement rates (not just social media followers), member versus non-member lifetime value, referral rates, organic acquisition percentage, and content-driven conversion attribution.

WRAP UP

The Bottom Line

Bandit proved that lasting growth comes from strong foundations, not quick hacks. Too many brands burn cash on ads without fixing positioning, offers, or retention.

-Dev

P.S. If you’re running a DTC brand and want to scale to your next milestone with simple acquisition systems, stronger offers, and retention that compounds, you should join the first iteration of my 1-1 mentorship called GrowthEngine™ Beta. It’ll be the most impactful investment you make this year by far.

Simply reply “engine” if you want one of the 7 invitations to join my case study cohort for 1/10th of what I will launch for.

Hey legends! 👋

Today, we're dissecting Magic Mind's brilliant podcast advertising strategy that's completely redefining how DTC brands should think about audio marketing.

While most brands are throwing money at Facebook and Google ads, Magic Mind took a different path. They bet big on podcast-generated content (PGC) and long-term sponsorship deals – and it paid off spectacularly. This isn't your typical "buy a 30-second spot" approach.

It's way smarter than that.

The Case Study

Magic Mind started in 2020 with a clear mission: to help busy people unlock their fullest mental potential. Combining 12 powerful, science-backed ingredients like nootropics and adaptogens, the brand created a unique productivity drink designed to boost focus and reduce stress without jitters. What set them apart was their smart marketing — instead of random ads, they built deep, long-term podcast partnerships in wellness and productivity spaces where their ideal customers hang out. Paired with carefully crafted landing pages that convert, Magic Mind quickly built a loyal following and grew from a simple idea into a fast-scaling brand loved by thousands seeking mental clarity and energy.

Today’s highlights:

• Long-term thinking: 6-12 month podcast contracts (not one-offs)

• Authentic integration: Host-driven mentions that don't feel like ads

• Strategic negotiation: Product trials + tiered partnership approach

• Laser-focused targeting: Productivity & wellness podcast audiences

Let's break down exactly how they did it 👇

SPONSORED BY:
Levanta

Top Publishers Hand-Selecting Amazon Brands to Promote this Holiday Season

This holiday season, top publishers are actively sourcing brands to include in their gift guides, newsletters, listicles, reviews, and more to drive high-intent shoppers straight to Amazon storefronts.

Here’s why it matters:

• Amazon brands are seeing a 5:1 conversion rate compared to their DTC site

• Millions of shoppers discover products through trusted publishers

Levanta is working directly with these publishers to introduce them to a small number of 7–9 figure brands.

If you qualify, your products could be featured in high-traffic placements that deliver predictable CAC and directly measurable sales.

See if your brand qualifies

WHAT THEY FIGURED OUT
Podcast-Generated Content with Long-Term Vision

Magic Mind figured out that podcasts aren’t just another ad channel, they’re trust-building machines. Their core strategy revolves around securing 6-12 month sponsorship deals with podcasts whose audiences align perfectly with their "drinkable productivity tool" positioning.

Unlike banner ads or social media posts that get scrolled past in seconds, podcast listeners are captive audiences. 

They're actively engaged, often multitasking or commuting, which means they're actually listening to your message. When you strip away the noise in marketing today, this is the highest value impact your campaign is trying to make.

ACQUISITION
Magic Mind’s Three-Pillar Approach

1. Choosing and Partnering with the Right Podcasts

The Approach: Magic Mind doesn't spray and pray. They methodically target podcasts in the productivity, wellness, and biohacking niches – places where their ideal customers are already hanging out.

Real Example: By working with experts in areas like functional medicine, wellness, biohacking, and productivity. They regularly talk about these topics and invite knowledgeable guests; they connect with listeners who care about these subjects. This helps them build trust and a strong relationship with their audience over time.

The Contract Game: Instead of one-off sponsorships, they push for 6-12 month deals. Why? Because they understand that it takes multiple exposures for listeners to convert. One mention might create awareness, but month three is where the magic happens.

2. Gentle Product Placement (The Anti-Ad Approach )

The Genius Move: Magic Mind's ads don't feel like ads. Instead of interrupting the flow with jarring commercial breaks, hosts weave product mentions naturally into conversations about focus, stress reduction, and mental performance.

Case in Point: On their own "Magic Minds" podcast, founder James Beshara discusses productivity topics while subtly reinforcing the product's value proposition. It's educational content that happens to feature their brand – not the other way around.

Why It Works: Listeners trust their favorite hosts. When a podcaster authentically shares how Magic Mind helps their morning routine, it carries 10x more weight than a traditional ad read.

3. Improving Your Sales Funnel

The Strategy: Magic Mind uses podcast-generated content (PGC) as their signature ad format, where product benefits are subtly plugged into a conversation. They simply direct people to different advertorials based on unique customer personas.

Instead of concentrating on specific negotiation techniques, their approach focuses on creating an acquisition funnel that handles objections and leverages consumer psychology.

Conversion Optimization: When listeners respond to podcast calls to action, often including unique discount codes or special URLs, they are directed to persona-specific advertorial landing pages. These pages employ sophisticated conversion tactics such as:

• Social proof (featuring expert testimonials and customer reviews),

• Price anchoring (comparing Magic Mind to coffee-shop drinks or other supplements),

• Risk reversal (highlighting their 100-day money-back guarantee).

The Long Game: This integrated approach - from podcast mention to optimized landing page - creates a seamless experience that increases the chances of someone taking action.

APPLY THIS

Practical Takeaways

Test Long-Term Podcast Partnerships

• Start with 3-month trial contracts instead of one-off sponsorships

• Track brand lift and customer lifetime value, not just direct conversions

• Budget 30% more for extended partnerships vs. short-term placements

Create "Anti-Ad" Content

• Brief hosts on product benefits, not scripted ad reads

• Share your founder story and product development journey

• Let hosts weave your brand naturally into their existing content themes

Build Your Own Content Hub

• Launch a podcast/newsletter in your niche before heavy advertising spend

• Document your expertise journey (like Magic Mind's "Beyond Coffee" book)

• Use your content to establish authority, then leverage it in partnership pitches

Optimize for Podcast-to-Purchase Flow

• Create dedicated landing pages for each podcast partnership

• Include host-specific discount codes to track attribution

• Test different advertorials for different podcast audiences (productivity vs. wellness messaging)

Target Audience Over Reach

• Prioritize 5,000 engaged productivity enthusiasts over 50,000 general listeners

• Research podcast guest profiles and episode topics, not just download numbers

• Look for shows where your product naturally fits the conversation flow

WRAP UP

The Bottom Line

These guys recognized that podcast listeners aren't just consuming content – they're building relationships with hosts. By positioning themselves as a natural extension of those relationships, Magic Mind turned advertising into powerful advocacy.

In a world of ad blockers and banner blindness, the brands that win are the ones that earn their way into conversations rather than buying their way in. Easier said than done, though, I get it!

Hope you enjoyed this edition. Catch you on the next one!

-Dev

Hey legends!

Ever wonder how some brands seem to just get it when it comes to customer acquisition? They’re not just throwing money at ads; they’re building deep connections and converting browsers into loyal fans.

Today, I'm drilling down into Magic Spoon, the DTC cereal brand that’s completely reshaped a sleepy industry.

Their approach to performance marketing isn't just about selling cereal; it’s about creating a cult following and building a brand that defies traditional FMCG norms.

This is what I'm covering in today's edition:

• Unpacking Magic Spoon’s savvy Podcast ads strategy for high-intent audiences

• How they leverage Google Ads to capture demand and dominate search

• The secrets behind their email list building that turns curiosity into conversions

• Optimizing the post-purchase flow to drive up AOV and customer lifetime value

The Case Study

I thought Magic Spoon to be a quirky, creative and disruptive brand. They’ve done well by offering high-protein, low-carb, and sugar-free alternatives to childhood favourites.

Since its launch in 2019, they’ve grown rapidly and have reported over $100m in annual sales🤯. They’ve tapped into a nostalgic yet health-conscious consumer base in a very competitive market.

By innovating their product and executing on a clever performance marketing strategy, they’ve balanced out customer acquisition and retention well.

Today, I won’t go into everything they’ve done, but will surface things that I found were worth mentioning that can be easily implemented by other DTC and ecom brands.

Let’s get into it 👇

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PODCAST ADVERTISING
How to Tap Into ‘Trust-First’ Audiences Using Podcasts

Magic Spoon understands that investing in podcasts goes beyond simple brand awareness; it’s a portal to create a deeper connection with their best customers.

Digital marketing is saturated. Competition is insane this year with everyone fighting for the same feed and stories placement, so it’s easy for people to tune out traditional ads.

Podcasts foster a unique level of trust between the host and listeners. Their strategy focuses on paid podcast sponsorships over free influencer seeding for bigger names. They don’t pay influencers to promote their product. From what I’ve read, they instead just send them free cereal boxes.

How they’ve leveraged podcast ads to get new customers:

1. They partner with popular podcasts whose demo aligns perfectly with their target market. For them, they focus on podcasts in the health, wellness, entrepreneurship and lifestyle space.

2. They mainly tap into the host-read ads, which feel less like ads and more like a personal recommendation. They often use special links and codes (like magicspoon.com/TIM) to track how many people buy something because of the podcast.

GOOGLE ADS
How Magic Spoon Captures “Healthy Cereal” Shoppers on Google

While I think brand building generates demand, I’m bullish on capturing ready-to-buy customers via search engines, specifically from Google ads.

Magic Spoon has a robust playbook. And this playbook has them running over 400 ads on Google alone.

They prioritise direct response marketing as the key strategy to meet user intent.

They capture users at the exact moment they are looking to buy the products or solutions that will help them.

If someone is looking for sugar-free cereal or a keto breakfast, Magic Spoon wants to make sure they show up infront of them first.

Their strategy revolves around these 5 core areas:

1) Bidding aggressively on terms related to healthy eating, going into nuances like Keto, Low Carb and targeting direct competitors.

2) A key cross-channel tactic is podcast-attribute search keywords. After running a podcast ad, they bid on keywords combining their brand name + podcast host name (e.g. Magic Spoon Tim Ferriss Discount). This tactic captures people who have heard the ad and are now searching for the brand specifically.

3) Shopping campaigns are optimised in line with best practices.

• Rich product titles - Detailed product titles and descriptions make it easier for customers to find what they're looking for. For instance, instead of just saying "Fruity Cereal," they might say "Magic Spoon Fruity Cereal - High Protein, Low Carb, Keto, Gluten-Free, Zero Sugar." This helps attract people who are specifically searching for these features and makes the product more noticeable compared to regular cereals.

• Group bidding - Considering they have a range of options, they are segmenting their shopping campaigns by flavour, bundle or dietary category to allow for more granular bidding and budget allocation to their highest converting products.

4) For a DTC brand like Magic Spoon, which relies on subscriptions and repeat purchases, Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) is invaluable. They are likely focusing on:

• Abandoned cart recovery - targeting people who didn’t purchase is added to the RSLA audience list. If they later search for anything related to “healthy breakfast”, “cereal subscriptions”, or even general grocery terms, Magic Spoon will pop up.

• Past purchases - Existing customers are super important. You can use RLSA to target anyone who is searching for “new healthy cereal” or “protein breakfast ideas”, they can show their ads for the latest drops or new offers.

• Product page views - Anyone who checked out their product page but didn’t convert is a great target for ads. The best brands typically offer a discount to encourage conversion.

5) Looking through their Google ads, it looks like they’ve structured their ads into core themes: health first, nostalgia, flavour + variety, trust signals and promotions.

6) They are running over 74 video ads, indicating that YouTube is a big part of their performance strategy. Typically, a discovery channel, but for Magic Spoon, they’ve taken the direct response route with the likelihood of trying to tackle discovery & traffic from the very first view.

EMAIL LIST BUILDING
Nurturing the Curious

Acquiring a new customer is just the first step. These guys excel at turning interest into something more long-term.

Magic Spoon actively builds their email list through:

→ Website pop-ups by offering discounts for first-time subscribers
→ Host giveaways like giving away a year’s supply of cereal
→ Have some gated content, like recipe books, that people can access in exchange for giving their email.

Once people are subscribed, they are segmented based on user behaviour.

If you’ve abandoned a cart, recently made a purchase or browsed specific products, you’ll get tailored content and promotions based on your specific touchpoint.

For example, their welcome series introduces the brand story and product benefits, while ongoing campaigns focus on new product launches, seasonal offers, and educational content about healthy eating.

Some insights from their email campaigns:

• They send about 2x emails per week

• 16% of their emails include promotions

• Subject lines are often 39 characters long

• They have 12 separate journeys segmented

INCREASING AOV
Post-Purchase Flow That Increased AOV Immediately

Most brands solely focus on acquisition and forget that there’s huge potential to increase revenue with smart post-purchase flows. Magic Spoon has this dialled in.

They leverage tools like Rebuy’s Smart Cart and create compelling upsell offers. Magic Spoon focuses on:

→ Presenting the customer with an immediate 1-click upsell/cross-sell opportunity for complementary products.

→ Offering larger bundles or a switch to their subscription model

→ Use personalized product recommendations based on the items people buy

→ Offer attractive discounts for subscribing right after a one-time purchase, capitalizing on the buyer's momentum.

Using this flow, Magic Spoon increased their average order value by 14% and got over 18,000 products switched to subscription!

FURTHER READS
Resources

How Magic Spoon Used Influencers to Sell $40 Cereal Boxes

A full breakdown of Magic Spoon's Influencer marketing strategy that made their pricey cereal a breakfast hit.

Companies tracked by MailCharts: View any company's email program

Get a peek at any company's email program, including campaign volume, popular day of week, and ESP used.

How to Build an Email List Quickly: 18 Winning Strategies in 2025

Learn how to build an email list fast from scratch. We're going to break down the best ways to build an email list legally.

Let me know how you found this breakdown below, and thanks for reading!

Talk Soon!
Dev 🤙

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Welcome back 👋

I’ve been looking at brands that do community right, not just for engagement but for real growth.

Blume stood out. They didn’t just launch another skincare brand.

They built around women’s wellness and pulled in 7 figures in their first year, with a c.40% repeat purchase rate.

Here’s a breakdown of how a community-first approach helped them scale fast and sustainably.

The Case Study

Blume sells gentle, eco-friendly skincare, but their real edge is the way they’ve built a community around women’s health and self-care.

Instead of just pushing products, they focused on de-stigmatizing the conversation around wellness and used smart retention and email plays to scale to 7 figures in their first year.

In this edition, I’ll cover:

• How Blume grew fast by turning UGC into a self-care movement

• The quiz funnel that helped them build a high-converting email list

• A 40% repeat purchase rate powered by loyalty, not just discounts

Let’s get into it 👇

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BUILDING TRUST WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS
Authentic and Personalised Content

Breaking through in the saturated wellness space where consumers are skeptical of product claims.

It’s tough to break through in the wellness space. With everyone fighting for attention, consumers have become increasingly skeptical of product claims by DTC wellness brands.

To combat this, Blume priortized UGC and super real content over polished ads to build a genuine relationship with their customers.

Tactically, they focused on these key plays:

• Real Customer Transformations: Showcased authentic before/after stories from actual users

• Direct Testimonials: Featured unfiltered customer voices across all marketing channels

• Conversational copy across their emails and comments across socials

Source

This had a direct impact on their marketing results, helping them achieve:

• 5% conversion rate on website pop-ups (vs. industry standard 3%)

• Higher trust scores in the sensitive wellness category

• Stronger differentiation from conventional beauty brands, which helped them scale to over seven figures in year 1.

GROWING AN ENGAGED EMAIL LIST
Drive Email List and Product Sales Through a Quiz Funnel

Quizzes create a tailored experience, making customers feel understood and valued. According to a 2024 Epsilon report, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that offer personalized experiences.

Blume’s quiz funnel contributed to a significant increase in email list growth and product sales.

They launched an interactive “Skin Quiz” on their website, where visitors answer a series of questions about their skin type, concerns (like acne, dark spots, or sensitivity), and lifestyle habits.

Based on the responses, the quiz recommends a personalized skincare routine and specific Blume products, along with educational content relevant to the user’s actual needs, avoiding any generic sales pitches.

The entire customer journey feels personal, which helped drive up engagement. Customers who took Blume’s quiz spent 2x more time on the site compared to those who didn’t!

Blume built trust by offering actionable and relevant advice, helping capture valuable first-party data that drives repeat purchases and better conversion rates.

GETTING PEOPLE TO BUY AGAIN
Retention through Automation and Loyalty

Having a robust retention strategy has helped them get to and maintain an average 40% repeat purchase rate while growing at the top of the funnel. If you’ve been in the industry long enough, you know that’s not an easy feat.

This is how they attract & activate high LTV customers:

Welcome series → Implementing a multi-email welcome series introducing the brand story, best-selling products, and educational content. It’s also a driver to deliver first-time discounts and hero their engaged community.

Incentives → Incentivising sign-ups through trend-driven campaigns backed by their strong branding

Blumetopia → an engaging loyalty program combining subscriptions with a points system that rewards purchases and social media engagement.

Personal offers → Sending personalised offers via SMS through conversational and community-focused campaigns. They also use personalisation and reactivating old subscribers by running ‘win-back campaigns.’

Post-purchase emails → flows that deliver product education, usage tips, and personalised cross-sell recommendations.

Their goal is simple: to attract customers with a high lifetime value (LTV)rather than just focusing on higher return on ad spend (ROAS) or revenue. An approach that’s helped them with:

• Higher retention

• Predictable sales forecasts

• Better management of inventory.

FINAL TAKE
TL;DR

Blume shows how important it is to build a strong brand and keep customers coming back.

Without the fundamentals in place, you'll lose customers as fast as you gain them, making it feel like you're working hard but not really growing.

The best brands I've worked with do this well and have experienced big growth when it all finally comes together.

Let me know how you found this breakdown below, and thanks for reading!

Talk Soon!
Dev 🤙

WHEN YOU ARE READY

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• Join the waitlist for Growth Engine: my 1-1 consulting program for ecom marketers and founder

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Hey friends 👋

Welcome back! Before we get into the case study, here's a quick update for you.

Starting next week, I'll test new content by sending a second, much shorter email later in the week. I have endless amounts of tactical notes from my day to day which I think you’ll find useful.

It will cover one simple framework, insight, and an AI prompt that you can read and use in under 3 minutes.

Keep an eye out, and as always, hit that reply button with your thoughts/ideas.

The Case Study

Ritual didn't just sell vitamins in a $50B supplement market filled with snake oil promises; they built a $250M empire by weaponising radical transparency when every competitor was hiding behind "proprietary blends" and dubious health claims.

What you'll discover in today’s edition:

• Educational first Google ads approach

• Micro-influencer army that built 2M customers without mega-influencer costs

• How they partnered with over 700 podcasts
  
  Enjoy 👇

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PAID SEARCH
Education Led Google Ads

A massive part of Ritual’s paid ads mix is unsurprisingly Google ads. It captures high-intent traffic who are more likely to convert at higher rates.

They like to educate their customers first, heavily leaning into an advertorial-style landing page while plugging in their offer.

They understood that the supplement industry's biggest problem wasn't competition, it was consumer distrust.

By positioning themselves as educators rather than sellers, they bypassed skepticism entirely.

Their landing pages didn't just convert visitors; they converted skeptics into believers.

While competitors continue to fight over on Meta, Ritual created a strong paid search strategy.

To justify their first approach to education, they have a good understanding of their customer lifetime value, likely based on the average subscription length.

From my research, I found that:

• Their AOV is between $30-$35

• LTV is $735 across 23 months

When you know a customer will generate $735, you can afford to educate them first.

INFLUENCER STRATEGY
Micro-Influencer Education Network

Instead of chasing mega influencers or celebrities, these guys built an army of 5K-50K follower wellness micro-influencers who actually used and understood their products.

They focused on authentic education content. Not discount codes and flash sales. Their TikTok became a vitamin education platform where customer questions became content opportunities.

It worked because they focused on relevance instead of reach. Their authentic content outperformed polished content because it felt like advice from a knowledgeable friend, not an ad.

It also created a multiplier effect. The UGC content and real-world events created a feedback loop that naturally established expertise before Ritual pushes customers towards a purchase, building trust that competitors simply can’t buy.

PODCAST STRATEGY
High Impact Podcast Interviews and Ads

Most brands throw money at podcast ads and hope something sticks. Ritual took a completely different approach, and the results speak volumes. They did this by appearing on podcast shows in the form of interviews and buying ad slots.

Instead of generic sponsorship reads, they built authentic relationships with over 700 podcast creators across health, true crime, parenting, and comedy. What they found was that podcast audiences were much more engaged and trusted their host’s recommendations.

Founder Katerina Schneider didn't just buy ad spots. She also appeared as a guest on high-impact shows, sharing unscripted conversations about the brand's story and values.

To make sure they smartly executed this, they made sure that she only went on podcasts where the host was aligned with Ritual’s core values, then let the authentic storytelling do the heavy lifting.

When a trusted host has a genuine conversation with a founder, it doesn't feel like an ad; it feels like a recommendation from a friend.

After executing on this strategy, Ritual found that customers acquired through podcasts showed 20% higher lifetime value compared to their average!

They not only gained more customers, but also better ones who stayed longer and spent more money.

FINAL TAKE
WRAP-UP

Ritual turned the supplement industry's biggest weakness into its competitive advantage.

Education First → Google ads that informed instead of convinced. When your LTV is $735, you can afford to teach before you sell.

Micro Over Mega → 5K-follower wellness creators outperformed celebrities because authentic expertise beats borrowed attention.

Relationships Over Ads → 700+ podcast partnerships weren't about buying spots - they were about earning trust that converted skeptics into premium customers (gaining a 20% higher LTV).

Their growth strategy prioritised acquiring better customers while reaching more people.

Let me know how you found this breakdown below, and thanks for reading!

Talk Soon!
Dev 🤙

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Hey legends, welcome back to another edition!

Today, I’m taking a deep dive into a SaaS brand called Jasper AI. An AI-powered writing assistant that helps people create high-quality content quickly using natural language models.

Most brands treat affiliate, SEO and paid content as siloed strategies. The fastest-growing ones turn them into a growth loop.

This growth loop captures attention, affiliates warm the lead, and paid distribution scales their winners.

Jasper didn’t just scale with hype. They turned this system into a $ 4M+ ARR engine by making each channel fuel the next.

Today, I’ll be covering:

1. Their affiliate marketing strategy captures warm traffic

2. How they leverage SEO to drive conversions

3. Scaling warm audiences with paid ads

Let’s jump in 👇

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AFFILIATE MARKETING
Let Affiliates Pre-Sell Your Product at Scale

They started the program by making it compelling for someone to sign up.

Built a high-payout program with rev-share incentives designed to attract creators, offering a compelling 30% recurring revenue share to affiliates.

They focused mainly on creators with:

• Existing SEO presence that was ranking high in Google & YouTube

• Niche authority in copywriting, content marketing or SaaS

• YouTube demos and comparisons

• Email lists and YouTube audiences who are looking for AI solutions.

The good thing about this strategy is that it ranks highly organically and gets shared in email newsletters as well as niche subreddits. This adds trust on top of intent.

This worked well for Jasper because their affiliates were sending people who had already researched Jasper vs other competitors and were ready to buy.

SEO
Build Your Blog For Sign-Ups

Jasper’s main objective was to create product-led content based on real use cases that achieved high relevance and relatability.

Instead of generic posts, they focus on content like:

• How to write blog posts faster with AI

• AI for LinkedIn posts

• Email marketing workflows using Jasper

• Thought leadership

• Listicles

The common pattern across all of these blogs is that every single one is selling its product. Most of their posts are designed for the bottom of the funnel, and include:

→ Product screenshots
→ Jasper-generated copy examples
→ Mid-article free trial CTAs
→ Use cases

See it in action via the article below:

Best AI Copywriting Tools for 2024

Looking for the best AI copywriting tools to quickly create high-quality content? We review the top 10 AI copywriters for content marketers and copywriters.

By staying away from top-of-funnel fluff posts and focusing on bottom-of-funnel SEO, Jasper turned content into a massive growth driver.

This strategy has generated them:

• 810% increase in organic traffic

• $4m ARR blog-attributed signups

• Over 363K/month in organic visits

• 1.3m backlinks

PAID ADVERTISING
Helpful Content is More Efficient and Effective Than Cold Traffic

Jasper doesn’t run cold traffic to product pages.

Instead of pushing cold ads to product pages, Jasper takes top-performing blog posts and affiliate content, then distributes them using paid channels.

Example: Retargeted users who read the “Jasper vs Copy.ai” blog with carousel ads highlighting top comparison features, instead of pushing cold creative.

They amplified content that was already working via key channels, making sure they were serving tailored creatives and segments at the right stage of the funnel.

→ Native ads via Taboola and Outbrain to blog content
→ Facebook retargeting to people who visited blog pages
→ YouTube and LinkedIn remarketing point to helpful content, not sales pages

This strategy worked for them because they successfully reinforced existing trust. It didn’t feel like an ad. It felt like value. The user was returning to something useful, not being pitched out of context, which led to:

• Higher conversion rates by focusing on spending on users already familiar with Jasper and its offers.

• Lower CAC and higher ROAS because they are targeting warm audiences = more cost efficient than cold traffic, due to fewer journey touchpoints.

• Relevant content based on previous content consumption = more receptive target audience.

FINAL TAKE
WRAP-UP

Jasper nailed that by turning trust (affiliates), intent (SEO), and scale (paid) into a self-fueling loop.

Build your growth loop. Start with what’s already working. Then scale it.

If you enjoyed this edition, here’s what you can do next:

• Share this newsletter or reply with thoughts/questions

• Reply with your thoughts or questions about this case study - always keen to hear your stance on this, and if anything resonated.

Hope you found this breakdown useful, and thanks for reading.

Talk Soon!
Dev 🤙

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Hi team,

Thanks for taking the time to participate in my quick survey that I sent over last week. Your input is super helpful for these newsletters I put together (which, between us, take a good 15+ hours of research and writing).

Just want to make sure what I'm creating is actually useful for you all. I appreciate your feedback! P.S. In case you missed the survey, the form is still live here. 

CASE STUDY
reMarkable

reMarkable sold a vision of distraction-free note-taking for professionals like teachers, engineers, and business leaders.

Their pre-order campaign was all about building buzz, proving people wanted their product, and getting early buyers to commit. By doing this, they:

• Raised a cash investment of $15 million in funding from investors

• Built a solid fan base that spread the word quickly

• Sold tens of thousands of pre-orders

• Reduced financial risks

Today, I’ll be covering:

1. How reMarkable convinced thousands of professionals to pay $399+ for a tablet they’d never seen

2. 3-part strategy they used to build anticipation, reduce financial risk and create a passionate community before shipping a single product

Let’s jump in 👇

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PART 1
Getting People Hyped

reMarkable knew how to grab attention. They focused on one thing and the customer at a time. One ad → One customer → One message

They told a story that made their tablet (that no one has ever heard about before btw) sound like the ultimate tool for focused work, perfect for professionals and knowledge workers looking to kick out distractions caused by phones and notifications.

Once they had their message and story locked in, they distributed it via all the common DTC channels online. They drove traffic to a pre-order landing page, capturing leads and building a waitlist.

→  Started blogging to start ranking on Google, pulling in 386,000 visitors

→ Created a simple email list and sent targeted emails to inform people and encourage them to pre-order.

→ Teamed up with influencers and bloggers to create a buzz.

→ Advertised via paid social campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter) and most importantly, LinkedIn, focusing on professional communities on these platforms.

This strategy paid off big time. Their 2017 campaign was called one of the most successful for a hardware startup; they ended up shipping tens of thousands of units globally. Not a bad way to result from the launch.

PART 2
Driving Pre-Order Sales

There were two ways in which they turned interest from TOF into sales.

1. Likely offered deals, discounts or special bundles (think a stylus or case). Possibly 10-20% off or a bundled accessory like their stylus. They currently offer up to 40% off for bulk orders, targeting B2B deals.

2. Built trust with a clear pre-order landing page and email, clearly highlighting the shipping dates of the products while answering FAQs to remove friction.

PART 3
Fuel Growth with Digital Word of Mouth

To continue building on the initial hype and pre-order list, they segmented out pre-order buyers and focused on them.

The goal → keep buyers excited in anticipation of receiving their products, so they’ll start posting about it.

They sent emails to keep pre-order buyers excited and asked for feedback. The early fans ultimately became cheerleaders, who posted reviews and shared the product on their social media.

From this digital word of mouth, reMarkable were able to gain 47,000 links from other sites, which accelerated their search engine ranking.

A simple example of how important online recommendations and social approval are.

FINAL TAKE
WRAP-UP

This launch was smart because they launched without carrying too much risk, which leads to terrible marketing decisions later, like discounting heavily and looking desperate in their marketing messages.

Instead reMarkable:

• Got people genuinely excited with a great story

• Showed the utility of their product by showing how it’s beneficial to them

• Built and then used social proof to fuel customer base growth

• Made sure they made people feel safe about buying their products through transparency

P.S. Probably my best purchase in the last few years.

If you enjoyed this edition, here’s what you can do next:

• Share this newsletter or reply with thoughts/questions

• Reply with your thoughts or questions about this case study - always keen to hear your stance on this, and if anything resonated.

Hope you found this breakdown useful, and thanks for reading.

Talk Soon!
Dev 🤙

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Hi legends,

Hope things are humming along with your marketing and business! It feels like every week there’s a new AI tool promising to change the game. I’m curious, how are you weaving AI into your strategy lately? I’ve been thinking a lot about what actually drives results vs. just adding more noise.

Which brings me to this week’s breakdown: Loop Earplugs. 

Loop Earplugs scaled from €1M to €126.5M in just a few years. Their marketing playbook is a goldmine of strategies that modern DTC brands can steal.

They have positioned themselves at the top of the DTC earplug market with a smart pivot, and here’s why I think there’s a bunch we can learn from this case study:

• Loop transformed hearing protection from a boring utility product into a stylish lifestyle brand.

• Pivoting from nightlife-only to multiple use cases (sleep, focus, noise sensitivity) successfully

• Spending a massive €1.5M monthly to acquire new customers

• Building an SEO machine that drives a quarter of their revenue

• Understanding how they test and learn to improve their conversion rate

• Successfully running hyper-targeted marketing campaigns that acquire the most relevant customers for each product.

Today I’ll cover:

1. 5 Pillars of Loop’s paid media strategy

2. How do they improve their conversion rate

3. Unpack their SEO playbook to get new customers

Let’s jump in 👇

PERFORMANCE MARKETING
Five Pillars of Loop’s Paid Media Strategy

Loop’s ad strategy is a masterclass in modern performance marketing.

They approach their €1.5 million monthly ad spend across Meta, TikTok and Google with the rigour of scientific experimentation.

Their A/B testing program optimises for short-term conversion and learns about their customer avatar, which they are continually updating in the long run.

This is what makes up their paid media playbook:

1) Cross-platform investment

Spending more on advertising doesn’t equal more and outsized returns. As any seasoned performance marketer would tell you, the first challenge you need to combat is diminishing returns as you try to scale that budget.

Loop spends across platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok with intent and takes platform-specific approaches rather than a cookie-cutter approach.

They map specific objectives to each channel, for example:

• TikTok for discovery

• IG for lifestyle positioning

• Facebook for retargeting

• Google for capturing ready-to-buy customers with high intent signals.

This leverages each platform’s unique strengths, eliminating the need for excessive testing and burning ad budget.

It’s allowed them to reach more people while testing for a sustainable ROI because each platform is serving a specific purpose in the customer’s journey.

Ultimately, this creates a connected ecosystem rather than siloed campaigns.

2) Testing what works and what doesn’t

The game is about finding out what the customer will be motivated by.

They test to figure out which ad creatives + landing pages drive the best conversion rates. By focusing on use cases of their product, Loop can relate to the customer’s pain point rather than relying on brand-related messaging to a cold audience.

They do this by:

• Creating different visuals

• Crafting different messages in line with customer pain points

• Categorise visuals based on use cases like sleep, focus and/ or concerts

The measure is simple: they use real-time feedback loops (no pun intended!) by finding ads that have the best ROAS and landing pages that convert the paid traffic.

With rising ad costs, it’s important to:

• Have a clear testing framework that you can measure and review

• Look at the entire customer journey/funnel

• Just as you would focus on making ads that resonate with people, it’s critical to judge your landing page, making sure it can convert the paid traffic.
  

3) Getting Tiktok right

Loop creates different types of content for different uses of their product then follows up with targeted ads to people who show interest in a specific category, using creatives that perform organically.

4) Smart search ads

They run Google ads that highlight key selling points like their 100-day return policy or Patented Technology.

By focusing on addressing people’s main concern about buying earplugs from them or online, their ads speak directly to remove these doubts about buying their products.

Especially from people who are actively searching for hearing protection. They’re ready to buy, and you just need to convince them with the right words and visuals.

By directly addressing these concerns, Loop can convert searchers into paying customers.

They solve potential problems a customer is facing. Stick to the marketing fundamentals and do this consistently across all of their offerings.

5) Relevant follow up ads

Remarketing ads are still one of the most powerful growth levers for your digital ads strategy. Their ads are typically customised based on what you are looking at on their website.

• If you come across sleep products, you’ll see content about solving sleep problems.

• If you browsed concert protection, you’ll see content about preserving sound quality while protecting your hearing.

Personalisation is a huge conversion driver in 2025. It feels helpful rather than pushy, improving how many people respond and buy.

It’s a great trust-building activity, and the brand’s way of showing that you understand their specific need. The creative served should always reflect this.

CONVERSION RATE OPTIMISATION
Built for Experience, Crafted Conversion Machine

Top of funnel Personalised Quiz

Loop’s website is a carefully crafted conversion machine.

They prioritize easy product discovery and personalized recommendations at the core of that machine, leveraging three key tactics:

• Their "Help Me Choose" quiz simplifies product selection.

• Dedicated landing pages based on situational keywords.

• Post-purchase surveys used to get deeper insights.

This approach not only improves user experience but also removes decision paralysis.

Quiz:  They promote their quiz via their paid social ads (namely via Meta ads). The traffic gets sent to their quiz landing page so they can figure out what product would be suited to their needs.

The quiz recommends products and educates new buyers at the same time, based on their individual needs!

Landing page: Each landing page and product page is tailored for situational keywords like “earplugs for DIY”. Typically, brands send all traffic to a generic homepage, which has a much lower conversion rate because it’s trying to appeal to all customer avatars.

Post-purchase insight: On top of that, Loop's post-purchase surveys allow them to better meet customer needs, improving satisfaction and driving both new and repeat purchases. A high-leverage feedback loop. These surveys segment first-time and returning customers, asking questions tailored to each group (e.g., “What do you intend to use your earplugs for?”, "How did you hear about us?" for new buyers, "What made you buy again?" for repeat customers)

Example: Post-purchase survey q’s

CONTENT MARKETING
Loop Earplugs’ SEO & Blog Playbook for Acquiring New Customers

Keyword targeting and content mapping

Loop focuses on high-intent, long-tail keywords like “best earplugs for concerts” and “earplugs for noise-sensitive individuals,” ensuring their content matches what potential customers are searching for.

They focus on understanding the customer buying cycle and targeting relevant keywords, which has led to significant increases in website sessions and revenue.

Value driven blog content

Their blog covers a wide range of topics like sleep tips, clubbing advice, phonophobia, and neurodiversity (ADHD, autism)-addressing specific user needs and pain points. This pins them as an authority and trusted resource, driving organic traffic and building relationships with new visitors.

It’s almost like running a separate organic funnel for each use case.

Each article integrates clear calls-to-action and promotional elements, guiding readers from education to purchase.

With this SEO and content playbook, Loop were able to achieve over 340% YoY organic traffic growth and increased organic revenue to nearly 29% of total sales, cementing their leadership in the ear protection market!

FINAL TAKE
WRAP-UP

In a world of increasingly expensive customer acquisition and fickle brand loyalty, Loop's approach offers a blueprint for sustainable growth.

Three key things to think about in your strategy that you can gain from asap:

• Make each platform work differently - TikTok grabs attention, Insta shows lifestyle, Facebook reconnects with people who dropped off, and Google captures ready buyers.

• Skip the generic homepage trap - use a product quiz and targeted landing pages that match exactly what people searched for.

• Don't stay in one lane - Loop exploded to €126.5M by expanding from nightlife to multiple problems (sleep, focus, sensitivity), turning basic earplugs into something people actually want to be seen wearing.

• SEO is still very important. It pays to think about content that will attract customers based on intent through multiple distribution channels like search engines or AI chats like Chatgpt, Perplexity, Claude, etc.

If you enjoyed this edition, here’s what you can do next:

• After spending the past year working behind the scenes with some epic brands, I finally have more capacity to take on a couple of new consulting clients. In short, I workshop with brands to build a system around their paid ads, landing pages and funnels to get new customers or clients. It’s a super-tailored approach rather than an agency offering. If interested, check it out.

• Share this newsletter or reply with thoughts/questions

• Reply with your thoughts or questions about this case study - always keen to hear your stance on this, and if anything resonated.

Hope you found this breakdown useful, and thanks for reading.

Talk Soon!
Dev 🤙

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