Jake Abrams

I help 7-9 figure DTC brands with revenue & CAC | I write The Process, a newsletter about modern growth marketing | Sold 100K+ personal cooling devices

Consumer Marketing & Growth Leader.  

Brands I've worked with:

Caraway
Jones Road Beauty
Skylight
Canopy
Insurify
Naked Wines
Rugiet
Sundays For Dogs
Momofuku
Sunday Lawn Care

100+ others

Book a discovery call in the featured section below 👇

Founder

The lean DTC growth marketing partner that I wish existed when I was an in-house marketing lead. 

At Odyssey, we help 7 & 8-figure DTC brands increase revenue & ROAS by finding the right combination of:

- Messaging
- Audience targeting
- Media channel allocation
- Creative

https://www.growodyssey.com/

I built a 40-slide deck about the winners & losers of paid social in 2026. 

🏆 THE NEXT ERA OF PAID SOCIAL: 40 Slides Outlining How To Actually Win At TikTok, Meta, And Creative Diversity In 2026. 

I believe it invalidates 75% of what most marketers are doing right now.

4 shifts happened:

1. Infinite good ideas
⤷ AI can scrape customer reviews, analyze signals, and generate insights in seconds. The number of good ideas you can come up with is now infinite.

2. Unlimited Distribution
⤷ There's no limit to the amount of content that can be posted. Every new video is an opportunity to generate net value for your business.

3. Aligned Incentives
⤷ Creator compensation finally matches value created. TikTok Shop ties pay to sales. CPM and view-based models tie pay to reach. Performance-based compensation is now functional & accepted. 

4. The Feed Is Everything
 ⤷ People don't go to websites for education anymore. They spend 6+ hours a day on social media. Consideration, nurture, and education all happen in the feed now.

In a world of unlimited at-bats, the brands that exercise operational willingness to hit the quality bar at volume, win. 

What this looks like:
- An aggressively intentional use of creative diversity 
- 4-tier content model from Elevated through AI-generated
- Network of 20+ owned and affiliated social accounts
- All publishing daily
- All feeding the algorithm
- All generating halo

All competing for a chance to become your best performing paid ads for zero upfront media cost. 

This 40-slide deck is every 8-9 figure brand's roadmap to reaching more accounts on Meta & TikTok and actually growing profitably. 

Want the deck?
→ Like this post 
→ Comment "SLIDES" and I'll send it over (must be following)

---

EDIT: you can just grab the deck here: https://lnkd.in/eTxSxauP

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Creative-led growth for 8-9 figure consumer brands | Writing about AI & advertising | Sold 100k+ personal cooling devices

I found a travel brand driving 15M+ views / month across 11 TikTok accounts. 

One account has 683 followers, with multiple videos over 170k views.  

Most marketers have no idea how this strategy works. Their effectiveness is decaying rapidly. They are quickly becoming dinosaurs. Don't be like them.

This travel brand has a full-on content ecosystem: the brand account, multiple employee accounts, affiliated accounts, and more.

All publishing daily. All feeding the algorithm. All generating halo. All competing for a chance to become their best performing paid ads for zero media cost. 

The old model: 
→ Budget determined creative volume 
→ Ads launched straight into paid testing 
→ Creatives competed for spend 
→ Losers generated zero value 
→ Insights came from paid data only

The new model: 
→ Every video gets posted organically first 
→ The algorithm tests everything for free 
→ Every post generates signal and net value 
→ Winners earn their way into paid 
→ Your best-performing ads are pre-validated

Do you understand that the bottleneck does not exist anymore?

It's no longer "what should we say this month?"

It's "how do we say everything, everywhere, all the f*****g time?"

What I found when I dug into this brand: 
→ 11 separate TikTok accounts, all active 
→ 1000+ videos published per month across the network 
→ Hundreds of videos with 100K+ views
→ Micro-accounts outperforming accounts 100x their size 
→ Minimal correlation between followers and views 

I recorded a full Loom breaking down: 
→ How this brand structures their multi-account strategy 
→ The content formats getting 100k+ views from tiny accounts 
→ Why this works with TikTok's algorithm 
→ How to replicate this for your brand for organic and paid

Want the full breakdown?
→ Comment "TikTok" 
→ Like this post

And I'll send it over (must be following so I can DM)

This AI agent watched 291 viral skincare TikToks and broke down the winning hooks, visual themes, and messaging.

If you're running a skincare brand in 2026, this is a cheat code to winning ads. 

Every idea does not need to be original. You can just find what's already working on organic TikTok and remake it for your brand.

That's a big part of the strategy I've used for years across 250+ brands. 

This database does the hard part for you. The agent analyzed:

- Hooks that stop the scroll
- Visual styles that perform
- Messaging that converts

And the analysis isn't generic. It's specific enough that you could take 30 of these videos, adapt them, and have a month of content ready to test.

I'm giving away the full database & analysis of these 291 videos.

To get the full Airtable database: 

1. Connect with & follow me
2. Comment "DATABASE" below 
3. I'll DM you the link to access it

---

I originally built this flow myself using N8N, Apify, Gemini, and Airtable. It works great, but it took some time to set up.

If you're not into stitching together automation tools, you should check out Snowball: it does this way easier out of the box.

https://lnkd.in/eGCw2k35

I know a growth marketer driving 3.6M views / month on TikTok.

To me, this is the #1 arbitrage opportunity in paid social in 2026. 

I almost didn't want to write this, but most people won't take action anyway. 

Here's essentially how it works:

50 TikTok accounts
3 posts per day / account
4,500 posts per month
800 average views per post
3,600,000 average views per month

The algorithm is meritocratic now. Best content wins. 

Also...
we have infinite access to intelligence now. 
which means there are infinite good ideas. 

So if you're good at AI, the advantage isn't in having good insights & ideas. 

The advantage is your distribution. 

An Attention Engine should be part of every brand's creative strategy in 2026.

Comment "ATTENTION" and I'll send you my 40-slide deck that explains exactly what I'm talking about.

In 1 slide, this is what format diversity looks like...

How to think about it:

Creative diversity is made up of 2 things:

1. Micropersona diversity 
 Who are you talking to?

2. Format diversity 
How are saying it?

Process to use:
- Go uncomfortably deep on your micro personas
- Start testing with easiest formats (statics, faceless)
- Once those land, activate winning messaging across the full spectrum (native, scripted, cinematic, elevated)

This helps you:
- Scale your ad account
- Reach new audiences
- Reduce wasted spend & creative production costs
- Turn 1 win into 100 wins

That's the systematic approach. 

One insight. Many micro personas. Every format.

I know a freelance CS who 100x'd their creative output using AI.

He's shipping 25+ unique concepts every week. 
He's writing briefs in minutes that used to take hours. 
He's making a lot of money.

How he does it: 

"I use AI to find viral TikTok's in my category, and run a system that generates infinite variations while preserving what made the original content successful."

Here's the exact process he uses:

1. Find a viral organic TikTok in your category using Snowball

Not ads. He's looking for organic content that's already proven to resonate. Snowball makes it easy to find this and extract the key elements. 

2. Bring that format into Octo

Octo has vision into your ad account. It already knows what's working and what's not for your brand.

So he uploads the reference video and provides his micro personas.

Example: If he's working on a health supplement for dogs. One of his micro personas might be "Old Dog Mom." She has a senior dog that's starting to have health issues like joint pain or less energy. She's worried.

3. Tell Octo to write the script for that persona

Let's say the TikTok he found was a staged moment video. So it's a person behind camera talking to person on camera, educating them about this supplement that's great for older dogs. 

Octo writes the script in that format, for that persona, informed by what's already working in the ad account.

4. Rewrite for different micro personas

Once the script is dialed for Old Dog Mom, he has Octo rewrite it for:
→ New Rescue Dad
→ Active Dog Mom
→ Skeptical Switcher

So he gets more ads from that one original format that already worked. 

5. Format multiplication

Now he takes that same insight and multiplies it across formats:

The staged moment becomes:

→ Podcast clip (same banter, different setting) 
→ Street interview (same objection/solution dynamic) 
→ Word wall (just the key lines, way easier to produce)

Infinite executions if you have your format system dialed in. 

6. Use Wispr Flow the entire time

He doesn't type anything. He just talks to Octo through Wispr. 

---

Here's what this really means for creative strategists in 2026:

The primary skill set is essentially this:

Creative Taste
- You have to find the references and know what to do with them.

Operational Speed
- You have to be a psycho about moving fast. Because if you want to, you can.

Communication Skills
- Other people get involved: creators shooting the content, clients approving the ideas. You have to sell the vision and protect it through execution.

---

You can operate 100X faster with this flow.
And you can make a lot of money.

i just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly....

going from $0M to $15M in DTC is basically just:

1. you start with a product that actually solves a real problem. 

2. you make sure the product(s) provides ongoing value so that you grow LTV instead of always chasing new customers.

3. you nail your foundational messaging before you make a single piece of content. build a story that spreads. 

4. you ensure your audience can easily understand the problem deeply enough to explain it to someone else. that's how ideas move through networks instead of dying on the feed.

5. you use tools like Snowball and Adology.AI to watch the top 1% of content in your niche and extract content ideas. 

6. you rip the structures of high performing creators, in your niche or not, and bring in your own powerful brand message. 

7. you create voice-of-brand content yourself. make strangers want to buy from you. 

8. you pick up your phone, start making TikTok's, and you can have 20k followers in like 2-3 months and be your own TikTok affiliate. 

9. you voice record your thoughts with Wispr Flow and have Claude turn them into scripts for videos (organic or paid)

10. you layer in reaction hook + product videos. you or someone at the company on camera for 5 seconds, then show the product for 10 seconds. 

11. you build a "hybrid" content tier: AI-assisted edits + real footage.

12. you run elevated shoots quarterly or monthly. this is your best-looking stuff, but it still needs to feel native, not like a TV commercial.

13. you build a controlled creator layer...your 5-15 core creators you tap repeatedly.

14. you build a facilitated creator layer underneath that. this is your influencer program down to TikTok Shop affiliates.

15. you align incentives with performance. small retainer + CPM tiers and/or commission on sales. if they only win when you win, quality goes up.

16. you manage all of it inside a Discord. 

17. you cultivate a community of real customers, not actors. 

18. you tap into the stay-at-home mom economy. there are thousands of them who'd love to make an extra $500- $1.5k / month making slideshows and word wall videos for brands they actually like.

19. you give them the tools, the playbook, and the incentive structure...then get out of their way.

20. you use tools like Motion (Creative Analytics)and Octo once you're running ads to turn each win into 20 new wins.

TLDR:
Story
Ops
Community
Aligned incentives
Flywheel

That's the whole machine.

22 thoughts about the next era of paid social in 2026 🎥

2026 is the best year in history to be a creative generalist.

You now have a superhuman suit for the entire creative process.

And most people aren't:
- Smart enough
- Motivated enough
- Disciplined enough

To actually use it. 

So there's this massive gap forming between the people who figure this out and everyone else.

This year belongs to the people who can see the big picture and make it happen fast.

The 4 Tier Content Matrix

In a world with unlimited at-bats, every brand should make these 4 types of content in 2026 ↓

1. Hero Content: 
High-production brand moments. Quarterly campaigns. Elevated UGC. Done with in-house team and a small roster of cinematic creators. This is your traditional stuff for brand or DR that looks nice. 

2. Controlled Creator Content: 
You have a managed roster of creators. You feed them the angles, the talking points, often the scripts. You get high quality, predictable output. But there's management overhead so it doesn't scale infinitely.

3. Facilitated Creator Content: 
This is your Discord channel, your seeding program. Community-driven and hands-off. Creators own their angles and language. Quality varies, but it's very authentic. Pay commissions or pay per million views.

4. AI / Hybrid Content: 
Slideshows, faceless videos, text-on-screen. No creators required. Infinitely scalable. Fills the feed, generates signal, and occasionally produces surprise winners for organic and paid. 

What am I missing?

There’s an uncomfortable gap forming between the top 1% of creative operators and everyone else.

Because you now have a superhuman suit for the entire creative process. And most people aren’t smart, motivated, or disciplined enough to actually use it. 

Within e-commerce and marketplaces, specifically, this shift is happening incredibly fast. 

Photoroom just released their State of GenAI in Marketplaces 2026 report, based on interviews with 10 AI experts and a survey of 2,000 consumers. 

Some findings I found interesting: 

→ 55% of consumers say poorly executed AI-generated images actually decrease trust
→ 75% of workers say AI improves their speed or quality
→ Wolt reclaimed 100+ human hours per day after automating image QA
→ 64% of organizations are still in experimentation phase of AI adoption

If you want to go deeper on this and become part of the top 1% of creative operators, you should join Photoroom’s State of GenAI in Marketplaces live event this Wednesday (1/28).

You’ll get to learn from the people who are actually building the AI infrastructure behind visual content at scale.

⚫ jeff strauss - Head of Imaging, Photoroom (ex-Wolt) 
⚫ Sonia Biddle - Chief Product Officer, Depop 
⚫ Anne-Claire BASCHET - Chief Data/AI Officer, Mirakl 
⚫ Laura McGinnis - Partner, Balderton

You can register (for free) with my link: https://luma.com/8wgjjupp

If you're a:
→ Marketplace operator
→ Creative strategist 
→ E-commerce operator 
→ Brand marketer 
→ CMO

Really anyone who works with product visuals at scale, you should show up to this.

The session is on Wednesday, January 28th at 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT.

Even if you can't attend live, still worth registering for the recording.

See you there: https://luma.com/8wgjjupp

#PhotoroomPartner

Test your creative without spending $1 in your Meta ad account.

CONTEXT:

Good ideas are free now. 

AI can scrape customer reviews, TikTok, Reddit, any signal that exists.
With the right systems, a talented human with good taste can transform these ideas into native content 10x faster that before. 

NEW INSIGHT:

So the constraint isn't "what should we say test month?"
The question is: "how do we test everything, everywhere, all the time?"

Followers don't matter anymore. The algo shows your content to whoever it thinks will care. Good content finds its audience. Bad content dies. That's it.

So this is a game of executional quality & volume. 

ACTION TO TAKE:

Build the network for unlimited at-bats:

Brand Voice Accounts:
- "Josh at [brand]"
- "Maria at [brand]"
- "Marketing team at [brand]"

Verticalized Accounts:
- "Zach Travel Stories"
- "Alex Nomad Life"
- "Caleb Travel Finds"

Faceless Accounts:
- "Insane Travel Stories"
- "Your Travel Inspo"
- "Travel Deals Central"

All posting daily. All testing messaging. All letting the algorithm tell you what works.

By the time you put $1 into paid, you already have the answers. Plus a massive halo that lifts the performance of all your ads. 

The algorithm is the first test.

The best creative teams operate on 7-day cycle.

→ What got deployed 7 days ago? 
→ What's actually getting spend? 
→ What's working?
→ What's not? 
→ What are we changing for the next 7 days?

When you compound that weekly process over a long period of time, that's where the magic happens. 

But so many weekly creative strategy meetings devolve into this weird habit of staring at the same group of highest spending ads and wondering what to do about it. 

I like Motion (Creative Analytics)'s new Week over Week trends reporting because it makes the ideal weekly workflow much easier for creative teams: 

→ Automatic 7-day vs previous period comparison 
→ Spend, ROAS, and softer metrics 
→ AI that you can ask about what changed and what to do next

Creative reporting should map to this 7-day cycle.

Matthew McConaughey was right about private LLM's. Broad AI is out. Narrow AI is in. 

For performance marketing, 90% of the AI tools I've tried have been useless. Because all they do is make it faster to generate a higher volume of mediocre output. Nobody needs that.

Octo has been my best experience so far with a Performance Marketing LLM, in which the product is connected to the ad account and actually understands the ad account like a senior-level performance marketer.

You don't understand that the bottleneck doesn't exist anymore. 

One account posting daily = 30 pieces of content per month.

An ecosystem of 20 accounts posting 3x per day = 1,800 pieces of content.

All feeding the algorithm. All generating halo. All competing for a chance to become your next best-performing paid ad for zero media cost. 

The old model treated organic as a single channel you "managed."

The new model treats organic as a testing ground you flood with volume, then promote the winners into paid.

Your brand account alone will never generate enough at-bats. You need the ecosystem, and you need operational willingness to hit a quality bar at volume.

3 opening slides from our 25-person team offsite in Austin this past week. 

Last year, I totally failed as a leader to provide daily purpose. 

As I was thinking through our collective "why" for this year, had a thought...

For some reason, the world's most valuable skill is creating things for the internet that gain attention from the right people. 

If you join the top 1% (or even the top 20%) of people at this skill, you get:

- Freedom & flexibility
- Money & opportunity
- Leverage & access
- Creative fulfillment

I know this is true, because it's exactly what's happened to me these last 3 years of finally creating content. 

So in 2026, Odyssey will be the best place to work for anyone hellbent on joining the top 1% of humans for the most important skill in the world. 

Oh, and we're hiring for:
- Full-time content creators
- Growth marketers
- Creative strategists

Matthew McConaughey was right about private LLMs.

You could also call them "vertical-specific LLMs" or "professional class LLMs". 

These are going to dominate in 2026.. I'm already seeing it happen outside of marketing. Harvey is doing it for legal.

Broad AI is getting replaced by narrow, expert AI.

I'm not a technical AI expert. But here's what makes sense to me:

If something is giving you an answer in 5 seconds, it probably helps for it to have a narrower, more specialized view of the information it's pulling from. Only the validated, expert-level stuff. Not an unlimited ocean of everything.

For performance marketing, 90% of the AI tools I've tried have been useless. Because all they do is make it faster to generate a higher volume of mediocre output. Nobody needs that.

What performance marketers actually need:

- AI trained on ads that actually won, and why they won
- AI with vision into their ad account data
- Agents that analyze performance like an expert media buyer
- Micropersonas specific to the brand they're writing for
- Voice and messaging guidelines baked in

So when you ask "how do I improve this supplements ad?" The answer is actually valuable.

This is what AI looks like in 2026 for performance marketers. 

---

P.S. Octo has been my best experience so far with a Performance Marketing LLM. I'm gonna drop a link to it in the comments.

Octo

You ever stare at your ad account and just think: “I don’t even know what to test anymore.”

Yeah. That.

You’ve got a product that works. Revenue’s solid.

But growth? Flat. 

ROAS is too tight. Creative’s gone stale. And scaling spend feels like lighting money on fire.

I’ve seen it too many times. Founders, CGOs, CMOs, stuck refreshing dashboards, waiting for something to pop... while still being the only one in the room thinking about tomorrow.

That’s where I come in.

No frameworks. No fluff. Just hands-on help fixing what’s broken in your growth system—fast.

At Aspire Digital, we’ve worked with 135+ DTC brands. Directly generated $22M+ in revenue by spotting the real problem, not the obvious one.

That “why isn’t this scaling?” feeling? I get it.

Me and my team plug in, find the cracks, rebuild what matters i.e. creative, audience, structure, and get your growth engine running smooth again.

No more recycling last quarter’s best ad. No more random tests. No more guessing.

Just strategy that sticks. And ads that hit.

If that sounds like what you need, DM me “ASPIRE.”

I’ll send over a quick 15-min Loom teardown of your current setup on what’s working, what’s costing you, and what I’d do first to fix it.

Let’s get you unstuck.

Michael Mulraney

Your ad problem is an IDEA problem.

Because hooks don’t fix weak ideas.
Formats don’t fix weak ideas.
Editing doesn’t fix weak ideas.

In audits, I see brands do this all the time:

They rewrite hooks over and over.
They switch formats every week.
They say they’re “testing new angles,” but it’s the same idea with new words.

They never stop to ask if the idea itself is bad.

That’s why things get stuck.

Here’s the rule we use internally:

If the idea doesn’t represent why someone buys, no hook will save it.

I audited a CPG brand before the holidays in a very emotional category.

Their ads focused on features:

innovation, specs, how it works.

It sounded smart. But it didn’t sell.

What would work better?

Pain → relief.

Not “better method.”

Less stress.
More ease.
Faster results.

When you show the product as the FEELING people wanted, not the features, performance improves.

Because people don’t buy innovation.
They buy the product that solves their problem.

Save this if your tests keep stalling.

Scaled 135+ DTC Brands In 5 Years Using Creative-First Ad Testing | DM “ASPIRE” to get a personalized 15-min teardown | Meta Ads | Google Ads | TikTok Ads

UGC doesn’t mean “unscripted”.
It means "understood".

On sales calls, founders will say something like:

“We need more UGC.”
“We need creators.”
“We just need more videos.”

But then you look at what they’re running... and it’s basically:

‣ A person holding the product
‣ Few benefits
‣ Discount

“link in bio” energy

That’s not UGC. That’s random footage with captions.

The best UGC is scripted.

Not in a cringe “read this line” way...

BUT, in a sequence way.

Because most products don’t fail on Meta because they’re bad.
They fail because the buyer doesn’t understand what problem it solves fast enough.

I had a founder tell me, “It’s as much education as it is advertising.” 

That’s the whole game.

So here’s the rule:

UGC is a sales pitched delivered through a consumer's POV.

READ. THAT. AGAIN.

If the argument is weak, the human doesn’t save it.
If the argument is clear, the human makes it believable.

A “good” UGC ad usually has these 4 things nailed:

1. Context (who is this for, what moment are we in)
2. Problem (what sucks right now)
3. Mechanism (why this solves it, not just “it’s the best”)
4. Proof (experience, result, social validation)

When brands skip the mechanism, they get the most common outcome:

“People are clicking… but nobody’s buying.” 

And then they blame the creator.

It's not the creator (or the volume), it's your strategy.

graphical user interface, text, application

Every instinct as a founder says ‘grow faster.’ This year, I’m doing the opposite.

I’ve made the intentional decision to slow down our agency’s growth.

And honestly, it wasn’t an easy call.

Last year was a big one for us.

‣ We grew the team from 4 to 16 team members.
‣ We took on more brands.
‣ We worked with bigger clients.

It was a year of momentum, pressure, and learning by doing.

I’m incredibly grateful for how hard our team pushed and what we were able to build together.

But looking back, I also gained clarity.

This year, the focus is different.

We’re growing more intentionally.

That means:

‣ Being more selective about the clients we work with
‣ Setting clear caps on how many brands we support at once
‣ Making sure every client gets the depth of partnership they deserve
‣ Not just good results... but a sustainable way to achieve them.

It also means investing in creating a space for the team to do their best work consistently... not just in sprints.

And giving myself more time to be present:

with the team, clients, and most importantly... the direction of the company.

One step back now, so we can take two steps forward later.... with clarity, confidence, and real momentum behind us.

I couldn’t be more excited about what this unlocks for our team, our clients, and the future of the company.

Sometimes the fastest way forward is building the foundations first.

No alternative text description for this image

A founder came to me complaining about a $500 UGC video.

He said it was every penny wasted.

It was stunning. 

The lighting? Perfect.
The creator? Charismatic as hell.

But it said nothing...

About. The. Product.

This is the mistake killing your UGC performance, and most brands make it 9 times out of 10.

You’re not briefing creators. You’re begging them to guess.

‣ “Make it feel authentic.”
‣ “Show the product.”
‣ “Be engaging.”

That’s not a brief. That’s a hope and a prayer.

Creators aren’t always strategists. They’re executors.

(But that doesn’t mean they’re robots).

If you don’t give them a map, they’ll get lost (and take your ad budget with them).

Here’s the system we use to generate high-quality UGC ad variations:

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳

Before we touch a script, we give the creator context that actually matters:

‣ What pain points the audience cares about
‣ How the product improves real lives
‣ What people hate about competitors
‣ Our best reviews and customer language
‣ The objections we need to kill

This is what allows creators to sell with nuance, not just energy.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝘂𝗮𝗹-𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱

We provide a full word-for-word script to remove guesswork (tone, message, pacing, all dialed in).

But we don’t stop there.

We also ask them to film a second version with their own natural delivery.

Same context. Same structure. Their voice.

This gives us 2 options:

→ The clean, dialed-in version
→ The “authentic” freestyle that still says what we need

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗮𝗽

We break it down shot by shot:

‣ Facial expressions
‣ Product handling
‣ Lighting and background
‣ Wardrobe and energy levels

Script: “I used to crash after lunch.”
Visual: Slouched at desk, yawning.

Script: “Then I found this.”
Visual: Bright light, big smile, holding product close.

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟰: 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗩𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

We brief creators on components, not just finished scripts:

‣ 2-3 different intros/hooks
‣ 2-3 proof points
‣ 2-3 CTAs

Now you’re not praying for one decent video.

You’re running an actual testing system.

Most brands do this instead:

→ Send a vague prompt
→ Get unusable content
→ Argue over revisions
→ Launch nothing or settle for average

𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 ≠ 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦

𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 > 𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺.

You’re not looking for art.

You’re looking for outcomes.

How strong is your current briefing process?

If you handed your last brief to a stranger...

Could they make a top-performing ad on the first try?

If not.... it’s time to systemize.

Drop “𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳” in the comments and I’ll walk you through our exact process.

UGC System for Meta Ads

Scaling ads is boring.
That’s why most brands never do it.

On sales calls I hear versions of this every week:

“We tried Meta for a few months.” “It didn’t really pick up.” “We weren’t consistent.”

The part you want is the exciting part.

✨ A breakout winner and instant scale. ✨

But scaling is still the boring part:

‣ fixing the offer + site message so it’s clear in 3 seconds
‣ building a testing loop you can run every week
‣ making meaningful variations, not tiny edits
‣ increasing budget slowly even when it’s working
‣ watching ROAS dip and not panicking

Andromeda made this more true, not less. 

Small “iteration” changes often don’t buy you distinct learning; new concepts and clear signals do. 

You didn’t lose because Meta “stopped working.”
You lost because you stopped doing the boring part consistently.

After scaling 135+ brands on Meta since 2019, the common factor is simple:

CONSISTENT CONCEPT OUTPUT.

Not micro-iterations.

A system that produces new angles, new proof, new demos... every week.

If you’re a DTC brand owner and you keep “trying ads” in short bursts, you’re not losing to competitors with better ads.

You’re losing to competitors who can tolerate being bored longer than you.

📌 Bonus Move: Gift-With-Purchase Arbitrage
Use items that look premium but cost little.
High perceived value.
Low real cost.
Massive impact on AOV and profit per order.

Scaling ads is boring

Here's the unsexy step that will save your next campaign:

Founders want to talk creative strategy.
Ad copy.
Scaling frameworks.

But the truth is that the fastest way to kill momentum in a new account isn’t bad creative...

It’s bad tracking.

At Aspire, we work with a lot of established brands... from 7-figure DTC stores to companies with fully custom-built backends.

And one challenge that kept showing up early on was that we’d have campaigns ready to go (structure built, creative finalized, copy dialed in), but the technical setup wasn’t finished.

Custom site integrations, pixel tracking, platform approvals... all the unsexy backend work that nobody wants to think about.

We’d be ready to launch...but end up waiting days (sometimes weeks) for tracking fixes, approvals, or access.

That's valuable momentum gone.

We learned our lesson quickly.

Now, before we touch a single campaign, we start with one question:

What could slow us down later?

If it’s technical, we fix it first.
If it’s access, we get it early.
If it’s approvals, we line them up before creative ever hits the feed.

We front-load every potential roadblock.

Because there’s nothing worse than having everything built... and nothing live.

That shift alone changed how we onboard every client today.
We still move fast, but more importantly... we move smart.

The “perfect” UGC ad is usually worse than a clear one.

Great camera.
Perfect lighting.
Scripted reviews.
Smooth edits.

And somehow it still doesn’t sell.

Because being REAL matters more than looking good, especially to TOF.

Over-produced UGC ads fail because:

You can’t tell the problem in the first couple seconds
The reason to care gets lost in the vibe
The result is hinted at, not said outright

BUT, there is a scenario where polished UGC ads can work:

‣ Expensive products
‣ Niches that need a lot of trust
‣ Retargeting, when people already get it

HOWEVER, 

If you’re talking to people who don’t know you yet,
OR The product is something that fixes a simple, annoying problem...

then in those cases, high polish UGC says:

“This is an ad.”
Not: “This fixes my problem.”
 
Looking better helps AFTER people understand.

Creative fatigue isn’t the problem.
Lack of a research system is.

Most ad accounts stall after 2–3 weeks because they’re built on guesswork.

We produce 60–120 new creatives a week across client accounts without ever running out of ideas, and this is the system we use to do it.

It’s built on six research inputs:

1. Your own brand ecosystem

‣ Comments, tags, and inboxes are full of overlooked insights.
‣ Customer language, recurring objections, user-generated content... it’s all there.
‣ Spend 5–10 minutes a day looking for the language and patterns that are already working.

2. Direct competitors

‣ Ads, reviews, headlines, offers.
‣ Study what they’re testing... not to copy, but to spot the patterns they’re betting on.
‣ Track positioning shifts and keep a record of the angles that repeat.

3. Indirect competitors

‣ Look at brands selling different products to solve the same underlying desire.
‣ If you're helping people make money, look at coaches, SaaS tools, and freelancers.
‣ If you're helping people lose weight, study fitness apps, wearable tech, and meal plan services.

This is how you find fresh angles your direct competition is ignoring.

4. The customer’s perspective

‣ Search like they search.
‣ Scroll through TikTok, YouTube, Reddit.
‣ Watch what gets attention. Log the hooks and visuals that make you stop scrolling.

5. Failed ad analysis
 
‣ Every ad that didn’t scale still taught you something.
‣ What part actually worked; the hook, the structure, the visual?
‣ Failures are where you find nuance. Treat them as data, not dead ends.

6. Winning ad iterations
 
‣ Take your top performers and twist the angle.
‣ A post titled “How to scale Facebook ads” becomes “5 signs you’re ready to scale.”
‣ Same core idea. New hook. New creative.

You don’t need to reinvent anything.
You need a system for collecting, logging, and acting on insights.

A consistent research rhythm looks like this:

→ Daily: 5–10 min of comment and tag mining
→ Weekly: Competitor and customer research
→ Monthly: Review what failed and why

If you’re stuck for ideas every few weeks, this is the fix.

If you want to see how we apply this system to build weekly creative pipelines for clients, 

DM me and I’ll walk you through it.

I’ve worked with more than 135 DTC brands in the last 5+ years.

Many were stuck at <$60K/month, burning through creatives, and running ads without a roadmap to profitability.

Now, a lot of those brands have scaled to $100K+/month (profitably!).

These brands had four fundamentals COMPLETELY dialed in:

‣ Creative that doesn’t fatigue in two weeks
‣ Media buying that prioritizes PROFITABILITY
‣ Testing systems that kill losers in days NOT weeks
‣ Offers that convert cold traffic, not just warm retargeting

THAT'S. IT.

This is the system we've used to scale every DTC brand we've worked with that's stuck at this ceiling.

If you’re stuck around $50–70K/month, and have the infrastructure to scale to $100K/month and beyond... LET'S TALK.

Me and my team will audit where you’re stuck and map a path forward.

P.S: I've got 11 inquiries in the last 24 hours but I'm meeting JUST 3 brands next week. If you're still guessing whether this system works for your brand. DM me and I'll give you an honest breakdown.

I built a worksheet for DTC brands that tells you if a campaign is likely to make money before you spend $1.

Two brands can sell the same $100 product and need completely different ROAS to survive.

One at ~60% gross margin can be profitable around ~1.75x,
While the other at ~40% gross margin would need ~2.5x just to not lose money. 

If you’re not calculating this before launching, you’re basically flying blind.

This doc shows your break-even ROAS and forecasts gross profit in 3 scenarios:

Pessimistic, Target, and Optimistic. 

Comment "𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐓" and I’ll DM it to you.

Most e-com brands are too “on brand” to win on paid social.

Every quarter, I see the same split across our client roster:

Group 1: The ones willing to test weird, unexpected, outside-the-box concepts.
Group 2: The ones terrified to try anything that isn’t perfectly aligned with their brand book.

Guess which group is scaling?

Group 1.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

The feed doesn’t care about your brand guidelines.

It cares about attention.

Four years ago, you could run safe content and still print money.

Today?

‣ CPMs are higher
‣ Creative fatigue hits faster
‣ Competition is brutal
‣ First-purchase margins are thinner than ever

“Safe” ads don’t stop the scroll anymore.

They blend in. They get ignored. They die quietly.

The brands winning right now are the ones taking creative swings that make people go:

“Okay... didn’t expect that. I’m listening.”

Not off-brand.
Not reckless.
Just brave enough to stand out.

Brand guidelines matter... but they are not a creative strategy.

If you want to scale in 2026, you need to stretch the brand, not worship it.

You can always pull back later.

But you cannot win if you never step outside the box.

📢 QUESTION FOR FOUNDERS: Where does your brand fall on this graph?

If you're still wasting hours writing ad copy, you need to read this 👇🏻 

Across every scaled DTC account I’ve worked on, the highest-performing copy usually shares one thing.

It wasn’t invented.
It was adapted.

We pull structure from competitors spending millions per month, because their copy has already survived real testing.

Here’s how we do it.

‣ Identify competitors with real spend and consistent output
‣ Extract repeating hooks, value props, and CTA patterns
‣ Analyze the angles that keep resurfacing
‣ Adapt the structure to a different problem, audience, or benefit
‣ Rewrite until it’s brand aligned, not brand copied

Most teams copy word-for-word and call it research.
That’s not strategy.

The right approach is simple.

‣ Change the industry context
‣ Adjust the claim
‣ Shift the value prop
‣ Keep the framework that has already proven itself in the market

This will cut your copywriting time by more than 70%.

But more importantly, doing this raises the baseline quality of everything you launch.

So, instead of starting with a blank Google doc.... start with structures that have already made millions.

📢 FREE GIVEAWAY: We made a Rolex-style cinematic spot with AI and zero existing footage (in under 3 hours!).

I’m sharing the EXACT workflow we use to build ads like this for our clients.

In 2026, if you’re waiting on “content” to run ads, you’re already behind.

The difference between us and other agencies creating AI ads isn’t the tools... it’s the workflow we've constantly been perfecting the last few months.

It’s a step-by-step SOP you can run weekly.

What you’ll get in the playbook:

‣ The shot list template
‣ The prompt stack to generate consistent scenes + product closeups
‣ The post-production recipe (VO, captions, sound design, grade) that makes it feel premium
‣ How we repurpose them for multiple channels

Comment 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖 and I’ll send it over.

I’ve audited a lot of ad accounts.
And there’s a pattern I’m seeing more and more:

Brands think they’re “scaling,” but they’re really just reacting to whatever happens in Ads Manager that day.

I’ll ask, “What’s your scaling plan?”

and the answer is usually something like:

“If numbers look good, we’ll increase budget. If numbers drop, we’ll pull back.”

That’s not a plan.
That’s reacting to the weather.

And the “doubling budget until it breaks” strategy?

That’s even worse.

If you want to scale profitably, you need an actual framework... not hope or intuition.

Here’s what real scaling requires:

1️⃣ Know your numbers before you scale anything.

Break down:

‣ New customer CAC
‣ Blended CAC
‣ ROAS
‣ Payback window
‣ LTV
‣ Buying cycle

If you can’t define these at your current spend, you won’t survive them at higher spend.

2️⃣ Define your new targets at scale.

Performance will drop as you scale.
Not maybe.... definitely.

So you need to answer:

‣ What’s an acceptable CAC at higher budget?
‣ What ROAS compression can we tolerate?
‣ What CPM/frequency limits break performance?

Scaling without new targets is the fastest way to burn cash.

3️⃣ Understand the creative requirements at your next level.

If you increase spend, you must increase production.

That means:

‣ New angles
‣ New personas
‣ New formats
‣ New iterations
‣ More testing slots

If you don’t solve this, creative becomes the bottleneck... not the ads.

4️⃣ Identify operational breaking points.

Scaling isn’t just ads.

Ask:

‣ Do we have enough inventory?
‣ Can our suppliers keep up?
‣ What breaks first if spend doubles?

You can't scale a business that isn’t built to withstand being scaled.

5️⃣ Only THEN should you increase budget.

When you have:

✔️ Numbers
✔️ Targets
✔️ Creative capacity
✔️ Operational readiness

Then... and only then... should scaling begin.

Everything else is just reactive decision-making... and that destroys businesses 10x faster than bad ads ever will.

Be honest... are you scaling or reacting?

I say “no” to more brands than I say “yes” to.

Not because I’m picky,
But because I’ve seen what happens when ads are used to “create” demand instead of scaling it.

I’ve told founders (countless times) on sales calls that:

Ads are gasoline, if there’s no fire, Meta won’t create one. 

Before I work with any brand, I’m looking for FOUR things.

FIRST, the math has to make sense.

Your AOV, your conversion rate, your margins, and whether customers come back.

That decides if it's even possible to scale. 

SECOND, I need evidence the product already sells without “tricks.”

If you’re already winning organically or on Amazon, TikTok, affiliates, PT referrals, anything,
that tells me the market wants it (fire) and ads can amplify (gasoline) it. 

THIRD, I need you to buy in to our creative system.

We don't make random ads.

Our approach is iteration-based testing, hooks, angles, versions, and a TIGHT loop that tells us what to build next. 

FOURTH, I need you to be the kind of operator who can handle the initial boring part.

If you need a “guaranteed 10 ROAS” to feel safe, you will panic the moment we do the work required to actually scale. 

So, if you want an agency that tells you what you want to hear, I’m NOT it.

BUT, If you’d rather hear the truth now than learn it the expensive way later, I’m exactly it.

We made this video ad with ZERO footage. 👇🏻

If you’re a smaller brand without a real production budget, this is the equalizer.

Because a “cinematic AI ad” isn’t a prompt.

It’s a workflow.

We make it happen in 4 stages: 

‣ Concept it like a real shoot (tone, shot list, angles, lighting)
‣ Generate frames shot-by-shot (then re-upload + iterate for consistency)
‣ Animate stills into real motion
‣ Post-produce like a normal ad (color, motion graphics, audio, pacing)

This took about 3 hours compared to a full-scale shoot + production that would've taken a week. 

I wrote a step-by-step tutorial with the exact workflow + prompt examples + costs.

Comment "𝗔𝗜" and I’ll DM it to you.

One issue I see inside agencies (and honestly, inside almost every company) is what happens when people have zero understanding of the roles they collaborate with.

Take an advertising agency.

If a media buyer doesn’t understand the creative strategist’s workflow (the process, the constraints, the mindset, the dos and don’ts), friction is guaranteed.

I’m not saying you need to master someone else’s job.

But you do need a high-level understanding of:

‣ How their workflow actually functions
‣ What constraints they operate within
‣ What systems they rely on
‣ What frustrations they experience
‣ What they need from you to do great work

When this understanding is missing, two things happen:

𝟭. 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘀.

Both sides think they’re doing the right thing... but they’re solving different problems.

𝟮. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗱.

Opportunities that would make everyone’s job easier go unseen because neither side understands the other’s world.

Cross-training solves most of this.

Nothing crazy.

Just giving teams a high-level look into each other's roles, responsibilities, pressures, and decision-making.

When people understand each other’s roles, collaboration becomes smoother, problems get solved faster, and the entire organization becomes more effective.

Sometimes the breakthrough isn’t a new hire or a new system.

It’s simply understanding the person you’re already working with.

Brands write ads based on THEIR motivation... not the customer’s.

𝗔 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 “𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲.”
↳ But the customer just wants breakouts gone before a first date.

𝗔 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 “𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵.”
↳ But the customer wants energy at 3 PM so they don’t look half-dead on Zoom.

𝗔 𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 “𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁.”
↳ But the buyer wants to feel like they finally have their life together.

This is where most brands waste money... they pick the wrong primary motivator.

When I audit accounts, we classify buyers into 5 motivator buckets:

Pain-avoidance
Identity-shift
Convenience
Status/Perception
Curiosity/Discovery

After scaling 135+ DTC brands, I can confidently say...

Every winning campaign (across every niche) aligns with one of these.

Want me to tell you which motivator your top customers respond to?
DM or Comment “Motivator” below.

If I had 30 minutes in your ad account, I’d look at THIS first.

No, it's not targeting or bids or “new ads.”

I’d start with the order most brands mess up:

1. The Offer

Before ads grow, the offer has to be good enough.

I ask:

‣ Is this a real deal, or just the product?
‣ Does it help people spend more, or feel safer buying?
‣ Does it make sense to someone who doesn’t know the brand yet?

Most accounts get stuck because the ads are trying to fix a weak offer.

They can’t.

2. The Ads

Only after the offer makes sense do we look at the ads.

And no, not “just make more ads.”

We look at:

‣ What ideas are missing
‣ Which ideas should be tweaked vs tried fresh
‣ Why ads stop working so fast
‣ What types of ads Meta actually needs to learn (UGC, demos, founder videos, proof, comparisons)

Throwing out random ads doesn’t scale into $100K+/month profitable spend.

Having a SYSTEM does.

3. The Page

This is where a lot of money quietly disappears.

We check:

‣ What people expect vs what the page shows
‣ Where trust shows up, or doesn’t
‣ If the offer is clear at the top
‣ If the page teaches first or pushes the sale too fast

Great ads sent to the wrong page will never perform.

Why this order matters

Most agencies will start your ad-account audit with:

❌ settings
❌ cost numbers
❌ “quick fixes”

We DON'T do that.

Our audits answer one thing:

What is actually stopping this brand from growing and still making money?

That’s why we:

‣ Look at the whole setup, not just the ad account
‣ Line up the offer, the ads, and the page
‣ Lay out what to fix first, then second, then third

If you want us to do this for your brand → DM “ASPIRE”, and me and my team will do a 15-minute audit via Loom.

In the last 8 weeks alone, I’ve seen three different brands try this (and the results were surprisingly good!):

They launched an ad they were embarrassed to run.

Forget the studio.
Forget the perfect edits.
Forget the color grading.

Shaky iPhone clips. One-take videos. POV content.

Here's why I think these "ugly ads" are performing better:

We all know when we're being “sold.”

We see a polished ad and we immediately relate it to marketing.

Here’s what we’re suggesting now for our clients:

‣ Shoot in real environments, not sets
‣ Use one-take clips, no cuts
‣ Keep the mistakes in
‣ Use conversational lines, not scripts
‣ Show the product mid-use, not staged

So, if you’re scared to run an ad... that’s usually the sign it’ll work.

Test one this week.

Thoughts?

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