Daily Content & LinkedIn Insights • Founder at I.Am.U Media • Content and LinkedIn Consulting for Founders & CEOs

Before joining The 216, most of our clients were struggling with:

→ No clear offer (or an offer nobody understood)
→ An inconsistent way to generate qualified leads 
→ No process to have sales conversations with confidence

Many felt like impostors when talking about their business.
Others seriously considered going back to their 9-5 jobs.

And in general, they were constantly worried about when they would sign their next client.

After joining The 216, they all walked out with clear frameworks around:

1️⃣ Niching and Positioning: Explaining their business in a way that people instantly “get”.
2️⃣ Offer Creation: Building a premium, outcome-driven offer built around real client pain.
3️⃣ Repeatable Outreach System: Having a simple process anyone can follow to start conversations every week using only LinkedIn.
4️⃣ Natural Sales Process: A sales process that feels natural, easy, and with improving close rates. 

It’s the same system that helped:

📌 Adina Samuels (Manuscript Ghostwriter): From corporate job → $200k solo business
📌 Christian Mather (Wealth & Exit Planner): 4× monthly income to $23k in under 10 weeks
📌 Matthew Mercer (Recruitment Coach): Consistent £10k–£15k months
📌 Allison Paley (CS Consultant): From self-doubt → landed a $36,000 client
📌 Efe Buyuk (Data Systems Designer): Made 6× the program fee in under 12 weeks
📌 Priscilla Leigh (Psychoaudiologist): First high-ticket client in 21 days
📌 Chris Corridore (Brand Strategist): First $15k month and best year ever

These are all real people. You can find their profiles in my Featured Section. 

I invite you to message them and ask what their experience was like. 

And if you're ready, and you want a business that runs with clarity, control, and clients you can count on, send me a DM and I’ll share how The 216 works.

—

Mat Lehnhoff

If you're sending connection requests and getting less than 20% acceptance rate, something's broken. Here's what to check:

1. Your profile picture is doing you dirty.

Make sure you're showing your face. Zoom in. And smile.

It sounds wild, but people will literally judge if you're worth connecting with based on this.


2. You're connecting with the wrong people.

The secret is to be as specific as possible. "Coaches & consultants" doesn't cut it.

Use specific job titles. Use specific locations. Pay for LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Some audiences simply aren't active on LinkedIn. 
But you have to test it.


3. Your headline shows zero value.

The first 10 words of your headline are what matter most.

They need to show how you can help your ideal client.

Or at minimum, create some intrigue.

Don't waste that precious real estate writing something like "Loving father". 

Show what's in it for THEM.


Here's what nobody tells you:

Having less than 20% acceptance rate means you'll be able to send fewer connection requests.

Because it signals to LinkedIn that people don't want to connect with you.

Which means fewer opportunities to grow your network and generate leads.

No bueno.

But it's easily fixed if you pay attention to these 3.


PS: If you consistently have 20-30% acceptance rate, you should be able to send 200 requests/week.

—

Grow to $15,000 months with LinkedIn alone • Learn how at The 216

A client was overthinking their LinkedIn outreach, so I reminded them:

LinkedIn has 1.2 billion users 

And you don't need to reach ALL of them.

Not even close.
You just need to reach a handful.

For example:

You could have 10 clients at $1500/month to create a $180k/year business.

That's it. Ten people.

You can run that solo, keep 95% profit margins, and design the lifestyle you actually want.

So you basically can get ignored by a billion people on this platform and STILL WIN.

You can fail 99% of the time, and STILL WIN.

How cool is that?

Here's the punchline:

Stop worrying about reaching everyone.

Start focusing on finding those "ten" clients who need what you offer.

That's all you need.

(And you can always grow from there).

Managing Partner @ Brick | Ads & Creative for 100+ DTC brands - $300m+ in sales | I write content about paid ads, performance creative & e-commerce

We scale 7 to 9-figure DTC brands using a creative-first, full-funnel approach that blends paid ads, landing pages, and performance-driven creative.

Brick isn’t a bloated agency juggling 50 clients. 

We’re a boutique team of senior strategists, creatives, and media buyers working closely with a small group of brands we genuinely believe in.

Everything we do is grounded in research, strategy, and execution. No juniors, no handoffs, no fluff.

We’ve driven over $400M in trackable revenue for some of the fastest-growing DTC brands. Our work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Social Media Examiner, and other leading publications. More importantly, 92% of the brands we work with hit all-time revenue highs in under 90 days.

If you're spending on ads but not seeing consistent growth, we can help. 

We focus on fixing the bottlenecks that are holding your brand back—whether it's creative fatigue, poor landing page performance, or inefficient account structure.

Message me “GROWTH” or check the link in my featured section to see how we work.

Toby W.

Struggling to scale Meta Ads?

If your ad account isn’t built for scale, efficiency breaks with spend.

After helping 250+ DTC brands scale profitably, we’ve documented the exact Meta Ads framework we use internally.

I’m giving it away for free.

Inside the guide, you’ll learn:

✅ How to structure Meta campaigns for predictable scale
✅ A repeatable creative testing system to find winners faster
✅ Where most ad accounts leak performance as spend increases
✅ How to scale while protecting ROAS & CPA

If you want your Meta account set up to scale, this is for you.

To get a copy:

• Connect with me
• Like this post
• Comment “META”

I’ll send it straight to your inbox.

Toby Waller

I help eCom brands scale past $25M/yr with Ads + Retention. $450M+ in revenue | Moto, Leica, Kodak, Drake + 200+ more.

Most fashion brands don’t have a media buying problem.
 
They have a creative volume problem.

9/10 brands we audit aren’t testing anywhere near enough variety to let Meta do its job.

If your current approach looks like this:

 • Re-running the same carousel until it dies
 • 1–2 “hero” concepts per collection
 • Creative testing based on gut feel, not structure

You’re capping scale - even if performance looks fine.

I’ve pulled together 100+ high-converting ad creatives used by top-performing fashion brands to unlock scale through volume + variety.

Want access?

Like + comment “Fashion” and DM me - I'll reply with the deck.

Most beauty & wellness brands fail to scale because they:

🚫 Keep using the same ad angles
🚫 Don’t test enough different creative formats
🚫 Don't have a robust ideation process for new ideas

This swipe file fixes all of that...

100+ high-performing ad examples you need to test now for your beauty brand.

Want it? 

1: Like this post 
2. Comment ‘Beauty’
3. DM Me & I'll reply with the swipe file

Creative volume isn't your problem.

Most brands think they need 100 new ads per month.

What they actually need: 7-10 truly distinct creative angles.

We've catalogued 102 frameworks across every product category. 

The pattern is clear:

Winning accounts don't focus solely on volume.

They systematically test genuinely different approaches:

✅ Founder-led storytelling (not just "here's our story")
✅ Process/making-of content that builds product credibility
✅ Comparative positioning that reframes the category
✅ Lifestyle integration that shows the transformation
✅ UGC that addresses specific objections
✅ Interactive formats that stop the scroll

The difference between a $50K/month account and a $500K/month account isn't creative output.

It's creative diversity.

DM me if you want me and my team to dive into a deep audit across your creative and paid ads...

We'll show you where you're leaving growth on the table and how to break through your next revenue ceiling.

Creative Variety

We’re hiring a world-class Creative Strategist 🚀

This isn’t a junior role.

This role comes with real responsibility.

You’ll own creative ideation, testing, and iteration for some of the most recognisable DTC brands in the world - working directly with founders and senior operators to unlock scale.

We’re looking for the best of the best:

• Research-led, data-driven, and ruthless about what actually works
• Thinks in angles, insights, and systems - not random tests
• Wants to be deeply involved in brand growth, not hidden in delivery
• Hungry to level up inside a team that actively invests in your development

If you live and breathe performance creative, and want real ownership, this will be a fit.

Drop me a message, and I'll share the next steps 

{We must be connected}

We're scaling brands spending $100k+ per day on Meta.

The common thread?

Relentless optimisation of the boring, structural pieces that most teams overlook - the ones that compound into real scale.

Here are 5 we see time and time again:

1. Elite understanding of your economics

What we usually inherit:
 → Arbitrary CAC or ROAS targets
 → Blended metrics masking true new customer performance
 → Scale constrained by misunderstood payback and cash flow dynamics

What needs to be implemented:
 → True new customer CAC + contribution margin modelling
 → Payback period targets aligned to cash flow and inventory cycles
 → Scale decisions driven by unit economics - not surface-level ROAS

2. Rebuilding shallow creative portfolios

What we usually inherit:
 → Over-reliance on one format (usually UGC/testimonials)
 → Similar messaging dressed up as “new ads”
 → No creative built intentionally for placements

What we implement:
 → A balanced creative mix (UGC, product, educational, lifestyle, hi-res)
 → Hooks and angles mapped to buyer awareness stages
 → Placement-specific creative (Feed ≠ Stories ≠ Reels)

3. Be obsessive about learning from your customers

What we usually inherit:
 → Assumption that the current product range is “good enough”
 → Creative and offers forced to carry product gaps
 → No structured customer feedback loop into product strategy

What needs to be implemented:
 → Systematic customer insight mining (reviews, comments, support, surveys)
 → Clear feedback loops into product improvements and new SKUs
 → Product and offer expansion based on proven demand signals

4. Align ads to intent-specific landing experiences

What we usually inherit:
 → Everything sent to a generic PDP
 → Messaging disconnect between ad and page
 → One-size-fits-all post-click experience

What we implement:
 → Angle-matched landing pages
 → Problem-solution pages for pain-led ads
 → Comparison pages for competitor-aware traffic

5. AOV and offer architecture

What we usually inherit:
 → No structured upsell or cross-sell system
 → Discounts as the only lever

What we implement:
 → Bundles built from real purchase behaviour
 → In-cart and post-purchase upsell systems
 → Subscription and continuity offers where it makes sense

The uncomfortable truth:

Most brands don’t stall because their media buying isn't being micro-managed.

They stall because their unit economics, product strategy, creative system, and offer architecture aren’t built to support scale.

You can patch tactics for a while.

But eventually, structure becomes the ceiling.

If growth feels capped… It’s usually hiding in one of these.

Hiring: Senior Creative Strategist

We're looking for someone who can own creative strategy for our 7-9 figure DTC brands.

You need to be:

✅ A savage with direct response creative strategy who proactively hunts for pockets of opportunity.

✅ Insanely granular with analysis - figuring out exactly why things work and why they don't.

✅ 10/10 attention to detail. Nothing slips through the net.

✅ A good eye for design principles and basic design skills.

✅ Someone who grinds and wants to help our clients dominate.

You'll own creative ideation, testing, and iteration for brands doing 8-figure months.

Real responsibility. Real influence on outcomes.

Fair warning: This isn't just a 9-5. 

This is ownership, accountability, and relentless focus on results.

If you're systems-oriented, research-driven, and ready to prove you're one of the best creative strategists in the game - message me.

$20M in 90 days.
From ~$170K to ~$210K per day.

LinkedIn's character limit won't let me write everything we actually did for this brand...

So here's the bullet list version for ya'll:

→ Analyzed 18 months of support tickets, had leadership call 50+ customers, audited every creative. Found they'd been speaking to their smallest, noisiest audience while ignoring the segment doing most of the buying. 
Enthusiasts cared about specs. Most buyers just wanted something that worked. Complete messaging repositioning across every touchpoint.

→ Separated testing and scaling environments. Dedicated testing campaigns with 15-20% of budget to prove creative before it touched scaling budgets. Winners graduated to scaling campaigns optimized for scale, not learning.

→ Killed competing campaigns creating auction overlap. Consolidated to a few core campaigns with clear objectives. Account simplification unlocked efficiency improvements before we touched creative.

→ Shifted from polished brand content to raw founder UGC. iPhone videos with authentic storytelling outperformed $5K studio productions. 35% higher engagement, 28% lower CPA.

→ Leant into angular diversity, not volume for volume sake. When one angle fatigued, others kept performing because they reached different audiences.

→ Expanded to Canada, UK, Australia with localized creative and offer testing. Added 30% to total spend at maintained efficiency.

→ Tested offer structure over lazy discounting. BOGO frameworks, product bundles that increased AOV 23%, threshold offers. A $100 product with $20 of bonus items converts better than the same product at $80 while protecting margin.

→ Rebuilt landing pages as advertorials. Improved site speed (mobile 13→66, desktop 32→96) and implemented progressive disclosure for objection handling. Lifted CVR 18%.

→ Implemented systematic creative rotation. Monitored frequency caps, CTR degradation, and hook rate decay. Refreshed at the angle level, not the ad level.

→ Built feedback loops between creative performance and product messaging. What worked in ads informed email, SMS, and site copy. What converted on landing pages informed new creative angles.

→ Got global CVR to 2.8% (previous peak was 1.9%). The compounding effect of better traffic quality, aligned messaging, faster site speed, and smarter offer structure.

The result: $20M in 90 days. 
37% YoY growth.
Healthy unit economics.

We didn't chase breakthroughs. We stacked optimizations.

Better structure + authentic creative + smarter offers + post-click experience = better efficiency = more scale.

Most brands try to scale before they've built the foundation. 

They add budget to broken systems and wonder why performance degrades.

Research isn't sexy. Account audits aren't glamorous. 

But they're the difference between growth that scales and growth that stalls.

Our goal isn't a 100-client agency.

Far from it. 

It's to be the most effective partner for a small group of elite brands.

That's it.

I'm watching my team execute at a level I didn't think was possible. 

Media buyers, creative strategists, email team - all moving in lockstep.

Besides the metrics. Here's what really tells me we're onto something:

- Clients introducing us to their network unprompted 
- Clients asking if we need testimonials (not the other way around) 
- DMs from partners saying they've never seen returns like this

All three happened this week. 

From brands we only started with in Q4/Q1.

The compound effect when you align the right people around the right clients is absurd.

You found a winner. Congrats. 

Now what?

It wasn’t luck.
It was a signal.

Most brands miss this.

They scale creative without understanding why it worked.

They recycle winners instead of reverse-engineering them.

Here’s the 4-step system we use to scale Meta ad accounts from $50k to $500k/month:

✅ Review the top 20 ads
✅ Run a message + visual analysis
✅ Extract scroll-stopping hooks, angles & motifs
✅ Brief 5–10 net-new concepts to test

It’s simple. It’s scalable. And it compounds over time.

We recently used this exact process to help an apparel brand unlock their biggest month ever.

Reverse Engineer

Every week, I audit accounts spending $100K > $1m/month+ on Meta.

They’re “testing aggressively.”

But here’s what that actually means in practice:

→ 5 UGC creators saying the same hook in different kitchens
→ 3 versions of the founder story with new B-roll
→ 4 testimonial cuts with the same message
→ 6 statics with one value prop in different colours

18 ads launched.
3 concepts tested.

This is the illusion of testing - tons of output, zero hypothesis diversity.

Takeaway: More ads don’t equal more insights. 
Without angle diversity, you’re just repeating yourself louder.

Your best creative has 10X more juice left in it than you think. 

Here's how to extract it:

Video ads:

New hooks (change text overlay or reshoot opening 3 seconds)
Swap in different leads while keeping the rest identical
Same script, different creators
Change b-roll (especially powerful for AI VO ads)
Speed up/slow down pacing
Cut to core message or extend with more proof
Test different testimonials

Static ads:
Winning visual + new headlines
Winning headline + new visuals

For native-style ads: 
Use AI tools to swap the person/main subject across demographics

The key: 
Change one variable at a time.

This is how you get more from each creative winner.

Most brands see a winner and spend a week building something new from scratch.

The sophisticated approach treats iteration like a controlled experiment.

$20.1M in sales & 39% YoY growth. 
A huge part of that came from our Google Ads strategy. 
Here's the full breakdown ⤵

The foundational mistake most brands make:

They jump to tactics without understanding what they're optimizing for.

We spent weeks in research before acting:

✅ Multi-year search trends to map demand curves 
✅ Profitability mapping across every SKU 
✅ Competitor analysis on creative diversity and offers 
✅ Landing page audit to identify where traffic was dying

This research revealed the core problem:

Google's PMax algorithm was optimizing for volume, not profit.

Their consolidated campaigns funnelled 60%+ of budget into low-AOV purchases (£25-£40) while starving high-margin hero products (£150-£250).

Classic algorithm behaviour.

More conversions = better performance in Google's eyes.

Even if those conversions are killing your margins.

Here's what we did:

1. Product Segmentation by Profit Architecture

Split PMax into three distinct campaigns:
✅ High-AOV hero products (£150-£250) 
✅ High-margin seasonal bestsellers (40%+ margins) 
✅ Volume drivers (for retargeting and list building)

Each with separate budgets, creatives, and bidding.

Result: 45% lower CPA on high-AOV products.

2. The Full Seasonal Cycle (Not Just "Scale During Peak")

Most brands turn budgets up in November and call it seasonality strategy.

We ran a three-phase cycle:

Phase 1 - Pre-Season Momentum (October) Early-bird campaigns 30 days before peak demand. Locked in conversions before competition heated up.

Phase 2 - Aggressive Peak Scaling (Nov-Dec) Increased budgets 92% while holding 4X ROAS. This is the critical bit - most brands either under-scale (leave money on table) or over-scale (kill profitability).

Phase 3 - Post-Season Retargeting (Jan) Extended revenue cycle by converting browsers who didn't buy during peak. Captured an additional 15-20% of peak revenue.

3. PMax Creative Rotation

Test 3-4 new variants every 10-14 days 
Scale winners across all campaigns within 48 hours 
Kill underperformers after 7 days

4. Landing Page Segmentation by Intent

Generic product pages = generic conversion rates.

We built dedicated pages for: 
✅ Seasonal traffic (messaging tailored to "right now" demand) 
✅ High-AOV browsers (heavy social proof, urgency, risk reversal) 
✅ Returning visitors (bundle offers, loyalty messaging)

The bottom line:

Most brands have a scaling problem because they have a precision problem.

Google Ads will happily spend your budget.

It won't spend wisely unless you force constraints that align algorithm behavior with profit goals.

Segmentation isn't a tactic. It's a forcing function.

I've seen brands with 100+ active ads struggle to break $500K/month. And brands with 50 scale past $5M. 
The difference?

One is making more ads. The other is testing more angles.

Creative strategy isn't about volume. It's about angular diversity.

Here's what that means:

Most brands think they need "more creative." So they brief their team:

"Make 10 new ads this month."

What they get back: 
10 variations of the same concept. Different hooks, different B-roll, maybe different talent. 

But fundamentally the same psychological approach.

That's not 10 ads. That's one angle with 10 executions.

An angle is the core strategic premise. 

The "why should I care" that everything else hangs on.

"This product solves [specific pain point]" = one angle
"This product delivers [aspirational outcome]" = different angle
"This product works differently than [expected solution]" = different angle
"You're already doing [behavior], this makes it better" = different angle
"Everyone else is wrong about [belief]" = different angle

Each angle appeals to different psychology, performs in different audiences, and fatigues independently.

What I see working at scale:

The brands spending $500K+ monthly? 

They're running 8-12 distinct angles simultaneously. Each angle might have 2-3 executions, but the strategic diversity is in the angles, not the volume.

They're not asking "Can we make more content?"

They're asking "What angles haven't we tested?"

Pain point vs aspiration. Social proof vs founder story. Education vs entertainment. Problem-unaware vs solution-aware.

When one angle fatigues, the others keep performing because they're reaching fundamentally different audience psychology.

The brands stuck at $200K are making their 47th iteration of the same winning ad.

The brands at $3M are testing their 9th completely different approach.

Your creative production bottleneck isn't volume. 

It's your angle diversity.

You don't need 50 ads a month. 

You need 5 genuinely different angles, each executed 2-3 ways.

Stop counting ads. Start counting angles.

This supplement brand was stuck selling to gym bros. 

We helped them hit $595k/month by talking to real people.

In early 2025, they came to us with solid traction in a niche audience, think high-protein macros, muscle recovery, bodybuilding lingo.

But our research showed something very different:

Their real growth potential wasn’t in gyms.

It was in busy, health-conscious women who wanted convenience, nutrition, and taste.

So we did what most agencies don’t:

We stopped guessing... and started listening.

🧠 Step 1: Deep Consumer Research (Not Just Surveys)

We went beyond surface-level insights:

✅ Poured through past survey data
✅ Analyzed 1000s of customer support tickets
✅ Reviewed post-purchase survey feedback via KnoCommerce
✅ Had the founders call customers to uncover why they really bought
✅ Cross-referenced with Google search data to understand intent

Insight: 60%+ of their customer base wasn’t fitness-focused... they were professionals, busy parents, women 30–50 who just wanted a quick, tasty, healthy option.

🧭 Step 2: Repositioning the Product Around Real-World Value

We rewrote the narrative from “macros & muscle recovery” to:

“Delicious, healthy breakfast in under 30 seconds”
“A filling, guilt-free way to start your day”
“Keeps cravings down. Keeps energy up.”

We rebuilt creative to match:

UGC + Reels from real customers, not influencers

Copy that focused on feelings (satiety, ease, flavor)

Lifestyle ads: women eating on-the-go, at work, with kids

The same product.

But it finally spoke to the people actually buying it.

🚀 Step 3: Creative x Media Buying Synergy

Most brands create ads in a vacuum.

We built a feedback loop between creative and media buying.

Here’s how:

Creative briefs were built using top-performing hooks and past winners

Weekly reviews to identify trends

Modular creative approach: Swappable hooks, offers, CTAs

Result?

35% higher engagement and 28% lower CPA with Reels vs. static.

📊 Step 4: Strategic Scaling, Not Spray & Pray

We scaled winners slowly: +20-30% budget every 2–3 days

Doubled down on ASC+ and segmented campaigns by persona

Recycled & refreshed past winners for retargeting

Built persona-specific landing pages aligned with the new messaging

We didn’t just “spend more.”

We created a scalable system.

🧪 Step 5: CRO & Offer Testing That Moved the Needle

Built new landing pages per persona (conversion uplift: +18%)

Simplified navigation + branding for first-time buyers

Introduced tiered discounts to increase AOV

Added post-purchase surveys to fuel future creative

Raised site speed scores from 13 → 66 (mobile)

💥 Results:
282% increase in monthly revenue YoY
$595k revenue 
34% increase in subscriptions
22% drop in CPA

If your brand has plateaued or you're only speaking to one version of your customer, you're leaving scale on the table.

Everyone’s seen IM8 broken down by now.

But most people are still missing what actually made it work.

After spending time properly dissecting their execution, it’s clear that a lot of the real leverage points are either misunderstood or completely glossed over.

What they built isn’t impressive because of the headline numbers.

It’s impressive because of how deliberately the system was designed.

A few things in particular are worth studying:

1. Their “Creator Army” is a production system, not an influencer play

IM8 didn’t rely on a handful of big names and hope for virality.

They built a distributed creator operation:

• 50–200+ micro-creators
• Hundreds to thousands of assets per month
• Centralised briefs + creative direction
• Licensing top performers for paid
• Small-budget testing at scale
• Scaling only what proves performance

Creators aren’t a channel.

They’re a manufacturing layer for paid media.

This is why they can sustain 3,000+ active creative variations without losing focus on one core offer.

Most brands bottleneck on creative.

IM8 engineered the bottleneck out of the system.

2. Offer depth, not product breadth

IM8 didn’t scale by launching more SKUs.

They did the opposite:

One core product.
No flavours.
One primary bundle.

Then they tested thousands of angles against the same offer.

Depth of offer > width of catalogue.

This is why they can run thousands of ads without fragmenting learnings or operational focus.

Most brands expand product lines to chase growth.

IM8 expanded message density around a single economic engine.

3. Funnel congruence is what unlocked 80% subscription conversion

Their subscription rate isn’t one clever trick.

It’s alignment across the entire funnel:

Defaults to subscription.
Pricing favours subscription.
Messaging frames transformation, not purchase.
Social proof validates the subscription choice.
Bonuses + guarantees remove risk.

Every element reinforces the same decision.

Most brands optimise pages in isolation.

IM8 optimised the system.

4. Their stubborn obsession with LTV is what makes everything else work

Subscription isn’t an add-on.

It is the business model.

That changes everything:

How aggressive they can be on CAC.
How much they can test.
How fast they can scale.

They’re not optimising for short-term ROAS.

They’re optimising for long-term economics.

That’s what gives them strategic freedom.

The bigger lesson:

IM8 didn’t win by being more aggressive.

They won by being more deliberate.

They removed complexity.

They built infrastructure for creative scale.

They aligned the entire funnel around lifetime value.

They let the algorithm handle targeting and focused humans on messaging.

Most brands are still trying to scale ads.

IM8 scaled a system.

That’s the difference.

Think your account is hitting a ceiling?

Here's how to tell if creative is actually the bottleneck👇🏼

Most brands blame Meta's algorithm, iOS, or audience saturation when performance plateaus.

But 90% of the time, the problem is creative infrastructure.

Here's a simple diagnostic you can run in 10 minutes:

Check #1: Pull your creative library

Count how many unique concepts you've tested in the last 90 days.

Not variations. Not hook swaps. Actual distinct concepts.

Compare to your monthly spend:

$10-30k/month → you need 7-10 concepts
$30-60k/month → you need 15-20 concepts
$60-100k/month → you need 20-30 concepts

If your number is 50% below these benchmarks, creative volume is your constraint.

Check #2: Look at your top 5 performing ads

How long have they been running?

If your best performers are 30+ days old and you don't have fresh winners graduating to replace them, you're one fatigue cycle away from a performance crash.

Healthy accounts have new winners graduating weekly. Stagnant accounts ride 2-3 ads until they die, then scramble.

Check #3: Calculate your hit rate

Total concepts tested ÷ concepts that scaled profitably = hit rate

If your hit rate is above 40%, you're not testing aggressively enough. 

You're playing it safe with concepts too similar to what's already working.

If your hit rate is below 15%, your creative strategy is broken. 

You're guessing, not testing hypotheses.

Sweet spot: 20-30% hit rate with high testing volume.

Check #4: Review your account structure

Are you testing new creative in the same campaigns where you're scaling winners?

If yes, you can't diagnose what's working. 

When performance drops, you don't know if:

Your winner fatigued
New tests are dragging down averages
Budget increases triggered learning phases
Testing and scaling need separate environments.

Check #5: Audit your production cadence

When was the last time you launched new creative?

If it's been more than 7 days, you don't have a production system, you have an ad hoc scramble.

Sustainable scale requires predictable creative flow. 

Weekly launches minimum at $30k+ spend.

What your answers mean:

If you failed 3+ of these checks, creative infrastructure is your bottleneck.

The fix isn't complicated, but it requires investment: 

→ Separate testing from scaling campaigns 
→ Build a weekly creative calendar 
→ Hire or contract production capacity that matches your spend 
→ Set clear kill criteria so bad creative dies fast 
→ Accept that 70-80% of tests will fail

The pattern I see constantly:

Brands scale spend from $15k to $60k without scaling creative production.

They wonder why they hit a ceiling at <$100k in spend.

It's not the market. It's that their creative engine can't support the volume their budget requires.

You can't deploy $2,000/day efficiently with 4 active creatives. The math doesn't work.

Run this diagnostic on your account right now.

If creative volume is your constraint, you know exactly what to fix.

Creative is your targeting mechanism. 

Audience selection has become largely irrelevant. 

Meta's ASC, Google's Performance Max, and TikTok's Smart+ all use creative assets as the primary signal for audience discovery. 

Manual targeting parameters have minimal impact on delivery. Most brands haven't rebuilt their production systems to match this shift. 

They're still optimizing for a model that no longer exists. 

The previous paradigm: 
Precision targeting, limited hero assets, long development cycles, targeting-led optimization. 

The current reality: 
Broad targeting, systematic testing infrastructure, rapid iteration, creative-led optimization. 

This creates a specific operational challenge: 

Brands need systems capable of 8-10 testable concepts weekly while maintaining strategic coherence. 

Our implementation framework: 

1. Strategic testing allocation - Structure your testing program to identify patterns, not just winners. 

Run creative against intentionally diverse audience segments within your broad targeting to understand which creative angles drive efficiency in which contexts. 

This reveals creative-audience fit patterns that inform production priorities. 

2. Systematic variation - Build a tagging taxonomy that tracks creative variables independently (hook type, problem framing, social proof format, CTA style). 

This lets you isolate which specific elements drive performance, not just which complete ads work. 

Most brands test whole ads and learn nothing transferable. 

3. Internal capability development - Train media buyers on basic design tools.

Use AI for headline variation at scale (20+ versions from each winning angle). 

This removes production bottlenecks from the testing pipeline. 

4. Offshore execution leverage - Deploy offshore talent for variation work, performance tagging, and competitive analysis. 

Reserve internal capacity for strategic decisions and creative direction. 

Results from a recent implementation: Beauty brand constrained by production capacity. 

30-day outcome: creative output increased from 20 to 60 monthly assets. 

The structural advantage belongs to mid-market brands ($25M-$250M annual). 

They can execute creative decisions without enterprise approval friction. 

The platforms have fundamentally changed the leverage points for paid acquisition. 

Brands that rebuild their creative systems accordingly will compound advantages over time.

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taplio

The Battle

Mat Lehnhoff

Toby W.

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Engagements

Likes

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

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