Rory McLaughlan

Shirt in a Box

Founder of Shirt in a Box, the world's leading Mystery Football Shirt Retailer. 

In the space of 18 months, we grew from a bedroom start up to a hyper growth business, with over 2.7 million recorded in revenue and 70,000 in sales.

Founder

Numbers Game

Director

Rory's Football Shirts

Originally selling vintage football jerseys on online marketplaces, including Depop & Ebay, grew into a brand with 10,000 followers and a succesful website.

What initially started as a hobby way back in March 2020 when the UK entered a lockdown, would turn into over 2000 sales.

Business Owner

Hello! I’m Rory, the founder of Shirt in a Box and I’m on a mission to disrupt the football industry.

After setting up my first business at 17, I developed a huge passion for entrepreneurship, especially around what I live and breathe… Football. 

Fast forward to now, I have over over 70,000 sales & counting through two businesses, a team of 10 and collaborations with some major partners across the football industry. 

Shirt in a Box offers football fans a unique experience like no other. Once purchased, they are sent a high quality mystery football shirt. This allows customers to get a new shirt they may not have been aware of and clubs get their kit in to the hands of a different audience - it’s a win win! 

Through running 2 businesses, I have built a large entrepreneurial skillset including social media advertising (both organic & paid), management, supply chain and logistical management.

In my down time I’m a Web 3.0 enthusiast, a crypto investor and I play football semi-professionally, winning multiple Irish cups at youth level.

Feel free to send me a dm to chat all things business and football!

Founder of Shirt in a Box, the worlds leading Mystery Football Shirt Retailer. 

In the space of 18 months, we grew from a bedroom start up to a hyper growth business, with over 2.7 million recorded in revenue and 70,000 in sales.

A HUGE moment for Shirt in a Box!

Thanks to Gary and the Stick to Football team for a mention on this week's episode!⚽️

We loved hearing Jill Scott was a fan of her Bari top from us - clearly great taste! As for Roy...let's just say his reaction was a little less enthusiastic (no surprise there😅).

Either way, we'll take it!

Disrupting the Sport Industry / Founder of Shirt in a Box

It was great to catch up with Gary Neville yesterday & show him the progress we’ve made since we last met. 

10 months ago he took an interest in what we were building at Shirt in a Box & decided to share it with the world on Stick to Football - that kindness has helped open our eyes to what’s possible, and propelled us to greater heights. 

Congratulations on yesterday Gary Neville - a great occasion & fitting ceremony. Thank you to Queen's University Belfast for helping to facilitate this opportunity. 

The journey is still only getting started.

We're launching Shirt in a Box Turkey.
 
80 million people. Football mad. Jerseys retail for £90 (more expensive than UK).
 
The opportunity? They're deprived of authentic international shirts.
 
Will take 6 months to set up. Then Turkey becomes our gateway to Asia.
 
Sometimes the best business ideas come from travel, not just asking ChatGPT...

LinkedIn, I need your help.

Our box manufacturer has just burned us. Original timeline: delivery before Black Friday. New timeline: after Christmas.

We need 30,000 boxes urgently:

📦 Diecut

📦 Printed one colour

📦 330mm x 247mm x 19mm

📦 12mm DS tape rip seal

I know this is ridiculously late notice. But Black Friday is our biggest moment of the year and we can't let our customers down.

If you know a factory with capacity or have any connections in packaging/manufacturing, please DM me or comment below.

Any shares massively appreciated. There's got to be someone out there who can help.

We've worked too hard on this Black Friday to let boxes be the thing that stops us.

I love working at the Christmas Market, even if it's only a few hours once a week.
 
Why? It gives you a great insight into your customer & product that you can't get online...
 
I found out we were too cheap at the Christmas market last year.
 
We were charging £40 for mystery boxes when they're £45 online. We changed to match online prices on day 2, and finished 25% up on the previous year.
 
The market gives you real feedback you'd never get sitting online.

We purposely go 'late' with our Black Friday deal. We launch tomorrow, the Wednesday of Black Friday week.
 
Increasingly, I see brands going early, usual with the idea that if you don't, your potential customer will have spent all their money by the time Black Friday rolls around.
 
However, to make it work you have to run about 4 different offers across the promotion. Each one progressively getting better, and as a result decreasing your margin.
 
In my opinion, it's a lot of effort, for similar returns (according to those who can see the data across multiple brands like Stuart Worgan) as one mega offer on Black Friday week.

I posted about our box supplier crisis last week. 30+ shares, flooded with DMs. Fred Lill came through. Boxes arriving just after Black Friday.

Grateful for everyone who helped. A reminder of the power of building in public.

Other stuff I discussed in EP14 of Building the Box…

Christmas market opened with our best weekend ever.

Visited our first claw machine in Sheffield at Yardball (class venue - street football mini golf). 200 plays in week one.

Flew to Manchester to meet suppliers. The progress from one in-person meeting beats six months of emails.

Testing Australia/New Zealand markets. Early signs promising.

Black Friday strategy: Everyone goes early with 10 offers. We go late with 1 killer bundle. Similar results from what I’ve seen, less complexity.

Full episode now on

YouTube: https://lnkd.in/ed7iRrGC

Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e-Z5uNQE

Interested in how Shirt in a Box gets a shoutout on one of the UK’s biggest football podcasts?

In Episode 16, I break down how we featured on Stick to Football, chat about the whirlwind of Black Friday sales, and share why taking new staff out for lunch is our secret to building trust (and having a laugh).
 
Whether you’re a football fan, a startup enthusiast, or just love a good underdog story, this one’s for you.
 
Watch & listen now:
▶️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eRimwNMF
🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eFK5FVxT

Open video: EP16: How we got on Stick to Football, New Staff & Black Friday Madness on youtu.be

EP16: How we got on Stick to Football, New Staff & Black Friday Madness

Joe Marston 🚀

Co-Founder

Scaling e-commerce brands to 7 and 8 figures 🚀 | LU Entrepreneur of The Year Award Winner | Founder of The Leading TikTok Marketing Agency and an Award Winning Full Service Ecom Growth Agency.

3x Agency Founder.

We scale brands to 7 and 8 figures with creative, paid traffic, retention and funnel optimisation.

In 2024, having a great product is one thing…

But scaling a brand to £10M is a another.

You need a simple roadmap for profitably attracting and converting customers, at scale.

Because when you get that right…

- You stand out from competitors in the market
- You build a community around your brand
- You acquire customers at will (profitably)
- You turn customers into raving fans 

Giving you complete control over your growth.

We help our clients do exactly that with our proven system that guarantees growth.

1. Initial diagnostic to identify bottlenecks in your business
2. Developing a bespoke growth strategy for your brand
3. Creative ideation and production 
4. Unique UGC collaborations
5. Targeted advertising (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat)
6. Email marketing 

And having generated over £100M+ in sales across 200+ brands, we’ve know the ecommerce game inside out.

🚀 Mystery Shirt In A Box grew from £5K to £2.6M in just one year with our help
🚀 The Essence Vault is hitting 7 figure months in its second year since launch
🚀 Vintage Threads tripled their revenue working with us with a 6x ROAS
🚀 AIRfreshh went from 0% to 52% of revenue from email in 2 months!
🚀 Bene Culture saw their revenue grow 6x in 6 months with our help
🚀 The Oodie generated £2M on TikTok alone in their first year
🚀 UN:IK’s first quarter of 2023 was up 88% on 2022
🚀Grew Liam and Co. 500% year on year

Don’t put up with unpredictable, unsustainable or underwhelming growth any more.

If you want to see how we could help scale your brand, send me a DM saying ‘SOAR’

If you're not ready yet, I post daily educational content to give you all the secrets.

E-commerce growth agency offering bespoke services to online businesses looking to increase their sales and scale their brand.

Some DTC brands are exiting at just 3x EBITDA. Others are hitting 12x. That’s a £90M difference on a £10M EBITDA business.

A few weeks ago, I co-hosted a private event in Dubai with Emmett Kilduff at The Fortia Group, one of the top M&A advisors in eCom.

Room full of 8-9 figure operators. 

One takeaway came up again and again:

The biggest exit premium isn’t from brand.
It’s from how early you start planning.

We broke down:
- Why DTC brands are leaving millions on the table at exit
- What actually moves your multiple (hint: it’s not your ROAS)
- The 8-part framework Fortia use to engineer $100M+ exits

It’s all in the deck. And I’m giving it away.

If you’re doing £10M+ and thinking ahead 12–36 months, this will save you millions.

Drop “EXIT” below and I’ll send it over.

Building DTC brands to 8 and 9 figures | Founder of Soar With Us & For You Advertising | Triple Whale's "Agency of The Year" Winner

This prompt turned my chaotic life into a game and 3x’d my income

I was drowning in emails, missing follow-ups, and constantly feeling like I was “busy” but not making progress. 

So I decided to build a Life Operating System from scratch using principles from:

✅ GTD (task management & clarity) from the book Getting Things Done

🎯 Gamification (LifeQuest-style goals, stats, XP) using teachings from Dan Koe

🐢 Slow Productivity by Cal Newport (focus on fewer, deeper tasks) 

📊 Dan Martell’s Audit-Transfer-Fill method (to finally delegate the right things) 

🤖 And AI tools like Notion, Motion, Superhuman AI, Apollo, HubSpot, 

The result?

It’s built on:

- GTD for mental clarity
- Gamified goals (with XP, stats, and level-ups)
- Slow productivity (deep focus > doing more)
- Audit → transfer → fill to delegate *properly*
- And AI tools like Notion, Motion, Superhuman, Apollo, HubSpot, GHL

It genuinely changed how I work.

No more missed follow-ups. Life kinda feels like a game now, in the best way.

I turned it into a plug-and-play ChatGPT prompt you can customise for your own setup.

Want it?
Like this post and reply “prompt” in the comments and I’ll send it over.

Must be following

We’ve stopped using ROAS and CPA as our north stars. Here’s why.

Since the Andromeda rollout, Meta’s algo is making delivery decisions before ROAS or CPA ever show up.

Which means:

→ If you’re still using CPA to spot winners, you’re already too late.
→ If you're scaling on ROAS alone, you're scaling old data.

We’ve rebuilt how we benchmark creative across every account and replaced the old north stars with these two:

1️⃣ CPMR: Cost Per 1,000 Reached Accounts

This tells us how efficiently we’re reaching net new people, not just blasting the same warm pool.

→ High CPMR = your creative looks repetitive, low-signal, or unengaging
→ Low CPMR = Meta sees your ad as scroll-stopping, high-signal, and worth delivering

We track this by:

→ The account level (trend over time)
→ Format level (UGC vs static vs story-style)
→ Persona level (motivator x demo)

2️⃣ New Visitor %

Cheap reach means nothing if it’s not fresh.

This tells us how well a creative is breaking out of its bubble and unlocking new demand.

→ High CTR but low New Visitor %? You're just retargeting your existing crowd.

→ Low CPMR + high New Visitor %? Signal to scale.

→ High CPMR + low New Visitor %? Scrap it. Meta’s not even trying with that asset.

This metric = your clearest look at creative incrementality.

We’ve now built both metrics into every client dashboard.

They're how we:
- Spot early winners
- Catch creative fatigue before performance tanks
- Scale without flying blind

Most brands won’t adapt fast enough. But Andromeda is live. And Meta’s already deprioritising ads that don’t play by the new rules.

Feeling overwhelmed with gratitude right now… 😄

This is our agency 2025 Black Friday social.

4 years ago this was a handful of people.

Now we have over 70 people in one room and that’s not even everyone…

So grateful for everyone who’s helped us on this journey

The Christmas tradition we refuse to change, even as the agency explodes in size.

Every year, our team gets more spread out.
(because world-class teams are built by finding world-class people, wherever they are).

London. Manchester. The Midlands. Up North.

Different cities. Different roles. Same mission.

But one tradition hasn’t changed:

The Soar With Us Christmas Party will always remain in Leeds, the city where it all started 6 years ago.

Back when it was just a handful of us, a couple of desks, and a vision we were probably too ambitious (or too naive) to question.

Fast-forward to now and the team is bigger, stronger, and working across the whole country… yet everyone still makes the trip back to Leeds for one night.

Not because they have to.

But because it means something.

It’s the one time of year we all hit pause, get in the same room, and remember how far this thing has actually come.

The energy. The stories. The laughs. The “do you remember when we…” moments.

Agencies grow fast. People move. Teams evolve.

But this tradition is an anchor. A reminder of the roots.

Massive love to everyone who travelled in and made it such a good night.

🚀 Here’s to another year of growing, building, and doing what we do best.

some people wake up at 4am
run 30 miles
ice bath
no excuses

you see david goggins
and suddenly normal feels weak
average feels like failure

when i was younger
focus was impossible
discipline felt like a myth

I bounced between ideas
half finished everything
always distracted
always chasing the next hit of motivation

I thought success meant becoming extreme
superhuman
wired different

but the truth is quieter

you do not need perfect focus
you need daily progress
one small action
one hard choice
one uncomfortable task

not heroic
just consistent
today’s world makes it harder to stay steady
endless noise
constant comparison
highlight reels everywhere

so i stopped trying to be extraordinary overnight
and started trying to be better than yesterday

one focused hour
one hard email
one real workout
one honest decision

done daily
that stacks
that compounds
that changes everything

discipline is not a personality
it is a habit
repeated long enough
to transform into identity

clear lesson
you win by moving forward a little every day
not by trying to become goggins overnight

WONDERSKIN turned a peel-off lip stain into 670,000+ units sold in the UK - powered almost entirely by TikTok affiliates.

We’ve broken down the funnel behind it.
(It’s the same model we’ve seen drive £50K+/day on TikTok Shop.)

Here’s how it works:

- Commission-first: Creators are incentivised to sell, not post
- Creator-led testing: Affiliates generate content → we test → scale what works
- Live demos, deep FAQs, product trials: Affiliates become educators
- Smart segmentation: Top creators grouped by format, vertical, and product
- Flywheel structure: Paid → Organic → Affiliate → Shop content → Repeat

TikTok called it a “halo effect” - Wonderskin’s affiliate buzz even spilled into Amazon sales.

It’s a playbook any DTC brand can use.

Want the full teardown?

1. Like this post
2. Comment “Wonderskin”
3. Make sure we’re connected so I can DM you the board

Reposts = bumped to the top of the list.

This one realisation changed how I approach 2026 entirely.

I went to a founder dinner a few weeks ago.
Hosted by Noel Andrews and Olly Richards.
A room full of operators at completely different stages.

Some just out of uni, signing their first clients.
Others running 7-figure businesses, sharpening how they work.
Every single person. 
Open. Sharp. Honest.

And it hit me.
If you stay in the same rooms, you keep solving the same problems.
The same way.

I sat next to Frankie Thorogood.
Fresh off winning hyrox, (congrats again)
We spoke about protecting your energy.
Being intentional with where your time goes.
Operating at your best by choosing your inputs.

On my other side, people right at the start of their journey.
Ambitious. Uncertain. Hungry.
Felt like looking back in time.

You grow faster by switching environments.
Different levels.
Different ideas.
Different perspectives.

You pick up things you’d never learn on your own.
From operators.
From high performers.
From newcomers hungry to prove themselves.

It changes how you think.
It sharpens you.

The lesson?
Put yourself in rooms with people who think differently.
That’s where the real growth happens.

Last month, GMV jumped from £200 to £6,000/day in under a week.

And the biggest driver? A creative format we didn’t expect to work on TikTok at all. 

High-production, Meta-style assets.

Specifically, the founder answering FAQs direct to cam, layered with an AI voiceover. Originally built for Meta. 

We assumed it would feel too polished, too “ad-like” for TikTok.

But it’s now outperforming everything and driving 90%+ of total paid spend.

Yes, the brand’s also scaling through affiliates, which is bringing fresh eyes. But the real volume? It’s coming from these signal-rich, high-prod assets.

It’s made us rethink our assumptions around cross-platform creative.

What we thought would only work on Meta is now a top performer on TikTok.

We’re 100% testing this across more accounts.

What’s actually converting on Meta right now (Q4 trends from high-spend accounts):

If performance is flat heading into peak, it's probably not your product.

You're just not building for how Meta works today.

Here’s what’s cutting through right now:

1️⃣ Statics still scale

- Bold text, stat-led headlines and timelines are outperforming generic benefit copy.
- We’re seeing AI-style visuals + punchy copy drive scroll-stopping CPMs.
- Think: big numbers, human tone, ad that feels like a post.
- Native-feeling carousels work too, but only if you drop the polished brand voice.

2️⃣ Hooks > polish on HPs

- The best-performing hooks right now feel ripped from organic:
  "Here's what most brands get wrong..." or "Why I stopped doing X..."
- We’re leaning into founder/influencer POVs stitched into scripted flows.
- Objection-led HPs convert, especially “vs” style frameworks (us vs them, old vs new).

3️⃣ UGC is less about format, more about diversity

- The TikTok Shop-style raw look is working, but only when you mix creator POVs.
- Our top UGC ads use 4–5 creators hitting the same problem from different angles.
- Voiceless demo ads are creeping back into rotation too. Worth testing again.

In short:
→ Statics need specificity and visual edge
→ HPs win on story, not polish
→ UGC scales through multiple voices, not one creator

The numbers are in for Black Friday 2025.

£93M+ in attributed revenue for our clients. $32M+ in spend. 

That’s what we drove for our clients this November alone.

Up 117% YoY in attributed revenue.
Up 185% YoY in spend.

We talk a lot about creative. Media. Testing. Signals.

But none of it works without the right people behind it.

The people who stay curious. Who build systems. Solve problems. And show up sharp, every day.

This year, we got the full Soar Group in one room - all four agencies:

Soar With Us, Hambi Media, Launch With Us, and For You | TikTok Growth Agency.

One group. One mission. One standard.

Looking around the room at our Black Friday social (80 people deep) you could feel it.

Massively proud of what we’ve done.
Even prouder of who did it.

We recently ran a multi-cell Conversion Lift and A/B test on Meta to test what really drives performance in 2025 and this is what we found…

Scaling on Meta used to be about spend.

Now? It’s about signals.

This year at Soar With Us, we rebuilt our whole model around one idea:

👉 High-volume, persona-driven creative = better performance.

Brands adopting this model are now seeing:
→ 34% lower CPA
→ Faster learning cycles
→ Higher hit rates across all funnel stages

To prove it, we ran a multi-cell Conversion Lift + A/B test across our highest-volume accounts, testing two hypotheses:

1. More ad variants = better outcomes
2. Partnership Ads outperform BAU creative

Here’s what we found:

🧪 Test 1: Volume vs Control
• 25 ad variants vs 5
• 171 more purchases, despite 59,000 fewer impressions
• 15% lower cost per conversion
• Biggest gains with 18–34s, Meta’s most expensive demo

🧪 Test 2: BAU vs Partnership Ads
• 800 incremental conversions vs 520
• CPA: $25.63 vs $39.34
• ROAS: >10x vs BAU creative

Key takeaway?

More diverse creative = more net-new customers.

But it’s not just about quantity.

You need distinct formats, fresh personas, and messaging mapped to real pain points. That’s what feeds Meta’s Andromeda AI and unlocks incremental reach.

If you're still running 5 ads per campaign, you're not scaling. You're recycling.

The brands pulling ahead in 2025? They’re launching 1000+ ads/month, without creative fatigue, because their pipeline is built on persona insights, not guesswork.

Unreal few days in Vienna.

Every year, we push hard through Q4.

BFCM is always a sprint, long days, big wins, and serious volume moving through the ad accounts.

So December’s become a bit of a ritual.

A chance to pause, reset, and step back from the noise before we gear up to go again in January.

What made me laugh…

Got on the plane and clocked that our CMO Jamie and Jody, our Content Manager, were on the same trip, completely unplanned, all travelling separately with their families.

Even when we try to switch off, the team ends up in the same city, same week… same flight ✈️

When you’re that in sync, you just move the same 🤣

Can’t believe we’re sharing this for free…

This episode is INSANELY valuable.

Listen to how our MD went from employee number 1 to leading a company of 70+ in 6 years.

Shoutout to Matt Lewis 

Give it a watch on YouTube. D2C diaries

This is how you scale to 8 figures on TikTok Shop in 2026.

Olly Hudson will be joining Peter Nettesheim to break down the strategy behind $23M in TikTok spend, plus a full BFCM debrief.

📅 Date: December 9th
⏰ Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM (UK time, GMT, UTC+0)

Webinar Content:
✅ Step-by-step TikTok Shop blueprint
✅ Insights behind $23M+ in TikTok ad spend
✅ The TikTok first creatives strategy to scale from 7 to 8 figures
✅ How to optimise for short-form high converting creatives on TikTok
✅ Key insights from BFCM 2025: what worked and how to position for 2026

Only 100 seats available - register now! https://lnkd.in/eqfMdmT5

There’s a moment every founder hits where growth isn’t the problem - it’s everything underneath it.

You’ve scaled revenue. You’ve built a team. But everything else starts to crack.

That’s exactly where we were 18 months ago.

This week, we sat down with Matt Lewis, our Managing Director at Soar Group, to unpack how we rebuilt the *infrastructure* behind our agency as we scaled to 80+ people.

They talk through:

→ What changed operationally as we scaled to 80+ people
→ Over-focusing on revenue growth
→ How feedback loops were operationalised
→ The forecasting model Matt built
→ Using role-specific KPIs that ladder up to the P&L
→ Matt’s origin story as employee #1

Behind the scenes, Matt’s been one of the most important drivers of how we operate today.

If you’re building a team or running into growth pains, this one will land.

🎧 Catch the full episode here https://lnkd.in/eFkcg6b9

We’re giving away our Meta blueprint to show you how to stop wasting budget, escape creative fatigue, and scale with confidence in 2026.

If your best ads are dying faster...
If your testing is getting noisier...
If your CPA is climbing and you’ve got no idea why...

You’re not doing anything wrong. But you are operating in the wrong system.

Meta’s algorithm isn’t targeting people anymore, it’s matchmaking content.

It doesn’t care who your audience used to be. It cares which creative is most likely to hook a specific person right now.

We’ve built a guide that shows you exactly how Meta’s new algorithm operates.

It’s the same framework we’ve used with 8 and 9-figure brands to turn falling performance into profitable scale, without increasing spend or burning creative teams out.

Inside the playbook:

- Why Meta’s “Andromeda” update has broken your old testing structure
- The Entity ID system no one talks about (but that’s throttling your reach)
- 8 creative vehicles that get treated as net-new by the algorithm
- A 4-week roadmap for testing faster without guessing
- How to stop iterating for your team, and start iterating for Meta

The algorithm has moved on. Your results won’t follow unless your process does too.

Want it?

Like this post
Drop “Meta” and we’ll send it over (make sure we’re connected so I can DM you).

We’ve scaled pet & homeware brands in markets with 100+ competitors.

Here’s what actually cuts through.
(and it’s not a better product)

→ “Us vs them” outperforms pain-led messaging
These categories don’t trigger visceral problems so instead of selling relief, we’re seeing brands scale by positioning their solution as the elevated choice.

→ Homeware scales when you stop talking about the product and start showing the life it upgrades
Think luxury, ease, or emotional enhancement of a space.
The goal is: “This makes my life feel better.”

→ Pet content is all about aspiration, not need.
The core motivator? “My pet deserves the best.”
Not health stats. Not price. Just pure emotional resonance.

→ Convenience is the untapped lever
Especially for homeware brands speaking to maternal or over-capacity personas. If it saves time, stress, or mental load, say that clearly. It works.

→ Don’t ignore the saturated market reality
There’s no shortage of pet food or homeware options.
What wins is category contrast. Your creative should say:
“We’re not like the rest and here’s why.”

If your pet or homeware brand is stuck explaining the product, zoom out.

Start showing what it means for the person using it.

Working in another niche and want a breakdown like this?

Drop me the category and I’ll tell you what’s converting right now.

We were too focused on growth, not out of stupidity but out of naivety.

This year we ran Soar With Us completely differently.

We stopped chasing volume.
We stopped hiring reactively.
We stopped pretending top-line growth meant success.

Here’s how we actually ran the business in 2025 and why it's been our most important year yet:

Forecasting became a strategic weapon.
No more gut-feel growth targets.
We built full-funnel forecasting across revenue, client mix, hiring, and profit targets, driven by a balance of commercial ambition and team capacity.
It's removed chaos and clarified decision-making across every department.

Culture got rebuilt from the inside out.
We didn't write values in a vacuum.
We ran a full-day offsite with the entire team to rewrite our mission, values, and behaviours, then operationalised them into hiring, reviews, and even client relationships.
Result? Better people, better work, better culture.

Client strategy > client volume.
We halved onboarding capacity and focused on deeper, higher-value partnerships.
That means fewer clients, more strategic impact, and significantly higher retention.
We’re finally seeing the compounding effects.

Feedback became a competitive advantage.
We built a culture of kind candour, rolled out 360 feedback across the company, and trained every manager on how to receive and close the loop on feedback.
It’s helped us level up faster than ever before.

Revenue came from within.
For too long, we were addicted to new business.
Now, 40%+ of our growth is from client expansion - cross-sells, up-sells, and moving partners through value tiers.
It’s lower friction, higher trust, and way more profitable.

Most people assume the next level of growth comes from more work, more ads, more hiring.

For us, it came from subtraction.
→ Less noise
→ Fewer distractions
→ Clearer intent

We’re ending 2025 leaner, smarter, and more strategic than ever before.
2026 is about scaling with that same clarity.

If you’re in agency leadership and you’re scaling fast, but feeling stretched thin, here’s the blueprint that helped us get here: https://lnkd.in/eFkcg6b9

Here's how we added $2.7M in new product revenue for a global brand.

When Ekster came to us in May 2024, they had all the right ingredients:

– a loyal customer base
– product-market fit
– demand across US and EU markets

But their performance was plateauing. 

✅ Our approach? Do less, better.

We stripped back the noise.
Rebuilt Meta and Google from the ground up.
And focused every pound on one goal: profitable new-customer growth.

Here’s what we changed:

🔁 Simplified the media mix
We killed the distractions and leaned into what worked. Meta and Google carried the load while we rebuilt systems with clarity, control, and scale in mind.

💰 Profit-first optimisation
We migrated to Triple Whale and ran daily P&L reviews. Every campaign decision was made with margin in mind, not vanity metrics. This restored NC-profitability fast.

📆 Moment-based marketing
Instead of slow-drip budget pacing, we went big on key events (product drops, Father’s Day, BFCM) syncing spend, creative, and inventory around peak moments.

🧠 Insights → Product
We plugged into their NPD sprints. Post-purchase surveys uncovered demand for new colourways and bundles. That research shaped a product that generated $2.7M in revenue.

The results:
+75% YoY growth
+40% increase in profit
+75% NC revenue growth
$2.7M+ from a new product launch

A lean, profitable media engine built for scale.


If you're sitting on a product people love but struggling to scale it profitably, it’s probably not the product. It’s the system.

🚨 Want to see how we’d rebuild yours? Apply for a growth audit here: https://lnkd.in/eGykrpvw

taplio

The Battle

Rory McLaughlan

Joe Marston 🚀

Followers

Posts

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Performance ScoreRory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJoe Marston 🚀's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Rory McLaughlan

Joe Marston 🚀

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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

Performance ScoreJoe Marston 🚀's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance